Monat: Februar 2023

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MakerDAO integrates Chainlink automation to enhance DAI stability

  • MakerDAO’s integration of Chainlink extends on the Maker’s automated system Keeper Network.
  • The automation will help stabilise the DAI infrastructure, including via updates on price and the debt ceiling.
  • An proposal over the integration passed in a governance vote by Maker (MKR) holders.

MakerDAO has onboarded Chainlink’s decentralised oracle framework as it looks to enhance the stability of its DAI stablecoin.

The integration with Chainlink’s automation tool follows a governance proposal that saw Maker (MKR) holders approve the launch of the oracle system on MakerDAO’s Keeper Network, the DAI creator announced on Thursday.

MakerDAO integrates Chainlink oracle for DAI

The Keeper Network helps uphold the DAI infrastructure, offering an automated system that executes specific functions related to the Maker Protocol, including providing updates on price and debt ceiling. 

The Maker Protocol will also benefit from tasks such as liquidity balancing for DAI as well as increased decentralisation due to the addition of third-party actors.

Automation via Chainlink’s oracle network is therefore critical to MakerDAO’s technology stack, with activation set to help stabilise DAI.

“The sophisticated technology and tools that quietly but constantly run in the background to ensure DAI’s stability rely upon MakerDAO’s Keeper Network. This network of automated bots perform essential tasks to maintain the Maker protocol and will be greatly expanded through the integration with Chainlink’s renowned, hyper-reliable automation platform,” Nadia Álvarez, a member of MakerDAO’s Growth Core Unit, said.  

As highlighted above, integration with Chainlink followed a vote on what was a wider proposal for various changes, including dust parameters and recognised DAO delegates’ compensation package for January to 8 February, 2023.

Per an update from MakerDAO, the executive proposal passed on 9 February, 2023 at 03:23 UTC and is subject to a 48-hour delay as stipulated in MakerDAO’s governance pause delay. The security measure means the changes can now be executed as of 11 February, 2023 beginning 03:23 UTC.

Following the vote, MakerDAO will avail 181,000 DAI to the Chainlink Automation Keeper Network for the next six months, translating to 1,000 DAI per day.

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Tether reports $700 million net profit in Q4 2022

  • Stablecoin issuer issued its latest attestation report for the fourth quarter of 2022.

  • The company reported a net profit of $700 million in Q4.

  • The profit is in addition to the company’s reserves.

Tether publishes its Q4 attestation report

Stablecoin issuer Tether published its latest attestation report on Thursday, February 9th. The company reported a net profit of $700 million in the previous quarter despite the ongoing bear market.

Tether revealed that the profit is in addition to its reserves. While commenting on this latest cryptocurrency news, Tether said;

“Tether’s reserves remain extremely liquid, with the majority of its investments being held in cash, cash equivalents, and other short-term deposits.”

The stablecoin issuer added that the December report was attested by the accounting firm BDO. The report added that Tether’s consolidated assets exceeded its liabilities as of Dec. 31, 2022.

The report comes barely two months after Tether pledged to stop issuing secured loans from its reserves.

The company reported that its consolidated total assets amounted to at least $67.04 billion in the last quarter. Furthermore, its consolidated total liabilities amounted to $66.08 billion. Hence, reflecting excess reserves of at least $960 million.

The net profit is part of shareholder equity

Tether pointed out that the reported profit is part of shareholder equity, that is, what’s in excess of reserves. A company spokesperson added that;

“It’s basically additional capital sitting in the company to further strengthen Tether.” 

This is the first time the stablecoin issuer has disclosed its profit figures. The company didn’t reveal how it made its profits.

In a statement, Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino said;

“Tether once again proved its stability in the troubled year of 2022. Not only were we able to smoothly execute over $21 billion dollars in redemptions during the chaotic events of the year, but Tether has, on the other side, issued over $10 billion of USDT, an indication of continued organic growth and adoption of Tether.”

