Livepeer token (LPT) is an ERC-20 token used by the Livepeer protocol — a network for decentralized video streaming built on the Ethereum blockchain. It aims to improve video quality and make streaming services more available to developers.Live streaming takes up a huge chunk of the Internet’s bandwidth. The streaming videos have to be transcoded — to optimize them for different devices and internet capabilities. This process, however, is very expensive, which makes it inaccessible for small video-focused startups. Livepeer solves this issue by providing developers with a platform they can use to add streaming capabilities to their projects. This platform’s underlying infrastructure is p2p, which helps lower the costs while simultaneously increasing streaming reliability.Some nodes participate in the transcoding process by contributing some of their computing resources to the network, called orchestrators. The right to become an orchestrator is granted by holding Livepeer tokens. Another type of node, called Delegator, stakes its tokens toward an orchestrator but doesn’t do the work itself. Both orchestrators and Delegators get rewards for their participation. Developers and end-users, for their part, utilize their tokens as a means of payment for the network’s services. Any token holder can also participate in the voting process.Soon after the trading started in 2019, Livepeer token price rose to $7-$8 and stayed at that level until autumn the same year. Then it went down to $2-$3, and until the end of 2020, the Livepeer price chart was uneventful. The price first started its rise towards the previous level in January 2021 after the announcement of Grayscale investments’ support for the project, further fueled by its confirmation in March; by early April, Livepeer had broken the $40 barrier. Some high-profile listings certainly helped, sending the price to an all-time high of $45.22 on May 11. However, Livepeer turned out…
Ethereum
NFT — An Acronym for All
So just what is an NFT — NON-FUNGIBLE TOKEN?We have begun to notice this new term in our acronymical tautology.Another set of letters to add to the 3 letters that carry with it, meaning beyond their simple form. I wonder if someone were to etch NFT on some cave wall somewhere for a future archeologist to find, what would be the fantastical story that would be surmised?Goodness me, how would our future archeologist describe this etching? Would she know that NFT had a connotation of “non-fungible token?” Would she rather say it meant “Not For Tourists,” or the “National Film Theatre, or how about “No Free Tickets” or simply a phrase “No Further Text?”How did this new meaning come into existence, and will it stay among us?Etheria and Devcon 1; London 2015At Devcon 1, 457 purchasable and tradable NFT hexagonal tiles went unsold. The first NFTs on the Ethereum Network. But today, those same tiles went for a total of $1.4 Million. They would have cost you $0.43 each back then.I wonder if now our new linguistic phraseology will become “A token for your thoughts” rather than “A penny for your thoughts.” With this in mind, where do my thoughts and yours go into the future? How do we both understand this new way of collecting, transacting, enjoying, and exchanging?Let us first look at the last word first in NFT. A token is a representation of something. I remember when I was young how I would receive a “token” to ride the CTA bus in Chicago. It represented money but was specific to the Chicago Transit Authority.I guess, one could say coins, and even paper currency are tokens representing a value against a desired tangible item. It would seem we use tokens for everything, from religious artifacts to ceremonial events,…
When movement?
Volatility and trading volume have dramatically tapered off as crypto winter continues to drag on.The most striking thing about the current period in crypto is the sheer lack of meaningful catalysts. Volatility and trading volume have dramatically tapered off, and despite a brief foray below 30k in BTC this week, there have been scant few market-moving events to point to, other than a slow and painful grind lower and relatively range-bound trading thereafter.Typically, the longer the period of consolidation, the more explosive the move when the break out from the price range occurs. With the onchain indictor — Stablecoin Supply Rate — flashing a bottom reversal and the macro backdrop of inflation running hotter than expected with US CPI at 5.2%, the highest in 13 years, a bottom in price should/could be expected if the inflation hedge narrative holds. However, as we highlighted before in this Weekly, traditional TA seems to be providing greater accuracy with price action, and the Relative Strength Index on the daily time frame continues to act as near perfect resistance, albeit with more frequent and persistent tests on the 6-month downtrend.BTC:USD chart showing a classic Bollinger Bank pitch and the RSI providing extremely precise resistance. Note there has now been 9 tests of this 7-month trendChart showing BTC price in USD Vs the SSR. The SSR is the ratio between the total market cap of Bitcoin and the total market cap of USD stablecoins. The lower the ratio, the greater the purchasing power potential of the stablecoins that have been issued that could potentially be deployed to buy BTC.With 2 lackluster months of consolidation behind us and in search of news, we are very aware that we are approaching the much-hyped EIP-1559 release date, which has recently been confirmed for August 4th at Ethereum block…
When starts the Partnership between Mastercard and USDC?
