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Blockchain Business News

Coinbase wants to become the “Amazon Web Services” of Crypto

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Coinbase Wants To Become The “amazon Web Services” Of Crypto

A Coinbase executive made a very interesting remark fairly recently. We all know, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or at least we should. It is one of the world’s most prominent providers of cloud services on the globe. Coinbase says it wants to become that for the cryptocurrency space. Coinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange that is continuously growing in success and profitability. It is based in the United States and is clearly ambitious to see itself continue to grow.

The Chief Product Officer of Coinbase, Surojit Chatterjee, said their company wants to become the AWS of crypto when he was interviewed exclusively by Forbes. He added that they are constructing a comprehensive Coinbase cloud suite of products. He stated that these products can be thought of as crypto computing services. The goal of these services would be to assist developers in building applications quicker.

The Progress Coinbase is Making

Coinbase purchased Bison Trails. The company purchased Bison Trails earlier this same year. Rumour has it that the deal cost Coinbase US$ 80 million. Coinbase says that Bison Trails is a service that does not manage the user’s staked assets. The company has since rebranded the service to “Coinbase Cloud”.

About Coinbase’s Inspiration

Amazon has several divisions. Previously, Amazon Web Services was just a secondary one. It has been around for 20 years now. Over the years it has grown to become the cash cow for Amazon. In 2020 alone, AWS generated US$ 13.5 billion in annual operating earnings. This was on a revenue base of US$45.3 billion. That stands for 63% of the parent company’s revenue. That’s very noteworthy financial progress.

Coinbase executives have added that they want to become the Amazon of cryptocurrencies immediately. The exchange is not prominent because of it being the main digital cryptocurrency service. Rather it is because it has the most comprehensive direct listing over. This makes Coinbase dependent on transaction fees.

Similarties with other Companies

Services like Facebook (now called “Meta”) and Google also have a reliance on a single category of revenue. This creates a vulnerability, for Coinbase and other service providers like it. In Coinbase’s case, this means that if the exchange suffers significant price swings in the downward persuasion, then Coinbase’s profits are significantly affected. This volatility is a real concern.

The Future for Coinbase

The exchange aims at boosting trading income by offering subscription services to its users. These services would not be affected by the price swings that the company currently endures. As of now, Coinbase offers various services. Some of these services include institutional custody services and staking possibilities. It also offers a learning portal that gives users crypto rewards. Another services Coinbase also has e-commerce checkout system and the capability to issue Visa debit cards to its clients. An innovation that it is testing out at present is a subscription service that would offer users a monthly trading allowance for a fixed price.

Significance of Coinbase buying Bison Trails

Chatterjee states that the purchase of Bison Trails was an important step to transitioning for Coinbase. This step allowed the company to adopt a more mature financial system. As of now, the platform has support for several types of holders. These are crypto custodians, funds, decentralized apps, and token holders. Some of the clients using this new service include Turner Sports, Current (a fintech firm), and Andreessen Horowitz.

How it’s looking so far for Coinbase?

Coinbase Cloud currently has about US$ 30 billion in cryptocurrency assets staked on its platform. This is as of November 2021. The exchange as a whole has 73 million genuine customers, 185,000 ecosystem partners, and 10,000 organizations in 100 countries. Coinbase says that since the company began it has conducted transactions to the total value in excess of US$ 700 billion. It is worth watching and seeing the developments that Coinbase has in store.

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Altcoins Bitcoin Blockchain

Philanthropy and Cryptocurrency

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Philanthropy And Cryptocurrency

Back in 2014, there were only about 500 cryptocurrencies on the market and possibly no philanthropy conducted with any of it. Since then, more have burst into the scene. At present, there are about 7000 cryptocurrencies. This is amazing growth for just a 7 year period. In terms of adoption, in the United States alone, already 14% of the population have bought some type of cryptocurrency at some point. This is about 21.1 million people. When it comes to the global market, over 300 million people have used cryptocurrency before.

It is evident that crypto is not going anywhere. This is only the beginning of its relevance and value. We can easily expect continued growth and user adoption. We see certain sectors adopting crypto smoothly and even intuitively, especially those sectors that easily align with cutting-edge technology. Some other sectors continue to lag.

What about philanthropy?

So many sectors can benefit from the convenience and efficacy of blockchain technology. There is no reason why they shouldn’t, other than weariness of some level of risk that some may reasonably have. What’s more, accepting cryptocurrency as an alternate mode of payment shows the crypto community that a non-profit, political organization, or cause is in alignment with new technology and perhaps, even the future.

Projects doing Philanthropic workforce

In the field of longevity, some projects have already turned to cryptocurrency as means of donating. Here are some:

SENS Research Foundation

The SENS Research Foundation is one such organization. It focuses on research, development, and the promotion of comprehensive solutions for diseases that are age-related. If the general public and specially educated donors are allowed to learn about advancements in this area. This organization supports projects working to cure cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s. It has notably made cryptocurrency part of how it runs. The level of progressiveness of this organization can even be seen in how many types of cryptocurrency SENS Research Foundation accepts donations. You can donate using Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin, and Aave.

However, that is not just it. In total, the foundation accepts donations from 72 cryptocurrencies including those already stated. Back in 2018, various crypto visionaries have donated cryptocurrency to the foundation. One such visionary is Vitalik Buterin. Buterin donated US$ 2.4 million in ETH to the SENS Research Foundation. The founder of HEX, Richard Heart, carried out a campaign with SENS where users who donated to the foundation saw themselves being entered into PulseChain, his new cryptocurrency. Through this campaign, they managed to raise over US$ 5 million in donations. This is undeniable evidence that cryptocurrency offers real opportunities for philanthropy.

Longevity Science Foundation

The Longevity Science Foundation is another organization worth mentioning in this case. This organization accepts funds in all popular cryptocurrencies. They expect to work in alignment with crypto leaders to establish a decentralized and transparent mode of financing. All donors receive voting rights in the foundation’s funding decisions. So far, the organization has committed to helping projects that are most visionary in their worldview.

Useful solutions

Any non for profit can jump on the bandwagon using tools now on the market that help them do so. The Giving Block offers just that. Its tools are there to help non-profits receive donations. These tools also make it easy for donors to make their donations in the crypto that they most prefer. They can make these donations to over 400+ organizations. Nonprofits like World Relief, American Cancer Society, No Kid Hungry, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital are among nonprofits receiving payment in crypto.

All in all, the more charities and other nonprofits embrace crypto, the more opportunities these organizations give themselves to raise funds. The opportunity is clear and the benefits are apparent. It’s time for more nonprofits to jump onboard.

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Business News Technology

Privacy and the Shortfall of Cookies

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Privacy And The Shortfall Of Cookies

We produce so much data every day we use a smart device and privacy is a real concern. From our laptops, tablets, smartwatches, and smartphones the data we produce accumulates. Even if you choose to not accept cookies on some web services, that same web service has probably sent you a web tracker with an email you subscribed to.

Regardless of how paranoid you are of hiding your personal details, somehow bits about you and your behaviors will likely get through. The current environment is holistically harvesting so much metadata from users. So, even though your data will most probably be encrypted, the streams of data about you will still reveal, to some extent, things about you and your behavior. In turn, you will remain a target for ads or other online surveillance.

A service advert you would like to use one day may pop up on your social media feed. You may legitimately be interested in using it. However, in the grand scheme of things, we all ultimately want one thing. That thing is privacy. Individuals and institutions alike want privacy. It is easy to see why the military or national security agencies may desire to withhold some of their information. It’s perhaps also easy to see why a corporation may want to do the same to maintain profitability and outperform its competitors. Even as individuals, if you consider the information you search for online, products you buy, and people you interact with, the idea of privacy instantly becomes crucial to sustainable use of smart technology for one’s self.

No Incentives to Provide Privacy

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of demand for privacy. What is lacking is incentives to make that a reality. A report by Ernest and Young stated that the United Kingdom’s health data is valued at US$ 11 Billion. That’s just the United Kingdom. Of course, some of us may argue the matrix used to come to this valuation. So, regardless of how personal data is valued, the bottom line is the benefits of having access to this data are more tempting than not. Authorities want to know what their citizens are talking about. Enterprises want to learn about their customers and ensure their products or services are meeting their needs.

Affordance Theory

Affordance Theory could help us understand this situation further. Firstly, “affordance” refers to how users look at the functionality of something based on that thing’s design. This theory looks at the use of a thing by its stated environment, system, and what it offers to users.

Securing Privacy as the Default setting

We can not afford to have privacy as some negotiable addon. It needs to be a default setting for all users. Regardless of how well you secure your data, someone or something else connected to you will give away data about you. Therefore your metadata will have the opportunity to be used or misused by other entities. Now, governments or tech enterprises by themselves lack sufficient desire to make this a genuine and top priority.

The GDPR has somewhat failed. Instead of privacy is an option you decide to take or leave, it needs to be built into the very fabric of the infrastructure we use and given to us without having to be offered it. This may require a centralized and international infrastructure. Doing so would ensure that no single government or legal entity has some sort of leverage that others do not. In addition, there need to also be some perks to compliance that justify the efforts of those tasked to create such an infrastructure. It needs to be lucrative enough that not maintaining is unprofitable and a very bad idea.

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Blockchain Business DeFi News Ethereum

What Will Ethereum do in the Metaverse

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What Will Ethereum Do In The Metaverse

Ethereum is one of the world’s top cryptocurrencies. It is a smart-contract blockchain. Its framework consists of an emphasis on security and a decentralized environment for various applications. At the same time, advances are happening. Decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens have led the way. So many uses cases thus applied have shown the extreme potential for blockchain now and in the future. Whilst this is happening, advances are also happening in regards to the metaverse and the social media of the future. Vitalik Buterin and others are looking at disrupting social media as we know it.

In the Beginning

When Ethereum just started out, it stood as a solution for trading and lending crypto assets and for purchasing and selling digital art. In the case of trading and lending, Uniswap and Aave are prime examples of marketplaces where this was done. In regards to buying and selling art, OpenSea is a good example. Then came second-layer platforms. These platforms were built on top of Ethereum and offered even more solutions. Artbitrum and Optimism are good examples of platforms that did just that.

So is that of ZK. ZK is set to help lower the transaction fees on Ethereum and possibly help the decentralization of social media options like Reddit.

Ether is the Key

All the platforms mentioned above utilize Ether. Ether is required for the Ethereum network. If you want to release a new application or use an existing one, you will need some Ether. If you want to send funds to different wallets, you’ll need to purchase some Ether. Commentators believe in the not-so-distant future, we will need Ether to stake and secure networks.

If protocols like Solan and Avalanche, which are based on Ethereum are successful and the “metaverse” too, then what we consider to be “money” may actually change. It’s not inconceivable. Already protocols have managed to raise funds, and investors measure their portfolios against Ether. Alternatively, they would have used the US Dollar or stablecoins. Regardless of this, the use of ether instead of stablecoins does not diminish the value of the other.

Ether and other types of crypto assets remain better investments in a currency at the moment because they are more reflexive of demand. However, there is great benefit in having large Ethereum ecosystems. The ecosystem shows that Ether is now being used for DeFi, NFTs, validation, and more.

When assets can be transferred from one legal entity to another quickly and used as collateral, you start to see that asset look more and more like money instead of property or stores of value.

Stake Capital’s founder, Julien Bouteloup thinks that the Web 3 workforce has shown more acceptance in being paid in token equity, instead of stablecoins. It is viable that employees that believe in their workplaces would be willing to be paid in equity. However, it is also possible that it is just a side effect of a bullish market and soaring valuations.

What may we expect will happen to Ether?

Among other things, we may expect to see play-to-earn games continue to increase in popularity. One example of a winner in the space right now is Axie Infinity. This is a Ronin-based nonfungible token game. It is already making waves by earning billions of dollars in annual revenue. People that use the game in various parts of the world are even able to live off the income from the revenue they make from it. In fact, a large part of this revenue is positively affecting the gross domestic product of a whole nation, the Philippines. With continued advances in Ethereum, we should expect to see more financially viable solutions popping up and changing the way the financial game is being played.

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Blockchain Business DeFi News Technology

The Future is Fast in Finance

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The Future Is Fast In Finance

We are in a different era from what the world had previously known when it comes to finance. Now, people expect a certain level of efficiency when transacting. Modern technology, especially incorporating the advances in the internet, innovation, blockchain, and cryptocurrency advances gives us these conveniences. If tokenization continues to progress, as many expect, we should hope to see more financial access and more financial options.

A More Equal World

History has shown that when equity is distributed or airdrops done all in an appropriate manner, finances are distributed more freely and fairly than if corporate entities had done it. Unfortunately, the other side of things is also true. This approach is prone to exploitation and scams. Regardless of which side, blockchain technology allows money to move faster globally than the regular banking and payment systems. The technology also offers more control to the direct user, instead of the middlemen. This fact is pivotal when we consider globalization and investment in particular.

What DO We mean by “Speed”?

In regular systems, financial transactions involve orders being placed and people conducting business with others they had established credit lines with, trusted, or offered some credible type of guarantee. In traditional finance, a cheque or money order, for example, require a number of steps. All these steps require procedures to be followed for the transaction to be successfully carried out. Funds are not moved until all the necessary procedures are carried out to their satisfaction.

Then Came Paypal and Others in Finance

After the traditional approach proved lacking, service providers like Paypal sprouted. Others like Mastercard, Visa, and Venmo started carving out a piece of the financial services “pie” for themselves. Regardless of these new services, the traditional model still remains strong. Regular banks sometimes shoulder a certain level of risk to ensure processes appear to move faster to lessen the delay for the end-users. So, the speed gains are not in reference to the network and infrastructure that’s used. Rather, the reference is in regards to the settlement of transactions. This stage is faster than banks, even between complete strangers. Crypto transactions and settlement are combined. For this reason, it’s considered “digital cash”. Once sent, it moves to the recipient directly within 10min and costs about $3.

Where Crypto Outshines them all in finance

There is one thing that other options like Paypal, Mastercard, or Western Union can not do. All these options and many other providers can not send and settle a large transfer on the other side of the globe in 10 minutes. Collaborative financial projects have new opportunities through cryptocurrency’s capabilities. It is possible to see continued progress with DAOs and crowdfunding campaigns of the future.


Constitution DAO is one prime example. The efforts that Constitution DAO made by raising US$ 40 million in only a week among strangers to purchase a copy of the United States of America Constitution was amazing. In the mainstream, there would be a lot of noise for a venture capital fund of the same value. Yet, crypto managed to raise this in 7 days for 1 cause, albeit, not a business use case. However, the scenario can easily be adapted or considered as a business concept. In fact, this has already begun for venture capital funds for crypto projects.

With money transactions going so fast, it seems the analyst will be left in the dark, and knowledgeable investors will end up finding that the very last decision they make will have to be based somewhat on “hunks”. Perhaps a new type of role or skill set will evolve where an analyst was needed.

The Promise in SPACs

SPACs or Special Purpose Acquisition Companies are showing us what the future could hold. This type of entity uses the stock market as a venture-raising instrument. They focus on acquisition and not early funding though. Maybe crowdfunders and startups will turn to such an option for their venture capital needs too.

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Blockchain

Predictions for The Future of Finance

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Predictions For The Future Of Finance

Many advances have been made over the past decade regarding finance and technology. There has been progress in so many ways, not least of which are nonfungible tokens. So many innovations happened since Bitcoin popped up back in 2008. Since then, so much has happened and so much is here to stay. Some extremely interesting predictions worth sharing were made by J.P. Koning for CoinDesk. Here are some of the predictions that the commentator shared:

Decentralized Finance with Merge with Centralized Finance

Decentralized finance (DeFi) offers many advantages. The future will incorporate both traditional financing and decentralized finance. Centralized finance will end up incorporating some of the benefits that DeFi offers. Centralized finance will take onboard the conveniences that DeFi offers including how automatic and programmable it is. This will likely be done without including the blockchain technology aspect of it.

DeFi is likely to adopt some of the best components of regular finance. These components that are likely to be incorporated include regulations that make things safer for all parties. This means DeFi will likely look at establishing regulations and compliance in regards to anti-money laundering / know your customer rules. It will likely mean firms will become securities and exchange commission-registered or licensed with the office of OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency).

These firms in DeFi will take on these regulations out of their own volition and not because of coercion by regulators. “Making” truly decentralized organizations do anything is difficult. Entities will have to choose to follow whatever regulations exist. Since most of the world’s funds are lawfully made, DeFi will have to jump on board to get a piece of this action. In the long term, both regular finance and decentralized will function in such a way that most people won’t know or care as long as they are getting safe, legal, and valuable financial services. However, again, in the long term, some will stay in a purely DeFi ecosystem. Those will likely be over-represented by outliers, activists, hobbyists, and even criminals. They will be in the minority, still benefiting from a lack of regulations.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin Legalization will be seen as a reality check for Finance

By 2030, the globe will have fully embraced bitcoin. From now and to then, the world will see other Central American countries follow suit, followed by South America and then the United States of America. These countries that will state that bitcoin is their legal tender are likely to do it as a marketing gimmick whilst they watch and wait to see how this development goes for El Salvador. If it does not pan out for El Salvador, they will likely halt their plans.

Cash and CBDS will Disappear in Finance

Central Bank Digital Currency was the banking sector’s approach to offer something as trendy as crypto. Western banks will attempt to use CBDS but most customers will not use the service. This is because the risks are still associated with such an instrument. Banks that are early adopters will likely experience this. More traditional banks, will likely see the slow or poor adoption and stop CBDS eventually.

MasterCard and Visa will drive KYC and not Governments

The future will see that online content will be linked to a verifiable owner. Card owners like Mastercard and Visa are more likely to make this possible beyond any actual government. In October 2021, Mastercard introduced some new rules. The rules stated that platforms that host user-generated pornography start using identity verification rules. Non-compliance will lead to those sites being barred from the service provider’s network. If sites do not comply, then that means the end for such businesses. For that reason, platforms have complied.

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Bitcoin Blockchain Business

Traditional Exchange in South Korea Looking to Join Crypto

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Traditional Exchange In South Korea Looking To Join Crypto

South Korea, like a number of other Asian countries, is making serious moves in the cryptos space. The country’s security exchange operator, KRX (Korea Exchange) says it is looking for ways to “embrace” crypto assets. This was a statement made by the exchange’s chairperson, Sohn Byung.

