Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

More Banks Will Adopt Cryptocurrency in 2022: Here's Why

With the consistent increase of people investing in and spending cryptocurrency over the past few years, its no surprise that a number of industries have acknowledged its importance in our present and future. And banks are no exception; in recent months, more and more banks have announced their plans to adopt cryptocurrency.　　But what are the key reasons for this？Banks Havent Always Been Big on Cryptocurrencies　　Before we get into the reasons why banks are adopting crypto, lets quickly discuss what has happened in the past in this respect. Back in 2014, before the crypto boom took place, Wall Street executives were already starting to sweat over the concept of digital assets replacing—or at least competing with—traditional legal tender.　　While banks are centralized and have a single authoritative individual or group, cryptocurrency uses a decentralized system, wherein no one person holds all the data or power of the network at any one time. Not everyone is a fan of this power-to-the-people model, and banks began to worry that crypto was a threat.　　Over the past few years, multiple governments worldwide have moved to ban the ownership, sale, or mining of cryptocurrency in an attempt to keep their national currency as the sole form of

2022-01-09Deep Dive

How Blockchain Tech Unlocks Exciting Opportunities For Gamers Earning Money By Playing Games

The video game sector is huge. There are more than two billion gamers across the world — that is around 26% of the worlds population. If you add the annual revenues generated by Hollywood and all the sporting events in the U.S., the obtained figures still wont be enough to surpass the earnings of the digital gaming industry alone. Companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Activision, generate billions of dollars every year from selling games and related products, but thanks to blockchain technology now you can also earn money by playing metaverse-based games.　　Until now, only the brands, developers, and artists involved in the production of video games were able to generate income, along with gamers who earn money by livestreaming or playing in tournaments, but the emergence of blockchain-based technologies like NFTs, smart contracts, and virtual gaming worlds may now be giving rise to a new play-to-earn (P2E) business model in the gaming domain. This new model allows players to earn financial rewards while playing a video game and through trading in-game items at different marketplaces on the internet.How blockchain technology is revolutionizing the gaming industry？　　Blockchain is a decentralized data recording system or a digital ledger that stores information in blocks

2022-01-09Deep Dive

Building a new class of developers for Web3

The Internet is arguably one of the most significant technological developments in history. It is also a game-changing technology despite being only 20 years old. It is evolving quite quickly, having gone from Web1 to Web2 and undergoing another major transition into Web3, its latest paradigm shift. The world is at the MachineFi threshold, the machine-driven economy that will dominate globally for decades to come, unleashing an IoT value of up to $12.6 trillion by 2030.　　Addressing the vital question of who will own the multi-trillion-dollar machine economy, IoTeX has focused development on Web3 and in global decentralized identity standards. These standards aim to enable individuals and machines to interact securely and privately without surrendering control of their data, smaOkay rt devices, and the value they generate to Big Tech.　　In practice, IoTeX has kicked off a two to three-year plan aimed at building a new Web3 developer community who will focus vast resources on developing hundreds if not thousands of new MachineFi use cases on the IoTeX blockchain network, the fastest, most scalable, secure and low cost in the space.Global standards are indispensable　　“Something IoTeX is doing very well is around standards, which is where I have found one of the biggest

2022-01-09Deep Dive

Here is why Ethereum’s dominance in DeFi is falling

Ethereum is undoubtedly the leading blockchain in DeFi, but this could be about to change as analysts at JPMorgan have noted that the dominance of the asset in the space could already be fading.　　According to the analysts, the rise of smart contract-enabled protocols like Terra, Avalanche, and Solana have shown that the lead of Ethereum is not absolute in DeFi.　　These projects, it was revealed, have eaten into its dominance, and they could potentially charge further impact in this new year.Ethereum is losing dominance in DeFi　　To put this in perspective, Ethereums market share of DeFi TVL was almost at 100% at the beginning of 2021. However, that figure had dropped to around 65% towards the end of the same year.　　Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, the team leader of the analysts, wrote that the major cause of the lost ground could be tied to the scalability of the ETH network.　　Per the note, the scaling upgrade needed by Ethereum to maintain its dominance of the space might arrive too late.　　“Ethereum is currently in an intense race to maintain its dominance in the application space with the outcome of that race far from given.”　　Due to this scaling problem, other independent blockchains like Terra, Avalanche, and Solana have

2022-01-09Deep Dive

Meta’s Recent Virtual Concerts Flops Severely, Is Facebook’s Rebrand Becoming Disastrous?

Mark Zuckerbergs dream of building the metaverse with the rebranding of Facebook to Meta may be off to a rocky start already. Meta hosted a series of virtual concerts on its Horizon Venues app, where people can watch concerts, sports, and more together. According to reports, the event failed to draw much attention.　　The virtual concerts featured performances from Grammy award-winning artists including rapper Young Thug on Boxing day, and DJ and producer David Guetta, and EDM duo The Chainsmokers on new years eve. However, Futurism, a science and technology new platform, reports that the concerts were a flop as far as viewers count were concerned.　　According to Futurism, despite being free, the performance by Young Thug got just a little over 100,000 viewers while David Guitars got close to a million viewers. The performance of the Chainsmokers seems to have been removed according to the report. Even worse, the report notes that the concert failed to generate much attention from the media and social media users and also had technical issues.　　Meta is forging on with its metaverse dreams despite stiff competition　　Despite the relatively mellow VR concert turnout, the move is a bold one from Meta which can be considered to be

2022-01-09Deep Dive

The SEC Files A Strike Against Ripple’s Defense. Could It Drown XRP?

