Crypto Sale

2022-04-22 12:55:00 ​​The Politicization Of Hash Rate Is An Attack Vector On Bitcoin Miners

The U.S. Treasury came out today and sanctioned Bitriver, a Russian bitcoin mining company that hosts miners on behalf of large miners. Any Americans who have their miners hosted at Bitriver or own any significant amount of equity in the company must stop interacting with Bitriver immediately, highlighting the risk one takes when they don't control their infrastructure and host their miners in areas that are subject to increased political risk. Political risk comes in many different forms.

Here in the United States, it is politically risky to host your miners in the state of New York as it is run by freedom-hating Malthusians who are dead set on preventing Bitcoin from flourishing within its borders. It was proven to be politically risky to mine in Quebec in the mid-2010s as the government there freaked out and began treating bitcoin miners who were utilizing excess electricity produced by Hydro Quebec like second-class citizens by singling them out and increasing their electricity rates and sales tax. Making their operations unprofitable and, therefore, nonviable. And now, we are learning that it is politically risky to host your miner within Russia if you are a U.S. citizen because the government seems determined to sever Russia's connection to the western world in reaction to the invasion of Ukraine.

There are many American citizens and companies who are now scrambling to figure out what to do with their miners after the Treasury Department made their order today. Will Bitriver give them their machines back? Will the U.S. government let these people receive their machines if Bitriver is an ethical business and attempts to do so? These are questions I don't know the answer to at the moment, but are questions miners should ask themselves before loading their operations up with third-party risk.

As Bitcoin continues to grow — and with it, the target on its back — bitcoin miners should be hyper-aware of these third-party risks and attempt to mitigate them to the best of their ability. This is why your Uncle Marty is very bullish on vertically integrated off-grid mining operations that are more distributed, housed in states that respect freedom and property rights and significantly harder to identify and shut down when the government inevitably decides to focus the ire of their manic anti-human insanity on the bitcoin mining industry.

I am a big fan of the incredible work large-scale miners are doing here in the U.S. and Canada, but I do worry that the federal governments in the U.S. and Canada will find them to be easy political targets to pick on in the future. I truly hope this does not come to fruition, but it is hard to argue that they aren't massive sitting targets that insane federal governments can try to wage attacks against.

I feel terrible that Bitriver and their customers have been dragged into a political shit show and are now being financially damaged because those in the political class are gung-ho on escalating geopolitical tensions as they continue their massive Deep State dick measuring contest in front of the world. Honest, hard-working people are being harmed as the proxy war between warring super powers wages on.

If you're running a mining operation make sure you take the Deep State dick-measuring contests, the political environment of your local government and the size of your operation into consideration when building it out. All present points of failure and you do not want to concentrate your risk in one area. Open / Comment

2022-04-21 14:10:00 ​​Bonds Are Down 30% From All-Time Highs

The below is an excerpt from a recent edition of Bitcoin Magazine Pro, 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.

U.S. 30-Year Treasury Yield Hits 3%
Recently, the U.S. 30-year Treasury bond yield hit over 3% as the Treasury bond market across durations and broader credit markets continue selling off.

The rise in yields has resulted in much higher bond market volatility and significant drawdowns for investors. The iShares 20-year Treasury Bond ETF, TLT, which tracks an index of long duration maturities, is now down over 30% from the all-time high back in July 2020. The latest drawdown is the fastest deceleration across a 30-day percentage change since May 2009.

For context, bitcoin is only down roughly 39% from the all-time high. So much for long-dated U.S. Treasuries providing low volatility, portfolio hedging performance and “risk-free” rates.

It’s important to keep in mind the long-term outlook of the global economic system when evaluating the performance of bitcoin and debt securities.

Because of the realities of a historic debt burden that worsened post COVID-19 economic lockdowns, followed by the historic stimulus that followed, debt as an asset class was a promise of return-free risk. Debt is not merely an agreement between borrower and lender, but in the global economy it underpins the entire financial system as a liquid asset class (the largest one at that).

Because of the reality of roughly $100 trillion worth of credit promising return-free risk (nevermind the assets that are priced off of the historically negative real rates: equities, real estate, etc.), our case has repeatedly been that the perfect asset in theory to hold at this stage of a long-term debt cycle is one with no counterparty risk and zero dilution risk.

Theory met reality with the advent of the Bitcoin network in 2009.

