ETH

Ethereum 2.0 Deposit Threshold Met: Proof-of-Stake ‘Beacon’ Chain Starts in 7 Days

24/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

The Ethereum network’s ETH 2.0 contract has crossed the threshold needed to initiate the upcoming upgrade. Currently, there’s more 694,368 ether worth over $422 million resting in the contract, as developers hope the proof-of-stake launch will begin on December 1.

At the end of the first week of November, the Ethereum Foundation initiated the first process of the highly anticipated Ethereum 2.0 (ETH 2.0) upgrade specifications, which detailed the initial rules of the genesis phase 0. The genesis phase 0 contract specification noted that there needed to be approximately 524,288 ETH and at least 16,384 validators to invoke the proof-of-stake process.

The requirements needed to kickstart Ethereum 2.0 for December 1, mandated that the threshold be met by November 24, 2020. Additionally, a web portal called Launch Pad was published so users can learn how to be an ETH validator and secure the blockchain.

The requirements needed to spark the genesis phase 0 process were officially completed on the 24th and there’s now 694,368 ether worth $422 million in the contract.

The contract address has seen approximately 16,736 transactions of around 32 ether per transaction. 32 ETH is what is needed to become a validator and earn a stake on the Ethereum chain. At the current exchange rate of $608 per ether, it costs close to $20k per staking validator. Roughly the last 25% of the ether needed to meet the threshold was deposited into the contract in less than a four-hour timespan.

Screenshot from an editorial called “The Genesis of a Beacon Chain” written by Ben Edgington.

Following the deposit milestone, a great number of Ethereum proponents and developers celebrated. “We reached it,” said Ethereum 2.0 R&D member Hsiao-Wei Wang. “Thanks to all the Eth2 teams and the community that wrote the history. And thanks to the Ethereum critics who made us stronger. Don’t forget to update your Eth2 client in a couple days,” Wang added.

The “Eth 2.0 Deposit Contract – Progress Meter Bot” also tweeted about the landmark occasion and stated:

We have liftoff. Thank you to the devs, the researchers, educators, and community members who made this happen. See you on December 1st @ noon UTC.

Many Ethereum supporters also understand that the Ethereum 2.0 genesis phase 0 will initially start with the “Beacon” blockchain, a baby-step that will make it so the upgrade will have less of an impact on the main network. The ETH 2.0 upgrade will start in seven days’ time and the Beacon chain will begin the first of four initial phases.

Estimates say that Ethereum 2.0 validators could earn about 20% in annualized rewards. After the requirements were filled, Ethereum proponent Tom Shaughnessy said that the Ethereum 2.0 launch “got more attention in an hour than every other layer 1 did this entire year put together.”

Ethereum Foundation member Hudson Jameson tweeted about how the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon chain launch will happen the day prior, and what needs to happen in order to create a successful launch.

“The beacon chain marks the beginning of the transition to Eth 2.0, but that doesn’t mean that everything immediately changes,” Jameson wrote. “Eth 2.0 is a multi-year process and the first few pieces of that process won’t heavily affect the current Ethereum mainnet.”

Jameson also stressed that whatever happens, the Ethereum community should be impressed with the Ethereum 2.0 development team. He also explained when he thought the Beacon chain launch would begin.

“My opinion (not an official stance of the Ethereum Foundation) is that we will launch between December 1st and December 5th,” Jameson concluded. “I base this on how quickly deposits are coming in as of the last 48 hours.”

At the time of publication, ethereum (ETH) is trading for $608 per ether, as the token has gained 26% during the last seven days and 49% in the last 30 days.

What do you think about the culmination of the highly anticipated Ethereum 2.0 launch? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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Exploits and Flash Loans Are Just the Beginning, Defi Economy Is Less Private Than People Think

22/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

Exploits and Flash Loans Are Just the Beginning, Defi Economy Less Private Than People Think

Decentralized finance otherwise known as defi has climbed significantly in value this year, as the total value locked (TVL) in defi today is over $14 billion. Meanwhile, numerous defi platforms are getting attacked with flash loans and there are so many new defi projects, it’s hard to keep track of them all. Moreover, while many defi supporters claim these platforms offer greater privacy, examples now show that most everything can be seen onchain connecting ethereum addresses to identities and companies.

Exploits and Flash Loans Are Becoming Commonplace in the Land of Decentralized Finance

In 2020, defi exploded and there’s billions of dollars sitting in a myriad of platforms and applications today offering a new type of finance. The growth defi has seen is unheard of and resembles the initial coin offering (ICO) days back in 2017. One of the biggest differences, however, is many defi projects are more than just a white paper and token, as numerous applications like Maker, Uniswap, Aave, and others have offered various degrees of utility.

