2021, Binance launched a new project called the bitcoin standard hashrate token (BTCST), a coin that represents 0.1 terahash (TH/s). Furthermore, the mining operation Poolin has also revealed a hashrate token called pBTC35A and each token represents 1 TH/s hashrate with pre-determined SHA256 processing power.

With bitcoin mining showing significant upside potential, a couple of crypto industry heavyweights have introduced tokens backed by PoW hashrate. Last week, Binance unveiled a new project called the bitcoin standard hashrate token (BTCST), a coin that’s claimed to be backed by 0.1 terahash (TH/s).

“BTCST sets off to solve the problem of limited exit options by bringing exchange-grade liquidity to Bitcoin mining, and in secondary trading,” Binance announced last Wednesday. “BTCST will perform as a leveraged Bitcoin token free from liquidation risk. BTCST will create an efficient market for Bitcoin’s mining power in ways similar to how Grayscale Bitcoin Trust creates institutional liquidity for Bitcoin.”

The crypto trading exchange added:

BTCST is collateralized by 0.1 TH/s of real-world Bitcoin mining power, which is historically proven to be positively correlated to the performance of the digital gold, and hence the value of BTCST climbs along with the current skyrocketing Bitcoin market.

However, Binance is not the only business looking to offer a PoW mining token as the mining operation Poolin has also introduced the Mars Project. On January 11, 2021, Poolin tweeted “Join the first Ethereum-based standardized hashrate protocol, earn wBTC and LP reward. Infinite possibility when PoW mining steps into [an] Ethereum smart contract,” the mining pool further said. Currently, Poolin is the fifth largest bitcoin pool capturing around 9.4% or 14 exahash per second (EH/s) today.

The Poolin minted ERC-20 token is called pBTC35A and the company says each coin is backed by the firm’s PoW hashrate. “The protocol consists of pBTC35A tokens and [the] MARS token,” Poolin’s announcement explains. “Each pBTC35A token represents 1TH/s hashrate with a pre-determined power ratio, mining rigs would be in Poolin Superhashrate’s custody during life cycle. While net profit on wBTC would be distributed per block.”

Poolin says the first batch will be “50,000 pBTC35A (approximately 50PH/s) tokens for Bitcoin (output with wBTC) mining in this protocol and locks up more than 50PH/s machines physically.” Poolin notes that people can obtain the tokens using the inhouse shop (basic KYC needed) or via the token’s Uniswap contract. The company further detailed that Ethereum and other PoW mineable coins will be also created, but Poolin doesn’t have a confirmed schedule.

According to Binance Launchpool, the PoW token (BTCST), the organization recently launched has also passed an audit from the blockchain security company Certik, and scored a “98 out of 100 in a security audit.” Users will be able to stake BNB, BUSD, and BTC in separate pools in order to farm BTCST tokens, Binance Launchpool also said.

“Compared to conventional cloud mining, BTCST portrays the decentralized spirit of blockchain, with all mining rewards distribution done by smart contracts that are onchain with full transparency,” Alex Zhao, the cofounder, and CTO of BTCST said last week.

What do you think about the new tokens backed by PoW hashrate? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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Bitcoin is catching momentum following the retesting of support at $32,000. As reported on Wednesday, it was unlikely the lower support at $30,000 would be rested. Simultaneously, the leg up to $40,000 was only possible if BTC/USD closed the day above $36,000.

The largest cryptocurrency has extended its price action above $38,000. The break past the 50 Simple Moving Average must have increased investors' confidence in the uptrend. A daily close above $38,000 may see BTC explode to $40,000 and perhaps reach new record highs.

BTC/USD 4-hour chart

On the flip side, the Bitcoin bullish narrative will be thrown out the window if a correction occurs under $38,000. The 50 SMA might absorb some of the selling pressure, but some of the most formidable support levels sit at $36,000, $34,000 and $32,000. The level at $30,000 is home to BTC's primary support.

Ethereum has just broken above the x-axis of an ascending triangle. This move is occurring after Ether took back the support at $1,100. The plunge to $900 also allowed more investors to join the bullish market.

A horizontal line can be drawn along with the swing highs, while a rising trendline developed along with the swing lows.