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made a surprise attack on the Ripple case by filing a letter of supplemental authority to strike Ripple‘s “fair notice” defense. Simultaneously, the token XRP is down 2.33% in the last 24 hours to $0.7 following the market’s downtrend.The SECs Surprise Move　　As the popular SEC vs. Ripple case is expected to be resolved around April this year, the SEC has made a new move that left many wondering if previous expectations could change.　　The American regulator is using a winning move from another case to strike at Ripples key arguments.　　The SEC had taken John M Fife and five entities controlled by him to court in September 2020 for selling $21 billion of penny stocks and gaining a profit of $61 billion without registering as security dealers.　　FIFE‘s defense adopted an argument similar to Ripple’s, alleging the SEC hadnt given them a fair warning and the term “dealer” can be widely interpreted. Last month, the court denied this argument.What Does It Mean For The Ripple Case？　　Naturally, the regulator now aimed to use this denial to strike at Ripples “fair notice” key defense.　　Similarly, Ripple‘s “fair notice” defense alleges the regulator failed to notify them about a possible

2022-01-08Deep Dive

Cardano’s Ecosystem Explodes, Why ADA Could Be Quick To Resume Bullish Trend

Cardano (ADA) has followed the general trend in the market and records losses across the board. The seventh crypto by market cap trades at $1.22 with a 2.2% and 10% loss in the past 24 hours and 7 days, respectively.　　However, Cardano continues to be one of the most active ecosystems in the crypto industry. This won it the title for most active project on GitHub in 2021 as developers rushed in to explode its smart contract and interoperable capabilities.　　As the Marketing and Communications Director for Input Output Global (IOG) Tim Harrison reported, the Cardano project has over 67 active repositories, with 106 releases, over 38,000 GitHub commitments, and more. Harrison wrote the following giving credit to the community:　　(Cardano) is the most active project to date. Thats just core work. With community tools, scripts, APIs & a fast expanding dApp ecosystem, there are 100s more repos out there, steadily filling with code from every corner of the community.　　Still, the network has seen backlash from users and critics claiming that it has failed to quickly introduce dApps, and projects capable of leveraging its smart contracts capabilities. Deployed with Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) event “Alonzo”, these capabilities have been lived for over four

2022-01-08Deep Dive

What 2022 may have in store for the cryptocurrency investor

The first week of 2022 hasnt been kind to bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency lost 11% of its value in mere days and finished this week at about $42,000 — down almost 40% from its all-time high last fall.　　Analysts closely watching crypto said the Federal Reserves hint at raising interest rates sooner than expected caused many investors to sell off their bitcoin holdings and turn toward safer investments. Other digital coins including ethereum and ripple also plunged this week, down 13.5% and 9%, respectively.　　Thats par for the course in the ultra-volatile crypto market, with investors expecting the big swings to continue in 2022.　　“Its part of the game,” Ryan Firth, a financial planner with Mercer Street Financial, told CBS MoneyWatch. “Youve got to hold on tight and go in with eyes wide open. You could see 80% declines in a matter of a few months.”　　For investors, 2021 marked an action-packed year for of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin saw its price top out at $69,000 in November, while ethereum notched a record high of $4,404 in October. 　　In a sign of cryptos growing importance, a number of major retailers began accepting the currency as payments. Some athletes and politicians began receiving parts of their salary

2022-01-08Deep Dive

WHY CHINA’S BAN WAS THE BEST THING FOR BITCOIN IN 2021

When Chinas bitcoin crackdown came into effect, many speculated that the industry would never recover. Amazingly, though, the ban served to highlight both the resilience of the sector and the entrepreneurial spirit of the miners who keep the wheels of the blockchain turning.　　Despite the Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) deeming crypto-related activities illegal in September, bitcoin enjoyed a banner year in 2021, smashing its previous all-time price high (ATH) as institutional players joined the party. Far from representing a death knell, the much-hyped ban barely had an impact in the larger scheme of things.DISSECTING CHINA‘S WAR ON CRYPTO　　Anyone who has paid attention will know that China has never been positive about bitcoin. As CoinShares’ chief strategy officer Meltem Demirors cheekily noted in September, “This has to be the 20th time that China has banned bitcoin.”　　So, why was this particular clampdown different？ In essence, because all cards were now on the table and all of the powers of the state were brought to bear to enforce the ban. While in the past, Chinese financial institutions were forbidden from providing crypto-related services, now all cryptocurrency-related activities — including trading and mining — were outlawed.　　In what has been dubbed the great mining migration,:

2022-01-08Deep Dive

Australian Open embraces blockchain tech, incorporates NFTs and metaverse

The adoption of blockchain technology by various industries in the world is on the rise, the sports industry just took another step in that direction. This step was taken by the organizers of one of the biggest Grand Slams in the world, Australian Open. 　　According to organizers of the competition, the tournament is set to become the first-ever Grand Slam to incorporate non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This was first revealed by a Gizmodo report. Australian Open to incorporate NFTs into the tournament　　An analysis of the plan indicated that there are multiple dimensions through which NFTs would be incorporated into the sporting competition. 　　To start with, a collection of 6,776 NFTs will be made available to the public. This collection has been dubbed “Art Ball NFTs.” Aside from this, there are also clear indications that several small plots would be tied to each Art Ball.　　Further analysis indicated that the incorporation of the NFTs would be designed in a way that ensures that for every winning shot made from the tournaments 600 matches, verified owners will get an airdrop. 　　This airdrop would also include a film of the point, virtual wearables, Australian Open merchandise, among other things. 　　It is important to note that

2022-01-08Deep Dive

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