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  • BitMEX CEO Predicts at Least 5 Countries Will Follow in Footsteps of El Salvador by Recognizing BTC as Legal Tender

    BitMEX CEO Predicts at Least 5 Countries Will Follow in Footsteps of El Salvador by Recognizing BTC as Legal Tender

    Key takeaways:

    • Politics, inflation, and remittances are the main reasons why more countries are turning to Bitcoin
    • Remittance commissions account for a big share of gross domestic product (GDP) in low and middle-income countries
    • Rising inflation rates and Bitcoin adoption seem to have a direct correlation

    Alex Hoeptner, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX foresees at least five developing countries making the leap of adopting Bitcoin as legal tender by the end of next year. Hoeptner cites remittances, inflation, and politics as the three key factors for his prediction.

    Remittance fees are siphoning money away from citizens of developing countries

    BitMEX’s CEO criticizes established money transfer providers, such as Western Union, for charging people exorbitant fees for their service. With a large share of the workforce in developing economies working outside their home countries to earn a better living, fees on remittance payments are becoming increasingly problematic. 

    “The current system of remittances – led by money service providers like Western Union – is ripping people off by charging them an average of 10% just to send money home the next business day.”

    For reference, low and middle-income countries accounted for a staggering 75% of total global remittances in 2020. Shortly after El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender alongside the US Dollar on September 7, president Nayib Bukele had estimated that money service providers will lose $400 million in commissions for remittances on a yearly basis. Remittances account for almost a quarter of El Salvador’s $25.8 billion GDP.

    Using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a means of transferring funds can help developing nations save a considerable amount of money. There is a caveat, as crypto prices are prone to high volatility, which can make people hesitant to use digital assets as a primary form of transactions. Stablecoins are a perfect solution for this problem, which is probably the reason why they are facing increased pressure from regulators. The US, for example, is looking to limit private stablecoin issuance by imposing stricter capital and liquidity requirements for stablecoin issuers.

    While inflation is devaluing local fiat currencies, Bitcoin is inflation-proof by design

    Inflation is another important reason why we will see more countries turning to digital assets in the near future, according to Hoeptner. For reference, International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates a 5.4% inflation rate for developing countries in 2021.

    “My prediction is that by the end of next year, we’ll have at least five countries that accept bitcoin as legal tender. All of them will be developing countries.”

    Hoeptner noted that the adoption of crypto and inflation levels are directly related to each other. We could see this play out in Turkey this year. As the Turkish lira weakened over the course of the year, due to almost 20% inflation, “crypto adoption surged.” Bitcoin’s artificial scarcity, which caps supply at 21 million, is a perfect antidote to the money printing bonanza that started as a result of the financial crisis in 2008, and picked up steam once the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

    Savvy politicians will position themselves as crypto-friendly to appeal to young demographics

    Hoeptner identifies the current political circumstances as the final reason for Bitcoin gaining governmental support from developing countries. Populist politicians with progressive tendencies are likely to take a crypto-friendly stance in order to appeal to technologically savvier young voters. 

    “As El Salvador works out the kinks in its rollout, savvy politicians will be thinking of how they can take a similar path, and how it might benefit both them and their constituents.”

    The BitMEX CEO thinks each subsequent country that will turn to Bitcoin will have an easier time, now that El Salvador had shown what’s possible. The danger, however, lies in failed adoption, which could do more harm than good in the long term, Hoeptner warns.

    According to a recent report from Chainalisys, the global cryptocurrency adoption has increased by more than 800% in the past year, with an increasing number of peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto-powered transactions in emerging economies being the main reason.

    Buy/Sell BTC
  • Chain-Agnostic Payment Solution DePay Opens IMO Whitelisting for the Binance Smart Chain

    Chain-Agnostic Payment Solution DePay Opens IMO Whitelisting for the Binance Smart Chain

    DePay, a decentralized payment protocol for web3 sellers, has just gone multi-chain with its expansion to Binance Smart Chain. 500,000 DEPAY tokens are now up for grabs with the launch of the company’s IMO, and the Whitelisting will end on October 15. 

    Zug, Switzerland October 5, 2021

    DePay is pleased to announce the launch of its Initial Multichain Offering, making available 500,000 DEPAY tokens until the end of the Whitelisting on October 15. The chain-agnostic payment protocol is paving the way for mass adoption of crypto payments with their first of many upcoming blockchain expansions. 

