sale of mti bitcoins in south africa briefly wipes out premium buyers

he premium or arbitrage gap on bitcoin in South Africa recently turned negative following the offloading of coins worth over $75 million by liquidators of MTI. As a result of the temporary supply glut, buying bitcoins on local South African exchanges briefly became cheaper than buying on overseas exchanges.

The Impact of the MTI Liquidators’ BTC Sales

However, following the conclusion of the liquidators’ sale nearly two weeks ago, the arbitrage gap has now turned positive. As one South African media report notes, the premium of BTC has now recovered and was hovering between 4.8% and 6.5% on April 20.

Meanwhile, the same report also quotes, Jon Ovadia, the CEO of a crypto start-up Ovex, explaining why BTC is usually sold at a premium in South Africa. He said:

What we have seen is that crypto arbitrage gaps appear in those countries that have foreign exchange controls, such as South Africa. This of course impacts the demand for hard currency assets, such as bitcoin.

The CEO also discusses the principal factors that determine the size or the extent of fluctuations in the arbitrage gap. For instance, Ovadia states that when the bitcoin price in US dollars falls, “the arbitrage gap tends to rise as there is a lag in the South African rand price of bitcoin.” The other key factors influencing the size of the gap include the massive money printing by central banks as well as the BTC’s bull run.

Bitcoin Premium and Exchange Controls

In the meantime, Ovadia’s assertion that BTC is largely sold at a premium in countries that have stringent exchange controls appears to be validated by the top crypto’s price range in certain countries.

For instance, Bitcoin.com News reported in February 2021 that the premium on BTC surged to more than 40% in Nigeria after the country’s central bank imposed restrictions on crypto trading. Nigeria, just like many of its peers across the African continent, has faced shortages in foreign exchange since the start of Covid-19 lockdowns. Consequently, the country has since introduced tough regulations that seek to conserve this scarce resource.

Similarly, Bitcoin.com News reported in early April that BTC was trading at a premium of 18% in South Korea. Just like South Africa, the Asian economic powerhouse has stringent exchange controls in place and this might explain the huge premium on BTC.

report banking giant natwest to refuse service to businesses that accept cryptocurrencies

The major retail and commercial financial institution National Westminster Bank (Natwest) has categorized cryptocurrencies as “high risk” and refuses to serve business customers who accept digital assets for payments. A Natwest board member, Morten Friis, explains the bank has no appetite for dealing with these types of customers as Natwest is taking a “cautious approach” toward this technology.

Natwest Will Refuse to Do Business With Companies That Accept Cryptocurrencies

Reports show that the popular UK-based financial incumbent and wealth manager Natwest is refusing to serve business customers who accept cryptocurrencies. The same bank established in 1968 from a merger between Westminster Bank and National Provincial that suffered from intense scrutiny after being involved in the stock market crash of 1987.

The report written by theguardian.com’s banking correspondent Kalyeena Makortoff explains that Morten Friis, a Natwest board member and head of the bank’s risk committee is taking an adverse approach toward crypto-assets. Friis notes that the bank has no cravings for dealing with crypto customers and digital assets are “high risk” from Natwest’s perspective.

“We have no appetite for dealing with customers, whether taking them on as new clients or having an ongoing relationship with people, whose main business is backed by an exchange for cryptocurrencies, or otherwise transacting in cryptocurrencies as their main activity,” the bank’s risk manager stressed during a shareholders meeting on April 21.

Friis further asserted:

We think of cryptocurrencies as high risk and we’re taking, for that reason, a cautious approach to this. It’s an area where regulation is very much in evolution and we’ll obviously respond to that as things change.

A Few Banks Are Taking a Stand-off Approach Toward Crypto-Assets

Natwest’s current opinion echoes the same warning the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued in March. The FCA warned that “younger investors are taking on big financial risks.” Moreover, the financial incumbent HSBC has been taking a stand-off approach toward crypto assets as well. Essentially, HSBC has chosen to bar investors from buying into stocks from firms that hold bitcoin. Reports this week also indicate that HSBC is even taking issues with Coinbase shares (COIN).

