Category: Investing

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Coinbase Crypto News Investing Tokens

Crypto Exchange Token Voyager VGX Soars 44% Overnight Amid Coinbase Listing

VGX, an Ethereum token used to reward and incentivise use of the Voyager centralised exchange, has gained 44 percent in the 24 hours since listing on Coinbase Pro.

The latest surge comes on the back of an overall lift for VGX over the past seven days in excess of 50 percent, with the token’s price soaring 70 percent on November 17 after the exchange revealed the new listing. 

What is Voyager Token?

On Voyager, VGX holders can earn staking rewards, receive cashback on trades, and more. Like other exchanges such as Celsius that offer yields on cryptocurrency holdings, VGX has developed a model whereby the company earns enough fees via its lending activities to return high single-digit yields to investors, as much as 9 percent:

High Risk, High Reward, Additional Yield

In many ways, VGX is a high-risk, high-reward investment for those who believe digital tokens are only just beginning their march to glory. But VGX also provides investors with a unique benefit. By holding a given number of VGX tokens, they can take advantage of the Voyager yield program.

This program rewards loyal VGX holders with additional yield on their holdings. Accordingly, interest boosts of up to 1 percentage point on cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are offered.

There are various tiers with the loyalty program, so the more VGX you hold, the higher the yield.

Earlier this month, Crypto.com’s CRO token rallied 30 percent after also listing on Coinbase. But for those investors who missed out, there’s always the Voyager Token.

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Crypto News Gaming Investing Metaverse

Morgan Stanley: the Metaverse is the Next Big Investment Theme

In a fairly short space of time, the metaverse has shifted from relative obscurity into mainstream consciousness. As the entire metaverse ecosystem has exploded in recent months, it remains somewhat surprising that global investment bank giant Morgan Stanley is bullish on the sector.

It can fundamentally change the medium through which we socialise with others.

Edward Stanley, Morgan Stanley equity strategist 

In a note to investors, Morgan Stanley noted that this alternative concept of reality was gaining a lot of attention from Meta (ex-Facebook) and Microsoft, both of whom are actively positioning themselves for growth in the sector.

‘Metaverse’ Next Big Investment Theme

According to Morgan Stanley, the metaverse is a concept that includes “construction of an alternative universe where individuals can model their image to whatever they want to be, and perform real-life tasks such as buying things, gaming with friends, and other activities”.

Edward Stanley, an equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, noted that there was a growing cohort of companies shifting their focus towards the metaverse. He considered tech and gaming companies as being well-positioned to profit from their first mover advantage.

Source: Morgan Stanley

Newsflow around the metaverse concept has been high and companies are embracing it in growing numbers. Of any major theme, companies and analysts have greater interest in the metaverse than any other theme at present.

Edward Stanley, Morgan Stanley equity analyst

He was, however, quick to acknowledge how early we were in the process and that a fully integrated, interoperable and collaborative metaverse would still be years away. When that time comes, users would be able to move seamlessly from one platform to another, moving their experiences and avatars with them in the process.

Metaverse and Gaming

Gaming and its relationship to the metaverse was one area that Morgan Stanley appeared most optimistic about. Noting that 50 million Americans took up gaming in 2020, the report saw three main bullish developments in the space:

  1. Social-gaming convergence – gaming has increasingly become a means for making, building and maintaining social relationships.
  2. In-game monetisation – gamers conduct in-game micropurchases to express their personalities and connect with others in the virtual world.
  3. Emergence of new games on new platforms – higher visual resolution, faster storage and enhanced gameplay are leading to groundbreaking new titles.

While older generations struggle to understand the appeal of socialising, interacting or living in a virtual world, one thing is patently clear – the younger generation not only love and embrace alternate digital realities, but in many cases they actually prefer it.

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Binance Bitcoin Crypto News Investing Market Analysis Markets

Crypto Market Dips After Surge, $750 Million Liquidated

After a particularly profitable week in crypto, with bitcoin reaching new all-time highs, the market saw a sudden drop and more than US$750 million was liquidated, according to data from Coinglass.

BTC Takes a Nosedive

In the past 24 hours, after the crypto market saw some immense growth and bitcoin (BTC) reached a new all-time high of over US$69,000, a whopping 166,292 traders were liquidated to the value of over US$750 million when the price of BTC dipped below US$63,000.

The largest single liquidation order happened on Bitmex XBTUSD to the value of US$10 million. At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin had rallied to US$65,138, according to CoinGecko.

