The President of the Russian Federation – Vladimir Putin – believes bitcoin and the alternative coins bear high risks for investors. However, he predicted that the asset class might play a significant role in the future financial network.
‘The Volatility Is Colossal’
The 69-year-old politician aired his thoughts about the cryptocurrency space during the “Russian Calling” investment forum in Moscow, reported by RBC. According to Putin, private digital assets are highly volatile, which makes them a risky investment instrument:
“It is not backed by anything, the volatility is colossal, so the risks are very high. We also believe that we need to listen to those who talk about those big risks.”
The volatile nature of most cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, is indeed present. However, the leading digital asset is a relatively new token, and it could overcome its price fluctuations in the upcoming years, especially if authorities impose a comprehensive regulatory framework on it.
Anthony Scaramucci – SkyBridge Capital’s CEO – is a supporter of this thesis. He recently compared BTC to Amazon, reminding that the e-commerce giant was also unstable in its early days but is now one of the most influential companies.
While criticizing cryptocurrencies, though, Putin did not rule out the possibility that they could become part of the future monetary system:
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“Although, of course, in some countries, in some economies, cryptocurrencies are being used more and more widely. Maybe this is the future, but we need to closely monitor how this process will develop.”
Not long ago, the southern neighbor of Russia – China – imposed a total ban on cryptocurrency mining and trading. Putin revealed that his country does not intend to go that far. The authorities will follow the developments in the industry and implement “elements of regulation,” which will not harm the nation’s economy:
“As for Russia, we will act on the basis of the realities that are developing in our country. There should be some elements of regulation, but not those that would constrain economic activity.”
Vladimir Putin, Source: Bloomberg
Putin’s Previous Stance
This is not the first time when the Russian President has shared his viewpoint on the cryptocurrency universe. In the middle of October, he noted that bitcoin and other digital assets could one day be used as a unit of account and a means of payment.
Asked whether cryptocurrencies could replace the US dollar when settling oil trades, for example, Putin said it “too early to talk about this:”
“In order to transfer funds from one place to another – yes, but to trade, let alone trade in energy resources, in my opinion, is still premature.”
Featured Image Courtesy of Anadolu Agency
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Square Inc., Jack Dorsey’s payments company, has been rebranded and will now be known as Block.
The name change represents the company’s recent focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency, among other things.
The company’s seller service and its stock ticker $SQ will still be represented by the Square brand name.
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Square Inc., a payments company headed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, announced today that it will undergo a complete rebrand.
Square Becomes Block
Square will now be known as Block. On Twitter, the company mentioned blockchain as one reason for the name change:
Block references the neighborhood blocks where we find our sellers, a blockchain, block parties full of music, obstacles to overcome, a section of code, building blocks, and of course, tungsten cubes.
The new name will cover several company projects, including its payments app Cash App, its crypto division, the Tidal music service, and its decentralized exchange project TBD.
Square will also rename its Square Crypto division to Spiral. It noted that Bitcoin “continues to grow like a spiral from a single point, encompassing more and more space until it touches everything.”
The company’s seller service for merchants will maintain the Square brand. Its stock ticker ($SQ) will also remain the same.
The change closely resembles Facebook’s recent decision to rebrand as Meta. Square even gave a nod to Facebook by prefacing its Twitter thread with the words “Not to get all meta on you…” before explaining the rebrand in-depth.
Square Is Focusing on Crypto
The news comes after CEO Jack Dorsey resigned from Twitter on Monday. Though Dorsey did not explicitly say that he left to focus on Square, previous statements dating back to June suggested that he would leave Twitter to focus on Bitcoin if necessary.
Square began as a traditional payments processor, but the company’s business has increasingly shifted toward Bitcoin. This November, it reported an 11% year-over-year increase in Bitcoin revenue and a 29% year-over-year increase in Bitcoin profits.
The firm has also invested heavily in crypto. It holds over 8000 BTC, an amount currently worth $459 million.
Disclaimer: At the time of writing this author held less than $100 of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins
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For traders who are undecided on Bitcoin’s (BTC) move, the “long condor with call options” yields optimal results with very low risk. This strategy offers protection down to $53,500, which would be a 7% downside move from the current $57,600, and returns a positive outcome up to $67,500.
Options markets provide more flexibility to develop custom strategies. Unlike futures, there are two separate instruments available. The call option gives the buyer upside price protection, while the protective put option offers the opposite.
Bitcoin options strategy returns. Source: Deribit Position Builder
This long condor strategy has been set for the Dec. 31 expiry and uses a slightly bullish range. The same basic structure can also be applied for other periods or price ranges, although the contract quantities might need some adjustment.
Bitcoin was trading at $57,600 when the pricing took place, but a similar result can be achieved starting from any price level. The minimum contract size depends on the derivatives exchange, but one needs to keep the suggested ratio to hold the overall strategy structure.
The first trade requires buying 0.54 contracts of the $52,000 call options to create positive exposure above this price level. Then, to limit gains above $56,000, the trader needs to sell 0.50 BTC call option contracts.
