Crypto

With the pandemic separating fans from their stadiums and sports clubs from their revenues, fan tokens are now big players in the game, helping teams generate revenue and bringing fans together again.Though stadium seats in some countries have been filled with paper cut-outs of fans to present a well-intentioned yet creepy facade of normality during the pandemic, the distance between the teams and their followers has grown farther apart. One solution is found in sports fan tokens. Through fan tokens, many fans are able to feel a more direct connection to their teams — emotionally and financially.Broadly understood, fan tokens are digital assets connected to the fan experience. They come in two distinct varieties — fungible and nonfungible.So far on the fungible side, dozens of European soccer teams are associated with actively traded “fan currencies” or “fancoins,” whose sales have brought in over $200 million in Covid-year revenues. Unlike nonfungible tokens where each token is unique, each unit of fungible tokens like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Dogecoin is the same as any other — like dollars.Malta-based blockchain sports firm Chiliz and its fan engagement platform, Socios, are the undisputed market leaders pushing the fungible fan token/fan currency business model with the help of over 160 staff. With a new office in New York, Chiliz is looking to further disrupt the sports industry through partnerships with the likes of National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and more.  Fan tokens are taking the sporting world by storm. (Pexels)  In five years, Chiliz and Socios’ CEO Alexandre Dreyfus imagines “hundreds, potentially thousands, of major sporting organizations and some of the biggest entertainment franchises from film and music fully embracing” fungible fan tokens as “a core part of their digital engagement strategy.” This means that the potential of the fan token phenomenon goes far beyond professional sports, and can be expected to impact other areas of entertainment including music, with Kpop Fan Token as an early example.From passive to activeFan tokens, Dreyfus believes, will “transition passive fans into active fans through transactional fan engagement,” giving the sports teams in the post-physical world “a powerful revenue stream.” Soon, the company will be adding NFT’s to their strategy as a likely next step, considering entertainment figures like Paris Hilton have already done so. He adds:“We believe fan tokens are the biggest new trend in the industry and that this will be widely recognized as we add hundreds more partners in the future and millions more fans embrace them.”Fungible fan tokens, however, have no clear precedent. These fan currencies are forging a new path.    In blockchain terminology, fungible fan tokens are termed as “utility tokens,” an apt description as they have undeniable utility as part of “gamifying” the fan experience. Purchasing and using tokens allows fans to materially show their support and congregate in online communities where they can play a small part in running the club by voting for proposals (regarding things like what music will be played during a match), join draws for merchandise and even interact with the team directly. Juventus fan Giuseppe Bognanni told Reuters that, “It’s nice that the song you voted for is the one you hear, and you think, ‘I participated in that.’”  Priority entrance for @socios Fan Token holders at San Siro. @chiliz #bemorethanafan pic.twitter.com/1xxIQcdtrI— Alexandre Dreyfus (@alex_dreyfus) September 16, 2021  But, are fan tokens a genuine way for clubs and fans to interact, or are they just a way of squeezing fans for extra dollars?Though securities regulators are yet to strike, many in the sports industry are suspicious of the fan token trend. One of these is Malcolm Clarke, chair of the U.K.-focused Football Supporters’ Association, who suggested that fan tokens might amount to little more than clubs “trying to squeeze extra money out of supporters by making up inconsequential ‘engagement’ online polls.”    It’d be unsurprising if they were — particularly after sales at Europe’s top 20 revenue-generating clubs dropped 12% to 8.2 billion euros ($9.9 billion) in the 2020 fiscal year.But Jorge Chemez, an Argentinian football fan of the national team, is bullish on the Chiliz project “because it’s applicable in a lot of ways and to all kinds of sports, even eSports — every human likes at least one type of sport, the potential is infinite.” He figures that while most sports fans are not likely to embrace tokens, those that do will be able “to be closer with their teams.”“Socios gives you privileges, like Inter Milan fan token owners were invited to a VIP sector to watch the football match”The phenomenon of sports clubs raising money through the sale of cryptocurrency is sure to continue to spread around the world as the incumbent platform Chiliz encounters new competitors and business models. Do fungible fan tokens represent a new type of indirect equity in the teams (or celebrities/groups) themselves?     Fungible fan tokensFungible fan tokens are generally marketed as “utility tokens,” implying that the tokens have concrete use cases. This concept of utility tokens dates back to the initial coin offering (ICO) boom of 2017 when companies began raising money by releasing cryptocurrencies to the public in a way comparable to stock offerings. On the regulated securities market, these are known as initial public offerings, or IPO’s, and cryptocurrency issuers used the “utility token” designation as a way around securities laws, as tokens with use cases were arguably not securities. Some early use cases included accessing proprietary services or online communities, and for gameplay. In contrast to “security tokens,” “utility tokens” attempted to avoid being seen as investments. Digital currencies of all types are often released via initial exchange offerings, or IEOs, directly from an exchange where trading is to commence.   Are fan tokens a legitimate way to involve fans in clubs, or simply a money making exercise? (Pexels)  Today, fungible sports fan tokens are launched as utility tokens via an IEO. The Chiliz platform is the biggest actor in this sector, selling fungible fan tokens for its native CHZ, the Chiliz platform token, in what…

