Bloomberg reported that blockchain.com is planning an initial public offering (IPO). The crypto firm is in discussions with banks that may lead the IPO.
The report is indicating that a final decision has yet to be made.
Blockchain.com is listed among the biggest crypto trading platforms. In a Series D funding round that took place in March, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Blockchain.com was valued at $14 billion.
Blockchain.com has a presence in over 30 states including Michigan, Georgia and North Dakota.
Other crypto exchanges are considering an IPO. Both Gemini and Kraken have affirmed their IPO plans. Some are suggesting Binance.US is next in line for an IPO.
Blockchain.com Acquisitions and Partnerships
Similar to other major crypto companies, Blockchain.com has been working on its market dominance. In March 2022, it acquired Altonomy OTC desk.
The acquisition allowed Blockchain.com to penetrate crypto OTC trading. Altonomy’s transactions in the spot OTC market exceeded $16 billion. The main interest in Altonomy was its Asian presence and a greater focus on altcoins.
Earlier this year, Blockchain.com launched a new asset management platform (BCAM). The new service was created for institutional investors and family offices.
Altis Partners was in charge of launching the crypto asset management.
Dallas Cowboys announced the team has partnered with Blockchain.com in April. The NFL is still forbidding teams to promote cryptocurrencies and fan tokens, but blockchain sponsors are welcomed.
The partnership includes advertising, branding and content creation. TV and radio advertising are included. The crypto firm will also benefit from a space inside AT&T Stadium.
Dallas Cowboys’ fans will receive exclusive rewards via Blockchain.com wallets such as VIP trips to hosted events. An educational summit will be held for fans that wish to expand their knowledge of digital assets.
More info on the partnership
Furthermore, Blockchain.com is developing its own non-fungible tokens marketplace, which may boost the company’s revenue when launched.
Bloomberg reported that blockchain.com is planning an initial public offering (IPO). The crypto firm is in discussions with banks that may lead the IPO.
The report is indicating that a final decision has yet to be made.
Blockchain.com is listed among the biggest crypto trading platforms. In a Series D funding round that took place in March, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Blockchain.com was valued at $14 billion.
Blockchain.com has a presence in over 30 states including Michigan, Georgia and North Dakota.
Other crypto exchanges are considering an IPO. Both Gemini and Kraken have affirmed their IPO plans. Some are suggesting Binance.US is next in line for an IPO.
Blockchain.com Acquisitions and Partnerships
Similar to other major crypto companies, Blockchain.com has been working on its market dominance. In March 2022, it acquired Altonomy OTC desk.
The acquisition allowed Blockchain.com to penetrate crypto OTC trading. Altonomy’s transactions in the spot OTC market exceeded $16 billion. The main interest in Altonomy was its Asian presence and a greater focus on altcoins.
Earlier this year, Blockchain.com launched a new asset management platform (BCAM). The new service was created for institutional investors and family offices.
Altis Partners was in charge of launching the crypto asset management.
Dallas Cowboys announced the team has partnered with Blockchain.com in April. The NFL is still forbidding teams to promote cryptocurrencies and fan tokens, but blockchain sponsors are welcomed.
The partnership includes advertising, branding and content creation. TV and radio advertising are included. The crypto firm will also benefit from a space inside AT&T Stadium.
Dallas Cowboys’ fans will receive exclusive rewards via Blockchain.com wallets such as VIP trips to hosted events. An educational summit will be held for fans that wish to expand their knowledge of digital assets.
More info on the partnership
Furthermore, Blockchain.com is developing its own non-fungible tokens marketplace, which may boost the company’s revenue when launched.
Japan’s largest lender, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) announced on Tuesday the decision to shut down the blockchain-based online payments network, Global Open Network Japan that was developed in collaboration with Akamai Technologies.
The bank has already started the preparation of the stuttering and cited a tough environment in the payments
Payments
One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times.
One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. Read this Term space behind the move. “Slow growth of payment transaction numbers caused by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors, made it difficult to develop its business on the scale originally anticipated,” the official press release stated.
Death of an Ambitious Project
MUFG and Akamai first announced their plans to form a joint venture in 2019 for the development of a blockchain payments system. However, the project faced delays before its launch in April 2021.
The Japanese bank owned 80 percent of the joint venture, and the rest was with Akamai.
One of the primary goals of the project was to provide a platform with high scalability
Scalability
Scalability is a term that describes the constraints of a network via hash rates to meet increased demand. In the context of Bitcoin, scalability reflects the issue in which a limited rate can process transactions adequately.Blocks within the Bitcoin blockchain are limited in both size and frequency. The overall transaction processing capacity of the network is dictated by the average block creation time of 10 minutes as well as a block size limit of 1 megabyte. Consequently, this leads to pain points in transaction processing, relative to other cryptos or traditional payments options. Inherent Scalability Issues with BitcoinBitcoin’s block size limit represents a true bottleneck in its design. This reflects the potential downside of a Proof-of-Work (PoW) system with Bitcoin’s consensus protocol.Lags in transaction processing capacity can result in increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions that cannot be fit into a block.This is perhaps one of Bitcoin’s most pressing issues long term, an issue that has since head to the creation of other altcoins or networks to remedy this concern.There have also been many attempts to solve Bitcoin’s scalability problem through software upgrades.Increasing the network’s transaction processing limit requires making changes to the technical workings of bitcoin. This is where forks in the network can come into play, be it soft or hard forks.However, forks have resulted in the creation of entirely new cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin Cash, among others. Technical optimizations have also been floated to decrease the amount of computing resources required to process and record Bitcoin transactions. Presently there is no consensus on what the best solution to Bitcoin’s scalability is.
