Crypto Currency

Tether, USD Coin, and Binance USD have posted triple-figure market cap growth this year. Crypto market data aggregator Messari reports that the market cap of leading stablecoin Tether ( USDT ) has surpassed $10 billion for the first time. Alongside Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ethereum ( ETH ), Tether is now one of three crypto assets with an eleven-figure capitalization.  Tether’s reported $10 billion market cap comes after year-to-date growth of 144% — with Tether representing $4.1 billion at the start of 2020.  However, data aggregators are at odds on Tether’s capitalization, with CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap estimating USDT’s market cap to be just over $9 billion.  USD Coin and Binance USD post strong growth The second-largest stablecoin by market cap, Circle’s USD Coin ( USDC ) has also seen triple-digit growth since early January — increasing from less than $450 million to over $930 million today. USDC has steadily grown since launching in October 2018 to currently c...

Nvidia has filed for the dismissal of a complaint alleging it fraudulently attributed over $1 billion in sales to gaming markets amid the 2017 crypto bubble. Major manufacturer of graphics processing units ( GPUs ) and computing hardware Nvidia has filed a motion to dismiss a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that the firm misrepresented more $1 billion in sales during 2017 and 2018. In addition to its popular ‘GeForce’ and ‘GTX’ products — favored by both gamers and crypto miners — Nvidia launched a GPU specifically designed for virtual currency mining dubbed ‘Crypto SKU’ in May 2017.  However, Nvidia reported only its Crypto SKU sales as having been made to cryptocurrency miners, and investors claim this misrepresented $1.126 billion in other sales as having been driven by demand from the gaming market. In the motion to dismiss, Nvidia asserts that statements issued by its executives made it clear to investors at the time that it was impossible to know the exact purp...

The Washington DC Bar Association became the fourth to issue an opinion endorsing crypto as an acceptable form of payment. Four bar associations across the United States have now issued opinions stating they are not opposed to cryptocurrency or digital currency as a form of payment for an advance or services rendered. The District of Columbia Bar Association (DCB) became the most recent, releasing an ethics opinion which states that lawyers in the nation’s capital could accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment as long as the fee is reasonable and objectively fair to clients. According to the DCB, any lawyer who accepts crypto as payment must also take “competent and reasonable security precautions to safeguard that property”.  Other bars accepting digital payments The DCB currently has roughly 100,000 members, making it one of the larger bar associations in the U.S. to state it is “not unethical for a lawyer to accept cryptocurrency.”  The New York City bar associatio...

As the crypto community’s anticipation for PayPal’s exploration into crypto grows, Pundi X has integrated the payments processor for its point-of-sale devices. Singapore-based blockchain firm Pundi X has integrated PayPal support for its point-of-sale device ‘Xpos.’  PayPal is the first mobile payment gateway to be integrated onto Xpos, and users from more than 30 countries can now accept funds via the payments processor. The integration will take place over two stages, with U.S-based merchants who use Xpos able to apply for PayPay-based keyed transactions from July 1. A PayPal app is expected to be integrated onto all Xpos devices within two weeks — completing the roll-out. 70% of Xpos users request Paypal support Pundi X decided to launch the integration after conducting a Twitter poll asking followers which mobile payment app they would like Xpos to support first. PayPal received almost 70% of votes, beating out WeChat Pay, Alipay, and GoPay, among others. The integra...

The Ethereum/Bitcoin flippening is more than half complete, according to a new metric. A new metric from German site The Blockchain Center suggests that the long awaited ‘flippening’ —  where Ethereum overtakes Bitcoin — is more than halfway complete. The newly created ‘ Flippening Index ’ currently stands at 53.3%. Backtested, it shows this is the first time the index has topped 50% in 18 months — the highest point since March 2019 when it was around 56.2%. Of course, this latest version of ‘the flippening’ has completely altered the traditional definition. It originally referred to Ether's market cap relative to Bitcoin, but given Ether is currently at just 14.9% of Bitcoin’s market cap, it still has quite the mountain to climb . Much more thorough comparison The Flippening Index (which shares some features with the now defunct Flippening Watch ) is designed to be a more thorough comparison, weighting the average of eight other indicators to hopefully provide a better over...

After stakeholders raised concerns about the Australian Securities Exchange’s blockchain infrastructure plan, it has been postponed until 2022. The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has further delayed its switch to blockchain after public lobbying from key stakeholders. According to a June 30 update from the ASX , the exchange has officially delayed the rollout of Distributed Ledger infrastructure to replace its current system for processing equity transactions. ASX will now release the project — the replacement for the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) — in April 2022, a one-year push from its most recent timetable. The exchange cited a number of reasons for the change including the current pandemic, accommodating changes requested by stakeholders, and providing a larger window of opportunity for development. Peter Hiom, ASX Deputy CEO, said the exchange had “listened to the diverse views of stakeholders and accommodated feedback on timing, user readiness a...

Sub-saharan Africa now represents more than $15 million in combined weekly peer-to-peer trade following triple-digit growth over just a few months. Peer-to-peer Bitcoin ( BTC ) trading has seen rapid growth in recent months, with the African continent now the second-strongest region in the world for P2P volume behind the U.S. Africa was the sole region to produce an increase in seven-day P2P trade this past week — with sub-saharan African trade posting its seventh all-time high for weekly trade in nine weeks. Since early January, the sub-saharan African has overtaken the Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, and Latin American regions to emerge as the second-strongest P2P market by a volume margin of more than 50%. African P2P trade surges Data posted to Twitter by crypto analyst Kevin Rooke on June 30 indicated triple-digit P2P activity among Africa’s top P2P markets over just three months, with volume increases of 125% in Nigeria, 194% in South Africa, 199% in Kenya, and 257% in ...

