British Ministry of Finance proposed a plan to make the UK a leader in cryptoindustry

The department’s proposals were published for public discussion. The new rules are aimed at implementing the UK government’s plans to make Britain a leader in cryptoindustry. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts.

Treasury Department has submitted draft regulations on crypto-assets for public consultation. The ministry said the proposals are aimed at realizing the government’s “ambitions. Which intends to make the country a leader in the crypto industry and create conditions for work. As well as the development of cryptocompanies in the UK, taking into account the potential risks.

The UK has set a goal to increase London’s global competitiveness in the financial sector, including the cryptocurrency industry. In late November last year, UK Treasury Secretary Andrew Griffith confirmed the government’s desire to make the UK a global hub for crypto-assets and blockchain technology.

The government pledged to introduce a new regulatory regime in April 2022. Public discussions of the document submitted by the Ministry of Finance will last for three months and will be completed by April 30.

The new rules will apply to the issuance of digital currencies and the activities of crypto platforms. As well as including DeFi-services, public offering of assets, conducting transactions, credit products and ways of storing digital currencies.

The document also raises the issue of the need to regulate mining and blockchain validators. The paper’s authors point out that the computing power of UK miners is a very small percentage of global Bitcoin production – only 0.23%. Therefore, there may be no reason to regulate mining. Nevertheless, the government is interested in any opinions on the topic.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it welcomes the UK government’s action because it believes in the need for effective and appropriate regulation for the mass adoption of digital assets.

 

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Whales are buying up all prospective altcoins

Santiment analysts reported on growth of “Whales” investment in altcoins. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

Those socalled “Whales” of cryptoindustry, that is, large holders of crypto-assets. They have started to increase their investments in altcoins. And it is the interest of the big players, according to information and analytical platform Santiment, that is causing the rise in prices of digital assets.

Santiment experts pointed out that large holders of Litecoin (LTC) have increased their token holdings by 1.15 million coins (+4.92%) over the past six months. And in the last 7 weeks alone, the increase in their wallet balances was about 0.5% of the coin’s total supply. Analysts said on Twitter that this was the reason for LTC’s 89% rise since it fell to $50 in early November. By January 31, the value of the asset had risen to $95, a daily gain of 2.8%.

The cryptocurrency Litecoin, created in 2011, uses the same programming code as Bitcoin. But it works with some differences, offering cheaper and faster transactions. The asset has a market capitalization of $6.8 billion as of Jan. 31 and daily trading volume of $1.1 billion.

One of oldest investment companies in the crypto industry, Pantera, has renewed its interest in investing in digital assets. Which is different from Bitcoin and Ethereum, The Block reports. Last spring, Pantera switched from investing in altcoins to ETH to avoid losses. But now it has begun to return to coins, which Pantera co-founder Joey Krug says will “outperform Ethereum in the coming cycle.” No specific assets were named.

Prices of some altcoins rose by tens or even hundreds of percent earlier this year. Santiment analysts last week pointed out that sentiment in the cryptocurrency community may be signaling tops. But if traders don’t take emotion into account, the rise in cryptocurrency prices could continue.

Santiment also named the top 10 fastest-growing altcoins. To compile the ranking, the analytics company used data on developer activity.

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Trading volume at SushiSwap crypto exchange increased 50% for one week

Growth in volume is due to development of SushiSwap ecosystem and announcement of important developments and innovations in 2023. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Trading volumes on decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) SushiSwap increased by 50.8% to $476 million during this week.

During the same period, competitors’ trading volumes decreased: on PancakeSwap – by 42%, on Uniswap – by 8.1%. And the Curve platform lost 3.8%. All Dex fell 9.67% over the week to $18.2 billion.

SushiSwap is a decentralized crypto exchange on the Ethereum blockchain. The trading floor allows market participants to conduct transactions with digital assets directly from their cryptocurrency wallets – without intermediaries. DEX gets its liquidity from pools, which receive funds from platform users who lock their assets in protocol.

Growth in trading volumes at SushiSwap is taking place against an active development of its ecosystem. On Jan. 16, the head of this project, or as the community calls this position, “chef.” Jared Gray presented plans for the organization in 2023, including the goal of making Sushi a leader in DEX.

The SushiSwap team plans to launch a DEX aggregator in the first quarter of this year. And to open a decentralized incubator, Sushi Studios (a platform for launching new crypto projects). A number of other new services, including the NFT marketplace Shoyu, are also in development, according to Gray’s report.

On Jan. 25, it was reported that the developers of SushiSwap would launch a decentralized futures exchange on the Sei Network blockchain. According to journalists, this will expand Sushiswap’s capabilities by linking the project to non- Ethereum-based systems.

