Category Archives: Cryptocurrency

The price of Bitcoin, which has gained more than 200 percent in 2020, surged past $20,000 for the first time on December 22.

December 23, 2020 / 03:16 PM IST

Indian exchanges and startups dealing with virtual currencies have stepped up hiring and are expanding their workforce aftera recent surgein the price of Bitcoin.

CoinSwitch, Bitex, Zeb-Pay, Unocoin and CoinDCX are increasing their team sizes by 40-200 percent, according to a report by The Economic Times. The companies are hiring across roles in various departments, such as technology, product, finance, compliance and design.

The price of Bitcoin, which has gained more than200 percent in 2020, surged past$20,000 for the first time on December 16.

Also read:Bitcoin makes a smart comeback to rise nearly 4%

In November 2020, there was a 40percent increase in cryptocurrency job postings compared with November last year, the report said, citing data from employment website Indeed.

Cryptocurrency trading platformUnocoin, which currently has 35 employees, plans to add more than 50members to its team in the next three months.

"While most sectors have taken a hit due to the pandemic and the resultant global economic recession, the crypto industry has seen an unprecedented surge coupled with innovation, employment and investment opportunities,"Sathvik Vishwanath, co-founder of Unocoin, told the paper.

CoinSwitch, also a cryptocurrency trading platform, has over 70 employees. The company has witnessesd 175 percent month-on-month growth since its launch in June, the report stated.

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After Bitcoin spike, cryptocurrency industry is increasing headcount: Report - Moneycontrol

By Bill Zeiser

Even casual viewers of cable news are familiar with commercials featuring actor William Devane usually golfing or horseback riding exhorting them to invest in precious metals. Lately Devane has been joined in this pursuit by financial educator Robert Kiyosaki, creator of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. The prevalence of these ads should not be surprising. In these volatile times, the Trump administration has spent big and printed money. (The United States is not alone in borrowing and printing its way out of this pandemic.) There is no reason to expect different behavior under Joe Biden.

Its no wonder that alternative stores of value are flourishing. Days ago, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached yet another all-time high, just as it became clear that a Biden-Harris administration was a fait accompli. But while Bitcoin is the best-known digital currency, it is only a small part of a technological shift that could satisfy our demand for safer, cheaper, and faster ways of doing business in times of crisis and disruption.

Bitcoins underlying technology, blockchain a sort of shared, secure ledger of transactions between networked computers has applications ranging from supply-chain management to securing international payments. It could be a game changer for the global economy, according to JPMorgan Chase. In fact, the investment giant started using its own JPM Coin in October to move investor money across its global financial platforms. Consulting firm Gartner forecasts that the business value-add from blockchain will blow past $3 trillion by the end of this new decade.

The industry powering all this change, however, is finding it harder to stay in the U.S. because of Washingtons dysfunction. Silicon Valley start-ups are investing billions in research and development, but there is still no clear set of rules to help them bring products to market. Congress has punted on writing a regulatory framework, and the countrys oversight agencies are, as usual, fighting over turf. Experts say that this regulatory chaos is suppressing American innovation while other market centers like Britain and Singapore have quickly updated their rules to lure American blockchain developers away, while Beijing scrambles to establish tech dominance.

Roslyn Layton of the American Enterprise Institute sent the Senate a blunt message this month: regulators, lacking guidance, are killing innovation. China could soon overtake us, she warned, unless the Senate holds Biden to his promises of technocratic competence and firm economic competition with China.

At least eight regulatory agencies are fighting over who gets to play U.S. crypto cop. Without any direction, regulators copy-paste their bureaucracy on anything that moves, Layton observed. The Securities and Exchange Commission is applying archaic 1930s rules that never imagined blockchain solutions, comparing all digital assets to securities no matter how they are designed or used.

Critics like Layton point to Chinas new digital yuan, the countrys sole legal cryptocurrency, as a disturbing signal that the Chinese are gaining on us. The Peoples Bank of China formally issued it in October and has enticed 2 million Chinese to bid on $10 million worth of the official token, says Wayne Brough of the Innovation Defense Foundation. Big American companies including Starbucks, McDonalds, and Subway have embraced Chinas new currency. France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan are developing central bank digital currencies of their own. Brough frets that through inaction, the U.S. will blunder our way out of winning a race that we were born to win.

