A new report by Binance Research suggests the market for altcoins may experience a resurgence in the near future.

According to the report by the research division of leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, the market for altcoins is due to experience an uptick in activity. Binance Research’s February 2020 Global Markets report found a surge in trading volumes for ETH during February, in addition to an increase in total market volume for altcoins.

The report claims that February was a volatile month for cryptocurrency, with bitcoin's dominance fluctuating from 66% to 61% mid-month, before closing at 64%. Aggregate spot exchange volumes for altcoins increased 69% last month, with ethereum leading the rally. According to the report, the spot market for ETH trading saw a total monthly volume increase of 158.6%.

The report notes,

The top event of the month was ETHDenver, with many hackathon projects on Ethereum building various projects. Many of them highlighted Ethereum’s pending switchover to Proof-of-Stake and the composability of smart contracts built on top of each other.

In addition to rising to volumes, the report cites the fluctuation in bitcoin dominance as an indicator for renewed interest in altcoins.

The report added,

[We] saw some of its highest buy flows in recent months during this time. Flows were not just BTC related, as alts across the board picked up significant steam with traders, perhaps buying in to chase rallies.

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A prime crypto broker blames margin calls on non-crypto assets for the current crypto market slide.

Marc Bhargava, co-founder of Tagomi (which has recently joined the Libra Association), shared his explanation of the current market downturn with Cointelegraph. Since Tagomi is connected with ten of the biggest exchanges and some of the biggest crypto traders, it enjoys a rooftop view of the market. Here’s how the co-founder contextualizes the recent market downturn

Bitcoin is a risk-on asset

Bhargava believes that crypto is not a safe haven asset, despite others saying the opposite:

“BTC and crypto is currently a risk-on asset, more similar to tech and VC than gold, so with oil prices and the general stock market tanking, the latter more due to coronavirus and the global slowdown associated with it, it's not surprising that there are multiple sellers of crypto right now.”

Campbell Harvey, a professor of international business at Duke recently shared a similar opinion with Cointelegraph:

“Now, if these cryptos were safe havens, then you would expect maybe no change in their value or maybe even an increase in value. But that's definitely not what we've seen. The cryptos got battered and dropped by more than 10%. So that suggests to me, in a particular situation of great stress where people are realizing that there's systemic risk unfolding, the stock market drops as expected, people flee to safe assets, but they didn't flee to cryptos, they fled to the U.S. 10-year bond.”

Margin calls on non-crypto assets to blame for the slump

Bhargava suggests that bitcoin has the potential to become a “counter-cyclical” asset, but “that's just not where it is yet in terms of its evolution, primarily because larger asset managers and macro traders don't trade/own BTC yet, and so you don't see it independent from equity market movements like you do for gold.”

Another reason for this massive liquidation could be due to “folks getting margin called on other non-crypto assets.”

Some analysts believe that the current downturn is caused by something more trivial: PlusToken scammers liquidating their loot.

We have been reminded again that crypto markets don’t exist in isolation from the rest of the world.

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Russia’s media watchdog has added six cryptocurrency-related websites to it lists of banned internet sources.

According to a report by Bitcoin.com, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information, Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor), has banned six new cryptocurrency websites as of Mar. 5. The websites, including Bits.media, range from cryptocurrency exchanges to news outlets. The ruling was officially passed by the Nyandomsky District Court in Arkhangelsk Oblast and issued a day later.

Roskomnadzor has been targeting cryptocurrency websites since 2015, with news outlets Coinspot and CoinTelegraph being affected within the last several months. The regulatory body has cited the Central Bank of Russia’s (CBR) stance against virtual currencies and the prohibition on “money surrogates” as grounds for censorship.

However, there has been pushback from Russian courts over the last several years. In March 2018 the Saint Petersburg City Court struck down a ban on 40 websites related to cryptocurrency. Russia’s Supreme Court also overturned a decision to block crypto portal Bitcoininfo.ru in an April 2019 ruling.

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Canadian authorities have approved funding of two blockchain firms, Peer Ledger and Mavennet, to create a platform that enables steel traceability, reported Ledger Insights on March 9.

