Fetching price data into a Solidity smart contract is a common requirement of DeFi applications. To get the current price of Ethereum, Bitcoin, or other cryptocurrencies in Solidity, you can either:

In this technical tutorial, we’ll walk through both approaches and share code examples to help you build, deploy, and test your smart contract. First, let’s quickly cover the importance of data quality and end-to-end decentralization when feeding external inputs into your smart contracts.

This year has seen an explosive growth in DeFi protocols, with the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi skyrocketing from $680M in January to now over $14B. These DeFi protocols rely on outside price data as their data source, because a blockchain cannot natively access external data. In addition to this, these applications need to provide data quality guarantees to protect their applications from exploits such as price oracle attacks.

Chainlink Price Feeds mitigate the risk of these attacks by providing aggregated data from various high quality data providers, fed on-chain by decentralized oracles on the Chainlink Network. Chainlink’s decentralized oracle mechanism ensures the final price values reflect broad market coverage, meaning the final price is determined after aggregating a diverse set of prices across the entire market, rather than just a small subset, while also taking into account other aspects such as volume and liquidity.

Now that we understand the need for accurate and reliable price data in Solidity smart contracts and the important role that Chainlink Price Feed oracles play, we’ll go through an example of using a Chainlink Price Feed to obtain the latest price of Ethereum in a Solidity smart contract. The steps below also apply to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Chainlink Price Feeds use multiple high quality data inputs and aggregate them through a decentralized network of Chainlink oracles that feed price data into reference contracts, where the results are again aggregated in an Aggregator Smart Contract as the latest, trusted answer. By using multiple sources of data aggregated by multiple nodes, we can ensure our price data is of the highest quality, and not subject to exploits or price oracle attacks.

The first step is to obtain testnet ETH to use as gas in your smart contract. Once you have some ETH, the easiest way to start building a smart contract that uses Chainlink Price Feeds is to begin with the standard Price Consumer contract. This is a basic contract for initiating requests to Chainlink Price Feeds. For the purposes of this demo we will use the ETH/USD Price Feed already defined in the standard Price Consumer contract, but we’ll walk through each section of code so you understand how it works.

First, we can see the AggregatorV3Interface contract interface was imported. This allows our smart contract to reference the on-chain Price Feeds on the Kovan testnet. An instance of it is then created in a local variable.

Next, we can see a Price Feed reference contract was initialized in our constructor. The ETH/USD Price Feed reference contract on the Kovan Testnet is deployed at the address 0x9326BFA02ADD2366b30bacB125260Af641031331.

We can then see a function has been defined to obtain the latest price from the Price Feed Aggregator contract that was instantiated in the constructor above. To do this, a new function was defined that calls the latestRoundData function from the Aggregator contract. This is the function that returns the current state of the Aggregator contract, and in this case we are taking the current price and returning it in our consuming function.

Now we are ready to deploy and test our contract. Compile the contract in Remix, then on the deployment tab, change the environment to “Injected Web3”, and ensure the wallet address below is the one in your MetaMask wallet that contains some ETH obtained earlier, press the deploy button, and follow the steps. The end result is you have your smart contract deployed to the Kovan testnet. You should take note of the deployed contract address via the transaction output in the Remix console.

Once deployed, we simply need to execute the “getLatestPrice” function. The result should be that the function returns the latest price from the ETH/USD Aggregator contract, which can then be used on-chain in our smart contract. Take note we didn’t need to send any LINK for the request, and we didn’t even use any ETH either, the transaction is a pure read of the data in the on-chain ETH-USD Aggregator contract.

Chainlink Price Feeds offer a vast array of price data for top DeFi price pairs. If you need to get price data into your Solidity smart contract for an asset that isn’t covered by an existing price feed, such as the price of a particular stock, you can customize Chainlink oracles to call any external API.

The easiest way to get external price data using Chainlink oracles is to begin with a standard Chainlink APIConsumer contract. This is a standardized contract for initiating requests for external data via a Chainlink oracle.

Once you have created an APIConsumer contract, you can then find the API that you want to obtain price data from. For example, you can use the Alpha Vantage API to find out the current price of IBM stock.

Once you have your API endpoint, you simply need to set the correct parameters in your contract and send the request off to a Chainlink oracle. More information on this and how the standard APIConsumer contract is used can be found in the Chainlink documentation.

Keep in mind, you’ll want to decentralize this method when you go to production, or get this specific data on a price feed itself.

Chainlink Price Feeds provide a reliable way to get high quality Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrency price data into Solidity smart contracts. In addition to this, Chainlink’s oracle framework provides the flexibility to quickly and easily fetch other price data for stocks, commodities, and other assets.

If you’re a developer and want to quickly get your application connected to Chainlink Price Reference Data, visit the developer documentation and join the technical discussion in Discord.

Website |  Twitter | Reddit | YouTube | Telegram | Events | GitHub | Price Feeds | DeFi

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Telegram bots are accounts operated by software that serve as handy tools for many tasks. This article will go through what Telegram bots are, how to use them, and their development process in Python. We will also build a Telegram bot to track cryptocurrencies and send regular updates on prices to better understand them.

Telegram is a trendy social media platform for messaging and privacy.

Its core functionalities include:

You can learn more about Telegram here.

Telegram bots are accounts that are operated by software.

They can do many things, including:

@GroupButler_bot is a Telegram bot for managing Telegram groups.

