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Billion dollar Bitcoin mining industry resumes in Iran after three month ban

Billion dollar Bitcoin mining industry resumes in Iran after three month ban

The extreme heat of the summer has subsided, so crypto mining has been given the green light as it can no longer be blamed for stressing the electricity grid.

The Iranian government will allow licensed cryptocurrency miners to resume operations today following a three-month ban imposed by former President Hassan Rouhani on May 26th, 2021.

The initial ban was put into effect due to concerns over the stability of the country’s unreliable power grid.

The middle eastern country experienced widespread power outages in the summer, which former President Rouhani attributed to extreme heat. On some days, the heat topped 120 degrees Fahrenheit, or nearly 49 degrees Celsius.

In light of the power outages and a water shortage, Rouhani decided to ban crypto mining during the heat to ensure citizens could keep their air conditioners running — although doubts have been expressed in some quarters about how much power crypto mining actually uses in the country. With the heat dying down and Ebrahim Raisi taking office as president on August 3rd, 2021, the crypto mining ban has been lifted.

An estimated 4.5% to 7% of the world’s cryptocurrency mining is done in Iran. It may come as little surprise that Iran boasts some of the cheapest electricity prices in the world thanks to abundant fossil fuel resources such as natural gas.

There are some reports that suggests the country looks favorably on Bitcoin mining as a way to evade sanctions from the United States. Iran currently suffers from a near-complete embargo by the USA, negatively affecting the nation’s economy. At current estimated levels of mining in Iran, revenues are estimated by Elliptic via Reuters to be around $1 billion.

Despite the ban, underground mining reportedly continued and on Wednesday news broke that Ali Sahraee, the director of Teheran’s Stock Exchange (TSE), had resigned after the state-run media reported that cryptocurrency mining was taking place at the exchange during the ban.

TSE leadership first denied the existence of the mining operation, but later executive deputy director Beheshti-Sarsht admitted that the TSE should be held accountable for the operation.



via cointelgraph.com
Senator Bragg tells NFT Fest new Australian crypto legislation likely in 2022

Senator Bragg tells NFT Fest new Australian crypto legislation likely in 2022

Talking about a digital asset plan being cooked up by a Senate inquiry, Senator Andrew Bragg said, “We will want the major parties, including my party, to adopt these policies as part of their election manifestos.”

Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg has told a local industry event that Australia’s digital asset plan to create cryptocurrency-related legislation is “coming” soon and could be enacted in 2022.

He also backed plans to run the sector on renewable energy as part of the government's yet-to- be-established goal of achieving ‘net zero’ carbon emissions.

Speaking at the virtual NFT Fest event supported by Blockchain Australia on Sept. 30, Bragg stated that the select Senate committee investigating the topic will publish its report by the end of October, which will include regulatory recommendations that can be legislated over the next 12 months.

“The review is due to conclude in about three weeks from now and the promise that I made you, I will keep. We will give you a plan, and that plan will be designed to put Australia at the front end of the digital asset society and the world,” he said.

The crypto-friendly Senator hosted the Senate inquiry into “Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre,” in 2021, but emphasized yesterday that it is now time to put solid frameworks in place as opposed to prolonging the process with further reviews.

While there is still a lot of work to do, Bragg hopes the plan will be adopted no matter which political party is elected in the next federal election due 2022:

“I think that you deserve more than just a series of recommendations for new inquiries, task forces and further review. So we will be making some hard recommendations. [...] We will want the major parties, including my party, to adopt these policies as part of their election manifestos.”

While Bragg didn’t outline the specifics, he stated that the plan will include recommendations for a “robust policy framework” focused on three objectives: consumer protection, investor promotion and market competition.

“Now, for those of you that say we don't want to have regulation. I would remind you that your industry reps and the vast bulk of the industry is asking for some regulation, so there will be some regulation,” he said.

The Senator also stated that he is “very conscious” about not wanting to stifle innovation in crypto via regulation that suits the “incumbent vested interests” who want to see the sector “destroyed by a regulation that was designed for a whole different purpose.”

Related: 17% of Australians now own crypto, totaling $8B between them: Survey

Speaking on environmental concerns over crypto’s energy consumption — as well as the government’s ambitions to transition to a “net-zero economy” — Bragg stated that he wants to see the crypto sector operate using solely renewable energy:

“I’ll just put the simple fact that we are trying to get to net zero. We want to get there as soon as we can. I personally think it's highly, and strongly in our economic interests to transition to a net-zero economy. And in the area of digital assets using a lot of electricity, we want that to happen on a renewable basis.”

“So I think it's a unique opportunity for the industry to pull this, pull those two things together,” he added.



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South Korean crypto tax delay thwarted

South Korean crypto tax delay thwarted

The crypto tax will begin for South Koreans in 2022 but some industry observers say there is no cause for concern.

Lawmakers in South Korea settled a long political battle on Sept. 30th and headed off moves by the ruling party to delay the implementation of the controversial crypto tax legislation. 

In a meeting on the 26th but only reported yesterday, Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki and key Democratic lawmakers from the National Assembly, South Korea’s legislature, are said to have come to a final agreement that the crypto tax will be carried out as planned

The Korean crypto tax will tax crypto profits in a similar way to traditional stocks. It will levy a 20% tax on income generated by crypto transactions in excess of 2.5 million Korean won, or about $2,100.

The majority Democratic party in the National Assembly was attempting to pass an amendment to the tax bill which would have postponed the tax until 2023. Democratic lawmaker Kim Byung-ook proposed in open session on September 15th that the capital gains tax on cryptocurrency should be rolled out alongside a similar tax on stocks in 2023, rather than 2022.

While the majority ruling party should theoretically have had the numbers to pass the amendment they faced stiff opposition from Finance Minister Hong, who wields significant power and has served in many high-ranking positions in the country, including as Prime Minister.

Minister Hong has repeatedly stated throughout 2021 that the tax would come into effect as originally planned, going as far as to say that the crypto tax was inevitable for 2022.

At least twice since May, Minister Hong has repeated his firm stance against the ruling Democratic party that the crypto tax would come into effect without delay.

While a victory for Hong, some crypto industry insiders are concerned the new tax will see trading volumes and overall interest in the industry decline.

But Jun Hyuk Ahn, a Korean crypto market analyst, feels that there is no reason to worry about a decline in interest. He told Cointelegraph:

“I don’t believe taxation will cause deterrence on the crypto market in Korea. We’ve seen what happened in the States, and it won’t be much different here.”

The new legislation comes on top of new regulations regarding cyber security that saw the recent market exit of many Korean exchanges. Just 29 crypto exchanges met the September 24th deadline to come into compliance.

