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.

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Coinbase Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Coinbase Bringing Crypto To Wall Street In Landmark Stock Market Listing

Wall St
Wall St

Wall Street is buzzing as the largest U.S. crypto platform is setting up for its debut on a traditional exchange on Wednesday. As Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rise to record levels ahead of the direct offering there has been varied speculation about the listing price.

The Nasdaq on Tuesday night set a reference price for the company at $250 per share, meaning the company is can be valued at around $49.19 billion USD. Should Coinbase hit the public market around its latest private market valuation of $100 billion, taking into account a fully diluted share count, it would instantly be one of the 85 most valuable U.S. companies. Nearly 115 million Coinbase shares will be put on the market to start.

The opening public price will be determined based on buy and sell orders in the opening auction on Nasdaq.

Nasdaq

Varying Expectations of The Listing

Investors expect that valuations could top $100 billion, since the company just published an astounding set of preliminary Q1 2021 results, with revenue jumping 9x year-over-year. In an implied valuation on Tuesday by FTX exchange, Coinbase was valued at approximately $150 billion USD.

CNBC

Coinbase would be valued more than Nasdaq, which has a market cap of $25.9 billion and possibly the Intercontinental Exchange (parent company of the New York Stock Exchange), valued at more than $66.9 billion.

They make more money than any publicly listed exchange in the world. They’ll make more money than Nasdaq… Coinbase is also not the most profitable cyrpto exchange in the world.

Tom Lee, Fundstrat founder

There are positive and negative outlooks at the valuation of Coinbase, Stock research firm New Constructs stated it should be valued at $18.9 billion USD, since “the company has little-to-no-chance of meeting the future profit expectations that are baked into its ridiculously high expected valuation of $100 billion“.

On the other hand Susquehanna, a research and trading firm was considerably more optimistic stating a fair valuation would be between $96 and $108 billion USD, due to the company’s high growth.

Can Coinbase Be Consistently Profitable?

This could be a pivotal moment for the crypto currency industry however, investors need feel the need to practice caution, since the company has a dependence on the price of virtual currencies, which tend to be volatile. So the implication is that Coinbase’s revenue is correlated with the level of activity in cryptocurrency and especially Bitcoin and Ethereum. If price or volume declines, their business, operating results, and financial condition would be adversely affected.

The success of Coinbase and cryptocurrencies in general seems to have inspired competitors too. The head of the California-based cryptocurrency exchange platform Kraken told CNBC last week he hopes to take his company public next year, also via a direct listing – possibly resulting in more options for investing in digital asset exchanges.

The listing is significant in that it marks the growth of the industry and its acceptance into mainstream business.

William Cong, an associate professor of finance at Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business
Categories
Crypto News Mining Qtum

What to Expect From the Qtum Hard Fork 30 April

QTUM hard fork allows for faster block creation and the addition of a multi-threaded optimised staker (which reduces the usage of computer resources) is available for immediate use with the v0.20.2 update.

QTUM founder Patrick Dai announced on Twitter the release of Fast Lane v0.20.2. According to the tweet, it is estimated that the hard fork will take place on April 30.

Faster Block Creation

As detailed on QTUM blog and discussed in an interview, Jordan Earls (Co-Founder QTUM) stated that the hard fork “decreases our block time to 32 seconds, which means that on average every 32 seconds, a new block of transactions is appended to the blockchain. Instead of 128 seconds (about 2 minutes) as we had in the past.”

Qtum blog

As seen by the increase of the network weight, the new staker is more efficient. If block are created more regularly, miners receive Qtum more regularly, resulting in faster validation of transactions and block creation.

The upgraded staker will benefit all stakers with reduced CPU utilization and multiple threads and will be especially beneficial for stakers with large (> 5,000) UTXO sets.

Qtum

Comparing the performance of v0.20.1 with the new staker in v0.20.2 on a Raspberry Pi 3B (4 core 1.2 GHz CPU with 1 GB RAM and swap file) on the testnet staking 10,000 UTXOs. As seen in the image below v0.20.1 runs Qtum-Qt with a steady 100% CPU utilization whereas v0.20.2 runs at only a few % CPU utilization. Showing that the update reduces computer resource usage for assisting in the Proof-of Stake consensus.

Qtum blog

We believe proof of stake is the morally right thing to do instead of burning tons of electricity to throw it away on cryptographic hashes meeting some condition, and our algorithm is unique in that anyone can stake […].

Jordan Earls, Co-Founder QTUM

What about current native Qtum tokens?

