Monthly Archives: January 2022

Crypto exchange Binance is launching a new exchange in Thailand after the countrys Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a complaint against the company for operating without a license. Binance has now signed an agreement with Gulf Energy Development, a Thai public company, to establish a crypto exchange in Thailand.

Gulf Energy Development, a Thai public company, notified the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) Monday that its wholly owned subsidiary Gulf Innova has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Binance Group to jointly study avenues for the development of digital asset exchange and related business in Thailand.

The company added that it foresees rapid growth in digital infrastructure in Thailand as the economy increasingly becomes driven by innovation and technology, with digital assets and related technology playing a prominent role in improving efficiency of financial infrastructure in the country to meet the increasing demand of Thai people.

Gulf Energy detailed:

As such, the companys partnership with Binance will help Thailand advance its development of digital assets and blockchain infrastructure.

Binance recently got into trouble with the Thai SEC. The securities watchdog announced in July last year that it has filed a criminal complaint against Binance with the Economic Crime Suppression Division of the Royal Thai Police (ECD).

According to the SEC, Binance operated a crypto exchange business without a license, therefore the company is liable to criminal sanction.

What do you think about Binance launching a crypto exchange in Thailand with the help of a regulated company? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

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Near Foundation Raises $150 Million to Bolster Web3 Adoption

On Thursday, the Near Foundation announced the project has raised $150 million from strategic investors such as Three-Arrows Capital, a16z, Mechanism Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and Circle Ventures. Following the announcement, the Near protocols native crypto asset jumped more than 7% ... read more.

Link:
Binance to Launch New Cryptocurrency Exchange in Thailand After Thai SEC Filed Criminal Complaint Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

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If you have got a problem, you have to fix it on your own, according to the company. Multichain initially revealed that it noticed a critical vulnerability on its platform on January 17 and had subsequently fixed it.

Multichain is one of the largest cross-chain swap protocols in the world right now. It runs across 10 different blockchains and supports 1,366 different tokens. Overall, it looks after over $8.3 billion in smart contracts.

SEE ALSO:EXCLUSIVE: CoinDCX plans to hire more than 2,000 people this year and they are not just looking at codersCoinbase users can buy NFTs with Mastercard as the crypto exchange partners with the card giant to ease the digital art-buying experience

More here:
One of the largest cryptocurrency swapping platforms just lost $1.3 million as users failed to update approval - Business Insider India

Sotheby's is auctioning off a 555.55-carat black diamond, and crypto enthusiasts can bid for it using cryptocurrency.

Dubbed The Enigma, the gem was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest cut diamond in the world. It is to be part of a special sale that will allow bids in cryptocurrency.

Sotheby told Insider that it will accept bitcoin, ethereum, and the stablecoin USDC in addition to conventional currencies in the auction.

Sotheby's estimates that the diamond, which has 55 facets, could sell for at least 5 million British pounds, or $6.8 million, per the Associated Press.

Sophie Stevens, a jewelry specialist at Sotheby's Dubai, told the AP she believed the diamond could be from space.

"With the carbonado diamonds, we believe that they were formed through extraterrestrial origins, with meteorites colliding with the Earth and either forming chemical vapor disposition or indeed coming from the meteorites themselves," Stevens said.

This is the second time Sotheby's is accepting cryptocurrency bids for auctions on gems. In July, the auction house sold a gemstone for $12.3 million to a mystery buyer who paid for the 101.38-carat diamond in cryptocurrency.

Accepting crypto payments is a way for Sotheby's to attract a younger generation of buyers, Wenhao Yu, deputy chairman of Sotheby's Jewellery in Asia, told Coindesk in July.

"By introducing this innovative payment option to our luxury sale, we open up new possibilities and expand our reach into a whole new clientele, many of whom are from the digitally savvy generation," he said.

The diamond will be exhibited in Dubai until January 20. It will then be shown twice more in Los Angeles and London before bidding kicks off on February 3 via an online-only auction.

Insider has reached out to Sotheby's for comment.

Originally posted here:
555-carat black diamond can be bought at auction with cryptocurrency - Business Insider

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The growing blockchain ecosystem is a fast-changing environment that involves many different industries due to its high number of applications. This relatively young market has a lot of growth potential as adoption increases and developers continue to build the so-called new internet.

