Biz Builder Mike

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

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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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Thought Machine, a Cloud Native Tech Provider for Banks, Integrates Fintech Wise’s Money Transfer Platform

Thought Machine, a company that builds Cloud-native technology for banks, has reportedly integrated Wise‘s (formerly doing business as TransferWise) global money transfer platform into its core banking engine, Vault.

The integration should allow Thought Machine‘s banking and Fintech clients the option to use Wise’s fast and affordable global transfers service more quickly and in a more efficient manner. The companies have developed an integration layer that, they explained, lowers the developer effort required for financial institutions to link up with Wise’s API (developer effort reduced as much as 60%).

Wise, which recently rebranded from TransferWise (earlier in 2021), began its business operations as a consumer-facing startup providing an alternative to slower, inefficient, and costly currency transmission services offered by incumbents.

While still working with millions of clients directly, Wise is now more focused on teaming up with banks in order to integrate its API within their platforms.

The latest deal sees Wise’s technology being provided to  Thought Machine’s clients, which includes Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered, Atom bank, Monese, Curve, and SEB.

Stuart Gregory, MD, Wise Platform & Wise Business, stated:

“Our integration today makes it quicker and easier for financial institutions and banks to enable faster and cheaper payments for their customers and brings us one step closer to our mission of building money without borders.”

Wise, a top Fintech that may be described as a stealth bank, recently announced that it’s giving away shares in itself. According to the private company, it has gifted 2000 customers a single share of the firm that has emerged as popular global payments and transfer platform.

The UK-based Fintech firm noted that currently there are 2400 employees in 15 offices working at Wise. All of the employees are said to have shares in the company that has indicated in the past it will seek to remain private as long as possible. Of course, if and when, Wise goes public, early shareholders may benefit from their confidence in the company’s mission.

Wise stated:

“We believe our customers should also be shareholders. You have the strongest understanding of the problems we’re trying to solve and our mission, so it’s natural you should have a say in how Wise is built and run. We believe having you represented amongst our shareholders will help us move even faster towards completing our mission. That’s why we’re giving one share in Wise to 2,000 of our active customers. Having a share is a bit like having a slice of the Wise pie — it means you own a bit of Wise. If you’re one of the lucky 2,000, we’ll be in touch with how to claim your share.”

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KingsCrowd, a Ratings and Analytics Firm for Private Securities Market, Releases New Regulation CF Report

KingsCrowd, the online private market’s data-driven ratings and analytics platform, announced on Tuesday (April 27, 2021) the publication and availability of the KingsCrowd Regulation Crowdfunding 2018-2020 Intelligence Report.

The KingsCrowd Regulation Crowdfunding 2018-2020 Intelligence Report reportedly covers more than 150 Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) market statistics, key insights, and analytics. These items are presented in an “easy-to-read” visual format. Readers get an extensive overview of the Reg CF market as of last year, along with a preview of what is set to be a “record-shattering” 2021, according to a release.

In 2020, startups secured over $210 million via equity crowdfunding. This total represents year-over-year growth of about 110% from 2019’s total funding and notably marks the fourth year early-stage firms have been able to acquire investment capital from the public under the JOBS Act’s Regulation Crowdfunding rules.

KingsCrowd Founder and CEO Chris Lustrino, stated:

“The release of this first edition of our Regulation Crowdfunding Intelligence Report couldn’t come at a better time. On March 15, the U.S. Securities and Exchange increased the maximum raise amount under Regulation Crowdfunding rules from $1.07 million to $5 million. This marks a watershed moment for our industry and makes Regulation Crowdfunding a viable alternative to traditional venture capital and. KingsCrowd’s Regulation Crowdfunding 2018-2020 Intelligence Report was written for anyone interested in the Reg CF market and looking to update themselves on this fast-growing space quickly.”

A few takeaways from the report:

  • For the year 2020, “more than $210 million was invested in Reg CF raise campaigns.”
  • The average valuation of companies raising funds in 2020 “was $11.35 million, a 24% increase from 2018’s average valuation and up slightly from 2019’s $11.19 million figure.”
  • Second half 2020 data “shows 291 out of 964 start-up companies raised capital exhibited mixed-gender founding teams while 27% of all entities that raised funds through Reg CF included minority founders.”

KingsCrowd says that it’s at the “intersection between early-stage companies seeking growth capital and startup investors.” By offering “institutional-grade” data and analysis that stakeholders can “trust,” KingsCrowd allows anyone to “invest like a venture capitalist.”

KingsCrowd’s Merlin™ Ratings Platform analyzes over 150 data points to offer key insights, analytics, and ratings “to help investors navigate the startup investing market and vet the best deals worth adding to their investment portfolio.”

In late January 2021, Wefunder, a leading securities crowdfunding platform, highlighted Q4 performance in the Reg CF crowdfunding sector. According to the numbers generated by Kingscrowd, Wefunder dominated this sector of online capital formation.

Now crowdfunding encompasses other exemptions, including Reg A+ and Reg D (506c). Each of these exemptions is unique in its own way (Reg D is only available for accredited investors, for example), and many platforms offer securities under all three exemptions, including Wefunder but the bulk of the platform’s securities offerings are from issuers raising capital under Reg CF.

