Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Who Are the Fastest Growing Developer Communities in Crypto?

According to cryptocurrency metrics tracker CoinMarketCap, there are more than 9,000 digital currencies currently traded and available on exchanges across the world. The relative merit of most of these projects is determined in part, by their market value. The higher the market capitalization, the more valuable the project is perceived to be.　　But relying on such a one-dimensional metric can overlook networks that have active and vibrant developer communities in favour of those with better marketing budgets. The story of OneCoin, the giant pyramid scheme that sucked in more than $6 billion worth of investment has become a cautionary tale of what happens when a project is built on hype alone.　　There are more than 8,000 monthly active developers working on various cryptocurrency projects, according to the Developer Report, produced by Electric Capital, a venture firm, with some 80% of those developers starting in the last two years.　　The current leader in terms of people actively contributing to the development of a network is Ethereum, with approximately 2,300 average monthly developers - those who were active on a monthly basis, according to the Developer Report. The number actively working on Ethereum has grown by 215% in 3 years. But there are a number

2021-04-19Deep Dive

Why new SEC chief Gary Gensler may be Biden’s gift to crypto industry

In what has been a turbulent few months for digital currencies, Joe Bidens inauguration as the 46th president of the United States has brought a potentially valuable gift to the wider blockchain industry. The confirmation of the former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler to head up the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a significant step towards challenging the argument against governmental blockchain regulations, thanks to his extensive knowledge of the industry.　　While the blockchain industry is maturing at an unprecedented rate, there is still plenty of skepticism from regulators around the world. The untenable and short-sighted regulations on blockchain proposed by the previous U.S. administration wont disappear overnight, and education, demonstration and perseverance will be the trifecta that will result in governments finally embracing a decentralized financial system.　　Why blockchain matters　　The main goal of the decentralized finance industry is to bring more opportunities to the unbanked and provide equality of access and transparency to all market participants. The benefits of this technology are limitless; opening up more opportunities for people who cant access traditional finance, as well as revolutionizing existing methods of organizing people and resources around a purpose, such as peer-to-peer networking and facilitating business transactions

2021-04-19Deep Dive

7 Lessons From Coinbase's Public Listing

In a decade of covering crypto, we cant recall a week like that one. Coinbase (COIN) hit the public markets on Wednesday and triggered wall-to-wall media coverage, including flattering feature stories in outlets that usually treat Bitcoin like a dirty word, and hot takes a-plenty on business TV and social media.　　The debut price of $381 shredded the Nasdaq-selected reference price of $250. Shares shot as high as $430, letting Coinbase enjoy a brief moment as a “centacorn” worth more than $100 billion. Then the bears crashed the party, sending shares down to $328 to close its first day, a 14% dip. The stock ended the week at $342.　　The opening day initial pop and subsequent pullback has been the standard recipe for a parade of recent tech unicorn listings. But given the absurdly high expectations for Coinbase, the company‘s debut went extremely well, even if it couldn’t hold on to that $100 billion valuation for more than a few minutes on Wednesday. It will likely reclaim that mark soon, based on a wave of analyst buy recommendations that predict the stock will eclipse $500.　　Lets look past the flurry of stonk-go-up, stonk-go-down coverage. What were the big-picture lessons of the listing？　　1.Coinbase proved

2021-04-19Deep Dive

Gaming Giant WeMade Wants to Buy Bithumb

Another South Korean gaming giant has been linked with a possible deal to take over Bithumb, one of the countrys biggest crypto exchanges.　　Per a report from Chosun, WeMade, the firm behind the Legend of Mir series, is the latest to express an interest in buying a stake in the crypto trading platform, whose biggest shareholder put his shares up for sale last year, as confirmed to Cryptonews.com by the brokerage Samjong KPMG.　　Chosun reported that interest from the rival gamemaker Nexons holding company NXC had become “sluggish,” as had interest from the internet heavyweight Naver and global crypto exchange leader Binance, but that WeMade had “emerged as a dark horse” in the race to buy Bithumb.　　The media outlet quoted an unnamed investment banking insider as stating that “foreign financial companies that have tried to take over have since withdrawn from the negotiation table.”　　The newspaper claimed its sources had confirmed WeMade was exploring a range of options, which could involve a purchase of main shareholder Lee Jung-hoons stake (between 60% and 70%) in addition to a minority stake of around 10%-12% owned by the video hardware retailer Vidente.　　Lee is thought to be holding out for a bid of USD 628m, although interested

2021-04-19Deep Dive

Did a massive Chinese power outage cause Bitcoin’s crash down to $50K?

Woo noted reports identifying the blackouts were published late last week, with the power outages occurring to facilitate safety inspections in response to a recent flooding accident at a local coal mine that saw 21 miners temporarily trapped underground after power and communications went down.　　According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, or BECI, Xinjiang represents nearly one-quarter of the global hash rate.　　The analyst notes yesterday saw the largest daily drop in total Bitcoin network hash rate since November 2017, with hash rate plummeting from 172 million terahashes per second, or TH/s, to less roughly 154 million TH/s, according to Ycharts.　　Popular crypto market analyst, Willy Woo, has attributed the violent April 18 cryptocurrency crash to a sudden drop in hash rate resulting from a power outage in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.　　Bitcoin hash rate: Ycharts　　Woo points to 9,000 BTC that was transferred to Binance on April 16, speculating the funds were likely sent by a “whale with closer knowledge to happenings in China.”　　Coupled with heavy selling in the quarterly futures markets, the downward momentum drove $4.9 billion worth of Bitcoin liquidations and a further $4.4 billion in margin calls in the altcoin markets — with a record 1 million accounts

