Launch of a new cryptocurrency, attached to Australian dollar exchange rate on Ethereum blockchain, scheduled for mid-2023. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

National Australia Bank (NAB), one of four major Australian banks, has created an AUDN stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. It will be attached to the rate of Australian dollar (AUD), according to Australian Financial Review. Banks plan to launch this coin in mid-2023.

The goal of creating AUDN is to allow bank customers to make real-time blockchain-based settlements in Australian dollars, the NAB said. AUDN can also be used for a number of other purposes, including carbon credit trading and repo transactions.

NAB also intends to use AUDN for low-cost international transfers. According to the bank, the technology will avoid using the SWIFT system. And reduce dependence on complex and costly relationships with correspondent banks when sending money abroad.

For at least three months AUDN will not be available to customers. Because while the bank under the supervision of regulators is conducting internal testing. Including transfers between subsidiaries and branches.

AUDN is not the first stablecoin to be pegged to the Australian dollar. 9 months earlier, Australia-New Zealand banking group ANZ Bank issued the A$DC (“A dollar DC”) coin. Also Novatti payment system created the AUDD stablecoin on Stellar blockchain. And Ettle has launched AUDE token on Ethereum and Algorand.

There are also stablecoins linked to Australian dollar exchange rates such as AUDT, XAUD, AUDRamp and TrueAUD. Volumes of these cryptocurrencies are minimal.

Last month, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe said that regulating stable coins should be a priority and should be treated the same as bank deposits. Our experts note that Australia is also actively developing legislation and introducing technology for other digital assets. For example, in the middle of last year, Australian Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate proposed accepting cryptocurrency in payment of municipal taxes.

Opening of National Exchange of Indonesia is scheduled for this year. And it should take place before the change of transfer of crypto-assets supervision to the new regulator. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

The Indonesian government plans to launch a national cryptocurrency exchange as part of financial sector reform. The project is to be completed in 2023, before the authority to oversee cryptocurrencies in the country is transferred to a new regulator.

The local Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (BAPPEBTI) now regulates crypto-assets in Indonesia. According to a spokesman for the agency, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) will take over oversight of cryptocurrencies over the next two years. A national cryptocurrency exchange should already be up and running by the time regulators switch powers.

In 2021, Indonesia’s Central Bank Governor Perry Warjiyo announced the regulator’s intention to issue its own national digital currency (CBDC). Currently, Indonesian law prohibits the use of cryptocurrency as a payment instrument. However, trading in digital assets in Indonesia is allowed.

In 2018, Tokocrypto crypto exchange was officially launched in the country. The platform became the first cryptocompany in Indonesia approved by BAPPEBTI. Since 2020, Binance has been one of the investors of the exchange. The size of Changpeng Zhao’s stake has not been disclosed, but last December the media twice reported on the leading Binance’s plans to gradually increase its stake in Tokocrypto to 100%. Each of the news was accompanied by a sharp rise in the platform’s native token (TKO).

Our experts note that Asian market is probably important to Binance as a whole. And the exchange is entering it by acquiring stakes in local trading venues. In late November last year, the exchange acquired a stake in Japan’s Sakura Exchange (SEBC), a platform officially regulated by the Japan Financial Services Agency (JFSA). On January 2, local media reported on Binance’s plans to buy one of Korea’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, Gopax.

In January 2023, there will be several big events at once. Which may affect both the value of individual cryptocurrency and crypto market as a whole. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

COTI (COTI) – launch of DJED stablecoin

At the Cardano Cryptocurrency Summit in late November, COTI CEO Shahaf Bar-Geffen announced the launch of an algorithmic stablecoin, DJED. According to its developers’ plan, the stablecoin will go live in January after a thorough audit and will be linked to the U.S. dollar. DJED will be backed by Cardano’s base coin (ADA). And use the SHEN coin as a backup.

The DJED algorithm is based on a collateral ratio in the 400%-800% range for DJED and SHEN. This is necessary to ensure a sufficient number of ADAs in a pool. Agreements have already been signed with 40 partners and decentralized exchanges for fast and proper implementation. These projects will offer increased rewards to those who provide liquidity with DJED.

The developers also announced Djed Pay. It’s a payment app and crypto-gateway that allows merchants. As well as e-commerce platforms and non-profit organizations to accept DJED as payment.

Flux (FLUX) – FluxOS V3.30.0 release

Flux project developers announced that FluxOS V3.30.0 update will take place on January 2 on unit number 1288000. All owners of node validators need to update their software by January 3. The update will fix synchronization issues. As well as reconfigured prices for decentralized applications. And changes have been made to prepare for a future update.

