Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Almost 72% of all ADA is now staked on Cardano

With 71.9 percent of the total circulating supply of ADA now staked, Cardanois still the most decentralized blockchain network on the market. The significant increase in the amount of its underlying cryptocurrency being staked is followed by an equally significant rise in the number of new users entering the Cardano ecosystem, pushing ADA‘s price the closest to $1 than it’s been in the past four years.　　Cardano is still the most decentralized blockchain network in the world　　While overtaking Polkadot earlier this year in terms of staked value has been major news for Cardano, it‘s equally as important to notice the blockchain’s month and a half reign as the most decentralized network in the world.　　With just under 72 percent of the total circulating supply of ADA staked, Cardano is still way ahead of Polkadot with 60.61 percent of DOT tokens staked on the network.　　Screengrab showing the total staked value for Cardano and Polkadot on Feb. 16　　(Source: Staking Rewards)　　The latest data from Cardano data aggregator AdaPools has shown that over 54 percent of all ADA wallets have delegated their funds to a stake pool. This means that there are currently 214,610 wallets holding ADA that have decided to allocate their funds to securing

2021-02-18Deep Dive

VCs Including Google Ventures Invest $120 Million in Blockchain.com

Crypto wallet provider Blockchain.com has raised $120 million from leading venture capital firms, including Alphabet-owned Google Ventures.　　VC Firms Flock to Blockchain　　London-based cryptocurrency platform Blockchain.com announced its latest funding round, pooling $120 million from multiple “macro investors.”　　Investors who joined in the latest funding round include GV (Google Ventures), Lightspeed Venture Partners, Access Industries, Moore Strategic Ventures, Rovida Advisors, Lakestar, Eldridge, and others.　　To date, Blockchain.com has raised $190 million. The current valuation of the company has not been disclosed.　　Since it was formed in 2011, Blockchain.com has become a prominent wallet service in the industry, with 67 million wallets facilitating $600 billion in transactions.　　The company also boasts a crypto lending service, an exchange, a blockchain explorer, a hardware wallet, and a blockchain developers API platform.　　Institutional Interest Continues　　According to the company, the funding from institutional investors shows the evolution of the crypto sector and the new business opportunities available in the space.　　“The fact that the best macro investors in the world participated in our latest fundraise is further proof that institutions are taking a serious look at their crypto strategy,” Peter Smith. CEO & Co-Founder of Blockchain.com wrote in a blog post.　　The leading crypto asset has seen ravenous interest from institutional investors and tech

2021-02-18Deep Dive

State of Crypto: Will 2021 Finally Be the Year of the Bitcoin ETF?

Theres been renewed interest in bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with the nomination of Gary Gensler to head the Securities and Exchange Commission and the approval of a true Canadian bitcoin ETF. Whether one gets approved in the U.S. is still unclear.　　When ETF？　　The narrative　　The big news last week was the Ontario Securities Commission approved North America‘s first bitcoin ETF in Canada. An ETF, which is essentially a retail-friendly, regulated bitcoin investment vehicle that can trade in popular brokerage apps, has long been a product the industry has wanted. Numerous applications have been rejected in the U.S., but the approval of one in Canada could be an early sign that we’ll soon see something similar in the States.　　Why it matters　　Basically, the idea is a bitcoin ETF would provide everyday investors with:　　Bitcoin exposure through existing retail trading apps, such as TD Ameritrade, BUT:　　These traders would not actually need to buy bitcoin.　　In short, an ETFwould let people invest in bitcoin without having to set up a wallet or trust in an exchange that might go down when market volatility rises.　　There are also those who believe an ETF would help spark or continue a bull run, but considering Elon Musk can pretty much just do

