Crypto
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Stealth rulemaking: Is proposed SEC rule with no mention of crypto a threat to DeFi?
On Jan. 26, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission proposed amendments to Rule 3b-16 under the Exchange Act that lacks any mention of digital assets or decentralized finance, which could adversely affect platforms that facilitate crypto transactions. Some cryptocurrency advocates — including SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce — believe that the commission’s extended definition of an exchange could thrust an entire class of crypto entities under the regulator’s jurisdiction, subjecting them to additional registration and reporting burdens. How real is the threat? The proposed change The amendments proposed by the regulator dramatically expand the definition of what an exchange is while eliminating the exemption for systems that merely bring together buyers and sellers of securitie...
Weekly Report: Banks in Russia may soon offer crypto services in the latest turn of events
Russia’s fate on cryptocurrencies has recently swung from pessimistic, and it’s now slowly crossing the line into optimistic. The country’s Finance Minister reportedly wrote a pro-cryptocurrency letter to the Prime Minister this week pushing for banks to trade crypto as a financial asset. Here is more on this and other top stories from the crypto sector this week: Local banks in Russia could be allowed to deal in crypto Russian banks could get one better if recent reports are anything to go by. Word out of the country, as reported by news outlet Kommersant, indicates the banks could yet be allowed to deal in crypto. Bank of Russia has been candid in its anti-crypto position as it recently published a report on cryptocurrencies and recommended a ban over risks to Russ...
Crypto specialist panel says Bitcoin could hit 400k by 2030
Finder’s recent price prediction report shows that a panel of specialists has predicted Bitcoin to rise and peak at $93,700 this year. However, the Fed’s plan to hike interest rates would affect this price, causing it to fall to $76,400 as the year ends. According to a Bitcoin price prediction report by Finder, a panel of experts in areas including NFTs, FinTech and crypto has issued its predictions on where the price of Bitcoin is headed in the future. The panel, which included 33 specialists, is foreseeing that the world’s largest digital asset would peak at around $93,700 before plunging to $76,400 as the year comes to an end. In addition, the panel forecasted that in the year 2025, Bitcoin would be worth at least $192,800, and five years later, its value should be app...
Market changes suggest SOL, UNI, AAVE, and MANA are ripe to buy, Santiment analyst says
A Santiment analyst has said these tokens are in a good zone for investors who want to buy into trader pain. Optimism on Solana grows as development activity continues to rise. In a recent YouTube video, the director of marketing at crypto analytics firm Santiment Brian Quinlivan highlighted a few altcoin ecosystems whose metrics show that they are set for a surge. The metric in question is market value to realized value (MVRV). MVRV shows the average loss or profit of a crypto token’s coins in circulation at the current price. It helps indicate to willing buyers when the time is right to do so. Uniswap (UNI) Despite the number of daily active addresses on the ecosystem falling sharply (from 3,259 on October 29, up to a recent 836 active ones), Quinlivan reviewed the asset’s 30-day long MV...
Ted Cruz buys the Bitcoin dip
Rafael ‘Ted’ Cruz, the junior Republican senator from Texas, is putting his money where his mouth is. According to a financial disclosure filed on Friday 4th Feb, Cruz bought between $15k and $50k worth of Bitcoin (BTC) on January 25th, using the River brokerage. At the time, Bitcoin was trading between $36k and $37k, and over the subsequent days it has risen to a current price of around $41,600. Assuming he hasn’t sold his bitcoins and incurred any short term capital gains taxes, his current profit on the transaction is in the region of $2,000 – $6,850. Source: United States Senate Financial Disclosures Following the example of fellow Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Cruz spent much of the latter half of the crypto bull run aligning himself with the blockchain and cryp...
Gas-free transactions will revolutionize Web3
Scalability is one of the main hindrances within decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and has created huge barriers to entry. Closely linked to this has been the issue of high gas fees, which continues to be a major pain point for newcomers to the Web3 space. When Web3 goes mainstream, these gas costs will become minimal. For the user, the experience will become completely gas-less like how it is on Web 2.0 applications. As a result of the lack of scalability and network congestion, gas fees have skyrocketed, further preventing users from performing various transactions on the blockchain. According to YCharts report, the average gas price on Ethereum is at a level of around 146 Gwei at the time of writing. The high cost of gas fees has become a financial nightmare for regular users in...
