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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Blockchain Crypto News

Elrond CEO Wants Elon Musk to Integrate Elrond Technology in Tesla

Elrond CEO Wants Elon Musk to Integrate Elrond Technology in Tesla

In a Twitter thread directed to Elon Musk on Friday, the founder and CEO of Elrond, Beniamin Mincu, explained blockchain technology and its potential to revitalize the financial system, and how it’s also going to unlock a massive societal improvement. He further pitched the Elrond technology to Elon Musk, explaining how it can improve transactions between self-driving Tesla.

Elrond is a public blockchain developed to enable high throughput, interoperability, and high-level scalability. It’s reportedly the first to deliver a truly scalable sharding architecture solution.

Blockchain in Tesla

The CEO of Elrond started the thread by explaining how blockchain technology can address the need for a low latency financial, high bandwidth, and decentralized system that can be accessible to people anywhere. While Mincu complemented the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchain, he mentioned to Elon Musk that Elrond has the capacity to elegantly solve all the above needs.

“Going one step further, I believe Elrond will be the wave that will lift all boats, expanding this space more than any other project. Taking this massive opportunity from a niche group of people, and extending it to everyone in the world,” Mincu wrote.

He then called for a possible integration of Elrond with the Tesla electric cars, saying that the blockchain technology can enable machine to machine transactions between the self-driving vehicles. Mincu further mentioned that the technology can enable a universally accessible financial system when integrated with Starlink, a satellite internet constellation project by SpaceX aimed at delivering high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet.

The CEO of Elrond also said they will donate its native digital currency, EGLD to SpaceX.

Elon Musk Influence on Crypto

The development today follows Elon Musk’s Twitter trend on Friday, which supposedly prompted a spike in the market price of Bitcoin and Dogecoin, which is his favorite cryptocurrency. Musk added a Bitcoin hashtag on his Twitter, which sparked another  bullish tide BTC, as the price rose to over US$37,000. Elon Musk may not have spoken too much about blockchain, but he’s obviously interested in cryptocurrency.

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Australia CoinSpot Crypto News

Aussie exchange, CoinSpot Briefly Surferred Downtime Amid Massive Traffic

Massive Traffic Briefly Took Down Aussie exchange, CoinSpot

Server outage is somewhat becoming a norm for major cryptocurrency exchanges whenever digital currencies start to skyrocket in price, amid massive capital inflows. Coinbase and Binance saw massive trading volumes in December as Bitcoin climbed to US$20,000, which consequently took down their servers, as Crypto News Australia reported.

Following the rush in the crypto market yesterday, especially for Dogecoin (DOGE), one of the leading Australian crypto exchanges, CoinSpot, briefly surfaced a downtime in the earlier hours of today.

CoinSpot Dropped due to 5000% Increase in Traffic

CoinSpot took to Twitter to inform its users about the sudden downtime and difficulties in processing orders. While commenting on this, some people accused the exchange on Twitter of intentionally shutting down the website due to liquidity issues. Some of the users also claimed to have lost some money due to the incident. 

Per the claims, CoinSpot crashed probably because they don’t have sufficient funds to meet the demands of traders trying to cash out their profit from Dogecoin. 

However, the exchange addressed the development in a subsequent tweet, saying the issue was caused by massive traffic on the website. CoinSpot reportedly gained about a 5,000 percent increase in the average daily users earlier today, which led to the downtime. However, the exchange has resumed its normal trading functions as the server issue has been addressed, according to the tweet. 

Why Dogecoin is Spiked Over 1,000%

The massive increase in the market price of Dogecoin aligns with the recent GameStop-stock development. Just like GameStop, a group of Redditors had collectively pitched making DOGE the equivalent of GME in cryptocurrency. This resulted in over 1,000 percent growth of Dogecoin above US$0.07. However, the cryptocurrency is currently trading at $0.03904 on Coingecko, which represents a 248.28 percent increase in a 24-hour count.

Find out if CoinSpot is an expensive exchange to buy Dogecoin in Australia.

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Crypto News DeFi

Value of Assets in DeFi has Risen by Almost 70% Since 2021

Value of Assets in DeFi has Risen by Almost 70% Since 2021

The value of cryptocurrencies locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) has been gradually increasing since the start of the new year. The increase can be attributed to the recent rally in the crypto market that saw Bitcoin and Ether soar to a new record level, although both coins are currently trading below the new all-time high. 

However, it’s also worth noting that the number of Bitcoin locked in DeFi protocols also increased within that period, while Ether remained flat, according to the data provided by DeFi Pulse.

