Blockchain

Blockchain-based renewable energy marketplaces gain traction in 2021

Published

1 week ago

April 3, 2021

Concerns about energy production, resource consumption and its impact on the environment are one of the dominant topics of debate on the global stage. The intensive energy costs of mining Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies are also frequently pointed to as a serious downside to the emerging asset class.

While environmental concerns and the cost to reward debate rages on, there is one group of cryptocurrency projects that has the goal of bringing blockchain technology to the global energy grids as a way to encourage renewable energy generation through a flexible marketplace that connects energy buyers and sellers.

Three energy-focused projects that have seen triple-digit gains since the beginning of 2021 are Energy Web Token (EWT), Power Ledger (POWR) and WePower (WPR).

EWT/USDT

Energy Web Token (EWT) is the operational token for the Energy Web Chain, an open-source enterprise blockchain designed to support and further application development for the energy sector.

According to the project’s website, the “Energy Web is accelerating a low-carbon, customer-centric electricity system by unleashing the potential of open-source, decentralized, digital technologies.”

The project launched in June of 2019 and has since grown to an extensive network of partners with some globally recognized companies including Volkswagen, Siemens and Hitachi.

Once fully developed and integrated, its virtual machine could help connect the different areas of the energy sector including grid operators, software developers and vendors.

One of the biggest price movers for EWT in 2021 came at the beginning of March when the token was listed on the U.S.-based Kraken cryptocurrency exchange.

*EWT/USDT 4-hour chart. Source:* *TradingView*

The subsequent announcement of a partnership with Volkswagon on March 4 and the release of the EasyBat battery compliance app on March 16 further helped provide a boost to the token which went on to establish a new all-time high of $19.85 on March 18.

POWR/USD

The Power Ledger platform was established in May 2016 with the goal of creating an operating system for new energy markets that is capable of trading renewable energy and environmental commodities on a local and global scale.

Based out of Australia, the project aims to utilize blockchain technology to create a system where every electrical resource or power device has a digital identity that is connected to a real-time market that facilitates the transactions between them.

POWR operates on the Ethereum (ETH) network as a peer-to-peer energy exchange platform and it utilizes a two-token system comprised of POWR and Sparkz to “ensure consistency across Power Ledger’s platform,” according to the project’s website.

Sparkz are stable tokens that are used when units of electricity (kWh) are bought and sold on Power Ledger’s platform.

Trading activity for POWR began to pick up at the end of January as discussions about renewable energy began to gain traction in the media.

*POWR/USD 4-hour chart. Source:* *TradingView*

The March 3 announcement of Power Ledger’s partnership with India’s largest integrated power company Tata Power-DDL kicked off a price rally which resulted in POWR rallying to $0.504, its highest level since 2018.

WPR/USD

WePower is a blockchain-based green energy trading platform that connects “energy suppliers, corporate buyers and energy producers for easy, direct green energy transactions.”

According to the project’s website, the WePower platform is “the easiest way for companies of any size to buy green energy directly from local producers,” and the platform aims to make “corporate green energy procurement as easy as online shopping.”

WPR is an ERC-20 token that functions as a payment method on the WePower Network. It’s used to standardize and increase the available liquidity in the existing energy investment system and should also help to reduce prices for network participants.

Trading activity and token began to pick up at the beginning of February when the project handed over its “first fully-featured Elemental platform to Mojo Power.

*WPR/USD 4-hour chart. Source:* *TradingView*

Following the launch of the Elemental retail marketplace on Feb. 1, the price of WPR surged from a low of $0.011 to a high of $0.05 on March 24 as conversations concerning renewable energy and sustainability in Europe and Australia took place.

Increased global attention on climate and energy production-related issues suggests that this niche slice of the crypto sector is ripe for further gains.

Projects utilizing blockchain technology to optimize global energy marketplaces are well-positioned to increase their market share as distributed ledger technology goes mainstream.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Coinsmart. Beste Bitcoin-Börse in Europa
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-based-renewable-energy-marketplaces-gain-traction-in-2021

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Blockchain

Bitcoin Bull Mike Novogratz Predicts Existential Crisis Unless the US Creates a Digital Dollar

Published

2 hours ago

April 10, 2021

Republished by Plato

Mike Novogratz, a veteran investor, and a huge Bitcoin supporter noted the U.S. is currently in a good economic position. Still, the nation can face a major competitive disadvantage unless it engineers a digital dollar soon.

The Importance Of An E-Dollar

Novogratz, chief executive of digital merchant bank Galaxy Digital GLXY, underlined the value that a digital dollar could bring to the US. In a Friday interview with MarketWatch, he stated:

”To me it is an existential crisis, we need a digital dollar.”

Furthermore, the investor expressed his view over the current COVID pandemic and the negative impact on the U.S. market and the world, in general. He referred to the trillions of dollars of monetary and fiscal spending done to help eliminate the worst of the economic aftershocks the disease caused:

”If our fiscal and monetary policy starts looking like it’s from a Banana Republic…you are going to run into some Minsky moment where confidence breaks down.”

With his statement, Mike Novogratz referenced Hyman Minsky, who exposed a view in the recent past that a period of distortions in the financial system eventually ends very badly.

The existence of a digital dollar sounds even more important after some stock-market investors have been warning about a surge in US inflation in the past weeks.

The Competition With China

During the interview, Novgorotz claimed that while in the U.S., the development of an e-dollar is still under question and researches, China has fired the first salvo on the digital currency front.

The biggest economy in Asia conveys great support to its digital yuan. According to some experts in the field, its new currency is a weapon that the country can use to compete with the U.S. and other developed economies.