    DePay designed its IMO with the goal of creating the fairest ever launchpad within the DeFi space by offering equal opportunities to all participants. Following this launchpad, DePay is all set to extend payment support for most other major chains and L2S in the near future. 

    “In regards to why you should participate in our IMO, simply because it allows you to own a token before it launches on a DEX.

    So it’s the classic launchpad scenario.

    Only a few selected, whitelisted people get the chance to have the token before it launches on a DEX.

    And that’s especially important if you think about all the bots buying up initial IDO supply the second the pair launches

    It’s also our way of rewarding existing DEPAY holders, as we like to share the success of growing onto additional blockchains with the community.”, said Sebastian Pape, DePay Founder, CEO & CTO.

    DePay is a decentralized payment protocol for web3 sellers that can be extended on any blockchain-specific plugin at any given time.  Built around interoperability, scalability, and flexibility, the protocol allows users to accept any asset regardless of the blockchain they are held on. This reduces frictions, and makes performing decentralized payments simple like never before. 

    Some key highlights of DePay’s Initial Multichain Offering on the Binance Smart Chain include 

    • No personal allocation limits
    • All participants to receive their acquired tokens automatically on the go-live day by an automatic Token Release Drop.
    • Rewards for existing DEPAY token holders.
    • Unparalleled user experience powered by DePay Widgets.  

    To encourage large scale participation, DePay has lowered the entry barrier for Whitelisting. Anyone holding a minimum of just 1 DEPAY token on Ethereum network can get Whitelisted. All claimed tokens will be sent simultaneously to participants by smart contracts.   

    “Shortly after the birth of DePay, especially small Ethereum transactions became less and less affordable as the network became overloaded due to high demand. On the Binance Smart Chain, even the smallest of transactions are affordable, which opens up so many use cases for DePay products. Think of microtransactions or donations below 100 USD. Who is willing to spend 50 USD in network fees in order to send someone a 5 USD tip for a helpful article? Probably not many…We have focused our efforts to date on building an extremely solid foundation on which we can grow rapidly to all major networks currently used for payments.” said DePay CMO & Co-Founder Alexander Paul.  

    “For us, the expansion to BSC is the starting point for the era where the type of token owned by the buyers no longer matters while carrying out crypto payments. We don’t integrate or support individual assets, but the entire blockchain network. Users don’t even have to sign-up with an email. Thanks to DeFi, it is enough to adjust a few variables in a couple of lines of code and start using DePay on any website or DApp within minutes. In addition to rapidly scaling to more blockchains and layer 2 solutions, we will be focusing on maximizing integrations in the near future” Paul added. 

    To find out more about the just launched IMO, please visit https://depay.fi/launchpad/bsc

    About DePay: DePay is a decentralized multichain payment protocol for web3 sellers, which allows integrators to easily offer crypto payments to their customers. The company was founded in the Swiss “Crypto Valley,” after the company’s CEO Sebastian Pape became ETHOnline finalist with the initial idea of the protocol. 

    Contact:

    Alexander Paul, DePay CMO & Co-Founder

    Email: support ((at)) depay.fi

  • Ojamu Launches on Uniswap After Successful IDO Launch

    Ojamu Launches on Uniswap After Successful IDO Launch

    Singapore, Singapore, 11th October, 2021,

    Ojamu is excited to announce the listing of its native OJA token on the Uniswap platform, after selling out its IDO in minutes in the first ever triple-IDO on the PAID/IGNITION Global, Asia and India platforms. The Uniswap listing marks an essential milestone for the MarTech platform which leverages Ai (Artificial Intelligence), NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), and Blockchain technology, enabling Brands to reach their digital marketing goals.

    Ojamu, a MarTech platform bringing the power of Blockchain, Ai, and NFTs to empower Brands in both the Blockchain/Crypto and non-Blockchain business spaces, has successfully listed its OJA token on Uniswap, a leading  decentralized global exchange providing several potential trading pairs for the $OJA token. 

    The OJA token has been successful throughout its early lifecycle thus far. Ojamu raised $1.7 million through an oversubscribed private sale earlier this month. The private sale participants included Ascensive Assets, A195, Protocol Ventures, Moonrock Capital, MarketAcross, Master Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, X21, Rarestone Capital, Waterdrip Capital, Chain Capital and others.

