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2023-01-12 02:50:40 ​Nigeria to create the stablecoins and ICOs legal framework.

The necessity to create a legal framework for stablecoins is marked in the latest Central Bank of Nigeria strategy paper.

As one of the world’s pioneers in adopting its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), Nigeria declares its readiness to accept the existence of private stablecoins as well. The necessity to create a legal framework for stablecoins is marked in the latest central bank strategy paper.

Published under the headline “Nigeria Payments System Vision 2025”, the 83-page report from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) considers the development of a regulatory framework for the potential implementation of a stablecoin. According to the document, there is a need to develop a framework, given that stablecoins are likely to become a successful payment mechanism in the country.

The report also pays attention to the regulation of initial coin offerings (ICOs). It highlights the current absence of regulation in the area, causing the investors’ losses. However, the CBN sees potential for adopting ICOs as a new approach to fundraising for capital projects, peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding. Hence, a regulatory framework is also needed “in the event of adoption of an ICO-based investment solution.”

However, the stablecoins and ICOs segment of the report is ways smaller than the one dedicated to Nigerian CBDC, eNaira. The Central Bank considers it a potential “enabler for transformation” in the national economy. It hopes to achieve a final implementation of the currency in 3-5 years.

In December 2022, Nigeria has reduced the amount of cash individuals and businesses can withdraw to $225 and $1,125 per week, respectively in an attempt to push its “cash-less Nigeria” policy and increase the use of the eNaira.

Adoption rates for a CBDC have been low since its launch in 2021. As reported by Cointelegraph, the CBN has struggled to convince its citizens to use the digital currency, with less than 0.5% of the population reported having used the eNaira as of Oct. 25, 2022, a year from its launch. Open / Comment

2022-12-27 01:00:10 ​Crypto community expresses Christmas market sentiments: ‘No Santa rally’.

A community member pointed out that the lack of movements may be because of the controversies surrounding centralized exchanges.

Traders looking forward to a rally during Christmas were disappointed as the markets turned out to be steady as many celebrated the holidays. Crypto community members expressed their disappointment by sharing memes, with some even employing their creativity through poetry.

On Dec. 23, Data tracker Coinstats shared an image showing positive market movements and floating the idea of a potential “Santa Claus rally.”

However, with Bitcoin’s volatility index hitting record lows on Dec. 25, any thoughts of having a merry BTC rally on Christmas were put to a stop. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro showed that the top crypto hovered around $16,800 on holiday.

A community member pointed out that the lack of a rally this Christmas may be because of the controversies that surrounded centralized exchanges like FTX and Binance this year. Adding creativity to the mix, analytics tool CMM shared poetry inspired by the FTX collapse involving the firm’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Meanwhile, another community member hinted the lack of Christmas gifts may be because Santa was affected by the crypto dips as well. On the other hand, some Twitter users expressed frustration by sharing memes.

One shared a photo of a cat doing a thumbs-up while thanking Santa for the “Christmas pump” that didn’t happen. Another shared a photo of a psychologist supposedly treating a crypto trader for believing in a Santa rally.

While the crypto markets were at a standstill, bad actors within the space continued their work. In a recent exploit, around $8 million in assets were compromised because hackers hijacked an APK of the BitKeep wallet. The team urged its community members to transfer their funds to wallets downloaded from official sources like the Apple App Store or Google Play.

Apart from this, another exploit was conducted by hackers linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The attackers allegedly launched a wide phishing campaign that targeted nonfungible token (NFT) users. The hackers launched around 500 phishing domains to lure their victims and steal their NFTs. Open / Comment

2022-12-14 01:34:29 ​Remote work triggers move to DAOs in the post-pandemic world: Survey

A survey from a sample of the general U.S. public suggests that millennials are more likely to join a DAO than any other age group.

A survey sample of working Americans suggests that millennial and Generation Z workers are far more in favor of joining decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and working remotely in the post-COVID-19 world.

Over 1,100 Americans took part in a survey conducted by MetisDAO Foundation, which explores trends in remote working preferences and the emergence of DAOs in recent years. A key consideration is the effect that COVID-19 has had on worker sentiment and the growth of DAOs in corporate governance.

Citing a research report on DAOs published by the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, the results of the survey highlight how DAOs saw their treasuries swell from $400 million to $16 billion in 2021.