Total liquidations observed. Source: Coinglass

According to data from Coinglass (formerly Bybt), 81 percent of the liquidations observed came from long positions, with the majority of them happening on Binance.

Quantitative analyst PlanB, which has gained significant popularity for its eerie accuracy in predicting monthly closing prices for BTC, took to Twitter to post a funny meme about the liquidated positions:

Again, This Is Just a ‘Bit’ Too Soon

Liquidations such as the one we have just observed are becoming a far-too-common phenomenon. In September, for example, the crypto market saw some serious positions liquidated. Early in the month, the market recorded liquidations worth over US$3.7 billion due to a major downturn. Later, another major drop in the market saw over US$2.5 billion long positions liquidated in just two days.

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Crypto Art Crypto News Ethereum Investing Markets NFTs

Gary Vee: NFT Winter Is Coming

Gary Vaynerchuk, affectionately known as Gary Vee, anticipates a bear market ahead for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) but still believes that “NFTs are going to be here for the rest of everybody’s life”.

Too Much Short-Term Greed Will Cause a Bear Market

In an interview with Decrypt, Vee said he believed that “winter is coming” for NFTs. While the creator of Ethereum-based VeeFriends, and a collector of CryptoPunks and other NFTs, remains very bullish on the future of NFTs, he still believes a significant pullback in valuation is coming.

When discussing why he believed people were investing in the market boom, Vee said:

The conversation is about to get very interesting when we hit an NFT winter, because there’s way too much short-term greed, and supply and demand issues.  

Gary Vee, crypto entrepreneur

Vee has pocketed a pretty penny during the NFT craze with his hand-drawn doodles netting US$1.2 million, outselling similar works by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock.

In early 2021, the NFT market exploded and generated US$2.5 billion during the first half of the year but seemed to fade in the second half, leading some to suggest the NFT market frenzy was just a short-term fad. However, the market surged to new heights in August and DappRadar reported a trading volume of US$10.67 billion for Q3 alone – a 700 percent increase over Q2 2021.

Vee did not say he thinks a pullback per se is coming, but rather believes that a potential drop in the valuation of NFTs might occur in the future. He has previously predicted that the majority of NFT projects would lose significant value over time, but that blue-chip projects might come out even higher at the other end.

Vaynerchuk made specific reference to NFT projects such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club, as well as certain pieces from the XCOPY collection, which have seen numerous sales above the million-dollar mark. He added: “XCOPY shows all the nuances of potentially becoming a Warhol, a Banksy, or a Pollock.”

NFTs Will Be Here for the Foreseeable

I do believe firmly that 90 percent of the NFT projects right now, [their] values will be less than that when it’s all said and done … The problem is the 2 percent that are going to be so much more extraordinarily high … that one is required to do the homework to see the opportunity.

Gary Vee

On the current state of NFTs, Vaynerchuk has said that many people are spending money they cannot afford on things they do not understand:

Regardless of his views on the current state of NFTs, Vee predicts: “NFTs are going to be here for the rest of everybody’s life – and [they are] going to get more meaningful, not less.”

Agree with Vee? You Can Now Short the NFT Market

If you agree with Vee that the NFT market is currently overheated, SynFutures is launching NFTures, a product that will allow users to short the future prices of NFTs. As many continue to question the value of NFTs, and with many tokens serving no purpose other than being able to be bought or sold, SynFutures is looking to change the way we derive profit from NFTs.

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Australia Crypto News Investing Trading

Australian Crypto ETF Passes $40 Million in First Day of Trading

BetaShares’ crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) debuted this week, smashing Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) trading records on its debut. Investors’ appetite was such that more than A$40 million was poured into the crypto ETF on its first day of trading. 

$5.2 Million Traded in Five Minutes

Thousands of local investors gathered on November 4 to participate in the highly anticipated launch of Australia’s first crypto ETF. Almost A$5.2 million was traded in the first five minutes. The fund soared to a total of A$42.5 million, signalling local institutional demand for cryptocurrencies.

As Crypto News Australia reported, ASIC this week gave the green light to fund managers to launch crypto ETFs after consulting with industry experts. BetaShares CRYP (Capital Appreciation Portfolio Diversification) was the first to debut on the ASX, and it comprises a range of companies whose revenues derive mainly from crypto-companies such as retail exchanges, blockchain firms, mining companies, etcetera. 

