Business
Wazupnaija – Naija Entertainment blogs & Forums – Business
Analysts warn of ‘acute’ Q3 slowdown in Robinhood’s DOGE-reliant growth
Robinhood’s recent disclosure of the major boost that crypto has contributed to its second-quarter financial earnings is worrying some financial analysts, largely due to the “outsized” role that Dogecoin (DOGE) trading has played. In an investor note this week, Wolfe Research’s Steven Cubak warned that “Robinhood’s growth within crypto is nothing short of remarkable, but the outsized contribution from Dogecoin simply cannot be ignored.” As reported, Robinhood’s Q2 results revealed that crypto trading had surged to represent 41% of its revenue and that more than 60% of the app’s funded accounts traded crypto in the quarter. The company generated $233 million from crypto trading services for Q2 2021, up from $5 million for the entirety of 2020. Related: Robinhood shareholders want cryp...
Bitcoin price returns above $47K as crypto market shrugs off Binance KYC news
Bitcoin (BTC) abruptly exited lower levels to challenge firm resistance on Friday in further inspiration for bulls. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Bitcoin coils up beneath major sell wall Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting local highs of $47,415 on Bitstamp overnight on Thursday. The pair had received a welcome boost from news of a Bitcoin fund launch from Wells Fargo, which fuelled 24-hour gains of over 5%. Now, Bitcoin was primed to challenge established resistance levels at $47,000 and higher — these nonetheless keeping bulls in check at the time of writing. For popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital, a key support area to watch was now broader — between $44,000 and $46,500. “BTC successfully Daily Cl...
Weekly report: Regulators are turning their attention to crypto exchanges
Binance is one of the major cryptocurrency exchanges to encounter regulatory challenges in recent weeks Binance issued a warning in the Netherlands It seems Binance is now in the news every week for grabbing the attention of regulatory agencies. This week, the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), issued a warning to citizens that Binance is operating without a licence in the country. The central bank further added that Binance is currently operating in the Netherlands without proper compliance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act. As such, Dutch citizens have been advised to stay away from using the cryptocurrency exchanges. The cryptocurrency exchange was also ordered by a UK court to track and freeze cryptocurrencies stolen from one of its user’s ac...
The next batch of Kusama parachain auctions has been announced
Five more auctions are due in September, following the success of the first five, in which Karura and Moonriver were among the winners Kusama announced yesterday that its next batch of five parachain auctions will take place in September. As the “canary network” for Polkadot, Kusama inherits Polkadot’s blockchain architecture, which consists of different blockchains, known as “parachains”, which can each have their own native tokens and economies, and run parallel to the central Relay Chain. After the launch of the common-good parachain Statemine, Kusama’s first five parachain auctions took place throughout June and July. The first winner was decentralised finance (DeFi) hub Karura, followed by smart contract platform Moonriver, multi-chain decentralised application (dApp) layer Shiden, pr...
5 Seconds of Summer’s Luke Hemmings Lands Debut Solo No. 1 In Australia
Written and recorded during the 2020 lockdown, When Facing The Things We Turn Away From opens at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, and is the 12th domestic leader on the national survey this year. In a statement, ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd pays tribute to Hemmings and the “immense contribution” he’s made to “the Australian music landscape.” Also powering into the top tier this week is The Killers’ Pressure Machine (Island/Universal). It’s new at No. 6, for the Las Vegas alternative rock outfit’s ninth appearance in the Top Ten. Pressure Machine is the followup to Imploding The Mirage, which hit No. 1 in Australia just a year ago, in August 2020. Sydney indie rock outfit Polish Club cook up their first Top 10 appearance with their third studio album, Now We’re Cookin’ (Island/Universal). It...
BTC, XRP and DOGE Analysis: Trio Recover to end the Week on a Winning Note
The cryptocurrency market has been in a bearish mode since the start of the week but has recovered excellently and will end the week with a positive performance The cryptocurrency market was in a correction mode since the start of the week, with the prices of most cryptocurrencies dropping by over 5%. However, the market has turned things around in the last 24 hours and looks poised to record further gains. Bitcoin (BTC) finally climbed back to the $47k mark again after a rally over the past few hours. Ethereum is also looking to surpass the $3,300 mark and could succeed if the current market situation persists. Analysts are still optimistic about the long-term prediction of the current bull run. The prices of cryptocurrencies are expected to surge even higher as the market continues to pr...
