Sunday, October 31, 2021

Investors rug-pulled after pouring $57M into dog-themed OlympusDAO fork

Hong Kong police have reportedly been notified of the incident, with the primary suspect having filed a police report and handed a computer over to authorities.

After launching via a Discord channel on Oct. 28, AnubisDAO went on to raise roughly 13,256.4 ETH using Alchemistcoin’s liquidity bootstrapping protocol (LBP) Copper. However, the funds were unexpectedly sent to a different address roughly 20 hours into the LBP.

CNBC spoke to one investor who claims to have lost almost $470,000 to AnubisDAO. The investor, Brian Nguyen, conceded to subscribing to a “buy first, do research later mentality,” describing the loss as “pretty painful.”

Nguyen noted that he was attracted to AnubisDAO because of its canine-themed branding amid the meteoric gains recently reaped by some dog-token investors after seeing Anubis promoted on Twitter by prominent pseudonymous DeFi advocate “0xSisyphus.”

Anubis is the Greek name for the Egyptian god of death and the underworld, with Egyptian imagery depicting the god as donning the body of a human and the head of a dog.

Investors appear to have lost roughly $57 million worth of Ether in what many are describing as a rug-pull executed by the upstart canine-themed OympusDAO fork, AnubisDAO.

0xSisyphus has published a detailed timeline outlining AnubisDAO’s formation and launch, and claims to have engaged law enforcement in both the United States and Hong Kong. 0xSisyphus has also offered to cease the civil proceedings should the perpetrator return the stolen finds minus a 1,000 ETH bounty.

Inside job?

According to 0xSisyphus, the idea for an OlympusDAO fork inspired by Shiba Inu’s branding arose from discussions among members of the PebbleDAO project during Oct. 26 and Oct. 27.

A Telegram for the project was created on the 27th, with its six original members all hailing from PebbleDAO. The following day it is decided that the pseudonymous founding member “Beerus” would be tasked with deploying the LBP — a decision that 0xSisyphus now describes as a “critical mistake”:

“This was the critical mistake. This should have been done from the original multisig wallet.”

With just hours left until LBP was scheduled to close on Oct. 29, Beerus claimed “to have opened a malicious link from a PDF” and exposed the private keys used for the LBP launch. 13,556 Ether was then pulled from the LBP shortly after, however Beerus’ personal wallet funds appear to remain “intact and under his control.”

0xSisyphus also notes that “security researchers provided the PDFs from phishing emails” distributed during the day Beerus claimed to have clicked the malicious link, noting at “at this point, none have found any malicious content contained in the PDFs.”

Beerus’ real-world information is also collated and partially published to Twitter and Hong Kong authorities are contacted on Oct. 29. Beerus filed a report and turned one computer over to Hong Kong police the following day.

0xSisyphus also notes that wallets associated with the incident have since sent ETH to Coinbase, adding that the exchange has been notified of the transactions.



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Industrial Bitcoin mining breathes new life into tiny Texan town

Major Bitcoin miners have set up shop in a former aluminium smelting plant in the small Texan town of Rockdale.

Two Bitcoin mining giants are duking it out for cheap electricity in the tiny town in Texas.

Both Bitdeer, a mining firm that spun out from Chinese giant Bitmain, and Riot Blockchain, one of leading publicly traded Bitcoin mining firms in the United States, are operating data centers hosted at a former aluminium smelting facility in the Texan town of Rockdale.

The town’s aluminium smelting plant was previously the world’s largest, until the company that ran it, Alcoa, began winding up operations in 2008. According to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, the facility’s energy capacity was wasted from Alcoa’s departure until the miners set up shop.

Despite Rockdale comprising a tiny rural town of just 5,600 people, it exhibits all the benefits sought after by industrial-scale miners — crypto-friendly politicians, large plots of land hosting abandoned industrial infrastructure rip for repurposing, and dirt-cheap electricity prices thanks to Texas’ deregulated market.

Rockdale Mayor John King describes the relationship between local grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and miners as mutually beneficial. He emphasized that miners regularly consume electricity power that would otherwise be wasted, and they can also shut down operations instantly should power be needed elsewhere. He added:

“Miners are committed to buying a certain amount of power and what they do is they sell it back at market [value] and make a profit. They have a contract of two cents or three cents...and they can sell it for $9 a kilowatt hour.”

As reported by Cointelegraph on Oct. 7, Riot has more than tripled its Bitcoin production this year.

The firm now estimates that the facility is producing more than 500 BTC per month from its facility in Rockdale. At current prices, the mined coins equate to $30 million per month. Riot says the site hosts 100,000 mining rigs.

Related: Crypto cowboys: Texas counties welcome Bitcoin miners with open arms

Texan lawmakers are pushing for a further expansion in the state’s Bitcoin mining embrace, with Senator Ted Cruz describing mining as a means to capture natural gas that the state currently flares.

Speaking during the Oct. 10 Texas Blockchain Summit, Cruz argued that natural gas is currently being flared in West Texas because “there is no transmission equipment to get that natural gas where it could be used the way natural gas would ordinarily be employed.”

“Use that power to mine Bitcoin. Part of the beauty of that is the instant you’re doing it you’re helping the environment enormously because rather than flaring the natural gas you’re putting it to productive use,” he added.



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Bitcoin price descending channel and loss of momentum could turn $60K to resistance

After a slight hiccup in BTC futures premium, traders seem comfortable despite the $58,000 support retest and the risk of $60,000 turning to resistance.

Bitcoin (BTC) appears to lack the strength to retest the $67,000 all-time high that it reached on Oct. 20 and this is causing investors to question whether or not the bullish moment has faded. Even with the price facing these hurdles, it’s still premature to call the $58,000 support level test the beginning of a descending channel.

Bitcoin price in USD at Coinbase. Source: TradingView

Among the factors limiting the rally is the regulatory uncertainty in the United States. Anne Termine, a partner in the government enforcement and investigations practice at Bracewell LLP and former chief trial attorney at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that “there are no easy answers” for the agency to provide clear rules.

Increasing adoption, on the other hand, has been pressuring traditional banks to seek cryptocurrency product offerings. For example, major Russian private bank Tinkoff, owner of a large online brokerage services, is researching crypto-related investment services even though the Bank of Russia withholding such launches.

This week Coinbase exchange hit the top spot as the most downloaded app for the United Stated Apple Store, which is mind-blowing. Coinbase beat tech giants like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram and this is not a small feat. Coinbase first listed on the app store in 2014 and was the most popular download in the U.S. in 2017 and May 2021.

Pro traders stumbled but are bullish again

To determine how bullish or bearish professional traders are, one should monitor the futures premium — also known as the “basis rate.”

The indicator measures the difference between longer-term futures contracts and the current price at spot market exchanges. A 5% to 15% annualized premium is expected in healthy markets, otherwise known as contango.

This price gap is caused by participants demanding more money to withhold settlement longer, and a red alert emerges whenever this indicator fades or turns negative, known as “backwardation.”

Bitcoin 3-month futures basis rate. Source: Laevitas.ch

Notice how the sharp decrease caused by the $58,000 resistance test on Oct. 27 caused the annualized futures premium to reach its lowest level in three weeks. Still, the indicator recovered nicely to the current 17%, signaling a moderate bullishness.

To confirm whether this movement was specific to that instrument, one should also analyze options markets.

The 25% delta skew compares similar call (buy) and put (sell) options and will turn positive when “fear” is prevalent. That situation reflects the protective put options costing higher than similar risk call options.

The opposite movement holds when market makers are bullish, causing the 25% delta skew indicator to shift to the negative area. Readings between negative 8% and positive 8% are usually deemed neutral.

