One of the most powerful men in tech thinks that the metaverse — a term for a series of interlinked, persistent virtual worlds with self-contained economies — is just around the corner.
One of the most exciting use cases for blockchain and NFTs, enthusiasts inspired by Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash have long been hoping for a VR/AR world with a crypto-powered internal market. Now, however, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang thinks the technology to make it happen is on our doorstep.
Speaking at the virtual Computex conference, Huang said that he “believe(s) we’re right on the cusp of” the metaverse and spoke glowingly of its potential, according to a transcript of a Q&A session he had with reporters — going as far as to say that users will one day use metaverses to “simulate the future.”
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“There will be AR versions, where the art that you have is a digital art. You own it using NFT. You’ll display that beautiful art, that’s one of a kind, and it’s completely digital. You’ll have our glasses on or your phone. You can see that it’s sitting right there, perfectly lit, and it belongs to you. We’ll see this overlay, a metaverse overlay if you will, into our physical world,” he said.
He noted that Nvidia is already using a VR version of Nvidia’s new office building to test these theories, a campus that the company has dubbed “Voyager.” Among the world’s largest manufacturers of GPUs, Nvidia used supercomputers to “simulate architecture” for Voyager, helping with design and ecological efficiency, and eventually the company will allow employees to attend work by wearing VR headsets from home and controlling robots to move about the physical office space, a joint VR/physical workplace hybrid.
“This building completely exists in VR. We designed it completely digitally. We’re going to build it out so that there will be a digital twin of this very physical building in VR. We’ll be able to simulate everything, train our robots in it. We can simulate how best to distribute the air conditioning to reduce the energy consumption […] We can simulate all of that in our digital twin, our building metaverse, before we deploy anything here in the physical world. We’ll be able to go in and out of it using VR and AR.”
Huang isn’t the only CEO who has weighed in on NFTs and the Metaverse as of late, though he’s certainly the most optimistic. In January Fortnite founder Tim Sweeney said that NFTs are the most “plausible” path towards a functioning metaverse, but for now they remain a “speculative mess.”
If you weren’t sure the stance for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang when it comes to Ethereum’s upcoming shift to proof-of-stake, no need to question it further. Huang is clearly optimistic about Ethereum’s future. In an online-only Computex event, he fielded a variety of questions ranging anywhere from his thoughts on the metaverse to global semiconductor shortages.
Huang: A ‘Reasonable Bull’ Perspective
Jensen Huang’s comments around Ethereum in particular showed great optimism. When asked broadly about crypto and the supply and demand constraints around Nvidia products, Huang was clearly excited; “The reason why Ethereum chose our GPUs is because it’s the largest network of distributed supercomputers in the world. It’s programmable. When Bitcoin first came out, it used our GPU”, he said. “Am I excited about proof of stake? The answer is yes”, Huang added. “As we go towards that transition, it’s now established that Ethereum is going to be quite valuable.” He went on to discuss a new Nvidia product, CMP, which can address the crypto mining consumer and put ease on GeForce supply in order to deliver more GeForce products to gaming consumers.
It was still tempered optimism for Huang here, however. When asked later in the session about limiting hash rates in the future, Huang shared more perspective around his thoughts on crypto. “I believe that cryptocurrency is here to stay. It’s a legitimate way that people want to exchange value”, he said. “More important, Ethereum and other forms like it in the future are excellent distributed blockchain methods for securing transactions.” Huang added, “cryptocurrency is going to be here to stay. Ethereum might not be as hot as it is now. In a year’s time it may cool down some. But I think crypto mining is here to stay.”
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Related Reading | TA: Ethereum Revisists $2,400, Here’s What Could Trigger More Downsides
More From The Field Of Questions…
The Nvidia CEO made some other interesting comments as well. When asked about virtual worlds, he said that he felt that there would come a time that there would be “a larger market, a larger industry, more designers and creators, designing digital things in virtual reality” than designers in the physical world today.
He also used the press opportunity to show off Nvidia’s newest facility, ‘Voyager’, set to be host to over 3,000 of the company’s employees, which Huang described as “a city inside a building”.
