Bitcoin has outperformed all major asset classes for 2121 Q1 as shown on a chart posted by Binance. This is the best start to the year BTC has has in the past 8 years.
Starting the year around $38,000 AUD and currently $78,000 (at time of writing) has seen the BTC price gaining just over $100% in the first 3 months of 2021. Compared to previous years this by far the best start to a year for BTC with most other starts actually showing negative gains for Q1 and then Q2 onwards showing very bullish returns.
Binance is planning to acquire 20-30 cryptocurrency related startups per year according to CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ).
With over $800 million in revenue last year, CZ said Binance is self-sufficient and doesn’t need huge funding for growth.
“My view is I’m not an expert in these areas, and it’s better for us to find strong teams that are already doing this well. We plan to do somewhere between 20 and 30 acquisitions a year. Most are smaller acquisitions—we don’t announce them”
CZ
Leading Exchanges Are Going Public
Leading cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase, are preparing to go public in the stock market. But Binance isn’t bothered by this new trend and is focusing to expand with more startup acquisitions.
“Right now, we’re not looking at going public, and we’re not looking at an IPO. We are cash-sufficient, so we’re able to grow ourselves. We don’t need a huge amount of money, we are profitable, and we are growing,”
CZ
Binance Acquisitions So Far
Binance has already made some huge acquisitions over the past few years which include crypto exchanges, crypto wallets, crypto debit cards and dencentralised apps.
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CoinMarketCap – Leading crypto price tracking website
A Bitcoin backed loan this is similar to any other loan, however with this type of loan you can borrow Cryptocurrency and use your existing Bitcoin as collateral against the borrowing.
This crypto loan is provided by Binance and you can use your existing Binance account to apply. All registered Binance users can apply without any lengthy forms to fill in, and what’s best is that it’s approved instantly.
How A Crypto Backed Loan works
The process is simple – you lend your Bitcoin to Binance for a specific amount of time (say 30 days) and in return they lend you crypto. You pay hourly interest for the loan in Bitcoin. If the price of Bitcoin drops suddenly, you can simply top up your loan collateral to keep the amount borrowed to below 65% to avoid your loan being liquidated.
Coin Borrowed = The crypto that you borrowed from the loan.
Collateral Coin = The crypto that you used to fund for the loan.
In the example below we are borrowing $100 USD worth of BUSD for 30 days and using Bitcoin (BTC) to fund the loan as crypto collateral. BUSD is a stablecoin like USDT, but it is run by Binance.
Steps to Apply for a Bitcoin Backed Loan
Login to your Binance Account
SelectFinance > Loans from the main menu
Select the Coin you wish to borrow (you can borrow lots of different cryptos including stablecoins USDT and BUSD, see below full list of coins you can borrow).
Enter the Amount you wish to borrow.
Select how long you want to borrow it for (can be 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 90 days or 180 days). The interest rates will change depending on the duration chosen.
Crypto loan application form
Once your ready, click Start Borrowing Now
Read and agree to the Terms & Conditions
Approved crypto loan of BUSD using BTC as collateral
That’s it! You should now see +100 BUSD in your Spot Wallet account and also the BTC deducted from your balance to be held in the loan.
How To Adjust the LTV Risk Level?
The loan to value ratio (LTV) shows your risk level of the percentage your borrowed compared to the coin you lent. To have less risk you can lower this value to below 65% and add more BTC as collateral, which will reduce the likelihood of a margin call should the Bitcoin price drop suddenly.
Adjust your LTV risk level
How Much Can You Borrow?
You can check the Crypto Asset Loan Data to see the minimum/maximum lending amounts for each coin and the interest rates for the lending pair.
Crypto Loan Data Table
How Do You Pay the Interest?
The total interest for the period is added to your Collateral Coin value when you apply for the loan, so apart from the potential margin call there is no additional payments. The fees get automatically gets deducted (paid as interest) hourly at the rate agreed on (when you applied for the loan).
How Do You Close The Loan?
You can repay (close) the loan at any time without extra fees by simply clicking the Repay button. Select the amount you wish to repay (say 100%) and confirm the payment. This is an instant and simple process.
Repay and close the loan
How Does the Margin Call Work?
