Your Cryptocurrency Newsletter for February 05, 2021

If you are interested in cryptocurrencies, this newsletter is for you. [img]( [img]( [FeedBinary Newsletter]( Sponsored Content [Crypto industry urges government to reconsider ban]( Credits: www.livemint.com Crypto firms in India have also experienced a successful year since the lockdowns in March 2020. Trading on crypto exchanges increased manifold, while Bitcoin’s sudden bull run in December brought in more investors as well. The current move poses a threat to the future of this industry NEW DELHI: The domestic cryptocurrency industry has been urging the Center to reconsider its apparent plan to ban private cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, in India. Industry stakeholders said while the government’s intention to create a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a welcome move, the definition of what the government considers “private cryptocurrencies” will be important. The Indian government’s plan to “create a facilitative framework for creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI),” was announced in the agenda for the upcoming Budget session of Parliament. The legislation seeks “to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India”, the agenda said. It is meant to allow the use of blockchain technology, which is the underlying tech behind cryptocurrencies, but many expect that it will make the use of currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum illegal in the country. “The digital currency bill to be introduced in the Lok Sabha is a welcome step. Its success will depend on the details, particularly the definition of what the bill calls ‘private cryptocurrencies’. This is not a common term. Bitcoin is not privately owned by anyone. It is a public good, like the internet,” said Rahul Pagdipati, chief executive officer (CEO) of crypto exchange and wallet ZebPay. Industry executives say the government’s concern is likely about the possible use of cryptocurrency as an alternative to the Indian rupee (INR). They argued that cryptocurrencies instead are similar to assets such as gold. “As an industry, we’re in sync with the fact that INR is the only legal tender in India and about crypto being an asset/utility that people buy and sell,” said Nishcal Shetty, founder of WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, which was acquired by Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world. “Bitcoin and most crypto assets are more like gold and not an alternative to government-issued legal tender,” said Pagdipati. “Crypto assets and digital government currency can coexist and together,” he said. The industry has urged the government to consult stakeholders before coming to a decision. “We urge the government to take the opinion of all the stakeholders before taking a decision that may affect the livelihood of the entire workforce employed in the digital asset industry in India,” said Shivam Thukral, CEO of BuyUcoin, another cryptocurrency exchange and wallet. “We have faith in the government and hope that this bill will move India forwards, not backwards,” said Pagdipati. India has considered banning cryptocurrencies once earlier. The government had floated a draft bill for “Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill” in 2019. That bill proposed a fine or imprisonment of up to 10 years, or both, for mining, holding, selling, trade, issuance, disposal or use of crypto in India. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had also issued a circular in 2019 that banned banks and other regulated entities from doing business with crypto companies. This was struck down by the Supreme Court last year. According to data from analysis firm Venture Intelligence, investments worth $24 million went into crypto firms in 2020, after the Supreme Court’s decision, up from a mere $5 million in the year before. [Read more]( The post [Crypto industry urges government to reconsider ban]( appeared first on [Feed Binary](. [Read Full Story]( ------------------ [Non-Fungible 2021: Prepare Your NFTs For DeFi, Staking, and Sharing]( Credits: www.cryptonews.com - Collecting artifacts is now possible in a digitally native manner. - “NFTs in DeFi is another space with a lot of potential for growth.” - This year, it still might stay somewhat niche and trail behind the broader DeFi space. Cryptocurrencies are — or at least aim to be — money. This not only means that they need to function as stores of value, media of exchange, and units of account, but that they need to be fungible, in that any one unit of any cryptocurrency should be equal to and exchangeable for any other. However, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) provide something of an exception to this latter rule. While they’ve remained fairly niche for several years now, they’ve grown in prominence over the past year or so, as tokens representing unique works of art, collectibles, and virtual game items have become more popular. According to figures specialized in non-fungible tokens, the NFT sector is