Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Implementing the double-edged sword of KYC is a must for crypto exchanges

The bull market effect has made Know Your Customer regulation more important than ever for cryptocurrency exchanges.　　During 2017s bull market, most crypto services lacked the proper Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering measures. Even in 2020, 56% of the analyzed 800 cryptocurrency exchanges and over-the-counter trading desks followed weak KYC practices, according to a CipherTrace report. However, the current digital asset rally has turned the crypto market upside down.　　As a result, KYC and AML have become top priorities for cryptocurrency providers, with many industry players rushing to implement proper measures to better know their customers. And its not just the providers that are increasingly demanding KYC, but also their clients.　　This trend began in January 2021, when users started to get more involved with and showed more willingness to pass these procedures. Before the current bull market, only 20% of our customers who started the registration process became fully verified. Now, this rate has changed to 33%, which marks a 65% increase in willingness to pass KYC.　　It has become clear now that the attitude of both crypto businesses and users toward KYC in crypto have changed drastically in recent months.　　The double-edged sword crypto exchanges are only wielding now　　While compliance with KYC

2021-04-03Deep Dive

Mark Cuban Says 60% of His Crypto Holdings Are in Bitcoin (BTC), Picks ETH as Second-Best

Shark Tank and Dallas Mavericks billionaire co-owner Mark Cuban recently disclosed that a significant portion of his crypto holdings are stashed in bitcoin because he believes the cryptocurrency is a better store of value asset than gold.　　Speaking in a recent episode of the Delphi Podcast as published on CNBC, Cuban noted that of his total crypto holdings, 60% are in BTC, 30% in Ether (ETH), and the remaining 10% is allocated to other altcoins.　　Bitcoin Is Superior To Gold　　The billionaire investor has held onto his crypto holdings, especially bitcoin, because, according to him, it was more than just a currency, but a store of value asset.　　Cuban noted that he is certain of bitcoins superiority to gold as a better store of value asset, and would never sell it for anything.　　His argument dates back to 2012 when people believed bitcoin was just a digital currency.　　“But, the entire time, I said it was a store of value where, if you could get people to believe that it was a better alternative than gold, because of its algorithmic scarcity, the price is going to go up,” the self-made billionaire said.　　Cuban Picks ETH As His Second-Best Crypto　　The billionaire further revealed why 30% of his total

2021-04-02Deep Dive

NFT Sales Volume Plummets from Recent Highs: Is the Hype Over?

Only weeks ago, it seemed impossible for the digital art market to cool off. Throughout February, the non-fungible token (NFT) craze was in full spotlight, with the mania reaching its peak with the record setting $69 million Beeple auction. At its height, even Teslas CEO Elon Musk tweeted about selling his NFT.　　But as the novelty began to wear off and speculators moved on, the NFT market has been in a continuous downtrend. Sales figures across online marketplaces for digital art and collectibles have dropped precipitously, potentially exposing the absence of organic demand in the NFT space.　　According to figures from NonFungible, the average daily value of NFTs sold across marketplaces fell from $19 million to $3 million on March 25th — approximately an 85% decrease. Other major metrics have flashed worrying signs.　　In the past week alone, the gross number of sales and unique buyers declined by 30% and 35, respectively. These figures have left speculators and market participants questioning whether the NFT space is experiencing a temporary pullback, or if its hype was merely a flash in the pan.　　DESPITE WORRYING INDICATORS, NFT MARKETPLACE NBA TOP SHOT SHOWS SIGNS OF STRENGTH　　NBA Top Shot, an NFT marketplace for NBA trading cards, has seen

