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Litecoin Foundation Partners with Cred to Let Crypto Holders Earn Interest

Litecoin Foundation has announced a partnership with Cred to begin offering interest on Litecoin held as collateral. Cred customers can freeze their coins with Cred and earn up to 10% annual interest on their digital assets.

The strategic partnership program also enables Litecoin holders to lend their cryptocurrency at attractive rates, comparable to various decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions on Ethereum.To benefit from the interest program, Litecoin holders are required to freeze their coins for at least six months. No account minimum is required, and monthly interest payments will be given either in cryptocurrency or fiat. Cred partners like BitBuy, Uphold, and Bitcoin.com will also facilitate the credit process.

Alan Austin, director at Litecoin Foundation, revealed that the collaboration provides a real-world use case for Litecoin. Alan said, “Strong use cases need to be one of the most vital considerations when evaluating cryptocurrency. Besides Litecoin’s reliability, excellent liquidity, and use for payments, the opportunity to earn interest at competitive rates through Cred’s platform greater enhances this use case. We are delighted to be collaborating with Cred to provide this offering.”

Dan Schatt, CEO and co-founder of Cred mentioned,“We are happy to work with Litecoin Foundation, one of the most trusted and oldest names in the blockchain industry. We aim to support the millions of Litecoin holders with more equitable and transparent financial services we have developed. Thanks to the continued advances in blockchain technologies.”

Litecoin Foundation is committed to developing state-of-the-art blockchain technologies mainly through Litecoin (LTC). Litecoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world and is a top global cryptocurrency with a coin market capitalization exceeding three billion dollars.

On the other hand, Cred is a global borrowing and lending platform, which facilitates open access to credit anytime and anywhere. Established by Dan Schatt, former PayPal fintech executive, Cred is based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company strives to build a global network for accessing credit and allow everyone to benefit from excellent financial services.

Image via Shutterstock

There Would Be No Bull Market If There Was No Bear Market…

Trading Crypto with Eugene is a series of daily commentary on the crypto market and trading advice from Eugene Ng of Matrixport, a veteran trader with 10 years of experience in top-tier global investment banks. Hope you find it helpful!

BTC started the week with a $500 sell-off from $7,100, now down 1.5% with major ALTs drifting lower (LTC -4%, EOS -2.5%, ETH -2%) as well. No real catalyst, think the playbook was lack of a driver for BTC to head higher and as equities opening up red in Asia as investors start bracing for the corporate earnings season amid unprecedented uncertainty over the impact of Coronavirus, and most have already priced in this OPEC deal between Saudi and Russia.I’ll keep this short; think it’s going to get volatile and my bias is to run small positions for a move lower this week. Short-term bearish, but longer-term bullish. Like there would be no Christmas if there was no Easter, there won’t be a bullish market if we don’t see a bearish one. So this week’s strategy is going to be sold on rallies in BTC through spot and calls. My premise is that BTC follows risk assets, and I think risk assets are at an inflection point where they are going to start turning soon. From S&P 500 closing below 2800 key technical level (see chart below) to gold spot-futures spread rising to March levels, are some of the more prominent “turning point” signals.

This trendline resistance on hourly charts are mini-inflection points… you could see the latest breakout towards $7150 only to get sold back down below to $6600… my 2 cents, quite bearish short-term… Expect bounces back to $7k, but I am a seller…

Some levels for you to target lower if you want to sell on rallies like me….

S&P 2,800 level the line in the sand level… SPX closed below 2,800 last week, this week’s trading will be critical to watch…

Gold spot-futures spread widening, nearing the March S&P 500 sell off levels…

What happens when you get the best weekly performance in stocks after? (PS: We just had one of the best weeks last week)..

Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the view of Blockchain.News. Investors should be well aware of the volatility of cryptocurrencies and conduct their own research before making investment decisions.

