Real estate loan companies from the United States participate in this process. DAI becomes a bridge between decentralized and traditional finance.

DAI, which maintains price parity with the US dollar, also has the support of real-world assets (RWA). Since April 21^st, a total of 35,913 units of the stablecoin have received support from real estate assets.

It is possible to view the data, which Mariano Di Pietrantonio confirmed and detailed, on the DaiStats website. He is the head of marketing at MakerDAO, the organization that develops the token.

On Twitter, Di Pietrantonio described this milestone as the beginning of “a new era.” He said that real estate prices “do not move that much,” so there should not be frequent liquidations of these assets as collateral. He highlighted that the price of a house or an apartment does not go down much per year.

Many seem to have interpreted the novelty as a signal to buy the Maker (MKR) governance token. This crypto-asset went from USD 3,400 to USD 4,900 a few hours after people heard this. It then fell sharply, alongside the entire cryptocurrency market, and each MKR is now trading at around USD 4,115.

Other Assets that Could Support DAI

Apart from RWAs, the stablecoin continues to add collateral in crypto-assets. Voting on the incorporation of several tokens, some of which are little known, is open on the MakerDAO platform. Moss Carbon Credit (MCO2), 1inch (1INCH), Badger Sett Badger (BADGER) and Rocked Pool Stacked ETH (rETH) could begin to collateralize DAI.

DAI initially received support only from the collateral in Ether (ETH), Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency. However, the stablecoin has been multi-collateralized since the end of 2019.

The price of DAI remains stable thanks to token-wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), the representation of Bitcoin (BTC) on Ethereum. There are also centralized stablecoins as collateral for DAI: Paxos Standard (PAX), USD Coin (USDC), and USD Tether (USDT). This situation has sometimes opened the debate as to whether DAI is decentralized as it presents itself.

Any user may put these tokens as support for DAI within MakerDAO to then receive a loan in that stablecoin. When returning it (with an interest or “stability fee”), the owner of the collateral recovers it and the “burning” of DAI takes place.

What Happens If the Price of the DAI Collateral Drops?

Many fears what could happen if there were an abrupt drop in the price of the crypto assets that collateralize DAI due to their volatility. This fear is greater about small-cap assets, such as those introduced after the aforementioned vote.

Economist Santiago Di Paolo explains that the vault sells the collateral deposited to recover users’ issuance in case of a sharp drop. Besides, they get a stability fee and a “liquidation penalty” of 13% of the debt.

Di Paolo says that the “vault” is the storage location where users lock the collateral. This is a smart contract that can destroy DAIs or sell the collateral to balance the system, as needed.

A drop in the price of some collateral would harm the individual who placed those tokens as collateral to receive the loan. However, this would not affect the stability of the price of the stablecoin.

By Alexander Salazar

As cryptocurrencies reach all-time highs, a growing number of investors will enter the market. The dominance of the pioneering cryptocurrency started to decline when investors turned to altcoins.

In recent days, social trading company eToro, jointly with alternative data provider TheTie, released a report on the third quarter of 2021. They analyzed possible scenarios in which Bitcoin could replace the US dollar and become the digital gold of the new era.

The document has been on the eToro website under the heading “Inherent Value” since April 21^st. The report discusses the trends dominating the market this quarter and presents the firm’s assessments on the ecosystem. The “Beyond the Hype” section says that NFTs seek to demystify the powers “of an asset existing since the Internet’s dawn.”

To start with, both companies examined the possible scenario in which Bitcoin would replace gold. The document states that this outlook is already underway given the continuous and growing interest in Bitcoin as an asset. In addition to this, there has been a development of decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT).

According to eToro, investors need to change the perspective that makes them value physical goods over digital ones. Guy Hirsch, CEO of eToro in the United States, commented on Bitcoin, Ether (Ethereum’s cryptocurrency), and other cryptocurrencies. He said that, as these crypto-assets regularly reach all-time highs; new investors will see their value and enter the market.”

The Possibility that Bitcoin Will Be the Digital Gold of the New Age

The eToro report also provides a broader perspective on what the scenario would look like if Bitcoin replaced gold, highlighting its price surge. According to the document, the pioneering cryptocurrency increases its realized market capitalization by 50% each year. By 2030, it would outperform gold by over USD 13.1 trillion in market capitalization and would be worth USD 2,114,385 per unit.

With this, only half of the current capitalization of gold would place Bitcoin around USD 700,000, says the text. Meanwhile, 10% would place the price between USD 150,000 and USD 170,000.

