Fuel for a broader Bitcoin rally? BTC dip fills futures gap, liquidating $1 billion
A CME gap closed at around $55,504 as the price of Bitcoin steeply dropped following the new weekly candle.
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Did $50K ‘trigger’ Peter Schiff to buy BTC? 5 Things to watch in Bitcoin this week
As Bitcoin wobbles following a spurt to above $58,000, concerns mount about the depth of a possible inbound correction.
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South Korea fastracks 20% tax on Bitcoin and crypto profits to 2022
After much back and forth, South Korea appears to have finally set a hard date for the dawn of cryptocurrency taxation.
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Crypto market too big to ignore, says Nigeria SEC
Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission says it is committed to creating a clear-cut regulatory framework for cryptos in the country.
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Swiss crypto ETP issuer passes $1B assets under management
Swiss crypto ETP issuer 21Shares has increased its managed crypto ETP assets from $500 million to $1 billion in less than two weeks.
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Russian Bill to Recognize Cryptocurrencies as Property Advances in Parliament
Russia’s parliament has advanced the bill that proposes to recognize cryptocurrencies as property. The proposed law will provide legal protection for cryptocurrencies but income from their activities will also be subject to taxation.
Cryptocurrencies to Be Considered Property in Russia
Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, adopted a bill that recognizes cryptocurrencies as property and subjects income from them to taxation in the first reading, RIA Novosti reported last week. Noting that the document was submitted to the parliament by the government on Dec. 1, 2020, the publication detailed:
The bill proposes to recognize digital currency as property for the application of the tax code. As Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin explained earlier, this will allow the owner of the cryptocurrency to count on legal protection and defend his rights in court.
Prime Minister Mishustin talked about the Russian government’s plans to recognize cryptocurrencies as property back in November when he outlined initiatives, including cryptocurrency regulation, to fight against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
The bill imposes taxes on income from cryptocurrency activities. Russian citizens and organizations will have to submit a declaration if the value of cryptocurrency transactions during the year exceeds 600,000 rubles ($8,100). Meanwhile, cryptocurrency will not be subject to depreciation, and transactions related to its circulation will not be subject to VAT, the publication conveyed.
For non-payment or incomplete payment of tax, there will be a 40% penalty of the amount owed. There will also be a fine for failure to submit, untimely submission, or submission of a declaration with inaccurate information.
For declaration violations, a fine of 50,000 rubles will be levied. The Federal Tax Service will have the authority to request individuals’ bank statements of accounts used for cryptocurrency transactions.
The State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes intends to clarify which crypto transactions are exempt from VAT when finalizing the draft for the second reading. In addition, it will specify the declaration requirements for disposing of digital currency and submitting reports on transactions.
What do you think about Russia recognizing cryptocurrencies as property? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Tesla made $1B profit on its Bitcoin buy, says analyst
Tesla is about to make more money from its Bitcoin investments than profits from selling its electric vehicle cars in all of 2020, an analyst at Wedbush Securities said.
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Bitcoin Hashrate Hits 180 Exahash, Mining Difficulty Climbs Higher, Pools Jump by 35%
The price of bitcoin has climbed to phenomenal heights during the last few weeks and this has fueled the crypto asset’s mining sector a great deal. Despite the fact that the Bitcoin network’s mining difficulty has never been higher at 21.72 trillion, the hashrate has climbed to a whopping 180 exahash per second (EH/s) and there’s 23 mining pools dedicating significant hashrate to the Bitcoin blockchain.
180 Exahash and a 21.72 Trillion Difficulty
Bitcoin (BTC) continues to climb higher and higher in value and on Sunday the crypto asset tapped another all-time price high. BTC reached a whopping $58,300 price per unit on February 21, and the asset’s market valuation captured 1.09 trillion in value. The price of BTC has made bitcoin mining extremely profitable as next-generation mining rigs are making bountiful profits.
For instance, the Microbt manufactured Whatsminer M30S++ with 112 terahash per second (TH/s) gets $37 a day. The popular Bitmain Antminer S19 Pro (110 TH/s) gets a touch above $36 per day in BTC. This is using today’s extremely high mining difficulty and electric prices at $0.07 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Older generation mining rigs like Bitmain S9s and other 10-14 TH/s machines are also making profits.
The high difficulty percentage has never been larger in Bitcoin’s lifetime as the difficulty today is 21,724,134,900,047 (21.72T). The next difficulty change is expected to happen in 12 days and the mining difficulty is likely to go higher if the hashrate and if the price stays consistent. BTC’s difficulty will jump a percentage to 21.94 trillion on or around March 5, 2021. This is due to BTC’s hashrate remaining very high and tapping 180 exahash per second (EH/s) this week. At the time of publication, the hashrate is around 163 EH/s.
