Category Archives: Crypto News

Coinbase Market News

Coinbase suffers $1.1bn loss as Crypto Volumes slump

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase reported that its revenue had declined by 61% in the latest quarter as crypto prices dropped and trading volumes dropped. 

The San Francisco-founded company on Tuesday reported an after-tax loss of $1.1bn, compared with the $1.6bn net profit it registered in the middle of the crypto boom a year ago. 

The $446 million loss boiled down to a partial charge on cryptocurrency and venture capital investments.

Crypto Winter

Coinbase stock plummeted 5% in after-hours trading, having lost roughly 11% during the day. The collapse in bitcoin and other crypto prices sent the company into the red in the first quarter, leading it to lay off 18% of its staff in June. 

With the trading volume down another 30% compared with a weak first quarter, it suffered a $647m operating loss before the impairment charge and its net cash position fell by about $400m, to $2.8bn. 

In an attempt to ease Wall Street’s concerns about its financial condition in the middle of what it called a crypto “winter”, Coinbase published information concerning the amount of money it had spent and had allegedly not experienced any monetary losses despite the financial difficulties hitting it.

Coinbase predicted that it would maintain that same ratio this quarter, but then drop down accordingly in the next year.

Volatility Rocks

A spokesperson said the company understood investor concerns about stock-based pay and was “aligned” with shareholders on the issue. But she also said Coinbase took a longer-term view of the costs due to the volatility of crypto markets. 

Wall Street had been expecting a loss of $2.65 a share on revenue of $832m. Shares have been volatile in recent days, jumping more than 30% last week on an alliance with BlackRock. 

SEC investigation into Coinbase has stirred mixed feelings in the air with varying winter opinions. Will laying off more staff be a better solution or cause more damage as the workforce drops?

Iran Imports $10 Million Worth of Goods in Crypto 

The Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade facilitated the nation’s first import of goods in cryptocurrencies.

The Middle East’s leading economy is one of the biggest importers of digital assets. Iran reportedly placed an order for coal mined worth $10 million this week through cryptocurrency.

Iran and Crypto Adoption

Reuters reported that the Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Trade had approved the first authoritative order for importing goods. Following this report, the Deputy Minister, Alireza Peymanpak stated:

“This week, the first official import order registration worth 10 million dollars was completed using cryptocurrency.”

Last year, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) enabled banks, currency exchanges, and licensed miners to settle imports in cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, Iran further assured that its digital assets and smart contracts will be widely used in foreign trade in the following months.

Despite that, the Iranian authorities have not been so kind to the industry, and more particularly to the mining niche, in the recent past. A close observation could be the fight to shut out illegal mining powers and focus on mining projects from legal and monitored industries.

Iran and Power Sustainability

“Any use of subsidized electricity, intended for households, industrial, agricultural, and commercial subscribers, for mining cryptocurrency is prohibited,” Mohammad Bohlouli – a Tavanir Executive

Earlier this year, the authorities warned they might increase the sanctions on illegal BTC miners. 

In the spring of 2021, the Iranian government banned all bitcoin mining operations for four months to preserve the stability of its electricity network during the peak summer season. A month later, the country’s law enforcement agents raided an abandoned factory in Tehran and confiscated 7,000 BTC mining machines.

In December last year, the Iranian government halted crypto mining operations again, citing electricity blackouts during the winter.

Iran biggest challenge is electricity power diversion to illegal mining instead of households, businesses, and companies. Can Iran maintain this developing adoption of cryptocurrency irrespective of the power grid challenges?

Meta Partners With Coinbase And Dapper Labs for NFTs on Instagram

Meta Partners With Coinbase And Dapper Labs for NFTs on Instagram

Via Twitter, Meta Technologies, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram announced it’s updating its plans for the launch of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Menlo Park, California-based Menlo Park Holdings plans to make news on its plans to boost Instagram’s implementation of NFTs worldwide. 

Meta Newsroom confirms over 100 countries would be integrated from its Beta phase to enable more creators, businesses, and designers to showcase their NFTs on Instagram.

Meta previously announced that wallet connections would be coming soon from Meta Wallet with the Coinbase Wallet of Coinbase Global, Inc., and Dapper Labs, the parent company of the Flow FLOW blockchain. 