DeFi Reaches new High in Asset Valuation

The total cryptocurrencies locked in decentralized finance protocols are worth US$26.26 billion, as per DeFi Pulse. This is quite a significant growth given that there was only US$15.4 billion worth of assets in DeFi on January 1, 2021. So, following the new all-time high, DeFi TVL is currently up by almost 70 percent, and this valuation is dominated by the decentralized Lending platform.

The Lending protocols account for US$12.41 billion of DeFi market valuation, followed by decentralized exchanges with a total asset valuation of US$9.22 billion. The Derivatives protocols see a market valuation of US$2.16 billion, followed by the Payment and Assets protocols with US$199.7 million and US$2.28 million, respectively. 

Top DeFi Protocols

The decentralized lending platform, Maker, is the largest protocol on the decentralized. It accounts for 17.97 percent of the entire DeFi market cap with US$4.71 billion. Aave has a market valuation of US$3.83 billion, followed by Compound with US$3.15 billion in TVL.

Other protocols with a valuation greater than US$2 billion are as follows: Uniswap (US$3.15 billion), Curve Finance (US$2.71 billion), and SushiSwap (US$2.04 billion).

DeFi Outlook

The increasing concern with centralized finance platforms regarding censorship and central authority is promoting/emphasizing the need for decentralized finance. Especially, the ongoing case of GameStop is causing many industry players to preach DeFi as a solution, including the co-founder of the Gemini exchange.

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Crypto News Western Australia

Aussie Stock with GameStop Ticker Spiked 50% Overnight, Thanks to Redditors

Aussie Stock with GameStop Ticker Spiked 50% Overnight, Thanks to Redditors

In light of the sudden boom in the market valuation of US GameStop’s shares, an Australian company says its stocks listed on the local stock exchange with a similar ticker as GameStop also gained massive inflows. While the company seems baffled by the development, it was said that the investors mistakenly bought the Aussie stocks, thinking it was the actual stocks from GameStop. 

“There are people buying the stock for shits and giggles, just because of the ticker symbol,” a market analyst of Melbourne-based brokerage IG Markets, Kyle Rodda, told Reuters. 

Meanwhile, following the trend of the whole GameStop story, Bitcoin experts believe that some of these funds will likely end up in the crypto market.

Australian GME Stock Benefits From Redditors Hype

The United States company, GameStop, is a video game and electronics retail giant, which trades on the US stock exchange as GME. It also happened that an Australian small nickel and cobalt exploration company, GME Resources, is also listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) with a similar ticker. So, when the young traders on Reddit collectively hyped the US stock, the Aussie stock seemingly tapped inflows, as some people may have mistaken it to GameStop’s.

According to reports, GME Resources shares surged by 50 percent on Thursday to 12 cents. The price increase is the highest level the stock has traded for the past three years. James Sullivan, the managing director at GME Resources, said the development was quite strange and led him to ask some questions. 

“When I opened my share tracking app and saw it was at 9.4 cents, I was stunned,” he said. “It just went bang, and I thought, ‘Well, what’s going on here?’ Is there something about my own company that I don’t know?”

Bitcoiners Expects Funds to Flow into Bitcoin

At the time of writing, the price of the Australian GME stock has decreased to AUD$0.085, according to Google Finance. However, it’s still up by 13 percent in a 24 hours count. Also, investors are facing some issues with buying the US GME stock as many brokers like Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, has halted their trading. Following this trend, many crypto users are pitching the importance of decentralized and censorship-resistance trading platforms. 

In accordance with that, crypto industry experts like Max Keiser, and Barry Silbert, the CEO of Digital Currency Group, believes that some of these funds will flow into the cryptocurrency market.

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Australia Crypto News Kraken

Kraken Targets Australia, UK Market with 26 new Trading Pairs

Kraken Targets Australia, UK Market with 26 new Trading Pairs

One of the largest United States cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken, announced on Thursday, the single-largest expansion of its crypto-to-fiat currency trading pairs primarily for crypto users and traders in Australia and the United Kingdom. 

More like a reason, the exchange mentioned that both countries have “substantial upside potential.” Hence, Kraken intends to expand its presence in both markets through the new cryptocurrency trading pairs for the Australian dollar (AUD) and the British pound (GBP). 

The US exchange added a total of 26 direct trading pairs, 13 pairs each for the AUD and GBP. According to the announcement, there has been an increased trading activity on the exchange from Aussie and UK users. So, Kraken is apparently launching more trading pairs to capture more trades from the markets.

In addition to expanding the number of tradable coins available in AUD and GBP, these pairs make it easy for the users to enter and exit the market.

Aussie Market is Becoming Attractive

The supported coins for the Australian dollar include popularly-traded cryptos like Polkadot (DOT), Chainlink (LINK), DeFi token Aave (AAVE), Cardano (ADA), etc. “The cryptocurrency space isn’t just about Bitcoin, and it isn’t just about the US dollar,” the managing director of Kraken’s Europe operation, Curtis Ting, commented.