This coincided with growing participant figures, up from 13,000 to 1.6 million people during the same period. Drawing comparisons to some of the largest multinational corporations, global DAO workforce numbers are equal to one Amazon, 18 Facebooks, seven Microsofts or 11 Google.

Related: Toss in your job and make $300K working for a DAO? Here’s how

The impact of COVID-19 is a primary driver of Metis’ report investigating workers’ readiness for decentralized employment opportunities. The unexpected, rapid shift to remote working conditions of the pandemic has seemingly driven knowledge and understanding of DAOs and decentralized autonomous companies (DAC), particularly among Millennial and Gen Z workers.

A major takeaway from the results is that nearly 75% of respondents believe that companies will need to adapt how they run their businesses to offer more remote work options. Millennials working in hybrid or remote settings offered the most positive responses on how DACs offer workers opportunities to help govern a company.

47% of the respondents also indicated that they would be open to working for a DAO or DAC as a contracted employee. The survey also indicates that millennial workers are more willing to work for a DAO or DAC than any other age group.

Meanwhile, Gen Z respondents most accurately defined a DAO compared to respondents from other age groups and a majority of Gen Z participants also defined DAOs as a “revolutionary movement changing the future of work.”

MetisDAO concludes by highlighting the influence of prolonged remote working conditions driving the desire for more decentralized and autonomous work environments

“The survey results show that a majority of respondents seek all of the things that DACs provide; remote work opportunities, independence from management, and influence over the organizations they work in.”
MetisDAO’s survey came from a sample of 1112 respondents through SurveyMonkey in November 2022. The DAO forms part of Metis, an Ethereum layer-2 rollup solution. Open / Comment

2022-12-10 00:34:04 ​Going short on Ethereum Classic [ETC]? You can benefit from these levels

Ethereum Classic [ETC] was in a rally before the market crash in early November knocked it off track. Aside from 23 November, which encountered significant resistance at $20.28, ETC has never seen another major rally.

At press time, ETC was trading at $18.80 in a mild bullish momentum that could fizzle out, given the bearish outlook of technical indicators. Most importantly, ETC chalked out a symmetrical triangle pattern that could lead to a downside breakout.

ETC forms a bearish triangle pattern: Will bears take charge?
ETC’s price action since 10 November has formed an asymmetrical triangle. ETC is more likely to see a bearish breakout as the triangle pattern is in a bearish market structure.

The major technical indicators suggest that a downside breakout is also more likely. The daily ETC chart’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) is below the neutral level and is on the way down. In addition, the RSI moved in the lower range, which indicates that the sellers had a significant impact on the market.

In addition, the On Balance Volume (OBV) has been hitting lower and lower highs since August. This shows a steady decline in trading volume, which undermines the strong buying pressure. Thus, sellers have a great opportunity in the market.

So a bearish breakout from the triangle pattern is quite possible. If the breakout succeeds, ETC could find new support targets at $18.02, $15.89, $14.27, and $14.05.

However, an intraday close above $20.28 resistance would negate this prediction. Such a convincing bullish breakout could lead ETC to a new resistance target at $24 in the coming days or weeks.

ETC saw a decline in Open Interest rates across major exchanges
According to Coinglass, ETC saw a decline in open interest rates from August. On Binance alone, money flowing into the ETC futures market fell from $250 million in August to around $50 million, at the time of publication.

That’s a whopping 80% drop in money flowing into ETC futures. A similar trend can be seen in other major exchanges as well.

This shows investors’ outlook for ETC futures has been declining since Q3 2022. Therefore, it might take some time for the sentiment to turn positive.

Interestingly, the sentiment in the derivatives market also affects the spot market. Therefore, the current bearish sentiment for ETC could continue for some time. This will put downward pressure on the price of ETC.

However, should BTC regain the $17K mark and move higher, ETC could see an upside breakout and invalidate the above forecast. Open / Comment

2022-12-05 23:33:44 ​FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Publicly Refuses to Testify in US House Committee – Here’s What Happened

Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO and founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, has publicly suggested that he might not appear in the upcoming U.S. House committee’s hearing to testify on the collapse of his crypto empire.

In a tweet to the Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters and the committee, Bankman-Fried said he is still not finished with “learning and reviewing what happened,” thus he might not be ready to participate in the hearing.

"Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain. I'm not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will testify," he said.

