5 Things You Must Know Before Day Trading Crypto

Day trading cryptocurrency involves entering and exiting multiple positions during trading hours on the same day. Typically, a day trader would never leave an open position overnight as they intend to profit through intraday price movements.

Although day trading is a common strategy for a traditional financial instrument, it works perfectly well for cryptocurrency.

Still, you must fully understand the fundamentals before diving into the market.

Here are some tips!

1.  Always trade with a reliable crypto exchange

Crypto exchanges allow users to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin using different fiat currencies or altcoins. While most crypto exchanges offer similar services, but not all are created equally. The last thing you want is a crypto exchange to disappear with your funds.

You should always look up reviews of the crypto exchanges on forums, blogs, or any active communities to provide genuine feedback. Besides, make sure the exchange has good liquidity and has good customer support. For example, Bybit offers 24/7 customer support to all of its users.

2.  Get the technical and fundamental analysis right

Understanding how the market works and reacts gives you the upper hand to make rational trading decisions even if the market goes sideways.

Firstly, fundamental analysis relies on how external factors or specific industry trends, or crypto technology developments influence the market. This analysis is often used to determine the quality of long-term investments. You need to be aware of the difference between an asset’s value and the price at which it is trading.

Technical analysis is used to review actively trading assets for a short-term investment decision. Understanding price action in technical analysis gives traders an overview of the asset’s supply and demand dynamics to determine an ideal asset’s price.

3.  Don’t underestimate the trading fees

Before day trading cryptocurrency, make sure to take a deep dive into the exchange’s trading fees structure.

A crypto exchange may waive the deposit fees, but there are maker, taker fees, and withdrawal fees. These transaction fees are charges implied when you buy an asset. For example, at Bybit, takers pay 0.075% while makers earn a 0.025% rebate.

Ultimately, you should select an exchange with less trading fees that allow you to maximize your net profits.

4.  Never invest more than you could afford to lose

The golden rule is to spend less than you earn. When the same concept applies to day trading, you can mitigate the risks of losing your funds.

Of course, you can make quick cash when trading during the crypto boom, but trading crypto can also come with extreme volatility. You must expect a crypto asset’s price to fluctuate in hours or even minutes. If you intend to take on loans to day trade in crypto, you should think twice.

5.  Never let your emotions sway your decision

A crypto veteran would agree that your fear and greed empower bad decisions. And these are the repercussions of the market noises.

Instead, work towards strong trading psychology to make rational decisions. Focus on a day trading course, join a community with reliable trading news, stay firm on your evaluations, and most importantly, learn from your mistakes.

Closing Thoughts

It is essential to understand how the market works and how you can secure your funds. Work on improving your knowledge and learning from both failures and success to become a profitable crypto day trader today.

 

$EASY As ABC: High-Yield Staking Program Launches on Binance Exchange

This week, Binance and EasyFi revealed that high-yield staking through the EASY token would be enabled, with full integration soon to follow within the Binance Smart Chain.

Here’s everything you need to know about the attractive program that offers a staggering up to 40.56% APY and how Binance users can now gain access to this revolutionary opportunity for unprecedented ROI.

EasyFi Staking Program Brings High Yields To Binance Exchange

Starting immediately, Binance Staking has officially debuted its latest new high-yield program, allowing users of the popular cryptocurrency exchange the ability to stake EASY tokens to earn up to 40.56% APY.

The Locked Staking format is offered on a first-come, first-served basis beginning on March 30. The interest calculation period runs from the day after Locked Staking is confirmed and runs through the total period. Interest payouts are made on a daily basis, letting users actively earn ROI.

The enormous potential APY is adjusted daily, centered on on-chain staking rewards. Locked Staking periods range from 15 to 90 days, but early redemption is allowed for the greatest flexibility. In such a case, the principal will be returned to the spot account, and the distributed interest will be deducted from the refunded principal.

Users of the platform can view their available Locked Staking enabled crypto assets on the Binance exchange by going to “Wallets > Savings > Locked Staking.”

Transfer $EASY To Binance With These Simple Steps

EASY has also been fully integrated on the Binance Bridge to enable EASY transfers between Ethereum and the rapidly growing Binance Smart Chain. In the future, EASY will be fully integrated within the Binance Smart Chain protocol.

According to the EasyFi Network, integrating EASY through the Binance Bridge Project will “increase interoperability between different blockchains” and “allow a digital asset owner to convert their crypto assets into Binance Smart Chain wrapped tokens.”

There are two ways to transfer EASY to the Binance Smart Chain, one of which involves using the Binance.com exchange route. In this method, anyone holding EASY tokens since its debut on the platform in 2020 can rely on the same wallet address for both ERC20 and BEP20 versions of the token, ensuring compatibility.

The second method involves using the Binance Bridge itself. Here’s a detailed rundown from EasyFi:

  • Install your extension wallet; it can be Binance Extension Wallet or MetaMask
  • Go to https://www.binance.org/en/bridge
  • The V2 version is selected by default; if not, please change the selection to V2 (top right)
  • Click on “Connect Wallet” — select your choice of wallet
  • Once you finish unlocking your wallet, you can see your address at the “destination” box.
  • Select EASY on the Asset Drop Down
  • The “From” and “To” network types (Ethereum → Binance Smart Chain) will be selected by default. You can also move it the other way round.
  • Enter the Amount, enter your destination address and then click Next.

Why It Is Now $EASY To #DoMoreWithDeFi

EASY is the native DeFi token powering the EasyFi Network – a layer two lending protocol for digital assets. With collateral options galore, the protocol earns its name due to the simplicity in the benefits it provides participants of the network.

Adapting the protocol to work across several popular blockchain protocols, including Polygon, Ethereum, and of course, Binance Smart Chain, such as the example above, will boost overall liquidity, increase the number of users and opportunities on the growing ecosystem, and make EasyFi’s staking, farming, and lending programs even more seamless and effortless than they’ve already become.

As EASY expands across more protocols and gets even more deeply integrated into the Binance Smart Chain, demand for the token will also increase in tandem. To learn more, visit the EasyFi blog.

 

PARSIQ Launches IQ Protocol, Introduces DeFi to SaaS

PARSIQ, an enterprise blockchain solutions provider has stepped into the DeFi space by announcing its IQ Protocol launch. Currently, on an Ethereum-based testnet, IQ Protocol is a DeFi solution for the SaaS market that tokenizes subscriptions and creates a circular economy, complete with staking, lending, and borrowing features.

The launch of IQ Protocol enables PARSIQ to introduce the concept of DeFi to a $160 billion industry segment and encourage cooperative development in the space. The testnet phase will allow the company to create a stable offering while noting the industry requirements for further development. If everything goes according to the plan, PARSIQ will be deploying IQ Protocol on Ethereum mainnet before the end of Q2 2021.

PARSIQ Grows Beyond Blockchain Analytics to Enter DeFi Space

Originally a blockchain analytics platform, PARSIQ has outgrown its early form to include custom blockchain-backed automation and DeFi solutions as a part of its offering. With PARSIQ, users can monitor and map the activities of off-chain devices and applications to any supported blockchain and create custom real-time event triggers for automation.

With IQ, PARSIQ will also provide the world’s first risk-free, collateral-less DeFi protocol to its clients looking to integrate DeFi solutions into their offerings. The completely trustless, open-source IQ Protocol has already garnered interest from many DeFi projects looking forward to benefiting from its unique tokenomics and participation requirements.

PARSIQ Re’DeFi’nes DeFi by Getting Rid of Collateral Requirement

Like several other blockchain projects, IQ Protocol is fuelled by PARSIQ’s native PRQ token. The On-Chain Subscription model on IQ Protocol decides the eligibility of token holders to access services and features based on their token holding pattern, rewarding longer-term holders. Moreover, IQ Protocol introduces the concept of Power Tokens, which, unlike conventional utility tokens, generate utility over time in what is akin to a utility subscription model. These tokens are organized into “Power Enterprises”, a collection of smart contracts which manage their functionality. This includes proposal funding, governance, and voting rights, as well as the ability to mint new Power Tokens.

Alternatively, users can choose to borrow or rent PRQ from IQ Protocol for a fee without any collateral to access the services. The collateral-free lending of PRQ is nowhere seen before in a DeFi setting and is unique to IQ Protocol.

Meanwhile, PARSIQ’s existing integrations with Solana, Ocean Protocol, Binance Smart Chain among many more, will allow IQ-based DeFi projects to efficiently consume various market-related data streams and trigger appropriate events necessary using PARSIQ’s Smart Trigger feature. Moreover, these integrations will minimize the adverse effects of rising transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain.

Stay updated on PARSIQ’s integrations by checking out their blog.

Everything DeFi Needs in a Single Package

IQ Protocol is a one-stop-shop for DeFi needs in the making. It combines the best of DeFi with the flexibility of SaaS to offer an easily accessible solution for individuals and businesses alike. The rising demand for DeFi projects and the need for DeFi-like features in a more traditional setting puts PARSIQ in an ideal position to cater to a broader market.

Learn more about PARSIQ at – https://www.parsiq.net/

 

Traditional Finance and Crypto Are Converging – That’s a Very Good Sign

Cast your mind back to 2017 – or not even so far back, if we’re being honest. The thought of traditional finance working with crypto was anathema. Most cryptocurrency companies struggled to get access to banking services, many global regulators and financial institutions were shunning Bitcoin and other digital assets entirely, and key opinion leaders and analysts warned their clients to stay away.

Today, a burgeoning ecosystem of decentralized finance, stablecoins, blockchain-enabled payment platforms, and technological advances has emerged. One by one, the big banks began seeing the benefits of blockchain technology and started running pilots, buying up patents, or launching their own cryptocurrencies for settling payments faster.

A Seachange in Regulation

In July 2020, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) ruled that U.S. banks could offer custody services for crypto assets. This opened the gateway for investors to hold all their assets with their habitual custodian, making entering the world of crypto infinitely easier for many.

Shortly after, the OCC made an arguably more substantial move, allowing national banks to provide services to stablecoin issuers, and then, in January 2021, it stated that it would allow banks to use blockchains as a “payment network,” allowing for faster settlement.

All this favorable regulation allowing traditional banks to expand their product ranges into crypto has begun a convergence of the traditional finance and crypto worlds. Today, major global banks, including the largest custodian bank in the world, BNY Mellon, are preparing to roll out crypto custody solutions. This is good news for everyone. Not only will more traditional investors enter the space, but better, faster, and cheaper products will appear for everyone to use.

A Flailing Global Economy

Against the backdrop of unprecedented monetary dilution to fund fiscal stimuli in response to the global pandemic, the stage is set for greater adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as hard assets that can act as a store of value against the eroding purchasing power of fiat currencies.

With almost one-fifth of all US dollars created in 2020 alone, and another $1.9 trillion just created out of thin air, it’s no wonder that we’re seeing the entrance of institutional investors like MicroStrategy, Tesla, Stone Ridge Holdings, Square, and many others, as they reallocate their corporate treasuries to replace (now risky) cash-based holdings with hard assets like BTC.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. ARK Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood believes that many more big corporations will soon follow suit – we’re still early in the game. Even staunch traditional investors like Paul Tudor Jones, Bill Miller, and Stanley Druckenmiller are sufficiently concerned about impending inflation to buy BTC as a hedge.

