The U.S. Empire Has Fallen, Choose Bitcoin

The moral authority of the U.S. has been lost. Instead, choose Bitcoin and other open systems that respect freedom in the digital age.

The below article was originally published in Marty’s Bent Issue #1057: “The Empire Has Fallen.”

The Empire has fallen. It probably fell years ago, maybe even a decade or two ago, but most don’t understand this yet. These type of things are only recognized in retrospect by the public at large.

As it stands today, the US Government has no moral high ground from which to attempt to police the rest of the world. How could they dare to attempt to lecture others? The Federal Government in the US doesn’t even strive to live up to the ideals this country was founded on. It has demonized free speech by verbally tar and feathering anyone who goes against the approved narrative and labeling them “misinformation super spreaders”. It has proven to be woefully incompetent as a military power that is able to strategize and execute. And it has sold out the American people to special interests who completely control the legislative process at this point. Nothing made this more clear than the Infrastructure Bill that was written by a bunch of lobbyists and the utterly disastrous end to a 20-year war during which the Department of Defense doled out over a TRILLION dollars of taxpayer money to War Machine contractors who made out like bandits while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Freaks, the time to walk away from this burning empire, ignore the Federal Government, and start building new systems that respect the ideals this country was founded on is right fucking now. There is absolutely no chance at saving the pile of burning rubble. Any time spent giving this system a chance to fix itself from within is nothing more than false hope and wasted time. We have a lot of work to do. The kleptocratic class has fucked up the world to an astonishing extent. Individuals around the world need to take it upon themselves to begin building parallel systems that the masses can opt-in to without getting on their knees and begging the government for permission. Your vote doesn’t matter. They don’t give a fuck about you. The Federal Government doesn’t deserve your respect and you should show them none.

The quicker more individuals realize this, the better off humanity will be and the quicker we’ll be able to right the ship. Spread the message. Start rallying around fairer systems like Bitcoin and other free and open source software systems that respect freedom in the Digital Age and human dignity.

To read the original post and more of Bent’s work, visit TFTC.io.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Robinhood Pledges Crypto Wallets and ‘More Coins’—but Won’t Say When

In brief

  • Robinhood’s CEO talked extensively about the company’s crypto plans during an earnings call.
  • While Robinhood spoke of widespread enthusiasm for a wallet, he said building one was “tricky.”

Robinhood’s plans for crypto include listing more assets, providing “interest and rewards” to users, and adding a wallet that will let users move tokens on and off the platform. The company shared those details during a Wednesday afternoon earnings call, but it offered few specifics about when such products might appear.

“I know there’s been a ton of enthusiasm from the crypto community and the Dogecoin community in particular in getting access to wallets,” assured Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, who added the company was “excited to roll this out to customers.”

Tenev, who has promised a wallet in the past, added that integrating one was “tricky to do at scale” and that the company wants to make the wallet as “bulletproof” as possible when it comes to security.

His comments come at a time when the majority of new Robinhood customers’ purchases are coming in the form of crypto, and when revenue from Dogecoin in particular is making up a hefty portion of the company’s bottom line.

Currently, the company limits customers’ crypto activities to buying and selling the assets on the Robinhood app—an arrangement that reflects only a small fraction of the activities possible within the broader crypto world. Adding features such as the ability to send crypto off the platform or earn interest on crypto holdings would put Robinhood in better position to compete with Coinbase, a company that has become one of its primary rivals.

In an apparent swipe at Coinbase, Tenev said he was proud of Robinhood’s pricing compared to competitors that oblige users to pay “multi-percent” fees and commissions. Robinhood doesn’t charge fees but does make money by selling crypto for higher rates than the price it pays to obtain the crypto.

On several occasions, Tenev referred to Robinhood’s desire to list “more coins.” Right now, the app only offers seven cryptocurrencies—a far cry from the dozens or hundreds offered on pure crypto exchanges.

