Coinbase’s Applied Researcher, Yehuda Lindell, has won the prestigious “Test-of-Time” award for 2022 from the International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR). The “Test-of-Time” award recognizes papers published 15 years ago that have had a lasting impact on the field of cryptography. Yehuda’s pioneering work was published a year before another important paper you may be familiar with: “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”.
His 2007 paper, “An Efficient Protocol for Secure Two-Party Computation in the Presence of Malicious Adversaries,” was the first to outline a two-party multi-party computation (MPC) protocol that was efficient enough to be implemented. In layman’s terms, secure two-party computation allows two “people” to solve a problem while keeping critical information private. For example, it solves the classic millionaires’ problem by allowing two people to understand who has more money without revealing their respective net worths. Yehuda’s work laid the foundation for future practical constructions.
Why cryptography is critical
Beyond their shared etymology related to something “hidden” or “secret”, cryptocurrency and cryptography are very intertwined. Cryptography’s mathematical and technological innovations underpin the entire crypto industry. The Bitcoin white paper makes this clear by introducing a cryptographic protocol in place of a trusted third party to validate transactions. This shift makes decentralization possible by “allowing any two willing parties to transact directly.”
Cryptography is essential to enabling transactions that are anonymous, secure, and “trustless.” The final point is the least obvious and perhaps most important. You don’t need a bank, credit card company, government, or other third-party intermediary since cryptographic tools such as public-private key encryption provide secure, direct confirmation.
Coinbase invests in fundamental research
Coinbase cares deeply about the security and reliability of our systems and the crypto industry as a whole. Investing in fundamental research is a core part of our mission to increase economic freedom in the world. We are honored to have Yehuda on our team and to support research that advances our mission.
If you feel strongly about advancing the field of cryptography, come work with us.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView confirmed BTC/USD hitting multi-week highs of $45,137 Friday as Wall Street got underway.
As $45,000 reappeared for the first time since the start of the month, however, so did all-too-familiar behavior among some of Bitcoin’s biggest investors.
Attention turned to exchange Bitfinex on the day, a platform famous for large-volume traders, or whales, guiding short-term price action with their trades.
As noted by popular trader Pentoshi, the entity which had purchased BTC at the last low near $34,000 had now put in a significant ask position beginning at $45,000.
The finex whale who made the bottom (same signature) just showed up with a lot of asks presumably to close out those 34k longs. Something to watch in the coming days $BTCpic.twitter.com/gDR8qvBVEl
Blockware lead insights analyst William Clemente agreed, telling Twitter users that it was now “popcorn time” for the market.
For Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe meanwhile flagged “a dozen” possible lower price targets should BTC/USD sweep liquidity at previous rejection points from March, these also lying just above $45,000.
“I’m not saying I’m bearish at this stage, but while we’re making this build-up, I’m not really interested into longs at this point,” he said in his latest YouTube update.
Only a rechallenge of $50,000, he added, would form the impetus to consider long positions.
“No longs” on Ethereum, says trade
Van de Poppe added that altcoins were also on the radar and that it would be interesting to see how Ether (ETH) in particular deals with upcoming resistance.
Related: What are the BTC price levels to watch as Bitcoin nears March peak?
The top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap showed clear copycat strength on daily timeframes, led by ETH/USD which matched Bitcoin’s 5% gains.
Overall still watching how #Bitcoin is going to react at resistance, and especially how $ETH will handle it there.
Cardano (ADA), while dropping several percentage points on the day, was still up 35% compared to the same time last week, making it the top-ten’s best performer.
As part of our mission to build a more fair, accessible, efficient, and transparent financial system enabled by crypto, we actively monitor for security threats not only to Coinbase but to the crypto ecosystem as a whole. As we have discussed in our previous blog posts on industry-wide crypto security threats and airdrop phishing campaigns, malicious activity against any crypto user or business is bad for the industry. That’s why it’s important to have a community mindset when we see security threats in the wild. As they say, rising tides lift all boats.
Recently, our security teams have uncovered ongoing mining pool scams targeting users of self-custody wallets. These scams have primarily leveraged malicious smart contracts on the Ethereum network. Based on blockchain research into known scammer wallets, Coinbase estimates these have resulted in the theft of over $50 million in crypto assets from a variety of non-custodial wallet applications. These scams target those using any decentralized wallet browser (e.g. Coinbase Wallet, Metamask, Trust, etc).
The scam typically follows this chain of events:
Victims are contacted via social media and/or other messaging services by scammers claiming to offer an attractive crypto investment opportunity to stake USDT (Tether) in their wallet for a guaranteed return
Victims are directed to visit a fraudulent website that can only be accessed via a crypto wallet browser or extension. These websites generally contain fake reviews, endorsements, live-feed payouts, and partner lists to add an appearance of authenticity
Scam sites will often fraudulently claim to be sponsored by or partnering with recognizable crypto brands such as Coinbase, Binance, and MetaMask
Example mining pool landing page
Source: Scam Site
Clicking the ‘Receive’ button displays a pop up similar to this
Source: Scam Site
Clicking this ‘Receive’ button will then display a fake pop-up designed to impersonate the Coinbase Wallet interface. The permissions that are displayed are not the true permissions that are actually being requested and are intentionally displayed in a way to attempt to trick users into clicking ‘Connect’
Source: Scam Site
Viewing the smart contract via a trusted token approval checker shows the true permissions being requested. The scammer gains delegated transaction approval status with an unlimited transaction allowance within the victim wallet, meaning the scammer can approve USDT sends of any amount on behalf of this wallet.
Source: etherscan.io
Attackers will remove USDT from the victim’s wallet and the scam site will show that their balance is increasing. Scammers will frequently reassure victims that if they add more funds, they will get more USDT in returns by mining.