If the Collateral Coin drops in value compared to the Coin Borrowed, you may get a “margin call” which you will have to deposit more Collateral Coin to adjust the LTV back to a normal risk level (say below 65%)
Liquidation can occur if the Collateral Coin’s total value is equal to the Borrowed Coin’s value. If this happens the loan is liquidated where the Collateral Coin is automatically sold to pay for the Borrowed Coin’s value and the loan is closed. There is no additional steps for you and you’ll be notified of the liquidation. You still keep the originally Borrowed Coin from the loan and don’t need to pay that back.
Can You Trade or Withdraw Borrowed Crypto?
Yes, you can trade on Binance using the loan borrowed crypto in both spot and margin trading. Yes, you can withdraw them as well.
What Are The Tax Implications?
Coming soon. We’ll update this section from Tax Accountant advice soon.
Jeff Yew (Binance Australia), Alex Harper and Angus Goldman (Swyftx)
In a recent article the Courier Mail published a list of 30 Australians under 30 with outstanding business achievements thanks to technology.
The selection featured personalities innovating many different fields, including cryptocurrency platforms. Focusing on that, two entries have made the cut and we are happy to highlight them in congratulations for their respective results.
Jeff Yew, CEO of Binance Australia
Jeff Yew (Binance Australia)
Binance Australia is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges locally based and operated in Australia. It is led by Jeff Yew, a 27 year old who funded his university degree by investing into Bitcoin. Before Binance Australia, he was the CPO of another cryptocurrency-related business, TravelByBit – an Australian startup facilitating crypto payments in the travel industry, making Brisbane the first city in the world with a crypto-friendly airport.
[…] I believe Bitcoin is the single most important social infrastructure in the history of humanity and I’m committed to see it through till the end. […] It’s the money of the people in the digital age.
In the last few months, Binance Australia has reported massive trading volumes and growth. You can read more about Binance Australia in our review.
Alex Harper & Angus Goldman, Founders of Swyftx
Alex Harper and Angus Goldman (Swyftx)
Alex Harper and Angus Goldman founded Swyftx, a Brisbane-based and AUSTRAC-registered Australian crypto currency exchange and trading platform. The couple of now-26 year olds first met at a Summer Computer Science Camp held at the University of Sydney. Later on Alex and Angus decided to quit their jobs, investing their savings and joining efforts to eventually launch Swyftx in 2019.
We wanted to solve the many problems we faced as consumers, including a distinct lack of customer service, dated user interfaces, poor education practices and high fees.
In a short amount of time, Swyftx has seen record-breaking growth, also recently becoming the first exchange in Australia to offer Debit Card Payments. Feel free to check out our review of Swyftx.
EOS’s largest project, Effect Network, has disclosed plans to relocate its entire network to Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
Who is Effect Network?
Effect Network (EFX) a Dutch-based project, also known as Effect.ai, has recently rebranded with their move to BSC. They are well known for the use of decentralized technology to build a framework that allows “anyone to build products and services and for anyone to gain access to fair paying work from anywhere”, thereby directly connecting businesses and the workforce. The network currently boasts of a workforce of more than 10,000 members globally, from 97 different countries.
Effect Network is currently the most used decentralized application (dApp) on the EOS mainnet. The network boasts of completing more than 7 million paid tasks since its inception. Some of its use cases involve big organisations like The United Nations (UN), Akon and Linus Tech Tips.
Why the Move From EOS?
The major issue that stood out for Effect Network was a concern about the future and viability of the EOS blockchain. Effect Network cites “unfulfilled promises to address the many issues that plague the EOS mainnet”. Another reason to move on seems to be the recent decision of the founder and CTO of EOS parent company Block.one, Dan Larimer, to leave the project “to pursue new personal projects”.
Binance Smart Chain Getting Lots of Attention
The network has partnered with top industry players like Chiliz, Chainlink, Gravity Network, ANKR Network, etc. Most of the partners are moving to BSC due to its comparatively lower transaction fees.
Chris Dawe spoke highly of the move to BSC. He also added that the platform’s culture of hard work, dedication, and vision is exceptional.
Look at what the Binance organization has accomplished in only the last three years. It is a testament of dedication, hard work but above all its laser-focused vision. The amount of products and services our clients and workforce can tap into with the Binance ecosystem are amazing and will help accelerate the growth of the Effect Network like never before.
Chris Dawe, CEO of Effect Network
Chris Dawe also stated that Binance offers lots of support through Binance Labs and Binance_X initiatives.