With all this demand from institutional investors and increasing adoption from the mainstream, as companies like PayPal and Mastercard offer crypto services to their clients, bigger entrants from banks and custodians to investment funds like SkyBridge Capital and Aker have appeared on the scene.

These are all very bullish signals for crypto. Traditional financial institutions and investors entering the space legitimizes it like never before. More investors will come on board through familiar means, bringing more money into the sector and helping to build out the infrastructure even further. And traditional finance will benefit, as well, as it can offer lower-cost transactions, faster settlement, diversification, and products that cater to a newer type of client.

Advanced Tools for Institutional Traders

Just as other sectors of the cryptocurrency industry are evolving to cater to this new demand, so must Bitcoin exchanges like OKEx. We must step up to the plate and offer professional and institutional investors and traders the tools they need to effectively manage their portfolios, enhance their margin, and manage their risk.

Features such as Portfolio Margin (or Unified Account) allow enhanced capital management through the efficient use of margin and cross-collateralization of positions, all while trading multiple assets from within one account.

Now, just as many high net-worth individuals and select brokerage firms have done previously, institutional traders can unify all their assets to magnify their gains. This means that they can choose to use all their purchasing power to execute any trade. Traders do not even need to own the digital asset they wish to trade – but can simply use any of the cryptos in their portfolios as collateral. This is a game-changer for speed and efficiency, and the type of solution that will attract and retain institutional players and their needs.

Closing Thoughts

As traditional finance and crypto converge and we see the institutionalization of the space, it’s easy to feel apprehensive. After all, Bitcoin was a retail-driven movement, an outlier; “magic internet money.” Today, it’s a whole new alternative asset class in its own right pushing traditional finance to make paradigm shifts in the way it operates. It’s the start of the next phase for the crypto space – and there’s no telling just how far we will go.

 

About the Author: Jay Hao, a tech veteran, seasoned industry leader and the CEO of OKEx is the author of this article. He believes in blockchain’s potential to eliminate all transaction barriers, achieve unparalleled efficiency and lead to an improvement in the global economic system. 

Jay views security, innovation and reliability as three core pillars of OKEx. He also places significant emphasis on his role as Chief Customer Service Officer ensuring that users can make their voices heard, leading to improvements in OKEx’ products and services. 

With over 21 years of industry experience, Jay has served in multiple leadership roles in blockchain and semiconductor sectors.

 

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

Bitgesell, the New Digital Gold’s First Halving Just Happened

Bitgesell, the evolutionary successor of Bitcoin, has recently concluded its halving event, today March 28th, 2021. Triggered by the blockchain hitting block 52500, the first annual halving event on Bitgesell ecosystem has reduced the block reward from the previous 200 BGL to 100 BGL as the blockchain moves ever closer toward becoming an ideal store of value in the crypto world.

The Bitgesell halving event marks a significant step towards achieving an efficient deflationary economic model compared to its parent — Bitcoin. Created by Emma Wu in 2020, the Bitgesell project takes the best elements of Bitcoin and marries it with new features that put it years ahead of the flagship cryptocurrency.

What Makes Bitgesell the New Digital Gold?

Bitcoin and Bitgesell’s similarities are limited to the POW consensus algorithm and the shared maximum token supply of 21 million. Beyond that, Bitgesell is a completely different beast with features aimed at improving usability, environmental friendliness, and increasing the value of BGL exponentially.

The BGL ecosystem has tweaked the intrinsic asset model of Bitcoin to accelerate progress by a factor of 4. The project started with an emission rate 4 times higher than Bitcoin, i.e., 200 BGL per block, and reward halving on an annual basis compared to the 4-year interval with Bitcoin. At this rate, the last BGL will be mined in 2054 as against 2140 for BTC. Not to mention, it is much easier to mine BGL than BTC as it uses an energy-efficient advanced SHA-3 based Keccak hashing algorithm with 0.4MB block size instead of SHA-2 standards.

Furthermore, the Bitgesell ecosystem comes with SegWit implementation right out of the box, along with a token burn mechanism that permanently removes 90% of transaction fees from circulation. As a result, the supply of BGL will continue to become scarcer every day, which translates to increased demand and a higher token valuation.

Thanks to the Deflationary Model, Bitgesell Takes a Shot at Mars!

The intrinsic asset model implemented by Bitgesell makes it a highly deflationary mainstream cryptocurrency. Working in its favor is the limited supply, annual halving, and the token burn process. As a result, the overall supply of BGL will progressively reduce to less than 21 million.

Bitgesell’s deflationary model directly correlates with participation, as any increase in BGL adoption or transactions will contribute towards scarcity, making it an ideal asset for long-term hodlers. If BTC’s performance over the years is any indication, BGL will be outperforming it by many times in the future.

When it comes to deflationary assets, crypto market dynamics indicate that halving and token burn events positively affect the token value. The price movement of BTC post-halving, BNB, and more recently CRO following token burn events, prove the point. Listing on major exchanges and trading platforms will also play a crucial role in driving BGL prices. Currently, users can trade BGL on DigiFinex, on HotBit and on Crex24.

Birth of an Idea: Silvio Gesell’s Economic Theory Meets Satoshi Nakamoto’s Digital Gold

The creator of Bitgesell, Emma Wu, draws inspiration from the German theoretical economist and entrepreneur Johann Silvio Gesell who championed the idea of “Freigeld.” Gesell believed that the answer to global economic problems was to use money as an instrument of exchange and not a store of wealth. If money were to come with an expiry date, people would not hoard; instead, will put it to use by spending or lending it to others at no extra cost. Wu has combined the concept of Freigeld with digital gold and supported it with a highly deflationary mechanism to create a true store of value in the crypto space.

Learn more about Bitgesell at – https://bitgesell.ca/

Earn Cryptocurrency – Comparing Various Passive and Active Earning Crypto Ways

How to Earn Cryptocurrency in 2021: 5 Popular Ways Compared

Are you looking to earn cryptocurrency in 2021?

You are in the perfect place!

2020 has been an excellent year for crypto, and the industry has been booming in 2021 as well, reaching an almost $1 trillion market cap by the end of January.

Since the space has gone through major changes recently, users can earn digital assets in numerous ways in 2021.

In this article, we have selected and compared the best methods to earn bitcoin this year and completed our calculations to determine the most profitable ones.

As a result, you will be able to pick the right method by the time you reach the end of this guide.

Let’s dive in!

Disclaimer: All our tests are theoretical and based on historical and projected market data. For all our examples, we will use a $10,000 investment and calculate how much we can make off it with each method.

What Is the Best Way to Earn Crypto in 2021?

Based on our tests, the most profitable methods to earn crypto rank in the following order:

  1. Hodling: 1900% ROI with moderate risks and easy difficulty
  2. Staking: 124.79% ROI with moderate risks and easy difficulty
  3. Trading: 16.19% ROI with low risks and moderate difficulty
  4. Lending: 6.98% ROI with low risks and easy difficulty
  5. Mining: -11.11% ROI with moderate risks and high difficulty

If you are willing to take some risks, holding cryptocurrency for longer periods is an excellent choice, along with staking. As it’s easy to get started, both staking and crypto hodling are beginner-friendly ways to earn digital assets.

For those looking for decreased risks, cryptocurrency trading – without risking too much capital and using stop orders to protect their positions (like in our example) – and lending are excellent strategies.

On the other hand, Bitcoin mining is only worth considering for those with access to cheap electricity or the necessary capital to set up a mining farm.

Based on our results, we believe that holding coins, lending on DeFi platforms, as well as digital asset trading – with a shift to social- and copy-trading, and simplification – will experience increased popularity in 2021.

While staking will remain a favorable option to earn cryptocurrency among users, we expect it to become less popular in the future.

On the other hand, due to the negative and very limited potential for profits as well as the high difficulty to get started, cryptocurrency mining won’t be so popular as before in 2021 and beyond.

In the meantime, we recommend taking a look at Nominex to get started with cryptocurrency trading, holding NMX coins, and digital asset staking.

1.      Bitcoin Mining

Risks: Medium
Earning Potential: Very low
Difficulty: Hard

Bitcoin mining is one of the oldest ways to earn crypto.

Cryptocurrencies based on the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism use decentralized blockchain networks in which miners leverage their computing power to maintain the ecosystem.

In exchange for verifying transactions and adding new blocks to the chain, Bitcoin miners receive block rewards and a share of transfer fees.

Bitcoin mining has been a lucrative business model to earn crypto in the past, but its profitability has decreased significantly in recent years.

The mining space has been dominated by large farms that have access to cheap electricity and loans to bulk-order new generation hardware.

Furthermore, the BTC hashrate has been hitting record-high levels lately (which indicates an intense competition between miners), while May’s halvening decreased the rewards from each newly mined block from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC.

For that reason, Bitcoin mining has moderate risks while it can be difficult to get started for new users (as they have to learn how to set up and operate their equipment).

With that said, let’s see how much you can earn from mining Bitcoin in a year.

How to start mining?

To start out, we need to cover some upfront costs to purchase mining hardware. For our example, we will use Bitmain’s Antminer S19 Pro ASIC miner, which has a 110 TH/s hashrate, consumes 3,250 W, and costs $2,684 at the current market price.

Based on our budget of $10,000, we could buy nearly four S19 Pro miners.

Since that would cost $10,736, which exceeds our budget, we will adjust the hashrate and the power consumption to reflect the $10,000 investment (the last rig will have a hashrate of 80 TH/s while consuming 2,360 W for $1,948).

In addition to our rig, we also have to take the following expenses into account:

  • Electricity costs: The costs of the electricity the mining equipment uses when running. We will use the world average of $0.14/kWh for our example.
  • Mining pool fees: The fees mining pools charge for their service. We will use a 2% fee here, which we will deduct from our total revenue.

For our example, we will use BTC.com’s mining calculator.

As a side note, we will utilize the current Bitcoin price to calculate our projected earnings and a difficulty increase of 2% every two weeks.

We used the average for all our rigs’ statistics and inputted them in the calculator (e.g., one miner costs $2,500 on average).

As you can see, we only made $16.95 in 365 days without even deducting the mining pool’s fees, which will provide us with a $-280.5 ($14,571.2 – $14851.70) result.

Furthermore, we didn’t take our mining rig’s costs into account. As new hardware models appear on the market every day, our equipment’s value will decrease over time. Let’s say we are lucky and we can sell each for $1,500 ($6,000 in total) after a year of use.

As a result, our mining operation would provide us with a $2,572 loss and a Return on Investment (ROI) of -11.11% ($20,571 revenue vs. $23,143 expense).

However, if we could operate our mining farm from a place with cheap electricity prices, our business could potentially become profitable. For example, with electricity costing $0.08/kWh, we could make a $3,793 profit ($20,571 revenue vs. $16,778 expense) with a 22.6% ROI.

Earn crypto with Trading

Risks: Varies (low in the case of our example)
Earning Potential: Medium
Difficulty: Medium

Cryptocurrency trading refers to the practice in which traders enter into quick, short-term positions to profit on digital asset price movements.

Crypto trading has been around since the industry’s early stages, with excellent products and services built over the years to benefit traders.

As a result, there are plenty of cryptocurrency exchanges where users can trade digital assets.

With that said, we recommend checking out the cryptocurrency trading platform Nominex that allows both beginner and veteran traders to make (potential) profits on the rising digital asset market.

