Category: Cryptocurrency

Shiba Inu versus Dogecoin: Key things to know before investing in these cryptocurrencies

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Shiba Inu and Dogecoin, both meme-currencies, continue to grab headlines amid a sharp spike in interest in cryptocurrencies. While Dogecoin was created in 2013, Shiba Inu is fairly new and came into being only in 2020.

Let’s understand the fundamentals of these meme coins in detail:

The development

Dogecoin has been developed using the same technology as Bitcoin. While Shiba Inu tokens are powered by Ethereum. Fungible tokens like Shiba Inu are ERC-20 tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) use the ERC-721 token standard of the Ethereum platform.

The use case

According to Sathvik Vishwanath, CEO and Co-Founder of Unocoin, Dogecoin started as a meme coin and established itself to some extent as a viable means to do payments online even for the smallest of transactions which the well-known coins like bitcoin and ether failed miserably due to their high transaction fees that got increased due to its own popularity.

On the other side, Vishwanath said, the world still needs an experimental meme coin and we have Shiba INU filling that gap.

“Shiba INU appears to be working up in price more due to rumors than utility while Doge appears to just have found an on the ground use case,” he added.

The risk factor

Shiba Inu and Dogecoin both are meme coins so they can be extremely volatile at times.

Additionally, the most significant risk in investing in any cryptocurrency is that they are neither regulated by RBI nor have a statutory body to oversee their operations. At times, the central bank has issued several warnings for crypto traders of possible losses due to adverse developments.

Where can one buy them?

As per experts, cryptocurrency exchange platforms such as Coinbase, Robinhood, and Kraken allow one to buy Dogecoin. To buy Dogecoin on these platforms, investors are required to download a cryptocurrency wallet.

Besides, users can also mine a Dogecoin. Those who have a powerful computer setup can process other dogecoin transactions and get these coins as payments.

On the other hand, users can trade the Shiba Inu coin at WazirX. Other platforms such as Uniswap and the web version of CoinDCX have also listed Shiba Inu tokens. Uniswap is a decentralized trade (DEX) on Ethereum’s network that allows buying and selling cryptocurrencies for ETH and other Ethereum-based tokens. However, it must be noted that these coins cannot be purchased in Indian rupees (INR) but only in USDT/BUSD.

What should investors do?

According to Ashish Singhal, CEO and Co-founder at CoinSwitch Kuber, an investor must do thorough research on the coin’s fundamentals and take a deep dive into the use case they are solving.

“Factors like risk management must also be taken into account. That said, one should only put in the amount they are fine losing in these coins,” Singhal suggested.

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on CNBCTV18.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. CNBCTV18.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Explained: How much energy bitcoin consumes and why everyone, from Musk to Yellen, is worried about it

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Bitcoin fell nearly 25 percent from its all-time high of $64,000 after Tesla’s Elon Musk on Wednesday said that the company will be halting purchases of vehicles using bitcoin.

Initially accepting bitcoins for purchase, Musk in his tweet said that the increased use of fossil fuel for bitcoin mining is one of the reasons for halting purchases via bitcoin.

However, he clarified that they intend on resuming it once bitcoin mining transitions to more sustainable energy. He added that they will look for cryptocurrencies that use less than 1 percent of bitcoin’s energy per transaction.

Not just Musk, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen too warned on the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies.

If you look at the usage of electricity by bitcoin, it uses more energy than entire countries like Sweden and Malaysia.

CNBC-TV18’s Manisha Gupta get more details on the energy usage of bitcoins.

Watch the video for more.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Antivirus software pioneer McAfee charged by US with cryptocurrency fraud

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

John McAfee, the antivirus software pioneer whose former company still bears his name, has been indicted on fraud and money-laundering conspiracy charges stemming from two cryptocurrency schemes, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.

Authorities accused McAfee and his bodyguard, Jimmy Gale Watson Jr., of exploiting McAfee’s large Twitter following to artificially inflate prices of “altcoins” through a so-called pump-and-dump scheme, and concealing payments McAfee received from startup businesses to promote initial coin offerings.

The Justice Department said McAfee and his accomplices reaped more than $13 million from the schemes. The charges were brought in Manhattan federal court.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed related civil charges concerning the alleged pump-and-dump scheme.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement: “As alleged, McAfee and Watson exploited a widely used social media platform and enthusiasm among investors in the emerging cryptocurrency market to make millions through lies and deception.”

Lawyers for McAfee could not immediately be identified. McAfee is being detained in Spain following his arrest there on tax evasion charges announced in October, the Justice Department said.

Watson was arrested on Thursday night in Texas, the department added.

Watson’s attorney Arnold Spencer said in a statement: “Jimmy Watson is a decorated veteran and former Navy Seal. He fought for other people’s rights and liberties, and he is entitled to and looks forward to his day in court to exercise some of those very rights.”

Both also face civil charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which in October accused McAfee of concealing more than $23.1 million he made from boosting seven cryptocurrency offerings on Twitter.

In the cryptocurrency cases, authorities said McAfee touted assets including Verge, Reddcoin and Dogecoin as part of a “Coin of the Day” or “Coin of the Week” tweet from around December 2017 through February 2018.

Authorities said McAfee held himself up as an expert on cybersecurity and cryptocurrency through his tweets, speeches and his role as a CEO of a publicly-traded cryptocurrency company. They also accused him of telling followers he had no stake in the coins, even as he touted how they “will change the world.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

‘Privacy coin’ Monero offers near total anonymity

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Bitcoin’s share of the cryptocurrency market is sliding, with a host of alternative digital coins gaining ground as developers race to create digital cash that can gain a footing in mainstream commerce and finance.

As these “altcoins” grow in prominence, Reuters is publishing a series of stories that examines the features and characteristics of some of the alternatives to bitcoin that have grabbed the attention of developers, investors and regulators.

The first in this series looks at Monero – referred to as a privacy coin because it allows users to conceal nearly all details of transactions. It has become increasingly used for illegal purposes.

Since its launch in 2014, Monero has grown to be the 12th biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation with around $1.4 billion-worth in circulation.

HOW IS MONERO DIFFERENT TO BITCOIN?

Every transaction involving Monero obscures the digital addresses of the senders and receivers, as well as the value of the transaction. That offers users near-total anonymity, allowing them to instantaneously send digital cash without leaving any clues.

Bitcoin was initially seen as opaque, as the identity of the owners of digital wallets used to send and receive bitcoin is not public.

But details recorded permanently on the blockchain after bitcoin is sent and received can, in fact, give up clues that can be used to pinpoint those identities. This has become increasingly easy with the advent of firms that specialise in analysing blockchain transactions.

WHY’S IT GAINING ATTENTION?

When Norwegian police earlier this year gave details of the kidnapping of the wife of a wealthy businessman, they said the family had demanded a ransom in cryptocurrencies. Local press reported that the suspects wanted to be paid in Monero.

The unusual request underlined a growing trend for criminals to seek alternatives to bitcoin, which through its first decade has become the cryptocurrency of choice for illicit activities from buying contraband to laundering money, cybersecurity experts and law enforcement agencies say.

Bitcoin proponents say that traditional cash is also widely used for criminal activities.

Monero’s use on darknet marketplaces – sites used for buying illicit goods from drugs to stolen credit cars – is on the rise, said Tom Robinson, chief data officer of Elliptic, a London-based firm that provides blockchain-tracking software to law enforcement agencies and private companies.

Three of the biggest five darknet markets now accept Monero, Robinson said, though he added the caveat that bitcoin is still the most widely used cryptocurrency for darknet payments.

One of Monero’s developer team said Monero enables crime no more than cash. Its developers should stay out of debates on its traceability or risk undermining its decentralised nature, Francisco Cabanas told Reuters.

