Allianz Economic Advisor: “Bitcoins Aren’t There Yet” 169

The Chief Economic Advisor of Allianz has declared Bitcoin to be a commodity, rather than a currency. For him, the lack of assured value prohibits it from being considered alongside the likes of the euro, dollar, or pound. However, his language suggests that this may not always be the case. Speaking to CNBC during the Barclays Asia Forum in Singapore Thursday, Mohamed El-Erian said:

A currency serves as a predictable store of value, and serves as a medium of exchange that’s pretty stable in value as well — bitcoins aren’t there yet, they’re still trying to find stability so it’s more of a commodity than it’s a currency.

Just last month, the Allianz Chief Advisor stated that he felt Bitcoin was overvalued at $4000. Interestingly though, unlike many of his peers, El-Erian does not consider the cryptocurrency to be worthless. Rather, he thinks that the current pricing assumes a widespread and almost total adoption which requires government acceptance, something which is anything but a given.

Since his previous comments, the price of Bitcoin has soared to potentially premature $7,000. This seems largely fuelled by expectation of institutional cash flowing into the market at the year’s end via the CME BTC future’s trading platform announced this week.

However, based on what El-Erian is saying, it seems more likely that Bitcoin is hugely undervalued if we assume a wider market presumption of absolute and government sanctioned adoption. For example, if the digital currency-cum-commodity was accepted as a global store of value in the same way gold has been, and just a tenth of gold’s market cap flooded into Bitcoin, we’d be looking at a price per BTC of over $35,000. Given the current price hovering around $7,000, it hardly seems as if the market are taking widespread and global adoption as verbatim.

Despite his somewhat warped sense of valuation, El-Erian’s opinion does make for light reading after what some of the word of high finance have espoused in recent weeks. He admits the price has swelled into overvalued territory but neglects to use the language of many of his nay-saying peers. Rather than paint the digital currency as a “fraud” or “bubble” as some big money types have, he correctly understands that greater maturity in the market needs be achieved before it can perform successfully perform as a currency.

Despite his measured response to cryptocurrency, for now El-Erian remains in the camp of those who are “underestimating” Bitcoin’s “great potential” – at least according to the likes of billionaire investor Peter Thiel.

 

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AlphaPoint Celebrates 10 Years of Pioneering Digital Asset Infrastructure 5906

AlphaPoint, a leading provider of digital asset infrastructure of exchanges, brokerages, payment networks, and banking, is proud to announce its 10th anniversary. Since its founding in 2013, AlphaPoint has been at the forefront of developing institutional-grade infrastructure to power the digital asset ecosystem.

As one of the earliest companies in the digital asset space, AlphaPoint’s founders recognized early on the need for robust, scalable solutions to enable mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. The company launched with a flagship white label exchange product and has since expanded its offerings to include brokerage solutions, OTC solutions, wallets, payments, liquidity services, asset tokenization, and more.

Over the past decade, AlphaPoint has powered over $1 trillion in transactions across more than 10 million users globally. The company’s exchange technology has powered some of the biggest names in crypto, enabling fast, efficient, and compliant trading.

“AlphaPoint has all the world experience to offer technological solutions, financial services and access to Bitcoin for millions of Salvadorans who are actively using the Chivo wallet.” Through this global undertaking, “the objective of President Nayib Bukele with Chivo is to provide millions of Salvadorans with the opportunity to know about bitcoin, access financial services, as well as the possibility of receiving and sending remittances without charging commissions.”

Milestones include:

  • Supporting over 150 customers across 35+ countries, including leading exchanges, banks, and brokerages
  • Over $1 trillion has been traded and billions of assets deposited on the platform
  • Providing technology to global leading financial institutions such as CME Group, XP Securities, RBC, Scotiabank, Guardian Life, and the largest retail banks in two countries
  • Powering the Chivo digital wallet for the government of El Salvador, the first state-backed implementation of its kind
  • AlphaPoint is the proud recipient of the 2023 US Fintech Awards Best Use of Blockchain Technology, Financial Times The Americas’ Fastest Growing Companies for 2021, Inc 5000 America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies for 2020, and numerous other prestigious awards.
  • Completing SOC1 and SOC2 security audits to meet institutional standards

“When we started AlphaPoint 10 years ago, our goal was to enable mainstream crypto adoption by building solutions to make digital assets accessible, trusted, and reliable,” said Founder Joe Ventura. “Today our infrastructure powers millions of users globally, and we are proud to have helped progress the industry from its nascent stages to the maturing ecosystem it is now.”

