Autor Cointelegraph By Joseph Hall

Santo Blockchain to deliver 50 Bitcoin ATMs to Panama

Santo Blockchain to deliver 50 Bitcoin ATMs to Panama

Uverejnil používateľ | dec 30, 2021 |

Panama is doing its best to keep up with El Salvador’s Bitcoinization with the installation of 50 Bitcoin (BTC) ATMs in 2022. Thanks to Santo Blockchain, 50 of the planned 300 ATMs will begin shipping to Latin America in early 2022.A vertically integrated blockchain and cryptocurrency company with offices in Saigon, Vietnam and Panama City, Santo Blockchain will invest a total of $1 million into Latin America in general next year as part of its 300 Bitcoin ATM plan. Santo Blockchain announced Panama would be the first country to benefit from its newly purchased Bitcoin ATMs, while Colombia and Costa Rica are the next on its radar. Panama has become an increasingly crypto-friendly jurisdiction. In September, a new bill was drafted to recognize BTC as an alternative payment method, possibly enabling greater freedoms in Panama when using crypto. Santo Blockchain CEO Frank Yglesias, who goes by the moniker ‘Crypto Hemingway,’ serves as a crypto advisor to the Panamanian congressman Alejandro Castillero, who oversees regulations regarding the new laws. Of the 300 ATM deal, Yglesias said:“Santo is on a journey to help bring a new wave of crypto banking, investment and commerce to over 400,000,000 people in Latin America that are unbanked or unbankable, including 10% to 15% of the Hispanics in the United States that also are unbankable.”As part of the plan, Latin Americans using ATMs will be able to buy tiny amounts of BTC with cash. The Santo business model links the ATMs to a layer-2 BTC wallet built by the company and eventually a Santo debit card–rolled out in Q3 2022.In the company’s year-end podcast, Yglesias said that Panama is the first Latin American country because it is the gateway to the Americas in terms of trade and logistics, finance and economic stability. Ultimately, Panama is the “stepping stone” to broader Latin American BTC adoption. Related: More countries to follow El Salvador’s Bitcoin move, Cardano creator saysThe news is welcome to a continent lagging in physical Bitcoin infrastructure. Indeed, LATAM has some catching up to do to keep pace with North America’s 5,000 Bitcoin ATMs. To compound the matter, in October this year, retail juggernaut Walmart piloted 200 Bitcoin ATMs as part of a plan to install 8,000 nationwide eventually.According to CoinATMRadar figures, a Bitcoin ATM tracking site, North America hosts 94.8% of worldwide BTC ATMs; LatAm holds just 0.2%. Unsurprisingly, El Salvador leads the region with 205 ATM locations. With Santo’s plan to introduce 50 new ATMs in 2022, Panama will offer 73 physical BTC locations, placing them just below the United Kingdom in the world rankings.

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Bitcoin wallet addresses created in November inched toward 1 million

Bitcoin wallet addresses created in November inched toward 1 million

Uverejnil používateľ | dec 29, 2021 |

Could retail investors be flocking back to Bitcoin (BTC)? In encouraging signs for a bullish 2022, Glassnode data reveals that 913,000 new Bitcoin addresses were added from November to the start of December this year. In a boon for BTC, on-chain analyst On-Chain College shared insightful data regarding retail adoption and the potential beginnings of broader adoption trends. The key takeaway to round off the year is that up to 1 million new entrants joined the Bitcoin network in November. Despite bearish price action in the short term, the Twitter flood shows that the macro outlook for BTC remains sound. According to the chart, from June 2020 to December 2021, the number of wallet addresses with a balance greater than zero has trended up from 30 million wallets to a touching distance of 40 million. Glassnode describes the non-zero balance metric as the number of unique addresses holding a positive (non-zero) amount of coins. When the number trends up, new users enter the Bitcoin network. When it trends down, as visualized in the orange line on the graph from May to July this year, it shows users emptying their wallets to zero. By inference, wallet addresses’ fall is a downward price action indicator. Related: Bitcoin dominance falls under 40%In light of November’s new entrants, it begs two questions: Was this just an outlier fueled by excitement after recently hitting an all-time high? Was it the start of a broader trend?It’s heartening to think that with thanksgiving, festive celebrations and Omicron fears in November and December, potential investors have more opportunities to research Bitcoin and potentially invest. Reporting in December backs up the claim, as the balance changes for wallets holding 1 BTC or less — typically suggesting smallscale investors — reached their highest since March 2020.However, there is a note of caution regarding the future of retail. William Clemente, oft-cited in Cointelegraph and a BTC analyst, tweeted a series of graphs with the message “retail interest in Bitcoin is pretty much gone since the Spring.” More evidence of retail is required. While it was widely reported in October that institutions are buying Bitcoin rather than gold, Google Trends search data for “Bitcoin” is a quarter of what it was during the December 2017 peak. Evidently, retail mania is some ways off.