At the end of the period, the funds are not returned to the victim and no profits will be received.
If the victim contacts customer support via the fraudulent website, the attacker may indicate they detected irregular activity on the account and that in order to fix that issue, the victim would need to pay additional USDT to ‘release’ the funds. However, no funds are ever returned regardless of whether or not the victim makes payment.
The following security steps can be taken to defend your assets:
Be wary of investments that claim a guaranteed return
Be wary of investment advice and opportunities from unknown or untrusted sources
Do not visit or connect self-custody wallets to any unknown site
Do not hold high value assets in the same wallet used to regularly interact with dapps. Use cold storage or custodial solutions such as the freely available Coinbase Vault.
Use a token approval checker to validate actual permissioning on self-custody wallets and revoke approvals that you did not knowingly authorize.
Coinbase is working with industry partners to take down these sites and developing ways to warn users when visiting known scam sites in order to help limit the damage caused by this type of scam.
It can be overwhelming trying to figure out what to put in your crypto portfolio. Which layer 1 alternatives should you place in there? Is LUNA eclipsing SOL? What is your metaverse play, and do you have any gaming coins?
Not everyone wants to go down the metaverse and gaming rabbit holes, admittedly. There are 100X possibilities, perhaps, but it can feel like a casino, and scratch cards are available if you like gambling, which is not to discourage anyone from playing, but it’s not for everyone.
When it comes to the larger contenders, the layer 1 alternatives, the landscape, although still crowded, becomes a little more inviting. By layer 1 alternatives, what is meant is competitors to Ethereum (less so Bitcoin, which is in a category of its own), that are built to run decentralized applications and handle things like DeFi and NFTs.
Here, you are looking at networks such as Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Fantom, Cosmos and there are more too. These are names that are big enough that any newcomer will come across them soon enough. And, in terms of what they actually do, that makes sense quickly too. As mentioned, they are, basically, competing with Ethereum (although Cosmos is a little different, as it goes about constructing an internet of blockchains).
You see praise and criticism, and it is not always clear what is true, and what is deliberately meant to steer investors in a certain direction, put out there by commenters with ulterior motives. Cardano is meticulous but takes an age to progress. Solana is speedy but not sufficiently decentralized. Fantom just had a key advisor walk away. And, so on.
It is at this point that you might decide to try some networks out and see how they work. There is nothing better than first-hand experience, but in the end that doesn’t always clear matters up, because the thing is, the contenders all work well.
You pick up some nice-looking NFTs on Cardano and Solana. Play around with the Osmosis DEX on Cosmos. Tour through various DeFi landscapes. All the wallets you’ve downloaded operate smoothly, transactions are quick, sometimes impressively speedy, rarely delayed to any greatly troubling extent.
What you find is, they all seem to function impressively and be solidly put together, and after a while, they even start to feel relatively user-friendly. And, it’s at exactly this point that it can make sense to think about changing direction and becoming a crypto conservative.
To be clear, a crypto conservative’s portfolio contains two things: Bitcoin and Ethereum.
It is instructive to look at snapshots of the top ten (or twenty or thirty) cryptos over the past few years. You’ll notice something. From position three and lower, there is constant change, names come and go, and projects appear, ascend, and then disappear into obscurity.
By contrast, the top two are ever-present and never move, except for their rapidly growing numbers, market cap and price, which constantly spin larger and larger. The top two, of course, are Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In the end, you can’t help but wonder, is it worth investing in crypto aside from these two? Sure, perhaps you can make some quick gains on the small caps and get out when you’re on top. And, then you can put your gains into, well, the top two.
At this point in what may, conceivably, be a critical stage in a global crypto transition, a multitude of projects can be skillfully built out and project all the right signals, but still, is it worthwhile challenging Bitcoin and Ethereum, and what would be the point in doing so? In this field perhaps more than any other, network effects are critical, and by that measure, there is an increasingly unassailable gap opening up.
And, besides which, although we ought to be emotionless and analytical when it comes to investing, it is difficult not to get attached to those top two, on levels that go beyond just investment and returns. Bitcoin created all this, the entire landscape, and its earliest believers are among the most dedicated and driven people around, operating with true conviction from the very start.
And, then there is Ethereum, committed, as much so as bitcoiners are, to decentralization and neutrality, and to the creation of a global computing network that enables fairness and freedom through technology and code.
We must not be overly romantic, but these seem like noble, admirably eccentric enterprises that, self-starting and deliberately out of step with all established, power-wielding structures, just might work. And, if that isn’t worth buying into for the long haul, then I don’t know what is.
Sometimes it appears, simultaneously, that Bitcoin will decentralize money, while Ethereum is decentralizing the web, and that neither of these changes can come a moment too soon. In that case, if you want to peacefully fix what is broken and at the same time have a portfolio you can feel relaxed about, then it pays to be a crypto conservative.
It can be overwhelming trying to figure out what to put in your crypto portfolio. Which layer 1 alternatives should you place in there? Is LUNA eclipsing SOL? What is your metaverse play, and do you have any gaming coins?
Not everyone wants to go down the metaverse and gaming rabbit holes, admittedly. There are 100X possibilities, perhaps, but it can feel like a casino, and scratch cards are available if you like gambling, which is not to discourage anyone from playing, but it’s not for everyone.
When it comes to the larger contenders, the layer 1 alternatives, the landscape, although still crowded, becomes a little more inviting. By layer 1 alternatives, what is meant is competitors to Ethereum (less so Bitcoin, which is in a category of its own), that are built to run decentralized applications and handle things like DeFi and NFTs.
Here, you are looking at networks such as Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Fantom, Cosmos and there are more too. These are names that are big enough that any newcomer will come across them soon enough. And, in terms of what they actually do, that makes sense quickly too. As mentioned, they are, basically, competing with Ethereum (although Cosmos is a little different, as it goes about constructing an internet of blockchains).
