News updates April 16, 2022
- Bitcoin Regains $40K as Sentiment Turns to 'Extreme Fear'
Some analysts continue to remain bullish on the future prices of the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Crypto markets continued a second day of slide on Friday as bitcoin hovered above pivotal support at $40,000 in European hours, data show.
Bitcoin (BTC) bounced to $40,100 early Friday, after losing 2.9% Thursday.
Bitcoin is trading near the $40,000 support level, which runs through the lows of the first three months of the year. Current price action is, however, a sign of alarm among some traders.
“A formal signal to break the support will be considered a failure under the previous lows in the $38,000 area,” Alex Kuptsikevich, senior financial analyst at FxPro, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. “The ability to develop a reversal to the offensive from these levels, on the contrary, will reinforce the importance of this moderate uptrend line.”
2. Binance launches its first customer service center in Turkey
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, announced the launch of its customer service center, Cointelegraph Turkey reported.
A possible reason for Binance to pick Turkey is the high volume of traffic the exchange is getting from the country.
3. Top Universities have added Crypto to the Curriculum
Some of the world’s top Universities and Educational Institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Oxford, Harvard University, National University of Singapore, Cornell University and the University of California Berkeley have added pieces of the Burgeoning Technology to their Curriculums.
4. Bitcoin Miners Receive Third Break This Year, Over 100K Blocks To Go Until The Halving
Bitcoin miners are celebrating the third break this year as their computational power increased due to a decrease of 1.26% in difficulty. This means that they will be able to mine more Bitcoins, and with it comes an endless supply of new coins.
Miners also have another 108,160 blocks left until halving happens on or around May 3rd, 2024, which could bring some significant profits if prices keep going up.
5. Crypto and Blockchain Firms Constitute 16% of UAE Free Zone’s Record Q1 Company Registrations
Crypto and blockchain firms constituted 16% of the 655 new company registrations that were recorded in Q1 of 2022, the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) has said. The surge in crypto-related registrations also coincided with a quarterly period in which the DMCC is reported to have recorded its “highest Q1 performance” since inception.
6. Russian Ministry of Finance is actively working on a final crypto regulation bill:
The ongoing matter of the circulation of digital currencies and the mining of such assets in Russia has been a talking point for some time now.
The draft legislation on regulating the circulation of digital currencies in Russia, finalized by the Ministry of Finance, provides a rigorous regulatory framework and, for the first time, addresses crypto mining in detail, according to a report by the Russian news outlet Kommersant on April 15.
In particular, the document “On Digital Currency” introduces the concepts of professional and non-professional purchasers and the need to evaluate products, the rules of trade, and mining.
Experts feel that the document offers up new chances for miners who need to transition out of the gray zone; some, on the other hand, believe it has the potential to “push investors into the illegal market,” and that the criteria for trading operators are too excessive.
*Crypto to be accepted as a means of payment*
According to the draft law, digital currency can be accepted “as a means of payment that is not a monetary unit of the Russian Federation,” as well as an investment. Interestingly, Finbold first reported back in December that Russia wouldn’t ban crypto but sought to regulate the circulation of digital assets.
Blockchain lawyer Mikhail Uspensky considers the requirements for operators to be “extremely overestimated” and that “only the largest credit and financial organizations in the country” will be able to fulfill them.
Russia’s legal companies are the only ones that may claim to be both operators. In order to receive a license to operate in the Russian Federation, foreign cryptocurrency exchanges must establish an economic entity in the country.
According to Andrey Tugarin, general partner of the GMT Legal law firm, Russians are not forbidden from registering with international exchanges and utilizing their services, but:
The Russian Federation has decided to go down the route of legalizing cryptocurrencies and their exchange. With this, some consider Russia as an appealing jurisdiction for mining because of the low cost of power and that further legalization of the status would enhance the demand for this activity.
Only time will tell whether or not the effort will help the development of new key companies in the cryptocurrency market and make it feasible for an increase in investments in the sector.
7. Plan to Become a ‘Cryptoassets hub’ May Just Be the UK Government Hedging Its Bets;
In a busy start to April 2022 for the British chancellor, Rishi Sunak announced his intention to make the UK a “global hub for cryptoassets technology”. Put simply, this means he wants the country to be an attractive place for cryptocurrency companies to operate.