Flux Network is a former ZelCash project that was launched in 2018 and rebranded in March 2021. The main goal of the project is to create a decentralized Internet. To achieve this goal, the Flux project aims to achieve the maximum distributed network.

The blockchain can be supported by anyone: either by running a validator node (node) or by running mining on a video card. Rewards are divided equally between nodes and miners. FluxOS is an operating system that allows the deployment of decentralized applications (dApps). ZelCore is a multicurrency cryptocurrency wallet supporting over 450 coins and 50,000 tokens.

Cryptocurrency Klaytn (KLAY) — hardfork Kore

On January 10, after finding block number 111,736,800, the update for the Baobab network will go into effect. And an update for the Cypress network is planned for March 2023. All of these updates are part of the larger Klaytn v1.10.0 release. After the update, the block bounty structure will change. As well as there will be new features for API interface, gas cost for some functions will change. More details about the update can be found on the project website.

Klaytn blockchain is a development of Korean Internet giant Kakao. The main network was launched in 2019. The project is aimed at corporate businesses that plan to launch their applications in the field of meta or GameFi. And it provides users with convenient access to blockchain. This cryptocurrency project with corporations such as Samsung, LG Electronics, and Union Bank.

Polkadot (DOT) – Hackathon

On January 25th another online hackathon by the Polkadot project will start. This time the event will be held in Europe. The previous ones were held in the Pacific and North American regions. Participants are invited to present their project in one of five categories. These are: Interface and Experience, Smart Contracts, Web 3.0 and Development, DeFi, NFT. In each of the categories, the prize money is $35,000. Then each finalist team will be paid $3k for their flight to Paris.

In addition to the main prize fund, Moonbeam, Zeitgeist and ICE will also be offering prizes. On March 22 the dotSocial event will be held in Paris. There, finalists will be able to present and talk about their projects on the main stage of the event. You can register and find out more information on the website of a hackathon.

The government-supported platform will conduct secondary trade in NFT and digital asset copyrights. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

China will launch its first regulated NFT trading platform on January 1, 2023. This was reported by Sina News. ” China Digital Asset Trading Platform ” will be a secondary marketplace for NFT. It is jointly created by state-owned China Technology Exchange and Art Exhibitions China. And a private company, Huban Digital Copyrights Ltd.

The new trading platform will focus on a national strategy to digitize culture. It will use blockchain and NFTs as the basis for technical support for the innovative development of the cultural industry and the preservation of cultural heritage.

NFT in China are called digital collectibles. In addition to these, the platform will also trade copyrights related to digital assets. Specific types of items that will be featured on the platform have not yet been determined.

Our experts note that according to Chinese laws, NFT cannot be purchased for cryptocurrency. At the end of September 2021, the People’s Bank of China banned cryptocurrency transactions. The use of digital assets for payments equates to illegal financial activity. NFTs are sold in China on closed regulated platforms.

Visa is using a proposal from Ethereum developers. It will allow automatic pre-scheduled payments from non-custodial crypto wallets

Visa has developed a blockchain-based autopay solution. A document published by this company details a new concept based on Account Abstraction (AA) technology from Ethereum developers. It will allow the implementation of automatic pre-planned payments using smart contracts in non-custodial users’ wallets.

Account Abstraction technology was proposed back in 2016. Since the core Ethereum network does not yet support AA. Therefore, VISA implemented its solution in StarkNet, a second-tier blockchain built on top of Ethereum blockchain. The account model in StarkNet just uses AA technology.

Whereas normal accounts check if a transaction is correctly signed for a specific address. With StarkNet, they simply verify that the transaction is coming from a given address. In addition, the introduction of Visa’s concept into this blockchain has not only enabled the deployment of a new auto-payment feature. But also increased transaction throughput.

Visa notes that it sees autopay as a key functionality that the existing blockchain infrastructure lacks. And it invites interested companies working in this area to work together on projects in the field of programmable payments.

Our experts note that payment companies from traditional financial industry this year began to actively develop projects related to blockchain and cryptocurrency. Also at the end of September, SWIFT and Chainlink oracle network announced joint work on a blockchain project. This project will allow traditional financial companies to conduct transactions on a platform that supports almost all blockchains.

Crypto-Upvotes experts told about the threat of massive asset outflow from the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its opaque financial statements.

