Leading cryptocurrency asset manager, Grayscale has added five new cryptocurrencies to its suite of Investment Trusts. Precisely, the company has launched Trusts product for Chainlink (LINK), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Decentraland (MANA), Filecoin (FIL), and Livepeer (LPT).
Per the press statement on Wednesday, the new offerings reflect the growing interest and demand for digital currencies amongst global investors.
Grayscale now offers 14 crypto Trusts
The newly-listed cryptocurrency Trusts products are currently open for daily subscription by both retail and institutional accredited investors. These investment products provide investors exposure to the underlying cryptocurrencies without managing the cryptos themselves. This better serves institutional investors who don’t seek to direct exposure to participate in the burgeoning asset class.
“Digital currencies have reached an inflection point. Investor demand has never been higher, and every day we’re seeing new entrants to what has surely become a bona fide asset class,” said Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein.
In total, Grayscale now offers 14 cryptocurrency investment Trusts, which includes other popularly-traded digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and many others. The Trusts are solely invested in the underlying cryptocurrencies, as Grayscale asserted in the report.
Grayscale on pace to US$50 million AUM
Currently, Grayscale has almost $43 billion in assets under management (AUM). The Bitcoin Trusts have the largest share, as it accounts for over US$36 billion of the total AUM, followed by the Ether product, which holds US$5.6 billion.
03/16/21 UPDATE: Net Assets Under Management, Holdings per Share, and Market Price per Share for our Investment Products.
One can expect the company’s AUM to surpass US$50 billion in the coming days, following the addition of the five cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, the price of Chainlink increased to about US$30, which represented about a 9.65 percent increase on the 24 hours chart, just some hours after the announcement. BAT and a few other cryptocurrencies listed by the company were also seeing a mild increase in market price.
The U.S. Border patrol has arrested BitMEX’s co-founder, Ben Delo, in a surrender agreement negotiated with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), according to Bloomberg.
A $26M Bail Bond
Delo flew from the United Kingdom to New York, as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors. At the arraignment hearing held today by judge Sarah L. Cave, Delo pleaded “not guilty”.
The co-founder is accused of money-laundering charges, between them, an apparent conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act, a U.S. law that requires all financial institutions to report to governmental agencies to detect money laundering schemes.
The prosecutors released him thanks to a bail bond of $26 million. The terms of his bond allow him to go back to the U.K., where he will wait for his trial.
BitMEX as a “Vehicle for Money Laundering”
The main executives of BitMEX: Ben Delo, Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed, and Greg Dwyer (head of business development), are under investigation for allowing money-laundering activities with the exchange.
BitMEX is a popular derivative and crypto exchange. The platform doesn’t ask its users to lend credentials. Thus, prosecutors are charging the founders with violating the U.S. Anti-money Laundering act of 2020, as well as operating an unregistered trading platform.
As stated, the founders failed to implement security and identification programs such as KYC (Know Your Customer).
The Second BitMEX Founder Arrested
Delo is not the first founder to be arrested. U.S. authorities charged the three founders in October. According to Bloomberg, federal prosecutors arrested Samuel Reed (CTO) that month, and also released him with a bail bond.
Likewise, the US authorities are negotiating with Arthur Hayes an agreed surrender. Hayes is currently in Singapore, the country where he has resided since October last year.
Moreover, the head of business, Greg Dwyer, is apparently in the Bermudas but is not currently discussing an agreement with Authorities.
The amount of Ethereum (ETH) held on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges or CEXes has been continuously reducing since September last year. On Tuesday, ETH reserve on exchanges dropped to another low, which is quite bullish, provided the demand for the cryptocurrency continues to soar.
During press time, the second-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of over US$207 billion, was trading at $1,801 on Coinmarketcap. Many holders think that ETH is undervalued, owing to the growing network traction and ecosystem.
ETH Reserve Might Drop Further
There are currently less than 21 million ETH sitting on centralized exchanges, according to data from CryptoQuant.
The declining amount of ETH in exchange reserve is probably due to more holders moving their cryptos to external wallets for HODLing. The decentralized finance (DeFi) is one other factor behind the decreasing ETH reserve. Among other things, traders are moving ETH from centralized exchanges to decentralized platforms like Uniswap, SushiSwap, Compound, etc., for trading and lending.