Robinhood isn’t the only company from the world of traditional finance looking to bulk up its crypto offerings—payment giant PayPal is likewise working on a crypto wallet and exploring various blockchain technologies.

In another sign that crypto is taking on a greater role in Robinhood’s thinking, Tenev at one point used the phrase “diamond-handed” to describe customers who bought stock in companies prior to their going public. “Diamond-handed” is a neologism that originated in crypto circles, and refers to investors who don’t sell in choppy market conditions.

Source

Tagged : / /

Institutional Investors FOMO For Ethereum Exposure

Ethereum trends show it’s becoming more valuable as ETH 2.0 draws near. Thus, institutional investors are clamoring to get in on the action before it is too late. A signal for this has been ETH Futures have been trading at a higher basis premium than BTC Futures on CME. ETH Futures have continuously traded at a higher rolling basis than BTC Futures for the past three months. This could show that institutional investors are more bullish on ETH’s future in comparison to BTC. But other factors have also led to the ETH Futures trading so high.

Related Reading | Ethereum Fee Burns Clocks $100 Million, Here’s Why The Burn Is Important

ETH Futures on CME have only been live for February. This means that the market has not yet had time to adjust to market conditions. Whereas in the case of BTC Futures, investors have been trading on them for the past four years on CME. So the market has had more time to get used to the market conditions surrounding BTC Futures, along with established setups to utilize cash and carry trades in the most efficient manner.

5 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 15 BTC + 35.000 Free Spins every month, only at mBitcasino. Play Now!

Chart showing comparison between ETH Futures basis and BTC Futures basis

Chart showing comparison between ETH Futures basis and BTC Futures basis


ETH Futures basis higher than BTC Futures basis | Source: CME Crypto Futures 3-Month Rolling Basis from Arcane Research

ETH Futures being just six months old has not given the market much time to establish the same patterns with BTC Futures. The ETH futures are still evolving and investors are trading in a mature which is yet to mature. But this has started to change.

Institutional Investors Need More ETH Exposure

ETH Futures experienced high basis premiums at launch, which most likely was due to institutional investors using the ETH Futures on CME as a way to get more exposure to ETH. But as time moved on, the ETH Futures market has continued to mature. ETH Futures’ basis saw a declining trend as more trading firms take advantage of the CME to carry out cash and carry trades. Following the same trend on the BTC basis.

Get 110 USDT Futures Bonus for FREE!

Related Reading | Meet The 9 And 14-Year-Old Sibling Duo Making $32,000 A Month With Ethereum

The passage of time has however seen this contango grow from the lows. A spike saw the BTC basis shooting up, before finally stabilizing at around 3%. While ETH basis saw an even higher spike, which had eventually stabilized at 7%. ETH Futures have remained in an uptrend in the weeks following the spike to the current position.

This higher climb in the ETH basis than the BTC basis shows that institutional investors are currently more bullish on Ethereum compared to Bitcoin. Basis trends between the two futures put Ethereum on a higher trajectory than its Bitcoin counterpart.

Ethereum Institutional Interest Showing In Price Movements

The CME ETH Futures are not the only indication that institutional investors are showing more interest in Ethereum. Price movements in ETH also indicate more interest in the asset over pioneer cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Ethereum (ETH) price chart from TradingView.com

Ethereum (ETH) price chart from TradingView.com


ETH's price is up 240% in 2021 alone | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

ETH’s price has outperformed the price of Bitcoin this year by over 200%. While the performance for Bitcoin for the year 2021 sits at less than 38%, ETH’s performance is up 240%. This disparity in performance shows investors are moving more towards Ethereum. Leading to the high growth in price compared to BTC.

Ethereum network continues to expand its use cases with the upgrade to ETH 2.0. It is the leading network for DeFi and NFT development. Its TPS is higher than that of Bitcoin, and the move to proof of stake will cut down the network’s energy usage by 99%.