Of those 29, only four have obtained real-name bank account partnerships with domestic banks which grants them the legal right to continue offering KRW trading pairs. Those four are Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and Korbit. The remaining 25 exchanges have Internet Security Management System (ISMS) certification and will offer crypto-to-crypto trading pairs.

Related: Bybit crypto exchange suspends services in South Korea

From today, Upbit will require any user trading in excess of 1 million KRW ($842) to undergo KYC, with all users trading any amount also required to do so by October 8th. The new KYC process is meant to bring exchanges in line with anti-money laundering procedures.

Korean exchanges, such as Upbit, previously used the real-name bank account and their Kakaotalk messaging app as de facto KYC mechanisms. Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit are expected to follow Upbit in requiring further KYC from its users.



via cointelgraph.com
Societe Generale proposes historic $20M DAI loan in exchange for bond tokens

Societe Generale proposes historic $20M DAI loan in exchange for bond tokens

The digital assets division of the international bank wants to provide home loan-backed security tokens as collateral for the loan.

One of France’s leading banks has turned to decentralized finance pioneer MakerDAO to propose the submission of bond tokens as collateral for a loan of the DAI stablecoin.

The historic proposal called “Security Tokens Refinancing” was submitted to Maker’s governance forums by the international bank on Oct. 1. It would be the first major collaboration between a traditional bank and a DeFi protocol and could open the door for closer integration between the two sectors.

Societe Generale (SG) labeled it as the “first experiment at the crossroads between regulated and open source initiatives.”

The bank has proposed that it provides “OFH” security tokens (obligations de financement de l’habitat) which are characterized as covered bonds under French law, and backed by home loans.

These would be used to collateralize a $20 million loan in Maker’s DAI stablecoin which would be mediated by a number of legal entities and mature in six to nine months.

The Ethereum-based security tokens were issued in May 2020 with a nominal amount of 40 million Euro ($46.3M) and a fixed rate of 0%. They mature in May 2025 and have the top credit rating of AAA by rating agencies Moody’s and Fitch.

MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen said he had “no clue” about this proposal, adding that “this is one of multiple recent examples in Maker Governance of how the post-foundation model of organization is proving to be more scalable.”

Industry observer “DCInvestor” commented on the potential impact of deals such as this on Ethereum and its position as a global settlement layer:

“Societe Generale with their attempt to get their on-chain assets usable in Maker and you're wondering if Ethereum will become a global settlement layer it's happening, now.”

SG stated that the loan would be a “pilot use case,” with the goal of helping to “shape and promote an experiment under the French legal framework,” and “enhance a profitable service and foster liquidity for digital bonds.”

SG Forge, a regulated subsidiary of the bank that deals with crypto assets, is managing the proposal which is based on the open-source framework CAST (Compliant Architecture for Security Tokens).

The legal framework for the deal is complex as it needs to integrate an institutional financial organization with a decentralized governance-based network. A flowchart provided by the bank details six separate entities involved in the process. These include the registrar Societe Generale Forge, the bank itself SG, MakerDAO, a legal representative for the DeFi protocol, security agent DIIS Group, and a third-party exchange agent.

Source: forum.makerdao.com

Related: Senator Warren’s office confuses MakerDAO for failed 2016 project The DAO

Pseudonymous MakerDAO community member ‘PaperImperium’ commented on the proposal in the forum:

“Maker and SocGen-Forge are standing at the precipice of financial history. What a time to be alive.”

The proposal is currently being discussed and will move to a formal governance vote in the weeks to come.

It is not the first time Societe Generale has dabbled with Ethereum-based security tokens. In April 2019, the bank’s SG Forge unit issued a 100 million Euro bond as an OFH security token on Ethereum.



via cointelgraph.com
DOGE co-founder sets sights on Ethereum bridge and NFTs for mass adoption

DOGE co-founder sets sights on Ethereum bridge and NFTs for mass adoption

Billy Markus has talked up a proposed Dogecoin-to-Ethereum bridge so that DOGE can be used on top NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea.

Dogecoin (DOGE) co-founder Billy Markus has set his sights on nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and an Ethereum-to-Dogecoin bridge to help bring about for mass adoption of the meme coin.

In a Sept. 30 tweet, Markus emphasized the importance of completing the Ethereum-Dogecoin bridge so that the asset could be integrated with top Ethereum-based NFT platforms such as OpenSea, enabling non fungible purchases with DOGE.

Markus said that there is “high demand” to purchase NFTs within the crypto community and that enabling NFT purchases with DOGE “greatly increases its utility.”

The in development DOGE-ETH bridge would enable users to send DOGE from the Dogecoin blockchain to the Ethereum blockchain, and transact with the asset in sectors such as decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFTs via ERC-20 DOGE token contracts.

The bridge would provide extra utility for DOGE, as it could provide a fun alternative to Ether which dominates NFT payments, while also ramping up transaction levels and usage via circulation in various DeFi protocols on Ethereum.

In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman on June 4, Ethereum co-founder and DOGE investor Vitalik Buterin also emphasized the bullish potential that an Ethereum-bridge could have for DOGE, noting that:

"If DOGE wants to somehow bridge to Ethereum, and then people can trade DOGE thousands of times a second inside a loop ring, then that would be amazing."

In Markus’s Twitter thread, he was asked if the bridge is in the works, and responded that “people are working on the DOGE-ETH bridge, yes,” without naming names.

Organizations such as DogeLabs — a collaboration of developers focused on the Dogecoin chain — announced on June 18 that it was exploring the idea of building a Doge-ETH bridge that would enable hodlers to use the asset in Ethereum-based DeFi staking.

DogeLabs also stated that it was looking to the development of a DOGE burn wallet where developers can build “applications that send a small portion of Doge to a public burn wallet to assist in building a deflationary mode around DOGE inflationary growth.”

Markus stepped away from working on Dogecoin in 2015 — selling his stash for the equivalent of a used Honda Civic — however the co-founder is a member of the advisory board of the Dogecoin foundation that was re-established in August. Buterin is also a member of the advisory board.

Related: Crypto is impossible to destroy, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk

The non-profit foundation supports and advocates for the development of Dogecoin, while also protecting its trademark from the likes of copycats such as Dogecoin 2.0.

Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 2 that the Dogecoin Foundation demanded the "Dogecoin 2.0" project change its name and had hired brand protection lawyers to contact the knockoff’s developers in a bid to “protect the Dogecoin community from being misled and to protect the Dogecoin name from possible misuse.”



via cointelgraph.com
Shanghai Man: Looking deeper into China’s biggest ban yet

Shanghai Man: Looking deeper into China’s biggest ban yet

This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industrys most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations.