QTUM is used both as a currency due to our UTXO compatibility and fuel to our smart contract ecosystem. Analogous to ETH in Ethereum, QTUM is used to fuel the smart contract that builds out our DeFi money legos, among other things.

Jordan Earls, Co-Founder QTUM

This is a hard fork to upgrade features on the blockchain, and no new coin will be created. The upgrade for the hard fork only applies to the Qtum Core wallets Qtum-Qt and qtumd, no other wallets.

Jackson Belove on Qtum blog

An Exciting Year for Qtum

Qtum is also looking towards the DeFi and DApp space in the future. The project is in a unique position where they can combine the security aspects of the Bitcoin Protocol and Ethereum smart contracts so that they can enable products like NFTs, exchanges, and DeFi functionality.

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Crypto News Fashion NFTs

Two New NFT Marketplaces To Launch in Asia As The Craze Continues

Two new NFT platforms are set to launch in Asia to provide marketplaces for digital fashion, art, music, collectables and more. The platforms, based in Singapore and Hong Kong are poised to be launched during Q3 2021.

  1. NFT Trading Platform by Hong Kong Digital Asset Exchange.
  2. Luxury NFT Platform by Media Publishares and VIDY.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s coming.

Hong Kong’s One-Stop NFT shop

According to an announcement from Hong Kong Digital Asset Exchange they are launching a NFT trading platform which is going to act as a “one-stop” NFT shop alongside the exchange, since there are no robust ones in Hong Kong’s current market.

HKD.com provides artists with an online platform for the artworks publishing, promotion, trading and payment, with many product categories, including digital art, encrypted collections of animation, music and movies etc. Trading platform, users can trade through public offer or bidding, and carry out token trading and exchange; while artists can also publish their own digital artworks through the trading platform.

Hopefully, the platform will not only help local artists earn more money from their talents but also develop the art market in the region,

Kelvin Yeung, founder and CEO of HKD.com

Singapore’s Luxury NFT Platform

According to a press release from ACN Newswire, Media Publishares in partnership with VIDY are creating a homage to arts and culture by fabricating a 360-degree navigable virtual environment that will showcase digital fashion, art, music and design.

By creating an NFT platform, which essentially acts as a virtual marketplace between creatives and users, it allows us to provide a unique shoppable platform coupled with content for the community in the form of education, interaction and entertainment.

Michael von Schlippe, president of Media Publishares

The platform is looking to cater to the tech savvy audience that wishes to acquire luxury items and for creators to experiment in the virtual world. The main features of the platform will allow minting, trading, and auctioning NFTs through a tokenised system.

We are confident we will create the finest platform that will boost the NFT world by allowing seamless participation from the traditional fashion, art and music communities.

Matthew Lim, founder of VIDY

More Platforms, More Participation?

Having these platforms up and running will enable various individuals to participate in the NFT economy. Not only helping artists profit directly from their work but also encouraging up-and-coming artists to practise with the virtual mediums and add to the annals of digital art.

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Crypto News NFTs Worldwide

Emoji Usernames Could Become New Internet Identity System

Y.at is making unique identities through using emoji strings that can be connected to everything that’s connected to you.

“Your Yat is your @ for the whole internet”, is the slogan for Y.at, the project that aims to make personalised emoji usernames that could become your universal internet identity and much more. For example, instead of coffeequeen98 or *insert generic email here*, you could be known as 🤖👻👑.

When you own a Yat, it’s yours forever. You own that specific sequence of emojis and that is your unique identifier, since they’ll never mint another like that again.

YAT Examples

Yat Can Be Used for More Than Just Socials

Your Yat can be linked to other services like payment apps, storage locations, or you can make a Yat Link Page that has everything you want inked to you in one place – send and recieve money, chat or build a website.

One of the aims for Yats is to be used instead of long crypto addresses which can increase user experience as well easing the process complex validating and testing efforts to authenticate a crypto address.

The possibilities are endless with Yat. You can receive payments, use it on your socials, and eventually much more. Your Yat can be used as a link like this: https://y.at/🌊🔱🌴 (click it to see it!) and automatically redirect visitors to any website you want.

Y.at

How They’re Made Unique

A Yat’s Generation indicates the time period in which it was created. People on the waitlist are Gen 0 and every year generation increases with one. The other is Rhythm score, is a number between 1 and 100, determined by: length, popularity, and pattern. The higher the Rhythm Score, the more rare a Yat is, and the more in demand it may be.