Binance, the largest digital currency exchange, has appointed two former Financial Action Task Force (FATF) officers as advisors, according to a blog post on Thursday.
FATF is the global regulatory body for money laundering and terrorist financing. By hiring the regulators, the exchange is aiming at strengthening its regulatory and compliance strategies. Meanwhile, the development today comes a few days after FATF updated its regulatory guidance, calling for tighter KYC/AML measures for digital currencies and virtual asset service providers (VASPs)
Binance appointed Rick McDonell, the former Executive Secretary at FAFT, and Josée Nadeau, the former Head of the Canadian delegation to the FATF. As advisors to Binance, the regulators will drive the organization in compliance with global regulations and law enforcement agencies, especially on areas that include anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT).
Having worked with international organizations, both Nadeau and McDonell bring extensive regulatory and compliance expertise and experience to the table.
“Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are gaining widespread adoption, with even traditional banking organizations now offering crypto services. These new technologies will certainly change how people and organizations alike manage money. […] We are both delighted to be working with Binance, one of the leading organizations in this new industry.”
McDonell and Nadeau said in a joint statement.
Binance is Beefing up its Regulatory and Compliance Strategy
It’s now apparent that the cryptocurrency exchange is positioned to become a more compliant and regulatory-friendly company. Prior to Nadeau and McDonell’s appointment today, Binance recently on-boarded the former U.S. Senator for Montana and Ambassador to China, Max Baucus, as an advisor. Baucus will help to navigate the exchange in government relations and regulatory initiatives.
Approximately $2.5 million in Binance Coin (BNB) was drained from trading pools in the Binance Smart Chain DeFi exchanges after the anticipated launch of TurtleDex.
TurtleDex advertised itself as a DeFi storage platform and claimed it could help “keep data and preserve files without needing to keep them on their computer”. With the pre-sale launch on 15 March, the team hit their target in two hours, raising approximately 9000 BNB.
After the fundraising round, the funds were drained from the TurtleDex liquidity pool, moved to PancakeSwap and ApeSwap exchanges. From there, the funds were converted to Ethereum (ETH) and sent to nine separate wallets on the Binance Exchange.
Attention – The Turtledex (#TTDX) team has exit scammed.
We are just as shocked as everyone to see this unfold.
This type of scam is called exit scam, also known as “rug pull”. Shortly after it occurred, the owners deleted TurtleDex’s Telegram, official website, Twitter profile, and other social pages.
TurtleDex Twitter page
Distressed investors looked toward Binance for assistance and have reached out to CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). They will need to keep their fingers crossed that Binance will step in and freeze the funds that were sent to Binance wallets.
Although with no formal response as of yet, investors will need to hope that CZ makes good on his word to assist with recovering funds lost in rug pulls based on a comment made a few days prior to the incident.
The community is up in arms about the event and is questioning the effectiveness of contract-audits since this is not the first exit scam to hit Binance Smart Chain.
So now the question is; who should the accountability be left with. The anon team is obviously to blame but what about @Jetfuelfinance & @ape_swap who've been in contact with @turtle_dex to setup & offer liquidty staking options for $TTDX. What due diligence was done?#BSC$BNBhttps://t.co/ddeNT4Hd20
January 22, 2021, Brazil. In this photo illustration the Brave Browser logo seen in the background of a silhouette hand holding a mobile phone
Privacy-focused Brave Browser has extended its Ethereum-based digital currency, Basic Attention Token (BAT), to Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem. The development today means that BAT holders can now access several projects on BSC, including its decentralized finance (DeFi) services.
BAT Debuts on BSC as Wrapped Token
The Brave token was launched as an ERC-20 standard token. However, it can now be used on the BSC ecosystem as a wrapped token, which will make it possible for BAT holders to access BSC projects like PancakeSwap, BakerySwap, Beefy Finance, etc., through “numerous bridges that connect Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain.”
Also, Brave intends to preconfigure support for BSC on its browser wallet later this year to enable users to directly access the BSC services without having to download additional applications. In addition to that, Brave also plans to leverage the low transaction fee on the BSC network to enable scalable P2P tipping within its browser.
Our hope is that BAT and Brave will take crypto mainstream and to make DeFi user-friendly for the mass market. […] With wrapped BAT now available on BSC, we believe this is achievable.
Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave
Brave now adds to the list of popular Ethereum platforms that have migrated to the BSC network for some reasons that include cheaper transaction fees.