Our experts point out that new trends in the crypto market are forcing developers of DeFi-services to adapt to them in order to keep their positions. In addition to launching new products in 2023, SushiSwap recently introduced the “xSwap” solution for simple token exchange between networks. And also Furo Streaming, a service that automates regular distribution of funds to multiple addresses.

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Crypto Spring, from which altcoins to expect maximum growth

Our experts talked about trends in the cryptocurrency market. And pointed out several altcoins worth paying attention to

Start of 2023 was positive not only for Bitcoin supporters, but also for almost the entire cryptocurrency market. The leading coin has risen in price by 36 % since the beginning of January. And some alternative coins rose in price by tens of percent.

However, not all assets linger at their peak values after significant growth. Often tokens both reach new ATH and fall off.

Our experts told us what affects altcoin rates. And which coins look promising at the moment. And also what risks an investor who wants to invest in cryptocurrencies may face.

Promising altcoins

Cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP) and Monero (XMR) have the best long-term growth prospects among altcoins. At the moment, it is worth investing only in those assets that can grow in value over the long term.

Of altcoins worth considering for purchase, tokens related to artificial intelligence (AI) may be worth considering. He noted that the trigger news for this area was a statement from Bill Gates. Who said that AI is “a really big deal” and that AI projects are revolutionary.

Another trigger for the increased attention to tokens related to AI. Our expert pointed to a post by Elon Musk. The billionaire wrote on Twitter that 2023 will be the year of AI. However, such statements are partly provoked by the emergence of ChatGPT neural network. Although it does not meet the criteria of general artificial intelligence, it has created a lot of hype in a market.

In the opinion of our expert, it is worth looking at Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) and Fetch (FET) tokens. However, FET is already trading at local highs. And in order to enter it will be necessary to wait for its correction first. Which is likely to happen in February, our specialist warned.

Ocean Protocol is a data trading platform. Including those used in the work with artificial intelligence. The main goal of the Ocean network is to create a global data supply chain for AI. The OCEAN Protocol token rose 125% in a month, from $0.16 to $0.36. The current price is 81% below the all-time high of $1.93 shown in April 2021.

Fetch is a project to build a decentralized “economic Internet” infrastructure based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. The goal of the project is to optimize the use of resources, to automate processes. As well as the development of algorithms for collective learning of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The FET token went from $0.095 to $0.28 in a month, up 194%.

Risky investments

Because there are no fundamental prerequisites for a long-term bullish cycle in crypto market yet. The current growth of altcoins is accompanied by high volatility. Our expert noted that this is the reason for their recent growth. We should expect the same significant correction in the next couple of weeks.

At the same time, the expert reminded that altcoins always have risks – it is even more risky asset than Bitcoin. When the market is nervous because of macro signals from regulators. The first thing investors do is to sell such excessively risky assets.

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Miner on a primitive device earned 6 Bitcoins

Our experts explained how a private miner managed to get a reward for the found block. With hardly noticeable computing power he was able to get 6 BTC

A lucky private miner, with barely a fraction of the processing power in the Bitcoin network. He received a reward of 6.35 BTC for finding a block numbered 772,793.

The chances of adding a block as a single miner are determined by the number of hashes. Which the miner device calculates per second. Relative to the total number of hashes that all the machines on the network compute each second.

Typically, blocks are mined by large pools combining the power of thousands of devices participating in a pool of users. The largest of them are Foundry, AntPool and Exchange of Binance’s own pool.

At the time the block was added to blockchain, the total bitcoin hashrate was just over 269 EH/s. That is, a single miner’s hash rate of 10 TH/s was only 0.000000037% of the total computing power of that network.

Chance of getting such a reward is like a big win in a lottery

Our experts say that this is an extremely atypical case. One miner privately can work for 30 years and not pick up the right hash during this time. At the same time he will consume electricity and produce a resource of equipment. The risks of finding nothing and making a loss are much greater.

It’s like buying a lottery ticket. You can buy one ticket every day and not get a win. Or you can buy one single time and win, but the chances are slim. If you approach mining as a business, it is more pragmatic to get a more modest but guaranteed income every day.

Now hashrate of network is 283 million TH/s against 10,6 TH/s capacity of unknown miner. In theory, with such parameters of the equipment it should mine one block out of almost 27 thousand mined blocks. Considering that about 900 BTC are mined per day, that’s about one block in 81 years.

