Category: Crypto News

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Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum

Ethereum Outperformed Bitcoin by 50% in April 2021

Ethereum Flips Bitcoin With Over $20 Billion USD in Trading Volume

Ethereum (ETH) has seen more growth in market value than Bitcoin (BTC) over the past month.

Recent market data confirmed that Ether’s monthly return for April surpassed that of Bitcoin by almost 50 percent. On a year-to-date (YTD) chart, Ethereum has gained over 350 percent in market value. Below we take a look at the reasons why ETH has performed so well in the past month or so.

This might not be a surprise following the increasing demand for ETH, which pushed the coin to a new all-time high above $3,000 USD.

Ethereum price chart. Source: Coingecko

Although some cryptocurrencies including Ethereum soared in April, the past month was obviously not that favourable for Bitcoin (BTC). For the first time since 2021, Bitcoin posted a negative return of -2.7 percent. BTC declined from $58,889 USD on April 1 to $57,261 on May 1.

Bitcoin price chart. Source: Coingecko

Notably, the price suddenly dropped to about $55,000 USD on April 18, and even further to $49,754 USD on April 23rd, as per data from Coingecko. Since the drop, BTC has struggled to return back to $60,000 USD level.

What’s Behind ETH’s Rise?

One possible reason for the growing price of Ethereum is the fact that the cryptocurrency is becoming more scarce. More ETH are being staked on the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract than mined.

Currently, over 4.14 million ETH has been staked, according to the network explorer beaconcha.in. This represents more than 3.5 percent of the current circulating supply of ETH.

CryptoQuant, a crypto on-chain analytics platform, also confirms the scarcity of ETH. At the moment, there is less than 20 million ETH available on all crypto exchanges. ETH exchange reserve has been declining since Q3 2020, as the price of the coin began increasing.

ETH exchange reserve. Source: CryptoQuant
Categories
Crypto Debit Cards Crypto News

Gemini Partners With Mastercard To Launch World Crypto Rewards Credit Card

Mastercard announces it will release the first credit card with direct cryptocurrency rewards.

Mastercard and WebBank to partner with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini to offer a first-of-a-kind cryptocurrency rewards credit card, with up to 3% in crypto on qualifying purchases. Introduced earlier this year, the Gemini Credit Card has already amassed more than 140,000 people on its waitlist.

“connecting consumer needs with next-generation assets and delivering a ground-breaking experience that redefines the future of card rewards and benefits.”  

Linda Kirkpatrick – president of North America at Mastercard

About the Gemini Credit Card

Gemini is a cryptocurrency exchange, founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss twins in 2014, has now grown into one of the leading exchanges worldwide.

The Gemini rewards card is different to other cards such as the Crypto.com CRO VISA card because it currenty will act as just a credit card, whereas the CRO card acts more like a pre-paid debit card.

Crypto rewards on purchases: 3% back on qualifying purchases in any of over 30 cryptocurrencies available on Gemini. Rewards will be automatically deposited into cardholders’ account

Real-time rewards: Delivery of crypto rewards in real-time (unlike most cards, which pay rewards out monthly)

No annual fee: Combined with 24/7 live customer support to deliver a superior cardholder experience.

Design: A sleek metal card, available in black, silver, or rose gold, with only the cardholder’s name appearing on the card for added security.

World Mastercard® Benefits: Exclusive offers for cardholders with select merchants such as DoorDash, HelloFresh, Lyft and ShopRunner.

“As more consumers look to enter the crypto ecosystem, the Gemini Credit Card gives them an easy point of entry and an effortless way to earn crypto as a reward without changing their daily spending habits.”

Tyler Winklevoss, CEO of Gemini

You can sign up for the card on waitlist on the Gemini website.

Categories
Crypto News Ethereum

Vitalik Now Owns $1 Billion USD Worth of Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), has recently become a crypto billionaire due to the latest ETH price surge – propelling the cryptocurrency to new all-time highs, as well as his main account.

Current balance in Vitalik’s main wallet: Etherscan

The price of ETH at the time of writing is $3,366.89 USD, making the 27-year-old one of the richest men in the world.

1 Month Ethereum Price Change: CoinMarketCap

In 2018 Vitalik disclosed his main address, to show transparency to the ETH community. Addresses like his are usually closely monitored by communities and investors alike to spot a possible sell-off.

Despite his staggering amount of ETH, Buterin’s disclosed wallet is only the 22nd most valuable on the network, according to data from Etherscan. He has also disclosed that he has several smaller wallets.

