The March 2021 edition of Cardano 360 revealed some interesting information. Charles Hoskinson, the CEO of IOHK, had revealed through this over three-hour event that there is a rollout plan for the Alanzo hard fork. This hard fork will allow the fourth-largest blockchain in the world, Cardano, to have smart contract capabilities.
Plans For The Future
The presented roadmap on the event showed that the Alanzo testnet could be live and ready as early as just next month, with developers being capable of deploying smart contracts on the test net for the first time in Cardano’s history. These developers will be capable of doing everything from DEXes to dApps to DeFi protocols in general thanks to this. The so-called “Pioneers Testnet” scheduled to take place somewhere at end of April or the start of May, already boasts a total of 1,300 individuals applying to be part of it.
Following this plan, a code freeze will start in June, which will be after a few months of testing. This, in turn, would start the clock to hard fork the mainnet network and introduce smart contracts to Cardano at large.
Massive Potential For Cardano
With the Alanzo mainnet launch slated to occur somewhere in August of this year, an array of new applications could be gearing to go live right as it launches. One of the key selling points in these upcoming plans is an application written in Plutus, a programming language, that the Cardano developers have already presented.
This application would allow for users to swap tokens within the Cardano network, opening up the potential to make it compete with the Ethereum DeFi space, primarily its Decentralized Exchanges (DEXes). Of those DEXes, no name is more prominent than Uniswap.
Now, it should be noted that Cardano has had its fair share of hard forks, already, having gone through two Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) events within the past few months alone. The first hard fork, Allegra, allowed for tokens to be locked within the protocol and came into working order back in December of last year.
The Mary hard fork after that managed to bring in native assets to the blockchain, and was successfully forked back in March. With the upcoming Alanzo fork, this could serve as the final piece Cardano needs to enter the Goguan era.
Possibilities Are Endless
Time will tell how successful the project will be, going forward, but Cardano pushing to innovate its network to handle smart contracts is a very clear shift to try and remain relevant in the ever-developing DeFi space. Its decision to try and content with Ethereum, the gold standard in DeFi for the crypto space, means it will probably find some success.
The Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) has successfully compelled Toronto-based crypto company Coinsquare to release its customers’ data.
In a recent court ruling, the blockchain company was directed to grant access to its Canadian customers’ crypto trading activity and identifying information.
“Limited” Access To Customers’ Data After Ruling
The blockchain firm that has been embroiled in recent lawsuits with Canadian regulatory agencies said in a released statement that it has been able to renegotiate the agency’s terms.
Coinsquare said that it would only grant “limited” access to clients’ information dating back to 2014 as per the tax agency’s agreement.
This “limited” disclosure will see Coinsquare release about 5-10% of the client’s data to the CRA.
“Instead of providing the CRA with all client data dating back to 2013 as was initially requested, Coinsquare and the CRA have agreed that information relating to 90-95% of our clients will not be disclosed,” the company disclosed.
Documents released denote that the affected parties would likely be those with CAD 20,000 or more from December 2014 through 2020.
16,500 of the company’s largest trading accounts will also be subject to scrutiny by the tax agency.
The CRA request has been seven months in court and is the first that involves a Canadian crypto exchange.
According to Canadian tax laws, the CRA had initially requested all of Coinsquare’s clients’ data to see if crypto investors comply with their tax obligations. The crypto firm had refused to comply, citing breach of privacy as a reason.
Coinsquare has since admitted that the tax agency reserves the right to go through its customers’ records but said the agreement is a partial but important victory for Canada’s crypto industry.
Although the CRA has since said the partial disclosure is sufficient for their investigation, the government agency said it will likely still mandate Coinsquare to provide more information on its customers by an “Unnamed Persons Requirement” filing.
Coinbase Also Made Disclosures
Coinsquare has been in the figurative eye of the storm for some time now. In July 2020, Coinsquare’s co-founders Cole Diamond (CEO) and Chairman Virgil Rostand admitted their role in manipulating the markets.
The contravention, which saw the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) step in, led to both executives’ resignation, and they paid administrative penalties as part of the agreement with the regulatory body.
According to the Canadian agency, both executives intentionally inflated their trading volume numbers to deceive the investing public.
US largest crypto exchange Coinbase also ploughed the same path when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) asked to go through its clients’ records about five years ago.
The Bitcoin exchange had initially refused, calling the tax agency’s inquisition a “fishing expedition” but had to acquiesce after a court ruling. The crypto exchange was also able to renegotiate the terms grantingaccess to only 13,000 customers’ data over the $15,000 mark.
Master The Crypto ranks the best cryptocurrency news websites to help investors and traders find the top bitcoin headlines and trending blockchain stories in the industry.
Cryptocurrency News Websites: 20 Most Popular Bitcoin & Blockchain Media Publications
Crypto news has become quite an intriguing industry as bitcoin continues to enter the mainstream media cycle and the decentralized blockchain finance era is beginning to take form and plant roots worldwide.
While we sincerely hope that the first name and domain that come to mind when you’re looking for the latest and best guides in the cryptocurrency space is Master The Crypto, we felt it was vitally important to review the best crypto-centric news platforms that cover all of the top trending stories and major headlines in the budding bitcoin world.
Aside from our expertise in compiling guides and tutorials, we would love nothing more than to really take the time and shed some much needed light on other premium online publishing portals out there that strive to bring you the latest and best news from the emerging blockchain-based economy.
Why is it that our opinion, overviews and rankings should matter in this regard? We pride ourselves on being one of the most highly active crypto guide contributors in the world and may one day cover daily news cycles, but for now it is important that all active investors, traders and users of cryptoassets stay in the loop by getting the scoop from the best news publishers on the planet. Much like our team striving to provide timeless, authentic and user-friendly guides on all of the major pillars and foundational pieces of the cryptoverse, it is important to spread the love and share who we think does it best from top to bottom, day in and day out.
After all, the crypto news cycle is a 24/7/365 endeavor as there is no pause button, no nightly shut off or weekend closure.
There’s a great deal of pride that we take in our research and comprehension of the crypto space, enough so that you can rest assured that we provide the best kind of insight into these bitcoin news sites. Helping as well to save you some time in separating the figurative wheat from the chaff in looking for reputable news sites.
In order to streamline the whole process of finding the best and most popular must read crypto and blockchain websites. We decided that there needs to be a greater focus on some of the essential criteria that help to set these crypto media companies apart from the other news publishers that are out there.
We compiled a list of factors for what makes a cryptocurrency news website the very best, especially given when the 2017 crypto bull market cycle started there were dozens of websites popping up trying to capture the momentum and ‘seize the moment’ (when bitcoin’s price went from 1K to 20K in a single year) – yet some of them were complete shams, promoting bitcoin scams, fake ICO tokens, and a whole host of off-beat topics not worthy of your time or attention.
This list of the top crypto news sites was last updated in November 2019, which is extremely relevant given the fact that Google had a big cleansing of the space back in June 2019 where many of the biggest crypto media platforms were wiped out by algorithm updates and really started to separate the shady outlets from the tried and true news websites.
Without further ado, here are some of the criteria highlighted within concise bullet points emphasizing key criteria, and common attributes which set these websites apart from others out there.
Top Cryptocurrency News Websites List Ranking Criteria:
Headlines Per Day (Activity)
Alexa Rank (Traffic Estimate)
Most Frequent Coin Updates
Twitter, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube Followers
Start Date and Owners
Author Credibility and Profile Transparency
Executive Team
Editorial Policies
Time Sensitivity
Too Many Advertisements?
Too Many Press Releases (Sponsored Posts)?
Best Known Specialty Pieces, Guides and Op-Eds
Overall Industry Reputation
Event Conference Coverage
Social Media, Reddit, Crypto Twitter Coverage
User Tools, Main Site Attractions and Functions
Mobile App Availability
Biggest Strength
UI/Design Layout Structure
Closing Thoughts Review
Our values have always been geared towards continuous exploration and a restless approach towards bringing you the best guides to navigate the cryptocurrency world, and the cherry on top is staying in touch with trending news and major announcements unfolding frequently in a rapid-growing industry. And our list of the top crypto news websites is certainly not exempt from these standards; as a result, we will be continually updating this list to ensure the greatest level of accuracy. If there are any comments or pieces of feedback that you may have, don’t hesitate in letting us know at MasterTheCrypto.com.
Coindesk
Alexa Rank: #4,636 in global internet engagement
Start Date: 2013
Owner: Digital Currency Group, which acquired Coindesk in January 2016
Social Media Following
Twitter: 882,700 followers
Facebook: 81,732 followers
Instagram: 5,894 followers
Author Credibility and Profiles
Each author features a photo (when available), details about the author, and a link to a full list of their articles written with CoinDesk. Every author is required to disclose whether they hold cryptocurrency assets and if they are involved with any cryptocurrency companies.
Executive Team
Kevin Worth (CEO)
Editorial Policies
CoinDesk offers a clear and concise description of its editorial policy directly on the website. The website features news, data, and events on their website 24/7, aiming to educate the world on the latest happenings in the cryptocurrency world. Even though CoinDesk is owned by DCG, the company has no “oversight or influence” on their typical operations. Furthermore, the staff members at CoinDesk are not privy to any non-public information regarding DCG.
Time Sensitivity
CoinDesk publishes news stories 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, typically publishing 10 to 15 blog posts per day, with up to 20 to 30 blog posts on busier days.
Too Many Advertisements? No
Too Many Press Releases? No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Yes, including State of Bitcoin/State of Blockchain report.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
CoinDesk reports on many of the latest events in the crypto and blockchain industry, while hosting their Consensus event every year. In the 2018 Consensus conference, the event was sold out, bringing in 8,800 attendees from over 70 counties around the world. Also runs Consensus Invest, offering substantial coverage of their own events and others.
Social Media
Reddit, Twitter Stories: Some social media presence, but is most prominent on Twitter with 822,700 followers.
User Tools
Additional reports available quarterly, but no tools that aid in cryptocurrency investments or trading.
Mobile Apps: Yes (iOS and Android)
Biggest Strength
One of the top five websites for reliable cryptocurrency-based content, offering well-researched content with links to press releases and official company websites. Known for quarterly State of Blockchain report and annual Consensus event.
User Interface and Design
Bold black and yellow design with a user-friendly blog interface. The most important news stories from the day can be found at the top of the page, while the latest news stories are found below. Additional information about CoinDesk is available through hyperlinks along the bottom of every page, including their privacy policy and their editorial policy.
Review
Presently, CoinDesk is a “go-to” source of information for the cryptocurrency world, as it consistently posts articles with breaking news and press releases from companies in the cryptocurrency world. Founded by entrepreneur Shakil Khan in 2013, the news media website rose in popularity between 2013 and 2014, as Bitcoin’s value started to rise, giving validity to the industry and to CoinDesk’s reputation. In 2014, CoinDesk established a report called “State of Bitcoin,” which is still an active and ongoing report today.
Digital Currency Group, one of the largest venture capital companies in the entire cryptocurrency industry, acquired CoinDesk in 2016, following its launch the year prior by Barry Silbert. DCG only has one other subsidiary now, which is Grayscale, the manager of the Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust.
In 2016, CoinDesk was acquired by Digital Currency Group, one of the largest venture capital companies in the crypto space. Also based in New York, Digital Currency Group was launched in 2015 by Barry Silbert. CoinDesk is one of two major subsidiaries of the company, along with Grayscale, a digital currency investing firm.
The connection between Digital Currency Group and CoinDesk has made some individuals uncomfortable in the cryptocurrency industry, claiming that the stories that they choose correlated with the tokens and blockchain projects that the company takes on. However, CoinDesk works to combat these concerns by having their writers disclose their personal holdings and connections with each article.
Nowadays, CoinDesk is also known for a New York City Consensus conference that it holds every year, welcoming thousands of visitors to become familiar with the biggest startups, investment firms, financial institutions, and other major players in the cryptocurrency industry. The most recent annual Consensus event took place in May 2019.
Users that want to stay in the loop with the latest news from CoinDesk can download their app, which is available on iOS and Android, or check the website. Ultimately, CoinDesk has continued to be one of the most trusted publications online for the cryptocurrency community. Regardless of any questions over CoinDesk’s bias for DCG projects, the high-quality work put out by their crypto journalists and editorial team keeps consumers coming back for more every day, maintaining its place as one of the top five best media outlets.
COIN TELEGRAPH
Headlines Per Day – 15 to 30
Alexa Ranking – #3757
Owners: Private ownership
Start Date: 2013
Social Media Following
Twitter: 460,000
Telegram: 77,080
Facebook: 736,000
Instagram: 61,700
Youtube: 46,000
Author Credibility and Profiles
All of the writers contributing to the Coin Telegraph team are listed by their first and last name with their own on-side profiles, as well as links to their social media accounts, full disclosure of their cryptocurrency holdings, on-site avatars along with other essential information. These authors also include a significant number of well-known and big names from all across the cryptocurrency community.
Executive Team
Daniel Seman (CEO), Igor Belkin (Editor in Chief), Catherine Ross (Assistant Editor in Chief, Chief Brand Officer), Stephen Chase (VP of Strategic Partnerships), Lucrezia Cornèr (Managing Editor), Olivia Capozzalo (Managing Editor), Addy Crezee (Blockshow CEO), Aleksander Raserei (Head of Publishers and Artists), Roman Lurie (Head of Business Development), Antony Kabatos (Business Development Manager), Ann Novello (Business Development Manager), Christina Anderson (Business Development Manager), Omer Dede (Business Development Manager), Robert Miller (Business Development Manager), Andrew Tareau (Business Development Manager), Mike Vishnevsky (Special Projects Manager), and Sarah Clarke (Marketing Manager).
Editorial Policies
The Coin Telegraph, much like other media outlets out there, allegedly seeks to maintain an independent and highly objective editorial policy that attempts to highlight the major facts behind any and all stories that the company chooses to cover. According to the website’s editorial policy, it is based upon a “passion to deliver unbiased news, in-depth analytics, comprehensive cryptocurrency price charts, insightful opinion pieces, as well as regular reports on social transformation.” Along with its pretty substantial coverage of blockchain and cryptocurrency news, readers will be able to find a wide range of news stories covering innovative fields like Augmented and Virtual Reality, Nanotechnology, quantum computing, and other fields.
Time Sensitivity
Being a well-established company, Coin Telegraph consists of a team of writers, editors, and managers that publish a wide range of stories on a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week basis. When it comes to breaking news stories, these stories can be found on the Coin Telegraph website immediately after it breaks, with the company successfully gaining a reputation as one of the big breaking news sites in the industry.
Too Many Advertisements? No
Too Many Press Releases? No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Coin Telegraph offers a range of specialty pieces, as well as a number of tutorials such as how to use Bitcoin, Ethereum, Etc, including opinion pieces on the future movements of specific cryptocurrency prices and more.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
Having established both a strong reputation as a news outlet, and a globally-distributed team of writers, editors, and managers, Coin Telegraph ensures that its team is present at a wide number of international crypto events, allowing them to provide exceptional coverage. Any major news stories and events can be found on the Coin Telegraph Website.
Social Media
When it comes to reporting and activity on social media, most other news outlets in the crypto space place a bigger emphasis on both Twitter and Telegram. In contrast, Coin Telegraph is one of the few news platforms that are active on a wider number of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and even Instagram.
This broader approach to social media has proven pretty successful for the Coin Telegraph team; cultivating a following of over 770,000, which is divided up across Twitter, with 440,000 followers and 60,000 on Instagram.
User Tools
The Coin Telegraph site boasts a number of useful tools, which includes comprehensive guides like ‘Bitcoin 101′ and more on its dedicated ‘Cryptopedia’ segment of the website. Coin Telegraph also manages to provide a reliable number of price analysis pieces. Overall, the Coin Telegraph team offers a pretty good number of user tools compared to the average crypto news media site.
Mobile Apps: Yes (iOS and Android)
Biggest Strength
One of the biggest strengths on the side of the Coin Telegraph is the fact that it has a highly independent approach towards its crypto, blockchain and technology coverage, while also providing it in an easy to read format thanks to the high quality of its staff of writers, editors and managers situated all over the world.
User Interface and Design
The website itself has an easy to recognize format and color scheme with its yellow, white and black design. Its interface is made even easier to navigate thanks to it being an image-friendly blog, easily accessible categories. Users can easily go through the website, find the top stories of the day and week. Alternatively, users can also choose specific categories within the navigation bar at the top of the site, including features, price analysis, marketing tools and industry news.
Review
Coin Telegraph is known as one of the world’s largest crypto and blockchain news websites out there and has gained a popular following. Having been established back in 2013, the Coin Telegraph team has a pretty long history of sharing news within the Crypto and blockchain space 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Coin Telegraph was established back in 2013 in New York and has managed to build up a solid reputation ever since. Even though the website itself remains headquartered in New York City, it has a writing team situated all over the world, including San Francisco, Memphis, Canada, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Riga. Its team of writers, editors and members of its management team are clearly displayed on the main website of Coin Telegraph, which makes it far easier to find out who is involved with the company in question.
One of the interesting attributes about Coin Telegraph is its very distinct art style, color scheme and website layout. CoinTelegraph boasts a pretty skilled team of graphic designers that publish a wide range of highly colourful and unique artwork for each of its news stories on a daily basis. Typically, each of the headlining images on the website include dedicated graphic art which summarizes the key attributes of the story in question. Each member of the Coin Telegraph team, from writers, editors and members of the management team have their own unique avatar as their profile picture.
When it comes to its independence, the Coin Telegraph company does appear to be a privately owned business. With the company not appearing to have any public connections to vested interests like Venture Capital firms or blockchain companies. As far as can be told for the moment, Coin Telegraph is an independent crypto news media company with a substantial number of journalists dedicated to reporting on the latest news, events and breaking stories.
Coin Telegraph also makes a concerted effort of publishing a range of tutorials, blockchain and cryptocurrency guides such as price analyses, and other kinds of information about the latest developments all across the crypto space. These guides and resources make it much easier to learn whatever it is you would like to know about Bitcoin and beyond. So, if you’re a reader seeking to dive into the world of crypto for the first time, and you’re unsure of where you should start, then Coin Telegraph guides are certainly a really good place for you to start.
Coin Telegraph has also managed to publish regular video content such as documentaries on its dedicated YouTube channel. Coin Telegraph is one of the few crypto media outlets out there using YouTube as an avenue for content. These include a range of documentaries like ‘Blockchain Island,’ which is all about Malta’s implementation of blockchain technology, as well as regulations for blockchain and cryptocurrency which have effectively allowed it to become a key player in the space. These videos have effectively made Coin Telegraph one of the key players.
Across its wide number of media channels, Coin Telegraph places a special focus on its intended audience. Its own Instagram Channel places a special emphasis on some of the brilliant bespoke artwork used by the Coin Telegraph team, while also sharing a few memes. Its YouTube channel features a wide range of documentaries along with interviews which discuss the impacts of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, along with a good number of news stories and analysis. Its dedicated Facebook page also shares a number of image-friendly articles which are designed to be shared across your social network. And lastly, its Twitter account features a number of breaking news stories.
In summary, Coin Telegraph is one of the leading crypto news sites and media outlets for a reason. Ever since 2013, the company has managed to build a reputation for publishing a large volume of high-quality content on its website and across its various social media outlets. The company takes the time to publish a range of unique graphic images with each of its stories. The company is also highly active at a range of industry events and conferences on an international basis. It’s for all of these reasons that Coin Telegraph continues to present itself as one of the big household names in the world of crypto and blockchain news outlets in the industry as a whole.
Bitcoin Exchange Guide
Headlines Per Day: 25-40
Alexa Rank: 54,000
Start Date: June 2017
Owner: Private Ownership
Social Media Following
Twitter: 4,100
Telegram: 4,200
Facebook: 3,233
Instagram: 2,557
Author Credibility and Profiles
All authors seem to have experience at curating crypto-related news content with bio’s and profile pictures. Authors link well to external sources and social media resources to complement the latest research and news.
Executive Team
Shiraz Jagati
Editorial Policies
The BitcoinExchangeGuide editorial policies seem to follow the same suit as many of the other power players in the space. It is linked on the sidebar as well as the news post itself with a simple, concise understanding of how their news is presented and published. The reason ‘BEG’ has done well is consistency and quantity in publishing headlines with subtitles and fitting images.
Time Sensitivity
As mentioned, Bitcoin Exchange Guide specializes in writing at least 25-45 posts per day, about 2x what most other websites produce daily.
Too Many Advertisements? No, looks to be three banners total, which is about half some of the others mentioned below.
Too Many Press Releases? No, very low considering what they could be releasing in comparison to other category websites.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
While event coverage seems to be something they want to focus on, from their long interlinked guides, their real specialty comes from scouring crypto twitter, reddit and the whole ecosystem to write in about such as youtube video inclusions, podcast breakdowns, and combining multiple trading analyst perspective.
Reputation: 8/10
Event Coverage
Most of their event coverage comes from watching and reviewing what was said on many of the event videos posted on the Internet.
Social Media
Twitter and telegram seem to be their most active channels for content syndication and daily updates.
User Tools
The website is pretty vanilla in terms of user customization or tools to use. The best user tools are the long detailed guides on all of the major pillars and core foundational pieces of the crypto ecosystem.
Mobile Apps: Yes (iOS and Android)
Biggest Strength
Long headlines and lots of them daily.
User Interface and Design
Very plain and simple website with images, titles, subtitles and content to display.
Review
We will update our review on BitcoinExchangeGuide crypto news very soon.
UºToday
Average headlines per day – 10-20
Total Alexa Rank – #36408
Social Media Following
Twitter: 31,000
Telegram: 3,000
Facebook: 8,250
U.Today was officially established back in 2017 and has its offices situated in Brooklyn, New York and is a privately owned venture.
Author Credibility and Profiles
To date, U.Today consists of one of the largest employed teams within the crypto media space; consisting of a substantial number of writers and editors all across the world. This high level of employees makes a lot of sense considering the fact that the company makes sure to be a constant presence at a substantial number of cryptocurrency and blockchain events.
According to the site, more specifically it’s About Us’ Page, there are more than 50 individuals listed as either an ‘Editor’ or ‘Writer’ to some capacity. This same pool of writers has a myriad of different backgrounds and fields of skill such as mainstream finance, to business. Each of these authors boasts a pretty impressive biography of themselves which goes into their professional and academic background as well as experiences and any potential or actual links they have to specific cryptos.
It’s actually a pretty nice breath of fresh air to have this much transparency on the side of the writers, so this is certainly a net positive for the site. These writers add to this transparency by adding their social media profiles wherever applicable.
As previously mentioned, this pool of writers working on behalf of U.Today is all across the world, allowing the site as a whole to have some impressive coverage in virtually every region of the world. In summary, the writing team behind U.Today as news platforms are one of the, if not the most extensive and diverse ones active in the field of crypto news media.
Executive Team
Currently, as far as we know, the only executive member is Cyris Gilson, who has been the Founder and Editor in Chief since the platform was first established.
Editorial Policies
The company has made sure to outline this editorial policy and make it widely available on its ‘About Us’ page. It’s on this segment that the company aptly describes itself as a “global media organization dedicated to helping you understand the new generation tech and the future it brings to society.”
While the company is dedicated to reporting on the latest news, discussions and in-depth analysis of what is going on in the crypto and blockchain space, U.Today also seeks to follow and adhere to “the core journalistic values of clear thinking, accuracy, and independence” while also intending to provide for its audience, an effective means to “inform, educate, collaborate and support better practices for the benefit of all.”
While these values are adhered to by a large number of writers and editors, the news platform itself does accept sponsored content, as well as paid press releases from third parties. The company has made it clear that it will allow advertisers interested in using the site can also pay extra to have their content not marked off as “sponsored” or as a “Press Release.”
Time Sensitivity
Compared to other news platforms out there, the U.Today team strives to publish a higher than the average number of posts on a daily basis, which allows for users worldwide to stay up to date on the latest news reports and expert analysis from the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
According to the platform, it publishes up to a maximum of 20 headlines on a daily basis, with the company itself having a tendency to rapidly respond to big and breaking news reports as and when they happen. Being established and based in New York, there does tend to be a bias on reporting and publishing according to business hours within the United States. More and more, however, the company is moving towards a more global audience, posting regularly across the entire week.
Too Many Advertisements: No
Too Many Press Releases: No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
U.Today hosts a wide range of articles ranging from news stories, financial forecasts and analysis as well as regular updates on developing stories. Along with these, the site also includes a range of opinion pieces, comprehensive guides, and product reviews. While broadly considered as opinion pieces, these same articles are mostly made up of price predictions as well as analyses of ongoing or upcoming Initial Coin Offerings.
Along with these opinion and analytical pieces, U.Today has a wide range of comprehensive guides within its “Guides” section. These include ones based on specific coins, WikiCoin, comprehensive advice on how to get started within the crypto world (“CryptoTips”), Trading as well as Exchange Guides. This section provides insights for any and all aspects that are necessary for beginners or veteran traders alike.
Guides include articles like, “The Best Litecoin Wallets” and “Top 8 Blockchain Courses Worldwide”.
Reputation: 9/10
Event Coverage
U.Today has been highly active on the events side of cryptos and blockchain. Having attended them reliably both within the United States and internationally. In the time running up to, and during the event, the website’s writing team will make an express effort of interviewing key executives and influencers that are involved with the event in question. The company also makes a pretty firm effort of updating a long term events calendar in order to inform its users which ones its team will be attending.
As a result of this, it means that U.Today boasts pretty strong events coverage as far as cryptocurrency and blockchain news is concerned.
Social Media
Along with having a very active role in the world of events and conferences, U.Today has proven itself a highly active presence on Facebook, Twitter and Telegram, which provides a total of more than 65,000 additional followers. These same updates on social media include links to new and evergreen articles that are newly published on the main website.
User Tools
U.Today has a number of guides posted online, including guides on picking the best wallet. There’s a price ticker at the top of the site featuring the top cryptocurrencies, their current prices, and their daily movements. Aside from that, however, there are no user tools available on U.Today. The focus is on reporting the news.
Mobile Apps: No
Biggest Strength
Timely, frequently-updated crypto news and analysis from a globally-distributed team of writers with experience across the crypto space, including news, analysis, price predictions, and reviews
User Interface and Design
U.Today features a professional-looking design in a white, grey, and black color scheme. The latest news stories are featured at the top of the page, followed by featured stories down below. Overall, U.Today seems to favor a minimalistic UI that emphasizes text over images, allowing users to focus on the news instead of being bombarded by photos.
Review:
Before being referred to as U.Today, it was initially in operation as CryptoComes.com. and sprung to life back in late 2017. While the domain and name were taken up at this time, it didn’t really start publishing news articles until February 2018. It was after this time that it officially got rebranded as U.Today, with the company moving from strength to strength ever since.
The company itself, having been established in Brooklyn, New York, was originally founded by the former Editor in Chief of the CoinTelegraph, Cyril Gilson. To this day, U.Today, and its founder continue to write the occasional news story for the website as a whole. While this is a pretty rare occurrence, the majority of the writing done is taken care of by its pretty diverse staff.
When it comes to the matter of staff, U.Today actually holds the record when it comes to a number of staff members that contribute as members of the editorial and news team. According to the company itself, U.Today boasts a staff of more than 50 writers and editors on the company’s ‘About’ page. This also includes a number of individuals situated all over the world with a wider range of skills, experience, academically and professionally, and a fluctuating degree of work commitments to the site overall. Some of these members, for example, contribute on a daily basis, while others provide one article a month or week.
Overall, the team of writers and editors that it does have are known as the most diverse, and skilled over the entire crypto news media world, which . allows the company, overall, to cover a wide range of events from all walks of the industry and from all over the world, while ensuring that there’s an expert touch to each article.
U.Today has been very good at ensuring a high framework of standards. when it comes to journalistic practice and having its writers and editors adhere to them. The company always makes sure to thoroughly cite the sources that it references, for one example, and has been good at dedicating time and reporting to the news in a highly objective manner. So far as can been seen, U.Today has been firmly upholding its journalistic objectivity and has expressed no demonstrable bias towards any specific blockchain company or cryptocurrency out there.
If there is one complaint that can be leveraged against the company, it would be the fact that the personal, or fiscal motivations of its writers are never fully disclosed on the website. This is referring to the miniature profiles that each writer and editor has on the website, as they never specify any actual cryptocurrency investments that they may have. As far as can be determined, however, U.Today as a platform has been robust in maintaining political and reporting objectivity in the crypto and blockchain space in general.
One of the other things that does tend to separate U.Today from other kinds of news outlets out there are its industry connections. But this doesn’t impact it in the way that you may think. While the site does have good connections, it only ever uses them in order to obtain exclusive interviews. While other news outlets out there tend to fixate on reporting on the latest news, U.Today goes even further by covering the latest news, providing analysis as well as informed interviews by major individuals in the space.
If there is one fundamental issue that needs to be brought up when discussing U.Today, its . the fact that it boasts a pretty interesting approach towards press releases and sponsored content. The company itself provides would be media sponsors with three different kinds of paid content through its site. The first and second of these being Standard ($200) and Premium ($400) solutions respectively. But it’s the News Coverage ($250) option that tends to raise suspicions. As avertisers that select the third option of these will be able to have their content featured on the site without any of the markings of ‘Sponsored’ or ‘Press Release’ on it, allowing them to feature as ordinary news.