2021-04-02Deep Dive

New crypto-mining malware targets Call of Duty players

Researchers at major video game publisher Activision have discovered a new malware program that installs hidden cryptocurrency miners on users PCs by masquerading as a “trainer” for Call of Duty: Warzone, the company revealed yesterday.　　“In March of 2020, a threat actor posted on multiple hacking forums advertising a free, ‘newbie friendly’, and ‘effective’ method [to cheat], for spreading a remote access trojan (RAT)—malware that primarily does what it implies, provides remote access for a threat actor to the target it is delivered to,” said the researchers.　　Per the report, the RAT was presented as a “trainer”—a program that ostensibly allows players to activate various cheats—for popular battle royale-style multiplayer shooter Call of Duty: Warzone.　　However, what gamers actually downloaded was a “dropper”—a piece of software designed to stealthily download and install various malware.　　“The dropper examined in this report, ‘Cod Dropper v0.1,’ can be customized to install other, more destructive, malware onto the targets machines,” the report explained.　　No pain, no gain　　The hackers advertised their malware as an “undetected cheat for COD WARZONE” and even published some YouTube videos with instructions, urging gamers to disable their security software and give the RAT high system privileges.　　“The actors suggested method for convincing the victims to disable

2021-04-02Deep Dive

Irish Police Investigate Massive Bitcoin Scam That Stole Millions From High-Net-Worth Individuals

Irish police are on high alert due to the rising number of cases related to a bitcoin-related scam targeting high-net-worth people in the country. The situation has become worrisome because suspicious high-value transactions have already been noticed by authorities.　　Authorities Already Searched One Property Tied to One of the Suspects　　According to The Irish Times, Gardaí (Irelands police) investigates what they consider a major crypto scam whose criminals could be residing in the country. A local bank already raised concerns about a suspicious transaction of 500,000 euros ($586,500) from a dormant account.　　After inquiries conducted by Gardaí on the older customer who wanted to invest such an amount of money into what he believed was a legit crypto business opportunity, he accepted the polices advice to not send the fiat money.　　But per the media outlet, it seems other similar transactions took place before they acted to block the 500,000 euros move to the criminals wallet. In fact, the victim wanted to exchange the money into cryptos and then deposit it into a bitcoin (BTC) wallet belonging allegedly to the scammers.　　Although no arrests have been made as of press time, Irish police already searched on a property in south Dublin, allegedly tied to some

2021-04-02Deep Dive

Messari: New Coinbase listings really do outperform rival exchanges

Crypto analytics provider Messari has compiled a report concluding that the fabled “Coinbase effect” — the popular belief that new token listings on Coinbase tend to outperform launches on other exchanges — is true.　　But the effect is far from consistent, and after controlling for outliers, its not as great as many assume.　　Messari analyzed the performance of 28 new Coinbase listings over five days against 22 Binance listings, 19 FTX listings, 19 Gemini listings, 14 OKEx listings, and 11 Kraken listings over the same duration.　　While the research found that listings on Coinbase had the highest average return at 91%, the effect was far from consistent. The 28 tokens performed anywhere from a 32% loss to a 645% gain after five days. By contrast, new tokens on other exchanges ranged from a roughly 25% loss to a 60% gain with the next best average gain overall for an exchange around 20%.　　However, the researchers note external factors drove extreme returns for several tokens shortly after they listed on Coinbase, with Distict0x increasing by 645% and Civic gaining 493%.　　When “controlling for outliers,” Messari still found Coinbases new listings outperformed other exchanges, with returns varying between 0% and 66% for an average of 29% overall.　　In

2021-04-02Deep Dive

Are NFTs an Implicit Backdoor Adoption to Crypto?

