FOX Business’ Stuart Varney weighs in on Tesla buying $1.5 billion in bitcoin and accepting it as payment for cars.

Robinhood has seen six million new cryptocurrency traders on its platform in the first two months of 2021.

"That's more than the number of new crypto traders at Robinhood during the entirety of 2020," Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev tweeted Thursday.

In 2020, the number of users trading through Robinhood Crypto peaked at 401,000 for a single month, with a monthly average of about 200,000 customers trading on Robinhood Crypto for the first time.

New Robinhood Crypto Traders (Chart courtesy of Robinhood)

In comparison, each of the first two months of 2021 saw around 2.9 million users trading through Robinhood Crypto.

BITCOIN'S BIGGEST PLAYERS INCLUDE TESLA, SQUARE, MASTERCARD

Robinhood Cyrpto, which launched in Feb. 2018, offers seven tradeable digital currencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and Litecoin. It also offers real time market data for digital currencies including Bitcoin Gold, Dash, Lisk, Monero, NEO, OmiseGO, Qtum, Ripple, Stellar, and Zcash.

Average Transaction Size (Chart courtesy of Robinhood)

The company's average transaction size for its cryptocurrency trading has reached about $500 in the first two months of 2021, compared to an average transaction size hovering around $250 in 2020.

According to recent Congressional testimony by Tenev, the platform has over 13 million total users.

CHARLIE MUNGER: ROBINHOOD LURING AMATEURS WITH COMMISSION-FREE TRADING IS A 'DIRTY WAY OF MAKING MONEY'

The announcement comes just a day after Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charles Munger warned that Robinhood and other brokerage apps are trying to lure amateur investors with promises of commission-free trading.

"Robinhood trades are not free. When you pay for order flow, you're probably charging your customers more and pretending to be free," the 97-year old investor said during the Daily Journal's annual shareholder meeting, which was livestreamed by Yahoo Fiannce.  "It's a very dishonorable, low-grade way to talk. And nobody should believe that Robinhood's trades are free."

Munger blamed the brokerage apps for enabling the recent trading frenzy in stocks including GameStop by gathering "a whole lot of people who are using liquid stock markets to gamble the way they would in betting on race horses."

"It's really stupid to have a culture which encourages as much gambling in stocks by people who have the mindset of racetrack bettors," Munger said. "And if you're selling them gambling services where you rake profits off the top like many of these new brokers who specialize in luring the gamblers in. I think it's a dirty way to make money. And I think that we're crazy to allow it."

Robinhood fired back at Munger on Thursday, calling his comments "disappointing and elitist."

"In one fell swoop an entire new generation of investors has been criticized and this commentary overlooks the cultural shift that is taking place in our nation today. Robinhood was created to allow people who don’t have access to generational wealth or the resources that come with it to begin investing in the U.S. stock market," a Robinhood spokesperson told FOX Business in a statement. "To suggest that new investors have a 'mindset of racetrack bettors' is disappointing and elitist. It should be celebrated that we are seeing market investors begin to diversify and that education and awareness about the values of investing are diffusing further into previously untapped generations."

In addition, Munger dismissed bitcoin, noting it is too volatile to become a "medium of exchange for the world."

Warren Buffett's long-time partner said the bitcoin is  "really kind of an artificial substitute for gold and since I never buy any gold, I never buy any bitcoin," he added. "I recommend that other people follow my practice."

He described bitcoin as "the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable,” paraphrasing a quotation about fox hunting from playwright Oscar Widle's “A Woman of No Importance.”

ELON MUSK EXPLAINS TESLA'S $1.5B BITCOIN BUY

Despite critics like Munger, companies including Tesla and Square have recently begun to embrace the world's biggest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, with their own investments. Square announced on Tuesday that it would invest $170 million more in bitcoin while Tesla announced in an SEC filing earlier this month that it has invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin to “further diversify and maximize” the return on its cash. The electric automaker also said that it expects to begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment for its cars in the "near future."

In addition, companies like Mastercard and BNY Mellon have recently announced plans to introduce services supporting cryptocurrencies later this year.

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In another sign of cryptocurrencies going mainstream, digital currency exchange Coinbase filed its S-1 prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday for a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, in which it plans to trade under the symbol COIN.

According to the paperwork, Coinbase has reached 43 million verified users as of the end of 2020, with 2.8 million users making transactions each month and a total of $90 billion of assets held in trust. Coinbase reported its first annual profit of $322 million on revenue of $1.2 billion. The company also disclosed ownership of $316.1 million worth of crypto assets on its balance sheet as of Dec. 31, compared to $33.9 million at the end of 2019.

"Since our founding in 2012, Coinbase has held bitcoin and other crypto assets on our balance sheet — and we plan to maintain an investment in crypto assets as we believe strongly in the long-term potential of the cryptoeconomy," the company wrote in a blog post.

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Still for all the headlines, Coinbase's S-1 filing acknowledged the significant risk that it is taking going forward due to the unpredictable volatility of cryptocurrencies.

“All of our sources of revenue are dependent on crypto assets and the broader cryptoeconomy,” the filing reads. “There is no assurance that any supported crypto asset will maintain its value or that there will be meaningful levels of trading activities. In the event that the price of crypto assets or the demand for trading crypto assets decline, our business, operating results, and financial condition would be adversely affected.”

Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, who is listed in the S-1 as an interested party in the deal, is also described as a potential risk, noting that his identification or the transfer of his Bitcoins could adversely impact Bitcoin's value as well as Coinbase's business.

Bitcoin, which has seen a meteoric rise in 2021, is hovering near $49,000 Thursday as of the time of publication.

<b style="font-size:14px;">Weekly Reports | Feb 26 2021

This story features Change Financial Ltd, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: CCA

The New Criterion's Tim Boreham throws light on ways to get a slice of the Bitcoin pie via the ASX

How to play the listed Bitcoin game

By Tim Boreham, Editor, The New Criterion

With Bitcoins – by far the dominant ‘crypto’ – now worth a collective $US1 trillion, massive punts are being made by the likes of Blackrock, the world’s biggest funds manager.  

Having fetched $US380 apiece five years ago, Bitcoins last week hit the $US57,000 level before retreating below $US50,000. But the normally sober investment bankers at JP Morgan and Citi reckon that’s just the start, with price targets of $US146,000 and $US150,000 respectively.

Everyday Australians are becoming convinced as well: according to a survey of 1000 Australians carried out by the comparison house Finder, 25% of our citizenry intend to own cryptocurrency by the end of 2021 (unsurprisingly, this segment is heavily weighted to millennials).

The obvious path to ownership is to buy the digital coins (or a fraction thereof) directly, from a proliferating choice of cryptocurrency exchanges 

What about listed ASX exposures? A slew of crypto plays bobbed up in 2017 and 2018, offering exposure to crypto exchanges, Bitcoin generation (‘mining’) and blockchain, or the underlying ‘distributed ledger’ technology that underpins cryptos.

Most were ahead of their time, to put it politely. Budding crypto exchange operator Byte Power Group de-listed last year, while Ookami ((OOK)) has been in voluntary suspension since April 2019 and has all but abandoned its quest to develop an “ecosystem of advanced tech solutions”.

Fintech Change Financial ((CCA)) owns a 33% stake in IvyKoin, a blockchain-based cryptocurrency for business transactions. In 2018 the company did not exercise its option to acquire the remaining two-thirds of the enterprise.

Apart from dabbling in the buy now pay later sector, the Singapore-based venture capitalist Fatfish Group ((FFG)) is also on trend with investments in Bitcoin ‘miners’ and crypto exchanges. Honourable mention goes to the ASX itself, which is replacing its ageing CHESS settlement system with a blockchain-based platform. 