The chairperson of the exchange told people present at a financial conference that it was time to do this. He added that the market for crypto assets is the same as that of capital markets. Sohn cited the similarities being in regards to investor protection. He added that transaction stability should also be supported. Sohn said they would utilize what they had learned in the stock market. With that knowledge, they would attempt to start engaging in the crypto asset business.

The Face of Investing is Changing in South Korea

This decision is coming at a time when the major crypto exchanges in South Korea are extremely profitable. The country’s top four domestic crypto exchange platforms currently have a combined user base of 5 million. In addition, these crypto markets trade approximately US$ 12 million in stock value on a daily basis. It is worth noting that this US$ 12 million is very close to what KOSPI trades on a daily basis as well. For these reasons, perhaps among others, the traditional exchange is ready to contemplate joining this new type of investment frontier. The crypto exchange may one day exceed the domestic exchange trade value.

Perception of Investors in South Korea about Investing

South Korea’s investors that happen to be among the country’s economic elite are typically not on board with crypto as of yet. They are typically still somewhat against crypto. This is according to a recent survey of the country’s richest. However, the fact of the matter remains that there are still significant numbers of investors who are now seeing better opportunities and value in crypto investing than in South Korea’s mainstream stock exchanges. Some of these forward-thinking investors that have turned to crypto investing are quite young but even older investors are now jumping onto the bandwagon. KRX and KOSPI index may become archaic soon.

Preparation for Exchange’s Framework

The chairman of the KRX said it is time to start preparing an institutional framework. These comments are about 12 months after the exchange stated it would conduct more focused monitoring of crypto-related stocks. It is possible this announcement was made back then due to concerning volatility of stocks that were related to the crypto industry.

KRX has monitored whilst share prices of some stocks have risen along with crypto prices. One such example is the Bithumb exchange which has seen Vidente profit. Vidente is a listed non-crypto company. It has seen itself benefit from these same rising crypto prices because of its investment in a minor stock exchange called Bithumb.

Domestic Crypto Exchanges in Korea going Global

Some of South Korea’s domestic crypto exchanges are now considering spreading their wings. This is probably another observation that KRX made. It is also likely another reason it’s paying serious attention to crypto now. Some analysts think that the domestic crypto exchanges in South Korea may have found that they have or will outgrow their country’s market. For that reason, they are watching for initial public offerings in other parts of the globe where they can continue to expand. As such, some of South Korea’s crypto exchanges may follow in the footsteps of Coinbase and get floated in the United States.

About KRX

The Korea Stock Exchange was established in 2005. It was founded by the consolidation of a number of domestic markets. At present, it is the only securities exchange operating in South Korea. It has its head offices in Busan.

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Blockchain Business News People

Randi Zuckerberg campaigning for more Women Involvement

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Randi Zuckerberg Campaigning For More Women Involvement

OKCoin recently appointed Randi Zuckerberg to help them on their mission. OKCoin aims to get 50% women representation in cryptocurrency customers by 2025. VentureBeat reported this interesting development. The outlet stated that Randi Zuckerberg would become the first brand advisory council member for OKCoin’s plans. OKCoin intends on investing US$1 million to accomplish this goal of 50% representation of women.

About Randi Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg is an American businessperson whose net worth is about US$ 200 Million. She is the former director of market development and spokesperson for Facebook. Zuckerberg is now the CEO of Zuckerberg Media and the Zuckerberg Institute and will now wear this mantle too of a member of brand advisory council member.

About OKCoin

OKCoin is a cryptocurrency platform where users spot trade between fiat and digital assets. Users can easily purchase cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and others. Furthermore, users can also earn cryptocurrency rewards. OKCoin is considered a secure exchange for transactions. It utilizes the most current encryption technology to protect the platform from hackers. Among some of the security measures, the employ is two-factor authentication for logins and withdrawals. The company has offices in Hong Kong, San Francisco, Miami, Malta, Singapore, and Japan. They state that they are a group of global citizens with one passion. This passion is to further decentralize finance and make a fairer economic situation the world over.

OKCoin’s Mission for Inclusivity

OKCoin announced their next phase in their mission towards equality and inclusiveness. This is to bring more women to crypto investing. Cryptocurrency technology is inclusive. This is because cryptocurrency is permissionless. It brings something of a democracy for all to earn a decent living and even much more. Women have made significant contributions in cryptocurrency. However, women remain significantly under-represented in the sector.

Some recent research showed that there were half as many women involved in cryptocurrency investment as men.

Zuckerberg’s Interest in Inclusivity for Women

Overall, Heather Landy gave an interesting perspective in an article. This article was on Zuckerberg’s interest in new tech. Landy stated that during the 10 year period that Zuckerberg was employed at Facebook she gained some insights. Zuckerberg discovered how male-dominated the industry was. The Harvard graduate ended being the only woman in rooms where decisions were being made.

In an interview with Quartz, Zuckerberg made two suggestions for women. The first suggestion she made was that women should have names that sound male. The second suggestion she made was that women should consider finding niches in the sector that are as yet in their infancy of development. Zuckerberg’s theory is that women will then find spaces that are not yet filled with gender bias. Zuckerberg stated that this gender bias pervades the rest of the global tech industry. Spaces with most gender bias being those that are fully established.

Women should invest in the future

She added that this is why she has started investing in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and cannabis. Zuckerberg quit her job at Facebook to become a powerhouse in her own right. She is now a best-selling author, entrepreneur, radio host, and angel investor. Back in 2018, Zuckerberg said she thought those new industries would be the next booming business areas. Now, cryptocurrency prices are booming. Blockchain is gaining more and more ground. One can easily see her predictions were right. Zuckerberg said getting in on the start will help women have an equal playing field. This means women will not end up playing o catch up with incumbents.

Comments on the Developments

This is an interesting direction that OKCoin is taking. It development is something that would catch the attention of many women and especially new investors among them.

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Blockchain Business NFT

Music Streaming NFTs are the Future

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Music Streaming Nfts Are The Future

Music, art and entertainment enrich lives. On an average day, we may enjoy some music, read a book or watch a movie. Music is often added to compliment so many other activities and pieces of artwork. The mandate can be made that more bearable or exciting with our favorite song playing in the background. Imagine a long arduous car ride without any tunes. Consider an action, thriller or suspense-filled movie without a soundtrack. Imagine a wedding without any melodies. The world would just not be the same without music. Thankfully, music is not going anywhere. In fact, with new technologies like that of NFTs, things are just getting more and more interesting.

With services like Amazon Music Limited, Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube dishing out our musical supply, consumers have no shortage of options of where to get their favorite tunes or discover new ones. Here is more about 3 of the biggest.

Spotify

Spotify is a favourite among many. This music streaming provider is a company based in Sweden. Spotify has provided audio streaming services to users since as far back as 2006. It was started by two founders: Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. Right now Spotify dominates the music streaming business and happens to be the largest at present. The platform has a whopping 381 million active users a month. In terms of paid subscribers, it boasts of 172 million of them. Daniel Ek is the current CEO.

Apple Music

Apple Music is another heavyweight in the international music streaming business. This is a service by Apple Inc. It was launched in 2015. Now, Apple Music is available in up to 167 countries. Apple Music is accessible in the Americas, Asia, Oceania, parts of the Middle East and parts of Africa. The service provides a selection of millions of songs to its users. In the United States, Apple Music is more popular than Spotify. Last year the company posted a profit of US$4.1 Billion in revenue. 2020, As of 2020, Apple Music had about 72 million subscribers.

Amazon Music Limited

Amazon Music Limited provides a limited but wide selection of music. As of now, they have up to 75 million songs available for streaming on their platform.

Why Musicians may want other options

As it stands, musicians aren’t benefiting as much as they could. At present, it’s reported that platforms such as Spotify and Apple take up to 75% of the artist’s revenues, including the fee paid to their label.

More Gains for Music Creators using NFTs

With service providers getting the lion’s share of profits that Musicians earn, new tech offers solutions that might give artists more profits. This is a prediction by Saxo Bank. Saxo Bank published a list of predictions for 2022, titled “Saxo Bank’s Outrageous Predictions 2022 Revolution”. They believe that in a few months’ time Musicians will reap rewards from nonfungible token platforms. These benefits will come in because music creators will deal directly with their listeners and not go through a middle man. By ousting out the middle man, they will save on fees.

Audius: and other developments in NFT Music Streaming

Made Eberhardt, an analyst from Saxo Bank said that new projects in the NFT subsection showed promise to things started by 2022. The platform by Katy Perry, The Chainsmokers and Jason Derulo is one project worth noting. it is called Audius and is a music streaming platform in the blockchain space being a prime example of what to look out for.

What about traditional platforms that Stream Music?


According to Eberhardt, traditional platforms like Spotify and Apple should brace themselves for disruption and unprecedented change. However, this “bleakness” may take time to manifest because such platforms are still racking in serious revenues. Spotify’s active users grow by 19% each month. In 2020, Spotify posted 7.85 billion in revenues.

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Blockchain Business NFT Technology

Progress into the Metaverse: Adidas and More

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Progress Into The Metaverse: Adidas And More

More and more companies continue to enter the metaverse. At the same time researchers believe that by the end of 2021, NFTs will record a total of US $ 18 billion. This will make the subsector one of the most profitable in the cryptocurrency world. Adidas recently announced that it was entering the Metaverse. The company stated that it was entering the Metaverse with partners. Some of the partners it cited included BAYT (Bored Ape Yacht Club), gmoney NFT, and PUNKS Comic. Adidas stated in an article that they are famous for celebrating innovation.

They said their goal is to see everyone in the Metaverse do well. Adidas essentially added that they think the Metaverse is where all can live their best lives, however they choose to express themselves. The company acknowledged that blockchain technology and nonfungible tokens made this possible for people to have such opportunities.

Adidas’ Partnership with Bored Ape Yacht Club

An NFT has been redesigned, showing the Bored Ape Yacht Club ape wearing Adidas’ famous striped tracksuit. The Bored Ape Yacht Club has its NFTs minted on the Ethereum blockchain. As of now, these NFTs are about 10,000.

Adidas’ Partnership with gmoney

Gmoney is a popular cryptocurrency. It is also influential in the nonfungible token subsector. It is so popular, that so far gmoney has been featured on Fortune NFTy 50.

Adidas’ Partnership with PUNKS Comic

PUNKS Comic has an interesting approach. The company utilizes two “worlds”. On one hand, it uses the world of nonfungible tokens. On the other hand, it utilizes the world of printed comic books. This combination allows them to make what they call “crypto comics”.

Other Big Brands entering the Metaverse

Meta

It goes without saying that Meta’s bold and progressive entrance into the metaverse was by far the most interesting announcement in regards to the metaverse. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has invested many years creating its virtual reality and augmented reality. They have already started making progress using their two platforms: Horizons and Horizons Workrooms. The company hopes to include its digital products in the metaverse. These products include neural inputs, AR glasses, and smartwatches.

Microsoft’s Office Metaverse

Then one of the other tech giants decided to enter the metaverse: Microsoft. The company intends on building a business-focused metaverse by using both virtual reality and augmented reality. Microsoft has called it a “persistent digital world that’s lived by digital twins of people…”.

Nvidia

This may excite a lot of people who are keen on looking like their virtual counterparts. Nvidia expressed their plans on building a new platform where users can design their own – highly customizable avatars. Amongst other technologies, the platform will use facial tracking, speech recognition, and 3D animation to create avatars for its users. The avatar will be called the “Omniverse” avatar.

D & G

This major fashion brand joined the metaverse with the first of its kind NFTs about fashion from a top luxury fashion brand. Unfortunately, the brand has gotten in trouble over social media for some statements by D & G’s social media accounts, that some have seen as discriminatory.

Rebecca Minkoff

Rebecca Minkoff is another entry into the metaverse. In alignment with their “I Love New York” collection, the company worked with The Dematerized and Yahoo to create 400 digital garments. These 400 digital garments were sold out at auction on OpenSea.

Clinique

This brand entered the metaverse with its offering of NFTs recently. They began with a competition that gave people the opportunity to win any of 3 nonfungible tokens. The tokens were inspired by Clinique’s most famous products, i.e. Black Honey and Moisture Surge.

In conclusion

Companies are becoming bold and creative as we enter the new frontiers of the future. The metaverse is open for business and businesses are getting ready to cash in big.

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Blockchain NFT Technology

Researchers Study if Token rewards can help Africa’s HIV Patients

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Researchers Study If Token Rewards Can Help Africa’s Hiv Patients

For 5 years researchers will be studying whether incentives from crypto tokens can assist Africa’s HIV/AIDS patients with improvements to their health. Immunify.Life and MMUST (Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology shared on the 1st of November 2021 that they had obtained a go-ahead from an ethics committee and national commission to commence the study.

These two organizations will coordinate their work in a 5-year stretch. They will focus on studying HIV/AIDS beginning this December 2021. The study will begin from the Kakamega County region in Kenya. Thereafter, the study will continue to the rest of Kenya.

How will the study be conducted?

The Kenya-based university, MMUST, will depend on Immunify.Life for a number of key components of the study. One major one is that of the blockchain technology that Immunify.Life can offer them. The technology will aggregate patient data and then analyze it. Immunify.Life solutions will then assess if these patients have improved treatment outcomes. Patients involved in the study will be asked to maintain good health care related conduct. Patients will be prompted with the possibility of rewards. The hope is that the rewards will spur on health-positive behaviors. Project sponsors identified these behaviors. The project’s sponsors include some nongovernmental organizations and government institutions.

Incentive possibilities

Guy Newing, the top executive at Immunify.Life told CoinTelegraph that the program that they will be testing will grant tokens to users to encourage those users to make each clinical appointment. Immunify.Life will also grant doctors and other health workers tokens. These tokens will be native ERC-220 IMM tokens. The possibilities for incentives include offering tokens to patients that have completed their prescribed dosage for treatment of infections like Tuberculosis. Patients consistent with attending check-ups, may be given rewards.

What rewards will health care workers get?

The study will reward doctors and other health care officers for exemplary behavior. Such behavior they could reward could be when health workers do a great job of recording patient data, keeping enough tests ordered for Tuberculosis, or finishing a given medical education program.

The study will ascribe participants NFT (nonfungible token) health ID. This token will keep that individual patient’s medical data. Such data include vaccinations records. The project will record data on the nonfungible token and then on to a digital registry for remote supervision. Copying the data to a remote digital registry also allows the data access to medical professionals tasked with supporting a given patient.

The Mechanics of the Study

A total of 600 people living with HIV/AIDS will participate. The study will reward half of the 600 participants. The other 50% of the 600 patients will be controls. The study will monitor participants for half a year. Another aspect that the study will track beyond the reward aspect is that of the paperlessness of the project. The Study will try to see how effective a paperless healthcare tracking system functions in a low socio-economic area.

About Kenya and the AIDS Pandemic

At present, Kenya has about 1.5 million living with HIV/AIDS. That is based on a 2020 UNAIDS report. Of these 1.5 million people, 70% receive treatment. However, currently, there are challenges in tracking and managing patient data. It also occurs that numerous individuals with HIV/AIDS can not complete treatment. In some locations, this can be up to 40% of patients.

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Bitcoin Blockchain Business News Regulation

Paraguay legislators Contemplating Crypto changes

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Paraguay Legislators Contemplating Crypto Changes

Paraguay wants to make progress in the crypto sector. El Salvador legalized cryptocurrency as legal tender. Another government in the region that is considering the same is Paraguay. Paraguay is considering making Bitcoin and also crypto mining legal. It is also looking at the possibility of allowing industrial miners access to the country’s large hydroelectric power capacity. The favor crypto progress has in Paraguay is largely due to more and more legislators favoring key proposals for the same.

About the Proposed Bill in Paraguay

The legislation has been under discussion and planning for a number of months now. It was first tabled in Paraguay’s house of the Senate on December 2, according to Ultima Hora. It happens to be the result of collaboration between a collection of miners and legislator, MP Carlos Rejala. The MP shared some insights on the development of the bill roughly around the same time as cryptocurrency legislation was making progress in El Salvador. That was when the Salvadorian President, Nayib Bukele declared that Bitcoin had become legal tender in their country, just as the U.S. dollar was. The Paraguayan MP created intrigue about the pending development but informing people on social media that the legislation would include bitcoin-related “surprises”.

Public Response

Those in the public that was interested in this development were disappointed with the bill when it was finally published. Most of these people were hoping that this bill would be much like that of El Salvador. One commentator called the bill a “huge nothing burger”, to illustrate exactly how disappointed they were with the development. The legislation proposes to regulate Bitcoin and crypto mining but somewhat conservatively. However, this law, if ratified, may help local miners who intend on attracting international investors for crypto mining collaboration and business deals.

As of now, Paraguay produces excessive power through its hydroelectric power stations. This power is produced by two plants; Itaipú and Yaciretá. Once ratified, the legislation will let miners locate themselves into data centers close to the power stations. They will also be allowed to utilize the excess power produced at these hydroelectric power stations.

These two stated hydroelectric power stations both have high speeds. In fact, for this reason, the waterfalls there in Paraguay are famous for just how powerful they are. Those in support of the proposed legislation are saying that this legislation would be good for the environment. They argue that the legislation would encourage miners towards cleaner energy and away from non-renewable energy solutions.

Response from Members of the Senate of Paraguay

It seems the bill is growing more favored by the members of the senate. The MP, Rejala seems to have found common ground with another MP, Fernando Silva Facetti, on supporting this bill. Facetti is a reputable member of the senate of Paraguay. With Facetti favoring this bill, it has drawn favorable attention and interest from others in the house. Facetti commented on the proposed bill, stating that it was very innovative. He added that digital mining is a reality in Paraguay already. He asked his counterparts to consider crypto mining as a new industry sector of Paraguay. Facetti added that crypto mining utilizes specialized machines, requires specialized workers, and utilizes significant volumes of power.

He then went on to say that the mining activities generate an end product that can be called “crypto-assets”. Facetti stated that these assets would require visibility in the marketplace, like any other marketable product. Other members of the house that have since shown support for the proposed bill include MP Tony Apuril and MP Juan Bartolomé “Ancho” Ramírez. At some point, MP Facetti stated that discussion of the bill may be pushed back for up to a week. However, it looks like the proposed legislation may soon be discussed.

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Business Gaming News

Grayscale Report says Treasures Await in the Metaverse

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Grayscale Report Says Treasures Await In The Metaverse

Grayscale, a prominent enterprise in cryptocurrency investment just published a report with intriguing estimates. The report says that the metaverse will herald many fortunes, to the tune of US$ 1 trillion in just a few years.