For the government, this requires a delicate regulatory balance between preventing financial crime and protecting consumers, and allowing cryptocurrencies to flourish. If all goes to plan, greater engagement with the sector could result in a welcome boost to the UK economy.
It’s early days of course, and many central banks and economists remain unsure of the role cryptocurrencies should play in a nation’s financial makeup. But Sunak’s plans featured some eye-catching proposals, including removing tax barriers, and developing a non-fungible token (NFT) with the Royal Mint.
But the key element was a proposal to bring a particular element of digital tokens, stablecoins, within the scope of existing UK banking regulation. Stablecoins are widely considered to be at the safer end of the sector, where the notorious volatility of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC) is replaced with something more stable pricewise.
So where bitcoin’s value is derived purely from levels of confidence and demand, stablecoins are usually backed by other assets. Usually, this means traditional currencies (usually the US dollar), but some are attached to commodities like gold. Either way, the aim is the same – to keep their value as close to constant as possible, making stablecoins more useful as a reliable medium of exchange.
*Cryptic crypto*
But the lack of detail around the UK proposals – what regulation will look like and what it hopes to gain – remains a concern. So too is its recent lack of progress in dealing with a huge part of the modern financial world.
For example, there have been promises since 2015 about regulating of cryptoassets, with little beyond tax issues and preventing money laundering being forthcoming – and both have had a restrictive impact on the sector.
The UK’s financial services regulator meanwhile, has indicated recently that it is more focused on preventing risk than helping crypto technology to flourish. Perhaps then, the UK is not as welcoming to innovation and crypto technology as it makes out.
The UK may well hope to gain a greater foothold in the relatively safe (and controllable) world of stablecoins and enjoy the potential benefits for the pound as an underpinning currency. But in reality, it will take much more than the measures announced so far to make any meaningful progress. They sound instead like a vague attempt not to be left behind by other countries, without committing too much in the way of investment and resources.The Conversation.
8. The Real Problem With Centralized Banks And Why Crypto Is Inevitable:
Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention of Bitcoin, as highlighted in Bitcoin’s whitepaper published in 2009, had, but one compelling goal. To eliminate the need for a trusted third party and enable two willing parties to transact directly without having to suffer from the weaknesses of a trust-based model.
But why? The reason is that modern banks have flaws and disadvantages, the repercussions of which are ultimately felt by the consumer. Due to their centralized nature, they are subject to human intervention. They can be unreliable, vulnerable to security threats, charging crazy amounts of fees, and even be biased.
These exact problems and weaknesses of the current financial systems in the world are exactly the reason why cryptocurrencies will pave the way for a better banking and payments experience in the future.
*Unreliability*
Traditional centralized banks can be unreliable. If you use mobile banking and their servers are down, you can’t access your finances unless you go to a local ATM and withdraw money in paper cash. The issue here is that ATMs can be out-of-service as well, especially for people located in developing nations.
*Crazy Fees*
Banks make over $15 billion a year in overdraft fees, according to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That’s $15 billion of hard-earned money from people’s pocket to their pocket. Overdraft fees at this point should be illegal. With overdraft fees, a simple cup of coffee can go from $3 to $35.
*Transactions can take an eternity*
With centralized banks, transactions can take a long time depending on the type of transactions. For large amounts of cash or international payments, it can take a week or more. This might seem okay at first, but what if you’re in the middle of a situation like the Ukraine-Russia war. You don’t have a week, you have minutes.
*Human Bias*
Since bank transactions and financial services depend on account numbers and personal information, they are open to biases. In case of a feud with the officials of a certain bank, the financial service issuing officer can deliberately delay the transactions, or, worse, freeze your assets. Every month, thousands of people have their life savings frozen by banks and exchanges.
*Data collection*
A lot of platforms today do share your data with third parties. But it’s one thing for a social media platform to collect your data and another thing for a bank to collect your sensitive information like passport or ID information, residence address, SSN, and employment information.
*Security Issues*
Banks suffer an average of 85 attempted serious cyber attacks a year, and one-third are successful, according to a survey by Accenture. Skilled hackers and engineers can hack many web portals and mobile banking apps. As a result, some people end up losing large sums of cash from their accounts or getting scammed.
