As per Santiment data, Solana surpassed the daily GitHub submission rates of Polkadot and Cardano to become the leading blockchain over the past month. The number of daily GitHub submissions for Solana reached 90 between Nov. 12 and Monday, followed by Polkadot at 76 and Cardano at 65.Continue Reading on Coin Telegraph More
XRP (XRP) is one of the solid digital assets in the crypto space that has already established its reputation in the market. Furthermore, its partnership with Ripple, which has been on the front pages for quite some time now due to its never-ending issues with the US SEC, makes the coin famous in the market. Source: TradingView As seen in the graph above, XRP is forming a long symmetrical triangle pattern. This means that if XRP keeps positioning itself in an uptrend position, there might be a chance that the crypto may boost and smash its first resistance level at $1.44. If it does, traders and investors can look forward to XRP hitting the skyrocketing price of $2 in no time.However, this forecast still depends on the performance of its investors in the network. If XRP (XRP) will be able to sustain its existing investors and invite more, the chance of surging its price will not be a discussion anymore. Source: TradingView Meanwhile, the Relative strength index (RSI) of the crypto is now back in the 70-30 range. In other words, crypto enthusiasts can now trade with confidence without worrying about any major price reversals. But of course, it is still recommended to stick with the rules of your indicator to avoid losses that cannot be reverted.Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of CoinQuora. No information in this article should be interpreted as investment advice. CoinQuora encourages all users to do their own research before investing in cryptocurrencies.Continue reading on CoinQuora More
Following the album’s release, an unreleased outro track titled “Can U Be/Forever Mitus” was leaked online and made rounds on the internet. The album was one of the projects that teleported the rapper into the global limelight and kept him there.Read Also: NFT Music box is set to disrupt Spotify (NYSE:SPOT) in 2022The NFT auction held by Keyon Christ, Kanye’s producer in 2016, was tagged 2044: The Lost Kanye files. This token contains the unreleased outro track in its original form and best quality. At first, the outro track made it to the public through a secret listening party held by Kanye West. However, since that party, people have hardly found the track online and the ones found online were of very low quality.According to Christ, the track’s release would serve as an important step to unveiling what the future holds for music and music production in the decentralized era. He further stated that risks must be taken, and rules must be broken.The track was tagged too futuristic by DJ Whooskid in 2016 and later dropped off the album when Southside took over as the project’s executive producer. According to Whooskid, he and others encouraged Kanye to drop it off the album for more listener-friendly songs.This non-fungible token is currently available for sales online. In addition, the winner of the NFT is promised access to unreleased leaks through a private portal with their leak token.Continue reading on BTC Peers More
(Reuters) – As bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, struggles to recover after a massive crash, regulatory and private sector focus has turned to another part of the digital currency world: stablecoins.The past week saw Meta Platforms Inc pilot its stablecoin payments wallet, while the world’s largest payments processor Visa (NYSE:V) launched a crypto advisory service and said stablecoins, might become the medium of exchange rather than cryptocurrencies.Stablecoins are a form a virtual currency with values pegged to traditional assets such as the U.S. dollar or commodities, and their rise has accelerated discussion by central banks across the world about digital versions of their currencies.Analysts at digital platform Alkemi Network were among those who hailed Visa’s move as evidence that the cryptocurrency and decentralised finance ecosystem is moving towards maturity. “Making a visible attempt to play by traditional finance rules is definitely gathering momentum as a movement within the crypto ecosystem,” they wrote. Japan’s financial regulator said last week it will come up with rules in 2022 to restrict the issuance of stablecoins to banks and wire transfer firms. In the United States, even as top executives from major cryptocurrency companies including Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) and Circle urged Congress to provide clearer bespoke rules for the industry, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and a group of bank chief executives discussed the need to regulate stablecoins.Meta’s cryptocurrency wallet, Novi, will allow users to send and receive money through the social media giant’s messaging app WhatsApp and will use a stablecoin named Pax Dollar.Research platform Delphi Digital says stablecoins have grown substantially in the past month, with the market capitalisation of the top five stablecoins swelling to nearly $150 billion from $129 billion. Tether, the largest stablecoin, has a market value of $76 billion.Meanwhile, the central banks of Switzerland and France claimed success in Europe’s first cross-border trial of central bank digital currency (CBDC) payments, after testing project Jura, named after the mountains between the two countries.BARGAIN HUNTERSWith bitcoin capped at $50,000 for most of the week since its flash crash on Dec. 4, the market capitalisation of the 15,541 coins on the CoinMarketCap platform stood at $2.25 trillion compared with $2.6 