The fund is now full with investments in several high-profile companies including:

  • Galaxy Digital (12.3% in weight of assets)
  • Marathon Digital (11.3%)
  • Coinbase Global (10.7%)
  • Silvergate Capital (10.2%)
  • Microstrategy (9.4%)

Big Moment For Australian Finance

Alex Vynokur, CEO of BetaShares, tagged the event as a “big moment for Australian finance” – yet he’s not surprised by the fund’s success, acknowledging there has been real demand for crypto-assets in Australia over the past 12 months, from family offices to high net worth individuals.

There’s real appetite from Australian investors both from individual investors as well as financial advisers to obtain the exposure to the digital assets ecosystem and do it in a regulated structure. It surpassed our expectations.

Alex Vynokur, CEO, BetaShares

Crypto ETFs have long been expected by the crypto community, and institutions are now realising the potential of crypto-assets and blockchain technology. The success of BetaShares proves the local demand for crypto-assets in Australia is growing.

More countries are now joining the BTC ETF movement. At this point, the most traded crypto fund is ProShare’s ETF, which broke records of US$1 billion worth in trading volume in just one day, marking the second-largest volume for an ETF ever registered in the US.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto Exchange Crypto News Investing Melbourne Trading

Aussie Exchange ACX Case: Blockchain Global Collapses Owing Creditors $21 Million

Australian crypto exchange ACX came in for criticism “multiple times” last year from concerned traders and users who reported they were unable to withdraw funds.

Now the developer of the failed ACX trading platform, Blockchain Global (BGL), has entered voluntary administration, owing creditors A$21 million.

BGL has variously claimed to be the developer, operator and owner of ACX. Administrators were appointed on October 19, less than a month after BGL was ordered to disclose its assets by Victorian Supreme Court Justice Peter Riordan.

$12.3 Million Shortfall in BGL Assets

Sam Lee, CEO of BGL, claims to have stepped down as a director in March 2019 but he retains ownership of the brand. A preliminary administrators’ report dated October 24 revealed a $12.3 million shortfall in assets.

It’s a business decision for existing directors that it is in the best interest of creditors and shareholders to wind up the company. I abstained from all decision-making after my appointment as I didn’t have enough visibility to make informed decisions.

Sam Lee, CEO, BGL

According to the preliminary administrators’ report, BGL has A$8,264,764 in assets including A$5,729,175 in crypto spread across bitcoin, ethereum, MobileGo and XEM, plus A$1.3 million in shares along with another A$1 million in cash held in accounts with the Bank of Melbourne.

The value of BGL’s assets and uncollected debts, however, is far exceeded by its creditors. Since ACX ceased trading and froze the accounts of its users in March last year, an estimated 200 investors – who are understood to have lost as much as A$10 million – have been kept in the dark.

ACX Banned For Life, Digital Currency Licence Revoked

ACX was banned for life by the peak industry body while the financial intelligence regulator AUSTRAC revoked its digital currency licence. Many of those investors have since given up hope of ever getting their money back.

One of them, University of Queensland research fellow Khaled Said, invested “a few thousand dollars” in popular currencies such as Ripple and Ethereum with ACX during the first bitcoin boom in 2017. He lost interest during a downturn but returned to the platform when prices began to recover in 2019, only to find he was one of many who could put money into ACX but could not take it out.

As far as we can tell there are 10 or 20 [investors] who lost a lot, who lost more than half a million, and the rest are people like me who lost a few thousand each.

Khaled Said, ACX investor and creditor

‘Nobody Wants to Take the Case’

Investors say the collapse of the platform has been reported to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Federal Police, various state police, the Australian Signals Directorate’s Cyber Crime Unit and several members of parliament.

Said personally reported his loss to ASIC in August 2020. He was sent a few links to fact sheets and has not heard anything since. “Nobody is willing to take our case, which is really concerning,” Said complains.

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Crypto News Dogecoin Investing Tokens

Floki Inu Pumps 220% in a Single Day Amid Memecoin Frenzy

The memecoin circus looks set to continue as Floki Inu, a token established in July and named after Elon Musk’s then-new Shiba Inu puppy, soared 220 percent, printing new all-time highs.

Floki Inu soars 200%. Source: Coingecko

Advertisement-Driven Pump

One of the oft-repeated buzzwords common to almost all coins and tokens is decentralisation. In the case of Floki Inu, however, it’s pretty obvious that decentralisation is a secondary concern, given that an effort is being made by a centralised group to pump up the price.

Notably, the marketing material lacks any reference to FLOKI’s reason for existence – an omission that in itself speaks volumes and ought to already raise the alarm bells for anyone paying attention.

