Kategorie: Crypto Markets

Mark Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, has begun its non-fungible token expansion across 100 countries in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Middle-East, and Africa with Instagram NFT integration.

Meta, which registered a sharp loss in its Q2 earnings report, unveiled its digital asset expansion plan on May 10 this year and Instagram and Facebook, which is a sister social media platform to Instagram, had started by experimenting with Ethereum and Polygon-based NFTs.The pilot phase, however, was only restricted to US users. 

Today’s announcement marks the beginning of expanding Meta’s digital plan across the world with a target of over 100 countries.

In addition to the NFT integration that will give users the ability to post digital collectibles minted on the Flow blockchain, Instagram will also add support for Coinbase Wallet and Dapper Wallet.  

Instagram was selected as the starting point primarily because of its popularity around the world.

Posting NFTs on Instagram

Following the announcement, one simply needs to connect a digital wallet to his Instagram account to post an NFT minted on Ethereum, Polygon, or Flow.

Instgaram is also working on integradting Solana based NFTs.

Some of the third-party wallet integrations that Instagram users will be able to link to include Rainbow, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, MetaMask, and Dapper Wallet. 

Most importantly, users will not be charged anything for posting or sharing digital collectibles on Instagram.

Besides Meta, Flow enjoys several other notable partners including Animoca Brands, Warner Music, Ubisoft, National Basketball Association, Ubisoft, Ubisoft, Circle, Binance, and OpenSea.

Flow’s integration with Instagram shows Meta has a lot of confidence in the blockchain, which is a major boost for the FLOW token.

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Today the price of FLOW has been rising and rising. It surged by about 45% in the morning to set a new two-month high of $2.7681 before slightly pulling back to its current price of $2.58.

At the time of writing, FLOW was still green and showing a lot of bullish momentum. But why did the FLOW token register surge a huge pump today? What is happening to Flow blockchain?

Here is a comprehensive dive into the forces behind today’s FLOW token pump.

Why FLOW price pumped suddenly today

Today morning, Meta (formerly Facebook) announced that it had started the Instagram NFT integration and it was going to add support for NFTs created on the Flow blockchain.

On May 10, Meta announced that Instagram would integrate NFT collectibles starting with Ethereum and Polygon-based NFTs. The addition of Flow into the list almost came as a surprise and it could explain the sudden surge in the price of the FLOW token.

Ethereum is the leading blockchain network for NFTs while Polygon is an Ethereum Layer-2 solution that allows for faster, cheaper, and more efficient transactions. Flow, therefore, becomes the only other Layer-1 blockchain that Instagram has integrated so far after Ethereum

Instagram also plans to add support for Solana NFTs.

Facebook, which is a sister social media platform form to Instagram, began testing the support for Polygon and Ethereum in June and has also revealed plans to add Solana and FLOW.

By adding support for NFTs minted on the Flow blockchain, Instagram users will be able to link digital wallets and showcase their verified Flow NFTs. The initiative was first launched in the US but today’s announcement marks the beginning of its expansion to over 100 countries across Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific.

Besides adding support for Flow NFTs, Meta also announced that it has also added support for Dapper Wallet and Coinbase Wallet. Both Dapper Wallet and Flow are products of the same firm called Dapper Labs, which is also best known for its own sports NFT projects that include the NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day, and UFC Strike.

Meta is pushing hard on its metaverse plan since it rebranded from Facebook last fall. It recently revealed its grand vision for a next-generation internet navigated with avatars in immersive 3B space.

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Pictet Group’s Asia division CEO Tee Fong Seng said at a summit that while the crypto asset class continues to mature, now might not be the time for private bankers to invest in the sector.

Crypto is an industry that is here to stay, even as part of its growing pains remains glaringly scary for some players. Matters are indeed not helped by the recent events that have seen several crypto companies go bankrupt, and wild volatility does not help either.

Because of such concerns, Swiss wealth manager the Pictet Group is warning that this might not be the time to dive into crypto – at least not for now.

Crypto asset class can’t be ignored – but,

In remarks made at a panel on the sidelines of a Bloomberg summit in Asia, an executive of Swiss firm Pictet highlighted why the asset manager is not keen on getting into crypto.

According to Tee Fong Seng, the CEO of Pictet’s Asia subsidiary, crypto’s growth as an asset class cannot be undone nor can it be “ignored” going forward. However, the company believes that crypto as it is – with some of the concerns above- does not have ‘a place’ in the private banking sector.

“Crypto will be an asset class that we cannot ignore, but today I don’t think there is a place for private bankers and for private bank portfolios,” he said.

But despite this outlook, the firm, like many others, appears to be keenly monitoring developments in the crypto market. For clients, this means looking at when to start offering services such as trading.

He notes that a look at the crypto market’s performance over the past two years shows it’s possible to “make a lot of money.” But at the same time, with the huge volatility, it’s also very easy to “lose a lot of money,” he observed.

“The question is, when do we bring the clients into the picture,” he posed as he pointed out that the Geneva-based asset manager had a team on the lookout for opportunities.

