Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

What Seven Banks Have Said About Bitcoin

Bitcoin is now the world‘s third-largest currency, according to a report by Deutsche Bank. And with the cryptocurrency soaring 750% to reach $60,000 this month—and a market cap in excess of $1 trillion—it’s become too big for the banks to ignore. But there‘s little consensus among the big investment banks as to whether the asset class is a long-term value proposition—or even whether it’s a proposition at all.　　US Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell has said that crypto assets are more for speculation than for payments; many banks agree, but sometimes their actions speak louder than their words. Heres how the banks stack up in their views on Bitcoin.　　1.CitiGroup　　Multinational investment bank Citigroup was one of the first big banks to wade into cryptocurrencies. In 2018, it came up with a way to invest in cryptocurrencies without actually owning them.　　Most recently, the bank consolidated its views on the cryptocurrency market in a lengthy report published in March 2021, in which it claimed that Bitcoin is “at the tipping point” for mainstream adoption. The bank did highlight some concerns, most notably over custody, capital efficiency, insurance, and the environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining—the energy-intensive process by which new coins are issued.　　But ultimately, its

2021-03-25Deep Dive

Challenges That Are Being Faced by Digital Money

Commonly, Cryptocurrency carries far above paper money in the aforementioned groups. And what are Bitcoins currency challenges？　　Another of the main challenges is the quality shop situation of Bitcoin. As a price exchange Bitcoins usefulness relies on its utility as a medium of exchange. We are all assuming that anything to function as a value store requires some fundamental value because if bitcoin does not work as a trading mechanism, it will have little functional application and hence no ultimate purpose and therefore will not serve as a value store. Same like fiat money, visit bitqt for more information about the topic.　　No specific commodities or precious metals are used to fund Bitcoin. The current valuation of Digital currency is largely driven by investor activity for much of its development. With dramatic price spikes and a craze for the media spotlight, Bitcoin showed features of a blister. This will potentially decline as Bitcoin is now more commonly accepted, but the outlook is unclear.　　The usefulness and the applicability of Bitcoin are challenged by problems in storage and management of symmetric encryption open space. In past months, glitches, fraud and money laundering have affected virtual currency interactions. Robbery, of course, also occurs in the

2021-03-25Deep Dive

Milking the cash cow: NFTs seen as investment opportunity by VCs

According to data from Messari, the NFT marketplace sales volume grew by 2,882% in February. It dwarfed the increase in monthly sales volume in any given month throughout the past three years. The fast growth of the NFT market follows high-profile auctions of nonfungible tokens led by Sothebys and other recognizable brands, such as Time Magazine, which is planning to auction three NFTs in the coming month.　　The NFT sector has begun to see explosive growth beginning in early February of 2021. NFT marketplaces, such as Rarible and OpenSea, have started to see an uptick in NFT sales as both traditional VC investors and celebrities entered the NFT market.　　The impending catalyst of NFTs　　Speaking with Cointelegraph, Simon Dedic, managing partner of Moonrock Capital — one of the largest funds in the Polkadot industry and Web 3.0 ecosystem — said the NFT market is significantly different from where it was in 2018 when CryptoKitties saw explosive popularity.　　The infrastructure supporting NFTs has rapidly improved, allowing the sector to have full-stack NFT services from marketplaces, minting platforms, trading venues, NFT financialization protocols and more, as Dedic said:　　“NFT technology initially caught our interest a few years ago when CryptoKitties famously clogged the Ethereum network and became