Deribit Bitcoin options 25% delta skew. Source: laevitas.ch

The 25% delta skew has been ranging in the neutral zone since Sep. 30. The latest bottom on Oct. 25 was negative 6%, not enough to be considered moderate bullishness. However, not even Bitcoin’s 12.5% correction from $66,600 on Oct. 21 to $58,200 on Oct. 28 was enough to inflict fear on professional traders.

Although no bearish signs emerged from the Bitcoin derivatives market, bulls should worry about the potential descending channel starting on Oct. 19. If that movement gets further confirmation, traders should expect $60,000 to become a resistance by Nov. 12.

There are no stress signs currently from professional traders, so a correction after a 63% rally in three weeks that led to the $67,000 all-time high on Oct. 20 should not be problematic.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.



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Top 5 cryptocurrencies to watch this week: BTC, ETH, BNB, MATIC, FTM

Bitcoin is witnessing modest profit-booking, but the long-term trend remains intact and altcoins like ETH, BNB, MATIC and FTM may remain in focus in the short term.

The weekend failed to ignite bullish momentum from crypto investors and both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) turned down on Oct. 31. The bulls will now try to achieve the third successive weekly close and the first-ever monthly close above the psychological $60,000 level.

$63,000 is another level of interest for traders because the stock-to-flow creator PlanB, projected this level as the “worst-case scenario” for October. In the recent past, PlanB’s worst-case theory was proven to be correct in August and September.

Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360

Apart from the near-term interest, investors should remember that Bitcoin was launched on Jan. 3, 2009, at a price of $0.0008 and from there rallied 8,374,999,900% to hit a high at $67,000.

The journey for the hodlers was not easy as there were several gut-wrenching corrections along the way and each time a handful of analysts called for the end of Bitcoin. However, in hindsight, all these dips turned out to be good buying opportunities.

Today marks the 13th birthday of the Bitcoin white paper released on Oct. 31, 2008, paving the way for possibly the biggest financial disruption.

Let’s analyze the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies that could attract traders’ attention in the next few days.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin has formed a flag pattern but the bulls have not been able to push the price above it. The failure to break the overhead resistance could have prompted selling by short-term traders, which has pulled the price to the 20-day exponential moving average ($59,679).

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If bears pull the price below the 20-day EMA, the BTC/USDT pair could drop to the support line of the pattern. This is an important support for the bulls to defend because a break below it will invalidate the setup. The pair could then sink to the next support at $52,920.

If the price rebounds off the 20-day EMA, the bulls will make one more attempt to thrust the pair above the flag. If they succeed, the pair could retest the all-time high at $67,000 and then rally toward the pattern target at $89,476.12.

BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The 4-hour chart shows that bears are aggressively defending the resistance line. The pair has dipped below the moving averages and a break below $60,000 could result in a decline to the support line.

This level is expected to attract strong buying from the bulls. A bounce off the support line could keep the pair inside the descending channel. The bulls will have to push and sustain the price above the resistance line to indicate the possible end of the corrective phase.

ETH/USDT

Ether broke above the all-time high at $4,375 on Oct. 29 but the bulls could not continue the up-move. The bears pulled the price back below the breakout level on Oct. 30, indicating that sellers are active up at higher levels.

ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The ETH/USDT pair could drop to the 20-day EMA ($4,010), which is an important support for the bulls to defend. If the price bounces off this support, the bulls will try to thrust the pair above $4,460.47.

If that happens, the pair could resume its journey toward the psychological mark at $5,000. On the contrary, a break below the 20-day EMA could result in a decline to $3,888. If the price rebounds off this level, the pair may remain range-bound for a few days.

The bears will have to pull and sustain the price below $3,888 to gain the upper hand. That could open the doors for a decline to the 50-day SMA ($3,564).

ETH/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The pair has been trading inside an ascending channel for the past few days. If the price rebounds off the 50-SMA, the bulls will attempt to push the pair above $4,460.47. The pair could then rally to the resistance line of the channel. A break and close above the channel could accelerate the uptrend.

Alternatively, if the price dips below the 50-SMA, a drop to the support line of the channel is likely. A bounce off this level could keep the uptrend intact but a break below the channel will be the first sign that the bulls may be losing their grip.

BNB/USDT

Binance Coin (BNB) broke above the overhead resistance at $518.90 on Oct. 29 but the bulls could not build upon this advantage. This suggests a lack of demand at higher levels.

BNB/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The bears have pulled the price back below $518.90. If the BNB/USDT pair sustains below this level, the next stop could be the psychological support at $500 and then the 20-day EMA ($480). This is an important support for the bulls to defend.

If the price rebounds off the 20-day EMA, it will suggest that sentiment remains positive and traders are buying on dips. The bulls will then again try to resume the uptrend by driving the price above the overhead zone between $518.90 and $540.50.

Conversely, if the price slips below the 20-day EMA, the correction could deepen and the pair could drop to the 50-day SMA ($431).

BNB/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The price has dipped back to the 20-EMA, which is likely to act as a strong support. If the pair rebounds off this level, the bulls will attempt to resume the uptrend and push the price to the pattern target at $554 and then to $600.

If the price breaks below the 20-EMA, it will suggest that the bullish momentum may be weakening in the short term. The pair could then drop to the 50-SMA and next to the neckline of the inverse head and shoulders pattern. A break below this level will indicate a possible change in trend.

Related: What is the worst nightmare that could happen to crypto? Experts answer

MATIC/USDT

Polygon (MATIC) skyrocketed and closed above the overhead resistance zone at $1.71 to $1.79 on Oct. 28, which indicated the start of a new uptrend.

MATIC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

Usually, after the price rises above a significant resistance, it turns down and retests the breakout level. The bulls will now try to flip the $1.79 to $1.71 zone into support and use it as a launchpad to resume the uptrend.

A breakout and close above $2.22 could clear the path for a rally to $2.43 and eventually a retest of the all-time high at $2.70. The rising 20-day EMA ($1.65) and the RSI in the positive territory suggest that bulls are in control.

This positive view will invalidate if bears pull and sustain the price below the 20-day EMA. Such a move will indicate that the recent break above $1.79 may have been a bull trap.

MATIC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The 4-hour chart shows the price has dipped to the 50-SMA, which is likely to act as a strong support. If bulls drive the price above the downtrend line, it will suggest that the selling pressure may be reducing.

Alternatively, if the price breaks below the 50-SMA, the pair could drop to $1.71. This level is again likely to act as a strong support but if it cracks, the selling could intensify. The pair could thereafter drop to $1.50.

FTM/USDT

Fantom (FTM) broke out to a new all-time high on Oct. 28 but the bulls could not sustain the breakout. The long wick on the day’s candlestick shows that traders booked profits at higher levels.

FTM/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

In an uptrend, bulls generally buy the dips to the 20-day EMA ($2.52). If the price rebounds off the current level, it will suggest that sentiment remains bullish and traders are buying on dips. The bulls will then attempt to push the price above the overhead resistance at $3.48.

If they succeed, the FTM/USDT pair could resume its uptrend with the next target objective at $4.10, followed by a move to the psychological level at $5.

Contrary to this assumption, a break below the 20-day EMA will signal that traders continue to dump their positions. The pair could then drop to the 50-day SMA ($1.86). The negative divergence on the RSI suggests that the bullish momentum could be weakening.

FTM/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The moving averages have completed a bearish crossover on the 4-hour chart and the RSI has dipped into the negative zone, indicating that bears are at an advantage. The first support on the downside is the earlier breakout level at $2.45.

A strong rebound off this level will suggest that bulls are attempting to flip this level into support. If that happens, the pair could again attempt to rise to $3 and later to $3.48. This positive view will invalidate if bears pull the price below $2.45.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.



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Inside the blockchain developer’s mind: What is a testnet?

By familiarizing themselves with the nuances of testnets, blockchain developers can become better equipped to evaluate specific testnet releases.

