Day: June 17, 2021
Four Cryptos To Consider Besides Bitcoin (BTC) – eToro
Want to dabble in digital currency, but don’t know where to start? Get familiar with some of the top performing altcoins.
It’s far from over, but 2021 is feeling like the year where avoiding cryptocurrency is nearly impossible. It’s everywhere in the news, from all-time price highs being set (and reset), to billionaire entrepreneurs touting their favorite coin, to the rise of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and more.
While Bitcoin (BTC) reigns supreme and is a worthwhile asset thanks to its large market cap and institutional investment (there are several Fortune 500 companies with BTC on their balance sheet) there are many who want to know which crypto is ‘the next big thing.’
That’s where altcoins come in. What is an altcoin? Well, it’s pretty simple any crypto asset other than Bitcoin. With over 5,000 online, that leaves a lot to consider. We’re here to help with that, with four altcoins (all in the top 20 in market cap) worthy of your attention.
Ethereum (ETH)
The second biggest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, ETH has seen its price grow by over 300% so far this year, nearly double the rate of BTC. While Ether is the name of the cryptocurrency, the greater Ethereum network is more than the value of one token. It’s the most popular blockchain for building crypto projects, including Ethereum-based altcoins, NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
Cardano (ADA)
While not as buzzy a name as Ethereum, Cardano has clear potential. Firmly in the top ten in market cap, ADA has made some major headway in 2021 in a similar fashion to ETH on the strength of its blockchain platform. Cardano was, in fact, created by one of Ethereum’s co-founders with the intent of building a better blockchain that addressed past faults (namely scalability, interoperability and compliance). And with the rollout of its latest upgrade, Alonzo, Cardano will be able to support smart contracts.
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Chainlink (CHAIN)
Let’s talk smart contracts. Smart contracts are essentially agreements between two parties that exist on a blockchain, whether it’s a transaction, real estate deal or anything else that requires a contract. Chainlink is an Ethereum-based platform that connects (hence the name) smart contracts on any blockchain to different parties (data providers, enterprise systems, cloud services, etc.) hile LINK tokens are the digital assets used to pay for services on the Chainlink network.
Uniswap (UNI)
Some crypto novices may have heard of swapping, whether it’s UNI, SUSHI or another platform, but may be in the dark about what that actually means. In the case of Uniswap, a decentralized crypto exchange (DEX), users are able to swap various Ethereum-based tokens (paired with the UNI token) through liquidity pools, which allow them to earn interest through trading fees. If that all sounds a little too advanced, investors fascinated by Uniswap can simply purchase UNI tokens to HODL (i.e., hold) and not swap.
This post originally appeared on the eToro blog.
eToro USA LLC
This is not investment advice; investments are subject to market risk, including the possible loss of principal.
This content is sponsored and should be regarded as promotional material. Opinions and statements expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of The Daily Hodl. The Daily Hodl is not a subsidiary of or owned by any ICOs, blockchain startups or companies that advertise on our platform. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in any ICOs, blockchain startups or cryptocurrencies. Please be advised that your investments are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility.
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Four Cryptos To Consider Besides Bitcoin (BTC) – eToro
Want to dabble in digital currency, but don’t know where to start? Get familiar with some of the top performing altcoins.
It’s far from over, but 2021 is feeling like the year where avoiding cryptocurrency is nearly impossible. It’s everywhere in the news, from all-time price highs being set (and reset), to billionaire entrepreneurs touting their favorite coin, to the rise of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and more.
While Bitcoin (BTC) reigns supreme and is a worthwhile asset thanks to its large market cap and institutional investment (there are several Fortune 500 companies with BTC on their balance sheet) there are many who want to know which crypto is ‘the next big thing.’
That’s where altcoins come in. What is an altcoin? Well, it’s pretty simple any crypto asset other than Bitcoin. With over 5,000 online, that leaves a lot to consider. We’re here to help with that, with four altcoins (all in the top 20 in market cap) worthy of your attention.
