JPMorgan Looking to Bring DeFi Yields to Non-Crypto Assets via Tokenization

Wall Steet behemoth JPMorgan has reportedly found a way that enables DeFi developers to leverage the yield-generating potential of non-crypto assets.  JPMorgan Could Bring DeFi Yields to Non-Crypto Assets  According to a Coindesk report published June 11, JPMorgan hinted that it has found a way to bring trillions of dollars of tokenized assets to DeFi.  At Consensus 2022 in Austin, Texas, Tyrone Lobban, head of Onyx Digital Assets at JPMorgan told Coindesk the banks institutional-grade DeFi plans and highlighted the amount of value in tokenized assets waiting to be poured into the DeFi landscape.  He said: “Over time, we think tokenizing U.S. Treasurys or money market fund shares, for example, means these could all potentially be used as collateral in DeFi pools. The overall goal is to bring these trillions of dollars of assets into DeFi, so that we can use these new mechanisms for trading, borrowing [and] lending, but with the scale of institutional assets.”  For the uninitiated, institutional DeFi differs from retail DeFi in that the former typically requires users to pass certain know-your-customer (KYC) strictures to benefit from the underlying digital assets permissionless pools.  To date, several leading DeFi protocols have unveiled their institutional-grade DeFi solutions such as Aave Arc, Compound Treasury, and

2022-06-13Deep Dive

U.S. Treasury Department on Track to Regulate Unhosted Wallets

IN BRIEF  The U.S. Treasury Department reiterated its commitment to addressing risks of unhosted crypto wallets at Consensus 2022.  Two major rules are being drafted to protect Americas national security.  The Treasury Department joins Senators Lummis and Gillibrand in the effort to bring more clarity to the crypto space.  The U.S. Treasury Department is progressing toward addressing the anonymity of unhosted crypto wallets as part of Joe Bidens wider strategy to tackle illicit finance involving digital assets.  Following two rules proposed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in 2020 that enforce transaction reporting on unhosted wallet transactions exceeding $10,000, while also compelling banks to collect information on a customer and their counterparty for any transaction exceeding $3,000 involving an unhosted wallet, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo affirmed that the government agency has made progress.  Speaking at Consensus 2022, Adeyemo confirmed:  “…we are working to address the unique risks associated with unhosted wallets…Fundamentally, financial institutions need to know who they are transacting and doing business with to make sure they are not making payments to criminals, sanctioned entities, or others. When it comes to unhosted wallets, we are working to provide them the information they need to avoid facilitating these kinds of illicit payments.”  Increased scrutiny

2022-06-13Deep Dive

Do Kwon denies fresh allegations of withdrawing $2.7B from Terra ecosystem via Degenbox

Do Kwon was recently accused of withdrawing $80 million a month from the Terra ecosystem leading up to the crash — fresh allegations claim this happened more than 33 times, and a staggering $2.7 billion was taken out of the system through Degenbox by Abracadabra Money.  Do Kwon has publicly denied the allegations, calling them “categorically false,” after making his Twitter account public again.The Allegations  According to the allegations, Do Kwon used Abracadabra.money and a staking loop that allows extreme levels of leveraging to withdraw the money as described by FatManTerra:  “You can stake collateral to buy UST, put it into Anchor, then use your aUST to borrow more UST, put it into Anchor again… You get the drill. Its Anchor on steroids.”  The staking loop is also employed by other derivative tokens such as stETH. These advanced yield strategies offer insanely high rewards but create extremely volatile investments with ever-increasing liquidation risks. FatManTerra alleges that Do Kwon undertook such a strategy and thus gambled with the future of Terra for his own personal gain.  FatManTerra questioned how Do Kown could have sold the $80 million tranches of tokens he acquired without crashing the price of either $LUNA or $UST since there is a lack

