Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Ethereum on a high after European Investment Bank’s $121M digital bond news

Ether (ETH) prices skyrocketed to a new all-time high on Wednesday on the back of positive news from the European Investment Bank.　　Ether has climbed to $2,709 early during trading in Asia on Wednesday, marking a new peak price for the asset, according to CoinGecko.　　The crypto metrics provider reports a gain of 7% over the past 24 hours, and 15.7% over the past seven days for the worlds second-largest digital asset by market capitalization. The move has pushed the ETH market cap to a record $312 billion.　　While there are a range of factors propelling Ethers price, Reuters today attributed it to the news that the European Investment Bank is launching a “digital bond” sale using the Ethereum network.　　The EIB is issuing a two-year 100-million-euro ($120.8 million) digital bond, with the sale to be led by Goldman Sachs, Banco Santander and Societe Generale, according to analysts at Bloomberg.　　On Friday, Societe Generale announced that its subsidiary, Societe Generale SFH, had issued a 100-million-euro bond as a security token on the public Ethereum blockchain. It was awarded the top triple-A rating by Moodys and Fitch.　　Danny Kim, head of revenue at crypto broker SFOX, told Reuters that the news has demonstrated a bullish institutional use

2021-04-28Deep Dive

End of Era? Binance Will Cease Support For OMNI

Without a lot of explanations, the worlds leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has decided to halt support for the OMNI network.　　Binance Halts OMNI Network Support　　According to a recent announcement, Binance will “cease support for deposit and withdrawal service on the OMNI network” on April 30th, 2021, at 00:00 UTC.　　The only explanation given in the official release is that Binance aims to “provide users with a better and smoother experience.”　　The world‘s leading stablecoin, Tether’s USDT, currently uses the OMNI network (among others) and has about $1.3 billion USDT in circulation on it.　　However, according to Binances official exchange wallet dashboard, the current fees to withdrawal USDT through OMNI is $28. This dwarfs every other network in comparison, even the swamped Ethereum, which currently requires $20 per withdrawal.　　 OMNI Network – a Blast From the Past　　The OMNI Network is a protocol that‘s built on Bitcoin’s blockchain and represents an effort to enable financial functions. Initially known as Mastercoin, the whitepaper for OMNI was published back in January 2012 by J.R. Willet. The project was officially rebranded in 2015.　　In any case, the Omni Layer was particularly popular in the early days of blockchain development as it had little to no competition. Its also the first

2021-04-28Deep Dive

Binance Continues Crypto Dominance With New NFT Marketplace

NFT mania has just gone bigger, with Binance, one of the worlds largest cryptocurrency companies, announcing its intention to launch a marketplace for the new species of digital assets.　　Dubbed as Binance NFT, the platform will see its first light of the day in June. The Malta-based company stated that the new marketplace would bring together “artists, creators, and crypto enthusiasts from around the world” and would enable them to conduct premier art exhibitions and collaborate with other global and regional NFT creators.　　“Furthermore,” it added, “Binance NFT will share the same account system as Binance.com, allowing users to access the marketplace alongside our other ecosystem offerings.”　　NFT Mania Explained　　NFT is a backronym for non-fungible tokens. They represent supposedly unique digital assets secured using blockchain, the same technology that powers global cryptocurrency leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum. NFTs backer treat them as digital certificate of authenticity, insomuch that one of them — an investor who goes by the pseudonym “Metakovan” — ended up buying digital artist Beeples digital collage for a whopping $69.3 million in March 2021.　　But the NFT sector also smells like hype to many. For instance, it emerged that Metakoven also owns the world‘s biggest NFT fund. He was already the biggest

2021-04-28Deep Dive

U.S. Congress Passes Bill Addressing Crypto Regulation

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would help direct the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to establish a digital asset working group and open new regulatory frameworks for both digital assets and cryptocurrencies.　　H.R. 1602, or the “Eliminate Barriers to Innovation Act of 2021,” was affirmed by the U.S. Congress last week, escalating the bill to the U.S. Senate. It is now undergoing review through the Senate Banking Committee, led by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Pat Toomey (R-Penn.).　　Once passed and signed as law, the bipartisan bill would initiate the commission of a specialized working group that would evaluate regulation of digital assets in the U.S.　　The news marks a major progress for a crypto-related bill to get approval from Congress, and would directly impact the status of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies. The bill is set to usher in regulatory clarity on the status of cryptocurrencies, having been a subject of mixed contention from both institutional investors and companies, as well as the state and its forays into central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).　　The Eliminate Barriers to Innovation Act was introduced sometime in March by Representatives Patrick McHenry (Republican National Committee)

2021-04-28Deep Dive

Bitcoin Gains Steam With U.S. Politicians, Will It Become A National Movement?

Politicians in the United States seem to be embracing Bitcoin. In the last two weeks, various states across the U.S. territory have pushed regulations, resolutions, and statements that acknowledge BTC as an asset on the path to gain broader adoption.　　House of Representatives of the Legislature of Louisiana published Resolution No. 33 to congratulate Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry on their accomplishments. The document claims Bitcoin has the potential to replace gold as a store of value.　　BTCs features, decentralization, limited supply, Proof-of-Work consensus, have made the cryptocurrency a “critical tool for businesses”. Also, the resolution claims BTC could be a hedge against inflation and currency debasement for “citizens around the world”. The institution said the following:　　To commend Bitcoin for its success in becoming the first decentralized trillion dollar asset and to encourage the state and local governments to consider ways that could help them benefit from the increased use of this new technology.　　Senator for the state of Wyoming, Cynthia Lummis, reacted to the resolution. Lummis has been an advocate of Bitcoin and an active crypto community member. The Senator tagged Senators John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy on a report about the resolution and said:　　Let‘s visit. As is frequently the case, our