Scalability is a term that describes the constraints of a network via hash rates to meet increased demand. In the context of Bitcoin, scalability reflects the issue in which a limited rate can process transactions adequately.Blocks within the Bitcoin blockchain are limited in both size and frequency. The overall transaction processing capacity of the network is dictated by the average block creation time of 10 minutes as well as a block size limit of 1 megabyte. Consequently, this leads to pain points in transaction processing, relative to other cryptos or traditional payments options. Inherent Scalability Issues with BitcoinBitcoin’s block size limit represents a true bottleneck in its design. This reflects the potential downside of a Proof-of-Work (PoW) system with Bitcoin’s consensus protocol.Lags in transaction processing capacity can result in increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions that cannot be fit into a block.This is perhaps one of Bitcoin’s most pressing issues long term, an issue that has since head to the creation of other altcoins or networks to remedy this concern.There have also been many attempts to solve Bitcoin’s scalability problem through software upgrades.Increasing the network’s transaction processing limit requires making changes to the technical workings of bitcoin. This is where forks in the network can come into play, be it soft or hard forks.However, forks have resulted in the creation of entirely new cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin Cash, among others. Technical optimizations have also been floated to decrease the amount of computing resources required to process and record Bitcoin transactions. Presently there is no consensus on what the best solution to Bitcoin’s scalability is. Read this Term and multi-connectivity data processing to meet the rising demand for the Internet of Things (IoT). In the shutdown notice, the bank pointed out that it struggled to fit its solution with the IoT growing market needs.
The joint venture, GO-NET Japan, is now coordinating with its clients and partners, and will eventually close all operations and then start the liquidation process. However, the Japanese bank highlighted that the shutdown of the project will not impact its financial results in the ongoing financial year.
Despite the shuttering of the project, MUFG is still bullish with plans of its other digital strategies and is discussing further collaboration with Akamai.
“MUFG is discussing further opportunities of collaboration with Akamai and seeking to drive momentum in open innovation through alliances with global business partners and by utilizing the latest technologies based on experience from the GO-NET project,” the lender added.
Japan’s largest lender, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) announced on Tuesday the decision to shut down the blockchain-based online payments network, Global Open Network Japan that was developed in collaboration with Akamai Technologies.
The bank has already started the preparation of the stuttering and cited a tough environment in the payments
Payments
One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times.
One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. Read this Term space behind the move. “Slow growth of payment transaction numbers caused by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors, made it difficult to develop its business on the scale originally anticipated,” the official press release stated.
Death of an Ambitious Project
MUFG and Akamai first announced their plans to form a joint venture in 2019 for the development of a blockchain payments system. However, the project faced delays before its launch in April 2021.
The Japanese bank owned 80 percent of the joint venture, and the rest was with Akamai.
One of the primary goals of the project was to provide a platform with high scalability
Scalability
Scalability is a term that describes the constraints of a network via hash rates to meet increased demand. In the context of Bitcoin, scalability reflects the issue in which a limited rate can process transactions adequately.Blocks within the Bitcoin blockchain are limited in both size and frequency. The overall transaction processing capacity of the network is dictated by the average block creation time of 10 minutes as well as a block size limit of 1 megabyte. Consequently, this leads to pain points in transaction processing, relative to other cryptos or traditional payments options. Inherent Scalability Issues with BitcoinBitcoin’s block size limit represents a true bottleneck in its design. This reflects the potential downside of a Proof-of-Work (PoW) system with Bitcoin’s consensus protocol.Lags in transaction processing capacity can result in increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions that cannot be fit into a block.This is perhaps one of Bitcoin’s most pressing issues long term, an issue that has since head to the creation of other altcoins or networks to remedy this concern.There have also been many attempts to solve Bitcoin’s scalability problem through software upgrades.Increasing the network’s transaction processing limit requires making changes to the technical workings of bitcoin. This is where forks in the network can come into play, be it soft or hard forks.However, forks have resulted in the creation of entirely new cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin Cash, among others. Technical optimizations have also been floated to decrease the amount of computing resources required to process and record Bitcoin transactions. Presently there is no consensus on what the best solution to Bitcoin’s scalability is.
