Hello all! MNO is back with the Weekly CryptoNews Digest and news from the HYIP industry. I have some good news I would like to share with my readers! Just in a couple of weeks my blog will celebrate fifteen years online. It’s because on July 1, 2007 I posted for the first time on a dedicated website rather than the personal blog I started earlier with on LiveJournal. And what kind of an amazing breathtaking journey it has put me on! The MNO blog has totally changed my life for the better and brought me lots of experience and useful connections in the HYIP industry I can feel proud of. And of course it has earned me a lot of money and the type of freedom to do what I like and from where I like to do it!

Even nowadays when running the MNO blog has become just a hobby for my semi-retired lifestyle I still believe that I owe my thousands of subscribers (you can join them as well here) to keep this blog alive. And due to the current absolutely horrible state of things in the HYIP industry as a whole I have decided to dedicate the good part of the posts to the much more dynamic and interesting cryptocurrencies industry. Why? Simply because the crypto market has been inexplicably intertwined with the HYIP industry itself for quite some time already. Because it’s the future and despite the current downward trends BitCoin and other currencies will clearly be on the rise once again at some point in time to reach new peaks and records we can’t even dream of now.

And even though the summer time has usually been very slow when it comes to HYIPs I’m still active and still here, delivering the latest Weekly CryptoNews Digest articles every Monday, with occasional updates from the HYIP industry as well. So, perhaps if you wish to stay informed on the latest additions to the MNO monitor you might like to follow MNO on Telegram, Facebook, or Twitter. I’m always very happy to see new followers on my social networks and if you wish to discuss something with me I’m also available on Telegram @mnoblog for a chat. Alternatively, you may also contact me using this online form or email me directly at abramsonp@gmail.com

As BitCoin and other major cryptocurrencies crashed even further this week with BTC at some point today trading slightly below the $23K mark the major recovery couldn’t be far from possible. All in all, cryptocurrencies have always been extremely volatile, and that especially true at the time when the world economy has suffered significant post-pandemic blows due to high inflation and macro-economical instability with a predicted future recession. However, let’s see what’s new in the crypto market happened over the last calendar week, June 6 to June 12, 2022.

Perhaps the biggest news in the crypto markets over this last week has been the ongoing tumbling of exchange rates against the dollar and other regular hard fiat currencies. I don’t want to take a sort of “the less said about that the better” type attitude, but honestly the subject has been covered on this blog more than once already and there really is very little extra I can add at this point. Not without repeating myself unnecessarily anyway. It’s not all doom and gloom however, not for everyone at least, as many successful investors in the past have always proved that it’s possible to earn fortunes by following the mantra of buying when the market is at it’s lowest possible point. Have we reached rock bottom with BitCoin for instance? Far from it I’d say, though with an almost 15% drop overnight we are back down to levels not seen in the last two years. Bitcoin is down 18% in the past seven days and has fallen below $26,000 its lowest point of 2022 and a 12-month low. Ethereum has fared even worse, down 28% in the past week, even after a mostly successful merge test drive on Wednesday. It wasn’t just BTC and ETH. Every single one of the top 20 coins by market cap has fallen double-digit percentages in the past seven days.

Better news for those still keeping an active role in trading and spending crypto came when it was announced that PayPal is finally allowing cryptocurrency holders to transfer their digital assets off its platform to other wallets and exchanges. Apparently this is the feature most often requested since the fintech giant’s crypto buy, sell and hold service went live in October 2020. The move away from regimented custodial platforms towards more open systems is a trend being followed by other large fintech players to enter crypto, such as popular trading app Robinhood, which is rolling out a new crypto wallet focused on decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The move isn’t entirely a surprise however, in fact it’s been anticipated for quite some time since being announced at an online event last year. It was then that one of the senior vice presidents of PayPal first said that plans to let users move their coins to third-party wallets were in the works.

At the other end of the scale, more worrying news came for Binance whose directors must be anxiously waiting an unwelcome 3A.M knock on the door. US regulators are investigating whether Binance Holdings Ltd. (to give the exchange platform its full name) broke securities rules by selling digital tokens just as the crypto exchange was getting off the ground five years ago, according to people familiar with the matter. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s review pries into the firm’s origins and those of its BNB token, which is now the world’s fifth-biggest. Investigators are examining if the 2017 initial coin offering amounted to the sale of a security that should have been registered with the agency, said the people who were granted anonymity to discuss the confidential probe. Scrutiny of BNB’s beginnings may be a troubling development for Binance as it faces multiple investigations in Washington. The SEC has brought dozens of enforcement actions over ICOs, which involve issuing virtual coins to raise money. BNB has been a feature of Binance’s expansive crypto empire. A virtual currency may fall under the SEC’s remit if investors buy it to fund a company or project with the intention of profiting from those efforts. That determination is based on a 1946 US Supreme Court decision defining investment contracts. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about this in the future, but for now neither party involved has said it would be appropriate for them to comment given the investigation is still at such an early stage, though Binance themselves were quick to point out that they are offering full cooperation in the hopes of bringing the matter to a speedy resolution.