Litecoin And Atari Bring the Highly Anticipated Atari Token to The Market

Litecoin Foundation has announced its partnership with the US videogame producer Atari to make Litecoin an accepted means of payment for the soon to be launched Atari token. Atari is a US-based video game producer globally known for some of the most popular video games in history, like Centipede, Breakout, Asteroids, and others. Atari is one of the original and most iconic entertainment producers and consumer brands with a great reputation among gaming enthusiasts.

Aiming to Prosper Through Partners

The partnership between Litecoin Foundation and Atari will expand into multiple areas, such as the usage of Litecoin across gaming platforms in the Atari ecosystem and other potential ventures like joint merchandising. Atari will provide Litecoin users with the ability to use their digital coins in several ways throughout the Atari ecosystem. Being accepted as a means of payment into the soon to be launched Atari token, Litecoin will, therefore, be used as a means of investment.

Atari has ambitions for own cryptocurrency recognized as Atari Token but aims to integrate Litecoin as soon as possible. According to the report, Atari has set its sights to launch the Atari token in September 2020. Consumers will use the Atari token to track digital assets and manage purchases in the ecosystem and make payments in the recently announced Atari Casino, which provides casino games with buy-ins using cryptocurrency.

Furthermore, Litecoin will be used as an option for buying the much-expected new VCS Atari game console at an attractive discount. The VCS is an all-new set-top console hybrid of Atari, which will allow users not only to play hundreds of classic and modern video games but also to allow users to create and upload their own apps and games for others to enjoy.

Charlie Lee, Litecoin founder, mentioned that he became a professional software engineer because he loved watching video games, and Atari is his first console.

Fred Chesnais, Atari CEO, said that low transaction costs and the ease-of-use of Litecoin would make the cryptocurrency a perfect fit for use alongside other projects and the Atari token.

A subsidiary of Atari, identified as Atari Chain Limited, has been established to lead the development of ongoing blockchain and cryptocurrency projects in entertainment-based industries.

Litecoin Foundation Partners with Cred to Let Crypto-Holders Earn Interest

Litecoin Foundation’s mission is to advance Litecoin cryptocurrency for the betterment of society by promoting and creating state-of-art blockchain technologies. The non-profit organization recently partnered with California-based licensed lender Cred to offer financial services to Litecoin holders. Cred is a leading cryptocurrency-backed lending and borrowing platform that serves clients in 190 countries. Such a partnership enables crypto customers to freeze their funds with Cred and earn up to ten percent interest on their digital assets. Litecoin Foundation, therefore, remains committed to advance revolutionary blockchain technologies mainly through Litecoin, which is a top 10 global cryptocurrency with a market cap that exceeds 3 billion dollars and is one of the most popular cryptos in the world.

Image via Atarichain.com

Bitcoins Used in Facebook Scheme to Scam Suicidal Victims Into Buying Drugs

A cybercriminal ring operation has been inciting Facebook users to employ Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, in exchange for drugs. This investigative report from the UK depicts the strategic techniques used to track down the unknown villains operating behind this devious scheme.

Drugs in Exchange for Bitcoins and Crypto

Officials who posed as a Facebook user communicated with the drug dealer by asking about the quality of the product. Facebook scammers claimed that their pills were the best because they had the most competitive prices and guaranteed fast delivery.

They then also disclosed that the pills were also effective for people who were suicidal. If one wanted to end one’s life once and for all, the illicit drugs that they sold would do the trick.

Other than selling poison for Bitcoin, these traders also gave instructions to clients on how to use the pills in an effective manner to end one’s life. They did not, at any moment, attempt to dissuade online clients from committing suicide. No online helpline or psychological resources were provided to the victims.

A common recurring theme with Bitcoins, Litecoins, Ethereum, Zcash, and other cryptocurrencies seems to be the use of these cryptos for illegal activities. Though cryptocurrencies are relatively safe, secure, and ensure faster delivery time than traditional institutional payouts, the guaranteed transparency of them can sometimes be problematic.

Facebook Scams, Ads—What Else is New?

Facebook scams are just the tip of the iceberg. For a long while, Facebook has been collecting data from users’ browsing history and Friends List for personal research purposes. The invasiveness of these methods has long been debated and talked of over and over again.

