Crypto
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Is education the key to curbing the rise of scammy, high APY projects?
Most people who have dealt with cryptocurrencies in any capacity over the last couple of years are well aware that there are many projects out there offering eye-popping annual percentage yields (APY) these days. In fact, many decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that have been built using the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus protocol offer ridiculous returns to their investors in return for them staking their native tokens. However, like most deals that sound too good to be true, many of these offerings are out-and-out cash grab schemes — at least that’s what the vast majority of experts claim. For example, YieldZard, a project positioning itself as a DeFi innovation-focused company with an auto-staking protocol, claims to offer a fixed APY of 918,757% to its clients. In simple term...
Total crypto market cap risks a dip below $1 trillion if these 3 metrics don’t improve
The total crypto market capitalization has ranged from $1.19 trillion to $1.36 trillion for the past 23 days, which is a relatively tight 13% range. During the same time, Bitcoin’s (BTC) 3.5% and Ether’s (ETH) 1.6% gains for the week are far from encouraging. To date, the total crypto market is down 43% in just two months, so investors are unlikely to celebrate even if the descending triangle formation breaks to the upside. Total crypto market cap, USD billion. Source: TradingView Regulation worries continue to weigh investor sentiment, a prime example being Japan’s swift decision to enforce new laws after the Terra USD (UST) — now known as TerraUSD Classic (USTC) — collapse. On June 3, Japan’s parliament passed a bill to limit stablecoin issuing to licensed banks, registered money t...
Finance Redefined: Maker founder proposes endgame, Singapore explores DeFi and more
The past week in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem saw many new developments, including the rebirth of the Terra 2.0 blockchain. Meanwhile, Binance’s incubation platform Binance Labs launched a $500 million fund to support and promote Web3 adoption. Singapore’s central bank partnered with JP Morgan to explore DeFi applications in wholesale funding markets by establishing tokenized bonds. KuCoin launched its very decentralized wallet with DeFi and nonfungible token support. The top-100 DeFi tokens showed signs of a breakout from a month-long bearish trend, with most of the tokens showing overall gains in the past seven days. Maker founder proposes MetaDAOs and synthetic ETH in ‘Endgame Plan’ MakerDAO co-founder Rune Christensen has issued a new monumental proposal to push the proje...
Smart contracts can redesign legal agreements, but businesses beware
When was the last time you got a late payment? Chased an invoice? Waited for your monthly paycheck only to realize it’s late yet again? You might relate to these headaches as an investor, employee or client. But the tension that affects each of these unique parties is often caused by one unwavering contributor: an underlying traditional contract. Contracts affect every organization’s workforce, and 26% of employees are involved in managing these agreements at some point, according to the World Commerce and Contracting Association. With such a vast effect on a company’s contributors, these contracts should be up to par with the rest of a business’s advancements. Unfortunately, contracts are still typically left to human maintenance and execution by either involved party, which can lead to s...
Web3 is crucial for data sovereignty in the metaverse
Wandering around the metaverse is like being in a computer game, but soon, it will look exactly like real life. Unlike some dystopian visions of the metaverse, I don’t think we will give up on reality and stop participating in the physical world. On the other hand, advancements in artificial intelligence content generation will likely lead to a photo-realistic metaverse featuring exact replicas of ourselves and propel us toward a hyper-reality that combines our real-world and digital lives. Everything we do today on the internet will happen in the metaverse, just with a more engaging visual interface. The virtual content we interact with today is low-resolution and cartoonish, which makes sense because making realistic content is expensive, and gaming makes up the majority of what is curre...
Fed governor explains who needs crypto regulation and why demand for it is growing
Regulation is needed to open the crypto ecosystem to a larger public, United States Federal Reserve Board Governor Christopher Waller told an audience at the SNB-CIF Conference on Cryptoassets and Financial Innovation in Zurich, Switzerland. Financial intermediaries can help manage risk for new crypto users, but cannot eliminate it, Waller said, and new and fast-growing financial products need public confidence to survive. The banking official used historical examples to show the relationship between technical innovation, regulation and the amassing of fortunes. “New technology — and a lack of clear rules — meant some new fortunes were made, even as others were lost,” Waller said. Experienced investors know how to operate in unregulated marketplaces and may not need or want regulation, Wal...
