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BackCrypto market news, insight into CoinMetro, and some interesting AMA questions!
Curious about what’s next for CoinMetro? Find out with CoinMetro’s Q1 Roadmap!
Check out our weekly “This Week in Crypto” summary or watch the full video.
Crypto Market News Highlights
1) Trondheim city and IOTA gear up its smart city development towards Sustainable Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goals is a list by the UN. Smart cities are kinda cool. But all of this is really at stage zero right now. To have a smart city, you need smart inhabitants. Even the smartest city in the world would not function the way it was supposed to function because the inhabitants wouldn’t live up to par.
It’s cool to read about, but Kevin doesn’t see smart cities becoming the norm within his lifetime at least. Eventually, it is going to happen. But it’s not going to become a mega industry in the short term.
2) Circle Sells Retail Trading App to Crypto Broker Voyager
Circle is breaking themselves up. They want to get away from retail. Institutional means no marketing, for the most part. Retail is difficult, but it’s an underserved market and it’s a big reason to be in retail.
Because of who owns Circle, they are much better suited for B2B, institutional. So they are trying to sell pieces to regain the money they lost, which makes sense.
3) North Korea Is Expanding Its Monero Mining Operations, Says Report
Kevin thinks this is probably accurate and it’s not too surprising. What it means is that the rest of the world, meaning entities like OFAC and FATF, will dislike Monero even more.
Would you like to read about more market news? Check out our Medium post!
Live Questions
News regarding bringing on the CSD devs to work on CoinMetro?
In negotiation right now. Hopefully next week we will be in an advanced stage of negotiations.
What do you think about the sudden growth in volume?
The revamp from having only VWAP (Volume Weighted Average Price) top of book, revamped into several tiers, making the top tier much less spread. Market makers coming online. And with Bitcoin hitting 10k, a lot of trading action.
Any ideas on the number of users on the exchange this week?
Definitely has increased by several multipliers, as far as the number of users per day. Correlated a lot with the bullish crypto sentiment, and tied in directly with the market makers/spread.
Any new CoinMetro hires?
We have some offers going out this week for Compliance, and we are expecting some Support and possibly Compliance in March. We have a new Treasury Officer in the office who started just yesterday.
We are still hunting for marketing. Should have an offer on the table to at least one or two people for marketing within the next ten days.
CoinMetro is growing quickly! Open job listings can be found on CoinMetro’s LinkedIn.
Any new updates on Chainlink?
We haven’t reached out for a new talk yet. We are pushing through a few other things on the CSD side, before we bring Chainlink back in the equation.
We started brainstorming on what else we could do with Chainlink, and we have a few options. We will probably bring this topic back up at the next CSD meeting in Riga, next Thursday.
CoinMetro’s LINK/EUR pair liquidity is now live and easy to trade!
Is the integration of SimplEX into the Dashboard still due this month?
The new Dashboard is definitely on the February chopping block. The integration of what we would call the one page exchange is February, into March.
You will probably see a version on the Demo sometime in February.
CoinMetro’s SimplEX exchange is a super-easy to use platform for buying and selling crypto.
You mentioned you’re talking with the SEC soon?
We are going there to talk about the CSD, Ignium, for the most part. But we will be talking about CoinMetro, specifically for the sandbox, in the fact that it would be needed to show how the actual, complete market loop functions.
Looks like there is some market making going on PRQ?
Yes, there is. Good to see.
PARSIQ (PRQ) was the first project to be hosted on CoinMetro’s IEO platform!
Will the Tiers get repriced as XCM increases in price?
Tiers will definitely be readjusted when XCM increases in value. These tiers are generally based on the current average price.
The latest XCM utility: CoinMetro’s Rebates & Tiers allows you to lock XCM and receive great benefits in return — get a percentage of your fees paid back to you in XCM, get paid to trade, and more!
Is there a timeline for when retail traders will be able to do limit orders on mobile?
The EXpress platform integration into the App is scheduled in March.
Easy access with the CoinMetro App on Android and iPhone. The full web version functionality (including limit orders) is available from your phone browser.
Is the next TraM (Trade Mirror) still within a few days?
There is a private TraM waiting to go public, and another TraM is supposed to come online from a similar group like the one that is running the current public TraM. Should be scheduled over the coming days.
Any idea when new tokens will be listed?
Our banking partner, LHV, should be in our offices for an audit on the 25th of this month. After that audit, we should get a clear direction on their self-assessment guideline.
Has CoinMetro started anything with Ripple?
Kevin has not gotten back in contact again with Ripple, yet. They are making advances, which is great for Ripple, but they haven’t made any advances in the Baltics as far as Kevin knows.
We have a few things we would like to get through before we start focusing on other avenues. With the Payment Institution License, it would be a great time to get back in contact with Ripple.
