BlockchainSpace, a guild hub for play-to-earn (P2E) communities, announced a $2.4 million strategic funding round today. Coming hot on the heels of last month’s seed round, the funds will be used to onboard the next 20,000 guilds worldwide and accelerate growth in the rapidly expanding NFT gaming industry.
BlockchainSpace is a metaverse platform building tools that empower play-to-earn gaming communities to increase their performance, access capital, grow their earnings and live up to their full potential. It currently serves over 2,000 guilds and more than 545,000 P2E players.
NFT-based P2E gaming is booming, with games such as Axie Infinity, CryptoBlades and The Sandbox blossoming into full-fledged economies that enable thousands of gamers to earn a living. But the barrier to entry is high, with the most popular games requiring investments of over a hundred dollars just to get started. Guilds enable new gamers – known as scholars – to access P2E games without any upfront investment in return for sharing a percentage of the profits they earn.
Some of the biggest guilds of the P2E metaverse have grown to number thousands of scholars, but with scale comes growing complexity.
Guild operators are sometimes likened to the asset managers of the metaverse. As their organization grows, their day-to-day operations become extremely intricate, with the need to keep track of assets, cashflow, revenue and expenditure, maintain multiple budgets and all the while monitor the performance of scholars. In other words, it is just like running a regular business in every sense.
BlockchainSpace makes it easier for guilds to scale their operations. It provides a comprehensive platform and community for guild operators to accurately measure the performance of their players, onboard new scholars and vet applicants, automate cashout requests and gain access to in-depth analytics and benchmarking across multiple guilds. Its unique tools and features save guild operators time and allow them to focus on scaling and improving performance. BlockchainSpace also provides opportunities for guilds and individual players alike to access the capital they require to grow their existing guilds or start new ones.
Interest in the NFT gaming industry is snowballing, with thousands of aspiring P2E gamers clamoring for a chance to enter the metaverse. BlockchainSpace said today’s strategic funding round will enable community backers, long-term backers and liquidity providers to help facilitate the onboarding of the next 20,000 guilds worldwide and more than 10 million users on its platform.
BlockchainSpace will continue to develop its platform to provide more tools and features for guild owners to operate their guilds, with its focus on guild performance monitoring, Guild Data Back and a Guild Financial Bank to drive more rapid growth in the NFT gaming space.
Early next year, BlockchainSpace will launch its revolutionary Open Guild Marketplace that will enable the integration of new TradeFi and decentralized finance tools to catalyze economic opportunity for guilds and their members. The platform is also planning to introduce new automated credit scoring and loan issuance features, and will also deploy its Ecosystem Fund in 2022.
About BlockchainSpace
BlockchainSpace enables play-to-earn guilds to scale in the metaverse. BlockchainSpace builds tools to empower gaming communities and runs academies to identify economic opportunities in games. BlockchainSpace’s aim is to embolden the next generation of play-to-earn gamers and guild owners to become successful entrepreneurs by equipping them with essential digital tools and financing.
Miami, FL, November 30, 2021 –A Florida-based blockchain gaming company calledBlue Monster Games has just brought on Miguel Palencia as their Lead Advisor.
Miguel is the chief operating officer of theQTUM Foundation, the organization behind the QTUM cryptocurrency and blockchain, which is one of the world’s top blockchain networks. In addition, their cryptocurrency is amongst the top-100 in the world, with a market cap of about $1.5 billion and daily trading volumes over $300 million.
Miguel is a cryptocurrency veteran, with over 8 years of experience in this very new field. He started in this space as a cryptocurrency miner in 2013, building mining pools and participating in various crypto-projects. In 2016, he moved to China to join a blockchain incubator called BitSE, which produced QTUM and another notable project calledVeChain.
From there, Miguel then worked with VeChain to lead on business (and technological) development for the project in Europe. Then, in late 2017, he moved over to join the QTUM team, where he has been working since.
“We’re really excited to have Mike join the team. He has a wealth of information in this space, and I think he will be instrumental to taking our blockchain games to the next level,” says Joseph Rubin, co-founder and CEO of Blue Monster Games.
This acquisition comes hot on the heels of other notable events for gaming startup. The team has now raised over $5 million in pre-sale for their cryptocurrency called RETH, which is the main utility token associated with their upcoming game,Realms of Ethernity.
Realms of Ethernity is a metaverse MMORPG, which incorporates cryptocurrency and NFT (non-fungible token) technology into the game. These types of games are dubbed “play-to-earn” because the users are able to get paid rewards in cryptocurrency for their success in-game.
Blue Monster Games is also the producer ofKart Racing League, which is the world’s first NFT kart racing game. This game has two cryptocurrencies associated with it: KRL tokens and the Essence of Creation (or EOC tokens). Over the past two weeks, the team has conducted public sales for these digital currencies, selling over$2.5 million in KRL tokens and over$1.2 million in EOC tokens.
The KRL cryptocurrency is now listed and trading on its first exchange called SushiSwap and will be listed on many more exchanges over the coming months.
“This is just the beginning for Blue Monster Games,” Rubin notes. “These play-to-earn NFT games are the future of the gaming industry, and I think with Miguel on our side, we’re well positioned to take over the blockchain gaming space,” continued Rubin.
About Blue Monster Games
Blue Monster Games Inc. is a Florida-based corporation dedicated to the development of video games utilizing NFT technology. These gaming projects are based on a play-to-earn model, meaning that players have the opportunity to earn money in-game.
