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Cryptocurrency: Facebook to Unveil Libra On Tuesday

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  • Cryptocurrency: Facebook to Unveil Libra On Tuesday

Facebook, the world’s biggest social media company, has joined the list of technology companies leveraging on blockchain technology to enhance products and safety.

The social media giant announced it would unveil a cryptocurrency on June 18th (tomorrow). The project internally known as Libra is expected to revolutionize global money given Facebook reach.

Facebook already has 2.4 billion monthly users to push its new virtual currency to, a key factor why experts called the move a success as no cryptocurrency, including the most dominant Bitcoin has that size of end users.

RBC analysts Mark Mahaney and Zachary Schwartzman said: “We believe this may prove to be one of the most important initiatives in the history of the company to unlock new engagement and revenue streams, and we plan to provide an analysis of the White Paper to help investors analyze the underlying cryptoeconomics of the token.”

Facebook shares jumped 3.3 percent on Monday to $187.33 as investors seem to be delighted at the prospect of a dominant global currency at a period when the world needs regulated internet money to facilitate transactions.

Investors King reports that Libra is a stablecoin tied to a basket of currencies to avoid the same issue presently hurting the credibility of Bitcoin and other unregulated cryptocurrencies.

The company has partnered with several financial institutions that would provide billions of dollars in capital and low-risk securities as collateral to stabilize the price of the currency and reduce or totally eliminate excessive control by a single player (including Facebook).

To avoid a future accusation of dominant edge, Facebook, according to Dow Jones Newswires, allowed other big tech companies, Google, Uber, Paypal etc as well as traditional payments companies like Visa and Mastercard to invest $10 million each in the project.

In April, following Facebook’s second-quarter earnings report, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, said: “Over the long-term, if Payments becomes a really important part of what we do, we can – we’ll have some options and choices about how we choose to – how to have the revenue flow to us in the future.”

While this is a positive move, few experts warned of excessive power in the hands of few.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week said big tech companies are well positioned to disrupt global financial system given the size of data they have access to.

Christine Lagarde, who was attending the G20 Finance Ministers’ summit in Fukuoka, Japan, said: “A significant disruption to the financial landscape is likely to come from the big tech firms. They will use their enormous customer bases and deep pockets to offer financial products based on big data and artificial intelligence”.

“This presents a unique systemic challenge to financial stability and efficiency,” she added.

Jack Dorsey, Co-founder of Twitter, also agreed that universal currency for the internet era is a good idea. He, however, stated that “what is less clear is whether this currency should be in the hands of Facebook.”

Facebook’s cryptocurrency ‘white paper’ would be released tomorrow but the official launch is next year.

 

Is the CEO/Founder of Investors King Limited. A proven foreign exchange research analyst and a published author on Yahoo Finance, Nasdaq, Entrepreneur.com, Investorplace, and many more. He has over two decades of experience in global financial markets.

Bitcoin

Institutional Interest in Bitcoin Increased Amid Global Banking Crisis; Says Bittrex CEO

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Bitcoin

The CEO of Bittrex Global, Oliver Linch recently disclosed that institutional interest in Bitcoin has arrived. Linch added that he is anticipating more adoption, stating that leading financial institutions like Goldman Sachs will soon take on a larger role in crypto.

In an interview with Scott Melker, the head of the crypto exchange clarified that institutional adoption will not hurt cryptocurrency but rather aid the pace of innovation within the industry. 

While acknowledging that there may be some painful moments along the way especially as it relates to regulation, Linch however anticipates that many partnerships will be formed between traditional financial institutions and those in the crypto sector which will be good for the crypto industry. 

Speaking further, Linch also disclosed that during the bear market, many of the financial giants moved to establish crypto divisions within their companies, positioning themselves for the growth of the industry.

“Historically, those big players have been the biggest drivers of innovation. Are they a bit slow to adopt at the moment? Yeah, sure. But actually, the big change will happen when they stop fighting it and we stop fighting them. 

“And we start talking about partnering and working together. Show them a way that it can be done and it can make them money and I guarantee you they won’t stand in the way of that. They’ll be pedal to the metal to exploit that opportunity.” Linch said. 

