Ethereum 2.0—the forthcoming proof-of-stake blockchain that promises to be faster and cheaper than the current network—is getting ready to deploy.
Developers at several Ethereum software labs, as part of the ETH Global Scaling Hackathon project called Rayonism, today launched what one researcher termed “a super experimental Eth1-Eth2 post-merge testnetwork.”
About 30 min from now we’re launching a super experimental Eth1-Eth2 post-merge testnetwork!
A week ago we had a tutorial for a 2 client demo. Now we’ve 7 clients on a live network. The Steklo devnet will be fragile like glass, but a big step for testing the Merge! #ethereumpic.twitter.com/VspW6uwmv5
The testnet, known as Steklo, is aimed at exploring a new way of executing and finalizing transactions.
Since its creation, Ethereum’s consensus mechanism—the way in which it validates transactions and adds new blocks to the blockchain—has mimicked Bitcoin’s.
Bitcoin and Ethereum both require users to “mine” tokens, which equates to dedicating their computing power to solving difficult cryptographic puzzles—and then being rewarded in tokens and fees if they’re the first to do so on the network.
Ethereum 2.0, which was launched in December but is not yet a functional network, changes that. Currently in development, the new proof-of-stake blockchain will rely on users locking up their Ethereum as a way of verifying the legitimacy of transactions. Validators who keep connected to the network and help secure it earn ETH as a reward. Those who try to attack the network or fail to stay online can lose their “staked” deposit.
While the initial thought from Ethereum core developers has been to continue adding upgrades to Ethereum 2.0 until it supplants the current Ethereum network, the new “Rayonism” approach—if adopted—would maintain and merge two different systems: transactions would occur on the current network while consensus, or finalization, of those transactions would happen on what we currently think of as Ethereum 2.0.
But, to test out the concept, developers first need, well, a testnet. Which is where Steklo comes in. The work involved collaboration from three Ethereum clients—including Geth, the software client used by over 80% of the computers running the Ethereum blockchain, as well as Besu and Nethermind. But it also needed Eth2 clients Teku, Prysm, Lighthouse, and Nimbus to participate.
Besu client senior product manager Sajida Zouarhi told Decrypt it’s all part of the process of building a better network—and something that teams were happy to participate in: “What we hope to learn through the Rayonism Hackathon is how we are going to scale Ethereum. More specifically, what do we need to get to Ethereum 2.0 in terms of specifications, performances and development. So we are experimenting with Merge and Sharding Eth1-Eth2 tesnets to figure it out.”
That said, “Steklo is going to be a short lived testnet,” she said. “It’s not supposed to run for more than a day.” A longer-running testnet is due out next week, according to Ethereum Foundation researcher Diederik Loerakker.
So, if you’re hoping this means the speedier, more secure Ethereum 2.0 is around the corner, you still have to wait awhile. Said Zouarhi, “Steklo is just step 1 of N on the way to Eth2.”
America’s relationship with China could be best described as “frosty”. The first and second-largest economies in the world have increasingly found themselves at loggerheads; from trade to finance, artificial intelligence to telecoms.
China and the US have also clashed diplomatically over China’s handling of its neighbors, in particular, Taiwan.
China sees the island nation as a breakaway province that should be brought back into the country’s sphere of influence, whereas America recognizes Taiwan as an independent state and has helped the island arm itself against foreign aggression – namely China.
More recently, those opinions have been extended to the disputed Spratly Islands, a group of uninhabited islands in the South China Sea.
The contested Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. IMAGE: Shutterstock
As the result of vast swathes of oil being discovered beneath the sea, China has been actively expanding its international boundaries by putting military bases on the islands. This has led to a series of skirmishes with neighboring countries also laying claim to the South China Sea. The US has condemned the action.
In technology, there is a significant rivalry between the two countries when it comes to 5G. The rollout of Huawei’s 5G network – which some claimed was a ploy by the Chinese state to spy on its rivals – in Europe was met with pressure from US regulators who lobbied to keep Chinese companies out of American allies’ digital infrastructure.
China’s expanding AI capabilities, facial recognition technologies, electric vehicle production, and its domination of the solar panel market have all brought the Asian giant into increasing competition with America, and in some cases, surging past it.
One area of America and China’s technological Cold War that’s been heating up recently is around who will dominate the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.
American businesses have established themselves as key pillars of the crypto community, the same can’t be said of the US government. While America has pursued a cautious approach to the world of Bitcoin, blockchain, and decentralized ledger technology, China has raced ahead.