While there may not be a way to prevent the app from engaging in data collection completely, there are ways that one can curb it. Facebook is seen as being increasingly intrusive, as the app constantly prompts a user to allow access to one’s location, microphone, camera, contacts, and much more.

Depending on the phone, one can limit Facebook’s data collection by going into one’s phone settings and personalizing what one allows Facebook to have access to. Another method of restricting Facebook data collection is by going on the application directly and personalizing one’s settings.

Pandemic Politics—Facebook CEO Marc Zuckerberg Speaks Up

Since the US Presidential election is taking place in November, and POTUS (President of the United States) Trump is actively working on his Presidential Campaign, Facebook has taken a lot of heat in regards to the political advertising it has been engaging in.

Users have complained about the volume of propaganda through the form of political ads that they saw on their feeds.

On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke up and announced that the social network app would be changing tactics. From here on forward, US citizens would be allowed to opt-out of seeing ads on their social feed.

Zuckerberg says:

“Everyone wants to see politicians held accountable for what they say — and I know many people want us to moderate and remove more of their content. For those of you who’ve already made up your minds and just want the election to be over, we hear you — so we’re also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads. We’ll still remind you to vote.”

COVID19—Can Bitcoins Revolutionize the Economy, Post-Coronavirus?

As the world is experiencing a global recession, the majority of the crypto community believes that Bitcoin could benefit a global financial crisis.

Governments around the world have been scurrying to produce medical gear, which is scarce in some parts of the world. Genson Glier, the BlockToken Co-founder, said, “Most individuals will have some loss of faith in their government, especially given the crisis. This loss and lack of trust are just one of the reasons why BTC has been able to establish itself. I think people will see it as an additional asset class for wealth distribution, now more so than ever.”

Bitcoin and Ethereum win sentiment scores

A random sample population was surveyed to see whether people generally had a positive or negative outlook on cryptocurrencies. Eleven cryptocurrencies were used in the experiment. The results showed that Bitcoin and Ethereum generated the most positive outlooks, while Binance coin received the highest sentiment rate.

Bitcoin is 57,000 Times Less Environmentally Friendly Than the "Green Cryptocurrency" XRP, Says Ripple

Ripple claims that its cryptocurrency, XRP, is 57,000 times more environmentally friendly than the largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.

According to Ripple’s blog post, the firm criticizes Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism, proof-of-work (PoW), as a major issue contributing to the vast amounts of energy consumed for validating and processing transactions on the network. Other cryptocurrencies that use PoW as its consensus mechanism include Litecoin, Monero, Dash, Zcash, and Verge.

As users broadcast transactions to the network, miners who create the block which is then added to the network, uses some of their own resources, including computing power, which is used to hash the block’s data until a solution to the cryptographic puzzle is found.

With the growing number of miners in the community, miners compete against each other to solve the puzzle and verify the block, which then earns them a reward is to use more computational power to solve the puzzle quickly.

Ripple’s post, written by Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz mentioned that with an application-specific device, ASIC miner, has an environmental cost of $1,500 per year for mining, while newer versions of mining machines could cost as much as $6,000 per year.

A study conducted in 2018 found that the hundreds of thousands of computers that were used to solve cryptographic puzzles working 24 hours a day to mine Bitcoin consumed 1.5 times the yearly energy consumption of Ireland.

Ripple says XRP is a green cryptocurrency

According to Ripple’s blog post, XRP was “designed with sustainability in mind,” and claims the cryptocurrency to be inherently green. Unlike Bitcoin, where there is a maximum supply to be mined, all XRP is already in existence, meaning no additional mining processes that require energy consumption will be needed to produce more.

“The unsustainable mining practices and proof-of-work mechanism behind Bitcoin and Ethereum are massive barriers for the more widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies. But not all blockchains are made equally.”

