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BackMore news and questions about recent crypto events and the global situation, new CoinMetro hires, and development going as planned — all in This Week in Crypto!
Crypto Market News Highlights
1) Microsoft Files Patent For New Cryptocurrency and Mining System
Not much to say about this one. Big tech companies file patents all the time for things that they don’t even know that they are ever going to create, on the off chance that someone does create it and it fits within their patent-framework and they get paid for it and can sue. Lots of these big companies actually make a good amount of revenue from patents that they hold but never created, but someone else did.
Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, IBM, all these guys hold patents to products they never created, and sometimes even knowingly that they never were going to create them — simply on the off chance that somebody would create it in the future. Kevin doesn’t think they are actually trying to develop this, but they’re hoping somebody might in the future.
2) Binance’s CoinMarketCap acquisition is a bet that crypto really is for the masses
No it’s not. Kevin can go out on a limb here and say that Binance is going to mess CoinMarketCap up. CoinMarketCap was already pretty messed up. Their data was unreliable, mainly because they got data from unregulated sources that could send any data they wanted. They tried to make certain amends to make that data more accurate, but what they did doesn’t really make a difference.
Why do they want to buy CoinMarketCap? Because it’s the most visited property in crypto. It’s ranked 500 in the world most visited websites. Binance’s main subset of clients they are going after, is retail users. Retail guys look at CoinMarketCap. Institutional guys, or pro retail guys, they know that CoinMarketCap is unreliable. You can’t trust what you see on CoinMarketCap. That doesn’t mean everything on there is wrong. But it means that there is no way to vet what is right or not. So why look at it?
Either way, retail guys look at it. And Binance gets most of their volume from retail guys. So, they just bought the most coveted traffic generating website in crypto. Will they put Binance ads all over the place? Kevin doesn’t think so. They are going to maintain the top spot in volume, so now they get the same advertising but at the same time they will be able to add in different metrics that show Binance at the top. So you are going to see Binance on the top of all these different metrics that they are going to be able to produce, and Binance will get a lot of traffic.
3) Billionaire Investor Jim Breyer Drops Ethereum (ETH) in Crypto Portfolio Shakeup
Happens all the time. Portfolios drop assets. Why is it news in crypto? Because it’s an illiquid market. Imagine if Grayscale said tomorrow “no more Bitcoin” and just dumps $3b into the market. That’s scary in these times.
People say that the price drop was because of institutional money, and other people say it was retail money — but here we see one portfolio decides they are out of one crypto asset, and it makes the news.
If one portfolio dropped gold, no one would care. Unless it was one of the usual goldbugs.
So this is a good example for people who think that crypto can weather the storm of global economical impact.
Check out our Medium post to read more crypto market news!
Live Questions
What has CoinMetro accomplished this week?
Marketing is getting into gear. Working on landing pages, splash pages. The new GO! Dashboard and KYC streamlining. Some new 2FA options. Kevin just sent an email to Hawaii for both Ignium and CoinMetro for the sandbox, and is going to put together the SEC document package before the end of the day. Also just hired a marketing guy for Ignium.
Kevin had a conversation with the CMA in Montenegro about their PR that they are planning to do, and how we can put our PR in parallel.
Lots of conversations about CoinMetro. Moving forward with different services to provide new currencies, new services, new payment gateways, new deposit and withdrawal options in multiple countries. Lots of different things, all in progress over the past couple of weeks.
What Kevin has to say about Corona in general is that everybody is at home, and we have had more progress in many areas because people have nothing else to do. Not just internally, but also with external providers.
Curious about what the CSD (Ignium) and CoinMetro are doing?
Any new hires?
Yep, we recently hired the new marketing guy. We also sent out an offer to somebody for Content Marketing. Recently hired a new support agent. Also hired someone in Compliance, Kristina, adapting well. Still looking for one more hire for Compliance. We are also looking for UI/UX design inhouse, and maybe a few other positions that pop up here or there.
CoinMetro job listings can be found at LinkedIn and the CoinMetro Careers page! CoinMetro is always looking for exceptional people. Think you would be a good fit with the CoinMetro team? Send us an email at careers@coinmetro.com!
When stablecoins?
Right now with our current banking partner we have to get all those things preapproved. We are looking at options to get other providers in the mix so that we don’t have to get approval on every single asset, and instead we can simply follow guidelines approved by both parties.
We have a few stablecoins that we are thinking of adding.
Did the new marketing guy interview you yet?
