Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Crypto leaders back MIT’s four-year initiative to harden Bitcoin’s security

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology‘s Digital Currency Initiative has revealed a new “Bitcoin Software and Security Effort” intended to foster research into bolstering the Bitcoin network’s defenses.　　The open-source initiative has received support from a diverse group of crypto industry leaders, including Gemini‘s Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, MicroStrategy’s CEO Michael Saylor, Square CEO Jack Dorsey, and major European digital asset manager, CoinShares.　　In a blog post unveiling the project, DCI said that Bitcoins ascent from an “obscure cryptographic toy” to a robust network that “secures on the order of $1 [trillion] of value” was due to the millions of hours invested into building the project by open-source developers.　　Coinshares announced a $500,000 donation to the project and chief executive Jean-Marie Mognetti hinted that perhaps other crypto companies should do likewise:　　“As a beneficiary of the work of hundreds of developers who secure, upgrade, and maintain the open-source protocols that underlie the Bitcoin network and the applications built on top of it, we believe for-profit firms in the digital asset industry have an obligation to fund independent, neutral development efforts and research that advances the mutual interest of all ecosystem participants.”　　The DCIs four-year research and development program aims to “harden the Bitcoin network and steward

2021-02-26Deep Dive

Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger Advises Investors to Never Buy Bitcoin or Gold

Berkshire Hathaway‘s vice chairman and Warren Buffett’s long-time business partner, Charlie Munger, has advised investors not to buy bitcoin or gold. He believes the cryptocurrency is too volatile to serve well as a medium of exchange. Munger also says he doesn‘t know which is worse between Elon Musk’s Tesla reaching $1 trillion in market cap or bitcoin hitting $50,000.　　Billionaire Investor Charlie Munger Thinks Bitcoin Is Too Volatile to Be a Good Medium of Exchange　　Legendary investor Charlie Munger answered some questions about bitcoin at the annual meeting of shareholders of the Daily Journal Corporation in Los Angeles on Wednesday. The Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman and Warren Buffett‘s long-standing business partner is also chairman of the Daily Journal. He is often known as Warren Buffett’s right-hand man.　　The 97-year-old has never been a fan of bitcoin. He previously called bitcoin “rat poison” and likened its trading to “trading turds.” Buffett then called bitcoin “rat poison squared.”　　During Wednesday‘s meeting, Munger began by explaining why he does not see bitcoin as a future medium of exchange. “I don’t think I know exactly what the future of banking is, and I dont think I know how the payment system will evolve. I do think that a properly

2021-02-26Deep Dive

Here are the interesting tidbits from Coinbase’s IPO filing

The US-based crypto exchange made public its long-awaited S-1 filings. Heres everything you need to know.　　Inside the Coinbase filing　　The Initial Public Offering (IPO) filing of Coinbase, the remote-first crypto exchange that caters to millions of users daily, to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was made public today.　　The exchange has long-wished to go public and the filings reveal details about its profitable, impactful business and show the exact metrics that were sent to institutional firms.　　Coinbase posted a net profit of over $322 million in 2020, against revenue of over $1.1 billion. This was largely generated via trading fees and other user-facing features provided by the exchange. Its operating expenses were over $860 million, and Coinbase said it had over 2.8 million “transacting customers” on its platform.　　Its lifetime trading volume was recorded at over $456 billion, with the firm currently holds over $90 billion worth of crypto assets on its platform.　　In terms of users, the exchange said it was used by over 43 million retail customers, 7,000 institutional firms, and over 115,000 “ecosystem” partners from over 100 countries in total. The retail userbase increased by over 100% since 2018, when the exchange had a relatively lesser 23 million retail accounts.　　At

2021-02-26Deep Dive

How to Maximize Your Yield Farm Gains

Yield farming is all the rage in 2021. Not only is it an incredibly efficient way to earn a yield on your idle cryptocurrencies, but its also a way to gain exposure to new, innovative DeFi platforms at the same time.　　But as with all things, some users are racking up more profit than others, while those that know how best to play the market are achieving yields that can be difficult to match elsewhere.　　Here, we take a look at three tricks the pros use to turn a modest yield into a great one.　　Accelerate Your Gains　　The absolute return you are able to earn from a yield farm generally depends on two things. The first is the most obvious — it‘s the APR you get from depositing your funds. But there’s also another thing you generally need to consider: the lock-in period.　　While it is true that yield farms can provide an impressive return, many of them also require that participants lock up their funds for an extended period of time to benefit from the best rewards. This both prevents users from jumping from farm to farm to maximize returns (more on this later) but also restricts the liquidity of their assets —

2021-02-26Deep Dive

South Korean PC Gaming Rooms Rely on Crypto Mining to Profit During the Coronavirus Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has significantly hit several entertainment routines of the people worldwide, and South Korea is not an exception. PC gaming rooms had to shut down in the country, but their owners found a way to make profits during the lockdown by participating in crypto mining.　　A PC Bang Owner Made Over $3,000 Worth of Ethereum in Two Weeks　　According to Chosun, operators of the “PC bangs,” a common term used for the PC gaming rooms in South Korea, leverages their computers to take advantage of the pandemic-driven restrictions.　　In fact, owners don‘t have certainties on whether or not they can re-open their businesses, and that’s why crypto mining is now an alternative to deal with right now. Some PC bang owners in Seoul are mining ether (ETH) by relying on highly-equipped computers with top-notch graphic cards.　　A 34-years-old man named Kim stated that the number of customers reduced significantly due to the pandemic, and his PC bang couldn‘t be sustainable with such a situation. He’s now mining ETH with almost 36 computers.　　In just two weeks, Kim claimed he earned over 3.5 million won ($3,153), given in the context in the coldest month of the year because of the winters peak. PC bang

