Category: Crypto News

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Bitcoin Crypto News

CFO of World’s Largest Hedge Fund, John Dalby, Joins Bitcoin Company NYDIG

CFO of World's Largest Hedge Fund, John Dalby, Joins Bitcoin Company NYDIG

John Dalby, the Chief Financial Officer of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, is joining a Bitcoin company, New York Digital Investment Group or NYDIG.

Bridgewater CFO Joins The Crypto Space

According to the announcement of Friday, Dalby has been appointed to serve as the new Chief Financial Officer at NYDIG. The company considers Dalby as valuable personnel, whose rich experience in the financial services industry will help to accelerate the growth of its institutional Bitcoin solutions.

Personally, I share NYDIG’s vision for Bitcoin’s ability to propel economic empowerment for all. I eagerly look forward to doing my part to help NYDIG deliver innovative Bitcoin solutions to institutions and individuals.

Dalby commented.

Fintech Execs Are Becoming Interested in Bitcoin

NYDIG specializes in Bitcoin investment and technology solutions for financial institutions like insurers, banks, and HNW individuals. Some people, including the co-founder and CEO of NYDIG, Robert Gutmann, see Dalby’s appointment as a sign that financial executives are becoming convinced of Bitcoin (BTC).

Working on Bitcoin is increasingly what many of the best and brightest employees seek – including industry leaders like John – and NYDIG is uniquely positioned to offer them the platform, resources, and culture to shine, in pursuit of our collective mission to bring Bitcoin safely to everyone.

Gutmann said.

Dalby’s appointment comes at a time where NYDIG sees massive growth in its operations and services. Recently, the company announced a global Insurance Solutions aimed at developing bitcoin-powered products and services for the insurance industry. Also, NYDIG recently raised over $300 million USD from major financial companies, including MassMutual, Morgan Stanley, Stone Ridge Holdings Group, and many others.

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Crypto News Cryptocurrencies DeFi NFTs

New DeFi Token $CUMMIES Targets The Adult Industry

CumRocket is a new DeFi project that is aiming to disrupt the adult industry, by creating their own private subscription platform (similar to competitor OnlyFans) and NFT marketplace.

$CUMMIES – the project’s deflationary DeFi crypto token, reached its climax this week at $0.285 on the 5th of May, which is over a 1,000% increase for the week.

CUMROCKET CRYPTO price chart [CoinMarketCap]

The $CUMMIES DeFi Token

$CUMMIES is a “reflect” DeFi token on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) powered by DEGENR – which means there is a fee applied to each transaction (in this case 5%), with half of the fee burned, and the other is redistributed to token holders.

Using $CUMMIES as the tipping currency on our NSFW platforms encourages more transactions.

cumrocketcrypto.com

According to CumRocket’s website, their service allows for a level of anonymity that ​“other popular platforms fail to provide”.

The token will be used for tipping, messaging, custom request and currency on their NSFW content platforms and their NFT marketplace.

In Q3 they will be launching a platform where adult creators can sell their private content for a monthly or yearly fee. And they also aim to have an exchange up and running in the near future. You can see their roadmap for more information.

Does The Project Have Legs?

The $CUMMIES token was launched via Dxsale by a public developer who is also an influencer in the TikTok space with over 24k followers.

The British software engineer Lydia, who announced its creation via TikTok on 4th April, saw less than three weeks later, CumRocket surge 634% in a single day, taking its market cap to over $140 million.

These increases might be due to novelty as well as the fact that it’s NSFW which usually turns an eye.

However, this brand new NSFW cryptocurrency, some might mistake for a meme-coin but the team explained in an live stream that they plan to disrupt the adult industry in a massive way.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum Gold

Bitcoin is a Store of Value, Ethereum is Powering the Crypto Economy

Bitcoin and Ethereum: The World’s Largest Cryptos

They are the King and Queen of the crypto market and for very good reasons, and can’t really be compared directly because they have very different uses cases – as explained below.

  • Bitcoin is a store of value asset
  • Ethereum is a framework powering crypto projects

Both BTC and ETH adoption is now going mainstream and it’s important that we understand the purpose of them so we don’t compare apples with oranges when deciding between them.

