Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

“Don’t Sell Your Bitcoin On The Cheap To MicroStrategy,” Binance’s CZ Warns

Changpeng Zhao has warned investors not to sell their BTC to Michael Saylor in a state of panic.　　Binance‘s CEO appeared to have taken note of Saylor’s aggressive Bitcoin purchases during price dips.　　Michael Saylors MicroStrategy has purchased well over 100,000 BTC since it began its buying spree in 2020.　　Michael Saylors aggressive Bitcoin purchases have caught the eye of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.　　Dont Sell Your Bitcoins　　Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the world‘s largest cryptocurrency exchange drew the attention of users to Microstrategy’s methods of buying BTC cheaply. Zhaos comments suggested that Saylor capitalized on investors panic as he leveraged the strategy of buying the dip.　　“Dont sell your Bitcoin on the cheap to Saylor. He is always buying when you panic sell,” Zhao said. Since the warning went public, it has garnered 25K likes and over 3,000 retweets.　　“Every Bitcoin deserves a good home,” replied Michael Saylor to Zhao‘s warnings. The humorous exchange between the two CEOs stems from MicroStrategy’s recent Bitcoin purchases. The software company currently owns over 122,473 BTC after accumulating over 9,000 BTC in the last quarter. During the last blip in prices, Michael Saylor noted that the company bought 1,434 Bitcoins at an average price of $57,477 for $82.4 million.　　Investors in

2021-12-13Deep Dive

Bitcoin Privacy 101: Key differences between a CoinSwap and a CoinJoin

Bitcoin is trustless and permissionless — anyone can use it without having to provide their real-world identity. This leads many people to think of Bitcoin as an anonymous network, where transactions are private, however in reality this is far from the truth. Bitcoin can work without a trusted third party in part because it is radically transparent — the entire transaction history is recorded and verified by everyone (well, every full node) and so is publicly available for anyone to analyze.　　This full transaction history provides a structure known as the ‘transaction graph’ which is essentially how transactions are connected together, and shows how the bitcoin has moved between different addresses.　　This public information can reveal a lot about the nature of transactions and be used to track the movement of funds and de-anonymize individual addresses. For example, although an individual bitcoin wallet address can be generated and used anonymously, much of the activity on Bitcoin is linked to real-world identities via regulated exchanges and custodians who are required to share customer information with authorities.　　Using this information, companies that specialise in blockchain analysis can link any purchases or transactions back to the identity of the person who first purchased the coins.　　The public

2021-12-12Deep Dive

Solana network slows to a crawl following alleged DDoS attack

On Thursday, the Solana network experienced a significant slow down in transaction processing, sparking fears of another DDoS attack.　　However, blockchain service provider GensysGo played down the incident, attributing the situation to “growing pains,” rather than inherent design flaws.　　“The #Solana validator network is experiencing issues this morning. TPS issues as the network works to process txn requests. Remember, this is blockchain. If your txn ID went through then its not lost, just pending. Growing pains is all!”　　Nonetheless, considering this is the second such incident since mid-September, investors are growing twitchy around the protocols security and robustness.Is Solana highly centralized？　　Word of a DDoS attack first came to light on Thursday around 15:00 GMT, when Solana NFT platform Blockasset tweeted that they were aware of long token distribution times. They added that this is due to a DDoS attack flooding the network.　　Since then, Blockasset has deleted the tweet, but the event was still captured in a Reddit post.　　A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack refers to a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a target by way of overwhelming it with a flood of internet traffic.　　So far, the Solana Foundation has yet to post an official response to the incident. And users are

