Biz Builder Mike

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

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Malaysia based Telecom Axiata Group and Norway’s Telenor to Merge Malaysian Mobile Businesses

Axiata Group and Telenor Asia revealed on Thursday (April 8, 2021) that they’ve revisted and confirmed their merger plans involving Celcom and Digi. At present, the deal is in advanced discussions.

Malaysian telecoms company Axiata Group Bhd and Norway-based Telenor ASA will be focused on merging their  Malaysia-based mobile business operations.

Both firms stated that they had been planning the merger of the telco operations of Celcom Axiata Berhad and Digi.Com Bhd. As part of the deal, both companies will have equal ownership (at around 33% for each company).

As first reported by Reuters, Malaysian institutional investors need to own at least 17.9% of the outstanding shares in the new firm, ensuring that the total domestic ownership is more than 51%, Axiata confirmed.

The firm will be known as Celcom Digi Bhd.

Reuters had also reported earlier that Axiata and Telenor were planning to confirm a deal that was expected to involve the Malaysia-based mobile operations of both companies.

As part of the deal, Axiata will be getting newly issued shares in Digi, which is a cash consideration from new debt in the merged firm of around $400 million and an additional $70 million from Telenor Group, Telenor’s management noted.

Telenor also mentioned:

“A transaction will realize synergies and provide value for shareholders in line with our strategy of further developing Telenor’s Asian portfolio.”

The Norwegian firm, which is the major shareholder in Digi, has other Asia-based operations in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Thailand.

Axiata’s management confirmed that the merged entity will aim to serve as “a leading telecommunications service provider in Malaysia in terms of value, revenue and profit.” It’s expected to generate proforma revenue of approximately 12.4 billion ringgit or around $3 billion USD.

The entity is also expected to have earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of around 5.7 billion ringgit, and about 19 million customers.

Trading in the company shares of Axiata and Digi had been suspended earlier, as the announcement details were being finalized.

In September of last year, Axiata and Telenor had backed out of a potential deal to establish a telecoms joint initiative with almost 300 million clients based in Southeast Asia. The firms had said that the transaction may have led to certain “complexities” which is why they didn’t follow through with it.

During 2020, Telenor had also been planning to combine its Asia-based business operations into one entity under new management so that it could work on other initiatives more effectively.

Digi is notably one of Malaysia’s biggest mobile services platforms in terms of subscribers, while Axiata’s local division Celcom is the third-largest.

As covered in February of last year, the Telenor Microfinance Bank of Pakistan revealed the new DLT-based cross-border payments service, which is available via Easypaisa, a leading mobile-based digital wallet.

The Easypaisa online wallet app lets Pakistani citizens, working in Malaysia, send money back home instantly and securely, via Telenor’s Malaysia-headquartered payment platform Valyou.

As reported in June 2020, GREAT Eastern (Life Assurance), the largest life insurance company in Singapore and Malaysia, had confirmed a $70 million investment into Axiata Digital’s financial services business, in order to take part in the company’s Fintech-focused plans, according to Khor Hock Seng, group CEO at Great Eastern.

The investment was reportedly made through a newly launched holding company, called Boost Holdings.

As mentioned in the announcement, Boost Holdings is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Axiata Digital, which is the digital services division of the Axiata Group, a major telecommunications group in Malaysia.

After finalizing the investment, Great Eastern will have a 21.875% stake in Boost Holdings. As noted in the release, Axiata Digital Services will be holding the remaining stake in the company.

Malaysia-based Boost offers a digital wallet and lifestyle app which has more than 7.5 million users and around 170,000 merchant touchpoints (as of June 2020).

The investment will reportedly be used to finance Axiata Digital’s new digital financial services business in Malaysia (and in Asia in general). The expansion includes Boost Holdings’ plans to support and develop its merchants network while onboarding more customers. The funds will also be used to improve Aspirasi’s credit-scoring technology. Aspirasi is an online micro-financing and micro-insurance provider.

