Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Bitcoin Could Completely Replace $5 Trillion FX Market As Base Layer Currency, Says Max Keiser

Bitcoin evangelist Max Keiser says that BTC has the potential to become the new base layer currency and replace the entire $5 trillion foreign exchange (FX) market.　　In an episode of the Keiser Report, the Wall Street veteran takes note of Citibanks recent report that argues Bitcoin has an advantage in global payments due to its decentralized, deflationary, and secure nature, which are characteristics that put the flagship cryptocurrency in a position to go mainstream.　　Keiser highlights that Bitcoins advantages as a medium of exchange in global payments are already making banks, including Citibank, obsolete.　　“It‘s happening right now because the transaction is the settlement, so you don’t need Citibank. It obviates Citibank. It makes Citibank redundant, as are all banks, redundant with Bitcoin. I can trade with you as a currency and it doesn‘t require any bank. It doesn’t require a central bank.”　　While the Citibank report sees Bitcoin as having evolved from a form of payment to a store of value, Keiser believes it is the other way around.　　“And they got it a little bit reversed. They‘re saying it started off as a means of payment and people are looking at it as a store of value, but in fact, it started

2021-03-15Deep Dive

Social token platform Roll suffers exploit, token holdings transferred and sold

Roll, a platform for issuing social tokens on the Ethereum network, suffered an apparent exploit on Sunday, resulting in the theft and subsequent sale of tokens.　　Blockchain data shared across social media indicates that holdings of numerous social tokens issued on Roll were transferred and liquidated, with some of those funds subsequently moved to transaction mixer Tornado. An analysis by The Blocks Igor Igamberdiev indicates that some $5.7 million in ETH was netted during the attack. The market sale of the affected social tokens resulted in significant price declines.　　The creator of WHALE, one of the social tokens affected during the incident, shared additional details on Twitter, noting that “[t]he price dip was a result of our social token issuers hot wallets being compromised with the tokens immediately sold.... This represented 2.17% of total supply and it has been fully diluted into the market.”　　A representative for Roll confirmed that the projects hot wallet was the target of the attack, stating: “Were looking into a vulnerability in our hot wallet and will share more details as soon as possible.” No additional updates have been released as of press time.　　This is a developing story and will be updated as new details become available.

2021-03-15Deep Dive

Tesla’s Elon Musk Wants Coinbase to Become DOGE Friendly

A listing on Coinbase would expose dogecoin to a whole new breed of investor and unleash the cryptocurrencys potential.　　Electric car maker Teslas CEO and unabashed dogecoin fan Elon Musk wants the Coinbase exchange to end its “No DOGE Allowed” policy and list the meme-based cryptocurrency.　　Musk tweeted an exclamatory “Yes” on Saturday after a Twitter user asked the billionaire investor whether Coinbase should enable the Shiba Inu-represented cryptocurrency on its platform.　　A listing on Coinbase would expose dogecoin to a whole new breed of investor and thus unleash its potential. Thats because the U.S.-regulated exchange is considered synonymous with institutional investors and high net worth individuals. Tesla bought bitcoin worth $1.5 billion in February via Coinbase.　　At press time, dogecoin is changing hands near $0.059, representing a 6.7% gain on a 24-hour basis. Prices surged over 600% in January alone and have risen by nearly 1,130% so far this year. Bitcoin, meanwhile, is up more than 100% on a year-to-date basis, according to CoinDesk 20 data.　　DOGE adoption has increased over the past few weeks, with the likes of basketball team Dallas Mavericks accepting the cryptocurrency as payment for tickets and merchandise.　　Leading sports brand Wooter Apparel and medical supplier CovCare recently announced support for