A Meta Wallet

On the Flow blockchain, users can publish digital collectibles minted on the platform, as announced by Meta. Users can then use a digital wallet to share these digital collectibles.  

Instagram now permits using Rainbow, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, and Dapper Wallet. The blockchains supported by Instagram are Ethereum ETH USD, Polygon MATIC USD, and Flow. Instagram does not automatically charge you for posting, sharing, or liking the tokens on Instagram.

“With the incredible opportunity of blockchain technology, they can now leverage new tools to earn income, and fans can support their favorite creators by purchasing digital collectibles — art, images, videos, music, or trading cards — as non-fungible tokens (NFTs)”  – Meta Technology

Meta Technology also sees the value of bringing augmented reality to its platform, allowing users to share their NFTs in Stories via the cultural platform Instagram. 

NFT Integration

With a rebrand to Meta Platforms and a focus on the growth of the metaverse, NFT integration for Instagram stories users could help Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, attract new users who want to share their owned collectibles.

In other news, BlackRock Inc. is partnering with Coinbase Global Inc. to make it easier for institutional investors to manage their digital assets.

Could Meta Technology partnership with Coinbase be the reason for its 15% price surge?

Will Meta’s partnership with Coinbase provide some relief for the US crypto-trading platform?

Ripple Reveals SEC Lawsuit Update and NFT Expansion

Ripple Labs announced its Q2 2022 report detailing various product developments while illustrating options in the non-fiat market affecting its performance. A key highlight of the report was the confirmation of the company’s drive towards tapping opportunities in the non-fiat market. It also reiterated its focus on expediting the Ripple-SEC lawsuit.

The Ripple-SEC lawsuit has dragged on for years slowing Ripple’s future development, and XRP s price performance. Ripple stated that it is currently driving hard to have the lawsuit resolved. The company also noted that the lack of regulatory clarity is an issue that is affecting Ripple and taking a toll on the entire cryptocurrency market.

Ripple and NFT

Ripple’s actions have not been entangled in the SEC lawsuit against the organization. How so? The company confirmed that it is interested in exploring growth opportunities in the NFT market and aims to integrate NFT support into the XRP Ledger. 

It has also announced partnerships with major brands such as Lotus Automotive and the Balmain fashion brand to come up with NFT alternatives on XRPL.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this write-up is the observed fact that Ripple has at present joined with FLUF World to create a new blockchain called Root Network. This blockchain will incorporate XRPL and also use XRP for travel expenses. 

The cryptocurrency XRP has been stuck in a mixed performance since mid-June. As of 29 July, it was trading at $0.363, a slight improvement over last month’s 2022 low.

XPR Market Movement

On-chain metrics for XRP recorded spikes during a brief period on 28 and 29 July. People supported financing rates at Bitmex and Binance during this period, proving investors are interested in its growth.

The corresponding result is that stakeholders were positively impacted by the aforementioned report’s outcome. This can be noticed from whale transaction counts. For example, the whale transaction count metric registered 12 transactions worth more than $1 million in the last 24 hours at press time. This is the highest ranking that this metric earned this week.

XRP also maintained a reputation for high-dollar transactions, with values between $100,000 and $1 million. However, this category did not provide any notable spike in activity compared with the previous week.

A Harder Push

Ripple increased XRP sales by around 50 percent. The company sold approximately $408.9 million in XRP in the second quarter, adding to the 27.27 million it cut from selling holdings the previous quarter.

The Ripples XRP price drop could require a floor of technical support at $0.37 to prevent a decline and a fall. In case XRP fails to hold above this crucial demand level, it could probably lose ground up to $0.34 in a panic. However, the next few months will tell best.

Naira Crashes

Cryptocurrency: Fever grips Nigerians as Naira crashes

Nigerians have been investing in cryptocurrencies to guard their capital against a weakening naira, which has led to the hack of the national currency to the lowest point in several years.

Abubakar Mohammed, a bureau de change operator, stated the naira dropped to 670 to 1 dollar on Wednesday in Lagos, the country’s main commercial area. That compares to 424.34 Naira listed on the official spot market as of 9:22 a.m local time.