A recent spike in the buying pressure behind the largest altcoin allowed it to break above the overhead resistance. At the moment, ETH could shoot up nearly 17%, revisiting the recent yearly high on the ascending triangle formation.

ETH/USD 4-hour chart

On the downside, if the upswing becomes unsustainable, ETH price may retest the x-axis. Breaking under this crucial level would call for more sell orders as some investors prefer to cash out before the price dips further. Overhead pressure could see Ethereum tumble to the $1,100 and $1,000 support areas.

Ripple's upside is still capped under $0.3 as well as the 50 SMA. The cross-border token seems to be embracing another consolidation, as observed using the Bollinger bands. The middle boundary protects XRP from falling to $0.29, as explained earlier.

As the Bollinger bands constrict, XRP/USD nears its ultimate breakout. To ascertain an uptrend beyond $0.3, support at the Bollinger Bands middle boundary must hold. Buying activity is likely to rise once Ripple spikes past $0.3. The target to the upside is $0.35, but the 200 SMA may limit further price action.

XRP/USD 4-hour chart

It is worth keeping in mind that Ripple selling pressure will intensify if the 50 SMA rejects the price. More losses will come into the picture on XRP breaking under the middle boundary. The support areas likely to be tested include $0.275 and $0.25.

opportunities near $30,000—a level Bitcoin touched after its decline from $41,986—renewed traders’ short-term bullish bias. The BTC/USD exchange rate leveled a sharp retracement against the downside outlook caused by the appearance of a Head and Shoulder bearish pattern, instilling hopes of a broader upside move towards $40,000.

Two of the most brighter market outlooks came from CryptoQuant, a blockchain analytics platform that tracks BTC movements across the exchanges. Its CEO Ki-Young Ju asserted amid Wednesday’s choppy price moves that institutional investors purchased Bitcoin between $30,000 and $32,000. That gave the cryptocurrency a natural defense against short-term dumping sentiment.

“Speculative guess, but if these guys are behind this bull-run, they’ll protect the 30k level. Even if we have a dip, it won’t go down below 28k,” Mr. Ju added.

Meanwhile, Nuggets News AU’s co-founder/CEO, Alex Saunders, highlighted another CryptQuant chart that showed an increase in stablecoin deposits across all the crypto exchanges. For speculators, the inflow of dollar-pegged tokens into trading platforms equates to a potential boom in buying behavior.

Recent strength in the US dollar was a likely contributing factor to weakness in the Bitcoin market.

Meanwhile, rising bond yields also added to the downside pressure on the cryptocurrency. Many speculators agree that investors jumped into riskier assets like Bitcoin in 2020 because of negative-yielding debt in shorter-maturity bonds and below 1 percent returns in the longer-dated Treasuries.

The newfound sentimental correlation between Bitcoin and yields proved troublesome as the percentage-returns on the US 10-year Treasury note surged above 1 percent for the first time since March. The recovery started after Democrats won key Senate run-offs last week, sparking hopes that the incoming Joe Biden administration will bring additional stimulus to boost the US economy.

That improved growth and inflation expectations, leading both the dollar and the benchmark yield higher. Bitcoin turned lower in response.

The last 24 hours witnessed yields correcting lower, which, in turn, prompted Bitcoin to pare its early-week losses. As of Wednesday, the US10Y was rising all-over again, signaling potential downside correction ahead for the cryptocurrency.

Felipe Villarroel, a portfolio manager at TwentyFour Asset Management, sees the yields rising to 1.5 percent by the end of this year on revised US growth expectations. That would drive up the US Treasury supply higher than anticipated, driving prices lower and yields higher.

EllioTrades, picks 14 crypto assets that could provide traders with major gains in the next few weeks.

First, Wainman predicts big things are in store for decentralized liquidity network THORChain (RUNE), which is currently trading at $1.76 with about a $278.28 million market cap at time of writing, according to CoinMarketCap.

The altcoin analyst predicts THORChain will reach a $1 billion market cap and potentially even higher.

“I’ve always been a fan of THORChain, I’ve always been a fan of RUNE, because it allows for yield to be extracted by locking up Bitcoin, and anything that’s DeFi and Bitcoin related to me is set to go absolutely bananas as Bitcoin also grows. So in my mind, a project like RUNE was and always is set to do really well on the back of Bitcoin and DeFi growing together.” 

