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Crypto Videos

Binance Enables SegWit Support for BTC Deposits as Adoption Skyrockets!

Binance Enables SegWit Support for BTC Deposits as Adoption Skyrockets

Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by volume in the world, has incorporated Segregated Witness, better-known as SegWit, support for Bitcoin deposits. 

The SegWit support was finally enabled for incoming deposits on Christmas Eve, Binance said in an official statement. Until this announcement, the protocol upgrade was enabled only for withdrawals. Effective immediately after the announcement, Binance users got the option to transfer funds to a SegWit address by selecting the BTC (SegWit) network. Binance further explained in the statement:

“Please note that SegWit should help reduce fees; however, if you incorrectly send incompatible assets to the desired address, your funds will not be recoverable, and therefore will result in permanent loss.”

SegWit

Implemented back in 2017, SegWit is a Bitcoin protocol upgrade designed to help with network scaling. Besides that, SegWit was implemented to help with fixing several associated bugs. This upgrade is known for the way it updates data on the blockchain, namely, by segregating signatures from transaction data. SegWit upgrade allows more transactions to be stored in a single block, thus doubling Bitcoin’s transaction capacity.

Data from transactionfee.info show that somewhere in the ballpark of two-thirds of Bitcoin payments currently use SegWit. However, even with SegWit implemented, Bitcoin continues to face scalability limitations, which many argue has impeded adoption for everyday use. Exactly those scalability limitations have transformed Bitcoin from a possible means of payment to a store of value. However, developers have not given up on BTC becoming a viable payment protocol.

Light Network

The Lightning Network has been proposed as a viable second-layer scaling solution for Bitcoin as a payment protocol. Unlike SegWit, which got implemented via a soft fork to the Bitcoin protocol, the Lightning Network is a layer that goes on top of Bitcoin, and that could enable instant and almost cost-free transactions.

Despite current limited transaction capacity, Bitcoin remains the uncontested leader of the digital currency market, with its dominance over other crypto assets recently hitting one-year highs and approaching dangerously close to 70% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. 

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Crypto Daily Topic Cryptocurrencies

Can WazirX (WRX) be the Queen of Exchanges?

While it may appear as though crypto has received a lot of support and adoption, the reality is that penetration is yet to even go beyond 1%. The reasons for this are the massive obstacles standing between Fiat and crypto, such as high fees, complex procedures, regulatory hurdles, etc. Also, existing on-ramp solutions grapple with high deposit and withdrawal fees, delays, and users not truly owning their own money. 

WazirX is a decentralized crypto exchange that wants to solve these and more problems to provide users with the means to adopt cryptocurrency. Based in India and acquired by Binance, the platform’s name, Wazir, is another name for the “queen” in chess. The queen piece can not only play any move; it’s also the strongest. WazirX wants to live up to these characteristics. 

What’s WazirX? 

Launched in 2018, WazirX is a crypto exchange with advanced buy, sell, and trade functionalities. It features a live and open order book on which users can trade over 80 crypto assets, including Bitcoin, Litecoin, BNB, Dash, and more. 

On WazirX, you can also deposit or withdraw crypto and cash in or cash out stablecoins such as USDT in a fast, secure, and peer-to-peer manner. WazirX’s goal is to bridge the chasm between Fiat and crypto. 

WRX’s native token is the backbone of the ecosystem and has several use cases, including trading fee discounts, participation rewards, payment for margin fees, and more. WazirX supports five platforms at the time of writing: Web, Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac.

History of WazirX

The WazirX team launched the platform to respond to the Indian government’s banning of crypto businesses, exchanges, and shops. Banks had also been banned from engaging in any crypto-related activities. 

Today, the platform is, first and foremost, the go-to platform for Indian users to trade in crypto – in an uncensorable manner. But that’s not where the team is stopping. They intend to take the WazirX proposition to more developing and underdeveloped countries for Fiat on-ramp solutions. 

Binance acquired WazirX in November 2019. However, it continues to operate independently with a focus on peer-to-peer crypto trading. The WazirX team shares a vision with Binance, and that’s to increase the freedom of money around the world and improve people’s lives. 

How Does WazirX Realize Security? 

The WazirX team ensures security for the network through the following actions: 

  • Majority of funds kept in cold storage
  • A muti-sig wallet system
  • Two-factor authentication system for transactions
  • Strong KYC/AML procedures
  • Regular security audits

WRX Value 

WRX token holders will receive perks, including but not limited to discounts in payment of fees. The discount structure is as follows: 

  • 1st year: 50% trading fee discount
  • 2nd year: 25% trading fee discount
  • 3rd year: 12.5% trading fee discount
  • 4th year: 6.25% trading fee discount

Users will also earn participation rewards for performing P2P trades. Also, token holders will have voting power to determine issues such as future listings, update releases, etc. 