According to the report, it is incredible that Bitcoin even has a 2% market capitalization of gold, after only ten years as a financial asset. These predictions seemed implausible as 1 BTC at USD 50,000 was just a chimera.

Therefore, Bitcoin “should not depend on the complete destabilization of society to become very valuable.” Food, wages, markets, and even gold already suffer the chaos of hyperinflation. However, Bitcoin could destabilize gold in the next decade to become a modernized hard asset or “digital gold” for the new era.

The Advancement of NFTs Proves the Power of Blockchain Technology

Joshua Frank, CEO of TheTie, said that Bitcoin dominated the crypto market in the fourth quarter of 2020. He added that BTC continued its record performance in the first quarter of 2021. However, he noted that the return of altcoins and the advancement of NFTs defined the latter quarter.

The executive explained that, in the first quarter of 2021, the dominance of Bitcoin decreased significantly. The prospect of substantial returns lured retail institutional investors and crypto natives to turn to altcoins.

In addition to that, Frank said that he remains skeptical that the NFT wave will continue at the current growth rate. He also believes that market conditions are still extremely bullish for altcoins against Bitcoin. He thinks that money will continue to pour into cryptocurrencies in record amounts.

By Alexander Salazar

The price of the pioneering cryptocurrency has fallen by 20% over the past seven days. There are more than 220 blocks to mine and 185,000 transactions to confirm.

Bitcoin’s price recently underwent a significant correction, which led to “red” numbers in the cryptocurrency market for the second time in a week. The crypto asset was trading below USD 50,000, a price not seen for almost two months.

The crash in the network’s hash rate has increasingly evident consequences in the market. There are high fees to validate transactions, delays in the mining of blocks, and a lack of readjustment in the mining difficulty. These factors are negatively affecting the trading of the main cryptocurrency on the market.

Power outages in the province of Xinjiang, in China, led to the departure of miners, which is now taking its toll. Data from Coinwarz indicates that the network’s hash rate was 208 EH/s, a record high figure, on April 15^th. However, the collective computing power dropped by more than 40% to 109 EH/s only two days later.

At that moment, Bitcoin’s price went from above USD 63,000 to around USD 51,000. The recent drop reached a bottom at USD 47,700, that is, a 20% fall over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap. Concerning the hash rate for the second stumbling block, the figure went from around 181 EH/s to 155 EH/s.

Users Are Powerless When the Bitcoin Network Is Blocked

There is a chain effect, not only in the markets, when the Bitcoin network “suffers”. Millions of its users have also experienced a change in their perception. This especially happens among those who have adopted the cryptocurrency during the bullish cycle.

It would not be attractive to use a blocked network that takes days to process a transaction due to the loss of its computing power. On the contrary, users could lose interest in trading BTC and would be forced to migrate to altcoins. For example, it would be illogical for someone trading Bitcoin to send a USD 30 transaction if he had to pay USD 20 in fees.

Given the lack of certainty on how many days the slow processing of transactions could take, the problem becomes worse. Besides, those wishing to exchange BTC for altcoins must also conduct a transaction to acquire an equivalent of another currency. In other words, they have to make their transfers to an exchange, which translates into more fee payments.

According to data from mempool.space, the current blocking accounts for over 185,000 pending transactions to confirm and over 220 blocks to mine. At the time of writing this article, the fee to process a simple but high-priority transaction is 164 sat/vB, equivalent to around USD 11.5. The same transaction cost USD 20 before the market crashed on April 23^rd.

The Hash Rate Is an Indicator of Bitcoin’s Value

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Hans Hauge compared in July 2018 how the market capitalization of BTC correlated with the hash rate.

The parameter related to processing power was the one with the highest predictive power, according to the researcher. He also mentioned that other methods tested included the number of unique addresses and total transactions on the Bitcoin network.

By Alexander Salazar

Despite the drop in the price of altcoins, Monero appreciated by almost 3% in the last week. Cryptocurrency meme Dogecoin stayed in the top 10 by market capitalization and celebrated its Dogeday.

In the last seven days, the general cryptocurrency market has turned red. Almost all altcoins lost value, in the framework of Bitcoin’s price drop, according to data from Live Coin Watch.

However, some cryptocurrencies led the weekly top 10 for their developments, mention in media and social networks, and interest from users. Dogecoin (DOGE) remains in the top 10, Monero (XMR) made progress with atomic swaps, and Cardano (ADA) is getting ready to integrate smart contracts into its network.

Ripple’s cryptocurrency (XRP) has resurfaced despite the SEC’s lawsuit against it. Binance Coin (BNB) had a quarterly growth rate in the order of 600%.