Scalability is a term that describes the constraints of a network via hash rates to meet increased demand. In the context of Bitcoin, scalability reflects the issue in which a limited rate can process transactions adequately.Blocks within the Bitcoin blockchain are limited in both size and frequency. The overall transaction processing capacity of the network is dictated by the average block creation time of 10 minutes as well as a block size limit of 1 megabyte. Consequently, this leads to pain points in transaction processing, relative to other cryptos or traditional payments options. Inherent Scalability Issues with BitcoinBitcoin’s block size limit represents a true bottleneck in its design. This reflects the potential downside of a Proof-of-Work (PoW) system with Bitcoin’s consensus protocol.Lags in transaction processing capacity can result in increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions that cannot be fit into a block.This is perhaps one of Bitcoin’s most pressing issues long term, an issue that has since head to the creation of other altcoins or networks to remedy this concern.There have also been many attempts to solve Bitcoin’s scalability problem through software upgrades.Increasing the network’s transaction processing limit requires making changes to the technical workings of bitcoin. This is where forks in the network can come into play, be it soft or hard forks.However, forks have resulted in the creation of entirely new cryptocurrency networks such as Bitcoin Cash, among others. Technical optimizations have also been floated to decrease the amount of computing resources required to process and record Bitcoin transactions. Presently there is no consensus on what the best solution to Bitcoin’s scalability is. Read this Term and multi-connectivity data processing to meet the rising demand for the Internet of Things (IoT). In the shutdown notice, the bank pointed out that it struggled to fit its solution with the IoT growing market needs.
The joint venture, GO-NET Japan, is now coordinating with its clients and partners, and will eventually close all operations and then start the liquidation process. However, the Japanese bank highlighted that the shutdown of the project will not impact its financial results in the ongoing financial year.
Despite the shuttering of the project, MUFG is still bullish with plans of its other digital strategies and is discussing further collaboration with Akamai.
“MUFG is discussing further opportunities of collaboration with Akamai and seeking to drive momentum in open innovation through alliances with global business partners and by utilizing the latest technologies based on experience from the GO-NET project,” the lender added.
Bitcoin price recovered to within $45k after sliding below $44k as analysts indicated probable swings for the flagship cryptocurrency. The release of US inflation rates seems to have had no effect on the king cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin’s price rose past a crucial barrier overnight Wednesday, reaching $45,300, before falling as the broader market dipped in early trades after US markets opened.
Bitcoin Unaffected By Inflation Rates
Over the last 24 hours, BTC/USD has moved in a range of $43,402.81 – $45,398.91, exhibiting high volatility. Trading volume has climbed by 16.21% to $28.8 billion, while the overall market cap is around $860.47 billion dollars, leading in a 42% market dominance.
As investors analyzed new US inflation data, which came in at 7.5% year-over-year vs an expected 7.3%, the earlier decline took shape. Risky assets like crypto and equities have reacted negatively, with all eyes on the Federal Reserve’s upcoming rate hike in March.
BTC/USD steadies above $45k. Source: TradingView
Despite being 0.2% higher than predicted, rising inflation did not have the same favorable impact on risk assets like Bitcoin as it had in recent months.
The S&P 500 fell 0.23%, the Nasdaq composite fell 0.18%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average remained barely above the flat line.
According to analysts, the Federal Reserve may now have additional motivation to begin raising interest rates sooner due to the speed of year-over-year price increases.
Crypto trader and analyst Michael van de Poppe observed:
“The Consumer Price Index (CPI) results for the U.S.A. are coming in at 7.5% year-over-year, the expectations were 7.3% year-over-year.$DXY is shooting up and risk-on assets are dropping down like Bitcoin & equities.Likelihood that the FED will start rate hikes in March.”
However, for economist Lyn Alden, it was cash savers who had been losing the most from inflation. she noted alongside a chart:
U.S. CPI vs. effective federal funds rate chart. Source: Lyn Alden/ Twitter
“Official inflation currently has its biggest gap over short-term interest rates since 1951. People holding cash in a bank or T-bills over the past year lost over 7% of their purchasing power.”
Related article | Investors Take Refuge In Bitcoin As Inflation Rises
BTC Will Hit $50k In Short term
The Fed will be put to the test here, as they had hoped for a steady tightening cycle rather than a hasty tightening that would appear to be a policy blunder. The political pressure on the Biden administration and Democrats will increase as core inflation rises over the Fed’s objective and real average hourly earnings fall. Although November is still a long way off, this inflation report shows that price hikes are everywhere, and there is rising opposition to new fiscal stimulus measures that would exacerbate pricing pressures.
As investors predict that pricing pressures may be peaking just before the Fed’s March policy meeting, US stocks have regained most of their inflation-related losses.
Given the rise in global bond yields, Bitcoin prices are holding up well. Bitcoin’s optimal future environment is risk appetite, which may be tough to achieve until after the Fed’s first couple of rate hikes. Institutional investors in Bitcoin are focusing on Treasuries because the momentum trade appears to be quite simple. For the short term, Bitcoin appears to be settling in between $40,000 and $50,000.
Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of Gemini, feels Bitcoin is still the best inflation hedge, corroborating thoughts from the crypto community and even mainstream investors.
Inflation hit 7.5% in January. Highest in four decades. It continues to accelerate.
The best way to shield yourself from this pernicious, silent tax on your life’s work — your blood, sweat, and tears — is bitcoin.
Around the Block from Coinbase Ventures sheds light on key trends in crypto. Written by Connor Dempsey, Ryan Yi & Justin Mart.
