Bullets

2022-06-14 19:11:14 Coinbase, an American cryptocurrency exchange, is pruning down its workforce by 18% in preparation for a recession it says could lead to another crypto winter.A crypto winter is a period of a downward spiral in cryptocurrency prices. Brain Armstrong, Coinbase’s Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, made the decision public on Tuesday in a message published on the exchange’s blog. “Today, I am making the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team by about 18%, to ensure we stay healthy during this economic downturn,” Armstrong said in the statement.Coinbase’s action comes two weeks after Gemini, a rival cryptocurrency exchange, also shed its staff by 10%, citing “current macroeconomic and geopolitical turmoil.”‘Economic Conditions Are Changing Rapidly’In the statement, Armstrong explained that economic conditions are changing rapidly and a recession could lead to another crypto winter which could last for an extended period. The CEO noted that trading revenue, the exchange’s largest revenue source, slumped significantly during past crypto winters. “While it’s hard to predict the economy or the markets, we always plan for the worst so we can operate the business through any environment,” he said. Speaking further, the Coinbase Co-Founder noted that the exchange “grew too quickly,” and "over-hired" while trying to take advantage of the explosion in the adoption of crypto products.Armstrong pointed out that managing the exchange’s costs is, therefore, critical in down markets.“Coinbase has survived through four major crypto winters, and we’ve created long term success by carefully managing our spending through every down period,” the CEO said. “Down markets are challenging to navigate and require a different mindset,” he added.'Employee Costs Are too High'Explaining how the job cut decision was reached, Armstrong noted that the exchange’s team grew very quickly in fourfold in the past 18 months. He added that the firm’s employee costs are too high to effectively manage in “this uncertain market.”Armstrong further explained, “For the past few months, adding new employees has made us less efficient, not more. “We have seen ourselves slow down considerably due to coordination headwinds, and difficulty fully integrating new team members. “We believe the targeted resourcing changes we are making today will allow our organization to become more efficient.”This article was written by Solomon Oladipupo at www.financemagnates.com.

via CryptoCurrency – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/zARmEWt Open / Comment

2022-06-14 15:11:38 Another algorithmic stablecoin lost its peg, this time it is USDD. Launched by TRON only a month ago, USDD lost its peg as heavy selling across the top cryptocurrencies has persisted.Justin Sunday, Founder of the TRON Foundation announced that 700 million USDC will be injected to defend the peg. Additionally, $2 billion were to be deployed and 'funding rate of shorting #TRX on Binance is negative 500% APR.'source: twitterTRON DAO Reserve also announced the measures it has taken to fight off the de-pegging of USDD:'To safeguard the overall blockchain industry and crypto market, TRON DAO Reserve have increased 650,000,000 USDC supply on TRON. Currently USDC supply on TRON has reached $2.5 billion.'TRON Safety Net?At the beginning of June 2022, Justin Sun discussed the safety net for USDD, "Spearheading the Stablecoin 3.0 era, the upgraded, over-collateralized USDD will add more diversified features to underpin its stability."The $10 billion reserves pledged by the TDR will enable USDD to become the most reliable decentralized stablecoin with the highest collateral ratio in blockchain history. Currently, the 200%+ collateral ratio offers USDD a very strong safety net.”A user by the name of Resdegen (an executive from Proximity Labs) tweeted that the 200%+ collateral ratio may be inaccurate. Resdegen explained earlier this month that the collateral ratio of a stablecoin is the ratio of the collateral to the issued stablecoins.The following formula provides the collateralized ratio:[USDD collateral (reserves)/ total supply of USDD]*100 = [835.9 million/ 667 million]*100 = 125.32%Resdegen wondered how did Justin Sun calculated the +200% collateral ratio to USDD. He then discovered that the burned TRX is used in the calculations.Reserves + 8.29B $TRX burnt (= $USDD supply) = $787M + $667M = $1.454B.Then collateral ratio = 1.454 / 0.667 = 218%USDD may be minted by burning TRX. The TRX tokens that are burned to mint USDD are factored in the collateral backing of USDD:[USDD reserves + burnt TRX / total supply of USDD]*100= [835.9 million + 667 million / 667 million]*100 = 225%Prior to USDD de-pegging, TRX was over 18% of the reserves. Resdegen calculated that the real collateral without TRX (reserves and burnt TRX) is around 81%.Due to the recent bear market (dubbed crypto winter), the top cryptocurrencies declined including TRX. Resdegen added that maintaining USDD de-peg depends on the appreciation of TRX (similar concept was seen in Terra Luna prior to the hard fork). As it was not the case, USDD lost its peg to the US Dollar (USD).source: coinglassWhether it was indeed a miscalculation or not, USDD is trading at $0.98 at the time of this writing. Despite recent efforts the token is still unable to regain its peg to the US Dollar at the time of this writing.This article was written by Matti Williamson at www.financemagnates.com.