Well, it finally happened. The regulation-driven crypto-apocalypse in China. They started by clamping down on miners earlier this summer before finally tightening the screws on exchanges. This week, the final nail in the coffin came with even more rules from the PBoC that resulted in many platforms announcing they could no longer accept Chinese users.

Banned yet again

The new rules handed down by the Peoples Bank of China made things incredibly clear for businesses from a legal standpoint. One of the main points was that cryptocurrency-related business activities are illegal, a ruling that cast doubt over the long list of projects, exchanges, and financial service providers in the country.

Many projects responded instantly by eliminating WeChat communities and even internal messaging groups on domestic networks, preferring to operate through VPNs and more privacy-focused chat apps. Leading exchange Huobi, which sits third on the global leaderboard for volume, announced they would be permanently closing down Chinese user accounts at the end of the year.

 

 

Huobi outlines plan for Chinese investors after halting crypto trading
Chinese users on Huobi must make a decision before accounts close on December 31.

 

If true, this would be a massive blow to the exchange that has long-serviced the Chinese community with a high standard of service that includes deep liquidity, a wide range of assets, and few security blemishes to speak of. Experienced Chinese investors might still be skeptical that Huobi would make such a drastic change, as announcements and policies can change very quickly in the Chinese world of crackdowns and political posturing.

Trouble for overseas players

Perhaps the most alarming point of the PBoC announcement was that overseas cryptocurrency exchanges providing services to Chinese residents are also deemed to be illegal financial activities. Additionally, it stated that there are legal risks to participating in cryptocurrency investment transactions. This sparked some fear among employees of crypto companies who suddenly worried they might be the next target of crackdowns by law enforcement.

Binance was quick to point out that the domain Binance.com has been blocked in China since 2017, excluding it from the regulatory discussion. It also announced it would no longer accept new registrations from Chinese users, but said nothing about existing accounts. BitMart, another exchange with ties to China, also announced that on November 30, it would be closing accounts from users in the Chinese mainland. Biki, an even smaller exchange, announced it would be winding up exchange operations altogether.

 

 

 

For smaller exchanges, the risks of operating are quite high, especially as many have diversified business models that include investment, mining, or other financial services. Smaller CeFi exchanges in this space may also be feeling increasingly crowded out by the rapid growth of top CeFi platforms, as well as the widespread adoption of decentralized exchanges. Closing doors on the exchanges may not mean exiting the industry altogether, but simply abandoning a high-risk and underperforming business line.

So what is left for Chinese traders?

Individual users are still in a gray area as the announcement didnt strictly say that the possession of cryptocurrencies was illegal. This seems unlikely as the general trend is to try to protect the citizens by targeting the businesses, a move weve seen in a number of different industry verticals this year, including education and entertainment.

Another area that isnt clear is Chinese users who live abroad. In addition to the large population of overseas Chinese citizens, many are still able to fake their location using VPNs. Assuming that these users are still able to get past IP bans, it could leave a possible route for more technically savvy holders to continue trading on CeFi platforms.

Exchanges without any operations in China might see this as an opportunity, as regulators would have very little recourse against them. At this stage, it seems like China’s regulators might be successful in discouraging much of the smaller retail cryptocurrency activity. However, the large players are already overseas or finding ways to get around these new barriers. If they’ve been in the space awhile, they are more than familiar with the ebbs and flows of regulations.

No answer for decentralization

The biggest benefactor in the short term may be DeFi protocols. The one-two punch of China cracking down and liquidity rewards on DYDX caused a massive spike in adoption for the StarkWare-based derivatives platform. According to data on Similarweb, China was the top region to access the site, with over 10% of the market share. Users with VPNs from China likely accounted for even more. It’s still not clear if this will be a long-term solution, or if the massive increase is more speculative in search of earning the DYDX token as a reward.

 

China and Hong Kong lead the way for DYDX website visitors. Source: Similarweb

Toeing the party line

Seeing an opportunity to display their best behavior, eCommerce platform Alibaba announced the platform could no longer be used for the sale of cryptocurrency mining machines. This stance is not surprising, considering the scrutiny the company is already under by financial regulators. The organization is being restructured after their p2p lending models sparked a high-profile row between founder Jack Ma and financial oversight bodies.



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A Look At Bitcoin And Biases: Price

A Look At Bitcoin And Biases: Price

There are several forms of bias to examine when it comes to understanding bitcoin and its price.

Source: Author modification of 43/1995 from goodfreephotos.com

You try to have the Bitcoin conversation. All you hear back is fear, uncertainty or doubt (FUD). You try to explain Bitcoin and their eyes glaze over. Often no-coiners or alt-coiners just don’t want to hear about Bitcoin.

Cognitive Biases At Play

Let’s try to understand by looking into the cognitive biases that enable the FUD and noise . Once these are understood, we can try de-biasing instead.

We define cognitive bias as, “a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own “subjective reality” from their perception of the input. An individual’s construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the worl​d.”

In short, our judgement is often not accurate in predictable ways.

To understand the systematic errors in people’s Bitcoin judgements, let’s start by looking at four biases around bitcoin’s price.

Availability And Recency Bias

Source: Drawing by Heidi Porter

“Bitcoin is too volatile!” When Bitcoin’s price changes by more than a fraction, every news source has an article, often with a language of hysterics. You cannot hide from the availability of that information.

This is availability bias, “the ​human tendency to think that examples of things that come readily to mind are more representative (of truth) than is actually the case​.”

Articles about Bitcoin’s volatility are also in recent memory. This is recency bias, “a ​cognitive bias that favors recent events over historic ones.” One way to reduce the availability bias is to look at more data. One way to reduce the recency bias is to look at more data over time. If you zoom out and take a long view of more bitcoin price data, the price number constantly goes up. A lot.

Source: @DanHeld Twitter

Bitcoin can be volatile when looking at a short timeframe, but bitcoin has a steadily increasing price over time. “Buy and Hold” is the standard advice with regards to the stock market. Do the same with Bitcoin; buy and hold. Or, as Bitcoiners are fond of saying: Hodl. Because “Number go up” over the long term.

Unit Bias

Source: mohemed_hassan on pixabay.com

Next up is unit bias​, “the concept that buyers are more enticed to buy a whole ​unit​ of a given currency instead of a fractional quantity.” Many people think they need to buy a whole bitcoin. They don’t know that the smallest unit of bitcoin is not 1 BTC; it’s 1 “satoshi” (“sat” for short).

