Following a sequence of five days of net outflows, U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) experienced modest inflows on Friday, capturing nearly 900 bitcoins from the market, totaling .7 million. Concurrently, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) teeters on the brink of falling below the 300,000 mark, as it recorded a holding of 304,970.43 bitcoins as of […]
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Secured Finance Launches The First Crypto Bond Market
PRESS RELEASE. December 22nd 2023 – Secured Finance, a pioneering decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, is reshaping the cryptocurrency landscape with its innovative approach to lending and borrowing.
Using novel architecture, Secured Finance has announced the launch of the first crypto bond market that promises to deliver top class access to investors and traders.
A Significant Milestone
Currently no one can trade BTC or Ether bonds because public-chain bonds do not exist.
However, Secured Finance has been able to develop a unique bond market that explores an innovative idea providing users with the very best experience to expand their trading capabilities.
The introduction of a bond market and generation of yield curves by Secured Finance brings substantial advantages to investors such as:
- Predicting Future Interest Rates: The yield curve is a crucial tool for anticipating future interest rate trends, aiding investors in making informed decisions.
- Diversification through Bond Market Access: This new market access allows investors to engage in diversified investment strategies, spreading and managing risks more effectively.
- Impact on Derivatives Market: The yield curve is integral in pricing derivative products, enhancing the complexity and depth of the market.
- Advanced Risk Management: The order book system, combined with the yield curve, facilitates accurate market risk assessments, leading to better risk management strategies
A One-Stop DeFi Ecosystem
Secured Finance stands at the forefront of the DeFi revolution, offering an ecosystem that transcends traditional finance’s limitations. With its Full On-Chain Order Book System, Secured Finance is pioneering a transparent, fair, and efficient financial landscape, catering to the evolving needs of modern investors.
At the heart of Secured Finance’s ecosystem is a robust blockchain infrastructure, ensuring every transaction is transparent and immutable. This approach provides unparalleled clarity in financial dealings, fostering trust among users. The ecosystem encompasses a range of financial services, including a dynamic bond market, offering investors diverse opportunities to grow their portfolios.
Secured Finance’s commitment to market transparency and efficiency is evident in its Full On-Chain Order Book System. This system provides a transparent mechanism for interest rate determination, allowing for a fair and efficient market. By recording every transaction on the blockchain, Secured Finance ensures a level of transparency and auditability unmatched in traditional financial systems.
Integrating Traditional Financial Mechanisms
A critical aspect of Secured Finance’s approach is the integration of traditional financial market mechanisms with blockchain technology. This hybrid model introduces new forms of transactions in the cryptocurrency market, bridging the gap between conventional finance and the emerging DeFi sector.
Innovative Team Backed By Industry Giants
The success and vision of Secured Finance are driven by its exceptional leadership team, spearheaded by CEO Masa ‘Senshi’ Kikuchi. Masa, a veteran with over 17 years of experience in rates and FX derivatives, combines his financial expertise with a deep understanding of software engineering.
His unique skill set, complemented by his role in Japan’s Cabinet Office Task Force, provides the strategic direction necessary to navigate the complex interplay of finance and technology. Under Masa’s leadership, the team, comprising experts in both traditional finance and blockchain technology, is dedicated to bridging the gap between these realms.
Secured Finance’s groundbreaking approach has garnered support from some of the most prominent players in the crypto industry, including CONSENSYS, Protocol Labs, Huobi, GSR, HOF Capital, FinTech Collective, and others. This backing not only adds credibility to the Secured Finance ecosystem but also demonstrates the confidence these leading entities have in its potential to reshape the financial landscape.
Future Prospects
Looking ahead, Secured Finance is committed to continuous innovation and market expansion. With its unique offerings and strategic approach, the platform is well-positioned to lead the next wave of transformation in the DeFi sector, ushering in an era of stability, transparency, and efficiency.
Secured Finance stands as a testament to the transformative potential of decentralized finance, underpinned by strong leadership, innovative technology, and a commitment to bridging the gap between traditional finance and the evolving world of cryptocurrencies.
For media inquiries, please visit:
Email: contact@secured-finance.com
Website: secured.finance
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Secured_Fi
This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.
Mawson Infrastructure Group Deploys 2,600 Bitcoin Miners at Newly Secured Pennsylvania Site
Mawson Infrastructure Group, a publicly-listed bitcoin mining operation, announced on Thursday that it has acquired a new mining site in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. The company detailed that it has swiftly deployed 2,600 bitcoin miners at the location.