Many Bitcoiners look forward to the day in the future when the banking system collapses and hyper-Bitcoinization occurs.But Jared Bibler — an American who experienced the most dramatic banking and share market collapse in living memory in Iceland in 2008 — says the reality is something no one would ever want to experience.“It’s a deep nausea in the pit of your stomach that does not go away over many months, that feeling of ill-being persists,” he says. “Because it doesn’t happen all in one day. It happens slowly.”Like many in the crypto community today, in the lead up to the crash, Bibler felt as if he was the only one to notice the ever-widening cracks in the financial system. When it finally happened, he admits to a sense of misplaced pride.“I was like, ‘Hey, guys, the crash is happening now! I was trying to warn you about this for a couple years’,” he recalls thinking. “So, I was feeling a bit arrogant or something. But I didn’t realize like, ‘Hey, in two days, pal, you’re going to be worrying if you can buy food.’”  3 October 2008 — a run on the banksProf. Gylfi Magnússon goes on national news at noon, says the banks are bankrupt, we don’t have enough foreign currency for everyday goods. Icelanders respond by withdrawing 5.5 billion ISK in cash, 27x the normal amount for a Friday.— Jared Bibler (@jared_bibler) October 3, 2021  Bibler, who later joined the Fjarmalaeftirlitid (FME) investigation into the collapse, had quit his stressful Wall Street job in 2004 and moved to the tiny country after vacationing there. He ended up working at one of the largest banks, Landsbanki, and in a stroke of bizarre timing, quit his job just days before all three major banks collapsed in October 2008.Each was the size of Enron, and the impact of the collapse on the 350,000 residents has been likened to 300 major banks collapsing in a country the size of the United States. The stock market plunged 97% from its 2007 high and the value of the national currency, the Krona, halved. People began to stockpile goods from supermarkets and many were forced to line up for food aid.  Jared Bibler amassed piles of evidence during the investigation. (Supplied)  “Imagine if the money that you have in your bank account now would suddenly buy you 1/10th of what it had? That happened in a week. How would you feel? ‘I can’t travel abroad anymore, I can’t buy a car.’”Bibler recalls the head of the central bank warning: “If we don’t get on top of this, we’re looking at 30 years of anarchy in this country. And I think he was right, I think we were a week away from a kind of a Mad Max,” he says.“In the kind of crash that we had with supermarket shelves going bare, and you’re not sure where your next meal is going to come from, and you’re not sure if the money in your wallet can buy anything the next morning, I think you’re pretty close to a real breakdown in society.”Over the months that followed, inflation hit 14% annually, interest rates hit 15% while GDP fell 10% in real terms and plunged the country into a depression. The unemployment rate quintupled. Ranked as the world’s most peaceful nation by the Global Peace Index, things turned ugly.“The mood on the streets of Iceland was vengeful and kind of scary,” he says. “I was a bit afraid of it. People were down in front of the Parliament every day screaming and yelling and banging pots and pans, lighting fires and making noise — really super angry.”But, how did the three major banks in this tiny nation manage to grow their assets to 11 times the size of the economy, to the point where their collapse sent the country to the brink of anarchy? As Bibler details in his new book Iceland’s Secret: The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Con, it was a mixture of greed, incompetence and outright fraud. Reykjavík is home to 120,000 people and is the capital of Iceland (Pexels)  The most peaceful countryIceland is a very unusual place. Despite having just 350,000 people, it has everything a larger nation has including its own government, customs service, share market and industry. For years, the economy was built around fishing and aluminum smelting, but after the banking sector was deregulated in 2001, huge amounts of foreign money poured in. The banks went on a debt-fueled spending spree acquiring foreign real estate, fashion brands and soccer teams.“Suddenly, there was a huge market for Icelandic (debt), especially commercial debt, which was high yielding,” Bibler explains. “And these newly privatized banks, they were hungry to grow, they were super aggressive. So they grew almost like a pumpkin, overnight.”The banks grew 20-fold in the space of just seven years and by the second quarter of 2008, the national debt had grown to 50 billion euro, equating to 160,000 euro worth of debt for every man, woman and child.With the economy booming and the stock market jumping up to 4% a month, no one paid much mind to warning shots fired in ominous 2006 reports from the IMF and Merrill Lynch.“It had been the poorest country in Europe for like 1000 years,” he says. “And I think people were like now we’ve made it, it’s okay while the sun shines.”    A most peculiar bankJared Bibler hard at work. (Supplied)While he’d been drawn to the laid-back attitude and values, he was horrified by the incompetence and laissez-faire attitude of his coworkers and Landsbanki.The whole place ran on manual data entry and few understood even basic concepts like T+3 settlements (settling a securities trade within three days).“Internally, my view was it was kind of a complete chaos,” he says. Bibler was asked to look after a 200 million euro hedge fund, even though the bank didn’t have any way to track the amount of cash the fund held on any given day. “The only way we could do that…

The brand new lending protocol introduces the next generation in DeFi concepts; cross-margin yield farming NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / October 5, 2021 / Apricot Finance has announced the public launch of its mainnet for this month. Apricot is a next generation lending protocol built on Solana that provides users with cross-margin farming and programmable protection against liquidation. It comprises three separate products, Apricot Lend, Apricot X-Farm, and Apricot Assist that combine to give users a comprehensive decentralised lending experience. The security of Apricot smart contracts will be verified by Halborn Security, an independent blockchain security firm. Overview Apricot Finance is a suite of three tools that each fulfill a different function as part of a brand new lending protocol. The protocol grants investors access to cross-margin yield farming while protecting themselves from downside risk. The platform is built on Solana and aims to take advantage of the low fees and fast transactions to deliver an easy-to-use and user-friendly experience. Apricot Lend is the first tool and unsurprising, is the tool that allows users to lend and borrow. This tool provides the framework that the rest of the protocol’s features are built on. Users are able to deposit specific crypto assets and earn interest on them or alternatively to borrow