Posted on

Will Mt. Gox Release The 140K BTC On January 2023? Repayment Methods Revealed

The Mt. Gox hack was a watershed moment for bitcoin. And the future repayment to the affected people will surely be another one. Since we’re in a bear market, most people worry about what effect will those 140K BTC will have on the price. Will the Mt. Gox class prove to be holders or will they sell it all as soon as they get it? That’s a question for another day, since the Mt. Gox class has until January 10th, 2023, to complete registration and select their preferred payment method.

The last time we reported on the issue, attorney-at-law Nobuaki Kobayashi was appointed as the Rehabilitation Trustee and the repayment procedures were expected to begin on September 15th. NewsBTC also informed that “the Mt. Gox bitcoin repayments will happen over a period of time, putting only a portion into circulation at a time. This will see that there is a much lesser impact from the BTC coming into the market and wouldn’t tank the price of BTC.”

This time, we’ll learn about the repayment methods and the full KYC procedures that the Mt. Gox class is going through to get that sweet vintage BTC.

Mt. Gox Hack Repayment Options

It’s hard to believe, but it seems that after all these years the Mt. Gox story will come to an end. Ok, there’s been postponement after postponement and a million new requirements, but there’s also been progress. This time, Mt. Gox announced, “Regarding repayment under the Rehabilitation Plan (“Repayment”), the Rehabilitation Trustee has launched a function for creditors to select a repayment method and to register payee information.”

The creditors “who wish to receive Repayment” will have to go here and complete the “Selection and Registration” form before January 10th. This is more than mandatory. “If you do not complete the necessary Selection and Registration, you will not be able to receive any of the Repayments below, and you will need to bring the required documents to the MTGOX Co., Ltd. head office.” They will also have to “receive Repayment in Japanese yen (cash).”

On the other hand, those who complete the forms on time will be able to choose between these repayment methods:

  • Early Lump-Sum Repayment
  • Repayment for a Portion of Cryptocurrency Rehabilitation Claims in Cryptocurrency
  • Repayment by Bank Remittance
  • Repayment by Remittance through a Fund Transfer Service Provider  

It’s also worth noting that to receive payment in the selected method, these three names have to coincide:

  • “Creditor Name (the name notified to the Rehabilitation Trustee by the rehabilitation creditor)”
  • “Name of Payee information (Name of the receipt bank account for a bank remittance, the account of a fund transfer service provider, and the cryptocurrency exchange/custodian account, etc.)”
  • “Name set forth in the identification documents submitted by the rehabilitation creditor to verify identity using the service provided by Onfido PTE Ltd.”

BTC price chart for 10/08/2022 on Gemini | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
How Will Repayment Affect The Bitcoin Market?

The 140K BTC that Mt. Gox will release into the wild will for sure affect the bitcoin price, but maybe not as much as people fear. The different payment methods guarantee that everything will happen gradually. And the Mt. Gox class consists of early bitcoiners. They might’ve learned something along the way and not be so eager to sell their BTC. Those coins appreciated considerably since the Mt. Gox hack, but the price might go even higher in the future.

Of course, a portion of the creditors will immediately take some profit. However, they forcibly waited since 2014 for those BTCs. Is there a rush to sell at these prices? Patience is a virtue.

Featured Image: Mt. Gox logo from Wikimedia | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Ep02- BTC Killer – Companion Guide For BBC’s “The Missing Cryptoqueen” Podcast

Let’s listen to “The Missing Cryptoqueen” podcast together from the very beginning, as the new episodes arrive. This second one presents new facets of Dr. Ruja’s story and amplifies the scope of the podcast. Good news, “The Missing Cryptoqueen” might be even more interesting than we previously believed. As BBC presenter Jamie Bartlett puts it, “we thought we were looking for a missing billionaire, but now we seem to be entering a world that’s far murkier than we thought.”

NewsBTC’s “The Missing Cryptoqueen’s” listening group is now in session. In the first few minutes of this episode, Dr. Ruja Ignatova says: “In two years, nobody will talk about bitcoin anymore.” A line out of the book of every crypto scammer out there.

Remember, you can download episodes directly from the BBC, or listen to “The Missing Cryptoqueen” through Apple, Spotify, or iVoox.

About “The Missing Cryptoqueen ’s” Episode Two, “The Bitcoin Killer”

This podcast moves fast. It’s only “The Missing Cryptoqueen ’s” second episode and the whole OneCoin fiasco is already breaking apart. The producer and the presenter move between telling the story of what happened and the actual search for Dr. Ruja. The team went to Bulgaria and asked around about the controversial character. Every time they mentioned her, Bulgarians started to speak loudly among themselves. 

They are going to places that she frequented, sure, but everyone seems to know about Ruja Ignatova.

In any case, “The Missing Cryptoqueen’s” audience is not exactly a cryptocurrency-savvy one. The episode starts with a terrible definition of what money is, and a shaky explanation of how blockchain technology works. It’s necessary, because we will soon find out that OneCoin didn’t even run on a blockchain. This was a scam through and through from the very beginning. 

The podcast/ radio documentary also serves as a living and breathing explanation of how a Ponzi scheme works. And the story’s protagonists tell you exactly what happened in their own words. One of the victims, Jane; a developer turned OneCoin whistleblower; and OneCoin denouncer Timothy Curry are the guests in “The Missing Cryptoqueen’s” second episode.

In the episode’s fourth quarter, the team goes to the marina where the boat Dr. Ruja’s disappeared from was located. The Bulgarians there mention the mafia. And the developer turned whistleblower also alludes to it.

BTC price chart for 10/06/2022 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
An Almost-Always-Present Characteristic Of A Scam Or Ponzi

Besides the lack of a blockchain, “The Missing Cryptoqueen” points out an almost-always-present characteristic of a scam or Ponzi: 

  • People couldn’t withdraw or spend the tokens they bought.

In this case, OneCoin only lived in a SQL Database in Bulgaria. The naive investors saw the price pumping and believed they were making a killing, but their tokens were just numbers on a screen. They couldn’t exchange them for other cryptocurrencies because OneCoin was not a cryptocurrency. It didn’t run on a blockchain.

At the time, the team reached out to OneCoin with these allegations and they denied everything and blamed the authorities and regulations for their token’s lack of usability. Classic scammers.  

Quotes From “The Missing Cryptoqueen ’s” Episode Two – “The Bitcoin Killer”

  • “The €10,000 that Jen invested which she thought was now worth over €100,000 in one coin was just a number that someone in an office in Bulgaria had made up and could delete just as easily. OneCoin is not a real cryptocurrency, it’s just pretending to be one. It’s fake, it’s a scam, and it could be the scam of the century.”
  • “OneCoin was only possible because of Dr. Ruja. Whenever we see complicated technology that we don’t understand, we make a judgment about it based on things we do understand. Like the fact that the boss was an inspirational, successful businesswoman. Dr. Ruja’s magic trick was to use the hype and terminology of legitimate cryptocurrencies. So ordinary people like Jen couldn’t tell the difference between the real and the fake.”

Extra Material And Episode Credits

This week’s extra material comes courtesy of Investopedia, which summarizes “The Missing Cryptoqueen ’s” plot as:

“OneCoin was a cryptocurrency-based Ponzi scheme. The companies behind the scheme were OneCoin Ltd. and OneLife Network Ltd., founded by Bulgarian national Ruja Ignatova, who disappeared in 2017. However, not before the scheme raised $4 billion.”

And finally, the episode’s credits:

Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Producer: Georgia Catt
Story consultant: Chris Berube
Editor: Philip Sellars
Original music and sound design: Phil Channell
Original music and vocals: Dessislava Stefanova and the London Bulgarian Choir

Previous Companion Guides For BBC’s “The Missing Cryptoqueen” Podcast:

  1. Ep. 01 – https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/ep01-dr-ruja-companion-guide-for-bbcs-the-missing-cryptoqueen-podcast/

Featured Image: The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast logo from the BBC | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Bitcoin Pound Sterling Volume Soars To ATH Amid Currency Crisis

The pound sterling is experiencing heavy turbulence. The dollar is eating it all. Bitcoin is in a deep slumber. What a time to be alive! Things are moving and shaking in the finance world and the general population can’t do much but watch the show. And place their bets. British people recently saw the pound sterling and the euro sink to all-time lows against the dollar. A percentage of the population reacted by acquiring bitcoin, the charts show.

Another important factor is that the pound sterling’s “volatility last week was highly unusual, creating opportunities and price discrepancies.” The currency crisis created potential possibilities, and British traders seem to have taken advantage of them. As a reminder, the pound sterling saw “a feisty week in the UK pending proposed and later abandoned tax cuts.” This is all according to Arcane Research’s The Weekly Update.

In Bitcoinist’s first report on the situation, our sister site said:

“The UK’s interest in Bitcoin (BTC) will expand “quite quickly” as fiat currency instability makes the flagship digital currency asset resemble a stablecoin, analysts said.

As one of several this week to highlight BTC’s attractiveness over the pound sterling, strategy adviser at financial firm VanEck Gabor Gurbacs came to that decision.

“Because of the instability of the pound,” Gurbacs warned, “the United Kingdom will get orange-pilled very rapidly.”

The last factor to analyze is this one, “most of the growth was concentrated in spiking volumes on Bitfinex.” Why was that? Keep reading to find out.

By The Numbers: The Pound Sterling ’s Busy Week

The headline is this one: the BTCGBP trading volume’s 7-day average reached an all-time high this week. Also, surprising no one, “similar tendencies occurred in ETHGBP.” How high was the all-time high, though? Back to The Weekly Update, “BTCGBP pairs saw trading volumes climbing above 47,000 BTC last Monday, after having experienced growth throughout the latter parts of September.”