WazirX will burn 10% off WRX tokens every quarter based on the trading volume. In the end, about 100 million tokens will be burned – in a bid to prevent the token from overflooding the market. 

Who’s on the WazirX Team?

WazirX is the brainchild of a core team of members. We have founder and CEO Nischal Shetty, who is also the founder of Crowdfire and is an awardee of Forbes 30 under 30. 

Co-founder and CTO is also a co-founder of Crowdfire Sameer Mhatre is a full-stack developer and designer. He describes himself as “a huge Java and JS fan.” 

Co-founder and COO Siddharth Menon also co-founded Crowdfire. He’s also the founder of 3Crumbs, one of the early mobile startups in India. 

Community Growth Strategies of WazirX 

The WazirX team intends to implement several community growth strategies in a bid to expand the growth of the network. Current strategies include: 

  • Innovative participation reward programs, e.g., the WRX Trade Mining program
  • Publish media content including guest posts and features
  • Conduct AMAs and both virtual and physical conferences
  • Conduct interviews with influencers
  • Release progress updates every month
  • Headline events and partner with industry influencers

Future strategies include: 

  • Create dedicated Telegram channels for various countries
  • Headline and participate in more events such as meetups and conferences to grow further its offline presence
  • Continue to innovate with rewards programs
  • Collaborate with various wallets and decentralized finance apps to explore Fiat gateway solutions

WRX: Token Supply Distribution 

The ERX token was distributed in the following manner: 

  • Launchpad sale tokens: 10%
  • Private sale tokens: 5%
  • Foundation tokens: 30%
  • Product and marketing tokens: 20%
  • Partnership and ecosystem tokens: 20%
  • WRX Airdrop tokens: 11.10 percent
  • WRX trade mining tokens: 3.90%

How’s the WazirX Token Doing in the Market? 

As of October 31, 2020, WRX traded at $0.088615 with a market cap of $20,718,698 that placed it at #323 in the market. The token had a 24-hour volume of $8,866,743 and a circulating and total supply of 233,817,289 and 995,833,334. WRX has an all-time high of $0.229263 (Mar 07, 2020) and an all-time low of $0.055241 (Mar 13, 2020). 

Where to Buy WRX

You’ll find WRX listed as a market pair of USDT, BTC, BUSD, BNB, TRX, and more in several exchanges. They include but are not limited to WazirX, Binance, BinanceDEX, Bilaxy, Sistemkoin, BiKi, Poloniex, FTX, and Bitsonic. 

Final Thoughts

WazirX is relatively young, but it has done well. With its plan to spread its wings to more countries, the project is poised for more success and could very well compete with more established exchanges like Huobi, Coinbase, etc. Here’s to hoping it succeeds in both expanding and democratizing money for populations. 

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Crypto Videos

CRYPTO! A Closer Look At Tether’s $1 Billion Bitfinex To Binance Swap!

A closer look at Tether’s $1 billion Bitfinex-to-Binance swap

A Tether swap worth $1 billion and involved Bitfinex, Binance, and Tron blockchain happened on Aug 20.
Tether stablecoin burned some of its supply on one blockchain only to mint it anew on another one. While this may sound easy enough, in reality, this operation involves quite a bit of planning as well as, more importantly, trust.

How was this performed?

During the six-transaction swap that occurred between two blockchains and took 1 hour and 1 minute to bring to completion, the Tether and Bitfinex side was never at risk. This was due to Binance being the initiating party. On the two occasions – right after the first transaction and then after the fourth one, Binance, as the initiator, was down $400 and $600 million, respectively. This type of risky operation either shows great trust among the involved parties, or perhaps the possibility of some additional mechanisms that were involved and that the public was are not aware of.

Another necessary condition for this swap was the fact that Binance had to have a surplus of $1 billion TRON-based USDT, which it was willing to trade for the equivalent amount of Ethereum-based USDT. Even though Binance has met this criterion, it is unclear whether the funds used belonged to the exchange or consisted of user deposits.

Tether, Binance, and controversy

Tether has been at the forefront of controversies in the cryptocurrency space, as the crypto community knows well by now. On top of that, Binance has been accused of making shady deals with many projects. While this particular example is most likely nothing to worry about, the crypto space has to be aware of centralized institutions traversing the crypto sector.

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Crypto Videos

Binance Is Entering the DeFi Space!

 

Binance Entering the DeFi Space

Crypto exchange giant Binance has announced that it will be delving deeper into the world of DeFi products with its latest offering, which is an automated market maker named Binance Liquid Swap.

Aimed directly at its competitor Uniswap, as well as at its clones, Binance will launch an AMM liquidity pool that will allow its users to provide liquidity by depositing tokens. Just like Uniswap, which is the world’s most popular decentralized exchange, newly-created Binance Liquid Swap will also enable users to earn interest as well as a cut of the trading fees for the pool.

