In the realm of global finance, few assets have captured the world’s attention quite like Bitcoin. Initially met with scepticism, it has evolved from a fringe concept into a top 10 global asset by market cap.
On March 26-27, join me at AsiaWorld-Expo as we explore Bitcoin’s potential as an institutional-grade global asset.
Use the promo code WOWHK24SPEAKER to access a 20% discount on your ticket. See you there at WOW Summit!
Time travels fast in the Web3 space, and tokens are ported securely through the Hashport bridge. Six months into the year 2023, we made upgrades on the portal almost as quickly as Hedera transactions.
As a public utility and interoperability solution, Hashport serves the Hedera ecosystem and the broader DeFi communities. At the time of writing in July 2023, Hashport supports 11 networks and 57+ tokens. We have many milestones and features to highlight — let’s review what we achieved so far this year.
Supported networks
In the previous 6 months, Hashport integrated an additional six networks, enabling interoperability between the existing supported networks with layer 2 networks Arbitrum and Optimism, Fantom, Cronos, Moonbeam, and Aurora.
All network integrations were voted in by the Hashport Governing Council, and many of them were requested by Hashporters and DeFi players who wished to enter the Hedera ecosystem.
Supported tokens
Along with the addition of the 6 new networks, 24 more tokens were integrated with the portal. Here are the new integrated tokens categorised by networks:
Currently, Hashport supports 57 unique tokens and their cross-network representative tokens. Users can access the Hashport Token List to seamlessly search for any token supported on the portal.
Top Ported Tokens
Every Monday, we share a weekly review of Top Ported Tokens to provide a glimpse into which tokens have been popular. For the first time ever, we give Hashporters a sneak peek into the monthly Top Ported Tokens of January — June 2023.
Other than the expected result of stablecoin $USDC being the top ported token, Wrapped ETH, Dovu’s $DOV, MANTRA’s $OM, Quant Network’s $QNT all had moments in the top 3. Tokens such as Wrapped AVAX, $HELI, & $USDT also gained popularity in the past six months.
On the EVM side, we integrated RainbowKit, a React-based library for adding Web3 wallets into dApps. It allows users to connect wallets such as Rainbow, CoinbaseWallet, and WalletConnect. Users can simply scan a QR code on their mobile phone to access Hashport through their favourite wallet.
To learn more about connecting EVM wallets & Hedera accounts to Hashport, watch our video tutorial.
Hashport Tutorial Series
The world of DeFi is constantly changing, and education is crucial for users who are new to Hashport and the Hedera network. We understand that some users prefer watching visual content more than reading blogs, so we published five new video tutorials.
According to Messari’s State of Hedera Q1 2023 report, “all Hedera Network Services saw key metrics rise”. At the time of writing, the Hedera mainnet has processed 10.3 billion transactions since January 2023. Hedera network TVL increased 52% QoQ, and its growth can be attributed to DeFi opportunities that appear on DEXes such as SaucerSwap, HeliSwap, and Bubbleswap.
For a seamless user experience, a “Hashport bridge” button is available on these platforms to facilitate a smooth token porting journey.
As shown in Metrika’s Hedera network overview, more than 1.5 million Hedera accounts were created in the previous six months. The Arkhia metrics page that launched in Q2 2023 has also been a popular method to view real-time Hedera transactions and TPS.
Metrics page
In Q2 2023, we made the Hashport metrics page available to the public. Users can access data on supported tokens, volume & liquidity. Upgraded features also allow users to browse transactions by categories such as sender, date range, token address, & transaction hash.
A video tutorial is available on YouTube for new users who wish to learn how to efficiently browse data on the metrics page.
Hashport’s Total Volume grew from $14 million to $29.6 million in six months.
Features & Mentions
One of the high-profile interviews for Hashport that took place in the past six months was our interview with BitBoy, in which our Director of Business Development Jesse Whiteside was invited as a special guest. Viewers can jump to the 1:03:45 mark for our feature interview!
What an eventful six months! We will keep BUIDLing and pushing boundaries in 2023 & in 2024.
About hashport hashport is the enterprise-grade public utility that facilitates the movement of digital assets between distributed networks, extending their functionality in a quick, secure, and cost-effective way. In order to remain platform-neutral, hashport functions without the use of a proprietary token. The network is built on a robust and performant architecture, secured and operated by a group of industry-leading validator partners from around the world. hashport has passed rigoroussecurityaudits and follows industry best practices; regularly performing comprehensive network tests to ensure the integrity of the network.
Disclaimer: The information provided on hashport’s website does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice. You should not treat any site content as advice.
My first impression of the book was “THAT’S A GREAT USE OF AN NFT”. For those who aren’t familiar with the colourful squiggly line and think that the book is just another manual, I recommend them to “never judge a book by its cover”. The cover artwork is a Chromie Squiggle minted on Art Blocks, a generative art NFT platform that is home to Tyler Hobbs’ Fidenza collection which has an impressive 62ETH floor price. 🔷
Without revealing too much about the content of the author’s work, Amanda led by example, used her Chromie Squiggle #2172 as a book cover, and got her target audience (in this case, me) to #ConnectWallet and write a post about it. It would’ve been amazing if the book itself was minted as an NFT, but I got the next best thing – I claimed an NFT that grants me access to an exclusive book-owners’ Telegram chat. 📖
The Web3 world is evolving daily. I look forward to the day when the next 100 million people are onboarded, and when terms like Web2.5/Web3/Web4/Web5 can be retired. 🌎🌍🌏
Hashport is an interoperability solution that facilitates the movement of supported digital assets across supported networks — Hedera Hashgraph, Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, & BNB Chain — and 34 supported tokens as of December 2022.
Using the API functionality, developers can integrate Hashport’s interoperability solution into dApps and enable users to enjoy the token porting experience.