This information about market opportunities was released in their report called “The Metaverse, Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies”. David Grider and Mat Maximo authored this report. The experts looked at the sector from the vantage point of a metaverse that’s not restrictive. They based their assumptions on the element of the interdependent economy in the crypto space, much like that of Decentraland.

Among the information that this report shared, it also shared that the metaverse was creating a new experience for users online. This new experience incorporates decentralized cloud storage, crypto tokens, decentralized finance services, nonfungible tokens, and decentralized governance. All of this has made for a very attractive offering for users causing them to flock to the metaverse.

From the beginning of 2020, the report states that Grayscale analyzed data from the worldwide wallets of users worldwide. This data was for all the time these users had utilized metaverse wallets. The insights that they discovered showed that the number of users of metaverse wallets had grown by 10 times since then. As of June 2021, it shows that the current number of metaverse wallets is at about 50,000. The report goes on to say that in comparison to web 3.0 or web 2.0 segments, the virtual world dubbed the Metaverse is still in its early days of user growth. However, it further states that if the current growth rate is maintained, the metaverse has the capacity to emerge as the mainstream in a few years.

Investors are Enarmoured with the Metaverse

The metaverse has gained significant interest from investors. Many have started spending on metaverse solutions that they believe will create new opportunities and solve problems. The report says that so far US$1 Billion has been raised in blockchain gaming since the 3rd quarter. This represents about 12% of finances for the whole of the crypto sector in the same time period. For that reason, it has now become the top sub-sector in the nonfungible token subcategory of web 3.0.

What Does the Future Hold?

The experts present a number of factors that may help the metaverse grow. One factor is the increase in the time that users spend leisurely. Another factor that they noted was that of the habits of these users in regards to their digital hobbies. The change in how users behave from premium to free-to-play games was also noted. Another factor they noted was that of play-to-earn and other Web 3.0 innovations.

The figures speak for themselves when it comes to all things financial. Worldwide revenues for gaming in the virtual world hit US$ 180 billion last year. It is estimated that the gaming sector could rack in over US$ 400 billion in 4 years’ time. This assumption is based on the popularization of the in-game spending model. The potential that play-to-earn gaming offers will speed up the transition of the Web 2.0 solutions to Web 3.0 for the corporate metaverse. This will also instigate the open crypto metaverse networks of the future.

The publication then goes on to say that the metaverse for the Web 3.0 online world has benefited from astronomical innovation and efficiency gains. It says that the opportunity that the crypto virtual world has created for creators and asset owners in the primary and secondary markets is undeniable. The report says that the ecosystem has cut out capital controls and has made accessible their digital realms to free-market capitalism.

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Altcoins Bitcoin Business Ethereum News Technology

Everyone could experience Travel Using this Booking Platform

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Everyone Could Experience Travel Using This Booking Platform

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted almost everyone’s life, livelihoods and whole industries worldwide, especially the travel industry. Now the United States of America is opening up again for travel, as of the 29th November 2021. The 20-month travel ban was finally lifted that barred nationals from over 30 countries from entry into the United States’ territory. Of course, things could change at any moment with the advent of the new variant of Covid-19 that was first detected in South Africa with infections tabled from several countries around the world.

Regardless of this, some countries significantly hit by the pandemic that rely on tourism for their economic stability are being forced to make hard decisions in this difficult time. However, with the growing travel demand again, the prices for travel-related services are at their heights. Prices for gas, plane fairs, and hotel accommodation are reaching unprecedented highs. Travelers are scrambling to snatch any deals that may still be available in these uncertain times.

Blockchain to the rescue

The price changes in the travel industry can be tricky to stay on top of. Blockchain can help address these changes. One company has launched in an attempt to fix this problem and capitalize from it as well. BitBook has launched some weeks ago, in October. The platform offers members booking options to travel and also earn cryptocurrency. The platform is giving back to those travelers that are using their platform to make their bookings. They are also rewarding travelers who invite new users to BitBook. On top of that, the platform is also allowing users the opportunity to earn if they make engaging content.

What is the focus of BitBook?

Bitbook has its attention on its community. They focus, in a special way on making the user experience significantly rewarding as their users do a task they already planned to. With all the unique selling points presented, the platform has ensured that the would-be traveler has a large enough selection of airlines, car rentals, and hotels to choose from. So far, Bitbook has access to at least 400,000 hotels. It also has access to 300 airlines. In terms of car rentals, BitBooks gives its users access to Hertz and Sixtz.

Going Head-to-head with the giants

Two of KuCoin’s former executives are among the founders of BitBook. The platform has a lot going for it including its technically experienced founders. The team decided to create this solution when they looked at how travel was being done. They saw a gap when they realized that blockchain had the potential to be extremely competitive in an industry with old but high-performing incumbents. These incumbents include Expedia group and Booking holdings. These two platforms alone are responsible for at least 90% of the industry’s market share.

As it previously stood, hotels are made to pay huge sums towards commission on these platforms. This commission can be pretty hefty and is sometimes about 30%. In addition to the commission fee, hotels must also pay 3-5% for processing payments. All these costs make business more challenging, especially for startups interested in joining the space. The team saw this gap and decided to disrupt the whole industry. They used no venture capital and are focusing on growing their community. Their strategy is different and perhaps why they may succeed. They are also forming useful partnerships to increase their offerings. These partners include Priceline, among others.

The Future of Travel

As users earn BBT tokens when they book their trips through the platform, these users can also make money by staking. With the recent announcement of their “Create and Earn” offer. Bitbooks intends of keeping these rewards going for the next 20 years.

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Ethereum News NFT

NFT slides, FTX.US includes Ethereum NFTs and more

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Nft Slides, Ftx.us Includes Ethereum Nfts And More

A lot is going on in the world of NFTs. Innovators and stakeholders are busy making profitable and interesting projects. Here are some of those developments:

Warner Bros’ Matrix NFT

Astronomical demand for the Matrix NFT avatar by Warner Bros’ continues. The demand was so large on Nifty’s that it led to that processes payments to crash.

Some weeks ago, Warner Bros studio announced that it be releasing some more NFTs for sale. This is an element of their promotional campaign strategy for their latest movie. “Matrix Resurrection” is an addition to the Matrix series. Many ardent fans have waited for years for Warner Bros to make and release the Matrix Resurrection. Matrix Resurrection will be playing in theatres from the 22nd December 2021 in the U.S. and other parts of the world later. The studio plans to sell 100,000 individualistic Matrix-inspired avatars. They plan to sell each of these NFTs for US$ 50. On the 30th of November, over 300,000 Matrix fans stood waiting for the drop. Nifty’s had to continuously commence and cease the queue because it kept reaching maximum capacity. Their platform could not smoothly handle the demand.

Unfortunately, this was not the only infrastructural issue that they experienced. More disruptions happened after the queue was ceased multiple times. The purchase button simply did not work at times. Some users were moved up or down the queue, randomly. In addition, some transactions failed at the checkout mark. Fortunately, Nifty is working hard at addressing all of these issues. Nifty has apologized to fans for all the mishaps and even offered fans that queued on the 30th November 2021 the opportunity to redeem a “glitch in the Matrix” NFT for their troubles.

Baby Shark NFTs

NFTs of this character will soon be released by their creators, Pinkfong. Baby Shark has seen broad popularity and surprise success for its enchanting kid’s song. The NFTs that Pinkfong will release will show content from the music video. The array of nonfungible tokens includes 1/1 and five limited ones. The nonfungible tokens show the Baby Shark character with its family of five. These are in a series of animated holographic GIFs with a background of new and original music.

Interested in buying these NFTs? You can find them for auction or sale on Makersplace in December 2021. The company has planned to offset the carbon emission emitted from the sale using the environmental sustainability services of Aerial, a platform that offers these types of services. So far, the video of Baby Shark on Youtube has racked in over 9.7 million views.

Students Raise US$3,000 towards MBA Scholarship Fund

Students at INSEAD’s Paris branch managed to crowdfund US$3,000. These funds were collected for the school’s scholarship fund called The “Robin Hood” fund. They raised these funds through the sale of nonfungible tokens. These NFTs were created by Ferinand Issels, Michelle Yu, and two others. These NFTs are Nyan cat-inspired. The NFT depicts the fictional hero, Robin Hood, riding a salamander. The salamander represents a connection with the school as the school’s emblem also depicts it.

The NFT has been titled “RobinGood #1”. This project was part of the students’ fundraising campaign for the school’s fund that helps scholars with financial needs. The NFT was sold at auction and is now owned by Alberto Marega, a former student of the school.

FTX Now Supports Ethereum NFTs

FTX.US stated today that its NFT marketplace has increased capabilities by now supporting Ethereum based NFTs. These collectibles are now available on FTX.US. Some of the collectibles you will find there include: Bored Ape Yacht Club, Meebits, and Pudgy Penguins.

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Blockchain Business DeFi News News Regulation

Are Emerging Concerns and Regulations Fitting?

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Are Emerging Concerns And Regulations Fitting?

When it comes to sanctions, regulators can not enforce regulations, when it comes to crypto. For this reason, organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have issues with cryptocurrency. This has been scenario since cryptocurrency entered the limelight years ago. The last years, however, have seen some new disruptive innovations in the cryptocurrency sphere.

The U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary said late this recently that the advent of central bank digital currencies would not thwart the efficiency of sanctions by the United States government. This all comes after comments by Oligarch Deripaska. The expert told the Russian government to utilize cryptocurrency to out maneuver U.S. sanctions. Deripaska also told them they could use it to even undermine the U.S. dollar. Deripaska stated that the U.S. was anti-cryptocurrency because it could make U.S. sanctions effectively useless. He also said crypto could in turn upset the U.S. economy.

The U.S. government has taken a strong handed stance on dealing with cryptocurrency companies that are in support of such causes. This US administration has looked to some cryptocurrency exchanges as the culprits for enabling cyberattacks like ransomware. They state that these attacks are made through other nation states that contend with them.

The Magnitude of Concerns Prompting Regulations

In the light of numerous cyber attacks, the US administration is deeply concerned. Ransomeware and other types of attacks have become prevalent over the last couple of years.

Facilitation of cyberattacks

The U.S. adminstration has marked down some people and cryptocurrency firms on their blacklists. Suex is an over-the-counter broker that stands as an example of one such firm. The broker was added in late this year, to the array of Specially Designated Nationals whose assets have been made inaccessible. Listed entities can not embark in financial transactions with anyone that appears on this list. Recently, in November 2021, the regulator slapped Chatex with sanctions. Chatex is a cryptocurrency exchange. The regulator also took into custody US$ 6.1 million worth of cryptocurrency tokens from the enterpise. Why where these enterpises sanctioned? These entities were listed because these firms facilitated sales of crypto that was later used to compensate hackers for cyberattacks (i.e. ransomware).

A media outlet, Cointelegraph discussed these matters with an expert at TRM Labs. TRM is a blockchain intelligence protocol. This expert, Ari Redb, once worked at the United States Treasury. The expert said that these exchanges were nested exchanges or parasitic service providers for virtual assets and non-compliant. These companies piggy-back off of bigger compliant exchanges. By doing this, these exchanges benefit from the infrastructure and liquidity of these bigger exchanges. Such exchanges are in compliant ecosystems in the crypto-sphere however, these businesses themselves lack the procedures to not be affected by unlawful financial risk.

It is said that the U.S. government says they look at the ransomware problem not as a crypto problem but a cyber problem. The US administration is focusing on boosting cyber protection and going after offenders and not the whole crypto industry. These service providers in the crypto spaces that the US government is after include VASPs and darknet mixing services.

Terrorist Financing

Another huge headache for regulators is the problem of terrorist financing that crypto has sometimes facilitated. This is one of the reasons that prompted India to consider banning certain types of cryptocurrency trading. This government legislation in India subsequently led to the region’s crypto stock markets tanking when the development was aired.

Regulators are not going to backtrack on Regulations

The future is coming, regardless of what anyone wants. Regulators are intensely focused at now reigning in the under-regulated space of cryptocurrency. This growing desire of governments worldwide is likely to continue to grow.
This is regardless of whether crypto will be relegated to just another type of investment product or the “new” most widely used “money” of the future.

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Bitcoin Business News Regulation

India Crypto community misinterpreted private crypto ban, says crypto bill creator

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India Crypto Community Misinterpreted Private Crypto Ban, Says Crypto Bill Creator

A ban was recently announced in India. The creator of this cryptocurrency bill, Subhash Garg, the former Finance Secretary disagreed with the idea of banning private crypto. The Former Finance Secretary said that the crypto bill was misunderstood: private crypto was not banned. He emphasized the incredible potential of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain industry. Regarding how the bill was described, Garg said, “it was perhaps a mistake” when he was interviewed by News 18. The description was misleading to the general public and undoubtedly led to the fears that led to mass panic selling of cryptocurrency on India’s stock exchanges.

Garg’s Take on Crypto legislation and stated ban

The former Finance secretary thinks that the government ought to ratify cryptocurrency bills after engaging various stakeholders, including cryptocurrency investors. The bill does not elaborate on what it means by banning “private” cryptocurrency trading. However, it does go on to suggest that this private trading is banned.

The Confusion

Since there was a lack of clarity on the bill, the cryptocurrency community in India interpreted it in their ways. One way people understood the bill was that it was banning all non-government-issued cryptocurrencies. Another way that this bill was interpreted was that the bill excluded crypto on public blockchains like that of Ether or Bitcoin.

The Former Finance Secretary also addressed an issue regarding the classification of the assets. He said that there was a flaw, therein. Garg expressed that cryptocurrency exchanges do not have broad interests. Rather these exchanges tend to have a smaller focus and do not typify the collective cryptocurrency community.

More Issues to Address

Garg talked about the complexities of the central bank’s digital currency initiatives. He highlighted that of India as one that also has such complexities inherent. He believes that the Indian government must initially work on solving the current challenges at hand. Some of these challenges that he cited included the lack of smartphones and the issuing of digital wallets.

The Indian Crypto Market is Still Attractive regardless of the Ban

Regardless of all these misunderstandings and mistakes in India’s announcing or clarifying of legislation, the crypto market remains attractive to interested crypto investors. International firms continue to enter the market. One such firm is Coinstore. Coinstore is a crypto exchange from Singapore. So far, Coinstore has decided to invest in a US$ 20 million fund to establish 3 business premises in the region.

A Coinstore spokesman was upbeat about the future of investing in India’s crypto market. The spokesman felt encouraged that India would make a progressive crypto regulatory framework. Stern Know Your Customer processes for customers, security prerequisites for exchanges, and overall regulation for crypto would help Indian users be a lot safer trading on India’s crypto exchanges, said the spokesman. He added that it would also help to make crypto laws more clear for all stakeholders.

About India

India, a country located in Southern Asia stands out among nations. The country happens to be the most populated democratic nation. It also happens to be the seventh-biggest country, geographically. Its neighbors are Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. India is also boundaried by the Indian Ocean to its south and the Arabian Sea to the southwest. India used to be a poor nation in the 1951s and could have been considered comparatively destitute then. However, since then, India’s population has increasingly become wealthy and its middle class has grown too. The nation has become a fast-growing big economy. It is also now a center for information communication technology services. Even though India has managed to reduce its poverty rate, the economic disparities have grown. There are more super-rich Indians in the population whilst millions of Indians remain at the poverty line.

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Bitcoin Blockchain News Technology

Binance CEO Highlights one Factor

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Binance Ceo Highlights One Factor

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, revealed some information about using their cryptocurrency trading platform. Binance is the globe’s leading cryptocurrency exchange by volume of trades. The CEO, Zhao (also called “CZ”) told Forbes in an interview that the main criteria for listing crypto on his platform were essentially the number of users the currency has.

The Factors

After stating that the main factor was the number of users for a cryptocurrency, the CEO continued by stating that there also are other factors. These other factors include addresses on blockchain, social media audience and code commits. Regardless of these other factors, he emphasized that ultimately it was the number of users of a cryptocurrency that mattered the most. He said that if a crypto coin has a significant number of users, then we will list it. That’s the overwhelming significant attribute. He added that meme token that also had a large number of users were also listed, eventhough he personally does not “get” meme tokens. The CEO stated that they make these decisions based on the community and that his personal opinion does not weigh in.

Why is this the Main determining factor for Binance?

Binance’s listing tips highlight how important the number of users is, among other factors. Their rationale is that if a crypto token has significant numbers of users, it shows that that cryptocurrency’s product has actual values that these users are indeed convinced of. That perception of the product’s value is paramount. It is also the easiest for them to measure. The CEO added that it would be prudent for applicants to the exchange to include their user statistics in their application form. It would aid their application a great deal in terms of their listing application is successful or not.

Commentators on the process of listing such as Sergei Khitrove, another founder had additional insights to offer. Khitrov is the founder of a crypto listing-focused platform called Listing.Help. He said that the reason large exchanges like Binance do not list minor tokens is that platforms like Binance do not make their profits from listings. Khitrov said these large exchanges are profitable because of the large trading volumes that are conducted through their exchanges.

The Misunderstanding

Many projects do not understand this main factor regarding Binance and other large exchanges. If they do not have the numbers of users trading with their crypto, they do not stand a chance at getting listed on a large exchange. Khitrov advised that if these projects want to get listed on large exchanges, they needed to focus on establishing a growing community around their cryptocurrency. They should attempt to acquire a large audience, not just 500 or 10,000 users. He recommended that token creators that do not yet have large audiences start by using smaller exchanges when they begin.

Currently, Binance lists 346 cryptocurrencies and has a trading volume of US$ 28 billion. These include the major cryptocurrencies and several meme tokens. So, you see Bitcoin, Ethereum and even Dogecoin and Shiba listed on the exchange.

Binance Competitors

One of Binance’s competitors is OKEx. It follows behind Binance in terms of trading values and generates US$ 7 billion in trading volume. OKEx has 31 coins listed. Coinbase is another exchange. It follows suit with a trading volume of US$6 Billion. Coinbase supports 123 cryptocurrencies.

CEX vs DEX

Decentralized exchanges are most populated with listed currencies. Some decentralized exchanges do not require permission to get listed or even contact the exchange. Examples of such exchanges are PancakeSwap and Uniswap. This is an exchange on Binance Smart Chain. PancakeSwap has over 3200 listed cryptocurrency coins. Uniswap has over 1800 cryptocurrency coins listed on its decentralized exchange.

