Bloomberg reports on growing faith in Bitcoin among investors who fear a U.S. default

Investors would prefer Bitcoin to the dollar as a means of saving capital in the event of a U.S. government debt default. This is evidenced by the results of a survey Bloomberg Markets Live Pulse. Which was conducted May 8-12 with 637 respondents. 7.8% of professional and 11.3% of retail investors will choose the first cryptocurrency as a protective asset. And while the U.S. dollar will be relied on by 7.8% and 10.2% of investors from the two groups, respectively.

At the top of the list of defensive assets is gold. Despite the fact that the price of the precious metal is currently near its historical maximum ($2,000 per ounce). And it was chosen by about half of surveyed investors from both categories. On the other hand, the report notes the current shortage of alternative assets to gold for hedging.

The second most popular asset to buy in case of default were U.S. Treasury securities. Journalists see a certain irony in this, because it is these debt securities that will probably default. But even pessimistic analysts think. That holders of treasuries will be paid, albeit late, as the article says, which explains the choice of this asset. It will be bought in case of default by 14-15% of respondents.

In third place is Bitcoin, followed by the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. At the same time, more than 55% of respondents said that a default or even its approach would have a strong negative impact on the dollar as the global world currency. Also, our experts note that another 13.6% of respondents said that significant damage to the U.S. national currency has already been done and it can only increase further.

Startup Worldcoin is creating an iris-based user identification system to access coins. According to the developers, it will allow to distinguish a person from a bot

Sam Altman, the head of artificial intelligence chatbot company OpenAI, is in talks with investors to raise about $100 million for the cryptocurrency project Worldcoin. It was reported by The Financial Times, citing its sources. The developers plan to launch the project within the next few weeks.

Worldcoin was founded by Altman and Alex Blania in 2019. It plans to use eye-scanning technology to identify users.

The developers of Worldcoin say it will solve two problems that have arisen with the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The system will distinguish between humans and bots. And it would also provide a form of universal basic income that could compensate for the job losses caused by the widespread adoption of AI.

The technology scans the iris and from this creates a digital World ID for the user. Which he will be able to use in a wide range of everyday applications without revealing his identity, the company claims. Worldcoin also claims that it will not store iris scans. And it eliminates the risks of losing sensitive data.

The creators of the project promise that once a user creates an ID. He will then be able to get Worldcoin tokens for free. The project, launched in beta, is preparing to roll out the blockchain. And start conducting transactions within the next six weeks.

The group of investors from whom Altman expects to raise $100 million includes both old and new entrants, the publication’s sources said, without naming specific companies. The company’s previous investors include Khosla Ventures and crypto fund Andreessen Horowitz. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Internet entrepreneur Reed Hoffman have also previously funded the project.

In February, the media reported that Altman was in talks to raise $120 million with a project valuation of $3 billion. In both cases, Worldcoin declined to comment on fundraising reports.

Our experts note that despite the general decline in investment in the cryptocurrency industry, AI-related projects are attracting widespread attention from investors. In late March, crypto project Fetch.ai raised $40 million to develop artificial intelligence (AI) from investment firm DWF Labs.

Elon Musk will take over as CTO, focusing among other things on the integration of payments into this social network

Elon Musk will leave the post of CEO of Twitter. He announced this in his account on the social network. He has been Twitter’s CEO since the social network’s $44 billion acquisition in 2022.

Musk uses Twitter’s polling interface to get followers’ opinions on the social network’s various policies. Late last year, he launched a poll about whether he should resign as head of the service. By a relatively small margin, most of the votes were positive. Musk joked that he would leave when he “found some crazy person” to replace him. And then he himself will move to the development team.

That “madman” eventually became Linda Yaccarino, head of advertising at NBCUniversal, which owns a network of TV channels and several movie studios. Musk specified that she would start working “in about half a month.” He himself will take over as chairman and CTO of Twitter.

Integration of cryptocurrencies into Twitter social network interface, opinions of Crypto-Upvotes experts

Judging by the history of Musk’s statements, he really does not give up hope of integrating cryptocurrencies into the interface of the social network Twitter. If we take into account his previous global goals to develop a “super-application” X (similar to China’s WeChat). Then it is possible to assume the creation of some ecosystem with internal support of cryptocurrencies. And of which Twitter would be a part, our expert thinks.