Cryptocurrencies are digital forms of currencies that exist in the cyber world. They are peer-to-peer and built upon blockchain technology, a distributed and decentralized ledger with no central authority. Popular cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Doge, and Ripple.

Cryptocurrencies are volatile, so their prices change every second. There are also many cryptocurrencies in existence, and it can be troublesome to keep track of every one. A cryptocurrency tracker aggregates multiple coins’ prices in a single place and updates itself as their prices change.

This article will build a cryptocurrency tracker by consuming data provided by CryptoCompare API using Python.

First, we need to install the Requests library, which extends Python programs’ functionality by providing functions that allow them to make HTTP requests. Here, we will be using it to communicate with the CryptoCompare API.

In the terminal, type:

Second, we need to write the code responsible for sending requests to CryptoCompare to fetch the current prices of currencies we wish to track. CryptoCompare provides an endpoint that returns the data we require so that we will be consuming that.

Create a file named tracker.py and save the following code in it:

This is the expected output from the code above when executed:

Search for @botfather on Telegram and launch the bot. BotFather is a bot that helps us create and manage Telegram bot interfaces.

To create a new bot with BotFather. First, use the /newbot command, that will trigger BotFather to ask you for the details of the bot you want to create.

BotFather will give you the HTTP token after you have supplied the name and username for your bot. The token is used to build functionality for your bot via the Telegram API.

First, we will be installing a couple of Python libraries that will allow us to easily interact with the Telegram API. You can also refer to Telegram API documentation if you want to explore the full functionality of Telegram bots here.

Second, we need to write another Python script that will connect to the Telegram API and listen to messages sent to our bot then respond to them.

Create a file named bot.py and save the code below in it:

In the code above, we first used the updater class from the Telegram library to listen to new messages being sent to our bot and then a message handler with the dispatcher class.

Then, we created a command handler and assigned it to our dispatcher. A command handler is a block of code called when a bot user triggers a certain command.

Then, we used the send_message method provided by the Telegram library to send messages to our users when they expect a response. The method takes in a parameter called chat_id that is uniquely assigned to every Telegram user along with the message we want to send.

This is the expected response from our Telegram bot when the bot.py script is executed, and a message is sent to the bot (don’t forget to replace the placeholder with your API token):

Now we have a script that tracks cryptocurrency prices and a Telegram bot that responds to messages sent to it. Let us build a Telegram bot that will fetch cryptocurrency data from CryptoCompare and send it to users.

We need to update our bot.py file with the following code:

This is the expected response from our Telegram bot when the bot.py script is executed, and a message is sent to the bot:

In this article, we learned what Telegram bots are and built our first Telegram bot. We also built a script to track cryptocurrency prices and integrated it into a Telegram bot to build a handy tool for us.

Looking to develop the Telegram bot further, improve the design or check out example code? Check out the GitHub Repo.

You can also access the bot built in this article here. I hope you find this tutorial on building telegram bots useful.

Peer Review Contributions by: Lalithnarayan C

Solomon is a Software Developer building amazing things with Python, Technical Writer, Auth0 and AngelHack Ambassador.

Microsoft has launched the first version of its layer-2 decentralized identity solution (DID) ION on the top of Bitcoin mainnet that is anticipated to revolutionize online identities.

According to an announcement made on Thursday, March 25, Microsoft’s Decentralized Identity team has launched the ION Decentralized Identifier (DID) network on the Bitcoin mainnet that is a layer-2 technology similar to Lightning Network except that instead of focusing on payments, it uses Bitcoin’s blockchain to create digital IDs for authenticating identity online.

According to the announcement, Microsoft decentralized Identity team Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) that also includes Consensys, began working on the project four years ago to give individuals, organizations, and others control over digital exchanges, apps, and services with online Decentralized identities (DID). Other contributors to the project include Gemini, BitPay, Cloudflare, Transmute, and others.

In June of 2020, Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) launched the Beta version of ION. After the mainnet launch, individuals and businesses can easily create their decentralized identities to be used online. ION V1 is anticipated to unlock a web where users no longer have to fumble with passwords, emails, and cell phones for verification.

According to DIF, ION is a Layer 2 open, permissionless network based on the purely deterministic Sidetree protocol, which requires no special tokens, trusted validators, or additional consensus mechanisms as the network is connected to Bitcoin with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).

The announcement reads:

According to the team, ION is highly scalable as ION nodes can process up to 10,000 ID requests in a single transaction. Each transaction is encoded with a hash that allows ION nodes to categorize, store, process, and fetch the transactions associated with a specific DID.

Giving the reason to choose Bitcoin, ION, in FAQs, stated:

Froge has announced its own NFT platform that will make this coin the highlight in the crypto-world. NFTs, Non-fungible tokens, are one of the most well-known cryptocurrency phenomena in the mainstream.

Froge Coin launched 2 weeks ago and already has reached more than $ 2,000,000 market capitalization. The coin has witnessed a +1800% increase in price value with positive feedback from the traders and the general public. Add that to their new NFT platform; this coin is set to rock the whole cryptocurrency world.

window.coinzilla_display = window.coinzilla_display || []; var c_display_preferences = {}; c_display_preferences.zone = "325fe079eb73cc7840"; c_display_preferences.width = "300"; c_display_preferences.height = "250"; coinzilla_display.push(c_display_preferences);

The Froge interface is designed so that even a newbie in the crypto-world will understand how it works. More importantly, the coin ensures you can leverage on the swings in the market, thereby growing your cryptocurrency Investment in a short time.