Cointelegraph is following the development of an entirely new blockchain from inception to mainnet and beyond through its series, Inside the Blockchain Developer’s Mind. In previous parts, Andrew Levine of Koinos Group discussed some of the challenges the team has faced since identifying the key issues they intend to solve and outlined three of the “crises” that are holding back blockchain adoption: upgradeability, scalability, and governance.

Blockchain testnets are an interesting subject because they come in all shapes and sizes. So, in this post, my goal is to leverage my inside experience as the CEO of Koinos Group (developers of Koinos) to demystify testnets and perhaps give some insight into why they seem to have such an impact on price.

The most obvious place to start is with the name: testnet. The purpose of a testnet is to test a network. At a very high level, there are two “flavors” of testnet. The first is a testnet that is released prior to a mainnet (main network), and the second is a testnet that is released after a mainnet is already in operation. The functions these serve are similar, but the context in which they are released dramatically impacts the perception, and impact, of the release.

I’ll start with the second kind of testnet because, in a way, this is the more straightforward context. When you’re talking about existing networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum, testnets serve two primary functions. The first is that they are a live environment in which developers can test their decentralized applications. Every good developer knows that there’s no such thing as perfect code, so testnets give developers an environment that is very similar to the “main chain” (e.g. Ethereum) in which they can test their code with effectively zero risk. Things running on a testnet are expected to break, and the tokens used are expected to be worthless.

Related: London fork enters testnet on Ethereum as difficulty bomb sees delay

So, testnets are an environment that enables decentralized application (DApp) developers to increase the value of their applications (i.e., make their apps better) precisely because there is no expectation of full functionality or wealth creation. In a sense, the value of a testnet stems from its worthlessness.

DApp developers vs. blockchain developers

But testnets have a two-sided nature, which brings us to the second function that testnets serve, and that function is to the benefit of, not the DApp developer, but the platform developer (in our case, the blockchain developer). One thing I have been surprised to see from my unique perspective is how commonly DApp developers are conflated with blockchain developers. Typically, people who write smart contracts are not blockchain developers, and blockchain developers generally spend very little time writing smart contracts.

Ironically, Koinos is throwing a huge wrench in this distinction because its entire system is implemented as smart contracts! Since Koinos smart contracts are upgradeable, this means that any feature can be added to the blockchain without a hard fork, but it also means that the people developing the blockchain (like members of the Koinos Group) are using and developing the very same toolchain and toolkit that developers will use to build their DApps. But this is a feature that is totally unique to Koinos, so we can put that aside for the sake of this discussion.

In every other blockchain, the blockchain developers have to develop updates in whatever programming language the blockchain is written in (C++, Rust, Haskell, etc.), and they are working on a very large and complicated system called a “monolithic architecture.” Within monolithic architectures, changing any part of the system can impact any other part of the system, so the risk of making changes is that much higher.

Blockchain developers also need a live environment with low stakes that they can use to test out their changes and see what breaks. Like application developers, they want this environment to be as close to the real network as possible, which means that they want their code to interact with code that application developers will be running as well.

Two sides of testnets

This reveals the two-sided aspect of testnets. They enable both the developers of applications and the developers of platforms to interact with one another and safely test their code in as close to a live environment as possible, but with very low stakes. This enables both groups to improve their products and make them more valuable to their users.

Now we can start to see why testnets seem to have such an impact on token price. If we assume that price is a function of value, and that testnets help developers increase the value of their products, then price impact should be expected. The problem is that this correlation has led to several undesirable outcomes. Projects will often release a “testnet” that has no utility to developers for the sole purpose of boosting their token price. Unfortunately, many people will see the testnet announcement and just assume that something valuable has been released, and so the act will have the desired effect on the price.

Testnets before mainnet

Up until now, I’ve been focusing on the utility of testnets in the context of existing blockchains, which is that they create a safe space for application developers to test their applications and for blockchain developers to test upgrades to the underlying platform. This will help you understand the other important context in which testnets are released, which is prior to the release of the mainnet.

Once again, testing is the primary objective, but the focus is far more on the system itself, as it has never before been operational. Of course, since it is new, there won’t be any applications running on it anyway. Now the situation is more one-sided. The majority of the people working with the codebase will be blockchain developers, and the goal is to get the platform to a place where developers want to actually build on it.

The first requirement developers will have is that the platform is proven to be sufficiently safe, and that should be the prime directive behind the specific tests that are run. Assuming developers are convinced that the platform is sufficiently safe, then they’ll need to be educated on how to use the platform. In other words, the testnet must be thought of as an educational tool that enables developers to gain a deeper understanding of how they will be able to use the platform while they are also helping to test the security of the network.

Finally, as they are testing the network and learning how to use it, they will inevitably find places where the platform could be improved — important libraries might be needed, or important documentation might be needed to help them understand the system. This information is invaluable feedback that the platform developers absolutely have to use to make the platform better before mainnet implementations are finalized.

Computer networks have become a major part of our lives whether we realize it or not, and they are only increasing in importance. Testnets are a critical step in the process of releasing new and innovative computer networks that can add ever-increasing value to our lives. Hopefully, by gaining a deeper understanding of the nuances of testnets and the important contexts in which they are released, you are now better equipped to evaluate specific testnet releases and whether they are being designed and launched for the right reasons.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Andrew Levine is the CEO of Koinos Group, where he and the former development team behind the Steem blockchain build blockchain-based solutions that empower people to take ownership and control over their digital selves. Their foundational product is Koinos, a high-performance blockchain built on an entirely new framework architected to give developers the features they need in order to deliver the user experiences necessary to spread blockchain adoption to the masses.

Koinos Group recently released version 2 of their testnet, which features stability improvements, their mana fee-less transactions system and a contract development toolkit that will allow developers to build and run smart contracts on Koinos.



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Trick or Treat: Will Halloween NFTs be hauntingly good or too spooky for crypto?

Halloween-inspired NFTs are gaining popularity this year, but will the trend continue over time and will they prove to be great investments?

Halloween is traditionally known for costumes, candy and trick or treating, but this year, the holiday is transitioning to the virtual world as the metaverse unfolds. As such, nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, are being created to showcase Halloween themes in hopes of attracting collectors looking for themed drops. 

Although Halloween-inspired NFTs appear to be a new concept, NFT artist Etsploit told Cointelegraph that Halloween holds a certain cultural importance that can't be dismissed: “I think people will collect NFTs for Halloween similar to that of NFT limited editions or releases of anything else.”

Given this sentiment, Etsploit launched the “Mango Heroes” project, which is a series of NFTs built on the Solana blockchain and inspired by the decentralized trading platform Mango Markets. Etsploit noted that 7,000 “Mango Heroes” will be available on Oct. 31, along with a special edition Halloween portion of the collection. “We will be giving away a Mango Hero reminiscent of Jason from the Halloween Movie series to a member of our Mango Heroes discord who has contributed the most to growing our community,” said Etsploit.

Source: Mango Heroes 

In addition to Mango Heroes, an NFT series created by NFTignition known as “Monster Bash” has launched just in time for Halloween 2021. Danielle Davis, founder of NFTignition, told Cointelegraph that the Monsters Bash collection features 10,000 NFTs based on classic monsters living on the Ethereum blockchain: “The collection features a series of generative art pieces that come in both a human and monster form. Your "hooman" state will transform into a monster before your very eyes.”

Davis shared that the goal behind Monster Bash is to pay homage to classic movie monsters such as vampires, mummies and werewolves. Like most NFT projects that appeal to collectors seeking specific themes, Davis explained that the Monster Bash selection aims to spark nostalgia in people upon viewing these creations.

Source: NFTignition

Another Halloween edition NFT has been launched by Uncanny Apes, a collection created by the Imperium token team featuring 5,999 “misfit” apes. J.B. Shaw, co-founder of Uncanny Apes, told Cointelegraph that the Uncanny Apes Halloween edition features a “ghostly team of spooky apes with their own different level of uniqueness.”