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Huang also shared his excitement around the success of the RTX 30 series, the firm’s growing enterprise business, and the future of AI. What’s next for the Nvidia’s spurring growth? Huang and company clearly have a number of ideas, and crypto mining clearly lives at the forefront.
Nvidia's Jensen Huang is cautiously optimistic about Ethereum's popularity in the next year. | Source: ETH-USD on TradingView.com
Related Reading | Ethereum At A Discount, Why ETH Looks Like BTC In 2017
Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com
Digital assets manager CoinShares says investors are pouring millions of dollars into Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Cardano (ADA) and other crypto assets.
In a weeklyreportfrom June 7th, CoinShares breaks down where investor money is flowing, showing that Ethereum (ETH) is the altcoin of choice for buyers, capturing inflows of $33 million.
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“Digital asset investment products saw outflows totaling $94 million last week. Despite the net outflows, we believe it implies an early turn in sentiment since May, where most product providers were seeing net outflows and sentiment was broadly negative.
Ethereum continues to see inflows into investment products totaling $33 million, remaining the altcoin of choice for investors.”
Aside from Ethereum, XRP, Cardano and multi-asset products are the most popular investments, attracting inflows of $7 million, $4.5 million and $2.7 million, respectively.
The report also shows that heavy negative sentiment is focused on Bitcoin as it saw outflows of $141 million, the largest single week of outflows on record. Data indicates that investors remain cautious after Bitcoin’s recent collapse from its all-time high of $63,500 down to $30,000.
“Digital asset investment product trading volumes highlight investors remain cautious in Bitcoin with weekly volumes having fallen 62% compared to last month. This has also been reflected in the broader Bitcoin ecosystem where volumes on trusted exchanges have fallen 50%.”
Bitcoin remains the largest CoinShares holding with over $30 billion in assets under management, followed by Ethereum with $12.32 billion.
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.
The bitcoin community cheered Tesla TSLA billionaire Elon Musk’s headfirst dive into crypto this year.
Musk sent the bitcoin price sharply higher when Tesla’s surprise bet on bitcoin was announced in February but his outlandish Twitter TWTR persona and growing support for ethereum and the meme-based dogecoin has since antagonized bitcoiners.
Now, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, a long-time bitcoin-backer, has revealed it’s “only a matter of time” before either Twitter or its fledgling decentralized social network project Bluesky integrates bitcoin payments—and has replaced Elon Musk as bitcoin’s new billionaire champion.
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MORE FROM FORBESCrypto Price Alert: JPMorgan Issues Stark Bitcoin Warning As Ethereum, Binance’s BNB, Cardano And Dogecoin SlideBy Billy Bambrough
Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent the bitcoin price sharply higher when it was revealed Tesla had bought … [+]bitcoin this year but has since alienated much of the bitcoin community.
AFP via Getty Images
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“Only a matter of time,” Dorsey, who also leads payments company Square, replied to a bitcoin fan account on Twitter who asked him to “build [the bitcoin lightning network] into BlueSky or Twitter.”
The lightning network allows bitcoin to be sent via a payment protocol built on top of the bitcoin blockchain and is designed to help the network scale, reduce fees and speed up transactions. Interest in the lightning network has been given a boost this month by news El Salvador will use it to facilitate bitcoin spending online and in-person now bitcoin is its official currency along with the U.S. dollar.
Dorsey, who told a packed crowd at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami last week that if he “were not at Square SQ or Twitter, [he] would be working on bitcoin,” has since been on the offensive for bitcoin.
“If you believe bitcoin doesn’t ultimately shift power from banks and corporations (the ones you fight!) back to the people globally, you’re right, [it’s] useless,” Dorsey responded via Twitter to influential U.S. senator Elizabeth Warren who called for a “crackdown on environmentally wasteful cryptocurrencies” that use energy to solve “useless, complicated math problems.”
Dorsey, who has eschewed so-called altcoins like ethereum and Musk’s pet project dogecoin in favor of bitcoin, last year added some 8,000 bitcoin, at the time worth $170 million, to Square’s corporate treasury.
