Austrian-based digital asset management company Bitpanda has released it’s very own debit card, allowing users to spend their fiat currency, cryptocurrency and precious metals. Once the funds are registered online, users can fund payments using any of the investments they have with Bitpanda with a real-life physical Visa card.
A unique offering and something that has caught the eye of many traders, who look for ways to exchange cryptocurrency using debit cards on the various exchange platforms available to digital currency users.
What makes the product stand out is the ease at which customers can switch between the various assets they hold in order to complete trades and transactions.
What does the Bitpanda card offer customers?
The digital asset company is now taking pre-orders for the new Visa debit card, which will be a world-first for a crypto-broker. Users will be able to connect to their account via the Bitpanda mobile app, allowing them to select any asset present on the user’s portfolio. 
Bitpanda is a company that has quickly picked up speed, having first secured investments of over $52 million in its first round of funding in 2020. A company that seems to be going from strength to strength, with claims that they are doubling their revenue year-on-year. 
As we mentioned before, the access to cryptocurrencies, fiat money, and precious metals all in one card is something the financial market hasn’t seen before. Bitpanda co-founder and CEO Eric Demuth stated:
“We wanted to build a product that is missing in the market by asking ourselves why it wasn’t possible to spend your investments at any time you want.”
Not only can they trade these assets, but they can also purchase at online shops and make transactions online worldwide using the value of the assets held. 
As you’d expect from any Visa debit card, transactions are completed instantaneously, with everything linked back to the users’ account. This revolutionary debit card offers features you’d expect from such a technologically advanced product, such as allowing contactless payment using Google Pay and Samsung Pay. Bitpanda debit card users will be able to track all account movements using real-time push notifications.
Something that came as a surprise to us was the fact customers will be able to freely spend without incurring any fees or monthly account charges. Users will have the option of becoming a premier customer, meaning they will also be rewarded with up to 2% cashback in Bitcoin every time they complete a purchase.
At present, Bitpanda claims it’s customer base is upward of 1.5 million, accessing their investments via the desktop site and mobile app. We mentioned the three main categories of investment types, but there are 50 different investment assets available overall. 
To start with, the debit card will only be available to users residing in the European Union. Though this is likely to change in the near future. As a Peter Thiel backed company, Bitpanda is likely to continue to move on the same upward trajectory it’s on at the moment. 

Poolin, one of the largest mining collectives just finalized an upgrade to their global Ethereum infrastructure by completing the installation of an international Etherum node in the United States.
In addition to the node, Poolin switched its payment method from PPLNS to PPS+, which will enable Ethereum miners to begin earning Ethereum transaction fees in addition to the usual block rewards.
This move will enable Ethereum Miners to exponentially increase their earnings when mining through the Poolin pools. According to Poolin, $830 million were spent on fees in January 2021 alone, showcasing the importance of this update for ETH miners on the network.
We reached out to Poolin’s Vice President, Alejandro De La Torre for a comment regarding the network upgrade:
“We are dedicated to the success of our users and strive to empower them in every step of this decentralized journey. With this update to our infrastructure and process, we hope to provide significant value to Ethereum miners on our network and enhance their balance sheets.”
With this update, Poolin’s offering for Ethereum miners just got more enticing and rewarding. The installation of the international Ethereum Node will also enhance the capabilities of the network and provide users with better latency and more rewards over the long-term.







Zoran Spirkovski is a freelance journalist, brand strategist, and author published by CryptoBriefing, BeInCrypto, CryptoNewsNet, and NewsBlockchain. He writes about blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, branding, marketing, and productivity, and other stories that brew up in his mind.
He writes a daily blog about the same topics at zoransp.medium.com and he regularly contributes to freelance discussion groups.

With over $45 billion in tokens locked within the Ethereum-based decentralized finance market, banks are being shorted by financial enthusiasts worldwide. DeFi is here to stay, and unlike its centralised counterparts, it provides frictionless access to collateral-backed loans, liquidity pools, and hundreds of yield farming opportunities. Day in and day out, the market roars and produces a never-ending supply of success stories. 
This is certainly the case with liquidity providers, the core pillars of decentralized exchanges, often referred to as automated market makers (AMMs). In exchange for supplying liquidity in token pairs, LPs receive a proportional cut of the transaction fees generated by their deposits. While this capital produces yields, it only does so for as long as it’s deposited in a liquidity pool. 
What if there was a way to keep capital within a DeFi liquidity pool, but still utilise it to access additional revenue streams? Freeliquid is an LP collateral lending solution created for this very purpose. 
Crypto-backed loans are certainly not new to the DeFi sphere. Traditionally, crypto enthusiasts can collateralize their digital currencies in exchange for loans in fiat or other coins. In doing so, one can securely access capital whilst still retaining the potential gains realized by their digital currencies. 
While ingenious, the aforementioned strategy only works if you HODL crypto, but if already vested, access to additional revenue streams is restricted. Freeliquid is now opening the gates to stablecoin loans backed by liquidity pool collateralization. 
Zero interest, and no time constraints – truly DeFi style!
Freeliquid works by having users collateralize their LP tokens, which serve as proof of ownership within designated liquidity pools. With 90% loans obtainable on the collateralized LPs, Freeliquid users are given USDFL stablecoins. Pegged to the dollar value, USDFL can be efficiently leveraged for further exposure to DeFi yield farms, liquidity pools, stakes, and standalone currencies. 
With no time constraints in place, users can hold on to their additional revenue streams to infinity. Once ready to repay the loan, users deposit their USDFL to the Freeliquid smart contract, unlocking access to their LPs. 
At this time, Freeliquid works with stablecoin pools in DAI, USDC, USDT, and USDN across the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem. Now, Freeliquid is expanding to the Binance Smart Chain. 
Following a successful community vote through the governance mechanism, Freeliquid has just announced upcoming support for the Binance Smart Chain. 
The reasons behind this development are clear to any Ethereum DeFi enthusiast. Despite Ethereum’s huge value proposition, network scalability challenges have led to huge gas fees. Rather than wasting valuable ETH, DeFi users would rather bank on the newest opportunities. 
Albeit centralized, the Binance Smart Chain provides industry-low fees, lightning-quick transactions, whilst remaining true to the blockchain ethos of transparency, immutability, and anonymity. 
The move will not affect users; Quite the contrary! Freeliquid is building a BSC-ETH bridge for their USDFL stablecoins and FL governance token. With huge liquidity on AMMs like PanCakeSwap, the move will greatly benefit BSC-based liquidity providers. 
The expansion is expected to occur in the 2nd quarter of 2021. Testing and smart contract adjustment is already well underway. 
By using Freeliquid, billion-dollar liquidity providers looking to bank on the hottest DeFi opportunities can do so without pouring additional capital into the crypto market. Freeliquid reports active work on plenty of new developments, including an upcoming integration with Curve Finance. 
To learn more, check out Freeliquid’s website, Twitter, Telegram community, and Medium page.