trillion at the start of December.Cryptocurrencies have benefited from easier cash conditions even in a higher inflation environment, but it was difficult to say what would happen as the Federal Reserve accelerates monetary tightening or gets ready to lift rates, said Chris Weston, head of research at brokerage Pepperstone in Melbourne.”I feel like there would be headwinds, but as always with crypto the only thing you can have is an open mind,” Weston said.Bargain hunters have emerged. The number of active bitcoin addresses touched 1 million after the crash, according to a report from Arcane Research, its highest since the cryptocurrency plunged 35% in May. “Sleeping bitcoin holders seem to have been woken up by the volatility,” Arcane analysts said. A notable dip buyer was Michael Saylor-led MicroStrategy Inc, which added 1,434 bitcoins to its holdings for about $82.4 million, the company said last week.Yet the number of bitcoin wallets holding more than 1,000 tokens fell during the week, potentially indicating profit-taking among larger players, Kraken Digital reported.Cryptocurrencies topped the list of assets expected to experience a correction in 2022, as per a survey of 500 global institutional investors conducted by Natixis Investment Managers. Another Visa survey showed 40% of global crypto owners would likely or very likely switch their primary bank to one that offers crypto-related products in the next 12 months. The Natixis survey showed that only 4 in 10 institutions considered crypto a legitimate investment option although, of the 28% already investing in crypto, 90% expect to maintain or increase their allocation in 2022. More
To a great extent, this is true as the average person would need at least a few million dollars to get started as a venture capitalist and this, of course, excludes most of the population. This is the way the VC sector has worked for decades but should this be changed?Why Venture Capital Has to ChangeIn the past, virtually the only way that a company could raise funds at its inception stage was through personal funding, angel investors, or venture capital. The world is different now, thanks to the internet and the many ways in which people can connect over it. Sites like Kickstarter have already shown that everyday people can chip in to support budding ideas and get innovative products and services off the ground and this shows no signs of stopping. The 2010s also saw the rise of blockchain and cryptocurrency which have gone on to disrupt the financial sector.In the case of cryptocurrency, it empowered everyday people to invest in ways that they otherwise could not, buying up cryptocurrencies with pennies and often making a profit during bull runs. Blockchain, the technology that cryptocurrency is based on, has been used to democratize many investment vehicles. Through tokenization (the sale of a single asset as smaller, digital representations), people are now able to invest in real estate, art, and so on at a fraction of the traditional cost. The effect of all of this is that institutions and investment vehicles that had been previously seen as untouchable or out of the reach of the common man are being demystified. Take the Gamestop saga of early 2021 in which Reddit users banded together to drive up the price of a stock in order to get back at hedge funds.Venture capital will also go through the same evolution as more offerings pop up to democratize it. Take companies like RevenueCoin that are leveraging blockchain technology to allow users to invest in venture capital with more ease and greater accessibility.How RevenueCoin WorksUnlike traditional VC firms, RevenueCoin does not require millions of dollars for direct investment in promising companies. Instead, RevenueCoin users buy as much of its native $RVC token as they want, and the funds raised from the sale of the token are given to the chosen companies.After the companies used the raised funds to expand their operations, they then commit up to 10% of their profits to buying back and then burning $RVC tokens. This act of buying and burning then artificially reduces the supply of the token in the market, thus driving up its value and generating a profit for initial investors.This method is beneficial to the investors because they are able to buy as much or as little $RVC as they want and as they can afford it. They also have a say in which specific companies are invested in as a result of RevenueCoin’s voting system. Finally, they can retrieve their initial investment and profit whenever they want by selling their tokens on crypto exchanges. For companies that do not want to deal with traditional VC firms’ stringent restrictions, this provides an alternative to funding.A New VC WorldWith options like RevenueCoin on the market, the old exclusive way of VC will need to change. Every day people are now exploring their options at democratized investing and as this becomes more popular, startups will also realize that they have more options as well. Over time, the monopoly that large VC firms had on the sector will reduce significantly and the landscape will be a much more accessible one.Continue reading on CoinQuora More
