Category Archives: Cryptocurrency
Charlie Munger says he wishes cryptocurrencies had ‘never been invented’ and admires China for banning them – CNBC
Billionaire investor Charlie Munger still isn't a fan of cryptocurrency.
"I wish they'd never been invented," Munger said at the Sohn conference in Sydney on Friday, according to The Australian Financial Review.
"I admire the Chinese, I think they made the correct decision, which was to simply ban them," Munger added.
This year, interest in digital assets surged, with the cryptocurrency market briefly surpassing a market value of $3 trillion in November and top coins, like bitcoin, hitting record highs.
This isn't a new stance for the 97-year-old vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. In May, during a Q&A session at Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting, Munger said that his dislike for bitcoin increased amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Of course I hate the bitcoin success," he said."I don't welcome a currency that's so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth, nor do I like just shuffling out of your extra billions of billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air."
"I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization," Munger added.
Of course, bitcoin supporters would disagree with Munger. They believe bitcoin is a store of value that can be used to hedge against inflation. They'd argue that bitcoin is a sound peer-to-peer financial system.
But Munger has consistently criticized bitcoin for its extreme volatility.
"It's really kind of an artificial substitute for gold. And since I never buy any gold, I never buy any bitcoin," Munger said at the annualshareholders meeting for the Daily Journal in February. "Bitcoin reminds me of what Oscar Wilde said about fox hunting. He said it was the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable."
Bitcoin is currently trading at around $56,085, according to Coin Metrics, with a market value of over $1 trillion.
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Charlie Munger says he wishes cryptocurrencies had 'never been invented' and admires China for banning them - CNBC
Ethereum outshines Bitcoin in cryptocurrency horse race, price may have further to run – Yahoo Money
Ethereum (ETH-USD) is defying broad underperformance in cryptocurrencies, with its recent price gains reflecting a surge of interest in smart contract platforms that are being rapidly co-opted by the nonfungible token (NFT) boom.
Amid newfound investor interest, the digital coin's performance has even eclipsed Bitcoins (BTC-USD), which has languished for over a month after setting a new record high near $68,000.
Currently trading around $4,400, Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Like Bitcoin, ETH has morphed into something of a reserve currency of its own for crypto investors. That also might mean headwinds for the asset over the longer term, not to mention an opportunity for competing blockchains.
Unlike BTC, which is most often used as speculative store of value like gold, ether's primary use is to provide fuel or gas for transactions across the Ethereum blockchain.
As the price has gone up, it's gotten very expensive to get any [transaction] space on a block on the Ethereum blockchain, Aaron Lammer, a decentralized finance (DeFi) specialist at the crypto-focused quantitative hedge fund, Radkl, told Yahoo Finance.
There's still a huge number of people waiting to be on-ramped into DeFi and NFTs, we might see the price of Ether go even higher, and really only become available to people who are using it in a large-scale institutional way, Lammer added.
As Lammer explained, one consequence of high fees is that projects and users have a financial incentive to drop Ethereum for less expensive smart contract-enabled blockchain alternatives such as Solana, Avalanche and Terra.
By no coincidence, the tokens for these competing chains behind smaller digital coins like Terra (LUNA1-USD), Avalanche (AVAX-USD) and Solana (SOL1-USD) have also performed well over the last month.
Terra token has doubled in the last week, surpassing Shiba Inu coin (SHIB-USD) as the 12th largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $25 billion.
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Similar to Ripple (XRP), the token's creator, Terra Labs, is also at the center of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions investigation working to determine whether some of the world's top cryptocurrencies are, in fact, securities. At least for the moment, ETH isn't suffering from similar regulatory uncertainty.
However, ETH's developer team has initiated a coin supply burn in its August upgrade, which will continue to exacerbate transaction costs and potentially causing its value proposition to better fit large institutions who can afford to pay the fees.
"Applications, like within DeFi, are competing for institutional capital, which is less concerned about high fees due to the more nominal sums of money they transact," explained Mason Nystrom, a research analyst with Messari.
Data tracked at watchtheburn.com, a project supported by the Ethereum Foundation, shows the rate at which burnt ETH has risen since Ethereum's upgrade. The net supply (block rewards issued - burned ETH) has dropped 80% from August through November.
The stakes of DeFi
As Lammer pointed out, another reason for Ethers rising price can be attributed to investor interest in DeFi. The emerging sector lets investors reap lending yields that are making regulators nervous, and causing Wall Street to salivate over how to tap the market.