Our marketing guy interviewed everybody. Came up with a strategy and presented it this week. We have now gotten a strategy on landing pages and how we are going to market products. Segment some products to focus marketing. Looking good!
Once you get the additional banking partner, will you list things faster without relying on LHV?
Yes, that is correct.
What does a Content Manager do?
Content is basically writing. Copywriting. Writing copy for websites, landing pages, blog posts, making sure that content is done correctly for SEO, optimizing that content, putting content outside of the site that can bring backlinks. That also includes emails and any content you can imagine. It’s very important, and a key to marketing nowadays. Basically using content as king for lead generation.
Do you think Binance will eventually be punished for unregulated activity, or will they get away with it?
They won’t get away with it. Things like these things take time. Bernie Madoff — if you don’t know about him, google him. He was the president of the NASDAQ, and was running the biggest ponzi scheme in the history of mankind. He was running the ponzi scheme for decades. At least 5-10 years before he was arrested, people knew about it being a ponzi, yet it took time.
In Finance, Refco from Kevin’s FX days. Took 3-4 years. FXCM in the US was running bullshit on some of their clients for years. Everybody in the industry knew it. Still took years.
Binance is not that big. They just made a 400m acquisition, mainly in their own equity. Of a company based who knows where, that is illiquid as shit. And they don’t really have any cash, because all their money is in BTC or BNB.
They are not that big. They are definitely bigger than us, that’s for sure. But they’re on the radar. There are definitely investigations.
More than likely, at the end of the day, especially since they finally started acquiring things — there will be mergers, takeovers, acquisitions, and part of the business will probably be shut down over time. When that happens, pricing and things like that will change, access to assets will change.
But we are talking about years. Kevin doesn’t expect it to happen tomorrow. But yes, there will be repercussions. There is a Martin Luther King quote — “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. And it’s generally correct. Justice takes a long time. “The wheels of justice turn slowly”.
Reddit Questions
Will we see DEX liquidity tied to CoinMetro anytime in the future? Like 0x, Uniswap etc. Would like to see Coinmetro be a one-stop-shop so I can close down some tabs in my browser. – afvagen
Kevin would like to see CoinMetro be your one-stop-shop as well. Understand though that something like 0x, we can’t add that into our order book. Simply because the transactions that happen on a DEX are not fast enough, and generally involve some type of atomic swap or a smart contract in the middle, that just simply doesn’t work with an institutional grade matching engine.
Will we provide some type of a DEX service? That is something we could look at in the future.
Part of the new GO! Dashboard is to have the ability to do token-swaps, and cross-swaps between different tokens without the pairs being listed on the exchange. And there is a possibility that we could add DEX liquidity into a product like that. Adding it into the matching engine though, at least right now with the current tech DEXes are using — Kevin can’t see how that would be possible yet.
Curious to see mockups of the new Dashboard? Check it out in CoinMetro’s Feedback channel on Telegram! Community feedback is greatly appreciated. You are also welcome to join CoinMetro’s Main channel!
“Kevin Explains Crypto” Term: Copy Trading
We have our own system in CoinMetro — “TraM”, Trade Mirror. The main difference with our mirroring platform versus a copy trading platform is that in copy trading you have a master account that is trading, maybe on a different feed, meaning the trader could be trading on a different exchange than you are using.
So the master account makes a trade, and the system tells you to make the same trade, but same feed or not — you almost never get the same entry price. Because you are not entering at the same time. It’s all OTC pricing, so getting the same entry and exit is very unlikely.
Our system is a mirroring system that creates one large order. So there is no price difference between the master account and everyone following him. That’s huge, especially when trading in volatile markets, or they are scalpers. You will always have the same profit/loss as they have.
Follow one of our TraMs and start copy trading a pro today!
Interested in learning more? Have a look at the video where Kevin explains “Copy Trading”:
Listen to Last Week’s TWiC on the Go
Get the complete scoop by tuning in to our audio version of last week’s TWiC on SoundCloud. Happy listening!
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That’s a wrap for this week’s AMA with CoinMetro Founder Kevin Murcko! Please join us next week on CoinMetro’s Facebook and YouTube Channel at 1 PM (UTC) for another round and make sure you submit your questions to the CoinMetro subReddit!
As always, we’re available to answer any questions you may have on our Telegram Group 24/7. You can also find CoinMetro on other channels: Twitter, Instagram, Medium, Reddit, and LinkedIn.