Blue Monster is the maker of Kart Racing League, which features 3D NFT characters that can be used to play a Sonic-inspired kart racing game, earning rewards for every race they win. The team is also working on a number of different projects that will be announced over the coming months.
From the very beginning, decentralization has always been the basis of every digital asset that is Blockchain-based. Not making use of a third party – i.e. using a trustless system – is one of the primary reasons why Satoshi Nakamoto created cryptocurrency and Blockchain.
However, it’s 2021, and the price of Bitcoin is risen astronomically, reaching an all-time high of $68,521 on the 5th of November, 2021. Presently, Bitcoin is no longer used by hackers or geeks stuck in the basement anymore.
Now, the industry has attracted a lot of institutional investors, with more companies trying to get their own share of the pie. It has gotten to the point that a sovereign nation, El Salvador, decided to adopt the novel digital asset as a legal tender. For an asset created in 2009, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, in general, have outperformed any asset class in recent history.
Now, the industry has the attention of world leaders and international bodies looking for a way to either stifle or regulate the booming industry. Due to how fast the industry is rising, we’ve also seen an unprecedented increase in the number of platforms offering several types of crypto services.
With the increased government scrutiny on the industry, several top crypto platforms are doing their best not to get caught on the other side of the law. However, this has made them somewhat deviate from the core values of crypto in general.
While some have completely deviated from the master plan, others choose to steer a middle course. However, the industry is still battling with several problems we’ll address in this article.
The problem
In truth, centralized platforms were expected to be a major driver in the growth of the digital economy. On the other hand, it seems the reverse is the case. It is quite ironic that there has been an increase in the number of decentralized assets created, but they are traded mostly on centralized crypto exchanges.
As a matter of fact, centralized exchanges were literally the first crypto exchanges to launch in the industry. They facilitate trade via a central authority. For example, these exchanges offer an easy to use platform to trade, but it’s done in a regulated space.
Users get a trading option, but it is done under the watchful eye of a third party. The third party checks the order books as well as ensuring that all participants comply with the regulations.
Surprisingly, these centralized exchanges are very much in demand, with millions of users thronging there for many reasons.
As at the time of writing this article, centralized exchanges are right there at the top when you look at their trading volume. This shows there are several investors that are not aware of the problems bedevilling them.
For starters, the fact that these exchanges had to adapt to government regulations regarding new laws poses more problems than solutions. If you are a keen observer, you’ll notice centralized exchanges have updated their terms and conditions.
Now, they have implemented stricter KYC (Know Your Customer) measures and tougher AML (Anti-Money Laundering) laws.
This isn’t a bad thing when you consider how well it’ll restrict actors with malicious intent. However, it’s a double-edged sword that affects millions of users that use crypto for legitimate purposes. These users chose crypto over fiat to key into the features these digital currencies offer but are now being denied it.
To put things in perspective, to confirm the identity of a user, centralized exchanges often require specific data from users. A new user has to submit several identification data – often not needed – to the central authority.
Unknown to the user, this sets them at a huge disadvantage. The user’s assets and data are stored in the centralized database of the exchange. Now, the user’s data and assets are susceptible to data theft and illegal access.
That’s not all, trading on centralized exchanges poses several other issues too. Let’s take a more detailed look at them in the next section.
Challenges of centralized platforms
KYC Measures
To date, KYC measures is still a hot topic that generates a lot of mixed reaction in the crypto community. Some sections of crypto users don’t want laws and regulators constantly chasing them or trying to force them to share personal data. But, like we said earlier, this goes against the basic principles of cryptocurrencies.
Security and vulnerability of getting hacked
The standard practice for centralized exchanges is to store all consumer details and assets in a centralized database which makes it an easy target for hackers. It’s no news that the crypto industry has been a prime target for hackers, and even the most secure exchanges are not left out.
These flaws are too significant to ignore, and it doesn’t seem it’ll be stopping anytime soon. Almost all centralized exchanges have been hit by hackers, and it has really hindered the adoption of cryptos in general.
The new breed of investors we have today need to have the guts to take risks and have a high level of tolerance. That’s not all, investors also need to have a keen eye to differentiate genuine investments from phishing attacks and exit scams.
Unfortunately, the crypto-sphere has been plagued with hacks, scams, and security flaws over the past decade. We’ve compiled an easy to glance list of high profile hacking incidents that rocked the crypto industry:
Coinrail: This occurred in South Korea. The criminals made away with $40 million worth of digital assets from a boutique exchange.
Coincheck: This is the second largest crypto exchange in Japan, and NEM worth $500 million was stolen.
Zaif: This Japanese exchange was not spared either, as $60 million worth of crypto was stolen.
Binance: This exchange is unarguably one of the largest in the world, and yet it got hacked. About $45 million worth of assets were stolen.
Bithumb:According to Coin Telegraph, this hack occurred on the 19th of June 2018. The hackers made away with an estimated $30 million worth of tokens.
BitGrail: This exchange set the pace as the first exchange to list Nano, and yet, $195 million in tokens were pilfered from them.
What this list proves is that no centralized crypto platform is 100% safe regardless of geographical location, size, or how secure its security architecture is.
Withdrawal Limits
It is no news that centralized exchanges often impose limits on customer withdrawals. They do this as a measure of security so there’s a limit to the sum withdrawn from the exchange at the same time.