BTCGBP Trading Volume (7d Moving Average) | Source: The Weekly Update

As for the reason for the pound sterling to bitcoin movements, Arcane Research’s analysts blame it on “market maker rebalancing.” Although they also recognize that bitcoin is “gaining mind share amidst declining trust in the British Pound.”

A similar thing happened to the Russian ruble at the beginning of the conflict with Ukraine. At the time, our sister site Bitcoinist reported:

“The new all-time high on the BTCRUB pair is the result of the Russian ruble falling more than 50% against the United States dollar since the start of the year. As the global reserve currency, most financial assets are priced in USD.”

Will the pound sterling rebound as fast as the ruble did? Or will the dollar continue to dominate for the foreseeable future?

BTC price chart for 10/05/2022 on Gemini | Source: BTC/GBP on TradingView.com
Why Was Most Of The Growth On Bitfinex?

The analysts at Arcane Research identified another fascinating factor. An incentive, if you will. They named it a “prolonged structural mispricing” and it refers to a “dollar-adjusted premium or discount in Bitfinex’s BTCGBP pair last week.” All you have to do is adjust “the BTCGBP pair to USD,” to see that the pound sterling / bitcoin pair “traded at a significant discount to dollar spot.” This was an effect and not a cause. The market movements created this arbitrage opportunity. People who detected the incentive on time, profited.

“As the GBP bottomed vs. the USD, BTCGBP traded at a massive discount compared to BTCUSD. The discount turned into a prolonged premium with certain wicks deep into discount terrains as GBP traded in a highly volatile environment.”

Despite the significance of this factor, Arcane Research still believes that “the predominant force was market makers reducing their exposure” to the pound sterling.

Featured Image by Ewan Kennedy on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView and The Weekly Update

Posted on

Lightning Speed: Taro Is Here! Lightning Labs Releases The Code’s Alpha Version

The controversial Taro protocol is ready for testing. The initial version of the code is available on GitHub, and it enables “developers to mint, send, and receive assets on the bitcoin blockchain.” Notice that the company isn’t talking about the Lightning Network yet. In a blog post announcing the Taro launch, Lightning Labs promised, “once the on-chain functionality is complete, we’ll work towards integrating the Taro protocol into lnd, bringing Taro assets to the Lightning Network.”

This is the first step of many and it’s mainly aimed at developers. According to Lightning Labs, “this initial release is only designed for testnet usage as a way for developers to start using the code.” That means, no real value is flowing through Taro at the moment. But… what is Taro anyway? The blog post defines it as a “Taproot-powered protocol for issuing assets that can be transferred over bitcoin and in the future, the Lightning Network for instant, high volume, low fee transactions.”

Taro Will Enable Stablecoins To Travel Through Lightning

This is a multifaceted protocol that allows many things, but the feature everyone is excited about is the fusion of stablecoins with the Lightning Network. It’s controversial because you have to trust the issuer of stablecoins, which means they come with counterparty risk. Bitcoin doesn’t have that problem. In any case, in the subsection titled “The First Step Towards Bitcoinizing the Dollar,” Lightning Labs tries to convince us that stablecoins over Lightning are a good idea:

“With Taro and the incredible developer community, we can build a world where users have USD-denominated balances and BTC-denominated balances (or other assets) in the same wallet, trivially sending value across the Lightning Network just as they do today. This leap forward will accelerate the path to bringing bitcoin to billions.”

If that sounds too much like Galoy’s stablesats, it’s because both implementations are trying to solve the same problem. They use vastly different methods, though. And place the counterparty risk in different places.

BTC price chart for 09/29/2022 on Fx | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
How Does Taro Work And What Else Does It Do?

Don’t worry, these brand-new protocols are hard to master, or even understand. Luckily for us, Lightning Labs gave us a technical-but-easy-to-follow explanation as a refresher:

“Taro assets are embedded within existing bitcoin outputs, or UTXOs. Think of these assets as “UTXOs within a UTXO.” A developer mints a new Taro asset by making an on-chain transaction that commits to special metadata in a Tapoot output. When minting a new asset, the Taro daemon will generate the relevant witness data, assign the asset to a private key held by the minter, and broadcast the newly created bitcoin UTXO to the bitcoin network. This new outpoint becomes the genesis point of the newly minted asset, acting as its unique identifier.” 

When Lightning Speed first tackled the Taro subject, we explained what a Taro asset can be:

“What is a “Taro asset”? Whatever you want, your BTC can be “converted into different assets such as USD to EUR or USD to BTC.” Or, as Bitrefil’s Sergej Kotliar puts it, “Pay in currency of sender’s choice, receive in currency of recipient’s choice. This means that every wallet can now have native Strike-type “USD balance” functionality for example. With no need to trust the wallet, the only trust lies in the issuer of the token.”

How To Get Started With The Novel Protocol

As previously stated, this Alpha release is mainly for developers. If you’re one or know of one, here are the protocol’s coordinates: 

“To get started exploring Taro, download the daemon, check out the API documentation, and read the getting started guide. And for a more extensive explanation on how Taro works, take a deep dive into the Taro BIPs and our documentation.”

Have a blast, developers. And please report back to us with your findings.

Featured Image by Jennyrang from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Ep01- Dr. Ruja – Companion Guide For BBC’s “The Missing Cryptoqueen” Podcast

Is Dr. Ruja Ignatova the cryptocurrency world’s biggest scammer? The competition is fierce, there are so many faces and stories fighting for that spot, but none of them is on the FBI Most Wanted List. Dr. Ruja is. Great, but, why is NewsBTC revisiting the 2019 true crime podcast “The Missing Cryptoqueen”? Because Jamie Bartlett, the journalist behind the project, just released a new episode. 

Is there new information? Did they FIND Dr. Ruja Ignatova? The only thing we know for sure is that there’ll be a few new episodes, and that’s all we needed to hear. A BBC production, “The Missing Cryptoqueen” features various music and sound design, witness testimonies, interviews, and sound bites. There’s even original music in this podcasting extravaganza. 

NewsBTC will produce companion pieces for each of “The Missing Cryptoqueen’s” episodes. With summaries, quotes from the episode, and extra material from all over the web, this is the feature you people didn’t know you needed. Have this window open as you listen to each episode, it’ll enhance the already phenomenal experience.

You can download episodes directly at the BBC, or listen to “The Missing Cryptoqueen” through Apple, Spotify, or iVoox.

About Episode One – Dr. Ruja

This is the introductory episode, it presents Dr. Ruja Ignatova and the OneCoin world. We feel the size of the scam, we hear from the people that fell for it and the voices of the true believers. It begins with Bitcoin and Satoshi Nakamoto’s story, goes to a OneCoin seminar in Mbarara, a town in Western Uganda, and ends with Dr. Ruja’s disappearance in October 2017.

In “The Missing Cryptoqueen’s” first episode we can also see what a charismatic leader could do with bitcoin’s story and narrative. If Dr. Ruja Ignatova didn’t plagiarize it, she at least was heavily inspired by Satoshi Nakamoto’s mystique and discourse. Using quotes from her speeches, we hear Dr. Ruja speaking about a rotten financial system and corrupt banking institutions. About the possibility of banking the unbanked and what that would do for the world. About bitcoin’s pizza day story and how that could happen to OneCoin holders.

However, Dr. Ruja’s OneCoin was better than bitcoin. It was here to replace it, in fact.

Whenever you hear that, run. That should’ve been the witnesses’ first warning. In episode one, we hear about the OneLife network. The social part of the scam. We hear from a UK victim who assisted to the webinars, from a OneLife employee and insider, and we listen to an African song about OneCoin. There’s emotion in all of their voices. And an open wound.

Near the end, we hear about 2017 and Dr. Ruja’s disappearance from people that were there at the scene. What happened? So far, there are nine more episodes of BBC’s “The Missing Cryptoqueen.” Let’s hope we get an answer to that question.

BTC price chart for 09/28/2022 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Quotes From Ep. 01 – “Dr. Ruja”

  • “Then, in late 2017, Dr. Ruja disappeared. One of Europe’s richest women, a woman who seemed destined to change the world had vanished.”
  • “It was impossible not to be impressed by Dr. Ruja. She appeared on the front cover of prestigious business magazines, she has degrees from Oxford and Konstanz University and is fluent in several languages.”
  • “Thousands of people were filling stadiums to hear Dr. Ruja talk, to buy OneCoin and join this financial revolution.”
  • “But in October 2017, there was a big OneCoin event in Lisbon, Portugal and Dr. Ruja was scheduled to speak.”

Extra Material And Episode Credits

This guide’s extra material comes courtesy of the podcast series’s IMDB page. In the description, IMDB gives us a good overview of what to expect from “The Missing Cryptoqueen.”

“Dr Ruja Ignatova called herself the Cryptoqueen. She told people she had invented a cryptocurrency to rival Bitcoin, and persuaded millions to join her financial revolution, investing billions. Then she disappeared. Why? Jamie Bartlett spent months investigating how she did it for the Missing Cryptoqueen podcast, and trying to figure out where she’s hiding.”

This 2019 clip with producer Georgia Catt also qualifies as a trailer for what’s to come:

And finally, the episode’s credits:

Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Producer: Georgia Catt
Story consultant: Chris Berube
Editor: Philip Sellars
Original music and sound design: Phil Channell
Original music and vocals: Dessislava Stefanova and the London Bulgarian Choir

You’re part of NewsBTC’s “The Missing Cryptoqueen’s” listening group by just reading these guides. Let’s explore Dr. Ruja Ignatova’s world together.

