Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Indians Want Bitcoin Despite Government Stance

You cant keep bitcoin down.　　Thats true in a lot of places around the world, from Belarus to Nigeria, where crypto is a workaround for dissidents and a substitute for unreliable monetary systems.　　But its especially true in India, a market that has lots of cryptocurrency activity (and masses of potential) despite a decade of government confusion, inconsistency and delay.　　Just recently, Indias Parliament was rumored to be about to pass a bill banning crypto outright, only for that body to postpone the measure and go on a three-month holiday.　　In 2018, the Reserve Bank of India sought to ban banks from dealing in crypto. Then last year, the Supreme Court overturned that ban, raising hopes of a boom.　　Nobody – even the so-called experts – knows what will happen now. The official government stance has been overwhelmingly negative over the years. But some factions are more supportive than others, and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently left some wiggle room. “We will allow certain windows for people to do experiments on the blockchain, bitcoins or cryptocurrency,” he said.　　The consensus speculation is that the government may eventually ban payments in crypto but preserve the ability of people to hold crypto as an investment (as long as

2021-03-31Deep Dive

Why Cardano has the Potential to Become the Biggest Smart Contract Blockchain

Hammering on Cardanos “downsides” has been addressed as an agenda against the network, by its founder Charles Hoskinson. But these actions are perceived as a sign that the future is bullish for Cardano.　　These were the summary of Hoskinsons tweet, which was made in response to the negative assertions that the network was not up to industry standards. Hoskinson, who has apparently been paying attention to it all, says that “it must mean that Cardano is finally perceived as a threat to the status quo and we are on the right track.” The next six months may come with more criticism but it will all pay off, he added.　　Ran Neuner has also amplified Hoskinsons comments in a tweet where he wrote “Am I crazy to think that Cardano will be the biggest smart contract blockchain？”　　Both parties are not wrong to have predicted a bullish future for Cardano, given the number of network rollouts coming in the future. Proponents have speculated that the updates will place the network well on its way to being a strong Ethereum competitor.　　The CEO of the IOHK—which is dedicated to building the Cardano blockchain— revealed that the Alonzo Testnet will make Cardano a smart contract network. This

2021-03-31Deep Dive

Banks Take a Beating as Bitcoin Surges on Archegos Sell-Off

When it comes to price swings, crypto is usually the one making the headlines. But after the Archegos sell-off that rocked global asset markets on Friday, crypto seemed tame in comparison.　　Market cap for crypto saw strong gains overnight, rising 3.7% to $1.87 trillion, according to Nomics. This puts crypto close to its all-time high of $1.9 trillion set earlier this month. That surge has been felt across the market.　　Global Market Cap reaching new highs. IMAGE: CoinMarketCap　　Bitcoin is up 3.4% to around $58,000 after a choppy weekend. But with its market dominance now trending below 60% - other assets have been helping the markets along.　　Chief among them is Ethereum, which enjoyed a 5.8% bump to take its price back into the $1,800s thanks to news that Visa had recently opened the door for transactions to be settled on its network using USD Coin - which is built on Ethereum.　　Ripple also saw gains thanks to a spate of positive news. XRP is up 3.5% after the SEC granted a motion to allow an intervention in the ongoing case against the company. While that was happening Ripple acquired a 40% stake in southeast Asian payments company Trango.　　Other winners in the crypto top 20

2021-03-31Deep Dive

South Korean Tech Giants May Capitalize on ‘Rising Crypto Pay Demand’

A new report has suggested that South Koreas two biggest internet-focused tech titans, Kakao and Naver, may be well-poised to take the next step in crypto pay and crypto exchange-related business expansion.　　Both have already placed a foot firmly into the door of crypto, but are still taking cautious baby steps, rather than rushing in head-first.　　Kakao, the operator of the KakaoTalk chat app and a number of payment and financial services, has launched a blockchain subsidiary named Ground X, as well as the Klaytn blockchain protocol, the klay cryptoasset and the Klip crypto wallet, which is linked to the KakaoTalk interface.　　It was also one of the first investors in the Upbit crypto exchange.　　Naver, meanwhile, is the part-owner and founder of the rival chat app Line. Although Line has enjoyed limited market penetration in South Korea, it has been a roaring success in Japan, where it is the most widely used messaging service in the country.　　And per EDaily, the firms could be tempted to make bolder moves in the weeks ahead.　　The fully diluted market capitalization of klay, per market estimates at the time of writing, is around USD 33.5bn – a figure that if correct would equate about 86% of Kakaos total

2021-03-30Deep Dive

BNY Mellon Weighs Controversial Bitcoin Valuation Model

BNY Mellon has taken on the difficult task of evaluating different methods of valuing Bitcoin in a March investment report, And in doing so, its spotlighted a controversial model that—if correct—would see Bitcoins price hit $100,000 to $288,000 this year.　　BNY Mellon‘s thoughts on the matter are important because it’s the largest custodian bank in the world, with over $25 trillion in assets. Its custodial role is soon to be expanding to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as a Wall Street Journal report revealed in February.　　The research report, “Blending Art s gained traction in recent years among Bitcoiners.　　Quantitative analyst and investor PlanB, who created the Bitcoin S2F model posited in his March 2019 article, “Modeling Bitcoin‘s Value with Scarcity,” that S2F could be used to measure Bitcoin’s scarcity and, therefore, its future value. Since the amount of Bitcoin produced declines over time, the S2F will go up. PlanB projected that the May 2020 Bitcoin halving—when BTC mining rewards were last cut in half—would cause the price of Bitcoin to rise to around $55,000 (not far from its current price of $57,000), tracking the prices of gold and silver when they had similar S2F ratios.　　It‘s one of the most bullish models for Bitcoin