2021-12-11Deep Dive

Coinbase finally introduces DeFi yield product, bars United States users

In September, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the leading crypto exchange in the country, Coinbase, were at loggerheads over the crypto firms proposed yield program which the financial regulator considered to be a direct violation of its securities law.　　While the exchange has since dropped its plan to launch the program in the United States, it has gone ahead to introduce the decentralized finance (DeFi) yield product in 70 other countries.Coinbase introduces DeFi yield in 70 countries　　According to a press statement released by Coinbase on Thursday, the crypto exchange will be providing exposure to DeFi for its customers who are looking to put their digital asset to work. For a start, users would be able to lend and borrow assets, like DAI —a Stablecoin.　　DeFi has tremendous potential to help increase economic freedom, and were excited to be able to provide a trusted and accessible way to participate.　　DeFi, no doubt, has recorded tremendous growth in this year. However, access to the space is still very much limited as it involves some level of technicalities that an average user might find difficult to navigate.　　Coinbase looks to democratize access to the space by introducing its global customers to what many

2021-12-11Deep Dive

Parallel Finance wins Polkadot’s fourth parachain slot auction with $300 million raised

Parallel Finance announced winning Polkadots fourth parachain slot, with contributions totaling 10,75 million DOT–equating to roughly $300 million.　　In order to win the auction, contributors and investors vote by staking Polkadots native cryptocurrency, and with more than 30,000 supporters, the DeFi lending protocol secured its place in the expanding ecosystem.Parallel Finance secures its lease　　Parallel Finance joins the league of Polkadot parachain slot auction winners–Acala, Moonbeam, and Astar.　　The lending protocol surfaced as the third-largest DOT contributor to Polkadot parachain auctions–ahead of Astar, which won the third Parachain auction by raising 10,33 million DOT.　　In the first and second parachain auction Acala and Moonbeam raised 32,51 million DOT, and 35,75 million, respectively.　　Parallel Finance will be onboarded at block #8179200 on December 18, at the beginning of lease six with the other first five auction winners. 　　Polkadot parachains are individual, but interconnected Layer-1 blockchains. 　　Connected to and secured by the main relay chain via slots, parachains benefit from Polkadots security, scalability, interoperability, and governance.　　Slots on the relay chain are leased for up to 96 weeks at a time–with the renewal option. New financial primitive for staked DOT　　Parallel Finance (PARA) represents three decentralized Polkadot-powered protocols–leveraging lending/borrowing, staking, as well as fundraising products. 　　The platforms new financial

2021-12-11Deep Dive

Polygon reveals acquisition of zk proofs project Mir in $400 million deal

Polygon has revealed an acquisition deal that will see the Ethereum Layer-2 platform buy Predictive Labs and its Mir blockchain in a $400 million deal.　　Developers Predictive Labs specialize in zero-knowledge roll-up technology, which is gaining traction as a viable privacy and scaling solution.　　With one eye on the future, the deal forms part of Polygons wider strategy to reduce Ethereum gas fees and speed up its transactions.　　But with so many Layer-2s, for example, in Arbitrum, Optimism, and Immutable-X, to name a few, is the Ethereum ecosystem getting overcrowded？Polygon hosted the zk Summit　　Polygon hosted the zk Summit on Thursday, which they billed as the leading space to discuss zero-knowledge technology.　　Zero-knowledge refers to a verification method in which one party (the prover) can prove to another (the verifier) that a statement is true without revealing information about said statement.　　There are variations to this, such as zk-SNARKs, in which the prover and verifier dont need to interact, thus fostering greater privacy and security.　　In the run-up to the summit, much was made about a major announcement to be revealed. In turn, this fueled significant speculation over Polygons future plans.　　The big reveal turned out to be the acquisition of zk specialists Predictive Labs. Polygon will pay

2021-12-11Deep Dive

WhatsApp launches crypto payments pilot powered by Meta’s digital wallet

Meta Platforms cryptocurrency wallet, dubbed Novi, will enable sending and receiving money through the popular messaging app–WhatsApp.　　WhatsApp is a unit of Meta– a tech giant formerly known as Facebook.　　The pilot program is open to a limited number of users in the US, according to Novi head Stephane Kasriel, who announced the launch on Twitter.Testing transactions　　“Using Novi doesn‘t change the privacy of WhatsApp personal messages and calls, which are always end-to-end encrypted,” according to Kasriel, who added that the pilot will be extended following the users’ feedback.　　The payments feature is included in WhatsApp as a new attachment option, and there is no cap on the number of transactions that can be made through the messaging app.　　Users can include payments to messages–“without ever leaving a WhatsApp chat”–in a similar way they do with photographs–tapping the “+” icon and selecting “Payment” from the menu.　　Novi wallet is designed for transferring money instantly and with no fees, with payment made through USDP–a stablecoin issued by blockchain trust company Paxos, which is pegged to the US dollar.Turbulent launch　　Metas cryptocurrency strategy has changed since the company first announced its plans in 2019.　　Initial plan was to develop a cryptocurrency called Libra, which was supposed to be linked to

