Gate.io Podcast | Weekly Altcoin News | Sponsored by Ternoa

Introduction

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Welcome back to the Altcoin News Podcasts, I’m Peter. this is the show to get a neutral perspective on some of the latest headlines in DeFi, Metaverse, NFTs, and Big Tech. Brought to you by Gate.io, a centralized exchange with a neutral stance on current events and uphold privacy concerns. Plus, it's got some of the best articles and videos on key things you should know about DeFi.

Before we get in, the information presented in this podcast is to help you stay up-to-date on the latest happening in the crypto space, and nothing presented hereby is financial advice. The news that I cover in this podcast will have the original source at your discretion. Stick by this podcast as I show you how to stay vigilant and learn to do your own research.

But, before jumping on the latest news, make sure to subscribe to this podcast or youtube channel and don’t forget to turn on the notification bell so you’ll not miss any info about the crypto space!

Now, my friends, without further ado.

In today’s headlines

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- Singapore’s Largest Bank to Launch a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk for Retail Investors
- Salesforce employees protest against its NFT ambitions
- Cardano (ADA) Payments Coming To Retails And Merchants All Across Africa
- US President Biden is expected to issue a government strategy to regulate cryptocurrencies, this week
- Elon Musk: Tesla Drive-In To Accept DogeCoin Payments
- Sony and Manchester City FC will create the first Football Stadium in the Metaverse
- 18.36M Ethereum addresses joined the network in 2021

News Updates

Singapore’s Largest Bank to Launch a Cryptocurrency Trading Desk for Retail Investors

DBS Bank is eyeing to launch a trading offering catering to retail investors by the end of 2022.

DBS Bank is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services and the largest bank in Southeast Asia by assets.

The CEO of DBS Bank Piyush Gupta announced this plan during the bank’s fourth-quarter earnings call. He revealed that the bank has started working and experimenting on ways to come out and expand beyond the accredited investor base in a sensible manner. These include the right approach and mechanism about suitability and gauging potential for fraud.

Gupta also mentioned that DBS will focus on convenient accessibility to the retail-focused digital asset trading platform for its existing customer base in the first half of the year.

As of now, the users are required to contact a banker via a call to place an order for crypto. DBS aims to make the process online and self-service by facilitating instant online deposits and transactions without depending on intermediaries.

DBS has yet to announce additional details about the platform, such as how you would be able to transfer digital assets between providers and private wallets. But the bank has expanded the trading hours of the desk to be 24/7 to match the tempo of crypto.

In early 2021, DBS had first started the digital assets trading desk for professional investors, DBS Digital Exchange (DDEx), backed by SGX, Singapore's largest derivatives and asset exchange. The trading volume of DDEx in Q4 2021 was more than double the previous three quarters. Totally, its full-year trading volume was about $819 million.

Currently, the platform offers exchange services with four cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ripple (XRP), and four fiat currencies – SGD, USD, HKD, and YEN. DBS said it plans to add more digital assets and tokens this year.

source:
https://cryptopotato.com/singapores-largest-bank-to-launch-a-cryptocurrency-trading-desk-for-retail-investors/
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/02/14/dbs-plans-to-launch-retail-digital-assets-trading-desk-by-year-end/

Salesforce employees protest against its NFT ambitions

Salesforce told its employees in early February that it's planning a series of NFT-related initiatives. However, over 400 employees around the world have signed an open letter raising concerns about the environmental impact of NFTs.

Salesforce’s NFT plan includes launching an NFT Cloud that could help people create NFTs and list them on marketplaces. Employees say the NFT cloud violates the company's "core values", which refers to trust, customer success, innovation, equality, and sustainability.

Salesforce positions itself as a leader in sustainable business. But NFT takes a lot of energy to sustain the blockchain activities associated with the tokens.

Salesforce employees are concerned about the "unregulated, highly speculative" nature of financial assets of NFT. "The amount of scams and fraud in the NFT space is overwhelming," the employees wrote. In January, OpenSea, which bills itself as "world's first and largest NFT marketplace," admitted that "over 80%" of NFTs minted using its free minting tool "were plagiarized works, fake collections, and spam."

A Salesforce spokesperson responded that the company welcomes employees' feedback and is holding a listening session with employees next week.

Salesforce would not be the first company to announce some sort of NFT-related initiative, only to be met with employee backlash. Early in February, Ubisoft employees were actively pushing back against the company's NFT plans.

NFTs have blown up in popularity over the past year, a Jan. 2022 report from Chainalysis, a leading blockchain analytics company, found that in 2021 at least $44.2 billion in crypto was sent to the types of Ethereum smart contracts associated with NFTs. Big companies are also cashing in on the craze such as Adidas, who made $23 million during its first NFT drop.

