The digital currency market has been going through a rough patch now. Various kinds of cryptocurrencies have been experiencing the worst time they ever had in their lifetime. Some have even incurred losses and have fallen to depths from which it might even be difficult for them to return. Robinhood, the online brokerage firm has had to bear the brunt of many losses and even had to let go of almost a quarter of its employees. Various reasons led to it and some of them have been discussed in this article.
Reasons for downsizing at Robinhood
The main two reasons for the downsizing of the online brokerage firm, Robinhood were the disruption of the macro market as well as the crash of the cryptocurrency. These two factors led to the deterioration of the firm and left it with huge losses from which it was difficult for them to recover. As a resolution and to help sustain the firm, it had to. land on a tough decision which is downsizing. This news came recently when the co-founder and CEO decided to share it with the general public.
Further, the firm even published reports that showed the final results of tepid Q2 which were very poor. The firm was also charged with a 30 million dollar fine by the New York State Department of Financial Services for being involved in unethical activities such as any-money laundering. Their crypto branch of the company had to bear the brunt of it all. They were even charged with various other allegations and even disobeyed various rules. Other allegations included charges of breach of cybersecurity, violation of consumer protection protocols, etc. All of this further led the firm to its downfall in a way.
Impact of the layoffs on the firm
Needless to say, the layoffs had a huge impact on the whole firm in many ways. It did not only show the company in bad light or as one that is on the path towards destruction but also affected all of its functions. However, the main sectors that got affected the most were marketing, operations, and program management. The number of employees that had to let go of their jobs was estimated to be around 780 which constituted almost 23% of the whole staff. It was a blow that shroom the very core of the company.
What were the previous records of the company?
In the past, even though Robinhood has had to suffer losses the one it faced recently was the biggest of them all. In the previous year, it had to let go of almost 9% of its staff, however, it did not help the company in a big way or even in every that it needed. The economic conditions of the contemporary world are to be blamed for whatever's happening with the crypto market and with it with the firms.
Conclusion
There were some misconceptions made by the firm at the beginning of the year, which resulted in miscalculation and misinterpretation of data that led to the downfall of the firm. In the beginning, more users were getting involved with the platform as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic, however, this trend did not last for a long time.
The recent results that were then published by the company showed data that were quite disheartening to see. It showed a downfall or decline in every aspect of the firm. However, that particular firm witnessed a rise in its value and its share price after it was noticed by the FTX founder who invested a sum of 650 million dollars for a share of a 7.6% stake in the firm.
There are many projects in the crypto market at the moment where you can invest and earn but there are only a few of them that can promise a good return, better earnings opportunities and they are also potentially strong as compared to others and Predictcoin, without a doubt, is one of them.
Predictcoin is a crypto assets price prediction DAO, where users or "PREDers" (“PREDers is a term used for its users”) can predict the price of crypto assets at a particular time, which would be visible and accessible to all. It is a platform that'll attract the best predictors to predict crypto assets and earn $PRED while at it. $PRED is the governance token of Predictcoin and can be used to create user's profiles, predict on crypto assets and vote on community issues
Users would get the first hand experience and see what experienced predictors think the market would look like for a particular coin in the next few days. Thereby learning more about the market and the experiences.
How does it all work?
At Predictcoin, newbies and crypto traders get a clue about the market and learn more information about the green and red candles. Through this strong and well-built platform newbies would know and learn when to buy their favorite coins and when to sell, if they can study the experienced predictors on Predictcoin.
Coming towards the process, the whole prediction process is quite simple. Every week users can predict 5 different coins on Predictcoin with PRED. Each coin has only 10 seats to accept predictions and each prediction costs 10 PRED, you can only predict once from one wallet. (This means only 50 seats available in total per week and 500 PRED retrieved). Those who try to predict after seats are filled will be unsuccessful and can withdraw their 10 PRED back anytime. A position will open on Monday and users can secure their seats by choosing either Bull or Bear (Up or Down). On Friday the positions closes, it's also worthy to note that the percentage of those who chose Up or Down will already be visible for the world to see. The ones with the right predictions will be redirected to stake PRED to earn PRED at a very high APR, while the ones who predicted wrongly will be redirected to stake PRED to earn BNB at a very high APR. Only the wallets they predicted with can stake.
Predictcoin would also be marketed as the leading cryptocurrency to be used on predicting both crypto assets, football matches & sports games. Apart from partnering up with major sports predicting platforms, they are also planning to work on developing in-house predicting features for sports games as well.
Predict Pool:
A Predict Pool is a pool on Predictcoin generating & distributing $PRED to winners of price predictions, stakers & farmers. Funded initially with 5,000 $PRED (see above in tokenomics), the predict pool would act as a backup plan or reserve for the price prediction and the whole Predictcoin ecosystem.
Winding Up…
If any of you think that you can predict better than anyone else then it’s a great opportunity for you to earn by being one of the PREDers. We will keep on updating you with potentially strong and promising projects till then make sure you check out predictcoin and get benefits out of it.
Crypto Twitter is a growing virtual space for virtual currency platforms. It is renowned for its consistency of blockchain projects, CEOs, founders, lead developers, and investors. The platform is wrapped with posts of their activity regarding the crypto industry. Hence, it became a remarkable space for industry updates, experts' opinions, and also trending crypto offers.
But the concern is that the platform became a center point of hackers and scammers, who are randomly grabbing the investors' assets through tactics. The scam or misleading activities are taking place through multiple techniques like sending a token to the user's wallet offering attractive assets. The only aim is to get access to the user's wallet.
In this article, we are going to provide information regarding some of the most common crypto and NFT scams on Twitter.
The Honeypot Scam :
Honeypot scams are one of the most renowned financial exploits nowadays. It spread dominance in both traditional finance and the crypto industry. They are now prepared for Twitter as well. The scammers lure victims to send crypto into a wallet. After, they take off the funds.
Lucrative Rewards Scam :
They sometimes offer lucrative rewards to the users for participating in simple tasks. The task is like transferring coins from one wallet to another, as simple as that. The bad actors might act like crypto newcomers. They may have mysterious stocks of crypto assets. They act like they don't know how to trade these tokens for fiat currency. The related wallet may have mysterious winnings for credibility to the users. Though, it will lack accepted tokens to cover the transaction fees.
Bot Scam :
When a user transfers over the funds to wrap transaction fees, a bot will automatically transfer the tokens to a wallet that is controlled by the scammers.
Those tactics have become very easy to purchase or use bots to generate fake likes and retweets. Scammers use this advantage to get fake authenticity. They smartly play by turning off the comments for the tweet. That prevents them from the social media whistle-blowers.
Fake Website Scam :
When any user reaches the fake page, they are asked to fill in their wallet details to complete certain activities related to the task. These wallet details are recorded and used to exploit assets.
The Gaming Scam :
In that kind of fake gaming exploit, scammers send users a prototype of a P2E platform. They might be asked or lure users to try the game and offer a reward for their review. Which users extract the file containing the malware, and run the program. The scammer can also hire artists and pay them to develop digital art for some fake company.
This exploit takes place by downloading a certain file on users' PCs or devices. Though the files may look like genuine files from the surface. It helps to enter some kind of malware or script that can scan users' systems for passwords and private keys.
Unicode Letter Scam :
Previous experience shows that scammers have started following Unicode letters to create fake or lookalike links and airdrops. The links redirect users into hoax websites that seem like actual registration pages. When users fill in their login details revealing all their information to the scammers. That leads them to be drained by the scammers.
Unicode letters look like regular letters. The signs and symbols are the players. For instance, '¡' this inverted exclamatory sign can be used as the letter 'i' in a link. The symbols for the Greek letter alpha 'α' are used as the English letter 'a'. These cause to make the links legitimate pages and seem like genuine websites. It is an easy way to trick users.
Meta and Twitter are now dominating the social media space. These web3 platforms are massively popularised among users. These platforms collect data from the bulk amount of users. In exchange for that data, the companies earn billions of dollars as revenue from user-generated content.
According to the forecast for the upcoming future, these web3 platforms are going to be demolished after the domination of decentralized social media (or Web3). That platform will give all power of access to the users.
Web2 Vs Web3 :
Web2 platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram control users through multiple policies. If the users refuse to comply with that policies they will lose their profile reach along with content.
For instance, the Twitter handle of US president Donald Trump was banned due to debates that were considered against the policy of the platform. A million followers were useless at that time. The authorization or the governing body of Twitter played a crucial role to cease the account.
Now the upcoming web3 space will give the power to the user's hand. No authority will control the user's community.
The remarkable issue with the Web2 social media platform is, that it contains a “walled garden”. If a user has 1 million followers on Instagram and aims to start a YouTube channel, that user has to start with zero followers. Because the audience community is connected with individual platforms, not with the user or creator itself. So, in web2 space, there is no option to move them.
Web3 depletes the number of mediators and develops an independent ecosystem. It also enables new ways of monetization and launches multiple solutions that empower individuals. That ways are not just related to their contents, but also their followers.
Several platforms have shifted with potential subsidiaries for Web2’s social media industry. The platforms like Lens Protocol, the Aave team, and its DeSo are backed by Andreessen Horowitz. Both platforms are developed to host decentralized social media applications. There already present many live applications which follow Leinster, Iris (decentralized Twitter), Phaver, and LensTube (decentralized YouTube).
How Does It Work?
For instance, Lens allows users to utilize Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) to directly connect their content and followers to their crypto asset wallets. There is no dependency on individual platforms as we use cross-platform access to our followers.
When a user posts anything to the platform, it automatically circulates the post across all the platforms the user get into. Also, followers are connected across platforms, so all platforms have the same number of followers of that individual user.
No More Ads, Direct User Monetization :
Another remarkable feature of Web3 Social Media is that users can monetize their creations directly on that platform. It does not generate revenue from advertising companies. These platforms offer users to publish better content. It is less complicated as it allows authors to set a fee for “collecting” their posts or choosing a fee for following a post. Revenue is generated directly by the creator. There is no involvement in the platform.
Influencers Are Adopting Web3 :
Some experts argued that Web2 forms are off to such a head start that Web3 social media can't catch up. But the actual thing is that the advantages of decentralized social media are amazing that large content creators can migrate and get their audiences.
There are several examples of effective influencers who have their social media platforms. Because the corporate platforms no longer allow content sharing. Web3 offers a clear solution to its ever-growing Web2 which is going to deplete.
A cryptocurrency entrepreneur, Darius Moukhtarzadeh is focused on decentralized platforms like social media applications. He was a researcher at Signum, the world’s first digital asset bank.
Cryptocurrency is one of the potential ways to use it in exchanges. Several countries had permitted the use of digital assets as physical currencies are used. According to experts, the coming years will be dominated by digital assets.
Iran has officially granted the use of cryptocurrency importing goods as a measure to entangle US sanctions imposed on its finance and banking fields.
Overview Of The Permission :
The Mines and Trade Ministry is one of Iran's Industries that has permitted the use of cryptocurrency importing into the country between these international trade sanctions.
According to recent reports, Reza Fatemi Amin, the trade minister, confirmed that detailed regulations are about to be in. It has outlined the use of cryptocurrencies for trade and supplying fuel and electricity to Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto miners across the country.
The trade minister explained the recent regulatory change at an automotive industry exhibition last week.
The Iranian trade ministry had earlier signaled that the cryptocurrency and smart contracts would be widely increased in foreign trade by September this year.
Keeping the eye on the cryptocurrency-funded import, Iran’s Import Association summoned clear-cut regulatory parameters to get surety that local businesses and importers are not harassed by shifting directives.
The minister mentioned that the new regulations mark all problems associated with cryptocurrencies. It includes the process which will grant licenses along with the provision of fuel and energy-creating operators in the country.
Local businesses will be allowed to import vehicles into Iran. Also, they will be able to import a range of different imported goods using cryptocurrencies instead of United States dollar or euro payments.
International trade sanctions against Iran have largely suffered for its opposition to its nuclear program. That has abandoned the country of the global banking system.
As Iran has changed its attention to adopting cryptocurrencies as a means to address and potentially ignore sanctions for imports, given the decentralized tendency of public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. They are not regulated by the government or central authorities.
In June 2021, the Mines and Trade Ministry approved operating licenses for 30 crypto mining centers across the country. while more than 2,500 miners were granted the establishment of new mining operations. The government also took steps against illegal mining operations and a three-month ban was imposed on mining.
The Announcement :
The trade minister said that all the issues associated with crypto-assets, including how to bargain fuel and energy, and how to apply and get licenses were added.
As cryptocurrencies are not traded through basic channels such as banks and it is very difficult to track the transaction, the use of cryptocurrencies to import goods is one of the ways to ignore sanctions.
In the first period of the month, Iran performed its first official import through cryptocurrency. That was worth $10 million. It was a test run for allowing the country to trade using digital assets that neglect the dollar-denominated global financial system. It aimed to trade with other countries similarly abandoned by US sanctions, such as Russia.
Alireza Peymanpak, a deputy Iranian trade minister who leads Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), stated that the use of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts will be increased in foreign trade with target countries by the end of September.
Iran has a complicated situation with cryptocurrencies. That caused hiding various kinds of illicit trades that were banned by the US and other European sanctions but mining them is highly energy-intensive.
Iran’s central bank has ceased trading cryptocurrencies inside the country. Though the government allowed the use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to pay for imports.