Another crypto Wainman says is set to grow with Bitcoin and Defi is REN, a protocol that enables the transfer of crypto assets between blockchains. The trader says he’s “betting big” on REN, which is trading around $0.42 with $369 million market cap at time of writing.

Wainman is also bullish on AllianceBlock (ALBT), a “decentralized, blockchain-agnostic layer 2 that bridges traditional and decentralized finance” with only a $46 million market cap. The trader highlights AllianceBlock’s new partnership with data storage project Ocean Protocol as a bullish sign of things to come.

Next up, the crypto trader mentions two related projects that help miners extract the greatest possible value from confirming transactions. Wainman says KeeperDAO (ROOK) and Archer DAO (ARCH), which is up 128% on the day, can multiply in value during this bull cycle.

Wainman then moves on to the decentralized insurance sector, which the analyst labels as one of the most important portions of the decentralized space. Wainman chooses to spotlight Polkadot-based Bridge Mutual (BMI) as an exciting project in the sector.

“Bridge has been at this for two years and has a very interesting complex web of mechanisms that they use to ensure that insurance is provided accurately, that the right policies get approved, that when people are harmed that they actually get the coverage that they’re entitled to.”

Next on Wainman’s list is decentralized derivatives platform, Injective Protocol (INJ). With a market cap of $88 million, the trader points out that the project, which just announced the first decentralized Tesla futures market is now available on its Solstice testnet, has a lot of room to grow considering the traditional derivates market is worth tens of trillions of dollars.

Wainman’s next three picks are also decentralized derivatives related products. The trader highlights Oiler Network, which has not yet had its token launch, Hegic, and a project built on top of Hegic, Whiteheart (WHITE).

Wainman then highlights REVV which is a project in the NFT space, a sector which Wainman is particularly bullish on.

Next on his list is PARSIQ (PRQ), which Wainman labels as an undervalued project that boasts high profile partnerships and great tech.

“They’ve partnered with some of the biggest and most influential coins and projects and chains in the entire ecosystem and I believe they are just getting started as their technology is being recognized a one of the most superior infrastructure projects in the entire space.”

The last two assets Wainman mentions are Akash (AKT), a decentralized cloud storage project, and RAMP which as of writing stand at $27 and $28 million market caps respectively.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Marc A

submit several documents explaining its legality to the New York Prosecutor’s Office tomorrow, Jan. 15, before the deadline expires.

It is believed to contain information about Tether’s business practices, its issuance, its supposed one-to-one peg with the US dollar, and other information regarding Tether Limited. 

Stablecoins are one of the biggest use-cases of cryptocurrencies. They are usually pegged on a 1:1 basis with a fiat currency (or algorithmically controlled) and are said to be backed by a certain amount of reserve at all times.

But stay silent when it comes to Tether doing the exact same thing to Bitcoin.

I love #Bitcoin, but this is not sustainable. Wake up people. pic.twitter.com/k8d0sD7XHm

— CryptoWhale 🐳 (@CryptoWhale) January 8, 2021

USDT is among the first such stablecoins and the most widely used one. It was founded in 2014 as “realcoin”) by Reeve Collins, Brock Pierce, and Craig Sellers, before rebranding to its current form and stating that “every Tether+ token is backed 100% by its original currency, and can be redeemed at any time with no exposure to exchange risk.”

However, for a few years, several critics have questioned the reserve of Tether, given the company has not yet provided a verifiable audit of its dollar reserves or allowed a third-party auditor to reveal their findings to the public. This has resulted in people questioning the very existence of Tether.

But how does it matter? It’s because USDT’s issuance has reached over $23 billion in recent times, and with daily volumes exceeding even Bitcoin’s, some crypto users are ringing the alarm bells.

That said, however, the January 15 deadline is only the delivery of the required documentation to New York courts. No judgment or judicial charges are expected or levied tomorrow, meaning any fear in the market is likely a result of overreaction.