Froge coin is backed up by a professional and experienced tech team ready to ensure this crypto’s success. That means this platform is designed to take on the world with a perfect and capable support system. Froge still has a lot in stock for its users and will keep making necessary adjustments to improve user experiences.

NFTs are increasingly becoming popular and with good reason. A report done by CNBC says that the NFTs are fetching huge prices in the market. And that’s not all! These items create a culture of gaming on cryptos and also purchase and sell assets.

We might be witnessing a change in the cryptocurrency market dynamic with the adoption of NFTs. And with the launch of the NFT platform on Froge will increase the fuss around these assets. Froge is a recently launched blockchain system that’s taken the crypto-world by storm.

That’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you shouldn’t miss out on. So, what are you waiting for? Hop onto this new promising 2021 coin while it’s still at its initial prices.

Froge Coin is only available at froge.org.

Website: froge.org

Twitter: twitter.com/frogetoshi

Telegram: t.me/frogethecoin

Reddit: reddit.com/r/Frogetoshi

Discord: discord.gg/NZZjxetZBt

The founders of a new online auction house see cementing financial trends of cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, as having a big place in the future of luxury consumption.

With the launch of Duchamps.io, cofounders Julien Lafon, 24, and Will Holley, 27, are looking to bring a new level of service and ease when buying large-ticket items and collectibles via cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin or Ethereum. The platform’s first lot, going up this weekend, is a rare boxed and never opened Pokémon deck from 1999, expected to fetch at least $50,000. 

Although the purchases on Duchamps, transacted with blockchain-backed Ethereum, will result in a buyer actually owning a physical item (unlike the recent $69 million Christie’s sale of a digital-only Beeple artwork), the site’s issuance of an NFT in addition to the physical item gives any buyer new leeway in what they do with the item after they make a purchase. The auction platform is launching in partnership with OpenSea.io, an NFT marketplace.

While still volatile, the entire cryptocurrency market was valued in February at more than $1 trillion and NFTs mainly serve as a way to ensure ownership of a digital good purchased through the currency. An NFT is not interchangeable and is backed by blockchain, essentially a digital history record. 

“We see this as the first step in building out a system where people can easily buy and sell goods online [with cryptocurrency],” Lafon said. “With this, they can resell the NFT or they can show it off in an online portfolio. That’s one of the big things we’re seeing in these cultural communities — in some the physical good carries weight, in others it’s just the NFT.”

But why bother with cryptocurrency at all when shopping for pricy items or collectibles? Lafon and Holley cite speed and ease of use as the appeal for the luxury consumer who wants to spend millions on an artwork or even a house.

“You can send $10 million worth of Bitcoin for a big purchase and it’s instantaneous,” Lafon said. “You don’t have to go through a clearing house or verification services.”

Beyond that, Holley noted the overall trend of “people starting to put a price tag on pop culture items” like tweets and digital art, making crypto “the best way to do something like that.”  

Operating an auction house that transacts only in cryptocurrency will also create a pathway for a potential new luxury or big-ticket consumer: the crypto “whale” who is sitting on massive amounts of digital wealth. One such Whale, known only by the handle Metakovan, is who spent $69 million this month on the Beeple, an artist with the given name Mike Winkelmann.

“It’s a very insular world, the whales,” said Holley, who previously worked analyzing hammer prices for the likes of Christie’s and Sotheby’s. “They sat on their currency for so long, while everyone else started to take notice, but there are only so many things you can buy with it. So this is one thing we’re offering with the platform, an off-ramp for those people to transition some of their wealth.”

Duchamps is operating similar to a traditional auction house in that it’s offering “white glove” service to buyers. The platform authenticates goods and will manage a buyer’s portfolio if they wish. It’s also offering a new level of security, as NFTs are a new target of hacking and online theft.

“It’s been a pretty big problem because a lot of this is so technical,” Lafon said.

But as Duchamps is trading in physical goods, that gives buyers an added level of security, too.

“With a traditional NFT, the value is derived from the NFT itself,” Holley said. “With us, the value is derived from the product — even if a buyer stores the NFT title to the asset, the buyer has the physical good, or we do if we’re managing it for them.”

Not all bitcoins are created equal in the eyes of institutional investors, according to “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary.

Institutions want greater transparency about where and how bitcoin is mined, raising the prospect that only some of the supply will end up in Wall Street custody, O’Leary said Monday on CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover.”

Also known as “Mr Wonderful,” O’Leary has changed his mind about bitcoin as an asset class, now weighting BTC at 3% of his personal portfolio. But he said he doesn’t want to buy bitcoin mined in a way that causes energy waste and environmental damage. 

“I want to make sure my coin is mined efficiently,” he said, comparing dirty bitcoin to “blood diamonds” that finance unsavory activities in the developing world. Such desire among investors could preclude buying bitcoin mined in China, for instance, which is known for powering its mining with coal-derived electricity (though also hydroelectric plants during the rainy season).

O’Leary’s comments suggest the recent influx of traditional investors to the bitcoin market could revive an old debate, though for new reasons.

For years, there has been talk of newly mined, “virgin” bitcoins fetching a premium over units that have passed through multiple wallets. Supposedly, buyers wanted to avoid any taint from coins that may have been used in illicit darknet marketplaces.

If true, this would mean bitcoin is not truly fungible, or interchangeable, meaning it lacks one of the fundamental properties of money. However, evidence of virgin bitcoin premium has been largely anecdotal, and many market participants have called the idea dubious. 