The Pioneering Cryptocurrency Experienced Two Corrections

The price of Bitcoin underwent two major corrections in the last week, trading below USD 50,000 again. The pioneering cryptocurrency lost around 16% of its value, ranging between USD 48,700 and USD 60,200.

The main reason for the drop is the collapse of the Bitcoin hash rate. Chinese miners left Xinjiang province due to power outages. That situation brought the processing power to 109 EH/s, that is, a decrease of 40%.

Several factors are affecting the trading of the main cryptocurrency on the market. These drawbacks include the high fees to validate a transaction, the delays in mining blocks, and the readjustment in mining difficulty.

Other Cryptocurrencies that the Market Crash Affected

The market crash also affected the price of Ether (ETH), leading it to fall by 4%. It went from USD 2,029 to USD 2,642 in the last seven days.

However, the value of the cryptocurrency reached a new all-time high above USD 2,544. The second cryptocurrency on the market traded at 0.04687 BTC, a level not seen since August 2018.

The fall in the price of Bitcoin also affected other relevant cryptocurrencies on the market. Cardano (ADA) fell by 19%, Polkadot (DOT) lost 31%, Ripple’s XRP depreciated by 36%, and Litecoin (LTC) went down by 26%.

Dogecoin Remains in the Top 10 by Market Cap

DOGE is one of the few altcoins that was bullish, with a 3% advance, during the week. The cryptocurrency remains stable in the top 10 by market capitalization, ranking seventh.

Interest in DOGE reached an all-time high during the so-called Dogeday celebration. This initiative emerged on social networks to promote the purchase of the cryptocurrency meme.

Dogecoin reached its weekly high of USD 0.4498 on April 19^th and decreased to USD 0.1730 on April 23^rd, when Bitcoin fell. Even so, DOGE maintained its growth and has continued to increase in recent days.

Monero Approached a New All-Time High

Privacy-centered cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) has been gaining prominence in recent weeks. XMR approached its 2017 all-time high of USD 470 after it reached a peak of USD 416. In the last few days, its price gained an average of 2.9%.

The reasons for the appreciation above 70% in the last month include recent updates to the network and atomic swaps with Bitcoin. Other integrations attracting investors’ attention have also contributed to this.

By Alexander Salazar

The NFTs will meet storage on the IPwe platform, accompanied by IBM’s blockchain technology. The intellectual property in NTF secures the IPwet CEO’s goal of bringing patents to the blockchain.

IPwe, the global patent market, announced on April 20 its plan to represent corporate patents such as NFT (non-fungible token) in parallel with the multinational consulting and technology company, IBM.

According to the press release published by IBM and IPwe, this plan intends to serve as a supportive asset to help position patents to be sold, traded, and monetized more efficiently and profitably.

By transforming patents into NFTs, IBM and its partner hope that intellectual property transactions would find more transparency while bringing assistance service to help companies manage such transactions on their balance sheets.

The patents turned into NFT will meet its safe storage and sharing process on the IPwe platform, hosted in the IBM cloud with blockchain technology developed by the same company.

In December of last year, this identical blockchain started a load of data on Spanish wines supplies so that their passage from the vineyard to the consumer was more transparent.

In October 2020, the IBM blockchain came to be helpful in a data verification system to check the health of different people to see if they could use other public spaces (this due to the COVID 19 pandemic).

Jason Kelley stated that patent tokenization reacts to a complete digitalization. This response turns to be a beneficial action for patents, where validation, verification, and trust are vital.

“If you provide a platform that allows that to occur on value exchange, that’s exciting. Patent tokenization opens markets. … Different patents can be valued and traded with greater capacity, validity, and confidence.”

Likewise, Erich Spangenberg, CEO of IPwe, said that the transfer of intellectual property to NTF is the last step in his multi-year goal to bring the world of patents to the blockchain.

IBM is Now Working with the IPwe Platform to Implement Blockchain Technology

Implementing NFT in the patent market is not the only project where IBM and IPwe have teamed up to succeed. According to Decrypt, the technology multinational has been implementing blockchain on the IPwe platform to help protect proprietary information for three years. This team has also generated patent, and portfolio analysis; it facilitated transactions, reports, and previews of the next generation of patent pooling.

Testing for the tokenization of the patents will take place in the second quarter of 2021, and IPwe expects them to be ready for commercialization later this year.

While NFTs have increased in the area of ​​art, music, and sports, they have been lately opening up to other fields, not only in the patent area but also to protect copyrights or in the area of literature and gastronomy.

By: Jenson Nuñez