2021 was a historic year for both crypto markets and venture capital funding. Driven in part by institutional inflows, Bitcoin soared to new highs to start the year, the entire market followed suit nearing a record $3T market cap in November. Meanwhile, $30B in venture funding poured into the space: more than all prior years of crypto’s history combined.
2021 was also a record year for Coinbase Ventures, with just under 150 deals, averaging a new deal every 2.5 days. On a cumulative basis, more than 90% of the capital Coinbase Ventures has deployed since inception was deployed in 2021, reflecting an accelerated pace of activity in our fourth year of operation.
Coinbase Ventures is among the most active corporate venture funds in operation, with the mandate of increasing economic freedom around the world by supporting the leading entrepreneurs and projects in the ecosystem. Ultimately, we see crypto and Web3 as a rising tide that lifts all boats, Coinbase included, and Coinbase Ventures is dedicated to making investments that are crucial to the space’s overall growth.
In this edition of Around The Block, we’ll peer into the future through the lens of Coinbase Ventures’ 2021 activity. (Learn how Ventures aligns with Coinbase and its customers here).
Coinbase Venture’s portfolio now consists of over 250 companies, and broadly breaks down across the following verticals.
Let’s break down the pie, slice by slice.
Protocols & Web3 infrastructure
2021 saw crypto reach new heights in terms of utility, particularly in the nascent “Web3” space, which we generally think of as a trustless, permissionless, and decentralized internet that leverages blockchain technology: essentially, the plumbing that underpins everything from DeFi, NFTs, metaverses, and DAOs. At the bottom of the Web3 stack sit Layer 1 protocols, led by Ethereum, but 2021 saw Web3 begin to expand to other Layer 1s like Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, Terra, Flow, among dozens of others.
To help scale existing Layer 1s and enable higher throughput, we supported Layer 2 solutions including Matter Labs, Optimism, and Arbitrum. As multiple Layer 1s have proliferated, so has the demand to safely and easily move funds across blockchains. As such, Ventures’ was active in investing in projects working to facilitate this cross-chain movement, including Biconomy, Movr, LayerZero, Chainflip, and more. We also observed and funded new protocols working to bring better privacy to Web3 through various zero-knowledge solutions (Aleo, MobileCoin, and a third TBA).
We were also active across the infrastructure layer of the Web3 stack: primitives that form the backbone of user applications. Specifically, technologies that introduce standards to Web3 for data storage (Arweave), messaging (XMTP), and identity (Spruce). Given that 2021 was a great year for DAOs, we were active across infrastructure projects focused on enabling DAO creation/incorporation (Syndicate, Utopia), discovery/participation (Snapshot/Consensys’ Metamask), payroll/operations (Diagonal), and coordination (Orca).
Given investments made over the year, in 2022 we expect to see Web3 mature across multiple Layer 1 and Layer 2 ecosystems with UX that more closely resembles Web2 applications. Additionally, we expect to see the continued flourishing of DAOs in the year ahead, as well as better privacy features for Web3 applications.
DeFi
While 2021 hinted at a future where Web3 activity takes place across multiple Layer 1 and Layer 2 platforms, DeFi activity already began its migration over the course of the year. Much of this activity took place within EVM compatible chains (Avalanche, Polygon, BSC etc.) and Layer 2 environments (Arbitrum, Optimism). Meanwhile, non-EVM chains (Solana, Terra, Cosmos, Polkadot etc.) also saw impressive growth.
We’re believers in the multichain future, and although we remained most active within Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem, we also invested across Solana (Orca, Solend), Cosmos (Umee), Algorand (Folks), Polkadot (Acala, Moonbeam), NEAR, Polygon and Bitcoin. The multichain future of France appears bright, with just about every financial primitive one could imagine in development.
While DeFi made great strides in 2021, exploits of these nascent financial protocols hampered the ecosystem, amounting to over $10B. Better user protection remains paramount, which is why Coinbase Ventures supported DeFi insurance financial protocols including Neptune Mutual, Risk Harbor, Cozy Finance, and Nayms.
In 2022, the smart contract wars will rage on as Layer 1s and Layer 2s fight for user and developer mindshare. Hacking risks will persist but we’ll see increased maturity in DeFi insurance solutions. Lastly, it’s shaping up to be the year we see institutions enter the fray via “permissioned DeFi”, complete with KYC’d user pools and on-chain attestations.
NFT / Metaverse
2021 was also a year that saw the rapid rise of NFTs and renewed interest in “the metaverse.” Projects like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club took NFT sales from $200M in 2020 to a staggering$25B in 2021. Meanwhile, NFT based game Axie Infinityput play-to-earn gaming on the map as people in the Philippines were able to turn the game into a full time job. And elsewhere, Facebook’s rebrand to “Meta” catalyzed excitement around the metaverse.
In large part, NFTs spent 2021 in their “V0” phase, with most activity centered around simple buying and selling on marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible. 2021 also saw NFTs emerge across L1/L2 ecosystems such as Flow (MomentRanks, Eternal GG) and Solana (Magic Eden, Solanalysis).