If O’Leary is right, however, Wall Street’s environmental conscience – or at least, its desire to project one – could lead to a new differentiation between supposedly fungible coins.

The founder of a mutual fund company, a venture capital firm and an exchange-traded fund (ETF), O’Leary noted that many institutions have two committees deciding on asset allocations these days: an investment committee and a sustainability committee. 

Bitcoin needs to satisfy stakeholders on both before companies are going to jump in, he argued.

“I don’t think the community realizes how big this issue is going to become,” he said. 

O’Leary said he plans to be active in the mining space, partnering with miners that want to reduce their carbon footprint. 

He predicted that some institutions may want to mine their own BTC so as to assure provenance for their clients.

According to O’Leary, only 10% of people at financial institutions who want to invest in the premier cryptocurrency have done so yet, suggesting big unmet demand and rising future prices. 

Read more: The Frustrating, Maddening, All-Consuming Bitcoin Energy Debate

The founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson in a recent interview with Bloomberg expressed the ambitious developments and prospects for the platform. Hoskinson revealed that over 100 companies are in the process of moving from Ethereum to Cardano.

Moving further, he speaks of his aspiration for the Defi platform. He was of the opinion that his blockchain has the potential to outperform the market leader Ethereum

“You can take your Defi and you can run it on my system for 1/100 to 1/1000 of the cost” 

Hoskinson in the interview is seen to be assertive of the largest Dex Uniswap, and popular DApp cryptokitties equating them to pet rocks and beanie babies.

“I don’t care about Uniswap cryptokitties and other things. It’s a bubble and it comes and it goes like pet rocks and beanie babies”.

Hoskinson views a wide range of possibilities than just beating Ethereum. He believes his Defi platform could run whole nations on the blockchain.

There have been conversations in the market for the possible shift to the Cardano platform by various firms. In a recent development, there was news of Singularity NET, the decentralized marketplace for AI algorithms, the social humanoid robot Sophia was ‘seriously discussing’ shifting to Cardano.

Yet, all is not rosy for the platform. Despite surging high and achieving to become the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, there have been concerns of the blockchain being just vapourware.

Recently CoinMetrics Nick Carter pointed out that the blockchain doesn’t have a single popular application on it.

“I am not aware of a single popular application deployed on Cardano, nor have I seen any enthusiasm for the platform among developers”.

Crypto influencer and analyst Lark Davis has brought attention to an important question of which is a better smart contracts platform, Ethereum or Cardano. Which one to place your bets on for the future.

In his latest Youtube video, he gives a complete analysis of both the platform’s pros, cons, and performance in the foreseeable future and it holds for its users.

 Etheruem has the largest network effect and is considered the birthplace of decentralized applications.it hosts a maximum of DApps. They are into everything from NFT art, derivates, stable coins, real estate, etc. it is partnered with some giants like Reddit, Microsoft, and Ernst and Young.

On the other hand, Cardano has a decent network effect too, but it does not have the scale of Dapps that Ethereum has, although it has been able to establish some great partnerships, for example, the Govt of Ethiopia and companies like price water house cooper.

The only downside to Ethereum is it’s slow and expensive. If Cardano can achieve rapid functionality when its smart contracts go live and overtake Ethereum and flip all its users to their platform, it’s a dream far-fetched to catch up with Ethereum in the race. 

Hence for the foreseeable future, Ethereum will still hold priority and be a sane bet to make.

Senior Product Manager for Decentralized Identity at Microsoft, Daniel Buchner, has confirmed the release of ION. Deployed on the Bitcoin mainnet, this solution is a permissionless public network for Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs).

Implemented on Bitcoin’s blockchain, it operates as a second-layer solution to support a DIDs/DPKI (Decentralized Public Key Infrastructure) at scale, according to its Github repository.

This project began four years ago, its purpose is to give individuals, organizations and others control over digital exchanges with DIDs. The ION uses a Sidetree protocol to anchor DID/DPKI transactions interacting on the network.

Each transaction is encoded with a hash that allows ION nodes to categorize, store, process, and fetch the transactions associated with a specific DID. Buchner stated in the official release:

We are excited to share that v1 of ION is complete and has been launched on Bitcoin mainnet. We have deployed an ION node to our production infrastructure and are working together with other companies and organizations to do so as well. ION does not rely on centralized entities, trusted validators, or special protocol tokens – ION answers to no one but you, the community. Because ION is an open, permissionless system, anyone can run an ION node, in fact the more nodes in operation, the stronger the network becomes.

The ION network is connected to Bitcoin with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and does not require an additional consensus mechanism.  Its nodes can process “tens of thousands of transactions per second.” Interested users can start generating their DIDs without having to use BTC or run an ION node on their own.

In the project’s FAQ section, the ION team rates Bitcoin as the most secure blockchain on two metrics: production of a single, independent, immutable record with no way to reverse it; inexpensive cost of attacking the system. Microsoft’s ION team stated:

Bitcoin is so far beyond all other options, it isn’t even close – Bitcoin is the most secure option by an absurdly large margin.

In terms of cost, Buchner said the solution’s protocol “It’s skewed toward bandwidth and storage.” Thus, it can support 40 billion DIDs in 2 TB of memory space with a lightweight configuration for the nodes. Buchner said the following via his Twitter handle:

This is the culmination of 10 years of work, beginning in 2011 when a few of us at Mozilla set aside some of our time to explore the core concepts of Decentralized Identity. Microsoft ultimately provided the opportunity to realize this dream, and for that I am eternally grateful.

