Crypto Bubble

2022-05-17 22:00:04 ​​Tether Supply Plummeted $7.4B Amid Depegging Concerns, Terra Collapse: Glassnode

Amid the dramatic events surrounding last week’s TerraUSD collapse, Tether (USDT), the crypto industry’s largest stablecoin, has dropped more than $7 billion.

Tether’s market capitalization plummeted from an all-time high above $83 billion on May 11 to $75.6 billion today.

The decrease in USDT supply coincided with the stablecoin briefly losing its dollar peg by 5% last week before recovering to trade at a slight discount of $0.998 within the next 36 hours.

Today, USDT is trading at $0.9991, according to CoinMarkeCap.

Amid the depegging, Tether, the company behind the stablecoin, stated that in times of market volatility, it continued to honor all redemptions from verified customers, with about $2 billion processed on May 12 alone.

Centralized stablecoins allege to have enough actual fiat reserves in case users decide to swap their stablecoin holdings for fiat currencies (a process called redemption). These reserves aren't necessarily kept in cash either, with stablecoin providers reporting cash equivalents, crypto, and commercial paper, among other reserve assets.

Tether Has Cut Commercial Paper Holdings Backing Stablecoin by 50%: CTO
In a depegging scenario, users can put these reserves to the test due to an enticing arbitrage opportunity. If a stablecoin has fallen below its peg, investors may buy the discounted token and then redeem it for its dollar value, pocketing the difference.

If not redemptions, savvy speculators can also swap the discounted stablecoin for another stablecoin that hasn’t lost its peg for a similar trade. Open / Comment

2022-05-16 21:00:03 ​​Bequeath Cryptocurrency in Your Will in a World First

Bequeath your cryptocurrency as your legacy to your loved one. It is now possible thanks to a new service.

A philanthropic estate planning platform called LifeLegacy, says it can now enable individuals to include crypto in their legacy plans. This will work via the company’s online Last Will and Testament. It is the first time that digital assets can be included in a free online Will.

Austin Cassidy is the co-founder of LifeLegacy. “Cryptocurrency is rapidly redefining the world’s financial systems and is becoming increasingly more commonplace in our day-to-day lives.

But the one major issue with the growing popularity of digital assets is that there is no easy process to include it in a financial plan and pass it on. About 20% of all Americans own cryptocurrency and this figure will continue to rise. With this in mind, we’ve made it possible to easily leave cryptocurrency held in a hot wallet on Coinbase, Binance, or other exchanges to any beneficiary, including charities.”

Bequeath cryptocurrency: Now Easier
Digital asset bequesting is a critical piece of LifeLegacy’s mission to “make social impact accessible and inclusive for all.” The company is working with Appraisal Bureau. They work in the area of digital asset appraisals.

LifeLegacy say that as crypto wealth is becoming a bigger part of an individual’s estate, the aim is to make it easy to pass on your Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other crypto asset to a charity or to loved ones.

“Right now, most cryptocurrency exchanges require providing a valid Last Will and Testament before releasing assets to beneficiaries. LifeLegacy is the first to solve this – and set to become the market leader for it.”

Says Cassidy, “Giving individuals the access and ability to gift their digital assets broadens capacity to leave a lasting legacy.” Open / Comment

2022-05-14 21:00:03 ​​Kava Network’s USDX tumbles to $0.65 as yet another stablecoin depegs

Quick Take
USDX dipped to almost $0.55 on Wednesday and is currently changing hands at $0.65.

Kava Labs said it offered UST as one of the collateral assets to mint USDX.

Kava Network's native decentralized stablecoin USDX has lost its parity with the US dollar. This stablecoin has a market cap of more than $115 million, according to CoinGecko.

USDX dipped to almost 0.55 on Wednesday, and is currently changing hands at $0.65 — well below its supposed dollar peg.

What may have caused USDX to lose its dollar parity is not clear. Unlike algorithmic stablecoins such as those provided by Terra, Kava Network's USDX can be minted as a loan backed by collateral reserves.

A likely explanation coming via Twitter from Kava Labs, the development team behind the stablecoin, is that USDX lost the peg because of its exposure to terraUSD (UST) — an algorithmic stablecoin that recently collapsed. UST accounted for some of the collateral backing USDX, along other assets including kava, cosmos, wrapped bitcoin and ether.