The stablecoin issuer removed commercial paper from its reserves in October 2022. Tether’s other assets include funds, precious metals, and corporate bonds. 

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Sandbox (SAND) price prediction: Something big is about to happen

The Sandbox price crashed for two straight days as the cliff unlock date nears and as a risk-off sentiment prevailed. The SAND/USDT price retreated to a low of $0.7797, which was lower than this week’s high of $0.937.

Cliff unlock nears

Crypto tokens have a mechanism known as tokenomics, which defines the distribution of initial tokens. A cliff unlock is a situation that is baked in the tokenomics that increases the number of tokens in circulation. 

Data by Token Unlocks shows that just 56% of all SAND tokens are now in circulation, with the remaining 44% being locked. The locked ones are currently valued at over $1 billion. The next cliff unlock will happen on Monday and will see over 372 million tokens valued at over $292 million being unlocked. 

As a result, the total number of SAND tokens in circulation will rise to 2.1 billion tokens. Sandbox now has a total market cap of over $1.17 billion and a diluted value of $2.34 billion. Therefore, introducing new tokens will dilute existing holders. 

In theory, the SAND price should decline ahead and after this dilution. However, in some instances, cryptocurrencies tend to rise when it happens. For example, in January, Axie Infinity’s AXS token surged even after the cliff unlock introduced more tokens in its ecosystem, as I wrote here. In other cases, such as with dYdX, companies tend to postpone their cliff unlock.

In such cases, this dilution happens because the developers usually publish positive news to counterbalance the news. For example, on Wednesday, Sandbox announced a major partnership with Saudi Arabia Digital Government Authority. It is unclear what the partnership will do but there is a likelihood that the government will take a stake in the company. 

Sandbox price prediction

SAND/USD chart by TradingView

So, is it safe to buy The Sandbox? Turning to the daily chart, we see that the SAND crypto price pulled back slightly below the resistance point at $0.9800 (November 5 high). Still, the coin seems to be forming a cup and handle pattern, which is usually a bullish sign. Sandbox crypto is also slightly above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages. 

Therefore, despite the bearish view of the cliff unlock, there is a likelihood that the coin will have a bullish breakout in the near term. This view will be confirmed if it rises above the important resistance at $0.98.

The post Sandbox (SAND) price prediction: Something big is about to happen appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Metacask to auction rare 1988 Macallan cask for $3 million

  • Metacask is set to auction the rare whisky cask starting 12 February, with the 35-year-old cask asking price debuting at over $3 million.
  • The cask is held as The Macallan Distillery in Scotland.
  • A digital art and NFT will be offered as part of the sale.

Metacask, a leading marketplace for spirits casks and bottles, is set to auction (link to auction is here) off a rare 1988 whisky cask from The Macallan Distillery, Scotland.

According to the CasperLabs blockchain powered platform, the sale is for a 35-year old rare Scotch whisky cask. 

The number #4178 cask comes with a 1/1 animated art dubbed ‘The Dragon’- a masterpiece by one of Italy’s most renowned artists Ruben Frosali.

Metacask’s highly anticipated cask auction

The 35-year-old whisky cask is debuting at over $3 million and its auction follows Metacask’s recent success with a 1991 cask sale, which fetched more than $2.3 million.

“Metacask auctioned a 1991 cask  ‘The Angel’s Share’ in 2021, now just over a year later, we’re back with another much-anticipated auction,” Metacask co-founder and CTO Nim Siriwardana noted in a statement.

The latest auction is scheduled for between 12 and 19 February 2023 on the Metacask marketplace. Bidding is open to USD while settlements will be in either bank transfer or cryptocurrency. 

As part of the sale, the buyer will get an audio-visual non-fungible token (NFT) of the original Ruben Frosali art, Metacask said in a press release. The NFT will serve as a digital deed,providing for not just ownership and provenance but also useful for price discovery.