For starters, the withdrawal limit creates an incentives misalignment. Also, it is a serious inconvenience to the trader whose satisfaction should be the exchange’s utmost priority. One thing users don’t know is that the exchanges gain a lot from doing this as they maximize trading fees thanks to the inaccessible funds.
Expensive Transaction Costs
This is another avenue centralized exchanges use to exploit users. Often, these exchanges are criticized from several quarters for charging extremely high listing fees. If you are wondering why the charges are high, the reasons are not farfetched.
Some factors that lead to inherently high charges are profit, overhead costs, and the security needs of the platform. One way or the other, the customer gets to suffer these incurred costs as they are passed on as transaction fees.
Use of Centralized wallets
One of the major threats of centralized exchanges is the centralized custody of funds. When the market is experiencing a bull run, there’s always cash inflow from new investors. This makes centralized exchanges turn into the proverbial honeypots. This does nothing but put a bulls eye on their back for malicious attackers.
The way centralized exchange go about this is akin to a trusted third party that is tasked with storing the crypto assets of users so they have a liquidity pool. They do this by accumulating assets into digital wallets held by the exchange.
In this regard, we’ll be correct to say that as the market keeps growing, users should expect increased attacks both in severity and frequency. If the attackers don’t make a go for the money, they’ll try to steal private data.
Order Arbitrage
Another telling problem with using centralized exchanges is that they can see outgoing and incoming orders. In several ways, this is unethical as they can gain via front-running. There have also been accusations that exchanges sometimes delay crediting orders to take advantage of the price spreads as price fluctuates.
Transaction and Volume Scaling
When there’s an unprecedented increase in trade volume across trading platforms, centralized exchanges often suffer from technical difficulties and unexpected delays. Unfortunately, large crypto exchanges are not exempted either. In fact, it has become a norm. This is caused by the inability of the exchange’s server to cope with the surge.
There have been instances where these exchanges suffer from 90 minutes of downtime. The loss caused by this downtime was estimated to be in the region of 60000 Bitcoin.
This is just an example among a myriad of problems experienced by centralized exchanges when they can’t deal with increased volume of trade on specific days.
However, it’s not doom and gloom for users as there’s light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to decentralized exchanges.
Advantages of decentralized exchanges
Reduced risk of getting hacked
With decentralized exchanges, you can mitigate the risk of getting hacked. By using decentralized exchanges, you don’t have to transfer your assets to any third party. This way, you don’t have to worry about the platform or company getting hacked.
Checking market manipulation
Because of the nature of allowing peer-to-peer exchange of digital assets, decentralized exchanges stop market manipulation of any kind. This way, users are protected from wash trading and fake trading.
Anonymity
Just as the founder of Bitcoin intended from the very beginning, you get to maintain your anonymity by using a decentralized exchange. Luckily, they don’t require users to fill KYC forms. This way, you get to maintain your anonymity and privacy at all times.
Choosing the right decentralized platform
With a myriad of decentralized platforms out there, it may be a little difficult to make the right choice. However, we’ve taken that burden off your shoulder. To be on the safe side, we’ll recommend Aircash as it ticks all the right boxes and more.
Apart from the ease and simplicity of using the platform, Aircash is the first and largest decentralized over-the-counter platform in the world. Now, you can purchase or trade your digital assets with fiat in a decentralized manner.
By using Aircash, your days of using centralized exchanges are over. You don’t have to worry about hacks or any form of identity theft. Well, hackers cannot steal an identity you never gave in the first instance.
This also means there’s no KYC, you don’t have to create any account of some sort, and neither will you be asked for any personal information. From start to finish, you’ll transact your crypto anonymously.
If you are wondering how to make a trade, it’s as simple as drinking water. The platform uses a peer-to-peer messenger to communicate with a prospective trader. This way, nobody knows the details of your transaction, not even the platform itself.
How do you use AirCash?
Just like we stated earlier, using Aircash is as simple as drinking water. Here’s how to get started:
First, create a wallet to use for your transaction.
Next, connect the Wallet to AirCash.
Lastly, buy and sell any crypto of your choice with the fiat in your wallet and you are good to go.
AirCash is a product of AirCoin Labs, which is a crypto decentralized autonomous organization(DAO).
Kraken, one of the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, has added support for Shiba Inu (SHIB). The price of the best performing crypto asset of 2021 (in terms of ROI), has increased to a two-week high, gaining more than 35% since Kraken announced the listing.
Key takeaways:
Kraken announced the listing of SHIB in a blog post on Monday. SHIB deposits are already live, requiring 20 confirmations (which shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes) and a minimum deposit limit of at least 373,000 SHIB.
Trading order execution will begin later today, between 15:00 and 17:00 UTC according to the Kraken status update page. The minimum supported trading order amount will be 50,000 SHIB.
Kraken will provide customers with the ability to trade SHIB against USD and EUR.
According to the data curated by CoinCodex, Kraken boasts 376 trading pairs and over $1.4 billion in trading volume over the last 24 hours.
Following the announcement of the SHIB listing, the memecoin’s price surged by over 35% in fewer than 24 hours and reached a local cycle high of $0.00005294.
SHIB is up a whopping 69,000,000% since the start of the year, far outpacing the second-placed blockchain gaming token GALA which is up a “modest” 54,000%.
