Biz Builder Mike

You can't sail Today's boat on Yesterdays wind - Michael Noel

investment

Move over DOGE as Tiger King star launches CAT

Dogecoin’s status as the top memecoin may be (but almost certainly isn’t) under threat following the news that controversial Tiger King star Carole Baskin has launched her CAT coin.

In a blog post via Baskin’s non-profit Big Cat Rescue on May 4, she revealed her social token had been launched on Rally, an open network that enables creators to launch their own coins on the Ethereum blockchain. However, she emphasized her coin is not an investment tool, it’s actually a terrible pun:

“Our new $CAT coin is not a currency for investment, but rather is a purr-ency of our fans to show their love for the cats and to reap the benefits of being our most forward-thinking partners in creating a world where all wild cats live free.”

However Baskin’s interest in cryptocurrency seems to have some basis to it, with the reality TV star explaining she had concerns surrounding money printing fueled inflation and that: “I like the idea of putting the power of money in the hands of the people, rather than banks and governments.”

Despite her newfound bullishness, Baskin appears to have misunderstood the different attributes of Bitcoin versus many altcoins as she said: “At this point, both the USD and Bitcoin are fiat currencies, but at least Bitcoin and other altcoins have scarcity built in and now there is much more broad adoption of them in our everyday lives.”

Baskin’s CAT currently has 123,600 coins in circulation and is sitting at a price of $8.20 per coin. Since launch, $CAT has seen 492 transactions, with a total USD support volume of $206,000.

Holders of CAT will be eligible for rewards such as “elite access to LIVE walkabouts and conversations with Carole Baskin and her crew of big cat lovers and keepers, discounts and first access to new merchandise and activities.”

Baskin has teased future plans for the CAT community, which include shared access to big cat metaverse world called ARzoo, a virtual reality collectible game called Big Cat Rescue VR and a new set of unspecified, but presumably cat-centric NFTs set to drop in two weeks.

This is not Carole Baskin’s first move in crypto. In April last year, she began accepting donations in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum via Bitpay.

It is yet to be seen if her arch-nemesis Joe Exotic or better known as the Tiger King has woken up to the significance of blockchain technology behind bars.

Move over DOGE as Tiger King star launches CAT

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DeFi adoption on the Binance Smart Chain reaches new highs

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has taken a well-deserved break from the spotlight over the past couple of months after being one of the hottest sectors at the start of 2021, but recent growth on several top platforms may hint at another DeFi run in the near future. 

While projects that operate on the Ethereum (ETH) network continue to deal with wild fluctuations in gas fees and transaction times, several that operate on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) have seen an uptick in protocol activity and token value over the past week.

XVS/USDT vs. CAKE/USDT vs. LINA/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Three projects on the BSC that have seen increases in trading volume, price and activity within their DeFi protocols are Venus (XVS), PancakeSwap (CAKE) and Linear Finance (LINA).

XVS/USDT

The Venus protocol is an algorithmic money market and synthetic stablecoin protocol that provides a lending and borrowing solution for DeFi on the BSC.

Recent bullishness for the project began to increase around April 20 when it was revealed that a proposal was submitted to add Dogecoin (DOGE) to the Venus money market.

Following an initial price surge and pullback, momentum and price activity for the project saw another surge on April 29 following the announcement of the Venus Reward Token (VRT) and Venus nonfungible token (NFT) airdrops.

The announcement of the airdrops combined with the listing of XVS on the Crypto.com exchange helped spark a 70% rally in the price of Venus from a low of $72 on April 29 to a new all-time high at $124 on April 30.

XVS/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

At the time of writing, the total value locked (TVL) in Venus is nearing $10 billion.

CAKE/USDT

PancakeSwap is a BSC-based automated market maker (AMM) similar to Uniswap (UNI) that allows users to exchange tokens and earn a portion of fees through yield farming.

Data from TradingView shows that the price of CAKE rallied 102% over the past week, going from a low of $21.90 on April 23 to a new record high at $44.28 on April 30 as token holders engage with the low fee, high yield protocol.

CAKE/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Price action for CAKE has seen a steady rise over the past week following the launch of V2 farms on April 23 and the successful completion of token migration on April 24.