2021-03-15Deep Dive

Ethereum Developers On Why They Don’t See Cardano & Binance Chain As Rivals

It has been an interesting few weeks for Ethereum (ETH). Having hit an all-time high of USD 2,043 on February 20, it has been outshone by a couple of rival platforms and cryptoassets, Binance Smart Chain(and BNB) and Cardano (and ADA).　　While neither BNB nor ADA currently enjoy a market capitalization in excess of 20% of ETH‘s, they’ve both risen proportionally more strongly over the short-term. At the time of writing, BNB has increased its price by around 95% in the past 30 days and ADA by 39%, while ETH is unchanged over the same period.　　Both smaller altcoins also outperform ETH over the past 12 months, raising the question a) of why exactly they‘re beginning to snap at Ethereum’s heels, and b) of whether they pose a genuine threat to the latters dominance as the smart contract platform of choice. Well, Ethereum developers speaking with Cryptonews.com provided two answers: a) high gas fees, and b) no, even if all three chains are likely to end up coexisting.　　Gas fees and the fiction of Ethereum issues　　High Ethereum transaction fees are the main reason why Binance Smart Chain and Cardano have done well recently, yet such fees have also been used to construct a

2021-03-15Deep Dive

Can a Digital Dollar Save the US? JPMorgan Says...It’s Complicated

“No country has more to lose” than the United States as central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) begin to roll out, claims US-based investment banking giant JPMorgan – which suggests that a “modest” digital fiat investment could potentially help safeguard dollar dominance for years to come.　　Per Bloomberg, JPMorgan claims that the United States is currently in a very advantageous position, with the world using the dollar as its global reserve currency. But as digital currency progress continues to intensify, particularly in China and Europe, but also in South Korea and other areas, the greenbacks dominance could be challenged.　　The media outlet says that Josh Younger, JPMorgans head of United States interest-rate derivatives strategy and Michael Feroli, its chief American economist, co-wrote a report claiming,　　“There is no country with more to lose from the disruptive potential of digital currency than the United States. Issuing the global reserve currency and the medium of exchange for international trade in commodities, goods, and services conveys immense advantages.”　　However, rather than delivering a fast knock-out blow, JPMorgan says that dollar dominance will likely be undermined in more nuanced ways if and when CBDCs do roll out elsewhere in the world.　　Particularly at threat, said the analysts, were “more fragile”

2021-03-15Deep Dive

What is an NFT? Why could this be a killer use case of Blockchain?

Does it seem like every venture capitalist is wondering about NFTs these days？ Today, an NFT from Beeple sold for $69m! Did we just see a music album by DJ Justin Blau get tokenized as an NFT and sold for $12m on Origin DShop, all on the blockchain？ Lebron James and other NBA players highlights producing over $230m in sales？　　Read about what is an NFT and why this could be a killer use case of Blockchain below!　　NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a type of cryptographic tool that can be used to tokenize unique digital items. NFTs are non-fungible, meaning that they cannot be replaced with an identical item, and are provably scarce, which gives them inherent value.　　In the physical world, individuals exchange things like art and collectibles through physical marketplaces, brokers, and more. The concept of “digital ownership” is significantly fuzzier than “physical ownership,” and thus the digital world lacks a comparable infrastructure for exchange.　　NFTs are a powerful approach for how individuals can “own” items, like digital art, on the Internet in a verifiable way and exchange them for value. By also standardizing what it means to be a “digital item,” NFTs also enable the exchange of digital creations on

2021-03-15Deep Dive

Will Joe Biden's Stimulus Plan Cause the US Economy to Overheat?

American GDP figures published on January 28 show that the country‘s economy continued to grow in Q4 2020 at an annualised rate of 4% compared to the previous quarter. This figure follows on from Q3 2020’s mechanically highly elevated growth figure of 33.4%, which was a result of the collapse in economic activity in Q2.　　This positive sequence has already led observers such UC San Diegos James Hamilton to announce that the Covid recession is over. A specialist in recessions, Hamilton asserts that the recovery in the second half of 2020 was strong enough that, if another recession occurs in 2021, it will be classified as a new phase (we describe this as a double-dip recession).　　In other words, if the Covid recession turns out to be over, it will have been short (two quarters) but extremely sharp. This would make it the most severe recession since World War II.　　Running slow long-term　　So can we say that the US economy has recovered？ Beyond knowing that recessions delimit phases of positive growth and phases of negative growth, given the unprecedented nature and size of this recession we also need to take into account its hysteresis effects.　　A useful concept for economists is the output gap,