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MORE FROM FORBESMajor Trump Fundraiser Calls For A Radical Overhaul Of The U.S. Voting System Using BlockchainBy Billy Bambrough
Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO who also leads payments company Square, spoke at the Bitcoin 2021 … [+]conference last week.
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Dorsey has repeatedly endorsed bitcoin over recent years, going as far as to claim bitcoin has the potential to become the world’s sole currency by 2030 in a 2018 interview with the Times of London newspaper, and has assumed the role of bitcoin’s booster-in-chief that Tesla’s Elon Musk has apparently abandoned.
Last week, Musk appeared to further distance himself from bitcoin after rolling back Tesla’s bitcoin support due to environmental concerns in May and posting a string of somewhat satirical dogecoin memes.
“I pretty much agree with Vitalik,” Musk posted to Twitter, replying to a wide-ranging YouTube interview with the ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin by AI researcher and podcaster Lex Fridman.
In the interview with ethereum’s de facto leader, Fridman asked whether it would be possible to upgrade dogecoin to “beat bitcoin hands down,” as Musk has previously suggested—with Buterin saying: “If doge wants to somehow bridge to ethereum and then people can trade doge thousands of times a second … that would be amazing.”
On June 25, Ether (ETH) will face its largest options expiry in 2021 as $1.5 billion worth of open interest will be settled. This figure is 30% larger than March’s 26 expiry, which took place as Ether price plunged 17% in 5 days and bottomed near $1,550.
However, Ether rallied 56% after March’s options expiry, reaching $2,500 within three weeks. These moves were completely uncorrelated to Bitcoin’s (BTC). Therefore, it is essential to understand if a similar market structure could be underway for June 25 futures and options expiry.
Ether price at Bitstamp in March 2021, USD. Source: TradingView
Recent history shows a mix of bullish and bearish catalysts
On March 11, Ether miners organized a “show of force” against EIP-1559, which would significantly reduce their revenues.
The situation worsened on March 22, as CoinMetrics launched an “Ethereum Gas Report,” stating that the highly anticipated EIP-1559 network upgrade would unlikely solve the high gas problem.
Things started to change on March 29, as Visa announced plans to use the Ethereum blockchain to settle a transaction made in fiat, and on April 15, the Berlin upgrade was successfully implemented. According to Cointelegraph, after Berlin launched, “the average gas fee began to decline to more manageable levels.”
Before jumping to conclusions and speculating whether these phenomena of the Ether price bottoming near the upcoming $1.5 billion options expiry are bullish or bearish, it’s best first to analyze how large traders are positioned.
Ether options open interest by expiry date. Source: Bybt
Take notice of how June’s expiry holds over 638,000 ETH options contracts, totaling 45% of the aggregate $3.4 billion open interest.
Unlike futures contracts, options are divided into two segments. Call (buy) options allow the buyer to acquire Ether at a fixed price on the expiry date. Generally speaking, these are used on neutral arbitrage trades or bullish strategies.
Meanwhile, the put (sell) options are commonly used to hedge or protect from negative price swings.
June 25 Ether options open interest by strike. Source: Bybt
For bulls, $2,200 is the line in the sand
As displayed above, there’s a disproportionate amount of call options at $2,200 and higher strikes. This means that if Ether’s price on June 25 happens to be below this level, 73% of the neutral-to-bullish options will be worthless. The 95,000 call options still in play would represent a $228 million open interest.
On the other hand, most protective put options have been opened at $2,100 or lower. Consequently, 74% of those neutral-to-bearish options will become worthless if the price stays above this level. Therefore, the remaining 73,700 put options would represent a $177 million open interest.
It seems premature to call who might be the winner of this race, but considering Ether’s current $2,400 price, it looks like both sides are reasonably comfortable.
However, traders should keep a close eye on this event, especially considering the price impact that surrounded the March expiry.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of theauthorand do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
The co-founder and chairman of crypto-focused hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, Kyle Davies, believes that there will not be a repeat of the 2017 bull market in the current market cycle.
