Bank of America Opens Job Position for Crypto Public Policy Analysts

The Bank of America (BoA), an American multinational bank in Washington DC is seeking 27 applicants for the position of Policy Analysis and Insights Manager with a primary focus on fintech, cyber, AI, cryptocurrency, stablecoins, and blockchain.

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The new staff will identify new challenges and assess the possible impact to the enterprise.

The bank posted the job application via its official LinkedIn page. According to the bank, the candidate for this position will be in charge of researching and analyzing proposed policy changes and creating and implementing advocacy plans that support company objectives. 

In addition, the professional will be tasked with forming industry coalitions, drafting proposed legislation, amendments, and comments on regulations, creating analyses, position papers, executive summaries, and reports, and drafting external communications, including testimony for governmental and regulatory bodies.

The ideal candidate is expected to have 2-4 years of expertise in cryptocurrency markets and trading, as well as a demonstrated interest in and comprehension of fintech, cyber, AI, crypto, stablecoins, blockchain, associated industries, and related laws.

The Bank of America Getting Involved in Crypto

The job opening by the bank shows that it is highly interested in the blockchain industry and therefore seeks to improve its blockchain technological arm.

Following the trend of crypto in 2021, the BoA released an announcement to research crypto and digital assets. The Bank of America created a digital currency research team for the first time, under the direction of Alkesh Shah, as the hot ecosystem continues to gain traction among all classes of investors.

In September the Bank of America talked about the decision of the Binance exchange platform to convert all its customers’ existing balances and future deposits of three stablecoins into its own native Binance USD ( BUSD). In its research paper, the bank noted that while Binance’s decision may only have a little short-term financial impact on the exchange, it may have more significant long-term effects.

BoA strategists recently hinted that the recent shift in Bitcoin is an indication that it is becoming a safe haven in relation to other digital assets.

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Bank of America Says Binance to Benefit from Increased Supply of Its Own Stablecoin

Bank of America (BAC) has talked about the recent decision by the Binance exchange to convert all existing user balances and future deposits of three stablecoins USD coin (USDC), trueUSD (TUSD) and pax dollar (USDP) into its native Binance USD (BUSD).

On Friday, the bank released its research report pointing out that while Binance’s move may generate limited additional revenue in the short term for the exchange, it could have wider implications in the long term.

The bank said the automatic conversion may increase the supply of BUSD by as much as $908 million, as 1% ($10 million) of USDP’s supply and 2% ($898 million) of USDC’s supply are held on Binance.

The Bank of America acknowledged that the fact that BUSD holds a market capitalization of 19 billion indicates that the stablecoin is not being used regularly throughout the broader crypto ecosystem and therefore, lacks utility.

However, the bank sees the potential for a larger increase in BUSD supply over the long-term as customers become more familiar with the stablecoin and its applications across the ecosystem adding more support for it in an attempt to attract more users.

According to the Bank of America, Binance will benefit from this increasing supply because it is able to invest the additional reserves that will back the stablecoin in cash equivalents like U.S. Treasury and overnight loans secured by Treasury to earn interest income.

On the other hand, the bank said although the implications for USDC are limited, there is the potential for the stablecoin to increase its market share relative to Tether (USDT). This is because Binance users may be more likely to convert BUSD into USDC than into USDT when withdrawing funds.

Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin by market cap, was excluded from the automatic conversion. USDC stablecoin has a market capitalization of just under US$52 billion, followed by BUSD at US$19.5 billion.

The market leader Tether (USDT), has a market capitalization of US$67 billion, and will still be tradeable on Binance.

Questioning Binance’s Move

Bank of America joins other stakeholders who have recently raised questions about Binance’s decision to stop supporting USDC and other stablecoins on its platform.

On Monday, Binance announced that it would convert customers’ holdings in three rival stablecoins — USDC, Pax Dollar (USDP) and True USD (TUSD) — into BUSD on September 29. As a result, it would remove spot, future, and margin trading with USDC, USDP, and TUSD pairs.

Binance said the decision was designed to “enhance liquidity and capital-efficiency for users.”  However, the news was met with skepticism, as some users faulted the decision to convert rival stablecoins into Binance stablecoin.

Concerns have been raised about a possible monopolistic behavior of Binance’s move to sideline other stablecoins in order to promote its own.

But, Circle CEO, Jeremy Allaire, recently backed Binance’s decision, saying that the new change will help USDC become the market’s preferred stablecoin rail for moving funds between centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized Exchanges (DEXs).

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The US Will Release a CBDC by 2030, Said Bank of America (Report)

Although US authorities continue to dabble with the idea of issuing their own central bank digital currency, the Bank of America believes such a product is “inevitable.” Additionally, researchers from the large banking organization see stablecoins continue to flourish and take a massive role in the monetary system.