DAOs are meant to be completely autonomous and decentralized, but are they?
While the organizational structure of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is fundamentally meant to be “decentralized,” some of the biggest DAO protocols including Uniswap are not. A lot of the day-to-day activities within DAOs still involve a few core members of the organizations to make major decisions. This raises the question as to whether DAOs are completely decentralized. And, if not, is complete decentralization even possible? More broadly, DAOs can be compared to how democratic nations are run. While the ideology is to have decisions for the country made by the people, it’s mainly governed by a few powerful individuals who hold most of the license to determine laws and control decisions. Also similar to large organizations, shareholders are allowed to vote but the key pol...
Jack Dorsey on UBI: Bitcoin encourages transparency, long-term thinking
Twitter co-founder and Block (previously Square) CEO Jack Dorsey discussed the implications of a Bitcoin (BTC)-powered universal basic income (UBI) strategy with US congressional candidate and a full-time elementary school teacher, Aarika Rhodes. “Obscurity of information forces and incentivizes people to negative (financial) behaviors that don’t work for them, their community or family,” said Dorsey while pointing out the lack of transparency within the existing centralized financial system. “If there’s one thing to focus on in Bitcoin — the operations are transparent, the code is transparent, the policy is transparent.” This base foundation of BTC is what Dorsey believes has the potential to solve numerous use cases and problems as a direct result of using fiat currency. Through bu...
Renewed interest in the Metaverse sends Decentraland (MANA) price 75% higher
The influence of blockchain technology on the ongoing digital revolution cannot be overstated as the rise of the Metaverse and the integration of virtual reality is transforming the way humans interact on a global scale. One project that is beginning to gain traction in its effort to bridge the old world with the new is Decentraland (MANA), a virtual reality (VR) ecosystem built on the Ethereum network that allows users to create, engage with and monetize digital content through a variety of interactive experiences. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that over the past two weeks, the price of MANA has climbed 70% from a low of $1.70 on Jan. 22 to a daily high of $2.90 on Feb. 1 as the wider crypto market struggled under bearish pressure. MANA/USDT 1-day chart. ...
America COMPETES Act passes House without ‘disastrous’ provision on crypto
A piece of legislation aimed at addressing supply chain issues to keep the U.S. economy and businesses competitive has passed the House of Representatives — without a provision many in the crypto space had criticized for giving the Treasury Secretary authority to shut down exchanges. In a 222-210 vote on Friday, the House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES Act mostly along party lines. The provision originally proposed by Connecticut Representative Jim Himes would seemingly have allowed the Treasury Secretary to have fewer limits on surveilling financial institutions with suspected transactions connected to money laundering and not open the matter to include public feedback. However, lawmakers modified the wording earlier this week to safeguard restrictions currently under by t...
Winter is coming! Here are 5 ways to survive a crypto bear market
The cryptocurrency market has an interesting way of catching even the most seasoned veterans off guard as each bull and bear market initially shows similarities to previous cycles only to veer off in an unexpected direction and wipe out the fortunes of newly minted crypto millionaires. This was the case with the weak close of 2021 which completely went against the bullish $100,000 BTC price estimates that crypto analysts and influencers were peddling nonstop. Currently, Bitcoin price is more than 50% away from its $69,000 all-time high and altcoins have fared worse, with many down more than 60% in the last 2 months. In times like these, traders need to regroup and re-evaluate their investment strategy, rather than just buying every price dip. Here are five strategies traders can use ...
SEC again delays decision on Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has once again delayed its ruling on whether to approve Grayscale’s application for a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF), citing familiar concerns around manipulation, liquidity and transparency. In a notice published Friday afternoon, the SEC expressed concerns about how the digital asset manager intends to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot ETF. Namely, the regulator wasn’t convinced that Grayscale’s proposal was designed to prevent alleged fraud and manipulation in the Bitcoin market. The SEC has invited the public to comment on these issues, giving interested parties 21 days to respond in writing. The SEC has just delayed their decision on whether GBTC can convert to a bitcoin ETF. — Pomp (@APomp...