Source:
https://www.engadget.com/salesfore-employees-protest-nft-ambitions-153913396.html
https://mashable.com/article/salesforce-employees-protest-nft-plans

Cardano (ADA) Payments Coming To Retails And Merchants All Across Africa

COTI has announced a partnership with World Mobile to enable global merchants and retailers to accept Cardano (ADA) for the payment of goods and services.

About COTI and ADA Pay
COTI is the world's first platform optimized for creating price-stable coins. It partnered with Cardano’s stablecoin hub Ardana to bring decentralized stablecoin payments to ADA Pay last year. And this payment initiative will be conducted on ADA Pay, starting in Africa and expanding to all undeveloped areas.

ADA Pay, which released on the Cardano Shelly mainnet in April 2021, is Cardano's payment gateway that allows merchants to accept payments on ADA, Cardano's native token. It has been adopted by various non-government organizations (NGOs) and charities, over 100,000 ADA in donations have been processed so far.

COTI disclosed that aside from the ability to use ADA for payments, it will also integrate the first algorithmic stablecoin on the Cardano blockchain, token symbol $DJED, into the World Mobile ecosystem.

Yair Testa, Head of Business Development at COTI said this partnership will start with the integration of ADA Pay and has the potential to expand to the integration of $DJED and $COTI, native token of the stablecoin platform.

About World Mobile
World Mobile is the first mobile network operator built on blockchain. Under the partnership, businesses that are connected to the World Mobile network are able to use the ADA Pay platform to accept Cardano payments.

According to World Mobile, their network will process all of its transactions in the settlement layer on the Cardano blockchain, and also in the World Mobile Chain, a Cardano side-chain.

World Mobile’s first use case is in East Africa and aims to bring millions online over the coming years. Charles Barnett, Chief Business Officer at World Mobile, adding that this cooperation will be instrumental in fostering a better and more connected tech-savvy Africa while bringing ADA Pay to the rest of Africa and the world.

Source:
https://www.engadget.com/salesfore-employees-protest-nft-ambitions-153913396.html。。。。。
https://medium.com/cotinetwork/coti-and-world-mobile-are-partnering-up-to-find-ways-to-connect-the-unconnected-7fa048f2e8d8

US President Biden is expected to issue a government strategy to regulate cryptocurrencies, this week.

Presidential Action Over CryptoCurrencies Regulation
This week could have a huge impact on the crypto world. According to Yahoo Finance, Biden is expected to issue a cryptocurrency regulation executive order in the upcoming days. This Presidential action should include regulation strategies over cryptocurrency adoption and it could also influence the development of the central bank digital currency (CBDC). The day of the order’s publication is not yet clear, however it could be delayed because of the current Ukraine-Russia political situation.

Through Skepticism and Optimism
During the last couple of months a lot of countries have started to analyze the cryptocurrencies space: some of them are beginning to adopt and regulate them, as El Salvador has done, others seem to be skeptical also because influenced by the recent IMF statements which considers digital currencies as a risk to the financial stability and integrity of the countries, but also a threat to consumer protection.

Overview on Biden’s Executive Order
Therefore, according to what has emerged from the Federal Reserve report, published in January 2022, the US seems to take a new direction over the cryptocurrency adoption.

Thus, the White House may have the intention to come up with a government strategy over the crypto regulation, in order to also encourage the development of the CBDC. However, before taking a decision, Biden would like to have clarity over the growth of the new digital finance domain, by charging several institutions to report the risks and dangers regarding the adoption of digital currencies. Further analysis will include protection warranties for consumers, for businesses and for investors. These investigations will be carried out by governmental organizations such as the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commissions and others.

Consequences?
Certainly, any order issued by Biden will not only affect the future of cryptocurrencies in the US but could also promote collaboration with other countries that are currently considering the development of their own currency as a digital one.

Helpful links:
-https://www.pcgamer.com/president-biden-wants-to-know-more-about-cryptocurrencies-before-creating-a-digital-dollar/
-https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-order-on-crypto-oversight-expected-next-week-source-says-173452499.html
-https://news.bitcoin.com/us-president-biden-issue-executive-order-on-crypto/

Elon Musk: Tesla Drive-In To Accept DogeCoin Payments

Elon Musk and Dogecoin keep being under a spotlight in crypto space.

On 14 January 2022, Elon Musk announced on Twitter that many Tesla merchandise products could be bought through one of the most popular meme-coins, the Dogecoin.
When the billionaire published the tweet, the cryptocurrency space spotlight turned on the meme-coin which enjoyed an increase in market price.

The acceptance of Dogecoin as a payment method doesn’t seem to have stopped only with the merchandise products available on the car company’s website, as emerged from Elon Musk’s tweet, published on Friday 19 January 2022.