This is evident as there is about 9.138 million ETH currently locked in DeFi projects. This equals over US$16 billion, following the price of the cryptocurrency during press time.
Another place to watch is the Ethereum 2.0 staking contract. The ETH reserve on centralized exchanges dropped further after the deployment of the deposit contract. At the time of writing, a total of 3,588,404 ETH has been staked on the network so far, which is worth over US$6.4 billion.
Is This a Bullish Case?
The reserve is likely to decrease further as more people increasingly participate in DeFi projects and Ethereum 2.0 staking. This is quite bullish, as less supply with more demand could see ETH soaring in price.
A new survey out of Mizuho Securities on Monday estimates that 10%, or nearly $40 billion of the $380 billion in direct stimulus checks, may be used to purchase Bitcoin(BTC) and stocks.
According to CNN as it stands, 90% of American households qualify for the $1400 per person (including dependants) stimulus check, following the U.S. President Joe Biden signing the stimulus package into law.
People Prefer Bitcoin
Yahoo Finance reported Monday that Mizuho managing director Dan Dolev and his team surveyed approximately 235 individuals with less than $150,000 of household income. Of that, about 200 said they expect to receive the third round of direct stimulus payments in the coming days.
Stimulus check BTC and stock allocation
The results show that 35% – 40% of the people that participated in this survey are aiming to invest some of it in crypto (Bitcoin) or stocks, with 61% saying they would choose Bitcoin over equities.
The survey predicts that bitcoin will account for 60% of total incremental investment spend. We calculate it could add as much as 2-3% to bitcoin’s current $1.1t trillion market value
Dan Dolev, Mizuho Securities, MD
Source: Know-your-meme
Considering the sample size of the survey is only 235 it remains to be seen whether these outcomes will come to fruition, yet the outlook is positive that a reasonable part of the stimulus will find its way into the crypto economy.
Others Also Weighed in on How Stimulus Checks Might be Spent
Mizuho isn’t the only one making predictions, David Kostin, Goldman’s chief U.S. equity strategist recently stated :
We expect households will be the largest source of equity demand this year […] A good chunk of the new stimulus money about to be funnelled into American households shortly via the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill may find its way into the stock market
David Kostin, Goldman’s chief U.S. equity strategist
Ray Dalio also commented yesterday on investing and that money shouldn’t be spent on bonds due to “ridiculously low yields” and rather encouraged people to buy higher-returning, non-debt investment assets in a LinkedIn Blog post.
While Bitcoin remains the leading crypto in the market by adoption, some issues remain with it’s scalability and use as a medium of exchange. With the question being asked, is it just a store of value?
If it is to ever be used for payments globally it will have to solve this issue. Otherwise it could just be a store of value and other cryptocurrencies with much lower fees such as Litecoin may take over the payments sector.
On a typical day, on average Bitcoin only does 4-5 TPS vs VISA’s 3,900 TPS which is a considerable difference. The fee structure is different with VISA charging a percentage of the transaction amount and BTC having a fixed rate for any amount. This may make BTC cheaper for large transactions but way more expensive for small transactions.
Average Transactions
VISA
Bitcoin(BTC)
Ether
Litecoin
Avg Transactions per second
3,900
4-5
15
56
Avg Total Transactions per day
84 Million
350,000
1.3 Million
110,000
Avg Price per Transaction
0.5-2%
US $20
US $20
$0.036
Daily Transaction Volume
$31 Billion
$12 Billion
$7 Billion
$1.5 Billion
Bitcoin vs VISA transactions data as at 17 March 2021
VISA TPS data is calculated from Q4 2020 data (3 months) showing 30,676 Million VISA (and related VISA) network transactions. VISA Daily Volume is calculated by 11.6 Trillion per year recorded in 2019 Annual report.
Data shows that companies globally have spent $2B to research and integrate blockchain technology, being Bitcoin’s network the most popular option for businesses.
This year, Bitcoin’s network shows between 2-6 TPS (Transactions Per Second)
The problem is Bitcoin has a limited rate for transaction processes. The network can only handle block sizes of 1-4 MB. At a maximum, that would still only be 5-7 TPS.
