To reduce velocity, and increase scarcity of its BNB coin, Binance periodically performs a token burn. This process basically involves taking out 20% of all profits from operations and extinguishing an amount of BNB equivalent to this number.

For a large segment of investors that do not yet own crypto, and does not want to bother with crypto exchanges, but wants exposure to the asset class, ETPs and ETFs are a great way to cheaply access crypto. However, traditional exchanges around the world have been slow to warm up to products that track […]

As many of you may have noticed, we could not send out too many newsletters this past week, as we focus on getting Qume ready for a beta launch. Keeping that in mind, we cover key events from last week in today’s newsletter. Binance and the curious case of the vanishing fiat on-ramps Earlier last week, Binance […]

“Just because most people think it’s a bad idea to stand in front of a bus and you’re a contrarian thinker, it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to stand in front of a bus.” – Howard Marks We just returned home after attending Consensus Singapore (Invest Asia, to go by its proper name). The […]

After last week’s sharp pullback, BTC seems to have found stability in the new $8000-$8500 range. With the price down by over 40% from the $14k registered in June, crypto investors are seemingly worried about a crypto winter redux. Bullish analysts, on the other hand, feel that the recent pullback is a transitory blip caused […]

Bitcoin experienced one of the worst single-day declines in recent times as the price plummeted by more than $1000 from $9700 to $8500 in a flash. After having reached a yearly high of $14k in June, BTC has been in a consolidation phase since then with price very much oscillating between $9500 and $12000.  The […]

We have covered Libra earlier (here and here). Here we highlight the section on the security token again.  “Libra Association will introduce a security token called the Libra Investment Token to incentivize its partner companies to spread the adoption of Libra token and also to cover their operating expenses. Security token holders are expected to receive profits […]

Bitcoin price has been trading sideways for the better part of the last three months and is consolidating in what most crypto analysts claim is a triangle pattern. The lack of action in Bitcoin markets has caused traders to seek profits elsewhere; This has resulted in the altcoin market where a mini-sized alt season may […]

Crypto insurance is one of the fastest-growing markets in the crypto ecosystem. With crypto valuations soaring every year, the dollar value of crypto hacks is increasing concurrently, resulting in an increasing demand for insurance coverage for crypto assets. The supply-demand imbalance for insurance coverage is very steep with just under a $1B digital assets insured […]

We have been fans of stablecoins for a while, and we are eagerly looking forward to Binance’s play in this space. Clearly there are stand-alone stablecoin businesses that are in it to basically play the float, effectively make money from the collateralized fiat backing the stable coins...

Accordingly, today’s weekly wrap up, which will touch upon China’s planned launch of its own state-backed crypto (CBDC), will liberally point to other articles that are relevant...

Some time ago, we had touched upon the wide-spread prevalence of Bitcoin as the de facto currency in Venezuela. In July this year, BTC was trading at a 600% premium in Zimbabwe...

Crypto lending is a fast-growing corner of the crypto world, and DeFi efforts around crypto lending have been picking up steam, as we periodically cover in our Friday DeFi watch series...

As important as marketcaps are to measure the success of a company or a project, they are a flawed measure of success in the long-run...

The DeFi revolution is beginning to spawn new some interesting use cases, such as seamless lending and borrowing, decentralized derivatives and trading... Read about tokenizing interest in DeFi using cTokens and RDai

And so we are back after a short summer hiatus, that took us, by way of bustling Bangalore to sunny Singapore right on the equator. Asia is clearly the heart of crypto, in a way that USA (and NYC specifically) is still very much at the centre of modern global finance...

Trends in bitcoin mining difficulty can be used to gain valuable insights into the future price of bitcoin. Miners are critical to the functioning of the bitcoin network and their rational economic decisions in response to price changes offers insights into buying opportunities for bitcoin.

We have been doing some reading on the ‘butterfly effect’ and its effect on the markets. Essentially, the butterfly effects implies that small events in one part of the world can sometimes have far-reaching consequences in another part, often very far away...

After Facebook, Walmart is now launching a USD-backed stablecoin, according to a recent patent filing. The ‘Walmart Coin’ project is allegedly the company’s second shot at operating as a bank, following on from an earlier attempt to function as an ILC (Industrial Loan Company) that was thwarted by the regulators...

While most cryptocurrencies have enjoyed strong returns in 2019 so far, one particular category of tokens that has had a great year is centralized exchange tokens..

