Schlagwort: blockchain markets

• Brazil recently passed a bill to officially legalize cryptocurrency payments in the country.
• Gleec BTC Exchange is taking advantage of the situation in Brazil by acquiring Blocktane.
• Blocktane is a Brazilian-based exchange founded in 2020.

Just days after Brazil passed a bill legalizing cryptocurrency payments in the country, Gleec BTC Exchange has moved to expand its presence in Brazil by acquiring Blocktane, a Brazilian-based exchange.

According to Gleec BTC Exchange, the acquisition of Blocktane includes the acquisition of Blocktane’s legal entity, its online domains and its brand name. Gleec BTC will also take charge of Blocktane’s native token BKT as well as its treasury inventory.

Acknowledging the acquisition, former Executive Chairman of Blocktane, John Willock said:

“We are pleased to partner with Gleec to bring their tool and products to Blocktane’s users in Brazil, and their first entry into that domestic market.”

Spurring the adoption of Gleec’s services

Expansion of Gleec BTC Exchange will likely lead to the adoption of the other crypto services offered by Gleec which offers a wide ecosystem of services including the popular play-to-earn crypto game Gleec Racing, plus Gleec Card.

Currently, Gleec BTC is already an established business in El Salvador, where it offers a digital point-of-sale tool called Gleec SV.

Legalization of crypto payment in Brazil

Gleec BTC Exchange’s acquisition just days after Brazil passed Bill No. 4,401, which legalizes payments using cryptocurrencies. The bill was passed after years of discussions and comes after the creation of a regulatory structure to govern crypto payments by the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.

It is also a few days after the Brazil Central Bank revealed they are working on a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The new law is expected to act as a huge boost for Gleec BTC Exchange and the newly acquired assets within Brazil. Following the acquisition, the exchange is expected to begin operating in Brazil in the next few weeks as it eyes a wider expansion into larger Latin America.

The post Gleec BTC Exchange acquires Brazilian exchange Blocktane appeared first on CoinJournal.

• DeFi continues to attract more users with strong products and services across segments such as decentralised exchanges, lending protocols and staking.
• Users across the sector increased by 31% quarter on quarter in 2022, although that pales compared with the 525% spike seen in 2021.
• Latest estimates for total DeFi users suggest the number will surpass 5.5 million in Q4, 2022.

Decentralised finance, or DeFi, remains big, though not with the same numbers as seen a year ago. In 2021, user numbers skyrocketed 545% as cryptocurrencies boomed on the back of a staggering bull run.

While DeFi statistics for 2022 show a decline in user growth amid the year-long crypto winter, the sector still witnessed a 31% increase in users. The quarter on quarter increase in users was captured in the latest report on DeFi growth by HashKey Capital.

DeFi users have surpassed 5 million

As HashKey Capital analysts highlighted in their recent report, DeFi is not just eating into the traditional finance, or TradFi market, but it’s also curving its own new market. The trend relates to what is a “blue ocean market,” the report noted, with the DeFi sector’s new and innovative services capturing demand that’s adding to the steady growth in users.

A drop in total value locked (TVL) – it is now below $40 billion as per DeFiLlama, still doesn’t tell the whole story of decentralised finance in the past one year.

Overall, user wallets across DeFi segments such as decentralised exchanges (DEXs), lending, collateralized debt positions (CDPs), bridges, staking and yield, surpassed 5 million in the third quarter of 2022. It is estimated DeFi users will number more than 5.5 million by the end of Q4, 2022, with a growth projection of 8% during the quarter.

Projects use crypto winter to build and improve

A look at market prices shows that most assets in the space have plummeted in value and the DeFi index has shrunk by 76%, compared with a 65% decline for Ethereum. But despite this, projects have used the crypto winter to build and improve their products, attracting more users.

The sector has also seen continued investment from venture capitals. For example, the first half of 2022 saw VC invest more than $14 billion across 725 projects in the crypto space. Many of these were DeFi-focused.

The post DeFi sees 31% jump in users despite 2022 market conditions appeared first on CoinJournal.

• The Lima upgrade is the 12^th upgrade on the Tezos protocol.
• Tezos is referred to as the “self-amending blockchain” for its ability to seamlessly upgrade using its on-chain governance.
• Lima upgrade reduces the risk of bugs in smart contracts among other benefits.

Tezos, one of the original Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains, has activated its 12^th upgrade, the Lima upgrade, which was voted upon and approved by the Tezos community. The new upgrade which introduces several new features also reduces the risk of bugs in smart contracts.

Lima marks the fourth protocol upgrade in 2022 and the 12^th upgrade since the Tezos protocol was unveiled. Tezos is known for its ability to seamlessly upgrade through its on-chain governances which allows the protocol participants to propose and vote on upgrades and changes that they believe are important for the protocol.

Key improvements introduced by Lima upgrade

The Lima upgrade introduces several key improvements to Tezos functionality including faster processing speeds, the introduction of consensus keys, and improvements to tickets.