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China’s Bitcoin Mining Industry Could Derail Climate Targets: Researchers

As China’s bitcoin mining industry grows bigger, some researchers believe the electricity-gulping bitcoin mining may prevent China from achieving its climate goals.

This was made known in a recent study published in the Journal Nature by the researchers. 

Increasing Concerns Over Climate Security

The study reveals that China powers approximately 80% of the world trade in cryptocurrency.

Given the fact that Bitcoin operates on the blockchain, every transaction is encrypted by a network operated by miners, which use high electricity consumption in the process.

The miners use high-powered computers to validate transactions, which consumes huge electricity and may have implications on climate security.

However, the Journal Nature report shows that 40% of China’s Bitcoin is powered by coal. This is where the problem starts. 

Researchers believe that since most of these big coal plants emit carbon, they may have adverse effects on the climate’s health.

While China projects to overcome carbon emissions before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060, the researchers warned that the lofty objective might be impossible with rising Bitcoin mining activity.

Also, Nature Study projected that China’s Bitcoin mines might accumulate approximately 130.5m metric tons of carbon emission by 2024.

The study gathers that the availability of affordable electricity in China and access to hardware-enabled companies in China controls about 78.89% of the global bitcoin blockchain.

The activities of these companies involve mining coins, tracking and monitoring cryptocurrency transactions.

However, the co-author of the piece, Wang Shouyang, warned that continued Bitcoin mining activities could have grave consequences on the climate if left unchecked.

Way forward On China’s Crypto Mining Industry

Experts have recommended some alternative paths that the Chinese government could take in managing cryptocurrency mining and preserving its climate security policy.

In this regard, Shouyang advised the government to concentrate on upgrading the power grid to create a stable power supply from renewable energy sources.

He explained that renewable energy sources provide cleaner energy and are also cost-effective, adding that this will even motivate the miners to relocate from coal-powered regions to clean-energy regions.

According to a Cambridge University’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, it is envisaged that the crypto-mining industry will consume 0.06% of the globe’s electricity production.

However, experts enjoined the Chinese government not to raise carbon taxes as a form of deterrence. Instead, they should work in providing alternative solutions.

China imposed a blanket ban on cryptocurrency in 2019 but has allowed the cryptocurrency mining industry to continue.

China’s coal-rich regions are imposing stiffer measures on Bitcoin miners, given their policy in curbing emissions. For example, In April, the provincial government of Inner Mongolia has rolled out plans to outlaw cryptocurrency mining before the end of April.

China’s Bitcoin Mining Industry Could Derail Climate Targets: Researchers

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‘Wild west’ as developers MacGyver highly popular NFTs on Cardano

Despite not yet having functional smart contracts on the layer-one, intrepid Cardano developers have recently hacked together methods to mint bootleg nonfungible tokens. These experiments in hosting unique data on the blockchain are reminiscent of the pre ERC-721 standard era for Ethereum — and, what’s more, so far they’ve proven to be enormously popular with token drops routinely selling out. 

In a post on Reddit today, ADA Technology Management (ATM), a staking pool operator for Cardano, revealed what they claimed to be two NFT images they’d minted on the chain. In the thread the company said they were planning to offer NFT minting as a service to pool delegators.

The so-called NFTs come with a number of caveats, however. Because Cardano doesn’t yet support smart contracts or have a NFT token standard, in order to create a NFT users mint a native token one-of-one native token.

“Tokens on Cardano are native and are on the same level as ADA. Instead of smart contracts, so called “minting policies” control the flow of a certain token group. NFTs are basically tokens on Cardano with a quantity of 1,” explained Alessandro, the self-described “brains” behind SpaceBudz, a Cardano-native collectibles project and the author of a Cardano Improvement Proposal to establish a Cardano NFT metadata standard.