A lot of DeFi is based on the idea of individual investors supplying capital into decentralized marketplaces, Lammer explained.
Except when you make a swap, you're actually in a pool that people have contributed money to, and therefore get rewarded in tokens. Other services are lending platforms, where you could lend your Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or all sorts of tokens in exchange for a percentage paid in APR [annual percentage rate], he added.
Such financial apps might seem harrowing to some investors, but the yields for lending assets within DeFi exchanges and protocols, range anywhere from 15% to 45% annual percentage rate (APR). For context, that's exponentially higher than what Americans can earn for holding U.S. dollars in a savings account (0.04% according to the FDIC).
In October, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler told Yahoo Finance that DeFi is "going to end poorly" unless protections are bolstered for those who invest. The agency has already acted on the premise that lending products from centralized crypto companies also need to be registered as securities.
Meanwhile, attackers have stolen more than $700 million dollars in this year alone, with the latest exploit coming at the expense of DeFi autonomous organization (DAO), also known as BadgerDAO. The crypto hack may cost the organization $120 million, according to one of its members.
David Hollerith covers cryptocurrency for Yahoo Finance. Follow him @dshollers.
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Ethereum outshines Bitcoin in cryptocurrency horse race, price may have further to run - Yahoo Money
Giving cryptocurrency as a gift is easier than you think – CNET
Art from Coinbase's digital gift cards.
Against a backdrop of persistent economic uncertainty, rising inflation and global supply chain issues, what if you could find a holiday gift that's highly available and easy to give? And what if that gift also straddled the line between the strategic and the strange? Yes, we're talking about cryptocurrency.
Though most Americans know about cryptocurrency, only a small percentage of them actually hold crypto. If you're one of the few, here's your chance to blaze the trail for your friends and family.
Unlike in the past, it's now simple to give the gift of cryptocurrency -- even to those who don't know the difference between a hardware and software wallet or don't have an account on a cryptocurrency exchange. And you don't even have to give a whole bitcoin, which currently costs more than $50,000. You can send minute fractions of a cryptocurrency, starting at less than $1.
We'll focus here on the big, popular players that have made it simple to securely give cryptocurrency to friends and family -- even if you or the recipient have never dabbled in digital money before.
An increasing number of mainstream financial apps, including PayPal and Venmo, have already made it relatively easy to buy and send cryptocurrency -- though some charge higher fees than crypto-focused apps and exchanges. And not all of them make it easy to send cryptocurrency as a gift, especially to people who don't already have accounts.
In March, Cash App debuted a new feature that made it possible for users to send bitcoin to anyone with a phone number or email address. Today, Coinbase unveiled a similar feature, making it easy for account holders to send bitcoin, ether and several other cryptocurrencies to anyone with an email address -- regardless of whether they already have a Coinbase account.
There are other ways to give cryptocurrency as a gift without using a centralized exchange and financial app. Those will require more technical know how. And regardless of how you give the gift, it's worthwhile to provide your recipient with a disclaimer: The world of cryptocurrency can be a wild place wherescams and misinformationare common.
To send cryptocurrency as a gift, you'll need a Coinbase account. Starting today, you'll be able to access the gift feature on the company's app and website. On the menu on the left side of the screen, select "send a gift."
The new gifting feature allows you to send five different assets -- bitcoin, ether, litecoin, bitcoin cash, stellar lumen -- to anyone, including people who don't yet have a coinbase account. All you need is their email address. The email contains directions about how to set up a Coinbase account and claim the gift. The email also includes a digital card featuring "crypto-minded artwork." There are no fees beyond the cost of the cryptocurrency you are gifting. If the recipient already has an account, you can send themany of the assets Coinbase supports(there are more than 100).
Coinbase allows you to cancel the transaction at any time, until the recipient creates their account and claims the cryptocurrency. If the person doesn't create an account within 30 days, the transaction is cancelled automatically.
Cash App is a popular money transfer service owned by Block, formally known as Square. One of Cash App's features is the ability to send bitcoin to other people. This app makes it quick and easy to gift crypto.
However, your choice of cryptocurrency is limited to bitcoin. At the moment, Cash App doesn't support any other assets, which makes the platform somewhat restrictive for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. But if the recipient is new to digital currency, then bitcoin is likely the one asset they might know.