BAT Monthly Users Surpass $3 Million
BAT is one cryptocurrency with fast-growing demand. It’s the utility token of Brave Browser, which sees over 25 million monthly active users (MAU). More than 3.8 million users transact with the cryptocurrency on a monthly basis.
BAT was trading at US$1.20 on Coingecko during press time. It soared by over 7% on the 24-hour count, following the announcement on Monday. Its market capital currently sits around US$1.7 billion.
The Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has reached another all-time high in daily transaction volume.
Over the recent weeks, the transaction volume on Binance Smart Chain has increased significantly as many people and projects are switching to the centralized network for cheaper and faster transactions. This comes amid the congestion on Ethereum, which has caused slower and expensive transaction fees for the second-largest blockchain network.
BSC Topped 3 Million in Daily Transaction Volume
Following the BSC Scan data, a total of 3,726,576 transactions were made on the network as of March 16, which is the highest number of daily transactions on BSC since its inception. This is not surprising as many projects are increasingly being developed on the network. Additionally, some other projects have migrated from the Ethereum blockchain to the BSC network for cheaper and faster transactions.
Early this month, SushiSwap launched on the Binance Smart Chain and a few other blockchain networks, including Fantom, in a bid to escape the expensive transaction fees plaguing the root network, Ethereum. Meanwhile, the decentralized exchange (DEX) is currently the largest in the DeFi market, with about US$4.59 billion in assets locked.
Sushi is going multichain 🍣⛓
We have deployed the Sushi contracts to these networks
On March 16, Ethereum recorded about 1.3 million in daily transaction volume.
What is Killing Ethereum?
The activities on the Ethereum blockchain increased significantly, probably due to the boom in the decentralized finance industry and the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) market. However, the increased usage of Ethereum resulted in network congestion, making it very expensive to use.
The developers are looking to resolve this scalability issue through the Serenity upgrade, also known as Ethereum 2.0. This major upgrade is expected to be completed and deployed in the next two to three years, hence, many Ethereum users fear that the network might continue to lose more projects and users if no immediate action was taken by the developers to solve the issue.
As a temporary solution, however, Ethereum developers are planning to deploy rollups, which is a layer-two solution that will scale the current Ethereum network by 100x, according to Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum. He added that the planned solution would address the congestion issue on the network until Ethereum 2.0.
In a recent video interview, the CEO of Binance Australia, Jeff Yew, discussed the impact of cryptocurrencies in Australia and the travel industry, together with Juan Otero, CEO of Travala.
In an AMA session (ask me anything), both Jeff and Juan discussed the impact of cryptocurrencies in Australia. Jeff expects to push forward his educational plans for the country, as well as bringing more support of AUD payments for new potential tokens, like Travala’s AVA.
Why Aussies are Using SMSF to buy Bitcoin
Jeff stated that the outstanding growth in corporate accounts, including SMFS, is followed by the growth of the crypto market and the loss of purchasing power through the years with fiat money.
“Your money is being devalued much more quickly than what your parents experienced. With the expansion of fiat money through the years, you’re looking at losing half of your purchasing value in 5 years. In the U.S. monetary expansion is not stopping, similar thing in Australia as well.
So your halfway point of your asset losing 50% of its purchasing went from 30 years to 5 years. If you have one hundred million in the treasury, you’re going to lose ten million each year. We’re looking at a much more shorter timeframe
On the other hand, Otero stated that is only a matter of time until crypto payments are accepted globally, adding that the travel industry could benefit greatly from the integration of blockchain technology.
There is an increase in interest and adoption of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. My vision is that travelling will be decentralised and community-governed, and we’re giving developers the tools to build their travel platforms, so there will be a travel supply, and they can greatly benefit from that.
The Effects of the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted the travel industry in Australia. Borders remain closed, biosecurity measures and restrictions are said to be lifted in June this year, but it’s not guaranteed.
But as cryptocurrencies started surging in 2020, Travala avoided the negative effects of the pandemic thanks to its support for crypto-payments. Hence, becoming a leader in the travel industry thanks to its blockchain-based infrastructure, attracting crypto-enthusiast.
A Demand Tsunami
Both Jeff and Juan are seeing large inflows of users on their companies, and a greater demand for their products. Binance Australia hit trading volume records, and Travala managed to grow its community thanks to its blockchain-based infrastructure, avoiding certain perks of the pandemic.
