Ripple CEO Optimistic On SEC Case, Why XRP Saw Weak Response
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In an interview with CNBC, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed to feels optimistic about the company’s future and its legal battle. The payment solution company was sued by the U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2019 for the alleged illegal sales of a security, XRP.
Related Reading | Price Analysis: Where’s XRP Headed After Ripple’s Big Win
Initially, the battle was expected to be an easy win for the regulators. This had a negative impact on the price of XRP, the cryptocurrency that powers the XRP Ledger, and some of the products from the payment company.
However, Ripple has been using its resources and appears to be turning the table in its favor. In court, the payment solution company has presented evidence that claims the SEC was made aware of XRP, and Ripple’s business model with the cryptocurrency using a product called Ripple Network.
The evidence goes as back as 2013 and includes documents that suggest the SEC failed to provide clarity over the digital asset’s classification as a security. According to legal experts, the evidence could demonstrate to the court that Ripple was actively seeking to remain compliant with U.S. securities law.
In that sense, Garlinghouse told CNBC the following on his perception of the status of the case:
The lawsuit has gone exceedingly well, and much better than I could have hoped when it began about 15 months ago. But the wheels of justice move slowly.
Other evidence has come to light that could continue to favor Ripple. As highlighted by CNBC, the judge handling the case ruled against the SEC editing emails about how it has treated XRP and other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum.
The second crypto by market cap, there are currently no standing cases against it as it is not deemed a security. If Ripple can successfully argue that XRP and ETH operate as decentralized cryptocurrencies, could score a win in its legal pursuit.
Ripple Touched Bottom, Only Up From Here?
Despite the legal battle, Ripple has not seen a slowdown in its operations. According to its CEO, the company is “already operating in the worst-case scenario”, but registers “record growth” outside of the United States.
On the other hand, the XRP token records a 7% profit in the last 24-hours potentially as a reaction to Garlinghouse’s statements. The market seems to be positively pricing any development around the legal case with the SEC, but the macro-economic outlook still seems unfavorable for risk-on assets.
On higher timeframes, the token still trends to the downside far from its $2 high in 2021. A positive conclusion of the case could send XRP to those highs.
XRP trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: XRPUSD Tradingview
Related Reading | Ripple Vs. SEC: XRP Showing Strength In The Legal Fight As New Evidence Arises
Garlinghouse added the following on the importance of Ripple’s case for the crypto industry:
This case is important, not just for Ripple; it’s important for the entire crypto industry in the United States. It would really be negative for crypto in the United States (…). If you determine XRP as a security of Ripple, we have to know every person that owns XRP. That’s an SEC requirement. You have to know all of your shareholders. It’s not possible.
Want to Dodge Your Crypto Tax? Learn the Risks From Koinly – Sponsored Bitcoin News
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In recent years, the IRS has made one thing abundantly clear – if you make money from crypto, they want their cut. So if you’re underreporting or outright avoiding crypto taxes, be warned: the penalties are steep. Before you take the wrong turn, learn the risks from crypto tax experts, Koinly.
Is cryptocurrency taxed?
The million dollar question – and the answer is a definite yes. Virtually every country in the world requires you to pay taxes on crypto.
The exact tax you’ll pay will vary – but in general you’ll pay either Capital Gains Tax or Income Tax, or both in some cases. You can learn more about how crypto is taxed in your country in Koinly’s crypto tax guides.
What will tax offices know about my crypto?
Now that Crypto has gone mainstream, tax offices are sending a clear message to investors – you can run, but you can’t hide.
As a digital asset, you might think there’s no way your tax office can know about your crypto, but it’s not the case at all. Tax offices including the IRS in the US, the ATO in Australia, HMRC in the UK, and the CRA in Canada are compelling crypto exchanges to share Know Your Customer (KYC) data on demand. This is done to ensure tax compliance and catch taxpayers avoiding crypto taxes.