Floki Inu on the move, as seen in London. Source: Twitter

All over the world, various campaigns have been launched to promote FLOKI, seemingly seeking to elicit a sense of “FOMO” (fear of missing out) from retail investors looking to pile in.

A tale of two dogs, as seen in London. Source: Twitter

This tactic appears to have been successful given the token’s parabolic price rise in the past 24 hours.

An Obvious Pump and Dump?

Traditional finance has often struggled to understand crypto valuations, but even crypto investors would struggle to put together a coherent investment case for a token such as FLOKI, a memecoin that ostensibly lacks purpose.

FLOKI isn’t alone, as a lack of utility hasn’t stopped its canine relative SHIBA from soaring in recent weeks. Remarkably, the original memecoin, DOGE, comprised 62 percent of Robinhood’s Q2 crypto revenue. Unfortunately for Robinhood, DOGE’s lack of publicity in Q3 contributed significantly towards the company’s 78 percent decline in crypto revenue.

One eagle-eyed Redditor noted that of the 158,865 FLOKI holders, a whopping 49 percent is held by a single address. Could this whale be behind the campaign pumping FLOKI’s price with a view to dumping it on retail investors? A cynic would say yes, but then again, so would a realist. Steve Hanke isn’t a fan of crypto in general, but in this case he may prove to be spot on:

FLOKI isn’t even listed with any major exchanges as of yet. So it’s likely that its run will continue. Much like a game of musical chairs, retail investors would be well-advised to ensure they are not left holding the bags when the music stops.

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Bitcoin Crypto Exchange Crypto News Investing Market Analysis Markets

Bitcoin Slips to $58,000 Amid $1 Billion Liquidity Flush

After hitting new all-time highs, a sharp market correction and a US$930 million “liquidity flush” has knocked bitcoin back to US$58,000, according to data from analytics firm Bybt.

Due to a price drop in “digital gold” and the overall crypto market in the past 24 hours, a series of liquidations was triggered across exchanges as traders were unable to meet margin requirements in their leveraged positions.

The total value of liquidations reached more than US$930 million, with 87,135 traders liquidated. The largest single liquidation order happened on Bitmex-ADA, with a value of US$3.85 million.

Total liquidations observed. Source: Bybt

Recent History Repeats

Crypto analyst and investor Justin Bennett took to Twitter to explain to his followers that despite the dip, bitcoin seems to be primed to follow the same pattern as it did in September:

Bennett went on to say that he believes the worst is probably over for the altcoin market, and even if bitcoin sees further price drops, altcoins will likely not be greatly affected. At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin was sitting at US$61,165 according to data from CoinGecko.

Bitcoin Dump or Short-Term Flushout?

Although bitcoin’s price is trending down amid signs of excess leverage and greed in the market, many are wondering whether this is it, or is it just the beginning of a more extensive correction needed to liquidate the high leverage recently exercised by retail investors?

All signs seem to point to the correction being short-lived, with bitcoin having stabilised. If all goes well, we should see a recovery take place, but only once leveraged investors have been flushed out.

William Clemente, lead insights analyst at Blockware Solutions, took to Twitter to share his view:

Just Buy the Dip!

The first US-based Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) has been greeted with mixed emotions. All things aside, this is certainly a massive move in the right direction for Bitcoin and crypto adoption.

Overall, the picture for the bitcoin price is bullish. Over the past five months, about 70 percent of the total supply of bitcoin has not moved, indicating that the majority is held by long-term holders or HODLers.

The market has also seen traces of whales, with Bitcoin addresses with 100 to 1,000 BTC accumulating over 85,700 BTC in a two-week period. Along with an increased demand for bitcoin, a supply squeeze is being created that looks bullish in the long term.

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Crypto News Dogecoin Investing

DOGE Blamed For Robinhood’s 78% Decline in Q3 Crypto Revenue

In the wake of the March 2020 Covid-19 financial meltdown, user growth in investment apps such as Robinhood skyrocketed as retail investors piled into stocks and crypto, particularly memecoins such as DOGE. Things have since taken a rather dramatic turn as the company recently reported results reflecting a 78 percent decline in crypto revenue, much of that blamed on DOGE.

Slowdown in Crypto Hits Revenue

This week, the company revealed in its Q3 earnings report that crypto revenue had dropped to US$51 million – a staggering 78 percent decline from Q2’s US$233 million. To be fair, it is still significantly up over the past year where in Q3 2020, it recorded only US$5 million in crypto revenue – a 880 percent increase over the period. In any event, some remained unimpressed.

