Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

The Guy Who Sold Everything For Bitcoin Reveals How He Keeps His Stash Safe

Didi Taihuttu earned his fortune after selling everything he owned for Bitcoin. Now he knows what it really means to be his own bank.　　In 2017, before the cryptocurrency frenzy began, Didi Taihuttu made the decision of a lifetime: he sold all his assets and bought Bitcoin… at $900. Perhaps he was super happy a few months later when he achieved a 20X ROI, but now, with each coin trading above $46,000, Taihuttu has to think very hard about how to protect his fortune, considering that he is his own bank.　　The way he safeguards his assets, as he told CNBC, involves making it virtually impossible to access his funds by using the entire world as his personal vault:　　“I have hidden the hardware wallets across several countries so that I never have to fly very far if I need to access my cold wallet, in order to jump out of the market,”　　The World Is Your Bank When You Have No Bank　　Taihuttu does not want to reveal the amount of money he has, but it was known at the time that he put his house up for sale for 85 BTC. He also sold his car, motorcycle, his daughters toys, and even some

2021-08-12Deep Dive

Ripple Continues Its Asia-Pacific Expansion Via New Partnership With South Korea’s GME Remittance

Blockchain payments firm Ripple will further expand its operations in the Asia-Pacific region after entering into a strategic partnership with Global Money Express Co. Ltd (GME Remittance), one of South Koreas leading money transfer giants.　　GME Remittance Joins RippleNet　　According to a blog post on August 10, GME Remittance is now a RippleNet customer, joining over 300 other member banks and financial institutions across the globe. The firm joined the enterprise blockchain network of Ripple to enhance cross-border payments between South Korea and Thailand.　　In particular, GME Remittance has linked up with Thailand‘s largest bank by market capitalization, Siam Commercial Bank, through RippleNet — which notably doesn’t use the XRP cryptocurrency. This collaboration was made possible through Ripple and SBI Holdings joint venture, SBI Ripple Asia, in a bid to “accelerate and scale” remittance payments for over 184,000 Thai citizens who are presently living in South Korea.　　The post also revealed that GME Remittance is eyeing connections with more existing RippleNet customers to establish a footprint in more remittance corridors across the region and internationally, including the United States and Europe.　　GME Remittance Director and COO, Subash Chandra Poudel, said in the announcement:　　“We chose Ripple as our partner because with RippleNet we can launch into

2021-08-12Deep Dive

Bitcoin Poised to Move With the Golden Cross Looming

On August 13th, Bitcoin is projected to form a Golden Cross if it continues to trend above the $40K mark.　　A golden cross indicates that Bitcoin could potentially rally if the sentiment persists.　　Bitcoin faces resistance at the $47,000 level with selling pressure increasing as it inches closer to the $50,000 psychological level.　　Bitcoin has strong relations with its volatility counterpart; after the flagship crypto token broke through resistance, Amazon listed positive news. Negative news has historically impacted Bitcoin far worse than any positive speculation, as Bitcoin crossed the “death cross” once before, also breaking the $30,000 mark. Following a string of positive news pieces that flipped market sentiment, Bitcoin is now poised to reach new bullish indicators.　　The Story of the Golden Cross　　The Golden Cross is completed when Bitcoins 50 EMA and 200 EMA cross. The pattern is a bullish indicator as the short-term moving average passes the long-term moving average, potentially promising a long-term positive rally. However, as the 2021 Death Cross illustrates, the market did not suffer excessively.　　Lark David highlights that the market is getting closer to a golden cross, while popular Twitter trader Rekt Capital similarly emphasized, on August 8th, that Bitcoin passing and sustaining past the $45,000 mark would