via CryptoCurrency – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/dBNUzac Open / Comment

2022-06-14 13:11:28 What Is Yield FarmingYield farming, or liquidity farming, is the act of lending or staking your cryptocurrency into a liquidity pool, through DeFi (Decentralized Finance) to receive rewards such as interest and more of their staked cryptocurrency. Similar to traditional staking, it can be seen as the equivalent of lending fiat money to a bank.Interest rates or rewards rates are often measured in APY, which is the annual return rate of an asset, inclusive of compounding. The more frequently the interest compounds, the greater difference between the APY and APR of an investment. Banks and other more traditional investments usually stick to a flat APR.Yield farming is often seen as the equivalent of silicon valley startups like Uber, which offer great incentives for early investors into the platform. New blockchain apps need liquidity to help sustain and eventually grow the platform, which is where yield farming steps in.All staked cryptocurrency via yield farming is combined into a liquidity pool, usually for a specific pair of cryptocurrencies, such as CRO/ETH. These liquidity pools may be operated by Automatic Market Makers offering automated and permissionless trading tapping into liquidity pools instead of the generic buyers and sellers system.When investing in a liquidity pool, users will receive a Liquidity Pool token to keep track of their overall contributions to the pool. This LP token will represent the percentage of the liquidity pool the investor has provided and will be exchanged when you exit the pool.Fact: The word ‘farming’ in yield farming comes from the farming analogy about ‘growing’ your cryptocurrency.What Is a Yield FarmerA crypto enthusiast with in-depth knowledge and a high tolerance for risk, continuously and relentlessly trying to optimize their yield by staking cryptocurrency. Yield farmers will often move to different pools every week, chasing the highest APY.For example:A yield farmer may make an initial investment into a farm using x token. They will receive some Y tokens for their participation.They may then go and use their Y tokens on a liquidity pool that offers even more rewards, always trying to optimize their return.How It WorksAn investor will stake their cryptocurrency coins through a ‘lending protocol’ via a dApp (decentralized app on DeFi). Now that their liquidity is in, other investors can choose to borrow the liquidity for their own investments, trying to catch large swings in the staked coins' price.As yield farming is used to reward early investors, often governance tokens of that blockchain will be given out to keep them as a user, and their liquidity in the system. Governance tokens help keep a project decentralized and allow real users to vote on any new legislature. Governance tokens are at the core of any DAO or project which aims to be fully run by its users.Liquidity pools essentially keep the ecosystem alive and are where most of the early liquidity will come from in smaller projects.What Are the Potential Rewards?Yield Farming first came available in 2020, and many yield farmers have bragged about triple-digit APY rates, unheard outside of the crypto space. However, these rates bring volatility. Often, the tokens received as rewards from such farms are extremely volatile and prone to rug pulls. We will dive deeper into the risks of yield farming later in the article.You can find a full list of the most used and profitable yield farms, with daily and yearly APY here. CoinMarketCap simply views this as a resource and investors are recommended to do their own research before dipping their toes into the volatile world of yield farming.Many yield farms with low impermanent loss risk continue to hold double-digit yearly APYs, with niche coin pairs and riskier farms reaching triple and even quadruple-digit APY returns, unsustainable but profitable in the short term.Although almost all crypto trading is speculation, to consistently profit from yield farming, high-level strategies are usually required and a decent chunk of change… Open / Comment