Let’s hope the IT geeks do a better job with that one than the bourse's improved’ website…

We believe there’s only one pure-play ASX crypto exposure, DigitalX ((DCC)). The company runs two open-ended Bitcoin funds for wholesale investors but plans to tweak their structures to attract wider investor cohorts such as the $650bn self-managed super fund sector.

As of the end of December, the funds had $17.8m under management.

Digital X also consults with enterprises to design and develop blockchain applications. While the consulting fees come in handy, executive director Leigh Travers admits the arm is more of a “Trojan Horse” to check out the potential market for company-built blockchain products.

Off its own bat, the company already is commercialising Drawbridge, which enables public companies to automate director share trade disclosures and approvals.

Via a pilot program, the company is getting feedback from listed companies including Vulcan Energy and Little Green Pharma.

DigitalX is a backer of Bullion Asset Management (BAM), a Singapore tech minnow focused on “tokenising” gold bullion to avoid the hassle of owning the physical stuff.

Theta Gold Mines ((TGM)) has also invested $700,000 for a 5% BAM stake and has the option of investing up to a 50% stake in BAM’s gold mines.

BAM is also backed by Jaggards, which may be Australia’s oldest bullion and rare coin merchant but can’t be accused of not jiving with the times.

Travers says Australia has been left behind with crypto adoption, for the happy reason that we haven’t had the same problem with our payments system (in the US, it can be difficult and costly to send money domestically).

“We have also had a range-bound currency, while other investors have seen their currency depreciate and are more incentivised to look for liquid stores of value.”

While attitudes are a changin' DigitalX still has some way to go, having reported December quarter receipts of $150,000 and operating outflows of $428,000.

DigitalX shares have risen from 3c over the last 12 months to a recent high of 12c, with collateral support from the pending $US50bn Nasdaq listing of Coinbase, the world’s biggest crypto exchange.

DigitalX’s still humble  $65m market cap is supported by liquid assets of $20.8m, including $8.1m of Bitcoins and $3.5m of old fashioned Aussie dollars.

Travers notes the success of the New York Stock Exchange-listed Grayscale, which now has $US30bn of cryptos under management.

“We have seen the tremendous growth in international markets, especially with the Grayscale fund,” he says. “In their first year, they got to $20m – a similar level to us.”

Apart from the wee size variance, a key difference between DigitalX and Grayscale is that the latter is a closed-end fund, which means that unit prices can vary markedly from the underlying value of the assets.

DigitalX’s fund members always buy and sell at net asset value (the funds charge a base fee of 1.65%, compared with Grayscale’s 2%).

Elsewhere, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are fast emerging.

In a North American first, Canada’s Purpose Investments has won Canadian approval for their Purpose Bitcoin ETF, to be launched on the Toronto exchange (the TSX).

Bloomberg reports that proponents of at least four other funds have filed for Canadian approval, including Evolve Funds, Horizons ETFs, Accelerate Financial and Arxnovum Investments.

In the US, VanEck Associates Corp and Bitwise Asset Management have pending ETF filings. To date, US regulators have frowned on crypto ETFs, but this is expected to change under the Biden administration.

Other ETFs track the Bitcoin futures price, but investors pay a premium for the privilege.

On a cautionary note, for every crypto enthusiast there’s still an ardent sceptic – and investing demigod Warren Buffett ain’t impressed.

It’s certainly disconcerting when a crypto launched as a joke (Dogecoin) now has an issued value of $US9bn. So investors didn’t get the joke, but they laughed all the way to the (virtual) bank anyway.  

Disclaimer: Under no circumstances have there been any inducements or like made by the company mentioned to either IIR or the author. The views here are independent and have no nexus to IIR’s core research offering. The views here are not recommendations and should not be considered as general advice in terms of stock recommendations in the ordinary sense.

Content included in this article is not by association the view of FNArena (see our disclaimer).

Find out why FNArena subscribers like the service so much: "Your Feedback (Thank You)" – Warning this story contains unashamedly positive feedback on the service provided.

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For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: CCA - Change Financial Ltd

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2018 is about to go down in history as the worst-ever year for Bitcoin as well as for the cryptocurrency market as a whole.The performance is horrible, but Bitcoin is actually doing better than other cryptos.With a rapidly shrinking market cap and 30-day annualized volatility back over 100%, there is one question left to ask:Can Bitcoin live up to Arnold Schwarzenegger's promise or only to Savage Garden's song?I would fly you to the moon and back. If you'll be, if you'll be my baby*I've got a ticket for a world where we belong. So would you be my baby*?It was only 25 days ago when we wrote that "The Lower It Goes, The Safer It Gets". While this is always true, for any asset whatsoever, we get much more of the former (lower) than of the latter (safer).It's no secret that Bitcoin (BTC-USD, COIN, OTCQX:GBTC) isn't - and never been - suitable for the fainthearted.At the current price of ~$3,400, we are talking about an 83% decline from the peak price of $19,891. Few days ago we've touched the 52-week low at $3,215.During the past 7 years (2011-2017 inclusive), there was only one year in which Bitcoin lost value - 2014 - when the price dropped 58%.As it stands now, unless a miraculous shift happens till year-end, 2018 will go down as the worst year for cryptocurrencies in (their relatively short) history.(Sorted by % Below All-Time High, from worst to best)You know what? Suddenly, -83% off peak and/or -71% total return in 2018 don't look that bad...The market cap of the top 20 cryptocurrencies has shrunk by no less than 82%. It was over $512B at the end of 2017, and it's lower than $90B now.To put this in perspective, a change/loss of $422B is not too far of the entire market cap of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. (BRK.A, BRK.B). I wonder whether and at what number the two market caps might meet...With Berkshire holding 24% of its liquid invested portfolio in a single stock, even if that stock is called Apple (AAPL), I can't rule this out.The US Dollar (UUP, USDU) is higher against every major global currency in 2018. As such, it's no wonder to see that Bitcoin weakness is very much associated with the Greenback global strength.So Bitcoin is i) hitting a 16-month low, ii) down 83% from its peak last December, and iii) down 68% over the past year, its worst Y/Y return since February 2015.Yet, it's interesting to see how these numbers compare to its trading history. Here are the largest drawdowns in Bitcoin's history:In the last three months of 2017, Bitcoin hit a new all-time high once every three days, on average.As of 12/12/2018, Bitcoin has gone 360 days - almost one full year - without a new high. To put that in perspective, the longest streak ever was 1,176 days (from December 2013 to February 2017), more than three full years.And when things are rough for Bitcoin, they are as rough - if not worse - for the Bitcoin Investment Trust (OTCQX:GBTC).Just like Bitcoin, GBTC also hits a 16-month low. Unlike Bitcoin, it's now down 89% from its peak last December (versus "only" 83% for Bitcoin itself).I guess that's (at least partially) the power of management fees.It's back! And no, I'm not referring to Arnold Schwarzenegger here.Recall that we were quite impressed/surprised when Bitcoin has become one of the least volatile assets during October, when the world equity markets (SPY, DIA, QQQ, IWM, IVV, VTI, VOO, VEA, EFA, IEFA, VWO) collapsed?Well, forget about it... The extreme (and very unusual) low volatility in Bitcoin did not last too long. Bitcoin's annualized volatility over the past 30 days is now back to triple digits.Bloomberg reports that "What is Bitcoin?" was the most searched definition in the US and UK in 2018, according to Google Trends.We started with Savage Garden's "To The Moon & Back" song, and we finished with Arnold Schwarzenegger's most famous "I'll Be Back" promise.The most relevant, interesting question, now that Bitcoin already lived up to the song, can it also live up to the promise?Technically speaking, Bitcoin has broken all the support levels it had during the past year. There's no real technical support here.From the current relatively low levels, there's a good reason to be bullish long-term. Nonetheless, next levels Bitcoin may meet soon are $3,000, $2,600 and $1,800-1,900.We now put a 70% chance for Bitcoin to trade below $3,000 and a 50% chance for it to trade as low as $2,600.While the $1,800-1,900 level seems far away, it's not out of question for 2019.The Wheel of FORTUNE is one of the most comprehensive services, covering all asset classes: commons, preferreds, bonds, options, currencies, commodities, CEFs, etc.Take advantage of our year-end special, which includes significant discounts ($882/year), mega poll with prizes, and a two-week free trial.Check out our monthly review, where all suggestions since launch appear.TWoF is a "supermarket of ideas" with emphasis on risk management and risk-adjusted returns. We stock the "store"'s shelves, but you decide what products meet your taste.Take advantage of this rare offer before fees rise on (and along the way to) 1/2/2019.Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

In the last few months, the cryptocurrency market has once again sprung to life, and cryptocurrencies left, right, and center are experiencing significant gains.