We know:

100 cents = 1 dollar

We can similarly say:

100,000,000 sats = 1 BTC

Buying 0.00034500 BTC seems like a paltry, pointless amount because of unit bias. To de-bias the unit bias, simply focus on the smaller unit. Denominating it as buying 34,500 sats is much more enticing, even though this is the exact same amount of bitcoin! People should first aspire to become a sat millionaire (0.01 BTC) and then set their sights on maybe someday accumulating enough sats until they hold a whole bitcoin. There’s no need to view your holdings in tiny fractions of BTC. Just stack sats!

Anchoring Bias

Looking at the recent price of Bitcoin, it’s easy to anchor on that price and think “It’s too late, the price is too high. I should have bought it five or 10 years ago.”

The anchoring bias is when “an individual’s decisions are influenced by a particular reference point or ‘anchor’.”

● Bitcoin at $100: It’s too late to buy bitcoin

● Bitcoin at $1,000: It’s too late to buy bitcoin

● Bitcoin at $10,000: It’s too late to buy bitcoin

This trajectory actually demonstrates one way to de-bias the anchoring bias. Zoom out and choose a different anchor. You can also talk to more people to get a different perspective and anchor on a different number. Or you can also look across other similar areas and see that your anchoring number should not be an inhibitor. If you look at the stock market, was it too late to buy when the Dow was at 15,000? If bitcoin goes to $100,000, was it “too late” to buy bitcoin at $50,000?

Hindsight Bias Or “We Knew This All Along”

Next up is hindsight bias, “the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were.”

Source: geralt on pixabay.com

How many people claimed to know that bitcoin’s price would go way up all along, that it would hit $30,000, $40,000, $50,000? My bet is that those same people will be sitting pretty “knowing” that bitcoin will eventually reach$100,000, $150,000, $200,000.

Hindsight bias is one bias that all current Bitcoiners would like to experience about bitcoin’s price! No need to de-bias.

Let’s All Lead People Past the FUD

We’ve only looked at one set of biases around one area of bitcoin: price. Other areas to explore include biases such as authority, reactive devaluation and in-group or conformity biases with respect to high profile political, business and financial figures’ view of bitcoin.

We can also look at the availability and recency bias around the often unfactual focus on the “E”in the ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) narrative, even though bitcoin also has huge “S” and “G” benefits. Yet another area is biases around ambiguity and functional fixedness, which affect thinking around the varied functions and utility of Bitcoin.

Most of the erroneous critiques about Bitcoin stem from biases and noise.

Understanding the bitcoin biases and what we can do to de-bias them is a road to better understanding, further adoption of Bitcoin and the better world we Bitcoiners think that will enable.

Biased or not.

This is a guest post by Heidi Porter. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.


via bitcoinmagazine.com
DeFi and DEX volumes soar amid China's crypto ban and ongoing US regulation

DeFi and DEX volumes soar amid China's crypto ban and ongoing US regulation

Data shows that crypto holders are increasingly shifting to DeFi protocols and DEXs as China continues its cryptocurrency crackdown and fears of heavy-handed regulation scare US-based traders.

Last week China’s heavy-handed crackdown on crypto trading crypto briefly sent shockwaves across the market as Bitcoin and altcoin prices saw a sharp drop following the announcement, but as is the case with all things crypto-related, the market bounced back as resilient traders found other ways to participate in the market. 

Part of China's goal in limiting citizens ability to trade cryptocurrency seems focused on discouraging the use of cryptocurrencies and the growing decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem but these maneuvers appear to be having the opposite effect as the token price and protocol activity for projects like Uniswap (UNI) and dYdX have seen an uptick since the crackdown began.

According to data from Chainalysis, there has been a significant amount of regional Bitcoin (BTC) flows happening within eastern Asia, as highlighted by the tall orange bar in the graph below. This suggests that crypto holders in the region have been shifting around their holdings in response to the regulatory crackdown.

Regional BTC flows. Source: Chainalysis

As stated by Chainalysis, “assets typically flow within a region, likely due to preferences for local exchanges, but flows between regions often occur as a result of regulatory concerns, geopolitical changes, or significant market price variations.”

The lack of flows out of Eastern Asia combined with crypto exchanges like Huobi and Binance suspending services for Chinese residents suggests that funds are being kept within the region, but not on centralized exchanges.

Related: Derivatives DEX dYdX beats out Coinbase’s spot markets by volume amid China FUD

Gains in the DeFi Ecosystem

At the same time that this increased movement within the Eastern Asian region was occurring, activity on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and the decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX has been on the rise as traders in China seek out a safe haven for their crypto activities.

Uniswap trading volume vs. total revenue. Source: Token Terminal

DydX is a particularly helpful data point as it is now the most widely used decentralized derivatives exchange and has seen a spike in demand after regulators from around the world dropped the hammer on centralized exchanges with loose KYC policies that offer derivative services.

According to data from Token Terminal, dYdX is in the top-5 ranking for numerous categories over the past week, including the increase in token price, total protocol revenue, fees paid, the price to sales ratio and the price to earnings ratio. The exchange also rose to the top 6 in terms of increases in total value locked (TVL).

Total revenue vs. total value locked on dYdX. Source: Token Terminal

A closer look at the available data also shows that layer-two protocols and layer-one Ethereum (ETH) competitors have also seen some of the biggest gains over the past week, led by Avalanche-based protocols like Trader Joe and Pangolin, as well as the Fantom network.

Above all else, what the recent data shows is that the decentralized finance ecosystem is performing as it was originally intended to by providing an uncensorable way for crypto holders to transact outside of the control and purview of governments and financial regulators.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.



via cointelgraph.com
Keynesianism Benefits Money Printers, Not The Rest Of Us

Keynesianism Benefits Money Printers, Not The Rest Of Us

Keynesianism has eroded the ability for individuals to accumulate the necessary amount of capital to better their lives

The below is a direct excerpt of Marty's Bent Issue #1086: "Keynesianism doesn't work because it discards local information." Sign up for the newsletter here.

You can hone in on Keynesianism or zoom out further and focus on the broad topic of top-down control. Any way you cut it, it has become evident many times throughout history and is glaringly obvious at this particular juncture; these attempts to micromanage complex systems will never work. They will never work because they fundamentally discount local, emergent information which creates particular needs and particular necessary reactions to meet those needs.

Any top-down diktat or attempt to micromanage a complex system like an economy will result in inherent unfairness because the actions taken will have inherent assumptions that disregard local needs in favor of academic think and those closest to the decision making who are tasked with executing the orders. This system will erode the ability of local communities to actually fix their problems and results in a mass misallocation of capital that produces insane amounts of waste.