On November 22, 2020, statistics show that the defi TVL has surpassed the $14 billion handle. At the end of August, the defi ecosystem’s aggregate TVL was only $7 billion, which means the defi economy doubled in a mere three months. The massive growth is not without problems and even blatant defi scams. It seems a myriad of defi projects are getting drained by experienced ethereum users, liquidating capital via complex flash loans.

when next defi exploit?

— i.am.nomad (@IamNomad) November 21, 2020

This week alone, news.Bitcoin.com reported on two major flash loans, after reporting on these attacks on multiple occasions beforehand as well. Five days ago the Value Defi project saw a flash loan attack that siphoned $6 million in DAI. This was after the team tweeted that the project had “flash-loan attack prevention” and subsequently deleted the tweet. Flash loans and defi exploits have been happening so much, it’s become a regular activity.

On November 21, 2020, the popular Twitter account “I am nomad” asked his 65,000 followers when the next defi exploit would be in a survey with three choices. The three choices included “today,” “tomorrow,” and “within seven days.” Well not too long after the tweet, The Block’s director of research, Larry Cermak responded to the tweet.

“It was quick,” Cermak replied, sharing an article about the defi platform Pickle Finance getting exploited for close to $20 million.

Exploits and Flash Loans Are Just the Beginning, Defi Economy Is Less Private Than People Think — Defi users have been getting upset at defi projects that have been exploited in recent days and many say some defi developers are incompetent.

The Lidless Eye and Onchain Transactions

Moreover, a few days beforehand, the Twitter handle @n2ckchong (Nick C) shared an interesting perspective of how much of the defi world can be seen onchain.

“What’s beautiful (and kind of scary) about defi is that we can see everything that happens on-chain and connect addresses to identities and firms,” Nick C tweeted on Wednesday. In the Twitter thread, Nick C shows a breakdown of ether addresses stemming from Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Jump Trading, and Polychain Capital.

The first tweet alleges that 3AC is one of “the biggest Compound suppliers” and also notes 3AC has $100M in WBTC, $50M in ETH, and $6M in the stablecoin DAI. “3AC is also supplying 275 YFI and $13M in LINK to Aave and is farming SUSHI with 1.5M recently-acquired SUSHI,” Nick C said. “3AC [also] acquired 351k LINK during [the] recent dip,” he added. In another tweet, Nick C breaks down some ostensible estimates from Polychain Capital’s defi action.

“Polychain Capital has been the biggest YFI buyer over the past few weeks,” he further wrote. “They’ve acquired 570 YFI (~2% total supply) over the past five weeks at an estimated cost basis of $12~14k. They also own 48,000 ETH and 1,315 MKR on this address,” Nick C detailed. The Twitter thread also gives a breakdown of Jump Trading’s defi action as well as Nick C notes that Jump Trading is “a massive prop trading firm based in Chicago.” The researcher continued by adding:

[Jump Trading] are big investors in Ethereum tokens as well.

Nick C’s insights earned him a great number of Twitter followers after he shared his thoughts about the three firms and the defi action. After publishing the thread, Nick C got a few thousand followers and he said he “would continue posting high-signal content when I have the time.”

The perspective Nick C shared on Wednesday shows how the defi economy displays highly visible content onchain, and it’s a lot less private than most people think.

What do you think about all the defi exploits these days and the visibility of million-dollar onchain transactions and trades? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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Bitcoin Derivatives See Record Highs, Year-End BTC Options Show 29% Chance Price Crosses $20K

20/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

As the crypto economy sets its sights on half of a trillion in USD value, digital currency derivatives markets are swelling significantly. Bitcoin futures have surpassed a six-month high at $52 billion, while the crypto asset’s options markets have jumped massively too. Additionally, bitcoin options markets indicate that traders wager there’s a 29% chance the price of BTC will be above $20,000 by December 25, 2020.

At the time of publication, the entire cryptocurrency economy is hovering just below the 500 billion-dollar mark. While cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH have seen solid spot market gains, crypto derivatives have skyrocketed with significant interest.

Data from the website Coinalyze indicates that global BTC futures have spiked over $52 billion, which is the highest derivatives markets have seen in over six months. The bitcoin futures momentum touched an all-time high (ATH) and the researchers from Skew.com tweeted about the milestone.

“All-time high for BTC futures daily volumes yesterday, exceeding the previous record by more than 20%,” the Skew analytics team said on Thursday.

The top three Bitcoin futures market leaders in late 2020 include exchanges like Okex, Binance, and Bybit, as the exchange Bitmex trails behind in the fourth position. As far as futures open interest is concerned, Okex captured $1.1 billion on Wednesday, November 19.

Skew noted that there is strong demand for the three to six month upside sharing a perspective from the BTC volatility surface. Skew.com also highlighted bitcoin options markets and the probability of the crypto asset reaching the $20k handle.

“The probability of bitcoin [at] $20k at year-end [equals] 25% according to the options market,” Skew also noted on Thursday.

