Ethereum will be the smart contract global standard

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Ethereum, Smart Contracts1 Comment

Benzinga, a fintech company that provides market news and data to retail and crypto traders, published its latest survey earlier in June, titled “Ethereum Predicted to Become the Global Standard Smart Contract Blockchain.”

The firm surveyed data from 100 cryptocurrency investors and traders, and the data collected revealed some very good news for the Ethereum blockchain, because over 50% of those surveyed “believe that Ethereum is poised to become the global standard contract blockchain.”

The survey says, “Out of 100 investors polled, 56.7% said Ethereum, 20.6% said Cardano, 8.2% said the Binance Smart Chain and 14.5% reported other platforms.” That certainly puts Ethereum solidly out in front of its competitors and the so-called ‘Ethereum killers’.

What makes the investors so bullish on Ethereum? They responded, “decentralization, application ecosystem and scalability” play a role in the decision, although they also revealed that ‘scalability’ was the most important factor, and ‘decentralization’ the least important.

The ‘scalability’ factor is interesting, because that refers to processing times and lower gas fees, the latter having been a thorn in Ethereum’s side recently. Scalability has also been a problem for the leading smart contract blockchain, but this does not seem to have deterred these investors from seeing a bright future for it, and a belief that it will overcome the gas fee and scalability issues with Ethereum 2.0, which is on its way. The fact that it is the main blockchain for DeFi projects also plays an important role in infusing investors with confidence in the product, because it has first mover advantage.

However, Benzinga does offer some words of warning for newer retail investors: “Ethereum’s struggle to upgrade from proof of work to proof of stake has been highlighted by high gas fees and harsh criticism from environmentalists. This chink in Ethereum’s armour has been targeted heavily by Cardano and the Binance Smart Chain, and only time will tell if the flaw is fatal. For now, Ethereum is still home to the largest DeFi ecosystem, and layer 2 solutions show promise to scale Ethereum before the ETH 2.0 mainnet goes live.”

On the other hand, the fact that investors remain the most bullish on ETH suggests that traders have faith in the Ethereum Foundation’s ability to successfully complete the 2.0 scaling upgrade. This is not to say that Cardano and Binance Smart Chain will not have an opportunity to claim some of Ethereum’s market share, but if Ethereum is widely seen as the ‘gold standard’ for smart contracts, their work will be so much harder.

The New China Syndrome

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, GovernmentsLeave a comment

Do any of you remember the 1979 film ‘The China Syndrome’? In it, a news reporter (Jane Fonda) and her cameraman (Michael Douglas) are unintentional witnesses to a SCRAM incident, an emergency core shutdown procedure at a nuclear power plant in California. The crew prevents a catastrophe, but the plant supervisor (Jack Lemmon) begins to suspect the plant is in violation of safety standards, and tries desperately to bring it to the attention of the public, fearing that another SCRAM incident will produce an atomic disaster.

You may ask why was it called ‘China Syndrome’ when the action took place in California. The answer is that the nuclear meltdown scenario in the film is based the fanciful idea that there would be nothing to stop the meltdown tunnelling its way to the other side of the world, i.e. China.

This week we have seen another form of ‘China Syndrome’ in the cryptocurrency markets. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano and others have plummeted in value after Beijing renewed efforts to rein in the sector by cutting power to bitcoin miners in Sichuan province over the weekend, one of the country’s largest producers of the digital currency, writes Robert Hart at Forbes.

China accounts for 80% of global bitcoin operations and the crackdown in Sichuan has cut the country’s bitcoin production by more than 90%, according to China’s Global Times. This state media source also says, “regulators in other key mining hubs in China’s north and southwest regions have taken similar harsh steps.”

The move has cut bitcoin’s hashrate and caused bitcoin to drop to its lowest value in nearly two weeks. As you’ve probably noticed, the altcoins suffered as well.

China has an abundance of cheap electricity, making it an ideal location for energy intensive bitcoin mining, and Sichuan has an abundance of hydropower, hence its regional domination of the sector. However, a great deal of the energy used for mining coming from coal power stations, which means the industry is at odds with China’s new climate goals…and Elon Musk’s thinking.

This sounds commendable for a cleaner energy future, but that is not the only reason China has clamped down on mining. According to Hart, “China is also keen to prevent cryptocurrencies from “infringing” upon financial order, prompting a ban on financial services facilitating crypto trade.”

China has been causing problems in the cryptocurrency market since May when it announced its intention to intensify its regulatory crackdown on cryptocurrencies, something it does periodically.

Shentu Qingchun, CEO of Shenzhen-based blockchain company BankLedger, told the Global Times on Sunday: “We had hoped that Sichuan would be an exception during the clampdown as there is an electricity glut there in the rainy season. But Chinese regulators are now taking a uniform approach, which would overhaul and rein in the booming Bitcoin mining industry in China.”

