CRYPTO WORLDWIDE
From Brazil to Nigeria, global crypto adoption is on the rise despite market uncertainty
One of the hallmarks of a crypto downturn is a steady drip (or deluge) of negative headlines, and this summer’s seen plenty already, from crypto prices plummeting to overextended crypto firms with liquidity issues. But this means promising developments, including the gradual rise of global crypto adoption, often fly under the radar. A new report from Boston Consulting Group indicated that one billion people could be crypto users by 2030; and for the past several months, countries in Africa, South America, and the Middle East have increasingly explored crypto tech. Let’s take a closer look at some key developments around the world.
Europe and Africa saw an increase in crypto venture deals in Q2, bucking a 22% global decline in venture funding last quarter. While Africa saw a 189% jump to $280 million in fundraises, Europe recorded a 25% spike to $1.8 billion, led by investors including Animoca Brands, Coinbase Ventures, and Polygon Studios, per The Block. The U.S., meanwhile, saw a 24% decline, but still led overall with $5.4 billion raised. (Check out Coinbase Ventures’ full Q2 recap.)
Honduras, Brazil, and Paraguay are expanding Latin America’s crypto footprint, nearly a year after El Salvador legalized Bitcoin. Paraguay’s senate passed a bill in mid-July that creates regulatory frameworks for crypto exchanges and miners (it now awaits the president’s signature). The bill could play a major role in attracting mining firms to Paraguay, which boasts cheap and renewable hydroelectric power. Meanwhile, Brazil’s largest crypto exchange, Mercado Bitcoin, is looking to expand operations in Mexico in the second half of the year as regulatory talks enter their final stages. And Honduras is experimenting with “crypto tourism” by turning the town of Santa Lucia into “Bitcoin Valley,” with 60 local merchants planning to accept crypto payments.
Africa, home to some of the world’s highest-inflation countries, has seen a flurry of crypto developments in recent months. Nigeria, which has the continent’s largest economy, has seen its citizens pile into crypto to shield wealth as they continue to lose confidence in the weakening Naira. Since becoming the second country after El Salvador to legalize Bitcoin this May, the Central African Republic last week launched Sango Coin, a national digital currency meant to attract foreign investment and boost the country’s mining sector (so far the token has had a slow start). Meanwhile in Kenya — which ranks fifth-highest globally in digital currency ownership — a climate activist sold NFTs to fund a 30-foot sculpture made from recycled plastics.
In the Middle East, Dubai announced a “Metaverse Strategy” which aims to add $4 billion to its economy over the next five years by quintupling the number of metaverse and blockchain companies and supporting 40,000 virtual jobs. The metaverse is also having a moment at global academic institutions. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School is launching an online course called “Business in the Metaverse Economy;” The University of Tokyo will also begin offering similar courses; and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology plans to build digital replicas of its campuses in the metaverse.
Why it matters… Just like it’s wise not to be overly optimistic during the frenzied hype of a bull market, it’s also important not to be excessively pessimistic during bearish downturns. In fact, smart investors will tell you that bear markets are inevitable — and are often when fortunes are built. During June’s crypto market crash, “Shark Tank” investor and crypto convert Kevin O’Leary remained bullish about the sector’s long-term future. One of the main reasons? “Look at an MIT graduating class of engineers,” O’Leary told Markets Insider. “The smartest people want to work on the [block]chain.”
Coinbase Bytes: The countries leaning in to crypto
Category: Finance
Good til Canceled (GTC) Crypto
Core Trading Platform, First and Foremost
In part, I blame the uneducated/uninformed investor for taking a loss on the downturn of Crypto. Shame on us. On the other hand, the crypto currency exchange markets, such as Coinbase, make it so easy to make a purchase of Bitcoin. The Coinbase exchange, iPhone app provides a “Simple” trading screen so none of the “Advanced” features are present. In fact, the Coinbase iPhone app doesn’t even expose/mention the more “Advanced” capabilities which, if leveraged, could have prevented investors’ significant losses.
