On June 10, 2021, popular social media outlet Tik Tok updated its Branded Content Policy. It now states, “All financial services and products are prohibited, including but not limited to … cryptocurrency.” As one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, this will be a major hit to many marketing policies as the app continuously increases in popularity. In addition, Tik Tok is especially popular with the younger demographic: users under the age of 35 take up the highest percentage of users on the app. This is important to know since the majority of cryptocurrency investors and those likely to invest fall into the 18-40 age range. 

The shutdown of advertisements about cryptocurrency comes after a surge in concern over misleading information being spread across the app causing naive investors to put their money into bad investments such as various cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency courses, financial advice, etc. It’s especially a big...

Around the world, national economies are declining in value. As their legal tender inflates in value causing the purchasing value of the currency to decrease, many are now relying on cryptocurrency as a stable method of payment. As cryptocurrency becomes more relevant in modern society, it gains more prevalence in underdeveloped countries. It has gained such traction that these countries now have higher percentages of cryptocurrency users than that of more developed countries. Many users use it for person-to-person exchanges to circumvent legal restrictions their countries may have placed on cryptocurrency. 

Nigeria now has the highest cryptocurrency percentage of any country in the world with 32%. With a legal currency of very low value, many in Nigeria rely on the United States dollar for purchasing power; however, there is a rarity to USD in the region which has led to more cryptocurrency use. With the 7th largest total population in the world, the 54th lowest GDP per...

An Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) is a type of security that tracks various forms of assets that can be purchased or sold on a stock exchange, similar to a regular stock. As cryptocurrency gains more prominence in modern society, more cryptocurrency ETFs are being approved by countries; however, very few countries have approved of a Bitcoin ETF. Sweden, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Germany, France, Netherlands, and Brazil are currently the only countries in the world that have passed Bitcoin ETFs to be traded on their exchanges. Other countries are interested in developing their platform to be able to trade many different types of cryptocurrencies while some are mainly focused on Bitcoin. 

A common problem between countries that want to trade cryptocurrency assets is the resistance from their respective security councils. The Phillipine Stock Exchange wants to become a platform for trading cryptocurrency assets but is waiting for approval from its Securities and Exchange...

by Lewis Park

All research was acquired by Wolfie Zhao’s segment in TheBlock

We all know that Bitcoin will be around for a long time. At least, for those of us who truly believe in the technology that powers Bitcoin, we know that Bitcoin is fundamentally bullish and has been the first innovative piece of finance since the creation of the first documented ledger system in the form of double-entry bookkeeping created by the Jewish community in Roman civilization. Bitcoin’s characteristics of being censorship resistance, deflationary, limited in supply, decentralized, etc., are all factors that would enable it to be the native internet token that the world desperately needs to help even the playing field for the little guys. In fact, Bitcoin has always championed equality, and it is a no brainer for people to support its success throughout the known world. 

Then there’s China.

Recently, China has cracked down on Bitcoin mining, an...

Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, having nearly 60% larger volume than their closest competition ZG.com (based on 24h volume in June). However, this could soon change as more countries are announcing that Binance doesn’t have authorization to conduct regulated activity. Most recently, the United Kingdom released a statement banning the use of Binance for regulated activity in the country. In addition, Japan recently announced for the second time that Binance isn’t registered to conduct business, yet Binance is still operating in the country. Binance has also made Ontario, Canada a restricted jurisdiction to avoid dealing with possible legal repercussions that many other cryptocurrency exchanges faced for violating province security laws. Binance is also based in the Cayman Islands, but recently, the Cayman Islands financial regulator announced “Binance Group and Binance Holdings Limited are not registered, licensed, regulated or otherwise...

On 1/18/2021, Binance performed the largest ever token burn of 3.6 million BNB (~$165,791,000 USD). This was done in accordance with their 14th quarterly BNB token burn. Total BNB supply thus decreased to 170,532,825 BNB. They have reached 13% of their goal to burn a total of 100 million BNB (half of the supply).

*BNB powers the Binance Ecosystem. As the native coin of Binance Chain, BNB has multiple use cases: fueling transactions on the Chain, paying for transaction fees on Binance Exchange, making in-store payments, and many more.

Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association officially whitelists the Enjin Coin in Japan. Whitelisting is the official practice of allowing identified entities access to a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. This is pretty big news for Enjin, as the coin in itself acts as a store of value when it gets locked into non-fungible tokens within the Enjin ecosystem. In addition, this isn’t just possible within Enjin’s ecosystem alone, but there's a huge amount of potential where cross ecosystem integration can be built through in-app economies. 

Japan seems to be a really good use case for Enjin, as Japan contains one of the biggest gaming ecosystems in the world. Even within their corporate structure, we have the likes of Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Bandai Namco, Konami, Square Enix, etc. In addition, they are the first gaming cryptocurrency that was approved by the JVCEA under the Fund Settlement Law. 

For this next bull cycle,...

1.13.2021 YFI Proposal Change

One of the most popular DeFi projects, YFI has risen dramatically since its July 17, 2020 launch. Its developer, Andre Cronje, wanted a platform that optimized yield and lending for users, hence the name: YFI or yEarn.Finance, as in you earn. The coin was the first governance token of its kind since it was not pre-mined, pre-sold, or available on exchanges: you could only earn the YFI token from using the protocol. On 1/13/2021, there was a proposal to switch YFI staking rewards with YFI buybacks on the open market. If adopted, this change would simplify the platform and remove the staking requirement to earn YFI. Moreover, capital appreciation from buybacks could reduce taxes that would otherwise be considered dividend income. More proposal details here. Currently, an informal poll shows >90% support among the community. 

Another update from 1/7/2021: "Binance Staking Launches YFI Staking with Up to 4.49% APY"

1.13.2021 New DGB Integrations

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