The Innovation, Science, and Financial Development Canada (ISED), a government initiative in charge of promoting the research and development of Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises, adopted the measure, granting both companies CAD $150,000.

Strengthening digital traceability on the steel supply chain

Peer Ledger (Halifax-based) and Mavennet (Toronto-based) will be working on a proof-of-concept (PoC) prototype for digital traceability of the entire steel supply chain process by using blockchain technology and artificial intelligence.

According to Statista, Canada produced more than 13.4 million metric tons of steel in 2018 alone. The proposed blockchain platform, according to the ISED, would be in charge of controlling and sharing in real-time the information of the chain availability within the national metal industry.

According to a study conducted by ISED in 2018, the creation of a mechanism that allows steel traceability can cover the need for the industry to produce in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

An opportunity for blockchain technology in the steel industry

The Canadian government entity detailed their opinions in a study regarding the application of the blockchain in the field:

“An opportunity exists for the Canadian steel industry to implement a new, cutting-edge approach to the sourcing of steel and inputs, and therefore establishing ‘responsible steel’. This goal could be achieved through a rigorous industry-wide tracing mechanism within the supply chain, and through increased transparency.”

Peer Ledger is known for developing a blockchain-based MIMOSI SaaS platform for responsible sourcing, generally focused on tracking metal production, including gold.

In the case of Mavennet, this announcement came that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded $182,700 to integrate a blockchain system into cross-border oil imports between the U.S. and Canada.

Cointelegraph reached out to Mavennet and Peer Ledger for additional details but received no response as of press time. This article will be updated accordingly should a response come in.

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On Dec. 4, Bitcoin (BTC) fund operator Grayscale published the results of a study that showed 43% of respondents interested in BTC investments turned out to be women. Today, half of Binance’s employees are female — and in India, women make up the majority of crypto investors.

Does this mean that gender equality has come to the market? Or are cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology still a men’s business? On the eve of International Women's Day, female representatives of the blockchain industry told Cointelegraph what attracted them to the market and which difficulties they have faced.

There is no place for women in the “Wild West”

Until 2018, the cryptocurrency industry was almost absent of women — but male crypto enthusiasts created their brotherhood with private conferences and meetups. At one such conference held in Japan in 2018, only two of the 42 participants were women. And in the United States, one conference was held at a strip club.

In general, the lack of women in the blockchain market — until 2018 — can be explained by the historical dominance of men in the tech, financial and scientific industries, whereas the number of women, although growing, is still far from being equal. In these areas, women compose 10%–30% of the total workforce.

For the same reason, women have been facing difficulties with finding jobs in blockchain startups for several years. The results of a study published by LongHash in 2018 show that among 100 blockchain startups, female employees accounted for just 14.5%, while the percentage of managers was a measly 7%. Even worse, there wasn’t a single female leader in 78 out of the 100 startups. Arijana Koskarova, a founder of the training center Creative Hub in North Macedonia and Kosovo, told Cointelegraph that this is due to the commitment it takes to be in the blockchain industry:

“Women have other priorities in life, such as raising a family, so the majority often choose jobs that are easier to handle rather than insecure.”

The risk associated with cryptocurrency investment and its association with crime are other reasons why less than 10% of women invested in cryptocurrency in 2018. Some believe that this is because digital money was initially used mainly for the purchase of weapons, illegal pornography or drugs. Many people still associate BTC with the Wild West, the darknet and crime.

The number of women in crypto is growing

However, in the world of blockchain, there have been more and more women mastering new professions: investors, traders, analysts, developers, journalists and even heads of companies.

Notably, few people know that there are now more women holding leadership positions in the blockchain and crypto industry than in Silicon Valley. Leading crypto companies such as Bancor and Binance are clear proof of this, with 40%–50% of employees being women — and perhaps the latter’s success is indeed partially due to this fact.

The list of female blockchain startup leaders turns out to be quite long. Here are just a few examples. The blockchain divisions of IBM and JPMorgan Chase are led by Marie Wieck and Amber Baldet respectively; Blythe Masters led blockchain firm Digital Asset Holdings and became a managing director at JPMorgan Chase when she was 28 years old; and Kaitlin Breitman co-founded Tezos, which raised $232 million in its initial coin offering.

