Autor Cointelegraph By Brian Quarmby

'Most of crypto is still junk' and lacks use case — JPMorgan blockchain head

'Most of crypto is still junk' and lacks use case — JPMorgan blockchain head

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 30, 2022 |

The head of JPMorgan’s digital assets unit Umar Farooq has suggestedthat most of the crypto assets on the market are “junk” and that real crypto use cases are yet to fully present themselves. During a panel discussion at the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Green Shoots Seminar on Aug. 29, Farooq stated that regulation is yet to catch up to the burgeoning industry which is holding back many traditional financial (TradFi) institutions from getting involved. He also opined that with the exception of a few, utility for most crypto assets is lacking: “Most of crypto is still junk actually, I mean with the exception of I would say, a few dozen tokens, everything else that has been mentioned is either noise or frankly, is just gonna go away.”“So in my mind, the use cases haven’t arisen fully, and the regulation hasn’t caught up and I think that’s why you see the financial industry, in general, being a little bit slow in catching up,” added Farooq, who serves as CEO of JPMorgan’s blockchain unit Onyx Digital Assets (ODA).The JPMorgan executive also argued that the sector hasn’t matured enough to where it can be utilized at scale to facilitate high-value “serious transactions” between TradFi institutions, or to host products such as tokenized deposits (an existing bank deposit held as a liability against depository institutions).Instead, Farooq suggested crypto, blockchain, and the broader Web3 movement is primarily providing a vehicle for wild speculation at this stage. “You need all of those things to mature so that you can actually do things with them. Right now, we’re just not there yet, most of the money that’s being used in Web3 today, in the current infrastructure, is for speculative investment.”While JPMorgan has become relatively crypto-friendly over the past couple of years, the banking giant is primarily focused on blockchain tech, and how it can be used to specifically improve TradFi services.Crypto Biz: Step aside, Warren Buffett; stablecoin issuers hold more US debt than Berkshire HathawayIn May, Cointelegraph reported that JPMorgan had trialed tokenized collateral settlements via its own private blockchain. The test saw two of its entities transfer a tokenized representation of Black Rock Inc. money market fund shares.

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0.3% fall in assets “could render Tether technically insolvent” — WSJ

0.3% fall in assets “could render Tether technically insolvent” — WSJ

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 29, 2022 |

An article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has claimed that Tether’s balance sheet is in a position that even a 0.3% drop in value of its reserve assets could “render Tether technically insolvent.”In an Aug. 27 report, WSJ journalists Jean Eaglesham and Vicky Ge Huang focused on the cloudy nature of Tether’s USDT reserves and its long-awaited audit that has been in the works since 2017. Eaglesham and Huang suggested that such a “thin cushion of equity” could cause mayhem in the market, if Tether’s liabilities were to outweigh its assets: “A 0.3% fall in assets could render Tether technically insolvent — a development that skeptics warn could reduce investor confidence and spur an increase in redemptions.”At the time of writing, Tether has $67.74 billion worth of assets and $67.54 billion worth of liabilities, marking a difference of just $191 million as per Tether’s website. Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino has however, played down the severity of Tether’s tight margins, telling the publication that he expects its capital to “grow significantly over the next few months,” adding: “I don’t think we are the systemic risk in [the crypto] system.”Ardoino also pointed out that the firm has had no issues redeeming customer funds, and managed to redeem $7 billion worth in just 24 hours during a recent crypto market crash. Tether’s website currently states that 79.62% of its reserves are backed by cash, cash equivalents, other short-term deposits, and commercial paper. The remainder consists of 8.36% worth of other investments including unspecified digital tokens, 6.77% in secured loans, and 5.25% in corporate bonds, funds, and precious metals. Ardoino however declined to comment on what Tether’s roughly $5.6 billion worth of other investments are made of, according to the report.The nature of Tether’s reserves has been a long-running and key narrative in the crypto space given the market dominance of its stablecoin and the firm’s dealings with regulators in over alleged misrepresentations of Tether’s backing in the past. As part of an $18.5 million settlement with the Office of the New York Attorney General in February 2021, Tether is legally required to publish quarterly reports breaking down the specific composition of its cash and non-cash reserves. Related: Waves-backed stablecoin USDN breaks peg again amid protocol upgradeArdonio also told the WSJ that will soon switch to monthly reports as part of the company’s push to provide greater transparency. Earlier this month, Tether signed on major accounting firm BDO Italia to aid its reporting transparency targets by conducting independent attestations. However, there is still yet to be a full audit into the firm that would dig further into Tether’s financials and provide the full scope of its operations.