The IRS in particular have been using the John Doe summons to legally compel crypto exchanges to hand over user data. They’ve already won a John Doe summons against Coinbase, Kraken and Poloniex.
So what happens if you’re caught evading crypto taxes?
Crypto tax evasion in the US
The IRS has identified two types of crypto tax evasion:
Evasion of assessment
Evasion of payment
The penalties for each type of crypto tax evasion differ.
Evasion of assessment
The most common type of crypto tax evasion is evasion of assessment. Taxpayers who willfully omit income, underreport income, or overstate deductions commit this crime. Examples of crypto tax evasion include:
Not reporting capital gains from sales or other disposals.
Under reporting capital gains from sales or other disposals
Not reporting additional income received in cryptocurrency.
Not reporting business income received in cryptocurrency.
Paying wages in cryptocurrency without reporting it.
Evasion of payment
A taxpayer who hides assets or funds that could be used for payment of their tax liability is said to be evading payment after a tax assessment has been made. Tax evasion of this nature is less prevalent in the crypto space – but not entirely unknown.
IRS crypto tax evasion penalties
Tax evasion and tax fraud are both federal offenses in the United States. Depending on the severity of the evasion, you can face up to $100,000 in fines ($500,000 for corporations) or up to 5 years in prison. Therefore, if you’re thinking of risking it, don’t.
What if I’ve previously avoided crypto taxes?
The IRS recently updated Form 14457 – the Voluntary Disclosure Practice Preclearance Request and Application – to include a section on reporting virtual currencies. Form 14457 lets taxpayers who may be facing criminal prosecution for violation of tax laws, voluntarily disclose information to the IRS that they previously failed to disclose.
Provided the IRS hasn’t initiated proceedings already, a voluntary disclosure can help you avoid criminal prosecution if you’ve previously evaded assessment or payment.
By making a voluntary disclosure, you agree to cooperate with the IRS and pay any due taxes in full in order to avoid criminal prosecution. Based on the penalties, disclosure is a much better option than a potential $100,000 fine or prison sentence.
Global crypto tax evasion
The IRS isn’t the only tax office cracking down on crypto tax evasion – tax agencies all around the world are doing the same.
In the UK, the penalty for tax evasion can be anything up to 200% of the tax due and up to seven years imprisonment in serious cases. HMRC has just recently seized NFTs for the first time in a suspected tax fraud case.
Tax evasion in Australia is punishable by up to two years imprisonment and a fine of 200 penalty units (around $33,000).
Tax evasion in Canada can result in a penalty of up to 200% of the taxes evaded and a five-year jail term.
How Koinly can help with crypto taxes
Crypto taxes are complicated for many investors due to the lack of guidance from tax offices, as well as the sheer volume of transactions they need to calculate taxes on. But Koinly can help.
Koinly calculates your crypto taxes for you. All you need to do is sync the wallets, exchanges and blockchains you use with Koinly using API or by importing a CSV file of your transaction history. Koinly will then identify your cost basis, identify your taxable transactions and calculate your subsequent capital gains, losses and income – all in one easy to read tax summary (and totally free of charge).
After that, you can download your Koinly tax report to give to your tax office. Koinly offers a huge variety of reports for crypto investors around the world. This includes TurboTax reports, the IRS Form 8949 and Schedule D, the ATO myTax report, and more.
Avoid audits and penalties. Let Koinly do the work for you. Sign up today and see how much you owe!
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
OFAC Update Claims Ronin Hack Is Tethered to North Korea’s Hacker Syndicate Lazarus Group – Bitcoin News
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According to the U.S. Treasury and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the recent Ronin bridge hack may have been tied to the North Korean hacker syndicate called Lazarus Group. Federal law enforcement officials have tied the flagged ethereum address connected with the Ronin bridge exploit to the group of hackers and added the crypto address to OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons list (SDN).