The platform offers demo accounts where users can test their skills and expand their knowledge of the cryptocurrency market, while also providing 10 beginner-friendly video lessons in the Cryptotrading Camp.

Furthermore, users can earn a total of 1,120 USDT and 109 NMX tokens each day by participating in demo trading tournaments without any risks.

The risk level for cryptocurrency trading is based on the strategy users utilize. In our test, we will use only a small part of our capital for each position with stop orders in place to limit our risks. Also, we will only trade on the spot market without any leverage.

Since it’s very hard to predict the ROI of cryptocurrency trading, we will use a fixed model to calculate how much we can earn while trading crypto. For that reason, we have to take the following into account:

  • Win/loss ratio: The proportion of trades we win. In this example, we will win 50% and lose the other half of our trades.
  • Risk/reward ratio: It shows the potential rewards for every dollar we risk. Here, we will use a 3:1 ratio, meaning that we will gain $3 for every $1 we risk. With every winning trade, we will make 3% and lose 1% for every position where our strategies didn’t work out as expected (before deducting exchange fees).
  • Exchange fees: The fees the cryptocurrency exchange charges for each trade we make on the platform. It’s important to note that service providers deduct this cost instantly after entering into a position or exiting one.
  • Trading frequency: This refers to how often we make trades. Let’s place 30 trades a month (360 a year).
  • Average position size: The average amount we use to enter into a position. Let’s keep this at $500 (5% of our initial capital).

With the above factors, we can calculate our average profits and losses, as well as our total revenue, expenses, and ROI.

Comparing trading fees on exchanges

Compared throughout three different crypto exchanges (Nominex, Binance, Huobi), you can see the results in the following table:

 

Nominex Binance Huobi
Trading fees (taker) 0.1% 0.1% 0.2%
Average trading fees per winning trade $1.015 $1.015 $2.03
Average trading fees per lost trade $0.995 $0.995 $1.99
Average profits per winning trade $13.985 $13.985 $12.97
Average losses per lost trade $5.995 $5.995 $6.99
Total income $2,517.3 $2,517.3 $2,334.6
Total expense $1,079.1 $1,079.1 $1,258.2
Total profit $1,438.2 $1,438.2 $1,076.4
ROI 14.38% 14.38% 10.76%

Trading the native tokens of exchanges

Now let’s see how much we would make when holding the native tokens of each exchange (NMX, BNB, HT) and using them to cover our trading fees (for Huobi, we will hold 500 HT).

 

Nominex Binance Huobi
Trading fees (taker) 0.050% 0.075% 0.12%
Average trading fees per winning trade $0.5075 $0.7612 $1.218
Average trading fees per lost trade $0.4975 $0.7462 $1.194
Average profits per winning trade $14.4925 $14.2388 $13.782
Average losses per lost trade $5.4975 $5.7462 $6.194
Total income $2,608.65 $2,562.98 $2,480.76
Total expense $989.55 $1,034.32 $1,114.92
Total profit $1,619.1 $1,528.66 $1,365.84
ROI 16.19% 15.29% 13.66%

As you can see, while Huobi provided us the most discounts (since their fees are the highest among the three exchanges), we generated the most profits and the best ROI on Nominex.

Also if you obtain partner level ‘MAX’, Nominex grants the opportunity to trade with 0 commission, which means that ROI will increase even further.

To predict future earnings more precisely as well as expand your skills and knowledge, we recommend testing and implementing multiple trading strategies with Nominex’s demo account.

Since you can use up to 10,000 virtual USDT to trade cryptocurrencies, there are no risks involved.

If you are up for the challenge, be sure to participate in either a demo or a real trading tournament to win USDT and NMX tokens every day.

Hodling Crypto

Risks: Medium
Earning Potential: High
Difficulty: Easy

Similar to the previous methods, “holding” crypto is among the oldest and most popular ways to earn digital assets.

While cryptocurrency trading refers to quick, frequent, and short-term buys and sells, holding or investing in digital assets means a longer commitment for users (ranging from a few months to several years).

With this method, you purchase a cryptocurrency and hold it inside your wallet for moderate to longer periods before selling it.

It’s important to mention that digital assets can be subject to intensive price swings, which can increase the volatility and the risks for investors.

As we can’t provide a precise prediction on future digital asset prices, we will take the historical values of the cryptocurrencies we analyze into account.

In this section, we will show potential earnings ($10,000 investment) for Bitcoin (BTC) and two exchange tokens: Binance Coin (BNB) and Huobi Token (HT).

As a bonus, we will also show some example calculations for Nominex’s native NMX token, which is being distributed to investors and traders at the moment.

Bitcoin Binance Coin Huobi Token
Initial price (December 2, 2019) $7,303 $15.23 $2.88
Final price (December 2, 2020) $19,180 $30.65 $4.03
ROI 162.63% 101.25% 39.93%
Total profits $16,263 $10,124 $3,993

The table above clearly shows excellent profits for all three coins, with Bitcoin taking the lead and BNB and HT closely following the cryptocurrency in terms of earnings.

Now let’s see how NMX has performed for early investors in terms of price.

Nominex started the official distribution of NMX in February with an initial value of 0.1 USDT. By now, the cryptocurrency’s price has increased to around 2 USDT, which means a 1900% ROI and $190 000 in profits for early adopters who invested $10,000 in the coin in the beginning.

As a result, NMX’s gains outrank the other three cryptocurrencies we have analyzed earlier (in terms of investing).

To learn more about the rewards and potential earnings for holding NMX, we recommend taking a look at the following page on Nominex’s website.

Staking

Risks: Medium
Earning Potential: High
Difficulty: Easy

The Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism is becoming increasingly popular among cryptocurrency projects, especially with the launch of Ethereum 2.0.

Unlike the PoW model, PoS and its variants don’t require validators to leverage their computational power via mining rigs to maintain the blockchain.

Instead, validators lock up a specific amount of their tokens to verify transactions and add new blocks to the chain in a process called staking.

In exchange, stakeholders get rewards on their coins, which allows them to make a passive income (similar to DeFi lending) with the cryptocurrency they hold.

To maximize their chances, stakeholders can join staking pools and services where users combine their tokens to share the profits.

However, contrary to lending stablecoins, staking comes with higher risks for investors as the cryptocurrencies they lock up can be subject to increased price swings and inflation.

For the same reason, crypto enthusiasts have more earning potential with staking as their coins could increase in value while they are locked up.

In our example, we will use TRX for staking, the native token of the highly-scalable, DPoS-based (Delegated Proof-of-Stake) TRON crypto project, which has been widely popular among stakeholders.

Compare staking efficiency

We will compare earnings from TRX staking across three platforms: Nominex, Atomic Wallet, and Staked.

To calculate the projected profits from staking, we have to take the following factors into account:

  • APY: The annual interest stakeholders earn on the coins they lock up. This is 9% for Nominex (based on our results from the calculator on the crypto exchange’s website), 5% for Atomic, and 7.9% for Staked.
  • Price movements: The increase or decrease in the value of the digital assets users stake. We will base this one on the TRON price changes between December 2, 2019 and December 2, 2020.
  • Pool fees: Pools usually charge a percentage-based fee, which they deduct from the profits stakeholders earn. While there are no fees for staking on Atomic, Staked charges a 10% fee, and Nominex uses tiered commissions for its staking service based on the number of NMX coins users hold. For Nominex, we will compare three different fee rates, Starter (10%), Pro (6%), and VIP (3%).

Now let’s see the results!

 

Staked Atomic Nominex Starter Nominex Pro Nominex VIP
Fees 10% 0% 10% 6% 3%
APY 7.9% 5% 9% 9% 9%
TRX price change (one year) +100% +100% +100% +100% +100%
Total profit $21,422 $21,000 $21,620 $21,692 $21,746
Staking ROI 114.22% 110% 116.2% 116.92% 117.46%

As you can see in the above table, despite that it charges no fees for staking TRX, Atomic ranks at the last place in terms of profitability.

On the other hand, Staked secures a second place among service providers, while Nominex offers the best ROI for stakeholders, especially for VIP users.

In addition to all that, Nominex users can obtain rewards for team farming in the referral program and rewards for providing liquidity to the pool by staking NMX LP.

DeFi Lending

Risks: Low
Earning Potential: High
Difficulty: Easy

With the rise of the DeFi industry, cryptocurrency lending has become a reality.

By lending digital assets on DeFi services, users provide liquidity to the platform. In exchange, lenders generate a passive income on the coins they lend.

DeFi lending has gained widespread popularity in the crypto space due to the fact that it comes with minimal risks (especially if one lends stablecoins) while offering much better interests than traditional finance solutions (e.g., savings accounts, government bonds).

In our example, we will compare crypto lending on Compound, Aave, and dYdX for the DAI and USDC stablecoins, using the 30-day average of lending rates to predict our earnings for a one-year investment.

To predict how much we can earn, we have to look at the Annual Percentage Yield (APY) for each coin we lend, which indicates the real rate of return on our investment (ROI).

 

Compound Aave dYdX
APY/ROI (DAI) 3.05% 4.23% 6.86%
APY/ROI (USDC) 3.67% 4.87% 6.98%
Total profits (DAI) $305 $423 $686
Total profits (USDC) $367 $487 $698

Providing a nearly 7% ROI to investors, dYdX is the clear winner for both DAI and USDC lending while Aave secures second place and Compound ranks third.

Disclaimer: We would like to emphasize that our examples and tests included in this article are based on simple predictions, and real-world strategies might provide different results. For that reason, we recommend everyone to do their own diligence and keep their risks at a minimum to earn crypto successfully in 2021 and beyond.

Passive ways to earn cryptocurrency in 2021!

Cryptocurrency technology invented several new roles and technical positions such as master nodes, lightning nodes, and even mining nodes that are capable of earning cryptocurrency passively and have an almost regular income. Additionally, in recent years several types of affiliate programs are introduced that users can join to monetize their funds passively, like lending or staking, which are discussed above.

In this section passive ways by which cryptocurrency investors can earn crypto and have a regular income would be introduced. These ways include:

–          Mining (discussed above in detail)
–          Staking (also discussed above)
–          Lending (also discussed above)
–          Running a Lightning Node
–          Affiliate programs
–          Running Masternode
–          Taking advantages of forks
–          Developing trading bots

Running a lightning network

In recent years several solutions are introduced for the problem of scalability in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptocurrencies. Lightning networks include networks of transactions that are not directly applied to the main blockchain, so they are way faster than regular transactions. These networks provide bidirectional channels by which regular daily transactions could be accomplished faster than ordinary payments because they are stored on blockchain layer 2, and not mainnet.

However, this is a technical opportunity for people to run a network of transactions on another layer of blockchain, which provides liquidity as well as receiving transaction fees. What is amazing about this type of earn cryptocurrency is that you don’t even need to look at market news to make money from cryptocurrencies by occupying this status.

Affiliate Programs

Another technical event that offered new opportunities to earn cryptocurrency passively in recent years was the development of new major cryptocurrency exchanges. These enterprises have to manage to join a highly competitive market in which their competitors offered several types of advantages and technical improvements in advance. So new cryptocurrency exchanges try to offer affiliate programs by which they accelerate their growth in various regions of the world. People, social network influencers, and cryptocurrency content networks and communities are potential partners of these exchanges which are targeted by their affiliate programs.