“It doesn’t selectively encourage crime, it encourages commerce,” said Cabanas, who goes by the nickname “ArcticMine,” in an interview via Skype from Vancouver. “In that respect, it’s no different to cash.”

Monero is also widely used for “crypto jacking,” or illicit cryptocurrency mining, where hackers infect computers and steal their power to mine new coins – a highly lucrative endeavour.

Nevertheless, over 4 percent of the 17 million Monero in circulation were mined using malware, said Guillermo Suarez de Tangil, a cybersecurity lecturer at King’s College London who has researched Monero.

“There is a clear phenomenon of the underground using Monero, and selling malware that will contribute to Monero mining,” he said.

Monero’s developers say its characteristics make it a useful tool for companies looking to maintain commercial secrecy. Users in repressive countries looking to avoid censorship or surveillance can also safely move money in the form of Monero, they say.

IS LAW ENFORCEMENT WORRIED? WHAT DO REGULATORS SAY?

Cryptocurrencies are mostly unregulated. Though countries from Britain to the United States are looking at how to deal with the phenomenon, few have set out comprehensive strategies for dealing with digital coins.

Asked about Monero, Borja Pastor de la Morena, an official at Europol in The Hague who oversees the agency’s work on money laundering said: “This kind of alternative cryptocurrency is more opaque and better at concealing the activity of the users.”

He said: “It’s a phenomenon that we are paying attention to”

And though aware of the propensity for cryptocurrencies to be used for money laundering, few financial national-level regulators have specifically addressed privacy coins.

Britain’s finance ministry, which leads a task force that is looking at if and how Britain will regulate cryptocurrencies, said it was aware of the potential for Monero to be used for criminal ends.

“We recognise the risks with crypto assets like ‘privacy coins’ being used for illicit activity,” a spokesperson said, adding that it would “soon” launch a consultation on bringing crypto-related companies under anti-money laundering regulation.

Japan’s financial watchdog, sensitive to money laundering potential of privacy coins, last year asked a Tokyo-based exchange to review its listings. The exchange later ceased trading Monero.

WHO’S BEHIND MONERO?

Like bitcoin, Monero is governed by a virtual community of hundreds of developers that lacks any centralised authority.

Cabanas is one of only two publicly-known members of its seven-person core developer team, who act as stewards for updates to its code.

Mitchell Krawiec-Thayer, a San Francisco-based blockchain developer who is part of Monero Research Labs, said Monero is designed so it can be easily mined by individuals rather than powerful groups that team up to mine coins in industrial quantities.

“This lowers the barrier of entry to everyone,” he said. “The downside is that criminals have started using that. Stealing other people’s resources, putting a strain on their equipment – it’s a straight-up threat.”

Monero has recently launched a response group, where those infected by malware can seek help, Krawiec-Thayer said.

WHO USES MONERO FOR LEGITIMATE PURPOSES?

Data on who uses Monero, and why, is scarce. That’s a challenge for understanding the usage of any cryptocurrency, even more so for one designed to obscure its tracks.

Daily transactions for Monero – one proxy for how widely the cryptocurrency is used – have hovered around 8,000 this month, data from website CoinMetrics shows. The number of active digital wallet addresses for Monero has hung around 5,000.

By comparison, bitcoin sees around 320,000 transactions a day, with about 785,000 active addresses.

Monero is not the only privacy coin. Others, such as ZCash, have grown popular with investors, often for speculative reasons but also because of interest in their privacy features.

Grayscale, the world’s biggest crypto asset manager with around $1.3 billion under management, allows investors like hedge funds to invest in ZCash.

Amid growing acceptance of privacy coins, a number of major exchanges list Monero. For example, Malta-based Binance, one of the world’s largest exchanges, allows users to trade the coin.

Binance declined to comment on Monero, but said it has a comprehensive review process for evaluating coins and tokens for listing, and that it carries out periodic reviews on projects.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow