Category: Ethereum

Categories
Banking Bitcoin Crypto News Ethereum Trading

Brazil’s Largest Digital Bank Nubank Launches BTC and ETH Trading

Nubank, Brazil’s biggest digital bank by market volume, now allows customers to buy and sell bitcoin and ethereum on its Paxos-supported trading platform, as per a May 11 announcement.

The fintech will allocate one percent of its equity to bitcoin through its parent company, Nu Holdings Inc, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Nubank said the move seeks to “strengthen the company’s conviction in the current and future potential of bitcoin in disrupting financial services”.

Deal Gives BTC Exposure to Warren Buffett

Nubank’s treasury allocation to bitcoin gives indirect BTC exposure to old-school investor and Bitcoin critic Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. The US holding company reportedly invested US$500 million in Nubank in June 2021, acquired 30 million shares for another $250 million as it went public in December, and recently doubled-down with a $1 billion investment in Brazilian fintech.

According to Paxos, users will be able to buy and sell crypto with Brazilian reals, but initially won’t be able to withdraw or deposit crypto. Until now, Nubank allowed users to invest in crypto only through exchange-traded funds available through its investment unit, NuInvest.

Brazil Experiencing Major Crypto Adoption Growth

Last month, Brazil edged closer to a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and along with neighbouring South American country Peru is looking to introduce a CBDC this year. And in March, Coinbase was reportedly on the verge of closing a deal to acquire 2TM, owner of Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

There is no doubt that crypto is a growing trend in Latin America, one that we have been following closely and believe will have a transformational impact on the region. Yet the trading experience is still very niche as customers either lack information to feel confident to enter this new market or just get frustrated by complex experiences.

David Vélez, CEO and co-founder, Nubank

In general, Brazil is experiencing major crypto adoption growth. Between January and November of 2021, locals reportedly traded US$11.4 billion in stablecoins, almost triple the amount traded the previous year.

In his capacity as Nubank boss, Vélez is clearly intent on demystifying crypto trading for the average Brazilian bank customer.

Categories
Australia Bitcoin ETFs Ethereum

Australia’s First Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs Go Live

Today marks a historic day for the Australian investment landscape as retail and institutional investors are now able to invest in the newly launched Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange traded funds (ETFs) listed on Cboe Australia (“Cboe”):

Off the Ground, Despite False Starts

For market participants, the road to Australia’s first spot-based crypto ETF has been a long and, at times, painful journey. Some two weeks ago, regulators gave the green light but within days the launch was delayed due to an issue relating to the prime dealer.

With that out of the way and more ETFs likely on the horizon, Australians now have a choice to invest directly in three ETFs through two providers, becoming only the eighth country to do so.

21 Shares will offer both an ETH and BTC ETF, whereas Cosmos will list only an ETH ETF, at least for now. Each of the ETFs will hold the crypto assets offshore in cold storage, and track the spot price of each in Australian dollars.

The news elicited much excitement, with some indicating that they expected significant capital inflows:

ETF Securities chairman Graham Tuckwell, who earlier criticised regulators for dragging their heels, commented: “Today is an exciting day for our team, a culmination of months of hard work to bring these ETFs to the Australian market. EBTC and EETH are true firsts for Australia, and we are excited to be launching with Cboe Australia.”

ETF Securities head of distribution Kanish Chugh recognised that while current market conditions were not ideal, they did provide a good entry point for new investors:

Australian investor interest in cryptocurrencies has not waned in recent months even as we have seen underperformance, and with Bitcoin’s recent sell-off as well, it may present an opportunity for investors who have been looking for attractive entry points into this new asset class.

Kanish Chugh, head of distribution, ETF Securities

Cboe Australia CEO Vic Jokovic expressed delight at the “breakthrough products”, saying they paved the way for “more Australians to expose their portfolios to cryptocurrency in a regulated manner”.

Although the caveat “not your keys, not your coins” holds true, the listings provide clear evidence of growing mainstream adoption, a trend that is only likely to accelerate.

Zero Chance of BTC Going to Zero

One wonders how local fund managers such as Hamish Douglass have taken the news, particularly since he thinks bitcoin will go to zero. Australian podcaster Mission Bitcoin suggests that those who believe it will be worth zero are simply not paying attention:

Given Bitcoin’s fundamentals and increased role in the global economic landscape, it’s difficult to disagree with that sentiment.