Mawson Secures Pennsylvania Site, Deploys 2,600 Bitcoin Miners for Self-Mining Operations
Bitcoin mining companies are experiencing ongoing expansion in 2023. This week, Mawson Infrastructure Group (NASDAQ: MIGI) disclosed the acquisition of a new mining site in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. Mawson has already initiated mining operations in Pennsylvania, having announced the commencement of construction at a new site in Sharon in February. On Thursday, Mawson revealed the signing of a new long-term lease agreement for the recent undertaking in Bellefonte.
At present, the Bellefonte facility is powered by 8 megawatts (MW) of electricity, with 2,600 miners already operational. The newly launched location will function as a fully self-mining facility, with a potential capacity of up to 24 MW. Mawson revealed that upon the completion of the expansion, the new data center will be able to accommodate 7,200 bitcoin mining machines.
“This facility is an ideal opportunity for Mawson to continue to efficiently ramp our self-mining operations to increase bitcoin production,” Mawson’s CEO and president Rahul Mewawalla stated on Thursday. “This new site furthers Mawson’s focus on growth in markets where the energy mix, secure grid, favorable climate, robust communities, and local talent continue to be key drivers of our continued expansion.”
Shares of MIGI rose 1.96% on Thursday; however, they have declined by 20% over the past month. The six-month price statistics indicate a decrease of more than 7%, while the stock has experienced a significant decline of 69% over the past 12 months. In 2023, Bitcoin’s hashrate reached new heights, thanks to the introduction of more efficient mining rigs, the launch of numerous next-generation miners by various firms, and the expansion of companies into new territories. In May, Mawson announced its expansion to Corning, Ohio, which added an additional 1 exahash per second (EH/s) to its mining fleet.
What are your thoughts on Mawson Infrastructure Group’s expansion? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.
Massachusetts-Based Bankprov to End Loan Offerings Secured by Cryptocurrency Mining Rigs
The Amesbury, Massachusetts-based Bankprov, a subsidiary of Provident Bancorp, has announced that it will no longer provide loans secured by cryptocurrency mining rigs. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EX-99.1), Bankprov stated that revenue from its digital asset loan portfolio will continue to decrease as the company has discontinued new loan originations backed by mining equipment.
Bankprov’s Portfolio of Cryptocurrency Collateralized Loans Decreased by 65%
Bankprov disclosed that it holds approximately .2 million in cryptocurrency-collateralized loans, with about .7 million of the debt backed by crypto-mining equipment. Collateralized loans secured by application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining rigs became a popular investment vehicle in 2021, but the crypto winter resulted in significant pressure on the industry. By the end of June 2022, Luxor executive Ethan Vera estimated that about billion in loans backed by mining machines were under financial strain.
Since then, several crypto-mining companies have either sought bankruptcy protection or reorganized tens of millions in debt. For example, at the end of September 2022, the bitcoin mining firm Compute North filed for bankruptcy. Two months later, Core Scientific also filed for bankruptcy. Other mining operations are attempting to restructure debt. Greenidge Generation announced Tuesday that it has reorganized million in debt with B. Riley.
Bankprov stated that it repossessed ASIC mining equipment from undisclosed crypto-mining operations in September. “Our digital asset loan portfolio declined by .3 million, or 65.8%, largely due to paydowns on outstanding lines of credit, the partial charge-off, and repossession of cryptocurrency mining rigs in exchange for forgiving a .4 million loan relationship,” according to Bankprov’s filing.
The financial institution’s EX-99.1 earnings filing added:
The portfolio of loans secured by cryptocurrency mining rigs will continue to decline as the Bank is no longer originating this type of loan.
Another crypto-friendly financial institution, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, announced during the second week of January 2023 that it plans to “exit its crypto-asset-related business.” Metropolitan stated that it holds no exposure to crypto assets, but has business relationships with four customers focused on cryptocurrencies. The bank did not specify an exact date, but said that these relationships and the crypto business will be phased out this year.
What do you think the future holds for banks and the cryptocurrency industry? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Polkadot’s 16th Parachain Slot Secured in Crowdloan Round
On the 6th of May, Polkadot’s most recent auction round came to an end, generating over .8 million and bringing a new platform to the system. The winner of this auction, Polkadex, put up 973,324 DOTs across over 6000 community member donations, demonstrating the incredible community push that was behind this win.
Polkadot is an interoperable blockchain ecosystem that offers high levels of security, user-driven governance, high energy efficiency, and is readily built for rapid scalability. Part of this scalability comes through its interoperable parachains, with many different blockchain systems linking into the central chain.
By winning the most recent parachain slot auction, Polkadex has become the 16th chain to become embedded into Polkadot. Polkadex is built on substrate, providing a user-friendly decentralized order-book exchange where users can participate in high-frequency trading and other DeFi functions.
The COO of Polkadex, Deepansh Singh, comments on their parachain win, suggesting that “Thanks to the Polkadex parachain, we will be able to bridge assets with the Dotsama ecosystem and now users will be able to trade Polkadot ecosystem tokens from across the whole spectrum of parachians,” signaling the core interoperability that Polkadot offers.
Equally, he continued by marking this as a monumental event for the ecosystem itself, “This is a first for Polkadot and a first for DeFi as a whole,” seeing the potential for the expansion of both Polkadot and Polkadex with their parachain win. As Polkadex can now interact with all of the other blockchain assets within this ecosystem, the versatility of application of their platform has been radically increased.
Campaign Strategy
This round of crowdloan saw Polkadex become the very first parachain auction to surpass it’s 90% target cap of million USD, making this the largest in Batch 3. Part of what made this campaign so effective was Polkadex’s rallying within their own community, providing many benefits to users that decided to get involved with the funding opportunity.
Polkadex created an auction cap of 1 million DOT tokens, but offered 2 million PDEX tokens (which is 10% of the total supply). Due to the ratio they created, there was a 2:1 opportunity, with users being able to get at least 2 PDEX tokens for every single DOT token that they added to the campaign effort.
Considering the vast utility of PDEX, allowing users to get discounts on any Polkadex transitions made, lowering trading fees, providing governance voting, and even offering staking opportunities, it’s no wonder that the community flocked to this fantastic crowdloan structure.
Alongside token allocation, Polkadex offered the top 1,000 crowdloan participants the opportunity to get a utility-based NFT, which provides even further discounted fees on all of their Polkadex orderbook transactions once it has launched. These rewards were also distributed through several DeFi platforms that Polkadex partnered with during the event.
Large-scale exchanges like Kraken and KuCoin were all involved, being equally balanced by decentralized platforms like Equilibrium and Parallel Finance, allowing the community to get involved through whichever financial system they prefer.
Commenting on the fantastic community effort, the head of marketing at Polkadex, Dagmara Handzlik, stated that they are “extremely proud of the way the Polkadex community led the charge during the crowdloan campaign.” Following this, she stated that, “Polkadex is proof of how important a strong community is to the overall success of a project, and we could not be more excited to deliver the products we have been building with the eager support of Polkadexers.”
By winning this campaign and obtaining a parachain slot, Polkadex is one step closer to becoming the central trading engine for Web3 and DeFi as a whole, with the Polkadot ecosystem now set to benefit from this comprehensive, cutting-edge crypto trading solution.
How Two Venture Funds Secured 170% Gains From Just One Crypto Bet
- An early investment into Numeraire (NMR) crypto returned 170 percent gains to two venture funds.
- Crypto-focused investment firms Placeholder and Paradigm led an million round in the Numerai blockchain’s native asset on March 21, 2019, when it was trading at around .
- The per token rate of NMR has since surged by 177 percent.
A well-time market call has led two crypto-focused venture funds to earn a whopping 170 percent return in just 15 months.
Placeholder and Paradigm on March 21, 2019, invested million in Numerai, a blockchain-based hedge powered by its native asset, Numeraire (NMR). The investment led to the allocation of about 55 million NMR crypto tokens for the two investment firms.
Data aggregator Messari unearthed the performance of Placeholder and Paradigm in its latest report published Wednesday.
NMR price graph with crucial event updates since the M investment round. Source: Messari
The portal noted that the price of one NMR has surged by 177 percent since their March 2019’s investment round. It used the token’s price performance as a metric to measure Placeholder and Paradigm’s returns until July 2020, stating they may have earned at least 170 percent profits.
“However,” Messari added, “since venture firms usually enter positions before a public announcement, it’s highly likely that Placeholder and Paradigm have made considerably more, potentially upwards of 300% (return with a Feb 21st allocation). If either firm entered on January 21st, they would have returned 488%.”
NMR Crypto Adoption
The NMR/USD exchange rate reached its year-to-date high of circa on May 7, 2020. The rally partially followed a market-wide upside correction after March 2020’s crash. Meanwhile, it also appeared as Placeholder released its Erasure Thesis for providing capital to the Erasure Protocol.
Numerai developed the protocol to allow data analysts to exchange information on stock markets across a decentralized network. The blockchain project placed NMR at the center of its functioning – to serve as collateral on Erasure Bay and Erasure Quant.
NMR price is up 223 percent YTD. Source: TradingView.com
Numerai later raised another million via the sale of NMR tokens to Union Square Ventures with participation from Placeholder, Coinfund, Dragonfly Capital, and others.
What’s Next
Messari noted that venture firms investing in crypto companies and protocols signal that they seek higher liquidity – a feature than is mainly missing in traditional startups. It wrote:
“In venture capital, past performance is indicative of future results which means it’s important to watch how firms are doing and provides potential LPs a track record that can be followed in real-time.”
The portal also added that there is no guarantee of success by investing in Numerai or Erasure. Nevertheless, their successful rebound from the December 2018 bottom points to a brighter market outlook ahead.
The NMR/USD exchange rate was trading 43 percent lower from its YTD high as of Wednesday.
Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash
Canadian Venture Capital Firm Secured $320 Million to Invest in Fintech Startups
n Canadian VC firm secured 0 million to make investments in fintech startups around the world, with a particular focus on Canadan
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Torch Secured: Fidelity Investment’s Crypto Division Joins Bitcoin Lightning Trust Chain
It isn’t a secret that the Lightning Network, a second-layer solution aimed at easing the qualms Bitcoin faces with scalability, has seen monumental levels of adoption as of late. The ecosystem has seen its maximum capacity swell over the 700 BTC milestone, cementing its viability as a system that provides cost-efficient, rapid, secure, and more private transactions.
But this growth hasn’t come unwarranted. Arguably, Lightning’s sudden surge in adoption has much to do with grassroots efforts, like Lightning Pizza and the ever-popular Trust Chain community initiative, launched by HODLnaut just weeks ago.
Related Reading: Buy Pizza With Bitcoin! Crypto Twitter Enamored With Lightning Network App
Fidelity Takes Up The Bitcoin Torch
It appears that lightning has struck once again. This time, Fidelity Investments’ crypto-centric arm, Digital Asset Services, publicly accepted a Lightning Network transaction. On Friday, the cryptocurrency branch of the Wall Street giant, which has approximately trillion in assets under management, joined in on the multi-week Trust Chain fun, accepting a transaction for 3.64 million satoshis.
Fidelity, who has shown a liking to cryptocurrencies and related technologies, is expected to launch its Bitcoin custody offering by March.
We’d be honored if you would pass the #LNTorch to our research arm, Fidelity Center for Applied Tech. We are ready with an invoice for 3.64M sats #LNTrustChain #LightningTorch
— Fidelity Digital Assets (@DigitalAssets) February 22, 2019
For those who missed the memo, Hodlona recently took to his Twitter page to start an interesting community-run initiative. Through the medium of a tweet, Hodl divulged that he wanted Bitcoin users to start a chain through Lightning, whereas participants would send marginally more BTC with each so-called “hop.”
Just hours after Fidelity Digital Assets accepted the torch, it passed it onto the students at Harvard University blockchain club. This is quite fitting, especially considering the hearsay that Harvard’s colossal endowment has allocations in crypto- and blockchain-centric funds.
Harvard’s blockchain club and the aforementioned Wall Street institution join a number of other bigwigs in the cryptosphere that have participated in the Trust Chain, which includes Anthony Pompliano, Klaus Lovgreen, John Carvalho, Marty Bent, leading Bitcoin evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos and Elizabeth Stark of Lightning Labs.
Twitter CEO Enamored With Lightning Tech
Fidelity’s foray into the storm comes after Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter and Square, effectively embarked on a crusade for this scaling solution.
For the seemingly umpteenth time in weeks, Dorsey has surprised the cryptocurrency space. This time, the Bitcoin fanatic tweeted out the announcement of Tippin, a “game-changer application” that allows social media users on Twitter to get BTC tips for their quips. Alongside the posted link was a simple, yet strong message: “This is excellent.” According to the link that Dorsey broadcasted to his following of millions, Tippin is a Chrome and Firefox browser extension that allows for simple and effective Twitter tipping, giving content creators and personalities the ability to monetize their content further.
Just weeks earlier, he too accepted the torch, hoisting it in the Twitter air after he took to Joe Rogan’s podcast to claim that the native currency of the Internet is likely going to be Bitcoin.
Featured Image from Shutterstock
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First Bitcoin Smart Contracts Sidechain Now Secured By 1 in 10 Miners
From miner adoption to a lightning-like network to new partners, RSK, which developed the bitcoin smart contracts sidechain, is building momentum.
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First Bitcoin Smart Contracts Sidechain Now Secured By 1 in 10 Miners
From miner adoption to a lightning-like network to new partners, RSK, which developed the bitcoin smart contracts sidechain, is building momentum.
CoinDesk