What’s not mentioned is the fact that, in doing so, these sponsors . can make it to the top of the front page, thus earning them some more time in the spotlight for their content. U.Today, compared with any other kind of news outlet out there, is one of the very few that offers this kind of service, however, allowing advertisers to pay more to make sure they don’t get categorised as ‘Sponsored.’
In summary, however, U.Today does represent one of the more authoritative news media outlets out there in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. This fact is made all the more impressive considering the relative ‘youth’ of the company compared to the other news sites out there. Relative youth thus cast aside, for the time being, it has already managed to establish itself out there as a global, highly reputable news outlet. Along with this, the company has an Alexa rank of roughly 27,000 and actually manages to rank far higher than a good number of its competitors out there when it comes to media traffic.
Supported by a wide variety of globally situated writers and editors, U.Today appears to be very well situated to continue to dominate the world of crypto and blockchain news reporting – in spite of some of the minor issues already discussed.
DECRYPT
Healines per day: 5-10
Alexa Rank: #11655000
Author Credibility and Profiles
Authors are listed by first and last name underneath each article, along with a brief one or two-sentence biography summing up the writer’s skills, background, and experience. Decrypt Media also highlights the author’s crypto holdings wherever appropriate. Overall, Decrypt Media has a talented and experienced writing team that is closely connected to some of the biggest names in the crypto space. There’s a reason the writers at Decrypt Media are able to secure interviews with crypto A-listers like Vitalik Buterin, Roger Ver, Craig Wright, and John McAfee, among others. Decrypt Media clearly lists all authors by first and last name underneath each article, although there’s no specific “Our Team” page where you can learn more about the company’s writers as a whole.
Executive Team
Josh Quittner (Co-Founder, Editorial Director), Matt Hussey (Editor), and Guillermo Jimenez (Editor).
Editorial Policies
Decrypt Media is funded by ConsenSys. Understandably, some members of the crypto community get nervous any time a major blockchain company is directly connected to a media outlet. However, Decrypt Media is fully transparent about its connection to ConsenSys. The ‘About’ page describes how the company is committed to delivering good journalism despite being funded by the blockchain technology giant. “Though we are funded by the Brooklyn, NY-based incubator ConsenSys, we are editorially independent and exist solely to make complex technology intelligible to all people,” explains the official website. Another key goal of the editorial policy is to “bring transparency and accountability to the space” while providing a platform for “good actors”, including entrepreneurs and companies building products with “positive social impact.” Decrypt Media also seeks to cover a broad spectrum of stories, including politics, art, culture, technology, education, and news.
Time Sensitivity
Decrypt’s team seems to mostly be based in London and New York, so the company publishes most stories during normal UK and USA business hours. However, Decrypt tends to focus more on publishing in-depth analysis instead of 24/7 breaking news stories.
Too Many Advertisements? No
Too Many Press Releases? No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Decrypt highlights a number of specialty pieces, opinion pieces, and guides online, both through the main Decrypt website and through its LitePaper learning platform. LitePaper is dedicated to teaching users about the major features behind blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralized technology.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
Decrypt Media tends to have very good event coverage. Being directly connected to ConsenSys and located in Brooklyn makes it easy for Decrypt Media to provide firsthand analysis of major events taking place in the crypto space – including most major crypto events in New York City. However, Decrypt doesn’t have a large internationally-based team of writers, so they rely on third-party reporting for some major crypto events worldwide.
Social Media
Decrypt Media is active on major social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. Decrypt updates both social feeds multiple times per day, linking mostly to stories on its official website. Although Decrypt only has about 1,000 followers between its Facebook and Twitter pages, the company is still relatively new.
User Tools
Decrypt Media focuses mostly on reporting the news. The main user tool available through Decrypt is the LitePaper learning platform.
Mobile Apps: No
Biggest Strength
Independent, regularly-updated crypto news blog with no apparent ties to major crypto investors, cryptocurrency companies, or other conflicts of interest.
User Interface and Design
Decrypt Media has a standard, image-heavy blog design with featured stories at the top of the page. Writer names are clearly listed on bylines. The Decrypt logo is black, white, and minimalistic. Further down the site, there are also links to guides on major crypto projects. Instead of just covering the latest news stories, Decrypt Media puts its in-depth guides front and center. Overall, Decrypt Media’s official website has a clean and tidy appearance while highlighting the latest news stories.
Review
Decrypt Media is a Brooklyn, New York-based media company built with the goal of delivering essential journalism and analysis in a way that’s easy for anyone to understand. The media company is funded by ConsenSys, the blockchain technology giant and Ethereum developer also based in Brooklyn. Despite the direct connection to ConsenSys, however, Decrypt Media claims to be editorially independent. They strive to maintain good journalistic practices while reporting on politics, arts, culture, technology, education, and the latest news. Along with a location in Brooklyn, Decrypt also maintains an office in London.
“We are a newsroom of professional journalists, with a sophisticated perspective and desire to bring transparency and accountability to the space,” explains the official website. “We also want to provide a platform for “good actors” who are pioneering best business practices, and profile entrepreneurs and projects that seek positive social impact.”
In other words, instead of just focusing on all major blockchain news, Decrypt Media also wants to emphasize blockchain and crypto companies that are trying to make a positive impact.
Decrypt Media isn’t the largest or most heavily-trafficked crypto news media blog out there, sitting just outside the top 250,000 websites online today by Alexa rankings. However, Decrypt Media was only launched in 2018, making it one of the newest members of the crypto scene, so it doesn’t have nearly the same track record of some of its larger and more established competitors. It’s also important to note that Decrypt Media focuses more on posting a small number of high-quality blog posts per day instead of a large number of copy/paste-style blog posts. The website publishes fewer than 10 posts on most days. However, many of the posts are in-depth analyses of the latest advancements in blockchain technology or deep dives into the fundamentals behind a project: they do not fluff pieces on price movements or fads.
We also appreciate the popular “Daily Debrief” on Decrypt, which features some of the most important news stories making headlines today from across the industry. The Daily Debrief can be delivered to your email inbox or read online. Each post covers 4 to 5 major stories making news today in the world of crypto.
It’s important to note that Decrypt Media officially consists of two separate things, including Decrypt, the crypto news media website we’ve discussed here, and LitePaper, a knowledge-based learning platform highlighting guides in blockchain, crypto, and decentralized technology.
The main advantage of Decrypt Media, however, is its excellent writing team. The Decrypt team includes award-winning journalists like Matt Hussey, formerly editor in chief of The Next Web, along with former Fortune, Time, and Newsday writer and editor Josh Quittner. Writers like Tim Copeland, meanwhile, have interviewed Vitalik Buterin, Roger Ver, John McAfee, Craig Wright, and other high-profile crypto celebrities. Overall, the writing team is accomplished and experienced both inside and outside the crypto world.
Since launching in 2018, Decrypt has focused on a simple goal: to ‘decrypt’ the world of cryptography, decentralization, and blockchain, making it easy for readers to understand the real impact of these growing technologies. Popular posts like The Daily Debrief do an excellent job of summing up the most important stories from today’s crypto world, and the rockstar writing team includes some of the most accomplished writers in the space. Decrypt was only launched in 2018 and does not have the same following as some of its larger competitors, but it continues to grow as one of the top 10 or 15 leading crypto news media websites on the internet today.
NewsBTC.com
Headlines per day: 10 to 20
Alexa Ranking: #21197
Social Media Following
Twitter – 39,000
Telegram – 3,601
Facebook – 21,978
YouTube – 12,200
The company itself was founded back in October 2013, NewsBTC.com was and still is in private ownership.
Author Credibility and Profiles
Writers along with major members of the company’s executive team are listed with the full first and last name along with their social media profiles. Each of these profiles includes a concise amount of information on these individuals along with their professional and academic experiences, along with cryptocurrency holdings that they may hold.
The team as a whole is not as substantial as other businesses out there, but it remains a pretty compact and dynamic team. As of today, the NewsBTC dedicated team page consists of more than 10 different team members, such as writers along with editors and executive members of its team.
Executive Team
Chief Executive Officer – Samuel Rae, Chief Editor – Martin J. Young, Business Development Manager – Jayamand Sagar, Senior Managing Editor – Brian Yim, Head of company Operations – Yashu Gola, Social Media Manager – Himadri Saha, Project Manager – Anayoliy Krasovskiy, and lastly the Senior Market Analyst – Aayush Jindal.
Editorial Policies
Within the About Us page of the NewsBTC.com, users can access some fundamental information about the company in question regarding its establishment as well as the editorial policy that its team of writers and editors adhere to. In summary, NewsBTC seeks to be an independent outlet for news reporting, doing so without any kind of bias.
“We do our very best to be one of the most trusted names in bitcoin news,” which shows up on the official website as to its mission to ensure objectivity. The company itself claims that it does not purchase any kind of social media followers. Editorially speaking, the company also tries to avoid the use of click-bait articles in an attempt to get page views. “We write about bitcoin news because we love bitcoin. Simple as that.”
Time Sensitivity
The NewsBTC website itself is regularly updated anywhere from 10 to . 20 times on a daily basis with a mixture of breaking news stories, including reviews, expert analysis, tutorials and guides for those that are new to the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. The website itself appears to undergo updates on a 24/7 basis, which is impressive. The NewsBTC is one of the most punctual news outlets when it comes to responding to breaking news stories.
Too Many Advertisements? No
Too Many Press Releases? No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
NewsBTC includes a growing range of educational materials within its dedicated ‘Education’ segment. It’s here that newcomers can learn anything and everything they’ll need to know about getting into the crypto space. These include guides on Bitcoin, like mining, trading and storing them, Crypto, blockchain, mining, among a wide variety of topics.
The website also has a page that discusses the legality and prospects for Bitcoin in general, along with a comprehensive list of books that users can get hold of for further information. There is also a wide range of reviews for various businesses dealing in cryptocurrencies, coin exchanges, blockchain-powered casinos, brokers, sportsbooks, Initial Coin Offerings and a wide range of others too.
In summary, NewsBTC stands as much more than just a news platform, and it consists of a team of highly dedicated writers and editors that seek to write and review all aspects of the crypto world.
Reputation: 8/10
Event Coverage
The team behind NewsBTC makes a concerted effort to attend and/or discuss the major events, conferences, and forums that take place within the cryptocurrency and blockchain space to this day. The company keeps its attendance list up to date through its ‘Events’ page, which is updated with the same punctuality that it reserves for its news section.
Social Media
The NewsBTC team is highly active on social media, and boasts a pretty impressive following on each of these platforms, especially when compared with other kinds of outlets. At the time of writing, it boasts tens of thousands of followers and fans on Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular and loyal community on the instant messaging platform – Telegram.
The company reliably posts articles and periodic updates both on the website and on its social media feeds to keep its followers informed. On its YouTube channels, NewsBTC has been making an effort to publish more video content.
User Tools
There are a good number of tools that NewsBTC has available for its users, which include a range of tutorials, platform reviews, along with comprehensive guides and other tools. The platform has some useful assets for budding investors . as well; including price analysis tools, market information resources, as well as financial charts which allow you to get up to speed with an ongoing performance from specific cryptos within the space.
Mobile Apps: No
Biggest Strength
The company has gained popularity thanks to its position as an independent yet privately owned entity that regularly posts news with an objective standpoint for more than 6 years.
User Interface and Design
The blog design in question consists of a pretty professionalized color pallet such as dark blue for its header, and a cool contrast of white. The news that shows up on the front page is readily displayed with each having a distinct header image. Each of the reviews that the company takes on, such as for crypto exchanges, all appear along the side of the same page.
Within the same header is a tab that allows you to easily select other categories on the same site for quick and easy navigation.
Review
NewsBTC was originally founded in London back in 2013, and actually boasts a pretty solid history of providing a reliable and objective outlet for news reporting for the crypto and blockchain community. The company itself covers a wide range of news stories, including breaking news, crypto-analysis, interviews, conference reporting, as well as reviews of products like exchanges, games, casinos and more. Ever since it was first established, it has only seen its influence grow.
Even though it gained its reputation as an objective, balanced news outlet, it has shown an increase in the number of sponsored posts, online gambling and casino reviews along with sponsored exchange reviews, which affects its credibility somewhat. One of the consolations is that each of these sponsored pieces is clearly marked as such, which allows for the average user to clearly notice the distinctions.
With regards to its closer executive team and staff of writers, NewsBTC has maintained a pretty objective and transparent stance. The company CEO remains Samuel Rae, who actually started off his career in the world of Foreign Exchange as a trader, economic analyst, and author before getting involved in and establishing NewsBTC Media Group as its VP of Business Development back in 2013. Over the course of this time, Rae has been serving as the company’s CEO since the beginning of 2018.
It is over this duration of time that ten other members were hired and added to its official team page. While this is effectively the number of staff to date, the company does accept publications and contributions from other writers and staff members too. Each member of the NewsBTC team has a unique bio which includes some basic information about themselves, their professional and academic background, as well as their holdings in crypto.
As far as can be told, NewsBTC is a privately owned entity. While this is the case, the company does appear to accept affiliate income from other companies that undertake reviews on the website. Some of these cryptocurrency companies that are listed on the site are referred to as ‘premium partners’, as an example, with NewsBTC featuring dedicated features signup links for the likes of businesses like WCX and SimpleFX.
During this year, the company has been striving to provide and circulate more video content on the subject of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, which is actually sponsored by a trading platform. Compared to other crypto news platforms out there, it appears as though NewsBTC has vacated its previously ‘independent’ position and has ‘sold out’ to a capacity that is not commonly seen from other news outlets through its abundance of sponsored news reports, product and platform reviews as well as through analysis.
Regardless of this, the main strain of news stories does appear to be mostly objective news reports, analysis and discussions around the latest news and crypto events.
NewsBTC does tend to cover a wide range of stories and volumes of information from all across the length and breadth of the industry. As a result, you’ll be able . to get the latest news and information on a more specific basis from all across the industry. An example of this is that a user could easily get the latest updates on the financial state of the crypto space, while also going over to comprehensive breakdowns of the latest events.
Users can basically rely on its team updating the website 10 to 20 times a day with the latest information, guides, news and more from across the crypto space.
In summary, NewsBTC and its team have proven to be one of the world’s more popular crypto news media outlets out there. One of the big issues that do come up is the problem that comes with the ubiquitous number of sponsored pieces that are out there on the website that, while being labeled as ‘sponsored’ are made to look like they are regular news articles.
NewsBTC does tend to earn affiliate income from each of the featured exchanges, platforms, order books and more that do sponsor reviews through the company. While this isn’t essentially a dealbreaker, it does force users to be more skeptical of whatever information you see published on the website.
CryptoSlate
Headlines per Day – 10-20
Alexa Ranking – #57930
Social Media Following
Twitter: 7,210
Telegram: 4,754
Facebook: 3,787
Instagram: 3,172
Youtube: 97
Author Credibility and Profiles
CryptoSlate has full author and executive profiles available on their website, making them more transparent. Although their writers have less experience, their pieces appear to be well-written and the company is generally seen as being one of the most credible within the industry.
Executive Team
CryptoSlate was founded by Nate Whitehill (Co-Founder and CEO) and Matthew Blancarte (Co-Founder and CTO) in Seattle, 2017. Other key members include Mitchell Moos (Editorial Manager) and the rest of their team is listed as writers or project researchers.
Editorial Policies
CryptoSlate has published a complete editorial policy online, outlining ley goals, including “trust, transparency, objectivity, and high-quality sourcing.” They claim rigorous fact-checking, abiding by copyright and attribution rules, and using strict advertising guidelines. CryptoSlate is generally seen as one of the higher quality members of the crypto media space, even their advertisements are of a higher stock.
Time Sensitivity
CryptoSlate is based in Seattle but is still a 24/7 crypto news media outlet because of they have offices and team members around the world. They publish 10-20 articles a day.
Too Many Advertisements? No
Too Many Press Releases? No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
CryptoSlate has a focus on opinion pieces that are well-researched. This is not the site if you are looking for explanatory guides and frequent news only.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
CryptoSlate features upcoming events on its website and does generally seem to report on the biggest stories coming out of them. However, because the team is relatively new, they do not appear to have a regular presence at these events.
Social Media
CryptoSlate does not have the same following as more established brands, but they do have a complete social media presence with active accounts on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. There is also a YouTube page that has begun publishing regular videos as of February 2019.
User Tools
CryptoSlate has a main user tool that allows the user to browse the publications easily.
Mobile Apps: No
Biggest Strength
Eager startup founded in 2017 with beautiful site design, strict editorial policies, and a strong team of writers.
User Interface and Design
CryptoSlate has a minimalistic and sleek with featured stories that appear at the top of the page with their accompanying header images. Events, blockchain products, and blockchain company reviews are found further down the page, making it neatly organized and intuitive.
Review
CryptoSlate is a blockchain and crypto media platform coveting the deliverance of objective and transparent analysis to is readers. Their design is known as one of the best-looking crypto news media websites available today, featuring distinctive square borders and a minimalistic design. The site is decluttered and easy to use.
The writers may not have all of the experience of other large sites, but they are known for their integrity in research for their pieces. They also exhibit a great mode of categorization, allowing the user to look up new articles based on the topic or region.
CryptoSlate’s best attribute is their transparent team information which includes complete information on each writer, the executives, and a look into the company’s operations and standards themselves. The writer’s alone of 2-3 sentences about them under each article they write or a full profile about them if you click their name.
Despite not having the long history of other crypto news media websites (relatively, since cryptocurrencies are only a decade old anyway), they make up for it with trustworthiness, regular publications, and high-quality segments ranging from opinions on basic news to in-depth analysis.
THE BLOCK CRYPTO
Headlines per day: 8-15
Alexa Rank: #51561
Start Date: July 2018
Owner: The Block Crypto, Inc.
Social Media Following
Twitter: 28.900
Author Credibility and Profiles
While each author is listed by first and last name on each article linking to their detailed biography page, The Block does not appear to have a single “Our Team” page highlighting writers, editors, and executives within the company. This is made all the more strange by their reputation of having some of the most credible and best-known writers in the crypto and Blockchain space, including Frank Chaparro who used to write from Business Insider.
Executive Team
Mike Dudas (Founder and Chief Executive Officer), Jake McGraw (Co-Founder and CTO), and Mark Rogowsky (Editor in Chief).
Editorial Policies
The Block has an “About” page summing up its mission: to build a global community of crypto and blockchain enthusiasts while establishing The Block as “the first and final” word in crypto. There are also no specific editorial policies stated on a page meant just for that.
Time Sensitivity
The Block is a 24/7 news source publishing articles all day, every day. It doesn’t quite pump out the same volume of articles as other news websites. However, The Block generally publishes well thought out analysis of major crypto events as they occur. They’re also one of the best news websites at breaking down new developments in the blockchain and DLT space.
Too Many Advertisements? No
Too Many Press Releases? No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Yes, including guides on how blockchain and distributed ledger technologies work, reviews of major crypto and blockchain companies, and comprehensive research papers available to members of The Block Genesis.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
The Block has good coverage of major crypto events taking place across the blockchain and crypto space. Generally, The Block is able to offer first-hand reporting from major crypto events taking place across the industry.
Social Media
The Block isn’t as active on social media as other crypto websites. The Block’s Twitter has around 20,000 followers and is updated with new content daily. However, The Block does not have Telegram, YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook channels. The Block tends to focus on its curated newsletter (The Block Genesis) as opposed to mainstream social media platforms.
User Tools
The Block publishes comprehensive research papers, tutorials, and guides online. However, most of these are only available to subscribers of The Block Genesis.
Mobile Apps: No
Biggest Strength
High-quality, authoritative news publications for the crypto and blockchain space as a whole.
User Interface and Design
Minimalistic, blue and grey design with a simplified layout, clear and easy-to-read headlines, and a lack of intrusive ads.
Review
Launched in July 2018, BlockchainCrypto.comis seeking top tier status for crypto and blockchain news on the internet. The Block is known for its premium subscription services called The Block Genesis ($125 per month), which allows users to access higher-quality crypto and blockchain content.
Another huge distinguishing feature of The Block is their focuses on blockchain technology as a whole instead of only addressing cryptocurrencies. They regularly discuss things like the broader implications of the tech involved in society, recent advancements, and what they could apply to going forward. The Block has excellent tutorials, guides, and reviews covering crypto companies, blockchain technologies, and more, but only if you are willing to pay for it. They do have good coverage overall, even without the subscription.
Based in New York City, it was co-founded by Jake McGraw and Mike Dudas in 2018. May 2018 saw an announcement that the company had received investment from publicly-traded blockchain company Riot Blockchain (Nasdaq: RIOT). The value of this deal was never publicly disclosed.
The Block is privately-owed and its other key team members include Mark Rogowsky, the founding Editor in Chief of the platform, and Frank Navarro (Editor). They envision themselves as far more than just another crypto site, but a place where a community can come together through the subscribing itself.
Their motivations for starting up were announce in a statement at launch back in 2018 and read as follows:
“Today’s cryptocurrency and blockchain media is sensationalistic, compromised by undisclosed conflicts of interests, focuses on celebrity vs reality, and is terribly unreliable. It’s often either technically and economically inaccurate or effectively a reprint of a project or company’s press release. Fraud, failure, and ridiculous claims are masked in a wall of complexity meant to hide, distract, and confuse. Many claims that are uttered and repeated are grandiose in a Trump-like way, meant to leave a mark on the mind, even if untrue. The Block team has watched this problem grow over the past year to the point where we simply don’t ourselves trust what we read or watch in any mainstream or cryptocurrency/blockchain trade news source.”
The Block continues its growth through their high-quality publications and up-to-date news articles but in the future, they do plan to launch physical workspace locations in key cities across the United States and the world so members of the community can interact and worth with one another starting in New York City. Their mission, simply put, is “Crypto Simplified” with the intention of becoming a solid platform for the future of money to grow from.
BeIn Crypto
Headlines per day – 5 to 15 depending on the day
Alexa Ranking – #272,091
Social Media Following
Twitter – 3,700
Telegram – 20
Facebook – 290
YouTube – 120
Officially established in 2018 and situated in London, BeInCrypto self identifies its website as boasting an extensive lineup of writers, all of which are “some of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry’s best and brightest.”
Owned by the Training Academy, which is a Limited trading company, the company has a strict series of guidelines in order to adhere to a strict line of journalistic principles, guidelines and ethics, all in order to ensure that a continued and rigorous amount of integrity.
While the company itself is headquartered in London, it consists of a writing and content development team situated across the world, with many of these same creators offering expertise in technical analysis, journalism, investment strategy, as well as Chartered Accountants, scientists, real estate developers and even dedicated blockchain researchers. Each of these writers are also given clear listing on a first and last name basis on each article on the Be In Crypto site, including links to the various social media accounts that these writers have.
Executive Team
Editor in Chief – Ady Silver
Head of SEO – Daniel Polo
Editorial Policies
The BeInCrypto lists its meticulous framework for its editorial policy online, with one of the most important parts of that editorial policy being that the company itself does not accept any kind of payment for the articles that it publishes. This is somewhat unusual when considering the fact that the majority of other news sites out there accept sponsored posts or press releases so long as the company pays for the exposure on the platform.
This is where BeInCrypto is iconoclastic by comparison, according to a statement from the official website – “BeInCrypto believes readers deserve transparency and genuine reporting,” the company explains on the website in detail – “We report the news and, in doing so, aim to be the most reliable and trustworthy place on the planet to get your cryptocurrency and blockchain news.”
Time Sensitivity
The content creators, writers and editors for the company are interspersed throughout the entire world, meaning that the site can easily, and rapidly respond to any breaking news in the cryptocurrency and blockchain world no matter where it’s based.
While there is a lot of news reported on the site from a global perspective, the website itself is not as frequently updated as we see from other, larger competitors that operate in the space, and BeInCrypto tends to place more of its focus on in-depth news reports instead of breaking news.
Volume of Advertisements
Fortunately, the company itself is pretty sparse in the number of advertisements that appear on the website. Considering the fact that there is no advertisement through sponsored content or press releases, this means that there is no serious saturation when it comes to advertisements for the user.
Volume of Press Releases
As previously mentioned, there is greater emphasis on well-researched content as opposed to press releases.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Along with these well researched news pieces, BeInCrypto provides its user base with a healthy range of news stories as well as incisive analysis from the length and breadth of the cryptocurrency space. These include a range of guides on the matters of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, technical analysis as well as pieces more focused on opinion and exploration of the future of Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
Reputation: 9/10
Event Coverage
The news site itself offers a good range of coverage for events and stories all across the world. But while this means that there is a good scope of insight that BeInCrypto can provide for its community, the team doesn’t seem to be directly in attendance of major events in the cryptocurrency world. Consequently, this means that the BeInCrypto team relies more on third-party reporters to inform its users of developments at specific events.
Social Media
BeInCrypto ensures that it’s social media platforms are kept up to date and are quite active across its platforms. Its team ensures that it keeps its Facebook, Twitter and Telegram updated on a daily basis.
Along with these social media feeds, the team operates a small but growing YouTube channel which posts minute long videos in a documentary style on a regular basis as well. These episodes usually go into some depth regarding major crypto news stories as well as discussions.
Like a number of other crypto news outlets, BeInCrypto does not exactly boast a large volume of followers over the channels so far, but it has a follower count and user base that is subject to continuous and fast growth.
User Tools
For this moment in time, the BeInCrypto team places a special emphasis on reporting news stories in an insightful, well-researched way as opposed to releasing users tools for its community. The website itself does feature some tools for technical analysis for major cryptocurrencies, but no other user tools for this moment in time.
Along with this, there are no. mobile apps associated with the website itself at this point either.
Biggest Strength
Be In Crypto offers a unique kind of content reporting for the cryptocurrency and blockchain world – with a special emphasis on quality over quantity when it comes to the news that it reports. The company ensures a certain level of objectivity through its staunch approach on refusing any kind of payment for sponsored content or press releases.
This allows for a modest amount of objectivity when it comes to its reporting, but along with its stringent standards in terms of journalistic guidelines, Be In Crypto has a profound level of objectivity in reporting.
User Interface and Design
The interface of the website means that users are confronted with a very image rich interface, with a lot of associated original artwork and graphics used to accompany every single story that is published on the website. This attention to detail and quality of. the interface is what sets it apart from other mid-range news outlets out there.
Review
The BeInCrypto operates as a crypto news media outlet and was officially launched in 2018 with the underlying goal of providing objective, unbiased analysis from the world of cryptocurrency. While the news platform is smaller than some of the more senior, older news outlets out there that it competes with, all by offering a lot of high quality analytical content, from a range of international writers with a broad range of disciplines.
One of. the other elements that we really ought to have an appreciation for is that the company refuses any kind of payment for sponsored content or press releases. There are no paid pieces of content or press releases that are added to the website, thus ensuring high-quality content. The underlying logic for this, according to the BeInCrypto team, this allows for the website to ensure the highest level of transparency as well as legitimate and effective reporting. The goal of BeInCrypto since its conception has been “to be the most reliable and trustworthy place on the planet to get your cryptocurrency and blockchain news.”
Far more than just its editorial policy, the company ensures transparency about a broad range of its company. This includes information about its transparency policies towards its writing team, location, contact information, as well as with other critical elements of information. This is something else that really sets BeInCrypto apart from its bigger rivals. Larger, international companies can often be relatively vague in this kind of information, especially when it comes to disclosing it to its community. BeInCrypto takes on a different approach – presenting itself as an open book with its approach, and it’s one that is certainly winning it positive press from the community.
Officially formed in 2018, the BeInCrypto brand is registered under the broader name of the Training Academy Limited, which is in operation within London, United Kingdom. This is something that is a little bit paradoxical, however: as the BeInCrypto LinkedIn profile specifies that its company is based in Dublin, Ireland.
Unlike its senior founding team and company brand, its writing team is interspersed across the world, meaning that they can report on any news on an international basis with a great deal of efficiency and speed. As a result, it doesn’t exactly matter where the company is based specifically.
In summary, BeInCrypto seeks to continue its growth, while ensuring that it continues its reputation as a reputable, insightful, well-researched, unbiased and objective news outlet for the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. While this is a statement and set of values that almost every single crypto news site professes to represent, but it seems like BeInCrypto is more than just paying lip service to these values – and has put its money where its mouth is in its decision to not accept sponsored content of any kind.
This, in conjunction with a highly experienced and skilled team of international writers providing their fair share of content from across the blockchain and crypto space. BeInCrypto is rightfully one of the top 15 cryptocurrency and blockchain news companies online today.
BLOCKONOMI
Headlines per day – 5 to 15 per day
Alexa Ranking – #57,130
Social Media Following
Twitter – 6,900
Telegram – 600
Facebook – 900
Blockonomi has carved out its own interesting reputation, having officially been founded and launched back in 2017, and privately owned by Kooc Media.
Author Credibility and Profiles
Blockonomi operates as a wholly transparent organization, especially when it comes to its management team, line of executives as well as writers. Every person that is involved with the company are provided with a listing on the website, specifically through its About Us page.
Each of the team’s range of authors are clearly listed on a first and last name basis, with links attached to their various social media profiles as well. All of these authors, along with members of the company’s executive board have a brief biographical summary for each one.
It is thanks to this level of transparency that there is a profound amount of information about various members of the team – with information about where they’re based, the kind of professional and academic experience that they have, the kind of work that they have previously been involved with in the realm of crypto.