The leading options exchange Deribit, the trading platform that commands a lion’s share of the world’s bitcoin options, discussed the recent demand for bitcoin derivatives. Deribit, said on Wednesday afternoon (EST), that there is “a lot of speculation about BTC reaching a new ATH by the end of the year.”

“Options markets indicate a 29% chance BTC’s price could be above $20,000 by December 25, 2020,” the exchange Deribit said. The exchange has seen new trading records as far as options action is concerned, and total Deribit open interest is over $4.5 billion between both bitcoin and ethereum markets. Deribit stats also show 194,797 bitcoin options contracts with a notional metric at $3.49 billion and ETH options notional is at $581 million.

With anywhere between 25% to 29% of options swaps predicting the price will be above the $20k handle in late December, it doesn’t mean the bets guarantee the price will come to fruition. However, it does mean those traders are willing to bet money that BTC will reach that point at that particular time.

Traders tend to believe derivatives markets like bitcoin futures and options can help forecast future market sentiment. Oftentimes many traders leverage the futures basis indicator or the bitcoin futures annualized rolling 3-month basis to gauge market sentiment. As of right now according to the futures basis indicator optimism is still quite high.

What do you think about the recent bitcoin derivatives markets touching all-time highs and the probability of bitcoin reaching the $20k handle? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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Coinflex Launches Noncustodial Interest-Bearing Stablecoin on BCH and ETH Networks

19/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinflex has announced the launch of a unique interest-bearing stablecoin called Flexusd. The new stablecoin is considered to be the first dollar-backed crypto that pays interest at the base level. Moreover, the new token is built on the Ethereum blockchain and the Bitcoin Cash network as well by leveraging the Simple Ledger Protocol.

The digital currency trading platform Coinflex has revealed the creation of a new stablecoin token that bears interest. A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency that is tied to the price of a fiat currency and traditionally it’s the U.S. dollar. This allows people to hold crypto assets without exposing themselves to massive price fluctuations found in bitcoin (BTC) or ethereum (ETH) markets.

The stablecoin economy has grown massive and today there’s $23 billion worth of fiat-pegged digital assets. Coinflex.com’s CEO Mark Lamb told his Twitter followers about the new stablecoin token on Wednesday.

“We’re proud to have launched the first interest bearing stablecoin,” Lamb tweeted. “Flexusd pays yield while you hold the private keys. Currently paying 8% interest, it earns yield from our repo market which powers our deliverable perps. The only sustainable yield is from leverage,” the Coinflex CEO added.

The new token’s website description explains that Flexusd is a multi-yield bearing stablecoin that operates in a noncustodial fashion. Traditionally, stablecoins give some of the highest yields on the market but users need to use them as collateral or deposit them on a centralized exchange.

“Flexusd and all Flex assets earn interest even when just sitting in a wallet, defi app, exchange or margin account,” the web portal notes. “This enables what we call ‘yield on yield’ i.e. using natively yield-bearing Flex Assets to earn extra yield on top from these various sources in crypto.”

Coinflex details that the token will be made available via the Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash blockchain during the initial launch. The exchange is leveraging the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) framework for the coins on the BCH side. In the future, Coinflex plans to spread Flexusd across a myriad of chains including networks like Polkadot, Tron, and EOS. The Coinflex issued stablecoin will also be available via a variety of decentralized finance (defi) platforms.

The ‘yield on yield’ scheme not only provides benefits for Flexusd stablecoin owners as Coinflex details that the concept works with Flex wrapped assets like Flexbtc, Flexeth, and Flexlink. Accordingly, Coinflex says the exchange will undertake three repo auctions per day, and Flex asset users will get a “pro-rata share of any interest earned by users borrowing assets that underlie the flex assets.”

On social media and crypto-related forums, a number of BCH proponents were excited about the interest-bearing stablecoin. “This is huge,” the full node Bitcoin Cash development team Bitcoin Unlimited tweeted.

On Reddit, one Bitcoin Cash supporter asked what the difference between Flexusd and tether was and whether or not the new tokens were backed and audited. The Coinflex CEO responded to the question and said: “It’s always fully backed. Flexusd lends the underlying USDC into Coinflex’s repo market.”

“There will be audits, in fact, we’re open-sourcing the code of the repo lending bot and also the read-only API keys,” Lamb concluded. “So you will be able to see all balances at all times and verify exactly what’s going on underneath the hood. The difference versus USDT is USDT pays 0% interest and Flexusd pays interest.”

What do you think about the stablecoin Flexusd and the concept of earning interest at the base layer? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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Bitcoin Touches $18K, Crypto Asset Looks to Smash All-Time High, ETH Price Could Spike 20x

18/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

On Wednesday, November 18, 2020, the price of bitcoin has been coasting along at levels not seen since the decentralized currency’s all-time high three years ago in 2017. The cryptocurrency’s market capitalization is currently hovering at around $334 billion today. Likewise, the daily rate of bitcoin issuance during the last three years makes the overall market valuation higher than it was when bitcoin touched $19,600 per coin.