While traders and those who are playing with their funds in the cryptocurrency market should have an active situation against market news and fall or peak of price, cryptocurrency exchanges and individuals joined to their affiliate programs can earn cryptocurrency without directly being under the effects of price changes. Users in these programs are only required to add some new users to the exchange network. However, in many cases, other requirements are having a network of cryptocurrency users with more than 2,000 users and/or being an influencer on social media networks with at least 5,000 followers/subscribers.

However, affiliate programs help those people who are active in various crypto forums and groups to make money by adding new members to a certain exchange customer database. Some of these programs, unlike what you can find on major exchanges like Binance and OKEx, are designed to be easy. While OKEx requires at least $100 purchase from all 10 invited persons to activate an affiliate program for a user, and Binance requires an already existing subscribers channel, Nominex users with only 30USDT can enjoy its affiliate program and earn cryptocurrency passively.

Running Masternode

Decentralized networks require some nodes that act somehow like a server: providing access to the network. These nodes are known as masternodes and are incentivized by various cryptocurrency networks to earn cryptocurrency passively only by providing technical resources for the network’s activity. However, to run a masternode users need to have a large technical investment.

However, with the development of cryptocurrency networks and the emergence of large technical facilities, the masternodes market is becoming harder and harder to join. Since it requires large technical investment and deep knowledge about crypto networks, it is not recommended for all users, particularly newcomers and beginners.

Taking Advantage of Forks

When a hard fork occurs in a traditional cryptocurrency network, users of the old blockchain receive identical amounts of cryptocurrency on the new blockchain. This passive earn cryptocurrency only occurs once in a few years but could provide a relatively large amount of passive income. As you might know, in recent years Bitcoin Cash hard fork provides such an opportunity for Bitcoin users.

To take advantage of this type of event, users should have large amounts of cryptocurrency on the old network before the hard fork takes place. That means only users with enough funds in the right time and place can make the most out of this type of passive earn cryptocurrency. But just consider those whales with thousands of Bitcoins in their wallets when they realized that luckily they own the same amount of Bitcoin Cash to understand how this type of passive income could be sweet!

Developing Trading Bots

Another type of providing passive income that is used by large firms and financial institutions includes developing trading bots that take advantage of many events in the cryptocurrency market. However, it requires a deep knowledge of both technical analysis and financial market mechanisms as well as programming and computer science, which are very unlikely to be found in a single person. Trading bots are simply online software that monitors the market and finds trading opportunities and executes trades according to profitable algorithms. While they sound just like a great opportunity for many programmers and technical analysts to employ such trading bots, their technical details are not so easy and they remain almost exclusively in the hands of large firms with professional technical teams.

However, trading bots are capable of making frequent trades and algorithmic trades with low profits, since they are capable of making more than hundreds and thousands of profitable trades in a single day.

Closing Thoughts

The cryptocurrency market is a new financial market that in the recent decade showed it is not a temporary trend and could be considered as a technical development that will develop in the course of time. Like any other market, the cryptocurrency market provides trading opportunities by which users can earn cryptocurrency and make profits. But it is not the end of the story as several types of roles and statuses are required to run cryptocurrency networks that are incentivized by earning cryptocurrency passively, without the need to participate in market tradings.

In this article of Nominex various types of earning cryptocurrency are explained in detail and evaluated by their different factors. Nominex is a new cryptocurrency exchange platform that provides many opportunities to earn cryptocurrency for its users in different forms. Users can join different types of affiliate programs to enjoy earning cryptocurrency passively.

 

 

Image by Miloslav Hamřík from Pixabay

How Biconomy is Revolutionizing the Web3 Space

The high cost of gas fees has become a financial nightmare for regular users in the web3 space.

Basically, the wide range of use cases within the Ethereum network serves as a key driver for the issue of scalability. According to ycharts report, the Ethereum average gas price is at a level of 141.12 Gwei as of the time of writing.  Meanwhile, the recent upsurge in ethereum gas fee has negatively affected ERC-20 projects in the aspect of running microtransaction payments on the Ethereum network. Moreover, any interaction with the Ethereum blockchain requires users to pay a gas fee which is measured in units of ETH called Gwei (1 billion Gwei = 1 ETH). And as such, the more complex a transaction is, the more Gwei required to execute it.

With the ever-expanding DeFi movement, users have had to pay miners higher transaction or gas prices due to the inherent complexity of the DeFi decentralized applications, thereby making interaction with decentralized applications uneconomical for regular users. Recently, the web3 applications have encountered some major roadblocks at the crypto transactional layer such as the necessity to pay a gas fee for Decentralized Applications (DApp), long complicated onboarding process, complex blockchain technicalities, volatile and high gas fee, pending and stuck transactions, and more. Consequently, this has resulted in poor user onboarding and transaction experience in the web3 space, thereby decreasing user adoption. Well, thanks to the ingenious blockchain solution — Biconomy, it is simplifying the web3 experiences by transforming decentralized applications (DApp) for everyday users.

Simplifying web3 experiences

Biconomy is a multichain transaction platform that empowers Dapps by using the concept of meta transactions to provide a simplified onboarding and transaction experience for Web3 projects on blockchain and crypto networks. The developer-friendly platform employs powerful and easy-to-use SDK/APIs to delight users by eliminating blockchain complexities through gas-efficient meta-transactions. More so, Biconomy infrastructure enables developers to grow their user base by implementing the perfect experience for crypto savvy and crypto noobs in order to decrease drop-offs and drive higher conversion.

Additionally, with the developer-friendly infrastructure, there’s no need for metamask and crypto proficiency as it aims to simplify transactions by handling blockchain-related complexities under the hood, thereby making web3 products as intuitive and easy to use as legacy web2 products. Meanwhile, here are some of the glaring features of Biconomy that’s distinguishing them from others.

  • Non-Custodial & Trustless: Biconomy system is trustless by design and as such cannot tamper with user’s data.
  • Gas Optimization: Helps users to reduce gas costs on Ethereum by up to 50%.
  • No Stuck Transactions: Ensures that users transactions do not get stuck and they are validated on time at the optimal gas price.
  • End-User Friendly: Facilitates gasless transactions for users by allowing them to easily pay gas in ERC20 tokens.
  • Platform Agnostic: Allows participants to integrate Biconomy using Javascript SDK via npm or CDN as well as applying the platform’s APIs on any other platform.
  • Developer Friendly: Easy plug and play solution with minimal code changes required. Compatible with existing systems and major Web3 Wallets.
  • Blockchain Agnostic: Platform’s architecture is built from the ground up to be blockchain agnostic.
  • Scalable Relayer Infrastructure: A dynamic relayer infrastructure that can scale horizontally and vertically as users DApp and transactions scale.

In a big leap to blockchain ingenuity, the Biconomy ecosystem has recently launched Forward Swap, the first use case built on Biconomy’s new launch. Interestingly, the Biconomy Forward helps to save gas even further by providing developers with simple APIs that allow users to pay gas in ERC20 tokens. Additionally, it ensures no failed or stuck transactions, as this can be really frustrating for anyone especially new crypto users.

The decentralized exchange — Forward Swap, sources its liquidity from Uniswap, but accepts gas fees in various stablecoins. Consequently, this will facilitate a better user experience for both crypto newbies & seasoned traders. Today, developers can leverage Biconomy Forward Swap to build different use cases in the web3 space such as:

  1. DeFi protocols and wallets can improve their user experience by allowing their end-users to do everything without having to own ETH.
  2. All decentralized applications can onboard new users in seconds by giving a sign-up bonus of their own tokens.
  3. Financial applications can allow users to pay gas in stablecoins. This will delight their users who want to save up their ETH and would rather pay gas in DAI, USDT, USDC etc.
  4. Blockchain games can improve their crypto-economic model by allowing users to pay fees in their own tokens.

Therefore, it’s crystal clear that the Biconomy infrastructure is on the path to simplify the web3 experience in order to drive mass adoption.

Unified Account – OKEx Introduces A Single Account to Trade Anything on the Platform

OKEx, the global crypto exchange and trading platform is introducing a new experience to its trading community with a Unified Account. As the name suggests, Unified Account is one place from which OKEx users can execute trades across all instruments and manage their portfolios throughout the ecosystem.

The OKEx Unified Account, also known as Portfolio Margin, is a unique offering in the crypto ecosystem. So far, its use was limited to few brokerages and banks catering to high-net-worth individuals with adequate capital and trading expertise. For OKEx users, the implementation of Unified Account means, they can execute any spot, margin, futures, perpetual swaps and options trades from one place which retaining access to their entire portfolio, trading tools, risk management settings and more.

According to OKEx, the Unified Account will be made available to its userbase in a phased manner starting March 25, 2021. It will feature three different account modes designed to satisfy the requirements of retail as well as institutional traders irrespective of their experience levels.

  1. Simple ModeDesigned for spot traders and options buyers
  2. Single-currency Margin Mode – Ideal for margin and derivatives traders who wish to optimize their capital across multiple trading instruments. Users on this mode will be able to opt for cross-margin or isolated-margin with their open positions.
  3. Multi-currency Margin and Portfolio Margin ModeMeant for those proficient in trading, this mode is well suited for professional and institutional traders. It offers them the ability to leverage all their asset holdings on the platform as collateral, irrespective of the denomination to trade all supported instruments. This mode is also available for OKEx API users.

During the launch, OKEx CEO Jay Hao said, “We want all traders to have the best experience when trading on our platform, whether they are new to crypto trading or already battle hardened. With this new feature, each account mode is customizable and suits varying degrees of experience, allowing for trading with different appetites for risk. We have invested significant resources into providing a sophisticated and flexible product and look forward to meeting the needs of our growing number of users. “

One of the concerns regarding the implementation and use of such a unified system is the amplification of risks, as users could end up locking their funds in too many places and run into huge losses if the market does not respond favorably. In addition, the implementation of such a product in a complex digital exchange with various product offerings could a disaster if the system fails to handle the volumes.

Addressing these issues, OKEx uses a state-of-the-art risk management system to improve operational and margin efficiency while enabling margin sharing across multiple trading instruments. So, as long as one has enough funds in their OKEx account they can trade any crypto-asset without having to exchange it for any one of the assets supported by the trading pair.

The introduction of Unified Account with advanced risk management logic will help users experience seamless trading on OKEx without worrying about switching from one trading platform to another or swapping one crypto to another.

 

Phemex Lists DOGE/USD & DOGE/USDT Trading Pairs, Gives Away 4 Million Tokens

Once popular, Dogecoin (DOGE) has witnessed a revival in the past few months after influential personalities like Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg, and others openly supported the cryptocurrency on social media. A sudden interest in the almost forgotten cryptocurrency created a huge demand among the crypto community as traders and investors started looking for reliable platforms to start trading.

Phemex Steps In

As demand continued to increase, Phemex – a popular crypto exchange and futures trading platform, announced support for DOGE at the beginning of this month. Starting March 1st, users on the platform gained access to DOGE/USD trading pair for contract trading with up to 20X leverage. The DOGE/USD trading pair launch was accompanied by a fortnight-long 1 million Dogecoin giveaway campaign where each new user signing up on Phemex during the campaign period could earn $10 worth of Dogecoin (approx. 200 DOGE) by completing two simple tasks.

The introduction of DOGE/USD contract trading was soon followed by the launch of DOGE/USDT spot trading on March 13th, further expanding the platform’s offering to the DOGE community.