But if we consider Twitter separately, at the initial stage Musk could introduce a function of sending money through personal messages. And paying for subscriptions to paid content or Twitter Blue status for cryptocurrency. Any kind of coin could be suitable for these purposes. And so Bitcoin and Dogecoin (DOGE) could potentially benefit from such integration.
Introduction of a payment function in Twitter is one of Musk’s key objectives, according to our experts.
In their opinion, it will turn the social network into a more predictable and stable source of income. It will also add features which are absent in other social networks. And by doing so, it will attract new users and make the social network a more profitable asset in Musk’s portfolio.

Technically, the integration of cryptopayments into Twitter could be done in partnership with a third-party cryptocurrency company. For example, Coinbase, which already has a developed infrastructure – wallets, exchange, business solutions and payment gateways.

Or another option – Musk will buy a payment gateway operator. In any case, the main task is not just to introduce cryptocurrencies. But to allow those who don’t have them to conveniently buy cryptocurrencies and just as conveniently spend them within the social network.

Despite Musk’s plans, the likelihood of introducing cryptocurrencies is still in question. Because of the “witch hunt” by the U.S. regulators, which has already provoked many large cryptocurrency companies to leave for other jurisdictions. Perhaps one of the tasks of the new CEO will be to find a way to find legal loopholes for the safe introduction of cryptocurrencies into Twitter, but this is just our guess.

Influence on cryptocurrency prices

As the head of Twitter, Musk organically joined the cryptocurrency community. Which settled on the platform at the stage of crypto-business birth. Musk participates in Twitter Spaces broadcasts with opinion leaders from the cryptosphere and comments on high-profile news in his personal account.

It’s not uncommon for Musk’s tweets to cause significant spikes in the price of crypto-assets. Which he mentions to them directly or indirectly. The most popular of these is Dogecoin (DOGE). In his May 2021 tweet, Musk said he was working with the developers of Dogecoin to make the system more efficient. This immediately led to a 22% increase in the Dogecoin exchange rate.

In December of that year, DOGE jumped 33%. When Musk announced that electric car maker Tesla would begin accepting the coin as payment for goods at its online store. Typically, such price spikes are fleeting as traders and automated bots start buying up tokens. Which were mentioned by Musk within seconds of his comments on Twitter. And to quickly sell them at a profit afterwards.

Musk gained a reputation as an influencer in the cryptocurrency community long before he bought Twitter. The change of position, will not have a negative impact on this reputation according to our experts. Rather, we can expect a positive impact, as the position of CTO is “more in line with Musk’s role as an eccentric innovator.

Our experts told us how PEPE new token appeared on major cryptocurrency exchanges in three weeks of existence. And resulted in the appearance of dozens of analogs, and who made money from it

In early April, the @pepecoineth account appeared on Twitter. And the only entry in which was an image of the famous meme with Pepe the frog wearing a red cap with the inscription “Make Memecoins Great Again”. So say this is a similar slogan to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidential slogan.

Two weeks later, the cryptocurrency token PEPE was launched, taking its name from a popular meme. Anonymous developers issued 420.69 trillion coins. And token trading was launched on the decentralized exchange Uniswap.

The discussion of PEPE was picked up by Influencers on Twitter and in the thematic channels of the messengers Telegram and Discord. And just one day after its debut, its price rose by more than 900%. In less than three weeks, the market capitalization of this memcoin exceeded $1.6 billion. At the time of our publication, the token is among the top three memcoins, second only to Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB).

High demand for meme coins

This rise in Pepe quickly led to the emergence of dozens of new memcoins. And those of them that turned out to be rumored also skyrocketed in price by tens or even hundreds of percent. Many of these tokens lack liquidity. This means that traders have limited ability to buy and sell them close to the market rate. Because of this, tokens are susceptible to sharp price fluctuations. And any of the relatively large buy orders pushes their prices higher and vice versa. Professional traders take advantage of this, whose bots can track such bids to their completion. And put their own ahead of the other players.

The PEPE token was initially traded only on decentralized crypto exchanges. And the increase in trading volume on which leads to an increase in the number of transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. During the hype surrounding PEPE and other meme tokens, activity on Uniswap and peers grew to the 2021 mark. When Bitcoin and the crypto market as a whole reached historic price highs. This, in turn, led to an increased load on the network. And as a consequence, Ethereum’s commissions increased dramatically. Now buying memcoins on DEX or any other direct interaction with the network can cost up to $50 in ETH cryptocurrency.