As AlphaPoint enters its second decade, the company remains committed to developing best-in-class products and supporting the next generation of blockchain innovation. “The next 10 years will see exponential growth in crypto adoption worldwide,” said CEO and Co-Founder Igor Telyatnikov. “Our solutions make it easy for partners across financial institutions, government and startups to build the digital asset products and solutions that will drive and power mainstream integration.”

About AlphaPoint

AlphaPoint is a global financial technology company providing digital asset infrastructure to power the next generation of exchanges, brokerages, payment networks, and banking. Our full-suite products provide trusted, secure, scalable, and customizable solutions for trading, payments, lending, custody, and more.

AlphaPoint has enabled over 150 customers in 35 countries including the CME Group, XP Securities, and Chivo. AlphaPoint has powered over 1 trillion in trading volume and the technology has handled billions in assets on the platform. Over the past decade, we have received multiple prestigious awards recognizing our innovations, exponential growth and leading technology in the fintech and digital asset space, positioning us to continue empowering our clients. For more information, please visit https://alphapoint.com/.

Meet StocksFC: The Football Stock Market Where Goals earn you crypto 6051

Stockers

Amsterdam, Netherlands – StocksFC, the innovative football (soccer) stock market platform that runs on Ethereum, is proud to announce its astounding success since its inception six months ago. In this short span, StocksFC has redefined the sports investment landscape, presenting fans with an unprecedented opportunity to monetize their football acumen.

A Game-Changer in Sports and Finance

With its launch in May 2023, StocksFC offered fans the chance to buy, sell, and trade football player stocks with the potential to earn crypto rewards when players shine on the pitch. Fast forward six months, and the market cap has increased by 1350%, with over half a million stocks in circulation. This seismic shift in sports engagement mirrors the bullish trends of the most dynamic financial markets.

Unrivalled Profits and Portfolio Power

The platform’s robust growth is underpinned by the soaring value of player stocks – premier players like Maddison surging over 400% since being listed. These are not anomalies but rather the norm on StocksFC, where every week offers the thrill of potential profits. Football fans have the freedom to craft their portfolios to capitalize on the weekly, monthly, and end-of-season cash rewards, with strategies ranging from investing in undervalued players to identifying future superstars.

Alex Thomas, founder of StocksFC said, “The surge in growth we’ve experienced in the past 6 months has been remarkable. We remain firmly committed to establishing ourselves as a leading force in the rapidly growing field of alternative financial assets.”

Three-tier model to retain rapid growth

The three-tier model to retain rapid growth at StocksFC includes an unparalleled commitment to transparency, sustainability, and community.

Transparency is not just a buzzword at StocksFC; it’s the backbone. The platform guarantees an immutable ledger of transactions, fostering unmatched trust among its users. Following this, sustainability is equally vital, with StocksFC’s design ensuring long-term value growth. Each stock is an ERC20 token and with a limit of 100k stocks per player and a systematic burn of stocks on trades, scarcity is artfully crafted to boost potential rewards.

Additionally, at the heart of StocksFC’s ethos is a community-first approach. User polls will guide significant platform decisions, ensuring that those who invest their time and passion into StocksFC have a voice that resonates at the very core of its operations.

The Future is Bright

The groundbreaking platform has not only attracted fans but has also garnered the confidence of financial and technological titans. Early investment from venture capital firm Antler has supercharged StocksFC’s ascent, while partnerships with Bitgo, Ramp, Coinbase Commerce, and Opta have provided a solid infrastructure for seamless, secure trading experiences.

With it’s exceptional growth, StocksFC continues to blaze a trail in the sports investment domain. The future promises an exciting expansion of its offerings, with plans to release hundreds of additional players in the coming months and to expand into Europe’s top 5 leagues, as well as other sports.

StocksFC extends an open invitation to football fans and sports traders worldwide to join them, and be a part of this winning streak that melds passion with profits.

For more information and to become part of this investment revolution, visit StocksFC’s platform, engage with the community on Telegram, Discord and X (Twitter).

Score Big with StocksFC – Where Every Fan is an Investor.

StocksFC – Buy. Sell. Earn

Rootstock Grants Program Opens Wave 3: $2.5 Million for Groundbreaking Crypto Projects 5516

The Rootstock Grants Program, a trailblazing initiative within the cryptocurrency landscape has committed a further $2.5 million towards funding a new wave of ground-breaking projects that are built on Rootstock, the world’s first Bitcoin Sidechain.