Binance is trying to reassure investors of its financial strength after the collapse of rival exchange FTX. The effects are still being felt in crypto markets. Billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency were withdrawn from the exchange in a matter of days.

Outflows from Binance could range from $6 billion to $8 billion, including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Tron.
At the same time, analyst firm Nansen reported that users of the trading floor withdrew $3.6 billion in Ethereum. And ERC-20 standard tokens in seven days, while $2 billion was withdrawn in just one day.

After the collapse of FTX and subsequent series of bankruptcies of leading crypto players, major crypto exchanges are trying to convince their customers. That they have enough assets in their wallets and user funds are safe and remain available for withdrawal. Earlier this month, accounting firm Mazars produced “proof of reserves” reports for Binance and other exchanges, including Crypto.com and KuCoin.

At the end of an already difficult week for Binance. Mazars said the firm had suspended activities related to audits of companies in the cryptocurrency industry. This is due to concerns about how such reports are perceived by the public. According to Financial Times sources, media hype was one of the factors that influenced the decision of Mazars.

Published reports on crypto exchanges’ reserves are severely limited in data compared to the results of traditional corporate account auditing procedures. Mazars uses what are known as “consistent procedures” to report on reserve validation. But it does not use asset analysis in the usual sense. No assurances or conclusions are given on the figures in the report in this kind of verification.

Reasons for auditing companies to refuse to work with cryptocurrency exchanges

Mazars’ decision to stop working with Binance. And also for others exchanges was not prompted by specific financial problems at any of the exchanges. The firm’s work was severely limited, and the auditors did not delve too deeply into examining the financial situation of the cryptocurrency platforms.

From a risk perspective, what’s happening with Binance could cause secondary problems. A significant outflow of capital from any business can create local liquidity problems. Even if an exchange is able to cover 100% of deposits, it does not mean that it has sufficient funds or liquid investments.

“The ironic thing about what is happening is that the main trigger in a series of bankruptcies in the cryptocurrency market was the rumors that the head of Binance. Also spread in the public space and his verbal manipulation. And now the main problem for his exchange is the emergence of the same type of rumors around Binance.” – said our expert.

“Black Box” new name for Binance

December 19, Reuters released a story that calls Binance a “black box,” referring to the corporate documents and declarations of the exchange, copies of which journalists were able to access. Among the claims against Binance are the concealment of financial data and the share of its native token (BNB) in the balance sheet. The article also mentions security risks in margin trading. And another portion of doubts about the real volume of user funds reserves.

It has become customary for Binance and its head Changpeng Zhao to publicly refute loud statements by journalists as in official publications of this exchange. And in personal social networks in front of millions of followers. Zhao has repeatedly assured that the Mazars report is “further confirmation” that the exchange’s assets equal or exceed its liabilities to customers.

In the case of Binance, we can talk about an excellent marketing strategy. Which provided a stable inflow of new clients for several years ahead. Therefore, potential liquidity problems may be smoothed out or may not even have started.

Assets on wallets with public addresses of Binance amount to more than $60 billion. This information can be checked through any blockchain browser or on special pages of services that track reserves of cryptocurrencies. At the same time, the company does not disclose information about its liabilities. This makes it difficult to determine its actual financial position.

How stable is crypto exchange Binance?

If the outflow of client funds continues, Binance may have a serious need to plug the holes and credit. And who will give it after the collapse of FTX? That’s the biggest question.

If Binance collapses, it will postpone the recovery of the crypto market for many years. And any positive developments in the next two years could lose any positive impact on the Bitcoin exchange rate.

Theoretically, if we consider the collapse of Binance in FTX scenario. It would cause infrastructural problems for the entire cryptocurrency market. On the one hand, the market would survive and exist regardless of the ability of specific projects to sustain their work. On the other hand, the “huge in its scale project decline” associates the crypto market with Binance.

However, in reality, such an apocalyptic scenario has a rather small chance of realization, our expert believes. Therefore, one should not seriously talk about an urgent withdrawal of funds from Binance.

Rather, the more people do not give in to the trend of cryptocurrency withdrawal, the higher will be the safety of each of participants. For each individual isolated investor, it is more profitable to withdraw money outside of exchange. But at the same time, if the majority will continue to keep cryptocurrency inside the project, it will keep Binance stable and will be beneficial to all, says our expert.

Crypto-Upvotes experts conducted their analysis and told about prospects of NFT segment

Throughout 2022, application solutions with NFT have been actively developed in a variety of projects. The audience of the technology continues to grow at a tremendous rate due to the introduction of the technology by social media. This year, some tools related to NFT were implemented by Twitter (audience of about 400 million users), Reddit (audience of about 430 million users), Onlyfans (audience of about 175 million users).Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Youtube also announced their plans to implement NFT.

