Bitcoin’s volatility remained at record lows until July 24^th. Ethereum is also back at USD 300.

Both Democrats and Republicans in the USA have been preparing a second stimulus package for the economy. On July 21^st, the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, officially supported a new issuance of checks to help the population.

No one yet knows the details of the amount of aid for this second round. However, the Democrats proposed a bill in the Lower House last May.  It included a second USD 3.2 trillion stimulus package.

The confirmation of this significant increase in liquidity, possibly before November, brought the price of gold to a record high on July 24^th, which exceeded USD 1,900 per ounce. This could also have moved investors to Bitcoin as a safe-haven asset, given the foreseeable deterioration of the US dollar, which managed to push it above USD 10,000.

On July 21^st, Bitcoin began to rebound when it recorded a 3% rise to exceed USD 9,400. Besides, it continued with a gradual increase during that week, to exceed USD 9,500 on July 24^th. After clearly breaking the resistance of USD 9,700, the price of Bitcoin exceeded USD 10,200 on July 27^th.

Altcoins have reemerged during Bitcoin’s recent low volatility period. Traders have turned to altcoins facing a relatively stable behavior of the main cryptocurrency. The reason for this is that low volatility does not provide the action that they are looking for. Until now, Bitcoin’s dominance has dropped from 67.5% to 60.9% in July; there has been a 9.47% increase in the capitalization of altcoins and only 4.2% in that of Bitcoin.

Ethereum Is Back at USD 300

Amid the resurgence of altcoins, Ether appreciated by 34% in the past month and its price at the time of writing is USD 308. The number of its active addresses has doubled since January. In July, the total locked value in DeFi applications went from USD 2 billion to USD 3 billion in two weeks.

According to Etherscan and DeFi Pulse, the total locked value in DeFi has exceeded USD 3.6 billion in just five days. This suggests that it would be possible to achieve a new milestone this month.

Ethereum is in an interesting transition from a technical point of view; given the expected update of its network. Furthermore, the explosive boom in decentralized finance (DeFi) has led to the development of the network that was unthinkable 5 years ago. Ethereum hosts almost a thousand ERC-20 tokens, which together outperformed Ether, in terms of market capitalization.

Bitcoin Is Highly Valued in Latin America

In recent days, the trading volume of Bitcoin on P2P platforms in Argentina exceeded USD million. At the same time, Mexico and Uruguay recorded all-time BTC trading volumes on LocalBitcoins and Paxful.

For its part, Mexico exceeded USD 636,000 on LocalBitcoins in one week. The Mexicans moved more than USD 56,000 worth of Bitcoin on Paxful. Both cases represent all-time highs for the country.

Uruguay also exceeded its all-time trading volume on the two platforms. On LocalBitcoins, movements from Uruguay were above USD 48,400 in that period.

By Alexander Salazar

The process uses a smart contract on the Ethereum network. The reception of public bids will culminate on August 6^th.

The Government of the Autonomous Community of Aragon, in Spain, opened a public bid on the Ethereum blockchain to acquire 35,000 reusable masks. Public administration personnel will use the material to protect themselves from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The call took place on July 22^nd and will end on August 6^th. Subsequently, there will be information on the process of selection and announcement of the favored company, which must begin the execution of the contract on August 20^th. The base budget for the bid is around EUR 120, according to documents released by the authorities.

Companies will place their bids electronically using a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. The government of Aragon has also conducted bids using Hyperledger Fabric for data management.

It is possible to see the logo of both platforms in all bids on the call website. The blockchain project consultant, Pablo López, stated on his LinkedIn account that the teams from Grupo Oesía and Open Canarias prepared the proposal.

López said that the time has come when the use of smart contracts in blockchain has become something real, simple, and transparent. He believes that this should be the way to manage any public fund. Besides, he congratulates the Government of Aragon, for deciding to bet where others see problems, and the Grupo Oesía and Open Canarias team, for their development.

The companies that López refers to won the award for the development of this type of distributed ledger platform in January 2018. In other words, the advances in the system with blockchain are already at least two and a half years old.

The Government of Aragon has consolidated its system, of which it already has 27 bids in total. The first began to run in August 2019 and the National Public Sector Contracting Platform has validated them throughout Spain.

Bid, Transparency, and Blockchain

The Government of Aragon is one of the Spanish public departments that have used the so-called distributed ledger technology (DLT) to manage public bids. In 2019, the government would adopt Hyperledger Fabric but considered a subsequent recording of the most important data on bids on a public blockchain like Ethereum.

The government would intend to offer higher levels of transparency by using the Ethereum network since Fabric is a permissioned network in which participants must join through a membership service.

The bet on DLT brought good results to the Government of Aragon. In March of this year, the government received an award for promoting transparency with a distributed ledger, an original technology of Bitcoin as a digital system. The reception of the award took place during the National Congress of Innovation and Public Services.