Wherever Mastercard is accepted, payments in cryptocurrencies are to be possible in the future. A partnership with Circle’s USDC Stablecoin and other crypto payment service providers is expected to make that a reality. The pilot program is intended to support merchants in accepting payments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Co. from customers, even if they do not have a suitable infrastructure for…
TradedWell Review 2021: Choose Mobility, Enjoy Market Responsiveness
Tradable AssetsWhen picking a forex broker, one of the most important things to consider is what it offers. TradedWell offers you access to a massive 250+ tradable assets. This signifies that you can always find something that aligns with your goals. Among the tradable assets, you can access well over 30 crypto assets, over 46 currency pairs as well as stocks of prominent companies, popular indices, and hand and soft commodities.This platform also features a vast range of precious metals such as gold, silver, and more. Thus, you can easily make your trading experience a lot more fun by diversifying your portfolio. You can trade anything at any time from anywhere with just a few straightforward steps. All these can be carried out via CFDs trading.The tradable assets extend to a vast range of international markets. This broker offers mouthwatering forex pairs with currencies such as the Singaporean dollar, S.A Rand, etc. There is also CFD offering on exotic crypto assets such as Swisscoin, Babel, Cardano, and the well-known ones such as Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, and otherwise. It does all these with fast order execution, ensured by the SAS 70 authorized data centers.The most catchy tradable asset is the cryptocurrency offering. With well over 30 CFD crypto assets, over the years, this broker has garnered the attention of numerous cryptocurrency enthusiasts. CFDs are handy to trade instruments. They provide you with the chance to earn significant profit without the need to even own any of those assets. Instead, you earn by simply speculating on potential price changes on the assets in the trading market.Trading PlatformTradedWell trading platform is where every trader would definitely love to spend a significant chunk of their time. The trading platform primarily relies on the popular MT-4, MetaTrader-4, which offers accessibility both on smartphones, tablets, or…
Capixal Review 2021: Exciting World of International Trading
Tradable AssetsCapixal offers a vast range of assets product lines to investors and traders. Trading with these assets is straightforward, flexible, and conducive for every market. Some of these assets are indices, forex, stock trading, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and more.Cryptocurrency tradingCapixal provides a balanced approach to trading crypto assets and makes the process seamless and easier with its analytical tools. As a trader, you can pick up crypto assets such as Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin, Litecoin, and many more. You can access them via CFDs.Stock tradingInvestors can purchase and trade popular stocks such as Apple, Google, Zoom, Microsoft, Intel, Tesla, Netflix, among others. With the best sixty analytical tools available for every investor on Capixal, stocks trading has never been easier.Commodity tradingThere are over 24 commodities available on this platform. You can also trade any of these assets via CFDs. Commodities cushion as Corn, Gold, sugar, silver and many others are available for tradingIndices tradingIf you intend to diversify your portfolio, you can access a vast range of indices that are available globally for trade.Forex tradingMultiple entities are available for trading, such as the 45 currency pairs. The leverage features considerable flexibility with a state-of-art platform alongside low spreads and tools. You also can leverage the market charts available. Essentially, Capixal offers one of the best forex tradings with its ultra-modern trading platform.Trading PlatformCapixal offers arguably the most advanced trading platform, MT4. MT4, also called MetaTrader-4 allows the use of Capixal on multiple trading platforms such as mobile apps, WebTrader, among others. Essentially, the trading platform is one of the best and as such, you can place your bet on them.The educational and market analysis resources featured on this platform are second to none. With them, you can have a better understanding of the market irrespective of your current knowledge.You can use…
Venus Price Prediction
Venus (XVS) is a BEP-20 governance token on the Venus network, which is a lending and borrowing platform in the DeFi space, launched by the team behind Binance’s Swipe in 2020. Venus is designed to solve some of the current problems in traditional lending and similar crypto solutions:The banking system has a lot of conditions for a borrower, such as having to pass a credit check, even if their loan is fully collateralizedMany decentralized protocols run on Ethereum, which leads to slow processing speeds and high transaction feesSome DeFi solutions such as Compound are also governed mostly by private funds, so they aren’t really decentralized.Venus allows anyone to borrow cryptocurrencies from anywhere without checking credit history on the only condition that they can supply the collateral. Moreover, users can utilize their collateral to provide liquidity, earn interest on it, or mint stablecoins from it to use in the general crypto space. The transactions are fast and low-fee since Venus runs on Binance Smart Chain. The network is secured by a unique hybrid protocol — Proof-of-Staked Authority (POSA).The default synthetic stablecoin on Venus is VAI, pegged to the value of the dollar. XVS is used for governance, and since it was distributed through fair launch, it facilitates truly decentralized decision-making.XVS appeared on the market in October 2020, at modest levels of ~$2.5-$3.5 at first. As renewed interest in DeFi gained momentum, so did the price, which rose above $8 in January 2021. By February it took off, surging as high as $98. Later, in the early spring, some changes in protocol and asset withdrawal rates raised some concerns, at which point the price dropped to around $40. It recovered by May, reaching $147.02 on May 10, but climbing down over the next few days.On May 18–19 2021, XVS experienced a sharp…