To send bitcoin to another Cash App user, you'll need the person's address on Cash App, which is called a $CashTag. Once you have the $CashTag in hand, navigate to the bitcoin tab from the home screen. Then tap the airplane button and select the amount you want to send and the person to send it to.
If the person you're sending to doesn't have a Cash App account, you can send bitcoin to them using their phone number or email address. The person who receives your gift will then be prompted to create an account and accept the bitcoin. If the recipient doesn't create an account within 14 days, the bitcoin will go back to your account.
You can send as little as $1 in bitcoin using this service. You can find the full directions on the Cash App Website.
Alternatively, or in addition, you can give someone a cryptocurrency wallet as a gift -- with or without anything in it. These are hardware wallets that plug into your computer via USB port. If you do decide to set up a hardware wallet for someone as a gift, make sure to follow the manufacturer instructions closely and keep track of the key phrases once you set the wallet up. Trezor and Ledger are two reputable manufacturers that offer models ranging from $60 to $200.
Generally, the IRS focuses its interest on gifts of $15,000 or more. So, if you're just sending $50 in bitcoin to your cousin, you shouldn't have to worry about the tax implications. The IRS has helpful pages on gift taxes and virtual currencies to help you navigate the details. And when it comes to reporting your transactions in April, taxes usually kick in only when you sell or trade.
In this year alone, theprice of a single bitcoinhas fluctuated wildly -- from a low of about $30,000 to an all-time high of more than $65,000 in November. Plenty of people have made money through cryptocurrency speculation, but it's just as easy to lose money. Though it could make a fun gift for the holidays, keep in mind that cryptocurrency assets are highly speculative, and if you buy them, a good rule of thumb is to invest no more than you're comfortable losing. It's also worth noting that cryptocurrency is a common tool inonline scamsand that cryptocurrency transactions -- once completed -- are generally final and irreversible. Once you send some crypto, it's as good asgone forever. Do your homework, be skeptical and have fun.
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Giving cryptocurrency as a gift is easier than you think - CNET
Bitcoin climbs back above $58,000 as cryptocurrencies rebound from sell-off – CNBC
The value of Bitcoin (BTC) has exceeded the threshold of 66,895 dollars for the first time in his history.
Chesnot | Getty Images
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies surged Monday after a sharp sell-off at the end of last week.
The price of bitcoin climbed back above $58,000, rising 5.8% to $58,136.63, according to Coin Metrics data.
Other digital assets also rose, with ether jumping nearly 7% to $4,419.63 and XRP up 6% at around 99 cents.
Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia Pacific at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, said early reports that the new, heavily-mutated omicron Covid variant came with milder symptoms was giving the market a boost.
"We're seeing news of the variant being potentially weakerin terms of symptoms in early analysis, which has bolstered the market comeback," Ayyar said via email. "Hence, smart investors have probably bought this dip."
Bitcoin last week sank as low as $53,549, its lowest level since early October, amid a broader sell-off in stocks and other riskier assets on the back of fears over the new coronavirus variant.
The world's largest digital currency was briefly down more than 20% from its recent all-time high of nearly $69,000, officially entering bear market territory. Bear markets are typically defined by a decline of 20% of more from recent highs.
The new Covid variant, first identified in South Africa, has spread to multiple countries including the U.K., Germany and Italy.
The U.S., U.K. and other nations have restricted travel with some African countries in response. Britain has also introduced new measures to tackle the new virus mutation, including mandatory mask wearing in shops and public transport in England.
On Sunday, Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first spotted the omicron variant, described its symptoms as "extremely mild," soothing fears of a potential return of lockdown restrictions during the holidays.
"The global environmentdid add to the uncertaintyacross all risk asset classes as we saw last week, but the bounce back alwaysshows us how strong the uptrend is, which is what we're seeing here," Ayyar said.
If bitcoin loses $48,000 to $50,000 on a daily or weekly basis, "that would definitely imply bearishness," he added. But for now, Ayyar says "we're still in bull market territory."
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Bitcoin climbs back above $58,000 as cryptocurrencies rebound from sell-off - CNBC
The leader of Facebooks stalled cryptocurrency project is leaving the company – The Verge
Facebook cryptocurrency chief David Marcus announced today that hes leaving the company. The former PayPal executive joined Facebook in 2014 to run Messenger but eventually took over plans to launch a new cryptocurrency and wallet, known at the time as Libra and Calibra, respectively.
