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Chayanika Deka

Dogecoin [DOGE] Bulls Take A Breather After Hitting Peak At $0.14

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Tech mogul Elon Musk has been the biggest driver for Dogecoin [DOGE] rush. The cryptocurrency noted gains of more than 112.24% over the past week. The memecoin has noted an impressive jump to the 11th spot on the cryptocurrency ladder from less than a cent at the beginning of this year to the press time price of a fresh new peak.

After the Coinbase debut on Nasdaq, several cryptocurrencies saw minor pullbacks. Dogecoin [DOGE] was done by 2.16% over the last 24-hours which drove its price to $0.129. At the time of writing, the digital asset registered a market cap of $16.62 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $14.15 billion.

Dogecoin [DOGE] Daily Price Chart:

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After weeks of consolidating, Dogecoin [DOGE] finally noted three straight days of green candles that prompted a fresh parabolic rise to a new ATH as volatility made a comeback. The 50 DMA [Pink] did manage to move above the DOGE candles during the last week of March. However, this trend was short-lived as the crypto-asset held on to the bulls.

After a brief trend of convergence, the gauge between the two moving averages, 50 DMA and 100 DMA [Blue] rose yet again while settling below the price candles and forming crucial support points.

Continuation of Uptrend

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DOGE technicals appear to be strongly favoring bulls. The MACD indicated a massive volume in the coin market as demand remained quite high. The long green bars of Awesome Oscillator depicted a phase of bullish momentum in the DOGE market.

In tandem with the rising price action, the RSI also rose to the overbought zone depicting a sentiment of buying pressure among the investors of the coin as the volatility in the market continued to rise.

The above charts point at a bullish phase for Dogecoin that could take it to climb new highs. However, in an unlikely case of a bearish reversal, the digital asset could test support at levels $0.0698, $0.059, and $0.047 respectively.

Binance Postpones Coinbase’s COIN Stock Token Listing Citing ‘Volatility’ Concerns

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Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced that it has postponed the listing of Coinbase Stock Token [COIN] due to market volatility issues. The official press release stated that investors will be notified once the COIN/BUSD pair is available for trading on the platform.

This came just hours after the exchange announced adding support for tokenized version of Coinbase stock for trading. This was the second stock token listing after TSLA which were zero-commission digital tokens that are fully backed by a depository portfolio of underlying securities representing the outstanding tokens.

Events that unfolded after the high-profile Coinbase’s debut on Nasdaq

The Coinbase listing occurred without the IPO route. The cryptocurrency exchange, instead, went ahead with the Direct Listing route under the ticker symbol ‘COIN’. 

COIN’s reference price was set at $250 by Nasdaq. However, the shares made a debut of more than 50% higher at $381 before making a climb to $424. It was no less than a landmark event for the cryptocurrency market with Coinbase’s valuation briefly rising to above whopping $112 billion.

Failing to retain this level following the excessive market frenzy, COIN dropped to $313 subsequently closing at $328.28 per share on Wednesday, with the valuation of the exchange at $85.8 billion on a fully diluted basis.

In the wee hours of 15th April, however, the shares of the platform rose to $361 in premarket trading. This could have been triggered due to the three funds at Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management buying the shares. According to reports, the flagship Ark Innovation ETF, Ark Fintech Innovation ETF as well as Ark Next Generation Internet ETF made a massive purchase of a combined 749,205 shares of Coinbase.

Despite the high-profile launch, concerns regarding volatility in the realm of digital assets and regulatory uncertainty continued to linger in the Brian Armstrong-led company’s share price. However, several experts weighed in that Coinbase’s growth has been quite impressive and despite its competitors creeping in closer, it still has an upper hand.

In the latest edition of CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe”, Carol Alexander, a professor at the University of Sussex Business School, opined that risk management from a regulatory and the operational point of view is “much better on Coinbase” as opposed to its rivals.

Alexander also went on to add,

“They’ve got this solid revenue stream from the fees and the custodial services as well. There’s no real competitor to them on the centralized exchanges because Kraken, Gemini — I don’t think they’re the next ones to go.