When it comes to Keynesian monetary systems, these decisions are expressly accentuated as money printing doesn't have an immediate affect on prices. This lag in price changes allows those closest to the spigot of money creation to take that newly printed money and purchase assets before prices adjust. Essentially guaranteeing monetary gain for those with the luxury of being close to the spigot and a loss of purchasing power for those who are further away as they receive the money after prices adjust and are unable to participate in the monetary gain in this particular game.

Keynesianism is an economic school of thought that has eroded the ability for individuals and families alike to accumulate the necessary amount of capital to better their lives and it is a great shame that it is the dominant economic theory deployed by monetary economists today. Luckily, bitcoin gives us the ability to transition to a monetary system that respects the need for complex systems to emerge from a grassroots movement of market participants who coalesce on the monetary standard because of its superior qualities of soundness and inherent inclusivity. If we keep pushing we will rid the world of the scourge of money printing by a small cabal ex-nihilo.

Onward!


via bitcoinmagazine.com
Bears intend to pin Bitcoin price below $43K until Friday's $700M expiry passes

Bears intend to pin Bitcoin price below $43K until Friday's $700M expiry passes

$700 million in BTC options expire on Friday, and derivatives data signals that bears are positioned to profit from a sub-$45,000 Bitcoin price.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading in a descending pattern since the strong $53,000 rejection that occurred on Sept. 7, and the $3.4 billion futures contracts liquidation along with China's ban on crypto trading appear to have severely impacted traders' morale. 

Adding to the negative sentiment, major crypto exchanges like Binance and Huobi halted some services in mainland China, and some of the largest Ethereum mining pools, like Sparkpool and BeePool were forced to shut down completely.

Bitcoin price in USD at Coinbase. Source: TradingView

Based on the above chart, it is possible to understand why buyers placed 80% of their bets at $44,000 or higher. However, the past two weeks definitively caused those call (buy) options to lose value quickly.

On Sept. 25, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) posted a nationwide ban on crypto and barred companies from providing financial transactions and services to market participants. The news triggered an 8% dip in Bitcoin's price along with a broader pullback on altcoins.

The bearish sentiment was confirmed after Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressed his support for cryptocurrency at the Code Conference in California.

Musk said:

"It is not possible to, I think, destroy crypto, but it is possible for governments to slow down its advancement."

Had we been in a neutral-to-bullish market, those remarks would likely have reversed the negative trend. For example, on July 21, Elon Musk said that Bitcoin had already hit his benchmark on renewable energy. As a result, Bitcoin price, which had previously dropped 12% in ten days, reverted the move and hiked 35% over the next ten days.

The Oct. 1 expiry will be a strength test for bulls because any price below $42,000 means a bloodbath with absolute dominance of put (sell) options.

Bitcoin options aggregate open interest for Oct. 1. Source: Bybt.com

Initially, the $285 million neutral-to-bullish instruments dominated the weekly expiry by 21% compared to the $320 million puts (sell) options.

However, the 1.21 call-to-put ratio is deceiving because the excessive optimism seen from bulls could wipe out most of their bets if Bitcoin price remains below $43,000 at 8:00 am UTC on Friday.

After all, what good is a right to acquire Bitcoin at $50,000 if it's trading below that price?

Bears were also caught by surprise

Sixty-six percent of the put options, where the buyer holds a right to sell Bitcoin at a pre-established price, has been placed at $42,000 or lower. These neutral-to-bearish instruments will become worthless if Bitcoin trades above that price on Friday morning.

Below are the four most likely scenarios that consider the current price levels. The imbalance favoring either side represents the potential profit from the expiry.

The data shows how many contracts will be available on Friday, depending on the expiry price.

  • Between $40,000 and $41,000: 110 calls vs. 4,470 puts. The net result is $175 million favoring the protective put (bear) instruments.
  • Between $41,000 and $43,000: 640 calls vs. 4,000 puts. The net result continues to favor bears by $140 million.
  • Between $43,000 and $45,000: 1,780 calls vs. 2,070 puts. The net result is balanced between bears and bulls.
  • Above $45,000: 2,530 calls vs. 1,090 puts. The net result shifts in favor of bulls by $65 million.

This crude estimate considers call (buy) options used in bullish strategies and put (sell) options exclusively in neutral-to-bearish trades. Unfortunately, real life is not that simple because it's possible that more complex investment strategies are being deployed.

For example, a trader could have sold a put option, effectively gaining a positive exposure to Bitcoin above a specific price. Consequently, there's no easy way to estimate this effect, so the simple analysis above is a good guess.

As things currently stand, bears have absolute control of the Oct. 1 expiry and they have a few good reasons to keep pressuring the price below $43,000.

Unless some unexpected buying pressure comes out over the next 12 hours, the amount of capital required for bulls to force the market above the $45,000 threshold seems immense and unjustified.

On the other hand, bears need a 5% negative price swing that takes BTC below $41,000 to increase their lead by $35 million. So this move also shows little return for the amount of effort required.

The bull's only hope resides in some surprise positive newsflow for Bitcoin price ahead of Oct. 1 at 8:00 am UTC. If any sensible action is bound to occur, it will likely take place during the weekend, when there's less active flow.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and 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.



via cointelgraph.com
How To Identify Bitcoin Price Bottoms

How To Identify Bitcoin Price Bottoms

Looking at the metrics that help us determine bitcoin price bottoms.

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 today’s Daily Dive we will dig into a new metric for timing bitcoin bottoms. This metric will use the realized price of two separate cohorts of bitcoin investors; long-term holders and short-term holders.

First, before digging into the metric, let’s define some of the terms:

Realized Price: Realized price is the average price that every coin (technically: UTXO) was moved on the network. For some, realized market capitalization is an easier metric to understand. Realized market capitalization, which is nearly an identical metric as realized price, takes the aggregate of every bitcoin on the network at the price it last moved. Realized price is currently $21,100, while realized capitalization is $397.4 billion. Realized price can otherwise be thought of as the cost basis for everyone across the network on average.

Source: Glassnode

Long-Term Holder: A long-term holder is defined as someone whose bitcoin has not moved wallet addresses in 155 days. While 155 days may seem like somewhat of an arbitrary threshold, the time was chosen because the statistical probability of a UTXO being spent decreases the longer it is held. The chart below shows the probability that a UTXO is spent within the specified time in days as a function of its coin age.

Source: Quantifying Short-Term And Long-Term Holder Bitcoin Supply - Glassnode

With long-term holders defined, anyone whose coin has been dormant for less than 155 days is classified as a short-term holder.

