Opium Makes Exotic Crypto Derivatives Available to All after Raising $3.25M
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2 Monaten ago
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In the DeFi world, Opium is renowned for the provision of various credit default swap-like products, including those of wBTC and Aave.
Crypto derivatives platform Opium has managed to raise almost $3.25 million in a new funding round. Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research, Kenetic Capital and QCP Soteria, Hashkey Group, CMS Holdings and Galaxy Digital are some of the investors involved in this new fresh cash injection. Through the funding, The Amsterdam-based startup will enable users to users with Ethereum wallets to access more exotic decentralized derivatives.
During an interview with CoinDesk, Andrey Belyakov, Founder and CEO, revealed that Opium was formed to solve barrier-to-entry, cost-efficiency and transparency problems that exist in the traditional derivatives market. Belyakov added that blockchain allows users to solve the mentioned three problems since it permits each individual to run personal derivatives. However, a person needs some millions of dollars to spare to make derivatives.
Derivatives on Opium
In the DeFi world, the platform is renowned for the provision of various credit default swap-like products, including those of wBTC and Aave. Products that Opium offer to traders aim to insure them in a similar way as Wall Street’s CDSs against other DeFi products.
“As a decentralized derivative exchange for professional traders, Opium can offer any type of derivatives that you can see in the traditional finance world. We believe derivatives are indispensable for the open finance system, and Opium can make the open finance system more comprehensive and more massively adopted,” said Hashkey chairman Xiao Feng.
The protocol was launched more than two years before the decentralized finance (DeFi) popped into the $11 billion market, which has grown extremely fast during 2020.
Protocol Allows Traders to Hedge Against Tether’s Solvency
In September, Opium launched credit default swaps for Tether (USDT) to caution buyers against Tether’s default. Tether (USDT) is currently the fifth-largest cryptocurrency overall as well as the world’s largest and most popular stablecoin since it captures a significant trade volume and large market cap. Today, Tether boosts a trading volume of nearly 47.3 billion and a market valuation of almost $16.7 billion.
The stablecoin has faced various criticisms despite its popularity. Several speculators have, over the past few years, argued out whether real dollars really back Tether (USDT). Most of them couldn’t believe that its market cap grew roughly $10 billion in 2020. Earlier, in the 2019 spring, court documents proved that ‘cash and cash equivalents’ support each and every Tether available.
In an effort to address such criticisms, Opium’s team designed a credit default swap (CDS) on USDT. With the new CDS, users’ investments in USDT are protected as they will be able to bet against this controversial stablecoin.
Belyakov explained:
“You can use it to protect yourself against (or speculate on) a systemic failure of the most widely used stablecoin in crypto. It also allows you to earn interest on your capital in case you are willing to bet on the quality and sustainability of USDT.”
The Opium founder further added that financial products such as derivatives are excellent for centralized stablecoins – also known as “credit notes” – and CDSs comes to insure against such credit default. Tether chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino also admitted that Tether is solvent but needs a lot of hedging.
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James Lovett is a talented crypto enthusiast who finds pleasure in sharing more knowledge on fintech, cryptocurrency as well as blockchain and frontier technologies. He likes to keep himself furnished and updated with the latest innovation in the crypto industry, blockchain technology, Internet of Things (IoT) and other technologies. As a result, he tries to furnish ardent crypto supporters with the latest news on blockchain and distributed-ledger technologies. Indeed, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency is changing the world as we know “one block at a time”. As a hobby, he also trades in small amounts of cryptos every now and then.
An author with experience writing for tech, digital, and cryptocurrency blogs!
In one of the biggest attacks in the DeFi space, hackers exploited the DeFi project Cover Protocol by liquidating nearly 12K COVER coins and injecting an additional supply of 40 quintillion Cover “coins”.
DeFi project COVER staking protocol has recently been the victim of a suspected attack while artificially inflating the COVER token supply. The hackers have reported exploited the Cover protocol with millions of stolen cover tokens amounting to a massive $2 trillion.
Allegedly, the hackers infused an additional supply of over 40 quintillion Cover “coins”. This resulted in the COVER coin price crashing nearly 90%. On Monday, December 28, the COVER token price crashed all the way from $735 to $53, as per the data on CoinGecko.
The hacker – may be an individual or a small group – has taken responsibility for the attack. In a dramatic, the suspected attacker also returned the funds saying “Next time, take care of your own shit”.
Ethereum wallet explorer Nansen also presented some key details of the event. Soon after inflating the token supply in the initial exploit, the attacker liquidated nearly 12K COVER coins on decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch. In a message on the Discord Group, the Cover Protocol noted:
“The Blacksmith farming contract has been exploited to mint infinite $COVER tokens. We have restricted minting access to the farming contract in order to stop the attacker. If you are providing liquidity for $COVER token (uniswap or sushiswap) please remove it immediately.”
The Cover Protocol team said that the issue has only affected the token supply. However, the funds in the “claim/noclaim” pools are still safe.
Exploring a New Cover Protocol Token
Soon after the attack on Monday, Cover Protocol also announced that it is exploring a new Cover token after a snapshot of the LP token holders. In a message on its Twitter handle, the Cover Protocol team noted.
Hello everyone, we are exploring providing a NEW $COVER token through a snapshot before the minting exploit was abused. The 4350 ETH that has been returned by the attacker will also be handled through a snapshot to the LP token holders.We are still investigating. Do NOT buy COVER
Interestingly, soon after getting the alert message, all developers from Yearn Ecosystem came to support the Cover team. The team noted that they “are working with multiple teams and individuals within the Yearn Ecosystem. We will provide updates as they come. We can not thank everyone enough for their help in this unfortunate situation.”
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
Altcoin Rally Dimming Bitcoin’s Shine, Polkadot Gains 34% in One Week
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3 Stunden ago
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Dezember 29, 2020
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Polkadot (DOT) saw daily gains of 22.5% wrapping up an impressive week with an almost 34% rise in its value.
Bitcoin bullish run looks to have come to a halt amidst an altcoin rally which has seen relatively lower coins put up impressive performances in the past few weeks. Bitcoin dominance is gradually fading as many experts believe the biggest digital coin is backing down as some top altcoin are showing strong “moves” or signals.
Bitcoin hit an all-time high over the weekend, the third time its price has done so in just over 2 months. The price of the biggest digital coin touched $28,400 on December 27, before a lightning drop took it to $27,000 just hours of that incredible feat.
Bitcoin failed to hold onto the $27,000 mark as its price further dropped to $26,000 a day after and is now testing lower levels centered on $26,000 as immediate support. Reports from crypto exchanges revealed BTC/USD trading at lows of $25,830 during the early hours of December 29.
While Bitcoin has seen red over a couple of days, some altcoins are putting up impressive numbers, giving off signals of a strong altcoin rally. Despite XRP’s current issues, the altcoin market is showing glimpses of its glory days as some digital coins are poised to see major gains over the next couple of weeks. Ethereum (ETH) is at the forefront of the rally, with its price climbing above $700for the first time since May 2018.
Polkadot (DOT) also saw daily gains of 22.5% wrapping up an impressive week with an almost 34% rise in its value. The coin is now the seventh-largest token by market cap. Kusama (KSM), a cousin of Polkadot, also saw its price gain 46% last week, pushing its price from $43.1 to $63. The digital token is currently trading at $56 but experts are adamant a breakout above $65 is possible as the token has rebounded off the 20-day exponential moving average ($50.90)
Speaking on the possibility of a long term altcoin rally, analyst Van de Poppe stated that altcoins are next in line to see greens. He added that the next “impulse wave” on Bitcoin next year should be able to take the market to $40,000 or $50,000, but until then, the possibility of a continuance altcoin rally is very much likely.
Although many factors could be in play with regards to the latest Bitcoin price dip, it’s recent fallout with Ripple’s XRP leads the way. Ripple was hit with a lawsuit from the United States Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) and subsequently suffered drops that left its price in a pit. XRP, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is now trading at $0.20 as news broke that Coinbase, a major US cryptocurrency exchange has decided to suspend its trading from next month.
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XRP Crashes Below $0.25 as Coinbase Announces XRP Trading Suspension
Published
10 Stunden ago
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Dezember 29, 2020
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Some of the popular crypto exchanges have announced XRP trading suspension following the SEC lawsuit. This is seriously going to hurt XRP investors’ interest over a long period of time.
XRP investors have met with an unfortunate fate. It has been a rocky ride for XRP investors as the cryptocurrency has been heading south after the SEC lawsuit. From its monthly high of $0.66 on December 1st, XRP has reduced to only 1/3rd of the price. At press time, XRP is trading 20% trading at $0.22 with a market cap of $10.3 billion. The latest price crash comes amid crypto exchange Coinbase announcing its plan to suspend XRP trading starting January 19, 2020.
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewar writes that the latest suspension comes amid the SEC lawsuit against Ripple Labs. Also, in the official announcement, Grewar writes:
“We have made the decision to suspend the XRP trading pairs on our platform. Trading will move into limit only starting December 28, 2020 at 2:30 PM PST, and will be fully suspended on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, at 10 a.m. PST. The trading suspension will not affect customers’ access to XRP wallets which will remain available for deposit and withdraw functionality after the trading suspension. We will continue to support XRP on Coinbase Custody and Coinbase Wallet”.
Coinbase joins Bitstamp as one of the top crypto exchanges to suspend XRP trading in recent times. There have been several other exchanges that have announced XRP trading suspension in recent times. Following the Coinbase announcement today, another major crypto exchange Crypto.com also announced its decision to delist the crypto asset.
$XRP will be delisted from the https://t.co/vCNztABJoG App in the U.S. effective Jan 19th, 2021 at 10am UTC.
The Road to XRP Recovery Isn’t an Easy One with Measures by Coinbase and Others
It looks like XRP’s road to recovery ain’t going to be an easy one! Over the last few years, the SEC has conducted a crackdown on several such crypto projects. Speaking to CoinTelegraph, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said:
“SEC and Ripple will have their day in court with due process of law, so we shall not prejudge the case in the court of public opinion. It is of course likely that the case will take up much of Ripple’s attention and resources. […] We hope a clear precedent and framework emerge from these proceedings.”
Furthermore, the SEC has accused Ripple of selling unregistered XRP securities under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1993. Also, the case will proceed further in the New York Federal Court. Todd Crosland, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange CoinZoom said that the lawsuit will have a long-lasting impact on XRP price.
XRP which has already been a laggard performer over the last two years will continue trading at lower levels even further. While institutional players have been betting big on crypto, they will refrain from having any exposure to XRP.
“Lack of institutional support will hurt liquidity. Institutions will not bet against the SEC, and will be unloading their positions and will avoid taking new positions in XRP until the lawsuit is resolved,” said Crosland.
The only hope for XRP currently is the appointment of new crypto-friendly SEC chairman Elad Roisman. Soon after filing the lawsuit complaint, previous SEC chairman Jay Clayton submitted his resignation. However, we don’t expect things to improve anytime soon.
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
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