2021-03-15Deep Dive

Over 100 Companies to Shift from Ethereum to Cardano: Charles Hoskinson

IOHK founder and CEO Charles Hoskinson has revealed that over 100 companies are in the process of moving from Ethereum and Cardano in his recent interview with Bloomberg.　　This will become possible when the functionality of the latter “matures.”　　As reported by U.Today, SingularityNET, the artificial intelligence firm behind social humanoid robot Sophia, was “seriously discussing” migrating to Cardano.　　Yet, in spite of ADA recently becoming the third-largest cryptocurrency, its parent blockchain is often dismissed as vaporware. As Coin Metrics‘s Nic Carter points out, it doesn’t have a single notable application:　　“I am not aware of a single popular application deployed on Cardano, nor have I seen any enthusiasm for the platform among developers.”　　Taking over DeFi　　Not acting coy about his ambitions in the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, Hoskinson believes that his blockchain is infinitely more efficient than the current leader:　　“You can take your DeFi and you can run it on my system for 1/100 to 1/1000 of the cost.”　　The mathematician—who created Cardano after a tiff with Ethereum developers—has made some brash remarks about Uniswap, the largest DEX, and CryptoKitties, the poster child of dApps, comparing them to Beanie Babies:　　“I don‘t care about Uniswap and CryptoKitties and other things. It’s a bubble, and it comes

2021-03-15Deep Dive

China May Target Tether after Digital Yuan Launch – B2C2 Japan CEO

Tether (USDT) could emerge as an unlikely target for the Chinese central bank, the People‘s Bank of China (PBoC), when it rolls out its digital yuan ahead of next year’s Winter Olympic Games, an industry player has opined.　　Speaking to Bloomberg (via Sankei Biz), Philip Gillespie, the CEO of the crypto liquidity provider B2C2 Japan stated that the Chinese authorities might seek to ban the USD-pegged stablecoin – presumably in an effort to drive up the usership rates of the forthcoming central bank digital currency (CBDC).　　The digital yuan is currently in advanced pilot testing at multiple locations throughout the nation, and the PBoC has committed to a full rollout ahead of the Olympics, slated to be held in Beijing in February 2022.　　Multiple experts have claimed that central banks will likely come hunting for crypto when they issue their own CBDCs, and could seek to ban or marginalize cryptoassets and stablecoins – stating that this, in fact, constitutes one of the biggest existential threats to bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins.　　China, in its September 2017 crypto crackdown, banned the exchange of fiat yuan into cryptoassets, but informal trading has thrived ever since. Some reports have even claimed Chinese users on platforms such as Huobis

2021-03-15Deep Dive

Binance Rolls out Crypto Pay Service for Bitcoin, Ether, Fiat and More

The crypto exchange giant Binance has come good on claims last year that it was poised to join the payments sector, moving its Binance Pay platform out of beta and into the full rollout.　　Following a similar move from rival crypto trading platform Bitfinex earlier this month, Binance wrote, in a blog post that its travel bookings firm Travala had become the first merchant to incorporate its payment tool. It stated that all Binance.com account holders would be eligible to use the new, fee-free service.　　The exchange added that its merchant application programming interfaces (APIs) would allow vendors and service providers to “process online payments or in-person payments” using QR codes. This, it said, would provide for what it termed a “seamless payment experience” for crypto pay applicable both to e-commerce ventures and businesses such as restaurants.　　Binance Pay supports “more than thirty fiat and cryptocurrencies,” the exchange wrote, with fiat compatibility for the pound sterling, the euro, the Australian dollar, the Turkish lira, and the Brazilian real.　　Support was also added for major cryptoassets such as bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH) and litecoin (LTC), as well as stablecoins such as tether (USDT) and USD coin (USDC).　　The firm stated that confirmation would be “instantaneous,” although

2021-03-15Deep Dive

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