American venture capitalist and entrepreneur Tim Draper has advised business founders to diversify their cash holdings in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). In a report directed at business founders, Draper suggests that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can serve as a hedge against a “domino run” on banks and overbearing government intervention. He notes that businesses can no longer rely on a single bank or governing body to manage their cash, and that diversification is essential.
To that end, Draper recommends that business founders keep at least six months of short-term cash in two separate bank accounts: one with a local bank and another with an international bank. In addition, he advises keeping at least two payrolls worth of cash in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Draper believes that these preventative steps are necessary because, for the “first time in many years,” governments are seizing control of banks, and governments themselves are “at risk of becoming insolvent.”
Draper’s advice comes at a time when the collapse of SVB has caused significant uncertainty in the tech industry. SVB, which was once known for its support of startup companies, has recently faced a number of challenges, including a significant data breach and an investigation into its lending practices. This has left many startups scrambling to find alternative sources of funding and cash management solutions.
According to Draper, many startups have already sought emergency relief from him after SVB and other banks shut down. He believes that the collapse of SVB serves as a warning to businesses that they need to be prepared for any eventuality. By diversifying their cash holdings and embracing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, businesses can ensure that they are not overly reliant on any one institution or government.
Draper has long been an advocate for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and his recent advice to business founders reflects his belief that these digital assets are the future of finance. He has previously predicted that the price of Bitcoin could reach $250,000 by 2023, and he has invested heavily in a number of Bitcoin-related startups.
Overall, Draper’s advice serves as a reminder to businesses that they need to be proactive in managing their cash holdings and prepared for any eventuality. By diversifying their cash holdings and embracing cryptocurrencies, businesses can protect themselves against the uncertainty and volatility of the current financial landscape.
Bitcoin bull Tim Draper is naming two altcoins in the crypto markets that he’s keeping an eye on due to their strong fundamentals and unique use cases.
In a new interviewon Bloomberg Markets, the billionaire venture capitalist says that open-source programmable blockchainTezos (XTZ)has the things that he wants to see in a crypto project.
“What I look for is who are the entrepreneurs and who are the engineers behind a given token. I love some of the tokens. I love Tezos because it’s got a great engineering team, and they’ve redefined how to operate a token. They do it as proof of stake. They use less energy, and they have a new form of governance and that’s exciting.”
Draper says that he is also watching Ethereum-based altcoin Aragon (ANT). Aragon is an open-source software that enables users to build and manage their own decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO).
Aragon developed a community-governed decentralized court system to handle subjective disputes requiring the judgment of human jurors. According to Draper, this system could “revolutionize the way juries work.”
Looking at Bitcoin, the Draper Associates founder says that the king crypto is a great hedge against inflation, and that its protocol offers superior trust and reliability over government entities.
“For investors, I think holding on to Bitcoin is probably a good place to be because there are only 21 million Bitcoin out there, and they represent the freedom that allows us to use them anywhere and the trust in that you are trusting in the software rather than trying to trust some bank or some government entity.”
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Bitcoin 2021’s Pitch Day gave Bitcoin startups an unprecedented chance to drive their projects forward.
Bitcoin 2021’s Pitch Day was a platform for the next generation of Bitcoin startups to put its ideas and products to the test in a competitive format.
Taking place during Whale Day on the grounds in “The Deep,” the Pitch Day competition featured companies ranging from a weather-betting website to a derivatives exchange, pitching their ideas to a panel of venture capitalists representing some of the most active investors in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Each of the participating projects made its case to secure investment from the panel, with the optimism that their startups could, alongside Bitcoin, change the world and launch them to whale status themselves.
The 12 startups were chosen from a pool of over 140 applications from all over the world. Divided evenly into two divisions, “hyperbitconization” and “infrastructure,” each company had ten minutes to present their pitch and take questions from the panel. Following the conclusion of each segment, the panel of judges deliberated before deciding on first- and second-place winners. The two winners from each segment were presented with a trophy, as well as full tuition to attend “Draper University,” a 16-week entrepreneurship program started by venture capitalist and Pitch Day judge Tim Draper.
The first segment featured the companies Citizens of Bitcoin, 5 Day Forecast, Satoshi’s Games, DIBA Global Inc., Bitmatrix and Shock Network Inc. While the missions of each company varied, they were all united under the umbrella of advancing hyperbitcoinization. The panel of judges featured Draper (founder and managing partner of Draper Associates), Oleg Mikhalsky (partner at Fulgur Ventures), David Roebuck (venture principal at Wave Financial) and Paul Veradittakit (partner at Pantera Capital).