Tether’s problems started after the Panama Leaks papers linked the executives of Bitfinex, Philip Potter and Giancarlo Devasini, to Tether Limited in 2015. This caused controversy at the time.

The second controversy came after USDT supply grew from $10 million to over $2.8 billion from January 2017 to September 2018. The rise was questioned by many, and by mid-2018, Tether accounted for over 80% of the overall Bitcoin volume.

Research suggested that an alleged price manipulation scheme involving tether accounted for about half of the price increase in Bitcoin in late 2017. However, that has not unfazed its backers yet. 

— Samson Mow (@Excellion) January 14, 2021

What 2021 holds for USDT is a guess at best. But crypto fanatics are likely praying the critics don’t turn out right.

USDC, a stablecoin developed by the Circle, is the second-largest USD-backed stablecoin on the market according to data from Skew.

Tether (USDT) has seen extreme growth since the start of the year.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has seen a massive explosion over recent weeks and months, reaching a total value locked of $7.13 billion according to DeFi Pulse.

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The price of Bitcoin has recovered strongly overnight, rising from around $34,000 to $38,500.

Bitcoin bounces at $30k support to allay fears of a complete capitulation.

It’s been a bloody past day for the Bitcoin and broader crypto market.

IEO. This is a new fundraising format. The CRYPT-ON project is going to make an internal blockchain system on the TON blockchain. Instead of IPT tokens, GRAM tokens will be introduced, and they are the ones that will be in use within the project. Negotiations are under way with some major exchanges to enter IEO and sell tokens. The project's team has already begun developing the infrastructure for the TON Telegram project. This means that CRYPT-ON will create its own blockchain on the TON blockchain and implement the GRAM cryptocurrency. Everyone on the CRYPT-ON service, uses Telegram, they will be able to make bargainless deals, get a job and exchange GRAM in a cache via the CRYPT-ON mobile app.The ICO project CRYPT-ON did not raise the planned softcap funds. In order to bring the case started to its logical conclusion, a decision was made to retrain the project. CRYPT-ON is about to enter IEO. This is a new fundraising format. The CRYPT-ON project is going to make an internal blockchain system on the TON blockchain.Instead of IPT tokens, GRAM tokens will be introduced, and they are the ones that will be in use within the project. Negotiations are under way with some major exchanges to enter IEO and sell tokens.The project's team has already begun developing the infrastructure for the TON Telegram project. This means that CRYPT-ON will create its own blockchain on the TON blockchain and implement the GRAM cryptocurrency. Everyone on the CRYPT-ON service, uses Telegram, they will be able to make bargainless deals, get a job and exchange GRAM in a cache via the CRYPT-ON mobile app.Crypto Journal - a resource that publishes the latest news about cryptocurrency today, coin offers, charts, crypto-exchanges market rates, information about the previous ones, as well as ongoing and upcoming ICO's. We offer more than 1600+ conversions for different cryptocurrency pairs. Stay with us and get information on events in the crypto market online. BTC:  19XSJvpUQJZmZr81prSVMe21ge2na94y2S      ETH:  0x5122250108be2A200bB9417A4FDD21217737459C     