2021-03-25Deep Dive

Microsoft President Says Governments Still Best-Placed to Issue Currency

Microsofts President has cast doubt on whether companies should create and issue their own currencies, suggesting governments are still the best for the role.　　Micorsoft in the Public Interest　　Brad Smith, President of Microsoft Corp., says that he believes governments she be the only entity issuing digital currencies to protect the public interest.　　Smith made the comments during a conference hosted by the Bank for International Settlements in which he said:　　“The money supply almost uniquely needs to be managed by an entity that is responsible to the public and thinks really only about the public interest, and that means governments.”- Brad Smith – President – Microsoft　　Asked whether he could see Microsoft being involved in the creation and issuance of a digital currency, Smith responded by admitting he is not a fan of the idea.　　“Im not a big fan myself of encouraging or asking or wanting us to participate in the issuing of currency.”- Brad Smith – President – Microsoft　　Despite the concerns about company-issued digital currencies, the software giant is involved in several cryptocurrency-related projects.　　Microsoft Azure Cloud, the company‘s own cloud-storage application, is home to several cryptocurrency companies. This includes Wirex, a London-based cryptocurrency exchange that recently launched the UK’s first cryptocurrency debit card.　　Moreover,

2021-03-25Deep Dive

Blockchain Based Smart Contracts; Considerations For Implementation

The flurry of blockchain applications and use cases that have burst into the marketplace during 2020 and 2021, from decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have captured the attention and investment dollars of the marketplace.　　Under the radar, however, a different blockchain application continues to garner relatively little attention, but is playing a critically important role enabling many of these higher profile applications; smart contracts. Underlying this entire idea is the reality that blockchains, in and of themselves, are records of transactions and other data that have previously occurred. These records and information contained therein are (depending on who is asked) immutable and/or extremely difficult to hack or otherwise breach, but are still just records of previous transactions.　　The real question then becomes, how can this information and these blockchains successfully interact with other technology systems, and how can the data contained therein have its utility maximized？ Specific answers will inevitably vary, especially for permissioned, enterprise, or hybrid blockchains, but a commonly used interface is a smart contract. There may still be some confusion as to what exactly a smart contract is, or some negative connotations linked to smart contracts (like the infamous DAO hack), but these are

2021-03-25Deep Dive

IOTA Partners with Cartesi to Stengthen DeFi Use Cases

The chain-agnostic Layer-2 infrastructure, Cartesi, has partnered with the IOTA Foundation to expand the use cases of DeFi, gaming, and NFTs. Additionally, both parties aim to serve as the bridge between traditional technological solutions and blockchain.　　Cartesi Collaborates with IOTA　　Headquartered in Germany, the IOTA Foundation is a global not-for-profit establishment focusing on research and development of new blockchain solutions. The popular project has recently partnered with Cartesi – the Layer-2 infrastructure aiming to solve the “pressing problem of scalability on the most important blockchains.”　　The statement reads that both organizations will focus on implementing improvements within some of the most popular fields of the cryptocurrency industry as of late.　　More specifically, they will bring together existing solutions to “expand the user base of DeFi use cases, such as automated market makers (AMMs), gaming, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and oracles.” At the same time, they will strengthen IOTAs ability to offer decentralized technologies to large corporations.　　Furthermore, both parties will employ Cartesis Linux-based virtual machine, IOTA Oracles, and IOTA Smart Contracts to bring “non-blockchain-based use cases and businesses” into the aforementioned areas and industrial Internet of Things.　　“From the early days, Cartesi and IOTA have been exchanging thoughts and studying the best ways to collaborate. After several

2021-03-25Deep Dive

Florida man escapes paying a $4.5M SEC penalty over a crypto Ponzi scheme

The founder of a multi-million crypto Ponzi scheme has escaped paying a $4.5 million penalty to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.　　On March 23, the U.S District Court of Southern Florida initially ordered Jose Angel Aman to pay the SEC more than $4.2 million in disgorgement, and $300,000 in prejudgement interest. However, the court deemed the bill was satisfied that same day due to restitution paid in a parallel case from 2019.　　According to an emergency order obtained by the SEC in May 2019, Florida-based Aman operated three consecutive Ponzi-schemes which made up a “complicated web of fraudulent companies in an effort to continually loot retail investors and perpetuate the Ponzi schemes as well as divert money to himself,” pulling in roughly $30 million from an investor base of more than 300 people based in the U.S, Canada, and Venezuela.　　His efforts resulted in a seven-year jail sentence, three years supervised release, and an order to pay more than $23.8 million to the SEC in restitution.　　Aman was the principle behind Argyle Coin, a crypto Ponzi-scheme he operated alongside Canadian radio host Harold Seigel and his son Jonathan Seigel. The scheme falsely promised a “risk-free” investment that was backed by what the SEC

