Crypto
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What’s next for the future of Ethereum? Mihailo Bjelic from Polygon explains
With the transition to a scalable, energy light proof-of-stake blockchain (dubbed “the Merge”) at play for Ethereum, many have cast doubts on the popular coin’s future given the magnitude and complexity of the upgrade involved. But among prominent stakeholders, one particular project remains heavily bullish on Ethereum’s future, which is non-other than layer-two scaling solution Polygon. At the annual Ethereum Community Conference in Paris, Cointelegraph’s Events Manager Maria A. spoke to Polygon’s vice president of growth Mihailo Bjelic regarding the topic. Here’s what Mihailo had to say with regards to the Merge: “This is an upgrade on a live network that has millions of users, billions in capital, and tens of thousands of applications. It is never easy, but the Merge has been in t...
Crypto firms facing insolvency ‘forgot the basics of risk management’ — Coinbase
Department heads at Coinbase have weighed in on the market downturn amid solvency concerns around Three Arrows Capital, crypto lending firm Celsius, and Voyager Digital, saying the crypto exchange had “no financing exposure” to the companies. In a Wednesday blog post, Head of Coinbase Institutional Brett Tejpaul, Head of Prime Finance Matt Boyd, and Head of Credit and Market Risk Caroline Tarnok said Coinbase had not engaged in the “types of risky lending practices” exhibited by Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, and Voyager, claiming the firms were examples of practicing “insufficient risk controls.” According to the trio, crypto companies faced the possibility of insolvency caused by “unhedged bets,” large investments in Terra, and overleveraging with venture capital firms. “The issues here ...
Bitcoin price dips under $23K after earnings report reveals Tesla sold 75% of its BTC
Easy come, easy go was the story on July 20 as the day started on a positive note with Bitcoin (BTC) climbing above $24,300, only to end the official trading day in the red after less than stellar Q2 earning news showed Tesla sold 75% of its Bitcoin and Minecraft reversed course by deciding to ban NFTs on its platform. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 A potential source of the afternoon downturn can be traced to Tesla’s Q2 earnings data, which showed that the electric car company sold off 75% of its Bitcoin holdings in order to add $963 million in cash to its balance sheet. So, not only forced selling from 3AC, $LUNA & $UST, but also Voyager, BlockFi and Celsius have been causing the markets to crash. On top of that, Tesla did sell 75% of their #Bitcoin pur...
Morgan Stanley encourages investors to buy battered El Salvador eurobonds
El Salvador’s Bitcoin (BTC) bet has somewhat backfired, with the top cryptocurrency currently trading at a 70% discount from its top. At a time when the Latin American nation is struggling with its debt, Morgan Stanley has given a buy call for the battered eurobond. Simon Waever, global head of emerging-market sovereign credit strategy at Morgan Stanley, told investors in a Tuesday note that El Salvador’s bonds are overly punished by the market conditions, despite the country having better financial metrics than many of its peers, reported Bloomberg. The note to investors read: “Markets are clearly pricing in a high probability of the autarky scenario in which El Salvador defaults, but there is no restructuring.” Waever noted that a country’s debt shouldn’t trade lower than $0.437 on the d...
NFT and Islamic education: A new frontier to teach religion?
The world is in the midst of a digital revolution and with it, the way we think about value is shifting. The application of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to represent and transmit religious values and principles is one of the most fascinating manifestations of this new perspective. The NFT is a very new technology, but there’s a lot of excitement about its potential. There’s also a lot of enthusiasm for the possibilities that NFTs provide in various sectors, including education and religion. The ability of NFTs to help teach and pass on religious values and beliefs is particularly fascinating. Cointelegraph caught up with Deepali Shukla, the founder and managing director at MetaDee, a new London-based NFT marketplace that just launched exclusive handwritten Quran NFTs dating back t...
Demand for widely used euro stablecoin is huge, says DeFi expert
The market capitalization of Tether (USDT), a United States dollar-pegged stablecoin, is currently over $65 billion. USD Coin (USDC), another stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar, clocks in near $55 billion. Some reports estimate that the total market cap of dollar-backed stablecoins is over $160 billion. Despite this success of dollar-based stablecoins, there has not been a euro stablecoin that is even remotely comparable in size. By the end of June, the U.S.-based company Circle announced that it will launch its own euro stablecoin, Euro Coin (EUROC), on the Ethereum blockchain. With a euro-based stablecoin, uncomplicated euro transfers will be possible worldwide in the future, as is currently the case with the U.S. dollar. Instead of the eurozone-based business, Circle has opted to issu...