In summary, the writing and management team working within Blockonomi consist of some of the most highly experienced, professional and most skilled teams within the world of crypto news media. Along with each of these team members being located all over the world, Blockonomi is also capable of providing an extensive amount of coverage for the crypto world – regularly on a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week basis.
Executive Team
Founder and Editor in Chief – Oliver Dale
Chief News Editor – Robert Devoe
Chief Technology Editor – Zach Hildreth
Chief Legal Editor – Andrew Norry
Editorial Policies
Blockonomi dedicates an entire page to laying out its underlying editorial as well as advertising policies. Within these various policies, Blockonomi dedicates itself (apparently), to adhere to “The strictest journalistic policies” through the upholding and maintaining of “fair and unbalanced reporting” from its content creators and authors.
Along with this high level of quality required of its writers, every journalist working on behalf of the Blockonomi staff needs to ensure the fact checking of any and all statistics or statements present within their content, with a source and / or bibliography being required in order to corroborate the various pieces of information used by the author.
Time Sensitivity
Blockonomi consists of an executive board, as well as a team of writers that are based all over the world. This allows for the company, and its writing team to provide international coverage of the news, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for its visitors. While this is the case for its news reporting, Blockonomi does not go through just as many updates when compared to its more well established and bigger media outlets out there.
While this is the case, Blockonomi does make it a habit of being rapidly updated whenever there are big, breaking news stories going on in the blockchain and crypto space.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Blockonomi makes it a habit to employ a range of experts and analysts from all across the industry, which includes the likes of computer science experts, legal professionals, along with many others.
This focus on specialist writers and content creators means that the company is able to publish highly speciality opinion pieces, comprehensive guides, as well as articles on topics from all across the industry. Newcomers to the crypto space can also find a wide array of investment guides, as well as more in-depth price analysis for various cryptocurrencies.
Blockonomi, along with its primary website, also operates a separate blog known as MoneyCheck, you can also find a range of links to articles from this company on Blockonomi too. Blockonomi itself hosts a wide array of guides, tutorials as well as comprehensive reviews that go over mining equipment to getting started in mining, crypto trading, various kinds of brokers, exchanges, digital and hard wallets, the history of various kinds of cryptocurrencies among many more.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
Blockonomi along with its international writing team makes an effort to go to a large number of crypto and blockchain events all over the world. As a result of this, the company appears to have a good level of coverage for a good number of major crypto events.
Along with this, Blockonomi has, and continues to be, a highly active sponsor for a number of crypto events, among them include the Malta Blockchain Summit, Coinfest, FutureTech Expo, along with the Blockchain Visionnaire Summit.
Social Media
While the Blockonomi team does not exactly have a large presence compared to other crypto news outlets, within social media. While this is the case, the company’s Twitter and Facebook profiles are continually updated on a highly regular basis. Including the biggest news stories, along with a range of exclusive features from the main website.
Blockonomi has a tendency to report on big news stories as opposed to reporting on rumors taken from social media streams, or similar kinds of stories. Rather than publishing content based around social media driven gossip and rumors, Blockonomi focuses primarily on features that are more in-depth analysis, research, and highly informed reporting.
User Tools
Blockonomi has a bigger focus on news reports, research and analysis. While Blockonomi itself does have this kind of feature and analytical focus, the company does include a range of very handy tools such as a range of price trackers for major cryptocurrencies.
These same price trackers go into a great deal of detail and depth about each of the cryptocurrencies that these trackers cover, allowing their users to easily see the latest news reports as they relate to the crypto in general, of the market specifically.
Biggest Strength
Blockonomi offers its readers an emphasis on high quality, well researched, professional caliber journalism from an international team of very experienced blockchain and crypto professionals from a wholly independent and, as a result, crypto-agnostic media outlet based out of the United Kingdom.
User Interface and Design
The Blockonomi site itself offers a relatively standard looking design for its blog, with a range of featured stories and news reports situated at the top of the main page, as well as a series of the most recent news throughout the page. Along with these reports, there are popularly acclaimed guides and reviews listed across the sidebar.
All in all, it is a very clean design, offering some clean and sharp colors such as white, black and grey.
Review
Being based out of Manchester in the United Kingdom, Blockonomi serves its users as a blockchain and cryptocurrency news media outlet, which was officially founded by the tech entrepreneur – Oliver Dale, back in 2017. As of this year – Blockonomi, while not being the largest crypto news media outlet in the space, nor one of the more frequently updated ones, it has all the same, managed to create its own unique little niche.
Having a particular focus on providing information abundant articles, research, along with a wholly independent approach to the world of crypto reporting. Rather than just simply piecing together information that has been thrown into a specific crypto company’s press release, Blockonomi takes the time and attention to provide its own research, along with an attentiveness to well-researched content.
It is as a result of this approach that the website provides a much higher level of quality when it comes to its journalism. One that is wholly free of crypto biases and the low level quality of reporting commonly seen from other websites.
Blockonomi, while not being as readily active on the realm of social media, especially when compared with other crypto news sites, does provide a good degree of activity on some channels. Specifically, Blockonomi does prove to be the most active on its Twitter feed, where the company boasts more than 7,000 followers.
Along with this large, and continually growing social media feed, Blockonomy also regularly updates its Facebook page. While these two feeds see the best rate of activity, Blockonomi doesn’t exactly have the same kind of presence on YouTube along with Instagram (which is fine, since many of Blockonomi’s competitors focus mostly on Twitter and Facebook as well). Blockonomi does, however, host its own, regularly updated Telegram channel, which is a quite a rarity within the crypto media space.
When it comes to the kinds of on-site tools that the Blockonomi site has for its users, while the site does have more of a focus on reporting the news; one of the tools that is available for users includes a dedicated crypto price finder, which allows users to view the most up to date price for cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin.
Each of these crypo price pages are accompanied with various resources such as a candlestick chart, price chart, price converter for other currencies, along with a brief description of the cryptocurrency and how it functions. The bottom of the price page also has the latest stories about that particular cryptocurrency. You can find price information on many different crypto websites, although I particularly like the way it’s presented on Blockonomi.
While the founder of the Manchester based Blockonomi – Oliver Dale- does continue to provide some level of content within the website, he is also supported but a small, yet professional and international team of highly skilled and experienced writers as well as editors, including the likes of Jimmy Aki and Zach Hildreth.
With team members like these, the editorial team does manage to produce and publish a large number of high quality crypto news articles from all over the industry. In summary, Blockonomi does tend to place more of its focus on major news reports influencing the broader, and international market rather than smaller news stories. These include major news reports about how mainstream financial institutions are preparing to get more involved with crypto or blockchain technology. Blockonomi visitors can expect the kind of stories you’ll often find from Wall Street firms, national regulations and much more.
While the company itself is based out of Manchester, United Kingdom, Blockonomi is part of the parent company known as Kooc Media Limited. Kooc Media’s very first major news platform was Blockonomi. However, since the Blockonomi we know was first launched back in 2017, Kooc Media has also successfully launched another separate website known as MoneyCheck.
Compared to Blockonomi, MoneyCheck’s underlying goal is to “simplify the world of finance for everyone.” With a number of MoneyCheck’s articles appearing within the Blockonomi website as well as vice versa. Overall, these two sites provide a good level of combined coverage for the world of international finance and cryptocurrencies, while they do represent news outlets that are wholly focused on different aspects.
So while Blockonomi, as previously mentioned, is based out in Manchester, United Kingdom, the company’s Chief News Editor is based out of Shanghai. Along with this, Blockonomi consists of a team of writers from all over the world that contribute to the site on a very regular basis. All of these writers are listed on the site by a first and last name basis, along with some basic biographical details as well as links to their various social media profiles.
Blockonomi founder Oliver Dale continues to serve as the Editor in Chief of Blockonomi.
While Blockonomi is not exactly known as being one of the biggest, or the most heavily trafficked crypto news media companies in operation in the world today. Blockonomi has, all the same, managed to steadily grow in popularity and reputation since it was first launched back in 2017, making it one of the quickest evolving and more authoritative names in the crypto and blockchain space.
Rather than providing comprehensive coverage of every event in crypto, Blockonomi focuses on providing experienced, in-depth analysis of major news stories. Articles on Blockonomi are often written in a significantly more detailed, longer, more well researches news updates than you would normally get from conventional news media outlets from the crypto and blockchain world.
Far from simply just regurgitating information from another company’s press release, Blockonomi takes a lot more time and attention to researching and corroborating the information provided within specific press releases or news reports. It is for these reasons along with a number of others that Blockonomi continues to present itself as a highly reputable leader within the crypto and blockchain news reporting world.
CRYPTO BRIEFING
Headlines per day: 8-15
Alexa Rank: #84066
Owners: Decentral Media LLC
Start Date: New York, USA, 2017
Social Media Following
Twitter: 8.060
Telegram: 1.838
Instagram: 723
Youtube: 1.300
Author Credibility and Profiles
Crypto Briefing is seen as both credible and independent because they have no advertisements and appear to hold no loyalties to anyone as a result. There is also a full about page, including all the writer’s full names, bios, and social media profiles, proving their experience and linking to their previous posts.
Executive Team
Han Kao (Founder and CEO), Jon Rice (Co-Founder and Managing Editor), Ilya Abugov (Head of Product & Research), and Jay Putera (Director of Business Development).
Editorial Policies
While many crypto websites are independently run and privately owned, Crypto Briefing is unique in also being advertisement-free and having no sponsored articles. Their official website states “Crypto Briefing exists to advocate for the safe and responsible integration of Blockchain and cryptocurrency into mainstream life,” and the official editorial policy reaffirms their commitment to unpaid, unsponsored, and independent journalism.
Time Sensitivity
Crypto Briefing is able to publish news stories 24/7 due to its dozen writers from all around the world. They always post major breaking stories but do not have as many news articles as some of their larger competitors.
Too Many Advertisements? No
Too Many Press Releases? No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Crypto Briefing not only has all three, but they also publish detailed news and analysis. There are research pieces, a complete education center, and a high premium on educating readers. What sets them apart is their extensive coin guide. It lists dozens of altcoins as well as top coins, allowing the reader to learn extensively about the whole industry instead of just the most famous coins.
Reputation: 9/10
Event Coverage
The website features an events calendar and breakdown by region. While it’s unclear if Crypto Briefing actually sends writers or teams to specific events, they still have key major event news coverage from all across the world.
Social Media
Crypto Briefing has a presence on all major social media platforms and regularly posts updates, allowing followers to remain up to date on the latest breaking news.
User Tools
Crypto Briefing has research papers, a coin guide, and an education center. They also have a live data page listing coins, their market caps and current price movements, and all exchange activity.
Mobile Apps: No
Biggest Strength
Bias free with a high standard, this team of professional writers deliver many articles, guides, research papers, reviews, and other analysis.
User Interface and Design
Professional and minimalist design. A lack of advertising adds to their clean look.
Review
CryptoBriefing.com is a leading crypto news site which distinguishes itself by by offering advertisement-free, independent coverage with no sponsored posts of any kind, allowing them to be more self-governed and unbiased. However, they are backed by major venture capital firms like Youbi Capital, Fenbushi Capital, DHVC, Neo Global Capital, PreAngel, Goopal Digital Capital, Block 72, Lucen Accelerator, WanFund, and Game Theory Group. There is no evidence showing it affects their work so far (other sites have shown favor to companies sponsoring them in the past).
Crypto Briefing does cover major news on a regular basis but guides are their biggest strength which includes everything from code and coin reviews to technology and opinion pieces on what makes particular crypto unique. They also regularly publish research papers and DARE reports (Digital Asset Report and Evaluation). All of this can be found in their education center
We really appreciate the code reviews on Crypto Briefing, as well as the coin reviews. This is not something many other crypto sites offer. The coin reviews are conducted by Andre Cronje and his team where they analyze ICOs based on the company’s white paper. The team goes into the code of the coin itself to separate fact from fiction, revealing the true tech capabilities from the hype taking it to the next level of review.
Another unique feature of Crypto Briefing is that there are both English and Korean versions of the website. Korean language articles aren’t posted to the website nearly as frequently as English language articles, but they are available on the site for Korean crypto users to read.
Crypto Briefing is based in downtown New York City and was co-founded by Han Kao and Jon Rice in 2017. Kao grew up in NYC and earned a B.A. from Columbia University in economics. He has founded and exited multiple companies in tech and media, and spent 15 years as an entrepreneur. Today, Han spends his team consulting and actively investing in ICOs and blockchain entities. Rice, on the other hand, is currently the managing editor and has worked in marketing and publishing for more than 25 years.
Other team members also invest in ICOs and blockchain-related projects but it appears to always be disclosed for readers to see. The “Team” page itself includes detailed profiles of the executive team and a list of current journalists, contributors, guest editors, and previous contributors. This includes social media links.
Crypto Briefing is backed by industry veterans and tech entrepreneurs with a very professional environment, carving out a niche of advertisement free publications. Despite being backed by multiple firms and investments by a majority of their staff, they remain an independent and unbiased source of news and opinions. Since first opening its doors in 2017, they have quickly grown to become one of the most trusted and well-liked sources of information out there.
Bitcoin.com
Headlines – 10 to 15
Alexa Ranking – #9,980
Social Media Following
Twitter – 387,000
Facebook – 98.400
YouTube – 17,000
Having been established back in 2008 under its original domain name of Bitcoin.com back in 2008, the official website, which is owned privately by Roger Verr, since launched back in September 2015.
Author Credibility and Profiles
Each of the writers involved in the project area featured on the site and listed by their first and last name within their own on-site profiles which visitors can read. Along with this information, it’s also policy of the company to have its authors disclose any cryptocurrency holdings that they have within these profile pages.
The company itself, being privately owned by the entrepreneur and major influencer – Roger Ver – offers a plentiful amount of information about himself both on his own social media channels as well as on the website. What really sets the company out is the fact that its writing and editorial team are interspersed across the world.
Executive Team
CEO – Roger Ver
Chief Technology Officer – Emil Oldenburg
Chief Operating Officer – Mate Tokay
Chief Financial Officer – Natalia Ra
Editor in Chief – Nanok Bie
General Counsel – Daniel Kelman
Head of Mining Operations – Shaun Chong
Head of HR – Jared Stone
Global Head of Technology – Ben Goodyear
CPO – Dennis Jarvis
Editorial Policies
Much like a number of other crypto news outlets out there, Bitcoin.com strives to provide the best kind of information when it comes to Bitcoin, within its news, reviews and more in depth analysis. The website does provide an ‘About Us’ segment where the news source is promptly and aptly described as “your premier source for everything bitcoin related.” No specific editorial policy is listed online.
Time Sensitivity
Bitcoin.com, along with boasting a robust kind of editorial policy when it comes to its content, is also one of the fastest crypto news media outlets online when it comes to rapid responses to developments in the industry. This is thanks in large part to the internationally present media and writing teams, and of whom are responsible for the publishing of content on a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week system.
The majority of breaking news stories regarding bitcoin, cryptocurrecny and blockchain are most likely reliably covered on Bitcoin.com
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Bitcoin, along with covering a wide range of breaking news stories in the crypto and blockchain world, the company also provide a range of very comprehensive guides on how users can buy Bitcoin, event how-to guides for getting started in mining Bitcoin, as well as how users can invest in, store and use Bitcoin in transactions.
Along with this extensive list of guides, the website does also include its fair share of features such as opinion pieces from the company’s editor team, introductory guides when it comes to Bitcoin, as well as a complete exploratory guide as to how Bitcoin functions for users.
Reputation: 9/10
Event Coverage
The Bitcoin.com team makes a concerted effort to attend a wide range of cryptocurrency and blockchain events wherever possible on an international scale. The website, along with its existing daily content, does tend to have a great degree of coverage for major industry events across the world.
The company itself boasts over 50 employees internationally, allowing for the team to be present, to some capacity at some or all of these events. Bitcoin.com, in general, does its best in order to provide the most concrete level of coverage across the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.
Social Media
Bitcoin.com, while being highly active in the world of news developments and international events, the company remains highly active on social media platforms, specifically when it comes to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, with the website proudly hosting hundreds of thousands of followers across the range of these accounts.
The websites social media platforms are regularly updated along with the website with a range of breaking news stories, analysis from the cryptocurrency investment world at large, as well as other bits of information from the worlds of blockchain and cryptocurrency.
In addition to using these social media feeds, Bitcoin.com makes an effort at developing and publishing video content through its dedicated YouTube channel, of which the channel features a range of interviews with highly influential figures in the industry. These interviews are also published in conjunction with documentary-style videos explaining various elements of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.
User Tools
Along with being omnipresent across its website and social media channels, Bitcoin.com has a great degree of useability for its users and visitors. Beyond what these sames users can find on a more conventional crypto media news website, Bitcoin.com hosts a range of interesting and unique features, such as blockchain games, forums, a dedicated academy and more.
Along with these tools, Bitcoin.com also hosts its own, very popular digital wallet, allowing its users to hold and store volumes of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash securely. In addition to the digital wallet, there is also a popularly used block explorer that people can use in order to visit various transactions which took place on either BTC or BCH blockchains.
Alongside this, the Bitcoin.com Academy includes a range of highly interactive tutorials and classes for users ranging in experience level from beginner to intermediate. These games that users can also play on the platform, while being conventional gambling style games. They are backed up using blockchain, meaning that they use probably fair algorithms, increasing the likelihood that players will and can win.
Biggest Strength
The website itself operates as a highly independent, if privately owned company specializing in reporting on anything going on in the world of Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, and blockchain news.
Along with this prolific level of reporting, the website includes a range of captivating features, such as a dedicated digital wallet, comprehensive guides, mining solutions, Block explorers and more.
User Interface and Design
The site itself is iconic thanks to the kind of distinctive color scheme that it uses, allowing it to stand out quite well. The pallet it uses is a black, white and orange theme and thanks to its focus on guides as well as comprehensive tutorials within Bitcoin.com. It works effectively in concert with its accompanying platform – News.Bitcoin.com, which focuses in o more traditional news and functions pretty much like a news blog; featuring a range of recent news stories, developments and popular ones.
Distinctive black, white, and orange theme that allows Bitcoin.com stand out from the crowd. The main Bitcoin.com page focuses mostly on guides and tutorials, while the News.Bitcoin.com section is a more traditional news blog, featuring a daily selection of recent stories, featured stories, and popular stories.
Review
Having been established back in 2008 under its original domain name of Bitcoin.com back in 2008, the official website, which is owned privately by Roger Verr, since launched back in September 2015.
It’s thanks to this fact, along with the fact that it places a great deal of emphasis on the need for far reaching kinds of content. With its website linking to its own Bitcoin wallet, exclusive tutorials and instructional guides on how users can get started in the world of Bitcoin – such as tutorials on how to use Bitcoin, mine it or even store and invest in it.
Within the cryptosphere that we know of today, Bitcoin.com is one of the single largest news media outlets out there for crypto reporting. Each of its news articles can be found on its accompanying site news.bitcoin.com.today, and, as a platform, is wholly registered in the region of Saint Kitts and Nevis under Roger Ver’s name.
While Ver himself is listed down as the CEO of Bitcoin.com as a whole, the company also consists of more than 50 employees, which are based all over the world, allowing the company to readily attend conferences and meetings on a wide scale. It’s this, along with its growing Alexa ranking, which managed to push as high as 1,500 during the bullish run of Bitcoin back in 2017, Bitcoin.com has since gained a reputation as one of the most heavily trafficked websites for news reporting within the Bitcoin, Crypto and blockchain news world.
Each of its employees, from content creators, to managers and even senior ranked executives are listed in a very transparent way through the About Us section of Bitcoin.com. Profiles are listed for each employee along with first and last names, making it easy to get specific information about any particular writer.
Over the last few years, Bitcoin.com has since gained a reputation and often notoriety in the minds of some users thanks to its sometimes overt-seeming support for the duo of cryptos – Bitcoin as well as Bitcoin Cash. This is a stigma that is not helped by the fact that Roger Ver was one of the first to become a Bitcoin Cash supporter.
It’s because of this that investors and readers believe that there is a propagandistic motive for Bitcoin.com to ‘shill’ for the likes of both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. While others have since provided generous praise for Bicoin.com thanks to its objectivity when it comes to reporting on the news, further seeing it as a highly legitimate source for information.
These same individuals have also expressed a certain degree of positivity considering the fact that Bitcoin.com covered the fact that Bitcoin Cash sought to differentiate itself from Bitcoin by restoring key features lost in the hard fork. Today, Bitcoin.com continues to refer to Bitcoin (BTC) as “Bitcoin Core” – something that BTC supporters hate while BCH supporters love.
Regardless of the kind of sentiments that you have towards either Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin, there is still more than a legitimate argument for using Bitcoin.com, thanks to its growing reputation as one of the internets best resources for those interested in the developments coming from the blockchain, Crypto and Bitcoin world.
Its accompanying news blog – News.Bitcoin.com also features a wide range of news reports from the crypto and blockchain world, all of which are high-quality reports from all across the world and industry. Even with allegations of subjectivity towards Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin.com writers strive to explore issues and provide comprehensive reports on major issues with as objective a stance as it possible. All in all, there is a good degree of coverage for all kinds of events and news stories from the industry.
This is all in spite of some occasional pro-BCH slips which occur in some articles, News.bitcoin.com also publishes articles that attempt to show the many perspectives of one debate.
This strong attempt at objectivity, however, is still not enough for some crypto users and visitors to look past the kind of connections that Bitcoin.com has with its founder – Roger Ver – and what his respective affiliations are to Bitcoin Cash.
Ver, while being the founder and CEO behind Bitcoin.com, remains a much disputed figure within the Bitcoin and crypto community. With many out there perceiving him as being a highly knowledgeable evangelist for cryptocurrencies across the board. While others see him as a highly opinionated shill for Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash, with his own interests being in the performance of his own holdings. With some going further to claim that the website itself is simply some kind of media mouthpiece for Ver to come out with his own opinions.
While this is maybe the case in the minds of some, Ver along with Bitcoin.com continue to be a domineering force within the crypto and blockchain community and, most users have since moved on from the previous hard fork split between the core developers of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash back in 2017. This movement of the community onward means that Bitcoin.com can continue to place its focus on posting relevant discussions and news for the crypto world.
Bitcoin has since also gained a potent reputation as being an online academy of sorts for various cryptocurrencies and activities within the blockchain space. New users, after all, are able to make use of a wide array of resources made available by the company – making it a highly all-encompassing resource for new and intermediate users.
New users to the site can choose to visit Bitcoin.com for the latest news or delve into some of the instructional guides in order to learn how to buy and store bitcoin for the first time as one example. The website itself also hosts a range of comprehensive guides on how to get started at mining Bitcoin for yourself or as part of a pool. There are also a range of games, discussion boards and forums.
Along with these, there is a suite of tools in order to help anyone getting stared in the world of Bitcoin, whether you’re wholly new to the space or a more proficient user. Bitcoin.com remains one of the largest mining organizations for Bitcoin in the world today.
Despite the mild controversy over BTC, BCH, and Roger Ver, Bitcoin.com continues to solidify its position as one of the largest and most reputable websites in the crypto community today.
Bitcoinist
Headlines per day – 5 to 15
Alexa Ranking – #35,955
Social Media Following
Twitter – 47,300
Telegram – 13,000
Facebook – 22,000
Instagram – 2,000
Author Credibility and Profiles
While a number of other crpyto news reporting platforms offer something in the way of user profiles for the various content creators and authors on the site. Bitcoinist is unusual since it does not appear to have any author profile segments for the various members of their writing team.
Most of these writers on the platform do have their names listed in the first and last name structure, with users being able to click on these names in order to see any of the other kinds of articles that these same users have worked on for the site.
While this simple elements exists, there is little to no information on the authors themselves, nothing that illustrates the kind of background they have, professional or academic experience, or even the holdings that they have in various crypto assets.
Regardless of this fact, Bitcoinist does allege to have the requirement that all writers within its staff are obligated to disclose any and all holdings that they have in various crypto assets, all prior to any of their content is published. All writers within the staff of Bitcoinist are currently paid in some medium of crypto such as Bitcoin and / or Ethereum, so at the very least, it’s assumed that these writers will have a moderate stake in at least two kinds of crypto during their time working for this platform.
Its writing staff, according to the Bitcoinist team, is also based all over the world.
Executive Team
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer – Mate Tokay
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer – Norbert Kovacs
Co-Founder – Zoltan Tokay
Editor in Chief – Scott Fargo
Editorial Policies
Bitcoinist clearly outlines its editorial policy on a page on the official website. That editorial policy explains the publishing goals of the company. It also explains how the website makes money. In summary, it does seem as though the Bitcoinist team is committed to providing a high quality level of content for its community, often taking pride in its ability to provide users with “unbiased reporting and journalistic integrity”.
As a whole, the website itself seeks, through its content, editorial and publishing policy to “work diligently to fact check, source, and corroborate” any kinds of metrics, statements or research as it appears within publications that are then placed on the website. In addition to this, the Bitcoinist team claims to be wholly against any kind of generation of hype for various articles. As a result, it claims to not believe in sensationalizing or making various news articles clickbaity.
Bitcoinist does allege to have the requirement that all writers within its staff are obligated to disclose any and all holdings that they have in various crypto assets, all prior to any of their content is published. Along with this fact, Bitcoinist states that it, as a limited company, does not get involved with any kind of trading or investing in cryptocurrencies. Even with this in mind, the company does accept payments from companies looking to post a banner advertisement, press release publishing, sponsored content within the site among other areas.
Time Sensitivity
While the Bitcoinist team professes not to publish in any kind of heavy volume over a given day, as is often the case with bigger crypto news media outlets out there. Bitcoin does, however, have the tendency of responding quite quickly to big developments on an international level within the cryptocurrency and blockchain news world.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Bitcoinist has a series of basic yet informative guides which are posted online within the website. Writers do have the habit of periodically reviewing various reviewing various crypto and blockchain apps and exchanges too.
While it does offer these kinds of guides and reviews, the primary focus of Bitcoinist is on reporting on and publishing news stories, so even though these guides are available, these along with its series of tutorials are online and are more a basic instructional guide as opposed to anything highly comprehensive.
For those looking for any of these Bitcoinist guides, users simply need to look under the ‘How To’ segment found on the website, and these include a range of guides such as the ‘Best Bitcoin Wallet,’ and ‘what is Bitcoin?’ among other crypto guides.
Reputation: 7/10
Event Coverage
While it is unclear whether Bitcoinist actively does send over teams to attend these international events, or if writers are already locally placed in order to attend these events, or if they primarily rely on a third party news outlet in order to report on these kinds of events.
Regardless of its coverage policy, Bitcoinist’s website does feature a wide range of events within its online calendar, with a range of upcoming events taking place across Europe.
Social Media
Along with being highly active in the realm of social media, Bitcoinist hosts one of the largest social media followings seen from a crypto news media company. With this said – Bitcoinist does still lag somewhat behind some of the bigger names on mediums like Twitter, it still has a following of above 50,000.
Along with this high volume of traffic, Bitcoinist’s Twitter, along with its vast array of other social media pages are updated several times a day with some of the latest news reports from the official website. In total, Bitcoinist has a following in the several thousands on pages such as Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and other mediums.
User Tools
Bitcoinist itself only has a limited number of user tools that visitors can make use of. With a small crypto price ticker being featured on the top of the website across its pages. apart from this, however, the Bitcoinist team has its sights primarily set on reporting the news.
Biggest Strength
Bitcoinist does make a concerted effort to provide a highly Euro-centric approach towards its cryptocurrency analysis when it comes to explaining any of the latest developments, allowing it to provide insight in a highly objective and independent manner. Consisting of only a relatively small team of writers, Bitcoinist alludes to its push for high-quality content – allowing its team to accomplish a lot while being interspersed over the world.
User Interface and Design
The interface of the website itself is very much what we would come to expect from a standard blog design, with its highly distinct ‘B’ symbol being plainly visible in the top left corner of the website.
Within the page, the various articles are separated into their own distinct categories such as ‘Bitcoin’, ‘Ethereum’ or ‘Altcoins.’ In addition to these categories, there are a range of sub-categories which allow you to draw into more specific articles such as ‘Blockchain’, ‘Security’ and ‘press releases.’
All in all, Bitcoinist makes use of a black, navy blue and light blue color palettes in order to draw users in with its cool, sleek format across its website as well as various social media pages.
Review
With the company hosting more than two million visitors to its news platform on a monthly basis, along with thousands of followers on its various social media pages, Bitcoinist has managed to grow and become one of the more influential crypto media publishing platforms in the industry.
Having been established back in 2013, the website boasts a small scale team compared to others, but one that it scattered across an international level, allowing them to provide periodic news reports on a 24 hour, 7 day a week basis. So far, the Bitcoinist writing team has managed to cover a wide range of topics in the world of blockchain and crypto – such as news reports, price analysis, reviews of various products, exchanges or crypto assets, interviews, blockchain, digital security, altcoins and much more.
Like a number of other crpyto news platforms, Bitcoinist, while not directly . getting involved in cryptocurrencies such as mining or investment, it does offer companies sponsored articles and paid advertising for those lookign to advertise in the industry. Some of these services are available for direct purchase through Bitcoinist, and these include CPM-based banner advertisements, newsletter sponsorships, sponsored content as it relates to the specific company, as well as background advertisements that are placed on the page.
