Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Despite the current crypto winter more and more people would want to link their businesses to cryptocurrencies.
• Online casinos are now accepting crypto deposits and withdrawals.
• There are also various companies that have ventured into creating infrastructure for the crypto industry.

In 2021, the cryptocurrency market experienced significant growth, which led to many global companies showing interest in digital assets. If earlier investments in cryptocurrency were made only by companies that firmly believed in this industry’s development, now more and more people would want to transfer their business to tokens.

You should not think that the transition to cryptocurrency is connected only with trends and that now everyone uses such coins. Today we will discuss why traditional companies use digital currency. We will also tell you about the markets that will switch to cryptocurrency in 2023.

Crypto in Gambling

The most popular area of application of cryptocurrency is the sphere of gambling on the Internet. Both online casinos and bookmakers can make payments in bitcoins and other tokens. The transition of many sites to cryptocurrencies is due to the advantages that these coins provide:

• Fast speed of payments. Casino customers can replenish their accounts and withdraw winnings almost instantly.

• No need for verification.

• Minimal commissions or their complete absence.

With cryptocurrency, you will have access to the whole range of gambling entertainment – games with live dealers (here’s a trusted site to try it out; https://www.ignitioncasino.eu/live-dealer), classic video slots, sports betting, lotteries, and much more.

Technology Sector 

Already, cryptocurrencies are actively used by companies from the technology sector. Schematically, such companies can be divided into three groups. Below, we describe each group in more detail.

Investor Companies

This category includes firms that convert their regular fiat money into cryptocurrencies. The brightest representatives are Tesla and Microstrategy. They are interested in Bitcoin, despite its recent instability.

It is now known that about 7.5% of Tesla’s free money is in cryptocurrency. Not all the company’s investors appreciate this approach. Many people are sure that buying cryptocurrency is a dangerous and thoughtless act that can lead to losing a significant amount of funds.

Microstrategy is even more interested in Bitcoin. Currently, the company has more digital coins on its balance sheet than regular money. At the same time, the management is not even afraid of the situation with bitcoin – after the fall in the rate, the most famous cryptocurrency was not only not sold but also bought more.

Now, cryptocurrency is one of the safest ways to store money if you do not consider fluctuations in the exchange rate. Modern cryptocurrency wallets provide secure storage of coins. No outsider will be able to access your account.

Companies That Create Infrastructure for Crypto

We are talking about companies that develop and produce equipment for the extraction of cryptocurrency – for mining. The following manufacturers fall into this category:

• Nvidia;

• AMD;

• TSM;

• Bitfury;

• Bitmain;

• Canaan;

• Ebang.

The development of the crypto industry has led to the fact that over the past few years, the cost of video cards suitable for coin mining has increased several times. The market is constantly replenished with new manufacturers who strive to offer customers productive and energy-efficient mining equipment.

Companies Building an Ecosystem for Cryptocurrencies

This category includes firms that accept cryptocurrency as a payment method. This includes PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, JP Morgan, and many of the world’s central banks. Moreover, these firms use tokens in internal processes.

Every year, the list of such companies continues to expand. This is mainly because cryptocurrency is legalized and beginning to be accepted at the state level.

Benefits of Cryptocurrency

The ubiquity of digital tokens is due to several advantages they have:

• Inflation protection. Inflation causes the value of any currency to decrease over time. Cryptocurrency is issued with a fixed amount.

• Security and privacy. The blockchain is based on complex mathematical operations, so it takes time to decode it.

• Decentralization. Many cryptocurrencies are controlled not only by the developers but also by the people who use them.

• Convenient transactions. Cryptocurrencies allow you to make payments instantly with a minimum commission. It is also one of the most convenient ways to send money to other countries.

Remember some disadvantages of cryptocurrency. The biggest drawback is the exchange rate instability. Tokens change their value several times a day.

At the same time, exchange rate fluctuations can be severe. If you decide to invest in crypto tokens, it is worth remembering all the possible risks you may face. It is possible that the coins can completely depreciate.

It is worth remembering the situation with bitcoin. At the end of 2021, the coin’s price reached an all-time high, exceeding $60,000 per token. And 2022 was not the most successful year for bitcoin – this year, the price dropped to $16,000 and below.

Conclusion

Every year, more and more companies are starting to use cryptocurrency as their primary payment method. It is too early to say that tokens will completely replace fiat money. But in the future, people will have even more opportunities to use digital coins.

The post Markets where crypto usage is highly likely to explode in 2023 appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Indonesia is planning to launch a national cryptocurrency exchange in 2023.

• The government will transfer regulatory powers over such assets to the Financial Services Authority soon.

• The country’s central bank is also working on launching its digital currency (CBDC).

Indonesia to launch a national crypto exchange

Indonesia plans to establish a national cryptocurrency exchange before the end of the year, according to a recent report by Bloomberg. 

Bloomberg revealed that the government would launch the cryptocurrency exchange before it shifts regulatory powers over such assets to the Financial Services Authority, from a commodities agency.

This latest cryptocurrency news would be a huge development for the crypto industry in Indonesia. At the moment, crypto assets in the country are traded alongside commodity contracts and are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency, known as Bappebti.

Bappebti acting head Didid Noordiatmoko revealed earlier today that as part of a broader financial sector reform, the FSA would be given regulatory power over the assets over the next two years, during which time the exchange would be established. 

