KIWIE Set to Launch NFTs Representing Real-Life Street Art in 1001 Locations Across The World
Riga, Latvia, April 6th, 2021 — KIWIE, a worldwide-famous Latvian street art collective, is unveiling a new series of blockchain-enabled art installations across the world. Building on the signature Fat Monster character developed by KIWIE back in 2006, the artists are making street graffiti that are owned directly by the holder of the NFT.
KIWIE NFTs will each come with a custom-made virtual 3D figure representing a real spray painting somewhere in the world. The figure will include a geotag associating the NFT to its respective artwork. The holder of the NFT effectively owns the street art, and is free to resell the artwork. In addition to the virtual 3D figure, participants of the NFT auction will also receive a metal card representing the Fat Monster they bought. Should the Fat Monster painting be removed or covered in real-life, the NFT will turn into a unique “ghost monster.”
The Fat Monster grew to a large community of fans, with over 18,000 followers on Instagram. People have fun looking for them in any city they go, and share the finds on social media. Fat Monsters in each location have their own unique design, often radically different from any other while still maintaining the same essence. A KIWIE Fan Art movement also sees community members drawing their own takes on the Fat Monster.
“The Fat Monster is a unique and iconic creation, and it’s different from what many other street artists do,” said Kristaps Vaivods, Lead Business Strategist at KIWIE. “I just love the global community that formed around the cute monsters, and I hope that the ability to really own a piece of street art will be even more inspirational.”
NFTs are revolutionary for the street art ecosystem because of their non-invasive nature. Previously, selling the work of a graffiti artist required detaching the wall where it was drawn, even if the environment around the artwork was part of its meaning. This is the case with KIWIE’s work, where physical location is an incredibly important part of the Fat Monster’s appeal.
“Using NFTs to represent ownership allows to maintain the beauty of the art intact,” added KIWIE, the creator of Fat Monster. “Blockchain is not just a buzzword here, it legitimately enables something that used to be impossible.”
KIWIE plans to drop the first batch of 5 NFTs on April 13th via Rarible. These will represent existing artworks, while the next four batches in upcoming months will be composed of new artworks made specifically for the NFTs.
Mashya Vyazemskaya, Head of Communications at Rarible said: “The NFT community has been figuring out meaningful ways to bridge physical and digital art. Kiwie 1001 is a smart, purposeful and fun project by a fantastic street artist that does exactly that. We’re happy that the team chose Rarible for the launch!”
About KIWIE
KIWIE is the name of a Latvian art collective led by the homonymous Kiwie, one of the first street artists in Latvia. KIWIE’s signature Fat Monster was born in 2005 and gained recognition worldwide for its cute design and unique artistic meaning. Kristaps Vaivods, a blockchain gaming industry veteran, leads the blockchain vision for the collective and is the mind behind its revolutionary NFT drops.
With the first quarter of 2021 already behind us we are now already looking forward towards what Q2 2021 will bring. In Q1 2021 cryptocurrencies became a trillion-dollar asset class for the first time, as the total market capitalization of the sector climbed from $777 billion to $1.87 trillion. Will the bull market continue or is a market correction behind the corner? Will the non-fungible token (NFT) hype cool down or will the sector find new, unprecedented use cases for these tokens? And most importantly for the up-and-coming investors, which coins are the most likely to end in the green, perhaps even outperform the industry’s average growth? To answer this question, we advise you to continue following our Top 3 Coins to Watch series.
1. Bitcoin
Although we believe Bitcoin does not need much introduction and that all eyes would be on it even if it were not featured on our list, here is a short summary of the history and key characteristics of the first truly decentralized digital currency. The world’s pioneer cryptocurrency was launched by pseudonymous figure named Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 and has a capped supply of 21 million coins. The decreasing miner block rewards makes the cryptocurrency scarcer with time, ensuring a deflationary nature.