The Lima upgrade continues with the ‘Pipelining validation project’ that speeds up the processing of blocks and operations on Tezos by separating validation processes from application processes. A new block on Tezos is first validated before being forwarded to other peers; a feature that speeds up block propagation on the network and reduces the block time to 15 seconds and increases the overall throughput for the blockchain.

The consensus keys will allow validators (known as bakers in Tezos) to designate a special key for signing blocks and consensus operations. This feature prevents backers from losing delegators due to a change in setup or the need to coordinate with delegators off-chain to move them to a new address.

Tickets are a type of data unique to Tezos smart contracts and a great foundation for the scalable solutions that have allowed for many use cases including tokenization, authentication, and voting among others. Lima upgrade in particular deprecates the creation, storage and transfer of zero-amount tickets thus reducing the risk of bugs in smart contracts.

In addition to the improvements to the current Layer 1 Tezos solutions, the Lima upgrade also finalizes the development work towards Smart Rollups, which is an innovative Layer 2 scaling solution that is expected to debut in the subsequent Tezos upgrade proposal.

The post Tezos activates the 12th upgrade “Lima” appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Authorities have arrested Sam Bankman-Fried in the Bahamas.

• Binance reserves are accounted for, says CryptoQuant.

• Ark Invest continues to invest in Coinbase.

Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX cryptocurrency, was arrested in The Bahamas earlier this week. The former billionaire now faces extradition to the United States, where he would face numerous charges by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

A Bahamian judge denied SBF bail as he is deemed a flight risk. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged SBF with eight criminal counts. Meanwhile, the SEC also charged Sam Bankman-Fried with allegedly orchestrating a scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX Trading.

According to John J Ray III, FTX had no record-keeping whatsoever and accused the cryptocurrency exchange of committing old-fashioned embezzlement. 

Binance reserves are accounted for

Blockchain analytics provider CryptoQuant revealed earlier this week that it had verified Binance’s proof of reserve in its recently released audit report. The report analysed the recently released proof-of-reserves by Binance. 

There has been a lot of FUD around Binance over the past few days, with a surge in withdrawals on the platform. Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, told CNBC that the cryptocurrency exchange could meet 100% of withdrawals on its platform. He said;

“People can withdraw 100% of the assets they have on Binance; we will not have an issue on any given day. Binance doesn’t operate on a fractional banking system.”

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest mops up more Coinbase stocks

Ark Invest acquired Coinbase stocks on two separate occasions last week. At the start of the week, Ark Invest acquired over 78,000 Coinbase stocks, despite the declining price of the company’s shares.

Before the end of the week, Ark Invest spent $3.2 million on Coinbase shares, bringing its total to 58 million. The investment came despite the fact that Coinbase’s CEO revealed the company expects its 2022 revenue to decline by 50% or more from what it generated in 2021.

Microsoft drops the hammer on cryptocurrency mining on its online services

Cloud computing giant Microsoft announced earlier this week that it had placed new restrictions on activities like cryptocurrency mining. As a result of this latest development, users will now require written pre-approval from the company before they can be allowed to use Microsoft Azure for mining cryptocurrencies.

Brazil is next to launch a CBDC

The president of the Brazil Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, announced earlier this week that they are preparing to launch a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in 2024.

The central bank is also planning to carry out a pilot program alongside other financial institutions before the implementation of the CBDC.

The post This week in crypto: SBF arrested in The Bahamas appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Investor Kevin O’Leary is a hired FTX spokesperson in the ongoing FTX hearing.
• O’Leary has asserted that Binance was behind the collapse of FTX.
• Kevin however told the committee that that was an opinion and didn’t have records.

Kevin O’Leary, a hired FTX spokesperson, on Wednesday told the US Senate Committee hearing on the collapse of FTX that Binance was the cause of the FTX problems.

Kevin told the committee that when he inquired about Sam Bankman-Fried’s usage of customer funds, he was told that more than $3 billion were used in repurchasing the FTX shares that Binance held. When pressed by Senator Patrick Toomey on why FTX failed, Kevin said he only had an opinion but didn’t have the records.

Binance move to sell FTX tokens hurt FTX’s balance sheet

Kevin claimed that Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao’s move to sell the FTX tokens that it held was made to hurt FTX’s balance sheet. In Kevin’s words:

“In my view, my personal opinion, these two […] in an unregulated market […] with this incredible business in terms of growth were at war with each other, and one put the other out of business, intentionally.”

Kevin further added:

“Maybe there is nothing wrong with that, maybe there is nothing wrong with love and war, but Binance is a massive unregulated global monopoly now, and they put FTX out of business.”

Last week on Friday, Changpeng Zhao and Sam Bankman-Fried engaged in a Twitter feud defending the legality of their business empires and former remarks by Kevin O’Leary in a previous interview with CNBC were brought up in the argument.

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