Ventures has now invested heavily in the NFT “utility” phase — one in which NFT assets expand to new types of mediums such as audio (Royal, Mint Songs, Sturdy), avatars (Genies, OFF), AR (Anima, Jambo), and gaming/GameFi (Ancient8, GuildFi). This will allow interesting social features to be layered on top of the programmatic recognition of NFTs (Gallery).
These NFT and gaming investments can broadly be bucketed with the metaverse, as they inch us closer to a possible future where we have a series of decentralized, interconnected virtual worlds with fully functioning economies. In 2022, look for a host of new gaming titles and applications, including those launched by traditional gaming studios. Also expect metaverse applications to expand from both decentralized initiatives like Decentraland and the Sandbox and incumbent Web2 companies like Microsoft/Activision and Meta.
Platform & Developer Tools
Without developers, there would be no crypto or Web3 applications for anyone to use. As such, support for the tooling that developers need to make crypto and Web3 thrive is a critical part of advancing the ecosystem.
Over the year, we followed the “developer journey” from staging (Tenderly), collaboration (Radicle), query (Covalent), audit (Certik, OpenZeppelin, Certora) and real-time simulation/monitoring (Chaos Labs, Gauntlet). We also invested in developer toolkits like API providers (Alchemy, Consensys’ Infura).
We expect the industry’s collective investment made in dev tooling to pay dividends in the years to come. With all of the developers pouring into Web3 from Web2, they’re sorely needed.
CeFi
Much of the value that finds its way into crypto initially does so through centralized platforms, and as such, centralized finance (CeFi) remains an active category. We believe that crypto is inherently global and there is a need for localized platforms that serve as onramps across distinct regulatory, banking, and infrastructure regimes. This is why in 2021, we were active investors in crypto financial service providers everywhere from LatAm, Pan-Africa, MENA, South Asia, Europe, and North America.
The year also saw a move towards traditional vehicles for crypto exposure — IRAs, IAs, ETFs, Trusts, etc. — punctuated by the approval of the BTC Futures ETF in the US. Coinbase Ventures actively invested in asset managers and brokers including AltoIRA, Onramp, Valkyrie, ForUsAll, Ledn, and One River Digital. We were also investors in various CeFi “picks and shovels”, with follow-on investments in TaxBit and CoinTracker, which automate crypto tax reporting across platforms. In addition, we supported projects helping startups integrate crypto with traditional fintech offerings, including Paxos, Tribal Credit, and Meow.
2021 set the stage for more regulated and compliant ways for institutional and individual investor capital to gain crypto exposure through centralized exchanges and traditional investment vehicles and fintech platforms in both the US and abroad. We expect this to be an ongoing theme in 2022.
2022 & beyond
Macro uncertainty has prices falling sharply into the new year, but one thing is certain: this is not the crypto ecosystem of 2018. Between the best performing asset class of the last decade being much more accessible to investors around the world, the maturation of the Web3 stack, and an explosion of exciting new use cases across DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, gaming, and the metaverse, this industry appears to be hitting escape velocity.
Just as the boom of 2017 fueled investments that laid the groundwork for the applications that are thriving today, what do you think the record $30B funneled into crypto and Web3 in 2021 will yield? The market appears uncertain in the near term, but the future appears brighter then it’s ever been.
When the December 31, 2021 candle came to a close in Bitcoin, it didn’t just begin a new calendar year – it triggered a sell setup of epic proportions. Here is why the secular bull run in cryptocurrency could come to an end this year, and the first true bear market emerge.
Bitcoin Yearly Chart Triggers First Ever Sell Setup
You wouldn’t know it based on the recently bearish price action, but Bitcoin has been in an ongoing bull market since the second the genesis block was generated exactly thirteen years ago today.
In the span of a normal childhood growing into a teenager, the price per coin has ballooned and bubbled its way from zero to $68,000 per BTC.
Related Reading | Point & Figure: The Chart That Makes Bitcoin Support Cut And Dry
The trajectory hasn’t always been up, as the price chart has shown, but the asset has been outrageously bullish nonetheless. Many indicators back up this theory, having never crossed into bear territory ever once since price was recorded.
For example, the monthly MACD hasn’t made it below the zero line since 2015 despite the 2018-2019 “bear market.” The monthly Directional Movement Index had only a month-long temporary bear cross around mid-2015, but aside from that has never been bearish for an extended phase.
However, the sequence of ups and downs experienced over the years, like any thirteen-year-old would experience, has resulted in a specific sell setup according to the TD Sequential. The tool is a market timing indicator developed by Thomas DeMark – which on other timeframes has been useful in calling reversals.
The signal that makes you want to scream "nine!" | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
At thirteen years since the asset’s debut, the first ever TD9 sell setup has appeared on the BTCUSD yearly price chart. On the TradingView BTCUSD Index, price action began in 2010. Bear market years of 2014-2015 and 2018-2019 excluded, there have been exactly 9 candles with a higher open than the previous candles – triggering the sell setup.
Theorizing The End Of The Secular Bull Run
Despite the ominous signal, all is not lost for the current bull cycle – although it does give more credence to another bull market-ending pattern that could be developing.
