Ransomware is something the “average American” is worried about, says former cybersecurity top dog Chris Krebs
Former Department of Homeland Security official Christopher Krebs called for greater governmental oversight of cryptocurrency in an interview yesterday, saying that anonymous payments are a threat “the average American is concerned about.”
In an interview on Late Night with Bill Maher, Maher asked the former U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency director about his thoughts on Bitcoin.
“What’s gonna happen with Bitcoin? Where do you see that going? That’s in sort of your area, I see it bringing down civilization, but maybe I’m being anti-intellectual,” said Maher.
“Cryptocurrency is, as I see it, is one of the single enabling factors that has allowed cyber-criminals to deploy a massive amount of ransomware across our state and local agencies,” said Krebs. “It’s the anonymous payments, the ability to pay anonymously. And I think that is the cyber-threat that the average American is concerned about.”
Maher noted that 1600 schools have been hit with ransomware (citing a report from IBM), and Krebs added that there have also been attacks on “hospitals, and government agencies, I mean we had, Baltimore’s been hit twice, Atlanta, Mecklenburg county North Carolina, 23 counties in Texas, Louisiana’s been hit a couple times.”
“And they just want money. This isn’t anything sophisticated, this isn’t ideological,” Maher responded, comparing — puzzlingly — the ransomware attacks to the plot of the movie Die Hard. (Shortly after, Krebs incorrectly referred to the fictitious Nakatomi Plaza as “Nakasomi Tower”).
Krebs went on to warn of “bad guys” running wild if there are “no consequences.” He recommended “looking at” cryptocurrencies in exchange wallets, pressuring countries that cyber-criminals call home to crack down on illegal activites aimed at the U.S., and helping state and local governments improve their defenses.
Ransomware has been on the rise the last few years, likely contributing to an image problem in the cryptocurrency space. One recent poll indicates that only 43% of respondents believe cryptocurrency is a valid form of payment, and another from 2020 shows that 90% of respondents are “worried” about cryptocurrencies being used to launder money.
Krebs, who rose to prominence after being fired by former president Donald Trump because of Krebs’ vocal dismissal of election fraud conspiracy theories, may be aligning his publicly stated views with popular opinion in preparation for a run for office. The former bureaucrat has also floated policy proposals such as investing in state and local cyber defense and education programs.
A seed round in a new NFT platform is a promising step towards universal NFT royalties
Can a new non-fungible token (NFT) platform finally solve the problem of ecosystem-wide royalties?
NFT platform Recur announced on Thursday a $5 million seed round led by the DeFi Alliance, Delphi Digital, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, and Gemini, among others.
The raise claims a number of notable superlatives, including the first seed investment in the NFT ecosystem from industry veteran Gary Vaynerch, as well as the largest seed round ever for a NFT project (Dapper Labs has raised many multiples more money over its three year fundraising history, but largely in Series A rounds).
Currently there are a number of platforms that allow NFTs to impart royalties to artists after every secondary market sale, including Foundation, Zora, and Euler Beats developer Treum. Recur’s key innovation will be a ERC token standard that will allow royalties to function regardless of platform.
“RECUR’s technical team is involved in the official process for Ethereum improvements (EIP), and our technology will be implemented at the blockchain layer,” said Recur co-CEO Zach Bruch. “By doing this it will allow the NFTs minted on our platform to move freely around the ecosystem while still generating recurring royalties for the owners and IP holders. Ultimately, our goal is to make NFTs chain-agnostic and keep NFTs and royalties decentralized.”
Bruch did not reference a specific EIP his team is working on. Similar proposals, such as EIP-2981, which adds standard royalty functionality to the ERC-721 NFT standard, are also in the works.
While the NFT space is growing increasingly crowded (and Recur’s royalties will presumably be applicable ecosystem wide) one other way to stand out is through headline-grabbing licensing and intellectual property acquisition. To that end, Recur is bringing some former media industry heft to the fore via former Disney executives Stephen Teglas and Chris Heatherly. Teglas in particular held a position with Disney’s Licensing department.
“RECUR is working with some of the largest brands in the world which will be announced in the coming months,” said Bruch. “We are exclusively working with Blue Chip brands to help them bring their IP to the largest audiences possible.”
The press release says the first Recur “brand experience” will be released in the summer of 2021.
Bitcoin price reaching $182,000 would probably make Satoshi Nakamoto the richest person on the planet.
It is estimated that Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of BTC, will become the world’s richest person if the price of Bitcoin (BTC) hits approximately $182,000.
As of March 2021, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the richest person on earth with a net worth of $181.6 billion.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is a close second at $163.7 billion, owning more than 20% of the electric car maker.
How much BTC does Satoshi Nakamoto have?
Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, released the Bitcoin whitepaper in October 2008 under a public MIT license.
On Jan. 3, 2009, Bitcoin’s first block, known as the “genesis block,” was mined. This marked the launch of the Bitcoin network, which kickstarted the cryptocurrency and blockchain movement.
Albeit the exact figures remain unclear, from January to July 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto is estimated to have mined over 1 million BTC. This means that at current Bitcoin prices, it is estimated that Satoshi Nakamoto is worth roughly $54 billion.
In other words, if the price of Bitcoin hits $182,000, this would put Nakamoto’s net worth at around $182 billion, which is higher than the current net worth of Bezos.
In 2010, Sergio Demian Lerner, a prominent cryptocurrency researcher, published a research paper estimating the BTC holdings of Satoshi Nakamoto.
By analyzing the early blocks that Satoshi mined, Lerner estimated that 1 million BTC is likely owned by Satoshi. He wrote:
“I estimate at eyesight that Satoshi fortune is around 1M Bitcoins, or 100M USD at current exchange rate. I’m sure there will be plenty of people that will carefully analyze the source data set and come up with the exact figure, which will be very close, but nevertheless they will scream at me again.”
Lerner’s analysis of the blocks Satoshi mined. Source: Sergio Lerner
Can the price of BTC hit $182,000?
While there are many price models that predict the price of Bitcoin to reach anywhere between $200,000 to $1 million, the most well-known model is the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model.
The S2F model forecasts the price of Bitcoin to hit $100,000 to a “conservative” $288,000 by the end of 2021, using a formula based on the relationship between the value of Bitcoin versus the existing supply (stock) and the amount of newly mined BTC entering the market (flow).
In November 2020, PlanB, the creator of the S2F model, said:
“People ask if I still believe in my model. To be clear: I have no doubt whatsoever that bitcoin S2FX is correct and bitcoin will tap $100K-288K before Dec 2021.”
The stock-to-flow model. Source: PlanB
If Bitcoin rises to as high as $288,000 as per the S2F model, Satoshi’s fortune would be worth around $288 billion, which should put the creator far out in front of Bezos and Musk.
Meanwhile, some other Bitcoin price predictions have been even higher for the current bull cycle. For instance, Bloomberg predicted that BTC could reach as high as $400,000 if it becomes a “risk-off” reserve asset.
However, the identity of Satoshi remains a mystery and it isn’t known whether the person(s) is even alive today. Industry experts have suggested the likes of Hal Finney, Adam Back, and Paul Le Roux as potential candidates, as well as others presuming that it could have been a group of individuals.
Liquidity mining is a marked and significant improvement over the investment mechanisms of ICOs, but is it here to stay?
By the end of 2018, many crypto skeptics had their “I told you so” moment, as many initial coin offerings, or ICOs, failed to deliver on their promises. Between 2017 and 2018, 3,250 projects were launched via ICO and $21.4 billion was collected from investors. But by early 2018, a study revealed that nearly half of 2017’s ICOs had failed — with another 13% considered “semi-failed” — dealing financial blows to coin purchasers anticipating gains. Many projects achieved very high returns initially, only to see coin values fall precipitously thereafter.
