Monday, January 25th, 2021
|
|
Your Weekly Update On All Things Crypto |
|
Bitcoin has a love-hate relationship with the media. When the price is booming everyone loves it, but when the price corrects, the same personalities that were singing it's praises the previous week fall victim to the rehashing of old, debunked gossip. This phenomenon has taken place in every market cycle, and the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) tend to be recycled from years past.
Each new Bitcoin cycle brings new investors into cryptocurrency. For many of them, they would be hearing these stories for the first time. The same "breaking news" can sound devastating if you haven't heard it on repeat for so many years. This week, we figured we would whip out the old FUD buster, and set the record straight.
Tether FUD: There have been rumors swirling since the time Tether was invented in 2014, that Tether does not have 1:1 ratios of reserves to back it's stablecoin. This rumor has been consistently silenced by those close to the project. In fact, on Friday, Gregory Pepin, the CEO of Deltec Bank (the bank that backs Tether) made a very clear announcement to calm these fears. He said, "Every tether is backed by a reserve and their reserve is more than what is in circulation."
Double Spend FUD: A story was reported by BitMEX Research, that the Bitcoin blockchain detected a small double spend of around 0.00062063 BTC ($21). This stirred the new-to-crypto-community into a fear-induced frenzy worrying that Bitcoin’s public ledger had seen its first 51% attack. What happened last week was not a double-spend... it was a block reorganization. It happens when two blocks get mined simultaneously. In this case, the consensus algorithm will choose whichever miner has the longest-chain. Bitcoin is still the most secure network on earth, and nothing fundamental has changed about the technology.
Terrorist Activity FUD: Last week, newly appointed Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen made her views on cryptocurrency heard. "Cryptocurrencies are a particular concern," Yellen said. "I think many are used—at least in a transactions sense—mainly for illicit financing." Clearly, Yellen is looking to suppress Bitcoin, or she is just wildly misinformed. According to the 2021 Crypto Crime Report published by blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis’s, the proportion of cryptocurrency-related crime fell significantly last year. “In 2019, criminal activity represented 2.1 percent of all cryptocurrency transaction volume or roughly $21.4 billion worth of transfers,” the firm found. “In 2020, the criminal share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34 percent or $10.0 billion in transaction volume.” To be clear... the most used currency by terrorists and money launderers in the US Dollar. Funny how narratives can spin...
While we didn't have time to bust all the FUD currently floating around the internet, it is important to remember one thing: Nothing about Bitcoin has changed. The fundamentals are still intact. The value proposition is stronger than ever and those that are looking to discredit it are most likely just looking for a better price.
|
|
CryptoWeekly Releases Crypto100 |
Amidst the backdrop of a global pandemic and economic shutdowns, the cryptocurrency market was a lone star, shining brighter than any other asset class on earth in 2020. The team at CryptoWeekly recognizes, admires, and wants to acknowledge all the hard work and brilliant minds behind some of the projects shaping our industry.
Every year, we at CryptoWeekly released our annual Crypto100, a list of the 100 most influential people in Crypto. This year’s list is as diverse as ever, with crypto innovation seeping in from all corners of the world. 2020 has seen technologists, investors, policymakers, and visionaries from all walks of life entering the crypto space. The founders of top projects are distinguishing themselves not just in crypto, but on a global stage. As these key influencers branch out around the world, 2021 is predicted to be an exciting year in terms of mass blockchain adoption.
Furthermore, in 2021, we are seeing a flood of institutional investment engulf the cryptocurrency market as public and private corporations rush into Bitcoin as a store of value. We're also witnessing the birth of a new financial system called 'Defi' in front of our eyes. Neither of these trends shows any signs of slowing down in 2021, and our outlook this year remains extremely bullish.
You can read and interact with the entire list here. Keep an eye out for CryptoWeekly's upcoming 2021 lists, such as the 250 companies to watch and Crypto YouTubers.
|
|
Saddle Finance Raises $4.3M for AMM |
|
Saddle Finance, one of the latest decentralized finance systems to come out of Silicon Valley, raised $4.3 million in a seed funding round that closed last Tuesday. The startup was recently spun out of Thesis; the crypto venture studio behind projects like Fold, tBTC and Keep. The round was financed by Framework Ventures, Polychain Capital, and Electric Capital.
The funding is to assist with launching Saddle's newly announced automated market maker (AMM), which focuses on preventing slippage in value between different types of pegged-value assets like stablecoins and tokenized bitcoin. Slippage refers to the difference between the expected price of a trade and the executed price of that trade. It shouldn't be a surprise that Crypto is highly volatile and reactive, meaning even stablecoins and pegged tokens are vulnerable to large amounts of slippage when traded on-chain.
Saddle Founder, Sunil Srivatsa explains “If you’re trading $100 USDC for USDT, you’d expect to get pretty close to $100 USDT. However, for the longest time, that wasn’t possible. You would trade $100 of USDC, and maybe get out like $97 or $98 [in USDT].”