The exciting initiative stems from the desire to further the growth and development of the dynamic dApp ecosystem on Rootstock. By providing financial support to developers and projects, the Rootstock Grants Program aims to assist the creation of innovative solutions, from DAOs to peer-to-peer payment solutions, which deliver new value to Rootstock and Bitcoin users. Those wishing to apply for funding as part of Wave III should do so before the fast-track entry deadline of 17th of November.

The move follows the announcement of the winners of the first two waves of the Rootstock Grants Program. Since its launch, the scheme has supported a total of 20 developments across the cryptocurrency ecosystem. From the backing of Asami, a transparent monetization mechanism built for the creator economy to OKU, a DEX funded by the Uniswap Foundation, the programme is supporting all aspects of crypto innovation.

The highly Competitive Grants program has received over 1000 applications so far with over 50 pitches delivered and 20 projects gaining approval from the committee made up of judges from across the Bitcoin and Rootstock ecosystem. This includes Jameson Lopp, John Light, Mauricio Tovar and Matías Caricato, Daniel Fogg and Sergio Demain Lerner.

In the past year, the Rootstock Grants Program has also helped in the development of Footprint Analytics, a project that aims to provide data-rich insights into the blockchain world, as well as Tuki, a solution that focuses on the Latin American market and provides a means to make digital assets a part of daily life. Incredibly, these are just a few examples of the vast array of transformative projects being funded.

Launched in 2018, Rootstock combines the security and store of value of Bitcoin with the programmability of Ethereum. Over 60% of the hashing power of Bitcoin also secures the Rootstock sidechain making it the most secure and decentralized smart contract platform in the world. The network has rapidly become known as ‘the home of DeFi on BItcoin’ with over $300m total native value locked.

Speaking on the launch of Wave III of the Rootstock Strategic Grants Program’, Ongun Özdemir, Venture Associate at IOV Labs commented: “By using Rootstock, the world’s most secure smart contract platform, developers can build on the best digital asset, Bitcoin, with the financial backing and network they need to succeed. ”

Ongun Özdemir continued: “Innovation holds the key to the future of web3. With the Rootstock Grants Program, we aim to empower ventures of this nature, ensuring they have the resources and mentorship they need to flourish. We’re proud to see a diverse array of solutions being developed, which will greatly enrich the Rootstock ecosystem. Over the course of the first two waves of the program, a large number of innovative projects have helped shape the Rootstock ecosystem into the foundation for a new global economy. Once again, we’re calling on founders and builders to submit their applications to tap in to $2.5m of funding for projects that align with our vision of a safe and equitable global financial system that enables everyone to participate and prosper.”

To apply for the latest wave of the Rootstock Grants Program, please visit: https://rootstock.io/grants/

About IOV Labs

IOV Labs develops the blockchain technologies needed for a new global financial ecosystem that fosters opportunity, transparency, and trust.

The organization currently contributes to the development of the Rootstock blockchain and Rootstock Infrastructure Framework (RIF).

The Rootstock network is one of the more secure smart contract platforms in the world, designed to leverage Bitcoin’s unparalleled hash power while extending its capabilities.

Rootstock Infrastructure Framework (RIF) is a suite of open and decentralized infrastructure protocols that enable faster, easier and scalable development of distributed applications (dApps) within a unified environment.

Uphold Expands Partnership with IMVU: Enabling Web3 Payments in the Metaverse 5802

Uphold, the global web3 financial platform, announced that by the end of November, IMVU, the world’s largest web3 social metaverse, will integrate Uphold’s fiat-to-crypto on-ramp, Topper, to simplify payments and empower the largest and most active crypto economy in the metaverse. Topper brings simple transactions to the next generation of IMVU’s flourishing creator economy by bridging a simple web2 experience with the benefits of web3.

With over 700k daily active users spanning across more than 100 countries, the need for a frictionless user experience is paramount to the mainstream adoption of digital assets in virtual social worlds. The broader partnership between Uphold and IMVU includes initiatives to transition IMVU from Web2 to Web3, allowing web2 users to access VCORE and embrace the evolving web3 ecosystem.

“We believe that web3 payments will continue to be the way of the future, as it creates more value, ownership, and participation than traditional web2 payments. On IMVU alone, over 20 million virtual goods are bought and sold each month,” said Robin O’Connell, CEO of Uphold Enterprise. “We have been proud to serve the IMVU users with our digital asset platform and now with Topper – providing a user-friendly gateway for purchasing the new VCORE.”

The ability to seamlessly transact and transfer digital assets between virtual and real worlds is pivotal for unleashing the full potential of the metaverse economy. Users want to earn where they play but then take those earnings into real life to spend, save, and invest, bridging the gap between virtual experiences and real-world financial activities.