Having been established and officially founded by the team of Mate Tokay, Norbert Kovacs and Zoltan Tokay back in February 2014. When it comes to its location, Bitcoinist is a little unusual – having been officially registered as a business within the United Kingdom under the name of Bitcoinist Limited, while paradoxically: the company itself is operating and based out of Budapest, Hungary.
This goes on to highlight a serious flaw with Bitcoinist – that the company itself does not present itself as a highly transparent medium when it comes to its registration information and location. But to suggest that this is something that is wholly unique to Bitcoinist would be wholly untrue.
It does remain an unusual thing that Bitcoinist does not provide any information on its various authors through its site online. Most of these authors only being identified by their first and last names, but other than that – apart from clicking on the author’s name to show what they have written; there’s nothing in the way of biographical details, for example. There is no description of the individual’s experience or professional qualifications in the industry.
In summary, however, the writing team does speak from a place of experience and professionalism in the content that they provide. Managing to effectively and more than competently discuss various developments in the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain – but what is generally more appreciated is a greater degree of transparency.
Regardless of the lack of clarity on the matter of location or the information regarding its corporation, Bitcoinist still strives to carve out its own niche and reputation as a highly reputable and authoritative news outlet for the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. Bitcoinist, while consisting of a small team of only roughly a dozen writers. But while this is a small number, these same writers are scattered across the world and, as a result, this makes them more than capable of delivering high quality content over a 24/7 basis with the latest news, insight, analysis and interviews from the world of crypto.
We only really have the company’s word on this, but these same writers are obligated to provide information about any investments that they have made or may have before submitting their articles. Overall, the Bitcoinist team makes many of the same kinds of claims as other mainstream crypto media outlets make on the subject of editorial policies – they seek to provide a ‘fair, objective’ and unbiased approach towards their journalism and reporting when it comes to any kinds of crypto events.
In summary, this Hungary based company does go a long way to honoring these claims that they make about the quality of their content – providing an effective source of news and analysis from all across the world of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, including the latest reports, news and interviews regarding Bitcoin, altcoins, blockchain technology, security among many others.
This coincides with a high level of media following that it receives both through the site (2 million per month through the website along) along with the following that it has via social media (50,000 plus across a wide range of social media outlets), allowing it to have a highly influential presence online.
While the company is lacking when it comes to elements of its corporate, geographic information and transparency – including its writers information – Bitcoinist does seem to be deeply committed to its pledge to provide a highly independent, objective outlet for news from within the crypto and blockchain community.
While its lacking in certain aspects of transparency – like its writer information and location – Bitcoinist seems committed to being an independent, unbiased news outlet for the crypto community.
Bitcoin Magazine
Headlines per day – 5 to 15
Alexa Ranking – #80,071
Social Media Following
Twitter – 548,000
Facebook – 77,000
Having been officially established back in 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States – the company is owned by the limited company – BTC Media LLC
Author Credibility and Profiles
Bitcoin Magazine lists the majority of its authors in a similar fashion as is normally seen from other news outlets – each of these authors being listed on a first and last name basis. But it should be pointed out that some of these authors do often operate under pseudonyms of their own choosing.
Generally speaking, the writers working for the Bitcoin Magazine team represent some of the most legitimate and highly professionalized writers within the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, frequently being involved in the production of magazine quality content that can range from more current events pieces, to more investigative content about various companies, crypto tokens or analysis of token performance over time.
Along with a team of full-time writers within the Bitcoin Magazine does regularly publishes content from a range of skilled freelance writers. No matter the kind of hours these content creators provide for the company – each of these, from writers, copy editors, editors, designers and developers are listed on the company’s ‘About’ page.
Executive Team
Co-Founder – Vitalik Buterin
Co-Founder – Mihai Alisie
Managing Editor – Christie Harkin
Editorial Policies
Bitcoin Magazine is pretty forthcoming with its range of editorial policies, having them clearly on display for users to see within its ‘About’ page. The company seeks to provide for its users an outlet for “accurate, timely and relevant” information, content, and news from the crypto and blockchain community.
The company, in spite of the fact that it is owned by the Tennessee based company – BTC Incorporated and BTC Media LLC, it also does claim that its editorial staff consists of a wholly independent entity, separate from the corporate parent. Bitcoin Magazine does also accept a range of pitches and stories from writers and content creators “entirely on their journalistic merits, timeliness, and specific relevance to the publication’s readership in the bitcoin space.”
In order to ascertain complete objectivity, writers working for Bitcoin Magazine are strictly forbidden from accepting any kind of payment from a third party in exchange for covering a specific story or press release. Bitcoin Magazine itself also does not publish any kind of press releases either, which is something of a rarity when considering crypto media outlets. In addition to this, the company does not accept payment of any kind for its articles (that said, the company does allow for advertising, which is available through a range of banner advertisements, email newsletter sponsorships, along with sponsored content, which is made clearly visible to members of the community.)
Bitcoin Magazine makes all effort to disclose any connections to BTC Inc, BTC Media LLC, or any subsidiary companies wherever possible.
Time Sensitivity
Bitcoin Magazine makes a habit of not publishing the same kind of quantity when it comes to news, especially when compared to its major news stories. Regardless, Bitcoin Magazine does provide a lot of insight into the major news stories, and in a very punctual way.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Bitcoin Magazine has more than a dozen comprehensive guides which are available for users to check out online, which includes a range of guides for beginners and more skilled users. Along with these, there are also broader financial guides on how these taxes work with Bitcoin, to how Bitcoin is capable of scalability over time, as well as how to store, and subsequently how to keep you Bitcoin investment safe, among a wide range of other topics.
Reputation: 9/10
Event Coverage
Bitcoin Magazine does a lot to cover some of the biggest developments within the blockchain and crypto world including events, much akin to any big crypto news media outlet. While it does present itself on an international stage for conferences and news, Bitcoin Magazine doesn’t have the same kind of presence at these events as its other, more substantial competition, with that said, the company does still manage to keep up to date with the latest news and reports for its community.
Bitcoin Magazine is also preparing to host its own unique event known as the Bitcoin 2019 Conference based in San Francisco this June. Considering the fact that tickets are priced at $100, it comes out as a very cost effective kind of event when compared to other kinds of crypto and blockchain events.
Social Media
Along with having a good level of activity through its digital magazine, Bitcoin Magazine is also a very active player in the world of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. With each of these accounts consisting of nearly half a million followers – Bitcoin Magazine has one of the most followed Twitter accounts in the world of crypto media.
User Tools
Along with its range of news reports, financial analysis and pricing updates, the Bitcoin Magazine also features its own Bitcoin block explorer, which is similar to the same kind of block explorer found on a wide range of other sites. It’s through this explorer that people can view recent blocks, while also checking on the various statistics of these blocks, such as their height and the number of transactions involved in this block.
Along with these, users can search through previous blocks to check the same kind of metrics. Along with this explorer, Bitcoin Magazine also includes a unique price tracker, which allows users to see the up to date pricing of various major crypto assets, including a full candlestick chart.
Biggest Strength
Bitcoin Magazine is one of the longest-running crypto news media outlets, which offers a lot of insightful, well-informed commentary for its readers. Along with this highly successful digital magazine, the company is also looking to re-launch its print edition in the near future.
User Interface and Design
Bitcoin Magazine offers users a highly distinctive setup and color design with its orange and white color pallet which is matched with a standardized blog layout.
The magazine itself features a range of featured stories which are listed at the top of the page, along with some of its more up to date stories through the rest of the page. These various featured stories regarding any new and upcoming events, along with a number of guides, which are listed throughout the page.
In general, the layout for the online magazine remains very clear, concise and easy to navigate. Bitcoin Magazine has an iconic print-based layout, while the real-world magazine which was previously in circulation, have since become collector’s items, with some of the original first issues of the magazine selling for more than $800 from the Bitcoin Magazine store.
Review
Bitcoin Magazine has gained a firm reputation and, being one of the industry’s longest running media websites for news in the crypto and blockchain world – it’s a reputation earned over a long game.
Established back in 2012 by its founding team of Vitalik Buterin and Mihai Alisie, Bitcoin Magazine is, itself, owned by BTC Media LLC, which is a limited company based in Nashville, Tennessee. Initially, Bitcoin Magazine stood remarkably true to its name – having operated both as a digital and real-world publisher of its own magazine.
While Vitalik would be one of the co-founders of the company, he would later go on to co-found and bring Ethereum to the broader world. While Buterin may have left, the magazine has been moving from strength to strength without him. And while the print version of the magazine was discontinued a few years ago, the company has plans on returning to the world of print as of this year.
Back when it operated as a real world and digital publisher of its magazine, Bitcoin Magazine made history as the very first magazine dedicated to the world of cryptocurrency reporting – with people being able to purchase a physical copy as a subscription price of $9 per month. Most of these articles were also free to read on the digital format too.
Along with being one of the team’s co-founders – Buterin himself dedicated a good deal of time to providing content to the website as his side project while working through university, more than 10-20 hours of his time were dedicated to the magazine in question.
It was only in 2014 when a senior entrepreneur named David Bailey, officially launched the limited company BTC Media in Nashville, Tennessee. Before getting involved in Bitcoin Magazine, the company was behind the operations of yBitcion, one of the leading publications for reporting on digital currencies. BTC Media LLC serves as a subsidiary company responsible for media and publishing under BTC Incorporated.
Today, the BTC Media LLC family includes Bitcoin Magazine as well as Distributed.com, a platform for discussing distributed ledger technology. Some of the other pre-eminent members of the BTC Media LLC founding team consist of members such as Andrew DeSantis and Tyler Evans. Along with operating media and news reporting outlets such as Bitcoin Magazine, the company itself also provides a range of consulting services for major companies on the Fortune 500 on the world of bitcoin and blockchain technology.
Even after Bitcoin Magazine was acquired by Bitcoin Media LLC, it continues to be one of the most reliable and reputable sources of the news when it comes to the Bitcoin and crypto media world. Along with this reputation, the company also boasts one of the largest following in the world of social media – with pages like Twitter consisting of over 500,000 on its own.
This reputation is one that has been cultivated over the years, thanks to the fact that it has been in operation since 2012, making it one of the longest running major media outlets and crypto publications in the entire world of crypto.
Along with being and claiming to be one of, if not the oldest and, as a result, the most established news outlet for cryptocurrencies. The company itself also boasts a wholly independent organization of editorial staff, allowing it to be wholly objective of its parent entities like BIT Incorporated and BTC LLC’s team/
With regards to the company’s editorial policies, Bitcoin Magazine has meticulously laid out its while editorial policy online. Allowing for visitors to the platform, along with prospective writers to understand the kind of policies in place in order to ensure the level of quality is maintained.
Along with this coherent editorial policy, the company also claims to disclose any and all connections to BTC Incorporated as well as BTC Media LLC wherever it can when it comes to reporting on a particular story. Along with this drive to greater transparency, editorially and business speaking, Bitcoin Magazine professes to not publish any kind of press release, they also do not accept any kind of payment for content.
While this is the case, the company does offer and feature a range of advertisements along with sponsored posts which are clearly labelled on the site. Overall, the Bitcoin Magazine editorial policy is designed to minimize the perception of bias due to the website’s connections to Bitcoin Magazine.
While the print version of Bitcoin Magazine has since gone by the way-side over the past few years, the team is bringing back this year. In 2019, Bitcoin Magazine announced that it would now officially go back to publishing a print version of its content, while being distributed much like any ordinary magazine wherever they’re sold.
This brings up the further question of whether a print magazine, much less a printed magazine covering the world of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency, survive and be as dynamic as its online iteration? Only time can tell. Originally, Bitcoin Magazine had previously partnered up with a publishing company based out of Orlando, Florida known as Coin Publishing LLC in order to print these magazines. While this was the case for then, it remains uncertain as to what company will be publishing this re-launched version.
The original Bitcoin Magazines, which came from the first instance when the company was publishing physical versions, have since become collector’s items. With the online store for Bitcoin Magazine actually selling off copies of its first edition (published in May 2012) for a sum of $799.99, while an entire package, containing all 22 Bitcoin Magazine issues being sold for a price of $4,450. With a range of other items on the store such as Bitcoin brand T-shirts as well as similar products.
One of the other elements of the magazine includes a series of guides provided by the writing team. These provide a wide range of insights into the world of cryptocurrencies, investing and trading for newcomers and more experienced investors alike. Allowing them to get acclimated with all they need to know about crypto and blockchain technology.
These include a range of guides such as “What is Bitcoin?” and “What is a Blockchain.” These do an excellent job of providing a summary analysis and guide on this ever-evolving and changing technology.
Ultimately, Bitcoin Magazine is a much different website from what it was originally. But when something like this is said – it is certainly not a bad thing in the slightest; with the company moving from strength to strength, having continued to be relevant, and continually innovating over the years in order to keep up to speed to developments. No, with a print magazine being announced to be re-launched as of 2019, Bitcoin Magazine continues to strive to provide a highly reputable source of news and reports, allowing it to build upon its already strong reputation as a name within the space.
BLOOMBERG
Headlines per day – 3 to 7
Alexa Rank – #560
Social Media Following
Twitter – 119,000
Facebook – 3.8 million
Instagram – 174,000
YouTube – 167,000
Having officially been established in 1981, from its dedicated building within Manhattan, New York, United States of America. The company itself is and remains privately owned by Michael Bloomberg, who remains the majority shareholder, holding 88 percent of the company.
Author Credibility and Profiles
Bloomberg has an international reputation as one of the largest and one of the best respected independent media sources operating in the world today. So it makes sense that its team of cryptocurrency writers are similarly well trusted and highly experienced reporters within the industry.
Bloomberg has since reacted to the rise in popularity of cryptocurrency by rapidly creating its own dedicated team of crypto focused writers, all of them having a high level of skill when it comes to breaking down the latest news stories, while also elaborating on each of these news stories in a very clear, easy to understand writing style. Boomberg’s team of crypto writers tend to emphasize coverage on both financial and cryptocurrency markets as opposed to moving into the specialized regions of crypto and blockchain.
All of its writers are listed on a first and last name basis, each with links to their own social media profiles.
Executive Team
President and CEO – Michael Bloomberg
Chairman – Peter Grauer
Editor in Chief – John Micklethwait
Editorial Policies
Compared to other, comparably smaller scale crypto news media outlets, Bloomberg is far too large of an organization and media company in order to provide a single, coherent, editorial policy across the wide range of its divisions.
However, one of the admirable elements of its amorphous editorial policy is that the company has a special rule that it simply refuses to report on itself in any way. Bloomberg has a very serious approach when it comes to its editorial policy, taking it so seriously to the point that the company’s founder and CEO – Michael Bloomberg does not even appear on the Bloomberg Billionaire’s index, in spite of the fact that he is among the top 10 wealthiest men in the world in his own rights – with an overall net worth of $55 billion.
Time Sensitivity
Bloomberg responds to the biggest news stories in the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain in a very timely way, while the company is pretty reliable at this, the website is not exactly the first responder with the breaking news stories, unfortunately, and in the majority of cases.
Apart from these major news stories, Bloomberg only manages to publish a small number of crypto dedicated articles per day, rather than focusing on a large number of poor quality updates.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Bloomberg’s dedicated editorial team often chimes into the crypto space with its own unique kinds of op-eds across the news website, along with a number of independent contributors dependably submitting a various range of speciality pieces on the site. However, the crypto division within Bloomberg tends to place a broader focus on reporting the news as opposed to publishing a number of opinion pieces on crypto and blockchain.
Bloomberg does publish a range of Bitcoin price analyses, along with other sources of crypto research through its Bloomberg TV video series, which also includes a number of exclusive interviews with financial analysts and blockchain / crypto CEOs along with a number of other individuals.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
Bloomberg will reliably report on some of the major news stories from some of the more popular and major crypto events, even while the company does not reliably send teams to cover these events in person.
Social Media
Bloomberg hosts a gigantic number of followers across its wide range of social media feeds, in total, the company has more than several million followers over its social media pages. Most crypto news stories are featured under the social media accounts of Bloomberg Technology. However, while it uses these outlets for publishing the news, Bloomberg also owns the dedicated @Crypto witter handle, which is specifically used to cover crypto and blockchain news on behalf of Bloomberg.
User Tools
Bloomberg has no crypto user tools like price trackers featured online. Also mobile apps for iOS and Android.
Biggest Strength
Bloomberg has had plenty of time to present itself as a highly reputable and authoritative voice in mainstream financial news. And crypto news coverage is one of the areas in which it carries over this reputation – being one of the world’s largest privately owned financial media giants. It’s with this in mind, and Bloomberg’s own hazy approach towards cryptocurrency, that it can assure its own objectivity.
User Interface and Design
Bloomberg’s dedicated news page specifically targeting the news in the crypto and blockchain space looks very familiar to the mainstream Bloomberg page used by millions. In contrast, it has its color scheme interestingly reversed. The Bloomberg.com front page, for example, features a black text over a white background.
In stark contrast, the Bloomberg crypto page features white text over a black background. Providing visitors with a very interesting contrasting appearance. The website itself features a range of stories, videos and specific crypto categories that are highlighted all throughout the crypto page, making it pretty easy for any kind of user to find the kinds of content that they are looking for.
Review
Bloomberg offers users its own take on a dedicated cyptocurrency news page which is available through the URL – Bloomberg.com/Crpyto. It is through this page that users will be able to find the same kind of style of coverage that you can find on other mainstream media sites like Forbes and CNBC, which also have their own dedicated crypto pages of various scales – users can also find news as well as in depth analysis from all across the crypto space – all created and published by Bloomberg’s highly experienced team of financial writers.
Along with publishing a large number of its crypto news stories and market analysis online for its users. Bloomberg also produces a varying quantity of videos from across the crypto and blockchain space. These videos include various types of content like interviews with key and influential figures, in depth price forecasts and market analysis, along with other relevant content from all across the industry.
Bloomberg has a tendency to publish only 3 to 7 crypto updates on a daily basis. Bloomberg typically covers a range of major news stories from across the industry. Raher than just copy and pasting various points from these kinds of news stories, however, Bloomberg has a tendency to add its own kind of analysis to the issue overall. Users can also find guides explaining the possible future, macroeconomic impacts related to this issue.
Users of Bloomberg looking for crypto news will also find a wide range of guides which explain the possible future implications of these emerging technologies from blockchain, where the price of Bitcoin will be going in the short, medium and long run, along with how mainstream financial institutions are either reacting to or handling the rise of Crypto and blockchain technology.
In stark contrast with other kinds of mainstream media institutions, Bloomberg has developed and since refined its own dedicated crypto reporting brand as a wholly unique entity from the main Bloomberg website. Along with having its own distinct character, Bloomberg has a dedicated social media channel for its crypto reporting – specifically a crypto based Twitter account – one of these being the twitter account listed under the much sought after @Crypto symbol. The crypto page officially falls under the Bloomberg Technology umbrella, with Bloomberg Technology being its own separate division within the Bloomberg corporate structure.
One thing that is also appreciated is the fact that Bloomberg has a very soft touch approach towards reporting on blockchain and crypto. Writing about it as if readers will have a tenuous knowledge of crypto overall, with basic concepts being explained for beginners to the cryptocurrency and blockchain world.
Other news media outlets going over crypto have this unfortunate habit of using jargon, or acronyms, along with a range of other terms that can isolate beginners, preventing them from fully comprehending what these news outlets are talking about. Bloomberg writes its articles with a key focus on the mainstream audience, something that those that are otherwise wholly unaware of cryptocurrency, or those that are more intermediate will greatly appreciate. While it may come off as a little bit pedantic to those that are more experienced.
One of the other things that really sets Bloomberg apart from other new outlets is the fact that Bloomberg is an independently owned organization. Bloomberg LP itself is a wholly privately owned company founded and held by its CEO and Founder -Michael Bloomberg back in 1981. Bloomberg himself continuing to stand as the majority shareholder of the company – with 88 percent of the company’s shares being owned by him to this day.
The company managed to earn more that 15 billion dollars in revenue as of financial forecasts back in 2018, and maintains more than 176 offices across the world, making it one of, if not the largest media sites in the world. Michael Bloomberg, for example, is currently known as the 9th wealthiest person in the world with a personal fortune of over 55 million dollars. And he continues to serve as Bloomberg LP’s CEO.
In summary, Bloomberg does a wholly admirable and excellent job of using its highly reputable and experienced team to provide incisive and in-depth analysis from all across the crypto and blockchain world. Bloomberg, having its own crypto dedicated news page, while not being as frequent updates as its competitors, even compared to the likes of Forbes Magazine and CNBC , but it does continue to publish a small but high quality volume of news stories, analysis, and interview via written and video content on a weekly basis.
Users can take the time to visit Bloomberg.com/crypto today in order to get a highly authoritative perspective on news from all across the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.
10 BRAVE NEW COIN
Headlines per day – 5 to 15 (more than 100 for its subscribers)
Alexa Rank – #142,876
Social Media Following
Twitter – 35,600
Telegram – 22,600
Facebook – 6,300
Brave New Coin, having taken its name as inspiration from the historical science fiction novel of Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, was officially established back in 2014, and is a subsidiary under its owning company – Techemy Limited.
Author Credibility and Profiles
Brave News coin consists of a team of highly experienced writers, all of which have a particular proficiency or speciality within various elements of the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. These same writers are also distributed all over the world, meaning that the company proves to be more than capable of processing and publishing in a timely manner when it comes to updates from anywhere internationally speaking, while also doing so as fast as possible.
All of the writers that are hired by Brave New Coin are also listed on the website on a first and last name basis, which also include links to the various associated social media profiles, along with a brief description of their personal involvement in the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
in summary, the writing team working on behalf of Brave New Coin is among one of the best and most highly skilled teams operating within the industry to date.
Executive Team
Founder and CEO of Techemy Limited – Fran Strajnar
Editorial Policies
The Brave New Coin website does not go so far as to outline any kind of specific and clear editorial policy for visitors to see on the website. However, the company does provide institutional-grade data and analytics, as well as research from a wholly independent, privately owned company, so as to ensure that it maintains a high level of objectivity in the space.
So far as we can tell for the moment, Brave New Coin does not receive any kinds of major investment from the likes of Venture Capital firms or similar investment entities, having successfully raised over $400,000 USD worth of crowdfunding back in 2015.
Time Sensitivity
Brave New Coin hosts its own dedicated BNC Newsfeed Service, and it’s thanks to this that it provides, what can arguably be seen as one of the most timely data feeds available in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, functioning un-interrupted over 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year in order to deliver all of the latest and breaking news stories and updates from the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
While the main website for Brave New Coin does not go on to features some of the latest breaking news stories, this BNC Newsfeed service is one of the fastest ways for users to obtain crucial information from the world of crypto. Making Brave New Coin a must-use platform.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Brave New Coin is responsible for the publication, distribution and curation of articles from all across the world of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, often proving its own opinion and insight into specific topics that it reports on.
Its dedicated BNC Newsfeed service provides an additional handwritten headline to each of the articles linked, while other Brave New Coin pieces on the website would add some further insight to go along with it.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
Brave New Coin, along with offering a very expansive amount of coverage of the latest news from the worlds of cryptocurrency and blockchain, also has a very strong approach towards event coverage. Thanks to the BNC Newsfeed, the company is able to regularly update its follows and any and all breaking news from a specific event or conference.
Brave New Coin ensures that either an editorial team or a specific writer would be in attendance at major crypto events internationally. The website also provides users with a dedicated calendar which highlights all events that are taking place across the crypto and blockchain world.
Social Media
Brave New Coin presents itself as a highly active player in the world of social media, including the likes of Twitter and Facebook as just some of its profiles. However, these same social media feeds are more or less dedicated to sharing and reporting on price updates as well as an occasional article from the Brave New Coin website in general.
For those looking for finding out about the latest news stories as and when they happen, or on the latest events coverage, thee users are better suited to subscribing to the BNC Newsfeed.
User Tools
Brave New Coin’s unique tool is its BNC Newsfeed which has a number of dedicated user tools that are geared towards users that are more enterprise focused, including a range of tools like market data feeds, exchange data feeds, a BNC Newsfeed, along with a range of other data feeds.
Many of these same tools are also available as a publicly accessible API, meaning that institutions will be able to easily connect Brave New Coin to the already existing suite of services.
Biggest Strength
The Brave New Coin Newsfeed, along with the website on its own, provides institutional grade crypto asset data, along with research that is provided from an independent and highly objective company. Brave New Coin is also dedicated to the task of keeping its community up to date with the latest in the way of breaking news from the world of crypto assets, including offering a wide range of enterprise style services for the world’s largest financial companies.
User Interface and Design
The company itself is a highly futuristic looking interface and design with a highly iconic white and orange color scheme. Institutional style tools available for users and are delivered through its dedicated API as well as through the MyBNC dashboard, allowing for users to easily connect up Brave New Coin to the existing suite or rely on the already pre-built suite version.
Review
Brave New Coin is one of the more unique kinds of news platforms available from the crypto and blockchain landscape. Rather than simply focusing on ordinary kinds of users, Brave New Coin places a special kind of focus on institutions by providing an array of institutional grade blockchain asset data. These same institutions can effectively pay Brave New Coin in order to get a unique insight into the industry.
Far from simply posting its various news stories to the official website, the Brave New Coin team approaches this in a wholly different way. The company offers and operates a range of services such as BNC Newsfeed, which is designed as an enterprise-grade news platform operated by a highly professional news desk team.
The main website for Brave New Coin regularly sees approximately 5 to 10 publications added on a daily basis, while subscribers of services such as the BNC Newsfeed are able to have access to hundreds of articles on a daily basis, along with providing a great deal of help for institutional clients to stay very much up to date on all of the latest news and developments from all over the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
Since the BNC Newsfeed was officially launched, the platform has since successfully delivered more than 80,000 news stories and events. One of the biggest advantages that this BNC Newsfeed provides is the fact that it provides news stories on a 24 hour, 365 days a year basis.
The underlying goal of the company is to provide an ample source of the news as and when it happens – much in a similar fashion to Bloomberg’s institutional news platform. Among its more than 80,000 news reports covered by Brave New Coin, there have been more than 2,000 cryptocurrencies as well as ICOs covered by the platform. In addition, there is no sponsored content or third party contributions on the platform itself; instead, it serves as a true institutional grade crypto news service.
The Brave New Coin Newsfeed is one of only several kinds of institutional grade products that are focused primarily on the crypto and blockchain world, and one of the several kinds of products that are provided for clients by Brave New Coin. Along with this newsfeed, there is also MyBNC, a suite of applications provided in a terminal experience which is designed in order to underpin customers’ investment decisions and options as well as reporting, this allows users to track market movements over time within the crypto world.
Along with these kinds of commercially facing products, Brave New Coin also offers clients XchangeFeed, which allows users to access real-time streaming of price and volume data from over a massive range of coin exchanges, more than 240 in total.
Brave New Coin processes the raw data from exchanges and readily delivers that kind of information to users, allowing them to monitor crucial market information on a real-time capacity. Some of the other Brave New Coin services include market data, as well as an indices program, along with taxonomy for crypto assets, as well as a range of other institutional grade services.
When it comes to the structure of ownership, Brave New Coin is owned by a broader holding company referred to as Techemy Limited. This company holds a range of companies within its portfolio, among them is Brave New Coin, along with a dedicated investment company known as Techemy Capital Limited, a consultancy firm – Techemy Advisory Limited as well as a unique blockchain identity management platform (Sphere Identity).
While the crypto news media outlet itself is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, Brave New Coin has a range of offices based in Melbourne, London as well as New York. The company itself was founded by Fran Strajnar, who has gained a reputation as a well known entrepreneur as well as Crypto and blockchain evangelist, who officially co-founded Brave New Coin back in 2014, having been previously involved with cryptocurrencies since the early years.
Along with officially supporting in co-founding Brave New Coin, Strajnar went on to co-found a number of other companies such as Blockchain Labs as well as the Decentralized Asset Exchange – Dasset Exchange.
As of today, Strajnar continues to serve as the acting CEO of Techemy Limited, which operates as the holding company behind the crypto news outlet- Brave New Coin.
Perhaps some of the ringing endorsements that have been provided for Brave New Coin comes from its broad array of clients. These include a number of highly reputable names such as Nasdaq, Thompson Reuters, Amazon Alexa, ChainLink, TPICAP, TradeSmith, Apollo Capital, along with a wider array of other companies, all of which depend on Brave New Coin for its source of market data.
In summary, Brave New Coin breaks the mold when it comes to being a crypto news media company, compared to others. Brave New Coin provides an extensive range of data, market information and research, also dedicated to the provision of highly punctual information regarding the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
With an accrued level of experience from within the industry of more than five years, Brave New Coin has since managed to successfully establish itself as a highly reputable leader within the space. A large number of institutions continue to depend on Brave New Coin on a daily basis to process and publish crucial information related to the blockchain and cryptocurrency world on a 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year capacity.
Ethereum World News
Headlines per day – 15-30
Alexa Ranking – #62915
Social Media Following
Twitter – 6,521
Telegram – 4,200
Facebook – 3,809
Established in Monaco in 2017 and Privately owned
Author Credibility and Profiles
Ethereum World News has no “Our Team” page on their official website but does have a regular team of writers linked by first and last name at the top of each article, allowing the reader to discover all their previous posts. Readers can also find information on their experience and links to their social media this way. Generally, more transparency would be appreciated as putting all that information in one place would make it much easier for the average reader to see that the team is actually well versed in writing about cryptocurrency.