The dangers of no permissions

Some weeks ago, PancakeSwap listed a scam. The scam was that of a Squid Game token. The token was inspired by the popular Netflix show by the same name.

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Bitcoin Business DeFi News News

The Changing Face of Finance

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The Changing Face Of Finance

In the world of crypto finance, quite a lot is happening. CryptoRank released insights that showed that over 1 million Ether has been burned since August of this year. This amounts to US$ 4.24 Billion. This is since the implementation of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559.

This event indicated the transformation of Ethereum’s fee structure. Through this change, Ethereum’s free structure now includes a portion of the base fee when it burns. Opensea has been the biggest contributor to the burning of Ethereum to a tune of US$ 467 million. After Opensea’s burning, Ethereum transfers and Uniswap v2 have amounted to US$ 414 million and US$ 393 million respectively.

Token supply has been significantly impacted over the past couple of months. However, Ethereum is still an inflationary asset. This is according to UltraSound. Ultrasounds states that 3.3 million ETH has been burned yearly. This is compared to 5.4 million ETH that’s being issued. This has amounted to a growth of 1.8% per year. When only a 30 day period is analyzed, the data shows that ETH burning is 4.7 million annually. It also shows that supply growth is much less, at only 0.6%. All this indicates to advancement towards deflation in the near future.

Square’s Take on Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange’s for finance

Jack Dorsey, the CEO of both Twitter and Square published a white paper this week. The white paper proposes to make a centralized Bitcoin exchange called tbDEX. Users will still have to input their “Know Your Customer” information. That is as required by the traditional finance industry. This is how the the exchange is unique from other traditional decentralized exchanges. Users will be granted access to the services once they submit this information. The functionality they will then be granted access to includes the capability of connecting wallets and trading digital assets. The document states tough regulatory requirements as a significant reason why cryptocurrency ecosystem is booming. The publication added that it would not be policed or made permissible to any centralized entity. They also added that a utility token would not be considered.

The decentralized exchange would have a messaging feature. This would be used to incorporate trust into the exchange. The feature would use software like the public key infrastructure. For this reason, the publication is considered a good start. The team is encouraging the public to discuss the proposal openly with them.

The document stated that there goal would be to establish an exchange that is resistant to censorship, offers unpermissioned access and the maximization of competition for liquidity. The overall goal being to provide a commodity around the world. The document added that “…nothing in principle precludes anonymous transactions for financial privacy on the tbDEX network.”

A US$ 1 Trillion Dollar importunity in the metaverse

Grayscale released a report authored by David Grider and Matt Maximo. Grayscale is a crypto investment powerhouse. The report by Grayscale declared that the metaverse as one of the most promising opportunities for growth. It also cited Decentraland on multiple times. The enterprise believes that the metaverse is one of the biggest opportunities for growth following a ten times increase of active metaverse wallets between 2020 and June 2021.

The researchers also specified a number of factors that could encourage the sector’s growth. Factors include a growth in leisure time of the younger generations and changes in how users interact with technology from a cultural vantage point. Another proposed factor is progress with community based Web 3.0 play to earn models. The report further shares a sense of optimizm about the growth of the metaverse world. It concludes that this new market will expand to a valuation of US$ 1 trillion over the next number of years.

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Business News NFT

Are NFTs a new type of social network?

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Are Nfts A New Type Of Social Network?

NFTs (Nonfungible tokens) are new on the scene but provide promising possibilities social projects. The social aspect of NFTs is undeniable. The fact that they are emerging into the mainstream is easy to see. Art enthusiasts, enamored with the diversity of NFT art enjoying the new technology.

All of this makes some commentators feel that nonfungible tokens may become a new form of social media. The thinking is that this would be based on creativity, ownership, and contribution.

NFT Project groups are the social Hubs

Weekly, groups are set up on Discord and Telegraph created to facilitate the running of NFT projects. They become the home of these projects and assist people to acquire knowledge about NFTs, work together and coordinate themselves. On mainstream social media platforms like Twitter, there is a lot of discussion around NFTs. Seemingly, people from all walks of life are joining the conversation. Some are people with extensive experience with NFTs. Other people just stumbled on NFTs and are learning about them. All in all these spaces allow novice NFT users easy access to acquire knowledge.

If you take a look at these types of groups, you soon learn that they are groups of people that share the same interests in trying to express themselves digitally. Members seem to also have a mutual desire to connect with similar-minded individuals. On this basis, often you find that values sprout in these groups and gain consensus. These core beliefs and values often are around the quality of the art, how rare the concept is, and ideas that work well with the rest of the aspects of the group. Soon enough, these groups identify leaders that are willing to take the helm in their gatherings. As a result, these groups tend to have means of coordinating themselves and progressing towards common goals.

Groups establish roles, values, and acceptable conduct. It resembles that of animal traits or concepts in the nonfungible token artwork. Groups have their own “culture” but across groups, there is some shared vocabulary for those familiar with it. For example, in almost all groups, members greet themselves with “gm”, shorthand for “good morning”. A shorthand made popular by CryptoTwitter.

The Next Big Phase

So much is going on in the crypto-world with advances and innovating solutions to problems. At the same time, the world’s most popular social media platforms have reached something of a plateau, in terms of user acquisition. Regulations around the world about digital privacy are causing people to wonder what the future will look like. It looks like the world will enter into a new era soon, in terms of social media usage. This new era or place thereof has been dubbed the “metaverse”. People want to be able to interact without feeling like their online privacy is at stake.

The Metaverse and what it may offer

Some think that the Metaverse is one of the most promising aspects of the next era of social media. Recently, the social media giant – Twitter, announced an NFT collection. This collection is creator-led. In addition, it is encapsulating NFT verification for user profiles. Another company making contributions in the NFT space is Coinbase. Coinbase has announced its intention to start a marketplace for NFTs. With these growing advancements in the NFT space, one can easily see that progress towards mainstream acceptance of NFTs is underway.

Governance with NFTs

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations or DAOs have sprouted up with the intention of groups to self-govern using these vehicles and benefit from collective efforts. With DAOs that collectively own NFTs, you have an excellent example of members being rewarded for their efforts and ownership rights.

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Bitcoin Business DeFi News News

Exchange Traded Funds Gaining Ground

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Exchange Traded Funds Gaining Ground

The New York Stock Exchange had a new stock listed on the 19th of October 2021, that’s worth noting because of how progress the type of asset is. This was the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy EFT (BITO). In the first 24 hours of its being launched, the exchange-traded fund experienced an influx. This influx was approximately US$1 Billion in natural volume. Then Bitcoin itself soon after reached a never-seen-before high for its price in US dollars. These developments are arising about 7 days after the EFT’s application expired. The expiration made it possible for this product to go ahead with this listing.

This development is of landmark proportions for the United States. However, it has also affected other global markets. Assuming BITO experiences continued success on the New York Stock Exchange, it may herald the listing of many more stocks of this nature. BITO allows for exposure to Bitcoin derivatives from the cryptocurrency’s futures contracts and not the cryptocurrency itself.

Why is this advantageous for investors?

Since exposure is to Bitcoin derivatives from Bitcoin’s futures contracts and not Bitcoin directly, the main advantage for investors is that they can enjoy a certain level of insulation from the cryptocurrency’s inherent fluctuations in price. This type of product and others like it with similar insulation capabilities can help squash the very legitimate concerns cryptocurrency investors might have. In addition, these products could comfort institutional investors who have stayed away from investments in cryptocurrency mainly because of risks associated with the volatility thereof.

The Significance of this development

Other than the possibility that if BITO is a success others may follow, there is also the positive light that such a development by the US presents. It may encourage the rest of the world to invest in funds of this nature. In addition, the positivity that Australian institutions benefit from, in regards to this stands only to strengthen the industry. It has allowed Australia to step up and position itself as a leader in innovation and bringing cryptocurrency towards the mainstream.

What Do Australian Lawmakers say?

Essentially, policymakers are in agreement based on a recent report. This report was by the Parliament of Australia’s Select Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre. The committee suggested a framework that places the nation on a fair playing field with the United States, United Kingdom, and Singapore.

What Next?

BetaShares, an Australian fund management firm has recently launched its offering. This may be thanks to the frameworks that are already in place. BetaShares is offering its Crypto Innovators ETF on the Australian Stock Exchange. The Crypto Innovators ETF is listed under the ticker “CRYP”.

The fund allows investors to monitor several crypto-companies. This is based on the Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators 30 Index. Coinbase, Riot Blockchain, and MicroStrategy are some of the cryptocurrency-focused firms that the index’s core portfolio encompasses.

How is Crypto Innovators ETF performing?

Within 15 minutes of the fund being launched, the fund broke the Australian Stock Exchange’s record. It managed to amass US #1.2 million by the end of the opening day of its trading.

What May the Future Hold?

Advancements like these seem to herald more exciting times for the industry. It may simply be just the beginning. The potential that cryptocurrency solutions offer seems to be unending. Without having to invest in the more risky options, there are reputable assets available on the market in their hundreds for would-be investors to pick and choose from. If BetaShare’s new investment product and others like it are taken seriously by the Australian market, it may usher in the influx of capital into Australia’s markets. This would in turn benefit the greater economy.

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Business Gaming News

Blockchain Gaming Platform Rebooted

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Blockchain Gaming Platform Rebooted

In the current gaming world, distrust is a common feature between enthusiasts and in-game assets. The gaming economy continues to grow even faster. However, players have had challenges verifying the scarcity of assets and sometimes actual ownership thereof. Additional issues include those that arise regarding the technologies being set up and remote monitoring of secure systems.

Blockchain has enabled many industries a level of accountability that previously simply was not there. Of course, this is just of the technology’s advantages. Blockchain processes transactions that are incorruptible between strangers online. This particular feature can allow non-biased for all gamers through the scarcity of in-game assets. These assets can include nonfungible tokens with actual amounts and changes disclosed upon receipt.

Night Life Crypto

One such gaming platform that manages to do this is Night Life Crypto. Night Life Crypto is a new startup. It has a game called Night Life Drifting that is a racing game in nature. The game is action arcade style. The game boasts integration with crypto for play-to-earn functionality, Nlife tokens, and playable nonfungible tokens. All this allows its gamers to earn in-game assets on the MATIC (Polygon network).

The opportunity that Night Life offers through its gaming services allows users stiff security, user data protection, and usability, and zero transaction fees whilst in the game. The platform handles this engineering and the upcoming release of its main pilot game. Members of the team are calling it a complete game including lore and backstories that could even become a novel.

What does Night Life Crypto Gaming Offer

Commentators say the game offers very fun gameplay and an excellent quality graphical user interface. Users also have multiple ways in which they can earn NLIFE. Interestingly enough, there is also one way in which users can earn without even playing the game itself. The team of Night Life Crypto says that this particular feature is brand new to the crypto gaming industry. Users can use in-game assets themselves, trade them or sell them in the marketplace.

The partnership between Night Life Crypto and Polygon will showcase a new car called the Matic GT. Interestingly enough, the vehicle is also a nonfungible token that gamers can take for a spin in the game itself. The setting for the races are a Tokyo-like city. Users get to race in 5 districts and numerous sub-districts. Each of these can be bought as NFTs by projects. Companies can also purchase advertisements in their brand. Advertisements can also be purchased on billboards that are around the city.

The Matic GT

The car NFT is released in agreement with the Night Life Crypto partnership. It has a unique front, a spoiler, rear bumper, paint, rims, and license plate NFT that are available for gamers to buy. A number of these selections will be made into a one-time design. This series is will have a gold color paint for the Matic GT in limited edition. The limited gold paint for Matic GT will have a mint limit of 3. As of now, Night Life Crypto is burning 20% of the NFT series weekly. This is as they raise prices by 20% as part of their EVP (Economic Value Program).

Additional Features of Night Life Crypto

The platform will provide means to aid the loyal community of the NLife community. These include NLife being made available on Polygon network. Gamers will also be able to use a bridging service designed by NLife.

Progress

The plans that Night Life Crypto has unveiled, including their partnerships can position the startup as one of the world’s leading blockchain gaming platforms.

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Business News NFT

Neurodiversity and Support for Art Non-profits by Moon Landing Project

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Neurodiversity And Support For Art Non-profits By Moon Landing Project

Just like physical art pieces, NFTs can be sold at an auction for charity or donated. Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are certificates of ownership. NFTs represent digital works of art, music, videos, memorabilia, audio, and other items. They have since emerged as a very popular asset. This is because they allow creatives to make and sell their work.

The world’s biggest nonfungible token marketplace recently exceeded US$1.6 billion in monthly trading volumes.

Advantages of NFTs

Nonfungible tokens will attract tax generous deductions if you decide to donate to nonprofit groups. Additionally, if a creative sells their NFT, they also stand a chance of earning royalties of up to 10%. This is through smart contracts and algorithms that execute on the blockchain and allow creators to earn as well, in compensation from indirect sales.

NFTs can fund the building of a college in rural Malawi to finance the assistance of paramedics in a pandemic.

Lisa Slominski and Nick Dehadray, the founders of Moon Landing, told a media outlet about their coming NFT auction. Moon Landing is a neurodiversity initiative that’s just started up in the NFT space. The upcoming auction is set to assist contemporary artists with intellectual disabilities and the studio they work for. The array of art is titled “NFToons”. Is currently available for preview. A public auction of the works will art on January 2022.

The artists behind The collection

The collection’s pieces of art were made by 8 artists in total. These 8 artists are working with Project Onward. Project Onward is a non-profit organization based in Chicago, USA. This organization aids artists in several ways. These artists it supports are all individuals with some form of intellectual disability or social need. Louis Demarco and Rudy Bradford are two of the eight artists that this auction is showcasing and auctioning for.

What are the artworks?

The artwork to be auctioned is very diverse and creative, as is the neurodiversity of the artists themselves. Bradford has a work created around the concepts of Superman and cats. The artist’s painting was selected by NFToons and animated. The initiative also had the artist sing on the soundtrack the Superman theme song as a cat rendition. Demarco’s work involved drawings, mantras, and even a screenplay or tv show. Demarco’s NFT is an illustration of two of his character’s apartments. The artist also created his soundtrack for this tv show. His audio is available for that asset.

NFToons will donate 80% of the auction’s proceeds to charity. The charity in question is the one that these artists work at called Project Onward.

Why this initiative?

The founders of Moon Landing were asked why they chose to work on this project. Slowminski shared that she had worked in the larger field of contemporary art of neurodiversity for 3 years. Dehadray stated that NFTs would be a great means for these types of artists to sell their work and command possibly better rates for their creativity.

Opportunity for NFTs to create a more equitable world for all artists

Showminski shared her thoughts on how powerful NFTs could be in creating fair earning opportunities for neurodiverse creatives from all over the world. The founder thinks NFT spaces can make matters more democratic for creatives. The space also has the potential of cutting out the middle man and allowing artists to interact directly with their audiences. They have received interest from influencers so far, including Gmoney. However, this was not without a little criticism. The project attracted a comment that they should include more diversity in the space. The challenge the initiative has, however, is a lack of visibility.

Moon Landing hopes to grow in its efforts and this is just the beginning. They already identified two other studios that they are thinking of doing more projects within the near future, also in support of neurodiverse creatives.

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Business News Regulation Technology

Thailand Encouraged to Allow Crypto-Tourism

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Thailand Encouraged To Allow Crypto-tourism

Local Thai media says a drive for economic growth by focusing on digital nomads is coming closer to reality for Thailand. The body responsible for the matter, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has intended to start its utility token named TAT Coin. This was since September. These intentions come as an aspect of a planned “crypto tourism” campaign. Their goal is to draw affluent crypto holders who are also digital nomads. TAT has conducted talks with the Stock Exchange of Thailand regarding TAT Coin’s issuance.

Is Thailand ready for cryptocurrency tourism?

According to a report by Bangkok Post, the required prerequisites and infrastructure for the crypto asset are ready. They are now waiting for the go-ahead from the Thai government.

What do stakeholders have to say?

The CEO and founder of a local crypto exchange called Bitkub, Jirayut Srupsrisopa encouraged lawmakers to approve TAT Coin’s commencement. Srupsrisopa made these comments at the recent “Transform tourism with crypto-tourism” conference. He added that the private sectors are all set to make available digital infrastructure but were holding back for the government to set things in motion by doing their bit. This would include the government ratifying the required laws, regulations, or policies to help enable the functioning of digital asset markets in Thailand.

Bitkub’s founder also stated that Thailand’s gross domestic product could grow up to six times if they strengthened this crypto market.

What is Thai Government’s take?

The Bangkok Post reported that Yuthasak Supasorn, the TAT governor stated that the crypto-tourism campaign involved establishing a new tourism ecosystem. This new ecosystem would utilize digital technologies to allow affluent populations to funnel their financial resources directly to tourism operators without the middlemen of agents or brokers.

The governor of TAT also stated that this development would assist the recovery of local businesses that have suffered financially due to the effect of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

The Impact of the Global Covid-19 Pandemic on Thailand

According to a report by Al Jazeera, the once-bustling and much-loved tourism hotspot that Thailand is known for has been severally impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic that continues to rage on. Al Jazeera reported that the country only received 106,117 tourists from January 2021 to October 2021. These numbers are starkly different from what is the norm outside of a pandemic. Before the pandemic, Thailand, on average received approximately 40 million yearly visitors. The contrast is shocking.

The way forward for crypto tourism in Thailand

Supasorn advised the private sector that there remain some work to be completed by the government in preparation for the commencement of this innovative solution. He added that since TAT is a state enterprise, there remain several regulatory matters that they need to discuss with related parties before execution. They would also need to iron out matters to do with risk management of the crypto tourism solution because of the cybercrimes and customer protection matters.

About Thailand

Thailand, previously known as Siam, is a country in Southeast Asia and is completely in a tropical region. Its flora and fauna are very diverse. Bangkok is its capital city. The country has the second-largest economy in the region. Since 1988, it has managed to lower the poverty rate by a whopping 65%. Regardless of that, poor living conditions are still a problem for many Thai. Thailand is famous for its beautiful tropical beaches, rich royal palaces, historic ruins, and Buddhist temples. Some say the reasons why Thailand is so popular is because of the delicious food, the prices, the amazing hotels, affordable hostels, the ease of commuting around, and the gorgeous tropical islands.