After some pre-Meta name changes, the digital wallet launched with a small pilot in October under the name Novi but only in two countries (the US and Guatemala) and support for a single form of crypto, the Paxos stablecoin. The currency that spurred so much ire from regulators and politicians around the world, now called Diem, has yet to appear.
In posts on his Facebook page and Twitter, Marcus says, While theres still so much to do right on the heels of hitting an important milestone with Novi launching and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it. He announced that Novi VP of product Stephane Kasriel, previously an early PayPal employee and the CEO of Upwork, will take over the leadership of the team.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg commented on the Facebook post, saying, Ive learned so much working with you and Im so grateful for everything youve done for this place. We wouldnt have taken such a big swing at Diem without your leadership and Im grateful youve made Meta a place where we make those big bets. Youve built a great team, and while Ill miss working with you, Im looking forward to working with Stephane to lead the team going forward.
As recently as October, politicians were openly calling for Facebook to drop its cryptocurrency plans. At that time, Marcus said, I do want to be clear that our support for Diem hasnt changed and we intend to launch Novi with Diem once it receives regulatory approval and goes live. We care about interoperability and we want to do it right.
What his departure means for the project overall is unclear, as well as how it fits in with Zuckerbergs metaverse vision for the future. His departure also comes one day after fellow cryptocurrency proponent Jack Dorsey stepped down from his position as the CEO of Twitter. It seems unlikely that either one will be done with Web3 projects any time soon.
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The leader of Facebooks stalled cryptocurrency project is leaving the company - The Verge
Top Cryptocurrency Prices Today: Bitcoin recovers; Dogecoin and Polkadot rally up to 9% – Economic Times
New Delhi: The cryptocurrency cartel staged a smart recovery on Friday after profit booking by traders in the last few sessions. Traders lapped up cryptos ahead of the weekend, where they are the only tradable assets.
Barring the XRP, all nine out of the top 10 digital tokens were trading higher at 9.30 IST. Cardano led the gainers, with a 9 per cent rally. Bitcoin and Ethereum also logged handsome gains.
The global cryptos' market cap inched up marginally to hover around $2.6 trillion mark compared to the last day. However, the total crypto market volume fell over 9 per cent to $114.04 billion.
"The total traded volumes dropped by almost 10 per cent, as is usual towards the end of the week. Over coming couple of days, we can expect the market to remain range-bound," he added.
Crypto in IndiaCryptocurrency exchanges are turning to targeted advertising and marketing campaigns to soothe the nerves of investors who are exiting their investments amid regulatory uncertainty over the virtual currencies.
Also, billiards and snooker world champion Pankaj Advani has joined the bandwagon of celebrities encashing the newfound interest in non-fungible tokens (NFT).
Expert's takeFacebook reversed its longstanding stance on banning crypto advertising on its platform, taking another step towards embracing and adopting the digital asset industry, CoinDCX Research Team said.
"Following the companys attempt to launch Libra, its rebrand to Meta, and now permitting crypto ads, Facebooks progressive step is an encouraging move for the digital asset sector," it added.
Goldman Sachs is also seeing the value in the crypto options markets as a way in for institutional adoption, the interest and value of the crypto industry is evidence of its long-term position in the future of finance, tech and business.
Global OutlookEl Salvador is building a new city. The concept of this unique city is duly backed by Bitcoin, the worlds largest crypto player in terms of market capitalization.
Price change in last 24 hours Tech View by ZebPay Trade DeskPolygon (MATIC) has witnessed a strong rally last week, when it surged to $2.25 from $1.78 over a span of just 48-hours. The asset has a market capitalization of $14.8 billion and is ranked 15th.
Polygon seems to be holding on to the upward trend quite strongly, and the inflows that the asset has seen off late supports this claim. Ultimately, Polygon aims to solve the scalability issues on the Ethereum network, which has suffered from congestion and high fees.
Technically, on the daily time frame, Matic has formed a broad Symmetrical Triangle pattern where the rising sloping line acts as support and the upper sloping line acts as resistance. The asset has given a breakout on the upside but it is struggling to sustain above its previous high of $2.22. Hence, to further rally, Matic needs to trade and close above $2.22.
Major LevelsSupport: $1.8, $1.4Resistance: $2.22, $2.82
Time is in UTC and the daily time frame is 12:00 AM - 12:00 PM UTC
(Views and recommendations given in this section are the analysts' own and do not represent those of ETMarkets.com. Please consult your financial adviser before taking any position in the asset/s mentioned.)
