Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Moving to Green Bitcoin May be Moving To a Two-Tier Bitcoin

Given the recent and increasing developments over the so-called green bitcoin (BTC), it seems that the industry might be moving to a two-tier BTC.　　As Tesla chief Elon Musk and quite a few others criticized Bitcoin over its energy consumption and the potential impact on the environment, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, along with active management firm Ark Investment, have argued quite the opposite - that bitcoin incentivizes renewable energy. (And Musk agreed with this before he started criticizing BTC mining.)　　Meanwhile, Blockchain and crypto company DMG Blockchain Solutions operations in British Columbia already rely on cheap hydropower from dams. In March 2021, DMG and crypto mining company Argoannounced the establishment of a Bitcoin mining pool powered by hydropower - calling it the first one to be powered by green energy exclusively.　　As reported, the Terra Pool will initially consist of both Argos and DMGs hashrate, and it represents “the first-ever opportunity for the creation of green bitcoin.”　　“We already have interest from financial institutions in those coins,” DMG CEO Sheldon Bennett, said Nymag this week. Their pool is expected to be launched in a month or two.　　This comes at the time when institutional interest in bitcoin rises, along with the pressure for the crypto

2021-05-24Deep Dive

Decentralized parties: The future of on-chain governance

Decentralized governance, a facet of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), is perhaps the most valuable application smart contracts could bring to humanity. DAOs can be thought of as living organisms on the internet, entities that would function autonomously according to distributed consensus mechanisms.　　Managed by a community through voting, DAOs are self-governing systems with a built-in treasury. Although they still depend on community members for certain tasks — offering an economic incentive from the liquidity pool in return — DAOs are almost entirely automated.　　Despite their potential, DAOs do not rank among the most popular decentralized technologies. Perhaps their reputation hasnt fully recovered from a 2016 hack: The first decentralized venture capital fund — known as “The DAO” — was compromised, causing the fork of the Ethereum blockchain and subsequent creation of Ethereum Classic (ETC).　　But what many may not know is that the various yield farming protocols, nonfungible token platforms and decentralized exchanges we see today are dependent on DAOs for governance. A new breed of self-governing organizations is likely to take over in the upcoming decades, not only in business but also in the political sphere via decentralized parties.　　 DAOs: A bit of context　　Decentralization is measured on a spectrum. Some maximalists suggest

2021-05-24Deep Dive

South Korea to Develop Pilot Platform for CBDC

The Bank of Korea (BOK) is inching closer to developing a central bank digital currency by preparing to launch its pilot platform, Reuters reports.　　The BOK will conduct tests that simulate such internal banking operations as opening a savings account and transferring funds. It will also focus on mobile payment transactions.　　South Koreas central bank is currently in search of a partner for testing a digital won.　　In March, Seoul-based Shinhan Bank created a pilot platform for the CBDC, but it is unclear whether or not the central bank will choose to distribute it via intermediaries.　　In February, the BOK published a research paper on legal issues surrounding CBDCs.　　Preparing for changes 　　A BOK official claims that payments conducted in cash are experiencing a significant decline.　　Hence, he claims that theres a need for rapid changes when it comes to payments and settlements:　　“The steps we are taking now are to prepare for the changes in the payment settlement system, changing rapidly.”　　Countries like China and Sweden are already trialing their CBDCs while the U.S. Federal Reserve is set to release a research paper on a digital dollar this summer.

2021-05-24Deep Dive

China’s Position Regarding Crypto: What Does It Mean for the Market?