ViralCoin successfully launched with several ground-breaking features that will change the scope of Fair Launches forever. ViralCoin’s definition of a Fair Balanced Launch is one that keeps the token price consistent while minting new tokens until the maximum total supply has been realized across all networks.
To accomplish this breakthrough feature, ViralCoin created the ViralVault, which rebalances the Liquidity Pool each time ViralCoin is minted. Rebalancing the Liquidity Pool serves to keep the maximum price relatively stable until the total supply of ViralCoin has been minted. ViralCoin further enhances the definition of a Fair Launch by pre-allocating ZERO tokens to its founders, early adopters, or developers.
ViralCoin – Innovation in Cryptocurrency
Through the first ever on-chain, on-token referral system, enthusiasts of ViralCoin can participate in the community without purchasing the token. 1% of every purchase is distributed to the referring wallet address of the receiver.
Additional tokenomics include a 3% redistribution fee to all wallet holders pro rata with their holdings, excluding the team wallet. An auto-LP function is completely unnecessary, since ViralCoin’s liquidity pool is designed to sustain itself through its innovative “Fair Balanced Launch”.
USDC is paired with ViralCoin in the liquidity pool. The developers designed this framework to combat impermeable loss and further ensure that ViralCoin continues to evolve independent of swings in the crypto market. Any popular token on a supported network can be used to swap for ViralCoin, and it is immediately converted to USDC prior to being inserted into the Viral Liquidity Pool.
2021 and Beyond: ViralCoin DAO Proposals
ViralCoin has created a DAO for the deployment and mass adoption of its breakthrough technology. Having officially launched, the evolution, application, and trajectory of ViralCoin will be decided upon by the DAO, with governance voting on further proposals.
Upcoming proposals include the development of a subscription-based, smart contract wallet, as well as integration with popular e-commerce partners. If approved, holders of ViralCoin will have the ability to spend their tokens on re-occurring bills and will have the opportunity to make ViralCoin a lifestyle token.
To learn more about ViralCoin, visit the website and learn how to participate seamlessly on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon Matic, Avalanche, Harmony One, Fantom, xDai, and other networks.
Press Release:The team behind successful blockchain game Binamon announces Tango Chain, an ecosystem to metaverses to life and enhance their accessibility.
29th November 2021 – An analysis by Emergen Research projects the metaverse market size to increase to $828.95 billion in 2028, up from 47.69 billion in 2020, growing at an expected CAGR of 43.3 percent during the forecast period. North America is expected to register robust revenue growth during this period because major technology companies like Facebook, NVidia Corporation, and Epic Games, Inc., intend to develop metaverse platforms.
In late October, Facebook said it was rebranding to Meta and would hire 10,000 experts in Europe to realize their metaverse ambitions. Since then, blockchain-based metaverse platforms like Decentraland have seen massive interest. According to trackers, the native token of the Ethereum-based Decentraland, MANA, is up over 450 percent in the last month alone.
Similar platforms like Sandbox’s SAND have posted remarkable performances, rallying near 700 percent in the same period. The surge of metaverse tokens on Ethereum is despite the low scalability and high Gas fees. On-chain trackers show that a simple ETH transfer draws $37 in Gas fees; minting cost for NFTs on Ethereum is significantly higher.
Introducing Tango Chain – The Metaverse Saviour
The growing interest in metaverse technology and experiences highlights the need for a dedicated blockchain to power these activities seamlessly. Tango Chain provides many benefits and features to make that possible, including being fully compatible with Ether and ERC-20 tokens n the Ethereum blockchain while keeping migration costs to a bare minimum. It is the first specialized blockchain for Metaverses and the only network 100% specialized in games, created by gamers.
Other technical features of Tango Chain to consider include:
The ability to process 20 blocks per minute to handle high-volume Metaverse transactions and activity.
The Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus mechanism, providing top-notch security, stability, and efficiency for all users.
Tango Chain Bridge to swap between assets and tokens, enabling future cross-ecosystem playing capabilities.
The ERC-2324 NFT poly-game asset token standard to manage NFTs and in-game assets at high speed and efficiency.
The Tango Chain initiative goes one step further. The team is building a physical handheld console that you can use to explore the Metaverses built on this technology layer. The physical console features an integrated crypto wallet, supports fingerprint-approved payments, has multiple optimizations for Play-to-Earn gaming and the latest generation hardware, and is compatible with current consoles.
“Tango will be a revolution not only for blockchain technology but also for Metaverses and play-to-earn games.”
TB Labs, the developer of Tango Chain and popular game Binamon
AGO Coin – Initial Fundraising Complete, IDO Soon
Activity on Tango Chain is subject to a small transaction fee, similar to how Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain operate. Users can pay these fees in the native AGO Coin, which has a fixed supply of 93 billion coins. Moreover, AGO will serve as a governance token and is used to pay rewards to network validators.
Tango Chain has completed initial investment rounds with great success and overwhelming support from investors. Furthermore, Tango Chain has partnered with DEXT Force and Huawei Cloud to bring the Metaverse experience to its console.
Further investment rounds, including a Strategic and Private round, will occur soon, with the strategic round beginning November 30 at 1PM UTC. An Initial DEX Offering for AGO will take place in the coming months.
