Crypto Great | Bitcoin | DeFi

2021-04-16 12:25:00 ​​NEM (XEM)

As you may recall, NEM is in the process of launching its new blockchain, Symbol.

Symbol will enable private networks to communicate with the public NEM blockchain. This ensures enterprises or organizations retain privacy while taking advantage of public blockchains.

When it launches, NEM token holders will earn 1 Symbol (XYM) for 1 XEM token they hold in the NEM wallet.

NEM is updating some code after its testnet and now plans to launch Symbol in February.We’ill alert you of any action you need to take as the Symbol mainnet launch approaches.

Until then, continue to hold your XEM tokens in the NEM wallet. Be sure your wallet is up to date and you’ve chosen to “opt in” to the token drop. You’ll have up to six years to claim your XYM tokens as long as you hold your XEM tokens in the NEM wallet at the time of the snapshot prior to the launch. Open / Comment

2021-04-14 11:54:00 ​​Ripple (XRP)

Ripple aims to be the leader in payment processing by using blockchain technology to make transactions faster, cheaper, and more secure.

On December 24, we notified you of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs, the company behind the Ripple payment network. The SEC claims Ripple should be treated as a security, not a cryptocurrency, and as such, Ripple Labs violated securities laws regarding disclosure of information.

Since this news broke, some of the largest crypto exchanges available to U.S. token holders have announced plans to suspend trading and delist XRP. However, you can still withdraw your XRP from these exchanges. As a result of this news, XRP’s price took a hit.

Now, as we laid out in our update, we believe Ripple has the resources to fight this suit and ultimately win. But we don’t know how long this process could take. So we’ve moved it to a“hold.” If you’re not comfortable with the volatility, you should follow your own risk tolerance profile.
For those who plan to continue holding XRP, we recommend you withdraw your XRP tokens from any exchanges and store it on one of our recommended wallets: Ledger, Exodus, or Trust Wallet.

If you followed our recommendation to send your XRP tokens to the Crypto com wallet an dapp before December 12 to prepare for the FLR token airdrop, you can continue holding your tokens in this wallet. If you wish to now move your tokens to one of our recommended wallets(Ledger, Exodus, or Trust Wallet), you’ll still be eligible to receive FLR tokens when the airdrop occurs.

Despite Ripple’s recent plunge in price, we’re still excited about the project. We believe Ripple will recover from this setback and demand for its services will continue to drive the project forward. Open / Comment

2021-04-12 15:45:36 Ether (ETH)

Ethereum is home to the most developers in crypto with 2,300 working on the network on average per month. It’s also the network home to the most dApps with more than 3,000 to date.

With all these developers and applications being built, we’re beginning to see them interact with one another. And the first use case we’re beginning to see take off is one we’ve covered in these pages for the past few months, DeFi.

A useful metric to gauge how large DeFi is growing atop Ethereum’s network is total value locked (TVL). This tells us how much capital users are putting to use in applications that run on Ethereum.

Today, Ethereum’s TVL stands at $25.2 billion. That’s up from $831 million one year ago, a growth rate of 2,932%. And we believe it’s only the beginning.

That’s because Ethereum is addressing one of its choke points: scalability. When lots of transactions take place on the network, the cost to transact begins to rise in an attempt to ease congestion. Think of it like paying extra to get on the express lane while driving on the highway.
But this isn’t ideal for a decentralized network. So Ethereum is addressing this via ETH2 and Optimistics.

ETH2 is a complete network overhaul. It’ll be where Ethereum moves from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus. And it’ll mean a massive leap forward in speed, scalability, and security. The first phase of this upgrade has already taken place,and the full transition to ETH2 should happen over the coming 12–18 months.
Optimistics is a near-term solution Ethereum just launched on its network. It addresses current scalability issues by settling transactions off-chain and then bundling up the transaction on-chain when necessary. This is similar to ordering drinks at a bar and settling your tab at the end of the night. In a sense, when you settle your tab, it’s a bundle of transactions.