Our mission is for Yats to become the best, and most expressive censorship resistant, self-directed, self sovereign identity system ever. We care deeply about privacy as a basic human right, and internet freedom.

Y.at

They are in the process of developing an oracle service so that Yats can be issued as NFTs on EVM compatible chains such as Ethereum or BSC, aiming to become fully decentralised in the near future.

Having a Yat can help privacy by not giving away any unique identifiers and having the extra bonus of an identifier that expresses you. However, this could cause a problem with unwanted sites or portals that would be avoided by checking a more traditional URL.

Categories
Crypto News DeFi Facebook

Facebook Is Making an Ecosystem For Creators On Polkadot Blockchain

Pontem Network will be the “Kusama” of Facebook’s Diem where users will be able to build their own Defi Strategies, Dapps, and other tools before launching them on Diem.

Diem is Facebook’s multi-billion-dollar growth strategy that focuses on creating a financial institution for the unbanked. Diem will be accessible to anyone with WhatsApp or Instagram and supports smart contracts and advanced features. Additionally,  Diem intends to launch a backed stable coin as its first use case.

Connecting The Regulated And The Unregulated

Pontem is a bridge between the regulated and unregulated worlds that will allow exchanging value between the two. Pontem Network has been approved for two grants, one from Web3 Foundation and one from Wings Foundation. The main goal of Pontem Network is to bring the Move Virtual Machine, Move Language, and the ecosystem surrounding it (Facebook’s Diem as known as ex-Libra) to Polkadot. Nearly 2 billion Facebook Diem users will be able to access decentralised tools and create new blockchain projects.

According to Pontem, Diem has some limitations & restrictions which they aim to solve by connecting Diem to the decentralised world. The network will help Diem users get access to all the use-cases provided by the unregulated society, such as financial instruments, DeFi and NFT, and even games.

Pontem aims to be an attractive choice for creators giving them the freedom to build in any direction on the ecosystem.

Pontem’s DeFi Usecases

As an example, Pontem Blocks can act as blocks of pre-set values used to build and create DeFi tools. Users will be able to mix them in various combinations to reach the outcome they are looking for. And the other part is that such development will be fast and effortless, with no need to write code, since users will be able to use ready-made modules and tools to build their ideas. The platform allows for easy migration to Diem

 It allows users to create their own strategies, unite all operations into one transaction, and give external developers a chance to monetize their own developed blocks.

Pontem Network

Pontem network supplies users with complete toolsets to develop Dapp projects, including a package manager that allows communication with other blockchains.

users will have a chance to take multiple actions such as swapping tokens, providing liquidity, or staking LP tokens* all in one place.

Pontem Network

Integration with existing liquidity protocols, including Ethereum ones (using different Polkadot bridges) will expand the uses for DeFi. And since Diem has so many users the ecosystem could become very popular due to it being a “financial framework straight out of the box”.

Categories
Banking Crypto News Forex Institutions Trading

Big Banks Are Setting Up To Trade Bitcoin, Forex and Other Digital Assets

State Street, the second oldest bank in the USA, is going to interchange its Forex infrastructure to create a bank-grade platform for digital assets – set to go live in the middle of the year.

State Street Corporation, the parent company of State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) is the world’s fourth-largest investment management corporation, with approximately $3.5 trillion assets under management (AUM), and $38.8 trillion under custody and administration. It’s also the second-largest custodian bank in the world.

According to a press release from Pressat, Pure Digital has made an agreement with State Street to use Currenex, a cutting-edge trading technology, as the backbone for their “new and unique wholesale digital currency trading platform”.

We are excited to partner with Currenex, an industry leader in FX, on this initiative; as we work to transpose FX infrastructure to the crypto space via a bank-led consortium.


Lauren Kiley, CEO of Pure Digital

A Platform Specifically For Banks

The Pure Digital trading platform will be the first of its kind, offering a wholesale inter-bank market for Tier 1 investment banks to trade bitcoin and other digital assets. Pure Digital is in discussions with several other Tier 1 investment banks to use the platform.

The platform will be an over-the-counter (OTC) offering with bilateral credit lines and full transparency so that the banks can see exactly who they’re dealing with. When asked whether they would be using the platform for their own crypto trading, Kiley replied:

That is the intention – State Street is one of the many banks that will be using this platform and we are looking at midway through 2021, although no date is set.

Lauren Kiley, CEO of Pure Digital

Big Banks Are Starting to Offer Crypto Services

Now that other big banks like BNY Mellon, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley have dipped their toes in crypto. The eyes have been on State Street now, as one of the biggest U.S. custody providers and trading operations, to see if it would move into crypto as well.