Binance’s product is the first AMM pool on a centralized exchange, and will, as such, be integrated into the Binance.com exchange. This will allow users of the Binance platform to pool tokens in their wallets to earn rewards.

The AMM pool will use a pricing module instead of an order book so they could provide more stable prices as well as lower transaction fees according to the announcement Binance made. The company is currently prioritizing liquidity for its own tokens, which means that the first pools offered on launch will be BUSD/DAI, USDT/BUSD, and USDT/DAI.

Earnings from the AMM pool will be accrued with a corresponding seven-day annual percentage yield (APY for short) with returns converted into the assets in their respective pools. Transaction fees, as well as prices, will be determined by the number of assets gathered in the liquidity pools.


Binance CEO stated that the new product is aimed to attract more volume and participants. He said:

“We hope we can further the growth of the DeFi space and empower our users with more earning power and easy liquidity through a centralized AMM pool. The pool’s main characteristics are credibility, safety, and security, which are all provided by Binance,”

Uniswap is, at the moment, the world’s most popular token swapping protocol as well as a decentralized exchange, with more than $1.8 billion in liquidity.

Binance Liquid Swap is actually the second venture into DeFi that the company has made within a week. On Sept 1, the crypto exchange took aim at Ethereum by launching ‘Binance Smart Chain,’ a new Ethereum smart contract that is compatible with the existing Binance Chain.

The company stated that the blockchain was optimized for DeFi, with the goal of low-cost transaction fees that can go as low as 1 cent.

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Crypto Guides

Is Investing In Binance Coin a Good Decision In 2020?

Introduction

Binance coin is a widely known cryptocurrency made by the Binance exchange. It is by far the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and offers a wide range of crypto-to-crypto pairs. This cryptocurrency runs on the Ethereum blockchain with ERC 20 standard. Binance coin is also responsible for expanding the scope of the operation of the Binance exchange because the currency supports various utilities on the platform like paying for exchange fees, trading fees, listing fees, and other fees that are payable on the Binance exchange. 

It was made available to the users for the first time during an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) on July 25, 2017. Angel investors were offered 10% of the BNB tokens, the founding team was offered 40% of the tokens, and the various other participants were offered the remaining 50% of the tokens through the ICO process. The funds raised through the ICO process were planned to be allocated for various purposes like: 

  • Branding and marketing of Binance
  • Development of the Binance platform.
  • Upgradation of the Binance ecosystem. 

During April 2018, the market cap of the Binance coin was $1.4 billion.

The Binance coin has also collected support with the help of partnerships that have helped the usage period of the coins. One such partnership was done with Uplive, a premier live-video streaming platform of Asia that sells virtual gifts to the users in exchange for BNB tokens to an extensive user base of 20 million on Uplive. 

Is Binance Coin a Good investment or not?

There are a lot of factors that help to determine whether an asset will be a good investment or not. Market structure, daily trade volume, and USPs (Unique Selling Points) are some of the most relevant factors to make this judgment. Market structure can be defined as the macro price activity of an underlying asset. In the case of BNB, the market structure seems promising.

The currency took off in the year 2019 at an approximate price of $6 and climbed its all-time high price of $38.54 as of June 21, 2019. After that, the price has been significantly retraced along with the rest of the cryptocurrency market and has maintained a good price. Also, at any point in time, the price action of BNB coin remains above the key price levels as well as market structure. 

The daily trading volume of BNB is also impressive. At the time of writing this article, the last 24-hour trading volume $2,193,941,846. Apart from the market structure and daily volume, there is an important factor, i.e. tokenomics, that can help to determine whether an asset will be a good investment or not.

Tokenomics means the design of the cryptocurrency and its characteristics that impact its value. These characteristics include game theory, economic incentives, computer science, and cryptography. The tokenomics of Binance coin are very strong. It has been designed in a way that allows easy adoption and utilization, which increases the price of the coin even more. 

Conclusion

Binance Coin (BNB) is a popular cryptocurrency and can always be found ranked on the top 10 spots of the CoinMarketCap platform. It is a leading token in the crypto exchange ecosystem and is utilized on a large scale on the Binance platform. If Binance will continue to invest efforts in expanding the products, it has to offer and onboards new users. Then there won’t be any reason to classify Binance coin under the ‘not a good investment’ category.

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Crypto Guides

What Should You Know About ‘Automated DeFi-Styled Market Pool’ Launched By Binance

Introduction

The leading global cryptocurrency exchange “Binance” launched an automated DeFi-styled market pool for cryptocurrency investors to offer them with instant token swapping functionality. Binance officially brought this new trading platform from the decentralized finance (DeFi).

The platform will allow the money maker to deal with smart contracts. The cryptocurrency exchange system announced that it is an automated market maker (AMM) pool. The users are not only allowed to trade with funds but can also host liquidity pools. For the first time, an AMM pool is attached to the centralized trading exchange system. 