Cryptocurrency Scams: 5 Ways to Spot, Avoid and Protect – Analytics Insight
Here are the five ways you can spot, avoid and protect yourself from cryptocurrency scams
The cryptocurrencies craze is increasing rapidly in the country. As crypto-assets continue to gain the attention of investors all around the world, they have also become a target for scammers who are looking to make some easy profits by exploiting individuals who would do anything to get rich quickly. When youre looking into digital cryptocurrency companies and startups, experts recommend that you confirm that theyre blockchain-powered, which means they track detailed transaction data. Also, check that they have solid business plans that solve real problems. As with any hot new thing, some people want to make a buck from it by any means necessary. Here are the five ways you can spot, avoid and protect yourself from cryptocurrency scams:
It can be difficult to overlook guidance from tycoons and forces to be reckoned with on the web, yet you ought to do your own examination before contributing with regard to your cash. Start with PCMags manual for purchasing, selling, and overseeing Bitcoin. Try not to take any data online whatsoever worth. Assuming a venture sounds unrealistic, its most likely be one of the cryptocurrency scams.
Treat any individual who reaches you straightforwardly to request installments in cryptocurrencies or offers you a speculation opportunity in regards to crypto with outrageous alert. Try not to trust messages regardless of whether they seem, by all accounts, to be from government authorities, well-known individualsany individual who requests that you pay for anything utilizing cryptocurrency.
You most likely have anecdotes about individuals who lost somewhere around a couple of Bitcoins due to failing to keep a grip on their virtual wallets. Assuming you do possess cryptocurrencies, never share your private key or seed express with anybody. All things being equal, we suggest putting away that data someplace offline.
Use multifaceted verification on your crypto wallet to attempt to keep the trouble makers out. Its anything but a definite fire arrangement, as we learned after the Coinbase hack, however it allows you a battling opportunity against numerous attackers.
Keep an eye on the URL for the sites you visit identified with cryptocurrency. Numerous phishing tricksters duplicate the URL of real locales and trade out letters or numbers. You additionally need to guarantee the site is secure, so search for the little lock image close to the URL. Make sure to turn on your antivirus programming. The best AV weve tried pays special mind to phishing tricks for your benefit and hinders malignant URLs.
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On Giving Tuesday, cryptocurrency and NFT backers are bullish on donations – CNBC
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 29: Sir Tim Berners-Lee auctioned the source code for the World Wide Web, which was given to the world for free, as an NFT at Sotheby's on June 29, 2021 in New York City. The auction raised $5.4 million which Berners-Lee said would be donated to charity.
Noam Galai | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
This Giving Tuesday, philanthropy is undergoing a tech revolution. NFTs, known for pushing the art and entertainment industries forward, are innovating in charitable giving as well, and some of the crypto community's biggest bulls and earliest backers are getting on board.
Gemini, the cryptocurrency company founded by bitcoin billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, unveiled in February a "Give Back with Crypto'' feature, giving Gemini wallet holders the opportunity to donate to over 300 nonprofits, courtesy of a three-year-old platform named The Giving Block. The Giving Block provides the technology stack to connect the crypto community with the philanthropic community, meaning that Gemini wallet holders, FTX users, and all of The Giving Block's other partners can donate any one of dozens of cryptocurrencies directly to a nonprofit of their choosing.
The Giving Block has become one of the mainstays in crypto charitable giving, partnering with dozens of platforms and exchanges and hundreds of charities. And, trendy as they are, the logistics and tax implications of crypto donations aren't all that different from stock donations.
Donating cryptocurrency isn't new; United Way was one of the first and largest nonprofits to start accepting bitcoin donations in 2014. Edwin Goutier, vice president of innovation for United Way, told CNBC that back then, "We saw a growing thriving community of individuals who were passionate as well as a growing base of wealth."
Today, Goutier sees a similar rise with NFTs.
Jack Dorsey famously sold his first tweet as an NFT and donated the proceeds to charity earlier this year, and CNBC's own 'Haines Bottom' NFT sold at auction for over $61,000 just a few months later. The Winklevii haven't slept on the NFTs for philanthropy model either. To commemorate the 13th anniversary of the bitcoin white paper, Gemini displayed over 100 phrases from the paper on a former CNN billboard in NYC's Columbus Circle. Each phrase sold as an NFT on the Gemini-owned Nifty Gateway, and all proceeds were donated.