Grayscale Total Assets Under Management Reaches $50 Billion

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Investment giant, Grayscale has reached a new milestone of $50.6 billion in cryptocurrency assets under management [AUM] on the 14th of April. The AUM figure has been quite impressive, increasing by an incredible 2,400% from a mere $2 billion at the beginning of 2020.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust [GBTC] continued to dominate the charts and accounted for a whopping $41.44 billion, while the Ethereum Trust [ETHE] trailed behind with $7.42 billion followed by the remaining trusts, including Litecoin trust [LTCN], Ethereum Classic Trust [ETCG], and Bitcoin Cash [BCHG], with $405.5 million, $267.4 million and $234.3 million respectively.

Grayscale has witnessed a rise in its total AUM figure by over $3 billion right after its plan to further diversify its crypto-trust offerings that involved the addition of five new tokens for their eligible accredited investors.

Grayscale Bitcoin Fund [GBTC] Vs GLD fund 

With the latest surge, the asset manager is inching closer to the largest Commodities ETF, the SPDR Gold Trust GLD which has $57.70 billion in assets. And there are certain industry experts that speculated this could happen soon. Senior Commodity Strategist, Mike McGlone, for one, believes that the firm’s Bitcoin Trust would eventually overtake the most popular gold-pegged ETF SPDR Gold Trust [GLD] in the coming days. His tweet read,

“Bitcoin Trust on Track to Surpass World’s Largest Commodity ETF – In a world going digital, we believe gold symbolizes the diminishing potential for sustained commodity-price advances, notably vs. Bitcoin. The crypto is a prime example of how advancing innovation suppresses.”

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Grayscale had announced its plans of converting its main product GBTC into an ETF. Hence, if approved, this would make the platform accessible to an even wider section of investors at a much lower cost. While the SEC is yet to give a green light to such an investment offering, but if approved Grayscale would easily become the second-largest commodity ETF just behind the SPDR Gold Shares.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has surfaced as the growing choice of market participants around the world. This, in turn, prompted North American regulators to approve a few Bitcoin ETFs. As opposed to the Bitcoin’s bull season, Gold, on the other hand, has continued its downtrend starting after the first quarter of 2020.

XRP’s Retracement Seems Likely Before Knocking Off $2-mark

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XRP has increased to levels not seen in the past three years. Owing to the ongoing bull run, the cryptocurrency market amassed a $2.2 trillion market cap in total as top cryptocurrencies continued to tread uncharted territories. XRP, alone was up by almost 100% over the past seven days.

With the rapid increase in its price, it further strengthened its position as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the leaderboard. The crypto-asset was priced at $1.77 after surging by almost 5% over the past 24-hours. At the time of writing, it registered a market cap of $80.67 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $30.55 billion.

It appears as if SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple has failed to deter the market participants this bull season. Where is XRP’s price headed in the near-term?

XRP Daily Price Chart:

XRP1

With the parabolic rise, XRP’s price has continued to surge at a massive pace as it doubled its price in a matter of just a week. Along with the volatility in the coin market, the trading volume also remained surprisingly high. This was indicative of the fact that the current momentum is strong which could aid in a leg up in the near term.

The upsloping moving averages continued to support the crypto-asset from an event of market downturn.

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The dotted markers of the Parabolic SAR continued to hover below the XRP price candles for almost a month now, depicting that the bulls are here to stay.

The rising volume along with the protracted bullish crossover by the MACD was also indicative of the strength in the coin market as buying demand spiked.

The RSI was also in the well into the overbought zone depicting a sentiment of buying pressure among the investors. It was also an over-leveraged indicator which could further signal a retracement in the coming days.

XRP’s resistances were found to be at $1.92, $2.01, and $2.17 respectively. The 50 DMA [Pink] and the 100 DMA [Blue] acted as crucial support points for the coin at $0.6 and $0.5.

Ripple’s CTO Says Holders With ‘Life-changing’ Amounts Of Coins Should Consider Selling

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The chief technology officer of the blockchain platform Ripple, David Schwartz says that it is now time to “seriously consider”offloading coins from the bag.

The cryptocurrency market has been roaring yet again. The collective market cap was currently towering at $2.22 trillion while Bitcoin’s price drove well above $64K for the first time ever as Coinbase awaits its debut on Nasdaq.

