According to the renowned investor and business advisor CryptoWhale, XRP is the most promising project for long-term investors, backed by its technology superior to Bitcoin and weight in enforcing digital asset regulations.

CryptoWhale, a company that provides unbiased and unemotional trading advice regarding cryptocurrencies and often criticizes the overvaluation of digital assets, has recently been trading XRP. According to one of his latest Twitter threads, his long-term investment and research on XRP have determined that it is better than Bitcoin and will be the alternative currency to defeat all others that are eventually doomed.

Compared to Bitcoin, CryptoWhale claimed that XRP’s 3 to 4-second transaction speed was 1000 times faster, cheaper, more scalable, and better for the environment, compared to Bitcoin’s 10-minute transaction speed.

“XRP is a digital asset that uses distributed ledger technology like Bitcoin, but that’s where the similarity ends.”In addition, CryptoWhale stated that XRP’s affiliate Ripple is continuing to make regulations to make the crypto money more affordable and is doing things right.

“Ripple is the only company on the market pressuring to actively regulate. They are also working closely with government agencies to ensure they are fully compliant. This gives XRP a huge advantage over other altcoins that will eventually disappear. ”

Why XRP Is not realizing the expected rise?

According to CryptoWhale, 79% of investors fell victim to FOMO in 2017, and many investors bought XRP at an inflated price of $ 2.50.“Many people started to hate XRP for losing money, which subconsciously created a negative bias for cryptocurrency.”

Along with investor losses, the cryptocurrency community strongly opposes XRP because of its high levels of centralization, which they think are harming the evolution of decentralized finance. In a previous statement, CryptoWhale also stated that Ripple is not trying to change the banking system, but only trying to integrate its technology into banks to facilitate the current banking process. For this reason, XRP has managed to survive despite its poor performance over the years and the prevailing opinions in the cryptocurrency community.

Ripple is a privately-held fintech company that provides a global payment solution via its patented payment network called Ripple Network (also known as RippleNet). XRP is the digital token that has a circulating supply of 45 Billion coins and a max supply of 100 Billion coins.

Ripple (XRP) plays dual roles as a payment platform and a currency. It is an open-source platform that was created to allow quick and cheap transactions. XRP remains the only crypto gaining traction among global banks as Japan-based Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, with assets of more than USD 2.8 trillion. Other leading global banks using Ripple include Europe’s banking giant, HSBC Holdings Plc, with assets of about $2.5 trillion, which disclosed in 2019 that it would use the XRP payment solution.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

 The number of tokenized bitcoins in January 2020 was only 1,110 units. DeFi and the integration of WBTC into MakerDAO have driven the increase in the figure.

In recent days, the number of tokenized bitcoins on the Ethereum network reached a new high, after having exceeded USD 1 billion in capitalization. There are currently more than 100,000 Bitcoin-pegged tokens in the network of smart contracts, according to metrics from BTC On Ethereum.

In the last month, there has been a meteoric growth. On August 19^th, the total number of Bitcoin-pegged (ERC-20) tokens on Ethereum was 44,051 units. However, the figure climbed to 100,807 on September 18^th, which surprised the market as that the number had been only 1,110 BTC in January.

Among the Bitcoin-pegged tokens that are on Ethereum, the main asset continues to be Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) with more than 70,000 tokens and capitalization exceeding USD 780 million, that is, 70% of the total number of tokens of this type. Following it are renBTC with 20,000 units (USD 220 million), HBTC with 4,800 tokens (USD 52 million), and sBTC with 3,300 units (USD 37 million). Other measured projects include imBTC and pBTC, which together account for around 1,600 BTC.

The records of the metric of Bitcoin-pegged tokens on Ethereum began in January of last year with the launch of WBTC. It is an initiative of custodial startup BitGo and decentralized exchanges Kyber Network and Republic Protocol. Since that moment, new projects have emerged so that BTC operators create a link with Ethereum.

WBTC and Bitcoin-Pegged Tokens on Ethereum

The dramatic rise began in February 2020, when the number of tokens barely exceeded 2,000 units. Two elements have played a key role in this emergence: the interest or returns generated in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and the “integration” of WBTC as a reserve asset into MakerDAO.

The objective of adding WBTC to MakerDAO would be to establish a marketing strategy in which Ethereum offers the token to obtain Bitcoin. However, the truth is that this “integration” is only useful as a reference for setting prices.

Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX, said that there is another aspect at stake that could be influencing the growth in the trading volume of the tokens: “the great demand” for OTC (over the counter) purchases.

Whales (large holders or owners) and institutional investors have also contributed to driving that increase in the number of Bitcoin-pegged tokens. However, this approach also shows a negative aspect: that of the increases in the payment of fees.

Researcher Lucas Outumuro considers that hodlers, or “strong” Bitcoin savers, may prefer maintaining their positions with the first cryptocurrency to risking their funds in their search for the profits that pegged tokens and DeFi promise.