Featured image from The Cryptonomist, charts from Arcane Research and TradingView.com

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / /

How North American Bitcoin Miners Are Benefitting From China’s Ban

Since China cracked down on Bitcoin mining, North American miners have been stacking BTC.

The below is from a recent edition of the Deep Dive, Bitcoin Magazine‘s premium markets newsletter. To be among the first to receive these insights and other on-chain bitcoin market analysis straight to your inbox, subscribe now.

In previous Daily Dives, we covered the mass exodus of bitcoin mining operations out of mainland China following the regulator crackdown.

In particular, we highlighted how bullish of a tailwind this was for North American miners. In “The Daily Dive #021 – North American Miners Arise As Big Winners” published on July 13, we said as follows:

“The last time there was a disconnect of this size between the production cost estimated by the energy value indicator and the price of bitcoin was in December 2017, at the peak of the cycle, when the price of bitcoin briefly touched $20,000 while estimated energy value was about $2,300, but this was due to the parabolic increase in price instead of a fall in hash rate, which is what has occurred recently.

“What we can broadly take away from this is that we are currently witnessing one of the most profitable times to mine bitcoin ever, and industry stakeholders will not let this gift go to waste.

“Some of the biggest winners of the mass mining migration: North American Miners.” – “The Daily Dive #021 – North American Miners Arise As Big Winners”

Since then, a number of North American, publicly-traded bitcoin miners have published their quarterly results, and they posted quarter-over-quarter increases in bitcoin mined across the board.

  • Bitfarms (BITF), mined 758 BTC over the course of the quarter compared to 598 BTC the quarter prior.
  • Hut 8 (HUT) mined 553 BTC over the course of the quarter compared to 539 in the quarter prior.
  • Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) mined 654 BTC compared to 192 the quarter prior.
  • Riot Blockchain (RIOT) mined 676 BTC over the quarter compared to 491 BTC in the quarter prior. 

Miner Bitcoin Wallet Balance

unnamed (3)

Since March, the total bitcoin in miners’ wallets has been on the rise and is making its way towards the 2020 high of 1,829,642 BTC. The substantial decline in hash rate that followed the intervention by the Chinese Communist Party has been a gift for all other miner industry stakeholders, due to the substantial decrease in miner difficulty.

Over the last 30 days, miners have accumulated 5,357 more BTC than they have transferred, in an increasingly-bullish trend that reduces sell pressure across the broader bitcoin market.

Read More

Source

Tagged : / / / / / /

Highstreet Announces $5 Million Round To Combine VR, NFT, and Crypto

Key Takeaways

  • Highstreet is a next-generation digital marketplace where users can shop in group in virtual reality.
  • The project has completed a $5 million raise from crypto and traditional VCs alike.
  • Highstreet is reimagining the retail experience allowing groups of users to shop NFTs together tied to real-world products.




Share this article



The VR Metaverse is inching closer. With some calling for “NFT Summer,” Highstreet, a metaverse-based DeFi marketplace for NFTs and other digital items, has raised $5 million.

Highstreet: NFT Marketplace in Virtual Reality

Highstreet aims to bring the digital marketplace to virtual reality. The Canadian startup has raised $5 million from crypto and traditional VCs such as Mechanism Capital, NFC Ventures, or Jump Trading. The round also included influencers and community members such as Miss Bitcoin, Encrypt Club, or Mr. Block.


Andrew Kang, Managing Partner at Mechanism Capital, said, “Retail consumers have shown increasing attention and familiarity with digitally native goods, but most brands haven’t been able to tap into this interest. Highstreet offers the potential for traditional retail brands to generate interest and loyalty among their customer base in a completely new fashion through NFTs.”

This funding will allow Highstreet to expand its engineering department, focusing on developers with Unity experience. The goal is to create a seamless metaverse experience where users can shop together and experience what they call “the future of retail.”

