Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

CBDCs To Kill Private Cryptos, Indian Central Bank Warns

The Indian Cryptocurrency market has been dealing with many restrictions lately. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the 30% tax over the profit made from the digital assets trading in this year‘s Union Budget. However, she also mentioned the launch of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) backed by the government. Meanwhile, Deputy Governor of the Nation’s Central Bank has laid a warning for the private crypto tokens.　　RBI maintains negative stance　　Rabi Sankar, newly appointed Deputy Governor of the RBI mentioned that the launch of CBDC might eliminate the logic of private cryptocurrencies existence. Sankar gave out this statement in a webinar organized by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).　　The Reserve Bank of India has been a big opposer to Cryptocurrency. He extended the authority‘s stand over private digital assets use in the nation. Sankar said that it shouldn’t be permitted just because they are backed by hi-tech. Technology is a tool and it can be used for good however it can also be utilised for undesirable use. An understanding of its limitations is required in order to protect the citizens, he added　　Digital assets carry zero value　　RBIs latest assertion has landed ahead of soon to be released Consultation paper on crypto. The Indian

2022-06-06Deep Dive

Bloomberg strategist says Bitcoin will hit $100K by 2025

Bloombergs Senior Commodity Strategist Mike McGlone was recently a guest at Kitco News. He analyzed the current market and argued that Bitcoin will outperform all other assets in the world and hit $100 thousand by 2025.　　According to McGlone, the great reversion is just getting started. The current market reflects the most significant inflation in 40 years, the first in most peoples lifetime. However, he also argued that once this period is over, Bitcoin will soar and become the best asset to hold in the world.　　McGlone mentioned both Bitcoin and Ss volatility　　McGlone also analyzed the recently changed sentiment towards Bitcoin. He was asked why Bitcoin became a risk-on asset while it behaved as a safe inflation hedge for so long.　　McGlone answered the question by explaining that this volatility is just a maturation period of a nascent technology and asset. He mentioned:　　“260 days volatility in Bitcoin is almost the same as Teslas, the same as what Amazon was in 2009, and the same as what gold was in 1980.”　　He concluded his words by saying that once the transition period for Bitcoin is over, it will become a risk-off asset that can be safely used as an inflation hedge.

2022-06-06Deep Dive

Former product manager at OpenSea charged with insider trading

The charges are related to digital collectibles bought and sold on the NFT marketplace in September 2021.　　On Wednesday, United States prosecutors in Manhattan charged Nathaniel Chastain, 31, with insider trading. Chastain is a former product manager at OpenSea, the largest nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace. This will be the first case of its kind regarding digital assets and traditional criminal investigations.　　Prosecutors claim that Chastain bought 45 NFTs through anonymous hot wallets and anonymous accounts on OpenSea and then sold them for a profit shortly after. He allegedly bought them shortly before they were featured on the OpenSea marketplace homepage and sold them for a profit right after. As the product manager, it would have been in his power to choose which NFTs were featured, giving him direct access to the insider information that he, himself, created.　　Related: What is front-running in crypto and NFT trading？　　Included in the claim of 11 separate trades was the NFT called “Spectrum of a Ramenfication Theory” on Sept. 14, 2021, which would have been sold the next morning for almost four times the buying price.　　U.S. Attorney Damian Williams commented on his offices commitment to follow up on insider trading in all of its forms. Chastain was charged

2022-06-02Deep Dive

Kraken CEO defends listing LUNA 2.0: ‘Bitcoin traders don't pay the bills’

