Category: Cryptocurrency News

Merchants can now accept payments made through USDC and convert the funds directly into fiat currency.

Given the growing interest in crypto adoption as a legal tender, it’s not shocking that many participants will wish to legalize bitcoin. The level of support for crypto was evident in a new survey conducted by The Economist. This survey aimed to know the number of people who want their governments to legalize crypto. The number of respondents was 3,000, and the result showed that 37% want a legalized bitcoin and other cryptos for transactions. Another aspect of the survey looked at the support for CBDC. The result also showed 37% support for governments to issue the financial product. One of the things that the researchers aimed to discover was whether other countries might follow El Salvador’s footsteps in legalizing crypto. Survey Results In Detail Many of the participants came from developed and developing economies. The developed countries in the survey were Singapore, the USA, South Korea, the UK, and Australia. The developing economies were the Philippines, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam. The idea was to determine how the people from these countries view the crypto industry. Related Reading | Bitcoin NUL Suggests More Downside To Come Before The Bottom After the survey, The Economist discovered that 37% of the respondents wanted their government to declare crypto as a legal tender. Furthermore, these groups expressed their support if such a move became a reality. However, 43% of the respondents said they were not in support or against the motion, while 18% rejected the move out rightly. The survey also focused on finding support for the CBDC launch. Amongst those that participated, 37% stated that the release of such a product would facilitate crypto adoption. But 19% of the participants see it as a mistake. Some participants were also asked to state their views on Non-fungible tokens. Amongst those asked, 60% stated they might buy, sell or hold NFTs. But 7% amongst them said they won’t. Another branch of crypto surveyed was Decentralized Finance. Among those surveyed, 34% supported DeFi by stating they’ll use its application to conduct all their financial transactions, whether personal or professional. But 17% said they don’t want to participate in the Defi sector. The last segment surveyed was about digital settlements. The researchers discovered that 13% of the respondents already use crypto for settlement, while 18% stated they’re hoping for a cashless nation in a few years. Americans Want Bitcoin As A Legal Tender Another survey by YouGov revealed that many American residents hope that the government will Bitcoin a legal tender. Notably, residents in the West were all for the potential law, while those Midwest frowned at such an idea. Also, the respondents within the age bracket of 25 to 34 are enthusiastic about a legal BTC, while the respondents above 55 years and the women don’t want it. Related Reading | Can Bitcoin Become “One Of The Best Assets On Earth”? This Expert Bets On It It is not surprising to get this level of support for crypto legalization. Since the adoption by El Salvador, other countries are also showing interest in following suit. Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView.com

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The global financial landscape is changing. Every day, more and more people start using cryptocurrency. But as the popularity of crypto rises, so does the number of adversaries hunting for unsuspecting victims in hope of stealing the tokens right out of their wallets. In a world where the privacy and security needs of users have evolved, major messaging apps are stuck in the past. A large portion of the messaging app market is cornered by Meta Platforms (previously Facebook). It owns both WhatsApp, with 2 billion users, and Facebook Messenger, with 1 billion users. WhatsApp drew in much of its base through the promise of security via end-to-end encryption, and Facebook Messenger promises robust privacy through user controls. However, industry experts question either app’s ability to deliver on its claims – Meta Platforms is known for its involvement in a myriad of user data scandals. Given the company’s track record, it’s irresponsible to claim that either of its messaging apps is safe. The next-popular messaging app is Telegram, with about half a billion users. While Telegram does offer end-to-end encryption for private chats, this alone is not enough protection. Telegram is popular among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, who commonly congregate in large chat groups to discuss various tokens and investment strategies. Anyone that has participated in one of these groups knows that they are heavily polluted by scammers and bots. With real money on the line, this is incredibly dangerous, especially for those who are new to cryptocurrency. So far, no major messaging app has broken into the cryptocurrency space. Without catering to the cryptocurrency enthusiasts, these apps are turning their backs on the cryptocurrency community that turned two-cent Bitcoin into one of the best-performing assets of all time. Millions, or even billions, of users worldwide could be waiting to sign-up for a messenger that takes cryptocurrency seriously. That’s exactly what we’re doing with TokLok, the world’s first secure messenger to utilize cryptocurrency tokens. With the needs of cryptocurrency investors in mind, we have pioneered advanced security features that make it the most secure messenger in the world. First – a standard – TokLok offers encryption but goes far beyond that to ensure private correspondence. What makes TokLok unique is that it is a non-public messenger, meaning that users decide who can communicate with them. This is achieved using private chat rooms that give their hosts total control – only they can invite other users. As such, neither scammers nor bots can send unwelcomed messages, and hosts can limit who has access to their conversations. Furthermore, TokLok guarantees total anonymity. Encrypted message content is automatically deleted, and TokLok does not collect or store any information about users or their correspondence. All together, these features enforce that only intended audiences are able to read messages and be involved in conversations. Whether messages are on the way to their recipients or being read, they are safeguarded. We are also working on a feature that will enable users to connect directly, without going through cellular or internet networks. This feature will leverage secure Bluetooth technology to create long-distance connectivity meshes while preserving TokLok’s current security features. Though our app is already developed, we have decided to go public via an Initial Coin Offering, or ICO. The sale of our TOL token (ERC20) will be used to fund the development of new features, such as our secure Bluetooth mesh, and to provide continuous security updates. In total, there will be three token sale rounds, each selling the TOL token for a higher price than the last. The first round is off to a good start, selling nearly 10% of its supply in the last few days. By providing what cryptocurrency users actually need, TokLok is set to become not just the most secure, but also the largest, messaging app in the world.

