Can Governments Stop The Bitcoin Train?

As many governments around the world move towards regulating cryptocurrency, this digital form of currency is still viewed with skepticism by the leaders of many nations. The threat this poses to the existence of cryptocurrency varies throughout the world, with some governments such as India, contemplating a ban on crypto assets, and others like Bolivia having banned cryptocurrency for several years.  In countries with worsening civil unrest and economic conditions, cryptocurrency adoption by individuals seems inevitable. And with the regular rise and fall of governments in Latin America, the increase of p2p trading is not likely to decrease as local fiat currencies are viewed with further distrust.  With Latin America fast becoming a hotbed of fintech, cryptocurrency adoption by individuals has grown as a means to store value. This is due in part to the distrust of local fiat currencies, and driven by the lack of banking access for around 50% of the population, according to a study by the World Bank. There are, however, several Latin American nations that are not entirely happy with the existence and use of cryptocurrencies within their country.  In Bolivia, for example, there is a complete ban on cryptocurrencies, with the current government unlikely to reverse the

2021-02-23Deep Dive

4 Bitcoin Bear Signals To Be Aware Of

Bitcoin has experienced a meteoric rise during 2021, doubling from last years final price of $29,112 to the current all-time high at $58,332. One of the leading catalysts for this surge has been a notable uptick in institutional interest and investment, including Tesla announcing it had purchased over $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin (BTC, -8.42%) as part of a new investment policy. The recent emergence of two Bitcoin ETFs also provided a major boost to overall sentiment, since more investors will be able to gain exposure to the leading crypto asset.  While these fundamentals are incredibly promising for bitcoins long-term prospects, there are a number of indicators likely weighing on the current uptrend. This does not mean the price will necessarily fall, but they are signs that a cooling-off period is overdue.  1. Depleting bitcoin trading volume  BTC/USD chart(Tradingview)  On the weekly BTC/USD Coinbase chart, we can see that trading volume has decreased since an earlier price peak at $42,000 on Jan. 4, even though the price of bitcoin has risen by a further $16,000, give or take. This discrepancy between volume and price is known as a volume divergence and usually signals that fresh capital entering the market is drying up and buying

2021-02-23Deep Dive

Sushi.com Now Belongs to a Decentralized Finance Project

Crypto venture firm Future Fund yesterday announced that it had bought the sushi.com domain name for decentralized finance project SushiSwap.  The VC firm said that it acquired the domain to “greatly increase internet traffic and exposure to the sushi brand for their forthcoming new projects.”  Its a great gift for Ethereum based DeFi platform SushiSwap, since its online presence has so far been scattered piecemeal among domains like “sushiswapclassic.org” and “sushiswap.fi.”  Year of the Oxley  The new domain is a welcome gift for SushiSwap. It was first registered by GoDaddy in 1999, before being acquired by domain investor Brent Oxley, who reportedly listed it for sale on February 13 this year.  Though Future Fund hasnt disclosed the price it paid for the domain, domain listings site Category Defining still has it erroneously listed for sale at $1.9 million.  Sushi: A beginners guide  SushiSwap is very similar to Uniswap, a decentralized exchange created on Ethereum that allowed users to trade ERC20 tokens. ERC20 is a set of standards that allow developers to create their own tokens on the Ethereum network.  SushiSwap launched on August 28 last year. An anonymous developer, known pseudonymously as ‘Chef Nomi’, copied Uniswaps source code to make SushiSwap and threw in a key addition: the

2021-02-22Deep Dive

Uniswap’s 2020 UNI Airdrop Now Worth $12,000

Its safe to say that the past year has been particularly tumultuous and interesting when it comes to the cryptocurrency markets.  The entire market exploded, Bitcoin officially became a trillion-dollar asset, while many altcoins saw massive gains. Uniswaps UNI token is no different.  Uniswaps UNI Journey  Uniswap is the leading decentralized exchange and automated market maker on Ethereums network. It provides means for users to create liquidity pools for any token based on the ERC20 protocol standard and trade them in a completely decentralized way.  It also rewards those who provide liquidity to each pool by distributing the fees amongst all the providers, creating serious incentives for investors while also bringing a platform where users can trade against each other without having to go through any verification procedures.  Interestingly enough, the exchange didnt have its own Uniswap token until all the way back in 2020. One of the more exciting things that Uniswap did was the airdrop distribution of their tokens to anyone who used the exchange before a certain date. In essence, everyone who used Uniswap received 400 UNI tokens that they could claim for free. At the time, the price was ranging between $2 and $4, and many sold their tokens for a

2021-02-22Deep Dive

Gold Bull Jeffrey Gundlach Says 'BTC Maybe the Stimulus Asset' Ahead of the Precious Metal

Renowned gold bull and CEO of investment management firm Doubleline, Jeffrey Gundlach says bitcoin may be the “stimulus asset” while adding it “doesnt look like gold is.” Gundlach, a self-professed long-term dollar bear, had preceded his comments about bitcoin by remarking that “lots of liquid poured into a funnel creates a torrent.”  BTC Outperforming Gold  In the same tweet, Gundlach suggests that he came to the conclusion after staying “neutral (on both gold and the dollar) for the past six months.” In the past six months, the two stores of value have had contrasting fortunes with BTC appearing to win the battle for supremacy.  After starting September 2020 trading at just under $12,000, BTC has since rallied to peak at $57,399 on February 20, 2021, according to Messari. At the time of writing, the crypto asset was trading above $57,000. In contrast, gold, which reached its all-time record high of $2,067.15 per ounce on August 7, 2020, has largely stayed under $1,900 for the rest of the year.  Also, despite the many predictions of gold breaking out, the commodity has so far failed to match the expectations. On the other hand, BTC could be on course to beat the $100,000 mark after breaking past

