Venture Capitalist Bill Gurley Takes Personal Position In Ethereum, Here’s Why

Investing in Ethereum seems to be top of mind for prominent members of the finance community. The increasing use cases of the Ethereum network have brought some significant names into its camp. The latest on the list though is venture Capitalist Bill Gurley. Gurley is a general partner at Benchmark, which is a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that is based in Menlo Park, California. Gurley has been listed consistently on the Forbes Midas List, while simultaneously being considered one of the technology’s top dealmakers.

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Gurley’s latest investment interest now happens to be Ethereum. The venture capitalist revealed that he had taken a personal interest in Ether, thus leading to him taking a personal position in the digital asset, which he now owns.

Gurley Swayed By Ethereum Community

Venture capitalist Bill Gurley explained why he had taken a position in Ethereum. Gurley said that he had been swayed by arguments being made for ETH, thus prom timing him to take a personal position in the asset. “I have to say I was swayed by the arguments of the Ethereum crowd,” Gurley revealed. “And so, I’ve taken a personal position.”

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Another important point for Gurley is the commitment of the Ethereum team to the project and its community. “The party that’s involved seems to be way more pragmatic,” said Gurley. “ They seem to be more open to changes and are basically making several changes which I think will bring down fees and will be very beneficial. The developer community is clearly in the Ethereum cam.”

Gurley also explained that he was not making an argument for everyone being involved in crypto. Neither did his current investments make him a maximalist in any way.

ETH price breaks three-month high | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

“I think there’s a ESG (environmental, social, and governance) benefit once they move to proof of stake versus bitcoin. It seems to me to be the smarter way to play if you’re going to have crypto exposure.”

Gurley clarified that his investment in Ether was a personal one and that it had nothing to do with his venture firm. Furthermore, Gurley did not disclose how much he had bought in ETH. Only that he had taken a personal position in the asset.

Robinhood Is More Like A Casino

Bill Gurley had some comments about Robinhood’s recent reveal. The trading company had revealed earlier that more than half of revenue had come from crypto trading. With 62% of its entire crypto trading revenue coming from the meme coin Dogecoin alone.

The venture capitalist stressed that Robinhood’s current business model was not a sound one. He likened the business model of Robinhood to that of a casino rather than an investment platform.

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It is not clear how much Robinhood plans to focus on crypto trading on the platform. While investors can also invest in coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum on the platform, most favor investing in Dogecoin. This has led to massive growth for Robinhood. But the sustainability of this business model remains to be seen.

Featured image from Nasdaq, chart from TradingView.com

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Cream Finance Plans To Repay The Stolen Funds To Its Users

Cream Finance is a decentralized finance protocol to repay users for the flash loan hack on its platform. The hack of nearly $19 million occurred on Aug 30, 2021.

Cream Finance puts news of a post-mortem to the massive exploitation of the AMP flash loan. The protocol promises to repay the stolen Amp (AMP) and Ether (ETH) coins.

It plans on footing its promise by allocating 20% of all the protocol fees until the debt is fully paid. Furthermore, the protocol will post collateral with the pertinent parties at AMP. It will also involve the Flexa digital payments network, the creators, for the security of the debt.

From the post-mortem report, this recent flash loan hack stands for Crean Finance’s first time to face direct hacking.

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This mishap caused the loss of about 2,800 ETH and 462 million AMP coins. Through the assistance of PeckShield, a blockchain security company, Cream Finance discovered the major cause of the hack.

The protocol uncovered that there’s an error in its means of AMP integration. Cream confirmed that though the situation is disappointing and unfortunate, it will solely bear the responsibility for its error.

Cream Finance Is Inspecting The Hack

Besides the massive exploit on its platform, Cream Finance has found a similar attack. However, this smaller move comes from an address with a history of transactions on the Binance crypto exchange. Binance is currently working together with Cream Finance to fish out this second attacker.

