Category: Cryptocurrency News

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Multiple trends have converged over the world in the past two years that have made what was once almost unthinkable not only possible, but probable. The catalyst that transformed the course of these trends was COVID-19 and resultant government-mandated lockdowns to combat the spread of the pandemic. The first of these trends was the possibility of remote work. Already made possible through advancements in technology, Zoom became an everyday word in 2020. What was already happening accelerated even further. Per a report from the National Council on Compensation Insurance, before the pandemic, 6% of Americans worked from home. In May 2020, one-third of workers worked from home. Many companies are evaluating. The second trend is increased screen time in front of entertainment or gaming platforms. Already an increasing trend over the globe, lockdowns drove millions of more users onto Netflix as well as gaming platforms. Per a report from Statista, there are now 3.24 billion gamers in the world. Then there is what COVID did to economies and the far-reaching effects of this. Governments and central banks implemented quantitative easing to prevent further market collapses. This created a lot more liquidity across markets. Thanks to apps like Robinhood, finance had also been gamified, and millions were becoming first time investors. Stocks such as Tesla and Zoom as well as other assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum have seen record price appreciation since March 2020. Those newly invested in markets saw tremendous gains many never experienced before. And on the other side of the coin, this increased monetary supply combined with re-opening economies and other factors are contributing to inflation not seen in 30 years in the United States and many other nations. Recent 6.2% inflation figures are decaying at personal savings more than 60 times the rate of interest in some savings accounts. This is very good for borrowers and investors and bad for savers. With all of these factors coming to a head, there is now the famed Great Resignation. With 4.4 million Americans quitting their job, there is a growing desire from many who don’t want to be left behind with inflation and want to increase their income. They want to improve their financial situation and they are voting with their feet. Another connected trend is a growing number of people getting side hustles or working to build passive income. One in three Americans is planning to get a side hustle this year per this report from Nasdaq. Take all these trends happening at the same time and meanwhile blockchain technology – NFTs and cryptocurrencies are knocking on the door of gaming with a new concept. Play-to-Earn gaming or GameFi. Decentralizing finance and gaming combined. With billions of gamers around the world gaming for fun – and many of those people looking for ways to increase their income. What happens when they can earn money gaming? The potential is there for the GameFi sector to absolutely explode, and one project CoinFantasy is positioned to take advantage of this pending economic explosion. CoinFantasy CoinFantasy is a gaming platform built on blockchain technology. Similar to Fantasy Sports, users compete to win rewards by predicting the outcomes of stocks and cryptocurrencies. It features a variety of game pools and prizes. The platform is open for anyone to participate in, and there is no centralized “house” structured to take the lion’s share of profit from the game. Anyone can become a game organizer at CoinFantasy and they are entitled to get 20% of the game pool prize money as reward for creating and filling the game pool. The CoinFantasy ecosystem will also include NFTs or non-fungible tokens. Players can buy or upgrade to win special player cards with over 100 unique characteristics within the CoinFantasy metaverse. A major innovation in blockchain gaming is players can own the in-game attributes because they are NFTs. They can increase in value over time and if they want to stop playing, they can sell them to other players. These NFTs can even be rented to other players when the user is not playing, and in some cases can be used as collateral to obtain tokens used in gameplay. CoinFantasy is set to utilize these new features to create a new user experience they believe has the potential to onboard millions of new users around the world. Also, it aims to create a niche billion dollar market of gamification of financial markets  