If you want to learn more about the Hashport API from the beginning, learn more by reading our introductory blog. For more details, you can dive right into docs.hashport.network for the full documentation.
In this article, we will discuss how to use the Hashport API and enable users to port their assets across networks.
Now that you have retrieved network IDs and asset IDs, you can visit the subpage titled Validate Porting Steps to submit the required parameters at the endpoint to ensure that all the necessary information captured by your dApp is set before starting the porting steps.
This is a step that you should do before starting the Porting Steps.
Porting Steps
Porting steps represent the order of operations that dApps must conduct with the user to successfully port an asset across the hashport ecosystem.
dApps should ensure that the user has sufficient tokens to:
Submit transactions ( gas fee, network fee & no. of tokens to be ported)
Associate tokens on Hedera network
It is also imperative that dApps should only allow the user to move to the next step when the previous action is successful. If the previous action is not successful, the step should be repeated. Users should also be allowed to exit and ask for technical assistance.
The Hashport app will attempt to auto-associate if the user’s Account ID has not yet associated the token. In order to make the token porting experience as seamless as possible, the updated user interface also provides a token price chart and a breakdown of gas and network fees that are associated with the token porting.
Now that we have completed our initial transaction, we can check the transfer status on the Hashport validator swarm.
Gets transfers (paginated)
At this step, users can retrieve a paginated list of transactions that are completed on Hashport. Users can find transactions and view the details of each transaction.
By providing a filter.transactionId query parameter, users can check if a new transaction has been verified by the validator swarm.
Convert a Hedera Transaction ID to Hashport’s Transaction ID
At Convert Hedera txID, you will find the endpoint where you can send an API request and it will return a string that is formatted and safe to use in other endpoints.
After users have successfully transferred their asset to Hashport, dApps will need to poll the transaction to check if it has been validated by the hashport validator swarm. To avoid any unsafe symbols and characters within the transaction ID. dApps might want to retrieve a safely constructed transaction ID to pass into the GET /transfers/{txId} query.
Thank you for completing the Hashport API Series. To review past blogs, you can visit by clicking the links below:
About hashport hashport is the enterprise-grade public utility that facilitates the movement of digital assets between distributed networks, extending their functionality in a quick, secure, and cost-effective way. In order to remain platform-neutral, hashport functions without the use of a proprietary token. The network is built on a robust and performant architecture, secured and operated by a group of industry-leading validator partners from around the world. hashport has passed a rigoroussecurity audit and follows industry best practices; regularly performing comprehensive network tests to ensure the integrity of the network.
Disclaimer: The information provided on hashport’s website does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice. You should not treat any site content as advice.
We also surveyed some crypto enthusiasts in this video, who tried out Animoca titles incl. @TheSandboxGame and shared their reservations about blockchain games going mainstream https://t.co/lwZ7DRSJAo
“Why is our metaverse better than Facebook’s? To me, this is not even a question.” Gaming giant Animoca Brands has hit $6 billion valuation after a round of funding this year. And it’s betting on blockchain as the next evolution in the industry. (Source: Bloomberg)
A growing number of developers and entrepreneurs are seeking to rebuild and decentralise the financial system using blockchain – databases distributed over many computers around the world and kept secure by cryptography. With huge shoes to fill, can DeFi lay the foundations for a decentralised economy?
Short for decentralised finance, DeFi is an umbrella term for financial services offered on public blockchains like Ethereum. Like traditional financial institutions, DeFi applications allow anyone in the world to borrow, lend, earn interest, and trade derivatives. With the help of smart contracts, agreements can be automatically executed and individuals can transact peer-to-peer without trusting centralised intermediaries such as banks and brokers. The DeFi space has seen exponential growth and it is becoming too big to ignore for governments and financial institutions. According to blockchain research firm Blockdata, a trillion dollars could flood into DeFi if the world’s 100 biggest banks invested as little as 1% of assets under management.
Around the world, regulators begin to turn their attention to cryptocurrencies. Some countries have shown a positive attitude toward crypto, while others wield the crackdown hammer. Earlier in September, El Salvador has become the first country to accept bitcoin as legal tender. In the US, the SEC is reportedly investigating Uniswap Labs, the development firm behind the biggest decentralised crypto exchange. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler also warned that DeFi projects aren’t immune to oversight. On the other side of the world, the People’s Bank of China issued a notice that deemed all crypto transactions to be illegal. However, this isn’t the first time that China has ‘banned’ crypto. Despite the recent ban, traders are able to find alternative ways to invest.
If you decide to join the meeting, please come prepared – read more on the subject, take notes, write down some thoughts and points that you would like to bring for the discussion and share with the group.
We will not have a speaker on the topic, so your self-preparation is key for an intelligent and quality discussion within small groups of 4 people.
Fee:HKD30, it is also suggested that every attendee buys a drink as a courtesy to the venue.
The Economic Club is a community of intellectually curious people in Hong Kong. Learn more about the Economic Club on https://www.econclubhk.org/
It’s Quantifeed’s 8th anniversary! At Quantifeed. we are helping financial institutions provide sustainable, transparent, and affordable wealth management to everyone. As we celebrate our eighth anniversary, we share eight trends that are shaping digital wealth management.
1. The Rise of ESG and Sustainable Investments
Compared with the global average, half of all investors in APAC countries, excluding Oceania and Japan, make climate-minded investments decisions.
90% of large institutions have significantly increased ESG investments in response to COVID-19.
2. Hyper-Personalized Recommendations
Hyper-personalized recommendations become the norm as open banking enables wealth managers to gain a holistic view of consumers’ financial situations.
93% of FIs see an opportunity for growth in offering tailored investment plans.
3. Intergenerational Wealth Transfer
Intergenerational wealth transfer will bring an estimated $50 Trillion into the hands of millennials who seek alternatives to their parents’ financial advisers for wealth management decisions.