Ethereum (ETH)
The second biggest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, ETH has seen its price grow by over 300% so far this year, nearly double the rate of BTC. While Ether is the name of the cryptocurrency, the greater Ethereum network is more than the value of one token. It’s the most popular blockchain for building crypto projects, including Ethereum-based altcoins, NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
Cardano (ADA)
While not as buzzy a name as Ethereum, Cardano has clear potential. Firmly in the top ten in market cap, ADA has made some major headway in 2021 in a similar fashion to ETH on the strength of its blockchain platform. Cardano was, in fact, created by one of Ethereum’s co-founders with the intent of building a better blockchain that addressed past faults (namely scalability, interoperability and compliance). And with the rollout of its latest upgrade, Alonzo, Cardano will be able to support smart contracts.
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Chainlink (CHAIN)
Let’s talk smart contracts. Smart contracts are essentially agreements between two parties that exist on a blockchain, whether it’s a transaction, real estate deal or anything else that requires a contract. Chainlink is an Ethereum-based platform that connects (hence the name) smart contracts on any blockchain to different parties (data providers, enterprise systems, cloud services, etc.) hile LINK tokens are the digital assets used to pay for services on the Chainlink network.
Uniswap (UNI)
Some crypto novices may have heard of swapping, whether it’s UNI, SUSHI or another platform, but may be in the dark about what that actually means. In the case of Uniswap, a decentralized crypto exchange (DEX), users are able to swap various Ethereum-based tokens (paired with the UNI token) through liquidity pools, which allow them to earn interest through trading fees. If that all sounds a little too advanced, investors fascinated by Uniswap can simply purchase UNI tokens to HODL (i.e., hold) and not swap.
This post originally appeared on the eToro blog.
eToro USA LLC
This is not investment advice; investments are subject to market risk, including the possible loss of principal.
This content is sponsored and should be regarded as promotional material. Opinions and statements expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of The Daily Hodl. The Daily Hodl is not a subsidiary of or owned by any ICOs, blockchain startups or companies that advertise on our platform. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in any ICOs, blockchain startups or cryptocurrencies. Please be advised that your investments are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility.
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Bitcoin retests $37K support, gold and stocks drop lower over Fed comments
Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped another notch to $37,365 today after a failed attempt by bulls to retake the $40,000 level. The renewed slump comes as the stock market and commodities also pulled back as a result of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments related to future interest rate hikes and concerns over rising inflation which led to pdeclines for both Bitcoin and gold.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of BTC climbed from $38,200 in the early trading hours on Thursday to a high above $39,500 by midday before being pummeled down to a low of $37,365 as bears took control of the market.
Inflows to spot exchanges increase
One signal provided ahead of Bitcoin’s price decline on June 17 was increased inflows to spot exchanges which led some analysts to speculate that traders who failed to cash out near the high are taking advantage of lower highs to lock in gains.
#Bitcoin here you can see quite a contrast between the recent inflows into spot exchanges vs derivative exchanges. Very recently a big increase into spot. One theory is that spot holders who didn’t sell the top are taking the opportunity to get out on a lower high. pic.twitter.com/6SOI2uXHk8
— Tempting Beef (@tempting_beef) June 17, 2021
As the sell-off intensified, the netflow of BTC into exchanges saw a noticeable uptick and this selling pressure, along with the lack of dip buyers, kept Bitcoin pinned below $38,000.
While the recent BTC inflows to exchanges point to a bearish short-term outlook, it is also worth noting that whale wallets holding between 100 BTC and 10,000 BTC have actually increased their holdings by 90,000 BTC over the past 25 days, suggesting a more positive long term outlook.
Related: Bulls aim to reclaim $40K ahead of Friday’s $520M BTC options expiry
Open interest in BTC options is on the rise
Another source to get a better overview of how funds are being deployed across the market is looking at open interest in BTC and Ether (ETH) options.
According to Delphi Digital, “open interest for BTC and ETH options have been in decline since mid-May,” but there has been a slight increase in the options open interest for BTC recently. This figure has remained stagnant for Ether, “indicating traders are trying to position themselves for a BTC move instead.”
Delphi Digital also said that the recent price action for Bitcoin and gold has revived discussions on the ability of each to operate as a “safe haven asset,” with investors increasingly seeing gold as the main inflation hedge, meaning “rising inflation could negatively impact BTC sentiment.”
