Bakkt launches payments app as institutions compete for crypto assets

Bakkt believes its new crypto payments app will unlock more than $1 trillion worth of digital assets for commerce.

Major financial institutions are expanding their cryptocurrency services, with Bakkt launching its digital asset payments application for the general public.

Bakkt was launched by Intercontinental Exchange in 2018, with the firm offering Bitcoin futures contracts to accredited investors exclusively. The Bakkt App is the firm’s first retail-facing crypto initiative.

Bakkt’s app was trialed by 500,000 users invited to participate in its Early Access Program in late 2020. The firm is also conducting a $1 million giveaway to encourage people to download the platform.

Launched on March 30, the payments app allows users to manage Bitcoin and other digital assets, including loyalty points and vouchers, to make purchases. More than 75 major brands are offering discounted gift cards to purchasers who use the Bakkt app, including Choice Hotels, GolfNow, and Best Buy.

Users can also manage their Starbucks Card balance through the platform. Karl Hebert Starbucks’ VP of global card, commerce, and payment, said:

“Starbucks is proud to be an innovation partner with Bakkt. Our teams worked closely together as Bakkt sought input in developing a unique and trusted payment experience that enables customers to unlock the value of their digital assets in the form of US dollars.”

“We’re thrilled to bring the Bakkt App to the public as a step along our journey to expand digital asset access to all,” he added.

In the announcement, Bakkt stated the application is intended to enable “consumers and merchants to unlock the value of $1.2 trillion in digital assets” by incentivizing their use in commerce: “The Bakkt App is designed to amplify consumer spending, reduce payment costs, and bolster merchant loyalty programs."

The payments platform appears to have first been conceived as a partnership between Bakkt and Stabucks in 2019, with Bakkt determining it would release the platform as a standalone app the following year.

The app’s launch comes as competition between financial institutions is heating up in the crypto asset sector, with PayPal rolling out crypto payments for 29 million merchants and Visa unveiling plans for USDC to be exchanged across its credit card network earlier this week.

Goldman Sachs is also moving to expand its cryptocurrency services, with a leaked memo revealing the creation of a Digital Assets Group within its private wealth management division. The group will be tasked with advising clients on digital assets and developing crypto investment products.

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Yearn Finance reveals ‘Coordinape’ decentralized grant distribution platform

A new system that functions primarily at the social layer will soon be managing Yearn's grant program

Yield vault protocol Yearn Finance has revealed today the details of “Coordinape,” a new platform for distributing the $40,000-per-month Yearn DAO community grants budget — just one initiative in a wider effort to further decentralize Yearn’s governance. 

Yearn founder Andre Cronje — who said in an interview with Cointelegraph that he no longer takes part in Yearn’s “day to day” development — revealed the program in a blog post this morning.

Each Coordinape member will have a set quantity of “allocation points” which they can distribute to other members who they worked with during a given month. Members with the most interactions and allocations will receive weighted portions of the grants budget.

While there are other tools for programmatically distributing rewards, such as Colony, a recently re-released DAO platform, core Yearn operations member Tracheopteryx said that a in-house solution was necessary for Yearn’s unique needs.

“We have a monthly grants budget of $40,000 and dozens of active contributors. How do you decide how much to give each person? You could use a DAO to decide on the allocation for each person one by one, but that doesn’t scale,” he said. “Coordinape let’s each contributor allocate tokens to everyone they think brings value, then when you look at the total allocation across all contributors it’s a pretty accurate and efficient way to assign asymmetric rewards. Nothing else out there does this.”

As first discussed in Cointelegraph Magazine, Tracheopteryx and others have been working on Coordinape since February. The platform is inspired by Teal, a school of organizational theory that advocates for worker self-management, as well as recent developments in computational social choice.

Trusted trustlessness

According to Tracheopteryx, the ultimate goal of Yearn’s governance structure is to “move more decision-making powers off of the multisig’s shoulders and onto a network of autonomous and self-managed teams.”

At first blush, however, Coordinape’s joint-reporting reward structure seems at odds with the wider cryptocurrency space. Users reporting one another’s contributions could quickly and easily be gamed through mild coordination, running contrary to the elegant economic incentives and security undergirding so many smart contract systems.

