Austrian crypto trading platform Bitpanda announced plans to establish a new technology hub in Poland. The background is a company expansion by creating new jobs.

On December 16, Bitpanda announced in a tweet that it would invest at least ten million euros in the new center for technology and innovation in Krakow. Already, the Austrian Bitcoin exchange counts 1.5 million users who can trade Bitcoin and Ethereum as well as gold and other precious metals on the platform.

The choice of location was less about a specific country and more about a suitable city, explained Eric Demuth, CEO of the company:

„The key was not specific cost or tax preferences, but access to skilled employees, universities and the ability to create a technological ecosystem.“

Skills are at the forefront at Bitpanda

Another advantage of the Krakow location, he said, is its relative proximity to Bitpanda’s headquarters in Vienna. There are currently 280 employees there from 44 different countries. This number is now soon to be more than doubled. The company plans to hire about 300 more IT engineers and programmers in 2021. For many Polish employees, this move by the company could represent an opportunity. Demuth also expressed confidence in hiring qualified professionals from the region. However, he also emphasized that potential employees are not judged by their origin, but by their competencies:

„We live in a time when the trend toward remote work is becoming more popular, but we believe that the company, supported by the experience of many people we talk to, works better when people can interact, talk, create their own work culture and have a beer.“

A cohesive organizational culture is highly important for fast-growing companies, he further explained. The company has already launched Polish language versions on its website. According to Bitcoin Future, the investment in the center is only the first step of many. Just recently, the company received $52 million from a Series A funding round. Meanwhile, the new Center for Technology and Innovation team will be led by Christian Trummer, Bitpanda’s chief technology officer.

„Our goal is to remove barriers to individual investment, educate users, and become the investment platform of choice,“

comments the Bitpanda CTO on the expansion project.

Grayscale Investments, arguably the largest and most influential crypto-fund in the world, has released the results of a survey conducted last month to measure public sentiment, knowledge and acceptance of Bitcoin among new accredited and institutional investors.

According to the company, 62% of all respondents are now „very familiar“ with Bitcoin and either already invested in the pioneering crypto currency or plan to invest shortly.

Millennials and new investors turn Bitcoin Code to Bitcoin
In the „Bitcoin Investor Study“ for October 2020, Grayscale found that over 83% of all respondents had made crypto-investments within the last year, indicating that digital currencies are an increasingly attractive component of modern investment portfolios.
The global pandemic was a major driver for Bitcoin investment in 2020, with 38% of new Bitcoin investors reporting that they invested within the last four months. In addition, almost two thirds of them said that the impact of COVID-19 was a factor in their decision.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic played a role in the decision of new investors to invest in Bitcoin. Image: Grayscale
Millennials led the rise in demand for crypto currencies, according to Grayscale. While the space was initially seen as a niche asset class that only appealed to a narrow circle of investors, crypto currencies soon gained importance as a mainstream investment opportunity for both retail and institutional investors.

This year’s survey shows that the market of potential Bitcoin investors is 32 million strong, compared to 21 million investors just a year ago.

Familiarity is growing
This year, 62% of investors said they were „familiar“ with Bitcoin, compared to 53% in 2019, and almost half of those surveyed predicted that digital currencies would be considered mainstream by the end of the current decade.

Grayscale on this:

„As equity markets experience continued volatility and the once strong correlations between different asset classes begin to dissolve, Bitcoin seems to be gaining momentum as market participants look for investments that can act as safe havens within a portfolio“.

The report also notes that as the new, so-called „digital generation“ grows up, it is likely that more digital forms of money will be introduced.
Just a little crypto-allocation in a traditional portfolio would have increased returns many times over. Picture: Grayscale
„Current and potential investors in Bitcoin have not even reached their best years of earnings, and the $68 trillion asset transfer that is expected to take place over the next 25 years represents a potentially huge opportunity for those who see the possibility of long-term growth for Bitcoin,“ concluded Grayscale.