You see praise and criticism, and it is not always clear what is true, and what is deliberately meant to steer investors in a certain direction, put out there by commenters with ulterior motives. Cardano is meticulous but takes an age to progress. Solana is speedy but not sufficiently decentralized. Fantom just had a key advisor walk away. And, so on.
It is at this point that you might decide to try some networks out and see how they work. There is nothing better than first-hand experience, but in the end that doesn’t always clear matters up, because the thing is, the contenders all work well.
You pick up some nice-looking NFTs on Cardano and Solana. Play around with the Osmosis DEX on Cosmos. Tour through various DeFi landscapes. All the wallets you’ve downloaded operate smoothly, transactions are quick, sometimes impressively speedy, rarely delayed to any greatly troubling extent.
What you find is, they all seem to function impressively and be solidly put together, and after a while, they even start to feel relatively user-friendly. And, it’s at exactly this point that it can make sense to think about changing direction and becoming a crypto conservative.
To be clear, a crypto conservative’s portfolio contains two things: Bitcoin and Ethereum.
It is instructive to look at snapshots of the top ten (or twenty or thirty) cryptos over the past few years. You’ll notice something. From position three and lower, there is constant change, names come and go, and projects appear, ascend, and then disappear into obscurity.
By contrast, the top two are ever-present and never move, except for their rapidly growing numbers, market cap and price, which constantly spin larger and larger. The top two, of course, are Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In the end, you can’t help but wonder, is it worth investing in crypto aside from these two? Sure, perhaps you can make some quick gains on the small caps and get out when you’re on top. And, then you can put your gains into, well, the top two.
At this point in what may, conceivably, be a critical stage in a global crypto transition, a multitude of projects can be skillfully built out and project all the right signals, but still, is it worthwhile challenging Bitcoin and Ethereum, and what would be the point in doing so? In this field perhaps more than any other, network effects are critical, and by that measure, there is an increasingly unassailable gap opening up.
And, besides which, although we ought to be emotionless and analytical when it comes to investing, it is difficult not to get attached to those top two, on levels that go beyond just investment and returns. Bitcoin created all this, the entire landscape, and its earliest believers are among the most dedicated and driven people around, operating with true conviction from the very start.
And, then there is Ethereum, committed, as much so as bitcoiners are, to decentralization and neutrality, and to the creation of a global computing network that enables fairness and freedom through technology and code.
We must not be overly romantic, but these seem like noble, admirably eccentric enterprises that, self-starting and deliberately out of step with all established, power-wielding structures, just might work. And, if that isn’t worth buying into for the long haul, then I don’t know what is.
Sometimes it appears, simultaneously, that Bitcoin will decentralize money, while Ethereum is decentralizing the web, and that neither of these changes can come a moment too soon. In that case, if you want to peacefully fix what is broken and at the same time have a portfolio you can feel relaxed about, then it pays to be a crypto conservative.
With the appearance of Metaverse, GameFi projects’ popularity is increasingly growing in the blockchain space whereas Web 2.0 traditional tools seem to be obsolete and not adapted to the Web 3.0 conceptual step up. This instrumental gap is filled by a unique partnership between Secretum and Edensol. Security, transparency, decentralization and immediacy as fundamental values of Web 3.0 meet safety and stability, menaced in other gameFi projects using traditional messengers.
What is Edensol?
Edensol is a revolutionary gaming Metaverse that combines fantasy action with the use of groundbreaking NFTs on the Solana blockchain. It’s play-to-earn gaming, easy to understand, exciting, and fast-paced. The main characters of the game are heroes, warriors, rangers, mages and pets. The value of an NFT character depends on its level of personalization (special cosmetic characteristics, number of types of pets owned etc.), as well as the frequency and success of the battles.
To sell and purchase NFTs players can use NSOL tokens and go trade on the Edensol marketplace. Edensol includes various types of NFTs, among which are heroes, whose value depends on its level of personalization and strength, gear (swords, axes, traps, fireballs, magic spells and battle outfits), eggs and pets.
The prices of these NFTs vary depending on the value of their superpowers, their looks, their not-yet-unlocked potential, and the rarity of their species. Some ultra-rare gear NFT items with completely unique artistic features and effects will be also tradable on secondary marketplaces in the future.
Significant advantages of financial gaming with NFTs in Edensol
A fusion of virtual gaming with NFTs is a confluence of crypto, gaming and money. Gamification of financial systems is disrupting the traditional gaming industry as we know it. It is the next step for the cryptomarket and it has various strengths and advantages. The total value of NFTs rocketing to a new record high of $43 billion in October 2021.
In contrast to traditional gaming, where users play to win, Edensol adopts a play-to-earn model and permits the revenue capacity of NFT, which is proven to be significant.
Edensol takes advantage of the popularity of video games, combined with unique features of cryptocurrencies
Edensol provides verifiable and constant ownership for the players. All data is stored on the decentralized public Solana blockchain, which keeps track of what everyone owns. This means that players, not the game developers, own all of the in-game assets, even if a server is turned off or the gaming company suffers technical downtime. Edensol allows players to maintain ownership of all their in-game items and currency, thanks to tokenization.
The game becomes reality. Due to blockchain technology, Edensol adds real-world value to in-game purchases. Interior tokens and items can be traded for cryptocurrencies and, ultimately, actual cash. When a user creates an in-game account, Edensol automatically creates and links a crypto wallet to that account, which is used to store NFTs, in addition to NSOL and any other cryptocurrency. At any time, players can transfer all their in-game NFTs to their crypto wallets, and then sell them on decentralized marketplaces
These aspects make crypto gaming with Edensol a source of real income for players. It could be a passive income or even a full-time one.