2022-06-14 11:11:20 Amid negative sentiment around the crypto market, institutional investors pulled out approximately $102 million last week from digital asset investment products. The outflows were mainly focused on Bitcoin as nearly $57 million worth of investment has left BTC products.Ethereum’s struggle continued last week as the world’s second most valuable digital asset witnessed weekly outflows worth $41 million. Year-to-date outflows related to ETH investment products now stand at around $387 million.“Digital asset investment products flows remain choppy in anticipation of hawkish monetary policy, with steady daily outflows last week totaling US$102m. What has pushed Bitcoin into a 'crypto winter' over the last 6 months can by and large be explained as a direct result of increasingly hawkish rhetoric from the US Federal Reserve. Regionally, the majority of outflows were focused on the Americas, totaling US$98m with Europe seeing just US$2m outflows. Bitcoin saw outflows totaling US$57m last week bringing month-to-date outflows to US$91m,” CoinShares highlighted in its weekly report.By the end of the last week, the total value of global BTC assets under management stood at $26 billion, which is significantly lower compared to more than $50 billion in November last year.Crypto WinterThe institutional sentiment has been hit hard by the recent correction across the crypto market. In addition to Bitcoin and Ethereum, inflows related to multi-asset products saw a major drop last week.“Aside from Multi-asset investments products, which saw US$4.7m of outflows last week, investors steered clear of adding to altcoin positions. Blockchain equities have not escaped the negative sentiment with outflows of US$5m last week. Total AuM has fallen 54% from its November 2021 peak to US$1.9bn,” the report added.Yesterday, the market cap of digital currencies dipped below $1 trillion after Bitcoin and Ethereum saw sharp price declines.This article was written by Bilal Jafar at www.financemagnates.com.

via CryptoCurrency – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/e1PiyZJ Open / Comment

2022-06-13 23:11:26 The INX Digital Company, a broker-dealer and owner of crypto trading platforms, announced on Monday the official launch of its crypto app on the Apple App Store and Google Play store.According to the press release, with the INX crypto app, user data is encrypted using industry standards and is listed and traded with full regulatory compliance, fair trading policies, security protocols, and privacy procedures. "The INX Crypto trading app is about actions, not distractions. It was designed to allow straightforward trading of cryptocurrencies on any mobile device. We are gradually establishing more avenues for accessing crypto and digital securities. Our mission is to bring communities together and empower them through financial innovation. This app offers a regulated, secure, and easy-to-use method for trading crypto,” Shy Datika, INX CEO, commented.The INX platform is fully regulated and the company is committed to adhering to all regulatory requirements. With the new user-friendly app, traders can purchase and sell a variety of digital assets, not just specific blockchains. The company is already working on setting up a platform where crypto and digital securities can be traded 24/7, 365 days a year, to provide investors with investment opportunities.As the first company to issue an SEC-registered security token IPO on the blockchain, the company is rapidly preparing to help individuals, institutions, and issuers raise capital and trade responsibly.Financial Results Q1 2022INX Digital released its financial results for the first quarter ended 31 March 2022 recently. There were 17,674 new registrations in total, a sharp increase from the previous year.Approximately $36 million were kept in the reserve fund. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $46.6 million in the reported period. The company shared that it achieved the targeted goals for the first quarter of 2022. Despite growth in some areas, the company experienced an adjusted net loss in the first quarter of 2022.This article was written by Felipe Erazo at www.financemagnates.com.

via CryptoCurrency – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/ox1Jk8f Open / Comment