It (cryptocurrency) needs large balance financial institutions involved in the manufacturing process of price. The primary market doesn’t really exist. There’s a lot of disparate exchanges out there with different rules of engagement and systems. And this manifests itself in very fragmented market data.

Campbell Adams, founder of Pure Digital

The boost that these big institutions give to the cryptocurrency industry through investing in it and making it available for others to invest in is a major help to the ecosystem.  On the other hand, banks need to cater to the needs of their customers, and if they fail to do so they may become irrelevant.

Currently no Australian banks offer crypto services, but will we see this happen in 2021?

Categories
Coinbase Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Coinbase Revenue Hits $1.8 Billion With The Help of Major User Increase

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reveals it has reached $1.8 billion in total revenue as well as a massive 117% increase in monthly trading users in just one quarter.

A recent report by Coinbase, shows their first quarter estimated results, before next weeks Nasdaq listing. The increase in users was one of the factors propelling the approximate net income of $730 million to $800million.

Numbers Are Looking Good for Coinbase

  • 56 million verified users
  • Active users on Coinbase jumped from 2.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 6.1 million in the first quarter of 2021.
  • Assets on Platform of $223 billion, representing 11.3% crypto asset market share (includes $122 billion institutional assets)
  • Trading volumes topped $335 billion in Q1. For all of 2020, trading volume was $193 billion.

The report also gave an outlook for their monthly transacting users based on three different performance scenarios:

  • In the “high” scenario, Coinbase would average 7 million Monthly Transacting Users (MTUs) if there is an increase in crypto market capitalization, and with moderate to high crypto price volatility, MTUs would continue to grow for the remainder of 2021.
  • The “mid” scenario, Coinbase would average 5.5 million MTUs if the crypto market is flat, with a modest decline in MTUs from Q1 2021.
  • The “low” scenario, Coinbase would average 4 million MTUs if market capitalisation decreases to that of the 2018 bear market, and “MTUs will decrease in a corresponding manner and end 2021 at similar levels to Q4 2020.”

Making Preparations for Retailers And Institutions

Coinbase’s technology and development expenses and general and administrative expenses are going to be between $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion, excluding stock-based compensation, in 2021 – showing lots of investment into the platform.

On the retail side, the company will be adding more assets and giving people more access to decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said during Tuesday’s earnings call. Haas said she expects the average net revenue per user to reach new records in 2021.

For the last two years we’ve seen average net revenue per MTU [monthly transacting user] range between $34 and $45 per month.

Alesia Haas, CFO of Coinbase

On the institutional side, the company will continue to build out its prime brokerage offering and use its Bison Trails acquisition to create what Armstrong called the “Amazon Web Services for crypto.”

How do you have users doubling and growth three times that? It happens because volume per user also increased. That’s the increase in the price of bitcoin.

James Friedman, senior fintech research analyst at Susquehanna International Group

Sales and marketing are also planned to get between 12% and 15% increase. The numbers in this report seem to attest to a company that is thriving in the emerging crypto economy.

Categories
Blockchain Crypto News Stellar

Akoin Chooses Stellar to Power The Currency of Akon City

Senegalese singer, Akon, has received the green light from local government to construct a futuristic city in Uganda, with its own Akoin currency powered by Stellar.

As per a report by NBS Television, Akon is planning to build a futuristic, crypto-based city in Senegal that is going to operate on Akoin. Akoin is a Stellar-based cryptocurrency. In the interview Akon did not state the cost of the project.

I know if I put it there, they’re going to find a way to afford it because it’s going to motivate them

Akon

Akon plans to build malls, schools, police departments, waste management services, hospitals, and other buildings for recreation and culture. This will be done to uplift communities and “bring opportunities” to the people that live within them.

But ultimately when you create an opportunity, people grow with that opportunity, people learn with that opportunity, people are motivated with that opportunity.

Akon

Stellar Blockchain For Economic Inclusion

According to a press release by AkoinOfficial they are aiming to improve Africa’s financial infrastructure and lower costs by removing intermediaries and increasing transparency through the use of blockchain technology. The partnership with Stellar Organization and their Stellar Consensus Protocol can enable Akoin to reach this goal.

The Stellar Development Foundation can support Akoin initiatives through a wide network of charities that accept Stellar Lumens as a form of donation. Also, coupled with its work with Saldo on providing solutions for migrant workers to send funds back to their families, and developments made with IBM Worldwire, to send any currency anywhere in the world using Stellar. These made Stellar a winning choice for Akoin.