2021-04-19Deep Dive

The Smart Way to Triple Your Bitcoin

Unless you‘ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Bitcoin has grown at an unbelievable rate over the last year. It recently hit a new peak of over 64,000 USD for a single BTC, rising by 63%, in the first quarter of 2021 alone.　　Undoubtedly, one of the main causes of this incredible bull run is that the pandemic has weakened traditional currencies and driven many to look at alternatives to help see them through the storm. This has resulted in crypto investment by global financial institutions and major corporations. In turn, the increased adoption has led to a growth in the legitimacy and popularity of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, a development that is likely to be with us for the long term.　　If you already own Bitcoin, you want to ensure that you don‘t lose all your money if the price crashes again, and you also want to put your profits to work on your behalf, so they aren’t just sitting idle. The safest and most profitable way to achieve this is with crypto arbitrage.　　What Makes Crypto Arbitrage such a Smart Strategy？　　There are a number of factors that make crypto arbitrage an attractive investment strategy. Lets take a closer

2021-04-19Deep Dive

How Euler.Tools Could Bridge The Gap To Full-Scale Blockchain Adoption

Bitcoin is suddenly all over mainstream media, whetting the appetite of risk-taking investors interested in entering positions in cryptocurrencies. However, what they dont understand is all the benefits that this emerging asset class and the underlying blockchain technology have to offer.　　Negative perceptions about cryptocurrencys use for crime continue to get in the way of widespread acceptance. And even if that barrier is broken, learning about the technology and even using it can be challenging or confusing at first.　　However, Euler.Tools, the world‘s first real-time block explorer platform that intends to disrupt the crypto trading industry using interconnected data, could finally make learning crypto and blockchain easy. Here’s how Euler.Tools is helping traders see and understand blockchain technology and market events all from one single platform.　　The Early Mathematical Origins Behind Euler.Tools　　The story of how Euler.Tools first began was a struggle. Founder Jorge de los Santos got into crypto trading after finding success in other markets, only to get totally liquidated. His fascination with where the money went from there fueled his passion for learning more about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.　　The more he searched for concrete sources of information, Santos realized that the industry still faced many challenges. As Santos first began his

2021-04-19Deep Dive

Why Cardano’s Hoskinson Called Proof-of-Work a Road to Nowhere

Cardano‘s inventor and IOG CEO Charles Hoskinson commented on Bitcoin’s hashrate dropped after a blackout struck some small counties in the province of Xinjiang.　　Major Bitcoin mining pools saw their hashrate crashed. As informed by Primitive Crypto founder partner Dovey Wan, F2Pool, AntPool, Poolin registered a drop of up to 33%.　　Although the hashrate has been quickly climbing back up in the past day, the incident has been used to highlight what some consider a “Bitcoin problem”. Hoskinson shared an article on the incident via his Twitter handle and said the following:　　“Proof of stake doesnt suffer from this problem wake up people! Nakamoto consensus is a road to nowhere.”　　In 2020, Cardano transitioned from a Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm to a Proof-of-Stake. This event initiated Cardanos Shelley era. Hoskinson said in a previous interview that the former has more advantages than the latter.　　Adding that currently there is a “great movement of value” from PoW to PoS like Ethereum 2.0, Polkadot, Cardano, and others, IOGs CEO predicted a “distribution of wealth” to these blockchains in 2021. Hoskinson added:　　“The issue is it can never get better by design. The more successful bitcoin gets, the higher the price goes; the higher the price goes, the more competition

2021-04-19Deep Dive

Crypto and Traditional Finance To Merge Via M&As

As Coinbase has already gone public, and eToro, Kraken are also planning to list their shares, we can also expect to see an increase in acquisition activity in the coming months.　　While it‘s expected that mergers and acquisitions are set to increase this year, what isn’t so clear is who will be initiating such moves. Will traditional finance (or fintech) companies be acquiring crypto firms, or will it be the other way around？　　Bridging both sectors　　It‘s worth pointing out that mergers and acquisitions have already been increasing quite rapidly within the cryptocurrency industry. According to PwC’s 3rd Global Crypto Mve seen all kinds of publicly traded companies in North America, from sports lottery businesses to tech support solution providers, either acquire or merge with crypto mining businesses,” he told Cryptonews.com.　　Colyer expects this trend to ramp up this year, while he also expects to “see more crypto players acquire traditional finance companies, especially as long as the bull market continues.”　　‘The only choice’　　Given that some crypto firms are now so large, big traditional finance corporations may be forced to acquire at least some of them, since the odds of building something equally successful in a shorter space of time are falling by the month.　　“Given

2021-04-19Deep Dive

ECB: Half of Europeans Think Blockchain Solves Counterfeit Digital Euros

The European Central Bank quizzed the public about its digital euro. Half of the respondents think blockchain could deal with counterfeits and resolve technical glitches.　　The European Central Bank published this week the results of a public consultation on a digital euro. Half of the respondents, most of whom are German men, said that blockchain would resolve counterfeiting and technical glitches, and most want a digital euro that respects their privacy.　　The results aren‘t binding, but still “provide valuable input to the Eurosystem’s reflections on a digital euro.”　　During the three-month consultation, which opened in October 2020, 8,221 respondents— 6% of whom are professionals (read: lobbyists) and the other 94% mere citizens—weighed in on their preferences for the design of a digital euro.　　Blockchain for the digital euro？　　A digital euro would be a central bank digital currency (CBDC)—a digital version of the ECB‘s fiat currency. Governments are interested in CBDC because they make it easier to analyze financial transactions and cheaper to disburse money in times of crisis. CBDCs aren’t necessarily based on blockchain, but they can be.　　Despite much hubbub, few central banks have launched CBDCs. Small economies, like Cambodia and Bermuda, have launched them. China, currently trialling its own digital yuan, leads the

2021-04-19Deep Dive

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