Using Glassnode’s suite of data, we can construct a realized price for both long and short-term holders. While Glassnode does not provide the realized price for these two groups of investors, it is easily calculated using data that is provided. Using the market-value-to-realized-value ratio (MVRV) for the two seperate groups, you simply divide price by the MVRV ratio of the two groups to backwards-calculate the realized price.

Below is the history of MVRV for long-term holders (LTHs) and short-term holders (STHs):

*Note that LTH MVRV is in log scale, while STH MVRV is in linear scale.*

Calculating LTH And STH Realized Price 

Source: Glassnode 
Source: Glassnode 

So, how can the realized price rice of LTHs and STHs help us to identify bitcoin bottoms, and *potentially* help to identify bitcoin tops? Let’s dive in.


via bitcoinmagazine.com
Fed’s Powell has no intent to ban Bitcoin or crypto

Fed’s Powell has no intent to ban Bitcoin or crypto

Powell testified before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday on matters related to the economy and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell believes the federal government needs to regulate the cryptocurrency market, but that a blanket ban on Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets is not in the cards.

Speaking in response to a question from Republican Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina, Powell clarified that a China-style ban on digital assets was not something he’s considering. Rep. Budd’s question came in response to Powell raising doubts about the regulatory status of stablecoins and the central bank’s ongoing deliberations around a so-called “digital dollar.” (In Powell’s view, a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, could perform many of the functions of stablecoins and cryptocurrencies but without the regulatory risk.)

“Stablecoins are like money market funds [and] like bank deposits but they’re, to some extent, outside the regulatory perimeter and it’s appropriate they be regulated,” he said. “Same activity, same regulation.”

Related: Countries representing over 90% of global GDP are exploring CBDCs

A central bank digital currency has been on the Fed’s radar for some time, but policymakers remain undecided on whether to pursue the project. In the meantime, the central bank has commissioned several research reports on the advantages and potential roadblocks of issuing a CBDC.

Powell oversees the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee, which is responsible for setting United States monetary policy. Earlier this month, the Committee decided to leave its existing stimulus programs intact but said that the pandemic-induced bond purchase program could be winding down soon. The warning appears to have put some downward pressure on risk assets, which includes stocks and cryptocurrencies.



via cointelgraph.com
The infrastructure bill is hanging in the balance. What would its enactment mean for crypto?

The infrastructure bill is hanging in the balance. What would its enactment mean for crypto?

Hinging on Democrats' ability to resolve intraparty disagreements, the controversial legislation could have tangible consequences for digital finance in the U.S. and beyond — if passed by the House today.

Later today, the United States House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, a bill authorizing sweeping investments in domains such as passenger rail, bridge repair, clean water and wastewater facilities, clean energy transmission, and universal access to high-speed internet. In addition to that, tucked into the massive bill are several provisions that would directly affect millions of crypto users if enacted, particularly the expanded tax reporting requirements for entities handling cryptocurrency transactions.

Neither the bill becoming law nor even a House vote on it on Sept. 30 are warranted, however. The legislation is s working through Congress alongside the budget resolution bill, with several factions within the Democratic party – which controls the majority of seats in the chamber but needs a clean party-line for the initiative – conditioning their support of the infrastructure bill on certain social policy-related provisions being included in the budget reconciliation.

As the political maneuvering approaches the boiling point, here is what legal experts and cryptocurrency industry players think of the bill that can become law within the next few hours.

The spirit of the law

At this point, whether the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 in its current shape will become law is anyone’s guess. Regardless of that, the way cryptocurrency-related provisions have made their way into an omnibus bill like this one could hint at how Congress might go about legislating on key policies that affect the crypto space going forward.

On point of contention is that provisions affecting cryptocurrency users and businesses were appended to the bill without due consideration of what the industry thinks on the matter.

Ben Weiss, CEO of crypto ATM provider CoinFlip, noted to Cointelegraph:

Representatives from the industry did not have the opportunity to weigh in on or discuss the policy changes, which will cause a major disruption to the cryptocurrency ecosystem. We believe there should be more dialogue between Congress and members of this rapidly growing industry to lead to a better and clearer policy that will benefit everyone.

At the same time, Jahon Jamali, co-founder of crypto investment firm Sarson Funds, does not believe that the passage of the bill would adversely affect the digital asset space in the long run, because the pace of the industry far exceeds the government’s capability to catch up with it. Jamali added:

I am sure that the enormity of the size of the bill and dollar amount the government is looking to spend will have implications on finance as a whole and will most likely drive more innovation in the fintech industry to lay the foundation for a blockchain-based system.

Brock Pierce, chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation, expects that the market would “respond over time by adjusting the reality of more regulation.” Pierce expects that cryptocurrency firms and entrepreneurs will work with regulators towards more sensible regulation as the industry’s political influence strengthens.

Indeed, the requirements laid out in the bill will not take effect until after 2023 – a very long time by the standards of the crypto universe.

Shaun Hunley, tax consultant at software firm Thomson Reuters Tax and Accounting, believes that even if the bill doesn’t pass today, some form of legislation requiring crypto information reporting will be enacted “because of the government’s interest in fighting tax evasion.”

Many of these actors do not interact with the parties transacting on the blockchain and thus might not have access to their personal data, which would render compliance impossible.

Who are the brokers?

The major concern of the crypto community regarding the proposed legislation is the section of the Tax code that broadens the definition of cryptocurrency “broker” – invoking corresponding reporting requirements – beyond cryptocurrency exchange platforms to include entities such as software developers, stakers, node validators, and miners.

Many of these actors do not interact with the parties transacting on the blockchain and thus might not have access to their personal data, which would render compliance impossible.

Stan Sater, a corporate & technology attorney at law firm Founders Legal, believes that the confusing expansion of the key definition is a result of the legislators’ lack of understanding of how to deal with crypto reporting. Sater commented to Cointelgraph:

Typically, rather than relying on self-reporting, the government deputizes intermediaries to collect the information they need for taxes. In financial markets, those intermediaries are brokers. So you need to expand the definition of “broker”, but how do you do that for digital assets and capture everyone involved in the industry? The government really doesn’t know how to address this but they have a problem so they proposed an incredibly broad definition of “broker” that captures nearly everyone involved in the digital finance industry including individuals.

In Sater’s opinion, the proposed requirements are “incredibly vague” and they could lead to “forced surveillance on everyone.”

