Tanzania has apparently begun investigating the possibility of establishing a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Nigeria, which established its digital currency last month, is the country’s inspiration. Other African countries have also declared ambitions to establish CBDCs.
Tanzania Tries CBDC
According to a Bloomberg article on Friday, Governor Florens Luoga of the Bank of Tanzania disclosed the country’s CBDC intentions on Thursday at the 20th Conference of Financial Institutions (COFI).
“To guarantee that our nation does not fall behind in the adoption of central bank digital currencies,” he stated, “the Bank of Tanzania has already begun preparations to develop its own CBDC.”
As a result, the governor stated that the central bank is aiming to extend its study into digital currencies and increase its team’s ability.
Luoga stated that this decision was motivated by the inauguration of Nigeria’s own CBDC, the eNaira, last month. Nigeria collaborated with a German FinTech firm to establish a digital currency to supplement the actual naira. The West African country is the second to have an official CBDC, following the Bahamas, which established one last year.
In addition, the governor stated that the central bank intends to diversify its foreign exchange holdings. It will purchase gold from local refineries to achieve this goal. “The monetary gold that we intend to purchase should have a purity of at least 99.5 percent,” he stated. In addition, he anticipates the country’s inflation rate to remain within the planned range of 3% to 5% in 2021-22.
Luoga went on to say that the central bank is still wary about cryptocurrency. In addition, he reminded the public of its unlawful position in the nation, advising them to be cautious before investing.
According to the central bank, cryptocurrencies have been prohibited in Tanzania since 2019 because they are not legally recognized. This may change soon since the Bank of Tanzania is allegedly preparing to lift the prohibition. This development results from Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s request to the central bank to prepare for cryptocurrencies immediately after taking office.
African Countries’ Digital Currency Development
More and more governments are investigating the use of central bank digital currencies in their own countries. CBDC usage is progressively increasing throughout Africa.
Nigeria was the first African nation to establish a CBDC. Other African countries are also investigating the possible benefits that CBCDs might give to their economies.
Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stated around two months ago that over 110 nations are investigating CBDCs.
The Bank of Ghana has announced that the CBDC will be launched soon. Other nations, such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, are still investigating the technology’s viability.
Over 175 billion dollars will be spent in the gaming business by 2021. And, while this revenue has traditionally been distributed to gaming studios such as Blizzard or Tencent, we have seen a shift this year with the spread of blockchain technology in games, with gamers reaping the benefits – some players reportedly earning up to $2,000 USD per hour on crypto games such as Axie Infinity ($AXS – Price: $126.69 – Market Cap: $8.3B).
As their popularity and adoption grew, so did the value of their tokens. When The Sandbox’s token ($SAND – Price: $7.50 – Market Cap: $6.8 B) rose over 800 percent in a month, it drew both ordinary investors and Wall Street.
And the trend does not appear to be slowing down, with recent studies predicting that gaming, particularly the play-to-earn model (P2E), would see a 20 percent increase in 2022 – with blockchain and crypto being the most appropriate technology in-game currency to support the strategy.
While AXE and SAND are capturing the attention of investors, if you have missed them, we have compiled a list of top, and emerging blockchain gaming projects that we feel should be on your radar!
JEDSTAR
JEDSTAR ($JED- Price: $0.73 – Market Cap: 31M) – The latest addition to the blockchain gaming arena is blasting through the crypto world and playing with the big boys after a recent surge of nearly 800 percent in the last 30 days and with plenty of room to grow as their market cap is in the 30M USD range.
While $JED is a DeFi token in JEDSTAR’s DECO (Decentralized Ecosystem), the team will soon debut its highly awaited GameFi token $KRED. The company has over 100 games in the works that will use $KRED as in-game money, and they have struck partnerships with other gaming developers and studios to provide their cryptocurrency as a service. This ambitious initiative aims to take over large brands by building in-house games and an NFT marketplace and forming strategic blockchain and non-blockchain collaborations.
Decentraland (MANA)
This is another cryptocurrency that operates on the Ethereum network. Gamers are encouraged to develop 3D in-game products that they may later sell, similar to Second Life.