Bitcoin Mining Pool Participation Jumps by 35% in 30 Days
The hashrate surge is due to the additional mining pools joining in on the fresh profits. A few weeks ago 17-18 pools pointed hashrate at the BTC chain and now there’s 22-23 pools. The top gun in the BTC mining operation business is F2pool as it has held the number one position for months on end. That’s because F2pool commands 18.92% of the network’s overall hashrate with over 28 EH/s dedicated to the BTC blockchain.
Poolin follows behind with 15% of the hashrate and 23 exahash, Btc.com captures 12.1% with its 18 EH/s, and Binance Pool commands 11% of the hashrate with 17.5 EH/s. The fifth-largest BTC mining pool today is Antpool which has 8% of the network hash and 13 EH/s.
Pools like Viabtc, Huobi, 1thash, Slushpool, and Lubian have around 2.4% to 7.4% of the network hashrate respectively. Following those five pools is an unknown operation, Btc.top, Spiderpool, Emcdpool, and Novablock. All of which capture around 1 to 2.4 EH/s and most of the hashrate belongs to the stealth mining operation.
Bitcoin mining has always been competitive and hard, but in 2021 it has never been more difficult to secure a BTC block with 6.25 BTC and tethered fees. Nevertheless, miners continue to shatter new hashrate highs, and difficulty continues to climb because of this factor.
What do you think about the Bitcoin network’s difficulty obtaining all-time highs and the challenging mining difficulty increases as well? Let us know what you think about the bitcoin mining topic in the comments section below.
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CyberFi – An Intelligent Trading and Automation Platform for DeFi
While the decentralized finance (DeFi) space is not new, it has experienced massive growth to surpass $37 billion. Consequently, the sector attracted a lot of attention, which, in turn, led to the unearthing of multiple deficiencies that the industry has. As a result, many projects have been continuously cropping up to address these issues. While the projects are working at a record pace to tackle these challenges, the industry still has a lot of upgrading to do.
Enhance the DeFi Experience
Chipping in to help solve one of DeFi’s insufficiencies is CyberFi, a startup that seeks to offer intelligent trading and enhanced automation to make DeFi user-friendly. The project is a new-gen intelligent trading and automation platform (ITAP). It is described as a multi-product ecosystem that comprises automation products, seeking to enhance the DeFi experience.
CyberFi is the first platform of its kind that aims to fill a gap in DeFi trading by addressing a variety of issues, including high fees, specific onboarding barriers, divergence, and poor user experiences.
It works by combining a decentralized trading platform, an intelligent automation system for complex DeFi strategies, and a cross-chain layer for supporting DeFi automation. By blending these features, the platform eliminates manual processes in DeFi applications, which lead to gas wars, overpaying fees, stress and frustration, and the constant need to be on Uniswap.
Benefits of Using CyberFi
By using CyberFi, traders will get the functionality of centralized exchanges on decentralized exchanges (DEXes) and liquidity pools. For instance, the platform offers automatic order execution based on price divergence indicators (PDI) and best trade value (BTV). While trading on liquidity pool-based DEXes demands manual interaction for a trader to enter or exit a position, CyberFi’s price divergence indicators, which are available through oracles, allow traders to leverage automatic order execution.
This functionality is currently available on Uniswap, and it has a refresh rate of 40 to 60 seconds. However, CyberFi is working on an upgrade that will process live price feeds with a 10 to 30-second latency from multiple exchanges. This iteration will use a BTV concept, which automatically finds the best prices and smallest fees available. In doing so, the system provides traders with a stress-free experience by minimizing the manual processes they need to complete to trade on DEXes.
CyberFi also leverages PDI Change Speed (PDICS) to offer traders risk mitigation tools for volatile assets. This functionality enables traders to set trade limits based on price or percentage losses against time for specific tokens. Additionally, the platform works with the community and renowned DeFi players to improve the data analytics models that are currently available.
CFI Token
The CyberFi ecosystem has a native token dubbed CFI Token. It is mainly used to cover trading fees on the platform. CFI also offers lower commission and access to unique products. Additionally, CyberFi users can use CFI to pay for multi-chain operations. CyberFi will not claim the CFI fees for itself. Instead, the firm will redistribute 80% of the funds to the community to secure liquidity, increasing the token’s value. The remaining 20% serves as a revenue source for the ecosystem.
CFI has a total supply of 2.4 million coins. Breaking down how it will distribute the coins, CyberFi noted that it would use 800,000 CFI for the Alpha and Cyber rounds, where it would unlock 20% of this value in the first week and then unlock 10% of the remaining amount weekly. The project would then offer strategic partners 500,000 CFI with a six-month vesting period. 300,000 CFI would then go toward development. Another 300,000 would go toward community and marketing growth. Out of the remaining 500,000 CFI, the project would dedicate 250,000 CFI to fund the liquidity team, 200,000 CFI for LP and staking rewards, and 50,000 CFI for its transaction mining program.
