In Argentina, the Crypto Dollar Climbed after the Resignation of the Minister of Economy

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The resignation of the Minister created an atmosphere full of uncertainty due to a possible devaluation of the peso. The crypto dollar is the only asset that could get acquired during the weekend.

This July 2nd, Martín Guzmán resigned as Minister of Economy in Argentina. As usually happens in the South American nation, the resignation generated uncertainty in the country, and this situation would get reflected in the foreign exchange market starting Monday.

Like many other political situations in the nation, the resignation that Guzmán presented to President Alberto Fernández on Saturday may disturb the status of the Argentine currency market.

In the face of this problem, the first measure of savers is to count on a foreign asset, mainly the dollar, to avoid a possible loss of acquisition capacity in case of devaluation.

On Friday, July 1, before the decision became public news, the blue dollar faced an offer registered at ARS 236 for purchase and ARS 239 for sale. However, as of Saturday, the situation seems to have escalated.

Until the foreign exchange market opens again on Monday at 11 a.m. (Argentina time), one of the ways to predict the behavior of savers is the crypto dollar. This crypto dollar counts on the value in pesos at which stablecoins get sold on exchanges and brokers.

If the price of these stablecoins, determined by supply and demand, becomes a referent, the trend is optimistic. The DAI cryptocurrency got listed for purchase at approximately ARS 281 in brokers such as Buenbit, Belo, and Lemon, while in Binance peer-to-peer it gets negotiated from ARS 263.

Argentines Avoid the Peso to Shield their Savings

The current market value of stablecoins differs from the price of the official dollar and the blue dollar. The price boards highlighted the net worth of the said assets at ARS 123 and ARS 130 for purchase and sale in the case of the official market and ARS 236 and 239 in the parallel market.

On Monday, once the markets reopen, the numbers might suffer some changes. However, in the United States of America, July 4 is a free day due to Independence Day; this event would help the Argentine market count on more references on Tuesday the 5th.

Although President Alberto Fernández does not reveal the news, he will accept the resignation and will have to find a replacement for Guzman as Minister of Economy. This situation could mean a drastic change in the economic strategies of the nation, and it could even lead to a devaluation of the national asset.

Given this extraordinary situation, savers intend to shelter themselves by acquiring more stable assets; this move would cause an increase in the supply of dollars. With the markets shut down and even considering the various exchange rate traps, interest in purchasing digital assets that fulfill this function grows, skyrocketing their price.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Predictions about the Crypto Market and Bitcoin in the Second Half of 2022

The price of Bitcoin may have bottomed out and is even getting back in sync with the US stock market trend. Holloway predicted some possible swings to the upside or downside, with fewer sharp drops.

The crypto market has suffered the highest losses over the last six months. After reaching a market capitalization of USD 3 billion in Mid-November, the drop reduced that figure to USD 886 billion, according to CoinGecko.

The Worst Half of the Year the Crypto Market Has Had

This first half of the year has been the worst in the history of the crypto market. For example, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen by 58.8% from the beginning of January. Its second-worst drop occurred in 2018 when it fell by 54.7%.

However, other companies and projects have also suffered the consequences of the worst crash ever seen. Terra (LUNA) lost almost all its capitalization, leading them to take an emergency measure consisting of launching LUNA 2.0 (LUNC).

Another affected project has been Celsius, one of the leading crypto lenders in the market. They had to suspend withdrawals since they could not meet the demand from users requesting their money. The same has happened with other platforms, but this will continue further.

Besides, the law has fallen upon various crypto hedge funds for defaulting on their debt payments. For example, Three Arrows Capital received lawsuits from creditors for not paying them.

What Investors Should Expect for the Next Half of the Year

It is hard to determine what could happen in the crypto market from July to December 2022. Those who have been investing in the crypto market for years know that the crypto winter is starting. There is a predominant bearish trend during this period.

Therefore, it is virtually impossible to predict what will happen accurately in the next half of the year. However, the price of Bitcoin may have bottomed out as the selling pressure has decreased considerably. It is even getting back in sync with the US stock market trend.

Erin Holloway, the president of Prime Trust, is among the many experts who have recently talked about seller fatigue. She said that many people have already rebalanced their portfolios after the sell-off.

The leader of that company predicted there might be some swings to the upside or the downside, with less sharp drops. She added there would be volatility to the upside or the downside until the current trend ends.

The analysis by some short traders still suggests that the price of Bitcoin might drop even further. According to their projections, BTC could reach a new bottom at around USD 13,000.

BTC is trading at around USD 19.08 and has accumulated a 1.2% loss over the last 24 hours. While its daily trading volume is above USD 12.92 billion, its market capitalization is about USD 364.23 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Ethereum (ETH), the second leading cryptocurrency in the market, could release its version 2.0 in the short term. In addition, The Merge upgrade might occur in the coming months, thus raising motivation among the bulls. That may spark a new wave of euphoria in the market.