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Speed, scaling, regulation to play key role for crypto in 2022: FTX CEO

Speed, scaling, regulation to play key role for crypto in 2022: FTX CEO

Uverejnil používateľ | dec 28, 2021 |

FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as “SBF,” rounded off 2021 on an optimistic note. SBF waxed lyrical about the crypto market’s state in 2021 while revealing the roadmap for FTX in 2022 in a Twitter flood.In his view, there are three keystones to industry progress in 2022: regulation, scaling and transaction speeds. He proposes solutions to each puzzle piece, referencing his exchange’s involvement.On regulation, SBF states stablecoins could be better reported and audited. In line with FTX stablecoin policies, he said more transparency would solve “80% of the problems while allowing stablecoins to thrive onshore.” Meanwhile, better markets oversight and an anti-fraud-based regime for token issuances could address other regulatory gaps. Secondly, while crypto users number somewhere around 200 million, “punching way above their weight,” more blockchain network effects are needed to achieve wider mainstream adoption.Fortunately, FTX is leading the charge. It doubled its user count in the fourth quarter, cementing itself as one of the top exchanges in crypto at a $25-billion valuation. SBF explained that while smart contracts have paved the way for metaverses, decentralized finance and Web 3.0 developments, video games could be the path to massive scaling: “Tapping into the existing userbase of video games could be huge–billions of users and hundreds of billions of dollars each year.”However, he went on to say, “This only makes sense if it makes the virtual worlds more engaging, not less.” Blockchain integrations in games, such as nonfungible tokens, only work if they improve an already great game or virtual experience. Related: Alameda Research leads $35M fundraise for crypto trading app StackedFinally, cryptocurrency transactions must change gears. Levels of 50,000 transactions per second are not enough to satisfy industrial-scale applications. Without high speeds, the other two issues cannot execute well. He joked:“I always laugh when a blockchain says they’re already fast. None are! […] Fast means millions of TPS. No one is there yet.”As the wealthiest person in crypto according to Forbes, SBF’s net worth of $26.5 billion puts the 29-year-old just outside of the world’s top 100 people. He’s no stranger to the limelight and being a highly regarded figure, sharing Twitter spaces with Tom Brady and reaching Cointelegraph’s third most notable person in blockchain in 2021.

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Mexican billionaire says 'buy Bitcoin' in new year message