Given that both assets responded negatively to Powell’s comments, there is a chance that the correlation seen between BTC and gold in 2019 could lead to a revival of the narrative that BTC has evolved into a safe haven asset.
Altcoins lose steam
The overall altcoin market trended down on June 17 as the lack of optimism weighed heavily on most tokens.
Notable exceptions to the market stagnation include a 34% increase for XinFin Network (XDC) following a partnership with Flare Finance and a 32% increase for NuCyper (NU) which has benefited from its recent merger with the Keep project to form the Keanu DAO.
As seen in the chart below, the announced merger between NuCyper and Keep was picked up by the NewsQuake™ service from Cointelegraph Markets Pro on June 15 and was followed by an increase in the VORTECS™ Score to a high of 74 on June 16, around 15 hours before the altcoin gained 44%.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.568 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 45.1%.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
One of the Year’s Top Altcoins Set To Soar 230%, Says Crypto Trader Lark Davis
Crypto trader and investor Lark Davis is eyeing massive gains for one large-cap altcoin.
Davis tells his 386,000 Twitter followers that layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution Polygon (MATIC) is set to accelerate its upward ascent.
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“$5 MATIC is coming, will carve off some more profits there!”
MATIC is up over 7,000% since June of 2020, but evidently Davis thinks gains of over 200% are still in the cards for the popular coin.
This week, Davis also revealed his updated investment portfolio. Davis holds the majority of his portfolio in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC.
30% of the trader’s portfolio is in a variety of altcoin projects.
Of the altcoins that Davis holds, his top five investments are smart contract platform Polkadot (DOT), MATIC, scalable blockchain platform Elrond (EGLD), cross-chain liquidity solution RAMP and decentralized derivatives platform Injective (INJ).
In a separate tweet, Lark reveals he also owns Cardano (ADA), but it is not in his top five altcoin holdings.
Davis also holds 10% of his portfolio in the traditional stock market and 3% in gold and silver.
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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.
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Ethereum to $20,000? Factors Behind The Bold Call
Ethereum could reach $20,000 by 2025 according to a Finder’s panel.
Ethereum has since been gaining momentum, starting out at $1,000 at the beginning of the year and reaching an all time high of $4,196.63, according to Coin Metrics. Before losing steam and dropping down to its current price at $2,400. Clocking an average growth rate of 197.4% in 2021.
This massive run has given the coin a lot of popularity. Ethereum currently ranks as the second most popular coin behind Bitcoin.
Related Reading | Billionaire Tim Draper: Bitcoin Will Reach $250,000 By The End Of 2022
With so much support pouring out for the coin, investors in the coin have been very bullish on it. Lots of analysts believe that Ethereum is poised to overtake Bitcoin as the most popular coin in the market. So much technological advancements are being carried out on the blockchain that its use cases seem to be endless.
Impact Of DeFi and NFTs
The growing popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFTs have helped to push the popularity of Ethereum. Giving it more use cases that benefits the investors in the coin.
About 70 percent of the panel agreed that with DeFi and NFTs, Ethereum now has more use cases than Bitcoin.
John Hawkins, senior lecturer at the University of Canberra, went against the grain to say more use cases would not necessarily benefit the coin. He expanded on this by saying that Ethereum will most likely get dragged down with Bitcoin. Despite having more use cases.
Ethereum price sits below $2,5000 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com
With staking and yield farming with DeFi, investors have found another way to put their investments to work, while at the same time benefiting the network.
With Ethereum 2.0 on the horizon, developers are looking to replace the existing Ethereum blockchain with a new one. This will help to solve the current bottlenecks of the network. It will also increase the number of transactions being made on the network. Hopefully helping to reduce the exorbitant fees being charged for transactions when network traffic is high.
Ethereum Predictions By Finder’s Panelists
The Finder’s panel consisted of a number of prominent panelists. Present were Dr. Iwa Salami from the University of East London. COO of BitBull Capital, Sarah Bergstrand. Vishal Shah, CEO of Alpha5. Head Economist at ConsenSys, Lex Sokolin. Amongst others.
A good number of the panel seemed to agree that while the coin might not have much further to run this year, the next four years is going to see a massive run.