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Low cap crypto is like penny stocks, says Wolf of Wall Street

Low cap crypto is like penny stocks, says Wolf of Wall Street

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 29, 2022 |

Former stockbroker Jordan Belfort, known colloquially as the “Wolf of Wall Street” has likened low market cap crypto assets to penny stocks due to their extreme price volatility. Penny stocks refer to highly speculative shares priced under $1 from small and unknown companies. Generally they either fetch massive returns for investors or crash and burn dramatically. Belfort’s rise to prominence in the 90s and eventual run in with the Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC), was in part, due to brokering deals for these stocks. During an interview with Yahoo Finance on Aug. 27, Belfort noted that these types of investments have the “same predictable cycle” which can generate huge returns but can also burn investors who fail to cash out at the right time: “With those ultra low cap deals, wow you get a hold of one of those things at the right time you can make just massive, massive money. But on the flip side of that you’re playing in someone’s playground, you know you’re not the house, they’re the house. “You’re coming in there and most of the time you’re probably gonna lose,” he added. Belfort went on to note that people should only invest in low cap crypto assets if they are willing to allocate a small amount of their portfolio to taking gambles, and suggested that they should never fall under the category of a serious investment. “I don’t think there’s any amount of research that you can do to protect yourself from these ultra low cap [assets], except getting in really, really early. It doesn’t matter if it’s good management [or] bad, they’re that low that what’s gonna end up happening, it’s gonna take its ride up, and then when it gets to the top, people are gonna dump it.”The Wolf of Wall Street also noted however, that he is primarily looking at Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) in relation to long term investments due to their strong fundamentals. He stated he is particularly interested in BTC due to its potential to become a store of value and inflation hedge once the market matures further in the future. “I just think it’s a matter of time that where enough of it gets into the right hands, there’s a limited supply, and as inflations does continue to keep going and going and going, at some point in time there’ll be enough maturity with Bitcoin where it starts to trade more like a store of value and less like a growth stock,” he explained. From crypto hater to proponent Belfort is one of many popular figures in the investment space to do a 180 on crypto over the past couple of years, joining the likes of Shark Tank investors such as Mark Cuban and Kevin O’Leary. Back in February 2018, Belfort predicted the price of BTC would eventually crash to zero and described the asset as the “perfect storm for manipulation” due to the thinness of the market at the time. He also questioned BTC’s supposed use case payments as opposed to just being an investment vehicle, and suggested that it would be regulated out of existence. Commenting on his change in sentiment with Yahoo Finance, Belfort noted he was “wrong” about BTC going to zero and that life is about “constantly adapting and growing.” Related: Rocky road lies ahead, but here’s 5 altcoins that still look bullishHe said while he still stands by most of his criticism, the growing mainstream adoption of BTC and crypto, along with an understanding that the sector won’t be banned outright, ultimately changed his mind. “My original thesis was sovereign risk that the U.S. would just say ‘no more’ like China did and that was the real thing that was driving me to be really bearish on Bitcoin,” he said.

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Xbox boss keen on Metaverse but 'cautious' about play-to-earn games