Featured Image: “The Missing Cryptoqueen” logo from the BBC’s site | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Arthur Hayes Questions PoS Ethereum’s Decentralization, Suggests Rising Price

The controversial Arthur Hayes asks a burning question in his latest blog post. Is the PoS Ethereum prone to centralization? The former BitMEX CEO compares it to the Binance Smart Chain, that’s famously and admittedly centralized. Arthur Hayes also describes how the validator’s disagreements with the majority are going to go, and predicts disaster for the dApps that build over a platform that doesn’t prioritize censorship resistance. In the short term, though, he’s bullish on Ethereum.

Before getting into all of that, Artur Hayes describes a concerning reality that many people in crypto Twitter have noticed and discussed. It has to do with the validators:

“As of 21 September, Lido Finance, Coinbase, and Kraken together control slightly over 50% of all ETH staked on the beacon chain. This means they are the most powerful validators and, in essence, they could censor what sorts of transactions are processed. What do all three of these centralized entities have in common? They are all US-owned companies or DAOs with major investments from US venture capitalists.”

For those keeping score, that’s a centralizing factor and a few single points of failure. All of those companies are under US jurisdiction, one of the most restrictive in the world. And of course, Arthur Hayes recognizes  “protections in place to help ensure decentralization” and that the system punishes validators that censor transactions. Nevertheless, the PoS system seems fragile. Big institutions that the government can sue are the validators. And the biggest validators will control the whole system. 

Arthur Hayes Sees Centralization 

How will the slashing mechanism that punishes unruly validators play out? According to Arthur Hayes, this is how the system will deal with rebels: 

  • “There is a way to slowly lose your ETH if < 33% of the network refuses to attest to blocks. Slowly losing your ETH means that a validator is punished by reducing the deposit on a node. Should the deposit drop below 16 ETH, that validation node is removed from the network. This capital becomes dead capital as for the foreseeable future you cannot unstake ETH.”
  • “There is a fast way to lose your ETH if > 33% of the network refuses to attest to blocks. The penalties get exponentially worse quickly such that opposing validators quickly fall below the 16 ETH threshold and are booted from the network.”

Hayes predicts that everyone will let that happen again and again, and compares it to the original DAO story. Ethereum’s developers decided to fork and “everyone at the time tacitly went along with the devs who forked the protocol so that folks could get their money back, rather than staying true to Ethereum’s supposed “code is law” ethos.”

ETH price chart on OkCoin | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com
Bullish On Ethereum Short-Term

Don’t get Arthur Hayes wrong, despite the criticism of the platform and PoS systems, he still thinks Ethereum will do well in relation to the dollar. 

“ETH as a financial asset — fully tethered to the US-led financial system and under the pretense of “decentralization” — could still do extremely well in the near future. The issue that I wrestle with is whether truly decentralized financial and social dApps can exist at scale (i.e., with hundreds of millions of users)”

In the end, it all goes back to the most important factor: scarcity. According to Hayes, the only thing that matters in the next three to six months is “how ETH issuance per block falls under the new Proof-of-Stake model. In the few days post-merge, the rate of ETH emissions has dropped on average from a +13,000 ETH per day to -100 ETH.” If this continues, Arthur Hayes is optimistic: 

“The price of ETH continues to get smoked due to deteriorating USD liquidity, but give the changes in the supply and demand dynamics time to percolate. Check back in a few months, and I suspect you’ll see that the dramatic reduction in supply has created a strong and rising floor on the price.”

Is the former BitMEX CEO right about this? We’ll find out soon enough.

Featured Image by GuerrillaBuzz Crypto PR on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Blue Chip NFTs 101: Cool Cats Lands On Its Feet And Does It In Style

Do the Cool Cats still have Blue Chip status? The collection fell on hard times lately, but so has any other NFT project out there. We’re in a bear market, after all. A Hollywood agency manages the Cool Cats project, they had the coolest exhibit in NFT NYC, and collaborated with TIME magazine in a weird NFT drop. Still, the collection’s floor price is down to levels not seen since the project’s conception.

The Cool Cats started spreading good vibes in July 2021. It’s a PFP collection consisting of 9.999 unique cats assembled from various traits that could form 300K possibilities in total. The ecosystem expanded in two major ways a while ago. They launched their secondary collection, the Cool Pets, and their own token, $MILK. The new coin is the blood that powers the gamified experience that the collection’s creators have been releasing.

Speaking about those, the core team are: the smart contract programmer Tom Williamson, web developer Rob Mehew, creative director Evan Luza, and illustrator Colin Egan AKA The Cartoonist. The unofficial fifth member of the band is Mike Tyson. A few days after launch, the eternal heavyweight champion changed his Twitter profile picture to a Cool Cats and that propelled the collection when it needed it the most. 

The Relationship Between Cool Cats And CAA

The Cool Cats went Hollywood on March 2021. In a move unprecedented at the time, the creators signed with leading talent agency CAA. In a press release from the time, the partners explained the deal in detail:

“Leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has signed Cool Cats, producers of the widely known Cool Cats and Cool Pets NFT collections. In collaboration with the gamified NFT company, the agency will identify and create opportunities for Cool Cats characters across an array of areas, including licensing and merchandising, animated content, brand partnerships, live events, publishing, and more.”

So, there’s serious money and interests behind the cats. Why are they fading away into the background, then? Is it just an effect of the bear market? 

ETH price chart for 09/24/2022 on OkCoin | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com
Cool Cats ’ got utility

First of all, Cool Cats holders get their NFT’s property rights. That means, they can produce commercial projects with their NFT’s images. Cool Cat owners also get access to the project’s Discord server, and priority for all of the exclusive Cool Cats events and mints. Holders can stack their  NFTs and get yield in $MILK.

Another benefit is access to Cooltopia, a project they define as “a gamified ecosystem built on interactivity and utility, community rewards and growth, collaboration with brands, and much more.” Another self-definition has Cooltopia as a “place where having a Cool Cats NFT grants you evolving access to games, tokens, community events, collaborations, and more.” 

Plus, there’s the Cool Pets side project. A reward to NFT holders and a way for newcomers to enter the ecosystem at a lower price point. The Cool Pets collection has 19,999 units. Every holder got a pet for free and the general public bought the other half. The Cool Pets first come as an egg image that hatches and reveals the final NFT. The pets are divided into four elements: Fire, Water, Air, and Grass.

The $MILK token

The $MILK is an ERC20 token on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. It’s the oil that greases Cooltopia’s gamified economy. According to the documentation:

  • “$MILK is the key to all sorts of functionality and fun in the Cool Cats ecosystem, from buying Battle or Housing chests to going on quests.” 
  • “$MILK is also how you’ll enhance and evolve your Cool Pets.”
  • This one describes the NFTs staking-like mechanism: “Your Cool Cat is earning $MILK just by being cool (the $MILK claiming clock begins as soon as the contract is deployed), and that $MILK will accumulate over time.”

Controversy And Suspicion

There might be something strange going on with this project. In April, the newly-appointed CEO stepped down after just three months. There was never a credible explanation given. The collection just tweeted, “Chris Hassett has stepped down as CEO. We thank him and wish him the best moving forward.” Is there problem brewing in the Cool Cats headquarters? 

And then there’s the price. At its height, in October 2021, the Cool Cats floor price was around 26 ETH. Almost a year later, the floor Cool Cats are trading for 2.9 ETH. That’s not all, the Cool Pets’ floor price is currently at  0.18 ETH. Are those Blue Chip numbers? Even though we’re basically in the middle of a crypto winter, the collection seems to be falling off a cliff… 

Will the Cool Cats land on their feet?

Featured Image: screen shot from the collection’s site | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Post-Merge Profit-Taking Cuts 13% Off Ethereum Ratio Against BTC

We’re in a post-merge world, and the lessons keep arriving. As it turns out, the mythical Merge was a sell-the-news event for Ethereum. Technically, the event was a success and Ethereum kept a 100% uptime as optimistically predicted. Economically, the asset has been bleeding for the whole post-merge season. As a result, Ethereum lost ground against bitcoin, and bitcoin dominance is back up.

Let’s go to Arcane Research’s The Weekly Update for the exact stats and numbers: 

“Since the merge, Ether (ETH) is down 17% in USD and down 13% compared to BTC, with ETHBTC currently trading at 0.07. ETH has found support at 0.07 ETHBTC, which represents the average ETHBTC price over the last 365 days.”

Will this become a tendency or are these just the post-merge jitters? 

The Post-Merge Post-Mortem

For a rational analysis, let’s quote The Weekly Update:

“Ether traded idly after the merge, and volatility remained low until U.S. markets opened down. The ETH blow was related to a correlated environment to risk assets, but excess leverage from long traders contributed to exacerbating Ether’s relative underperformance versus BTC.”

And the fact of the matter is that the old adage “buy the rumor, sell the news” applies perfectly here. Fuelled by hype, Ethereum’s price ballooned before the event. It was still far away from its all-time high of around $4,8K, but $1.7K was great for the market we’re in. The asset outperformed bitcoin and threatened its dominance. It was overbought, though. Post-merge, people sold and ETH is now in a downtrend. Textbook behavior that shouldn’t surprise a soul.

The chart to watch, though, is that of Ethereum’s issuance. The main difference between the post-merge Ethereum and its predecessor is that the new coin will be much more scarce. And that could affect the price tremendously.