Phemex Garners a Lot of Interest

The DOGE trading pairs on Phemex have come at the right time. The Dogecoin giveaway program received an overwhelming response, which even caught the platform by surprise. According to Phemex, the platform was expecting around 5000 new sign-ups throughout the entire promo duration. But the number of new registrations witnessed by the platform within the first 24 hours of DOGE listing surpassed 24,000, causing it to cut short the promo to just 8 days.

By the time the promo ended, the number of new registrations stood at 46,000. With more users joining the platform during that period than anticipated, Phemex increased the giveaway allocation by 4. In the end, Phemex distributed a total of 4 million DOGE among all the eligible participants, which was found to be around 27032 during the selection and distribution process. The whole process was successfully concluded on March 17th.

Phemex will run many more similar promotions and giveaways as a part of its commitment to meet the crypto community’s needs. Apart from DOGE, the community can also expect the platform to introduce new trading products and services.

Learn more about the fastest Cryptocurrency and Futures Trading Platform.

 

Image by Marcel Heidemann from Pixabay

Bitget Will Launch USDT Unified Account and Quanto Swap Contract in Late March

The derivatives exchange Bitget issued an official announcement that in order to meet the needs of more trading users and improve user experience, Bitget will officially launch USDT Unified Account and Quanto Swap Contract at the end of March. Several days ago, Bitget launched a new feature voting and set up a $100,000 prize pool to invite users to participate. Bitget will invite global users to experience the beta version of USDT Unified Account and Quanto Swap Contract

Bitget will divide the contract products into four major sectors after the new feature is launched: USDT Margined contract/Coin Margined Contract/USDT Unified Account/Quanto Swap Contract. The USDT Margined Contract uses stable currency USDT as the margin; The Coin Margined Contract uses the coin held as the margin, and is priced, traded and settled by the coin

The biggest highlight of USDT Unified Account is that users can choose USDT to trade multiple trading pairs at the same time, in which multiple contracts share the equity of one account, and the profit and loss, occupation and risk in the account are shared. Currently, Bitget can support up to 20 currencies such as BTC, ETH, UNI, AAVE, etc. This means that users can open contracts of multiple trading pairs in the same account when using USDT as the margin, and realize the multi-currency hedging in one account.

Quanto Swap contract supports one or more currencies as a margin to trade other coins. The highlight is that it has changed the traditional trading method that coin margined contracts only apply to trade the margined coin contract. Now one coin can be used as a margin for multiple trading pairs at the same time, without the need for currency exchange.

For example, a trader holds and is optimistic about BTC for the long term, but predicts that ETH is going to rise recently. The trader hopes that after completing the contract transaction, BTC will be returned to his account.

It is not difficult to tell that, compared with traditional Coin Margined Contract, the advantages of Quanto Swap Contract are particularly obvious. First of all, during the transaction process, the operation is extremely simple, without the loss caused by the currency exchange process. Secondly, in the settlement, the currency of the account can be used as a margin for profit and loss settlement, and the user can finally get the desired currency. Thirdly, you can get a profit when the margin coin price rises while trading. For example, when you trade ETH, use BTC as the margin. If the BTC rises, you can get both the trading income and the increased income. Lastly, the Quanto Swap Contract supports using certain margin currencies to trade multiple trading pairs at the same time and accomplishes internal hedging, equity sharing, and risk-sharing.

It is reported that the Bitget Quanto Swap Contract will be launched at the end of March, and the global public beta will be launched. Bitget will support the three mainstream currencies of BTC, ETH, and EOS. Bitget CEO Sandra said, “USDT Unified Account and Quanto Swap Contract are a sincere work launched by Bitget for global users this year. After it is launched at the end of March, welcome to experience them and give us suggestions. Quanto Swap Contract will add more coins based on user feedback”

The Future Advertising Giant SaTT Lists on Leading Cryptocurrency Exchange, HitBTC

After some heightened exposure and interest that rallied behind SaTT integration with Binance Smart Chain and its deployment and listing on PancakeSwap, the blockchain-based advertising project is on another streak of accomplishing yet another novel milestone that signals its token listing on HitBTC with BTC & USDT pairs, one of the leading global crypto exchange.

This adds to its long list of CEX token listings aimed at coupling unmatched liquidity for the SaTT ecosystem both in the short and long-term. According to SaTT CEO Gauthier bros, this development is considered primed as it is aimed at bringing the needed exposures to the entire SaTT ecosystem:

“As one of the largest globally available exchanges with billions of trading volume, we are ecstatic about this partnership and all it has in stock for the SaTT community. This listing further reinstates our commitment towards making SaTT advertising solutions and its range of products available on a global scale. Our commitment towards value creation remains firm”

These past weeks have been eventful for SaTT as the advertising firm remains devoted to providing unmatched value for its community. SaTT integration with Binance Smart Chain whose purpose is on par towards providing fast, low cost, and efficient advertising transactions for users of the SaTT platform.

At present, SaTT runs seamlessly on two compatible blockchains: Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, bringing high-end value and easy access to the SaTT community.

How HitBTC Exchange-listing Can Impact SaTT

HitBTC is a crypto exchange that at present has over 800 trading pairs. The platform was created in 2013 and provides exchange, custodial, and other related crypto services. The platform UI was developed to meet the needs of the most demanding and sophisticated traders.

According to coin aggregator site, Coingecko, HitBTC is ranked among the top 12 crypto exchanges in terms of 24-hour trading volume which makes it one of the leading global crypto exchanges which boast of little data-access latency which is sustained by its LD4 Data Center in London. User security is reportedly secure via stringent security procedures, including cold storage and encryption technology.

This cutting-edge feature matches up to provide an ambient trading environment for the SaTT community, delivering unending liquidity through its advance order book matching engine.

Additionally, this is the biggest exchange listing for the SaTT token and could unarguably impact its token value from the short and long-term perspective. This signals a positive narrative for the blockchain-based advertising firm who has been gaining increased social mentions and adoption since they debuted.

SaTT Takes On Blockchain-based Advertising To A Whole New Level

SaTT which is short for Smart Advertising Transaction Token is the native token that powers the SaTT ecosystem DApp and a medium through which all transactions are completed within the platform. SaTT which originally launched on the Ethereum blockchain is also available on Binance Smart Chain and is currently trading on Probit, Coinsbit, BW.com, and leading DEXes like Uniswap, Binance DEX, and PancakeSwap.

Early last year, SaTT integrated its decentralized advertising solution with the top social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter. Allowing advertisers to promote their products and services through influential marketing strategies.

With the help of decentralized smart contract oracle, SaTT connects advertisers to publishers (social media influencers) together, allowing publishers to create content via these social media channels and in turn get paid for their effort based on the level of engagement derived (number of views, shares, likes, comments of the publication).

Next big step for SaTT according to their roadmap, the proof of concept of the solution on the BSC. An event that we will follow closely and that will determine the interest of the solution within the advertising ecosystem!

 

First NFT art created by robot-artist is available on Rarible

The Robonomics team that developed the fully autonomous Gaka-Chu artwork robot finally takes it into the NFT medium. From now on, Gaka-Chu becomes one of the only robots that create real art for the open NFT market. Gaka-Chu’s first artwork is to be auctioned on 23 March 2021 at 15:00 UTC on Rarible.com, a boutique NFT marketplace that is limited to industry-disrupting contributors and their art pieces. The marketplace only accepts top tier art pieces and therefore serves as proof of just how unique the robot-artist’s collection is. All Gaka-Chu’s creations purchased on Rarible will also be made available on the Opensea.io platform giving its new rights holders an additional channel to store, display and resell the sought after art pieces.

The NFT art medium is about to meet a robo artist, whose paintings open a new dimension to the world of real fine art, its distribution and authenticity.

Up until recently, the industry has been limited to digital artwork only but at the same time, it has seen nothing but an incredible rise in the demand for gifs and other types of pictures that not only hold value but make it grow too. The excitement that surrounds this burgeoning market is as endless as the creativity that it boasts and therefore, Gaka-Chu’s entrance serves as a key milestone to the fine art industry’s development. It is real, physical art that is closely linked to blockchain and in a way acts as its derivative. The original, physical artwork will be displayed at the ITMO University’s Art and Science Museum. 

Gaka-Chu 101

Gaka-Chu has been creating art for over 3 years now but it was never part of the non-fungible token movement before. Its tale started with calligraphy and then grew into fine art, since there is practically no limit to the creativity of the artist and Gaka-Chu’s capabilities. The technology of the painting process at glance is as follows:

  1. It all starts with the original design, created by an artist. 
  2. This artwork is then shown to Gaka-Chu which the robot scans and turns into the language that it understands. Think of it as an algorithm that takes physical art and re-imagines it in a digital form that eventually returns back to a physical form with an added NFT function.
  3. Once that is done, Gaka-Chu translates art into an array of dots and starts to create history. It calculates the number of strokes and optimises them to the amount of available paint and its colour range, required kinematics and the mechanics of all the necessary movements. 
  4. Finally, the finished art piece is attached to an Ethereum smart contract that serves as an official passport of the artwork and records all information about it, as well as all related transactions.

What separates Gaka-Chu from the rest, apart from the fact that it creates real fine art, is that it is self-managed and all its creations are captured on video, automatically triggered by the robot when it starts painting. These files are then attached to the smart contract and form part of the package that a client purchases. This way, the potential clients do not only get the finished artwork but also a record of how it has been created which adds even greater value to the piece and serves as an unprecedented addition to the NFT data. It is a transparency that goes beyond blockchain and complements it with a degree of real-life artwork creation. 

Token and its technicals

Gaka-Chu’s artwork and its subsequent tokens operate on the Ethereum blockchain. Once the artwork is complete, the framework on which the robot operates mints the token and populates it with all the necessary information on the art piece. The necessary information in question consists of three main pillars:

  • Trajectories record
  • Log of the completed work
  • Video of how the art piece was created

Next, this data is stored on IPFS since it can be kept there for an extended period of time. The Gaka-Chu framework autocompletes the metadata file and prompts a new token to be minted on the Ethereum mainnet, which is when the art piece becomes an asset with documentation that confirms its authenticity. At the same time, rarible.com and opensea.io, the largest NFT marketplaces in the world, automatically parse the data attached to the artwork and add it to their databases of NFT assets. This marks the completion of the creation process and opens Gaka-Chu’s art piece to the world, making it a sellable piece of timeless art that lives at the crossroads of digital, blockchain and art industry. 

What is all the noise about?

If you are not acquainted with the world of NFT art, then you should know that the actual artwork that exploded the industry was nothing short of, well, bland and common. Whilst the globally renowned Nyan Cat gif sold for nearly $600,000, other digital artwork valuations went even higher, peaking at the wholesome $69 million. The high-value pieces had one trait in common! There was always a physical component added to this blockchain-based art. Nevertheless, the rest remained conventional and strictly digital, although retaining uniqueness and scarcity.  

This is where Gaka-Chu stands above the market as it merges digital and physical worlds into one. A world where a fully autonomous robot creates unique art pieces and then self publishes its work on the NFT marketplaces. More so, each artwork does not only come with transferable rights to it, but the blockchain log of the painting process and a video that shows how exactly the artwork springs to life with every single one of Gaka-Chu’s strokes! 