In a new video, Davies says that Bitcoin and altcoins are in a supercycle, while warning that the crypto markets will still see significant corrections.
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“With a supercycle… there’s still volatility right. I mean especially for Bitcoin it’s a fixed-supply asset…
That doesn’t mean we go into a four-year bear [market]. It just means that we correct and okay… now we’ve corrected, now let’s keep going, right. There’s no more false selling beyond this basically is the thinking.”
The Three Arrows Capital chairman explains that the fall in the price of Bitcoin by nearly 50% from its all-time high recently was driven by negative news such as the crackdown on miners in China rather than traders being overleveraged.
“This pullback was harsh… It was not because we were over-leveraged…
It was pretty big news like China trying to actively shut down hash power, which they have started to do – not everywhere in the country. In Xinjiang, for example, like everyone’s shutting off their miners. Chinese miners are going to other locations to set up you know backups. Sichuan hasn’t happened yet, but may very well in the next 36 months.”
Davies adds that Three Arrows Capital benefited from the correction as the firm took a short position in Bitcoin and this is why the hedge fund is the most profitable entity on the FTX cryptocurrency exchange currently.
“Fact of the matter is we also did have a big Bitcoin hedge and we did make a lot of money on that and that’s why we’re you know… with the other basis traders they may be in the middle of the FTX leaderboard right now. That’s why we’re number one. Because we leaned into that market a little bit more.”
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Anthony Di Iorio, a Canadian entrepreneur and the co-founder of leading smart contract platform Ethereum, said that he believes in the potential of Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT).
In an interview with crypto proponent Anthony Pompliano, Di Iorio, who is also the CEO and founder of Canadian blockchain startup Decentral and crypto wallet Jaxx, revealed that he has a diversified investment portfolio featuring several top projects, including Cardano and Polkadot.
A Big Fan of Cardano and Polkadot
He said:
“Now I’ve kind of fallen back to just simplicity. I’m in a number of different projects, but the majority of my stuff is in the top projects. I’m a big fan of Polkadot, I’m a big fan of Cardano.”
Di Iorio went on to narrate why he was so sure of the future of these two projects. He had joined the Ethereum development team earlier in 2012 when he met Vitalik Buterin at a Bitcoin conference.
He has formed strong relationships with other co-founders of Ethereum, including Vitalik Buterin, Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson, and Polkadot’s current CEO Gavin Wood.
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Di Iorio admitted that while he worked with these men, he knew that they were goal-oriented and would help push these projects further.
He continued:
“Big fan of Charles, let’s say that. You know, taking some different approaches in the way that they’re doing things, much more on the academic side of what he’s done and bringing stuff forward. Real big fan of Gavin Wood… Knowing those guys from the days back at Ethereum – and knowing their drive and knowing their competitiveness and their smarts – I was able to see those projects for the last few years and know that they were gonna get to where they’ve gotten up to.”
Not Getting Lost in DeFi
Despite all the recent hype about DeFi, Di lorio pointed out that he is keeping his investments simple and investing in larger projects.
“Most of my stuff is in the top few things, Ether, Bitcoin, Cardano, Polkadot. I like Cosmos as well. And there’s a few others, but I’m not getting lost in all the DeFi stuff. I just think there’s not enough time, not enough energy. It’s a full-time gig to be running a lot of that stuff and keeping on top of stuff, so I’ve simplified my life quite a bit over the past few years.”
Featured image courtesy of Business Insider
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By the time this is published, Taproot will be locked-in for activation. This means that on block 709,632 (mid-November 2021), the new rules defined by a series of Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) will be activated and start being enforced. This is a momentous achievement for Bitcoin and will enable so many awesome new things for not just Bitcoin but everything built on top of it, too.
Previously, it was debated if Bitcoin could come to consensus on another soft fork after the drama behind the 2017 SegWit upgrade. This previous soft fork spun out multiple camps that hard forked from the original Bitcoin chain, creating new altcoins. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin community was left with deep battle scars after months of debating and fighting for what resulted in a user activated soft fork (UASF).
