Monat: Oktober 2020

As it stands now, PayPal’s crypto drive is more about keeping regulators happy than providing crypto services to users.

PayPal has confirmed that the company will offer crypto payments on its global platform in the coming months.

The launch will begin in the United States, where a conditional PayPal called Bitlicense of the New York Financial received has. The regulator has the program last summer launched .

The devil is in the details

For crypto, this news is something big. But Bitcoin Champion is being watched closely. The conditional bit license means that conditional licensees must partner with companies that have a full bit license (in this case that company is Paxos). This will then act as a kind of mentor. As the NYDFS explains, Conditional Licensees may also be subject to „enhanced review as to the scope and frequency of testing or otherwise.“

The conditional license is valid for two years. A renewal or upgrade to a full Bitlicense depends on the decision of Superintendent Linda Lacewell.

PayPal representatives did not want to comment on the form in which an intensified check would take place. Cointelegraph should speak to NYDFS about this. The representatives of the NYDFS did not want to specify exactly what an „intensified check“ would mean for PayPal.

The representatives of Paxos, however, did not want to comment on their role in the conditional Bitlicense from PayPal. This means that all three organizations made this news public, but did not want to go into the details regarding the regulatory agreement. It’s worrying when they don’t want to do this even when asked.

Crypto is what crypto does

Nobody knows which hurdles PayPal, with its more than 340 million users worldwide, still has to overcome in order to satisfy the regulatory authorities. But the company will clearly have to do everything in its power to prevent crypto from behaving like crypto on its platform. Customer data collection, which PayPal has always done, is a problem here.

The PayPal wallet is not only used for storage, but also as a silo. According to the company’s FAQs on cryptocurrencies, users will neither have private keys nor be able to transfer their holdings to other wallets:

„Currently, you can only hold the cryptocurrency that you buy from PayPal in your account. In addition, the cryptocurrency in your account cannot be transferred to other accounts with or outside of PayPal.“
What does that mean? The coins do not belong to the user on PayPal. Other large companies will probably have to comply with this standard in order to work in the crypto sector.

For some time now one has heard of regulatory „whitelists“. These are crypto exchanges and companies that want to adhere to strict regulations and that can only do business with approved wallet addresses. This practice is not yet enshrined in law.

With PayPal it could come to the point that the regulatory authorities only allow crypto on the major platforms if these currencies cannot be transferred to other platforms. This is a more aggressive measure than a whitelist. This means that you are completely dependent on third parties, there is no risk of peer-to-peer transfers, and you cannot interact with people who cannot already open PayPal accounts. That doesn’t really correspond to the crypto idea. At least as it is now.

Det bullish rally i slutningen af ​​juli var ret vigtigt for Ethereum. Værdiansættelsen sprang over $ 250, $ 300, $ 350 og overgik til sidst $ 400 efter mere end 2 år. Ethereums rally var så dominerende, at optionshandler forventede, at Ethereum skulle tilskrive mere volatilitet end Bitcoin selv.

ETH-BTC 3 måneders realiserede volumspredning den 27. juli var en ringe 6,5%, som steg op til 36% den 25. september. Overraskende nok har volumspredningen bevaret det samme niveau i de sidste 3 uger.

Ved første øjekast kan den konsistente realiserede volumspredning mellem Ethereum og Bitcoin skyldes manglende skub og træk mellem Ethereum og Bitcoin-optionshandlere. Selvom diagrammet kan virke som en anomali, er det vigtigt at bemærke, at mellem 25. september og 15. oktober (dvs. når spredningen var 36%), resulterede både ETH og BTC i perioder med både pumpe og dump.

Men hvis det realiserede volatilitetsdiagram for ETH-BTC observeres i en 1-måneders, 6-måneders tidsramme, kan der ses et åbenlyst fald siden starten af ​​oktober.

Det er klart, at Ethereum langsomt forventes at være mindre ustabilt i forhold til Bitcoin Up, den kortsigtede volatilitetsstruktur og den halvårlige tendens var ret gennemsigtig. Derfor kan det udledes, at den konsistente voltspænding ved 36% skyldes tidsrammen for spredningen. Volatilitetsspændet beregnet mellem Ethereum-Bitcoin over en periode på 3 måneder syntes afbalanceret på grund af ensartede stigninger og fald, hvorfor 3M vol spændingen ikke ændrede sig i denne handelsperiode.

Nu i betragtning af, at tendensen bevæger sig mod højere Bitcoin-volatilitet, vil markedet muligvis snart opleve en nedgang i selve 3-måneders diagrammet, hvor vol-spændingen falder til under 36%.

Ser man på den implicitte volatilitetsspredning mellem ETH-BTC, viste diagrammet en stigning, der antydede, at Ethereums volatilitet adskiller sig yderligere fra enhver indvirkning på Bitcoins prisvariation. Mens aktivet muligvis stemmer overens med en divergens, var det kollektive optionsmarked stadig domineret af Bitcoin-optioner som bemærket i de realiserede spredetabeller over vol.

For Bitcoin Options er det en velkommen pause, da ETH-optioner har haft stor åben interesse i løbet af de sidste par måneder. Med faldet i Ethereums volatilitet kan Bitcoin Options muligvis være marquee-handel igen.

September was not a positive month for crypto fund investors. But it was also a bad month for other investments such as the Selic Treasury and Ibovespa.