Related: Did you fall for it? 13 ICO scams that fooled thousands
It’s important to note that many other ICOs were successful, launching projects that are still thriving today (Chainlink being one such stalwart example). Despite the successes, however, investors have been hesitant to forget the less fortunate tales — over the past couple of years, ICOs have slowed to a trickle.
Perhaps skeptics celebrated a bit prematurely. While ICOs may not have proven to be the optimal funding mechanism for decentralized projects, the fundamental promise behind these innovations remains. Innovations continue, and a new methodology for bootstrapping — liquidity mining — has moved in to fill the gap.
Related: DeFi liquidity pools, explained
In liquidity mining, a project offers its tokens to anyone willing to deposit their funds into a smart contract. Let’s look at a hypothetical example: “Cranberry Finance” offers the liquidity provider token “Cranberry Coins” to any user who deposits Cranberry and Ether (ETH) on Uniswap. In addition to earning fees collected from each trade between Cranberry and ETH on Uniswap, everyone who stakes their liquidity provider tokens in a smart contract can earn more coins from the project. Depending on the price of Cranberry Coins, the rate of Cranberry rewards, and the amount of liquidity provided, the annualized returns from liquidity mining programs can range from double-digit yields on the lower end to annual percentage yields of over 10,000% for riskier projects.
The proliferation of both liquidity mining and decentralized finance, or DeFi, has surprised even eternal industry optimists (myself included). Today, the market capitalization for DeFi stands at over $80 billion, with a total value locked of over $67 billion (compared with the $5.4 billion raised by ICOs in all of 2017). While liquidity mining was only first implemented at scale in mid-2020, it is clear a new boom has been born.
For many though, questions remain: Will this boom eventually bust? Will investors looking for high yields once again be left holding the bag?
ICOs and liquidity mining share some elements in common: The onus is still on the investor, as it always is, to know what they are investing in and assume the risks (and the risks are real). But I believe the answer to the above questions is that there are fundamental differences between ICOs and liquidity mining, differences that make liquidity mining a more sustainable funding model for long-term value creation, for both the project developers and their investors. Let’s explore how ICOs and liquidity mining differ.
Contrasting the native elements: ICOs vs. liquidity mining
ICOs provided a mechanism for distributing tokens, gaining funding and building a coin user base. However, some of the flaws inherent in the system became evident. Investors typically saw high returns immediately following the ICO, but values often dropped thereafter. Because the tokens themselves conferred no legal rights, income-generating capabilities beyond the market value of the coin, nor governance over the project, there was little incentive for many to continue to hold tokens. Many investors took early gains and cashed out, which did little to support coin growth. Some ICO projects were proven to be scams, affected by hacks, or poorly conceived projects with inadequate management teams that spent invested capital on extravagances.
Liquidity mining operates on a fundamentally different principle. As trading volume on decentralized exchanges surpasses centralized exchanges, a token’s marketability is dependent on having sufficient liquidity on a decentralized exchange; yet, it can be a challenge to attract liquidity to support an exchange, derivatives contract, lending platform, etc. Distributing tokens to liquidity providers is the primary mechanism for initially inviting the needed liquidity. The tokens have more value than the face value of the coin by offering yield — and often governance rights — incentivizing both a sense of ownership in the project and longer-term retention. More liquidity attracts more users, and more users provide more financial payback to liquidity providers, creating a continuous positive feedback loop.
It’s also important to note that the characteristics of the growth of DeFi and the ICO bubble are quite different. While often unsavvy retail investors dove headfirst into the ICO boom cycle, we are seeing fewer investors with more highly specialized industry knowledge of the market embracing DeFi. That said, FOMO — the fear of missing out — is human nature. There will always be those who are so tempted by the potential gains, they can’t resist the urge to “ape” in.
Not all that glitters is gold: Thoroughly research projects
While I believe that liquidity mining and DeFi are, in general, based on solid fundamentals, not all projects are created equal. I am neither an investment advisor nor a tax attorney and can’t tell you which projects are more advisable than others.
I will, however, recommend that any investor understands full well what they are getting into. Each project has differing leadership, governance structures, marketing plans, innovations, security frameworks, and plans to build and incentivize community involvement. All of these factors are important to consider in any investment decision.
Gold, silver, crypto, DeFi: Change is inevitable but rarely linear
The history of what we consider currency — and the staccato pace of innovation — teaches us that change will continue, but not always in a predictable fashion. While the methods for gaining investments for blockchain projects have gone through some starts and stops, I believe liquidity mining is here to stay.
That isn’t to say another mechanism won’t eventually take its place if it proves to serve the community even better — after all, that is the essence of innovation.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Willy Ogorzaly is the senior product manager at ShapeShift, an international, noncustodial cryptocurrency leader. He is responsible for advancing product strategy, defining new features and solutions, and ensuring new products meet the needs of an evolving, innovative and dynamic crypto and DeFi landscape. Before joining ShapeShift, Willy co-founded Bitfract (acquired by ShapeShift in 2018), the first tool enabling trades from Bitcoin into multiple cryptocurrencies in a single transaction.
Brian Kelly is the founder and CEO of BKCM LLC, a cryptocurrency fund. While the world’s attention is focused on Bitcoin (BTC), he highlights Ethereum as a more reliable and promising investment asset.
“The fact that BTC is now the fastest growing and most expensive cryptocurrency does not mean that it will not be overtaken by another, more interesting competitor in the next 10 or15 years,” says Kelly.
So why Ethereum? Kelly identifies 3 main reasons why you should pay attention to the “second cryptocurrency” instead of the market leader.
1. “Ethereum futures are just around the corner”
Even considering that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decreed that Ethereum is not a stock, the introduction of ETH futures is quite possible, because there is already an Ethereum index, Kelly said.
“After the introduction of the ETH index, the value of the cryptocurrency soared by 30% in just a week. It is possible that if the futures are approved, the cryptocurrency will repeat or even surpass this growth,” he explains.
2. Cryptocurrency mining software
One of the main reasons why Bitcoin is worse than ETH is the terrible harm to the environment from “mining” of the first cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is mined using graphics cards, which, in the process, emit a huge carbon footprint, comparable in scale to a country like New Zealand.
At the same time, ETH is much more environmentally friendly, which is especially important in view of the upcoming UN meeting regarding the ecology, believes Kelly.
3. Ethereum is not just a currency
The third and perhaps the main feature of Ethereum is that it is not only an asset for saving or speculation, it is a whole “decentralized prediction market!”.
The decentralized and unregulated prediction platform Augur has been in development for about 3 years, the exact time is unknown. Its task is to analyze a huge amount of information (news, support and resistance levels, crowd behavior and a million more different factors) in order to produce unmistakable forecasts and signals for trading in the cryptocurrency market.
Although the platform is not ready yet, you can already find an unofficial project on the net that uses the Augur technology. Officially, the partnership between CryptoTrader and the Augur platform has not been confirmed, but the huge number of profit publications speaks for itself.
Here are some examples:
“Ethereum-linked platform gives recommendations on the purchase or sale of its own cryptocurrency. It sounds absurd, but it’s true!”, says Kelly.
“So far, the platform successfully predicts the movement of other currencies, as well. You can see for yourself”, says the investor.
“You can make money on speculation, but this is a big risk, you need to have knowledge and skills to predict cryptocurrency movements. I remain loyal to Ethereum cryptocurrency, so much so that 20% of my assets are invested in ETH. But now there is a more interesting and reliable option – CryptoTrader. I will continue to follow the development of this platform and its results. I can afford not to stretch for yield,” concluded Kelly.
However, anybody considering visiting a Bitcoin casino will appropriately have worries about wellbeing.