Potential buyers might want to know that the whisky was last regauged at 51.2% alcohol by volume (ABV), with roughly 495 bottles remaining.auctionhere

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Long-term Bitcoin holders at all-time high, but price not cooperating


Key Takeaways

  • Two-thirds of the Bitcoin supply has not moved in over a year
  • Metrics for percent of supply unmoved in 2+, 3+ and 5+ years also at all-time highs
  • The average hold period for Bitcoin on-chain is 3.8 years
  • Despite thesis that dwindling supply will boost price, this has not proved the case thus far

The capped supply of Bitcoin has always offered an intriguing layer to analysis of the enigmatic asset. 

Simply put, there are not many assets worldwide that offer an inelastic supply. Truthers argue that this cap will inevitably squeeze the price upwards through the simple economic theory of supply and demand. That is, assuming the demand continues to grow, of course. 

Here, we look at this supply, and how many of the total supply of 21 million bitcoins (of which 19.3 million are currently in circulation) have not moved in quite some time.

Percentage of Bitcoin supply unmoved in over a year at all-time high

If one takes the 1+ year mark as a benchmark for long-term holders, that means a growing amount of Bitcoin supply is held by what constitutes long-term investors. 

Two-thirds of the Bitcoin supply has not moved in over a year, an all-time high. That means no purchases or sales. 

In expanding the timeframe out, we can look at what portion of this 67% has been held for even greater amounts of time. On the below chart, I have plotted the portion of supply that has been stagnant for 1+ years, 2+ years, 3+ years and 5+ years. 

The results are interesting. Nearly half the supply – 49.3% – has not moved in over 2 years. Pushing out to 3+ years, the number is 39%. And 28.1% of the supply has not moved in 5+ years. The marks are all all-time highs.

So, diamond hands? Well, sort of. The numbers are certainly large, but there are other variables at play. Most notably lost coins, for which it is impossible to know how many there are. Satoshi Nakamoto is estimated to own over one million coins, which is circa. 5% of the supply alone. 

Long-term holders growing despite market carnage

Nonetheless, to see such stout numbers following the year that crypto has had is notable. The average hold time of Bitcoin on-chain right now is 3.8 years.

This comes less than a year after the collapse of LUNA (May-22) which sparked a meltdown crisis that ultimately bankrupted hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and sent a wave of contagion across the industry. 

Things shook further when this contagion claimed crypto lender Celsius in June. The fallen crypto lender disclosed two months before, at the Bitcoin 2022 conference, that it held 150,000 Bitcoin, which would constitute 0.8% of the supply. 

Unfortunately for investors, court filings by Kirkland & Ellis indicate that the firm has lost roughly 62,000 Bitcoin, and right now it is unclear how many they really held, nor how many the bankrupt firm now holds. 

Then there was the staggering collapse of FTX in November.

But despite this,  long-term holders do continue to grow, at least if on-chain metrics are to be trusted. 

Dwindling supply not supporting price

But as for the thesis that a dwindling supply will push price up, it has not worked to date. Bitcoin has collapsed while these metrics have all jumped to all-time highs. 

What happens in the long-term remains to be seen. The advocates aren’t wrong when they reference simple supply and demand. This will undoubtedly help the price, and if long-term holders continue to hold, the liquidity drying up further can only squeeze the price upward. 

On the other hand, every sale needs a bid order, and these have not been coming in quickly enough over the last two years. As I have written about repeatedly, Bitcoin continues to follow the macro cycle, trading like an extreme-risk asset making a mockery of those who claim it is any sort of inflation hedge. Look no further than its reaction to recent inflation readings and Federal Reserve meetings on interest rate policy for evidence of this. 

Supply drying up is a good thing. But until Bitcoin sheds its high-risk image, it will continue to trade like a levered bet on the Nasdaq. Every asset needs a bid, people, and in times of uncertainty, the market has shown that Bitcoin is the last thing that investors want to hold. 

Time will tell if this all changes. 

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