2022-06-13Deep Dive

Meme Token King Dogecoin Lost 91% in Value Since Last Year's High

The Dogecoin Dog Days — Meme Token King Sheds Significant Value  Dogecoin fans have been watching the largest meme coin asset plummet in value week after week. While it is still a top ten cryptocurrency, dogecoin (DOGE) has lost a lot of value since the assets all-time high on May 8, 2021. Over a year ago today, DOGE exchanged hands for $0.739 per unit and today the 24-hour price range for DOGE has been between $0.064 to $0.072 per coin.  Binance DOGE/USDT daily chart on June 12, 2022.  On Sunday, June 12, 2022, there‘s $567 million in worldwide DOGE trade volume during the past 24 hours. Dogecoin’s market valuation today is $8.68 billion which equates to 0.755% of the $1.15 trillion crypto economy. While being the tenth largest market cap, DOGE is below solana (SOL) and just above polkadot (DOT) in terms of market positions.  While 91% down from the all-time high is pretty significant, DOGE is still up a whopping 75,260% since the asset‘s all-time low on May 6, 2015. At that time, seven years ago today, DOGE was trading for $0.00008690 per unit. Dogecoin’s recent market performance has not been so optimistic as 12-month stats show DOGE is down 79.3%.  DOGE lost 21%

2022-06-12Deep Dive

Biggest Movers: AVAX, ALGO Among Crypto Losers as U.S. Inflation Hits 40-Year High

Avalanche (AVAX)  AVAX moved close to a one-week low on Friday, as prices fell following the release of U.S. inflation data.  Following a high of $25.29 on Thursday, AVAX/USD slipped to a low of $22.78 earlier in todays session.  This drop took prices close to their support level of $22.50, and comes as AVAX has dropped for four consecutive days.  AVAX/USD – Daily Chart  Todays low sees prices trade at their weakest point since last Saturday, with many now waiting to see if we could see even more drops this weekend.  Looking at the chart, the 14-day RSI does look as though it has also found a floor at the 35 level, and should this hold, then we may not see any additional slips in price.  This will be positive news for bulls who will likely wait for any signs of reversals prior to re-entering the market.Algorand (ALGO)  Like AVAX, ALGO also dropped in value during todays session, as it too hit its lowest point this week.  As of writing, ALGO/USD hit an intraday low $0.3696, which is nearly 10% below its peak of $0.4156 from yesterdays session.  Today‘s low is slightly above the recent support level at $0.3665, and it’s the first time prices have moved this close to

2022-06-11Deep Dive

How to Earn Passive Income from NFTs: 4 Ways That Already Work

You probably arent yet aware of this but non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represent an untapped passive income-generating opportunity.  Read on to learn how you can earn passive income with NFTs using a variety of methods that actually work.Staking NFTs  The convergence of NFT technology and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols has led to the potential for staking NFTs.  Staking is commonly used in proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols where users commit their tokens to secure a network and validate transactions. But there are also other forms of staking, such as locking away cryptoassets in a DeFi protocol smart contract to generate yield in return.  Similar to staking cryptoassets, staking NFTs allows you to generate passive income in the form of staking rewards while retaining ownership of your tokens.  Staking NFTs can be a good strategy if you are planning to hold them long-term since you cant trade your staked NFTs. NFT staking platforms often study the rarity of the NFT and calculate the APY (annual percentage yield). The higher the rarity, the higher the APY, and the higher the staking rewards.  Currently, there are several platforms that support NFT staking, including Kira Network, NFTX, Axie Infinity, and more.Renting out NFTs  Several GameFi platforms allow you to earn passive income from your

2022-06-11Deep Dive

Forbes Survey:Nearly 30% of the Top 65 World’s Wealthiest People Invested in Crypto

The world’s wealthiest individuals are also jumping on the crypto bandwagon because approximately 30% of the top 65 globe’s rich people have directly or indirectly invested in cryptocurrencies, according to a Forbes survey.   Per the report:  “Nearly 30% are either directly or indirectly invested in cryptocurrencies, a rate that is higher than among non-billionaire investors.”  Therefore, this represents a change of tune among the world’s wealthiest people because some have been heavy crypto critics. The survey noted:  “Of the billionaires surveyed, about 18% reported having at least 1% of their fortune in cryptocurrencies. Of that group, most are investing as a small side experiment.”  “3.2% of the billionaire respondents said they have more than half of their fortunes poured into crypto. The study added that another 10% said they hadn’t directly invested in cryptocurrencies but had backed crypto-focused companies,” the study added.  Despite some of the world’s leading billionaires having openly opposed crypto, many of them have cast their nets wider by looking at alternative currencies. Some of them have also made a paradigm shift from their previous tough stance about cryptocurrencies.   For instance, billionaire investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has emerged as one of the famous converts because he was a previous

