Italian professional soccer club AC Milan will be releasing its first-ever nonfungible token (NFT) project in collaboration with the BitMEX crypto exchange. Proceeds will go to Fondazione Milan, the clubs’ charity arm.
The limited-edition collection will feature 75,817 NFTs, a number representative of the capacity of the club’s home ground, San Siro stadium. It will depict a 3D image of a jersey found in South Sudan by Danish war photographer Jan Grarup who was in the country documenting widespread flooding last December.
BitMEX partnered with AC Milan to contribute to the project by providing trading discounts and “other benefits” to the first 10,000 pre-orders. BitMEX will also donate to Fondazione Milan by purchasing a “large number” of the NFTs.
As per the announcement, the club says the proceeds will contribute to funding its charitable causes around the world, specifically mentioning the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and a UNICEF project in South Sudan.
Magic Eden to accept tokens from DeGods and Aurory projects
Magic Eden, the largest marketplace by volume for Solana NFTs, according to DappRadar, has confirmed it will accept the tokens from popular Solana NFT projects “DeGods DUST” and Aurory’s “AURY” within the coming weeks.
The marketplace first teased integration of the DUST token in late March, tweeting “brb integrating $DUST” on March 31. On April 1, a drawing of a Magic Eden-themed bar with the caption “$AURY” was tweeted.
— Magic Eden Solana’s Leading NFT Marketplace (@MagicEden) April 1, 2022
“DeGods” is the most traded collection in 30 days on Magic Eden, according to its own statistics, and has an all-time trading volume on the platform of 307,121 Solana (SOL), or $33.8 million at the time of writing. “Aurory” is in third place overall in sales volume for a Solana NFT project according to DappRadar, with an all-time volume of $79.5 million.
The integration of the tokens may be the latest attempt by the platform to solidify itself as Solana’s native NFT marketplace after OpenSea announced it will integrate Solana, putting the two platforms in direct competition.
According to reports, Tiffany Huang, head of content and marketing at Magic Eden, stated that the platform was looking to integrate tokens from other “blue chip” NFT collections.
Solana NFT sales are gaining momentum
Solana NFTs are seeing a significant gain in volume. In the last 24 hours, the NFT sales volume on the Solana blockchain has hit over $9.2 million — an increase of 51.5% — according to analytics firm CryptoSlam.
It comes after a drop was seen in the trading volume of Solana NFTs following the March 30 announcement that OpenSea would integrate the blockchain when OpenSea announced the Solana integration. On April 6, the day before the integration was live, trading volume decreased by 34.4%.
Ethereum is still the top network when it comes to NFTs, with $49.4 million in sales made in the last 24 hours.
Other Nifty News
Starbucks has announced its foray into NFTs, with CEO Howard Schultz stating that ”sometime before the end of the calendar year, we are going to be in the NFT business.”
Autograph, the NFT platform co-founded by Tom Brady, has signed a multi-year partnership with ESPN to create a docuseries and NFT collection titled “Man in the Arena: Tom Brady,” which details the career of the NFL legend.
Metaverse events at ancient and historical sites could soon shape up to be an alternate future for tourism.
Owners of physical castles and villas who have drafted up augmented reality blueprints of their properties think their ambitious plans to attract visitors in the metaverse will work, as virtual events can help them pay the hefty maintenance bills for their aging properties and also offer a chance to change historical narratives.
The metaverse tourism model was expedited by downturns in tourism brought about by COVID-19, but the industry may have already been heading that way.
Currently, major metaverse platforms are clunky, difficult to use and waiting for more “real estate” development, but firms are concentrating on what could be. Brands seem to be entering the metaverse en masse just for PR bragging rights.
So, it seems the possibility of learning existing, new and revised histories through the metaverse is not so remote.
Nonfungible castles, villas and chateaus
Michelle Choi, founder of 3.O Labs — a Web3 venture lab — turned to digital opportunities to finance the upkeep of physical paintings, such as selling nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, as fundraisers to preserve illiquid assets.
Choi was a product manager at Google when she noticed the downturn in museum tourism due to COVID-19, seeing it as an opportunity for future metaverses. She subsequently quit her job and started her own metaverse experiments.
She began by working with a team to launch Non-Fungible Castle, an NFT exhibition and auction at Lobkowicz Palace, a real-life castle in Prague, held in October 2021. The event saw NFTs displayed next to 500-year-old paintings and had the goal to “broaden accessibility to cultural heritage.”
The launch raised enough to cover the restoration of all urgent projects at the property. Motivated by this proof-of-concept, Choi and 3.O Labs are now busily curating metaverse tourism experiences globally.
With the broader mission of making Web3 accessible to all users, 3.O Labs is already incubating an array of Web3 projects ranging from NFTs to decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs. Within its metaverse vertical, the venture lab is already building a project in a castle in Germany, which will be followed by a villa in India and then possibly a museum in Ghana.
Lobkowicz Palace. Source: Prague Morning
Choi told Cointelegraph about her long-term vision for metaverse travel:
“Travel will be augmented as a teaching tool. In the past, tourism meant visiting a place. Photos were 2D, but 3D travel then emerged with virtual headsets. 4D time experimentation is now possible. Now, we can mesh different time periods. There’s a teaching angle.”
This raises a series of questions regarding what new histories will be created in the metaverse.
Will history be rewritten in the metaverse?
For better or worse, tourism businesses, education platforms and museums could reimagine history in the metaverse.
Priyadarshini Raje Scindia’s family owns Jai Vilas Palace, a 200-year-old palace-turned-museum in Madhya Pradesh, India. She is planning an NFT collection produced by local artists to fund a metaverse experience. COVID-19 shut her museum for two years, allowing time for some needed — but expensive — restoration work.
Scindia told Cointelegraph that NFTs should be embraced as art, as “Every generation has its art and the interpretation of it. This is a new medium and a new platform for hungry, emerging Indian artists.” She added that there “should be no barriers around art creation.”
Scindia is convinced that the metaverse is the future, as “A person usually visits a museum once,” but they can visit multiple times in the metaverse. She says that in India, especially, museums are not the first destination people think to go to for entertainment. Private museums in small towns can be taken for granted, especially when compared with shopping malls and cinemas. So, she is working with 3.O Labs to “create immersive experiences — for example, animations that allow you to put yourself in short history documentaries.” It’s about opening more doors for conversations and education.
Scindia also has a story to tell the world via the metaverse:
“I disagree with my family history. We have rooms of research documents in the palace. Now is the right time and the right platform to correct history.”
She told Cointelegraph that the historical narrative she would like to paint with her immersive experiences is “to tell the real story of my clan, the Maharatas. Retelling the story told by the British, which sounds like a Game of Thrones book — dark and barbaric. We fought for independence from all exterior forces, yet it was made out that we were fighting Indians in India. It is a historic fact that the Maharatas were the rulers of India, post the Mughals. And their narrative and value system are even more essential to study and understand today. I would like to use the platform to change the narrative through art, culture and history.”
“I disagree with the way Maratha history is portrayed. However, today there is a renewed interest, maybe because of the glamor of cinema, but there’s also a new world out there. People have a deep interest in history today and are rediscovering art and history. The metaverse may be the right platform to inform and educate people, to generate interest, so they may start their own journey of a deep dive into history, art and culture through this amazing world.”
Prince Heinrich Donatus of the Schaumburg-Lippe family owns Bueckeburg Castle, a castle in northern Germany, 45 minutes from Hannover. Schaumburg-Lippe was one of the 16 reigning families of the German Empire until 1918. Later, the British Army of the Rhine confiscated the castle to use as its headquarters from 1948 to 1953. It had previously been under American control following the end of World War II in 1945 until Germany’s occupation zones were established.
A bullet hole in the outhouse serves as a reminder of the castle’s recent history. Americans were the first to arrive at Bueckeburg during the war, and their tank shell that penetrated the dome is still viewable in the castle’s museum. The family exhibits the shell and has left the hole in the ceiling as a reminder of the war.
Donatus has the same idea as Scindia: a metaverse for historical preservation.
Bueckeberg Castle. Source: Trip Advisor
Donatus, who co-founded 3.O Labs with Choi, will soon operate an NFT exhibition and a DAO-focused hacker house at the castle. He told Cointelegraph that “The metaverse isn’t a virtual reality world. It is a new economy. For example, the incentivization to enter the metaverse could be to protect a castle.”
But why support noble families in 2022?