The public display of resentment towards cryptocurrencies from China is in a grey area, and as some reports highlight, it is not as extreme as portrayed by media outlets. A BBC article highlights that China has accentuated its active incursion into suppressing cryptocurrency access and services for banks or payment firms.　　According to data from Arcane Research, such announcements can unbalance the current market as it sends taunting ripples through the system. The Fear and Green index, which tracks a market sentiment index, has decreased to an April 2020 low, nearing “extreme fear.”　　Regulatory actions from Chinese authorities are not a novelty, as the People‘s Republic Of China banned financial institutions from handling bitcoin in 2013 and declared ICO’s illegal as of 2017. Is the Chinese approach too aggressive towards cryptocurrencies？　　What Does China Actually Intend？　　Chinese authorities have deemed cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin inaccessible due to several determinants. Their severity comes as a result of price volatility and the speculative nature of the asset, which presents an unwanted risk for the Chinese asset holders. Still, despite the heavy crackdown, trading in China continued as normal.　　The alarm coming out from China is nothing new. This week, three-state backed organizations reiterated China‘s position towards crypto,

2021-05-24Deep Dive

Crypto’s Savage Swings May Deter Big Investors From Jumping In

Cryptocurrency investors argue that institutional buying is one more reason to be bullish. After Wednesday‘s tumble, that’s becoming more and more implausible.　　The problem is that mutual funds, insurers and pension funds are often seeking a particular level of volatility -- or really, lack thereof -- for their investments. If you have a pile of corporate cash, is it going to be OK to put some of it into an asset that can rise or fall 30% in a single day as Bitcoin did this week？ Tesla Inc. and MicroStrategy Inc. have bought into Bitcoin, but few have followed them, even after Teslas $1.5 billion buy-in ignited a debate about corporate crypto purchases.　　“Youre looking at volatility levels that are four times that of gold or of equities, and this is going to make it prohibitive for a lot of corporate treasurers and institutional investors who think that they can do a significant size holding in this,” said Joyce Chang, JPMorgan global research chair, on Bloomberg Television. “This type of volatility still compared to other asset classes is outsized for most institutional investors.”　　The T3 Indexs BitVol Index, which measures expected swings in the price of Bitcoin, rose above 100 last Saturday for

2021-05-24Deep Dive

CoinDCX and Devfolio Team Up with Solana for New Hackathon

Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX has announced a virtual hackathon, in the hopes of strengthening Indias crypto market.　　For this latest event, CoinDCX will partner with the Solana blockchain, as the exchange confirmed on their official Twitter.　　The exchange will also organize the event in association with Devfolio. The company has helped host hundreds of hackathons all over the world. This includes India‘s largest Ethereum hackathon, ETHIndia, which Devfolio’s late CEO Shakti Goap founded. The tech entrepreneur passed away earlier in May, after suffering with COVID-19.　　Devfolio postponed their latest ETHIndia online hackathon, ETHOdyssey, in April. The companys official twitter stated this was due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation in India. They postponed the event again in May. The month-long hackathon is currently scheduled to begin on June 25.　　CoinDCX announced their partnership with Devfolio and Solana amid the Solana Season Hackathon. An even that began on May 15 and will run for 20 days, ending on June 7. Reports indicated from the beginning that Devfolio and CoinCDX would contribute to the events India track. A track that would have a $50,000 prize pool, a fraction of the $1 million prize total.　　Reports also stated that the event had attracted over 10,000 registrations. Many of whom

2021-05-24Deep Dive

OCC Will Review Its Cryptocurrency-Related Guidance, Says the New Chief

Michael Hsu – the new chief of the OCC – revealed that the US independent bureau plans to put under review its crypto guidelines offered over the past year. He added that all federal banks should provide interpretive letters and guidance, including issues around digital assets alongside pending matters.　　Is Stance Towards Crypto Getting Tougher？　　The United States Office of the Comptroller of Currency, which regulates all national banks and federal savings associations, will analyze its crypto guidelines. The new chief of the watchdog, Michael J. Hsu, announced that the agency would put under inspection its propositions put out in 2020.　　Nevertheless, the upcoming review does not necessarily predict a pessimistic future for the crypto community. As Hsu noted in his statement, the OCC has supported and updated the banking industry, so what follows now is some analysis on those previous operations:　　“At the OCC, the focus has been on encouraging responsible innovation… we created an Office of Innovation, updated the framework for chartering national banks and trust companies, and interpreted crypto custody services as part of the business of banking. I have asked staff to review these actions.”　　OCCs move could also aim to provide better support for the industry while also offering protection,

2021-05-24Deep Dive

What Role Could NFTs Play In E-Commerce?

