111480
The latest news from the world of cryptocurrencies. Paid promotion: @gqsoul
LAUNCHED LESS THAN 24 HRS AGO, UNDER 500K MCAP
Welcome to Grill.Farm on #BSC!
The fingerlicious Chicken $GRILL is here to both satisfy your cravings for a community-centered, trusted and fair token, as well as rile up your appetite for some succulent and decadent chicken meat 🍗
📈 Charts:
1️⃣ https://poocoin.app/tokens/0x7853401a1095dd0b04edb92366233c37fb511e89
2️⃣ https://www.dextools.io/app/pancakeswap/pair-explorer/0xac7ffc46af6503fe0ce490eb7fa14733673bbfb2
✅ Contract: https://bscscan.com/address/0x7853401a1095dd0b04edb92366233c37fb511e89
🔒 Liquidity LOCKED
🗺 Check our roadmap:
https://grilled-chicken-token.medium.com/what-is-grilled-chicken-token-addf2a07aba2
🔗 Links:
Website: http://grill.farm/
Telegram: /channel/Grill_Farm
Announcements: /channel/GrillFarm
Discord: SOON
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Grill_Farm
Instagram: https://instagram.com/Grill_Farm
🚀A price increase for Core Token will take place due to the high demand on the usage of the Core Token specifically in the CorePass (link to https://corepass.net/) Decentralised website login that requires Core Tokens for the payment of services and the aforementioned as well as amazing TiNG and MeeTiNG (link to https://foreveryting.com/) platform - a decentralised over the top peer to peer video streaming platform with a fully decentralised video calling and on demand broadcast streaming platform where all services and donations are payable in Core Token.
🔸Join the founders and creators of the Ting and Meeting platform to experience first hand the power of a fully decentralized, borderless peer to peer video calling, OBS and streaming platform. We will showcase you the platform, explain how the technology works and most important how the blockchain is used to make this the most advanced, feature rich and secure platform out there to date.
💥We cordially invite all to come and join us on our livestream taking place now.
➡️ https://youtu.be/hcXhv5pcCsU
More info: /channel/coregroupcc I /channel/coregroupchat
Slumping, Pumping, Hitting, Hustling, Musking and 20 Crypto Jokes
This week in the fun world of crypto, as people were arguing again whether it’s time to switch to sats from BTC, bitcoin mining difficulty hit a new ATH, but then after ETH broke USD 4K and bitcoin rallied past USD 59K, Tesla Elon Musk once again moved the whole crypto market and triggered a sharp selloff. Furthermore, researchers found that traders are rotating from bitcoin to ethereum and alts as JPMorgan sees ETH as overvalued, DOGE hit an ATH before slumping spectacularly following Elon Musk calling the token a “hustle”, the rise YFI and WOOFY could be a bellwether for another DeFi season, while SHIB took over the Cryptoverse, calling itself the DOGE killer, and Vitalik Buterin donated massive amounts of dog-themed tokens and ETH to charity and community projects. But it wasn't over, as DOGE then rallied following a boost by Musk and Coinbase, while the exchange said it's targeting more users not lower fees. And then MoneyGram teamed up with Coinme to facilitate BTC buying and selling.
While Tether presented its reserves breakdown for the first time, and Diem is set to launch in the US as stablecoin, experts opined that stablecoins could fall under the scrutiny of financial policymakers. Meanwhile, as the Cuban government mulls crypto adoption as a way to fight financial turmoil, a report concluded that China’s digital yuan failed to impress in early large-scale pilots, China’s blockchain business expansion appears to be slowing down, SEC sent somewhat negative BTC and ETH ETF signals that might be positive for GBTC, the IRS could come after the money you own them, and South Korea may get a new government-run department for crypto-related matters. In other news, Onchain Custodian has another company in the pipeline, the crypto community was left fuming following another Christie’s NFT sale, Russian crypto miners could be hit by the looming semiconductor shortfall, and Mark Zuckerberg named his goat Bitcoin which he may or may not slaughter.
And now, the crème de la week!
Duet is the world's first multi-chain synthetic asset protocol with a hybrid mechanism (overcollateralization + algo-pegged) that “sharpens” all assets to be traded on the blockchain. A duet in music refers to a piece of music where two people play different parts or melodies. Similarly, the Duet protocol allows traders to replicate the real-world tradable assets in a decentralized finance ecosystem
Key Value Proposition:
❇️ Open and Multi-chain
Duet Protocol aims to leverage the global cryptocurrencies market potential. In contrast to Terra & Mirror and ETH & Synthetix model, Duet is a multi-chain protocol which is more open, from both technology and ecosystem standpoints
❇️ Multiple CDP
Accept more high-quality assets such as BTC, ETH,USDT, including assets unique to the DeFi world (cToken, LP token, NFT), as collateral, and reach a broader scale of underlying assets. Duet accepts competitors' token as collateral for dAsset minting, optimizing defi composability
❇️ Yield Enhancement
Accept interest-bearing assets such as yToken or wrapped POS Token, which offer a basic return. User‘s collateral will be sent to the corresponding governance/yield staking contract to earn interest.
❇️ Instant Minter
Duet protocol provides dual pinelines for synthetic dAsset supply. In addition to over-collaretalization, dAsset could directly mint from DUET. To issue dAssets, equivalent DUET will be burned
❇️ DUET Utility
DUET can be deposited as collateral to mint dAsset and as conditioner of liquidation limit for users’ CDP. In the Duet dAsset mining module, users can deposit dual assets (any acceptable collateral token and DUET). DUET value could decrease CDP liquidation limit (approaching 100% with infinity DUET staking) to raise capital efficiency. In instant minter, DUET acts as medium of exchange between native tokens and dAssets.
❇️ DAO Governance
Duet is governed by DAO, the Duet token holders will be able to vote using Duet Protocol’s on-chain governance system. There are two major types of votes: Collateral Polls and dAssets Votes. We will improve the DAO governance through schemes such as quadratic voting and grants.
💸💸 Duet Protocol closes first-round funding at US$3 million
https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2021-05-11/duet-protocol-closes-first-round-funding-at-us-3-million
⏰⏰ AMA Recap Crypto Library
https://www.cryptolibrarys.com/2021/05/Duet%20Protokol.html
✅ Website: https://duet.finance
✅ Telegram: /channel/duetprotocol
✅ Discord: https://discord.gg/GZgh4Q3end
✅ Medium: https://duetprotocol.medium.com
✅ Twitter: https://twitter.com/duetprotocol
✅ Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/duetprotocol
✅ Whitepaper: https://duet.finance/doc/Duet-Protocol-White-Paper.pdf
Drops ($DOP) have opened the Whitelist for their IDO on Polkastarter.
IDO Drops on Polkastarter will take place on the 21st of May. In order to participate you will need to hold at least 250 POLS on ERC20 or BEP20.
