El Salvador lost $60M a year after the nationwide crypto experiment. Bitcoin became a legal tender in El Salvador; adoption remains low as the currency has lost 60% of its value. More: - Over 70% of Salvadorans do not have access to traditional financial services.
- The Bitcoin law was passed on Sept. 7, 2021, to promote financial inclusion and change how Salvadorans send, receive, and spend money.
- El Salvador launched a virtual wallet called Chivo, offering no-fee transactions and facilitating cross-border transactions.
- 60% or 4 million people are using the Chivo app.
- Prices are listed in Bitcoin, and taxes can be paid using digital currencies.
- Edgardo Acevedo, a 37-year-old resident, explains that Bitcoin is a topic of conversation, but adoption remains low with few Salvadorans who wish to pay in digital currency.
- 76 out of 100 small and medium-sized enterprises do not accept Bitcoin as payment.
- 86% of businesses made no sale in Bitcoin, and 20% of businesses adopted the digital currency despite the legal mandate to start accepting crypto.
- "Economically, I can say that nothing has changed," said Acevedo.
- El Salvador's debt-to-GDP ratio reached 87% in 2022, and the country is vulnerable to a debt default.
- The locals also fell victim to scams and hacks, which has hindered the adoption rate.
CNBC 
| |
Bitcoin has become less volatile than stocks, but in a low trading volume, it may not be a positive sign. Bitcoin dropped 2.6% to $18,666 at the time of writing; analysts believe prices could drop further if another sell-off period persists. More: - Bitcoin trading volumes have decreased to $47B, down from $100B at the start of 2022.
- Low volatility is a good thing in the stock market; however, for Bitcoin, "low volatility is perhaps an indication that Bitcoin is becoming more boring and less contrarian — low volatility on low volume might not be great for Bitcoin."
- Money is not flowing into crypto-related funds in the third quarter, indicating that bearish investors are pulling out of riskier assets.
- Steven McClurg, co-founder and chief investment officer at digital-asset fund manager Valkyrie Investments, explains that in a low trading environment, you don't want low volatility; if the Fed continues to increase interest rates, more investors will flee the market.
- Devere Group CEO Nigel Green also predicts that the price of Bitcoin will continue to fall for the rest of the year.
- The head of crypto investments at Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz, believes the bearish environment could last another two to six months.
- Despite the bearish conditions, an interesting trend is emerging as more traditional finance is starting to enter the crypto ecosystem, according to Tim Rice, CEO of CoinMetrics.
- Some Wall Street banks are awaiting a clear regulatory framework to reduce risks and enter the market.
BNN Bloomberg
| |
 A message from SMALLSTEP Securing distributed systems AND distributed teams is as easy as getting a TLS certificate. We have come lightyears further in the last decade with securing our webpages with TLS certificates. But webpages are just the beginning of how we can utilize TLS certificates to identify and secure our distributed systems. Enter the world of internal Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). Big enterprises have created their own internal PKI for decades, but Smallstep is here to take the pain out of ancient PKI *and* give small and medium-sized businesses the ability to access and use this technology, easily. Use TLS certificates to identify and secure all of your workloads, users, machines, and now - devices. Apple has taken the first step towards the future of managed device enrollment by launching Managed Device Attestation (MDA) with iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and tvOS 16. Smallstep is here to help make that future - secure device enrollment - a reality. Get early access to this reality and dive into how you can harness the power of TLS here. Get early access
| |
Binance launched a $500M lending pool for Bitcoin miners. Miners can access loans on 18- to 24-month terms with interest rates of 5% to 10%. More: - Compute North filed for bankruptcy, Iris Energy sold $100M in equity to have more cash flow, and Poolin froze withdrawals. Top Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings Inc revealed its $80M exposure to Compute North.
- It's evident that miners are struggling this year due to the high cost of energy, low Bitcoin prices, and environmental regulations.
- To make matters worse, the network's difficulty rose 14% to 35.6 trillion, meaning miners have to go through multiple hashes to produce the next block.
- Mining revenue is down 60% this year, and more miners are turning to credit lines to remain in business.
- In response, Binance launched the pool to offer more resources for the struggling ecosystem and to "secure debt financing services to both public and private blue-chip Bitcoin (BTC) mining and digital asset infrastructure companies globally."
- Maple Finance also launched a $300M lending pool with a 20% interest.
- Miners are left with no choice but to turn to these liquidity pools to stay afloat since most banks are not open to conducting business with crypto firms.
Decrypt
| |
Nearly 100 Coinbase users believe that Coinbase did not do enough to protect them from scams and are looking to hold the company accountable. The attorney representing the victims says, "(Coinbase) is trying to be a financial institution without the infrastructure to back it up." More: - An arbitration demand was filed by 100 fraud victims, which states that since banks must reimburse debit-card users for unauthorized transfers, the same standards should apply to Coinbase.
- Some scam victims claim they have lost their life savings and reached out to the company notifying them of the bugs on the Coinbase wallet to no avail.
- The individuals participating in the arbitration demand say they collectively lost $21M.
- The victims explain that there are no procedures in place to prevent fraud from happening.
- Coinbase says it works with law enforcement and regulators to prevent fraud and scams on its platform.
- If the arbitration demand succeeds and Coinbase reimburses these 100 victims, then there is a possibility that more users exposed to scams will hold Coinbase accountable.
- Due to Coinbase's listed terms and conditions for Wallet use, the victims can only challenge the company through an arbitration demand and not in court.
Washington Post
| |
Anthony Hopkins' NFT collection sold out in under seven minutes. The NFT collection consisted of several moments from his Hollywood films, such as the Silence of the Lambs and Westworld. More: - The Oscar-winning actor released his NFT collection called "The Eternal Collection," which consists of a series of 1,000 original art pieces inspired by his lengthy Hollywood career.
- The collection had three parts and was created in collaboration with Orange Comet inc:
- "The Eternal,"
- "The Jester,"
- and "The Lover."
- The launch was delayed because of technical issues due to the high demand on the network.
- Buyers of the NFT have other perks, such as a one-on-one brunch with Hopkins, autographed physical prints, and audio clips discussing the projects.
Decrypt
| |
Samsung launched a new security feature called the "Knox Matrix," which connects all user devices to a private blockchain. More: - The Knox Matrix will detect a security breach, and if one device gets compromised, all the others will automatically shut down from the network.
- The system involves multi-layered mutual monitoring and will protect sensitive information from being shared on devices.
- It is a local distributed way to ensure security, and the system is active with South Korean companies involved in the blockchain space.
Crypto Potato
| |
QUICK HITS *This is a sponsored post.
| |
Upcoming events at Inside: - October 14 - Learn how leaders from Slack, Shopify, and Stripe are improving developer productivity, workflow, and collaboration in their engineering orgs. (Register Here) *
- October 19 - AMA with Zecca Lehn (Responsibly VC) (Register Here)
- October 25 - Meet Our Fund 4, an Inside.com Summit (Register Here)
- November 02 - AMA with Bill Glenn (Executive Chairman at Crenshaw Associates) (Register Here)
- November 09 - Live AMA with Yashar Behzadi (CEO and Founder of Synthesis AI)* (Register Here)
- December 07 - Live AMA with Deividi Silva ( Head of Developer Relations at Gun.io) (Register Here)
*This is a sponsored listing.
| |
 |  | Gia Mattu is based in Calgary, Alberta. She is an entrepreneur with experience in climate technology, drones, AI, machine learning, and blockchain technology. When she's not working, she loves to hike the Canadian Rockies, try new cuisine, and travel. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 and 1972 Fords. | |
| |
Comments
Post a Comment