Based on these data, we can consider a long-term investment portfolio, taking into account the prospects for the development of NFT

We would suggest dividing the investment portfolio into two parts. The first would be a liquid backbone, the tokens of projects that provide infrastructure for NFT. Polygon blockchain turned out to be the most popular for application solutions. Therefore, as the audience grows, the entire ecosystem could get developed, so the demand for native blockchain tokens would grow accordingly.

Other top blockchains – Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain – may also get a comparable effect from the development of NFT.

Another interesting application of NFT is the Fragment platform from Telegram. It is likely that in the future the supply will expand and the demand for TON will increase.

We suggest forming the second part of the portfolio from specific tokens of various promising NFT tokens. In a growing market, which by all projections should occur in the second half of 2023 and all of 2024. Therefore, collections with high social capital could go up in price several times over.

When to buy ?

Today, terrific conditions for opening long-term positions for at least 1-2 years, better from 3 years or more. The ongoing scandals around centralized exchanges are constantly weighing on the value of the Binance exchange’s native token. And rumors around the potential centralization of Ethereum due to the move to PoS, with validators predominantly in the same jurisdiction, are also negatively affecting the price of ETH in the medium term.

The market as a whole continues to be in a global bearish trend, which opens up the possibility of buying any tokens at undervalued prices.

What is the right investment portfolio structure ?

• Polygon (MATIC) — 20%
• Toncoin (TON) — 20%
• Ethereum (ETH) — 10%
• Binance coin (BNB) — 5%

Another 5% can be allocated under ApeCoin (APE) acting as a native token in the company’s developed meta-universe. The company that owns the world’s most popular NFT-collections Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks and Meebits.

The remaining 40% can be distributed among different NFT-collections.

For example, find interesting offers among applied projects from social media, like collections from Reddit or Twitter.

Risks

The first part of the investment portfolio is quite conservative by the standards of the crypto market. It lists well-established, reliable projects that have many growth and development factors other than the NFT segment. Therefore, the risks in 3/5 of the portfolio do not exceed the overall risks of the market.

However, the rest are extremely risky investments. You have to consider that NFTs have several orders of magnitude less liquidity. And predicting the value of NFTs in the future does not differ in its essence from flipping a coin for luck. But, with all that, the investment can pay off many times over, given a lucky set of circumstances. For example, one appreciated token can potentially outweigh the value of all the others that will fall. But there is absolutely no guarantee that this will happen to you, to your chosen collection, with tokens owned by you.

That’s why it’s worth investing only as much as you’re willing to lose at least half of that amount.

Disclaimer

Crypto-Upvotes experts do not give investment advice, this material is published for introductory purposes only. Cryptocurrency is a volatile asset that can lead to financial losses.

The latest version of Winamp allows users to link a Metamask wallet through browsers. As well as access audio and video files on Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Winamp media player has released an update with support for NFT tracks. The new 5.9.1 version of the player for Windows desktop systems allows users to link their Metamask wallet through Brave, Chrome or Firefox browsers. And access NFT-formatted audio and video files, this company said in a press release.

Winamp will now support ERC-721 and ERC-1155 tokens on Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. NFT tracks can be listened to and added to playlists, just like any other audio file format.

NFT support will be added with several other important updates. The capabilities of the player will be complemented by a feature-rich cross-platform service for content creators. This service is scheduled to launch in early 2023.

Winamp, launched in 1997, was a key player in the first digital music innovation – the mp3 format. Now the player, keeping up with the times, is introducing the next generation of formats. As more and more writers and artists use web3 technology.

Huobi to issue Dominica Coin, approved by government of the island state of the Commonwealth of Dominica. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

Crypto exchange Huobi announced plans to launch the world’s first national token in honor of Commonwealth of Dominica. In cooperation with blockchain Tron Network and DMC Labs and with the approval of the island nation’s government. Dominica Coin will be launched on Tron Network.

The Commonwealth of Dominica is a state on the island of the same name in the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. The area of its territory is 751 km², and its population is about 75 thousand people. Official currency is the Eastern Caribbean dollar. It is used in 8 countries of Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

Project Huobi will also include the launch of the Dominica DID. Both Dominica DID and DMC will initially be issued on the Tron network. Because it has become Dominica’s national blockchain infrastructure. In the future, the developers plan to make the DMC token interoperable with Ethereum, BSC and other networks via the BitTorrent Chain protocol.