Bitcoin sees Continued Growth for the Sixth Month in a Row – $100,000 by the End of the Year Now Sounds Pretty Reasonable
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is often referred to as the crypto market health barometer, since Bitcoin’s performance influences the general sentiment across the whole crypto space. This means that altcoins are thriving when Bitcoin is bullish and vice versa, when Bitcoin dips, altcoins are usually hit even harder. Nevertheless, the market barometer is indication very favourable and bullish market conditions. Bitcoin has managed to keep its price above $50,000 since March 6, this is 31 consecutive days or a whole month. In addition, Bitcoin is seeing continued growth for already more than half a year. March was already the 6th month in a row that BTC managed to close in the green.
Furthermore, Bitcoin’s monthly candles continue to stay within a very steep ascending channel. Will Bitcoin end April in the green too? According to historical data, which shows Bitcoin gained 51% on average in April over the past 10 years, and options open interest, which shows that many investors are betting on $80,000 by the end of April, this seems quite likely. If BTC closes April with a green candle, this will be the first time that we would see seven 7 straight green candles, since September 2012, when Bitcoin gradually climbed from $4.30 to $15.4 over the course of seven months. It is unbelievable that Bitcoin was once trading at such a low price less than 10 years ago.
While Bitcoin’s market capitalization, which is currently around $1.1 trillion, continues to grow, quite the opposite is happening to the BTC market dominance, which is just slightly above 55%. According to one analysis this could be explained by the fact that investors are converting their Bitcoin into large market cap altcoins in an attempt to maximize their profits.
In addition to long-term retail investors buying up almost every dip, Coinbase exchange money flow indicates that U.S. institutions are still accumulating. The popular cryptocurrency exchange has lately been seeing increased volumes followed by huge outflows to BTC cold wallets. Cryptocurrency analyst Willy Woo recently speculated:
“Maybe an unannounced institution is buying, maybe it’s a private hedge fund or many of them. But there’s certainly a lot of buying going from Coinbase which tends to be U.S. institutions.”
Finally, the bullish price predictions are getting even more bullish. One year ago, people who claimed that Bitcoin is going to hit $100,000 or more were called dreamers and unrealistic Bitcoin bulls. Today, this number seems well within reach. Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg, recently tweeted that Bitcoin seems to be transitioning to a risk-off digital reserve asset:
#Bitcoin in Transition to Risk-Off Reserve Asset: BI Commodity — Well on its way to becoming a global digital reserve asset, a maturation leap in 2021 may be transitioning Bitcoin toward a risk-off asset, in our view. pic.twitter.com/Ycr1LSqEAJ
The attached picture shows that in the most bullish scenario Bitcoin could end 2021 with a price as high as $400,000. JPMorgan’s analysts remain a bit more conservative, predicting Bitcoin to reach a price of $130,000 in the long-term. The long-term price target has recently been bumped down from $148,000 as the price of gold, which plays an important role in JPMorgan’s projections, dropped. Nevertheless, this price predictions are coming from institutions that did not even approve Bitcoin a bit more than a year ago.
2. ChainLink
ChainLink provides data and price oracles, which are essential for the normal function of smart contract-enabled blockchain platforms. ChainLink’s price and real-world data oracles have seen numerous implementations and their popularity is still increasing. Their oracle service is one of the most reliable and trustworthy services available and the connection with smart contracts is end-to-end secured, leaving very little space for the manipulation of the execution of smart contracts. The platform incentivises providers of good data feeds while the nodes that submit bad data will see their staked LINK tokens slashed. The project launched in 2017, when it also raised $32 million of funding through an ICO.