But amidst this bullish momentum, there is a growing sense of uncertainty among seasoned traders and early adopters — who have seen what usually follows such a period of dramatic growth… a temporary reversal at best, or a full-blown correction at worst.

Gold-backed tokens represent arguably one of the safest ways to hedge against these risks. Not only has gold demonstrated a long-term bullish trend, but it’s also relatively uncorrelated to crypto markets, making it an ideal hedge and a strong store of value.

If you’re looking to gain exposure to gold through an easy-to-access crypto token, here’s what you’ll want to consider when making your pick:

Volatility and Liquidity

If you’re looking to invest in a gold-backed token, then odds are you’re not a fan of volatility. After all, gold itself is a relatively non-volatile asset, so shouldn’t gold-backed assets be too?

Overall, gold-backed tokens are relatively non-volatile, at least when compared to regular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and the like. But there is a considerable difference in volatility among gold-backed tokens.

In general, gold-backed tokens with a lower trading volume tend to experience more volatility than those with higher trading volume. As the two most liquid gold-backed tokens, CACHE Gold (CGT) and PAX Gold (PAXG) suffer from the least volatility, whereas Perth Mint Gold Token (PMGT) and Digix Gold (DGX) suffer far greater volatility — since they have negligible order book depth and low liquidity.

Order book depth is an excellent way to check liquidity. (Image: Live Coin Watch)

Moreover, the liquidity of the gold-backed is directly related to its utility — after all, if you can’t easily purchase or liquidate the token without slippage, it’s not of much use. Right now, only CACHE Gold (CGT), and PAX Gold (PAXG) achieve more than $1 million in daily trading volume, whereas Tether Gold (XAUT) is just behind — typically racking up between $50,000 and $500,000 in 24 hour volume.

Perth Mint Gold Token (PMGT) and Digix Gold (DGX), on the other hand, are relatively illiquid and are hence prone to sudden price fluctuations with sudden changes in trading volume.

Accessibility

Getting your hands on gold-backed tokens shouldn’t be a challenge in most cases, after all, a handful of popular cryptocurrency exchanges now offer support for gold-backed tokens, including both centralized and decentralized options.

But despite this, some are without a doubt more accessible than others. One way to gauge the accessibility of these tokens is to compare them based on the quality of the exchanges they can be traded on.

PAX Gold is the only gold-backed token listed on Binance. (Image: Paxos)

Right now, CACHE Gold (CGT), PAX Gold (PAXG), and Tether Gold (XAUT) are the only three gold-backed tokens listed on a tier 1 exchange, with CGT available on Bittrex, PAXG on Binance, and XAUT on Bitfinex. Likewise, all three of these tokens can be traded on the most popular decentralized exchange (DEX): Uniswap. Of these, CACHE Gold (CGT) currently has by far the highest liquidity on the DEX.

Perth Mint Gold Token (PMGT) and Digix Gold (DGX) again struggle in this department, since they’re both listed on relatively obscure exchanges, and even offer limited liquidity on decentralized platforms.

Redemption Process

As a gold-backed token, it stands to reason that you should be able to easily convert your tokens into physical gold, should you wish to take possession of the actual underlying gold for any reason.

While most gold-backed crypto assets offer this feature, not all are particularly transparent about the process behind it or whether it’s even possible.

One of the main barriers when converting gold-backed tokens into physical gold is the minimum redemption amount. This is the minimum number of tokens you need to redeem at any one time — and this value can vary considerably from platform to platform.

For PAX Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT), this is set at a whopping 430 ounces (i.e. 430 tokens). At today’s rates, that’s around $777,000 worth of tokens. This means you will be simply unable to redeem your PAXG or XAUT unless you’ve got close to $800,000 in your balance.

CACHE Gold (CGT) and Digix Gold (DGX), on the other hand, are far more reasonable. Both have a minimum redemption amount of 100 tokens (100 grams of gold), currently worth around $5,800. We also found that CACHE Gold has by far the simplest redemption process of any gold-backed token, whereas Perth Mint Gold Token (PMGT) is arguably the worst, since the minimum redemption figure isn’t publicly available.

We already had one instance of Bitcoin being artificially manipulated upwards, in 2013, and most people who bought in got screwed. At the time, the fraud was happening on MtGox, an exchange that was processing over half of all trading volume, and was in a position to manipulate the market.

Today, over 70% of Bitcoin trading is happening against USDT, a stablecoin that’s being printed out of thin air at an exponential rate. People who are still buying Bitcoin with real dollars, now that everyone has understood the scheme, are simply the greatest fools who allow the scammers to cash out, right before the collapse.

If you think Bitcoin is the best performing asset right now, think again. You’re going to kick yourself for missing this one:

Yes, it’s a one year chart, and the asset in question is really up 2,300,000% over the last year. That’s two million three hundred thousand percent ARR. And it’s not some unknown painting that turned out to be a Da Vinci, that only an insider could buy before it mooned. No, it’s a stock index, everything is legit, the chart is from Bloomberg. And I can guarantee you that if you buy in today, you’re still early. It will continue to moon next year as well.

The chart above is that of the Caracas Stock Exchange Stock Market Index. You might have noticed that it’s denominated in VES, or Venezuelan Bolivar, a currency that’s going to lose half its value before the end of the day, as a result of relentless money printing by the Venezuelan central bank.

You can check the stock prices of any country with high inflation – from Zimbabwe to Argentina – and you’ll notice the same pattern, over and over again. “Money printer goes brrr” makes asset prices denominated in that currency go to the moon, and it’s never too late to join the party.

Obviously investing in Venezuelan or Zimbabwean equities won’t make you a billionaire in a few month’s time. The falling value of the currency will offset the gains, and you’ll end up holding some rather illiquid stocks that will be worth… probably something, but not billions of US dollars.

In the past, Venezuelan government officials tried to hide this reality by setting an “official” rate for the bolivar against the US dollar. Of course, you couldn’t buy any dollars with your bolivar at that rate, but for someone who wasn’t paying attention, it might have looked like things weren’t that bad.

You could, of course, buy bolivars with your dollars at that rate, but nobody was that stupid. Venezuelans knew the truth, because they were witnessing that the value of the bolivar was plummeting: a bag of carrots at the market would cost a thousand of bolivars one day, and two thousands the day after, and so forth.

But what if you couldn’t buy anything with your bolivars, but the stock market? What if the Venezuelan government had such a tight grip on appearances, and on places that traded the bolivar, that you wouldn’t know the truth, at least for a while? You’d only see a chart that’s mooning, and only hear about people buying in because it was mooning, and those people would seem to be making stupid amounts of money day after day.

If you think this is impossible, google “Willy Bot“. At the time, the online exchange MtGox was an absolute leader in Bitcoin trading, with over half of all worldwide trading volume. You would wire your dollars to MtGox, receive MtGox credits in your account, that everyone believed to be worth their face value in USD, and buy Bitcoin with them. Bitcoin went up as if on steroids, and nobody questioned the goose that laid golden eggs.