Binance Liquid Swap Product

The AMM pool product called “Binance Liquid Swap” will allow the users to keep their crypto funds in the pools for providing liquidity to the market. In return, they will earn the interest and share from the pool trading commission. They implemented an AMM model for pricing to provide users with stable pricing and low fees.

The AMM exchange model uses a predefined algorithm for pool liquidity to make markets. The exchanges provide liquidity to the pools regardless of the user’s token prior order size. The reward system and trading fee are yet to be disclosed. 

To start, the AMM pool provides the following trading pairs :

  • USDT/BUSD
  • USDT/DAI
  • BUSD/DAI

The security of the product is strengthened due to the Binance platform and also because of its move into the DeFi space with the launch of Binance Smart Chain. The smart chain is a highly performing Ethereum virtual machine. It is compatible with blockchain and works in parallel with the Binance chain. It offers users with smart contracts and allows them to stake a Binance coin. 

Binance Jump in DeFi 

In Binance, the liquid swap transaction fees and prices on AMM depend upon the asset number in each liquidity pool. The prices vary when currencies are added, removed, or swapped in the pool. The trader’s share in the pool will be collected every 7-day as an annual percentage yield (APY). The profit generated will be turned into assets for the respective pools. Binance introduced AMM pools to centralized exchange systems for more safety, security, and credibility.

As the decentralized Ethereum pool is highly risky due to huge market price fluctuations; hence, Binance went for the centralized approach, which would most probably minimize the big margin loss. The Binance is working to deliver instant swap liquidity in order to attract more participants and to incentivize the pool contributors for the community benefit. 

Conclusion

Binance designed this new DeFi “Binance Liquid Swap” having different liquidity pools so that users can earn income instantly and easily without much effort. The centralized AMM pool offers users to buy, stake, and trade their crypto assets. The instant swapping functionality will be executed via a centralized platform.

The users will be able to earn through interest and trading commission from the shares. This centralized platform is able to provide stable transaction prices and lower fees. The DeFi products perform better in the market if more investors are involved in providing liquidity to trade. Hence, to attract more liquidity providers, Binance is providing rewards in return. 

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Crypto Videos

Binance Confirms Crypto Debit Cards Are Shipping Out! Get Yours!

UPDATE – Binance Confirms: Crypto Debit Cards Now Shipping to Europe

Binance has confirmed that the shipping of its crypto debit cards to European countries following a tweet from Changpeng Zhao, the CEO Binance. Zhao, also known as CZ, posted a tweet announcing that Binance has begun with shipping a limited quantity of Binance crypto cards on July 24. He added that the cards are, for the time being, only being shipped to users in the European Economic Area.
CZ’s social media post regarding the card shipments.


While most companies would issue a press release boasting about the card shipments, CZ did this in quite an unorthodox way: by tweeting the news out unofficially on July 25.
“They started shipping in limited quantities as of yesterday. That’s what I heard,” the Binance exchange CEO said, referring to the Binance Card.
Binance made an announcement regarding the issuance of the card in April 2020, right after the company’s acquisition of Swipe, a company specializing in digital asset debit cards.
Binance future crypto card plans


The crypto exchange platform giant noted that the card would soon expand its reach out of just Europe. A Binance representative confirmed that the Binance Card would be available to order in the UK shortly.
The representative did not give any specific details on the card’s geographic expansion, but he did confirm that compatibility for additional countries will come as time passes.
While most businesses struggled during the worldwide economic uncertainty, Binance continues its growth in 2020, with its crypto debit card holding as one area of expansion.

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Crypto Videos

About Time! Binance Sending Out Its Debit Cards!

 

Binance Sending Out Its Debit Cards – Crypto Cards Taking Over


After months of planning and testing, the crypto giant Binance has begun delivering its crypto debit cards to customers.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, posted a tweet on July 25 as a response to a community member that has expressed interest in the product. CZ said that they started shipping debit cards in limited quantities.
As the previous reporting shows that the plan was to do an August launch for the card in the European region, it can be inferred that CZ meant that Binance started shipping to European customers at the time being.


Binance debit card timeline

One of the largest platforms in the crypto industry, Binance, unveiled its plans for a crypto debit card in April 2020, which would go by the name Binance Card. The company then proceeded to acquire crypto debit card company Swipe, using the acquisition to further its plans for the Binance Card project.


CZ and Binance tested out the payment option in July, which the CEO revealed in a July 10 Twitter post. This was done as a part of the product’s initial testing.
Four days later, Binance announced its plans for an August card launch in certain regions of Europe, guaranteeing cards’ compatibility with four digital assets. Bitcoin and Binance’s BNB cryptocurrency were among the four assets listed.

CZ’s recent tweet shows that the development for Binance’s card is going along quite well, as well as that the company is respecting the timeline that it has given. Binance itself has also posted a number of headlines in 2020 amid all the setbacks that happened due to the COVID-19 situation.