2021-02-18Deep Dive

The Motley Fool Makes $5 Million Bitcoin Investment

Key Takeaways　　Investment advice firm Motley Fool has bought $5 million of BTC.　　It will also add Bitcoin to its 10X investment portfolio.　　Other firms such as Tesla and Microstrategy have recently made multi-million dollar Bitcoin investments as well.　　Investment advice firm The Motley Fool has invested $5 million in Bitcoin, according to an announcement from the company.　　The Motley Fool Endorses Bitcoin　　The Motley Fool plans to add $5 million of Bitcoin to its own balance sheet; it also plans to hold the purchase for many years.　　Separate from its own investment, the firm will additionally offer Bitcoin to investors through its 10X real-money portfolio. That decision will add Bitcoin to a list of 39 stocks that the firm believes will produce ten-fold returns over the next 15 years.　　The Motley Fool gave standard reasons for its Bitcoin investment. It believes that Bitcoin can store value more effectively than gold. It also believes Bitcoin will be useful for transactions as prices stabilize, and that Bitcoin can serve as a hedge against inflation.　　The firm noted that Bitcoin will likely see price volatility in the immediate future, but it believes that investors will see significant returns nonetheless. It also noted that Bitcoin investment funds are overpriced, justifying its decision

2021-02-18Deep Dive

How to Bring Off-Chain Assets to DeFi

The recent GameStop short squeeze has brought decentralized finance (DeFi) into mainstream public consciousness. Well-known crypto influencers such as Caitlin Long have espoused decentralized exchanges as an alternative to traditional clearing and settlement infrastructure. Others, including me, have suggested that decentralized credit markets can reduce systemic risk by enhancing financial market transparency.　　Ajit Tripathi, a CoinDesk columnist, is the Head of Institutional Business at Aave. Previously, he served as a fintech partner at ConsenSys and was a co-founder of PwCs U.K. Blockchain Practice.　　In this article we examine some of the key considerations for transitioning from crypto-native decentralized markets to decentralized real-world asset markets at institutional scale.　　Institutional interest in DeFi　　In my experience, the level of institutional interest in DeFi is currently much stronger than commonly assumed. This is because of five main reasons:　　First, unlike enterprise blockchain projects and proofs of concept, which in my opinion have struggled to deliver returns on investment, public permissionless DeFi protocols have delivered clear proofs of value reflected in DeFi trade volumes, market liquidity and fee revenues.　　Second, custodians, secure wallets and neo-banks that have built the rails for institutional adoption of bitcoin (BTC, +5.42%) have already done much of the heavy lifting required for enabling access to

2021-02-18Deep Dive

XRP Pushes above Critical Level as Ripple Faces Lawsuit Heat

Cryptocurrencies have rallied higher as Tesla announced its recent $1.5 billion purchase of Bitcoin. Against all odds, the current bull market has also benefitted XRP, sending it above the $0.50 level. Currently, it is up approximately 8% in the last 24 hours and its trading volume has also increased. The position of the Relative Strength Index (RSI), which rests below the overbought level, suggests that the bulls have the upper hand on XRP at the moment.　　XRP price analysis　　In the current crypto bull market, it can be seen from the daily candlestick chart that the XRP price has broken through the downward channel line we have previously drawn. Buyers are currently trying to stabilize the price above $0.50 and form a definite upward channel, which will stamp in the fact that this is not a fake breakthrough.　　In recent days, XRP prices have all closed above the rising 9-day moving average. Candlestick chart prices have all closed above the exponential moving average ribbon and a series of exponential moving averages of different lengths show a long arrangement, illustrating that the bulls have an advantage. If the price stabilizes above $0.50 and the trading volume gradually increases, the first high point in front

2021-02-15Deep Dive

WSB Founder J. Rogozinski on GME What’s Next for WallStreetBets

While we are just over a month into 2021, the year has already brought big changes to the global conversation: in the United States, angry rioters tried to prevent a new presidential administration from taking power; COVID vaccines are being distributed around the globe; and, last week, a group of Reddit traders totally upended the financial world.　　If you have not been paying attention, here is what you missed: a group of rogue traders in the r/WallStreetBets (WSB) Reddit forum set out to send GameStop Inc (NYSE:GME) stock prices to the moon, and, they did, to the tune of more than 1100%.　　Why？ Partially for profit, and partially for revenge: the move is now being called ‘The Big Short Squeeze’ as Wall Street hedge funds are being forced to take losses or white-knuckle their holdings into oblivion.　　And, the game is far from over: WSB is out for blood. At least one hedge fund has already sustained significant damage as a result: Melvin Capital reported losses amounting to 53% in January. The drop was so huge that two other large firms, Citadel and Point72, had to inject capital into Melvin just to keep it going.　　Finance Magnates · FMTV: r/WallStreetBets Founder Jaime Rogozinski　　As such,