Now, as the entire investing world is working to figure out how to outpace the historic inflation regime we are faced with today, there stands bitcoin, which continues to look remarkably cheap against the market valuation of every other asset on the planet. Open / Comment

2022-04-20 19:00:06 ​​Here's why Bitcoin is a solution to inflation, according to M. Saylor

Michael Saylor is a well-known proponent of Bitcoin (BTC), and one of his primary reasons in support of the flagship digital currency is that he believes it is a critical hedge against the dangers of inflation.

Speaking with Bloomberg Technology, the MicroStrategy Chairman and CEO shared his thoughts on why he believes BTC is a viable solution to inflation, the potential of wider Bitcoin adoption, and what Twitter under Elon Musk may imply for the cryptocurrency community.

It was noted Bitcoin has been trading in a narrow range for quite some time and the fact that it is not really moving on from the $40,000 price bracket. According to Saylor, it is all a question of perspective in terms of the timeframe.

“If you go back two years when MicroStrategy first bought in, it’s up to 400% and has dramatically outperformed the Nasdaq or gold or any other asset you could have bought. If you are looking at it in a matter of days or weeks or months, the traders control it,” he said.

Saylor pointed out that there are three types of investors in Bitcoin, traders, technocrats, and maximalists.

He added:

“The maximalist’s are all in. Myself, Jack Dorsey, we think Bitcoin is an instrument of economic empowerment. <..> The market price is set by a tug-of-war between the technocrats – the people who are pro-technology and think it is the next big tech network like Google or Amazon for money, and the traders, who are looking at and uncorrelated asset.”

Bitcoin’s correlation with risk assets
Furthermore, Saylor and Emily Chang also discussed when Bitcoin could break the correlation with risk assets.

The CEO opined that being a maximalist or a tech investor would be more advantageous in the long run. However, he believes that traders will continue to have a dominant position in the market as long as there is a highly turbulent market, uncertainty about Fed policy, and panic in the short term.

With that being said, he revealed that Bitcoin will break the correlation sometime in the next four years but couldn’t be specific on the date.

Saylor revealed:

It will happen “on a day that is unexpected, the correlation will go from 70% correlated to 0% risk assets. And when that happens, traders will reverse the polarity of their trade and technologists will start to double down and the maximalists will enjoy the ride.”

Given that there is a considerable crypto community on Twitter, Saylor doesn’t think that there will be much impact on the crypto community if Musk takes over or that it will become decentralized regardless of the outcome of all of these discussions right now. Open / Comment

2022-04-18 14:35:00 ​​SEC Risks Violating Admin Procedure Act by Rejecting Spot Bitcoin ETFs, Says Grayscale

Grayscale Investments’ CEO explains that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could potentially violate the Administrative Procedure Act by not approving a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

SEC Approving Spot Bitcoin ETF Is ‘a Matter of When and Not If’

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has now approved not one but two different structures of bitcoin futures exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This has led to the optimism in the crypto industry that the securities watchdog is closer to approving a spot bitcoin ETF.

The first structure utilizes the Investment Company Act of 1940 (40 Act). Most proposed bitcoin futures ETF to date are filed under this Act. The second uses the Securities Act of 1933 (33 Act). The Teucrium Bitcoin Futures ETF was approved earlier this month using the latter structure.

Grayscale Investments CEO Michael Sonnenshein explained to CNBC last week: “From the SEC standpoint, there were several protections that 40 Act products have that 33 Securities Act of 1933 products don’t have, but never ever did those protections address the SEC’s concern over the underlying bitcoin market and the potential for fraud or manipulation.”

He continued: “So the fact that they’ve now evolved their thinking and approved a 33 Act product with Teucrium really invalidates that argument and talks to the linkage between the bitcoin futures and the underlying bitcoin spot markets that give the futures contracts their value.” Sonnenshein opined:

If the SEC can’t look at two like issues, the futures ETF and the spot ETF, through the same lens, then it is, in fact, potentially grounds for an Administrative Procedure Act violation.

The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

Grayscale filed with the SEC on Oct. 19 last year to convert its flagship bitcoin trust (GBTC) into a bitcoin ETF. GBTC is Grayscale’s largest product with almost $26 billion in assets under management as of April 15. If approved by the SEC, GBTC will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, instead of on OTCQX.

The company is waiting to hear back from the SEC in early July about whether the filing will be approved. The CEO has hinted that suing the SEC is a possible option the company will take if the agency does not approve the GBTC conversion.