About TB Labs
The Tango team is public, with offices in Argentina and Spain. It is the same team that has created the success of Binamon, a Metaverse project that has already done more than 100x since its launch, and a week ago, announced a land sale collaboration with Binance NFT. The team’s close ties with Binance and highly reputable exchanges like KuCoin, in which the BMON Binamon) token is listed, give the clue that Tango blockchain will be the next gem that the entire crypto market is looking for. For more information about how Tango is changing the Metaverse, visit the website, or check out the Whitepaper.
Long-awaited upgrade has allowed smart contract code to transfer ICP tokens, after it was adopted by the Internet Computer community’s DAO, the Network Nervous System (NNS).
Community voted 309,936,205 (approve) to 20,561 (reject) on Proposal 31471.
Stage set for the development of a new generation of web speed and censorship resistant DeFi applications on the Internet Computer blockchain, which run without the need for cloud computing services
The Internet Computer is the only blockchain that runs under the complete control of a community DAO, called the Network Nervous System, which is able to continuously upgrade and evolve its protocols.
The DFINITY Foundation is today announcing that a proposed upgrade to expand support for all canister smart contracts to be able to hold and transfer ICP tokens has been adopted and is already live on the network. The community voted 309,936,205 (approve) to 20,561 (reject) on proposal 31471.
This long-awaited feature sets the stage for an explosion of advanced DeFi applications on the Internet Computer blockchain, by expanding support for all canister smart contracts to be able to hold and transfer ICP tokens.
Dominic Williams, Chief Scientist and Founder at DFINITY, says, “The Internet Computer blockchain is the only blockchain that truly scales, runs efficiently at web speed, and where smart contracts can serve web experiences directly to end users without the need for other services, such as cloud computing, which provides much stronger censorship resistance. Now the community has adopted this proposal, and the Network Nervous System DAO has upgraded the network, canister smart contracts on the Internet Computer have become able to hold and transfer ICP tokens for the first time, providing for the development of a new generation of DeFi, and the blending of DeFi with social media and games functionality in the form of SocialFi and GameFi, forging the path towards billions of end users.”
Legacy blockchains perform disruptive, divisive “hard forks” or require centralized coordination by its validators to upgrade their protocols. Due to Chain Key cryptography and breakthroughs in computer science, the Internet Computer is the only public blockchain that allows its community of token holders to vote on governance proposals, and the ICP protocol automatically upgrades itself via the Network Nervous System (NNS), a super-advanced DAO.
The ICP transferability upgrade has been eagerly awaited by Internet Computer developers. At a basic level, a dapp such as OpenChat, a decentralized version of WhatsApp, will soon be able to allow users to send ICP tokens to one another via instant messages. Because smart contracts on the Internet Computer run at web speed and can serve web experiences directly to users, this functionality also heralds the advent of decentralized exchanges that run entirely on a blockchain, without the need for cloud nodes to process trades or create the front-end for users. Imagine Uniswap running completely on-chain. A community developer recently unveiled a Uniswap front end on the Internet Computer, showing how conventional DeFi solutions can fully run on blockchain technology.
Mike Schwartz, Co-Founder at ORIGYN Foundation, a digital certification and authentication platform, recently valued at $300m with backers Paris Hilton and Bill Ackman, said, “The Internet Computer is the world’s fastest public blockchain at 250,000 queries per second and 11,500 transactions per second, which is over 11 times faster than Solana. The ICP transferability upgrade has been a high priority feature needed by entrepreneurs and developers to activate DeFi, and after the community adopted the code, the Internet Computer automatically upgraded itself — no hard forks or disruptions to operations. The possibilities are endless when you combine the fastest blockchain with advanced DeFi capabilities. For ORIGYN, the Internet Computer’s advanced technology matches our massive ambitions and AI-based technology to authenticate every luxury good, art, and NFTs on a sovereign blockchain — and in doing so, eliminate counterfeiting as we know it.”
The Internet Computer has attracted thousands of developers, and hundreds of thousands of users of its dapps, within just a few months of its launch in May 2021.
Hundreds of projects are already up and running with users on the Internet Computer, including DeFi, DAOs, SocialFi, GameFi, and NFT projects.
“This upgrade to allow canisters to transfer ICP is significant for the Internet Computer ecosystem because decentralized exchanges on the Internet Computer can now spin up liquidity pools to convert ICP to other Internet Computer-based tokens, and NFT projects can securely launch on their own websites — opposed to NFT marketplaces. The impact of this upgrade is enormous, and with these newfound advanced capabilities for DEXs and NFTs alone, I expect hundreds of new ways to invest ICP over the next few weeks,” said Bob Bodily, Chief Product Officer at Toniq Labs. “For Toniq Labs, the ICP transferability upgrade allows us to (1) perform secure NFT auctions on our Entrepot marketplace, (2) enable bidding on NFTs that aren’t even listed on our marketplace, and (3) release our NFT minting and marketplace APIs to enable developers to use our services in their own decentralized applications.”
This week, the Internet Computer blockchain surpassed 345M blocks, which have been added since mainnet launch less than 7 months ago. It also recently reached a record high of 28.13 blocks per second, by far the highest throughput in blockchain. While this number reflects how the Internet Computer has already scaled to provide vast capacity, throughput is expected to scale beyond 100 blocks per second early in 2022.