Categories
Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies Ethereum

Bitcoin and Ethereum Now Down More Than 50% from All-Time Highs

The market has shed some blood this month, with the father and mother of all cryptos, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), down more than 50 percent from last year’s all-time highs.

Biggest Crypto Market Sell-Off Since March 2020

In what is the biggest market sell-off since March 2020, the crypto market has been hit with massive outflows following the lead of the US stock market, which also plummeted after the US Federal Reserve moved to raise interest rates by 50 basis points.

Bitcoin is currently trading at US$31,259, an 8 percent drop in the past five weeks. The second-largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH), has followed Bitcoin in its massive sell-off. As per data from CoinMarketCap, ETH has also more than halved its price, currently trading at US$2,354.

BTC chart. Source: Messari
ETH chart. Source: Messari

Thirty-day exchange flows are now almost back to neutral after this week’s sell-off, as shared by market analyst Sam Rule:

Things started to get worse for the market after Terra’s Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) sold more than US$750 million, disguised as an OTC (over-the-counter) loan to trading firms:

El Salvador Buys the Dip Again

While the crypto community doesn’t seem to be bullish on the current market, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, is encouraging people to buy as long as we have the dip. Bukele recently announced that his government had bought 500 BTC at an average price of US$30k per coin, worth approximately US$15.5 million at that time:

Categories
Bitcoin Dogecoin Ethereum Fashion Litecoin Metaverse NFTs Payments Shiba Inu

Gucci to Begin Accepting Bitcoin in Some Stores

Luxury high-end international fashion brand Gucci is set to accept various cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, and even Dogecoin in some of its stores in North America.

Gucci will start accepting cryptos in five of its stores across the US later this month. The locations are New York City (Wooster Street), Los Angeles (Rodeo Drive), Miami (Design District), Atlanta (Phipps Plaza), and Las Vegas (The Shops at Crystals).

The stores will accept include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Wrapped Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and five stablecoins that are pegged to the US dollar.

Crypto Provides an ‘Enhanced Customer Experience’

According to Marco Bizzarri, president and CEO of Gucci, the brand is “always looking to embrace new technologies when they can provide an enhanced experience for our customers”. He added:

Now that we are able to integrate cryptocurrencies within our payment system, it is a natural evolution for those customers who would like to have this option available to them.

Marco Bizzarri, president and CEO, Gucci

Gucci has been active in the Web3 and NFT space and recently established a Web3-focused team and released a couple of NFTs. The brand is also extending its crypto efforts to the metaverse where it is developing digital real estate in the decentralised blockchain game The Sandbox. Further, Gucci is building a virtual “Gucci Vault” for Gucci-themed NFTs.

More and More Companies Accept Crypto Payments

Gucci joins a raft of companies that accept crypto as payment. Last year, Crypto News Australia reported that a real estate company in Los Angeles would allow its tenants to rent properties with Bitcoin, starting with the Grove shopping centre and other LA properties.

Many companies in Australia are also accepting cryptocurrencies as payments. You can now order a custom-built PC, buy dog food, design a custom home, get solar power and pay for almost everything in Bitcoin.

Categories
Blockchain Ethereum Ethereum Name Service Gas

Vitalik Buterin: ETH L2 Fees Must Be Under $0.05 to be ‘Truly Acceptable’

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes gas fees on Ethereum layer-2s should be less than 10 cents in order to be “truly acceptable”.

The comment came as a response to a Twitter post from “Bankless” podcast host Ryan Sean Adams, who shared a screenshot of eight layer-2 protocols and their average transaction gas fees:

Layer-2s are protocols built on top of an existing blockchain. Since L2s are connected to a main chain – in this case, Ethereum – they inherit its security properties. So far, most layer-2s are designed to aid the Ethereum network with certain setbacks, such as scalability and throughput.

A layer-2 solution takes transactions out of the Ethereum network to process them in a secondary chain, in what is known as off-chain activity. This secondary chain provides high throughput and cheaper transaction fees while the mainchain provides security.

Currently, the cheapest ETH L2 solution is Metis Network, which has gas fees of US$0.02. However, swapping tokens costs $0.15, and bigger fees may be applied depending on the order.

‘Danksharding’ the Ethereum Network

With his mention of danksharding (aka EIP-4844), Buterin was referring to a new sharding model proposed for Ethereum that seeks to simplify previous sharding designs. This proposal will theoretically scale the Ethereum network by adding a new type of transaction dubbed the “blob-carrying transaction”, which carries an additional 125KB worth of data.