George Nethercutt, former Republican congressman from Washington state, warned in The Hill that Washingtons neglect could create a needless trainwreck. China and Singapore are paving the way for their own blockchain industries, he wrote, while the U.S. is struggling with a coin shortage, stimulus check complications, and an obvious dearth of understanding on Capitol Hill about what a cryptocurrency even is. This is embarrassing for the most technologically developed country in the world, he lamented.

Layton and Nethercutt point the finger at outgoing SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, who, Layton said, made a deliberate lack of regulatory clarity the cornerstone of his crypto policy approach. Clayton demonstrated no understanding for the need for a regulatory framework with his notoriously guarded approach to blockchain solutions, Nethercutt added, significantly constraining American innovators.

Clayton empowered the SEC by treating any digital asset as a security, justifying enforcement actions with a 1946 Supreme Court ruling. Claytons SEC lowered the boom on utility tokens a core feature of business software using blockchain according to Layton, even if they had no resemblance to investment contracts. This treatment extended to utility token XRP, the third-highest-valued cryptocurrency in the world, used by American developers like Ripple and R3 to power the kind of payment systems that JPMorgan has already rolled out. Just by putting this token under a bewilderingly persistent enforcement threat, the SEC hurt every developer on the XRP ledger. Clayton preserved his own agencys power but steadily eroded U.S. leadership as the best place to do business.

It remains to be seen what Biden thinks of Claytons view of unlimited power over digital assets, or whether Bidens promise of bipartisan cooperation will extend to ending the regulatory chaos. Republicans have spent the last four years slashing regulations and reining in the administrative state and should understand that China cant be allowed to win the crypto race.

Senate Democrats on the Banking Committee like Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown should remember that a president of their party, Bill Clinton, enacted the regulatory framework for e-commerce in 1997. It created millions of American businesses, reaching tens of millions of customers, and spawned a long list of occupations that had never existed before.

Coming together to vet Bidens SEC pick on crypto policy and move the country closer to a clear set of rules would be a win-win for both parties and for the U.S. economy. Our competitors abroad can never beat us on innovation unless we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Bill Zeiser is editor of RealClearPolicy.

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If the U.S. doesnt lead the way on cryptocurrency, China will | Opinion - lehighvalleylive.com

ZUG, Switzerland, Dec. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --AEVOLVE is excited to announce that P2PB2B, one of the world's fastest growing technological exchanges, has listed AEVOLVE's AVEX medical blockchain token. The AVEX token, which helps individuals take an active role in advancing medical innovations around the world, has delivered a huge punch jumping 150% since its initial listing on the LATOKEN cryptocurrency exchange.

"P2PB2B is delighted to support AEVOLVE and its AVEX token on our exchange. We hope that our cooperation with AEVOLVE would be fruitful and that AVEX listing on our exchange would help propel AVEX to where it belongs," said the representative of P2PB2B.io exchange.

"AEVOOLVE works globally within a vast network of medical professionals, patients, and investors who help drive innovation that is essential to the creation of new medical solutions," said Mark Chester, COO of AEVOLVE. "The AVEX token allows members of the crypto community greater exposure into the biotech and pharmaceutical industries and helps medical innovations quickly reach market availability."

The AVEX Token gives the crypto-community exposure into the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical and biotech industry as the medium of exchange on a multi-faceted platform, bringing patients, re-search organizations and medical professionals together with the entertainment industry.

Patients and their families will be able to learn of new life-enhancing medical innovations and obtain an exclusive reservation as one of the first people to access these treatments and cures, the moment they become available. One exciting feature about these reservations is that they are digital block-chain assets that can be sold and transferred on a marketplace, providing liquidity at the click of a button.

