Crypto Great | Bitcoin | DeFi

2022-01-26 14:02:08 Polygon (MATIC)

Polygon is a layer 2 scaling solution that uses side chains to increase transaction speeds and reduce transaction costs. Institutional investors are experiencing more demand from clients for quality DeFi projects available for purchase at hedge funds and accounting firms. This is contributing to a recent rush of institutions trying to make MATIC available to clients.

In September, Ernst & Young announced it will connect its blockchain solutions to Polygon to mitigate the scalability constraints of Ethereum’s mainnet. This allows clients to process transactions at a fraction of a penny. Aside from reducing costs for users, this will also help usher in institutional adoption to the Polygon network.

Another institution player, digital asset firm Osprey, unveiled the first Polygon Trust Fund in the U.S. in September. With this new product release, accredited investors will now have exposure to the MATIC token for the first time with no management fees until at least 2023.

Lastly, Bitwise Investments, the company behind the world’s first cryptocurrency index fund, unveiled in late October a Polygon fund giving its clients access to MATIC exposure. The CIO claimed he views it as a leading play in the crypto space and suggested he wants to create a fund that lets people make a bet on that specific asset.

Also in October, Polygon announced a $1 million liquidity mining incentive for Augur Turbo, a decentralized predictions platform with daily betting markets for sports, crypto, politics, and current events. The yield farming program is aimed at liquidity providers to bootstrap user adoption and ensure the smooth running of Augur.

The transition to Polygon also allows Augur Turbo to minimize transaction fees while facilitating access for millions of new users in the Polygon ecosystem. User growth is expected to further expand with the ability to create and add liquidity to additional betting markets. Increased user growth will generate more demand for MATIC tokens.

We anticipate an upward movement in price with the recent institutional adoption and integrations that holders hope will bring a new wave of users into the Polygon ecosystem. Open / Comment

2022-01-21 13:55:00 ​​Curve (CRV)

Curve is a decentralized exchange that specializes in the exchange of digital assets. This includes swapping stablecoins for one another (USDC, USDT, DAI) as well different versions of wrapped bitcoin (WBTC, renBTC).

Curve has become a deflationary asset, as the amount of Curve tokens locked away for voting (veCRV tokens) has begun to converge with the decreasing issuance of CRV tokens.

The voting is due to the rewards program in Convex Finance, where they will continue to offer holders who lock up their Curve tokens an airdrop in exchange for their vote. This increase in demand for veCRV translates to less selling pressure for the Curve token, which led the price to rally over 100% since we recommended it in September.

On October 29, one of our recommendations, Badger DAO, authorized a budget of 20,000 BADGER ($700,000) to launch its newest liquidity provider vault. This vault offers generous Badger rewards to users in exchange for providing liquidity on Curve. As Badger locks more veCRV, its voting power grows, which allows it to support even better yields on Interest Bearing Bitcoin (ibBTC) products.

Better yields on bitcoin are a win for vault depositors and holders of ibBTC alike, which allows them to lock even more veCRV, creating a positive feedback loop. This leads to continuous CRV buying pressure.

In addition, data from DeFiLlama shows that the TVL (total value locked) on Curve has reached a record high of $18.84 billion, making Curve the second-largest protocol by TVL.

All this has caused a supply shock in Curve that may accelerate moving forward, especially now that more protocols are increasing CRV deposits. Open / Comment

2022-01-19 13:24:00 ​​Ren(REN)

Ren Protocol enables users to transfer assets between isolated blockchains without relying on centralized entities.

On October 31, REN surpassed $8 billion in total network volume since the launch of its mainnet just a year and a half ago. Ren has reached this milestone without a single exploit.

What's remarkable is that Ren reached this figure from bridging basic assets like BTC and BCH to ETH, AVAX, SOL, MATIC, and others. Ren hasn't even released support for its anticipated inter-host chain movement yet (coming soon).

On October 27, thanks to Ren, Solana celebrated $500 million of multi-chain liquidity into its growing ecosystem. Ren's host-tohost update is expected any day now, which will unleash a suite of new assets into the Solana ecosystem.

From a multi-chain perspective, the demand for non-SOL native assets is expected to grow as Solana's ecosystem does. This will lead to more usage of REN, which leads to higher prices for REN tokens.