Ronin Bridge Exploiter’s Address Added to OFAC’s SDN List
On April 14, the U.S. government published an OFAC SDN list update which includes the ethereum (ETH) address involved in the recent Ronin bridge exploit. Bitcoin.com News reported on the Ronin bridge attack on March 29, after the protocol associated with the blockchain game Axie Infinity lost $620 million in crypto assets. To date, the Ronin bridge attack has been one of the largest decentralized finance (defi) exploits in 2022.
According to the U.S. Treasury and OFAC, the ethereum address, which is already flagged on blockchain explorers under the name “Ronin bridge exploiters,” belongs to the North Korean hacker syndicate called Lazarus Group. The ethereum wallet holds 144,837.79 ether worth roughly $438.6 million using today’s ether exchange rates. The newly updated SDN list explains that Lazarus Group has various names including the “Guardians of Peace,” “Hidden Cobra,” “Red Dot,” “Temp.Hermit,” and the “New Romantic Cyber Army Team.”
Transactions With Any SDN-Listed Crypto Addresses Are Prohibited by the US Government
OFAC has warned the public about Lazarus Group in the past, as U.S. authorities believe the hackers have been involved with major crypto hacks and ransomware threats. There have also been many research studies that investigate the North Korean hacking group’s alleged activities. The U.S. Treasury’s and OFAC’s update on Thursday notes that the hacker syndicate is reportedly located in the Potonggang District, Pyongyang, North Korea. Transactions with the OFAC specified ethereum address are prohibited for U.S. persons and financial institutions.
According to a report published by the United Nations (UN) in March 2019, North Korea and the country’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un allegedly stockpiled at least $670 million worth of cryptocurrencies. On July 24, 2020, the U.S. Army published an investigative report that alleged North Korea has roughly 6,000 cyber hackers including the notorious Lazarus Group.
Tags in this story
axie infinity, defi exploits, ethereum address, ethereum addresses, Ethereum wallet, Financial Institutions, Guardians of Peace, Hacker Group, Hacker Syndicate, Hackers, Hidden Cobra, Kim Jong-un, Law Enforcement, Lazarus Group, north korea, OFAC, Potonggang District, pyongyang, ransomware, Red Dot, Sanctions, Treasury, U.S. authorities, united nations, United States, US Persons, US Treasury
What do you think about the U.S. government claiming that the Ronin bridge hacker is associated with the infamous Lazarus Group? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
Terraform Labs gifts another $880M to Luna Foundation Guard
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Terra blockchain developer Terraform Labs (TFL) has gifted the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) 10 million LUNA, worth around $820 million at current prices.
LFG is a nonprofit organization attached to Terra tasked with collateralizing the network’s algorithmic stablecoin, Terra USD (UST), to keep it pegged with the U.S. dollar.
TFL’s latest announcement came on Thursday via Twitter, but it did not outline what the funds would go toward specifically. However, transaction data from Terra Finder shows that 7.8 million LUNA (roughly $630 million) was promptly transferred out of LFG’s reserve wallet on Thursday.
— Terra (UST) Powered by LUNA (@terra_money) April 14, 2022
Given Terra’s recent form, led by founder Do Kwon — who has the goal of accruing $10 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) to back UST’s reserves — many expect that some of the funds will go toward building its stash of digital gold. Another chunk of LUNA may be burned (a way in which the UST/USD peg is maintained.)
Some additional AVAX could be on the shopping list as well, considering both TFL and LFG purchased $100 million worth of the coin last week.
Following Terra’s recent (and ongoing) Bitcoin buying spree, which includes the purchase of roughly 2,500 BTC (around $100 million) only two days ago, the wallet belonging to LFG has become the third-largest hodler of digital gold globally, only tailing MicroStrategy and Tesla.
The latest donation to LFG comes just over a month after TFL gifted $1.1 billion worth of LUNA so that it could be burned to mint UST and grow its reserves.
According to LFG’s accounting records, its total reserve balance stands at $2.44 billion at the time of writing, with BTC representing around 70% of that figure at $1.71 billion.