Gambling itself is a hazardous business, and there have been a few prominent hacks and burglaries in the cryptographic money market.
In spite of this, gambling with Bitcoin isn’t really pretty much as unsafe as you might suspect. It could even be contended it’s safer than gambling with fiat money.
Why utilize a Bitcoin casino?
Gambling with Bitcoin rather than regular monetary forms brings an entire host of benefits.
Perhaps the greatest advantage is the speed at which you can get to your rewards.
Creating a withdrawal in a traditional currency can take around seven days to finish because of the administration in question.
A Bitcoin withdrawal, then again, can be finished inside the space of minutes because there is no requirement for exchanges to be affirmed by an outsider.
Another advantage is low expenses. Since there is no outsider endorsement measure, clients can send and get Bitcoin immediately for an immaterial expense. This is an unmistakable difference to traditional online casinos, where move expenses can be high.
A few groups likewise like the protection that a Bitcoin free bonuses on allvideoslots. You can store, pull out, and play in complete namelessness.
Security
Despite the fact that hacks and burglaries are normal in the cryptographic money market, it merits calling attention to these are to a great extent restricted to crypto trades.
There still can’t seem to be a significant burglary at a Bitcoin casino. Indeed, Bitcoin casinos could be viewed as more secure than traditional casinos because of Bitcoin’s cryptographic nature.
Bitcoin exchanges are scrambled and confirmed a few times at various focuses on the organization. The private keys utilized in moves are amazingly extensive, making them difficult to decipher and, apparently, more secure than utilizing a Mastercard.
Spotting rebel casinos
Having said all that, there are acceptable and awful Bitcoin casinos out there – similarly as there are acceptable and awful traditional casinos.
There are at present three Bitcoin casinos on the ‘boycott’ at Casino.org: Euro Play Casino, Grand Reef, and Balzac Casino. They are considered risky because of issues, for example, obnoxious strategic policies, uncertain client issues, free gameplay in free mode, moderate installment time, and no data on licenses.
Given the plenty of Bitcoin casinos accessible, it merits doing your due persistence to guarantee you pick one you feel totally great with.
The principal thing to pay special mind to is legitimate accreditation and certificate. In the UK, that implies checking the Bitcoin casino has a permit from the UK Gambling Commission.
Generally protected and permit Bitcoin gambling administrators in the UK would likewise join forces with true capable gambling associations, like Game Care or Gamblers Anonymous.
Different strides to incorporate understanding audits and evaluations from free survey locales, exploring the invite reward cautiously, guaranteeing games are fueled by trustworthy programming suppliers, and searching for a casino with a huge assortment of games.
You may likewise need to go with a casino that offers a framework called ‘probably reasonable’. This is an apparatus that empowers you to confirm each move result and guarantee you’re not being cheated by the casino.
Beginning
Whenever you’ve discovered a Bitcoin casino you trust, you’ll need to set up a Bitcoin wallet to store your Bitcoin reserves.
Wallets come in three structures: online, programming (disconnected), and equipment. It’s essentially all around acknowledged that equipment wallets are the most secure type of wallet while online wallets are simpler to utilize.
Whenever you have your wallet set up, you can set aside your installment by entering the online casino address in your wallet. The supports will show up in your casino balance in practically no time, and you would then be able to begin playing.
End
In principle, a Bitcoin casino isn’t any less protected than a traditional online casino – and from numerous points of view, it could really be safer.
The main thing to check is that the site is respectable – this is particularly imperative given the unknown, irreversible nature of Bitcoin. Luckily, there are heaps of autonomous survey locales that can assist you with evaluating every casino’s authenticity.
With the advantages that Bitcoin gambling offers – namelessness, rapid stores and withdrawals, low charges, and provably reasonable gaming – it’s not difficult to perceive any reason why Bitcoin casinos are getting on quick.
As Q1 2021 rolls towards its inevitable close, all eyes are on Bitcoin and its crypto brethren. Will the market hold onto its remarkable gains for the first quarter of 2021? Will the market crash in Q2, shedding exponential percentage points in an ever-dipping barrage of red candlesticks? Is all this speculation just fueled by hype, or can the crypto market gain enough traction to come to rival the established institutional stock and commodity markets?
These are the questions that define the cryptocurrency community in 2021, and these are the questions that mainstream media outlets, venture-capitalist billionaires and institutional investors want answered. But, answering these questions is nearsighted, and the future of cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi), and the crypto-revolution will have little to do with the profits produced during Q1 2021. Right now, the cryptoverse has developed some seriously speculative “gain-fever”, and the potential of swelling marketcaps has stolen the show away from the fundamental purpose of blockchain technology.
The truth is, cryptocurrency technology was never meant to post quarterly gains. The idea of getting rich by speculating on the market value of utility tokens or decentralized currencies is just a side effect of the real purpose of cryptocurrency technology. Crypto was invented to fix money, not to make money. I won’t bore you with the “ideologies” that fueled the early crypto-boom, you’ll just have to trust me when I say that blockchain technology was invented to bring financial security to an entire planet through radical change. How, you ask? By eliminating centralized banks and poisonous government policies, not by giving retail and institutional investors yet another market to be manipulated for their benefit, only to have the value liquidated back into broken fiat currencies.
So, if you really want to know if Q1 2021 means anything, you must forget about the moon, your next lambo, or what Elon Musk thinks about anything, and examine the idea that spawned Bitcoin in the first place: Unbanking the planet.
Banking the Unbanked – The First Step
According to a 2019 report from the US Federal Reserve, some 22% of American adults are either “Unbanked” or “Underbanked”. These terms define a subsection of the population that either relies solely on cash transactions, or supplements their lack of financial inclusion via payday loan services, pawnshop loans, paycheck advances, tax refund advances, or auto title loans.
Zooming out to the global picture, a whopping 1.7 billion adults were unbanked as of 2017, according to the World Bank’s Global Findex report. This means that almost a ¼ of the world’s population lacks the means to access the credit services, savings security, digital value transfer services, or other financial tools needed to effectively bootstrap themselves out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
As we can see in the above chart from the “FDIC’s National Survey of the Unbanked and Underbanked” the primary reason individuals are unbanked is a simple lack of capital. Not having enough money makes you unbankable in the eyes of profit-focused bankers. Interestingly, low income is followed closely behind by a slough of reasons including mistrust of banking institutions, privacy concerns, high or unpredictable account fees, and ID problems. It would seem that while not having enough money to open a bank account is a direct result of banks gatekeeping the impoverished out of the financial system, many of the unbanked choose to remain unbanked because of a much more fundamental reason; mistrust of banks and their unfair practices.
This is where crypto and decentralized finance come in. You may have heard the word “trustless” thrown around while you were scanning subreddits and “top gainer” lists in your most recent quest for the next shitcoin to bet your stimulus check on, but the cryptoverse has largely lost sight of this term, and how revolutionary it truly is. “Trustless” means what it sounds like it means, ie. you don’t need to trust one single entity with your value transactions, the whereabouts of your money, your access to your money, or how it is used while stored in the bank. Instead, blockchains and cryptographic algorithms provide a network that allows trust to be distributed amongst all members of a network, such as the miners, stakeholders, consumers, and developers. Simply, crypto-adoption will make you your own bank.
This trustless ecosystem is far better than the centralized monetary ecosystem we use today, as the “rules” that govern it are not designed to benefit a single, centralized party (like a government or bank), but rather designed to maintain consensus and trust in the network and to give everyone the freedom to bank on their own terms. This idea boils down to an alternative way to bank, one that utilizes simple communication technologies like the internet, LAN, or even SMS to allow individuals to use and store value on a decentralized ledger, in a cold storage wallet, without the need to be vetted by a “gatekeeper” institution or government.