BTC Market Cap Dips Below $600 Billion after GBTC Doomsday Scenario Fails To Materialise
BTC Market Cap Dips Below $600 billionThe world’s most valuable digital asset lost about 6% of its value in the last 48 hours, with its total market capitalisation dropping below $600 billion.At $30,500, Bitcoin currently trades near its lowest level since June 26th, 2021The overall market cap of digital currencies touched a low of $1.27 trillion on Monday after the latest sell-off in Bitcoin and Ethereum. ETH remained the worst-performing cryptocurrency among the top 5 in the last 48 hours.Ethereum is now down by approximately 10% within the same time-frame.The rule is simple — bitcoin leads and altcoins (including Ethereum) follow with higher volatility. As of this moment, there’s no reason to expect this rule to change.The crowded tradeBitcoin futures funding rates have been slammed in negative territory throughout this seemingly endless sideways range. This is to say that a good number of derivatives traders are confidently expecting prices to head lower.Per the data above, BTC/USD has continued to range and coil up within lower bound area close to $30,000. Historically, there has rarely been a point where months of bearishness and negative funding rates were resolved to the downside. The same could be said for the inverse situation.In fact, the crowd is often incorrect on short-term moves but correct over a long time horizon (hence the saying, ‘wisdom of the crowds’).Could this be one such moment?Short squeeze loadingAs various traders and influencers have noted, BTC/USD closed the weekly below the 20-weekly Moving Average (not to be confused with the Exponential MA) — signalling a bearish trend on the weekly time-frame. However, the close was marginal and leaves room for interpretation. This renders the indicator less significant and pending further confirmation.Should the range hold, then liquidity rests to the upside, with $33,500 being the first point of interest for the…
Apple Rumored to Have Bought Over $2B Worth of BTC — Analysis, 19 July
In the first half of last week, rumors about Apple buying Bitcoins worth over $2 billion spread across the crypto-related social media platforms.Source: TwitterMany cryptocurrency enthusiasts expect such kind of news (about big players entering the market) to revert the price decline of Bitcoin and resume the uptrend.Source: TwitterHowever, these rumors have remained unconfirmed so far, and the crypto market has remained under bearish pressure:Source: TwitterNevertheless, the Bitcoin fundamentals are starting to improve, and it seems that internal factors will drive the potential uptrend renewal. According to a recently published newsletter by Glassnode, Bitcoin miners are returning to the so-called ‘accumulation phase.’ That means that they are starting to accumulate BTC to sell it later at higher levels:Source: GlassnodeAlso, the insight by Glassnode claims that the outflows from the crypto exchanges are intensifying. A signal that the retail investors are buying crypto with the primary purpose to hodl it:Source: GlassnodeAnd, although the Bitcoin price fundamentals have started to improve, the market has recorded another week of consolidation. Now, the Monday market starts with some mixed price dynamics. According to Coin360.com, one Bitcoin costs €26,990.46 (+0.35%), one Ethereum — €1,622.23 (-2.31%), one DOGE — €0.1510 (-5.28%), and one UNI — €14.19 (+0.35%):Source: Coin360.com (Daily crypto market performance)Now let us look at the price charts of the leading cryptocurrencies against the euro in the most noteworthy time frames.BTC/EURIn the daily chart (1D), the price of Bitcoin continues to consolidate between the 360-day Moving Average (MA 360) and 30-day Moving Average (MA 30):MA 360 is solid support for the price of BTC, and it will be very hard for the bears to push the price below the moving average. However, MA 30 puts pressure on Bitcoin and does limit the price to increase.The crypto bulls should keep an eye on the 1-hour chart…
Taproot: Bitcoin’s First Upgrade in Four Years
Bitcoin is about to get an upgrade. Four years ago, Bitcoin went through somewhat of a civil war over its technological limits. Strongly held beliefs about block size, which limits the amount of information that can fit in a block, split the Bitcoin network (BTC) into Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and further into Bitcoin SV (BSV). Since then, the original Bitcoin still reigns supreme, and the others have lagged behind in price appreciation by a great degree. Last month, the Bitcoin network came to an overwhelming consensus when 90% of nodes signaled they are in support of a new upgrade scheduled to go live in November, nicknamed Taproot.The Taproot upgrade will do numerous things to improve the technological base that bitcoin runs on. Mainly focusing on increased privacy features, it will also improve the ability of the network to run smart contracts, a main feature that has propelled Ethereum to new all-time highs this year as institutional interest in the technology has skyrocketed.While the average Bitcoin user won’t notice much of a change, the various layer-2 solutions and side chains such as Lightning Network and Liquid will experience massive improvements. Currently, these protocols built on top of Bitcoin are distinguishable from normal transactions on-chain through the need to reveal all the complex rule scripts they run when they interact with the blockchain. Taproot implements an improved signature method called Schnorr signatures which allows those programs to only reveal the exact rules used for each transaction instead of all of them. Ultimately, this allows these complex transactions to appear on-chain in the same way as a normal wallet-to-wallet transaction. Not only does this improve privacy by making it harder to pick out these complex transactions during chain analysis, but it also saves space on the block and increases transaction speed.These improvements will…