yesterday that the mobile messaging giant dropped a lawsuit against Lantah LLC that originated over the latter’s use of the “GRAM” name for its token offering. Telegram had sued Lantah in 2018. At the time, the mobile messaging company had recently raised $1.7 billion through an Initial Coin Offering and was planning to issue tokens of the same name. While Telegram first revealed plans for its digital token in December 2017, Lantah had been operating months earlier and claimed to have been planning its token issuance before Telegram. Lantah filed counterclaims on the grounds that it had priority for the trademark. However, a judge granted Telegram’s request to bar the company from using the token name. At the time, the judge explained that Telegram had begun using the GRAM name in a commercial context before Lantah. Sadly, it all came to nothing after Telegram was forced to abandon its crypto project after a prolonged battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Since the company didn’t have any use for the “GRAM” trademark anymore, it dropped the suit against Lantah. As Bloomberg Law reported, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ordered the mobile messaging giant to pay Lantah’s attorney fees. The suit with Lantah isn’t the only financial commitment that Telegram has to deal with after its crypto and blockchain projects’ failure. In June, the SEC confirmed that it had settled its case with the company. A final judgment for the Telegram vs. SEC case shows that the company would now have to pay back $1.2 billion in fees. Of the $1.2 billion payment, Telegram will pay $1.19 billion as termination amounts and commitments to investors in the ICO. The company is also liable for a civil penalty of $18.5 million. The payment was expected within 30 days of the judgment’s granting. The mobile messaging company’s reputation and bottom line have suffered significantly since it dropped its crypto aspirations. Some have even speculated that Pavel Durov, the company’s founder and CEO, might be considering selling it. Earlier this month, Russian tech publication iXBT reported that internet company Mail.ru was one of the parties interested in acquiring Telegram. The publication also noted that an unnamed billionaire had thrown his hat in the ring. Shortly after the publication went live, Durov shot back in a Telegram post. While his post focused more on the United States’ action against Chinese video and content creation platform TikTok, he confirmed that he wasn’t interested in selling his company. “We are not selling Telegram – neither in part, nor in full. This will always be our position,” Durov said, adding that the company has a history of declining offers to sell their operations in specific countries.  4.5/5 75% of retail investors lose money.eToro Reviews https://insidebitcoins.com/visit/etoro-newsCreate your account Hide eToro Reviews 4.5/5 80.5% of retail investors lose money.Plus500 Reviews https://insidebitcoins.com/visit/plus500-newsCreate your account Hide Plus500 Reviews Remember, all trading carries risk. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Article Info Author: Jimmy Aki Last Updated: 26 August 2020 Jimmy has been following the development of blockchain for several years, and he is optimistic about its potential to democratize the financial system.

that Gram tokens are not securities.

An amicus brief is an official document filed in court which originates from parties who are not active litigants, but who have a strong interest or expertise in the subject matter.

The Blockchain Association, which aims to be a “unified voice” for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, is a collective of industry leaders with a focus on American blockchain technology issues.

Members include Coinbase, eToro, Grayscale, Circle Pay, Ripple, Kraken, and more. In November 2019, the association formalised a working group for blockchain companies to understand securities laws.

In a Medium post on January 21, the Blockchain Association stated that it opposed the SEC’s effort to block the launch of the Telegram network, saying that Gram tokens are not securities according to traditional definitions.

Explaining the importance of the ruling to the blockchain industry, the post reads:

The SEC argues that Telegram’s Gram tokens were securities as it was reasonable for investors to expect their value to be influenced by the development of the Telegram TON ecosystem.

One of the strongest criticisms of the SEC’s approach towards blockchain assets and ICO securities laws is the lack of consistent regulatory advice available to operators.

In November 2019, Telegram accused the SEC of being “unconstitutionally vague”, saying the regulator had failed to provide “concrete public guidance” for ICO operators in a developing area of the law.

Members of the Blockchain Association appear to support this view, explaining:

As a result of the SEC’s dogmatic approach to ICO regulation, the Blockchain Association argues that innovation in the blockchain sector has been undermined and that the regulator has severely restricted the USA’s position as a digital asset leader.

The report reads:

The SEC has also recently issued a warning to investors to steer clear of initial exchange offerings, branding the new token sale method as an extension of the ICO craze.

You can read more about the Telegram vs SEC case here.

The encrypted messaging company dropped the lawsuit after it ended its blockchain project earlier this year.

Telegram first sued Lantah, LLC in May 2018, claiming common law trademark infringement and unfair competition over the Gram >token trademark. Lantah, a company founded in 2017 to issue Gram digital currency, fought back. It claimed to have been formed months before Telegram announced its intention to issue the Gram token. This gave it priority over the Gram trademark, it argued.

As CoinGeek reported in August, Telegram abandoned its legal battle with the small Florida company after dropping its TON blockchain project. It filed to drop the lawsuit without prejudice, allowing it to possibly drag Lantah to court again in the future.

In its latest ruling, the Northern District of California court has ordered Telegram to pay $618,240 in attorney fees incurred by Lantah over the course of the trademark case. It must also pay Lantah an additional $6,737.35 for extra costs.

Lantah had requested the court to charge Telegram $1.6 million for the attorney fees. The company claimed that its lawyers deserved to get $900 per hour because of the novel issues in the case. However, Judge Charles Breyer granted $600 per hour, stating that Lantah was unable to justify its claim for the higher rate.

