@ks.shilovKirill

Blockchain enthusiast developer and writer. My telegram: ksshilov

While the lending market craze is plummeting and the yield farming opportunities are not as profitable as they were in the beginning, you might be looking for new ways to put your money at work.

In this article, Im going to explore the best ways to leverage the current DeFi solutions for generating steady passive income at the lowest possible risk.

Cryptocurrency is the perfect response to the current broken financial system. Anyway, things are not as different as you might think. DeFi gives you access to your tokens in the same way a bank is giving you access to conventional money. You can deposit, you can withdraw, you can spend them at your nearby store by using a payment card. And these services are extended to borrowing, lending, managing an investment portfolio. At the interaction level, today, theres no big difference between a conventional financial system and a cryptocurrency-based one.

DeFi solutions are looking to take these working financial models and adjust them to the current reality: offer better interest rate, capital protection, and more investment options. Lets find out what are the new decentralized services that you can take advantage of right now to transform your cryptocurrency savings into passive income generators!

Similar services were available before. Anyway, Compound is not a peer-to-peer matchmaker. You are not borrowing directly from a lender. All the lent assets go into a common liquidity pool from which borrowers can access directly. Thats why the interest rate is not fixed, but dynamically set by an algorithm based on the demand. Interest which is collected from borrowers then split between lenders. The whole system makes it profitable for both parties, and particularly lenders which are looking for a steady passive income for their deposited amounts.

A steady income is nice. But Compound wanted to incentivize its users through its native token COMP. Anyone who would lend or borrow on their platform would also earn a small amount of COMP tokens. It was seen by the team as a great way to distribute their token. But, with the increased demand the token price kept rising, up to $250 a token. At this rate, the token returns are higher than the interest returns. When the token reached its peak, around 2,880 COMP tokens were issued a day. Thats $720,000 in cryptocurrency. What was supposed to be a passive earnings-generating platform became a get-rich grab.

However, that ended fast. Today, COMP price is less than $200 and the codebase was already updated. Under the new rules, users will earn COMP on the dollar value of assets they have put in or borrowed from the system. Thats much less than the initial rewards. But the initial purpose of the platform of offering their lenders a way of generating passive income is still there. If their interest rate is attractive to you, you can check it out.

Lending capital on a lending market is a way to earn income and you should know that Compound is not the only one. And, without the high income from the bonus COMP, the interest rate is the most important variable. As mentioned on Compound platform the rate is dynamically adjusted by their internal algorithm. Sometimes you can earn more, sometimes you can earn less. What if you are looking for a more stable income?

There are many lending platforms and most of them are limiting their users to their fixed interest rates just to be able to promise higher income rates. Anyway, with fixed interest, if borrowing is getting too expensive borrowers will go away, leaving lenders with no earnings until the market cools down. Basically, when the market is doing good, you, as a lender, youre doing less income than before. This leads us to the second option, variable interest rate as seen in Compound. It solves the initial problem, but it brings new problems. The high swings in the demand-supply ratio are now translated into the interest rate. Sometimes you are earning a good income, sometimes you are earning very little income. There is no predictability, making it an awful tool for generating passive income.

Aave changes it with a system where the lender can switch between the two types of interest rates. Depending on the market conditions you can choose a stable or a variable interest rate. This change made the platform very attractive and a real contender for passive income. Due to the stable rate usually being higher than the variable rate, the lenders are generally seeing higher returns.

However, both Aave and Compound are lending markets where lenders and borrowers are indeed able to generate income. But the returns are marginal and you are always forced to choose a side. When you are lending you are hoping that the price of your asset will go up. While, when you are borrowing, you are thinking that the price might go down. If the opposite is happening, not only that you wont earn any income, but, in the case of borrowing, you might lose all your collateral.

Blockchain enthusiast developer and writer. My telegram: ksshilov

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Excerpt from:
Earning passive income from cryptocurrency in 2020: Market Review - hackernoon.com

First, a review of last weeks events:

EUR/USD. The USA does not bring good news to the markets. Escalating tensions between Beijing and Washington, rising jobless claims, and the ongoing COVID-19 offensive frighten investors, raising doubts about the imminent recovery of the American economy. The Nasdaq and S&P500 indexes turned red at the end of the week. However, their decline is not yet large enough to return investor interest to the dollar the USD (DXY) index continues to fall and has already reached 94.4, which is even below the low of March 09, 2020.

