Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Swedish Municipality Looking to Diversify Investment Portfolio With Crypto

Staffanstorp Municipality in Sweden has agreed to research crypto. All politicians agreed to this by April 20, 2022. The municipality has a robust economy and an investment portfolio of over SEK 500M (~$55M). Investments made by the municipality include fixed income and securities. The municipality is now looking to crypto investments as a possible method of risk diversification. Christian Sonnesson, chairman of the municipal board, believes that it is not about owning bitcoin.　　“We believe that we will receive offers about this in the future and now want to investigate to be better read. I think many people need to make a journey of knowledge; then everyone gets to make their assessment.” Investments will be made through crypto funds that follow the value of cryptocurrencies.　　The opposition leader Pierre Sjostrom agreed but expressed concern as to the risky nature of crypto, considering that tax revenue will being used.　　Chairman Weighs In　　Should the investigation yield a positive result, it is unclear whether the Local Government Act would allow it. The Act states, “Municipalities and regions must manage their funds in such a way that requirements for good returns and satisfactory security can be met.”　　Sonnesson believes that a fear of the unknown prevents people [from

2022-01-10Deep Dive

Ruling Party Sources Deny Plan to Levy 40% Tax on Crypto Yields in Turkey

The government in Turkey does not intend to impose a 40-percent levy on crypto-related gains as has been alleged, members of the ruling AKP party have indicated to the local press. They have also emphasized that the current regulatory efforts are aimed at creating a sustainable environment for the blockchain industry.　　Turkey to Establish Regulatory Base for Cryptocurrency Market　　A legislative proposal tailored to regulate cryptocurrency trade in Turkey is likely to be submitted to the parliament in the upcoming weeks. Sources from the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the countrys ruling political force, have “strongly denied” allegations that authorities in Ankara are going to tax cryptocurrency gains at a rate of 40%, the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet reported.　　One of the AKP representatives, the deputy leader of the party‘s parliamentary group Mustafa Elitaş, commented on social media last month that the new law will serve to regulate Turkey’s crypto system, while “preventing malicious acts, protecting investors and countering grievances” as he put it. He remarked that drafts prepared by other institutions have also been mentioned by the media but stressed that the legislature will have the final say.　　On Dececmber 29, Elitaş organized a meeting with 13 representatives of cryptocurrency platforms operating in Turkey

2022-01-10Deep Dive

PayPal Exploring Launch of Its New Stablecoin in Push for Crypto Adoption

PayPal is reportedly planning to launch its own stablecoin as part of its strategy to take advantage of crypto adoption.　　PayPals senior vice president and general manager of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, confirmed to Bloomberg that the payment giant is considering having its own regulated stablecoin.　　“We are exploring a stablecoin; if and when we seek to move forward, we will of course, work closely with relevant regulators.”　　Fernandez da Ponte‘s announcement comes after iOS developer Steve Moser discovered parts of the PayPal iPhone app’s source code that indicated that the company may be working on a stablecoin called “PayPal Coin.”　　A PayPal spokesperson says that the images and codes inside the app were from a hackathon within the companys blockchain, crypto and digital currencies division. Therefore, the logo, name and features of the coin may still change before the crypto asset gets released to the public.　　Fernandez da Ponte said in November that PayPal has not found a stablecoin purpose-built for payments. At the time, he said that PayPal is looking at two things before issuing its own stablecoin.　　“The technology getting ready and especially in terms of security, throughput and scalability is one aspect. The other aspect is that

2022-01-10Deep Dive

How big is crypto? Comparing the market to traditional asset classes

2021 was a record-breaking year for crypto, with the global market cap surpassing $2 trillion for the first time.　　NGRAVE put this milestone in a wider context and explored how big the crypto market is relative to other more traditional asset classes.　　To assess the significance of the industrys total market cap, the crypto security provider compared it to the value of other global industries.Compared to precious metals, real estate, and equities　　Currently, gold has a market cap of $11.4 trillion, making it around five times the size of the crypto market and 13 times the size of Bitcoin, also referred to as ‘digital gold.’　　“In 2021, $10 billion has been pulled from gold funds as BTC posted new ATHs amid rampant money-printing,” noted NGRAVE, pointing to competition between the two, as Bitcoin grew to represent a sound ‘safe-haven’ asset.　　However, when compared to the size of the global silver market, which stands at $1.28 trillion–the crypto market cap is almost double the size.　　“The most significant store of wealth known to man”–the world‘s real estate market is thought to be roughly four times as much as global GDP, eyeballed at around $340 trillion–at least 160 times the size of crypto’s market cap.　　While set against the

2022-01-10Deep Dive

What Is the Environmental Impact of Cryptocurrency?

As the world grapples with how best to combat climate change, weve identified fossil fuels, farming, and industrial pollution as major offenders, but in recent years, the discussion has turned to cryptocurrency. Mining, particularly Bitcoin mining, uses an immense amount of energy, while the race among would-be crypto millionaires to build the most powerful mining rig produces a lot more electronic waste than fat bank accounts.　　How much does cryptocurrency cost the environment？ Does mining and transacting with crypto actually contribute to climate change？ Heres what we know so far.How Much Energy Is Too Much Energy？　　The most obvious environmental impact of crypto is the electricity required for the mining process, which is how new digital coins are created. While most know this as Bitcoin mining, many forms of cryptocurrency rely on mining. But since Bitcoin‘s release, it’s become progressively harder to mint new units of currency through mining. This was by design, as the currency was capped at 21 million units, so the more units minted, the fewer units there are available to mine, and the more computational power it takes to mint new ones.　　That preprogrammed scarcity combined with the potential for financial gain (one Bitcoin is worth about $42,000 as

2022-01-09Deep Dive

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

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