Welcome to this week’s article on the most relevant crypto news. Keeping up with the latest industry news is key to making strategic moves with your crypto assets. With this new article series, we hope to help users catch all the important information conveniently. For this first edition, we will be covering all the market news you need to know in the week of 26 – 30 September 2022, including Polkadot bullish developments, the Cardano Vasil upgrade, and other major industry and adoption news. Let’s dive in!

USDT Now on Polkadot, Blockchain Unveils New Roadmap 

The world’s biggest stablecoin and third largest cryptocurrency, USDT, recently announced its launch on Polkadot. With this new addition, the stablecoin is now available on a total of eleven blockchains including Avalanche, Kusama, Ethereum, Solana, Algorand, EOS, Liquid Network, Omni, Tron, NEAR and Bitcoin Cash’s Standard Ledger Protocol. Tether commented that they have been witnessing the evolution of Polkadot this year and believe that the launch of USDT (Polkadot) will be an integral part of the rapid growth trajectory of Polkadot. In August, Tether changed its security auditor after being accused of lacking transparency in updating the status of its USDT reserve.

After the announcement, Polkadot is seeing bullish price movements. Additionally, the network recently unveiled its new roadmap with a strong focus on scalability, driving DApp development, interoperability, and fairer gas fees.

Cardano Vasil Upgrade Finally Goes Live

Last week on 23 September, the Cardano Vasil fork was completed successfully. As of 27 September, all the functionality improvements of the upgrade have been implemented on the network. Such improvements include faster block creation, increased capacity for Cardano DApps, and reduced transaction costs as a combined result of higher throughput and narrowed transaction size. These enhancements all focus on the core Cardano values of decentralization and efficiency, and will surely benefit not only everyday ADA users but also aspiring developers utilizing Cardano’s now-enhanced Plutus smart contracts to build innovative DApps.

So far, the Vasil update did little to impact ADA’s price, somewhat similar to how the Ethereum Merge failed to make a positive growth for ETH price. However, user sentiment towards the upgrades brought about by Cardano Vasil is largely positive and there is little resistance, unlike the split caused by the clashing PoS and PoW communities. This week on 28 September, Cardano also celebrated its 5th anniversary.

Moonstake Attended TOKEN2049 Singapore

Moonstake team had the pleasure to attend the TOKEN2049 event, which took place in Singapore on 28 and 29 September as part of Asia Crypto Week! It was fascinating to meet leading Web3 leaders to discuss global developments and increased opportunities in today’s crypto ecosystems. We also met up with strategic partner Orbs Network in person for the first time, you can see both our team members here!

Apple Will Allow Apps to Sell NFT, But with a 30% Commission 

Tech industry leader Apple has recently announced plans to standardize acceptance of NFT-based apps on the App Store. However, the 30% “Apple tax” will be applied on these apps as well. Even though traditional app developers have been claiming that Apple itself plays no part in facilitating any in-app transactions and is basically only responsible for listing these apps on their digital store. In fact, many young projects and platforms in the Apple ecosystem have been forced to limit in-app functionality in an effort to avoid this 30% fee. However, other critics argue that Apple’s move to standardize NFT acceptance on the App Store as a whole will do more harm than good, as it will incentivize crypto developers to enter the traditional mobile app marketplace and bring more mainstream exposure to NFT-based apps overall.

UK Investors Turn to Bitcoin as GBP Plummets

Bitcoin and British Pound trading volume recently skyrocketed to a record $881 million on September 26. On average, the figure usually stands at $70 million per day. As we speak, the GBP continues to weaken against the rising USD. This is attributed to the recent proposal by UK’s new pro-crypto PM Liz Truss’s that plans to implement a radical tax cut that the government will pay for by borrowing. Investors fear that this move will only worsen inflation in the UK which is already at 10%. 

In the last 30 days, the volume of the GBP/BTC pair has increased by a massive 878.11%, versus the USD/BTC pair which grew by a much more modest 66.52%. This is an expected development as crypto adoption historically tends to experience stronger growth in countries going through inflation.

The Verdict Is Out: Bitcoin Is Less Harmful to the Environment Than Gold

Cambridge University recently published a study called “A deep dive into Bitcoin’s environmental impact” and turns out, gold mining is actually twice as harmful to the environment as Bitcoin mining. Specifically, Bitcoin is estimated to produce 47.71 MtCO2e per year, while gold produces 100.4 MtCO2e on a yearly basis. Compared to real-world countries, Bitcoin produces as much emission as Nepal (48.37 MtCO2e) and interestly enough, the Central African Republic (46.58 MtCO2e), who adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in April this year. The alleged “environmental impact” has always been one of the most used arguments against Bitcoin by opponents, so it’s quite cathartic to get official confirmation that other traditional assets like gold do in fact, emit more greenhouse gas than Bitcoin.