In his speech on Thursday, July 23, the head of the Treasury Department, Steven Mnuchin drew attention to the weakening of the dollar and noted that the USA intends to protect its stability. However, the same Mnuchin said in the same speech that in addition to the fourth package of economic stimuli worth $ 1 trillion, which is currently being discussed in Congress, a fifth one may also be required. And this, coupled with cheap liquidity from the Fed and the possible emergence of a vaccine against the coronavirus, means that stock markets can turn north again, and the dollar can continue to move further south.

In the future, additional pressure on the US currency can be exerted by the issue of bonds worth 750 billion, which the European Commission plans to carry out. The lions share of Chinas gold and foreign exchange reserves is denominated in dollars now. That is just over $3 trillion. And if Beijing, offended by the United States and PresidentTrump, decides to transfer some of them into Eurobonds, this will cause another dollar collapse, which has already yielded 465 points to the euro in July alone. Of these, 215 points were made over the past week.

This development was expected by 80% of analysts, supported by 75% of oscillators and 95% of trend indicators. And this forecast turned out to be correct, except that the EUR/USD pair did not just break through the 1.1500 resistance, but reached the 1.1650 high, where it ended the five-day session;

GBP/USD. The vast majority of experts (70%) expect that market interest in the dollar will continue to weaken, and this will help the GBP/USD pair to continue its northward movement, which began on June 30. The main target was the June 10 high of 1.2810, and this target was practically reached: the pair rose to the height of 1.2803 on the evening of Friday July 24. This was followed by a slight rebound and a finish at 1.2790;

USD/JPY. Apart from a single blowout on June 02-05, the pair has not left the 106.00-108.10 side corridor for 15 weeks. Moreover, this channel has narrowed even more in the last week, to just 75 points. In such conditions, the opinions of experts were divided equally: 50% for the growth of the pair, 50% for its fall. But 85% of the oscillators and 100% of the trend indicators on D1 pointed to the south and were right. The first attempt to break through the 106.65 support on Tuesday July 21 ended in failure. But the bears did not stop there, and the pair went for a new breakthrough on Thursday July 23, this time successful. It reached a local bottom at 105.65 by Friday evening, and the final chord of the week sounded in the 106.00 zone four hours later;

cryptocurrencies. The past week did not bring anything extraordinary to the crypto market. There was both good news and bad news. Let us start with the crime.

Cisco Talos specialists discovered a botnet that infected about 5,000 computers for hidden mining of Monero. And this is good. However, it was not possible to identify the hacker, tentatively from Eastern Europe. And thats bad. And in China, hackers stole 10,000 bitcoin mining devices from one of Bitmains farms, which is bad for Bitmain and probably good for the hackers.

As for more global news, we note the decision of the world giant Mastercard to open access to its payment system for cryptocurrency companies. The first Issuer of crypto cards will be the British startup Wirex, whose cards will allow you to store and spend both fiat and digital currencies, as well as convert one asset to another.

The names of lobbyists who prevent the US government from completely banning bitcoin have become known. They were named by the head of Grayscale Investments, Barry Silbert. In terms of our relationship with Washington, we as an industry are experiencing the best period ever. Two groups the Blockchain Association and the Coin Center are bringing the benefits of this technology and asset class to policymakers. The catastrophic legal risk that could have existed earlier is now over, he said addressing his investors.

And although the situation in the US has improved for bitcoin, it is still very far from ideal. According to experts from Fidelity and BitOoda, the US is gradually losing the mining market due to various legal restrictions. The US segment now accounts for only 14%, while China controls about 50% of the worlds capacity. And according to expert Max Keyser, the hashrate of bitcoin may become a factor of serious confrontation between the United States, on the one hand, and Iran and Venezuela on the other in the near future, as they gradually take the American piece of that pie.

As for the behavior of the main cryptocurrency, the forecast that most experts had given last week also proved 100% correct. Recall that 55% of analysts supported the rise of the BTC/USD pair to the $9,400-9,700 zone. This is exactly what happened starting from the $9,150 mark, it was striving up all seven days, which is most likely caused by the general weakening of the dollar. On Thursday, July 23, the pair peaked at $9.675, showing an increase of 5.7%, followed by a rebound, and it fell into the $9,500 zone.

It should be noted that bitcoin cannot overcome the resistance of $9,700 for 6 weeks in a row, although the Crypto Fear & Greed Index has grown to the mark of 53 (41 weeks ago). The total capitalization of the crypto market grew by $15 billion (to $ 286 billion). However, only half of this increase comes from BTC, the other 50 percent belongs to altcoins and stablecoins.