If donating cryptocurrency is akin to donating stock, Nifty Gateway COO Patrick McLaren says donating NFTs is analogous to donating physical goods, like a traditional piece of art or a similar high-value collectible. And, McLaren says, it's in the DNA of the crypto community. "I recall when the blockchain industry was just becoming an industry, and it was all happening very, very quickly, it always struck me how much people wanted to give back."
Venture capitalist and longtime cryptocurrency optimist Bill Tai saw the charitable potential in NFTs early on. He was Zoom's first investor and an early Twitter and Tweetdeck backer, but he's also backed DapperLabs, the company behind NBA TopShot and CryptoKitties. In 2018, he commissioned what eventually became the first NFT for charity: Honu Kitty, a part cat, part turtle that yielded $25,000 for marine conservation. Now three years later, Tai has set up Metagood, an NFT marketplace that enables donations for each NFT drop.Metagood's investors include Owen Wilson; Richard Branson's children Holly and Sam Branson; Charlie Lee, inventor of Litecoin; and Woody Harrelson.
Metagood is one of many social impact NFT projects to launch this year. Binance launched the NFT for Good collection over the summer, benefiting charities for children. OpenSea has hosted charitable drops, and DoinGud, an NFT marketplace with a donation requirement for each sale, launches for the public on Tuesday.
The charitable opportunity in crypto and NFTs isn't occurring without a related opportunity for the new platforms to make money. While many in crypto emphasize community as the industry's standout feature, more use of crypto means a bigger market overall. "Any time you have a community of interest, you have the ability to create commerce, and a currency," Tai said.
The NFT donation appeal for charities, and for donors, lay less in the novelty of the blockchain and more in its long term impact. The royalties that attracted the likes of Steve Aoki, Kings of Leon, and Gary Vaynerchuk to the NFT ecosystem are also attracting nonprofits who see the NFT's secondary and tertiary markets as opportunities for donations in perpetuity.
Built on the Polygon blockchain, DoinGud allows artists to determine how much of the token's proceeds go to charity, as well as which charity the sales will benefit. The platform is, for now, allowing no less than a 5% allocation in the primary market, and the donations from the secondary market sales are determined in each NFT's individual smart contract. The default, says co-founder and curator Kyle Gordon, is a donation of 2.5% in the secondary market.
Since NFTs, like traditional art and collectible assets, accrue value over time, Goutier says the potential in this new donation model is in part why the nonprofit agreed to work with DoinGud. "We'll have the opportunity to receive a portion of secondary market sales," he said.
As the original NFT increases in value, so does the donation, and the nonprofit first chosen by the creator benefits with every transaction, forever. The benefits are monetary, certainly, but also cultural. With each transaction, the nonprofit reups its relevance. "It's a sustainable donation model," Goutier said.
For artists, NFT profits are typically blunted by notorious gas and transaction fees, and donating a cut of proceeds may not seem feasible for newer creators. To combat that, DoinGud has instead put gas and minting fees on the collectors, offering creators a chance to retain 95% of their sale's proceeds.
Like all things crypto, though, it's still early days. While United Way has accepted crypto donations for seven years, cryptocurrencies still comprise an extremely small amount of its $4.8 billion raised annually Goutier estimates less than 1%. NFTs may very well help raise that number, but nonprofits are now considering other implications of their corporate wallets. "Do we keep crypto on our balance sheet?" Goutier said.
The Giving Block has launched its own version of Giving Tuesday: NFTuesday, scheduled for December 7, in conjunction with the Sotheby's auction benefiting Sostento, a nonprofit for health-care workers. The two are touting the upcoming event as the "biggest NFT charity auction ever."
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On Giving Tuesday, cryptocurrency and NFT backers are bullish on donations - CNBC
Iron Fish Raises $27 Million To Build A Cryptocurrency Beyond The Reach Of Surveillance States – Forbes
A Russian national flag atop the Russian Central Bank headquarters in March 2019.
Elena Nadolinski grew up in Volgograd, Russia playing on the shells of abandoned tanks and decommissioned battleships, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. When she returned there on a recent trip from her new home in Silicon Valley, she says she was struck by how Russias growing authoritarian surveillance continues to impact the very nature of innovation.