The statement came in response to a tweet by Current Chair and Congresswoman Maxine Waters and the committee that asked him to appear in the hearing on December 13 and talk about the collapse of FTX.

As reported, the US House Financial Services Committee announced last month that it plans to hold a hearing to investigate the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX. The committee said they expected to hear from the companies and individuals involved, including FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research, Binance, and more.

At the time, Waters said that the collapse of FTX hurt over one million users, many of whom were retail traders who invested their "hard-earned" savings into the platform, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds.

"Unfortunately, this event is just one out of many examples of cryptocurrency platforms that have collapsed just this past year," she added. "[I] know that we need legislative action to ensure that digital assets entities cannot operate in the shadows outside of robust federal oversight and clear rules of the road."

Lawmakers' lack of seriousness in their probe into FTX and its leaders has attracted the ire of crypto community members who believe that Bankman-Fried, who has allegedly misappropriated billions of dollars from customers, is getting away with one of the largest frauds in history with little to no scrutiny.

Notably, there have been speculations that SBF could have donated as much as $1 billion to Democrats. As per available data, SBF was the second largest donor to the Democratic Party, after billionaire George Soros, in the 2021-2022 election cycle, donating $39,884,256 to Democrats.

Will Manidis, cofounder and the CEO of ScienceIO, has even cited the donations as a reason why SBF is not under regulatory scrutiny. In a recent tweet, he said Bankman-Fried did "one of the highest ROI trades of all time" by donating $40 million and not going to jail for stealing over $10 billion in user funds. Open / Comment

2022-12-02 15:01:22 ​​Blockchain Protocol Komodo Offering Three-In-One Wallet, Cross-Chain Bridge and DEX

Blockchain protocol Komodo has launched AtomicDEX Web – a wallet, cross-chain bridge and decentralized exchange (DEX).

Unlike centralized exchanges (CEXs), a DEX relies on smart contracts and liquidity pools to allow its users to trade cryptocurrencies in a permissionless manner.

Komodo’s three-in-one product is intended to be accessed through any internet browser and connect with over 60 blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB Chain and Cosmos.

“Most internet users spend all day opening and closing new tabs, so the wallet and crypto experience should be integrated with the way we already use the internet, rather than asking users to download browser extensions or additional software to access their funds,” said Komodo Chief Technology Officer Kadan Stadelmann. “Crypto should be as easy as opening a new tab from any device, on any operating system, while still being your own custodian of your funds.”

The introduction of this DEX comes at a shaky time for the crypto ecosystem, which is still reeling from the collapse of centralized exchange FTX. Stadelmann told CoinDesk that he believes the downfall of the FTX exchange has highlighted the need for DEXs that give users the ability to control their own funds without any middleman. “Why would you like to give someone control over your crypto?” he said. “If you want to trade, you can do this in a peer-to-peer decentralized and cryptographic way in a trustless fashion.”

AtomicDEX Web’s goal is to eventually integrate with any electronic device, so any future technology could be used for wallet storage and trading.

In March, Komodo launched ShibaDEX, which lets its users trade shiba inu tokens (SHIB) for other cryptos. Open / Comment

2022-11-28 23:47:10 ​Today in Crypto: FTX Miniseries on Prime Video, Hodlnaut Under Police Investigation, Cardano-Based Ardana Stops Development

Entertainment news
An eight-episode limited series about the FTX implosion from Joe and Anthony Russo’s production company, AGBO, has been set up at Amazon, Variety reported. Amazon is hoping to put the show into production in spring 2023.

Legal news

Crypto lending platform Hodlnaut is under police investigation in Singapore for alleged fraud and cheating offenses. Hodlnaut and its directors are suspected of making "false representations relating to the company’s exposure to a certain digital token," according to a police statement.
The company contracted to recover FTX assets said it has managed to recover more than $740 million, per the November 16 figures, Fox Business reported. The digital asset financial services company BitGo, which was hired when FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, estimated that the amount of recovered and secured assets has likely risen above $1 billion since then.

DeFi news

Ardana, a decentralized ecosystem that had been working on a Cardano (ADA) stablecoin, has halted development because of funding and project timeline uncertainty. “Our code will remain open source for builders to continue our work going forward as they wish,” its tweet said and added that the “remaining funds and treasury balances etc will be held by Ardana Labs until another competent dev team in the community comes forward to continue our work.”