Disney Potentially Preparing to Make an Entrance in the Crypto Space

The Walt Disney Company recently posted a job listing for “an experienced corporate attorney to work on “emerging technologies” such as NFTs and the Metaverse. Specifically, the new position’s role is to provide “full product life cycle legal advice and support for global NFT products”. Last year, the company filed a patent for a “virtual-world simulator,” referring to a potential theme-park metaverse. However, it was reported at the time there were “no current plans” to use this patent yet.

As a global entertainment conglomerate, Disney has a long and epic lineup of original characters and well-established media franchises. Therefore, Iit isn’t surprising to see the media giant now trying their hands at using decentralized technologies to experiment with inventive new ways to bring its vibrant original creations to the mass market. 

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We hope you enjoy this carefully curated news roundup by Moonstake, as our team strives to only bring the most relevant information for your crypto experience. See you next week!

Follow us on Twitter and Telegram for the latest Moonstake news and updates!

We have been enduring a very dreadful period of time in the crypto space. Since November 2021, the market has been in a slump as Bitcoin dropped to around $18,500, the lowest it has been since its 2017 boom. Currently, many users are struggling to come up with a solid investment strategy due to the market condition – unsure if they should trade, hold, or try something else, and to focus on which assets. In this article, we will be discussing the merits of staking during bear market as it is a highly popular strategy employed by many users. Please note that this is not an investment advice; we only hope to give users some insights so that they can decide on their own if it’s the right strategy for them at this moment. Let’s get started!

Why Stake During Bear Market?

Staking is essentially depositing your “unused” assets to a pool to earn passive income. Your staked tokens stay in a staking pool often belonging to a network’s validator, chosen nodes that support the infrastructure of a blockchain and validate new blocks (transactions) to be accepted onto the chain. This process helps secure and decentralize the network and is at the core of Proof-of-Stake blockchains. In return for the stakers deposit, they will receive back rewards in the form of tokens.

Typically, down market is the time where users would amass new coins they have yet to own if they think these assets have a high potential to bounce back in price soon. In the case of downed assets you already own, users will usually try to keep holding onto to them until the price increase again or panic sell to cut losses in some cases. Holding would means these assets are “idle” and therefore, don’t really generate any value while you wait. This is why staking is considered an attractive strategy during a bear market, since you can still get something out of these downed assets while they’re not being used. 

Another benefit to staking during a bear market is that when the price is low, you can get more tokens when you buy at the lowered market price. And more tokens when staked means higher rewards.

Potential Risks

As with many investment methods, there are risks to be considered as well as ways to work around them. 

1/ Lock Periods

Some stakable coins like ATOM, IRIS, come with lock period so you cannot access your staked assets whenever you need. If the price of your staked assets decreases significantly, being unable to unstake them will hurt your overall returns. For example, if you’re currently earning 20% APY from an asset but its market value dropped by 50% throughout the year, you’d have still made a loss instead of earning more.

However, there are many coins that you can unstake at any time, such as ADA, XTZ. If you can determine when a coin could potentially increase or decrease in price, you can still elect to stake coins with lock periods, however. Moonstake offers support for both staking coins with and without lock periods so you can earn the way you want. Additionally, you can always view the coin’s price movements through daily, weekly, month, yearly, and even all-time charts, so you can always keep track of its market value to take necessary actions at the needed time.

2/ Liquidity

If you are staking a less popular altcoin with low liquidity on exchanges, you might run into a situation where it’s too difficult to convert your staking rewards into Bitcoin or stablecoins. Therefore, it is advisable to stake less obscure coins with higher liquidity, especially during bear market where trading activity is generally low for every asset. As a leading staking provider, Moonstake offers staking support for highly demanded coins to give user a seamless staking experience, regardless of market scenario.

3/ Rewards Availability

Different staking coins generate claimable rewards in different time intervals. Some coins like ADA, ONT give out rewards every few days. Others like CENNZ, DOT, ONE have staking rewards available to claim daily or every few hours depending on the speed of minting new blocks. If you are staking for a long period of time, this shouldn’t be an issue but for users who want to use their coins more actively, you might want to consider staking coins with faster reward availability rate. The majority of staking assets supported by Moonstake hand out staking rewards daily or every few hours, but we also support assets that give out rewards in several days, so you have many options to choose from depending on your investment strategy.

4/ Loss or Scam

Finally, there is always the looming threat of scammers tricking you to reveal your private keys and personal data. Or you simply lost your wallet’s private key and passphrase. So always make sure to backup your wallet and store your private key information in a secure place. Regarding asset safety, Moonstake offers robust security features such as passphrase management, 2FA authentication, pincode and biometric requirements to unlock and open wallet app. Additionally, we never store user information and data on our servers. Private keys are fully encrypted and stored on your local device, so only you can access your funds. So you can utilize our security features to keep your wallet safe, while practice due diligence online to avoid getting tricked by scammers.

