Author: Ibiam Wayas

Ibiam is an optimistic crypto journalist. He loves to associate with like-minded individuals and collaborate with them on similar projects. He spends much of his time honing his writing and critical thinking skills.

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Binance Crypto News

Binance CEO dismisses report of CFTC probe as “FUD”

Binance CEO dismisses report of CFTC probe as "FUD"

The largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is allegedly under investigation by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to a Friday report by Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter. The Binance Coin (BNB) has been struck by news, as it’s down by 12 percent, with a market price around US$269, during press time. 

However, the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, has shrugged off the news as FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt).

CFTC probes Binance over trading activities

As Bloomberg reported, the US regulator is investigating Binance to know whether the exchange allowed residents from the country to trade derivative products on its platform. Note-worthily, the cryptocurrency exchange isn’t registered with the US authorities, and so, it’s not permitted for US investors and traders to buy and sell derivative products related to digital currencies. 

The CFTC, in particular, considers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as a commodity. Hence, exchanges offering related products to US residents must face strict regulations to ensure customer protection and oversight demands. Binance had stated that it doesn’t comment on its communications with regulators. However, it’s unarguable that the exchange has severally warned and blocked US residents from using its main website. 

“We take a collaborative approach in working with regulators around the world, and we take our compliance obligations very seriously” Binance noted in a statement.

CZ says it’s all FUD

The CEO of the largest exchange seems unbothered by the circulating rumor. In fact, he dismissed the news as being FUD on Twitter. 

Meanwhile, the development today is coming just a day after the exchange appointed a former US senator, Max Baucus, as an advisor to assist them in meeting regulatory requirements with the United States authorities.

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Blockchain Crypto News NFTs

NFT: Beeple Sells his 5,000-day Digital Art Collection for US$60 Million

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are becoming the next-big trend in the cryptocurrency space. In recent days, many digital art collections were issued in the NFT marketplaces, netting fortunes for the owners and artists. Today, a popular digital artist, Beeple, bagged over US$60 million from the sales of his 5,000-day digital art collection – a figure that is way greater than what Anthony Pompliano predicted some weeks ago.

Beeple’s 5,000-day Art Sells for Over $60 Million

Beeple’s art sales marked the first time non-fungible token (NFT) collections were sold at an auction house, and also one of the highest art collections ever sold via auction. As reported, the 5,000-day collection went for a total value of US$69,346,250. However, the collections were sold for $60.25 million, with about $9 million premium, i.e., a percentage of the final price. The art was sold at Christie’s, a British auction house, with 353 bids in total.

Beeple (b. 1981) EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS

The digital artist began making the art collection daily in May 2007, which lasted for 5,000 days straight, and of course, led to the title, “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS.” The collection is thought to be the most unique bodies of work to emerge in the history of digital art. It initially consisted of basic drawings, but took on abstract themes, color, and form, as Beeple began working in 3D. He wrote:

“I almost look at it now like I’m a political cartoonist. Except instead of doing sketches, I’m using the most advanced 3D tools to make comments on current events, almost in real-time.”

WarNymph Sold for US$5.8 Million

On Wednesday, Crypto News Australia reported another digital art collection from Grimes dubbed “WarNymph,” which was sold as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain for about US$5.8 million.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News

Roger Montgomery isn’t Convinced that Bitcoin is a Viable Monetary System

Bitcoin (BTC) made headlines across international media amid the exponential price growth from the US$20,00 price level in January to over US$50,000 today. During which, many prominent companies have been adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets.

However, a leading Australian investor and the chairman of Montgomery Investments, Roger Montgomery, is having none of that. He needs more convincing that the cryptocurrency can make a good means of exchange.

Roger Montgomery on Twitter

Just a mere belief

Montgomery made his thoughts known while speaking in a recent interview with Ausbiz concerning investing in Bitcoin. He sees the cryptocurrency as a “digital collectible” that is similar to other collectibles like gold, art, or wine. According to him, he’s yet to hear an argument that the largest cryptocurrency will become a viable monetary system.