It’s been almost four years since SegWit activated and people were skeptical that the Bitcoin community could overcome these battle scars for the next upgrade to Bitcoin. However, we have done it! It was a long process of debating on pull requests (PRs), Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels, and Twitter, but it has finally come to a close.
Taproot as an upgrade had virtually no push back; by and large every core developer agreed with the consensus changes proposed in BIP340, BIP341 and BIP342. These BIPs propose changes that add privacy and optimizations as well as enabling new features in the future without any new security assumptions. Taproot by itself is a no-brainer upgrade to the Bitcoin protocol. The controversy came in when the discussions started on how to activate Taproot.
The controversy began with BIP8 which was created in response to what happened with SegWit. It made two changes to BIP9, the activation method used for SegWit. The first change was to define the start and end times of the activation by block height instead of real-world time. This makes defining the activation window slightly better because we aren’t reliant on blocks having exactly a 10-minute block time but with the tradeoff of being worse for test networks.
The second change was to add an optional user activated soft fork (UASF) at the end of the activation, known as lock-in-on-timeout or LOT. Both of these changes sparked heavy debate on if they should be made and resulted in many PRs being opened and closed to Bitcoin Core. The LOT parameter was eventually thrown out and replaced with a procedure called Speedy Trial.
Speedy Trial was proposed to break the stalemate between the two camps arguing over how to set LOT (true vs false). Speedy Trial described a three-month activation window instead of a one-year window, but with a minimum activation height that would be further in the future and with no UASF. This was structured so that we could either activate quickly or fail quickly. If we were to fail quickly, we could go back to debating. Or if we did activate quickly, the surrounding ecosystem would have more time to prepare for the upgrade.
Most developers agreed to try Speedy Trial which led to two PRs being opened to Bitcoin Core, one by Andrew Chow and another by A.J. Towns. Chow’s PR proposed using block height while Towns’ used real-world time. This led to further debate and lots of discussion on IRC that was eventually settled by a blockchain coin flip, decided based on if the hash of a block in the future was even or odd. The coin flip resulted in A.J. Towns’ PR being chosen, reviewed, and eventually merged.
All of this debate finally led to the culmination of Taproot being able to activate. Then we just needed miners to signal, which happened relatively quickly. Alejandro De La Torre, vice president of Poolin, had already gotten mining pools to commit to saying they would signal. However, at the start only Slush Pool was signaling. The plebs took to the streets and made memes donning green squares, a reference to taproot.watch’s way of showing which blocks signaled for activation and which did not. However, after only three difficulty adjustment periods we have achieved almost 99% of the hash power from miners signaling and have locked in the activation of Taproot.
Now that we can confidently say that Taproot will be part of the Bitcoin protocol, we should know what this will mean for Bitcoin and its many layers. As stated in the beginning, Taproot brings privacy and optimizations while allowing for new features in the future.
Taproot is able to add privacy to Bitcoin by allowing users to create multiple spending rules for their funds, but they only need to reveal the rules that were used for that transaction. In some cases there is no need to reveal there ever were other spending rules. The average Bitcoin user today doesn’t have a need for these sorts of complex rule scripts. However, most scaling solutions in Bitcoin do. Layers such as the Lightning Network, Liquid, and other sidechains all use scripted rules like multisig, hash time locks, and other tools to make their system secure. Today this all needs to be put on chain and revealed to the entire network. With Taproot this information no longer needs to be revealed all the time and transactions like Lightning channel opens can look exactly like a normal user’s transactions. So not only will it benefit Lightning users but it will benefit everyone as the general anonymity set of Bitcoin will grow, making privacy-compromising chain analysis harder to do.
Along with all these privacy improvements are lots of optimizations. Since we no longer need to reveal as much information on-chain, transactions will use less data and thus will reduce fees. This also means that more transactions will fit in each block and every unspent transaction output (UTXO) will be that much more efficient.
