Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

EMURGO, Ergo, and IOHK announce AgeUSD, the first stablecoin that will come to Cardano

A new type of stablecoin to launch on the Ergo blockchain　　EMURGO, a multinational blockchain company tasked with developing solutions for the Cardano blockchain, has announced the launch of a new stablecoin called AgeUSD. The stablecoin, however, wont be launched on Cardano, but on Ergo, a decentralized blockchain platform.　　Announced during the “Ergo Summit 2021” on Jan. 24, the stablecoin will be based on a novel algorithmic design developed on the Ergo blockchain. AgeUSD is a result of a joint partnership between the Ergo Foundation, EMURGO, and IOHK, the company behind the Cardano blockchain platform.　　What makes AgeUSD different from other stablecoins on the market is the fact that it‘s not a fiat-pegged token, but a crypto-backed algorithmic stablecoin protocol. This means that AgeUSD doesn’t rely on collateralized debt positions (CDPs), essentially making liquidation events impossible.　　The protocol will see a significant portion of its mathematics as automated as possible and stop relying on dynamic transaction posing. And while EMURGO noted that AgeUSD is still far away from solving all of the problems stablecoins experience, it represents an important attempt at creating a highly secure alternative to the current market offering.　　With Goguen, AgeUSD could also see the light of day on Cardano　　The significance of

2021-01-27Deep Dive

Ethereum’s realized cap spikes to record highs as capital floods in: Report

Ethereums realized capitalization has increased by nearly 50% in January so far to tag new all-time highs above $70 billion, according to CoinMetrics.　　The data shows that Ethereum‘s realized cap has more than tripled since dropping below $25 billion in during March 2020’s “Black Thursday” crash..　　Ethereums realized cap: CoinMetrics　　The realized capitalization metric calculates the value of a crypto assets supply according to when each unit last moved on-chain. The indicator seeks to estimate the price actually paid for each ETH in circulation — rather than simply multiply the current price by the total supply as market cap does. However, realized cap cannot account for coins that are only traded on centralized exchanges and do not move on-chain.　　The indicator is designed to offer a way to compensate for lost or unclaimed coins by ignoring their appreciation from the time each unit was last transferred on-chain.　　By ignoring the fluctuating capitalization of dormant coins, realized cap offers a signal for when new capital is flowing into a given market, with CoinMetrics inferring that many new investors may have been buying the bags of seasoned ETH whales during Januarys bull market.　　The report also noted a 5% spike in the number of Ethereum addresses holding more

2021-01-27Deep Dive

How Mudrex is Bringing Algorithmic Investment to the Masses

Algorithmic trading and investing are potent tools for those who dream of making passive income from the volatility of the cryptocurrency markets. The idea of “set it and forget it” strategies that provide a yield is enticing indeed. However, there are significant barriers to this utopian ideal.　　The main challenge is that successfully using algorithms to play the financial markets is still mainly the preserve of a small niche of people who sit in the center of the Venn diagram that merges “knows how profit from the financial markets” and “knows how to write code.” Most of us would struggle to find the time to master one of those disciplines, let alone both.　　There are some positive signs of change. Bots that can be programmed by users based on an intuitive user interface are starting to emerge. Elsewhere, copy trading offers newcomers a means to replicate the strategies and tactics of more experienced market players.　　However, a new up-and-coming Indian startup called Mudrex is now developing a platform based on “financial infrastructure legos” that offers an intriguing fusion of copy trading along with an intuitive drag-and-drop strategy builder. The overall aim is to make automated trading and investing accessible to everyone – even