2021-02-15Deep Dive

Money Reimagined: Musk Masters the Attention Economy

Well, this past week felt historic. As bitcoin (BTC, +1.07%) surged to all-time highs and found its way into TV studios and onto newspaper front pages, it felt like wed crossed the chasm and gone mainstream. This happened in predictably weird and wild ways, with memes and attention-grabbing stunts – as discussed in the column below. Regardless, it seemed like no one could stop talking about bitcoin.　　Ethereum had a big week, too. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange launched ether (ETH, +6.51%)futures, which helped the token hit all-time highs as well. And the buzz around decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) just got louder.　　All of that activity is putting ever more stress on the Ethereum network, where transaction costs – in the form of “gas fees” – are surging (see below). There‘s an urgent need, in other words, for the scalability promised by Ethereum’s long-awaited 2.0 upgrade.　　That‘s what Sheila Warren and I discussed in this week’s episode of our “Money Reimagined” podcast. We asked Danny Ryan, a key Ethereum core researcher and communicator, to give us the lowdown on whats happening with the massive upgrade, and more.　　Have a listen. After reading the newsletter below.　　Are we not entertained？　　When news broke Monday that

2021-02-13Deep Dive

MicroStrategy Begins Hiring for Bitcoin Data Product

MicroStrategy is moving to assemble a blockchain analytics team. It would be the first bitcoin-related software product from a company best known for CEO Michael Saylors whopping bet on BTC as a reserve asset.　　The firm, based in Tysons Corner, Va., put out calls on LinkedIn Friday for a Blockchain Data Analyst and Blockchain Data Engineer, explaining in job postings they will join a team “building an analytics platform with advanced metrics and insights for Bitcoin.”　　MicroStrategy hinted last November its interest in building blockchain data products and even stated its intention to hire for them. Executives did not go public then with positions of interest and remained largely mum on program specifics, describing it as a potential data offering at the time.　　But Saylor has been vocal about perceived deficiencies in bitcoin (BTC, -1.14%)s data. He declared last October that “garbage” market data was holding bitcoin back. “Where can you find something so incredibly compelling that has such bad data around it relative to other assets？” Saylor said at the time.　　For a man who spent much of last week all but pleading for his fellow CEOs to adopt the bitcoin standard, theres an obvious, and vested, interest in improving upon the “garbage.”　　Read

2021-02-13Deep Dive

MicroStrategy Begins Hiring for Bitcoin Data Product

MicroStrategy is moving to assemble a blockchain analytics team. It would be the first bitcoin-related software product from a company best known for CEO Michael Saylors whopping bet on BTC as a reserve asset.　　The firm, based in Tysons Corner, Va., put out calls on LinkedIn Friday for a Blockchain Data Analyst and Blockchain Data Engineer, explaining in job postings they will join a team “building an analytics platform with advanced metrics and insights for Bitcoin.”　　MicroStrategy hinted last November its interest in building blockchain data products and even stated its intention to hire for them. Executives did not go public then with positions of interest and remained largely mum on program specifics, describing it as a potential data offering at the time.　　But Saylor has been vocal about perceived deficiencies in 比特币 (BTC, -0.69%)　　For a man who spent much of last week all but pleading for his fellow CEOs to adopt the bitcoin standard, theres an obvious, and vested, interest in improving upon the “garbage.”　　Read more: MicroStrategy Wants to Be in the Bitcoin Business, Not Just an Investor　　MicroStrategy did not respond to a request for comment by press time.　　The dual hirings add a rough picture to what could eventually become a commercialized

2021-02-13Deep Dive

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