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Overall, there are certainly some potential risks to keep in mind should you decide to stake your assets during this bear market. However, Moonstake Wallet offers a wide range of robust functionality and options to help user so mitigate these risks, make strategic investment decisions on their own, and earn the way they want with staking!

Follow us on Twitter and Telegram for the latest updates on Moonstake news!

Welcome to this week’s article on the most relevant crypto news. Keeping up with the latest industry news is key to making strategic moves with your crypto assets. With this new article series, we hope to help users catch all the important information conveniently. For this first edition, we will be covering all the market news you need to know in the week of 19 – 23 September 2022, including the Cardano Vasil update, post-Ethereum Merge developments, industry and adoption news, and more. Let’s dive in!

The Long-awaited Cardano Vasil Update Was A Success!

The highly anticipated Vasil update for Cardano blockchain has been deployed successfully, and the start of its first epoch will be on 27th September 2022! The Vasil update promises to bring major performance and capabilities enhancements to the Cardano network. This includes higher throughput, more powerful functionality for Plutus smart contract developers, better efficiency, and lower costs. At the start of the first epoch, which is in 5 days, full Vasil functionality will be available on-chain for users and developers, boosting the user experience and growth of the network in both community volume and application development. It is anticipated that this major development milestone will reflect positively on ADA market price, so let’s wait and see!

Ethereum Merge Received Mainstream Recognition Despite Underwhelming Price Development

Ethereum price hasn’t been looking any better since the Merge, but it is getting acknowledgement from both tech giants and the mainstream media. A few days before the Merge, Google set up an official countdown for this event and just this weekend, Star Trek star William Shatner tweeted to congratulate Vitalik on the successful completion of the Ethereum Merge. As the shift to Proof-of-Stake demonstrates Ethereum’s commitment to reduce emission, the Merge has received noticeably support from the mainstream, as environmental impact is a hot topic amongst opponents of cryptocurrency and blockchain, and this could only impact the future of crypto acceptance positively, as outlined in our insight piece.

Meanwhile, Ethereum PoW Forks Are Seeing Significant Selloffs

Not everyone in the development community was thrilled with the Ethereum Merge. Many miners and PoW believers organized plans to create hard forks of the network to maintain the Proof-of-Work Ethereum because of this and received noticeable traction. However, it seems that these PoW forks are quickly losing steam. 

The prominent ETHW ran into a brief technical issue during its hard fork resulting in some users not receiving free ETHW tokens and caused many scammers to sweep in to make a quick buck. As a result, its price has been dropping with no signs of recovery despite the issue having been fixed very quickly. Another major fork called EthereumFair (ETF) which claims to be the first forked PoW chain, experienced the same trading volatility shortly after the Merge, though seems to be seeing some recovery afterwards. Analysts concluded that this happened because these forks would produce free airdrops, many users only kept up with these forks to get the free money then quickly sell them off and tanked the price. It will be interesting to see if the demand for PoS Ethereum can keep up at this point, and our team will be keen to inform users of any developments for this community.

SWIFT Tapping into Blockchain for Corporate Efficiency

Global cross-border payment giant SWIFT has recently announced it is working with seven other securities companies to implement the enterprise blockchain solution of Symbiont in its corporate procedures. In particular, SWIFT is looking at maximizing the efficiency sharing information of events such as dividend payments, exchange offers, mergers, Dutch auctions, and others to investors, creditors and all other key stakeholders. The company also stated it is looking to eliminate the complicated chain of intermediaries involved in corporate actions, hence the interest in using blockchain technology. This is a major milestone for the growth and adoption of decentralized technology and something worth celebrating amidst the uncertainty of the current market situation.

Crypto Exchanges Are Expanding into Dubai, Signaling Strong Growth for the Market to Come

Binance recently disclosed that they have received an MVP License by Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority to offer their virtual asset services to qualified retail and institutional investors. This will also allow Binance to access local banking channels and provide open money accounts, virtual-fiat currency conversions, assets transfers, custody and management, as well as token offering and trading services. Other major exchanges like CryptoCom and FTX have also been granted provisional licenses and approval to open regional headquarters in the country. It seems that Dubai is trying to get ahead of other forward-thinking countries in the crypto adoption race with these recent developments, as long-time crypto-friendly nations such as Singapore, India, Estonia, has been tightening its grip on crypto regulation as of late. As always, increase global crypto adoption is welcome news for the industry and let’s all keep BUIDLing and expanding the uses cases, thus reach of crypto into the mainstream!