“So one of the problems that we’re setting out to solve is to basically unlock deep on-chain liquidity for pegged value crypto assets,” says Srivatsa, “That means you’re able to make trades and lose a very minimal amount to slippage and transaction fees.” Saddle plans to use Synthetix’s virtual synths and will compete with other DeFi protocols like Curve Finance.
|
|
Bitcoin: Fighting Through The FUD |
An analogy I find useful is to view bull markets like running a marathon. The quicker a stocks' price runs, the more energy the market is using to drive up the price. Just like in a race, if you sprint very quickly, you will need time to rest and recover. The same thing is happening to Bitcoin. It has been sprinting at a blistering pace for the past 3 months and has finally needed a moment to catch it's breath. Although this type of correction is normal and even healthy, the market will always take it as an opportunity to drive the price down even further.
With all that said, Bitcoin has done a pretty stellar job holding it's price even through all the FUD and misinformation that has been spread about it in the past week. We are still within our ascending megaphone trading pattern and at the time the deepest this correction has gone is down 31% from all-time highs. These types of corrections should be expected in a bull run and this is the first major correction we have seen this cycle. In 2017 we saw 8 corrections greater than 30%. Although the price has shot up quickly, we are still early in the cycle and these types of corrections should be welcome opportunities to "Buy the Dip".
|
Alt-Coins: Will The Pump Continue? |
The alt-coin market has been on fire this month and last week we saw Ethereum quietly pass its all-time high of $1,400. Attention has definitely shifted back into the realm of Defi and enterprise blockchain. Other top protocols like Chainlink and Aave also passed their all-time highs last week.
But is it all too much too quick?
Alt-coins have made a significant recovery versus Bitcoin in the past month. After smashing both lines of resistance in the last two weeks, we are now testing the 100-week moving average. If we close the weekly above the moving average, it is likely the trend continues and alt-coins continue to run against a stagnant Bitcoin. If we fall below the 100-week moving average, it is likely that we drop down and retest the ascending (green) line of support before making our next move upwards.
|
|
|
|
Canada's fastest growing OTC cryptocurrency exchange
The #1 exchange for high volume Canadian investors
✔️Same Day Account Approvals
✔️Minimum trade = $25K
✔️Over $100M Traded in 1s Year
|
|
|
 |
Serum is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and ecosystem that brings unprecedented speed and low transaction costs to decentralized finance. It is built on Solana and is completely permission-less. It is being built by Sam Bankman-Fried and the team that brought you FTX. Judging by the massive adoption of FTX and the incredible technical construction of that project, if Serum can create a similar version of that, but in a decentralized fashion, there is a world of opportunity for this project to grow.
Serum has started to rally in the past few weeks but is still 82% down from its all-time high versus Bitcoin. The project is still relatively new, launching in August of 2020. Its market cap is still sub-100M so there is definitely still risk in this pick. If this project continues to scale and the team can accomplish what they set out to do, Uniswap could see some major competition in the decentralized exchange space, and we could see a lot more positive price action for SRM this cycle.
Click here to view the chart.
|
|
|
|
Benchmark Protocol (MARK) |
Benchmark Protocol is a Supply-Elastic Currency (similar to Ampleforth) however instead of being pegged solely to the USD, it is pegged to a basket of the top international fiat currencies called the SDR. Rebases in the currency supply use the CBOE Volatility Index as a parameter, allowing it to provide price stability in times of global uncertainty.
Benchmark will be used as a hedging device within decentralized finance portfolios. They have a star-studded team and top-notch advisors. One of their advisors is Ajit Tripathi, the head of institutional business at Aave. This might infer a high-powered partnership with Aave down the road.
Benchmark is a very new project as it launched in December of 2020. The current market cap is still under $3M so it is still a relatively risky investment, but if the project delivers on what it is set out to accomplish, the upside potential of this company is off the charts.
Click here to view the chart.
|
|
|
|
The cryptocurrency market cap just hit $1 Trillion and continues to grow. This value is driven by the innovative new assets that enter the market everyday. Tokensoft brings these assets to market and makes them a reality. To-date, Tokensoft has created digital assets and digital securities that total $5 Billion in market cap. Tokensoft supports three different blockchain-based asset classes, digital assets (blockchains and tokens), security tokens and now wrapped assets. They are looking to hire someone that is familiar with the defi ecosystem, to help expand the use cases for wrapped assets under their wrapped.com.
|
|
DeFi Integration Associate
💲 Competitive
🌐 Full time, (Remote)
|
|
Index Coop is creating assets that make finance accessible. The Index Coop is growing and has a plethora of things to build including new products, keeper bots, monitoring, improving existing products, and Index Coop website. As a led engineer, you will be the anchor of the Index Coop engineering organization and will be collaborating with the highly technical Set team that values open sourcing, automated testing, and collaboration.
|
|
Lead Engineer
💲 140k
🌐 Full time (Remote)
|
|
|
|
Want to Sponsor the Newsletter? |
|
We at CryptoWeekly are not Financial Advisors. None of the content or opinions expressed in this newsletter should be considered financial advice. We highly recommend that you do your own research before investing in any project within or outside the cryptocurrency space. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