CEO Vishal Shah was on the more conservative side. He predicted that the coin would not be worth much more than it is now. Putting it at just $4,000 by 2025. Shah believes that Ethereum will continue to perform. But that the unlimited supply of the coin is a demerit to it. He also added that Ethereum was in a race with other protocols for the its usability profile. And that there are other faster and cheaper chains that will rival the coin in the future.
Related Reading | TA: Ethereum Price Holds Strong, Why Dips Remain Limited Below $1,850
Others did not see this as a befitting forecast. Citing the upgrades being done on the network, Sarah Bergstrand, Chief Operations Officer at BitBull, gave a price prediction of $100,000 per ETH by the end of 2025. A staggering forecast.
She believes that mass adoption of Bitcoin will be followed by mass adoption of Ethereum. Also that the upgrades being carried out on the network will help to push the price higher.
Dr. Paul Ennis put his prediction at $10,000 by the end of 2025. Stating that Ethereum is currently undervalued.
Dr. Salami went on to give the coin a $20,000 forecast by 2025.
This brought the average of the panel’s predictions to $19,842 per ETH by 2025.
Featured image from Blockchain News, chart from TradingView.com
Could The Golden Ratio Provide Clues To The Bitcoin Bottom?
Bitcoin and other assets often develop support and resistance around Fibonacci levels, either through extensions or retracement. The ratios are based on the Fibonacci sequence, which has ties to the Golden Ratio.
With the top cryptocurrency so tied to mathematics, the Golden Ratio could provide clues as to where Bitcoin is in its latest market cycle, and if a bottom has been put in.
Cryptocurrency And Mathematics: More Than Just Code And Geometrical Shapes
The Bitcoin code is built entirely on math, its distribution protocol also steeped in math, and just about everything else about it. The scarce supply of 21 million BTC is slashed in half every four years, and the sum of the event is often an imbalance of supply versus demand in favor of price appreciation.
Even chart patterns and technical indicators are little more than math – geometrical shapes drawn manually and statistics represented through graphical overlays and oscillators.
Related Reading | Fibonacci Day: How To Use Math To Trade Crypto
But could math also be used to find Bitcoin tops and bottoms? Among the most accurate tools for picking out the top of each market cycle is called the Pi Cycle indicator and is based on the mathematical constant. And according to one trader, the Golden Ratio is how to find each Bitcoin bottom on the way up during the bull market.
The crypto asset has historically retraced to the 1.618 Fibonacci ratio | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
How The Golden Ratio Could Act As The Bitcoin Bottom Before New Highs
According to the pseudonymous analyst, after fully recovering to the 1.0 Fibonacci ratio and breaking above it, Bitcoin then blasts through the 1.618 Golden Ratio, only to later retest it. Retesting it has resulted in the last major correction before the final bullish impulse that takes the cryptocurrency to its genuine cycle top.
Other tools related to math have called the cycle top, as mentioned above. However, the tool’s creator says the crossover to give the signal was so narrowly achieved, it leaves room for another cycle top a few months later.
Related Reading | Mathematical Mystery: Why Did The Bitcoin Rally Stop At The Golden Ratio?
Bitcoin price is trying to hold closer to $40,000 after a deep plunge to $30,000 and one of the worst monthly selloffs on record. But that selloff went right to the Golden Ratio as the cryptocurrency has during last market cycles and each time that was it for the downside.
Not only did the nascent digital asset reclaim highs, it more grew another 500% from the lows. As we now know math rarely is wrong when it comes to the cryptocurrency, and another similar percentage climb would take Bitcoin price well over $100,000 per coin.
Featured image from iStock Photos, Charts from TradingView.com
The Marathon: Ethiopia And Bitcoin
Africa is large, young and dynamic. What happens when a country like Ethiopia puts Bitcoin to the ultimate stress test?
I. Little Brother Bitcoin
Ethiopia, like most countries, is bound to have a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), in the flavor of a U.S. dollar backed Ethiopian birr. This new CBDC will allow the State to continue printing currency in the digital age.