Solo mining can be used when mining new coins, where the network capacity is quite low. And one person’s equipment takes a noticeable share of the entire processing power of the network. With pools, the probability of receiving remuneration increases many times over. But the user receives only a share of the reward, proportionally calculated from the entire computing power of the pool.

Bitcointalk forum users, discussing the lucky miner. came to the conclusion that his setup consisted of four rudimentary USB miners, each of which produced no more than 3 TH/s and cost about $200.

Our experts congratulate this guy, but remind us that it was a lucky lottery ticket.

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Tokens and virtual lands in Metaverse rise in price

Global hype around virtual worlds provokes demand for digital assets and land in Metaverse blockchain projects. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, the topic of Metaverse was widely discussed. A special press conference was organized during the event. The WEF initiative entitled “Defining and Building the Metaverse” was presented.

More than 120 people were involved in creating the project. At one of the panel discussions, the first two documents of the initiative were discussed. The participants broke down the issues of accessibility, management systems and the role of the consumer in the Metaverse of the future. A working prototype of the WEF’s own Metaverse – Global Collaboration Village – was also demonstrated during the forum.

As often happens, global tendencies resonate with what is happening on the crypto market. A December CoinWire survey of more than 10,000 people interested in cryptocurrencies. Showed significant interest from people in the industry in Metaverse in general. More than 60% of respondents think that technology can reshape the mechanisms of social interaction and entertainment.

Survey participants also believe that the spread of metaverse will change the scenarios of interaction with finance, business and education spheres. More than half of those who have invested in metaverse-related companies in one form or another confirmed that they also own crypto assets.

Tokens from Metaverse projects go up in price

There are at least three major metaverse. The capitalization of their internal assets is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars: The Sandbox, Decentraland and Otherside. The growing excitement around virtual spaces provokes demand for project tokens. In the first month of this year, the domestic cryptocurrencies of the leading metacities are already showing growth of tens of percent. And creating a trend of price growth for less-capitalized assets of the Metaverse category as well.

Decentraland’s domestic currency (MANA) has doubled in just two weeks. The coin began to rise in value on January 13, when the developers announced several technical innovations in the official Twitter account of the project. And it showed itself as one of the most profitable crypto-assets for investing. Which rose in the first month of this year.

The Sandbox native token (SAND) showed an increase of more than 80% in the same period. And the internal currency of the Otherside universe (APE) has grown about one and a half times since the beginning of the year. The growth of the latter is associated with the excitement around the launch of the NFT collection. Which gives access to the new Dookey Dash game from Yuga Labs, the company behind Otherside. NFT passes were given to image holders from the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club. And their daily secondary market turnover after launch exceeded $27 million.

Some cryptoprojects do not imply the creation of metaverse as such. But aggregators categorize their coins as “Metaverse”. As a rule, these are developers of Play-to-Earn (P2E) games or other services indirectly related to virtual worlds. Whose assets, like digital land parcels, are traded on the open market in NFT form.

Demand for Virtual Lands is also growing

As for parcels of land in the metaverse. This form of investment has been quite successful in the past year. According to a report by marketplace Parcel.co. Despite the turmoil in the crypto market, the turnover of virtual real estate transactions in 2022 grew by 180%. And it exceeded $1.4 billion, up from $0.5 billion in 2021.

Leader in site sales was the Otherside project. It’s own metaverse was launched last May. The excitement around the land was provided by an extensive marketing campaign. As well as a common storyline tie Otherside with the acclaimed NFT-collections BAYC and MAYC. According to our analysts, within three months after the launch digital land sales in Otherside reached $ 900 million. And in general, last year the project took over 75% of sales.

Others leaders in sales for 2022 include The Sandbox (11%), Decentraland (5%), NFT Worlds (8%) and Somnium Space (1%). The market leaders also had the largest sales: 333.33 ETH in Otherside, 100 ETH in The Sandbox, and 81 ETH in Decentraland. Plots in several less capitalized metaverse. Which are still in development. They are also traded as an asset on NFT marketplaces. Their secondary market turnover over the past year is estimated at $60 million.

The growing adoption of VR technology and the development of virtual worlds has spurred demand for virtual land. This has sparked sales both within the cryptocommunity and from global brands. The future prospects for this market remain optimistic. That’s because the metaverse sphere is attracting more and more attention and investment. In 2023, the focus of the market will be on games in the Web 3.0 segment. As well as the digital fashion industry and various scenarios for the use of virtual land plots.

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How can relaunch of FTX exchange with its bad reputation go

Our experts talked about the likely scenarios for resuming the business of bankrupt exchange FTX and prospects for its native token. Review by Crypto-Upvotes experts

The bankrupt crypto exchange FTX may reopen. The platform’s new CEO, John Ray, told The Wall Street Journal that he considers that a possibility.