One of our other picks, Synthetix, is slowly rolling out Optimistics as well to help build confidence in it. As it does and more transactions take place off-chain, we expect to see TVL grow further as fewer users are forced out of the market on account of high transaction prices.

What’s important to remember is DeFi is only one use case for Ethereum. There are dozens of others that will gain traction over time, and that’s why Ethereum remains a central holding to any portfolio.

Despite Ethereum’s recent surge in price this month, I still feel it’s undervalued. Its DeFi use cases are rapidly expanding and scaling solutions are right around the corner. Ethereum could soon be worth $400 to $800 billion. That makes it a 2.5x to 5x gain from today’s prices.So we’re raising our buy-up-to price today to $1,800. Open / Comment

2021-04-09 11:54:00 Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin’s rising price only strengthens its appeal. As its price increases, more people are drawn to it from outside the crypto ecosystem. And the network grows stronger.

You see, as bitcoin’s price per unit rises, the cost to attack the network rises along with it. This makes bitcoin more appealing over the long haul.
Now, a well-documented type of attack other projects have fallen victim to is the 51% attack.This is where somebody controls more than half of the network’s hashrate… To do so, a hacker must purchase more than half of the computing power on the network.

Right now, bitcoin’s hashrate requires enough computing power to solve 150 quintillion (quintillion has 30 zeros) equations per second. Your home computer can do about one million per second. This means you’d need extremely expensive hardware - and lots of it - to attack the network. In fact, GoBitcoin io currently pegs the cost at $26.1 billion.

But say someone did have the necessary capital to attack the network. In the wake of the attack, the value of the bitcoin they acquire would quickly drop. This makes the appeal and capital risk not worth the effort. And it’s why the bitcoin network is so incredibly valuable.

It’s reasons like this we’ve seen major players getting involved. Like:
Goldman Sachs exploring digital asset custody.
Ruffer Investment of the U.K. adding bitcoin.
Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, expressing interest.
The city of Miami looking at holding bitcoin.
And other, more conservative, entities looking to add bitcoin exposure.

They’re all starting to view BTC as a store-of-value asset that’s poised for long-term growth in the face of inflation.

And for those on the fence on whether now is a good time to get involved… We see this trend having incredibly long legs. In fact, after bitcoin’s halving in 2016, prices didn’t peak until December 2017.

As you know, bitcoin’s most recent halving was in 2020. Applying a similar time horizon, that means we potentially have 11 more months of this bullish cycle ahead of us.

Owning bitcoin now is considered being ahead of the curve. Open / Comment

2021-04-07 11:34:00 ​​Crypto com Coin (CRO)

Crypto com is becoming a one-stop shop for banking. Users can buy, store, spend, and now conduct finance all within the app.

Earlier this month, the team released Lending. The new feature lets users receive instant loans by using their crypto as collateral. Accepted collateral currencies are BTC, ETH, LTC,and CRO. Crypto com plans to add more in the future.

In other news, Crypto com is stress testing its upcoming network built using the Cosmos software development kit (SDK). Once live, Crypto com will become interoperable with other crypto projects and improve account functions.

The new mainnet will improve user experience for Cryptocom’s 3 million-plus customers worldwide. And as the app’s services expand across the crypto space, more users will be attracted to it. Open / Comment

2021-04-05 12:56:26 Streamr (DATA)

Data protection is gaining momentum, and Streamr offers a way to shift the power of data ownership from platforms like Facebook and Google back to the user. To ensure the framework progresses at a good pace, Streamr has two main checkpoints for 2021.

The first checkpoint is Data Unions 2.0, governance voting, and Brubeck testnet.

Data Unions allow users to get compensated for their data and act as large data caches willing buyers can pay for using the DATA token. Data Unions 2.0 will improve this feature.
Governance voting will allow token holders to have a say in development.
And Brubeck is the next major upgrade for Streamr.

The second main checkpoint is Brubeck hitting mainnet. When this happens, anybody canrun a node, network users will need to stake DATA tokens to use it, and Streamr’s tokenomic model will ensure DATA is poised for success.