2021-01-27Deep Dive

The GBTC story – How Grayscale determines Bitcoin’s price, future

Grayscale‘s dropping BTC premium is sounding alarm bells for investors and traders alike. Alarm bells isn’t an understatement, especially since the premium plummeted to 2% from about 30% back in December 2020. What does this mean？ Well, the premium may have been the only motivation for institutions to invest in GBTC, and not Bitcoin.　　This irrational motivation and market were explored by Peter Schiff during a recent talk. Drawing a parallel between Bitcoin and Gamestop, Schiff highlighted the red flags in Michael Saylors argument for buying Bitcoin using cash from the balance sheet of institutions. Saylor had underlined this move as a hedge against inflation. According to Schiff, however, if you buy Bitcoin under the flawed line of reasoning that its price will go up in the future, relying on future buyers to generate demand and buying is just as good as buying Gamestop.　　Source: YCharts　　This fuels the question – What makes Bitcoin different this time around, and why buy now and not before？　　The argument is that Bitcoins price rally is centered on institutional buying and the digital gold narrative. The key here is that institutional buying is an investment in GBTC, and institutions are buying GBTC for a premium. Once the

2021-01-27Deep Dive

Pantera is moving to launch a new fund aimed at institutional bitcoin investors

Pantera Capital—the cryptocurrency fund manager with more than $1 billion in assets — is working on launching a new fund aimed at heavyweight institutional investors.　　Pantera already operates a number of funds, including a bitcoin fund and an initial coin offering fund. As The Block reported earlier this month, the aforementioned funds clocked in returns of approximately 299% and 500%, respectively. The new fund, according to CEO Dan Morehead, could launch in “the next few months.”　　The launch, detailed by Dan Morehead during a recent episode of The Scoop, would come as a number of new Wall Street players enter the market, including Anthony Scaramuccis Skybridge, which has been pitchinginvestors on its new bitcoin fund since the end of last year.　　Union Square Ventures expects to invest around 30% of its new $250m fund in the crypto industry. Elsewhere, insurance giant Mass Mutual has entered the market and a range of endowments are rumored to have made an investment in crypto.　　Panteras new fund would be more tailored toward multi-asset-class institutional investors, according to Morehead.　　“We‘re really seeing an inflection point with more coming into the market over the last couple of months,” Morehead said. “We’ve had a ton of inbound calls from endowments and

2021-01-27Deep Dive

DeFi airdrops in 2020: Ethereum users are the biggest beneficiaries

I‘m not too sure about you guys but one of the most fascinating things I’ve seen in DeFi is airdrops.　　In 2017, airdrops were all the rage. But often the case, all users did was dump them, and most of the time, they werent worth all too much.　　But this has changed with the introduction of decentralized finance. Airdrops have become extremely sizeable for all users and there have been investors holding their coins as sometimes, holding the airdropped coins performs better than selling them right away for Bitcoin, Ethereum, or stablecoins.　　I recently broke down the top airdrops of 2020 (though one was in 2021) and what effect they had on Ethereum DeFi users.　　The airdrop phenomenon　　There have been five (or six) major airdrops in the DeFi space over the past 12 months. Here are each of them and some details about each one:　　Uniswap (UNI): 252,803 addresses could (and still can) claim. Average amount is 593.3 UNI.　　1inch (1INCH): 55,224 addresses could (and still can) claim. Average amount is 1,629.76 1INCH.　　BadgerDAO (BADGER): 32,262 addresses could (and still can) claim. Average amount is 64.31 BADGER.　　BadgerDAOs DIGG: Average airdrop of 0.0704 DIGG.　　Curve DAO Token (CRV): Average airdrop of 16,043 CRV　　Tornado Cash (TORN): Around 8,000 addresses will

2021-01-27Deep Dive

All risk, no gain? The vague definition of stablecoins is causing problems

Sometimes, “stablecoins” and variants such as “algorithmic stablecoins” function like historical names, as they refer to projects that call themselves stablecoins, such as Basis Cash, Elastic Set Dollar, Frax and their clones.　　The word “stablecoin” can be used as a logical description for “a cryptocurrency designed to have low price volatility” and has “stores of value or units of account,” or “a new type of cryptocurrency that often have their value pegged to another asset… designed to tackle the inherent volatility seen in cryptocurrency prices,” or a currencythat can “act as a medium of monetary exchange and a mode of storage of monetary value, and its value should remain relatively stable over longer time horizons.”　　On the more metaphysically speculative end, some have defined a stablecoin as “an asset that prices itself, rather than an asset that is priced by supply and demand. This goes against everything we know about how markets work.”　　Circularity is the core issue, as I see it. The alleged deficiency of Bitcoin (BTC) as money and a vague definition originally inspired a host of stablecoin projects. The design features of these projects have now been incorporated back into the stablecoin definition.　　Haseeb Qureshi — a software engineer, author and