Partnership Details:

  • Since the beginning of this partnership in September 2020, over 1.5 million IMVU users have created crypto wallets using the Uphold platform. With the integration of Topper, IMVU users have immediate access to utilize cryptocurrencies in the metaverse effortlessly.
  • IMVU has already integrated Uphold’s API with its token, VCOIN, which is listed on the Uphold exchange. Users with Uphold accounts can easily convert their in-game VCOIN earnings to fiat currency. VCOIN is the third digital token to secure a no-action letter from the staff of the SEC, proof of how a digital asset can be properly managed in the metaverse.
  • IMVU recently unveiled a new exchange-listed digital token, VCORE, integrated with Uphold’s fiat-to-crypto on-ramp, Topper. Now, IMVU users outside of US & Canada have access to VCORE. Designed for NFT and Metaverse creators and communities, VCORE emphasizes regulatory compliance and empowers the community to help shape the virtual world, fostering an environment where individuals can create, earn, own, play, and participate in its future.

“For nearly two decades, we have been building our community at IMVU. Our collaboration with Uphold was driven by their cutting-edge payment solutions, offering a seamless and globally-accessible payment mechanism to our members,” stated John Burris, Chief Strategy & Blockchain Officer of IMVU.

IMVU has a massive global community, a dynamic economy, and passionate creators/earners. Topper’s integration aims to streamline and simplify financial transactions, particularly catering to the challenges faced by users and creators within the virtual world.

To learn more, please visit topperpay.com/.

About Uphold

Ranked #1 in the San Francisco Business Times Fast 100 List, Uphold is committed to making web3 easy. As a Web3 financial platform, Uphold serves over 10 million customers in more than 140 countries. It provides businesses and consumers with easy access to digital assets and services. Uphold’s unique “Anything to Anything” interface gives end users seamless access to and between digital assets and national currencies and precious metals. Uniquely, Uphold smart routes orders across 30 trading venues delivering optimal execution and superior liquidity to customers. Uphold never loans out customer assets and is always 100% reserved. The company has pioneered radical transparency and uniquely publishes its assets and liabilities every 30 seconds on a public website (https://uphold.com/en-us/transparency).

Uphold is regulated in the U.S. by FinCen and State regulators; and is registered in the UK and Canada with the FCA and FINTRAC respectively and in Europe with the Financial Crime Investigation Service under the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania. To learn more about Uphold’s products and services, visit uphold.com.

NEAR Protocol and the rising metaverse platform ZEP form partnership to onboard users 5966

South Korea’s leading metaverse platform, ZEP, announced on the 13th a partnership with the global Layer 1 platform NEAR Protocol and revealed plans for building on NEAR Protocol.

NEAR is a blockchain network optimized for large scale user-oriented service operations, offering a user-friendly interface and stability similar to Web2. Leveraging these advantages, NEAR has seen rapid growth among Layer 1 blockchains this year, with NEAR-based dApps ranking 1st and 2nd among all blockchain applications according to DappRadar.

ZEP, a joint venture between mobile game developer Supercat (known for “The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon”) and NAVER Z’s operator Zepeto, launched its beta version on November 30, 2021. With 1.3 million monthly active users (MAU) and 8.3 million cumulative users this year, ZEP has garnered attention from domestic and international businesses and public institutions. With proven usability in the domestic market, ZEP is poised to enter the Japanese and Southeast Asian markets in the second half of the year.

Mark Mi, Gaming Director of NEAR Protocol, stated, “This collaboration with ZEP is a significant opportunity to expand the NEAR ecosystem into the new realm of 1the metaverse.” He added, “We will continue to strive to expose NEAR users to various content in different areas. Through collaboration with dApps in the content and gaming fields based on NEAR, we will assist ZEP’s business expansion in the Web3 domain.”

NEAR Protocol and ZEP aim to explore a business model that provides various benefits to users through this collaboration. They also plan to develop Web3-related features that enhance the convenience of developers and users. Based on this collaboration, ZEP’s partners are expected to easily issue and distribute various Web3-based digital assets, allowing users to enjoy a convenient Web3 experience in the ZEP metaverse environment.

About ZEP

ZEP, a joint venture between mobile game developer Supercat (known for “The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon”) and NAVER Z’s operator Zepeto, launched its beta version on November 30, 2021. With 1.3 million monthly active users (MAU) and 8.3 million cumulative users this year, ZEP has garnered attention from domestic and international businesses and public institutions.