stablecoins using the deposited asset as collateral. Notably, the protocol is cross margin, allowing users to deposit any asset as collateral for borrowing another. Apricot X-Farm (Cross Farm) is the second tool that makes up the service. Users are able to enter into x3 leveraged yield farming of a stablecoin pair (USDC-USDT), the first pair to be offered as part of this function. Crucially, users do not have to own any of the underlying tokens in the pool. They can deposit any crypto asset as collateral to contribute to the liquidity pool. Essentially, Apricot users will be depositing any crypto assets as collateral to contribute to a stablecoin liquidity pool with up to 3x leverage. The process is optimised by the fact that no conversion is necessary on other platforms, streamlining the user experience. The first pairs on X-Farm will be stablecoins or pegged assets to minimize the risk of impermanent loss. The third and final tool is Apricot Assist. This is the tool that will protect users from a large loss if the price of the underlying collateral asset falls. Assist is fully customisable allowing investors to select at what price they should sell their collateral assets, which assets exactly should be sold, and how much of the asset should be sold. Assist is fully programmable and allows users to decide exactly how much risk they are prepared to take on when contributing to liquidity pools. Users can now manage their risk even when they are absent from apricot. Assist should strongly decrease the amount of liquidations that occur on the platform. The latest financing round has yielded $4 million in investment, demonstrating the huge belief in this project from leading blockchain investors. This support was instrumental in Apricot launching its testnet in September. Before the launch of Apricot’s mainnet this month, Halborn Security will provide a security audit report that verifies the safety of Apricot’s smart contracts. This will follow with further audits within the weeks after the launch. In order to guarantee the safety of investor funds, the contract will remain closed source until after additional audits have been completed. About Apricot Finance Apricot Finance is a next generation protocol built on Solana that gives users access to leveraged yield farming whilst simultaneously giving them the tools to minimize their downside risk. With the imminent release of security audits from two separate blockchain security firms, Apricot is committed to ensuring the safety of all value locked in their smart contracts. Website | ​​Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Telegram Announcement Media contact: cecilia.wu@apricot.one

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This WeekDOGE co-founder sets sights on Ethereum bridge and NFTs for mass adoptionBilly Markus, the co-founder of the beloved Dogecoin (DOGE), emphasized the importance of completing an Ethereum-to-Dogecoin bridge on Thursday, citing that the asset could be integrated for payments on Ethereum-based NFT marketplaces.Markus stated that there is “high demand” to purchase NFTs within the crypto community and that enabling NFT purchases with DOGE “greatly increases its utility.”  The development of a Dogecoin–Ethereum bridge would mark a significant milestone for the meme coin, as it would enable users to send DOGE from the Dogecoin blockchain to the Ethereum blockchain, and utilize the asset in the DeFi and NFT sectors via ERC-20 DOGE token contracts. JPMorgan CEO says Bitcoin price could rise 10x but still won’t buy itJamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase and staunch crypto critic, has slammed Bitcoin’s appeal despite admitting that its price could multiply by 10 within five years, presumably because he doesn’t like making good returns on his investments. During an interview with The Times of India, the CEO was asked whether Bitcoin (BTC) or other crypto assets should be banned or regulated. Dimon answered by taking a swing at the hype surrounding the asset, stating:“I don’t really care about Bitcoin. I think people waste too much time and breath on it. But it is going to be regulated. […] And that will constrain it to some extent. But whether it eliminates it, I have no idea and I don’t personally care. I am not a buyer of Bitcoin. […] That does not mean it can’t go 10 times in price in the next five years.” Morgan Stanley doubles exposure to Bitcoin through Grayscale sharesSpeaking of large investment banks, it was reported on Monday that Morgan Stanley has more than doubled its exposure to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) since April. According to a recent SEC filing, the Morgan Stanley Europe Opportunity Fund owned a total of 58,116 GBTC shares as of July 31. The holdings are worth around $1.96 million at the time of writing, representing an 18.3% decrease on the $2.4 million Morgan Stanley said it has splurged on GBTC. Previous filings show that Morgan Stanley has increased its shares of GBTC by more than 105% since April, suggesting that market volatility over recent months affected its appetite for Bitcoin via Grayscale. Visa working on blockchain interoperability hub for crypto paymentsOn Thursday, payments giant Visa announced an ambitious project that aims to be a “universal adapter” of blockchains that can connect multiple crypto assets, stablecoins and “spawn of satan” central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).The project, dubbed the “Universal Payment Channel,” is hoping to serve as an interoperable blockchain hub that can connect to multiple blockchain networks and enable transfers of different crypto from various protocols and wallets. “Imagine splitting the check with your friends, when everyone at the table is using a different type of money — some using a central bank digital currency […] like Sweden’s eKrona, and others preferring a private stablecoin like USDC,” Visa wrote, as it emphasized the benefits to users without revealing how centralized the hub may be.  White hat hacker paid DeFi’s largest reported bounty feeAutomated market maker protocol Belt Finance said it paid a white hat hacker the largest bounty in DeFi history. The Binance Smart Chain (BSC)-based protocol, which operates a yield optimization strategy, said that white hat programmer Alexander Schlindwein discovered the vulnerability in Belt Finance’s protocol this week and reported the news to the team.Schlindwein, who appears to have no intent on swindling, was paid $1.05 million for his work, which consisted of $1 million from Immunefi and $50,000 from BSC’s Priority ONE program. “I went through the list of bug bounties on Immunefi and picked Belt Finance as the next one to work on,” Schlindwein told Cointelegraph, adding:“While I was studying their smart contracts, I noticed a potential bug in the internal bookkeeping, which keeps track of each user’s deposited funds. Playing the attack through with pen and paper gave me more confidence in the existence of the bug. I continued by producing a proper proof-of-concept (PoC) which undoubtedly confirmed its validity and economic damage.”   