As UST plummeted to $0.10, losing more than 90% of its value in a week, it caused collateral liquidations that dragged USDX along. The liquidations probably contributed to USDX dislocating from the one-dollar peg, according to Scott Stuart, co-founder and CEO of Kava Labs, the development team working on the stablecoin

Stuart claims USDX will return to the peg because it is not an algorithmic token like UST.

“USDX is not UST. Once UST is out of the system, USDX is anticipated to go back to its peg,” Stuart added.

"UST has (obviously) significantly de-pegged and has promulgated some risk to downstream protocols that use it," Stuart said, adding that the UST risk in Kava was isolated and could be tolerated. Open / Comment

2022-05-11 21:00:04 ​​Go green or die? Bitcoin miners aim for carbon neutrality by mining near data centers

Bitcoin (BTC) mining has always been a controversial topic. But, Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) model has reached new levels of concern as senior decision-makers and investors pay closer attention to environmental, social and governance factors.

As such, many crypto miners are highlighting environmentally friendly practices by acquiring carbon offsets. Yet, some would argue that this isn’t enough to guarantee green Bitcoin mining. Other risk factors may also be involved with carbon credits.

For instance, Kevin O’Leary — the Canadian entrepreneur better known as “Mr. Wonderful” for his role on Shark Tank — told Cointelegraph that he typically indexes public mining companies like Marathon Digital Holdings, Riot Blockchain Inc. and others. However, O’Leary pointed out that once these companies claimed carbon neutrality through carbon offsets, their stocks dropped drastically. O’Leary believes this is because the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), may soon plan to audit carbon credits. O’Leary expressed his concern, stating:

“Carbon offsets are unauditable. So indexers like me dumped those shares — we had to sell. The only way institutions will now invest in Bitcoin mining is for those companies to claim there is no carbon involved at all.”

Bitcoin mining and data centers
In order to ensure zero carbon mining, O’Leary explained that Bitcoin miners should build in parallel with data centers. This would then allow mining companies to efficiently use excess energy omitted from data centers to mine Bitcoin, resulting in “zero carbon displacement,” a process that produces zero carbon emissions.

Bitcoin mining company Bitzero began implementing such a model two years ago in Norway. Akbar Shamji, CEO and founder of Bitzero, told Cointelegraph that the company initially built an infrastructure partnership with Norway’s local government two years ago that prompted the region to release unused hydroelectric power generation for Bitcoin mining:

“This was the perfect opportunity for us to test this idea. At the same time, big data companies started to use renewable energy sources in places like Norway, but this wasn’t profitable for the region. We’ve built a long-term, low-cost 100% zero carbon displacement power source to have an edge over the market. We hit revenue when we mined our first Bitcoin in December 2021.”

Being aware of the massive demand for data storage today, Shamji further explained that electricity generated from data centers should be properly harnessed. “We call this the ‘Norway model.’ Electricity generation is there but it remains stuck at high voltage. So, we executed the electrical step down from high voltage to low acquiring transformers and substation, allowing us to drive containers full of ASIC miners efficiently,” he remarked.

In other words, Bitzero draws power directly from surplus capacity at local hydro plants, resulting in zero carbon displacement. At the same time, Shamji explained that Bitzero is delivering fixed data centers made of sustainable and local materials that consist of heat capture technology. Open / Comment

2022-05-10 22:00:02 ​​Crypto Market Crash Leads to $1B in Liquidations, Majors Lose Pivotal Support

Crypto futures racked up more than $1 billion in liquidations in the past 24 hours amid weak market sentiment and major assets losing pivotal support levels.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell as much as 8% in the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH), BNB Chain’s BNB, and XRP saw similar losses. Terra’s LUNA fell 50% as its UST stablecoin lost its peg with U.S. dollar, while memecoin dogecoin (DOGE) fared relatively better than the market with just a 6% drop.

Bitcoin temporarily fell under $30,000 in early Asian hours, buoyed by a weak broader market. U.S. technology index Nasdaq ended Monday 4.29% lower, while Asian markets began Tuesday over 1% lower.

Such price action led to this year’s biggest liquidations losses so far. Data shows traders of bitcoin futures lost $346 million, ether futures lost $321 million, while LUNA futures $87 million – a higher-than-usual figure for traders of that asset.