MANA (Decentraland’s money) is used to purchase and sell virtual land known as LAND. It is also used to swap or trade three-dimensional things. The game is partially operational and is a decent attempt to demonstrate the possibilities of crypto games.
Atari (ATRI) and Decentral Games (DG) are possible Decentraland partners that might offer an in-world casino to the network.
The GALA Games (GALA)
GALA is an Ethereum-based currency developed by Eric Schiermeyer (co-founder of mobile gaming business Zyn, whose objective is to build “blockchain games you’ll want to play”). It intends to provide these users with more control over their games.
Eric Schiermeyer, one of the co-founders of mobile gaming giant Zynga, which generated games such as Mafia Wars and Farmville, founded it in 2019.
The platform has 1.3 million active users, which is rather amazing. Players that own NFTs on the platform may vote on new games and affect how they are run.
These NFTs, as well as in-game products, are purchased using the GALA token. While other games are in the works, Town Star, a virtual town builder similar to Sim City, is currently available on the platform.
Final Words
The next big thing in gaming is cryptocurrency gaming. Play-to-earn games will undoubtedly render all present games obsolete. True ownership is all the vogue these days.
If you don’t want to lose out on your next opportunity to become extremely wealthy, get on board as soon as possible!
Rockstar Games is the master of harnessing the power of rumor and speculation to build anticipation for its games. The company remains incredibly tight-lipped until close to the release of its titles, especially new Grand Theft Auto releases.
In doing so, it creates a huge vacuum that becomes filled with articles, social media posts, and forum threads where fans debate the validity of potential leaks, creates wish lists of content they’d like to be included, and trawl through regulatory statements from Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two in search of clues.
Eight years have passed since the release of Grand Theft Auto V, and Rockstar is currently in the process of porting the game to its third generation of console. In that time, the company has said almost nothing at all about the prospect of a sequel to the game.
In fact, in June 2020, when it was expected to announce that GTA 6 would be released early in the lifecycle of the PlayStation 5, it, instead, announced that it was working on an “Expanded and Enhanced” version of the existing game.
Although originally scheduled to be released early in 2021, that has been pushed back to 2022. There is even some confusion about where the “expanded” element of this new version has been dropped since the word is missing from more recent announcements.
GTA 6 Rumours
The rumor mill for Grand Theft Auto 6 has been running at full speed for quite some time. In 2021, speculation that there could be a female playable character began circulating after a YouTuber by the name of LongSensation took to Twitter to share this “leaked information”.
While he was unable to substantiate the claim, he has a track record of predicting details about Call of Duty games. However, given that the two titles are made by completely different companies, it’s not a like-for-like comparison.
Other rumors have included the fact that the game may be set over different time periods, that there could be a prison element to the story, and that there could be multiple countries or cities that players can travel between creating a sort of “Grand Theft Auto World”. Contradicting some of this, other rumors have suggested we could see a return to Vice City in GTA 6.
Of course, none of these rumors can be verified in any meaningful way, but Rockstar does have a track record of listening to fans.
In 2019, the company finally added the Diamond Casino and Resort to GTA Online. This new feature added a new heist mission and the ability for players to take part in casino games.
This had been one of the most-requested features among fans, thanks in part to the popularity of online casinos in the real world. These sites have brought games like blackjack that are several centuries old and brought them into the 21st century by creating different variants and making them accessible on mobile devices. The many different ways to play have made casino games like this more appealing and accessible and this is why many players wanted them to be included in GTA Online.
On top of that, the successful casino mini-games found in San Andreas were also one of the title’s most popular features.
Another Year of Waiting?
After the disappointment of the 2020 announcement and the extra delays of GTA V’s remastering, it seems unlikely that any new version is going to be released for another couple of years.
Rockstar won’t want to stack the launch of Grand Theft Auto 6 too soon after this as it will take away the attention from both. Instead, it’s likely players will need to wait until at least 2023 or 2024.
In 2020, Take-Two’s financial forecasts suggested that the company plans to spend $89 million on marketing between April 2023 and March 2024. This is over twice as much as the years before and after it and is usually a sign that the company is launching a big title.
Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that this increased spending is earmarked for a huge campaign aimed at pushing a new Grand Theft Auto.
So with 2022 almost here, fans are likely in for another year or so of waiting and hoping that Rockstar will drop even just a small hint that the most anticipated game ever is on its way.
Dune Analytics now has over 4 million Ethereum addresses that have previously utilized one or more DeFi protocols. However, Dune believes that the number of real users may be overestimated because a single user might have many addresses.
Uniswap, a decentralized exchange, leads the pack by far, with about 3.3 million addresses, followed by SushiSwap and 1Inch, which have 400,000 and 370,000 addresses, respectively. Compound, the lending protocol, has 330,000 addresses and is the largest DeFi protocol that is not a DEX.
Total Value Locked (TVL) figures appear to correspond to user growth. DeFiPulse.com’s TVL has increased from 23.5 billion USD on December 1, 2020, to 106.5 billion USD now.
MakerDAO leads the race in terms of TVL with 18.9 billion USD, followed by Curve Finance (15.2 billion), Aave (12.4 billion), InstaDApp (12.1 billion), and Compound (12 billion) (11.8 billion). Uniswap’s automated market makers, on the other hand, only have 8.3 billion USD in TVL.
DeFi governance tokens have also grown in popularity. Over the previous year, the DeFi Pulse Index, which measures a weighted average of 18 tokens, has climbed by 168.2 percent.
With the increased use of digital assets across several mainstreams, some governments are planning to keep up.
As a result, most governments worldwide are working on and experimenting with building a national digital currency that can be linked to their fiat currencies. This is the fundamental reason for the Republic of Palau’s partnership with Ripple’s digital payment network.
Ripple will help the Pacific Island country build its digital currency as part of the cooperation. The launch assures that the digital currency is USD-backed and will enable Palau’s cross-border payments.
Furthermore, Ripple claimed that the agreement would result in the creation of a national stablecoin in the first half of next year. This will be the first of its sort in the world, with official funding.
Furthermore, Ripple suggested that Palau’s national digital currency might not be a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). According to the digital payment network, its assistance to Palau spans design, business, policy, and technology.
It discussed the impact of investigating a USD-backed stablecoin and its use cases on the XRP Ledger. It stated that such an application would be a better alternative to CBDCs for a country like Palau.
President Suangel Whipps Jr. of Palau, for his part, affirmed that the national digital currency provides residents with enhanced financial access.
Ripple’s Commitment to Climatic Considerations
Furthermore, as an island, Palau is vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This is also one of the reasons for the collaboration with Ripple. According to the network, XRP Ledger is carbon-neutral and saves 120,000 times more energy than Proof-of-Work blockchains.
Ripple’s VP of Central Bank Engagements, James Wallis, expressed his company’s enthusiasm for engaging with Palau in dealing with financial and climatic challenges. He stated that it provides them with the chance to showcase their skills and technologies within the context of Palau’s unique characteristics. As a result, they will significantly impact both the country’s economic and social elements.
Ripple’s position among environmental and climatic forces extends beyond that of a novice. In February of this year, the network declared its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2030. The step entails employing the EW Zero tool to reduce XRP’s carbon footprint to zero.
As an open-source Energy Wen solution, EW Zero will allow developers to purchase tokenized renewables, allowing them to be carbon net-neutral.
Furthermore, Ripple launched a $44 million fundraising effort for Nelnet Renewable Energy, a finance business. This project aimed to sponsor environmentally responsible campaigns in the United States.
The payment network is still arguing with the SEC about whether the XRP coins issued in 2013 were unregistered securities. However, according to Brad Garlinghouse, the problem has gradually improved and will be resolved by 2022.
Funganomics® has completed its first seed investment in advance of its presale. The conclusion of the financing round was announced on November 18th, and a private US investor provided the cash. This cash will be used to support the project’s hiring initiatives, software enablement, and extra technical infrastructure as it seeks to accelerate growth in the NFT and Play2Earn gaming spaces.
Since its inception, Funganomics® has been completely self-sufficient and self-funded. However, as the project grew in scope, the need for further funds became obvious, and it launched its first fundraising round.
