Despite the volatility in the market, cryptocurrencies still witnessed a strong year, with some currencies posting gains of at least 5,000 per cent in market value, bringing huge profits to investors.

The total market capitalisation was around US$771 billion at the beginning of the year and it’s now at $2.2 trillion.

Some popular coins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have climbed by 35-45 per cent in value in 2021. However, before reaching the current stable state, Bitcoin had seen some strong corrections.

In mid-February, Bitcoin surpassed US$1 trillion in market value for the first time as some major companies like Tesla started using their balance sheets to buy Bitcoin. The biggest crypto in market capitalisation hit $65,000 in April before plunging more than 50 per cent in May. The downtrend continued in June following Elon Musk’s tweets concerning the environmental impact of mining and China’s tightening of crypto transactions.

The sell-off caused the prices of some currencies to drop as much as 30-40 per cent in a few hours. But Bitcoin buyers returned in September and the crypto price broke over the $69,000 level, then Bitcoin recorded the longest losing streak. Bitcoin is gradually climbing back in the last days of 2021, trading at around $51,000.

The cryptocurrency market also received a lot of positive news, including the largest US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase successfully listing on Nasdaq, partly affirming the position of cryptocurrencies in the investment market.

Some coins have posted extraordinary gains this year, up over 5,000 per cent such as BakeryToken (BAKE), up more than 6,000 per cent, Fantom (FTM), up over 7,500 per cent and Gala (GALA) – a community-based blockchain gaming platform – even rising over 40,000 per cent.

Therefore, it is not exaggerating to say crypto is the most impressive investment channel of the year.

Phan Dung Khanh, Head of Investment Advisory at Maybank Kim Eng, said that there are two popular investment channels in 2021, which are securities and digital assets.

“Digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, are a trading channel that has not been recognised by law, but the number of investors participating in the market is still very large,” Khanh said.

A report from Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics firm, showed that Viet Nam ranks fourth among the largest countries in terms of profits earned from cryptocurrency, behind China, Japan and South Korea.

Of which, Vietnamese investors have earned $400 million in 2020 from investing in Bitcoin alone, ranking 13th in the world. Previously, according to a survey by Finder and Statista, Viet Nam also became the world’s top country in terms of the percentage of the population owning cryptocurrencies.

Dao Tuan Anh, a banker, said that he has invested around $3,000-4,000 in cryptocurrencies since May. “Because of social distancing, I can’t go to work and have a lot of free time, so I looked for investment channels and the crypto market is quite popular now,” Tuan Anh said.

“I don’t spend much on this channel since it is still new to me. I choose to allocate my capital in different virtual coins, including Bitcoin.

“Even though the crypto market was highly volatile and Bitcoin has dropped recently, I still gained 15 per cent.

“With other coins, some I gained 30 per cent, but some lost up to 50 per cent.”

Although there are forecasts about the downtrend of cryptocurrencies next year, many experts still believe that the market will continue to be active.

As the crypto market is very risky, with many fake crypto exchanges in Viet Nam, investors should learn and understand the assets they are going to invest in. Meanwhile, picking the right time to join the market is also a crucial factor.

@ VNS

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The Ministry of Finance of Vietnam has set up a research committee to begin a comprehensive examination of cryptocurrencies with the goal of enacting new legislation to regulate the sector.

While bitcoin trade and use is on the rise around the world, Vietnamese law has no mention of it.

However, the ongoing economic transformation in Vietnam provides a suitable environment for cryptocurrencies to thrive. Apps, QR codes, and e-wallets are becoming increasingly common payment methods in Vietnam as the country moves toward cashless transactions. There is a drive for electronic payments by the government to cut cash transactions by 90% by 2020, which was signed by the Prime Minister in 2017.

It’s projected that by 2030, the number of Vietnamese people utilizing cryptocurrencies would have tripled to one million. In the coming years, the sector is expected to be extremely lucrative.

In spite of this, the country is plagued by cryptocurrency crime, which includes currency thefts, hacks, and cyber scams. Scamming more than 30,000 investors into ill-defined cryptocurrency projects and initial coin offerings, the Vietnamese start-up Modern Tech vanished from the public eye in 2018. (ICO). US$660 million was lost by investors. Therefore, Vietnam’s current problem is to create a legal device for managing and handling virtual assets.

Vietnam Starts To Regulate Cryptos

Until today, Vietnam, like many other countries, had no idea how to deal with the sudden influx of cryptocurrencies into its territory.