AEVOLVE has also jumped into the ring with EntroBox to raise awareness through major fundraising events, including an upcoming Mega Boxing event in 2021 staring boxing legends and rising stars. These events will be supported by the world's leading social influencers and will be the first crypto-enabled pay-per-view platform using the AVEX Token. These events will spotlight the medical innovation needs in the marketplace while simultaneously boosting the access and trading of the AVEX token on participating cryptocurrency exchanges.

This heavily weighted social influencer event will open with various performances and major entertainment from mega influencers, including an impressionably rousing rendition of our national an-them, prior to the main boxing event. ENTROBOX is co-founded by its CEO, Ronald ("The American Dream") Johnson, the current GBO Heavy Weight Champion. Johnson said, "Our partnership with AEVOLVE brings a new era into mega entertainment events where everyone can be a part of impacting lives with cutting-edge medical breakthroughs, while having an experience of a lifetime. By letting the world access our events with crypto, this will open parts of the world who do not use credit cards to watch and enjoy their favorite boxers, stars and influencers in real time!"

According to AEVOLVE founder, Rogelio Santos, "Our mission is to deliver the world's most powerful and impactful medical treatments and solutions over the next decade. We will do this by removing the financial obstacles that have hindered important medical technologies from getting to the people that truly need them and by empowering the scientists and medical innovators behind these solutions with an unprecedented voice to rival the marketing machine of the pharma giants."

To learn more about AEVOLVE and the AVEX Token on P2PB2B, COINSBIT, and LAKTOKEN, please contact [emailprotected].

ABOUT AEVOLVE

AEVOLVE is a medical innovation company that brings together new financial technology, cutting-edge medical innovations, as well as an ecosystem of athletes, celebrities, influencers, and citizens to collectively drive biomedical advancements all around the world. The organization was founded by research, technology, and finance veterans and has a portfolio with patents that are quickly being developed to directly treat COVID-19 infections, Alzheimer's, and other diseases. For more information, please visit https://aevolve.health or contact [emailprotected]

ABOUT P2PB2B

P2PB2B is an advanced cryptocurrency exchange that works for the benefit of its users. In order to make your trading even more convenient and safe, the platform has all the necessary features and tools.

Media ContactMandy Magahum858-380-8307[emailprotected]

SOURCE AEVOLVE AG

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AEVOLVE's Fight for Medical Innovation Continues as P2PB2B Adds AVEX Token to Their Growing Cryptocurrency Exchange - PRNewswire

Verady, which makes the Ledgible cryptocurrency tax and accounting platform, has released Ledgible Tax Pro, which has extra features beyond the standard platform. Legible Tax Pro is designed for tax professionals with clients who have investments in cryptocurrency.

The IRS has this year put the declaration of virtual currency question on page 1 of the Form 1040, which will impact every taxpayer and reinforce the IRS enforcement focus on cryptocurrencies. It's estimated that anywhere from 12 to 21 million of America taxpayers will answer yes to that question.

Crypto-assets, which are taxed like property, produce complicated transactions with data across multiple wallets and exchanges. Ledgible Tax Pro analyzes all of this data and accounts for all transactions via the following features:

Ledgible Tax Pro produces the IRS Form 8949 and other reporting formats that are directly importable to filing systems used by tax professionals.

The platform features integrated client management, a collaboration-driven workflow, team management, and a partner ecosystem to professionals can plug in various apps of their choice.

As more businesses and consumers transact in cryptocurrency, CPA firms need to know how to accurately report it, said Kell Canty, co-founder and CEO of Verady, in a statement. Unlike wages and traditional investments, there is no equivalent cryptocurrency W2 or 1099B to report cryptocurrency balances and transactions. As a result, the gains, losses and income to report have to be determined.

Verady also recently launched its Ledgible Crypto Partner Program. To sign up as a Ledgible Crypto Program Partner, visit their site.

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Verady releases pro version of cryptocurrency tax platform - Accounting Today

SurePrep and Bittax recently announced they have a strategic partnership to streamline cryptocurrency tax compliance for tax professionals. According to the duo, this new collaborationensures tax professionals have the necessary technology to address the needs of taxpayers who will be under increasing IRS scrutiny this year and into the future.