🔹 Hardcap at IDO: $200,000 (333,333 DOP)
🔹 Price at IDO: $0.60
🔹 Max allocation: $210
Previously Drops announced that they closed a private round raising $1m from such investors as Axia8 Ventures, Bitscale Capital, Blocksync, AU21, X21, D64 Ventures, Genblock and Drops Ventures. Also, their strategic partners include Polkastarter, Quantstamp, 0xb1, Kyros Ventures, Zokyo, PetRock Capital and BlockStar Technologies, as well as a number of high caliber angel investors.
Drops is a platform, which will bring a much needed DeFi-style infrastructure to the NFT market, providing such products as NFT trustless loans, NFT staking, liquid NFTs, and NFT vaults.
Find out more about Drops: /channel/drops_nft
Follow on Twitter: @dropsnft
Our Future with High Public Debt
Many countries are experiencing a combination of high public debt and low-interest rates. This was already the case in advanced economies even prior to the pandemic but has become even starker in its aftermath. A growing number of emerging market and developing economies are likewise enjoying a period of negative real rates—the interest rate minus inflation—on government debt. The IMF has called on countries to spend as much as they can to protect the vulnerable and limit long-lasting damage to economies, stressing the need for spending to be well-targeted. This is especially critical in emerging market and developing economies, which face tighter constraints and associated fiscal risks, where greater prioritization of spending is of the essence.
But what should eventually be done about the high levels of public debt in the aftermath of this crisis? In an earlier paper we showed that, provided fiscal space remains ample, countries should not run larger budget surpluses to bring down the debt, but should instead allow growth to bring down debt-to-GDP ratios organically. More recently, the IMF has stressed the need to rethink fiscal anchors—rules and frameworks—to take account of historically low interest rates. Some have suggested that borrowing costs—even if they move up—will do so only gradually, leaving time to contend with any fallout.
Two issues seem salient. First, will borrowing remain cheap for the entire horizon relevant for fiscal planning? Since that horizon seems to be the indefinite future, our answer here would be “no.” While some have argued that permanently negative growth-adjusted interest rates might be a reasonable baseline, we would highlight the risks around such a benign future. History gives numerous episodes of abrupt upticks in borrowing costs once market expectations shift. This risk is especially relevant for emerging market and developing economies where debt ratios are already high. At some point, debts may well need to be rolled over at higher rates. Limits to how much can be borrowed have not disappeared, and the need to stay well clear of them is even sharper in a world where interest rates and growth are uncertain.
Second, will it suffice to respond gradually to higher interest rates? Our answer again is “no.” Theory and history suggest that, when investors begin to worry that fiscal space may run out, they penalize countries quickly. Market-driven adjustments are not necessarily gradual, nor do markets only ratchet up the cost of borrowing once healthy growth returns—indeed, just the opposite seems plausible.
There are deeply engrained market expectations of negative interest-growth differentials (where real interest rates are less than growth rates) for most advanced economies. While long-term rates in the United States have been rising for the past several months, they remain low even by post-2008 standards. The chart below compares the Consensus Forecast for growth in the G7 economies with the real interest rate (10-year bond yield minus inflation) in 2030. The forecasts imply growth rates well in excess of real interest rates for all G7 countries except Italy.
Citigroup Ready to Go Crypto as Goldman Sachs ‘Wades Deeper into’ Bitcoin
“A surge in interest from clients” has motivated the financial giant Citigroup to move into the world of crypto – after the bank stated that it was considering the launch of crypto trading, custody and financing services. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs reportedly started trading bitcoin (BTC)-linked derivatives. (Updated at 14:29 UTC with more details about Goldman Sachs.)
Speaking to the Financial Times, Itay Tuchman, Citigroup’s global head of foreign exchange, claimed the bank would not be rushed into committing itself on crypto-related matters and was still “not decided whether it will offer clients cryptocurrency-related services.”
Tuchman stated:
“There are different options from our perspective and we are considering where we can best service clients. … We shouldn’t do anything that’s not safe and sound. We will jump in when we are confident that we can build something that benefits clients and that regulators can support. ... I don’t have any FOMO because I believe that crypto is here to stay and that we are just at the very beginning of the market. This isn’t a space race. There is room for more than just one flag.”
But it appears that Citi now realizes that crypto adoption has become inevitable for large banks, as Tuchman conceded that his firm has witnessed what he termed as “very rapid” growth in interest in BTC “across a broad spectrum of clients including large asset managers.”
This interest has taken the shape of requests for “research,” while some clients reportedly “wanted to trade a range of coins through the bank and to finance deals with cryptocurrency holdings.”
However, he discounted a so-called “prop-trading effort,” whereby banks trade on their own accounts.
The development comes hot on the heels of a bullish BTC move from Goldman Sachs, which, per Bloomberg is “wading deeper into” the bitcoin market with a non-deliverable forwards offering – a derivative pegged to the price of BTC price that pays investors in fiat.
Max Minton, Goldman Sach’s Asia-Pacific digital assets lead, was quoted as stating:
“Institutional demand continues to grow significantly in this space, and being able to work with partners like Cumberland will help us expand our capabilities. The non-deliverable forwards option is paving the way for us to evolve our nascent cash-settled crypto-currency capabilities.”
Also, the bank informed its markets personnel on Thursday that a newly created cryptocurrency trading desk had successfully traded two kinds of bitcoin-linked derivatives (cash settled bitcoin futures and non-deliverable forwards), CNBC reported, citing an internal memo.
Goldman is seeking to broaden its market presence by “selectively onboarding” crypto trading institutions to expand offerings, the report said, adding that the firm also launched a new software platform this week that provides the latest cryptocurrency prices and news to clients.
"Please note, the firm is not in a position to trade bitcoin, or any cryptocurrency (including Ethereum) on a physical basis," the note reads.
At 14:27 UTC, BTC trades at USD 56,931 and is unchanged in a day. The price is up by 6% in week, trimming its monthly losses to less then 2%.
Bitcoin Taproot Speedy Trial Begins, But No Lock-in In This Epoch
Bitcoin (BTC)'s long-awaited Taproot upgrade - its biggest upgrade since SegWit in 2017 - has been kicked off with the (somewhat contested) Speedy Trial - giving miners three months to signal readiness to enforce the upgrade. The first of six epochs has failed to lock in the upgrade.
On May 1, the network saw another mining difficulty adjustment, which signalled the beginning of the 'will it-will it not activate' phase of the Taproot upgrade, a proposed protocol upgrade that should improve Bitcoin's privacy and flexibility.
Simply said, Speedy Trial's aim is to allow the upgrade activation attempt to fail or succeed quickly - making a difference between no mandatory activation and the guarantee that taproot would be activated.
The mining difficulty of Bitcoin is adjusted 2016 blocks, or approximately every two weeks. What the miners have before them now is the current signalling period of 2016 blocks, with six activation epochs set in the period of three months, during which 90% of the blocks have to signal for Taproot activation - meaning, they have to include a signal bit into the mined blocks. If this 90% threshold is reached, the upgrade will be locked in, then activated in November. If miners don't lock in Taproot, another mechanism can be used to try again.
So far (at 11:05 UTC Monday morning), there are 39 signalling blocks and 254 non-signalling blocks (or 13%). F2Pool, Foundry USA, and SlushPool have signalled, per taproot.watch.