The ‘godfather of crypto’ risked lifetime in jail, laying foundation for Bitcoin
Widely credited as the inventor of digital cash, David Chaum is sometimes known as the “father of online anonymity” or the “godfather of cryptocurrency,” whose work inspired the near-mythical group called the Cypherpunks from which Bitcoin emerged. Beginning his studies in computer science in the late 1970s, when encryption was classified at the same level as nuclear technology, Chaum quickly realized that the technology would be crucial to ensure the continuation of privacy and democracy in the digital age. More recently, he founded xx Network, a privacy-focused blockchain whose connected xx Messenger Chaum hopes will withstand attacks even by quantum computers of the future. “The National Security Agency was taking the position that cryptography was born classified, even if you cre...
SIMBA Chain and Equideum Health Announce Partnership To Build Web3 Health Data Exchange
South Bend, Indiana, 20th July, 2022, Chainwire SIMBA Chain is announcing a new partnership for the global healthcare and life sciences industry with Equideum Health, the Web3 and blockchain-powered health company formerly known as ConsenSys Health. The collaboration aims to significantly enhance global healthcare by building a decentralized marketplace, dubbed the Equideum Exchange, for empowering individuals to monetize health and health-relevant data about them. Integrating SIMBA Chain’s cutting-edge blockchain solution SIMBA Blocks with Equideum Health’s Elevated ComputeTM platform will greatly accelerate both cross-blockchain interoperability and the incorporation of healthcare and life sciences supply chain data into the new Web3 data economy enabled by the Equideum Exchange. T...
Asia-focused multi-currency stablecoin protocol, Bluejay Finance, raises $2.9M in funding
Singapore, Singapore, 20th July, 2022, Chainwire Bluejay Finance, a capital-eff icient decentralized stablecoin protocol for issuing stablecoins pegged to real-world currencies, has raised $2.9M in funding from Zee Prime Capital, C2 Ventures, Stake Capital Group, RNR Capital, Daedalus Angels, Moonlanding Ventures, Oval Ventures, and more, with operator-angels including DeFi projects like Ribbon Finance, Flux, Voltz, and Alpha Venture Dao. Founded in 2021, Bluejay Finance aims to build an avenue for investors to have more stablecoin solutions centered around currencies other than USD in the DeFi space. It plans to use its funds for team development and stablecoin deployment, focusing on Asian stablecoins, such as the Singapore Dollar and the Philippine Peso, and will distribute them through...
Will Ethereum Merge hopium continue, or is it a bull trap?
Ethereum is outperforming the broader cryptocurrency market as the highly anticipated Merge approaches, but the bigger picture is still largely bearish. Ethereum (ETH) has gained a whopping 48% over the past seven days, outperforming its big brother Bitcoin, which has only managed to achieve 19% in the same period. It’s also up 66% from its market cycle bottom of $918 on June 19, reaching its current price of $1549. However, the current Ethereum rally could be a bull trap with the macroeconomic clouds darkening. A bull trap is a signal indicating that a declining trend in a crypto asset has reversed and is heading upwards when it will actually continue downwards. The primary driver of recent momentum for the asset has been linked to announcements regarding its final switch to pr...
Bitcoin’s longest ‘extreme fear’ streak finally breaks
Bitcoin (BTC) on Tuesday finally escaped the “extreme fear” zone after a whopping 73 days, coinciding with a 19% weekly increase in Bitcoin (BTC) as bulls make their way back to the market. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index increased from “extreme fear” to merely “fearful” on July 19, reaching a score of 30 out of 100. It has gained slightly since then to the current index score of 31. The Index analyzes the current sentiment of the overall crypto market, scoring between 0 to 100. The index is based on mainly on Bitcoin market volatility, volume and dominance, social media sentiment, surveys and search trend data. On-chain metrics firm Santiment on Twitter noted that traders are “changing their tune” and are starting to look towards a long-term breakout of the cryptoc...
Lummis-Gillibrand crypto bill likely deferred to next year
The major bipartisan crypto bill led by U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis (Republican) and Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat) will most likely be deferred to next year according to the duo. Speaking during Bloomberg’s Crypto Summit on July 19, the Senators stated that there is a slim chance that the comprehensive bill would be pushed through the Senate this year, with Lummis noting that: “I think both Kirsten and I believe that the bill, in one piece, as a total bill is more likely to be deferred until next year. It’s a big topic, it’s comprehensive, and it’s still new to many U.S. Senators and so it’s a lot for them to digest in the few remaining weeks we have in this calendar year.” The Responsible Financial Innovation Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate on June 6&nb...