For illiquid assets like sprawling estates, the cost of maintenance can outweigh a family’s cash flow. The preservation of privately owned sites of historical significance is, therefore, a significant challenge for owners and a national or global public good.
In 2001, Donatus’ grandfather sold a castle for 1 euro, and the new owner’s latest two attempts to sell the same castle for 1 euro failed to find a buyer. Donatus added:
“Foreigners who buy European castles give up after a year when they realize what is involved.”
“The Bueckeburg castle is not meant to be lived in anymore — it is primarily a cultural site,” Donatus said, “We have the sole responsibility to maintain this history working with limited resources, and suddenly resources can be vastly enhanced and crowd-sourced.”
“Virtual tours could be profitable, though metaverse ideas could take several years to pay back,” noted Choi. “But long term, there are no maintenance or air conditioning expenses for the metaverse.”
Donatus said he foresees a launching DAO treasury for renovations, akin to a “people’s UNESCO” — a reference to the United Nations agency tasked with protecting sites of cultural and historical significance.
DAOs are not constrained by borders, and this can create network effects for new models of tourism. “A sort of PleasrDAO for castles,” said Donatus.“They will include decentralized access/stewardship to castles, and castle hackathons — as castles are a cool place for meetups.”
Augmented 4D metaverse events
Historical storytelling and experiences can also be augmented to create surreal and impossible scenarios.
“Under no circumstance do I want to experience things I can experience in the real world,” said Donatus. “The Metaverse can recreate and preserve the past.” He said one could create a “tennis match in a ballroom in the Palace of Versailles as a great tourist drawcard.”
Choi said, “In the metaverse, we can upload guns and recreate wars for historical teaching purposes.” Historical reenactments with reconstructed weapons happen all over the world, including in the United States, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and Italy, and there may be many future teachable moments in the metaverse.
If metaverses truly are the future, the planning for their rules and composition starts now. This is why, for example, a group of Indigenous Australians plan to set up an embassy in the metaverse. Mixing the ancient and the new is seemingly tenuous, but it all depends on how bullish one is about the significance of the cultural totems in the metaverses of the future.
As metaverses become new models for tourism, they may also rewrite history in the process.
The outlook for projects in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has begun to improve in recent months as a combination of global events have highlighted the benefits of holding funds outside of the traditional financial systems.
One project that has rallied over the past few months is Kyber Network (KNC), a multi-chain cryptocurrency trading and liquidity hub that aims to offer users the best trading rates.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after bouncing off a low of $2.83 on April 6, the price of KNC jumped 55.4% to hit an all-time high of $4.04 on April 8 amid a 253% spike in its 24-hour trading volume.
KNC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the building momentum of KNC include the integration of support for ten separate blockchain networks, the launch of a liquidity mining program with Avalanche (AVAX) and an expanding list of partnerships and protocol integrations that expand the reach of the Kyber Network.
Kyber Network adds multi-chain support
One of the biggest factors providing a boost to Kyber Network is the protocol’s push to integrate with the top chains across the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
KyberSwap, the main decentralized exchange interface on the network, now offers trading across ten separate networks, including Ethereum (ETH), Avalanche, Polygon (MATIC), BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Aurora, Arbitrum, Fantom (FTM), Oasis (ROSE), Velas (VLX) and Cronos (CRO).
Interoperability has become one of the main themes driving growth not just in DeFi, but in all sectors of the crypto economy because the ability to send assets and data across multiple chains is a necessary feature in the future of DeFi, the NFT sector the Metaverse.
As more chains come online, the ability to access them through one protocol is a desirable feature that many crypto and DeFi investors will come to expect.
KNC joins Avalanche Rush Phase 2
Another significant development that has helped attract increased attention and trading activity on the Kyber Network is the project’s partnership with the Avalanche Network and the Avalanche Rush Phase 2 liquidity mining program.
The liquidity incentive program kicked off on March 21 and it includes a total of $1 million in rewards for liquidity providers.
Avalanche is one of the fastest-growing Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible networks in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and it has helped to attract more users and liquidity to the Kyber Network users by offering a low-fee alternative to Ethereum.
New partnerships and protocol integrations
A third reason for the building momentum behind KNC is the continued addition of new partnerships and major protocol integrations that are helping to spread the reach of the network.