The unbanked populations of the planet will be ground zero for the application of decentralized currencies and DeFi banking services. With any luck, by Q4 2021, the swelling market caps of the top cryptocurrencies will fund the first real applications of these technologies, as proof-of-concept becomes the only way for projects to maintain their value when the speculative fervor subsides.
We can see how trustless technologies solve many of the stated problems facing the world’s unbanked populations, and while one could delve deep into the nuances of the many iterations of the technologies that are popping up as the blockchain / DeFi space explodes with innovation, it is easy to see that the potential to bring financial inclusion to the unbanked is achievable through the development of DeFi services. But why stop at bringing the unbanked into the DeFi ecosystem? Why not do away with banks entirely?
Unbanking the Banked – The Revolution
The “moonbois” and John Mcafees of the world are not really the spokespeople we need to spur the true crypto revolution. The aforementioned individuals could care less if banks treat us fairly, or if governments are fiscally responsible, or if transactional data for taxpayer money is transparent on a public ledger. The Cryptonauts of Q1 2021 only care about one thing; gains. But, generating wealth for a downtrodden generation isn’t the crypto-revolution we need, it’s just some mutated crypto-mantra fueled by greed. The real crypto revolution entails getting people off of fiat currencies, forever.
In order to achieve this, cryptocurrencies and DeFi technologies need to offer a stable, reliable form of value, something that cannot be achieved so long as Bitcoin and Alts are traded like pogs at a 1990’s 6th birthday party. So long as “marketcap vs circulating supply” is the defining factor for the success of a cryptocurrency, and not transaction fees, network performance, or scalability, we will never see adoption truly take off, and thus, we will never see the unbanked or the banked enabled to switch from fiat to crypto.
Decentralized Finance – How Do We Get From Here to There?
If the point of decentralized blockchain technology is trustless finance and not speculative markets, how do we convince governments, bankers, and consumers to make the switch? The answer is simple but surprising – we don’t, they are convincing themselves. Right now, money is flowing into Bitcoin and alts from every direction as institutions and individuals gamble on the speculative value of these technologies, causing immense volatility – but behind the scenes, fundamentals are solidifying.
In a January 2021 interview with Forbes, Marshall Hayner, the CEO and founder of digital asset payment solution Metal Pay, said he thinks BTC has entered a fourth stage of adoption:
Bitcoin has reached all-time highs over the past few months, and with this meteoric rise, institutions, hedge funds, and major corporations have begun to add digital assets to their balance sheet. As the oldest, most liquid, and most well-known cryptocurrency, bitcoin is rapidly becoming a hedge against rampant inflation of fiat currency (USD, EUR) – This is what I’m calling ‘the fourth wave’ of cryptocurrency adoption. The first three waves were exuberance, speculation, utility and finally acceptance.
– Marshall Hayner, CEO of Metal Pay
While I feel it is too early to say we have transcended the “utility” phase of adoption, I agree with Hayner – we are certainly seeing acceptance, and that is a big deal.
As big players like PayPal, Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, MicroStrategy, JP Morgan, and a plethora of others begin to store value in Bitcoin, the utility of the token is becoming apparent. Bitcoin is a great tool to store value. It might never become the “electronic currency” it was meant to be, but the fundamental principles beneath it make Bitcoin the perfect financial tool for storing value. When the dust settles, speculators will be rewarded with their very own piece of one of the greatest stores of value ever discovered, whether or not this utility justifies today’s explosive BTC valuations is yet to be seen.
With Bitcoin enticing an influx of capital into the greater crypto-market, emerging DeFi technologies, represented by their own digital tokens, are finding the traction they need to develop their platforms and showcase the potential of blockchain tech. At some point, the bubble and hype will subside, leaving behind an established DeFi ecosystem, and a wasteland of bad ideas, Ponzi schemes, and broken dreams. Q1 might be the height of speculative mania, but somewhere beneath it all, there is a shortlist of viable projects that are building the underpinnings of a financial revolution unlike the world has ever seen.
A popular Instagram personality has been charged in the U.S., accused of stealing bitcoins worth millions of dollars from his followers. He allegedly convinced the “victims to sell him their bitcoin at attractive, but inflated, values” but he never wired them the money for the coins sent to him.
Instagram Influencer’s Bitcoin Scam
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday that a popular Instagram personality known as “Jay Mazini” has been charged with wire fraud related to a bitcoin scam. The Justice Department wrote:
A complaint was filed in federal court in Brooklyn yesterday charging Jegara Igbara, also known as ‘Jay Mazini,’ with wire fraud related to a scheme in which the defendant allegedly induced victims to send him bitcoin by falsely claiming to have sent wire transfers of cash in exchange for the bitcoin.
The DOJ explained that “In reality, Igbara never sent the money, and stole at least $2.5 million worth of bitcoin from victims.”
Acting U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko described that Igbara “used his immense social media popularity to dupe his followers into selling him bitcoin … at attractive, but inflated, values.” IRS-CI Special Agent-in-Charge Jonathan Larsen similarly noted that “This defendant allegedly used his online popularity to defraud those seeking to exchange bitcoin for cash above the market value.”
According to the complaint, up until March this year, “Igbara, under the name ‘Jay Mazini,’ maintained a popular Instagram account with nearly one million followers where he would post videos depicting himself handing out large amounts of cash to individuals as gifts.” The DOJ detailed:
Beginning in or around January 2021, Igbara began posting videos to his Instagram account offering to buy bitcoin from other Instagram users at prices 3.5% to 5% over market value.
“Igbara claimed that he was willing to pay above-market prices because the traditional bitcoin exchanges were limiting how much bitcoin he could purchase,” the Justice Department added.
When the victims agreed to the sale, Igbara “sent them documents that included images of purported wire transfer confirmation pages that falsely confirmed Igbara had sent a wire transfer for the promised amounts,” the complaint details. The victims then transferred their bitcoin to Igbara but “the promised wire transfers never arrived.”
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney pointed out that “There was nothing philanthropic about the bitcoin transactions Igbara engaged in with his victims,” emphasizing that a quick online search “will reveal an entirely different image of this multimillion-dollar scammer.”
This investigation is still ongoing, and the authorities urge anyone who thinks they may have been a victim of this scheme to file a complaint with the FBI. If convicted, Igbara faces up to 20 years in prison.
What do you think about this bitcoin scam case? Let us know in the comments section below.
Bitcoin has pulled back from the recent highs above the $60,000 level, but the pullback has been limited and the coin traded at $58,300 on Monday. The coin could move higher again this week, but risk markets are on alert over bond yields after the Fed’s inaction saw them test the 1.70% level. Recent talk of stimulus billions flowing into BTC has not seen a big move in the coin and this could be down to its recent surge, with investors looking around for larger risk/reward plays.
Securities and Exchange Commissioner Hester Peirce talked of regulation on a virtual conference call last week, saying that “evidence-based rulemaking is not yet the norm in crypto-regulation”.
Peirce was talking to an event hosted by the British Blockchain Association. According to a transcript, Peirce displayed a positive stance on cryptocurrencies, noting that authorities spend too much time focusing on the “illicit” use of the technology.
Perhaps, government officials should pause to consider the flip side of crypto—its value in protecting people from illicit activity. Because of its ability to reach people without intermediaries and its ease of storage, transport, and access, crypto can be an important part of the survival story of people living under the threat of harm by their families, people in their communities, or repressive governments.
The comments come after recent statements from the former head of the CFTC, and incoming head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Gary Gensler, who is also seen as “pro-crypto”.
Gensler said:
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have brought new thinking to payments and financial inclusion, but they’ve also raised new issues of investor protection that we still need to attend to. If confirmed at the SEC, I’d work with fellow commissioners to both promote the new innovation, but also at the core to ensure investor protection.