Cryptocurrency skepticism is understandable. For example, state-owned banks with no control over cryptosystems are challenged by their immaterial character. Speculation and manipulation, which have the potential to have enormous effects on national economies, are on top of the list of government concerns. Legislative processes are also triggered by virtual currency volatility and a widespread lack of information. As a result, there exist legal voids all throughout the world. Vietnamese law, like it’s written on this website, does not identify or recognize cryptocurrencies as an asset or foreign money at this time, nor does it reference them as a legal mode of payment. It has been explicitly stated by the State Bank of Vietnam that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are unlawful and are not allowed to be used in trade transactions.

There is a punishment of up to US$8,700 and up to six months in prison if you use or supply or issue cryptocurrencies on the territory. Although it is not illegal to own, trade, or invest in cryptocurrencies, it is merely tolerated for the time being.

In any case, a legal void of this magnitude is dangerous, and Vietnam must act quickly to minimize the negative effects of cryptocurrencies.

In the long run, there are countless public, social, and economic advantages to any new rules.

First and foremost, it will give Vietnam a way to tax the cryptocurrency trade, bringing in new income. Previously tax-exempt exchanges of foreign currencies or financial assets may now be subject to business or personal income tax if they are defined as such.

Vietnam should also regulate cryptocurrencies to effectively combat money laundering, hacking, and other unlawful activity associated with virtual currencies.

A safe regulatory environment for cryptocurrency users will be ensured as a result. If that happens, the government’s approach to cryptocurrencies would evolve from passive advice and caution to one of proactive defense.

Crypto Regulation Around The World

Companies that deal in crypto-assets in the United Kingdom are required to register with the Financial Conduct Authority of the United Kingdom (FCA). Crypto companies may apply for a license to operate as “Authorized Payment Institutions” (APIs). BCB Payments Limited received the first UK license for a crypto asset firm. Regulation of crypto-asset enterprises in the UK is required for anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) reasons. The UK High Court has ruled that digital currency such as Bitcoin is property under British common law.

Singapore: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is authorized to regulate cryptocurrency trade under Singapore’s Payment Services Act,2020. A license is required to operate a bitcoin exchange. Public offerings and digital currency issuance are governed by the Securities and Futures Act of 2001. Those wishing to move their blockchain and cryptocurrency businesses in India know that Singapore is a top choice. A renowned Indian cryptocurrency exchange, CoinDCX, has moved its headquarters to Singapore. – More than INR 100 crores in finance has been acquired for the company since then from worldwide sources of capital In addition, Unocoin, a second Indian cryptocurrency exchange, has emerged.

The government of Indonesia is one of the few in the world to have prohibited cryptocurrencies at one point before permitting their legal usage later on. All payment systems and financial technology providers in Indonesia were banned from handling virtual currency transactions from the beginning of 2018. Regulation of the trade of crypto assets, like commodities, was passed into law by Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency in 2019. Cryptocurrency futures contracts must be handled in accordance with AML/CFT regulations. Additionally, the Indonesian Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center is obligated to receive reports from the organizations.

Canada: In 2018, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released a notice to make it clear that organizations trading cryptocurrencies or tokens must adhere to securities regulation requirements.. Platforms that promote the trade of crypto-assets will be subject to securities regulation, according to a new notice released in January 2020. All virtual currency enterprises in Canada will be obliged to implement anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) measures by June 1, 2020, if they haven’t already.

As a consequence, each of these countries has implemented laws controlling the exchange of cryptocurrencies. An anti-money laundering and anti-fraud framework have been put in place for bitcoin businesses. There’s a chance that India may follow suit.

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NFT (non-fungible token) is a data unit of the blockchain (digital ledger), and each token can represent a unique piece of digital information.

Since these tokens are not interchangeable, NFT can represent digital archives, such as paintings, sounds, movies, in-game items, or other forms of creative works.

While the archives (works) themselves are infinitely replicable, they can be tracked through their underlying blockchains by tokens that represent them, thus providing the buyer with proof of ownership. Cryptocurrencies such as ETH and BTC have their token standards that define the use of NFT.

According to Nonfungible, the year 2021 witnessed the exponential growth of the NFT market, with the transaction volume reaching $754 million in the second quarter of 2021, up 3,453% year-over-year/quarter-over-quarter. In addition, the global payment giant Visa announced the purchase and collection of NFT digital works of art CryptoPunks for $150,000. FACEBOOK is also considering introducing functional NFT alongside its digital wallet. Therefore, as increasing giants aggressively gain access into the NET market, this market is ready to explode.