The bank Natwest has not been without controversy, even beyond the market rout on ‘Black Monday’ back in 1987. Ten years later in 1997, the corporate and investment banking arm Natwest Markets disclosed that the banking group had lost £50 million. Further research proved the loss was upwards of £90.5 million and because of these further investigations, faith in Natwest declined rapidly. However, the Bank of England (BoE) stepped in and curbed the resignation of top Natwest officials.

In 2016, Bitcoin.com News reported that Natwest was one of the first UK high street banks to introduce the charging of negative interest rates against its customers. Reports at that time noted that only business customers would feel the new policy, but the announcement shook markets and caused faith to drop as well.

Many crypto-asset supporters would say that Natwest is a shining example of why bitcoin and the myriad of digital assets exist. From the controversies in 1987, 1997, 2016, even today, the bank has witnessed a declining trust from the public. More recently, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) invoked criminal proceedings against Natwest for allegedly failing to comply with money laundering rules.

former employees from major south korean firms quit their jobs after pocketing millions in crypto profits

South Korea’s crypto-sphere has been witnessing a volatile environment in terms of regulatory moves, as bitcoin prices and other altcoins are also having wild moves. Such a scenario hasn’t stopped the country’s middle class to profit from the crypto market, even with very successful stories.

One of the Interviewees Risked His Life Savings in Cryptos

According to a report published by TV network JTBC, employees from major companies such as Shinhan Card, Samsung, and LG Electronics claimed they collected enough profits to quit their jobs.

Testimonies featured in the video report show that the individuals managed to collect millions of dollars worth of cryptos.

One of them, a former Shinhan Card worker, told JTBC that he managed to gain almost 3 billion won ($2.7 million) but clarified that he took a high-risk move by achieving such astonishing profits.

In fact, he invested his life savings and some loans onto crypto trades, and after he earned the millionaire amount in profits, he quit his job role at Shinhan Card last month. Interestingly, he became a full-time Youtuber to feature his success on crypto investments.

Former Samsung Employee Earned Around $36M in Profits

But his story is far to be the most successful one featured in the report.

Another of the former workers interviewed by JTBC, who was part of the staff at Samsung, claimed to have earned around 40 billion won ($36 million) in profits after investing just 50 million won ($44,670) worth in cryptocurrencies.

As a note, none of the above interviewees disclosed which cryptos they invested their money in.

However, a worker from the financial district of Yeoido – who didn’t disclose the name of the company – hesitated from investing in bitcoin (BTC) as she told JTBC that many people were investing in crypto. She claimed to have felt “anxious” about such kind of investment.

Bitcoin.com News recently reported that South Korea’s crypto market keeps booming across the board, as a study unveiled that domestic crypto investors transacted around $7 billion per day in the period ranging from January 1 to February 25, 2021.

blockchain object storage company filebase raises 2m aims to incorporate filecoin and arweave networks

Filebase, a blockchain-based object storage company built on top of the Sia network has revealed the business has closed an initial seed round gathering $2 million from investors. Interest in decentralized storage networks has blossomed in recent months and Filebase expects the growth of global data to surpass 175 Zettabytes by 2025. The project is currently working with three distributed storage projects and plans to expand to Arweave and Filecoin by the end of 2021.

Filebase Raises $2 Million

In the future, blockchain advocates believe that distributed ledger networks will help bolster decentralized storage rather than leveraging centralized clouds and API services used today. In 2021, there are a number of blockchain projects dedicated to data-storage solutions and a company called Filebase utilizes a number of the most-used decentralized storage systems.

Essentially, Filebase is a multi-tenant, S3-compatible API service that is built with the Sia network. However, Filebase decided to branch out and the project also supports Skynet and Storj networks as well. The project further announced this month that the team has raised $2 million in a seed round from well known blockchain investors.