Its XRP burns its hands – One of the main problems with Bitcoin Era app is that Ripple Labs and its founders hold astronomical amounts of it. This has become all the more problematic since Jed McCaleb, former founder of Ripple, decided to get rid of his tokens as quickly as possible.

Billions of XRP to spare

In July 2013, Jed McCaleb definitively slammed the door of Ripple (then called OpenCoin ), of which he was however one of the main initiators.

Since then, although he has moved on to his new cryptocurrency project – Stellar (XLM), launched in 2014 – Jed McCaleb has nonetheless retained a large indirect influence on Ripple’s XRP .

Indeed, when he left his previous project, due to differing views, he took away no less than 9.5 billion XRP , or 9.5% of all existing XRP .

After a lengthy legal battle that ended in February 2016, Ripple Labs and Jed McCaled managed to come to an agreement on how to liquidate their XRP which, from the start, expressed a desire to resell them.

The amount of XRP that the former founder of Ripple can resell depends on the global trading volumes of this interbank token. And as these volumes have increased … guess what!

Jed McCaleb steps up XRP liquidation

Stellar’s current CTO can resell up to 1.5% of the global XRP trading volume every day . If this represented „only“ 2 million XRP per day last May, the pace has accelerated sharply in recent days.

As anyone can see from Jed McCaleb’s XRP address (thanks to the blockchain transparency ), his liquidation saw a first sharp increase since late last month. Eh yes ! Since November 29, our friend has gone from less than 4 million XRP resold every day to over 9.9 million XRP , or almost $ 6 million.

But since December 6 , the „dump machine“ has been racing again . Jed McCaleb has effectively disposed of over 29.57 million XRP in each of the past 2 days , or around $ 35.5 million in tokens resold within 24 hours.

Knowing that there are still nearly 3.7 billion XRP to get rid of, it may end up hurting a lot at this rate, even through OTC transactions (over-the-counter) which nevertheless influence a lot. minus the prices compared to trading on crypto exchanges.

Are stablecoins too dangerous for the general population? This is what members of the US Congress believe. They have tabled a bill that worries the crypto community …

A bill that threatens stablecoins?

CEO Coinbase Brian Armstrong, launched the warning last week: proposals for drastic regulation of cryptomonnaies were coming to the front of the stage . Have we just witnessed the first offensive? Rashida Tlaib, a congresswoman from the United States, explained why she believes this law is essential to regulate stablecoins. It would be about protecting the vulnerable citizens of the United States, so that the “ crimes of the big banks” are not reproduced by this new industry.

“Particularly in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, their vulnerabilities could be exploited and masked by malicious actors who wish to issue stablecoins, like other currency issuers in the past. “

Very strict regulations

The proposed law is particularly strict: it prohibits anyone from issuing a stablecoin or providing a product / service related to stablecoins, “ without obtaining written approval in advance and each time from the appropriate federal banking agency, the Corporation and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve ” .

As several experts have pointed out, the wording of this proposed law is broad enough to include a whole variety of activities related to cryptocurrencies . The idea is to regulate the cryptocurrency sector even more strongly than the banking sector, in order to avoid the practices of “ shadow banking“ , that is to say banking systems which operate in parallel with traditional banks.

The crypto community stands up against the proposed law

Unsurprisingly, the crypto community unanimously condemned this proposed law . Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, explained why he thought it was bad for the industry . He recalls that it would first of all prevent the sector from innovating, which would put the United States in danger of falling behind in the development of the blockchain and FinTech industry .

In addition, Jeremy Allaire recalls that vulnerable populations have been able to have access to financial services thanks to companies that operate outside traditional banking systems:

“A huge part of the innovation brought to low-bank people and small businesses has come from non-bank FinTech companies (Stripe, Square, PayPal, Circle, Coinbase, Apple, Google and many more) . “

The crypto community is therefore interpreting this bill as a way to control parallel payment systems , which concerns Congress. However, it should be noted that there is only one month left in Congress to pass this law, before the change of government is enacted. It might therefore be difficult for its members to get this proposal approved.