Avalanche (AVAX) jumped 43.8% between March 14 and March 31 to a $97.50 daily close, which is the highest level since Jan. 5. This layer-1 scaling solution uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) model and has amassed $9 billion in total value locked (TVL) deposited on the network’s smart contracts. AVAX token/USD at FTX. Source: TradingView Subnet adoption propels the recent price rally Some analysts attribute the rally to Avalanche’s incentive program to accelerate the adoption of subnets which was announced on March 9. According to the Avalanche Foundation, subnets enable functions that are only possible with “network-level control and open experimentation.” The program will allocate up to four million AVAX, worth roughly $340 million, to fund decentralized applications focused on gaming, nonfungib...
Lawmakers in Australia want to regulate decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). In this three-part series, Oleksii Konashevych discusses the risks of stifling the emerging phenomenon of DAOs and possible solutions. On March 21, 2022, during Blockchain Week Australia, Australian Senator Andrew Bragg made a few interesting statements, one of which was about the intention of lawmakers to introduce regulations for decentralized autonomous organizations. Per se, it is not new, as the Australian Senate Committee led by Senator Bragg recommended in October 2021 that decentralized autonomous organizations be brought under the fold of the Corporations Act, which provides standards for corporate governance and personalities. Senator’s plan So, what did Senator Andrew Bragg say? “Decentralized...
The New York Times: “Reality Intrudes on a Utopian Crypto Vision.” Bloomberg: “The Next Crypto Bust May Be Spelled D-A-O.” The Guardian: “Are blockchain-based DAOs really a utopian revolution in the making?” Seemingly every week, another old-guard media outlet echoes the talking points of defenders of the status quo financial system who fear and distrust the economic opportunities that will be unlocked through the power of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). While publications are right to recognize the unsurprising early growing pains of DAOs, this sort of hand-wringing misses the forest for the trees when it comes to the impact of DAOs. Rather than simply being a “utopian” experiment, DAOs are a crucial tool in the development of a new decentralized financial (DeFi) system tha...
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Crypto industry fires back after EU vote to block ‘unhosted’ wallets The cryptocurrency industry has fired back at the European Parliament, the legislative arm of the European Union, voting in favor of stringent crypto regulations relating to ”unhosted” private wallets. The guidelines would require crypto service providers to verify the identity of every individual using an unhosted wallet that interacts with them, while any transaction greater than 1,000 euros would need to be reported to authorities.&n...
Putting money in store of value investments like gold, real estate, stocks and crypto helps curb inflation. As cash loses purchasing power over time, keeping cash leads to people losing their savings. This has prompted people to put their money in store of value investments such as gold, real estate, stocks and, now, crypto. Will Bitcoin protect against inflation has been a question in the town ever since. To be held as a store for value, an asset should be able to hold its purchasing power over time. In other words, it should increase in value or at least remain stable. Key properties associated with such assets are scarcity, accessibility and durability. Gold as a hedge against inflation During past inflationary periods, gold has had a mixed track record. In the 1980s, there were times w...
Power historically shifts from governments to people. Democracy is the product of revolution and disruptive innovation by those who abhor the elitism of aristocracy and monarchy, who fear the single-mindedness of theocracy, and who see the impracticability of communism. More than ever before, governments represent fairer and more trustless social contracts. How do we merge the rule of law with “code is law,” and can we have both? As we behold the unstoppable force of decentralization, we must acknowledge the following: mass communication, intercontinental travel, widespread literacy, internet proliferation, pro-democracy movement, and the emergence of gig economies. Liquid taxation: Individual control, instant gratification, real-time impact The problem with taxation is the adversarial ten...
Solana (SOL) jumped past a critical resistance level that had limited its recovery attempts during the November 2021-March 2022 price correction multiple times, thus raising hopes of more upside in April. Solana flips key resistance to support To recap, SOL’s price underwent extreme pullbacks upon testing its multi-month downward sloping trendline in recent history. For instance, the SOL/USD pair dropped by 60% two months after retracing from the said resistance level in December 2021. Similarly, it had fallen by over 40% in a similar retracement move led by a selloff near the trendline in November 2021. SOL/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView But Solana flipped the resistance trendline as support (S/R flip) after breaking above it on March 30, accompanied by a rise in trading...
The music sector hit record revenues at $25.9 billion in 2021, which amounts to an 18.5% growth from 2020, according to IFPI’s “Global Music Report.” Of these nearly $26 billion, streaming drove the bulk of the growth, with a 24.3% increase relative to 2020. These patterns constitute great news for the emerging class of NFT musicians and highlight the demand for audio and video content. Even if the way that streaming is done changes — moving from centralized platforms, like Spotify to decentralized NFT marketplaces — streaming is here to stay. The rise in streaming is part of a broader transformation in media and entertainment towards digital content — print media is quickly fading. Digital media began replacing print media years ago with profound effects on the sector. Economists find tha...
Crypto is the next big thing in Indonesia. According to the Ministry of Trade, transactions for currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) grew over 14 times from a total of 60 trillion rupiahs ($4.1 billion) in 2020 to a total of 859 trillion rupiahs ($59.83 billion) in 2021. It’s getting to the point where crypto is becoming more popular than traditional stock. Vice Minister of Trade Jerry Sambuaga stated that more than 11 million Indonesians bought or sold crypto in 2021. In comparison, according to the Indonesian Central Securities Depository, the total number of portfolio investors — indicated by the number of single investor identities — reached 7.35 million in 2021. Even so, 11 million crypto investors is still only about 4% of Indonesia’s total population, meaning there’s still plenty of room t...
In her monthly Expert Take column, Selva Ozelli, an international tax attorney and CPA, covers the intersection between emerging technologies and sustainability, and provides the latest developments around taxes, AML/CFT regulations and legal issues affecting crypto and blockchain. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, also known as the UN Refugee Agency, nearly 4 million Ukrainians have fled their homes since bombs began falling and bullets started flying on Feb. 24, with most heading to neighboring Central European countries. At the same time, people around the world have sent over $100 million in crypto donations to support Ukraine, according to Alex Bornyakov, deputy minister of digital transformation. This necessitated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ...
Just when the Bitcoin (BTC) miners helped release the 19th millionth BTC in circulation on Friday, the BTC network’s mining difficulty reciprocated by reaching an all-time high of 28.587 trillion. Bitcoin’s network difficulty correlates to the computational power required to mine BTC blocks, which currently demands an estimated hash rate of 201.84 exahash per second (EH/s), according to data from Blockchain.com. Bitcoin network difficulty. Source: Blockchain.com Supporting the spike in the network difficulty, Bitcoin’s hash rate maintained a stronghold throughout the year while breaking into an all-time high of 248.11 EH/s on Feb. 13. Bitcoin hash rate over the past three years. Source: Blockchain.com A higher hash rate ensures resilience against double-spending attacks, which is the...