Tag: cryptocurrency

Brave Browser and Moving Brave Rewards into a Brave Wallet (or not)

I have just started to do some testing on the Brave Browser. I thought it would be fun to see if it was possible to actually use it consistently and make a little extra income on the side. After using it for a few weeks it didn’t really seem to be paying off. However, the worst part was the inability to move Brave Rewards straight to a Brave Wallet and collect earnings.

Brave Rewards were created first and see to be silo’d outside of other Brave services, such as the Wallet (which is a recent addition).

Currently, if you want to move your Brave Rewards you need to move them either via Uphold or via Gemini (both of which aren’t great choices and yet another account required for little to no reason).

Im hoping in future versions of Brave Rewards and the Brave Wallet they can just simply work together. I would love a world in which I could use my browser (which automatically stops annoying ads and replaces them with a better advertising option in browser that pays me in a cryptocurrency for viewing those ads – then allows me to seamlessly move them into a wallet to either transfer into another currency or put it straight into my bank.

Maybe one day that day will come!

Fractal Raises $35 million for Blockchain Gaming Assets – Justin Kan is back!

Moving assets from game to game is going to be a game changer. However, it really requires the game companies and studios to work together – which they haven’t exactly done well in the past.

Fractal is a very interesting company that can hopefully bring more companies together. I could see this working very well on Steam or by a very large company like Activision Blizzard.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/04/04/blockchain-assets-are-a-new-business-model-for-gaming-says-justin-kan.html

Coinbase Very Close to Acquiring Brazils Largest Crypto Exchange – Mercado Bitcoin

Report came out today that Coinbase (COIN) is currently in talks to acquire 2TMM, owner of Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest crypto exchange.

Mercado Bitcoin has reached 3.2 million customers in 2021, of which 1.1 million were added last year, with a trading volume of $7.1 billion in 2021.

Why it matters:

This gives Coinbase a very strong position in a market in which they have been struggling to gain traction. Brazil and South America overall is going to be a very important market in future for cyptocurrencies.

Katie Haun – Launches Haun Ventures with $1.5 billion in Capital to Invest in Crypto Startups

Katie Haun (who was previously at a16z as the head of their crypto investments division) has started her own venture firm focused on the crypto market and has raised $1.5 billion.

The capital, the largest ever for a solo female founder-led venture, is split across two funds, with the first $500M tranche set out for backing early-stage startups. The remaining $1B “accelerator” fund will focus on late-stage well-established firms across Web3.

Phantom Wallet – Beginner’s Guide Video with Walkthrough

Solana is a protocol that is on the rise. Adoption of Solana in terms of developers and DApps have been increasing over the past few years at breakneck speeds – and this leads to more users needing a good wallet solution – step in Phantom.

Phantom is a a crypto wallet focused towards the Solana ecosystem. Here is a great beginners guide to the Phantom wallet – how to signup and how to use the wallet in browser.

OpenSea Launches OpenSea Ventures – Investing in Startups around the NFT Ecosystem

Opensea have just announced their own Venture fund, Opensea Ventures. The fund will seek investments in startups working in domains such as NFTs, DeFi, blockchain, and others. OpenSea co-founder Alex Attalah will lead the venture fund. 

The fund will focus on startups that produce NFTs, create NFT protocols, produce blockchain and metaverse games, and develop NFT analytics. 

This seems like a natural next step to build out an ecosystem fast and potentially tie down some assets for exclusive sale in the Opensea platform.

Best Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and NFT Explanation Videos I Have Seen – Well Worth the Watch

This has to be one of the most interesting Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and NFT video I have ever seen. It runs through a huge amount of topics and structures and explains them in a very simple way.

After watching the video – there are some points that stand out as great points and others which are kind of irrelevant.

Even after the first 10 minutes there are points in which the previous financial bubble seems to be the exact same structure as what is occuring with NFTs at present. Interesting.

However, this is REALLY WORTH THE WATCH

Circle USDC Stablecoin is 100% backed by cash and US debt – Jeremy Allaire Confirms

There has been a lot of talk recently about Stablecoins – how they are being managed and backed against real world assets.

Today the CEO of Circle – that controls the stablecoin USDC – testifies before the House Financial Services Committee

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire confirmed that Circle’s USDC stablecoin is “100%” backed by cash and US debt. Circle shifted the composition of the reserves backing its USDC in September.

Charles Hoskinson and Cardano Live Stream Updates

Charles Hoskinson is a celebrity in the crypto world. He has been live streaming on YouTube for years now and I have been learning a lot from watching all his videos over the past few months.

If you want to learn about the crypto world and specifically about Cardano and the progress on their platform, then take a look at his YouTube channel.

Coinbase Goes Public – I Expect it to Drop to $30 billion Valuation then Rise Again!

Coinbase went public the other day on the NASDAQ. Coinbase have a very exciting business and I have been trying to learn as much as possible about the Crypto world for the past year or so (but feels like I’m barely scratching the surface).

At one point Coinbase hit $100 billion in valuation, but I suspect that will drop below half over the next few months as the froth from the initial trades die down.

It will be very interesting to see how Coinbase performs over the long term, but it does seem to be a good hedge if you expect cryptocurrencies to be strong in the next 10 years or more.

Prediction – it drops below $30 billion in market cap and then it starts to climb again.

Coinbase Valued at Over $100 billion – You Have to Be Kidding Me (From $8 billion to $100 billion in a year)

Coinbase is looking to go public very soon and its valuation in the secondary markets has just gone over $100 billion.

Coinbase’s valuation over the years:

  • 2016 — $500M
  • 2017 — $1.6B
  • 2018 — $8B
  • 2020 — $100B

Coinbase reported revenue of $530M for 2019 and $691M for the first nine months in 2020. The company posted a net income of $141M between January-September 2020, up from a loss of $30M in overall 2019. Notably, these numbers don’t include 2021, when the Bitcoin price surged more than 90% YTD.