Several aspects that have conditioned the 2020 cryptocurrency market include the coronavirus pandemic, the Bitcoin halving, the increased use of DeFi, and global financial crises due to economic stoppages.

By Alexander Salazar

The Colombian government will call on the local financial system to carry out tests of transactions with cryptocurrencies. This was announced by the presidential economic adviser Víctor Muñoz, on the morning of this Wednesday, September 16.

Through Twitter, Muñoz explained that the Financial Superintendency of Colombia (Superfinanciera) will make the call “for the financial system to test cash in and cash-out transactions with crypto assets.”

This will occur as part of the regulatory sandbox for the financial technology (FinTech) sector, said a government spokesperson. The sandbox decree was approved last Monday by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, after having been submitted for comments.

The tests to be convened by the Superfinancial will allow us to have “evidence for an intelligent regulatory framework, based on experience, data, and knowledge”, in the opinion of the former minister for Innovation and Digital Transformation in the South American country.

The scope of the call or any tentative date for testing cryptocurrency transactions is unknown. The decree does not even mention cryptocurrencies, so it does not shed any further light on what will happen to this industry.

In February of this year, there were some issues related to the decree for the creation of the regulatory sandbox pending comments. At that time, the lack of cryptocurrencies or even companies in the area, such as exchanges, unleashed doubts in the cryptocurrency environment in Colombia.

Representatives of various exchanges were reluctant about the sandbox and its potential impact on the activity of cryptocurrency companies. In general, for various actors in the ecosystem, crypto-assets were in a gray area in Colombian territory.

Expectations and doubts towards the regulatory sandbox in Colombia

Among the ecosystem personalities who expressed their doubts in February was Arley Lozano, alias Vakano. The CEO of Panda Exchange commented to this medium on that occasion that Colombia had been presenting itself as a country at the forefront of technology, but there were many obstacles for the sector.

Now, Lozano himself responded to Muñoz’s post wishing that the call of improvements in the conditions of cryptocurrency companies in the country must be fulfilled. Lozano explained: “Hopefully because at the rate we are going. It’s easier to be a bandit here than to work with cryptocurrencies in Colombia.”

About this, Mauricio Tovar, co-director of InTIColombia Research Group, welcomed the announcement, the Colombian Fintech company association also expressed itself optimistically. “The time has come to use this beneficial tool for the Fintech ecosystem, and we started with crypto assets,” the organization wrote on its Twitter.

On the other hand, the director of the NGO Fundación Bitcoin Colombia, Carlos Mesa, showed a little more skeptical view, saying: “We hope the call will be very soon and that it welcomes the companies already established”.

The ecosystem is waiting on the implications of the sandbox, and the Colombian government has flirted in several ways with the development of blockchains, even publishing a guide on the use of blockchains for the public sector and offering financial investment for companies in this industry and other tech entrepreneurship.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

The issuing entity will continue to purchase government bonds for USD 942,000 million. The initiative seeks to encourage spending rather than saving.

In recent days, after several meetings, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England approved maintaining interest rates at 0.1%. It may also set negative interest rates in the face of a crisis that growing unemployment has caused.

In August, the central bank studied the effectiveness of a possible adoption of negative rates. The issuing entity did this in light of the progressive decrease in rates in recent years, as it states in the document that they recently published.

Negative interest rates would theoretically discourage saving as individuals and organizations would not receive interest on the cash that they deposit in banks. Instead, they would have to pay these financial institutions to save. They would also have the option to receive money for borrowing.

Current loans maintain the agreed interest rates at the time that users receive them, but negative rates would benefit those with variable rate loans. Only English banks take this precaution: the fine print in mortgage loan contracts states that rates cannot be less than zero. For this reason, the rate that they apply for existing variable rate loans, in case they adopt a negative rate, will effectively be zero.

However, the idea of negative interest rates seeks to encourage companies to borrow, invest, and grow, which would boost the economy that the current recession has hit. This is one of the worst financial collapses that have occurred in history.

Besides keeping interest rates at 0.1% and holding the unusual option of negative interest rates on the table, the Bank of England will keep its government bond and corporate bond purchase program. Total purchases remain unchanged at GBP 745 billion, which is equivalent to about USD 942 billion.

The document notes that the funding for these acquisitions comes from “the issuance of central bank reserves,” which is equivalent to the printing of inorganic money. If market conditions deteriorate again, the issuing entity indicates that it would “increase the pace of purchases to ensure the effective transmission of the monetary policy.”

This provision by the Bank of England has similarities, with both the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve (the FED) and the latest actions by the European Central Bank since they are facing the crisis by increasing public debt. For the current US fiscal year, which ends on September 30^th, the public debt may exceed the gross domestic product.