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Blockchain Business News Regulation

Tough Rules Proposed by South Korea Regulator

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Tough Rules Proposed By South Korea Regulator

A report was released recently by South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC), relating to crypto investment in South Korea. This report outlined a new definition of cryptocurrencies. It also offered new procedures for token issuers and punishments for those that do not comply.

Implications of these New Rules by South Korea

These new stern rules once imposed will regulate individuals and platforms that mint non-art NFTs (nonfungible tokens) meant for trading purposes. These rules would also apply to decentralized finance as well as other types of cryptocurrency projects.

This report by the FSC gives more information on aspects it tabled in the act on the Protection of Cryptocurrency Users. This act has been sent to the National Assembly for discussion.

What has been proposed?

This newly proposed legislation offers rules for token issuers who intend on having their tokens traded on Korean exchanges. It also offers punishments for those that may trespass against these rules by manipulating the market or trading with undisclosed information.

Who does the report address?

Initially, the report addresses businesses that issue crypto-tokens. It includes those that provide initial coin offering operators, DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), NFT minting services, and possibly other service providers in the crypto sector.

Requirements by the FSC

The South Korean regulator will require these legal entities to remit a white paper and earn favorable ratings from a reputable token evaluation service. The entities would also have to get their project legally reviewed and disclose regular business reports to their users.

Before these changes, the FSC did not consider nonfungible tokens as assets that required regulating. However, that decision was overturned recently. More assets that are now going to be regulated include privacy tokens and stablecoins. An example of a privacy token includes Monera. Tether is an example of a stablecoin.

What is the cost of non-compliance?

Legal entities that do not comply with this rule would have to shoulder a penalty for their transgression. This penalty could carry a minimum of 5 years in prison. Convicted offenders would also have to pay up 3 to 5 times the value of the profits made during their criminal activities or non-compliance with these laws. These laws are not new in and of themselves. They resemble those from the Capital Market Act that are already applied.

Why are these new laws being established?

The FSC made evaluations and determined that there existed problems in the current laws, in particular the Special Reporting Act. This law appeared to not protect investors as well as it should. This law eventually caused numerous exchanges in South Korea to close shop because most exchanges failed to comply. This was because these laws were tough.

Commentators believe that this new law is a positive development. It is likely to lead to safer business for investors in digital assets and help the industry develop.

About South Korea

South Korea is located on the Southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The country’s neighbors include North Korea, the Sea of Japan, and the Yellow Sea. South Korea has a population of 51.6 million people. The urban populations are booming, with Seoul being the biggest. This country’s economy has grown astonishingly since the 1960s. From then to the present day, this nation has managed to move from being a developing country to one of the world’s most industrialized countries. What helped South Korea accomplish this amazing feat is their development of exportable goods and their large population of highly skilled and educated workforce.

The country’s government also put in place support structures. The government and its private sectors worked together to develop a strategy of targeting industries to develop. From 1962 to the present that strategy was implemented in a series of economic development plans. The country’s current focus is high-tech industries including information technology. For this reason, regulating crypto seemingly falls in line with the country’s national development plans for economic growth and prosperity.

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Blockchain Business Regulation

German Coalition Customizing law to fit Cryptocurrency

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German Coalition Customizing Law To Fit Cryptocurrency

In a coalition agreement, Germany’s new government has noted cryptocurrency and is advocating for a fair means of doing business for both traditional finance and the innovative fintech industry.

The New German Government

Recently, a trio of Germany’s parties agreed to work together in a coalition. This coalition deal is composed of the Social Democrats, the Green Party, and the Free Democrats. This coalition would lead from December 2021.

The Coalition Agreement

The coalition released a 177-page document of their agenda. The agreement calls for a fresh approach in relation to new financial innovations, opportunities born from them, and also related risks. The intention is to make the supervisory law for European financial markets suitable for digitization. They also aim at making the laws workable for complex group structures. The intention is to create comprehensive and safe supervision of emerging business models.

The agreement expresses the need for combined European supervision for cryptocurrency. They urged crypto owners to always identify ownership of cryptocurrency assets.

Addressing Tough Issues

The agreement also includes instruction for the European Union supervisory authority to not only focus on the traditional financial sector. Rather, the agreement advises the authority should also prevent misuse of cryptocurrency to fund illegal activities such as money laundering and terrorist activities.

The Formation of the Coalition

This coalition is formed after Angela Merkel’s era. She led for 16 years as Germany’s Chancellor. Now she is retiring and Olaf Scholz will fill her shoes. Olaf Scholz is a leader from Germany’s Social Democrats. It is reported that the coalition took two months of back-and-forth discussions following the country’s federal election that took place on the 26th of September 2021.

The Region’s Adoption of Cryptocurrency

Whilst Germany will shortly institute a new coalition government, nations in the region are also advancing when it comes to cryptocurrency adoption. The European Council agreed to two proposals. The European Council oversees the European Union’s political agenda. The two proposals that it has adopted are “Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets” and “Digital Operational Resilience Act”.

“Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets” (MiCA) framework

This proposal was first drafted back in September 2020 by the European Commission. The intention of this proposal is to develop a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency asset market. The framework would be designed specifically to aid innovation and would benefit from the inherent possibilities of cryptocurrency assets. The proposal still needs to be ratified by the European Parliament. However, if it is ratified, it will facilitate stronger regulation towards cryptocurrency issuers by having tougher requirements. It is worth noting that utility tokens and NFTs (nonfungible tokens) will not be bound by this particular law.

Assessment from Analysts

Some analysts consider this possible new law as the most important cryptocurrency law for the industry. One Reddit user, u/BelgianPolitics said that these rules would be far-reaching. Everyone in the European Union would have to abide by them. The user cited the “Brussel’s Effect” as another reason why these rules were so noteworthy. The user indicated the possibility of these rules becoming international standards eventually. The commentator added that the world is focused on the US and China as leaders in this arena. However EU, according to this user, “is casually leading”.

What would these EU in cryptocurrency trading mean?

The suggested changes to the European Union would demand that companies collect details on the recipients and senders of cryptocurrency and related assets. These changes would make Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies more traceable. It would also help curb money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Time can only tell how these laws will affect the cryptocurrency sector in the region.

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Bitcoin Business News

New Bitcoin Funds on the Block from Singapore

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New Bitcoin Funds On The Block From Singapore

Two Bitcoin backed funds are now up and running. These are funds by Fintonia Group. These funds are Fintonia Bitcoin Physical Fund and Fintonia Secured Yield Fund. The fund manager is regulated by the MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore). Both funds are institutional-grade. As announced by Fintonia, these funds offer straightforward and safe exposure to Bitcoin for professional investors.

Fintonia Bitcoin Physical Fund

This fund focuses on institutional investors that require direct exposure to Bitcoin. The fund allows them to sell, buy and store big significant sums of the cryptocurrency. Adrian Chng, the founder and chairman of Fintonia told Cointelegraph that the fund purchases physical Bitcoin and not derivative instruments on Bitcoin.

Fintonia Secured Yield Fund

The Fintonia Secured Yield Fund offers investors access to private loans backed by Bitcoin. Chng stated that Bitcoin is an exceptional form of collateral for lending. He added that that is because it trades 24/7, is very liquid, and has almost US$ 30 to US$ 60 billion available every day. In comparison to commodities and various real assets, Bitcoin has these advantages.

Chng stated that these two new funds are now live. Investors can subscribe to the services and redeem them. Chng cited that the funds are open-ended and similar to mutual funds. However, he also stated that these funds are only available to accredited investors.

About Fintonia Group

Fintonia Group is a regulated financial service company that was started up in 2014. Their focus then was on offering financial technology solutions. According to the founder, Chng says his company has been participating in the cryptocurrency industry since crypto’s fledgling era. At present, they focus on cryptocurrency. This is the case now because, they say, it has evolved into a separate asset class.

Dependencies of these Funds

Both the Fintonia Bitcoin Physical Fund and Fintonia Secured Yield Fund depend on the third-party licensed custodian. The custodian stores their clients’ cryptocurrencies on cold wallets. According to the company, these funds are also insured against theft and hacking.

Intentions of Fintonia

The company intends on reducing crypto-to-fiat conflicts. This is a Monetary Association of Singapore regulated entity. They comply with Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering requirements. Fintonia announced that these open-ended funds offer institutional investors a credible legal and regulatory structure. They added that the structure is similar to that of a regular mutual fund.

What Are the Implications of These Developments?

These new funds may further illustrate to the world Singapore’s commitment to spearheading cryptocurrency as a financial solution. Singapore is becoming a central crypto hub. Lawmakers in Singapore have given multiple licenses to legalize cryptocurrency trading in the country.

What as the Monetary Association of Singapore have to say?

Ravi Menon, the managing director of MAS says Singapore is putting together very stringent policies to govern the trade of cryptocurrency in their country. These regulations will further strengthen Singapore’s hold on the world has cryptocurrency’s center.

About Singapore

Singapore is an Asian city-state geographically located in the southern part of the Malay Peninsula. The nation includes a diamond-shaped island called Singapore Island and also 60 tiny islands islets. This country has the largest port in Southeast Asia. It is also bustling. Singapore has a diverse population. Many of its people can trace their roots back to Chinese, Malays, and Indian origins. In terms of development, the rate at which Singapore is urbanizing is extremely fast. At present, Singapore is one of the largest trading hubs of the British empire. The nation has experienced significant economic growth from as far back as 1960 and it continues to grow a powerful fintech and industrial sectors.

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Interview News Opinion People

Meet Munir Moe the 20yr old investor that made a fortune with SHIB

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Meet Munir Moe The 20yr Old Investor That Made A Fortune With Shib

Entrepreneur Munir Moe, investor of Shiba Inu meme coin since early days gained a notorious experience in the crypto field. He has created an automated, low leverage, trading system that allows for intelligent and automated share trading into the pairs that have more volatility. Through this method, he was able to garner profits in excess. The strategy by Munir is seeing profits of at least 30% month on month.

The first 6 months of the life of his strategy have been exceptionally, but not surprisingly, profitable. Connecting to the Binance exchange using an API and locally stored user details, the software can source the most likely profitable opportunities and begin trading – completely autonomously. Not only is the software able to work unsupervised, but it is also extremely good at it. He and his partners are watching 20% increases in their balances every single month.

“… 20% profit on balances every month, since he started in March 2018.”

The trading strategy is the culmination of many years of experience of both Munir Moe and his business partner, making low leverage systems work for them. The system they have created enables people to trade and profit, quickly, easily and with no effort on their part – even if they have never traded before. The strategy needs a balance of at least $5000 to work.

From being born in a humble village, Munir has not had the usual life. Starting his career as a Trading Analyst. Munir was heading to the brilliant progress of many years bringing him a fortune with $SHIB. Munir had been trading since he was 16 years old, and his experience in this field is evident in the staggering success of his profitable strategy.

“As referred from the crypto content writer @munir__huncho with his Instagram post “  https://www.instagram.com/p/CWsIpXvod-e/ ”

Instagram: @munir__huncho

New York, USA

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Bitcoin Business News

Bank of England says Bitcoin Unreliably Volatile as Legal Tender

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Bank Of England Says Bitcoin Unreliably Volatile As Legal Tender

Andrew Bailey, the governor for the Bank of England shared his concerns about El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. El Salvador recently decided to make Bitcoin (BTC) legal tender. Their President, Nayib Bukele also shared the country’s vision to launch what they dubbed “Bitcoin City”.

The Case of El Salvador

El Salvador is the only country in the world that has thus far decided to make cryptocurrency legal tender. This is exciting for bitcoin proponents, especially for those eager to see Bitcoin become a household name. El Salvador has a high adoption rate of cryptocurrency. The country has 2.1 million users of Chivo bitcoin wallet. The represents over 30% of Salvadorians. For a small country with many poor people, it is an impressive adoption rate of this cutting-edge fintech solution.

The governor of The Bank of England argued that this Latin American country’s decision was shocking. He said it was shocking because of how volatile cryptocurrency is. Bitcoin illustrated his point for him as the day El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele made this announcement on the 9th November 2021, the price of Bitcoin surged. Bitcoin’s price went from US$ 43,000 to US$ 68,000 on the very first day of El Salvador’s stating that the cryptocurrency had become legal tender. US$ 68,000 was a new unprecedented high for this cryptocurrency. Since then, the price of Bitcoin has significantly gone down.

It was reported on Bloomberg that Bailey, said that it concerned him that a nation would select a cryptocurrency as its national tender. He also expressed concern about whether El Salvadorians understand the implications of using cryptocurrency as a national currency. He wondered if its citizens were aware of the unstable or erratic growths or dips in the pricing of Bitcoin.

The IMF is Against Bitcoin national currency adoption

Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England also referred to a comment on El Salvador made by the IMF (International Monetary Fund). The IMF is the global body for overseeing global financial systems. The IMF showed a lack of support for the decision by El Salvador to use Bitcoin as national tender. The financial institution laid out notable risks arising by using Bitcoin as legal tender.

Before El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as national tender, the IMF released a warning against the notion back in June. At the time, their warning was in response to El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law. However, regardless of the IMF disagreeing with El Salvador’s plans, the country went ahead and adopted the cryptocurrency as legal tender about 2 months ago.

Fintech Progress by Bank of England

Though Bailey does not agree with adopting cryptocurrency as legal tender, they do agree that a strong case in support of digital currency can be made. However, the case would be far more agreeable if the legal tender is stable, especially for payments. As of now, that is not the case for Bitcoin and other crypto-assets.

All this being said, the Bank of England is looking into the viability of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). These statements come after Sir Jon Cunliffe, the Deputy Governor of BoE said that CBDCs are a game-changing solution in the functionality of money driven by technology.

What about Does the Average English person thinks?

It would appear that most adult English people were not sold on the potential of CBDC. This was according to a survey conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies back in August of this year.

What are CBDCs?

A Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC is an e-based form of a country’s flat currency. This legal tender is issued and policied by a country’s financial authorities.

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Bitcoin DeFi News News

Bitcoin set on surpassing Mastercard on Value transferred

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Bitcoin Set On Surpassing Mastercard On Value Transferred

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies may not be mainstream yet globally but somehow Bitcoin has managed to surpass Paypal in the volume of dollar value transfers and may one day surpass Mastercard.

“When might the Bitcoin network process volumes like Mastercard & Visa”, a report recently released by Blockdata, a market intelligence platform provided some insights. Blockdata showed that the Bitcoin network carried out approximately US$ 489 Billion per quarter in 2021. This is even greater than the world’s leader in online secure and mainstream payments, Paypal. Paypal processed US$ 302 Billion, significantly less than the Bitcoin network. In comparison, Bitcoin transfers about 27% of Mastercard’s US$ 1.8 trillion per quarter. Bitcoin also processes 15% of Visa’s US$ 3.2 trillion. This is astounding, especially since this is just after12 years of existence and is still not a mainstream solution for billions of people around the globe. One wonders what the figures will look like when the whole world discovers it and considers it the norm.

About Paypal

Paypal is a global company in the financial technology space. Its headquarters are in San Jose, California, United States, and was founded 22 years ago. Paypal’s founders were Elon Musk, Peter Thief, Luke Nosek, Max Levchin, and Yu Pan. It operates an online payments system in most countries that support online financial transactions. The service has allowed for an alternative solution to checks and money orders. The service provider services payments for vendors, online auctions, and various other commercial users. Paypal charges a service at a fee.

About Mastercard

Mastercard is another American firm. It was established in 1966 and has therefore been around for 66 years. Mastercard’s international global headquarters are in Purchase, New York. It operates worldwide and became a publicly traded company as of 2006. Its main business is to orchestrate payments between the banks of merchants and the card-issuing institutions who use it. Mastercard offers branded debit, credit, and prepaid cards for end-users to make purchases with.

About Visa

Visa Inc. is another giant in the financial technology space established 63 years ago as BankAmericard. It is headquartered in Foster City, California, United States. Like Mastercard, Visa Inc. enables financial payment transactions globally. They mainly accomplish this through their brand of credit cards, debit cards, and prepaid cards.

Factors that can help Bitcoin Compete Head to Head with the Best

Several factors could help Bitcoin reach the level of profitability and market share of Mastercard and Visa, the world’s leading credit and debit card providers. These factors include the total number of financial transactions, the sent transfer per transaction – average amount, and the growth of the price of Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

The volume of Financial Transactions

As various factors impact market share, this is likely the most volatile variable, inferred the report. In theory, if Bitcoin increased its number of daily transactions astronomically, then it would be processing transfers at a volume roughly akin to Mastercard. Whether that is likely, is the question. The publication, however, could not present current data showing that the average amount of Bitcoin sent per transaction was rising. The trend may go another way, time can only tell. However, an increase to US$ 245,000 at the current volume would also cause Bitcoin to match Mastercard. The uptick in volume is more unlikely. The price action is considered more realistic between these two possibilities according to commentators.

The report claims that it is unrealistic for Bitcoin’s price to grow to that of Mastercard. For this to happen though, it may take up to the year 2060. However, if the current growth rate experienced in 2021 is to continue, Bitcoin may arrive towards Mastercard’s levels of dollar transactions by the year 2026.

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Business DeFi News News

How to Improve DeFi security?

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How To Improve Defi Security?

Security innovations lag when it comes to DeFi which is flourishing. Can it catch up? Creating crypto is not without its challenges. It is not easy. Those interested in taking up the venture must have in-depth knowledge of a plethora of programming languages. They must also have extensive knowledge of blockchain use cases, amongst other things. To avoid the hassle and extensive investment of creating cryptocurrency from scratch, some take to building their project turn to tokens.

What are Tokens?

These are cryptocurrency assets that are within an ecosystem. These can be a project built on Ethereum or any other altcoin. This asset can be designed to be made compatible with all assets within the ecosystem of a cryptocurrency that it is in. For example, an asset on Ethereum can incorporate all the same standards as other Ethereum tokens and also be compatible with cross-chain cryptos.

Advantages of Tokens

One of the fundamental advantages of tokens is that they allow for someone to build a blockchain-based business or concept without that business needing to make a massive investment in building a cryptocurrency from scratch. So, essentially, it increases accessibility for all. However, it is worth noting that this does not mean that the process is, therefore, free or negligible in cost. Businesses interested in creating their tokens still have to foot the bill for fees, legal matters, and smart contract security.

What about Security in DeFi?