2021-01-26Deep Dive

Ethereum Game Hides Almost $1 Million in Crypto Bounties

After years of development, Age of Rust is set to launch on Steam in March. Due to rising crypto prices, prize bounties hidden inside the game are now worth almost $1 million.　　Huge Crypto Bounties for Gamers　　Age of Rust is launching on Steam in March, and early players have a chance at landing a huge windfall. SpacePirate Games has revealed that the game contains 24 Bitcoin and 370,000 Enjin Coin in crypto bounties, worth a massive $929,000 today.　　Age of Rust is a sci-fi action game that explores a vast 250,000 km2 digital universe. Its central theme is humanity fighting against a class of AI robots called Mechs.　　“Humans lost the war, but encrypted the code preventing Mechs from immortality at the last moment,” the games description reads.　　The game uses the Enjin protocol and runs on Ethereum. Its been in development since 2014 and aims to be something of an “immersive educational blockchain experience.” SpacePirate Games caught the attention of crypto insiders when they launched a popular cryptographic puzzle game. They began working on Age of Rust the same year.　　They set aside 24 Bitcoin for a crypto bounty within the game, which was worth around $20,000 at the time. Today, 24 Bitcoin is

2021-01-26Deep Dive

Large Bitcoin Options Positions May Boost Price Volatility This Week

Bitcoins options market continues to grow along with an institutional-led bull run in the leading cryptocurrency. Yet, while many use options to hedge their positions, the large amounts of bitcoin options slated to expire in a few days may themselves lead to wild price swings as January draws to a close.　　At press time, there are 120,300 contracts worth $4 billion set to expire this Friday on major exchanges Deribit, CME, Bakkt, OKEx, LedgerX, according to data source Skew. Much of that amount can be found on Deribit, the worlds largest crypto options exchange by trading volume. It is on track to register a record monthly bitcoin options expiry of 102,162 contracts (nearly $3.5 billion).　　A call option gives the holder the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying at a predetermined price on or before a specific date; a put option represents a right to sell. An out-of-the-money (OTM) call is the one with the strike price higher than the spot price. As of press time, call options at strike prices above the current spot price of $34,500 are OTM. Meanwhile, put options at strikes below the spot price are OTM as well.　　Market makers may inject volatility　　Option expiries seldom

2021-01-26Deep Dive

DDoS Attackers Return With Massive Extortion Campaigns in the Wake of Bitcoin Prices Surging

Threat actors have been finding opportunities in bitcoins bullish trend to increase their extortion campaigns. Hackers are actively threatening companies with DDoS attacks unless they pay for bitcoin ransoms.　　Bull Run Prices Push Extortionists to Increase Bitcoin Ransom Demands　　According to an alert issued by security firm Radware, there have been several reports between December 2020 and the first week of January 2021 about DDoS extortionists. The firm claims the campaign is part of a global one that started in August last year.　　However, in the wake of the crypto bull-run seen over the last months, the wave of ransom letters had sharply increased, coming from the same actors. Radware noted that most of the companies didnt report such incidents to the media in August and September 2020.　　One of the first bitcoin ransom letters sent by the hackers reads as follow:　　We asked for 10 bitcoin to be paid at to avoid getting your whole network DDoSed. Its a long time overdue and we did not receive payment. Why？ What is wrong？ Do you think you can mitigate our attacks？ Do you think that it was a prank or that we will just give up？ In any case, you are wrong.　　At the time of

2021-01-26Deep Dive

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