Telegram has 30 days to submit its records of fees and costs along with proposals not exceeding ten pages.

The judgment brings to an end the Telegram blockchain project in its entirety. The project attracted $1.7 billion in two separate sales of its Gram token in 2018. A year later, the SEC cracked down on the company, accusing it of conducting an unregistered digital token offering. After a fierce legal battle, Telegram abandoned its Gram token and settled with the SEC for $18.5 million.

See also: CoinGeek Live presentation on Intellectual Property & Blockchain

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.

trademark. The encrypted messaging service provider will have to pay for all the legal costs incurred by the defendant. Telegram filed the lawsuit against Lantah LLC in May 2018. The Florida-based company claimed to have formed months before Telegram’s blockchain efforts began and that it intended to issue its own GRAM tokens. It argued that it had priority over the GRAM trademark. Telegram filed a lawsuit against Lantah at the U.S District Court for the Northern District of California, with the court granting the company a preliminary injunction that barred Lantah from using the trademark. The presiding judge ruled that Telegram had started using the trademark commercially before Lantah. However, two years later, Telegram has finally dropped the lawsuit, reports Bloomberg Law. The company was allowed to drop the suit without prejudice, which allows it to possibly refile the lawsuit in the future. The court also vacated the preliminary injunction against Lantah that barred the Florida company from using the GRAM trademark. Telegram will also have to pay the attorneys’ fees incurred by Lantah over the course of the past two years fighting the lawsuit. Since Lantah didn’t publicly disclose the fees incurred, the two companies will negotiate and settle privately. Telegram dropped the lawsuit just two months after it announced that it would be discontinuing its support for the TON blockchain testnet. The Pavel Durov-led company finally bowed to legal scrutiny from U.S. regulators, over two and a half years since launching TON. In June 2020, Telegram settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), paying an $18.5 million settlement fee. The company also had to pay back 70% of the investment in its GRAM token, with the SEC deeming the token sale as illegal. New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.

Test. In the , both the issuance and distribution have been blocked with a temporary order, March 25, 2020. The and other statutory bodies in the United States are doing their part in cracking down on cryptocurrencies and illegal token sales. Telegram is the latest company to be affected by these actions. After rival Facebook was also into submission by U.S. authorities, is on its way to the same fate after a Federal court blocked the sale and distribution of these tokens, As per the court order, nobody would be willing to pay $1.7 billion for a simple store-of-value token that is operated by the messaging company. Instead, the real value was the low price of the sale relative to the price it would be listed, giving investors the opportunity to exit for a sizeable profit. This, alone, makes GRAM a security, as per the Howey test. Tokens were issued via the widely used SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) framework. This may set a precedent for the use of SAFTs in the United States. The end game from the Libra-Telegram debacle that has been for the last year is an obvious trend towards public blockchains that are community-run. In these blockchains, no single entity can be held responsible; that is, if they are truly decentralized in decision making. Corporate blockchains will face will the full wrath of the legal system, in a way that public blockchains simply cannot. These efforts may see more people realize the benefits of running a public ledger or building their application/business on top of a public blockchain. This will aid the decentralization and permissionless finance narratives. Some like J.P. Morgan’s will thrive because of their adherence to strict regulations and cozy relationship with authorities. Others like Facebook and Telegram, which often come under political pressure, will not be allowed to act as they wish.