Investors King earlier reported that bitcoin is up by 50% this year and it has outperformed major stock indexes and commodities despite the collapse of major crypto-related banks. 

A report made by Goldman Sachs shows bitcoin as the best-performing investment asset in the world since the beginning of 2023, outperforming gold, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100. 

Bitcoin has so far enjoyed a remarkable year. From a low of $16,000, the flagship cryptocurrency is currently trading at $28,154. Data from Binance platform shows. 

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Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is the Top Performing Investment Asset; Says Goldman Sachs

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Bitcoin - Investors King

Bitcoin has outperformed traditional investment assets and sectors, such as technology and gold, in year-to-date (YTD) absolute returns, recent data from Goldman Sachs reveals. 

According to the data, the leading cryptocurrency has gained 51% in YTD absolute returns, surpassing information technology (+16%), communication services (+15%), consumer discretionary (+11%), Russell 1000 Growth (+10%), gold (+4%), and the S&P 500 (+4%).

Bitcoin’s recent surge in price has been attributed to the crises that befell the US banking industry, leading to issues of confidence in the sector. Investors King understands that the flagship cryptocurrency has increased in price by 35% since March 10 when regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank.

Contrary to 2022, the primary digital asset started off the new year on the right foot. Its price has skyrocketed from $16,500 on January 1 to approximately $28,400. This has caused some to believe that the bear market could be over and that BTC has entered into a new bull run. 

According to the CEO of the crypto intelligence firm Messari, there is a favourable scenario that could see bitcoin surging above $100,000 in the next twelve months. 

Similarly, a former CTO of Coinbase, Balaji Srinivasan has advised his Twitter followers to buy bitcoin and lock it up for 90 days. He believes Bitcoin price explosion will happen due to a possible collapse of the US banking system and consecutive hyperinflation. 

Meanwhile, led by bitcoin, the entire cryptocurrency market has been recovering in the past few weeks against the backdrop of the widespread crisis in the banking sector. The cryptocurrency market capitalisation is currently at $1.22 trillion, adding 0.23% in the last 24 hours, data from CoinGeko shows.

Going forward, Bitcoin is also primed to go through another halving in the first phase of 2024 which could be another potential price hike for the most capitalised cryptocurrency and by extension, the entire crypto market.  

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Cryptocurrency

MetaMask Enables Direct Crypto Purchases for Nigerian Users

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Dollar Cryptocurrency - Investors King

Cryptocurrency purchase in Nigeria is about to get easier as MetaMask enabled direct purchases for users in Nigeria.

A statement from MetaMask’s parent company, ConSensyn disclosed that Nigerian users can now purchase crypto through bank transfer.

According to the Web 3 company, the direct purchase which will result in a faster, cheaper and more seamless crypto purchase experience in Nigeria is done in partnership with Moonpay.  

Investors King understands that before now, buying cryptocurrency outside the Peer to Peer (P2P) market in Nigeria is challenging after the Central Bank of Nigeria bans commercial banks from accommodating crypto-related transactions. 

MetaMask noted that its Web 3 wallet is widely used in Nigeria, leading to increasing crypto adoption in the most populous black country in the world. 

The company also added that Nigeria is among metamask’s top markets globally, ranking third in mobile active users while the country also ranks among the top ten countries visitors to metamask.io. (MetaMask Web Platform).

“Our partnership with MetaMask will enable us to provide Nigerian users with Bank Transfers, a widely used payment method across Nigerian e-commerce businesses. We hope this integration opens the doors for Nigerians to fund their self-custody wallet through a simplified user experience,” a statement from MetaMask read. 

Speaking on the development, MoonPay Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Zeeshan Feroz, said the partnership with MetaMask will enable the company to provide Nigerian users with Bank Transfers, a widely used payment method across Nigerian e-commerce businesses. He added that the integration will help to simplify users experience.

Meanwhile, Mouloukou Sanoh, the co-founder of Cassava Network, a Web3 platform has said that Nigeria’s web 3 industry is fast growing and could be one of the leaders in the world. 

He noted that Nigeria has a large youth population with a huge number that grew up with the Internet; stating that this is the perfect environment for web3 to thrive. 

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