Spain is one of the countries that has suffered the most from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, there are more than 272 thousand infected people, and more than 28 thousand dead. The health authorities have reported that the use of masks is one of the main methods to avoid new infections, as well as following the lockdown, and practicing social distance on the street.

By Alexander Salazar

There could be an IPO of the world’s leading crypto companies. That could be beneficial for both companies and the crypto market in general.

For a long time, people have seen the world of cryptocurrencies as an enemy of traditional finance. After all, the main reason for Bitcoin to exist is to become a replacement for fiat money.

However, this view has been changing over the years. Each time, an increasing number of actors are seeking integration between traditional finance and crypto assets. For that reason, many believe that crypto companies would benefit from making an initial public offering (IPO).

IPO of Coinbase

Even today, many people within the crypto market consider that the traditional financial market is an enemy to beat, rather than a support for the crypto world.

Therefore, these users believe that the most logical thing is that cryptocurrencies completely sweep away the current international financial system. In this way, a new economic framework based on blockchain technology would take its place.

This view has dominated the crypto world for a long time. However, that way of thinking is starting to change faster and faster, along with the goals of the top crypto companies. Among them, Binance and Justin Sun’s conglomerate are beginning to move towards the development of decentralized finance.

This is a mission in which traditional finance could be very useful since it would allow crypto companies to obtain the necessary financing. Coinbase would attempt to achieve this by making its IPO in the coming months. By doing so, they would become one of the first major crypto companies to turn to traditional finance to drive the cryptocurrency market.

Benefit for Crypto Companies

This decision by Coinbase could have already started to impact other crypto companies, which could be considering going ahead with their IPO. This makes sense, given that the traditional financial market has recently reached USD 35 trillion in size, compared to just USD 287 billion in the entire cryptocurrency market.

In other words, if crypto companies receive only a small fraction of the resources that the stock market moves, there is the potential to double the value of the cryptocurrency market. In that way, they would be able to finance projects related to blockchain technology in all sectors.

Such a move by crypto companies would not be unprecedented within the crypto market. In that sense, at least 20 companies in the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem have traded different exchanges around the world. Among them are mining giant Bitmain, which is currently listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

However, there is now a possibility that this trend will become a widespread move within crypto companies. Furthermore, this would lead to higher levels of integration between traditional and crypto-asset markets. Ultimately, there would be substantial growth in the crypto market.

By Willmen Blanco

In recent days, institutional investors traded a new USD 49 million cap on ETH options on the exchange Deribit. The price of the cryptocurrency has had an advance of 21.8% in the last seven days.

The rebound in the price of the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) is positively influencing the derivatives market. The trading volume for the options and the open interest in the Ethereum cryptocurrency hit new all-time highs in recent days.

According to the analytics firm Skew; institutional investors have recently been more active in the Deribit and OKEx markets. On the first exchange, there was a cap on trading volume of USD 49 million for ETH options. On the second exchange platform, the amount rose to USD 7.4 million.

Concerning open interest, Skew shows that it also reached new caps. On the Panamanian exchange Deribit, the figure jumped to USD 225 million in July. In the case of OKEx, the amount reached USD 16 million.

The rise in the price of Ether, as well as that in the derivatives markets, could have its origin in the announcements about the launch of the new version of the network, Ethereum 2.0. Another element to consider is the greater use that DeFi applications have experienced in the smart contracts blockchain.

Options, like that of Ether, are derivative financial instruments for the purchase or sale of securities at a specified price with a set expiry date in the future. In the case of open interest, this is the volume or the total number of open positions in futures contracts not closed on a specific day.

Ether Derivatives on the Rise

The Ether derivatives market has aroused interest in recent months. Open interest in Ether derivatives experienced an unusual rebound last May. At the time, open interest involved 535,000 Ether units, which translated into a cap of USD 128 million.

Last February, analysts already predicted that the financial options market could be riskier for Ether than for Bitcoin in the coming months due to volatility. For traders, volatility can have a positive impact on the price of financial options.

If there is greater volatility, there could be greater demand for the protection of call options (as an upward bet) and put options (as a downward bet).

What happens with ETH options and open interest contrasts with what happens with Bitcoin options in the Bakkt market. After an announcement with great fanfare in 2019, the trading volume is nil, that is, zero US dollars.

Open interest in Bitcoin options does not arouse enthusiasm in this market. This contrasts with the figures that Deribit recorded with BTC, which reached a top of USD 1,300 million in July.

Ether derivatives have recorded new caps among institutional investors. However, the amounts that they trade are relatively small, compared to the figures that the exchanges handle. For example, only the ETH/USDT pair trades USD 253 million in 24 hours on Binance, while the figure for the ETH/USD pair is USD 57 million on Coinbase Pro.