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Crypto Videos

Binance Is Now 10x Faster After the Biggest Update In It’s History – Ready For The Next Bullrun!

Binance 10x Faster After the Biggest Update in its History

Binance just completed its largest upgrade on June 28, making the platform even faster, announced Binance’s founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ.

CZ’s thoughts on the update and the next bull run

The largest trading platform in the world has reportedly re-written all code and switched its matching engine to a new programming language, all in an attempt to make it faster and more suitable for even the most demanding traders. It’s said to be Binance’s biggest upgrade in two years. The trading platform can perform ten times faster for traders for the next bull run.


CZ added that, in theory, the platform could handle 100x their current volume. But when real volumes hit, he said that there would probably be some other peripheral systems that may temporarily cause a bottleneck. However, he is certain that they would be fixed quickly.
Although Bitcoin’s price dropped below $9,000 for the second time this week, traders seem bullish and are continuing to buy on each dip.

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Crypto Guides

What Should You Know About A Cryptocurrency Exchange?

Introduction

The cryptocurrency exchange is a place that allows trading cryptocurrencies through a trading platform. These are platforms where people can exchange one cryptocurrency for another one, and even for fiat currencies, for that matter. Their operation is very similar to a traditional financial exchange. The cryptocurrency exchange’s primary operation is to allow the buying and selling of digital assets as well as other assets (fiat currencies). Note that digital cryptocurrency (DCE) is another reference to a cryptocurrency exchange. These exchanges can be like a stock exchange or a currency exchange.

Cryptocurrency Exchange Explained

As mentioned, these exchanges are similar to traditional financial exchanges. To clearly understand this, we may bring out the differences between the crypto exchanges and the conventional exchanges. I a cryptocurrency exchange, buyers, and sellers trade based on the current market price of the cryptocurrencies. Here, exchanges play the role of the middleman. Just like on the stock market, there is some fee charged on each transaction.

Some exchanges deal only with cryptocurrencies, while others that deals with the exchange of both cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies. For example, in these exchanges, you can trade the US dollar for Bitcoin.

Cryptocurrencies are typically unstable in terms of value and sourcing. For instance, cryptos like Bitcoin have been under major dispute events where the value of Bitcoin changed dramatically in a very short time, or incidents where the major exchanges went down due to thefts and frauds.

Talking about the most popular and reliable exchanges, Coinbase’s GDAX (AKA Coinbase Pro) is an example of that. Also, there are exchanges run by third parties where there is a middleman, and  decentralized exchanges that mimic traditional exchanges like IDEX. In decentralized systems, trading is based on smart contracts and is not powered by a centralized third party system for the most of it. Trading with centralized exchanges will require a lot of information to be produced. However, they do allow the trading of fiat currencies. DEX exchanges, one the other hand, require lesser information but they do not allow exchanging of fiat currencies.

Classification of Cryptocurrency exchanges

Based on the exchange’s organizational hierarchy and overall controlling bodies, we can classify them as Centralized Exchanges and Decentralized Exchanges.

The Working Of A Centralized Cryptocurrency Exchange

Since these exchanges are centralized, they are run by a third-party or other organizations. More like a bank for exchanging fiat currencies. Here, the middleman takes control over whatever the assets are being traded on the network.

The Working Of A Decentralized Cryptocurrency Exchange

A decentralized exchange (DAX) is a cryptocurrency exchange which operates without the existence of a third party, or a central authority. In simple terms, decentralized exchanges allow peer-to-peer trading of cryptocurrencies. However, there have been signs that these exchanges have been suffering from low trading volumes and market volatility. And to solve this issue, protocols like 0X, Stellar, and Bitshares are being implemented.

Top Cryptocurrency Exchanges

There are several crypto exchanges to from, but not all have the features and technicalities. Below are the exchanges we have listed out by considering factors like user-friendliness, accessibility, security, and fees.

  • Coinbase
  • Kraken
  • Poloniex
  • Bitstamp
  • Coinmama
  • Bitsquare
  • Binance
  • Bitbuy.ca

These exchanges and many more are discussed in other articles, and you may find them here. So watch out this space for more great crypto content.

 

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Crypto Market Analysis

Daily Crypto Review, Jan 22 – Companies abandoning Libra project, BNB on the rise

The markets didn’t make any significant gains over the past 24 hours. Prices remained at the same level for the second day in a row. Bitcoin’s price went down 0.07% on the day. It is currently trading for $8,641. Meanwhile, Ethereum gained 0.56% on the day, while XRP went down 0.64%.

Komodo gained 23.90 on the day, making it the biggest daily gainer. Golem followed with a gain of 21.47% on the day. On the other side, Centrality lost 7.80% on the day, which makes it the biggest daily loser. Centrality was the biggest daily loser for two days in a row.