Cream revealed that it would cooperate with the necessary authorities to track the perpetrator. Furthermore, it will work with law enforcement bodies to prosecute the attacker using the full weight of the law.

Also, the hacked protocol will part with a 10% bug bounty to the attacker where they are ready to return the stolen assets.

Additionally, Cream appealed for public assistance in identifying the perpetrator or providing relevant information for his arrest and prosecution. The protocol pledged a ransom of 50% of returned funds for such assistance.

As recently notified, on August 30, Cream stopped supply and borrow contracts on AMP. This move closes the exploit that gave the attacker access to about $19 million worth of ETH and AMP from assets reborrowing within 17 different transactions.

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Following this recent huge exploitation, the prices of AMP and CREAM, the Cream’s native coin, have plummeted. The AMP value has suffered almost a 13% dip.

At the time of writing, CREAM is trading sideways | Source: CREAMUSD on TradingView.com

Furthermore, these affected coins now have continuous price dipping preceding the attack. For example, cream token CREAM has plummeted by 11% within the last seven days. The token now sells at $163.08 at the time of writing. AMP, being down also, is at $0.05275.

Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

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Bitcoin is Back for Crypto Betting

2020 was a huge year for the crypto gambling sector. It was a bad year for the world on the whole, but as more people stayed home and looked for ways to pass the time, online casinos and sportsbooks stepped in.

In 2020, we saw more crypto casinos launch than ever before. New crypto games also hit the market every single week—or so it seemed—and things were on the up.

The growth continued into 2021 and then hit a roadblock of sorts as Bitcoin reached record highs and then saw its value drop by half. But the growth has restarted in the last month or so and crypto casinos are set for a bumper few months as we approach the final quarter of 2021.

The Changes in Bitcoin Gambling

Bitcoin payments are faster and safer than many traditional payment options. The currency itself hasn’t changed much over the years, but the way that it is used in casinos has changed a lot.

In the early days, it was all about wallet IDs and manual payments. These days, companies like CoinsPaid provide a service that works more like a web wallet. It means that players can keep all their cryptos in a single account and then transfer these into and out of their favourite casino in a few clicks.

Cryptocurrency exchanges are also being linked with online casinos, allowing players to connect their exchange like they do a bank account and transfer funds across.

The simplicity of these processes is one of the reasons why Bitcoin is growing so quickly as an online casino payment option.

As easy as these currencies are for experienced users, they can be problematic for complete newbies. The idea of buying coins and transferring them to a virtual wallet via long-string IDs is a little alien. But when the process is automated through web wallet-like services, it’s a little more familiar, and that’s key.

What Drives Bitcoin’s Inclusion?

Volatility is one of the major downsides of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and it’s often cited as the reason that these coins are not widely embraced by companies. It’s less of an issue for online gambling companies, though.

After all, these companies work through merchants and tend to consolidate their payments, so they don’t care what the currency is worth in the future as long as $10 is $10 at the time of purchase.

The biggest issue is anonymity. A debit card is tied to an individual’s bank account, which is tied to their name, address, and other details. It creates a long paper trail and makes it hard for someone to use debit card gambling to launder money or commit fraud.

Cryptocurrency transactions can still be tracked in the blockchain, but they are not tied to an individual and this is where the problems are. Regulators like those in the UK and Sweden expect online casinos to employ strict Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures and that’s just not possible with cryptos.

At the moment, most crypto casinos are regulated in Curacao or Malta, where the rules are a little less strict, but when that changes or workarounds are discovered, the final hurdle will be cleared and cryptos should be as ubiquitous as Neteller, Skrill, and Visa.

The Future

It’s not just Bitcoin that is being embraced by the online gambling sector. As the months progress, we’re seeing more and more crypto options being added to the banking pages of casinos and sportsbooks.

Traditionally, it was all about Ethereum and Bitcoin. XRP, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin followed shortly after that and then we show Dogecoin being added during its meteoric—and unexpected—rise. In 2021, we are seeing many smaller altcoins being added, as well as some coins that have had a huge year.

