Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson has said his blockchain could overtake Ethereum in the long run.
During a Yahoo Finance interview, Hoskinson denounced Ethereum’s bottlenecks like throughput and gas fees. “It’s overrated,” he added, saying that the largest DeFi ecosystem will rather fall behind Cardano.
Comments came after Hoskinson said his team will soon work on the Alonzo upgrade, bringing smart contracts for developers and competing with other DeFi networks such as Binance Smart Chain (BSC) Ethereum and Polkadot.
Ethereum is “Killing Itself”
While ETH 2.0 is on the way to solving some of the issues with the original network, Hoskinson said it will only replace ETH in the long run:
First of all Ethereum is killing itself. They are replacing Ethereum with Ethereum 2.0. In the end ETH 2.0 will kill ETH 1.0.
Charles Hoskinson
Hoskinson said that Ethereum could only process smart contracts, while Cardano can do that with “governance and compliance”. He added that Cardano could operate with metadata besides automated regulation.
After denouncing Ethereum’s capabilities, he went on to criticise Bitcoin maximalists, comparing the required energy usage to “clear cutting of the forests in Europe in the 19th century”.
Cardano Providing Digital Identities with Blockchain
Hoskinson outlined how Cardano is helping to bring identity through blockchain, something that Ethereum “has never done”, citing Africa as an example.
IOHK, the company behind Cardano, has partnered with several countries on the African continent, including Tanzania and Ethiopia. Their goal is to provide quality internet connection after these countries have experienced large internet shutdowns, and to create digital identities through blockchain technology.
PayPal will soon allow users to withdraw their crypto funds, according to PayPal’s blockchain executive.
Speaking at Consensus 2021, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, VP at PayPal, said that a withdrawal function is on the way and will allow users to send their crypto to third-party wallets.
The withdrawal function comes after PayPal registered a tremendous interest in its crypto custodial service. “We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers,” he said.
PayPal’s Q1 results even surpassed the company’s expectations with over 6 billion in revenues in the first quarter of 2021 —a 31% record spot. Dan Schulman, the CEO, said the results were mainly thanks to their decision to integrate cryptocurrencies into Paypal.
Bitcoin for Paypal in Australia
Currently, PayPal does not support Bitcoin as a payment option for Australia. This services is currently only available in the USA (except Hawaii) for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. Stay tuned, we will let you know once they enable this feature for us Aussies.
PayPal’s Own Stablecoin
After PayPal’s vice president Jonathan Auerbach reunited with central bankers worldwide, rumours circulated about a possible stablecoin issued by the payment giant. However, da Ponte said it is “too early to think about that.”
Sometimes we position the debate as CBDCs versus stablecoins, but it’s a bit of a fake debate. There is no trade-off. We think they will co-exist.
Jose Fernandez da Ponte, VP at PayPal
Speaking about stablecoins and CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency) —and whether one will overtake the other by global usage— da Ponte stated there is no debate against the two.
PayPal as the Gateway for CBDCs
While the payment processor is not currently working on its own stablecoin, da Ponte said financial institutions like PayPal can serve as a bridge for the distribution of CBDCs when the time comes.
To reinforce his view, he referred to how Americans had to go to a bank to cash their stimulus checks, in the midst of a pandemic. “I think we can do better than that” he added.
28 May 2021 – We interviewed Coinstash’s co-founder Ting Wang about the company’s plans and his opinions on the crypto market.
Coinstash.com.au is an Australian based cryptocurrency exchange where you can buy and sell Bitcoin and 21 other cryptocurrencies. Following a substantial capital raise of A$2.8 million, the company has big plans for the future – looking to revolutionise the way we use crypto in Australia.
Coinstash Interview
Q: It has been a bit over a month since your capital raise with Birchal. Can you please give us a brief update on how the team has progressed since then? What are the team’s plans to continue to grow the business?
A: We’ve been working on growing the business by engaging legal professionals, mapping out operating models, and hiring new developers – planning to double from 6 people to 12 people.
Australia doesn’t need another crypto trading platform. Coinstash is trying to make crypto easier to spend and revolutionalise personal and business crypto financial services products.
Coinstash Co-Founder Ting Wang
We have plans to introduce new financial products such as spending, earning interest and borrowing against your cryptos. To achievethis, we are working with legal professionals to obtain all the accreditations we require. This space has a high barrier to entry and we’re making sure 100% that we tick all the boxes, so due to regulations it might take some time to get these products out to market.
Q: What’s your current market outlook? In particular, who do you think is benefiting from the sudden fall in price, and what opportunities are there for those interested in entering the space?
A:My perspective is that Bitcoin is still up heaps since the start of the year. The recent FUD is caused by regulatory pressure in countries such as Turkey, India, and of course China. As Binance, OKEx and Huobi traders are mostly from China this has caused a shockwave effect on liquidations, causing the market to dip. China cracking down on mining operations also affected the price – this might be bad for BTC in the short term but should be good in the long run as the network becomes more distributed.