As reasoned by Alex Gladstein in Cato Journal’s recent essay, “Financial Freedom and Privacy in the Post-Cash World”, “Society is currently undergoing a historic shift away from paper‐based, bearer asset daily money toward completely electronic, corporate ledger daily money. This change is part of a long trend of disuse of all bearer instruments, like stock certificates and bearer bonds.”
This strategic removal of cash (and some might argue privacy) from the economy will allow the State to go on spending, which will add to the inflation and debt cycle via its new digital currency. Some actors, including bureaucrats and self-serving organizations, will enjoy this increased State spending. Viewed from the perspective that petroleum production backs the USD, it’s fair to conclude that many of the actors in this inflationary-debt bubble have been acting in bad faith. More toxically, it may be commented that these “fiduciary” leaders of money and policy are intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt. Henry Kissinger, for example, might add that “It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.” And any honest dissenters to this hegemony, with the late Jamal Khashoggi coming to mind, are often met with a deadly response.
Ethio Telecom (the State-owned monopoly provider) introducing TeleBirr is a decades-late step in the right direction toward digital money. Integration and application building, as well as hardware and infrastructure challenges still remain, but new capital will allow for a larger customer base. At present, only 20-25% of Ethiopians have access to telecom services.
In the next few months we will likely continue to see a rise in bitcoin price. Value will continue to be created by a decentralized pool of miners and node operators and stored in bitcoin. As solutions on the Lightning Network and Layer 2 offer daily users near zero fees and under one second transaction times, adoption in young countries like Ethiopia will happen sooner than we think. And given its finite supply and 130 year marathon of increasing computational difficulty, bitcoin, with its decentralized ambition for a new money, may just very well be the new standard as proclaimed by Saifedean Ammous.
This new standard, unresponsive to regulation or influence, will upset the Ethiopian government, much as a little brother might unnerve a powerful big brother. Both will coexist, but because only the former will heed the lessons of the past, the little brother will provide more value. In contrast with fiat currency bitcoin is non-inflationary, incorruptible and immutably secured by precious (and increasingly renewable) energy. It’s worth noting that not a single “alternative” coin has improved on this protocol. Even more important, this enviable separation of state and money will lead to drastic shifts in global allegiances. After reading Befekadu Degefe in the Journal of Ethiopian Studies, “The Making of the Ethiopian National Currency 1941-45”, we can see that the history of the Ethiopian Birr is one of Italian brutality and British interest. The Emperor Haile Selassie, cautious to accept any proposal from foreign interest, instead proposed that the national currency be provided by the State Bank of Ethiopia and his trusted advisors as to ensure a convertibility to silver and gold bullion through the then Maria Theresa dollar. This standard, of course, fell once Richard Nixon took the USD off the gold standard in 1971.
II. Bitcoin for Billions
Most Ethiopian’s will always remember where they were at the time of artist and activist Hachalu Hundessa’s assassination. Between the hours of nightfall on June 29, 2020 and the following Tuesday morning, tragic news of Hundessa’s death worked its way through informal channels. As Telegram groups grew frantic and fearful as to what would happen next, Addis Ababa turned frigid. 2020 was about to get even more fragile. Ethiopia lost internet as quickly as most neighborhoods lost electricity that morning. And there would be no more connections made through the state-owned monopoly telecom provider for the next three weeks.
Much like USD, Bitcoin is not legal tender in Ethiopia. And because of telecom limitations, more than 70 million Ethiopians are currently incapable of opening a digital wallet. Those are the only two challenges I can find in Ethiopia for widespread adoption of bitcoin as both a store of value and as a currency to be used for daily transactions.
Given the volatility of bitcoin, it may be the case that, for practical reasons, the United States dollar will be used as a temporary unit of account. But over time, with revisions in law and global alliances, and with it furiously increasing velocity of use, bitcoin will become a standard countries like Ethiopia cannot escape.
Similar to Greater Africa, over 70% of Ethiopia is under the age of 27. The majority of Ethiopians are living under increasingly expensive conditions which create inflated prices and diminishing returns of value. The Ethiopian Birr, at roughly 20% per year, is debased through a variety of factors. These factors exist within an academic cocktail of printing, borrowing, spending, and dead aid (reference to Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo). Whatever Ethiopia’s growth rate, the exports seem to never be enough. As a result, the price of a holiday lamb (think of it as a holiday ham) has gone from 1,200 Ethiopian Birr ($66.67) in 2014 to an average price of 5,700 Ethiopian Birr ($142.50) in 2021. Meanwhile salaries have increased at a much slower pace.