Developers can then embed in the token metadata a link to an Arweave and/or InterPlanetary File System address where an image is stored. One example NFT shows that the “metadata” section of a mint transaction includes a link to a IPFS address which displays the associated SpaceBud. The end result is a wholly unique token permanently recorded and transferrable on the Cardano blockchain — a NFT by many, if not all, definitions. 

Thriving community

Despite the extra hoops developers have to jump through to create them, the NFTs have proven to be enormously popular with users. 

According to Alessandro, SpaceBudz sold out all 10,000 NFTs in just three days at a price of 50 ADA per, and there’s already an eager secondary market where especially rare SpaceBudz have sold for as high as $40,000.

Even before SpaceBudz, CardanoKidz was working on Cardano-native NFTs as early as August 2020. Multiple pre-sale rounds sold out “within hours of launch,” according to Zac, a member of the CardanoKidz marketing team. One Satoshi-inspired Kid sold for 32,000 ADA even before the tokens were minted, and the NFTs themselves went live in late March.

Zac credits tools like a community-developed token and minting policy tracker for helping to make developers’ lives easier. The official Cardano developers, IOHK, appear to be embracing the new vertical as well, as lead engineer Polina Vinogravoda gave a quick tutorial on minting NFTs on the chain on Tuesday. 

A host of other projects round out the upstart ecosystem, including CryptoPunk-inspired CardanoBits, and minting platform CNFT. While still rudimentary, the NFTs on Cardano are cheaper than those on Ethereum as well: minting a native token costs roughly 2 ADA, or $2.50.

While the developers working in this nascent community have managed so far, ultimately they’re excited for smart contracts to make their lives easier.

“We can’t wait for smart contracts to arrive for more functionality but we had JUST enough tools and experience to make NFTs work on Cardano,” said Zac. “It’s been an incredible journey so far.”

‘Wild west’ as developers MacGyver highly popular NFTs on Cardano

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Ripple Acquires 40% Stake in Asian Payments Fintech Tranglo

Ripple has agreed to acquire a 40% stake in cross-border payments Fintech Tranglo, according to a public release. Tranglo, based in Malaysia but operates across Asia, reports 1300 partners having completed 20 million transactions at $4 billion in value. Tranglo claims to be one of Asia’s leading cross-border payment hubs that offer airtime top-ups as well also foreign remittance and business payments.

The company states that the partnership with Ripple will enable it to “meet growing customer demand in the region and expand the reach of On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), which uses the digital asset XRP to send money instantly and reduce working capital needs.”

Ripple expects to broaden its ODL footprint in the region and will allow customers using ODL to leverage Ripple’s Line of Credit to free up working capital and scale cross-border payments. Tranglo expects to continue to provide and expand its current payment services to make cross-border transactions faster and cheaper.

Ripple’s investment in Tranglo is described as a reflection of the company’s commitment to enriching the payments ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

Tranglo CEO Jacky Lee, stated:

“Tranglo has always prided itself on making cross-border transactions faster, cheaper and more secure. By partnering closely with Ripple and introducing On-Demand Liquidity to new markets, we aim to further that ambition to provide accessible and equitable financial services to the masses.”

Asheesh Birla, General Manager of RippleNet at Ripple said that Tranglo’s robust payments infrastructure coupled with their customer service and quality makes them an ideal partner to support their expansion of On-Demand Liquidity starting with the Southeast Asia region.

“We are excited to continue and carry out our shared mission to transform cross-border transactions to be faster, cheaper and more secure with blockchain technology and digital assets.”

Completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval and closing conditions and is expected to occur in 2021.

Upon completion, Amir Sarhangi, VP of Product and Delivery at Ripple, and Brooks Entwistle will join Tranglo’s board of directors. TNG Fintech Group will remain the majority shareholder in Tranglo and plans to work with Ripple to further expand Tranglo’s global remittances network.

Ripple previously announced Line of Credit, a service on RippleNet that allows customers using On-Demand Liquidity to source capital on-demand to initiate cross-border payments at scale using the digital asset XRP.