    The IDO sale of $OJA occurred through multiple PAID/IGNITION launchpads. First, members of these platforms could acquire the token through an Initial DEX Offering (IDO) across Ignition, PAID Network India, and PAID Network Asia. Ignition is PAID Network’s decentralized swapping protocol to help Blockchain service providers organize private and public auctions for tokens. During the IDO, investors could acquire tokens for a price of $0.1180. 

    About Ojamu

    Built to be interoperable across leading blockchains such as Ethereum, Polygon, Polkadot and Solana, Ojamu is a Singapore-based MarTech platform that automates and optimizes digital marketing campaigns across any industry vertical, utilizing real-time data, AI and blockchain technology.

    Ojamu enables Brands to reach their digital marketing goals with data-driven predictions and recommendations across all digital channels, both in the blockchain and ‘traditional’ business space.

    Contacts
    • Fateh Singh
    • fateh@ojamu.com
  • Justin Sun Acquired NFTs of Digital Zones, One of the Earliest NFT Projects, for $2 Million

    Justin Sun Acquired NFTs of Digital Zones, One of the Earliest NFT Projects, for $2 Million

    TRON founder Justin Sun tweeted that he had recently purchased three Digital Zones editions, a series of NFT artworks created by artist Mitchell F. Chan, for 569 ETH (or $2 million) and donated them to APENFT Foundation. The NFTs he bought are Edition 92 of Series 7, as well as Edition 83 and 84 of Series 6.

    In tandem with the NFT, Mitchell F. Chan also wrote a detailed bluebook for his Digital Zones, and its limited hard copies will also be available. The blue book details the history of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital assets, and their relationship with Yves Klein’s artworks.

    Digital Zones, short for Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility, is a limited edition NFT issued by artist Mitchell F. Chan in August, 2017. It was inspired by Zone de sensibilité picturale immatérielle, an artwork created by the famous French artist Yves Klein. Chan produced eight series of Digital Zones, containing 101 NFTs in total, with ten for each series from Series 1 to Series 7 and 31 for Series 0. 

    The art series Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle (Zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility) by Yves Klein takes the form of receipts. Considered one of the earliest representations of conceptual and performance art, it gives its own interpretation on materiality, ownership, and the ritual of exchange. The work involved the sale of ownership of “virtual” space, taking the form of a receipt, in exchange for gold; buyers who paid the gold as agreed on would obtain the receipt in return. Nevertheless, Klein claimed that in order to truly own this art piece, the buyer had to perform an elaborate ritual by burning the physical “receipt”, while the artist would throw half of the gold into the Seine. As Klein put it, tangible works derive from intangible concepts. In other words, intangible concepts are themselves artworks that may even outweigh tangible ones.

    This is a receipt that serves as proof of purchasing Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle. The copy belongs to Series n°1, Zone n°02, and was purchased by Jacques Kugel on December 7, 1959.
    Yves Klein and Dino Buzzati completed the ritual of the work on January 26, 1962.

    When Chan first learned about Ethereum back in 2017, he realized that he could convert Yves Klein’s project into an NFT through the blockchain technology and carry out creative experiments, thus taking a step further to non-visual and immaterial conceptual art. He then wrote a detailed bluebook for Digital Zones. The timing of the work’s contract minting makes it one of the earliest NFT works on Ethereum, second only to Cryptopunk, and three months earlier than CryptoKitties. More importantly, it made its debut at InterAccess in Toronto, which establishes itself as one of the first NFT artworks to be exhibited in a conventional art gallery. It is now widely received as the first “high art” in the crypto art field. 

    With NFT coming to the limelight and crypto practitioners vigorously pursuing “vintage” NFT projects, the general public started to see the huge value of NFT of this kind, plucking Chan and his works out of obscurity a few months back. Now, except for certain editions in Series 0 owned by the artist, all editions in other series have been sold out. The price in the secondary market has exceeded 200 ETH and is still soaring. It is reported that Digital Zones Edition 10 of Series 0 will be put up for auction between October 14 and 21 at NativelyDigital, Sotheby’s. 

