Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

New BTC Indicator Launches to Understand Crypto Media Sentiment

State Street will expand their MediaStats indicator offering with a new Bitcoin (BTC) Thematic Indicator to help investors understand the crypto media sentiment and its true impact on financial markets.　　Financial services provider State Street announced the launch of a new Bitcoin Thematic Indicator series to help investors contextualize the rising popularity of bitcoin. This is an expansion of their MediaStats indicator.　　It will quantify media coverage of bitcoin, to measure the intensity or prevalence of the cryptocurrency relative to news at that time. This will also consider news sentiment over a given period.　　How it works　　This new indicator expands on State Street MediaStats, which was launched in November last year. This indicator analyses thousands of online news sources daily, generating sentiment signals for different assets. This was developed to help institutional investors form a more complete picture of what factors are driving the market as well as their portfolios.　　State street decided to launch the bitcoin indicator after intense media coverage around the cryptocurrency, with head of investor behavior research Rajeev Bhargava saying:　　“Over the last few months, media coverage around bitcoin has grown significantly relative to corporate, financial, and economic media markets and continues to trend higher.”　　They aim to provide a quantitative measure

2021-05-06Deep Dive

‘DeFi may lead to a paradigm shift’ says Federal Reserve Bank paper

A paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has delved into the expansion of decentralized finance and Ethereums role in it.　　The research, penned by Fabian Schär and published on Sunday, has taken a deep dive into the world of DeFi, hinting that if security concerns and risks can be addressed, it may lead to huge changes in the financial industry.　　“DeFi uses smart contracts to create protocols that replicate existing financial services in a more open, interoperable, and transparent way,” Schär wrote, also hailing its efficiency, accessibility and composability.　　“DeFi may lead to a paradigm shift in the financial industry and potentially contribute toward a more robust, open, and transparent financial infrastructure.”　　DeFi growth over the past year has been monumental, with a 700% increase in the total value locked across the ecosystem. At the time of writing, that figure stands at an all-time high of around $134 billion across different blockchain according to DefiLlama.　　Schär explained that the backbone of the entire DeFi ecosystem is smart contracts, the majority of which run on Ethereum. The report lists a number of popular DeFirelated tokens but points out that the vast majority of tokens are issued on the Ethereum network.　　Ether (ETH) is

2021-05-06Deep Dive

Move Over Bitcoin: OKEx Insights Report Reveals Institutions Are Accumulating Ethereum

Altcoin season is upon us, and there‘s no better indicator of this than Ethereum beginning to gain against Bitcoin on the duo’s trading pair against one another. The ratio between the two represents the ongoing battle between the two for cryptocurrency market share.　　Right now, Bitcoin remains king. But growing institutional interest in Ethereum exposure, especially since the introduction of CME ETH futures in February, has caused the second-ranked crypto asset to catch up and go for the throne.　　But like any top contender, there‘s also a handful of other booming blockchain protocols that could also soon rival even Ethereum, making the competition across crypto right now fiercer than ever. Here’s a detailed breakdown based on the latest OKEx Insights research report.　　Ethereum Price Doubles Since Introduction Of CME Futures　　When Bitcoin futures were introduced on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, otherwise known as CME, it was the end of the bull market and the very top of the rally. But when Ethereum futures were introduced just three months ago, it started a chain reaction that took the altcoin into superstardom.　　At the close of 2020, all eyes were on Bitcoin as it ended its most remarkable year on the books. January also sent the first-ever