Executive Team
Ethereum World News is even less transparent about their upper management, they do not disclose executive team, editor, or management team information on their website or LinkedIn page and the “CEO” is listed only as of the name of the business itself.
Editorial Policies
The brief “About Us” page on Ethereum World News briefly explains their commitment to the same journalist principles as the average media outlet but is also filled with buzzwords about themselves like “fully committed to proving the news from the most objective point of view possible” and “both experts and novices can be confident that they are reading quality content without bias of any kind.” There are no specific details on their editorial practices.
Time Sensitivity
Ethereum World News regularly updates with the latest news stories from across the cryptocurrency sphere and is generally known as one of the most frequently updated and packed news site on the matter. Because the team is worldwide, updates can happen 24/7.
Too Many Advertisements? More advertisements than competitors
Too Many Press Releases? No
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Ethereum World News does have various guides and op-ed pieces on the site but puts a premium on frequent daily news updates.
Reputation: 5/10
Event Coverage
Ethereum World News has articles showing a clear good standard of covering major crypto events and activities, but it is unknown if they actually send any writer or team to the events themselves.
Social Media
Ethereum World News has an active presence on Twitter and Facebook, despite having fewer followers than their counterparts. Readers can find out the latest breaking news and information on crypto through their pages.
User Tools
The Ethereum World News website has no native user tools, but does possess some basic price analysis tools. There are also apps listed but they are from their partners.
Mobile Apps: No, there are apps but they are not claimed by Ethereum World News itself
Biggest Strength
Frequent 24/7 breaking news updates
User Interface and Design
The site is clean and bright with an easy to use basic layout for browsing. However, there are many distracting sidebar advertisements.
Review
Ethereum World News does a great job of updating its readers on the latest crypto, Blockchain, and finance news, publishing 15-30 new articles daily. This includes users being able to view various prices analysis for all major cryptocurrencies, including the stories that may affect pricing futures.
The biggest advantage of EWN is its timely updates. However, their lack of transparency is more than a little concerning. Although the articles themselves list the author’s first and last name and you can click them to find more pieces by them, that’s as far as its foes. Their “About Us” page is almost entirely fluff, the site itself has many unusual 3rd party website links, their claimed location is unspecific but in Monte Carlo, Monaco, editorial standards are not laid out, and there is no information on anyone in upper management, including the owners. Even the LinkedIn page has vague information suggesting the team comes from Venezuela, Kenya, and Nigeria. Nothing is clear, and that makes the site itself suspect.
That being said, because they list their writers by first and last name, you can independently verify their qualifications by looking them up. It is not the most reputable website but remains at the top because of its frequent updates and news covering all the best and top stories across the crypto space.
AMBCrypto
The average number of headlines per day – 10 to 20 depending on the kind of day
Amazon Alexa Ranking – #22,923
Social Media Following
Twitter – 5,800
Facebook – 4,500
YouTube – 1,000
Having been officially established back in 2018, AMBCypto itself is a privately owned company, and has since gained a reputation as being a wholly transparent company when it comes to its journalistic caliber as well as the editorial team.
The company itself has its own ‘Authors’ page, allowing for readers and subscribers to dig more into the background of the editors and content contributors involved with the site. For the most part, what people will notice is that the majority of writers working on behalf of the AMBCrypto team operate within India.
Along with an extensive number of content and news contributors operating within the site, AMB has a good number of guest contributors providing their own insight into the cryptocurrency world, and consist of experts within the technology, blockchain, investment and analytics industries.
Most of these writers provide users with very brief one to two sentence biographies to let readers know their own experience. In summary, the team behind AMBCrypto is a very broad one and consists of dozens of very dedicated contributors and writers covering the vast majority of topics within the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
Executive Team
CEO and Co-Founders – Himanshu Kumar and Jeevan Thomas
Chief Operations Officer – Architha JB
Editorial Policies
The underlying editorial policies are stated clearly on the ‘About Us’ page of the AMBCrypto website. The company itself seeks to present itself as an objective, reliable and independent source of insight, news and interviews for the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
AMBCrypto strives to provide a source of insight that “is and always will be independent and unbiased,” according to the website on it’s about us segment. As far as can be found on our part, AMBCrypto is wholly private in its ownership and, as a result, means that it has a relatively objective opinion when it comes to cryptocurrencies, with no explicit favorites demonstrated. This is something of an impressive feat when considering that it consists of a truly internationalized team. The company does its best to provide as balanced a perspective on the news as it possibly can.
Time Sensitivity
One way in which we truly respect AMBCrypto is the fact that it operates tirelessly; running and updating the site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As a result, it is one of the first news outlets to respond whenever there’s a breaking news story within the worlds of blockchain and cryptocurrency.
As a result of this focus on objectivity, fast action and proactivity, most news on the site appears within an hour if not sooner in some instances.
Number of Advertisements
Thanks to the fact that it’s a privately owned venture, readers and subscribers are fortunate to not be bombarded by too many advertisements throughout their time on the website.
Number of Press Releases
There are a moderate number of press releases that the company publishes on the site, along with sponsored articles that the team works on in conjunction with the affiliated company.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
For the most part, AMBCrypto has its focus predominantly on the news as and when it happens. With that said, the site does also feature the occasional featured opinion piece, as well as comprehensive guides and more specialty articles on a weekly basis.
Along with this, companies or individual advertisers can directly get in contact with the team in order to submit guest posts or sponsored articles for the website. There are charges involved in doing this, however.
Along with this, contributing writers are more than welcome to submit their own articles as guest posts to be featured on the website. In summary, the team has a great focus placed on covering news stories from within the crypto and blockchain world, but there is a wider range of other content that frequently gets published on the website too.
Reputation: 8/10
Event Coverage
While being one of the newer news outlets out there for the cryptocurrency space, the company is not as widely visible when it comes to event coverage from other more ‘senior’ news outlets out there. This is mainly due to the fact that these are, as previously explained, more experienced but also better funded thanks to this seniority.
Some of the best news and event coverage hat AMBCrypto is involved in is during any events which take place in India. For these events, in particular, it tends to provide some of the best coverage – especially when we take into consideration that most other news outlets centered around cryptocurrencies and blockchain tend to be based out of western states.
Social Media
AMBCrypto, along with having a high rate of activity on the site, is also quite active when it comes to the world of social media as well. Some of its most active accounts include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube and LinkedIn.
Being one of the newer media sites for the blockchain world. The company doesn’t have quite the same number of followers as bigger and older competitors out there, but what it lacks in numbers it makes up for in a highly active community and one that is rapidly increasing on a daily basis.
User Tools
The focus for AMBCrypto has always been on publishing and reporting on news stories. That’s not to say that there aren’t any tools for users on the site to test out, however. Some of these include cryptocurrency price trackers for looking at the current market caps and values for major crypotocurrencies. This same tool can also be used for more intricate metrics such as price movements over days and weeks, the total supply counts for these cryptos among other metrics.
The Content Management System for AMBCrypto’s price tracker means that they were able to provide users with this thanks to a plugin from TradingView. Along with this tool – the team has also since launched a listing service for new and ongoing Initial Coin Offerings. AMBCrypto’s haven’t mobile Apps.
Biggest Strength
Some of the biggest strengths of the company is that it has a very prompt publication and circulation cycle for any and all of its news stories for blockchain and cryptocurrencies, while also presenting itself as a privately owned and wholly independent and objective source for the news, with no ties to any specific cryptocurrencies and blockchain entities.
Another of the strengths that AMBCrypto has is that it has a firm grip on coverage for any and all news from the South East and South Asian cryptocurrency market and blockchain world.
User Interface and Design
The kind of interface that AMBCrypto has is more of a standard design commonly seen from blogs. Allowing users to traverse the pages and find relevant or featured stories relatively easily. There are clear segments highlighting recent news, popular developments, as well as those stories regarding more specific or niche categories.
In summary, AMBCrypto has a relatively easy to understand and navigate interface and design comparable to other cryptocurrency based news blogs out there.
Review
AMBCrypto itself is based specifically in Bengaluru, specifically based and first formally established back in 2017. While this was when the company itself was formed, the website launched during early 2018 and has since grown to become a prominent name within the blockchain and cryptocurrency space.
Consisting of a team of dozens of contributors and writers situated within South Asia as well as being based around the world, AMBCrypto generates a large number of stories over a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week structure.
AMBCrypto remains a privately owned and, as a result, independent company. The issue with that is that there are scant few reports of funding from any crypto of blockchain companies or where its funding does actually come from. The positive, however, is that we can see that it stands by its mantra of being a wholly independent and objective company.
Having a certain amount of its revenue coming from paid articles, it would make sense that it would tend to post more paid content and press releases than news at times. Users and companies can also pay to have sponsored articles and guest content show up on the site. While guest posts are frequent, AMBCrypto tends to source the majority of its content from qualified and experienced writers.
Another of the added advantages of AMBCrypto is the kind of unique presence within Sout and South East Asia, and the kind of reporting that it can then do on blockchain and crypto world compared to western competitors.
For those that are involved in or are simply interested in blockchain and crypto news coming from India and neighboring regions, AMB Crypto is one of the best solutions available. With most other crypto news websites being situated in areas of the world like Europe, the United States and Canada among others, this means that reporting on developments in Asia are more of a challenge for these companies.
Because of these constraints, AMBCrypto can report on and provide content that these western companies simply don’t have the flexibility to cover.
Other than this accessibility to an emerging market, the company is very transparent about the kind of authors and writers that work for it on a continuous basis. While this is the case with its content providers, the same is not so true for its executive staff. We know only as much as can be derived from the LinkedIn Profiles of some of the companies co-founders such as Himanshu Kumar and Jeevan Thomas, who both hold the role of ‘CEO and Co-Founder’ of the company.
It remains relatively unclear if both of these individuals actively serve as CEO simultaneously, or if they play different roles and simply use the titles of CEO and Co-founder in order to simplify matters. If this proves to be a continued issue for users of the platform, then maybe an additional ‘About Us’ page would be useful for the company and would help to clarify some of the outstanding questions.
While the company boasts a greater emphasis on presenting objectivity and news reports on a 24/7 capacity, AMBCrypto does not essentially provide the kind of in-depth, thoroughly researched articles you would commonly find on other news platforms. But where it lacks this kind of news content, it does have a timely attitude towards news reports and updates which cover the lions share of updates from the crypto and blockchain spaces. These also include more in-depth insights into the price movements of cryptoassets, including news from social media and blockchain technology analysis.
While there are some limitations that AMBCrypto has right now, it is important for us to bear in mind that it is still a relatively young news platform – having launched back in 2018 – meaning that it is one of the newest members of the space for cryptocurrency news reporting, and has already managed to become one of the more well known and reputable news outlets, even in this small stretch of time.
It’s for these reasons and more that AMBCrypto is a crypto and blockchain news site on the rise, and it will continue to grow over the course of this year. It’s thanks to this growth and performance that we have placed it on our top 10 rankings for crypto news media outlets.
BLOKT
Headlines per day – 5 to 15
Alexa Ranking – #50,392
Social Media Following
Twitter – 4,800
Telegram – 800
Facebook – 1,000
Instagram – 470
YouTube – 25
Blokt was officially established as a crypto news media outlet back in 2017, and its based in Bangkok, Thailand, as well as being privately owned by Blokt.com.
Author Credibility and Profiles
Blokt consists of a team of just over 10 highly experienced and qualified members for its writing team which are also situated all over the world. Each of its writers are accompanied with some of the most in-depth and thorough biographies we see in the world of crypto media platforms.
Each of these authors biographies lists their specific first and last names, along with a comprehensive level of detail about their academic and professional experience, their personal background, where they are based, distinct location as well as social media pages and contact information.
These writers have a significantly diverse range of backgrounds from the worlds of fintech, journalism, engineering, banking as well as software and blockchain development. In summary, the writing team working with Blokt represents one of the best, if not the most highly experienced teams in the world of crypto media reporting to this day.
Executive Team
Founder and Site Editor – Greg Adams
Managing Site Editor – Darren Brazer
Editor – Pete Banham
Editorial Policies
Blokt lists a highly comprehensive and detailed array of editorial policies online through its website. In stark contrast to other websites, however, Blokt provides a number of its own articles as examples of its editorial policy in action. When the Blokt team places an emphasis on content punctuality or ‘timeliness’ as one of the examples, the website cites a series of articles where the company was the first to report on these major developments.
When the Blokt team makes reference to its editorial policy, and its push for objective and highly unbiased journalist, the website cites a number of reports where the Blokt team reinforced otherwise highly controversial points using well-researched fact, and was consequently proven correct.
In summary, the editorial policy that Blokt uses consists of five specific, over-arching points. These include a need for unbiased news reporting, timely publishing up to the exceptional standards of the company, globally inclusive stories, multiple user tools and a non-intrusive approach towards advertising.
Time Sensitivity
While the Blokt team is not known for coming out with the same volume of content as is normally seen from its older and larger competitors. There were, however, a number of instances where the Blokt writing team has been the very first to break a major news report in the crypto and blockchain space.
While the Blokt team doesn’t compete when it comes to the quantity of articles that its team publishes, they more than punch above their weight when it comes to a high quality level of highly punctual articles. Some of these same stories have also appeared first on Blokt include the likes of reports on the Parity multi-sig vulnerability error during November 2017, along with the VeChain partnership with PwC, along with WaltonChain’s announcement that it was joining the Korea Internet of Things Alliance, among a wide range of other news reports.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Blokt represents a bit more of a hybridized format as a news website. It technically operates as one part news website, and another part crypto and blockchain guide. The website itself consists of its fair share of guides, opinion pieces along with incisive analysis content.
Visitors to the site can find a wide range of highly detailed summaries of major cryptocurrencies, for example, users can find a series of guides that are geared more towards beginners, newbies as well as those that are more experienced – these include guides such as the “Cryptocurrency Trading for Beginners” guide.
Reputation: 10/10
Event Coverage
Blokt offers its visitors a great deal of coverage, especially as it relates to a broad range of crypto events taking place all across the world. Typically, Blokt places a greater focus on reporting on events that an editor or writer is actually attending to some degree, as opposed to simply copying information about the event from a third party media outlet.
Social Media
Blokt remains highly active across social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, along with a number of other formats. While the Blokt team does not have the same kind of social media traction as its bigger, much older crypto media outlets, the company has still proven capable of obtaining a good number of followers over these pages. Among them, Blokt has managed to successfully obtain more than 5,000 followers over its Twitter account alone, with the website proving more than adept at engaging with these same followers over the platform, and generating referrals from these same numbers.
For its Twitter, for example, it is regularly updated with a range of news stories over the course of the day – anywhere from several to over a dozen times a day with a range of these news reports, along with some obscure, crypto-centric tweets. In addition to the Blokt’s main Telegram account, the crypto news outlet also operates a separate Telegram channel referred to as Split Second Crypto – which aggregates various news reports from a range of sources.
User Tools
Blokt offers its users a number of on-site tools, along with a range of guides to provide insight for beginners and more experienced crypto users to get started with Bitcoin as well as guides on various kinds of cryptocurrencies. The platform also provides users with a very unique and interesting tool known as the ‘Crypto Magic 8 Ball’ which allows users to choose a question before clicking on the ball (or shaking it if you’re on a smartphone) in order to get an answer. You can ask various questions like ‘Will BTC Pump?’ The 8 Ball will then shake before delivering an answer such as ‘outlook bullish’. Blokt also claims that a number of other tools will be coming to the platform in the foreseeable future.
Biggest Strength
Blokt offers users a wide variety of content for its users, as well as being unique thanks to its desire to represent a highly independent, authoritative institution for content all across the crypto space, written by a truly international content creation team with decades of industry experience across a large number of people.
User Interface and Design
The Blokt website is a very well designed platform, with a special emphasis on providing content in a highly neat interface, with all of its content being neatly categorized into clearly distinct thematic segments, all of which are accessible from a slick, top down menu system from the very top of the page.
Blokt allows its viewers to easily go through a range of sponsored content, industry specific content, technical analysis along with a wider range of other information. Blokt’s color scheme itself is also highly sleek with black, white, and dark grey color schemes, along with its distinctive block or cube style logo.
Reviews
Blokt, which is otherwise commonly stylized as ‘blokt’ within the official website, represents one of the leading crypto news media publishing platform that was officially founded back in 2017 by Greg Adams. Before Adams would go on to establish Blokt, Adams had an extensive background in industries such as security, online journalism, media as well as marketing.
He had decided to use these skills to get more involved with crypto and build “an extensive list of contacts in the blockchain space”, this is according to the company through its official website. Those same contacts accrued by Adams would come to be exceptionally valuable for Blokt in order to pave the way to its future success.
Today, Blokt has managed to flourish as one of the leading members of the online crypto news publishing community. Blokt boasts a highly experienced writing department, allowing it to easily and professionally cover any and all kinds of stories thanks to the writers and their very diverse backgrounds. While Blokt is not exactly known for generating the same level of quantity when it comes to the number of articles it publishes relative to other, larger competitors, Blokt competes with these heavy hitters and more than punches above its weight.
One of the refreshing elements that Blokt has going for it is that it substantiates elements of its editorial policy with volumes of real evidence from the website itself. The majority of crypto media outlets out there do have its own dedicated ‘About Us’ or even an ‘Editorial Policy’ page, where users are able to see in meticulous detail, the kind of standards that the Blokt team sets out for ensuring that it can provide high-quality, objective crypto news reporting.
Blokt, however, backs up its editorial policy page with real evidence. When Blokt says it’s “timely”, for example, it posts multiple stories that they broke before anyone else online. Among some of the articles that it uses as reference points include some of the breaking news that it successfully reported first, such as the Parity Multi-sig vulnerability fault discovered back in November 2017, as one of the pre-eminent examples.
As evidence in its push to instill in its users, the drive for objectivity, it provides a list of links to stories where they can back up otherwise controversial points with statistics. Another of the articles that goes a long way to demonstrate this is the article that the company wrote where the author suggested that the currency – CREDITS may in fact be a scam, the author went on to describe how CREDITS had failed to provide a substantial amount of evidence in order to back up its claims. Many crypto media companies out there tend to pay lip service to these editorial values that it sets out on their editorial pages. But Blokt appears to be one of the few that follows the spirit and letter of the values that it set out in its editorial policies.
It is one of the things that is very much appreciated, especially just how Blokt approaches advertising within its website. Specifically, the company places a special emphasis on non-intrusive advertising. The company itself is supported by ads, even though these are not nearly as intrusive when it comes to ads on a wide array of crypto media outlets.
All the same, Blokt successfully strives to keep advertisements to a minimum, thus ensuring that the end users experience is not hampered by overly intrusive advertisements. When ads are posted on the BLokt website, the team ensures that they are easy enough for users to distinguish from the original site content.
We all should really take some time to appreciate just how globally inclusive that Blokt is as a news outlet. Crypto news outlets out there tend to place a particular kind of focus on a specific region or industry, to the detriment of other areas of the world of industry, Blokt, on the other hand, seeks to be globally inclusive.
Being situated in Thonglor, Bangkok, Thailand, Blokt’s head office consists of four expatriates that all share a passion for travelling, adventure as well as meeting new people from all over the world. Its associated team of journalists, meanwhile, espouse these kinds of shared values across the various countries, both where they are based and beyond whenever they attend major events. It is as a result of this that the writing team is not only able to write on a completely global way, but they are also wholly unique and accomplished within their respective fields.
These writers come from a range of backgrounds. With some of these writers having advanced degrees. And whether Blokt’s content creators are discussing engineering, blockchain technology, law, finance among other kinds of topics, the website is more than capable to speak with a great degree of competence on a broad range of topics.
It is for all of these reasons and more, Blokt is successfully establishing itself as a highly authoritative website within a significantly evolving and growing industry like cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. And while it is now otherwise known for pumping out various news reports and articles in the same kind of quantity as other websites in the space, it more than punches above its weight with these same companies when it comes to producing high-quality work from a highly experienced team of writers and editors.
Bits Online
Headlines per day – 5 to 10
Alexa Ranking – #30,451
Social Media Following
Twitter – 3,200
Facebook – 10,200
YouTube – 1,200
Established in 2017 by the Limited company – Talon Media Group, the Bits Online, along with its parent company were officially established and operate out of Charlestown, Nevis, St. Kitts and Nevis.
Author Credibility and Profiles
Bits Online ensures that each of its writers are visible on the website on a first and last name basis, especially making sure that they are referenced at the top of each of their articles. For visitors to the website, they can click on the writer’s name, leading them to a brief one to two sentence biography which illustrates the kind of professional and academic background that the author has had, especially where it relates to cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
With its writing team, it appears to be a team that is based all across the world – with three of them being based in Asia such as South Korea, Japan and India as well as in the Russian Federation including South and North America (Argentina and the United States).
The international distribution of its writing team has an added advantage for the Bits Online team in general. The company is capable of assigning local writers to various stories within that region of the world, allowing for the kind of coverage these writers can provide to be significantly enhanced, especially where it relates to coverage of international crypto events.
In general, the writing team itself produces a high quality level of content for the site, providing a great deal of unique local insight that would sometimes be missing from other news outlets in the crypto and blockchain world.
Executive Team
Editor in Chief -Scott Fargo
Senior Editor -Evan Faggart
Editor – William Peaster
Editorial Policies
Bits Online does go on to outline in meticulous detail its editorial policies within its brief section within the ‘About Us’ page. The Bits Online team does claim that its goal is to provide “the latest news and informed commentary on bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrency, fintech, and technology” while it also sought intent upon presenting a range of opinions from a wealth of industry experts as well as insiders.
The company itself also goes on to state that it seeks to “serve stakeholders with fair and factual reporting on the important stories in our industry”. Bitsonline does not disclose its advertising policy publicly.
Time Sensitivity
Bits Online makes it a habit of updating its site on a very frequent basis. This is especially true whenever there is a major crypto event that is taking place. On a more ordinary day for the team, however, the Bits Online team will be responsible with updating the page with anywhere from 5 to 10 headlines per day, though this can depend on how busy the day is.
If you’re the kind of person looking with a particular emphasis on websites that cover the breaking stories from the crypto and blockchain world, then there are likely larger sites that you can visit for more timely updates. However, Bits Online trending story and breaking news coverage is usually added to the platform within the first 12 to 24 hours of the story breaking.
Along with this, the writing team itself, being internationally distributed, means that they can not only provide more local insight into various, more regionally focused news stories. This same team is more than capable of reporting on a wide range of stories, and update the website 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Speciality Pieces, Op-Eds and Guides
Bits Online, along with covering the news from the crypto and blockchain world, also has a pretty thorough education section within its online platform. These guides provide various pieces of information for those either starting off in the world of crypto use and investment, or simply seeking to enter different fields like crypto mining.
Some of these guides include ones like ‘Can I Make Money Mining Bitcoin?’, as one example, while others provide a more rudimentary overview of key aspects for those beginning in the space. While it does provide these resources, the primary focus for the team is on news and analysis as opposed to instructional guides.
Reputation: 7/10
Event Coverage
In spite of being one of the smaller websites out there for news coverage, Bits Online has managed to really set itself apart as being very active in the way of covering international events. Along with this journalistic coverage, the Bits Online YouTube channel also features dozens of videos showcasing these various minor and major events in the crypto world.
Bits Online has a special interest in interviewing major and highly influential individuals during these events, getting their insights on various products, along with opinions on developments in general within the crypto and blockchain industry.
Some of the more recent interviews that Bits Online has accomplished through its YouTube channels include a range of A-listers influencers and entrepreneurs like Jihan Wu.
Whenever the Bits Online team decides to attend these events in-person, the company strives to provide a great deal of coverage through both its blog along with its YouTube channel. As it begins the run-up to these particular events, Bits Online will also publish a, or a number of guides regarding that event, providing insight and help to those looking to attend, and learn more about the event and what to expect.
Social Media
Among the various kinds of social media outlets that Bits Online use, the company proves to be the most highly active on the likes of Twitter, Facebook as well as YouTube. Generally, Bits Online uses these various social media channels to share its latest news, updates, stories and interviews as they are available on the official Bits Online website.
Along with these social media channels, Bits Online proves more than active through its YouTube channel, especially during international events – providing users with access to dozens of videos from across the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, including Interviews with highly influential figures.
User Tools
At this moment in time, the Bits Online team does not provide users with access to any kinds of crypto or blockchain related tools. And it remains unclear whether or not it intends to in the near future.
Biggest Strength
The Bits Online team, in general, provides an exceptional amount of coverage through a range of blog post, as well as a YouTube channel, such as a range of guides, interviews, coverage of international events, before, during and after the events in general.
User Interface and Design
Bits Online itself provides its users with a relatively straightforward, no nonsense blog layout with a scrolling series of images that cycle through the top of the main page, all of which are accompanied by a range of headlines and various press releases across two sidebars.
This user interface is slightly messier when compared to other crypto and blockchain websites, with Bits Online placing today’s news stories and reports unusually close to feature stories that were published up to several weeks ago, making it highly unusual for visitors of the site to see on the front page, and setting a negative impression for those that are wholly new to the platform, especially where they’re looking for the latest and breaking news.
Review
Bits Online itself operates as a crypto news media outlet which is owned by the limited company, Talon Media Group, which itself is based out of Charlestown, Nevis, St Kitts and Nevis.
Along with being established relatively recently, especially compared to other news platforms, it boasts a strong Alexa ranking with tens of thousands of social media followers among its various platforms. The kind of performance that it has shown over the years is impressive – being able to draw in more traffic on some occasions than some of its larger, older counterparts.
While the website itself is not as prolific when it comes to posting major stories, especially when it comes to the ability of its larger competitors to do the same – it still manages to capture traffic from a relatively diverse crypto and blockchain community thanks to its variety of content such as videos, interviews, podcasts along with a range of other unique materials.
While a number of other cryptocurrency and blockchain news websites generally choose to ignore YouTube as a medium of content creation, interviewing and reporting, Bits Online has placed a special focus on its video content. With Bits Online’s dedicated YouTube channel being regularly updated with a range of videos from minor and major international cryptocurrency and blockchain conferences – along with interviews with leading, influential figures from all around the world of cryptocurrency.
Currently, the Bits Online team has more than dozens of videos posted on its channel to date, with its presence on YouTube continuing to grow and obtain influence. Moving ahead, Bits Online intends to continue making use of its YouTube channel and video content to showcase even more interviews and correspondence from the latest events and influential figures.
Bits Online remains relatively transparent when it comes to its writing and editing team. With all of its authors being listed on a first and last name basis at the top of any article that features on the website. Visitors that click on this writers name will be able to see all of the content that they have provided for the Bits Online website, along with a relatively brief summary of the writer in question, with all of their professional qualifications along with experience in the industry.
Based on the limited information available from the LinkedIn page for Bits Online, the company is led by the Editor in Chief – Scott Fargo. Apart from this relatively basic level of information, there is comparably sparse information available relating to the management and / or founding team behind Bits Online, with the ‘About Us’ page provides a scant amount of information about when exactly the company was founded or who exactly runs the company.
Along with this vague and scarce amount of information, the location of Bits Online itself is pretty unusual compared to other blockchain and crypto news platforms. It is one of the few, for example that is officially based and running out of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Bits Online does go on to provide a specific address for the company as being Charlestown, Nevis, and while it is established there, allegedly, it is uncertain whether the writing team itself, to some capacity, is based out of the same region.
While the Bits Online company is based out of this region, looking into the parent company ‘Talon Media Group’ revealed a very limited amount of information about the company in question. It’s because of this that it’s not wholly clear when Bits Online was officially founded; most of the affiliated social media profiles of the company seem to point to it being established back in 2017. While this is what these sites allege to, the YouTube channel has a series of videos dating all the way back to 2014, including a number of episodes of its ‘Coin Brief Podcast’.
With regards to the company’s writing team, Bits Online has an impressively diverse range of highly skilled and experienced writers interspersed all across the world covering a range of news stories. This demonstrates the kind of artisanal approach that Bits Online has towards its writing team – choosing to hire a strategically placed number of highly skilled writers, representing the various companies that they reside in, as opposed to hiring a large number of writers.
It’s thanks to this approach that the Bits Online team has writers based out of Russia, South Korea, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, Argentina and the United States. It is thanks to this approach of using writers geographic avatars for their region of the world, that Bits Online provides a great level of coverage, both of news reports and events.
To summarize, Bits Online functions at its best when it is providing coverage of the more recent events and news going on in the conjoined world of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Along with its written content, the company’s dedicated YouTube channel provides subscribers and visitors with regular posts and video content of highly professional quality interviews with some of the biggest names in the world of cryptocurrencies, along with a number of other reports from various crypto events.
Along with this, it boasts a writing team that is based all over the world, from Asia, Europe to South and North America. It’s thanks to this internationally situated team that the company does a very good job of providing local insight into major news stories and developments from all over the industry.
While the company itself is not exactly known as being one of the biggest, most popular and more prolific crypto news outlets out there in the space. All the same, Bits Online has carved out its own unique niche for its very high quality content level, along with coverage of crypto and blockchain events as well as video coverage of the same.