Bitcoin is a store of value asset

Bitcoin was originally designed to be a transactional peer-to-peer cash system as per Satoshi’s Bitcoin whitepaper. However, it has since been altered into a store of value as it cannot cope with the scaling of transactions as transaction fees soar.

Having a limited supply of 21 million Bitcoin on the BTC blockchain, and a decreasing supply – this makes it a scarce asset, and therefore, valuable to investors. Learn more about Bitcoin.

Investors worldwide have realised alternative Bitcoins store of value and been adding BTC to their personal portfolios, while institutions have been adding it to their balance sheets.

Ethereum is powering the crypto economy

Ethereum on the other hand, was developed to address the “flaws” of Bitcoin and has evolved dramatically over the past few years into “programmable money”, as per the Ethereum whitepaper.

Ethereum powers crypto projects and ecosystems:

Ethereum also is set to become a deflationary asset as it upgrades to Ethereum 2.0 hardfork in July 2021. This will see some Ether “burned” on every transaction, decreasing it’s supply.

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Bitcoin Crypto News

Biggest Latin American E-commerce Firm MercadoLibre Bought $7.8 Million Bitcoin in Q1

Biggest Latin American E-commerce Giant MercadoLibre Bought $7.8 Million Bitcoin, according to their Q1 financial statement published earlier this week.

The largest e-commerce company in Latin America, MercadoLibre, has revealed that it is holding some Bitcoin (BTC) as part of its treasury reserve. The company made this known as the largest online commerce and payments ecosystem in Latin America.

MercadoLibre Added Bitcoin to its Reserve in Q1

The company purchased $7.8 million worth of Bitcoin as part of its treasury reserve in the first quarter of 2021, although the exact date of the purchase wasn’t disclosed.

As part of our treasury strategy this quarter we purchased $7.8 million in bitcoin, a digital asset that we are disclosing within our indefinite-lived intangible assets.

MercadoLibre precisely noted.

MercadoLibre is considered the Alibaba of Latin America. The Argentina-based e-commerce giant sees nearly 70 million users and a market capitalization of over $73 million. Owing to its popularity, we can expect more companies in Latin America to follow suit by adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet.

Many companies, including Tesla, added Bitcoin to their treasury reserve this year, as a better store of value. Some bought Bitcoin to hedge against inflation.

Interest in Bitcoin Soars in Argentina

It even makes sense that MercadoLibre bought Bitcoin in the first quarter of the year, just when the rate of inflation increased in Argentina. The national currency has been deflating in value as the inflation rate in Argentina soars to over 40 percent.

Interestingly, the concern for the declining value of the currency has sparked a high level of interest in Bitcoin amongst Argentines, as they seek a viable alternative to hedge against inflation. This is evident as crypto exchanges are seeing an increase in user accounts from Argentines who are investing in cryptocurrencies.

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Blockchain Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Institutions

University Allocates $4 Million To Cryptocurrency Staking To Produce Cashflow

In a world first, The University of Wyoming in the USA, has allocated USD 4 million to stake at least three cryptocurrencies to generate revenue to address the cost of public education, as per the official announcement.

Caitlin Long, an appointee of Wyoming Blockchain and Fintech Select Committee and founder of Avanti Bank & Trust, took to Twitter with the big news.

Millions into Crypto Staking

The University of Wyoming is the world’s first to spend millions to operate nodes and earn cryptocurrencies. Profits will cover operating expenses and the university’s Strategic Investments and Projects Account (SIPA).

According to the document, the university will run the staking program with an established “Cryptocurrency Advisory Council,” hosted by leaders of the state’s select committee on Blockchain.

Funding Blockchain Programs Across Wyoming

If profits surge above 4 million USD, the university will use the extra revenue to fund blockchain programs and other activities at the university and community colleges across Wyoming.

Users on Twitter speculate that Cardano (ADA) is one of these three tokens, considering IOHK, the company behind Cardano, donated USD 500,000 to support the University of Wyoming’s Blockchain Research and Development Lab.

Will we see other institutions follow Wyoming university and start to stake cryptocurrencies to produce cashflow?

Categories
Bitcoin Gold Crypto News Market Analysis Trading

Bitcoin Gold Surges +200% In 30 Days as Binance adds more trading pairs for BTG

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) is trading in an uptrend here like many other altcoins. The Cryptocurrency BTG just went up +73% in a week by breaking a Rising wedge pattern with strong buying volume and surges over +200% in 30 days.