Substrate module Brings ChainLink’s oracles to Polkadot Network
The popular crypto oracle provider ChainLink recently announced arguably the biggest news from this project for this year – its expansion to the Polkadot environment. The ChainLink team revealed on April 2, that their oracles are now available in the form of a “pallet” on the Polkadot environment:
#Chainlink Price Feeds are now available as an oracle pallet to all #Substrate, #Polkadot, & #Kusama chains. This gives teams building across the Polkadot ecosystem a standardized, easy-to-integrate, & time-tested oracle solution to support their DeFi appshttps://t.co/Ak1vqQxlYk
The ChainLink oracles being available in the form of a native Substrate “pallet” means that developers of any Polkadot or Kusama parachain can now seamlessly and super-easily integrate ChainLink oracles into their blockchains through a simplified library. You could also say that pallets are “like drag-and-drop blockchain building”, like a Polkadot developer Dan Reecer put it in one of his tweets.
While ChainLink nodes regularly publish price data in each block on Ethereum, allowing smart contracts to either use that data or simply ignore it, this will not happen on Polkadot. The choice to integrate the ChainLink Substrate pallet or not is up to each individual parachain, which means that the parachains that do not need price oracles for their operation can save up on blockchain space by not opting in. For those who integrate ChainLink oracles, however, this might enable several DeFi-centric use cases of their Polkadot or Kusama parachain. Nevertheless, experts warn that additional development work will likely be required to adapt the ChainLink pallet for use with smart contracts.
ChainLink is also one of the high market cap altcoins that is starting to see institutional involvement, as Grayscale launched a LINK trust along with some other altcoin trusts in mid-March. The launch of the Grayscale LINK trust triggered a 12% LINK pump the following day, but despite the initial surge things cooled off pretty fast for LINK. If we exclude the initial pump, when LINK was way more volatile (therefore also a riskier investment), ChainLink was underperforming when compared to Ethereum and Bitcoin. While LINK’s price chart closely resembled ETH’s one at the end of March, the gains of the popular oracle provider token are not again a few percent below the gains posted by ETH.
Relative price performance of LINK as compared to the one of BTC and ETH from March 17, when Grayscale Launched ChainLink Trust, to today.
According to data provided by ByBt.com Greyscale bought up 115,570 LINK tokens for its ChainLink Trust from the trust’s launch on March 17 until April 1. The purchase of 65,570 LINK on Thursday, April 1, helped push the price of LINK over $30, where it still trades. Currently LINK is changing hands at around $32.5, but the token is still believed to have a major upside potential.
3. Enjin Coin (ENJ)
Enjin Coin (ENJ) is an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency (ERC1155 token) used to directly back the value of next-generation blockchain assets. It is designed for social gaming as it allows virtual goods to be traded on the blockchain using smart contracts and ENJ as a payment method. The project aims to change the fundamental nature of virtual worlds by providing infinite high-speed transactions between players and game providers at zero cost. More than a million people are already using Enjin’s products to manage, create, and trade these blockchain assets.
A high-speed Bridge Network JumpNet Launched on April 6
JumpNet a high-speed two-way bridge network that facilitates free, swift, and secure on-chain transactions of ENJ and ERC-1155 tokens launched on April 6. JumpNet, which connects the Enjin blockchain with Ethereum and third-party chains is part of the Enjin Coin team’s continued strive to improve NFT compatibility and functionality. It makes minting, trading, and sending of NFTs much easier. In addition, the team have also announced that the launch of JumpNet will be accompanied by the popular GameTalkTalk joining the Enjin ecosystem.
In addition, Enjin is getting ready to launch Efinity, a next-generation NFT blockchain on the Polkadot network. The company recently concluded a private sale which raised more than $18.9 million for the development of the platform, but there is about to be a public sale as well. While JumpNet takes case of compatibility, Efinity, will address the scalability and accessibility as it promises around 700 to 1,000 forever free transactions per second (TPS). In addition, Efinity will bring a new level of utility for the Enjin Coin token: staking – users will receive rewards paid out in EFI for staking their ENJ. Furthermore, the NFTs held in wallets will be auto-staked, allowing their owners to earn a small amount of passive income just for holding Enjin-based items. It should go without saying that passive income coins are extremely popular among cryptocurrency investors and the coins that provide passive income have performed very well during the past bull runs.