However, the cumbersome procedures of the NFT market are discouraging for many investment beginners. Moreover, even though all NFT projects in the market contend for attention, their complex product specifications make it difficult for beginners to acquire a detailed and thorough knowledge in the short term, and consumers need to switch to different pages to make their investments.

SUN, launched on December 13, 2021, is the world’s first multi-currency NFT investment platform which was born to solve the above pain points. Thanks to the simplified investment procedures and the simple menu design that clearly illustrates the product operation rules, consumers, with little time and effort, are enabled to understand the products they are going to invest in most efficiently through this platform.

The development of any financial system in the world is inseparable from an opportunity raised from the platform effect. The birth of SUN provides the NFT ecosystem with a new possibility of platform development model, enabling consumers to benefit more from platform development and quantitative investment. With access to SUN to participate in multiple quality projects, the platform can realize the two-way choice between the buyer’s market and the seller’s market and provide both parties with the most direct support for resources and traffic, enabling each party involved to achieve more efficient resource utilization.

SUN can take advantage of mainstream currencies such as BTC, ETH, FIL, BNB, SHIB, NFT, DOGE, AXS, USDT, etc. to form counterparty order books in major decentralized exchanges, realize deep learning of algorithms in smart contract systems, and automatically search and screen arbitrage transactions. In doing so, it can trade on uninterrupted liquidity injection and real-time changes to obtain market transaction commission, trade on the time difference, and counterparty orders without loss.

Meanwhile, liquidity mining can be carried out based on the SUN pledge, and the governance token ST of the SUN platform can be mined for free and without damage. Consumers can immediately convert ST into major cryptocurrencies within the platform or make secondary transactions in PancakeSwap.

Crypto finance is gradually increasing its market share in the traditional market, whose products, with higher returns and more profits made anytime and anywhere, are comparable to investment products. For those outsiders, the journey of investing in crypto assessment has just begun, and quantitative trading tools will jump on the bandwagon. Picking the right investment tools to avoid being interrupted by constant transactions, complex jargon, and inhumane transaction procedures will be fundamental for investors.

SUN, having been invested by Multicoin Capital, Defi Alliance, IOSG Ventures, Ethereal Ventures, Krane Ventures, and so on, is the best investment platform in the NFT market for it is easy to operate and yield high returns. To secure a stable income, choosing different liquid pledge pools is advisable. In the future, SUN will devote itself to ecological construction and provide consumers with more application possibilities.

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Cryptocurrencies are the most popular application of blockchain technology in Vietnam today. Compared to fiat currencies, such as USD or EUR, which are regulated, crypto currencies remain volatile and turbulent. Therefore, Vietnam needs a stable-coin, which provides a degree of stability in a volatile market.

By having a cryptocurrency that works just like the Vietnamese currency, market participants in Vietnam will be able to trade more pleasantly every time the market appears to change.

The VNDA token is designed to be a bridge between crypto and fiat currencies on digital exchanges, minimizing risks for investors and traders.

Basic parameters of token VNDA

• Token Name: VNDA Coin
• Total number of tokens: 900. 000. 000. 000. 000,00
• Decimals: 2
• Smart Contract Address: TKWsxjh97sCPipTAfghW7vDFdx2HhjecCe
• Token Technical Standard: TRC-20
• Trang Web: www.vnda.cc
• Exchange: www.localvnd.com
• Team & Partner: Kim Duong Duong Co. Ltd.
• Wallet: TronLink Wallet.

Outstanding characteristics of VNDA token

VNDA as a stable-coin, is fully pegged with Vietnamese currency (VND) and can be converted in a ratio of 1:1. As a result, VNDA can be integrated extremely easily with e-wallets, other crypto currencies, as well as many exchanges and trading platforms in today’s market.

Holders of THE VNDA token will receive a flexible profit, generated from transaction fees and minimum foreign exchange fees. Owners can earn extra money by sending VNDA via the VNDA platform.

Here are some other notable features of the VNDA token:

• VNDA can be converted to Dong Vietnam (VND) on the VNDA platform and transferred to the bank account of the domestic owner.
• VNDA deploys tokens through a reliable, simple and frequently professionally tested Proof of Reserve algorithm.
• VNDA will soon be able to be converted into other cryptocurrencies on the world’s leading exchanges.