On October 15, Ren Labs introduced its vision to build and invest in a large ecosystem of apps built on an upgraded multichain EVM layer 1, RenVM 3.0. This upgrade will enable multichain NFTs, dexes, and a multitude of cross-chain applications to be built directly on top of RenVM.

Crypto investment firm Alameda Research Ventures has stated it’s incredibly bullish about this. With the new Ren Labs initiative, Alameda Research will further support the RenVM multi-chain ecosystem through investments, resources, and connections to a vast network.

This is an important step towards a future where any kind of application can be built and deployed directly to RenVM. Bridging chains will become just one of many use-cases. And more use cases on REN will generate a higher token price. Open / Comment

2022-01-17 13:50:06 0x (ZRX)

0x is a decentralized exchange (DEX) liquidity aggregator. It finds the best price for traders. This is done by pulling liquidity from multiple DEXs, making 0x the one-stop-shop to exchange assets on decentralized networks.

DeFi projects are racing to integrate the 0x protocol, as it’s a necessary tool for creating any DEX. One of the most recent to adopt the protocol was Rubic – a multi-chain protocol that allows users to complete swaps in one click and features dozens of DEXs, fiat on-ramps, cross-chain bridges, and more.

Rubic officially launched 0x API integration early last month. Meaning Rubic will automatically find and select the best rates. This will expand on 0x’s surging user base.

To continue expanding its services across multiple blockchains, last month, 0x Labs announced support for its free-to-use 0x
API on the Fantom blockchain to onboard a new wave of users to crypto. Developers building on Fantom can now access 0x’s aggregated liquidity. This represents just the latest example of 0x’s ongoing journey towards capturing as much DEX trading volume as possible on the major blockchains.

Due to this multi-chain adoption, the 0x protocol recently surpassed $100 billion in all-time volume earlier this month. Newly launched support for 0x API on Avalanche and Fantom contributed greatly to growth in trading volume.

Additionally, we saw an incredible surge in the number of monthly active users. In September, the total amount of monthly active users across 0x supported chains doubled to roughly 660,000, with another jump to 858,000 in October.

Since its launch, 0x API has facilitated over 15 million trades from more than 1.7 million unique traders, for a total of over $45 billion in volume. The 0x API makes it easy for DeFi developers to tap into fast and reliable aggregated DEX liquidity so they can focus on what matters the most: the product. 0x’s proven track record gives it a big advantage in the DeFi space and should help attract more users, which will lead to more profits for ZRX token holders. Open / Comment

2022-01-14 12:45:00 ​​Chainlink (LINK)

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that provides data and information from real-world sources and brings them to the blockchain.

Chainlink’s open-source technology is developed by a large community of developers, researchers, and users who share the goal of building Chainlink into something that will benefit the entire blockchain ecosystem.

Lately, Chainlink has been pursuing its goal to provide price feeds and interoperability across multiple chains.

On August 25, Chainlink integrated its highly decentralized, high-quality, and fast-updating price oracles to the Solana network.

Reliable price oracles are essential to the infrastructure of any blockchain. And today, most prefer the quality and accurate information that Chainlink provides in real-time.

The Solana ecosystem has exploded lately. In the beginning of July, total value locked on the network was around $600 million. On September 12, it peaked around 12.2 billion… a 267% increase in just over two months.

Soon, decentralized finance applications will compete with centralized finance (CeFi) trade execution and risk management quality.

By integrating Chainlink’s oracles and Hybrid Smart Contracts to Solana, we may see this sooner than later. Solana’s blockchain supports up to 65,000 transactions per second with each costing less than a penny. By providing reliable data through Chainlink oracles, Founder and CEO of Solana Labs believes this:

Can significantly increase the rate at which Solana developers can build secure, high-throughput DeFi applications by providing them with direct access to reliable off-chain data and computation. The combination of highquality oracle infrastructure and Solana’s high-speed blockchain network can enable dApps to scale to a global level.

With Chainlink price feeds providing almost instant updates on the Solana network, developers will have the infrastructure they need to build high-speed and tamper-proof dApps. This integration will bring growth to the Chainlink ecosystem, as it already secures billions of dollars in value for smart con Open / Comment

2022-01-12 11:36:00 ​​Ripio Credit Network (RCN)

Ripio Credit Network (RCN) is a global peer-to-peer credit network based on cosigned smart contracts that facilitate connections between lenders and borrowers.