Since the launch of Hashcash, which was originally proposed as a mechanism to throttle systematic abuse of un-metered internet resources such as email and anonymous remailers, in May 1997, an uncountable number of projects have made the crypto space. As of December 2021, more than 16,000 projects were listed on Coinmarketcap averaging a total market capitalization of around 2 trillion.

Additionally, crypto-related stocks have been listed on many exchanges giving investors a different exposure to the crypto market than those who only invest in digital assets. This is where the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK) stands out as it helps investors gain exposure to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through a mix of pure and diversified crypto-friendly companies.

On November 17, 2021, Amplify ETFs announced that they have surpassed $5.21 Billion in assets under management combining all the ETFs they offer. The company had also said that this was an increase of 57% in their combined assets under management (AUM) for 2021, way above the US average for the same period. Most of the ETFs managed by the company are thematic and focused on high growth potential industries such as the Lithium & Battery ETF (BATT) or the Digital & Online Trading ETF (BIDS). Thematic ETFs accounted for $2.98 billion which is 57.2% of the total AUM for which BLOK accounts an astonishing 32.6% of the total company AUM with $1.7 Billion in AUM as of the date of the announcement, following an increase of more than $900 million in inflows year-to-date.

The Amplify ETF team is managed by leading professionals in the ETF sector. The CEO and Founder of the company, Christian Magoon has launched over 70 ETFs in his more than 15 years' experience in the financial sector. The President of the company, William Belden, has previously worked closely with Christian in developing the ETF product line for Claymore Securities, a company which was launched on 2006 by the actual CEO of Amplify ETF.

The company also works with numerous firms for their expertise and specialized focus across various market segments including names like Toroso Investments (BLOK's portfolio managers), EQM Indexes or Emerita Capital.

BLOK is an actively managed ETF that focuses on the blockchain ecosystem. The fund will have at least 80% of their holdings dedicated to companies involved in the crypto space independently of the sector they belong to and it is classified as diversified by the company. It invests in different sectors such as Software & Services, Banks, Semiconductors or Diversified Financials. Geographically, de-fund distributes its assets mainly across North America, with a 74% weight but also targets Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe both with an 18% and 8%, respectively.

BLOK "is designed to invest in the public companies that are further in the blockchain and participating in this transformational change in how data is shared", said Michael Venuto, portfolio manager of the BLOK ETF and co-founder of Toroso Investments.

Bitcoin reached an all-time high on November 10 last year of 69,044.77 US$ according to CoinGecko. This is a 704.736% increase in price since last halving event in May 2020. The following graph shows how Bitcoin has performed over the last 3 halving events, and the standard deviation of the daily returns for that same period of time.

Author

Source: made by the author using matplotlib with daily close data up to 1/12/2022 from investing.com.

On one hand, the data shows that volatility has decreased from 0.1136 between 2012 and 2016 to 0.0425 between 2016 and 2020. On the other hand, returns have been affected dropping from an astonishing 5156.45% in period 1 (from the first halving to the second) to 1216.32% in period 2. As of 11/01/2022, Bitcoin has yielded 385.03% since the reward for bitcoin mining was reduced to 6.25BTC per block mined. This number is far from the gains of past halvings at this point in time (around 600 days after the halving event occurred), but there is still plenty of time until the end of this cycle so in my opinion, I think there still exists a possibility that new all-time highs can take place during 2022.

As the cryptocurrency market rallied this year, with Bitcoin gaining a 45%, BLOK had a 14% increase in price in FY2021 falling from a >75% gain when it had hit a new all-time high in November. Performance for the past two months can be explained by the selling pressure coming from China.

To illustrate this picture, it has to be said that December 2021 was the deadline for exchanges to close their existing users' accounts in Mainland China.

Considering technical indicators, it is relevant to mention that during 2020, the average trading volume for BLOK was 25,153.97$ and last year that number increased to 392,479.43$ a 1460.3% increment YoY. It is also to be said that, over the last 3 months, the average volume goes up to 660,491 which can be interpreted as if the asset volumes hadn't lost momentum despite the fall in price in the past few weeks.

Furthermore, as said before during the introduction, the product's assets under management topped $1,7 billion as of November 2021, current AUM nears $1Billion during the first week of 2022 as the price tanked as much as 40% since all-time highs.

We will start the analysis of the security by comparing different statistical methods to assess the risks involved in the profitability of holding the asset against different alternatives.