However, Tracheopteryx says this trust at the social layer is key to Yearn’s success.

“When you work in crytpo sometimes you get so used to thinking about trustless systems, attack vectors, and adversarial environments that you can't see anything else. But the reality of most creative teams is that they are highly collaborative environments. We needed a consensus mechanism that enhances that kind of energy. This can only work on top of a trustless blockchain, just like an orchid can only bloom from the physics of matter.”

He noted that the “incentives are pretty low” to game the platform, and that by design it can’t be manipulated “catastrophically.” 

As Cronje wrote in his blog post, much like Yearn itself Coordinape is a tool that “originate(s) out of a personal need, but can be generalized to help any other organizations / DAO’s struggling with a similar problem.” The team will be releasing an open-source version of Coordinape as soon as possible, and are “excited to see how people add value and innovation.”

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BitTorrent soars 30% to new all-time high, $5B market cap: What's behind the rally?

The price of BTT, the native token of BitTorrent, hit a new all-time high to reach a $5.2 billion valuation.

BitTorrent (BTT), the native token of the popular peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol BitTorrent, has surged nearly 30% in the past 24 hours.

The rally took the valuation of BTT to over $5.2 billion, making it the 24th most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization. What's more impressive, the token's value has increased more than ten-fold in the past two months. 

BTT/USDT 4-hour price chart (Binance). Source: TradingView.com

Is there any catalyst behind the BTT rally?

There has been no clear fundamental catalyst behind the BTT rally to date. Nevertheless, the token has demonstrated strong technical momentum since it spiked by nearly 120% within a week in mid-March.

Since then, the volume of BTT has continuously increased, causing it to garner more momentum as it surged past its all-time high.

Several factors could have boosted BTT in the past several days, however, namely staking on Poloniex, TRON founder Justin Sun's high-profile purchases of NFTs, and rising sentiment on social media.

On March 25, Poloniex Exchange, which was acquired by a consortium of buyers which included Justin Sun, which Cointelegraph previously reported, announced staking on exchange with BTT.

#Staking on #Poloniex gives you a simplified way to earn rewards by depositing and holding assets in your account!

Earn staking rewards for:
$ATOM
$BTT
$TRX
$WIN
$TEND

Check it out https://t.co/6fmITUa6Mm

— Poloniex Exchange (@Poloniex) March 25, 2021

The staking announcement from Poloniex could have added to the buyer demand for BTT because users could earn rewards by buying and staking BTT. The exchange said:

"With Poloniex staking, customers earn rewards while maintaining the flexibility to trade, deposit, and withdraw at all times. Along with this flexibility, customers can continue to earn staking rewards right up to the moment they decide to trade their funds into a different asset."

Additionally, BitTorrent has been pushing the narrative of Sun buying high-profile NFTs as of late.

On March 29, BitTorrent tweeted:

"Justin Sun announced the official establishment of the #JUST NFT Fund and the Plan to hire a top tier artist as the chief NFT advisor of JUST #NFT Fund. Join us now in the marvelous adventure navigated by JUST #NFT!"

Considering that BTT is a part of the Tron ecosystem, the positive sentiment around NFTs and the focus of Sun on the NFT market may have had a positive effect on the value of BTT.

Social media sentiment spikes

Finally, the daily sentiment score versus the tweet volume of BTT surged by 377% beginning March 30, right before the price of BTT began to rally.

BTT daily sentiment score vs. tweet volume. Source: The Tie

Thus, the new BTT all-time high appears to be the result of a technical breakout, not only driven by strong social media momentum, but also the rebounding price of Bitcoin as well as altcoins across the board. 

As Cointelegraph reported, Bitcoin's market dominance has dropped below 60% while the total market capitalization of altcoins has reached a new all-time high of $855 billion on March 31. 

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Prometheum and Anchorage set to launch alternative cryptocurrency trading system

The alternative trading system, PEATS, is vying to become a FINRA and SEC-regulated platform.

Anchorage Digital Bank, a pioneer of digital asset custody, and cryptocurrency trading platform Prometheum are in the final approval phase for an alternative trading system, or ATS, tailed specifically for crypto investors. 