The round for $2 million in funding was led by Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital, Boris Wertz of Version One Ventures, and the founder of Messari.io Ryan Selkis. Filebase details that since the inception of the project in early 2018, the protocol has seen three network integrations and has processed 150 million objects.

“These numbers represent a growing and significant portion of the Web3 ecosystem,” the Filebase team explained. After working with the Sia network, Filebase realized the “API interface should be standardized on the S3 API, the de-facto gold standard of cloud-native object storage.”

The project team further noted:

We could do this for many networks, not just Sia.

Project’s Plans to Integrate With Filecoin and Arweave

The seed round announcement details that the team plans to use the funding to accelerate customer onboarding and hire more staff. The blog post published by Filebase also cites a study that shows in five years data storage will exceed 175 Zettabytes. Filebase believes it’s just a matter of time for when distributed ledger storage systems are adopted en-masse.

The team adds that in 2021, Filebase plans to integrate with two more popular decentralized storage projects. By the end of the year, the expansion will tether Filebase to the Filecoin and the Arweave networks.

“The Filebase platform has had the ability to scale horizontally across multiple underlying networks from an early stage,” Filebase says. “We intentionally decided to build our platform in a modular fashion, allowing us to add more networks as time went on.”

What do you think about Filebase raising $2 million and the project integrating with the Filecoin and the Arweave networks? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below

bitmain reveals new antminer e9 ethereum miner asic device commands 3 gh s hashrate

The cryptocurrency mining rig and ASIC chipmaker Bitmain revealed a new digital currency mining device that’s dedicated to mining ethereum. While the Ethereum network is slowly transitioning from proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) system, Bitmain’s new Antminer E9 aims to be one of the fastest ether miners on the open market.

Antminer E9 Mining Rig to Command 3 GH/s of Hashpower

Two days ago on April 24, the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) manufacturer Bitmain published a teaser video about a new ether mining rig. The device is not for sale yet and E9 prices have not been announced.

Bitmain Reveals New Antminer E9 Ethereum Miner, ASIC Device Commands 3 GH/s Hashrate

However, speculative estimates assume the machine could be around $20k per unit or upwards of $30k per machine. The company revealed the new Antminer E9 specs on Twitter with the accompanying teaser video published to Youtube.

“[The] Antminer E9 ethereum miner. Equivalent to 32 – 3080 graphics cards, Equipped with a hashrate of 3 GH/s, power efficiency of 0.85 J/M, and power consumption of 2556W. Officially launching soon,” Bitmain tweeted on Saturday. The tweet also had a link to the Youtube video which shows a visual perspective of https://secretstradingbitcoin.com/podcast/ the new machine. As of right now, Bitmain’s website does not show the new Antminer E9 specs or any details at all.

Most Powerful Ether Miner Today Can Only Process Hashrate at 750 MH/s

The E9 ASIC miner pulling in around 3 GH/s of hashrate could be the most powerful ETH miner released. The power would be equivalent to 25 Nvidia Geforce RTX 3090s, but the machine draws significant power at 2,556W off the wall. This means, however, at a rate of $0.12 per kWh the new Antminer secrets trading bitcoin E9 could get around $250 per day.

For example, Innosilicon’s recently announced ether miner the A11 Pro claims to get around 2 GH/s. Mining calculators show that at $0.12 per kWh the A11 Pro rakes in around $152 per day using today’s ETH exchange rates.

The A11 Pro is not available until June, and the new Antminer does not have a launch date yet. The most powerful machines on the market today, besides these two new releases include the Innosilicon A10 Pro+ and Bitmain’s E3 model.

The older-generation Antminer E3 only commands around 190 MH/s, which pulls in about $4.37 per day in ETH profits. One thing that will be interesting is the fact that the Ethereum chain is slowly transitioning to a PoS model. Ether-based PoW will be phased out eventually and these machines won’t be able to process the network’s algorithm at that time.