2021-05-06Deep Dive

Bitso’s Latest Funding Round Makes It Latin America’s First Crypto Unicorn

Latin Americas largest crypto platform Bitso has announced that it raised $250 million in its Series C investment round.　　This puts the companys valuation at $2.2 billion, making it the first crypto unicorn in the region. Hedge fund giant Coatue and investment firm Tiger Global led the round. Other investors include Paradigm, BOND, Valor Capital Group, QED, Pantera Capital and Kaszek. Bitso had raised $62 million during its Series, B in December 2020.　　According to CEO Daniel Vogel, the company will use the funds to expand operations. The Mexico City-based firm will also use the money to continue providing access to cryptocurrencies for local residents. “We want to make sure that folks in the region really benefit from accessing these global financial services that are getting built on top of blockchain,” Vogel said.　　Bitsos customers and services　　Founded in 2014, Bitso offers multiple cryptocurrency products and services to over two million customers across Mexico, Argentia, and Brazil. The company says its market share in Mexico exceeds 95%, in addition to 60% in Argentina. Colombian regulators also reportedly selected Bitso to be among nine companies allowed to test crypto use cases under the government sanctioned pilot program.　　Its products include the Bitso App, which lets users

2021-05-06Deep Dive

NYDIG: Bitcoin is Coming to Hundreds of American Banks This Year

Crypto custody firm New York Digital Investment Group said that soon US banks would have the opportunity to buy, hold and sell BTC through their existing accounts. NYDIG also added that it would launch other services such as benefits paid in the cryptocurrency and a new type of bank account, which gives dividends in BTC.　　Another Step Towards BTC Adoption　　According to a CNBC report, customers of some banks in the USA will soon have the chance to operate with the first-ever cryptocurrency bitcoin via their existing accounts. NYDIG partnered with Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). The two companies reported that the main goal of the partnership would be to enable American banks to offer BTC in the near future.　　Patrick Sells, head of bank solutions at NYDIG, explained that the start-up will be very useful and will bring future comfort for the American residents:　　“What we‘re doing is making it simple for everyday Americans and corporations to be able to buy bitcoin through their existing bank relationships. If I’m using my mobile application to do all of my banking, now I have the ability to buy, sell and hold bitcoin.”　　In his turn Yan Zhao, president of NYDIG, said that the move would be

2021-05-06Deep Dive

Bullish: How the Taproot Upgrade Will Transform the Bitcoin Network

The cryptocurrency community will witness some of the biggest network changes this year. Ethereum‘s EIP upgrade was the first to stir excitement for Ethereum proponents this year, with the implementation of five EIPs which took place during April’s Berlin Fork. Now, the Bitcoin network might be on its way to redefining what we know the network to be, as the Taproot upgrade is increasingly becoming a possibility.　　The future of Bitcoin after the Taproot upgrade is unimaginably bullish　　From the GitHub documentation of Taproot, the upgrade is essentially a “proposed Bitcoin protocol upgrade that can be deployed as a forward-compatible soft fork.” The taproot will play a major role in enhancing the Bitcoin network scalability and transactions will become a lot more private. Excerpts of the GitHub documentation explain further, how this will come about.　　“By combining the Schnorr signature scheme with MAST (Merklized Alternative Script Tree) and a new scripting language called Tapscript, Taproot will expand Bitcoins smart contract flexibility, while offering more privacy by letting users mask complex smart contracts as a regular bitcoin transaction.”　　The upgrade will have a significant effect in decreasing the level of load that the network currently carries. The level at which Bitcoin processes transactions will become

2021-05-06Deep Dive

How Coinbase is Driving the Crypto Market to the Richest Fintech Hands

Not every cryptocurrency proponent is a fan of the giant exchange platform Coinbase. But if sentiments are kept aside, it is crystal clear that the platform is leading the cryptocurrency market into some of the richest hands the industry will ever know.　　Between last year and this year, some of America‘s biggest institutions have tapped the exchange to help it purchase cryptocurrencies. This was the case for Tesla. The $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase made by the platform was largely possible due to Coinbase’s involvement.　　We also reported a while back that some of Americas top universities including Yale and Harvard, have made Coinbase their middleman, as they silently partake in the act of buying digital currencies in large numbers. Sometime last month, Social investment app Invstr teamed up with Coinbase to launch a trading feature that will allow U.S users to buy and sell digital currencies.　　More recently, the leading American-based fine art auction house Sotheby has revealed it will be making a major entrance into the cryptocurrency market through Coinbase. The art place is set to launch a historic art auction in the week ahead and will accept bidders payments in Bitcoin and Ethereum. This is the first time the company is