2021-08-12Deep Dive

Tokenization May Make Real Estate Investment Easier: Report

Tokenization in real estate is an “inevitable next chapter in blockchains disruption of capital markets,” and could make major progress in the next five years, according to a report published by Moore Intelligence on Wednesday.　　The emergence of new secondary markets for digital property assets might mean more liquidity, efficiency and lower costs for investors, the report noted.　　“Tokenization has potential to drive down transactional costs and improve efficiency via the use of ‘smart contracts’ which can replace copious paperwork and laborious administration,” according to the report.　　Institutional investors still largely remain on the sidelines waiting for more regulatory clarity, the report said.　　Moore Global is the parent company of Moore Cayman, an auditing firm that published attestation reports for Tether, issuer of the largest stablecoin USDT.　　“From an audit perspective, adding digital assets to a portfolio can be advantageous as blockchain technology can make transactions more transparent and trackable,” David Walker, managing partner of Moore Cayman wrote in the report.　　“Tokenization has potential to drive down transactional costs and improve efficiency via the use of ‘smart contracts’ which can replace copious paperwork and laborious administration,” according to the report.　　Texas-based commercial real estate marketplace Red Swan has tokenized $2.2 billion in real estate through security token

2021-08-12Deep Dive

$402 Billion Investment Firm Neuberger Berman Set to Offer BTC & ETH Futures Exposure

Neuberger Berman, a $402 billion asset management firm has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to offer crypto futures exposure to one of its funds- Neuberger Berman Commodity Strategy Funds (the “Fund”). The said fund would offer exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) futures along with Crypto ETFs to get indirect exposure to funds.　　“Effective immediately, Neuberger Berman Commodity Strategy Funds (the ”Fund“) investment strategy will permit actively managed exposure to cryptocurrency investments and digital assets through (i) cryptocurrency derivatives, such as bitcoin futures and ether futures, and (ii) investments in bitcoin trusts and exchange-traded funds to gain indirect exposure to bitcoin.”　　The institutional giants have increased their focus towards the crypto derivatives market especially the Bitcoin Futures market, ever since SEC chief Gary Gensler hinted that a derivative ETF has more chances of approval than those funds that wish to hold physical bitcoin. Four institutional giant has filed for Bitcoin Strategy ETF since then, that offers exposure to the futures market. VanEck became the latest firm to file for the BTC Strategy ETF along with Invesco.　　Bitcoin (BTC) Institutional Demand at ATH　　The US SEC chief Gary Gensler had made his stance very clear- tough regulatory policies to ensure investor

2021-08-12Deep Dive

Is Ethereum’s Gas Fee Improved Now that the London Hardfork is Live?

The cryptocurrency ecosystem was agog when the Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) 1559 went live last week. The EIP 1559 upgrade, also called the London Hardfork introduced a few improvements into the Ethereum blockchain which prior was notably plagued with congestion and high network fees.　　Prior to the launch of the hardfork, users engage in a bidding war with their transaction fees as a way catch the attention of miners who help in prioritizing the transactions when validating several entries. As the condition to get transactions faster was inherent in who have the bigger pocket to pay an attractive fee, these fees reportedly grew to new highs that made the network largely unusable.　　All these are supposedly in the past with the emergence of the EIP 1559 upgrade. The new protocol now proposes a base fee which all network users pay for transactions. This base fee can be viewed in advance, and it is calculated on-chain based on the congestion in the network per time.　　Is the Base Fee Model Solving the Gas Fee Hike Challenge？　　Data from Glassnode shows that the average gas usage in the Ethereum network has hit a 5-year high of 43,799.060.　　This metric is all about the functionality of the Ethereum

2021-08-12Deep Dive

Ethereum Has Burned $100 Million in Fees Since EIP-1559 Took Effect

In brief　　EIP-1559 created a mechanism to burn Ethereum transaction fees.　　Since it was implemented via a network upgrade, the price of ETH has risen.　　Ethereums London hard fork, a long-awaited network upgrade that included a measure to reduce the supply growth of ETH, went live just last Thursday.　　What a difference a week makes.　　Since the hard fork, over $100 million in ETH has been burned, or taken out of circulation, helping fuel a price increase from $2,725 to $3,230, according to data from Nomics.　　The London upgrade featured five code changes, but the most discussed was EIP-1559. The “Ethereum Improvement Proposal” altered the transaction fee structure for the network. Instead of fees going directly to the miners that process and validate transactions, a base fee would instead go to the network and promptly be destroyed.　　While EIP-1559 was also a way of improving user experience by automating transaction prices and taking the guesswork out of an opaque auction process, it has mostly had the effect of stoking demand by reducing supply.　　Whereas Bitcoin was created with a 21 million BTC supply limit, Ethereum has no such ceiling. EIP-1559, then, inserts deflationary pressure. With each new block of transactions added to the chain, new ETH is created