Shaw shared that Imperium token will kick off the launch with a limited release of 666 NFTs of the uncanny primates: “The Halloween Edition apes have a total of 25 different possible traits with five different categories (backgrounds, head attire, hairstyle, eyewear and facial expressions).”

Source: Uncanny Apes

While killer mangoes, transforming monsters and colorful apes are being launched by the crypto community, some celebrities and major brands have also created Halloween-inspired digital collectibles.

For example, American businesswoman and television personality Martha Stewart released a Halloween series of NFTs this month that are currently on display on Fresh Mint — Stewart’s own NFT website. According to sources, one of Stewart’s NFT collections features several of the Halloween costumes that the eclectic T.V. host has worn over the years. Others showcase a Roy Lichtenstein painting, a “black widow” and a “ghostly equestrienne.” Some of Stewart’s featured NFT drops also include work from the Brooklyn-based collective “Maniac Pumpkin Carvers.”

Staying true to the vast Martha Stewart brand, it’s also been noted that customers interested in these NFTs can bid on offerings like the “Custom Carved Pumpkin,” while also requesting specific designs to be created that are not NFTs. On Oct. 19, Stewart stated in an Instagram post that this is the first of many NFT collections she plans to release.

If Martha Stewart’s NFT collection wasn’t shockingly horrifying enough, it may come as a surprise that Spirit Halloween — North America’s largest Halloween retailer — is also showcasing an NFT collection this year. Spirit Halloween recently announced a partnership with Upland, a blockchain-based metaverse, that would allow the retailer to feature some of their most iconic costumes like Jack the Ripper within Upland’s virtual world.

Celebrating Halloween in the metaverse with NFTs

What’s arguably interesting about Spirit Halloween’s NFT collection is the utility behind it. For instance, the full launch of Spirit Halloween NFT bundles began on Oct. 25 and features Halloween-themed game pieces called “block explorers.” Following the launch, Spirit Halloween will take over the Upland metaverse with their NFT bundles consisting of in-game decorations, frightening block explorers and Upland “Legits,” which is a new generation of interactive NFTs.

According to Dirk Lueth, co-founder of Upland, Legits incorporate 3D designs that are optimized for a mobile experience. Lueth added that these new NFTs will offer an added layer of gamification that “die-hard Spirit Halloween fans will want to collect, trade and showcase, including an increased level of interactivity.”

Source: BEAR NFT

Decentraland, another blockchain-based metaverse, is also celebrating Halloween with NFTs by partnering with BEAR NFT and a number of other organizations to produce a Metaverse event called “NFTs are Dead.” The virtual gathering is scheduled to take place on Oct. 31 and will act as Decentraland’s official Halloween party and concert.

Ryan Kieffer, event producer and co-founder of BEAR NFT, told Cointelegraph that NFTs will play a large role, given that Decentraland’s virtual land is a nonfungible token. Kieffer added that NFT wearables will be airdropped to users during the event:

“Guests are invited to wear their best costume for photo opportunities, a costume contest and other fun surprises. Attendees should also keep a look out for a secret special VIP guest who will be wearing a 1/1 wearable and will reveal himself for those who stick around for the party’s grand finale.”

According to Kieffer, the purpose of such an event is to bring people together in the metaverse, which seems to be an ongoing theme post-COVID-19. In addition to virtual Halloween gatherings, Davis remarked that Monster Bash collectors are able to earn passive income through in-game tournaments. “There will be a pit against other monsters, with one reigning supreme each time! Each of the monsters has their own traits, allowing them to be better at some contests than others,” explained Davis.

Interestingly enough, virtual games leveraging NFTs may be one of the best applications for holiday-themed nonfungibles. Recent data from ​​the Worldwide Asset eXchange found that significant NFT growth has been driven by a surge in gaming activity, noting that over $1 million in NFT trading was generated on the platform just during the last month.

Will Halloween NFTs be a trick or an ongoing treat?

While Halloween-themed NFTs certainly seem to be in abundance this year, some may wonder if this will be an ongoing trend or just another opportunity to jump on board the NFT hype train while it’s hot.

Although it’s hard to predict the future of crypto, Kieffer believes that there is space for more Halloween-centric NFT releases, especially with wearables that can be used as costumes. To Kieffer’s point, a number of luxury fashion brands have also launched NFT collections to be worn virtually as the concept gains traction.

Related: Culture converges with blockchain as luxury fashion brands launch NFT collections

Echoing Kieffer, Etsploit commented that Halloween-themed NFTs could indeed gain traction after a few years “I think currently though, most people are looking for what is going to be the next long-term blue-chip project,” he noted. Shaw further remarked that the Halloween edition of Uncanny Ape may be too specific for the overall market, yet he believes that the primary line of Uncanny Apes will spark collector interest.

Davis further commented that although the Monster Bash collection was launched during the days leading up to Halloween, the collection isn’t specifically a Halloween project:

“We believe monsters are for every holiday, they are year-round spooky friends! Just because Halloween ends, that doesn't mean the functionality stops or the art gets worse. We think that though there will be an obvious holiday-specific correlation in the market, that won't stop our community from existing and growing.”


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What is the worst nightmare that could happen to crypto? Experts answer

What are decentralized-tech representatives most scared of? And what are their deepest fears in the crypto space?

Tim Draper of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson:

Tim is a pioneer of business ventures in the United States and a co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading investment firm in early-stage tech startups.

“I am fearless long-term. Bitcoin is coming. Short-term, it is spooky that some people are willing to give up this gift of freedom and trust in favor of government controls. Government controls have destroyed a lot of people’s lives and freedoms.”

These quotes have been edited and condensed.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Sheila Warren of the World Economic Forum:

Sheila is the head of data, blockchain and digital assets at the World Economic Forum.

“My worst nightmare with the crypto industry is that it will start to believe its own hype and forget that technology — any technology — is not on its own a cure for social problems, including financial exclusion.

I believe in the potential for crypto to enhance equity and inclusion and create new systems that empower people and provide them with agency. But that will only happen if the crypto ecosystem deliberately and intentionally focuses on these problems and includes these communities in the creation of the solutions. Without that, I worry that we will simply repeat processes that got us to where we are today, with so many people in the world cut off from opportunities that could meaningfully enhance their well-being.”

Ryan Sheftel of Radkl:

Ryan is the CEO of Radkl, a quantitative trading firm with a focus on digital assets.

“My worst nightmare for the crypto industry is that it gets co-opted by the current legacy financial industry and regulators, squeezing all innovation and dynamism out. The centers of excellence and new breakthroughs are pushed overseas, and the best and brightest that are looking to work in the industry are forced to find new jurisdictions to pursue their passion and create change.”

Rob Viglione of Horizen:

Rob is the co-founder and team lead of Horizen, a blockchain platform that aims to enable an application-rich, inclusive ecosystem through its leading-edge sidechain solutions.

“My biggest fear for the crypto market is that the U.S. dollar, or some other major fiat currency, suddenly becomes sound money! I mean, a currency responsibly governed with transparency, rules specified in advance and a supply that starts to look bound at something less than infinite. I’m not sure that Bitcoin could survive this kind of sound-money challenge, but at least we’d still have DeFi yield and NFTs to fall back on!”

Phillip Gara of the Render Network:

Phillip is the director of strategy at the Render Network, a blockchain GPU computing platform powering next-generation 3D content creation.

“A lot of artists are creating spectacular CGI using our blockchain service, RNDR, which pools together millions of GPUs mining cryptocurrencies to render out the next generation of digital content. With near-unlimited computing power and on-chain smart contracts, artists are pushing forward the state of the art in hyper-realistic imaging and generative code-based immersive experiences. If you follow some of the laws of exponential growth, it’s possible that we will be able to create synthetic worlds that are nearly indistinguishable from reality, similar to The Matrix. One of our advisers is Beeple, who often creates funhouse dystopias in his ‘Everydays.’ With RNDR, we are collaborating on developing technologies that will enable you to fully immerse yourself in his Everydays — almost literally stepping into the wild, eccentric mind of Beeple. Whether it is a nightmare, a dream or something in between is an open question, but that reality is coming at us all at an accelerating speed.”