Kraken‘s Jesse Powell came under fire for listing the second-generation LUNA; separately, he railed against TradeFi’s crypto exchange claims.　　The crypto winter has emotions running high. Kraken CEO Jesse Powell came under fire for his defense of listing the new LUNA, also known as LUNA 2.0, which seeks to bring the original LUNA — now known as Luna Classic (LUNC) — and TerraUSD — now known as TerraUSD Classic (USTC) — back from the dead.　　Respected names in the crypto industry such as Nic Carter of Castle Ventures spoke out against the decision, while in a separate tweet thread, Powell lashed out at short-seller Jim Chanos, who had built a large short against Coinbase, Krakens biggest competitor.　　Carter simply tweeted “why” to the official Kraken Twitter account that announced the listing of the new LUNA.　　The worlds fourth-largest crypto exchange, Kraken lists over 160 cryptocurrencies. The list grows every month, from Bitcoin (BTC) to Filecoin (FIL) to the second iteration of LUNA, which currently sits 164th on its price index.　　The first Terra collapse wiped out circa $50 billion, causing suicide hotlines to be pinned to the Terra subreddit, while legal documents reveal Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon liquidated two branches and an entire company

2022-06-02Deep Dive

11% of US insurers invest — or are interested in investing — in crypto

United States-based insurers are the most interested in cryptocurrency investment according to a Goldman Sachs global survey of 328 chief financial and chief investment officers regarding their firms asset allocations and portfolios.　　The investment banking giant recently released its annual global insurance investment survey, which included responses regarding cryptocurrencies for the first time, finding that 11% of U.S. insurance firms indicated either an interest in investing or a current investment in crypto.　　Speaking on the companys Exchanges at Goldman Sachs podcast on Tuesday, Goldman Sachs global head of insurance asset management Mike Siegel said he was surprised to get any result:　　“We surveyed for the first time on crypto, which I thought would get no respondents, but I was surprised. A good 6% of the industry respondents indicated that theyre either invested in crypto or considering investing in crypto.”　　Asia-based insurers were next in line, with 6% interested or currently invested, and European insurers came in at only 1%.　　The report found cryptocurrencies were in fifth place for the asset class insurers expect to deliver the highest returns over the next 12 months, with 6% ranking it as their first choice, beating United States and European equities.　　Around 2% of firms indicated a current crypto investment,

2022-06-02Deep Dive

Taco tokens: Chipotle adds crypto payments via Flexa

Nearly 3,000 Chipotle restaurants across the U.S. will accept 98 cryptocurrencies as the Mexican-style fast food chain partners with Flexa to support crypto payments.　　The popular Mexican fast food chain Chipotle is now accepting cryptocurrency payments through digital payment provider Flexa at all of its over 2,950 United States based restaurants.　　Flexa announced the partnership on June 1st which will see Chipotle accept all the 98 cryptocurrencies Flexa currently supports including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and seven U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins including USD Coin (USDC). Chipotles website does not contain any information on the announcement however.　　The fast food giant is the latest Flexa partner joining other large businesses such as cinema operator Regal Theaters and Bancoagrícola, El Salvadors largest financial institution where Flexa enables both retail and merchant Bitcoin transactions for the banks customers.　　Chipotle has briefly experimented with cryptocurrencies in the past. In April 2021 to celebrate National Burrito Day it gave away $100,000 worth of Bitcoin along with free burritos and claimed it was the first U.S. restaurant brand to offer a crypto giveaway.　　For the so called “chiptocurrency” giveaway Chipotle partnered with former Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas, creating a game where players guessed a code possibly winning either a burrito or up

2022-06-02Deep Dive

Bitcoin daily mining revenue slumped in May to eleven-month low

Bitcoin miners have had a tough month, with revenue and profitability tanking in May. Hash rates remain high, however.　　Bitcoin mining revenue and profitability have continued to slide along with the assets price this year as the crypto winter deepens.　　May has been one of the worst months for Bitcoin miners in the past year as revenue and profitability continue to tank. Bitcoin daily mining revenue tanked as much as 27% in May, according to data from Ycharts sourcing data from Blockchain.com.　　On May 1, the analytics provider reported daily revenue of $40.57 million for BTC miners, but by the end of the month, it had fallen to $29.37 million. Daily mining revenue hit an eleven-month low of $22.43 million on May 24.　　BTC daily mining revenue YTD – ycharts.com　　Daily mining revenue spiked to a peak of around $80 million in April 2021 but has since fallen 62% to current levels.　　Mining profitability, which is a measure of daily dollars per terahash per second, has hit its lowest levels since October 2020, according to Bitinfocharts. The crypto metrics provider currently reports mining profitability of 0.112 USD/day for 1 THash/s.　　Furthermore, the metric has seen a decline of 56% since the beginning of the year and is

