Category: Crypto News

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Bitcoin Crypto News

Real Estate Company Partners With Gemini To Accept Bitcoin for Rent

American businessman and real estate manager Rick Caruso will allow its tenants to rent his properties with Bitcoin, starting with the Grove shopping centre and other Los Angeles properties.

As reported by the LA Times, Caruso Properties has partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini to handle all of its crypto payment operations and has invested 1% of its treasury in Bitcoin as part of the partnership.

Gemini Interview with Rick Caruso on CNBC

Elon Musk Could Be The First Visitor To Pay Rent with BTC

Caruso Properties is the first real estate company to accept bitcoin as payment, and Caruso also owns the property that houses the Tesla dealership in the Americana, at Brand centre in Glendale, California.

I haven’t talked to Elon about it. He may be the first, as a pioneer, to pay his rent in bitcoin.

Rick Caruso

Bitcoin Is Similar to Credit Cards in the 1950s

Surprisingly, Caruso added that there had not been demand from tenants to pay rent with bitcoin, but he sees a great opportunity in crypto assets and their technology, comparing them to credit cards in the 1950s when it was considered odd to use them but they soon became mainstream:

I believe bitcoin and blockchain are going to be doing the same in the future. We want to be ahead of the curve.

Rick Caruso

When Will Australia Follow Suit?

Some Australian businesses are now accepting cryptocurrencies as payment, but to our knowledge there are not yet any real estate companies accepting rent in bitcoin.

One thing for certain is that the institutional adoption of crypto assets has increased tremendously since payment companies such as PayPal allowed custody of digital assets and exchanging them for fiat to buy anywhere around the world.

Many in the crypto community believe expect that crypto payments and adoption will expand further as cryptocurrencies become better known and accepted in the mainstream.

Categories
Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News

Have Bitcoin Miners Now Stopped Selling and are HODLing Their Coins?

Bullish: Bitcoin Miner Net Position Change Still Positive

Bitcoin miners are still not selling new BTC, according to on-chain data from Glassnode, a crypto analytics company. Since the past few days, the miner net position change has remained positive, showing that miners are HOLDing their coins, despite the fact that more mining machines recently went online on the BTC network. 

Bitcoin Hash rate ATH

About a week ago, Crypto News Australia reported an increase in Bitcoin mining hash rate at 165.992 million Tera Hash per second (TH/s), which is the highest point. This simply means that more mining machines are currently active on the Bitcoin network to mine the cryptocurrency. Most of these miners, however, prefer HODLing their rewards than depositing to exchanges for selling, as seen in the BTC miner net position change.

Bitcoin: Miner Net Position Change [Glassnode]

There’s also an uptick in BTC miner unspent supply, which covers new Bitcoin that hasn’t been moved from the original mining addresses, confirming that miners are becoming strong hands. 

Bitcoin: Miner Unspent Supply [Glassnode]

The increasing price of Bitcoin could be one factor why miners prefer to HODL their rewards at this time. Miners reasonably need to sell some of their Bitcoin profits to cover the expenses incurred during operation, such as electricity bills. By not selling BTC, it seems to convey how confident and bullish they are on the cryptocurrency.

A Bullish Sign for BTC Market?

Noteworthily, miners are the gateway for new Bitcoin to enter the market. As they continue to stack more coins, the cryptocurrency might become more scarce, yet still in high demand. This is quite a healthy and bullish indicator for the Bitcoin market in the long-term, as scarcity often drives up the market value of an asset with huge demand.

Bitcoin is already becoming scarce as many investors are continually moving out their coins from exchange for HODLing. Data from CryptoQuant shows that there is less than 2.3 million BTC in all exchanges.

Bitcoin price vs reserve [CryptoQuant]
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Crypto News NFTs

“Shark Tank”-Style Program To Invest $1 Million for New NFT Project Ideas with Celebrities As Judges

Sound Ventures, a venture capital fund, is launching a “Shark Tank”-style program to audition NFT project ideas, offering $1 million for the winner.

The judging panel comprises Aston Kutcher and Guy Oseary, both co-founders of Sound Ventures, billionaire Mark Cuban, and Musicians like Snoop Dogg and 3LAU.

A $1 Million Investment for the Winner

Like Shark Tank, anyone with an NFT idea, whether a service or a product, can pitch the project to a judging panel. The program will be held virtually on April 21. Aspirants will have time to submit their applications until April 12.