SIMETRI Research
Blockone Settlement


The world of Highstreet will be composed of different explorable islands powered by brands or partners, complete with residential zones and shopping areas where users can buy NFTs. These NFTs might be digital artwork, but they can also entail customers to real-world items. To promote their latest album, Kings of Leon offered NFTs that entailed customers to the real vinyl pressings.

“Highstreet is excited to have such a diverse group of investors join us on our journey to build the future of retail. Many believed e-commerce was the beginning of the end for extravagant brand activations and charming storefronts. However, the excitement of shopping lives on in the metaverse. In a virtual world, brand expression is limitless, bound not by building costs nor physics. The ultimate retail experience will debut soon, right here on Highstreet,” said Travis Wu, CEO of Highstreet.

Disclaimer: The author held ETH and several other cryptocurrencies at the time of writing.

Share this article




Source

Tagged : / / / /

Bitcoin Can Protect Your Portfolio From Inflation

Discussing how bitcoin can protect portfolios from inflation and the proposed U.S. infrastructure bill.

Watch This Episode On YouTube

Listen To This Episode:

In this episode of the “Bitcoin Bottomline,” hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson discussed how to alter your portfolio allocation based on inflation, what the infrastructure bill means for Bitcoin and how legislative involvement plays a part in the Bitcoin space.

This episode dove into the details of the proposed U.S. infrastructure bill, including providing perspective on the terminology in the bill. McClurg explained the term “broker” and how the definition of the word in the new infrastructure bill differs from that of a crypto broker, using the example of a real estate broker. McClurg explained how bitcoin falls under the same rules as real estate, since it’s considered by the IRS to be property and not currently viewed as a security by the U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission. He went on to say that in terms of the new bill, bitcoin “should be an exemption, and I think it will be.”

They later discussed Wilson’s meeting with Senator Ted Cruz and his interest in Bitcoin, which was made possible by the actions that Bitcoiners have taken in outreach to political representatives to publicly speak on the matter.

Inflation is on the rise, and McClurg gave some advice to listeners:

“It doesn’t make sense to own bonds anymore,” he said. “Owning property, bitcoin, real estate, art, or any other kind of hard asset, those are the only things that can protect you from inflation that’s coming.”

Wilson touched on the “freedom” and “future” aspects of Bitcoin.

“Whatever you have in your bitcoin holdings today could potentially be a down payment for a house in the future,” he said.

Wilson and McClurg closed out the episode with a conversation about how inflation might be worse than we thought.

“You’re seeing people gobbling up all these hard assets that are saying ‘this is a special thing because it’s unique.,” Wilson stated.

McClurg shared another perspective, explaining how “not everyone has the ability to plow into hard assets to protect themselves.”

This begs the question: With the prices of houses and cars exponentially increasing, while wages stay relatively the same, how will the average American, living paycheck to paycheck, retire? 

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / /

Publicly Listed Mortgage Company Announces Plans To Accept Payments in Bitcoin and Crypto: Report

New York Stock Exchange-listed mortgage firm United Wholesale Mortgage Holdings Corporation (NYSE: UWMC) says it intends to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

In an earnings call during the release of the company’s second-quarter 2021 results, the chairman and CEO of the publicly listed firm, Mat Ishbia, says the plan could take effect in the coming months

“We’ve evaluated the feasibility, and we’re looking forward to being the first mortgage company in America to accept cryptocurrency to satisfy mortgage payments.

That’s something that we’ve been working on, and we’re excited that hopefully, in Q3, we can actually execute on that before anyone in the country because we are a leader in technology and innovation.”

In an interview with the Free Press, Ishbia says they plan to initially accept Bitcoin (BTC) before expanding the list to other crypto assets.

“I think we’re starting with Bitcoin, but we’re looking at Ethereum and others. We’re going to walk before we run…

That’s the plan. Obviously, [there are] no guarantees – we’re still working through some details. But absolutely.”