Yahoo Finance

We will first take a look at the risk metrics of the asset from top to bottom. First thing to analyze is the Alpha and the Beta coefficient. These parameters come from the Capital Asset Pricing Model which derives from the Markovitz Model. The model tries to explain an asset's return by simply running a linear regression of an asset's daily returns against the market to obtain an expression like:

Asset's return = Alpha + Beta * Market return + Error

So, in this particular case, the returns of the asset explained by the market would be measured by the Beta coefficient, and the Alpha coefficient would represent the returns that cannot be related to market movements. With all that said, we are happy to see a positive and greater than category average number for the alpha coefficient, but market risks are higher than the sector average. This is caused by a greater covariance between the market and the asset. A higher standard deviation for the returns also signals a greater risk in comparison to the sector but when considering the Sharpe's and Traynor's we conclude that the risk weighted returns are much larger than the category average. The Sharpe ratio stands at 1.06 against 0.86 even though BLOK has a standard deviation twice as large as the category. Same thing happens with the Traynor's ratio as the beta of the asset is greater than the average but still beats the market's average.

Metric

Blok

S&P 500

iShares ACWI

BTC-USD

VaR 95%

-0.0352

-0.0192

-0.0177

-0.0603

CVaR 95%

-0.0537

-0.0344

-0.0313

-0.095

Median

0.0014

0.0011

0.0009

0.0007

Source: Produced by the Author with data on daily returns from Yahoo Finance and Investing.com.

To finish with the risk-return analysis we will look at Value at Risk and Expected Shortfall (CVAR) both at a 95% confidence level combined with a return metric which is the median. The table shows us that the highest median daily returns are achieved with BLOK but it also shows that the risk we assume by having exposure to BLOK rather than the S&P 500 or ACWI is a lot higher too. Meanwhile, BTC remains the riskiest asset with the lowest median return of the table, and the reason BTC appears on this chart is to compare the risk of holding BTC with respect to BLOK as we can appreciate the value at risk of the ETF is close to half of what Bitcoin shows.

According to the company, the ETF invests in numerous sectors such as Diversified Financials, Software and Services or Semiconductors. We will now examine the assets with the biggest weights in the fund and compare them with the sector averages to judge on valuation.

Diversified Financials

In the ETF, as of July 31, 2021, 22.2% of the holdings were concentrated in the financial sector. This sector encompasses a broad selection of companies involved in the crypto market both in a direct and direct way. In this sector, the company tries to put together the most representative companies involved in crypto trading and payments. The companies with the biggest weights in this sector are displayed below with their respective valuation ratios.

Holdings as of 1/14/22

Weight (%)

PE Ratio

PEG Ratio

P/CF Ratio

P/S Ratio

SBI Holdings

4.82

7.1746

0.0431

7.6397

1.1885

Coinbase

4.66

17.3051

0.0061

5.0029

5.5023

CME Group

4.36

32.9165

2.531

33.5008

8.5238

PayPal

3.66

42.8972

0.7529

35.3867

17.2674

Weighed Sample Mean

17.5(Total)

17.4455

0.8962

14.0141

5.1120

Sector Median (Financials)

11.80

0.20

9.03

3.44

Source: made by the author using data from seeking alpha.

SBI Holdings is the company with the biggest weight in the portfolio as of 1/14/2022, but also the one with the best valuation ratios among the sample, beating the market with an attractive valuation. Second in the list is Coinbase, the famous cryptocurrency exchange that completed its IPO back in April last year. Coinbase manages to achieve better valuation ratios than the median of the market except for the P/S ratio, but it stays close to it.

To finish with our sample, both CME and PayPal fail to beat the market in terms of valuation. PayPal at least beats the market when it comes to growth beating the market in the PEG Ratio by 16%.

The main characteristic of this sector the growth rate at which the companies increase their cash flows and earnings with an average PEG ratio of 0.8962 comparing to that of the S&P 500 of 1.11 recorded on November 2021.

Software

The main activity developed by companies chosen for the ETF within the sector of Software is cryptocurrency mining. this activity accounts for more than 22.5% of the fund's investments as of 1/14/2022. In the fund's holdings, there are included 9 out of the top 10 crypto mining stocks that control more than 50% of the Bitcoin network.

Bitcoin Mining Stocks

This particular type of stocks are very good to replicate bitcoin prices as the ETF does not invest in bitcoin itself. Moreover, these are cash flow generating companies against bitcoin itself that can be better seen as a commodity.