Final Word on Top Crypto News Sites
There you have it folks. Obvioulsy, we know MasterTheCrypto.com is your favorite cryptocurrency website, but our primary focus is on delivering top shelf guides and tutorials and felt the need to at least break down a list of the best cryptocurrency news websites to follow along with too.
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 News Websites: Best Bitcoin & Blockchain Sites appeared first on Master The Crypto.
The bitcoin, blockchain and greater cryptocurrency vocabulary world can be confusing if you are not hip to the latest ‘crypto’ terms and definitions. Here is a complete user review guide dictionary to use:
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1hr: As the name suggests, the term ‘1hr’ implies a time window during which data related to a particular technology (such as a digital currency, platform, etc) is monitored and aggregated.
24hr: As with the aforementioned example, ‘24h’ implies the collection of data that is associated with a particular digital technology over the last twenty-four hours.
51% Attack: In case a majority (i.e. more than fifty percent) of computing power or mining hash rate on a specified network is governed by one individual (or a single group), it implies that a 51% attack is underway. This is because a singular governing entity now has complete control over the system’s native ecosystem and has full power to take over the platform’s mining operations, internal transactions, etc.
A
Address: An address can be thought of as a digital locator (usually in the form of letters and numbers) that allows users to send/receive cryptocurrencies in a streamlined, hassle-free manner. Additionally, it also bears mentioning that users can share their cryptocurrency addresses publicly either in the form of a text or a QR code.
Airdrop: It is essentially a marketing tactic that is commonly used by a number of startups in order to build hype as well as increase the popularity of particular cryptocurrency produce (such as a coin, platform etc). Most airdrop campaigns make use of the same formula, i.e. they provide their users with tokens in exchange for simple tasks such as sharing certain information, onboarding new recruits, facilitating additional referrals, etc.
Algorithm: It is a set of rules that have been designed by the developer of a particular digital platform, computer or device in order to solve niche’ calculations or operations.
All-Time-High (ATH): As the name clearly implies, ATH refers to the highest price point (in terms of overall market capitalization) particular cryptocurrency witnesses during its entire life cycle.
All-Time-Low (ATL): All-Time-Low is the exact opposite of what the term ATH represents — which is the lowest price point of a particular cryptocurrency during its entire life cycle.
Altcoin: Since Bitcoin is widely credited as being the world’s first cryptocurrency, all other digital assets that have followed since are now referred to as altcoins (short for the term ‘alternative coins’).
Anarcho-capitalism: This is a philosophy (or school of thought) that does not believe in the concept of centralized ownership of assets. In this regard, it bears mentioning that a number of people who adopted Bitcoin in its infancy are referred to as anarcho-capitalists — since they believe that cryptocurrencies help in giving complete ownership of one’s assets to the owner.
Anti-Money Laundering (AML): The term AML refers to a set of intl. rules and regulations that have been devised in order to curtail criminal activity related to money laundering (crypto to cash and vice versa).
API: API is short for ‘Application Programming Interface’. Simply put, it refers to a set of protocols and operational tools that are required by developers to build software applications. From a more technical perspective, we can see that APIs also help govern the way in which internal software modules interact and behave with one another.
Arbitrage: It is a common practice that seeks to help day traders take advantage of price variations (that exist in relation to a particular commodity) between different cryptocurrency exchanges at any given time.
Ashdraked: It is a situation where an individual ends up losing all of his/her money shorting bitcoin. The term is based on a true incident wherein a Romanian trader continued to short BTC after it went from $300 to $500 — based on the fact that he had made a profit from doing so historically.
ASIC: ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) refers to mining equipment that has been designed specially to acquire a particular cryptocurrency. When compared to GPUs, these devices are highly specialized since they offer a number of computational and memory-based advantages to their owners.
Astroturfing: This is a practice that is considered shady by the digital currency market at large. In its most basic sense, Astroturfing entails a company marketing its project as being backed and supported by the global crypto community even though it is not.
Atomic Swap: It is a technique that allows crypto owners to trade one asset for another (on a different blockchain or off-chain) without the use of an exchange, trading platform or middleman.
Attestation Ledger: As the name seems to suggest, an attestation ledger is basically a record block that helps provide users with evidence related to individual transactions that they might have performed in the past.
B
Bag: The term bag signifies a fixed quantity of cryptocurrency. In this regard, it should be pointed out that the term bag holder basically describes a person who possesses a large volume (aka bags) of a particular digital asset.
Bear: This term is used to describe a person who is not confident about the future of a particular market (eg. cryptocurrencies) and expects its value to decline in the coming future.
Bear Trap: This is a technique that is sometimes used by a group of traders in order to manipulate the price of a particular cryptocurrency. This is achieved by selling a large amt. of a certain asset while tracking the market to believe that a decline is on the horizon. This results in other traders offloading the token in question at reduced rates — thereby allowing the initial group to make a handsome profit form the entire transaction.
Bitcoin ATM (BTM): This is a machine that allows crypto holders to withdraw Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP): A BIP refers to a technical document that seeks to either propose new features, processes or other technical enhancements to Bitcoin’s existing protocol.
BitLicense: As the name clearly suggests, a Bitlicense refers to a business license that is required by cryptocurrency firms in New York to dabble in BTC trading. The document is difficult to acquire and is issued only by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS).
Bits: It is a basic unit of BTC — i.e. a total of 1,000,000 bits constitute one bitcoin.
Block: It is basically a data container that holds details related to transactions occurring at any given time on a particular blockchain.
Blockchain: A blockchain refers to an ever-growing list of records that are linked to one another using a host of cryptographic techniques.
Block Explorer: This is a tool that allows its users to view all of the transactions that have taken place on a particular blockchain. Not only that, but it also allows users to monitor other specific information such as network hash rate, transaction growth, etc.
Block Height: The term refers to the total number of blocks present in a chain at a given point of time.
Block Reward: It is the financial incentive that is provided to a miner in lieu of him/her successfully calculating a valid hash in a block. Additionally, the reward also makes sure that crypto miners act in the best interest of the blockchain rather than trying to hack it.
Bollinger Band: It is a tool that helps users recognize systematic patterns that may arise in the price history of different digital currencies.
Bots: These are trading tools that have been automated to execute orders using a host of algorithmic processes (such as pre-designed buy-and-sell protocols).
Brute Force Attack (BFA): A BFA can be thought of as a trial/error tool that is used by an automated software to crack someone’s password or base security layer.
Bubble: In financial terminology, a bubble refers to a particular situation wherein the participants of a particular market have driven the value of a particular well over its actual price. Once the bubble reaches its apex, the price of the commodity proceeds to drop at a rapid rate — an event that is referred to as a market crash.
Bug Bounty: This is a reward that is offered to developers, white hat hackers who are able to find any vulnerabilities, threats or other similar issues in a particular computer code. A bug bounty is usually offered by crypto startups to identify potential loopholes before they are exploited by third-party miscreants.
Bull: A common term used when referring to an individual who is optimistic about the future of a particular market (be it stocks, cryptocurrencies, bonds, etc).
Bull Trap: As the name suggests, a bull trap is a false market signal where a declining trend associated with a particular asset seems to be changing for the better but does not materialize.
Buy Wall: It refers to a situation wherein a large limit order has been placed when an asset becomes of a certain value.
Burned: This concept is employed when a particular crypto asset has been rendered permanently unspendable or unusable.
Byzantine Generals’ Problem (BGP): BGP refers to a situation wherein all the members of a particular group need to come to a consensus on a single strategy about a specific digital platform.
Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT): BFT can essentially be thought of as a property that is associated with ‘fault-tolerant distributed computing systems’ that aim to reach consensus even though one or more components of the system may be prone to operational failures.
C
Candlesticks: This is a technique that is commonly used to create graphs that help users visualize price changes related to a particular asset over a fixed period of time. From a technical standpoint, we can see that each candle formation provides its users with 4 points of information including opening price, closing price, high, and low.
Cash: Cash is money in its physical iteration. It comes in various forms including bank notes, coins, etc.
Centralized: The concept of centralization refers to a network that is controlled by a small group of nodes.
Central Ledger: As the name clearly implies, it is a ledger system (used to keep track of various financial tx’s) that is maintained by a central governing authority.
Central Processing Unit (CPU): The CPU can be thought of as the core operational component of a computer system. Additionally, it also helps in maintaining the native functionality of various other parts associated with the machine. The speed of the CPU is measured in gigahertz.
Change: When BTC transfers are facilitated, they are done so as a whole output. The remaining funds are sent back to the user as change.
Chargeback: It is a request sent forth by a credit-card operator to a retailer to compensate for any losses that may have been incurred as a result of a fraudulent/disputed transaction.
Chain Split: This term is routinely used in place of a hard/soft fork.
Cipher: This is a term that is commonly used in digital cryptographic circles in order to describe an algorithm that can be used to encrypt or decrypt certain information.
Circulating Supply: It is a term that is commonly used to describe the total number of coins (related to a particular cryptocurrency) that may be circulating in the market at a given point in time.
Client: It is a software that can be used to gain access (as well as process) to certain blockchain transactions on a local device. A common use-case of such a software is an altcoin software wallet.
Close: The term ‘Close’ alludes to a financial concept called closing price.
Cloud Mining: It refers to a style of crypto mining that is carried out through the use of remote processing power (acquired by companies operating in countries where electricity costs are low).
Coin: It its most basic sense, a coin represents a cryptocurrency that can be used to facilitate monetary transactions independently.
Coinbase: A Coinbase is essentially a digital transaction that is mandatorily added to the block of a particular cryptocurrency. In regards to the BTC ecosystem, the flagship currency’s coinbase has an input size of 100 bytes.
Cold Storage: A cold storage entity is an offline crypto wallet that has minimal contact with devices that are connected to the internet 24/7. As a result of this, these devices are able to offer their owners with a high level of asset security and privacy.
Confirmations: The concept of ‘confirmation’ comes into play when a transaction has to be added to a particular blockchain. In this regard, it should be pointed out that different trading platforms require a varying number of confirmations to finalize cryptocurrency transactions.
Consensus: Consensus, as the name suggests, is when all of the participants of a particular network come to an agreement in regards to the system’s overall order and content.
Consortium Blockchain: It is a blockchain ecosystem that is owned by a private entity whose contents are not available to the public.
Correction: A correction can be thought of negative value movement (of at least 10%) that takes place in relation to a particular cryptocurrency.
Co-Signer: It refers to a person who has partial control over a digital currency wallet.
Crypto asset: These are digital stores of value that make use of cryptographic techniques, distributed ledgers and other p2p technologies to function.
Cryptocurrency: It is a digital transaction medium that makes use of cryptographic techniques to secure one’s monetary transfers.
Cryptography: It is a branch of studies that deals exclusively with the securitization of sensitive data.
Cryptographic Hash Function: In their most basic sense, one can think of cryptographic hashes as digital avenues that help in the production of a fixed-size/unique hash value from a transaction input that might be variable in its size function.
Crypto-jacking: This is a technique that is commonly used by hackers to mine cryptocurrencies using somebody else’s computer without their permission.
Custodial: A custodial set-up is one where a user’s private keys are held by the service provider himself.
Cypherpunk: A cypherpunk is a digital activist who strongly supports the use of cryptographic solutions/ technologies for the promotion of various social and political causes.
D
Deep Web: This is a side of the internet that is not indexed by search engines and can only be viewed through the use of specialized tools (such as the Tor browser).
Date of Launch (DOL): The term refers to a specific time and date when an ICO project puts up its tokens up for public acquisition.
Dead Cat Bounce: It is a concept that signifies a temporary recovery in the value of a particular cryptocurrency after it has undergone a massive price drop.
Decentralized: The term refers to the property of a digital system which is governed by a distributed set of nodes and not by some centralized authority.
Decentralized Applications (dApps): As the name clearly suggests, dApps are digital applications that make use of a decentralized operational network.
Decentralized Autonomous Initial Coin Offerings (DAICO): It is a fundraising method for decentralized projects that makes use of concepts related to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO): It is a digital organization that is governed purely through the use of smart contracts.
Decentralized Exchange (DEX): A peer-to-peer exchange that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies (as well as other similar assets) without the use of a central intermediary body.
Decryption: The process of transforming data that has been rendered unreadable (through various encryption-related processes) back to its unencrypted form.
Deflation: It is a financial term that deals with the general reduction in the price of a particular commodity.
Delegated Proof-of-Stake (dPOS): It is a consensus protocol that allows network participants to vote for delegates that have been tasked with producing blocks on a particular blockchain.
Depth Chart: It is a graph that is plotted using buy bids and sell requests based on limit orders. In layman’s terms, the chart seeks to showcase the point at which the market will accept a particular monetary transaction.
Derivative: Another commonly used term within the world of global finance, a derivative can be thought of as a contract that acquires its value from the financial performance of an underlying asset.
Derivatives Market: It is a public market where financial products such as derivatives, futures contracts, options are bought and sold.
Deterministic Wallet: It is a type of digital storage unity that makes use of a seed phrase that can be used by individuals to backup and restore their holdings in a streamlined, hassle free manner.
Difficulty: It is basically a relative measure of how tough it is for miners to discover a new data block. From Bitcoin’s POV, the currency’s native difficulty quotient is routinely adjusted in relation to the system’s overall hashing power.
Digital Commodity: It is an intangible asset that has certain monetary worth and can only be transferred via the use of an electronic medium.
Digital Currency: It is an electronic form of money that allows its owners to facilitate instantaneous, cross-border transactions in a highly streamlined manner.
Digital Identity: The term represents personal information related to a person such as one’s name, address, social security number etc. However, all of this data is digitized and can be used to facilitate ID verifications in an extremely fast and secure manner.
Digital Signature: It is an electronic code that is created by a key encryption protocol and is attached to an electronically transmitted document. It can be used for a variety of different purposes including the verification of data packets as well as id validation.
Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG): A DAG essentially represents a graph that is based on unidirectional + non-repetitional properties.
Dildo: A dildo is candle like bar formation that is either green or red in color (depending upon the price action of the cryptocurrency in question).
Distributed Consensus: It is a concept that deals with various computers in a network working together to arrive at a common consensus without the use of a central governing entity.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack: It is an attack method used by hackers to make a machine’s native resources unavailable to its owners. Not only that, DDoS attacks also serve to disrupt the services of its host machine by overloading the system’s native request pool.
Distributed Ledger: It is a ledger in which data is saved across a wide array of decentralized locations (or nodes).
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT): This is the underlying framework of distributed ledgers that allows them to function as well as they do.
Distributed Network: It is a digital ecosystem whose processing power and information are distributed across a set of nodes. Such a network does not require the use of a central governance protocol.
Dolphin: The term refers to an individual who owns a decent quantity of crypto assets. However, when compared to a whale, these holdings are considered to be quite miniscule.
Dominance: Sometimes referred to as BTC Dominance, the term basically compares the total capitalization of BTC with other digital currencies available in the market at any given point in time.
Double Spending: It is a situation wherein a particular sum of money gets spent twice in an illegitimate manner.
Dump: It is the act of selling all of one’s digital assets in one go. Similarly, the term dumping refers to a major market sell-off (something that usually results in the downward price movement of a particular asset).
Dust Transactions: These are extremely small transactions that are initiated by nefarious individuals who are looking to disrupt the normal tx flow of a particular network.
DYOR: It is basically an acronym for the phrase “Do Your Own Research”. It means that people should look into something closely before taking a decision which might impact them adversely later down the line.
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ELI5: It is an acronym for the phrase “Explain Like I’m 5”, which basically entails the dissemination of a concept in its most simplified sense.
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA): It is a consortium of ETH developers, startups and other firms that seek to help in the widespread adoption of Ethereum for business applications across the globe.
Emission: It is basically the rate at which a crypto project creates and releases its native tokens. The term is also commonly referred to as Emission Curve and Emission Schedule.
ERC-20: It is a token governance standard that is associated with the Ethereum project. ERC-20 coins are designed to be compatible with smart contracts and are used defined by a certain number of rules.
ERC-721: Much like ERC-20, this is a token standard that has been designed primarily for non-fungible Ethereum tokens. The standard was introduced to the world via an EIP that was implemented back in 2017. Additionally, it also bears mentioning that this token standard allows smart contracts to operate as tradeable tokens.
Escrow: It is a term that is commonly used by members of the finance industry. In its most basic sense, an escrow can be thought of as a contractual arrangement in which a third-party entity receives and disburses money or documents related to all of the primary person involved in a certain deal (depending upon the pre-designed conditions of the agreement).
Ether: It is the central digital currency that is used to facilitate transactions throughout the Ethereum ecosystem.
Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP): As the name suggests, an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIPs) is a document that seeks to alter some of the core tenets (such as protocol specifications, API, etc) of the Ethereum platform.
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM): Technically speaking, it is a Turing-complete virtual machine that can execute programmed codes exactly as they were intended.
Exchange: A cryptocurrency exchange (also referred to sometimes as a digital currency exchange) is a platform that allows users to trade their crypto assets for fiat currencies (and vice versa).
Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF): It is a security that has been created to track the performance of various different financial assets (including stocks, crypto, bonds). An ETF, however, can be traded as a single entity, thereby providing owners with a lot of flexibility.
F
Faucet: It is a reward system (related to cryptocurrencies) that is usually promoted through websites and other apps.
Fiat: In finance lingo, a fiat currency refers to legal tender that is backed by a central agency (such as a local government) which makes use of its very own banking system. Additionally, it also bears mentioning that fiat money can be represented physically as well as in a digital form.
Fiat-Pegged Cryptocurrency: As the name clearly alludes to, a pegged crypto is one where the asset in question is backed by a bank-issued currency — which basically means that the asset always has a specific cash value.
Fish: A fish refers to an individual who holds an extremely small amount of crypto and is often at the mercy of those who own substantial sums of digital assets.
Flippening: The term refers to an envisioned situation where Ethereum will someday cross the total market cap of Bitcoin.
Flipping: It is a basic investment strategy wherein an investor buys a particular good with the sole aim of selling the asset later down the line for a sizeable profit. The time window involved with such a deal is usually quite small.
FOMO: It is basically an acronym which when expanded reads as ‘fear of missing out’. From an investment standpoint, FOMO refers to a feeling that many investors may face in regards to them missing out on a profitable investment opportunity.
Fork: Also referred to as a chain split, a fork can essentially be thought of as a process that allows for the creation of an alternate version of the parent blockchain. Additionally, a software fork is one where independent devs make use of existing source code to create an entirely new project (eg. Litecoin from Bitcoin).
FUD: The acronym stands for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt”. It can be thought of as a strategy that is designed to influence the general perception of a certain crypto asset, project through the systematic dissemination of false information.
Full Node: The term refers to nodes that contain the entire history of a particular blockchain at one specific location.
Fundamental Analysis (FA): A method using which an individual can research the underlying value of an asset. This is done by employing several indicators such as the tech being offered, the team behind the platform, the platform’s future growth prospects, etc.
Futures: It is a legal agreement that entails the buying/selling of a particular commodity at a price that has been fixed beforehand.
G
Gains: It is a common term that refers to an increase in the value of a certain asset (be it fiat or crypto-based) over a certain period of time.
Gas: The term is commonly used in relation to the Ethereum platform — since it talks about the total computational effort that is required in conducting ETH based transactions.
Gas Limit: It is a term that signifies the ‘gas threshold’ an individual may be willing to expend in relation to a particular ETH-based transaction.
Gas Price: The term basically refers to the total price an individual may be willing to pay to process an Ethereum transaction. On the subject, it should be pointed out that a higher gas price usually means that miners are provided with more incentive to finalize the transaction at hand.
Genesis Block: As the name seems to suggest, it is the first data block to be processed and validated in relation to any new blockchain ecosystem.
Gold-Backed Cryptocurrency: It is a crypto asset that is backed by real gold — such that each unit of the purchased digital currency has an equal representation of physical gold stored somewhere.
Graphical Processing Unit (GPU): It is commonly referred to as a graphics card. The device is conventionally used by computer systems to process 3D images but in recent times, more and more crypto enthusiasts are making use of it for mining purposes.
Group Mining: It is a term that is used interchangeably in place of the “mining pool”.
Gwei: It is a monetary denomination that is used to represent the cost of an Ether-based transaction.
H
Hacking: A common term that describes the process of using a device to illegally gain access to a third-party individual’s computer.
Halving: The term refers to an event wherein the total rewarded bitcoins per confirmed block is reduced to half of its former size.
Hard Cap: It is the total amount of money that a particular ICO seeks to raise by the end of its scheduled lifecycle.
Hard Fork: The term Hard Fork refers to a change in protocol that essentially validates all of the transactions that were previously considered to be invalid and vice versa. From a technical standpoint, it should be pointed out that this type of fork requires all of the nodes and users of a particular network to upgrade to the latest version of the forked protocol. Following the conclusion of the process, a cryptocurrency splits into two.
Hash Function: It is any digital function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to a more fixed one.
Hash Power: Also referred to as Hash Rate, it is a term that is used to measure that total computing power used by a blockchain network to work in an uninterrupted, continuous manner.
Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet (HD Wallet): It is a type of a storage solution that makes use of a master seed that comprises of 12 mnemonic phrases.
Hidden Cap: It refers to an undisclosed sum of money that ICO projects elect to raise through their backers.
HODL: A common term used by crypto enthusiasts to describe a strategy wherein an investor holds on to his/her crypto assets for a long period of time (irrespective of any price fluctuations that may take place during the intervening period).
Hosted Wallet: It is a crypto wallet that is managed by a trusted third-party entity.
Hot Storage: It is a type of online storage system that makes use of private keys to allow users to gain quick access to their digital holdings.
Hybrid PoW/PoS: It is an operational protocol that makes use of a Proof-of-Stake as well as Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. The approach is highly useful in bolstering the overall security of a digital platform.
Hyperledger: It is a project launched by the Linux Foundation in 2015. It comprises of a number of open-source blockchains and other similar tools.
I
Immutable: The term refers to a system’s property in relation to it being unchanged even after a long period.
Inflation: A finance term that signifies a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money.
Initial Coin Offering (ICO): It is a crowdfunding medium that allows individual businessmen and startup owners to raise money for their envisioned ventures.
Initial Token Offering (ITO): Much like ICOs, ITO’s too allows their users to raise money, however, their focus is more on providing investors with crypto tokens.
Instamine: It describes a short period of time (typically just after a currency has been launched) during which a huge volume of mineable coins or tokens are acquired and distributed to the investors of a particular project.
Intermediary: He/she is a person who serves as a middle-man to facilitate an agreement in the smoothest manner possible.
J
JOMO: It is quite literally the opposite of what the term FOMO stands for. When expanded, JOMO reads “Joy of Missing Out”.
K
KYC: It is an acronym for the term “Know Your Customer”. The process usually entails a financial institution gathering key data related to its clients so as to prevent issues of money laundering cropping up in the future.
L
Ledger: It is a record database that contains details of various financial transactions related to a particular crypto platform. The data cannot be altered in any way but can be appended with newer transactions.
Leverage: A loan offered by a broker on an exchange during margin trading to increase the availability of funds in trades.
Lightning Network: It is a second layer payment protocol that works atop the existing Bitcoin framework. In its core essence, it allows for monetary tx’s to take place in a faster, more scalable manner.
Limit Order: The term refers to orders that have been placed by traders so as to buy/sell a particular crypto asset after it reaches a pre-determined price. In this regard, it bears mentioning that market orders are where a crypto asset is sold at its best available price.
Liquidity: It is the ease with which a particular cryptocurrency can be bought and sold without the asset’s overall market value being affected in any major way.
Long: It is a situation where a person acquires a particular digital currency with the hope of selling it later (hopefully for a decent profit margin).
M
Mainnet: It is an independent blockchain that can run its network as well as governance protocols.
Market: It is a general term that is used to delineate various financial domains (such as cryptocurrencies, stocks) which investors regularly operate within.
Market Capitalization: It is the measure of a currency’s total market worth — i.e. the more the capitalization of an asset, the more valuable it is.
Market Order: It is the best available sale price of a particular cryptocurrency.
Margin Call: The concept of margin call comes into effect when an investor’s account falls below a certain price threshold. It is at this time a broker starts to demand additional money so as to maintain a minimum maintenance amount for the investor to continue buying/selling digital assets.
Margin Trading: It refers to a practice wherein a crypto trader makes use of borrowed funds to facilitate his/her digital purchases.
Masternodes: A masternode refers to the central server associated with a particular project that is maintained directly by the owner of the project. Additionally, one can also envision masternodes as being full nodes but with extra features such as the power to anonymize tx’s, clear certain monetary transfers, etc.
Max Supply: As the name quite clearly implies, the term can be thought of as the total number of tokens that will ever exist in relation to a particular cryptocurrency during its entire life cycle.
Merkle Tree: It is a tree-like structure commonly used in cryptography to describe a particular digital ecosystem. As part of the diagram, a single leaf signifies the hash info of a native data block whereas every non-leaf component alludes to a cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes.
MicroBitcoin: It is simply a fractional denomination of Bitcoin (one millionth or 0.000001 BTC to be exact).
Microtransaction: It is a biz structure wherein small monetary payments can be facilitated by an individual to acquire a host of different digital goods and services. The concept is widely used across a variety of domains including gaming, online retail, marketing, etc.
Mineable: It is a property of certain cryptocurrencies that can be acquired by miners through the acquisition of certain information codes as well as through the creation of data blocks.
Miners: These are individuals that contribute to the growth of a particular blockchain via the process of mining. It also bears mentioning that miners can either choose to work independently or in conjunction with an established large-scale organization.
Mining: A common term that is used to describe the process by which data blocks are added to a particular blockchain ecosystem through the verification of individual transactions. In a similar vein, ‘mining’ also describes the process through which BTC, as well as certain other altcoins, are created.
Mining Contract: It is a term that is used interchangeably in place of ‘cloud mining’.The technology entails the renting/investing of mining capacity via a host of various different digital online avenues.
Mining Pool: A mining pool is basically a setup wherein a group of miners comes together to combine their computing power so as to mine crypto assets together. The rewards of such an activity are usually distributed as per certain predetermined agreements to avoid a conflict of interest later down the line.
Mining Reward: It is an incentive that is doled out to an individual in return for his/her contributions — primarily computing resources — for processing blockchain transactions related to a particular crypto ecosystem. Additionally, it should be pointed out that such rewards consist of newly issued coins as well as previously acquired tx fees.
Mining Rig: It is a computer setup that is used for the sole purpose of acquiring digital currencies via the process of mining.
Minnow: It is a common term that is used to refer to a person who possesses an extremely small amount of crypto.
Mixing Service: Also referred to as a Tumbler, it is a platform that seeks to enhance the overall privacy/anonymity associated with a cryptocurrency transaction — primarily through the mixing of potentially identifiable digital currencies with those that are either nascent or do not have a tainted past attached to them.
Mnemonics: These are memory aids that can help users recall certain phrases. In this regard, it should be pointed out that a mnemonic phrase is one that consists of a list of words that can be used by a person to access his/her cryptocurrency assets.
Money Transmitter: As the name alludes to, a money transmitter is a person/biz entity that allows people to transfer their money (be it fiat assets or cryptocurrencies) to others in a highly streamlined manner.
Moon: From a crypto standpoint, the term refers to a situation wherein a steady upward movement in the price of digital currency is observed for an extended period of time.
Moving Average Convergence Divergence: Commonly referred to as MACD, it is basically an analytical tool that is commonly used by crypto enthusiasts to establish a relationship between two separate price moving averages. From a technical standpoint, we can see that a MACD calculation is carried out by subtracting the 26-day EMA of a particular asset from its 12-day EMA.
Mt. Gox: It was one of the world’s first cryptocurrency exchanges to allow crypto enthusiasts to freely trade Bitcoin in a totally straightforward manner. In 2014, the platform was forced to shut down after it came to light that hackers were able to make their way with over 850,000 BTC of the company’s holdings.
Multi-Signature: Also referred to as multisig addresses, these unique identifiers help in providing users with an extra layer of security.
N
Network: A common term that refers to a collection of all the nodes that may be present within a particular crypto ecosystem at any given time.
Node: It is essentially a blockchain component that comes replete with a complete copy of the system’s ledger info.
No-coiner: A no-coiner is an individual who does not own any digital assets in his/her financial portfolio and is of the opinion that the crypto market is destined to implode shortly.
Non-custodial: It is a term that is commonly used when talking about the storage of wallet keys. In this regard, a non-custodial setup is one where the private keys associated with a particular account are held by the owner of the assets and not by some third party entity.
Nonce: The term nonce is commonly employed when a certain tx has been hashed by a miner.
O
Off-Ledger Currency: It is a digital asset that has been devised outside of a specified blockchain ledger.
Offline Storage: It is a concept that deals with the storage of crypto assets on a device that is not actively linked to the internet in any way. This allows users to be better protected against third party hacking attempts.
On-Ledger Currency: It is a digital asset that is created as well as used on the same blockchain system. Bitcoin is a perfect example of such a currency,
Online Storage: It is a means of storing one’s digital holdings on a device that is linked to the internet. While such platforms are convenient to use, they are usually more susceptible to third-party intrusions.
One Cancels The Other Order: Commonly abbreviated as OCO, it is a scenario wherein a couple of buy orders are placed together for the same cryptocurrency.
Open/Close: Open refers to a time window when the price of bitcoin (or any crypto asset) is opened to the public for regular trading. Similarly, close delineates a window of opportunity that is exactly the opposite of what the term ‘open’ represents.