    As one of the veteran collectors in this sphere, since this March, Justin Sun has purchased NFT artworks by world-renowned artists such as Picasso and Andy Warhol, and crypto artists such as Beeple and Pak from both conventional and emerging NFT auction platforms including Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Nifty Gateway, with a combined cost close to￥300 million. Ownership of these artworks has been mapped onto TRON’s public chain through TRC-721 standard, and will be permanently stored there and on the decentralized storage system BTFS. By far, TRON has established a fully-fledged NFT ecosystem with robust hardware and software. As one of the top three public chains in the world, TRON now boasts over 56 million users, upwards of 2.4 billion transactions, and the highest circulation supply of stablecoins across the globe.

    APENFT is backed by the underlying technology of top-notch blockchains Ethereum and TRON with support from the world’s largest distributed storage system BitTorrent to deliver the mission of registering world-class artworks as NFTs on the blockchain.

  • World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen Wins First-Ever NFT Chess Trophy

    World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen Wins First-Ever NFT Chess Trophy

    Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world chess champion and the highest-rated player of all time, has won the first-ever non-fungible token (NFT) chess trophy after finishing first in the $1.6 million Meltwater Champions Chess Tour (MCCT). An exact replica of the winner’s NFT trophy was auctioned off for 6.88 ETH, worth approximately $24,700 at current market rates.

    Key takeaways:

    • The organizers of MCCT have partnered with FTX digital currency exchange and guaranteed a prize pool of 2.1825 BTC for top professional chess players to compete for.
    • Two identical copies of the Champion’s Trophy NFT were minted on the ETH blockchain and signed by the event winner Magnus Carlsen. One trophy belongs to Carlsen, while the other was sold to a fan for almost $25,000 worth of Ethereum. The lucky fan will get to meet Carlsen and play a match with him.
    • The first NFT trophy in chess history was auctioned off on the new Chess Champs digital marketplace.
    • Carlsen had this to say about the cross-section of crypto and chess: “NFTs help the chess community celebrate great moments and possibly also reward those that have already invested so much time in growing the game. With Chess Champs, this is just getting started and I look forward to seeing it evolve.”
    • MCCT 2021 was an exclusive event hosted for the game’s top players, including the highest-rated American chess player Fabiano Caruana, and most successful Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
    • In addition to blockchain-based awards, chess governing bodies are reportedly exploring ways to utilize blockchain technology as an ‘anti-cheating tool in online chess tournaments.
    • Carlsen himself is no stranger to crypto. The chess star has launched his own NFT collection on the OpenSea marketplace earlier in the year, jokingly named Bongcloud.art. The chess prodigy sells 69 unique games, specifically featuring chess opening variations of the Bongcloud and the Greek openings.
    • Earlier this year, the Norwegian Chess Champion had also competed for 0.6 BTC in addition to $60K in prize money at a tournament hosted by the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
  • Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 41

    Top 3 Coins to Watch – Week 41

    Last week Bitcoin broke the $55,000 resistance level and now seems to be headed to reclaim the $60,000 valuation. Along the way, Bitcoin’s total market capitalization also surpassed $1 trillion. Ethereum and many other altcoins largely followed the bullish trend, carrying the total market capitalization of the crypto sector above $2.3 trillion. Although we believe BTC and ETH are almost always a sound investment, we went on the lookout for greater potential returns this week, which means that we had to venture in riskier and often also more speculative markets, such as meme tokens and blockchain gaming. However, be aware that this article does not constitute financial advice and that you should always do your own research prior to investing.


    3. Shiba Inu (SHIB)

    Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a meme token that was launched in August 2020 by the anonymous founder known as “Ryoshi”. Shiba Inu aspires to be an Ethereum-based alternative to the more popular and longer-running meme coin – Dogecoin (DOGE). At launch, 50% of the Shiba Inu’s total supply was sent to Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum wallet, making SHIB a unique community experiment as well. Ethereum co-founder ended up donating 10% of the supply to a COVID-19 relief effort in India and burned the rest of his SHIB holdings. It is worth mentioning that his donation was worth around $1 billion at that time. While SHIB began as a fun experimental currency it is now transforming into a decentralized ecosystem.