Mitchell Cuevas of Stacks Foundation:

Mitchell is the head of growth at Stacks Foundation, which supports the mission of a user-owned internet through Stacks-related governance, research and development, education, and grants.

“My worst nightmare is obviously that someone is going to spill punch on the Metaverse and all these NFTs are going to come screaming to life and wreak absolute havoc on us. 

I’m not sure why more people aren’t panicking about this. Where’s Elon when you need him?”

Max Einhorn of 4K:

Max serves as the chief operating officer at 4K, a peer-to-peer marketplace for collectibles and luxury goods powered by NFTs.

“My biggest fear for the crypto industry is that the crypto and traditional worlds will war with each other rather than work together collaboratively. Just the other month, we saw U.S. lawmakers nearly pass a bill that would dramatically expand the U.S. government’s surveillance over the entire crypto ecosystem. They walked it back, but we came close to the brink. We in crypto are not without blame. Crypto culture glorifies DeFi ‘degens,’ where pride is taken in snubbing conventions, even if there are parts of the past that would benefit us today. Many spend more time chasing a few extra percentage points in yield or hyping a memecoin than they do searching for ways to improve the lives of the rest of humanity. We are eager to reinvent without always appreciating all the hard-learned lessons from history that got us to where we are today. Crypto is math. No one can stop it. Those of us building in crypto are wielding extraordinarily powerful tools. With great power comes great responsibility. Please build responsibly.

My second-biggest fear for the crypto industry is that it will lose touch with the revolutionary spirit that birthed this movement. Bitcoin was created during the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. It was the result of groundbreaking work done by humans that cared to empower the unempowered, enfranchise the non-enfranchised and wrestle power away from the few to put it into the hands of the many. The newer someone is to crypto, the more distant they are from the original emails on the cypherpunk mailing list that sparked this revolution. They see fast money and join to get a piece of that action rather than to further the ideals that ushered in this wave of abundance. Radical visionaries help society move forward. Stay radical, my friends.”

Mance Harmon of Hedera Hashgraph:

Mance is the co-founder and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph, a next-generation distributed ledger technology that claims to possess higher speeds and security guarantees than existing blockchain solutions.

“Regulatory uncertainty and unintended consequences of well-meaning regulations. We as an industry must work hard to educate all parts of the regulatory ecosystem, in the U.S. and globally, to make sure that the people writing policy, crafting consumer protections and shaping the industry going forward have all of the information and understanding they need to mature the industry in a way that benefits the average consumer and user of distributed networks, encourages innovation to flourish in a responsible way, and does not cause the U.S. to fall behind other countries.”

Joel John of LedgerPrime:

Joel is a principal of DeFi and VC investing at LedgerPrime, a quantitative and systematic digital asset investment firm.

“My biggest fear is that we fail to translate what we are doing to the common, average person in a way that is approachable and useful for mass markets. Very few applications do that currently. Axie Infinity is a good example, OpenSea is another — the industry and its stalwarts should not get lost in translation.”

Halsey Minor of VideoCoin:

Halsey is the strategic technology partner at VideoCoin Network, which provides video infrastructure for the blockchain-enabled internet and features token-driven decentralized video encoding, storage and distribution.

“My fear is that the SEC will ignore the tens of billions of dollars being lost today by consumers in ETNs (exchange-traded notes) and instead focus on the highly innovative DeFi space. ETNs are the new mortgage-backed securities. There are already many whistleblower complaints that are being ignored. Mortgage-backed securities, Libor, Wells Fargo, gold and silver market manipulation, and now ETNs — all ignored by the SEC until it was too late. They need today to stop banks from creating tragically toxic securities, not destroy real innovation.”

David Khalif of Viridi Funds:

David is the co-founder and head of operations at Viridi Funds, a registered investment adviser and emerging fund manager that offers environmentally conscious crypto investing options. 

“Our biggest nightmare is that crypto miners will continue to keep digging into the earth and finding no new Bitcoin. After spending so much on mining equipment and going underground to search in caves, we have yet to find any Bitcoin. We seem to only encounter this weird item called ‘gold.’ We don’t plan on giving up yet, but rest assured that when we find our first Bitcoin, we will make an NFT of it.”

Darren Franceschini of BlockBank:

Darren is the co-founder and chief operating officer of BlockBank, a multi-protocol utility wallet that combines the power of decentralized and centralized technology in a simple, secure application.

“My biggest fear is losing my private keys for good — that would be the biggest nightmare. Or experiencing what I’ve heard others go through being held hostage to hand over their keys.”

Daniela Barbosa of Hyperledger:

Daniela is the executive director of Hyperledger and the general manager of blockchain, healthcare and identity for the Linux Foundation.

“My greatest crypto nightmare is that a big crash or even a wave of extended volatility unnecessarily tarnishes the use of distributed ledger technology by enterprises, which aside from bad press would be otherwise unaffected.”

Caitlin Long of Avanti Financial Group:

Caitlin is the founder and CEO of Avanti Financial Group, an operator of a crypto-asset banking company focused on providing regulated services for digital assets.

“My worst nightmare is the discovery of a zero-day exploit in the Bitcoin Core code that no one has discovered yet. Every day that goes by, the probability of this diminishes exponentially — but it will never be zero.”

Andrew Levine of Koinos Group:

Andrew is the CEO of Koinos Group, an engineering-first company led by battle-hardened blockchain veterans with unrivaled experience as core developers and architects of the BitShares and Steem blockchains.

“My worst nightmare is that we are stuck with smart contract platforms that cater to crypto early adopters and treat ordinary people as second-class citizens. Ordinary users expect a feeless experience, and ordinary developers expect to be able to work in the programming languages they already know and love. These people don’t care about how it all works or whether something is ‘Ethereum-compatible.’ The only people who care about that are already deep in the space. Ordinary people just want something that is easy, pleasant and free to use. Until we have that, we won’t have true mass adoption.”

Amanda Keleher of ConsenSys:

Amanda is the chief people officer at ConsenSys, a global community of developers, businesspeople, programmers, journalists, lawyers and others made to create and promote blockchain infrastructure and peer-to-peer applications.

“My worst nightmare is to wake up in five years and realize the crypto industry has become just like the ‘old Wall Street’ — an exclusive industry. The crypto ecosystem is a unique opportunity to build a more inclusive global financial ecosystem empowering more women and more minorities. And to build it, we need to have the most talented, diverse people to do it. 

My fear is we fail to embrace this opportunity to make real, impactful, long-lasting change. Let’s not be scaredy-cats — let’s give everyone a pumpkin to talk about... Boo!”

Alan Chiu of Enya/Boba Network:

Alan is CEO of Enya, a data privacy company that operates the world’s largest secure multiparty computation platform. Alan also serves on the Stanford Graduate School of Business Alumni Board, as well as on the board of Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs as co-president.

“My biggest fear would be the U.S. following China’s crypto policy, driving innovation away from the country. Crypto would survive, but the U.S. would suffer from missing out on the wave of innovation coming out of crypto — Web 3.0 and DAOs, among other things.”

Introduction

Back on Oct. 31, 2008, a person — or a group of people — who called themself Satoshi Nakamoto published a nine-page paper describing a “purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash” that introduced a brand-new online payments system called Bitcoin (BTC). Last year, for the white paper’s 12th birthday, Cointelegraph collected industry leaders’ wishes for Bitcoin. 