Commenting on whether the SEC will approve a spot bitcoin ETF, Sonnenshein stressed: Open / Comment

2022-04-17 16:25:00 ​​The world doesn’t need banks, policymakers or NGOs — It needs DeFi

Where I grew up, on the southern border in Texas, a tremendous number of people have come to the United States to work and send money back home. They don’t make much money, but they pay considerable fees on their transfers. Their focus is not on getting rich, but on supporting those back home in their native country. They support their families as they do hard labor day in and day out. It costs them too much to do so.

Truth be told, my father was a migrant worker. He picked fruit in the fields. We sent money back to our family in Mexico. But the remittance providers chipped away at what little money he was able to make so that they had no hope of achieving the American Dream and prospering.

The world needs DeFi due to corruption. Big governments and international corporations are controlled not in the interest of the people, but the interest of their bottom line. Credit cards and personal loans have tremendous fees, as do remittances. Open / Comment

2022-04-16 19:10:00 ​​New Collateral Assets on Binance Loan

Find out what collateral assets has Binance added to the Binance loan program. Also, in this article, we will talk more about Binance loans.

In yesterday’s tweet, Binance announced new collateral assets on Binance Loans. These new assets are:

ASTR
ASTR is native token of Astar network. Astar network is a scalable and interoperable Web3.0 infrastructure. Because Astar Network is built on Parity’s Substrate framework, it has the potential to become a future Polkadot parachain that also serves as a scalable smart contract platform. Polkadot Relaychain does not support smart contracts. Thus, this gives Astar the opportunity to fill the gap. Scalability is one of the most important requirements for dApp developers. Ideally, developers can build any apps they want on Astar Network without worrying about scalability.

IOTX
IOTX is an Ethereum token that powers IoTeX network. IoTeX is a decentralized network of users, developers, and businesses that govern and use the platform collectively. This is a one-of-a-kind blockchain network. As an EVM compatible Layer 1 blockchain, it provides blockchain benefits to smart devices, Dapps, and NFTs. In its decentralized ecosystem, IoTeX aims to ensure that individuals and businesses may own and control their data and devices. Its goal is to democratize access to machine-backed DApps, assets, and services in order to connect the physical and digital worlds and drive the new machine economy.

KNC
KNC is a native token of Kyber network. The Kyber Network is a protocol that seeks to provide liquidity to decentralized products and simplify ERC-20 token swaps. This protocol collects liquidity from many sources (reserves, exchanges, etc.) and uses it to enable instant swaps of ERC-20 tokens. Open / Comment

2022-04-14 19:25:00 ​​Elon Musk endeavors to buy Twitter but will reconsider position if rejected

In a letter sent to the chairman of Twitter’s board Bret Taylor on Thursday, entrepreneur Elon Musk, best known for founding and heading Tesla and SpaceX, has offered to purchase the entire Twitter company for $54.20 a share, stating that the social media platform has “extraordinary potential” that he will “unlock.”

Published by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a 13D filing, Musk stated that “Since making my investment, I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

Following this, Musk categorically states that this offer is his “best and final”, and if not accepted, he “would need to reconsider his my position as a shareholder.” Open / Comment

2022-04-13 12:15:00 ​​Fashion brand Zara launches first solo collection in the metaverse

Fast fashion brand Zara has launched a brand new collection called Lime Glam, designed to be worn both inside and outside the virtual world. The garments and accessories can be worn inside the Zepeto metaverse and are also available in physical stores.

As wearables quickly become the latest fashion trend and steer their way into the minds of the fashion-conscious public, mainstream brands like Zara are keen to get involved.

With metaverses like Decentraland, Somnium Space, Zilliqa, and others now providing a home for brands to cater to avatars, there are more wearables being designed with dual roles, one for your in real life (IRL) appearance and the other for your virtual self.

So how can our avatars merge with our physical personalities? The easiest way to showcase your personality in the metaverse is to choose the wearables that reflect your style.

If a buyer opts for the physical version they will also get access to the digital version, streamlining the buying process. The dedicated section on the Zara website showcases avatars wearing the new Lime Glam collection, providing inspiration for those who wish to purchase any of the items.

The Zepeto application also offers a photo booth, digital walls, and a floor for this particular collection. Zepeto is the same virtual site where Gucci launched Gucci Villa in August 2021.

The 3D designs are simple in style, reflecting the current fashion demands across the high street — short, green ruched dresses, oversized denim jackets, woven shoulder bags and platform sandals are the main pieces in the limited edition collection.

Virtual fashion gains momentum

Fashion and beauty brands are busy experimenting with virtual versions of their products as the industry embraces the potential of the metaverse. As consumers are consciously spending increasing amounts of time immersed in digital worlds, brands are interested in building unique experiences that add to their physical goods and may even in time replace the need for as many physical purchases.