Prometheum Ember ATS, also known as PEATS, is vying to bring alternative trading system technology to digital assets. PEATS will open to traders pending final regulatory approval by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. PEATS is currently undergoing the SEC's rigorous "Three-Step Process" for approving a public ATS. Once launched, Anchorage will custody all digital assets transacted through PEATS.

Commonly found in traditional financial markets, an ATS is a public platform that matches the buy and sell orders of its users. As such, it is not regulated as an exchange. ATS accounts represent a significant share of liquidity found on publicly-traded markets worldwid

Aaron Kaplan, founder and co-CEO of Prometheum, explained the significance of an ATS system for cryptocurrency markets:

“A public ATS for digital assets will allow more efficient order matching and better price discovery, bringing smaller price spreads and simplified participation for all investors.”

Nathan McCauley, Anchorage’s president and CEO, said “regulatory clarity is the building block for enabling broad participation of digital assets.”

Once launched, PEATS is expected to be a full-service electronic market providing on-chain custody and settlement. It will be regulated by the SEC and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA.

Anchorage appears poised for growth after the company earned the first digital bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, earlier this year. In February 2021, Anchorage successfully raised $80 million in Series C funding led by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund.

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Uphold obtains FINRA approval to acquire US broker-dealer

The acquisition will reportedly allow Uphold to launch fractional equities in the United States in 2021.

Cryptocurrency wallet and trading platform Uphold has received regulatory approval to purchase JNK Securities, a U.S. broker-dealer.

In an announcement from Uphold today, the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, gave the firm the green light to acquire JNK Securities. Uphold said the acquisition is aimed at allowing the platform to launch fractional equities in the United States later this year in addition to providing an interface for users to trade between crypto, stocks, carbon credits, precious metals, and other assets.

“Bitcoin to Tesla stock in one seamless user experience will soon become a reality for our U.S. customers,” said Uphold CEO JP Thieriot. “The move will introduce unprecedented speed and convenience for retail investors seeking to trade between traditional and emerging asset classes.”

According to Uphold, this would make the platform one of the first crypto firms to own a broker-dealer approved to offer equities on an omnibus basis to retail investors in the U.S. Investors would be able to purchase fractions of a stock in much the same way crypto users do not have to buy an entire Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), or any number of tokens. The firm said it plans to increase its equities offering from 50 U.S. stocks to 3,500 stocks and options in 2021.

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Kava launches Hard V2 to become first full lending protocol in the Cosmos ecosystem

Shortly after the launch of Stargate, Cosmos ecosystem chains are entering the DeFi arena.

Kava, a DeFi-centric blockchain project built on the Cosmos SDK, has announced the concurrent release of Kava 5.1 and Hard Protocol V2, which marks the full launch of two-sided lending markets on the Kava blockchain.

The Kava 5.1 upgrade is a significant boost to performance over previous major versions, with the team claiming a ten-fold increase in throughput through “consensus enhancements.” The upgrade also carries improvements to the BEP3 relayer that acts as the connection to Binance Smart Chain, and other improvements to APIs and overall reliability.

The Kava 5.1 launch is bundled with Hard Protocol V2, Kava’s in-house lending protocol that works in a similar manner to Compound. The V2 enables borrowing of the assets supplied to the chain, making it a fully functional lending protocol. Coupled with Kava’s main DeFi app, a stablecoin protocol similar to Maker, the project now offers a full lending ecosystem within the Cosmos “internet of blockchains.”

The upgrade comes shortly after the release of Stargate, a comprehensive Cosmos upgrade that enabled the Inter Blockchain Communication protocol, or IBC, a key component of the Cosmos white paper. The Cosmos ecosystem is different from most other protocols due to its heterogeneity. Each project building on Cosmos is an independent blockchain powered by its own set of nodes, which distinguishes it from projects like Polkadot, where the parachains share a common set of validators.

IBC provides the communication overlay that makes it easy to maintain interoperability between all chains built on the Cosmos SDK, and to a lesser extent, with blockchains outside the ecosystem.

The Cosmos SDK is being used by a number of notable platforms, including Binance Chain, Terra and Secret. Binance Smart Chain uses a modified version of Ethereum, though it maintains close interoperability with the Cosmos-based Binance Chain. The separate implementation of the DeFi-centric Binance Smart Chain means that Kava’s release makes it the first full DeFi lending platform within Cosmos.