21% of wealth advisers have a digitally-savvy marketing strategy geared towards younger clients who may prefer high-risk investments.
4. Retirement Income Solutions
Retirement income solutions are in huge demand as ageing populations in many countries are growing. New solutions will help retirees improve their lifestyle without the fear of running out of money during retirement.
77% of participants seek help to live comfortably through retirement.
5. Infrastructure Upgrades
Demand for personalization, more transparency and lower fees will put pressure on product manufacturers and intermediates to modernize their infrastructure. Expect disruption to the mutual fund vehicle as well as settlement, clearing and custody processes.
6. A Wealthcare Ecosystem
Boundaries between banking, wealth management and insurance services are becoming increasingly blurred. Digital challengers and other service providers will compete for the same consumers and offer holistic services that range from savings, investments and insurance.
7. Alternatives and Digital Assets
Digital platforms are pushing the boundaries and enabling access to new investment classes such as alternatives and digital assets. Greater access, new investment opportunities, improved controls and suitability.
8. Digital Becomes Mainstream
Digital becomes mainstream as wealth managers blend human expertise and technology to create propositions that cater to all market segments. By 2030, millennials will hold five times as much wealth as they do today.
Clients across Asia have typically been reluctant to embrace discretionary portfolio management (DPM) services, preferring instead to research, manage and instruct their own investment choices. There are clear signs however that Asian client preferences are beginning to shift. And this shift opens up a number of promising opportunities for financial institutions — it enables them to accelerate digital transformation efforts, and to create new revenue streams. All by building on existing DPM capabilities.
Given the complexity of modern economies, it is increasingly beyond the capabilities of an amateur investor to match the performance of investment professionals. Moreover, while Asian clients have historically been averse to paying for DPM services, growing numbers see the appeal in handing over responsibilities to free up time for other pursuits.
This evolution in client preferences aligns with the interests of private banks and asset management firms. Growing adoption of DPM services means that they can decrease their reliance on ad-hoc, transactional revenues — which ultimately improves resilience during a downturn.
Simultaneously, we are witnessing an enduring switch to digital-first services. Today’s customers demand a rich, immersive, intuitive digital experience from their financial services products — with all the convenience and depth of analysis that implies. Meeting these expectations with clever technology provides service providers with a range of other benefits.
Arguably, the term digital transformation is these days suffering from overuse but it still has some utility in the context of discretionary portfolio management systems. There are inefficiencies, waste and vulnerabilities in the way current DPM processes and infrastructure are set up. Even in an industry as highly digitised as financial services, there is still a high volume of manual processes and data transfer across the systems used by a typical DPM operation. This can involve manual calculation, submission and management of trading orders. Such inefficient order management can lead to excessive trading and high costs.
A lag in recording the processing, execution and settling of transactions means that the business never has a fully accurate and up-to-date view of operations. This in turn results in weak operational controls and a higher risk of compliance breaches.
Thankfully, modern technology can solve many of these issues. Currently, DPM services are restricted to high net-worth individuals, typically with portfolios worth USD 5 million or more. This floor reflects the constraints on the number of clients a DPM team can realistically serve. However, technology tailored for DPM teams supports them by automating trading, monitoring and rebalancing asset allocations at scale. The resulting increase in productivity enables investment experts to manage a larger volume of customers with portfolios well below the usual minimum threshold — meaning that service providers can target new customer segments.
DPM technology integrates with existing systems to provide straight-through processing, eliminate manual errors and provide huge gains in speed and accuracy. It improves the quality of information available to the business, portfolio managers and clients, while reducing the risk of compliance breaches. However, to make this work you need a team that understands the infrastructure, workflows and connections of wealth management systems, and that can provide the right architecture. It’s important that technology shoulders the complexity of the task and not portfolio managers or customers.
For financial services’ retail and mass affluent customers, DPM technology gives them access to high-value wealth management services, typically the reserve of a bank’s wealthiest customers. And it provides them with a digital experience more in keeping with modern tastes — with access to portfolio and performance information at any time, any place on any device and a suite of management and reporting tools.
This value proposition is not just theoretical. Quantifeed is already helping wealth managers — with a wide variety of layers and systems — to scale their DPM operations and offer these services to more customers. In just three months we were able to implement a solution tailored to the needs of a service provider which created new online channels, introduced efficiencies and controls, and improved customer service. Shortly after the launch, the business was managing millions of dollars of assets on behalf of customers they were previously unable to target.
Right now, the growing appetite for discretionary portfolio management services is one of the biggest trends we see across all markets in Asia. Singapore, the private banking hub of Asia, is leading the way with markets such as Japan and Thailand close behind. In Hong Kong, many investors come from China and are also more inclined to trust professionals to run their portfolios.
Change in the delivery of DPM services is coming. And the business case for technology-driven DPM is compelling: it lets a financial institution scale and expand its addressable market. Financial institutions across Asia would do well to get ahead of the coming wave of transformation.
SIBEX is proud to present to you its newest addition to the platform, the Group Trading Feature. This unique feature allows users to trade OTC peer-to-peer with their networks, securely and privately.
Trade with your community in the SIBEX network On the SIBEX Platform, users can perform cross-chain atomic swaps between Bitcoin and ERC-20 tokens. With the use of Hashed Time-Lock Contracts (HTLCs), you can trade cryptocurrencies peer-to-peer between blockchains with no third-party involvement.
The Group Trading Feature on SIBEX allows anyone to pseudonymously create personal trading groups and manage their own OTC group as an exchange. Users have the option to join an existing group of traders. Alternatively, they can also create a new group and invite up to 50 members, keeping trades safe and decentralized in a close-knit private community.
Whether you are a group manager, a broker, or a seasoned trader, you can easily transition between the SIBEX Platform and private messaging platforms, building markets organically and improving liquidity.
Create your own private trading room.
“Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins” Several centralized exchanges recently faced serious problems — They were hacked, and had suspended withdrawal services, leaving users unable to retrieve their assets.