Bittax, which is a blockchain-based crypto tax calculation platform, notably generates full crypto activity tax reports based on blockchain data collection and analysis, both in FIFO and specific identification methods.

TaxCaddy and 1040SCAN are recognized as the premier taxpayer collaboration and scan-and-populate solutions in the tax and accounting field. Together, SurePrep and Bittax streamline the gathering, analysis and reporting process to ensure forward-thinking firms are ready to serve their clients who buy and sell digital assets.

Meanwhile, SurePrep now recognizes Bittaxs 8949 output and exports the data to the leading tax software which eliminates the data entry for clients that report gains and losses from digital asset sales. Speaking about the partnership, Gidi Bar-Zakay, Founder and CEO of Bittax, explained:

The IRS invests its efforts in taxpayers crypto reports examination and compliance. This upcoming tax season it is crucial for tax professionals to have a simple solution for crypto tax preparation, which does not require previous knowledge.

David Wyle, CEO of SurePrep, the Creator of TaxCaddy and 1040SCAN, added:

Automation is driving process improvement for tax professionals and the combination of TaxCaddy, 1040SCAN and Bittax allows firms to gather their clients cryptocurrency data and streamline the process of preparing the 1040 tax return.

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SurePrep Announces Strategic Partnership With Bittax For Cryptocurrency Tax Automation - Crowdfund Insider

December15, 20206 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

A few days ago newly elected US senator, Cynthia Lummis, endorsed Bitcoin on live television. She spoke very highly of the cryptocurrency,even revealing she had a sizable investment herself. Jack Dorsey, the well-known founder of Twitter and CEO of Square, believes in Bitcoin enough to have invested 1% of his company's value into the cryptocurrency while changing his Twitter bio to a single word: Bitcoin.

The question I hear most often these days: If senators and tech billionaires are talking about it, should I still get into cryptocurrency, or are all the big gains gone?.

You are not too late. Bitcoins entire market capitalization still only stands at around $300 billion. That number might seem high but compared to gold, which has been the de facto anti-inflation store of value of the global economy, it really isnt. Golds global market cap is around $8 trillion and considering JP Morgan recently affirmed that Bitcoin has considerable upsides compared to gold. As a result,we have not seen the end of Bitcoins meteoric rise.

If you want to get into cryptos next big thing before it truly goes mainstream, I would recommend something that has not made a lot of noise in the general public but is considered by many in the cryptosphere as the biggest thing since Bitcoin itself: Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

Related: What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Square's $50 Million Bitcoin Investment

Bitcoin (and Ethereum shortly thereafter) is the original decentralized finance because nobody controls its issuance. There is no one organization responsible for deciding who holds what. No one is in charge because everyone is in charge. There is a publicly available ledger held on a multitude of nodes and computers on a global network which makes it impossible for any central authority to move Bitcoins. Additionally, there is a limited number of Bitcoins to mine. No one will ever be able to add more of thecelebrated cryptocurrencyto this total, as the Federal reserve is doing right now with the US dollar.

However, most Bitcoins are bought and sold on exchanges, and these exchanges are often privately owned. For the general publicits simply a lot easier to log onto a website, such as Coinbase, Binance or Kraken, and let them hold your cryptocurrency. PayPal recently announced they would allow their users to buy and sell cryptocurrency on their app which will bring in their 314 million customers to this exciting market. These companies will hold the keys to their customers Bitcoins for them.

There is a very well-known saying in the cryptosphere:Not your keys, not your Bitcoins. This iscautionary advice from an industry which has been burned many times. If there is one thing that discouraged investors from this asset class, it is certainly the risk of fraud. And were not out of the woods yet: BitMEX, a leading Bitcoin exchange, is facing criminal charges in the US while hackers stole around $150 million on KuCoin, a leading Asian exchange.

Decentralized finance is the next logical step in this adventure. It aims to build financial instruments based on smart contractswhich automate transactionswithout any interference from central authorities. These smart contracts can be both simple and complex. Different decentralized apps, which offer services such as lending and borrowing money, bet on events without using exploitative websites orparticipate in a no-loss lottery.