Number of transactions per month. Source: Wikipedia
Developers need to address scalability issues even before traditional institutions in the industry start implementing blockchain technology.
Ethereum 2.0 Blockchain Technology
Since blockchain technology emerged, the scalability issue has been a long discussion. Developers are currently exploring new ways to improve the overall ecosystem for blockchains.
Moreover, developers from other protocols, like Ethereum, are taking important steps to improve blockchain technology. Such as implementing new consensus protocols to enhance issues like scalability, speed, and interoperability.
For instance, ETH 2.0 seeks at least 100,000 TPS, compared to the 30 TPS of Ethereum.
Is Bitcoin Just a Store of Value?
Despite acting poorly as a medium of exchange, Bitcoin is considered as one of the greatest stores of values against declining fiat. According to Bloomberg, investors are replacing gold with Bitcoin as a better store of value.
Digital #Gold Pushing Aside the Old Guard – Gold will always have a place in jewelry and coin collections, but most indicators point to an accelerating pace of #Bitcoin replacing the metal as a store of value in investor portfolios. pic.twitter.com/RR0CCWmksF
Naturally, investors will always seek to add new products to their portfolios. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for an alternative hedge against declining fiat, and a bearish stock market heavily affected by the virus.
Likewise, since the pandemic started, the numbers of Aussies using SMSF to invest in crypto increased. As Bitcoin started its institutional-driven bull run, many investors and traders flock to popular exchanges, like Binance Australia or CoinSpot.
Aussie investors are even choosing crypto over gold. At least 12% of investors are adding Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Ripple’s XRP to their portfolio instead of gold.
As reported, 45% of citizens are investing in crypto for the increase in price, and at least 12% considering digital assets as a better store of value.
Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies in general) have the potential to reshape the financial aspects of the world. While its crypto-technology brings several advantages, it still has a long road to becoming a part of businesses globally.
Interesting stories of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) selling for millions of dollars have been making rounds across multiple crypto publications. It’s no doubt that interest in the NFT markets has gone up significantly since the beginning of 2021.
Although the rate of Google searches for other popular cryptocurrency terms has also increased this year – which indicates a growing level of interest in the cryptocurrency industry in general – NFTs have the most searches amongst them.
Google Searches for NFTs Spikes
According to data from Google trends, the search interest for NFTs has surpassed that of Blockchain, Decentralized Finance (DeFi), and Cryptocurrency.
There was almost no search interest for non-fungible tokens throughout the past year. However, a massive number of people have begun showing interest in the market since the beginning of the year. Interest over time for non-fungible tokens has also reached 100 this week, which represents another peak of popularity for the crypto term, as per Google trends.
As seen in the chart above, there isn’t any noticeable growth in Google searches for DeFi, an industry with more than US$42 billion in assets. Interest in the market has remained relatively since 2021, and the year before.
Elon Musk Joins the NFTs Market
The founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, is also interested in the NFT market. On Monday, he posted a techno track about non-fungible tokens on Twitter, which he intends to sell as an NFT. This attracted the likes of Justin Sun, the CEO of Tron blockchain, and Beeple, a popular digital artist, who were offering to buy the techno track NFT for about US$69 million.
In response to Beeple, however, the billionaire said he wanted about 420 million DOGE (about US$25 million) in exchange for his NFT.
A man from Germany has fallen victim to a Bitcoin scam, losing over AU$700,000 to a fake Elon Musk giveaway.
Sebastian (not his real name) said that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, tweeted, “Dojo 4 Doge” and was curious about what he meant as Musk often tweets about crypto. Apparently, under the tweet, there was a link to an event that was giving away Bitcoin, which Sebastian clicked on.
Seemingly run by Musk’s Tesla team, the so-called giveaway invited people to send anything from 0.1 Bitcoin (AU$7,700) to 20 Bitcoin (AU$1.5 million) with the promise of sending back double the amount, reports the UK’s BBC News. A common impersonation scam which we’ve covered in our Bitcoin Scams Guide.
Believing he was on to a good thing, Sebastian sent 10 Bitcoin, amounting to over AU$700,000. For the next 20 minutes, Sebastian waited for his Bitcoin wallet’s value to increase.