Despite the smaller available pairs, Australia became one of the fastest-growing markets in Kraken after the exchange allowed AUD funding last year, likewise the UK.

“By expanding AUD and GBP markets into a far greater number of digital assets, Kraken is doubling down on its commitment to ensuring all clients globally can more seamlessly interact with any number of the cryptocurrencies available on our exchange,” Ting added.

It’s no doubt that the Australian crypto market is growing rapidly. On Wednesday, Crypto News Australia reported that Swyftx, one of the leading Aussie crypto exchanges recorded a massive growth in users over the past year. Also, Binance Australia recorded about 400 percent growth in the number of users since that last quarter of 2020. 

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Australia Blockchain

Blockchain Australia Seeks Regulatory Support to Push up DLT Industry

Blockchain Australia Seeks Regulatory Support to Push up DLT Industry

Blockchain Australian, the industry network of blockchain businesses that promote the adoption of the technology in Australia, has called for regulatory-friendly support from the country’s authority to further promote blockchain developments in the country. The body wrote to the Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology, according to the report on Thursday by ZDNet. 

This body of blockchain promoters believes that the technology has great potentials to revitalize certain systems in different sectors. They also preach that mainstream adoption of blockchain technology in government, education, etc., will drive innovation and provide more job opportunities in Australia. However, the path to achieving this wouldn’t be easy without friendly support from the regulators and government.

A Call for Blockchain Support

For that reason, Blockchain Australia wrote to the Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology in “its second round of reviewing the potential of fintech and regtech down under,” calling for regulatory support for the Aussie DLT industry. The organization believes that “a little bit of wiggle room from regulators” would propel more growth and application of the nascent technology in the country.

Blockchain Australia wrote:

“Clear regulatory frameworks are drivers of both efficiency and innovation. […] Regulation should aid the establishment of the fairness and openness uniquely enabled by this technology. Certainty afforded via the development of applications by a nimble regulatory regime will be the catalyst for uptake across the industry, creating high-value knowledge economy jobs and growth.”

Blockchain Adoption in Australia

Australia is unarguably one of the countries that are open to blockchain technology. Last year, the government officially published the national blockchain roadmap, outlining their plans on the potential application of the technology in different sectors of the economy. At the time, it was estimated that the country could generate more than US$175 billion by 2025 through blockchain.

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Australia Crypto News

Australian Micro-investing Platform, Raiz Plans to Allocate Investments to Bitcoin

Australian Micro-investing Platform, Raiz Plans to Allocate Investments to Bitcoin

A micro-investing platform based in Australia, Raiz Invest, has launched its seventh investment portfolio, that will allow the customers to gain exposure to Bitcoin, which skyrocketed in price since December. Basically, the investment platform will allocate a small portion of its clients’ funds on the new portfolio to the cryptocurrency. Raiz mentioned that the customers had highly requested the new offering, despite that investment in digital currencies are deemed to be risky.

Raiz will Allocate 5% of Sapphire Funds to Bitcoin

The new investment portfolio dubbed “Sapphire” has been under development for the past 18 months, according to the company. Investors that choose Sapphire will have five percent of their capital allocated to Bitcoin, while the remaining funds will be distributed to other investible instruments like large-cap stocks, including the Australian corporate debt and money markets. Raiz will allocate the funds to these investment options through exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

In accordance to George Lucas, the CEO of Raiz, the suggested minimum investment timeframe for the crypto investment is over five years.

“Although this latest portfolio offering from Raiz is very high risk, feedback from many customers has clearly shown that they have an appetite for an investment strategy that has an exposure to cryptocurrencies, and the Sapphire portfolio has been designed with this in mind,” Lucas said. “The investment objective of the Sapphire portfolio is to provide exposure to Bitcoin in a managed, risk-adjusted way.”

More Financial Advisers will Allocate to Bitcoin

Investments in cryptocurrency are becoming attractive to investors, and many financial advisors are looking to start allocating to crypto-assets. This is evident following a recent oversee (United States) survey, which showed that nearly 50 percent of financial advisors allocated to Bitcoin last year – out of almost 1,000 advisors surveyed. Some of the respondents don’t recommend allocating to the cryptocurrency. However, a good number of them said they would do so this year.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News

HashCash to Help Aussie Enterprise Settle Cross-border Payments on Blockchain

HashCash to Help Aussie Enterprise Settle Cross-border Payments on Blockchain

A blockchain consultant company, HashCash, has reportedly partnered with an Australian enterprise to assist them in settling cross-border transactions in real-time.

The information from Yahoo Finance didn’t specify the Australian company. However, the enterprise will reportedly leverage the HashCash blockchain network as part of the partnership, to process such transactions.