Judging Panel of Sound Ventures

According to the announcement, amounts and terms will vary by company, and not every ideal will receive an investment. The event is private, and only applicants will be participating in it.

Two other essential judges are Whale Shark, a 38-year-old NFT collector who recently tokenized his vault containing valuable digital collectibles, and Vignesh Sundaresan, known as MetaKovan, the anonymous buyer of Beeple’s $69 million NFT sold at Christie’s.

NFT Taking the Mainstream by Storm

The NFT movement has expanded and now calling the attention of wealthy investors, influencers, billionaires musicians, such as Mark Cuban, Kings of Leon, Snoop Dogg, and many others.

NFL (National Football League) stars are also joining the NFT space. The seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady recently announced launching an NFT platform called Autograph, onboarding advisors from Apple, DraftKings, and Spotify.

What are NFTs and Why They Have Become so Popular?

As explained in our guide, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are different from regular crypto-assets as they can only be used to represent ownership of unique items that can be traded on Ethereum marketplaces. NFTs cannot be exchanged with one another because each item is a unique digital asset.

Decentraland, an NFT-powered virtual world and videogame, has become an attractive digital environment for crypto-enthusiast where they can own parcels of LAND, as well as buying, selling, and auctioning NFT collectibles with the community. The protocol also announced a layer-two bridge for MANA token transfers, enabling users to move MANA tokens to Polygon and back.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum

Bitcoin and Major Altcoins Drove Crypto Market Cap to $2 Trillion Within Months

Bitcoin, Major Altcoins Drove Crypto Market Cap to $2 Trillion Within Months

It was a historical moment for cryptocurrency enthusiasts on Monday when the global crypto market capitalization crossed $2 trillion. What’s more interesting is that it only took a few months for the crypto market to reach the second $1 trillion than the initial time, which took close to a decade. 

Total market capitalisation [CoinGecko]

The growth of the cryptocurrency market results from the recent increases in the market value of top cryptocurrencies since the beginning of the year, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

Bitcoin Accounts for Over 50% of Crypto Market Cap

There are over five thousand cryptocurrencies that made up the $2 trillion market capitalization on CoinGecko. However, the first-ever cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), accounts for over 50 percent of the entire market. During press time, BTC had a total valuation of US$1.057 trillion. 

BTC has seen an exponential kind of increase since the start of 2021. A market 2021 quarter one report by Crypto News Australia informed Bitcoin was the best-performing asset with over 100 percent increase in value.

Bitcoin chart [CoinGecko]

The price of Ether, which is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, increased by over 170 percent on a year-to-date (YTD) chart. ETH has a market capitalization of $229 billion, which represents 12.4 percent of the entire crypto market cap.

Ethereum chart [CoinGecko]

A few other major altcoins to note are Bitcoin Coin (BNB), Polkadot (DOT), Cardano (ADA), and Ripple (XRP), all of which have seen a massive increase in value since 2021.

Institutions are investing in crypto

The swift growth of the cryptocurrency market is indicative of active institutional players. It’s worth mentioning that institutions played a significant role in recent rallies in the crypto market. Last year, Bitcoin skyrocketed as big-name companies, including MicroStrategy, Square, MassMutual, etc., allocated part of their cash reserve to it. 

In 2021, more institutions and deep-pocketed investors began flooding into the market, especially in BTC, such as Tesla. The growth in crypto investment products like Grayscale’s Trusts indicates the interest of risk-minded investors in the market.

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Australia Crypto News Cryptocurrency Tax Swyftx

CoinTracking Adds Tax Support For Swyftx Traders

Users of Swyftx, one of the leading cryptocurrency trading platforms in Australia, can now benefit from a service to help them cut down on the hours spent filling out spreadsheets to comply with the tax office requirements.

Since the ATO declared cryptocurrencies as a form of property – therefore making holdings and gains taxable – a sizable amount of traders were reluctantly torn away from candles and graphs to a possibly less fun type of tracking.

Importing Your Transaction Data

Although there are a number of software tools that can help you easily import your transaction data to help you calculate what you may owe the taxman, an integration with a platform you might already be using may help you save some more time.

Earlier this week, CoinTracking announced their integration of the Swyftx API, which will allow Swyftx users to track their trades for any and all purposes.