It is likely that some form of action will come soon after ECB Chief Christine Lagarde previously called for “global regulation” on the industry. Last week saw a sell-off in BTC on rumours that the Indian government was set to ban cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin could make a move for the $60k level again this week but US GDP on Thursday, followed by inflation on Friday could bring the risk of a pullback with stocks.
XRP
XRP was facing its own brush with regulators over the claim that XRP is a security issued by Ripple- a claim which the developers refute. The coin is up almost 10% on Monday after lawyers from the SEC suggested that the exchanges which de-listed XRP, would be able to relist the coin without violating guidelines.
The recent discovery hearing into the case saw the agency saying that “only Ripple and affiliates of Ripple” could have illegally sold the coin. This was in response to a judge’s statement that everyone who sold XRP, including retail investors, would be selling illegal securities. The SEC lawyer rejected this notion and responded on the record by saying:
No, under Section 4, only Ripple and affiliates of Ripple can have sold XRP illegally. Listen again, the SEC said that only Ripple and employees of Ripple can illegally sell XRP.
This means that only the Ripple employees and executives would be violating regulations by selling the coin and it could give reassurance to exchanges such as Coinbase, which suspended trading in XRP. It has been suggested that XRP whales, which make up the top 0.01% of XRP holders, have added 37.5 million XRP in response to the latest comments.
The XRP coin was a long-time holder of the third-largest coin spot, but it has recently dropped to the seventh spot.
XRP Price Index
The price of XRP is seeing support, with a move to the $0.55 level and this could build on the recent news if exchanges look to relist the coin. XRP is still below its November high around $0.78 and has missed out on the gains of other coins in the recent Bitcoin-driven rally.
BTT
BTT Price Index
BitTorrent was one of the best performing coins on the week with a 118% rally. The move adds to gains seen from mid-February, where the coin traded at $0.0005 but has vaulted to $0.0035, for a gain of 300%.
One of the drivers for the coin was the inclusion of BTT in a Binance trading competition of Justin Sun’s projects, which the Tron founder tweeted to followers.
Sun’s Tron Foundation acquired BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer file-sharing software, in 2018. The BTT token runs on the Tron protocol and users of the BitTorrent network are rewarded for sharing files. Another recent boost for BTT has been a coming addition to the DLive streaming community, which is a blockchain home for content creators and viewers. BTT will soon be available on DLive for gifts, subscriptions, and user rewards.
BitTorrent is now ranked at number 32 in the list of coins with a market cap of $3.5bn.
ADA
Cardano’s ADA coin saw an 18% gain on the week after it was revealed that the coin was now trading on Coinbase Pro and the retail exchange.
Founder Charles Hoskinson said of the news:
This marks another significant milestone in the development of Cardano, allowing Coinbase’s extensive user base to access ADA for the first time.
Cardano fans have long been calling for a Coinbase listing and it adds another element to the volumes in ADA. The listing on the Pro exchange could be a game-changer for the coin as professionals rotate out of coins like BTC and ETH.
Cardano briefly held the number three spot in the list of coins by market cap, but it has been nudged lower to fifth by BNB and Tether. ADA has a market cap of $38 billion, while Binance Coin has a $3bn advantage. The coin’s arrival on Coinbase could see it take the number three spot again in the near future.
ADA Price Index
The coin is seeing resistance at the $1.40 level and it could pullback with BTC if stock markets move lower.
This article explores the concept of crypto volatility and why volatility is important in the growing cryptocurrency market.
The great market crash in 2018 is a hard lesson for many in the cryptocurrency market on the extreme volatility of cryptocurrencies. Within a space of 2 years, the prices of cryptocurrencies have vigorously fluctuation from end to end, with many considering cryptocurrencies to be a highly unstable market full of speculation and uncertainty. The first and largest cryptocurrency based on market capitalization – Bitcoin – experienced massive growth in 2017, growing from $700 to almost $20,000! That’s a staggering 27,000% rate of return in merely 12 months.
It is no surprise that many jumped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. However, the market soon became too unstable once it grew to massive levels, and thereafter experienced a massive collapse for the whole of 2018. The market capitalization of cryptocurrencies fell from an all-time high of $813 billion to a mere $100 billion, with the general prices of all coins falling close to 90%.
Cryptocurrencies are seen as a complex, disruptive and elegant technology that has made lots of people rich. It is therefore not surprising that many are attracted to the allure and risky state of cryptocurrencies.
Let us explore the important market concept of volatility and how it is an integral component in the cryptocurrency market.
(See more: 4 Types of Coins to Diversify Your Crypto Portfolio & Manage Risks)
What is Volatility
In traditional finance, volatility is defined as the statistical measure of dispersion of an asset’s price. Simply put, volatility describes the extent to which an asset’s price fluctuates over time. An investment is considered volatile if its prices move aggressively up or down daily, as can be seen in the cryptocurrency market. Here’s an illustration of volatility:
Low-volatile assets such as gold or government bonds are extremely stable, with prices fluctuating in a steady manner and doesn’t change as frequently. High-volatile assets, on the other hand, moves up and down in value rapidly and more aggressively.
(Read also: Will A Crash in Bitcoin’s Price Lead to Its Demise?)
Volatility and Risk
Volatility is a vital concept to understand since it measures risks. For investors and traders, understanding their risk tolerance is always the first step before engaging in any form of investments. Different individuals possess a different level of risk tolerance, and this affects their choice of investments. For instance, a 50-year-old retired pensioner would probably have a very low-risk tolerance since their main priority would be to preserve their wealth. The types of investments they would be looking at would be pension funds, mutual funds, low-yielding government bonds or highly-stable blue-chip stocks that pay-out a sizable dividend income. Alternatively, a 25-year-old fresh from university would probably have higher risk tolerance and would consider investing in riskier investments that include cryptocurrencies and technology stocks.
Here’s a look at the varying levels of risk appetite.
It must be mentioned that the level of risks that one chooses to undertake is highly correlated to the potential returns that he would acquire. In other words, a higher risk investment is associated with a greater probability of generating higher returns while a low-risk investment would yield a smaller rate of returns. This is called the risk-return trade-off.
The varying levels of risks associated with different investments require you to understand your risk tolerance and then proceed to assess if the volatility of the asset you’re interested to invest in is aligned to your risk profile. Cryptocurrencies are the riskiest asset that you can put your hard-earned money on; it can give you a significant rate of returns but conversely, you must be prepared for the possibility of a huge loss, given the extreme volatility of cryptocurrency prices. We have already seen the aftereffects of the 2018 market crash where prices tumbled by close to 90%.
(See also: Is it Too Late to Buy Bitcoin and Is It too Late to Invest in Cryptocurrency?)
What Causes Volatility in the Cryptocurrency Market?
There are multiple reasons that contribute to the highly volatile and unstable environment. Let’s take a look at the major factors.
1) Infant Market
A young market backed by a new technology would be much more volatile than traditional investments that are mature and have been time-tested. Just as when the internet was a revolutionary back in the 1990s and Internet-related companies were generating significant rates of returns, the cryptocurrency market is currently in a similar cycle. New technologies take time to be perfected and adopted by the general masses, and there is a high risk of failure since there are many things that can go wrong. The possibility of future disruptions and adoption creates the perceived value in the market, which is primarily fueled by speculation due to the absence of solid, quantifiable metrics relating to the technology’s fundamentals.
Since cryptocurrencies haven’t reached mass adoption, its values is still fueled by hype and speculation. That is why they possess a high risk-return trade-off.