Most members of crypto Twitter agreed with the idea that the biggest stepping stone for Ethereum is transaction costs. While danksharding can help scale the network, ETH 2.0 has been delayed again – this time, the sharding might occur somewhere between the end of 2022 or early 2023.

Recently, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) hit a milestone by surpassing one million domain names created, causing the ENS token to surge 86 percent in value shortly after the announcement.

Categories
Bored Ape Yacht Club Ethereum Metaverse NFTs Polygon

ApeCoin Integrates with Polygon After NFT Mint Disaster

ApeCoin (APE) has integrated with Polygon, an Ethereum sidechain known for delivering faster and cheaper transactions, as a direct consequence of Yuga Labs’ recent Otherdeeds NFT mint disaster:

This week, Crypto News Australia reported how Yuga Labs made more than US$550 million with the minting of its virtual lands called Otherdeeds, NFTs belonging to the company’s metaverse project, Otherside.

Ethereum Blockchain Brought to its Knees

However, the hype and demand for Otherdeeds caused massive congestion on the Ethereum network, leading to a sharp increase in gas fees and practically shutting down the entire Ethereum blockchain.

Some users reported paying up to US$10k to $14k in gas fees to obtain their Otherdeeds NFTs, but some others weren’t so lucky as they paid the gas fee but the transaction still failed. Yuga Labs said it would refund users who had experienced failed transactions for their gas:

‘You Messed Up,’ Says Community

Yuga Labs remarked that the demand was higher than expected, and that Ethereum’s capacity failed to meet the project’s size. However, the community started speculating that this was just a marketing stunt to show that ApeCoin needs its own chain.

ApeCoin DAO board member Yat Siu dismissed the allegations, saying Yuga Labs encourages its DAO to propose ideas for a new chain. Yet it seems the community is not buying it:

Categories
Crypto News Ethereum Tokens

Ethereum Name Service Token Surges 86% as Registered ETH Domains Surpass 1 Million

The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) this week announced it had surpassed a milestone of one million domain names created, with the news triggering an 86 percent value surge for the ENS token:

The Ethereum Name Service is helping to provide a smooth transition from Web2 to Web3, with its latest milestone clearly demonstrating its impact. A spike in registrations over the past 30 days has also had a knock-on effect on the ENS token:

The demand for three- and four-digit domain names is up and likely related to the NFT community’s new interests. These shorter domain names can also be used as the owner’s crypto address, instead of the random and more unwieldy alphanumeric combination.

Likely contributing to the spike is the fact that ENS’s protocol revenue rise has permitted the company to increase the funds available to its DAO. This, plus record registrations for April, contributed to the ENS token’s massive value surge.

Other Registered ETH Domains

Last August, American beer brand Budweiser dived into crypto and purchased the beer.eth domain name for 30 ETH. Adding Budweiser’s purchase of a Rocket Factory NFT for 8 ETH, the total venture was worth the equivalent of US$120,000.

More recently, Puma renamed itself puma.eth on Twitter and purchased several cat-related NFTs. These purchases can only mean there are more future crypto partnerships in the making.

Categories
Bored Ape Yacht Club Ethereum Metaverse NFTs

Yuga Labs To Offer Gas Refunds After ‘Otherside’ NFT Mint Burned $157 Million in ETH

ApeCoin (APE), the governance token of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has plunged as much as 11 percent after a catastrophic NFT sale by Yuga Labs.

Single NFT Collection Shuts Down Ethereum

The price drop came shortly after Yuga Labs (the company behind BAYC) made over US$550 million with the sale of “Otherdeeds“, a new Ethereum-based NFT collection that’s part of the Otherside metaverse.

However, the sale came with a few problems. The NFTs sold at a fixed price of 305 ApeCoin, or roughly US$7,000 each, but the high demand congested the Ethereum network to the point of rendering it practically useless:

Up to $14k in Gas Fees

Users reported paying gas fees from up to US$9,000 to $14,000, while others saw their transactions declined as a result of high network traffic. Yuga Labs said it would refund gas to affected users, but didn’t disclose when:

Over 71,000 ETH – approximately US$200 million at time of writing – was paid in gas fees, a new record for the Ethereum network. Fees were burned or destroyed, taking $200 million in liquidity out of the market.