At the time of this writing this article, the price of Ether was USD 307 per unit with 8.38% growth in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap. In the last seven days, the advance is about 21.8%, according to the same source.

By Alexander Salazar

The next update of the network and DeFi applications could be influencing the price. The overall market is moving in a positive direction with Bitcoin close to USD 10,000.

For the first time in over 1 year, the Ethereum network’s cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) reached the USD 300 mark per unit in the market. Last July 26^th, the crypto asset reached USD 307, a price that it had not registered since July 9^th, 2019, when it traded at USD 307.78, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Positive numbers precede the current momentum of the native cryptocurrency of the smart contract network. Ether has gained 31% in the last week, and it has risen by about 6.7% in the last 24 hours. By doing so, it outperforms Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of yield. The first cryptocurrency has gained 6.1% and 1%, respectively, in the same periods.

The reasons behind the rise in the price of ETH could be two: the recent announcements by project developers, such as Vitalik Buterin, about the network’s update Ethereum 2.0, and the rise of DeFi applications that use this blockchain for their operation. The Ethereum token market is worth more than its currency.

Regarding this behavior, Spanish cryptocurrency trader @Inmortalcrypto considers that Ether will exhibit better behavior than other currencies during the rest of 2020 and 2021.

The trader considers that, in the next months or early 2021, there could be a growth season for altcoins, which Ether would lead.

The trader’s point of view contrasts with the usual behavior of the market, which usually follows in the footsteps of Bitcoin. When BTC rises, altcoins do likewise, just as happens when the former drops. A correlation graph from CoinMetrics shows that the relationship between the price movements of ETH and BTC is close to their highest point, around 88%.

However, given that Bitcoin has a larger and more liquid market and a much higher price, percentage variations in its price are lower than those of other cryptocurrencies. Ether is an example of an altcoin that reflects higher percentage movements since it has a smaller market than BTC and its market price is lower.

The launch of Medalla, the last test network before the arrival of Ethereum 2.0, will take place next August. According to developer Danny Ryan the platform will be more open to other community participants.

The market in Positive Figures

Beyond the push of the Ethereum cryptocurrency, the overall market shows positive numbers. In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin (1%), XRP (4.3%), Bitcoin Cash (5.4%), Cardano (11.7%), and Litecoin (9.8%) experienced an increase in their price, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Another prominent piece of data on the market is that of total capitalization, which exceeded USD 300 billion, a figure that it had not reached since last February. Besides, the total trading volume also exceeded USD 61 billion in the last 24 hours.

Concerning market dominance, Bitcoin (59.6%), Ether (11.3%), and the stable currency USDT (3.40%) are in the lead.

By Alexander Salazar

Garry Kasparov is known as the best chess player of all time. This champion has expressed his optimism about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

Legendary chess player Garry Kasparov has stated that he sees Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a model of democratization, which can significantly help society.

For those who do not know him, Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, politician, and writer. In this sense, he was World Chess Champion for 15 years between 1985 and 2000. For that reason, connoisseurs of this sport consider him one of the best players of all time.

Furthermore, many know him because he faced the IBM “Deep Blue” supercomputer in 1997.

BTC and Blockchain Are Part of the Solution

Last July, legendary chess player Kasparov highlighted the potential that he sees in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

It is important to know that Kasparov has become an advocate for human rights, digital freedoms, and the renewal of democratic freedoms.

For this reason, under this line of thought, Kasparov considers that Bitcoin gives people greater control over their money, which “the State, corporations or external parties” usually regulate.

He invites to keep in mind that the issue of inflation and its consequences is currently in full swing. He says that the reason for this is that many experts seem to say that it is right around the corner.

In this way, Kasparov notes that what most attracts him to Bitcoin is “the magic number 21 million.” That is the total number of units that the network will issue, as mathematics prove. Meanwhile, the US government “could print another billion dollars.”

Likewise, the chess champion added that “they create all this money, and 85% go to the stock market.” In other words, he says that “it does not find its way to the real economy, basically underpinning the stock market.” He believes that this will lead to the formation of “another great bubble.”

For that reason, according to the legendary chess player, Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are “natural options” for protection against privacy and human rights violations.

He said that he considers “that the constant increase in popularity of the concept of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is inevitable.” The reason is that they are “the response to the change of power from individuals to the States”.

A Long Way to Go

Believing in the potential of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and blockchain technology does not mean blindly following them. For that reason, even though Kasparov was very positive about them, he also mentioned the problems that stem from them.

He noted that people now hear “a lot about the potential disadvantages of cryptocurrencies as they can help criminals steal money.”

However, he also stated that “those fears are overrated.”

To conclude, users should be aware that Bitcoin is not responsible for the crimes that criminals commit. The first cryptocurrency has repeatedly shown that it is the best option for investors.

By Alexander Salazar