2021 is when Streamr plans to go from a concept to having major usage. Open / Comment

2021-04-02 11:34:00 Status Network Token (SNT)

Status is an all-in-one decentralized messenger, crypto wallet, and dApp browser.

Over the last year, it released its messenger and v1.9 upgrade. This new release allows users to interact in a similar way as Twitter. They can update their statuses and view a timeline-like feed of their contacts on a censorship-resistant platform.

Looking ahead, the development we’re most excited about is Nimbus, a client that enables more mobile functionality for ETH2. Nimbus will also serve as the back-end architecture for the Status app, wallet, and dApp browser. And it’ll start by integrating the chat protocol.

With Phase 0 of ETH2 live and Nimbus making significant headway, we expect Status to win over crypto users when they migrate to ETH2 in its later phases.

As far as the project’s treasury, the team has plenty of funds to make this all a reality. It has$156 million in assets with over $20 million in fiat alone. That’s enough runway to help pay its 30 engineers, marketing efforts, and more for 133 months.

With a market cap at $195 million and $156 million in assets on the books, Status is a projectthat’s flying under the radar. Open / Comment

2021-03-31 10:54:00 ​​Numeraire (NMR)

Numerai makes financial model development a game through its Kaggle-like competitions.These models are built by data scientists and power what Numerai calls, “the world’s last hedge fund.”

In its competitions, developers both stake and receive NMR based on their models’performance. To date, 1,658 models are staking over 230,000 NMR on the site. This amounts to nearly $7 million locked up on the Numerai platform.

The average return on staked NMR is over 27%. And the team expects these results to get even better soon.

It recently increased the possibilities of models by adding the features in their data sets. This will allow for better modeling and in turn, better returns.

The second part of Numerai’s master plan is Numerai Signals. It’s a way for data scientists to upload their own market signals to the platform instead of building a model off Numerai’sdata. It brings more ingenuity and higher returns.

Signals is young, so total NMR staked is low from only 120 users. But as users gain familiarity and confidence with the platform, we expect them to stake more NMR. Open / Comment

2021-03-29 10:24:00 ​​Enjin-Coin (ENJ)

In about five years, the in-game marketplace is expected to grow 300% to $200 billion. Enjin is our play on this market.

Last month, Enjin and video game stalwart Atari announced an ongoing partnership. The two plan to integrate Atari’s IPs and licenses into Enjin-powered video games. The first game is eBallR. Players can customize their avatars with Atari-inspired digital fashion using non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The two also announced the launch of an Atari-inspired NFT fashion line. Using Enjin’s suite of tools, users can build online garments and integrate them into video games. The first integration is with eBallR and clients such as Puma, AAPE, Adidas, and more, are also onboard.
This type of experience opens up a new market of digital fashion to the online gaming world,and Enjin sits at the center of it.

In other news, ENJ just got whitelisted for use in Japan. This means it’s the first gaming cryptocurrency to get the greenlight from Japan’s regulatory body, the Japan VirtualCurrency Exchange Association (JVCEA).

Japan represents a $14.8 billion gaming market, and ENJ gets to be the first mover from the cryptocurrency space. Open / Comment

2021-03-26 12:12:00 Crypterium (CRPT)

Crypterium is an all-in-one platform that allows users to store, buy, spend, and send cryptocurrencies. With access to over 50 million merchants worldwide, the Crypterium applets you spend your cryptocurrencies just like cash.

Crypterium is coming off a big year, with the platform doubling its user base and growing transaction volume by 300% in 2020. This led to monthly profits increasing 10x and more CRPT tokens being burned in the process.

As you recall, the CRPT token is the fuel for all crypto-fiat transactions on the Crypterium wallet. These transactions incur a 0.5% fee paid in CRPT then burned. Last month,Crypterium burned 69,885 CRPT tokens. That’s a 47% increase from the previous month and brings the total burned number in 2020 to 646,638.

Looking forward to the year ahead, Crypterium is working to obtain currency licenses to expand fiat on- and off-ramps to its platform. It’s also aiming to expand its Visa crypto debitcards to the U.S. and China. They would be its largest markets yet, representing a major catalyst we look forward to. Open / Comment