ETH price chart for 09/21/2022 on Bittrex | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com
State Of The Ethereum Forks

One of the drivers of the pre-merge rally was the expectation that there might be forks and there might be airdrops. Two brand new Ethereum forks emerged from the messy situation. Those two suffered the most during this post-merge period. Back to The Weekly Update:

“Ether has not struggled in isolation, Ether forks have experienced severe headwinds, and both ETHW and Poloniex’s competitor fork EthereumFair (ETF) have seen more than two-thirds of their valuation slashed since launch.”

This brutal smackdown was to be expected. All forks generate something akin to an airdrop, as people received the equivalent to the ETH they had in ETHW and ETF. Users exchanged that free money for harder currencies pretty fast. And now it’s time for those forks, who the all-powerful stablecoins don’t support, to prove their worth.

An older fork was also in the news because of the merge and has been struggling as much as its cousins. 

“Ethereum Classic has also underperformed versus ETH. Amid the merge, many miners migrated to ETC, leading ETC’s hashrate to peak at 300 TH/s. However, as the difficulty has increased in ETC, the hashrate in ETC has declined to 186 TH/s”

Some people thought that Ethereum Classic, who remains a Proof-Of-Work blockchain, was going to thrive post-merge. So far, they’ve been proven wrong. But we’re in the early innings and things might drastically change for old reliable Ethereum Classic. 

ETHBTC price chart on Binance | Source: The Weekly Update
Conclusions

Apparently, the merge was a success but the price didn’t hear the news. However, we should take into account that September is usually a bad month for cryptocurrencies in general. That, mixed with the classic “buy the rumor, sell the news” behavior have ETH against the ropes. For now.

Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView and The Weekly Update

Posted on

Bitcoin Monthly Stats: Cost Basis, Long-Term Holders, And The Cyclical Bottom

In this month’s The Bitcoin Monthly, ARK Invest focused on Ethereum and the Merge. As a side dish, they did publish some premium and review-worthy stats that we’re about to cover. Never mind the market, the Bitcoin network keeps producing block after block regardless. The stats that this whole activity produces can be critical in understanding the market, though.

That’s where ARK Invest’s The Bitcoin Monthly comes in. The publication defines itself as “an “earnings report” that details on-chain activity and showcases the openness, transparency, and accessibility of blockchain data.” So, the data we’re about to cover is The Bitcoin Monthly’s reason to be. 

The Bitcoin Monthly: 200-Week Moving Average And Investor Cost Basis

  • “After closing above its 200-week moving average in July,1 bitcoin’s price reversed and slipped below it in August. Currently at $22,680, the 200-week moving average now seems to be resistance.”

The center couldn’t hold. The price’s recovery was short-lived. Markets are red across the board and bitcoin is no exception. At the time of writing, bitcoin trades at $19,874. For those keeping score, that’s just below last cycle’s all-time high of $20K. Something that shouldn’t happen, but a few degrees of error are always understandable. 

  • “Bitcoin currently trades above investor cost basis at $19,360, its strongest on-chain support level (…) Importantly, throughout bitcoin’s history, trading at investor price usually marks a bottoming process.”

Times are tough, but bitcoin still trades above investor cost basis. The Bitcoin Monthly clarifies, “Investor price is calculated by subtracting the cost basis of miners from the general cost basis of the market.” As we see it, The Bitcoin Monthly is calling the bottom. They didn’t say it in those exact words, but they certainly insinuated it. 

Is the bottom really in, though?

BTC price chart for 09/17/2022 on Gemini | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
The Bitcoin Monthly: Short-Term Holder Vs. Long-Term Holder

  • “The short-term-holder (STH) cost basis is approaching its longterm-holder (LTH) cost basis ––an event that has marked cyclical bottoms in the past. (…) Since the end of July, the difference between short- and long-term holders’ cost basis has shrunk from $5,840 to $2,500”

The Bitcoin Monthly sees it as a sign that “the market typically is capitulating and shifting back to long-term participation.” Bitcoin’s consolidation process might be ending soon. We could stay for a while in the bottom area, though. That has happened before. The point is, all of the indicators The Bitcoin Monthly highlighted this month point in the same direction. To the bottom.

  • “The supply held by long-term bitcoin holders is 34,500 coins away from reaching 13.55 million– its all-time high. Long-term-holder supply constitutes 70.6% of total outstanding supply.

This one is the most bullish of all the featured stats. To clarify, coins that haven’t moved in 155 days or more qualify as “long-term holder supply.” The tourists and the people with high hopes left a long time ago. And the lion’s share of the bitcoin supply is now in the true believers’ possession. A remarkable situation that doesn’t get mentioned enough.

About The Ethereum Merge

  • “In August, ether outperformed bitcoin by 7.6% (…) Historically, ether has outperformed bitcoin during “riskon” bull markets and underperformed during “risk-off” bear markets.”

The merge’s effects affected the market throughout the whole narrative. Even though we’re in a “risk-off bear market,” ETH took over and lead the market for a while there. They accomplished the mythical feat and… the market turned on them. After what seemed like mission accomplished, ETH’s price started to bleed.

Hidden behind a secret door, that’s what The Bitcoin Monthly contained.

Featured Image by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Miramax & Tarantino Settle Suit Over The Pulp Fiction NFTs, Hint At Future Plans

The Miramax and Quentin Tarantino partnership has been incredibly successful over the years. It wasn’t logical for it to end over NFTs. The two parties are once again on the same page, and the Pulp Fiction NFTs saga might’ve gotten a new chapter. Instead of fighting over scraps, the longtime partners decided to work together on future digital ventures. A production company like Miramax needs a director like Tarantino and vice versa. Do they need The Secret Network, though?

It’s unclear what will happen to the original Pulp Fiction NFTs that Tarantino produced in conjunction with The Secret Network. After selling the first one for over $1M, the company stopped on its tracks and canceled future auctions citing “extreme market volatility.” The move was suspicious, but the reasons for it were not immediately obvious. Did the Miramax lawyers scare them off? Or was it because the entity that bought that first NFT had tight affiliations to The Secret Network? Did the collection fail to attract the necessary attention? Were the buyers scared of future legal action by Miramax?

So far, The Secret Network’s official channels remain silent on the matter. And they recycled what used to be the Pulp Fiction NFTs’ Twitter account and gave it to a whole different project. Plus, the collection’s website seems to be dead as well. So, The Secret Network might be out of the Miramax and Tarantino deal.

What Do We Know About The Miramax And Tarantino Deal?

We don’t know much about who won in the negotiations or what exactly happened between Miramax and Tarantino. The only thing we know for sure is that “Miramax’s lawyers filed a brief statement in court,” and it was a joint statement by both entities. According to Variety, it said:

“The parties have settled this case and expect to file their dismissal papers within two weeks. The parties have agreed to put this matter behind them and look forward to collaborating with each other on future projects, including possible NFTs.”

Short and to the point.

Miramax’s news page didn’t mention the matter either. 

SCRT price chart for 09/11/2022 on Kraken | Source: SCRT/USD on TradingView.com
What’s The Pulp Fiction NFTs’ Story?

In NewsBTC’s initial report on the matter, we explained the rights issue:

“On the one hand, Miramax was “Pulp Fiction’s”  production company and still holds the rights to the 1994 masterpiece. On the other, Tarantino preserved the right to publish the screenplay, and the NFTs are based on that historical artifact.”

And the situation’s caveat was that under The Secret Network’s system, the NFT holder is the only person that can see what’s inside the file. That means, Miramax sued without knowing the NFTs’ content. And Tarantino and The Secret Network were determined to go ahead with the auction, and they heavily changed the NFTs content to be compliant. NewsBTC reported:

“The people involved in the sale fazed out all images related to Pulp Fiction and replaced them with just text or high contrast images of Quentin Tarantino himself. The content of the NFTs also changed, now The Secret Network describes them as: 

“In collaboration with SCRT Labs, Tarantino has turned chapters from this historic document into a one-of-a-kind NFT publication. Each NFT in the collection consists of a single iconic scene, as well as personalized audio commentary by Tarantino himself.”

The initial ending was anticlimactic. The company’s press release said, “In light of extreme market volatility, we’ve decided to postpone the remainder of the auction to put the needs of our community first.” NewsBTC asked: 

“Why did they do that? Nobody knows for sure. But the cover story is terrible, volatility? Really? Miramax didn’t take credit for the kill. And the Secret Network did not admit to low interest in the series or to technical difficulties. They just shut down the whole operation.”

And that was the story… until Tarantino and Miramax inked a deal to keep exploring the digital realm together.

Featured Image: Pulp Fiction in icons from Miramax’s site | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Blue Chip NFTs 101 – Azuki, A New Kind Of Brand For The Future… And A Scandal

The idea behind Azuki is to mix NFT culture with anime-style drawings, with a global community working together behind the scenes. Which is phenomenal. Azuki defines itself as a “decentralized brand for the metaverse.” This brand’s main product is a collection of 10K anime-style avatars in NFT form. The collection is also called Azuki and at inception was one of the NFT space’s biggest success stories… 

… until admissions and revelations by one of the project’s creators cast a shadow on Azuki as a whole. 

Let’s review the project’s history, its characteristics, and the revelations that changed it all.

Azuki’s Origin Story

The project exists since January 12th, 2022. The team behind Azuki is Chiru Labs, their slogan is “Born in Los Angeles. Building for the metaverse.” Most of the members use pseudonyms and keep their identities private. A few use their real name, like Azuki’s co-creator and illustrator Arnold Tsang from Toronto, Canada. He’s well-know for his participation in “Overwatch,” which Wikipedia describes as “a 2016 team-based multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment.”

The community behind it is a key part of the project. On Azuki’s website, they use slogans like “A new kind of brand that we build together” and “A brand for the metaverse. By the community.” Ownership of one of the 10K Azuki NFTs gives the user access to The Garden. A virtual place Azuki promises “starts with exclusive streetwear collabs, NFT drops, live events, and much more that will be revealed over time.”

Azuki is a digital brand. A “decentralized brand of the future.”

At first, it seemed like the NFT collection was going to propel them to instant classic status. The initial success made their name recognizable and sent the collection’s floor price to double digits. At one point, it reached a maximum of 22 ETH. Nowadays, the floor price at Opensea is 7.4 ETH, what happened? Whatever the reason, the Azuki collection gets around. It has moved a total volume of 260.2K ETH in transactions so far.

We Need A Little… Controversy

The turning point for Azuki was a Twitter Space, of all things. On May 10th, crypto influencer Andrew Wang interviewed  Zagabond, one of Azuki’s founders, who just like that revealed that he was part of a few NFT projects that didn’t end well. It almost sounded like they were a rug pull, and people freaked out accordingly. The collection’s floor price started falling and it hasn’t recovered yet. 

It was a mystery at first, but according to Cryptoslate, the projects Zagabond was involved with were:

  • CryptoPhunks, the original CryptoPunk copycat collection. The first collection to receive a DMCA takedown from Larva Labs. Because of that, the CryptoPhunks were delisted from OpenSea and Zagabond gave the project to all the holders in July, 2021.
  • Tendies, a project that failed to capture the NFT culture’s imagination and shut down in the middle of the minting process. 
  • CryptoZunks, a collection that defines itself as “the first Punks to be generated on-chain with randomized attributes. Each Zunk is guaranteed to be unique from any Punk.” Apparently, it failed because of Ethereum’s expensive gas fees.

According to Cryptoslate, “Like the first two projects, this failed one was also a lesson. Zagabond said these three projects taught him that “blindly following the NFT meta doesn’t get you far.” He claims that all the lessons from these projects are now being applied to make Azuki a success.” None of that helped and the collection’s floor price went downhill. 

The question here is, were these projects rug pulls or simple failures without bad intentions? 

ETH price chart for 09/08/2022 on Bitfinex | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com
Azuki, Built For The Metaverse

The definition of metaverse in Azuki’s site is controversial, to say the least.

“The metaverse today is where we currently spend most of our time: Discord + Twitter. How do we amplify this experience for Azuki members? How do we distribute the brand to places that have the most attention today? More importantly, where will the metaverse be one year+ from now?”

Is simple social media part of the metaverse? How does Azuki not know where the metaverse will be one year from now? Other blue-chip NFT collections are already building their version, laying their chips on the table. Is Azuki too late? Or are Chiru Labs just quietly developing? According to the company, they’re exploring the possibility of developing a game. “Few teams have the experience and background to build a genuinely great game with mass market appeal and scalability. Though the core team has the experience, it’s a huge endeavor nonetheless.”

The Azuki collection is down, but not out. The team seems to have shaken the stink that Zagabond’s revelations brought, but did so in the middle of a bear market in which the whole NFT market is down. Azuki stopped the bleeding. The question is, can they reclaim and even surpass past glories?

Featured Image: Azuki banner from their site | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Bitcoin Dominance Reaches All-Time Lows As The Merge Nears

The mythical merge is almost here. Ethereum’s transition from Proof-Of-Work to Proof-Of-Stake is the most talked about event in crypto at the moment, and money is flowing to that blockchain. That, in turn, translated into a decrease in bitcoin dominance. That metric measures the percentage of the whole crypto market that bitcoin represents, and it’s currently “down at levels not seen since 2018.” Which makes sense. Because the merge is almost here and everyone placed their bets.

According to Arcane Research’s The Weekly Update, “the all-time low occurred during the ICO craze in January 2018.” Which makes sense, because ICOs were the talk of the town at the moment. That impetus eventually fizzled out, however. Can we expect the same out of the merge? On the one hand, this is a structural change on Ethereum as a whole, so it’s more important than ICOs ever were. On the other hand, stakes are higher and there are no guarantees that the merge will work out as planned.

The Merge Isn’t The Only Factor

Before advancing, let’s explore Arcane Research’s stats:

“September has started with varying returns among our indexes. Bitcoin has started the month the worst and is down 1%. All other indexes are in the positive territory, with the Large Caps gaining 1%, the Small Caps 2%, and the Mid Caps 7%.”

So, everyone and their mothers gained ground on bitcoin these last few weeks. Especially the Mid Caps, with Ethereum Classic as an unlikely leader. This almost forgotten cryptocurrency is also gaining ground because of the merge. When Ethereum turns from Proof-Of-Work to Proof-Of-Stake, a whole industry will disappear. The new system doesn’t require miners, so all of them are exploring their options and the original Ethereum seems to be the big winner in this scenario.

However, there’s another Classic cryptocurrency that grew even more. Back to The Weekly Update:

“While the large caps’ performances have been mostly flat over the previous seven days, we see massive increases in some of the smaller coins. Terra Luna Classic surged by 222% amid plans to revive the chain, while Ethereum Classic increased by 20%.”

So, even though it’s a big factor, it’s not all about the merge. Arcane Research offers even another important factor:

“An essential caveat of the bitcoin dominance sitting close to an alltime low is that stablecoins are far more significant now than the last time bitcoin showed this low dominance. Excluding the USDT and USDC from the equation, we see that bitcoin still makes up half of the crypto market.”

Market Cap BTC Dominance on CryptoCap | Source: TradingView.com
Bitcoin Dominance Over The Last Few Months

We at NewsBTC constantly monitor bitcoin dominance so you don’t have to. The field is more volatile than you might think. Two months ago, our report highlighted the following:

“Over the last couple of days, bitcoin has watched its market dominance declined by more than 2%. This market share was quickly soaked up by Ethereum, which has seen its dominance rise in this time period. It added more than 2% to go from straggling around $16% to its current dominance of 18.9%.”

However, last month the report’s title was “Bitcoin Dominance Grows As Crypto Risk Appetite Remains Low.” The reason for this was:

“Arcane Research noted that the overall weakness in the sector is driven by a “natural rotation as traders seek safety in a falling market”. The increase in Bitcoin dominance has been accompanied by a rise in stablecoin total market share.”

So, the bitcoin dominance metric is a roller coaster and the merge approaching generates extra volatility. At the moment, according to Arcane Research, ETH is at 20.35%, and BTC is at 38.26%.

Before we go, there’s one last factor to analyze. On September 13th, the US will release its CPI for August. The estimation is that the interest rate will hike by 75bps, but the reality is that anything can happen. And the announcement will come in tandem with the merge. Fun times ahead.

Featured Image by Chris Sabor on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Bear Market Who? Data Shows High Conviction In BTC And ETH

This is the weirdest bear market to date. It seems like most people were prepared for it, even though the death spirals and Chapter 11 bankruptcies that started it came out of nowhere. In any case, every coin is in the red. The market should be in a state of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. That is certainly not the case for the two leading cryptocurrencies. The circumstances might be different for each one, but both markets show signs of unwavering conviction. 

Long-time holders of bitcoin and ethereum seem to be laughing in the bear market ’s face. In the latest edition of The Wolf Den, the author uses Glassnode and Intotheblock’s data to show us how this is true. 

The Bear Market Vs. Bitcoin

“On-chain evidence from Glassnode suggests that there has been no meaningful reduction in the conviction of long term believers,” the newsletter states. To prove this, The Wolf Den looks at the “Dormancy Metric.” The number that “tracks the average age of every Bitcoin that moves, determined by when it was mined. One of the ways to gauge the sentiment of long-term holders is to asses the average age of coins moving around the market.”

As attentive readers might suspect, the coins that are “moving around the market” are extremely young. In fact, their age “is at multi-year lows. The dormancy value is very low.” This is consistent with previous bear markets, in which dormancy values tend to be low. The newsletter quotes analysis from Glassnode:

“The decline in lifespan metrics actually bodes well for the longer-term, as it indicates old coins are stationary, and declining prices have little psychological impact on this cohort’s conviction.”

So, if we focus on the big picture, everything looks like it’s supposed to. A healthy habit during bear markets.

BTC price chart for 09/02/2022 on Cexio | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
The Ethereum Merge Is Upon Us

For this section, The Wolf Den used data from IntoTheBlock. Before getting into it, the author clarified the sequence of events that compose the mythical “merge”. First of all, on September 6th, “the Bellatrix upgrade happens on the Beacon chain”. Then, between September 10th and 20th, “the official transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) will occur”. The Ethereum Foundation estimates that the merge will happen on September 15th. 

To evaluate the Ethereum network’s state during this bear market, The Wolf Den looked into “netflows onto centralized exchanges”. Overall, more ETH is leaving the exchanges than entering, which is bullish. It tends to mean people are not looking to sell their assets. However, with the merge looming and the bear market among us, it could have other meanings. 

On the one hand, people might be “bullish on the merge as users believe that the merge will happen successfully and are loading up on ETH for potential price action.” On the other, they might be anticipating the possible ETH Proof-Of-Work hard fork. If that happens, “all ETH being held in wallets can claim ETHW at a 1:1 ratio, traders might be preparing themselves to claim the most ETHW possible.”

Another curiosity about the bear market’s current state is this. Lately “the average inflow transaction size is generally larger than its outflow counterpart”. According to The Wolf Den, that’s not a problem because “netflows onto centralized exchanges” are low. And that’s a stronger indicator. However, those large inflow transactions might suggest something that makes sense. “Larger traders and institutional investors are more skeptical about the success of the merge”.

