Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Expert explains why Britain needs a digital pound

The United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the launch of a CBDC task force this week, bringing together the Bank of England and Her Majestys Treasury to coordinate the exploration of a potential central bank digital currency.　　Depending on the feedback received from various areas of industry, academia, and civil society, the task force will advise the Bank of England on the future rollout (or not) of what would be a digital version of the pound.　　Antony Welfare, executive director of enterprise at NEM, is a member of the Whitechapel Think Tank and the Finance Payments Working Group, both of which provided preliminary research to the Bank of England in the formation of its CBDC taskforce. Welfare contributed to a report titled The Impact of Digital Currency on the Future of Payments, which was commissioned by the Bank of England, and published in December 2020.　　The task force will consider the implementation of a CBDC from every available angle, but speaking to Cointelegraph, Welfare said one of the biggest boons offered by a digital pound could be financial inclusion, citing the ubiquity of mobile devices and their commonplace use among the population:　　“A CBDC can help significantly in building financial inclusion. The overwhelming

2021-04-21Deep Dive

Uniswap deploys V3 contracts to four Ethereum testnets

Leading decentralized exchange Uniswap has taken a step closer to launching its highly anticipated “V3” iteration, announcing the successful deployment of V3s smart contracts to all Ethereum test networks.　　In an April 21 announcement, Uniswap Labs confirmed that the protocols V3 core and periphery smart contracts have been deployed to all major Ethereum testnets — Ropsten, Rinkeby, Kovan, and Goerli.　　The testnet addresses were posted to Github, with Uniswap reminding users that the addresses are not final and will be changed as the team makes final updates to the periphery repository. Version threes core contracts have also been deployed to GitHub.　　A bug bounty was started on March 23 offering rewards of up to $500,000 for the discovery of high severity bugs in V3s contracts. According to the official announcement, Uniswap v3 is expected to launch to mainnet on May 5.　　Uniswap has taken a path of capital efficiency for its next upgrade which may complicate the passive income aspect of liquidity provision for many casual DeFi investors.　　Some of the upgrades in the next iteration include multiple fee tiers which allowing liquidity providers to be compensated for taking on varying degrees of risk. There are also upgrades to the automated market maker bonding curves,

2021-04-21Deep Dive

Data shows NFT sales fell 40% last week amidst market pullback

The latest mania surrounding non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is seemingly cooling off as sales revenues have decreased nearly by half in just one week, blockchain data and news outlet PANews pointed out today.　　The NFT train　　NFTs are a special type of non-interchangeable tokens that have taken the world by storm over the past couple of months. Unlike “common” cryptocurrencies, each NFT is unique and scarce—qualities that are highly valued by collectors. NFTs can contain all kinds of digital data such as artworks, music, photographs, videos, and so on—or even combinations of them.　　Per the report, daily revenues from sales of NFTs have declined by 42.43% over the last week—from $79.62 million on April 14 to $45.26 million on April 21. This suggests that collectors are becoming less eager to pay thousands or even millions of dollars for digital certificates of ownership that NFTs represent.　　Notably, NFT sales on secondary markets—where people are basically reselling their tokens bought from original creators—historically have been even higher. However, they saw a drop too.　　What do on-chain metrics show？　　Over the past week, the total number of NFT sales on secondary markets decreased by 24.63%, amounting to around 25,400. Similarly, the number of active market wallets dropped to roughly 12,000,

2021-04-21Deep Dive

JPMorgan Warns About Collapsing Bitcoin Momentum

JPMorgan strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou believes that Bitcoin‘s rally might be coming to a close due to the cryptocurrency’s waning momentum, Bloomberg reports.　　$60,000 is the key level　　Panigirtzoglou is convinced that $60,000 is now the do-or-die level for Bitcoin bulls.　　The flagship coin soared to nearly $65,000 on Apr. 14, the day Coinbase had its direct listing, but then plunged spectacularly to $51,000 on Apr. 18. Nearly $10 billion worth of cryptocurrency futures got liquidated during the Sunday crash.　　The lead JPMorgan strategist expects momentum signals to experience a multi-month decay after the massive wipe-out:　　Over the past few days, Bitcoin futures markets experienced a steep liquidation in a similar fashion to the middle of last February, middle of last January or the end of last November. Momentum signals will naturally decay from here for several months, given their still elevated level.　　Declining flows into Bitcoin　　While Bitcoin managed to quickly bounce back after similar corrections that occurred over the past few months, Panigirtzoglou doesnt think that it will be the case this time around due to declining institutional flows:　　Whether we see a repeat of those previous episodes in the current conjuncture remains to be seen.　　However, as reported by U.Today, hedge fund legend Bill Miller claimed that

2021-04-21Deep Dive

How the “West” Is Driving Bitcoin’s Bull Market, But Asia Is Resisting

Bitcoin‘s price is moving sideways in a critical support zone. At the time of writing, BTC’s price is trading at $55.780 with 0.3% in the daily chart and 7.3% losses in the weekly chart.　　According to Arcane Research‘s most recent report, BTC’s 2020 and 2021 bull run has been heavily affected by the dynamics from investors in Europe, America, and Asia. The research firmed analyzed the cumulative Bitcoin returns and compare them to the trading hours in these territories.　　Arcane Research quotes an NYDIG Research report which divides the trading sessions on North America, Europe, and Asia schedules. In doing so, the report determines Bitcoins geographic drivers. Arcane Research claims:　　In 2020, bitcoin saw most of its returns during the North American and European trading hours with North American trading hours seeing the large cumulative gains of 132% (since Jan 1st, 2020).　　Europe has gained more importance as a major BTC price driver in 2021. According to the report, European trading hours from beginning 2020 to April 2021, have seen 254% cumulative returns. In contrast, American trading hours have seen 162% cumulative returns. Arcane Research added:　　This could be a result of a European overlap in trading hours with both Asian evenings and American pre-market