Related: Terra price key support level breaks after 30% weekly drop — more pain for LUNA ahead?
Despite all of the bullish developments with Terra of late, the price of LUNA is down 7% over the last 30 days to sit at $81.65 at the time of writing.
Part 3 — Blockchain heuristics through time | by Coinbase | Apr, 2022
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In our last post we introduced the cornerstone of scaling up blockchain analysis, commonspend, and its pitfalls. In this blog post we’ll explore more complex and novel blockchain analysis scaling methods, their drawbacks and why time is a critical feature of blockchain analytics.
Change prediction is the second most commonly applied UTXO heuristic. It aims to predict which receiving address is controlled by the sender. A hallmark of UTXO blockchains is that when addresses transact, they move all outputs. The surplus amount is normally returned to the sender via a change address.
Consider the transaction below and try spotting the change address that belongs to the sender:
The change address is likely 374jbPUojy5pbmpjLGk8eS413Az4YyzBq6. Why? In this case, prediction logic relies on the fact that the above address is in the same address format as the input addresses (P2SH format, where sender’s addresses start with a “3”).
Among other factors, rounded amounts (i.e. 0.05 or 0.1 BTC) are often recognized as the actual send, with the rest being redirected to the change address. This suggests that change prediction relies not only on technical indicators, but also on elements of human behavior, like our affinity for rounded numbers.
Naturally, a more liberal change prediction logic that takes into account multiple variables in favor of a desired outcome can potentially lead to misattribution and mis-clustering. In particular, blockchain analytics tools can inadvertently fall into the trap of unsupervised change prediction — that’s why it is vital for blockchain investigators to be mindful of the limitations posed by this approach.
We have legacy addresses (starting with a “1”) sending on to two other legacy addresses. So which one is the change address?
The best way to figure out which address is the change address is to look at how each address spends BTC onwards. Usually output addresses receiving rounded amounts are not change addresses — but this could be wrong. So let’s just place our bet on the latter output address:
At first glance, this sort of looks like the pattern we saw in a previous transaction. The only aspect that stands out is a significant decrease in fees.
The fees also look low compared to our initial transaction. And we notice that both our output addresses’ next transactions involve the original 1Hs6XkSpuLguqaiKwYULH4VZ9cEkHMbsRJ address in their outputs. Following the address’s next transaction we arrive to output #1’s next transaction.
This example illustrates how complicated change prediction can become leading to erroneous results.
Entities that attempt to preserve privacy in very public blockchains, such as exchanges and dark markets, may go out of their way to create their own wallet infrastructure that makes it difficult for blockchain investigators to identify how they operate. For these cases, blockchain analytics companies will create bespoke heuristics for these particular entities.
Still, no heuristics are foolproof. Parameters and limitations for blockchain analysis depend on how restrictive the scope is — or how much room is left for interpretation. A conservative approach would dictate not attributing anything that cannot be determined with close to 100% certainty; a liberal approach would allow wider attribution, at the cost of expanding the potential margin of error.
This also applies to any bespoke heuristic that is constructed with specific blockchain entities in mind. This is illustrated well by the above mentioned coinjoin Wasabi example. Although the transaction in question highly likely to belongs to Wasabi wallet, we need to ask ourselves what this transaction is displaying:
Most likely this transaction is displaying Wasabi addresses commonspending with other users’ addresses. As complexity increases, the accuracy of attribution decreases — especially if we consider that a user might own one or more addresses in this transaction.
Every blockchain analytics tool will have a different set of parameters and rely on different heuristics. That is why differences between clusters displayed by various tools are so common — for example, the SilkRoad cluster will each time look differently, depending on the blockchain analytics software used to conduct its analysis.
In fact, even with only comonspend applied, we see how the block explorers CryptoID and WalletExplorer both show different sizes of the Local Bitcoins cluster.
