Like, subscribe, and buy the NFT

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. Marathon Digital set a new record in October. The Bitcoin mining company mined 615 BTC during the month, an all-time high. Just for reference, it mined 616 BTC in the entire third quarter. Quite a step up.

The markets were shaky after the Fed rate hike. Bitcoin was at ~$20,150 while Ethereum slipped to $1,530 levels. Nasdaq fell in early trade. Back home, Sensex and Nifty faced losses.

Aave’s Got A DeFi Launchpad

JP Morgan found a smooth DeFi runway. The global banking giant completed a cross-border transaction via a version of Aave’s smart contract. It’s big because this is the first time that a large bank used tokenised deposits on a blockchain.

So what exactly happened?Let’s first understand smart contracts. Business contracts are lengthy documents that ramble on for several pages. But if you can convert this boring legalese to blockchain, you automate the process and create an almost unbreakable bond. This contract is executed on a date and time when the terms are fulfilled.

JP Morgan used Aave protocol’s smart contract code to complete the trade on Polygon. To simplify:

1. A smart contract was created for JP Morgan, DBS Bank, and Tokyo’s SBI Digital Asset Holdings.

2. Tokenised Singapore Dollar and Japanese Yen were used for the transaction.

3. A cross-country transaction happened where the tokenised currencies were exchanged.

4. Government bonds were bought and sold using the token currencies.

5. Aave’s smart contract self-executed the trade based on the predetermined bond prices.

This was part of Project Guardian, an industry pilot by Singapore’s banking regulator to explore DeFi’s use cases.

Is this a BFD?Traditional financiers are crypto curious. But since there’s a grey area around regulation, a lot of pilots are underway. The successful test makes DeFi more mainstream. Institutional DeFi, or a combo of DeFi blockchain and bank security, may be the alternative. The good news: The world has already seen it work.

Monero On A Seesaw

Monero could zoom to $200 or fall to $140. Depends on who you ask. October was a volatile month for the privacy token, but it still ended with a 0.5% increase. The current underlyings aren’t very bullish.

FYI Monero is a privacy token that uses advanced cryptography to mask all transaction details. Governments tend to dislike this “excess” privacy.

What happened?Whales were absent in October. That’s a sign that ~$149 won’t hold because nobody else may buy in large volumes. Miners made money in Monero over the past three months but the token price moved in the opposite direction. Any exits will cause the price to fall.

Bets on short Crypto traders have bet on Monero’s fall. More funds have been pumped into futures contracts in the hope of a price crash. The escape route from the bears involves new miners and active whales.

69 Days With BCH

Ever wondered what life with cryptocurrency payments would look like? Not very different from how it is with regular currency payments. That’s what programmer Jonathan Silverblood found in 69 days (nice) of transacting only in Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

How did this happen?Well, ICYMI, Townsville in Australia is called Bitcoin Cash City. It hosted a conference in 2019 calling itself that. That’s where Finland-based Silverblood learnt of the place. Most vendors and merchants accepted BCH payments back then. Silverblood works for General Protocols, which develops cryptocurrency protocols for decentralised networks. And pays his salary in BCH. So, what better place than Bitcoin Cash City to spend it?

So how was it?Successful, but not wildly. Because of all the reasons that currency payments fail. Payment terminals ran out of power, WiFi access was an issue. Some merchants were unable to offer crypto as an option at the time of payment. In all, Silverblood made 130 transactions in 69 days for things such as paying at cafes, a dentist, and a gaming console repair.

Instagram’s Got NFT

Remember we told you Meta and Instagram are eyeing NFTs? They even began a pilot called Digital Collectibles in 100 countries. Now Instagram is expanding on that and allowing a few creators to mint and sell NFTs directly on the platform.

What we knowA few select creators will get an end-to-end toolkit to make digital collectibles, including video-based ones. They’ll be able to sell these both on and off Instagram. Meta won’t charge for sharing or displaying these NFTs. It won’t charge for selling these either. Until 2024 that is. Creators can choose to charge royalty between 5% and 25%.

Why, though?Erm, Instagram hasn’t explicitly said it but if we were to put the pieces together it is going to feed into Meta’s metaverse plans. NFTs aren’t exactly a hot property right now. Getting creators in the NFT mix is also a trend that began earlier this year. Meta may or may not make money eventually, but it matches with what the company said earlier about losing more money to build the metaverse.

And that’s it for today. If this email was forwarded to you, please consider subscribing. It’s free. We’ll never show you an ad or charge you for this. We swear.

Also, to sweeten the deal, here's an offer you cannot refuse! You can refer this newsletter to your friends, family and any amazing community. The top referrer every month wins a guidebook to upcoming potential airdrops and exclusive premier content! Click below to share your unique referral link!

Share Daily Moon by Mudrex

You currently have 0 referrals.

Click to Share

Or copy and paste this link to others: https://thedailymoon.beehiiv.com/subscribe?ref=daqKCLROWs

Who are we? This newsletter’s ambition is to educate (and to entertain). The world of money is changing everyday and we want to help you decode what’s happening in the world of crypto, public markets in the US and India.