Inevitable US CBDC?

CBDCs are a growing trend among central banks with numerous outlining plans to release such products. Very few already have digital versions of their national currencies. However, the US has always seemed somewhat lagging, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell claiming that the country has to do it right instead of being first.

Moreover, the world’s largest economy believes the China way will not work inside its borders. Nevertheless, certain reports claim from time to time that the US is making strides in looking at how to launch a CBDC.

The Bank of America believes that such a product will see the light of day in the US between 2025 and 2030. Citing bank strategists Alkesh Shah and Andrew Moss, Bloomberg reported that CBDCs “are an inevitable evolution of today’s electronic currencies.”

The Federal Reserve issued a report last week examining the pros and the cons that could come from a central bank digital currency. The paper said it could lead to faster settlements and less expensive transactions costs. On the other hand, CBDCs could work against people’s privacy as the governments can monitor and control the issuance and the transactions.

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Stablecoins Will Continue Rising

Stablecoins are an essential part of the cryptocurrency industry, which is evident by their growth in the past few years to a multi-billion dollar portion of the market. As of now, there’re two such assets in the top five largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.

The strategists from the Bank of America believe this trend will only continue to increase in the following few years, especially if the US stalls with its CBDC.

“We expect stablecoin adoption and use for payments to increase significantly over the next several years as financial institutions explore digital asset custody and trading solutions and as payments companies incorporate blockchain technology into their platforms.” – the note concluded.

Interestingly, Powell recently noted that CBDCs and stablecoin can coexist in a modern and digital economy.

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Bank of America says stablecoin adoption and CBDC is ‘inevitable’

It appears that the U.S. will finally be moving forward to create its own central bank digital currency (CBDC) according to the Bank of America.

Bank of America crypto strategists Andrew Moss and Alkesh Shah wrote in a Jan. 24 note that CBDCs “are an inevitable evolution of today’s electronic currencies,” according to a Bloomberg report. The analysts wrote:

“We expect stablecoin adoption and use for payments to increase significantly over the next several years as financial institutions explore digital asset custody and trading solutions and as payments companies incorporate blockchain technology into their platforms.”

Meanwhile, a Jan. 20 report titled “Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation” from the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) weighed up the benefits and disadvantages of the U.S. potentially adopting a CBDC.

It considered whether a CBDC could potentially “improve the safe and effective domestic payments system” for households and businesses as “the payments system continues to evolve,” possibly resulting in “faster payment options between countries.”

In the meantime, Shah and Moss stated that the use of digital currencies issued by private companies is likely to grow. Currently, the liability for existing forms of digital currency like online bank accounts or payment apps belongs to private entities, such as commercial banks.

However, a CBDC would be different in this respect because it would be the liability of a central bank such as the Federal Reserve, wrote the FRB in a statement about the report.

It also pointed out potential difficulties including preserving financial stability, protecting the privacy of users, and combatting illicit transactions. The Fed has opened to the floor for public comment on these issues until May 20.

Related: Solana could become the ‘Visa of crypto’: Bank of America

A CBDC is a digital version of a country’s fiat currency, such as the U.S. dollar. They started to step into the spotlight during 2020 when The Bahamas launched the world’s first CBDC, the “Sand Dollar.”

Meanwhile, China’s central bank is in the process of developing a digital yuan wallet, as it steps up its efforts to create a digital currency. In April 2021, Sweden’s central bank completed the first phase of its “e-krona” digital currency pilot.

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Bank of America: Solana Could Become The Visa of Crypto

Alkesh Shah – analyst at Bank of America – predicted Solana could continue to steal some of Ethereum’s market share as it’s easy to use and has significantly lower transaction fees. The strategist further asserted that Solana could become “the Visa” of the cryptocurrency industry.

High Hopes for Solana

Solana has been one of the top-performing cryptocurrency projects in the past 12 months. Its native token has increased its USD value by nearly 4,300% in one year and is currently sitting as the fifth-largest digital asset with a market capitalization of roughly $50 billion.

Despite this significant advancement, the protocol could reach new heights soon, Alkesh Shah from Bank of America opined. He argued that Solana is superior to some of its rivals as it offers low transaction costs and enhanced scalability relative. Moreover, it utilizes both proof-of-stake and proof-of-history technology, granting it further advantages.

Thanks to its differentiated design, Solana could take market share away from Ethereum, Shah said. It is worth noting that the latter is still functioning under the proof-of-work mechanism. Ethereum transactions per second are also considerably slower than Solana’s.

“These innovations allow for the processing of an industry-leading ~65,000 transactions per second with average transaction fees of $0.00025 while remaining relatively decentralized and secure,” Shah said regarding Solana’s speed.