About the Internet Computer
The Internet Computer is the world’s most powerful general-purpose blockchain and Web3 platform. Its protocols apply advanced cryptography and computer science to scale smart contract data storage and computation without limit, host web-speed smart contracts that can directly serve web experiences to end users without the cloud, and run smart contracts with breakthrough levels of efficiency. For the first time, developers can create truly decentralized dapps and services that run entirely from the blockchain, and push into emerging areas such as SocialFi and GameFi, which blend social media and game functionality with DeFi, and build out the fully decentralized metaverse. The Internet Computer blockchain acts as a complete alternative technology stack, which has been designed to replace the centralized IT stack that is mostly controlled by Big Tech, and it can even be used to build secure and unstoppable websites and enterprise systems. It was incubated and launched by the DFINITY Foundation.
Going into the ‘Black Friday’ weekend, the price of Bitcoin and the values of the majority of other digital assets have lost high single digits, thus providing a great buying opportunity for avid deal seekers.
While most crypto assets had recuperated their losses by Sunday, there are several crypto assets that are still trading well below their respective all-time high levels, despite boasting strong fundamentals which could soon boost their market standings.
Let’s take a look at three coins that are currently exchanging hands well below their market potential and present an excellent ‘Cyber Monday’ buying opportunity.
3. FTX Token (FTT)
FTX Token is a native exchange token of one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges FTX. With a spot trading volume of nearly $3 billion over the last 24 hours, FTX ranks as the 6th largest crypto spot trading platform. In addition to impressive spot metrics, FTX’s derivatives offering trails only that of Binance, and stands as the 2nd most liquid futures trading crypto platform in the world.
The massive exchange platform, developed by one of the most prominent voices in the crypto industry, Alameda Research’s CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, is powered by the FTT utility token. FTT provides holders with the ability to take advantage of exclusive discounts on trading fees, earn rewards by providing liquidity on the FTX ecosystem, earn staking rewards, and stake their funds as collateral. Furthermore, FTT holders can look forward to receiving their share of the so-called Socialised Gains, which are a portion of FTX’s gains that the exchange redistributes among its users in times of large market movements.
Additionally, FTX has recently penned partnerships with some of the more prominent sports organizations in the world in order to draw mainstream audiences to crypto. FTX secured a 19-year $135 million deal with NBA team Miami Heat for the naming rights to its arena, and a 10-year $17.5 million deal with UC-Berkeley Athletic Department. Earlier this year, FTX partnered with TSM, one of the biggest eSports organizations in the world, in a $210 million blockbuster deal.
Given its extensive list of sponsorship and a massive $25 billion valuation of its parent company, it is perhaps a bit surprising that FTT is currently trading 40% removed from its ATH. It is very likely that the current bargain won’t last long as FTT could soon experience a rally similar to Crypto.com Coin (CRO), which more than doubled in price and reached a new ATH after the Staples Center rebranding deal became public.
Cardano is a proof-of-stake (PoS) all-in-one blockchain ecosystem powered by native smart contracts and powered by one of the better-established crypto assets in ADA. The native token of Cardano reached an ATH of $3.10 on the day that the highly anticipated smart contract functionally was first introduced on the platform as a part of the Alonzo upgrade.
The project that started in 2017 by Charles Hoskinson, a mathematician, who was once part of the Ethereum developer team, has received numerous improvements over the last couple of weeks. Despite the accelerated development, the price of ADA has been trending in the opposite direction, losing 50% of its value from its September peak, and is currently exchanging hands at a 3-month low.
The Plutus Application Backend (PAB), a testing ground for decentralized applications (dApps) on Cardano is reportedly receiving an update in the coming days. Additionally, the block size will increase by 12.5% in an update coming on December 1, increasing Plutus script memory and improving the overall performance of the Cardano blockchain network.
The rapid development on the software side of things has led to the rapid expansion of the Cardano ecosystem – the first decentralized exchange on Cardano DOEX is launching in Q1 2022, while ADA Finance recently won the prestigious ‘Best DeFi’ project of the year award at the 2021 AIBC Summit.
With the current price of ADA 50% removed from its ATH and a long list of improvements in the pipeline, ADA might be one of the ‘Cyber Monday’ deals of 2021.
Polkadot is undoubtedly one of the more innovative blockchain projects in the market. Its interoperability expands beyond simple token transactions as it enables cross-chain transfers of any type of crypto data or asset. Polkadot platform is one of the quickest developing blockchain Layer-0 solutions, allowing networks like Ethereum to seamlessly integrate into the same platform.
Polkadot recently benefited from the introduction of parachains, which were first introduced in Polkadot’s white paper years ago. Parachains are customized blockchains designed to feed into the mainchain. Since they are tailored for project-specific use cases, parachains can achieve higher throughput while retaining lower transaction costs than the main blockchain.
The anticipation proceeding the first parachain auction pushed the price of DOT to a new all-time high just below $55 on November 4. Since then, the value of Polkadot’s backbone digital asset lost roughly 35%, despite the huge among of interest that the parachain auction projects are generating.
The parachain auctions are set to continue into early 2022, with the second batch of auctions commencing on December 23. Winners of parachain auctions will be able to build on on the Polkadot network for 96 weeks – the same period of time that DOT crowdloans will be locked.
Given the fact that the value of DOT is directly correlated to the success of parachains and their resounding success, the current price of DOT could easily be considered a steal.
