The new global currency: cryptocurrency spending on the rise as transactions grow 300% in two years - Kitco NEWS

---

• The new global currency: cryptocurrency spending on the rise as transactions grow 300% in two years - Kitco NEWS
• Bitcoin Could Boom 430% but Ethereum May Still Steal its Thunder - Yahoo Finance
• Anger against tech giants led me to cryptocurrency: Nischal Shetty of WazirX - Mint

The new global currency: cryptocurrency spending on the rise as transactions grow 300% in two years - Kitco NEWS Posted: 19 Mar 2021 12:56 PM PDT Editor's Note: With so much market volatility, stay on top of daily news! Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news and expert opinions. Sign up here! (Kitco News) - Bitcoin continues to attract a lot of investor attention following its recent new high above $61,000; however, one company says that the cryptocurrency market is more than just a momentum trade with crypto spending on the rise. According to a recent internal report from the world's largest crypto payment processor CoinPayments, from the first quarter of 2019 to the fourth quarter of 2020, the North American cryptocurrency market saw a 300% increase in transactions as more businesses and merchants embraced digital currencies. "Cryptocurrencies continue to solidify their role in the global financial landscape. Consumers see real value in the market and are using them more and more in their daily lives," Jason Butcher, CEO of CoinPayments, told Kitco News. "We are seeing the start of what will be a bigger trend for cryptocurrencies." CoinPayments' research shows that the top three transacted digital currencies in North America are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC). Despite these three cryptocurrencies' dominance, the company also noted that transaction volume in Tether (USDT) had increased nine-fold in the last two years. The latest rally in Bitcoin has pushed the digital currency's market capitalization to over $1 trillion. Meanwhile, CoinPayments said that total transaction volume for Bitcoin in North America rose to $153.65 million in the fourth quarter of last year. Not only are transaction volumes on the rise, but average transaction sizes are also growing, which could imply that people have more trust in cryptocurrencies, according to Butcher.   When looking at the sectors that are attracting the most flows, the average crypto transaction size to pay for financial services totaled $531 in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 41% from the first quarter of 2019. Many analysts have noted that Bitcoin is attracting a lot of investment demand as investors look for alternative assets to protect against the rising inflation threat. Some analysts have pointed out that Bitcoin's run - with more than 100% gains so far this year - has taken some luster away from gold, which is seen as a more traditional inflation hedge. "Not only are cryptocurrencies effectively protecting your wealth, but consumers are able to use them as a global currency," Butcher said. As the leader in the crypto space, Bitcoin has achieved some significant milestones. Not only has its market value reached $1 trillion, but earlier this year, it surpassed the market cap of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in a recent report that Bitcoin's surging value is just starting. He added that he sees the potential for Bitcoin to surpass Amazon in market value. "Well, on the way to becoming a global digital reserve asset, there is plenty of potential for Bitcoin to reach a higher market cap than the single dominant company," McGlone said in the report.

Bitcoin Could Boom 430% but Ethereum May Still Steal its Thunder - Yahoo Finance Posted: 19 Mar 2021 06:36 AM PDT Bitcoin believers may have new reason to rejoice following the stimulus checks, but Ethereum has use cases on its side. U.S. President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID Relief Bill has passed congress and stimulus checks are soon to be distributed. Early signs indicate recipients are ready to buy Bitcoin. A survey by Mizuho Securities showed that out of 235 participants who expect to receive stimulus checks from the COVID Relief Bill, 10% are interested in investing in Bitcoin. It's a small sample size, but according to the survey investing in Bitcoin was a more popular response than investing in traditional stocks. If that kind of runaway popularity doesn't move you in itself, consider that it could translate into $40 billion dollars running like a river directly from Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus package into Bitcoin. In the same week, Bank of America strategists suggested to Bloomberg that the price of BTC can be moved 1% for just $93 million. Bank of America strategists said in a note to Bloomberg on Wednesday: "Bitcoin is extremely sensitive to increased dollar demand. We estimate a net inflow into Bitcoin of just $93 million would result in price appreciation of 1%, while the similar figure for gold would be closer to $2 billion or 20 times higher. In contrast, the same analysis for the 20-year-plus Treasuries shows that multibillion money flows do not have a significant impact on price, pointing to the much larger and stable nature of the U.S. Treasuries markets," If you take the survey and projections on face value, you could surmise Bitcoin prices will be moved by over 430% by the influx of $40,000,000 flowing in from invested U.S. COVID Relief money. It seems reasonable to expect the 12 month Bitcoin bull run to continue, making it the crypto success story of 2021, right? DeFi Could Steal Bitcoin's Thunder Before the Bitcoin bull run, DeFi was a strong competitor as the most dominant story in crypto. BTC's new price heights have made the world's most famous cryptocurrency again the center of attention. Bitcoin may always be the star of the cryptoworld and certainly has seen wide popularity and acceptance as a store of value, but Ethereum's fortunes have generally kept pace with and possibly exceeded Bitcoin since the end of last year. Since December 2020, Bitcoin has risen from over $28,000 to more than $58,000 (up roughly 207%). Ethereum has traveled from more than $746 to over $1800 (up roughly %240). This week, Bank of America published a report titled "Bitcoin's Dirty Little Secrets". Excerpts from the report are unflattering to the world's most famous cryptocurrency. Some of the statements coming from the report include: "The main argument for Bitcoin is not diversification, stable returns, or inflation protection, but sheer appreciation..." "There is no good reason to own BTC unless you see prices going up..." And they point out Bitcoin's environmental impact is not desirable, stating: "we calculate that a $1bn dollar inflow into Bitcoin is equal to 1.2mn cars driven over the course of a year or 12.7mn barrels of oil." They go on to extol the virtues of Ethereum, stating in the report: "Bitcoin is the most talked about cryptocurrency but Ethereum [the blockchain] has more features, including being more flexible in its hosting of decentralized finance (DeFi) than the Bitcoin blockchain." "DeFi does, however, show the opportunity which (distributed ledger technology) offers to finance. We believe that one of the best differences against being disintermediated by DeFi would be mainstream finance grasping these opportunities." The Hopes and Fears of DeFi... As a digital currency, Bitcoin is simply designed with a more limited range of use cases compared to Ethereum which has smart contract capabilities. Arguably, Ethereum is the needed sequel to Bitcoin's success. But how will their performances compare in 2021? "Bitcoin is the asset of choice for investors looking for a store of value investment characteristics in the cryptocurrency market. Success then is an ongoing price appreciation for this asset. And appreciate it will as long as investors continue to believe in the future of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Ethereum, on the other hand, is not only a cryptocurrency. It is a network that supports smart contracts, Dapps (decentralized applications), and Defi (decentralized finance) projects. Investors that are looking to invest in up-and-coming tech should pay extra attention to this crypto asset. Over 41 Billion dollars is currently locked in DeFi projects on Ethereum blockchain compared with 4 Billion only 8 months ago. That's what success continues to look like for Ethereum this year as well -- ongoing expansion and innovation," Tally Greenberg, Head of Business Development at Allnodes said. Phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0 -- known as "Serenity" -- launched on December 1, 2020. The hope for this upgrade to the Ethereum network is meant to address the needs for speed, efficiency, and scalability. "BTC is unlikely to be dethroned as the leading cryptocurrency, but the growth shown on the Ethereum blockchain is hard to bet against. They will naturally be compared 'against' one another although this makes little sense from a functional point of view since each is vying for