Indonesia continues to support crypto growth

Indonesia is one of the countries in the world with a certain level of regulatory clarity in terms of cryptocurrency. 

The country’s apex bank issued a white paper discussing its digital currency. The central bank digital currency (CBDC) is currently in development. However, there is no timeline for its launch yet. 

Indonesia also passed a law recognising cryptocurrency and digital assets as regulated financial securities in the country. 

The positive stance regarding cryptocurrencies comes after the Bank of Indonesia banned the use of cryptos for payments in the country in 2021. 

At the moment, there are 383 cryptocurrencies and 10 local coins that can be traded in Indonesia. The Bappebti is also reviewing another 151 assets and 10 coins in a bid to make the assets available to local investors. 

The post Indonesia intends to launch its own cryptocurrency exchange appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Bonk is a meme coin launched on Solana on Christmas Day
• It has surged close to 2,500%
• Solana, meanwhile, has collapsed following associations with Bankman-Fried and top projects fleeing the blockchain
• Our Analyst writes that this is not the climate for memecoin hysteria

 

Woah, this is a throwback. Twitter is alive this week with talk of Bonk, a doggy token on the Solana blockchain. There is something a little nostalgic in talking about a good old-fashioned meme token. All we need is a COVID mask and some Elon Musk tweets, and we would be squarely back in 2020.

The Shiba-Inu themed token was issued on Christmas Day, and has risen close to 2,500% since. The price rise in the last hour as I write this is 150%.

Of course, the intriguing thing here is that the token has been launched on Solana, which has been struggling mightily over the last few months. I wrote a deep dive only yesterday analysing the demise of Solana, with multiple top projects fleeing the blockchain, repeated outages causing massive problems, and its ominous association with Sam Bankman-Fried pulling down the price.

But while it is still down hugely, Solana has bounced back a little in conjunction with this surge for Bonk. It jumped back above $13 Tuesday having dipped as low as $8 last week. Looking at Coinglass data, there has been close to $7 million of short positions liquidated, the largest amount since FTX collapsed in November.

The Layer 1 seems to be benefiting from the surge in interest for Bonk, which announced a large airdrop of 50% of its supply to drive up hype around the coin. It has worked – Bonk now has a market cap of $120 million and is following the meme coin playbook perfectly.

Why is Bonk rising?

Like any meme coin, it is difficult to ascertain how exactly bonk has pulled this off. It really comes down to marketing and luck. A number of Solana projects have even integrated Bonk as payment tokens, while $BONK has been trending incessantly on Twitter.

It all amounts to the same hysteria we saw over the last couple of years. As everybody knows by now, meme coins are nothing but a gamble. But what makes this so unusual is that the rise is occurring not only at a bearish juncture for Solana, but for the market as a whole.

The past year has seen interest rates hiked and liquidity pulled from the market, with risk assets collapsing. There is nothing further out on the risk spectrum than meme coins, and they have hence cratered as a result.

What next for Bonk?

All I will say to any investor (gambler) is that Bonk is a very dangerous game, like any meme coin. There is zero utility here and that means that in the long run, the coin is likely to drop to zero.

Of course, everybody knows that anyway, and these are memes we are talking about. But in the current tight monetary policy environment, the hysteria of the pandemic, where stimulus-cheque-wielding retail investors were pumping everything within sight, is long gone. This is not the climate for gambles like meme coins, and that is without even mentioning the carnage with Solana.  

The post Why is BONK going up? Be careful of doggy tokens, we have seen this movie before appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Lido has overtaken MakerDAO in TVL in DeFi by $0.05 billion.
• At press time, Lido had $5.96b DeFi TVL.
• Lido seems to be benefitting from Ethereum’s merge upgrade.

At press time, Lido which specializes in liquid staking had a total value staked of $5.96 billion which is $0.05 billion higher than MakerDAO’s TVL of $5.91 billion according to Defillama. MakerDao has had the largest DeFi TVL for many years and the overtaking means Lido is gaining ground despite the ongoing crypto winter.

Besides, the increasing staked digital assets, the price of LDO, Lido DAO’s native token, has been on a consistent rise having gained over 18% in the past 7 days. It had surged by 14.67% in the past 24 hours at press time.

The rise of interest in Lido among decentralized finance participants is highly thought to be due to the increased demand for Ether staking solutions since Ethereum shifted to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism after the merge upgrade in September 2022.

Digital assets staked on Lido

According to Lido Finance’s website as of January 2023, Ether (ETH) was the largest staked digital asset with over $5.86 billion worth of staked ETH tokens. Solana follows closely with over $26.087 million worth of staked SOL tokens.

The other notables tokens staked on Lido include Polygon’s MATIC with over $45.093 million worth of staked MATIC tokens, Polkadot’s DOT with over $11.395 million worth of staked DOT tokens, and Kusama’s KSM with over $2.238 million worth of staked KSM tokens.

No 32 ETH min. needed to stake Ether on Lido

Lido’s model allows users to access Ethereum staking without having to commit the traditional minimum of 32 ETH to be allowed to stake Ether. This has greatly increased the number of people choosing to stake ETH on Lido compared to other DeFi staking platforms.

According to Lido’s staking model, users stake any amount of tokens including Ether and access daily staking rewards. In addition to the daily staking rewards, the users also receive liquid stTokens that can be used across DeFi to compound more to the daily staked rewards.

The post Lido now has the highest TVL in DeFi after overtaking MakerDAO appeared first on CoinJournal.