Einstein would probably admire blockchains, because they are one of the few examples of where the future can change the past — at least from an attribution perspective. For example, 14FUfzAjb91i7HsvuDGwjuStwhoaWLpGbh received various transactions from a P2P service provider between August and mid-September 2021. So we might think that this address could belong to an unhosted wallet.
But if we check on that address a couple days later on September 30, 3021, we suddenly notice that it’s been tagged as Unicc, a carding shop. What happened? This address commonspent 15 days later with an address we already knew belonged to Unicc — making it a part of the Unicc cluster.
This is a simple example, but you can imagine from a Compliance and market intelligence perspective that these after-the-fact attributions can have some ripple effects.
Blockchain analytics is an increasingly complex field of expertise. It is not as straightforward as it seems and the difficulty is compounded by the fact that conclusions are drawn not only from blockchain, but also from external sources that are often ambiguous.
It is not possible to call blockchain analytics science — after all, scientific experiments can be replicated by unrelated parties who, by following a set scientific methodology, will come to the same conclusions. In blockchain analytics even the ground truth can have multiple facades, meanings and interpretations.
Certainty of attribution is almost scarce and because multiple parties are relying on different tools for conducting transaction tracing on blockchains, it can sometimes yield dramatically different results. That is why educational efforts in this area should continuously emphasize that even the most robust, tooled-up methodologies are prone to errors.
Nothing is infallible — after all, blockchain analytics is more art than science.
Bitcoin Bear Market Comparison Says It Is Almost Time For Bull Season
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There is no denying that Bitcoin has been ripped to shreds by bears over the last several months after setting a new all-time high in November last year. Even with new highs, the rally is largely viewed as a failure without a dramatic cycle conclusion.
But what if that rally was part of a bear phase, that only now is about to end? In a new direct comparison between bear phases in Bitcoin since 2018, it could indicate that it is almost time for another bull season any day now.
Bull Market Cyclical Behavior
Months ago, the term “few” was thrown around by the crypto community because not enough people understood the potential of what Bitcoin could do for them financially. Today, very few people are expecting Bitcoin to rally from here.
Oftentimes, when the hive sentiment is at its most frothy, deep corrections set the masses straight. At the moment, Bitcoin bears are salivating for below $30,000, but they might not ever get it according to a new comparison.
Related Reading | Bitcoin Mimics Textbook Market Sentiment Cycle, What Happens When Confidence Returns?
Any market exhibits cyclical behavior on multiple timeframes. There are bear and bull markets, and even uptrends and downtrends within them that alternate based on moods.
But what if these alternating patterns of mood changes were predictable? That’s what the below comparison aims to find out.
In the comparison above, the 2018 bear market, 2019 to 2020 bear phase, and the current consolidation phase are juxtaposed aside one another. Each fractal measures at roughly 460 days. Alternating between each bear phase, is a short bullish impulse that shocks the world.
Bull impulses last a mere 98 days, but tend to takes prices to unprecedented levels. At minimum, these bull phases have churned out more than 300% ROI. A 300% return from $40,000 would take the price per BTC to $120,000.
Related Reading | This Bitcoin “Heatmap” Suggests A Blazing Cycle Peak Is Still Ahead
Each bear phase lasted just over 14 months. Edwin “Sedge” Coppock, creator of the technical indicator called the Coppock curve, found that the average time it takes for a human to get over mourning a loss was an average of 11 to 14 months. This, in theory, is how long it should take the average investor to get over their “loss” related to Bitcoin and are able to think positively again.
With only days potentially left until another bull impulse begins based on the above comparisons, will Bitcoin price really dip below $30,000 like the market is bracing for, or will a reversal catch the community off guard?
Follow @TonySpilotroBTC on Twitter or join the TonyTradesBTC Telegram for exclusive daily market insights and technical analysis education. Please note: Content is educational and should not be considered investment advice.
Featured image from iStockPhoto, Charts from TradingView.com
The Bitcoin Lightning Network integration started to take off among the cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide. However, some of the world’s largest crypto trading platforms seemingly are not in the hurry to integrate the protocol.
