A novelty in full swing – PoolTogether, the new loser-free lottery, continues to evolve. A week after the launch of its governance token, the protocol’s pools are on track to surpass $ 100 million.

PoolTogether: bet… without losing anything!

Launched in June 2019, PoolTogether is a new kind of decentralized lottery application. Indeed, it takes advantage of a concept widely used in the Bitcoin Revolution ecosystem: liquidity pools .

In practice, the protocol has 4 pools: DAI , USDC , COMP and UNI . To participate, a user must deposit funds into the pool of their choice.

Loterie Pool Together

All funds deposited by users are then loaned to various DeFi protocols. At the time of the draw, the winner gets back the return generated by the funds in the pool. For their part, all the participants simply continue to try their luck in the next draws.

PoolTogether is therefore the first certified lottery without losers, because all the players never lose in the process.

$ 90 million deposited

Last week, the protocol was talked about following the launch of its governance token , the POOL. In addition to distributing it in the form of an airdrop to all users of the protocol, it has also launched a liquidity mining program .

So far it seems that this program is a great success. Indeed, the liquidity deposited on the protocol reached 90 million dollars .

Counter on the official website

This surge in deposits unsurprisingly also raised the weekly cash price to $ 129,732 .

Nonostante i guadagni e il continuo aumento del prezzo del Bitcoin, molti critici prevedono un potenziale scoppio di questa “bolla”.

Bitcoin (BTC) ha continuato a deliziare gli investitori poiché ha superato il prezzo di $ 41.000, un nuovo massimo storico e battendo i propri record precedenti

Secondo per CoinMarketCap, un Bitcoin Era ora vale fino a $ 41.934 al momento della scrittura e rappresenta un guadagno di oltre l’8,7% nelle ultime 24 ore.

Bitcoin continua a deliziare i suoi possessori e i nuovi investitori poiché gli ovvi guadagni di prezzo sono sinonimo di profitto, in particolare per coloro che hanno preso una posizione con la moneta in un momento precedente. Il rally del 2020 è stato principalmente attribuito alle migliori istituzioni di tutto il mondo che hanno acquistato la moneta, mentre l’attuale rally in corso è stato attribuito a un’impennata nell’acquisizione da parte degli investitori al dettaglio che temono di perdere questa corsa al rialzo.

Nonostante i guadagni e il continuo aumento del prezzo di Bitcoin, molti critici prevedono un potenziale scoppio della crescita che etichettano come una bolla. L’anticipazione di una correzione dei prezzi, tuttavia, non ha scoraggiato i nuovi investitori né ha spinto i vecchi a vendere i guadagni accumulati, una mossa che può seguire rapidamente le profezie di questi critici.

Impatto degli investitori al dettaglio sulla spinta del prezzo di Bitcoin a nuovi record

Indubbiamente, la maggior parte dei BTC in circolazione attualmente è nelle casse di meno del 5% degli investitori che hanno preso posizione in Bitcoin. Sebbene la maggioranza del 5% includa adottanti istituzionali e investitori individuali molto facoltosi, i dati degli scambi di criptovaluta incentrati sulla vendita al dettaglio rivelano che gli investitori al dettaglio hanno contribuito a spingere in modo significativo il prezzo del Bitcoin oltre il benchmark di $ 41.000

Il Revolut app ha riferito di aver registrato circa 300.000 nuovi clienti di criptovaluta negli ultimi 30 giorni mentre bitcoin ha testato livelli di prezzo nuovi e più elevati ed eToro ha notato che aveva il 61% in più di titolari di bitcoin unici il 4 gennaio rispetto a un anno prima e il 49% in più possessori unici di etere, un’altra valuta virtuale secondo a un rapporto della CNBC.

Con il mercato che appare affollato, gli analisti ritengono che anche se in questo momento c’è una correzione dei prezzi, la tendenza generale del bitcoin è rialzista.