Buy and sell XRP with ease at CoinMetro!
Any updates on the virtual IBANs?
We are waiting for our banking partner, LHV, to clarify when exactly they will be ready. At the same time, we are looking into how we will integrate it on our side. It is possible that we will be able to do this using another provider, in the next 2-3 weeks. At least that’s what Kevin was told today.
So, in discussions, in the works. No exact dates yet. And we’re also figuring out if it makes sense, as we would not be able to offer all the features that an IBAN offers, because we don’t have the Payment Institutional License yet.
Any updates on SWIFT transfers?
Same as the virtual IBANs, should have an update within 2-3 weeks. We have one provider that has opened for EUR/GBP SWIFT, and they will add in additional currencies over time.
We have sent out several applications to other service providers that can provide SWIFT transactions. One of which we have gone through the compliance process, and are awaiting final approval.
Staking as a service, is that in the pipeline?
There is a small risk with staking, from a regulatory standpoint. It is something we will need to dig into and get an opinion on.
BitGo is also where we are holding most of our assets right now, but we are going to move all Ether-based tokens to our own wallet systems soon, which will allow us to do staking at our own discretion.
Is ADA on the list of upcoming listings?
Yes, it’s on the main list.
Will there be a small presentation for the community on how the CSD process actually works?
We could do that, a little webinar..
Are you close to being able to supply some CoinMetro merch?
Yes, getting there. Waiting for final designs from the designer. He’s like the definition of “Soon”. Kevin really likes the designs from this guy, and it’s not super urgent, so giving him some time.
Will CoinMetro participate in CoinGecko’s trust evaluation (which would put it a lot higher on their exchange scoreboard)?
We are willing to participate, 100%. Kevin is not sure what that is, but he hopes that it is something that makes sense, not some nonsense like what CoinMarketCap did.
What are your thoughts on the Bitcoin halving? Do you think it could be the catalyst for getting back to 20k?
Kevin does not think so. At the end of the day, people overestimate “the halving”. It’s one thing if this would happen out of the blue, and all of a sudden the Bitcoin rewards got cut in half.
For the halving, everyone knows that it’s going to happen. People are looking at the historical charts of Bitcoin, and assume that the past will play itself out in the future. Charts do not tell you where the price will go or where the marketing is heading. They tell you where the market was.
The only reason why some indicators seem to work, is because they are commonplace and standard in mostly retail trading, and retail traders follow the same queues. Which is why they seem to “work”.
Kevin expects the prices to fall on the perception of the halving. And then probably recover and go slightly higher on the momentum of the recovery. It all depends on the capital flow after the drop and into the recovery. Just as it does in any type of asset.
Join CoinMetro’s Trading channel on Telegram and share your thoughts!
Reddit Questions
When will ad campaigns start? – 6MyBad
The target is for March-April. We have started some test campaigns, and we expect more marketing to start in March, and push into April.
Can you please ask why Kevin wants to hire an internal marketing team instead of simply outsourcing to a marketing agency? – T M
Marketing agencies are expensive, and most of them don’t go end to end — they may create a strategy, or they may charge you 25% more than you would place ads, and then they place them for you. They add fees onto everything. We don’t have the budget for a marketing agency.
In order for a marketing agency to really understand the tone, and exactly what you are trying to do in a company — it takes time, and it costs a lot of money. It would take them much more time than an internal team with us here locally, that we can actually train and they can learn the branding from the inside out.
Not to mention that a marketing agency is a one time thing. Internal employees and long term perspective is much better.
What’s the plans for the next capital raising, which I guess will be inevitable this year? Is your focus still on targeting large investors or would you consider crowd funding, similar to something like BrewDog in the UK? – CMfollower
Yes, fundraising should be within this year. Focus will most likely be on targeting large investors. Crowdfunding could be a possibility, we would have to find the best way to do that. We would need a unique standing point to go into crowdfunding. It’s such a saturated field. Tokenized equity might be the way we could do that.
We might not be fully ready to push that out by the time we start fundraising, but eventually it will happen. Equity will be tokenized.
“Kevin Explains Crypto” Term: Market makers
This is not a crypto term per se. And Kevin would say that the amount of real market makers that actually exist in crypto is a number as close to zero you can get, without being zero. You can’t have a market without liquidity. There needs to be a seller when there is a buyer, and there needs to be a buyer when there is a seller.
The core job of a market maker is to make sure that when there is a buyer, they are there on the sell side, and when there is a seller, they are there to buy. Market makers are not there to induce price movements — they are just there to make sure that at the end of the day, the orders can be filled. Without market makers, there is no market.
Interested in learning more? Have a look at the video where Kevin explains “market makers”:
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, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, Reddit, LinkedIn, and YouTube.