Until too many people tried to cash out, and MtGox went bust. You might notice that the price of Bitcoin didn’t crash that much afterwards, for the very simple reason that the exchange froze everyone’s accounts. Nobody was allowed to access their Bitcoins once the truth was out. Bitcoin not crashing to zero is little solace when you lost yours.

This was the exact same scenario as described with the imaginary all-powerful Venezuelan government – a central party (MtGox a.k.a. the Venezuelan government) that’s able to distort the perception of reality and print its way to the moon, attracting hordes of wannabe millionaires. Until one investor too many try to cash out and everything collapses.

Surely that couldn’t happen again, people aren’t THAT stupid, right?

Well, it’s happening again. Over 70% of Bitcoin is traded against USDT, a stablecoin that’s being printed at an exponentially growing rate:

There are no basis for believing that USDT tokens are worth anything. USDTs are issued by Tether, a shady company whose legally declared office doesn’t exist, and that’s being investigated by the NYAG for fraud. Legally, USDTs are worthless: only a few selected secret parties can ask to redeem them for US dollars, and even then, Tether has the right to delay the redemption requests for as long as they want:

You cannot buy anything with USDTs but cryptocurrencies – mainly Bitcoin. There is no reason to believe that USDTs aren’t printed out of thin air: Tether has systematically failed to provide an audit of its reserves, and they won’t even say what those reserves are. Cryptocurrency macro flows show that USDTs are most probably backed by Bitcoins themselves, meaning that USDTs are issued to buy Bitcoin, thus pumping Bitcoin’s price.

The problem with USDTs being backed by Bitcoins is that Bitcoin can’t fall, or USDTs will no longer be properly backed, and exchanges will panic. This forces Tether to keep printing ever more USDTs to pump Bitcoin’s price, in an exponential race to the death until exchanges can no longer maintain the USDT peg because people who made millions of paper gains try to cash out – albeit a little bit, and everyone realises USDTs were just a fancy version of the Venezuelan bolivar.

However, as long as the day is young and there are more real USD buyers than USD sellers, the scammers can cash out for real dollars. The mechanics of the scheme are simple:

With Bitcoin going up by 20% every month, a lot of people might be tempted to think, “hey, even if it’s a Ponzi scheme, it only needs to go on for a few more months and I’ll double my money, and then I’ll cash out before it collapses”.

But that’s the thing with fake markets – most people lose all their money, because most people don’t manage to cash out before the scheme collapses. The moment the inflows of USDs start to dwindle, the scammers close shop and disappear. Remember – these scammers have painstakingly put the scheme together with only one goal: get as much real dollars as possible, by selling you Bitcoins they’ve purchased with worthless tokens. They will not give a penny of their loot back, the moment they think their scheme is unraveling.

If you aren’t an insider, you have no way of knowing when that will happen, so your decision of buying in or cashing out is taken randomly. If you don’t have any insider information, you become part of the statistic. And statistics say that 99% of people will lose everything, and that you will almost certainly be in that 99%.

The rising price fallacy is the misconception that the longer a scheme goes up in price, the lower are the chances of it crashing in the near future. The reality is the exact opposite: the scheme has to suck in a lot of fools to establish that upward price chart, and by the time you, a random person with no inside information, has noticed it, most people are already invested, and you’ll just be part of the final herd.

Of course everybody thinks that they’re special, that they’re not part of the herd, that they’re smarter than the rest. That’s why the scam works. Because people need to rationalise the fact that they’re smarter than the rest, the founding pillar of Bitcoin communication is, “you’re still early”, and “more people are coming”. Much has been said about Tesla buying $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. But nobody is talking about the fact that someone has SOLD Tesla $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. Why has someone sold $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin? Weren’t THEY aware of the fact that Bitcoin can only go up?

Nobody is talking about the crash to come, precisely because everyone invested knows that it’s a manipulated market, and they are hoping to cash out before the others. So the last thing everyone wants to do, is say anything that might make the other investors doubt, which could make those investors think about cashing out before they do. The tale of Emperor’s New Clothes is as old as civilization itself.

The endgame is simple: for everyone who is buying in, people are cashing out. Those who are cashing out, are part of the 1% who won’t lose it all. Statistically, you aren’t part of them.

Cryptocurrency, Expansion & Adoption, Interview, Startups, Uncategorized Recently, I was invited to be one of the judges for the Columbia Venture Competition where I had a chance to review ten blockchain startups that had been founded by Columbia University students and alums. The quality of the projects and the development stage varied a lot. However, there was one initiative that caught my eye – not because it was something overtly flashy and complicated, or because it featured some highly-advanced technology, as there are plenty of those. It grabbed my attention because it was solving a real need, and the proposed solution was simple and elegant. The Moon browser extension (currently in Beta) allows you to connect your wallet and then to pay with cryptocurrency for your online purchases. Currently, it only supports Coinbase wallet with four currencies (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether and Bitcoin Cash) and you can only use it on Amazon. One more tidbit from the application stood out: Moon’s founder Ken Kruger had worked for over four years for Lockheed Martin, the biggest private contractor of the U.S. government, and the company behind some of the most advanced weapon systems in the world such as the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II.  Below is a snippet from our conversation. Michael Kapilkov: One thing that stood out to me was your experience at Lockheed Martin, not many founders in the space have worked for a major defense contractor. Can you tell me more about your experience there? Ken Kruger: Having earned a master’s degree in financial engineering from Columbia University I ended up at Lockheed Martin working on the Ohio class nuclear submarine project. It was a great experience, I learned a lot, but I always wanted to start my own company. At Lockheed, there was too much bureaucracy, too much red tape. When I left, I started a gesture recognition company, it didn’t go too well as no one cares about gesture recognition. Michael Kapilkov: Lockheed Martin being a defense contractor, what kind of security measure did they have in place? Was security being handled by the company itself or by government agencies such FBI, CIA? Ken Kruger: I had to obtain a security clearance. So, there was a background check, drug tests. When I traveled abroad, I had to let them know in advance. The security was being handled by various contractors, it also depended on who was your client – mine was U.S. Navy. Michael Kapilkov: I have to ask you this – while at Lockheed Martin or after you left, were you ever approached by a foreign intelligence service, did anyone ever try to recruit you? Ken first discovered Bitcoin around 2009-2010, he was immediately intrigued by it – not by the technology, but from a socioeconomic angle. “You have this electronic currency that is not controlled by any government or corporation. I was surprised that no one had done before. I heard about that guy buying pizza with bitcoins. I wanted to invest like $100, but unfortunately, I never did. I made my first crypto investment around 2013”. Related: How Columbia University and IBM are accelerating blockchain technology The company was founded about six months ago. Currently, it has a staff of four, with four interns helping. It has been financed by Mr. Kruger up to this point, but he is currently raising a seed round with several investors having indicated interest. One of the potential investors is a founder of one of the major cryptocurrencies (Mr. Kruger prefers not to name him publicly until he inks the deal). As I mentioned, it’s a very simple solution: You install the Moon browser extension, then you sign in with either Moon or with your social media account (Google or Facebook are supported). I went this far but was hesitant to take the final step (over security concerns) – to connect with my Coinbase account. After that, you can start paying with cryptocurrency at Amazon. The user doesn’t get charged any dedicated fees. The economic model involves fees that get eaten up by the fiat payment processor, while Moon also gets paid by the intermediary. Michael Kapilkov: I was hesitant to connect my Coinbase account because, as you know, there are a lot of scammers out there (nothing personal). How do you convince your potential users that your product is safe? Is it going to be an open source project? Ken Kruger: We get this feedback a lot. At this early stage, it is important for us to understand the concerns that the users may have, so we can address them in the future. I don’t think we’ll open source it since it’s not a decentralized project. Michael Kapilkov: Your initial market is the U.S.; wouldn’t it make more sense to go for one of the developing countries where you have a lot of people who are unbanked? Over here everyone has credit and debit cards, so it’s not a real pain point. Ken Kruger: I agree. Some people ask me “The price is so low, why are you doing it?”,  I believe that this technology will cause societal changes, one of the biggest potential applications for this technology is serving the unbanked. The reason why we are starting in the U.S. is because I understand this market, I live here, I speak the language… But in the future, we plan to expand globally. Michael Kapilkov: Let’s say you able to close this seed round, how you are going to spend the money? Ken Kruger: We have a hypothesis – that people want to shop with cryptocurrency. We have figure out if it’s true. We need to calculate CAC [customer acquisition cost], CLV [customer lifetime value]. Our biggest goal is to find the market fit. If we do that, we’ll be set up well for growth. Also, we are going to connect other wallets. Michael Kapilkov: It seems to me, if your Moon takes off, a perfect exit strategy would be an acquisition by Coinbase. Michael Kapilkov: Who is your main competition and why do you think you are better than them? Ken Kruger: Our main competition are crypto payment gateways and crypto backed debit cards. These are the two dominant ways with which people currently spend cryptocurrency at merchants. Unfortunately, only about 3% of merchants support a crypto payment gateway and I don’t believe debit cards are the future of payments. Our goal at Moon is to allow consumers to transact in crypto as if every merchant natively accepts crypto, which is the experience Moon currently provides on Amazon. Ken Kruger: We’ve decided to pursue more traditional startup investment vehicles for now. ICOs lead to different incentive structures for companies that are untested and ICOs are viewed by many as being associated with scams. We wanted to avoid both of those. Michael Kapilkov: So, you are a part of this Columbia Venture Competition, has Columbia been helpful to you? Ken Kruger: I was part of the first Columbia Startup Lab cohort with my other startup. Columbia entrepreneurship ecosystem is fantastic. Columbia has helped a lot. The caliber of the people you meet is great. We’ll be closely following the progress of Moon whether it soars like F-22 or takes a deep dive like a submarine. Casa also launches a browser extension for Lightning payments Connecting food, IBM, and Columbia University: disrupting the world’s oldest industry