Concerns aside, mainstream companies push into crypto

A few years back, the best that came from financial institutions and other major mainstream companies was a blatant dismissal of crypto.

Many continue to sit on the fence, but many more have made a move – more so amid crypto’s last bull market. Today, global giants such as Fidelity Investments, BlackRock, Charles Schwab and Julius Baer Group have ventured into digital asset products – including crypto-focused exchange-traded funds, custody services and even trading to their clients.

The partnership between Coinbase and BlackRock announced today, and which targets institutional clients, is a good example of the increased interest for crypto exposure.

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After the Solana attack that started on August 2, details have emerged linking a third-party Web3 wallet provider Slope to the attack.

More than 8,000 Solana hot wallets were attacked and approximately $8 million worth of crypto assets were stolen. At the onset of the attack, Solana advised its users to switch to hardware wallets although it was too late since users had already lost funds.

Today, Solana has updated its community via Twitter after discovering that the affected addresses were part of Slope Wallet, which is a Web3 wallet.

The tweet by Solana stated:

“After an investigation by developers, ecosystem teams, and security auditors, it appears affected addresses were at one point created, imported, or used in Slope mobile wallet applications.”

slope has a web-based crypto wallet, a mobile app, and a browser extension. It is integrated with Solana Pay and it allows users to send and receive tokens on the Solana network.

What we know about the Solana attack so far

Solana has stated that the details of what really transpired are still unclear although there is evidence that “Slope wallet was logging or transmitting user mnemonics and private keys.” 

While not certain that this is the exploit, it appears to now be confirmed that Slope wallet was logging or transmitting user mnemonics and private keys. See screenshot in this tweet showing private key and mnemonic in what appears to be a network request https://t.co/oBkfrHP9I7

— Laine ❤️ stakewiz.com (@laine_sa_) August 3, 2022

Nevertheless, Solana has said that there is no evidence that the Solana Protocol or its cryptography was compromised during the attack.

After the revelation of Slope’s link to the attack, Solana co-founder, Anatoly Yakovenko tweeted advising Slope users to generate their seed phrase in a different wallet as soon as possible. Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao, echoed Anatoly’s advice adding that users could use Binance.

If you used a Slope wallet (for SOL) in the past, move your funds to a different wallet ASAP. Do not „import“ the old wallet. Use a new private key or seed phrase. If you don’t know those words mean, send your SOL to @binance. The easy way. https://t.co/t1lYcgaX5z

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) August 3, 2022

On its part, Slope issued a letter explaining to its customers the hypothesis of the attack and stating that it could not confirm anything yet. In the letter, Slope notes:

“We feel the community’s pain, and we were not immune. Many of our own staff and founders’ wallets were drained.”

Details of what really happened are still trickling in as Solana and Slope Wallet users are advised to take caution.

The price of SOL, the native token of the Solana network has taken a hit and has dipped by over 10% over the last two days. At the time of writing, Solana was trading at $38.86.

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• Binance has appointed co-founder Yi He as Head of Binance Labs to spearhead company’s investments, including an aggressive approach towards getting acquisitions over the line.
• But Binance will only acquire or give money to struggling crypto companies that have good products and are well-managed.
• To that effect, Binance has ‘more dry powder’ than any of the competitors in the crypto industry.

Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao says his crypto company is well capitalised and ready to go on an acquisition spree if it helps the market, confirming to Yahoo Finance Live in a Wednesday interview that Binance has “a lot of dry powder” to that end.

CZ also commented on the broader crypto regulation landscape, Binance.US’ delisting of the Amp (AMP) token and recent hacks – his remarks coming after this week’s exploits on Nomad bridge and Layer blockchain Solana.

Binance is eyeing acquisitions

With several crypto companies coming under distress in the past few months amid the crypto winter, one of the firms to take an aggressive approach towards acquisitions has been FTX – the crypto firm founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.

Bankman-Fried’s FTX and Alameda have put a combined $1 billion+ into deals, including with potential acquisition for crypto lender BlockFi. The crypto billionaire’s empire even has a proposal to take up assets of embattled Voyager Digital.

So, does Changpeng Zhao’s Binance have a similar outlook even as the crypto industry navigates the bear market? 

According to the Binance chief, that’s exactly what they are ready to do. He told Yahoo Finance Live:

“We have a lot of dry powder…we have more dry powder than almost anyone else we know in the space. So we do want to use that to do acquisitions.”

So, Binance has a lot of cash or other such other highly liquid funds sources to put into investments as the market pushes through the ‘winter’.

However, CZ was quick to mention that most of the troubled crypto companies in the industry today “are not well-managed”, noting that this is why Binance is unlikely to seek to acquire them. But if these are “well-managed, with good products, but just short of cash,” then Binance will be ready to acquire them.

To the effect that his firm is working on acquisitions in the industry, Zhao pointed to the appointment of Binance co-founder Yi He at Binance Labs, the company’s venture capital arm currently managing over $7.5 billion in assets.

Yi will help Binance aggressively pursue several investments in the short term, Zhao explained.

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