On April 7, it was announced that KyberSwap integrated with Uniswap v3 on the Ethereum and Polygon network, bringing the most active decentralized exchange into the KyberSwap ecosystem.
The project has also revealed a new partnership with the Bondex professional network and Kyber Ventures, the investment arm of the Kyber Network, established a working relationship with Pegacy, a popular NFT racing game.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for KNC on April 6, prior to the recent price rise.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for KNC spiked into the green on April 6 and hit a high of 75 around nine hours before the price increased 55.4% over the next two days.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has become a stress test for crypto in many tangible ways. Digital assets have emerged as an effective means of directly supporting humanitarian efforts, and the crypto industry, despite enormous pressure, has largely proved itself a mature community — one ready to comply with international policies without compromising the core principles of decentralization.
But there is another vital role that crypto has filled during these tragic events: It is becoming more and more familiar to those who have found themselves cut off from the payment systems that had once seemed unfailing.
Traditional financial infrastructures don’t usually work well during military confrontations and humanitarian crises. From hyperinflation and cash shortages to the destruction of ATMs, crises can disrupt the banking system’s ability to function and threaten the money supply for millions of regular individuals.
Cointelegraph spoke with some of the people who experienced these disruptions firsthand during the first days and weeks of the war. Some of them didn’t know much about crypto and had to learn fast, while others were lucky to have had some experience with digital assets that they could fall back on.
Some of these people are from Ukraine and have directly experienced the struggles of war, while others are from Russia and had to leave the country as their ordinary lives collapsed overnight. Their stories reveal that when the world comes crashing down, it is ordinary people for whom crypto provides the last line of support, not the corrupt elites.
“Crypto was originally created so that no single government or individual could control it”
Viktoria Fox is a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Polaris Capital, a cryptocurrency mining company. Her parents moved from Ukraine to the United States during the tumult of the post-Soviet Union 1990s. When the war broke out on Feb. 24, her U.S. family started receiving uneasy phone calls from their relatives in Ukraine. As Russian troops advanced into the country, the National Bank of Ukraine immediately stopped the circulation of all securities and limited cash withdrawals, creating a nationwide frenzy.
Although the central bank claimed that banking and financial systems remained “resilient” following the Russian invasion, Fox’s relatives told a different story from the ground:
“What I’ve been told is that banks are closed and all ATM machines have no more cash. After two weeks of war, my relatives, like most families, were completely out of cash.”
Since then, Fox has been sending them Bitcoin (BTC), which started to function as a cash substitute for vendors and fellow citizens — a means to pay for almost anything from food to taxis. Viktoria’s uncle used Bitcoin to compensate a driver who traveled six hours to get him from Kharkiv to the Western part of the country.
In Fox’s experience, most Ukrainians prefer to transact via established global exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance, though some rely on Ukrainian exchanges as well.
“I think it’s important to remember that crypto, particularly Bitcoin, was originally created so that no single government or individual could control it,” Fox noted. “While it would be tempting to punish the ‘bad’ Russians and reward innocent Ukrainian civilians, it defeats the whole purpose of a decentralized currency or asset.” She doesn’t believe that tightening government control over crypto would help ordinary people during this or any future war.
“For me, as an anarchist, it was a matter of ideological choice, not of comfort”
Until several weeks ago, “Andrey” lived in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, where he was born. Andrey is a front-end developer and has some professional experience with blockchain platforms. “I probably couldn’t write a smart contract, but I sure know how to use crypto in daily financial operations,” he said. “I have experience withdrawing USDT here and there, and I never did it through bank cards. For me, as an anarchist, it was a matter of ideological choice, not of comfort.”
As Andrey headed for Berlin on the fourth day of the war, the entirety of his belongings consisted of a laptop, a pair of t-shirts and a hardware wallet holding some hard-earned stablecoins:
“I had to use them to buy plane tickets to travel inside Europe. The last thing I managed to do with my Visa card was to rent a flat on Airbnb for two weeks. I was lucky enough to have a bunch of friends in Europe, and now they help me to pay with cards when necessary. I just send them the coins.”
In the long run, Andrey admitted that he still needs fiat to buy groceries and other necessities. He has yet to learn the peer-to-peer withdrawal tools available in Europe. Still, he regards the decision to get a hardware wallet for crypto as one of the smartest moves in his life. “It’s not like I was preparing for something like this, but, you know, when living under authoritarianism, you’d better be independent of the local banks.”