Cardano is one of the biggest to make an appearance on 2021 online casinos while options like Monero, DASH, and Tether are now more common than Bitcoin Cash. They might not be the biggest in terms of market capitalization, but they offer something that other coins don’t and have the technology that can benefit this industry.

As the industry continues to grow, it’s fair to assume that we’ll see many more altcoins being added to these lists. In time, players will be given the option of using dozens of different altcoins every time they make a deposit or withdrawal.

And because cryptocurrencies are faster, easier, and safer than most other payment options, the extra variety could be all that they need to outgrow options like PayPal and debit cards and become the most popular methods used to gamble.

 

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Everything We Know About The Fake Banksy NFT That Sold For 100 ETH

Everything about the fake Banksy NFT story fits together like puzzle pieces. And it’s mysterious. And no one gets hurt. A feel-good story with a twist, if you will. First of all, the person who bought the fake Banksy NFT is known as Pranksy. That’s right, Pranksy. What are the odds? And it just gets weirder from there.

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You see, Pranksy is a notorious NFT collector. Twitter gave him a blue checkmark, for what it’s worth. His prominence in the NFT community is what elevates this story. Was this person targeted? Pranksy bought the piece “Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster” knowing full well that there was risk involved. Even though Banksy’s official site hosted a page linking to the auction.

Let’s quote Gizmondo with the 411:

“The forged piece of digital art popped up on Banksy’s official site on Tuesday morning under the now-deleted URL “banksy.co.uk/nft.html.” The only thing on the page was a JPEG of what was presumably Banksy’s take on the $1 billion dollar CryptoPunk hype train, featuring the artist’s usual kind of social commentary, this time about the awful carbon footprint that NFT artwork leaves behind.”

To be fair, Banksy’s “usual kind of social commentary” is usually much more poignant than what this piece offers. The fake Banksy NFT, “Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster,” is basically a CryptoPunks rip-off barking at the wrong cause. The NFT collector knew something felt off from the very beginning; “Is this… real?” was Pranksy’s first reaction.

Is this… real? https://ift.tt/3yu998k #NFT on @opensea commentating on potential climate damage of PoW blockchains? pic.twitter.com/GG8FkGr2k7

— Pranksy 📦 (@pranksy) August 31, 2021

Who’s Behind The Sale Of The Fake Banksy NFT?

In the opensea NFT marketplace, the page that hosted the auction was under the name “gaakman.” The Art Newspaper offers information about the possible pseudonym.

“Suggestions that gaakmann could be Banksy because the artist used the pseudonym “Bryan S. Gaakman” when he entered a work into the RA summer exhibition in 2018 seemed far-fetched.”

Since that’s a known Banksy pseudonym and the link came from the official site, Pranksy proceeded. The NFT collector bid 100 ETH, orders of magnitude more than the highest bid at the time. The offer was immediately accepted. That’s when Pranksy knew something was wrong. “The link was removed from his website so it could have been a very elaborate hoax, my guess is that is what it will be, only time will tell!”

So my bid of 100 ETH was accepted for the potential #Banksy first #NFT on @opensea.

The link was removed from his website so it could have been a very elaborate hoax, my guess is that is what it will be, only time will tell!https://t.co/EEmElqIvBZ pic.twitter.com/Pbs5zrht05

— Pranksy 📦 (@pranksy) August 31, 2021

Then, someone at the BBC contacted Pranksy and informed him that the fake Banksy NFT was indeed fake. “Hopefully I can get in touch with the team who represents him, if not it was fun entertainment for us all today,” Pranksy said via Twitter. Banksy’s Pest Control authentication team told the BBC, “any Banksy NFT auctions are not affiliated with the artist in any shape or form.”

BTC price chart on Bitbay | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com The Return Of The Scammed ETH

Was this Pranksy person targeted? This is the turn. This is where it gets weird. Let’s quote Decrypt with the description:

“Then, in perhaps an equally strange turn of events, the scammer returned 97.69 ETH to Pranksy a little more than eight hours later. “No idea why [he returned the funds],” Pranksy told Decrypt. “I think I tracked him down, and he was made aware.”