2022-06-13 22:11:19 Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has recommenced processing its users' withdrawals on the Bitcoin network hours after halting the service.Earlier on Monday, Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, announced that the platform has temporarily paused Bitcoin withdrawals on the platformZhao had explained that “a stuck transaction causing a backlog” necessitated the action. The co-founder in an initial Twitter post said that the issue will be cleared in 30 minutes. However, he later tweeted saying the impasse would take a bit longer to fix. This is only impacting the Bitcoin network. You can still withdraw Bitcoin on other networks like BEP-20. Likely this is going to take a bit longer to fix than my initial estimate. More updates soon. Thanks for your patience and understanding — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) June 13, 2022In a statement announcing the resumption of BTC withdrawals later on Monday, Binance, said it was still processing pending withdrawals.“We are still working to process the pending Bitcoin (BTC) network withdrawals, and this is estimated to be completed in the next couple of hours,” the exchange said in an update.“Please note that pending Bitcoin (BTC) network withdrawals will be rejected. In this case, the relevant users will need to resubmit their withdrawal requests,” Binance added.More on the Backlog Earliner, Zhao had said the halt on BTC withdrawals only affected the Bitcoin network. Zhao, who also pointed out that users could still withdraw BTC from other networks like BEP-20, noted that all users’ funds are in the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).While the BEP20 is a token standard deployed in creating tokens on the Binance Smart Chain, SAFU is an emergency insurance fund. Binance established SAFU in July 2018 to protect users' funds.The exchange's action follows a similar measure taken by Celsius, a crypto lending platform.Celsius in an announcement on Monday said it was pausing all withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts. The firm said the decision was taken due to extreme volatility in the cryptocurrency market.Crypto Crash Bitcoin slumped by 14% at the beginning of the new week. The cryptocurrency has fallen below $25,000--the lowest since December 2020.According to estimates, more than $200 billion was lost in the cryptocurrency market during the collapse.  TIME reports that the fall follows the release of the May 2022 Consumer Price Index by the US Bureau of Labor StatisticsOver the past day, other top cryptocurrencies have slumped between 15-25%. These include Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGGE). Meanwhile, last week Zhao disclosed that Binance was after two licenses in the Philippines. These are the virtual asset service provider (VASP) and the electronic money issuer (EMI) licenses. Additionally, the US subsidiary of the exchange recently launched a new staking platform, Binance.US Staking. Binance.US explained that the new staking platform comes with an 'auto-restake' feature and enables users to stake a selection of tokens.“Multiple supported Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrencies are available immediately on Binance.US Staking, including ​​Audius (AUDIO), Avalanche (AVAX), BNB, Cosmos (ATOM), Livepeer (LPT), Solana (SOL) and The Graph (GRT), with more supported tokens being added to the platform in the near future,” Binance said in a statementThis article was written by Solomon Oladipupo at www.financemagnates.com.

via CryptoCurrency – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/nmHtqwV Open / Comment

2022-06-13 21:11:16 Bitcoin (BTC) keeps plummeting across the board, testing an 18-month low near $22,700 amid a strong sell-off seen during Monday’s session. According to recent reports, MicroStrategy could receive its first margin call when the price falls below $22,584.The global market cryptocurrency market capitalization has plunged below $1 trillion for the first time since January 2021. Now, the crypto sphere is $140 billion away from the bottom of 2021, according to the latest charts coming from TradingView.According to data from crypto analytics firm Coinglass, $316 million worth of cryptocurrencies has been liquidated in the past four hours alone. With macroeconomic conditions worsening and the Celsius imbroglio, the cryptocurrency market has been battered.The sell-off has triggered fears in the crypto industry during the day, leading major cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance to halt their Bitcoin withdrawals amid heavy market volatility temporarily. Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO, commented that clients’ funds are safe, and the suspension is linked to a backlog. As of press time, the withdrawals have been resumed.Celsius WithdrawalsHowever, this is a normal pattern across major crypto exchanges when market volatility sparks across the board. Also, Celsius, a popular lending platform, announced on Monday that it halted all withdrawals, leading its native token CEL to decline over 50% on the news. Celsius also disabled swaps and transfers between different accounts amid the current crypto bloodbath.Aave, a decentralized finance platform, withdrew roughly $250 million from the FTX exchange before the announcement. No explanation has been given for such a move as of press time.Even policymakers have reacted around the world to the crypto plunge. "If you want to invest in these assets, okay, but be prepared to lose all your money," Andre Bailey, Bank of England Governor, told the British Parliament's Public Accounts Committee.Bitcoin is on the verge of reaching critical levels tested during December 2020, where it found resistance, now support, at around $19,000. If the price pierces below that area, eyes will be on the next support area set at $17,715, where November’s lows are found, followed by the critical psychological level of $17,000.This article was written by Felipe Erazo at www.financemagnates.com.

via CryptoCurrency – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/HEFYyjQ Open / Comment