While the cryptocurrency trio mentioned in this article is likely heading towards greener pastures over the next couple of weeks, keep in mind that this is not investment advice. It’s virtually impossible to predict how the market will perform in the short term, let alone in the long term. Do your own research, never invest more than you are willing to lose, and most importantly, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
As the cryptocurrency industry continues to mature, an increasing number of financial products that were once exclusive to the traditional finance sector are making their way into the digital currency realm. The ability to borrow funds against collateral is one of the vital aspects of a healthy and liquid monetary system, and has long been restricted to fiat users. In the past couple of years, however, numerous crypto platforms have started to provide access to crypto loans.
Binance has emerged as one of the industry leaders in assisting crypto users with their short-term liquidity needs. Binance users are able to submit their crypto assets as collateral to secure loans and use borrowed funds to boost their trading positions, earn high APY when staking, and do everything else that pertains to using digital currencies.
Binance Loans are a financial service that allows users to stake their crypto as collateral to engage in various cryptocurrency-related market activities. Borrowed crypto assets can be utilized to engage in spot and derivatives trading, crypto staking, liquidity farming, and much more.
Binance charges interest on borrowed funds on an hourly and daily basis. The minimum loan period is 7 days, while the longest loan period caps at 180 days. The amount of loan you can access is directly correlated with the amount of crypto you are willing to stake as collateral.
Here’s a quick overview of Binance’s Crypto Loans feature:
Pros of Binance Crypto Loans
Spot holdings can be used as collateral to rent out extra crypto assets
Low-interest rates and no transaction fees
A loan can be obtained in minutes, with no paperwork required
Debt repayment can be done in parts
Loans can be repaid before the loan term expires to avoid unnecessary interest charges
60+ currencies to borrow, 25+ types of collateral
Cons of Binance Crypto Loans
The maximum loan term duration is capped at 180 days
Margin Call limit and Liquidation LTV are relatively close in value
No fiat borrowing or collateral options
With the quick breakdown behind us, let’s examine Binance Crypto Loans financial service in more detail.
Benefits of using Binance Crypto Loans
Several essential properties make Binance’s loan offering stand out as one of the best in the market. They are as follows:
Fast and easy to use –Binance Loans service is highly accessible, near-instantaneous, and provides excellent transparency when it comes to interest rate fees, repayment process, and loan-to-value ratios.
Borrowed funds are yours without any strings attached – Borrowed crypto assets are deposited to your spot account. You are free to do whatever you want with them, as opposed to when using Binance Margin, which also provides the ability to borrow up to five times your collateral, but restricts the use of borrowed funds to strictly trading purposes. Additionally, you can use your loaned funds outside the Binance platform if you so choose.
Attractive interest rates and no transaction fees – Rates vary depending on assets used; however, they rarely amount to more than 0.06% per day. As an added bonus, Binance charges no fees for digital currency transactions associated with its loan service.
No credit score needed – As opposed to obtaining a loan from a bank, which requires a ton of paperwork and can be very discriminatory if your credit score is low, Binance borrows funds at the same rates to all clients. You only need crypto in your spot account to use as collateral and a verified account, and you are good to go.
Ideal for short-term liquidity needs – Binance Loans are a perfect solution for increasing your short-term exposure to crypto markets as they feature five loan terms: 7, 14, 30, 90, and 180 days.
No taxes – Since borrowing funds doesn’t require making a fiat withdrawal, you incur no taxes on your crypto assets as they are not registered as taxable events.
60+ loanable currencies, 25+ collateral assets to pick from – You can choose from a long list of supported digital currencies, including major cryptos such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). More avid cryptocurrency users will be happy to find lesser-known altcoins, such as Curve DAO Token (CRV) and 0x (ZRX), among supported assets.
Understanding key Binance Loans terminology
If you have never used crypto loans before, you are likely to be unfamiliar with technical terms that underpin the process of using the Binance Loan service. Here are short summaries of the most important technical terms that you need to be familiar with before using Binance Loans:
Principal – The original sum of borrowed funds. To clarify, if you borrow 1 BTC, for example, then your principal is 1 BTC.
Collateral – An asset with which a borrower secures the repayment of a loan. If you are borrowing BTC by staking BUSD, for example, then BUSD is considered collateral.
Loan Term – Time duration of the loan agreement. Binance offers five loan durations: 7, 14, 30, 90, and 180 days.
Initial LTV – The ratio between the value of a loan and the value of the collateral. If you are willing to use 1 BTC as collateral at 65% LTV, for example, you can borrow crypto assets that amount up to 0.65 BTC in value. Although rates may vary, Binance is offering a 65% LTV as a rule of thumb.
Margin Call – As everyone is well aware, crypto assets are prone to considerable price volatility. Suppose the value of your borrowed funds grows or collateral happens to lose value so that the LTV reaches a 75% ratio. In that case, a Margin Call is issued, notifying you to restructure your loan agreement by adjusting your loan-to-value ratio.
Liquidation LTV – If you don’t act on your Margin Call and LTV reaches 83%, Binance will sell your collateral in order to pay off the debt and return the remainder of funds to your spot account.
Interest Rate – The amount expressed in percentages that a lender charges a borrower for his lending service. Interest rates on borrowed funds on Binance accrue on an hourly and daily basis. The average daily interest rate for most coins is roughly 0.05%.
Total Interest Amount – The total amount of interests that will accrue over your loan duration (expressed in borrowed digital currency).
Repayment Amount – The total amount of funds (a sum of principal and total interest amount) needed to repay a loan (expressed in borrowed digital currency).
If you have additional queries about specific terms or want to observe the process of obtaining a loan in video form, check this helpful article from Binance.