In any case, long-time bitcoin and ethereum holders show unwavering conviction despite the bear market’s conditions. For different reasons altogether.

Featured Image by congerdesign from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Lightning Speed: 5 Ways To Make Money/ Earn Sats Using The Lightning Network

Earning sats for the first time is a magical experience and NewsBTC is here to guide you through it. The Lightning Network gave bitcoin real micro-transactions with extremely low fees. That opened up new avenues for the bitcoin network to expand through, avenues that the world is just beginning to explore. In the following text, we will present seven projects that pay their users or allows them to get tips from the community. In sats, using the Lightning Network.

Unlike most altcoins, bitcoin is truly scarce, has a hard total cap, and wasn’t pre-mined. The rewards that the following projects offer are low compared to million-dollar NFT collections and unreal 20% yields. However, you will earn real bitcoin by exploiting your hobbies. Cross your fingers, let’s hope this first guide has something for you. 

Before advancing, though, let’s quote Stacker News’ FAQ for a definition of sats AKA satoshis. “Sats are the smallest denomination of Bitcoin. Just like there are 100 pennies in 1 dollar, there are 100,000,000 sats in 1 Bitcoin.”

1.- Earn Sats Playing Games With Thndr

Go to Thndr, download and play classic games, like Snake, or new and original ones like Turbo84 or Bitcoin Bounce. Because of Android App store’s restrictions, the company can’t give you sats directly. You can earn them, though. “Each ticket you collect is an entry into the daily prize draw.  The more tickets that you collect, the more chances you have to win the bitcoin jackpot.”

It certainly beats playing retro videogames and not getting paid for it.

Thndr → https://www.thndr.games/

2.- Get Tips For Your Pictures With Starbackr

Publish your pictures and videos and get rewarded by the community on Starbackr. Tips in sats might not be the ideal way to support creators, but then again, maybe it is. Let’s experiment and see what the market says. And speaking about experiments, it seems like this service is just the first stage and not Starbackr’s final form. The company’s About Us says:

“We build the platform of choice for digital content creators with instant payments, low friction, and free of moral censorship. Building on the Bitcoin Lightning network allows us to deliver a content monetization platform that is dramatically less expensive, faster, and more creator-friendly.”

So, don’t lose faith if you’re not a photographer. We might hear from new services from Starbackr again in the not-so-distant future.

Starbackr —> https://app.starbackr.com/

BTC price chart for 09/01/2022 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
3.- Get Sats For Your Content In Stacker News

Stacker News is a bitcoin-focused Hacker News clone that rewards content curation and production. The way it accomplishes this is the fundamental difference between the two sites, “Rather than collecting “upvotes” that are not redeemable or transferable on Reddit or Hacker News, Stacker News users earn sats that can immediately be spent anywhere,” their FAQ says. 

Each upvote or comment that your content gets rewards you with 1 sat minimum. Publishing is not free, though, it also costs 1 sat. This is one of the most evolved projects on the list, so there’s an economy around it and the team has developed new functionalities. For example, you can pay to boost your content and users can boost their upvote by rewarding more sats. 

Stacker News –> https://stacker.news/

4.- Cut Clips From Your Favorite Podcasts In Fountain

Fountain is a Podcasting 2.0-enabled app that distinguished itself from the crowd by allowing users to earn sats. You can listen to sponsored content and advertisement. Alternatively, you can comment or cut clips from your favorite podcast. If users like those comments or clips, you get a cut. Plus, the satisfaction of aiding in the promotion of your favorite podcast. 

Mind you, another possibility that Fountain and similar apps provide is that you can produce a podcast and get rewarded by the community under the Value-for-Value model. The barrier of entry is much higher, sure, but podcasting might be your calling. 

Fountain → https://www.fountain.fm/

5.- Trade Derivatives In Sats Through LN Markets

If technical analysis is your forte and fundamental analysis excites you, LN Markets offers an easy way to play the markets. “Trading is done directly from any Lightning wallet and enables super fast access to derivatives markets. Open a position by making a Lightning transaction, close the position and receive the money directly in your wallet,” their FAQ clarifies.

Open a trading position only if you know what you’re doing, though. At least watch a few NewsBTC Daily technical analysis episodes to kickstart your learning process. Or use LN Markets in testnet, which is also possible. Whatever you do, remember that playing the markets comes with inherent risk and that even the most experienced traders suffer devastating losses. Don’t use money that you can’t afford to lose. 

LN Markets → https://lnmarkets.com/

Before closing, some of these services assume that you already have a Lightning Network-specific wallet. Go and learn how to set one up before interacting with them. This closes NewsBTC’s first guide to making money through the Lightning Network. If you want more content like this, tell us through NewsBTC’s social media channels.

Featured Image: Bitcoin Bounce screenshot from Thndr Games | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Lightning Speed: Taro Wants To Abolish Cross-Border Payments, Disrupt The Market

Have you heard about Taro? It’s an improvement proposal for the Lightning Network that Lightning Labs introduced in April. “Taro makes Bitcoin and Lightning multi-asset networks,” the company claims in the latest edition of their newsletter. They also explain in simple words what the protocol does, how it does it, and the implications of its implementation.

“In a world of omnipresent communications connectivity, nobody says “cross-border messaging” anymore. Taro promises to do the same thing to “cross-border payments” by decentralizing the entire global FX market into a protocol that can run on a Raspberry Pi by anyone, anywhere.”

Is the Lightning Labs exaggerating? Or is Taro the protocol that will bring the next billion people to the Lightning Network? “The opportunity provided by Taro bringing assets like stablecoins to the Lightning Network is clearly enormous,” the company claims. Can Lightning Labs back that case and argue it convincingly? Let’s find out.

What Taro Does And How It Does It  

The first thing Lightning Labs makes clear is the psychology behind the improvement proposal. It almost seems like bitcoin’s Lightning Network will be serving Taro and not the other way around.

“Instead of starting from scratch and bootstrapping a new ecosystem of nodes and liquidity, Taro will leverage the existing network effects of both the infrastructure that’s been built out over the last several years plus the 4000+ BTC allocated to the network today as a global routing currency.”

How does it work, though? The “edge nodes” are the key. By “integrating with Taro,” normal Lightning nodes can now “process an instantaneous conversion from L-USD into BTC or vice versa, for a small fee.” That means that “every Taro transaction on the Lightning Network will be converted into BTC by the first hop, routed across the network as BTC, and then converted back into a Taro asset by the last hop before the destination”

What is a “Taro asset”? Whatever you want, your BTC can be “converted into different assets such as USD to EUR or USD to BTC.” Or, as Bitrefil’s Sergej Kotliar puts it, “Pay in currency of sender’s choice, receive in currency of recipient’s choice. This means that every wallet can now have native Strike-type “USD balance” functionality for example. With no need to trust the wallet, the only trust lies in the issuer of the token.”

The trust model is the main difference from Galoy’s Stablesats, another novel concept that looks for a similar result.

BTC price chart for 08/13/2022 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
What Does Taro Mean For The Lightning Network?

In a recent interview published by NewsBTC, AXX’s head of research and strategy Ben Caselin explained the protocol further

“In Taro, smart contracts and asset transfers are not executed by the blockchain, and they are also not enforced by the blockchain. Instead, transfers are executed by the sender of an asset (who has to make a corresponding bitcoin transaction), and enforced by the recipient, same as the Lightning Network.”

And in the previous Lightning Speed, we theorized about how big could this development be for the Lightning Network.

“According to The Bitcoin Layer, “a global capital market operating on top of bitcoin-denominated financial rails is inching closer with each new onramp.” And the Taro protocol and all of the assets it would bring to The Lightning Network is the mother of all onramps.”

Back to Lightning Lab’s newsletter, the company toyed with even bigger expectations. For example:

“A community bank could issue a local stablecoin on Taro and it would only need a handful of nodes or liquidity providers to make a market between the local currency and the BTC core of the Lightning Network to be connected to a global community of buyers and sellers. No permissioning required!”

They’ll Never See It Coming

According to Lightning Labs, bitcoin “renders cross-border payments obsolete.” Stablecoins are a huge business and so are cross-border payments. In the intersection between them, Taro stands tall. “Visa’s 65% operating margin is one of the highest of all the companies in the S&P 500 index, and this margin is Lightning and Taro’s opportunity. They’ll never see it coming.”

The company expects that the benefit for everyone working on the Lightining Network will be tremendous. “We expect that bringing Taro to market and making Lightning a multi-asset network will dramatically expand the Total Addressable Market for those building Lightning applications.” And you know what more users mean, more of those sweet-sweet fees.}

Featured Image by Joseph Mucira from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

The Bear Market Correction Could Be Over, According To ARK. Reasoning Inside

Rejoice! The bear market might be over. That’s the main thesis behind July’s “The Bitcoin Monthly” report. “Because bitcoin’s price did not rise parabolically during the 2021 bull market, its bear market correction could be over,” ARK reasons. And it makes sense, the numbers seem to suggest it, and it feels like it. However, are we fooling ourselves? Is ARK’s reasoning wishful thinking? Let’s examine the data and see what it tells us.

First of all, “bitcoin closed the month of July up 16.6%, rising from $19,965 to $23,325, its most significant gain since October 2021.” So far, so good. Can we declare that the bear market correction is over, though? Well, “the likelihood of touching its delta cost basis has diminished, bitcoin’s downside risk in a bear market technically stands at its delta cost basis, currently $13,890.” This number seems far away. Maybe bitcoin is slowly getting out of its slum. 