    Buy/Sell SHIB

    SHIB’s 300% rally carried the meme currency among the top 15 cryptos by market capitalization

    As it is usual for meme coins rallies, there is no clear fundamental explanation as to why SHIB soared more than 300% last week. Many crypto observers say that the meme token’s performance is closely linked to Elon Musk’s social media activity. Tesla CEO, who recently got a new puppy of the Shiba Inu breed, posted two pictures of his new four-legged companion named Floki. This triggered rallies in all dog-related cryptocurrency markets, including DOGE, FLOKI and SHIB as the crypto community overly interpreted Musk’s puppy tweets as hidden and cryptographic coin endorsements. In the days following the second tweet, SHIB soared from $ 0.000009 to $ 0.000035 almost exceeding its ATH price of $ 0.000038, which was set on May 10, 2021. As a result of the price surge, the meme token found itself positioned within the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market cap (at one brief moment SHIB was listed on 12th position). SHIB’s price has since corrected, and the token is currently changing hands at a price of $ 0.000026. The total SHIB market capitalization is currently $10.2 billion, which puts the token on the 20th place.

    May it be because of Musk’s tweets or not, Shiba Inu has lately been seeing a large influx of new users, which can be seen in the increasing number of active addresses. Due to the increased attention, Shiba Inu has also increased the number of followers on social media. Shiba Inu’s official Twitter account, for example, recently celebrated crossing 1 million followers. In addition, the recently introduced SHIB burning program has made SHIB a deflationary token, which is another factor contributing towards token appreciation over time. If the SHIB rally was fuelled purely by speculation and hype, the price of SHIB will likely drop as fast as it rose. However, if investors and developers recognize SHIB as a valuable and promising token due to reasons listed above, SHIB may retain its value or even set a new ATH price in the near future.

    2. Axie Infinity (AXS)

    Axie Infinity is a Pokémon-inspired blockchain-powered trading and battling online video game. The game, which has netted more than $2 billion in NFT sales to date, is developed by a Vietnamese gaming studio Sky Mavis. Axie infinity players utilize Ethereum-issued tokens AXS and Small Love Potion (SLP) to breed, trade and battle with their virtual creatures called Axies. Each Axie is represented by an NFT, and the growing userbase and protocol revenue has made Axie Infinity one of the most expensive NFTs collections. Blockchain-based gaming sector is currently booming and games facilitating the ”play to earn” concept are especially popular. Axie Infinity is a prime example of such a blockchain gaming project, which has resulted in AXS appreciation as well. AXS token is not only the best performing gaming token, but also the best performing cryptocurrency from the top 200 this year as AXS price increased over 200x YTD.

    Buy/Sell AXS

    AXS sets a new ATH price of $154 following the launch of AXS staking and a massive airdrop to early-adopters

    Riding the tailwind of booming popularity of the blockchain gaming platforms, Axie Infinity (AXS) climbed towards its new ATH price of nearly $155 last week. However, since AXS is outperforming every other gaming token and even every other cryptocurrency, there must be more reasons behind the latest AXS rally. The already popular game and token were made even more desirable by players and investors by the launch of AXS token staking on September 30. Since many players are trying to make profit by playing this play-to-earn (P2E) game, the promised APR of 240% for stakers made AXS a very sought-after asset. According to the official AXS staking dashboard, users have staked almost $2 billion worth of AXS tokens in an attempt to get a share of the 78.3 million AXS that the Axie Infinity team has put aside for staking rewards. As a result of the high amount of staked AXS the estimated APR has dropped to 140%, which is still substantially more than staking rewards of many other protocols. In less than four days following the roll-out of AXS staking, the price of AXS more than doubled, reaching a high at $154 on October 4. In addition, the team behind Axie Infinity decided to generously reward its early users by airdropping 800,000 AXS (currently worth around $94 million) to around 10,000 wallets that interacted with Axie protocol prior to October 26, 2020. Some of the more active players were happy to find out that their wallets suddenly contained quite a small fortune. Furthermore, Jeff Zirlin, the Co-founder and growth lead at Sky Mavis, the company developing Axie Infinity, recently revealed that they are planning to launch a decentralized exchange (DEX) service with trading functionality limited to crypto assets within the Axie Infinity ecosystem, which will allow players to trade and use tokens all within the same ecosystem without having to constantly use network bridges.

    1. Terra (LUNA)

    The Terra blockchain, which acts as the basis of the algorithmically governed stablecoin platform called Terra, is developed by a South Korean based company Terraform Labs. The platform is built on the Cosmos technology and utilizes a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. LUNA, which is the reserve currency of the Terra platform, has three key functions; these are ensuring the price stability of Terra stablecoins, mining Terra transactions through staking and providing incentives to blockchain validators.