But what does this mean for the future of blockchain, and indeed the future of finance?
China’s dominance over Bitcoin mining
While Bitcoin was designed to be a decentralized, global network that allows anyone, anywhere to take part, in just over a decade, the picture, at least when looking at the mining community, couldn’t be more different.
The reason? Cheap electricity and access to the latest and greatest in mining hardware.
Bitcoin miners in China are found in high concentrations near coal or hydroelectric power plants, in particular places like Inner Mongolia and the Yunnan province.
Cheap hydroelectric power has led to a boom in Bitcoin mines in China. IMAGE: Shutterstock
This allows the miners to keep their operating costs to a minimum as they churn through vast amounts of power in search of mining rewards, giving them an edge over rivals in more expensive energy regions. This advantage however, could be used by the Chinese state to exert influence over the network in ways other states cannot.
Emin Gün Sirer, a Turkish-American computer scientist and CEO of Ava Labs, a decentralized finance startup, believes the Chinese state could compel miners to block transactions from certain wallets if it chose to.
“This is an enormous issue. These miners could receive injunctions that compels them to act in a certain way,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “The Chinese government would say the money at certain addresses must not move and it compels the Chinese miners to not include certain transactions so they can selectively sensor certain users of a blockchain.”
This has kickstarted a movement in the US to help claw back some of Chinese miners’ dominance. Core Scientific, a US company building Bitcoin mining operations in the US has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to establish mines in disused factories across America. Others have joined them.
Marathon Patent Group, which mines in Montana and North Dakota, has seen its shares rise ninefold in early 2021, and competitor Riot Blockchain, out of upstate New York, is also enjoying a windfall of investment.
While these companies have increased their market share over Bitcoin mining, there’s still a long way to go. Inner Mongolia, a hub for Bitcoin miners, accounted for 8% of the computing power needed to run the global blockchain. That is more than the amount of computing power dedicated to blockchain in the US currently.
“There is a new space race. It is the cyberspace race of building and controlling the systems and governance that will power the digital economy,” wrote Perianne Boring, president of the US Chamber of Digital Commerce.
As states become drawn into the world of digital currencies, those that can exert the most influence over mining communities like Bitcoin will have an advantage.
“At least 65 percent of cryptocurrency mining is concentrated in China, which means the Chinese government has the majority needed to wield control over those protocols and can effectively block or reverse transactions,” wrote Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen in an opinion piece.
“The tech cold war is here — and the US isn’t winning,” he concluded. But that’s not the only arena China is looking to dominate the US in.
China’s Digital Yuan
Central Bank Digital Currencies or CBDCs have become a hot topic for several states across the world, particularly China.
It’s Digital Yuan is in the advanced testing phase with more than 100,000 people in China downloading a mobile phone app from the central bank enabling them to spend small government handouts of digital cash with merchants, including Chinese outlets of Starbucks and McDonald’s.
The US meanwhile is still in the early stages of exploring public perception towards its own version of a digital currency.
But China’s ambitions for its digital currency – beyond giving it direct access to its citizens’ spending habits – is to eventually challenge the US Dollar’s preeminent position as the world’s reserve currency.
“China’s rapid development of a central bank digital currency has the potential to upset the global monetary order,” said the editorial board of the Financial Times.
The article went on to suggest that the Yuan could “bypass rival western-operated cross-border payment networks, such as Swift, which the US has used to enforce sanctions.”
Alex Tapscott, the co-author of the book Blockchain Revolution, said “China is on the brink of launching its own digital currency while, at least on this issue, the United States is dragging its feet. The two visions for these central bank digital currencies couldn’t be more different. Whereas the US wants to protect the US dollar as global reserve currency, China wishes to export its own economic model around the world and tighten control at home.”
China has embraced blockchain, but its response to cryptocurrency has been muted (Image: Pixabay)
More broadly, China’s innovation in the blockchain space is also helping the Asian giant pull ahead of its rival. The People’s Bank of China alone has filed more than 80 patents related to digital currencies.
Some in the US have sounded the alarm over what is becoming a widening gap between the two countries.
“It is critically important for American and western policymakers to understand how serious China and other nations are taking digital currencies and blockchain technology. It is crucial to become conscious as to what we can expect to see from those who seek dominance in the space, implications for the international monetary and financial system, and, more pointedly, for the U.S. dollar as the world’s hegemonic currency and America’s international preeminence are existential,” the Chamber of Digital Commerce warned in an article last year.