Andrey admitted that withdrawing crypto in a new jurisdiction could pose a major problem as well. He said:
“Despite my overall knowledge of the industry, right now I’m in a difficult position. In Germany, very stringent requirements are applied to cash withdrawals, and I’m still researching the ways to do it.”
It is not only about personal needs. Andrey is a Russian citizen whose father was born and raised in the south of Ukraine. He doesn’t have a legal way to donate money to support the relief effort for Ukrainian civilians — such an act could be considered a criminal offense or even high treason by the government. Andrey noted:
“Like many others in Russia, I have friends in Ukraine. Some of them are in Kyiv now, sleeping in bomb shelters under artillery fire. My problems are nothing compared to theirs. To help them, I had to find someone on the ground who would agree to exchange my USDT for hryvnias [Ukraine’s currency]. After I made sure my friends’ banking cards worked, I used this opportunity. The sum wasn’t huge, but I hope it was at least some help.”
“We could not receive international transfers to Ukrainian accounts”
Anna Shakola, a native of Kyiv, began to work as an NFT project manager at Cointelegraph in November 2021, several months before the war broke out. She had not used crypto as a payment method until the crisis began: “Honestly, I had never paid by crypto, except for transacting in NFTs. I used these assets only as an investment tool.”
Shakola had to learn fast, as during the first three weeks of the war, the fiat financial system was partially frozen: “We could not receive international transfers to Ukrainian accounts and had some problems with domestic fiat transfers as well.” After becoming accustomed to performing everyday transactions using digital currencies, she learned about Unchain, a charitable project founded by Ukrainian blockchain activists.
Unchain began to channel donations to Ukrainian civilians on Feb. 27, after a network of local crypto-fiat exchanges supported the initiative. The next step was to issue virtual debit gift cards known as “Help Cards” in cooperation with Kyiv-based Unex Bank and Weld Money. The cards are designed to help families — mothers and children — who might not have the time to learn to use crypto in the middle of a war. Unchain accepts donations in crypto and converts them to hryvnias on the receiver’s end. It plans to finance up to 10,000 Help Cards.
The war has undoubtedly shattered the global economic order, and it has also become a profound stress test for the crypto industry. Despite suspicions that digital assets could undermine the international sanctions regime, they have emerged freshly branded as a resilient, flexible payments system with the potential to help millions of people on their hardest day.
It’s no accident that the Ukrainian government has championed measures that would develop its digital economy after the war. On March 16, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law to build a legal framework for the country to establish a regulated crypto market. Given the need to rebuild the country once the hostilities are over, the nation’s hard-earned experience with crypto will likely be instrumental in developing a thriving digital economy.
UK-based blockchain infrastructure firmApplied Blockchain has filed an initial public offering (IPO) application on Apr. 8 to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to issue 3,236,245 shares of common stock onto the Nasdaq Global Select Market with the ticker symbol APLD.
The firm currently operates a stock on OTC Pink — the lowest of three tiers within the over-the-counter market as per financial volume and the disclosure of company information required — under the same tag with share price of $18.84.
The document of application was keen to emphasize that the public offering price would not be determined, or entirely indicative, of the current market value of OTC Pink, but rather by through diligent assessments conducted by themselves and the underwriters.
Saying this, the firm did outline a guidance valuation for potentially interested parties of between $16.54 and $20.54 per share, a range which provides a median of $18.54.
There is no official timeline for an SEC response, but in usually circumstances it takes months.
In April 2020, the distributed ledger technology (DLT) firm raised $2.5 million in their second seed round led by Hong-Kong venture capital firm QBN Capital, the first being a $1.5 million raise in early January 2018 led by Calibrate Management and energy giant Shell Trading International.
More recently in mid-February this year, Applied Blockchain became the recipient of an undisclosed-sum grant from the Algorand Foundation for the research and development of a reciprocal-flow Algorand to Ethereum bridge titled the London Bridge. The platform is hopeful of enhancing the liquidity and interoperability of the two networks with an inherent focus placed on “security, cost and user experience.”