separate and mutually beneficial use-cases. BTC's 'digital gold' narrative is straightforward which is beneficial for attracting new users who may be intimidated by the apparently more complex and dynamically evolving ETH narrative," Jason Peckham, Analyst at Invictus Capital said. Ethereum 2.0 is moving from Proof of Stake to Proof of Work but is still essentially in test stages. It remains to be seen whether it will handle the need for speed to support the DeFi range of use cases. "To me, Ethereum looks very attractive for long-term purchases, since it has a much greater technical potential for application than Bitcoin. The Ethereum blockchain programmability offers incredible growth opportunities. Bitcoin with its limited emission is rather a tool for saving and paying. Ethereum, in turn, is a tool for real usage of blockchain technology in third-party projects," Dyanis Zabauski, CEO of Coinmatics said. But nevermind the actual real-world uses -- can Ethereum compete with Bitcoin's price performance? "I think it's highly likely that ETH will beat BTC in terms of price performance in 2021... Ethereum has not fully realized the benefit from the growing popularity of DeFi services and NFTs. The exploding NFT market will directly benefit the value of ETH and I think that ETH has room to grow until its price encompasses the current excitement around NFTs," Noam Levenson cryptocurrency writer and founder of Narrow Straight Writing. Some experts point to lagging performance as a reason to keep an eye on Ethereum, as we may see much more movement in 2021. "From a relative performance standpoint, ETH the second-biggest cryptocurrency is lagging Bitcoin up only 20% from it's All-Time Highs vs Bitcoin 175%. In previous cycles, we have seen ETH catch up to BTC growth when BTC begins to correct because the profits taken from BTC are cycled into altcoins. Because ETH is one to two cycles back from BTC in its growth cycle it makes sense that return on the laggard would outperform the larger market cap of BTC from here," Jake Wujastyk Chief Market Analyst at TrendSpider said. Until Ethereum 2.0 is a known quantity, there will be doubts about its ability to meet the already tremendous need for bandwidth to support transactions. "Ethereum might beat Bitcoin in terms of percentage gain this year. So far in 2021, ETH has increased by value by nearly 150%, while bitcoin has gone up around 90%. However, it is unlikely that ETH will take over in terms of market capitalization because bitcoin is the cryptocurrency with the most people behind it in terms of adoption and use. Many view bitcoin as digital gold and major corporations and institutional investors are adding it to their balance sheets. Ethereum is unscalable in its current iteration and acts more as a platform for decentralized applications than a store of value" Ben Weiss, president and COO of CoinFlip said. The launch of an improved Ethereum network is a testament to the strength of the project -- but also represents change. Change conveys risk -- while Bitcoin is simple, immutable, and constantly rising in value. "I am not yet convinced DeFi is as groundbreaking as its followers deem it to be. The idea of yield farming sounds a great deal like smart contract hot potato with investors jumping from project to project, hoping they aren't the last ones to hold the bag," Don Wyper, COO at DigitalMint said. Institutional investors have been key to driving the value of Bitcoin over the past 12 months. Will those same traditional investing giants turn their attention to Ethereum? "Eventually some institutional investors will acquire ETH in order to expand their crypto exposure, while others will trade the recently launched CME ETH futures (interest is still low with volumes 8% of the CME BTC Futures). Others will acquire ETH in order to utilize and experiment with some of the applications, particularly in DeFi. However, I don't see much movement comparable to bitcoin in the near term," Jason Lau, COO at OKCoin said. Conclusion As many respondents pointed out, comparisons between Ethereum and Bitcoin make sense from an investor point of view, but the comparisons don't go much further than that. "BTC and ETH are different: BTC is a currency token while the ETH is a utility token. If mainstream institutional investors get into ETH, it would mean that mainstream institutions validate not only the current value of ETH, but also the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole. We have not seen signs of mainstream institutions being involved in Ethereum's applications. So, in order for institutional investors to get on board, it would take more time and market education throughout 2021 and beyond," Haohan Xu, CEO of Apifiny said It may take a shift in mainstream understanding -- or even a mild learning curve -- to get traditional investors who have tried the familiar Bitcoin to understand the power of DeFi, but it seems the mighty bull run market is raising all ships in the cryptoworld and institutional investors are already getting on board. "Institutional investors are already getting on board with Ethereum. Just recently, Grayscale, the world's largest Crypto asset manager, purchased more Ethereum than Bitcoin for a change. Chinese public firm Meitu also grabbed 15K of Ether not too long ago. Galaxy Digital's ETH funds raised 32 Million in less than a month. The launch of Ethereum Futures on the CME, the launch of Canadian ETH ETFs, and we're just