The announcement comes as the company’s total gains margin saw a significant drop in the second quarter amid a rise in the volume of closed mortgages. UWMC’s closed loan volume rose over 20% from $49.02 billion in the first quarter to $59.21 in the second quarter. However, the company’s gains margin fell to 0.81% in Q2 from 2.19% in the first quarter.

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get crypto email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram

Surf The Daily Hodl Mix

ADVERTISEMENT

 

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.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/K303

Source

Tagged : / / /

Here’s Who Could Be ‘Captured’ by New Crypto Provisions in the US, According to Lawyer Jake Chervinsky

Crypto legal expert Jake Chervinsky is laying out exactly how crypto provisions in the new infrastructure bill could impact the cryptocurrency industry.

In an interview on the Bankless podcast, Chervinsky gives a refresher on the new US bill, explaining that its expansion of the term “broker” could negatively affect virtually everyone in the crypto industry.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

In a decentralized, largely anonymous and private ecosystem, Chervinsky says things like filing a 1099 form – which the bill would require for most entities in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space – would be impossible.

“The infrastructure bill’s tax provision would expand the definition of these ‘brokers’ to have these reporting requirements to include basically every single actor in the crypto markets. The definition says ‘anyone who is in the business of regularly providing a service that effectuates transfers of digitals assets is a broker’…”

Chervinsky, DeFi chair of the Blockchain Association, goes on to name a handful of the different entities that could be “captured” by the new provision.

“In theory, miners might have to do form 1099s for any user for whom they include a transaction in a block. Potentially liquidity providers in decentralized exchange (DEX) protocols could be captured by this requirement and have to KYC (know your customer) all of the users of the DEX protocol. Or DeFi interface providers, which includes most of the major DeFi developers and also aggregators, in theory, could be captured by this.”

The lawyer says the popular non-fungible token (NFT) space could be impacted as well.

“Something we haven’t even started to discuss publicly I think, is how this impacts NFTs. You could imagine an NFT marketplace being captured by this. Even, in theory, content creators themselves could be turned into brokers under the tax code…

And of course… There is fundamentally no way for these persons to comply with the IRS reporting requirements that are usually imposed on centralized custodial intermediaries.”

[embedded content]

l

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get crypto email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram

Surf The Daily Hodl Mix

ADVERTISEMENT



 

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.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/sdecoret

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Dogecoin Risk Grows Larger for Robinhood’s Crypto Business: Q2 Filing

In brief

  • Robinhood has again listed Dogecoin as a potential risk for the company; this time in its Q2 earnings report.
  • Dogecoin alone made up 62% of Robinhood’s cryptocurrency revenue for the span.

Dogecoin is one of the most volatile cryptocurrencies on the market today, as the price swings more aggressively in both directions than many of its contemporaries and it’s heavily influenced by social media sentiment—particularly from Elon Musk. It has been a huge boon for crypto and stock trading app Robinhood so far in 2021, but the firm still thinks it presents a risk for its business—and a growing one at that.

In today’s Q2 earnings report, the first since the company went public in July, Robinhood said that cryptocurrency accounted for 41% of its overall revenue for the span. And of that figure, 62% of the crypto revenue came solely from Dogecoin, even though Robinhood also lets users buy and sell coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

That’s a huge chunk of revenue from one silly meme coin amidst significant overall growth for its crypto business during the quarter. Still, although DOGE is currently responsible for a significant amount of incoming revenue for Robinhood, the firm recognizes that its volatile nature means that such inflows may be unreliable in the future.

“A substantial portion of the recent growth in our net revenues earned from cryptocurrency transactions is attributable to transactions in Dogecoin,” reads the Q2 earnings report. “If demand for transactions in Dogecoin declines and is not replaced by new demand for other cryptocurrencies available for trading on our platform, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.”

It’s a similar story to Robinhood’s Q1 report, in which the company first called out Dogecoin as a potential risk factor regarding its cryptocurrency business. Back then, cryptocurrency only accounted for 17% of the firm’s overall revenue for the span, and Dogecoin’s share of that crypto revenue was only 34%.

Now that Dogecoin’s share has nearly doubled, the risk posed by the coin’s potential downturn is even more significant.

Robinhood’s report suggested ways in which Dogecoin’s changing momentum could affect its future business, such as if the price drops, if “negative perceptions of Dogecoin” persist, or if Dogecoin becomes more readily available to purchase on competing platforms and exchanges. In fact, competing cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase added Dogecoin in June, providing investors another popular destination for buying and selling DOGE.

Robinhood has been one of the leading marketplaces for Dogecoin so far in 2021, parlaying increased demand from the early-year “meme stock” run on GameStop and AMC into the rising meme coin instead. Dogecoin shot up from a price of less than a penny at the start of the year to a peak above $0.73 in May.

Even at a current price just below $0.30 as of this writing, DOGE has delivered immense returns to holders who got in before the surge. Still, just like the investors that use its app, Robinhood is keenly aware of Dogecoin’s potential for wild upswings and downturns alike.

Source

Tagged : / / /

Solana Breaks $80 Barrier, Why It Could Still Climb 4x From Here

Making its way into the crypto top 10 by market cap, Solana (SOL) has reached a new all-time high briefly hitting over $80 in the past day. At the time of writing, SOL trades at $76,38 with a 15% profit in the daily chart.

Solana SOL SOLUSDT

Solana has remained impervious to the downside price action experienced by most cryptocurrencies in the top 10. As NewsBTC reported, SOL records over 140% profit in the past month and seems poised for more appreciation.

Investor Daniel Cheung has been bullish on this network and its ecosystem and believes it will be a strong competitor for Ethereum in the coming months. Thus, Cheung expects SOL to provide one of the best risk/reward investments in the crypto space for the long term.

5 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 15 BTC + 35.000 Free Spins every month, only at mBitcasino. Play Now!

After its more recent rally to an ATH, Cheung published the main reasons that could make investors rethink the possibility of taking profits in the short term.

According to Cheung, Solana has the potential for another rally that could push its price 4 times up from its current value. Looking at this network at its ecosystem’s fundamentals, the investors found support for its bullish thesis.

Per SOL’s current total value locked (TVL) has followed its price action and recently reached a new all-time high at $1.93 billion. The ecosystem has benefited from several product launches in the DeFi and Non-fungible token (NFT) sector.

Get 110 USDT Futures Bonus for FREE!

While TVL isn’t a perfect measurement of adoption, it is a good proxy because it does show how much value people are entrusting to smart contracts.

Solana SOL SOLUSDT

As a consequence of Solana’s rising, other ecosystems have been on a decline after being an important hub for finance applications, such as the Binance Smart Chain.

Solana SOL SOLUSDT

The Long Term Effect On The Altcoin Market, What Solana Could Trigger

Moreover, Cheung expects Solana’s fundamentals to continue to strengthen with the potential for its ecosystem to increase its total value locked 15 to 20 times from its current levels.

On a base case scenario where I believe TVL could get to 4bn and you apply a 15x to 20x TVL multiple, $SOL could get to a 60bn to 80bn circulating mkt cap. That would be 4x from here. Thinking big picture is how you get rich in investing.

Pseudonym trader Altcoin Sherpa shares Cheung’s bullish vision. The trader believes that Solana and Terra, another layer one projected to become a strong competitor for Ethereum, could absorb capital from other altcoins.

Thus, SOL and LUNA could benefit, while other cryptocurrencies bleed:

SOL and LUNA will be liquidity black holes for the altcoin market in the coming days/weeks. If you’re asking yourself “why isn’t my altcoin moving??”, it’s probably because all that $ is going towards the super trending shit right now. Having some exposure to these is good.

Source

Tagged : / / / / / /
Bitcoin (BTC) $ 27,418.35 0.58%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 1,640.93 1.49%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 64.43 2.63%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 229.93 5.24%