Last week, Robinhood crypto trading app became the latest major industry player to announce the Lightning integration, following in the footsteps of BitPay and the Kraken crypto exchange.
As the main goal of the Lightning integration is to reduce the cost of Bitcoin (BTC) transactions and accelerate the network transfers, one may wonder what cryptocurrency exchanges have still not added the Lightning support.
Binance, Coinbase and FTX stay silent on Lightning
Not everyone is happy with the pace of Bitcoin LN adoption. David Coen, a software quality assurance tester and crypto enthusiast, is disappointed at the lack of progress for the Lightning Network integration among major crypto exchanges. He compiled data from official sources, social media presences and Lightning explorers like 1ML and Amboss, only to find out that Binance, Coinbase and the major South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb are not in the list of “Lightning exchanges.”
Despite providing comprehensive information about the Lightning Network on their websites, both Coinbase and Binance declined to comment on their potential Lightning Network integration plans to Cointelegraph.
FTX — which is not mentioned in Coen’s list — has refused to comment as well. In January last year, FTX said that it “probably pays more in transaction fees than any other single entity in the world” on its official Twitter account.
There are apparently a wide number of possible reasons why some of the world’s largest crypto exchanges have not added the Lightning support so far.
One Redditor suggested that the Lightning Network availability would be essentially associated with fewer incentives to keep Bitcoin on exchanges like Binance due to expensive withdrawals. “It may not be to Binance advantage to implement it though. I personally want to use the Lightning Network to transfer all my BTC trading to cold storage,” he said.
According to Coen, the Lightning implementation could be simply not a priority for some major crypto exchanges, or even against their business plans for others.
“I believe Binance has no interest in integrating Lightning Network deposit or withdrawal because it could be against their business plans,” Coen said. He suggested that Binance may be more interested in promoting usage of its proprietary blockchain networks, including the Binance Beacon Chain and the Binance Smart Chain, particularly for withdrawals.
Some major crypto exchanges prioritize industry trends like NFTs over the Lightning Network
Coen emphasized that Lightning not only allows to move Bitcoin at a lower cost but also enables users to hold actual BTC, stating:
“With Lightning Network, users are able to move funds even for free, if they have a direct channel to the exchange and most importantly, they have real bitcoin instead of a Bitcoin token on an Ethereum Virtual Machine network.”
The Lightning enthusiast also doesn’t expect other exchanges like Coinbase to integrate Lightning support in the near future “since the priority seems to be to integrate as many altcoins as possible and follow the trends of the market,” he said. Coen added that nonfungible token (NFT) support appears to be more a priority for Coinbase over Lightning, citing the company’s NFT initiative released officially last year. The expert’s remarks echoed some similar comments in the community.
Lightning is becoming less cutting edge and more of a necessity
According to some community members, Lightning is still a cutting-edge development today, which makes large crypto exchanges take significant time and effort to make such improvements.
However, with exchanges like Bitfinex, OKX (formerly OKEx) and Kraken adding Lightning, “it’s becoming less cutting edge and more of a necessity to be competitive,” a spokesperson for the Amboss explorer told Cointelegraph.
“The user experience with Lightning is superior and exchange users will be looking for the easiest way to make deposits and withdrawals from their exchange of choice. […] Lightning support is a necessity for users who need to execute fast trades,” the representative stated.
Related: Lightning to strike Shopify merchants with addition of BTC payments
Launched in March 2018, the Lightning Network is a Bitcoin layer-two protocol designed to enable faster and cheaper BTC transactions. Bitfinex is believed to be the first crypto exchange in the world to add Bitcoin Lightning support for payments by integrating the protocol in December 2019.