MicroStrategy’s CEO Michael Saylor welcomed the announcement and predicted that similar second-layer solutions will be released more frequently on Bitcoin. Their use cases will be broad and applied in people’s daily lives.

— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) March 25, 2021

Bitcoin trades at $52,347 showing a slight recovery in the 1-hour chart with 1.5% gains. On the 24-hour chart, losses are at 5.6% following an 11.1% correction on the 7-day chart.

A new atomic-swap powered wallet, Liquality, just released a feature for users to spend bitcoin and other coins at online crypto merchants without having to manage addresses or QR codes.

Liquality is a browser extension wallet like Metamask, except instead of supporting only ether and its tokens, Liquality can hold bitcoin, ether, crypto dollars like DAI, USDT, USDC and UNI, and now “bitcoin DeFi” tokens from the RSK network. 

The ConsenSys-backed wallet launched last autumn and allows users to swap coins in their wallet, thanks to an old trick known as “on-chain atomic swaps.” These swaps use complex cryptography to trade assets from different blockchains between two or more parties without a user having to relinquish their keys to a counterparty.

For Liquality, this means its users can trade between bitcoin and ether (or crypto dollars like USDC) right on the wallet.

“Our goal has always been to give people secure and easy tools to interact with this new digital economy,” the wallet’s marketing director, Alex Min, told CoinDesk.

With this update, the wallet now also provides “one-click” transactions with popular bitcoin-accepting gift-card vendor Bitrefill and payment portal OpenNode, among others. When checking out using these services, the wallet automatically fetches the receiving address for the user.

The one-click pay feature works with any wallet that has integrated URI schemes for bitcoin, Min told CoinDesk. This includes popular open-source processor BTCPay Server, as well.

“We believe this upcoming release will not only improve the in-browser bitcoin experience for users, merchants and app developers (most of whom are still transacting on-chain), but also help the nascent Bitcoin web app ecosystem grow with an easy-to-use-and-develop-with, in-browser hot wallet,” Min said.

Liquality currently acts as the counterparty for the wallet’s swaps. Min told CoinDesk the wallet processed $4 million in swap volume in March from 4,000 active weekly users. 

When asked if Liquality will look to adding Lightning Network support in the future, Min said it’s not high up on the wallet’s roadmap.

In lieu of Lightning, Liquality recently integrated with RSK, a Bitcoin sidechain built by IOV Labs, and supports the dollar on chain (DOC) crypto dollar, a dollar-pegged coin which can be used on the Sovryn decentralized lending market built on RSK.

These networks offer cheaper, faster transactions than Bitcoin’s primary network using special trade-offs and tricks; Lightning is a tech stack built on top of bitcoin that is trustless and non custodial, while RSK is an independent network run by a federation of trusted counterparties.

Kevin O’Leary appeared on CoinDesk TV yesterday to deliver a bombshell: Before Wall Street goes all-in on bitcoin, he said, it needs to know how BTC is being mined.

The “Shark Tank” star and chairman of O’Shares ETFs said institutions want to invest in BTC but they have environmental issues. They’re leery, as it were, of operations driven by coal or other climate-unfriendly technology. And they want transparency around origin.

O’Leary even compared some BTC to “blood diamonds,” suggesting that miners who want to be on the right side of history need to become more efficient. 

This raises a lot of big questions, including whether BTC can remain fungible, or whether we might see a split between provably “clean” coins and coins with uncertain provenance. 

The reactions on Twitter to O’Leary’s comments were furious. 

Commenters speculated O’Leary was trying to drive down the BTC price so Wall Street could buy more on the cheap. They accused him of hypocrisy. (Doesn’t Wall Street invest in gold and oil and other noxious stuff?) They scoffed, “Who cares about Wall Street?”

Others shrugged and said they’d heard it all before. 

And it is true that this is a new version of an old narrative. As my colleague Marc Hochstein wrote, “For years, there has been talk of newly mined, ‘virgin’ bitcoins fetching a premium over units that have passed through multiple wallets.” That alleged coin discrimination had to do with legal and regulatory rather than environmental concerns.

Meanwhile, the “bitcoin energy debate” has been one of crypto’s fiercest (which is saying something). 

On one side are people who complain (somewhat erroneously) that bitcoin’s energy consumption is the size of a small country and who can’t understand why a climate-threatened world needs energy-intensive peer-to-peer money. 

On the other, people say that 1) bitcoin’s mining is getting cleaner, 2) that fiat uses plenty of energy too, and 3) that, why don’t we ever talk about the energy consumption of, say, America’s wars and Christmas lights? 

To me, O’Leary’s comments point to two reckonings. 

One, as much as Bitcoiners want to dismiss the energy/environment debate, it’s not going away. There are simply too many people frightened about climate change to allow BTC a free pass on these questions. The community needs to account for its footprint the same way every industry (more or less) has to these days. That’s just modern business. 

And two, well, the energy debate actually doesn’t matter. It’s not important if you think the critics are wrong or hypocritical. It only matters that the people who matter on Wall Street take this seriously. 

At bottom, this is a question less about the environment and more about institutionalization. Large companies are bound by sustainability and ESG committees. They have stakeholders and rules and processes to follow. And, these days, environmental impact is a material liability. They need to prove they’re clean.

Bitcoiners may not like it. But “greener” bitcoin may be the price of admission to mainstream markets. This isn’t 2015 anymore.

Shutterstock cover by MicroOne

W hile games such as World of Warcraft originally blurred the line between in-game economy and real money, games on the blockchain take this to the next level. 