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⏰ Time Stamps ⏰ 0:00 Today in Crypto 1:30 Bitcoin Looking Bullish 6:11 Aave 7:47 Elrond 9:23 Cardano 10:54 Fidelity Says Bitcoin to the Moon

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Now that Cointelegraph’s “Top 100 Notable People in Blockchain 2021” has been fully revealed, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the surprises were over for another year.

Well, not quite.

We believe that those who gained a place within our list deserve more than simply being celebrated on our website… so we’ve immortalized them as unique nonfungible token artworks designed by the talented illustration team here at Cointelegraph.

But unless you're on the list, don’t get too excited just yet. These NFTs won’t be available to the general public. Instead, each person on our Top 100 will receive their own NFT collectible.

We’ve also decided to give an Honorable Mention (and NFT) to the inimitable Elon Musk.

He’s been teasing us with enigmatic crypto hints for so long that it almost became a non-story. But after shooting a Shiba Inu to the moon, he finally came out all guns blazing for Bitcoin and told us that it was “inevitable.”

Inevitably too late for inclusion in our Top 100-proper unfortunately, but definitely in time for an Honorable Mention.

Of course, the more eagle-eyed among you may have realized that we can’t easily deliver an NFT to all of our Top 100 recipients. Some are anonymous... and we're not sure the U.S. Marshals Service would appreciate it, anyway. But the real question is how to include the honoree at the very top of the list: #1 - All of Us.

This NFT will be auctioned through Rarible over the next week and will be the only NFT of this batch available on the open market… unless of course, one of the initial recipients falls on hard times and decides to sell. But hey, at least this is blockchain... so the provenance will never be in doubt.

Once again, we congratulate all of the worthy members of our Top 100 and look forward to their future contributions to the blockchain and crypto space.

In this episode, Anna Baydakova and Danny Nelson discuss North Korea reportedly stealing your crypto to create nuclear weapons, Tesla rattling markets at an opportune time and Nigeria trying to ban crypto.

Starting Feb. 12, in the Chinese calendar, we are in the year of the ox, or bull; at least for now, things are looking quite bullish for crypto. Usually, Chinese users would massively sell bitcoin ahead of the New Year but the current rally is being mostly driven by institutions, not retail buyers in Asia. So it looks like the “To the Moon” show must go on!

A United Nations expert panel said North Korea used the money it extorted by cyber attacks to fund nuclear weapons development. The panel said that according to its investigations, North Korean regime-linked hackers worked all through 2020 and made the money now funding weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. According to Chainalysis, the hackers used DeFi infrastructure, over-the-counter brokers and mixers to sell their crypto. So will we end up with a bit of North Korean hacker crypto one day?

Tesla hyped the bitcoin market right around the time some bad news came out of China. In February, Tesla’s annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission included the news the company put an aggregate of $1.5 billion into bitcoin. Just before that filing several Chinese government agencies publicly questioned Tesla cars’ quality and safety. Coincidence?

Nigeria is trying to curb crypto adoption, but that is not so easy. In early February, the country’s central bank sent a letter to financial institutions ordering them to shut down all bank accounts associated with cryptocurrency trading platforms. Result: Binance halted deposits in Nigeria. As a result, Nigerians turned to peer-to-peer trading platforms. Is this actually good for crypto adoption? We’ll see.

Stories mentioned in this episode:

Did you enjoy the show? We would love to hear what you think. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your preferred service and talk to us directly via email at borderless@coindesk.com.

In the Billiard hall, "running the table" is well understood.

In Crypto, right now, AI is doing the same.

As NYC goes, so does LonDon, when these big league finance sharks enter the fray, anything goes and most everything goes in the market, up and down more frequently, the way such Sharks like it.

So you better be a Killer Whale hodling a very fast bunch of "bottle-nosed porpoise" like , agile cryptos, all of which are able to "hold their own" against the sharks (A well aimed series of deceptive thrusts from many porpoises  in the ribs sometimes take sharks out completely, if they aren't paying attention). 

As the Sharks run the table Top 100 in crypto, their next few "shots" aimed at "pocketing BIG profits" look to be emerging on the backs of IOTA and BAT, two long standing well known cryptocurrencies focused on very different markets, the former on the Machine Economy, the latter on the emerging Permissioned-based Advertising market set to show  under different country laws in 2022.

In this ISSUE #007, lets first take a look at the resurgent fortunes of #BAT and what the Brave Browser Co. is doing to steer themselves and their Hodlers toward even greater prosperity.

How Much BAT remains un-issued? BAT Inflation Tsunami coming = BIG price suppression/drop shock ?

Much has been said about the un-issued BAT sitting on the sidelines. Yes, their have been 'security' and 'policy' challenges, all now well addressed.

Is the #BAT development and management team absolutely Tier 1? IMO yes. Are they focused with a good roadmap and delivering value well?

Personally I don't worry so much about the extra BAT "on the sidelines" waiting to get into the game, Brendan Eich at #Brave is a lot smarter than that, as the consumption and re-spend of BAT on Permissioned based Advertising placement as distributed, to the ever more popular Brave Browser (5X faster) growing Legion of Brave Fans (12M strong and largely techie and crypto types?), Advertising protection ready for the 2022 regulations and, the pooling of BAT in liquidity pools or balancers with more exchanges adding direct conversion liquidity pair will easily absorb the extra BAT now parked on the sidelines. Absorption  of BAT into the Main St. and Crypto Financial market segments will be  largely Advertising market segment driven. Heck even the popular crypto hardware wallets support BAT (as they do IOTA).