More than $793 million of the total liquidations arose from long traders, or those betting on higher prices, which represented 74% of the futures trades. Some $257 million of that occurred on crypto exchange OKX, followed by Binance at $181 million and FTX at $102 million.

Open interest, or the amount of outstanding derivative contracts that have not been settled, fell 5.6%, implying traders closed their positions in anticipation of a further drop. As such, the crypto market lost nearly 8% of its overall capitalization in the past 24 hours.

Markets seemed to gradually recover at writing time. Bitcoin traded above $31,800, while ether regained the $2,800 level. An extended recovery would depend on how broader equity markets trade this week, however, as market observers previously pointed out. Open / Comment

2022-05-08 21:00:04 ​​KuCoin Community Chain (KCC) to Distribute $100,000 for Unicorn Carnival Week

KuCoin Community Chain (KCC) has announced the official kick-off of its KCC Unicorn Carnival Week on May 6, 2022. KCC is a public chain project initiated and built by the developer community of KCS and KuCoin.

The carnival week will be in three stages, namely, the KCC Project Grand Expo Week which commences on May 6, 2022, until May 11, 2022 and the Top Unicorns Week, from May 12, 2022, to May 16, 2022. The third stage is the Special Event For Wallets which will be held from May 6, 2022, to May 16, 2022.

Users will have the opportunity to participate in some activities to earn a chance to share from a pool of 5000 KCS during the event. The rewards are provided by KCC while additional rewards will be provided by projects. Users will also have the chance to receive KCC Unicorn Limited Edition NFT airdrops.

“By hosting KCC Unicorn Carnival Week, we would like to showcase and share some good projects that are relatively more mature and likely more receptive among our users. We will also put in effort to support them. Hence, we scheduled KCC Unicorn Carnival Week simultaneously with KCC Unicon Contest and community voting. We hope the projects are truly handpicked and experienced by the community. We also believe that more decentralization will gradually come to fruition through running such events on KCC” KCC head of the community operation, Sam said.

Among other things, the KCC Carnival Week is aimed at providing users with the opportunity to experience the KCC ecosystem and help all the projects increase their exposure while driving target traffic. It will also serve as the initial incentive plan for the KCC chain and will reveal the vast potential available in the KCC ecosystem. The project intends to launch some new products in the near future that will go viral.

KCC was built to solve the problem of latency and high gas fees on Ethereum. The project is compatible with EVM and smart contracts to make blockchain use faster, cheaper, and more convenient for both the community and developers. Open / Comment

2022-05-06 22:00:03 ​​Tezos Joins Bitski to Offer ‘Red Bull Guest House Keys’ NFT Collection

Bitski, a San Francisco-based startup that provides custom NFT storefronts for creators and brands, has utilized the power of the Tezos blockchain to offer Red Bull’s very first NFT collection dubbed Red Bull Guest House Keys. These NFTs will give benefits and special access to guests who will be attending and staying at the Red Bull Guest House Miami 2022.

Minted on the Tezos blockchain and supported by Bitski, the keys will serve as a digital souvenir from the event and were sent to RBGH attendees through text. Here, recipients are urged to create a Bitski wallet so they can store their NFT tickets.

In detail, each NFT ticket holds unique perks and surprises. The ‘Golden Key’, which took inspiration from motorsports heritage, displays a new era of racing lifestyle. It provides an all-access pass to RBGH Friday through Sunday with an invitation to a private bar.

Meanwhile, the ‘Friday Key’ can be described as one that sits atop a podium and boasts a series of elements based on Miami’s Latin music heritage. It also features enchanting floral arrangements inspired by Orly Anan, a Colombian/Israeli art director and visual artist.

Similar to the Friday Key, the ‘Saturday Key’ sits atop a podium. However, this NFT ticket brings a memorable night of lasers, speakers, and automotive-inspired electronic music. It features elements from the intersection of car culture and electronic music.

Last but not least, the ‘Sunday Key’ offers an immersive futuristic disco dance experience through disco balls, palm trees, and other elements. Just like the previous two, this key also sits atop a podium.

Furthermore, unlike the Golden Key – the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday Keys only provide one-day access for their respective days.