    Buy/Sell LUNA

    Terra’s interoperability with Solana and Polkadot causes LUNA to surge to a new ATH of almost $50

    The Columbus-5 upgrade, which we already wrote about four weeks ago, took place on September 30. Besides massively overhauling Terra’s tokenomics, the Columbus-5 upgrade gave Terra the ability to communicate and interact with protocols in the Cosmos ecosystem such as Solana and Polkadot. Due to this new interoperability, Terra and its TerrUSD (UST) dollar-pegged stablecoin are now accessible to a wide range of dApps and projects. As already mentioned, Columbus-5 also introduced a major change to the project’s tokenomics model, which states that instead of being channelled into the community pool, all LUNA used to mint UST shall be burned. These two changes combined, could prove to be very beneficial for LUNA price action in the long-term as interoperability will likely result in a more wide-spread use of Terra’s blockchain and greater use will cause accelerated burning of LUNA. In fact, many investors speculated on the possible consequences of these changes, which caused a small LUNA rally that peaked at a price of almost $50 on October 4. Since then, LUNA has dropped below $40 again. However, with time, the deflationary pressure generated by LUNA burning should show up on the price charts again. In addition, according to data provided by DeFi Lama, Terra is the 4th largest chain according to the total value locked (TVL) in protocols running on it. It boasts with a TVL of over $8 billion even though just 8 DeFi protocols (most well-known are Anchor, Mirror, and Lido) are operating on its chain. Do you think Terra could turn out to be the real ”Ethereum killer”?

  • Bakkt Users will be Able to Spend Crypto to Purchase Everyday Goods and Services via Google Pay

    Bakkt Users will be Able to Spend Crypto to Purchase Everyday Goods and Services via Google Pay

    Key takeaways:

    • Bakkt’s partnership with Google includes integration with Google Pay and Google Cloud services
    • Virtual Bakkt Card users will be able to add their cards to Google Pay and purchase goods and services online and in-store at millions of merchants
    • Bitcoin and other digital assets held on Bakkt will be automatically converted to fiat for payment to occur

    On Friday, Bakkt announced a partnership with Google, which will allow its users to spend their Bitcoin and other digital assets wherever Google Pay is accepted. Google payment platform’s support for Bakkt credit cards will greatly increase the usability of Bakkt and introduce millions of customers to crypto assets.

    Google services to boost Bakkt’s platform functionality and greatly increase its reach

    Bitcoin and other supported cryptocurrencies will automatically be converted to regular fiat currency whenever a payment with digital assets will be made. In order to take advantage of Google Pay integration, Bakkt users will have to add their virtual Bakkt Cards as a payment method into Google Pay. 

    The partnership with Silicon Valley-based search giant is not limited to Google Pay service only but also includes extensive integration with Google Cloud. Bakkt aims to utilize a vast database of consumer behavior patterns powered by Google Cloud infrastructure to provide its customers with “expanded loyalty redemption options,” according to the official press release. 

    The financial services company is also planning on developing new analytics tools using “artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and geolocation functionality,” to provide “location-aware business insights” to both regular users and Bakkt partners.

    Bakkt CEO Gavin Michael is excited about the partnership and its potential to benefit millions of customers around the world:

    “This partnership is a testament to Bakkt’s strong position in the digital asset marketplace, to empower consumers to enjoy their digital assets in a real-time, secure, reliable manner. Additionally, partnering with Google Cloud will enable us to continue to build a best-in-class, innovative platform that can undoubtedly scale to meet the needs of millions of users.”

    Google Cloud President of North America Kirsten Kliphouse shares the sentiment, and stated that they “are proud to help Bakkt accelerate and scale the availability of their innovative solutions.”

    Bakkt was founded in 2018 by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which is a Fortune 500 company that owns and operates 12 exchanges and 6 major clearinghouses, most notably the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Bakkt was initially just a digital assets custody service but has since grown to become a fully-fledged payment platform with dedicated mobile app support, support for gift cards, cash payments, and digital currency payments.

    Bakkt follows in the footsteps of Coinbase, which has announced support for Apple Pay and Google Pay earlier this year.