This year, Bitcoin turns 13, and since Oct. 31 is also the day on which Halloween is celebrated, we decided to combine these two events into one. Cointelegraph reached out to the deepest corners of the souls of a group of crypto industry insiders to find out their greatest fears and nightmares about crypto, asking them: What do you fear most of all?



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Bitcoin set for record monthly close with BTC price still below 'worst case scenario'

$60,000 would be a monthly record, but longstanding analysis demands a minimum of $63,000 by the start of November.

Bitcoin (BTC) delivered fresh retests of $60,000 support on Oct. 31 with a matter of hours left until the crucial monthly close.

BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

Record monthly close hangs by a thread

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed lackluster price action on Sunday, with BTC/USD below the "worst case scenario" for its October close.

Analysts were eagerly awaiting to see if the end of the month could provide a turnaround and prove the worst case theory correct for a third month running.

Its creator, PlanB, father of the stock-to-flow model, correctly guessed the $47,000 and $43,000 finales for August and September respectively.

Even without succeeding, however, finishing October above $60,000 would mark several achievements in itself.

As Cointelegraph previously noted, Sundays have tended to see weaker performance from Bitcoin this month, with Monday contrasting the mood with a show of strength — particularly into the U.S. open.

"BTC daily says get ready for November," popular trader and analyst TechDev summarized on the day, putting the focus on the coming month.

BTC/USD 1-month candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView

Shiba Inu ends its run in altcoin slowdown

Altcoins staged copycat moves as Bitcoin waned, with the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap seeing modest losses over the past 24 hours. 

Related: Bitcoin eyes third weekly close above $60K as Ethereum fuels new altcoin market cap record

Shiba Inu (SHIB), the star of the past week, lost more heavily, down 13% at the time of writing but still with weekly gains of 45%.

Sentiment mimicked the lack of upside, with the Crypto Fear & Greed Index showing declining "greed" in recent days.

Crypto Fear & Greed Index as of Oct. 31. Source: Alternative.me


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Bitcoin white paper turns 13 years old: The journey so far

The Bitcoin white paper only has nine pages, yet it contained enough to change the world. Here's how it came to be 13 years ago.

The 13th birthday of the Bitcoin (BTC) white paper has crept up just as the world continues to deal with a global pandemic, inflation fears, an astounding memecoin mania trend and growing institutional adoption of the cryptocurrency space.

On October 31, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper to a cryptography mailing list hosted by Metzdow. The Metzdow mailing list was run by a group of cypherpunks and was filled with ideas meant to create a form of digital currency: some of these have even been cited in the Bitcoin white paper.

Satoshi’s white paper came in a message titled "Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper," in which Nakamoto explained that his digital currency is fully peer-to-peer (P2P) and requires no trusted third party for a transaction to occur. Through a peer-to-peer network, Bitcoin solved the double-spending problem. Bitcoin also allowed network participants to remain anonymous and was secured through a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm.

At the time, the white paper wasn't received the way people would expect it to be, knowing what they know today. Only a handful of people saw Nakamoto’s email and replied with their thoughts and concerns surrounding Bitcoin.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Leo Matchett, co-founder and CEO of Decentralized Pictures, a non-profit organization supporting independent filmmakers, said that the Bitcoin white paper “is the genesis of a new era in monetary sovereignty,” adding, “Satoshi stood on the shoulders of giants and solved problems that those who came before could not.”

Matchett opined further that the white paper “was truly the beginning of a new era for monetary systems of the world” because it “brought forth the idea that decentralization has more value than centralization.” Indeed, the idea of Bitcoin attempted to solve numerous problems including counterfeiting, steep on-ramps and counterparty risk.

Running Bitcoin

After the white paper was shared on the cryptography mailing list, slowly but surely, discussion surrounding the document started growing, with the Bitcoin network being launched in early 2009. At that time, Hal Finney, a cypherpunk that worked with the PGP Corporation developing leading encryption products, was already involved.

Hal Finney is well-known in the cryptocurrency space for being involved in the first Bitcoin transaction and being the first person after Nakamoto to run a copy of the network through a node. After setting it up, Finney tweeted he was “running bitcoin.”

The cypherpunk, who tragically passed away in 2014 as a result of ALS complications and had his body cryopreserved by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, described his work with Satoshi in a forum post where he revealed he started mining BTC on “block 70-something,” and that after some correspondence, Satoshi sent him 10 BTC to test whether the network worked.

At the time, there was no demand for space on the blockchain, so the transaction was successfully processed with a 0 BTC fee attached to it. The 10 BTC were worthless at the time, but the transaction helped fix some bugs in BTC’s early days.

That first Bitcoin transaction made it clear that the network worked, and while there was still a lot of work to be done to get where it is today, it was a first step in the right direction. A year later, in 2010, the first commercial Bitcoin transaction would occur.

$600 million+ for two pizzas

On May 18, 2010 developer Laszlo Hanyecz created a post on the Bitcointalk forum offering 10,000 Bitcoin “for a couple of pizzas.” Hanyecz offered to pay another forum member the coins if they got him two large pizzas, which could even be homemade.

The post was met with skepticism, as 10,000 BTC at the time weren’t worth the cost of two pizzas, or were anywhere near it. Only on May 22, after a follow-up, did Hanyecz report that he “successfully traded 10,000 bitcoins for pizza.”

At the time and despite Bitcoin’s low value and the community’s small size, one user noted that a “great milestone was reached.” That day is now known in the cryptocurrency community as the “Bitcoin Pizza Day.”

The first commercial Bitcoin transaction led to the creation of an ecosystem now worth over $2 trillion and proved that Bitcoin has a number of use cases that need to be considered. For the first time ever, Bitcoin was used as a true medium of exchange.

A multi-trillion dollar industry

The cryptocurrency’s price would rise over time, partly because of adoption and partly because of speculators looking to profit off of its incredible volatility. In the midst of all that, new businesses were created in what ended up becoming a large asset class.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Miha Grčar, head of global business development at cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, said: “no one could have predicted the tidal wave of change unleashed by the publication of a 9-page PDF.”

The Bitcoin white paper, Grčar said, laid out a vision for a digital currency that can be used as a store of value and medium of exchange independent of centralized control. Per his words, the potential it has hasn’t been fully unleashed:

“It turned out to be a breakthrough of such historical importance and magnitude that even thirteen years on, we’re barely scratching the surface.”

Bitcoin, he said, instigated a “paradigm shift that now underpins a multi-trillion dollar industry” and showed the world there was a better way where “sovereignty, finance and individual freedoms all co-exist outside the clutches of corrupt outdated socio-economic systems ridden with insiders, cronies and backroom deals.”

As understood from the first commercial Bitcoin transaction, BTC’s value hasn’t always been clear. The cryptocurrency has gone through substantial crashes in its history and has been declared “dead” over 400 times by popular media outlets and analysts.

Bitcoin’s market cap is now above $1.16 trillion, according to Cointelegraph Markets Pro. While most wish they could have heard about the cryptocurrency in 2010 or 2011 to invest in it and build up wealth through that investment, most would have likely failed to see how big BTC would get.

Early Bitcoin investor Greg Schoen published, in May 2011, a now-famous tweet where he showed regret for selling 1,700 BTC for $0.30, after getting them when the cryptocurrency was trading at $0.06, as he could have sold his coins at $8 apiece. As one BTC is now trading above $61,000, his 1,700 BTC would now be worth over $104 million. A pity indeed. 

Bitcoin’s rise has been supported by a thriving industry filled with innovation that has already seen cryptocurrency exchanges start trading on the Nasdaq exchange and by institutional investors who recognize that BTC can be used to diversify their portfolios and hedge against inflation.