While it took around twelve years for crypto to reach the “early majority” stage in the tech adoption curve, non-fungible token (NFT) adoption is moving much faster. NFTs are bringing crypto to your average, everyday folks, including beatboxers, drummers, and a wide variety of artists tokenizing their art.　　When asked what compelled him to buy a “JPEG” for USD 69m, the buyer of the Beeple NFT said, “the 440 M-pixel image is a truly, digitally native artwork. If it were a physical image, wed need a 5-floor building to enjoy it. It is a work of art that includes 5,000 images and 13 years of the artists life which is very special to me.” NFTs are about creating a value-tech ecosystem for digital art and culture, for everyone involved (curators, artists, buyers). The art is validated on a blockchain that creates digital scarcity and hence more desire. It eliminates the middlemen and empowers the creator because whenever the buyer sells it further, the creator gets a cut.　　NFTs are changing the perception of ownership and value. Now, this has given crypto and blockchain tech a chance to create implicit associations of desire and ownership with and for everyday users. This kind of

2021-04-02Deep Dive

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Hits All-Time High as Delayed ASIC Shipments Come Online

Bitcoins mining difficulty hit an all-time high today after a roughly 6% increase, a move that follows a record month in earnings for Bitcoin miners as new generation ASICs come online.　　“Difficulty” refers to the relative measure of the amount of resources required to mine bitcoin (BTC, -0.51%). This measurement climbs or falls depending on the amount of power consumed (or “hashrate” produced) by the network at a given time. Bitcoin is programmed to adjust its difficulty level every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every 2 weeks to ensure that new blocks are mined at a stable rate.　　This difficulty is measured on a relative scoring scale where Bitcoin launched with a mining difficulty of “1,” the lowest its ever been. (Difficulty kind of works like Google Search scores in that the scoring system is internal and has no reference point or unit for measurement outside of the networks themselves).　　As of today‘s adjustment, Bitcoin’s current mining difficulty is 23.1 trillion, according to data pulled from this CoinDesk journalists Bitcoin node. Per figures from BTC.com, this is a roughly 6% increase from its last level of 21.8 trillion, which makes it the second largest adjustment of the year and the fifth upward adjustment in

2021-04-02Deep Dive

NFTs Are Selling for Millions. But Are They Reselling?

Countless artists and celebrities are creating their own NFTs and selling them for outrageous sums. The question is whether this value holds.　　Primary sales of NFTs are going through the roof. In the last two months, crypto artists WhIsBe and XCOPY sold NFT artworks for $1 million and $1.9 million respectively. And thats not even mentioning Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann, who made headlines around the world when he sold an NFT for $69 million in the first-ever auction of an entirely digital artwork to be conducted at Christies.　　But for this market to become sustainable (or not be completely wiped out if the NFT bubble pops), there needs to be a healthy secondary market for these NFTs. Looking at NFT marketplaces, however, it‘s not easy to tell whether these expensive works of digital art are being resold for a profit, or if they’re losing their value.　　Richard Chen, creator of data tracking site Crypto Art and partner at crypto investment firm 1Confirmation (which invests in NFT art), explains that the secondary market is growing at a rapid pace, but that its typically centered around high-value artists that are contributing heavily to the crypto space.　　He told Decrypt that the average secondary sale price is usually

2021-04-02Deep Dive

ECCB Launched First Union-Backed CBDC

On Wednesday, the Eastern Carribean Central Bank (ECCB) officially launched DCash, its central bank digital currency (CBDC). DCash is a digital version of the Eastern Carribean dollar — which is the official currency for eight Carribean nations. The ECCB has partnered with fintech provider Bitt to oversee infrastructure and operation of the brand new digital currency.　　The ECCBs move to digitize its financial infrastructure will offer a more efficient and securitized alternative to traditional payment systems. In a statement earlier last week, the central bank stated that it had “develop[ed] this digital version of the EC currency in an effort to increase financial inclusion, competitiveness and resilience for the people of the Eastern Carribean Currency Union.”　　The ECCB is the first currency union to launch a CBDC. A currency union is an agreement between multiple nations to maintain the same currency or to keep currency prices pegged at the same level. The Euro is one such example of this. While the Eastern Carribean Currency Union consists of eight sovereign states, DCash will only be available in four: Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, and Grenada.　　Potential Implications of a Central Bank Digital Currency？　　Major nations such as China and Japan

2021-04-02Deep Dive

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