Roger Montgomery in a recent interview with Ausbiz

“I’ve looked at the arguments in support of buying Bitcoin fairly carefully, and my observation is that most of the arguments are a belief in the future use of the currency,” Montgomery said. “So the belief in it being a universal digital currency is not the same as articulating the path that it actually takes to get there. Not only does it have to be universally accepted, but it has to replace fiat money.”

Also, in order for Bitcoin to become a means of exchange, Montgomery argued that the cryptocurrency must be a stable store of value, “which it isn’t.” He also mentioned that Bitcoin isn’t largely regulated, and so he wouldn’t invest in it. “If I was going to speculate. I’d rather speculate on things that are regulated, and I know my money is going to be protected and not hacked,” Montgomery added.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Regulation

Twitter Mistakenly Suspended Accounts Related to Popular Crypto Influencers

Twitter mistakenly suspends accounts related to popular crypto influencers

During the early hours of Wednesday, the popular social media platform Twitter suspended several accounts owned by top influencers in the digital currency space. The development sparked lots of concerns amongst the crypto users on the platform owing to the fact that Twitter is considered a crypto-friendly social platform. Moreover, the chief executive officer, Jack Dorsey, is one of the biggest supporters of cryptocurrency.

Following a response from Twitter, however, it appears the accounts were suspended by mistake?

Major Cryptocurrency Account Suspended

Twitter users noticed that seven accounts, at least, belonging to popular cryptocurrency analysts and traders were suspended on Wednesday. Some of the accounts suspended include @woonomic, @100trillionUSD, @mmcrypto, @wsbchairman, @themooncarl, @TheCryptoDog, and @KoroushAK. At the time, the message on these profiles read that “Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules.” 

After several complaints were raised by crypto users on the platform, some of the suspended accounts were restored, including that of Willy Woo (@woonomic), a prominent Bitcoin and cryptocurrency analyst, and PlanB (@100trillionUSD), who invented the Bitcoin Stock-to-Flow (S2F), model. Other accounts like @KoroushAK and @wsbchairman are yet to be fully restored during the time of writing.

Twitter Mistakenly Flagged Crypto Accounts as Spam

While addressing the situation in a letter to Willy Woo, Twitter noted that the accounts weren’t suspended deliberately. 

“We have systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk, and yours was flagged as spam by mistake. Please note that it may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal,” the message reads. 

Meanwhile, this is not the first time crypto accounts and contents are being suspended or censored by a centralized platform. Over the past months, several crypto channels were suspended on YouTube, and even our account was suspended on Facebook.

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Bitcoin Crypto News

Bitcoin Still Outperformed All Major Global Assets in February Despite the Correction

Bitcoin Outperformed Global Assets in February Despite Facing a 26% Drop

Despite the significant correction in Bitcoin (BTC) in February, after reaching an all-time high in market value above AU$74,000 the cryptocurrency largely outperformed other major alternative coins, including global assets in February return.

For March, Bitcoin bounced back and is already trading above the AU$70,000 mark, and many cryptocurrency analysts are quite positive that BTC is in for another big run after having gained a strong support level of around AU$62,000.

The Correction Happened, But Bitcoin Still Gained 32% in February 2021

Compared to other global assets, Bitcoin was the top-performing asset in the last month. This was despite dropping from the all-time high to about AU$56,000 towards the end of February. Bitcoin posted a 32 percent monthly return in February. While other assets including Crude oil only posted a monthly return of 18 percent, followed by Commodities (6.5 percent) and S&P 500 (2.8 percent). In the same month, the precious metal gold saw a negative 6.1 percent return.

Source: OKEx, Morgan Chase

The data shows that institutions and corporate investors were the main set of investors behind the massive increase in the price of Bitcoin. It began with the announcement that Tesla invested about US$1.5 billion in Bitcoin, MicroStrategy purchased more Bitcoin and the approval of the first Bitcoin ETF in Canada.

How Soon Until AU$100,000 BTC?

Institutions haven’t lost interest in buying Bitcoin as part of their reserve assets. Recently, a Chinese software company Meitu purchased $40M worth of Bitcoin. With the current momentum in the Bitcoin market, the cryptocurrency is likely to surge with another major bullish news of massive BTC buy. Yet, Bitcoin can still plummet from the current price.