Robinhood’s CEO, Elon Musk, and DOGE Co-Founder Billy Markus Discuss Improving Dogecoin – Bitcoin News
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On Thursday, following Robinhood’s listing of shiba inu, the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, Vladimir Tenev, spoke about dogecoin being the future currency of the internet on Twitter. Tenev’s Twitter thread got a lot of comments and also received responses from the co-founder of the meme-based crypto, Billy Markus, and Tesla’s Elon Musk.
Robinhood CEO Discusses How Dogecoin ‘Can Be the Future Currency of the Internet and the People’
Elon Musk’s favorite crypto asset dogecoin (DOGE) got some attention on Thursday after the Bulgarian-American entrepreneur and Robinhood CEO, Vladimir Tenev, started a thread on the meme-token subject. The topic started as Twitter was ablaze with commentary concerning Elon Musk’s unsolicited bid to purchase the social media platform. It also follows Robinhood’s recent shiba inu (SHIB) listing and the company adding DOGE.
“Can Doge truly be the future currency of the Internet and the people?” Tenev tweeted on Thursday. “As we added the ability to send/receive DOGE on Robinhood, I’ve been thinking about what that would take. First off, transaction fees have to be vanishingly small. We’re already there. As of last Nov’s 1.14.5 update, typical transaction fees have been ~$0.003 – which you can experience on [Robinhood App] – compared to the 1-3% network fees that major card networks charge,” Tenev added.
The Robinhood CEO further said that the block time should be fast enough to be recorded into the chain in less time than a point-of-sale (POS) transaction. “But it shouldn’t be so fast that miners start building up too many competing chains and waste excessive amounts of energy establishing consensus,” Tenev opined. The Robinhood executive continued:
Doge’s current block time is 1 minute. This is a bit on the long side for payments – a ten second block time would be more appropriate as it would be less than the typical time spent completing a debit card transaction.
Elon Musk: ‘Block Size and Time Should Keep Pace With the Rest of the Internet’
Following Tenev’s Twitter statements, Musk responded after a very active day on Twitter for the Tesla executive. “6 seconds, better said as 6000 milliseconds, which is a long time to computers, is about right,” Musk replied to the Robinhood CEO. Making the conversation a bit more interesting, Dogecoin co-founder and software engineer Billy Markus added his two cents to the discussion with Tenev and Musk.
Markus detailed that eight years ago, he chose one minute blocks because “someone on bitcointalk said 45 seconds on a different chain was causing lots of issues, and 60 seconds was the fastest without having too many issues.” Markus then said:
The faster while still secure, the better IMO — I would guess the infrastructure of the web has improved enough in 8 years to experiment with speeding it up.
Tenev’s Twitter statements follow the recent listing of shiba inu on Robinhood and the CEO has been tweeting about that meme-based crypto asset as well. Musk has been conversing about Dogecoin network improvements for quite some time now (usually on Twitter), and has briefly mentioned a few times last year that the network should scale to the masses. In Tenev’s thread, Musk added a response to Markus’ “faster while still secure, the better” opinion and said: “Exactly, block size & time should keep pace with the rest of the Internet.”
Tenev’s Twitter statements also touched on Dogecoin’s supply mechanics when he explained that DOGE is “inflationary and the supply is infinite, as opposed to Bitcoin’s finite supply of 21M coins.” The Robinhood CEO said:
~5B new Doge are created every year, and the current supply is about 132B. This results in a current inflation rate of
Since Musk started talking about scaling the Dogecoin network last year, the Dogecoin Core development Github repo has seen a lot more action during the last 12 months. In fact, 1000x.group statistics show that between August 2017 and January 2021, Dogecoin network development was stagnant. Active Dogecoin Core network developers in recent times include the programmers Patrick Lodder and Ross Nicoll.
What do you think about the conversation on Twitter with Vladimir Tenev, Billy Markus, and Elon Musk? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News and a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open-source code, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
Bitcoin institutional buying ‘could be big narrative again’ as 30K BTC leaves Coinbase
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Bitcoin (BTC) may be heading under $40,000, but fresh data shows that demand from major investors is anything but decreasing.