Given that Gaka-Chu is now connected to the Ethereum blockchain, its tokenized art finally becomes available on Rarible.com, the most hard to enter NFT marketplace in the world. In other words, the NFT art medium is about to meet a robo artist, whose paintings open a new dimension to the world of real fine art, its distribution and authenticity.

VR Content Platform Dvision Network to Auction Crypto Celebrity Avatar and Other Limited-Edition NFTs

Dvision Network, the blockchain-based virtual reality (VR) content ecosystem, has announced the introduction of five limited-edition NFT characters, to be auctioned later this month. These NFTs are the first among many unique tokens to be introduced by the project as it continues to enhance the VR industry.

The limited-edition NFTs will be auctioned on OpenSea – a leading decentralized NFT trading and auction platform to mark Dvision’s own primary NFT marketplace’s upcoming launch. Those successfully bidding at the auction to acquire these valuable crypto assets will also become eligible for certain privileges within the Dvision ecosystem, including access to NFTs from other limited-edition series and DVI token incentives. One of the five limited-edition NFT designs is the avatar prototype of celebrities in the crypto world, which has become the centerpiece of the entire exercise.

“We intend to supply these sorts of unique NFT items to the prospective Dvision Network users in order to add the fun elements to their gamified metaverse ecosystem experience, and to let them play joyfully, surfing across the virtual reality and open-world via the usage of the celebrity characters,” said JungHyun Eom, CEO of Dvision Network

The auctioned NFTs can be used within the Dvision metaverse and traded on primary and secondary NFT markets.

Dvision’s Vision for Virtual Reality

Dvision is one among a handful of crypto projects in the VR segment. The project aims to improve the space by addressing the existing challenges surrounding content quality, customization, market expansion, and copyright protection in the VR content market. The three primary services on the Dvision network making it possible include:

  • VR-City – a public space within the virtual world for users to visit and experience a diverse range of VR content.
  • VR-Space – a feature that enables individuals and businesses to create their own custom virtual space
  • VR-Market – a public platform for users to trade their VR items

While the use of blockchain technology makes tracing and enforcing copyright protections easier, the availability of other resources in an open, readily accessible platform encourages community participation in the virtual reality space. The collaborative environment offered by Dvision Network will help individual developers, studios, businesses, advertisers and end-users join forces to create and consume quality virtual reality content.

Dvision Network is establishing a strong partner network to make its ecosystem secure, user-friendly and easily accessible. It has already joined forces with Chainlink, Blockchain Game Alliance, Blockwater Capital, Matic, Arkane Network, Coinbase Custody, Upbit Safe and more.

DVI in Dvision Network

The Dvision blockchain network is built on Ethereum protocol and fueled by DVI utility token. DVI is also the preferred payment method within the Dvision ecosystem where users, developers and advertisers can buy and sell digital content, promote their businesses, and even acquire their own space in the virtual world by staking.

In another milestone, Bithumb Korea has listed the DVI/BTC trading pair on the platform. Soon, it will include DVI/KRW following the project’s performance in the recently concluded “BTC Open” event. Other exchanges listing DVI include CoinOne, Uniswap and Hoo.

The limited-edition NFT auction will help in further adoption of the Dvision Network. It offers the community an opportunity to acquire a unique digital asset and receive additional perpetual benefits within the ecosystem.

 

Image by dongpung from Pixabay

Do Bitcoin Ad Networks Actually Work? The $250 Experiment

Over the course of the last 10 years, the blockchain industry has grown and expanded into a fully-fledged behemoth, worth trillions of dollars, boasting corporations, medium-sized projects and newly founded startups. And somewhere along this development, the bitcoin ad networks appeared, completely changing the rules of the game. From poorly designed banners on bitcointalk.com, they took it to well-designed banners and a global distribution across all possible websites and publications, in turn giving an incremental boost to the adoption of blockchain.

But just how well do these ad platforms work and which platform is most effective?

If you happen to be puzzled by the same question then you are in the right place, because we have conducted an in-depth experiment across three major bitcoin ad networks in a bid to find the most productive and effective ad network on the market.

The experiment

For the purposes of this experiment, we have set out a $250 budget that will be spent on each ad network to advertise our third-party project. It is an up-and-coming startup that operates in the blockchain microfinance industry. Given its domain, such projects don’t have many options in terms of conventional marketing platforms that supply ads to similarly regular publications and hence it becomes a perfect guinea pig for us to test on. As for the bitcoin ad networks, our key marketing industry players selected for the test are:

  • Bitmedia
  • Coinzilla
  • Cointraffic

This experiment will concentrate on what is truly important. The outcome a typical blockchain project gets when investing into display ads in search of traffic, conversions and real users that generate revenue! Furthermore, we will keep a score to see which network performs best in each of the following categories:

  • Sources/Publications they display banners on
  • GEO and other targeting options
  • Campaign types
  • Campaign bids and Minimum Spend
  • Banner types
  • Account funding
  • Ad campaign result
  • Summary

Bitcoin ad networks overview

Before indulging in the discussion of conversions that our crypto marketing campaign has generated, it is important to note that the first differences between the platforms started to appear as early as the campaign setup stage. Bitmedia, Cointraffic and Coinzilla provide advertisers with a chance to get exposure and attract new users to their crypto product or service but this is where similarities end and here are the major differences between the three…

Traffic Sources

Crypto ad networks specialize in ad distribution. This implies being connected to a wide range of online publications as in the end it is these publications that will become home to the banners that advertisers launch. Is it important to know what these publications are? Some would definitely agree, although, for us, the main index of the campaign success is the final number of users gained by the service our marketing campaigns intended to promote.

Sources, is where Cointraffic beats its competition since it is the only ad network that gives you access to at least some of the publications it has access to. Hardly a game-changer but this piece of information can definitely add to peace of mind when contemplating whether your campaign is displayed on the right websites. Perhaps the ones you would like to be associated with, in the first place. We are confident that both Bitmedia and Coinzilla would have happily disclosed their publishers to us too, if only we were to ask but it is something they don’t have readily available and therefore it is only fair to state that they do not openly share their sources.

Cointraffic – 1
Bitmedia – 0
Coinzilla – 0

GEO and other targeting options

Blockchain companies and projects are always global. Nevertheless, a critical factor of a successful marketing campaign is when a brand can quickly adapt to the regions where most of the demand comes from and it is where the flexibility of GEO targeting becomes the heavyweight advantage. In general, all platforms boast quite a similar list of countries, but it is the way you access them, that puts these platforms miles apart.

This is where Bitmedia takes the lead with its simplicity of geo setup and whitelisting feature that is not present on any other bitcoin advertising platform we are experimenting with. In layman’s terms, whitelisting allows you to tell the algorithms what countries are of key importance to you, dedicating your budget primarily towards the outlined countries. Blacklisting preset works in the opposite manner, excluding specified countries from the distribution plan, which adds extra detail to the targeting options. The network allows you to select either the whole region or particular countries one by one, which is the industry standard when it comes to conventional advertising platforms. Finally, Bitmedia strikes again with device segregation, the broad options of which delve deeper than generalized mobile and desktop presets, going as far as an operating system specification that the audiences use.

Bitmedia offers:

  • GEO targeting by countries and regions
  • Ad Groups
  • Whitelist countries
  • Blacklist countries
  • In-depth device targeting

Coinzilla’s geo-targeting is also straightforward and simple. It allows you to select either an entire region or specific countries within this region but this is where the game ends since the whitelisting feature is nowhere to be found. Straightforward and simple also applies to its device targeting setup, although this time it is hardly a compliment, with mobile and desktop being the only options an advertiser can choose from. The campaign setup page greets you with two, peculiar campaign options. Premium traffic and Brand awareness traffic. There is no logical explanation as to what the difference between these options is, but one may assume that Premium traffic stands for good conversions, whilst the latter is dedicated to traffic that most likely won’t result in real traction.

Coinzilla offers:

  • GEO targeting by countries and regions
  • Blacklisting of websites
  • Basic device targeting

 

Unfortunately for Cointraffic, geos is where its lead, gained with the openly accessible list of sources disappears and a nightmare of a geo-targeting setup sets the tone for the rest of the experience on this bitcoin ad platform. The targeting menu does not allow you to select a geographical region and therefore if, for example, Europe is your target area, be prepared to input all European countries one by one. Furthermore, lack of device segregation, whitelisting and a very limited blacklist feature only adds to the negative first impression.

Cointraffic offers:

  • GEO targeting by countries
  • Blacklist countries (only if you opt for global distribution)

Cointraffic – 1
Bitmedia – 1
Coinzilla – 1

Campaign Types

Campaign types usually come in two flavors. The CPM, where you pay for 100 impressions your banner receives and CPC, where you pay for each click your banner attracts. Former bitcoin ad distribution option is considered to be the main tool behind improving the awareness that your brand gets, whilst CPC is all about final user acquisition, a stage that usually comes in force once brand awareness is achieved.

Besides having similar names, both Coinzilla and Cointraffic boast only one ad campaign type and it is the CPM. Bitmedia on the other hand offers CPM and CPC, which means that it is a bitcoin ad platform that can accommodate not only the initial stages of your marketing endeavors but also the next, similar to what you would get on conventional market-leading display ad networks.

Cointraffic – 1
Bitmedia – 2
Coinzilla – 1

Campaign Bids and Minimum Spend

When it comes to bids, Coinzilla offers two types of traffic, which in turn dictates the pricing policy. The aforementioned Premium and Brand Awareness traffic types show quite a widespread in cost, being 3EUR and 0.2EUR respectively. Coinzilla’s minimum daily budget spend is 50EUR.

Cointraffic follows suit with a single traffic type and the CPM bid size valued at 3.50EUR, making it the most expensive bitcoin ad network among other contenders. The targeting menu does not provide any reasoning to such a high price level. Still, for the time being, we will assume that this extraordinary spike is to result in a similarly extraordinary number of attracted leads. The minimum daily spend on the platform is 20EUR.

Finally, Bitmedia steps in with CPM and CPC bid levels starting from just 0.30USD and 0.25USD respectively, making it the cheapest platform you can start your crypto marketing campaign on. Minimum daily spend limit only ads to it since there is no preset amount you are bound to.

Cointraffic – 1
Bitmedia – 3
Coinzilla – 1

Banner Types

Banner type is another significant part of any ad campaign since banners are the primary interface that audiences communicate with, or vice versa. Unfortunately for Bitmedia, it is where it does not show the solid performance it has already become known for throughout the first part of our testing. This bitcoin ad network is limited to text ads, image ads, responsive ads and HTML5 ads, although it does boast a wide variety of available sizes: 728×90, 468×60, 125×125, 200×200, 250×250, 300×250, 300×100, 250×100, 336×280, 160×600, 120×240, 120×600, 180×150, 300×600, 320×50, 320×100, 468×90 & 970×90.

Disparate to the above, Cointraffic offers text ads, native ads and pop-under ads that prompt your target link to be launched in a new browser tab. The latter can be displayed in the following forms: popunder desktop & mobile, slide desktop & mobile, in-page desktop & mobile, sticky desktop & mobile. Might not be the best option for conversions but definitely adds more options to choose from. Ad sizes on the other hand are not as broad in range as to what Bitmedia offers, being: 728×90, 300×250, 320×100, 160×600, 468×60, 300×600, 970×250.