But they may be too late. A year before the Chamber of Digital Commerce’s report, Xi Jinping the President of the People’s Republic of China told China’s most powerful political body that gaining an advantage in blockchain was critical for the country’s future success.
“It is necessary to strengthen basic research, enhance the original innovation ability, and strive to let China take the leading position in the emerging field of blockchain, occupy the commanding heights of innovation, and gain new industrial advantages.”
Some have called this crypto’s Sputnik moment, a reference to the Soviet Union’s early lead in the space race that galvanized US policymakers to throw hundreds of billions of dollars at their own space program. Can America catch up or will they get left behind?
Between August 2020 and February 2021, roughly 5,000 Bitcoin worth an estimated $125 million at the time of trading (and over $280 million in today’s value), left wallets owned by now-shuttered Turkish exchange Thodex and landed in US exchange Kraken, according to Israel-based blockchain tracking firm Whitestream.
Whitestream, which has contracts with the Israeli Defense Ministry, said it appears to be a “Thodex cash out operation.” In other words, Thodex execs may have been stealing Bitcoin from their customers, before laundering it and sending it to Kraken for retrieval.
From August 2020 to February 2021, an estimated 5,000 BTC – $125,000,000 were sent from #Thodex Turkish exchange to @krakenfx, In what appears to be #Thodex cash out operation.
Sample transaction: 21cdff1c7611269b1dab8c66ce2714493dd13472aafa8f86d140409e2aa12401 pic.twitter.com/8gBYfiYgFY
— whitestream – Blockchain Intelligence (@whitestream5) April 29, 2021
Thodex abruptly shut down operations this month with what a lawyer involved in the case estimated to be at least $2 billion in customer funds inside. Turkey Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu later downgraded the estimate to about $108 million. As Whitestream CEO and co-founder Itsik Levy pointed out to Decrypt, that’s not far off from the $125 billion estimate his firm has produced, based on an average price of $25,000 from August to February.
According to Levy, a cluster of Bitcoin wallet addresses controlled by the same group—in this case, Thodex—sent BTC through an intermediate cluster of wallets, which then sent those to their final destination, with the overwhelmingly majority landing at Kraken.
“The bottom line is that Kraken received [a] huge amount of Thodex customers’ Bitcoin,” Levy told Decrypt.
When asked if there could be an honest explanation for this, Levy said, “Only if Thodex operated their entire financial activity through Kraken…but it is very weird.”
Turkey last week detained over 60 people in connection with Thodex’s apparent exit scam, while also seizing computers and freezing the company’s bank accounts.
On Thursday, it jailed another six people in connection to suspected fraud at Thodex, including family members of CEO Faruk Fatih Ozer, who fled to Albania immediately before the exchange announced it had closed down. Turkey has reportedly asked for Ozer’s arrest. Ozer claims that the exchange’s troubles are linked to cyberattack rather than fraud.
A panel of experts established by the US Department of Justice last week to combat ransomware is expected to recommend “aggressive tracking of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” according to a report from Reuters today that cited anonymous sources.
The potential recommendations would expand the regulatory requirements on cryptocurrency exchanges and hold them to similar standards as traditional financial institutions.
Ransomware involves hacking computers and computer networks and locking users out until they pay a ransom. An estimated 99% of ransomware payments were made in Bitcoin as of the first quarter of 2020, thanks to its status as electronic cash. Afterward, the BTC can be exchanged into a privacy coin such as Monero, which is difficult to trace, and ultimately exchanged for cash. Research firm Cybersecurity Ventures estimated in 2019 that annual ransomware costs would reach $20 billion globally this year.
The Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force is composed of staff from several Department of Justice wings, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Civil Division, the Criminal Division, the National Security Division, and the Executive Office for US Attorneys. The Departments of the Treasury and Homeland Security are also participating, as are private tech firms.
The group’s recommendations, due tomorrow, will reportedly target anonymous cryptocurrency transactions. However, depending on what form those recommendations take, they may need congressional approval.
Reuters points to three key recommendations, namely, applying all know-your-customer rules for financial institutions to cryptocurrency exchanges, upping the requirements for crypto firms to earn money transmitter licenses, and expanding money laundering regulations. Taken collectively, they could prevent ill-gotten Bitcoin from flowing through regulated exchanges.