Ethereum Has Competition

According to DeFi Pulse, over $72 billion USD are now locked in DeFi protocols, many of which are built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum has experience major growth thanks not only to investors but also to what is happening on the blockchain itself.

One of Ethereum’s competitors is Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which is a blockchain developed by one of the world’s largest exchanges. BSC has also experienced massive growth and recently recorded around about 5 million transactions per day, compared to the 1.5 million done by Ethereum.

Binance 3 Month Price Change: CoinMarketCap

BSC also supports dApps and smart contracts, with an average of 105,000 daily active wallets. For reference, Ethereum had an average of 75,000 active wallets per day in early April 2021.

This competition could benefit the crypto ecosystem in general, supporting an increasing adoption of blockchain technologies.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin and Crypto Car Number Plates Becoming Popular In Australia – How To Get One

Personalised crypto number plates are starting to appear around the world on social media as the Bitcoin craze goes mainstream.

You can use almost any phrase as your car registration number plate to make your vehicle stand out. You can create your own number and letter combinations, and restyle your existing number plates as long as you follow the rules for your state.

Let’s take a look at some popular ones and how you can get one in Australia.

Popular Crypto Number Plates In Australia

Crypto enthusiasts all over the world have been promoting Bitcoin and their favourite coins by getting custom car number plates. Here are some of the best one’s we’ve seen in Australia.

Car Spotted in Australia with BITCOIN number plate [reddit / reddit]
HODL number plate spotted in Melbourne Australia [reddit]
MR BTC Victoria state number plate [source]
B1TCOIN Queensland plate for sale $250k [mrplates.com.au]
BANKRPT Melbourne number plates bought with crypto profits [source]

How to Order a Custom Number Plate in Australia?

Let’s take a look at where you can check and order your custom rego plates in Australia.

Personalised Plates Queensland (PPQ)

You can check if the plates you want are available using the PPQ website.

Car plate preview HODL ETH on PPQ

Mr Plates

Mr Plates is also an online marketplace where people sell number plates that they have registered to sell or are no longer using. There can be various reasons for selling custom number plates. Buying the plates online are considerably more expensive than creating your own. However, if your desired one is already registered you might need to buy it off that person.

Some Bitcoin car plates on Mr Plates marketplace

Ebay AU

Some people got in early to register crypto plates and are now selling them on some marketplaces like Ebay. There are some interesting ones for sale in Australia, including HODLNG listed for $10,000 AUD.

A personalised car plate being sold on Ebay
Personalised car plate being sold on Ebay

Gumtree AU

You can also find custom number plates for local sale on Gumtree AU.

Bitcoin number plates for sale on Gumtree
HODLON Victoria state plate for sale [gumtree.com.au]

Trade Unique Cars AU

BUY BTC personalised car plate for sale [tradeuniquecars.com.au]

CafePress AU

One can also get a custom bitcoin frame for your numberplate to add that extra hint of personalisation.

Custom frame examples from CafePress.com.au
Categories
Australia Blockchain Crypto News DeFi

Australian Blockchain Platform Fantom Surpasses 3 Million Transactions

Fantom 3 million transactions
Fantom 3 million transactions https://twitter.com/FantomFDN/status/1388144155520548865

Fantom (FTM) – an Aussie blockchain platform founded in 2018 – has just passed the important milestone of 3 million transactions.

Sitting at a market cap of $2 billion, with each token currently worth $0.71, the Sydney-based DeFi platform has witnessed a staggering growth within the past year, after slowly ramping up operations and getting the word out to eager investors.

Low Fees And Cross-Chain Consensus Compatibility

Technically speaking, the Fantom Blockchain brings a lot to the table. Built around an asynchronous and byzantine fault-tolerant (aBFT) consensus mechanism named Lachesis, it’s possible for developers building their projects for the Cosmos blockchain to ensure compatibility with the Fantom Blockchain as well. New projects can also be easily created on the Fantom blockchain itself.

Fantom is seamlessly integrated with MetaMask and boasts many well-known Ethereum dApps.

Although the low fees set in place by the platform are one of the main selling points, Fantom pride themselves on the speed of their transactions as well. The increase in Fantom’s network activities comes amid the “Go-Opera” network upgrade just a few days ago, which was also aimed at improving the network reliability, efficiency, and transaction speed.

According to Michael Kong (CEO of Fantom), the butterfly effect that helped Fantom reach widespread popularity couldn’t have started without the help of developers who saw Fantom as the best way to bring their projects to fruition.