Coinzilla is very similar to Cointraffic in terms of banner types, offering all the same options but lagging behind in terms of the variety of available pop-under ads. Available sizes are: 300×250, 728×90, 160×600, 320×100, 300×600, 320×50.

Cointraffic – 2
Bitmedia – 3
Coinzilla – 2

Account Funding

Before launching your ad campaign our crypto ad networks require users to fund their accounts. All three contenders boast a plethora of options that can be mainly generalized by crypto and fiat funding possibilities.

Coinzilla accepts SEPA payments (takes from 1 to 15 days), direct cryptocurrency deposits (BTC, ETH, LTC, USDT) and instant Crypto.com transfers. The latter option is very similar to direct crypto deposits and works with all the same cryptocurrencies (apart from CRO) that are already available as direct crypto transactions. Minimum deposits depend on the currency type and seem to vary with every option, although if done via Coinbase as a connected gateway, it equals 300EUR, which in turn is the smallest amount across all other currencies.

Coinzilla funding:

  • Crypto (BTC, ETH, LTC, USDT)
  • FIAT (EUR)
  • Coinbase
  • Minimum transfer: Depends on transaction currency

Similar to Coinzilla, Bitmedia also has an option of either crypto or fiat account funding, although crypto transactions are strictly limited to BTC, ETH and USDT. Nevertheless, Bitmedia’s fiat module connected to Stripe seems to accept all major fiat currencies (credit cards), whilst your balance gets instantly updated with the transferred amount. This is a class-leading advantage, especially if you find yourself with a quickly depleting budget and need to add more funds to your bitcoin ad campaign. Last but not least, Google Pay payments are also available on the platform.

Bitmedia funding:

  • Crypto (BTC, ETH, USDT)
  • FIAT (All major currencies)
  • Google Pay
  • Minimum transfer: No minimums

Compared to the above platforms, Cointraffic secures its place as the leader in account funding options. Its crypto transfers are all done via Coingate, which means the platform accepts payments in over 50 cryptocurrencies, whilst fiat transactions can be executed either via a bank transfer or credit card payment. Still, a bitter part of the Cointraffic’s variety of payment options is unfortunately the commission that is tied to all types of payments. More so, given that our experiment implied a budget of only $250, the 500EUR minimum deposit meant that it is this amount that we need to transfer and consequently pay the incurred fees on. Needless to say that this ended up in increased costs of our ad campaign.

Cointraffic funding:

  • Crypto (50+ cryptocurrencies)
  • FIAT (EUR)
  • Minimum transfer: 500EUR

Cointraffic – 3
Bitmedia – 4
Coinzilla – 3

Crypto ad campaign results

Once we have set targeting to be identical on all three platforms, the only thing left was to wait for distribution magic to come in full force. And a couple of days later, the results were in…

Based on the numbers that we gathered from our crypto ad networks, Bitmedia shows the most effective distribution of the campaign’s budget, delivering twice as many impressions to the users compared to the other two contenders. However, Coinzilla shows twice the performance of Bitmedia in terms of CTR which stipulates, perhaps, a higher quality of publications that in turn managed to attract experiment-leading conversion. Despite all of this, it is Cointraffic that has managed to pull in more registrations than Coinzilla, nodding towards a more effective distribution network. Finally, we have Bitmedia, with the highest number of registrations, which are most likely derived from a much greater impressions count.

Top bitcoin ad network

To summarise the experiment, all three bitcoin ad networks have performed well and attracted users who registered on the microfinance service. Furthermore, the $250 spent on each marketing campaign resulted in satisfactory conversions but it is the way these conversions have been achieved that differentiates the crypto ad platforms in question. They are all very similar but at the same time are miles apart, which became apparent once we made a plunge into the categories’ study. Even once the campaign was over, we returned to these platforms only to find additional distinguishing features. Availability of Ad Groups is one of them and it is a service that only Bitmedia provides. Hence, there is simply no way for Cointraffic and Coinzilla users to set up multiple display ads with different creatives under one marketing campaign, consequently allowing for further tests of the best performing path to audience acquisition.

It is now down to you which platform to choose for your blockchain project’s marketing campaign, based on the findings we reached with our bitcoin ad network experiment. All three contenders have generated traffic and all three delivered exposure. The only difference is the final numbers this exposure transformed into and the final score of course…

Cointraffic – 3
Bitmedia – 4
Coinzilla – 3

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

 

Insured Finance Takes Another Step Closer to Becoming the Preeminent Decentralized Risk Coverage Platform

Risk coverage is one of the most identifiable use cases that decentralized finance enables, paving the way for a multi-billion dollar industry based on the widespread hacking and fraud that takes place within the blockchain market. Insured Finance introduces a platform to mitigate these losses once and for all, enabling anyone to take out or fund a decentralized insurance policy as protection against rug pulls, stablecoin devaluation, cryptocurrency exchange hacks, and smart contract manipulation. This first-of-its-kind platform will innovate across the entire industry, allowing anyone to interact with new or potentially compromisable projects without having to worry about a potential loss of funds.

Gearing Up for Launch

Since the announcement of this highly ambitious project, Insured Finance has had its nose to the grindstone, working on bringing decentralized risk coverage to all. Following a highly oversubscribed IDO, the development team has made huge strides since its inception, and is now preparing for the launch of the platform’s testnet. With this release, platform users will be able to begin experimenting directly with on network, testing its capabilities to make sure it can smoothly provide its promised services when Insured Finance launches its mainnet.

On this highly usable blockchain-agnostic network, Insured Finance provides an intuitive and easily navigable dashboard for its users to begin their insurance journey. Since these offerings will most likely be very highly sought after, Insured Finance has made its dashboard as user-friendly as possible, eliminating technical barriers that could scare away non-technical users. The dashboard will initially offer two opportunities for users to capitalize on, taking out coverage and providing liquidity, with more features planned down the pipeline.

Since Insured Finance will mirror the traditional insurance industry’s capabilities, it will provide its users the option to facilitate both ends of the insurance transaction. The first sector, called ‘My cover”, enables any user to take out insurance coverage against an exchange hack, rug pull, stablecoin decoupling, or smart contract vulnerability, with the dashboard presenting the type of asset the user took coverage out on and the total value of the coverage in case the event occurs.

An excerpt from a test version of the application showing a screen from “My Cover”

 

The second section is labeled “My liquidity’ and allows users to provide risk coverage to others. This segment shows the user the amount of the value they have staked on the platform to actively provide coverage and the percentage yield they receive by providing this risk coverage liquidity. In the case of a triggered risk coverage event, the platform can instantaneously pay out insurance claims once validated since the coverage liquidity is always staked on the network.

An excerpt from a test version of the application showing a screen from “My Liquidity”

Providing Value Via a New Industry Sector

The launch of the Insured Finance platform will be one of the first of its kind, allowing anyone to easily and safely navigate the speculative and novel aspects of the cryptocurrency market without fear of losing their hard-earned value. There are so many new and interesting projects in the distributed ledger market, but since it is still highly unregulated, there is a propensity for fraud. Insured Finance ushers in a new era where users can interact with any application without the threat of substantiated loss. This powerful new tool is sure to change users’ outlooks and interactions within the space, providing a safety net for anyone who requires one.

Meet the Projects Your Future Self Regrets Ignoring

We’ve all done it. We’ve let incredible opportunities pass us by because we were too busy, too tired, or simply not attentive enough to take them up.

What we would give for a chance to turn back the clock to scoop up some of today’s biggest projects at an earlier stage in their development. The Ethereums, Cardanos, and Polkadots of yesteryear.

But until we work out how to build a functional time machine, the best we can do is look at some of today’s projects with as yet untapped upside potential to potentially make up for lost ground.

Metaverse

Every year or so, a blockchain platform comes along with the potential to shake up the cryptocurrency industry as we know it. Metaverse is one of these platforms.

It’s designed to provide a powerful smart-contract capable backbone for decentralized smart properties and applications.

Built on the incredibly powerful Substrate framework, Metaverse is set to solve some of the major frictions that come with using blockchain platforms today; including high transaction fees, latency, and cross-chain compatibility. Instead, it offers powerful smart contracts that operate at just a fraction of the cost of competing platforms thanks to its hybrid consensus architecture — while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

This will help break down barriers for both users and developers, who have struggled with congestion issues and a lack of cross-chain support on other blockchains for close to a year.

Beyond this, Metaverse’s smart assets capabilities might be set to kick up a storm. Digital assets (smart assets) on Metaverse are somewhat similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens — albeit far more capable since they can represent practically anything, including physical assets, derivatives, tokens from other blockchains, and more.

 

The native token of Metaverse’s new blockchain is known simple as Entropy (ETP). Just like Ethereum’s ‘Gas’, ETP is used for incentivizing miners, securing the blockchain, and paying for transaction execution fees. But here’s where it gets interesting; ETP can also be used for creating digital assets and digital identities.

Metaverse is currently slated to fully deploy its Hyperspace mainnet in the coming weeks, bringing with it the mainnet version of the ETP token. With this, Metaverse will become a force to be reckoned with.

Convergence

Right now, the digital asset landscape is largely comprised of cryptocurrencies with no direct connection to the real world. Practically all cryptocurrencies exist as isolated digital elements that represent units of intangible value — whether that be a general store of value like Bitcoin or utility value as with the numerous utility tokens.

But that might soon be about to change with the advent of Convergence; a platform that looks set to unlock the liquidity and accessibility of tokenized securities.

Through the Convergence protocol, practically anything can be wrapped up and traded as a ‘Wrapped Security Tokens’ or WSTs — such as pre-IPO shares or real estate — on the Convergence Automated Market Maker (AMM) platform.

convergence

Image: Convergence

It’s like the Uniswap for WSTs.

Since these are wrapped tokens and not actual securities, these will be accessible to anybody (not just accredited investors), helping to blend the $100 trillion securities market with the burgeoning world of decentralized finance. For the first time, users will be able to stake their WSTs as collateral on the powerful convergence open lending protocol, unlocking the liquidity of potentially previously illiquid asset classes.

Just last month, Convergence secured $2 million in a funding round led by South Korean crypto fund #Hashed — and received strategic investments from prominent funds including the likes of Alameda Research, DuckDAO, and Genesis Block Ventures.

The platform is currently in its early stages of development and is set to conduct its final raise via a Polkastarter IDO, following which the native utility token ($CONV) will launch.

There is currently no fixed date for the platform launch.

My Neighbor Alice

The intersection of blockchain and gaming has long been argued to be one of the most promising routes to achieving mass adoption.

In the last three years, there have been several somewhat successful attempts at achieving this; ranging from the massively popular 2017 hit CryptoKitties to Decentraland — a game that merged virtual reality, with a clever mechanic surrounding unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

But now, there’s a game on the horizon that looks set to really appeal to a mainstream audience: My Neighbor Alice — a multiplayer builder game that centers around decorating unique plots of land with a range of houses, animals, and more — much like Animal Crossing.

 

The game is unique in that the in-game currency ‘ALICE’ is also represented as an ERC-20 token — giving it real-world value. The ALICE token can be used to purchase land and the massive variety of other NFTs used in the game via the My Neighbor Alice marketplace.

My Neighbor Alice introduces the concept of NFT lending, which allows users to generate a yield from any idle NFTs (including land, cosmetics, and characters) safely through a smart contract.