On the 21st of April our CEO @adi_benari will be presenting at the “After the Bell” event in London, an event titled “The Impact of DeFi: What’s Next in Tokenization, NFTs, DAO & the Blockchain Economy.”
The Russian prime minister declared that the cryptocurrency holdings of Russians are worth billions of dollars but the government is yet to adopt a regulatory framework for the industry.
Russians collectively hold more than 10 trillion rubles ($130 billion) in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin claimed at the annual report presentation of the Russian government on Thursday.
The prime minister did not mention the source for this figure, noting that the amount is based on “various estimates,” stating:
“We are well aware that we have more than 10 million young people having opened crypto wallets so far on which they have transferred significant amounts of money, which exceeds 10 trillion rubles.”
If true, the latest estimations of Russian crypto holdings cited by Mishustin are pretty close to Russia’s gold stash, which reportedly amounted to $140 billion as of late March 2022. According to White House estimations, Russia’s gold holdings make up about 20% of the country’s central bank’s overall reserves.
Russian Prime Minister Mishustin says Russians have already put around 10 trillion rubles ($130 billion) into cryptocurrency. I’m not surprised. Many hastily bought bitcoin when it looked like the ruble was gonna tank. Some foreigners are also using it to get money out of Russia. pic.twitter.com/o9R3VQRtP0
Despite Russians increasingly investing in crypto, the Russian government has been somewhat slow to adopt clear rules to regulate the growing cryptocurrency market, with different government structures failing to reach a consensus on how to regulate the industry. On Friday, the Russian finance ministry filed another version of the Russian crypto bill with the government after amending the document in accordance with remarks from other ministries and regulators.
As previously reported, the Russian central bank has been one of the biggest local skeptics of crypto, with Bank of Russia governor Elvira Nabiullina urging the state to ban Bitcoin earlier this year.
Amid Russia becoming the world’s most sanctioned country, a number of global officials have expressed concerns over the growing narrative of Russia’s potential to use crypto to evade sanctions. On Friday, the European Union Council issued the fifth package of restrictive measures against Russia, approving a prohibition on providing “high-value crypto-asset services to Russia.” “This will contribute to closing potential loopholes,” the council said in the official statement.
Earlier this week, Bank of Russia’s first deputy governor Ksenia Yudaeva reportedly argued that sanction evasion with crypto in Russia is “practically impossible,” particularly for large transactions. The central bank previously reportedly reiterated that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are “actually a financial pyramid scheme.”
Some major executives in the cryptocurrency industry are confident that crypto has no use for Russians as an instrument to evade sanctions. Changpeng Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volumes, declared on Wednesday that Russians cannot really use cryptocurrency to escape sanctions. That’s because crypto transactions are not anonymous, he stated:
“Most transactions do need to go through a centralized exchange, any large transactions of value, because the decentralized exchanges don’t have enough liquidity yet. […] So that’s a misconception that Bitcoin is anonymous. Bitcoin’s anonymous feature is very, very weak.”
Ethereum blockchains have shown their ability to revolutionize different industries being completely in sync with the features of decentralization, transparency, and immutability, this industry is ready to take over all the business sectors.
Ethereum is of absolute value and holds tremendous potential. That is why Eth is the favorite blockchain for crypto projects and is amongst the favorite cryptocurrency for traders, crypto signals providers, investors alike.
However, its primary interest lies in revolutionizing the financial sector.
Understanding Blockchain 101
Decentralized, distributed, and public ledger technology records transactions across computers within a network.
Blockchain has efficient design and properties that make it secure, transparent, and almost impossible to alter.
In the finance industry, these transactions are secure and done with confidence.
The benefits of the Ethereum blockchain are a result of the following properties:
Distribution: Anytime new traction or a block is added, everyone receives a ledger copy. No one controls the ledger, but the system design provides everyone with the same information.
Immutability: Transactions once done are almost impossible to alter or erase as each individual inside the network has a copy. Providing an accurate, chronological history of transactions blockchain technology would require a coordinated attack on thousands of computers simultaneously, which is highly unlikely!
These features influence the banking and finance industries.
Here are some ways that businesses can harness the power of blockchain:
Money Transfers
Transactions worth billions of dollars across countries each year. It is usually a tedious task as it is expensive, laborious, and highly susceptible to errors.
Ethereum blockchain can be a one-stop solution for the same.