France has named agriculture traders Bunge and Cargill as the leading importers of soyabeans from areas at risk of deforestation, one of the main contributors to global warming.The companies have been identified as the French government tries to clean up the country’s agriculture supply chains with the launch of an online database that tracks soyabean exports from Brazil to France. The database shows about a quarter of Brazilian exports of soyabeans to France in 2018 came from areas hit by deforestation. Brazil is the world’s biggest producer of the legume, which is mainly used as livestock feed and oil. Its production has been one of the causes of deforestation of tropical rainforest over several decades. The Amazon and Brazilian savannahs are critical buffers against climate change, acting as giant stores of carbon. In the year to July, the rate of deforestation of the Amazon was the highest in 15 years, according to official Brazilian data. The online database, which was launched by the French ecological transition ministry with the help of supply chain transparency group Trase and environmental NGO Canopee, highlights the role of the world’s largest agricultural traders in handling commodities potentially linked to deforestation.It showed Bunge accounted for 70 per cent of cargoes, where soyabeans came from areas threatened by the high risk of deforestation, while Cargill accounted for almost 10 per cent. Bunge said it was committed to reaching deforestation-free supply chains by 2025 and had already removed some farmers linked to deforested land from its supply chain. Cargill said the platform’s data did not reflect French imports, adding that it was committed to eliminating deforestation in the shortest time possible, but that there was no single solution to the issue.The French government said traders and other businesses were invited to share their data to improve the quality of the analysis.Nico Muzi, at environmental campaign group Mighty Earth, said traders dictated the conditions of the global soya market, and could make material changes if they felt under pressure.Some 411,000 tonnes out of 1.57m of soyabeans, or products made from it, exported from Brazil to France in 2018, were associated with high deforestation risk, according to the French website. France imports about 3m tonnes of soya meal, or about 17 per cent of the EU total a year, according to the government’s ministry of ecological transition. “Monitoring the flow of these imports that present a risk to the forests . . . will help with supply chain risk,” it said.The release of the online database comes soon after a global commitment to halt the destruction of the world’s forests at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. The EU also published draft regulation that would force companies to prove that products they sold into the bloc did not contribute to legal or illegal deforestation or forest degradation.However, the figures on the French website did not prove that the soyabeans were grown in deforested areas, said the ecology ministry, adding it would contact traders about deforestation risk in their supply chains. French supermarket group Carrefour, a member of the government working group that helped develop the platform, said it would use the data to eliminate soya livestock feed linked to deforestation from its supply chains by 2025. The group, along with other leading French retailers, last year signed a soya manifesto to tackle deforestation and destruction of savannahs. Retailers and food companies in the UK have followed, signing a similar manifesto in November. More
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – When Pakistan’s annual inflation rate hit 11.5% in November, the statistics office put a number on a phenomenon that was already painfully clear to the poor and the salaried middle-class voters who carried Prime Minister Imran Khan to power three years ago.Now the government is preparing to double down on the pain with a belt-tightening budget of tax hikes and spending cuts required to release a $1 billion tranche of International Monetary Fund bailout cash.”I never thought it would become so difficult to survive,” said Sibte Hasan, a 43-year-old construction supervisor from Pakistan’s second-biggest city Lahore.As consumer price inflation has accelerated into double digits, with staples like flour, sugar, oil and rice doubling in price over recent months, the Pakistani rupee has fallen around 14% since May to reach a historic low.Government officials are expected to release official figures this week when it presents a special supplementary budget to cabinet. But already it is clear that a raft of sales tax exemptions will be scrapped and new levies will be raised on fuel as well as some imported goods.The IMF agreed last month to revive a stalled $6 billion funding programme launched in 2019 but demanded further fiscal measures as part of a broader structural reforms package covering areas from the power sector debt to corporate governance, climate change and trade policy.Last month the central bank also tightened the screws, raising its key interest rate by 150 basis points to 8.75% to try to stem surging inflation, a slide in the Pakistani rupee and a current account deficit that has widened to $5.2 billion (July-Oct), and trade deficit to $20.59 billion (July-Nov). Government officials have put a brave face on the situation, saying that the impact on the poorest will be softened by welfare cushions and pointing to progress in addressing Pakistan’s chronic tax collection problem.”Prudent fiscal reforms have helped in improving the tax-to-GDP ratio and improving revenue generation,” Finance Adviser Shaukat Tarin told a conference last week.The government has also had some relief from the immediate pressure on public finances with a $3 billion loan from Saudi Arabia that arrived this month.FALLING PRODUCTIONHowever, whether the fiscal measures will be enough to stabilise public finances sufficiently to allow the government to address Pakistan’s underlying economic problems remains unclear.While consumers have faced higher household bills, the impact has also been felt in the business sector through high energy prices and raw materials costs as well as the recent sharp rise in interest rates. “Our production is falling rapidly,” said textile mill owner Sheikh Muhammad Akbar. “My unit is not generating its targeted production because of expensive raw materials and high production costs,” he told Reuters. Pakistan’s debt-bound economy has long been hobbled by problems ranging from a wasteful and inefficient power sector to weak tax collection, poor productivity and minimal value added exports.But loose monetary policy and an over valued exchange rate papered over some of the problems, helping the economy rebound from the coronavirus slowdown to grow 3.9% last year, even while the fiscal and current account deficits widened, threatening the stability of public finances. More