Key takeaways:
Starting a crypto exchange business is now free due to open-source crypto technology and exchange software
Crypto technology is getting exponentially better for builders
Building with the technology is getting easier as more blockchains become standardized and widely adopted
People are building a preference for crypto exchanges as their personal bank
DeFi is also challenging this notion of a bank
HollaEx Kit is a white label solution to deploy a crypto exchange developed by bitHolla. This software has 2 main options: the open source “DIY” option which is completely free or the cloud service that assists with hosting and server management for a small fee.
The first version of the kit was launched in January 2020 and the second version has been released earlier this year and is a service provided by South Korean company bitHolla. 
Indeed the company gained popularity through their first product, the trading platform XRayTrade (https://xray.trade/) and continued developing other boutique crypto solutions aimed at the Fintech sector and crypto enthusiasts.
Let’s deploy a crypto exchange
The whole experience of deploying a crypto exchange seemed surprisingly easy and understandable compared to other white label solutions out there which often sit behind a ‘contact us’ button to even get a look at the software.
Going through the HollaEx Kit setup is like setting up a currency exchange franchise like TravelEx but without the bureaucracy that money services typically come with. 
Creating and deploying the exchange 
Once you have signed up and created your account, the “First-Time Exchange Operator” page will load then you will be able to create your exchange. 
The creation of the exchange is rythmed by the wizard that asks you the name for the exchange, the location and the logo. Note, all these steps can be changed later so you need not worry about getting everything exactly right straight away.
HollaEx offers the possibility to create your own token and this will be possible while creating the exchange in the Assets section. 
Once the pair trading is defined and the cloud hosting option chosen, “go live” on the dashboard will deploy the exchange. It can take between 30 min to an hour – although it was written 30 minutes, the exchange actually took about an hour and a half to be fully deployed. 
After you see the ‘completed’ text then your exchange website will be now accessible. 
Setting up the exchange
When you finally visit the exchange domain for the first time you will be promoted to complete a few additional steps before the exchange can publicly operational: languages, time zone and assets. 
Once you are in, there you can customize the theme and begin adding all the little details to make your platform special like an icon and changing the text to say exactly what you want.
Here is the review of the HollaEx kit 2.0 from bitHolla. 
Pros 
Automation: Having everything done for you without having to code is a big pro here. Once you sign to the dashboard all is explained. All you have to do is to set up the cloud option you want and the exchange deploys by itself by clicking on the “go live” button. It takes between 30 min to an hour.
Price: DIY Option for the cloud: you can deploy a crypto exchange for free avoiding many cost challenges. 
Liquidity network: one of the main concerns for beginners in crypto when starting their own crypto exchange is the lack of liquidity. Therefore bitHolla took care of install a liquidity network in their kit.
UI/UX: clear and neat. Full customization is available.  
Vault: integrated wallet with high level of security
Cons.
Some tech knowledge for the DIY option is required mainly for the hosting part and this is if you want to run the 100% free DIY exchange if not the cloud hosting offered by bitHolla is affordable enough to allow you to start in a more streamlined way.
The editing features are only available for the fonts and not for the website text font
Collateralisation in XHT to get the fiat currencies to work might be hard for some smaller startup to afford but is a necessity for serious businesses in order to connect with local traditional currency systems, like a local bank or fiat payment service
If you can’t read code this can still be a hard piece of technology to verify. There are other exchanges using the kit publicly available such as KoinKoin and XIV Exchange which helps with the verification but like all things, doing your own research here would be the only way to know if this solution is fitting for your project.
General customer experience 
Easy-to-follow. 5-step exchange set up.
Self-explanatory. just add coins and you’re away.
In comparison to titans like AlphaPoint, the open-source HollaEx Kit solution is a new player in the white label exchange software space but has already carved out strong roots in the fintech space. Their main difference is the fact that their solution is very DIY originated which makes it very fast to test and best of all free to test. It is important to note that they also have an enterprise solution that allows larger businesses to totally retool and take the kit in other directions.
Conclusion
Overall, the experience is pretty fluid but it can take a bit more time for people that want to set up new coins or to use different domain names. The unique thing is you can really do-it-all-yourself.
This is one of the easiest and quickest solutions when it comes white label bitcoin and crypto exchange solutions. It is known that free software is worrying but this one is clearly of quality. 
It is worth the try and it is free. There is truly nothing to lose. 
For more information, here is the technical description of the kit and here for the setup explanation in detail.