The judges came away with plenty of good things to say about Pitch Day 2021. Veradittakit said, “The startups at the pitch day competition were impressive and focused on some innovative use cases. Overall, the experience of judging with the other judges and interacting with the startups was very fruitful.”
The winner of the hyperbitconization competition was Satoshi’s Games, a gaming platform built on the Lightning Network. 5 Day Forecast, a betting website that allows users to place bets on the weather using Bitcoin, took second place. While Citizens of Bitcoin did not place in the top two of its respective competition, its founder and CEO, Rogelio Caceres, had positive things to say about the experience as well.
“We thoroughly enjoyed the Bitcoin 2021 conference and highly recommend it,” he said. “Both the experience of competing as a finalist at Pitch Day, as the only Miami-based startup selected, as well as sponsoring a booth, exceeded our expectations. In fact, we have generated nearly $500,000 in revenues from new clients we met at the conference to date.”
The second segment featured the companies D2X Group, Moon, Liquid Ventures, 24 Exchange Bermuda Ltd., Sazmining and Bitex. Each of these companies is focused on enhancing the existing infrastructure of Bitcoin. They were judged by Matt Roszak (founding partner at Tally Capital), Kevin O’Leary (chairman of O’Shares Investment Advisors and judge of ABC’s “Shark Tank”), Christopher Calicott (managing director at Trammell Venture Partners), David Lee (head of Samsung Next and EVP of Samsung) and Tyler Evans (cofounder of BTC Inc. and managing partner at UTXO Management). 24 Exchange, a bitcoin trading platform, won first place in the infrastructure competition. Moon, a virtual payment card that allows users to earn, save and spend bitcoin, finished as the runner up.
“The pitch competition was especially valuable to present our business to investors that deploy capital into Bitcoin startups,” Moon CEO and founder Ken Kruger said. “We secured funding from investors at the pitch competition.”
If you are interested in being considered for a slot on stage, we encourage you to apply here for Pitch Day at Bitcoin 2022! Parameters for participants are open and flexible, so feel free to apply whether you are an individual with an idea, a company raising a series B round or somewhere in between.
Bitcoin Magazine is operated by BTC Inc, which also hosts the Bitcoin Conference series.
Bitcoin has been a part of billionaire Tim Draper’s investment portfolio for a while now. Draper had first gotten into bitcoin in 2011 when Peter Vincennes had convinced him to buy the digital asset. Draper had bought $250,000 worth of BTC, which he subsequently lost after the now-defunct Mt. Gox exchange crashed, where Draper had kept his coins.
Despite this, the billionaire was not deterred. So when another opportunity presented itself in the form of U.S. Marshalls auctioning off bitcoins seized from criminals, Draper took advantage of this opportunity. At the auction, Draper had bought 29,656 bitcoins at $632 apiece, which had totaled $18.74 since the coins were sold for $14 above the going rate on exchanges.
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The investor has never backed down from his belief in the future of cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin. Even giving some very optimistic predictions regarding the price of the asset in the coming years.
Draper Predicts Bitcoin At $250,000 By 2022
The first time the billionaire had made this prediction had been in 2018. Back then, the price of the digital asset was still trading below $10,000, so this did not seem as believable as it might be today. But Draper never faltered on his prediction.
The driving factor behind this prediction has been that the billionaire believes bitcoin will become an accepted mode of payment everywhere. Another important factor lies in the fact that there is a limited supply of BTC. This self-induced scarcity of the digital asset has the billionaire believing that the price will keep going up, saying, “because there are only 21 million of them.”
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Only one thing has differed in Draper’s price prediction for bitcoin. The billionaire had adjusted the timeline for his prediction by moving it farther to late 2022 or early 2023. But the price prediction remains unmoved at $250,000.
Trends Put BTC On Track For $250,000
Venture capitalist Tim Draper was on Benzinga’s Crypto Festival to talk about the number 1 cryptocurrency. Draper noted some trends which he believes will be the driving force behind bitcoin hitting $250,000 in 2022. Widespread adoption was one of these trends. He noted that people will eventually be able to use BTC in the way they currently use fiat currency. “One that happens,” Draper said, “there’s going to be a switch thrown in people’s heads.”