NYAG claims that Bitfinex defrauded its investors by not disclosing the alleged $850 million that it borrowed from USDT’s reserves. Every USDT is supposed to be backed by a US dollar held in a bank account so that every token is fully collateralized. Bitfinex claims that NYAG lacks the required legal jurisdiction to investigate Bitfinex as Bitfinex does not serve any NYC customers as per their terms and conditions.

TLDR; today we have a guest post by Ugam Kamat, covering the recent regulatory guidance in India. It is a bit long but definitely well worth it. We touched upon this earlier this week. While the committee has achieved a certain basic level of understanding through research and conversations with industry participants and regulators , many of its conclusions and inferences are off-the-mark, sometimes badly so.

While crypto options are still a growing space and not as robust as the futures and spot markets in terms of liquidity, option prices provide valuable insights into the overall market’s prediction of the future prices of cryptocurrencies.

The Indian Department of Economic Affairs published a comprehensive report on virtual currencies and recommended actions. Read about our analysis and thoughts on the same...

As we head into the weekend, there is news coming in that Bitmex is the subject of an investigation by the CFTC in the US. We actually predicted that something like this would happen, barely two weeks ago, on the 4th of July. The ‘Tangle in Taipei’, Bitmex CEO Arthur Hayes’ debate with perma-crypto bear (and perma-bear) Nouriel Roubini played a small part in bringing the derivatives market into sharper focus globally.

Crypto lending today is primarily driven by speculation. In contrast to the near-zero interest rates in the traditional finance world, the interest rates for crypto lending and borrowing are substantially higher.

This week starts off with David Marcus, head of Facebook’s Libra project, being hauled up in front of the US Congress; the Senate Banking Committee, to be precise; As eminent a collection of grey eminences as they come, with an average age north of 60. It will likely be a theatre of the absurd.

We recently covered the growth in the area of crypto derivatives. As crypto gains legitimacy as an asset class derivatives grow into a larger proportion of the overall markets, in line with traditional markets.

OTC trading in crypto is seeing an increase in interest from traditional crypto exchanges which are looking to add businesses such as margin trading, futures trading and OTC trades to their suite of trading services.

CME announced that it is tweaking the reference rate for ETH prices to include prices from the Itbit exchange, a move that signals that Ethereum Futures could soon be rolled out by CME.

As DeFi picks up steam, decentralized derivatives platforms could potentially be key components, in conjunction with lending, securitization and credit assessment platforms; especially as decentralized identity solutions evolve, and FATF and other regulatory regimes start cracking down on unregulated platforms like BitMEX with their absence of KYC/AML filters

While spot trading in cryptocurrencies has been consistently increasing over the past few years, with daily traded volume exceeding $10 billion dollars, the derivatives market for cryptocurrencies is still fairly nascent. Let's have a look at the current state of the crypto derivatives market

We look at some of the underlying reasons behind the sudden run up in the prices of bitcoin last week..

“Kimchi Premium” refers to the dizzying premiums paid by Korean customers for buying cryptocurrencies, especially Ethereum and bitcoin. It was an indicator of extreme forms of FOMO could often lead to mathematical absurdities in the markets.

The last few weeks in the markets, especially since the launch of Libra,have seen extreme price swings not seen since late 2017. The price of Bitcoin jumped by over 20% in the last few days, reaching a (local) high of $14k in price, and is currently trading in the high $11ks....

After having made headlines for the majority of 2019, DeFi seems to be losing some steam, as the number of ETH locked up in DeFi contracts is on a sharp downwards trend in recent weeks.

Less than a day after the much-awaited Libra launch, we are already seeing regulators expressing their reservations about having a global, blockchain-powered, borderless currency for payments, powered by a Valley behemoth.

With Bitcoin reaching a 14 month high and all that is changing around, let's have a look at some fundamental factors for BTC

Facebook’s ambitious launch of a global cryptocurrency can spark unprecedented broader adoption once it gets past initial execution and regulatory hurdles. We look at the design, incentive structure and economics of the Libra coin, specifically nodes within Libra Coin...

As bitcoin skirts with peaks last seen in early 2018, in the low 9000s, it might not seem so outlandish to pose the question - Is bitcoin benefitting from a flight to quality/risk-off trade in the markers?

Institutional cryptocurrency platform Bakkt will begin testing its first product, physically-delivered bitcoin (BTC) futures on July 22, the company announced in a blog post on June 13.

From the bottom of the 2008 financial crisis, the US equity markets have surged back, with the S&P reporting >3x growth over the past decade and showing 8 years of positive returns over the same period.

Binance has launched a decentralized version of its exchange (Binance DEX) in the last week of April. The DEX version is expected to solve a majority of hurdles faced by current DEXs! Read more...