Crashing Economic System

The largest economy in Africa operates a currency multiple exchange rate system centered on an official rate which is coordinated by the Central Bank of Nigeria. In addition, the nation also has a black market, where the exchange is regulated by supply and demand, making it a fairer reflection of the national value of the naira.

Despite the optimism diminishing in the Nigerian naira, people are flocking to cryptocurrencies since they are losing confidence in the currency. Aminu Gwadabe, president of the Association of Bureau de Change Operators of Nigeria, said by phone that the USD rate for crypto might be an indicator of the value of the local currency.

CBN Regulations

The largest economy on the continent, Nigeria, still abides by Central Bank of Nigeria regulations prohibiting banks from participating in cryptocurrency trading. Many Nigerians, however, share information about their cryptocurrency trading activities on the peer-to-peer market where transactions are priced in U.S. dollars.

The total price of the greenback was 687.6 naira on the morning of Wednesday, based on data from the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance Holdings, Ltd., indicating an impending weakening of this currency on the black market.

People are buying dollars to purchase digital assets, Gwadabe mentioned. “The USD buy rate on the crypto floor is moving at the same time as the local rate,” he added. 

The Binance platform shows Nigerian citizens conducted nearly $103,691 of cryptocurrency trades in 24 hours to 10:36 a.m. in Lagos on Wednesday. They traded more than $185 million of Bitcoin in the three months prior, accounting for about 25 percent of transactions on Paxful, a trading website.

Conclusion

Despite starting the day at N675, the exchange rate between the Naira and USD on Wednesday morning fell below the N710 threshold on the black market

The Naira crashes certainly comes along with some psychological pressure which includes exports getting cheaper to foreign customers and an expensive cost on imports.

The crypto market crash can’t be blamed for this impending financial disaster. So who is to be blamed?

Is Buying the Crypto Dip Safe? Insight

June 2022 crypto crash has being one with major market threat. Thinking if buying the crypto dip is a good idea is a question that has crossed the mind of many.

Recalling the Terra Luna crash that collapsed and wiped over $500, current market evaluation drops below $1 Trillion.

A lot of crypto investors may have thought that May 12 was certainly the right time to consider buying the dip. However still, the price of Bitcoin has already began falling from $40,000 down to $28,000. Imagine buying then?

Sadly still, if you had considered buying at $28,000, you would be 30% down in your investment as the Bitcoin price barely holds above $20,000 today. Once again asking yourself, is buying the crypto dip now safe?

Why Buying the Crypto Dip?

Research pointed the reason for the first crash. While the first crypto crash was arguably caused by the depegging of UST from its $1 price, this second crypto crash is largely macroeconomic.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) put inflation at 8.6% in May following a report last week. This spooked all markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 900 points and the S&P500 entering a bear market.The Nasdaq composite also fell 4.68% due to inflation being at its highest level since 1981.

Monday, June 13, Bitcoin price collapse from $27,000 to $22,000. Bitcoin price losses continued into June with Bitcoin trading at a low of $22,180 today. On Tuesday, the United States’ largest crypto trading platform Coinbase announced it was laying off 18% of its full-time staff.In some other news, SEC United State has already mentioned carrying out investigation as the crash maybe due to insider trading.

Buying the Crypto Dip as this time is a good investment and also a risky one. It’s very important you make research as the market movement is unpredictable.

Why Bitcoin $22,000 Crypto Crash Sparks SEC Investigations

World stock markets shaken as the United States faces fresh inflation rate as never seen in the past four years.

After seven months of surging an all time high, Bitcoin stairs panic into the cryptocurrency space as it falls under $22,000. The world Crypto Asset Managers has also given out press releases affecting notion and transactions.

Due to the sudden down thrust, Celsius Network has automatically paused all withdrawals and this is certain to be emulated by other exchangers. Already, Binance is rumored to have also suspend Bitcoin withdrawal. To make withdrawals, users ought to alternate to other exchange platforms.

Market Evaluation Drops under $1.0 trillion

On Monday, data aggregator CoinGecko revealed the crypto markets is now valued below $1.0 trillion. This is coming after a seven months throwback of sitting at $3.0 trillion. Greed index has also pointed downwards as fear raves the air.