Ripple compared the energy consumption between 1 million transactions of XRP and Bitcoin. 1 million transactions in XRP could power 79,000 lightbulb hours, and 1 million transactions in Bitcoin could power 4.51 billion lightbulb hours, meaning XRP is 57,000 times more efficient than Bitcoin, according to the post.

Blockchain and sustainability

Unilever, the consumer goods company that owns brands such as Ben & Jerry’s, Dove, Vaseline, Knorr, and other well-known brands, has announced that it will be leveraging blockchain to tackle deforestation.

By introducing transparency and traceability into its supply chain process, Unilever hopes to achieve a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023. The consumer goods company is also introducing a new regenerative agriculture code for its suppliers, and stewardship programs for local communities in the next few years.

Grayscale Investment Company Receives FINRA Approval to Trade Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin Publicly

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) in the US has approved shares of Grayscale’s Litecoin Trust and Bitcoin Cash Trust for public trading.

New York-based Grayscale institutional investment cryptocurrency company will now make Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash available for public trading through shares of the company’s cryptocurrency trusts. This marks the first publicly-quoted securities in the United States, deriving value from Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Now BCH and LTC Trading on OTC markets

Both Trusts would be available on OTC markets under “LTCN” for Litecoin and “BCHG” for Bitcoin Cash. Buying these shares would enable people to invest in cryptocurrency without having to hold the underlying asset.

According to Grayscale, this strategy avoids the challenges of safekeeping, storing, and buying digital Litecoin or Bitcoin Cash directly.

Public trading for the two crypto assets remains subject to full compatibility with the Depository Trust Company (DTC), the world’s largest securities depository. Grayscale stated that: “There will be no trading volume in the shares’ public quotations until the respective shares are DTC eligible, which BCHG and LTCN are expected to receive soon.”

As of June 30, 2020, Grayscale has reported it has 509,400 shares of the Litecoin Trust, with each share worth 0.09433120 (4.11) Litecoin, totaling $2 million assets and 2,725,300 shares in its Bitcoin Cash Trust, with each share worth 0.00943312 ($2.16) Bitcoin Cash, totaling $5.8 million assets under management.

As of now, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are trading at $43.42 and $228.86, with both up 2% and 1.2%, respectively. Current CoinMarketCap figures show that Bitcoin Cash is rated as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency, while Litecoin is the ninth.

Institutional Interest in Crypto Investments Skyrockets

Grayscale investments company has been at the forefront of providing a means of investing in cryptocurrency without having to actually hold the digital assets. This service has gained lots of popularity among traditional investors who want to bypass volatility in the crypto space.

Grayscale has been providing several cryptocurrency products for OTC trading, and the latest being shares of the company’s Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash Trusts for trading on OTC markets.

In the recent past, the company obtained approval to offer shares for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Ethereum (ETH). Zcash (ZEC), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Horizen (ZEN), and XLM are also offered for trading via a trust at the company.

Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are the company’s sixth and fifth publicly-quoted cryptocurrency products.

Litecoin Confirms MimbleWimble Test Network Set Later This Year, LTC Price Predictions are High

Litecoin’s core developer, David Burkett confirmed that the test network for MimbleWimble’s implementation is set for September this year. Litecoin features faster transaction verification times and improved storage efficiency compared to Bitcoin.

Litecoin is taking a step further towards implementing the MimbleWimble on the network, and Burkett noted that “confidence is returning to the space and to cryptocurrency as a technology,” in his latest update.

Litecoin’s protocol in development, MimbleWimble has been created to enable more privacy and fungibility to the network, which was started in H2 2019. Mimblewimble is the tongue-tying curse debuted in Harry Potter, which binds the target’s tongue from speaking on a specific subject.

When compared to the Bitcoin network, MimbleWimble takes up only 10 percent of the data storage requirements, allowing it to be highly scalable for storing blockchain, and enables further decentralization.