My ETH from the #Banksy #NFT purchase was just returned to me, ethical hacker proving a point?https://t.co/idDNEsEIhK

— Pranksy 📦 (@pranksy) August 31, 2021

Pranksy gave the BBC a more detailed description of what “tracked him down” means

“The refund was totally unexpected, I think the press coverage of the hack plus the fact that I had found the hacker and followed him on Twitter may have pushed him into a refund.

“I feel very lucky when a lot of others in a similar situation with less reach would not have had the same outcome,” he said.”

This is where the tables turned and Pranksy turned into the main suspect. The Art Newspaper accuses:

“The question, then, is who has masterminded the sale. Pranksy’s cover photo on Twitter is of a pixelated red and white aeroplane, not dissimilar in aesthetic to the crudely rendered NFT. When asked if he was in on the hoax, Pranksy denied any involvement. “No prank at all,” he told The Art Newspaper. So was he scammed? “I think so, but I wasn’t forced to bid. It’s the risk I took. No refunds on the blockchain!”

Pranksy is a pro. He was aware of the risks from day one.

Just to add a comment, to those who feel this may have been some sort of stunt. I would never risk a future relationship with Banksy or any fine artist by hiring someone to hack their website and then buying an #NFT from myself, what an unusual day!

— Pranksy 📦 (@pranksy) August 31, 2021

Our Theory About The Fake Banksy NFT

A mysterious stranger Direct Messaged Pranksy to let him know about that one-in-a-lifetime auction. In the Decrypt story, they have screenshots of the DMs. Was this person targeted by Banksy and his team? If Banksy wanted to create worldwide headlines and comment on the NFT boom at the same time, a notorious art collector was the missing ingredient. Pransky’s prominence in the NFT community mixed with his name makes him an ideal target. 

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Of course, we have no way to prove any of this. Everything about the fake Banksy NFT story fits together like puzzle pieces, however.

Featured Image: Screenshot of the fake Banksy NFT | Charts by TradingView

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Chickens and Eggs – How Do You Grow a Global Network from Scratch?

Earlier this year, to commemorate the occasion of Bitcoin having reached a $1 trillion market cap, the data-centric website Visual Capitalist ran a comparison. It looked at how long the major tech stocks had taken to achieve their own $1 trillion valuation compared to BTC.

This analysis is interesting because you can chart the impact of technology on the time it takes to reach a $1 trillion market cap. As the earliest pre-internet tech pioneers, Microsoft and Apple had to wait over four decades to hit $1 trillion. The advent of the internet cut the time in half for dot-com babies Amazon and Google, which hit their $1 trillion valuations in 24 and 21 years, respectively.

With the introduction of blockchain, Bitcoin’s $1 trillion market cap came after half as much time again – just twelve years.

Reach is What Matters

It’s not the technology by itself that has created this accelerating pace of adoption. It’s the fact that these two major developments – the internet and blockchain-enabled reach. The connectivity of the internet allowed tech firms to reach exponentially more users. The emergence of blockchain and its innovative economic model provided a new way for users to become engaged and participate in the value of a network.

And now, projects are using the unique properties of blockchain to build and scale vast global networks. The creators of Nodle started out with the idea of a mesh network powered by smartphones. However, when experimenting with early prototypes in 2016, they decided to base their network on blockchain as they believed decentralization was the key to massive growth and scalability.

Fast forward to 2021, and Nodle has grown to become the world’s largest decentralized wireless network. It works by harnessing the Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity feature in smartphones. Users who download the Nodle Cash app can download the app, which then acts as a node on the Nodle wireless network.