The VNDA token will provide a convenient crypto payment experience, incorporating next-generation blockchain technology. By introducing an advanced user experience, Vietnamese users will be able to pay with a platform of the future at a transparent price.

The post Everything to know about VNDA – the top Stable-coin in Vietnam appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Ethereum (ether), Binance Coin and Solana (SOL) were among several other leading cryptocurrencies to also tumble in value, dipping by between 5-10 per cent on Tuesday morning.

The price crash comes less than a week after bitcoin hit a new all-time high of close to $69,000, the Crypto Insider reported.

The overall crypto market fell by more than $200 billion overnight to around $2.6 trillion, having briefly teased $3 trillion during the record-breaking rally last week, according to Crypto Insider.

The reason for the price crash is not immediately clear, with several factors potentially contributing to the slide.

Among them are a renewed crackdown on BTC mining in China, the rejection by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), and long-term investors skimming off profits from their holdings.

Bitcoin’s price is notoriously volatile and analysts say it is too early to tell whether the latest dip marks the start of a reversal of the 2020/21 bull market, or whether it is just a correction on the way to new all-time highs.

“Bitcoin’s sell-off has taken it back to levels last seen 10 days ago, hardly a plunge, more a correction of the multi-month rally,” Nicholas Cawley, an analyst at foreign exchange firm DailyFX, told The Independent.

“The one area of concern is that the move lower has seen bitcoin fall out of its multi-week ascending channel, turning the technical outlook from positive to neutral.

“An interesting area of support is around $59,500 – if this holds then we may well see bitcoin reclaim its recent losses, and look at printing a new all-time high, over the coming weeks.”

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London’s massive public transport body is cracking down on crypto ads after meme token floki inu’s campaign flooded the city’s travel system

Transport for London said at the weekend it would ensure crypto ads complied with its policies from now on.
“Missed Doge? Get Floki ” posters appeared throughout the city’s travel system, touting the unregulated meme crypto coin.
S​​iân Berry, Green party London Assembly member, told Britain’s Guardian that crypto ads were unethical.

London’s transport authority is going to crack down on ads for cryptocurrencies after the massive campaign to tout dogecoin spinoff floki inu around the city’s travel system sparked concern about unregulated assets like this one.

“Missed Doge? Get Floki” was the slogan splattered across London’s underground stations, trains and buses in October. The three-week campaign for meme token floki inu, inspired by Elon Musk’s dog, was even funded by a 4% marketing fee levied on buyers.

Some critics were concerned about the fact the ads were promoting a little-known and unregulated financial asset that they said could be open to manipulation, such as pump-and-dump schemes, or fraud. There has been no evidence this far that would suggest floki inu has been subject to any such schemes.

“Since 2018, we have asked our advertising partners to refer all cryptocurrency advertising to us for review prior to it running on our estate,” Chris Reader, head of commercial media at Transport for London (TfL), told Insider Monday.

“When reviewing copy now from cryptocurrency brands who wish to advertise on our estate, we ensure that campaigns contain sufficient information to comply with both our policy and the ASA [Advertising Standards Authority] ruling.”

TfL’s policy stated that nothing controversial or sensitive can be advertised on its platforms among other things.

This isn’t the first time that a crypto advertiser has fallen foul of the rules. Earlier this year, crypto exchange Luno ran an ad campaign on the underground and on London’s famous double-decker buses with the slogan “if you’re seeing bitcoin on the underground, it’s time to buy.” Britain’s advertising watchdog banned the posters, calling them “misleading and irresponsible.”

Speculative crypto tokens are unregulated in the UK and officials have regularly voiced their concerns about how risky they are. Charles Randell, the chair of the Financial Conduct Authority, a regulatory body, said in a speech in September: “if you buy (crypto), you should be prepared to lose all your money.”

“The FCA does not currently have the power to oversee how unregulated cryptoassets, like floki inu, are advertised to consumers,” a spokesperson for the regulator said in an emailed response.

A couple of weeks ago, fraudsters ran off with at least $2 million in a pump-and-dump scam involving the Squid Game token, which draws its name from the Netflix hit show, but is not affiliated with it.

Floki inu is a legitimate cryptocurrency. But it carried warnings on its posters about the risks to potential buyers.