Earlier this morning (EST), bitcoin (BTC) had surpassed the $18k per unit price zone, as the crypto asset has climbed a whopping 54% during the last 30 days. During the last 90 days against the U.S. dollar, BTC is up 53% and over the last 12 months against USD, the cryptocurrency is up a massive 123% to-date.

Three years ago, bitcoin touched an all-time high of $19,600 on Bitstamp, but because of the three years of bitcoin issuance from miners, BTC’s market cap is higher today than it was on December 17, 2017. Today, bitcoin is undoubtedly the best financial vehicle during the last decade, as it has surpassed stocks, equities, commodities, and nearly every asset under the sun.

Crypto is witnessing a watershed moment. For the first time, it is being considered an enduring, fundamentally new asset class by mainstream.#Bitcoin is leading the rally right now, with new money coming in from funds that allocate a small percent of their holdings to crypto.

— Emin Gün Sirer (@el33th4xor) November 17, 2020

For example, 12 years ago back in July 2010, a single BTC was swapping for $0.08 per unit. This means with BTC above the $18k handle (or just below), the crypto asset has increased in value over 22 million percent since 2010. If a person waited even five years later, in 2015 the price of BTC was swapping between $200-300 per coin. An investment in bitcoin at this level (2015) would give an investor 7,100% with BTC exchange rates at the $18k mark.

Data shows that at the current price levels, any person with a touch over 55 BTC has crossed the millionaire zone. Statistics show that there are 664,900 unique addresses with anywhere between 1-10 BTC and 2.3 million unique addresses with 0.1 to 1 BTC each. Stats from bitinfocharts.com also indicates there are 25,810 unique addresses that own a million dollars worth of bitcoin. Beyond those million-dollar whales, 3,442 addresses contain $10 million in BTC today as well.

Governments will start blaming #Bitcoin for hyperinflation as their soft currency price of BTC continues to rise as their citizens try to escape the economic fallout around the corner. Bitcoin will get banned in many countries over the next 12 months, but it will be too late…

— Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham) November 18, 2020

Meanwhile, as bitcoin (BTC) continues to grow in value, the crypto assets inflation rate or rate of issuance continues to drop lower. Unlike Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve Chair who noted the U.S. central bank would let inflation run hotter than usual, Satoshi’s system is predictable and mathematically secure.

In fact, worldwide most central banks claim the financial institutions keep the inflation rate target around 2%, but there are a few lenient countries that reference rates as high as 4%. And even though central banks claim 2% is the reference mark globally, shadowstats.com statistics reveal the real rate could be as high as 10%.

On February 24, 2020, just before the third BTC reward halving, the decentralized currency’s inflation rate was hovering around 3.86%. Today, that metric is a lot lower, and continues to sink as the current bitcoin (BTC) inflation rate is only 2.71% at the time of publication.

After BTC busted through the $18k zone, the crypto asset analyst from Etoro, Simon Peters, said that “bitcoin will now be setting its sights on the all-time high of $20,000” in a note to investors.

“Three years on, there are a whole host of factors contributing to the current price rise, including a massive influx of investors from large scale institutions such as listed investment trusts, pension schemes and university endowment funds, which shows how far bitcoin has come,” Peters wrote on Wednesday morning. “Data sets that analyse the health of bitcoin by looking at data from the blockchain, the technology underpinning crypto, are also reporting strong signals that justify the recent price rises.”

The digital currency analyst added:

The $20,000 level is clearly the next target for bitcoin. Should we surpass that this year, which I believe is possible, then we are into uncharted territory as sentiment remains positive. Bitcoin’s maturity, evidenced by the diversity of its investors and extensive and wide-ranging data sets, means that we can say with some trepidation, ‘this time is different’.

With bitcoin (BTC) prices riding so high, this week crypto proponents have been wondering whether or not an ‘altcoin season’ is coming around the bend. So far, with BTC’s dominance levels at 68.7%, it doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for now.

However, there are a few notable altcoins moving northbound in value too like the second largest blockchain in terms of market cap Ethereum. The popular cryptocurrency analyst on Twitter called @intocryptoverse believes at some point ETH prices could top $10k per coin.

“If ETH continues on in this manner and is, in fact, one market cycle behind BTC, then we will peak at approximately 1,000% above the fair value in a few years,” the trader predicted on Twitter. “If this happens in say, 2023, then this could put a theoretical peak just shy of a modest $10k per ETH,” @intocryptoverse concluded.

What do you think about bitcoin crossing $18k and the possibility of ethereum touching the $10k handle? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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