The network is designed to be used by IoT devices, supporting the infrastructure needed to power over 30 billion connected “Things” by 2025. The idea is that when a Nodle-enabled smartphone comes into the range of a connected device, it acts as a relay for information for the device. Ultimately, it means IoT devices can be deployed even in areas where there’s no WiFi or even a cellular service, as the entire network depends on Bluetooth.

Incentivizing Participation

It’s proven to be an attractive concept among enterprises seeking to deploy IoT devices at scale. For example, Nodle has been used by a global beverage distributor to track hundreds of displays across the US and by the City of Paris to pilot IoT-enabled interactive street furniture.

But why would a user participate? That’s why the Nodle team chose to base their network on blockchain. Users who download the Nodle Cash app can start earning instant rewards for participating in Nodle as a smartphone node.

Furthermore, Nodle also allows developers to integrate the Nodle SDK into their apps. When users download the app, they agree to the terms, which enables the developer to start generating the Nodle rewards from the users’ activity while the user enjoys an ad-free app.

The incentive mechanism has allowed Nodle to grow its user base rapidly since launching in 2017. By the second half of 2020, the network had amassed 5.8 million nodes, with nearly 29,000 connected devices. It estimates that there are around 550,000 unique active nodes at any given moment, and it’s undergoing an annual growth of 38%.

The project will soon launch a “smart missions” feature that will promote user engagement and offer even more rewards for completing specific tasks enabled by smart contracts. Partnerships with Cisco Meraki and DeFi platform Acala are also an indicator of growing value within the network.

One of the most challenging elements of executing on any good idea is growing the network and scaling the reach. Bitcoin provided the proof of concept, but the next generation of projects will be aiming to reach even bigger global audiences thanks to the economic participation opportunities of blockchain.

 

Image: The Nodle Team presenting in TechCrunch Disrupt - Berlin 2019

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Orion Protocol Establishes the First and Only Decentralized Gateway to the Entire Crypto Market

The cryptocurrency ecosystem has grown significantly over the last few years. However, the use of digital assets is only limited to tech-savvy individuals, especially from countries where cryptocurrencies are gaining more mainstream attention and status.

For most of the world’s population, the concept of digital currencies seems a bit far-fetched, primarily due to the lack of awareness, region-specific regulations, and the complications of registering a trading account and entering the ecosystem.

Orion Protocol, built on the most advanced liquidity aggregator ever developed, aims to lower crypto’s entry barriers, empowering the global population to participate in the 21st-century financial revolution.

The Orion team has recently unveiled its fully decentralized automated market-maker (AMM) solution that aggregates the liquidity of centralized exchanges (CEXs), decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and swap pools in a unified platform titled Orion Pool.

Overcoming The Hurdles of CEXs And DEXs

Although centralized exchanges have played a critical role as the entryway to the expanding universe of cryptocurrencies, increased scrutiny from government and financial regulators has severely impacted its reach and potential footprint.

Due to this reality, almost every CEX has been forced to tighten onboarding processes, which has increased the registration complications for the average user. Between multiple KYC and AML verifications to weeks waiting for approval, users find it challenging to enter the crypto ecosystem.

Leading CEXs like Binance have come under the radar of financial regulators, primarily due to their more lax internal controls, which have drawn the ire of enforcement officials. A ruling by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), wherein Binance faced orders to stop operating in the UK, is one of the most recent examples of the ongoing regulatory crackdown.

And to add to the complications, signing up for an account on a centralized exchange has now become a painfully exhausting process. CEXs pose another inherent problem: users give up authority over their digital assets, which is critical for custody-oriented users who value sole control over their private keys.

Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) established themselves as a genuine solution, overcoming the problems presented by CEXs. These platforms allow users to keep complete control over their wallets and private keys. Compared to CEXs, DEXs don’t need users to undergo complex AML and KYC verifications, which is a relief for the majority of the new users. However, DEXs come with their own obstacles, including complicated user interfaces, no support for fiat currencies, and liquidity shortages.