Aside from a Telegram group and an Amharic language translation of “The Little Bitcoin Book”, little itcoin educational material exists in Ethiopia. Aside from a Telegram group and an Amharic language translation of “The Little Bitcoin Book,” little bitcoin educational materials exist in the native tongue of Ethiopians. In addition, activity that involves USD is by law reserved for foreign investors or Ethiopian diaspora. And given the strong penalties incurred if an Ethiopian evades the foreign currency laws, Bitcoiners stand firmly in the closet.
What makes the question of adoption interesting is the seemingly laggard position held by Ethiopians in Africa. Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa lead the continent in bitcoin ownership. These countries have built several legitimate businesses using bitcoin as a better money. Even as regulators and lawmen use sticks of persuasion, citizens boldly send and stack sats. If you thought laser-eyed fund managers in the West were bullish, you haven’t met 23 year-old Ethiopian freelancers who run completely digitized projects (from procurement to contracting and invoicing) using applications and Layer 2 open-source Lightning wallets. Humble as these transactions may be, these kids are taking a large risk to fulfill their basic rights of untampered money and sovereign value.
III. The Oracle Problem
Ethiopians love marathons. Like many populations with high-fiber diets, high altitudes and scenic countrysides, we are very good at it too. And similar to our love of marathons, we have also made sport of running around in circles on the topics of money and technology. As a good friend in the diplomatic community commented, “While the whole world is sprinting towards quarterly reporting calendars, Ethiopians think and act in centuries and millennia.” Because of these cultural and institutional bureaucracies and inefficiencies, Ethiopia and similar countries will continue a faulty trend of debasing money and inflation.
For example “smart contract” is a term used to describe code that automatically executes all or parts of an agreement stored on a blockchain-based platform. These smart contracts often rely on receiving information from resources that are not on the blockchain itself, thus needing to use “oracles” or trusted third parties for this information. These oracles become a “point of failure” and can be functions of garbage data, simple malfunction or deliberate tampering. The oracle problem is that third parties can’t be trusted.
This fault is fundamentally tied to a lack of understanding of one basic and often conflated point. We, as mere humans in the technology era, have not solved the oracle problem. The term comes from Greek mythology and refers to someone able to communicate directly with God and see the future. In programming, it refers to a similar concept that the confirmation of data (often as information is coming from the real world and into information systems or blockchains) is entrusted to decision makers or man-made “oracles”. Within the noise of smart contracts and innovation, these decisive oracles can be (and often are) functions of garbage data, simple malfunction or deliberate tampering.
The oracle problem, short of divine miracle or Hollywood magic, has not yet been solved for.
It is within this environment I plead with Ethiopians to capitalize on what is the most important innovation to money that they will see within our lifetimes. As a country and people we should be looking to escape the inflationary ills of the petrodollar (and its wicked derivatives) and instead mine, save and budget in bitcoin.
If we are to have any chance of real development out of poverty and into sustainable growth, serious consideration of a sovereign wealth fund in bitcoin, with full State custody along with transparency in accounting, should be taken. As of this writing, Norway, via its Norwegian Government Pension Fund, is the only country to think beyond oil and the United States dollar. According to Arcane Research, as of September 2020, the fund owns almost 600 BTC through its investment holdings. Echoing my conclusions, in “The Humanitarian and Environmental Case for Bitcoin,” published by Bitcoin Magazine, Alex Gladstein poses a brave new future: “Could Sudan and Ethiopia, with massive wind and solar resources powering Bitcoin mining and a growing electric grid, be Norways of the future?”
Then there is El Salvador, adopting bitcoin as the legal tender in the country. While the law has not yet been officially implemented, nor have they confirmed the holding of bitcoin on their asset sheet, the country is posed to create a trust which will facilitate the usage of Bitcoin’s infrastructure. The simple announcement of this adoption has been enough to spur much discussion on the nation state usage of Bitcoin.