Considered the world’s first tool dedicated to crypto tax reporting, the team at CoinTracking boasts over a hundred tax professionals that are regularly consulted with to ensure users are kept up to speed.

CoinTracking was founded in 2012 and went online in April 2013 as the world’s first cryptocurrency tax reporting tool and portfolio manager. The company was started with the goal of making cryptocurrency traders’ lives easier – not only during tax season. Since its inception, CoinTracking has accumulated over 802,000 users with currently 24.7 billion US-Dollars total worth of all portfolios. Its worldwide professional network consists of more than 160 tax advisors and tax lawyers to assist with international tax filing.

CoinTracking

On their end, Swyftx – as they call themselves, “the Australian Crypto Exchange that gives a ****” – have shown yet again their commitment to improving the trading experience for their users.

If you’ve been putting off filings out of a sense of dread when confronted with endless rows of numbers, this fresh implementation might be what you need.

Categories
Bitcoin Crypto News Korea

South Korean BTC “Kimchi Premium” Plummets After Soaring Over 23%

South Korean BTC 'Kimchi Premium' Plummets After Soaring Over 23%

Crypto trading on South Korean exchanges began increasingly since the amended crypto regulation became effective in March. Possibly due to the crypto resurgence in the country, the price of Bitcoin significantly surged way beyond the price in the global market, as seen in the so-called “Kimchi Premium,” which is an indicator measuring the premium of the Bitcoin price across South Korea, compared to the global market.

Bitcoin Traded at Over $70,000 in Korea

Following a 23 percent increase in Kimchi premium, Bitcoin reached an all-time high (ATH) of over US$70,000 (79,422,000 won) early on Wednesday. BTC’s premium price in South Korea attracted the attention of many traders as it presented a good arbitrage trading opportunity. However, due to the newly-enacted regulation in the country, it wasn’t possible for traders to move off USD from the South Korean market. 

The new cryptocurrency regulation prohibited exchanges in the country from serving foreign users. It also introduced strict capital flow restrictions, which makes it very difficult to move large funds from the country through cryptos – a measure aimed at reducing money laundering and terrorism financing.

Kimchi Premium Drops as Bitcoin Declined to $56,000

Later on Wednesday, the Kimchi Premium began plummeting from as high as 23 percent to 15 percent within a few hours.

BTC Korea Premium Index [CryptoQuant]

Some traders blamed the recent correction in the market as a cause for the drop in the South Korean BTC premium. However, Ki-Young Ju, the CEO of CryptoQuant (an on-chain crypto analytics platform), said the premium might have dropped because some traders figured out how to cash out from the arbitrage opportunity. 

As Kimchi Premium dropped, the price of Bitcoin on the global market declined to about US$56,000. 

Categories
Crypto News Market Analysis Ripple Trading

XRP Surges Above $1 As Ripple Lawsuit Legal Win

Ripple XRP is trading in an uptrend like many other altcoins. The Cryptocurrency XRP just went up +72% in a week by breaking a Rising wedge pattern with strong buying volume and surges over +105% in a month.

What is XRP?

Ripple (XRP) is one of the fastest and most scalable digital assets, enabling real-time global payments anywhere in the world. The RippleNet payment platform is a real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system that aims to enable instant monetary transactions globally. While XRP is the cryptocurrency native to the XRP Ledger, you can actually use any currency to transact on the platform.

XRP Price Analysis

At the time of writing, XRP has ranked the 4th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $1.25 AUD. This is a +72% increase since 1st April 2021 (7 days ago) as shown in the chart below.

Source: TradingView

For now, XRP/USDT has formed some solid bullish signs, not only on the lower timeframes but also on the 12-hour chart – possibly the origin for the suggested targets to reach within the upcoming schedule. XRP/USDT seems to bounce off the black line cluster: taking off from there might provide a great origin for upside targets to be reached.

The first resistance was on the $0.85 AUD price levels which XRP broke with a strong bullish trend buying volume and is now heading towards the next resistance price at $1.35 AUD. Seeing that many altcoins are holding strong this week, XRP will possibly continue the bullish trend.

Source: TradingView

What do the Technical indicators say?

The Ripple XRP TradingView indicators (on the 1 day) mainly indicate XRP as a buy, except the Oscillators which indicate XRP as a sell.

So why did XRP breakout?