“Ci sarà volatilità, che è naturale dopo i guadagni che abbiamo visto, ma la tendenza a lungo termine è chiara”, Simon Peters, analista di mercato presso eToro, ha detto alla CNBC. “Crypto si sta muovendo nel mainstream e sempre più investitori stanno aggiungendo esposizione.”

Ma in attesa che questa volatilità spingerà il prezzo di Bitcoin al di sotto dell’attuale supporto fissato a $ 41.000, la sfera delle criptovalute anticipa quanto in alto andrà questa corsa al rialzo.

Nexon, a video game development company, is set to acquire South Korean exchange Bithumb for $ 460 million.

Bithumb soon to be bought by Nexon?

South Korean video game giant Nexon is reportedly preparing to acquire Bithumb , the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. A local source says Nexon could acquire 65% stake in Bithumb for nearly $ 460 million .

Nexon is said to have signed an agreement with Bithumb at the beginning of January, but the procedures are not yet finalized. This record-breaking acquisition is believed to be the work of Nexon CEO himself, Kim Jeong-joo. The latter will work with Vidente , one of Bithumb’s main shareholders, to buy the company and take control of it.

If this sum is indeed spent by Nexon to acquire Bithumb, it would be the largest acquisition to date for the cryptocurrency sector ahead of CoinMarketCap by Binance by $ 400 million .

This is not the first time Nexon has invested in cryptocurrency and FinTech companies. Indeed, Nexon already has two other platforms, the Luxembourg exchange Bitstamp and another South Korean platform Korbit .

In the event that the acquisition of Bithumb is confirmed, Nexon would begin to form a veritable cryptocurrency empire , becoming an industry juggernaut. The local source even indicates that Nexon could in the future integrate cryptocurrencies into its video games, combining the two sectors.

A buyout that will save Bithumb?

To date, Bithumb is the platform with the highest volume of transactions in South Korea. The exchange remains the undisputed leader of its sector in the country , and even has an international platform. With nearly 5 million users, Bithumb covers more than 50% of the volume of cryptocurrency exchanges nationwide.

However, Bithumb was charged with fraud last September by South Korean authorities. Several searches have taken place in its offices in Seoul and its chairman Lee Jung Hoon has been arrested.

For several months, the company had therefore been looking for a new buyer . Nexon has responded to the call, and intends to relaunch the exchange on the right track.

In addition, this acquisition is timely for Nexon. Recently, the South Korean branch of the giant Binance left the territory for lack of liquidity. Competition remains fierce in South Korea, but Binance’s withdrawal allows local platforms to breathe and grow without an international competitor.

VanEck returns to the charge – US asset manager VanEck has just filed a new Bitcoin ETF application with the SEC. VanEck withdrew its previous application for an exchange-traded fund in September 2019, after suffering several refusals from the SEC.

Bitcoin “too manipulated” to be traded on the stock exchange?

The ETF is a listed financial instrument that replicates the behavior of one or more financial assets. For now, the SEC has consistently refused requests from fund managers to set up a Bitcoin ETF.

The reason behind these refusals? The Bitcoin market would still be “too manipulated ”. From a pragmatic point of view, of course that the market is manipulated in the classic sense of the term, the market not being strictly speaking regulated. The practices pump and dump , of wash trading or of spoofing are indeed present in this market and their occurrences are well documented.

The success of the request is therefore closely linked to the proposals that VanEck has made to overcome this problem. The proposed solution would be to use the price of Bitcoin from several exchanges , via the services of CryptoComprate, to determine a fair value of the asset . This solution could make it possible to counter the biggest excesses of whales holding a lot of bitcoins and seeking to violently liquidate large positions, but for the rest it necessarily seems insufficient. This argument alone is therefore unlikely to convince the SEC.

VanEck persists and signs

This new demand is part of a new context for ETFs. In fact, more and more traditional players are participating in it, and the expectations of gains are therefore greater than the fears of manipulation for these financial professionals.

In addition, the SEC is in a period of transition with the resignation of Jay Clayton , at its head for several years, and the arrival of the Biden administration which could be more favorable to the development of the crypto ecosystem in the United States ( or not, obviously).

