Author: Robert Drage

Robert is a freelance researcher, with a background in information science currently interested in blockchain technology and technical developments in the field.

Categories
Crypto Exchange Crypto News DeFi Regulation

Thailand’s SEC Seeks to Regulate Decentralised Finance Projects

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has flagged that decentralised finance (DeFi) needs to be regulated and future projects may require a licence to operate in the country.

The Bangkok Post reports that soon after Tuktuk Finance, a DeFi farming platform, had its coin and farming service debut on Bitkub Chain, the price quickly shot up to several hundred US dollars and then plummeted to US$1 in just a few minutes.

$TUK Stats [tuktuk finance]

Regulation Required For Safety of Investors

After this incident the SEC made its first official announcement regarding cryptocurrency, which stated that regulation is needed in order to safeguard potential investors. The SEC stated it would specifically look into DeFi protocols that issue coins.

The issuance of digital tokens must be authorised and overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the issuer is required to disclose information and offer the coins through the token portals licensed under the Digital Asset Decree …

SEC 

Dome Charoenyost, founder of security token service Tokenine, added that “we could see SEC-regulated DeFi platforms in the future”, which would be a major bonus for investors looking to use Thai DeFi platforms. These platforms would need to be vetted for the safety of consumers. Projects will also need to be compliant, which will reduce the risk for investors of buying into a fraudulent token, or one whose price can be easily dumped.

However, regulations such as these can be difficult to enforce since the majority of DeFi platforms operate outside Thailand, and if the creator of a DeFi protocol wants to remain anonymous it’s quite possible.

Numbers of Thai Crypto Users On The Rise

Data compiled by Thailand’s SEC and published by Bloomberg indicates combined volume across licensed Thai crypto exchanges increased from US$574.5 million in November 2020 to US$3.96 billion in February 2021, a jump of almost 600%.

Due to this boom, new know your customer (KYC) regulations will be implemented by September 2021 to block access by foreign investors to Thai exchanges. This will also reduce the number of accounts attached to those exchanges.

Banks have embraced DeFi in Thailand, with the Siam Commercial Bank announcing a US$50 million investment fund in February, and Kbank experimenting with DeFi services as part of its business expansion plan.

Categories
Betting Bitcoin Crypto News Sports

Magnus Carlsen Wins The FTX Chess Cup Worth A$28,000 Of Bitcoin, Plus Cash

Chess world champion Magnus Carlsen has won the FTX Chess Cup, the world’s first Bitcoin chess championship, taking home the prize of 0.6 BTC and US$60,000 in cash.

In the live stream, Magnus (ranked #1) celebrated wildly after winning against Filipino-American Grandmaster Wesley So (ranked #9). See live chess ratings.

Winning this tournament provides Carlsen with a seat at the Meltwater Champions Chess Final in San Francisco.

This isn’t the first time chess and Bitcoin has been in the news, as former world champion Garry Kasparov declared his support for Bitcoin and blockchain technologies last year.

FTX is Expanding into “Crypto Sports Betting”

FTX has created a new specialised futures contract platform, which allows crypto traders to place “bets” on sporting events from the Olympics to events such as the 2024 American presidential elections.

How Australians Can Trade On The Olympics

Trading on the 2021 Olympics (OLY2021) is available to Australians, but not in several other countries as stated on the FTW website: “Trading OLY2021 is not permitted by residents of the United States, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Singapore, the UAE, Cambodia, Turkey, mainland China and Hong Kong SAR, and other FTX prohibited jurisdictions.”.

Categories
Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Regulation

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Drops By 16% Amid China’s Crackdown

The Bitcoin protocol has experienced a reduction in mining difficulty due to China’s crackdown on bitcoin mining and the cascade that followed.

On-chain data shows the network’s mining difficulty adjusted to 21.64 trillion, the lowest it’s been since mid-March, which represents a 16% drop. The latest all-time high (ATH) was 25.04 trillion in May, which was the strongest move upwards since October 2017.

May recorded an ATH in BTC mining difficulty

On May 21, China’s State Council published a document wherein it stipulates it will be “cracking down on bitcoin mining and trading activities” in order to “prevent possible financial risks”.

In the hours following the announcement, the exchange tokens of Huobi, OKEx and Binance, which are mainly China-based crypto trading exchanges, fell by 17%, 19% and 10%, respectively. During this time the Huobi Mining Pool hashrate also took a steep 29% slide.

What Affects The Hashrate

In the same week as the State Council’s announcement, bitcoin miners in Sichuan faced a cap due to increased public power usage. In order to free up electricity for the public, the Sichuan government allows businesses to use the excess hydro-power generated, making it appealing to miners.

At a meeting scheduled this week in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan, regulators will discuss the effects of bitcoin mining on the province’s hydro-electricity excess.

Due to regulatory uncertainty, Chinese miners are looking to pack up and ship out or at the very least sell their mining rigs. The silver lining is that if China were to ban crypto, it would no longer hold the majority of nodes securing the network.

Impact of the Hashrate

Hash power represents the combined computational power required to mine and process transactions on the blockchain. Higher hashrate means more resources are being devoted to process transactions, making a network more resilient to attacks.

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty is designed to adjust itself every 2,016 blocks based on average block production intervals throughout the period. There are also scheduled difficulty changes in order to keep block creation at around one block every 10 minutes. The more difficult it is to mine, the more hashes will need to be generated to find the block rewards, pushing the total hashrate higher. 

Categories
Australia Binance Australia Crypto News Trading

Binance Australia Breaks More Records with $615 Million in Daily AUD Trading Volume

Australia Binance AU
Australia Binance AU https://www.dreamstime.com/view-australia-world-map-vignette-radial-blur-effect-elements-image-furnished-nasa-image161905173

Binance Australia has broken another record with a massive $615 million AUD daily trading volume on their cryptocurrency exchange.

The previous record of $130 million AUD in a single day was set back in January this year by Binance Australia. And now they have broken the record a few months down the line.

  • Binance Australia reached $615.83 million in daily AUD trading volume on 19 May 2021.
  • Binance is also currently the largest exchange in the world with $35 billion USD trading volume at the time of writing (second place with $15 billion USD).
  • The exchange has also been the top digital exchange in Australia since January this year.
  • Binance Australia has now reached 3 times the Bitcoin (BTC) trading volume compared to other exchanges in the Australian market, various times.
Source: CryptoCompare
Source: CryptoCompare

Additionally, AUD trading volume is a common indicator defining the performance of digital exchanges. It has been less than 3 months since the last all-time-high (ATH) of $175 million AUD in trading volume was recorded (on 23 Feb). This new peak in volume of $615 million AUD is 3.5 times higher.

During this year, the growth of Binance Australia has been surprising, not just in trading volume but in customer base as well, topping other Aussie exchanges in both Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) 24-hour trading volume.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News Google

Polygon Blockchain Datasets Now Available on Google Cloud For Analysis

Polygon Google BigQuery
Polygon Google BigQuery

Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution Polygon, in an effort to make cryptocurrency data more transparent, has made its data freely available on Google’s BigQuery tool.

BigQuery is one of the most popular data analytics platforms worldwide. The platform makes it simple to query on-chain data in a simple, organised manner on the cloud using standard SQL syntax. The platform enables you to perform the same or similar queries on multiple blockchains at once and compare them, or track cross-chain activity on interoperable tokens.

Some of the key figures that can be determined using BigQuery:

  • Track gas costs over time
  • Monitor a smart contract’s calls and activity
  • Check the number of monthly active addresses on the Polygon Chain blockchain
  • Integrate with traditional financial record processing systems
  • Determine the most active/popular tokens, contracts, or applications on Polygon
  • Audit groups of transactions

This public dataset is included in BigQuery’s 1TB/month of free tier processing. This means that each user receives 1TB of free BigQuery processing every month, which can be used to run queries on this public blockchain dataset.

By making this data set freely available, it allows any individual to carry out specific analysis with on-chain data to derive custom insights. In the bigger picture, by having this data available it shows clear transparency to what the state of the blockchain is and the various important performance metrics that one might want to use to gain insight into the ecosystem.

Polygon Carving Out Their Spot

Formerly known as Matic, Polygon has seen explosive growth in the last six months in daily active users, transactions, and total value locked (TVL). The growth accelerated after major DeFi projects like Aave, SushiSwap, Curve, 1inch Network, and others decided to expand to Polygon – attracting plenty of Ethereum users and billions of dollars worth of liquidity. The platform was also recently the recipient of an undisclosed investment from billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

Google’s Cloud division has collaborated with other cryptocurrency projects like Chainlink and Theta Network in the past. Both projects used Google Cloud for their computing needs.

Categories
Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law Regulation

State-Chartered Institutions In Nebraska Can Now Be Crypto Custodians

Last week, a vote was won to pass bill 649 that allows financial institutions in Nebraska to operate depository businesses for digital assets. Nebraska will provide “charter, operation, supervision, and regulation” for these financial institutions.

Sworn just in January, Republican Senator Mike Flood quickly introduced the bill named Adopt the Nebraska Financial Innovation Act and provisions for controllable electronic records under the Uniform Commercial Code to the state’s 107th Legislature.

This bill aims to:

[…] authorize digital asset depository entities and provide for the charter, operation, supervision, and regulation of such entities; to transfer funds; to adopt Uniform Commercial Code provisions on controllable electronic records; to harmonize provisions; to provide operative dates […]

Nebraska Financial Innovation Act

This means that depository businesses will be able to operate with supervision and regulation in the state of Nebraska. Under the terms of the Act, these institutions can be chartered in the United States or by a foreign state agency. While crypto custody was already permitted for federally chartered banks in the United States last July, the Nebraska Act will extend these rights to institutions chartered at a state level.

The broader goal of the bill seems to be towards making Nebraska a hub for financial technology. Through allowing financial institutions to get their feet wet in crypto, it may lead to innovative new financial products and services based on blockchain technology while providing a service to the people of Nebraska.

As part of our Growing Together effort, one of the things that we need to do is create high-paying, high-skilled jobs. We also need to create jobs that bring wealth into the community,

Senator Mike Flood

Telcoin Blockchain Used

According to the press release by Telcoin (TEL), a blockchain-based fintech company aligned with telecom and mobile industries at a global level, they have assisted in the drafting of the bill as they want to bring their digital asset-backed financial services to U.S. customers.

Institutions under this new charter will use blockchain technology to empower users to self-custody digital assets and put their money to work for their own benefit.

Paul Neuner, Telcoin CEO

Categories
Crypto News Cryptocurrencies DeFi Institutions Investing

New Crypto Hedge Fund Report Shows Interesting Statistics – $180 Billion AuM

The third annual Global Crypto Hedge Fund report, released on Monday, aims to provide an overview of the global crypto hedge fund landscape. With the majority of the report looking quite bullish for the crypto space, it appears institutions are warming up to crypto.

Crypto hedge funds have heavily increased their Assets under Management (AuM) in the past year. The 39 surveyed funds are currently at $180 billion USD AuM and according to the report, 86% of them are intending to add more capital into the asset class by the end of 2021. This is a massive 4,600% increase from $3.8 billion USD AuM in 2020. The average AuM for this year’s surveyed funds increased from $12.8 million USD to $42.8 million USD.

Some major topics discussed in the report:

  • Decentralised Exchanges Usage By Hedge Funds
  • Fund Manager Bitcoin Predictions
  • Future Fund Intentions
  • Reasons and Obstacles to Investing

Decentralised Exchanges Usage By Hedge Funds

DeFi protocols aim to deliver peer-to-peer financial services, which allow cryptocurrency trading, loans, interest accounts without the use of banks or traditional finance intermediaries.

Between April 2020 and April 2021, the trading volume on these platforms grew more than 90-fold, with Uniswap making up for half of the DeFi market volume in April 2021.

3rd Annual Global Crypto Hedge Fund Report

Whilst they may be still far from using decentralized applications, many financial institutions are trying to be more educated and try to understand the potential impact that DeFi may have on the future of financial services.

Henri Arslanian, Global Crypto Leader at PwC

Fund Manager Bitcoin Predictions

Data shows that managers remain bullish on Bitcoin, with the median predicted price being estimated at $100,000 USD. In fact, the majority of predictions were in the $50,000 to $100,000 USD range (65%), with another 21% predicting prices would be between $100,000 and $150,000 USD.

Market cap predictions are also optimistic, with the majority of fund managers estimating the total crypto market capitalisation will be between $2 and $5 trillion USD. Meaning that they see there is still lots of investing to be done in the space before the end of the year.

3rd Annual Global Crypto Hedge Fund Report

Future Fund Intentions

The decentralised finance (DeFi) space has gotten a lot of attention in the past year with traditional finance looking at new technologies and adding them to their portfolio. The oracle service Chainlink (LINK) was included in 30% of hedge fund investments, with blockchain interoperability protocol Polkadot (DOT) and liquidity protocol Aave (AAVE) making up 28% and 27%, respectively.

The survey highlights that around a fifth of survey hedge funds are
currently investing in digital assets. And when asked what investment strategies (fundamental, trading, arbitrage, venture, pre/post ICO, passive, other) best describe hedge funds exposure to digital assets, the majority responded with fundamental (57%) and trading (57%).

Reasons and Obstacles to Investing

Reasons given by hedge fund managers for including digital assets
in their portfolio are ‘general diversification’ – as per 57% of respondents. Of the remainder, 29% stated ‘exposure to a new value creation ecosystem’ as the primary reason to invest while 14% suggested that it made for a good inflation hedge.

The main obstacles to investing, regulatory uncertainty is by far the greatest barrier (82%). Even those who do invest in digital assets cite it as a major challenge (50%). Client reaction/reputational risk is high (77%) as well as digital assets being outside the scope of current investment mandates (68%).

3rd Annual Global Crypto Hedge Fund Report

Around two thirds of Traditional Hedge Funds said that if the main barriers were to be removed they would either actively accelerate investment in digital assets or potentially change their approach and become more involved (64%).

From the findings in this report it’s evident that hedge fund allocations to digital assets continue to gain traction. Diversification and exposure to a new value creation ecosystem are cited as key drivers for investing in digital assets. This is unsurprising given that hedge funds tend to be early adopters, at the forefront of innovation whilst remaining committed to achieving the best performance possible. Further education, regulatory clarity and the evolution of service providers and related market infrastructure could lead to the acceleration of increased investment and further institutionalisation of the industry.

Jack Inglis, CEO of AIMA [source]
Categories
Banking Bitcoin Crypto News Institutions

Billionare Ray Dalio Opens Up In Interview “I Have Some Bitcoin”

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates (one of the world’s largest hedge funds), has revealed that he holds some Bitcoin (BTC).

The entrepreneur and fund manager, who has previously expressed concern about the possibility of heavy regulation of Bitcoin, now seems to have acquired some.

Bitcoin Over Bonds

Both Dalio and Stanley Druckenmiller, also a billionaire hedge fund manager, have pessimistic views of the dollar and have taken positions in Bitcoin.

The elephant in the room is inflation. It may become so obvious that the Fed has to move, and the longer they wait to move, the bigger the bubble will be and the bigger the reaction.

Stanley Druckenmiller

With views like these pervading the air, many people are looking for an alternative to the dollar. Dalio mentioned during an interview with CoinDesk that retailers might prefer buying bitcoin over bonds due to inflation. This poses a risk to government and since “it goes into bitcoin, and it doesn’t go into credit, then [governments] lose control of that.”

Dalio also mentioned that Bitcoin’s “greatest risk is its success” such that governments, fearing competition from Bitcoin to state monetary systems, could crack down on its owners.

One of the great things, I think, as a worry is the government having the capacity to control almost any of them, including bitcoin, or the digital currencies,

Ray Dalio

An Asset To Combat Inflation

One of the perceived uses of Bitcoin is that it could act as an asset that fights inflation, and in an inflationary future where “cash is trash” Bitcoin might catch on as a store of wealth. Due to the ongoing printing of money and harsh economic position due to the COVID-19 pandemic and various other factors, the power of the dollar has decreased.

You need to borrow money? You have to print that. You need more money? So, taxes go up and that produces a dynamic. Now I can keep going on about what happens in that dynamic. It may be capital controls. … I painfully learned in 1971 that it causes stocks to go up. It causes… gold, bitcoin, real estate, everything to go up, because it’s really going down in dollars. And that’s the part of the cycle we’re in.

Ray Dalio

In countries like Argentina, Bitcoin has seen a major increase in use due to the devaluation of the Argentine Peso (ARS), causing a major reduction in the buying power of people in the country. For them Bitcoin is a solution to store their wealth. If someone had 100 ARS in 2019 versus 100 ARS worth of BTC, that BTC investment would be considerably higher now. In the last 10 years the Argentine Peso has devaluated almost 95% against the US dollar.

The steady devaluation of the Argentine Peso [xe]

Dalio also spoke at Consensus, a massive online blockchain seminar on Monday regarding money, monetary policy & Bitcoin. Being part of an event like this shows that there is an interest in the technology and a willingness to share information and knowledge with individuals in this space.

Categories
Bitcoin Crypto News Institutions

The 4th Largest Bitcoin Whale Just Bought An Additional 926 BTC

Whale's tail on water
Whale's tail on water https://unsplash.com/photos/kkXDhAUnxYI

A Bitcoin billionaire has been buying the dips since early 2019 and this dip is no different. There was an additional 926 BTC added to the wallet yesterday for $3.9 million USD at $37,738 per bitcoin.

BTC Price and Wallet Balance [BitinfoCharts]

The wallet above has a balance of 105k bitcoin with an estimated market value of $4 billion USD. The largest address, according to bitinfocharts, currently holds 269,427 BTC worth $10 billion USD, which also bought 34,000 BTC last week.

In crypto talk, when stuff like this happens, people say it shakes out all of the weak hands and the people … who maybe bought because they saw it on the news,

Ethan Lou, author of “Once a Bitcoin Miner” [source]

Whales Loving The Dip

Institutions and long term HODLers have been accumulating bitcoin during this dip after the large sell-off inspired by various influences.

Institutions seem to be the forerunners in buying however, no one really knows who these massive wallets belong to. Some companies have been quite open about their crypto acquisitions, including Micro Strategy which recently bought additional bitcoin for $10 million USD. They hold more bitcoin than any other institution according to Bitcoin Treasuries. They currently hold 92,000 bitcoin with Tesla in second place holding 43,000 bitcoin.

Categories
Crypto News Cryptocurrency Tax Institutions Regulation

Biden’s New Crypto Tax Proposal For Businesses To Report Crypto Transactions Over $10k

On Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden provided details on how the administration plans to generate an additional $700 billion USD in revenue from tax collection. Businesses will need to report on cryptocurrency transactions over $10,000.

According to a recent report released by the Biden administration, the U.S. will upgrade the capabilities of the IRS in effectively stifling tax evasion and bring some standardisation to the laws regarding cryptocurrency reporting for businesses.

As the crypto market reached $2 trillion USD earlier this year, which seems to be turning some heads until the recent crash, more attention has been given to crypto.

Some proposed measures are aimed at cryptocurrency, including a requirement that crypto exchanges report gross receipts and purchases. It also calls for businesses receiving crypto to report on transactions larger than $10,000 from 2023 — a standard that already exists for cash transactions.

This is good news in a bad week for crypto. The U.S. government essentially just admitted crypto is here to stay, and now they are making policies and laws to help with the regulation thereof.

More Power To The IRS

The IRS will be provided with additional resources in order to combat advanced methods of tax evasion, since “Cryptocurrency already poses a significant detection problem by facilitating illegal activity broadly including tax evasion,”. The IRS will also be allowed to access more information through “Financial institutions would add information about total account outflows and inflows to existing reporting on bank accounts” and “The reporting regime would also cover foreign financial institutions and crypto asset exchanges and custodians.”

The IRS still relies on Individualand Business File Systems that date back to the 1960s—the oldest in the federal government. The result is decades upon decades of tax administration built upon a system that is written in a programming language that is no longer taught, and where
new functions are added in a patchwork rather than integrated manner

The American Families Plan Tax Compliance Agenda

The Biden administration wants to give the I.R.S. $80 billion over the next decade for technological upgrades and to increase staff with specialised expertise in the required areas. The report also states that the IRS’s outdated technology currently combats around 1.4 billion cyberattacks yearly and is in need of dire upgrades. These upgrades aren’t just for catching the baddies, this work can also “help avoid unnecessary, costly and burdensome audits of compliant taxpayers.”

Standards For CBDC’s

The Fed admits that Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and crypto are changing the world, and it is important to understand and be ready for these changes in the financial system. They have also acknowledged they are experimenting with a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), but it will not replace current forms of settlement.