A month after the implosion of the Terra stablecoin sent the crypto market reeling, another crisis is causing fresh angst across the entire digital-asset universe. Celsius Network Ltd., one of the biggest lenders in crypto and a key player in the world of decentralized finance, said late Sunday that it was pausing withdrawals, swaps and transfers following weeks of speculation over its ability to make good on the outsize returns it offered on certain of its products, including yields as high as 17%. The move effectively halted a platform with registered entities across the globe and billions of dollars worth of digital coins under management.

The old expression “you’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t” springs to mind with what’s been happening with LiteCoin in South Korea just recently. One of the best things about cryptocurrency use in general also happens to be the worst thing as far as government regulators are concerned. LiteCoin will be delisted on Bithumb and Upbit, two South Korean Crypto exchanges, over modifications made to the coin that enable greater privacy when conducting transactions. In their notices regarding LiteCoin, Bithumb and Upbit stated they were shutting down market support for the 20th-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization because its newly activated Mimblewimble Extension Blocks network upgrade conflicts with South Korean anti-money laundering regulations. Upbit pointed to an option in trading LiteCoin that “enables users to not expose transaction information,” raising concerns that anonymous transmission technology will likely be added to the coin’s functionality. In other words the very thing that many users are looking for is exactly what’s preventing them from getting it. Market support for LiteCoin using Upbit will be shutting down on June 20 and users will be given a month after that to withdraw their funds from the exchange by July 20. Bithumb is taking quicker action. In its delisting notice, the exchange emphasized its responsibility to “protect [its] users and to construct a transparent digital asset market.” It will prevent users from depositing LiteCoin on June 8 and give them until July 25 to fully withdraw their LiteCoin from the exchange. In the U.S., LiteCoin remains available on most major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase, FTX, and Binance who describe the move as “woefully misinformed”.

Staying in South Korea, authorities there as well as the US Securities and Exchange Commission are reportedly probing Terraform Labs on whether its marketing of the TerraUSD stablecoin before it crashed last month violated federal investor-protection regulation. The SEC is also looking into whether the company broke any securities and investment products rules. On top of the new investigation, Terraform is also battling an ongoing investigation from the SEC relating to whether the crypto company was involved in selling unregistered securities through the Mirror Protocol. Terraform argued in the ongoing investigation that the SEC lacked jurisdiction over the company and founder Do Kwon, since the company is based in Singapore and Kwon is a South Korean national residing in Singapore. An appeals court ruled that Terraform would have to comply with the SEC’s requests, as the company was in business with U.S.-based consumers, investors, employees and entities. Terraform doesn’t look like it’s getting off scot-free elsewhere either. South Korean law enforcement agencies are investigating Terraform Labs and its ecosystem, including its founders, alleging that an estimated 280,000 citizens were affected by the stablecoin collapse. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency is also investigating a Terraform employee for allegedly embezzling bitcoin from the company’s treasury. Singapore’s Straits Times noted last month that a police report had been filed against Terraform Labs in connection with the collapse of UST but reported that police were not investigating the company. The Monetary Authority of Singapore‘s list of enforcement actions did not show any actions against Kwon or Terraform as of the end of last week.

I’ve gone on record in the past as saying I think it’s only a matter of time before cryptocurrencies find their way in to mainstream education. Hardly surprising after all, even I remember when high school teachers warned pupils that not having basic PC skills could render them illiterate and unemployable in the same was as not being able to read or write could just a few years before. Fans of popular rap music might know of Shawn Corey Carter, better known under the performance name of Jay-Z who grew up in the Marcy Houses of Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. On Thursday, the rapper announced he and Block CEO Jack Dorsey are giving back to his childhood home by creating the BitCoin Academy, a program to teach financial literacy. The BitCoin Academy will consist of a series of online and in-person classes beginning later this month, including “What is Money?” and “What is Blockchain?” The program, open to anyone from Marcy Houses, will also include a “crypto kids camp” and provide participants with a mobile hotspot and a nominal amount of BitCoin for hands-on learning. Instruction will be provided two evenings per week until early September, and students will receive dinner. Block and Jay-Z’s charity staff, the Shawn Carter Foundation, will help with on-the-ground instruction.

Lastly for this week’s news digest, an interesting statistic popped up that caught my eye. I suppose it’s still loosely connected with the field of wealthier or even celebrity crypto investors, it does sometimes strike me how the people who are less damaged by losing money. That is to say, those who can afford the losses and not be left worrying about paying for basic essentials such as food and rent/mortgages so often seem to be the ones making the biggest profits. Well, they do have the biggest disposable incomes after all. But did you ever wonder about just how many of the let’s say “idle rich” have money tied up in cryptocurrencies right now despite the spiraling losses now battering crypto based portfolios? Well, quite a lot as it happens, that’s according to a recent survey anyway.