This means that there is no lock-in during the first epoch. "Taproot cannot be locked in within this period," the tracker states.
Per the Taproot-Activation site, ran by Poolin Vice President Alejandro De La Torre, 12 pools previously said that they'd support for the upgrade - providing the 1-month average hashrate in support of Taproot of 89% as of March 2. According to taproot.watch, Poolin hasn't signalled yet.
Commenters had quickly started expressing worry upon the Speedy Trial start, with some doubting that locking in on this first signalling period is likely.
Nonetheless, as it's presumed that those who've supported the upgrade this time around will continue signalling, some commenters argue that a certain percentage, is already guaranteed, so to say.
And there are also those who still support UASF (user-activated soft work - the activation of a soft fork initiated by nodes, without having obtained support from a large minority of miners), instead of MASF (miner-activated soft work).
🤝 Currency.com announces a partnership with TradingView
Regulated tokenized asset exchange Currency.com has signed a partnership with TradingView, one of the world’s largest trading communities. Now Currency.com users can access TradingView charts directly from their dashboard, allowing them to analyze the market conditions faster and take more informed decisions.
Moreover, Currency.com customers will be able to share their ideas and strategies with other traders in real time, while TradingView users will be able to trade on Currency.com with minimal spreads and low fees.
Currency.com supports over 2,000 tokenized assets that you can buy, sell, and trade with a leverage up to x100, including:
- Tokenized shares
- Tokenized indices
- Tokenized ETFs
- Tokenized commodities
- Tokenized currencies
- Major cryptocurrencies.
Register and trade on Currency.com!
🔥HAPI @hapiHF will be one of the main partners of The BIGGEST Solana Hackathon YET. With Dona Mara as one of the main judges 🔥
🎉This incredible news mean that HAPI will be one of the invited guests on Solana Hackathon with Dyma Budorin and Dona Mara as main judges.
👉Further solidifying and consolidating our relationships with Solana
----------------------------------------------------
💰 TOTAL PRIZE POOL (Including grants): 1 000 000$
🟥 And special Prize from the Dona himself: 25 000$
✈️ GLOBAL PARTICIPATION: Yes. Hackathon will take place online
🗓 DATE: 15 May - 7 June 2021 (3 weeks in total)
-----------------------------------------------------
🔸What is Hackathon Solana Season?
The basic principles of Solana Hackathon are development of Solana ecosystem via facilitation of ideas and technological advancements on Solana blockchain.
------------------------------------------------------
📓 To know more about The Biggest Solana Hackathon yet visit solana.com/hackathon
Going Up, Going Down, Getting Liquidated and 20 Crypto Jokes
This was one roller coaster of a week! So the usual. One of the things that marked it was DOGE with its massive rally. Unsurprisingly, DOGE crashed, but copydoges were dominating DEX trading. But before Monday morning marked the beginning of the new week, bitcoin and some altcoins went for a walk down the price line, and nearly 10bn worth of trading positions in the crypto derivatives market were liquidated in 24 hours, while amateur crypto traders were disproportionately liquidated. Bitcoin transaction fees hit an ATH after an explosion in China had forced miners offline. We learned that Venmo started supporting BTC and ETH, as well as LTC and BCH. Then ETH hit an ATH. And then the market turned red, but analysts urged people to stay calm. As this was happening, a bunch of people flocked to SafeMoon even when others called it a scam. Meanwhile, Coinbase Pro listed tether, Bitpanda allowed users to invest in tokenized fractional shares, and Thodex traders filed complaints alleging fraud, while the CEO reportedly fled Turkey, with 62 people arrested.
In the meantime, the 113-year-old giant Baillie Gifford injected some USD 100m into Blockchain.com, and the Rothschild family invested in Kraken through its RIT Capital Partners venture. In South Korea, crypto trading volumes outperformed stock market activity for the first time in the nation’s history, a gaming giant snapped up a minority stake in Coinone as the gambling charges were dropped, the crackdown on crypto-related fraud will be complete by the end of June, the customs authorities promised their own crypto crackdown, and as the government is targeting kimchi premium crypto sellers by looking into policing international remittances, Woori fell into line. While more users flock to crypto in Argentina and Peru, Chinese central bank deputy governor called BTC an investment alternative, the Bahamas, Cambodia, and China led the CBDC race, while the UK launched a CBDC taskforce. Wyoming, US, is set to recognize DAOs as a new type of limited liability companies”, and the former OCC acting head hinted the crypto regulation storm may have passed.
Here’s an assortment of the best crypto jokes carefully selected by our best, self-appointed in-house crypto jokes experts.
🚀🚀PIXL - MOONSHOT🚀🚀
PIXL is aiming to lead the blockchain industry in advertising by partnering with other crypto currencies - both old and new.
The partnerships will bring further investments into PIXL, increasing the value for all holders.
🌟TOKENOMICS🌟
5% automatically distributed to coin holders 🌟
5% distributed to LP 🌟
Liquidity locked for 5 years 🌟
No dev wallets 🌟
Completely rug-proof! 🌟
Ownership Renounced 🌟
🌟ACHIEVEMENTS first 6 days🌟
2400+ holders ✅
Audit fully complete - 100% pass in all areas ✅
CoinGecko Application has been submitted ✅
Unirocket price bot up and running ✅
1st video AMA completed ✅
$5M+ MarketCap ✅
AUDIT results: https://solidity.finance/audits/PIXL/
Website - https://pixl.one
Telegram: @PIXLCoin
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pixlcoin
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCapfVtQNmR444PAw8ufLK_w
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Pixl_Crypto_Official/
Chinese Central Bank Calls Bitcoin an ‘Investment Alternative’
China may be softening its tone on cryptoassets, almost four years after it exacted a crackdown on bitcoin (BTC), altcoins and crypto exchanges, with encouraging remarks from Li Bo, the new deputy governor of the central People’s Bank of China (PBoC).
Li Bo was quoted by multiple media outlets, including CNBC and the South China Morning Post as making remarks about BTC, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) at the Boao Forum for Asia, which was held in Hainan, China, on Sunday.
The deputy governor, who worked at the PBoC for 14 years prior to taking on the role of vice mayor of Chongqing in 2018, was appointed to his new post at the central bank last week. In his first major speech in his new post, he stated,
“We regard bitcoin and stablecoin as crypto assets. ... These are investment alternatives. They are not currencies per se. … The main role we see for cryptoassets going forward, ... is as an investment alternative.”
He added,
“Many countries, including China, are still looking into crypto and thinking about what kind of regulatory requirements are required. Maybe these will be minimal, but we need to have some kind of regulatory requirement to prevent ... speculation with these assets that create any serious financial stability risks.”
The comments will raise eyebrows both domestically and abroad. Bitcoin’s popularity is still sky-high in China, despite the fact that many traders struggle to access markets. Regardless, over-the-counter trading interesr remains sky high, and the Chinese authorities have been keen to point out in the past that they never actually banned the token.
Li Bo also spoke in detail about the PBoC’s digital yuan plans, and reaffirmed the central bank’s intention to ensure the token is up and running in time for the 2022 Winter Olympics – to be held in Beijing in February.