“Where the advert says ‘this is completely unregulated, you may lose all your money’, they ought to have had second thoughts. I don’t think cryptocurrency ads should be on the network. They’re unethical,” S​​iân Berry, the Green party London Assembly member told Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Experts have said that one way to check the legitimacy of a coin is to find out if it has different real-world use cases. According to the floki inu website, the coin will be linked to a play-to-earn gaming metaverse called Valhalla that is under development, as well as a non-fungible token marketplace.

By Camomile Shumba

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Vietnam has the second highest rate of in terms of cryptocurrency use among 74 surveyed economies, driven by remittance payments, a new report says.

The report on survey results released by Statista, a global provider of market and consumer data, says 21 percent of respondents in Vietnam said that they used or owned cryptocurrency, second after Nigeria (32 percent).

The Philippines ranked third at 20 percent, followed by Turkey and Peru, both at 16 percent, said the survey which covered 1,000-4,000 respondents per country.

The rest of the top 10 comprised Switzerland, China, the U.S., Germany and Japan.

“For Vietnam and the Philippines, remittance payments play a role in the widespread use of cryptocurrency,” the report said.

The high cost of sending money across borders in conventional ways has caused many to turn to local cryptocurrency exchanges, catering to overseas workers and their families, it added.

However, cryptocurrency has not been recognized as a legitimate means of payment in Vietnam. The State Bank of Vietnam has warned that owning, trading and using cryptocurrency was risky and not protected by laws, the Vietnam Insider reported.

Earlier reports have noted that while the Vietnamese diaspora typically sent remittances to Vietnam to support their families, there has been a shift in recent years. Now, a significant portion of remittances are used as investment for doing business in the country.

Around 580,000 Vietnamese citizens work overseas now, up from 500,000 in 2010, according to the Department of Overseas Labor under the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, according to Vietnam Insider.

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The masters of the metaverse – thousands of CryptoPunks and Bored Apes, artists and hackers, sharp-eyed ideals and profit-hungry speculators – came to Manhattan last week, looking for a look. glimpse into the future.

Officially, they were here for NFT.NYC, a conference devoted to immutable tokens, or NFT, the blockchain-based collection that changed the crypto and art worlds for the year. now on. Organizers said the conference, now in its third year, drew a record crowd of 5,000 people, plus a 3,000 waiting list.

Every day, they come to boards with titles like “Major Blockchain Game” and “Fintech and NFTs: Risk and Regulation”.

But the real action happened at night, during an informal party — a weeklong jaunt of boom-time excitement that some attendees jokingly called “Crypto Coachella.”

It’s an up-and-coming party for the NFT community, which was born online and only recently started experimenting with offline fun. On Sunday, the Bored Ape Yacht Club – an elite NFT group whose members own an insanely expensive animated series of monkeys – threw a rager aboard an actual yacht on the Hudson River. On Monday, partygoers headed to VR World in Midtown for a party led by an NFT collector named Seedphrase, who appeared on stage in a CryptoPunk helmet that lit up the stage. And on Tuesday, entrepreneurs rubbed elbows with drag queens at a downtown party hosted by Playboy to promote the magazine’s new NFT “Rabbitars” collection.

It’s a more diverse group than one might think, mainly due to the presence of so many artists and musicians among crypto investors, investors annoyed with FOMO and in line with the industry. company. Many NFT collectors know each other only from Twitter threads and Discord chats, and a few use their real names or photos online, opting instead for pseudonyms and cartoon avatars. At first, they spent a lot of time figuring out who they might know as CoolCat43 or ApeChad690 and whether the guy dressed as CryptoPunk #3706 actually owned CryptoPunk #3706. (He did.)

They also found that not all customs of the online NFT world translate well to the meat space. T-shirts emblazoned with chants like “Wagmi” (we will all succeed) drew some confused looks from passersby. One morning, a group of NFT fans in Times Square struggled to start the song “gm, New York” — “gm” is the traditional Twitter greeting of the converted cryptocurrency. In the end, even Elmo looked embarrassed.

And forget about trying to explain to the uninitiated what an NFT conference is or why you’re flying across the country to attend it. I overheard a number of attempts, mostly with polite waiters and bartenders, almost always stopping somewhere around the word “origin”. The real answer for some of them – “we buy digital tokens that correspond to JPEG because digital tokens that correspond to JPEG sometimes become extremely valuable and they I’m here because we want to find out which digital tokens correspond to the next JPEG that will become incredibly valuable so we can buy them and retire early” – often raises more questions than answer.