Not only do we get space-saving optimizations from Taproot, but we also get optimizations that will help with the speed of verifying transactions. Today, Bitcoin uses the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) for signing transactions, but Taproot adds a new way to sign called Schnorr signatures. Schnorr signatures enable some of the space-saving optimizations we talked about while also being faster to verify, so running a full node will be less resource intensive with the same transaction throughput if Taproot sees significant adoption.
Taproot will also enable many new use cases and features. Something that has been talked about for awhile is Point Time Lock Contracts (PTLCs). PTLCs are a change to the Lightning Network that enable developers to build more complex applications on top of Lightning like Discreet Log Contracts, stuck-less payments and more. Taproot also allows for much less invasive upgrades in the future. Taproot left many new upgrade paths that we are already seeing people write proposals to use, namely SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT. This should make the next Bitcoin soft fork happen more quickly and be less controversial as it will not carry as much weight as the upgrades before it.
In conclusion, Bitcoin has upgraded and has taken a step forward in making privacy better for its users. This did not come easy and it certainly shouldn’t have. However, now it’s time to celebrate and then start building.
This is a guest post by Ben Carman. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
Global crypto exchange Binance is introducing its own non-fungible token (NFT) platform.
In a new blog post, Binance announced that it is launching “premier” NFT platform, Featured, which will go live on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
This year, the NFT mania swept across the cryptoverse. The demand for unique digital assets skyrocketed with iconic digital artist Beeple selling a piece that exists on the Ethereum blockchain for a whopping $69.3 million. NFTs have unique cryptographic properties, which means that a blockchain can verify the originality and ownership of such digital assets, which include artworks, parcels of virtual lands and collectibles.
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At its conception, Featured will focus on working with Binance brand partners to mint, display and sell NFTs.
Says Binance,
“We want to apply our deep experience in launching tokens and creating markets to the NFT space. At launch, the platform will focus on helping our brand partners launch NFT assets with strong unique narratives, a marketplace to trade those assets, and creator tools to mint, sell and showcase their NFT creations.”
As Binance admits, the hype surrounding NFTs has settled down since Beeple sold his expensive piece, with NFT-related crypto assets far down off their highs as well. For example, top NFT project SuperFarm is down 85% off its all-time high of $4.74.
However, Binance commits to the notion that NFTs are not a “flash in the pan” and will have longevity in the crypto world. The exchange asserts that digital goods will only face increased demand as a new tech-savvy generation develops.
“Digital goods have been used successfully in a multitude of ways to engage fans and monetize IP (intellectual properties). GenZs, who grew up in the era of app stores, are primary drivers of this trend as there is an increasing number of younger consumers entering credit-worthy age.
We believe that the next evolution of digital goods will be on the blockchain and NFTs are the first step towards that transformation.”
Anyone interested can head to Featured to subscribe for notifications regarding the platform’s launch.
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.
Coming every Saturday,Hodler’s Digestwill 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
Bill to make Bitcoin legal tender passes in El Salvador
El Salvador has officially become the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.
A law outlining the proposals, introduced by President Nayib Bukele, passed with a “supermajority,” attracting 62 out of 84 votes.
Under the so-called Bitcoin Law, merchants must accept Bitcoin as well as U.S. dollars — and they’ll be expected to present prices for goods and services in both currencies.The government is going to be releasing an official crypto wallet for consumers to use, but they can rely on private providers if they prefer.
Permanent residency is going to be available for those who invest3 BTCin the country, and now, a 90-day implementation period has begun.
As the 90-day implementation period begins,the president has askeda state-owned geothermal electric company to examine plans “to offer facilities for Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, zero-emissions energy” — from its own volcanoes.
Unsurprisingly, reaction from regulators hasn’t been overwhelmingly positive. One executive at the Bank for International Settlements has called El Salvador’s movean “interesting experiment”— but warned that BTC hasn’t passed the test of being a means of payment.The International Monetary Fund has also warned the decisioncould have significant legal and financial ramifications.
New report: El Salvador Bitcoin pump failed to attract smart money, for now
El Salvador’s plans were first announced during a keynote speech at Bitcoin 2021 in Miami, but the markets appeared to pay little notice.