We’re extremely excited to see developers building on Fantom and people using what they create. Initially, we saw household names from the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem deploying a second instance on Fantom; more recently, we witnessed a surge in people building natively on Fantom, which is a huge sign of confidence. Developers find it easy to build on Fantom, and people love the near-zero fees and instant transactions. The growing popularity created a network effect that pushed Fantom market cap past the $2 billion mark. It’s a major milestone for us.

Michael Kong, CEO of Fantom

The growth of Fantom doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon as it looks like the team behind it will take steps to ensure that their DeFi platform remains a force that can compete with older kids on the block.

Categories
Australia Banking Crypto News Ethereum

Ethereum Is Now Worth More Than Australia’s Big 4 Banks Combined

Ethereum’s market cap is now worth more than Australia’s four largest banks combined after ETH surpassed $3,895 AUD in price — extending above $4,413 AUD on May 3, outpacing Bitcoin and most altcoins.

Ethereum’s market cap, as per Coinmarketcap, is now worth around $490 billion AUD, with a 10% surge in just 24 hours.

Ethereum market cap in AUD Feb-May 2021
Ethereum market cap in AUD Feb-May 2021 [CoinMarketCap]

For comparison, the market cap of Australia’s four largest banks can barely come close to ETH even combined together (according to 2020 data):

  • Commomwealth Bank of Australia (CBA): $122.7 billion AUD
  • Westpact Banking Corp: $60.8 billion AUD
  • NAB (National Australia Bank): $58.3 billion AUD
  • ANZ (Australia and New Zealand Banking Group): $48.8 billion AUD
  • Total market cap combined: $290.6 billion AUD

Ethereum Breaks Price Record After the Crash

After most crypto-assets tumbled in April’s market crash, ETH recovered quickly and remained above $2,500 USD.

One recent key event for Ethereum’s adoption was the European Investment Bank (EIB) announcing the issuance of $121 million USD digital bonds using the Ethereum blockchain.

Some analytsts suggest that growth of Ethereum has been quite organic over the last few months. The Network Value to Transaction (NVT) ratio indicates the relationship between network value and daily transaction volume. In the case of Ethereum, the NVT ratio looks on a downtrend.

This might have been due to a number of factors, including the activation of the Berlin fork or the growing popularity of decentralised exchanges like Uniswap (UNI) requiring Ethereum for many token swaps.

Categories
Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News

Bitcoin Transaction Fees Are Coming Back Down From $60 to $20

Bitcoin (BTC) network fees reached an all-time high on 21 April which was just under $60 USD average per transaction. These have now subsided close to the current average of around $20 USD.

During the week of 21 April the Bitcoin hashrate drop was one of the major reasons the transaction price shot up. Since then, transaction prices have been going back to the normal as backlogged transactions have been completed and the hashpower restored.

1 Month Bitcoin Average Transaction Fee: Ycharts
3 Year Bitcoin Average Transaction Fee: BitInfoCharts

Different Perspectives on Fees

There are some supporters of higher fees, they believe that an increase in fees will also increase the amount of individuals/companies that want to mine Bitcoin which is essentially a good thing for decentralisation.

Sustained high fees are expected and necessary to prevent denial of service (spam) attacks that can threaten decentralization and therefore censorship resistance. Sustained high fees will secure the Bitcoin network long term. Fees are designed to pump forever. Embrace them.

Matt Odell, Co-Founder of CoinPrices.io [source]

The opposition argues that higher fees can threaten centralisation by scaring people away because they can’t afford the fees. The fewer people adopt Bitcoin the less need there will be to run nodes to process many transactions. This could also push users toward alternative blockchains which cater more to everyday users.

But now that consumer hardware for mining is becoming more popular there is an opportunity for individuals and businesses to play a part in the network.

For reference, other coins have different network fees:

Read more about this in a recent test transferring $100 AUD using different cryptocurrencies to discover the actual fees.

Categories
Crypto News Crypto Wallets Cryptocurrencies DeFi

Crypto Wallet Metamask Reaches 5 Million Active Users

MetaMask
MetaMask

MetaMask is one of the most popular crypto wallets at the moment as it’s active monthly users reaches a massive 5 million milestone.

Powered by the Ethereum blockchain, MetaMask sports a flashy yet welcoming user interface which provides easy access to cryptocurrencies and tokens, especially DeFi and NFTs.