While some might argue that this is not a time to sell, and rather side with the ongoing accumulation trend despite the high prices on the charts, Ripple exec, on the other hand, asserted that buying is not “morally superior” to selling and that selling is not selfish. His tweet read,

“This is probably going to be my least popular tweet ever, but: If you have life-changing amounts of cryptocurrency, please take some time to seriously consider selling some to reduce your risk and exposure. This is not any kind of prediction about what the market will do.”

Schwartz went on to acknowledge that he has been consistent in “de-risking” for many years now. While he wishes that it had not been the case, the exec poined that Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Stellar, and probably many more are currently at prices that mean people might have “life-changing amounts at risk”.

Having said that, the Ripple CTP did clarify that he was not making any kind of predictions regarding the cryptocurrency market.

“I definitely was not making any kind of future prediction there. I have no particular sense of what the market is going to do. I wish I did.”

Ripple-SEC Tussle

XRP

XRP has been performing exceptionally well in the market and even established a three-year high. The crypto-asset was currently priced at $1.81 after amassing gains of more the 93% over the past week. It has remained fairly unfazed by developments with respect to Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC].

Just yesterday, Judge Sarah Netburn had reportedly granted a motion to dismiss SEC’s request that sought years’ worth of financial records belonging to the executives of the blockchain company.

Binance Adds Support For Coinbase Stock Token Hours Before NASDAQ Listing

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Coinbase’s IPO is a big moment for the entire cryptocurrency industry. Its decision to enter the market through a direct listing sparked enough curiosity and has generated high expectations.

Taking the opportunity, its counterpart, Binance has announced support for Coinbase Stock Token [COIN] on the 14th of April which will market the beginning of the COIN/BUSD trading pair. According to the official press release by Binance, the stock tokens are zero-commission digital tokens that are completely backed by a depository portfolio of underlying securities representing the outstanding tokens.

COIN holders would qualify for economic returns on the underlying shares, which includes dividends. This is the second such listing by Binance which had announced zero-commission, tradable stock tokens on the 13th of April starting with Tesla.

Coinbase happens to be one of the most valuable companies and the first-ever in the crypto industry to enter the US stock exchange.

Things To Expect After Coinbase Debut

The highly-anticipated development has triggered Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry to go for a record-breaking surge. The market expects to see dramatic, and potentially protracted, swings in the days to come as the space strives for mainstream adoption.

Coming back to Coinbase’s D-Day, Nasdaq had set a reference price for the firm at $250 per share.

If the shares in circulation, coupled with stock options and restricted shares, are taken into consideration, it can be found that the cryptocurrency exchange’s overall valuation will start a little above $65 billion. In addition, of the SF-based exchange hits the public market around its latest private market valuation of $100 billion, it would straight away be one of the 85 most valuable US companies.

It is safe to say that with a figure as huge as this, Coinbase not only has more users and revenues than many of the largest Wall Street biggies but also becomes the biggest US stock market entrant since ride-hailing business company Uber back in 2019.

Kraken’s Head of Growth Dan Held tweeted about about potential spillover effect into other crypto sectors following Coinbase’s big debut:

“Exchange valuations will likely be surging post-Coinbase IPO. That + general organic upswell of users could cause a spillover into other types of Crypto companies like wallets, custodians, etc.”

Bitcoin [BTC] Blast Past $63K Thanks To ‘Rick Astley’ HODlers

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Bitcoin [BTC] just broke above a fresh all-time high above $63K on the 13th of April as it reaffirmed the strong bullish trend.

The world’s largest crypto-asset has been consolidating since the mid-March dip and at the time of writing was found to be trading at $63,050. It was up by nearly 6% over the past 24-hours.

It was exactly a month ago, that Bitcoin rallied to establish a new mark on the charts, following which the cryptocurrency declined as the selling pressure trapped the price into a narrow range. Meanwhile, volatility in the market remained consistent.

What Drove The Bitcoin Bulls?

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Rick Astley’s Coins. Yes, here’s a new jargon for the crypto-verse depicting Bitcoin holders. Developed by prominent Statistician Willy Woo, ‘Rick Astley‘ buyers [named after the British singer who had his one-hit-wonder in 1987] are essentially strong hands who are never gonna give you up, instead are HODling coins forever and never let the balance of their sats go down.