Bitcoin Fundamentals: Mining Profitability Ratio & BTC Dominance

Historically, halfway between halving events, a huge increase in prices follow, increasing miner's revenue due to higher transaction fees. This pattern is likely to occur in the following months. According to Coinmetrics.com, total miners' revenue has topped $38 Billion since the genesis block. In 2021, total revenue grew an outstanding 80.95% from $21 Billion. Furthermore, the ban on cryptocurrencies coming from China helped the network to decentralize and redistribute miners' rewards.

After performing an analysis of the fund, the conclusion is that the ETF can be a good buy opportunity for the following reasons:

Read more here:
BLOK, A Diversified Way To Enter The Cryptocurrency Market. - Seeking Alpha

Asias first cryptocurrency ETF is set to launch in India

Cryptocurrency and its allied industries have seen a roller-coaster ride last year and many hope they will continue to show strong, albeit volatile, growth this year as well. New investors appear to be the strongest backers of the digital assets industry and companies offering these services are making an all-out effort to woo this investor segment. Many of them are coming up with lucrative ways to tap the investors in the country. Moving in that direction, Asia's first exchange-traded fund (ETF) is likely to be launched in India soon.

Torus Kling Blockchain IFSC, a joint venture between Mumbai-based Cosmea Financial Holdings and Hyderabad-based Kling Trading India, has inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the BSE's international arm India INX to develop digital asset-based products in India. By the end of this fiscal, this service should be available in GIFT City, a central business centre in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Key things to know

An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a type of security that tracks an index, sector, commodity, or other assets. But it can be traded on a stock exchange the same way a regular stock can.

Torus Kling Blockchain IFSC is a 50:50 joint venture between Cosmea Financial Holdings, which is sponsored by Sam Ghosh, and Kling Trading India.

ETFs like the one proposed by Torus Kling Blockchain and Kling Trading track returns from cryptocurrencies without directly being invested in the virtual coins.

This ETF is expected to be launched in a sandbox environment, which will help in live testing the products for emerging risks and correct them before they can affect a large number of investors.

Once the ETF secures regulatory approvals, including from GIFT regulatory authority International Financial Services Centre (IFSCA), Indian investors will be able to invest in it using the RBI's liberalised remittances scheme (LRS) route.

The exchange has already made a request for approval to IFSCA.

ETFs are said to allow trading through regular investment accounts, bypassing the risks associated with cryptocurrency exchanges.

Torus Kling Blockchain is aiming for $1 billion in assets in the first two years of launching the services.

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Asia's First Cryptocurrency ETF Is Set To Launch In India. Find Out Where and When It Will Launch - NDTV Profit

LONDON and DUBAI, UAE and SINGAPORE, Jan. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Binance, the world's leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider, today announced that it has joined theNational Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), a nonprofit corporation focused on identifying, validating, mitigating, and neutralizing cybercrime threats. Binance is the first organization from the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry to formally join the alliance.

The NCFTA was established in 2002 to enable the responsible sharing of information and subject matter expertise with partners from private sector industries, law enforcement, and academia. Its goal is to develop and share threat intelligence as part of the international effort to combat and defeat cybercrime. NCFTA's initiatives have helped prevent over $2 billion in potential losses and launch thousands of criminal and civil investigations, which have led to over a thousand arrests.

"Cybercrime is a global threat that continues to see exponential growth, with the potential to impact the very fabric of our society," said Matt LaVigna, President and CEO of the NCFTA.

"Binance is an industry leader with a proven track record in aiding international cybersecurity investigations. With their leadership, collaborative approach, and commitment to the war on cybercrime, they will enhance our ability to achieve the current mission of the NCFTA and assist in enabling a safe environment not only for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, but for everyone," added Matt.

Binance has built one of the world's most advanced teams to tackle blockchain and cryptocurrency fraud. Its Binance Investigations Group is actively assisting law enforcement agencies worldwide. To date, Binance has cooperated with hundreds of criminal investigations, which have led to high-profile arrests, including a cybercriminal grouplaundering $500M in ransomware proceeds.