Such issues will not happen on the SIBEX Platform, as SIBEX removes all intermediaries between traders. Powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), users can be assured that their personal data and keys are always secured as every SIBEX user has their own personal trading server on AWS. The assets, private keys, information, and the data stored on the users’ AWS trading servers are only available to the user’s sole discretion and guarantees full privacy, security, and the decentralization of trade settlements.
How your wallet works on SIBEX Once you have finished setting up your trading server and logged into otc.sibex.io, your wallet (SIBEX ID) is automatically generated. This non-custodial wallet allows you to store, manage, and to trade your bitcoin and any ERC20 tokens on the SIBEX platform.
This wallet is YOURS. It is your wallet, connected to SIBEX via your personal trading server.
Non-custodial: Only you can access your wallet At SIBEX, we never store your crypto assets, we are only providing you with the software you need to store them yourself on AWS server. Your wallet is unlocked on your server using your password. The password acts as your decryption key to lock and unlock your wallet — without it, you cannot access your wallet. Since we don’t know and don’t store your password, only you can unlock your wallet.
Access your wallet anytime, anywhere We made this happen because your wallet is on the AWS server created by yourself 24/7. Storing your wallet securely on AWS servers ensures that your wallet can be accessed from anytime, anywhere, and from any of your devices.
Secure, Private, & Safe When you access your wallet using your SIBEX username, password, and server hostname, your browser uses our API to access your wallet from your own AWS server, which is then securely shown on your device.
Can I recover my wallet? If you have your wallet files, you have your private keys.
Your SIBEX credentials are stored in your own AWS server which we have no control at all (it’s your own server). If you lose your SIBEX credentials, you lose access to your crypto, so take measures (e.g a password manager) to securely store your SIBEX credentials.
“Not your keys, not your bitcoins” is a common understanding of crypto ownership, but in SIBEX we get this to another level: “If it’s not your keys and your own server, it’s not your bitcoin!” Keep full ownership of your crypto assets when trading on SIBEX.
P.S. If you are tech-savvy and don’t want to set up your AWS server, alternatively you can create your own server on your own hardware.
That’s it for today. Follow us for more updates, and join our Telegram group for SIBEX Announcements — http://t.me/sibexltd
In the previous article SIBEX For Beginners A-Z, we provided a step-by-step guide to setting up a personal AWS server for trading on SIBEX. Some of you may wonder, why run your own personal server on AWS cloud? That’s a great question. You ask, we answer.
Decentralized: Be your own exchange. Here at SIBEX, we believe in decentralization. Over the years, digital assets worth over hundreds of millions of dollars have been drained from centralized exchanges from major hacks and security breaches. By running your own personal trading server, your personal data and keys are always secured and private.
Not only do centralized exchanges run the risk of being hacked, they also crash during peak times. When a client-server (centralized exchange) system is built, how quickly you can service an increased load on the system (scalability) is an important consideration. The number of users expected to be active at a given time dictates the number of servers that are operated. From the standpoint of centralized exchanges, energy and money is wasted from buying too many servers and having them remain dormant and unused. When the peak load goes beyond what is planned, the centralized service simply stops working. This will not happen on SIBEX. With SIBEX’s decentralized technology, you can trade anytime and anywhere while keeping full control of your assets.
Exchange, Everything. Decentralized. As every SIBEX user operates their own server, scalability is a perfect 1:1 user-to-server ratio. There are no middlemen between your P2P trades, the principal-agent problem has thus been removed entirely.
Connecting to a private trading server is very straightforward — you can read our setup instructions, or follow simple steps from a short walkthrough video.
Users who are new to the SIBEX Platform can set up their own private trading server with just a few clicks. After a short 15-minute wait for the installation process to complete, go to https://otc.sibex.io, connect to your private trading server, and you can start trading on the SIBEX Platform.
Why AWS? AWS meets the highest standards for privacy and data security. Using AWS, you will gain the control and confidence you need to run your trading server with the most secure cloud computing environment available today. All data flowing across the AWS global network is automatically encrypted at the physical layer before it leaves the AWS secured facilities.
Thanks to a close working relationship with AWS Cloud Computing Services, the default recommended approach is to set up a server with AWS. Alternatively, you may also set up your server on any cloud or on your own hardware. If you wish to set up a physical personal server at home, our personal server documentation is here for you.
SIBEX is a Swiss decentralized protocol that allows you to trade OTC securely & privately and directly between Bitcoin and any ERC20 Tokens you wish using smart contracts.
No Need to Create an Account! No Middleman! Global Liquidity!
How to trade on SIBEX?
Don’t worry, trading on SIBEX is very easy, it only takes a few minutes to get started!
1. Set up AWS trading server
First of all, you need to create an AWS account. This will serve as your unique server to trade on SIBEX. After the account is created, sign in as “Root User” to give you full control of your account.
After that, you just need to keep hitting “Next” to complete all the following steps. Easy right? Now you will see the “Output” button, click on it and copy your “Public IP” address.
Would you like to trade with someone privately? Maybe you met them in a chat group, or on an internet forum. You don’t need to trust them anymore when you trade using SIBEX. You only need their SIBEX ID.
Go to “Wallet” and copy your SIBEX ID, and give it to your counterparty
3. Click “Counterparties” and add the SIBEX ID of the person you are trading with.
4. Click on “Create P2P Marketplace Offer”
5. Select the counterparty, and specify the terms of the trade.
When you click “Send Offer”, the offer will appear to your counterparty in the “P2P Marketplace”. When your counterparty agrees to take the offer, your exchange will begin immediately and both parties will be settled at the same conditions on-chain.
SIBEX is proud to announce the launch of its groundbreaking peer-to-peer DeFi technology and to introduce to the world its unique Group Trading feature.