And for many, this innovation is earning them a real living.

The rise of competitive gaming has led to a new wave of professional gamers who earn a comfortable living from online tournaments and a loyal fan base. The phenomenon has been ongoing, but amidst global lockdowns, the “play-to-earn” trend has enjoyed even more traction. 

Crypto-based games are no different, says co-founder of Yield Guild Games , Gabby Dizon. He said: 

“At its core, YGG is a community of play-to-earn gamers. So you could think of it as a World of Warcraft guild, for example, but we operate across several games, and we also invest in yield-generating NFTs within those games and lend our in-game assets out to our player base.”

Users log into the guild’s discord group every day, play games, earn rewards, and exchange those for real money on platforms such as Uniswap. The most popular game is called Axie Infinity and features battles between the small Pok é mon-esque creatures called “Axies.”

Unlike traditional gaming, Axies are blockchain-based and unique. Just as Bitcoin ushered in scarce digital value, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain add value to art , music , and gaming . 

The battles pit different Axies against one another. Each creature comes with its own strengths and weaknesses that each player must be aware of to win. 

Registering to Axie Infinity is free, but to play the game, users will need at least three Axies. 

The creatures are not cheap, ranging from around $100 on Axie Infinity’s marketplace to the most expensive Axie ever at over $500,000. Still, users can quickly earn the initial investments back through regular gameplay. 

“Axie Infinity players can earn by battling, breeding, and trading NFT creatures called Axies. When you win an Axie battle, the reward is an in-game token called Small Love Potion or SLP for short. SLP is an important in-game token because it is required if you want to breed Axies. But if players are not in the business of breeding Axies, they can sell their SLP via a liquidity pool on a decentralized exchange such as Uniswap. Axie breeders buy the SLP so that they can breed more Axies to sell to other players,” explains Dizon.

A small love potion is worth around $0.06 at press time, and players can expect to win roughly ten of these when they win a game against another player. And in some parts of the world, enough wins is plenty to make a living.

Axie Infinity has become such an important social phenomenon in the Philippines. In the country where YGG started, there are now local solutions for buyers and sellers to exchange without Uniswap.

Through an organization like YGG, gamers can easily start playing by being loaned three Axies. In time, they return the original loan and then start earning money by selling in-game items. 

The combat in Axie Infinity is not all there is to the game. One of the most fascinating sides of Axie Infinity is not the combat but the breeding system of the Axies. Each Axie is stored in the Ethereum wallet of its owner. Provided the player holds enough small love potions, different Axies can breed together to create new ones.

These new Axies can be selected based on their combat skills, hence why certain Axies fetch incredible prices.

Axie Infinity is not the only game on the blockchain, though.

Players and investors have different options when it comes to investing that each come with their own advantages. One option is to invest in land in a certain game and develop it to create yield. Plots of land in popular virtual worlds or “metaverses” such as Decentraland can be bought and sold and developed to create profit.

Decentraland will soon host a virtual music festival for which users can already buy tickets on the blockchain.

Recently, YGG raised $1.3 million from VC firms such as Delphi Digital to continue investing in the games they love. They will use the fund to purchase various NFTs representing plots of virtual land and game assets. YGG not only wants to continue investing in Axie Infinity but also positions itself to be a mainstay in all games and metaverses on the blockchain.

Let’s find out some interesting crypto news for today.

Elon Musk has tweeted Tesla will now accept Bitcoin payments for the purchase of their cars. In his tweet, he stated that the firm is operating Bitcoin nodes directly and that Tesla is using only internal and open-source software for the same. The electric car company CEO said that Tesla would accumulate the BTC paid to them and will not convert it to fiat currency. Earlier this year, the company accumulated around $1.5 billion worth of digital assets as per an SEC filing. Initially, this option to buy Tesla through Bitcoin would only be available to U.S.-based customers. Additionally, this smashing news boosted the Bitcoin price for a short time as it jumped over 2% within few hours.

Filecoin announced the integration of Chainlink oracles to create advanced decentralized storage solutions for Web 3.0 developers. Moreover, Filecoin is an open-source decentralized storage network and provides data solutions. With this integration, Chainlink oracles allow smart contracts to utilize Filecoin’s storage capabilities. Further, Filecoin will get access to Chainlinks external adapters, which will help to connect Filecoin’s storage data with other smart contract ecosystems. This bi-directional communication would empower Web 3.0 developers with advanced features.

DAFI Protocol collaborated with Bridge Mutual to integrate synthetics for their staking rewards. Bridge Mutual insures smart contracts, exchanges, stablecoins, and other crypto and DeFi products. The synthetic token of Bridge Mutual is dBMI, which is pegged to the underlying BMI network. The native token of Bridge Mutual is BMI, which is used for on-chain governance and staking rewards. This integration motivates stakers by sharing rewards and incentivizing them to make decisions on claims. Further, this would expand network adoption and inspire users to hold tokens for a longer term, which will increase liquidity in the system.

DAO Maker partnered with BlockStart to create a more inclusive and sustainable blockchain ecosystem. BlockStart supports talented blockchain innovators, DLT startups, and developers by transforming their ideas into reality. DAO Maker helps startups with their funding framework and growth technologies while minimizing risk for investors. Its innovative Social Mining solutions support projects with community growth and managing their decentralized ecosystem. This collaboration will reinforce the blockchain ecosystem and help in the further growth of new startups. Additionally, SHO-incubated projects can participate in the BlockStart partnership program to implement solutions and to nurture the fintech startup industry.