“We took an independent approach in our initial startup by funding the project ourselves until now, and we are very pleased to have both a significant injection of new capital, as well as additional knowledge and experience that will assist the company in its aggressive growth goals over the coming months,” said Jeremy Roberts, CEO and Founder of Funganomics®.
What Exactly Is Funganomics®?
Funganomics® is committed to developing the next generation of backend gaming ecosystems to support the launch of current and future projects. Furthermore, Funganomics® will facilitate the distribution of third-party projects in the future since firms will be able to use the platform in their game creation processes.
The Ethereum-based solution also employs Binance Smart Chains’ BNB as its front-end token to significantly reduce gas prices, and it is a game-changer for Play2Earn games. Their ecosystem consists of Fungatopia® (NFT Platform), Fungality® (AR/VR Experiences), and FGS Games® (P2E Gaming), all of which work together to provide consumers with an exciting experience.
Funganomics® will give an engaging gaming experience through a mix of 3D multi-platform gaming and, over time, an immersive experience with their Virtual & Augmented Reality gaming experiences, focusing on web-based gaming. During gameplay, players will have complete control over their characters’ attacks, defenses, and distinctive techniques across a variety of captivating genres.
In addition, Funganomics® will provide mobile blockchain-enabled applications for system integration. This allows gamers who do not have access to a desktop computer or prefer mobile gaming to join in their environment. Players will be able to play on the move and make money at the same time.
Funganomics® is prepared to start its presale following a successful seed financing round. The presale will take place on November 30th, and investors will be able to purchase Funganomics® tokens at incredibly low costs. On December 16th, their first NFT character drop of 10,000 will occur.
After completing the initial presale and NFT drops, Funganomics® intends to pursue venture capital collaborations to go forward with its product portfolio roadmap.
These days, one of the most popular social networking platforms is Discord. Whether you’re a student, a working adult, or a gamer, you’ve probably heard of Discord before. The platform allows users to join various servers, which are similar to online communities where people with the same interests gather.
Joining a Discord server and becoming an active member is one thing, but creating and running one is an entirely different story and experience. While the platform itself gives server moderators a lot of flexibility in how they choose to run things, there are times when running a server can get a bit too overwhelming, especially when you’re doing things on your own.
Many unexpected things can happen in a Discord server—trolls causing havoc, confrontations between users, etc. As an admin or moderator, there are times when keeping your server under control can feel like an uphill battle.
No matter what kind of hobbies you may have, may it be literature, video games, movies, etc., Discord is one of the best places to hang out and converse with your friends and online strangers who share the same interests as you do. As mentioned, regulating a considerably-sized Discord server can be a pain, but you can make things more manageable with the help of Discord bots.
Discord has a plethora of bots like Rhythm and MEE6, all of which work to help admins and moderators manage their servers more efficiently. These bots have various procedures to make your server more enjoyable and stress-free, both for you and new and old members.
The best part is that most of these bots are free, although many of them also offer a premium version that adds many new features aside from the free elements. With all that said and done, we’ll be discussing an excellent Discord bot today called Carl Bot.
If you’re looking for a simple way to make your task as a Discord server manager more manageable, you’ll want to check out this bot.
Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
What Is Carl Bot?
Without a doubt, Carl Bot is one of the most useful and sophisticated Discord server bots out there. It’s capable of doing many things, aside from the usual responsibilities that many accessible bots have, like saving conversation, creating response roles, managing logs, and more.
Carl Bot also has an Automod feature that ensures users can’t share attachments, links, and spam. This way, you can rest assured that your Discord server will be free from scams, spam, and questionable links from different members. Through Automod, Carl Bot can even penalize those users who still choose to send spam.
Carl Bot has an expansive list of features that can help you manage your server, from sending welcome messages to creating starboard. We’ll discuss each of these features more below. Although, we’d like to put it out there that if you’re a new server admin who is still trying to learn the ropes, installing Carl Bot may be more challenging than you’d like it to be.
In that case, you might want to use other simple bots like Dyno Bot to help you get started. On the other hand, if you’re going to create bespoke mods for your server, Carl Bot can do the job for you.
What Can You Do With Carl Bot?