Open Source: It is a type of software that can be freely altered, distributed and studied by anyone for any reason that he/she may see fit.
Option: In its essence, an ‘option’ is basically a contract that provides investors with permission to buy or sell an underlying asset at a specific strike price. In this regard, it should be pointed out that there are American and European options — with the former being available for use at any time before its expiry while the latter can only by employed at the time of its expiration.
Options Market: It is a public trading platform where options can be exchanged freely. Not only that, an options market provides buyers with the opportunity to buy/sell crypto assets at specified strike values (that too on or before a preset date of exchange).
Oracles: These are digital entities that are entrusted with the responsibility of finding and verifying specific blockchain-related data.
Orphan: In digital lingo, the term basically alludes to a valid data block on a certain blockchain that is not affiliated directly with the main chain. Such entities usually come into existence when two miners produce a block at the same time or when a bad actor tries to reverse transactions in an illegal manner.
Overbought: A commonly used term that refers to a currency that has been acquired by an increasing number of investors over a certain period of time.
Oversold: As the name clearly implies, the term oversold comes into effect when a cryptocurrency has been sold by more and more investors over a certain period of time — with the price of the asset decreasing during the aforementioned duration.
Over The Counter: Commonly abbreviated as OTC, the term is used to describe a transaction that is facilitated independently (mainly in a P2P manner) without the use of an intermediate cryptocurrency exchange. This mode of transfer is commonly used in countries, regions where digital trading platforms are not legal.
P
Pair: In its most basic sense, a pair refers to a trade that takes place between two distinct financial assets (example BTC/USD, BTC/ETH).
Paper Wallet: It is a basic physical crypto storage solution that contains a user’s private key.
Peer to Peer (P2P): It is a decentralized mode of interaction that takes place between two parties operating within a distributed network.
Permissioned Ledger: As the name clearly implies, it is a ledger system that comes pre-built with certain restrictions so that only a few people with the required authorization can access it.
Platform: It is a vague term that may be used to describe a specific digital service, a cryptocurrency exchange or any other medium related to a host of defined technological domains.
Ponzi Scheme: It is a fraudulent scheme that has been perpetrated by a company or startup. It entails investors being promised handsome rewards/incentives for onboarding new recruits.
Portfolio: It is a collection of digital currencies that are held either by an individual or an investment collective (such as a hedge fund).
Pre-mine: The term pre-mine is used when a fraction (or entire amount) of a project’s token supply is generated before its public launch. The practice is usually employed for purposes such as crowdfunding and marketing.
Pre-sale: As the name suggests, it is a sale that is facilitated before an ICO is made available to the masses.
Private Key: It is a digital code that is generated through the use of various asymmetric encryption processes. A private key, when used in conjunction with a public key, can be used to decrypt certain sensitive data.
Proof-of-Authority: Referred to as PoA within crypto circles, it is a consensus mechanism that is known to provide users with fast tx speeds (while making use of the participant’s identity at stake).
Proof-of-Burn: PoB is a consensus mechanism that seeks to bootstrap one blockchain to another by making sure that a certain cost is levied during the native token burning process.
Proof-of-Developer: It is a blockchain consensus protocol that provides users with evidence of a real, living software developer being involved in the creation of a particular cryptocurrency.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS): One of the most commonly used blockchain consensus mechanisms in the world today, the PoS protocol makes use of a novel operational framework wherein a block creator is chosen through a random selection of certain key factors including wealth, age of staked coins, etc.
Proof-of-Work (PoW): It is a blockchain consensus mechanism that requires users to solve certain mathematical puzzles and codes to validate native transactions (as well as for the creation of new blocks.)
Protocol: It is a common term that seeks to define a set of rules that are used to govern particular interactions on a specific digital ecosystem. From a crypto standpoint, a protocol entails the use of certain consensus mechanisms, tx validators, etc.
Pseudonymous: It is an english term that describes the use of an anonymous identity by an individual for various privacy related reasons (example: Satoshi Nakamoto)
Public Address: It is a digital location that allows users to facilitate a payment request in a streamlined, hassle-free manner. From a more technical standpoint, we can define a public address as being a cryptographic hash that is associated with a particular public key.
Public Blockchain: It is a blockchain network that can be accessed by any person irrespective of his/her security authorization and clearance.
Pump and Dump Scheme: It is a form of fraud in which the price of a cryptocurrency is artificially inflated so as to make it seem as though the asset is surging. After the market perception of the currency has been altered, the involved parties then proceed to dump the asset for a higher price.
Q
QR Code: It is a digital label that can be interpreted by an IR machine so as to acquire a host of important data related to the commodity in question. In relation to cryptocurrencies, QR codes are most commonly used to share wallet addresses between users.
R
Raiden Network: It is a popular scaling solution that works completely off-chain. From a technical standpoint, it should be pointed out that the Raiden network allows for near-instant tx’s to take place while charging users minuscule processing costs
Replicated Ledger: It is basically a copy of a network’s native distributed ledger.
Rank: The term refers to a crypto asset’s relative market position in relation to its total market cap.
REKT: A common slang that is a shortened version of the word ‘wrecked’. It is commonly used when an investor incurs massive losses because of his/her poor investment choices.
Reverse Indicator: A reverse indicator refers to an individual whose market choices are so poor that he/she can be used as an example of how not to invest one’s assets.
Ring Signature: It is a digital protocol that fuses inputs related to multiple signers with those of the original sender so as to increase the system’s overall security.
ROI: Also referred to as “Return on Investment”, the term basically alludes to the ratio that exists between net profit and cost of investing.
Relative Strength Index: RSI is a technical chart that allows users to measure the speed and price movements associated with various cryptocurrencies. Additionally, it should be highlighted that the analysis tool was devised by J. Welles Wilder.
S
Satoshi: It is the smallest possible denomination of Bitcoin. Each Satoshi represents a value of 0.00000001 BTC.
Satoshi Nakamoto: The pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin whose real identity has not been confirmed till date.
Scam: A fraudulent scheme that makes use of a fake cryptocurrency or fundraising avenue (such as an ICO.)
Scrypt: It is a PoW based algorithm that serves as a perfect alternative to the SHA-256 protocol that is widely used for Bitcoin mining. From a technical standpoint, it bears mentioning that the algorithm is primarily dependant on a computer’s memory rather than its processing power.
Second-Layer Solutions: These are various solutions that have been devised atop existing public blockchains so as to improve their existing scalability potential as well as overall efficiency. Lightning Network is a perfect example of such a tool.
Securities and Exchange Commission: The SEC is a United States-based regulatory agency that seeks to enforce local laws related to the securities and stock/options market.
Seed: It is considered to be the starting point where an individual seeks out to gain access to his/her wallet (deterministic wallet to be exact). In this regard, it should be pointed out that a seed phrase comprises of a set of words that allow users to either backup or restore one of their existing wallets.
Segregated Witness: It is a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) that was designed to solve the issue of tx malleability that plagued the Bitcoin network for a long time in the past. From a more technical POV, SegWit sought to change the “witness” information related to individual data blocks by segregating signature and block content.
Selfish Mining: As the name clearly alludes to, Selfish Mining refers to a situation where a miner acquires data related to a new block without transmitting this information to other network participants.
Sell Wall: A sell wall refers to a situation where a massive limit order (in regards to the selling of a particular crypto asset) has been achieved. The tactic is used by traders to make it seem as though the demand for a particular crypto asset is not all that much even though in real life the currency might be extremely popular and sought after.
Side Chain: It refers to a decentralized ledger system that runs in unison with a primarily blockchain. However, a key point worth noting here is that the side-chain is able to operate independently of the central blockchain using its own set of protocols and operational mechanisms.
Simplified Payment Verification: It is a non-memory intensive client that can be used to verify blockchain transactions without the need for data acquisition related to block headers and PoI’s.
SHA-256: It is a hash function that makes use of a 256-bit cryptographically secure signature. The basic framework for this algorithm was devised by the NSA.
Sharding: A concept that seeks to help in the optimal scaling of a blockchain ecosystem by dividing its containing states and transaction history — so that both of these entities can be processed parallel with each other.
Shilling: It refers to the act of a single person or group promoting a particular crypto project over-enthusiastically.
Shitcoin: A cryptocurrency that has no apparent use case related to it.
Short: A technique that is commonly employed by traders in which they borrow an asset with the sole goal of selling it. However, in order for the setup to actually work, the value of the asset in question needs to continue to decline.
Silk Road: A popular deep web marketplace that was shut down by the FBI a couple of years back ago. Using Silk Road, a number of bad actors could facilitate their online transactions using BTC (as well as a host of other digital assets).
Smart contract: A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to facilitate, verify, or enforce a contract on the blockchain without the need of a third-party intermediary.
Soft Cap: It is the minimum amount of money that an ICO project wishes to raise. On the subject, it should be pointed out that incase an ICO fails to reach this threshold, the project may be scrapped altogether.
Soft Fork: It is a protocol upgrade where older valid transactions associated with a particular platform are made invalid. However, in order for such a change to be enforced, a majority of miners affiliated with a particular crypto ecosystem need to upgrade their mining software simultaneously.
Solidity: It is the name of a programming language that is used by Ethereum-based developers to devise unique smart contracts.
Spot: It is a contract which involves the buying/selling of cryptocurrencies. In this regard, a spot market refers to a public trading platform where crypto assets can be traded for immediate settlement.
Stablecoin: A crypto asset that has its value pegged to a real-world asset such as a fiat currency or precious metal. As a result of this, a stablecoin has extremely low volatility.
Staking: It is a method that involves an individual putting his/her tokens on the line to serve as a validator for a particular blockchain ecosystem.
Stale Block: A data block that has been successfully mined but not included in the current longest blockchain. This usually happens as a result of another block (of the same height) being added to the primary chain.
State Channel: Another popular second-layer scaling solution that helps reduce the total number of on-chain transactions associated with a particular blockchain ecosystem.
Symbol: It is the digital ticker associated with a particular cryptocurrency. For example Bitcoin’s symbol is BTC.
T
Taint: It refers to the total percentage of cryptocurrency that is held in a particular account (which in turn can be traced to another account.)
Tangle: It is a blockchain alternative that has been devised by IOTA. The system makes use of DAGs (directed acyclic graphs) and is quantum-computing resistant.
Testnet: The term ‘Testnet’ refers to an alternative blockchain that is commonly employed by developers for testing purposes only.
Technical Analysis: It is a method of evaluation that makes use statistical data related to the activity of a particular market sector. Using TA related tools, users can isolate certain specific patterns which can then be used to make well-informed investment decisions.
Think Long Term: It is a mindset where an investor thinks in terms of months or years (rather than days) in relation to his/her investment.
Ticker: It is an abbreviated symbol (ed BTC) that is commonly used in relation to cryptocurrencies for identification purposes.
Timelock: A preset condition that seeks to push forth a transaction only after it has attained to a certain block or if a certain time window has been reached.
Timestamp: A module that allows for id-data related to a particular transaction to be viewed seamlessly.
Token: It is a digital unit of exchange that is designed to possess certain transactional qualities and can be used within a larger crypto ecosystem. Additionally, it should be pointed out that a token does not intrinsically have the potential to serve as a store of value but can be used to create novel software solutions around it.
Token Generation Event: A time when a token is issued and made available to the masses for acquisition.
Tokenize: It refers to the process by which real-world assets can be converted into digital entities. This allows for physical commodities to be offered to different owners in a completely straightforward, streamlined manner.
Tor: A free software that allows users to surf the web in a highly secure and private fashion. The tor browser makes use of a network of volunteer relays in order to hide a host of location/cookie-related data associated with its users..
Total Supply: As the name quite obviously implies, the term ‘total supply’ refers to the maximum number of coins related to a project that may be in existence at any given point in time. However, the sum does not include any coins that may have been verifiably burned.
Trade Volume: It is the total amount of crypto-related to a particular project that has been traded over the course of the last 24 hours.
Transaction: Abbreviated as tx, it is the act through which two crypto holders can exchange digital assets with one another.
Transaction Fee: A small payment that needs to be made in order for a transaction to be processed within a blockchain.
Trustless: It is the property of a blockchain platform to facilitate transactions without any of the participants having to trust one another.
Tumbler: It is another term used to describe a ‘mixing service’.
Turing-Complete: Turing-complete is a concept that deals with the ability of a device to perform certain calculations that no other machine is capable of handling. The Ethereum Virtual Machine is a prime example of such a device.
U
Unconfirmed: It refers to a state in which a particular monetary tx has not yet been appended to the blockchain.
Unpermissioned Ledger: Another term that basically refers to a blockchain that is completely public in nature.
Unspent Transaction Output: UTO is an output associated with a blockchain transaction that has yet to be spent, therefore, it can be used as an input protocol for newer tx’s.
UTC Time: It is the time standard that most businesses around the world make use of so as to facilitate their global communications in a systematic manner.
V
Validator: An individual who is involved in the validation of data blocks (for incentive acquisition purposes) within a PoS blockchain ecosystem.
Vanity Address: It is a public wallet address that makes use of custom letters and numbers that have been picked out by the owner of the storage solution.
Vaporware: A project that never sees the light of day.
Venture Capital: A type of private equity that is usually doled out to startups and other small firms deemed to have a bright future ahead of themselves.
Virgin Bitcoin: A Bitcoin that is pristine and has never been used to facilitate any monetary transaction (be it illegal or otherwise).
Volatility: The term refers to a currency’s innate potential to witness intense price swings over a given period of time.
Volume: The total amt of crypto that has been transacted over a certain period of time (eg: 24 hours, 7 days, etc.). From a technical standpoint, we can see that volume reflects the direction in which a particular asset (or the market as a whole) may be heading.
W
Wallet: It is a digital storage device that can be used to store cryptocurrencies. Not only that, a wallet can also be used to send/receive digital assets in a seamless, hassle free manner. They can primarily be split up into two central categories, namely hosted and cold wallet.
Wash Trade: A market deception tactic through which investors are able to establish artificial activity by selling/buying certain digital assets at the same time.
Watchlist: As the name suggests, a watchlist refers to a small set of crypto assets that a user would like to follow on a day-to-day basis These days, the feature has been incorporated into a number of famous crypto trading platforms and websites.
Weak Hands: A person who is known to panic sell anytime a price decline appears on the horizon.
Wei: It is the smallest divisible unit of an ETH token. One Ether is equal to 1000000000000000000 Wei.
Whale: A common term that is used to describe an investor who owns a massive amount of crypto — so much so that he/she can easily manipulate the market with one major sell.
Whitelist: It refers to a collection of individuals taking part in an ICO with the intention of purchasing a decent amount of tokens.
Whitepaper: A technical document prepared by the members of a crypto startup so as to present to the world a clear vision of what their project seeks to achieve in the short, medium and long term.
Y
YTD: It is an abbreviation for the term “Year-to-Date”.
Z
Zero Confirmation Transaction: It is a concept that can be used interchangeably in place of the term “unconfirmed transaction”.
Zero Knowledge Proof: It is a concept that is commonly used in cryptography. Simply put, a ZKP seeks to facilitate tx’s between two parties without the sender having to reveal any of the contents of the transfer.
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 Glossary: Blockchain Vocabulary Term Definitions appeared first on Master The Crypto.
WINk’s low-cost yield farming offerings are attracting retail DeFi investors who have been priced out of Uniswap due to high Ethereum gas costs.
Decentralized finance has exploded in popularity over the past year and many analysts have pointed to the 2020 ‘summer of DeFi’ as the primary catalyst for the rallies seen in Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC).
In the beginning, investors were able to easily secure 4-digit annual percentage yield (APY) on an almost endless number of attractively priced assets on Uniswap but the increased activity on the Etheruem network eventually led to unsustainable spikes in gas fees and serious network congestion.
These skyrocketing gas fees have priced out the average retail investor from participating in even the simplest protocol interactions like token approval or staking. The current Etheruem proposals do not provide an immediate solution to these issues and this has motivated investors to look for non-Ethereum-based networks that offer yield farming and other DeFi opportunities.
Average Ethereum gas price. Source: Etherscan
With no simple network-wide solution to high ETH fees planned in the near future, it is worthwhile to explore some of the other options available on competing blockchain networks.
One such option is WINk (WIN), a Tron-based (TRX) gambling platform that allows users to play, socialize and stake assets across multiple blockchain ecosystems through the utilization of the native WIN token.
Low-fee, multi-asset staking
Interacting with the WINk protocol requires a Tron wallet with about 8 TRX which is roughly $0.48 at the current price.
When compared to $40 (or more) in fees per transaction on Ethereum, the ability to make multiple transactions over several days for less than a dollar becomes quite appealing to the average investor.
Similar to many DeFi platforms, WINk’s platform has many staking opportunities for tokens within the ecosystem, including TRONbetDice (DICE) and TRONbetLIVE (LIVE), which allow token stakers to earn a portion of the proceeds from the activity which takes place within those games.
According to the most recent monthly report from the project, the APRs for staking WIN, DICE and LIVE on the protocol for the month of January were 64%, 123% and 137% respectively.
With WIN currently trading at $0.000394 and DICE and LIVE priced less than $0.05, the low entry cost and price of staking and unstaking might be more appealing for the average retail investor when compared to the sky-high valuations of tokens like Yearn.Finance (YFI) and Aave.
Evidence that traders have begun to notice this opportunity can be found in the recent price performance of WIN which has rallied 700% from a low of $0.000058 on Jan. 1 to a high of $0.000477 on March 20 thanks to a record $344 million in trading volume.
WIN/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for WIN on March 18, prior to the recent price rise.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historic and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. WIN price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score registered a high of 65 multiple times on March 18 and the most recent pop to 65 occurred roughly six hours before WIN rallied 90%.
Increased activity for the cryptocurrency sector due to mainstream exposure from institutional investors and big-name influencers like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban has the ecosystem poised to see a continued influx of new users looking to earn a high return on smaller-sized investments.
Projects like WIN are well-positioned to capture some of this growth as smaller investors look for options outside the Ethereum network.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Cryptocurrency exchange tokens have seen major gains, but has this changed their original use case to become a good investment for hodlers?
Native exchange tokens have exploded in value in recent months, alongside the wider cryptocurrency markets, changing the narrative for what these tokens were originally meant for.
Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and other cryptocurrencies have seen exponential growth over the past six months. In part, this is due to major institutional investors finally entering the markets in a meaningful way. Grayscale Investments, MicroStrategy and Tesla have been some of the biggest names to make major acquisitions of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, leading to new all-time highs in values.
This has had a knock-on effect for various tokens that either power cryptocurrency exchanges, or — like Ethereum’s gas charges for processing transactions — act as the fuel for the underlying blockchain.
Exchanges that use their own tokens to power their ecosystems have also seen their native cryptocurrencies boom in value. Two prime examples of this are Binance’s native Binance Coin (BNB) token and decentralized finance platform Uniswap’s UNI token and OKEx exchange token, the OKB.
BNB saw a rise in value from $38 per token on Jan. 1 to an all-time high of $335 on Feb. 19. Likewise, UNI went from $4.90 per token on Jan. 1 to just over $35 on March 22, also an all-time high. Meanwhile, since the start of the year, OKB tripled in valuation from around $7 to over $21 by Feb. 22.
Before delving further into the price appreciation of these cryptocurrencies though, let’s revisit the basics of exchange tokens.
What is an exchange token?
Cryptocurrency exchange tokens fulfill a variety of important roles for the platforms they operate on.
For one, they can increase both liquidity and trading activity. Liquidity on an exchange refers to the ability of a token to be converted to another cryptocurrency or fiat currency. Native exchange tokens can be used as an incentive to increase liquidity on the exchange by allocating rewards for trading volumes, or for users that stake tokens.
Exchange tokens are also used to provide fee discounts for traders and users. Typically, this involves users receiving discounts when paying fees using the cryptocurrency, whether on a centralized or decentralized exchange.
Some cryptocurrencies act as the fuel that powers the exchange, by allowing users to participate in governance mechanisms (like voting) or by offering exclusive benefits to holders.
Take BNB, for example. It is the means for transactions on Binance Chain, while also being used to pay transaction fees on the exchange.
Have exchange tokens become a good investment?
Though they serve a variety of purposes on their respective platforms, their rapid rise in value across the ecosystem begs the question of whether exchange tokens are now becoming a viable investment for users.
The nature of a given token and the role it plays within its exchange ecosystem also have an influence on its value and its potential to appreciate over time. Todd Crosland, founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange CoinZoom, told Cointelegraph, “There has been a graduation of sorts from using exchange tokens solely for trading fee discounts and other benefits, to the tangible value.”
Added benefits have also increased the value of these various tokens through rewards, discounts and other incentives, as Crosland explained in his correspondence with Cointelegraph.
According to Jonathan Leong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange BTSE, the utility of exchange tokens like BNB and UNI is a driving force behind their appreciation in value. In the case of BNB, Leong highlighted the fact that the exchange token also became a utility token with the launch of Binance Chain. Essentially, this turned BNB tokens into the equivalent of Ethereum’s ETH tokens that are used to pay for gas fees.
While there seems to be a growing sentiment that prominent exchange tokens could become viable long-term investments, these tokens are also subject to the same volatility that the likes of Bitcoin and other prominent cryptocurrencies have become notorious for. As Leong highlighted in his comments to Cointelegraph:
“The volatility can be explained because things are really mainstreaming and the utility of DeFi is really coming into its own and people are seeing the possibilities with things like Uniswap, Curve, Aave and Saffron and all these other things. I think that’s why there’s a big surge, there’s a lot of money coming in — it’s the bull cycle. This is a highly speculative new technology which also can explain the volatility.”
A spokesperson from Binance outlined the exchange’s belief that the value of BNB will continue to grow as more applications and projects begin running on the Binance Smart Chain: “BNB’s use cases have expanded to hundreds of applications on numerous platforms and projects within the crypto ecosystem.” The exchange representative added further:
“BNB is utilized to pay transaction fees on Binance.com, Binance DEX, Binance Chain and the community-driven BSC. BNB is also used on multiple DeFi platforms built on BSC that provide financial payments solutions. The more people use BSC, the more utility BNB will have, and hence more value BNB will have.”
The Binance spokesperson however declined to comment on whether the firm feels that the rise in value of BNB tokens has exceeded expectations.
As cryptocurrency markets continue to hold the gains that have been realized in recent months, exchange tokens are also allowing users to hold value on these platforms, evident by their market capitalization. BNB’s market cap sits at just under $40 billion, which leaves it almost on par with the total capitalization of the Tether (USDT) token.
A number of factors indicate that the present is a beneficial time for eToro to go public, according to the company’s CEO.
Over the course of 2020, eToro sized up significantly, as Assia explained: “We’ve grown more than 147% year-over-year revenues,” he noted. This year rolled in with mainstream and crypto bull markets in full swing, in tandem with “the biggest discussion we’ve seen in human history around the intersection of social media and investment platforms” — all bubbling together to form what Assia labeled as “a perfect storm.” He added:
“We’re seeing an immense interest all around the world from people who want to participate in the global markets, which was our original vision from 2017 when we started our business of opening the global markets for everyone to trade and invest in a simple and transparent way.”
Bitcoin (BTC), as well as the rest of the crypto market, posted a standout year in 2020 after quickly recovering from a significant price decline around the same time as rising COVID-19 concerns in March 2020. Mainstream markets also rallied in 2020, but Bitcoin picked up steam late in the year, breaking its 2017 record high in December before continuing significantly higher. So far, 2021 has seen a continuation of the mainstream and crypto bull markets.
On March 16, eToro announced plans for taking its operation public on the Nasdaq through a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Essentially, this is a type of merger in which a private company combines with a specific, already-public company (a SPAC company), turning public in a less direct manner than an initial public offering.
“When your business grows faster than your expectations, it is always the right thing to do to make sure that you’re fully prepared to take the next stage of growth as a bigger company, as a public markets company,” Assia said. “We’re very excited about this next step of growth.”
Crypto exchange Coinbase plans on taking its business public through a direct listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange in April 2021. Alternatively, Diginex, a digital asset-centered entity, went public on the Nasdaq in October 2020 via a SPAC.
EToro has publicized its intent to buy and merge with a SPAC called Fintech V, Assia noted. “We will merge with that company, actually buying that company, and become the listed eToro,” he said. Formally known as Fintech Acquisition Corp V, the SPAC company currently trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker FTCV.
“When SPACs announce business combination agreements signed, the SPACs are already trading, so retail investors have the opportunity to invest in SPACs post-announcement under the SPAC ticker,” Assia said.
Essentially, this route of going public gives interested parties the chance to indirectly invest in a private company right away after it announces its intent to go public, even though it is not technically officially listed as a stock yet, based on Assia’s explanation. The investor would buy the involved SPAC’s stock, which would eventually become the stock of the private company. Generally speaking, if a company went public through an IPO, investors would have to wait for the private company’s stock to list and then buy its stock when it lists.
Related: Catalytic event or unbridled optimism? Coinbase approaches public listing
“During the next couple of months, as we go through the process of completing the merger agreement, we will basically become the listed company on Nasdaq,” Assia explained. Although Assia said his company did not yet have a new ticker name finalized at the time of the interview, eToro will not keep FTCV as its ticker. “We haven’t decided on it frankly,” he said. “We can’t share what we haven’t decided on it yet, like when you’re pregnant with a kid,” he explained with a laugh.
What will going public change for eToro compared to current operations? “I think for the majority of our day-to-day work will stay very much the same,” Assia said, noting customers, persistent technological advancement and products as areas on which eToro will maintain its attention. He added:
“As we conclude the deal, and we bring in the $650-million PIPE [private investment in public equity], as well as a $250-million SPAC into the company’s balance sheet at most, we’ll have a very strong balance sheet to consider potential acquisitions, a more aggressive geographical expansion — whether it’s expanding aggressively in the U.S., or in other markets.”
He concluded that going public while having a balance sheet of over $1 billion “will enable us to be even more aggressive as we think of the growth of eToro.”
In recent months, talk of crypto companies going public has made a number of headlines. Crypto and financial asset trading platform eToro is one of the latest crypto-involved companies looking to go public. The outfit’s CEO, Yoni Assia, recently explained eToro’s rationale behind the move in an interview with Cointelegraph.
Is Bitcoin’s macro upward journey over? PlanB says no.
Bitcoin’s price seems to have stalled below $60,000 after attaining new all-time highs earlier in March. PlanB, a crypto analyst active on Twitter, thinks Bitcoin (BTC) may still have a lot of room to gallup however.
“IMO we are only ~4 months into the bull market and nowhere near the end of it,” PlanB tweeted on Friday. “Bitcoin is just getting started,” he added, showing Bitcoin’s current path on one of his Stock-to-Flow charts. Multiple Stock-to-Flow models exist for Bitcoin which show Bitcoin’s price path in line with its halving events and supply over time.
YouTuber and derivatives trader Tone Vays also carries a bullish macro view, although he thinks a dip lower for Bitcoin is not out of the question.
“Bitcoin is consolidating but I remain bullish in this market,” Vays told Cointelegraph. “While it is still possible for bitcoin to make a lower low for the month in the $48k range, I believe we will go up to above $70k before June,” he added.
After trading past $61,000 this month, Bitcoin retraced down near $50,000. For the most part, the drop occurred over roughly two weeks, with some relief bounces mixed in, rather than in a straight, single-day $10,000 shot downward. Based on TradingView data, BTC holds a price of $54,550 at time of publication, looking back on a day of overall upward price action.
Meanwhile, other crypto assets continue to make headlines in the price category as well.
A Stake.com review shows that quite a number of Bitcoin betters are using their games and books to make a decent amount of winnings — but what about taxes on such things? If you’re a Bitcoin better, do you need to worry about taxes?
Like most things regarding taxes and financial transactions, it all depends on the country you live in. It may even come down to which city and local government you live in.
This article will give a general overview of taxes on cryptocurrency gains in each country. It’ll give you a jumping board for further research.
The European Union
The EU is one of the more complicated places, so we’ll start there.
The reason it’s complicated is that the EU has left Bitcoin taxation on winnings from gambling, trading, and transacting up to each individual country within the union.
There are a few countries of note, however, that — if you’re an E.U. citizen — you could consider moving to if their BTC tax treatment will make a significant impact on your life.
Three that sound out the most are:
Portugal
This small country on the westernmost coast of the EU has some of the most attractive Bitcoin tax policies in the EU
“In 2016, the Portuguese Tax Authority (PTA) ruled that all crypto transactions will be free from capital gains and income tax.”
It doesn’t get much clearer than that.
Switzerland
The country has become known for its blockchain-friendly stance. After all, it’s home to the crypto foundations of Ethereum, Tezos, and more.
That’s because, “in Switzerland, the exchange of cryptocurrencies is considered the same as traditional payment transactions. According to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration, all profits and losses from crypto transactions made by individuals are exempt from tax reporting.”
Granted, profits made by businesses in the crypto sphere are taxed under Swiss regulations. However, that doesn’t apply to people making money from winnings from crypto gambling sites.
Germany
Another country for simple regulations on your Bitcoin winnings is the home of the Oktoberfest (a good enough reason to live there all by itself).
In Germany, “Bitcoin has been considered a type of private money since 2013. Although Bitcoin is subject to capital gains tax of 25% in Germany, such a tax is levied only if the profits on Bitcoin are acquired within one year after the receipt of Bitcoin.”