Such recommendations would align with a proposed rule from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) that would require cryptocurrency businesses to collect a user’s personal data for transactions over $3,000; transactions above $10,000 would be reported to FinCEN. Crucially, that rule, first proposed in the dying days of the Trump administration, extends to self-hosted wallets (i.e., wallets that weren’t attached to an exchange or crypto custodian).
The proposed rule has drawn criticism from privacy advocates and blockchain interest groups. Should the DOJ task force double down with similar proposals, it may cause hackers to rethink their Bitcoin strategy—and investors to pull back from the $1 trillion Bitcoin market.
In the “DeFi Summer” of 2020, Compound brought the heat by pulling out an old concept, liquidity mining. Its willingness to reward lenders and borrowers in its COMP governance tokens helped make it the biggest lender in all of Ethereum.
Now, in an effort to keep pace, decentralized finance (DeFi) competitor Aave is trying out its own liquidity mining program. Starting today, the platform will pay its users in Staked Aave (stkAAVE) when they lend or borrow Ethereum, Wrapped Bitcoin, or stablecoins DAI, GUSD, USDC, and USDT. And we’re not talking about a few extra pennies.
Decentralized finance is the blanket title given to blockchain-based protocols that remove financial intermediaries, making lending and borrowing possible without loan officers or credit checks.
Liquidity mining, also known as “yield farming,” involves pooling your cryptocurrency into a fund so it can be lent out to others—not much different from a savings account or certificate of deposit (the latter of which pays more in exchange for an inability to move it). In exchange for providing the exchange or protocol with liquidity, it rewards you with another type of token.
Aave users already earn staking rewards for staking (ie, locking up) Aave’s native token as well as interest on their deposits. This program allows them to earn additional rewards in stkAAVE. Staked Aave is equivalent in value to AAVE, which is currently priced near $400, according to Nomics. To convert it to the AAVE governance token, they must wait 10 days after receiving it.
In case you’ve ever wondered what comes out of DeFi governance, which places the users in charge of guiding the protocol, this was one of those things. Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP) 16, put forth by venture capitalist and AAVE user Anjan Vinod, called for liquidity mining as a way to attract capital and ensure borrowers can get the loans they need. Moreover, he argued, it would get people to switch to Aave’s version 2, introduced in December 2020. Much of the protocol’s capital is still locked up in v1, the proposal suggested, because of high gas fees on the Ethereum blockchain, which the protocol is built on top of; users didn’t have enough reasons to move the funds.
“By introducing liquidity mining rewards only on Aave v2, liquidity providers and borrowers will naturally migrate toward the more optimized version,” wrote Vinod.
That’s because the rewards on v2 are supercharged. Right now, AAVE v2 is advertising lenders a variable interest rate of 18% on Tether stablecoin, while borrowers get up to 36%. In v1, those rates are 1% and 7%, respectively.
As for the nitty gritty, liquidity mining rewards are split equally between lenders and borrowers; for ETH and WBTC, the lenders take 95%. The platform will distribute 2,200 stkAAVE (worth around $1 million) each day proportionally to the six liquidity markets based on their size. The program will run until July 15, at which point Aave users can vote to renew, discontinue, or amend it.
Aave is playing catch up. Uniswap experimented with liquidity mining in October and November of last year. Compound, meanwhile, has been running its program since June. According to a Messari report, Compound had more than $5 billion in outstanding loans by the end of the first quarter of 2021, compared to between $1.5 and $2 billion for Aave.
About $3.6 billion in Bitcoin options are due to expire tomorrow, giving speculators their last chance to either buy the asset at a predetermined price or sell. If many investors choose the latter, expect to see more Bitcoin available in the market. If they exercise their option, it could push the price up.
Data from Arcane Research pegs the number of expiring options contracts at 68,500 BTC on unregulated Deribit, the largest crypto derivatives exchange in the world.
Arcane asserts the “max pain price” to be $54,000. Max pain refers to the price at which the cumulative value of the options still held is the lowest. In other words, traders don’t get much of a discount compared to just buying Bitcoin on the open market—but they do experience financial losses from having bought the options and let them expire. Bitcoin’s price has fallen in the last 48 hours from $54,800 to $52,900, meaning that exercising the option will be a gametime decision for many.
“Given how bitcoin is currently trading around the max pain price of the April options expiry, it does seem neither bullish nor bearish for Bitcoin in the short term,” Arcane Research analyst Vetle Lunde told Decrypt via direct message. “On the flip side, this is the favourable expiry price for all option sellers, so they’d like prices to remain at these levels until expiry on Friday.”