Lack of privacy, and having this expectation that I am surveilled and I need to hide what I have because I don't actually have privacy guarantees, has evolved the culture in a way that I think negatively impacts innovation and entrepreneurship in the country, says Nadolinski, speaking from her offices in San Francisco.
To help combat this chilling effect, the 29-year-old founder of anonymous cryptocurrency startup Iron Fish raised $27.6 million in a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz to help ensure the next generations of Russians and citizens of the growing number of authoritarian states around the world can continue to have a private life, even if all the worlds transactions move to a shared, distributed ledger.
Whats at stake with her work and that of a rising tide of other privacy innovators building with blockchain goes far beyond just what happens in the once-niche world of cryptocurrencies. In fact, it could have ripple effects reaching into the very nature of money, and whether or not online payments of all sortscrypto or fiatretain any sense of offline privacy when paying for goods with cash.
The reason why I'm working on Iron Fish is because right now we're headed in a direction where payments are totally transparent, says Nadolinski. If you are a surveillance-happy state, this is the future you want. And for us, it's kind of a scary future.
With other investors in the Series A including Sequoia Capital, LinkedIn executive chairman Jeff Weiner, billionaire Mets owner, Alan Howard, and more, the firm plans to spend the capital to nearly double its team size, establish a treasury for assigning grants to companies building on the platform and paying legal fees to help assure the process is as compliant as possible.
What theyre not doing though is adding anyone to the board, something, Nadolinski says, is increasingly par-for-the-course with crypto startups relying on a governance model built into the very fabric of the code. If there's an update [network participants] like or don't like, they will either run or not run the updated software, she says. There is, as with any cryptocurrency project, governance by action.
Born to software engineer parents in Volgograd, Russia, Nadolinski remembers her grandmother pointing out the only two buildings that survived World War II in what was then called Stalingrad. After studying in Russia for first and second grade, she moved to the United States and in 2014 received a degree in computer science from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Parlaying a Microsoft internship into her first engineering job at the tech giant, she went on to work on property rental site Airbnbs autocomplete function before discovering crypto.
In 2017, the rising star was invited to a birthday party at Ethereum developer Juan Benets house in Palo Alto, California. Three years earlier, Benet founded Protocol Labs to build technology that could enable a new version of the internet without central servers, called Web 3. In contrast to where she grew up, Nadolinski was struck by the openness of the blockchain developers. Particularly, the developer of Web 3 portal, MetaMask, Dan Finlay, who without even knowing her, helped her debug a smart contract at 3 oclock in the morning. I was like, This feels like a magical open community, she says. Where there's so much potential, and there's so much to build.
A year later, she started working on the original version of Iron Fish, then a privacy preserving cryptocurrency, using the Sapling Protocol, originally developed by Zcash. With early funding from Benet, Forbes 30 Under 30 alums, Jill Carlson of Slow Ventures, Linda Xie of Scalar Capital and others, the cryptocurrency evolved to include a system whereby almost any cryptocurrency can be deposited into a smart contract that wraps it in the same anonymity as Iron Fish itself. Think of it as the secure sockets layer (SSL) of the internet, except instead of vouchsafing for the security of a website, it helps protect the privacy of nearly any cryptocurrency.
Based in San Francisco, the Delaware C Corp currently employs nine people around the world, including six developers. In April 2021, the firm published the early version of its open source code, letting anyone build on the network, which is currently validated by 1,800 node operators. Earlier this month, they opened pre-registrations for an incentivized test network that will reward the validators and other network participants with points that qualified users will eventually be able to redeem for Iron Fishs native currency, iron.
This is at least the sixth investment Andreessen Horowitz has made in crypto privacy startups over the past four years. Most recently, the firm earlier this month led a Series A in Switzerland-based Nym, which uses cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, to reward users who run nodes similar to the Tor Network. $3.1 billion dollars has been invested in privacy startups, according to data site Crunchbase, with more than three-quarters of it over the past four years.
To give an idea of the potential value being placed on privacy, research firm Fortune Business Insights predicts technology that obscures identities will grow into a $17.75 billion industry by 2028, and analysis site ResearchAndMarkets.com estimates the related VPN industry will reach $107 billion by 2027.
If technology like Iron Fishs catches on, it could potentially provide anonymity to more than just cryptocurrencies. Perhaps the largest threat to financial privacy in recent years is the nascent and largely experimental concept of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), where the traditional issuers of government-backed currencies are seeking to leverage the best that their new decentralized competitors have to offer in terms of speed and efficiency.