Amazon Is Reportedly Planning to Open Its Own Department Stores
Amazon is planning to open a series of largescale retail locations in the United States that resemble department stores, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Citing people familiar with the matter, the WSJ said that the first locations are slated to open in Ohio and California, and will be “smaller than most department stores” at around 30,000 square feet. Amazon will likely sell products from top consumer brands and its own private label and will expand its sale of electronics, clothing and household items. The sources added that these plans have not yet been finalized. The e-commerce giant’s continued retail expansion was foreshadowed by the WSJ in a 2019 report, which noted that Amazon had recently acquired a number of abandoned shopping centers in Northeastern Ohio. In recent ...
Coinbase creates support phone line for account takeovers
Coinbase has announced a new support phone line for customers who believe their account has been compromised by outside actors. Users will be able to speak to a live support agent, who can kick off an investigation immediately. In an industry where support tickets and emails are the standard method of communication, Coinbase expects that this implementation could help users save valuable time when dealing with this type of crisis. Coinbase also offers its customers additional layers of protection that include two-factor authentication, unknown device recognition and advanced hardware security keys. Account takeovers, or ATOs, involve a malicious actor gaining access and control over a user’s account. They are treated as a form of identity theft, where hackers simulate the credentials of th...
Bullish cup and handle pattern sets Cardano (ADA) price up for a new ATH
Smart contracts have been a revolutionary force in the blockchain industry because they have enabled the creation of decentralized finance protocols, nonfungible tokens and a new form of carrying out transactions without the need of a middleman. Cardano (ADA) is one of the many projects that has been gaining momentum throughout 2021 and now that the project’s long-awaited smart contract capabilities are on the verge of becoming reality, the token is on the precipice of setting a new all-time high. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after bottoming at a low of $1.02 on July 20, the price of ADA has surged 139% to a multi-week high at $2.45. ADA/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Here’s a look at what some analysts and traders are saying about the r...
SEC boss says DeFi platforms are ‘highly centralized’ and will need to register
Gary Gensler, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stated that DeFi is highly centralized in certain aspects and urged projects working in the sector to register with the SEC. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal on Aug. 19, Gensler suggested that the decentralized notions implied by the term DeFi were “a bit of a misnomer,”: “These platforms facilitate something that might be decentralized in some aspects but highly centralized in other aspects.” While DeFi projects are designed to be autonomous platforms that operate without a centralized authority, Gensler asserted that many are developed and controlled by a centralized team who are incentivized to promote their platforms. “There’s still a core group of folks that are not only writing the software, like the open-source...
$100M funding round for Binance.us falls through on regulatory concerns
Regulatory concerns surrounding Binance.us and its owner, Changpeng Zhou (CZ), have reportedly culminated in investors backing out of a $100 million funding round. The failed funding round also prompted Binance.us CEO Brian Brooks’ surprise decision to step down after serving as its executive for just three months. Brooks, the former Acting Comptroller of the Currency and former chief legal officer to rival exchange, Coinbase, cited “strategic differences” while stepping aside. The funding round had been intended as the first step in Binance.us’s path toward an initial public offering (IPO). According to New York Times, Brooks had initially courted potential investors including Ray Lane from venture capital firm GreatPoint, and an executive at Japanese holding c...
UNTOLD Festival Strikes Creative Partnership With $1 Billion Blockchain Unicorn Elrond
UNTOLD Festival has confirmed a landmark partnership with Elrond, an internet-scale blockchain giant. The two Romanian powerhouses will join forces for the 2021 festival set to take place from Thursday, September 9th to Sunday, September 12th. The lineup for the event includes performances from David Guetta, Martin Garrix, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, The Script, Tyga, and many more. According to a press release issued by Elrond, the creative collaboration will offer Untold attendees the chance to experience “a special ‘NFT moment,'” which organizers maintain is one-of-a-kind blockchain-music crossover. Each attendee will secure their own NFT via the Maiar marketplace. They’ll also be able to purchase tickets with EGLD, the cryptocurrency that...