How to get DMC ?

DMC will be released on Huobi Prime. In addition, exchange will hold an airdrop of DMC tokens (giveaway). And it will also include a Dominica DID application for each registered user.

Users will be able to create Soul-Bound Tokens with Dominica DID on the Tron network. An SBT or non-transferable token is a type of NFT asset that is issued in a single instance and is tied to a specific blockchain address. In Metaverse Dominica, SBT holders will be entitled to digital citizenship of this metaverse. At the same time, they will be able to claim passports issued by the Dominica government. Which allow their holders visa-free access to more than 130 countries and regions around the world. Including EU, Switzerland, UK, Singapore, Russia, Brazil and Hong Kong.

Just like TRX and USDD tokens, DMC will have legal status in the Commonwealth of Dominica and can be used as a means of payment in that country. It will be used as a native token in the Dominica metaverse

Our experts told us what consequences may arise due to reduced liquidity on CEX exchanges. And how it will affect cryptocurrency prices

FTX exchange collapse caused a significant outflow of funds from centralized platforms. According to analytical platform CryptoQuant, after November 6, when it became known about problems FTX. CEX exchanges users withdrew 200 thousand BTC ($3.35 billion). As well as about 2 million Ethereum ($2.4 billion) and nearly $3 billion in Stablecoin.

For example, from Binance, users withdrew 81.7 thousand bitcoins ($1.35 billion) in just six days, or more than 15% of the total amount of bitcoins on this exchange. However, the head of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, called the surge in withdrawals small and explained that this is normal during a fall in cryptocurrency market.

Where do cryptocurrency owners transfer their funds?

Ordinary investors experience panic when there are some problems on centralized exchanges and market in general. And has a great desire to hide his funds to feel more relaxed. According to him, users primarily withdraw assets to decentralized wallets.

Means in these purses can not only store, but also exchange on the decentralized exchanges (DEX). After FTX started having problems, the number of such transactions increased dramatically.

In the last 24 hours alone, trading volume on DEX exchanges has increased by 38.66%, according to data from the CoinMarketCar platform.

Currently, the leading DEX platforms are Uniswap (v3), Curve (Ethereum), and PancakeSwap (v2). According to our analysts, daily trading volume on the first of them is more than $908 million, on the second and third – $170 million and $150 million, respectively.

In addition to decentralized storage, cryptocurrency owners began to take an active interest in hardware wallets. In the past week, revenue from the sales of Trezor devices grew by 300%. And competing company Ledger also recorded a significant surge in demand for its devices.

Reduced liquidity in CEX exchanges and the whole cryptocurrency market in general, what can it lead to?

Crypto market is now driven by investors’ fear of losing their investments. Reduced liquidity of crypto market and general pessimism mean a further decline in value of cryptocurrencies.

This process has a negative impact on the crypto market, it “slows” it down. This means it is not worth waiting for the recovery yet. Growth of crypto market can be forgotten for a while, now the main thing is not to fall even deeper.

However, our experts believe that cryptocurrencies are unlikely to hold out. The crypto market has not yet realized the scale of the disaster. Lack of liquidity leads to a decrease in trading volume. And hence, the profitability of trading platforms deteriorates greatly.

Large scale capital outflows can lead to a domino effect. One company is followed by collapse of other companies that are connected by common transactions. Some cryptoprojects have already reported financial difficulties caused by the collapse of FTX.

For example, crypto exchange AAX suspended withdrawals and said it lacked liquidity to continue operations. And cryptocurrency lender BlockFi is preparing a bankruptcy filing.

The next two weeks will show how serious the situation in cryptocurrency market is. According to our analyst, new bankruptcy filings will mean a massive collapse of the whole crypto industry.

Participants of trading on CEX exchanges may find it difficult to sell some coins quickly

This could happen because the outflow of assets from such exchanges reduces the volume of liquidity on them. Most likely, popular coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Stablecoin will not be affected. But some altcoins traded in tandem with Bitcoin or ether may suffer, according to our expert. Their liquidity will be low. This means traders will prefer not to deal with such liquidity. And prices for these altcoins will go down, largely due to the lack of active trading on exchanges.

“It’s a market, it’s all interconnected. The churn is mostly in Bitcoin and Stabelcoin, and all other pairs are losing liquidity,” explains our expert.

Traders can now pay attention to native coins DEX-exchanges. In addition, our expert noted that DEX crypto wallet tokens may also show growth in price.