While everyonefrom the Bank of International Settlements to David Chaum, whose work on electronic money was cited by bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamotohas cited concerns over what this new kind of currency might mean, the second largest economy in the world, China, is slowly rolling out its own digital currency, and dozens of similar projects are in the works.
Supporters of increased transparency say such hybrid cryptocurrencies could undermine terrorist funding and money launderers, while detractors worry about some of the same chilling effects on innovation experienced by Nadolinski. Right now, she says, whether or not you're a believer, disbeliever regulator, builder, whoever, you are inadvertently helping shape that inevitable future of digital payments being cryptocurrency-based.
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Iron Fish Raises $27 Million To Build A Cryptocurrency Beyond The Reach Of Surveillance States - Forbes
The top cryptocurrency Discord groups to join – Yahoo Sports
As cryptocurrency gains more followers, platforms such as Telegram, Reddit, and Discord have risen in popularity as well, being major driving forces in crypto evangelism. In some cases, it is hard to tell that some of these platforms are not built purposely to facilitate community-led discussion for crypto projects.
That said, Discord is gradually growing into a beehive for crypto communities as it accommodates hundreds of subchannels for crypto enthusiasts. While there are several crypto Discord groups, the primary aim is to create a common ground where members can talk about cryptocurrency with one another.
More so, because most of these Discord groups are project-centric, they tend to focus on a niche aspect of the crypto industry. However, there are several others who also cater to diverse crypto-related topics ranging from DeFi, to NFT, Metaverse, and many more. In this article, we will list some of the best cryptocurrency Discord groups to join.
However, just before we proceed, what should be expected of an average cryptocurrency Discord group? Well, the end goal is similar to other community-led platforms like Telegram and Reddit. Notably, people join such groups for various reasons including educational purposes, Market information/trends, project updates and most importantly to meet and interact with like-minded people.
Discord allows people to host a chat room on what it refers to as servers. By hosting on the server, a chat host can send an invite to other people who can join the group via a sharable link.
Also, by joining the chat room, members can invite others, and interact with each other using text or voice chat. Technically, the app combines the voice chat feature of services likes of Skype, with the text feature of internet relay chat (IRC) and messaging services like WhatsApp.
Aside from being an invite-only channel, Discord offers one of the best feedback systems, and also allows for customisation. Notably, each community bunches a collection of distinct channels, to which people can be invited or join based on preference. More so, each custom channel is governed by special rules and focuses only on specific topics (except a few occasion, where it is generalised to cater to diverse topics).
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Cryptocurrency
With surging interest in the crypto space, as well as the growing number of crypto tokens, it is highly necessary to join a community where updates about the latest innovation, happenings, and arising concerns are being shared. That said the Cryptocurrency Discord channel is an interactive forum that provides adequate information while allowing members to participate in the in-depth conversation.
In addition, members (regardless of their level of expertise) get to access basic tips about trading and investment. However, the channel, just like most others do not take responsibility for any losses incurred from sharing tips as they are only advisers. Members who proceed to take advantage of the tips are doing so at their own risk.
Decentralization
As the decentralised economy continues to grow and expand, it is important to harmonise like-minded people, and thats pretty much what this Discord channel does.
Also, in addition to uniting those who share the same ideology, members of this group discuss other topics, particularly relating to the future of decentralised tokens. Likewise, members are set to disrupt the existing centralised economy across different sectors including politics, fiscal, and economic systems worldwide.
Elite Crypto Signal
Just like the name implies, this Discord channel boasts some of the oldest crypto investors in the market. The channel was created in 2018 with the intention of gathering members who can help one another to make profits from trading cryptocurrencies.
With some having up to a decade of crypto trading experience, the channel provides signals based on technical analysis and market outlook. In addition, the host team provides training for members at a relatively affordable rate.
MEGA Pump
This Discord channel is dedicated to people who are interested in the pump and dump scheme. Members are provided with a chance to maximise their profits by bulk-investing in a project for the short term.
Cryptohub
This channel focuses on entry-level, or beginners in the crypto space. Notably, the platform is known for providing 100% free and genuine guidance to help its users navigate the crypto space as seamlessly as possible. The channel also helps in directing its members to the perfect trustworthy destinations for crypto exchanges as well as communities.
Link:
The top cryptocurrency Discord groups to join - Yahoo Sports