Recently, popular crypto analyst Elliot Wainman shared his latest thoughts on Cardano ($ADA) and its ecosystem.

In a recent YouTube video (titled “CARDANO ECOSYSTEM IS ABOUT TO MAKE HOLDERS THE BEST GAINS”), Wainman talked to viewers about the huge potential of Cardano-powered decentralized apps (DApps) once support for smart contracts goes live.

According to a report by The Daily Hodl, he said:

“It does feel as if there’s a sea change on the horizon here, and that Cardano is not only going to start shipping, but that the projects and ecosystems that will be built over there are set to have Solana-like, Polkadot-like, BSC-like (Binance Smart Chain) gains, and that means that those who invest early in the right projects will most likely experience some serious parabolic gains.“

He also talked about Cardano’s huge and passionate army of fans/supporters:

“Now people love to hate on this but I believe that one of the most powerful valuation tools for crypto is Metcalfe’s law. This is why Bitcoin tends to go parabolic the more people get involved in it. Essentially, Metcalfe’s law is the concept of how you can calculate the actual value of a network. And that’s what blockchains are. They’re networks of computers, of developers, of users...

“Metcalfe’s law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2). So essentially, the more users, the more people, the more value...

“Cardano does have a knack for adding users and people to its network in a way that other blockchains should certainly strive to do, and something that I think that they can do pretty uniquely. I think it comes down to Charles [Hoskinson] and his unique charisma.“

It’s worth noting that the price of Cardano’s $ADA token has been surging over the last few months. According to CryptoCompare data, $ADA is currently (as of 17:29 UTC on May 15) trading around $2.224.

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.

IMAGE CREDIT

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

Coinsmart. Beste Bitcoin-Börse in Europa
Source: https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2021/05/cardanos-ecosystem-to-go-parabolic-following-eths-rise-says-popular-crypto-analyst/

After exchanging a few Memorandums of Law over the past few days, Ripple’s legal battle with the U.S Securities Exchange Commission is threatening to go on for more weeks and months. As far as XRP is concerned, the crypto at the center of this lawsuit has concomitantly not fared well lately, subjecting itself to a 16 percent decline in the past week alone.

The SEC had recently requested an informal conference to discuss all the legal advice that Ripple has sought in the past, with the agency asking the court to compel the defendants to produce all the relevant documents. By doing so, the SEC intends to litmus check whether or not Ripple’s offers and sales of XRP were in compliance with federal security laws. The SEC also asserted that it was within its rights to call for the same. 

At the time, the regulatory watchdog had offered two bases for its “extraordinary” request.

However, in its response letter, Ripple Labs has now asserted that neither of them had merit and the SEC’s argument is wrong on both the law and the facts. The defendant firm claimed that the purported “selective disclosures” that the SEC relied on were all made outside the context of the lawsuit.

Ripple further asserted that relating matters that weren’t disclosed would remain confidential, adding that it had not done anything to inject the already-waived communications back into the lawsuit. 

The SEC had alternatively argued that Ripple had put the legal advice it received at issue by asserting that the firm “reasonably understood” that federal securities laws did not apply to its offers and sales of XRP, and hence, waived privilege over the advice it received. Ripple, in turn, argued that the SEC’s argument misstated the facts of the case, Ripple’s defense, and the applicable law. The defendants’ letter went on to say,

“The SEC attempts to brush off the fact that it is the party attempting to put legal advice at issue by pointing instead to Ripple’s affirmative defense of fair notice, which the SEC argues waives privilege because Ripple allegedly received adequate notice from its lawyers… This misstates the law both as to privilege waiver and as to fair notice.”

According to Ripple, the SEC’s mere speculation that privileged advice to them might undermine their fair notice claim is insufficient to compel disclosure of privileged materials. Unsurprisingly, Ripple also set forth to seek to compel the SEC to produce its own internal communications. The aforementioned letter professed, 

“Ripple’s non-privileged internal communications about XRP are discoverable, just as the SEC’s are; and Ripple has not resisted producing such communications. But none of that puts legal advice that Ripple received at issue in this case.”

Accusing the regulatory watchdog of framing Ripple, the defendants’ letter asserted that the SEC repeatedly and misleadingly attempted to reframe Ripple’s affirmative defense by stating that the blockchain company “reasonably understood” federal security laws. Highlighting the same, the letter added,  

“Whether Ripple subjectively believed that its actions were lawful or unlawful does not matter.”

There is no legal basis for the SEC to extort information, the defendants concluded, with the blockchain firm going on to submit,

“Contrary to the SEC’s assertion, Ripple has not attempted to “artfully plead” a good faith defense. There is no basis to grant the SEC’s request to order Ripple to produce privileged communications beyond those it disclosed six years ago outside of litigation.” 

Coinsmart. Beste Bitcoin-Börse in Europa
Source: https://ambcrypto.com/another-xrp-lawsuit-update-ripple-denies-it-tried-to-artfully-plead-a-good-faith-defense

If you own tokens or NFTs, dozens of people in the community might have told you about staking. They are not wrong.

According to the State of Staking Q1 2021 report by Staked, more than $20 billion was paid out to investors in 2020 in staking rewards. The same report found that the average staking reward was 11.2% per year for investors. It lags far behind Dogecoin returns, but it’s a good source of passive income.

The up-and-coming crypto tokens can be purchased for cheap. If you buy the right token early, you could benefit from the massive upside potential. For instance, a $1,000 investment in Ethereum on August 11, 2015, would be worth a staggering $4.1 million today. Ethereum was worth just under $0.67 in August 2015.

Even if the price doesn’t rise so spectacularly, you could earn handsome rewards along the way by staking your tokens.

Remember that not all tokens are going to do well in terms of price. Many will bite the dust. So if you are going to bet on the up-and-coming projects, make sure they have the potential to build and nurture a community around them. It’s the community that would want to own these coins, increase their usefulness, and push the prices up.

Better yet, diversify your investments by holding a mix of proven and nascent tokens to minimize risk while still reaping the rewards.

What is staking?

Staking is the process where you lock your tokens in a wallet to perform various network functions such as transaction validation on a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain. Sometimes staking involves delegating or adding tokens to a staking pool.

On the PoS network, anyone with a minimum required balance of a token can validate transactions and earn staking rewards. The stake also incentivizes the maintenance of the network’s security through ownership.

Just like miners are rewarded on a Proof of Work (PoW) network for mining new blocks, stakers are rewarded on a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain with additional cryptocurrency for contributing to the network.

The staking rewards could range anywhere from 3% to 300% a year. You get to diversify your income stream and monetize the idle tokens.

Some crypto exchanges and wallets reduce the transaction fees based on how many coins you stake.

Here are some of the most promising up-and-coming crypto projects to stake and earn rewards:

1. Cardano (ADA)

Pioneered by a team of engineers and academicians, Cardano is more energy-efficient than Bitcoin. It is a decentralized protocol that aims to make financial services more accessible in developing countries. Cardano is often seen as a threat to Ethereum.

Cardano is an open-source and non-profit crypto network. The platform is managed by three separate bodies. It is based on the Outboros PoS technology to enable a more secure blockchain network. It allows developers to execute end-to-end tests without using code.

It is the first PoS blockchain platform to be founded on peer-reviewed research.

Cardano’s native token is ADA, which is traded on most leading exchanges. ADA owners can stake their coins to earn 5%-7% annual rewards. It has become one of the most staked coins in the industry.

2. Public Mint (MINT)

Public Mint is a payment system that is bridging the gap between traditional finance and decentralized finance. The native currency of the platform is the US dollar (USD).

Public Mint has a fixed low transaction fee of just $0.05 per transaction.

You can load money into the Public Mint wallet using your bank account, stablecoins, credit cards, and more. And then you can pay or send money to anyone with the security of blockchain.

Public Mint’s ‘Earn’ rewards program is set to go live in Q3, 2021. It will allow you to access the high earnings rates available on the DeFi market for your fiat or stablecoin deposits. You’ll still be able to move funds instantly like a checking account.

The Earn program allows regular users to stake USD and receive an equivalent balance of earnings-bearing stablecoin USD+. Users can redeem the USD+ for USD or USDC anytime.

The USD+ is an earnings-bearing token that will yield daily earnings proportional to the current APY, as long as your USD is locked into the liquidity system.

MINT is Public Mint’s governance and utility token, which gives holders additional rewards including a share of the program’s fees. MINT holders get to vote on portfolio allocation and other governance matters.

Public Mint has partnered with KIRA Network to enable its users to stake USD+ stablecoin and MINT tokens to enjoy the DeFi yield opportunities. Public Mint currently offers an APY of 118%.

3. Uniswap (UNI)

Uniswap is a rapidly growing crypto exchange protocol that facilitates automated transactions between tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

Traders pay a 0.3% fee on trades, which is distributed among liquidity providers. It has emerged as the go-to exchange for trading ERC-20 tokens.

Uniswap’s governance token is UNI, which you can stake to earn rewards. UNI has relatively low staking rewards of 3.31%. It has a market cap of $20 billion and it trades at $38.

4. Hoard Exchange (HRD)

The team at Hoard Exchange is working on an NFT marketplace with loan functionality using NFT as collateral. It provides an infrastructure to integrate the in-game items into the Ethereum blockchain. The platform bridges the gap between gaming and NFTs.

Developers can use Hoard to mint NFTs for use in their games even if they have no knowledge of blockchain coding.

It also facilitates buying, selling, and borrowing of in-game assets between players. The assets could include virtual real estate, collectibles, digital art, etc.

Players with stablecoins can issue loans against the collateralized NFTs to earn some extra income.

Hoard supports staking on its HRD » Read more