Bitcoin price has stalled below $9,200 but on-chain data, investor sentiment, and BTC’s strong quarterly performance are bullish signals. Earlier today Cointelegraph reported that “ Bitcoin (BTC) price recorded its strongest second quarter performance in history ” despite a startling crash to $3,750 on March 13. Data from Skew also shows that Bitcoin currently has a quarter-to-date return of 42.39% and the digital asset remains the top-performer for 2020 with a 27.31% return.   Macro assets year-to-date returns %. Source: Skew Data from on-chain analytics provider glassnode also showed that since the Black Thursday crash, the total number of Bitcoin whales rose above the 2017 high to 1,800 over the last 3 months.  Another positive signal of investors’ sentiment towards Bitcoin comes from a recent survey conducted by crypto custodian Bitcoin IRA that shows 43% of the platform’s clients expect Bitcoin price to top $15,000 by the end of 2020 .  After surveying 3...

China is looking into the use of blockchain technology to promote data sharing among medical institutions amid future pandemics. Chinese authorities are trying to strengthen their epidemic preparedness and have identified blockchain as a key component of the response.  The Chinese Circular of the National Health Commission released  its plan on June 30 on how to ramp up its information technology support amid future pandemics. One component of the strategy is the use of blockchain technology for enhancing data sharing among medical institutions. Data sharing is key  The Commission is urging local health departments to promote data sharing and collaboration between online hospitals and physical medical institutions. It says that Blockchain technology should be implemented to achieve the safe flow, and authorized access, of patients medical data: “Local health departments should promote the data docking between ‘internet hospitals’ and regional information platforms ...

A startup wants to use the concept of a governance token to reform freelance talent boards and align incentives between the platform and its users. A new startup wants to change the way freelance talent and respective clients find each other through a community-run platform. To accomplish this, the project will feature its own governance token. The core premise of the platform, known as Braintrust, is to remove middlemen from the process of hiring highly skilled talent for contract and freelance work — primarily in the IT industry. But unlike the many iterations of this concept born in the initial coin offering era, Braintrust will not force users into a proprietary token for payments. Instead, it borrows some concepts from DeFi governance, and especially Compound, to create a community-run platform. Cointelegraph interviewed its CEO, Adam Jackson, to learn more about the platform. Realigning incentives Jackson believes that existing freelancer aggregation platforms, like Upwor...

“The value we create inside of our virtual worlds will become indistinguishable from the value we’ve historically created outside of them.” Dapper Labs – the company behind CryptoKitties – has a simple mission. They want to introduce a billion people to blockchain. “The reason we decided to go for entertainment — specifically games — is because we felt that it’s just a much easier way to introduce folks to decentralization,” explains co-founder Mik Naayem. “Gamers are the perfect target market as they already understand virtual currencies and virtual worlds.” In November 2017 CryptoKitties was Dapper Labs’ Trojan Cat, and the game introduced the revolutionary concept of NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) to hundreds of thousands of people who had never used the word “fungible” in their lives. It is widely believed, at least by those in the blockchain industry, that these unique or scarce digital objects have the potential to transform the internet and underpin new virtual economies...

Cointelegraph hosts a discussion on LGBTQ+ and blockchain. Join live at 1 pm EST as LGBTTech and LGBT Foundation co-founders discuss the topic. As Pride month comes to an end, Cointelegraph hosts an online meetup to discuss LGBTQ+ issues in the crypto and blockchain community. Called “LGBTQ+ and Blockchain: Community-Powered Tech and Tech-Powered Community,” the new session of Cointelegraph Talks features community members like LGBTTech’s Christopher Wood and UNAIDS’ Eric Lamontagne. Other speakers include Hornet’s Christof Wittig, BitBull Capital CEO Joe DiPasquale, LGBT Foundation’s Sean Howell, Muckr AI’s Susan Oh, and Fintech.TV’s Dr Jane Thomason. Hosted by Cointelegraph's opinion editor, Max Yakubowski , the upcoming session is less than an hour away, scheduled to start at 1 pm EST and ending at 2 pm EST. Sign up for the event via the Eventbrite page or watch the live discussion on Youtube and take part by sending in questions. Launched in April 2020 , Cointelegraph...

Big Four firms introduce data analytics tools to help manage crypto and digital assets for institutional clients. Once dominated by young and savvy retail investors, the cryptocurrency market has seen increasing interest lately from institutional investors and large fintech firms. For instance, Grayscale Investments most recently added 19,879 Bitcoin ( BTC ) to its Bitcoin Trust, bringing the firm’s total volume of the predominant cryptocurrency close to a whopping 400,000. The investment firm further noted in a tweet on June 25 that it is managing $4.1 billion dollars worth of digital assets. It’s also worth noting that leading payment provider PayPal may soon be incorporating cryptocurrency options . While some individuals in the crypto community may cringe at the thought, recent findings from Big Four firm KPMG explain that institutionalization is needed now more than ever in order for cryptocurrencies to meet their full potential. A KPMG document titled “Cryptocurrencies are...