As the first and only solution to these problems of CEXs and DEXs, Orion Protocol offers users global and decentralized access to every CEX, DEX, and swap pool in the crypto ecosystem, that too from a single user interface. Constructed on top of Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum, Orion Protocol, via its proprietary Orion Pool and Orion Terminal, surmounts the complications of region-specific regulations. Users from all corners of the globe can seamlessly access leading exchanges like Binance and KuCoin without geographical restrictions or regulatory limitations.

Powered by the ORN token and the Delegated Proof of Broker governance mechanism, Orion allows users to trade across both CEXs and DEXs, as well as swap pools, without the need to create several accounts. The platform has partnered with pre-verified traders and exchanges, who trade on behalf of the users, thus eliminating the need for users to undergo multiple verifications.

The platform addresses the considerable concerns hampering more widespread cryptocurrency adoption while lowering the risks and complications associated with using multiple exchanges, enabling the global population to begin their crypto trading journey.

 

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aelf (ELF) Token: A Big Shift in Decentralized Cloud Computing

It seems that the next paradigm shift is making its presence known, and that is the tilt from centralized cloud computing to decentralized blockchains. With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, cloud computing is presently enabling remote working experiences for many as a distributed team can access and leverage on a unified work platform.

Decentralized cloud computing: what you need to know on aelf (ELF)

Presently, there is growing knowledge that a more decentralized cloud computing methodology could be a catalyst for enterprise business transformation. For instance, on the aelf blockchain, which represents a decentralized cloud computing platform, organizations can utilize aelf in multiple business scenarios as it offers blockchain empowered economic models to stimulate their members.

aelf’s developing decentralized media platform stores information away in a blockchain buttressed anonymous system to protect media workers from certain pressures, thus reducing privacy concerns. The platform also remains compliant with security certifications that reassure property protection. On August 20th, China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute (CESI) provided accreditation on aelf Enterprise in its reliability, performance, and functionality.

What is aelf (ELF)?

Earlier stated, aelf is a decentralized cloud computing blockchain platform. It represents a real Layer 2 solution different from any other projects currently as it allows NFT to circulate between the Ethereum and the aelf ecosystem. ELF refers to the main token on the aelf platform, used for transaction fees, side-chain index fees, production nodes deposits, voting, and block rewards.

To expedite aelf’s integration with multiple business use cases, aelf enterprise is tasked to meet the requirements of different industries ranging from supply chain management, credit scoring, user incentives, and property protection. The aelf Enterprise lays the foundation for aelf mainnet token swap slated for September 2021.

Growth prospects for aelf (ELF)

aelf represents a big shift in decentralized computing based on three factors: Affordability, Scalability, Interoperability. First, aelf’s service fee is fixed at $0.1 regardless so that users could enjoy its high performance at a low price. Second, aelf innovated on its multi-sidechain systematic structure as well as its cross-chain collaboration mechanism, enabling unlimited scalability to solve today’s most pressing issues and to promote the future digital economy.

Courtesy: Coinmetrics

Third, aelf versatile oracle could help retrieve data or digital assets and transfer them between projects, thus offering the highest degree of freedom to its users (cross-chain function). Based on the cross-chain technology of the main chain index and verification mechanisms, aelf achieves efficient and secure communication between the main chain and all side chains, and as a result, allows direct interoperability between side chains. Through offering opportunities related to NFTs, one of the hottest sectors in the crypto space, aelf is well-positioned to continue to attract new users and maintain a high level of on-chain activity.

Right now, ELF is changing hands at around $0.45. Having rebounded off strongly from MA 200 barrier at $0.30 in August, aelf is looking to push upwards further. Bullish bets on the ELF price range are within $0.76 and $1 by the end of 2021.

 

About the Author:

Tomiwabold Olajide is a forex trader and cryptocurrency analyst. A technical analyst, as well as an experienced fund manager, he has also co-authored several books on Forex trading. Tomiwabold pays great attention to cryptocurrency research, conducting a comprehensive price analysis and exchanging predictions of estimated market trends. He studied at the University of Lagos.

 

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