He said,
“For the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, we were trying to make the digital yuan available not only to domestic users, but also to international athletes and spectators.”
The PBoC earlier this month announced that more regions – including Shanghai – had been added to the digital currency’s pilot.
But the deputy governor downplayed assertions that the digital yuan was being rolled out as part of a wider plan to purge the USD from its economy and those of its trading partners.
He said,
“Our goal is not to replace the USD or any other international currency. Our goal is to allow the market to choose and to facilitate international trade and investment.”
The former Governor of the PBoC, Zhou Xiaochuan, speaking at the same event, did hint however that the digital yuan was being developed with an eye on the international stage.
Zhou said,
“Our focus ... is that we want to establish a very solid domestic digital yuan first, and build up a healthy ecosystem, at the same time working with our international partners. Hopefully, in the long term, we’ll have a cross-border solution as well.”
But he also added: “We must respect the monetary sovereignty of other countries’ central banks. Using digital technology can greatly improve convenience, but it is not a way to dominate the world with a single currency.”
Li again refused to put a timeline on a full national rollout, claiming that a number of technological issues still had to be resolved prior to launch.
Dogecoin Flips XRP, Ethereum, and Bitcoin (On Google)
The world's most famous meme coin, dogecoin (DOGE), moved pass the biggest coins in the world on Google Trends, and flipped two major altcoins to move deeper into the top 10 list.
The search interest in doge has flipped that of four biggest coins in the world by market capitalization: bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), binance coin (BNB), and XRP.
But another flippening happened as well. DOGE's market capitalization surpassed litecoin (LTC)'s and uniswap (UNI)'s, pushing the two into the 9th and 10th spots, respectively - and taking the 8th for itself. Its market capitalization is now USD 32.7bn (08:57 UTC), compared with LTC's and UNI's USD 19bn. Polkadot (DOT) is on the 7th place with USD 42bn.
DOGE's price rallied recently, going up 97% in a day and 318% in a single week, hitting its all-time high of USD 0.285 today. Overall, it's up 13,163% in a year, now trading at almost USD 0.26.
It's not really clear what pushed the coin up. As for the recent news surrounding it, American brand of snack Slim Jim announced Doge Week, posting numerous DOGE-related tweets in the past days, boosting their engagement.
Furthermore, luxury nightclub E11even Miami announced that it would start accepting DOGE, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tweeted that their store sold more than DOGE 122,000 (USD 32,000) worth of merchandise.
Meanwhile, Robinhood users seemed to have had déjà vu as the platform had announced "issues with crypto trading" due to "unprecedented demand" in the middle of DOGE rally again.
Coinbase Goes Public This Week - What To Expect?
As US-based major crypto exchange Coinbase going public in two days, many industry insiders see it as a bullish event for a wider crypto space, but also one that may eventually lead more people into decentralized finance (DeFi). Meanwhile, an investment research firm placed the exchange's valuation more than 80% lower than it's expected to be.
As reported, Coinbase is set for a direct listing on Nasdaq under the symbol COIN on April 14.
Because volume and price tend to go hand-in-hand, argued Bloomberg, Coinbase’s transaction revenue, its largest segment, "could remain susceptible to cryptocurrency market gyrations." Kevin Kelly, Global Head of Macro Strategy at crypto research firm Delphi Digital, warned that Coinbase’s first week of trading could be very volatile.
"Coinbase’s stock price will provide another gauge of institutional interest and sentiment towards crypto at large. However, COIN will also be subject to market risk that may or may not impact crypto asset prices, so it won’t serve as a perfect proxy," he wrote in a report last Friday.
There is a number of potential results that industry insiders see coming out of the exchange's move to go public, but many seem to agree that, as Kadan Stadelmann, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of blockchain solutions provider Komodo (KMD), said in an emailed commentary, "Coinbase is an important gateway to getting started in the crypto sector."
Samantha Yap, Founder and CEO at PR agency specializing in crypto, blockchain, and fintech YAP Global, opined that this listing is going to further build credibility and legitimacy for the crypto markets which have already seen "huge institutional interest and flows" since the year began.
Of a similar opinion is Emiliano Grodzki, CEO of Bitcoin mining operation Bitfarms, stating that crypto is not a new thing anymore, but "the hot new asset class for equities," adding:
"The Coinbase direct listing is just the latest demonstration of an explosion in legitimacy and trust in the crypto sector as a whole, among both institutional and retail investors."
Crypto Flash Crash: Recovery, Unavailable Exchanges & Tesla's 'Diamond Hands'
On Wednesday, what initially appeared as another usual sharp correction in the crypto market, suddenly turned into a less usual flash crash, once again marked by exchange outages and sharp rebound, while professional investors educate newbies, and Elon Musk claims that Tesla has not sold their bitcoin (BTC) holdings.
At 17:43 UTC, BTC trades USD 39,798, rebounding from USD 30,415, reached earlier today. The price is still down by almost 9% in a day. Ethereum (ETH) recovered from USD 2,051 to USD 2,839, trimming its daily losses to less than 17%. Other coins from the top 10 list are down by 13%-29% in a day.
"This will feel very uncomfortable for many traders and investors who are new to this high volatility area of the market and rightfully so, we've seen a lot of higher leverage positions be liquidated in a short span of time," Jeffery Wang, Head of America’s at the Amber Group, said in an emailed comment.
This was "a large flushout," Wang added, and if the market wants to continue higher it was "likely necessary to remove some of the froth from overleveraged positions."
The next few days will be important to see how overall sentiment is, "a term we've heard repeatedly over the past 6 months is many traders wanted the opportunity to buy lower, ie buy the dip, so with the opportunity now upon us will see if people do put new money to work or if their stance has changed."
In light of this massive drop across crypto markets, many in the Cryptoverse, such as FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, have noted large liquidations across the board.
USD 8.7bn worth of trading positions (790,625 in total) in the crypto derivatives market were liquidated in the past 24 hours, per Bybt.com data. USD 3.7bn of these are trading positions in BTC. Ethereum traders lost over USD 2.3bn
Fundstrat's Tom Lee Boosts Bitcoin Target 25% Despite Musk's Criticism
Tesla’s recent declaration it would no longer be accepting bitcoin (BTC), paired with bearish statements by its CEO Elon Musk, have done little to shake the certainty of investment research firm Fundstrat Global Advisors. The New York-based advisory business has increased bitcoin's price target for 2021 to USD 125,000, up 25%.
“I don't think it's going to get people negative on bitcoin, but it is going to get people to focus on the problems that are being created by digital assets,” Tom Lee, Managing Partner of Fundstrat, told Business Insider. “It is probably better to view it as a call to action for the bitcoin industry to focus on renewables or more efficient ways to provide proof of work.”
Some of his previous forecasts were either too bullish or too bearish.
In either case, according to him, it was possible Musk was influenced by people within his organization.
“Many people come to Tesla because it's ESG-friendly," Lee said, making a reference to the environmental, social, and governance criteria screened by some investors. “I think some of these same people might've just questioned, well, if you want to accept a digital currency … maybe it shouldn't be bitcoin”.