What is as interesting,  is the BAT commercial network growth,  which went well in 2019 (those placing ads via the Brave Advertising network paying in BAT), only to take a growth hiatus for most of 2020, after the big Crash in March 2020 of the entire worldwide market of everything for WEC/CB related reasons, which we wont "get into" in this post. ;)

The Publish0x BAT Vanishing Act, Revisited with hindsight.

As a result of the economic downturn, BAT essentially 'spun sideways' to such an extent, that our own champion of crypto blogging, Publish0x decided to shift their own tip pools into Ethereum, as well as shifting that hard earned (writing and reading is tiring some days)  BAT value with a two step buy into FARM via wrapped Ethereum offers or by stepping through Stable coins and into  sophisticated  crypto "DEFI" finance plays with that previously BAT earned hard store of value into  Ample and FARM (Harvest.finance), leaving BAT completely on the sidelines, with Publish0x trying to minimize what had become exorbitant ETH GAS fees for each transaction move.

Hindsight is always 20/20, so it's very easy to say Publish0x made a mistake. In reality, the market dynamics have shifted generally to be largely powered by NYC and LonDon sharks showing up to playing a big way "running the table" potting big profits while driving up the market cap prices of BTC, ETH, DOT, XRP, and by shear volume TETHER. Many other alt-coins have benefited with lesser volumes in play, but none so much as ADA (CArdano) in the last week or so.

AI Sharks, Captains of the Crypto Seas, with their heads "on a swivel", buying up BAT

Well now it looks like the AI algorithm List (the table) has focused algorithmic trading on BAT, collectively building the Buy Price wall strike price ever higher with hodlers playing a role to some degree in this upward movement, selling off to take profits on the way up. In reality the oscillation of hi-frequency, hi-velocity trading between buy and sell is what magically drives the price up or down, is small transaction amounts. 

That said Shark knowledge of these crypto seas is well, catching up to the Whales who really understand and sympathize with the crypto porpoises. Will their be Shark causalities? Absolutely, so small investors please, don't just follow their AI trends blindly, remember, Sharks will also eat a wounded Shark. ;)

The good news the Crypto centric Whales are suitably "AI"  Order Router armed as well, in fact maybe better armed in some camps with "AI" tech and a better understanding of the  school of crypto porpoises such, they can better avoid getting jabbed in the ribs by a school of crypto porpoises,  due to better crypto market intelligence, especially in the alt-coin space, where as the Sharks avoiding such hits (corrections or fast rises), not so much.

Will BAT prosper in 2021? Will their be a 2021 pullback correction? Is 2022 the big breakout year for BAT? Yes, Yes and Yes to all three imnsho.  ;)

Some crypto prices need re-inflating too

especially the ones creating real value

Do you really give one IOTA? 

Well yes, you should,  especially to the ones you love, maybe Feb 14th is a good day to start that Tradition. :)

All joking aside, IOTA is a very serious investment opportunity with  big brand name players in the automotive space behind IOTA, check out their site here to learn more.

Personally I am deeply invested in the #IOTA technology scene as a member of the IEN and, subsequently, VERY happy to see IOTA announce on Feb 8th, 2021 IOTA are really going to deliver on their oracle external data feed tech so as to marry such tech up with IOTA's emerging Smart Contract Capabilities. Why? Because I am working solo right now building some open source of value in SOVRINTown  on github which requires both pieces of that IOTA puzzle to really make transparent secure combo  paper/plastic vote card/ online eVoting and similarly handled eGoverance work (with multi sig wallet support of course). So expect more  SOVRINTown code to show up in github repository for SOVRINTown over the coming three quarters, with the idea there is a complete set of "lego" in place, for any developer groups to use from that project by year end, 2021.

In my day Job, we also need the same IOTA oracle and SC components to make some other value we are creating work in the Colo as a Service space at CloudProx, in commercial projects, also partnered with Accipiter Systems of Pittsburgh, PA. That same joint project work will at some point, also tie into the value created by XLM and also ADA.  Not to mention such links via Oracles will also be enabling payment for colo and WAN/MAN operator  Tenant hosted and Networked Services in  BTC and ETH and maybe anything ERC20 via DOT, all of which I consider to be "the Big 5"  emerging to power the new crypto enabled economy as the same sharks engineer the controlled demolition of the fiat world ensuring maximal profit taking along the way. (WEC Great Reset? lol. good luck with that Dr. Evil. ;)  )

Pocketing Profits in Parallel : These Sharks are the Best in the Business driving BAT and IOTA to new heights.

As the NYC and LonDon sharks run the Top 100 Crypto table "pocketing profits" along the way, now buying up IOTA & BAT, the original crypto Whales and small investor hodlers of IOTA and BAT are being rewarded after a long wait, one that began in early 2018 after the 2017 market hype spike. 

As far as IOTA  development goes, despite the youth of the founders at their 2015 start, IOTA Foundation "IF" has adroitly added both age and experience  to transform from what was seen as an experimental, IoT  "research" (Science experiment) project  and team , doing so largely this past eighteen months , moulding their development effort into a small  group of very competent, very roadmap focused core developers, with much tighter , realistic road maps which has as team, made good on most delivery promises more or less on time (its software so get over any dealys please, bugs happen), where for the most part, like #CARDANO, that small group of IOTA developers is delivering together WITH their IOTA developer community on the promise of realizing IOTA's Smart City and Connected Car powered Machine Economy value add.

For that combined Herculean Effort alone, IOTA should and has been (most recently) rewarded with a higher coin price.

Also, IOTA didn't try to boil the ocean all at once by "opening up too many development fronts" like ETH.  As a result many IOTA hodlers were disappointed the IOTA price had  languished  this past 18 months and,  IOTA did indeed slip out of the Top 20 this past year.

Now IOTA is back at position #26 after slipping into the 40s, IOTA is back and on its way to the top, largely rewarded by good planning, a coherent roadmap and strategy, to to mention a great vision which they have stuck to, sporting a Market Cap Valuation of US$3.1B.

As IOTA's Smart Contract capabilities get discovered by old C++/C developers migrating to #RUST and #GO languages, expect IOTA to be used more and more to develop most all IoT  applications. Why?  For this simple fact alone: IOTA's TANGLE distributed public ledger today does scale TPS in a linear fashion as transaction volume grows (lightweight PoS or energy efficient PoW consensus take your pick) , scaling reliably.

TK Tech Note- both Rust and Go programming languages  support 'thread safe concurrency' without 'memory leaks' because they employ programmable 'Garbage Collection' memory management capabilities). As a result IOTA's core team use of both languages, combined with  their extremely large #IoT centric community having strongholds of developers worldwide and a rapidly expanding footprint in North America (Linux foundation, Automotive Linux, et al),  are well positioned to raise IOTA's Market Cap up  back into the TOP 20 , as IOTAns deliver more and more scalable crypto value to their target verticals markets (IoT, Smart Cities, Connected Cars) via community developers building these nextgen industrial  and machine economy solutions with  both Smart Contracts and oracle the IOTA way.

Too the Moon,  for vastly Different Reasons: IOTA and BAT take off

IOTA , like BAT have a "rosy" future.

In IOTA's specific case, the caveat is IOTA must keep the IF grants powering community development  and their core team energy focused on those applied research and early commercialization efforts which are IOTA core competencies, packaged as easily consumed developer units of value, as promised and, IOTA must keep encouraging & promoting the rapidly growing IOTA worldwide Community to do the rest.

BAT, on the other hand, needs the advertising buy and placement part of that social media market to 'wake up' to the fact Brave's permissioned Ad placement and the BAT BD team are doubling up their effort to get retailers and service outlets on board to place ads on their network. Now that consumer product manufacturers such as Tesla Cars now allow purchase BTC, the ETH to BTC wrapper and balancer offers will be important to  Brave to ensure their developers (BAT which is ERC20 can effectively support double entry accounting based ETH conversion to UTXO format (BTC). Brave  will also need liquidity pair exchange partnerships in this new DEFI segment of the Crypto market to facilitate such conversion of BAT ERC20 to the UTXO format of BTC (also used by IOTA) to allow BAT to be spent and or staked and loaned out to be part of such Big value purchases (Which is what will move the BAT price upward more imo). So there is work to be done in the Brave BAT camp before Brave and BAT Main Street Ad Revenue results really take off.

