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Coinbase has gone public, and it looks like Wall Street and some of America’s largest and most prestigious banks are feeling the heat. The popular cryptocurrency exchange began trading its new stock last Wednesday on the Nasdaq, letting the financial world know that it was here to stay, and that cryptocurrency is going to continue to attract the attention of investors.

Banks Are Really Feeling Pressure as of Late

For the most part, cryptocurrencies and banks have not always seen eye to eye. Banks, for example, are centralized financial entities, meaning they control the financial products that standard citizens have access to. They decide who can use their products and services usually by looking at their customers’ backgrounds (such as their job and credit histories). From there, the banks decide if the person they are examining is trustworthy enough to be part of its monetary family, and if it decides otherwise, the individual must look elsewhere.

Cryptocurrency, by contrast, is largely a decentralized industry designed to give financial independence back to the people. It is built to provide people with control over their financial futures, and thus remove the middlemen from several equations. People do not need long and established job histories to take part in the pleasures of digital currency. Rather, they just need a wallet and an internet connection.

Naturally, banks are worried about crypto taking over given that the more the space grows, the closer financial institutions become to being null and void. For the most part, these banks never really took crypto seriously until about four years ago. During that time, bitcoin first began experiencing one of many future spikes, and it was in that year that the world’s number one digital asset would jump to nearly $20,000, which was a new all-time high.

One crypto analyst who remains anonymous said the following regarding banks’ relationships with digital assets:

They never really took bitcoin or Ethereum seriously until the prices started to explode in 2017-18. Then the crash happened, and they forgot about it again, but then they soared in 2020 and have kept on coming. Traders in banks’ dealing rooms are now getting asked by clients, ‘Can’t you help me invest in this stuff?’

Jumping in Early Would Have Been Good

Now that Coinbase is being publicly traded, there is a good chance many banks are thinking they missed the bandwagon and should have jumped into the crypto space when they had a chance. One ex-banker with Barclays – also anonymous – explained in an interview:

We had a division looking at blockchain [the technology that underpins crypto] in 2014 at Barclays. We were trying to work out how we could use it to run our operations. It was not that we were not on it or aware of it, but it would have meant replicating our entire operation – a massive change, and all for a technology that was just moving too fast.

Tags: banks, bitcoin, coinbase, Wall Street

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Amongst the best-performing assets in the crypto space over the past week, Terra (LUNA) has registered 18.9% gains over the weekend. Just behind AAVE (+19%), SNX (+20.8%), and SUSHI (+21.8%), LUNA has managed to outperform YFI and RUNE, two of the most resilient DeFi assets, per a Messari report.

Developed by Terraform Labs as a blockchain to support stable programmable payment and an “open financial” infrastructure with a lending protocol and a synthetic assets platform, Terra’s ecosystem is composed of a basket of fiat pegged stablecoins. LUNA is used to “stabilized” this basket.

Terra has the ultimate objective of replacing banks, credit card networks, and payment gateways, as stated in the protocol’s official website. Therefore, Terra has created a blockchain layer with solutions that can be adopted by merchants and consumers. Since its inception:

(…) it continues to steadily provide infrastructural improvements and tools for the foundations of laying down a credibly neutral, distributed, and radically transparent ecosystem.

LUNA is trading at $14,21 with a 6.3% in the daily chart. In the weekly and monthly chart, LUNA has 8% and 30.6% losses, respectively. Although it has been following the general sentiment in the market, LUNA and Terra’s ecosystem seem poised to resume their bullish momentum.

Terra (LUNA) with potential to drive further demand

LUNA holders can use the token to obtain staking rewards from three main sources: compute fees or gas fees, taxes, and seigniorage rewards. The rewards are determined by the amount of LUNA staked. If the transaction volume on Terra’s blockchain increases, so do the rewards receive by LUNA holders.

Therefore, the rewards function as an incentive mechanism to bet on Terra’s long-term growth. Stablecoin UST, part of the ecosystem, saw an 800% growth in 2021, per a report by CoinGecko. This stablecoin climbed to the 5^th position by market cap. The report claims:

Unlike most ETH-based algo stablecoins, UST has managed to create a reliable peg through an ecosystem than incentivizes usage and attracts a strong community.

Mirror protocol is powered by smart contracts based on the Terra network and is a major source for UST demand. The protocol allows users to create synthetic assets or Mirrored Assets, like stocks, that “mimic” the price of the real-world asset.

CoinGecko stated that Terra “capitalized on Robinhood debacle” when the GameStop (GME) drama reached its peak. Also, Terra’s Anchor Protocol offers a product with a 20% fixed interest rate based on UST. The report states:

Upcoming project such as Alice, SPAR And Vega are expected to further strengthen the demand for UST.

As reported by staking provider SmartStake, there was $4,7B LUNA staked as of April 17^th with $223 million deposit in Anchor UST and $518 million in Anchor bLuna as collateral. Mirror Protocol as $2,078,234,849 on its platform. In total, Terra has a Total Value Locked of over $7 billion.

Terrans – Wondering about total TVL of #Terra network?

– $Luna staking $4,794,505,012
– Anchor UST deposit $223,000,000
– Anchor bLuna collateral $518,457,100
– Mirror Protocol $2,078,234,849

Total TVL$7,614,196,961 ($7.6b)

will add 2 https://t.co/bZD3tNFHiJ @terra_money pic.twitter.com/zr0Tggbgpc

— SmartStake (@SmartStake) April 17, 2021

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LUNA has been listed on Bitfinex, Tokocrypto, Bitfinex and is becoming a key component of Binance and its ecosystem.

Do Kwon, co-founder of the Terra ecosystem, shared a tweet by James Wang, an analyst at investment firm ARK Invest, with a highly bullish perspective on LUNA. Wang is a MIR holder and an active voter on its governance model.

Founded by Catherine Woods in 2014 and with $52.85 billion assets under management, ARK Invest is one of the most important investment firms in the U.S. It currently holds the “largest” Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) portfolio in the traditional market.

Do Kwon asked James Wang if they shall get ARK Invest to allocate capital on Mirror, Wang replied: “Yes!”. However, no official announcement has been made by Terraform Labs or Ark Invest.

Max hype/reality: Cardano $ADA
Max reality/hype: Terra $LUNA

— James Wang (@draecomino) April 19, 2021

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