(Read more: A Guide To Fundamental Analysis For Cryptocurrencies)
2) Low Liquidity (relative to other markets)
Liquidity refers to the ease of buying or selling an asset in the open market. A market with a high volume of transactions with a vibrant number of market participants (buyers and sellers) is known as a highly liquid market. Unfortunately, the relative infancy of the cryptocurrency market means that its liquidity is currently very low. Looking at the trading pairs of many coins, you can see that the daily trading volume is nothing as compared to the values of other traditional investments such as the stock markets.
(Source: InsiderPRO)
A low liquidity market – such as the cryptocurrency market – is easily susceptible to sudden and aggressive fluctuations in prices, since a single large order can move the markets and send the price soaring or crash in an instant. This is because there is an insufficient number of market participants and orders in the market to buffer against potentially large orders that can move the markets. Additionally, market manipulation is extremely rife in a low-liquidity environment. The relatively low liquidity of the cryptocurrency market makes it a hotbed for volatile price swings.
(See more: Guide to Cryptocurrency Liquidity: How to Measure Liquidity & Trade Well)
3) Unregulated Markets
The cryptocurrency market is largely unregulated due to the complexity and the difficulty in regulating an open-source and decentralized technology. With an absence of regulations, there is an influx of bad actors that would manipulate the markets since there is no supervision. There have been frequent numerous reports on the entities explicitly manipulating the cryptocurrency markets. They can range from a coordinated pump-and-dump scheme by a collective to the manipulation of trading volume by cryptocurrency exchanges.
Market manipulation makes the general market unstable and highly volatile since the large orders created by these entities with the intent of manipulation would significantly cause sharp fluctuations in the market. This will induce panic and will lead to even more chaos and volatility, given that the cryptocurrency market is easily moved by news and sentiments.
(Read more: Understanding SEC Regulations on ICOs: What You Should Know)
4) Speculation
In an infant market with no regulations, the only thing driving the values of cryptocurrencies is speculation. Normally, the value of any asset is dependent on its utility and adoption. At the moment, speculation is rife since it is extremely difficult – almost impossible – to quantify the values of any cryptocurrency based on traditional fundamental analysis. Therefore, the best way to value any coin or token is to speculatively bet on the future use cases, adoption and traction of a coin instead of fundamental metrics which are currently unquantifiable.
The cryptocurrency has often been seen as a hotbed for speculation, which induces market instability. This creates an environment filled with tremendous risks.
(See more: Dangers in Cryptocurrency Investing)
Is Volatility Good?
Volatility means different things to different people in the markets. It all depends on a person’s tolerance for risk. A risk-averse individual would avoid high-volatility investments since they are more concerned about stability and preserving their wealth. Those who participate in the cryptocurrency market are considered to be risk-takers. In fact, close to 60% of Bitcoin buyers are aged between 15-34-year-olds. It is also interesting to point out that males significantly dominate the cryptocurrency market by over 70%.
(Source: Bloomberg)
These statistics prove that young millennials are more attracted to high-risk investments such as cryptocurrencies, as compared to their older counterparts. A more volatile market generates bigger price moves, which in turn may provide greater opportunities to earn a tremendous rate of returns on investments. Lesser volatility equates to lesser price movements and therefore, a lower probability of earning the desired returns. The ability to potentially make significant amounts of money is perhaps the biggest draw for many investing in cryptocurrencies. The sheer volatility of the market allows for the potential of higher returns, presenting a great opportunity for traders and investors to exploit the volatility of the market to make money in any direction of the market.
(Read also: Guide on Identifying Scam Coins)
How Do We Measure Volatility?
There are several indicators in the market that measures the volatility of cryptocurrencies. Out of that, thereare a sizeable number of indicators that measure the volatility of only Bitcoin since it is the largest cryptocurrency in the market and represents a credible indicator for the rest of the market in general. Let’s take a look at the different volatility indicators:
1) BuyBitcoinWorldwide Bitcoin Volatility Index
BuyBitcoinWorldWide provides the volatility for Bitcoin, measuring the standard deviation of Bitcoin’s prices. Standard deviation represents the variation of a set of values (in this case, prices). A higher standard deviation means that Bitcoin is more volatile since its prices are much more spread out.
2) Bitvol Bitcoin Volatility Index
Bitvol.info tracks the volatility of Bitcoin on a percentage basis, as can be seen above. There are metrics for 30-day, 60-day, 120-day an252-dayay volatility measurements for Bitcoin.
3) Bitgur Volatility Index
Bitgur volatility index measures the top 10 largest cryptocurrency according to market capitalization. It is one of the few index that measures the volatility of other cryptocurrencies. Unlike the first two indexes, the Bitgur index uses a range from 0-100; a volatility figure closer to 100% signify a higher level of volatility.
(See also: Guide to Forks: Everything You Need to Know About Forks, Hard Fork and Soft Fork
Summing It All Up
Volatility is an important market concept for any investor or trader to understand before engaging in different types of investments. The cryptocurrency market is a highly volatile market that is a double-edge sword; it has the potential to generate massive amounts of returns but you also face a high risk of losing a significant amount of capital. Ultimately, you should be aware of your own risk appetite to assess if you’re prepared for the worrying level of risks that the market has to offer.
(You might also be interested in: Cryptocurrency Guides: Comprehensive List of Crypto Guides For Beginners)
Beneficial Resources To Get You Started
If you’re starting your journey into the complex world of cryptocurrencies, here’s a list of useful resources and guides that will get you on your way:
Trading & Exchange
Crypto Guide 101: Choosing The Best Cryptocurrency Exchange
Guide to Bittrex Exchange: How to Trade on Bittrex
Guide to Binance Exchange: How to Open Binance Account and What You Should Know
Guide to Etherdelta Exchange: How to Trade on Etherdelta
Guide To Cryptocurrency Trading Basics: Introduction to Crypto Technical Analysis
Cryptocurrency Trading: Understanding Cryptocurrency Trading Pairs & How it Works
Crypto Trading Guide: 4 Common Pitfalls Every Crypto Trader Will Experience
Wallets
Guide to Cryptocurrency Wallets: Why Do You Need Wallets?
Guide to Cryptocurrency Wallets: Opening a Bitcoin Wallet
Guide to Cryptocurrency Wallets: Opening a MyEtherWallet (MEW)
Read also: Crypto Trading Guide: 4 Common Pitfalls Every Crypto Trader Will Experience and Guide To Cryptocurrency Trading Basics: Introduction to Crypto Technical Analysis.
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Enroll in our Free Cryptocurrency Webinar now to learn everything you need to know about crypto investing.
Get our exclusive e-book which will guide you on the step-by-step process to get started with making money via Cryptocurrency investments!
You can also join our Facebook group at Master The Crypto: Advanced Cryptocurrency Knowledge to ask any questions regarding cryptocurrencies.
Aziz, Master the Crypto Founder
I’m Aziz, a seasoned cryptocurrency trader who’s really passionate about 2 things; #1) the awesome-revolutionary blockchain technology underlying crypto and #2) helping make bitcoin great ‘again’!
The post Crypto Volatility: Why Volatility is Important in the Cryptocurrency Market appeared first on Master The Crypto.
This guide looks at the different category of cryptocurrency market, focusing on the ninth category which represents decentralized, data storage coins. This is the ninth part of the series that breaks down the crypto market into 12 major categories.
This article looks at the ninth category in the Top 100 of the cryptocurrency market, which features the different types of coins that are backed by a decentralized, data storage network.
Ninth Market Category: Decentralized Data Storage Coins
It is no surprise that traditional data storage is often handled by large companies like Facebook and Google that manage centralized servers capable of storing massive amount of data. There’s no denying that a centralized data storage architecture is extremely efficient. However, centralized databases are always vulnerable to network failure due to hacks or data breaches. A centralized system is prone to a single-point-of-failure attack which will compromise the entire network. With numerous high-profile data breaches suffered from giants like Facebook and Equifax, blockchain technology offers a transparent and secure architecture for data storage.