Subsequently, the analyst made the bold prediction that the fifth-biggest cryptocurrency project could one day serve as “the Visa of the digital asset ecosystem.”

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He explained this could occur because the protocol successfully facilitates micropayments. It also plays a vital role in the gaming and non-fungible token universe.

Solana Could Be The Next Bitcoin

The Founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX – Sam Bankman-Fried – is also a keen proponent of the blockchain project. Not long ago, he said Solana had “a real shot” at becoming the next most dominant digital asset project because of its speed of scaling.

Another advantage that Solana has is the fact that it is green-focused. According to a recent report, it is actually less harmful to the environment than the web browsing giant Google. The statement estimated that two Google searches consume more energy than one transaction on the Solana network.

It does not end there. A single transaction on Solana consumes 24 times less energy than charging a mobile phone. In fact, the project’s network uses around 3,186,000 kWh per year, which is equivalent to the average electricity usage of 986 households in the USA.

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Solana Could Flip Ethereum To Become “Visa Of Crypto,” New Study By Bank Of America Shows

New research from Bank of America Reveals Solana might become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem.”

Because of its focus on scalability, ease of use, and low transaction costs, the bank stated the Solana blockchain may very well become the equivalent of Visa for the world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs in a research report to its clients after hosting the Solana Foundation’s member Lily Liu.

Solana High Throughput Is It Merit

In a Tuesday research note, Bank of America digital asset strategist Alkesh Shah said that Ethereum competitor Solana may become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem.”

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The Solana network went live in 2020, and its native token, SOL, has since grown to become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with a market worth of $47 billion. It has been used to settle over 50 billion transactions and create over 5.7 million nonfungible tokens, and it is an order of magnitude faster than Ethereum (NFT).

Critics claim that the speed comes at the expense of decentralization and reliability. Shah believes the advantages outweigh the disadvantages:

“Its ability to provide high throughput, low cost and ease of use creates a blockchain optimized for consumer use cases like micropayments, DeFi, NFTs, decentralized networks (Web3) and gaming.”

Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, is up 3.3% this week. The price of ethereum, its closest rival in terms of market capitalization, increased by 5.3%. Other big cryptocurrencies are also experiencing strong gains. BNB is up 9.5%, cardano is up 16.2%, and Solana is up 10.6%.

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Furthermore, Solana has some of the fastest transaction times in the industry. In the note, Shah explained:

“These innovations allow for the processing of an industry-leading ~65,000 transactions per second with average transaction fees of $0.00025 while remaining relatively decentralized and secure.”

Visa now processes 1,700 transactions per second (TPS), however the network has a theoretical capacity of at least 24,000 TPS. On its mainnet, Ethereum currently processes about 12 TPS (more on tier twos), whereas Solana has a theoretical capacity of 65,000 TPS.

Related article | Solana: A Quick Review And Look Ahead

Decentralization trade-offs

In March 2020, Solana was launched as a decentralized blockchain capable of hosting extremely scalable apps. According to Alkesh Shah, it is now the fifth-largest cryptocurrency, having settled more than $50 billion in transactions and generated more than 5.7 million NFTs.

Because both cryptocurrencies allow smart contracts, which are the basic building block of decentralized systems like blockchain-based banks and NFTs, Solana is frequently compared to Ethereum (non-fungible tokens).

Shah conceded, saying, “Solana prioritizes scalability, but a relatively less decentralized and secure blockchain has tradeoffs, illustrated by several network performance issues since inception.”

The cryptocurrency has gotten a lot of attention from investors in the last year, and its price has risen by a whopping 4,000%. Nonetheless, it is dwarfed by its nearest competitor, ethereum. Solana has a market valuation of $47 billion, or little over one-tenth of the size of ethereum.

SOL/USD trades at $146. Source: Tradingview

Solana has had its fair share of network performance issues in recent months, including withdrawal issues confirmed by Binance on Wednesday, reports of delayed performance across social media on Friday, and what appeared to be a distributed denial-of-service attack on Jan. 5, despite Solana’s denial.

Since its start, Solana has settled more than 50 billion transactions, totaling more than $11 billion USD in value locked. It’s also been used to produce over 5.7 million NFTs, demonstrating its focus on consumer applications like money transactions and even gaming.

Related article | Solana Trades Up 15.7%, But Network Issues Raise Concerns

Featured image from Investment U, charts from TradingView.com

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Solana could become the ‘Visa of crypto’: Bank of America

Bank of America digital asset strategist Alkesh Shah has predicted that Ethereum competitor Solana could become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem” in a Jan 11 research note.

The Solana network launched in 2020, and has since grown into the fifth largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $47 billion. An order of magnitude faster than Ethereum, it has been used to settle over 50 billion transactions and mint over 5.7 million non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Critics however argue its speed comes at the cost of decentralization and reliability but Shah thinks the benefits outweigh the drawbacks:

“Its ability to provide high throughput, low cost and ease of use creates a blockchain optimized for consumer use cases like micropayments, DeFi, NFTs, decentralized networks (Web3) and gaming.”

He went on to suggest that Solana is taking a slice of Ethereum’s market share due to its low fees, ease of use, and scalability while Ethereum may be relegated to “high-value transaction and identity, storage and supply chain use cases,” wrote Shah, as quoted by Business Insider

“Ethereum prioritizes decentralization and security, but at the expense of scalability, which has led to periods of network congestion and transaction fees that are occasionally larger than the value of the transaction being sent.”

Visa processes an average of 1,700 transactions per second (TPS), but the network can theoretically handle at least 24,000 TPS. Ethereum currently handles around 12 TPS on mainnet (more on layer twos), while Solana boasts a theoretical limit of 65,000 TPS.

Shah concedes that, “Solana prioritizes scalability, but a relatively less decentralized and secure blockchain has tradeoffs, illustrated by several network performance issues since inception.”

Solana has experienced more than its fair share of network performance issues over the past months, such as withdrawal issues most recently confirmed by Binance on Jan 12, reports of delayed performance across social media on Jan 7 and what appeared to be a DDos attack on Jan 5, although Solana denied this was the case.

Related: Decentralized and scalable exchange leverages Solana for an improved trader experience

This came less than a month after a previous attack on Dec 10, with reports of network congestion caused by mass botting associated with an initial Dec offering (IDO) on Solana-based decentralized exchange platform, Raydium.

In an interview with Cointelegraph on Dec. 22, Austin Federa, head of communications at Solana Labs, said that developers are currently working to address the network’s issues, specifically in relation to improving transaction metering.

“Solana’s runtime is a new design. It doesn’t use EVM [Ethereum Virtual Machine] and a ton of innovation was done to ensure that users have the cheapest fees possible, but there’s still work to be done on the runtime.”

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Bank of America: The Metaverse Is a Massive Opportunity for The Crypto Industry

Haim Israel – a strategist at Bank of America – believes the metaverse will create huge opportunities for blockchain technology. It will also cause digital assets to start being employed widely for financial transactions.

Nonetheless, private tokens are too volatile, and stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) are more likely to prevail, he opined.

The Metaverse Is The Future

In a recent interview, the Managing Director and Global Strategist at Bank of America – Haim Israel – described the metaverse as the tool that will drive the cryptocurrency industry towards mass adoption if certain conditions are met:

“I definitely believe this is a massive, massive opportunity. You need the right platforms… that are definitely going to be a big opportunity for this entire ecosystem.”

Israel also predicted that the metaverse is where “we’re going to start using cryptocurrencies as currencies.” However, existing digital assets such as bitcoin, ether, and the rest are too volatile to fit in this role. As such, stablecoins will probably prevail since they are pegged to fiat currencies or precious metals, which tend to fluctuate a lot less.

Subsequently, Israel believes that if cryptocurrencies become widely used in the metaverse, large tech companies will enter the landscape.

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Haim Israel
Haim Israel, Source: Financial News

The term “metaverse” got increasingly popular during the last couple of months, especially after Mark Zuckerberg announced the rebranding of Facebook to Meta – a new title that emphasizes his firm’s vision.

Put simply, the metaverse is a virtual world where people can play games, socialize, work, build things, and even trade and earn crypto assets.

The Metaverse Space May Soon Reach $1T Market Value

According to a report by the leading digital asset manager – Grayscale, the metaverse industry world could soon be worth over $1 trillion.

The investment giant noted that the opportunity for the space extends far beyond gaming and touches sectors like advertising, digital events, social commerce, hardware, and developer/creator monetization.

Assuming the latest data is correct, the total market capitalization of Web 3.0 metaverse crypto networks is already near $30 billion. However, the industry might emerge as a disruptor for Web 3.0, similar to how Facebook changed Web 2.0.

The analysis also showed that the number of metaverse wallets had multiplied by a factor of ten compared to the beginning of last year. In the last quarter of 2021, the number stood at around 50,000.

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Finance Redefined: MakerDAO goes green and BoA bullish on DeFi, Oct. 1–8

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance, or DeFi, newsletter.

Blogging platform Mirror expanded to the public market this week. Read on to discover the impact of this move for Ethereum wallet holders. 

What you’re about to read is a more succinct version of the newsletter. For a comprehensive summary of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below.