The global health crisis that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused affected the economy worldwide. On March 12^th, all markets dropped, including those of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Despite recent fluctuations in its price, Pioneering cryptocurrency has maintained a 52% return since the beginning of 2020, and a 128% recovery compared to the collapse in mid-March. At the time of writing this article, Bitcoin is trading at USD 10,907, according to data from Messari.

By Alexander Salazar

The new function is called Coin Control, translated into Spanish as “Currency Control” allowing users to manage their transactions in an advanced way. Thus, increasing their privacy and enabling advanced configuration of fees to pay.

Ledger recently increased the privacy levels of your transactions for the latest version of your wallet software. The Ledger Live 2.11.1 interface will now allow users to select which unspent transactions (UTXO) they want to use to make network payments for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin SV.

Coin Control is based on the operation of the UTXO of Bitcoin and other alternative currencies on the market. An element that creates the balance of the wallets consists of all those transactions output not spent by the user. That is coins that have been received at the owner’s address and that are available to make payments.

In general, cryptocurrency wallets can automatically select the currencies to be transferred (UTXOs) under the known dynamic known as “First-in-Fist-Out” (FIFO). If a user wants to carry out a transaction, then the mechanism includes only the oldest UTXOs in the wallet to complete the desired amount to transfer. In this sense, the first transactions that the owner received since he created his wallet are the currencies that are used to make the currently desired payment.

This strategy is simple, its sole purpose is to be automated, but it is inconvenient if a user is seeking greater privacy in their transactions. The algorithm does not create a separation between currencies coming from a KYC exchange house from those that have been received from an anonymous address. Because of this, the most private and difficult to trace UTXOs are mixed with those coins with sources coming from where the identity of the owner is fully exposed.

Ledger incorporates a solution to increase privacy.

A user can use a FIFO algorithm to view all his UTXOs and select only those he wants to use. This can be achieved with an option that reduces the byte size of the transaction and thus less UTXO is spent. Likewise, a transaction can configure functions to determine a maximum number of entries. This would allow a UTXO not to become economically unsustainable to be transferred later when a rate increase occurs. The wallet will also show which transactions you have pending, which are confirmed, and which others are replaceable.

The idea of ​​this new functionality is that Ledger customers can better manage the flow of transactions in their wallet, protecting those anonymous transactions from those that are already related to personal information. They also help prevent a third party from knowing how much money you have in your account, as you can select the smallest UTXOs for low-value transactions.

By: Jenson Nuñez.

New perpetual XRP contracts are paired with the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC). Binance Futures launched XRP perpetual contracts paired against Tether (USDT) in January 2020.

Binance Futures, a cryptocurrency futures and derivatives platform of exchange Binance, is supporting the XRP (Ripple) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) perpetual contract exchange system.

As part of the celebration of its first anniversary, Binance Futures recently launched the two new Binance products, under the name XRPUSD for XRP, and ETCUSD for Ethereum Classic.

Perpetual contracts went into circulation in the market, paired against the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC). This circulation means that users must pay or receive the margin, profit, and loss in USDC, while XRP and ETC serve as collateral.

In this way, the platform’s users have at their disposal a new mechanism to open operations, in long or short positions, based on a leverage of up to 75 times, as the company stated.

Binance acknowledges that leveraged transactions are very risky, so it warns users about the potential for making both profits and losses that are significant. “Bear in mind that, in the event of an extreme price movement, there is the possibility of liquidation of the entire margin balance in your futures wallet,” he says.

Futures Contracts on Binance

Perpetual contracts are a modality of futures contracts based on crypto assets. They show slight differences in their trading mechanism concerning future since there is no specific expiration or settlement date. In this particular case, the customer is the one who decides when to leave.

About the offer of XRP derivatives, its introduction occurred on the Binance Futures platform in January of this year. This fact made the exchange the first to add a perpetual contract for this cryptocurrency, but it happened in front of the stablecoin Tether (USDT). A few weeks later, it implemented a similar product for Ethereum Classic.

In May 2020, it added option contracts for XRP and Ethereum (ETH), thus providing traders with the right to buy or sell the assets at a certain price for a specific period.

Since the beginning of the year, the platform has been offering perpetual futures contracts paired with USDT, as well as leveraged tokens. In the last year, in addition to quarterly futures contracts, it has been offering a service called Binance Options. This allows reaching short-term exchange agreements, which settles the American way.

In recent days, the company started incorporating more tools for traders, thus allowing them to customize the margin or predetermine particular addresses to hold. In April, it introduced the trading of options. In late August, it launched a new product that allows betting on the rise or fall of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

In a recent report, CryptoCompare stated that Binance was one of the leading exchanges in terms of monthly derivatives volumes last August. According to the ranking of the study, it was the third-largest, after OKEx and Huobi.

By Alexander Salazar