Category: Cryptocurrency News

In mid September, the SEC threatened to sue Coinbase if it launches its then planned lending product. Even though there were similar services already available, the SEC targeted Coinbase due to its size and profile to send a message. Cut to today and coinbase has got a hell of a message for the SEC! Come…
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Hello guys, im a big fan of crypto.com. I use Kraken as my main exchange because they are secure and i trust them. I like the way the app is designed and the support is amazing aswell. However they lack the stacking opportunities CDC has. The main reason is im using it as a second…
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The blockchain is fast spreading its “tentacles” to different consumer sectors, and adoption is at break-neck speed. Over the last decade, the revolutionary technology has proven to be worth its weight in gold, with many applications within and beyond the world of (decentralized) finance. One of the industries getting disrupted by decentralized finance in recent times is the gaming industry. GameFi is the new buzz in the cryptocurrency industry. By bringing together DeFi, NFTs, and the practical application of blockchain technology to the gaming industry. There is currently a paradigm shift taking place as gamers move away from the traditional methods of traditional online games of “pay-to-play”/ “play-to-win” and toward the “play-to-earn” model recently introduced by GameFi. Although early GameFi projects like Axie Infinity were built on the Ethereum blockchain. Newer blockchains, such as Binance Smart Chain, aim to improve the GameFi sector even further by offering faster tps, lower transaction fees, and a better user experience. This article will look more closely at the concept of Play-to-earn and how SQUIDANOMICS– a new hold to earn, hold to play, and play-to-earn platform– is attempting to redefine the meaning of GameFi. PLAY-TO-EARN: Re-defining The Gaming industry Play-to-earn is a new concept in the gaming industry that has been made possible by introducing decentralized finance and blockchain technology. Play-to-earn is the foundation for blockchain-based games. Play-to-earn is a new gaming model that rewards players simply for actively playing games. The play-to-earn model is becoming increasingly popular. The sector now has a market cap of more than 17 billion dollars, which is a considerable accomplishment given that it is still relatively new. Axie Infinity leads the pack in the play-to-earn sector, with a market cap of more than $8 billion, accounting for nearly half of the total market cap of the play-to-earn industry. Axie Infinity has been a key player in the new wave of GameFi, with its gaming model based on play-to-earn, with 95 percent of earnings returned to players. Other GameFi projects worth mentioning include Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Illuvium, which account for a significant portion of the sector’s market cap. The industry is still in its infancy, and with its popularity growing by the day, it is no surprise that GameFi projects are currently leading in terms of user growth in Q3, and so far, so good in Q4 2021. Hold-to-earn is a new model in the cryptocurrency industry that aims to alleviate selling pressure. Using a concept known as reflection mechanism, holders of reflective tokens are automatically rewarded for simply holding, preventing the classic pump and dump mechanism, which is common in the cryptocurrency industry. Hold-to-play is another concept in which users must have a certain number of tokens to participate in any game or tournament that requires this requirement. Due to the advent of NFT technology, which allows players to genuinely own their in-game purchases and trade these digital assets in real-time on NFT marketplaces, there is currently a high demand for in-game digital assets. This opens up an entirely new path for gamers, as the value of their NFTs increases and can be traded to other gamers, making the play-to-earn model more appealing and providing additional incentives to sustain user growth. Introducing Squidanomics Several game-changing blockchain projects like Squidanomics are a breath of fresh air in GameFi and aim to incentivize the GameFi industry with its unique gaming models. Squidanomics is a novel project launched recently by a tech team of bright minds based in the United States and Canada. The project is a fan-made token that portrays a perfect blend of tokenomics and entertainment inspired by the popular South Korean survival drama TV series –Squid Game. Squidanomics is a groundbreaking innovation intended to usher in a whole new ball game to token holders. Individuals from every part of the globe can earn whopping sums of money by participating in simple and highly entertaining games. The TV-series-inspired project is a BUSD reward, a non-fungible and gaming token built on the Binance Smart Chain. It poses the most extreme and highly profitable pass known to the digital sphere. Like many modern crypto tokens, holders do not just own tokens but also receive handsome prizes across the platform. Currently, as a leading community-driven play-to-earn and hold-to-play project on the Binance Smart Chain, Squidanomics combines fun and earning into a perfect mix where gamers’ interaction is at its best. SQUID holders get a 5% BUSD reward from transactions. In addition, transaction fees are economical as the project is on the Binance Smart Chain, which bolsters profitability for users and holders alike. Squidanomics offers a safe platform for gamers and investors with a transparent framework and user-centric mode of operation–a completely different ball game in the world of GameFi. Closing Thoughts  Crypto tokens have more to offer the industry besides acting as a store of value or an alternative to other things for investors. This aspect of blockchain technology will only advance with the development of revolutionary projects. Squidanomics aims to become one of the major driving forces behind this advancement as the most rewarding token on the Binance Smart Chain.  