To conclude, Enjin is one of the few projects that was the most successful at capitalizing on the NFT hype and the rapid growth of the Enjin ecosystem has also sparked up speculations whether Coinbase will list ENJ or not. While the prominent U.S. crypto exchange already supports ENJ custody, the Enjin Coin is not being traded on the platform yet. The Coinbase team recently accidentally published an ENJ support page, which additionally fuelled the speculations. The influx of new investors and fresh capital after a potential Coinbase listing would without a doubt cause ENJ to surge even higher.
For over 35 years, the world of finance found itself in near stasis. The invention of SWIFT was a game-changer but unfortunately didn’t innovate faster than the pace of other developments highly reliant on cheap, instantaneous, and borderless transfer of value.
Crypto: A Permanent Fixture in Finance
The innovation of blockchain sparked a paradigm shift, now commandeering billions. In less than 13 years, cryptocurrencies are now a permanent fixture in finance.For their ease of use, low cost, and guarantee of security, they are widely used in moving value, cheaply, and most importantly, without relying on the middle man every day of the week.
By building on redundancy and feeding on the community’s spirit–eliminating dark patches and opaqueness, crypto continues to disrupt traditional finance. It is remarkably defining the sector as an emerging, superior alternative to banks’ red-tape.
Presently, crypto’s market cap is over $1.6 trillion and analysts are optimistic, expecting widespread adoption of blockchain payment networks to replace legacy solutions.
Caizchain: Moving Value Fairly
Amid this expansion is the rollout of alternative blockchains that builds on Bitcoin’s lead, offering an innovative transparent solution based on Islamic financial laws. Caizchain is a platform which investors can use, fully aware that the token is compliant with Sharia laws.
It completed its testing phase in Q4 2020. Currently, it is crowdfunding through a private sale and plans to initialize its network launch in Q2 2021.
Through the Caizchain, Muslims and non-Muslims can transfer value in a secure, transparent blockchain, compliant with Know-Your-Customer (KYC) rules and Islamic finance rules. The blockchain-based platform blends beneficial Islamic laws and modern, progressive values to be concurrently modern, tech-savvy, and abiding.
Herein, the Caizchain places the network users’ interest at the forefront as per Islamic dictates. Inherently, there is a mix of transparency and open-mindedness, digitization, and harmony, translating into a solution where users can remit cash cheaply.
The Caizchain has special provisions for the payment of Zakat and Waqf (donations). It acts as a reliable friend adhering to Islamic values of contributing to humanity by leveraging tech-savvy emerging technologies. The blockchain’s wallets enable the movement of funds transparently, reliably, yet anonymously protecting the identity of transactors.
Enabling DeFi in a Islam-Compliant Manner
Amid the rise of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Caizchain is creating a portal for investors to morally participate in the burgeoning sphere, legally and in line with Islamic laws.
According to estimates, DeFi in Ethereum alone manages over $40 billion of different assets. It presents ways for retail investors to access lucrative investment opportunities, ordinarily barred in the traditional setup as lessons from Robinhood and WSB sagas show.
Through the Caizchain, users can invest in state directives, shares, property, funds, and others, earning rewards in a legal, moral, and transparent manner.
The platform allows secure, reliable, and flexible anonymous investing with KYC. Users can use the CAIZ token to finance trips such as Mekka Haddsch, enhanced shopping experiences, and flexibility.
Additionally, by using the CAIZ coin, there are no lock-up periods. The platform’s users can withdraw and deposit their assets anytime for fiat or crypto using their PayPal, Debit/Credit cards, or other crypto wallets.
DeFi is the talk of the town in the cryptocurrency and blockchain community as users are interested in the prospect of earning yield directly on the blockchain. Yield farming, staking and other similar concepts have established themselves as popular choices among cryptocurrency users. Clever DeFi has come up with its own take on this trend by creating a system where users can get rewards directly into their cryptocurrency wallet.