2021-04-28Deep Dive

NFTs Are the Building Blocks of Our Digital Future

IN BRIEF　　NFTs have garnered viral attention across the world.　　These tokens will become genuinely revolutionary when we truly merge our digital and physical lives.　　NFTs make concepts like rarity, scarcity, and uniqueness possible.　　Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have finally moved out from the niche blockchain space. From Paris Hilton to Jack Dorsey, NFTs have garnered viral attention across the world.　　NFT‘s have set new art market and crypto price records. In addition, they are generally confusing everyone who isn’t a crypto insider.　　Throughout this year, multiple media outlets have released some sort of NFT explainer article. This article is not about what NFTs are, but rather what NFTs mean when you think about the increasingly virtual world we live in today and their role in our near future. What does the NFT movement mean for society as we know it？　　NFTs offer much more than just a substantial income for artists or an opportunity for traders to get rich quickly.　　Looking beyond the NFT hype　　The rise of NFTs corresponds to a broader acceptance of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), and cardano (ADA) among mainstream institutions and the broader public. For the past decade, crypto was a largely specialized space. Mainly the domain of a select group of

2021-04-28Deep Dive

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson predicts crypto interoperability converging to a “Wi-Fi” moment

IOHK CEO and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson recently spoke with Forbes to give a rundown of progression in the crypto space. Of interest was Hoskinsons prediction that blockchain interoperability will see easy migration from one system to the next.　　The technical challenges of blockchain interoperability　　In simple terms, interoperability refers to ways in which two different blockchains can exchange information. The current problem is that interoperability is swamped with technical complexity.　　This means its difficult for an Ethereum smart contract to verify whether a Bitcoin transaction has been sufficiently confirmed. To overcome this, developers have approached the issue from multiple angles, including decentralized exchanges, federated sidechains, and intermediary networks like Cosmos and Polkadot.　　Rehashing rivalries, Hoskinson took the opportunity to tear into Ethereum by saying the platform locks users into its ecosystem. He believes users and information should be “liquid,” which is why he focuses on cross-chain compatibility with Cardano.　　“Like Ethereum says, ”Hey, we‘re open source, we’re an open ecosystem. But by the way, we want to be like Microsoft, with Internet Explorer and ActiveX, lock everybody into our ecosystem!“ Shouldn‘t users be liquid？ Shouldn’t information value be liquid？ So what we focus on is our cross-chain communication protocols,” he said in the interview.　　Hoskinson:

2021-04-28Deep Dive

Iran set to fund imports with legally mined cryptocurrencies

Iran has always had a strenuous relationship with cryptocurrencies and activities related to it like mining. The nation has been cracking down on illegal crypto mining operations, but has also tried to benefit from the introduction of legal cryptocurrency mining. Now, the nations central bank wants to use cryptocurrencies mined by licensed miners to pay for imports.　　According to a recent report from the Financial Tribune, The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has now given banks and licensed currency exchangers the green light to use cryptocurrencies mined by licensed miners in the nation to pay for imports.　　“The central bank says that lenders and licensed currency exchange offices have been notified about the regulatory framework for crypto payment,” the report said.　　The plans to fund imports started last year in October after the government changed regulations that allowed legally mined Bitcoin in the country to be used by the Central Bank to fund imports. The Iranian Ministry of Energy and the Central Bank of Iran were responsible for enacting the changes to local legislation. These licensed miners are required to sell their cryptocurrencies to the central bank directly.　　In January 2020 the Iranian government began issuing cryptocurrency mining licenses to operators in the country.

2021-04-27Deep Dive

Tesla Sends Bullish Bitcoin Signal To Global Corporates

The bitcoin (BTC)-keen carmaking giant Tesla has sent a bullish signal to the global business community, with its chief financial officer Zachary Kirkhorn claiming that BTC has “long-term” worth and could be used to solve cash liquidity problems.　　In an earnings call to investors reporting on FY2021 first-quarter results, Tesla confirmed that last month it sold 10% of the BTC holdings it had bought at the start of the year. But the automaker justified the sale, claiming that the firm wants to use BTC to boost its liquidity as and when it needs to.　　Kirkhorn, a.k.a. Master of Coin, stated,“From a corporate treasury perspective, weve been quite pleased with how much liquidity there is in the bitcoin market. Our ability to build our first position happened very quickly. When we [made] the sale in March we also were able to execute on that very quickly. As we think about global liquidity for the business and risk management, being able to get cash in and out of the markets is something that is exceptionally important for us.”　　The CFO also explained that Tesla‘s and its CEO Elon Musk’s rationale in foraying into the BTC market earlier this year was partially based on the firms

2021-04-27Deep Dive

Ethereum Tokens Coming to Tezos, Thanks to WRAP Protocol

Ethereum tokens will now be available on Tezos thanks to a new development by Bender Labs. This will be done through the release of the WRAP protocol which is a bridge protocol from Bender Labs and is hoping to contribute towards a more open financial system.　　What this means is that ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens from the Ethereum blockchain can now be transferred into the Tezos blockchain as FA2 tokens. Bender Labs specializes in creating DeFi platforms and thus, WRAP acts as a decentralized bridge between various blockchains.　　UnWRAPing New Concepts　　The biggest benefit of this new development is that users of both platforms will be able to wrap their tokens. Wrapping, in this case, refers to getting representations of ERC-20 and ERC-71 tokens on the Tezos blockchain while still maintaining a pegged value to the original tokens.　　This means that token conversions do not need to take place and instead, transactions can be carried out seamlessly. WRAP, which is the native token of the ecosystem, is both an ERC-20 and FA2 token and this makes it operable on both platforms.　　According to the management of Bender Labs, the purpose of this new partnership as well as their general mission statement is to create a

2021-04-27Deep Dive

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