It was only after the countdown ended that Sebastian realized he’d been scammed. He said:
I realized then that it was a big fake. I threw my head on to the sofa cushions and my heart was beating so hard. I thought I’d just thrown away the gamechanger for my family, my early retirement fund and all the upcoming holidays with my kids.
Even though he tried to get his money back, he finally accepted he wasn’t going to see it again.
Crypto Scams Soar
In recent years, crypto scams have risen targeting unsuspecting people with false promises that they can earn more if they just give a little. According to data from Chainalysis, scams made up the majority of all crypto-related criminal activity at 54%, in 2020, representing AU$3.35 billion.
Value received by illicit services monthly 2020 [source: Chainalysis]
Fake crypto giveaways are also gaining traction and often target high-profile pages in the hopes that they will trick people into thinking it’s real. They either achieve this by disguising the account to look like the real one or hacking into the account. Musk is one figure who has been used before.
However, it was in 2020 when hackers managed to steal AU$153,000 after a short-lived hack enabled them to tweet from celebrity accounts, including Bill Gates and Kim Kardashian-West.
Unfortunately, with interest in crypto continuing to rise amid increasing prices, crypto scams are going to remain. Speaking on this, Whale Alert founder Frank van Weert, said:
When the Bitcoin price goes up, people go crazy and a lot of them are new to the market and they want this idea of quick money.
Today, Coinbase announced support for Cardano’s ADA in Coinbase Pro. Trading will start this Thursday, at 9:00 PM pacific time. Users can compare ADA’s price in four currencies:
ADA-USD
ADA-BTC
ADA-EUR
ADA-GBP
According to the blog post, Coinbase will support Shelley addresses, one of Cardano’s wallets with the prefix “addr1”. The platform is planning to provide full support for the Byron wallet, also called “Legacy”.
Coinbase Users Demanding ADA
Cardano is rising fast in the crypto-community since the protocol implemented the Mary Fork in its ecosystem, turning it into a multi-asset network.
Likewise, the support for ADA came shortly after the platform registered heavy demand from users, as Cardano becomes an attractive asset for crypto-traders and investors.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Charles Hoskinson gave stated that about 100 DeFi protocols will ditch Ethereum and switch to Cardano’s protocol. Accordingly, Cardano is ready to provide several benefits for DeFi than its competitors with its new multi-asset system.
The ADA token surged over 477% since January this year, calling the attention of several investors in the crypto market.
More Australians Buying ADA
Likewise, more Australians are considering adding ADA to their portfolio as price increases. Moreover, the token appeared in 9 News Australia, in a section called “The New Bitcoin”, stating that more investors are exploring Cardano as an alternative for BTC.
ADA is up 18% following the announcement, trading at $1,21, according to Coinmarketcap. 24-hour trading volumes have reached levels over $7,500,000,000, a 70.00% increase.
For today’s trading news, we’re looking at three Altcoins that might breakout this week by showing bullish trends in the charts.
1. Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin is a cryptocurrency that was designed to provide fast, secure, and low-cost payments by leveraging the unique properties of blockchain technology.
The cryptocurrency was created based on the Bitcoin protocol, but it differs in terms of the hashing algorithm used, hard cap, block transaction times, and a few other factors. Litecoin has a block time of just 2.5 minutes and extremely low transaction fees, making it suitable for micro-transactions and point-of-sale payments.
Litecoin Price Analysis
At the time of writing, LTC is ranked 9th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $261.43 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.
March brought an instant turn in LTC’s retracement as the price pumped nearly +41% into the resistance near $256 AUD.
A daily gap and down candle between $238 AUD and $215 AUD may support a push through the high of around $297 AUD.
Bulls looking for longer-term plays could wait for a retracement to probable support near $210 AUD and potentially down to support at $195 AUD.
Extensions based on February’s retracement suggest that $385 AUD and $470 AUD may be the following primary targets. The swing high’s resistance near $296 AUD provides a logical area to take first profits.
2. VeChain (VET)
VeChain is a blockchain-powered supply chain platform. VeChain aims to use distributed governance and Internet of Things (IoT) technology to create an ecosystem that solves some of the major problems with supply chain management.