Clever DeFi is a very straightforward project in principle. Those who hold CLVA tokens in their Ethereum wallets receive interest payments every two weeks. The interest is paid in the form of CLVA tokens, and the payments are executed in a completely automated manner through a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain.
The two-week periods between interest payments are called »cycles«, and there will be 888 cycles in total before CLVA token holders stop receiving their interest payments – the whole process will take about 34 years to finish.
Clever DeFi provides an alternative to other DeFi protocols, where users have to wade through confusing user interfaces and deposit their cryptocurrency into different addresses in order to participate. In contrast, all that’s required to earn yield on CLVA is to hold the token in an Ethereum wallet, and Clever DeFi’s smart contract takes care of everything else.
Those who will be holding CLVA for one year starting from the first cycle will see their CLVA holdings grow by a total of 307%. Of course, there are no guarantees that this will actually result in gains against BTC, ETH, fiat currencies or any other asset.
The CLVA token trades on the open market and the demand for CLVA will ultimately determine how the token will perform. However, the token is designed to give an edge to long-term holders as the interest payments to CLVA are effectively compounded. At the end of each cycle, holders receive an amount of CLVA based on the amount of tokens they already have in their wallet. By the end of the fifth year, those who held CLVA since cycle 1 will see their token holdings increase by around 600%.
Clever DeFi have created an analytics page where users can easily check the progress of CLVA’s supply growth, how many unique addresses are holding CLVA, the current distribution cycle, and other important metrics. The page also provides a calculator where users can see how many CLVA tokens they can earn starting with a selected cycle and token amount.
CLVA is a new entrant to the cryptocurrency markets, as its minting phase was just finished on March 3. In the minting phase, a total of 726.5 ETH was committed by users, which was enough to mint around 340,000 CLVA tokens. After the initial CLVA supply was minted, the token was made available for trading on Uniswap and P2PB2B, providing both decentralized and centralized trading options.
On Uniswap, there’s currently $955,000 in liquidity for the ETH-CLVA trading pair. As for the funds that the Clever DeFi team is using to provide liquidity on Uniswap, the team writes:
»Private Keys to the liquidity wallets are locked in a secure cloud operated service which is encrypted using cryptography. It cannot be accessed manually but instead is under a time-lock mechanism that will allow access to keys only after 12 months have passed; April 15th 2022.«
After hitting the market, CLVA found a bottom at about $4.20. The token proceeded to show a strong rebound, and peaked at $9.25. After a short consolidation, CLVA tokens are trading at about $8.14 apiece. However, the token has been trading for less than a month, and increased volatility is expected for any token that’s new to the market – depending on who you ask, this can either be viewed as a risk or as an opportunity.
EQIBank has announced that Unido will become its institutional partner for blockchain solutions. The agreement specifies that EQIBank will be utilizing a customised version of Unido Insto, which is the institutional bank-in-a-box solution built on Unido’s fragmented key signing technology. Unido Insto will provide crypto custody and crypto trading products to existing EQIBank clients and help with new user acquisitions.
The Unido Insto platform provides custody services for banks and digital exchanges geared at investors, asset managers, and crypto-native companies. The product offers end users secure management of their digital assets from a central dashboard. Besides custody and access to a marketplace of DeFi options to deliver yields on idle assets, Unido will deliver an integrated OTC trading interface for EQIBank to crypto trading. The solution is built on Unido’s advanced security based on its patented fragmented key signing engine.
“EQIBank selected the Unido platform due to its market leading security solution, based on patent-pending fragmented key signing engine, and its easy-to-use client experience. This brings EQIBank clients easy access to secure crypto storage, OTC transacting, and DeFi investing,” said Edwin Carlson, Chief Operating Officer of EQIBank about the partnership.