South Korea Looking to Relax Metaverse Laws to Foster Ecosystem Growth

Metaverse, play-to-earn, and blockchain gaming in general have always been topics of much debate in the mainstream in recent years with heated opinions from both sides. Just recently, the South Korean government has revealed plans to create special laws for the metaverse instead of imposing traditional video gaming laws for the industry. The goal of this decision is to incentivize growth for this budding ecosystem instead of deterring innovations, stated by the officials. This is great news for the crypto industry as the topic of metaverse can still be quite controversial amongst mainstream consumers and there are still many misconceptions being thrown around as facts. Receiving more regulatory support will do wonders for the development and eventually, acceptance of the metaverse and crypto gaming.

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We hope you enjoy this carefully curated news roundup by Moonstake, as our team strives to only bring the most relevant information for your crypto experience. See you next week!

About Moonstake
Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

To better serve our community and further expand globally, Moonstake is happy to announce the launch of our official Telegram channel! This is where you can find the latest Moonstake news, our insight articles regarding crypto market trends and industry developments, as well as announcements and updates on our various reward campaigns. Join us today and never miss any announcements from Moonstake again!

Since the launch of Moonstake in 2020, our community and active user base have seen, and continue to see, tremendous growth. Today, staking asset volume of millions in value are entrusted to our leading staking platform by users from all over the world, and numerous users are actively using our wallets everyday, as well as engaging in our wide variety of global and regional community programs. As such, we have decided to open an official global Telegram channel to help users stay up-to-date with all our releases and developments conveniently on-the-go.

Please note that this is the only official global Telegram channel of Moonstake. Please beware users scam channels impersonating as Moonstake project and help us report these fake channels if you can. Thank you for your continued support!

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/    

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

Today, Moonstake is thrilled to announce that we will officially support the Ethereum Merge. This event marks the full transition of the Ethereum network to Proof-of-Stake and will finally enable users to stake and earn from their ETH assets. We are proud to be one of the first platforms in the world to officially support the new Proof-of-Stake ETH.

The Ethereum Merge will undoubtedly bring about exciting developments for the market as well as many benefits to crypto users. We have an insight article on the impact of this event and why you should care here, so check it out if you’re interested. 

Moonstake users do not need to take any action to access the new Proof-of-Stake ETH. All your ETH funds on Moonstake will remain secure when the Merge takes place.

Moonstake started the staking business last year with the aim to create the largest staking network in Asia. Since then, we have developed the most user-friendly Web Wallet and Mobile Wallet (iOS / Android) with support for over 2000 cryptocurrencies. After a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, Moonstake’s total staking assets have grown rapidly to reach $1 Billion, allowing Moonstake to become one of the top 10 staking providers globally. Since March this year, Moonstake has also entered DeFi together with the newly launched DeFi platform, Muse.Finance, who has begun releasing its core DeFi products which are all scheduled to be integrated into Moonstake platform to enable advanced DeFi connectivity for our global users.

Established in July 2015, Ethereum has long been leading the industry with Bitcoin as the most popular digital assets. The Ethereum network is  has been running on the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm like Bitcoin since its inception, but is now changing to Proof-of-Stake. Benefits of The Merge include a massive 99.95% reduction in the network’s energy consumption and eventually, lower fees and faster transaction speed for users as the upgrade will set the stage for future scaling upgrades including sharding. 

Moonstake Wallet has always supported the staking assets available on the Ethereum chain such as ORBS and CENNZ. By becoming one of the first platforms to support Proof-of-Stake Ethereum, Moonstake is further demonstrating its commitment to providing the best experience for crypto users.

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/    

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

About Ethereum

Ethereum is a technology for building apps and organizations, holding assets, transacting and communicating without being controlled by a central authority. There is no need to hand over all your personal details to use Ethereum – you keep control of your own data and what is being shared. Ethereum has its own cryptocurrency, Ether, which is used to pay for certain activities on the Ethereum network.

https://ethereum.org/ 

Welcome to this week’s article on the most relevant crypto news. Keeping up with the latest industry news is key to making strategic moves with your crypto assets. With this new article series, we hope to help users catch all the important information conveniently. For this first edition, we will be covering all the market news you need to know in the week of 12 – 16 September 2022, including updates on the Ethereum Merge, Bitcoin news, big mainstream adoption developments, and more. Let’s dive in!

The Ethereum Merge Was Finalized on 15 September 2022!

After a long period of wait and anticipation – as well as much controversy – the Ethereum Merge finally took place and was completed on 15 September. Ethereum network is now officially running on the Proof-of-Stake consensus after 7 years of being Proof-of-Work. Regardless of which part of the crypto community you’re in or what your feelings towards The Merge is, this is a monumental event in the history of crypto and will have a big impact on the market as a whole as well as every day users worldwide. Check out our insightful article on why the Ethereum Merge matters here, and rest assured that your funds were completely safe on Moonstake Wallet during The Merge!

Bitcoin Hashrate Hits New ATH, Next Halving Coming in Q4 2023?

As Bitcoin pushes past the $22,000 mark, the network’s hash rate has reached a new all-time high of 281.79 million. This puts the projected next halving event to take place as early as Q4 2023, as opposed to earlier predictions of May 2024. 