When FTX collapsed in November 2022, triggering the collapse of the crypto market and a series of new problems for major industry players. John Ray then took over the company and began the bankruptcy process, while examining its surviving assets. He says a task force under his leadership is now looking into the possibility of restarting FTX.

When restarting business exchange affected customers can expect to return funds in a larger amount than in the case of the liquidation of its assets or the sale of the platform. This week, FTX lawyers disclosed $3.5 billion in surviving liquid assets of the exchange.

Confidence in this exchange is lost, but how to get it back?

Our experts doubt in reality of FTX relaunch, because its reputation is the worst. But the cryptocurrency market has seen more than that, they say, remembering the relaunch of exchange BTC-e under new brand WEX in 2017. According to our expert, FTX will need new investors to revive its business. Who will help avoid bankruptcy and invest in a marketing campaign to attract users.

A system of incentives for those who have a lot of money on FTX, will also be needed. FTX could issue new tokens corresponding to deposit debt. Which will be gradually redeemed as the exchange has funds.

A similar experience took place on the Bitfinex exchange with its BFX debt tokens. Which were accrued to affected users after a major hacking attack in 2016. Such a move helped Bitfinex fully pay off its debts to customers a year after the incident.

FTX may take a year to two years to recover until all liabilities are paid. FTX relaunch can only happen for the U.S. market, and only with full compliance with local regulators, says our expert.

As Bitfinex experience shows, user trust and trading volumes can be restored, but only partially. Bitfinex was once the largest crypto exchange. But after hacking and the emergence of a major competitor in the form of Binance, this platform has long been not even in the top 3 in global leaders. FTX may indeed be back in the game, but it is unlikely to regain its former credibility. New team of exchange will first of all have to pay debts to users. And prove that it does not use the same scam methods as the old team.

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Ethereum blockchain was used by an Australian bank to create its own stablecoin

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.

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Bit Mining shares up 106% after announcement of new LD3 mining device

BitMining claims that the presented Litecoin and Dogecoin mining device will be more profitable than its predecessors. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Shares of BitMining (BTCM) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) rose 106% – from $2.11 to $4.36 per share. After the company announced the release of new LD3 mining devices on Twitter on Jan. 10.

On January 17, BitMining equipment manufacturer announced in its blog that the production of these devices has begun. They will be used to mine Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE) cryptocurrencies. A total of 5 thousand machines were produced. And some of them are intended for internal use, while others are for sale.

The LD3, which has a capacity of 3.5 kW, will be more profitable than its predecessors. At the same time consuming energy more efficiently, BitMining claims. This is the second ASIC miner (mining device) that the company has developed since acquiring hardware maker Bee Computing last year. The first was the Ethereum Classic (ETC) cryptocurrency mining device last August.

Our experts remind us that BitMining business includes cryptocurrency mining. And managing data centers and manufacturing equipment. The company also owns a large mining pool, BTC.com. Which was hacked late last year. As a result of the hacker attack, the attackers managed to withdraw about $700,000 worth of crypto-assets belonging to customers from this pool. They also stole $2.3 million in cryptocurrency from their own project wallets.

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Mining companies increased in price due to growth of Bitcoin rate

Growth in securities of mining companies in January reached the highest monthly level in at least a year. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

The MVIS Global Digital Assets Mining Index, which includes data on the 20 largest miners. Such as Riot Blockchain, Galaxy Digital, Bitfarms and Iris Energy, is up 64 percent since the beginning of January 2023. This month, the indicator posted its biggest increase since its inception in December 2021. In doing so, Bitfarms securities rose more than 140%. And shares of Marathon Digital Holdings were up more than 120%. And Hive Blockchain Technologies more than doubled.

The growth of miners’ shares was caused by the recovery of Bitcoin. The first cryptocurrency since the beginning of January rose in price by 26.5% – from $ 16.6 thousand to $ 21 thousand. And on January 16 Bitcoin rate updated its maximum for 4 months, exceeding the mark of $ 21.4 thousand.

Profits of miners also increased against the growth of the crypto market. Despite the fact that the complexity of Bitcoin mining has grown to record levels. And more and more miners are plugging in, increasing hash rates. Luxor Hashprice Index – showing how much income a Bitcoin miner can expect. With a certain amount of hashrate – up 21% this year.

However, our experts note that it is unknown how long the growth of mining companies’ quotes will last. Cryptocurrency mining companies faced financial difficulties in 2022 and were forced to sell the mined cryptocurrency. As well as to return the equipment, reduce costs and personnel.

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