The Flipside of Crypto: NFTs, Bitcoin $50K and EOS vs Ethereum

#crypto #bitcoin

Welcome to “The flipside of crypto” podcast. In this episode we’ll have three hot topics to discuss: the Lympo project, the new highs of Bitcoin, and the performance of EOS, the Ethereum killer.

What happened and why? Let’s bring all the important facts to light. And then flip them to see both sides of the topic. Context gives us the broader picture and helps us understand the significance of certain events. This is what we always do at DailyCoin.

Animoca bought Lympo

In the last days of 2020 the popular project Lympo, which focuses on monetizing sports and health data via blockchain, was acquired by Animoca Brands. The global award-winning company is leading in branded blockchain gaming and the field of digital entertainment.

A few days ago Lympo announced the launch of a new blockchain. The project will venture into the gaming industry and launch the LMT token. The new token will be an ERC-20 standard utility token designed to be a currency of sport-s themed digital non-fungible tokens in and outside of various games. Non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) are used to create digital scarcities and to verify ownership.

The deal brings another player into the exploding non-fungible token (or NFT) market. The total value of transactions in NFTs almost tripled within the past year: from $62 million in 2019 to over $250 million in 2020. Big names like Nike, Warner Music, Louis Vuitton, and now Animoca Brands are jumping on board.

The booming NFT sector becomes a big part of the virtual economy. But what is there on the flipside? Is the trend sustainable? Or, like in the case of Lympo, is it simply a gamble for the possible future?

The big risk of non-fungible tokens lies in their supply. These tokens are non-finite. And it costs nothing to create an unlimited number of them. The limitation creates scarcity, which increases the value. When the supply is infinite, such tokens are at risk of losing their value eventually.

The scalability is another weakness of non-fungible tokens, which are mostly built on the Ethereum network. The limited transaction throughput, slowness, and high transaction fees remain the big issues to solve.

Bitcoin approached $50k

Bitcoin almost reached $50k highs on Valentine’s day. The biggest crypto settled the new record high as it peaked at $49,531. All this in almost a week of increased institutional interest.

Last week Tesla entered the game with $1.5 billion dollar worth of investments in Bitcoin. MasterCard is starting to support the selected digital assets this year. Jay Z and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey revealed their plans to establish a bitcoin development fund. Big players accumulated bitcoins pushing its price to higher levels.

Bitcoin became the recognized store of value. But is it enough? Does it have the fundamentals to become a medium of exchange and gain wider adoption? Is there a chance we will spend bitcoins to pay for coffee or pizza?

On the flipside of the bitcoin rally to 50k, some crypto market authorities are losing their faith in the biggest crypto. The respected risk analyst, author, and bitcoin supporter for years, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, criticized bitcoin because of its non-diminishing volatility over time or at higher prices. He said, it is still impossible to buy goods with bitcoin and that the leading crypto failed as a hedge against central bank policies.

Moreover, Bitcoin became more traceable than cash, he said. Transactions on the Bitcoin network are public and traceable. While anonymity is a key condition for financial crimes, that operate massive amounts in crypto.

EOS vs Ethereum

EOS and Ethereum are the world’s two largest blockchain projects when it comes to smart contracts. Both have a high potential, which is reflected in their recent price actions.

Ethereum, the second-biggest crypto by market cap, broke a record high as it touched $1,867 on Valentine’s Day weekend, right before the correction. Its futures contracts went live last week on Chicago Mercantile Exchange, fueling the rise. Ethereum’s price jumped up by more than 21% in less than a week, bringing its market capitalization to over 200 billion dollars.

Meanwhile, EOS increased by over 70% during the same time frame. The blockchain-based decentralized platform for decentralized applications jumped to $5.48 on Sunday and now ranks 17th among the Top 20 biggest coins by market.

Both Ethereum and EOS try to achieve similar goals. But EOS, the so-called Ethereum killer, targets the major vulnerabilities of the Ethereum network: scalability and transaction fees. EOS can serve up to 10.000 transactions per second, while Ethereum supports only 30.

Ethereum is a platform where every transaction costs gas. The transaction complexity and network volume can affect the price. Meanwhile, no gas or other transaction fees apply on EOS.
Users lease their tokens in order to cover the bandwidth to pay for a transaction.

In such circumstances, the future may look brighter for EOS, at least until Ethereum’s major update Ethereum 2.0. But is it really?

Looking to the flipside of facts, Ethereum is the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin. Hundreds of cryptocurrency tokens are built on top of it, Ethereum has over 1000 decentralized apps operating on its network.

Multiple other so-called Ethereum-killers are thriving. Cardano (ADA) recently introduced smart contract functionality, which allows creating and deploying decentralized apps and even their own custom tokens on the Cardano blockchain. Polkadot also gives the ability to create new blockchains that can communicate with each other.

Both of these projects already share top 4 and top 6 positions in terms of the most valued digital assets. Having in mind that EOS is the centralized blockchain protocol, it has the potential to be vulnerable to certain risks, for example, centralized control. This might be a disadvantage in tight competition with decentralized future rivals.

This is all we wanted to share with you today. Thank you for listening and see you on the next episode of “The flipside of crypto”.

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, @KhareemSudlow