The project has had a focus on the initial block download, which is a feature that will improve the scalability of the Litecoin network. The initial block download will enable transactions to be verified by only checking the “state of the chain.” MimbleWimble has a different verification mechanism compared to the Bitcoin network, which will allow miners to verify transactions without downloading all the blocks on Litecoin. Burkett added:

“When developing projects this large, things rarely go exactly as planned, so the design changes over time. Having a chance like this to go back through the code and clean things up, re-evaluate decisions made, etc. will really pay off in terms of code quality, hopefully allowing for a smooth first testnet launch at the end of September.”

According to TradingView analyst Faibik, Litecoin (LTC) price will most likely break upwards from a descending parallel trading channel. The analyst noted that Litecoin has hit the upper boundary of the trading channel, and LTC price is expected to break upwards and that the Litecoin price could rise to the $120 threshold. Litecoin is trading at $58.28 at press time.

Source: Trading View

The chart’s daily timeframe shows that LTC/USD will have a bullish exponential moving average cross, which could mean a Litecoin bull run.

Possible cross-chain communication integration with Cardano?

Last month, IOHK CEO and Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson announced that Cardano has allocated a cross-chain communication team to build a network enabling interoperability between blockchains.

Cross-chain communication could enable users to use Hydra to send value to and from other major networks including Bitcoin and Litecoin.

Earlier in July, Charles Hoskinson said he would “love the idea” of testing cross-chain communication between Cardano and Litecoin, and Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin responded with, “Sure!”

Litecoin Surpasses Bitcoin SV by Market Cap and Outperforms Other Major Cryptos

Litecoin has been catching up with some of the action seen with the cryptocurrency market rally, surging nearly 11 percent in the past 24 hours, and 19 percent in the last five days.

Litecoin (LTC) just surpassed Bitcoin SV (BSV) by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap. However, Litecoin is still down over 70 percent from its all-time high of $366 in December 2017, while the Litecoin’s creator Charlie Lee cashed out all of his holdings.

TradingView analyst Faibik, the Litecoin price could rise to the $120 threshold. Litecoin is trading at $64.05 at press time.

Litecoin’s recent developments

Earlier this month, Litecoin’s core developer, David Burkett confirmed that the test network for MimbleWimble’s implementation is set for September this year. Litecoin features faster transaction verification times and improved storage efficiency compared to Bitcoin.

Litecoin’s Segregated Witness protocol upgrade has hit 80 percent on the Litecoin blockchain, while only 50 percent of Bitcoin payments utilize the protocol. SegWit is a protocol upgrade that speeds up transactions by increasing block capacity.

Recently a Litecoin native Visa debit card has been reportedly to be launched by BlockCard, as a second attempt — the first attempt having failed due to LitePay going out of business. According to Lee, around 300 users have signed up so far.

The original altcoin and the crypto market

At press time, Bitcoin has broken resistance and pushed past the $12,000 threshold. Time will tell if this $12K threshold will hold for the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

The altcoin market has been more volatile than Bitcoin, with Chainlink hitting countless all-time highs, and flippening Bitcoin Cash (BCH) by market capitalization. Chainlink recently had massive support from the DeFi craze and hit $20 on the weekend on Binance.

Although Chainlink’s price has rallied this year, Chainlink investors are increasingly uncertain bout the asset’s bullish trend. According to Santiment, a blockchain analytics firm, speculative interest has exploded and it has seen some concerning signs.

Grayscale Investments Opens Trading for Grayscale Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin Trusts

Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager has opened public trading for two prominent altcoins, the Grayscale Trust for Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.

Grayscale Investments has announced eligible Shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Cash Trust will be available to trade on OTC Markets under the symbol: BCHG and eligible Shares of Grayscale Litecoin Trust will be available to trade on OTC Markets under the symbol: LTCN.

The institutional-grade digital asset investment firm Grayscale, has launched these public altcoin offering after receiving the approval of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) back in July.

The BCHG and LTCN trusts are not registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) but allow mainstream investors exposure to cryptocurrency assets without having to buy and store the tokens themselves.