Based in Zug, Switzerland & Hong Kong, SIBEX is the first complete peer-to-peer decentralized OTC trading platform that allows users to trade cryptocurrencies between blockchains with no third-party involvement. SIBEX works to make DeFi OTC trading safe, private, and simple.
SIBEX technology relies on cross-chain atomic swaps to enable users to settle trades directly peer-to-peer between blockchains. SIBEX removes all intermediaries between traders and enables you to execute, settle, and clear your trades directly on-chain. SIBEX decentralized protocol makes it the most sophisticated OTC technology for digital assets.
“What SIBEX is launching today is changing how peer-to-peer OTC trades will be executed forever. Removing pains, increasing privacy is our motto and the group feature is enabling anyone to create their own decentralized private trading room and will make OTC accessible and intuitive to all.” Daniel Haudenschild, SIBEX CEO
On SIBEX, traders can also create their own Private Trading Groups with their network. The SIBEX Group Feature enables users to create and manage their own OTC group as an exchange. It is now possible to invite all telegram group members to create a private trading room together, keeping trades safe, private & decentralized.
Powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), users can be assured that their personal data and keys are always secured as every SIBEX user has their own personal trading server on AWS. The server is continuously synchronized with the underlying blockchains to secure and guarantee trade execution 24/7. The assets, private keys, information, and the data stored on the users’ AWS trading servers are only available to the user’s sole discretion and guarantees full privacy, security, and the decentralization of trade settlements.
Despite markets around the world facing economic troubles amid the coronavirus pandemic, it seems that the crypto industry has been able to remain unaffected by COVID-19. Earlier last week, Binance has agreed to buy CoinMarketCap for an undisclosed sum – believed to be one of the largest acquisitions in the blockchain space.
A week has passed since The Block first reported that Binance was in the final stages of acquiring the crypto data site. While some users felt that the acquisition was beneficial for the crypto ecosystem, there are also those who think that the deal could give Binance access to a pool of data and unfair advantage over its competitors.
It did not take long for members of the crypto community to weigh in with their opinions. While CoinGecko’s COO Bobby Ong believes that it will be difficult for CoinMarketCap to stay neutral, according to Cointelegraph, many others are largely supportive of the deal.
CoinMarketCap to Remain Neutral and Independent Fending off concerns over potential conflicts of interest, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said in an interview with CoinDesk that he had no immediate plans for CoinMarketCap, and that the website will remain independent from Binance under a holding company.
In a recent Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) session, CZ wrote:
My perspective is not to acquire CoinMarketCap so that we can redirect all the traffic to Binance.com. Binance will continue to compete independently. CoinMarketCap will also compete independently. Both platforms need to be able to grow and compete on their own.
On the other hand, CoinMarketCap founder Brandon Chez announced in a letter to their users that he will be stepping down as CEO and will be replaced by the company’s current chief strategy officer, Carylyne Chan, as interim CEO.
Committed to maintaining neutrality and independence, Chen addressed concerns that any cryptoasset or exchange applying for listing on the website will be fairly evaluated in accordance with their listings policy.
I am determined to eliminate any possibility of preferential treatment, and our team has also committed to enforcing this policy. All this will be done in spite of any positive or negative financial effect this adherence to policy might have for our parent company.
If you opened a Zoom link earlier this week and noticed that passwords are now required to join a meeting, you are not alone.
Private Meetings Gone Public Effective April 5th, Zoom has enabled passwords and virtual waiting rooms as the default setting. However, the new security measure only addresses a single item on a long list of privacy issues that could not hide behind a virtual background.
As the number of its users rocketed during the coronavirus crisis, the video-conferencing platform has also been increasingly criticised over security and privacy concerns. After weeks of negative press about end-to-end encryption, news of zoom-bombing and user data being routed through China, it is discovered that thousands of private user videos have been exposed online. In an effort to restore the reputation of the video-conferencing platform, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan publicly apologised and promised to proactively fix the issues.
Seeking Alternatives In response to the rise in remote work, video conferencing is becoming the norm for companies around the world. While Zoom is receiving backlash for security and privacy concerns, users look to its competitors – Cisco Webex, Skype, etc. Many of them offer freemium plans to attract new users. Meanwhile, some members of the blockchain community have started turning to open-source alternatives and privacy-focused messaging apps.
Protect your data as much as your health. After all, security is only as strong as the weakest link.
Stocks jumped, rebounding from sharp losses in the previous week, as the number of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. appeared to slow down. Each of the major indexes rallied more than 5%. Stocks actually hit session highs minutes before the close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 1,700 points higher.
Oil prices fell on Monday amid ongoing uncertainty around the prospect of production cuts. The move lower came even as the CEO of Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF told CNBC that Moscow and Riyadh were “very close” to an oil deal, and as Russia reportedly said it was ready to reduce output, according to Reuters.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap) Bitcoin: Up 6.39% to $7,287.84 Total trading volume (24h): $49.51+ billion USD
Ethereum: Up 16.14% to $168.24 Total trading volume (24h): $23.52+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours Biggest Mover 1: eosDAC (EOSDAC) is up 308.17% to $0.008496 Biggest Mover 2: Helpico (HELP) is up 184.72% to $0.084596 Biggest Loser: Super Bitcoin (SBTC) is down 57.65% to $0.377167
What Moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets)
Investors have brought class-action lawsuits in federal court against seven cryptocurrency issuers and four exchanges, claiming they sold billions of dollars in unregistered assets in violation of U.S. securities laws. The defendants include crypto issuers Block.one and Tron, and exchanges Binance and BitMEX. The investors said that BitMEX, in addition to selling unregistered securities, also manipulated the cryptocurrency market for its own benefit.
TheBlock reports: major cryptocurrency exchanges appear to remain unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impact. At least seven exchanges The Block spoke they have seen an uptick in user sign-ups and trading volumes, These include Kraken, Gemini, Bitfinex, OKEx, Bitstamp, Paxful, and KyberSwap.