Earlier this year, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender with the country’s Bitcoin Law officially coming into effect on Sept. 7. El Salvadorans can use the cryptocurrency through a wallet called Chivo launched by the government that uses the Lightning Network, a layer-two scaling solution.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Javier Moro, chief product officer at Latin American cryptocurrency exchange Bitso, noted that El Salvador’s move was “rooted in hope for a better future for El Salvadorans,” and its success will depend on the spread of cryptocurrency-related knowledge in the country.

More is yet to come

Earlier in October, the first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) was launched in the United States. The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF began trading under the ticker BITO on the New York Stock Exchange. It became the second-most heavily traded fund on record in its debut.

In a statement sent to Cointelegraph, Ron Levy, CEO and co-founder of blockchain consulting firm The Crypto Company, stated that the Bitcoin white paper “laid the groundwork for what would become a decentralized industry beyond what anyone thought was possible.”

The next leap in this space, he said, are “clear laws and regulations around what can and can’t be done with crypto currency.” But, it’s obviously not clear how that may turn out, as all new technological breakthroughs face resistance from established mechanisms.

Brittany Laughlin, executive director at the Stacks Foundation, which bridges decentralized finance (DeFi) and the Bitcoin network, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin has come a long way from just being a store of value, as it’s “now possible to build smart contracts on Bitcoin, welcoming the millions of BTC holders to the world of DeFi, NFTs and true ownership.”

Notably, Satoshi Nakamoto seemingly predicted that additional blockchains could use tokens, which they called “domain objects” at the time, to represent ownership of assets. Satoshi’s example was for a token representing the right to own a domain for a year.

As Grčar said, humankind has only begun scratching the surface of what Bitcoin and blockchain technology are capable of. So much so, that the developments we have today were seemingly thought of by Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

The Bitcoin white paper has made the idea of a decentralized network viable and proved that even a short nine-page document was able to change the world in ways so radical they may be hard to comprehend even at this point in time.

While it isn’t clear whether more countries will adopt BTC as legal tender in the future, or whether interest for Bitcoin ETFs will wane, it appears clear that Bitcoin is here to stay and serve as both a store of value and medium of exchange, and that’s only 13 years after the idea was first introduced. Imagine what will happen in the next 13 years.



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6 Questions for Yoni Assia of eToro

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes!


 

This week, our 6 Questions go to Yoni Assia, the co-founder and CEO of eToro.

Yoni Assia is the co-founder and CEO of eToro, the social investing network with over 23 million registered users from more than 100 countries. Yoni is widely acknowledged as a crypto pioneer, having co-written the Colored Coins white paper with Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin in 2013. In 2018, Yoni founded GoodDollar, a nonprofit initiative created to develop a sustainable and scalable framework for bringing a digital, universal basic income to the world via new crypto asset technologies. He has long been a champion of different approaches to wealth and capital distribution, initially introducing the GoodDollar concept in a white paper called The Visible Hand in 2008. Yoni holds a BA in Management and Computer Science, and an MSc in Computer Science from the Reichman University (IDC Herzliya), Israel.

 


1 What kind of consolidation do you expect to see in the crypto industry in 2021?

Were nearly at the end of 2021 and what a year it has been for crypto, with many coins reaching new ATHs, the launch of a Bitcoin ETF in the United States, and growing demand for crypto from both retail and institutional investors. Weve seen more and more traditional companies embrace crypto and the blockchain technology that underpins it, and this will only continue.

This year has been about continued growth and the mainstreaming of crypto but, as the industry matures, we will see consolidation. Ultimately, I am hugely optimistic about the outlook for crypto blockchain technology will revolutionize finance.

2 Which is sillier: $500k Bitcoin, or $0 Bitcoin? Why?

$0 Bitcoin (BTC), easily. I bought my first Bitcoin in 2010, and 11 years later Im still investing in Bitcoin and running a company that makes it easier for others to do so too. Crypto is still a nascent asset class and Bitcoin, the first and largest crypto, is only 12 years old. It may take some time to hit $500,000, but the future is bright for BTC and crypto more broadly.

3 Which people do you find most inspiring, most interesting, and most fun in this space?

I have to mention my eToro team. Im lucky enough to work with some of the smartest, most dedicated and inspiring people in the industry.

Looking beyond eToro, I recently attended the Milken Institute Global Conference. The event brought together many of the brightest and most influential minds in the world to discuss the most urgent challenges facing us globally. Entitled Charting a New Course, the conference focused on how recent disruptions can be reframed for a thriving future. I left feeling deeply inspired and even more determined to push forward with GoodDollar a digital blockchain project which aims to make universal income a reality on a global scale. The income gap is a crisis of global proportions, and GoodDollars goal is to onboard the next 100 million people into the digital economy.

4 Whats the most interesting place youve ever visited?

In 2020, I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Warren Buffett in Omaha, Nebraska. It was an honor to meet one of my heroes and a life changing moment for me. The two key takeaways for me were:

  1. Investing can be simple when you invest in businesses you understand and believe in. If you follow the rules of value investing over a long period of time, you can succeed as an investor.
  2. The most important investment you can make is in yourself.

5 Which two superpowers would you most want to have, and how would you combine them for good or evil?

Im going to cheat and name three. Ive always said I would want to be able to teleport, heal and have the ability to shake someone’s hand and know everything they know. Im all about using power for good.

6 Choose the single most memorable moment from your favorite movie.

For me, it would be the scene from The Matrix (1999), directed by the Wachowskis, when the main character, Neo, has to choose between a red pill and a blue pill.

 



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Americans reinvesting stimulus checks in Bitcoin made $4.5k in profit

A timely reinvestment of $3,200 worth of stimulus checks into Bitcoin would return a total profit of $4,514 (nearly 71%) by the end of October.

An average American taxpayer received three rounds of stimulus checks from the United States government as a means to reignite the economy by increasing consumers’ spending potential. For many, this meant an opportunity to invest in Bitcoin (BTC).

A Cointelegraph report from Aug. 26 shows that 11% of the respondents between the ages of 18 to 34 reinvested a part of their stimulus checks into cryptocurrencies. Adult Americans that reinvested the first round of stimulus payments from April 2020 into Bitcoin have realized a net profit of roughly 442%, turning a $1,200 investment into $5,304 as of Oct. 31, 2021.

The second stimulus check of $600 was distributed between December 2020 and January 2021, just two months before Bitcoin achieved an all-time high of $65,000 for the first time. If reinvested in Bitcoin, the second check would return a profit of 152% (approximately $312).

The average payout for the third stimulus check was set at $1,400, which was made available for eligible taxpayers from March 2021. Since then, Bitcoin underwent a three-month-long bearish market but made a full recovery to cross $65,000 in trading value for the first time. Despite the fluctuations, reinvesting the third stimulus check in Bitcoin would return a modest 7% or $98 in profit at the time of writing. 

Based on the findings above, a timely reinvestment of $3,200 worth of stimulus checks into Bitcoin would return a total profit of $4,514 (nearly 71%) by the end of October. In a study conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Yahoo Finance, most Americans willing to invest in cryptocurrencies cited primary interest in Bitcoin and Ether (ETH).

Crypto analyst PlanB’s prediction on Bitcoin checks out for the third consecutive month.

According to PlanB, Bitcoin is set to exceed $98,000 in value by the end of November. If the prediction holds true, the stimulus check investments will further realize 58% profit from today’s market price.

Related: El Salvador buys a smokin’ hot 420 more Bitcoin

El Salvador announced Bitcoin as a legal tender on Sep. 07 and has ever since started reinvesting its U.S. dollar reserves on procuring Bitcoin.

President Nayib Bukele announced the addition of 420 Bitcoin on Oct. 28, bringing up the national reserve to 1,120 BTC, worth $87.4 million.

According to Bukele, once the country makes a profit on its Bitcoin investment, an equivalent amount from its dollar reserves is reinvested for funding various initiatives. As a result, the total value of El Salvador’s national reserves maintains its original value in terms of the US dollar.