An open-source, decentralized data storage network makes loss of data almost impossible by distributing your files to numerous nodes (computers) that hold tiny pieces of your data. Many nodes maintain copies of the same file, which significantly reduces a single-point-of-failure scenario A distributed architecture makes the network much more secure.
Let’s take a look at the different coins that are focused on data storage:
(See also: Guide to Blockchain Protocols: Comparison of Major Protocol Coins)
Byteball (GBYTE)
Byteball is a decentralized data storage network built on Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG), which uses a distributed technology that is different than blockchain technology. DAGs are much more scalable compared to traditional blockchains, using a liner structure that enables high-performance, fast transactions. Byteball offers immutable, tamper-proof data storage for any type of data. A unique feature of Byteball is its conditional payment structure that leverages on customizable smart contracts, which opens the door to an extensive array of use cases for businesses.
Additionally, Byteball facilitates the storage and transfer of a wide variety of asset class that include stocks, bonds and currencies. It is also worth mentioning that Byteball allows payments to be private and anonymous.
(Read more: Analyzing Cryptocurrency Risk: Existing Coins vs ICO)
Siacoin (SC)
Siacoin is an open-source cloud storage platform that is the decentralized version of legacy storage providers like Amazon, Dropbox and Microsoft. Siacoin is a peer-to-peer storage network that work by distributing encrypted files to thousands of users (clients) who get paid for renting out their disk space. Siacoin allows anyone to rent out their hard disk space and earn native tokens for their service. Transactions on the Sia ecosystem is secured by filing contracts (smart contracts that define the rules of engagement between the host and user) and storage proofs (cryptographic proof of stored data). In comparison to its centralized competitors, Sia is a much cheaper alternative and allows for a more secure network that can facilitate private transactions.
Sia works similar to Storj, with the main difference that Sia has its own native blockchain with smart contract functionalities.
(See also: Crypto Beginners Guide: 5 Things Crypto Newbies Should Know)
Maidsafecoin (MAID)
MaidSafe is a decentralized data management network that stands for Massive Array of Internet Disks, Secure Access for Everyone. Maid has a more generic focus of decentralizing the internet and uses a novel technology called Proof-of-Resource (POR), which allows transactions to be verified without the need to know the underlying data. Users in the Maid network are rewarded with native tokens by contributing computing resources – in the form of processing power, disk space and connectivity – to store chunks of encrypted data.
Maidsafe is one of the oldest cryptocurrency projects in the cryptocurrency market but progresses slower than the rest of its competitors.
(Read also: Guide to Market Capitalization: Everything You Need to Know About Market Cap)
Storj (STORJ)
Storj is a decentralized cloud storage network that is perhaps the leader in the space. Storj boasts a significant community of users (uploaders) and farmers (storage providers). The Storj network facilitate fast, cheap and private transactions suing sharding, where encrypted files are shredded into smaller pieces (called ‘shards’) and stored in a distributed manner across many nodes in the network. Shredding significantly increases the security of the network since no one node would have a complete copy of the entire data structure, since they are divided into smaller shards and distributed across the network.
Storj is now working towards a reputation-based system for storage providers (farmers) that will give priority to honest farmers.
(You might also be interested in: Guide to Cryptocurrency Liquidity: Understanding Liquidity & Its Importance)
Beneficial Resources To Get You Started
If you’re starting your journey into the complex world of cryptocurrencies, here’s a list of useful resources and guides that will get you on your way:
Trading& Exchange
Crypto Guide 101: Choosing The Best Cryptocurrency Exchange
Guide to Bittrex Exchange: How to Trade on Bittrex
Guide to Binance Exchange: How to Open Binance Account and What You Should Know
Guide to Etherdelta Exchange: How to Trade on Etherdelta
Guide To Cryptocurrency Trading Basics: Introduction to Crypto Technical Analysis
Cryptocurrency Trading: Understanding Cryptocurrency Trading Pairs & How it Works
Crypto Trading Guide: 4 Common Pitfalls Every Crypto Trader Will Experience
Wallets
Guide to Cryptocurrency Wallets: Why Do You Need Wallets?
Guide to Cryptocurrency Wallets: Opening a Bitcoin Wallet
Guide to Cryptocurrency Wallets: Opening a MyEtherWallet (MEW)
Read also: Crypto Trading Guide: 4 Common Pitfalls Every Crypto Trader Will Experience and Guide To Cryptocurrency Trading Basics: Introduction to Crypto Technical Analysis.
Enroll in our Free Cryptocurrency Webinar now to learn everything you need to know about crypto investing.
Get our exclusive e-book which will guide you on the step-by-step process to get started with making money via Cryptocurrency investments!
You can also join our Facebook group at Master The Crypto: Advanced Cryptocurrency Knowledge to ask any questions regarding cryptos!
Aziz, Master the Crypto Founder
I’m Aziz, a seasoned cryptocurrency trader who’s really passionate about 2 things; #1) the awesome-revolutionary blockchain technology underlying crypto and #2) helping make bitcoin great ‘again’!
The post Category of Cryptocurrency Market: Decentralized Data Storage Coins appeared first on Master The Crypto.
On Friday, the publicly listed firm Hut 8 announced the purchase of $30 million worth of Nvidia’s dedicated crypto mining GPUs called the Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP). Nvidia CMPs mine the crypto asset ethereum and Hut 8 expects its aggregate operational power will be 1,600 gigahash.
Hut 8 Purchases $30 Million Worth of Nvidia’s Dedicated GPU Miners
On the heels of joining Foundry’s U.S. bitcoin mining pool, the firm Hut 8 Mining (TSX: HUT) revealed it has purchased $30 million worth of Nvidia CMPs. The Nvidia CMP HX product is described as a “dedicated GPU for professional mining.”
Nvidia’s web portal also details that the miner supports mining on the Ethereum (ETH) network and claims to be optimized for high performance. Nvidia CMPs offer four different versions which include the 30HX, 40HX, 50HX, and 90HX. The top Nvidia CMP claims to obtain 86 MH/s while the low-end version does around 26 MH/s.
Hut 8 details that with the purchase of the new Nvidia CMPs, the company will get “approximately 1,600 gigahash” and miner alternative blockchains. The firm aims to expand its mining business while “maintaining the benefit of payouts in bitcoin.”
Hut 8’s Bold Moves
The CEO of Hut 8, Jaime Leverton, said that the company looks forward to adding the new CMPs to the fleet. The Hut 8 executive hopes the purchase will allow the mining operation to continue “long- and short-term plans for increased and diversified revenue streams.”
“The adoption and the development of applications interacting with various blockchain networks have never been stronger, opening many possibilities across a variety of industries,” Leverton said.
Hut 8 refers to the purchase as a “bold move” as the company has invested in a great number of bitcoin miners in recent times. In June 2020 the company announced the acquisition of 275PH/s of mining capacity.
The following month it was revealed that the fund manager Fidelity International holds a stake in Hut 8. However, before the crypto bull run took off, in August the Canadian miner reported that second-quarter revenue dropped in comparison to the year prior.
What do you think about Hut 8 purchasing $30 million worth of Nvidia CMPs? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) announced the indictment of famous Instagrammer, Jegara Igbara, popularly known as “Jay Manzini”, in a Wednesday release.
Manzini Gets $2.5 Million Worth Of BTC
According to the agency, the 25-year old allegedly duped his followers of millions in Bitcoin. The DoJ is charging him with wire fraud after the accused deceived victims into parting with their digital assets.