Picking out three key events from the crypto world this week; Firstly, Facebook’s crypto efforts which we have covered here and here, most recently. Pros – It is going to generate awareness for crypto among the wider masses, the ‘99%’ that really couldn’t care less about crypto or decentralization or sound money or whatever, but would love any […]

We take a look at some DApp (Decentralized App) metrics - DApp usage, the number of users and DApp transactions on the blockchain.

Top popular smart contracting platform EOS is going to see a reduction in token inflation from 5% to 1% after the latest vote by the community members.

After having declined in late 2018 as a result of BTC’s price crash, the hash rate of the Bitcoin network has proven to be resilient and is back on track to reach new highs

In our 12th edition of Friday Metrics watch, read about various crypto loans, DEX tracker and more...

DAI is exciting for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it is foundational to the DeFi stack.

Bitcoin’s Lightning network has grown impressively over the past one year, with total nodes and channels having risen exponentially after the launch.

The crypto market is showing no signs of cooling down, and the price of Bitcoin has rallied up by about 10% today, to reach a new high in 2019 and also record a 1-year high of $8800

Read about Ethereum, Lighting Growth Network, DEX tracker, Compound loans and in the 11th edition of our Friday Metrics Watch

In contrast to the previous iteration of the by-now well-known ICO model, the IEO (Initial Exchange Offering) model of capital raising aims to address some of the former’s shortcomings and pitfalls.

The recent run-up in crypto prices has led to a surge in new issuances for stablecoins, especially for fiat-backed USD stablecoin projects

We explore the possibility of how a decentralized framework might improve upon existing democratic electoral processes, how such a framework might lead to more accountability in decision making, and how even the electoral process can be simplified, made more efficient, effective and dynamic.

Ethereum is currently on track to shift to a new Proof-of-stake based consensus system from the existing Proof-of-work consensus protocol

Read about Matic, Ethereum, Lightning growth tracker and crypto loan tracker in our 10th edition of Friday metrics

Crypto markets are back in full swing this week as BTC prices have increased by about 20% and trading volumes have massively increased

Just like gold and silver, Bitcoin is a special class of commodity, held for investment and price appreciation rather than for consumption

We continue to see an upturn in the markets. Bitcoin has appreciated by about 90% since the beginning of this year and ETH has gone up by more than 100% from its lowest level of $80 towards the end of 2017

In this edition of Friday Metrics Watch we cover Uniswap's volatility, DAI's interest rate spike amongst other things ...

Custody is critical to the growth of the decentralization revolution. Fully decentralized custody is still some distance away, read more ...

As discussed earlier, all is not well with Tether these days. In this article we dive into the latest metrics and analysis.

In our 2nd podcast episode, we host Dhruv Bansal of Unchained Capital.

After last week’s debacle this week started off with some positive news for crypto faithful.

Full marks to EY for breaking out of its peer group and launching Nightfall, a truly public, open blockchain on top of the Ethereum network.

6th Edition of Friday Metrics Watch - a data-driven perspective on DeFi, DEXs, Lightning Network and more...

The market should decide if BSV is worth having around, not any one individual, even if that individual is CZ of Binance.

5th Edition of Friday Metrics Watch, a data-driven perspective on DeFi, DEXs, Lightning Network and more...

We share our learnings from some of the technical analysis experts on Bitcoin price trends.

We quickly revisit the theme of crypto lending - one of the fastest growing aspects of the DeFi/Open Finance ecosystem.

While we are not quite sure if we have yet reached sufficient escape velocity certain technical indicators seem to show that we are on track for a sustained run-up.

Fourth edition of Friday Metrics Watch - a data-driven perspective on DeFi, DEXs, Lightning Network and more...

Binance has understood that there exists a dedicated user base that wants to use DEXs to trade and their Binance DEX is a solution to cater to those users.

Bitcoin bulls had a reason to cheer as the price of Bitcoin spiked up by over 15% in a matter of minutes, temporarily crossing the $5k mark.

Third edition of Friday Metrics Watch - where we check out the latest in DeFi, the Lightning Network and DEXs.

We take a look at situations where Uniswap’s unique Constant Product Market Maker pricing model can act against the platform’s liquidity providers.

Last week, Bitwise released the presentation it made to the SEC on the scale and depth of the alleged wash trading on crypto exchanges.

Going into our second edition of Metric's Watch, the highlight of the week is CBOE discontinuing its Bitcoin Futures contracts.

Centralized platforms are always self-serving and profit-seeking and force app developers to play the game by their rules.