2022-06-02Deep Dive

Reliably unreliable: Solana price dives after latest network outage

Solana has suffered its fifth outage of 2022, and the year is only five months old. A bug-related consensus failure was the culprit this time.　　The Solana network is not having a good year, having suffered full or partial outages at least seven separate times over the past 12 months.　　A bug has knocked the Solana blockchain offline again as block production halted at 16:55 UTC on Wednesday. This latest outage lasted around four and a half hours as validator operators managed to restart the mainnet at around 21:00 UTC, according to the incident report.　　Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko explained what happened in a tweet:　　“Durable nonce instruction caused part of the network to consider the block is invalid, no consensus could be formed.”　　“Durable transaction nonce” refers to a mechanism addressing the typical short lifetime of a transaction block hash according to the official Solana documentation. A bug in the feature caused nodes to generate different outputs resulting in consensus failure, which ultimately caused the latest period of downtime.　　The network was restarted with this feature disabled, and Yakovenko added that fixes for the bug “will be out ASAP.”　　Naturally, there was a fair amount of backlash from the community with comments like this filling

2022-06-02Deep Dive

Global Securities Body Warned Of Need For Crypto Market Regulation

In the wake of the recent fiasco involving Terra crash, there seems to be an increased push for regulation. In a latest, the community of financial planners came up with recommendations for crypto market regulation.　　Need To Regulate Crypto Market　　The financial planning standards board (FPSB) made the recommendations to the IOSCO Retail Market Conduct Task Force. FPSB is an association for the global financial planning profession. The International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) is an association of organizations that regulate the worlds securities and futures markets. The body has been assisting the community in evaluating the issues and risks relating to the crypto trading platforms.　　The FPSB stressed on the need to regulate crypto assets. It also suggested ensuring that financial advisers are appropriately qualified to do the advising.　　The recommendations spoke on how regulators around the world could address the potential adverse impacts of the rise of complex financial products. It also suggested addressing the impact of technology innovation and social media personalities.　　Dante De Gori, FPSB head of stakeholder engagement, said,“Financial fraud and scams are certainly not new, but the rapid emergence and evolution of crypto assets and other complex digital assets means the level of risk and exposure for retail investors

2022-06-02Deep Dive

Kanye West Quietly Enters NFT, Crypto Market With Latest Move

Some celebrities were super impressed with the power of NFTs when the whole craze came to light. Some others though, did not really bought the concept. Kanye West was one of those big stars who were skeptical about the NFT scene.　　In fact, many saw his comments against NFTs as a big loss to the crypto community. That was understandable, given his massive influence on social media.　　Kanye West Yeezus NFTs　　In what could be a big boost to the NFT market, the American rapper filed for trademark application around his Yeezus brand. According to Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney, Kanye West filed 17 applications for trademark recently. The attorney informed on Twitter:　　“Kanye West has filed 17 new trademark applications around his YEEZUS name. The filings indicate an intent to launch YEEZUS-branded amusement parks, NFTs, toys and more.”　　The trademark application appears to have been filed on May 27 in the name of Mascotte Holdings, Inc, which is Wests company. In the application filed to the U.S. patent and trademark office, the rapper has filed for the Yeezus trademark under various categories.　　Yeezus Crypto & NFTs　　The stand out category among the applications is ‘Blockchain-based currencies and non-fungible tokens’. Other notable goods and services include amusement

2022-06-02Deep Dive

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