Bitcoin Halving is an event that takes place after every 210,000 blocks are mined and will reduce the reward distributed to the network’s miners by half. The next halving will reduce the miner reward to 3.125 Bitcoins, and this process will continue until all 21 million Bitcoin on the market has been mined. This makes Bitcoin a deflationary network, which means its value will be pushed up over time as argued by proponents of the network.

Web3 and The Metaverse Have Yet To Lose Momentum

A recent report by DappRadar revealed that Web3-based games and metaverse projects raised $748 million since August 2022 despite on-going market downturn. The total investments in blockchain games this year so far is around $7 million, which is already nearly double that of last year ($4 billion). If the momentum remains, it is expected that this number will soar to $10.2 billion by the end of this year. There are lots of ups and downs in different sectors of the crypto industry, but we’re still gaining significant traction over all! As always, keep calm and continue BUIDLing!

Singapore Banking Giant DBS Announces Metaverse Partnership with The Sandbox (SAND)

The largest bank in Singapore, DBS, has recently partnered with virtual world platform The Sandbox to create an interactive metaverse experience. The goal is to create DBS BetterWorld and highlight the importance of building a sustainable eco-friendly world. DBS BetterWorld will be located in the “SingaporeVerse” on The Sandbox, a special plot of land to showcase the culture of Singapore to the platform. This is great news for crypto adoption and will hopefully breathe more life into the market!

Starbucks Partners with Polygon Blockchain to Build Loyalty Program Web3 App, Starbucks Odyssey

The world’s largest coffeehouse chain, Starbucks, has recently joined hands with Polygon to build a Web3-powered experience for its loyalty program. The Starbucks Odyssey app will allow loyalty program members and Starbucks partners in the U.S. to earn and purchase digital collectible stamps in the form of NFTs, while also promising to enable access to unique merchandise, artist collaborations, and exclusive events. 

Starbucks stated that their focus is on long-term sustainability and felt that Polygon’s commitment to being carbon-neutral while also providing a fast and low-cost solution for users aligned with their vision when entering the Web3 space. With The Merge cutting down Ethereum’s energy consumption significantly, Polygon states that their network’s emission will be reduced even further, by 99.91%.

China’s Crypto Ban Proves Ineffective, Lower-Middle Income Countries Continue to Lead Crypto Adoption 

The 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index by Chainanalysis has been published. The usual insights were featured as expected: lower-middle income countries populate the list, only the U.S. and the U.K. are featured as upper-middle income countries. Most notably, however, the ban on crypto in China doesn’t seem to be stopping crypto’s momentum in the country. In fact, China has re-entered the top ten of the index after being placed 13th in the ranking last year. Overall, global adoption of crypto has noticeably dropped since its current all-time high in Q2 2021, but remains well above the level prior to the bull market run in 2019. And with major developments in enterprise adoption as featured above, crypto adoption won’t be slowing down any time soon!

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/   

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

The entire crypto industry is awaiting the Ethereum Merge with bated breath. Established in July 2015, Ethereum has long been leading the industry with Bitcoin as the most popular digital assets. Being the progenitor of smart contracts, Ethereum essentially enabled the creation of decentralized applications (DApps). This has brought about innumerable innovations to the market, most notably finance-related features like staking, lending, borrowing, yield farming, and liquidity mining. Despite having paved the way for such innovations in the crypto market, Ethereum has always been running on the basic Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm similar to Bitcoin. With the Ethereum Merge taking place however, the Ethereum blockchain will finally adopt Proof-of-Stake, which is essentially a consensus algorithm it helped create in the first place. 

Because of its large user community, there are many staking projects developed for Ethereum – such as ORBS (ERC20) and CENNZ which are supported by Moonstake – so that its users can enjoy the benefits of staking despite ETH coin itself not being directly stake-able. Now, with this milestone upgrade to the network, users can finally stake ETH coin. And just like smart contracts before, there will undoubtedly be very exciting and interesting developments to expect for the crypto market as a whole. In this article, let’s look at how the Ethereum Merge will impact staking users, aka you!

Post-Merge Network Operations – An Everyday User’s Perspective

The most obvious benefit brought about by The Merge is that you will be able to earn by directly staking ETH. Since it is a well-established coin with a massive community, the APY should be relatively stable as it fluctuates based on supply and demand. Furthermore, as a user, you can earn by becoming a validator for the Ethereum network. The new Ethereum PoS system allows users who have staked at least 32 ETH to be randomly selected as a validator and the more you stake, the more likely you are to be chosen. So there will be more opportunities to earn from your ETH assets thanks to the upgrade.

In regards to network fees and transaction speed, it is reported that The Merge will not immediately improve these aspects, but there are plans on Ethereum’s roadmap to address these issues. Specifically, Ethereum plans to implement danksharding in 2023 to simplify block production and significantly increase throughput which should help reduce network fees.