In a recent blog post, the team announced that MetaMask had reached a total number of 5 million active users – and reiterated their commitment to keeping the internet accessible to all.

“We cannot express how honoured we are to continue democratizing access to Web 3.0, and we look forward to serving the millions more users that are joining the decentralized web. This growth opens the possibility of a more ethical internet where people control their own data and identities, can build communities, and freely associate with one another through interactions that are empowering and based on consent.”

Metamask

Could DeFi Compete With The Banks?

One of the main vectors identified in the post for the growth of Metamask’s user base is the adoption of DeFi – specifically by those in countries where banks and financial services are lacklustre – if they exist at all.

Although in places such as Australia, China, the USA and the EU a bank account is more or less a necessity in this day and age, things are somewhat different elsewhere. For instance, 54% of people living in South America do not have access to bank accounts. This is not only due to denial of service by banks – many simply do not trust either their national banks or private banks operating locally.

As a result, many of these citizens have turned to cryptocurrency and DeFi as a way to store their assets, make investments, and take care of their daily expenses.

Following a rise in popularity that brought MetaMask to 1 million users by October 2020, their userbase has continued to grow exponentially – leading to the current figure of 5 million monthly users, carrying out transactions worth $2 billion within the past 6 months.

Categories
Australia Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Data

26% Of Aussies are Trading in Cryptocurrency – Nine News Report

A recent report by Nine News claims as much as 26% of Aussies are trading cryptocurrencies.

“Ca$h is King” has been replaced with “Bitcoin is King”, as more and more average people jump on to ride the new wave of digital gold and seek financial freedom.

60 Minutes About Bitcoin by Nine News – source

Market volatility and wild fluctuations in Bitcoin’s price are proving no deterrent for newcommers looking to get into the cryptocurrency space. The industry continues to thrive, despite governments and major corporations around the world continuing their attempts to stifle the innovation of decentralised finance, through rules and regulations; with discussion of some countries even wanting to ban cryptocurrency altogether.

Aussie Crypto Entrepreneur Sergei Has Made Over $100 Million in Bitcoin

The Nine News story also covers Russian born Sergei Sergienko and his Bitcoin fortune. The popular Clubhouse speaker invested into Bitcoin when it was as low as $6 and has been accumulating and trading it ever since, taking his profits into the millions.

Sergei Sergienko – CEO of Chrono.tech

Aussies Interest In Cryptocurrencies Continues to Grow

The data suggests that crypto is very popular in Australia, as we reported earlier in the year that 45% of Australians invested in crypto “Because it’s going up in value” and an estimated 5 million aussies will own crypto in 2021.

Breaking new records and hitting all time highs, Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization has surpassed $2 trillion. There is now more money circulating in cryptocurrency in this quarter alone, than in the entire preceding year of 2020.

Caitlin Carey – Crypto News Guest Author

Categories
Crypto News Payments

eBay is Considering Accepting Cryptocurrency as Payment Option

eBay is Considering Accepting Cryptocurrencies as a Payment Option

One of the world’s leading e-commerce giants eBay is now considering accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a payment option. Reuters reported the new development on Monday, citing the Chief Executive Officer, Jamie Lannone.

eBay is Open to Accepting Crypto Payments

While speaking with CNBC, the CEO of the online shopping platform disclosed that the company was considering adding new payment options for its millions of customers. Among other payment options, the company enlisted digital currencies as a potential payment method.

This is an important development for the cryptocurrency space, given eBay’s popularity and user base. As of mid-2019, the e-commerce platforms recorded over 182 million users worldwide. Supporting cryptocurrency as a payment method creates more room for mainstream adoption of digital currencies. This will also add to the list of major e-commerce platforms where users can pay for items using their cryptocurrencies.

In addition to supporting cryptos, Lannone also disclosed in the interview that the e-commerce company is also considering “ways to get into the business of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)”.

More Platforms to Pay With Cryptocurrency

eBay news today comes some days after the online payment giant, PayPal, announced that its users can now check out from supported shops with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. In a separate development, Dan Schulman, the CEO of PayPal, admitted to a rapidly-growing demand for cryptocurrencies. He said the “demand on the crypto side has been multiple-fold to what we initially expected”.

In Australia, more companies are increasingly supporting cryptocurrencies as a payment method for their customers. Some of the Aussie companies accepting crypto payment include the NBN Internet RSP Launtel, Queensland Solar and Lighting, Dream PC Australia, Pet Parlour Australian Online Pet Shop, and so on.