Unido is a crypto asset custody service and enterprise platform with features for the management and investment of crypto assets on-chain. It relies on a patent-pending fragmented private key obfuscation algorithm for security and offers services that are interoperable with most blockchain networks. Unido’s enterprise features include a business banking portal as well as DeFi Vault. Learn more on Twitter or Telegram. EQIBank is the world’s first global digital bank aimed solely at businesses and high-net-worth individuals, which provides offshore, tax-exempt, and tailored personal and corporate banking services to clients in 180 countries and territories. With 24/7 cloud-based access, real time insights, and high barriers to entry, EQIBank’s strategy is to accelerate simplification, using Open Banking Standards and Open APIs to create a new global standard of banking.
Wisebitcoin, a fast-growing cryptocurrency trading platform, recently opened trade of the Symbol token (XYM) with Tether (USDT) to all professional traders beginning March 22. The launch of the XYM/USDT trading pair was accompanied by an airdrop of XYM tokens to holders of XEM, the native token of NEM, the New Economy Movement project.
Symbol was launched in March 2021. Symbol is a hybrid, enterprise-grade solution that helps businesses combine blockchain-powered flexibility, security, and speed with the transparency of public chains and the customization needed to secure sensitive data based on different application needs and use cases.
Wisebitcoin Senior Advisor Andrew Chae stated that Wisebitcoin is always excited to list new projects and that XYM is an asset with great fundamentals that Wisebitcoin is happy to support with an airdrop. Symbol comes with all of the tools and features needed in the growing enterprise blockchain space and the Wisebitcoin listing, airdrop, and launch were designed to provide XYM holders with the liquidity needed to get more investors on board and to give Symbol the mass exposure needed to give it serious traction.
About Wisebitcoin
Wisebitcoin is an enterprise-grade decentralized global exchange for professional traders. With a multicultural team of over 50 specialists, it is part of an expansive global network that boasts over $6 billion in daily trading volumes. Some of its trading pairs can handle over 2.3 million transactions per second and the platform provides best-in-class services, such as 100X leverage on contract trading, 24/7 live support, fast and performant cloud infrastructure, affiliate programs for projects and customers, and deep liquidity.
Wisebitcoin’s platform comes with a user-friendly interface, native apps for iOS and Android, and insurance protection for user funds to give you the peace of mind and performance you need to excel in the cryptocurrency token and digital asset trading markets. Learn more at www.wisebitcoin.com and https://twitter.com/wisebitcoin.
About Symbol (XYM)Symbol was designed to be the go-to enterprise blockchain solution that gives users and businesses security, performance, frictionless operations, fast data flows, and turbocharged innovation to create, exchange, and protect digital assets. Symbol is purpose-built to help businesses lower costs, remove operational complexity, empower innovation, and improve transparency. Learn more by visiting https://symbolplatform.com/.
Cook Protocol, a cross-chain DeFi asset management protocol, has completed its Initial Decentralized Exchange offering on DuckStarter and has successfully distributed the COOK token on three blockchains.
Cook Protocol is a decentralized platform for performing cross-chain asset management. The protocol allows anyone to create strategies for earning yield, which can be used passively by the Cook community. Fund managers have complete freedom in creating strategies and deploy them on multiple blockchains. Strategies can range from simple yield farming aggregation to advanced index funds and derivative-based trading systems.
Key to the success of Cook Protocol is COOK, a governance token that allows the community to modify important parameters of the protocol. Token holders can choose the strategies they wish to see, decide how much of the platform’s revenue should be used for rewards, and decide the direction of Cook Protocol’s development.
Cook Protocol’s token is now fully released to the community on three blockchains. These include Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Huobi ECO Chain (HECO).
“We had a successful TGE. Within 24 hours of the TGE, Ethereum, BSC and HECO networks recorded over 6,700 COOK holders, and the trading volume spiked above $30 million,” said Kun Peng, Co-Founder of Cook Protocol. “This shows the strong belief of the community in the COOK token and Cook Protocol.”