According to Morgan Stanley, the digital luxury fashion industry has the potential to reach $50 billion in market size by 2030. As more household fashion brands dip their toes into the metaverse there will be more opportunities for avatars to choose from a diverse range of fashionable items and show off their style. Open / Comment

2022-04-12 14:40:00 ​​Polker Returns from NFT L.A. Event, While PKR Staking Gets Extended

If there is one project that everyone should be keeping a close eye on, it’s Polker. While it is true that the game has already gone live, there is still plenty to talk about regarding its progress nonetheless. In fact, not only had the Polker team previously given access to an early version of the game to 500 lucky people, but rare editions of the ‘Beta’ NFT were also up for grabs (500 only).

Moreover, 1,000 additional members are reportedly being added to further promote the game, which is a vital component of the roll out plan. Anyone who possesses decent specs and a Windows PC should also get in touch with the Polker team as soon as possible if these people weren’t originally chosen as part of the initial 500 groups.

On March 21st, at 1:00 p.m. UTC, the Polker NFT sale (FCFS) on the GenShards Market officially concluded. Fans would be delighted to know that each NFT purchased is fully functional within the game and contributes to the project’s overall goal of further growing the Polker ecosystem. The Polker team was also in attendance during the recent NFT Los Angeles event, held from March 28th to March 31st.

Understanding What Polker Actually Is
Naturally, it is important to know as much about any project beforehand. In terms of what Polker is, this is a game that utilizes next-level graphics via the highly popular Unreal Engine 4. It is the world’s inaugural blockchain-oriented poker NFT and a highly interactive and dynamic game. It is founded on tried-and-true fair methodology and TRNG technology.

Polker is also not operating by itself, having created alliances with Polygon for its non-fungible tokens and working with reputable companies like Chainlink and Master Ventures. Polker was also shouted out by Akon, further highlighting its mainstream popularity.

As such, Polker plans to partner with many reputable platforms and be linked to various streaming channels with superior VR capabilities and amazing 3D characters, aesthetics, and digital environments. It has also partnered with Refinable, and the official Polker NFT marketplace will undoubtedly serve a crucial part of its overall ecosystem.

In a nutshell, Polker aims to be the first blockchain NFT game with metaverse elements that are entirely free to play and play to earn. Polker will also start developing new games within a year, with the main focus resting on virtual reality and mobile development.

PKR Staking Is Now Extended
Polker made it possible for anybody to stake their PKR on Ethereum on September 25th, 2021, and via BSC on December 25th, 2021. Polker has chosen to prolong the two staking pools for several additional months due to the team’s sustained growth regarding early access. Polker has also accomplished numerous goals listed in its official roadmap, having finished four Beta’s and is now in the final stages of production.

Users who have previously staked their PKR in the Ethereum or Binance Smart Chain pools would not need to withdraw or redeposit because the staking contract will be updated every day. They will continue to get PKR coins no matter what. This is fantastic since it implies that consumers are not required to do anything and may continue to stake as much as possible.

Polker, needless to add, has done exceedingly well thus far. There has already been a lot of progress, and more will be made as the year goes on. Overall, Polker is a project that everyone should keep an eye on in the future. Open / Comment

2022-04-11 13:40:00 ​​Crypto Industry's Growing Sway in Shaping US States' Laws: NY Times

Crypto executives and lobbyists, in the absence of federal regulations, are working with state lawmakers across the country to craft favorable legislation, the New York Times reported.

Many states, eager to attract the jobs they think the industry will bring, are rushing to grant the legislative wishes of the crypto companies.

The article cited new money-transmission legislation in Florida as just the latest example of crypto industry officials working side-by-side with legislators to craft industry-friendly measures.

Some consumer advocates are worried that an accommodative attitude on the part of the states will lead to regulations without adequate protection from crypto scams and risky practices.

More than 150 pieces of crypto-related legislation are currently pending before state legislatures and Puerto Rico, the Times said, citing an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures. In some cases, legislators have used industry-suggested language almost verbatim.

In New York, the industry is spending more than $140,000 per month, the Times said, state records show.

While the article is notable for its overview of the growing power of the crypto industry at the state level, its publication, coming less than a month after the Times published a sophisticated and well done introduction to cryptocurrencies, it also speaks to the mainstreaming of cryptocurrency in the U.S. and a growing interest of traditional media in covering it. Open / Comment