I’m a fan of NFTs, but in some ways they’re great for an IRL gathering. Like cryptocurrencies themselves, they are a purely digital phenomenon – a technology that allows anyone to buy and sell invisible pieces of the Internet as if they were physical objects, whether it be a transaction. NBA featured videos or auctions of digital art collections. And between the cramped element of some NFT subgroups and the literal prevalence of children among the NFT elite, it’s a scene that could benefit from a little more occultism.

By Monday night, the V.I.P. Gathering at a rooftop reception of the Edison Hotel seems to have solved the problem. Unmasking and flagging down trays of sliders and risotto balls, they chat about their project and talk about how discovering the NFT has changed their lives.

Mostly, they seem grateful to be in each other’s company.

“I’ve met a lot of people online over the past year, and they’re all here,” said Keith Soljacich, Chicago-based advertising executive. “I’m with my people and I don’t need to withhold or translate.”

Jessica Ewud, an NFT artist with the stage name Ragzy, said she thinks the conference is like a coming-out party for the indelible token.

“It’s just all the worlds coming together – art, technology – and we’re celebrating the good times of this booming industry,” she said.

“For me, this is Woodstock,” said Kenn Bosak, a Philadelphia-based NFT collector who has a small facial tattoo that turns out, under close examination, to be the letters N-F-T. (“I achieved it the day I became a millionaire,” he explains.)

Woodstock – signifying the mainstream of a youthful counterculture – is indeed a fitting comparison to an assemblage like NFT.NYC, albeit on a different scale. The crypto business is booming, with Bitcoin and Ethereum prices near all-time highs and new money pouring in. Major corporations are co-opting the language and aesthetics of crypto to market themselves to young customers, and celebrities are promoting their own crypto exchanges and NFTs. And while there are still many crypto skeptics, including by US regulators, the industry’s reputation as a haven for crime and tax fraud is fading. Today, the emerging view seems to be that cryptocurrencies are great – something that even the most sincere of believers did not dispute until recently.

I assume much of this shift is due to the cross-attractiveness of NFTs, which have turned what people don’t understand (cryptocurrency) into things they already do (fan merchandise and loot). high end), and this has drawn everyone from Coca-Cola to Martha Stewart to dip their feet in. More than $10 billion in NFTs were sold last quarter, up 700% from the previous quarter’s sales, according to DappRadar, a company that tracks blockchain sales.

Of course, such growth will create a bubble and many crypto enthusiasts will admit that the NFT market is one. The hype surrounding big, expensive NFTs – like Beeple’s $69 million sale earlier this year – has flooded the market with scammers and opportunists trying to make a quick buck. fast. And while it’s entirely possible that the NFT will play some role in the future of art, it’s hard to argue frankly whether a painting of the rock should sell for $1.3 million or so. The fair market value of the New York Times is more than $500,000. (Though, believe me, I tried.)

There are a few warning voices at NFT.NYC, including Gary Vaynerchuk, the popular social media marketer and founder of VaynerMedia. Mr. Vaynerchuk, who has his own line of NFTs “VeeFriends”, said in his keynote on Tuesday that he was worried that investors jumped into the NFT recklessly and they could suffer losses. serious if the market crashes.

Mr. Vaynerchuk said: “90% of people in our space are in business to earn a bag. “I’m extremely worried about people betting money they can’t afford.”

But today’s smart investors don’t buy seven-figure JPEGs. In fact, many of them are looking entirely at the past NFT artworks, towards a new and glorious future, they believe that the whole NFT phenomenon is ultimately pointing us towards prior to.

The phenomenon is “Web3” (ooh, ahh), a flashy, new industry term for a new kind of decentralized internet service that doesn’t run on massive servers owned by major Valley corporations. Silicon like Google and Facebook, but on public blockchains, with a token-based reward system that allows users to profit from their online activities.

Web3 is part of a picture of the future that Mark Zuckerberg painted last month, when he announced that Facebook was changing its name to Meta and focusing on creating immersive digital experiences and virtual reality games. lifelike. But the vision goes beyond social media or VR. Many young crypto entrepreneurs today are looking to tear down the entire technological foundation of the modern world and rebuild it piece by piece on the blockchain.

If they are successful, one day your electronic health record will be an NFT, which you will be able to seamlessly transport between doctors. The song of your favorite musician? That would also be the NFT, presumably attached to a smart contract that allows you to share their future royalties. Your kid’s Fortnite skin? NFT or something like that and she should be able to transfer them from game to game.