Wo

According to the blockchain intelligence platform, Glassnode, and Woo’s latest chart, the above image demonstrated the liquid supply change in the red zone indicating that the coins were not moving or were being spent. The metric called the Liquid Supply Change indicates the rate at which coins are crossing the Liquid to Illiquid threshold.

Besides, Glassnode’s weekly report also revealed that the Bitcoin HODLer Position Change, which utilizes 155 days as the measure of ‘old coins’, has not been touched for the same period of time. 155 days prior, the metric was found to be near mid-November when prices of Bitcoin were trading from $16k-$18k after the institutional titan, MicroStrategy’s initial two acquisitions.

Hence, it is likely that the cryptocurrency bought by institutions in late 2020 and early 2021 are beginning to mature past the 155-day threshold, this presuming that the entities in question held on in “true Rick Astley style”, asserted the report.

Glassnode also went on to add,

“As such, the HODLer Position Change metric is currently trending higher and if these institutional buyers did HODL, it is likely to continue in this trajectory over the coming months (keep in mind there will be a time lag between purchase and coins ending up in their final custody/cold storage arrangement).”

Binance Launches Trade Stock Tokens; Begins With Tesla

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Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange, announced the launch of tokenized stock trading in collaboration with CM-Equity AG, a licensed investment firm in Germany, and Digital Assets AG, a Swiss-based asset tokenization platform.  With this, the first Binance Stock Token that was listed was Tesla Inc. with the trading pair TSLA/BUSD that went live on the 12th of April.

With this development, the users of the platform will be able to purchase fractions of actual Tesla share [which was trading at around $677].  However, it is not available to residents of the United States, mainland China, Turkey, or other restricted jurisdictions.

According to the official press release, Binance Stock Tokens are zero-commission digital tokens that are completely backed by a depository portfolio of underlying securities that essentially represents the outstanding tokens. Holders of stock tokens qualify for returns on the underlying shares, including dividends.

The main objective behind the latest move by Binance is to lower the bar for entry into high-priced stocks for potential investors.

Shortly after the announcement, the CEO of the Malta-headquartered exchange, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, thanked Tesla chief Elon Musk in a tweet and further asserted,

“Stock tokens demonstrate how we can democratize value transfer more seamlessly, reduce friction and costs to accessibility, without compromising on compliance or security. Through connecting traditional and crypto markets, we are building another technological bridge for a more inclusive financial future.”

CZ also noted that the roll-out of Binance’s stock tokens opens up new avenues for not just crypto but also traditional investors. This launch would allow users on the platform with proper knowledge about crypto’s fractional properties to be able to branch out into equity assets with the help of a cryptocurrency and platform they are accustomed to.

Binance Coin [BNB] Price React Positively

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The exchange’s native token BNB has seen a surge of 53.34% over the past week and was currently trading at a price of $576.80 as it continued to hover close to its ATH. In fact, it was up by over 3% in the past day further strengthening its position as the third-largest crypto-asset by market cap.

Uniswap’s [UNI] Bullish Advances Halts After Soaring Above $38

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Uniswap [UNI] has continued to steal the show and has breached yet another record milestone close to $38 as it soared above the previous yearly resistance at $36.83 before undergoing a minor pullback.

The crypto-asset’s swing to an all time high was accompanied by the high volatility triggering high volume after consolidating days after above $30.

Uniswap [UNI] rose by 9.34% over the past 24-hours which drove its price to $35.02. At the time of writing, the DeFi token registered a market cap of $18,29 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $2.35 billion.

Uniswap [UNI] Daily Price Chart:

UNI 1

Uniswap was strongly bullish. The already upsloping 50 DMA [Pink] rose closer to the UNI candles following the market-wide correction in the second week of March after attaining highs above $36. Soon after this, the digital asset declined subsequently to enter consolidation before making a strong bullish bounce up to fresh all-time highs. The price of the DeFi token has now surged well above the moving average depicting a rising bullish sentiment in the market.

Meanwhile, the 100 DMA [Blue] continued to remain the 50 DMA as well as the UNI candles.