A group of companies including Consensys and Hyperledger are backing a virtual hackathon focused on solutions for fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Announced last Thursday in a Consensys blog post, the hackathon aims to bring together developers and health experts to “build blockchain solutions to help collect, standardize, verify, and optimize data to aid scientists as they seek to better understand COVID-19”. For those looking to compete, the prize money for the STOP COVID-19 Hackathon totals $20,000, including $10,000 for first place, $7,000 for second place and $3,000 for third place. Winning entries will be fast-tracked for additional funding sources through Gitcoin and ConsenSys grants, as well as other funding opportunities within ConsenSys Health.
Crypto exchange Poloniex has rolled out a new token issuance platform called “LaunchBase.” Announced on Sunday, the platform’s first supported project is Tron’s decentralized stablecoin system called “JUST.” JUST was initially named “Djed” when it was announced last week. It is the Tron Foundation’s MakerDAO-like stablecoin system.
Other Specialties Fintech: The Bank of Korea, the country’s central bank, has launched a pilot program for testing its own CBDC. Announcing the news on Monday, the central bank said the program was launched last month and would run until December 2021. The 22-month program is aimed at identifying technical and legal provisions required to create and issue a digital currency. On the technical side, it would define central bank digital currency (CBDC) design, an operation method of CBDC, and whether blockchain technology would be feasible to implement. Healthtech, AI: IBM wants to help researchers better understand and treat COVID-19. To do so, it’s putting its AI to work. It has released a series of new tools to aggregate data, help researchers explore potential therapies, advance the study of newly sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes and make the latest info available to healthcare professionals. IBM is also making its Functional Genomics Platform available for free for the duration of the pandemic. Smart cities: Google Maps is adding another new feature, one that allows users to easily find restaurants nearby that provide takeout and delivery options. Where Google Maps previously let people click to quickly find restaurants and coffee shops, users will now see options for takeout and delivery in the app. The new feature might also help keep restaurants in business, as lockdown restrictions prevent them from serving people inside. And, since Google Maps links users directly to a restaurant, users may be saving themselves, or the restaurant, fees associated with delivery services.
Coronavirus update: South Korea confirmed 98 more cases and two additional deaths as of Saturday, while China reported 46 new confirmed cases and six more deaths. Singapore will bar entry and transit to all short-term visitors starting from 11:59 p.m. on Monday. India started a 14-hour curfew as part of the efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak. Spain’s death toll rose to 1,720.
The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has risen by 651 to 5,476, officials said on Sunday, an increase of 13.5% but down on Saturday’s figure when some 793 people died. The total number of cases in Italy rose to 59,138 from a previous 53,578, an increase of 10.4%, the Civil Protection Agency said — the lowest rise in percentage terms since the contagion came to light on Feb. 21. Of those originally infected nationwide, 7,024 had fully recovered on Sunday compared to 6,072 the day before. There were 3,009 people in intensive care against a previous 2,857.
Pope Francis said on Sunday he will this week deliver an extraordinary “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) blessing – normally given only at Christmas and Easter – and called for worldwide prayer to respond to the coronavirus crisis.
Markets: The dollar strengthened Friday after a rally that put it on track for its biggest weekly rise since the 2008 financial crisis, as a global scramble for funding sent other currencies reeling. The dollar index rose slightly to 102.82 after weakening 0.7% to 102.00 earlier in the day on Friday.
Gold rose on safe-haven appeal, but was set for a weekly drop. Oil dropped 11% on Friday, giving back early gains, even as the world’s richest nations poured unprecedented aid into the global economy to stop a coronavirus-driven recession. European markets closed higher Friday, following a volatile week as central banks and governments around the world adopted a “whatever it takes” approach.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap) Bitcoin: Down 5.62% to $5,929.47 Total trading volume (24h): $41.23+ billion USD
Ethereum: Down 7.00% to $125.13 Total trading volume (24h): $12.82+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours Biggest Mover 1: Electrum Dark (ELD) is up 7,924.96 to $1.04 Biggest Mover 2: WhiteCoin (XWC) is up 252.28% to $0.076751 Biggest Loser: ArdCoin (ARDX) is down 58.70% to $0.000415
What Moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets)
Bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P 500 is at a 2-year high. This is a bearish sign for the cryptocurrency market.
Meanwhile, Bank of China has continued its anti-crypto narrative in a long post titled “3.15 Protection of Financial Consumption Rights and Interests”. The post was published on the bank’s official WeChat account on March 22. In the post, bank officials warn the public about cryptocurrency investment, calling out the three main scams seen on crypto exchanges. The bank stated: “First of all, the amount of fraud transactions with bots is serious. The average turnover rate of the top three overseas cryptocurrency exchanges is much higher than that of foreign licensed exchanges. Second, market manipulation exists in these exchanges where forced leveraged trading eventually causes the exchanges to explode. Third, money laundering is a big issue.”
The Italian Red Cross is now seeking Bitcoin donations to purchase emerging medical equipment after its first-crypto initiative surpassed its goal within three days. On March 12, Italy’s Red Cross launched a BTC fundraising campaign to purchase an advanced medical post for pre-triaging coronavirus cases.