Since the migration and launch of the new liquidity pools, the TVL on PancakeSwap has spiked to $9.873 billion making the protocol the second-ranked DeFi protocol by TVL.

Total value locked on PancakeSwap. Source: Defistation

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for CAKE have been favorable for some time. 

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historic and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. CAKE price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for CAKE began to pick up on April 24 and reached a high of 7 around 14 hours before the price increased 62% over the next five days.

LINA/USDT

Linear Finance (LINA) is a decentralized delta-one asset protocol that enables the creation of synthetic asset tokens to represent traditional assets like commodities, forex, market indices and other thematic sectors which can then be traded on the Linear exchange.

Data from TradingView shows that the price of LINA has climbed 70% over the past week, rising from a low of $0.069 on April 23 to an intraday high of $0.1164 on April 30 with $196 million in 24-hour trading volume.

LINA/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The recent momentum for the project began to build ahead of the April 27 ask-me-anything session with the Moonbeam Network, which calls itself the “easiest on-ramp to Polkadot” thanks to Ethereum-compatible smart contracts on a Polkadot parachain.

Cross-chain interoperability has been one of the major themes of the 2021 bull market, so the prospect of being able to operate LINA on the Polkadot network as well as the BSC and the Ethereum network may have helped to spark a new round of interest in the protocol.

As the pool of retail and institutional investors participating in the cryptocurrency ecosystem continues to grow, DeFi protocols on BSC are well-positioned to see significant gains thanks to low fees and high yield opportunities.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

DeFi adoption on the Binance Smart Chain reaches new highs

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2 key Ethereum price metrics prove pro traders are behind ETH’s new highs

As Ether (ETH) made a $2,800 all-time on April 29, so did its futures open interest. The $8.5 billion figure marks a 52% monthly increase and shows robust trading activity behind the meteoric price rise.

Some analysts might dismiss Ether derivatives, considering CME’s future has $355 million in open interest compared to Bitcoin’s $2.4 billion. However, Ether contracts were only launched a couple of months ago. Both FTX and Deribit require 100% full-KYC for their clients, and these markets hold a combined $2 billion in ETH open interest.

Ether futures aggregate open interest, USD. Source: Bybt

To this in perspective, the open interest on silver futures currently stands at $22.6 billion. The precious metal has decades of trading history and a $1.4 trillion market capitalization. However, a simple analysis of the number of outstanding contracts isn’t really helpful as these can be used for hedging.

Growth in futures is positive but not a guaranteed bullish indicator

To assess whether the market is leaning bullish, there are a couple of derivatives metrics to review. The first one is the futures premium (also known as basis), which measures the price gap between futures contract prices and the regular spot market.

The 3-month futures should usually trade with a 10% to 20% annualized premium, which should be interpreted as a lending rate.

24-hour average OKEx 3-months ETH futures basis. Source: Skew

As the above chart depicts, ETH’s futures premium went berserk in mid-April, peaking at 45% annualized. Although traders’ FOMO played a role, this also signaled extreme optimism. While professional traders most frequently use monthly futures contracts, perpetual contracts are the go-to instrument of retail investors.

Retail investors are flat at the moment

Perpetual contracts are also known as inverse swaps, and these contracts have a funding rate usually charged every 8 hours. This fee increases as longs (buyers) use higher leverage, so their accounts get drained little by little. When a retail buying frenzy occurs, the fee can reach up to 5.5% per week.

Ether perpetual futures 8-hour funding rate. Source: Coinalyze.net

As the above chart displays, the 8-hour funding rate recently peaked at 0.18% on April 14, equivalent to 3.8% per week. While this certainly contributed to the highly optimistic monthly futures’ basis, the impact has completely faded as the funding rate has been negligent over the past couple of days.

This data suggests that, compared to retail investors, professional traders are more bullish on Ether as the 3-month basis currently stands at 25% per year. This rate is higher than most stablecoin lending services offer, meaning longs (buyers) are willing to pay a premium to keep their positions open.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

2 key Ethereum price metrics prove pro traders are behind ETH’s new highs

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Four Assets to Hedge Against Inflation

In April 2019, Bloomberg Businessweek magazine’s cover story asked “Is Inflation Dead?” The subtitle accompanying it was “Did Capitalism Kill Inflation?” 