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Despite a low volume, the closing green bars of Awesome Oscillator depicted a return in the bullish momentum. The MACD also underwent a bullish crossover indicating a momentum that favored the buyers along with high volatility.

The RSI, on the other hand, turned down before reaching the overbought zone and was now found a little over the 61-mark. This indicated that the market has not exhausted the bullish trend yet and there is still room left to march up towards uncharted territory as the sentiment of buying pressure remained undeterred in the UNI market.

As observed from the above charts, the $36.6 is a short-term resistance level of significance before Uniswap climbs to higher levels in the near future. The 50 DMA acted as a strong protective barrier against the downside near $30 level. Other points of support were found at $26.4 and $22.25 respectively.

Exclusive Interview: In Conversation With Phoneum’s Ivan Likov About DeFi, NFTs And Gaming Industry

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We recently spoke with Ivan Likov, the Founder and Lead Developer of Phoneum. Let’s dive deep into Phoneum and what the executive has to say about the current environment surrounding DeFi, NFTs, blockchain technology, and most importantly, where the gaming industry stands right now.

A quick primer on Phoneum: 

Phoneum is a mobile-only cryptocurrency that is built to provide the user with a simplified  user experience and platform that allows users, irrespective of technical aptitude, to seamlessly participate in the new crypto economy.

Here’s the transcript of the conversation with Ivan Likov, the exec of Phoneum.

Ivan
Ivan Likov

Chayanika: How did it all begin? Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey from Bulgaria to being the CEO and Lead Developer of Phoneum today.

Ivan: Ever since my family bought our first computer when I was 12 years old, I have been fascinated with computers and software. I came to Canada in 2009 and enrolled in college to study computer science, software development, and web design. After graduating, I started developing websites, Windows and iOS software applications. As mobile devices became more popular in 2010, I decided to focus on mobile development. Then, in 2014, I was introduced to blockchain and Bitcoin. 

I studied how a blockchain works at its core and what makes Bitcoin so revolutionary. 

As I learned more about it, I saw a database unlike any other, but also a completely new way of looking at how data can be stored and processed. I began to consider how to make this technology available to the masses. That’s how I started thinking about mobile devices, which are in everyone’s pockets, hands, and day-to-day lives.

Back then, it was difficult for regular people to get into blockchain and crypto because of high computing power requirements and specialized knowledge needed to use them.

With a passion for smartphones and blockchain, I decided to merge the gap and build a mobile ecosystem called ‘Phoneum,’ which is a fun mixture of “phone” and “Ethereum”. Then I introduced a cryptocurrency that would allow anyone, regardless of technical knowledge or skills, to participate in the system and earn the token without putting any strain on the device.

The most difficult task was to be able to differentiate computers and mining machines (ASIC miners) from mobile devices. This was important so that only mobile devices could participate in the network. 

There were a ton of checks or validations that needed to be done. I developed for about seven and a half months a unique algorithm to do this differentiation and to build the Phoneum network. The rest is history.

Chayanika: Phoneum is a mobile only cryptocurrency that is based on Tron. And it has also been touted as one of the most reliable mobile cloud mining platforms. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Ivan: Yes. It is one of the most reliable mobile cloud mining platforms because we make our application as simple and easy to use as possible, with no technical knowledge required for people to participate. You only need to press single button to begin earning, and the application will handle everything in the cloud for you. You You can keep using your device without putting any stress on the system.

Chayanika: You have been in the cryptocurrency ecosystem for a long time. So, how has Phoneum evolved over the years, and what capabilities do you believe will be added in the future?

Ivan: That is a wonderful question. And the perfect gateway from my last sentence. As previously mentioned, Phoneum has evolved significantly over the last four years. We started the company in 2017, and the mobile miner came to the market for the first time in the first quarter of 2018. Now, I say miner because, around mid-2018, mining was allowed by Google and Apple to be done on mobile devices because there were not many miners.

After a number of apps began to maliciously include cryptocurrency mining in their code, both Google and Apple both decided to ban cryptocurrency mining on mobile devices through any kind of application.