Notwithstanding, total net revenues increased by 35 percent to US$365 million while other financials included a loss of US$1.32 billion. This represents a substantial improvement on the US$11 billion loss recorded in Q3 of 2020.

Split of the company’s revenue. Source: The Block

Robinhood and DOGE – A Match Made In Heaven?

Few could have imagined a few short years ago that a coin created as a joke would have a market capitalisation of US$34 billion, much less comprise 62 percent of a listed company’s crypto revenue. To provide some context, DOGE would rank approximately 238th in the S&P 500 index. Apple takes the number one spot at US$2.4 trillion.

Given that over 60 percent of Robinhood’s crypto revenue came from a coin whose value is derived by FOMO, speculation and celebrity endorsements, it isn’t surprising that revenues collapsed as interest in DOGE waned in favour of the latest canine-themed memecoin, SHIB.

Robinhood CFO Jason Warnick indicated on a call with reporters that customers had shifted focus towards equities in Q3, whereas:

In Q2, the story was about crypto, especially DOGE.

Jason Warnick, Robinhood CFO

Despite the significant decline in crypto revenue, CEO Vlad Tenev remained upbeat about some of the more exciting developments within the company:

This quarter was about developing more products and services for our customers, including crypto wallets. More than one million people have joined our crypto wallets waitlist to date. With 24/7 live phone support, we believe that Robinhood is becoming the most trusted and intuitive platform for retail and crypto investors.

Vlad Tenev, CEO, Robinhood

Users are looking forward to the release of Robinhood’s crypto wallet and hoping that the company lists SHIB later this year. Warnick has refused to rule it out but cited ongoing regulatory concerns as a possible reason not to.

Despite being forced to pay a US$70 million fine earlier this year for misleading its customers, they appears committed to investing in memecoins through the popular platform. It wouldn’t therefore be surprising to see SHIB pop up as a trading option in the near future.

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Crypto Art Crypto News Events Investing NFTs

Why Are Buyers Forking Out $7 Million for NFTs Not Yet Minted?

Non-fungible token (NFT) investors have piled US$7 million into Tyler Hobbs’ “Incomplete Control” NFT collection, without being able to view them. Participants poured money into an auction to stand a chance to win one of 50 Golden Tokens, which will grant them ownership over unminted NFTs.

Yes, you read that right. Investors have put US$7 million into a Dutch auction that has sold 50 tokens to confer them ownership of NFTs they have not yet been able to view, and that will only be minted in December this year.

The artist behind the popular NFT series “Fidenza”, Hobbs will soon launch 100 one-of-a-kind NFTs in his latest collection, “Incomplete Control”, from December 9-13 at Bright Moments Gallery in New York.

NFT Madness Scales New Heights

On October 22, fans of Hobbs contributed 1,800 Ether (ETH), worth an estimated US$7 million, in exchange for 50 of the 100 “Golden Tokens”, which will grant holders ownership rights to one of the NFTs that will only be minted during the exhibition.

The Golden Tokens were sold through a Dutch auction hosted by Mirror Protocol that lasted only 90 minutes. Each token was priced at 500 ETH, scheduled to reduce every five minutes until it reached 5 ETH. All tokens sold were priced between 30 ETH (about US$120,000) and 80 ETH (about US$320,000).

The 50 remaining Golden Tokens will be randomly distributed on November 5 to 50 wallets of those who currently hold works from the artist’s earlier series, “Fidenza”, or the “CryptoCitizens” NFT projects. Owners who receive the tokens will be able to buy a 15 ETH “Incomplete Control” NFT at a 50 percent discount.

According to Hobbs, this new collection reflects the theme of control in the analogue and digital worlds. On his website, the artist says:

Every work takes a certain amount of time to achieve impact, another length of time to achieve understanding, and a further length of time to reach exhaustion. The forces of chaos and entropy give the natural world a certain warmth, and there are patterns and lessons there that we can use. I like to introduce these elements into the digital world, and Incomplete Control continues that work.

Tyler Hobbs

Do You Think the NFT Market is Overheated? Then Short It!

Many are starting to think the NFT market is overheated, with some NFTs fetching absolutely ridiculous amounts of money. Recently, an EtherRock, a simple grey and black illustration of a rock, sold for over US$100,000.

If you, like many, are sceptical as to the longevity of this craze, Singapore-based decentralised derivatives exchange SynFutures is launching NFTures, a product that will allow its users to short, or bet against, the future prices of NFTs. Currently, the only way to derive profit from NFTs is by buying or selling them, but SynFutures is looking at ways to change this.