However, even if the bill is passed in its current form, the draft language would not automatically become law, said Olya Veramchuk, director of tax solutions at blockchain data and software firm Lukka. Veramchuk said:

The Treasury would have to issue proposed regulations and seek input on the matters from the public. That would be the time for the industry participants to add their fingerprints to the regulatory landscape and educate the regulators on the intricacies of the digital asset space, which would hopefully result in a workable and more feasible tax law.

More surveillance and reporting

Another part of the proposed legislation that got some in the crypto circles riled up is the Tax code section 6050I that, according to crypto advocacy group Proof of Stake Alliance could make “receiving digital assets a felony if not reported correctly.” The provision applies to any person who receives over $10,000 and requires them to report the sender’s personal information to the government.

Hunley of Thomson Reuters Tax and Accounting believes that, while the requirement is not new per se, it could dampen some businesses’ appetite for accepting crypto. Hunley commented:

Amended 6050I would just treat digital assets as cash for currency transaction reporting purposes. Only serious investors would use crypto to engage in transactions over $10,000, and those are the types of transactions the IRS wants to know about. However, I believe this new requirement would possibly deter businesses from accepting crypto as a form of payment.

Lukka’s Veramchuk, too, pointed out that the rules articulated in section 6050I are not new, and therefore it is “unreasonable to view them as imposing undue surveillance on those engaging in digital asset transactions.” The caveat, she added, is that these rules should only be applied in a fashion that is practical, sensible and attainable in the decentralized digital asset ecosystem.

Hunley concluded that the bill “could potentially be confusing for taxpayers.” He added:

The government would essentially treat crypto as property for one purpose (reporting taxable income), cash for another purpose (the Section 6050I reporting rules), and securities for yet another purpose (the broker reporting rules).

A good tax policy, in his opinion, is for crypto to be treated as one thing for all purposes.

As of 2 PM Eastern on Sept. 30, it is still unclear whether the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 will be brought to the floor today.



via cointelgraph.com
TikTok embraces NFTs with creator-led collection

TikTok embraces NFTs with creator-led collection

The NFT launch features prominent TikTokers including Lil Nas X, Bella Poarch, Curtis Roach, Brittany Broski and others.

Social media platform TikTok has announced its first foray into the nonfungible token, or NFT, market with a new collection inspired by its leading trend-setters.

On Thursday, the company announced TikTok Top Moments, a new program that allows content creators to be recognized and rewarded for their content. The NFT drops will be launched on Ethereum and powered by Immutable X, a new scaling solution for layer-two NFT protocol Immutable.

TikTok Top Moments is said to feature a selection of six TokTok videos from the network’s most influential creators. Each one is intended to celebrate the impact of these creators in making TikTok one of the largest social networks in the world.

The company said that proceeds from the sales will go directly to the content creators and NFT artists.

Related: Immutable raises $60M for its carbon-conscious NFT platform

TikTok appears to be slowly pivoting towards blockchain technology as part of its overall business strategy. As Cointelegraph recently reported, the company has partnered with blockchain streaming platform Audius around a new feature called TikTok Sounds. The integration allows Audius users to export songs created on the protocol to TikTok.

TikTok has roughly 1 billion users, with its United States audience relying on the app to discover new artists and songs. Since launching its mainnet services in October 2020, Audius’ user base has grown to 5 million.

NFTs have emerged as a major driver of blockchain adoption, with businesses and individuals keen to embrace digital collectibles. August was the busiest month on record for the nascent industry, with total NFT sales hitting $4 billion.



via cointelgraph.com
Bitcoin Book Review: The 7th Property: Bitcoin And The Monetary Revolution

Bitcoin Book Review: The 7th Property: Bitcoin And The Monetary Revolution

Eric Yakes creates a compelling account of how we’ve arrived at the monetary technology that is Bitcoin.

With an ever-growing number of Bitcoin books being published, choosing which book to read next can be difficult. “The 7th Property: Bitcoin and the Monetary Revolution” by Eric Yakes guides readers through a vast array of Bitcoin-related topics, turning seemingly complex topics such as Merkle roots and the mining algorithm into highly approachable subjects using effective graphics and analogies. Whether you’re looking to learn more about the history of money, the centralization of money and banking, or how Bitcoin actually works on a deeper level, “The 7th Property” has something for everyone.

Yakes starts by weaving through monetary history, using historical recent examples to describe the commonly-cited properties of money. He then dives into the historical trend towards centralization of money. Over centuries, society continuously traded trust for efficiency in money. Ultimately, these trade-offs led humanity to central banking, which, Yakes argues, is the mother of all moral hazards. While the traditionally cited properties of money — scarcity, durability, acceptability, portability, fungibility, divisibility — were effective for most of monetary history, Yakes introduces a vital seventh property: immutability. He defines immutability as the decentralized production and storage of money and shows how this seventh property has been eroded time and again. In Yakes’s own words: “If society can reclaim this property without trading away efficiency, that will be the next key evolutionary step in the development of money.”

As it progresses towards the modern form of money (i.e., fiat money), the book dives into all aspects of central banking. Yakes covers how and why central banks were established, their trend towards increasing centralization, and the cycles created by central banking. He then goes into great detail about the biggest central bank of them all: the Federal Reserve. Rather than a high-level overview that seasoned Bitcoiners have seen many times, “The 7th Property” takes a more granular approach by going deep into the Federal Reserve’s governance, structure, profit model, and incentives. Filled with various gold nuggets of information, one of the most mind-blowing facts from the book is that the Federal Reserve is both the world’s most profitable “company” and largest asset manager. Regardless of whether you subscribe to a more inflationary or deflationary worldview, the sheer level of malinvestment and moral hazard created by the Federal Reserve system is crystal clear after reading this book.

The first seven chapters set the scene of the need for a monetary revolution. Centuries of increasing centralization of money at the expense of immutability ultimately led to the behemoth of global manipulation and malinvestment that is the Federal Reserve. The remainder of “The 7th Property” is a thorough discussion of Bitcoin: where it came from, how it works, and, of course, its monetary properties. Yakes does a masterful job of putting complex topics into layman’s terms. While many Bitcoin books provide a high level overview of Bitcoin, Yakes goes far deeper, getting into how hashing, Merkle roots, and elliptic curves work while still providing a high-level summary of the most important Bitcoin concepts. As such, “The 7th Property” is a fantastic book for both entry-level and veteran Bitcoiners alike. As someone who had read many Bitcoin books before this one, “The 7th Property” provided me with a much deeper understanding of and appreciation for the technical details of Satoshi’s design and the problems it solves.