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Crypto News Ripple

Ripple Calls-off its Partnership With MoneyGram

Ripple Calls-off its Partnership With MoneyGram

Ripple, the blockchain payment behind the XRP cryptocurrency, is officially terminating its multi-year partnership with MoneyGram, a global leader in cross-border P2P payments and money transfers. Ripple noted in the announcement on Tuesday, and the primary reason behind the decision remains unknown.

Ripple, MoneyGram Agrees to end Their Partnership

As the announcement reads, both companies took the decision to terminate their current partnership agreements, which were established back in June 2019. At the time, the blockchain payment company reportedly acquired a US$30 million stake in MoneyGram. Under the partnership, MoneyGram was incentivized to use Ripple’s product for cross-border payment and foreign exchange settlement.

However, MoneyGram did mention last year that it doesn’t use the “ODL platform or RippleNet for direct transfers of consumer funds – digital or otherwise.” Although Ripple didn’t specify the reason the partnership is being terminated, it’s worth noting that MoneyGram recently stopped trading on Ripple’s platform amid the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges against Ripple.

Also, Crypto News Australia reported that MoneyGram was hit with a class-action lawsuit for making a false statement regarding its partnership with Ripple.

Ripple Might Revisit its Terms with MoneyGram

The blockchain company also mentioned in the announcement that it might revisit its partnership with MoneyGram in the future. Within a few months of the partnership, both companies achieved and processed lots of transactions, as Ripple admitted:

“We are proud of the work we were able to accomplish in a short amount of time, as well as the impact we were able to achieve in bringing this first-of-its-kind product to market. Together, we processed billions of dollars through RippleNet and On-Demand Liquidity (ODL).”

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Bitcoin Crypto News

Bitcoin Futures Perpetual Funding Rate Rises as Price Surges Above US$50,000

Bitcoin Futures Perpetual Funding Rate Rises

Over the past week, Bitcoin (BTC), the largest digital currency by market capitalization, has surged past US$50,000 to currently US$54,000 (AU$71,000). This does not come as a shock due to the massive demand from institutions.

As recently as March 8, Crypto News announced that Chinese software company, Meitu as the latest corporate Bitcoin investor. The company allocated US$17.9 million in Bitcoin. Aside from the growing lists of Bitcoin buys, recent data from Glassnode, a crypto analytics platform, showed that the Bitcoin futures perpetual funding rate is rising again. This signals that traders are betting big on the cryptocurrency via leverage.

BTC Funding Rate is Gradually Rising

Image

As seen in the diagram above, the Bitcoin futures perpetual funding rate across all exchanges is nearing 0.06 percent. This is obviously not the same levels recorded in February; however, a Bitcoin futures perpetual funding rate above 0.01 percent usually indicates that traders are overextending their bullish trades.

The increasing trades in the futures market become more evident as there is currently an uptick in the open interest in Bitcoin futures across all derivative trading platforms. During press time, there was 349.27K BTC worth of open interest (about US$15.9 billion) across all exchanges, which represented a 13.25 percent increase on a 24-hour count, according to the market data from ByBt, a digital currency tracking platform.

Binance holds the lion’s share of the market as it saw about US$3.41 billion open interest in BTC futures during the time of writing. Bybit, OKEx, and CME follow the list with US$3.04 billion, US$2.65 billion, and US$2.26 billion in open interest, respectively. 

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Cardano Crypto News

Market Reshuffle: Cardano (ADA) Becomes the Third-largest Cryptocurrency

Cardano (ADA) is one of the cryptocurrencies that has seen massive increase in price since the start of 2021. On Friday, Cardano reached another yearly high of US$1.29, which pushed up the market valuation above that of Binance Coin (BNB) into 3rd place.

Cardano Is Growing

Amidst the recent dip in the crypto market, Cardano was the only cryptocurrency in the top ten with a positive 24 hours (change of +4.46%) and weekly price (change of +30.51%).

Moving to the derivative market, Cardano also sees an increase in the open interest in futures. According to the market information on ByBt, there was about 585.73 million ADA (or US$703.48 million) in ADA futures open interest at press time. This represents about a 10.1 percent increase on the 24-hour change. BitMEX and Binance exchange dominates the open interest in ADA futures, as both derivative platforms see hundreds of millions of ADA. 