Tesla Drive-In Accepting DogeCoin Payments?
The news emerged from a series of tweets between Ryan Zohoury, the 19-year-old Tesla Console developer (Tesla’s first app store), and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk.

The young creator shared on Twitter some of his shots of the new SuperChargers inauguration, highlighting all his enthusiasm. Elon Musk promptly replied to Zohoury’s posts, announcing his intention to open a futuristic drive-in restaurant in the Hollywood area and, as specified in a second post by the billionaire, payments can also be made in DogeCoin.

Still, some users ask Musk for more details about his statement, this because he would not have specified whether payments in DogeCoin will be accepted by the future restaurant or only by the new Santa Monica’s Tesla charging station. Thus, there is still little clarity on Musk's statement.

Tesla Influence on DogeCoin Future
As we saw last weekend, the crypto market suffered an important dip: with Bitcoin currently valued at $37,704. Although DogeCoin saw an anomalous surge from $0.1417 to $0.1450 in less than half an hour after the tweets started trending, it is currently being traded at 0.13 after the big decline. Hard to say whether the event was a consequence of Elon Musk’s announcement or not, but it’s very likely that the continued support of the CEO and Tesla’s further strategies regarding the use of the meme-coin as payment method could generate a lot of attention towards DogeCoin, by increasing its popularity and market interests.

Useful links:
-https://news.bitcoin.com/elon-musk-dogecoin-accepted-teslas-new-futuristic-diner-drive-in-theater/
-https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/crypto/tesla-to-accept-dogecoin-as-payment-for-supercharging-station-says-elon-musk-7781371/

Sony and Manchester City FC will create the first Football Stadium in the Metaverse

Manchester City interest in the crypto world is not something new:
Manchester City FC, the famous English football club, has always been a supporter of technological development by joining many innovative partnerships. The team's interest in cryptocurrencies is nothing new, in fact, Manchester City offers its supporters the possibility to invest in fan-tokens that allow users to influence the decisions of the club, receive VIP rewards, access to promotions, games and other bonuses.

Sony & Manchester City Partnership
Recently, one of the main collaborations signed by the English club is certainly the three-year partnership with the well-known Japanese technology company, Sony. The goal of the collaboration is the creation of an international digital community that allows fans to interact with the club and with each other within the metaverse. The heart of the Manchester City metaverse being the virtual replica of the Etihad Stadium.

Etihad Stadium & Hawk-Eye Technology
The developers of the Japanese company have already started to map the stadium in order to start the project design of the arena. For the creation of the stadium Manchester City will use the images and skeletal tracking technologies created by Hawk-Eye, a company of the Sony group.
Thus, the goal is to create a central hub in the metaverse that can offer the opportunity for Citizens fans to watch live matches of their favorite team while not being in Manchester, all from the comfort of home.

Nuria Tarre, Manchester City Football Group CMO’s statement about the metaverse project
Although it is almost utopian to think of attending sports matches directly in the metaverse, it seems that things may begin to enjoy accelerated development. As stated by Nuria Tarre, Chief Marketing & Fan Engagement Officer of city Football Group, the English team wants to consider the metaverse as an opportunity for fans who can not reach the stadium to enjoy the experience of attending the match of their favorite team, recreating the full match and ensuring a free choice of angle: each user can choose to watch the game from any angle.

Will other Football teams follow Manchester City’s direction towards a more digital sport experience?
With this initiative, City will be the first football team in the world to build a virtual stadium in the metaverse, ensuring its fans streaming services but also the opportunity to buy branded material within the virtual world.

Considering that more and more teams continue to offer their fans the opportunity to buy fan tokens, examples are PSG, Juventus, Barcelona and many more, one may begin to assume that the world of football will integrate with the metaverse sooner than we think.

Useful links:
-https://www.mancity.com/news/club/manchester-city-sony-partnership
-https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/man-city-world-first-football-stadium-metaverse-1469810
-https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/liverpool-man-city-23154090

Sponsor Summary

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Coin Capsule (Formerly ternoa)
Before I continue with an Ethereum deep dive, I must tell you about today’s sponsor, Coin Capsule, also known as Ternoa blockchain.

Ternoa’s founder Mickael Canu, created this blockchain with the goal of giving the ability to transfer his memories to his children, years in the future. Hence its main feature is aptly named ‘time capsule,’ to encourage users to make memories without giving away their rights to keep the NFTs private.

A large key to this mission was incorporating NFTs as the vehicle for the data that will be transmitted, offering users a fully decentralized and completely secure form of data handling. Data and files stored in an incumbent NFT are only accessible to the owner, giving Ternoa’s users the ability to create exclusive content while having full custody.