It’s too early to say that the bull market is over, although you need to tread carefully in the current market.
Coinstash Co-Founder Ting Wang
I’m not a financial advisor, but my personal approach is instead of timing the market, invest a recurring amount into major coins, then just hold it, and if it drops, stay calm and don’t panic. In the past, this strategy has well-served many people I know.Coinstash has plans to introduce recurring buys and top coin bundles soon to help you participate.
Q: With tax season around the corner, any tips on what Australians should prepare for?
A:Firstly, you should get a good accountant, one that knows about crypto. Then the simple thing you can do is keep your records, which can save you a lot of headaches down the track. Record the date, transaction amount, buy or sell, the fees, and crypto used. Also, take a note of all the exchanges and wallets you’ve been using. I’ve found this to be helpful if you’re using many different ones. Coinstash offers a free download of all transaction history for the year so you can send it directly to your accountant.
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.
It's official! LB 649, Nebraska's bill to establish a statewide #cryptocurrency and digital asset bank framework, has been signed into law by @GovRicketts .
— Senator Julie Slama (@SenatorSlama) May 25, 2021
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.
Dust attacks have become a popular way of malicious activity for hackers trying to break blockchain privacy. Dusting was used at first by programmers performing stress tests on a network and email blasts, but scammers are now using it to unmask address anonymity.
What is a Dusting Attack?
Crypto dust is referred to a very small amount of a certain coin or token, which could accumulate in a wallet for example as a result of airdrops or rounding of transactions.
Users sometimes don’t notice crypto dust because it tends to have very little fiat value. Certain wallets and exchanges even have functions to hide small balances. For example, the smallest unit into which a Bitcoin (BTC) can be subdivided is 0.00000001 BTC (by design). Usually referred to as 1 satoshi, it is currently worth around $0.0005 AUD – in other words, it would take about 20 satoshis for 1 cent AUD.
Dusting basically means sending a tiny amount of cryptos to various wallet addresses in an attempt to deanonymise them. By linking together the addresses of a given crypto asset, the hackers then track down the transactional activity of the corresponding wallets, analysing every address while looking for clues to identify the person or company behind each wallet.
This manuver does not give the attacker access to your funds, as if you were under attack instead. Dusting could only allow guessing the identity behind those addresses.
Scammers and criminals are not the only ones to perform these kinds of activities, though. Law enforcement agencies could use this technique to bind an individual or even criminal organizations to an address, for example to target money launderers, contraband, or any large criminal network.
Dusting Attacks on the Rise
A reason why these malicious attacks are becoming so popular for hackers is that traders and large holders don’t seem to pay much attention to the small amount of tokens showing up in their wallet addresses.
Dust attacks were first seen on the Bitcoin network but are quickly expanding to Litecoin, BNB (Binance Coin) and other cryptocurrencies. A popular example of a dust attack occurred in late October 2018, when Samourai Wallet developers warned some users were under dusting attacks.
If you have recently received a very small amount of BTC in your wallet unexpectedly, you may be the target of a "dusting attack" designed to deanonymise you by linking your inputs together – Samourai users can mark this utxo as "Do Not Spend" to nip the attack in the bud. pic.twitter.com/23MLFj4eXQ
First, get an export of your addresses and review the balances in each one. Check your addresses on a block explorer like Etherscan.io or Blockchair.com to see if you’re under attack.
To spot one, a dust transaction typically has one address on the sender side and hundreds or thousands of addresses on the other with the same small traces ent to them.
If you have been “dusted”, look for wallets that show dusty UTXOs (unspent transaction) and mark them as “do not spend” if your wallet or exchange allows you to do so. This will prevent them from being used for later transactions.
Notice the BTC trace behind the pop-up window [source]
You can also use a hardware wallet to protect yourself as well – while expensive, they can be safer storage for your private keys.
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 topicsdiscussed 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.
Ethereum is gradually outperforming Bitcoin in several metrics that point towards its complete “Flippening” of Bitcoin as the largest blockchain network.
Recent data from Messari, a cryptocurrency data insights and analytics platform, showed that Ethereum has surpassed Bitcoin in daily spot trading volume.
Ethereum Posts Over $20 Billion Volume
As Messari Researcher Ryan Watkins shared on Wednesday, Ethereum spot trading volume surpassed Bitcoin since the past month. Presently, Ethereum sees over $20 billion USD in trading volume, while Bitcoin sees less than the amount.
ETH volumes have been exploding recently and have surpassed BTC volumes for the past month.
This record checks off one of the “Flippening” metrics that Ethereum is expected to fill before it completely outperforms Bitcoin as the largest blockchain network, as per Blockchain Center.
Following the Flippening data, Ethereum has already surpassed Bitcoin in transaction count, transaction volume, and total transaction volume. However, it has a lower market capitalization, active address, node count, and Google Search Interest compared to Bitcoin.