Investing.com — Markets are marking time ahead of a rash of central bank meetings later in the week, edging higher as news dribbling out of the health sector continues to suggest that the new dominant strain of Covid-19 isn’t half as bad as the last one. Energy prices in Europe push toward record highs again as Russia shows no signs of pulling its tanks away from the Ukrainian border – or of opening the gas taps on its new pipeline to Germany. And Turkey’s currency crisis continues to spiral out of control. Here’s what you need to know in financial markets on Monday, 13th December.1. Omicron data keeps coming in Health data from around the world continued to suggest that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is less dangerous than the Delta variant, even if it is more transmissible.Data from South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable diseases indicated that Omicron was only half as likely to cause serious illness, and that even those admitted to hospital spent less time there than victims of previous waves. Only 3% of Omicron patients have died so far in South Africa, compared to fatality rates of 20% in earlier waves.Elsewhere, Germany’s seven-day average infection rate has fallen over 15% from its peak at the end of last month. However, Europe seems set to endure more restrictive measures in the near term. The U.K., whose government will not regret any distraction from a scandal over its own members’ behavior during past lockdowns, warned that it may yet have to shut schools again to stop viral spread, which is currently concentrated in schoolchildren and their parents.2. Iron ore jumps on Chinese stimulus bets; China stocks followChinese markets jumped on fresh speculation of economic stimulus to be announced by the government to stop any further deterioration in the real estate sector’s fortunes.Iron ore futures leaped 7% as the market braced for a relaxation of either financial conditions on loans to the construction sector, and of pollution-related output curbs. That also lifted the stocks of iron ore miners in Sydney and London, such as BHP Group (NYSE:BHP), Anglo American (LON:AAL) and Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) (which underperformed after taking a $2.3 billion hit on a Mongolian copper project)Benchmark mainland Chinese stock indices rose by between 0.4% and 1.0%, although the Hong Kong Hang Seng index continued to labor under the weight of troubled property stocks.3. U.S. stocks set to open higher; Chipmakers in focusU.S. stocks are set to open broadly higher, amid cautious optimism ahead of a heavy week for central bank meetings, dominated by the Federal Reserve’s press conference on Wednesday.By 6:20 AM ET (1120 GMT), Dow Jones futures were up 98 points, or 0.3%, while S&P 500 futures were also up 0.3% and Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.4%.Market sentiment was also supported at the margins by reports that President Joe Biden will meet with Senator Joe Manchin later Monday in an attempt to break down his resistance to certain items in the ‘Build Back Better’ spending bill. Stocks likely to be in focus later include Lucid (NASDAQ:LCID), after the electric vehicle maker priced its debt offering more tightly than expected. Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) may also get some attention due to reports of big capacity expansions in Germany and Malaysia, respectively.4. European electricity, gas prices surge again as Russia deadlock continues Prices in the European wholesale energy market remained stubbornly close to record highs as the military stand-off on the Ukrainian border with Russia again kept the prospect of extra Russian gas flows on hold.Benchmark Dutch gas futures on the Intercontinental Exchange rose as much as 10% before paring gains to be up 5.7% by late morning in Europe. Storage levels continue to lag at their lowest in over five years, due to insufficient injection of gas during the summer.Higher gas prices are incentivizing more generators to burn coal instead, which is in turn pushing up the price of carbon emissions credits, which rose another 1.9% to over 85 euros a ton ($96/t).Elsewhere, OPEC releases its monthly report on the global oil market at 7 AM ET (12 PM GMT)5. Lira slumps again as government persists with low rate policy Turkey’s battle with the foreign exchange market continued to get messier, with the central bank intervening to cushion the lira’s fall for the fourth day in the last five.The dollar rose as high as 14.619 lira earlier, before retracing to be at 14.139 lira by 6:30 AM ET. That’s up 1.9% on the day and a staggering 42% in the last month.Turkey’s new finance minister repeated the government’s refusal to countenance higher interest rates, despite soaring inflation. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has constantly defied orthodox economic logic to blame inflation on the tight monetary policy of the previous management of the central bank, said last week that interest rates would be kept low at least until upcoming elections have passed. More