What is Bitcoin Gold?

Bitcoin Gold was founded in 2017 to become a user-friendly alternative to Bitcoin. The BTG network aims to combine the security and sturdiness of the Bitcoin blockchain and its characteristics with the opportunity for experimentation and development.

BTG enhances and extends the crypto space with a blockchain closely compatible with Bitcoin but without using resources like Bitcoin hash power or vying for the “real Bitcoin” title. The company aims to present a coin with the implementation capabilities of Bitcoin, however, expanding on the opportunities for DeFi and DApp developers to use the coin.

BTG Price Analysis

At the time of writing, BTG is ranked 54th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $200.21 AUD. This is a +73% increase since 30th April 2021 (7 days ago) as shown in the chart below.

Source: TradingView

After looking at the above 4-hour candle chart, we can clearly see that BTG was trading sideways and broke out from the rising wedge pattern on the BTG/USDT pair. The first resistance was on the $95 AUD price levels which BTG broke with a strong bullish trend & buying volume and is now heading towards the next resistance. BTG could continue the uptrend as many other altcoins are waking up bullish this week.

“A rising wedge is a technical indicator, suggesting a reversal pattern frequently seen in bear markets. This pattern shows up in charts when the price moves upward with pivot highs and lows converging toward a single point known as the apex. […] This pattern has a familiar look to a bear flag.” – Larry Swing on Investopedia [source]

What do the Technical Indicators say?

The BTG TradingView indicators (on the 1-day window) mainly indicate BTG as a strong buy, except the Oscillators which indicate BTG as a buy.

Why did BTG Breakout?

General market sentiment seems to suggest cryptos are in the middle of the bull run season, which could have contributed to the recent breakout. Another reason for this sudden pump in price could be whales secretly buying BTG for the next Altcoins rally. It could also have contributed to some of the recent news of Binance added BTG/USDT and BTG/BUSD trading pairs.

Another reason for the price movement in BTG could be its ticker’s similarity with a new Bitcoin fund from Brazillian investment bank BTG Pactual, which is teaming up with the Winklevoss brothers’ Gemini exchange,

Where to Buy or Trade BTG?

Bitcoin Gold has the highest liquidity on the Binance exchange so that would help for trading BTG/BTC or BTG/USDT pairs. However, if you’re just looking at buying some quick and HODLing then Swyftx exchange is a popular choice in Australia.

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Crypto News Fan Tokens

$UFC Fan Tokens Set To Launch on Chilliz Blockchain

UFC Fan Tokens Set To Launch on Chilliz Blockchain

The world’s biggest mixed martial arts organization, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has officially announced its launch for a UFC fan token, in partnership with Chiliz.

UFC considers the creations of its fan token as one of the ways to connect and boost engagement with global fans.

$UFC Fan Token Set to Launch in June

The UFC Fan Token will be launched in June on Socios, a fan engagement and rewards mobile app which is co-founded with Chiliz. The token will be developed on the Chiliz blockchain, and only 20 million of $UFC Fan Token will ever exist.

We are continually looking for ways to increase engagement with our fans. […] UFC has more than 625 million fans around the world, and Fan Tokens are a unique way to connect with them through a compelling, authentic product that brings them closer to UFC and gives them influence, while also rewarding their passion for the sport.

Tracey Bleczinski, one of the officials at UFC, commented.

As with other fan tokens, holders of $UFC will be able to access some of the exclusive contents offered by UFC, including VIP rewards and fan voting opportunities.

The Fan Token Ecosystem is Growing Rapidly

Chiliz has seen immense growth in its fan token ecosystem. The growing network of Chiliz led to about a 7,000 percent increase in the price of Chiliz (CHZ) within three months.

It’s interesting to note that the sole purpose of increasing fans’ engagement is resulting in more adoption of cryptocurrency in the sports industry. UFC only adds to the list of major sports entities to launch a digital currency. In March, Crypto News Australia reported that Manchester City has also launched its fan token dubbed $CITY.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Digital Asset Mining Ethereum Institutions Investing

New Chinese Investment Fund Launches To Entice Asian Institutions Into Crypto

Huobi Asset Management Launches one of Asia’s Largest Virtual Asset Funds as announced on South China Morning Post.