2021-02-22Deep Dive

A Quarter of US Investors Own Crypto: Survey

A new study has found that a majority of American believe cryptocurrency is a safe investment. Further, 25% already own crypto with another 27% saying they plan to invest this year.  Thats according to a February survey of 30,000 people over the age of 18 conducted by Piplsay, a global consumer research platform. The findings fall roughly in line with other recent surveys.  In October, Grayscale found that 55% of U.S. investors were interested in buying crypto. While Bitwise found 24% of financial advisers already owned bitcoin or some other crypto in a survey published in January. (Grayscale is owned by CoinDesks parent company Digital Currency Group.)  Bitcoins meteoric rise has put it among the top-performing assets of the last year and the past decade. This strong performance has attracted institutional players from MassMutual to BlackRock, and MicroStrategy to Tesla, though some argue that retail interest has not kept pace.  Google searches for “bitcoin,” an adequate proxy for public interest, have yet to reach levels seen in 2017, the previous crypto market bullrun.  Piplsay found that 41% of respondents think the stock market and cryptocurrencies are equally risky investments. Of those that believe cryptocurrency is not a safe investment, 27% were concerned about hacking or

2021-02-22Deep Dive

First-Ever North American Bitcoin ETF Breaks Records In Opening Week

The first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to receive regulatory approval in North America has already demonstrated the markets huge appetite for such a product.  The Purpose Bitcoin ETF (ticker: BTCC), brought to market by Purpose Investments earlier this week, traded $80 million worth of shares in its first hour and $200 million in its first day — a figure thats ten times greater than that of the average ETF and broke records in Canada, according to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.  In its second day on the market, BTCC traded $350 million in shares, which was three times more than any other ETF, per Balchunas.  While BTCC is the first bitcoin ETF to hit the North American market, it will not be the last. Ontario regulators approved a second bitcoin ETF from Evolve Funds Group this week. And bitcoin custodian NYDIG recently submitted a regulatory approval filing to offer a similar bitcoin ETF product in the United States.  The extreme volumes and interest generated by the BTCC ETF have already demonstrated startling retail excitement for easy, safe bitcoin exposure from such products.

2021-02-22Deep Dive

Cape Cod's Biggest Hospital Received an $800,000 Bitcoin Donation

In brief  Cape Cods leading medical centre now accepts crypto.  They opened a new crypto-ready account at the request of a longstanding benefactor.  Crypto gifts could soon be widely accepted by all sorts of institutions reliant on public donations.  In these pandemic-stricken times, its good to get a little optimism in the morning.  On Friday, on the coastal island of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, when staff at its leading not-for-profit medical centre Cape Cod Healthcare checked their email, they saw a message telling them to look in their newly established crypto-integrated bank account.  Inside was a surprise donation of Bitcoins amounting to $400,000. It was the second they‘d received from the same benefactor. The first came on January 28. Both transactions arrived less than a month since they’d started accepting crypto.   A benevolent crypto believer  The donation was not entirely out of the blue. According to Cape Cod Healthcares senior vice president and chief development officer Christopher Lawson, the longtime donor, who previously gifted them cash every year, originally sent them a feeler email in mid-January inquiring whether they could accept Bitcoin donations.  Speaking to The Boston Globe, Lawson said: “Before we responded, we had to make sure there were not any issues.” Lawson continued: “It required a good

2021-02-22Deep Dive

Bitcoin Is a Hedge Against U.S.-China Trade War: FalconX CEO

In brief  Raghu Yarlagadda cited three reasons for the recent institutional interest in crypto: inflationary hedge, geopolitical risk and a 24/7, always-on trading desk.  Tesla is an outlier both in terms of inflationary hedge and the sheer volume of investment.  The price is more sustainable this time thanks to the quantity and quality of money coming into the space.  Bitcoins recent price rally and institutional interest in crypto are hot topics, and, with any luck, a virtuous circle.  Raghu Yarlagadda, CEO of FalconX, a California-based cryptocurrency trading platform targeted at institutional customers, sat down with the Decrypt Daily podcast to explain why institutional investors keep flocking to Bitcoin and whether thats really pumping its price.  Reasons Behind Institutional Interest  “The first and foremost reason is the inflationary hedge,” Yarlagadda told Decrypt. “As the world is printing more money, it is very clear that Bitcoin is emerging to be one of the inflationary hedges,” he said.  Yarlagadda told Decrypt that the second reason is less obvious—less publicly known—but all the last ten institutions that came to FalconX mentioned this: the geopolitical risk hedge. “With the new US administration coming in, there are a lot of people who say that the trade war between the US and China is going

2021-02-22Deep Dive

Nvidia bets big on Ethereum mining with new dedicated graphic chip

The chipmaker was overwhelmed by the massive use of its graphic chips by Ethereum and Bitcoin miners in 2017. But its prepared this time around.  Nvidias Ethereum bet  Graphics chipmaker Nvidia said Thursday it will release a new series of semiconductors specifically for mining Ethereum, as per a report on Verge. The firm saw huge success with the sector back in 2017 when it claimed to have made hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter selling chips to cryptocurrency miners.  The California-based firm designs graphics processing units for the gaming and professional markets, as well as system on chip units for the mobile computing and automotive market. These are of significance to crypto miners, who utilize massive computing power to “mine” blocks on PoW networks like Ethereum and Bitcoin, in turn of “rewards.”  Nvidia was overwhelmed by the demand for its chips in 2017 when the crypto market picked up in a big way. Prices swiftly increased beyond the budget of the average gaming and P.C. enthusiast—leading to criticism from several quarters.  But this time is different for Nvidia; its now prepared for the upcoming bullrun. The new chip type is called CMP, or Cryptocurrency Mining Processor, and will go on sale in March, an

2021-02-22Deep Dive
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