Winners and Losers  At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $47,351, Ether at $3,226 and XRP at $1.02. The total market cap is at $2.05 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are dYdX (DYDX) at 86.90%, OMG Network (OMG) at 42.04% and Axie Infinity (AXS) at 39.19%.The top three altcoin losers of the week are Celo (CELO) at -19.59%, Huobi Token (HT) at -13.58% and Avalanche (AVAX) at -8.27%.For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.   Most Memorable Quotations “I don’t really care about Bitcoin. I think people waste too much time and breath on it. But it is going to be regulated. […] And that will constrain it to some extent. But whether it eliminates it, I have no idea and I don’t personally care. I am not a buyer of Bitcoin. […] That does not mean it can’t go 10 times in price in the next five years.”Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase “The most difficult aspect of Bitcoin to grasp is that it’s completely unique — nothing like it has ever existed. There’s nothing for the media to compare it to, and they’re unable to fully understand the magnitude of the coming paradigm shift that Bitcoin will bring.”Samson Mow, chief strategy officer of Blockstream “There is no doubt that the crypto assets market is becoming more mainstream in the institutional and wealth management sectors.”Henry Howell, head of business development for Nickel Digital Asset Management “Millennial gamers hold 55% of all crypto assets, compared to just 5% of all millenials, showing that gamers are far more likely to hold crypto…

This “Crypto City” guide looks at Tokyo’s crypto culture, the city’s most notable projects and people, its financial infrastructure, at which retailers accept crypto and where you can find blockchain education courses — and there’s even a short history with all the juicy details of famous controversies and collapses. Fast factsCity: TokyoCountry: JapanPopulation: 14MFounded: 1603Language: Japanese The largest city in Japan — actually an amalgamation of 23 different wards — is well known for its quirky cafes, famous nightlife, and that mix of modern and ancient which continues to make the country a popular draw for tourists. Many visitors from around the world are often surprised at Tokyo’s massive — yet nearly perfectly on time — transit system that can carry them from Narita Airport all the way to the southern city of Kagoshima within a day.Before becoming the high-tech modern city it grew to be in the 1970s and ‘80s, Tokyo started as a small fishing village named Edo. The shogun — essentially the highest leader in Japan, whose influence rivaled the emperor’s — established a military government in the area in the early 17th century. However, the city received its namesake as the “eastern capital” at the start of the period known as the Meiji Restoration, when the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to Edo.Tokyo has been home to two summer Olympics, in 1964 and 2021, and hosts sumo tournaments, baseball games and international conferences in addition to being the setting of movies like Godzilla, Kill Bill, You Only Live Twice and many others. Though often portrayed in the media as a homogeneous culture of people packed tightly together, a number of foreign nationals reside in Tokyo’s 23 wards with a variety of political viewpoints alongside their Japanese neighbors.Many consider Japan as a country with a social system of insiders and outsiders, permeating every aspect of life in the country, from time with families to the legal system. Children with successful jobs often live with, or house, their parents for decades, and the work culture — while seemingly aimed at promoting a sense of camaraderie — has been criticized for exceptionally long hours, few vacations and an inflexibility for solutions outside of the box.Even before the pandemic shut Japan’s borders to most temporary visitors, less than 3% of the country’s 126 million people were non-Japanese citizens, but there are reports the percentage may be three times larger in Tokyo. The country faces challenges including a rising aging population, courts with an unrealistically high conviction rate and underrepresentation from women in government and business.  Bitcoin Ads in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo pic.twitter.com/P7KGMLoMCn— Sebastien 🏞 (@borgetsebastien) March 24, 2019  Crypto cultureDespite the etymology of Satoshi Nakamoto, experts and investigators have not definitively proven the legendary Bitcoin creator was Japanese — though they claimed to have lived in the country. While the search for Satoshi continues (and it’s unlikely to be Dorian Nakamoto, the man most pictured), Japan has been a popular place for crypto conferences and meetups.  If Satoshi Nakamoto isn’t lying, then he should go on Maury Povich to prove he’s not the father of Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/y6fXQPChXK— Troll Cat (@2p2TrollCat) March 7, 2014  Japan was one of the first countries to recognize digital currencies as legal property under its existing regulatory framework. According to the organizer of the Tokyo Bitcoin Hackers group, an American living in Japan known as Wiz, “The markets were crazy” in 2017 and token projects attracted a lot of attention from Japanese investors.At the time, the government required crypto exchanges and brokers to register with the country’s Financial Services Agency, with Kraken not meeting the requirements and being forced to shutter operations until late 2020. Tokyo has been home to many exchanges, including Mt. Gox (now defunct), bitFlyer, Liquid, Coincheck and even Binance briefly before the major exchange relocated to Malta. “Meetups were very popular with lots of newbies wandering in, and mainstream media like NHK and TV Tokyo news crews would show up at the meetups with big video cameras and want to interview people and ask them silly questions like ‘how many Bitcoin do you own?’”Another Meetup group, Bitcoin Tokyo, regularly gathered at different venues across the Roppongi, Shibuya and Akasaka districts, home to some of the first bars to host crypto ATMs and accept payments in Bitcoin starting in 2013. Roger Ver, the CEO of Bitcoin.com who moved to Japan in 2005, was the initial organizer of Bitcoin Tokyo, which met from 2011 until 2018.Although many foreign athletes were allowed to enter Japan for the 2020 Olympics that were held this year, there is no timeline for determining when short-term visitors will be once again able to attend in-person crypto and blockchain conferences in Japan. Tokyo is scheduled to host the TEAMZ Blockchain Summit and the Blockchain and Internet of Things Conference in 2022, but the city has been in and out of a state of emergency since the pandemic started, making it unlikely for groups to gather anytime soon.  