Exchange news

Bybit has established a $100 million fund to support institutional clients, it confirmed on Twitter. The exchange will offer up to $10 million to existing and new market makers on its platform, as well as dedicated account managers.
CrossTower, which is currently bidding for the assets of Voyager Digital, is looking to acquire firms with a “good set of customers” and a “good balance sheet”. Per Bloomberg, CEO Kapil Rathi said that the exchange is "openly looking at different types of companies from an organic growth perspective."

NFT news

The first non-fungible token (NFT) album to be nominated for a Grammy is with DAORecords on the NEAR blockchain, said an announcement by the Near Foundation. ‘Rhythm and Soul’ is a Jazz album produced by Arturo Sandoval in collaboration with MetaJAX, and it has been nominated for best Latin Jazz Album Grammy 2023.
The prize pool for crypto exchange OKX’s NFT Football Cup has more than doubled since the event’s launch on November 8, said a press release. This brings the total prize pool for the NFT Football Cup above $2 million, and the total prize pool for the broader OKX Football Festival to more than $4 million.

Investment news

Overnight Finance, the asset management protocol offering passive yield products primarily for conservative stablecoin investors, has been awarded a 300,000 Optimism token grant (the approximate equivalent value of $300,000). An announcement said that the grant allocation will be utilized to develop a financial primitive that covers broad applications, from treasury management to liquidity mining. The Optimism Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing the Optimism Collective, which scales Ethereum (ETH) technology.
India's wellness platform Growfitter has partnered with NEAR India, NEAR Foundation’s regional hub, to expand its operations globally. According to the press release, Growfitter’s integration into the NEAR blockchain is a significant step forward in the company's commitment to expanding its presence in Vietnam, the Philippines, Dubai, and Singapore. Open / Comment

2022-11-26 16:37:30 ​Litecoin’s latest decline could have everything to do with these LTC holders

Last week we saw Litecoin achieve an upside as most of the top coins failed remained struggled to bounce back. As a result, Litecoin was receiving a lot of attention, aided by a favorable mention by Michael Saylor during an interview. But can it sustain its upside now that the market is showing some signs of a slight recovery?

The Litecoin Magazine took note of Saylor’s recent statements wherein he described LTC as a store of value. Saylor has been one of the leading authorities in the crypto segment, hence his statement carried a lot of weight.

Saylor’s brief mention and categorization of Litecoin alongside Bitcoin was not taken lightly. Hours after his statement, the cryptocurrency experienced a surge in its social dominance metric. Fast forward to the present and Litecoin was among the top trending cryptocurrencies.

The renewed interest in Litecoin had a favorable outcome in LTC’s price action. However, LTC’s momentum has notably slowed down in the last 24 hours, indicating that the bulls might be running out of huff.

Why Litecoin’s demand may be slowing down
A look at Litecoin supply distribution revealed the reason for LTC to overcome the general market direction. Addresses in the 10,000 to 100,000 category and those holding more than 1 million coins have been accumulating since the first week of November. This explained why LTC continued to rally last week.

However, buying activity from these addresses witnessed a noticeable slowdown in their accumulation. Meanwhile, addresses holding between 100,000 and 1 million coins have been selling, thus contributing to some sell pressure. These top addresses have leveled out their selling activities in the last two days.

The slowdown in LTC’s upside was accompanied by a shift in sentiment. Its weighted sentiment metric dropped substantially in the last two days. This indicated that investors might be expecting some downside.

This observation also confirmed why demand had notably tanked in the last couple of days. Litecoin’s 90-day mean coin age registered an uptick in the last three days. This was a sign that investors have been holding on to their coins during the rally.

Furthermore, its Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) ratio also achieved a sizable uptick in the last three days. This indicated that the traders that bought at recent November lows stood in profitable zones at the time of writing.

Why was this important? Well, short-term traders who bought the recent dip might be looking to cash out some profits. If that was the case, then we should expect to see a resurgence of sell pressure.

On the other hand, a return of bullish demand may help cultivate and sustain a bullish sentiment among Litecoin investors. Open / Comment

2022-10-18 08:30:38 ​​Shark Tank Superstar Believes Crypto Bull Market Will Start After This One Event

Famous Canadian businessman and television personality Kevin O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, argues that once a specific stablecoin bill is passed and “institutions smell policy, then you’ve got a real move up,” and that’s when Bitcoin (BTC) breaks out of the $19,000-$22,000 trading range.