By Alexander Salazar

Quantitative Information as a Key to a Good Investment in Cryptocurrencies

When dealing with crypto projects, achieving quantitative data is critical.

Quantitative information is objectively measurable, which is why we talk about decisions based on numbers.

Quantitative evaluation is relevant once a project is underway and provides real data that can be checked against competition and expectations.

Tokenomics: Coin distribution, supply, and incentive structure

Token/coin supply can be measured in several ways:

    Max Supply – an explicit limit on the total number of coins/tokens that will exist and will tell you if the token supply is inflationary or deflationary, which has a big influence on the potential value.

    Total Supply – the total number of coins that have been created to date, but are not necessarily spendable, potentially because they have been lost or burned.

    Number of coins in circulation – an estimate of the total number of coins in circulation, that is, those that can be spent. It is a subset of the total supply as it takes into account lost or burned coins.

    Market capitalization – calculated by multiplying the outstanding offer by the current price. Market capitalization is more meaningful than price because it takes supply into account.

Performance: What is the volume and speed of transactions?

This is generally referred to as TPS (Transactions per Second). This data is a great benchmark, but should not be considered the knockout blow.

Different approaches to performance and scalability are constantly being developed, with a strong focus on layer 2 applications, especially within the Ethereum ecosystem, where rollups promise significantly faster transactions and considerably lower fees, leading us to the generation of income.

Income: How much income is generated through commissions?

Cryptocurrency projects are not like traditional businesses in terms of income and cash flow, but commission generation is the closest analog. There are many websites that will show you how much protocols earn in fees but keep in mind that there is tension between users who want low fees and coin owners who want high income.

The win-win scenario is high yield and low fees, along with a token economy that doesn’t erode value through inflation.

Accessible market: What is the size of the opportunity?

Once you know the problem that the project solves, you want to know how many people are crying out for the solution. The market that the project can target is usually expressed in terms of the penetration rate, which is the percentage of the total market that the project is expected to capture.

The accessible market must take into account competition and other dynamic factors such as demographic changes, macroeconomics, and changes in the general adoption of technology (such as smartphones and broadband).

Network: Number of users, validators, and nodes

Although cryptocurrencies are difficult to measure through traditional business metrics, the open-source nature of blockchains provides a wealth of useful data for measuring network health. Some of the main statistics to look for are the following:

    Active users/addresses

    Number of validators

    Hashrate of proof-of-work chains

    Block confirmation time

    Volume and size of transactions

Total Value Locked: How much value have users staked on the project?

The TVL is the strongest indicator that a project’s tokenomics and fee structure are sound because it reflects the added value that users have locked into the project in exchange for performance. Boards such as DefiLlama can be used to filter projects by TVL.

In conclusion, it is important to build a framework for rating projects based not only on quantitative data but also on qualitative information, which can be realistically applied and used.

By Audy Castaneda

Qualitative Information as a Key to a Good Investment in Cryptocurrencies

Establishing a simple framework for rating and classifying the key characteristics of crypto projects is critical.

Although setting out to achieve qualitative information of value may sound a bit intimidating, its meaning is quite intuitive. Qualitative information is subjective, so it is about making decisions based on the qualities that a project may have.

Qualitative factors are more applicable to new projects, because there is no real-world data to measure, while quantitative evaluation is more relevant once the project is underway and provides real data that can be checked against competition and expectations.

Mission and Vision: –        What problem are you trying to solve?

Any new project should have a clear sense of mission, as well as a broader vision of the long-term impact it aspires to.

Mission is a core element of a traditional brand architecture but will likely be part of a crypto WhiteList. It should only be a few sentences long and clearly communicate what the project does, why it does it (usually defining a specific problem it solves), and how it works.

If the foundation for value creation is some cool memes and an outlandish APY (Annual Percentage Yield), it’s unlikely a project will sustain through a bear market to achieve that long-term vision.

Team: What is the quality of the people behind the project?

The first major Blockchain project may have lacked a named founder, but in general, the reluctance of founders to put their name to a project can raise a few important flags, most of them bright red: (a) Are worried about legal repercussions; (b) They have bad intentions, for example, performing a rug pull; and/or (c) They do not want to become a weak point for the project, affecting decentralization

Competition: What is the competitive landscape?

Try to get an idea of ​​the competitive landscape of the sector in question. Does the project have the advantage of being the first? If it’s not the first to market, is it faster in terms of innovation? How do they intend to gain market share? Is your product offering differentiated enough to provide a true competitive advantage?

Social and community presence: quality of commitment and acceptance.

It is not often that projects are started solely through organic growth, so care must be taken to distinguish genuine organic growth on social and community channels from acquired, incentivized, or bot-generated growth.