As CryptoPotato recently reported, PayPal CEO Peter Thiel said that Bitcoin could be used as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.

In the meantime, Novogratz said that there is ”zero evidence of the Chinese government buying Bitcoin” much less weaponizing it, referring to the comments made by Peter Thiel:

”Sometimes he likes to say things that are provocative.”

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Coinsmart. Beste Bitcoin-Börse in Europa
Source: https://cryptopotato.com/bitcoin-bull-mike-novogratz-predicts-existential-crisis-unless-the-us-creates-a-digital-dollar/

Blockchain

Ripple becomes tidal wave, leads weekend pump and notches legal victories

Published

3 hours ago

April 10, 2021

Republished by Plato

Amid a weekend pump carrying multiple cryptocurrencies higher, Ripple’s XRP looks to be leading the way with a push as high as 30% on the daily — carried on the back of a string of legal victories and rumors of relisting at some exchanges.

Where Bitcoin and Ethereum are up merely 2.7% and 3.4% respectively on the day, XRP climbed to $1.36 before retreating to $1.32, where it sits at the time of publication. The digital currency is now up 111% on a 7 day basis, and a staggering 544% on the year. The recent push has also buoyed XRP back into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by marketcap, behind only BTC, ETH, and BNB at #4.

🙂 pic.twitter.com/qYIf6RPOoY

— sats (@satsdart) April 10, 2021

The rally flies in the face of a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which charges that XRP’s $1.3 billion ICO was an “unregistered securities offering.” The news led multiple exchanges to delist the currency, and XRP lost its place as the 3rd largest currency by marketcap, at time looking as if it would even fall out of the top ten.

The bad news for XRP didn’t stop with the SEC, either. In March Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that the company would be “winding down” its relationship with Moneygram — a once highly-touted partnership that investors often pointed to as proof of the digital currency being on a path towards becoming “the standard” for payments and settlement.

Despite the deluge of negative headlines, it appears all buyers needed was a small ray of hope to jump back in — and they’ve gotten exactly that. Ripple lawyers have notched two victories in their legal battle against the SEC, including winning access to internal SEC discussion history regarding cryptocurrencies, and a court denied the SEC the ability to disclose the financial records of two Ripple execs, including Garlinghouse.

Ripple executives themselves seem heartened by the news, with CTO David Schwartz saying the US isn’t “prepared” to regulate cryptocurrencies (a possible dig at the ongoing legal proceedings).

All in all, it’s just another week for one of the most controversial cryptocurrencies in the space.

Coinsmart. Beste Bitcoin-Börse in Europa
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ripple-becomes-tidal-wave-leads-weekend-pump-and-notches-legal-victories

Blockchain

Why this OlympusDAO’s product could be amongst DeFi most lucrative

Published

4 hours ago

April 10, 2021

Republished by Plato

Taking the market by storm, OlympusDAO’s native OHM is up 95.8% this week alone and 31.1% in the past two weeks. At the time of writing, OHM is trading at $812,76 with 7.3% profits in the 24-hour chart.

With a market cap of just $68 million, OlympusDAO might have gone unnoticed by many investors. However, it has a mechanism called Bonds which promises to be one most important and lucrative in the DeFi sector.

According to research firm Messari, this protocol is attempting to create a stable currency backing every OHM with DAI and OHM-DAI. The objective is to maintain a “fundamental check on inflation” and a currency with an undiluted purchasing power.

Unlike Tether and other stablecoins, OHM is not pegged to any other asset. Its stability is achieved via the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) when it alters variables to obtain more profitability for stakers.

This is done via the sales contract connected to the protocol’s treasury and a liquidity pool (OMH-DAI) on decentralized exchange Sushiswap, as shown below. Messari explains:

When OHM trades above 1 DAI, the protocol mints and sells new OHM. When OHM trades below 1 DAI, the protocol buys back and burns OHM. In each case the protocol makes a profit. Olympus DAO distributes these profits 90% to OHM stakers pro rata and 10% to a DAO.

How OlympusDAO’s bonds operate

The Bonds are a treasury component to get liquidity with it users can trade Stake Liquidity Provider tokens to get OHM directly with the protocol, as an OlympusDAO developer explained.

Once the trade is completed there is a vesting schedule of 5 days. During this time, the user can redeem the tokens but has incentives to get them at a discount. The latter is determined by the number of bonds in the protocol, more bonds are equal to a lower discount.

Via this mechanism, as the developer said, OlympusDAO restrains its own growth, to have become “steadier”.

The liquidity from a bond is locked in the treasury and used to back new $OHM. That liquidity now belongs to the market and, by extension, the token holders. The more liquidity the protocol builds up, the more confident holders can feel.

The users are basically contributing to OlympusDAO by adding liquidity. In retribution, the user gets a reward in OHM at a much cheaper price during a specific period. That way, both the user and the protocol can benefit.

We are already seeing this happen. Since launching bonds a week ago, the protocol has accumulated 26% of the pool (~$1.7m worth of liquidity) pic.twitter.com/kGoPQYGDyq

— ZΞUS Ω (3, 3) (@ohmzeus) April 8, 2021

OlympusDAO offers LP a variety of strategies around OHM which they can leverage to obtain a bigger profit than on the spot market. The developer claims:

All of this serves to create a long-term, sustainable bootstrapping mechanism for the protocol, with participants as the main beneficiaries. A good system shouldn’t offer one opportunity to “make it”; it should offer them in perpetuity with diminishing returns. This is how you produce wealth; slowly, through compounding gains.

Ethereum is trading at $2096,58 with a 1.2% profit in the 24-hour chart, after dropping from its ATH at $2,198.