"The constantly evolving blockchain and cryptocurrency industry relies on strong cooperation between the industry, law enforcement, and government agencies," said Tigran Gambaryan, Vice President of Global Intelligence and Investigations at Binance. "Joining the NCFTA is an important step in our joint fight against cybercrime, securing the cryptocurrency ecosystem for the entire community. Binance aims to be the leading contributor in the fight against cybercrime, ransomware, and terrorism financing. We will continue our fight against cybercrime and increase our level of cooperation and transparency through our partnership with the NCFTA."

About Binance

Binance is the world's leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange by volume. Trusted by millions worldwide, the Binance platform is dedicated to increasing the freedom of money for users, and features an unmatched portfolio of cryptocurrency products and offerings, including: trading and finance, education, data and research, social good, investment and incubation, decentralization and infrastructure solutions, and more. For more information, visit: https://www.binance.com.

About NCFTA:

The National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance is a non-profit corporation focused on identifying, validating, mitigating, and ultimately neutralizing cybercrime threats through strategic alliances and partnerships with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in the public, private, and academic sectors. Ever vigilant in uncovering emerging cyber threats, NCFTA shares threat information and SME resources on a real-time basis across all sectors and with all its partners via multiple communication channels. For more information about the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance, please visitwww.ncfta.net.

SOURCE Binance

See the article here:
Binance Becomes the Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Industry's First to Join the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) - PRNewswire

When Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) was created, it undoubtedly began a revolution. However, the creation of Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) was arguably an even bigger development. It was the start of blockchain networks that can run smart contracts. The implications for the long-term potential of blockchain technology are huge.

This is essentially why Ethereum has so much potential and why its already the second-most valuable cryptocurrency. And in recent years it has rewarded investors with some significant returns. Tonnes of development have been taking place on the most popular blockchains, such as Ethereum.

Over the last two years, Bitcoin earned investors growth of 307% in 2020 and 62% in 2021. The price of ETH grew by 496% and 386% in each of those two years. So thats not just incredible growth, its also clearly outperforming Bitcoin. And now, Ethereum accounts for almost 20% of the total value of all cryptocurrencies.

The cryptocurrency still offers tonnes of growth potential, especially over the long run. However, most of the massive growth is behind it. Furthermore, at the moment, it has several issues that need addressing.

Currently, there are a handful of significant issues that Ethereum faces, which is limiting its ability to scale up. This is to be expected, though, given Ethereum was the first blockchain of its kind.

Given its popularity, a cotinuing problem is that the network gets congested. As a result, the time it takes for transactions to be sent can be quite significant. The cost can be significant as well. These issues, as well as others, are being worked on right now. The should be resolved with the launch of Ethereum 2.0, expected later this year.

However, while solutions are coming, current investors and users of the crypto space, especially in DeFi, are looking for alternatives.

So, while Ethereum has potential, it also has issues. There are other cryptocurrencies that are also much cheaper and have more room to grow significantly.

Ethereum is already the most popular option. And many in the space have the confidence that Ethereum 2.0 can solve a lot of issues. This means choosing to invest in a blockchain thats compatible with Ethereum is an excellent long-term option.

Many users and, more importantly, developers dont want to migrate to an entirely new chain. This means tonnes of blockchains in Ethereums ecosystem offer huge potential. At the end of the day, where the users and developers go will play the biggest role in which cryptocurrencies have the most demand and gain the most in value.

Thats why a cryptocurrency such as Fantom (CRYPTO:FTM) is one of the best to buy in 2022. Its compatible with Ethereum, , of course, but its also much more efficient at the moment. Transactions often cost just cents to make.

One of the reasons why transactions are so cheap is that its underlying technology was originally built to offer better scaling than Ethereum. And because its compatible with Ethereum, tonnes of users and developers have easily migrated to Fantom, giving it a significant boost to popularity.

While many in the cryptocurrency industry are optimistic about Ethereums upgrade this year, nobody wants to wait around for it to be released. And right now, using Ethereums network can be costly, difficult, and frustrating. Therefore, solutions like Fantom continue to be a no-brainer for users in the space.

At the time of writing, Fantom is now the 27th most valuable cryptocurrency with a market cap just shy of US$7 billion. In addition, its market cap to total value locked ratio sits at just 0.95 times.

Therefore, not only does Fantom offer a tonne of growth potential, but its also extremely cheap, making it one of the best cryptocurrencies to buy in 2022.

Originally posted here:
Missed Out on Ethereum? Heres a Top Cryptocurrency to Buy Now - The Motley Fool Canada