Bitcoin’s dominance didn’t move at all. It is now at 65.5%, which represents a decrease of 0.18% when compared to the value it had yesterday.

The cryptocurrency market capitalization did not move today. It is currently valued at $240.15 billion, which represents an increase of $1.62 billion when compared to the value it had on yesterday.

What happened in the past 24 hours

After Facebook’s Libra project had a successful start with many big companies supporting it, things started falling apart. We can now add the telecom giant Vodafone to the list of companies that cut ties with the Libra association. Vodafone’s spokesperson confirmed the news on Jan. 21, 2020.

Dante Disparte, Libra association’s head of policy and communications, confirmed this news in a statement. “We can confirm that Vodafone is no longer a member of the Libra Association.”

Honorable mention

Binance Coin

Binance Coin was one of the few top cryptocurrencies that gained over 2% on the day. Binance Coin managed to go up by 3.44%, making it today’s top performer in the top10. The reason for that is not technical, but rather fundamental.

Binance announced that it officially launched its Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Merchant Program. This program is a user-oriented fiat currency trading platform, which started working yesterday.

According to Coin360’s reports, Binance managed to achieve a staggering 30% growth in trading volume just over the past month. The Hong Kong-based firm also has the largest average monthly traffic at the moment, counting over 18 million users.

With the increased volume which means more users transacting with BNB, as well as the good news regarding the P2P platform launch, Binance Coin has a great fundamental outlook.

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Technical analysis

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin is trading in a very tight range for 48 hours straight. The largest cryptocurrency traded sideways for around 2 days now, which is an incredibly long time for this tight of a range. The price movement shows lack of respect for the $8,650 trend line, which should be removed from the equation, at least for now (we will keep the line on our charts for now, but the price level will be removed from the “key levels” table). Each time Bitcoin consolidated in this way, the break afterwards was explosive.


Bitcoin’s volume stopped decreasing. It is now maintaining a certain level. Its RSI is hovering around the middle of the value range.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $8,815                                           1: $8,436

2: $8,905                                           2: $8,130

3: $9,115                                           3: $7,880


Ethereum

Ethereum’s chart looks very similar to Bitcoin’s chart. The second-biggest cryptocurrency is consolidating as well at the moment. Its price is sitting right on top of the $167.8 line, and it is currently unknown whether the price will move up or down. If the price moves to the downside, Ethereum will face a support level of $163.5. On the other hand, if the price goes up, it will have leeway because the next resistance level is further away, sitting at 178.65.


Ethereum’s volume currently on the lower end of the spectrum, while its RSI level is precisely in the middle of the range (just like yesterday).

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $167.8                                             1: $163.5

2: $178.65                                          2: $160

3: $185                                               3: $154.2


Ripple

XRP was not performing any differently than the rest of the market. Its price is going through consolidation for the second day now. Its price is sitting right at the key level of $0.235, struggling to go up or down. If the price goes down, XRP will face support at the $0.227 level. If, on the other hand, it goes up, the price will face resistance at the $0.24545 level.


XRP’s volume is on the lower end of the spectrum, while its RSI is just precisely in the middle of the value range.

Key levels to the upside                    Key levels to the downside

1: $0.24545                                        1: $0.227

2: $0.253                                           2: $0.221

3: $0.266                                           3: $0.211

 

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Crypto Exchanges

Binance Exchange Review: Is it legit?

Is Binance crypto exchange an industry leader or just another hoax? Well, launched in China but expelled during the Chinese Crypto ban and forced to find a new home overseas, Binance has gone on to become one of the most popular crypto exchanges today. This popularity can largely be attributed to the impressive number of cryptos supported here, professionalism in customer support, low trading fees, and a friendly CEO – CZ.

But does Binance has a valid claim to the global crypto leaders post? Read on as we look at its contributions to the industry and everything else you need to know about this crypto exchange.

What is Binance?

Binance is a cryptocurrency exchange founded by Changpeng Zhao (CZ) in China in late 2017 before moving it to Europe’s Malta in 2018. Initially, Binance was a crypto-to-crypto exchange but has since started accepting fiat credit card and bank deposits. And during its less than two years of operation, Binance has become synonymous with highly competitive trading fees, most innovative exchange platform features, championing futuristic crypto policies, and spearheading charitable projects. Its strategic position in Malta outside the strict E.U and U.S. markets makes it a favorite for the rest of the world.

How does Binance work?

First off, Binance is a crypto exchange that allows you to buy, sell, and trade both the leading and other micro digital currencies. Their exchange is available in both the basic and advanced views ideal for both beginner and expert traders, respectively. On either trading chart view, you are exposed to 450+ crypto trading pairs with most of these priced against Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the crypto exchange’s native coin – Binance coin.