“Bitcoin has corrected 72% relative to its alltime high. Although this drawdown is consistent with intracyclical corrections, like the COVID collapse in 2020, bitcoin usually finds global cyclical bottoms with a correction greater than 80%.”

That doesn’t sound as promising. Maybe there’s more pain ahead, however… “Given the positive correlation between bitcoin and US equities since COVID, the US being the leading price mover of bitcoin suggests an emerging risk-on market environment,” ARK claims. Apparently, the US has been leading the bulls lately. Perfect. Bitcoin needs all the help it can get in these trying times.

Are We Leaving The Bear Market? Let’s Look At The Signs

  • “Contagion in the crypto markets appears to be contained, as Celsius and Three Arrows Capital officially file for bankruptcy.”

Announcing the Celsius news, NewsBTC said “After weeks of conjecture and hearsay, Celsius’s legal counsels have formally informed regulators that the cryptocurrency lender has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.” Announcing the 3AC one, we said, “Crypto hedge fund 3 Arrows Capital is slated to be another pillar piece of 2022’s bear market headlines, joining the likes of brutal bear market moments that include Terra Luna’s downfall and CeFi’s drama.”

  • “Leverage appears to be unwinding across the crypto ecosystem, paving a path to recovery”

That’s phenomenal. May this continue to happen.

  • “After trading below its investor cost basis for the first time since March 2020, bitcoin has reclaimed major support levels and is trading above its market cost basis.”

Great news. Is this real, then? Are we getting out of the bear market this fast?

BTC price chart for 08/09/2022 on Kraken | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Other Factors, Miners And Lightning

  • “Despite continued miner pressure, bitcoin’s economics are at equilibrium.”

Ok, some miners sold and others turned down their machines. However, the pressure seems to be subsiding and the sun seems to be shining. 

  • “Bitcoin’s scaling solutions appear to be gaining momentum, as capacity on the Lightning Network reaches an all-time high.”

The Lightning Network went head to head with the bear market and didn’t even flinch. People are building and the L2 solution is bigger and better than ever. “LN capacity growth seems to accelerate during bear markets, marking a shift in sentiment from exuberance and speculation to testing and building longterm solutions for bitcoin.”

  • “Given continued declines in economic activity, including employment, the Federal Reserve could pivot during the second half of the year.”

Is the US in the middle of a recession? Opinions vary, but the results are the same. People all over the world are struggling. “The drop was attributable largely to a decrease in inventories, residential and non-residential investments, and government spending. Strong recession signals could compel the Fed to change its hawkish stance,” ARK states. 

  • “The 10-year Treasury bond yield has been unable to sustain a move above 3% and is now falling, posing less competition to cryptoassets.”

Government bonds were the safest investment for years and years. Nowadays, they’re not the new kid on the block anymore. Bitcoin is the new kid on the block. This bear market might not have been more than “brief deviation.” We might be back in business after all.

Featured Image by Alexa from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Lightning Speed: How To Take BTC From Reserve Asset To World Reserve Currency

Is the Lightning Network bitcoin’s killer app? It might be, but it still has a long road ahead. One of the stops on that road is the possible inclusion of stablecoins. Does bitcoin need them? Aren’t there inherent counterparty risks with those? The debate over those questions rages on. And in their latest post, The Bitcoin Layer makes the case for this development to be crucial in The Lightning Networks trajectory. 

According to The Bitcoin Layer, “a global capital market operating on top of bitcoin-denominated financial rails is inching closer with each new onramp.” And the Taro protocol and all of the assets it would bring to The Lightning Network is the mother of all onramps. However, the risks it brings forth are as big as the opportunities it presents.

Let’s explore what The Bitcoin Layer has to say before jumping to conclusions. They might surprise us.

Making Lightning Interoperable With Everything

The first part of the article is about Magma, “a Lightning liquidity marketplace that allows nodes to buy and sell liquidity by leasing other network participant’s channels for a minimum specified period of time.” According to the article, Magma’s existence proves “a structural demand for secondary markets of liquidity”. In those markets, “participants can buy and sell collateral as needed—eventually blossoming into a deep and liquid capital market.” 

Not only that, The Bitcoin Layer also theorizes about:

“Through time, Lightning Banks will emerge. As market participants lack the technical wherewithal to efficiently operate Lightning channels, most Lightning Network channel management will be subsumed by these entities who specialize in it.”

And this is where the Taro protocol comes in. When it was announced, our sister site Bitcoinist posed the following questions:

“So, the main idea is to create and transact stablecoins over the Lightning Network, but the technology allows users to create any asset including NFTs. And the bitcoin network underpins the whole thing. However, is this a positive development for bitcoin? How will this benefit the Lightning Network? Does a hyperbitcoinized world require tokens?”

And The Bitcoin Layer provides convincing enough answers to those questions. But first…

“Taro makes bitcoin and Lightning interoperable with everything. For the Lightning Network, this means more network volume, more network liquidity, and more routing fees for node operators, driving more innovation and capital into the space. Any increase in demand for transactional capacity that will come from these new assets (think stablecoins) will correspond with increased liquidity on the bitcoin network to facilitate these transactions.” 

BTC price chart for 08/09/2022 on Kraken | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
A Bitcoin-Denominated Global Capital Market

“Using sats as the transmittal rails for transactions across every currency opens the door for a bitcoin-denominated global capital market”. No one would contest that. Nor that “the Taro protocol opens the floodgates for this traditional finance liquidity to be subsumed by a faster, counterparty-free settlement network”. The network is counterparty-free, but, what about the assets’ inherent counterparty risk?

Conceptual Future Bitcoin-Lightning Risk Curve | Source: The Bitcoin Layer

According to The Bitcoin Layer, it’s all about risk and the barrier to entry:

“Higher tiers on the risk curve require less maintenance but incur more risk, whereas the lower levels on the risk curve incur less risk but have a higher barrier to entry for the average person who lacks the technical wherewithal for maintenance and security best practices.” 

And they make the case that the introduction of Taro is a crucial step in the process of bitcoin fulfilling its destiny of becoming the world reserve currency.

“For bitcoin to become a world reserve currency, a deeply liquid capital market is an intrinsic requirement—and the Taro protocol is a promising step in making that happen. While bitcoin and LN are trillions of dollars away from becoming a legitimate alternative to other capital markets, they arguably maintain the lowest collective risk profile of any capital market in existence, as they are underwritten by an asset that when custodied incurs zero counterparty risk.”

Zero counterparty risk.

Does The Lightning Network Need Stablecoins, Though?

The answer to that question is still up in the air. The Bitcoin Layer acknowledges the inherent counterparty risk those present. It even puts them almost at the top of the risk curve. However, they consider them crucial and even welcome every other asset in the world to The Lightning Network. According to their theory, that’s how “a bitcoin-denominated capital market” emerges.

Of course, this is all speculation. The Taro protocol has not been approved. Bitcoin’s liquidity is far away from what it needs to be to become the global reserve currency. And, even though stablecoins on The Lightning Network might be closer than we think, the whole scenario takes place in a distant future.

Featured Image by WikimediaImages from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView and The Bitcoin Layer

Posted on

Deloitte Survey Clearly Shows Crypto Payments Are The Next Big Thing In Commerce

A new Deloitte survey titled “Merchants getting ready for crypto” contains extremely bullish news. It clearly shows that businesses of all sizes are getting ready for all kinds of crypto payments. And the vast majority believe that they will become ubiquitous in the next few years. Merchants, they are just like us. Deloitte produced the survey in association with PayPal, which is telling and arises questions. 

“Survey respondents are very optimistic about digital currencies in the consumer market, reporting broad agreement that accepting digital currency payments is already a point of differentiation, and are expected to see broad near-term adoption,” Deloitte concludes. Besides that, merchants see “benefits such as speed of payments and cost efficiencies.” Which shows they’re not in just for the flashy “differentiation,” and already see all of the benefits it could bring to them. 

As for the methodology, let’s quote the document:

“The survey focuses on US consumer businesses, with annual revenues ranging from below $10 million to $500 million and above, asking their views on digital currency payments and the investments they’ve made in payment infrastructure, as well as their plans for the years ahead.”

So, these are medium to big-sized players we’re dealing with here. Deloitte doesn’t differentiate between bitcoin and crypto, and doesn’t specify exactly which cryptocurrencies the merchants are talking about. The survey company makes a point of separating stablecoins from the rest of the cryptocurrencies, though.

Results: Deloitte And Merchants

  • “Around two-thirds (64%) of our surveyed merchants indicated that their customers have significant interest in using digital currencies for payments.” These are staggering numbers, considering the majority of the population doesn’t even know what a stablecoin is. If merchants are perceiving this tendency, chances are it does exist. 
  • “83% expect consumer interest in digital currencies for payments to increase or significantly increase over the next 12 months.” We agree wholeheartedly, Deloitte.
  • “More than 85% of the organizations are giving high or very high priority to enabling cryptocurrency payments, while roughly 83% are doing the same for stablecoins.” We’re willing to bet not many people in crypto suspects that the numbers are this high. If they did, they’d be even more bullish.  
  • ”Around 85% of surveyed merchants expect that digital currency payments will be ubiquitous among suppliers in their industry in five years.” We agree wholeheartedly, Deloitte. In five years we’ll live in a new universe, and crypto will be one of the catalysts.
  • “Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed reported plans to accept either cryptocurrency or stablecoin payments within the next 24 months.” The positive attitude is there and plans are underway.

How could you not be bullish? 