For more information, please visit: https://zep.us/

About NEAR Foundation

NEAR Foundation is a non-profit that supports the growth and development of the NEAR ecosystem and the Blockchain Operating System (BOS), a full stack Web3 development and app distribution platform at the heart of an open web. The BOS is compatible with all blockchains, making it the entry point to the open web for users and developers alike. Founded on the principles of openness and sustainability, the NEAR Foundation is driven by the vision of putting information and technology in the service of humanity rather than political or corporate interests.

For more information, please visit: https://near.foundation/

About NEAR Korea

NEAR Korea is a multi-function regional hub that manages the overall business in Korea and East Asia. Specifically, NEAR Korea Hub supports project onboarding, fostering developer community, marketing, and more.

For more information, please visit: https://nearkorea.org/

NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs partner to enable faster, cheaper Web3 transactions for Ethereum rollups via EigenLayer 6849

The NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs today announced a collaboration to build a fast finality solution that will soon power faster, less expensive transactions for Ethereum rollups, including cross-rollup transactions––a first of its kind in Web3.

The NEAR Foundation and Eigen Labs teams are working together to build the first-ever “fast finality layer” for Ethereum rollups, which enables transactions to be processed within 3-4 seconds––rather than minutes, hours, or even days––and 4000x cheaper than the current options. This will also enable secure, low-latency cross rollup communication and solve one of the biggest challenges for founders and developers using rollups today.

This advancement will reduce liquidity fragmentation between Layer-2s through increased efficiency while also allowing them to make individual decisions around the sequencers they use to process those transactions, either on-chain or off-chain. The fast finality layer retains all Ethereum security guarantees while adding both NEAR and EigenLayer guarantees, making it an attractive option for any team building on Ethereum L2s.

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, said: “NEAR Foundation is proud to partner with such an excellent team as Eigen Labs to offer a fast finality layer for ETH rollups. The fast finality layer showcases the strengths of NEAR’s technology while making the Open Web more usable, which has always been the core goal for NEAR. It will also help defragment liquidity for Ethereum rollups and make all of Web3 more interoperable as a result.”

Sreeram Kannan, founder of Eigen Labs, said: “We are thrilled to partner with the highly innovative team behind the NEAR protocol. This is a mutually beneficial partnership that will leverage both NEAR and EigenLayer’s technologies to make it easier, faster, and cheaper for developers to build on Ethereum.”

For EigenLayer, this collaboration will provide fast settlement for cross-rollup transactions and showcases adoption of restaking across the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond. For NEAR, the collaboration will also extend to transitioning the NEAR-Ethereum Rainbow Bridge to an actively validated service (AVS). This will create a better bridging experience between NEAR and Ethereum. Transactions will reach finality faster, with stronger security guarantees and decentralization.

Bowen Wang, Director of Protocol at Pagoda, the NEAR ecosystem team building the fast finality layer, said: “Pagoda is proud to work with Eigen Labs, a world-class team, to cobuild the fast finality layer. This solution improves the composability with Ethereum L2s and reduces liquidity fragmentation within the rollup ecosystem.”

A testnet is expected to launch in Q1 2024, and more details will be shared around that time. For the latest news from NEAR Foundation or EigenLayer, please check our websites, follow us on social, or join our communities:

NEAR Foundation website: https://near.foundation/
NEAR Foundation X/Twitter: @nearprotocol
NEAR Foundation Telegram: @cryptonear

EigenLayer website: https://www.eigenlayer.xyz/
EigenLayer X/Twitter: @eigenlayer
EigenLayer Telegram: @eigenlayer

About NEAR Foundation

The NEAR Foundation is a Switzerland-based non-profit foundation whose mission is to enable community driven innovation to benefit people around the world. One of its core areas of focus is the NEAR ecosystem, which includes a fully operational decentralized Blockchain-based platform for building decentralized applications.

NF carries out its mission, primarily through the allocation of support and resources to other nodes in the near ecosystem, rather than via direct intervention or operations.

NF’s ultimate goal is to minimize its own scope and footprint by continuing to divide functions and resources to the ecosystem; and support the development of decentralized infrastructure necessary for those ecosystem functions to operate in a self-sufficient manner. For more information visit the website, follow us on social, or join our communities:

NEAR Foundation X/Twitter: @nearprotocol
NEAR Foundation Telegram: @cryptonear

About Eigen Labs

EigenLayer provides developers with access to the Ethereum staked capital base and decentralized validator set. Access to this trust network can make previously impossible mechanism designs possible.