Daily crypto news alerts for 23rd December, 2020
🗞Huobi will return to the US next year
Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi returns to the United States a year after the termination of services for residents of the country - the company received a trust license in the state of Nevada.
Huobi Tech announced that it has obtained a Nevada Financial Services Division trust license for its subsidiary Huobi Trust Company. The license will allow the firm to offer custody services in compliance with US legal requirements from early 2021. The move is part of Huobi Group's efforts to launch regulated financial products and services in the region.
Huobi US Exchange (HBUS), another related entity of the Huobi Group, stopped serving US residents at the end of 2019, citing regulatory concerns. At the time, the company said that the shutdown in the United States should be the next step towards bringing the business into compliance with the laws of the country.
“This is a key step forward in the company's ambitious plans to expand brand and product awareness to a global audience, as well as its ongoing initiative to create a suite of regulated financial products and services in the blockchain industry,” said Huobi Tech.
All the big cryptocurrency companies are looking to get a license to operate in the United States. Paxos recently filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the United States of America (OCC) for a license from the United States Federal Bank. Kraken and Avanti also received banking licenses from the Wyoming regulator.
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🗞Binance Names Most Popular Cryptocurrencies Among Large Clients
Binance has released a report on cryptocurrency market trends in 2020, naming the most traded assets in the high-net-worth investor segment.
Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Binance Coin (BNB), and Cardano (ADA) were the most popular among users of the Binance OTC trading service. All these assets are in the top 10 of the market in terms of capitalization: Bitcoin and Ethereum take the first and second places, respectively, XRP - the fourth, ADA - the eighth, BNB - the ninth.
In the futures market, the following pairs attracted the largest trading volumes: BTC / USDT, ETH / USDT, and LINK / USDT. In the spot market, with more than 25% of volumes, BTC / USDT became the leading pair. It is followed by ETH / USDT, ETH / BTC, XRP / USDT and BTC / BUSD.
“Under pressure on traditional financial systems, retail users and institutional investors have turned their attention to cryptocurrencies en masse, which has pushed cryptocurrency markets to new highs,” Binance analysts said. - Much of the growth comes from bitcoin as traders rushed to buy it in order to hedge inflation. While Bitcoin remains the leader, Ether has also shown impressive growth in 2020, thanks in part to the rise of DeFi and the proliferation of decentralized applications based on it. "
Binance, for its part, has recorded record traffic this year. Its total trading volume in the period under review exceeded USDT 3 trillion, and the maximum turnover in one day exceeded USDT 52.6 billion. The calculation took into account spot, futures, options and margin trading, as well as leveraged tokens.
According to Binance analysts, Asian traders remain the main driving force in the cryptocurrency market; they are followed with a slight lag by the Europeans. “It is clear that high levels of awareness and dissemination among the general public allow Asia to maintain a large share of the world's cryptocurrency trading volume,” they comment.
The largest regions in terms of the volume of buying and selling cryptocurrencies for fiat currencies are the UK and Europe. Russia and the CIS are next, and Africa is in third place.
“This year has become one of the most important years for the blockchain and cryptocurrency space in history. High levels of interest in cryptocurrencies from everyday users and institutions have led to capital inflows despite the global pandemic. After a difficult year for many, the future of cryptocurrencies has taken a rare positive outlook, which gives us hope for the next year, ”concludes Binance.
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🗞Bitmain executives reach agreement after year of struggle
A year-long dispute between Bitmain executives has come to an end. Jihan Wu will step down and receive $600 million in compensation.
After months of fighting for control of the company, Bitmain co-founders Jihan Wu and Mikri Zhang came to an agreement. Chinese media reports that Jihan Wu will receive $600 million in compensation, and Zhang will receive full control over Bitmain.
As part of the deal, Wu will also take over the BTC.com mining pool and overseas Bitmain mining centers.
Mikri Zhang, in turn, will receive Antpool and all Bitmain mining farms located in China. Zhang will remain in charge of the artificial intelligence (AI) division and the miner manufacturing enterprise. He pledged to pledge his shares in order to raise the $600 million needed to buy back Wu's stake.
The deal is expected to be ratified at the shareholders' meeting on December 28. However, by then the terms of the deal may have changed.
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🗞Ethereum 2.0 Validators Earn 0.002792 ETH Per Day
According to Flipside Crypto, Etheteum 2.0 validators currently earn about $ 1.7 per day, or about 3.2% per annum.
On average, Ethereum 2.0 staking income for a validator with 32 ETH is 0.002792 ETH per day. At the same time, for a specific day, some validators receive significantly less rewards, and some more.
To participate in staking ETH 2.0, you need to block 32 ETH, so the average daily income of the validator is 0.008725%. They should receive an income of about 3.2% per year, but it will decrease with an increase in the number of validators. In addition, according to Flipside Crypto, 30 validators were excluded from ETH 2.0 staking for incorrect work.
Recall that the zero phase of Ethereum 2.0 called Beacon Chain was launched on December 1. Along with the launch of Beacon Chain, staking became possible - blocking ETH to participate in confirming transactions and generating income. At the time of launch, 881,569 ETH were blocked in the deposit contract, and 21,063 validator nodes are active in the main network.
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🗞Independent Reserve: 18% of Australians own cryptocurrencies
According to a 2020 Independent Reserve study, 18.4% of Australians own cryptoassets. The most popular cryptocurrency among the respondents is bitcoin.
According to the 2020 Independent Reserve Cryptocurrency Index (IRCI), the overall cryptocurrency sentiment in Australia has improved significantly since 2019. According to IRCI, the cryptocurrency index in 2020 was assigned a value of 47, while last year's report it was 42.
In a survey of 1,100 respondents from a variety of demographic groups, 18.4% reported owning cryptocurrencies. Participants between the ages of 25 and 44 most often admitted to owning at least one cryptocurrency.
According to IRCI, Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency in Australia. More than 88% of respondents said they know about BTC. The report also showed equal awareness of bitcoin among men and women, but men were three times more likely to know about altcoins than women.
According to IRCI, men are also more likely to own cryptocurrencies than women. In 2019, that ratio was two to one, but in 2020, the share of cryptocurrency ownership has doubled and is now four to one between men and women.
The coronavirus pandemic has also played a role in shaping cryptocurrency sentiment in Australia throughout 2020. Figures from an IRCI survey show that 34% of respondents have not bought cryptocurrencies due to the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
More than 40% of respondents aged 25 to 34 are optimistic about the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies in the future. However, most young Australians predict that by 2030 BTC will be worth less than $30,000. However, respondents over 45 were inclined to predict prices above $30,000 in the next decade.
As a reminder, according to a recent Genesis Mining survey, most US investors do not believe that BTC will rise to $50,000 by 2030.