According to Elliott Wave Theory, markets grow in five waves. These five impulse waves are broken down into similarly-behaving sub-waves that alternate between uptrend and corrective phases. In the larger cycle, these corrective phases are what we call bear markets. In smaller timeframes, corrections often feel just as severe as the current sentiment would confirm.
The good news and the bad news in one chart | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
Bitcoin appears to be well into its fifth impulse wave in the major motive wave cycle. The current count would suggest that the cryptocurrency is also within wave four of five sub-waves, hinting that the grand finale should unfold the in the year ahead.
Related Reading | Bitcoin Falls Flat: Examining A Rare Bull Market Corrective Pattern
If Bitcoin price does make it to $100,000 or higher, given the TD9 sell setup on the yearly, and the potential wave structure, this might be a sell signal worth taking. But when?
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Featured image from iStockPhoto, Charts from TradingView.com
Cardano (ADA) experienced a major downtrend in the past months as the crypto market took another swing for the lows. The sixth cryptocurrency by market cap has seen a year in the green as it managed to complete several upgrades on its mainnet.
Related Reading |Biggest Cardano Based Cross-Chain NFT Marketplace Verlux kicks Off Pre-sale
First, Cardano successfully transitioned to a Proof-of-Stake consensus in 2020, shortly after the D parameter reached “0” signaling the full decentralization of block production. The network went from a federate consensus to a community-based consensus as the latter control most stake pools producing blocks on the network.
Later, the start of a new era with the first of 3 major Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) events with the implementation of “Allegra”, followed by “Mary”. These upgrades brought new capabilities to the Cardano mainnet which were completed with “Alonzo” that introduced smart contract capabilities into the blockchain.
This ecosystem has already seen a surge in projects, as developers and users rush in to build and leverage the benefits of its UTXO model. In that sense, community member ADA Whale shared his top predictions that could boost another rally for the underlying cryptocurrency of the Cardano network.
ADA Whale mentioned the potential increase in the number of transactions and active addresses for Cardano. The investor believes these fundamentals could increase by a factor of 5 leading into a massive wave of adoption in 2023.
Cardano remains one of the most actively used networks. Scaling happens via different streams, first gradually to keep up w growth, exponentially in 2023.
This new wave of adoption for this network could translate into more projects. The investors estimated that by the end of 2022, there could be more than 250 decentralized applications, DeFi platforms, launchpad and more on the network. The investor added:
Cardano DeFi starts slowly but TVL >$10bn eoy. Dapp store with levels of certification goes live. Ease of use sees people replace banking stack with Cardano DeFi. Digital Identity projects thrive connecting DeFi w/ real world. UTXO DeFi will be different, and better
Cardano And Its Potential For The Coming Years
In addition to its security, according to ADA Whale, Cardano offers low fees, energy efficiency with a green footprint, and has been adopted by companies and projects with a global impact. This includes World Mobile, Singularity, and others.
The aforementioned collaborations place the ecosystem in different sectors with close deals with governments in growing economies. Cardano will strengthen its partnerships in the coming years as it attempts to provide people with an open, decentralized, and accessible network to manage and support a variety of basic services.
In the meantime, the network develops interoperable capabilities. ADA Whale mentioned Milkomeda, a second layer solution for Cardano with EVM compatibility. This types of solutions will help onboard more users and developers.
Related Reading | Cardano Project Flickto Surpasses 1.5 Million ADA Staked One Month After Launch
As of press time, ADA trades at $1,36 with sideways movement in the past day.
ADA trends to the downside in the 4-hour chart. Source: ADAUSDT Tradingview
In May 2021, we announced the launch of Coinbase Giving. Coinbase Giving is the operational embodiment of our commitment to Pledge 1%: our promise to dedicate 1% of Coinbase profits, equity, and employee time toward charitable activities that leverage the power of crypto to increase economic freedom in the world.
Where we are
In the past 7 months we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished:
Coinbase Giving is the largest charitable organization focused on Crypto (>$500M endowed at the time of post)
GiveCrypto, founded in 2018, has been brought officially under the umbrella of Coinbase Giving to enable scale and maximize social impact
We have launched 7 programs, supported 410 organizations, deployed ~$2M, and are impacting 2K+ lives
We are only at the beginning of this journey. 2021 has been a test and iteration year — our impact is still modest. The purpose of this post is to share progress and lessons learned.
Areas of focus
In 2021 our focus has been to support endeavors that align to three broad categories:
Increasing education around, and access to, crypto
Accelerating the development of crypto protocols that underpin the cryptoeconomy
Fostering the next generation of crypto talent, no matter where they are located
Highlights from 2021
GiveCrypto is our nonprofit that enables crypto based direct giving to some of the most needy people in the world. In doing so we also educate them about crypto and give them an alternative to their broken financial systems.
GiveCrypto has been one of Coinbase Giving’s largest investment areas in-house. GiveCrypto is a two-sided market. First, donations are driven by donors who are inspired to give charitably. Second, from these donations, crypto is put directly in the hands of people in need through our on-the-ground Ambassador program.