So if you won crypto, traded it, or another type of activity and then held it for more than a year afterward, you might not be subject to taxes. Though, perhaps the taxes on winnings from gambling might be a different subject — but it’s difficult to find specific information on gambling and cryptocurrency payouts.
Other EU Countries
There are 28 countries in the EU, each with its own treatment.
For example, in Poland, not only would you need to pay a 19% capital gains tax, but you would also need to pay an extra 4% “solidarity tax” if your crypto income is over one million PLN (Polish fiat).
Clearly, there are certain countries to consider living in over others if you are an EU citizen or considering becoming one.
Countries Around the World
If the EU is not a place you want to consider living in, then there are plenty of other beautiful Bitcoin tax havens in the world to consider.
Japan
In Japan, “Bitcoin is officially recognized as a payment method. The sale of Bitcoin is exempted from consumption tax as of 1st of July 2017. Virtual currencies are treated as “asset-like values” that “can be used in making payments and can be transferred digitally”. Thus, in Japan, profits gained from Bitcoin trading are considered to be business income and treated accordingly for income and capital gains tax purposes.”
Australia
The land down under is a bit more complicated, but its sunshine and outdoor adventures are legendary.
In Australia, the gain and sale of Bitcoin (probably through betting as well) is subject to laws surrounding barter arrangements.
It’s a tough concept to wrap your head around because the Australian tax authorities don’t consider Bitcoin as either money or foreign currency. Instead, BTC is an asset for capital gains purposes, and businesses (like gambling establishments) must consider payments in and out of Bitcoin as needed to be declared with their value in AUD as ordinary income.
Thankfully, Bitcoin transactions for personal purposes are exempt. Then again, those transactions must meet two conditions,
(1) The Bitcoin must have been used as payment for goods and services for personal use
(2) the value of the transaction is lower than AUD 10.000.
The United States of America
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the central tax authority in the US. They have established rules and laws treating Bitcoin as property. So your Bitcoin betting winnings are not a currency, but property, and should be reported as such.
If you win $10,000, for example, in the US and then the value of BTC rises so by the time you cash out, you take $20,000 out — then unfortunately your winnings will incur capital gains tax.
So if you’re a big player in online bitcoin gambling sites, it’s worth considering how much winnings you cash out, when, and where — or else your winnings may be diminished quite a bit by the taxes of the country you live in.
With the recent sale of a .jpg by digital artist Beeple in a Christie’s auction for $69 million, NFTs have suddenly jumped into the mainstream in a big way. Here’s a history to better put Beeple’s jackpot in context and to help understand where it might go from here.
Cryptocollectibles or non-fungible tokens (NFT) are a specific type of blockchain token. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum tokens, each NFT token is unique, making them comparable to rare items like trading cards and other limited-run collectible items.
Crypto Kitties Started the Trend
NFTs were first created in 2017 with the introduction of Crypto Kitties. This line of cryptocollectibles features virtual pets: each token contains a unique cartoon cat, randomly generated through a lottery. Owners are able to trade Crypto Kitties for profit.
In the years that followed, several other variations on NFTs were created. Now, in 2021, the first NFTs with mainstream appeal are arriving on the market.
Celebrities Create NFTs
Celebrities have created numerous NFTs. Actress Lindsay Lohan also created an NFT this February, shown above. The token sold for $59,000 and the proceeds were donated to charity. Lohan has also created other NFTs since then.
More recently, Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey tokenized his first-ever tweet, originally published to Twitter in 2006. The auction for the token will end in March, and the highest bidder is currently offering $2.5 million for the tweet. The proceeds from the sale will go toward poverty relief via Give Directly.
Meanwhile, Paris Hilton is reportedly considering creating another NFT alongside entrepreneur Kim Dotcom and rap giant MC Hammer. Hilton previously tokenized a drawing of her cat in 2019, which sold for $17,000; the proceeds were donated to charity.
In January, “Rick and Morty” cartoonist Justin Roiland created an NFT based on art from the hit cartoon. That NFT was sold for over $1 million via Nifty Gateway.
NBA Top Shots and Sports Collectibles
Elsewhere, the NBA has launched a line of basketball-themed cryptocollectibles called NBA Top Shots. This line of NFTs was launched in October 2020.
The product line was produced in collaboration with Dapper Labs, creator of Crypto Kitties. The tokens are similar to player trading cards but with video clips of memorable basketball moments rather than still images.
NBA Top Shots have become a fast success, bringing in more than $300 million, according to some sources. Some packs have sold out, and a secondary market for the physical items associated with the digital token has appeared on eBay.
In 2018, the MLB created a similar line of baseball-themed collectibles in partnership with the crypto firm Lucid Sight. That NFT line is called MLB Champions, and it features digital “bobbleheads” based on famous baseball players.
Music Industry NFTs
Several music artists have created NFTs. In early March, the popular rock band Kings of Leon released a line of NFTs to tie into their latest album “When You See Yourself.”
Various editions of the token contain either art related to the album, digital tracks, or lifetime tickets to band concerts. These tokens were created with the blockchain firm YellowHeart and can be viewed on the OpenSea marketplace.
Other musicians have also created NFTs. Synth-pop musician Grimes tokenized a music video, “Death of the Old,” which sold for more than $388,000.
Fyooz has attracted musicians including Post Malone, Lil Yachty, and Lil Pump. The firm aims to produce “experience NFTs” that provide live digital music experiences.
Where Can You Buy NFTs?
OpenSea is one of the largest marketplaces for cryptocollectibles. It lists NFTs for dozens of different cryptocollectible projects on the Ethereum blockchain. Other competing marketplaces, such as Sorare, Rarible, and Enjin also allow you to buy NFTs.
Generally, NFTs and cryptocurrency collectibles are designed to circulate freely, meaning that they can be bought and sold even if a single marketplace shuts down.
That said, some tokens are available on limited markets initially. NBA Top Shot items and Fyooz tokens, for example, are best purchased through their official sites.
Are NFTs a Worthwhile Investment?
Because each NFT project has a different business model, some may be better investments than others. As seen above, cryptocollectibles can have celebrity backing or corporate backing, or they may simply be tied to blockchain trading games.
Because cryptocollectibles are just a few years old, it is impossible to predict what their long-term value will be. On one hand, rare items can gain value over time; on the other hand, trends can fall out of fashion and become short-lived fads.
But regardless of the eventual state of the market, it seems certain that new lines of NFTs will be created and released. Some are sure to attract mainstream attention.
As the cryptocurrency market matures, investors are seeking out new ways to invest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Contracts for Difference (CFDs) provide one option.
What Is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency—a digital currency powered by a decentralized network of node operators. It was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, and over the past decade, countless other cryptocurrencies have been created.
Cryptocurrency is promising because it has no central point of control. Banks and governments cannot shut it down, and wallet holders have direct access to their Bitcoin balance. Though exchanges that buy and sell Bitcoin can control some cryptocurrency transactions, Bitcoin itself can be transacted freely across borders and can change hands without interference.
Bitcoin has attracted attention within mainstream circles thanks to several big events. Tesla purchased $1.5 billion worth of BTC earlier this year, while PayPal decided to introduce support for Bitcoin buying and selling in late 2020. Facebook’s decision to create a coalition-based Bitcoin competitor, Diem, is also generating attention.
Though Bitcoin is intended for use in real-world spending, it is also popular among speculative investors due to its rapidly changing price. In March 2020, the price of Bitcoin fell below $6,000, giving new investors a chance to purchase Bitcoin inexpensively. But this year, Bitcoin’s price reached an all-time high of $60,000 and achieved a market cap above $1.1 trillion.
Despite its widespread appeal, Bitcoin is not necessarily an appropriate investment for those who prefer more traditional means of investment. That’s where CFDs come in.
Why Should You Trade Bitcoin CFDs?
Crypto Contracts for Difference (CFDs) provide a way to invest in Bitcoin through contracts that are tied to the market value of the cryptocurrency.
Whereas traditional Bitcoin wallets leave you to manage your own security, CFDs do not require you to manage your own Bitcoin wallet or private keys. This difference means that CFDs are ideal for those who are familiar with banks and trading services, which employ more traditional security and custody measures.
Related to this, CFD trades are executed on a trading company’s own systems, meaning that trades are not limited by the speed of the Bitcoin blockchain. Though Bitcoin is designed to be efficient, it often sees congestion and high transaction fees, and derivatives help investors avoid that problem.
Finally, CFDs have stood the test of time. Bitcoin has only existed since 2008, and crypto exchanges did not begin to operate until a few years later. CFDs have been available for significantly longer: they originated in the early 1990s, meaning the investment vehicle has nearly three decades of history.
More Considerations for CFD Investors
CFDs are also notable because they take advantage of Bitcoin’s fluctuating value. If you buy Bitcoin itself, you can only profit if your investment gains value. But because CFDs track differences, you can profit even if Bitcoin’s value falls.
Additionally, CFDs introduce the possibility of leveraged trading and other advanced trading options. This means that you can borrow funds in order to earn higher profits. This investment technique is widely considered a high-risk strategy, but it is viable for knowledgeable traders.
It must also be noted that CFDS are only useful if you are investing in Bitcoin speculatively. They are not ideal if you want to spend your Bitcoin, send it to friends and family, or swap it for other cryptocurrencies. However, it is always possible to close your CFD and invest your money in Bitcoin directly.
Where Can I Invest In CFDs?
One platform where you can create a Bitcoin CFD is Axi, an Australia-based trading platform.
Axi is fully regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority and is involved in dispute resolution within the financial services industry and forex markets.
They also offer customer support around the clock (24 hours a day, 5 days a week) and provide insurance coverage (CMI) to protect your funds.
In addition to crypto CFD trading, they offer CFDs tied to forex, trading indices, commodities, and precious metals. Over 130 products are available for trading on their site.
Bitcoin continued its rebound from the pullback into March as the coin traded above the $60,000 level for the first time. Bitcoin got a further boost last week after the US government finally approved the second stimulus package. The move will see $1,400 stimulus checks being sent out to the public and traders expect much of this to end up in stocks and cryptocurrencies.
The market has been waiting on this second stimulus bill since before the election in November. Last year’s stimulus bill was the start of the summer rally that took BTC from around $9,000 to its current levels.
Despite a two-day pullback in Bitcoin, the market cap still trades above the $1 trillion level. The next path for the market could be driven by the Federal Reserve this week. The Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference on Wednesday will likely see a commitment to stay patient on policy measures, despite the economy improving. Yields on 10-year Treasury bonds moved higher again on Friday, to the highest levels in about a year and a dovish Fed may rattle markets once more.
There was some negative news on Monday with Reuters reporting that India may be about to introduce a ban on cryptocurrency. The rules, “would criminalize possession, issuance, mining, trading and transferring crypto-assets”, according to a government official.
The move comes after a January government plan that called for a ban on private virtual currencies, while they build a framework for an official digital currency. Investors had hoped that they would be more lenient, but if the bill passes the Narendra Modi government then investors could have six months to liquidate or face penalties.
BTC could pull back this week on the news and it will likely do that if it can’t get back above $60k.
BCH
Bitcoin Cash has drifted out of the top ten list of coins in recent weeks as newcomers see their valuations growing.
BCH Price Index
The coin has been left behind in the recent rally with the coin’s market cap peaking at a record above $60 billion, but now trades around the $10 billion level. BCH never really recovered from the hard fork and acrimonious split with BSV and the recent news from India highlights what I said a long time ago- that governments won’t allow a private currency to disrupt their power structure.
The coin was also hit at the start of the month as OK Coin de-listed both coins over what the CEO Hong Fang called a “malicious misinformation war” which was being driven by high-profile heads of both projects.
She was talking largely about Craig Wright who has long claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin. A recent attempt to copyright the Bitcoin white paper drove Fang to take action and “protect the open-source community.”
BCH did get some potential market cap-boosting news over the course of the BTC rally as it was added to PayPal’s recent dive into cryptocurrency, while Japanese retail giant Rakuten also added the coin. The Rakuten payments app is supported by over 50,000 retailers, including McDonald’s, and 7-Eleven.
The addition to the platforms failed to spur BCH and it now sits in a lonely space, with the door closing to large-scale payments and investment flows going to other areas of the ecosystem. The only thing that the creators will take heart from is that the coin is still 3x the size of BSV with a price of $530.
MANA
Decentraland’s MANA coin has seen a meteoric rise in the last few months as the NFT art craze took hold.
MANA Price Index
The platform started life in 2017 as a virtual role-playing blockchain game where users could buy land with MANA tokens. The coin started the year at the $0.08c level and has since moved to $1 per coin for a return of 1150%.
Big money is being spent in the NFT art marketplace, while the Dallas Mavericks basketball team announced that they would be using Dogecoin for merchandise and ticket purchases.
Recently the company saw games company Atari leasing a piece of land within the Decentraland world in order to build a cryptocurrency casino in “Vegas City,” which is one of the districts in the Ethereum-based world.
The launch of the casino is set for April and will feature prizes in the form of NFTs, ATRI, and DG. Atari is partnering with Decentral Games for the casino, which will use their $DG currency.
WAX
WAX Price Index
Wax is another token that has been rising on the back of the NFT art craze as the project releases digital collectibles from names such as Garbage Pail Kids and Streetfighter, alongside fan-created collections.
Wax is short for The Worldwide Asset eXchange™ and is billed as, “the world’s leading decentralized video game and entertainment network.” The Wax network also houses Atari collectibles.
The boom in digital Non-Fungible Token (NFT) art culminated recently with a private auction of a piece by digital creator Beeple selling for $69 million. Beeple is an American digital artist from South Carolina who has been creating digital artworks for 13 years.
As the popularity, and rewards, grew in NFTs, coins such as WAX and ENJ have risen from their platform solutions in the space.
WAX now has a project valuation of $1 billion at number 117 in the list of coins with a coin price of $0.27.
Before you start buying bitcoin, you will need a place in which to store them. In other words, you will need a bitcoin wallet. Generally speaking, there are three main types of wallets: electronic wallets (software-, online- or cloud-based), hardware wallets and paper wallets. Keep in mind that your bitcoin wallet only holds your private key (or more private keys) which allows access to your bitcoins, but it will not hold the coins themselves. This makes bitcoin storage more secure. When talking about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency storage, safety is one of the most important issues. Therefore, in this article, we’ll show you some of the best ways to store bitcoins.
So, are bitcoin wallets safe?
Blockchain technology provides data protection against hacking attacks and any other fraudulent activities. However, safety often depends on the version and format of the cryptocurrency wallet you have chosen and the way you use them.
The safest option to store bitcoins is to get yourself a hardware wallet. This type of wallet is always offline, meaning it’s not exposed in any way. That way, there is no risk of hacking or stealing private keys. Online wallets are the most insecure storage technique, as private keys are held by a third party.
Experienced bitcoin investors use combined storage techniques. They hold a part of the assets (long-term bitcoin assets) offline and a part of the assets (for liquidity purposes) online. Of course, you will choose your storage technique according to your needs. Whichever option you go for, be careful. Back up everything and only tell the persons of your greatest confidence where you stored your backups.
Bitcoin Wallets
Basic ways to store bitcoins
These will protect against the majority of hacking attacks (and they don’t require any special cryptography knowledge), so it’s worth to put a little effort into how you manage your cryptocurrency. The following tips are a great start when constructing your cryptocurrency security system.
The first and basic rule is not to give anyone access to your private key, obviously. Also, consider carefully where you store your private keys. This is something you absolutely cannot afford to lose because they are the key to your stash of bitcoins. Whoever has them can access them.
Store any asset of significant value in a hardware wallet such as physical device, like a USB drive, that isn’t public, i.e. there is no connection to the internet. Experts strongly recommend not to store bitcoins, especially if you have a lot of them, in any way that makes them connected to the internet. Internet, since it is public, can provide a skilled hacker with plenty of opportunities to attack your wallet, or to get access to them.
One of the secure transaction schemes you can use is the following:
Use a bootable USB flash drive (in our example we’ll use Tails). Make sure it has encrypted storage. The next step is to create passwords for login and for encryption. After this, you need to create a cold wallet and come up with the password to get access to the wallet from any computer in the future.
Tails Home Page
Select the checkbox next to “View Transaction Before Signing”. Next, make a type of wallet known as a “watch-only wallet”. This can be done by using your public address or public key.
To view the balance of your bitcoins and generate new addresses from public key copy your Bitcoin public address into a text document on a flash drive and shut down the Tails.
For spending your bitcoins run Tails again without using the Internet.
Execute the transfer – you will see a window pop up because of the checkbox next to “View Transaction Before Signing” you clicked earlier. Click “Sign”, type in your password and click “Save”.
Perform all the actions without using the network and Internet. Copy the transaction file to the flash drive.
For sending the signed transaction to the Blockchain follow next steps:
Click Start in the main OS
Open your wallet
Choose e.g. “Load transaction from file” in the menu
Load the signed transaction from a flash drive
Press “Broadcast” button
Important note: As mistakes occurs, it is recommendable to check address after you have copied it in the field. Go back to the wallet, memorize the first 2 digits and last 2, and then go to back to the form and check are the copied numbers correct. Also, some computer viruses are able to replace the bitcoin address you copied to the clipboard, to another address.
Trezor Home Page
More ways to store bitcoins
It’s also important to remember all the small security measures you can take to protect your general digital life and help defend your cryptocurrency. You can use a password manager, two-factor authentication, enhanced security protocols for your email address, add protection various mechanisms to your phone number etc.
Another useful advice is to use the so-called cold storage method. In other words, you should keep at least some of your bitcoins offline. Methods of cold storage are e.g. USB drive or paper wallet.
Consider your transactions carefully, too. The best way to defend against an intrusion to your assets is simply to watch all transactions carefully and take measures to protect yourself.
And to conclude, to protect and store bitcoins in the best possible way you also need to increase your computer literacy and get all available information about safety measures. We also recommend avoiding any unnecessary actions and to hold strictly to instructions while performing Bitcoin transactions.
So, that’s about it. We haope our tips were helpful for you to find the best possible way to store bitcoins in a safe manner. We have more articles just like this one on this website, so browse around and learn everything about the exciting world of cryptocurrencies.
The post How to store bitcoins? appeared first on Crypto Trading Reviews.
As all of you are probably aware by now, mining is one of the pillars of cryptocurrency trading. You’ve also probably already heard of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that introduced blockchain technology and this kind of mining in 2009. It might be the most famous one, but it is certainly not the only cryptocurrency produced and reproduced by mining. Some of them, such as Litecoin, use more sophisticated mining hardware and software that could show more sustainable results. That’s why we decided to write this article, to show you what other coins have to offers. So, if you want to learn more, stay with us and see what the possibilities are.
Alternatives to Bitcoin
The term altcoin is used to signify all other cryptocurrencies (alternatives to Bitcoin) such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero, Dash, Siacoin etc. Terms such as altcoin mining calculator and altcoin mining pool signify the tools used by miners to support cryptocurrency exchange and trading within the blockchains. In this article, however, we will be primarily focusing on Litecoin mining.
For those of you who are interested in investing or just collecting information about profitability, we will explain the most important terms such as Litecoin mining pool, Litecoin mining calculator, Litecoin mining rig and cloud by focusing on the practical aspect of mining and by using examples from users’ experience and results of market research.
Transaction speed is the key difference between Bitcoin and Litecoin because the latter processes its transactions much faster. Another difference is the number of coins. While Bitcoin has a limit of 21 million coins, Litecoin’s limit is 84 million coins.
Similar to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Litecoin also doesn’t have any institutional central issuer and the exchange is controlled by the users in the network. In order to have some influence, users can join Litecoin mining pools. Securing the transfers is the most important role of the network of miners. They assemble transactions into blocks and those blocks build up the blockchain.
Similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin mining software uses proof-of-work exchange mechanism. Transactions are included in the blocks and verified after that. If there are no double payments, a transaction is added to one of the blockchains.
Litecoin Info
What do you need to do to mine Litecoin?
Litecoin blockchain is stronger than Bitcoin’s because it generates the blocks about four times faster than Bitcoin. The growth rate of the network is good, and the miners are rewarded by 25 new Litecoins per block. There will only ever be 84 million of Litecoins, so you don’t have to worry about decreasing the value based on inflation. This site also offers information about the global network of users, forums, and other social media.
After creating an account with your username and password and before you start mining, you will need to get your wallet. Litecoin mining software secures your wallet by encrypting it, and you will have to enter your user credentials every time you wish to use your coins for payments.
Litecoin mining pool is the name of the platform that gathers users within a certain network. Technology is comparable to Ethereum smart contracts. The pool waits for the user to find a block. After the block is gathered, the pool distributes the reward within the network. The reward depends on the number of shares that each user submitted. Share does not have any real value. It is only a trust-building mechanism among the miners. If you are mining on your own (without joining a pool), there is no need to track the number of shares. The hash that has a value is the one that solves the block. Litecoin’s hashing algorithms are different than Bitcoin’s. Bitcoin uses SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) and Litecoin uses memory algorithm called Scrypt.
Litecoin Mining Rig
Litecoin mining software and hardware
In order to start mining, you will have to install the software. CPU miners or GPU miners are your options, but we recommend going with a Litecoin mining GPU. After downloading the version that is designed for your operating system and setting up your Litecoin mining software, you will write a script and supervise your miner by scrolling through the command lines. This is the command line (at cmd.exe:) that will let you start mining:
Litecoin mining is done by hardware which also plays an important role in securing the network of users and generates new coins to reward the miners. The proof of work function used by Litecoin’s miners is different than the one used for Bitcoin, which means that Bitcoin’s miners cannot mine Litecoins.
Most resources refer to Antminer L3+ as the best Litecoin mining hardware. It mines at 504 MH/s, consumes 1.6 Joules per Megahash (MH/s) and comes with a 180-day warranty. Those specifications make it the most powerful Litecoin miner at the moment.
Other tools
To build up your own Litecoin mining rig, you will need adequate Litecoin mining hardware and software for your operating system. You will also have to work on the mining script and join pools. Another option is to use services provided by a Litecoin cloud mining company. It is a framework that allows you to do the mining supported by the hosting platform after creating a contract.
Litecoin mining calculator is an important tool that lets you calculate the profitability of your transactions. It is updated instantly and follows the estimation based on the networks’ hash rate and exchange rate. If you are new to the cryptocurrency mining, you will find Litecoin mining calculator especially useful.
Litecoin Mining Profitability Calculator
In case that you have your own Litecoin mining rig, you will put in the hardware costs and electricity (power) costs in different fields in the Litecoin mining calculator. After that, you will click “calculate” and get the profitability rate for your area. If you use services available in Litecoin cloud mining, you will get your calculation after simply entering the cost of the contract.
Conclusion
Litecoin is a decentralized online currency created in 2011 by former Google engineer Charlie Lee. The aim was to create “silver” for Bitcoin’s “gold”, but also to provide improved alternative to Bitcoin by using more effective technology, faster rate of coin production with more sophisticated hashing algorithms. As any other application of the blockchain technology on the cryptocurrency market, Litecoin is open source, global payment network. It doesn’t have any central issuer and it supports multi-purpose global payments. Because of the peer to peer exchange, based on the blockchain verification, transaction fees are considerably less than those made by traditional bank transfers. The popularity of the Litecoin mining pools as platforms for different sorts of payments and investments is constantly rising. It is not difficult to conclude that this cryptocurrency will have important role in the future development of global commerce. If you want to participate, check out our other articles and see where to trade this interesting coin.
The post Litecoin Mining appeared first on Crypto Trading Reviews.
With thousands of bitcoin transactions per day, bitcoin can no longer be unjustly dismissed as a speculative fringe fad which only attracts geeks and gamblers. Considering all the attention this cryptocurrency has been getting from mainstream media and serious investors, it is disconcerting that the majority of these reports don’t contain even the most basic bitcoin transaction chart. Due to the nature of cryptocurrencies, bitcoin transactions live a life of their own, safe from third party interferences. Still, in order to understand the differences in how bitcoin transactions work, we must first get familiar with the whole notion of transactions in general.
The road to bitcoin transactions
The most basic and oldest transactions are now known as a non-monetary exchange, a barter system and an exchange of goods or objects. The second step was the development of commodity money, i.e. commodities that have intrinsic value but are also used as money because their value is more or less constant and agreed upon. Coinage developed as one form of representative money. Coins made of precious metals also had intrinsic value beyond the assigned value. Banknotes or paper money first developed as receipts or confirmations that a money lender or a merchant (and later bankers) has received a deposit of a certain amount of coins.
Modern money is issued and controlled by national governments. The value of paper money or fiat currencies is based on our faith in the value of the currency and the government’s ability to guarantee for and enforce that value. In today’s world, however, the majority of the money is digital, existing only on electronic bank accounts and even more removed from any tangible value. Economists estimate that only 8 % of all the money in the world actually exists as hard, cold cash. The money is not actually there; it’s just a number confirming it on a screen. There are many inherent dangers of this system, as normalized as it has become. First of all, it places a lot of power in the hands of banks and other financial institutions. Even if we disregard that, what if the bank goes under, what if the data gets compromised?
Bitcoin transactions are the next step in this evolution, the newest development relying on cryptology to prevent any potential tampering, thus increasing both trust and fungibility. And while some may argue that the technology of cryptocurrencies makes bitcoin illegal transactions possible, the security and freedom it offers have not been achieved or rivaled by other currencies up to this moment.
Sending and receiving bitcoin transaction
The way how bitcoin transactions work is crucial in differentiating bitcoin from regular digital money. The most important difference when it comes to bitcoin transactions is that there is no middleman. The network itself oversees and confirms everything. The sender broadcasts signed data to the network. and if the data checks out, it is added to a block in the blockchain. Imagine it as confirmed transactions being collected, confirmed and placed inside a binder (block). The binder is then put on an organized shelf (blockchain) in a way that makes it impossible to change any one entry without changing all other entries. Cryptography ensures the integrity and the order of the entries. But with so many bitcoin transactions per second, who does the organizing? Well, it is a shared communal effort, with members of the community dedicating their time and hardware resources to solve complex equations to sort it all out. They are rewarded for their essentially administrative / cleanup work with small amounts of bitcoin. This process is called bitcoin mining: participants are compensated for their effort by releasing new bitcoins.
Want more details? If you think you can handle it, here’s the nitty-gritty:
Both the sender and the receiver need a bitcoin wallet. Installing a bitcoin wallet client on your computer generates a bitcoin address.
Bitcoin is sent to an address. A new address is needed for each transaction. An address is not the same as a wallet, but it is linked to a wallet.
The bitcoin received always remains classified within the wallet as separate entries based on specific originating transactions. The received amounts of bitcoin, distinct as they are, are called outputs of their transactions.
The outputs can be unlocked using a private key. This key is fixed, unlike the address. The key serves as a signature, providing mathematical proof that the transaction found its way to the owner of the wallet.
When sending bitcoin, the sender chooses one of the outputs he has received to become an input. The entire amount is used in the process, with the part being sent becoming an output transferred to a new address, while the rest remains as “change”, becoming new output in the sender’s wallet.
Bitcoin Wallets
The limitations of bitcoin transactions
The biggest potential hurdle of bitcoin transactions is the problem of waiting for confirmation. It takes up to 10 minutes for a new block to be created, confirming the transaction as valid. However, something we can refer to as a bitcoin transaction accelerator actually does exist. It relies on the fact that merchants can allow zero-confirmation transactions, even though the security of such transactions can be brought into question. The most recent innovations make instantaneous transactions infinitely more secure. For example, the Inter-Channel Payments system by Bitpay is an actual bona-fide bitcoin transaction accelerator, with others in the works.
Another issue lies in the so-called bitcoin scalability problem, which limits the number of bitcoin transactions per second. The problem arises due to the fact that the size of blocks in the blockchain is limited to one megabyte. With a block confirmed approximately every 10 minutes, the number of bitcoin transactions per second is currently limited to 3,3 to 7 seconds. The good news is that this only appears to be a temporary bottleneck issue and efforts are underway to further increase the number of bitcoin transactions. For the time being, the bitcoin transactions per day are a much more significant statistic than the bitcoin transactions per second. Bitcoin is not yet as prevalent when it comes to small transactions and buying goods and services online to actually necessitate a higher volume of bitcoin transactions per second.
Bitcoin Unconfirmed Transactions
Legal considerations of bitcoin transactions
You may be wondering is bitcoin legal and can it be used without any fear of authorities. Just looking at a typical bitcoin transaction chart, it is obvious that the information exchanged between the sender and the receiver is very scarce: basically, just the bitcoin address and the amount exchanged. This issue of anonymity raises concerns about potential bitcoin illegal transactions, such as money laundering. When addressing these concerns, however, it is necessary to point out that the legality of a transaction is tied to the two parties participating, not the medium of the exchange. Today, there are third party programs and payment processors which make bitcoin much more user friendly, enabling features such as receipts and web confirmations which make the users much less likely to be accused of bitcoin illegal transactions. Moreover, the receipts should be enough to please even the IRS.
Therefore, you have nothing to worry about when engaging in bitcoin transactions. If you want to buy and sell this cryptocurrency, you are at the right place to get started. Check out our reviews of various exchanges, read our other articles detailing the world of cryptocurrencies, and you will be fully prepared to become a full-fledge trader. Good luck!
The post How do bitcoin transactions work appeared first on Crypto Trading Reviews.
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