The DoJ said that Jay Manzini carved up a reputable status by posting videos of him giving out cash to random people on the road and promoting his business ventures. This behavior made him popular, as people flocked to his pages on account of his supposed benevolence.
Manzini began soliciting Bitcoin from his one million followers, saying the regular crypto exchanges were unwilling to satisfy his BTC demand.
He promised to pay 3.5 to 5% more than the present BTC market value to induce his victims. The illicit activity began in or around January 2021, and until his subsequent arrest in March, he was able to make over $2.5 million from his criminal activities.
When his victims eventually transferred the BTC asset, they did not get the promised ROI. According to the DoJ investigation, Manzini was able to convince his victims by posting fake receipts of bank wire transfer.
Federal investigators also conducted a check into his bank account and discovered that Manzini never had the cash equivalent for the Bitcoin he fraudulently obtained from his victims.
Manzini, who is scheduled to appear in the Eastern District of New York, is just one of a growing number of criminals seizing on the crypto wave to defraud ignorant crypto owners.
Crypto Growth Attracting Criminals
A recent report from fraud prevention company Bolster discovered that over 400,000 crypto scams were in operation in 2020. The information which showed a 40% increase from 2019 predicted a 75% increase in 2021.
Bolster said cryptocurrencies surge played a pivotal role as criminals were attracted to the growth of digital assets like Bitcoin. Bitcoin, which made a significant ATH of $61,000 about a week ago, has become synonymous with crypto.
Per the report, these criminal masterminds even go as far as impersonating celebrities to defraud their victims.
These growing concerns have led many government agencies like the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to clamp down most crypto companies.
In an April 2019 Investment Alert document, the SEC cautioned crypto investors about investment scams promised ROI of 20 to 50% with little or no risk.
The alert, which is part of the agency’s education initiative, said these fraudsters are known to promise their victims a significant stake in their project in exchange for their money. The fraudster would only get the hard-earned money of their victims and disappear into thin air.
The agency warned US investors to be careful and observe due diligence before parting with their money.
Ethbox, an Ethereum security escrow platform, has announced the start of its token’s public sale via DuckStarter on March 25th of 2021.
The sale will see a total of 1.625 million EBOX tokens available at a price of $0.055, with 250 wallets being whitelisted every 5 minutes to participate in the sale. The team behind the sale announced that over 2.1k wallets had registered to participate in the sale so far.
The day has come$EBOX public sale will happen in a few hours at 2pm UTC on https://t.co/zZgvM4ExXf Thanks to everyone participating in the whitelisting process @dao_duck #Ethereum #BTC #ethbox #EBOX #cryptocurrency #Binance https://t.co/h7LW445Z5A
— ethbox (@ethbox_official) March 25, 2021
Duckstarter, a community-led crowdfunding platform created by DuckDao, has been one of the most successful platforms for the funding of decentralized platforms by crypto investors, with DuckDao members being eligible to receive a special discount.
By holding 10 DDIM or 1000 DUCK tokens, DuckDao members can save to 10% on service fees or 25% if they hold 10k DDIm or 200k DUCK tokens, further incentivizing their participation in the public sale.
Once the sale is complete, the token will be listed in Uniswap for holders and late investors to trade in the Decentralized Exchange, which will create new opportunities for those looking to invest on EBOX.
A Major Milestone for The Project
The private sale of the EBOX token represents a major milestone in the roadmap of the project as it will see the start of the distribution of the governance token to interested parties, effectively marking the beginning of the decentralized governance process by allowing users to participate in the decision making.
The EBOX token will also provide holders with up to 50% of the revenue generated by the platform from fees, which can be paid by using EBOX or other cryptocurrencies to facilitate adoption.
While a total supply of 65 million EBOX will be minted, only 35% will be allocated to token sales and the rest will be distributed to other uses like marketing, liquidity pool, bonuses, etc.
At a time when Ethereum gas prices continue to increase and errors in transactions become more costly, interest in projects like ETHbox (and therefore its cryptocurrencies), continue to grow.
The results of this private sale will sure to have an impact on the future of the platform in different areas beyond the economics, which has caused supporters of the project to take advantage of this earlier stage to increase their profits.
ETHbox Aims to Make Transactions Easier and Safer
ETHbox is a smart contract-based digital escrow platform designed to help crypto investors to interact with the Ethereum Blockchain more easily and safely by avoiding the possibility of errors that could result in financial losses.
The crypto ecosystem is known for being challenging for beginners and veterans alike due to the complex User Interfaces (UIs), lack of centralized authorities, and immutability of the transactions, which often results in big losses when an error is made when transacting.
According to Luka Schiefer, ETHbox co-founder, the interest in the token has been overwhelming which reflects the need for such a platform in the ever-growing crypto ecosystem.
“Based on preliminary data, our interest form showed that there was actually 12 times more interest than we could actually offer on the initial private sale round during the first 24 hours, post-announcement. One week after, we had already been subscribed for more than 20 times of our token allocation “, Schiefer stated.
The platform also offers its users the opportunity to use its staking and revenue sharing features to generate passive income, further increasing the investment strategies they can use in the crypto market easily and conveniently.
The platform also makes use of obfuscation algorithms to increase privacy in all transactions, which has become an increasing issue on popular blockchain networks for well-known crypto addresses due to the pseudo-anonymity that surrounds them.
The post ETHbox Public Sale is Taking Place on Duckstarter appeared first on Blockonomi.
The price of bitcoin dropped around 8% during the last seven days, but prices started to improve during Friday’s mid-afternoon trading sessions. Today, bitcoin is swapping for prices between $54,400 to $54,800 per unit and commands a $1.02 trillion market valuation. The overall market capitalization of all 8,500+ coins in existence is around $1.59 trillion on Saturday morning.
Bitcoin (BTC) prices have seen some improvements after the price slid from $57,207 to a low of $50,360 on Thursday. BTC is up today over 3%, but down 5% for the week on March 27, 2021. Bitcoin dominance among all the other coin valuations combined is around 59.3% while ethereum (ETH) captures 11%.
Bitcoin is still up over 16% for the month, 109% during the last three months, and 763% against the USD for the year.
The top trading pair with bitcoin (BTC) today is tether (USDT) which commands 55% of the crypto asset’s trades. This is followed by USD (16.85%), BUSD (5.92%), JPY (4.19%), EUR (3.84%), and the KRW (2.38%).
This week the cryptocurrency community was pleased to hear that Elon Musk revealed that the electric car company Tesla will now accept BTC for purchases. The CEO of Zumo, a digital wallet and payments platform, Nick Jones believes more brands will join Tesla’s lead.
“We’re delighted to see that Tesla is now accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for their products,” Jones explained. “The increased institutional investment and market support of cryptocurrency from such brands is a key indicator of not only its long-term value but its contemporary relevance. Knowing that over half of UK crypto owners have purchased this currency in the last six months, I’d imagine that more brands will follow suit,” the Zumo CEO added.
At the time of publication, the second largest crypto asset by market cap, ethereum (ETH) is trading for $1,686 per unit and is up over 3% today. Behind ETH is tether and in the fourth market position binance coin (BNB) is trading for $254, up 2.5% over the last 24 hours.
Bitcoin cash (BCH) is in the 11th market position today and exchanging hands for $495 per BCH. The crypto asset is up 0.64% today, down 6% for the week, up 0.21% for the last 30 days, and over 48% for the last three months.
The top two gainers today include chatcoin (CHAT) and stakenet (XSN). The top two losers on Saturday morning include selfkey (KEY) and cortex (CTXC).
Want to keep up with all the crypto market action in real-time? Check out markets.Bitcoin.com today!
What do you think about all the market action this week as crypto traders head into the weekend trading sessions? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
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