To further limit gains above $64,000, another 0.45 call option contracts should be sold. To complete the strategy, the trader needs upside protection above $70,000 by buying 0.41 call option contracts if the Bitcoin price skyrockets.
Related:3 reasons why Bitcoin’s drop to $56.5K may have been the local bottom
The 1.50 to 1 risk-reward ratio is moderately bullish
The strategy might sound complicated to execute, but the margin required is only 0.0152 BTC, which is also the max loss. Traders should remember that it is also possible to close the position ahead of the Dec. 31 expiry if there’s enough liquidity.
The max net gain occurs between $56,000 and $64,000 at 0.0233 BTC, which is 50% higher than the potential loss. With 30 days until the expiry date, this strategy gives the holder peace of mind because unlike futures trading, there is no liquidation risk.
Furthermore, having a profit range that varies from a 7% downside move to a positive 17% price change seems conservative and covers a decent $14,000 price range.
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.
Prominent crypto analyst Nicholas Merten says that top smart contract platform Ethereum (ETH) may grow another 325% before the current bull cycle comes to an end.
In a new strategy session, the host of DataDash tells his 458,000 YouTube subscribers what he thinks it will take for Ethereum to eventually smash the $20,000 level.
“If everything goes perfect for Ethereum, if we get that opportunity to be able to get ETH to launch properly, people using roll-ups, whether it be zero-knowledge roll-ups or optimistic roll-ups, generally ‘layer-2 solutions,’ we could see a $20,000 Ethereum this cycle. I know it sounds crazy but when you look at the logarithmic chart we’ve seen these kinds of percentage returns before.”
Rollups are solutions that execute transactions outside the main Ethereum chain, but record transaction data on it. The two types of roll-ups are zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups and optimistic rollups.
The closely followed analyst says that if Ethereum maintains solid fundamentals, a rally to the $20,000 may not be as overly optimistic as it sounds. He notes that such a gain would only be about half of what ETH achieved in the first five months of 2021.
“I think it’s very reasonable we could see this kind of price level. Somewhere between our neutral and optimistic target. To play it safe, I would say that we’ve got a really solid steady stream of price action for Ethereum ahead of us.The key thing to understand is that there are periods of this cycle where Ethereum outpaces Bitcoin, which makes these higher targets reasonable.”
Ethereum is currently trading for $4,685 at time of writing, up 7% over the last week while Bitcoin has remained almost completely sideways in the same timeframe.
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Interest in metaverse land, virtual real estate and the hottest new craze in crypto, is exploding: over $100 million was invested in it last week alone,accordingto crypto analytics site DappRadar.
Metaverse land is virtual property in the form of NFTs, unique digital tokens that can represent ownership in just about anything online, such as art, audio or, in this case, a piece of the metaverse itself. Most metaverse activity currently exists on the Ethereum network, the blockchain that powers the second biggest cryptocurrency project by market cap, though competing network Solana is quickly picking up the pace.
In the metaverse, regardless of which network, investors can buy the land, build their own virtual world on top of it, and eventually interact and explore as avatars—all through NFTs.
Investors are on a metarverse land-buying frenzy partly because of Meta—formerly known as Facebook, the seventh biggest company in the world by market cap—rebrandingin a bid to focus on creating an NFT metaverse.
“The wave of attention towards virtual worlds like The Sandbox and Decentraland started with Facebook’s rebranding to Meta,” said DappRadar in a blog post.
“Undoubtedly, metaverse land is the next big hit in the NFT space. Outputting record sales numbers and constantly increasing NFT prices, virtual worlds are the new top commodity in the crypto space. Metaverse events are becoming an industry-standard in the crypto space.”
Last week, $86.56 million was spent on land for the biggest metaverse project: The Sandbox. Adidas last week partnered with The Sandbox and the sportswear giantsaidthat the metaverse was “one of the most exciting developments in digital,” helping it gain traction as the top metaverse project.
Other big brands and celebrities invested in The Sandbox include Japanese tech investment firm Softbank, LG Technology Ventures, blockchain gaming company Animoca Brands andrapper Snoop Dogg.
Next up in land sales, according to DappRadar, wasDecentraland—with investors spending $15.53 million into it in the last seven days.Decryptlast weekexploredthe virtual Decentraland game world, and it isalready popularwith NFT real estate companies: NFT-based virtual real estate company Metaverse Group last week spent $2.43 million on a plot of its virtual land.
CryptoVoxels and Somnium Space, two other Ethereum virtual worlds, sold $2.68 million and $1.10 million last week in land sales respectively, said DappRadar.
DappRadar’s figures, however, just look at metaverse land being built via Ethereum. Solana, an Ethereum-competitor and the network behind the fifth biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, has also seen an explosion of interest in NFTs that seek to plug into the metaverse.