Treasury Selic, cryptoactive funds approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), and the stock market suffered a strong negative impact in September.

Although the reasons for this negative impact cannot yet be determined, the month was the worst for national cryptoactive funds.

In Brazil there are two types of funds with exposure to cryptoactives. One is intended for the general public and in which a maximum of 20% is allocated in cryptomorphs.

In this case, the fall observed in September was from 1.85% to 2.35%.

The fund for professional investors, on the other hand, which can have 100% exposure to cryptomorphs, had a negative variation of 2.35% to 13%.

Cryptomoedas and Ibovespa

But September was not only bad for funds with Bitcoin Optimizer allocation, the period was also marked as the third worst month for Ibovespa shares in 2020.

The drop was -5.23%, and there was also a negative impact on the Selic Treasury – considered the most traditional public security, according to iHUB Investimentos.

„As for the stock market: In the first quarter, they occupy the first two positions with negative figures: February with -8.50% and March with -30.18%,“ comments iHUB’s founding partner, Paulo Cunha.

Treasury Selic

In September, Selic treasury papers were being traded at a discount on the secondary market for lack of buyers interested in the paper.

„Funds investing 100% in these papers had a return of 0.04% in September, compared with 0.18% in the CDI, a considerable difference,“ comments Cunha.

Another point to note is that the market points out that this distortion should be momentary, since it is natural that the papers return to the SELIC and CDI rates.

„The background to this movement is the fear of the fiscal and reform agenda with the government. The market is beginning to put the price at such a level that interest rates may no longer remain at 2% per year with SELIC for a considerable time, as was predicted in August,“ Cunha adds.

Treasury Selic or Bitcoin

According to Cunha, despite the September results, the Selic Treasury is considered a natural emergency reserve.

Thus, for him, the title has a very low risk of default and also of showing a negative return on a monthly basis.

In addition, Cunha points out that he has high liquidity to be able to recover the values, within one day, if he needs the money.

„September was an unusual month, as it showed contradiction about the benefits of the Treasury Selic, due to the threat of the scenario of strong risk aversion and concerns about government accounts,“ he explains. For the portfolio, it is generally recommended between 5% and 30% of investment in this type of application, adds Cunha.

For the former vice-president of JPMorgan in Switzerland, Andrey Nousi, Bitcoin is this safe haven in times of market uncertainty.

„The advance of cryptomorphs is notorious. It went through a bubble in 2017 and 2018 and is now much better, once that irrational euphoria has passed. And now it is being much more accepted even by big players,“ notes Nousi.

The former vice-president of JPMorgam added that Bitcoin is one of the options to preserve the value of money, as well as gold and the dollar.

„When you no longer want to be exposed to Risco Brasil, you send your money out. Now, what will you do with that money? There are a lot of opportunities, like gold, dollar and bitcoin,“ he said.

En Europol-rapport har avslöjat att endast 1,1% av Bitcoin- användningen är kopplad till kriminell aktivitet, en minskning med 94,5% från 2013. Denna enorma förändring beror på framväxten av Bitcoin-handel under åren sedan dess, men det är inte alla goda nyheter – Rapporten säger också att sekretessmynt, plånböcker och annan relaterad teknik utgör ett ”största hot” mot brottsbekämpande myndigheter i Europa och att cyberbrottslingar blir smartare i hur de hanterar olagligt erhållen kryptovaluta .

Europol – Cyberbrottslingar blir smartare

I den nya rapporten om organiserad brottslighet på internet, kallad Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) 2020, säger Europol att kryptovalutor „fortsätter att underlätta betalningar för olika former av cyberbrott“, med ransomware som den primära metoden och att förövare av sådana brott har utvecklat sin praxis för att använda sekretessinriktade mynt och tjänster för att undvika myndigheter.

Dessa „integritetsförbättrade myntkombinationer“ som Wasabi och Samurai blir mer populära bland illegala kryptovalutanvändare, trots att Chainalysis påstår sig kunna spåra transaktioner in och ut ur några av dessa blandningstjänster. Europol konstaterar att kryptovalutor har blivit „standardbetalningsmetod för … ransomware och andra utpressningssystem“ på grund av deras „tillförlitlighet, irreversibilitet för transaktioner och en upplevd grad av anonymitet“.

Myndigheter över hela världen har försökt ta itu med detta fenomen de senaste månaderna genom att anställa blockchain-analysföretag för att försöka hjälpa dem att spåra medel som skickas med hjälp av sekretessförbättrande teknik.

Laglig Bitcoin-användning dvärgar olaglig användning

Europols rapport var dock inte helt dåliga nyheter för kryptovaluta, eftersom de avslöjade att legitim användning av kryptovalutor har vuxit mycket snabbare än olaglig användning:

År 2019 var den överväldigande majoriteten av bitcoin-transaktioner kopplade till investerings- och
handelsaktivitet, så trots betydande missbruk motsvarar kriminell aktivitet endast 1,1% av de totala transaktionerna.

Enligt Europols egna siffror motsvarar detta en nedgång på 94,5% från 2013, då webbplatser som Silk Road var det främsta användningsfallet för kryptovalutor. Bitcoin-handel är så populär att den dvärgar olaglig användning, något som förespråkar kommer att vara mycket nöjda med tanke på Bitcoins fortsatta negativa uppfattning i hela världen.