Bitcoin options contracts—which give traders a chance (but not the obligation) to buy BTC at a set price, can typically be traded up until the last Friday of each month. They offer different price levels at which traders can pull the trigger and buy the asset. Of course, each contract is structured differently, with different buy prices, depending on when it was bought.
In February, when $3.3 billion in options contracts were due to expire, Bequant head of research Denis Vinokourov told Decrypt, “Options flows are not yet at the size where they can move the market.” In Vinokourov’s estimation, there was more BTC HODLing than buying and selling at that point, meaning the trading would have a neutral effect on prices.
Lunde says that trend is continuing, especially after the mid-April crash, when the price of Bitcoin fell from a high above $63,000 down to $49,000 in 10 days. “In general, there seems to be more holding right now, than earlier in April,” he said.
However, he does see some chance that the expiries will move the market. “We’ve seen Bitcoin rallying with force following all monthly options expiries in 2021, so the market action suggests that large expiries provide a short-term anchor for the price,” he said.
That’s a point that Rob Levy, the co-founder of crypto trading platform Hxro, agreed with. According to Levy, the price of Bitcoin has a habit of dipping before the options expirations and then rising up again. “It is interesting to note that this date has marked a localized low point in price for all of the past 5 months,” he said.
Goldman Sachs analysts said yesterday that Bitcoin cannot yet be seen as digital gold, on account of the cryptocurrency’s massive energy demands. Competition from other cryptocurrencies and a worrying lack of use cases were also cited as concerns in a research note released by the bank.
As a result, the report claims, it is therefore “too early” for Bitcoin to compete with gold as a safe haven asset, and the two can coexist.
The comments are at odds with what many Bitcoin advocates argue—that the flagship cryptocurrency is a hedge against inflation and a safe haven asset against financial instability.
In fact, when software company MicroStrategy first invested in Bitcoin last year (the firm now holds over $5 billion in Bitcoin), CEO Michael Saylor described Bitcoin as digital gold.
But Goldman Sachs believes that Saylor—and many other Bitcoin advocates—are mistaken.
Bitcoin and the environment
Goldman Sachs’ note argues that Bitcoin suffers from “weak environmental, social and governance scoring due to its high energy consumption.”
Bitcoin functions on a proof-of-work consensus mechanism. This means the Bitcoin network runs because many highly sophisticated computers perform complex calculations every second so that new blocks can be added to the Bitcoin blockchain, and new Bitcoin can be mined.
The process—commonly known as Bitcoin mining—demands an extremely high level of energy. Cambridge University estimates that the Bitcoin network consumes approximately 130 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year, which is enough to place Bitcoin—if it were a country—among the top 30 countries in the world by energy consumption.
Previous research conducted by Decrypt showed that Bitcoin’s resulting carbon footprint is broadly equivalent to 61 billion pounds of burned coal per year, 9 million homes’ average electricity consumption per year, or 138 billion miles driven by a passenger vehicle.
What’s more, a recently flooded coal mine in China caused a drop in Bitcoin’s hash rate to levels not seen since November 2020, underlining the fact that the Bitcoin network is still heavily reliant on non-renewable energy sources.
These wide-ranging environmental problems have—per Goldman Sachs—caused potential investors to steer clear of the flagship cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin’s competitors
The note also argues that Bitcoin is “vulnerable to losing store of value demand to another better-designed cryptocurrency.”
Bitcoin commands the majority of the cryptocurrency industry’s total market cap, but that doesn’t mean the flagship cryptocurrency has no competitors.
One of its chief rivals is Ethereum, which is in the midst of a major technical upgrade that will bring the Ethereum network to a proof-of-stake system, leaving behind the environmentally costly proof-of-work system it currently shares with Bitcoin.
This is, according to Goldman Sachs, one of Bitcoin’s biggest challenges. Bitcoin, it argues, is losing ground to other cryptocurrencies that some potential investors consider to be cleaner, more efficient, or easier to invest in—”such as ether and altcoins.”
“Competition among cryptocurrencies for the status of dominant long-term store of value is still on,” according to the Goldman Sachs analysts—compounding risks for investors looking to hold Bitcoin as a long-term investment asset, or as “digital gold.”
Bitcoin’s real-world use cases
Goldman Sachs’ analysts made a third claim: that Bitcoin suffers from a lack of real-world use cases.
For Goldman Sachs, the fact that Bitcoin has no real consensus use case means the cryptocurrency has no meaningful guard against price volatility—which, in turn, can dissuade potential investors.