Although blockchain-based crypto gaming is still vulnerable to attacks. Players can lose all of their assets in a hacking incident. For example, a Discord server by NFT marketplace Fractal got hacked, swindling members over $150,000 in crypto assets. And here comes Secretum as a perfect game-changer for crypto trading.
What is Secretum?
Secretum is unique, fully decentralized, end-to-end encrypted and secure trading on the Solana Blockchain. The major innovation of Secretum is enabling the trading of all crypto assets (fungible and NFTs) directly between users, via a hybrid messaging and trading function.
Secretum possesses a completely anonymous and secure sign-up process with only a user’s crypto wallet address. It is DeFi, metaverse compatible, OTC, P2P trading dApp with access to smart public channels. All data is safely stored on the independent and verified nodes in the Secretum network, with no central point of failure.
Secretum is just like Edensol based on the Solana blockchain. So it is fast and cheap, with low fees and instant trades due to Solana’s capability of 50,000 transactions per second and an average cost per transaction of only $0.00025.
As gameFi projects and Edensol, in particular, are sensitive to cyber-attacks Secretum is a perfect detail to solve this problem and ensure the safety of users and their assets from scammers. Secretum provides a safe connection in the web 3.0 world and keeps players’ possessions secure and private.
Edensol + Secretum: complementary partnership
Thus, Edensol will use Secretum dApp to ensure safe and end-to-end communications for users, whereas Edensol will be a perfect addition to the Secretum community as a fantasy metaverse and an actual play-to-earn income possibility, combining fun-packed action with P2E features and the use of collectible NFTs on the Solana blockchain. Edensol community members will benefit from OTC, P2P trading functionality in the Secretum dApp. They will be able to trade their $NSOL tokens and NFT gaming assets without intermediaries.
This highly qualitative partnership allows gamers to avoid scammers. All thanks to verification of $NSOL tokens possession, safety and security of Secretum, a brand new Web 3.0 era messenger and trading solution. Being a solution to most of the insecurity problems of DEXs, Secretum perfectly complements the Solana metaverse and Edensol gameFi project.
Development across the cryptocurrency ecosystem continues to move forward despite the day-to-day whipsaw price movements and this progress is furthering the public’s awareness of Web3 and the value of blockchain technology.
One project that has been climbing the charts amid a marketing push to develop better brand recognition is Fetch.ai, a protocol focused on building a token-based decentralized machine learning network capable of supporting the smart infrastructure being built around the digital economy.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of FET has climbed 43.13% over the past two days, rallying from a low of $0.322 on March 21 to an intraday high at $0.46 on March 23 as its 24-hour trading volume underwent a five-fold increase.
FET/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the building interest in Fetch.ai are the launch of a $150 million development fund, plans to further integrate the project into the Cosmos ecosystem and the recent launch of a large-scale marketing campaign.
Fetch.ai launches a $150 million development fund
The biggest news to come out of the Fetch ecosystem was the March 22 launch of a $150 million ecosystem development fund, in conjunction with MEXC Global, Huobi and Bybit, that is aimed at attracting developers and established projects to the Fetch.ai ecosystem.
Ecosystem development funds have become a popular theme across the cryptocurrency community as projects have found them to be a useful way of attracting new projects and users to their protocols in a field that is becoming increasingly crowded and difficult in which to gain traction.
Deeper integration with Cosmos
A second major development bridging increased attention to Fetch.ai has been its ongoing integration with the Cosmos ecosystem and Interblockchain Communication Protocol.
A new governance proposal is live!
This proposal seeks to upgrade the @Fetch_ai chain to Cosmos SDK v0.45 & IBC v2.2.0. With this, we can be enabled on Osmosis DEX/allow IBC transfers between us and other chains like @osmosiszone@cosmos
Fetch officially joined the list of projects that were launching within the interoperability-focused Cosmos ecosystem in February and it is currently in the process of upgrading the Fetch.ai chain to allow IBC transfers between supported networks.
Cosmos has been one of the most active and growing ecosystems over the past six months despite the weakness in the wider cryptocurrency market, which has the potential to benefit Fetch by bringing increased token liquidity and access to a greater pool of investors.
Related: Fetch.ai launches NFT platform for AI-generated art
A renewed marketing push
The third factor helping to increase the awareness of Fetch has been an increased focus on marketing the project to the wider public, including a partnership with Formula 1 driver Alex Albon.
On top of this Formula 1 sponsorship, marketing for Fetch has also begun to appear in highly visible areas, including digital billboards in Times Square, New York, and subway and bus terminal advertisements.
Fetch.ai has also begun to recruit crypto influencers to help increase awareness and it has benefited from being listed on the Voyager app on March 18.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for FET on March 21, prior to the recent price rise.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. FET price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for FET hit a high of 80 on March 21, around one hour before the price increased 42.56% over the next two days.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Aparna Chennapragada, Chief Product Officer at Robinhood, made some statements about the interest of the trading platform
Trading Platform
In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real-time updates on quotes, charts and is the main frontend which customers are facing.Brokers either use existing trading platforms and sometimes customize them, or develop their own platform from scratch. Since the beginning of the retail FX trading business MetaQuotes and its platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) have been the industry standard, especially when it comes to automated trading.MT4 Shows Resiliency While MT4 has long been seen as ubiquitous amongst brokers’ offerings, a targeted push by MetaQuotes themselves has led to broader adoption of MT5 in recent years. Advanced trading platforms such as MT4 or MT5 also allow access to a wide range of asset classes available for trading.The development of trading platforms over the past decade has failed to successfully dethrone MT4 or MT5, notably in the retail market. However, in institutional markets, brokerage companies and banking entities also construct and utilize proprietary currency trading platforms to help satisfy internal needs with trades executed through institutional trading channels.By far the most important parameter for many retail clients is the optionality and pairs available on trading platforms. Additionally, demand by traders has led to a greater emphasis on newer features such as advanced charting and other tools.