AVAX price chart on Bittrex | Source: AVAX/USD on TradingView.com
Results: This Is What Adoption Looks Like

  • “An overwhelming majority of those who currently accept cryptocurrency as a payment instrument (93%) have already seen a positive impact on their business’s customer metrics, such as customer base growth and brand perception.” This is as close to unanimously as we’re going to get, Delloite. The hype is real.
  • “They expect to derive value from their digital currency adoption in three distinct ways: improved customer experience (48% of respondents), increased customer base (46%), and brand is perceived as cutting edge (40%).“ No comments on this one.
  • “It is worth noting that 86% see a significant benefit to their finance and cash management for accepting digital currency payments.” The key word is crucial here 
  • “In fact, 26% have already integrated digital currencies in their finance functionality such as revenue cycle and treasury, and 61% plan to do it over the next 24 months.” If the government permits it. 
  • “Over half (54%) of large retailers (with revenues of $500 million and up) have invested more than $1 million on enabling digital currency payments, while only 6% of small retailers (with revenues of under $10 million) did so.” As it should be, Delloite. As it should be.
  • “Slightly more than a quarter (26%) of the organizations surveyed for this report have already begun integrating digital currency into their finance department functionality, but more than a third of respondents (39%) plan to begin integration within a year.” Considering holding cryptocurrencies is a high-risk maneuver, these are phenomenal numbers.

And that’s what Deloitte and the companies that they interviewed had for us. Here’s hoping they provide us with new mind-blowing material sooner than later.

Featured Image: Screenshot from the study | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

Binance’s CZ: High Inflation And Recession Fears Will Drive Bitcoin Adoption

It’s safe to say CZ is bullish on bitcoin and crypto’s future. Changpeng Zhao visited CNBC’s Squawk on the Street and flipped the prevalent bearish narrative on its head. In less than 2 minutes. Most of the things CZ said are based on common sense and a basic understanding of market forces, but still, it’s calming to hear a leader of the industry saying them. Especially in this fear-ridden stage of the cycle we’re in.

.@binance CEO @cz_binance: The macroeconomics situation will be high inflation, the talk about recession…all of those things drive adoption into #Bitcoin.@CNBC pic.twitter.com/EP8OHwPeAa

— Squawk on the Street (@SquawkStreet) July 28, 2022

Notice that even though Binance’s business is dependent on altcoins’ performance, especially BNB, CZ makes a clear distinction between bitcoin and crypto in general. On the other hand, even though the interview is about bitcoin, CZ sneaks crypto here and there. 

In any case, let’s analyze what Binance’s CEO thinks about the current market conditions and the future of bitcoin and crypto.

What Did CZ Squawked On US National TV?

The first thing the interviewer was interested in was the way that bitcoin bulls have defended the “20Kish” line. According to CZ, that was “the last peak” so there’s a “psychological barrier” there. So far, bitcoin’s price had never go lower than the previous cycle’s all-time high. This time it was different, probably because of Tesla’s paper hands and the Terra collapse. However, the market ended up defending the 20K line.

The interviewer then asked about other factors, like the increase in money supply or bitcoin’s correlation to Nasdaq. According to CZ, those are two relevant factors, but in the end “it’s a mass psychology market” and the last ATH is the barrier. It’s only fair that we quote Binance Academy for an explanation of the psychology of market cycles:

“In short, market sentiment is the overall feeling that investors and traders have regarding the price action of an asset. When the market’s sentiment is positive, and prices are rising continuously, there is said to be a bullish trend (often referred to as a bull market). The opposite is called a bear market, when there is an ongoing decline in prices.”

Recently, as we regularly do here at NewsBTC, we checked on the famed fear and greed index for insights into the current market sentiment. This is what we found:

“Last week, the indicator’s value had risen up to even 34 as the coin’s price saw a recovery rally. However, as the run ended and the crypto once again slumped down, so did the sentiment among the investors.

The report notes that this trend indicates participants in the BTC (and wider crypto) market believe that this recent rally was just a fakeout.”

BNB price chart on BinanceUS | Source: BNB/USD on TradingView.com
What’s the next catalyst?

Back to the interview, the next question was about what factor could catapult bitcoin and crypto into their next chapter. Cautiously, CZ said that no one can forecast that accurately. “Nobody really forecasted NFTs, DeFi, etc. Which probably drove the last bullrun.” And in 2017, ICOs seemed to be the catalyst. “Six months before those things happened, very few people can forecast it.”

In bull markets, exercise risk management.

If everything went to 0, will your life still be ok? If no, you invested too much. Reduce it by half and ask again.

Don't over invest. (Not financial advice)

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) July 29, 2022

Then and only then, CZ speculated. He thinks that the market is so much bigger this time around, with so many new applications being developed. The whole space is moving in a positive direction, with most countries adopting regulatory frameworks instead of banning bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. It’s hard not to be bullish in an environment like this, even if the market is still fearful about the prices.

The last phrase is the funniest, and it goes into the current state of the world. “The macroeconomic situation, there’s going to be high inflation, the talk about recession, etc. All of those things drive adoption into bitcoin… into crypto.”

Featured Image: CZ, screenshot from the video | Charts by TradingView

Posted on

The Inside Story Of The Roger Ver Vs. CoinFLEX Conflict

The infamous Roger Ver is back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Like many players in the industry, the derivatives exchange CoinFLEX recently ran into financial trouble. Surprisingly, they blamed it all on Roger Ver and the circus started. Luckily for us, Chinese journalist Colin Wu covered “the entire insider details through a source close to the situation” in his newsletter. However, as you can see, it’s an anonymous source. So, take the story we’re about to analyze with a grain of salt. 

The summary of the situation according to Wu:

“On June 24, 2022, the exchange CoinFLEX announced that it made the decision to halt user withdraws, and the price of the platform Token FLEX subsequently plummeted, from $4.30 to less than $1.50 in four hours. At the same time, FlexUSD, the platform’s stablecoin, also began to de-peg, with prices dropping as low as $0.23.”

The funny thing is that both entities were clearly in business together. On May 14th, Roger Ver tweeted, “Interest paying FlexUSD by CoinFLEX  is on its way to being the default stable coin for the whole SmartBCH ecosystem if USDT & USDC don’t move quickly.” How did everything deteriorate so fast? That’s what this article’s about. 

Roger Ver Vs. CoinFLEX, The Play By Play

The story starts with CoinFLEX announcing to their partners that they “opened a special account for Roger Ver.” The account’s characteristics guaranteed that Roger Ver “would not be liquidated immediately if it fell below the maintenance margin, but rather that he would be given sufficient time to make a margin call.” Nothing special here, the man is a high-net-worth individual, deals like this are a dime a dozen in high finance. 

As a guarantee, Roger Ver offered “a margin of BCH,” valued “at around $400.” Then, the Terra collapse happened and the whole crypto market crashed. By the time CoinFLEX ”faced a liquidity crisis,” Bitcoin Cash was worth around $120. It’s still at that price range at the time of writing. This is where things get insane. The biggest revelation of Wu’s story is at the end of this paragraph.

“If that were all, CoinFLEX would have been able to cover its shortfall. However, prior to this, CoinFLEX had issued its own stablecoin, FlexUSD, like other exchanges. At this point, CoinFLEX used FlexUSD to buy a large amount of FLEX from the secondary market and opened short position to hedge the spot price. However, the counterparty to this short position was also Roger Ver!”

As we’ve seen happen again and again, “when the withdrawal restriction announcement was made, CoinFLEX’s total funds began to fall in a cyclical fashion.” And all hell broke loose. 

BCH price chart on Coinbase | Source: BCH/USD on TradingView.com
An All-Out Twitter War

On June 27th, the company’s CEO Mark Lamb tweeted, “CoinFLEX made the decision to halt user withdrawals on June 23, shortly after a long-time customer of CoinFLEX went into negative equity. ” Immediately after, the rumor that Roger Ver was that “long-time customer” began circulating.

The Bitcoin Cash leader went on the offensive and tweeted a statement obviously written by a lawyer. “Recently some rumors have been spreading that I have defaulted on a debt to a counter-party. These rumors are false. Not only do I not have a debt to this counter-party, but this counter-party owes me a substantial sum of money, and I am currently seeking the return of my funds.” How could those two statements be true? Remember that “the counterparty to this short position was also Roger Ver!”

However, Mark Lamb was not having it. Even though both parties were negotiating, Lamb took to Twitter and stated, “CoinFLEX also categorically denies that we have any debts owing to him.” Plus, “Roger Ver owes CoinFLEX $47 Million USDC. We have a written contract with him obligating him to personally guarantee any negative equity on his CoinFLEX account and top up margin regularly.”

Even if CoinFLEX is right in this instance, did they have to air their dirty laundry in public?

Roger Ver Vs. CoinFLEX, The Aftermath

Back to Colin Wu’s newsletter:

“In the end, Roger Ver’s position was completely worn out and turned into negative equity, while CoinFLEX was left with a lot of delisting FLEX. It was revealed that CoinFLEX had a real loss of $120 million, including losses from the de-peg of the stablecoin FlexUSD and the loss of withdrawals (less than $10 million) due to the collapse of the SmartBCH cross-chain bridge, which was built by CoinFLEX.”

And the fact of the matter is that, even if Roger Ver’s debt caused this, CoinFLEX’s risk management team has a few questions to answer. “Roger Ver became almost the only counterparty to the exchange, and this only counterparty had the privilege of not replenishing the margin in time,” Wu concludes. It was an unfortunate sequence of events, but both parties signed those deals and both parties took to Twitter to resolve what should’ve been a private matter. 

Shame all around.

Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView