FINTECH | CRYPTOCURRENCY
Three cryptocurrencies hogged the headlines this past week — Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), and Polygon (MATIC). Everyone who’s anyone in the crypto universe is talking about these altcoins
What’s Trending in the Cryptocurrency Universe
This article is an overview of what is trending in the crypto universe at the moment (ATM).
ATM, Ethereum, is by far the most popular altcoin out there. With the “Merge” on schedule for 15 or 16 September, it’s one of the top investment tools available.
There are more and more new coins coming into the market every day. It can be challenging to determine which coins are best, why they’re worth your investment, and which up-and-coming altcoin could make a profit or prove to be a bust.
XRP from Ripple Labs has been picking up some momentum lately. It is top ten cryptocurrency with a sustainable project.
Many do not realize that XRP was developed to transfer funds worldwide without paying the massive fees charged by banks. Further, depending on the destination, it could take weeks for the receiver to get the money in their account.
Banks charge $50 for the service, and it takes days. Western Union charges $30, and it’s a little quicker. PayPal charges just $4.99 and delivers it straight to the receiver’s account in minutes.
However, each of those makes money from the currency exchange. With XRP, it costs about 25 cents to transfer any amount to the receiver’s wallet.
Finally, MATIC is a lesser-known altcoin outside those who are really into cryptocurrency, but it is starting to reach the radar of others recently. It is one to keep an eye on in the coming weeks and months, though, as decentralized applications (DApps) orders are up 400% on the platform.
All three of these cryptocurrencies have been making some waves this past week.
What’s up with the Ethereum Merge?
The Goerli test is a performance measure test that was successfully performed on ETH last week, which provides proof that ETH can function with Proof of Stake (PoS) rather than Proof of Work (PoW).
Therefore, everything seems to be a go for the Merge to finally happen on ETH 15 or 16 SEP. But stay tuned; we’ve heard about the Merge for nearly eight years.
This news has positively affected the crypto market for ETH, Ethereum Classic (ETC), FLUX, and other PoW altcoins. Once ETH stops using PoW, miners must move to other PoW platforms to continue mining. The most likely is ETC.
The Merge was formerly called the “docking” by ETH. The current Ethereum Mainnet will “merge” with the Beacon Chain to provide a PoS system for ETH to reduce the drain on our ecosystem.
The Merge will cut emissions by 90 percent, daily block compensation will diminish from 12800 to 1280 ETH, and inflation will drop from 4.3% to 0.43%, which could be seen as a 3X halving.
ETHEREUM MERGE — The Most Anticipated Event in Crypto Explained
“The Ethereum Merge, despite being one of the most significant blockchain upgrades in the history of cryptocurrency, is still a poorly understood topic.” — Finematics.
If Bitcoin’s halving creates a bull run, can the ETH Merge do one better?
This can be particularly helpful in the world of cryptocurrency when it comes to smart contracts and other blockchain applications.
The Goerli test likely proved the Ethereum Merge will work as predicted. The final test will be around mid-September when ETH 2.0 is brought online.
Before the 14th and BTC’s call/put options expiration, ETH had been up more than 100% since mid-June up over $2,000 per coin.
The low and high during the last seven days were nearly $500 different, which is huge considering there are 49 billion ETH in circulation.
The BTC drag and the Merge boost have been at war recently, with the bears pulling its price down despite the euphoria over the Merge finally happening.
There are still many negatives hanging around — left over from the May UST/LUNA disaster. LUNA basically went from $109 to pennies.
That doesn’t just go away in a few short months — especially with threats of bankruptcies and other disasters.
However, ETH should continue to grow after the Merge, particularly if “gas fees” come down in price.
ETH Data Current as of 21 AUG ‘22
“The live Ethereum price today is $1,621.28 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $18,379,533,258 USD. We update our ETH to USD price in real-time. Ethereum is up 0.02% in the last 24 hours. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #2, with a live market cap of $197,884,927,060 USD. It has a circulating supply of 122,054,648 ETH coins and the max. supply is not available.
Why So Much Volatility in Ripple (XRP)?
Primarily because XRP is making headway in its Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit. Of course, nothing is for sure until it is settled or decided in court.
However, the more motions and rulings that go Ripple’s way, the more likely the SEC will settle out of court. They probably won’t want to get embarrassed. Plus, since this is the first of its kind, it will set a precedence for all future suits of the same specific nature.
XRP: YOU WOULDNT BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING!
The lawsuit, initiated in December 2020, has ambled on for nearly two years. However, Ripple Labs’ lawyers have exposed SEC failings and the weak premise that the XRP token was a “security” when it was initially created as a medium to permit peer-to-peer (P2P) and banks/businesses to transfer money quickly at lower rates.
Further, Ripple never had an initial coin offering (ICO) for XRP, as many other altcoins that have not been sued by the SEC have.
Many experts see the case going to Ripple, which should positively affect its price. However, XRP has a maximum supply of 100 billion, and nearly half of that (49,377,587,823) is already in circulation and factored into the coin’s price and cap, which keeps its price from extreme moves in either direction.
Remember, XRP was created for transfers, so “extreme volatility” would be a deterrent for that use. Do Kwan, the created of US Terra UST/LUNA learned that too late, and it cost investors about 60 billion USD, and many believe its effects on the crypto market cost the industry nearly a trillion USD, not to mention the instability it caused.
Many crypto enthusiasts will never forget the UST/LUNA debacle that saw its price tumble when they tried to correct the situation by announcing more tokens would be produced and they probably wound up selling off their $3.5 billion Bitcoin reserve and other coins they had bought to sure-up the supposed “stablecoin.”
UST, Terra Korea, and other countries Terra tokens were used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide loans and grants to various countries. It was thought that the stablecoin pegged to a country’s currency was, well… stable when backed by BTC and others. Oops!