The potential for this is incredible. Imagine buying a house using a smart contract which states that if you send a certain amount of money every month, and aftera certain amount of time, the title of the housebecomes yours. No need to borrow fromthe bank, no need for notaries or lawyers, and if you default on your payments? Thetitle returns to the seller.

Related: 8 Reasons Why This Could Be the Time to Take Bitcoin Seriously

Decentralized exchanges is at the heart of all this because, as we have said before, if you do not hold the keys to your cryptocurrency directly? Then youre not actually owning them. The technical side of it isnt the main reason why DeFi might be the future of finance, but rathera shift in the world economy. There are two very important factorscurrently coinciding: The drastic fall of interest rates amidst the global economic crisis and, according to the World Bank, there are still 1.7 billion adults who do not have a bank account. Indeed, theyare much more likely to have access to the internet, often through a mobile phone, than to own an ATM card.

Today, the biggest exchange in DeFi is Uniswap. In essence, it is a combination of software based on the Ethereum blockchain. On Uniswap, peoplecan exchange cryptocurrency using smart contracts. Users dont even have to keep their funds on the exchange, they just allow a pair of participants to use their smart contracts from the safety of their privately-owned keys and wallets.

The problem that DeFi has causedis the extreme use of the Ethereum network, which in turn has led to higher fees for exchanges. The popularity of Ethereum to build these smart contracts has exerted the networks resources and led to higher prices for transactions. Now, new exchanges are finding creative solutions that dont rely on Ethereum.

Related:Investment Opportunity With NewCryptocurrencyMiners

Polkaswapisan about-to-be-launched, open-source decentralized exchange that will place your cryptocurrencyin the best fund possible to earn interest on your investment. The exchange will rely on its own network, (Polkadot), which is designed to avoid the high transaction fees that have become problematic for Ethereum-based exchanges.

For the developing worlddecentralized exchanges will be nothing less than a game changer, especially for those that have been left behind by the traditional system. But the rest of us will still find availableinterest ratesextremely appealing in a global marketwhere many countries are now considering negative interest rates on their government bonds.

Inevitably, and especially in times of crisis, crypto has attracted a lot of interest dueto both its merits and thefailings of a traditional centralized financial system. DeFi isstill in its infancy and shows the potential to be an important part of the future global economy.

Related: How Fintech Startups Are Disrupting the Payments Industry

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Everything You Need To Know About Cryptocurrency's Next Big Thing: Decentralized Finance - Entrepreneur

In the Dutch town of Venray, Didi Taihuttu decided to make his first big gamble on bitcoin. In early 2017, the father of three searched every corner of his five-bedroom house, gathering the family's supply of gold jewelry and trinkets. Taihuttu had a hunch that it was time to swap their stockpile of gold for bitcoin.

Three years later, and that bet has paid off big time for Taihuttu. Bitcoin broke above $20,000 for the first time ever on Wednesday. His investment is now nearly three times bigger today than it would have been had he kept his nest egg of gold.

"Central banks and governments are slowly starting to understand that bitcoin is the 21st century gold," said Taihuttu.

Amid economic and geopolitical tumult, more investors are looking to bitcoin as a safe haven play.

"Especially over the last few weeks, it's clear that bitcoin has stolen gold's thunder," said Mati Greenspan, portfolio manager and founder of Quantum Economics.

Strategists at JPMorgan say the price of gold will suffer as institutional investors continue to buy into bitcoin.

While the cryptocurrency has indeed matured into a permanent fixture in the financial industry, some Wall Street investors caution that the volatile cryptocurrency will never supplant gold as a store of value, because it has no value to store.

When the coronavirus pandemic began to shut down economies around the world, investors did what they typically do amid economic uncertainty: they fled to safe haven assets. Only this year, gold and cash weren't the only safe haven plays.

Bitcoin is up about 190% year to date, outperforming a mix of major assets, including gold. And unlike its rally in 2017, analysts don't think we are heading toward a bursting price bubble anytime soon.

Mike Novogratz, CEO of investment firm Galaxy Digital, thinks this comeback rally is only just getting started. He sees bitcoin rising to $60,000 by next year.