Bitcoin’s move to $32.4K was a fakeout — Here’s the price level most BTC traders are waiting for
The end of the first week in June brought more pain to global financial markets as the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite closed the day on June 3 down 2.3%, while the S&P 500 shed 1.4% of its value. The cryptocurrency market hasn’t faired any better and data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that an early morning attempt to push Bitcoin (BTC) above $30,000 was hit with a wave of selling that dropped it to a daily low of $29,286. BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Here’s a look at what several market analysts are saying about the outlook for BTC as it remains pinned inside a narrow trading range. Price is stuck in the lower range Bitcoins’ slide back into its current range was “expected,” according to crypto trader and pseudonymous Twitter user Altcoin Sh...
Brazilian central banker describes how CBDC system can halt bank runs
In a paper recently published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Fabio Araujo, an economist at the Central Bank of Brazil (CBB) who is also responsible for the country’s central bank digital currency work, revealed that the monetary authority will have greater control over the population’s money once its CBDC is rolled out. Through the so-called Real Digital, the central bank will be able to halt bank runs and impose other restrictions on citizens’ access to money. Real Digital, the digital version of Brazil’s national currency, has been debated at the central bank since 2015 and will have its first tests in 2023 through nine solutions presented by private companies during the recent Lift Challenge event that was carried out by the CBB. Cointelegraph reported that the v...
5 reasons why Bitcoin could be a better long-term investment than gold
The emergence of forty-year high inflation readings and the increasingly dire-looking global economy has prompted many financial analysts to recommend investing in gold to protect against volatility and a possible decline in the value of the United States dollar. For years, crypto traders have referred to Bitcoin (BTC) as “digital gold,” but is it actually a better investment than gold? Let’s take a look at some of the conventional arguments investors cite when praising gold as an investment and why Bitcoin might be an even better long-term option. Value retention One of the most common reasons to buy both gold and Bitcoin is that they have a history of holding their value through times of economic uncertainty. This fact has been well documented, and there’s no denying that gold has ...
New York AG warns against crypto investments amid state push to ban mining
As New York pursues efforts to ban proof-of-work (PoW) crypto mining, the attorney general reminded investors of the risks associated with investing in crypto. In an investor alert published Thursday, New York Attorney General Letitia James said that investors are “losing billions” in crypto. James highlighted that even digital assets that are well-known and traded in reputable exchanges can crash. Because of this, the attorney general is convinced that crypto investments create “more pain than gain” for investors. Apart from this, James urged New Yorkers to take extra caution when putting their money into crypto. Because of its volatility, the attorney general said that these investments may become a source of anxiety instead of a fortune. The cryptocurrency market is extremely unpr...
Terra 2.0: A crypto project built on the ruins of $40 billion in investors’ money
Terra remained the focus of the majority of headlines throughout May for its spiral collapse leading to a loss of over $40 billion in investors’ money. Despite some early resistance from the community and heavy backlash from the likes of Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, Terra co-founder Do Kwon managed to relaunch the collapsed network with a new chain called Terra 2.0 (Phoenix-1). The amended proposal for the relaunch of the network by increasing the genesis liquidity, which introduces a new liquidity profile for pre-attack Luna Classic (LUNC) holders and decreases the distribution to post-attack TerraUSD Classic (USTC) holders, was approved by the community with a 65% vote in favor. The new blockchain went live on May 28 after a hard fork. The new token stays Terra (LUNA) and the old one...
Over 200K BTC now stored in Bitcoin ETFs and other institutional products
Bitcoin (BTC) investment vehicles are seeing “gargantuan” inflows this month, which is a fresh sign that traders’ appetite for BTC exposure is mounting. Data from monitoring firm Arcane Research published this week shows that Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs) now have record high BTC under management. “Happier days” for Bitcoin ETPs as buyers pile in Despite BTC price action failing to draw in buyers at over 50% below all-time highs, not everyone is feeling risk-off. According to Arcane’s data, Bitcoin ETPs have seen a flurry of interest from institutional investors both this month and last. In total, Bitcoin ETPs, which include products such as the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy exchange-traded fund (ETF), now have 205,000 BTC under their control — a new record. “While the M...