Microsoft has announced the launch of a metaverse-inspired feature for its Teams app called Mesh. Mesh will allow users to introduce personalized avatars in digital worlds, making meetings more immersive. The platform is being announced on the heels of Facebook’s pivot to becoming a metaverse-dedicated company, changing its name to “Meta.” Microsoft Embraces the Metaverse […]

The American-based payment company Square Inc. reported a drop in Bitcoin revenue month over month from its Cash App during the third quarter of 2021, the total amount being $1.82, overall, 11% up from last year. Square has found profit in midst of the pandemic as many users grew to need e-commerce services. The number of processed transactions on the app during the third quarter went up 27% with a total amount of $3.7 billion. The company is led by Jack Dorsey, who also runs Twitter and is a big BTC enthusiast, currently aiming to invest in the future of decentralization and new economic systems. Square’s third quarter of 2021 had total net revenue of $3.84 billion, 27% up from last year; $2.03 billion excluding BTC. Its gross profit went up 43% year over year with $1.13 billion. The revenue from transactions was $1.30 billion, up 40% since 2020. However, bitcoin revenue and gross profit dropped compared to the second quarter. The company stated the decrease is due to the “relative stability in the price of bitcoin”. In the third quarter of 2021, we recognized a loss of $7 million driven by the adjustment to the revaluation of equity investments as well as a $6 million bitcoin impairment. Bloomberg reported what Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja at Square shared with them: Bitcoin transactions through Cash App have grown tremendously over the past two years, but Bitcoin revenue can be a deceiving metric. Square reports all Bitcoin sales as revenue, which is why that number can look very large and is dependent on things like price volatility. Bitcoin gross profit, though, represents the money Square collects via fees from Bitcoin transactions, and is a better reflection of that part of Square’s business. Related Reading | Square’s Cash App Reports $2.7B In Quarterly Bitcoin Revenue, A 200% Jump After the Q3 earnings letter’s release, the company’s dropped 4.9% in post-market trading. The Focus Is On Bitcoin (And International Waters) Square’s earnings letter highlighted their agreement to acquire the Afterpay platform “with more than 16 million consumers and approximately 100,000 merchants as of June 2021.” Through this transaction, we plan to unite two complementary businesses with a shared focus on economic empowerment and financial inclusion. We believe the combination will more deeply connect our Seller and Cash App ecosystems, accelerate our strategic priorities, and allow us to deliver even more compelling products and services for consumers and merchants. The report also sheds light on other projects and partnerships, such as the Cash App’s new offer to teenagers, an important expansion of its demographics, and the SoFi Stadium partnership. We believe our partnership with SoFi Stadium serves as a testament to how we are now equipped to enable unique commerce experiences and support the needs of complex multi-purpose venue sellers. The App is currently focusing on expanding and offering accessible and flexible commerce products to all. Results show “an increased adoption of contactless payment options due to the pandemic.” The company explained their focus remains on their “international strategy of achieving product parity globally, investing further into brand awareness, and launching in new markets”. Square stated they are focusing on BTC rather than bringing other cryptocurrencies into the Cash App. Earlier, Dorsey had tweeted about Square’s intention in building an energy-efficient and more accessible BTC mining system. “Square is considering building a Bitcoin mining system based on custom silicon and open source for individuals and businesses worldwide,” Related Reading | Jack Dorsey: Square Could Build Bitcoin Mining System

Government spending is out of control in the USA. Trillions on wars no one wants. Trillions in debt from wars no one wants. Congress always gets raises. Minimum wage hasn’t changed in forty years. Big banks get bailouts while Americans get homelessness. And yet there’s not enough money to provide healthcare to the people. We…
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As one of the major indicators for the valuation of public chains, Total Value Locked (TVL) measures the level of prosperity and the fundamentals of a public chain’s ecosystem, especially for public chains with extensive applications on DeFi. During the short bull market that has just ended, native public chain tokens differed from one another in terms of their performance in the secondary market. Even for public chains with moderate performance like BSC, the TVL rebounded after the May 19 crash. However, their token prices have been lower than those of other public chains (e.g. Solana) because the way TVL is calculated does not correctly reflect the actual TVL and capital flows. In fact, non-stablecoins constitute a significant proportion of TVL, and the prices of many non-stable assets are subject to market swings. This has led to a flawed evaluation method of “price analysis based on token prices”, and the right way to calculate the TVL trends should eliminate the impact of token prices movement. In this article, three TVL adjustment methods that exclude the impact of token prices are introduced. Some interesting analysis using the adjusted TVL is also provided. The data used by the research are the daily TVL statistics of the top 10 public chains (as per DeFiLlama’s TVL ranking) from February 3, 2021, to September 25, 2021, and the closing price of the corresponding tokens. Normal TVL Trends In terms of the TVL trend, the BSC public chain was clearly hit by the May 19 crash. After around two months of horizontal price movement, its TVL significantly rebounded. As for Solana, the TVL started growing from the early days of July and soared since September. Other public chains, such as Terra and Avalanche, also performed pretty well. However, as mentioned earlier, due to the major fluctuation of token prices and the flaw of normal TVL calculation, the actual TVL concerning the ecosystem of the public chains may not shown properly by the picture. Figure 1 (data source: ViaBTC Capital, CoinEx, DeFiLlama) Introduction to Methods of TVL Adjustment It is very difficult to measure TVL with one numerical value because the tokens locked on a public chain come in a great variety and are subject to rapid updates. The unified measurement based on the USDT-margined value of all tokens is a comparatively more feasible approach. However, since the USDT-margined value also suffers from great volatility, the TVL determined through such an approach may be distorted. One ideal method of adjustment (Method 1) is to establish a Baseline time point and record the price of all the locked tokens at this time point. Whenever the TVL is calculated, the current TVL will be determined by the number of the various tokens in the present network and the Baseline token price, which is expressed in the following formula:   In the above formula,  is the adjusted TVL at the given time t,  is the number of tokens at time t, and is the Baseline token price. Using this adjusted TVL, we can conduct reliable horizontal comparisons between different public chains and reflect on the status of a given public chain. This method has been adopted by DAppRadar for the calculation of the project-specific TVL. This method is relatively precise and is suited for calculating TVL of a specific project. However, when considering TVL adjustment of an entire public chain, the above method suffers from the unavailability of data and the rapid updates of the locked tokens. For example, the Baseline price records may not include the newly-launched tokens with high TVL. Next, let’s move to another method of TVL adjustment (Method 2). Although this method is less accurate, it features easier data acquisition/processing and can be adopted more extensively. Moreover, using method 2, we can also reasonably adjust most public chains’ TVL. Method 2 also first determines a Baseline time point; however, it only records the price of the native token (e.g., BSC’s BNB). It then adjusts the TVL based on the current price of the native token, the Baseline token price, the TVL of stablecoins, and the regular TVL. In the above formula,  is the adjusted TVL at the given time t,  is the regular TVL at time t,  is the Baseline