The only cryptocurrency with a daily trading volume of over a billion dollars was the stablecoin Tether (USDT), showing a daily turnover of $1.5 billion. The next stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), shows only $32 million. For comparison, the real daily turnover of BTC, according to the provider Messari, is now about $430 million. Note that the market capitalization of Tether again exceeded $10 billion (for bitcoin, it is now equal to $175 billion).

Among the TOP-10 digital coins, Ethereum still demonstrates the maximum growth. It grew 210% heavier in 4 months and almost reached the pre-crisis highs of February 2020. The ETH/USD pair grew by about 20% just over the last seven days.

As for the forecast for the coming week, summarizing the views of a number of experts, as well as forecasts made on the basis of a variety of methods of technical and graphical analysis, we can say the following:

EUR/USD. So, the fourth and fifth economic stimulus packages, liquidity from the Fed and the COVID-19 vaccine can seriously support the US stock markets. However, according to experts of Moodys Analytics, if the decision to stimulate the American economy is stuck in Congress for a long time, the risks of a double recession will seriously increase. In addition, until the pandemic recedes, unemployment will continue to be in two-digit numbers. Those factors could push the Nasdaq and S&P500 further down, which would return investor interest in the dollar as a protective asset.

It is clear that 100% of the trend indicators on both H4 and D1 are colored green at the end of the trading session, on July 24. Among the oscillators, there are fewer of them 75%, while the remaining 25% signal that the EUR/USD pair is overbought. 45% of experts expect at least a downward correction, another 35% vote for the transition to a sideways trend, and 20% for further growth of the pair. Support levels are 1.1500 and 1.1380, resistance levels are 1.1740 and 1.1815.

As for the graphical analysis, it draws a rebound on H4 from the resistance at 1.1650 and a decline to the horizon at 1.1565. On D1, naturally, the oscillation span is greater: first, a fall to 1.1500, and then an increase to 1.1740.

Of the important macroeconomic events next week, they are expecting: July 27 the publication of data on the US consumer market, July 29 the Feds decision on the lending rate and a press conference of its management (according to forecasts, the rate will remain unchanged at 0.25%), the data on the GDP of Germany and the United States will be released on July 30, and the week and month will end on July 31 with the publication of the data on the consumer market and GDP of the Eurozone, as well as on retail sales in Germany. Note that, according to forecasts, the fall in GDP (Q2) in the United States may reach -35%, which is 7 times more than the previous value (-5%);

GBP/USD. Both the euro and the pound this is what the forecast for the GBP/USD pair looks like this week. Just like in the case of EUR/USD, 45% of experts vote for a downward reversal of the pair, 35% for a sideways trend, and 20% for further growth of the pair. Indicators have a similar picture: 100% of trend indicators and 75% of oscillators look up, and the remaining 25% give signals that the pair is overbought.

It should be borne in mind here that on July 24, the pair almost reached the high of June 10, 1.2810, thus completing a seven-week V-shaped cycle. Therefore, the probability of a downward correction is now quite high. The target for the bears may be a return to the 1.2480-1.2670 zone, the nearest support is at 1.2715. If the pair, having broken through the resistance of 1.2810, nevertheless goes further upward, its targets will be the levels 1.3020, 1.3070 and 1.3200;

USD/JPY. As mentioned above, this pair has not left the side corridor 106.00-108.10 for 15 weeks. However, on Friday, July 24, it broke through its lower border and dropped to 105.65. True, then it turned around and finished the last five days in the area of 106.00. So, what was it: a false breakthrough, a move to a new echelon or a serious trend sweep? Well find out soon enough. In the meantime, the forecast for the Japanese yen looks like this: 60% of experts vote for the strengthening of the dollar and the return of the pair within the trading range of 106.00-108.10. The targets are 106.65, 107.50 and, of course, 108.10.

The remaining 40% believe that investor interest in the yen, as a protective asset, will still outweigh interest in the dollar, and the pair will go further down. Supports are 105.65 and 105.00.