While Ethereum gas fees are back to their usual levels, the price of ApeCoin dropped sharply after the event. At press time APE was trading at $14.19, down 4 percent from its recent weekly high, and trading volumes are still in the red with a 34.81 percent drop.

Categories
Bored Ape Yacht Club Crypto News Ethereum Metaverse NFTs

Bored Apes Metaverse Project ‘Otherside’ Tops $561 Million in 24 Hours

Yuga Labs, creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) series, has witnessed US$561 million in Otherside NFT sales within a matter of 24 hours. The craze led to the crash of Etherscan, and Ethereum gas fees blew out to thousands of dollars per transaction.

The highly anticipated Otherside metaverse mint on April 30 clogged the Ethereum mainnet, catapulting gas fees to shocking new heights. In less than a day, Yuga Labs generated most of its sales from just the Otherside’s “Otherdeed” NFT, intended as “the key to claiming land in Otherside”, Yuga’s upcoming metaverse game.

A total of 55,000 NFTs were minted at 305 APE each, which translates to about US$5,800 per Otherdeed, given Apecoin’s price at the time of the mint. From this mint alone, Yuga Labs raked in over US$318.7 million.

According to data from CryptoSlam, Otherdeed has already seen over US$242 million in secondary volume traded, and US$190 million of that was on OpenSea. APE pumped 55 percent last month following rumours of a land drop going viral.

High Demand Causes Etherscan Crash

Given the high number of NFTs and higher demand, the Otherdeed mint immediately caused a massive surge in Ethereum gas fees. Traffic on block explorer Etherscan also led to the site crashing. Gas wars, such as experienced in this mint, can occur on proof-of-work chains such as Ethereum when a sudden increase in demand for fast transactions clogs a network, sending fees soaring:

Gas fees on Ethereum saw extreme spikes up to thousands of dollars per transaction. While some were able to get their transactions processed within a few hours for a couple of hundred dollars in gas fees, others reported paying upwards of US$4,000 for a single transaction.

Given the context, the average price of Ethereum gas over the course of the night was more than US$6,000, about 100 to 200 times the normal fee. Data from Etherscan shows that users have paid around 64,000 ETH in gas fees, equalling in excess of US$175 million in 24 hours in relation to Otherside.

Gas Fees Could Have Been Averted

Will Papper, the co-founder of Syndicate DAO, has said that the contract had “nearly zero optimisations” and provided a few “tricks” that could have “saved many millions”:

Yuga Labs has addressed the gas fees issue, noting that the mint was “so large that Etherscan crashed”, and apologised for “turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while”:

There has been a lot of concern regarding Ethereum’s high gas fees, and many Ethereum layer 2 NFT marketplaces are aiming to effect reductions.

Categories
Australia Bitcoin ETFs Ethereum

Canadian Challenger Joins Australian ETF Race

A Canadian challenger could blow open the Australian crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) race as it moves to seize an opportunity to make history by listing Australia’s first ETF.

According to a report in the Australian Financial Review, Toronto-based 3iQ Digital Asset Management has applied to launch two ETFs after a technical delay held up rival investment houses. The crypto specialist firm lodged disclosure documents with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) late last week. These documents revealed its plans to list the 3iQ CoinShares Bitcoin Feeder ETF and 3iQ CoinShares Ether Feeder ETF on the Cboe Australia exchange.

The fund will give exposure to both Bitcoin and Ether by buying units in two of 3iQ’s existing ETFs, which are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and co-managed by London-based CoinShares. The funds will trade on Cboe under the tickers BT3Q and ET3Q.

Technical Challenges Delay ETF Race

Local issuers ETF Securities and Cosmos Asset Management had expected their pending ETFs to begin trading on April 27, but were unable to launch after Cboe told the market “standard checks” were still ongoing. Both ETFs are still yet to begin trading.

The hold-up was caused by a powerful but undisclosed “prime broker” who required more time to support the new asset class, forcing a delay in trading. This presented 3iQ with the opportunity to get ahead of its competitors and list Australia’s first ETF to be invested directly in digital assets.

Australian ETF Race Heats Up

Australia appears to be leading the ETF charge ETFs. In December 2021 the country saw its first spot crypto ETF, which launched through ETF Securities and 21Shares. Early last month, it was announced that Australia would soon receive its first Bitcoin ETF. Since then a slew of competitors – Cosmos Asset Management Bitcoin ETF, 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, and 21Shares Ethereum ETF – were set to follow suit by launching their own crypto ETFs.