Tokyo streets at night  (Pexels.com)  Projects and companiesIn the private sector, as in the United States, many major Japanese companies are searching for ways to give investors exposure to crypto without incurring the wrath of regulators. Financial conglomerate SBI Holdings is reportedly planning to set up one of the first crypto funds in Japan, and this year the Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank launched an asset-backed securities token in partnership with Securitize. U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase ​​launched a series of retail trading products for Japanese users in 2021 and financial giant SBI Group is the parent company for crypto trading platforms including TaoTao and B2C2.     Japan’s Financial Services Agency has approved 31 registered crypto exchanges in the country, many of which are headquartered in Tokyo. These include Quoine, Huobi Japan, GMO Coin, bitFlyer, Liquid, BTCBOX, Bitpoint, Bitbank, SBI VC Trade and Coincheck. Though the agency has strong regulatory requirements for the crypto industry in Japan, it has also launched the Blockchain Governance Initiative Network. The project is aimed at driving the development of the blockchain sector through open-source information sharing.Other projects that may have…

 In a series of  recent interviews and speeches, United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has called the cryptocurrencies market the “Wild West” due to its unregulated and allegedly fraud-filled atmosphere, predicting that the coins were doomed to fail. Powers On… is a monthly opinion column from Marc Powers, who spent much of his 40-year legal career working with complex securities-related cases in the United States after a stint with the SEC. He is now an adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law, where he teaches a course on “Blockchain, Crypto and Regulatory Considerations.” In a Washington Post interview published Sept. 21, Gary Gensler stated that in history,  “private currencies” did not have longevity. As discussed below, I take issue with that statement. Now five months into his role leading this important governmental agency, Gensler is not only a powerful voice in the debate around blockchain use cases and regulatory considerations but also a dangerous one.    The concern for the crypto industry is that Gensler is a very bright and determined man, as well as ambitious. He hails from Wharton, Goldman Sachs and formerly worked in the U.S. Treasury before becoming the Chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CTFC), the SEC’s sister agency. While at the CFTC, he led what was probably the only federal agency to create and implement all the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Not all that surprising, as his bio also includes acting as a Special Adviser to the co-author of that legislation Senator Paul Sarbanes. I had the honor of knowing and working with the other co-author of that historic legislation Congressman Mike Oxley while at my law firm, BakerHostetler. Mike led our Government Affairs practice while I led our National Securities Litigation & Regulatory Enforcement practice.The two-edged swordGiven this broad experience both in and out of our government, Gensler knows how to get things done politically. He also in recent years has learned and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) courses on blockchain.   SEC Chairman @GaryGensler on #Bitcoin  pic.twitter.com/jhqkbZrnob— Documenting Bitcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) August 3, 2021  As I have said or suggested in prior columns, this is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it is good to have someone in government who understands the technology and its beneficial use cases. On the other hand, his smarts can be used to find ways to serve the interests and politics of the Biden Administration, which with Federal Reserve Chair William Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen decidedly antagonistic to cryptocurrencies, the three of them can implement rules and policies that could harm the technology’s advancement and adoption. It will only get worse if there is the appointment of Saule Omarova to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as she has publicly come out against the use of digital assets. That would also be quite a reversal from the policy of her immediate predecessor, Brian Brooks. Brooks in the waning days of the Trump Administration proposed rules and guidelines which allowed federal banks the freedom to house and custody digital assets for clients. Let’s see how long this hawkish Omarova takes to unwind this.The pros and cons of Bitcoin adoption At one level, you can not blame them for being against Bitcoin’s (BTC) adoption as an alternative digital currency, or medium of exchange, to the physical U.S. dollar.Its use worldwide without any government oversight or intervention frightens them, and it could diminish, over time, the dominance of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency for the globe. They have the status quo of large financial institutions and intermediaries to preserve and protect. They are relatively long-time government fixtures and they clearly believe in our government controlling things.     