Since the unexpected delisting of RCN from multiple exchanges in July due to miscommunication, the team has been working to reverse the process.

RCN wasn’t delisted due to any misconduct or inadequate levels of development activity or public communications, but due to a simple misunderstanding. When the exchanges tried to reach out to Ripio to request a regular update, the messages were not delivered to Ripio’s official email address… But to the personal Telegram accounts of one member of the RCN team.

This caused the emails to remain unnoticed until after the announcement of the delisting on Binance. Ripio is working with Binance to solve the problem.

On August 6, European-based exchange Guardarian announced RCN is now available for purchase on its platform with over 50 fiat pairs. Users can also buy RCN using a credit card, local bank transfer, or other forms of payment such as UnionPay. No account is required when buying crypto from Guardarian.

Guardarian is a strong bridge between fiat and cryptocurrencies. The platform provides a safe and fast way to purchase crypto without having to register any personal information. This provides more avenues for investors to buy RCN around the world.

Ripio is working hard to bring users to its platform. In Ripio’s official telegram group, the team is currently polling on which exchanges the community would like to see RCN on next.

The team understands the importance of getting on Binance and other exchanges again. The team posted in its Telegram group last week that they’re working with exchanges to restore its listings and will be providing further updates about the situation as soon as they are available. Open / Comment

2022-01-10 13:41:02 Crypterium (CRPT)

Crypterium’s token, CRPT, is an Ethereum-based utility token that powers the Crypterium ecosystem, which consists of the Crypterium network, the Crypterium wallet, and the Crypterium Visa card. The CRPT token is used to pay fees for transactions and to buy services on the Crypterium platform.

Crypterium is also developing a mobile app that facilitates instant payments in cryptocurrency using existing payment infrastructures.

One main goal for Crypterium is providing regions around the world with the ability to buy and trade the CRPT token. On August 23, CRPT listed on one of India’s leading crypto exchanges, Bitbns.

Crypterium created a unique new CRPT/INR (Indian Rupee) pair for trading. This will make it easier for customers in India to directly buy CRPT with their fiat currency. This is a promising step for Crypterium and its native token’s future in the country. On the day of its listing the CRPT token jumped 45% from $0.18 to $0.26 in just 24 hours. While the price has since retreated, this surge shows both the interest and demand for the CRPT token in India.

But the best part is that as demand for the CRPT token keeps growing, the supply keeps shrinking. Crypterium continues to burn its tokens with over 172,000 CRPT erased from its supply just on September 1.

This follows a string of token burns from the company. In July, Crypterium burned 1 million CRPT, cutting a third of its total supply.

This will have a dramatic effect on its future price, as simple supply and demand economics tells us that increasing demand for the CRPT token and decreasing its supply should have a positive effect on the price for investors. As the network and token continue growing, we see a positive future for CRPT. Open / Comment

2022-01-07 12:44:00 ​​Stacks (STX)

The Stacks blockchain enables secure smart contracts and dApps to be built on the bitcoin network. Stacks provides utility to bitcoin’s network with projects such as MiamiCoin, unlocking bitcoin’s potential as a programmable base layer.

In our last portfolio update, we introduced you to MiamiCoin, a cryptocurrency built on Stack’s blockchain, designed to provide income for the city to help those in need and to “incentivize people to move to Miami and be part of the tech ecosystem.” Just one week after the token went live for users to mine, MiamiCoin has already generated nearly $1 million for the city. Patrick Stanley, one of MiamiCoin’s creators points out, “Every 10 minutes, the city of Miami essentially gets richer.”

Originally, the only way to obtain MiamiCoin (MIA) was to mine it. But on August 30, Okcoin announced it would enable the buying and selling of MIA on its platform. This further recognition solidifies Stacks as a reliable solution to bring smart contracts and dApps to the bitcoin network.

Although state and federal statutes prevent municipalities from owning cryptocurrencies, officials in Miami have already been discussing ways to make Florida more crypto-friendly with Tallahassee-based state legislators.

As of now, Miami can only accept crypto proceeds after they are converted into dollars. But Stanley notes that the funds can instantly be converted into dollars. Also, with MIA now available on Okcoin, finding liquidity is suddenly much easier.