As the block height moves forward, the hash rates will grow in difficulty and the price of a single satoshi will naturally grow above that of a penny. Knowing that poverty is indeed not fun (reference to the “have fun staying poor” meme), I plead once more: this is one marathon we cannot afford to lose.
This is a guest post by Kal Kassa. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
NFT Real Estate in Ethereum Metaverse Sells for Record $913K
In brief
- A virtual plot of real estate in the Ethereum-based game Decentraland has sold for more than $913,000 worth of MANA.
- It was purchased by Republic Realm, an investment firm focused on digital real estate in decentralized worlds.
A virtual plot of land sold as an NFT in the open-world metaverse game Decentraland has sold for a record amount: more than $913,000, based on the price of the game’s Ethereum-based MANA cryptocurrency at the time.
The estate NFT, called a LAND token in the game, sold for 1,295,000 MANA. According to data from NonFungible, this is the highest-value LAND sale to date in terms of U.S. dollars. However, there have been past sales for more MANA when the currency was much less valuable. The record is 2,772,000 MANA in November 2018, which was worth just under $211,000 at the time.
An NFT acts as a deed of ownership to a digital item, and is tokenized on a blockchain so that it can be easily authenticated. NFTs take all sorts of forms, from still images to video clips or even tweets. In the crypto video game world, however, NFTs have additional utility and can take the form of in-game items, rare character designs, playable cards, or even customizable land plots.
Republic Realm, a firm that invests in virtual real estate in crypto games, has claimed the new record purchase. Republic Realm is a division of Republic, an online investment platform that itself has notable investors, including AngelList, Binance, and Galaxy Interactive. Republic Realm has not yet disclosed how it plans to utilize the Decentraland estate, which is located in the game’s Dragon Kingdom district.
“We can’t wait to announce our big plans for this estate,” the firm tweeted. “Our commitment to building and developing the metaverse is stronger than ever.”
Decentraland is an Ethereum-based online metaverse in which players can freely explore the world, interact with each other, and play games within the environment. The 3D game is a bit like virtual world pioneer Second Life mixed with blocky sensation Minecraft, albeit with the blockchain-driven twist of true item ownership and a player-driven economy.
Decentraland is not the only blockchain-based game built around plots of digital land sold as NFTs, either. The Sandbox and Axie Infinity, both also built on Ethereum, are two other games that have raked in millions of dollars selling virtual real estate.
In this case, Decentraland broke an estate sale record established just weeks ago. Earlier this month, blockchain protocol Boson announced that it had purchased a Decentraland estate for about $704,000 in the game’s valuable Vegas City district, with plans to build a virtual mall to advertise its decentralized infrastructure products.
Bitcoin Bull Michael Saylor Says Ethereum Pushing to Dematerialize Banking Establishment
Bitcoin bull and the CEO of enterprise analytics software firm MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor, is lnaming the three main components that he believes comprise the crypto ecosystem.
In an interview with CNBC, Saylor lists ‘digital property’ as the first component of the cryptocurrency universe. While likening Bitcoin to precious real estate in the New York City borough of Manhattan, the MicroStrategy CEO says Bitcoin is the most dominant digital property.
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“Let’s talk about the crypto universe… You’ve got digital property and Bitcoin is the highest, most dominant digital property network. Think of it as granite blocks in Manhattan, in cyber Manhattan…
So Bitcoin is meant to last forever. High integrity, very durable.”
The second component of the crypto universe, according to the MicroStrategy CEO is ‘digital currency.’ The largest stablecoin by market cap, Tether (USDT), and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) fall under this category.
“Then you have got digital currency. That’s like Tether and stablecoins. They want to be money markets in cyberspace. And so they will be like the CBDC dollars.”
Per the Bitcoin bull, digital applications are the third component of the crypto universe. Saylor points out that the Ethereum smart contract blockchain, which falls under digital applications, poses a threat to traditional financial institutions.
“Then you have got digital applications like Ethereum. Ethereum wants to dematerialize the JP Morgan building and banking establishment and all of the exchanges.”
Saylor points out that as the crypto market matures, the three main components will all have different roles to play and a reason to co-exist.
“I think as the market starts to understand these things there’s a place for everybody.”
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