General market sentiment seems to suggest many cryptos are in the middle of a bull run season, which could have contributed to the recent breakout. Another reason for this sudden pump in price could be whales secretly buying XRP for this Altcoins rally. It could also have contributed to some of the recent news regarding Ripple’s Letter regarding Motion to Seal with Proposed Redacted Exhibits.

The first redaction is an email between Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and an anonymous person about Rippleworks, the company’s non-profit VC arm. The second is between anonymous parties discussing the public perception of XRP and Ripple’s control of it.

Recent XRP News & Events:

Where to Buy or Trade XRP?

XRP has the highest liquidity on Binance Exchange so that would help for trading XRP/USDT or XRP/BTC 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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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
Australia Bitcoin Crypto News

The Number of SMSFs Approaching Cryptocurrencies Soars as the market tops $2 Trillion

A growing number of Australian financial advisors are now approaching crypto exchanges to learn more about crypto-assets as Bitcoin rallies again towards $60k, and the crypto market tops $2 trillion.

As the crypto market surges and even outpaces legacy markets such as the Nasdaq and the S&P 500, more financial advisers are now keener to know about cryptocurrencies and how to invest in them, according to Shane Stevenson, CEO of Cointree.

There’s no doubt that bitcoin is now being seen as an alternative to gold as a store of value, reflected recently by the rising price of bitcoin, in particular, and the fact that cash, term deposits and bonds have less appeal because of the historically low-interest rates, that cryptocurrencies are becoming more attractive to SMSFs.

Shane Stevenson, CEO of Cointree [Australian Fintech]

Interest in Crypto-assets Spikes

Cointree is an AUSTRAC-regulated crypto exchange in Australia. As the global crypto market grows, the number of SMSFs applications in the exchange has surged 53% in just three months.

This percentage falls short compared to last year as the increasing number of Aussies adding crypto assets to their portfolio is a reflection of the need for a hedge fund against hyperinflation.

Stevens added that most SMSFs are limited when it comes to cryptocurrencies, not only because of the challenges that SMSFs face when it comes to Proof of Ownership and Proof of Value, but traditional financial advisers also lack the knowledge for this type of investments.

Crypto Market Tops $2 Trillion

The crypto market topped $2 trillion on April 4, outperforming legacy markets with a surge of 3.55%, while Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 surged 1.36% and 1.43% respectively.

The crypto market now holds steady at $1 trillion for ten consecutive days, and over 1.90 million BTC were moved as the currency tested levels of $52k and $58k, establishing strong support at $54k.

Despite the inherent volatility of cryptocurrencies, the number of Aussies investing in Bitcoin and other currencies using their SMSFs has spiked since it reached $US50,000 by mid-February.

Categories
Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law Institutions Regulation

Coinbase, Square, Paradigm and Fidelity Form “CCI” to Encourage Responsible Crypto Policies

Coinbase, Square, Paradigm, Fidelity Forms "CCI" to Encourage Responsible Crypto Policy

Some leading financial companies are collaborating to encourage a clear regulatory path for the burgeoning digital currency industry.

Known as the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI), this group currently includes four prominent industry players: Coinbase, Square, Fidelity, and Paradigm. It aims at informing and helping global regulators understand cryptocurrencies while also encouraging responsible crypto-related public policies.

CCI to Unlock The Transformational Promise of Crypto

The companies behind CCI believe that digital currencies are at their critical stage. In recent years, more people have got to learn and invest in cryptocurrencies, including institutions and corporations. As a result, the crypto market has grown significantly, with the market capitalization recently touching $2 trillion. However, the regulatory uncertainties across different countries mean the industry doesn’t hold a clear or settled future. 

Crypto is at a mainstream inflection point. It’s in its very early stages and, much like the internet (once was), it’s very fragile while it’s in that stage.

Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Paradigm [Wall Street Journal]

Thus, the Crypto Council for Innovation wants to educate the institutions, regulators, and policymakers on the benefits of digital currencies. Part of the approach includes providing analysis and insight about cryptocurrency. The CCI will also focus on correcting some “misperceptions that inevitably accompany a transformative new technology.”

By educating leaders about crypto, we can help empower them to participate in the crypto ecosystem for the benefit of their citizens, communities, and families.

Gus Coldebella, Chief Policy Officer at Paradigm

More Mainstream Crypto Adoption?

The development today could greatly change the shape of the crypto industry from a regulatory aspect. Having clearer regulations for cryptocurrencies would possibly result in encouraging more mainstream crypto adoption.