Other Specialties Fintech: Singapore financial-technology firm MatchMovehas teamed up with homegrown finance company Singapura Finance Ltd. and two others to apply for a digital banking license in the city-state. The MatchMove-led consortium is the latest group to announce it’s submitted an application for a digital full banking license to the Monetary Authority of Singapore. That sets the firm against heavyweights including Sea Ltd., which is backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., and the Grab Holdings Inc.–Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.consortium. Healthtech: Google said on Saturday it launched a United States-focused website with information about coronavirus guidance and testing. The site (google.com/covid19), which consists of resources and links focused on the potentially deadly respiratory illness COVID-19, will be available in more languages and countries in coming days, Google said in a blog post. AI: Researchers have used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to train algorithms and predict tumour sensitivity in three advanced non-small cell lung cancer therapies which can help predict more accurate treatment efficacy at an early stage of the disease. The researchers at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center analyzed CT images from 92 patients receiving drug agent nivolumab in two trials; 50 patients receiving docetaxel in one trial; and 46 patients receiving gefitinib in one trial. To develop the model, the researchers used the CT images taken at baseline and on first-treatment assessment. “The purpose of this study was to train cutting-edge AI technologies to predict patients” responses to treatment, allowing radiologists to deliver more accurate and reproducible predictions of treatment efficacy at an early stage of the disease,” explained Laurent Dercle, associate research scientist at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Smart cities: Lyft Inc on Friday told drivers they could sign up for work driving deliveries under a new service as ride-hailing demand plummets during the rapid spread of coronavirus in the United States. In an email to drivers, Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green said, “Those who would like to help neighbors get to grocery stores, workers to hospitals and caretakers to their jobs” can join a new “LyftUp Driver Task Force.” A link sends drivers to a Google doc sign-up sheet. Lyft said the service did not yet exist but will allow drivers to help out with direct on-the-ground needs in their community. Delivery would include medical supplies and test kits and meals for kids and seniors in need that would be picked up from distribution centers and dropped off without contact.
What Moved Global Markets – Coronavirus update: US health officials said on Sunday they had confirmed overall 11 cases, with one in Santa Clara County and two more in San Benito County. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Monday that the world may be “dangerously” unprepared for the next pandemic. – Markets reacted: the dollar strengthened and a gauge of global stocks jumped, lifted by an unexpected rebound in U.S. manufacturing that helped temper fears that caused stocks overnight in Asia to plunge on the potential impact of the coronavirus in China. – Some technology firms in China – including Huawei – have maintained operations to manufacture parts and products despite government calls in various cities and provinces for companies to halt work to help stop the spread of a new coronavirus. – Oil falls to a more than 1-year low below $50 on fears the coronavirus will slow global growth. OPEC is reportedly considering large production cut. – The British pound slumped as the European Union and Britain clashed over a post-Brexit trade deal on Monday, with the two sides setting out very different visions of a future relationship that could result in the most distant of ties. Both want to secure a trade agreement, but Britain has set a deadline of the end of the year and the EU has warned that if Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants a no-tariff, no-quota deal, he will have to sign up to its rules to ensure fair competition. Johnson said he would not do that, in a speech that harked back to Britain’s past trading successes, promising that his government would again be a champion of free trade and jealously guard his country’s new-found “sovereignty”.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap) Bitcoin: Down 1.30% to $9,283.07 Total trading volume (24h): $28.14+ billion USD
Ethereum: Down 0.87% to $189.27 Total trading volume (24h): $11.43+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours Biggest Mover 1: CloakCoin (CLOAK) is up 198.29% to $0.702132 Biggest Mover 2: Zipper (ZIP) is up 68.32% to $0.000240 Biggest Loser: eosDAC (EOSDAC) is down 81.77% to $0.002472
What moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets) – Bitcoin was up over 29% in January, its best performance for that particular month since 2013. Experts said that bitcoin was being viewed as a “safe-haven asset” as global equity markets remain shaky following the outbreak of the coronavirus. – According to the latest data from Coinbase and Bitbay, Bitcoin usage among merchants is up. Coinbase is also looking to build out its merchant services in 2020. – More than 4,000 bitcoins – an amount worth approximately $37 million as of press time – will be auctioned off by U.S. law enforcement officials on February 18. The U.S. Marshals Service said on Monday that it will put up 4,040.54069820 BTC on the auction block on February 18. A $200,000 deposit is required for those wishing to participate, and would-be bidders must register by February 12. The Marshals Service held its first bitcoin auction in the summer of 2014 – which, as reported at the time, saw investor Tim Draper win nearly 30,000 BTC across 10 auction blocks. A number of other auctions, including more coins seized during the U.S. government’s investigation into the now-defunct dark marketplace Silk Road, have been held in the years since.
Other Specialties Fintech: The day before Brexit, Innovate Finance has put out a report hailing a record 2019 for the UK’s fintech scene and predicting a rosy future. In 2019, the UK smashed its fintech investment record, notching up $4.9 billion of capital raised, surpassing the $3.6 billion the previous year and catapulting the country to second in the global rankings for VC investment.
Fintech firms in the UK attracted more capital and completed more deals than the rest of the top 10 European countries combined. Seven of the top 10 deals in Europe involved UK fintechs, with Greensill leading the way with an $800 million round and OakNorth bagging $440 million. Healthtech: Investment into mental health technology has boomed, reaching £580 million in 2019, according to a study by early-stage investor Octopus Ventures. The research shows an almost five-fold increase in mental health tech investment in the last six years, rising from £120 million in 2014. But the sector still makes up just 15% of overall investment in the digital health market. AI: Elon Musk tweeted he’ll be holding a “super fun AI party/hackathon”… at his house next month. The hackathon seems geared towards bolstering Tesla’s self-driving division. Smart cities: An amusing story of one (big) smart city: how the 2028 Olympics has sparked a transportation revamp in LA.