Strategic Partnerships
To help better its platform, CyberFi has joined efforts with leading players in the crypto and DeFi spaces. Notable investment-side partnerships include a tie-up with the Ferrum Network, which seeks to develop a DeFi ecosystem that interoperates across chains to eliminate barriers to mass adoption. This deal involved the creation of a solution that would offer automatic staking and offer enhanced earning opportunities for users.
On the infrastructure side, CyberFi partnered with DEXTools to bring accurate low-latency Uniswap data to the CyberFi platform. It’s a partnership that will help users make the most out of CyberFi’s automation through up-to-the-minute trading data to inform automated investment strategies. And to help accommodate the trading volume that those automated trades are likely to drive, CyberFi has begun integrating the Matic Network into its platform. That will bring cheaper, more efficient layer 2 transaction functionality, lowering costs and increasing efficiency.
CyberFi also announced that it had integrated Chainlink’s oracle services, giving platform users access to their industry-best price feeds. Having that in place, CyberFi’s users can be certain that they’re making decisions based on fair market values that are resistant to external manipulation. And because Chainlink brings unassailable reliability and security, there will never be a risk of CyberFi’s users losing access to that data or having cause to question its veracity.
A Public Beta Launch
The development of the CyberFi platform has so far exceeded the expectations of both its creators and its early users. Things have come so far so fast that the platform announced the opening of a public beta on January 27th. The public beta includes the wide availability of automation for liquidity pool management and limit order management.
The beta for the liquidity pool automation currently includes four types of smart orders. Using the system, users can create triggers to control adding and removing liquidity, as well as to auto-sell specific liquidity pool assets and exit mining programs. This provides users with maximum flexibility to control their liquidity pool participation without having to babysit their holdings.
And as far as limit order automation, the beta includes functionality to handle standard limit orders as well as cross limit orders. But both features make use of single-TX order flows that save on gas fees and prevent front-run investment attacks. CyberFi accomplished this through innovative use of off-chain transaction storage – pre-authorizing transactions and storing them privately until a triggered execution event.
All in all, it’s an exciting time to be involved with CyberFi. And as industry partners continue to come on board and the platform continues to develop apace, things will only get better from here. It’s the birth of a whole new era in DeFi – where users have ultimate control, flexibility, and ease-of-use, all at their fingertips.
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Skybridge Capital Founder Predicts $100K Bitcoin Price This Year Due to ‘Heavy Demand’ and Diminishing Supply
The founder of asset management firm Skybridge Capital, Anthony Scaramucci, has predicted that the price of bitcoin will reach $100,000 before the year-end simply due to supply and demand. “You don’t have a lot of supply out there and very heavy demand,” he said. His firm currently has over half a billion dollars in bitcoin.
Skybridge’s Founder Expects $100K Bitcoin Before End of Year
Skybridge Capital founder and managing partner Anthony Scaramucci talked about his expectations for the price of bitcoin and his firm’s investment in the cryptocurrency during an interview with CNBC last week.
Noting that he sees ferocious demand in bitcoin while its supply is decreasing, Scaramucci expects the price of the cryptocurrency to double by the end of the year. The Skybridge Capital founder remarked:
I do think we see $100,000 in this coin before year-end … It’s just a supply and demand situation. You don’t have a lot of supply out there and very heavy demand.
Bitcoin’s price has been climbing rapidly, hitting multiple all-time highs over the past week. The cryptocurrency has already gained almost 76% since the beginning of the year. Its market capitalization has surpassed $1 trillion. At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin stands at $56,575.
The demand for bitcoin has been fast growing, particularly from institutional investors, which did not exist during the 2017 bitcoin bull run. However, according to blockchain analytics firm Glassnode, 78% of the bitcoin supply is not liquid. The firm says: “Currently 14.5M BTC are classified as illiquid, leaving only 4.2M BTC in constant circulation that are available for buying and selling.”
Scaramucci cautioned individual investors: “The thing is volatile, and again I want to be cautious with individual investors … Be cautious.” As for his own asset management firm, he said:
We like it. We have over a half a billion dollars in bitcoin right now. And obviously, our bitcoin fund started in December. It’s done quite well.
Skybridge launched its bitcoin fund in December last year with $25 million of its own capital. The fund opened to outside investors in January and debuted with $310 million. Scaramucci said his firm “could be at the precursor of an avalanche of institutional investors heading in,” as orders were “building up from a large swath of institutions for the first quarter of 2021.”
Major companies have recently been scooping up bitcoins, including Elon Musk’s Tesla, which bought $1.5 billion worth of BTC in January. Other major companies that have already invested in bitcoin include Jack Dorsey’s Square Inc. and mega insurer Massmutual.
Furthermore, the Nasdaq-listed Microstrategy had accumulated 70,784 bitcoins as of Jan. 27 and has completed a $1.05 billion convertible note offering to buy more BTC. A large number of bitcoins are also acquired by investment funds, including Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and an array of bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs) and bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
What do you think of Skybridge’s prediction? Let us know in the comments section below.
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