For Ki Young Ju, CEO of on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, institutional BTC buying “might be the big narrative” in the crypto space once more.
Coinbase Pro shifts serious amounts of BTC
Ki highlighted figures from Coinbase Pro, the professional trading offshoot of United States exchange Coinbase, that confirm that large tranches of BTC continue to leave its books.
Those tranches totaled 30,000 BTC in a single day this week, and the event is not an isolated one, with March seeing similar behavior.
Coinbase Pro BTC reserves vs. BTC/USD chart. Source: CryptoQuant
“30k BTC flowed out from Coinbase today,” he noted.
“Institutional buys might be the big narrative again because the Executive Order did not create any hurdle.”
Bitcoin exchange outflows annotated chart. Source: Ki Young Ju/Twitter
The trend is apparent across exchanges, as Cointelegraph reported this week, and April is currently attempting to match March in terms of overall outflows.
The reduction in supply contrasts with a troubling macro picture that continues to pressure risk assets, including crypto.
Bitcoin’s correlation to equities, themselves at the mercy of central bank policy, needs to break in order for conditions to improve, but analysts say that the process will be anything but smooth when it happens.
“Correlation breaks eventually — for multiple reasons,” commentator Dylan LeClair explained earlier this week.
“My guess: Eventually credit system breaks and volatility explodes. BTC follows but more because of deriv traders and not spot selling. BTC bears conditioned to fade every rally get rekt as spot supply continues to constrain.”
Terra keeps up the buying pressure
Meanwhile, the major buyer story of the year — that of blockchain protocol Terra — continues. The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), the nonprofit organization attached to Terra, has added around 2,633 BTC ($105.3 million) to its reserves over the past 48 hours.
Related: Bitcoin price levels to watch as Terra buys 2.5K BTC to nearly match Tesla
According to data from monitoring resource BitInfoCharts, its wallet is now the 18th-largest Bitcoin wallet, containing more BTC than Tesla’s corporate treasury allocation.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
XRP Hits 1-Week High, as NEAR Falls Again – Market Updates Bitcoin News
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During what can be described as a choppy trading session, it was XRP which was one of the most notable gainers, climbing to a one-week high. While ripple rose, NEAR was once again lower, falling by as much as 10% on Friday.
While crypto markets were mainly in the red, XRP was one of Friday’s biggest gainers, climbing by as much as 9%.
Following a low of $0.7106 earlier in the session, XRP/USD rallied to an intraday high of $0.7937 as the day progressed.
Today’s high comes after four consecutive days of gains, which have taken XRP to its highest point since April 6.
This week’s run began after a false breakout of the support level at $0.7115, and has now come close to hitting resistance at $0.8000.
Looking at the chart, passing this point could prove to be an issue, as the 14-day RSI indicator is now hovering below its own ceiling.
This level of 50 hasn’t been broken in almost two weeks, and should bulls look to move beyond $0.8000, price strength would need to increase.
NEAR Protocol (NEAR)
NEAR fell for a second consecutive session on Friday, as price uncertainty continues, following last week’s surge to $20.
Since hitting that point, which was then a four-month high, NEAR has since dropped, falling below its key resistance level of $17.
Prices are now consolidating between this resistance, and support of $15, with prices today trading at an intraday bottom of $15.73.
NEAR/USD – Daily Chart
Today’s drop in price has also pushed short-term momentum lower, with NEAR now down 15% since last Friday.
The 14-day RSI is now tracking at 56.02, which is its weakest point since March 22, and this comes following a break of its 58.65 floor.
Despite current momentum appearing to be bearish, bulls will likely continue to hold off this onslaught until the $15 support point is broken, which may open the door to further shorts.
Could we see NEAR slip below $15 in the upcoming days? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Eliman Dambell
Eliman brings a diversified point of view to market analysis, having worked as a brokerage director, retail trading educator, and market commentator in Crypto, Stocks and FX.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
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