Alternative blockchains such as Terra, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Solana, Fantom, Tron and Polygon have been gaining the most market share in the DeFi market, and those competitors have received a lot of funding and have set up incentives to increase usage in their own systems, JPMorgan said. Source
The number of nonfungible tokens (NFT’s) sold on the layer-two protocol Polygon reached an all-time high last month at just short of 2 million. According to Dune Analytics, this marks a near 60% rise in comparison to November and the third consecutive monthly increase for the network. An Ethereum-based scaling solution seeking to construct, distribute and manage securities on blockchain technology, Polygon’s ecosystem has grown exponentially over the past twelve months, registering in excess of 3,000 decentralized applications on its network, in addition to a total value locked figure of…
Ethereum’s native token Ether (ETH) plunged sharply hours after the U.S. Federal Reserve released the minutes of their December meeting, showing that they eye a faster timetable for hiking interest rates in 2022. The minutes showed that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is in favor of raising short-term rates “sooner or at a faster pace than participants had earlier anticipated.” According to the CME Group, trading in the interest-rate futures market showed a two-thirds possibility of the first increase in March. Ether turned lower after the minutes were released, dropping by…
Hedge fund manager Ray Dalio remains bullish on Bitcoin (BTC) in 2022, listing three primary reasons why Bitcoin is “impressive.” In a recent interview with The Investors Podcast, he talked up gold and BTC as an inflation hedge. When prompted by interviewer William Green about what a sensible allocation for a layperson would be, Dalio said that he agrees with fellow billionaire Bill Miller’s suggestion that 1%–2% is the right allocation. He explained that the network has never been hacked; it has no better competitor; and BTC adoption rates would suggest…
Sun Hung Kai, one of the largest property developers in Hong Kong, continues betting on the cryptocurrency industry by investing in Swiss crypto outfit Sygnum. Sygnum officially announced Thursday that it had closed a $90-million Series B round led by Sun Hung Kai, a real estate giant and alternative investment firm in Hong Kong. According to Sun Hung Kai executive chairman Lee Seng Huang, the company has a strategic vision to expand its fund management offerings into digital assets. “Amidst growing institutional demand and regulatory oversight of this sector, Sygnum,…
ESMA, the European Securities and Markets Authority, has set out to establish if EU authorities need to amend existing regulations in order to facilitate the trading and settlement of tokenized securities. The regulator is now seeking opinions on the matter ahead of launching a pilot regime for market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). ESMA Gathers Stakeholders’ Input on DLT Pilot Regime for Securities The European securities watchdog ESMA is accepting public comments on the potential update of regulations concerning the implementation of DLT solutions in the market. The…
Bitcoin (BTC) delivered fresh volatility on Jan. 6 as rangebound behavior saw its first shake-up in weeks. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Open interest remains high Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD dropping overnight to hit $42,000 for the first time since December. Although not the upside breakout that many had wanted, the move was nonetheless predicted, Bitcoin essentially “filling” the space left after it briefly wicked to $41,800 early last month. Those lows were the result of a liquidation cascade, and while long positions also…
As Bitcoin’s (BTC) price slides to 2022 lows, Bitcoin bears have come out to play. Popular names in the BTC space including FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and John Carvalho heeded words of caution overnight, while long-standing gold proponent Peter Schiff and eternal pessimist CryptoWhale were keen to kick the coin while it was down. A liquidation cascade on Thursday took out more than $318 million BTC positions, over 88% of which were long. The price corrected to around $42,500 per BTC. News of a mining ban in Kazakhstan and the…
Taxpayers in Thailand who profit from cryptocurrencies will be subject to a 15% capital gains tax this year, according to the Bangkok Post. Exchanges will be exempt, but not retail investors or mining operators, according to the newspaper, which cited an unidentified person at the Finance Ministry. The Revenue Department plans to strengthen its surveillance of cryptocurrency trading after it experienced significant growth in market size and the value of the digital asset market in 2021, according to the report. According to Section 40 of the Royal Decree amending Revenue…
The government of Thailand is progressing in regulating the local cryptocurrency ecosystem by reportedly enacting new tax rules for the industry. Profits from crypto trading in Thailand are now subject to a 15% capital gains tax, The Bangkok Post news agency reported Thursday. The Thai Revenue Department also plans to step up its monitoring duties following a booming digital asset market last year. The department has the authority to collect taxes from crypto trades as profits from such activity are considered assessable income under Section 40 of the Royal Decree amending Revenue…