Kava and Hard focus heavily on cross-chain assets, notably Bitcoin (BTC), XRP and Binance Coin (BNB). The Kava platform is nonetheless different from most other DeFi environments, as it sacrifices decentralization by actively vetting projects who wish to build on its chain. The goal is to make it “an App Store” of curated DeFi DApps, Kava CEO Brian Kerr told Cointelegraph. The team is also making a bet for institutional adoption of its lending platform, positioning it as a lucrative opportunity for institutional investors wishing to grow their BTC holdings. The Hard Protocol currently features double-digits yield on most of its assets, including BTC, though the high levels are partially the result of liquidity mining rewards.

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Terra Virtua releases ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ NFTs to coincide with movie release

Warner Bros. cast a wide net, granting licensing for the movie to three different parties

Nonfungible tokens seem to be popping up everywhere lately — so why not on the big screen?

Digital collectibles and virtual reality platform Terra Virtua is planning to launch today a line of Godzilla vs. Kong nonfungible token (NFT) collectibles created in collaboration with film production giants Warner Brothers — among the first-ever NFT drops to coincide with the release of a major film.

Currently, collectors can buy retro-themed Godzilla and Kong Island posters for 75$, but more elaborate animations will be released later today. The Terra Virtua homepage currently has a themed waitlist active, with users granted a ten-minute window on the site to make purchases.

You lucky things, considering the movie launches TOMORROW, we've decided to release not one but TWO exclusive 2DA posters. It really is time to pick your side. Will you go for #TeamKong or #TeamGodzilla? https://t.co/qi5QZ4diLn#GodzillavsKong #GvK #NFTDROP #Legendary #NFT pic.twitter.com/lBq5bhSttI

— Terra Virtua HQ | Collecting. Reinvented. (@TerraVirtuaHQ) March 30, 2021

Utility vs. recognizability

While Godzilla and King Kong are battling it out on the big screen, when it comes to NFT platforms it’s increasingly a race to see who can offer the most functionality, as well as gain access to beloved brands. 

Multiple VR and gaming projects are cooking new ways to add utility to NFTs. Ecomi, a rival VR-slash-NFT project has been flexing a slick “vault” feature on Twitter, where users can enjoy their collection in augmented reality:

Haven't seen the #AugmentedReality features of #VeVe yet?

You can drop your entire Showroom into #AR and literally walk through it! #Collectibles #NFT #NFTs #batman #TheJoker #HarelyQuinn https://t.co/bZsVSIgPa1

— Ecomi (@ecomi_) March 24, 2021

Likewise, Terra Virtua is working on a “art gallery” VR feature. 

In addition to the technical push, many of these projects are building on the back of widely-loved intellectual property. Ecomi’s run from the Batman universe is a prime example, and the BBC dipped their toes into the growing market by collaborating with Reality Gaming Group on a Dr. Who card game. Perhaps the most headline-grabbing NFT project has been NBA Topshot, which features highlights from the National Basketball Association.

Warner Bros. opted for a promiscuous licensing strategy for Godzilla vs. Kong NFTs as well, as artist Bosslogic and collectibles giant Topps will also be releasing licensed digital memorabilia.

IP monopoly

When it comes to the breadth and quality of IP, however, Terra Virtua might stand alone. In addition to Godzilla vs. Kong, the company has put out drops with IP from blockbuster titles like Pacific Rim, World War Z, and Lost in Space, in addition to classics like The Godfather and Top Gun. 

Jen Naiff, Terra’s head of marketing, credits a “total legends” executive team with extensive deal and acquisition experience for the deep catalogue.

“Our CEO, Gary Bracey, is a BAFTA-nominated games industry veteran with 25+ years of experience and is credited with bringing movie IP computer games to the mainstream. Doug Dyer, while at Warner Bros, fly to Scotland to demo and get approval from J.K. Rowling on the Harry Potter videogame he developed,” she said.

As a result, identifying and getting access to exclusive IP is “in our DNA.”

Ultimately, getting access to these brands is key not just to the growth of their platform, but also to the space as a whole.

“As an industry, we need to make sure we’re telling the right story about NFTs to the world outside of crypto land so that ownership of a digital collectible becomes as natural as asking Google, Alexa or Siri to play your favourite tune now is.”

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