2021-08-12Deep Dive

3 Reasons Why Ethereum Trading Volume Surpasses Bitcoin’s, According to Coinbase CFO

In a recent talk with CNBC Squawk Box host Andrew Sorkin, the chief financial officer of leading U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase named three reasons why she believes the Ethereum trading volume has been outpacing that of Bitcoin in the first quarter of 2021.　　Besides, she reckons that institutional investors on Coinbase will be more active than retail ones.　　Three reasons for ETH to surpass BTC in trading volume　　The CFO of Coinbase Alesia Haas believes that the growth of Ethereum trading volume versus that of Bitcoin comes down to three reasons: the growth of the non-fungible token industry on Ethereum, the increasing volume of ETH locked in the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract and the gradual transition of the network to the proof of stake (PoS) consensus algorithm from the proof of work (PoW) one.　　Coinbase likely to shift to more institutional money in the future　　When asked whether Coinbase is going to see more inflows of institutional money or cash from retail investors, she said that it is likely to be institutional ones.　　As per Haas, Coinbase is “building deep roots” at the moment with their institutional clients—which include Elon Musks Tesla and SpaceX—looking for custody services and continuing to invest in crypto.　　The CFO stated that

2021-08-12Deep Dive

Russian Central Bank Asks Stock Exchanges Not to List Crypto Firms

The Bank of Russia has issued a recommendation for local stock exchanges this week, asking them not to list stocks of any companies with their businesses tied to cryptocurrencies.　　The letter signed by the First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, Sergei Shvetsov, asked the stock exchanges to avoid listing any local or foreign crypto companies.　　It particularly specified the prohibited companies that depend on cryptocurrency rates, prices for foreign digital financial assets, changes in cryptocurrency and crypto-asset indices. Additionally, the regulator does not want the listing of crypto derivatives and securities of cryptocurrency funds. 　　Furthermore, the central bank instructed the fund mutual fund managers, brokers and trustees not to include companies with crypto exposure in their managed portfolios.　　“Cryptocurrencies and digital assets are characterized by high volatility, lack of transparency in pricing, low liquidity, technological, regulatory and other specific risks,” the Bank of Russia explained (translated from Russian). “The purchase of financial instruments linked to them entails increased risks of losses for people who do not have sufficient experience and knowledge.”　　Crypto Stocks Are Risky　　But, the recommended restrictions are only for retail investors as professional and accredited investors will still be allowed to invest in crypto-related company stocks.　　The regulatory recommendation came when

2021-08-12Deep Dive

$610 Million Defi Hack: Why didn’t Binance and Circle Freeze Hacker Account?

Poly Network became the victim of the largest Defi hack in crypto history as hackers managed to drain $610 million worth of assets on Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Ethereum (ETH), and Polygon. As per the latest development, the hacker behind the attack has agreed to return the fund and has demanded a secure multi-sig wallet from the Poly Network.　　A total of $610 million were stolen out of which $266,5 million were sent to an ETH address, $252 million were sent to a BSC address, and $85 million to Polygon address.　　Source: PolyNetwork　　SlowMist, a blockchain analytic firm that managed to get hold of the hacker‘s IP address and digital fingerprint discovered that the hacker’s initial source of funds was Monero (XMR), and then changed to BNB/ETH/MATIC and other coins in the exchange and withdrew the coins to 3 addresses. The forensic group summarised the attack as　　This attack is mainly because the keeper of the EthCrossChainData contract can be modified by the EthCrossChainManager contract, and the verifyHeaderAndExecuteTx function of the EthCrossChainManager contract can execute the data passed in by the user through the _executeCrossChainTx function. Therefore, the attacker uses this function to pass in carefully constructed data to modify the keeper of the

2021-08-12Deep Dive

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