And then he added, “As a result, Chinese miners must form alliances to migrate overseas, to places such as North America and Russia.”  It sounds like a move that might stop the meltdown that is currently tunnelling from China to the rest of the world.

Panic over: it’s time to buy crypto again

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Bitcoin, Blockchain, cryptoLeave a comment

June has not been a wonderful month for cryptocurrencies, but Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, is confident that “we’ve seen the most of this panic” and that the sell-off is slowing down.

I read his newsletter published on 14th June with interest. He names three things that caused the markets to fall sharply:

  • China banning bitcoin (again)
  • Tax day
  • Elon Musk

The first point, regarding China, he says is one that happens in a cycle, as China has ‘banned’ bitcoin in 2013, 2017 and 2021. So, that’s every four years. Will they do it again in 2025? It’s hard to say, but by that time the cryptocurrency markets will look rather different one suspects. Morehead warns “Investors who sell on China “bans” usually end up bummed.”

Tax day is also something that comes around with an inevitable regularity. It is also important for crypto prices. In 2013 and 2017 when we also had spectacular bull runs, “bitcoin peaked four months before Tax Day and hit a low about a week before Tax Day.” People sell their crypto to pay their tax bills, especially when they are being asked to pay on their crypto gains. As for Elon Musk’s swivel over bitcoin, Morehead stays silent on that. He’s right, enough has been said to inflate the entrepreneur’s sense of himself as a market mover.

What Morehead does address is human behaviour and our love of acting in cycles. As he says, “Humans have an innate herd instinct.” He explains it like this:

  • It’s human nature that we want to buy when the market is surging up — when the FOMO devil is whispering in our ear.
  • When the markets are crashing – and our spouse/friends/boss are all WTF, we want to flee…we want the pain to stop..

And that is what happened in May and June. Although, Morehead does add another warning: “I could imagine that the traits we imprinted on the plains of the Serengeti might not be optimal for trading early-stage protocol tokens.”

It is worth noting that the Pantera Bitcoin Fund is the oldest cryptocurrency fund, so Morehead speaks with some authority when he says of this moment in the markets, “The volatility has presented a very compelling opportunity.  We are eager to deploy assets of the new Pantera Blockchain Fund on June 30th.”

Buy in the dip is not a new message, but when the evidence is clearly laid out, as Morehead has done, then it injects investors with renewed confidence that the panic is over and it’s time to buy. 

 Read the full Pantera Capital newsletter

Can bitcoin encourage renewable energy development?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn BitcoinLeave a comment

At Bitcoin Miami there were cheers when El Salvador announced it was making bitcoin legal tender. It was welcome news after Elon Musk’s tweets about bitcoin mining’s excessive energy use, and El Salvador’s president announcing that they planned to use geothermal energy from the country’s volcanoes to power crypto mining enhanced it.

The bitcoin community is not only celebrating a new Central American haven for the leading cryptocurrency, it is also pointing to El Salvador as being a proving ground for ‘green’ bitcoin. Geothermal plants draw their energy from an existing, naturally occurring heat, in this case it is El Salvador’s volcanoes, meaning they have a minimal carbon footprint. 

Michael J. Casey believes there is an even greater opportunity. He said, “I think El Salvador (population 6.4 million), one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, has an opportunity to make a far more groundbreaking energy play than the buzz generated by linking a volcano to a bitcoin mine.”

What he suggests is that Nayib Bukele’s government should work with miners, local community leaders and foreign investors to strategically fund the expansion of the country’s electricity coverage, specifically via a decentralized network of cheap, clean, cyber-secure, and community-empowering solar or wind-power microgrids.

As Casey says, there is a narrative about bitcoin destroying the planet that needs to be addressed. Miners prefer low-cost green sources of power and for that reason they can be a considerable force in leading the way to a green energy infrastructure, and not just in El Salvador. Casey adds, “If executed properly, El Salvador’s bitcoin project could achieve a host of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

Across the world, bitcoin miners are already tapping into existing renewable or stranded energy sources, such as wasted natural gas destined for flaring and underwriting the development of green electricity infrastructures to serve wider communities. 

Furthermore, Harry Sudock, vice president of strategy at mining infrastructure provider GRIID, told Casey his company is seeing relentless demand from wind, hydro and solar developers for bitcoin mining and that co-locating facilities offers revenue guarantees that allow communities to expand renewables to serve local people. Casey says, “In other words, bitcoin mining can serve as that missing piece of risk capital needed to kick-start infrastructure projects, not only to shift the world toward renewable energy but also to foster economic development.”

He suggests finding funding for “community-based green power projects run as regional microgrids.”

Most importantly, he adds, “if bitcoin miners source their power from local, community-based grids, their payments for it – transferred in newly legal tender bitcoin – will go to those communities, providing a steady long-term source of income.”

We must acknowledge that at the moment bitcoin miners do use large amounts of fossil fuel energy, but the moment to change that is right now.