2022-06-13 21:11:14 The Federal Financial Services Authority (BaFin), the primary regulator of Germany's financial markets and institutions, has warned against a lucrative ‘crypto assistant’ job offer supposedly from CWE Capital Holdings GmbH. The watchdog on Monday disclosed that CWE Capital Holding is not the operator of the website, cwe-capital.com that advertised the job offer.It also said that CWE Capital Holding is not offering the job vacancies advertised on the website. The company does not also offer the services listed on the website, the regulator further said.Fake Crypto AssistantBaFin explained that the job description attached to the job post entails so-called crypto assistants accepting payments from third parties through their own domestic bank accounts.After this, the assistants are to forward the received funds to other third parties or to convert them into crypto assets such as Bitcoins.“The funds transferred to the ‘Crypto Assistant’ account presumably come from third parties who themselves have become victims of criminal, particularly fraudulent acts,” BaFin said in a statement.The German regulator warned that those who act as these crypto assistants or financial agents can be prosecuted.It also pointed out that while the job offer says a private account could be registered with the tax office, the step is not provided for by law and cannot be acted on.BaFin, therefore, urged “affected consumers to inform the law enforcement authorities—the police or the public prosecutor's office—about such matters.”BaFin InvestigationsBaFin last month announced a formal investigation into blockchains.de, a trading platform.According to the watchdog, the firm’s operators do not hold authorization under the KWG to conduct banking business or provide financial services in Germany.Earlier in April, the regulator launched a similar formal investigation into UpbitFx Exchange Limited.BaFin said it had reasons to suspect that the platform was being used to provide banking services and financial services without the necessary authorization.The market supervisor further said the contents of upbitfxexchange.com as well as information and documents available to it aided its decision to investigate the platform.This article was written by Solomon Oladipupo at www.financemagnates.com.

via CryptoCurrency – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/JYjkBfS Open / Comment

2022-06-13 18:11:35 Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Monday temporarily paused Bitcoin withdrawals on its platform. Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao explained that “ a stuck transaction causing a backlog” necessitated the action. Zhao in an earlier post on Twitter had said that the issue will be cleared in 30 minutes but later announced that the impasse would take a bit longer to fix. The CEO, however, noted that a halt on withdrawals only affects the Bitcoin network. Zhao, who also pointed out that users can still withdraw BTC from other networks like BEP-20, noted that all users’ funds are in the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).Temporary pause of $BTC withdrawals on #Binance due to a stuck transaction causing a backlog. Should be fixed in ~30 minutes. Will update.Funds are SAFU.— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) June 13, 2022While the BEP-20 is a token standard deployed in creating tokens on the Binance Smart Chain, SAFU is an emergency insurance fund. Binance established SAFU in July 2018 to protect users' funds.The exchange's action follows a similar measure taken by Celsius, a crypto lending platform.Celsius in a Monday announcement said it was pausing all withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts. The firm said the decision was taken due to extreme volatility in the cryptocurrency market.Crypto CrashBitcoin slumped by 14% at the beginning of the new week. The cryptocurrency fell below $24,000. This plunge is the lowest since December 2020.According to estimates, more than $200 billion was lost in the cryptocurrency market during the crash.TIME reports that the fall follows the release of the May 2022 Consumer Price Index by the US Bureau of Labor StatisticsOver the past one day, other top cryptocurrencies have also slumped between 15-25%. These include Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGGE).Meanwhile, Zhao last week disclosed that Binance was after two licenses in the Philippines. These are the virtual asset service provider (VASP) and the electronic money issuer (EMI) licenses.The US subsidiary of the exchange also recently launched a new staking platform, Binance.US Staking. Binance.US explained that the new staking platform comes with a 'auto-restake' feature and enables users to stake a selection of tokens.“Multiple supported Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrencies are available immediately on Binance.US Staking, including ​​Audius (AUDIO), Avalanche (AVAX), BNB, Cosmos (ATOM), Livepeer (LPT), Solana (SOL) and The Graph (GRT), with more supported tokens being added to the platform in the near future,” Binance said in a statement.This article was written by Solomon Oladipupo at www.financemagnates.com.

via CryptoCurrency – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/EkPIDSa Open / Comment

2022-06-13 16:33:49 Web3 discussion whatsapp group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/HJ7SVShmk0r1L3LOvbPOFu Open / Comment