scratching the surface here... I anticipate a further surge of institutional investments in Ethereum. This is just the beginning," Greenberg said. Cover image modified from photo by Mater Miliano from Pixabay See more from Benzinga © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Anger against tech giants led me to cryptocurrency: Nischal Shetty of WazirX - Mint Posted: 19 Mar 2021 08:48 PM PDT Nischal Shetty, founder and CEO of WazirX took to cryptocurrency after his previous business was hit by actions of global tech giants. A software engineer from Mumbai, Shetty shares his story with Mint. Edited excerpts: Tell us about your background I'm a software developer. I grew up in Mumbai and studied engineering in Mangalore. I worked in a company in Bengaluru for 2 years before being hired by a start-up in Mumbai called Burrp.com in 2010. This is how I got introduced to the world of startups and entrepreneurship. On weekends I used to try different coding projects, just as a hobby. One of these was an app to manage social media, called Crowdfire. This was the early days of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter and we were able to spot ways in which users could improve their social media following. To give you an example, our app could identify all the followers of your competitors and follow them - thus making them aware of you and migrate to you. Crowdfire grew rapidly and I was able to quit my regular job and shift to managing it. Eventually however the western tech giants changed the rules and now you cannot really grow your social media following without paying them in some way. Crowdfire of course still exists in B2B format, but its previous individual-facing avatar is no more. It is this situation - dependence on centralised giant corporations that got me interested in cryptocurrency and blockchain which are by definition decentralised. Why did you launch WazirX? I began dabbling in crypto in 2017 and towards the end of the year I had identified several gaps in the market. There were long waiting times to buy bitcoin and spreads were too high. Bitcoin exchanges were faceless and this created a trust problem. I decided to launch an exchange and enter this space towards the end of that year. In this exchange, I was a very visible face and was available on social media from the inception. Initially I just put up a page announcing the launch and asking users to sign up - I got 20,000 signups with just that! WazirX was launched in March 2018, shortly before the RBI ban on crypto related payments. The ban actually became our opportunity. Established exchanges folded up or left India. We pivoted to a crypto-to-crypto model. Traders could still convert rupee to crypto and back on our exchange - it's just that the transactions were carried out through an escrow route rather than directly through our bank account. For example, if A wanted to buy crypto from B, the seller B would have to deposit crypto at our exchange which we held in escrow. Once B gave us confirmation that he had received the funds, we would release the crypto to A. Tell us about why you sold the exchange to Binance in 2019 I was looking for global expertise and Binance fit that bill. There wasn't much innovation in crypto in India but there was plenty happening abroad. The Binance acquisition gave me access to all that. I also wanted to grow rapidly and growth needs capital. Binance was able to provide that. The acquisition has paid off in retrospect. Within 3 months of the it in December 2019, the Supreme Court lifted the RBI ban on crypto payments. Our users and volumes have exploded since then 20 to 30 times over. People were stuck home during the lockdown and took to crypto investing in a big way. We now have around 17 lakh users and we've added around 2 lakh even after the news of another alleged ban came out in February. In that month our volume was USD 2.5 billion and I expect around 60-70% of that was rupee-crypto volume and not just crypto-crypto. Why shouldn't India ban cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrency works on network effects and those effects have already begun working, without Indian participation. Network effect means that as more and more people use a thing, applications and use cases related to it become more and more cost effective, in turn spreading it further. Secondly cryptocurrency is a 1.7 trillion USD market, just a little short of India's current GDP. If we really want to reach a $5 trillion economy, can we do it without participating in this vast market? Third, our nation's success in the past 3 decades has come from software. I don't think that we can continue to be a software powerhouse if we neglect the next big shift in tech - blockchain and cryptocurrency. Last but not least, around 1 crore Indians have already invested in cryptocurrency and around ₹10,000 crore worth of Indian assets are in it. Around 340 startups in India are in this field. There is an entire ecosystem around cryptocurrency in India - do we really want to destroy it? Coinbase an exchange that is supposed to go for an IPO soon in the US is valued at $68 billion. India should also create billion dollar startups. If cryptocurrency isn't banned in India, WazirX could be India's first crypto unicorn. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

You are subscribed to email updates from "cryptocurrency news" - Google News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States