As for indicators, their readings are largely like those of their colleagues on the euro and the pound, of course, in a mirror reflection. Colored red: on H4 85% of oscillators and 90% of trend indicators, on D1 70% of oscillators and 95% of trend indicators, and 15% of oscillators on H4 and 30% on D1 signal that the pair is oversold;

cryptocurrencies. Some experts talk a lot about bitcoin being linked to the stock market. In their opinion, the change in stock indexes pulls the change in bitcoin quotes. Though, probably, it is not like this It is just that both stocks and cryptocurrencies are, in the eyes of institutional investors, independent risk assets that are pushed up by fear for the fate of the dollar. At the same time, the crypto market, if compared with the traditional one, is quite small, and any moves by large speculators can cause serious excitement on it, and sometimes a real storm.

In the meantime, expert opinions are as follows. 45% of them believe that the BTC/USD pair will continue to move sideways and will not go beyond the $9,000-9,700 corridor. 45% do not rule out attempts by bitcoin to break into the $9,800-10,000 zone, and only 10% expect it to fall below $9,000. At the same time, 65% are confident that the main cryptocurrency will still be able to gain a foothold in the area of the landmark $10,000 mark within two to three months.

See the article here:
Forex and Cryptocurrency Forecast - Action Forex

Bitcoin tends to get a bad wrap and has ever since its inception. Its a useful headline for the media, doom mongers and legacy protectors that always have a go. The truth is that the scale of this activity in the cryptocurrency space pales in significance compared to the multi billion dollars scammed everyday from bank accounts, credit cards, identity theft etc. The reason City AM and I got together to deliver you Crypto AM was to share what we learn about the space and this is the right occasion to defend the nascent industry.

This hack feels very different, the real issue is the fact that Twitter it appears with the complicity of a rogue employee was hacked and only the coveted blue tick verified account holders were targeted.

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, tweeted Seems there is finally consensus across the board that this hack is NOT a crypto problem, this is a social media platform problem. Malicious scams on Twitter, YouTube and others have persisted for years without these platforms taking any real action or accountability to address the issue with more than a band-aid.

In the AI space CTO of Fetch.ai Toby Simpson tweeted Weve got Twitter to thank for a highly effective demonstration of why decentralisation is so important. In a centralised world, break into one place, compromise everyone. With decentralisation, where individuals own and control their digital identity, that isnt possible.

Changpeng Zhao CZ one of those affected by the hack tweeted once his account was restored:- Bitcoin hack? No, bitcoin didnt get hacked. The hackers want bitcoin, because its valuable. When bank robbers want cash, its not called a cash robbery. Its a bank robbery. Bitcoin scam? No, bitcoin didnt scam anyone. Do we have to explain this every time? Twitter hack? Yes. But this incident highlights a bigger issue. With the increased #crypto adoption, existing social and internet platforms need to revamp their security. Internet platforms are no longer just for selfies, it is used to transfer value.

This situation should not be used to be critical of the cryptocurrency industry, as the above statement shows it has actually once again shown the benefits of this technology. Not only does its applications distribute risk but in cases where funds are tied to nefarious actions the capability to conduct anti money laundering and forensic investigations far exceeds whats capable in the traditional financial industry.

Weve collaborated with an industry leader in this segment before, Coinfirm, who provides analytics, investigatory and Anti Money Laundering solutions to some of the biggest companies in the space. Currently the AML effectiveness in the traditional financial industry sits at about 2% while solutions such as Coinfirm for blockchain assets take that effectiveness into the 90 percentiles, dispelling many of the fears and borders to adoption around cryptocurrencies. Taking a look at the recent Twitter hack related scams using Coinfirms technology, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin provide a whole new level of transparency and data analysis due to its inherent nature and turns AML into a real-time, automated, and effective process.

The first visualization shows the connection between the two addresses along with the funds coming in from victims. Approx $1 600 went to bc1q0kznuxzk6d82e27p7gplwl68zkv40swyy4d24x (Address A) that was used in the Cash App related scam. Approx $117 000 worth of BTC at the time of analysis went to bc1qxy2kgdygjrsqtzq2n0yrf2493p83kkfjhx0wlh (Address B) that was used in the Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Uber scams among others.

Address A sent its funds to address B from where address B began sending the funds to a variety of addresses where they currently sit. The address with the largest amount sitting is 1Ai52Uw6usjhpcDrwSmkUvjuqLpcznUuyF with approximately $52,000 worth of BTC. Now, any entity using Coinfirms Platform will be able to analyze and catch any transaction entering their ecosystems that are related to this scam and act appropriately, further protecting the integrity and security of the crypto economy

Even scams that use the get rich communication around bitcoin mixed with fake celebrity statements and other lies using the identity of celebrities to scam victims are actually mainly doing so by accepting credit cards from the victims. This has helped protect these enterprises as the transparency and traceability of these transactions and related funds are unable to be done on the technological level of bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies.