What Moved Global Markets – Coronavirus: China’s stock market plummets as the country’s death toll climbs past 360. – The first death from the coronavirus outside of China was reported on Sunday and the Beijing government took steps to shore up an economy hit by travel curbs and business shut-downs because of the epidemic. A 44-year-old Chinese man from the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicentre of the epidemic, travelled to the Philippines and died there on Saturday, the Philippines’ Department of Health said. The vice governor of China’s Hubei province, Xiao Juhua, said the virus outbreak was still “severe and complicated”. A total of 304 people have died in China, the National Health Commission said on Sunday. Infections in China jumped to 14,380 as of Saturday, it said. – Apple Inc on Saturday said it would shut all of its official stores and corporate offices in mainland China until Feb 9. as fears over the coronavirus outbreak mounted. The coronavirus is threatening to disrupt large parts of China’s manufacturing machine and its global supply chains as the spread of infection and strict public health measures force companies and workers to remain idle. – BREXIT! It finally happened. The United Kingdom finally cast off from the European Union on Friday for an uncertain future, with Brexiteers claiming victory and popping champagne corks for an “independence day” they said marked a new era for the country.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap) Bitcoin: Up 1.07% to $9,377.48 Total trading volume (24h): $32.64+ billion USD
Ethereum: Up 5.16% to $190.23 Total trading volume (24h): $14.75+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours Biggest Mover 1: TCOIN (TCN) is up 524.75% to $0.013344 Biggest Mover 2: WHEN Token (WHEN) is up 71.31% to $0.005894 Biggest Loser: Blocs (BLOCS) is down 26.51% to $55.94
What moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets) – Cryptocurrency investor Arianna Simpson is joining Andreessen Horowitz as a deal partner. The founder and managing director of crypto hedge fund Autonomous Partners announced the news Friday on Twitter. She said she has “admired the brand and platform that a16z has built from afar.” – Hankering for a Ferrari? Well, the only licensed stock exchange in Seychelles islands, is listing tokenized collectible cars worth over $200 million for retail and institutional investors. MERJ said Friday it is partnering with CurioInvest, a tokenization platform building on ethereum, to create tokens representing shares in “supercars” like the Ferrari. While the sale is open to institutional and retail investors, purchases are expected to be driven by institutional investors and those from regions with restrictions on auto imports, such as China. A $1.1 million Ferrari F12tdf will be the first car listed on the exchange, and MERJ said it might list as many as 500 vehicles. – In a recent tweet, Ethereum network co-founder Vitalik Buterin said Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are not the same. “Bitcoin Cash is not Bitcoin,” Buterin said in a Feb 1 tweet responding to Brad Mills’ accusation of Buterin as Bitcoin Cash promoter. Several tweets exist that might suggest Buterin is not 100% against BCH, although he clearly made the distinction that BCH is not BTC, even back in 2017.
Other Specialties Fintech: An amusing survey conducted by Business Insider: how people actually define “fintech”? BI surveyed 21 startups, and their responses varied widely. Beyond Big Tech and Wall Street, startups most would call “fintechs” are scooping up billions in VC funding from traditional venture firms and corporates alike. Some of the people we asked see fintech as an emerging sector, while others pointed out that the ATM, invented in the 1960s, was the first fintech innovation. And some wondered whether big tech firms experimenting with checking accounts and payments products could or should call themselves fintechs. Healthtech: The UAE’s Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) together with the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Dubai Healthcare City and other relevant authorities has launched a blockchain-based health data storage platform. According to The Emirates News Agency on Feb. 2, the blockchain-based platform aims to improve the efficiency of the ministry, and will help users streamline the search for health facilities and its licensed medical and technical personnel, as well as to inquire about medicine supply chains. The new data storage blockchain platform will help secure an unchangeable, decentralized and encrypted database with high-security protection to verify data validity and reliability. AI: Artificial intelligence could be throwing off the search for alien life just as much as humans’ own cognitive biases, according to a new paper published in the scientific journal Acta Astronautica. When a neural network was shown an image from a crater on the dwarf planet Ceres, it identified curious patterns, including both a square (which people also saw) and a triangle. After the neural net detected the triangular shape in the images, people in the study also began to see it, even though they hadn’t previously. It’s an example of how false positives from AI could trip up extraterrestrial studies. Smart cities: 100 new airports, 5 new smart cities, 10,000 KM gas grid to be developed in India. To augment India’s infrastructure and create jobs, the government has launched Rs 103 lakh crore worth infra projects besides providing about Rs 1.70 lakh crore for transport infrastructure and accelerating highways construction, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. Presenting the Union Budget 2020-21 in Parliament, Sitharaman said the focus is on infrastructure for economic development.
The Asian Financial Forum kicked off this week and among the event’s many luminaries, we had former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
Yellen, who spoke at a luncheon moderated by Hong Kong Academy of Finance senior advisor Norman Chan, started off her chat by answering a question about her life after the Fed. “Once a central banker, always a central banker,” she said, and then went on to speak about her career, her predecessors, her successors, and her efforts with climate change.
She was then asked about the letter she; Allan Greenspan, Paul Volker, and Ben Bernanke wrote last year. The letter, which saw four former Federal Reserve chairs call for the independence of the Fed, made quite the stir. Why did they feel the need to write it?
“We wrote this letter because we were quite concerned about President Trump’s criticism of the Federal Reserve,” she said. “President Trump made it clear that he doesn’t believe in central banking…that there must have political influence on the Fed.”
But “policy is best when it’s made by people who look at the facts,” she said, adding that it is also best when done by people working “in the best interest of the country.”
The Q&A moved on to unconventional policy, such as QE, and eventually to the current rift between the U.S. and China, with Yellen acknowledging that tensions have eased between the two but before adding that “we’ve not seen any significant rollback” in Trump’s tariffs and that “more troublesome, difficult” issues loom.
Subsidies on Chinese state-owned enterprises, competition in artificial intelligence, 5G, and other national security-related technology would be “quite difficult to deal with and will have very significant consequences for the global economy,” Yellen said.
If the two nations couldn’t find a middle ground, the world could split into two camps, complicating worldwide trade and muddling global integration. Technological advancements, she said, could slow to a crawl.
“Technologies developed in one place of the world need to be and can be applied throughout the world, and become the base for further progress of technological innovation,” Yellen said.
A world where countries don’t get to learn from one another, where we “lose those synergies…I hope we will not go there.”
Geoffrey Cheng 