Hacking rages on. It continues to be a significant problem when it comes to decentralized finance solutions. This problem has never been before now. In 2021 alone, decentralized financing security breeches cost US$1.9 Billion in user losses.

What Causes this breach?

There must be several reasons that we can blame these breeches on. On the other side of the coin, , one reason could be an inadequacy in security measures. The industry is attempting to go mainstream. These security problems, if not addressed can only be expected to rise as the market continues to grow.

Possible solutions to the security problem

Perhaps if the industry attempted to work together to create an open-source solution in addressing a universal security standard, things could improve. The collective manpower, intellectual knowledge, and expertise could significantly impact this current sweeping security situation.

However the industry handles it though, development teams need simpler means of establishing token security. There is some good news though: blockchain projects are out there that help new developers generate tokens using pre-built security standards. Their support helps these new developers ensure they have a baseline.

Better token Development

A streamlined token development process is used in some cases. This process makes token development that much easier. One such example of this means of deployment is the DApp (decentralization application). This application helps users to mint and deploy their tokens using a Web 3.0 wallet. This token would benefit from the blockchain’s safety standards and effectiveness. It would also abide by all the standards required on that particular blockchain. The project would include pre-audited code and a deployment DApp.

Advantages of Features of better DeFi Security

The current project in that form has a Lossless form. This is a multi-chain protocol by Lossless that wards of hacks in decentralized financing using a specialized code. This is a code that projects include. By including this code, token creators receive protection from fake transactions.

Regardless of this development, the lossless minting tools by Lossless are an experimental feature so far. The aim is for users to have the opportunity to try out the feature for themselves, as Lossless described it.

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Bitcoin Blockchain Business NFT

Kubera: A Platform for Monitoring them All

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Kubera: A Platform For Monitoring Them All

Since the industry is so wide and diverse with new and exciting investment opportunities emerging fast, cryptocurrency investors have no choice but to manage their assets separately. This approach can be cumbersome, especially when a cryptocurrency investor has too many digital assets to manage in their portfolio.

Blockchain, which is distributed ledger technology is revolutionizing the financial industry. Investors that are eager early adopters have realized this for years and benefited from this booming industry. It is only now that progressive financial enterprises in the mainstream and even governments are now taking the blockchain industry seriously. Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell stated earlier this year that blockchain offered a new approach to recording ownership of assets. He added that it allowed for the development of a variety of innovative fintech solutions, including cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrencies are safe and effective means of transferring funds. However, NFTs (nonfungible tokens) are transforming the way we look at ownership. Ownership can encompass unique digital collectibles, deeds on physical properties, and perhaps many other assets in between. The possibilities are still unfolding, many yet to be explored.

The Challenge of Monitoring Diversified Assets

A unified means of monitoring cryptocurrency is a challenge. It is challenging for perhaps two main reasons. Firstly, the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency. This intentional aspect of the technology has its advantages but these advantages do not include consolidation in monitoring. The other reason monitoring cryptocurrency is a hassle is because of the ability for any person to issue one themselves. Then on top of these issues, add in the fact that different aspects need to be taken into account in regards to decentralized finance.

These additional aspects include decentralized exchanges or decentralized autonomous organizations. Then add in the need for security for technology. Security protocols like “two-factor” authentication help a great deal in curbing security protocols. However, when it comes to monitoring a diversified investment portfolio, the tracking of even conventional financial assets is trickier. Therefore all the complexities that have to be taken into account are exponential when monitoring very diverse portfolios.

How Investors Navigate the Complexities

Cryptocurrency investors have no choice but to do business across several platforms. This means home, 401K, and other investments are monitored on different platforms. Savvier investors attempt to put together spreadsheets or their custom tools to monitor their investments all in one place. Attempting to use spreadsheets can help but the manual nature of this approach is tedious and not ideal. In a best-case scenario, investors would be in a position to keep on top of their investments in one platform. In such a case, investors would approach cryptocurrency as any other entity in their investment portfolios. They would therefore monitor their investment from one place, in a single system with one graphic user interface.

Kubera: An innovation of consolidation

Thankfully cryptocurrency investors now have a possible solution. This is Kubera. Kubera is a solution that aims to solve this problem by helping investors track their stocks by connecting those stocks to their brokerage accounts. A noteworthy feature of this crypto portfolio management platform is that you can also use it if a specific brokerage firm is not supported on the platform. In that case, the investor simply adds the stock ticker of their assets to track their most recent values. At present, Kubera has inbuilt support for the U.S., Canada, UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand stock exchanges.

Another useful aspect of this platform is that it does not only manage mainstream conventional stocks but also crypto. Kubera user account holders can obtain the most recent balances from all main crypto wallets that they have. They can also get exchange accounts or easily add coins to monitor their value. It also has inbuilt support for decentralized finance assets like Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Polygon.

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Bitcoin Business Ethereum Regulation

India Announces Crypto bill and Crypto prices Tank

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India Announces Crypto Bill And Crypto Prices Tank

Cryptocurrency prices on WazirX’s stock exchange in India plummeted after it was announced that it would ban all private cryptocurrencies.

Panic selling ensued after regulatory discussions broke out online regarding the WazirX exchange. This panic selling resulted in a huge drop In the price of cryptocurrencies. The price drop affected all leading crypto, including Ether and Bitcoin.

The announcement that was made by India’s parliament in their winter session was that of 26 new bills. These bills included the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021. This announcement was followed by a mass sell-off on WazirX. This led to a 14.8% drop in Bitcoin’s price. That is almost US$ 61,820.73 to US$52,650.55. Ether, Cardano, and other leading cryptocurrencies also experienced the tanking in prices on the local exchange.

Surprising Outcome

WazirX CEO, Nischal Shetty, spoke to one media outlet. They stressed that the Indian cryptocurrency market normally trades at a premium. This is in comparison to the international market. Shetty said that this panic selling contributed to the Indian market correcting itself and leading to prices reaching the global norm. The CEO also took to pointing out the number of use cryptocurrency use cases as assets and utilities.

Words of Wisdom for India

The chief executive officer of OKEx, Jay Hao, a cryptocurrency exchange also made his comment to Cointelegraph. Hao said India is home to the largest number of cryptocurrency holders on the globe. Jay added that the responsibility lay with the Indian government to protect the interests of the majority of cryptocurrency investors in this country.
What about India’s Crypto Ban?

Caroline Bowler, BTC Market’s CEO said that India’s ban on cryptocurrency will not last. She stated that it would be retrogressive and would not have any potential at protecting the interests of investors.

Resistance is Futile

Bowler added that because of how the technology is set up, the world’s governments can’t curb the cryptocurrency trade. The decentralized nature of the technology makes this unfeasible. Evan Luthra, another prominent voice in the blockchain space agreed with Bowler’s sentiments. Luthra, an Indian blockchain investor told Cointelegraph that it is indeed unfeasible for governments to limit access to cryptocurrencies. This is by the infrastructure’s deliberate design. Luthra turned to the recent developments of El Salvador’s rapid cryptocurrency infrastructure development and adoption as a worthy example. He believes that the Indian authorities will eventually have no choice but to accept and work with cryptocurrencies. Luthra added that the public had to first get used to crypto, then the banks, and now the government would have to learn and deal with crypto in the future of metaverses.

India’s Investors should not Panic

Shetty also gave a final word of advice. He directed it to Indian investors. Shetty advised them to have confidence in their lawmakers and not panic.

All these developments come after India’s parliamentary panel discussion that addressed crypto. Members of parliament conceded that cryptocurrency can not be stopped. However, they agreed that the industry should be regulated more sternly. India has over 20 million cryptocurrency investors. This makes the nation one of the largest cryptocurrency markets on the globe.

The Future

Mid this year, a Reserve Bank of India representative announced that the Reserve Bank of India intended to make a development. This development would be the beginning of an initial trial for a central bank’s digital currency. The Reserve Bank of India planned to commence before the end of 2021. With only a few days to go before 2021 is over, we wait to see what India’s authorities have in store and if they will indeed unleash their central bank digital currency as they said.

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Blockchain Ethereum News

Financial Firms from SouthEast Asia look to Ethereum Blockchain

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Financial Firms From Southeast Asia Look To Ethereum Blockchain

Ethereum looks more like the main contender out of all blockchain choices in Southeast Asia. Innovation in the blockchain space is booming in Asia, specifically in the Southeast. This particular part of the world boasts of headquarters of numerous financial technology and cryptocurrency businesses. One such country, Singapore, is leading the pack. Singapore is now one of the world leaders in cryptocurrency adoption.

What do the numbers say?

A recent report by Gemini highlighted this. Gemini is a crypto exchange. In Gemini’s report, they discovered that 67% of their sample population of 4,348 own Ethereum cryptocurrency at present. The publication also noted that Ether is a cryptocurrency that is mostly owned in the region. 78% of the respondents stated that they currently own the asset.

On top of this report’s findings, Ethereum’s blockchain may be the favored option for Southeast Asian financial organizations. “Ethereum in Finance: A view from Singapore”, an event by Enterprise Ethereum Alliance discussed how this is likely the case. ConsenSys’ managing director, Charles d’Haussy, and panelist at the event told a news outlet that firms in Southeast Asia attempting to empower e-commerce cross-border transactions prefer Ethereum. He said these firms favored Ethereum for several reasons. These reasons included that Ethereum’s fundamental features, from a technical perspective, offer a better fit in comparison to others.

Why is Ethereum favored?

d’Haussy stated that the fact that Ethereum includes a smart contract layer on its blockchain network gives the solution a competitive advantage over rival options. He noted that this is an advantage because other options offer a smart contract layer without including a blockchain. Financial institutions also value the ability to create accounts for certain tokens with Ethereum. In the past, other solutions did not provide this ability to offer both accounts and tokens.

Ethereum Leading the pack

d’Haussy also stated that financial organizations have numerous ways of benefiting from Ethereum’s useful functionality and features. Daniel Lee told CoinTelegraph that their company is utilizing Ethereum for its security token exchange. Lee is a top executive and head of business and listing from DDEx (DBS Digital Exchange). DDEx is a digital exchange supported by DBS. DBS is one of the region’s biggest banking groups that offer trading services for various digital assets, not limited to security tokens and cryptocurrency.

What About Ethereum’s Weaknesses?

Ethereum has high gas fees. It also has challenges with scalability. These are some of Ethereum’s weaknesses. Regardless of this, Ethereum is widely used in the Southeast Asia region. Lee, however, stated that using Ethereum on a permissioned blockchain for listing and trading security tokens worked for them. This is because it decreases gas fees. Lee stated that DDEx is utilizing Ethereum and their gas fees are not high. According to Lee, in their case, they use IBFT as their consensus mechanism. As a result, the gas fees do not factor in. d’Hausy stated that high gas fees demonstrate that there is indeed a demand for Ethereum. He also added that layer-two solutions are being executed to resolve these stated challenges that Ethereum has.

Alternative Solutions

However, these challenges have caused some companies to look elsewhere for their blockchain network needs. RippleNet is one such company that has decided to explore its options. RippleNet is an international payments network of the blockchain firm, Ripple. It’s being presented as a solution for the region’s cross-border transactions services.

Solana blockchain has received some attention, as have some other alternatives. This is regardless of the still-growing impact of Ethereum on the Southeast Asia region. An executive from PwC, Henri Arslanian, told a news outlet that alternative blockchain networks are being used by fintech companies as they become more aware and knowledgeable of the different solutions available.

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Bitcoin Business Technology

When Money isn’t everything in Sports

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When Money Isn’t Everything In Sports

Cryptocurrency experts advise the sports fraternity to be careful as they take on new blockchain technologies.

The Covid-19 Pandemic has hit the world in every sphere. The world of sport and entertainment has been a devastating hit too. Highly anticipated events were canceled or postponed because of the pandemic. Leagues were temporarily suspended to curb the further of the Coronavirus. For financial sustainability, sports clubs had to find new ways of doing business. One of those ways of financial sustainability was found in the crypto industry.

Sports and Crypto-currency

Partnerships started to sprout out. Major sports clubs and started to enter the crypto industry in their numbers. This trend involved also involved major club unions and even national teams. Two clubs worth noting are Manchester City and FC Barcelona. Both agreed to sponsorship deals. Then both also decided to terminate their respective crypto-related sponsorship deals. These deal terminations came announced all in the same week.

In the Case of Barca

Barca terminated its crypto-related sponsorship with Ownix. Ownix is an NFT (nonfungible token) marketplace. This deal termination occurred after Moshe Hogeg was arrested. Hogeg happened to be an Israeli crypto-entrepreneur. He also was a consultant for Ownix. Seemingly to protect its interests, Ownix attempted to distance itself from the scandal by releasing an announcement on Twitter. They attempted to stress that there was no organic link between the arrested crypto-entrepreneur and the company he consulted for, Ownix.

In the case of Manchester City

This football club also canceled their deal which they stated was a regional partner, a week prior. In their case, it was with 3Key. 3Key is a DeFi trading analysis and advisory technology.

What the Future Holds

Morgan Stanley has exciting predictions for the sports industry, in terms of cryptocurrency. They predict that by 2030 the sports industry will amount to a trillion-dollar industry in the NFT space. One expert, Timothy Mangnall from Capital Block told the news outlet that the problem lay in a lack of sufficient due diligence on companies and their associated personnel. What some firms did by way of due diligence was insufficient for long-term business deals like these.

In the case of Barcelona, the club had been wooed by numerous NFT marketplaces leading to their final decision. The rival NFT marketplaces were quite worthy and had sturdy track records. What ended up surprising quite a few people was that FC Barcelona ended up settling a marketplace that was lacking in the track-record arena. Some critics think this was the case because Barcelona was focused on the money, rather than the track record of its potential partners.

What Should Sports clubs look out for?

The focus on sponsorship should not be the monetary value alone. Experts say that many small NFT firms have the financial muscle to dish out offers of incredible sums of money just to win partnerships with prominent sports clubs. This one issue ought to be a red flag, said Magnall.

Due Diligence is Key

Co-author of Blockchain 101, Ahmet Usta said that fans are understandably attempting to obtain high returns from fan tokens and NFTs as early adopters. Since tokenization is a baby born from blockchain technology that draws large prominent companies with brand value and popularity. Usta states that though all this is the case, the focus should be on creating additional value through innovation and great business models in their crypto offerings. It would be wise for people to pace themselves and understand that NFTs are here to stay. Sports clubs should stay calm. Sports clubs should not be overcome by all the excitement. Usta also added that clubs should be thoughtful enough to step back, learn more about the industry, and plan for the next couple of years.

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Bitcoin Business Technology

Tech Company Recycling Bitcoin Mining Energy Waste

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Tech Company Recycling Bitcoin Mining Energy Waste

Bitcoin mining requires a lot of power. Verification of transactions and creating new blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain are some of the reasons why it is an energy-hogging ecosystem. One Bitcoin transaction is said to require the same amount of energy as that of 1 million VISA transactions. That is according to Statistica. In addition, the effect on the environment is significant if the energy used for mining Bitcoin is produced from non-renewable energy sources.

One company from Singapore, SAITech says it aims at innovating the issue of waste generated from their Bitcoin mining activities. The goal is to take that wasted energy and provide it for use in industrial, agricultural, and residential solutions.

About SAITech

According to the CEO, SAI means Sustainable (S), Available (A), and Innovative (I) They intend on spearheading innovations in their area of business and providing these solutions to their customers, the global market, and industries.

SAITech is also in the process of a merger. This is with a special purpose acquisition company. The deal is worth US$ 228 million. SAITech’s merger is with TradeUp Global Corp. With this merger, it will be able to list its stock on the NASDAQ exchange. Arthur Lee, the chief executive officer of SAITech talked about the business’s innovations in heat capacity, effectiveness, and power usage. Lee also discussed their plans for the business after the merger. SAITech’s CEO, Lee made these comments in an interview with Cointelegraph.

The CEO stated that SAITech is a clean energy operator in the cryptocurrency mining space. He said that their services hinge on leading in energy-conservation to computing power and also heating. Lee stated that SAITech can be thought of as horizontally integrated. This type of integration provides services to the computing industry, electricity, and heating industries. As of now, they put their focus on the Bitcoin mining industry. He said this is because it requires significant volumes of energy and SAITech’s goal is to improve this area, whilst decreasing carbon emissions at the same time. The company would also like to make the industry more efficient. Currently, the only solution for recycling heat waste is that of a liquid cooling system. SAITech takes the heat from the miners and services customers with heating services.

Lee stated that their carbon footprint and ESG reports both prove that they are making savings in electricity usage and have notably decreased their carbon footprints. In addition to these efforts, SAITech joined noteworthy groups like the United Nations Framework Conversation on Climate Change. They committed to lowering the cost using clean computing energy in the digital asset arena. Their focus is beyond Singapore and they stated that they are thinking globally.

About Efficiency in Recycling Heat Energy

When asked about how efficient their energy waste recycling is, Lee said that they manage to reuse about 90% of the heat energy. He added that their system encompasses four technologies. These technologies are SAIHEAT, SAIWATT, SAIBYTE, and SAICHIP. He further expounded on each. With SAIHEAT they utilize heat energy from the chip. SAIWATT technology involves clean energy such as hydroelectricity and solar power. SAIBYTE is the technology they use to provide integrated solutions such as mining pool, blockchain browser, and wallet. SAICHIP is the fourth technology that they will use that can allow them to reuse the heat and conduct better cooling functionality.

Why Crypto-mine in Euroasia?

Lee said that their company chose Euroasian countries like Kazakhstan specifically. This was because before China banned Bitcoin mining, most mining of bitcoin was done there. Due to this change, most miners intend on taking their business overseas. These countries many of these companies are looking at setting up in are in North America, Eurasia, South Asia, and parts of Europe.

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Altcoins Business News People

Binance and Billionaire, hash it out over Dogecoin Issues

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Binance And Billionaire, Hash It Out Over Dogecoin Issues

Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, addresses Binance to pay attention to problematic Dogecoin issues.

One of the world’s most beloved social media platforms, Twitter has seen some interesting tweets recently. Of course, this is not the first time prominent users have decided to use it as a sounding board or podium, we generally expect to see breaking news on such platforms anyway. So true to what we have come to expect, we have seen this discourse once again. This time it’s between Elon Musk and Binance over Dogecoin (DOGE).