Ternoa’s main competitors are iCloud and Google Drive, both of which are centralized entities with data storage services that may not last. That is why they created a one of a kind data storage service, offering long-term data storage and secure transmission of the data by using an NFT as the vehicle.

While the Ternoa team is working to bring their network to the mainnet, the stats on their testnet are already showing signs of promise with the total of finalized blocks standing at 1.9 million that have minted around 230K NFTs. There are currently 195 nodes running on the Ternoa blockchain, and the daily transaction volume of the $CAPS token is at around $350K USD.

It’s token $CAPS is trading at 0.057, up 4 times since its IEO on May 3rd, 2021, but is down by 75% from its height at 0.232. I’ll link the relevant must-reads in the de_script_ion below, always remember to do your own research folks.

Deep Dive

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18.36M Ethereum addresses joined the network in 2021

Intro:
There is no doubt that Ethereum has laid the groundwork for taking smart contracts to the next level, opening the doors to hundreds of new applications that may be able to improve people's living conditions. Since its inception it has had a constant and consistent development in terms of technology and adoption, leading it to be, at least for now, the (almost) undisputed king of DeFi. According to on-chain analytics platform Defi Llama, Ethereum currently has $ 124.24 billion in TVL . Staggering numbers when you consider that the cryptocurrency market has not yet reached its full maturity! In reality, it is still in an early stage, so it has a lot of room to grow, especially when we consider that Ethereum's direct competitors are becoming more and more efficient. In fact, many more investment companies are focusing on growing blockchain projects whose purpose is to diversify the DeFi and smart contract landscape in general. The battle has probably just begun.

Main:
Speaking of recent numbers again, the Ethereum network appears to have gained 18.36 million addresses with a balance greater than zero in 2021. This translates into an astonishing growth rate of 1.53 million new addresses per month. But a very interesting fact to understand the trend of the real use of the Ethereum network is that there has been a decrease in the proportion of active addresses on the network. They peaked at 1.66% on April 25, but have since fallen to 0.86% on February 15, a -48.19% (almost half!). The reasons for this decrease in activity could be many, starting from purely technical ones to end up with speculative ones. Let's try to see some of them.

Technical factors.
First of all we must say that the last two years are proving to be fundamental for Ethereum: the long-awaited transition from the “old” Proof of Work to the “new” Proof of Stake is a rather complicated and delicate path. Periodic updates and the additions of new features aim to finally make Ethereum more scalable and, consequently, try to solve the blockchain Trilemma. Since December 2020, ETH holders have been given the opportunity to become validators and therefore participate in the network consensus algorithm, depositing 32 ETH. Since these funds are locked until the transition to Proof of Stake is complete, they do have a weight in the global TVL, but are not really considered an “active part” in portfolios.

Gas fees.
This is a very important factor to consider when interacting with DeFi on Ethereum. The more a network is used, the greater the chance that the cost of the transaction fee to validate blocks will increase. This is the classic problem to face when dealing with non-highly scalable blockchains. One of the main reasons why DeFi exists is certainly to make the world of finance accessible to everyone, without distinction. Unlike traditional banks, DeFi protocols allow people to have access to a range of financial instruments (such as borrowing or lending assets) quickly and inexpensively, without intermediaries. This is why the fee costs’ issue is a topic that should not be underestimated. For DeFi to continue to make sense, blockchain protocols must be scalable enough to ensure transactions at relatively low cost. It doesn't make much sense to spend (at best) between $30 and $40 on a simple token swap, right?

The dizzying increase in the cost of Ethereum gas fees in recent months and years has most likely made small and medium users desist from operating on its platforms, encouraging them to consider alternative solutions.

Direct competitors.
Alternative solutions are developing at the speed of light, in some cases by innovating and improving products that already exist in the protocols developed on Ethereum.

When Binance launched its BSC in May 2020, it was immediately noticed how it was trying to oppose the Ethereum blockchain by promoting itself as a "highly scalable”, “efficient" and, above all, "with negligible fee" solution. One of the most discussed topics of that period centered on the comparisons between BSC and Ethereum and whether the former had any chance of overriding the latter. BSC currently ranks third for TVL, at around $ 13 billion, surpassed by Terra's growing blockchain.

Terra currently ranks second for TVL with around $ 16billion and “only” 18 active protocols (Ethereum has 534 and BSC 313). The Terra ecosystem is very interesting, whose goal is to create a decentralized monetary system and connect many different use cases to it, based on the intrinsic relationship between its LUNA token and its decentralized UST stablecoin.

Other notable competitors are trying to climb the DeFi hierarchy by testing and releasing new products, such as Polkadot and Algorand.


Listen the whole episode:

https://gateio.buzzsprout.com/1825729/10128165-ada-pay-dogecoin-adoption-metaverse-football-stadium