Despite criticism, Central African Republic and El Salvador has continued to surmount confidence in the future of Bitcoin. Central African Republic and El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender.

SEC and BTC Regulations

The United State Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sent letters to multiple crypto exchanges requesting a documented report on the lack of Insider Trading Safeguards. FOX Business Journalist, Eleanor Terrett reported that this might be centralized down to SEC striving to protect investors. With increasing rumors of insider trading in the crypto space. SEC requested a full data report on financial data with pressing allegations on trading against customers.

Conclusively, Binance falls under the SEC Monitor radar as investigations if it staffs are engaging in insider trading or acting as a truly global exchange platform.

Apple NFT Trading Cards speculated to be unveiled in Developers Conference

The fast-coming 33rd edition of the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) hosted by Apple Inc has raised a lot of speculation and suspenseful thrilling news. Tech giant Apple has detailed news on showcasing the development of new software models and four new devices. The new software models to be revealed are iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, and watchOS 8.

The Worldwide Developers Conference which will be held online between the 6th to 10th of June will feature some of the world’s leading experts and advocates in the digital industry. The NFT community confidently thinks there are high chances of Apple into the web 3.0 space with news of Apple NFT Trading Cards.

Pre Web3 Elements

NFT Trading Cards

At the WWDC, these trading cards are proposed to be stationed like Web2 elements but primarily for only collectible purposes without any tradable or intrinsic value attached. This caused no need for a surprise as CEO Tim Cook already mentioned the adoption of augmented reality and investment in tech merging sectors.

NFT Trading Cards

Publicity isn’t underscored as the giant forum MacRumours made a discovery. It was discovered that clicking on the Memoji characters featured an augmented reality mode and three (3) NFT trading card characters available to b claimed. As the company acknowledged cultural affiliating for mascot brand marketing and memes, Memoji maintains its spot as a consumer branding strategy.

The Twitter community never disappoints as spaces on web3 projects and Apple IOS has being talked about subjects.

Frankly, though, Apple Inc. is yet to confirm a press release and statements about its entry into the NFT space but speculations are high and seem highly positive. VR and AR functionality headsets are already in development all summing to an easy Memoji segment in the coming years.

Cardano Value Rockets with Increase

Cardano Value Rockets with Increase in Blockchain Activity

Data has shown that over five million assets have now being minted on Cardano with a powerful plan on boosting it scaling capabilities. A lot of reasons has certainly triggered the sudden boost of Cardano.

Cardona (ADA) secured the sixth spot on CoinMarketCap’s listing as it outperforms Ripple (XPR) and Solana (SOL). Successfully drawing attention to it market trends, Cardano increased by 25.85% to $0.6539.

Cardano Performance

A lot of speculations has surrounded the up rise in trading volume as over 270% uptrend was seen yesterday. Increase in blockchain activity, launch of multiple apps on it blockchain and its DeFi ecosystem is a prime focus. A keen look at the DeFi activities lately shows an uptick attributing to a new future and bridge between Etherem (ETH) and Cardano (ADA).

Cardano Value DeFi Projects

This mentioned bridge was first brought to the limelight on May 25th, 2022 by a tweet from @ioganofficial stating that a Beta version was underway. Gladly though, this might be the future talked about the project will soon support ERC-20 tokens along with the functioning USDC.

A Burn Note

Before @ioganofficial tweet on May 15th about Cardano underway beta project on its DeFi, Cardano reached the $0.4 price level on May 12th and also reversed without delay. The following week was no different as the price also dropped slowly to $0.44. However, this was slightly insignificant as it still topped with 10% above previous low and considered a minor retest.

Of note, there are roughly $158 million of this altcoin in total value locked across it varying decentralized apps. Defi Llama statistics also published its growth is roughly 25x lesser than Solana & 455x lesser than ETH.

Truly, the rapid rallying of Cardano lately and surprising surpassing of other token after the sudden depth to nil of the Luna Token has made some assume this is a potential fake-out, whereas other speculators disagrees with this speculations. Time only will entail.

dubia

Dubai launches new crypto regulatory

Dubai has set a new crypto regulation to control cryptocurrency locally in their area. The city has additionally settled an administrative body named the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) to administer the country’s crypto area.

VARA was laid out as a free authority under the Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC) for advanced resources the executives.