In the context of Bitlicense in New York, and the proposed Texas cryptocurrency laws, Wyoming’s approach to crypto regulation, led by former Wall Street Executive Caitlin Long, comes as a breath of fresh air.

Every once in a while, just so that we don’t miss the forest for the trees, we zoom out, get back to first principles, and revisit why this is all so important.

Inaugural edition of Friday Metrics Watch - a data-focused periodical which provides perspective on DeFi, Lightning Network, DEXs, etc.

PAXOS announced plans to launch a gold-pegged token later this year, making it the first US-based company to tokenize gold on the blockchain.

Our 3rd piece on the exciting area of decentralized finance takes a deeper look at crypto loans.

In the case of cryptocurrencies, where inflation schedules are predetermined, beating inflation essentially involves becoming a participant in the block reward mechanism.

Bitcoin has been known for its unpredictable wild price swings, but is once again showing signs of price stability...

Speculation has been rife around Facebook’s plans to a digital currency for p2p transfers, and India could be the first country in which the project could kickoff..

Uniswap has come up with a unique solution to address the liquidity problem that is grappling most DEXs right now..

User experience is the last mile of cryptocurrencies...

The bullish crypto markets of the past few days have given crypto market participants something to cheer about, after what had been a predominantly sideways market since the turn of the year...

After being battered for the majority of 2018, the token of the leading smart contract platform is finally showing some signs of revival.

As the bear market settles in, that old chestnut, the virtue-signaling from the no-coiner, the blockchain-not-bitcoin argument is rearing its head in various shapes and forms.

ForDeX features a crypto-powered remittance engine that offers fast transaction confirmations in a low-cost manner.

The increasingly growing number of stablecoin projects and the price guarantee that stablecoins are expected to provide is creating multiple kinds of price arbitrage opportunities.

Starting off from a slow base, the diversity of categories covered in prediction markets is slowly increasing.

DEXs are completely trustless, peer-to-peer and have modularization that lets developers separate the platform from the regulatory aspects such as fiat on-off ramps and KYC/AML filters.

The daily user count for Dapps has shown a persistent decline over the past few months, with DAA figure now averaging around 8k users.

We're back from Binance Blockchain Week in Singapore with some fresh learning and new perspectives.

We explain exactly how the community's new favourite coin, Grin, works.

Looks like the experimentation with CBDCs is moving faster than we anticipated it would.

The current landscape of stablecoins mirrors the pre-Ethereum era of cryptocurrencies, where virtually every currency back then was a Bitcoin clone.

An increasing number of countries are experimenting with the concept of state-backed cryptocurrencies or CBDCs. Latest to join the CBDC bandwagon: Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

An increasing number of crypto projects now use the PoS (Proof of Stake) consensus mechanism to validate transactions on the blockchain.

Grin - one of the most awaited projects in recent times - has finally launched on the mainnet...

DAI’s operational model looks well-tested as it has so far managed to survive the steep fall of ETH prices that commenced in 2018.

Can there be possibility of miners forking the chain to reinstate the 3 ETH reward?

Bitcoin, by its very design, lends itself very well to displace the US Dollar as an alternative global reserve currency. And it might be called upon to do so sooner than many of us might have imagined.

2019 looks likely to be the year that we might finally see the launch of a Bitcoin ETF in the US, and the race to launch the first ETF is getting more interesting.

It seems like crypto-firms are finally being forced to acknowledge the harsh reality of a long winter setting in...

Privacy and security have become two ends of a spectrum along which we are forced to make tradeoffs on a daily basis.

The second layer scalability solution built atop the Bitcoin blockchain has made strong inroads since its launch in mid-2018.

As 2019 starts off, it is important to highlight that we will soon celebrate ten full years of Bitcoin.

As 2018 becomes 2019, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide our readers with a quick recap of some

Widely touted as a potential Bitcoin killer (there were plenty before and will be many after) ‘Chia’ is one of the Bitcoin clones that has garnered a lot of attention, for all the right reasons.

As 2018 becomes 2019, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide our readers a quick recap of some of the interesting takes and viewpoints on the current state of cryptocurrencies and what the future of cryptocurrencies could potentially be...

As 2018 becomes 2019, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide our readers a quick recap of some of the interesting takes and viewpoints on the current state of cryptocurrencies and what the future of cryptocurrencies could potentially be...

As 2018 becomes 2019, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide our readers a quick recap of some of the interesting takes and viewpoints on the current state of cryptocurrencies and what the future of cryptocurrencies could potentially be...