“Real use is important because it smoothes the volatility of the price, as real demand adjusts to absorb swings in investment demand,” the analysts said, adding, “It also means that the asset is unlikely to go to zero.”
In contrast to Bitcoin, other assets which are sold as having long-term investment appeal—those described as being reliable “stores of value”—actually do have real-world use cases that enjoy universal consensus.
“Traditional long-term stores of value such as gold, art, diamonds, wine and collectibles all have value and use beyond being stores of value,” the analysts said.
MetaMask, an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency wallet, has registered five million active users, according to its creator, blockchain software firm ConsenSys (which also funds an editorially independent Decrypt.)
MetaMask is a browser extension and mobile app that allows people to interact with decentralized applications (dapps) on the Ethereum blockchain via a wallet where they can store the keys to their tokens. Those dapps run the gamut from CryptoKitties and other NFT marketplaces for digital collectibles to decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, where users can swap cryptocurrencies directly with their peers.
Just last October, the project announced it had reached 1 million monthly active users. That coincided with growth in Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi)—protocols and platforms built atop the blockchain that remove banks and brokers in favor of algorithms. DeFi protocols such as Compound and MakerDAO became go-to spots for people looking to lend, borrow, and earn interest off of their cryptocurrency holdings.
The 500% growth MetaMask has experienced in the last six months has been driven not just by DeFi, the project states, but also by NFTs. Short for non-fungible tokens, NFTs are unique digital tokens that serve as contracts of ownership; they’re commonly attached to digital art, virtual collectibles, and even MP3s. According to data site DappRadar, NFT sales took in $1.5 billion in transaction volume from January through March.
“On-chain data clearly indicates that NFTs are being widely embraced by users across the Ethereum ecosystem,” MetaMask wrote. “In fact, accessing NFTs is now the second most popular use case for MetaMask, only behind swaps.”
MetaMask Swaps debuted on Firefox in October 2020. The feature works as a decentralized exchange aggregator to get wallet users better prices. With that feature, MetaMask went beyond facilitating transactions to taking a cut of the action. It’s been fairly popular, taking in an estimated $100,000 per day as of early February. And that was before the Ethereum price ballooned from around $1,600 to its current $2,700.
MetaMask also cites increased adoption in developing countries such as India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Vietnam. “Increasingly, these people use MetaMask to earn a supplemental income or to make long-term investments,” a blog post asserts. “Many are unable to access their local banking system and thus need alternative technology to act as a savings account.”
If MetaMask can continue reaching new markets, it might get its next five million users even faster.
US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has once again touched on the topic of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), stressing that when it comes down to a potential “digital dollar,” he prefers to see a weighted approach to how and when it should be implemented.
Speaking to CNBC on Wednesday, Powell said that “CBDCs are now possible,” and that “we are going to see some of them around the world.” However, he argued, “It’s far more important to do it right rather than to do it fast or feel that we need to rush to reach conclusions because other countries are moving ahead.”
Powell added that the Fed needs to understand “whether that will be a good thing for the people that we serve, and how it would work in our system.”
“There are some very difficult questions standing, and we are engaged in a very serious program to understand the technology and policy issues,” said Powell.
What are CBDCs?
CBDCs are digital versions of native fiat currencies, such as the US dollar or the Euro, aiming to bring speed and security to monetary systems around the world. Central banks and governments are researching the economic and technical feasibility of introducing a new form of digital money, with countries like China already piloting a digital yuan.
Powell raised doubts that China’s digital yuan model can be applied to countries like the US, stating that it simply “wouldn’t work here,” since it allows the government to see in real-time what every payment is being used for.
“It’s more to do with what is happening within their own financial system rather than what is happening on the global level,” said Powell.
CBDCs to coexist with cash
Last month, Powell conceded that the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted governments to begin reassessing the mechanism of how money works in the current environment. However, he refuted suggestions that CBDCs would replace cash.
Citing a recent Bank for International Settlements report, Powell indicated that “a CBDC needs to coexist with cash and other types of money in a flexible and innovative payment system.”
This idea is also shared by the European Central Bank, with its president Christine Lagarde saying last year that a CBDC would be a good idea as it could complement cash.
However, the ECB is not rushing things either–according to Lagarde’s recent statement, the whole process of developing a digital euro could take at least another four years.
Tether, the most widely traded crypto asset in the market (even more than Bitcoin), yesterday hit the $50 billion mark in terms of market cap. It’s an impressive milestone for the controversial stablecoin: just in February it stood at $30 billion.