The cost of traditional banking transactions has come into focus once again as Amazon announced it would no longer accept Visa credit cards for payment in the UK. It was part of a battle that began earlier this year in Singapore and Australia where the e-commerce giant took steps to deter Visa credit card payments. An Amazon spokesperson explained, “We believe the cost of accepting credit card payments should be going down over time to allow merchants to reinvest savings into low prices and shopping enhancements. Yet despite technical advancements, some cards’ cost of payments continue to stay high or even rise.” Citing Britain’s exit from the European Union, Visa increased its fees on purchases with UK credit cards from 0.3% to 1.5%. Mastercard also imposed a similar increase. Despite Amazon’s pushback, the truth remains that merchants have always been at the mercy of card issuers. Credit cards have been a global standard for decades but the financial services landscape has changed. The cryptocurrency sector, underpinned by the security and transparency of blockchain technology, offers functional alternatives which could feasibly take the place of credit cards in the not-so-distant future. Credit Cards vs. Blockchain-Based Payments Bloomberg noted that in the US alone, merchants spent $110 billion in card processing fees in 2020. Most consumers are barely aware these costs exist or that they are responsible for higher prices on everyday goods and services. To accept credit card payments, merchants pay interchange fees, assessment fees, and processing fees. These fees go to the card’s issuing bank, the card’s payment network, and the payment processor. The typical credit card processing fee ranges from about 1.3% to 3.5%, plus the payment processor’s cut, which varies depending on the processor and the merchant’s plan. These are fees that, in many people’s eyes, do not follow principles but rather reflect the choices of issuers who monopolise the market. Payments are essentially loans from the acquiring bank and the risks involved for the lender add to the costs. Because banks often don’t have direct relationships with each other they have to use the SWIFT network for a correspondent bank that has a relationship with both banks and settles the transaction – another third party for another fee. Furthermore, banks maintain their own ledgers which have to be reconciled with other banks, adding more time and cost. By contrast, most cryptocurrencies run on public blockchains which share their ledgers globally, providing a way for untrusted parties to verify and agree upon data. By providing this open ledger that nobody needs to administer, blockchains can provide financial services without the need for many of the traditional banking processes. The technology allows for access to information about account holders and every transaction, meaning there is less risk and less need to place trust in third parties. The payment network bypasses the need for interchange fees by being more direct and transparent. The increased efficiency, as well as inherent security of blockchain, significantly reduces fees and settlement times. Cryptocurrency Payment Solutions Are Already Here So if the costly intermediaries associated with credit cards are eliminated then merchants will surely have noticed what blockchain can do for their businesses. Not quite. With new technology, awareness and trust tend to build slowly until a tipping point is reached. Regardless of the rate of adoption though, the reality is that there are already crypto payment solutions leveraging this technology and offering to revolutionise payments for merchants. A report published this month by the analytics firm, TokenInsight, provided research into a number of cryptocurrency payment solutions. While the report pointed to well-known projects such as Stellar and Ripple which cater to large institutions for cross-border transactions, it also observed what Alchemy Pay is offering to online and in-store retailers. It allows merchants to accept cryptocurrency while receiving payment in their local fiat currency via its unique backend process. The network takes crypto and converts it to stablecoins and then on to fiat, via partnerships with OTCs and other exchanges. This overcomes a major barrier to entry by requiring very little from merchants and integrating crypto and fiat currency for them. This is the kind of solution that was not possible even just three years ago and demonstrates the progression of financial applications built on blockchain technology. All in Good Time So, while Amazon is battling the credit card giants on behalf of the merchants, it is worth knowing that real alternatives are already out there. Nevertheless, retail habits that have built up over decades will not disappear overnight and there still remains a need to educate both retailers and consumers about the issues of traditional finance and the advantages cryptocurrency provides. As exciting as blockchain finance is at this time, those in the know will need to be patient until the word gets out.  

BCH House Venezuela, an adoption organization, has published its first documentary on social media, where it shows the way in which Venezuelans are using cryptocurrency as a means of exchange. Roberto García, the founder of this initiative, shows us the level of adoption the BCH House initiative has reached in Barquisimeto — a city in […]

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MetaLand is a game on $FTM based on the Rarity contracts. The $MST token just launched a couple hours ago and is currently sitting around $300k market cap, which is criminally low. And btw the Dev @Crypto_Sharuba, has been here for a while 😉 💬 This is the official community and discussion group of The…
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To start with, personally I'm quite bullish on crypto and feel good about having the investments into the coins I trust in that I have. That said, I do wonder how risky the whole crypto market is. Many of us put our hard earned money into it and I feel there's strong cases to be…
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I was reading Silk Road case tonight after learning about Ross releasing his NFT collection (only know that silk road is a drug website before hand), and it pretty much blew my mind. he basically built something very similar in nature to what today called defi by just combining tor with bitcoin. if he was…
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The play-to-earn game’s soft launch is planned for Q1 2022, with 400,000 users already pre-registered.