Things changed on Wednesday — the day Congress passed the legislation.Bitcoin logged its best daily performance since Feb. 8, the day Tesla announced that it had added$1.5 billionworth of BTC to its balance sheet.
Although there are reasons to celebrate, Stack Funds’ head of research Lennard Neo has warned there was little in the way of bullish reactions from so-called “smart” investors.
Bringing the bulls back down to Earth, he warned:“We should not expect a significant impact on Bitcoin for a country with a GDP per capita less than 7% that of the U.S., with its economy suffering the worst crash in decades last year.”
Bitcoin’s seven-day high stands at$38,334.33. The strong move helped save the bulls during Friday’s options expiry, because any level below$34,000would have wiped98%of call options.
MicroStrategy gets $1.6 billion in orders in junk bond offering
MicroStrategy has attracted$1.6 billionworth of orders in a recent junk bond offering — four times more than what the business intelligence firm initially sought.
Junk bonds are debt offerings by companies without investment-grade credit ratings and typically offer investors higher returns while carrying higher risk.
It comes days after the publicly listed company, which owns92,079 BTCwith a current market value of$3.2 billion, announced plans to spin off its crypto holdings into a new subsidiary called MacroStrategy LLC.
Although this has been interpreted as bullish news,alarm bells started soundingafter the junk bond offering was announced — the latest in a series of debt raises to buy more Bitcoin. MSTR stock fell after the news.
MicroStrategy closed the week at$516.44, some way off the year-to-date high of$1,315that was seen in February.
In a recent article, analyst Juan de la Hoz said MicroStrategy would be at risk of bankruptcy if Bitcoin prices fell, adding:“MicroStrategy is a rare high-risk low-reward investment opportunity, and a strong sell.”
Bitcoin 2021 attendees’ positive COVID-19 tests are going viral
Some of those who attended Bitcoin 2021 in Miami have tested positive for COVID-19, leading to a wave of negative media coverage and speculation that it may have been a “superspreader event.”
Thousands of people went to the two-day event, which did not require proof of vaccination or enforce the wearing of face masks.There was little in the way of social distancing either as people packed into crowded auditoriums.
One influencer on Crypto Twitter, Mr. Whale, estimated that there were more than50,000visitors at the event.He noted that this was the first major in-person conference since the pandemic began, and said dozens of participants have tested positive.
Vitalik Buterin has made $4.3 million from his $25,000 investment in Dogecoin… so far
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has revealed that he invested$25,000into DOGE in 2016… and has made a pretty penny as a result.
His first concern was how he would tell his mother — not least because “the only interesting thing about this coin is a logo of a dog somewhere.”
Buterin told Lex Fridman’s podcast that he was caught off-guard by the speculative frenzy that resulted from Elon Musk’s fascination with the joke cryptocurrency.
He recalled being in lockdown in Singapore when the price of DOGE shot up775%from$0.008to$0.07over the course of a single day, thinking:“Oh my god, my DOGE is worth, like, a lot!”
Buterin added:“I sold half of the DOGE, and I got $4.3 million, donated the profits to GiveDirectly, and a few hours after I did this, the price dropped back from around $0.07 to $0.04.”
Assuming he held on to the remaining50%of his DOGE stash, he would now be sitting on tens of millions of dollars in paper profits.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at$35,211.65, Ether at$2,318.90and XRP at$0.81. The total market cap is at$1,493,755,186,500.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the only two altcoin gainers of the week areAmpandChiliz. The top three altcoin losers of the week areInternet Computer,THORChainandSynthetix.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to readCointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“Regulatory clarity enables companies like BlockFi to continue innovating. It enables consumers and investors to participate in this sector with the utmost confidence.”
Zac Prince, BlockFi CEO
“The ~$38,000 area for BTC is the one to watch right now.”
Rekt Capital
“Cryptocurrencies demonstrate all the hallmarks of ‘bad money’: unclear origin, uncertain valuation, shady trading practices.”
Pieter Hasekamp, Netherlands Bureau for Economic Analysis
“Investors should consider the volatility of Bitcoin and the Bitcoin futures market, as well as the lack of regulation and potential for fraud or manipulation in the underlying Bitcoin market.”