Tom Fitzpatrick, global head of CitiFXTechnicals, said the charts signaled that bitcoin could reach $318,000 by December 2021, in a report meant for Citibank's institutional clients and obtained by CNBC.

Meanwhile, the price of gold has been sliding since its all-time peak in August 2020, not least of all because of optimism over progress on the Covid vaccine front.

"Let's face it, who needs a safe haven if the pandemic is over?" said Scott Nations, of Nations Indexes, in an interview with CNBC's "Fast Money Halftime Report." "And if you still want a safe haven, you're not looking at gold. You're looking at bitcoin."

Part of what is different about bitcoin's rally in 2020 versus 2017 is that institutional investors are adopting bitcoin, lending it newfound legitimacy and helping to erase the reputational risk of investing in the cryptocurrency.

Old-school, billionaire hedge fund managers Stanley Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones now own bitcoin and big fintech players like Square and PayPal are also adding crypto products.

"Bitcoin is now a regulated financial asset that is uncorrelated with high-risk adjusted return, and that's why we're seeing a record percentage of institutional flow enter through our brokerage and exchange platforms," explained Dave Chapman, executive director of BC Group.

"It's for all these reasons and others that bitcoin is being seen as a true safe haven asset; a digital gold," Chapman continued in an interview with CNBC's "Capital Connection."

But keep in mind, bitcoin has a long history of wild volatility. While 2020's price moves look to be more stable than in rallies past, ultimately we just have to wait and see how bitcoin performs over time.

"It would be difficult to label a nascent asset like bitcoin as a safe haven as it has not yet withstood the test of time," Greenspan said. "It might be more accurate to say that it is chomping on its [gold's] market share as the go-to inflation hedge."

After taking the plunge from gold into bitcoin, Taihuttu decided to go all in on the cryptocurrency. The Dutch family of five liquidated their assets, from their retirement accounts and cars, to their clothes and toys. They bet it all on the volatile cryptocurrency, back when it was $900 a coin in 2017. Bitcoin is up more than 2,200% since then.

Analysts say that bitcoin's rally this year has a lot to do with the fact that there is a finite supply of bitcoin in the world. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins produced.

Whereas we are not likely to run out of gold anytime soon, the total number of mined bitcoin is at roughly 18.5 million, which is nearing its maximum threshold.

The surge in interest from mainstream financial players hasn't just reformed bitcoin's image; it has also fomented a supply shortage.

Bitcoin is now being seen as a true safe haven asset; a digital gold.

Dave Chapman

executive director of BC Group

"The basic reason for the 2017 and 2020 rallies are the same," Greenspan said. "It's a matter of digital scarcity. There is a strictly limited supply of bitcoin available in the market, so when everyone is buying and nobody is selling, it can cause tremendous upward pressure on the price. What's different this time are the players involved."

The 2017 rally was driven by retail speculation, and in 2020, it's the billionaires and corporations that are buying bitcoin en masse.

"When PayPal starts to sell bitcoin to its 350 million users, they also need to buy the bitcoin somewhere," said Taihuttu. "There will be a huge supply crisis, because there won't be enough new bitcoins mined everyday to fulfill the need by huge companies."

Bitcoin behaves a lot like gold. Its value is highly volatile, there is a marketplace where it is bought and sold, and similar to other commodities, you can speculate on the future price of bitcoin through the derivatives market.

Mainstream adoption has been hugely important to bitcoin, because cryptocurrencies like bitcoin aren't backed by an asset, nor do they have the full faith and backing of the government. They're valuable because people believe they're valuable. So it goes a long way when bitcoin gets buy-in from some of the biggest names on Wall Street.

Bitcoin's digital infrastructure also offers certain advantages to gold.

"Physical gold needs to be stored, is not readily portable across borders, has paper equivalents on exchanges that may or may not fully reflect the actual move in gold and could possibly be called 'yesterday's news' in terms of a financial hedge," explained Fitzpatrick.

"Bitcoin is the new gold," Fitzpatrick said. "It moves across borders easily and ownership is opaque."