Mexican billionaire says 'buy Bitcoin' in new year message

Uverejnil používateľ | dec 27, 2021 |

Mexico’s third-richest person sent out a heart-warming new year message to Bitcoin (BTC) enthusiasts on Christmas eve. Ricardo Salinas Pliego recommended moving away from fiat money and buying bitcoin in a two-minute festive video. He gives three pieces of advice to his 957,200 followers on Twitter as part of his Christmas and New Year message before asking his followers to retweet and share:“Steer clear of fiat money. Whether it’s the Dollar, the Euro, or the Yen –it’s all the same. It’s fake money made of paper lies. Central banks are producing more than ever.”He pauses before pointing to the camera to say, “Invest in Bitcoin!”Stood in front of a golden Christmas tree, the other two “presents” of advice Salinas left his followers were to let go of jealousy and to believe in oneself, particularly when pursuing freedom and innovation. It’s no surprise that Salinas admonishes investing in BTC. As a prominent Bitcoin evangelist since 2013, his Twitter bio describes himself simply as a “Mexican businessman and Bitcoin holder.”Salinas aims to make Mexico’s second-largest retail bank Banco Azteca the first lender in the country to do business in BTC. However, Salinas, chairman of the bank’s parent company, Grupo Salinas, was left disappointed in June this year. [embedded content]In response to his ambitious plans, Mexico’s central bank stated that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are not legal tender and are prohibited from use in the country’s financial system. In September this year, the governor of the Bank of Mexico, Alejandro Díaz de León, dismissed BTC as a reliable legal tender, citing price volatility as a major roadblock toward full-fledged adoption.Related: ‘Absolutely right’ to think of Bitcoin as the new gold — Mexico’s 3rd richest manIt’s unlikely to deter Salinas. He has been orange-pilling Mexico’s 128 million people since the summer and in an interview with Cointelegraph in January this year, he shared his conviction for BTC as a non-confiscatable asset. In the interview, he also declared that he first bought BTC at $500 in 2013 through Grayscale, saying that by 2018 it was one of his “best investments ever.” He has also tweeted in favor of Bitcoin remittances, tapping into a potential $40 billion market for Mexicans sending cross-border payments to the United States.

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Just 1.3 million Bitcoin left circulating on crypto exchanges

Just 1.3 million Bitcoin left circulating on crypto exchanges

Uverejnil používateľ | dec 24, 2021 |

In glad tidings for an orange Christmas, Bitcoin (BTC) supply is drying up to lows not seen for years. In a recent tweet by CryptoRank, just 6.3% of the total Bitcoin supply, or 1.3 million BTC, is held on cryptocurrency exchanges. The decreasing supply is nothing new, trending down since the Bitcoin halving in 2020 when the BTC block reward was cut in two. BTC availability on exchanges followed suit, slowly trending down over the past year. Exchange wallets accounted for 9.5% of the BTC supply in October 2020, just before the 2020 Christmas all-time highs, and 7.3% in July this year. The 6.3% December figure is the lowest recorded in 2021.Interestingly, Coinbase’s BTC wallet dominance is also slipping. The American exchange used to custody more BTC than all other exchanges combined. Its dominance has slipped from 50.52% to 40.65% over the past year. The news follows a swathe of positive price metrics that dovetail the upward price action of Bitcoin. Firstly, the illiquid BTC supply has iced over for the winter as the BTC supply going from a “liquid” to an “illiquid” state is now 100,000 BTC per month. In essence, more BTC is locked away into cold storage than the amount being mined. Glassnode, the on-chain analytics company, shared further bullish news regarding exchange behavior. The seven-day moving average for BTC’s exchange inflow volume just reached a 5-month low of 978.452 BTC and has been trending down week on week. The exchange supply shortage may continue with less and less BTC sent to exchanges. Furthermore, it’s important to note that many retail investors and some companies store their BTC on exchanges, indicating that the ‘illiquid’ BTC may be even lower. Some BTC hodlers would leave the custody of their keys to exchanges instead of taking their BTC offline into cold storage.Related: Bitcoin needs to clear $51K to reduce the chance of new sell-off from BTC whalesUnsurprisingly, Binance CEO and co-founder Changpeng Zhao has encouraged the hot wallet practice, despite the best efforts of Bitcoiners like Andreas Antonopolous ensuring ‘not your keys, not your Bitcoin’ is part of everyday BTC mantra. As a result, while 1.3 million BTC rests on exchanges, they may not be ‘circulating’, and may in fact contribute to the illiquid supply. Nonetheless, despite calls for a “Santa Rally” off the back of bullish analytics, the bears are not yet out of the woods. A tweet by BullRun Invest using Glassnode data shows that 24.6% of all BTC supply is sitting above the price of $47,000. It suggests that roughly a quarter of the BTC bought at those price levels are currently underwater. If BTC fails to make progress into the 50s, there may be fewer presents under the tree tomorrow.

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