A Bitcoin-thematic ETF lists on the Borsa Italiana providing savers, institutions and pensions planners with exposure to Bitcoin.

Last week brought some notable reactions to the stablecoin’s depegging in the East Asia region.

The Terra / Luna / UST collapse keeps on generating headlines. This time, we’ll use the data in ARK’s “The Bitcoin Monthly” report to establish its impact on the bitcoin ecosystem. Remember that the non-profit organization LFG, AKA the Luna Foundation Guard, accumulated BTC to defend UST’s peg to the dollar. In a then-delated May interview, Terra’s Do Kwon said that they were trying to get to $1B in BTC so that “besides Satoshi, we will be the largest single holder of Bitcoin in the world.” Related Reading | Terra Beats Tesla As Second-Largest Corporate Bitcoin Holder After $1.5B Purchase Do Kwon also proclaimed, “within the crypto industry, the failure of UST is equivalent to the failure of crypto itself.” At one point, it appeared that BTC and UST’s destinies were inextricably linked, but the bitcoin network absorbed the collapse nearly unscathed. Let’s look at ARK’s numbers and try to figure out how it did it.  Terra, The Largest L-1 Blockchain Failure Ever At this point, everybody knows what happened with Terra. Nobody knows how it happened, though. Was it a coordinated attack or did the natural market’s forces trigger the death spiral event? We wouldn’t know, but the fact of the matter is that the UST de-pegged from the dollar, and this caused a bank run that the Anchor protocol couldn’t handle. The whole situation created the death spiral and the eventual demise of the algorithmic stablecoin and its twin, LUNA. How big was the collapse? According to ARK’s report: “In addition to causing the crash in UST and Luna, we believe Terra is the largest layer-1 blockchain failure in crypto history, wiping out a combined $60 billion of market capitalization between UST and Luna.” Huge in size by any metric, but, how does it compare to previous crypto collapses? The only comparable one was “the Mt. Gox hack that stole 5.7% of total crypto market cap in 2014, Terra’s collapse destroyed roughly 2.7% of crypto’s total market capitalization.” The Mt. Gox hack almost destroyed the bitcoin network at a time when it was more vulnerable. The Terra collapse felt like a breeze in comparison, but, as the numbers show, the impact was significant.  BTC price chart for 06/07/2022 on Eightcap | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com How Did The Terra Collapse Affect BTC? Besides the LFG foundation reportedly selling its 80K BTC, the collapse created extreme selling pressure on bitcoin. According to the report, “exchanges recorded net inflows of 52,000 bitcoin, the largest daily inflow in BTC terms since November 2017 and the largest inflow ever in USD terms.” These are notable numbers.  Bitcoin Net Flows To and From Exchanges | Source: ARK’s “The Bitcoin Monthly” According to the bitcoin blockchain, the account associated with “LFG currently holds 313 BTC, down from 80,934 BTC held prior to Terra’s unraveling”. Did they sell the rest, though? Nobody knows for sure. Back to the report:  “To backstop UST’s peg, The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) reportedly sold most of its ~80,000-bitcoin reserves, contributing to this record inflow.” Surprising even hardcore bitcoiners, the network resisted this massive sell-off without breaking a sweat. Sure, bitcoin’s price suffered, but the blow wasn’t even close to being fatal. And ARK’s prediction reflects that fact, “now decoupled from the Terra blockchain, bitcoin’s selling pressure should subside, yet contagion in the crypto markets is still inconclusive.” Why? Because “bitcoin’s more secure and conservative blockchain should gain market share.” Are Algorithmic Stablecoins Even Possible? To answer this we’ll quote NYDIG’s report “On Impossible Things Before Breakfast,” which comes with the subtitle, “a post-mortem on Terra, a pre-mortem on DeFi, and a glimpse of the madness to come.” As the titles gave away, NYDIG believes that not algorithmic stablecoins nor DeFi as it currently stands are possible. Why? Well… “No matter how well intentioned, all algorithmic stablecoins will fail and the vast majority – possibly all – of DeFi’s current versions will fail, where “fail” here means not gaining sufficient critical mass to matter, being hacked, blowing up, or being altered by regulation to the point of non-viability. In the end, the Terra project could control the supply of its money, but it couldn’t make its people value it. A printing press was the only (non)answer. Sound familiar? Lacking a lender of last resort, DeFi (re)creates the problems solved by central banks. Bitcoin solves the problems created by central banks.” Related Reading | TerraLabs Sold Over 80,000 BTC To Rescue Its Stablecoin As it usually happens, we could summarize this whole article with the old adage: “Bitcoin fixes this.” Featured Image by Louis Maniquet on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView

The Iota Foundation joined Dell along with ClimateCHECK and BioE to fight climate change using real-time carbon footprint data.

The draft bill proposes to eliminate anonymous crypto projects, with DAOs, DeFi and exchanges required to legally register in the U.S.

The DEX has been taken offline due to the discovery of the bug, and the team has implemented an “emergency fix” and update.