As mentioned, Carl Bot is capable of many things, thanks to its expansive list of features. It’s no wonder why it has more than 2 million installs, making Carl Bot one of the fastest-growing Discord server bots out there. Let’s look at some of Carl Bot’s most popular features below:
Moderation Function
With Carl Bot’s moderation function, you’ll receive assistance in managing your server, ensuring that it remains of the highest possible quality. This tool lets you check and review infractions made by other users. Not only that, but Carl Bot also has a drama channel where you can see a summary of all the rules that users have violated in the past.
To ensure that members aren’t able to leave the server and rejoin later, you can easily assign sticky roles to their username. Thanks to the moderation function, you can easily handle various tasks simultaneously.
Log Record
Carl Bot can keep track of all the things happening within the Discord server, which can come extremely handy as an admin. Carl Bot can keep track of every ongoing activity, including deleted, modified, and purged messages, among many other things. The bot can also note users who join or leave the server, and these are listed in your server’s membership database.
You can also use the log record feature to keep track of other activities such as newly-created server roles along with newly-added emojis and channels. If you want to manage your Discord server even more efficiently, you can split the log into separate channels to lessen clutter.
Reaction Roles
With Carl Bot, you can have as many as 250 roles max in your Discord server. Having and assigning roles to the various members of your server increases user engagement while simultaneously ensuring that you can easily spot any spammers. You can use Carl Bot to set up different response roles, and each user receives a reaction role according to what they’ve chosen.
Different response role models are available, such as the unique, binding, transient, reversed, and verify kinds.
Welcome Messages
As you’re probably aware, joining and leaving Discord servers almost always involve welcome and goodbye messages. You can use Carl Bot to automate these messages whenever a new member arrives or when an old one leaves.
Permission System
Carl Bot has a permission system in place that you can use to manage your server’s command rules in bulk with little-to-no effort on your part. With this kind of system, you can rest easy knowing that you’re not bothering any other mods and users.
You can also use this permission system to personalize various instructions and change commands if you want to override the already-existing settings.
Automod
The Automod feature of Carl Bot is perhaps one of its most solid points. With Automod, you can create and establish a set of rules for your server and ensure that all the members are strictly following them. As mentioned, Automod allows you to view all the rules that members have violated previously, etc.
Although Carl Bot already has a set of pre-specific rules, you can also create new ones whenever you want. You can use the bot to penalize various offenses, including foul language, bad links, attachment spam, spam in general, and more.
You can even create a designated channel for media-type files only. At the same time, the Automod feature can remove or delete any messages sent in that channel that don’t have any attachments or links.
User Engagement
As with any Discord server, user engagement is crucial to ensure that everyone remains happy and satisfied. After all, members will start to leave one by one if things start to become dull. With Carl Bot, you can ensure that your Discord server remains high quality. It also includes features dedicated to engaging the server members, such as a starboard, postcount tracking, user information, and more.
You can also use Carl Bot for memes. After all, everyone loves memes.
How to Invite Carl Bot to Your Server
It doesn’t require a tech wizard to invite Carl Bot to your Discord server. If you’re interested in what Carl Bot has to offer and you want it to help you manage things more effectively, here’s what you need to do:
Head over to the official Carl Bot website. You can either search it manually on your preferred search engine or type carl.gg on your search bar.
Make sure that you’re a member of the server that you want to invite Carl Bot to. Also, the site will prompt you to log in to your Discord account.
Afterward, Carl Bot will ask you which server you want it to join. Take a look at your list of servers—if you’re an admin of many, choose the server you want from the drop-down menu.
After making your selection, Carl Bot will ask you to give it various permissions so that it can make changes to your server. By giving Carl Bot permission, it will be able to access your server’s admin panel. In other words, it will have considerable control over your server, so you need to decide how much authority you want to give the bot.
Once you’ve given Carl Bot the necessary permissions, go ahead and approve the changes to save.
Voila! When you check your Discord server, you should see that Carl Bot is present and ready to help.
Carl Bot Commands
If you want, you can easily set up various commands for Carl Bot to allow members to customize their experience with the bot. Carl Bot’s official website has a list of commands you can check out. For your convenience, we’ve compiled some of the best and most useful Carl Bot commands below:
!awwbomb – Users will receive five images of adorable animals.