Major banks have started accepting payments with blockchain technology saving customers time and money.
Gone are those days of waiting in long queues, paying fees for transactions, and frequently visiting banks. Any transaction is possible via your smartphone remotely with the Ethereum blockchain.
Inexpensive Direct Payments
Most funds are moved through banks or credit cards, adding a layer of complexity along with hefty fees.
Benefits of Ethereum blockchains- based transfers through merchants include:
Reduced fee: Blockchain payments reduce the merchant fee for goods and services by a considerable margin.
Elimination of insufficient funds: Consumers sometimes pay for goods or services with a bad check. In turn, it results in loss and additional fees for merchants.
Blockchains become a no-brainer in this case. It gives merchants confidence in knowing if the transaction was good within a few seconds or minutes.
Other benefits for individuals include:
Almost No Scams: Cyber scams are still a threat to many individuals. Blockchain payments are quick, reversible, and invulnerable to cyber-attacks. For the record, they are less expensive than banking services.
Less Time and Money: The safest payments like cash are untraceable, wire transfers are time-consuming, and checks are forged easily. With a blockchain-based system, every transaction is done with greater confidence, eliminating all the above-mentioned possibilities.
Financial Inclusion
People are looking for bank alternatives because of minimum balance requirements, low access, and fees asked by the banks. Blockchain uses digital identification and mobile devices that help them promote financial inclusion. By doing so, the hassle of traditional banking is minimized.
Reduced Fraud
Blockchain has ledgers that store information about all transactions in each block. Every individual within the network receives a copy of transactions which makes blockchain technology resistant to distributed denial of services attacks, hackers, and other types of fraud.
Cryptocurrency
Digital currencies are considered the assets of this generation that rely on blockchains. Though the cryptocurrency is already in use, Ethereum blockchains are lowering the barrier of entry and providing a seamless exchange of popular crypto coins.
The Future Ahead
Though banking has a lot of strict rules and regulations, more financial institutions are realizing the power of blockchains.
Major Players in these industries are conducting more tests to implement innovative use cases and opportunities. It might result in witnessing more Ethereum blockchain-based solutions for more transparent, accessible, and reliable financial transactions.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the United States government corporation that insures depositors at U.S. commercial and savings banks, issued a financial institution letter Thursday. The letter requests the institutions supervised by the agency to notify the appropriate regional director of their activities with crypto-related assets or their intentions to engage in crypto-related activities.
According to the letter, “It is difficult for institutions, as well as the FDIC, to adequately assess the safety and soundness, financial stability, and consumer protection implications without considering each crypto-related activity on an individual basis.”
Consequently, the FDIC wants to receive all information necessary for it to “engage with the institution regarding related risks” stemming from their current or intended crypto-related activity and “provide relevant supervisory feedback to the FDIC-supervised institution, as appropriate, in a timely manner.” Institutions are encouraged to contact state regulators simultaneously.
The note advises that institutions “should be able to demonstrate their ability to conduct crypto-related activities in a safe and sound manner.” Descriptions of the risk considerations facing the institutions, broken down into categories of safety and soundness, financial stability and consumer protection, make up the bulk of the letter.
The FDIC partnered with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in a “policy sprint” focused on crypto assets last year, and in November, it released a statement on their findings, where the agencies outlined a “plan to provide greater clarity on whether certain activities related to crypto-assets conducted by banking organizations are legally permissible, and expectations for safety and soundness, consumer protection, and compliance with existing laws and regulations.”
In February, New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer released a draft of his Stablecoin Innovation and Protection Act of 2022. If adopted, the legislation would designate stablecoins issued by insured depository institutions or certain nonbank issuers as “qualified” and require the FDIC to establish a Qualified Stablecoin Insurance Fund.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets listed the FDIC chairperson among officials who are “encouraged to consider the extent to which investor and market protection measures within their respective jurisdictions may be used to address the risks of digital assets and whether additional measures may be needed.”
Institutional investors rejoice, there is one more way to gain exposure to Bitcoin (BTC). The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced overnight the approval of a fourth Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Fund group Teucrium is behind the most recently approved Bitcoin Futures ETF. The ETF joins a growing number of approved futures ETFs, complementing ProShares, Valkyrie, and VanEck Bitcoin Futures ETFs.