High commissions, as well as technical peculiarities of decentralized exchanges, partly deterred the influx of ordinary retail traders. But realizing the scale of the excitement, traditional crypto-exchanges began to announce PEPE listings. Among them are OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, Poloniex, Bitget and others. BitMEX was the first exchange to launch trading in perpetual PEPE futures with up to 50x leverage.

PEPE listing on Binance

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, held back for a while. But at the beginning of May, its head Changpeng Zhao told during a question-and-answer session with subscribers. That even though he doesn’t understand memcoins himself. And has never traded them, if there is a demand, his platform always goes towards users. It became clear in the cryptocurrency community that listing PEPE on Binance is a matter of time. And the exchange did add the token a few days later.

According to CoinMarketCap, PEPE trading volumes from May 9 to 10 exceeded $420 million, despite the token’s price drop. The service’s statistics also show that trading volumes quickly moved from Uniswap to Binance. More than $160 million worth of PEPE trades were made on Binance in a day, compared to $55 million on Uniswap. The accessible interface and much lower fixed commissions obviously played a role in this. According to DEXTools analytics service the number of unique PEPE token holders exceeded 100 thousand on May 10.

Not just a meme

In 2005, illustrator Matt Furey released a webcomic called Boy’s Club. And it featured a frog named Pepe. The character appeared frequently in Furey’s work. And then migrated to the Internet and spawned thousands of memes. Fury himself, answering his subscribers’ questions, said he knew nothing about this token. And ironically called himself a “Dogecoin maximalist.

Dogecoin, created in late 2013 by developers Billy Marcus and Jackson Palmer, was the first memcoin to hit the market. According to them, they created the coin as a joke. And its name was a reference to the popular meme “doge” with a shiba-inu dog named Kabosu. Unlike Bitcoin’s payment function or Ethereum’s decentralized application ecosystem. Then Dogecoin originally had no purpose other than to irony the nascent crypto market of the time.

That hasn’t stopped the coin from skyrocketing in popularity, helped heavily by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. According to CoinMarketCap, Dogecoin has a market capitalization of more than $10 billion. After the rapid growth of DOGE in 2021, a flood of memcoins flooded the market. Including Shiba Inu, another dog-inspired meme token and one of the top 20 largest crypto assets.

The activity and excitement around PEPE is partly reminiscent of the recent rise of BONK. It is another memcoin with a siba-inu as a symbol, launched earlier this year on the Solana blockchain. During the New Year holidays, the token soared in price in a similar way. And provoked a surge of abnormal activity on decentralized exchanges. And it was added to the listing of major trading floors, including Bybit and Huobi. After the January highs, the price of BONK never returned to its peak values. And gradually declined despite the overall growth of the market.

Dog memes are no longer popular ?

“The dogs have had their day,” the developers of PEPE wrote, “it’s time for Pepe to take over”. The creators of the token run it socially anonymously. And the coin’s website lacks any contact information. The first press release mentioning PEPE was published April 19 on behalf of David Costla. Another press release about the creation of another memcoin, DanGPT, the “daring twin of ChatGPT,” is signed by the same name. The developers have ignored attempts by journalists to contact them through any available channels.

Our experts point out that when Elon Musk posted a meme on Twitter with an image of NFT from the Milady collection. That the rate of Milady Meme Coin (LADYS) token, created the day before, increased almost 120 times. The capitalization of the coin reached $136 million in less than a day. Blockchain transaction researchers noticed that the owners of some Ethereum wallets, which earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on the growth of the PEPE rate. And they were also buying up LADYS in advance of the new token’s price jump.

So we can safely say no matter what meme the crypto project is dedicated to. If there is hype around it, it will grow in price, but it won’t last long. Be careful investing money in such coins can lead to significant financial losses.

The issuer of the second most capitalized stablecoin USDC refused U.S. Treasury securities maturing after May 31

Circle has refused to back its reserves with U.S. Treasury securities maturing after May 31 because of concerns. Also Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire told Politico that the government could default on its debt. Stablecoin issuer USD Coin (USDC) has adjusted its provisioning in favor of short-term Treasury securities.

According to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, U.S. authorities may run out of cash to make payments by June 1. Because the national debt limit of $31.4 trillion is already exceeded. If the issue with the limit of the national debt will not be solved. Then the U.S. could face a debt default.

“We don’t want to bear the investment risk that could materialize if the U.S. government suddenly can’t pay its debts,” Allaire said.