Taihuttu agrees. "We have a limited supply of bitcoin and demand is growing tremendously. More people are realizing that bitcoin is the perfect 21st century gold."

In a Skype call with Taihuttu, I noticed that he was wearing a gold watch on the same arm that bears a tattoo of the bitcoin logo. When I asked whether he was having any seconds about gold, he said, "The only gold I wear now is fake."

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This family traded all their gold for bitcoin in 2017. That bet has nearly tripled as bitcoin breaks above $20,000 - CNBC

Silvergate Capital (NYSE:SI) isn't exactly a household name in banking, but it has emerged as the go-to for the banking needs of the rapidly growing cryptocurrency industry. With a client list that reads like a "who's who" of major cryptocurrency exchanges, hedge funds, and other major industry players, Silvergate could be a major beneficiary if cryptocurrency adoption gains momentum.

Two of our banking experts recently decided to take a look at how Silvergate's business works, and whether it could be an interesting investment opportunity. In this Nov. 30 Fool Livevideo clip, Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, andIndustry Focus host Jason Moser take a deep dive into what Silvergate does, how it makes its money, and what investors should keep in mind about this unique bank stock.

Jason Moser: Question from a listener recently, Matt. Ben on Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) asks, "Hi Jason, any chance for an industry focus episode on Silvergate Capital. It's a bank that has a platform for cryptocurrency called the Silvergate Exchange Network, the SEN, with a lot of institutional transactions. Thanks. You and Matt make financial discussion interesting." I will say, he concluded that, "You and Matt make financial discussion interesting" with the laugh face, with the little tears of laughter. I mean, maybe that's an LOL. It was a very thoughtful sentiment and it sounds like we're at least doing our job well enough. Let's keep on doing what we're doing, Matt. But Ben, really thank you for the question. I've never really dug into Silvergate before. I'd heard of it. Very small bank, of course. But not too small. I mean, it's just small-cap bank. But an interesting one nonetheless. Looking a little bit more into the Silvergate Exchange Network, particularly, in this age of digital currency, it seems like this is a bank that might become a little bit more relevant as time goes on. What do you think about Silvergate, Matt?

Matt Frankel: Yes. Like you said, they're not a very big bank. They're big enough that we're allowed to talk about them, but not much more than that.

Jason Moser: Around a $600 million market cap, something like that.

Matt Frankel: The Silvergate Exchange Network, which is the most interesting part of the business right now. I was reading that it's a intermediary that it facilitates the transfer of money from one cryptocurrency player to another. That sounded interesting enough. But then I start to read their list of customers and Coinbase is one of their customers, Gemini is one of their customers. The use case is, that normally if a customer buys Bitcoin in US dollars, because when you buy bitcoin, you use money. The exchange would have to transfer that somewhere, then it takes a couple of days. Then it will get transferred to another exchange to buy crypto or something like that. What the Silvergate Exchange does is, it facilitates this 24-7 real-time money transfers between cryptocurrency exchanges and major hedge funds and other digital currency players. There's mining operations that are customers of the bank. It's an interesting case. They have over two billion dollars of cryptocurrency deposits. Most of their deposits are in cryptocurrency, not US dollars, which is an interesting case.

Jason Moser: You square that up to squares balance sheet with 50 million in bitcoin. I mean, that can give you at least some context there as to how big of a role crypto is playing for a company like this.

Matt Frankel: This wasn't always a crypto bank. On their website, it says, they've been profitable for 21 years. So they've been around for at least that long. Their CEO has been there since 2008. They pivoted to crypto in 2013, good timing. There were first to the party it sounds like.

Jason Moser: Perfect timing.

Matt Frankel: Coinbase, Gemini, those are some of the biggest players in the industry that are their customers that they use for their money transfers. It's an interesting industry right now. It's worth mentioning that as a bank, there are two sides to their business. There's deposits and lending. Pretty much the exchange network and the crypto deposits. That's the deposit side. On the lending side, they're mortgage lender. That's interesting. It looks, most of their assets are either mortgage-backed securities or what are called warehouse mortgages, meaning lines of credit to mortgage brokers. They are mortgage lenders. Their loan portfolio is actually pretty high-quality. I saw that their non-performing loan rate is 0.16 percent right now, which is really low if you look at some of the other banks right now.