In addition to this, Binance trading exchange charts promise some of the most comprehensive as both basic and advanced views capture all the important details needed to push a trade on one page. From trading charts and price graphs to a coin’s trade history and latest prices in the order book to the buy/sell boxes.

How to set up a Binance account

Another of Binance’s endearing features is that it is easy to join and draws its membership from virtually every corner of the world. We found the account creation process on Binance quite straightforward whereupon admission you become tier 1 trader. Here, you can transact and withdraw up to 2BTC per day anonymously.

You will, however, need to pass the company’s KYC and AML policies if you wish to expand your transactional and withdrawal limit to 100 BTC per day as a tier 2 trader. This requires that you send the company a copy of your government-issued identification document and proof of address. Interestingly, there also exist higher levels that allow for even higher trade limits, but you will need to contact the company directly for that.

What cryptocurrencies does Binance support?

The Binance website claims that its exchange supports 150+ cryptocurrencies. But taking into account both the popular currencies and micro tokens launched daily on their Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) platform, we estimate that the exchange supports 300+ tradeable crypto coins, tokens, and stable coins.

How to trade on Binance

Based on our experience on both the basic and advanced versions of Binance crypto exchange, we can comfortably say that you don’t need special skills to trade on the platform. Not when it has one of the most straightforward buy/sell processes. On their website, you will find the exchange tab that provides you with the option to trade on the Basic or Advanced platforms.

Choose basic (it is simpler), and on its left-hand side of the screen, you will have the order book with your preferred coin’s list price and the buy/sell order prices. You can then select or search for the coin you wish to trade on the right-hand side of the screen and use the buy/sell boxes on the bottom center to complete the transaction.

Binance trading fees

Binance will not impose any additional charges or fees on your deposits. You, however, will be charged an average of 0.1% of the transaction volume to trade on their platform. But this trading fee is slashed by 25% if you chose to pay via the native Binance coins. And this essentially makes it the most affordable crypto exchange we have come across so far and probably the secret behind their $2 billion transaction volumes. 

Binance further maintains highly competitive withdrawal charges for different cryptos. Bitcoin and Ethereum withdrawals are, for instance, charged 0.0005 and 0.005, respectively.

Deposit and withdrawal

You will also be interested to note that there are no transfer limits into your Binance account for both anonymous and verified traders. There, however, is a limit as to how much you can withdrawal without verifying your trader account – currently set at 2BTC per day. The company is nonetheless open to both individual and corporate traders and therefore maintains a discretionally daily withdrawal limit that you can always agree on with the Binance management.

Supported payment processing methods

For the longest time, Binance was pure crypto to crypto exchange, implying that you could only deposit and withdraw into your crypto wallet. It, however, is gradually welcoming fiat to crypto transactions and also started processing fiat deposits. At the time of writing this Binance review, however, the exchange will only accept cards (both Visa and MasterCard’s) and bank transfers only. Binance card transactions support swift transfers where cash takes 10-30 minutes to reflect in your binance trader account plus has the lowest processing fees of $10 or 3.5% per transaction – whichever is higher.

Note, however, that the fiat deposits transactions are also limited to traders from specific regions, especially the UK and the larger European Union. Additionally, the platform will only accept USD and EUR currencies meaning that you will incur currency conversion fees for individuals holding other global currencies.

Security and digital asset protection

Binance maintains an online crypto wallet (Trust Wallet) that’s given freely alongside your trader account. You are free to choose between storing your digital assets here or transfer them to any other crypto wallet address. According to Binance, the larger percentage of the digital coins with Binance are held in cold storage, with only a few maintained in online lenders to facilitate the exchanges day-to-day operations.

Despite these cold room claims, however, Binance suffered their first and only successful hacking where someone withdrew over $40 million worth of cryptocurrencies from the exchange in May 2019. The hacker, according to Binance, succeeded with the heist by manipulating key user information like API keys used by bots and managers. The exchange, however, promised to cover the loss and reimburse users using their reserve funds.

Registration and regulation

Binance cryptocurrency exchange is regulated in Malta and operates under the country’s Virtual Financial Assets (VFA) policies. Unlike most other exchanges registered and regulated in two or more countries and under the scrutiny of several financial conduct authorities, Binance is not licensed by any other regulatory body.

Binance customer support

Binance has one of the most active and highly responsive customer support team we have come across in the crypto space. And it all starts with their multi-lingual website that supports up to 16 languages. Their customer support team is accessible 24/7 via email, live chat on the website, and all popular social media pages like Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Everything else you need to know about Binance:

Launched Blockchain academy:

In an industry first, the Malta-based crypto exchange company recently launched the Binance academy that it says brings “The World Of Blockchain” to your fingertips. It is ideally supposed to help introduce most individuals to the crypto world by teaching them about cryptocurrency and blockchain for free. This academy covers everything from basic blockchain and crypto terms to emerging trends and tutorials on different blockchain-related topics.

Binance Launchpad:

Binance refers to their Launchpad as “a token launch platform for transformative projects.” It ideally is a modern form of initial coin offering where different blockchain projects launch their tokens. Unlike traditional ICOs that were largely unregulated, projects on Launchpad have to apply for listing, after which they are vetted for such traits as transparency, security, reliability, sustainability, and the professionalism of its developers. This has gone a long way in curbing the runaway scams plaguing the crypto industry.

Margin trading:

Binance crypto exchange is also a margin trading champion and an industry leader in advocating for leveraged crypto trades. Crypto traders on Binance can, therefore, margin trade different crypto assets with leverages of up to 20X.

Binance DEX:

Binance has also been a front-runner in championing decentralized exchanges (DEX). This involves setting up several satellite exchanges around the world that complement the primary Binance exchange in a bid to improve efficiency. In actualizing the DEX, Binance has already come up with Binace Jersey and Binance Uganda – two independent crypto exchange outposts of Binance. It should also be noted that it is through these DEX that Binance has introduced fiat to crypto transactions.

Verdict: Is Binance legit?

Despite joining the crypto exchange industry relatively late, Binance has gone to become one of the most popular exchanges. This is evidenced by its massive following and significantly high daily transaction volumes posted on the exchange – averaging $2 billion daily. And a few factors endear it to the crypto world. Key among this is its straightforward signup trading processes, its support for anonymous trading for low-volume crypto traders, and pursuance of the lowest trading fees in the industry.

These plus the innovativeness that has seen it welcome more crypto trading pairs on board and come up with transformational tools like decentralized exchanges (DEX) and Binance Launchpad, and these plus the fact that it is licensed and regulated in Malta don’t just prove its legitimacy but also go a long way in establishing affirming its market leaders position.

 

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Crypto Guides

Understanding The Basics Of Binance Coin

Introduction

For crypto enthusiasts, Binance is a well-known word as it is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The word Binance is a portmanteau of Binary and Finance. Binance coin was initially launched on the Ethereum platform and later was moved on to the Binance’s proprietary blockchain (Binance Chain).

Binance was founded by its CEO Changpeng Zhao who is known as CZ in the world of cryptocurrency, with co-founder & CTO Roger Wang.

Objective

The objective of the Binance coin creation was to serve as a medium for transaction fees, which includes trading fees, exchange fees, and listing fees on the Binance exchange. Just like Ether fuels the Ethereum blockchain platform, Binance coin fuels the Binance exchange. Like any other cryptocurrency, this coin can be traded as well in many of the cryptocurrency exchanges. Binance initially had its headquarters in China, and then in Japan, because of local government regulations. Finally, it had to move its headquarters to Malta.

Binance Coin ICO

Binance coin had its Initial Coin Offering from June 14th to June 27th in 2017. Before the  ICO happened, the network minted a total of 200 million tokens. 50% of the total tokens mined (100 million) were reserved for the ICO, and they raised approximately $15 million. The funds raised are used in three different ways; 35% of the funds raised were used to build and maintain the platform. 50% of the funds were used for branding and marketing the platform. The remaining 15% are reserved for emergency contingencies.

Fee model of the exchange

As mentioned earlier, in Binance exchange, BNB acts as a token for transaction fees. There is a benefit for using BNB token for transaction fees in the exchange. At present, Binance charges 0.1% on each trade, but if we use BNB token for transacting, the exchange offers a discount. For the first year, the concession stands at 50%, and from there on, it will be halved till the 4th year. That means, for the second year the discount would be at 25%, the third year it is 12.5% and 6.75% for the fourth year. From the fifth year onwards there wouldn’t be any discounts. Hence, there are high chances of the coin value to get depreciated as the discount decreases for each passing year. Therefore to combat the depreciation, Binance plans to burn 50% of its coins, i.e., a total of 100 million coins overtime to stabilize the currency.

Consensus 

Binance Chain uses the Tendermint Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanism. The network uses different types of nodes in the system to validate and broadcast the transactions to other nodes. Validator nodes, as the name suggests, validate the transactions in the network. Witness nodes act as a witness for the consensus process and broadcast transactions to all the nodes involved in the network. Finally, the accelerator nodes are owned by the organization to speed up the validation process.

Market Cap

Binance coin stands in eighth place in terms of market cap with a value of approximately 3 billion dollars. Each coin is traded at $19.91 as of 28/10/2019. The 24-hour trading volume is $353 million, while a total of 155 million BNB’s are available in the market as of now.

Conclusion

Binance coin is one of the most innovative cryptos out there in terms of its consensus and usage. As discussed, the founders plan to burn 50% of their coins to stabilize the value of the currency. 20% of the profits are to be burnt every quarter, eventually burning 100 million of the existing tokens. By looking at the history of the coin, the industry experts believe that the currency will sustain the market and emerge as one of the leading cryptocurrencies due to its strong backing and security.