2021-04-21Deep Dive

How Crowny Is Tackling The Ad Industry’s Biggest Problems

Intrusive. Aggressive. Irrelevant. In a multi-billion dollar industry these are the kind of words the majority of people use when describing their experience with digital ads. Studies by Forbes show that up to 47% of consumers block ads for a number of reasons including the lack of relevancy, and for brands and entities this poses an equally major issue of wasted ad dollars.　　That‘s why Crowny, a platform that allows brands to create effective ad campaigns that reach their target audience with ease and simplicity, is tackling these problems head on. Crowny allows users to receive rewards for engaging with brands they already love and this provides a direct benefit to those brands in that they target users that want to see their content. From the two sides, it’s a clear win-win situation.　　With a steadily growing digital ad space, consumers increasingly feel that digital ads invade their privacy, are often overly aggressive, and are unengaging at best. Consumers want more control over what they see online, while brands want to efficiently use their ad spend, and Crowny provides a welcome solution to both sides of the equation.　　What Crowny Does Differently　　There are two parties within the advertising marketplace: businesses and consumers. Crowny‘s

2021-04-21Deep Dive

Binance.US Finds New CEO in Former Coinbase Executive

Binance.US officially announced the hiring of a former Coinbase executive to become their new CEO. Brian Brooks has also served as the acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).　　Binance making big moves atop its C-suite　　North American-based crypto giant Binance made it official on Tuesday. Starting May 1, they will have a new CEO in Brian Brooks. The digital asset marketplace, which launched in 2019, Binance.US, offers a platform to buy and sell crypto.　　Catherine Coley currently runs the team. At this point, her role with the company moving forward is unclear.　　Before Binance, Brooks worked as the acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). He also was an executive at Coinbase, where he led compliance, legal, and government relations for their digital asset system. He brings a lot to the table with years of crypto experience already under his belt.　　Throughout his eight-month employment at the OCC, Brooks helped pave the way for stablecoin issuers to host accounts within the banking system. He was even given the nickname “CryptoComptroller” for his support of the rise of digital currency. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Brooks stated:　　“I am eager to work closely

2021-04-21Deep Dive

What’s Preventing Crypto Payments from Entering the Mainstream?

In the past few years, interest in crypto has increased dramatically as businesses and individuals begin to recognize the benefits that blockchain technology can offer. Meanwhile, with bitcoin (BTC) recently reaching a new all-time high, many new consumers are keen to embrace crypto in their daily lives.　　Nevertheless, critics argue that the technology around crypto payments is neither user-friendly nor accessible, meaning its a long way off from being adopted into the mainstream. This technology doesnt need to be complicated for consumers or business owners, and the biggest issue currently facing crypto payments is simply a lack of available information.　　Misconception 1: Merchants must adapt their systems　　One of the most common misconceptions related to crypto is that in order for it to enter the mainstream, businesses and merchants need to adapt their systems to handle crypto payments. In reality, this isnt the case.　　Many companies, including Wirex, are now offering crypto-enabled cards, which means customers can use crypto to buy just about anything provided Mastercard or Visa is accepted. The technology often works the same way as if you were making a payment abroad in foreign, traditional currency, with the exchange of crypto to traditional currency happening at the point of sale. Crypto

2021-04-21Deep Dive

‘Intense Crackdown’ until End of June as Seoul Fights Crypto Fraudsters

A new joint South Korean police-government-regulator crackdown on crypto-related fraud and multi-level marketing (MLM) fraudsters will be complete “by the end of June,” authorities stated, as Seoul moves to stamp out bogus and illicit crypto operators.　　Per Seoul Kyungjae and the Segye Ilbo, a number of vice ministers met the heads of financial regulators and police officials on April 19 – their second meeting in the space of a week – for crunch talks. The parties vowed to enact a crackdown that they said would yield comprehensive results in the next 10 weeks.　　Widespread reports of crypto exchanges closing and failing to return customer funds in a timely manner in the wake of new regulations have been compounded by public outcry over “crypto investor” meetups.　　Although some of these meetups have been linked to bona fide ventures like mining pools, the majority appear linked to MLM scams, centering around bogus exchanges or tokens – like the OneCoin scam – that do not even operate on blockchain networks. In most cases, these involve recruiting members to move higher up a pyramid, with lucrative rewards offered to individuals recruiting large numbers of new members.　　A large number of such fraudsters have been arrested and successfully prosecuted

2021-04-21Deep Dive

First Bank Caps Remittances in Bid to Block Kimchi Premium Opportunists

One of South Koreas biggest commercial banks, Woori, has fallen into line with government efforts to restrict the flow of money overseas in crypto purchases by imposing limits on remittances made to individuals and companies based in China.　　Woori was the first to blink after the government and financial regulators held crisis talks with bankers late last week. Seoul claims that South Korean domestic crypto exchange customers are buying crypto primarily from China-based sellers and then trading these tokens on platforms such as Upbit and Bithumb in order to take advantage of the so-called kimchi premium.　　The latter is a phenomenon whereby increased demand has driven prices up on domestic exchanges in excess of global averages. In recent weeks, the discrepancy has risen to the 12%-18% mark and per Scolkg data, the price difference for bitcoin (BTC) on the Upbit and Binance platforms is currently around USD 6,900 – meaning it is some 12% more expensive to buy BTC in South Korea than it is in most other nations.　　Per Yonhap and Chosun, Woori currently operates a quick remittance platform with UnionBank, one of Chinas biggest commercial banks. Previously, this platform allowed Woori customers to remit USD 5,000 worth of fiat per day

2021-04-21Deep Dive

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