Ripple is currently in the midst of a legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that has filed an enforcement action alleging the issuance of unregistered securities.

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PancakeSwap (CAKE) aims to take a slice out of Uniswap’s DeFi dominance

Decentralized finance has taken a back seat to nonfungible tokens over the past month but this hasn’t stopped the top DeFi projects from developing and strategizing how to grow their ecosystems and market share. 

One project that has outperformed the field as of late is PancakeSwap (CAKE), the Binance Smart Chain-based automated market maker (AMM) that allows users to exchange tokens and earn a portion of fees through yield farming.

Monthly trading volume on PancakeSwap. Source: Delphi Digital

According to a recent report from Delphi Digital, several factors have played a significant role in helping the PancakeSwap ecosystem grow in recent months and analysts predict that the protocol will continue to be a serious competitor to Uniswap.

Users flee high Ethereum fees

Anyone who has tried to transact on the Ethereum (ETH) network in 2021 will have noticed the astronomical rise in gas fees which has been compounded by the rising price of Ether. 

Average Ethereum gas fee. Source: Etherscan

If you compare this chart of the average gas fees on Etherum with the chart above detailing the monthly trading volume on PancakeSwap, a correlation can be seen between higher fees and more activity on the DeFi platform.

While Ethereum fees were ballooning, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) emerged as a viable option thanks to numerous cross-chain bridges and low transaction costs. PancakeSwap is the largest, most established DEX on the BSC thus it benefits from the influx of users and Binance’s large user base.

Delphi Digital analysts identified Binance’s immense ecosystem as another major factor providing a boost for CAKE as its “vast network effect” comes from being the “biggest crypto exchange that’s typically the first choice for retail traders.”

Prospective users can gain access to the BSC by simply withdrawing their tokens from Binance to a BSC-supported wallet.

PancakeSwap could be a ‘perpetual vampire’

Delphi Digital also highlighted CAKE’s token economics as a significant factor for its future growth.

Unlike UNI and SushiSwap (SUSHI), there is not a hard cap on the supply of CAKE tokens which gives the platform the “ability to perpetually conduct targeted vampire attacks in order to attract liquidity and incentivize projects to launch on PancakeSwap’s AMM.”

The current weekly inflation rate for CAKE is 3.78%, which is significantly higher than UNI’s 2% yearly inflation rate.

Even with various deflationary measures implemented by CAKE developers, the “net emission is approximately 1,000,000 CAKE per week – which translates to 37% real inflation annually (or 0.7% weekly).”

According to Delphi Digital, PancakeSwap is aware of how the current inflation numbers look and the team announced a governance vote to change the emission schedule with the options to leave it the same, decrease it to 23.5 or 22 CAKE per block.

The option to reduce emissions to 22 CAKE, a 20% decrease, is currently favored to win and this would reduce CAKE emissions by 1,050,000. This would help to neutralize inflation while also allowing the project to keep its vampire attack capabilities in the long-run.

CAKE attempts to break above resistance

Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that since reaching a low of $8.30 on Feb. 28, the price of CAKE has made several attempts to break out to a new all-time high and at the time of writing the altcoin trades for $15.63.

CAKE/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

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. A recent test of the system resulted in investment returns as high as 1,497% using specific strategies outlined in the report.

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

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for CAKE turned green and registered a 65 on March 21, roughly six hours before the price began to rally over the next four days.

After the initial precise rise on March 22, the VORTECS™ Score continued to climb and reached a high of 81 on March 25, three hours before the price began to rally 36%.

Strong backing from Binance and low fees on BSC have PancakeSwap in an enviable position to attract additional liquidity from the Ethereum-based DeFi protocols as a practical solution to high gas fees remains elusive. Despite inflation-related concerns, analysts have suggested keeping an eye on this Uniswap competitor as the battle for DeFi dominance continues to unfold.

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.

PancakeSwap (CAKE) aims to take a slice out of Uniswap’s DeFi dominance

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