Eventually both companies stated that they would now allow mobile mining, as long as it’s done in the cloud. Now, this is a little bit of a weird statement. How could you do mobile mining in the cloud? So you’re technically not doing any mining. You’re actually calling up some stats from a server that does the actual mining. .

But it was a perfect opportunity for us to recapture the initial hype and interest that drew investors to us and build the community around the actual miner. So we revamped it to what we now call “cloud earning”. 

Now users can earn for free as well as stake; their tokens that they have earned to gain some interest on them. And if that’s not an evolution, I’m not sure what else could be.

Smartphone-based cryptocurrency was also a perfect opportunity to merge the gap between blockchain and gaming.

We have since built a few games over the years, including Crypto Treasures, Green Karma, Crypto Cards, and Crypto Planet, that have shown not only a proof of concept, but also have received so much interest that we will continue development, moving forward.

Chayanika: Phoneum had recently announced a huge update for Crypto Cards. What more do you have planned for the gamers in the coming days, now that the game ecosystem has transformed to a huge extent. What do you think is untapped and that you are planning to explore?

Ivan: We are currently working on a new set of features to introduce to all our games. One of our focuses has been on bringing digital collectibles. Crypto Cards is one of our most popular games because of this.

In the next couple of month, we will be slowly introducing NFTs. The non-fungible tokens have blasted the news nowadays, and so people have paid attention to that and wanted to see something of that sort implemented in Crypto Cards. We are actively working on bringing that aspect to the game.

Chayanika: NFT is the craze at the moment. It has taken the world by storm. Artists and musicians are minting millions with NFTs. Recently, Hollywood actress Lindsay Lohan released an exclusive NFT collection on Tron. What kind of future do you see for Tron in the NFT market?

Ivan: To be honest, Tron has always been my favorite blockchain. Even back in the day when we were an ERC-20 token based on Ethereum blockchain. Tron works with gaming a lot better than Ethereum does for the fact that you have bandwidth, you have energy, and you could also use the network to do transactions. Tokens can actually benefit from that in a way that you could virtually send any Tron token for free, without the need of having TRX to cover the transaction fee.

Low or free fees on the Tron blockchain definitely make it a good choice for frequent or small transactions.

Chayanika: There’s another competitor now, especially at the backdrop of the DeFi explosion. We’re talking about Binance Smart Chain [BSC]. So what do you think about BSC and its place in the gaming industry? Also, what do you think is the significance and the usage?

Ivan: So Binance has really shown some muscle and power when it comes to blockchain and crypto in the last few years. They were a bit late on the race, but they have quickly become one of the best exchanges on the market. But cryptocurrencies that are listed on Binance are either already accepted by everyone or they have paid a significant amount to get listed. That also puts them in the realm of how Apple is with mobile devices.

The one downside to that is, it’s only compatible with platforms that do work with the Binance chain. As for Ethereum and now Tron, those networks are pretty much adopted by anybody. So, you know, it would be hard for a token or an NFT built on the Binance chain to be accepted everywhere due to the fact that Binance needs to get implemented. But rest assured, just mentioning that there are the high-end of crypto exchanges and platforms, they will definitely make their way into being globally accepted, but it will take time.

Chayanika: Which one do you think is the stronger contender to Ethereum? Is it Binance Smart Chain or Tron?

Ivan: I would say, hands down Tron. They definitely have built their system in a very stable and active way. Their staking mechanism has worked for years now, and it has proven to be completely reliable and bugs free.

Of course every software has its own downside, but the one thing that Tron really shines is with transactions per second. It could go to thousands of TPS, as opposed to the 50 transactions that Ethereum can do. In case of Binance, they are very new. Hence, you can’t really consider anything new, that’s older than two months as things move with the speed of light in the crypto world. But I know that Binance can definitely grow to be one of the standards for sure.

Chayanika: A few protocols on the Binance Smart Chain were actually compromised recently. What do you have to say about the rampant security breaches when it comes to decentralized finance [DeFi] protocols?

Ivan: We have always seen networks and the systems being breached, hacked maliciously, used in any form and shape, because it is a game of cat and mouse or rather a chase. If you patch one gap, or an issue, then another one is opened up. Even with the big giants, like Google and Apple, there’s always a way to hack them.