As 2018 becomes 2019, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide our readers a quick recap of some of the interesting takes and viewpoints on the current state of cryptocurrencies and what the future of cryptocurrencies could potentially be...

As 2018 becomes 2019, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide our readers a quick recap of some of the interesting takes and viewpoints on the current state of cryptocurrencies and what the future of cryptocurrencies could potentially be...

We explore the problem that too much liquidity can sometimes bring to an asset class, such as with cryptocurrencies and blockchain currently.

Hashrates drop as miners abandon operations due to prices reaching unsustainable levels.

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers! With a possibly long and gloomy crypto winter slowly settling

Everyone is bleeding and everything is falling in what can only be described as an across-the-board ‘risk-off’ trade

If there’s any silver lining to the recent bloodbath, it’s that stablecoin adoption is steadily increasing as investors are taking shelter in price-stable digital assets.

In today’s edition,we decided to provide a quick summary of the key events this week.

Meanwhile, some much needed volatility returns to market.

Cut off from the outside world, some countries have to rely on developing their own cryptocurrencies.

Every once in a while, it is fun to zoom out and take a look at the world outside crypto, which is, to put it mildly, quite immense, and which fact, to put it not so mildly, sadly lost on quite a few crypto arrivistes.

The SEC decision to indict EtherDelta founder Zachary Coburn for illegal trading of securities might have come across as a surprise to many in the crypto ecosystem, especially given that Zachary Coburn no longer owns the exchange.

Diwali break was more of a gas chamber than anything. Meanwhile, Bitcoin cash is forking (again?)

For something that promised so much potential ahead of its launch in July this year, the Augur network is yet to live up to its billing.

What can modern nation states learn from the prevalent governance architectures of blockchain systems?

Crypto behemoth Coinbase announced today that it raised $300 million in the latest round of funding, valuing the company at $8 billion.

From a technological upgrade and usability standpoint, it has been a great month for privacy coin enthusiasts.

Can Bitcoin copy Monero's latest upgrade - Bulletproofs?

How will crypto finance, especially the security token revolution evolve?

We want to introduce our readers to two of our closely-watched projects, underpinned by novel technologies and with a huge potential to make an impact.

Are we seeing the beginnings of crypto convergence with other asset classes? ...

What are Token Curated Registries? The following post is a short summary on what Token Curated Registries...

Bitcoin’s market cap was >$300B at its peak, and its around $100B now. So, what does market cap signify?...

With more than three-quarters of the year now behind us, Bitcoin’s price is showing no signs of a meaningful uptick for the remainder of the year

Yesterday’s post on passive investing and the 108 Token was mostly well received, but as expected...

The advantages of passive investing have been well-proven and well-documented in traditional markets.

Last week the WSJ had a detailed piece on Shapeshift, the Exchange/Wallet. Today, Erik Voorhees, the Shapeshift CEO came out with his side of the story

Continuing with our topic du jour of stablecoins, we had mentioned that collateralized stablecoin providers will have to jump through hoops to close the loop with the traditional banks on the fiat side.

How would one even go about creating an INR base coin?

So one of the fortunate or unfortunate side effects of the crypto revolution has been the mushrooming of armchair economists around the world ...

Vitalik Buterin thinks Ethereum could follow ZCash and use ZK-Snarks to significantly scale the number ...

Pretty scary. Apparently, it would have enabled mining of new bitcoins above the 21m cap. There will likely be more. Hope the ‘good guys’ outnumber ...

Join a growing list of crypto experts, leading investors and blockchain aficionados who have ...

Investors are not the only ones taking a much closer look at cryptocurrency markets since 2017 ...

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a continuous flow of dribs and drabs of information ...

The long-awaited watershed moment for the controversial “ICOs” has finally come.

Team ZenPriveX is in Singapore this week for the inaugural edition of Consensus Singapore.

A VC had an interesting question - Given that more than 80% of the top 100 projects are built upon Ethereum, what will happen to ...

Join a growing list of crypto experts, leading investors and blockchain ...

Among the major cryptocurrencies, Ethereum witnessed one of the biggest pullbacks this year ...

Last week Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin voiced the opinion that “there is no chance that the cryptocurrency space will see ...

Apparently, Goldman is not really taking a U-turn on cryptocurrencies. The rumour that the ...

Quo vadis Crypto? Amidst continuing regulatory turbulence, Wall Street bellwether Goldman Sachs announced that it was ...

Private blockchains have been roundly ridiculed, and often times for the right reasons. However...

Privacy is not an option, and it shouldn’t be the price we accept for just getting on ...