token price,  is the price of the native token at time t, and is the TVL of stablecoins at time T. This adjustment is based on the following reasons: On a public chain, apart from stablecoins, most of the locked assets are native public chain tokens. For example, on PancakeSwap, most of the LPs exist in the form of XXX-BNB. Tokens of a public chain’s native project are highly correlated with native public chain tokens, which are often the most volatile assets on public chains. Therefore, it makes sense to adjust the token price fluctuations of the native projects with the volatility of native public chain tokens. Mainstream tokens come with high correlations, i.e. correlation between native public chain tokens and other mainstream assets locked such as BTC and ETH. Such statistics can be easily obtained and processed, which makes the method more universal. Method 3, a further simplification of Method 2, is an alternative solution when the TVL value of stablecoins on the public chains is unavailable. The method features the same rationale as Method 2. The difference is that it cannot be applied to public chains with a high TVL of stablecoins, such as Terra and Celo.  Case Analysis Through the TVL trends adjusted using Method 3 as shown in Figure 2, we can tell that the BSC crash may not be as steep as that shown by the regular TVL trend. Furthermore, according to the adjusted values, the sharp and sustained recovery from July to September as per the regular TVL trend did not occur —— What happened was merely an interval oscillation. In the case of Solana, the real TVL did not soar in September. Rather, it had stagnated at the end of August, and the rise of TVL that followed was likely to be caused by the impact of the FOMO price. Figure 2 (data source: ViaBTC Capital, CoinEx, DeFiLlama) This adjusted TVL also leads to some interesting discoveries. We determined the cumulative volatility of the adjusted TVL and the price of native public chain tokens in relation to three well-established public chains (Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon), i.e. and, with the given time 0 being February 3, 2021. From the results stated in Figure 3, it is clear that the price growth of native public chain tokens and that of the adjusted TVL seem to converge To further verify such a relationship, we can divide the two values of cumulative volatility and see whether there is a mean reversion at around 1. Figure 4 demonstrates that this convergence holds, which means that the valuation method based on the adjusted TVL multiplier (valuation/ the adjusted TVL) is appropriate as Figure 4 shows that this multiplier keeps fluctuating around a certain value. Figure 3 (data source: ViaBTC Capital, CoinEx, DeFiLlama) Figure 4 (data source: ViaBTC Capital, CoinEx, DeFiLlama) Another case relates to the observation of the actual changes in the TVL of public chains. That is, when a new public chain starts to boom, what is the source of its TVL growth? Does it come from the circulation of existing on-chain capital or new capital inflow? Here, we did some research on Solana. From Figure 2, it is clear that the TVL of Solana’s ecosystem soared approximately from August 12 to September 12. As such, we picked the statistics during this period as the sample for the analysis of correlation and TVL changes. Based on the values of correlation as shown in the black frames of Figure 5, most of the TVL of Solana may have been contributed by Polygon and Ethereum, the latter of which may have provided a greater proportion. The overall TVL (Figure 6) of the 5 public chains dropped from August 12 to September 12, including ETH and BSC, which means that the TVL growth of Solana was the result of capital circulation instead of new capital inflow. Figure 5 (data source: ViaBTC Capital, CoinEx, DeFiLlama) Figure 6 (data source: ViaBTC Capital, CoinEx, DeFiLlama) In a nutshell, the adjusted TVL allows us to eliminate the impact of certain token prices and get a clearer picture of the asset turnover and the TVL dynamics on public chains. Additionally, with such adjustments, we can develop an intuitive insight into the ecosystem development of public chains, particularly those that focus on DeFi application and invest in the native token and infrastructure of a new public chain during the early stage of asset turnover.