2021 TK Outlook- IOTA and BAT to the Moon? Yes!

My call for IOTA in 2021 is to regain their position in the TOP 20 solidly, and for BAT to climb back into the TOP 30 and stay there for quite awhile, once this latest 2nd big historic market hype in 2021 settles and, we all see where the real value is and who is executing best to deliver that value.

A Tale of Two Coins? Both are winners in my books, so what are you waiting for?

Stay safe, don't worry about short term corrections and go for it. Think Long. Hodl like Heck. :)

For IOTA and BAT, imo It's really just the start of much greater returns to come, AI Sharks included. 

TK over and out. 

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From travel rewards, to cashback to free Starbucks coffee, there are lots of different types of credit card rewards out there. Soon, you’ll even be able to earn Bitcoin rewards.

Crypto exchange platform BlockFi recently announced that it’s partnering with Visa to launch a credit card that rewards purchases with Bitcoin, rather than points, miles or cash back. This will be the world’s first credit card that pays out in Bitcoin, but whether it will actually be worth applying for is another question. The BlockFi Bitcoin Rewards credit card will carry a $200 annual fee and will earn rewards at a flat rate.

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The $200-a-year BlockFi Bitcoin Rewards credit card will offer cardholders a flat 1.5% cash back that is automatically converted to Bitcoin across all spending. This means you won’t have to juggle specific bonus categories, but could limit your earning potential in popular categories such as dining.

At the time of the launch, new cardholders will be offered a sign-up bonus of $250 in the digital asset after spending $3,000 in the first three months.

While BlockFi hasn’t released details about benefits yet, it did hint at purchase protections. If this ends up being a Visa Signature card, benefits may include extended warranty protection and various travel protections. What we know for sure is that the card will feature a sleek metal design.

Related: Everything you need to know about Visa Signature card benefits

The card, which will be issued by Evolve Bank & Trust, is set to start shipping in spring 2021. Waitlist registration has already opened for existing and new BlockFi users with funded accounts and will become available to the public in January. It will only be available to U.S. residents in qualified states.

Related: The prettiest credit cards, ranked

Bitcoin is the fastest-growing currency and is showing no sign of slowing down. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should jump on this card. Putting aside the risks associated with investing in such a volatile currency, this card doesn’t provide much ancillary value.

The BlockFi Bitcoin Rewards credit card isn’t all that different from standard cash-back cards such as the Citi® Double Cash Card or the Chase Freedom Unlimited. These cards earn 2% (1% when you make purchases, 1% when as you pay your bill) and 1.5% back, respectively, on general everyday purchases. The Freedom Unlimited kicks things up a notch by also offering 5% back on travel booked through Chase Ultimate Rewards, 5% back on Lyft rides through March 2021 and 3% cash back on dining and drugstores. The key difference is that neither of these cards carry an annual fee, whereas BlockFi’s card costs $200 per year.

And unfortunately, there aren’t really any benefits that justify this annual fee. By comparison, cards such as the American Express® Green Card and American Express® Gold Card, which both carry fairly similar annual fees, come with various statement credits, such as for Clear and Uber, that help offset its annual fees.

The information for the Amex Green Card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

As such, if you want to begin earning Bitcoin rewards, it could be wiser to continue using a regular, more rewarding cash-back card and then using a commission-free crypto trading platform — such as BlockFi or Robinhood — to invest in Bitcoin using the money you earned. Sure, it won’t be an automatic process, but you would save $200 each year and could potentially earn a better return on your spending.

Related: Should you buy Bitcoin with your credit card?

There’s a new credit card hitting the market that will earn rewards in the form of Bitcoin. However, unless it introduces more benefits, it would be hard to justify its annual fee. If you’re interested in investing in Bitcoin, you could be better off with a regular credit card and using your cashback to buy the digital asset separately.

Featured image by Francesco Carta fotografo/Getty Images.

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Last Updated February 11, 2021, 02:016 GMT

At the time of this writing, Bitcoin Cash’s price is up $4.15 (0.84%) from the hour prior. Bitcoin Cash has seen its price go up 4 out of the past 5 hours, thus creating some compelling opportunities for bulls. As for the trend on the hourly timeframe, we see the clearest trend on the 100 hour timeframe. Regarding moving averages, it should first be noted that price has crossed the 20 and 50 hour moving averages, resulting in them so that price is now turning above them. The moving averages on the hourly timeframe suggest a choppiness in price, as the 20, 50, 100 and 200 are all in a mixed alignment — meaning the trend across timeframes is inconsistent, indicating a potential opportunity for rangebound traders.

Bitcoin Cash came into today up 6.3% ($30.52) from the open of the previous day, marking the 2nd day in a row an increase has occurred. The price move occurred on stronger volume; specifically, yesterday’s volume was up 37.05% from the day prior, and up 126.98% from the same day the week before. Out of the 7 instruments in the Top Cryptos asset class, Bitcoin Cash ended up ranking 3rd for the day in terms of price change relative to the previous day. Here is a daily price chart of Bitcoin Cash.

The clearest trend exists on the 14 day timeframe, which shows price moving up over that time. Or to view things another way, note that out of the past 10 days Bitcoin Cash’s price has gone up 7 them.

For laughs, fights, or genuinely useful information, let’s see what the most popular tweets pertaining to Bitcoin Cash for the past day were:

With Bitcoin being king, Other cryptos you can invest in are;-Ethereum( ETH) – Litcoin (LTC)- Cardano (ADA)- Polkadot (DOT)-Bitcoin Cash ( BCH)- Stellar (XLM)-Chainlink (LINK) -Binance Coin (BNB)-Tether (USDT)-Monero (XMR)-Tron (TRX)

Bitcoin Cash will soon be the leading crypto currency with most transactions… and they’re still only a fraction of Bitcoin’s price. Huge huge huge upside from Bitcoin Cash’s current price.

@ApeMoar mostly?”The study found that over 39% of the total energy consumed by PoW cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and others comes from renewable energy sources.”

In terms of news links for Bitcoin Cash here’s one to try:

Nasdaq is launching a Nasdaq Crypto Index (NCI). The 6 current constituents are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink, and Stellar Lumens! : Stellar

TL;DR: Looks like a trial run for crypto ETFs in a small market, but may be harbinger for more serious ETF related news….Lets keep the good news flowing!…Diamond hands, Stelllar to the Moon🚀🚀🚀🌖🌖🌖💎💎💎🤲🤲🤲 Be careful about revealing such information online I hope they add more coins in the future like $DNT Bruh that coin and sub are dead Every single one of those cryptos is on Bitstamp, which is arguably the most regulated crypto exchange in the world, for better or worse.

Bitcoin started a downside correction after rallying to a new lifetime high of $48,308. The downturn followed a massive push higher thaT came on the heels of an SEC disclosure regarding Tesla’s BTC purchase. 

That news sparked a buying frenzy on Tuesday as many retail traders rushed in to gain heightened exposure to the flagship cryptocurrency.

On Wednesday morning, the king coin slipped below the $47K level as buying pressure cooled off. The price even traded below $46K and formed a low at near $43,750 before stabilizing. At the time of writing, BTCUSD is down 4.3% at its price of         BTCUSD Chart By TradingView 

Meanwhile, Ethereum followed in the footsteps of BTC as it started a short-term downside correction after soaring to a new ATH of $1,830. Despite spiking below $1,800, the second-largest crypto is still trading in a positive zone and has stabilized above $1,720.