When a Fan is Not Happy

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency that is favored by Elon Musk. He happens to be quite a fan of it. However, recently, he took to Twitter to lament his concern about continuous hiccups with Dogecoin withdrawals on Binance. Musk took to Twitter and asked in a tweet what was going on with Dogecoin customers. He added that it sounded shady. He also directed the tweet to Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance.

What Binance Had to say

A response from Binance’s official Twitter account followed about some minutes later. This response stressed that there was nothing for anyone to worry about and that nothing was shady. The tweet cited a new tweet that addressed the issue. Binance said that the main problem was technical in nature. This problem, they said, emanated from a recent upgrade process. This upgrade erroneously caused outdated transactions to be resent to 1,674 of their users.

Binance added that ultimately Binance noted that some of its users not only received old transactions but other users were unable to take out Dogecoin. The official account added that it requested that those users that received old transactions return them. They stated that they were also aware that some users were still experiencing challenges accessing their e-wallets.

Binance’s Plan for Dogecoin Functionality

With this issue, Binance added that the technical glitch only occurred on Binance. They stated that the platform has a unique wallet functionality setup for Dogecoin. However, they specified that for them to rectify the issue, they will need to re-engineer the e-wallet. They stated that this will take them approximately a week.

The Billionaire’s Response

Clearly having become aware of Binance’s response, Musk responded by tweeting, still with clear dissatisfaction. Musk said that currency holders opting to use Binance should be shielded from such issues that are not their fault. He also took the opportunity to cite a thread by Dogecoin Developers, illustrating that the problem wasn’t new but rather had been around for “…over a year…”.

In Defense of Binance

Zhao, the CEO of Binance responded by joining the thread and stating that the problem is connected to the “latest Doge wallet”. He added that Binance was in a dialog with the developers to solve the problem. He also took the opportunity to defend his company by Musk’s scathing remarks by referring to an issue that Tesla experienced earlier this year. In October, it was reported by the Guardian that Tesla experienced a glitch. This glitch forced Tesla to recall approximately 12,000 vehicles in the United States. The matter was such a concern that Tesla was forced to cancel the FSD update on vehicles to address this arising matter.

Zhao must have felt the need to defend his business ferociously because he followed his response up with a statement mimicking Musk when Musk was being somewhat bullied into donating US$6 Billion by David Beasley, the director of the UN’s World Food Programme. Binance’s CEO, like Musk questioned the UN World Food Programme director asked, “What happened here?”

Only time will tell how this conversation and emerging events surrounding Dogecoin will affect Binance or Dogecoin itself.

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Business News Technology

CEO of EOS Foundation says EOS has been a Bad Investment

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Ceo Of Eos Foundation Says Eos Has Been A Bad Investment

Yves La Rose, the CEO of EOS Foundation said EOS has been a bad investment. La Rose said that EOS is currently a failure. In the statement La Rose made, La Rose shared thoughts on the past and potential progress of EOS blockchain protocol in the future. The executive said that the EOS currency has so far been a “terrible” investment.

Why has the EOS Native Currency Been a Terrible Investment so far?

The top executive claimed the EOS native currency had been a terrible investment partly because of the backer and former developer Block.one. Block.one is a blockchain software firm based in the Cayman Islands. La Rose said the EOS Foundation can no longer depend on Block.one for guidance. For this reason, EOS Foundation intends on stepping up.

The Path Forward

These statements illustrated EOS Foundation’s path going forward. This path included creating a new core team and distributing grant programs. It also included creating a roadmap guided by “four pillars” of new products.

When Success is a Problem

La Rose said that EOS had a great start. It had a lot of fanfare when it got started. EOS managed to raise an incredible US$4.1 billion when it was getting started back in 2018. According to La Rose, this is why EOS is currently listless. This US$4.1 billion is part of EOS’s current problem. The success, in this case, was a problem, at least because it came completely at the beginning.

Why Was Early Success a Problem for EOS?

According to the executive, this early extraordinary success made EOS a victim of its success because it set up the organization’s expectations. These funds raised broke previous records. As a result, it placed EOS in the uncomfortable position of having to meet extraordinary expectations.

Possible Criminal Activities?

La Rose’s statement blamed Block.one. However, the executive’s speech did not stop there. The speech went as far as to allege possible criminal activities. He based his allegations on the consensus he gathered from token holders that Block.one was disingenuous about their capabilities. This lack of authenticity, according to La Rose amounts to fraud and negligence.

La Rose says that EOS Foundation could take the lead, replacing Block.one as a guiding organization. This will then likely allow for the EOS ecosystem to expand. EOS Foundation was established in August by La Rose. This was after he stepped down as the CEO of EOS Nation back in May. EOS Nation is an infrastructure provider for the same protocol.

According to La Rose, the EOS community is experiencing a shift. This shift is in anticipation to move away from Block.one and eventually fork them out. Until such a shift is formalized, Block.one will continue holding EOS down, La Rose said in the written statement.

What does Block.one have to say?

Block.one’s executive, Brendan Blumer showed support for EOS Foundation over a month ago on Twitter. Blumer tweeted that he had never seen the level of innovative community collaboration that he had until EOS was launched by the public. He said that he was optimistic about the decentralized government because of EOS Foundation.

Block.one is currently focused on developing a crypto exchange with Wall Street backing. This crypto exchange is called Bullish and is partially built on the EOS blockchain. In July, whilst a pre-launch phase, declared that they would be going public in a deal worth $9 Billion. This deal would be via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

La Rose’s Proposition

La Rose proposed a solution involving “four pillars” to guide the project towards success. These pillars were: branded Audit+, Wallet+, Docu+, and API+. Each pillar would have a working group and would target the delivery of a “blue paper” each by the Chinese New Year.

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Blockchain Business Technology

Next in Blockchain innovations for Social Media

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Next In Blockchain Innovations For Social Media

Predictions about our near future are mixed and varied. So many of us have a lot to say about what’s coming next. Some commentators believe general-purpose blockchains will rule in all spheres. They predict the likes of Ethereum, Avalanche, Cardano, and Solana will spearhead this advancement even in financial, social, and marketplace spaces on the internet. One matter dampens the likelihood of this possibility. This is that of on-chain storage.

The Thing about General-Purpose Blockchains

Ethereum and other general-purpose blockchains have done a great job in interoperability with storage light applications such as decentralized finance. However, these blockchains fall short at scalability when it comes to handling storage-heavy applications. Such applications include social media and marketplace applications.

As a result of this limitation, the world will need innovations. This innovation by way of architecture will be needed to push aside web 2.0 and usher in web 3.

To Infinity and beyond

Solana, Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, and all the other general-purpose blockchains available today were not for the limitations of our present-day type of applications. Applications with set limitations. These limitations that apply to the amount of data or state of user sessions are known variables that software engineers always put into account, in particular, because these resources are not inexhaustible.

State Augmented vs State Neutral applications

Social media applications present a different challenge. The data that is created by users is indefinite and unpredictable, in some cases. We expect users to create their accounts, set up their user profiles, submit a post or two. We expect them to interact with other users on the platform and do several other tasks that they may see fit. Social media apps are therefore state-augmenting. Unlike financial applications for example. Those are state-neutral. Decentralized finance is a prime example of this difference. Regardless of the number of transactions users make, the volume of stored data is still just a limited amount of data, especially displaying the total balances of each user.

The Underestimated Gap

With social media applications that integrate blockchain technology have double duties. These social media applications need to keep financial data and also keep data generated by users in their social networking activities.

For social media applications and other applications that require state-augmentation, storage and indexing requirements are an important challenge to address. This will call for customized blockchains specifically for these types of applications. Decentralized Social (DeSo) is worth noting at this point, as a worthy example. The cost for maintaining state-augmented applications in the social media space can quickly become prohibitive because of the storage, index, and querying demands thereof.

Now, the costs for storage of 1GB in an on-chain state are different across providers. On top of that, it is anticipated that costs will only rise over time for these general-purpose blockchains were not designed for this type of storage demand. As a result of these limitations, many services are unable to jump on to the web 2.0 blockchain technology because the incremental costs are just too prohibitive. This is even if they use services like Arweave or Filecoin.

In further view, it is easy to see that this limitation was significantly under-anticipated when the infrastructure of general-purpose blockchains was being designed. With growing demands, this gap is blatantly obvious. It seems finite-state applications were the key focus from the get-go. Social media applications and marketplace applications were not considered as solutions that would need to work seamlessly over this architecture. Now this underestimation has brought us to this current predicament. Fast forward to the present day and here we are with an opportunity for further advancement approaching.

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Business News Technology

xDai Eager for a Competitive Advantage its Holders Don’t Want

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Xdai Eager For A Competitive Advantage Its Holders Don’t Want

Gnosis token holders are not happy with the decision by Gnosis to merge with a major infrastructure builder. In a decision revealed recently, Gnosis’s founder shared their plans. The founder of Gnosis, Martin Koppelmann said that Gnosis would facilitate the merger of their platform with that of xDai. Gnosis is an Ethereum development heavyweight. xDai is a well-known Ethereum sidechain for developers. It is also one of the oldest layer 1 options.

This business development would integrate the two entities to make the “Gnosis Chain” by combining technical expertise and a significant financial injection. The synergy could assist the two entities to emerge at the top of the bloated market for layer 1s. At present this overcrowding is compelling chains to devote large amounts of money to incentives for both developers and users.

However, unhappy xDai’s stakeholders do not like this development. Based on the terms of the merger, they are concerned that this merger is nothing but a hostile takeover by Gnosis. xDai defends its position by emphasizing that this development will provide much-needed funding. These funds from Gnosis will cater for business development, marketing and funding, according to xDai. It may also help xDai stay relevant. In an interview with CoinDesk, Igor Barinov, the project manager at xDai said that if this action is not taken, they would remain a chain for hipsters.

Backlash from Token-holders

This public outcry may show us what other companies contemplating the same may have to face. All this comes at a time of anticipation. Many expect that decentralized mergers and acquisitions are likely to become more and more common this year. There was growing expectation because of 2020’s numerous mergers and partnerships. These were led by Yearn.Finance. The mergers involved significant amounts of money in a decentralized finance ecosystem. This therefore created expectations that protocols would now work to buy other protocols, The expectation was that these purchases would use token purchases or governance action routinely. Since then though, mergers have mostly not been executed.

Why have other businesses failed in merging?

Mergers in this space have largely failed because it isn’t that simple in this space. In traditional M & A, the process is far different. Organizations are combined, the business is rebranded and stock is swapped. Trying to merge several governance tokens, whilst factoring in their respective exchange rates is extremely complex. This complexity is a huge challenge. Trying to come to an agreement about deal terms in light of these factors, in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) can therefore be more challenging than that of traditional organizations that are decided on by a board of directors.

Luckily in the case of xDai and Gnosis, it seems the deal-making process went quite smoothly. Gnosis’ CEO said that was all thanks to their respective teams working together and sharing the same values.

The Advantages

Gnosis has exceptional clout in the market. This is partly because it came from the Ethereum development giant, ConsenSys. ConsenSys is not only well funded but also well connected. These connections helped the need for interoperability and integration between several infrastructures and tools. It also helped with providing a treasure-trove of GNO tokens. These are key assets that xDai lacked. xDai’s strength lay in its technical strengths.

In conclusion

POAP, DAOSquare, and Coloney projects on xDai have all come out with support for this development. xDai team members confessed about how hard it was to see negative criticisms over the internet regarding the development. They expressed frustration at how critics were focusing on the smaller issues and not the bigger aspect. They feel confident about this development and what the future bodes for the business and industry.

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Blockchain Business DeFi News

Is Cryptocurrency a Partisan Issue?

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Is Cryptocurrency A Partisan Issue?

Cryptocurrency a Partisan Even though Hillary Clinton is no longer a leader of the Democratic Party, her voice counts. Unfortunately, her opinion may be more divisive than anything else for lawmakers regarding digital asset policies.

As growing mainstream acceptance of the blockchain industry continues, so has the interest of policymakers in the same. In the United States lawmakers seem to be divided when it comes to blockchain technology and the opportunities it presents. Hillary Clinton inferred that the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies was a threat to the economic stability of the United States and other nations. She acknowledged that this new economic technology is interesting but otherwise was clearly against it. Her views are similar to those of Elizabeth Warren, a top politician who on several occasions has taken to criticizing the crypto market at committee meetings.

Clinton’s Claims

Clinton’s statements came about over a video to a gathering at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum held in Singapore. She made her sentiments whilst discussing Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Clinton took the opportunity to claim that Russia was responsible for propaganda and cyberwarfare campaigns. She said Russia was involved with the ransomware attacks and some of the cryptocurrency transactions associated with these attacks.

The impact of her Comments

Clinton’s comments will certainly not help ease relations between the United States and Russia. Her agenda for these comments is unclear but the connection between her claims and cryptocurrency ( a tool that is nonpolitical) could have currently unknown effects. This is especially the case in regards to when it comes to lawmaking on either side of the equation (the US and Russia).

Recent developments in United States Policies

As these comments air out, President Joe Biden recently agreed to a US$1 trillion bill for infrastructure. The new bill calls for more stringent rules around cryptocurrency transactions and reporting of digital assets. The bill includes requirements for reporting more digital asset transaction data by brokers.

Cryptocurrency policies in the United States are so divisive that some lawmakers are crossing the divide to that of their counterparts. One such lawmaker, Cynthia Lummis, a Republican senator who has often backed controversial issues is a prime example. Lummis is working with Senator Ron Wyden, a democrat. They intend on passing a new bill that will change tax reporting requirements so that some of those requirements will not apply to some people.

However, it is not all division. Some of the work underway by US legislators regarding cryptocurrency is unifying. An example of this is that of Texas’ Democratic Party. The party intends on organizing a new project focused on raising funds for political candidates and causes using NFTs (non-fungible tokens). On top of that, various political candidates and the National Republican Congressional Committee allow donors to fund them using cryptocurrency.

When Division is Mindboggling

Sometimes division has gone out of hand, in the United States political arena. One prime example is when voters from the Republican side destroyed property. The bizarre thing is this property was their own. The property included Nike sportswear and Keurwi brewing machines. These zealous individuals did this after lawmakers decided to speak against Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the U.S. national anthem. Colin Kaepernick is a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). More contemporary and even more divisive is the issue of wearing masks in regards to the Covid-19 pandemic as a preventative measure. Another matter of contention is that of Covid-19 vaccinations as well. Often discussions focus on the freedoms of citizens and not the science of it. This is most evident in spaces on social media. However, as these are very important matters to everyone, it only makes sense that everyone would have strong personal opinions about them.

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Business News Regulation

The Relevance of Barbados’ Metaverse

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The Relevance Of Barbados’ Metaverse

Recently one government purchased virtual land and “erected” a metaverse embassy. Some think it’s Barbados is doing a little bit of a PR stunt. However, most of us would agree that governments generally do not have a “sense of humor”. The reason people think this is some sort of stunt is because of the motives. Issuing permits and visas can easily be done by the government through their government service websites like many other countries manage to do. What some people do not understand is why they chose to create a metaverse embassy.

This technology development raised some questions, whether it is a gimmick or not. One important question is sovereignty. How do we answer the question of sovereign rights, property rights, and even state power?

In conventional matters of sovereignty, if a nation establishes an embassy in another country, international agreements allow for those embassies to receive specific protection from the host. These agreements depend on the rights that sovereign states have on their physical domain. The host agrees not to exercise their powers on embassy property. This allows embassies to function as sovereign entities within the host nation.

Of course, it is the prerogative of host nations to decide to grant these rights to embassies, or not. It is also possible for one nation to be allowed these rights by their counterparts and the same nation to disallow their counterparts these rights. There are historic examples where host countries decided not to because they felt the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. One such example of such a dynamic is that of the United States of America and Cuba. This dynamic of lack of reciprocity in terms of embassies played out for decades.

So, What about NFTs and Virtual Embassies?

This development will allow Barbados (via its metaverse embassy) to set some terms of engagement. These terms would be applied to people or other sovereign governments to interact with the nation’s digital assets. These would not be just any assets, these assets would be those under the “jurisdiction” of Decentraland’s address.

Digital property rights may be a hard concept for many to still grasp, especially if we think in more traditional terms. The future of digital property rights that Barbados, and perhaps other countries will follow may allow for the translation or inclusion of real-world property rights to virtual property rights. This also means these independent nations can virtually establish treaties over their private keys within an agreed-upon metaverse space.

What could this mean?

There are opportunities brewing. Some opportunities that we may not even have begun to fathom. There is potential for countries to establish treaties and set up rights for their respective citizens. This process would be a significant cost saving than creating numerous embassies in each other’s real-world geographic domains.

Small Countries are Leveraging Crypto Innovation

Barbados is not the only small nation that’s taken cryptocurrency innovation seriously. Other countries include Malta, El Salvador, Bahamas, Bermuda, Cambodia, and East Timor. A lot of these bold moves are occurring at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic presents numerous global uncertainties and economic hardships. With small countries like Barbados that rely on tourism for their gross domestic product, the volatility of present times requires a new and innovative approach. Cryptocurrency offers an opportunity for smaller nations to collectively counter some of these challenges, devoid of geographic limitations and in tandem with the shared economic interests that they have.

Other countries, not yet on this bandwagon abound, especially in Africa. Many of these countries heavily depend on tourism for their economic well-being. It would be interesting to see if some of these countries begin to take a leaf from the likes of Barbados, El Salvador, East Timor, Malta, Bermuda, and the Bahamas.

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Business News Regulation

An Unlikely Leader: El Salvador in Technology Adoption

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An Unlikely Leader: El Salvador In Technology Adoption

There is only one country in the whole world that has accepted bitcoin as legal tender and that country is El Salvador. This is certainly a bold and progressive move. Not only have they accepted this cryptocurrency as legal tender but they have also decided to do something even more progressive. They have decided to build a whole city based on Bitcoin. The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele informed an excited audience through a presentation recently at a Bitcoin Week event.

The city has been dubbed “Bitcoin City”. It will be built along the coast. This will be at the Gulf of Fonseca. It will be near a volcano. The president stated that they will also build a power plant near the volcano to provide a source of electricity for the crypto-mining and also the city itself.

The President of El Salvador says their goal is to build a full-featured Metropolis that will have a unique design. The layout of the city will be circular with the center encompassing a plaza. The plaza will have a large bitcoin symbol. This all constitutes a city layout that looks like a giant coin. It will have commercial areas, restaurants, an airport, and residential areas. It will also have port and rail services. The city will not have any income tax, property tax, payroll tax, or capital gains tax.