When quantifying the audiences of social networks and communities, you should not confuse the followers and subscribers, who are only paying attention, with the real users, who are risking their money; what is known as leaving or putting the “skin in the game”.

Decentralization and governance – How are supply and network concentrated?

Decentralization is not an absolute, but rather an aspiration impossible to measure objectively. Try to get an idea of ​​how important decentralization is for the success of the project, either in terms of value generation or user adoption. That it is not just an idea of the project.

The same goes for governance, the collective rules by which the project will move forward. Governance can have significant implications, as seen with projects like MakerDAO or Shapeshift becoming entirely community-driven, but think about how governance relates directly to value.

A good criterion for progressive governance is when the motivations of owners and users overlap rather than conflict.

In conclusion, establishing a simple framework to rate and rank the key features of crypto projects on the basis of qualitative information will definitely help your decision making

By Audy Castaneda

According to Changpeng Zhao, Not All Projects Are Worth Saving

The CEO of Binance presented some thoughts on the effects of the crypto market crash, assuring that the offers to sell seen in the news reach the exchange he runs first.

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), CEO of Binance, highlighted that there are currently many offers to purchase or help crypto entities after the market crash and explained that not all entities are worth saving.

This statement came from Zhao in an interview led by Bankless, in which Zhao presented some views on the effects of the market crash, ensuring that FTX is not the only exchange that has received offers from entities that might go through a difficult moment.

In this regard, Zhao commented that the offers observed in the news usually come to him first, and not all projects are worth saving. He is not interested in working on entities with weak and poor management. He desires to help entities with a bit of liquidity shortage.

On the apparent rivalry between FTX and Binance about acquiring/supporting entities, Zhao explained that this is not a competitive scenario. So both platforms focus on doing what they can to keep supporting the crypto space.

Regarding the latter, Zhao confirmed that FTX has a most prominent presence within the US, so they can focus on aiding companies that work with headquarters within the nation. On the other hand, Binance has a much more international reach, which would allow it to focus its support in different directions.

Binance is Doing Well Despite the Declining Market

Regarding the current status of Binance after all the results of the market crash, Zhao explained that the exchange got prepared for a situation like this, so they have enough reserves to keep complying with their expansion procedures and continue their activities.

The Binance CEO also explained in the interview that the exchange understands the cyclical nature of the markets. They got prepared to manage large cash reserves and take the opportunity to include more talent in their team to consolidate its solid position within the crypto environment and the economy in general.

Cz added that Binance has over 2,000 job openings open for new members and said that Binance wants to achieve the consolidation of about 8,000 people by the end of the year; CZ also spoke about his desire to retire from Binance sooner or later. He expressed in the interview he has been CEO of Binance for five years, and he doesn’t think a CEO should stay in this position for more than ten years.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Increased Trading of Verified Binance Accounts in Latin America

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The offer of money for the accounts happens on social media platforms such as Facebook. Binance profiles could serve to receive funds from thefts and kidnappings.

In social networks such as Facebook and Telegram groups, offers have been increasing for the purchase of verified accounts of the bitcoin exchange and Binance digital assets in Latin America, according to the specialist lawyer in the area of ​​Fintech and digital assets, Ana Ojeda.

Although the acquisition of verified profiles on Binance became usual practice for at least a couple of years in Latin America, the frequency of this kind of illicit offer on social networks has increased exponentially.

Among the reasons that could encourage the purchase of verified accounts is that some people have problems verifying their identity. A more dangerous problem, according to Ojeda, would be the use of verified Binance accounts to carry out illicit activities.

In some ads presented by the lawyer on Twitter, users can offer even USD 1,000 to more than USD 2,000 for Binance accounts.

Why Users Should not sell Binance Accounts

Among the reasons why it is not advisable to sell Binance verified accounts is that the Terms and Conditions of the exchange would suffer a violation. Because of this action, people could get permanently banned from the network.

In addition to the above, attorney Ojeda mentions another, more dangerous activity, especially for the account holder. The platform account might become a tool to launder money with digital assets or receive payments from robberies, kidnappings, and extortion.

On this subject, Binance explained that Binance accounts are personal and non-transferable, so selling them or giving them to third parties is a flagrant violation of the terms and conditions, in addition to the risks and damages they imply for the owner.

Binance is Popular in Venezuela

This illegal market would be gaining a field in countries like Venezuela because Binance has become a popular option for making payments using digital assets. Above all, this is given the population’s distrust of its national currency; the bolivar.

Additionally, through the exchange, you can acquire bitcoin, ether (ETH), Binance coin (BNB), tether (USDT), and Binance USD (BUSD) with Venezuelan bolivars. All these actions happen through its peer-to-peer trading feature.

By: Jenson Nuñez