Additionally, launching on Stellar means that Akoin can be traded on the Stellar Decentralized Exchange (DEX). By immediately giving users access to several pairs beyond Akoin and XLM, participants are given the ability to explore the cryptocurrency world in ways that the current financial infrastructure limits them.

Akoin wants to remove barriers keeping Africans from participating in the world economy by empowering them with blockchain technology and services.

Categories
Banking Crypto News Institutions Stablecoins

Japan’s Central Bank Starts Experimenting With Digital Yen

On Monday the Bank of Japan (BOJ) started a year long study with its central bank digital currency (CBDC), following the advances made by China, U.S., and European countries.

This follows the BOJ’s announcement in early October 2020 where a project overview was given. The first of three phases is to be carried out now until March 2022. This phase is a proof-of-concept phase where participants will “build a systematic experimental environment and verify the basic functions of issuance, distribution, and refund, which form the core of CBDC as a payment method.”

In proof-of-concept phase 2 the study will look at “adding peripheral functions of CBDC to the experimental environment constructed in Phase 1 and verify its feasibility.” And if it is deemed necessary after proof of concept, they will consider conducting a pilot experiment in which private businesses and consumers can participate.

Shinichi Uchida, executive director of the bank, said in a statement last month that some people questioned whether people could use cash and bank accounts instead, and others wondered if potential cases for a CBDC “could be addressed by alternative solutions that did not require such extensive and large-scale efforts.”

Central Bank of Japan [Wikimedia]

CBDCs are similar to stablecoins, except that they are state-run. This means that transaction data are not on a public blockchain and that the central bank maintains authority over the ledgers that hold this data. The implementation of a system like this will allow participants to transact, store, and track the currency as an official unit of account since it’s registered with the central bank, thereby also increasing security against fraud and other related crimes.

Japan Doesn’t Want To Be Left Behind

The BOJ is mainly looking at digital currencies in a case it were to become mainstream or yield major benefits for them. BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has said it is important to “prepare thoroughly to respond to changes in circumstances,” and that it is not an appropriate policy response for central banks to start considering digital currencies only when the need to issue one arises.

Smaller banks like those in the Bahamas and Cambodia have already launched their CBDC, like the “Sand Dollar“. Japan’s economic rival has also made some major strides in the digital currency arena. According to a Chinese media source six state-owned banks have begun to promote digital yuan and accepting applications to open digital wallets. As well as U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jeremy Powell stating that a potential digital dollar is a high-priority project but has remained cautious about issuing one.

While there is no change in the BOJ’s stance it currently has no plan to issue CBDC, we believe initiating experiments at this stage is a necessary step

Shinichi Uchida, BOJ Executive Director

If, after a year, the bank finds that the proof-of-concept phase was fruitful, it will progress to the next phase: a pilot program. As countries start to adopt their own version of digital assets it opens more doors for individuals to interact with this technology and become familiar with how it works.

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Coinbase Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Coinbase Crypto Exchange To Be Listed On Nasdaq 14 April

In an announcement by Coinbase their public direct listing of its Class A common stock was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 1, 2021, and are set to be available on Nasdaq April 14.

In a direct listing, the issuing company forgoes selling new stock and instead allows existing stakeholders to sell their shares to new investors. The company has said it plans to register nearly 115 million shares.

The crypto exchange and custodian will also hold a first-quarter earnings call on April 6, to provide a financial outlook for 2021, Coinbase said in a press release.

Coinbase Has Made Major Stride Since Its Inception

The company was valued at between $90 and $100 billion in its final week of trading on Nasdaq’s private market. Further, a $100 billion debut would make Coinbase more valuable than traditional tech stocks such as Uber. The company has more than 43 million users trading digital assets in over 100 countries. The company also in 2020, brought in $1.3 billion in revenue and turned a profit of $322 million.

Based on the average price of $343.58 of shares traded on Nasdaq’s private market last month, CNBC calculated Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s 39.6 million shares will be worth $13.6 billion, catapulting him into the billionaire rankings alongside individuals like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Bill Gates.

The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also announced that it had reached a settlement deal worth $6.5 million with Coinbase. The settlement puts an end to the company’s claims reporting inaccurate transaction data, along with allegations of a former employee indulging in improper trading – allowing them to continue with their listing.

The listing had been pushed back from March however, the delay was anticipated, as direct listings are usually delayed.