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Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper is now a 13-year-old teenager

Today, Bitcoin maintains a stable trading value well above $60k after experiencing a gradual appreciation of 7,749,999,900% ever since its launch.

The iconic Bitcoin (BTC) white paper celebrates thirteen years of financial disruption after being first published on Oct. 31, 2008, by an anonymous person or entity named Satoshi Nakamoto.

The white paper, titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, foresaw the need for a peer-to-peer online payment system that is self-governing, secure and limited in quantity. The Bitcoin network was launched on Jan. 03, 2009, having each Bitcoin priced at $0.0008.

While Bitcoin was initially perceived as a threat by traditional financial institutions, thirteen years of community support and a growing user base have made Bitcoin one of the most profitable investments for the Internet age. Today, Bitcoin maintains a stable trading value well above $60k after experiencing a gradual appreciation of 7,749,999,900% ever since its launch. 

The Bitcoin white paper proposes a solution to prevent double-spending without the risk of trusting a third party. To do this, it mentions the use of ‘honest’ nodes that confirm transactions by overpowering the bad actors in terms of raw central processing unit (CPU) power of computers.

Interestingly enough, the Bitcoin white paper has 15 ‘honest’ and one ‘dishonest’ mentions, explaining the need for honest nodes to ensure the credibility of each transaction. In the words of Satoshi Nakamoto:

“We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust. They [honest nodes] vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them.”

The Bitcoin blockchain has mined block number 707542, which offered a mining reward of 6.25000000 BTC. 

As the Bitcoin ecosystem slowly approaches its hard cap or maximum supply of 21 million BTC, the developer community will need to modify the existing rules to incentivize the miners that confirm Bitcoin transactions on the blockchain. The white paper suggests:

“Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.”

Prominent entrepreneurs from Crypto Twitter such as Anthony Pompliano join in on the celebrations.

Despite the ongoing resistance from numerous governments and authorities such as China, this year marks the beginning of Bitcoin’s legacy as a legal tender in El Salvador. The long-term effect of Bitcoin on El Salvador’s inflated economy will determine the asset’s mainstream adoption among other jurisdictions.

Related: Crypto is impossible to destroy, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk

The success of Bitcoin and the crypto ecosystems as viable investments continue to attract investors from all walks of life. The world’s richest man, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, recently showed support for cryptocurrencies at the Code Conference in California:

“It is not possible to, I think, destroy crypto, but it is possible for governments to slow down its advancement.”

Musk also believes that “cryptocurrency is fundamentally aimed at reducing the power of a centralized government,” which can be one of the main reasons for Bitcoin’s slow mainstream adoption rate.

Musk has also been highly influential in affecting the market price of other cryptocurrencies such Dogecoin (DOGE).



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Latinx communities continue to rise above Bitcoin adoption obstacles

Latinx communities are driving forward adoption, as crypto is proven to meet their diverse needs in a way that traditional finance cannot.

Digital assets have recently become more and more prevalent in our daily lives — in the news, popular culture and our personal interactions. In the first quarter of 2021, the number of global daily Bitcoin (BTC) transactions hit 367,536. Bitcoin alone now accounts for around $20 billion of daily online transactions. Not only this, but those who are familiar with digital assets and cryptocurrencies trust them implicitly — Binance’s “Global Crypto User Index” for 2021 shows a 97% confidence in cryptocurrencies.

Proportionally, members of Latinx communities in the United States have some of the highest rates of crypto adoption, with approximately 31% of Hispanic people owning Bitcoin and the same data stating that 25% of Bitcoin owners are Latinx. There are many reasons behind this impressive rate of adoption, not least of which is the fact that this group has less access to traditional wealth. In 2016, Latinx families held less than one-sixth the wealth of white families and were several times more likely to support family members not living with them. In 2020, Mexican people living in the United States sent over $40 billion to family members in Mexico, and many of these transfers took place through cryptocurrency.

While Latinx communities seem to be at the forefront of adopting digital assets and using them to improve their daily lives, it is important that those in the cryptocurrency and digital asset industries make efforts to include marginalized groups in their future plans and to integrate with and embrace these communities, to continue on this upward trajectory of adoption and to ensure that everyone is aware of the wide range of benefits digital assets can provide.

Latin American adoption

It is only a matter of time before digital assets reach full proliferation in Latin America. For example, look at El Salvador’s decision to become the world’s first country to classify Bitcoin as legal tender. Citizens in El Salvador can now receive $30 worth of Bitcoin when they download and register on the government’s cryptocurrency app, Chivo. Taxes can be paid in Bitcoin, and prices will be displayed in either BTC or U.S. dollars. A major driver of the law is to help people elsewhere in the world who are sending remittances back to El Salvador, as these payments generally suffer from high transaction and commission fees when done through fiat currency.

Related: What is really behind El Salvador’s ‘Bitcoin Law’? Experts answer

Argentina is following El Salvador’s lead, with members of Argentina’s National Congress recently submitting a bill that will allow Argentine people to accept their salaries in Bitcoin. Cuba, Paraguay and Uruguay have all indicated that they will officially recognize and regulate cryptocurrency in their countries in the immediate future. Leaders in Argentina, Brazil, Panama and beyond have endorsed El Salvador’s action on social media.

Assisting migrants who are sending remittances to their family and friends in their countries of origin is just one example of how digital assets can empower people. Bill payment services via blockchain technology could also be life-changing for people in marginalized communities. Payments via blockchain are more secure, faster and often more cost-effective than traditional methods — and do not require access to traditional banking and payment channels. This is particularly significant, as a large number of those in marginalized communities do not have access to a bank account. While they make up only 32% of the U.S. population, Black and Latinx households represent 64% of its unbanked and 47% of its underbanked.

Overcoming barriers to entry

Those from marginalized communities have shown their tenacity and determination in how they have innovated and used these new technologies to their advantage, overcoming the limitations traditional finance has placed upon them. These groups are among the most familiar with crypto in the United States and are quick to adopt and use the technology.

It is now the role of the crypto industry, governments and organizations to reach out to marginalized communities and cater to them specifically, integrating with their communities and showing them how they can further benefit and change their day-to-day lives for the better. If enterprises and regulating bodies can learn about the cultures and traditions of these communities, they can understand their needs and can accommodate these requirements in a mutually beneficial way.

Two main barriers to digital asset adoption persist: a lack of understanding and concerns about security. To this end, education is key to further digital asset adoption — people need to understand the value of digital assets and how digital assets can serve them and their communities. Given that digital assets are still a relatively new concept, fear and lack of understanding are natural. It is difficult to comprehend how these new technologies can replace long-standing structures, such as traditional banks, and how this new technology can cater to them more effectively, safely and securely.

Related: Mass adoption of blockchain tech is possible, and education is the key

Digital assets use blockchain technology, which is generally considered to be one of the most secure options for transactions and payments; however, this may not initially be clear to those unfamiliar with the concept and concerned about the security of their money and payments. With the right understanding and educational initiatives, we can help adopters of cryptocurrencies to choose secure, regulated and licensed digital asset providers, so that they can transact with peace of mind.

Widespread crypto adoption is still in its early days, and many obstacles still exist. Strong government ties to traditional banking in many countries will drive skepticism of digital assets. Taking a top-down approach, it is imperative that governments and industry leaders reinforce this innovative, hugely beneficial technology. By creating a safe, regulated environment for crypto and facilitating healthy discourse and education on the topic, we can empower and transform citizens’ lives even further.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Rodrigo Bezanilla is the Latin American business strategist at Coinsource. With over 25 years of experience as an investment and financial adviser, Rodrigo has an extensive professional background in cross-border relations between Mexico and the United States. As managing partner at the Tejas Opportunity Group, a cross-border private equity firm focused on social impact investments in Texas, Rodrigo lends his expertise to building opportunities for the Latin American community through strategic business alliances and private equity activities.


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