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
“@davidguetta knows what’s up. His Miami pad is for sale. Can buy with #Bitcoin or #Ethereum. In general, not a good idea to part w/ disinflationary #crypto that consistently outperforms real estate… but smart folks like Guetta love to take it from you.”
@ShaokyCinemaBTC
“Adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender raises a number of macroeconomic, financial and legal issues that require very careful analysis. We are following developments closely, and we’ll continue our consultations with the authorities.”
Gerry Rice, IMF spokesman
“Moments ago in our #London saleroom, an extremely rare “Alien” CryptoPunk #7523 from the collection of @sillytuna sold for $11.8M as part of our #NativelyDigital NFT auction – setting a new world auction record for a single CryptoPunk.”
Sotheby’s
“Stablecoins are not launching us off into some brave new world […] The key here is to ensure that just because something is packaged in shiny technology we don’t somehow treat the risks it poses differently.”
Christina Segal-Knowles, Bank of England
“Digital currency from central banks has great promise. Legitimate digital public money could help drive out bogus digital private money.”
Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Senator
“I don’t think @michael_saylor is familiar with Murphy’s Law. What if #Bitcoin crashes below $20K? Will #MicroStrategy sell stock at depressed prices to shore up its balance sheet? Will it sell Bitcoin to raise cash? If MicroStrategy goes bankrupt will creditors HODL its Bitcoin?”
Peter Schiff, economist and crypto skeptic
“I should have bought a lot more — that was my mistake.”
Marc Lasry, Avenue Capital Group CEO
FUD of the Week
U.S. officials recover $2.3 million in crypto from Colonial Pipeline ransom
Officials with a U.S. government taskforce have seized more than$2 millionin crypto paid in ransom following an attack on the Colonial Pipeline system, which caused fuel shortages for many people in the U.S.
The Bitcoin in question was connected to Russia-based DarkSide hackers, and about63.7 BTChas been clawed back.
Although there’s little doubt that this is a good thing, Bitcoin’s price actually ended up falling because of concerns over how the FBI actually managed to seize the cryptocurrency.Coinbasehas refuted suggestionsthat it was involved.
Mati Greenspan, the founder of Quantum Economics, has said that the recovered ransom is actually bullish for Bitcoin, as many had expected U.S. politicians to use crypto as a scapegoat for the attack and enforce some heavy-handed regulations.
Proposed New York Bitcoin mining ban watered down to allow green projects
A proposed crypto mining ban calling for a forced three-year hiatus on all mining operations in New York has been watered down — and will now allow green projects.
The bill passed in the senate on June 8, and has now been referred to the state assembly. If the bill is passed there, it will be delivered to Governor Andrew Cuomo to either approve or veto the proposed legislation.
The initial New York Senate Bill 6486A sought to halt all crypto mining for three years in order to conduct environmental impact reviews on mining operations in the tri-state area.
However, the bill was amended in the senate to get it over the line, and the revised 6486B bill is now focused solely on any firm that uses carbon-based fuel sources to power proof-of-work crypto mining.
Alleged $3.6 billion crypto Ponzi’s victims still believe the exchange is legit
Victims of an alleged $3.6 billion crypto Ponzi scheme in South Korea are reportedly hampering the progress of a police investigation and a joint lawsuit — as they still believe in the project and hold out hopes of getting a return on their investments.
V Global is accused of defrauding about 69,000 people out of four trillion won ($3.6 billion), all while promising investors they would triple their investments.
A notice on the company’s website says that it strongly denies the “false” claims and has filed a complaint with police “for defamation and obstruction of business.”
If V Global is found guilty, it would potentially be one of the biggest crypto-related Ponzi schemes on record, in a similar fashion to the infamous multi-billion Ponzi scheme from OneCoin in 2015.
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Miami stakes the claim to become the world’s Bitcoin and crypto capital
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More IRS crypto reporting, more danger
The U.S. authorities are becoming seriously interested in crypto, making unreported crypto more dangerous.