Tremendous Growth In The Use Of Cryptocurrencies For Remittances

A cryptocurrency company has recently revealed an upsurge in the use of cryptocurrency in remittances around the world.

The study surveyed the response of 707 people that delved in remittance habits, destinations of transfers, the purpose of the transfers as well as the method by which money are transferred.

The survey revealed that the top 10 recipient of remittances from the U.S. are: Mexico, China, India, Philippines, Vietnam, Guatemala, Nigeria, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Handuras.

It was also revealed in the study that the most used method for money remittances are money transfer services such as Western Union and one payment service PayPal with more than half of the respondents using them.

Interestingly cryptocurrencies now accounts for 15.8% of all users using them.

It is apparent that cryptocurrencies is set to catch up with traditional bank wire which accounts for 25.7% of money senders using them.

Cryptocurrencies are set to disrupt the remittance service sector due to its low cost and speed of transactions.

It was reported that for a customer to send $500 abroad banks charge $52.05 on the average, while money transfer operators charge $30.75 and around $16 for mobile operators.

It is notable that when the respondents were asked if they prefer cryptocurrencies over more traditional methods of sending money 85.7% of them said yes will 7.1% are either unconvinced or unsure.

Binance List XRP As Base Pair

One of the largest and most recognizable crypto exchanges in the world, Binance has recently announced that it is adding Ripple as one of its based currencies.

This means that ripple will now be used more as a primary asset that can be used to make purchases of other cryptocurrencies listed in the platform.

The first trading pairs is for Tron and Zcoin.

The move is not really a surprising as its CEO has revealed earlier in the year that the Binance might do something like this in the future which apparently it has.

In order to include the new base cryptocurrency the Ethereum market was renamed as ALTS market with ETH and XRP base currency under this category.

The CEO states that the move was spurred by a lack of space on the company’s interface.

It seems that everything is going pretty well for XRP for the past few months with several banking partnerships and usurping the top 2 position in the crypto markets toppling Ethereum by market capitalization.

As stated above the current crypto that are paired with XRP are Tron and Zcoin which may have a positive effect in their values.

The CEO also revealed that they will prioritize adding more pairs for the projects that have donated in Binance’s charity initiative, although this was not disclosed publicly nor to the crypto donors themselves.

Consensys CEO Still Sees A Bright Future For Cryptos

It is no secret that 2018 has not been a very good year for cryptocurrencies in general.

This is especially true for the Ethereum Project and Consensys, the company of Ethereum’s co-founder Joseph Lubin.

It has been reported that ConsenSys incubates around 36 startups that usually have anywhere between 5 and 50 employees.

Due to the market downturn 50%-60% of these employees will be let go by Consensys.

Although it was a common knowledge that the current market condition is the primary reason for this business decision Lubin tried to play down the said development as just the refocusing of priorities and as part of budget adjustments.

An anonymous source has revealed that these upstarts are given the option to discontinue work with severance package or seek outside investment.

Despite the reported layoffs the Consensys executive is still very positive of the future of cryptocurrencies and its underlying technologies.

Without referring to anyone he says that bloggers and journalist have been spreading epic amount of FUD in the cryptocurrency community without proper data.

He said that the sky is not falling, from his perspective the future of cryptocurrencies in general is very bright still.

Binance Most Trusted Crypto Exchange

It has been revealed by the CEO of FX hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, Su Zhu, that Binance is not only the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the global market it is also the most trusted among investors in the cryptocurrency community.

This is an amazing feature considering that Binance is widely considered a lightly regulated platform.

This is owing to the fact that Binance focuses on crypto-to-crypto exchange without requiring users do undergo KYC procedures but with certain limitations.

However as it continues to evolve and expand to different jurisdiction especially those where it operates fiat-to-crypto exchanges it has complied with know-your-customer and anti-money laundering regulations.

Even when it moved its headquarters in Malta, a very progressing county in terms of cryptocurrency regulations it has to comply with the uncompromising regulations and policies of the European Union as it is a member of the organization.

It also does not hurt to be among one of the elite list of cryptocurrency exchanges in the world that has not experienced a major security breach since its inception.

The trust form investors and traders on Binance likely comes from the track record of the company and the efficient communication between the firm’s executives and the community.

Lightning Network Surpasses $2 Million Capacity Despite Market Down Turn

The second layer scaling solution of bitcoin, the Lightning Network (LN) has reach another milestone by reaching a network capacity of around $2 mllion USD on Sunday December 23, 2018.

This was corroborated by data provided by BTC statistics website bitcoinvisuals.com.

This is an amazing development as it was able to gain major growth in the middle of what many described as a prolonged crypto winter.

According to reports the node channels that support the LN protocol were able to facilitate 496.8 BTC which amounts to around 2 million USD.

The number of channels that are connecting for the first time has also grown visibly in the last two months which is now at around 14,352 unique channels by late December.

The BTC lightning Network, is a second layer protocol that operates on top of the BTC blockchain.

This aims to solve the problems with scalability by using payment channels - a fast and secure way of carrying out transactions between users without having to record them on the blockchain until the moment the channel is closed.

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