  • BitTorrent Announces First Three Winners Leading Up to 10 Million BTT Grand Prize

    BitTorrent Announces First Three Winners Leading Up to 10 Million BTT Grand Prize

    San Francisco, California, 10th October, 2021,

    BitTorrent, a leader in peer-to-peer protocols and products, announced the first-round winners of the Golden Wallet Sweepstakes – a new incentive program designed to reward the community members and drive more engagement. 

    Eray Özgen, a Turkey resident, was awarded the 1 million BTT in the first weekly drawing. Özgen, who owns a film production company with his brother, said he plans to invest a portion of that award into TRON Foundation projects (tokens and coins).

    The Week 2 Giveaway winner was Clark Michael Gaya. The 34-year-old Filipino citizen works as a mechanical fitter on marine vessels. While waiting for his next assignment on a passenger yacht in France, Gaya plans to hold off and keep the 1 million BTT he won as he anticipates BitTorrent’s native token to appreciate. 

    Ben Huggins was the latest of the winners. “The money is a very significant windfall to me. I’ve never really had decent money in my life, so this prize would help in paying off almost all of my non-student debts and car loan. Without that stress, I can join a coding bootcamp and finally get my first start into software engineering.”

    In particular, participants are required to download and install any of the sponsor’s free or paid applications that contain a BitTorrent Speed wallet. Then, entrants can activate the Golden Wallet Incentive following the steps outlined when launching BitTorrent Speed for the first time.

    Participants in the incentive program – who activate the Speed wallet – can turbocharge their rewards. They will benefit from additional perks, including faster download speeds while receiving rewards in BitTorrent (BTT) tokens. 

    No purchase, entry fee, or obligation is necessary to enter the sweepstakes or win. Participants can also enter by email. In addition, eligible Sweepstakes torrent clients can be downloaded here: µTorrent Classic, µTorrent Web, BitTorrent Classic, BitTorrent Web.  

    The grand prize winner of 10 million BTT is yet to be selected. Participants can enter through October 11th 3:59 PST.  You can find more details about the Golden Wallet Sweepstakes here.

    About BitTorrent

    Founded in 2004, BitTorrent is one of the largest decentralized peer-to-peer networks in the world, with almost 100 million active users driving 22% of upstream and 3% of downstream traffic globally. As a pioneer in decentralized services, BitTorrent boasts nearly 100M monthly active users. The TRON ecosystem has gained incredible traction in recent years, with over 52 million users on the blockchain and upwards of 2.3 billion transactions. 

    Contacts
    • Anjali George
    • anjali@tron.network
  • Moonstake Wallet Now Supports Staking of TRON (TRX)!

    Moonstake Wallet Now Supports Staking of TRON (TRX)!

    Moonstake is now an official Super Partner of TRON network! Users can stake TRX to earn staking rewards on Moonstake Web Wallet and mobile wallet! Hold, send, receive, and stake TRX to receive rewards with the best user experience through one single click. TRON became the 13th available staking coin on Moonstake.

    Moonstake started the staking business last year with the aim to create the largest staking network in Asia. Since then, it has developed the most user-friendly Web Wallet and Mobile Wallet (iOS / Android) with support for over 2,000 cryptocurrencies. After a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, Moonstake’s total staking assets have grown rapidly to reach $1 billion, allowing Moonstake to become one of the top 10 staking providers globally. Since March this year, Moonstake has also entered DeFi together with the newly launched DeFi platform, Muse.Finance, who has begun releasing its core DeFi products which are all scheduled to be integrated into Moonstake platform to enable advanced DeFi connectivity for its global users.

    TRON is a market-leading blockchain well-known for its large and highly active community of users and developers from all over the world, dedicated to the establishment of a truly decentralized Internet and its infrastructure. The TRON Protocol, one of the largest blockchain operating systems in the world, adopts an energy efficient dPoS consensus mechanism to provide high throughput, high scalability, and high availability for decentralized applications in the TRON ecosystem through collaboration with key business partners including global tech giant Samsung, Opera, BitTorrent, Poloniex, Swisscom Blockchain, and many more. It is one of the fastest growing DeFi ecosystems on the market, currently boasting more than 55 million global user accounts and over 2 billion cumulative transactions.