Moreover, in other news, it was just last year when Oracle Red Bull Racing introduced the Team’s pioneering range of digital collectible NFTs solely on the Tezos blockchain – coinciding with the 2021 Mexico Grand Prix. Open / Comment

2022-05-04 20:30:00 ​​Valkyrie Launches Avalanche Trust for TradFi Exposure to AVAX Token

Crypto investment firm Valkyrie said Wednesday it is launching an Avalanche Trust (VAVAX) for traditional investors looking to gain exposure to the Avalanche ecosystem. According to sources familiar with the matter, the trust has already secured $25 million.

The Avalanche Trust launch comes two weeks after Valkyrie established a “Multi-Coin Trust” that invested in a basket of base-layer tokens including AVAX. This new fund is one of the only AVAX-specific funds targeting accredited investors.

Avalanche is a proof-of-stake blockchain and competitor to Ethereum in Decentralized Finance, or DeFi. Its native fees token was trading near $60 Tuesday, well off all-time-highs above $130 set last November, according to CoinGecko.

“By launching this trust, we are able to give qualified investors exposure to a protocol that they have been increasingly asking about as DeFi projects, NFT platforms, and many other projects have increasingly begun to build on the Avalanche blockchain,” said Valkyrie Investments CIO Steven McClurg in a press release.

The Avalanche Trust offers daily redemptions for shares, according to its fact sheet, in contrast with Multi-Coin Trust’s monthly redemption schedule. Its minimum investment is $25,000, with a 2% management fee.

Copper Technologies acts as the custodian for the fund, Cohen & Company handles audits and tax, Theorem services fund is the administrator, and Chapman + Cutler LLP is the fund’s legal counsel. Open / Comment

2022-05-02 23:30:00 ​​Argentina’s Largest Private Bank Launches Crypto Trading Feature

Banco Galicia, the largest Argentinian private bank by market value, has added the option to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on its platform, the company confirmed Monday.

The bank added a feature in the investment section of its app for users to acquire bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), USDC and XRP, telling its customers that it is a new tool.

It's the latest tie-up between financial incumbents and service providers looking to bring crypto to the masses – be it PayPal tapping Paxos or NYDIG working with U.S. credit unions.

Banco Galicia's service is operated in partnership with Lirium, a Liechtenstein-based crypto product for digital wallets and mobile banking apps, CoinDesk confirmed.

When a user asked the bank on Twitter if the service was available, Banco Galicia said yes and added that it was adding new investment options.

Banco Galicia belongs to Grupo Financiero Galicia, which is listed on the Buenos Aires stock exchange and on Nasdaq under the ticker GGAL. Open / Comment

2022-04-29 22:15:00 ​​Digital Yuan Giveaway: Shenzhen Residents to Receive 15 Million Yuan in Digital Currency

The Chinese government is giving away 15 million yuan in central bank digital currency (CBDC) to 130,000 residents of Shenzhen this Friday. The digital yuan can be used at nearly 5,000 stores with no minimum purchase required.

Digital Yuan Pilot Continues
China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), continues to test its central bank digital currency (CBDC) with another digital yuan giveaway.

The government of Shenzhen’s Futian district has announced that 15 million yuan ($2.27 million) in digital RMB (e-CNY) will be given to local residents Friday, Global Times reported. It will be divided into 130,000 red packets and given away by raffle via Wechat payment.

Consumers can spend the red packets at nearly 5,000 stores in the district with no minimum purchase required, the publication conveyed, adding that this is the first time that the issuance of digital yuan includes all eight pilot banks and a range of sectors including restaurants and supermarkets.

This is not the first time that the Chinese government is giving away digital yuan in Shenzhen, which is one of the first pilot cities for the e-CNY. In October 2020, the government gave away 10 million digital yuan to Shenzhen residents. At that time, the red packets could only be used at 3,389 designated stores in the Luohu district.

Earlier this month, China’s central bank added more cities to test its digital currency.

Besides Shenzhen, the digital yuan is also being tested in Shanghai, Suzhou, Xiong’an, Chengdu, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, Dalian, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, and six cities in the Zhejiang province that will host the 2022 Asian Games in September. The six cities are Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, and Huzhou.

According to the latest data from the Chinese central bank, the digital yuan had 261 million unique users at the end of 2021. In addition, transactions worth more than 87.5 billion yuan ($13.8 billion) have been made using e-CNY. Open / Comment