The ALICE token recently launched in the Binance Innovation Zone and became the 18th project listed as a Binance Launchpool — allowing users to stake their Binance Coin (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), and Chromia (CHR) to earn tokens.

And here’s the kicker. My Neighbor Alice will be launching as an early access Steam title in July — potentially bringing crypto and NFTs to its 120 million active users.

 

IQONIQ FanEcosystem’s IQQ Lists on Bittrex Global

In a huge leap forward for sports and entertainment, the IQONIQ FanEcosystem announced the listing of its IQQ Token on the well-renowned cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex Global, this week.

The token was listed, with IQQ/USDT and IQQ/BTC trading pairs becoming available from 4pm CET on Thursday 18th March.

As a pure utility, the new IQQ Token will be an important part of the wider IQONIQ family, which sets this new token apart. It will among other things, allow its holders to accelerate their benefits and incentives within the IQONIQ app, a revolutionary new fan engagement platform that is set to launch later in 2021.

How the two IQONIQ business will supercharge the market

Established as separate business entities to ensure the best possible solution is provided to both IQQ holders and app users and partners, the app already boasts an impressive list of over 100 global sports property partners across F1, Formula E, football, rugby, cricket, and many more, with a further 200 partner discussion ongoing. The IQQ token will allow holders to access exclusive content, merchandise, ticket shops, memorabilia, prizes, AR, and OTT platforms, to name a few, through either granting exclusive access to certain in-app elements, or by supercharging the in-app Loyalty Points rewarded to fans for their loyalty and engagement.

Speaking about the listing, IQONIQ CEO Kazim Atilla said the following:

“We’re delighted to have reached this milestone for not just IQONIQ, but for the industry as a whole. The IQQ Token will revolutionize the ways people are rewarded for their loyalty when used within the IQONIQ App which is set to launch this year. We already have a huge list of incredible partnerships with some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment today, and listing on Bittrex Global provides us with the perfect platform to make IQQ Tokens available for everyone.”

What’s more, digital collectibles have been a central element to Atilla’s original vision for IQONIQ’s token and app businesses since 2017.

Recognized largely today as NFTs, these collectibles will not only be available to earn and trade through the app, but can also be minted, opening up a world of potential opportunities, and showing yet another way in which the IQONIQ app and the IQQ Token have very bright futures ahead.

All this is of course made possible by utilizing blockchain, which apart from offering transparency also ensures reliability of the network by reducing dependency on a single server. The blockchain which will be used by IQONIQ, will have the capability of executing thousands of transactions per second, meaning it will be well-positioned to handle the increased demand of future sports and entertainment markets.

How IQONIQ aims to change sports and entertainment

iqoniq

Burdened by a multitude of social platforms, ticket portals, online stores, and content offerings that often fail to reward fan loyalty, the IQONIQ app addresses the issues faced by many organizations and will deliver value back to the whole sports and entertainment ecosystem; from rights holders, idols, and brands to the fans themselves. When IQQ holders use their tokens to accelerate their benefits in-app, the world of possibilities is truly endless.

By bringing all the modern-day features of fandom under one roof, combined with the vast array of partners it already has, the IQONIQ app will be a global leading, all-encompassing, and truly engaging fan experience platform.

The listing of IQQ on Bittrex Global, with more exchanges planned to launch later this month, will help IQONIQ expand its community by becoming more accessible to investors and fans from across the world. Those interested in becoming part of the community and enjoying an immersive fan experience can visit Bittrex Global now to trade IQQ.

 

The IQQ Tokens are issued and marketed by IQONIQ FanEcosystem OU, an independent entity from IQONIQ Group SARL, which is the owner of the forthcoming revolutionary fan engagement app.

 

 

Interview: Gambla’s Erik King on Crypto Payment Providers for Online Casinos

Gambla.com is a popular gambling resource platform that reviews and lists both crypto as well as conventional online casinos.  The platform has recently embarked on a green initiative, contributing towards the reforestation of Amazon rainforests. Recently, we interacted with Erik King — Editor in Chief of Gambla.com and asked him few questions about the trends he has observed in the online casino space and their much-celebrated Gambla Green Gambling Initiative.

NewsBTC:  Gambla has become known as a reliable online gambling guide. Can you please tell us more about what you do and how you do it?
Erik King (EK): We provide guidance to players all over the world on how they can play gambling products online in the easiest way possible while contributing to charity at the same time.

NewsBTC: What are the different criteria on which gambling platforms are evaluated?
EK: The new casinos in New Zealand we compare at Gambla.com are all given an average score based on many factors such as ease of use, bonus & bonus conditions, and design.

NewsBTC: What are the recent trends you have witnessed in the online gambling space?
EK: The most obvious new trend is that many gambling operators are choosing to go with cryptocurrencies as payment solutions. We think that is a great idea as the crypto market is maturing more each day!

NewsBTC:  What are your thoughts on the use of cryptocurrencies in online gambling?
EK: At Gambla we really love this development, it is making it easier for more players in the world to participate in online games and making it easier for gambling operators to provide an easy reliable payment solution.

NewsBTC: How do crypto casinos compare with conventional online casinos?
EK: The product difference is not big, it’s simply a different currency that you play with instead of fiat money. Some casinos even offer to exchange your BTC to fiat money when you play with it if you prefer that.

NewsBTC: Can you please shed some light on various crypto payment providers for online casinos?
EK: Most casinos have their own payment solution that simply lets you deposit your BTC to the casino’s BTC wallet and then they divide it out to your account.

NewsBTC: Which of these crypto payment providers you think are the best fit for online gambling services?
EK: I think that any BTC wallet works perfectly with any of the new bitcoin casinos that we compare, as that is all that is needed. I would rather go for our top-listed casinos for the best and fastest deposits and withdrawals.

NewsBTC: Tell us more about the Gambla Green Gambling Initiative
EK: Basically, when you try a new casino with us, we will collect that information and plant a tree in the Amazon rainforest. That is, every time you try a new casino for the first time, the rainforest will get a new tree.

NewsBTC: Can you please quantify the total contributions made by Gambla Green Gambling initiative so far?
EK: As Gambla is a new website, we have so far donated a thousand trees already. We did this before we got to a thousand casino referrals as a showing of our intentions.

NewsBTC: What is the future for Gambla?
EK: Our future includes that we can offer our comparison services all over the world.

 

Image by 5598375 from Pixabay

OKExChain Partners with Cosmostation to Enable Secure Staking

OKExChain, the world’s first trading chain created by renowned crypto derivatives exchange and trading platform OKEx has partnered with Cosmostation to provide a secure staking environment to its community. The latest partnership is among many OKExChain has entered as the ecosystem continues to register rapid growth.

The expansion of OKExChain is supported by many partners including wallet providers, smart contract auditors, DeFi dApp developers and blockchain security specialists. Cosmostation is a popular enterprise-level validator provider and end-use application developer specializing in DeFi solutions. It can be seamlessly integrated with various proof-of-stake networks on Tendermint Engine and Cosmos SDK.

Announcing the partnership with Cosmostation, CEO of OKEx Jay Hao said, “We’re extremely impressed with the work the OKExChain team has done so far in building out its ecosystem to make it as robust and user-friendly as possible. We’ve seen several major partnerships already this quarter and are thrilled to welcome Cosmostation as a trusted node operator on OKExChain. With its dedicated focus on trading, OKExChain is cementing its role as a serious contender in the DeFi economy.”

In the OKExChain ecosystem, Cosmostation will be acting as a validator node to support the staking process. The integration comes as a welcome addition, enabling users to earn rewards by staking the native OKT token. In addition to being a node validator, Cosmostation will also provide various secure, user-friendly tools like non-custodial web and mobile wallets and the widely used Mintscan Block Explorer for Cosmos-SDK-based networks.

To provide a flawless experience for users looking to launch dApps and digital assets on OKExChain, the platform has onboarded Chains Guard, Beosin, Certik, PeckShield, KnownSec and Chaitin as partners since the beginning of this year, with more on its way in the coming days. As a result, OKExChain is on the verge of creating an industry-standard, highly scalable open-source blockchain with a fully audited codebase that is resistant to almost all security threats.

 

Why Did XCM Climb 1400% This Year?

Since 2021 exploded onto the scene and skyrocketed the crypto market to highs never seen before, there’s one exchange token that is really going for it – CoinMetro’s token (XCM.) The price has increased an eye-watering 1416% in just a couple of months. If we take a look at 10 of the top climbers from Cryptoslate’s listing of exchange tokens, XCM beats out the likes of Binance, Uniswap and Huobi.

So, how did CoinMetro, this giant-killing, trader-focused crypto exchange position itself to steal the lunch money of some of the very biggest names in the business?

Customers, Community and Confidence

CoinMetro founder and CEO, Kevin Murcko, points to great customer service (something that’s lamentably overlooked in the cryptosphere), investor and community confidence and having the features that crypto traders are looking for.

“CoinMetro is rather unique: we’re a regulated exchange providing multiple fiat on and off-ramps, even for US traders. CoinMetro supports USD; EUR, GBP and AUD. When it comes to crypto – XRP trading, in addition to the majors, we also focus on new tokens with great promise” he said.

“I’m also really proud of CoinMetro’s support team, who’ve helped us achieve a near-perfect 4.9 on Trustpilot. We genuinely care about our customers and I think this is reflected, not just in feedback, but also the overall confidence throughout the wider community, traders and investors alike”, he continued.

“Everyone has a crypto support horror story it seems. For me, the mission was to build a crypto exchange where our customer support team solves your problem and really cares about you. I can say with confidence that we’ve achieved that and we keep growing our team as we go along, making sure all our customers get a response and a solution in a timely manner.”

Success Beyond Price

Beyond XCM’s dramatic price increase, there’s obviously been a tremendous amount of work going on behind the scenes. Rolling out new products and doubling down on what’s working means CoinMetro enjoyed a growth rate increase of 620% year-on-year in 2020.

CoinMetro also successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign at the beginning of this year, to further supercharge their already stellar growth performance and adding a nice little bow to an already great 2020.

Pulling in customers faster than ever, and making consistent improvements to the product netted them a 52x increase in revenue between January 2020 and January 2021.

So the signs are clear: you put in the work, you build and support a great community around a great product, at the right time, and you enjoy success.

Who knew?

The Road Ahead for XCM

As all the transaction fees on the platform are tied to the CoinMetro token XCM. They have great plans ahead such as staking and many other DeFi plans in the works for 2021. There’s also huge support from their community and investors in going long for XCM. This may be some of the reasons why XCM, the CoinMetro token jumped from $0.04 to $0.72 ($0.49 at the time of writing) in just a space of a few months.

The biggest winner in the exchange token battle is clearly XCM – price is up 14x this year, comparatively, other exchange coins such as the BNB coin has also seen huge growth this year already, as have many other cryptos. BNB has risen in price over 7x this year. Huobi token’s growth between this year’s highs and lows has been over 3x. OKEx Chain however has reached a rather modest 50% increase this year.

CoinMetro has big plans ahead for 2021 both thanks to the growth of the company and the recent funding round. You can read more on their plans ahead this year in the CoinMetro Q1 2021 Roadmap. There will be a lot of new high-quality, hand-picked tokens listed on CoinMetro this year. In addition to this, they are also hinting about further licensing and entering the B2B space into Q4.

2021 seems to truly be the year of CoinMetro.