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A second trend the billionaire sees pushing bitcoin towards this price prediction is the inflation rate. Since governments have been constantly printing money, people have become worried about the future of their savings. This will push more investors into BTC as a way to hedge against the inevitable high rate of inflation that will follow limitless money printing.
The rise in bitcoin uses in retail spending was set to go higher, Draper said. Noting that women do about 80% of total retail spending, Draper sees women demanding more ways to pay with bitcoin. Explaining that the number of women investing in bitcoin had grown tremendously, growing from one in 14 BTC wallets owned by women to one in three BTC wallets currently owned by women.
BTC price still trading north of $47,000 | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
When asked when he planned to sell his coins, the billionaire replied, “Why would I want to sell the future currency for the past currency? I just can’t imagine anything more important for humanity than this.” As for Draper’s $250,000 prediction for the digital asset’s price in late 2022 or early 2023, he said, “I think we’re right on track.”
Featured image from AtoZ Markets, Chart from TradingView.com
Bitcoin is not new to enthusiasts setting high price targets and forecasts that seem wild. In this vein, Tim Draper, who has always been a strong bitcoin advocate has been one of those giving the digital asset a high price target. Back in 2018, the billionaire had made a price prediction that seemed to most an outrageous forecast.
This was mostly due to the fact that at the time that Draper made the predictions, the price of bitcoin was still at a mere $8,000. But Draper had never backed down on his prediction. In fact, Draper had reiterated the price prediction in 2021, explaining that his faith and forecast are predicated on the fact that the digital asset will never have more than 21 million coins in circulation.
Related Reading | Billionaire Tim Draper: Bitcoin Will Reach $250,000 By The End Of 2022
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In addition to this, the fact that with each passing day, more and more investors lose their coins by way of forgetting private keys and seed phrases means that the total bitcoins that will be in circulation shrinks each day. Draper has not changed the timeline for his prediction too. According to the billionaire, his price prediction continues to be that he believes that the digital asset price will hit $250,000 by 2022.
Now, for the second time this year, Tim Draper is back to remind everyone that he still stands by this prediction.
Draper Stands By His Prediction
In an exclusive interview with Benzinga, Draper continued to reiterate his continued support for his prediction. Draper’s reply to the questions about his certainty in his prediction despite the negative price movements was that he stood by his prediction.
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Draper still believes that bitcoin is set to hit $250,000 by end of 2022 or early 2023. The billionaire continues to be unfazed by the market movements so far this year.
Bitcoin, the number 1 digital asset, has lost over 50% of its value since it hit its all-time high of $64,000 back in April. So far the coin continues to struggles amidst market corrections. Draper gave his opinions on these market movements and downtrends so far.
We have had many ups and downs and will continue to, but the global, trusted, decentralized, frictionless, open, transparent bitcoin will become increasingly popular as more and more applications evolve.
BTC price down over 50% from all-time high | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
Continuing on, Draper explained that to him, BTC meant freedom and trust. “Bitcoin is a modern hedge again inflation,” Draper said. Draper.
Draper is not the only one that believes bitcoin can help fight inflation. U.S. City Mayor Scott Conger had made the headlines last week when he tweeted that he believed bitcoin was a fix for inflation and was taking steps to make sure his constituents could pay their taxes in BTC.
Senator Cynthia Lummis is another prominent figure that has applauded the ability of bitcoin to help fight inflation. Lummis had said that the digital asset could help underpin the U.S. dollar to help combat rising inflation rates.
Tesla Payments And China Crackdown On Bitcoin Mining
The interview also included Adrian Pollard, who is co-founder of bitHolla. Pollard took time out to highlight some of the regrets of 2021. Namely; Tesla’s refusal to accept BTC payments, despite having accepted it earlier in the year, and the recent crackdowns by the Chinese government on mining.
In the interview, Pollard was asked if he had any regrets in the year 2021. Responding to this, Pollard had opined that if there was something he could undo in the year, then it would be the comments made by Elon Musk regarding the energy consumption of mining.
Related Reading Bloomberg Analyst Provides Blueprint Of Bitcoin Path To $100,000
Although despite the negative news that had set back the price of the digital asset, Pollard remained positive. Pollard laid this out as more of a one step back and two steps forward scenario.
As for lessons learned, Draper explained that technology will ultimately prevail through fits and starts. Draper had paid $18 million for his first batch of bitcoin which he got at a U.S. Marshall’s office auction. The billionaire purchases over 29,000 coins at $632 apiece.
Bitcoin price is currently trading at $30,619, down 1.88% in the last 24 hours.
Featured image from CoinMod, chart from TradingView.com
There’s a lot of money in the crypto industry, that much is for sure. And we’re at a stage in which there are projects that are advanced enough for their creators to have already reaped the benefits. And then, there’s Bitcoin. Early adopters and believers, extremely long-term hodlers, are sitting on a fortune. Who’s made the most money, though?
An extremely difficult question to answer. The pseudonymous nature of blockchain technology makes inquiries like this a tall order. There are wallets that nobody knows who they belong to and hold thousands of coins. There are billionaires that have announced investments, but nobody knows which wallets belong to them. Not everyone in the crypto industry is a public figure. Not everyone in the space wants attention.
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Taking that into account, the Coin Bureau YouTube channel launched an investigation and reached credible conclusions. If we agree that the list is for entertainment purposes and heavily western-focused, we can have fun with it. So, let’s do that.
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Who Are The Six Richest Persons In The Crypto Industry?
To make this fair, the Coin Bureau focused on people who hold most of their assets in cryptocurrencies. That makes people like Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong and MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor ineligible, because most of their fortunes are tied to their companies. It also discards all the billionaires that have a small percentage of their fortunes in crypto.
So, now that the rules are clear, let’s get into it.
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6.- Tim Draper and Max Keiser
Tied at number five, two very different Bitcoin believers.
Tim Draper: This venture capital investor made the purchase of a lifetime when he acquired all of the Bitcoin confiscated from the Silk Road dark web marketplace. “The US Marshall service auctioned off 30000 BTC which landed in Tim’s wallet for 19 million Dollars.” Those are now worth close to $1B. Draper is not part of the crypto industry, but, practicing diversification he also holds Bitcoin Cash, XRP, and Tezos.
Max Keiser: This broadcaster and filmmaker is the reason many people around the world know about Bitcoin. An early believer, “In a 2013 episode of The Keyser Report, Max announced that he had become a Bitcoin millionaire.” As per Coin Bureau calculations, that means he held 25K BTC. Assuming he continued to buy, and bought a modest 5K more, his holdings are now worth $1B.
5.- Vitalik Buterin:
Ethereum’s co-founder starred ina Twitter public fight previously coveredby NewsBTC. “Vitalik’s Ethereum wallet address has been known since late 2018 when he shared it over Twitter in response to criticism over Ethereum’s pre-mine.” This key figure in the crypto industry now holds 334K ETH, which at today’s prices is approximately $1.5 B.
4.- The Winklevoss Broders
It’s public knowledge, the Winklevoss twins invested part of their Facebook settlement in a then-new idea. The story goes as follows, “While on Holyday in Ibiza in 2013, Tyler and Cameron learned about Bitcoin and subsequently decided to buy 1% of all the BTC in circulation.” With that, they founded the Gemini exchange, a key component of the crypto industry. Coin Bureau estimated that each twin holds “between 2-3 billion dollars in cryptocurrency, mostly Bitcoin.”
3.- Chris Larsen
One of the biggest criticism that the crypto industry wields against Ripple is the incredible amounts of XRP that its founders and the organization hold. Well, “the third biggest crypto billionaire is Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen who holds anywhere between 5.2 and 7.8 billion XRP.”
It’s worth noting that, “All XRP allocated to Ripple’s founders is subject to a vesting schedulle that will last untill 2026, assuming the SEC doesnt succed in its case against Ripple, in which case Chis’s XRP will be unsellable by law.” It looks the other way so far, though. And the market seems to be supporting this turn of events.
2.- Sam Bankman-Fried
Did you know that FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried was in talks with Binance’s CZ to fund an exchange together before any of the two made it big? True story. Well, Bankman-Fried is the “founder of Alameda Research and the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.”
Alameda Research made more money than god in an arbitrage trade. They figured out there was a premium hidden in Bitcoin’s prices in Japan. They bought in the U.S., sold in Japan, and made history. And a fortune. After that, “The FTX derivatives exchange is Sam’s second endevour, and it’s become one of the most popular crypto exchanges since it was founded in 2019.”
A key part of the crypto industry, through FTX he’s helped launch very successful crypto projects. Plus, they have their own coin that has appreciated over time. Coin Bureau says, “Sam’s exact cryptocurrency holdings are not known, I estimate them to total anywhere between 5 and 10 billion dollars.”
BNB price chart on FTX | Source: BNB/USDT on TradingView.com
1.- Changpeng Zhao
Even though CZ’s net worth is “listed at around 2 billion dollars,” Coin Bureau investigated and made some controversial assumptions. First of all, after attending a crypto conference, “CZ subsequently decided to sell his apartment in Shanghai and go all-in on Bitcoin. If my calculations are correct this banked him anywhere between 50 to 100 thousand BTC.”
The Bureau uncovered some articles in which CZ said that he likes to hold his fortune in crypto-assets, so they assume that he’s still holding to that. Years later, when Binance launched their own coin, 40% of BNBs initial minting of 100 million was allocated to the founding team. Again, the Bureau assumes he still has them, “CZ’s BNB holdings alone could easy be over 10 Billion Dollars at today’s prices.”
Related Reading | Changpeng Zhao Makes Super Bullish Case for Binance Coin
And that’s it, that’s their list. Do you think they forgot anyone in the crypto industry? Aren’t there even bigger whales in China? Are all of these people small potatoes compared to Satoshi Nakamoto himself? Let’s just take the list as a starting point and build on it.
Featured Image by Jp Valery on Unsplash - Charts by TradingView
Billionaire Tim Draper said he remains optimistic about Bitcoin and expects its price to reach $250,000 by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
Bitcoin’s price has fluctuated in a recent period, attributing to serval negative factors. For instance, the electric automaker Tesla dramatically reversed its plans to accept Bitcoin (BTC) payments for its products due to digital currency’s energy inefficiency its reason. In addition, China tightened regulation against illegal coal extraction, which prompted China’s latest crackdown on cryptocurrency mining.
However, Tim Draper, a well-known Bitcoin venture capital enthusiast, told CNBC that he is still optimistic about Bitcoin’s market outlook. Draper predicts Bitcoin will reach $250,000 by the end of 2022 or early 2023.
As early as 2018, Venture capitalist Tim Draper predicted that bitcoin would multiply by 30 times within four years. At that time, the price of Bitcoin was about $8,000. Bitcoin recently has reached its historical peak up to $64,854 on April 14, 2021. The price has multiplied eight times since 2018.
Draper stated that:
“I’m either going to be really right or really wrong, (but) I’m pretty sure that it’s going in that direction.”
Draper believes that virtual currencies such as bitcoin will be widely used soon. Despite only a few large companies, such as Microsoft, PayPal, square, Starbucks, etc., accept Bitcoin as a payment medium. He added that retailers would mostly use Opennode (Bitcoin Payment Processors) in the next year and a half. Therefore, the public will widely accept Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, Draper said:
“Then beyond that, I think [bitcoin] continues up because there are only 21 million of them.”
Under its code, only 21 million Bitcoin can be “mined.” So far, 18,735,268 BTC are already in circulation, according to Coinmarketcap.
Tim Draper does not disclose how much Bitcoin he holds or invested in other cryptocurrencies. However, it is estimated that this American venture capital investor with a net worth estimated at $1 billion.
Many experts view Bitcoin as a store of value, like gold, rather than a currency. As a result, most engineers are now working on improving Bitcoin. Last week, Bitcoin performed its first upgrade in four years, called Taproot. Since it will take effect in November, it is reported that this change will mean greater transaction privacy and efficiency aimed at unleashing the potential of smart contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain.
On May 13, Musk said on Twitter that he believes that the future of cryptocurrencies is still bright. Tesla will not sell any bitcoins and is actively looking for other cryptocurrencies that consume less than 1% of Bitcoin’s energy consumption.
At the same time, Elon Musksaid on Sunday that when at least half of the bitcoins can be mined with clean energy, Tesla will accept Bitcoins again.
The price of Bitcoin soared over $40,000 on Monday, and it rose by more than 13%, reaching a maximum of approximately $41,000. The current price has fallen and adjusted a little bit. Bitcoin was trading at $40,249 during the intraday trading.
Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper thinks the ultimate impact of cryptocurrency will stretch far beyond the world of finance.
The Draper Associates founder tells high-profile crypto trader Scott Melker that while there may be “fits and starts,” he thinks BTC’s price will continue to rise as Bitcoin radically changes those various elements of society.
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Specifically, Draper says crypto will reshape finance, insurance, government and healthcare. Bitcoin’s impact on finance, he explains, will reduce corporate expenses on accounting and legal help.
“We’ve got a combination of technologies that are going to transform not just banking, but finance. I can imagine a time where I raise a fund just in Bitcoin, invest it all in Bitcoin, have the companies pay their employees and suppliers all in Bitcoin, have that all be a walled garden where taxes are taken out… in Bitcoin. And it requires no friction. It requires no accounting, no auditing, no bookkeeping, no legal — it’s all done in this perfect walled garden because the blockchain keeps perfect records.”
Draper believes insurance companies could rely completely on artificial intelligence and surveillance, which he says would reduce disagreements over insurance claims.
“In fact, I could imagine an insurance company that sends you a check before you issue a claim because the surveillance has recognized that your house has burned down or that you’ve got cancer or that something horrible has happened.”
The billionaire also believes Bitcoin and smart contracts could offer similar benefits to governments around the world.
“What is government but a bunch of insurance companies put together? That government can also be much more streamlined. All those insurance programs — the healthcare insurance and workman’s comp insurance and unemployment insurance and welfare and pensions, social security — they’re all insurance programs. You can set those up on a smart contract with Bitcoin and they’re completely fair and you don’t have people getting in the way. And those people can go be productive in other things.”
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He also believes healthcare records can go on blockchains.
“Healthcare is going through a major transformation. Some of that is tied to putting your healthcare records on the blockchain but a lot of it is that it’s all going digital. You can do both your therapeutics and your diagnostics in digital form.”
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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.
A new global cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, Globe Derivative Exchange, or GlobeDX, continues preparation for the platform’s launch by securing another major raise.
GlobeDX announced Wednesday that the firm has successfully raised $18 million through a new funding round featuring investors like seed money startup accelerator Y Combinator and Tim Draper’s Draper Dragon fund. Other investors included OKEx crypto exchange, Pantera Capital, Republic Crypto, CMT Digital, and Wave Financial.
Scheduled for launch in early May 2021, GlobeDX will allow users to trade major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), as well as decentralized finance tokens at up to 100x leverage via perpetual futures contracts. Built by Y Combinator alumni Shaun Ng and James West, the platform has already enabled users to open Globe accounts and trade with Testnet Bitcoin.
“We’re working closely with our investors and strategic partners to bring innovative products for our traders on Globe. Trading DeFi perpetuals on an exchange built by trad-fi veterans will be a whole new experience for crypto traders”, GlobeDX CEO West said.
The latest funding round adds to a $3 million seed round completed by GlobeDX in November 2020. A spokesperson for GlobeDX told Cointelegraph that the previous funding round was an equity raise, while the latest $18 million funding will contribute to its upcoming token sale involving the Globe Derivatives Token (GDT). GlobeDX’s native GDT serves multiple purposes including trading fee discounts, staking rewards and others.
“The Globe team has been building quietly and we think now’s the perfect time for them, with incumbents like BitMEX facing new challenges and DeFi catching the attention of sophisticated market players,” Pantera Capital’s Franklin Bi said.
Crypto-friendly web browser Opera is expanding its integration of decentralized web pages provided by blockchain domain name provider Unstoppable Domains — a blockchain firm backed by the high-profile Bitcoin (BTC) advocate Tim Draper.
On Wednesday, Opera said that users of the browser on any platform — iOS, Android, Windows, Mac or Linux — will now benefit from full, native integration of Unstoppable Domains’ .crypto domain names.
The move extends access to decentralized web pages to all of Opera’s estimated 320+ million monthly active users and marks Opera out among mainstream web browsers in supporting a domain name system that is not part of the dominant Domain Name Service.
The .crypto domain names are minted as nonfungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, providing their creators with full control and ownership rights over their pages. The .crypto names typically sell as NFTs for as little as $40, although more coveted addresses such as win.crypto, gambling.crypto and hotels.crypto were sold for $100,000 each in March of this year.
Due to the native integration, access to .crypto sites is just as easy as a traditional .com address. For users of the decentralized web on Opera, an additional convenience is that .crypto domain names can be used instead of the unwieldy alphanumeric blockchain addresses used for payments across cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges.
Moreover, due to Opera’s support of IPFS, users can retrieve .crypto sites from a decentralized network of computers rather than a cloud provider or server. IPFS is an acronym for InterPlanetary File System, a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system.
While decentralized web infrastructure goes some way toward circumventing censorship for publishers and posters of web domain names, Opera has previously emphasized that on the user side, VPNs may still be necessary to get around externally imposed restrictions, even for.crypto sites.