The growing interest of women toward cryptocurrency can be explained by the attractive investment opportunities of the market, as blockchain entrepreneur Nisa Amoils explained to Cointelegraph:

“Women can get more income through trading, investing and virtual spending of Bitcoin. And the token economy can democratize access to capital through, for instance, security token offerings.”

Many of today’s projects created by women are not only competitive with those created by men but also can outperform their peers. The implementation of the well-known Lighting Network protocol was made possible by its founder, Elizabeth Stark. Key decisions at Coinbase are made not only by Brian Armstrong but also by Katherine Hawn, a member of the company's board of directors. Also, Tony Lane Casserley co-founded Cointelegraph, and the chief operating officer of ConsenSys is Carolyn Reckhou.

Coindance data confirms that the Wild West is slowly but surely acquiring a female face — the number of women in blockchain technology has grown from 8% to 12% in the past two years. This includes bad projects as well, as the infamous scam project OneCoin — which reportedly raised 4 billion euros — was founded by Ruzha Ignatova. Isn’t it also the Wild West in its female manifestation?

It is also worth noting those who write about blockchain and cryptocurrencies: Some of these women have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, a strong Twitter following and are considered industry influencers. The number of female journalists and editors of crypto columns is growing — Laura Shin, Lily Katz, Kristina Lucrezia Corner, Rachel Wolfson — and these ladies are holding the keys of knowledge.

Another honorable mention is Hope Liu. In 2018, she received $20 million in funding for her startup, Eximchain — a public and scalable blockchain that ensures privacy for businesses — after she was told by an unnamed, influential man that she would “never be able to make it,” as she is a woman.

Women make blockchain technology more accessible to other women and men don’t mind

On Jan. 25, 2018, Alexia Bonatsos, a venture capitalist and Fobes “30 under 30” in the media category, tweeted the following message:

“Women, consider crypto. Otherwise the men are going to get all the wealth, again.”

More and more women are following her example, even those in developing countries, for whom blockchain is a great opportunity to gain financial independence. In Uganda, for instance, Tricia Martinez launched the Wala blockchain platform, which allows women to quickly and easily transfer small amounts of money. In another developing country, Afghanistan, Roya Mahboob and Fereshteh Forough launched Women’s Annex, offering women the opportunity to write blogs and earn cryptocurrency from advertising. Kristin Boggiano, a co-founder of the Digital Asset Regulatory and Legal Alliance (DARLA), believes that the technological revolution in the digital economy is excellent for women, adding:

“It is bringing financial inclusion and economic empowerment to females globally, which is having a strong impact on reducing poverty, increasing education and overall household nutrition for families. Through compelling evidence from a number of sources, including the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, it is clear that empowering women and improving gender economic equality leads to economic growth for the community.”

Another woman in blockchain, Singapore-based Yuree Hong, managed to raise the number of female speakers at her conference, S/HE Blockchainers Asia, to 30%–40%. Hong explained that having female speakers encouraged other women to participate. Ksenia Semenova, development director at Cindicator, shared some advice with Cointelegraph:

“Often, the question arises whether it is difficult to be a woman in the male world of business and technology. In my experience, being a woman in the crypto business is easier. [...] Your virtual investors are practically indifferent to who you are. They don’t communicate with you personally, they look at the totality of data: a team, an idea — your gender does not matter.”

However, Manasi Vora believes that being a woman who works in a male-dominated environment, or being the only woman to speak at a conference, is not easy. This is a solvable problem, though, as she told Cointelegraph:

“We need to celebrate and highlight the women that are already leading in this space, and that would be inspiring for others to join.”

But what do men think? Have they started to take women seriously in the blockchain market? How are they accepted in the workplace? Binance, one of the leading crypto exchanges, has been leading by example, showing that women can not only successfully work in the crypto industry but also make vital decisions for the company. Thao Trang, a Binance representative who organizes events for female employees, believes that:

“Maintaining gender equality leads to not only a balanced working environment for employees but also to diversity professional skills, creative thinking and problem-solving capabilities for businesses.”

As such, the exchange doesn’t pay attention to gender or marital status during the hiring process. Helen Hai, the head of Binance’s charity foundation, used a Chinese saying when describing the company’s policy: “It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white. For as long as it catches the mice, it is a good cat.”

World-renowned women also contribute to gender equality in the blockchain industry, such as baroness Michelle Mone, who launched her own cryptocurrency to increase women's interest in investing in the technology. Another woman, Italian entrepreneur Katerina Ferrara, founded the Neuralia project aimed at achieving gender equality in the crypto industry. On the matter of inclusion, Manana Samuseva — founder of the Women in Crypto community — said:

“I believe that it is necessary to implement a number of projects for more effective entry of women entrepreneurs into the sphere of blockchain and cryptocurrency. We held more than 40 meetings for women from the crypto community to teach them crypto trading and blockchain investments. As a result, in New York, the contact base grew to 7,000, and women from various financial companies — such as J.P. Morgan, GE, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup — became involved.”

Other women believe that unless you do something yourself, no one else will do it for you. And if women will not be more actively involved in the crypto world, they again risk giving all the “laurels” to men. He Yi, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Binance, said:

“Blockchain and crypto is an emerging industry, one at a very early stage. […] You have to jump in early enough. […] Never expect others to give preference to women.”

Arijana Koskarova seems to agree with that last point, telling Cointelegraph:

“I don't think women are naturally discriminated [against], but probably we also need to work harder and take [our] place in this industry.”

A lack of knowledge of cryptocurrencies among women is also among the reasons why men prevail in the market. As such, payment company Circle believes that accessible educational resources will help increase the number of women in the blockchain market.

Blockchain was supposed to bring equal opportunities to everyone around the world. At least that's what Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, intended to achieve. And while the hierarchy has not yet been built, there is a chance to build it in such a way that gives people more freedom to choose which position they want to take in the market — and it does not matter whether they’re men or women.

Arwen Smit, founder of blockchain startups Dovu and MintBit, and author of the book “Identity Reboot,” believes that gender is not so important in order to participate in today’s blockchain industry and that Satoshi Nakamoto could be a woman. In an interview with Cointelegraph, she added that the contribution of both sexes is valuable:

“If we believe that an information is absolutely essential to how society functions nowadays, what is essential is that the people building this technology, the people deploying this technology, and the people auditing this technology, the people putting balances on this new technology is a diverse group of people.”

In the blockchain industry, it’s not too late to reduce the gender gap that has existed for many years in the financial and tech industries, according to Vora. She explained to Cointelegraph how exactly this can be accomplished:

“We need to have conversations and initiatives to change this early on when the blockchain space is still evolving. Not 10 years down the line in retrospective.”

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Global markets are in turmoil today as news of a Saudi Arabia-led crude oil price war caused selloffs around the world. Bitcoin joined the decline too with its own agonising plunge but gold price is holding up great.

Market analysts from both cryptocurrency circles and elsewhere continue to debate which asset represents the better store of value. Bitcoin might have it on paper, but gold boasts a much stronger historical precedence.

Markets Plunge, Gold Stays Strong

Gold is one of the few markets around the world that remains relatively stable following mass selloffs just about everywhere else. Yesterday, news broke that an agreement between Russia and OPEC fell through, leaving the market preparing for cheap Saudi Arabian oil to flood the market.

As oil prices tanked harder than they have in around 30 years, stock markets around the world also started to feel the strain. Selloffs have seen the S&P 500, for example, fall more than six percent over the last 24-hours according to CNN Business.

Uncertainty surrounding the continued spread of the coronavirus already had markets looking shaky prior to the collapse of the oil agreement yesterday. Recently, NewsBTC reported on the impact the epidemic was having on stock markets.

Those assets typically thought of as safe havens, such as gold, have fared consistently better than other markets. Bitcoin too had seemed to benefit from the spread of uncertainty. That was until today.

As news about the collapse of the OPEC/Russia agreement spread, Bitcoin price dropped hard. From around $8,750, the leading crypto asset plunged to less than $7,740 at the time of writing.

Evidently, Bitcoin investors are not immune to the fear gripping those in other markets. The safe haven narrative that many have previously touted is, clearly, not quite accurate yet.

Gold on the other hand is proving itself to still be the ultimate safe haven asset in times of strife. Rather than decline like many other global markets, gold has actually held close to its yearly highs remarkably well.

Of course, the likes of Peter Schiff, renowned gold bug and Bitcoin naysayer, took the opportunity to laud gold’s apparent superiority over Bitcoin:

Peter Schiff
@PeterSchiff
Bitcoin was created after the 2008 financial crisis and hodlers always assumed that it would be the safe-haven of choice during the next. Looks like they assumed wrong. If #Bitcoin is not a currency, not a store of value, and not a safe haven, then what is it and why own it?

Bitcoin Has More than a Thousand Year Head Start to Overcome

It’s clear from today’s mass selloffs around the world that Bitcoin is not yet the store of value many would like people to believe. It would be quite incredible, at this point in its story, if it was too.

For something to really function as a safe haven investment asset, people need to trust it. Trust is not something that you can instantly create or buy.

Trust grows the more familiar an individual is with something. Gold, having been basically the same for thousands of years, has earned more trust than any other asset on the planet.

However, it’s not perfect. Gold is difficult to move in great quantities, hard to safely secure, tough to divide, and its scarcity is debatable. These qualities make it a less than ideal form of money.

The thing that gold has in abundance, which Bitcoin is still working on, is trust. People are confident that the bullion they hold today will be worth something in the future.

This isn’t the case with Bitcoin, of course, since most people alive remember a time before Bitcoin. However, the longer the network functions with all but 100 percent up time, the more trusted it will become.

Every person born today will never know a world without Bitcoin. It might not be the planet’s preferred store of value today but that’s not to say it won’t ever be.

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Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian led the latest round in Horizon to help publish crypto card game SkyWeaver and further its blockchain gaming platform.


Horizon Blockchain Games, the developer of upcoming Ethereum-based collectible card game SkyWeaver, has announced $5 million in newly raised funding to help release the game and its blockchain development toolkit.

The latest round was led by Initialized Capital, the investment firm co-founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian—an outspoken fan of SkyWeaver who often tweets about its beta test. New investors ConsenSys (which, incidentally, also funds Decrypt), CMT Digital, and Regah Ventures are also part of the round, as well as previous investors Golden Ventures, DCG, and Polychain.

Horizon previously raised $3.75 million in a 2019 seed round, and according to TechCrunch, the company considers this latest raise to be an extension of that round.

“We’re honoured to have the strategic and financial backing of world-class partners and experts to supercharge our vision,” wrote Horizon co-founder Peter Kieltyka, in a blog post. “We’ll use these funds to deliver our first game to market and continue to build and evolve our blockchain infrastructure for open and standardized virtual items.”

SkyWeaver is like a crypto-infused take on Blizzard’s popular Hearthstone, letting players own their cards as unique digital assets. The free-to-play PC, Mac, iOS, and Android game tokenizes cards as ERC-1155 tokens, and they can be sold within the game or via external marketplaces that support the standard. SkyWeaver’s unique system only mints rare Gold cards for players who top the weekly leaderboards, and then those can be purchased or won by other players.

Currently in a limited closed beta, SkyWeaver is expected to launch an open beta later this year. It will have some competition, however: Immutable’s Gods Unchained is already establishing itself in the space, and built some buzz off of a Blizzard controversy late last year. Dark Country, a crypto card game with an American gothic aesthetic, is also due out this year.

SkyWeaver is not only being positioned as a crypto game for players, but also a showcase of the company’s blockchain platform for game developers. Dubbed Arcadeum, Horizon’s Ethereum-based blockchain stack creates a standard for digital in-game assets that are player-owned and cross-compatible between games. Like Enjin’s recently-launched Enjin Platform, it could help open up blockchain to more and more game creators.

“Similarly to how Epic Games released Unreal to showcase the Unreal Engine, we’re releasing SkyWeaver to showcase our blockchain stack for open virtual worlds with novel player incentives and new monetization possibilities,” Kieltyka added.

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