Bringing GiveCrypto directly within Coinbase has accelerated our ability to integrate donation collection within the consumer experience. As such, 2021 has been a critical year of rebuilding and integration. As the #1 crypto exchange in the US, we see this connection as a huge step forward in enabling public donations using crypto and Coinbase products. We have taken this chance to revamp our Ambassador program — our system to distribute funds directly into the hands of the most needy. In 2021, we were purely testing our distribution system and only reached 246 recipients. However, with those tests now under our belts, we feel ready to scale distributions dramatically in 2022.
Already we are seeing how crypto possesses unique characteristics that make it suitable as a cross-border donations mechanism. For example, it allows donors to avoid disintermediation by bad actors, who often take a cut at the expense of the recipient. Crypto adoption is growing, particularly in Latin American countries where hyperinflation can be devastating. Our independently validated randomized control test shows that direct giving continues to demonstrate high real-life impact, whether in enabling individuals to pay for food, education, or other day-to-day needs.
Developer Grants2.0 to accelerate the development of crypto protocols.
In August, we launched the second iteration of our Crypto Community Fund whose goal is to make the cryptoeconomy safer and easier to access for everyone. We selected 6 developers to fund across 3 thematic areas: (1) Scalability; (2) Privacy, identity and zero knowledge research; and (3) Protocol security and other foundational infrastructure.
Grant terms are typically 1-year and we will share progress on their journeys throughout 2022.
Base 11 partnership to foster the next generation of global and diverse crypto talent.
Earlier this year Coinbase announced our three-year partnership with Base 11. Together, our goal is to develop the next generation of diverse crypto talent. In early October, Base11 hosted the Next Frontier Conference & Expo, which featured a fireside chat with Alesia Haas, CFO at Coinbase and Landon Taylor, Founder & Chairman, Base 11.
At the conclusion of the conference, the Coinbase Giving team launched our first ever Open Innovation Challenge, giving away over $10,000 in prizes and an exclusive NFT. The Open Innovation Challenge called for participants to focus on four key pillars: environmental sustainability, healthcare, education, and financial inclusion. The call to action has drawn hundreds of participants from all over the world and dozens of quality submissions that address the key pillars described above. We’re excited to enter the judging phase and will announce the winner in Q1 2022.
Learnings
The crypto-forward charitable ecosystem — like the crypto ecosystem — is still nascent. That said, there are a growing number of novel partnerships between established non-profits (who deeply understand the social sector) and technical partners (who get crypto/blockchain) trying to better solve old problems with new solutions. We’ve learned this is Coinbase Giving’s sweet spot for grant-making.
As more people hold crypto, more people want to give in crypto. “45% of crypto holders donated $1,000 or more to charities in 2020 compared to 33% of all investors”, according to a new report by Fidelity. We have engaged in many conversations with potential partners exploring the role Coinbase Giving could play in connecting nonprofits and endowments with the infrastructure they need to accept and hold crypto as an endowment (only ~2% have the ability to do so currently).
Without education, there is no access. As the crypto market has heated up in 2021, so has the call for Coinbase Giving to provide more educational resources and support. Non-profits, NGOs and education leaders increasingly see crypto literacy as a next-generation skill required for the future success of their communities and constituencies. Coinbase’s investment in Crypto Learn and other initiatives distinctly well position Coinbase Giving to address this educational need. We look forward to exploring more in 2022.
Accelerating and building infrastructure is more than open source code. There are many barriers to the simple and secure use of crypto and blockchain that are just as much about infrastructure development as having the right protocols. There are also many more applications for blockchain to solve social problems than have yet been envisioned or realized. This is all infrastructure. We can do better to support a flourishing ecosystem.
Next Up
With 2021 as a foundation-building (half) year, we are looking forward to incorporating what we’ve learned and to drive the social impact of crypto in 2022. We’ll keep the community up to date on what’s happening with a quarterly blog. Stay tuned!
Coinbase Giving: Half Year in Review was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
By Aaron Henshaw, Head of Coinbase Cloud Engineering
It’s no secret that crypto is gaining mainstream appeal, with the global crypto market cap reaching an all-time high of $3 trillion for the first time, the total value locked in DeFi reaching $250 billion, and 16% of Americans investing in, trading, or otherwise using cryptocurrency in the past year. A growing number of the world’s largest companies are looking to integrate crypto into their applications. Recently, we’ve seen Stripe, Square, Reddit, the NBA and others introducing crypto into their product lines with no signs of this trend slowing down. They all have one thing in common: a need for infrastructure and tools to operate and participate in the ecosystem.
Coinbase Cloud is committed to empowering current and future builders of the cryptoeconomy. Part of this will be building a platform that allows developers to access a suite of primitives like trading, storing, blockchain data access, and staking services. Our vision is to unleash a wave of innovation by offering turnkey solutions, enabling the innovators of tomorrow to do what they do best: build.
Joining Forces
In January 2021, Coinbase welcomed Bison Trails to become the foundational team and platform of Coinbase Cloud. By joining forces, we could accelerate our combined mission of creating a platform for the next wave of blockchain developers and provide a space to learn, participate, and build for the future of crypto.
As the founders of Bison Trails, Joe Lallouz and I saw this as an opportunity to build something bigger than Bison Trails and more expansive for Coinbase. Coinbase’s commitment to being crypto-first undoubtedly contributed to a seamless transition for our team.