Jason Moser: That's exceptional.

Matt Frankel: It's interesting. That's how they make their money; a combination of income from their lending portfolio, which is mostly mortgages of a commercial nature. Commercial mortgages and they make fee income from their cryptocurrency activity. An interesting bank. This is not investing in Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) or even one of the smaller more tech-focused banks like we've talked about on the show. It's a play on the cryptocurrency industry. The more money that flows through cryptocurrency exchanges, the more they're going to make.

Jason Moser: I think you summed it up nicely there. I mean, if you look at the way the stock has performed here year-to-date, it was more or less tracking the market up toward October. But starting in October, shortly after they had released their quarterly results, the stock just went, as they like to say, parabolic, man. Just went straight up. Year-to-date stock has returned about 125 percent versus the markets, close to 12 or something. Clearly, Silvergate is having a very good year. I can understand at least and when you're looking through the transcript from the most recent quarter, customers completed over $36 billion in Silvergate Exchange Network transfers during the third quarter alone. Now that exceeded $32 billion that was done all throughout 2019 together. Clearly, Silvergate Exchange Network is gaining a lot of traction and maybe that's the enthusiasm there. I can certainly understand it based on your description of how the company makes its money. I will reiterate, this is a small bank, a 600 dollar million market cap round about. Also worth noting that it has a very low float. There's a low number of shares outstanding, just under 19 million, it looks like. Half of that, essentially, is the float on the open market. My point is anytime you see a small cap bank like that with a low float, you are typically going to see some hefty bid and ask spreads, and you're going to see some pretty volatile movement from time-to-time. It's all to say if it's a bank that you're interested in, this is the kind of bank where I think a limit order probably makes a lot more sense if you're interested in owning it.

Matt Frankel: Yeah, for sure. I would tip toe into this one if you were interested in it.

Jason Moser: Yeah.

Matt Frankel: I prefer it to owning actual Bitcoin as an investment.

Jason Moser: Yeah, I was wondering about that actually.

Matt Frankel: Like that mortgage side of the business should provide nice steady income and then the fee income side of the business is the growth avenue. It's like a nice combination of steady, predictable, recurring revenue and growth potential. But like I said, I like it better than investing in actual cryptocurrency, but like I said, this is not Bank of America or JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), so I'd be tip toeing cautiously.

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This Cryptocurrency-Focused Bank Could Be Worth a Look - The Motley Fool

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Prices subject to change.

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Learn the Ins & Outs of Cryptocurrency and Make Yourself a Bundle - TMZ

Leading cryptocurrency bitcoin has been getting most of the headlines lately, but it isn't the only one that has been rallying in 2020. Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency, has also performed extremely well.

In fact, Ethereum has performed even better than bitcoin in 2020. While bitcoin's value is up by about 195% in 2020 as of this writing, Ethereum is worth five times as much as it was at the start of the year. A single Ethereum digital token is now worth about $620, and the entire supply of Ethereum in existence is worth more than $70 billion. This makes Ethereum the clear second-largest cryptocurrency, as it is more than three times the size of the No. 3 token (Ripple).

Image source: Getty Images.

Up until now, if you wanted to bet on the future price of cryptocurrencies with derivative securities, you have been limited to bitcoin. And since CBOE (NYSEMKT:CBOE) pulled the plug on its bitcoin futures products some time ago, there has been only one place to buy bitcoin futures, on CME Group (NASDAQ:CME).

Well, that's about to change.

While CME Group is still the only game in town for cryptocurrency futures (for now), the exchange just announced that it plans to list Ethereum futures in early 2021.

Here's what we know so far. Ethereum futures are scheduled to start trading on Feb. 8, subject to approval from regulators. Each futures contract will represent 50 ETH, which means that each futures contract is tied to about $30,000 of the digital currency at current value.

Continued here:
Ethereum Futures Are Coming Soon; Here's When You Can Buy Them - The Motley Fool