At the advent of Web 2.0, the now ubiquitous e-commerce platforms were presented and sold as a fairer alternative to how business was done up to that point. The premise seemed simple: connect buyers and sellers and automate the process as much as possible by using cutting edge software to create a fair and competitive sharing economy that would benefit all parties. However, it didnt play out quite like that.　　As we know, their ability to control every stage of every transaction meant that these platforms found themselves with a huge amount of market power. As centralized business models, they fuelled a self-perpetuating imperative to extract maximum value from each cog in the wheel.　　Cue the snowball effect and nearly 20 years later, we now have a global commercial ecosystem completely dominated by Amazons and Alibabas, each extracting maximum value from all participants at a rate they are free to determine. It is clear to many that these systems of commerce are anti-competitive, monopolistic, hyper-extractionary, and unsustainable.　　Thankfully, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have provided a solution.　　Much of the hype surrounding NFTs in recent months has been focused on the digital art space, however, their value proposition extends far beyond their representation of a digital

2021-05-24Deep Dive

Search query ‘Should I sell my Bitcoin’ skyrockets on Google Trends

Cryptocurrency-related search queries have surged in popularity to a new all-time over the past week—but not for positive reasons, according to Google.　　“#cryptocurrency is at an all-time high for search interest, Worldwide,” Google Trends Twitter account reported on Thursday.　　As CryptoSlate reported, the crypto market swiftly plunged deep into the red zone on May 19 as prices of most digital assets dropped by anywhere between 20% and 50% on average. The massive dip was largely attributed to several announcements coming from China, including a potential ban on institutions that deal in cryptocurrencies and a crackdown on Bitcoin mining.　　According to Google Trends, an analytic tool that allows users to measure the frequency of various search queries, topics such as “What happened to cryptocurrency today” and “Should I sell my Bitcoin” (or “crypto” and “Bitcoin” in general) are currently showing a worldwide score of 100 on the “interest over time” chart—the highest value possible.　　Fear and energy concerns　　Interestingly, Bitcoins environmental impact—which has become a hot topic lately—is also extremely popular among Google users.　　“Most energy-efficient cryptocurrency‘ and ’environmentally friendly cryptocurrency‘ are breakout searches. ’How does bitcoin use energy‘ +1,050%, past week US,” Google Trends’ team noted.　　Other queries such as “Bitcoin carbon footprint” (87 points), “crypto electricity”

2021-05-24Deep Dive

These 3 factors will determine if Ethereum’s recovery will be sustainable

Ethereums recovery is well underway, with the price holding near the $2000 level. Despite a price drop of nearly 45% in the past week, over 85% ETH HODLers are profitable at the current price level. The number of large transactions dropped over the past week, there were $193.39 Billion worth of large transactions on the Ethereum network. The on-chain sentiment continues to remain bearish, but the inflow of investment in Ethereum makes it likely that the recovery starts.　　ETH Futures Aggregate Daily Volume || Source: Skew　　Factor 1　　Since Ethereum was overleveraged and the longs led Ethereums price to plummet. However, based on the above chart, the aggregate daily volume of ETH futures is below $70 Billion since May 19, 2021. Since the volume is consistently lower than the peak hit on May 19, it is likely that the recovery is underway, just as on-chain metrics point.　　Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETHE || Source: Skew　　Factor 2　　The daily volume of the Grayscale Ethereum Trust has dropped, just as the aggregate futures daily volume. The last time Grayscale Ethereum Trust volume hit this level, Ethereums price rallied to the $3000 level, it is likely that if the volume remains below this level, the rally that starts will

2021-05-24Deep Dive

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