was an unregistered security. The SEC filed an emergency action halting the launch of Telegram’s blockchain, the Telegram Open Network, and the distribution of the protocol’s native token, GRAM. Just yesterday, the agency obtained a restraining order against Telegram and its wholly-owned subsidiary TON Issuer after a federal judge said they are conducting an unregistered securities offering that violates US laws. The SEC, in its request for a halt, said that once the Grams were delivered, the token buyers and Telegram itself would be able to sell billions of Grams into US markets. District Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York concluded in a preliminary injunction ruling that Telegram failed to register their offers and sales of Grams, which it says are securities, in violation of the registration provisions of the Securities Act of 1933. “Considering the economic realities under the Howey test, the Court finds that, in the context of that scheme, the resale of Grams into the secondary public market would be an integral part of the sale of securities without a required registration statement,” he added. Still, the SEC wants Telegram to return all funds raised, and pay a fine that includes prejudgment interest.FBS Gives Away Signed FC Barcelona Jerseys for Playing Penalty SimulationGo to article >> Telegram had promised to deliver the Grams to the initial purchasers no later than October 2019, but the US regulators sought to block the project just two weeks before the tokens were supposed to be unlocked for trading. For that reason, Telegram told its ICO participants that the distribution of TON tokens would be delayed at least until April 2020 as the token distribution may give the SEC more grounds to support its claims that owning a Gram is the same as buying stocks or similar assets. On its part, Telegram argued its token is not a security, and the US watchdog should not be able to block its $1.7 billion worth ICO. Further supporting its request, the SEC said it obtained evidence of post-ICO sales, which undercuts the argument that the token sale was exempt from registration requirements. The US regulator said Gram tokens were sold after completing its ICO, and two companies already invoiced Telegram for commissions from selling the Grams, months after the controversial initial coin offering concluded. Telegram had reportedly sold its Gram virtual coins in two private funding rounds, with proceeds going towards the creation of a decentralized network for the app. At the time, Telegram already reported to the SEC that it had raised the funds in private placements, which were used to develop TON blockchain. Since the ICO excluded retail investors, the firm claimed an exemption from US requirements to register their tokens as a security until the SEC has stepped in to halt Telegram crypto ambition.

leveraged Bitcoin token free from liquidation risk. BTCST will create an efficient market for Bitcoin’s mining power in ways similar to how Grayscale Bitcoin Trust creates institutional liquidity for Bitcoin.   

Four Key Points About BTCST : 

Bitcoin’s leveraged token: BTCST secures dual profits for its holders when the market is on a bull run, due to BTCST’s attributes as Bitcoin’s leveraged token. 

BTCST is collateralized by 0.1 TH/s of real-world Bitcoin mining power, which is historically proven to be positively correlated to the performance of the digital gold, and hence the value of BTCST climbs along with the current skyrocketing Bitcoin market. On top of that, BTCST stakers claim Bitcoin mining rewards on a daily basis.

If a user started to mine Bitcoin with a WhatsMiner M21s (a classic hardware model of Bitcoin mining) in October 2020, by the time of publication, the value of Bitcoin mined would have risen by 200%; however, the price of the mining machine itself increased 400% during the same time frame.  Therefore, it is safe to call BTCST a leveraged token of Bitcoin.

Grayscale-like operations in the mining industry: 2020 is the year of Grayscale, and BTCST may prolong the saga in the Bitcoin mining industry. Institutional liquidity injected by Grayscale sparked the bullish market, and BTCST will help release liquidity to the mining industry and enable the execution of liquidity premium in the secondary market. 

BTCST creates an efficient market among Bitcoin miners. By trading BTCST, market participants can freely enter and exit Bitcoin mining exposure in any size, at any time, and with low costs. Even miners without mining power tokenized by BTCST can make use of the token to capture the profits or hedge against the risks of mining machine price fluctuation. 

Enhanced cloud mining: Cloud mining is an imperfect solution to the lack of liquidity, and its reputation is clouded by frequent scams. The legitimate providers also fall short of full transparency. 

BTCST is a cloud mining platform deployed on the Binance Smart Chain, with daily payouts executed by the dApp and all data traceable. Binance Pool, the world’s second-largest Bitcoin mining pool, functions as the auditor for BTCST and guarantees legitimacy and transparency. 

DeFi of 2021: BTCST is a DeFi project without risks of impermanent loss. When a user un-stakes BTCST, the user is safeguarded by code to retrieve the same amount of BTCST along with the accrued Bitcoin mining rewards.  In addition, BTCST has passed the scrutiny of  CertiK , one of the world’s leading blockchain security firms, scoring a 98 out of 100 in a security audit. 

Disclaimer: This is a paid post and must not be considered as news/advice. 

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Having studied Chemical Engineering, Akashnath's focus is on the UK and Indian markets and especially crypto assets. He is devoted to technical analysis and is always on the lookout for investment opportunities.