Portals, whichdescribes itselfas the “Animal Crossing meets Sim City meets Sandbox/Decentraland metaverse platform on Solana,” just launched on Friday and has already sold nearly $10 million in NFTs: $1.65 million through its initial sale of 5,000 Portal keycards, and around $7.5 million in secondary sales on Solana NFT marketplaceMagic Eden. That’s enough to place it third, just behind Decentraland, on the list of top-selling metaverse NFTs in the last week.
In marketplaces, transaction frequency & building user habits is more important than having the highest overall GMV.
Let’s consider NFTs on Solana vs Ethereum through this lens, by comparing @MagicEden_NFT vs. @opensea:
— Li Jin (@ljin18) November 30, 2021
Magic Eden, which itself only launched four months ago, has quickly risen to prominence among various competing NFT marketplaces on Solana. According to Variant Fund co-founderLi Jin, Magic Eden now has roughly half as many users as leading Ethereum NFT marketplace OpenSea, though it’s already processing twice as many transactions.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
Crypto exchange giant FTX is adding Ethereum-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to its arsenal of digital assets.
The company tells its 330,000 Twitter followers that the Ethereum-based NFT marketplace is up and running, just two months after the launch of its Solana-based NFT platform.
“We’re excited to expand our NFT marketplace, allowing users to buy, sell, and display their Ethereum NFTs alongside their Solana NFTs for the first time!”
This move comes after FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said that he had his eye on the nascent sector and that he thought NFTs could be the one thing that triggers mass adoption of cryptocurrencies.
“I would now put NFTs in that top category probability-wise with a couple of other things in terms of what brings a non-crypto native audience to crypto for something other than financial investing.
…Whether it’s integrating with video games, whether it’s ticketing for venues, or events, or teams, I think that we’re seeing really active movements on those fronts.”
FTX isn’t the only major crypto exchange venturing into the world of NFTs. Recently, American crypto titan Coinbase announced its own NFT marketplace, and CEO Brian Armstrong predicted big things to come for the sector.
“I think this is going to be a very large area for crypto in the future, and it already is today. I mean, traditionally, Coinbase was focused on FTs, fungible tokens, and we’re equally excited about NFTs. I think it could be as big or bigger. We don’t know.”
FTX’s native token FTT is exchanging hands at $51.01 as of writing, an 9% increase from its seven-day low of $46.66.
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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.
There’s mounting evidence that it’s been a big year for crypto derivatives, contractual agreements to buy or sell crypto assets based on future prices.
The latest signal comes from aGlassnode reportthat notes excessive leverage (the high risk inherent in using a relatively small amount of capital to speculate on price movement) in derivatives markets makes them worth watching, as it can unwind in “a fairly spectacular way from time to time.”
For example, open interest (outstanding contracts that haven’t yet settled or expired) across all Bitcoin derivatives markets slid from the $12-14 billion highs seen in October and November. Open interest currently sits at $10 billion after contracts pegged to November 26 expired last week.
Even with the drop, Glassnode says open interest and futures volumes have been rising steadily since Bitcoin futures backed ETFs–ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO),Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF), andVanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (XBTF)– launched in the U.S.
Contracts on the U.S.-based CME derivatives exchange represent 19% of all futures open interest. That’s almost double what it was in September, according to Glassnode. Over the same period, trading volume in Bitcoin derivatives on CME has grown from 1.4% to 6%.
Credit: Glassnode
That growth comes despite the fact that the ETFs themselves have seen pretty moderate success after the fanfare surrounding their launches. Together, their assets represent roughly 15% of the current $10 billion open interest.
ProShares’s ETF reached $1 billion in assets over two days, faster than any ETF before it, and now sits at $1.4 billion. But its share price has dropped 13% since launch. Valkyrie’s BTF, with $58 million in assets under management (AUM), has lost 7% off its debut share price and VanEck’s XBTF, with $11 million AUM, is down 4% from its launch.
There are also signs that big exchanges have been jockeying to give CME some competition for U.S.-based customers looking to trade crypto derivatives.
Just today, Singapore-based Crypto.com announced that it paid $216 million to acquire two companies, North American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex) and Small Exchange from IG Group, a London-based financial services group. Once the ink dries on the deal–pending regulatory approval, of course–Crypto.com will be able to offer derivatives and futures products to its U.S.-based users.
This is the same company that’s had its logo splashed all overFormula 1races since the summer as part of a $100 million partnership deal and recently spent$700 millionfor the naming rights to the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
In October, FTX’s U.S.-based arm completed itsacquisition of derivatives exchange LedgerX. Through the deal, which includes renaming LedgerX to FTX US Derivatives, the company has gained U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission licenses. That means it can now offer Bitcoin and Ethereum options and futures contracts to its customers.
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who’s had a big year for acquisitions and partnerships, called it “probably one of the most exciting announcements we’ve ever had.”
Coinbase has meanwhile taken a different approach. The publicly traded crypto exchange submitted paperwork in September to register as a futures commission merchant with the National Futures Association. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Coinbase Financial Markets Inc. application wasstill pending.