The numbers show Wefunder topping its nearest competitor under Reg CF by almost $10 million:

Wefunder – $29 million
StartEngine – $19.8 million
Republic – $9.9 million
All others – $12.6 million

As covered in March 2020, KingsCrowd closed on a $1 million crowdfunding round on the NetCapital marketplace.  NetCapital lists private securities under both Reg CF and Reg D. The KingsCrowd offering leveraged both exemptions in a side-by-side offering. KingsCrowd said it raised $902,952 under Reg CF and $97,048.80 under Reg D 506 (c). 555,556 units were sold. Kingscrowd is a ValueSetters, Inc. (OTC:VSTR) portfolio company.

You may download a copy of the KingsCrowd’s Regulation Crowdfunding 2018-2020 Intelligence Report here.

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Synthetic FAANG stocks are trading in DeFi — but do gas fees make them uncompetitive?

Decentralized finance protocol Kwenta has launched a series of synthetic tokens for popular stocks — but current gas prices could make trading them more expensive than buying the real thing.

In a blog post on April 23, derivatives trading protocol Kwenta —an Ethereum dApp which is powered by Synthetix — announced the listing of various synths that track the prices of stocks from the top five tech firms known by the acronym FAANG. These comprise Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. Tesla was already available and there are plans to soon add Microsoft (MSFT) and Coinbase (COIN).

The Mirror Protocol on Terra blockchain has a similar setup offering a range of synthetic tokens based on tech stocks, as well as a FAANG index token. Tokenized stocks were first made available on the FTX derivatives exchange and can now be traded on other major platforms such as Binance, however synthetic tokens enable these stocks (or something similar) to be traded in DeFi.

Synthetic digital assets are tokenized versions of real world assets such as stocks, commodities, and indexes — they can also include physical assets such as real estate or vehicles. Their prices follow those of the real world assets, tracked by price oracles, allowing investors to gain exposure to them. The additional appeal is that anyone anywhere can trade them without having to jump through regulatory hoops associated with U.S. stock exchanges.

Synths were popularized by the DeFi protocol Synthetix which allows users to create their own synthetic assets providing there is underlying crypto collateral. The newly listed FAANG synths can be used for liquidity provision in pools provided by Balancer.

In the April 23 edition of DeFi newsletter ‘Bankless’, UMA Protocol founder Hart Lambur (another synthetic asset platform) compared synths to alchemy, adding that they enable anyone to create a financial asset for anything.

“In the same way YouTube allowed new forms of long tail video content to flourish, […] synthetic assets will enable new types of financial products we haven’t even imagined yet.”

There is one underlying problem, however, especially with platforms based on Ethereum Layer 1. According to Bitinfocharts, the average transaction cost on Ethereum spiked to its second highest level on Tuesday, April 20, hitting $30.

Etherscan is currently reporting three-figure gas prices in USD for more complex DeFi activities such as swapping tokens on Uniswap. This could make investing in the new FAANG synths more costly than buying the actual stock and paying brokerage fees.

Fortunately, Synthetix is among a number of DeFi protocols implementing Layer 2 scaling solutions. It is currently in the process of migrating the exchange to rollup technology from Ethereum scaling solutions provider, Optimistic Ethereum. Owing to delays in the launch of Optimism mainnet, this is not expected until July 2021.

Synthetic FAANG stocks are trading in DeFi — but do gas fees make them uncompetitive?

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Bitcoiners back social platform to escape shadowbans and demonetization

A new Social media platform called Locals has drawn strong backing from leading crypto figures as part of a push to escape big tech censorship.

Locals Technology, Inc. announced a $3.8 million seed investment round on April 20, and included backing from the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets, Anthony Pompliano, former Coinbase CTO Balaji S. Srinivasan as well as Alexander Lloyd, co-author of The Little Bitcoin Book.

Locals is an alternative platform that gives control to independent creators by allowing them to post content without wrestling with the ambiguous censorship standards on social media platforms such as YouTube and Patreon.

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip said that he joined Locals because it gave him back the control over his content, noting he was fearful over what content he could post in light of being shadow-banned or demonetized:

“Before Locals, I couldn’t control what anybody saw because Twitter could shadowban me, YouTube could demonetize me and it looked like one wrong move and I would just be out of business. I was putting tons of work into something that I had no control over. These platforms could just snap a finger and I’d be out of business.”

While the platform is not blockchain-based, it’s likely to be of interest to crypto influencers who have fallen victim to similar shadow bans, demonetization, video deletion, and algorithms that reportedly work against crypto content.

Co-founder and CEO Assaf Lev noted on the company’s website the aim of the platform was put creators back in control:

“We created locals.com to give creators more—more money, more control, and true ownership over their own content and audience.”

Creators on the platform can set the rules for allowed content in their own “communities,” with fans also being able to post content in the communities they subscribe to. Co-founder Dave Rubin, who is an outspoken political commentator and YouTube personality, started Locals with the idea of evening up the playing field:

“If you think about the relationship between the big social media platforms and the content creator, the equation is backwards. The content creator is why people visit these big tech platforms, and yet they are the ones who make the lion’s share of the money.”

Creators can set their own monthly subscription fees, with Locals taking a 10% cut of total monthly revenues. The platform operates with Local Coin, a non-crypto virtual currency which holds a value of 10 cents.

The push for monetized free speech platforms has sparked a lot of innovation for blockchain-based solutions. On April 1, Cointelegraph reported on several platforms that aim to solve the vague content monetization policies of the major platforms. For example, GazeTV, You42, and AIOZTube are all aiming to provide a transparent way creators can post content while being able to track revenue on the blockchain.

Bitcoiners back social platform to escape shadowbans and demonetization

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