Huobi (Hong Kong) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huobi Technology Holdings Limited and is one of the largest virtual asset funds in Asia, looking to meet the growing demand for cypto based investments. Huobi leads the way in the movement of intitutional adoption into cryptocurrency for the Asian market.

Following Grayscale (US), Huobi Asset Management is aimed at professional investors, offering them a virtual assets portfolio. Huobi Asset Management’s new crypto-based funds include a BTC tracker fund, ETH tracker fund, and a multi-strategy virtual asset fund.

Huobi is the second fund manager to receive approval from the Securities and Futures Commission to issue 100% virtual asset funds. Head of Huobi Asset Management, Gillian Wu, explains how the fund could be ideal for the new type of investor, looking to enter the cryptocurrency market.

“According to the professional investors’ knowledge level and risk appetite of virtual assets, we will advise our clients to choose the fund products that best suit their needs. For institutional, especially corporate clients, they want to allocate to virtual assets through a convenient and compliant channel to achieve diversification needs. 

Our Bitcoin and Ethereum tracker fund, in the way of traditional financial products, solves the worries of clients who have to research on their own how to custody, how to account, how to audit this novel asset class and whether there are tax uncertainties, etc. At the same time, some ultra-high net worth individual clients, as well as some large virtual asset miners, who have previously been passively holding their virtual assets, started to look for options to achieve better returns through different market cycles compared to simple passive allocation, thus our active multi-strategy virtual asset fund is born.” 

Gillian Wu

The first pioneers to shine a light on investing in cryptocurrencies were individual retailers. As Bitcoin and Ethereum become more well known and widely adopted, it is only natural that major institutions turn their attention to the crypto space and adapt to follow the trend.

Huobi will offer piece of mind to serious investors, as demand grows for those looking to invest millions. Huobi’s new fund will likely enjoy the success of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, which has been very well received.

Institutions Going Pro Crypto?

Below is a table of the recent cryptocurrency purchases by Institutions.

DateInvestorAmount
28 AprilNexon$100 Million
8 Apr 2021*Meitu$100 Million*
5 Apr 2021MicroStrategy$15 Million
18 Mar 2021Meitu$49 Million
12 Mar 2021*Purpose Bitcoin ETF AUM$900 Million*
12 Mar 2021MicroStrategy$15 Million
8 Mar 2021*Aker ASA$58 Million*
7 Mar 2021Meitu$40 Million
5 Mar 2021MicroStrategy$10 Million
Categories
Crypto News Dogecoin

Dogecoin Fans Are Getting Nervous About Elon Musk’s SNL Appearance

Is boom and bust part of the circle of life - or can Elon truly take Doge to the moon? (Image: Elon Musk/ Twitter)

He’s the ever-so-slightly eccentric billionaire whose fondness for Dogecoin has helped to send it soaring on a skyhigh price rally.

Now Doge fans are worried that Elon Musk’s appearance on Saturday Night Live will send the canine cryptocurrency anywhere but “to the moon”.

Forums and social media are ablaze with wild rumours that Elon will use his SNL gig to tell the world about Dogecoin, which hit a record high of more than $.58 and celebrated the milestone of reaching one million Twitter followers.

However, it’s feared that the SNL publicity boost for Doge could cause an unsustainable price rally and subsequent crash, wiping out new investors’ savings and rocking wider confidence in crypto.

One analyst said it was extremely likely that Elon would get involved in some sort of crypto-related stunt when he stands in as host of SNL on May 8.

“Dogecoin is surging because many cryptocurrency traders do not want to miss out on any buzz that stems from Elon Musk’s hosting of Saturday Night Live. Also known as the Dogefather, Musk will undoubtedly have a sketch on cryptocurrencies that will probably go viral for days and further motivate his army of followers to try to send Dogecoin to the moon.“

Ed Moya, Senior Market Analyst for The Americas at OANDA

On Reddit, reflections on the possible significance of Musk’s hosting of SNL were less muted.

One Reddit user made the unsubstantiated and false claim that Musk and SNL were involved in some sort of complex Dogecoin investment strategy.