Ethereum Flippening [BlockchainCenter.net]
At the time of writing, the Flippening index reads that Ethereum is about 43.9 percent closer to overtaking Bitcoin completely. Judging by the number, the chances of Ethereum completely Flippening Bitcoin seem still relatively low, probably because the market capitalization of both coins is considered the major factor. Bitcoin has a market cap of $725 billion USD, while Ether sees $317.8 billion USD at the same time.
Most Altcoins Still Correlate With Bitcoin
Regardless of the Flippening metrics, Bitcoin still leads the cryptocurrency market. A separate data analysis from Messari also indicated that many major altcoins – including Ethereum, Binance Coin, Ripple and Litecoin – have a correlation of about 60-80 percent with the market value of Bitcoin.
One of the world’s largest technology company, Apple, is seeking to hire an expert with experience in digital currencies and wallets, according to a recent job posting.
The tech giant is seemingly planning to form a partnership framework and commercial models with strategic alternative payment partners, which will also include cryptocurrency solutions.
Apple to Hire Crypto Expert
Following the details of the job posting, the payment unit of the technology company “The Apple Wallets, Payments, and Commerce (WPC)” is seeking to hire a Business Development Manager to spearhead the operations of their “Alternative Payments Partnerships” program.
Apple expects the ideal candidate to have 10+ years of professional experience and 6+ years in business or market development working for several companies in financial services segments. The company also expects the candidate to have over five years of experience working with alternative payment providers in cryptocurrency, digital wallets, BNPL, and Fast Payments.
We are looking for a proven professional in global alternative and emerging payment solutions. […] This position will be responsible for the end to end business development, including screening partners, negotiating and closing commercial agreements and launching new programs.
Apple job ad
Apple Can Benefit From the Cryptocurrency Space
Despite this, Apple hasn’t publicly disclosed its stance with digital currencies. However, many people believe that the tech company can fit in the industry.
In February, RBC Capital Markets researchers noted that Apple has a “clear opportunity” to gain market share of the crypto industry if they can tackle and provide a better buying and selling mechanism for digital currencies. The researchers said Apple could generate up to $40 billion in revenue annually from running a crypto exchange.
The market capitalization of stablecoins has surpassed $100 billion USD, according to market data from CryptoDiffer. As of May 25, stablecoins accounted for more than $86 billion USD in 24hrs trading volume.
Notably, there has been a consistent increase in demand for major stablecoins since the beginning of the year. These coins serve as the base currency for trading in exchange, as well as lending and borrowing on decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
Ten Largest Stablecoins by Market Capitalization
Following the information by CryptoDiffer the top ten stablecoins include:
USDT, USDC, and BUSD are some the most popular and traded stablecoins in the cryptocurrency market. They have a combined market capitalization of nearly $90 billion USD, which is about 88 percent of the entire stablecoin market valuation. Demand for stablecoins is increasing rapidly.
On Monday, Tether surpassed the $60 billion USD market cap. Demand for USDT has been increasing significantly in accordance with the entire growth of the cryptocurrency market. For reference, USDT had a market cap as low as $8 billion USD in May 2020, resulting in a 581 percent increase year over year when compared to the current record.
Tether has just surpassed a $60B market cap! In May 2020, #Tether tokens' market cap was $8B, now a year on we've seen an increase of 581% and demand for Tether token use higher than ever for both trading and retail adoption! pic.twitter.com/7EPeBAEfFh
Michael Saylor, CEO of business intelligence company MicroStrategy, has stepped up his support for Bitcoin.
In a recent tweet, Saylor informed that he hosted a meeting between Bitcoin (BTC) miners in North America and the founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, on ways to promote Bitcoin sustainability and energy transparency.
Yesterday I was pleased to host a meeting between @elonmusk & the leading Bitcoin miners in North America. The miners have agreed to form the Bitcoin Mining Council to promote energy usage transparency & accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide. https://t.co/EHgLZ9zvDK
The meeting led to the formation of the “Bitcoin Mining Council”, which aims at promoting the use of renewable energy for Bitcoin mining. The meeting included executives from major mining companies like Riot Blockchain, Hut8Mining, Marathon, Galaxy Digital, Argo Blockchain, and many others.
The council will basically work to standardise energy reporting, pursue industry ESG goals, and educate/grow the Bitcoin marketplace.
Judging by global Bitcoin mining hashrate stats, the number of miners in North America is no match to those in China. However, many people believe that the formation of the council is a big step towards driving Bitcoin to cleaner energy.
Will Tesla Restart Accepting Bitcoin Payments?
The quest and criticism on the source of Bitcoin energy became mainstream debate after Elon Musk announced that his electric car company would no longer accept Bitcoin as a form of payment for their products over environmental concerns. The announcement caused quite a notable drop in the price of Bitcoin (BTC), possibly leading into the recent massive correction.
Will the movement towards a “greener Bitcoin” prompt Tesla to reopen the possibility for customers to pay in BTC? Only time will tell, meanwhile Elon commented on the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Council, saying “potentially promising”.
Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.
