Monat: Mai 2023

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OKX plans to open an office in Turkey

  • OKX President Hong Fang said in a press release that the expansion is a big step towards empowering users.
  • The exchange expects the new office in place over coming months.
  • OKX was founded in 2017 and offers spot, margin and derivatives trading for its customers across the world.

OKX, one of the largest crypto exchange platforms and a leading Web3 company, plans to expand its global presence with a new office in Turkey.

The Seychelles-based crypto platform was founded in 2017 and has grown to become one of the best crypto exchanges in the world. The firm has millions of customers and offers access to spot, margin and derivatives markets for hundreds of crypto tokens. The company also offers DeFi, gaming dApps and an NFT marketplace.

In the press release published on Monday, OKX said it plans to have the office in operation in coming months.

“Opening an office in Türkiye will be a crucial step for OKX as we move from a trust-based system to one that is trustless and empowers users to take control of their financial future. Türkiye is an important market for us, and we’re excited to build strong relationships with our users and contribute to the development of its crypto ecosystem,” OKX President Hong Fang said in a statement.

OKX execs to speak at Blockchain Economy Istanbul Summit 2023

The OKX team revealed the plans ahead of the Blockchain Economy Istanbul Summit 2023, with the exchange being a Title Sponsor and Premium Partner. The company’s President Hong Fang, Chief Innovation Officer Jason Lau and Chief Marketing Officer Haider Rafique are set to be keynote speakers and panelists at the summit expected to run from 8-11 May, 2023.

The summit is Eurasia’s largest blockchain event and the 8th edition in Istanbul will feature various crypto industry players, including investors, entrepreneurs and developers. Key topics will include Web3 and blockchain innovation.

Crypto ownership in Turkey has increased in the last few years, with the country currently home to over 13.6 million crypto owners. According to estimates, that’s 16% of Turkey’s population – making the country one of those with the largest number of people owning cryptocurrencies.

The post OKX plans to open an office in Turkey appeared first on CoinJournal.

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BRC-20 tokens have major flaws and issues, Mintlayer CEO says

  • Bitcoin BRC-20 tokens have skyrocketed over the past few days, with their combined market value rising to over $923 million as of 8 May, 2023.
  • Mintlayer CEO Enrico Rubboli has highlighted some of the flaws and issues plaguing the BRC-20 token standard.
  • Apart from not aligning with the “axioms of the core Bitcoin community,” flaws and issues mean users are likely to be rug pulled.

Crypto news this week indeed has the skyrocketing transactions of BRC-20 tokens as one of the reasons the Bitcoin network experienced massive congestion amid rising fees. 

As CoinJournal highlighted on Monday morning, the crypto market was down as Binance halted BTC withdrawals amid the network congestion. Some of the trending BRC-20 tokens include ordi, pepe, meme, piza and domo. 

Enrico Rubboli, the CEO of Bitcoin sidechain Mintlayer, says that while BRC-20 tokens continue to create a frenzy, there are flaws and other issues that plague the tokens and offshoot decentralised applications that try to connect with smart contracts.

What are BRC-20 tokens?

BRC-20, or “Bitcoin Request for Comment,” is a token standard for Ordinals. The tokens allow for the issuance and transfer of fungible tokens on Bitcoin and hit the market soon after the mainnet launch of the Ordinals Protocol.

With BRC-20 tokens, one can etch digital art references into small Bitcoin transactions. The tokens are a creation of a pseudonymous crypto developer known as Domo.

According to market data for the token category, the combined value of all 11,705 BRC-20 tokens was $923 million as of Monday, 8 May 2023.

BRC-20 tokens plagued by speed and transaction costs issues

Among the insights Rubboli shared with CoinJournal on Monday is that while people pour BTC into minting BRC-20 tokens, there’s a need to realise that the technology behind these assets is “heavily flawed.” He also notes that BRC-20 tokens aren’t “in line with the axioms of the core Bitcoin community.”

Rubboli said that some of the issues currently plaguing the tokens and offshoot dApps within the ecosystem include speed, transaction costs and security.

On the issue of speed, he explains that transactions have to wait for Bitcoin block confirmation before settlement, which when combined with network congestion, has resulted in users waiting hours for transactions to clear.