2021-05-06Deep Dive

How O3 Swaps Could Become The Next Hub For Cross-Chain Exchanges

Built as a proprietary cross-chain aggregation protocol, 03 Swap aims to deliver access to crypto-financial services. Its development was undertaken by the Tokyo-based O3 Labs. The protocol allows users to leverage the cross-chain “swap” feature to exchange several digital assets with the O3 Wallet.　　O3 Labs gave priority to provide a protocol with a high level of safety and security. Thus, they designed O3 Swap with a decentralized model to store and protect the cryptocurrencies, assets, and tokens. In addition to a swap feature, the protocol offers “cross-chain swap”. That way, users can exchange their digital assets without being bound to a single blockchain.　　To enable this feature O3 Swap executes the exchange while the cryptocurrency or digital assets goes from a blockchain A to a blockchain B. Both networks are separated and never communicate, but when a user sends an initial asset, the protocol deploys a target asset on the receiving blockchain.　　The feature is supported by the O3 Wallet and settles through the smart contract on the protocols settlement layer. As a bonus, users will have cross-chain pools which will aid them to complete their exchange.　　The protocol has set out to become a one-stop aggregation and exchange platform and meet consumers‘

2021-05-06Deep Dive

Cryptolancing: Will Novel Approach to Freelancing Boost Crypto Markets?

Introduction　　More than 59 million Americans worked freelance in 2020, and it is expected that by 2027 the majority of the U.S. workforce will be engaged in working as a freelancer. Freelance websites like Upwork, Freelancer and PeoplePerHour have helped commonize freelancing globally, liberating workers from their 9 to 5 office jobs, and making it possible for them to work from their home.　　 What is Cryptolancing？　　Conventional websites for freelance jobs often charge high fees (up to 20%) from their clients and many of them also have high rates of currency exchange. Cryptolancing is rapidly gaining popularity and setting new standards for freelance marketplaces by overcoming these limitations. Cryptolancing websites pay freelancers in cryptos and charge zero fees.　　Whats more, websites that are using cryptos do not have to wait hours or days to make deposits and withdrawals, but work with instant payments by integrating seamlessly with crypto wallets. Payments with cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum also eliminate the need for currency conversion taxes and fees.　　Gitcoin & Bounties Network are marketplaces where open-source developers can receive compensation in crypto for whatever work they choose thanks to Ethereum Smart Contracts. Due to native integration with Github, changes and updates can be easily tracked.　　Open bounties

2021-05-06Deep Dive

Another 50% daily gain for Dogecoin confirms 'alt season' as Bitcoin slumps

Dogecoin rally sparks speculation about the arrival of alt season as Ether celebrates its eighth-straight day reaching a new high.　　he cryptocurrency market awoke to the sight of Dogecoin (DOGE) price surging to as high as $0.69 in the past two days, leading many to wonder if the recent performance of the worlds most popular meme token is now the leading indicator for the arrival of alt season.　　Long-time crypto fans mark the fourth of May as a special day for the Bitcoin community as a whole for being the birthday of one of the earliest known supporters of the Bitcoin network Hal Finney, who would have celebrated turning 65.　　Data from Cointelegraph Markets and Tradingview shows that while the worlds attention was focused on Dogecoin, Bitcoin (BTC) faced selling pressures, which began the night before and dropped the price of BTC back below the $55,000 support level by mid-day on Tuesday.　　While BTC continues to trade in the $50,000 to $60,000, or what some traders see as the “twilight zone,” the price of Ether (ETH) again climbed to a new all-time high at $3,519 as institutional managers now hold a record $13.9 billion worth of the top altcoin and smart contract platform.　　Yellens comments

2021-05-05Deep Dive

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