Link:
Cryptoforhealth Twitter Scam exposes the benefits of cryptocurrency, not the flaws - City A.M.

ESPN Global has announced the launch of a blockchain-powered gaming platform, which will allow competitors to deposit and withdraw using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through Cryptopay.

The platform is also integrating an online treasure hunt, Satoshis Treasure, with $1 million worth of bitcoin to be split among 1000 winners.

In a June 23 statement, the UK-based company said it is in the pre-launch phase of a platform that will offer some of the most popular games in one mobile application for crypto prizes. Blockchain technology will decentralize verification and support for transactions inside the platform.

Cryptocurrency payment specialist Cryptopay is being used by ESPN Global, to make the process a lot simpler, swift and secure, the company announced. Users can choose a game or join a group of participants to compete in real-time and be awarded on the basis of highest score.

The platform also offers premium membership whereby one gets priority access to slots and early access to the most popular games. The mobile e-sports unit in UK falls under ESPN Global Corporation Ltd. which is headquartered in Poland.

An ESPN Global director, Mr. Chris Parker, spoke on the attraction of blockchain. As per a research done by 3EA Limited, a global strategic management consulting group, e-sports and online gaming is a $140 billion global industry driven predominantly by digital micro-transaction economies, which we believe will benefit immensely from the integrity and resilience of the Blockchain technology, he said.

The company is also integrating the recently launched game Satoshis Treasure. With this $1 million puzzle game Satoshis Treasure, we are promising a bounty-laden bitcoin wallet whose keys will be divided into 1,000 fragments, spawning a global hunt for the prize pieces, said Parker.

In the event of amassing a sizeable e-sport community, ESPN Global expects to launch an initial exchange offering of its Smart Gaming Token (SGT) based on the ERC-20 platform.

From the day we start our operations, we will be giving airdrops of SGTs to all registered players as a gift, Parker said. He added that all players who lose money in any game or tournament will be compensated with SGT airdrops equivalent to the losses credited to their ERC wallets.

The current valuation of SGT airdrop is $0.001, expected to increase with the growth of the gaming community. Premium members, who get double SGTs against the amount of super-contest, will also have their losses covered.

What do you think about ESPNs new bitcoin online gaming? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

The rest is here:
ESPN Announces Online Gaming That Allows Bitcoin Deposits and Withdrawals - Bitcoin News

Monero Outreach recently published about how easy it was to buy Monero and about what it takes to buy XMR privately.

They have discussed several ways to buy Monero with the main purpose being to buy it privately and also about buying it non-privately. It is well known that the main purpose of Monero is privacy.

The Monero blockchain is private and most of other blockchain networks are under surveillance and they are likely to not be able to be as private as Monero. The properties of the currencies which is used to buy it will determine the overall privacy level.

The currency which is most relevant to buy Monero consist of characteristics like fungibility, decentralization, and immutability.

They stick on to their ideal of Not your keys, not your Monero. They also call this as being the key to staying safe. They keep reinstating that for until it is in your wallet, it is not your XMR and that there is no benefit from the privacy factor otherwise. They keep telling how important it is to transfer the Monero to your Wallet and how important it is to retain the privacy keys with you to sustain control over your XMR.

Maheen Hernandez, writer at The Currency Analytics opined: Mining is the most private way to generate XMR. And, the good this is, that it helps to strengthen the entire Monero Network. Users might have to explore Mine Monero to strengthen the network.

Monero Outreach has to state that for practical purposes cash is fungible. They also have stated that for practical purposes trading XMR for gold, silver and other unmarked precious commodities is also untraceable.

The cash transaction to buying Monero according to Monero Outreach is done in person to have control over the privacy level of the transaction.

The problem with cash transactions is that there are geographical limitations and it will not be possible for everyone to find someone selling Monero for cash in accessible areas. They have also facilitated a site map by the name localmonero which has the list of people selling XMR in specific areas.

For every kind of currency that is used to buy Monero there are likely to be pros and cons and it is important to weigh it against the desired privacy and individual use case. There are also options explained like buying with bearer instrument, buying at the ATM, and buying Monero with crypto, buying with credit and debit card, buying with bank transfer and also with Paypal.

Continued here:
Buying Monero (XMR) Has Becoming a Thing of Inquiry in the Cryptocurrency Space - The Cryptocurrency Analytics