The COOK token saw multiple distribution events on major IDO platforms, including Poolz, BSCPad and WeStarter and IEO platform on Gate.io. More than 20K people participated in the IDOs and IEO. The latest IDO on DuckStarter marked the token generation event, which distributed COOK across three inter-connected blockchains. In addition to the COOK token, Cook Protocol has also released an exclusive NFT on OpenSea, developed in partnership with Bondly.
Notable investors in Cook Protocol include the OKEx Block Dream Fund, a venture fund built by the OKEx exchange to invest in the best projects in DeFi and cryptocurrency. Cook Protocol is working on a deployment on OKExChain, as part of its vision of interoperable blockchains. DuckDAO, the community-led incubator that built the DuckStarter platform, has also invested in Cook Protocol.
About Cook Protocol
Cook Protocol is a decentralized cross-chain asset management platform enabling investors and professional asset managers to unlock the potential of DeFi innovations. The platform looks to tap into the rapidly growing crypto asset management market, which is currently valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. On the Cook Protocol platform, investors can select any of the wide range of investment options offered by fund managers. It provides investors with a sleek and straightforward interface and fund managers with powerful trading tools so they can maximize profits.
Solution supports decentralized finance (DeFi) trend with consumer protection via smart contracts.
DUBLIN, Ireland (April 1, 2021) – HIPS Payment Group Ltd., a provider of innovative and cost-effective e-commerce and mobile payment solutions, today announced that their highly anticipated cryptocurrency, Merchant Token (MTO), has launched, alongside their Merchant Protocol (HMP) and the Hips Merchant Protocol Gateway (HMP-gateway).
HIPS Merchant Protocol (HMP), the Hips Merchant Protocol Gateway (HMP- gateway), and the governing Merchant Token (MTO) is a solution that introduces consumer protection concepts from the traditional card payment industry to any blockchain with support for smart contracts like Ethereum, Cardano (ADA), or Solana.
“We believe that the consumer-oriented features of the MTO are the missing piece for crypto payments to have market penetration and mass-adoption among mainstream consumers, says John Cavebring, CEO of Hips.
Merchant Token (MTO) is Hips Merchant Protocol’s (HMP) native protocol token, currently issued on Ethereum following ERC-20 standard. HMP will escrow ERC20 tokens in Ethereum’s blockchain as a start, but the protocol will work similarly on other supported blockchains like Cardano among others.
“HIPS Merchant Blockchain is the native blockchain for HMP and Merchant Coin (MEO), which is the on-block native currency on the Hips Merchant Blockchain, and is optimized for real-time merchant transactions created for Payment Service Providers (PSP) and EFTPOS devices,” added Cavebring.
A widely adopted, completely on-chain Merchant Payment Protocol would need to have comparable transaction throughput like US exchanges such as the NYSE from an underlying blockchain in order to scale.
“HIPS Merchant Blockchain’s near real-time transaction speeds are a vast improvement to the current blockchain response. Hips Merchant Protocol is not only built for Ethereum but also on Solana, a blazingly fast public blockchain that can support over 50,000 transactions per second, has block times of 400 milliseconds and a transaction cost of roughly $0.00001,” notes Cavebring.
With near real-time transaction speeds, in addition, that the Hips Merchant Blockchain is designed for merchant transactions regardless if they are mobile, instore or ecommerce and utilizes the interchange concept from the payment card industry, HIPS provides a solution for crypto payments to gain worldwide global consumer adoption.
The ICO (initial coin offering) launchpad is live from 1 of April 2021 to 30th of June 2021 and can be found at merchanttoken.org.
HIPS Payment Group Ltd. is a provider of innovative and cost-effective e-commerce and mobile payment solutions. Built on cutting-edge technology, Hips is disrupting the finance industry with its Payment gateway for Point of Sale, e-commerce, and m-commerce, a fully integrated, digital financial commerce platform with full reconciliation and financing support.