In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real-time updates on quotes, charts and is the main frontend which customers are facing.Brokers either use existing trading platforms and sometimes customize them, or develop their own platform from scratch. Since the beginning of the retail FX trading business MetaQuotes and its platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) have been the industry standard, especially when it comes to automated trading.MT4 Shows Resiliency While MT4 has long been seen as ubiquitous amongst brokers’ offerings, a targeted push by MetaQuotes themselves has led to broader adoption of MT5 in recent years. Advanced trading platforms such as MT4 or MT5 also allow access to a wide range of asset classes available for trading.The development of trading platforms over the past decade has failed to successfully dethrone MT4 or MT5, notably in the retail market. However, in institutional markets, brokerage companies and banking entities also construct and utilize proprietary currency trading platforms to help satisfy internal needs with trades executed through institutional trading channels.By far the most important parameter for many retail clients is the optionality and pairs available on trading platforms. Additionally, demand by traders has led to a greater emphasis on newer features such as advanced charting and other tools. Read this Term towards the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) industry, saying that they’re ‘fascinated.’
In fact, Chennapragada stated that there is ‘a lot of potential’ in using NFTs nowadays that Robinhood spotted. “We absolutely think about NFTs. I have been fascinated by them, and I think that the crypto team is excited. We are always looking at what makes sense here, in terms of products to offer through Robinhood,” she commented in an interview with The Verge.
Robinhood’s CPO, in particular, talked about what Axie has been doing in the NFT industry with the in-game sphere. “The reason I ask about NFTs, in particular, is that when you think about products on smartphones that allow you to transact — where you push a button and spend some money, and then digital goods move around — Robinhood is actually very unique. It does not pay a 30% commission to either of the smartphone platforms, even if you are buying Bitcoin
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the world’s first digital currency that was created in 2009 by a mysterious entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. As a digital currency or cryptocurrency, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator. Instead, Bitcoin can be sent via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, devoid of intermediaries.Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any governments or banks, and Bitcoin is not considered to be legal tender, although they do have status as an acknowledged transfer of value in some jurisdictions. Rather than composing a physical currency, Bitcoins are pieces of code that can be sent and received across a kind of distributed ledger network called a blockchain. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are confirmed by a network of computers (or nodes) that solve a series of complex equations. This process is called mining. In exchange for mining, the computers receive rewards in the form of new Bitcoins. Mining grows increasingly difficult over time, and the rewards get smaller and smaller. There is a total of 21 million Bitcoins. As of May 2020, there are 18.3 million Bitcoins in circulation. This number changes approximately every 10 minutes when new blocks are mined. Presently, each new block adds 12.5 bitcoins into circulation.Since its inception, Bitcoin has remained the most popular and largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap in the world. Bitcoin’s popularity has contributed significantly to the release of thousands of other cryptocurrencies, called “altcoins.” While the crypto market was originally hegemonic, today’s landscape features countless altcoins.Bitcoin ControversyBitcoin has been extremely controversial since its original launch. Given its mercurial nature, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions and money laundering.As its impossible to trace, these attributes make Bitcoin the ideal vehicle for illicit behavior. Moreover, critics point to its high electricity consumption for mining, rampant price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Bitcoin has been seen as a speculative bubble given its lack of oversight. The crypto has weathered multiple collapses and survived over a decade so far. Unlike its launch back in 2009, Bitcoin today is viewed far differently and is much more accepted by merchants and other entities.
Bitcoin is the world’s first digital currency that was created in 2009 by a mysterious entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. As a digital currency or cryptocurrency, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator. Instead, Bitcoin can be sent via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, devoid of intermediaries.Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any governments or banks, and Bitcoin is not considered to be legal tender, although they do have status as an acknowledged transfer of value in some jurisdictions. Rather than composing a physical currency, Bitcoins are pieces of code that can be sent and received across a kind of distributed ledger network called a blockchain. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are confirmed by a network of computers (or nodes) that solve a series of complex equations. This process is called mining. In exchange for mining, the computers receive rewards in the form of new Bitcoins. Mining grows increasingly difficult over time, and the rewards get smaller and smaller. There is a total of 21 million Bitcoins. As of May 2020, there are 18.3 million Bitcoins in circulation. This number changes approximately every 10 minutes when new blocks are mined. Presently, each new block adds 12.5 bitcoins into circulation.Since its inception, Bitcoin has remained the most popular and largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap in the world. Bitcoin’s popularity has contributed significantly to the release of thousands of other cryptocurrencies, called “altcoins.” While the crypto market was originally hegemonic, today’s landscape features countless altcoins.Bitcoin ControversyBitcoin has been extremely controversial since its original launch. Given its mercurial nature, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions and money laundering.As its impossible to trace, these attributes make Bitcoin the ideal vehicle for illicit behavior. Moreover, critics point to its high electricity consumption for mining, rampant price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Bitcoin has been seen as a speculative bubble given its lack of oversight. The crypto has weathered multiple collapses and survived over a decade so far. Unlike its launch back in 2009, Bitcoin today is viewed far differently and is much more accepted by merchants and other entities. Read this Term, which is a digital good. Because it’s money. Which is a very philosophical, like you’re dancing on the head of a pin there, that Apple has not said, ‘I want 30%’,” Chennapragada noted.
Moreover, she highlighted that NFTs could be an end in itself in some cases, making them a ‘really fascinating opportunity.’ However, she didn’t specify whether the company plans to launch or not any NFT offerings in the future, but she pointed out the following: “I think, as a team, and a company, we are looking at the space and saying, ‘How can we best participate? What are the customer problems that we can solve?’”