Whenever they adopt rules and policies which impede our activities or seek to regulate them, they always claim it is for our own good, such as to protect us from rampant fraud or harm and for the good of our economy, protecting us from economic depression or inflation. But we know better, don’t we?On the other hand, the good news for those of us that believe in the promise of distributed ledger technology is that it is, in my opinion, too late. The way BTC, Ether (ETH) and other cryptocurrencies travel digitally from country to country worldwide is beyond one country’s regulation, including the United States of America. That’s right, let me say it again: It is too late. One country can not kill it by banning its use and activities, nor can one country regulate its use by world citizens in an effort to control BTC and its citizens. Bitcoin is now a world currency that is owned and controlled by no country nor group of currencies. It is owned by the world’s citizens.Need proof of what I say?Look at China, which has banned activities in cryptocurrencies several times over the past years, although not possession of the token. Now, it is again banning mining and trading. Has that accomplished the demise of BTC? No. Instead, the mining industry has moved to Eastern Europe and the United States. Look at South Korea, which required all crypto exchanges to register with its regulatory body by this past week. Dozens have not. Look at India, which also banned the use of BTC, until its Supreme Court reversed that law. Today, it is reported by an August analysis by Chainanalysis that India now ranks number two in the world in crypto adoption.Crypto is the inevitable  I have been saying since 2017 that I believe we will, in time, have a dual financial system and economy. There will be a crypto world economy and a parallel fiat digital currency in the form of  central banks digital currencies, or CBDCs, like what Powell is working on at the Federal Reserve and what China has already rolled out to its citizens in major cities, called the digital yuan.Accordingly, I take issue with the SEC’s Chair’s history lesson when he says private currencies do not last, implying the same will be true for…

Post Views: 9 DC Coin is one of the charity tokens in the crypto economy that focuses on the revolutionary social impact. DC coin is seeing a whooping pre-sales which is going to start on 15 October. The primary goal of the coin is to provide massive returns to the investors along with the social impact in the world. It’s the only coin aiming to boost investors’ and holders’ balance and create ultimate charity strategies through blockchain technology.  DC Coin has launched a great vision of forming a robust community to empower DC Coin in the cryptocurrency world. Usually, the developers have developed this coin to ensure long-term gains to the investors and achieve social impact via charitable activities. The tokens are primarily used for charity and other social welfare activities. Hence, to achieve this goal, the platform developers and investors are giving their best shot.  Usually, these coins were built using the ERC20 tokens with solid technology. Since the developers are skilled and ensure regular auditings, it’s highly secured and safe to invest in the DC Coin. As said earlier, this DC Coin platform focuses on charitable activities; it encourages and motivates investors to make a social impact across the globe with effective strategies. A few major charities supported by this platform are children welfare groups, handicapped, food safety, women, education, clean water, refugees, environment, and other related organizations.  There are several reasons to choose DC Coin. Some of them include the following. It’s highly scalable due to its strong technical foundation.  Since the data is stored via blockchain technology, it’s safe and secured.  It’s built on Ethereum Blockchain, which is a decentralized public ledger.  Tokenomics: Total Supply: 1,000,000,000 Fees: 10% Pre-sale: 25% Pre-sale distribution: 20% Sale distribution: 5% Development: 15% Burn: 10% Contact  Twitter: https://t.me/dropofchangecoin Email: [email protected] For more info: https://www.dropofchangecoin.com/

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Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This WeekCardano launches smart contracts after successful hard forkAfter years of anticipation, Charles Hoskinson’s brainchild, Cardano, finally launched its smart contract functionality via the Alonzo hard fork on Monday. You’d think the result of this would be some bullish price action for ADA but, alas, its price dropped 10% following the rollout. While Cardano was keen to celebrate the milestone, it also emphasized in a blog post that it’s still in the “early days” of the project, adding that now is when “the mission truly begins.”The team also urged its community to not be overzealous in boarding the hype train just yet, and to be patient with the smart contract functionality in its formative stages: “There are high expectations resting on this upgrade. Some unreasonably so. Cardano watchers may be expecting a sophisticated ecosystem of consumer-ready DApps available immediately after the upgrade. Expectations need to be managed here.” Fake news: Litecoin price surges 35% following Walmart adoption hoaxWhile real news made the price of ADA drop, fake news made the price of Litecoin (LTC) pump this week.Numerous publications reported Monday that Walmart planned to have a “pay with Litecoin option” for its e-commerce websites starting on Oct. 1 as part of a partnership with the Litecoin Foundation. Following the spread of the fake report, the price of LTC surged 35% before sharply falling within hours. A spokesperson from Walmart confirmed that the news was fake within an hour, while the Litecoin Foundation’s director of marketing, Jay Milla, also told Cointelegraph that the announcement did not come from Litcecoin’s side of things.  “The Litecoin Foundation has yet to enter into a partnership with Walmart,” said Milla. Vitalik Buterin makes list of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2021Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of this year, joining the likes of Naomi Osaka, Britney Spears, Xi Jinping and Elon Musk. Buterin was featured in the “Innovators” section of the Time 100 list, with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian authoring his profile. Ohanian highlighted Buterin’s work in building the Ethereum network and encouraging the development of decentralized apps and NFTs.“No one person could’ve possibly come up with all of the uses for Ethereum, but it did take one person’s idea to get it started,” Ohanian said. “From there, a new world has opened up, and given rise to new ways of leveraging blockchain technology.” Coinbase increases junk-bond offering to $2B after investors swarmAfter seeing enormous demand for its $1.5 billion junk-bond offering that was announced on Monday, Coinbase reportedly increased the size of the sale to $2 billion. According to a report from The Economic Times, there was at least $7 billion worth of orders that were placed in competition for seven- and 10-year bonds offering interest rates of 3.375% and 3.625%, respectively.Coinbase stated on Monday that the raised funds will be put towards “continued investments in product developments” and “potential investments in or acquisitions of other companies, products, or technologies” in the future. The funds might also come in handy when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, comes knocking on the door with a lawsuit if the USD coin lending program is actually launched. US lawmakers propose adding digital assets to ‘wash sale’ rule and raising capital gains taxReports surfaced this week that Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives proposed tax initiatives that could swipe some extra profits from the gains of “certain high-income” crypto users. According to a document released by the House Committee on Ways and Means on Monday, the proposal would increase the tax rate on long-term capital gains from the existing 20% to 25%. On the same day, President Joe Biden said he planned to nominate acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Rostin Behnam, to assume the role permanently, while also naming Kristin Johnson and Christy Goldsmith Romero to fill two other vacant commissioner seats. In a private meeting held on Sept. 8 between Fidelity Digital Assets President Tom Jessop, six of the firm’s executives and several SEC officials, the executives outlined a number of reasons why the enforcer should finally approve the Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund. These examples included increased demand for digital assets, the prevalence of similar funds in other countries, and the rise of Bitcoin adoption — all of which sound like reasons that would fall on deaf ears for the SEC.   Winners and Losers  At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $46,951, Ether at $3,376 and XRP at $1.07. The total market cap is at $2.11 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Curve DAO Token (CRV) at 41.73%, Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) at 41.16% and Avalanche (AVAX) at 33.23%. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Arweave (AR) at -19.24%, Solana (SOL) at -21.27% and Revain (REV) at -17.11%.For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.  Most Memorable Quotations “Many platforms have dozens or hundreds of tokens on them. While each token’s legal status depends on its own facts and circumstances, the probability is quite remote that, with 50, 100, or 1,000 tokens, any given platform has zero securities.”Gary Gensler, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman “One can even see an inscription about the regulator’s obligations on the banknotes, while cryptocurrency is not backed by anything.”Behzod Khamraev, Central Bank of Uzbekistan deputy chairman “Advocates say crypto markets are all about financial inclusion, but the people who are most economically vulnerable are the ones who are most likely to have to withdraw their money the fastest when the market drops. […] High, unpredictable fees can make crypto trading really dangerous for people who aren’t rich.”Elizabeth Warren, U.S. senator “Rising valuations across asset classes, massive price swings in cryptoassets and event-driven risks observed in 1H21 amid elevated trading volumes raise…

Post Views: 13 Brands and creators will be able to create NFTs with ease and enjoy low-fee, high-speed transactions, and anti-counterfeiting measures DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / September 17, 2021 / Polygon, an Ethereum scaling platform onboarding millions to Web 3.0, has today announced a technology partnership with Guardian Link, a no-code platform to create and launch curated non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The partnership aims to galvanize broader participation in the NFT sector by enabling creators to devise their own ‘branded’ NFT marketplaces and launches without prohibitive transaction fees or extensive code. Guardian Link empowers brands and creators to easily publish, mint, preview, and manage their NFTs, and provides custom templates and pre-coded smart contracts for brands looking to launch from their own bespoke marketplaces. Users enjoy a range of advanced features, such as automate royalty payments and Guardian Link’s proprietary anti-counterfeiting measure, which automatically hunts down counterfeit NFT copies and informs creators. Counterfeiting is a latent but consequential issue in the NFT sector and one that needs solving before mainstream adoption can take root. Guardian Link’s “Anti. Rip” counterfeiting tracker provides brands and creators with protection and peace of mind by monitoring across the web for duplicates, rip-offs, and copy-cats NFTs that can damage brands and impact sales. Through the partnership, Guardian Link users will gain the benefits of Polygon’s industry-leading technology, which builds and connects Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. Polygon’s framework is designed to regulate an environment where various blockchain networks function cohesively rather than as closed-off silos. The powers behind this technology are, Keyur Patel, the Co-Founder and Chairman of Guardian Link, Ramkumar Subramaniam, Co-Founder & CEO, Arjun Reddy Co-Founder & CTO, Kamesh Elangovan Co-Founder & COO. “Our mission is to make NFTs a global market that can be accessed and created by anyone. We’ve taken the first step toward this goal by removing technical barriers to entry through our no-code platform. Now, through our partnership with Polygon, we’ll remove the financial obstacles too, by mitigating costly transaction fees” says Ramkumar Subramaniam, CEO of Guardian Link. By combining their strengths, Polygon and Guardian Link will be able to provide brands and creators worldwide a prime arena to explore NFT opportunities. Guardian Link’s legitimacy framework and Polygon’s scalability will ensure the authenticity and practicability of NFTs across multiple marketplaces and blockchains. Shreyansh Singh, Head of NFTs and Gaming at Polygon Studios, said: “You no longer need to be an expert coder to get the full advantage of creating NFTs. You no longer have to pay exorbitant fees to sell your NFTs or wait for transactions to settle. Guardian Link on Polygon takes care of all the hard work so that brands and creators can focus on their craft, secure in the knowledge that their work and royalties are protected and not subject to excessive fees.” “With the barriers to entry now substantially lowered by our partnership, we anticipate an explosion of brands and creators embracing the NFT revolution,” Shreyansh added. Polygon is facilitating gas-free buying, trading, and selling for the world’s leading NFT projects, including Crypto Punks, Bored Aped Yacht Club, Beeple, Dolce & Gabbana, OpenSea, Axie Infinity, DraftKings, Autograph, and Mark Cuban’s Lazy.com. Polygon houses substantially more gaming and NFT Dapps than other chains outside of Ethereum, with more than 500 Dapps already in the Polygon ecosystem, strengthening the case for Polygon to become the plumbing of the “metaverse”. Polygon also boasts over 60 million unique users and has facilitated more than 600 million transactions, both of which are growing at a rapid pace. About PolygonPolygon is the leading platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its growing suite of products offers developers easy access to all major scaling and infrastructure solutions: L2 solutions (ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups), sidechains, hybrid solutions, stand-alone and enterprise chains, data availability solutions, and more. Polygon’s scaling solutions have seen widespread adoption with 500+ applications hosted, ~600M total transactions processed, ~60M unique user addresses, and $5B+ in assets secured. Website | Twitter | Ecosystem Twitter | Studios Twitter | Reddit | Discord | Telegram | Instagram About Polygon StudiosPolygon Studios is the Gaming and NFT arm of Polygon focused on growing the global Blockchain Gaming and NFT Industry and bridging the gap between Web 2 and Web 3 gaming through investment, marketing, and developer support. The Polygon Studios ecosystem comprises highly loved games and NFT Dapps like OpenSea, Upshot, Aavegotchi, Zed Run, Skyweaver by Horizon Games, Decentraland, Megacryptopolis, Neon District, Cometh, and Decentral Games.If you’re a game developer, builder or NFT creator looking to join the Polygon Studios ecosystem, get started here. Website | Twitter | Telegram About Guardian LinkGuardianLink, a no-code NFT (Non-Fungible Token) platform, enables creators, artists, brands, and celebrities worldwide, to mould their NFTs with their own launchpads. For more information, please visit; https://www.guardianlink.io/ Website | Twitter | Discord | Telegram For more information, please contact:Pedro ParkCryptoland PR |http://cryptolandpr.com/[email protected][email protected]

This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations. Regulatory noiseIn this week’s column, the Man in Shanghai is determined to squeeze all of the regulatory noise into one section so as not to waste too much of your time. Let’s begin. It wasn’t much, just a warning from the Hebei Provincial government that it would put an end to cryptocurrency mining in the region. This is largely a non-story since it’s essentially just a restatement of a national-level policy that went into effect months ago. Hebei was never much of a mining stronghold anyway, so the announcement is more procedural than anything else. Mining operations will continue to move overseas while China goes through its unified push to become carbon neutral. For reference, China has 23 provinces, and close to half have already restated their commitment to the national policy of not tolerating cryptocurrency mining.The Securities Times, a state-owned publication, ran a story to warn the public about the bubble surrounding nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. This Shenzhen-based publication questioned the real economic value of NFTs, a topic that many of us have wondered about at times. Still, the suspicion hasn’t stopped the trend from spilling into less mainstream art circles, where NFT and metaverse-related events are becoming more and more popular.Selling shovels in a gold rushWhile mining in China might be difficult, manufacturing mining machines continues to be profitable. Canaan, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of cryptocurrency mining hardware, announced its highest quarterly profits to date. The company’s Q2 financials show that the company recorded over $167.5 million in total net revenue. This was likely driven by the sharp increase in prices this spring, leading to an aggressive expansion of mining facilities across the world. The next round of quarterly financials will tell a deeper story, as investors learn how badly China’s aggressive regulations have hurt the industry. Zhang Nangeng, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canaan said:​​“We delivered a remarkable performance in the second quarter of 2021. Despite unexpected regulatory policy dynamics and Bitcoin price volatility, we achieved record-high topline results as we delivered a robust 5.9 million Thash/s of computing power to our clients.”Rounding up the trading spaceVolume remained mostly flat on exchanges like Huobi and OKEx, as it has for the last 12 weeks. The last major spike came during the sell-off in early May, around the time Chinese regulators began their crackdown. Over this time, FTX has seen a strong increase in volume, suggesting that some Chinese users might be connecting to exchanges that haven’t been dominant players in the Chinese trading space. FIL remains popular on Huobi, finishing in the top five on Thursday’s 24-hr volume chart. This token has maintained popularity among traders in China, despite being about 50% below its all-time high from earlier this year. ADA, SOL, and DOT were assets that showed up high on OKEx volume charts, which mirrored global volume distributions. Speaking of Solana, Chinese users on Weibo reacted strongly to the network going offline on Wednesday, with some criticizing the network’s decentralization. A discussion broke out about whether Ethereum’s early technical issues were comparable to this event, proving that Solana and Ethereum maxis will disagree in any culture, regardless of the language.Unleashing the eCNYThe central bank digital currency created by the Chinese federal bank is now being pushed out even further, as popular app Meituan is offering roughly $1.50 in eCNY (digital yuan) to users who open a ‘digital wallet’ and use its services.Meituan is most widely known for its bright yellow food delivery service and shared bikes, which can be found on most city streets. The campaign is meant to encourage low-carbon living and is open to nine pilot cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu. The wallet interface is minimalist and allows users to convert, deposit, and transfer the eCNY The eCNY, which was originally positioned as more of an institutional remittance tool for commercial banks, is now being pushed towards retail users aggressively. Already, large franchises like McDonald’s and Zara display eCNY payment signs at point-of-sale counters across the country. The current digital payment space is dominated by WeChat Pay and Alipay, but those two will likely have a hard time holding control of market share if the central government is interested in forcing eCNY into competing applications.  Ironically, Meituan has a special role in Chinese cryptocurrency meme culture. Token holders often joke they will be forced to work in food delivery whenever the market crashes, leading to the meme below. Meituan’s iconic delivery drivers are the source of many crypto-related memes during a market crash. At the end of March, Meituan revealed it had around 570 million users. Other financial apps, including banking apps, have already integrated wallet services into their products.