2021-12-10Deep Dive

Gaming, Solana, the metaverse, and Bitcoin above $100K: The market predicts what’s in store for 2022

A new report from trading platform CoinList analyzed the future of the crypto industry following a survey of almost 5,000 of its users.　　Respondents weighed in on everything from the dominance of specific blockchain platforms to use cases for NFTs and showed that the market has its hopes set pretty high for 2022.The market believes we‘re heading towards an exciting year　　In its end-of-the-year crypto report, token issuance platform CoinList surveyed nearly 5,000 of its community members, who shared their predictions on Bitcoin’s price, Layer-1 platforms, use cases for NFTs, and everything in between.　　CoinList enables users to buy, trade, and earn new crypto assets before they list on other exchanges. It was among the first platforms to offer users novel cryptocurrencies such as Filecoin (FILE), Flow (FLOW), and Solana (SOL) and was, at least in part, responsible for the rise in popularity they saw in the past year.　　When asked what type of projects they would like to see more of on CoinList next year, the majority of users said gaming. The same enthusiasm was applied to decentralized finance, with over 52% of the surveys respondents saying they would like more DeFi tokens available.　　Trailing closely behind were NFTs, with 41.6% of its users

2021-12-10Deep Dive

NIGERIAN YOUTHS DABBLE INTO FOREX AND CRYPTO TRADING AS THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE INCREASES

It is quite a sad situation in Nigeria, the most populated country in Africa, as the unemployment rate among her youths soars. Getting a degree and not knowing what to do with it is becoming a norm in Nigeria. Most parents work hard to sponsor their children to tertiary institutions, but not getting a job or getting a mediocre job has become rampant in Nigerian society. The gap between the haves and have-not is increasing daily, and the Nigerian government has turned a blind eye to it.　　Universities and Polytechnics admit over 2 million students per year in Nigeria, and they produce over 600,000 employable graduates yearly. That is also an addition to the number of unemployed youths in the previous years. The unemployment rate keeps skyrocketing year in year out. According to Trading economics, the youth unemployment rate as of December 2020 is 53.40%. That means more than half of the Nigerian Youths are unemployed. And that is different from those that are underemployed, working 20 - 39 hours per week. The report from the Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan 2021-24 of the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development published in August 2021 indicated that as of 2020 (Q2),

2021-12-10Deep Dive

THE ADOPTION OF CRYPTOCURRENCY IN AFRICA

The adoption of cryptocurrencies in Africa has provided a suitable alternative to both traditional intra-regional and international payments. Transfer fees that remain higher in Africa than in the rest of the world have been greatly reduced by the use of cryptocurrencies. Although cryptocurrencies do incur a fee, it is far lower than what banks charge. The universal access to cryptocurrency networks via mobile phones makes these digital assets more convenient than rigid traditional banking and money-wiring services.　　The ease that cryptocurrencies brought into the payment system made it possible for rapid adoption in Africa. Traditional banks are charging a higher fee for both local and international transfers, and the long wait in the queue makes it even more tiring. Once a suitable option for payment transfer shows up, which of course is cryptocurrencies, its adoption increases rapidly.　　Although Africa captures only 2 percent of the global value of all cryptocurrencies received and sent, making it the worlds smallest cryptocurrency economy, the rising prominence of this innovative form of money is altering traditional financial flows to and from the continent.　　According to the Chainalysis 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index published in August, global adoption of crypto assets has jumped by over 2,300 percent since

2021-12-10Deep Dive

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