2021-03-25Deep Dive

MMT, Crypto and the New Nature of Money

It is ironic that quantitative easing is reinforcing Bitcoin when it was born in opposition to a policy of scarcity, says Arcane Researchs Sofia Blikstad.　　Money used to be a reward for value creation. Today, money is used to create value.　　Since leaving the gold standard, money has essentially been backed by faith in the issuing government. This would be the preface to now-fashionable Modern Monetary Theory. No longer having to fear the shortage of gold, governments are free to print the money needed to fully employ their available resources. In other words, MMT views currency as a public good rather than a medium of exchange.　　In 2008, Bitcoin was created in response to this very concept. Fundamentally different but joint in their controversy, both ideas have re-entered the mainstream conversation as we enter the post-pandemic world. At the moment, there is no consensus on either.　　The fiscal response to the COVID-19 pandemic comes with unprecedented costs. The European Central Banks balance sheet expansion – up €2.42 trillion since the beginning of 2020 – has been remarkable compared with its roughly €1 trillion response in 2008-2009. Interest rates remain at all-time lows, while debt levels have reached all-time highs.　　During 2020, the joint budget deficits

2021-03-25Deep Dive

Will Grayscale Convert GBTC to a Bitcoin ETF?

In brief　　Grayscale Bitcoin Trusts premium has stayed negative for a month, which could impact on the wider cryptocurrency space.　　One solution would be to introduce a Grayscale Bitcoin ETF, if the SEC allows it: but how would the firm choose to do so？　　The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), a popular way for investors to get exposure to Bitcoin in the form of shares, has now had a negative premium for an entire month. This means the price of each share remains below the corresponding amount of Bitcoin it represents.　　This negative premium is new terrain for Grayscales institutional investors. In the past, those wealthy investors have purchased shares in the trust in order to engage in a form of arbitrage, flipping them to retail investors at a profit months later once a regulatory “lock-up period” expired.　　Now, the negative premium appears to be the cause of a recent collapse of inflows into the GBTC. As Bitcoin lending firm BlockFi CEO Zac Prince told the What Bitcoin Did podcast, one would have to be a “complete moron to subscribe to create new shares of GBTC while the liquid shares are trading at a discount.” He suggested investors might as well buy the shares on the

2021-03-25Deep Dive

The Call for Regulation in the Crypto Sphere

Regulation has always been a real obstacle to mainstream adoption in the crypto arena. The message is coming across very loud and clear from a variety of market participants including Treasury Secretary to the US Janet Yellen who has publicly ripped into Bitcoin calling it an “inefficient way of conducting transactions”. Would she still say that if the US was regulating and reaping rewards from the industry？ More recently, the Central Bank of India has all but banned the use of cryptocurrencies, with bitcoin tumbling 20% on the news. Bitcoin is very sensitive to this kind of news. The problem with cryptocurrencies is there is no one set rule or body to monitor crypto activity globally. Each country creates its own rules and still, cryptos remain unregulated.　　The global picture　　A variety of countries have stressed that cryptocurrencies open the door to illicit activities like money laundering and the sale of drugs. These include Algeria, Bolivia, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, and Vietnam who have restricted any form of activity that involves digital currencies.　　And some now require financial institutions that manage digital assets to use enhanced due diligence, these include Australia, Canada, and the Isle of Man who has implemented legislation that dictates that

2021-03-24Deep Dive

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