Covalent partnered with Fantom to unite its indexing solution with the extremely scalable blockchain ecosystem. Moreover, Covalent provides complete transparency and visibility to assets across different blockchain networks through its APIs. With this coalition, developers can fetch Fantom’s blockchain data effortlessly by integrating Covalent’s indexing solution. Fantom is a fast, scalable, customizable, and secure smart contract platform, which makes it ideal for DeFi applications and real-world uses. Hence, this integration will provide enhanced Covalent API to boost the blockchain ecosystem scalability.

In the last bit of crypto news, we have Orion Protocol, who partnered with the decentralized DeFi and crypto ecosystem insurance marketplace, PolkaCover. This integration will provide security features to users for trading on any platform. This would attract more users and safeguard their funds against any kind of hacks, exploits, and rug pulls. Moreover, PolkaCover safeguards crypto, DeFi, and NFT asset users by offering various insurance products. Effectively, users’ funds are shielded by Orion, and if contracts encounter any unforeseen bug, then these contracts are designed to revert orders. Additionally, PolkaCover implements an API into Orion’s trading platform to supply real-time quotations to the Orion trading platform for all insurance-related products. This would help users to accept the quotation and enjoy risk-free trading through PolkaCover coverage.

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Grayscale Investments of New York announced on Wednesday the start of five new digital currency investment trusts, underscoring increased retail interest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The New York company now manages 14 cryptocurrency investment funds.

"Investor demand has never been higher, and every day we're seeing new entrants to what has surely become a bona fide asset class," Michael Sonnenshein, Grayscale's CEO, said in a statement. "Grayscale has long been the leader in creating novel pathways for investors to access the opportunities that digital currencies may offer, and this announcement carries on that tradition."

In a related action, New York investment bank Morgan Stanley said it would make Bitcoin investments available to select clients, CNBC reported. The new service will be available only to those who have had at least $2 million in a Morgan Stanley account for at least six months.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Cash Trust requires a minimum investment of $25,000.

Morgan Stanley, which holds about $4 trillion in client assets, didn't formally announce the move. CNBC said it learned of the action after it obtained an internal memo.

The investment bank said investing in Bitcoin is suitable only for those with an "aggressive risk tolerance."

Grayscale's newly launched trusts are: Basic Attention Token, Chainlink, Decentraland, Flipcoin and Livepeer.

Grayscale also offers single-asset investment trusts devoted to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Horizon, Litecoin, Stellar Lumens and Zcash. The Cigital Large Cap offers a way to invest in the top digital currencies by market capitalization.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust is the first digital currency investment registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It allows institutions and accredited individuals to buy and sell the trust's shares over-the-counter.

Grayscale Investments manages about $42.2 billion. It's a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which also owns media company CoinDesk.

Unsurprisingly, Dogecoin—a crypto started as a joke and valued at about a nickel —isn't included in Grayscale's lineup. While some, including value investor Warren Buffett, remain skeptical about Bitcoin because they believe it represents nothing but hope for future price appreciation, Grayscale believes cryptocurrencies will alter the concept of money by offering "comparative advantages" that will change current banking systems.

"For the first time in history, value can be sent anywhere in the world at the same speed as information, in a secure and trust-minimized way," the company said.

They touted the power of "millions of peers" in the world of cryptocurrency.

"A departure from conventional economic, political, and social systems run by a handful of large centralized institutions," Grayscale said, "digital currencies are powered by millions of peers within a globally distributed network, democratizing information and value in incredible new ways."

Meanwhile, India may ban cryptocurrencies.

In mid-day trading Wednesday, Bitcoin fetched $55,362.59, down 10.06% from the record high of $61,556.59. But the cryptocurrency is up 89.97% in 2021, CoinDesk reported.

The National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), a Washington, D.C.-based trade association, said lumber prices have jumped about 180% since last spring.

That's added about $24,000 to the cost of an average new single-family house and could price some first-time buyers out of the market if costs continue to climb.

But that hasn't happened yet.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index showed that first-time homebuyers now account for 43% of the new house market.

The price of crude oil, a key element in paint, plastic drainage pipe, shingles and flooring, has increased about 80% since October.

Copper, used in electrical wiring and plumbing, is up about 33%.

Paint and floor manufacturers have raised prices and major builders, including D.R. Horton and Hovnanian Enterprises, have passed the cost onto buyers.

Rising costs for materials quickly becomes higher costs for consumer goods and could indicate the rising inflation investors have fretted about as the economy reopens after the COVID-19 lockdown.

Mortgage rates have ticked up recently, but remain low by historical standards. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond rose Wednesday to 1.68% in intraday trading, the highest in a year.

The Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank, doesn't yet see inflation as a threat and will continue to hold interest rates near zero and pump money into the economy still beset with high unemployment.

But rising prices benefit those who own a house and want to trade up. Demand for housing is strong and owners can use the rising value of an existing house as their personal ATM as they shop around.

In a recent commentary for the Financial Times, economist Dambisa Moyo makes a case for why business leaders should invest in Bitcoin. Her three main arguments are that Bitcoin is a way to mitigate company risk; cryptocurrencies can provide possible solutions for doing business in emerging economies; and digital currencies augur an exciting new future of “currency platforms.”

Is Moyo right? Let’s take her points in turn.