Haven’t had much of this vision yet, but it’s interesting to think about. And crypto innovators are saving on the promise of a new blank canvas.

Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Paradigm, a crypto-focused investment firm, said: “This is what I’m most excited about about crypto since Ethereum launched in 2015. “Suddenly , the total range of people interested in cryptocurrency has expanded by 10. It goes beyond digital money and beyond a new financial system. Cryptocurrencies are also culture now. “

The post It’s time to get on the Yacht as cryptocurrency is cool? appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Mason Versluis, who goes by Crypto Mason on TikTok, began investing in crypto in 2017. Since then, he’s spent his time browsing the web for new projects that have the potential to go mainstream.

He bought hedera (HBAR), which could prove to be an ethereum competitor, when it was at $0.03. It has since gone up by about 1,200%. He bought ripple’s xrp at $0.17, and it’s since up 600%. And he bought the ethereum-based quant (QNT) at $28, which is up about 864%, according to screenshots of the transactions Insider viewed.

In the past five months, Versluis has had his eyes on cryptos tied to the metaverse, a sort of digital universe that allows people to interact in virtual worlds. And he said his interest had nothing to do with Facebook’s big metaverse splash and rebrand to Meta. What sparked his attention was a tweet about someone selling a virtual property in one of these digital worlds for $913,000.

Like blockchains, there are numerous metaverses, each operating slightly differently. And like cellphone games and video games, each metaverse looks and works differently. In one, you could purchase virtual real estate and build on your land. In another, you could slay dragons.

“It’s an online virtual world that you can exist in just like you exist in the physical world,” Versluis said. “You can meet other people. You can play games. You can shop.”

While Facebook’s announcement prompted the spike in mainstream interest around metaverses, the company and its highly centralized platform isn’t exactly favored by the crypto community, Versluis said.

“There’s, like, an adoption curve to these things. So Facebook’s awareness blast is the first step to mass adoption,” Versluis said.

People will be able to hop onto different metaverses they prefer. Some metaverses may even have interoperability, allowing users to merge two platforms, he added.

But whether you’re a gamer or not, the opportunities for investors in the metaverse are as diverse as in the crypto space. And Versluis said it was not something to be overlooked.

“They should be looking at this like the obvious new wave because if a trillion-dollar company like Facebook is taking a step that big, it’s very clear where the world is headed,” Versluis said. “So as an investor, you should be trying to capitalize on this new wave.”

Some of these metaverses are effectively built on well-known blockchains like ethereum. But they have their own tokens people can use as a native currency within the game. This means the value of a metaverse’s token can skyrocket if the virtual world gets popular enough.

Since many of these projects are in their early stages and don’t have mass adoption, investing remains highly risky and highly volatile. That’s why Versluis is sticking to projects that he’s seeing momentum in and those that have partnerships with big companies.

“The money being pumped in might be temporary because it has been a lot, so naturally things are going to correct,” Versluis said. “But in the long term, this is going to explode. I can say with personally 100% confidence that this is the future.”

In an interview with Insider, he shared the five cryptos he’s betting on that are tied to the metaverse.

Metaverse-linked cryptos

The first pick is Decentraland, which uses the token mana. The piece of digital land that sold for almost $913,000 was built within this ecosystem. And it’s one of the leading metaverses built on ethereum.

Decentraland is quite the opposite of Facebook’s metaverse because it’s run by the community, not a centralized company, Versluis said.

Within this digital world, you can shop in a marketplace, play games, and buy and build plots of land. And yes, you’ll need mana to transact. Mana was last trading at $2.74, according to CoinMarketCap, up about 1,042% year to date.

The next project is Metahero, which uses the hero token. This project isn’t building another metaverse but the hardware required to merge our world with the digital. Its key product is a large scanner that scans people and objects and creates a version of them for the digital world.

“So what they’re doing is trying to build the largest database, and this is going to help us continue to merge the physical and digital world. It’s essentially like a physical portal,” Versluis said.

Hero was last trading at $0.16, according to CoinMarketCap, up 2,062% year to date.

The next project is The Sandbox, a leading contender for the metaverse that’s ethereum-based. Its token is sand. According to its website, you can “play, create, own, and govern a virtual metaverse” that’s created by the community or its players.

Rather than holding this crypto, Versluis told Insider he had been trading it because he hadn’t done enough in-depth research to determine whether this would be a longer-term hold.

As of Wednesday, sand was last trading around $3, according to CoinMarketCap, but it’s up a whopping 8,233% year to date.