We, at Phoneum, work on our security to improve it everyday, little by little.

There are a lot of different aspects that need to be taken into consideration. And while Binance has allowed this breach, that only makes them stronger. There are always losses and victims in a battle and as long as the war is won at the end, the malicious entities have only helped them become stronger. I admire everyone that stands up after a hack and fixes the system.

Chayanika: Since we are talking about the DeFi explosion, it is imperative to note that it has created many new avenues for users, developers and for the market system, in general. So how do you think decentralized finance can further help the gaming industry this year? What does 2021 look like for the DeFi and gaming industry?

Ivan: DeFi has made it to headlines more in the last year. While it was overshadowed by NFT, now at the beginning of 2021, it has definitely not fallen off and continues to grow. I think that DeFi appeals more to investors and ones that are paying attention to the markets rather than the gamers.

I think for gaming, the NFT is a better suitable way of exploring blockchain than decentralized finance. I mean just the name of it itself speaks for what it’s all about. It’s about finance. So it’s about the way we work with finance, the way we operate as opposed to the way we entertain ourselves. And, collectibles have always been something that people see value in and something that can grow over time in value.

But at the same time, it is for fun. It is something that we have been very familiar with as humankind. We’ve collected different stones because of shape and size all the way to cards and pictures and all sorts of different collectibles. So collectibles are something that is more for gaming than decentralized finance, in my opinion.

Chayanika: How has the behavior of the institutional investors evolved when it comes to pooling in capital in the gaming realm?

Ivan: No offense to anybody, but the institutional investors are still old school. I, myself from personal experience have had the chance to speak with a few in the past. And all of them look at the gaming as, “Oh, is that like Candy Crush or, oh, is that like Pokemon that you’ve got to collect it and, you know, throw those balls to monsters?” And they laugh. But, in reality, if we look at some financial statistics, the gaming industry is one of the most lucrative businesses to be in. While a lot of people in the world play games for fun, there are others that actually make a living off of them.

People do spend money on games, not only for progress, but also to skip that repetitive gameplay that gets boring after a while, so they can get to the new level. And that’s what generates a lot of money and revenue for those companies. Now, the one thing that I got to mention, when it comes to institutional investment is that at the end of the day, most of those investors are really good with numbers.

So they look at the numbers be it in terms of downloads, revenue, capital, advertising, demographic for these games. And that’s something that should not be left out of the picture, because the more people that play the game, even if it’s completely free ad free, in-app purchase free, can generate millions of dollars. It’s just building that community – that is the million dollar check. It is the community. It always has been, and it always will be. Institutional investors are not gamers themselves. They wouldn’t understand it as much as the public would.

Chayanika: So you think institutional investors are still hooked to Bitcoin and Ethereum? Do you feel this behavior will change when it comes to crypto and blockchain powered gaming platforms, now that they have attained a popularity that was never seen before?

Ivan: Yes. And most definitely it will be. As the blockchain continues to evolve, there would always be new ways to introduce the system within other applications. I mean, we have seen Bitcoin from 8 cents to $60,000. We have seen a game as simple as Crypto Kitties, just some pictures of cats make headlines. We have recently seen an online collage sale for $69.3 million. There is a lot of money that gets invested in those, for sure. But the one thing that I know for a fact is that gaming and blockchain are, I wouldn’t call it the best, but, is a perfect fit for each other.

Gaming has suffered over the years a huge, huge amount of security breaches. Popular games can go down the drain if a groundbreaking glitch, bug or even, malicious software, third-party software breaks the game.

So that does impact the gaming industry. Gaming companies bring in millions every single day. If that’s not enough for institutional investors to get involved, I’m not sure what else could be. But because of these hacking instances, it is hard to maintain the security, you always have to improve and patch holes, but blockchain could help to a large extent. Games stored in a blockchain could hardly be hacked or tampered with.

I think blockchain and gaming will definitely continue to evolve, even in ways that we haven’t even paid attention to in the last few years, as we have been blinded by the used to Bitcoin skyrocketing in value, and, the few updates that have happened to either Ethereum or the Bitcoin forks that keep happening. But blockchain is a great technology for gaming moving forward.