If any type of regulatory body, such as the U.S. SECURITIES AND
EXCHANGE COMMISSION (SEC) steps in to attempt to regulate these crypto exchanges, there are several minimally intrusive opportunities to prevent a “crypto crash” in the future. A few suggestions:
- Education, specifically around hedging risk by using features already built into the crypto exchange platforms, such as a “Stop Limit Order”. Curtailing risk in the future may look like a required one hour online course and quiz before allowing an investor to execute transactions. For example, the Series 7, General Securities Representative Qualification Examination.
- Temporary halt in trading like we see within stock markets. For example, volatility halts are single stock circuit breaker halts that trigger 5-minute halts on fast price spikes or drops that exceed the acceptable trading price range (ATPR) for 15-seconds. The ATPR is calculated as the average price of the previous 5-minute trading period.
- Financial products available to the retail investor for hedging crypto losses, e.g. currency swaps but using crypto on one side of the swap?
Opportunity to Hedge Cryptocurrency Losses and Volatility
When buying stocks, traders have the ability to put in buy and sell orders that expand beyond real-time (i.e. current market value) or end-of-day (EOD) transactions. A SELL order that remains open allows the trader to minimize his risk by stating the amount he is willing to lose. For example, a SELL order can specify the stock price to exit the position and the volume owned to sell, i.e. total or a subset of stocks owned.
Traders can also put in a BUY order, good until canceled, allowing a trader to specify when he is willing to take a position in the stock.
What is a Good Til Canceled?
Good til canceled (GTC) order is an investment order to buy or sell a security or stock at a specified set price that remains in effect or active until it is executed, or the investor cancels the order.
https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_US/investments-trading-financial-markets/good-til-cancelled-definition
It was unclear to me from the Coinbase.com documentation how long the Limit Orders are good until. Limit Orders have the potential to minimize your risk exposure.
Limit orders: Limit orders allow you to manually select the maximum price for your buy order and minimum price for your sell order — it will execute only if that price is hit (which means there’s no guarantee your trade will be executed). As a buyer, you might want to use a limit order if you believe the market is moving lower. One important thing to remember: all the prices you see in the order book all represent limit orders, because market orders get filled right away.
https://www.coinbase.com/learn/advanced-trading/what-is-an-order-book
What is a stop limit order?
Stop-limit orders allow you to automatically place a limit order to buy or sell when an asset’s price reaches a specified value, known as the stop price. This type of order can help traders protect profits and limit losses.
https://www.coinbase.com/learn/advanced-trading/order-types#stop-limit-order
I reached out to Coinbase Support on Twitter for comment regarding how long limit orders are good until, and they responded swiftly, “Good til Canceled” as I would expect. Excellent support.
Hi there, happy to answer your question about limits orders. You are correct, they are good til canceled: if posted, the Order will remain on the Order Book until canceled by you (the Trader). Hope this helps, all the best!
@CoinbaseSupport
Disclosure
Content is for informational purposes and is not investment advice. Investing in crypto comes with risk.
Bitcoin has Dropped 52% since Jan 14 2022
On November 9th, 2021, Bitcoin BTC was valued at ~67k. I waited and bought in on January 14th at 43k. BTC. Like many others, I continued to buy in “on the dip” with an overall moderate investment. Months later I am in disbelief at the deep devaluation of cryptocurrencies across the board, specifically BTC, which I thought would be the best crypto to steer clear against significant loss of value.
In Bear Markets, Investors Shift from Equities to other Asset Types. Why not Crypto?
Commodities, Oil, Precious Metals, and the like are typically the safe haven when there is an equities bear market in effect. It appears Cryptocurrencies as an “asset class” don’t share that same safe haven status. Why not?
Crypto not Sustained by Global Black and Grey Market Transactions?