The platform uses two in-house tokens, VET and VTHO, to manage and create value based on its VeChainThor public blockchain. The idea is to boost the efficiency, traceability, and transparency of supply chains while reducing costs and placing more control in the hands of individual users.
VeChain Price Analysis
At the time of writing, VET is ranked 18th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $0.0983 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.
VET shot up nearly +84% from the February open as the price aggressively challenges the last high and resistance near $0.0985 AUD.
Bulls waiting to get on board could watch support near $0.0853 AUD, just above the series of swing highs near $0.0834 AUD.
A deeper retracement to end the month could reach as low as $0.0755 AUD, which would run the swing lows down to $0.0735 and provide a better entry.
Overlapping extensions hint at the areas around $0.1145 AUD and $0.1250 AUD as logical take-profit zones.
3. Stellar (XLM)
Stellar is an open network that allows money to be moved and stored. One of its goals was boosting financial inclusion by reaching the world’s unbanked — but soon afterward, its priorities shifted to helping financial firms connect with one another through blockchain technology.
The network’s native token, lumens, serves as a bridge that makes it less expensive to trade assets across borders. All of this aims to challenge existing payment providers, who often charge high fees for a similar service.
Stellar Price Analysis
At the time of writing, XLM is ranked 13th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $0.4919 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.
XLM’s bullish February turned into March consolidation, which is likely to break upward if market conditions remain bullish.
Support may be forming around the current area near $0.5021 AUD, giving bulls an aggressive entry with a wide stop.
A sweep of February 23rd’s low near $0.4125 AUD into the support just below would give a much higher risk-reward entry. If the price drops this far, it could reach support near $0.3846 AUD.
Overhead, several layers of resistance rest near $0.5381 AUD, $0.6137 AUD, and $0.6641 AUD. Confident bulls could take profits at the swing highs accompanying this resistance.
More patient bulls waiting for higher risk-reward entries could watch for setups to form in potential retracements from these levels.
Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?
These 3 Altcoins have the highest liquidity on Binance Exchange so that would help for trading on USDT or BTC pairs. However, if you’re just looking at buying some quick and hodling then Swyftx Exchange is an easy to use popular choice in Australia.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Ole Andreas Halvorsen, currently Norway’s fourth richest man, has invested in Harmonychain. The company is currently developing application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining chips that are allegedly 300% – 500% more energy efficient than existing chips.
Norwegian Investors Show Interest In Crypto
A report from local broadcaster, Trijo News, shows that when Harmonychain announced they would be listing on Oslo Stock Exchange’s OTC list (a marketplace for unlisted shares). It was followed by announcements that Halvorsen (currently 11th top-earning hedge fund manager in the world), former cross-country skiing star Bjørn Dæhlie, and stock trader and supercar collector Arne Fredly have invested in the crypto company.
Since Bitcoin electricity consumption has been under much scrutiny, there seems to be a call for more sustainable methods to keep blockchain technology running. And we’ve seen Ethereum move towards being 99% more eco-friendly with the introduction of PoS.
Currently, Crypto mining consumes a lot of energy. Our microchips are designed to be up to 300%-500% more efficient than current chips, reducing computer energy use by 70-80%, all other things equal.
The startup believes that their “Crypto Supercomputer miner” will be the most profitable mining hardware upon its release in 2022 and 2023.
Hardware specs of the Supercomputer Chip
The company is going to offer two Supercomputer chips, one tailored toward Bitcoin and the other toward Litecoin both aim to reduce energy costs of mining among other things. The Litecoin chip is Scrypt, meaning that it is dedicated to mining the digital asset Litecoin (LTC) and other Scrypt-based coins. The other focuses only on processes associated with Bitcoin.
According to industry standard, customers can expect to prepay approx. 9-12 months prior to delivery. The Supercomputer is poised to be the most profitable Crypto hardware on the market. Our Crypto Supercomputer miners have an estimated payback of less than 2 years.
With another competitor soon to be part of the blockchain specific semiconductor market, the mining industry it seems is set for a boom in research and development. And some see Halvorsen joining the fray as positive news for the crypto sphere.