“The 7th Property: Bitcoin and the Monetary Revolution” is a thoroughly-researched book encompassing monetary history, Austrian economics, central banking, modern monetary policy, Bitcoin, the Lightning Network and much more. If you enjoy learning about any of these topics, you can rest assured Yakes will deliver new knowledge and insights with this book. Filled with helpful graphics, potent analogies, and more Mike Tyson quotes than you knew existed, “The 7th Property” is a must-read for Bitcoiners of all levels.

This is a guest post by Mitch Klee. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.


via bitcoinmagazine.com
XDEFI CEO wants to disrupt MetaMask’s domination of browser wallets

XDEFI CEO wants to disrupt MetaMask’s domination of browser wallets

Emile Dubié, CEO of XDEFI, is building a new browser wallet with Web 3 capabilities. XDEFI currently has nine blockchain integrations.

Due to the enormous growth of DeFi and a lack of direct competitors, Ethereum wallet and browser extension MetaMask recently surpassed 10 million active users, a major milestone for the ConsenSys-led protocol. Now, a new browser wallet is looking to provide an alternative to MetaMask by doing something that most developers are shying away from — creating a web-based experience as opposed to a mobile client. 

Emile Dubié, the CEO of XDEFI Wallet, explained to Cointelegraph why MetaMask’s growth has previously gone unperturbed by competitors:

“I think developers decided to get on mobile being the next client for blockchain users while the reality is that most of the volume in DeFi is still going via web client. Why? Because you have more real estate from a UI point of view and browser wallets give much more flexibility to users.”

This flexibility, Dubié said, eliminates the need for native integrations with specific protocols within the mobile wallet, making any decentralized application accessible with an extension.

So, whereas most developers are placing the future of DeFi growth in the mobile experience, Dubié said web-based extensions currently offer more usability.

XDEFI Wallet, which operates a browser wallet that seeks to integrate with Web 3 technologies, recently concluded a $6 million funding round backed by some of the biggest venture funds in crypto. The investment round was led by Mechanism Capital, with participation from DeFiance Capital, Alameda Research, Sino Global Capital, Animoca Brands, Morningstar Ventures and CoinGecko.

Dubié explained to Cointelegraph how XDEFI plans to fully utilize the Web 3 experience:

“If you want to unleash the full potential of web 3 you need to have a wallet that allows [you] to interact with web applications built on different blockchains. No need to switch from a wallet to another, no need to deal with several seed phrases — just use the same vehicle to access different destinations.”

Related: OP Crypto Capital founder cites gaming, Web 3 as drivers of crypto economy

XDEFI currently integrates with nine blockchains: Ethereum, Polygon, Terra, THORChain, Bitcoin, Binance chain, Binance Smart Chain, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. Support for Arbitrum, Solana and Avalanche are coming next, the CEO said.



via cointelgraph.com
Rari, Telos and Polymath rally as Bitcoin price hits $44K

Rari, Telos and Polymath rally as Bitcoin price hits $44K

RGT, POLY and TLOS secure double-digit gains as investor sentiment rises after the Fed says it will not ban cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin briefly reclaims $44,000.

Crypto traders breathed a sigh of relief on Sept. 30 after media headlines reflected positive news regarding adoption and future regulation in the crypto sector. Early in the day, Visa announced that it has developed a layer-2-based blockchain interoperability hub that will support cryptocurrency payments and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell stated that the regulator has no intention to ban cryptocurrencies.

The rise in sentiment coincided with a positive day for the price action in Bitcoin, which is up 5.74% and trading near $44,000 at the time of writing. 

Top 7 coins with the highest 24-hour price change. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Rari Governance Token (RGT), Polymath (POLY) and Telos (TLOS).

Rari Capital TVL surpasses $500 million

The Rari Governance Token is the native token of Rari Capital that allows users to direct the future of the project's DeFi protocol.

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for RGT have been favorable for some time.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. RGT price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As shown in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for RGT first climbed into the green zone on Sept. 25 and eventually reached a high of 82 on Sept. 28, around 33 hours before its price began to increase by 29% over the next day.

The boost in the price of RGT comes as the community celebrates the Rari Capital protocol surpassing $500 million in total value locked as it strives to now break above the $1 billion mark.

Telos pops as holders expect airdrops

Telos is a blockchain network based on the EOSIO network that focuses on enabling the creation of smart contracts for nonfungible tokens (NFT), DeFi, gaming and social media.

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for TLOS have been favorable for some time.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. TLOS price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As shown in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for TLOS has been elevated in the green zone for the majority of the past week and reached a high of 73 on Sept. 28, around the same time as the price began to increase by 42% over the next two days.

The surge in price for TLOS comes as the community has been active and excited about an ongoing airdrop for the Fortis and Destiny World projects which was designed to show the Ethereum Virtual Machine's (EVM) capabilities of the Telos network's capacity to offer a flat gas price.

Related: $1B science fund seeks blockchain projects to expand human lifespan

Polymath adds new security tokens

Polymath is a decentralized protocol that operates on the Ethereum (ETH) network and focuses on the developing technology that allows for the creation, issuance and management of digital securities on the blockchain.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.51 on Sept. 29, the price of POLY has rallied 51.58% to a daily high at $0.772 on Sept. 30 as its 24-hour trading volume spiked from an average of $21 million to $544 million.

POLY/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The spike in price and trading volume for POLY come as the developers behind the protocol continue to update and expand the network’s capabilities while new projects such as RedSwan and its commercial real estate marketplace launch on the Polymath network.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.91 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 42.7%.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.



via cointelgraph.com

Divergent Progress In The Physical And Digital Worlds

Discussing how erroneous economic systems can be repaired with Bitcoin.

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It is hard to argue with the assertion that Silicon Valley and the tech world are the spaces that are driving growth in the contemporary world. But why exactly is that?

In this episode of the “Bitcoin Magazine Podcast,” we were joined by Rob Hamilton, who published “Why Has The Physical World Not Progressed Like The Digital?” in Bitcoin Magazine recently, and we used this opportunity to unpack his piece.

“I think as Bitcoiners, the answer is, we have to build our own institutions,” Hamilton said.

As Hamilton shared his thoughts around how erroneous economic systems can be repaired with Bitcoin, he addressed damages caused by the short-sightedness of the business world. In our current fiat system, operators and large businesses are rewarded, causing us to be short-sighted in the wake of misaligned incentives.

“If the interest rate is higher, you are going to be rewarded today for holding into the future, and also the higher the interest rate, the more punished you will be for capital misallocation, because that is your opportunity cost of money,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton shared information about the blockchain online, offering massively-insightful and thought-provoking ideas for our listeners. Tune in to hear about the important role of institutions, where they go wrong, and the looming replacement of many of the current institutions and systems as we know them. 


via bitcoinmagazine.com