Sheik Mohammed container Rashid Al Maktoum, the head of the state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), unveiled the new improvement through a tweet.

“Today, we approved the virtual assets law and established the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority. This is a step that establishes the UAE’s position in this sector. The Authority will cooperate with all related entities to ensure maximum transparency and security for investors.”

The Functions of VARA


VARA will be answerable for the guideline, administration, and issuance of cryptographic forms of money, NFTs, and other virtual resources. It will likewise oversee and screen crypto stages, trades, and the board administrations, ensuring they work under the guidelines and guidelines of the monetary controllers.

Also, the new crypto guard dog denies people from participating in crypto exercises without legitimate approval. Be that as it may, those keen on participating in computerized resources should initially layout a presence in Dubai.

As per Maktoum, the nation needs to layout Dubai as a “vital participant in planning the eventual fate of virtual resources around the world.”

More Crypto Grounds


In the interim, Dubai’s new crypto administrative system has been in progress since a year ago.

In December 2021, the Dubai media office declared that the Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC) would authoritatively turn into a crypto zone and furthermore control other virtual resources as well as crypto exchanging organizations in the country.

At that point, the city media expressed that an exceptionally severe arrangement has been set up to battle the financing of psychological warfare, financial backer securities, and illegal tax avoidance.

In September 2021, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Securities and Commodities Authority along with the Dubai World Trade Center Authority (DWTCA) coordinated a board that permits the DWTCA to endorse all monetary exchanges connecting with digital currency.

These administrative moves show exactly the way that Dubai is planning to lay out its presence in the cryptographic money area. The nation is very famous and has acquired favors among the web3 local area.

Two New ERC Standards Aim to Standardize Tokenized Vaults to NFT

Before diving deep into Tokenized vaults, developers can create new ERC standards that define a required set of functions for a token type – and they did just that. Two recently created ones have each attracted some attention and may find adoption in the future.

Crypto users are probably familiar with numerous ERC standards, the most common of which is ERC-20, a standard for creating fungible tokens that are compatible with the broader Ethereum (ETH) network.

Also, other popular standards include ERC-721, a standard for creating non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and ERC-1155, a standard that supports the creation of both fungible and non-fungible tokens.

Developers recently created two more standards that grabbed some attention from the community, these being ERC-4626 and ERC-721R.

ERC-4626: designed to standardize tokenized Vaults

Crypto vaults are contracts into which users deposit tokens and earn yield in return. Therefore, many of such vaults are tokenized. Clearly, Aave mints aTokens, Compound (COMP) mints cTokens, and Sushi mints xTokens for the funds deposited in the protocols.

Why do people invest in digital assets?

Bitcoin was originally designed as a new kind of digital money. One of the main reasons for its success is that it solved the challenge of trust in a digital setting – a challenge that was vital to overcome before digital money could really work. This was possible because of a new technology that forms the basis of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies: blockchain. 

But the applications of blockchain don’t end at digital money. Ultimately, cryptocurrency is about more than just currency – it’s also a technology that can transform the digital apps and services that we use in all areas of our lives. Here’s the big picture.

Digital assets: what they are and why people invest in them

In finance, an asset is anything you own that has economic value. Cash, buildings and artworks, for example, are all considered assets. 

A ‘digital’ asset, meanwhile, is simply anything you own that has economic value and only exists digitally. In the context of cryptocurrency, they’re used as a way to invest in all of the big applications for the technology cryptocurrency uses – whether as digital currency, smart contract platforms or apps built on top of smart contact platforms. They’re also often used in the projects themselves as an integral part of the application’s ecosystem, usually acting as an incentive for tasks to be carried out. 

So why are they still investing.

  1. Investing in digital currency

People say they invest in a digital asset that is like currency for many of the same reasons they want to own and invest in currency like Dollars or Euros: either they find it useful for transactions, or they believe its value might increase compared to other currencies. 

  1. Investing in smart contract platforms

The value of digital assets in the area of smart contract platforms are, naturally, a bit different. Their value is more like shares in the development of a new foundational technology. You can think about why people consider investing in smart contract platforms as more like investing in a startup that is creating a new operating system for mobile phones. If it’s successful, the value of the investment will increase.