2021-02-26Deep Dive

Fed Chairman Powell: We Will Engage the Public on the Digital Dollar This Year

“This is going to be an important year,” Powell said of the digital dollar project.　　Nearly every time an elected official has asked U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell about the digital dollar, hes emphasized caution and risk to the stability of the U.S. financial system.　　Wednesday, however, Powell went further while speaking before the House Committee on Financial Services, saying the U.S. central bank would “engage with the public” on the digital dollar this year, giving a timeline to the central bank digital currencys development for the first time.　　“This is going to be an important year,” Powell said of the digital dollar project. “This is going to be the year that we engage with the public pretty actively including some public events that we are working on, which Im not going to announce today.”　　Powell emphasized that the Fed wont make decisions and then present them to the public, but will rather talk with Americans about the tradeoffs involved with the digital dollar project.　　“There are both policy questions and technical questions that relate between those two and they‘re very challenging questions,” Powell said. “We’re going to have a public dialogue … in the meantime were working on technical challenges and also collaborating

2021-02-25Deep Dive

Nvidia Estimates Ethereum Miners Contributed 2%-6% of Q4 Revenue

Nvidia expects $50 million in revenue from its new mining-specific product during its first quarter of sales.　　Nvidia says Ethereum mining activity contributed very little to its Q4 2020 revenue.　　Although it lacks “the ability to accurately track or quantify” the end uses of its graphic processing units (GPUs), Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said the company estimates that between $100 million and $300 million—a “relatively small portion”—of Q4 revenue came from Ethereum miners buying GPUs to use in their mining equipment.　　Nvidia reported a total of $5 billion in revenue for the Q4, implying mining sales represented 2%-6% of total.　　Ethereum‘s hash rate has grown 124% in the past year, according to data from Coin Metrics, in tandem with the general cryptocurrency market’s rally. This has driven demand for Nvidia‘s GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, much to the dismay of the company’s gaming customers. In the future, though, miner-contributed revenue for Nvidia is likely to come from purchases of another of the companys products.　　Nvidia earlier this week said it‘s altering its GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card to limit its own efficiency if the card detects it’s being used for Ethereum mining, a move designed to ensure GPU supply is available to gamers. “We would

2021-02-25Deep Dive

Ex-London Stock Exchange Chief Says UK Should Embrace Crypto Post-Brexit

“It is a good example of a policy area where independence allows us to be more agile,” said Xavier Rolet and others in a blog post.　　Xavier Rolet, the former CEO of London Stock Exchange, has called on the U.K. government to position itself to capitalize on the cryptocurrency boom and attract the “best brains” to help prepare policies around the tech.　　A blog post co-authored by Rolet, now the non-executive chairman of Shore Capital Markets, states that, in the post-Brexit era, the U.K. government needs to understand cryptocurrencies in order to place City of London and the nation at the center of a “reputable and safe” financial market.　　“Doing so will not be easy, none of this stuff is, but it is essential to be well-positioned, otherwise the cryptocurrency market will pass the UK by,” warns the post.　　Co-written by Shore Capital Markets senior political adviser Matthew Elliott and Dr. Clive Black, head of research at the firm, it also highlights the advancing adopting of digital assets.　　“Cryptocurrency is not going away and whilst self-serving entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are reverse broking the instrument, the fact is that important institutions of the state (e.g., China) and commerce (e.g., Mastercard and BNY Mellon) are now

2021-02-25Deep Dive

There Are Now 106 Million Cryptocurrency Users Globally

The rising Bitcoin price produced a surge of new investors, but there were other key drivers of increased adoption, according to a report.　　In brief　　More than 106 million people now use cryptocurrencies, according to a new report.　　It suggests that new adopters helped the price stay high during Bitcoins most recent rally.　　Cryptocurrencies are now used by more than 106 million people worldwide, according to a report by Crypto.com published today.　　The cryptocurrency exchange identified a 15.7% increase in adoption in January alone and suggested that, while Bitcoins most recent rally was fuelled by existing users, it was new adopters who helped the price stay high.　　What drove the surge in adoption？　　Strong growth in Bitcoins price was the number one driver for the increase in users, according to the research, which incorporated data from 24 crypto exchanges.　　But other likely factors include the popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi,)—a new financial ecosystem that uses blockchain technology to provide financial services without third parties.　　The Crypto.com data also shows that Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, led the crypto markets growth in August 2020, which coincides with the height of the DeFi boom.　　Increased investment from institutions, led by Microstrategy and Square, was another big contributing factor, per crypto.com.

2021-02-25Deep Dive

1 Million Bitcoin Could Underpin Crypto Loans Within 3 Years

As much as 1 million Bitcoin could be used as collateral in the lending market by 2023, says a report.　　 In brief　　The lending market is expected to grow in the next few years.　　The amount of Bitcoin used as collateral is set to grow significantly.　　The amount of Bitcoin used as collateral in the lending markets could reach 1 million within the next three years, according to a report by Arcane Research.　　Borrowing and lending are common financial tools in the traditional financial ecosystem. Recently several companies, including BlockFi, Genesis, Nexo and Celsius Network, have started providing these services but with cryptocurrencies instead. The firms, which saw remarkable growth in 2020, let investors lend out their funds and receive interest for doing so.　　The amount of BTC used as collateral in the lending market is estimated to be around 420,000 BTC ($20.7 billion). Assuming that 50% of the collateral is in Bitcoin, the report speculates that it could reach 800,000 Bitcoin ($39.6 billion) in two years, up to 1 million BTC ($49.5 billion) within three years.　　The report added that the growing popularity of the lending market will likely drive demand for Bitcoin and make a positive impact on the price of the largest cryptocurrency.　　Currently,

2021-02-25Deep Dive

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