First, it is unclear how buying Bitcoin can mitigate company risk. The only risk Moyo identifies is that of missing out on what could be one of the greatest speculative bubbles of all time. True, a company that missed out on a continued Bitcoin appreciation could face dire consequences – including acquisition by a Bitcoin-invested rival. Obviously, investing in Bitcoin is one sure way to avoid missing out on capital gains on Bitcoin. But that hardly makes it a wise investment, especially when one weighs the potential returns against the high risk of material capital losses.

Equally far-fetched is the idea that cryptocurrencies could provide solutions to problems often encountered in emerging economies. It is true that, unlike conventional fiat money – which includes central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) – decentralized private cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not at risk of being “over-issued” by profligate governments. It is also true that the risk of over-issuance is greater in some emerging markets than in most advanced economies.

But over-issuance of currency is just one possible threat to emerging-market financial stability, and removing it does not suddenly make Bitcoin a reliable store of value. Quite the contrary: Bitcoin’s price volatility since its inception in 2009 has been staggering. On March 29, 2021, its price reached $57,856 – some distance below its all-time high of $61,284 on March 13 – with a market cap close to $1 trillion. According to a note from JPMorgan on February 17, its three-month realized volatility at the time was 87%, compared to just 16% for gold. Similarly, a recent study finds that Bitcoin’s price volatility is almost ten times higher than that of major fiat currencies (such as the US dollar against the euro and the yen).

Moyo also suggests that Bitcoin could facilitate remittances to low- and middle-income countries. But this ignores the fact that Bitcoin transactions are notoriously inefficient. Because its block size is capped at one megabyte and the block-discovery process takes approximately ten minutes per block, only seven transactions can be completed per second. By contrast, Visa executes an average of 1,700 transactions per second, and could feasibly handle more than 65,000 transaction messages per second. By design, Bitcoin is simply too inefficient ever to become an effective medium of payment.

Similarly, the fact that Bitcoin’s supply is fixed at 21 million units is more of a drawback than a selling point. A proper currency should be able to undergo a massive expansion in supply when circumstances demand it, such as in the case of a financial crisis or a shock to aggregate demand. There can be no lender of last resort or market maker of last resort capable of systemic rescue operations with Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies.

Finally, is Bitcoin really the vanguard of a new digital-currency infrastructure that wise investors cannot afford to ignore? No, because the CBDCs under development in China and elsewhere have nothing in common with Bitcoin and other decentralized private cryptocurrencies. There is no blockchain or other distributed ledger technology (DLT) involved, nor is proof of work required to establish the validity of a transaction.

Rather, CBDCs function as straightforward digital versions of conventional bank accounts. In principle, they could be implemented as individual accounts with the central bank for every consumer and business in its jurisdiction. Alternatively, those accounts could be guaranteed by the central bank, but held with a wide range of private financial institutions.

CBDCs represent nothing new. They are not a revolutionary development like decentralized, DLT-based cryptocurrencies. But that revolution has already failed, because Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are extremely unattractive as stores of value. No sensible investor should go near them (unless she has very deep pockets and extremely low risk aversion).

Moreover, Bitcoin’s extremely high energy demand is another nail in its coffin. Bitcoin transactions are verified through proof-of-work “mining” operations that require exorbitantly energy-intensive computational efforts. The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index estimates annualized consumption at 139.15 terawatt-hours – more than that of Argentina.

Simply put, Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies are an environmental disaster. Worse, cryptocurrencies can be replicated without bound, further amplifying the environmental damage. As of March 29, 2021, CoinMarketCap listed 4,490 cryptocurrencies, starting with Bitcoin (with a $1.08 trillion market cap) and followed by Ethereum (with a $204 billion market cap).

The bottom line is clear: Bitcoin is an excessively risky and environmentally undesirable investment. It is not a sensible solution to any emerging-market problem, and it cannot possibly serve as a store of value or reliable medium of exchange. The sooner it and other DLT-based cryptocurrencies are relegated to a footnote in economic history, the better.

Willem H. Buiter is Visiting Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. 

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2021. www.project-syndicate.org

The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao "CZ", in a tweet on Sunday, congratulated Binance Launchpad projects for their spectacular returns. Well before retail financial investors, crypto whales and wall street mutual funds started amassing bitcoin, shaking off the crypto winter, Binance launchpad was at that point in front of the blast. In February, Binance at the same time propelled two token-sale sessions. The first was for TRON Founder and CEO Justin Sun's BitTorrent (BTT) which sold out in 15 minutes. On the off chance that Binance had utilized all the more computing power, it would have finished the ICO considerably quicker. BTT's cost has risen an astonishing 787% since its token sale. Binance Launchpad's Fetch (FET) token sale in March ended in 10 seconds. Members in the token deal have made about 119% profits for their venture. Later in March Celer (CELR) produced 126% consequently and in April (MATIC) created 620%. Binance Coin (BNB) has been moving higher, rising roughly 40% since the hack in which 7,000 bitcoins were stolen from the Exchange's BTC hot wallet.  BNB price was seen at $28.24 and Binance Coin market cap was $3,986,390,473, at the time the article was published It would seem like investors aren't worried or stressed over the security of Binance Exchange after the hack. In the meantime, the accomplishment of Binance Launchpad close by picking, developing, and offering new cryptos to investors is holding up the business and keeping interest for BNB solid. Blockchain can help fight human trafficking says Princess Eugenie UK  Veteran Trader Peter Brandt sees Bitcoin Price rally to $50,000, End of Crypto winter? CME Group Bitcoin Futures set new Trading Volume Record