Tesla said last week that they are "concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transaction especially coal, which was the worst emissions of any fuel." A day before, Reuters reported that Tesla is seeking to enter the multi-billion dollar US renewable credit market, hoping to profit from the Biden administration’s march toward new zero-emission goals.
Also, per Business Insider, Lee said he's undeterred by bitcoin's waning market dominance, or the percentage of the total market capitalization, which currently fluctuates around 40%, according to various data providers. It was around 70% in the beginning of this year.
"Bitcoin dominance will actually grow during a bear market," Lee was quoted as saying.
In its April analysis, Fundstrat estimated that bitcoin’s price target for this year was USD 100,000.
One of the factors behind Fundstrat’s forecast was that corporations would be entering the crypto market in a bigger way in 2021.
“We think this is starting to happen more and will be one new source for capital flows into the crypto economy,” the company said. “Even if Facebook didn’t buy bitcoin, corporates are coming, and it may not be reflected in earnings announcements yet.”
Jack Dorsey-led Square confirmed that their BTC strategy hasn’t changed and they are "deeply committed to this community, including working towards a greener future through our Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative." The company said it continues to assess their bitcoin investment "on an ongoing basis." In February, Square said they spent USD 170m on BTC.
Meanwhile, according to Justin Chuh, Senior Trader at digital asset investment manager Wave Financial, "gravity and volatility" in the crypto market still exists.
"When combining fundamentals such as positive net inflows of BTC to exchanges, mixed with the previously mentioned technicals of lower high and lower low, we can ignore what large egos and influencers say, and see that a pullback was bound to happen. But we have to accept that those voices chirping around on social media aren’t helping and can actually make moves. This is healthy, but I think we all wish this didn’t happen," he said in an emailed comment.
Tesla & Elon Musk-Triggered Selloff Shakes Crypto Market, Raises Questions
Electric car manufacturer Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk once again moved the whole crypto market, triggering a sharp selloff, massive liquidations, and prompting speculations about Tesla's move and reigniting debates about Bitcoin (BTC) mining. (Updated at 12:18 UTC: updates throughout the entire text. Updated at 14:50 with additional comments and the latest market data.)
Elon Musk announced that Tesla suspended vehicle purchases using BTC and is looking at other cryptoassets.
BTC plunged from almost USD 55,000 to USD 47,600, before recovering above USD 51,500 and correcting lower again.
At 14:48 UTC, BTC trades at USD 50,446 and is down by 10% in a day. The 24-hour BTC trading volume surpassed USD 110bn, compared with USD 68bn yesterday. Other coins from the top 10 club have also followed a similar path and are now down by 2%-13% in the past 24 hours, except cardano (ADA), which is up by 5%.
Meanwhile, total liquidations in the crypto derivatives market reached USD 4bn (392,741 traders “were liquidated”) in the past 24 hours, per Bybt.com data. BTC is responsible for USD 2bn, while ETH liquidations reached USD 742m.
"We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transaction especially coal, which was the worst emissions of any fuel," according to a screenshot, shared by Musk on Twitter.
It added the company still believes cryptocurrency is a good idea and has a promising future, "but this cannot come at great cost to the environment."
Tesla said it won't be selling any BTC it holds and intends to use it for transactions "as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy."
However, in April, Musk agreed that BTC "incentivizes renewable energy."
"We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use <1% of Bitcoin's energy/transaction," they concluded. This week, Musk asked his Twitter followers, whether the company should start accepting dogecoin (DOGE).
Ben Gagnon, Director of Mining Operations at listed BTC mining company Bitfarms, stressed that, according to data from Cambridge and Digiconimist Bitcoin Electricity consumption index, Bitcoin only represents approximately 0.1% of the global man-made emissions.
"And these emissions are largely a result of consuming electricity that would otherwise be lost due to lack of demand or cost-effective energy storage systems," he said in an emailed comment.
Tesla started accepting BTC in March this year.
Industry players seem unconvinced that Tesla was not aware of the carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining, and speculate that this decision to suspend BTC payments might be related to subsidies Tesla is receiving from the US government.
Moreover, just yesterday, Reuters reported that Tesla is seeking to enter the multi-billion dollar US renewable credit market, hoping to profit from the Biden administration’s march toward new zero-emission goals.
Block.one Secures USD 10B To Compete With Coinbase, Binance & Co
A new major player might join the vibrant industry of crypto exchanges, as Block.one, the developer of EOSIO, an open-sourced blockchain software, said it aims to launch Bullish, a new crypto exchange that has secured USD 10bn in funding, this year.
Block.one said it has injected USD 100m, BTC 164,000, and EOS 20m into its new subsidiary, Bullish Global, while other strategic investors added another USD 300m. The backers include Peter Thiel’s Thiel Capital and Founders Fund, Alan Howard, Louis Bacon, Richard Li, Christian Angermayer, Galaxy Digital, and global investment bank Nomura.
The new platform aims to offer new automated market making, lending, and portfolio management tools and "to combine the performance, user privacy, and compliance offered by central order book technology with the vertically integrated user benefits of decentralized finance (DeFi) market architecture."
BG is said to utilize EOSIO and the EOS Public Blockchain to produce "a cryptographically validated, provable, and immutable audit trail of all transactions processed on the Bullish platform."
EOS, ranked 19th by market capitalization, rallied following the news, jumping by more than 20% in half an hour. At 13:10 UTC it trades at USD 11.04 and is up by 8% in a day, 59% in a week, and 64% in a month.
“The Bullish exchange will leverage blockchain technology and a new market architecture to revolutionize the high-performance trading landscape by transparently automating expensive third-party functions and turning them into yield-generating portfolio management tools to offer institutions and individuals better and safer access to the latest cryptocurrency investment strategies,” Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer was quoted as saying in the press release.
According to Galaxy Digital's Mike Novogratz, "Bullish’s sheer size and scale combined with Block.one’s experience in high-performance blockchain engineering will make Bullish a formidable player from day one
🤑 How to earn $5,000 in a week? Take part in Currency.com's trading competition!
Follow several steps to join:
- Sign up to Currency.com
- Verify your account
- Trade with leverage
- Reach the highest P&L
- Become one of the TOP-3 participants and get your award
Traders with the highest P&L for leveraged-operations will become winners. The three leading traders will get:
🔸 1st place – $5,000
🔸 2nd place – $3,000
🔸 3rd place – $2,000
Join the competition and become the next winner! Read more: _https_://currency.com/cxmaygamecis
Quannabu building a cutting-edge CBD manufacturing and testing laboratory capable of offering unrivaled assurances and certifications. It is the only operation in the world dedicated to improving the complete scope of CBD-related activities both on and above the blockchain level. Quannabu will use blockchain technology to minimize production and operation costs by eliminating unnecessary intermediaries in the supply chain and promoting production quality.
Quannabu Smart Contracts Will Provide Many Benefits:
❇️Transparency
All CBD supply chain activities, including the buying, testing, selling, manufacturing, storage, and transportation of CBD products, will be tracked and traced on our blockchain platform. The incorporation of smart contracts will ensure an extra level of assurance, especially when servicing wholesalers or other companies who wish to use Quannabu Labs and other high-grade laboratories to test their products.
❇️Security
All transactional blockchain records are encrypted, making them very hard, if not impossible, to crack. For a single document to be changed, the entire chain would need altering as each individual record is connected to previous and subsequent records on a distributed network.
❇️Trust
Success is built on a foundation of trust. Smart contracts are immutable, execute automatically, always act according to their rules, and store encrypted transaction records across a shared ledger. There is never any doubt that the information is accurate.
❇️Speed & Accuracy
Smart contracts streamline business processes, reduce the friction between parties, and execute business agreements automatically — all the while guaranteeing the quality and origin of information, goods, and services.
❇️Savings
As participants trust the visible data and the technology can be relied upon to execute transactions properly, smart contracts remove the need for intermediaries. Agreements terms are built into the contracts, so there is no need for additional verification.
We also have more unique features and services, please visit our website to see them
✅ Website: https://quannabu.com
✅ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/QuannabuLabs
✅ Telegram: /channel/Quannabu
✅ Twitter: https://twitter.com/QuannabuPay
✅ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/company/quannabu
✅ Whitepaper: https://quannabu.com/docs/Quannabu-Whitepaper.pdf
CryptEx is throwing $350,000 ☄️ into Staking on May, 10
What is CryptEx?
CryptEx is a B2B set of security services for Binance Smart Chain projects. CryptEx charges customers, and 50% of the fees go to its holders.
How to earn 50% of the fees?
All you have to do is stake CRX from your wallet, and every time a client pays for CryptEx services, the stakers get 50% out of this payment. All the rewards are paid in 💰BNB
Ask any question in the official CryptEx telegram chat 👉 @cryptexlocker
What about $100,000?
Since February 20, CryptEx provided services to 52 projects, charging them a total of over $100 000. However, staking has been released only on May 2.
After May 10, CryptEx will distribute 50% out of earned income between all CRX stakers. APY SHOULD BE ON FIRE 🔥.
Also, CRX Stakers are getting 1 000 000 DROPS (more than $250,000)during the airdrop. The snapshot will be recorded after May 10, at a random time.
Tiсker: $CRX
Max Supply: 100,000 CRX
Current Price: $36.88
FD MCap: $3,687,867
Network: Binance Smart Chain
Where to buy: 1Inch, ApeSwap, PancakeSwap V1
Join the chat: 🔥 @cryptexlocker
Fake Selloffs, Repeated Rallies, BSC Matters and 20 Crypto Jokes
This eventful cryptoweek, Bitcoin and Ethereum fees dropped ahead of a fresh rally, while Arca said that BTC 'fake selloff' was driven by dealers with short inventory, BitPay said the share of BTC in their payments was the lowest last week as altcoins like DOGE have been gaining traction, and crypto pundits urged caution after another Elon Musk-fuelled DOGE rally. Yearn Finance expects treasury yield-farming to boost their revenue, and while Binance Chain is on 'a parabola', surpassing Ethereum in several metrics, BSC-based Uranium Finance got hacked. LUNA rallied after the news that Terra may be working on South Korean stablecoin-related plans with Busan, while Upbit capped crypto deposits to just under USD 450,000.
While Gemini, Mastercard and WebBank decided to give 'real-time' crypto rewards and Nexon spent some USD 100m on BTC, a task force tells Washington to ramp up the crypto exchange regulation, the Argentinian central bank asked the commercial banks to hand over data on crypto transactions, the new Governor of Turkey's central bank said he wouldn't seek to carry out a total crypto ban, and the South Korean government saw a furious backlash from 20-39-year-olds over its proposed crypto crackdown. Speaking of which, South Korean commercial banks should say “thank you, crypto”. PayPal CEO said central banks will need to rethink their monetary policies in the next decade and Tesla's CFO said BTC has “long-term” worth. In the meantime, a new Carbonbase-WWF collaboration uses NFTs to save animals, German developer who got rich off BTC backed the party that wants it traceable, and we reported on five ways in which Visa wants to work with crypto and CBDCs.
Crypto Prosecutor Thwarted in Bid to Leave Post – and Join an Exchange
A high-flying South Korean prosecutor from the Ministry of Justice has been left out of work after controversy arose over his attempted move to take on a post as a legal adviser for a major domestic crypto exchange.
Yonhap reported that the Ministry of Justice had announced that the prosecutor, whom it called “A”, had been working in the ministry’s policy advisory department, had resigned after “trying to become a lawyer at a large domestic cryptocurrency exchange.”
The ministry’s protocols dictate that staff intending to take on additional posts must declare their intentions to an auditory body to avoid conflicts of interest. However, it appears that A decided to bypass this process altogether by resigning from their ministry job in order to take up the new post.
The move, though, appears to have been ill-timed – as the ministry appears caught in a fast-escalating tug-of-war with financial regulators over who is in charge of Seoul’s crypto policy. The government, regulators, police, and the central bank have all spoken out about enacting a “crypto crackdown,” the details of which appear thus far somewhat unclear.
However, the Ministry of Justice appears to have been unhappy about A’s move and the controversy it has already stoked, with many accusing the prosecutor of taking on a post where they would have a conflict of interests – having had access to crypto policy deliberations.
The prosecutor has since decided not to take the post at the (unnamed) crypto exchange, but now appears to have ended up in an employment quandary, as the Ministry of Justice is in the process of processing A’s resignation.
The ministry’s stance on crypto has been relatively hardline in the past. In January 2018, days before crypto prices began to tumble, the then-Minister of Justice Park Sang-ki told media outlets that his department was “preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency transactions through exchanges.”
The bill never materialized after the market slid into a long crypto winter, and Park left his post in 2019. However, there have been few signs that the ministry has since softened its stance.
Tesla Sends Bullish Bitcoin Signal To Global Corporates
The bitcoin (BTC)-keen carmaking giant Tesla has sent a bullish signal to the global business community, with its chief financial officer Zachary Kirkhorn claiming that BTC has “long-term” worth and could be used to solve cash liquidity problems.
In an earnings call to investors reporting on FY2021 first-quarter results, Tesla confirmed that last month it sold 10% of the BTC holdings it had bought at the start of the year. But the automaker justified the sale, claiming that the firm wants to use BTC to boost its liquidity as and when it needs to.
Kirkhorn, a.k.a. Master of Coin, stated,
“From a corporate treasury perspective, we’ve been quite pleased with how much liquidity there is in the bitcoin market. Our ability to build our first position happened very quickly. When we made the sale in March we also were able to execute on that very quickly. As we think about global liquidity for the business and risk management, being able to get cash in and out of the markets is something that is exceptionally important for us.”
The CFO also explained that Tesla’s and its CEO Elon Musk’s rationale in foraying into the BTC market earlier this year was partially based on the firm’s liquidity strategies.