!cat – Users will receive a random cat picture.
!aww – Users will receive a random photo of a cute animal.
!catbomb – Users will receive five random images of a cat.
!dogbomb – Users will receive five random photos of a dog.
!dog – Users will receive an adorable picture of a dog.
Conclusion
Without a doubt, Carl Bot is one of the best Discord server bots around that offers ease of use and automation like no other. If you’re a long-term Discord user, you’re probably aware that the platform isn’t exactly the most user-friendly. New users will undoubtedly get overwhelmed or confused by the various options and features available.
With bots like Carl Bot, you can significantly cut down your tasks, allowing you to focus on only the important stuff.
Spain and Latin America are two markets that have undergone many changes in their betting and gaming landscapes over the last few years. With Brazil forging ahead with the legalization of all gambling and Spain making some amendments to its existing laws, these two markets have proven to be a focal point for technology companies.
Today, we take a look at some of the more significant changes that have taken place in the Latin American market and helped shape consumer interest in gaming and interactive betting, which continues to gain popularity.
1. The Advance of Mobile and Interactive Betting
One of the biggest changes to the region’s gambling landscape has been the introduction of mobile online casinos. While many casino operators consider brick-and-mortar operations to be sufficient, demand for a more convenient product that is accessible within a few clicks has grown. As much of our lives, there is a sense of urgency to do everything on the go, and gambling is no different.
This has been a defining development philosophy for many years now and Latin America, and Spain for that matter, is quickly evolving to move with the times. Players will find themselves excited to have access to cutting-edge Android and iOS apps that allow them to connect with their favorite casinos and always stay connected.
2. The Rise of Cashless Payments
While Spain and Latin America remain fairly skeptical of digital payments, there has been a notable trend in the adoption rate of such payment methods. This has allowed many consumers, sports bettors, and casino players to enjoy more swift and reliable payment methods. While some have shunned those options, others have welcomed them for their:
Cost-efficiency
Accessibility
Safeguards
Cashless payments have become synonymous with security and trust; precisely what matters to consumers at the end of the day. Thanks to the high pace of adoption of such payment methods, people are able to quickly and efficiently carry out deposits, request withdrawals, and always verify that the amount transacted is accurate.
Not only that, but cashless payments help in many other ways in the gaming industry. They save time that would normally take to go to a physical location and they minimize germ-transference. That may seem like a small consideration, but it’s actually very important in this time of Coronavirus.
3. New Technologies In Gaming
Not least, companies working on the ground floor of iGaming have been introducing more in the way of new technologies when it comes to game mechanics. While some studios have been happy to reiterate old familiar mechanics in new shapes and forms, some companies have decided to innovate as much as they can.
Many developers are embracing new technologies that allow them to build more compelling products that try to push the envelope of the entire industry and in turn create new games that people are happy to play. These new technologies for casinos come in many forms. They could be:
Each of these novelties is designed to introduce and help people get a better entertainment value for the time and effort they spend on playing. Players are very welcome to pick the tech and innovation they are fond of and they can rest assured that both Latin America and Spain are developing a series of worthwhile innovative products that are designed to bolster the iGaming experience.
4. Innovation in Land-Based Casinos
Naturally, innovation is not just limited to online casinos and gaming. In fact, many brick-and-mortar casinos are attempting to fully grasp what they have on their hands. As such they are beginning to introduce numerous helpful options to the casino floors that are inspired by iGaming trends.
For example, many people can visit a land-based casino today and use mobile apps to carry out many activities on-site. They can even make cashless payments in order to minimize waiting times and once again avoid touching too many surfaces in a casino.
Conclusion
Betting and gaming experiences have evolved and technology has followed suit to meet consumer demands. Over the past years, casino operators have been able to find many innovative solutions to create better experiences for their players. From cashless payments to social responsibility tools and all that is in-between Latin American and Spanish gamers are enjoying a technology-fueled gaming renaissance. What the future holds for gaming tech isn’t 100% clear, but it is certainly set to go through Latin America.
Meme currency Shiba Inu is adamant about establishing its domination in space, and it has done so successfully. From being recognized as a payment mechanism by well-known firms such as AMC Theaters to being the first meme coin listed in South Korea, the altcoin has had a successful run. Its community has increased significantly in the last several months, and support has not waned.
Although the meme coin’s price has dropped, it continues to thrive in other ways. Last week, Bitcoinist claimed that the digital currency was on the verge of reaching 1 million holders, with Baby Doge vying to be the first to do it. However, Shiba Inu has proven to be the top dog by surpassing the one million holder mark.
Shiba Inu’s investment base has been significantly expanding since the altcoin’s new all-time highs in October. Shiba Inu’s first renown stemmed from being dubbed the “Dogecoin killer,” and when the latter faltered, Shiba Inu took full opportunity to live up to this moniker. After yielding 900 percent profits for investors in a couple of months, it became one of the top-performing cryptocurrencies in 2021.
The digital asset has obtained listings on major crypto exchanges, contributing to increased confidence in the coin’s future. As trade activity on these exchanges increased, so did the number of holders.
An investor who turned $8,000 into $5.7 billion was one notable occurrence that has investors eager for a piece of the digital commodity. In 2020, the investor purchased $8,000 worth of bitcoin, and by October 2021, the wallet housed billions of dollars. This contributed to the asset’s legitimacy as a legitimate investment alternative.
Shiba Inu has dominated social media talks since the digital asset rose to prominence a few months ago. SHIB had become so popular on Twitter that it has surpassed big cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of mentions.
However, the meme coin did not end there. Google searches for Shiba Inu increased considerably during this period, with reports indicating that it was among the top 30 searches in 30 states in the United States.
Despite this, the market’s asset price has deteriorated. Shiba Inu lost 17 percent last week, bringing its total loss to 50 percent less than its ATH. This prompted it to lose the 12th slot on the list of the top cryptos by market size to CRO, however, it has since restored its position following a rally that saw it climb beyond $0.00004 on Thursday.
Crypto frauds have increased with the bull market, but criminals have discovered another platform to perpetrate their crimes. YouTube has always been a strong marketing and influencing tool in the industry, making it a perfect target for fraudsters. This time, fraudsters have discovered a new technique to separate victims from their money: hacked YouTube videos.
According to Tenable, the number of giveaway scams is on the rise. The prizes are promoted through videos broadcast on real YouTube channels that have been hacked.
Scammers have hijacked the accounts of many YouTube channels to advertise bogus prizes. Scammers use the images of famous persons in the sector to guarantee enormous profits in these giveaways. This follows the same pattern: the price of cryptocurrency rises, a newsworthy event occurs, and photographs of prominent individuals appear.
Scammers will typically release a video of an interview with a renowned individual, such as Elon Musk, Michael Saylor, or Vitalik Buterin, and, in some circumstances, attach a false tweet from these people’s Twitter handles advertising their giveaway. When combined with an increase in the price of an asset, these films form a flytrap for investors who place a high value on these powerful voices.
One example was Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. The market speculated that Musk would push the meme coin, causing it to reach a fresh all-time high.
Scammers took advantage of the excitement around the appearance and hacked accounts with millions of subscribers to carry out their scams. According to reports, fraudsters generated over $10 million in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin giveaways focused around Musk’s SNL performance.
Given the quantity of money made from them, these scams have shown to be effective for fraudsters. Tenable describes a Bitcoin wallet that was utilized in one of the crypto frauds in the study. This fraud has used Michael Saylor’s name to promote a giveaway. The fraudsters offered to double the amount of Bitcoin transferred to a certain wallet.
Tenable researcher Satnam Narang discovered the bitcoin wallet with 41 BTC in it. However, on November 19th, this figure had risen to 132 BTC taken in the crypto fraud, totaling approximately $7.7 million at the time.
In October, a subgroup of these scammers made off with over $9 million in customer funds. Bitcoin accounted for the majority of this total, with more than $8.2 million taken in giveaway schemes. In October, scammers took $413,983 from Ethereum, while scammers capitalized from the Shiba Inu craze, stealing $239,346.