“Put on your tin hats people,” he wrote before making some strong and slightly strange claims which cannot be published for very obvious legal reasons.

“Do you have any hope that there will be some educational value in Elon Musk’s Saturday Night Live appearance?” asked one hopeful Reddit user called Excalibug.

“Wouldn’t it be great if he and the writers of the show could explain significance and real world uses of blockchain (apart from making people rich overnight)?”

Not everyone was optimistic.

“Calling it now,” replied CryptoBumGuy.

“Musk won’t say anything about Doge and the price will have a sharp dip.”

Others warned that an Elon Musk Doge shoutout would cause a boom and bust which would send reverberations throughout the crypto economy.

“When Doge crashes, investors that actually thought Doge had potential and wasn’t just a meme are going to hurt the industry. They will take this L and make it seem all crypto is like Doge.

“This could lead to a huge crash for the entirety of the crypto market. Ignorant investors will kill us all.“

Reddit user JinToxi

Jasper Hamill – Crypto News Guest Author

Categories
Banking Bitcoin Crypto News Investing

Bitcoin Set To Be Supported By Hundreds of USA Banks This Year

NYDIG is an American based intitutional financial services company planning to bring crypto services to hundreds of American banks by the end of 2021.

Banks are asking for bitcoin because they can see their customers sending dollars to Coinbase and other crypto exchanges.

Yan Zhao, president of NYDIG

The annoucement on 5th May, details a partnership with technology company Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) to bring Bitcoin custody and trading services to banks via the FIS Digital One Mobile user-friendly interface.

Founded in 2017, the company is a subsidiary of asset management firm Stone Ridge (currently valued at $10 billion). NYDIG has declared that the demand for crypto in bank accounts is growing – and that they’re prepared to answer it.

“As demand for bitcoin as a store of value continues to grow, FIS is focused on enabling our core banking clients to respond to growing market demand and better serve their customers,” said Rob Lee, head of Global Core Banking and Channels, FIS. “Unlocking these capabilities for financial institutions of all sizes levels the playing field for banking with bitcoin and can drive further innovation.”

Rob Lee, head of Global Core Banking and Channels

The Road Ahead for USA Crypto Banking

Smaller banks, such as California-based community bank Suncrest, have already agreed to try out the NYDIG platform.

According to Patrick Sells – the head of banking solutions at NYDIG – the service would help cut down on the number of apps and accounts needed to purchase crypto.

What we’re doing is making it simple for everyday Americans and corporations to be able to buy bitcoin through their existing bank relationships. If I’m using my mobile application to do all of my banking, now I have the ability to buy, sell and hold bitcoin.

Patrick Sells, head of banking solutions at NYDIG

Yan Zhao – the president of NYDIG – also added that although banks seeing their customers’ accounts emptied in favour of crypto exchanges may have been the catalyst behind the rising demand for crypto banking services, NYDIG also sees this as a way to help any interested parties invest in Bitcoin, no matter how low the sum.

Most people can’t invest in things that institutional investors get to invest in. With bitcoin available through your bank to be purchased with as little as $1, now you have an attractive asset that’s available to be owned by anyone in any amount. We think that’s huge for economic empowerment.

Yan Zhao, the president of NYDIG

In practice, it looks like the banks involved in the project won’t handle the cryptocurrency themselves, just adding the option to their bundle of available services. Instead, FIS will use its vendor services to handle the link to lenders, with NYDIG managing the crypto side of things (custody and trade execution).

Banking Going Pro Crypto?

It seems not long ago Banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan were dismissing crypto, even calling it a fraud – and now they have both recently started taking blockchain and crypto more seriously.

Below is a table of the recent cryptocurrency purchases by Institutions.

DateInvestorAmount
28 AprilNexon$100 Million
8 Apr 2021*Meitu$100 Million*
5 Apr 2021MicroStrategy$15 Million
18 Mar 2021Meitu$49 Million
12 Mar 2021*Purpose Bitcoin ETF AUM$900 Million*
12 Mar 2021MicroStrategy$15 Million
8 Mar 2021*Aker ASA$58 Million*
7 Mar 2021Meitu$40 Million
5 Mar 2021MicroStrategy$10 Million
Recent Institution Crypto Purchases List