Steve Ehrlich, the CEO of Voyager Digital, also recently told Insider that “there’s definitely still further room to grow” in both Decentraland and Sandbox because of the metaverse opportunity.

The next contender Versluis is invested in is Hedera, which isn’t a metaverse or a blockchain but a hashgraph. Its crypto is hbar. He’s picked this project because it has a metaverse project being built on it known as Vccess, another metaverse that uses nonfungible tokens, rather than crypto.

Hedera’s platform is enterprise-driven, and its governing council includes global organizations such as Boeing, IBM, and Google. It’s not the favorite among the crypto community because of its lack of decentralized features relative to blockchains. But for traditional investors who are more familiar with stocks than blockchains, this may be a bit closer to home.

As of Wednesday, hbar was trading at $0.39, up 1,119% year to date.

Finally, Versluis said not to forget about ether because its blockchain hosts the two biggest metaverse contenders, Decentraland and The Sandbox.

@ Insider

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• Decentralized finance or “DeFi” allows users to participate in traditional financial activities such as lending but without any middlemen involved.

• Regulators are concerned about DeFi services marketing themselves as decentralized when that may not be the case.

The rapidly growing decentralized finance industry may be about to wake up.

Decentralized finance, or “DeFi” as it is commonly known as the cryptocurrency trend, first began to gain traction in 2020.

It’s called the “Wild West” of cryptocurrencies – where computer programmers are trying to bring traditional financial products like loans onto the blockchain.

This idea sounds promising. In theory, anyone can lend and borrow digital currency at competitive interest rates, with no middlemen involved. Investors are attracted by the promise of a double-digit percentage return on savings with certain digital tokens.

But with major hacks and scams raging in the space this year, regulators are increasingly worried about the risk of crime as well as harm to consumers.

“I think they will pay more attention to this space,” Sid Powell, co-founder of DeFi lending platform Maple Finance, told CNBC.

According to data from The Block, nearly $90 billion has been deposited into Ethereum-based DeFi protocols to date.

“It may be unthinkable that you have meaningful development of DeFi without having to add existing regulation going forward,” said Powell.

Regulators have begun to take a tougher approach to the crypto industry.

Many countries have tried to launch Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, to operate without their permission. Since it has no official headquarters, Binance has so far managed to avoid scrutiny – although the company says it now wants to be a friend, not an enemy, to regulators.

Meanwhile, Coinbase in September got into a bitter fight with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over a planned interest-earning savings product, which the regulator felt looked too much like a security. securities. Coinbase later dropped plans to launch the feature.

And just this week, a long-awaited US government report called on Congress to regulate stablecoins, digital assets pegged to traditional currencies like the dollar. to maintain a stable value.

Now, DeFi seems to be next in line.

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was probing decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap, with officials seeking information on how investors are using the platform. platform and how it is marketed.

In September, US Currency Controller Michael Hsu likened DeFi’s activity to the controversial Wall Street activities that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

“One of the biggest questions facing regulators right now is how to deal with DeFi,” said David Carlisle, director of policy and regulatory affairs at crypto analytics firm. Elliptic death, told reporter.

“How do you apply regulatory standards designed for intermediaries that focus on the world of some market with no apparent centralization?”

Carlisle said one source of concern for regulators is that DeFi services market themselves as decentralized when that may not be the case. “We see a number of scenarios where the founding teams and developers have established protocols that influence the governance of a DeFi network.”

Last week, the global anti-money laundering watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force published revised guidance on cryptocurrencies. Part of the rule calls for states to identify individuals who have “sufficient control or influence” over DeFi schemes.

That means some DeFi startup founders are likely to be subject to rules that require them to provide information about the originator and the beneficiary of the transfer.

Rick McDonell, a former FATF executive secretary, told CNBC: “While DeFi protocols can provide similar functionality in financial transactions, they hardly introduce any oversight. required by regulators to ensure safe and efficient financial markets.

“The lack of effective oversight creates significant risks to fraud, money laundering, sanctions evasion and other criminal activities in these markets.”

As for what regulators will do in response, McDonell said it’s too early to tell.

“While it is possible to read the tea leaves about the possibility of applying regulatory measures, that response may require detailing,” he said. “But some enforcement action has been taken.”

“Regulators have made two things clear: they support the benefits blockchain technology can bring to end users, but they are not ready to trust the ability to manage financial-crime risks of the industry.”

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