2022-06-10Deep Dive

Mastercard to Enable Payments for NFTs

Mastercard has announced that the payment company is working to enable non-fungible token (NFT) commerce with Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway, and Web3 infrastructure provider MoonPay.   “We‘re working with these companies to allow people to use their Mastercard cards for NFTs purchases, whether that’s on one of these companies marketplaces or using their crypto services,” Mastercard said.  The new payment system will allow Mastercard holders to directly purchase NFTs from a digital assets marketplace. Prior to Mastercards new payment strategy, NFT buyers would first have to purchase crypto to complete the transaction.  According to the company, the introduction of the new payment system could have a major impact on the NFT ecosystem as there are currently 2.9 billion Mastercard cards globally.  Mastercards new NFT commerce has come at a time when NFT marketplaces have already generated more than $25 billion in sales in 2021 from art to sports to video games to collectables to metaverse platforms.  Mastercard is also expanding the adoption of Web3 - a new version of the internet based on blockchain. The companys Web3 expansion is bringing its payment network to Coinbases new NFT marketplace, which opened to all Coinbase users in May.  “Overall, these integrations are

2022-06-10Deep Dive

Majority Of American Merchants Prioritize Crypto As Payment: Deloitte Survey

Deloitte in collaboration with PayPal has carried out a survey called “Merchant Attitude to Digital Currency” involving 2000 senior executives at retail organizations across the United States. The result shows that about 85% of the surveyed merchants expect that cryptocurrency will be everywhere in five years time.  Digital currency as a form of payment to be everywhere soon  In recent times, we have clearly seen more people adapt to the use of cryptocurrencies as a form of payment, Deloitte‘s survey shows that the number of users might skyrocket in just about five years’ time as merchants in the US have been found to be optimistic about digital currency.  The survey which focused on US consumer businesses, with annual revenues ranging from below $10 million to $500 million and above, recorded that 64% of consumers currently have interest in digital currency and 85% of organizations are of the view that digital currency payments will be widespread by 2027.  It is also interesting to note that 54% of large retailers with revenues of $500 million and up have invested more than $1 million in attempts to authorize digital currency payments, and 6% of small retailers with revenues of under $10 million have done so, too.  The survey

2022-06-10Deep Dive

Lithuania to Ban Anonymous Wallets Following EU Regulation

Key Takeaways  Lithuanias Finance Ministry is looking to ban non-custodial crypto wallets.  New regulation also imposes strict regulations on crypto service providers operating within the nation.  The announcement comes after the European Unions recent decision to advance anti-anonymity rules in the crypto space.  Lithuanias Finance Ministry has banned anonymous wallets and imposed strict regulations on crypto exchanges in an attempt to combat money-laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion. The ministry stated it had made the move in anticipation of future European Union decisions.   Lithuania Bans Self-Hosted Wallets  The Lithuanian government is looking to pass a new law to tightening crypto regulations and outlaw anonymous wallets.  According to the Ministry of Finance, the government approved Wednesday amendments to the “Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing,” aiming to increase the transparency of the cryptocurrency sector while ensuring its “sustainable further development.” The amendments will need to be approved by the Seimas, Lithuanias legislature, before it is passed into law.  Among other things, the law seeks to ban the creation of “anonymous accounts,” tighten know-your-customer (KYC) regulations for crypto exchanges, and require managerial employees of Lithuanian-based exchanges to be permanent residents of Lithuania. The Registrar of Legal Entities will also make the names of crypto exchange

2022-06-10Deep Dive
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