The SEC filing for the Teucrium ETF. Source: SEC.gov
Every Bitcoin spot ETF has been rejected to date, however, for one invested observer, the way in which the approval was made could be a boon for expectant spot investors.
The plot thickens on the path to $GBTC’s spot #Bitcoin#ETF conversion…
In a Tweet thread, Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein once again banged the drum for a Bitcoin spot ETF. 71st on the list of Cointelegraph’s Top 100, Sonnenshein manages the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) Trust, one of the main avenues for buying Bitcoin in the traditional world.
Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnensheinin tweeted that “if the SEC is comfortable with a Bitcoin futures ETF, they must also be comfortable with a spot Bitcoin ETF.”
His argument surmises that as “all Bitcoin futures ETFs are created equal,” and that the Teucrium falls under a 1933 act, not the 1940 act which the other three ETFs fall under, then the argument for filing a Bitcoin spot ETF becomes “stronger.”
Therefore, if the SEC is comfortable with a #Bitcoin futures #ETF, they must also be comfortable with a spot Bitcoin ETF. And they can no longer justifiably cite the ‘40 Act as being the differentiating factor.
Sonnenshein has been a proponent and protagonist for the creation of a Bitcoin spot ETF for some time; the company shared plans to convert the GBTC Trust into an ETF in October 2021. With over $35 billion in assets under management, the GBTC Trust is the largest in the legacy finance world–the conversion to a spot ETF would be consequential.
A Bloomberg analyst, Eric Balchunas shares his view that it’s a “good sign for spot”, meaning a Bitcoin spot ETF.
JUST IN: SEC Approves Teucrium Bitcoin Futures ETF. Notable bc it was filed under the 33 Act, which Genz has said doesn’t have enough inv protections vs 40 Act. So poss this is good sign for spot, altho we still think exchanges need regs bf he will green light. h/t @CoinDeskpic.twitter.com/SZMkuMrASc
However, while investors wait with bated breath for a Bitcoin Spot ETF, analyst Doomberg suggests that the issue may not relate to different acts but due to the fact that futures contracts are “settled in cash.”
Gary Gensler, the Chairperson for the SEC may in fact be blocking the spot ETFs because “as long as funds flow into spot ETFs faster than they are redeemed, the net effect provides US dollar exit liquidity to those looking to cash out their Bitcoin.”
Social media giant Facebook’s parent company Meta is reportedly planning to introduce virtual currency named after CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well as lending services to apps it owns, which may include Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.
According to a Financial Times report on Wednesday, the move toward tokens and virtual currency is aimed at exploring alternative sources of revenue as interest in Facebook and Instagram drops. Meta’s potential virtual currency, which employees have reportedly dubbed ‘Zuck Bucks’, will be aimed at use in the metaverse.
Facebook owner Meta targets finance with ‘Zuck Bucks’ and creator coins https://t.co/IcK6oAM0J7
The report does not allege Meta is exploring traditional cryptocurrencies tied to a blockchain, but rather centrally controlled tokens to be used within its apps, similar to in-game currency. The company is also reportedly considering creating ‘social tokens’ for engagement rewards, as well as ‘creator coins’ for influencers.
“We’re making changes to our product strategy and road map […] so we can prioritize on building for the metaverse and on what payments and financial services will look like in this digital world,” said Meta’s head of finance division Stephane Kasriel in January.
Integrating virtual currencies into Meta’s apps may be coming alongside the company exploring nonfungible tokens on users’ Facebook and Instagram profiles. The report suggested Meta was planning to launch an NFT pilot program as early as May 2022.
Cointelegraph reported in January that Meta was in the early stages of potentially launching an NFT marketplace, as well as exploring methods of allowing users to mint collectible tokens. David Marcus, the co-creator of the Facebook-backed Diem token, said in August that the company was “definitely looking” at ways to get into NFTs.
Facebook rebranded to Meta in October 2021, saying at the time its focus was expanding beyond social media. The change came following the release of thousands of documents that implied the company was not doing what it claimed in regard to removing hate speech and posts encouraging violence from its platform. The number of Facebook users dropped by roughly 500,000 in the fourth quarter of 2021, while at least one expert predicted Instagram’s growth in monthly users could drop from 16.5% in 2021 to 3.1% by 2025.