Mintlayer CEO says BRC-20 tokens are potential rug pulls

According to Rubboli, the use of token bridges and wrapped BTC could expose users to exploits, with DeFi bridges seeing more than $1.4 billion lost to hackers that targeted crypto bridges in 2022. Rubboli believes the entire concept for BRC-20 was designed to confuse and mislead potential investors, with the creators leeching off the popular ERC-20 token standard.

Saying this could be an opportunity for scams, he added:

“The entire ecosystem was set up to be confusing and misleading. BRC-20 was chosen not because it was the 20th proposed standard, but to leech off the popularity of Ethereum’s ERC-20 token. The developers of the standard and the tools are not affiliated with Bitcoin, they are anonymous, and their software has not been thoroughly tested in this application.”

Besides, the hundreds of BRC-20 tokens might not just be totally worthless, but also minted specifically to rug pull later investors. BRC-20 token standard creator Domo has previously warned of the shortcomings of the software, including minting balances to intermediary wallets.

Regulatory issues also arise, with the minting of BRC-20 tokens likely to lead to regulatory concerns around commingling of user-generated tokens with BTC.

“If users mint unregulated securities, it could expose the Bitcoin blockchain to further regulatory scrutiny, which in turn exposes every BRC-20 to regulation due to 1 bad actor. A layer 2 solution fixes this problem as tokens are not commingled with Bitcoin,” he opined.

A layer 2 solution is a protocol that runs on top of a layer 1 blockchain, for instance Bitcoin or Ethereum. The key features that these protocols bring to the L1 include improved scalability and privacy among others. 

In blockchain, common layer 2 solutions include state channels, sidechains, and zero knowledge roll-ups.

The post BRC-20 tokens have major flaws and issues, Mintlayer CEO says appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Trillion dollar coin could be good news for Bitcoin, Cardano, Solana

  • The US government could be forced to print a $1 trillion coin soon.

  • Democrats and Republicans are yet to reach an agreement on a debt ceiling.

  • Analysts expect that the two sides will ultimately reach an agreement.

The US government is at a crossroads as divisions in Congress put the country at an elevated risk of a default. In a recent statement, Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary warned that the American government could default in June if Democrats and Republicans fail to reach a deal. This is one of the top reasons why gold price has now soared to an all-time high.

The trillion-dollar coin

It is still unclear whether the US will default on its obligations if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling. I believe that the situation will not get to that point because of its impact to the American economy. 

Analysts believe that a default will lead to higher unemployment and possibly the collapse of the economy as we know it. 

Therefore, the two sides will likely reach an agreement in the coming days. Signs of potential compromises will happen when Biden will meet Kevin McCarthy on Monday.

There are several options if the two sides fail to raise the debt limit. A likely solution will be to print a trillion dollar coin. The concept of that coin was mooted in 2011 when the US faced another debt ceiling issue. 

It would allow the Mint to come up with one platinum coin valued at $1 trillion. These funds would then be distributed to the Federal Reserve, which would then deposit it to the National Treasury. By doing that, the Treasury would then elimiate part of the national debt and postpone the need for raising the debt ceiling. A professor at Willamette University said:

“At this point, if any of the other solutions, the so-called more serious solutions would work, then they would’ve been used by now. But they keep not actually being strong enough. The coin’s the only one that’s strong enough.”

Bullish for Bitcoin, Solana, Cardano

Such a move would be positive for Bitcoin, which is seen as a digital version of gold. Unlike fiat currencies, Bitcoin cannot be printed because its supply of 21 million coins cannot be adjusted. If Bitcoin rises, we could now see altcoins like Solana, Cardano, and Tron rise because of the close correlation that exists.

The reality is that the American government is at risk of major changes going forward. For one, the total public debt has been in a strong upward trend in the past few years. It has jumped from just $320 million in 1970 to over $31.4 trillion today. 

And the situation will continue worsening because of the large budget deficits. By 2030, analysts expect that debt will rise to over $44 billion. The CBO believes that the budget deficit will hit 5.9% of GDP by 2040.

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The post Trillion dollar coin could be good news for Bitcoin, Cardano, Solana appeared first on CoinJournal.