Circle’s USDC is the second-largest Stablecoin by market capitalization. There are about 30.1 billion tokens in circulation. Data from the Circle Reserve Fund, which is managed by BlackRock,. And they show that the company does not hold U.S. government debt securities maturing later than May 31.

Our experts note that the issuer of the largest USDT stablecoin by capitalization, Tether, has invested most of its reserves in U.S. government debt securities. About 85% of all its reserves are held as liquid assets. And money in bank accounts, cash equivalents and other short-term instruments, among which U.S. Treasury bills occupy 76.5%.

Marathon Digital and Zero Two plan to launch two cryptocurrency mining platforms in Abu Dhabi this year at a total cost of $406 million

One of the largest U.S. miners, Marathon Digital, and developer Zero Two announced the creation of bitcoin mining platforms in Abu Dhabi (UAE). According to a press release, the Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) joint venture will begin building two mining centers under equipment with a total capacity of 250 MW.

Also Marathon Digital is one of the largest U.S. public companies. Which is engaged in cryptocurrency mining. It has tens of thousands of mining devices in Texas, North Dakota. And other states.  according to BitcoinTreasuries, the company ranks second behind Microstrategy in terms of Bitcoin ownership. It owns 12,200 BTC ($335.5 million).

Also Abu Dhabi-based Zero Two develops Web3 infrastructure solutions and digital assets in the emirate.

The site for 200 MW of mining equipment will be located in the “eco-city” Masdar. Another 50 MW platform will be built in the port area of Mina Zayed. Electricity will be supplied to the complex from the general power grid of Abu Dhabi.

Marathon’s share in ADGM will be 20%, Zero Two’s share – 80%. Capital investment by the companies in proportion to their shares will be about $406 million. The digital assets extracted will also be distributed according to each company’s shares twice a month.

The companies have developed a special immersion solution for ASIC-mainer cooling (liquid cooling) to operate the equipment in the desert climate. And they implemented new software for performance optimization. The new solutions were successfully tested during the pilot project.

It is expected that the mining centers will be launched by the end of 2023, their total hashing speed. Also according to the companies’ calculations, will reach 7 EH/s. Our experts note that according to BTC.com, the total global Bitcoin network hash rate as of May 10 is about 337 EH/s.

Insider who pleaded guilty in a case related to cryptocurrency trading on Coinbase. He and his partners made $1.5 million by buying tokens before listing them on the cryptocurrency exchange

Former Coinbase manager Ishaan Wahi was sentenced to two years in prison for insider trading in cryptocurrencies, Reuters reports. The charge against him was filed last July. And last February, he pleaded guilty and was named in court as the first insider. Who pleaded guilty in a case involving cryptocurrency trading.

While working at Coinbase from June 2021 until April 2022, Wahi provided his brother Nikhil and their acquaintance Samir Ramani with confidential information. This information contained data about cryptocurrencies scheduled to be listed on this exchange.

Based on the information received from Ishaan Wahi, Nikhil Wahi and Ramani worked together to trade 55 different crypto-assets shortly before their listing on Coinbase. The scammers were able to make about $1.5 million from this.

Ishan and Nikhil Wahi were arrested on July 21; Samir Ramani was not reported to have been arrested. Nikhil Wahi pleaded guilty last September. And earlier this year, he was sentenced to ten months in prison.

At the May 9 court hearing, Wahi said he made a huge mistake “that will haunt him for the rest of his life.” At the same time, the assistant prosecutor noted that Wahi’s behavior was not a one-time mistake, his actions were committed over the course of ten months at Coinbase.

Our experts note that the prosecutors insisted that the defendant be imprisoned for more than three years. And the defense asked the court to sentence him no harsher than that of Nikhil Wahi. Judge Loretta Preska eventually sentenced Nikhil Wahi to two years in prison. He will now be sent to Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in New Jersey.

Our experts have analyzed the situation on crypto market. And told how it can change for Bitcoin in the short term

Last week started not the best for Bitcoin. When against the background of weak Chinese statistics and the fall of the S&P500 index, the pair BTC/USDt fell to $27,666. It seemed that the situation would only worsen, but since May 2, the phase of recovery began thanks to the fall of the dollar index. And support from the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Bitcoin has risen to $28,879.

However, there are still dangers to the U.S. economy. If Congress does not approve an increase in the national debt ceiling, the government will not be able to borrow additional funds. And it could find itself in a very difficult position. Since 1980, the U.S. government has shut down several times due to the inability to raise the national debt ceiling. Including closures in 1990, 1995-1996, 2013 and 2018-2019. Democrats and Republicans aren’t particularly worried about this.

After the publication of data on the labor market in the United States on May 4, the pair BTC/USDt rose to $29,677. However, investors remain generally quiet as buying activity in the cryptocurrency remained low.

The scenario of continuation of sideways movement on cyclic analysis is still confirmed. The beginning of a new rally on it falls on June 1.

According to BitRiver estimates, buyers have to fight for the level of $31,000. They need to pass it to make the price pattern on the daily timeframe “bullish”. Otherwise, the scales will start tipping to the sellers’ side.

Crypto-Upvotes experts reviewed the prospects of cryptocurrency BNB and told what will lead to an increase in its price

BNB is a cryptocurrency that supports the Binance Chain ecosystem. BNB is one of the most popular utility tokens in the world.

The token is a key asset in the launchpad system (launchpad, a platform for launching initial offerings of tokens) and sales on the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which directly affects its value.

The need to keep the token on balance encourages those wishing to participate in exchange events to buy.

In terms of technical analysis, we have seen a very technical nudge towards the $325-340 level for a year now.

The “rising triangle” pattern generally warns traders of an impulsive upward price breakout soon. The pattern is characterized by ” pressing up” prices from below. The maximums remain at the same level. And minima increase, “pressing” the price to the upper boundary. This is followed by an impulsive upward price breakout and destruction of the counter resistance.

Chart BNB

The rising lows marked on the chart at $180, $225, $265 and $320 technically form an upward movement. In our opinion, the price is in the final point and the exit from which could provoke its rapid growth.

The smaller timeframe also suggests a local uptrend, which allows you to enter the trade with a small stop loss.

Trading plan:

Buy BNB/USDT at $317.
Risk: 10% of capital.
Stop loss: $300.
Take profit: $457.

Disclaimer:

Crypto-Upvotes does not provide investment advice. This material is for information purposes only. Cryptocurrency is a volatile asset that can lead to financial losses.

Abnormal demand for TUSD Stablecoin supported by the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance led to the growth of its rate above $1. And opened up non-standard opportunities for earnings

High demand for TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoin led to the fact. At the moment, its rate exceeded $1 by 20%. This was used by cryptocurrency traders. Who played on the decrease of stablecoin. At the same time, expecting its return to parity with the dollar soon. Massive borrowing of TUSD in decentralized credit services led to a high growth of their interest rates.

TUSD’s share of the most capitalized stablecoin is skyrocketing. And largely thanks to the support of the largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The coin is ranked 29th by CoinMarketCap among all existing crypto-assets. Its market capitalization rose to $2.4 billion this week, though it was still at $755 million at the end of 2022.

Stablecoin was relatively unpopular until Binance eliminated trading commissions in the BTC/TUSD pair. From May 1 to May 2, abnormal demand for Stablecoin led to its decoupling from the dollar exchange rate (called depreciation). But if decoupling from the dollar for stablecoins usually implies a drop in the exchange rate. That’s what happened with the USDC during the Sillion Valley Bank crash in March. TUSD, on the other hand, was momentarily trading at a premium, hitting a high of $1.20.

How traders made money

The BTC/TUSD pair on Binance is now one of the largest trading pairs by volume in the entire industry. TUSD’s liquidity is not keeping up with its volumes. Which makes such a depeg more likely.

Traders have been using the decentralized Aave and Compound credit protocols. To borrow large amounts in TUSD. And quickly exchanged them for USDC, another stablecoin with a link to the U.S. dollar.

Aave and Compound are decentralized lending and borrowing protocols running on the Ethereum blockchain. Users of both can lend or borrow cryptoassets without intermediaries, using both stable and variable interest rates.

The most common strategy was to borrow TUSD and then exchange it for USDC. Which allowed us to effectively “short” TUSD from its increased price. However, neither Aave nor Compound has such large volumes of TUSD. Because of this, borrowing rates rose quickly, exceeding 100% per annum in both protocols.

TUSD demand rises

Speculation in the loan protocols is not the only reason for the increased demand for TUSD stablecoin. Our experts note that Binance has placed the highly popular SUI token on its Launchpool platform. At the same time, it gave users the opportunity to place BNB coins or TUSD stablecoins in staking, receiving income in the form of SUI tokens. Amid strong excitement, investors placed $4 billion worth of assets on the platform, with $770 million of that coming from TUSD.