Blockchain, which is the technology behind cryptocurrencies, has been proven useful in settlement of cross-border payments. This can be seen as another important use case for blockchain in play.

Cross-border Payments on Blockchain

Per the report, the ultimate objective for the partnership is to enable the Australian enterprise to transfer funds to other enterprises or individuals globally and also in a seamless manner. Additionally, HashCash did mention that customers from the Australian enterprise will receive its native digital currency – known as HCX – for making transactions to other parties across the border.

This will enable the company to meet its customer’s needs and requirements in real-time.

“HashCash’s HC NET helps empower the enterprise by bringing all of their important operations on a single distribution platform through this partnership. Other than that, our products and services help create a competitive edge over others for customers all around Australia,” said Raj Chowdhury, the CEO of HashCash Consultants.

Australia Gaming Sector Embraces Blockchain

HashCash is one of the leading blockchain development companies with an office in Australia.

Lately, the blockchain company partnered with an undisclosed game development company in Australia to debut a white-label digital currency exchange, as well as a tokenization platform targeted at the gaming sector.

The development was viewed as an innovative step for the gaming sector, as it will allow game developers to monetize their services by creating blockchain-based micropayment channels for streamers, viewers, as well as content producers.

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Australia Coinjar Crypto News

Aussie Exchange, CoinJar Debuts Recurring Buys for Dollar Cost Averaging

Aussie Exchange, CoinJar Debuts Recurring Buys for Dollar Cost Averaging

Investing in cryptocurrencies has become easier and more convenient than it was over the past years. One of the leading Australian exchanges, CoinJar, has launched a “recurring buy” function on its platform, which will allow Australian crypto investors to purchase their favorite digital currencies through the “dollar cost averaging” or DCA approach. This is an ideal investment strategy for buying cryptocurrencies, especially when the market is ranging or trending in a bearish condition.

CoinJar now Supports DCA Strategy

The recurring buy is a DCA investment approach that allows investors to purchase a particular amount of a cryptocurrency more than once within an extended period of time. The dollar-cost averaging strategy is currently supported on CoinJar Bundles Recurring Buys, according to the announcement on Monday. Users can choose to set up recurring buys on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis through the CoinJar iOS or Android app.

The service is currently available for the exchange’s Australian users only. CoinJar noted that the service would be rolled out for the customers in the United Kingdom (UK) soon.

DCA explained

Dollar-cost averaging is a popular strategy used by many players in the cryptocurrency market. Using this strategy, an investor would divide the total amount of money he/she wants to invest in either Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), or other cryptocurrencies. Rather than once, the divided funds will be periodically invested in the chosen cryptocurrency to reduce the impact of the asset volatility on entire purchases made.

Basically, this strategy helps investors to avoid buying cryptocurrencies at the top. However, this investment strategy may not be ideal when the market enters an uptrend. The price of the cryptocurrency will continue to go higher during uptrends; hence, using DCA will only fetch you the cryptos at a higher rate – except you decide to wait until the market calms.

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Crypto News Ethereum

Open Interest in Ether Futures Soars as Price Reached New ATH

Ether new ATH Shoots up DeFi and Ethereum 2.0 Valuation

January 19 will forever be remembered by Ethereum bulls as the day Ether (ETH) surpassed its previous all-time high in 2018. The second-largest cryptocurrency has been on the rise since December last year, raising hopes that the cryptocurrency is going to make a new high soon. This remained a prediction until today, where Ether reached a new high at over US$1,437 across different digital currency exchanges.

The new high brought the crypto’s market capitalization to over US$160 billion. Amid the crypto surge, there’s also a rush in the Ether futures market, as open interest has risen to a new record level as well.

Ether Futures Sets new ATH

There is currently about US$4.61 billion open interest in Ether, according to the market data from ByBt. Over the past 24 hours, the open interest surged by 34 percent. The leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, dominates the ETH futures market with a total valuation of US$1.13 billion open interest. Huobi follows Binance exchange with US$694.55 million open interest in Ethereum.

Other derivative exchanges with a sizable amount of open interest include OKEx (US$691.4 million), Bybit (US$663.78 million), and FTX exchange (US$631.27 million). Bitfinex, BitMEX, Deribit, Kraken, and Gate have a combined valuation of US$794.9 million open interest in Ether futures.

Demand for ETH is Rising

There is a steadily growing demand for the second-largest digital currency, which is probably one of the factors contributing to the price increase. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) activities are gradually peaking up, causing more coins to leave the centralized exchanges (CEXs). Just before ETH’s new ATH, Messari researcher Ryan Watkins reported that the daily transaction volume on Ethereum had increased significantly, to the extent it surpasses Bitcoin transaction volume.