Lots of illegal and grey area transactions in the world where anonymity should bolster the market evaluation of Cryptocurrencies, but that’s not what we see here. Clients may be shifting/leveraging more traditional ways in finance/trade which have low tech solutions, and countries/territories with loose banking regulations. It may even be beneficial to induce a cryptocurrency crash to reinvigorate the traditional approach that institutions and individuals that broker these opaque transactions.
Are we in a cryptocurrency bubble, bursting in progress?
The housing market will continue to go up. Why not cash in on a variable rate with a loan of over 90% of the house asset. Sound familiar?
Cash is King: “On Demand” Cryptocurrency Transactions
In the new world of Cryptocurrencies, leverage a “Just in Time” crypto transaction going from cash to crypto and back to another currency held in ringfenced countries with loose regulations. Holding long term assets that are affixed to cryptocurrency, such as NFTs, should be a relic of the NFT evolution. Assets, digital and physical, should appreciate over time without the impediment of a highly volatile, underlying currency.
Volume and Volatility
Significant volume trading drives price speculation upward or downward. Electronic trading tied to financial models for trading execution could make the underlying asset wildly volatile, especially with a relatively new asset class, such as cryptocurrency. Conflicting financial models could appear to be as a Tug of war maintaining both maximizing asset value and liquidity.
Influential Events – Impact on Markets
Sometimes there could be a direct correlation between an event, such as a drop in the temperature, which impacts the price of buying gas (i.e. heating) commodity. Sometimes events, such as the drop in cryptocurrency, are not readily transparent on the open markets, and have assets wildly traded based on spec. As romantic as it sounds, we need not look at the “butterfly effect” to grasp the windfall of the BTC current value.
Invasion of Ukraine by Russia
It’s very possible that countries, and their ultra wealthy citizens could have significantly “bought in” on cryptocurrencies, especially at the height of the valuations last year, and now with a war in their backyard feel more comfortable with traditional, safe haven, assets, and are backing out of their positions. If trades are unwound to fast, it could drive the price of the asset.
Bolster National Economies of South America
Some countries have sought to adopt cryptocurrencies in lieu of their native currency in order to prevent against sky high inflation. If one country, such as Russia, and their Russian oligarchs decide to pull out “liquidate” vast volumes of cryptocurrency driving the price down, there will be significant impact to nations who have adopted the cryptocurrency in lieu of their own. Devaluation of the asset verses unmanageable, high inflation.
- El Salvador’s Bitcoin Bill Gets Congressional Approval, But Skeptics Voice Their Concerns
- South American Countries Are Interested In Adopting Bitcoin: Who Will Be Next?
Price of Crude Oil, and Gas at all Time High
Crude Oil has been on the rise since April 2020 from ~ 16 USD to the 52 week high of ~130 USD. Has supply and demand had a major impact to oil prices, shifting from crypto? Is/was the pandemic a driver? Less travel, weakening demand. Tightening supply from Russian sanctions on Oil And Gas shifting spending from crypto to oil?
Price of Goods and Services increases by significant Inflation
Saying the value of goods and services are effected by the events around us is a fair assessment. Looking at the most basic of consumer flows, farm to plate, butter and milk have seen prices risen. Less money available for investments due to a rise in nondiscretionary spending?
Shoppers across America are noticing inflation in prices on many everyday items, and milk got its moment in the spotlight after a CNN interview with one family went viral. It’s true: retail prices for a gallon of milk are up 26% at an average of $3.59 since bottoming out at $2.84 in July 2018.
OC Register
Derivatives – Currency Swaps to Hedge Crypto Risk?
There have to be financial instruments available, or can be packaged to balance the adverse effects of a very volatile cryptocurrency. How accessible are these financial products to the “common” investor, is beyond my speculation, but these are stop gap efforts, and will not resolve the underlying problem with cryptocurrencies.
Artificial Inflation, Pumping in additional BTC by Mining Crypto
I’m not saying this is a “thing” based on other posts and popular opinion, but it could be a factor, at least as an artificial reason / sentiment to flee crypto.