What’s more, there’s now more Tether (USDT) being used on Tron’s blockchain than on Ethereum: $1.6 billion-worth more, to be exact. Right now, the amount of Tether on Tron is $26 billion; on Ethereum it is $24.4 billion, according to Coin Metrics data.
So what does that say about the state of the crypto market?
Tron is a decentralized platform designed for content creation. It’s similar to Ethereum in the sense that it uses smart contracts, dapps and digital wallets—but it’s more “entertainment” based. The vast majority of the activity on the Tron blockchain takes place on gaming and gambling applications, according to a February 2020 DappRadar report.
Tether is a stablecoin that is “pegged” 1:1 with the US dollar, meaning that the coin’s value is designed to hold steady. There is some controversy, however, over whether Tether is truly backed by US dollar reserves—the company has never had its reserves independently audited, and it just recently settled a fraud investigation with the New York Attorney General’s Office, which saw it booted from the state.
Nevertheless, on-chain data demonstrates that the coin is extremely popular, especially in Asia, according to crypto tracing firm Chainalysis. It remains the most widely traded cryptocurrency by a considerable margin.
Those in the cryptocurrency world use Tether because for a number of reasons. But it is mostly useful for exchanges. Tether trading pairs (i.e. Bitcoin/Tether) are a common way to denominate prices in fiat currency, like dollars or yen, as it is easier to get your head round.
Using Tether is a way of using fiat that flows out of a traditional bank account—especially if a crypto exchange doesn’t deal with, say, British or American bank accounts.
At the moment, huge amounts of USDT are being used on the Ethereum blockchain. Though even more is being used on the Tron blockchain, and this, according to experts who spoke with Decrypt, is because of inter-exchange transfers.
Ethereum is in some ways a victim of its own success: the network is being used by so many people, it’s chugging along slowly. In order to make transactions on Ethereum, one needs to pay “gas fees”—the variable cost of using the network, which goes to the decentralized group of people who help keep it running.
And with so many people using Ethereum, the cost of making a transaction is high.
So, users are switching to the Tron network. “Ethereum has been really expensive to use thanks to high gas and high Ether price,” Jeremy Ong, who works in business operations at the crypto research firm, Delphi Digital. “The Tron network is very cheap to use in comparison.”
Ong told Decrypt that moving Tether about—from one exchange to another—is very common, and doing that on Ethereum’s blockchain is costly. So users do it via the Tron blockchain, and pay a lot less. “USDT on the Tron network is primarily being used for inter-exchange transfers,” he said.
But why would there be such high demand to move Tether about? “Some assets—typically smaller ones—and/or derivative contracts are exclusive to specific exchanges,” Ong added. “Also there are arbitrage opportunities for derivative funding/premium between exchanges.”
Ong also told Decrypt that this would be temporary. “I view Tron as a band aid solution to provide relief for inter-exchange traders,” he continued. “As of now, we’re still waiting for Ethereum scaling solutions to gain network effect and adoption among centralized exchanges.”
By “scaling solutions” Ong was, of course, referring to ETH2—Ethereum’s long-planned network upgrade that hopes to solve problems, like high costs.
And until that is fully functional, crypto traders will likely continue to put their billions elsewhere.
Поэтому перед началом торговли следует ответственно подойти к решению вопроса о выборе соответствующей инвестиционной стратегии с учетом имеющихся ресурсов. эмиссия это что Alphabet Inc. – корпорация, владеющая несколькими компаниями, в том числе Google. Входит в топ-500 наиболее востребованных при поиске работы.
Стоит ли инвестировать в Гугл сейчас
Прибыль инвестора — разница между стоимостью покупки и продажи. Купить акции GOOG и получать дивиденды несколько лет было невозможно. Но на сегодняшний день они выплачиваются один раз в квартал. Котировки Гугл сейчас доступны любому на специализированных биржевых и аналитических сайтах, онлайн-ресурсах, как пользоваться системой quik от сбербанк система квик от сбербанк посвященных биржевой торговле и инвестициям. Узнать актуальную стоимость бумаг можно, посетив форум трейдеров, работающих с этими акциями, а также в торговых терминалах форекс-брокеров. Чтобы сделать среднесрочный прогноз, необходимо рассмотреть месячный и недельный таймфреймы акций Google.
Alphabet Class A GOOGL
Но ценные бумаги компании показывают устойчивую положительную динамику и редко падают в цене. Иногда наблюдается кратковременное снижение стоимости, но в целом заметен устойчивый восходящий тренд. В декабре 2020 года ценные бумаги компании торговались по цене от $ 1730 за 1 шт., а в июле 2022 года был проведен сплит акций, и цена одной акции стала около 116$. Стоимость акций классов А и С незначительно различается — первые торгуются дороже. Ценные бумаги класса С более привлекательны для инвесторов, которые совершают крупные сделки. Лицу можно для получения прибыли в виде дивидендов и за счёт купли-продажи, когда покупают ценные бумаги по низкой стоимости, а продают по более высокой.
Если Alphabet признают монополией, холдингу грозят не только крупные штрафы, но и возможное разделение на более мелкие фирмы.
У компании Google Inc. 2 ключевых направления и около 50 эталонных проектов.
Срок торговли фьючерса – шесть месяцев, после чего происходит взаимное исполнение обязательств между покупателем и продавцом.
Ценные бумаги класса С более привлекательны для инвесторов, которые совершают крупные сделки.
Похожие компании
В настоящее время в обороте находятся акции GOOG class A и GOOG class С. Ценные бумаги класса В принадлежат исключительно создателям «Гугл» и Эрику Шмидту. У компании Google Inc. 2 ключевых направления и около 50 эталонных проектов. Выпуск ОС Android стимулировал быстрый рост капитализации, и сейчас у этого эмитента хорошие перспективы.
Сотрудников в компании
Каких целей могут достигнуть акции и как долго будут расти, рассмотрим ниже, сформировав прогноз на основании технического анализа.
Акции Google (GOOGL): стоимость, график в реальном времени
При торговле CFD-контрактами с использованием кредитного плеча риски необходимо ограничивать с помощью стоп-лоссов. Чтобы максимально сократить потенциальный риск при покупке акций поискового гиганта, необходимо открывать сделку вблизи одного из уровней, как только цена подтвердит его в качестве поддержки. Известная всем по одноименной поисковой системе корпорация Google с 2015 года принадлежит холдингу Alphabet. Акции IT-гиганта после сплита торгуются на американской фондовой бирже Nasdaq под двумя тикерами – GOOG и GOOGL и относятся к числу «голубых фишек». Они могут быть интересны своей высокой ликвидностью и волатильностью, перспективами позиционного и спекулятивного заработка.
А можно купить ценные бумаги Alphabet с целью их последующей продажи. Доход будет зависеть от того, насколько ценные бумаги вырастут в цене за то время, пока будут находиться у инвестора. Привилегированные бумаги Гугл – это акции класса В, которые не торгуются на бирже. Обыкновенные акции класса A под тикером GOOGL инвесторы могут покупать на бирже, а также торговать CFD-контрактами на них.
Фьючерс – это биржевой инструмент, который представляет собой срочный контракт между покупателем и продавцом на отложенную поставку базового актива (акции Гугл). Срок торговли фьючерса – шесть месяцев, чем отличается форвард от фьючерса после чего происходит взаимное исполнение обязательств между покупателем и продавцом. Торговля фьючерсами на финансовых рынках может вестись как спекулятивно, так и позиционно для хеджирования сделок.
Сделать это можно, закрыв buy-ордер, с помощью которого приобретался актив. Чтобы заработать на понижении цены используют sell-ордер, который позволяет сначала продать акции, а потом зафиксировать прибыль в сделке с помощью покупки. Alphabet, владеющая Google, с 2015 года не выплачивает дивидендов. Корпорация направляет прибыль на собственное развитие. А инвесторы могут заработать на изменении стоимости ценных бумаг.
Продавать купленные акции нужно тогда, когда их стоимость выше, чем в момент покупки, или если ожидается резкий спад котировок. В первом случае расчёт на получение прибыли, во втором — на минимизацию убытков. Акции Google показывают устойчивый восходящий тренд, который в последнее время ослабевает. Колебания цены могут быть временным явлением, но точных прогнозов аналитики не дают. Можно покупать акции Google для получения дивидендных выплат.
Оценивая прибыльность инвестиций, нужно следить за графиком котировок и изучать прогнозы. Если аналитики прогнозируют рост стоимости, нужно покупать акции, а когда ожидается падение — продавать. Инвестировать в акции Google стоит тем, кого интересуют долгосрочные вложения. Учитывая стабильный рост, можно получить прибыль в среднесрочной и долгосрочной перспективе.