Cryptocurrency hasn’t always found the most welcoming audience among the world’s super rich. Billionaires have been some of the biggest critics, with heavy-hitters like Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon all openly skeptical of—or downright opposed to—digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. “If you told me you own all of the Bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25, I wouldn’t take it,” Buffett once famously said. Bill Gates said only last May that he avoids digital currencies because they aren’t “adding to society like other investments” and has warned about the risk for everyday investors. “If you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out,” he said earlier. Well, that narrows it down to just about every single person in history! However, crypto resistance among the billionaires club may not be as widespread as many think. A recent survey by Forbes of 65 of the world’s wealthiest people revealed that nearly 30% are either directly or indirectly invested in cryptocurrencies, a rate that is higher than among non-billionaire investors. A Pew Research Study at the end of last year indicated 16% of American adults had at some point invested in cryptocurrency, while an NBC News poll of 1,000 Americans published in March found 20% had invested in, traded or used crypto.

That’s it for this week’s CryptoNews Digest. Come back next Monday to see more on the latest trends among the cryptocurrencies and related topics. Thanks for reading!

NEWS FROM THE HYIP INDUSTRY

ROBOTICSONLINE – TETHER ERC20 TO BE ACCEPTED SOON AND ETHEREUM DEPOSIT OPTIMIZATION COMPLETE

RoboticsOnline has been online for nearly three years now and seems not to be showing any signs of slowing down. Quite on the contrary, even despite growing concerns about short-term downward trends for major cryptocurrency exchange rates RoboticsOnline stands its ground and even contemplates the addition of Tether USDT – the famous Stablecoin USD-linked cryptocurrency. It’s actually been announced in the latest newsletter from the program that Tether deposits will be accepted by the end of the month via the ERC20 protocol (fees paid by the linked Ethereum account) rather that the TRC20 protocol (fees paid by the linked Tron account). Recently the admin clarified that at a later stage of development it’s also planned to add Tether via TRC20, however at the moment only the ERC20 tokens will be accepted, for a withdrawal fee to be introduced as well. Still, with all the drawbacks the new Tether payment option might be associated with it has one significant advantage – the ability not to depend on the constant volatility on the crypto market which might be a downside to the three remaining options accepted by RoboticsOnline – BitCoin, Ethereum and LiteCoin.

As you might remember from my original review of RoboticsOnline posted here, the program has been working with BTC, ETH and LTC funds for quite some time. However, all the investments that can start from $50 will be converted to USD when it reaches the available balance in your RoboticsOnline account and then on every withdrawal they will be converted back to the original BTC, ETH or LTC currency you originally invested from. It might be OK for some investors when they don’t mind that potentially they could receive smaller amounts compared to the initially invested figure due to falling exchange rates, inflation, etc, however for some it would be a bother. Considering the moderate returns RoboticsOnline offers after the fixed investment term of 12 business days (4% to 5% depending on its performance) you could understand the hesitation of some potential investors feel towards deal with such a program. However, if you don’t mind to keep your funds with RoboticsOnline locked in for some time you might enable automatic reinvestment of the whole amount at the end of every investment cycle by activating the so-called autopilot mode in your account.

Another good solution for some people looking to invest in RoboticsOnline and receive a guaranteed profit in USD without the need for conversion would be just that possibility to choose Stablecoins where the value is tied to the US Dollar. RoboticsOnline used to work with PerfectMoney that helped them reach such an audience, and now when it’s not possible the future introduction of Tether ERC20 deposits seems like a step in the right direction. We will see when it’s actually going to be added and I will report on the MNO blog as soon as it happens!

Meanwhile, further good news from RoboticsOnline mentioned in the latest newsletter was the already completed optimization of ETH deposits that will help make processing times for Ethereum deposits and withdrawals faster and more efficient. More on that can be read below:

“On Monday we deployed changes of the ETH deposit optimization.
The previous setup performed approximately 210 users per minute. Processing took approximately 7 hours and 40 minutes. That’s why some users experiences a delay for all Ether deposits.
With the improvements that we added, we can now check 9000 users per minute. Therefore, the processing time takes around 11 minutes once the transaction is confirmed.
This speed will improve to about 5 to 6 minutes once we take care of all multi-accounts in our database.
Also, this month, we will finally start accepting Tether payments on the ERC20 chain. The implementation will be faster for us if we use ERC20 instead of TRC20 at this point. Unfortunately, because of the higher transactions fees, we will need to bring back withdrawal fees—but only for Tether (ERC20). We will have a look at other exchange platforms like Kraken, Coinbase and Binance and will use the average transaction fee, which these companies are using.
Stay tuned”.

That’s about it for today, guys. I hope you’re doing OK and won’t forget to checkout the MNO blog sometime next week. MNO – For Money Lovers!