    Additionally, the TRON-based TRC20 protocol currently hosts the largest circulation of stablecoin globally with nearly 36 billion USDT. Its native coin Tronix (TRX) can be used by content consumers to pay creators for in-game assets, or use as currency in gaming or to reward creators directly for their entertainment content or to purchase additional access. Most recently, TRON joined a short list of leading crypto tokens (namely Bitcoin and Ether) with the successful listing of VanEck TRX ETP (VTRX) on the Deutsche Boerse, providing investor access in 14 EU markets.

    Through our strategic partnership since June 2021, TRON and Moonstake have worked diligently to bring a satisfactory TRX staking experience for users and we are proud to deliver the results of our labor to you. As both of our projects are also involved in the field of DeFi, we are exploring deeper collaboration opportunities to deliver more innovation and value to our user communities worldwide.

    How to stake TRX on Moonstake Wallet

    Here’s a simple 3-step process to stake TRX with Moonstake Wallet:

    • Register your Moonstake Wallet via Web or mobile (iOS / Android)
    • Select TRX from the “Wallets” screen and click the “Add Asset” button.
    • Access the TRX screen to check your staking information. From the Staking tab, click the “Staking” button and enter your wallet password to complete staking.

    How voting (staking) and unstaking works on TRON network

    Every account in TRON’s network can vote for the Super Representatives/Super Partners they support. Voting requires TRON Power (TP), which is determined by the users’ frozen balance. Freezing (staking) TRX tokens results in energy and bandwidth required to interact smoothly with the network as well as the increase in voting power of voting for Super Representatives/Super Partners.

    To vote for a Super Representative/Super Partner, you will need to make sure that your TRX is frozen. This will create “TRON Power” and give you power to vote. This does not cost you TRX, it will only lock them for a period of 3 days. During these three days, your TRX cannot be traded. Moonstake wallet combines the freeze/unfreeze action along with stake/unstake for your convenience so you do not need to perform the freeze/unfreeze action separately.

    There is no minimum staking amount required.

    What are the roles of Super Representative and Super Partner?

    In the TRON network, any account can apply to become a Super Representative or Super Partner. Every account can vote for Super Representative candidates. The top 27 candidates with the most votes are the Super Representatives, while the 28th to 127th will become Super Partners. The top 127 candidates (including 27 Super Representatives) can be awarded according to their voting rate, and this 127-ranking fluctuates depending on the number of votes over time. Super Representatives will be obligated to generate blocks and package transactions, in return for corresponding block rewards (9%) as well as voting rewards (91%). Super Partners, on the other hand, only receive voting rewards without performing the aforementioned two tasks. All Super Representative candidates, Super Partners, and Super Representatives have the right to raise proposals to modify parameters on the TRON network. 

    How to get rewards of TRX staking:

    The annual reward (APY) is about 5.46%. You can claim your TRX rewards once every 24 hours. Staking rewards are distributed by the Super Representative (Partner) depending on the rules that they have set.

    TRON looks forward to deeper cooperation with Moonstake to accelerate global adoption of the TRON network and staking ecosystems as a whole as well as DeFi services as we both scale our growing ecosystems together.

    About TRON

    Since its inception in 2018, TRON network has blossomed into one of the largest open blockchain platforms. It is at the forefront of industry adoption of popular smart contracts such as DeFi, NFT, stablecoin, distributed storage protocol, etc. TRON enjoys a global audience with over 55 million in total user accounts. It is home to the largest stablecoin circulation (USDT) with more than 50% of the global market share and over $50 billion in on-chain crypto assets. In addition, it ranks top-three globally in terms of total value locked in DeFi (TVL) with more than $11 billion at present. 

    https://tron.network/

    About Moonstake

    As a world-leading staking service provider, Moonstake develops and operates decentralized wallet services for enterprises and end users.

    Its full-scale staking business started in August 2020. With the support of users all over the world, its total staking assets has risen to 1.8 billion dollars. In June 2021, it ranked third among 15,000 staking providers globally.

    So far, it has expanded business and ecosystem through about 30 strategic partnerships, including major blockchains such as Emurgo which is a constituent organization of Cardano, TRON, and NEO. In May 2021, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of the listed company “OIO Holdings Limited” on the Singapore Stock Exchange and it is working to further expand Moonstake’s business and improve its credibility.

    https://www.moonstake.io/