BTC surprised some investors after failing to move closer to $50,000 following yesterday’s explosive rally that saw it gain $5K in hours. The bears have now erased most of this week’s gains that started with Monday’s price pump. 

However, one analyst is viewing today’s significant correction as a normal part of the short term price cycle that is necessary for Bitcoin’s steady upwards grind. Analyst Michaël van de Poppe advised his Twitter followers to adapt to the current protracted period of upside and accumulate more coins. 

“‘Why are you scaling out?’ Well, markets are going up heavily, but we’ll be seeing some downwards momentum as well. Nothing goes up in a straight line,” Michaël van de Poppe tweeted. 

Today’s market behavior proves that the bitcoin price doesn’t heed all celebrity endorsements. The severe downturn came just a short while after actress Lindsay Lohan suddenly proclaimed “Bitcoin to the moon” on her official Twitter page.

Nevertheless, crypto enthusiasts will be excited that more celebs and other non-industry figures are increasingly engaging with BTC as the cryptocurrency continues to go mainstream at an alarming pace.

Binance coin (BNB) is one of the week’s best-performing altcoins after gaining over 155% as per data from CoinMarketCap. The native crypto of the Binance ecosystem broke many hurdles near $80 and $100 as it exploded to a new all-time high at               BNBUSD Chart By TradingView 

This inspiring rally saw BNBUSD increase its market cap to over $19 billion, cementing the coin’s place as the seventh-largest crypto on CoinMarketCap. 

Many in the crypto space will now be watching out for further gains in the BNB price, especially after Binance recently launched its instant crypto payments app, Binance Pay. The new app is expected to rival payments giant Paypal in fostering crypto transactions globally. 

The Bitcoin bull market left everyone indifferent. This has been the most popular discussion among experts in the past few weeks. Some people believe that Bitcoin will go to the moon, while others believe that Bitcoin will die. Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, is one of the doubters of Bitcoin.

In an interview with Cardano’s official subreddit, Hoskinson affirmed that just like with fiat currency, the only value of bitcoin is acceptance. If it loses its only strength: popularity, it will eventually die.

Bitcoin is valuable because it is valuable. It has no technical advantage. In fact, it is the least advanced and least future of all cryptocurrencies. Apart from its existence there is no other reason.

Cardano is the third generation blockchain, which is why Hoskinson offers higher potential value than Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the first generation of the blockchain. Basically, coins are moved from one wallet to another, nothing more.

Ethereum is an example of a second generation blockchain. Smart contracts not only deliver value, they also allow employees to regulate these operations, making the blockchain more functional. However, these blockchains have some design shortcomings that make it difficult to stand the test of time.

On the other hand, as a third generation blockchain, Cardano is trying to solve the famous blockchain trilemma by adding a number of technologies to the second generation blockchain. Ultimately, this should make the network scalable, secure, and efficient without losing its decentralization.

Hoskinson added that Bitcoin will have to make some key developments to bring it in line with its competitors.

As soon as bitcoin is abandoned by another cryptocurrency, bitcoin dies, as there is no reason to leave it with its neighbors unless they find a way to innovate again.

There are various developments that focus on improving Bitcoin. The best known are Segwit, Taproot, Schnorr signatures, and the Lightning Network. If everything is achieved, Bitcoin can theoretically handle the exponential increase in transaction volume.

However, in an interview, Hoskinson said that the fragmentation and lack of orientation in the community is costing developers a lot of time.

“Bitcoin lost some of its earliest and best people over just the block size-a system parameter. It just tells you, if you can’t even agree on something so trivial as a block size, then how do you get post-quantum crypto when quantum computers come,? How do you get smart contracts?”

Hoskinson spoke about topics that could be the key to the future. In his view, the lack of consensus among developers in the face of future problems such as B. the network reorganization, lead to problems. When the blockchain reaches information at the PB level, it reaches oversized blockchain management and similar undiscussed issues.

To solve these problems, blockchain needs a governance system. From Hoskinson’s point of view, Satoshi Nakamoto couldn’t imagine anything.

What does the future of the crypto ecosystem look like? The life cycle applies to the blockchain: Bitcoin dies, which gives way to a better blockchain, owns all goods, no damage.

“It’ll absorb all the goodness of that system but won’t carry any of the bad characteristics. So you’ll still have the blockchain component, it’ll still settle transactions the way Bitcoin does … But then you’ll have smart contracts, governance, interoperability and much faster capabilities, the ability to global scale and work really well on a cellphone and have privacy and all these additional features and functionalities.”

Microsoft has no plans to buy Bitcoin yet, says the company’s Head

Ripple War with SEC, “No Hope of Settlement at this Time”

European Central Bank request EU Lawmakers to issue Veto Power on Stablecoins

As Bitcoin plummet below $50,000, will there be a correction soon?

Crypto in Nigeria: CBN, SEC to provide a level field for Investments

Bitcoin Rise Above $57,000, Setting New All-Time High

Kiss Bassist Endorses Cardano Because It’s “Cheaper Than Bitcoin”

Bitcoin has soared to fresh all-time highs in recent weeks, breaking $52,000 ATH just a few days ago.

After a long list of celebrities and influentials marching into Bitcoin, on 12th Feb, came actress Lindsay Lohan. She auctioned off an Ethereum-based NFT on digital collectible marketplace Rarible after predicting, “Bitcoin to the moon.”

However, several of her followers and the crypto community have pointed out that Bitcoin is not Ethereum, where her NFT based on. 

Then, after Lohan got the idea, she probably has looked through some public blockchains and DeFi projects other than Ethereum. And she discovered TRON ! “Good job”, said Lohan to the founder of TRON, Justin Sun.

This has raised great attention to the DeFi projects on TRON, giving that Lindsay Lohan has 8.4M followers on Twitter. 

Sun focuses on the DeFi potential of TRON. You can stake to mine and earn $SUN tokens. The lending pools support popular coins USDT, BTC, ETH, as well as TRON-based cryptocurrencies like TRX, JST, SUN, WIN, etc.

(The black spot line indicates the $SUN price)

$SUN price has fluctuated went up by 83.4% in the past 30 days.

JustSwap is the leading exchange protocol on the TRON blockchain for swaps between TRC20 tokens. You can regard it as the Uniswap on TRON.

JustSwap’s 30d volume reached $236.46M increased by 64.66%. The total balance in JustSwap’s smart contracts is 1.04B TRX, worth about $55.89M at the time of writing.

TRON has always positioned itself as an Ethereum competitor. Then how’s TRON DeFi/DEX performance compared to Ethereum’s?

Volume

Ethereum dominates the DeFi market in terms of volume. The 30d volume of Ethereum DeFi hit $72.85B, which accounted for almost 100% of the market share. While TRON only has $14.23M volume in the past 30 days.

Transaction

As for transactions, a total of 1.15M transactions happened on the Ethereum blockchain during the 30d period, accounting for 63.2%. TRON has fewer transactions, 670.97K, accounting for 36.8%.

Active Users

There are 274.97K active Ethereum DeFi users, more than 5 times TRON’s 52.04K users.

Overall Ethereum DeFi has an absolute advantage over TRON DeFi, no matter by volume, transactions, or users.

Ethereum DEX 30d volume $23.75B also dominates the market, with a 99.6% share. TRON’s has only 0.4% of the market share with a $99.85M volume.

However, TRON has taken over Ethereum in terms of transactions. It has 2.87M transactions in the past 30 days, accounting for 76.3% of the total transactions. This is more than 2 times the transactions on Ethereum(891.55K, 23.7%).

What’s more, TRON has attracted 3 times more users than Ethereum. 1.20M users have interacted with decentralized exchanges on TRON, accounting for 73.9%. While only 423.78K users have used Ethereum DEX.

TRON DEX has won over Ethereum DEX considering transactions and active users yet it has far less volume.

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