Crypto

Crypto has seen a rise in novel uses of liquidity mining and rewards through protocols like Uniswap, Aave and Compound. More recently, a new crop of DeFi 2.0 protocols such as OlympusDAO, Alchemix and Abracadabra are exploring new ways of operating without giving up token rewards.  For all the innovations happening with decentralized systems in crypto, they are still failing to open new pathways for economic prosperity for the most marginalized. In its current form, DeFi remains open only to people who already have access to the financial system and live in countries with strong financial markets. This is evident by the fact that the growth of DeFi has been particularly driven by crypto degens. As DeFi 2.0 continues to grow, it needs to break free from the historical underpinnings of ...

Stablecoins are the cornerstone of the digital asset marketplace with a market cap of over $100 billion. Governments are already putting considerable resources in being up to speed with the trends. A November 2021 report published by the United States President’s Working Group on Financial Markets details the various measures to ensure stablecoin regulation is implemented within government guidelines. A global central bank survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) shows 86% of central banks are now actively engaged in some way with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), a government-backed form of a stablecoin. Of this cohort of central banks, seven have now officially launched CBDCs, while 17 more are in the pilot phase, according to the Atlantic Council CBDC tracker. Like ...

As decentralized exchanges (DEXs) evolve, their functionalities become more and more advanced, often matching those of centralized exchanges (CEXs). One such functionality is the ability to place limit orders, which offers more flexibility and efficiency to DEX traders. This article looks at the existing limit order features and their prospective implementations.  Unlike a market order, which is executed immediately at the last market price with potential slippage, a limit order is executed at a predefined price as soon as it is reached. Market orders are used by default in all automated market maker-based DEXs. They are simple and straightforward for beginners. A market order is guaranteed to be executed or fail due to parameters, such as the maximum price impact. In turn, limit orde...

Bitcoin (BTC) tapered losses on Nov. 13 as the market showed little interest in U.S. regulators refusing to allow a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView ETF rejection causes few market headaches Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed calm conditions for BTC/USD into the weekend, the pair acting within a $1,000 corridor. News that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had declined to approve VanEck’s spot ETF product saw a dip towards $60,000 support but failed to spark significant volatility. The first of multiple decisions regarding spot ETFs, the VanEck episode came as little surprise to many, but the firm expressing “disappointment” in the result. “We are disappointed in today...

Bitcoin is set to undergo a major network upgrade, Taproot, in nearly two days, i.e., on Nov. 14 or 255 blocks later, as per data from Taproot.watch. This is the first significant upgrade since the Segregated Witness (SegWit), which eventually culminated in the development and launch of the Lightning Network in 2018. The original Taproot proposal was made by Bitcoin core contributor and former Blockstream chief training officer Gregory Maxwell on Jan 23, 2018. While the previous SegWit upgrade was aimed to resolve transaction malleability and improve the scalability of the Bitcoin network, the Taproot upgrade is targeted to improve transaction efficiency, the privacy of the network, and its ability to support smart contract initiatives. The upgrade was set into motion only after attaining ...

To understand the complexity of digital rights management, or DRM, one must first understand the DRM challenges of current systems and then the challenges (and opportunities) presented by blockchain technology that prides itself on transparency, data linkage and immutability as some of the main characteristics that lends itself to the trust systems.  With Web 2.0, content creation and dissemination are via a platform that acts as an intermediary and, like any intermediary, has developed business models that monetize the avenues of content distribution, resulting data and metadata. Digital content (movies, images, music, etc.) can be replicated easily, and the platforms create economic moats and control mechanisms to access content with the complicated n-tier design of passwords, authe...

Bitcoin (BTC) price continues to weaken following the shakeout of the leveraged traders in the derivatives markets on Nov. 10. This caused the derivative funding rates to drop to the neutral territory of 0.01% across exchanges. Data analysis firm Arcane Research said in its latest weekly newsletter that the derivatives markets had matured compared to the run to the previous all-time high in April. The firm highlighted that the futures’ basis, the difference between Bitcoin’s spot price and futures price, which was at elevated levels in April have dropped much lower, “indicating a healthier market.” Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 According to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, the ProShares Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) has soared in populari...

Axie Infinity, a monster-battling NFT game, has been gaining a lot of traction with over $600 million Axies bought and sold in the past month. Each Axie is a nonfungible token, or NFT, minted on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Similar in theme to Nintendo’s Pokemon series, Axies come in different rarity types, with varying strengths and attributes, with the strongest fetching very high prices on the game’s marketplace. Players earn Smooth Love Potions (SLPs) by completing daily quests, defeating monsters and battling other players in arenas with their Axies. SLPs can then be sold in exchange for various cryptocurrencies. Due to the high initial cost of buying/borrowing/breeding Axies, in-game guilds have formed as of late to fund players’ upfront expenses, or offer sc...

The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expels a top provincial official after investigations suggest unlawful emgagement with crypto mining activities among other abuse of power.  The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) alleged that Xiao Yi, former vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference from Jiangxi province abused his state-backed administrative powers to undermine the political principle of “two maintenance,” which relates to CCP’s notion of firmly maintaining the authority of the party: “[Xiao Yi] violated the new development concept, abused power to introduce and support enterprises to engage in virtual currency “mining” activities that do not meet the requirements of the national industrial policy.” ...

Dogecoin (DOGE) is potentially at risk of losing critical support if the price falls from the ascending channel traded in for the last 53 days. Although technical analysis is not an exact science, a daily close below $0.26 will likely invalidate the current movement. DOGE/USD price at FTX. Source: TradingView Aside from the Bitcoin (BTC)-driven headwinds, which are weighing on DOGE price, the meme token this week underwent a software upgrade, and users were requested to implement version 1.14.5. Two important security patches were involved: “Remote Code Execution in Dogecoin QT” (CVE-2021-3401) and “Sensitive Information Exposure on Unix platforms” (CVE-2019-15947). The latest release finalized a new minimum fee recommendation, following a previous version’s reduction of relay and min...

All of United States-based crypto exchange Coinbase’s roughly 68 million verified users can now more easily make information on their portfolio public. In a Coinbase blog post on Friday, senior product manager Rishav Mukherji said the crypto exchange’s app now includes a feature that shares a user’s allocation percentage — not balances — to their network of friends. He said this would just be the first move in the coming weeks for users to begin sharing additional details on trades conducted on Coinbase. “We want to empower the cryptoeconomy to share knowledge and information and learn from each other,” said Mukherji. With a reported 8.8 million monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2021, Coinbase is the largest crypto exchange in the United States, reporting more than $1.2 bill...