He explained,
“Elon and I were looking for a place to store cash that wasn’t being immediately used to try to get some level of return on this but also preserve liquidity. … Being able to access our cash very quickly is super important to us right now. And there aren’t many traditional opportunities to do this ... that we could get good feedback on, particularly with yields being so low and without taking on additional risk or sacrificing liquidity.”
But bitcoin, he said, has “proven to be a good place to place some of our cash that is not immediately being used” for what he termed “daily operations” or “maybe not needed until the end of the year.” In the meantime, the CFO stated, Telsa could hope to “get some return” on its investment.
On social media, some crypto skeptics expressed incredulity at the sale, however, with David Portnoy, the founder of the popular Barstool Sports blog essentially accusing Musk of a pump-and-dump move.
But Musk was quick to rebut the accusation, claiming that Portnoy (who has a history of trolling crypto advocates and personalities such as the Winklevoss twins) had misunderstood the situation.
The Tesla supremo tweeted:
“I have not sold any of my bitcoin. Tesla sold 10% of its holdings essentially to prove liquidity of bitcoin as an alternative to holding cash on its balance sheet.”
Back on the call, the Tesla CFO said that a “key point” about his firm’s “experiences in the digital currency space” was that “there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic here.” He added that Tesla was “certainly watching” the markets “very closely” and would continue to “watch how the market develops” and “listening to what our customers are saying” about BTC.
He concluded,
“We do believe long term in the value of bitcoin. So it is our intent to hold what we have long term and continue to accumulate bitcoin from transactions from our customers as they purchase vehicles.”
In its Q1 report, Telsa wrote that its quarter-end cash and cash equivalents had “decreased to USD 17.1 billion in Q1, a fact that had been “driven mainly by a net cash outflow of USD 1.2 billion in cryptocurrency (bitcoin) purchases, net debt and finance lease repayments of USD 1.2 billion,” and that this had been “partially offset by free cash flow of USD 293 million.”
BTC prices in March rose to just under USD 60,000 for much of the month – at the time of the Tesla announcement back in early February, bitcoin was worth under USD 39,000.
At 08:39 UTC, BTC trades at USD 54,677 and is up by 3.5% in a day, trimming its weekly losses to less than 2%.
Biden ‘Tax Plans’ Speculations Spook Crypto Speculators
The American President Joe Biden is reportedly set to unveil plans to enact sweeping new tax regulations, including changes to capital gains tax – which might affect thousands of crypto traders in the country also.
The plans will reportedly see the state almost double the rate of taxes on capital gains to 39.6% for those earning over USD 1m.
Some, though, are sensing an opportunity for bargain coin buying, while other pundits think the plan may never see the light of day due to pushback from the House.
Regardless, capital gains tax concerns were already pressing for American crypto enthusiasts, who already had to deal with selling-related dilemmas: Investors often have to pay capital gains tax on tokens they sell for fiat after holding for over a year.
However, BTC’s remarkable performance could end up hitting investors in the pocket, as they're now sitting on massive gains. In a year, BTC is up by 579%, ethereum (ETH) - 1,092%, while many altcoins recorded much higher gains.
"President Biden could be doing crypto — and especially crypto lending businesses like ours — a favor should his proposal to raise taxes for wealthy investors to over 40% go through. It would make even greater sense to play that oldest trick in the manage-your-finances-smart book: borrow against your assets to avoid capital gains taxes," Antoni Trenchev, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Nexo, a financial institution for digital assets with over USD 12bn in assets under management, said in an emailed comment, adding that BTC is collateral that appreciates in value.
"In fact, Biden would be doing us so great a favor, regardless of the short-term spook, that I wonder whether this proposal may not be a strategic prelude to pro-crypto legislation in the US," he added.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that the news had left BTC, ETH and more “on the ropes,” and would “curb investment in digital assets.”
The news agency quoted Chris Weston, the head of research at Pepperstone Markets, as stating that “ether has been the poster child of movement. It has massively outperformed bitcoin.” However, Weston added that “technical selling” may have been “going through” in the markets – a suggestion that some shred reading, rather than a mass exodus may be underway.
However, Bloomberg quoted Matt Maley, the chief market strategist at Miller Tabak + Co, as stating,
“One of the biggest things you have to worry about is that the things with the biggest gains are going to be most susceptible to selling. It doesn’t mean people will dump wholesale, dump 100% of their positions, but you have some people who have huge money in this and, therefore, a big jump in the capital gains tax, they’ll be leaving a lot of money on the table.”
The New York Times stressed that the plan is not yet set in stone, adding that the proposal “is not yet final and could change before next week.”
Per media reports, Biden plans to reveal full details of what he has dubbed the American Family Plan next week.
In a separate report, Bloomberg quoted White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki as appearing to confirm that the plan existed, but stating: “We’re still finalizing what the pay-fors look like.”
The plan reportedly includes some USD 1.5trn worth of spending and tax credits designed to reduce poverty, lower childcare costs, and reduce or eliminate the cost of certain forms of education “according to people familiar with the proposal,” the New York Times added.
Reaction on social media was mixed.
On Twitter, Shehan Chandrasekera, the head of Tax Strategy at CoinTracker, suggested that things may not be as bleak as they initially seemed. Although the plans “seem alarming,” they “may not have a widespread impact,” he wrote, adding,
“In 2018, about 153 million taxpayers filed tax returns. Among them, only about 540,000 reported an adjusted income over USD 1 million, representing less than 1% of US taxpayers.”
Samsung, Shinhan Card Workers ‘Quit Jobs after Making Crypto Fortunes
The South Korean mainstream media has found a new subject du jour – crypto. And all of today’s major newspapers carried reports on crypto fever 2.0, a wave of investment that has seen bitcoin (BTC) and altcoin buying go through the roof, eclipsing even the situation in late 2017 and early 2018, when media outlets reported about everyone from teenagers to nonagenarians investing their pocket money and pensions on tokens.
But crypto fever 2.0 appears to be an altogether more frantic affair. The government has doubled down on its threats to “crackdown” on an “overheated” industry – and has taken aim at individuals targetting quick profits by exploiting the kimchi premium with new banking measures, as well as crypto fraudsters and multi-level marketers running crypto-flavored scams.
Per Seoul Kyungjae, the ruling Democratic Party is the latest to add its voice to the chorus of policymakers and regulators promising to “crackdown” on the industry.
However, this time around even the middle classes are moving in on the crypto buying action. The TV network JTBC aired a video report featuring interviews and testimonies with employees at some of the country’s biggest companies – the card giant Shinhan Card and Samsung – who said they had quit their jobs after making big money on crypto investments.
The ex-Shinhan employee stated that he made profits of around USD 2.7m by effectively staking all of his life savings – plus loans – on crypto trades. He left his job last month.
The former Samsung staffer, though, raised attention when he went online to claim that he had managed to put together USD 44,670 worth of capital to invest in coins – and had walked away with almost USD 36m.
Another office worker in the busy financial district of Yeoido said she had been left feeling “anxious” due to the fact that so many people she knew had made money from their own bitcoin investments.