Settlement with Vermont Regulators
Recently, Robinhood reached an agreement to settle $640,000 with Vermont’s financial regulator, DFR, over the platform’s outages and account supervision issues.
Aparna Chennapragada, Chief Product Officer at Robinhood, made some statements about the interest of the trading platform
Trading Platform
In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real-time updates on quotes, charts and is the main frontend which customers are facing.Brokers either use existing trading platforms and sometimes customize them, or develop their own platform from scratch. Since the beginning of the retail FX trading business MetaQuotes and its platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) have been the industry standard, especially when it comes to automated trading.MT4 Shows Resiliency While MT4 has long been seen as ubiquitous amongst brokers’ offerings, a targeted push by MetaQuotes themselves has led to broader adoption of MT5 in recent years. Advanced trading platforms such as MT4 or MT5 also allow access to a wide range of asset classes available for trading.The development of trading platforms over the past decade has failed to successfully dethrone MT4 or MT5, notably in the retail market. However, in institutional markets, brokerage companies and banking entities also construct and utilize proprietary currency trading platforms to help satisfy internal needs with trades executed through institutional trading channels.By far the most important parameter for many retail clients is the optionality and pairs available on trading platforms. Additionally, demand by traders has led to a greater emphasis on newer features such as advanced charting and other tools.
In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real-time updates on quotes, charts and is the main frontend which customers are facing.Brokers either use existing trading platforms and sometimes customize them, or develop their own platform from scratch. Since the beginning of the retail FX trading business MetaQuotes and its platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) have been the industry standard, especially when it comes to automated trading.MT4 Shows Resiliency While MT4 has long been seen as ubiquitous amongst brokers’ offerings, a targeted push by MetaQuotes themselves has led to broader adoption of MT5 in recent years. Advanced trading platforms such as MT4 or MT5 also allow access to a wide range of asset classes available for trading.The development of trading platforms over the past decade has failed to successfully dethrone MT4 or MT5, notably in the retail market. However, in institutional markets, brokerage companies and banking entities also construct and utilize proprietary currency trading platforms to help satisfy internal needs with trades executed through institutional trading channels.By far the most important parameter for many retail clients is the optionality and pairs available on trading platforms. Additionally, demand by traders has led to a greater emphasis on newer features such as advanced charting and other tools. Read this Term towards the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) industry, saying that they’re ‘fascinated.’
In fact, Chennapragada stated that there is ‘a lot of potential’ in using NFTs nowadays that Robinhood spotted. “We absolutely think about NFTs. I have been fascinated by them, and I think that the crypto team is excited. We are always looking at what makes sense here, in terms of products to offer through Robinhood,” she commented in an interview with The Verge.
Robinhood’s CPO, in particular, talked about what Axie has been doing in the NFT industry with the in-game sphere. “The reason I ask about NFTs, in particular, is that when you think about products on smartphones that allow you to transact — where you push a button and spend some money, and then digital goods move around — Robinhood is actually very unique. It does not pay a 30% commission to either of the smartphone platforms, even if you are buying Bitcoin
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the world’s first digital currency that was created in 2009 by a mysterious entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. As a digital currency or cryptocurrency, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator. Instead, Bitcoin can be sent via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, devoid of intermediaries.Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any governments or banks, and Bitcoin is not considered to be legal tender, although they do have status as an acknowledged transfer of value in some jurisdictions. Rather than composing a physical currency, Bitcoins are pieces of code that can be sent and received across a kind of distributed ledger network called a blockchain. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are confirmed by a network of computers (or nodes) that solve a series of complex equations. This process is called mining. In exchange for mining, the computers receive rewards in the form of new Bitcoins. Mining grows increasingly difficult over time, and the rewards get smaller and smaller. There is a total of 21 million Bitcoins. As of May 2020, there are 18.3 million Bitcoins in circulation. This number changes approximately every 10 minutes when new blocks are mined. Presently, each new block adds 12.5 bitcoins into circulation.Since its inception, Bitcoin has remained the most popular and largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap in the world. Bitcoin’s popularity has contributed significantly to the release of thousands of other cryptocurrencies, called “altcoins.” While the crypto market was originally hegemonic, today’s landscape features countless altcoins.Bitcoin ControversyBitcoin has been extremely controversial since its original launch. Given its mercurial nature, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions and money laundering.As its impossible to trace, these attributes make Bitcoin the ideal vehicle for illicit behavior. Moreover, critics point to its high electricity consumption for mining, rampant price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Bitcoin has been seen as a speculative bubble given its lack of oversight. The crypto has weathered multiple collapses and survived over a decade so far. Unlike its launch back in 2009, Bitcoin today is viewed far differently and is much more accepted by merchants and other entities.