Institutional Interest in Crypto Investments Skyrockets

The Trusts have offered private placements to accredited investors since March 2018. As of July 31, 2020, there were 2,500,800 Shares outstanding of LTCN and each Share represented ownership of 0.09413112 Litecoin. Shares created through each Trust’s respective private placement become eligible to sell into the public market after a statutory one-year holding period under Rule 144 of the Securities Act.

All investors with access to US securities will be able to buy and sell freely-tradable shares of BCHG and LTCN through their investment accounts in the same manner as they would other unregistered securities.

There is currently $16.8 million worth of BCH under management in the Bitcoin Cash Trust and $13.5 million in Grayscale’s Litecoin Trust. The New York-based Grayscale will take a 2.5% cut of the trust each year—this means that the amount of Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin held in its trust will decrease over time.

Grayscale has been providing several cryptocurrency products for OTC trading, and the latest being shares of the company’s Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash Trusts for trading on OTC markets. Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are now the company’s sixth and fifth publicly-traded cryptocurrency products.

In the recent past, the company obtained approval to offer shares for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Ethereum (ETH). Zcash (ZEC), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Horizen (ZEN), and XLM are also offered for trading via a trust at the company. These are the largest coins by marketcap on the market, except for Chainlink which recently surged into fifth position.

Darknet Empire Offline for Days Has Users Fearing DDoS Attack and Looming Scam

A popular darknet marketplace, Empire Market, has been reported to be offline for over 48 hours, making website users fretful as to the cause behind it.

Empire Market Goes Down

Empire Market, a darknet behemoth, is often leveraged by users to buy and sell illicit goods, ranging from counterfeit goods to malware and illegal drugs. Payment methods accepted for illicit goods and services sold on the platform include Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and Monero (XMR).

The dark web giant has been offline for so long that the unusual activity sparked concern and speculations from its darknet customers. Clients of Empire Market have been wondering whether the dark web service has fallen prey to a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack once again.

In a DDoS attack, what typically happens is that the targeted server or network’s regular traffic is disrupted by malicious entities through an overflooding of Internet traffic. As a result, multiple systems are compromised due to the flooding of the targeted network’s bandwidth and resources. Consequently, a DDoS attack leads to a shutdown of the machine network.

In the past, Empire Market had already been subject to DDoS attacks that kept the dark web offline for an extended amount of time. Darknet users’ hypothesis that Empire Market might be the victim of yet another distributed denial-of-service attack may therefore be valid. While some suspect a DDoS attack, others are scared that they may potentially be in the middle of an exit scam, which is a trick where a given business halts its shipment orders to customers while still receiving payment for new orders.

Dark Web Answers

In response to all this, Dark.fail journalist, an anonymous writer specialized in Tor, commented on the incident and said that this time around, the Empire Market’s inactivity felt even more stressful than when it underwent downtime in 2019 due to DDoS attacks.

Dark.fail said, “We are ~36 hours into Empire Market being completely offline. Last year extended periods of downtime were common before the Endgame DDoS filter was released. After months of nearly perfect uptime, this downtime feels more stressful than the frequent Empire downtimes of 2019.”

Online figure “Se7en,” who claims to be one of Empire Market dark web’s head moderators, addressed the issue. In a statement released on Twitter, Se7en said:

“If the market is still down in a couple of days, I’ll make a post about the whole situation then, it’s early days and maybe the admins will bring it back.”

The dark web community on Reddit also jumped in at this point, sharing a post from Empire Market’s team that dark web users of “the many false narratives and fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) circulating.” In the post, Empire Market attempted to reassure its users by saying that they were hard at work and “doing anything safely takes time.”

Blockchain for Better Security

With the surge of cybercrime in this increasingly digital age, numerous Asian countries have been reported to have increased the adoption of blockchain for security purposes.

Blockchain has been leveraged recently in various domains, ranging from school institutions using it to ensure server and network security to an Asian country adopting it for digital driving license purposes. South Korea has leveraged the decentralized ledger technology to offer a blockchain-powered driving license alternative. This option has resulted in one million South Korean drivers making the switch from a physical driver’s license to a digital blockchain-fueled one.