The Wild West Crypto Show Cheers as Cryptos Go Up, Up, Up and Away | CryptoCurrencyWire on The Wild West Crypto Show | Episode 120

Jonathan Keim, director of communications at CryptoCurrencyWire, had a triplet of fascinating developments to report on. He started with the headline: Celsius Network Announces 25+ Cryptocurrencies as Loan Collateral (http://nnw.fm/OtKQp). Keim sees this announcement as a strong vote of confidence in the crypto markets, which historically have experienced a great deal of volatility. In January 2018, for example, Bitcoin was trading at over $17,000 but by December of the same year, it had plunged to around $3,400, a drop of some 80%.

 

Celsius offers its “community of HODLers,” or long-term owners of crypto assets, a convenient way to obtain some liquidity without having to dispose of any assets. The company provides loans of stable coins and fiat money using crypto assets as collateral. An additional benefit of this arrangement is that crypto owners avoid having to pay capital gains taxes, since no assets are sold. Access to such loans has now become easier after the announcement that “every asset accepted in the Celsius Network wallet will also be approved for loan collateral.” These loans can be backed by 26 different cryptocurrencies, including “stablecoins like TUSD, PAX, USDT, and GUSD, [and] altcoins such as DASH, ZRX, XLM, and for the first time the [Celsius] native token, CEL.” The facility is available in more than 200 countries with affordable rates that start at just under 1% APR.

 

Keim’s second report featured speculation by Heath Tarbert, who heads the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), that “a ‘large part’ of financial system could end up in blockchain format” (http://nnw.fm/j4jWv). The CFTC chairman marveled at the speed of development in the crypto space, noting that while the present financial system took several hundred years to evolve, the digital asset space has become a viable economic system within a decade.

 

Finally, a blurb for Bitcoin from Wall Street touted this: Major Investment Bank Recommends Bitcoin Over Gold (http://nnw.fm/auX1F). A senior analyst at investment bank Oppenheimer thinks that Bitcoin has potential for more appreciation than gold. At around $11,594, the cryptocurrency is a far way from its lofty levels at the end of 2017, while gold, hovering around $2,000, is at a 20-year high.

 

To view the most recent episode of the Wild West Crypto Show, now on TV in 45 cities across the nation, including its ongoing segment from CryptoCurrencyWire featuring the latest news from around the world, visit http://nnw.fm/pXqhx.