Bitcoin is the world’s first digital currency that was created in 2009 by a mysterious entity named Satoshi Nakamoto. As a digital currency or cryptocurrency, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator. Instead, Bitcoin can be sent via a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking, devoid of intermediaries.Bitcoins are not issued or backed by any governments or banks, and Bitcoin is not considered to be legal tender, although they do have status as an acknowledged transfer of value in some jurisdictions. Rather than composing a physical currency, Bitcoins are pieces of code that can be sent and received across a kind of distributed ledger network called a blockchain. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are confirmed by a network of computers (or nodes) that solve a series of complex equations. This process is called mining. In exchange for mining, the computers receive rewards in the form of new Bitcoins. Mining grows increasingly difficult over time, and the rewards get smaller and smaller. There is a total of 21 million Bitcoins. As of May 2020, there are 18.3 million Bitcoins in circulation. This number changes approximately every 10 minutes when new blocks are mined. Presently, each new block adds 12.5 bitcoins into circulation.Since its inception, Bitcoin has remained the most popular and largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap in the world. Bitcoin’s popularity has contributed significantly to the release of thousands of other cryptocurrencies, called “altcoins.” While the crypto market was originally hegemonic, today’s landscape features countless altcoins.Bitcoin ControversyBitcoin has been extremely controversial since its original launch. Given its mercurial nature, Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions and money laundering.As its impossible to trace, these attributes make Bitcoin the ideal vehicle for illicit behavior. Moreover, critics point to its high electricity consumption for mining, rampant price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Bitcoin has been seen as a speculative bubble given its lack of oversight. The crypto has weathered multiple collapses and survived over a decade so far. Unlike its launch back in 2009, Bitcoin today is viewed far differently and is much more accepted by merchants and other entities. Read this Term, which is a digital good. Because it’s money. Which is a very philosophical, like you’re dancing on the head of a pin there, that Apple has not said, ‘I want 30%’,” Chennapragada noted.
Moreover, she highlighted that NFTs could be an end in itself in some cases, making them a ‘really fascinating opportunity.’ However, she didn’t specify whether the company plans to launch or not any NFT offerings in the future, but she pointed out the following: “I think, as a team, and a company, we are looking at the space and saying, ‘How can we best participate? What are the customer problems that we can solve?’”
Settlement with Vermont Regulators
Recently, Robinhood reached an agreement to settle $640,000 with Vermont’s financial regulator, DFR, over the platform’s outages and account supervision issues.
Coinbase Cloud provides web3 APIs, services, and infrastructure to power the next generation of software builders. As part of our vision to empower developers building the future of web3, we are launching a suite of blockchain infrastructure solutions and services for the growing Avalanche ecosystem.
Avalanche is a high-speed smart contract platform with near-instant finality and EVM compatibility. Developers can deploy their Ethereum applications on Avalanche’s C-Chain or deploy custom-built blockchains as a subnet. Avalanche has seen accelerated growth in 2021 since its launch in 2020, reaching new highs in active addresses, transactions, and total value locked. A number of high-profile projects such as Curve, Aave, and DeFi Kingdoms expanded into Avalanche alongside native projects like Trader Joe, BENQI, and Crabada.
Coinbase Cloud is committed to supporting the Avalanche ecosystem, making it easier and faster for developers to build innovative applications and unlock new use cases.
Secure, reliable staking infrastructure
Today, Coinbase Cloud has a public validator that lets delegators easily and securely stake their AVAX.
Validators support the continued growth and the security of the network by verifying transactions, participating in consensus, and adding blocks. By staking tokens, delegators can contribute to validators that do the important work of validating the chain.
To get started, delegators will need a minimum of 25 AVAX to stake, plus funds to cover the gas fees. Coinbase Cloud offers a step-by-step guide to delegating AVAX tokens.
Those who want to run their own dedicated validators on Avalanche will be able to do so using our Participate product. Coinbase Cloud’s staking infrastructure is built to the highest security standards and offers 99% uptime guarantee, making it easy for anyone to spin up a validator in just a few steps — no coding required.
Empowering developers to build the next big Avalanche project
Coinbase Wallet SDK empowers developers to expand their app’s reach to millions of Coinbase users, providing easy access to the Avalanche ecosystem via Coinbase Wallet. Coinbase Wallet offers users built-in fiat onramps to buy AVAX from Coinbase, providing users an easy start with Avalanche.
Coinbase Wallet offers first-class support for Avalanche C-Chain and the Fuji testnet, as well as EVM-compatible subnets, ensuring that any EVM-compatible application runs seamlessly and reliably through Coinbase Wallet. The integration can be completed in minutes, with only a few lines of code. Developers can view Coinbase Wallet SDK documentation on the Coinbase Cloud website.
In addition, we are building our Query & Transact infrastructure to empower developers to easily access data from the Avalanche blockchain. Having an easy way to access data and submit transactions is the most fundamental step to building dapps such as wallets, exchanges, data aggregators, and blockchain analytics solutions. With Query & Transact, developers have reliable read/write access to data with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Once available, developers can also easily customize their Query & Transact read/write infrastructure via the Coinbase Cloud web interface to meet their needs. Using our web interface, developers can configure who can access the node infrastructure, and distribute their nodes across four geographic regions and two cloud providers to serve traffic globally with low latencies.
With Query & Transact and the Wallet SDK, Avalanche developers have a comprehensive suite of solutions to build and grow their crypto products.
“We couldn’t be more excited to work with the Avalanche team to empower builders and participants. Avalanche is contributing to building a more vibrant and accessible Web3 economy, and we are looking forward to working with them to help the network grow and scale.” — Joe Lallouz, head of product at Coinbase Cloud
“We are thrilled to be working with Coinbase Cloud. The Coinbase Cloud team offers the technical expertise, security best practices, and deep understanding of protocols that will make them one of the important contributors to Avalanche. We are excited for what’s to come and to build the Web3 future with Coinbase Cloud.” — Jay Kurahashi-Sofue, VP of Marketing at Ava Labs
Connect with Coinbase Cloud at the Avalanche Summit
Builders and participants can connect with Coinbase Cloud during the Avalanche Summit. Meet our team at the Coinbase Cloud booth at the Eco-Dome. In addition, we are hosting workshops for builders interested in growing the adoption of their product via the Wallet SDK. Catch us on March 26, 6–7 pm GMT+1 for a hands-on session (see the agenda for more detail).
To discover more about Coinbase Cloud solutions and services, visit: https://www.coinbase.com/cloud
Decentralized Storage Provider StorX Network has joined hands with NFT Marketplace XDSea on a partnership set to eliminate IPFS based centralized storage. Under the terms of the collaboration, it follows that XDSea will leverage StorX decentralized storage network as a store for their art, images, and documents.