The Finances to Build this Bitcoin City

The President added that his country intends on issuing a Bitcoin bond valued at US$1 Billion. This is a token-based technology that they had engineered by Blockstream. This instrument is on the Liquid Network. $500 million of it will be dedicated towards the construction of the infrastructure. This will be energy and mining, infrastructure, in particular. The remainder will be used to purchase more bitcoin. The country is to purchase at Bitcoin’s trading price of US$59,000. This will then bring El Salvador’s treasury value of Bitcoin to 2,000.

Bitfinex Securities will be granted the business of issuance. The country also intends on developing a securities law.

Blockstream’s executive, Samson Mow informed the crowd that the bonds would be 10 years ones. They would also pay 6.5% initially. After 5 years, El Salvador would start selling its investment and paying bondholders additional dividends.

The annual percentage yield will be at 146% after 10 years. Mow stated this. The figures were basing on their prediction models for bitcoin’s price. They predict that bitcoin will have hit $1 million in 5 years from now. Taking out that much cryptocurrency from circulation will affect the currency. It is expected to cause bitcoin to grow in value. Mow says accomplishing this would likely make El Salvador the “Singapore of Latin America”.

About El Salvador

With all this interesting news, one may wonder what this Latin American country is like. El Salvador is geographically the smallest country in this region of the Americas. For comparison, it is smaller than the United States’ state of Massachusetts. Its neighbors include Guatemala and Honduras. It happens to be the one nation that does not have a coast on the Caribbean Sea.

This small country is known for its volcanoes. Some of these volcanoes are still active. It is considered the “Land of Volcanoes”, for that reason. It also has frequent earthquakes.

About the Salvadorans

Most of this nation’s people live in the countryside. The average citizen does not have potable water or electricity. The affluent among this country’s citizens live in San Salvador.
The government provides free education for children. This is until the 9th grade. Most families in El Salvador still don’t manage to afford this because of the cost of transportation and school supplies.
With somewhat a bleak look at affairs, one may wonder how or why El Salvador intends on building a bitcoin city.

As of now, about 2.1 million Salvadorans are using the Chivo bitcoin wallet. This accounts for about a third of El Salvador’s population. With continuing adoption rates, the future is promising for this Latin American country when it comes to bitcoin and advances.

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DeFi News Ethereum News

Token reDeFines DeFi with innovation to preserve people’s money

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Token Redefines Defi With Innovation To Preserve People’s Money

Token reDeFines DeFi with innovation.

Whilst the United States experiences inflation more acutely, deflationary assets offer opportunities at creating wealth even in these uncertain times.

As the US economy dealt with the pandemic and its effects, inflation seemed like something that was just passing through. There was hope that once life got back to normal, so would the economy. Now, instead of the economy getting stronger, inflation has stubbornly stayed. Citizens in the United States and many countries around the world are now feeling the pinch. Prices for groceries like toiletries, food and other necessities have hiked. Economists are now considering that inflation may be with us longer than we we exist and well into the new year.

Inflation is the result of global economies anticipating an economic downturn. This maybe met with a fast recovery and a subsequent growth in government expenditures. Enterprises are having to focus on adapting to survive these shifting changes. These changes have in turn affected the global supply chain. The shortages experienced in the supply chain have caused enterprises to to pass on some of the costs incurred to the end-buyer. This then creates a challenge for everyday people who now experience their bank savings getting lower in value.

Therefore, assets become crucial in preserving one’s wealth. However, not just any assets. Assets that have a deflationary basis or those that lower in supply over time. The fact of it is is that as decreasing supply is accompanied by proportionate increasing demand and prices. One asset like this is GOMA Finance. This asset has managed to sustain diminishing supply. In June 2021, the GOMA Finance token began with a supply of 1000 trillion. As of November, 90% of its tokens have been burned from circulation. This has left 10% of the supply. Through usage of this token, users have means of earning. Users can earn if they hold the asset. Users also earn by getting involved in farming. They also earn if they decide to stake it through the platform.

DeFi for Everyone

Accessibility is important in the ideology of DeFi for many people. GOMA ecosystem had tried to give users resources on the platform that allow for this. These resources by way of tools and mechanisms make a world of difference towards accessibility when it comes to DeFi and NFTs. On the Binance Smart Chain, the GOMA token exists as BEP20/ERC20. This aids the team to ensure lower transaction costs and higher transaction throughput. At the same time, it ensures holders are able to earn.

GOMA has devoted their efforts to redefining the idea of decentralized finance. They attempt to do this with with their hyperinflationary token. They do this whilst many still worry that DeFi is complex and frought with risks. GOMA’s token was designed with great features. These include in-token burning and redistribution features. 30% from each transaction is redistributed back to users. This includes percentages from purchases and sales. Users can rejoice with this understanding because it means they win an another level. Users earn the more they old their tokens. In addition, the more wealth they get back, the more passive income they are capable of earning.

The Community is growing fast

The coin started at $0.00000000029 value in June. The team reported to a tens of thousands of user strong Telegram community their success. They said that with the help of their supporters they had experienced a 376,000% increase since the launch of the coin. To ensure continued growth, the team is focusing on developing partnerships with a platform that quickens the creation of NFTs. They want to work on partnerships with TORII Finance and STEM.xyz.

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Altcoins Bitcoin Blockchain News Opinion

Crypto Gaming and Blockchain Technology Advances

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Crypto Gaming And Blockchain Technology Advances

The crypto Gaming and Blockchain technology advances, One industry leader from Atari said that exciting times may await us with the possibility that crypto gaming may outdo all other blockchain activities in the future. This was Maxime Bucaille, a Product Manager from Atari, a major video game-making company. He shared his insights on a panel at the “NFTs Gone Wild” conference that was held by CoinGecko. The panel, “What’s Nexxt for Crypto Games” was where Bucaille shared that Atari had honed in on blockchain technology since 2020. He described their level of focus n blockchain as “bullish” and what Atari is currently spending most of its time developing. He added that Atari had been specifically working on education and investment. This is interesting as Atari was once the globe’s biggest gaming business.

Another interesting bit of news that Bucaille shared was that Atari has been working on creating a metaverse product. This product would be online in the second quarter of 2022’s financial year.

Another panelist at the same panel said that Atari’s progress demonstrated the power of interoperability. Robbie Cochrane, co-founder, and COO of ChainGaurdians said this about Atari’s plans. ChainGuardians is a sci-fi-styled metaverse and NFT platform. Cochrane said that this interoperability that he believes Atari and other companies like it have, does not exist outside the blockchain field.

The Co-founder and CEO of WonderHero, Ethan NG led this event. Ng said there was greater potential for growth in blockchain gaming. He added that there was room for non-gamers to also get involved. Ng said that commentators, members of the audience, and other non-gaming content creators would have the opportunity to benefit from this potential for growth. He added that this opportunity included not just getting involved but also getting paid for their efforts.

Sobering Thoughts

Regardless of the phenomenal growth of Axie Infinity, both Cochrane and Bucaille said game-fi was still in its early days. However, many still consider game-fi the next area for exponential growth in the crypto space. The ChainGuardians executive added his reflection on the growth of Axie. He stated that everyone pays attention to the growth of Axie and what it can continue to become in global economies. He added that most people do not pay attention to the pressing factors that affect the maintenance of this growth.

Both executives were in agreement when it came to Axie peaking, the platform may experience stagnation or even a decline in its number of users.

Pay to Play

Cochrane shared that his company had not yet enabled their play to earn economy yet. He added that other companies had to turn off their’s to make this functionality better. The Atari executive officer agreed. He pointed out when the first decentralized exchanges emerged, there was a lot of confusion among the public. This confusion died down when Uniswap came and an effective model was identified. He did add though that the majority of people simply do not know how to purchase on Uniswap. As a result, these people revert to buying tokens on major centralized exchanges like Coinbase. At the moment, he added, that this is the same for game-fi.

Thoughts on the Metaverse

With the current buzz on the Metaverse, the panelists also discussed this. Cochrane brought attention to the importance of the fact that transition is happening with gaming IPs. He shared his observation that traditional gaming intellectual property holders are entering the metaverse and decentralized economies. One example he shared was that of Dencetraland’s partnerships with Coca-Cola and Southeby’s.

Bucaille said that Facebook, the world’s most popular social media platform (now known as “Meta”) is basically social media 2.0 and a smart move on Meta’s part. This is definitely interesting to hear. What advances can we expect to see Meta make?

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Business Interview

Promising Pending Projects In Polkadot Parachain Slot Auctions

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Promising Pending Projects In Polkadot Parachain Slot Auctions

It’s only a little while now for Polkadot to launch its network. DOT, Polkadot’s native token is on the up and up. With the announcement by Polkadot’s team, its price went over US$45. This was its first time in five months.

Parachains are an important part of the Polkadot ecosystem. For this reason, the announcement for the schedule no doubt excited the market so much that it drove up the price upwards and got a lot of popularity and serious business. To top it off, Polkadot also finished two rounds of auctions. These were Kusama parachain auctions and both rounds were successful. The projects that had a go-round managed to raise a whopping USD 1 billion each from their crowdloan projects.

The Polkadot projects will emulate Kusama, according to Gavin Wood and Robert Hebermeler. This means that they will have 5 auctions in the first assortment. Then they will have 6 auctions thereafter. That being said, dates have yet to be set and could possibly change if the community decides to put a vote to it. Polkadot however slated November 2021, with it continuing into mid-March 2022.

That said, exciting and intriguing projects are currently being tested and validated. Once everything is underway, these anticipated auctions will likely be very competitive in nature. Numerous projects will bid for a few slots, but among those, it is possible to say there are a few that outshine their counterparts. These are mainly projects that have managed to get noteworthy community support already through crowdloans.

Moonbeam

Easily the most popular among the projects, Moonbeam stands out. Moonbeam is a serious contender for the parachain slot. Moonbeam happens to be a smart contract-enabled parachain based on Polkadot. It boasts of complete compatibility with Ethereum. This makes it easier to build native interoperable blockchain solutions. A key advantage that Moonbeam has in comparison to alternatives is that it is scalable, fast, and cheaper. It aims to overcome Ethereum’s flaws and take advantage of Polkadot’s features.

Moonriver

Moonriver is a network associated with Moonbeam that is doing quite well. It is leading in the Polkadot ecosystem at the moment. From the point when it won a slot in the second Kusama auction, it has continued to flourish. Moonriver raised 205,935 KSM from over 10,000 users in this round. Ever since then, it has only gained momentum substantially. Numerous decentralized projects have now joined the Moonriver ecosystem. Some of these include decentralized markets, liquidity protocols, NFT platforms, oracles, and decentralized exchanges. All this has caused the Moonriver ecosystem to raise over US$90 million in total locked value.

Acala

Acala is a multi-chain decentralized finance liquidity hub of Polkadot. It is another important Polkadot project worth mentioning. It won a slot in the first batch of Polkadot auctions. Acala is a layer 1 smart contract platform and shines because it is highly scalable. Another advantage of this project is that it is also compatible with Etherum, which is a huge advantage. It comes bundled with liquidity and out-of-the-box financial applications within its interoperable cross-chain functionality and high-end security protocols.

Manta Network

The existing projects haven’t all been mentioned. Manta Network is another cutting-edge example. It is Polkadot-based and built on Substrate. It also happens to have a plug-and-play privacy-preservation protocol intended for decentralized finance. Manta Network stands out as a potential winner in the first collection of Polkadot auctions.

Subsocial

In this age of social media, Subsocial is a project to keep a keen eye on. It offers to address the need for a greater creator-centric social media approach. This project is welcome as it emerges at a time when many of us are concerned about social media’s impact on our lives, freedom of speech, and privacy. This project offers users the opportunity to reshape their social media experiences, between platform owners and their communities by developing their own platforms and marketplaces.

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Business DeFi News Technology

Can Exchange Traded Products Speed Up Crypto Adoption?

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Can Exchange Traded Products Speed Up Crypto Adoption?

Is it possible for exchange traded products (ETPs) to help increase cryptocurrency adoption in the retail market? If you need to get funds to contribute towards crypto investment, the likelihood is that you won’t go to a bank for that. The very idea sounds alien, even. One expert wants to change that. Commerzbank’s Senior Product Manager of Investing Comdirect wants to bring about innovation in that regard. Rene Delrieux is the Senior Product Manager at this German-based firm and has some interesting ideas.

What is Happening?

Delrieux is currently engaging various players in the German online broker Comdirect. They are attempting to create a streamlined innovation for this challenge. Their goal is to convert bank clients to cryptocurrency clients in the crypto market.

As of now, probably everyone uses personal banking. We use it to open various types of bank accounts for ourselves and our businesses. We also may revert to the bank for help in getting a loan. Sometimes or perhaps placing investments on stock markets around the world. Hardly anyone would consider a traditional bank their go-to for investment in cryptocurrency markets. After all, it seems these industries are somewhat directly opposed. Let us also not forget the instability and controversial nature of cryptocurrency. At the same time, there are contentions with regulators. These contentions are about the lack of cryptocurrency regulation in many parts of the world.

There is a Demand

With all that said, people want cryptocurrency investment solutions. More progressive mainstream banks are experiencing this growing demand. These bank clients would like to benefit from the safety they have with mainstream banking services to avoid the risk inherent in the cryptocurrency markets if they decide to invest directly.

Forgetting or losing your cryptocurrency password could be the misfortune one faces that lead them to lose access to their cryptocurrency forever. Imagine losing access to all your hard-earned money, just like that. Unfortunately, this is a real concern that has happened to some people around the world, at some point. People have had to come to the devastation of losing their wealth just like that. Though it does not happen to everyone, it remains a real and present concern when investing in cryptocurrency. Delrieux proposes a safer and more comforting solution.

What will Innovation Mean with ETPs?

If they manage to make it work, Delrieux and the stakeholders he is working with at Comdirect could make this a thing of the past. It could become safer and easier for clients to start investing in the crypto market with the safety and ease that clients desire.

Considering that brokerage firms online already provide products similar to cryptocurrency, the concept may not be entirely new. Products such as exchange-traded products like ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds), ETCs (Exchange Traded Commodities), and ETNs (Exchange Traded Notes) are great examples of this. These products can be traded on markets around the world, similar to the way stocks are sold. Adding Crypto ETPs to this array of products is what Delrieux would like to accomplish. One particular one is that of a Savings Plan offering. This savings plan would allow consumers the opportunity to invest for as little as they can afford, as often and for as long as they would like.

Not everyone likes the idea of what such an innovation would do to the industry. Mostly, investors in the cryptocurrency community. This is likely understandable to a degree. One of the main reasons for this lack of consensus is the idea that part of the appeal of cryptocurrency is its lack of regulation.

But Delrieux, a crypto investor himself since 2017, doesn’t let that bother him. He stated that he is focused on the investment vehicle and not the ideological values of cryptocurrency,” he said.

One thing is for certain: if this solution does make it to market, then Delrieux will have sold a genuine problem for middle-class retail investors who found the market risks a put-off thus far.

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Blockchain DeFi News News

Change is coming to DeFi: Polkadot Parachains

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Change Is Coming To Defi: Polkadot Parachains

Changes are coming that may divide the masses, where blockchain is concerned. Some consider Ethereum as the infrastructure that will equalize the crypto-financing. Many believe that it could one day allow anyone to be their bank. With historically low-interest rates in comparison to brick and mortar banks’ savings accounts, the market is hungry for ETH to become a liquidity provider. But try to swap a token on Ethereum’s Uniswap and expect to experience uncomfortably high ETH gas charges.

The Competition is Eager

Luckily, Ethereum competitors are stepping up. Polkadot project presented itself as a solution for some of the challenges that Ethereum battles. These are some important challenges, including the ability to scale and interoperability. One aspect of growth that Polkadot is fortunate to have to face is that of proving itself. That would be slow and fraught with various challenges. Polkadot is fortunate not to have to experience this purely because it already proved itself.

Polkadot Infrastructure

With its open-source substrate framework, Polkadot uses the NpoS (Nominated Proof-of-Stake) consensus. This consists of 4 agents at the network level. These are nominators, collators, validators, and fishermen. The design allows for a level of flexibility and scalability in the sense that if Polkadot wanted to create a smart contract system, it could. It would, however, have to include NFT marketplaces, token minting, and DeFi’s farm yielding.

Polkadot can cater to up to 1000 transactions per second, in comparison to Ethereum’s pre-upgrade capacity of 13.4 transactions per second. One difference though is that Polkadot’s smart contracts display as parachains. Parachains are Polkadot’s interconnected blockchains that hold their tokens. The advantage of this is that it streamlines scalability up to the blockchain economy. It also helps do this without profit robbing transaction charges.

Key Advantages

So, Polkadot shines when it comes to the number of transactions it can handle over a number of chains in a parallel dynamic. At the time of writing this article, Polkadot had well over 500 projects on their way to production stages. All of this is a pleasant peculiarity of Polkadot.

Parachain Auctions

As of now, Polkadot has two parachains deployed. They are both on Polkadot’s mainnet. These parachains are Bifrost Kusama and Shiden Network. Bifrost Kusama (BNC) has a staking liquidity protocol. Shiden Network (SDN) has a smart contract layer. SDN is very important to the Polkadot ecosystem.

Launch Procedures

Parachains are not available for use unless they undergo tested. Kusama is the testing ground. For that reason, Kusama has gained the label of being the “canary network”. It is worth noting that Kusama and Polkadot are independent of each other as blockchains. New parachains are linked with Polkadot or Kusama Relay chains. This is typical of the spirit of the crypto-industry. Polkadot uses “candle auctions” for its bidding process. Once launched bids are submitted by users incrementally. The highest bidder wins and the auction is closed at a time selected by a random number.

Current Polkadot Projects

At the time of writing this article, there were 15 Polkadot projects underway in the auction stage. Here is a selection of some of these Polkadot projects:

Moonbeam (GLMR)

Moonbeam does a great job of connecting to an ecosystem of over US$100 billion (TGV). However, it is slow and pricy.

Acala (ACA)

Acala gives the hope that Finance 2.0 awaits. This is even though Acala is a new decentralized finance protocol.

Parallel Finance (PARA)

A robust and comprehensive service that includes margin staking, money markets, and insured staking. It is promising an important element of decentralized financing of the near future.

Expectations?

Exciting times are ahead. This can be expected with a fast-moving industry. Polkadot seems to promise cutting-edge innovations and new solutions.

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