Many people buy bitcoin with paybis in hopes of future profits. The asymmetric risk-reward that the popular cryptocurrency offers has drawn many investors of different backgrounds, all of which are looking for ways to capitalize on the trend.
But is the current price rally sustainable? And if not, what are some tells that can help us foresee the peak? In this article, we discuss market cycles, positive and negative market scenarios, and the best time(s) for you to cash out.
Bitcoin’s historic market cycles
Ever since the beginning of Bitcoin’s creation, the market is repeatedly going through cycles, interchanging positive and negative market conditions. These are primarily directed by the reward halving which Bitcoin goes through every 4 years, further adjusting its scarcity and mining difficulty. Generally speaking and by looking at historic events, each halving signalized the start of a bull market which takes approximately 16-20 months to play out and grows the value of Bitcoin by 17x on average. Keep in mind that this growth excludes the parabolic momentum that Bitcoin experiences during its final stages of the bull run, which can temporarily growth its value even higher. The latest halving occurred in May of 2020, while the next one is estimated to take place in June of 2024.
This time it’s different
One important thing to keep in mind as you start to plan your exit strategy is that this time around Bitcoin finds itself in a different position. With increased institutional adoption and geopolitical significance, there is a high chance for a different soft of volatility this time around. More specifically, we may see institutions and governments “front-buy” Bitcoin ahead of its halving in order to at least maintain some sort of position before there is no longer an available supply for sale on exchanges.
According to PlanB, if this were to happen we could see Bitcoin running up to $500.000 at the peak of this cycle, before consolidation to the downside. Others, like Dan Held, believe that Bitcoin is currently in a Supercycle, meaning that an aggressive bear market is no longer a given. According to him, we will see Bitcoin’s growth continue throughout the next few years until retail is effectively priced out and everyone is forced to use derivatives to gain exposure.
While this concept does seem rather optimistic, we can confidently say that the bull market we are currently cruising reminds us more of the one we saw in 2013 rather than the one we saw in 2017. Hence, according to Held, and given the ever-decreasing supply of BTC on exchanges, Bitcoin could go up to $1 million dollars in value before sell pressure starts.
What does this mean for you?
Naturally, both scenarios are very positive for Bitcoin and give you a better indication as to when you should withdraw your coins. That being said, if you simply want to purchase products and services with your profits, it is no longer necessary to “cash-out” your coins like the norm was back in the previous cycle.
Nowadays, you can benefit from the new products that improve real-life use cases of crypto, like Binance Pay, crypto debit cards, as well as digital payments with the help of crypto widgets. This way, you avoid tax hurdles, ever-changing regulatory frameworks, and other limitations.
Is there a negative scenario as well?
Some people claim that there are several scenarios that may drop the value of Bitcoin rapidly, even in bull market conditions. One of these is the continuous printing of unbacked Tether (USDT), a stablecoin backed by, apparently, nothing. Since the majority of traders enter and exit their positions using USDT, a collapse of the currency could prove fatal for all those who are currently trading Bitcoin with a short-term preference.
Other doomsday scenarios are less likely to occur, but they are still a scenario we can’t leave unmentioned. For example, a crackdown on regulatory networks, a bug in the protocol itself, or an attack on the network could negatively affect the growth of Bitcoin in the years to come. In this case, it is important to stay up to date and sell the moment rumors turn into news.
Wrapping up
So when should you withdraw your coins? In our opinion, cashing out Bitcoin might not be the best idea. The current instabilities of our economy have uncovered the decreasing value of FIAT currencies, as well as the inflation levels we can expect to see in the future. Therefore, we recommend keeping your money stored in assets that have the ability to retain your wealth and value throughout time, while the industry and cryptocurrency prices continue to go up. And there is no better asset to do this than Bitcoin.