We are thrilled to announce the Partnership between @StorXNetwork and @XDSeaNFT. XDSea will use Storx decentralized storage network to store art, images, and documents. This will remove file storage centralized using ipfs.#StorX#SRX#partnership https://t.co/zfM7asYJaz
Standing as the first-ever, and largest P2P decentralized marketplace in the world to provide an avenue for selling and buying NFTs, XDSea is built atop the XDC Network and runs on the XRC blockchain. The collaboration and expected offerings are a testament to the numerous promises made by DIMO and XinFin who hosted the official debut of the XDSea network. From being the first NFT marketplace to join the XRC blockchain, and now offering safer and more reliable storage for digital collectibles, the possibilities remain endless for XDSea.
Already XDSea is reputed for its game-changing role offering very affordable gas fees in the market today thanks to its association with XinFin. Beyond that, it also offers the lowest transaction fees in the market today. By meeting users at the junction linking gas fees, transaction fees and now security, XDC is a game-changer in an extremely agile and dynamic industry.
Competitive features of StorX Network’s Decentralized Cloud
StorX Network has revolutionized data storage, providing a blockchain-based decentralized cloud storage solution. This solution evades tracking, censorship, blocking, or the presence of any downtime whatsoever. With these offerings, StorX leads netizens to a safer and more secure internet version where decentralization is the theme. XDSea is the first among many who are poised to leverage this future.
With this partnership, XDSea intends to leverage StorX decentralized storage for the safe storage of NFTs in the range of art, images and documents; an action that will eliminate the centralization element of storing files characteristic of IPFS.
IPFS is basically the hard drive of blockchain with a specific approach for data storage. IPFS stores data in such a way that when data is added to the IPFS network, the network splits it into groups of 256Kb capacities. Each group is identifiable using a specific hash and is thereafter spread across multiple nodes on the hash-linked networks.
StorX is safer than IPFS
While both use transport encryption, StorX offers more security thanks to its content-encryption property. While user data is safer when being sent between individual IPFS nodes, that data is accessible to anyone who wishes to download and view it provided they have the CID. StorX enhances security by providing the content-encryption property.
Moreover, the XDSea will benefit from, among other privileges offered by StorX, the assurance of offering users a safer and more reliable storage network for their digital collectibles on the cloud. With this collaboration, XDSea, therefore, expects to deliver a safer and more unregulated storage experience for its esteemed user community so that they can design and develop their valuable NFTs on the open-source NFT Marketplace, XDSea.
Notably, the partnership makes for a notable milestone for StorX, positioning them as the first storage provider to collaborate with XDC NFT marketplace for purposes of solving their storage needs. The mechanics hold that every file that a user uploads on StorX is split into multiple parts before encryption into several fragments and finally stored within independent storage nodes. The nodes are run by different operators located in various parts of the world.
The hallmark of StorX network’s offering centers on the fact that the system is designed as a group of autonomous storage networks. This means that there is no one operator who holds total access to the data belonging to a single user. With different parts held by different operators, the amount of power or influence held by a single holder is therefore significantly reduced to an almost invaluable minimum, hence enhanced user security.
#XDCNFT are coming to the #XDCNetwork. It is still early days but new artists, fans and innovators are rapidly joining the #XDC community. Buckle up, this space is about to explode! pic.twitter.com/YjvilI4Nox
Republican Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas has come out with a bold statement about the impact Bitcoin mining will have not just on his state but on the United States as a whole.
The Texan representative, a proponent of Bitcoin (BTC) mining, tweeted on March 22 that “Bitcoin Mining will play a critical role in rebuilding energy independence in the USA.” His statement drew a mixed bag of reactions from both supporters and critics. Wyoming’s Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis was among the supporters who responded to his tweet with a succinct “Indeed.”
#Bitcoin Mining will play a critical role in rebuilding energy independence in the USA
Both lawmakers have been vocal advocates for policies that support innovation in the crypto industry, not just for miners. As U.S. consumers suffer from a spike in gas prices due to global tensions, the debate has ramped up about how the country can reduce its dependence on external energy sources.
Sessions’ view highlights a growing compilation of research that suggests the innovations from the BTC mining industry could have global applications in industrial energy consumption and production.
As Texas has come to contribute over 14% of the country’s total Bitcoin hash rate, the stability of the state’s electrical grid and the environmental impact of miners have come to the forefront of growing criticism, as it has in other mining hubs around the world.
Despite those concerns, various researchers have suggested that the growing mining market in Texas could reduce its net environmental impact and energy demands on the public energy grid.
A March 2021 research paper detailed how flexible data centers could promote renewable energy resources. A flexible data center generates its own energy either from a small dedicated renewable power plant or draws power from the grid depending on the grid’s current state.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Texas is already the country’s leading wind power generator. Therefore, miners may already have access to renewable energy when needed. Promoting miners to utilize a flexible data center model could stimulate greater growth in renewable energy accessibility and reliability. The paper stated:
“Hence, the (integrated energy system) may contribute to grid stability by locally using generated electricity instead of feeding it into the grid.”
Software solutions firm Lancium published similar research last October. It concluded that as the mining industry grows and more operations implement a flexible data center model, it will likely prevent energy grid shortages while promoting the growth of renewable energy resources. Researcher Joshua D. Rhodes, Ph.D. said in the paper.
“As grids move towards incorporating higher levels of intermittent resources, such as wind and solar, flexible demand will play an ever more important role in keeping the electrical grid system stable.”
Related: New York Bitcoin mining moratorium bill garners more support
Texas is a significant hub of Bitcoin mining in the United States as Hive Blockchain, Riot Blockchain, Argo Blockchain, and others have operations in the Lone Star State.