And a former LG Electronics employee who asked to remain nameless told Cryptonews.com that he had also made money from a collective crypto buy along with colleagues. However, he joked that although the investment had helped him raise enough money to buy “some big electrical appliances” for his family home,” it “wasn’t the reason I quit my job!”
The former Shinhan Card worker has decided to become a full-time crypto YouTuber since leaving his post.
The media outlet pointed to Coinone crypto exchange data, which shows that over half of the platform’s customers are aged 30-49, with the vast majority of the customer base being in their 30s.
But Donga reported that there is also plenty of action at the other end of the scale. Data from domestic crypto exchanges, the newspaper wrote, showed that 64% of new crypto investors are aged 20-39. And 1.5% of new investors are aged 19, the legal age of consent in the nation for activities such as crypto investment.
In another, a separate report from the same newspaper, there was testimony from 19- and 20-year-old investors. One, a university freshman, claimed that they had “opened an account at a cryptocurrency exchange as soon as” they turned 19 last month, adding,
“I was envious about the fact that my university seniors and friends had made money with crypto, and had quit their part-time jobs and started spending more.”
The investor, surnamed Kim, has already invested over USD 530 and “plans to increase his crypto investment by taking out loans or borrowing from family members.”
From ATHs Over Bans to 20 Crypto Jokes
This was very busy week in crypto: one day before the Coinbase direct listing, BTC and ETH hit their new all-time highs, and dogecoin led the market, soon landing on the 8th spot by market capitalization, while many industry insiders saw the listing as a bullish event for the crypto space and for DeFi. Over 1,700 employees have been given 100 shares, and then the exchange finally went public, and on to test various crypto narratives. As Ethereum ran into issues in Berlin, Ethereum fees dropped with some analysts pointing to bots as a cause, and BNB rallied, but several other CEX coins jumped even more, and then BNB dropped. Luno reached 7m users, saying it's on track to hit 1bn by 2030, and Kakao reportedly owns “around” 23% of Dunamu. Meanwhile, as Bitcoin Taproot nears, some privacy concerns are raised.
And then – Turkey banned crypto payments! While that's been developing, the SEC's 'Crypto Mom' updated her token safe harbor proposal, an attorney indicated that a settlement is the most likely outcome in the Ripple vs. SEC case, and then XRP doubled as Ripple’s bosses scored another legal victory, while USD 620m worth of XRP traders' overleveraged positions were liquidated in two days. Also, COPA is filing a lawsuit against Craig Wright over his copyright claims to the Bitcoin whitepaper. The US IRS said that bitcoin cash received from the Bitcoin hard fork in 2017 is taxable gross income, and a South Korean city is set to go to war with tax evaders, with crypto seizures on the table, while some exchanges are delaying withdrawal requests. HSBC banned the InvestDirect users from purchasing MicroStrategy stock, and the Moscow Stock Exchange teamed up with banking and card payment processing firms to co-create a “blockchain operator”.
The New York Stock Exchange surprised the Cryptoverse a bit when they decided to launch the NYSE First Trade NFTs on Crypto.org Chain, and as the NFT gravy train may be running out of steam, GameStop may take the NFT plunge, while BTC and NFT adoption was on the menu for America’s Time magazine.
Let laugh at some jokes now.
Luno Hits the 7M Users Milestone, 'On Track' to 1B by 2030
London-headquartered crypto platform Luno said it reached 7m customers worldwide, adding a million in less than two months, with the business growing exponentially as the interest in cryptoassets grows.
Per the company, in January 2021, they recorded a 60% increase in the number of app installs compared to December. Compared to January 2020, they saw over 300% growth year-on-year.
"In 2021, we expect to continue this exponential growth, on track to reaching our goal of 1 billion customers by 2030," Marcus Swanepoel, CEO and Co-Founder of Luno, was quoted as saying in an announcement.
In September 2020, as reported, Luno was acquired by US-based major crypto company Digital Currency Group (DCG), following an initial investment in Luno back in 2014. Since the acquisition, the number of active Luno users has increased by 167%, and the number of app installs has increased by 119%.
As of January 25, the average Luno user held over USD 7,000 in their wallet, which is up 56% from December 30, 2020.
"Luno’s expansion is telling of the bigger-picture market demand for cryptocurrencies globally," the company said, "as the industry continues to prove its reputation as building a sustainable financial infrastructure."
While infrastructure in certain parts of the world could not previously support the crypto market, this has improved "substantially," Luno said, and they themselves worked on these developments, particularly in major African economies and Asia-Pacific. In 2020, the platform provided 4.7m Africans and 1.1m Asians access to the crypto markets, they claimed, growing its African customer base by 2.3m and its Asian customer base by 300,000.
Luno has offices in London, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Singapore, and customers in 40 countries. They said they've seen over 10% growth in staff numbers since March 2020.
Last year, Swanepoel told Cryptonews.com that the global economic crisis might be good for crypto as it showed the dysfunctionality of the existing system.
Prepare For 'Uncertain Future of Money' – US Intelligence Center
America’s National Intelligence Council, a mid- and long-term strategic planning center, has issued a warning to the USA and its allies about “threats” to the dollar and the euro from stablecoin projects and “privately issued digital currencies.”
In its latest four-year report, named “Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World,” the body claimed that private-sector coins and other non-state-issued tokens “could add complexity to the conduct of monetary policy by reducing countries’ control over their exchange rates and money supply.”
The report’s authors also noted that China would likely emerge as America’s biggest rival with “greater contestation” in store at “every level” – including industry 4.0 tech.
Although the authors did not mention cryptoassets like bitcoin (BTC) by name, they did name-check “Facebook’s proposed Libra” project (now Diem) – a stablecoin project that is still yet to materialize after regulatory wrangling in the United States and elsewhere. The Chinese digital yuan also received a name check, as did other central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects.
In a section named the “uncertain future of money,” the authors wrote,
“The financial sector is not immune from the technological changes that are transforming other industries. Digital currencies are likely to gain wider acceptance during the next two decades as the number of CBDCs increase.”
They added that should Facebook and other countries succeed with token rollouts, this “would further drive acceptance of digital currencies, but indicated that regulators could play a crucial role.
They wrote,
“The extent to which privately issued digital currencies will provide a substitute for the use of national or regional fiat currencies, including the US dollar and the euro, to settle transactions will depend on the regulatory rules that are established.”
And these “privately issued digital currencies,” the authors remarked, “could add complexity to the conduct of monetary policy by reducing countries’ control over their exchange rates and money supply.”
There were other financial-sector warnings ahead, too. Over the course of the next two decades, they added, “several global economic trends,” could plague international unity, “including rising national debt, a more complex and fragmented trading environment, the global spread of trade in services, new employment disruptions and the continued rise of powerful firms.”
Also in the forecast were the following:
states will experience reduced economic flexibility as they navigate greater debt burdens
trading rules will diversify
public pressure to deal with challenges including demographic shifts and climate change will increase
Asian economies will continue decades of growth – but at a slower pace
higher growth in Asia could help countries avoid middle-income traps
The report’s sentiments echoed those of thinkers at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, where world economic leaders were warned not to take the economic status quo “for granted for the next decades.”