What’s New Cardano?

Many people are attributing the increase today to the recent announcement of the upcoming major protocol change, the “Mary Upgrade.” As per the Cardano core development team (IOKH), the upgrade is expected to go live on the Cardano mainnet by March 1.

According to IOHK, the update will be activated by a Hardfork Combinator, allowing the system to transition without requiring a chain split on Cardano.

The Cardano team is saying that “Mary opens up a world of possibilities to developers looking to migrate to or build user-defined native tokens on Cardano completely. This feature will transform the decentralized blockchain into a multi-asset blockchain”.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News Independent Reserve

Independent Reserve Set To Sponsor Australian Bitcoin Core Developer

Quantum Computers Are Not a Threat To Bitcoin (Yet), Expert Explains

Australian cryptocurrency exchange Independent Reserve has collaborated with the operator of the United States’ BitMEX exchange, 100x Group, to sponsor a Bitcoin core maintainer in Australia named Michael Ford (known as @fanquake on Github).

This comes as part of the companies’ effort to support the development of the Bitcoin network. Per the announcement on Thursday, Michael will be sponsored by these two crypto companies for about one year.

Aussie Bitcoin Developer Gains Sponsors

Independent Reserve pledged to contribute AU$2,000 per month to the Australian developer, for a period of 12 months, while 100x Group will contribute a total of about AU$125,000 for the same period of months. The grant is provided without any condition, so Michael can be able to take on other projects of his choice. While commenting on the development, the CEO of Independent Reserve, Adrian Przelozny, commented:

“The confidence people have in Bitcoin is underpinned by its security and stability. The Bitcoin core developers play an integral role in safeguarding that stability. As an Aussie exchange, we’re excited to support a local developer.”

Why Sponsor Bitcoin Developers?

Sponsoring Bitcoin developers has been very fundamental to keeping the Bitcoin network running. Just like the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshis Nakamoto, the core developers are voluntarily working to update the Bitcoin software. They are the true believers of the network, and so, they really need sponsorship to keep the network running and up-to-date, since they work on a voluntary basis.

“100x Group is pleased to provide long-term financial support for open source developers like Michael, who build the infrastructure on which our business and many others depend,” the CEO of 100x Group, Alexander Höptner, commented.

This news also follows a story we covered on Tuesday, where Twitter’s Jack Dorsey also donated 1 Bitcoin to a non-profit organization to support the development of the Bitcoin network.

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Binance Binance Coin Crypto News Ethereum

High Ethereum Transaction Fees Are Fueling Binance Chain Growth

Ethereum on Pace to Settle $1.6 Trillion in Quarterly Transaction Volume

It’s probably no longer news that the transaction count on Ethereum has been growing extensively since the last quarter of 2020. This is also not different from the first quarter of 2021. In fact, more transactions have been settled on the network this quarter alone, when compared to the record in Q4 of last year. 

The increasing number of transactions on Ethereum explains why the network fees have been surging incredibly. 

Messari Forecasts Ethereum Might Settle US$1.6 Trillion in Q1 2021

Ryan Watkins, a researcher at Messari, recently shared data from the crypto-analysis platform, which charted out that the transaction volume of the Ethereum network increases with every proceeding quarter of the year. Already, about US$926 billion transactions have been settled on the network since Q1 2020. In the previous quarter, only US$577 billion was settled on the network and a total of US$2.1 trillion in the whole of 2020. 

One can easily say that Ethereum will surpass last year’s transaction volume quickly, following the record seen so far. More like a prediction, Messari also stated that the transaction volume is on pace to reach $1.6 trillion this quarter. That will be a milestone for the network; however, the growing rate of activities is, unfortunately, forcing many users out of the network due to high transaction fees. 

Ethereum is Becoming More Expensive to use

Since recent months, many Ethereum users have complained of the high transaction fees of the network, which is due to the congestion. This is no longer funny, and the users are left with no other option than to switch to other alternatives. Evidently, the number of transactions on the Binance Smart Chain recently went up as some Ethereum projects and users began joining the network.

On February 24, Binance Smart Chain recorded over 2.6 million transactions, while Ethereum saw as low as 1.28 million transactions.