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Stablecoins Beat Bitcoin, Says ECB Presidential Hopeful

Stablecoins beat bitcoin, says ecb presidential hopeful

Stablecoins Beat Bitcoin, Says ECB Presidential Hopeful

Stablecoins beat bitcoin, says ecb presidential hopeful

Francois Villeroy de Galhau of the European Central Bank (ECB) says stablecoins hold more promise than bitcoin. The ECB policymaker says fiat-pegged crypto will have a place in the legacy financial system.


We Prefer Fiat-Pegged Crypto

According to Bloomberg, Villeroy believes that cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat will be the ones to experience greater utility within the mainstream finance apparatus. Speaking in Paris on Tuesday (May 14, 2019), Villeroy, a frontrunner for the ECB Presidential seat opined:

The Bank of France is “observing with great interest initiatives in the private sector which aim at developing networks within which ‘stable coins’ would be used in transactions involving ‘tokenized’ securities or goods and services.” These are quite different from speculative assets like bitcoins, and more promising.

Of Course, Central Bankers Prefer Stablecoins to bitcoin

Villeroy’s comments should come as no surprise as bankers haven’t hidden their dislike for bitcoin and its ability to disrupt their stranglehold on global finance. The disintermediation of the payments system is in many ways an attack on their bottom-line.

Answering questions during the ECB Youth Dialogue on Wednesday (May 8, 2019), ECB President Mario Draghi described bitcoin as not being a “real currency” but more like an asset, saying:

A euro is a euro – today, tomorrow, in a month, it’s always a euro. And the ECB is behind the euro. Who is behind the cryptocurrencies?

Draghi fails to mention that questionable monetary and fiscal policies which are often political have a negative impact on the purchasing power of fiat currency. One BTC will always be worth one BTC.

In February 2019, the U.S. Federal Reserve did a complete 180 reportedly under duress from the White House to adopt a more dovish stance. Several commentators say quantitative easing and negative interest rates will put the mainstream market on the path of another major collapse.

$2,000 in Less than Five Days

While uncertainty reigns in the mainstream market, bitcoin continues to rise even higher, adding more than $2,000 in price value in less than a week. BTC is up more than 120 percent since the start of 2019.

This recent parabolic advance has coincided with renewed institutional interest from brokerage giants and investment firms alike. TD Ameritrade, Fidelity Investments, and E-Trade plan to debut BTC trading for institutional clients.

Bakkt on Monday (May 13, 2019) announced that it would begin testing its physically-settled BTC futures contract in the summer. The company also says it is close to obtaining the green light from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Do you agree that the banking class is running scared of bitcoin? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.


Images via Twitter @ecb, wikimedia.org

The Rundown

Published at Tue, 14 May 2019 22:00:43 +0000

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ZFX Token Fuels Investor Experiential Learning

ZFX Token Thumb

Common thinking suggests that investment markets are against you. 

This includes stocks, mutual funds and, of course, cryptocurrency. It’s in these sectors where unfair market advantages such as investors with better access to information and high-frequency trading are among the barriers that the average everyday trader is facing. This is why over half of investors lose money during their first year of investing. 

But one project believes there is a better way forward. ZFX Token, created by ZeroSumMarkets — a purveyor of peer trading foreign exchange (FX) competitions — aims to do that by revolutionizing the retail trading experience. In balancing the playing field by giving users a way to learn, test and compete against other traders, ZeroSum mitigates many of the trading fee barriers and market forces that hinder retail trader success. 

This innovative model is predicated on rewarding participants for their inherent skills as traders. It does this by eliminating trading fees and access to unfair advantages commonly seen in the FX world. In reducing costs, unfair algorithms, risks of trust and preferential access to information, ZeroSum opens up windows of possibility for retail traders to learn, experiment and compete against peers — and earn while doing it. 

In short, ZeroSum is a live ecosystem where FX traders compete head-to-head in skill-based competitions. No trading fees. No high-frequency traders. No algorithmic trading.

The ZFX Token fuels the ecosystem by serving as the conduit for exchanging and extracting monetary value from these fantasy competitions.  

Built on the Ethereum blockchain, the tokens are designed to be highly transferable. It’s here where the ZeroSum platform aims to be the platform for all blockchain prediction markets competing against the likes of Augur and others in this nascent niche. Through the enabling of third-party application programming interface (API) support, a sentiment engine and the opportunity to create competitions tied to a data feed, the opportunities are immense. 

This ZFX tokenized model was seeded by a number of Wall Street traders who together brainstormed ideas about how to teach retail trading investors the tricks of the trade. They applied the concept of fantasy football to the world of trading so that both new and experienced traders could practice, learn and compete against one another. It’s designed to function as a peer-versus-peer platform, where winners of each competition take home real money. (ZFX tokens can be sold on the market for USD or other currencies.)

This concept, which has been in development since 2016, currently has thousands of active users who have tested it in beta. Over $300,000 of seed capital was initially raised for platform development and the beta launch. 

ZeroSum fantasy trading is experiential in the sense that users can participate without risking a ton of capital for FX trading or for cryptocurrency. By way of example, an otherwise reluctant newbie may see it as a way to test new investment strategies or try new options. For these reasons, it’s a great way to get started for those unfamiliar with the deeper nuances of the industry. 

The Road Forward

The ZeroSum fantasy trading target market consists of FX, stock, cryptocurrency and retail investors in the U.S., primarily in Chicago and on the East and West Coasts. Three emerging trends are informing this path ahead: 

  1. FX markets continue to move the most amount of money per day.
  2. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile and will get more so as institutional investors pour into the space (through futures trading, options trading and more).
  3. Educating investors through a hands-on approach, where they can test, try and learn — without having to invest a lot of money or spend huge amounts on FX or cryptocurrency trading fees.

ZFX aims to become the fundamental means of exchange for fantasy competitions of any type that have a reliable data feed. Think FX competitions, stock trading competitions, weather prediction competitions, traffic prediction competitions — literally anything that has a reliable and accurate data feed will be possible.

The ZFX token sale is scheduled to begin January 3, 2018. This will allow further development to take place in terms of the platform, including more trading competitions as well as a sentiment data feed to find alpha signals. It is expected that the token will be listed on exchanges shortly thereafter. 

Included is a token bounty program where participants can earn up to 75 million ZFX tokens. It allows users to participate interactively and earn entries for every new participant they bring into the program.

Click here for more information and to sign up.

Note: Trading and investing in digital assets is speculative and can be high-risk. Based on the shifting business and regulatory environment of such a new industry, this content should not be considered investment or legal advice.

The post ZFX Token Fuels Investor Experiential Learning appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

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