Xbox boss keen on Metaverse but 'cautious' about play-to-earn games

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 26, 2022 |

Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft’s gaming company Xbox is optimistic about the Metaverse but remains “cautious” about play-to-earn (P2E) crypto games due to its economic and speculative aspects. Speaking with Bloomberg anchor Emily Chang on Aug. 25, Spencer suggested that while many gamers are not yet sold on the current concept of a Metaverse, according to his definition, they have essentially been playing in Metaverse worlds for decades: “My view on Metaverse is that gamers have been in the Metaverse for 30 years. When you’re playing games, if you’re playing a World of Warcraft game, you’re playing in Roblox, you’re playing in a racing game where everybody’s in a shared world.” In Spencer’s view, the Metaverse is essentially a “3D shared world” in which people can freely communicate with each other and engage in shared experiences and common purposes. “It’s not at all surprising to me that gamers might look at Metaverse and think well I don’t really get it because we already have an avatar of myself and I can already go into a shared world and I can already sit there and have voice conversations with people anywhere,” he said. Spencer’s sentiments echo that of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who after telling Bloomberg in November that people could “absolutely expect” the firm to make moves in Metaverse gaming, noted that: “If you take Halo as a game, it is a Metaverse. Minecraft is a Metaverse, and so is Flight Sim. In some sense, they’re 2D today and the question is can you now take that to a fully 3D world, and we absolutely plan to do so.”Spencer however did not address more contentious issues in the Metaverse, such as the concept of owning virtual Metaverse property through NFTs. Crypto proponent and billionaire investor Mark Cuban recently slammed virtual property investment as “the dumbest s— ever” due to an apparent lack of utility and scarcity. The Xbox head instead went on to add that commercial usage of the Metaverse space has continued to pique the interest of Microsoft and CEO Nadella as of late. “But I do think the skills that we have as game designers and game creators make a ton of sense in a lot of enterprise experiences. And this is why Satya gets excited about it,” he said. Cautious about P2EThe Xbox head spoke in much more tentative terms over blockchain-based P2E games however. While Spencer admitted that monetization in games has been around for years, he holds concerns about games being primarily built around “menial tasks” to accrue digital currency. “Play-to-earn specifically is something I’m cautious about. It creates a worker force out of players, for certain players to kind of monetize.”“Now you find games that are starting to build that into the economy of the game itself. We made some comments in Minecraft about how we view NFTs in this space because we people are doing things that we thought were exploitative in our product — we said we don’t want that,” he added. Related: GameFi developers could be facing big fines and hard timeHe didn’t completely reject the concept of play-to-earn, however, noting that there could be some interesting use cases that sprout out from this area. “I think sometimes it’s a hammer looking for a nail when these technologies come up. But the actual human use — or player use, in our case — of these technologies, I think there could be some interesting things,” he said.

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Zipmex requests meetings with Thai regulators to discuss ‘recovery plan’

Zipmex requests meetings with Thai regulators to discuss ‘recovery plan’

Uverejnil používateľ | aug 26, 2022 |

Asian crypto exchange Zipmex has requested meetings with Thailand’s Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators to discuss the firm’s “recovery plan.” In a statement on Aug. 25, Zipmex said it had submitted a letter requesting meetings with the securities regulator, which will also be attended by the firm’s potential investors. “We have requested meetings with Thailand’s Securities Exchange Commission and regulators in the country where we operate to introduce our investors to regulators and present our recovery plan to government agencies.”Though the company was tight-lipped on who the investors may be, Zipmex noted that it was in “advanced stages” of discussion with two investors after signing three memorandums of understanding (MOUs) over the last month. The funding round was initially reported in June, suggesting the potential capital injection was not tied to the company’s more recent financial woes. “The investors we have been in discussion with fully understand our potential and also share our vision and mission of developing the digital economy in Thailand and Southeast Asia,” said Zipmex. Despite the lack of names at this stage, the funding round is reportedly expected to be worth $40 million at a valuation of $400 million. Notably Coinbase has already made an undisclosed strategic investment into Zipmex during Q1. The requested discussions with the SEC come one month after the regulator launched a hotline for investors impacted by the withdrawal suspensions to report their complaints on the matter. On Aug. 15, Cointelegraph reported that the company had scored more than three-months of creditor protection, protecting the exchange from potential creditor lawsuits until Dec. 2, 2022 while it comes up with a restructuring plan. With regulator eyes on Zipmex, the upcoming discussions should bear important information about how the company can proceed moving forward. Zipmex stated that it will soon provide further clarification on the matter around the middle of September. Zipmex also revealed on Thursday that wallet transfers for its native token ZMT between its Z Wallets and Trade Wallets have been re-established this week, marking further progress as the company works to get fully operational again. This is only available via its website and not through the Zipmex App at this stage however. Zipmex has re-enabled transfers from your Z Wallet to Trade Wallet for #ZMT. You’ll now be able to access your available ZMT by transferring the tokens across wallets on the Zipmex website https://t.co/Uxk0qZkGBp More Info https://t.co/La4nW15EKx #Zipmex #ZipmexAsia pic.twitter.com/K4SQ096MZi— ZIPMEX (@zipmex) August 25, 2022“By resuming the Z Wallet service and doing everything possible to resolve the aforementioned problems. I can confirm that we will continue to move forward to resume services to serve our customers effectively and fairly,” said Dr. Akalarp Yimwilai, co-founder of Zipmex.Related: Thai SEC approves four crypto firms despite Zipmex woesThe company operates compliant exchanges in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia. As a result of the market volatility this year and exposure to firms such as Babel Finance and Celsius, Zipmex officially paused wallet withdrawals in late July. Since then, Zipmex has gradually restored withdrawals for a select number of assets held in Z Wallets, while trade wallet withdrawals were promptly re-enabled in July.

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