It’s great to see protocols powered by Stacks pushing innovation in government. State officials and legislatures are forced to come together to find a solution that will benefit everyone. By utilizing the Stacks blockchain, investment, charity, and state funds can be easily managed by smart contracts built on the Stack network – the fastest and most cost effective way to build on top of the bitcoin network. Open / Comment

2022-01-05 11:48:00 ​​Cosmos (ATOM)

Interoperability with other blockchains is key for DeFi to reach mass adoption. Over the last few months, we’ve been following Cosmos’ progress as it provides solutions with its InterBlockchain Communication protocol (IBC).

With IBC, the first cross-chain decentralized exchanges, CoinSwap, the Gravity DEX protocol, and Osmosis, are able to provide token transfers, swaps, and liquidity pools over multiple chains in the Cosmos ecosystem for the first time.

We have also been monitoring the updates on the upcoming release of Gravity Bridge, which connects Cosmos to Ethereum. The Gravity Bridge will expand Cosmos’ liquidity and user base significantly, making DeFi more accessible to everyone.

Something the Cosmos team has been discussing since the inception of the network is finally happening. After being announced on August 23, bitcoin is officially coming to Cosmos. By teaming up with Interlay, an organization that shares Cosmos’ vision of interoperability among chains, bitcoin is set to join the Cosmos ecosystem. With interBTC, Interlay will allow anyone to use bitcoin as a utility across all DeFi platforms. Currently, interBTC is already hosted on the Polkadot ecosystem, which enables cross-blockchain transfers of any type of data or asset. With interBTC coming to Cosmos, it will eventually be available to any chain that supports the IBC standard, as well as Ethereum-compatible networks.

Interlay is building an IBC bridge to enable any IBC-compatible chain to access trustless bitcoin. This exciting step will help Cosmos grow the DeFi sector and improve inter-blockchain collaboration.

With the development of the IBC protocol, as well as the utility and popularity of Cosmos, DeFi will grow. The Cosmos ecosystem actively secures more than $115 billion of digital assets. With bitcoin now coming to Cosmos, securing over $1 trillion on its network seems to be nearing reality. Open / Comment

2022-01-03 14:29:22 Zcash (ZEC)

Zcash is designed for merchants, platforms, app developers and point-of-sale providers that need easy-to-integrate solutions that provide privacy protections for consumers and audibility at the same time.

At the beginning of the year, we saw a string of delisting of “privacy coins” from major exchanges. It seems like these exchanges were quick to pull the trigger on delisting the coins in fear they may be deemed a security or did not comply with global regulation.

Projects started working with exchanges to show they do comply with regulations and that they are much more than privacy coins.

The first delisted “privacy coin” to be relisted back to a major exchange was Dash on September 1. Dash is another project we proudly hold in our portfolio and was relisted back on Bittrex with much celebration.

Zcash has also been working hard after its delisting, and the hard work has paid off…

Just one week ago, Bittrex also relisted ZCASH back on its platform both in the U.S. and globally. Trading pairs are now available for USD/ZCASH, USDT/ZCASH, ETH/ZCASH, and BTC/ZCASH. The delisting earlier this year caused some confusion and speculation, but the reality is that Zcash is fully compliant with all U.S. and global regulations.

The Zcash team has also been working on providing more tools for their community. Through their community-elected grant program called Zcash Open Major Grants, they were able to fund the Zcash Block Explorer team to build a reliable block explorer. On August 26, after much anticipation, the block explorer went live.

The Zcash Block Explorer broadcasts raw transactions from Zcash’s blockchain and provides live status data of the network. Its core features and specifications were built exactly the way it was publicly discussed in the Zcash forums.

Zcash’s ecosystem and community continue to grow with the excitement from the announcement that Zcash is on its path
towards a proof of stake (PoS) future. The founding team members have always explored the idea of moving to PoS, but lately they are starting to make it a reality.

The team believes it is a better decision economically and consumes less energy and money… which they plan to give back to the community instead. They also plan on making this transition without losing security of the network.

This could bring a big change for Zcash and bring a lot more users, developers, and capabilities to the network. We’ll be updating you on the progress… and you’ll want to pay close attention, as this could be what brings Zcash mainstream. Open / Comment