The Big Picture: How The Ethereum Merge Will Change The Industry

Beyond the practical, everyday impact on the average crypto user, the Ethereum Merge is poised to shake up the crypto industry in major ways. One of the biggest benefits of upgrading the network according to Ethereum is a 99.95% reduction in the network’s energy consumption. Environmental impact has always been one of the biggest arguments against crypto adoption cited by opponents of the industry. This is why blockchain projects such as NEAR, Polygon, etc. have been positioning themselves as “carbon-neutral” solutions for the market. Now, with Ethereum itself finally addressing this issue, mainstream sentiment toward cryptocurrency as a whole will undoubtedly improve, which of course can lead to increased mainstream adoption by users.

Furthermore, The Merge will also change how traditional companies look at Ethereum. Of course, the throughput and performance upgrades brought about by the shift to PoS will make Ethereum more viable for larger-scale adoption by enterprises. Most importantly, however, it can be seen as undeniable proof that major, core infrastructural changes – be it from PoW to PoS, or even from legacy traditional systems to blockchain-powered ones, for a long-established system are 100% possible and can reap massive benefits. This can lead to increased enterprise interest in Ethereum and blockchain/crypto as a whole, and eventually, hopefully, large-scale business adoption that will result in further growth for the market.

Regardless of the unpredictable market prices, there is much to gain from the Ethereum Merge in both the short and long term. More opportunities for developers and investors alike, improved user experience, enhanced network performance and security, and a brighter future for crypto and blockchain adoption as a whole. 

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Recently, a team of Ethereum users who oppose the network’s migration to Proof-of-Stake, has announced plans for an official hard fork soon after the Ethereum Merge to preserve the original Proof-of-Work Ethereum (ETHW). This means that there will potentially be two ETH coins that exist on the market, ETHW by the EthereumPoW team and the new Proof-of-Stake ETH by the Ethereum Foundation. As a leading staking provider, Moonstake will work hard to support the new PoS Ethereum, and we will also closely monitor the growth of ETHW to provide support for the demand of our users. Please stay tuned for our official announcements and don’t forget to follow Moonstake on Twitter for all the latest quick updates and exclusive reward programs!

Welcome to the first of our weekly article series on the week’s most relevant crypto news. Keeping up with the latest industry news is key to making strategic moves with your crypto assets. With this new article series, we hope to help users catch all the important information conveniently. For this first edition, we will be covering all the market news you need to know in the week of 5 – 9 September 2022, including the Ethereum Merge, Binance and Solana new movements, market predictions, and more. Let’s dive in!

Ethereum Merge Officially Has a Date

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has announced on Twitter that the Ethereum Merge is expected to take place “around 13 – 15 September 2022”. Finally, this highly anticipated event is officially dated. The Ethereum Merge is where the Ethereum network will transition from its long-standing Proof-of-Work protocol to Proof-of-Stake.

This major milestone is expected to have a huge impact on the crypto market and bring staking to the forefront of the industry. Especially as Ethereum has always been the most popular blockchain for developers to build sidechains with different consensus algorithms (such as Proof-of-Stake). With Ethereum itself finally embracing Proof-of-Stake, the future is look bright, especially for the staking market.

As announced, Moonstake is actively monitoring the development of Ethereum network and we will work hard to start supporting the Ethereum Merge as soon as possible. Stay tuned!

U.K. Elects Pro-Crypto Prime Minister Looking to Accelerate Nation’s Adoption of Blockchain and Digital Assets

Liz Truss, the new U.K. Prime Minister, is a known proponent of cryptocurrency and blockchain. In a past campaign debate, Truss shared her plans to foster blockchain development in the country which include “ensuring that customs duties are not imposed on electronic transmissions and creating great opportunities in areas such as blockchain” for the goal of “creating a world-leading ecosystem that supports businesses of all sizes across the UK and leading the world in data and digital trade”. This is fantastic news for global crypto adoption and will hopefully liven up the spirits of the crypto market.

Crypto Market is Slow, But Adoption is Picking Up More Than Ever

Even though the market has been in a long slump, adoption has actually been picking up the pace. A trademark and patent attorney recently revealed that a total of 3,600 trademark applications for cryptocurrencies were lodged as of August. This is a 2.3% rise from the 3,516 total filings of the entirety of last year. For other fields in crypto, it is reported that more than 5,800 trademark applications have been filed for NFTs (280% increase) and 4,150 applications for the metaverse and Web3 (223% rise). With Facebook formally rebranding as Meta and Instagram enabling NFT-focused features on its platform, the growth of crypto is still looking to be unstoppable despite the price turmoil. Keep calm and don’t stop BUIDLing!

Solana to Use Move Programming Language Developed by Facebook for Protocol Development

As a popular emerging chain in recent years, Solana has been attracting much attention from crypto users and even the mainstream media. However, its trading volume has been declining recently due to a combination of mixed reception among some developer communities and the ongoing crypto winter. 

To combat critic-fueled FUD, the Solana team has recently announced a proposal to use Move, a smart contract programming language developed by Facebook that focuses on interoperability and security, in its protocol development from now on. Coupled with milestone DeFi collaborations, this could signal a new era of renewed interest and growth for Solana and SOL.

Are you currently a part of or interested in the Solana ecosystem? Would you like Moonstake to add support for SOL on our staking platform? Let us know!

Binance to Release New zkBNB Chain with “Zero-Knowledge Proof” Scaling Technology

Scalability has always been one of the biggest challenges in blockchain, and the market leader Binance has recently announced its plans to address this issue. zkBNB will be a new chain that utilizes “zero-knowledge proof” technology to solve long-running problems with blockchain networks including poor transactions per second (TPS), finality, transaction costs, and general scalability. Zero-knowledge proof isn’t a new technology, but its implementation in crypto is still relatively new. It will be exciting to see what this new development of Binance will bring to the crypto market!

KPMG Assesses the Current Crypto Market and Predicts Future Trends

One of the Big Four accounting associations, KPMG, has recently shared a report of the current crypto market as well as its assessments of potential future shifts in investor behavior. Most notably, the firm stated that in the second half of this year, crypto investors might try switching to different projects, turning away from NFTs and more towards blockchain infrastructure and blockchain financial technology. Specifically, they noted growing interest in compliance and transaction traceability-related products, as well as stablecoins due to their low-risk nature compared to the rest of the industry. 

With all this being said, how are you feeling about this year’s crypto market situation? Have you formulated any strategies for the rest of the year yet?

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We hope you enjoy this carefully curated news roundup by Moonstake, as our team strives to only bring the most relevant information for your crypto experience. See you next week!

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/   

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 17 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

Moonstake is pleased to announce that our users can now earn interest from staking Oasis Network’s ROSE token on both the Web and Mobile Wallets! Hold, send, receive, and stake ROSE to earn rewards with the best user experience through one single click. After Cosmos, IRISnet, Ontology, Harmony, Tezos, Cardano, Qtum, Polkadot, Quras, Centrality, Orbs, IOST, TRON, Shiden, FIO, and EVER, ROSE became the 17th staking coin available on Moonstake. We are pleased to offer ROSE staking for users as an official validator of the Oasis Network.

Moonstake started the staking business last year with the aim to create the largest staking network in Asia. Since then, we have developed the most user-friendly Web Wallet and Mobile Wallet (iOS / Android) with support for over 2000 cryptocurrencies. After a full-scale operation launched in August 2020, Moonstake’s total staking assets have grown rapidly to reach $1 Billion, allowing Moonstake to become one of the top 10 staking providers globally. Since March this year, Moonstake has also entered DeFi together with the newly launched DeFi platform, Muse.Finance, who has begun releasing its core DeFi products which are all scheduled to be integrated into Moonstake platform to enable advanced DeFi connectivity for our global users.

Meanwhile, the Oasis Network is a privacy-enabled blockchain platform for open finance and a responsible data economy. Combined with its high throughput and secure architecture, the Oasis Network is able to power private, scalable DeFi, revolutionizing Open Finance and expanding it beyond traders and early adopters to a mass market. The Oasis network’s native token, ROSE, is used to stake and to pay for transaction fees. The network aimts to provide a next-generation foundation for Web3 and power DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, Metaverse, Data tokenization and Data DAOs.

How to stake ROSE on Moonstake Wallet

Here’s a simple 3-step process to stake ROSE with Moonstake Wallet:

1. Register your Moonstake Wallet via Web or mobile.
2. Select ROSE from the “Wallets” screen and click the “Add Asset” button.
3. Access the ROSE screen to check your staking information. From the Staking tab, click the “Stake” button and enter your wallet password to complete staking.

How ROSE staking works

Hold ROSE, no ROSE minimum staking amount.

Agree to lock in and stake ROSE.

How to get rewards of ROSE staking

Rewards are given in ROSE and are received on each epoch transition which is approximately every hour.

Rewards are automatically distributed and restaked: they must be unbonded to be spendable.

How ROSE unstaking works

The Oasis Network has a 14 day unstaking period throughout which your tokens will not earn staking rewards and will not be transferable.

Moonstake is pleased to integrate with Oasis Network and bring our users a satisfactory experience staking ROSE. Please look forward to our future community reward programs for Oasis users!

About Moonstake

Moonstake is the world’s leading staking service provider that develops and operates decentralized wallet services for businesses and individuals.