likely to witness significant growth this year, as demand for unique digital objects expands. At the same time, the sector is likely to intersect with decentralized finance (DeFi) and other areas to produce novel products and services, including “sharded NFTs” and NFTs as collateral. NFT sector is small, but growing To put the current NFT scene in some perspective, NonFungible.com provides various figures and data indicating just how large (or small) the sector is, as well as how quickly it has been growing. For the week ending on January 29, the volume of sales in NFTs was equal to USD 6m. While this is only 0.003% of the daily volume (as of the time of writing) in all cryptoassets (according to CoinGecko), it still represents a noticeable rise compared to previous months and years. For example, the weekly average volume was around USD 1m as of November, while NonFungible’s 2019 report indicates that monthly volumes were consistently under this figure for much of that year, even dropping under USD 400,000 in September 2019. Meanwhile, according to Simon Seojoon Kim, CEO and Managing Partner at South Korea-based blockchain accelerator Hashed, so far the NFT market has exhibited graduated growth heavily dependent on powerful individual contents and intellectual properties, which, to note, is contrary to DeFi which grew organically. “While we are expecting various use cases of NFTs to emerge in bar gaming, it is extremely difficult to predict the magnitude of growth level of the NFT market nor use any metrics as a holistic index,” he said. Sectors within the NFT sector So while NFTs remain fairly marginal, the sector is undoubtedly expanding outwards, and according to John Crain — the founder of digital art marketplace SuperRare — this will be driven by a number of specific areas within the NFT sector. “Digital art, virtual land, and DeFi NFTs will all experience explosive growth in 2021. Digital art is in the leading position and will be the category leader by an order of magnitude,” he told Cryptonews.com. For Crain, non-fungible tokens provide a long-awaited means to replicate the collectibility of physical artworks, endowing digital objects with a stamp of individuality and uniqueness. “For the first time we have a simple technical standard that creates digital scarcity for digital artifacts. Humans have been collecting artifacts for thousands of years, and there are now tools readily available to do the same in a digitally native manner,” he added. While Crain is unsurprisingly optimistic about the future of digital collectibles, analysts and other industry experts largely agree with his forecasts. “I think crypto art will grow in importance as artists see that they can actually get paid for scarce digital art,” said Fredrik Haga, Co-founder and CEO of Dune Analytics. He added that gaming is another area where NFTs will find increasing joy in 2021, with Axie Infinity — an Ethereum (ETH)-based game that lets players battle using unique creatures — being the biggest product in the space, racking up some USD 8.1m in total transfers (according to NonFungible.com). Aave’s Isa Kivlighan is another person who speaks the praises of Axie Infinity, and NFT gaming more generally. “Axie Infinity is a great example of a play to earn game that gamifies crypto– you play and earn these Ethereum assets and then you can tie them to things going on in the ecosystem. Gaming could be a great way to teach people important DeFi concepts like staking, using interfaces and concepts that people know and understand,” she told Cryptonews.com. DeFi and NFTs Kivlighan also suspects that NFTs will become increasingly prominent within DeFi this year, and vice versa. “NFTs in DeFi is another space with a lot of potential for growth — being able to use NFTs as collateral, for example, is something that people have been looking at. The intersection of NFTs, gaming, and DeFi is another area with huge room for growth,” she said. On top of this, the intermixing between NFTs and DeFi might result in some interesting creations also. According to Kivlighan, this includes wrapped NFTs: “you basically bundle a bunch of NFTs in a group and then you can own parts of that block. Every NFT in the bundle has to meet certain classifications, and they’re backed by individual NFTs that have their own value.” Similarly, Kivlighan also expects “sharded NFTs” to appear. “You can own fractions or ‘shares’ of an NFT, so the ownership is split among many stakeholders,” she said. Movers and shakers As for which platforms will grow most rapidly within the NFT sector, Fredrik Haga highlighted three names in particular. “Currently Nifty Gateway and SuperRare are the ones doing the most volume,” he said. “Opensea is also a great place for trading NFTs.” Monthly crypto art volume, USD According to John Crain, SuperRare aims to capitalize on its recent growth by developing its platform and services in 2021. “We’ll be launching our mobile application, doubling down on [virtual reality] exhibitions, and improving the user experience to accommodate less technical