2021-03-30Deep Dive

Uniqly: The Game Changer of the NFT World

Everyone familiar with the crypto world is already aware of the current demand of a particular niche in the ever-growing market of digital goods: NFT products.　　In particular, NFT art has seen some major recognition both from our netizens and from major institutional outlets.　　Digital art is on the rise, there is high demand for it and we have already seen its potential.　　Beeple and his 69 million dollar sale have ushered a new era for NFT products, and the people at Uniqly have managed to get on the wave with great momentum and uncanny precision.　　We already had a demonstration of the capabilities of Uniqly team during their first public sale, in which the well oiled machine of Uniqly staff has worked in a professional and smooth manner to get to their coin target in less than 10 minutes.　　The public sale had an hardcap of 680k usd, in a FCFS format. First of all, while first come first served is for sure fairer than any kind of lottery, it takes much more work from a B2C standpoint, so their job is already impressive enough.　　But for a new project like theirs, the real victory is the speed of the sale. While they knew of

2021-03-30Deep Dive

NFT Marketplace Nifty Gateway Plans to Go Carbon Neutral

The white-hot NFT market has been facing backlash for its ecological footprint, and crypto companies are beginning to respond—some more gracefully than others.　　Earlier today, the Winklevoss-owned NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway announced plans to go carbon neutral through dedicated carbon offsets at the end of each month. It‘s also planning to introduce a new minting process that’s “99% more efficient.”　　But the company‘s note, authored by founders Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster, dismisses concerns around crypto art’s impact on the climate, even as it commits to going green:　　“Because there is no blockchain to account for the carbon footprint of the traditional art world, which includes, inter alia, all of the private and commercial air travel to the Basels, Biennales, and countless other festivals around the world, not to mention the automobile traffic to gallery exhibitions, museums, and so forth, such criticism has not been leveled against the offline art world, despite the fact that its carbon footprint is orders of magnitude greater. Apparently, this is the price of transparency and accountability.”　　The idea that Nifty Gateway is only being criticized because of Ethereum‘s “transparency” around carbon emissions may strike you as a dodge; does the blame lie with the independent researchers who dug

2021-03-30Deep Dive

An Oversupply of NFTs Is Going to Kill the Golden Goose

In the 1950s, the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland was, as it had been for centuries, one of the richest fisheries in the world, home to a massive and endlessly replenished population of cod. The fishery provided food for people across North America, and jobs to tens of thousands of fishermen and fish plant workers. But new technology — radar, sonar, electronic navigation systems, and massive drift nets — was allowing trawlers to fish for longer, and to take more fish with every trip. The result was that cod were being pulled from the ocean faster than they could replace themselves. In the early 1970s, the cod harvest collapsed, and while it rebounded temporarily, by the early 1990s the Grand Banks were effectively fished out. The Canadian government shut the fishery down, putting more than 35,000 people out of work.　　What happened to the Grand Banks fishery was an example of what the ecologist Garrett Hardin famously called “the tragedy of the commons.” If there‘s a common resource that everyone has an individual incentive to exploit, it will eventually be used up in the absence of regulation or communal norms. It’s a problem thats not unique to fisheries. It

2021-03-30Deep Dive

South Korea's 'Kimchi premium' is back: Is the Bitcoin rally starting to heat up?

The “Kimchi premium” is back. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading more than 6% higher across major South Korean crypto exchanges as of March 29.　　Data from CryptoQuant shows that the premium in the South Korean market was nonexistent for many months and, in fact, dropped to around -6% in early February when BTC dipped below $30,000.　　The so-called Kimchi premium forms when the price of Bitcoin trades higher on South Korean exchanges than other markets.　　The return of this premium is a bullish sign suggesting that demand for Bitcoin in South Korea is likely outpacing supply.　　Bitcoin premium on Korean exchanges. Source: CryptoQuant　　Why the Kimchi premium could be significant to Bitcoin　　Although South Korea does not account for a majority share of the global Bitcoin market, it remains one of the major exchange markets by daily volume.　　On CoinMarketCap, as an example, Bithumb is listed as the seventh-largest exchange in the world by daily trading volume, registering $1.3 billion in Bitcoin traded over the past 24 hours.　　The premium was especially high during past bull cycles, particularly in 2017 when BTC was trading well over 20% higher on South Korean exchanges compared with Coinbase and other large exchanges.　　The Kimchi premium shows two major trends. First, it shows that

2021-03-30Deep Dive

Spanish Island Government Decides to Sell Its Bitcoin Investment by Citing 'Ethical' Reasons

Bitcoin is not liked by everyone from the Island Council of Tenerife, Spain. At least that‘s what was suggested by its president, Pedro Martín, who ordered the sale of the local government’s investment in cryptocurrency.　　Bitcoin Is an ‘Opaque’ Currency, Martín Says　　Martín, from the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), issued the order of dismantling the investment made through the Technological Institute of Renewable Energies (ITER) in a previous administration, citing “ethical” reasons.　　In detail, according to El Economista, the Island Council of Tenerifes president considers it an “opaque” currency that cannot be declared in the tax filings.　　Although the president did not disclose the exact number of bitcoins (BTC) acquired by the council, it was reported that the liquidation could yield almost one million euros ($1.17 million), which could be around 20 BTC.　　During an interview with a local radio of the Canarias Islands, Martin said the council realized an audit of the 70 public companies related to the local government. With such findings, the president believed it was not ethical that public entities are dealing with cryptocurrencies.　　Martin told El Economista:　　“I was surprised by the possibility that we could have a bitcoin bank at ITER, a kind of possibility to have a warehouse. These

2021-03-30Deep Dive

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