I recall thinking at the time that this story was probably a contrarian indicator. It reminded me that nearly everyone in the financial world was ignoring the threat of inflation.

It also has similarities to an infamous BusinessWeek cover story from 1979 titled “The Death of Equities.” Stocks had performed miserably for a long time, and everyone was convinced that performance would continue to be horrible. But it actually marked the beginning of one of the greatest long-term bull markets.

Bloomberg Businessweek Covers

Today, inflation is starting to become more of a widespread concern. I detailed some of the latest signs in a recent article. And I recommend that all investors start hedging against the threat of inflation.

How I’m Hedged

My strategy against inflation is straightforward. There are basically four aspects to it.

  • Gold, silver and miners
  • Bitcoin
  • Foreign stocks
  • Startup investments

Let’s briefly go through each.

Gold, Silver, and Miners

I remain extremely bullish on gold and silver as well as quality companies that mine them. Realization about rising inflation is slowly setting in with some people — but most investors still have near-zero exposure to precious metals. 

As governments around the world continue to print unimaginable amounts of money and interest rates stay at rock-bottom levels, I believe demand for gold and silver as investments will soar. I think people are still underestimating the scale and length of what’s coming.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency I consider to be a viable inflation hedge. It’s a scarce, speculative store of value. Needless to say, it’s a lot riskier than gold and silver. But it also has much more upside. 

Bitcoin is a bet on continued reckless government spending and monetary policy. I still like that bet. See my recent article for more details on why I think bitcoin is an excellent hedge.

Foreign Stocks

If the U.S. dollar declines against foreign currencies, it may benefit investors to own stocks in foreign countries. Because the revenue of foreign companies is in a different currency, owning stock provides investors with exposure to the value of that currency. If the currency goes up against the dollar, the value of the investment will rise (approximately) the same amount. 

Startups

Startup investments have an incredible amount of upside. If you invest in a company when it’s worth $10 million and its value grows to $1 billion in five or so years, that’s quite a return. It’s one of the few asset classes that has the potential to outperform significant annual inflation. 

Needless to say, startup investing is risky. And it takes a while to get good at. So start out with small investments and be selective! I recommend going for companies with significant traction, at least at first. It’s the most reliable signal there is.

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Your future at stake: Uni of Wyoming allocates $4M to staking three coins

The University of Wyoming is allocating $4 million to running nodes and staking at least three cryptocurrencies.

The news was shared to Twitter on April 28 by Caitlin Long, a Wyoming Blockchain and Fintech Select Committee appointee and founder of Avanti Bank & Trust — a local bank servicing the digital asset sector.

The documentation posted by Long notes the University appropriated $4 million from the state’s strategic investments and projects fund to establish, operate, and maintain “nodes and staking pools for no less than three publicly tradable cryptocurrencies.”

The revenues generated by the University’s staking pools will first be mobilized to cover operational costs, and then to repay the $4 million to the state’s investment fund. Once the investment has been repaid, profits from the University’s staking will be distributed “to support blockchain programs and activities at the university and community colleges throughout the state.”

The expenditure of profits generated through staking is conditional on the University matching every $1 appropriated from the investment fund with at least $2 in either private donations or from the campus’ reserve accounts.

Chris Rothfuss, the senate minority leader of the Wyoming Legislature and Chairman of the state’s Blockchain and Fintech Select Committee, praised the committee’s “herculean effort” in getting the legislation passed.

Many Twitter users have responded to Long’s post with speculation that Cardano (ADA) may be one of the assets the University is intending to stake.

One commenter shared a link to information on a staking pool identified by CardanoStaking.info as being operated by the University of Wyoming’s Advanced Blockchain Lab. As of this writing, the pool has minted less than 10 blocks, and has pledged roughly $60,000 worth of ADA.

In February 2020, IOHK, the company behind Cardano, donated $500,000 worth of ADA to the university’s blockchain lab to advance its research.

Your future at stake: Uni of Wyoming allocates $4M to staking three coins

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