users,” he said. Other higher volume NFT platforms include Sorare (global fantasy football), Art Blocks (generative artwork), and Decentraland (MANA) (decentralized open-world game with collectibles). However, the biggest NFT platform at the moment, according to NonFungible.com, is CryptoPunks, which has been around since 2017. Much like CryptoKitties, CryptoPunks lets you buy unique ‘punks’ — digital characters — on the Ethereum blockchain, and has enjoyed over USD 2.87m in sales over the past week, as well as almost USD 12m across its entire history. Collectible characters are obviously a big draw, and as Isa Kivlighan mentioned above, they may increasingly overlap with DeFi in the coming months and years. This is an area Aavegotchi — a crypto-collectible company that’s being advised by Aave — hopes to mine. “Aavegotchi’s are DeFi staked NFT collectibles (staked with Aave’s aTokens so they increase in value). To summon an Aavegotchi, you must stake a certain amount of collateral (this depends on the traits of the particular Aavegotchi that you’re trying to summon),” she explained. How large? Looking to the end of 2021 and beyond, there’s a conviction that NFTs could see significant relative growth this year, even if they’ll remain somewhat peripheral for some time to come. [Read more]( The post [Non-Fungible 2021: Prepare Your NFTs For DeFi, Staking, and Sharing]( appeared first on [Feed Binary](. [Read Full Story]( ------------------ [IT Min suggests blockchain use in public projects]( Credits: www.indianexpress.com As per the draft framework, a copy of which has been reviewed by The Indian Express, all applications of blockchain technology are likely to be explored by the government under the leadership of the IT Ministry. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has prepared a draft framework for the use of blockchain technology in government services and intends to use it in the areas of property record keeping, digital certificates, power distribution, health records as well as supply chain management. According to the draft framework, a copy of which has been seen by The Indian Express, all the applications of blockchain technology are likely to be explored by the government under the leadership of the IT ministry. The draft, called the National Strategy on Blockchain, is also likely to explore the possibility of use of the technology for vaccine and medical supplies logistics management for future purposes. Virtual and digital currencies such as bitcoin, however, have been kept out of the ambit of this framework and are unlikely to be included in the near future, senior government officials said. “Despite our best efforts, digitisation of the banking and currency system has picked up only of late. Our banking systems still need have non-repudiation requirements through in-person verification. Therefore this is a challenge to implement technological solutions for such requirements especially for crypto-currencies,” an official said. Since the blockchain technology operates on a distributed ledger system which is owned by everyone, participants can read, write, or make changes to the ledger. In order to make the technology better suited to the needs of the government and that of India, the national framework has therefore suggested that blockchain could be set up in one of the four architectures, namely, public and permission less, public but with permissions, private and permission less, and private and with permissions. A public and permission less architecture would mean that anyone can join, read, write and commit changes to the blockchain, would be hosted on publicly available servers but would have low scalability. On the other hand, a public architecture with permissions would allow only authorised persons to write and commit changes to the architecture. Similarly, a private and permission less architecture would mean that though only authorised persons would be allowed to make changes to the distributed ledger, there would be no bar on the number of number of participants that can operate on the technology. The benefits of the technology aside, the draft framework has cautioned that legal rules and guidelines on how to use the technology and limit its abuse should be drawn up before proceeding further. The framework draft has also cautioned about certain issues involved with the adoption of blockchain technology such as replication of data on all nodes, lack of appropriate skillset and human resources in the country as well as threat from rogue nation state actors. “Blockchain data is stored on every node on the network and hence privacy is not an inherent feature that Blockchain traditionally provides. The data should be stored in such a way that the privacy of an individual is not compromised and appropriate consent mechanisms should be adopted in line with data protection laws,” the draft of the framework says. [Read more]( The post [IT Min suggests blockchain use in public projects]( appeared first on [Feed Binary](. 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