Yes, the SEC is looking into TerraForm Labs too.
But that’s another story. Back to Ripple & XRP.
This week, Ripple’s XRP token has seen some big swings in price, unlike Polygon (MATIC), which has been primarily up until BTC pulled the whole market down recently.
There has been a lot of volatility in the cryptocurrency market this year. Until recently, the market had been declining or going sideways since November 2021.
XRP did reach $3.84, its all-time high in early January ’18, after nearly a month of climbing nearly straight up from 24 cents ($0.24). Was there a pump in play?
The options call/put date proved too much for the weak recent rally by the bulls. However, many cannot ignore the allure of a Ripple win over the SEC, or they reach a settlement that doesn’t cripple the Ripple’s community.
“The live XRP price today is $0.344971 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $928,016,004 USD. We update our XRP to USD price in real-time. XRP is up 1.28% in the last 24 hours. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #7, with a live market cap of $17,033,811,510 USD. It has a circulating supply of 49,377,587,823 XRP coins and a max. supply of 100,000,000,000 XRP coins.”
Ripple’s XRP token rarely sees this much volatility with 49.3 billion tokens in circulation.
Polygon (MATIC) Surpasses 37K Decentralized Apps (DApps)
DApps are applications built on blockchain technology. Polygon Matic has reported a 400% increase in the total number of DApps over the last 4 months.
DApps are still in the early stages of development, so the growth potential is considerable. Having specific programming and experts working on different tasks creates an environment with much more flexibility and security than traditional apps.
Polygon With HUGE DApps Growth & BIG News Coming Soon! — Polygon MATIC Update
Only time will tell how this 37,000 decentralized Applications (DApps) milestone will affect the Polygon (MATIC) price going forward.
“I believe $XRP will pop when they settle or win their case against the SEC.” — David Gokhshtein, the Gokhshtein Media founder.
What’s more, 4/5th of MATIC’s tokens are already in circulation. Therefore, the scarcity factor could favor the price when the suit is finalized.
This Week Was the Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2022 in the Republic of Korea
South Korea is the free, non-communist portion of the peninsula. The KBW 2022 was Asia’s largest cryptocurrency conference. It featured some of Web3’s most intelligent minds and more than a few of the industry’s biggest names.
“The tech-focused conferences provided developers, communities, and businesses an ultimate opportunity to network and learn from each other.” — Polygon Technology Blog.
The gathering of crypto’s greatest minds sparked fireside chats, panel discussions, keynote speakers from various crypto houses and exchanges, and investor discussions. Of course, the host FactBlock (팩트블록) and co-host Hashed (founded by Simon Kim) planned and orchestrated many of these discussions.
This short video is in Korean with English subtitles.
[CASE STUDY] KOREA BLOCKCHAIN WEEK 2022- Jeon Seonik, FactBlock CEO ‘Interview’
Korea Blockchain Week 2022
#Seoul_convention_bureau #Seoul_MICE_Alliance #SMA
Also, #PolygonConnect co-hosted a two-day Web3.0 & gaming exploratory discussion and many other events and discussions.
“#PolygonConnect is a global initiative to bring together the entire Polygon ecosystem via live events, hackathons, and cool parties. The focus is to help developers, creators, and artists jumpstart their dream projects by building #onPolygon.” — Polygon Technology Blog.
This event’s visibility, coupled with Polygon’s recent DApps successes, strengthened the MATIC token’s price.
MATIC Data Current as of 21 AUG ‘22
“The live Polygon price today is $0.810702 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $436,903,663 USD. We update our MATIC to USD price in real-time. Polygon is up 3.39% in the last 24 hours. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #15, with a live market cap of $6,519,768,724 USD. It has a circulating supply of 8,042,124,673 MATIC coins and a max. supply of 10,000,000,000 MATIC coins.” — Coin Market Cap.
Look at the volatility in MATIC over the last 30 days. It had been strong from the 27th of July until the 18th, the date of BTC call options closing — which was standard across the crypto universe.
How Will These Altcoins Affect the Cryptocurrency Market Going Forward
Every day, more coins are being introduced to the cryptocurrency universe. Hopefully, the recent drain on the market caused by the Bitcoin option calls was an apparition, and hopefully, investors used it as a buying opportunity.
Yet, despite the recent downturn, there are things to cheer about in the cryptocurrency market. However, don’t think we are out of the “crypto winter” just yet. None of these altcoins have hit new highs recently.
In fact, Ethereum’s price is below half (nearly $2,000 down) of its all-time high. Ripple (XRP) is only one-third of its all-time high. MATIC’s price is currently $.92, which is 68% below its all-time high of $2.92.
So, do your own research (DYOR), never invest money you cannot afford to lose or use emergency funds, and never keep your crypto on an exchange — use a cold wallet.
“Cryptocurrency-linked crime surged to a record high last year in terms of value, with illegal addresses receiving $14 billion in digital currencies, up 79% from $7.8 billion in 2020. — Reuters.
What’s more, those losses are preventable by purchasing and using a cold wallet like the Ledger Nano X.
Ledger Nano X Full Beginners Guide (2022): Complete Setup Tutorial
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#crypto #Cryptocold #coldwallet #nanotechnology #ledgerwallet #ledgernanox
DISCLAIMER: This article is for entertainment and informational purposes only. It should not be considered financial or legal advice. Not all information will be accurate. I am not a financial adviser, and you should consider anything I write as informational and friendly banter to show you what is possible if you invest your money in these vehicles. However, there are no guarantees. Consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.
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Stephen Dalton is a retired US Army First Sergeant with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a Certified US English Chicago Manual of Style Editor. Also, a Top Writer in Nutrition, Investing, Travel, Fiction, Transportation, VR, NFL, Design, Creativity, and Short Story.
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