Supported assets
Binance’s loan offering service supports over 60 borrowable crypto assets and more than 25 types of collateral. Here is the list of supported currencies*:
* The list of supported digital currencies is subject to change.
How to set up Binance Crypto Loans?
Now that you are armed with knowledge about the benefits and disadvantages of Binance Loans while also having an understanding of key terms such as LTV and Margin Call, you can go ahead and make a loan request.
NOTE: You have to be logged into your verified Binance account in order to use the Binance Crypto Loan service.
Step 1: After logging into your Binance account, select the “Crypto Loans” option from the “Finance” drop-down menu.
Step 2: Pick the asset you want to borrow and select the collateral currency you have access to in your spot account. Choose one of the five loan durations from the drop-down menu in the bottom-left side of the screen.
Step 3: Once you have selected the parameters of your loan agreement, entered how much funds your want to borrow, and inspected the loan order properties on the right side of the screen, you are clear to click the “Start Borrowing Now” button to proceed.
Step 4: Review the loan order confirmation pop-up, showing all characteristics of the loan deal you are about to enter. Confirm that you have read the terms and conditions of the crypto loan service and click on the “Confirm” button to borrow funds from Binance.
Congratulations, you have successfully completed the process of obtaining a loan on Binance.
Now, you are probably wondering how to manage your active loan orders and, most importantly, how to repay your debt. Check the following sections to gain a better understanding of how to utilize your loans to the fullest.
How to manage your crypto loans?
Binance provides a seamless way to organize and manage your digital currency loans from a single place. Navigate to the “Loan History” section from your account dashboard to access your active loan orders, along with a complete overview of your loan history.
Here you will find a list of your active orders under the “Loan Orders” section. The entire history of your past orders can be accessed from a dropdown menu on the left side of the screen. Also, the ability to adjust LTV, loan repayment and renewal options, can be found here.
How to adjust LTV to avoid liquidation?
Suppose you receive a Margin Call (see the above section Understanding key Binance Loan terminology for more information). In that case, you can click on the “Adjust LTV” button on your active loan order to see the current loan-to-value ratio. If the ratio veers past 75%, Binance will notify you to adjust your active order by staking additional collateral or removing a part of it to realign your position to the less risky LTV ratio. If the ratio veers past 83%, your loan might get liquidated.
The process of adjusting the LTV ratio couldn’t be more straightforward. Pick from “Add” or “Remove” options and enter the amount of collateral your wish to add/remove to adjust LTV. Once done, click on the action button at the bottom.
How to repay your Binance Loan?
If you wish to repay your debt, you can do so by clicking on the “Repay” option on your active order listed in the loan dashboard. After that, a repay menu with several options in addition to an up-to-date overview of your active loan order appears.
You can choose to repay your crypto loan by returning borrowed coins or by paying off the total value of borrowed assets with an asset you used for collateral. The repayment amount is the same in both cases.
Additionally, you can also choose to repay only a portion of your debt. Simply enter the “Repayment Amount”, select between “Borrowed Coin” and “Collateral” options and click “Confirm repayment” to complete the process.
You can pay off your debt at any time during the duration of your order. Since interests accumulate on an hourly basis, the quicker you decide to repay, the smaller fee you will pay for borrowing.
What happens if I don’t repay my debt on time?
Binance charges three times the standard hourly interest rate on overdue loans for the first 72 hours for loans with 7-day and 14-day durations and for 168 hours when it comes to lengthier loan options.
If you fail to repay your loan in the allotted time, Binance will commence the process of loan liquidation. Do note that an additional 2% liquidation fee applies in this case.
Why do we use Binance Crypto Loans?
Binance Loans can be a great way to increase your exposure to crypto markets by gaining access to additional crypto funds by using assets that would otherwise be collecting dust in your spot wallet. Due to the unpredictable nature of crypto markets, you would probably be better served to borrow and use as collateral assets, which are less prone to significant price fluctuations, especially when deciding on longer loan terms.
Once you obtain assets from Binance, you are free to do with them whatever you want. The borrowed currencies are yours in every sense of the word. You can use them on various Binance services, such as margin trading, Binance Earn products, Launchpool offerings, and more. You can even withdraw funds from your Binance account to an external crypto wallet. Apart from paying off your debt, there are no strings attached to the funds you borrow.
Risks associated with Binance Crypto Loans
The most significant risk factor associated with using the Binance Crypto Loan service is the unpredictable nature of the crypto markets. If the value of an asset you borrowed tanks, you could find yourself struggling to repay the loan. Before renting a loan, make sure that you have access to additional funds if things go wrong and don’t rely on paying off your debt by expecting the asset you borrowed to appreciate in value.
Borrowing to engage in margin trading can be particularly risky. If you are not careful, your borrowed capital could easily be lost, along with your collateral. Refrain from making risky trades and be willing to sacrifice a bit of APY by utilizing stablecoins when staking, especially if you are a newcomer to crypto.
The bottom line
Binance Crypto Loans are particularly beneficial for investors who require additional short-term liquidity for margin trading or staking purposes. The ability to set aside a certain amount of spot balance to gain access to extra funds is an enticing proposition for experienced traders and crypto newbies alike.
Binance Crypto Loans are a great way to boost the value of your existing crypto holdings by using them to secure instantly accessible funds at low rates with no paperwork required. Remember to use the borrowed funds responsibly.