The Shark Tank star appeared on the Crypto Banter YouTube channel, where he discussed the Stablecoin Transparency Act, which he says has a chance of getting passed by the US Congress “very quickly” after November 8, the date of the midterm elections.

As reported, the push for stablecoin regulation follows the massive collapse of Terra, which is a protocol that powered the algorithmic stablecoin UST.

While it doesn’t concern Bitcoin directly, O'Leary argued, the “tone of the regulation” is relevant, adding:

“This Act is very simple in nature, which is why it may pass. It’s being supported by both parties, and the reason that’s the case is that it makes, effectively, the US dollar the default payment system worldwide – which everybody could get behind.”

The USD-backed stablecoin issuers would be able to get a license in the US if they are willing to go through the accompanying “scrutiny.”

O'Leary argued that,

“Even though it has nothing to do with Bitcoin, that will be the first regulation passed by US regulators, and I would argue you want to be long Bitcoin going into that outcome.”

He said that there would be “a lot of interest in institutional capital coming into” stablecoins, such as USD coin (USDC). The coin’s issuer, Circle, O'Leary noted, has received millions in investment already. Back in April, it said that it entered into an agreement for a $400M funding round with investments from BlackRock, Inc., Fidelity Management and Research, Marshall Wace LLP, and Fin Capital. It also announced a $9bn valuation in February this year, up from the $4.5 billion seen in July 2021.

The Shark Tank star concluded that,

“So, end of the day, regulations come, Bitcoin goes up. […] “If institutions smell policy, then you’ve got a real move up, and that’s when you break out of this $19,000-$22,000 trading range against the US dollar. I think it goes right through that very quickly.”

When it comes to the upcoming elections, should there be gridlock between the House and the Senate, it would result in “nothing done in Washington” including “no more spending bills” – which is good for equity markets but "indifferent" for Bitcoin and crypto in general, O'Leary argued.

The reason is that the bills floating around that do concern crypto are all bipartisan, he said – both the Democrats and the Republicans support some form of crypto regulation. Hence, which party controls which chamber becomes less relevant, he suggested. The regulations are coming.

At 10 UTC on Monday morning, BTC was trading at USD 19,342, down 0.5% in a day and up 1.5% in a week. It was down 2% in a month and 68% in a year. Open / Comment

2022-09-16 00:50:15 ​While the banks were closed, Bitcoin reached 5,000 days online.

Bitcoin celebrates a milestone of 5,000 days online on Sept. 12, 2022, as miners continue to solve valid blocks on average every 10 minutes.

The world's largest cryptocurrency reached a milestone on Monday, Sept. 12 — Bitcoin (BTC) celebrated 5,000 days of uptime. The network has functioned almost without a hiccup for 13.69 years.

In Bitcoin speak, the blockchain has been online, confirming a valid block of transactions every 10 minutes, on average, for 753,782 blocks (5,000 days). Plus, 3,464 days have passed since the last downtime incident.

The first Bitcoin block was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto on Jan. 3, 2009. Bitcoin spent 99.9% of the year online, confirming valid blocks on average every 10 minutes until what is known as the Value Overflow Incident. The incident refers to the creation of a “strange block,” block 74,638, which resulted in the creation of billions more Bitcoin. Five hours later, during block 74,691, the blockchain was soft-forked, and nodes reached consensus.

In 2013, Bitcoin software split, and the chain forked into two. The blockchain was down for 6 hours and 20 minutes causing a price drop of more than 23%, hitting lows of $37. Combining the downtime of the Bitcoin network between 2010 and 2013 creates roughly 0.01% of the total time.

Bitcoin influencers (Bitfluencers?) were quick to honor the occasion with celebratory boating accidents, events in which Bitcoiners lose their private keys. Others expressed their gratitude for the anonymous creator of the protocol:

Popular cryptocurrencies such as Solana (SOL) or Ether (ETH) cannot currently compete with the uptime nor decentralization for which Bitcoin is known. Solana regularly experiences outages, labeled a "curse" to the network by its cofounder, while Ethereum’s creation was the result of a hard fork.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s cofounder, boasted in 2020 that “You can be net profitable with as little as 60% uptime.” Nonetheless, Bitcoin is still some way from reaching Nakamoto’s promise of a peer-to-peer cash system that removes third parties: Scaling payments on layer-2 are an uphill battle. Open / Comment