Buying Bitcoin at the best price is possible with SwissBorg! ”

If the request is successful, the ETF will be traded on the CBOE BZX exchange under the name VanEck Bitcoin Trust. While US investors wait, the closest thing to an ETF right now is the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. This type of fund is a pooling of large sums of money for the purpose of buying bitcoins. However, this type of asset is not easily accessible to small investors , since it is limited to the famous “qualified investors” on US soil.

Institutional investors are continuing to buy Bitcoin, although negative news has recently been spoiling investor sentiment.

On the night of Christmas Eve, Bitcoin ( BTC ) was rejected at the US $ 24,000 mark, but the hunger of institutional investors is not lessening.

According to data from the analysis platform CryptoQuant, the crypto exchange Coinbase Pro, which specializes in professional investors, recorded two payouts this week, each of over 12,000 BTC (278 million US dollars).

Coinbase is paying out $ 500 million to BTC

As Cointelegraph reports , withdrawals of this magnitude often indicate that a major investor has purchased a significant amount of Bitcoin that is being moved into a single wallet.

“Another great Coinbase payout within a few hours” as Ki Young Ju, CEO of Crypto Quant, accordingly on Twitter finds . From this he concludes:

“The institutional investors are buying Bitcoin.”

In November, all Bitcoin miners together “mined” around 28,000 BTC in block rewards, which is only slightly more than the sum of the two most recent Coinbase withdrawals. This makes it clear that there is currently a shortage of the market-leading crypto currency, which in turn drives its price upwards.

Negative reports ruin the festival

The continuing interest of institutional investors is in stark contrast to the latest developments in the market, which are dampening investors’ Christmas mood somewhat. Above all, the SEC lawsuit against crypto payment service provider and XRP publisher Ripple is causing tremendous turbulence, but the threat of massive Bitcoin sales in the case of the Mt. Gox crypto exchange are also causing concern.

The fear that trading in the Ripple crypto currency XRP could be banned entirely in the future was probably the breeding ground for the volatility of Bitcoin in the past 24 hours.

At the same time, the market is keeping an eye on the sponsors of Mt. Gox, who own large amounts of BTC through repayments, which they may now want to sell at the current record rate . That alone could add $ 3.2 billion to selling pressure.

Despite this negative news, institutional investors still seem confident about the future of Bitcoin, which can be seen not least from the two large Coinbase payouts.

Hinter Spotify om kryptofunksjoner som snart kommer?

Spotify, en av verdens største streaming-lydleverandører, leter etter kandidater med kryptobakgrunn for å fylle en ny rolle i selskapet.

I følge et nylig stillingsannonser er selskapet på utkikk etter en fremragende direktør for å bli med i betalingsstrategien og innovasjonsavdelingen. I følge en kunngjøring på LinkedIn ble den nye stillingsannonsen offentliggjort onsdag.

Det forventes at den nye stillingen vil spille en nøkkelrolle i å definere og implementere Spotifys betalingsstrategi, samt å fremme selskapets engasjement i Facebooks nylig renoverte Cryptosoft, Diem. Stillingen vil også fokusere på bredere digitale eiendeler og kryptoindustrien, inkludert sentralbankens digitale valutaer, eller CBDC, heter det i kunngjøringen:

“Du vil lede ytterligere hensyn til nye muligheter og innovasjon i det nye økosystemet med distribuert hovedboksteknologi, blokkjeder, kryptovalutaer, stablecoins, CBDC og andre digitale eiendeler.”

I følge oppslaget vil den nye rollen være basert på Spotifys kontorer i London eller Stockholm, og krever hyppige reiser mellom de to kontorene og andre firmaer.

Spotify svarte ikke umiddelbart på Cointelegraphs anmodning om kommentar.

Spotify er et av de første medlemmene av Libra Foundation som formelt ble grunnlagt i Genève i oktober 2019. I motsetning til PayPal og MasterCard er Spotify blant firmaene som ikke har forlatt Facebooks kryptoprosjekt på grunn av økt kontroll fra globale regulatorer.