The successful transition was also made possible by the support of the Coinbase leadership team, which has been committed to bringing blockchain infrastructure to the masses, as well as making this a great place for founders like Joe and I to continue building and realizing the vision that we set out to accomplish.
As crypto becomes ubiquitous, the products and services of the Web3 era will need to be powered by reliable and secure infrastructure. Coinbase sees this opportunity and is deeply committed to both our success and the growth of the crypto ecosystem.
The Momentum
Crypto infrastructure has been the bread and butter of Bison Trails since its founding. Its infrastructure platform and products are now the foundation of the Coinbase Cloud platform and suite of developer offerings, to equip the next generation of builders with even more powerful solutions.
We power some of the world’s top custodians, exchanges, funds, dapps and token holders. We are building an industry-leading platform for anyone to participate in blockchains (e.g. Celo Validators Groups, Polkadot Validators, eth2 Validators, including helping power Coinbase’s eth2 staking). We also provide reliable infrastructure for read/write data access, empowering the developers of tomorrow to build innovative crypto products and services, scale across blockchains, gain insights into network trends, and more. This frees our customers from having to invest time and resources into developing the necessary engineering, protocol, DevOps, or security competencies to do so reliably in-house.
We are also taking network participation to the next level by engaging deeply with protocol teams. For example, we’ve worked with Solana Foundation and the NEAR council, and supported the Keanu merger, among others.
Let’s take a look at our progress so far:
$30B+ in assets on platform¹ staked across more than 25 protocols as of November 2021
60,000+ nodes across our Participate, Delegate, and Query & Transact products
Doubling the team size, including expanding our dedicated security team
30+ protocols supported for our read/write infrastructure product, Query & Transact. This includes adding support for global distribution across three cloud providers, and multi-user API key management with rate-limiting options to our customers.
Powering features and cross-platform integrations for highly scaled Coinbase products, such as custody integrations for Institutional and eth2 staking for Retail
These metrics are crucial. They measure our impact on the communities we support. Unlike passive custody, assets that are staked are actively used to secure the underlying protocols, making Coinbase Cloud the largest protector of stake-based protocols.
Given the role we play across 30+ protocols, we’ve invested in the security and operational excellence of both our platform and the broader ecosystem. For example, our double-signing protection capability for eth2 has greatly reduced the risk to our platform users of any equivocation or double signing events. It’s for these reasons that companies and ecosystem players like a16z, Current, and Turner Sports have chosen to work with Coinbase Cloud.
Trevor Marshall, CTO of Current, says “the secure, reliable infrastructure and network expertise Bison Trails (Coinbase Cloud) provides has been invaluable to making it possible for Current to be an early, active participant in Polkadot, Karura and Acala and build hybrid financial products that have the potential to improve the financial outcomes of even more people.”
Up Next
We are now preparing for the next phase. We see a future world where every developer, whether part of an early stage project or a leading financial institution, is in some way touching crypto networks. Coinbase Cloud will provide the tools and the platform they need to do that. Our mission is to empower the innovators and help accelerate the Web3 evolution. This is where the world of software is going and we’re excited to lead the herd.
¹The Bison Trails platform is non-custodial.
Nearly one year in: Leading the herd at Coinbase was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
By Casper Sorensen, Vice President, Customer Experience
The following is the latest update in our series of blog posts describing our commitment to continually improving our customer experience.
One of our Coinbase cultural tenets is Customer Focus. This tenet sets the expectation that we solve customer problems with technology that is instinctive to use and continuously ask “How does this create more value for our customers?”
We recognize that when it comes to our customer support experience, we’re early in our journey of creating more value for customers.
In past blog posts we highlighted how improving our customer support experience is a top priority and this year we have more than quadrupled our capacity and launched new ways to contact us. As the journey continues, we are excited to share that we will implement the capabilities below by year end:
Faster Response Times: Speed matters in the fast moving cryptoeconomy, so we are matching that speed by further increasing our capacity to provide customers with the best response times in the industry. Customers should trust that we will match their sense of urgency when they contact us.
24/7 Live Phone Support: Direct connections matter, so 24/7 phone support will be available for all retail customers who prefer speaking live with an expert. Whether the question is simple or complex, customers in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan will have the option to connect with our in-country based customer service teams before the end of 2021 with further expansion planned for 2022.
Live Messaging: We value our customers’ time, so we’re launching messaging, which means customers can connect with us when the time is right and continue the conversation seamlessly if they have to step away. Our team of customer service experts will be available via messaging 24/7 with the speed our customers expect.
In-Product Support: Ease of use is important, so this year we are creating a more seamless support experience within our iOS and Android apps. This suite of features will provide users with an intelligent and personalized self service experience, saving customers time when they have questions. Live support will be a core part of this experience as well, allowing customers to quickly message our team of experts when needed.
Our goal is to provide our customers with the most trusted customer service experience in crypto. We look forward to providing these new capabilities to you, so please stay tuned as we will continue to update this blog with the status of our journey.
Coinbase To Launch 24/7 Phone Support and Other Enhancements to Customer Support by End of Year was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