Since its launch in April 2020, Moonstake has partnered with 27 leading platform providers, including Cardano’s constituent Emurgo, developer of the Polkadot-connected blockchain Astar Network Stake Technologies, and the TRON Network with over 50 million users. In May 2021, Moonstake further enhanced its corporate credibility by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of OIO Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Using blockchain technology, Moonstake aims to progress toward a world where anyone can easily make use of highly secure and reliable digital asset management tools.

https://www.moonstake.io/   

About Moonstake’s staking business

For the staking industry, which has grown into a 630-billion dollar market as of September 2021, Moonstake provides a decentralized staking service that does not require user deposits, and supports nodes around the world in addition to its own validator nodes. Moonstake currently supports the staking of 12 blockchains. With a total staking assets of 1.8 billion USD and a global user base, the company ranked third out of more than 10,000 providers worldwide in June of the same year.

About Oasis

Oasis is the leading privacy-enabled and scalable layer-1 blockchain network and combines high throughput and low gas fees with secure architecture to provide a next-generation foundation for Web3 and power DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, Metaverse, Data tokenization and Data DAOs. Oasis will propel web3 forward, scaling it and evolving it from infancy to maturity. Supported by top industry backers, Oasis recently announced the $200 million Ecosystem Fund to support projects to build on the network and has several Fortune 500 partnerships in place, such as the CryptoSafe Alliance with Binance, the BMW Group, and others. Oasis is one of the top two invested blockchains by top VCs and has one of the fastest-growing developer networks in the industry, according to Messari.

https://oasisprotocol.org/

2021 was a huge year for the cryptocurrency market, with huge strides in growth and adoption of digital assets, NFTs, and blockchain worldwide. It was also an incredible year for Moonstake as we rose the the top rankings of global staking providers, reaching a total staking assets of $1.8 billion thanks to the support of our users and partners worldwide. As we begin the new year 2022, Moonstake as well as our strategic coin partners have many exciting news and programs in store for you as our platforms scale and evolve. To welcome our user community into the exciting new year, we’re creating a series of articles on what you need to know about our partner coins in the year 2022, this time with Shiden.

Shiden is the latest supported coin by Moonstake via strategic partnership with Astar Network, the sister network whose code base is used to build Shiden. Since November 2021, we support both native staking of SDN with Moonstake staking pool as well as staking with the Shiden DApp store with 25+ innovative applications, bringing users a robust variety of opportunities for global crypto users to earn with Shiden Network with the best user experience. Moonstake is proud to be amongst the world’s first group of validators for Shiden Network.

Shiden Network was launched in August 2021 as a sister network to Astar Network, functioning as a smart contract layer to enable advanced blockchain applications like DeFi, NFTs and more. Since launch, Shiden has been hosting a Builders Program with Astar to incentivize teams to develop great applications on the network. The team also organized an Ambassador Program to promote awareness and adoption of the network, as well as launching the Shiden DApp Store which currently has 25+ staking DApps listed, including Moonstake. 

In 2022, Shiden as the canary network of Astar will be focusing on developing and expanding its ecosystem in the fields of cross-chain token swapping, DApp staking, EVM tooling, and general network functionality, governance, and performance. On top of this, the network is also looking to incubate and promote the development of breakthrough applications and NFT projects, especially through its Astar & Shiden Builders Grant Program.

Moonstake is proud to be strategic partners of Shideen Network. We will continue to maintain strong support for the ever growing and developing Shiden ecosystem and hope to bring even more great value to SDN and crypto users worldwide in 2022 to help accelerate adoption of the Shiden and Moonstake ecosystems together.

About Moonstake

As a world-leading staking service provider, Moonstake develops and operates decentralized wallet services for enterprises and end users.

Our full-scale staking business started in August 2020. With the support of users all over the world, our total staking assets has risen to 1.8 billion dollars. In June 2021, we ranked third among 15,000 staking providers globally.

So far, we have expanded our business and ecosystem through about 30 strategic partnerships, including major blockchains such as Emurgo which is a constituent organization of Cardano, TRON, and NEO. In May 2021, we became a wholly owned subsidiary of the listed company “OIO Holdings Limited” on the Singapore Stock Exchange and we are working to further expand Moonstake’s business and improve our credibility.

https://www.moonstake.io/

About Shiden

Building the premier multi-chain smart contract platform on Kusama Network. Shiden Network is a multi-chain decentralized application layer on Kusama Network. Kusama Relaychain does not support smart contract functionality by design. Kusama Network needs a smart contract layer. This is where Shiden Network comes in. Shiden supports Ethereum Virtual Machine, WebAssembly, and Layer2 solutions from day one. The platform supports various applications like DeFi, NFTs, and more.

https://shiden.astar.network/ 

About Astar

Astar Network is a dApps hub on Polkadot that supports Ethereum and layer 2 solutions like ZK Rollups. Plasm aims to be a multi-chain smart contract platform that will support multiple blockchains and virtual machines like EVM and WASM.

https://astar.network/