Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Stablecoin Skyrocket 🚀

December 11, 2018

Stablecoins Across the Board are Quickly Gaining Traction

On-chain boom

In a new report from Diar, four new stablecoins including USDC, True USD (TUSD), Paxos (PAX), and the Gemini dollar (GUSD), are growing at an immense rate.

To measure growth, the research firm found that the number of on-chain transactions in November grew a stunning 1,032% across the segment.

In addition, all four stablecoins have passed over $5 billion in transaction value within a short 3-month timeframe of their existence.

Adios Tether

In the same timeframe, popular stablecoin Tether (USDT) has actually lost market share to the four stablecoin rookies.

There are two factors that are contributing to this:

New exchange listings of other stablecoins outside of USDT
Ongoing concerns of Tether's overall financial health

Within the last month, both of these factors have played a significant role in onboarding the adoption of new stablecoins.

Who will lead the pack?

For now, its TUSD. In November, TUSD hosted over 24,000 transactions on its network. That's more than 45% higher than its next competitor, USDC.

However, it's hard to bet against USDC in the long term. While TUSD was able to grab market share from its debut in early March, USDC is backed by both Coinbase and Circle - two massive innovators in the industry.

REGULATION

New Legislation Proposed in Japan to Ease Crypto Taxation

Don't "crush the future"

A Japanese legislator has proposed four changes to the current tax code that could ease the burden for cryptocurrency investments and motivate adoption of the technology.

The legislator argues that cryptocurrencies will play a meaningful role in the future of society and that the government should not "crush the future" by over-regulating and taxing the new asset class.

The four proposed changes

The changes that the legislator proposed to include:

Lowering the tax on cryptocurrency investment gains from 55% to 20%
Allow for the carryforward of tax benefits stemming from cryptocurrency investment losses
Exempt crypto-to-crypto trades from taxation
Exempt everyday purchases from the investment tax originating from selling crypto for fiat

Second attempt

The same legislator attempted to propose similar legislative changes in June, but his proposal was delayed due to the evolving nature of the industry.

Maybe now that cryptocurrency is more understood and heavily scrutinized, the government will take this proposal more seriously.

INTERNATIONAL

UNICEF Convinced on Crypto After Funding Six Projects to Solve Problems

Announced Monday, the charity arm of the United Nations, dubbed UNICEF, is using some of its funds to help boost blockchain development.

Spread across six different projects, UNICEF hopes that their $100,000 investment in each will help the teams develop open-source prototypes within the next 12 months.

Chris Fabian, an advisor overseeing the investments, commented on blockchain's benefits:

"Blockchain technology is still at an early stage -- and there is a great deal of experimentation, failure, and learning ahead of us as we see how, and where, we can use this technology to create a better world."

Here are the projects in TL:DR format:

Atix Labs - Transparent funding for small to medium-sized businesses
Onesmart - Tracks the misuse of funds in emerging markets
Prescrypto - Digital solution for prescriptions in developing countries
Statwig - Delivery of vaccines using blockchain-powered supply chain
Utopixar - Social collaboration for better decision making in communities
W3 Engineers - Improving communication for refugees and migrants

ANALYSIS

Bitcoin Dominance Inches Closer to Yearly High

The bear market has had no bounds, depreciating the value of just about every cryptocurrency in the market. But during the downtrend, Bitcoin has held up better than the rest of the market.

At the time of this writing Bitcoin dominance (the measure of Bitcoin's market share) sits at just above 55% and has been consistently moving upward. The mark is reaching the yearly high of 57.75% which occurred in September.

Bitcoin dominance bottomed at the very beginning of the year, going as low as about 32%. The dominance hit the trough when altcoins were having their crazy run in January, following Bitcoin's run in December.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

🧐 New report finds that U.K. crypto exchanges pose a low risk for money laundering and terrorist financing.
🐻 According to ASIC Miner Value, just three Bitcoin mining rigs remain profitable in the middle of this bear market.
📈 State Farm jumped on the bandwagon as it tests its new blockchain-based insurance platform.

MEME