Valve’s ‘The International 2019’ (TI19 – the world championship for its game Dota 2) has officially raised the largest single-event prize pool in esports history.
Currently, the total prize pool amounts to $30.4m, thereby surpassing the previously highest single-event prize pool of $30m (provided by Epic Games for its Fortnite Word Cup).
The tournament will be held in China for the first time in 2019, hosted by the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai from August 15th-25th.
Analysis and Comments
This is a significant development for a number of reasons:
Dota’s ‘The International’ prize pool is almost entirely crowdfunded via an in-game sale of a so-called ‘Battle Pass’,
only 25% of the in-game sales actually go towards the prize pool,
there are still more than 30 days left before cowdfunding stops, and
since the inception of crowdfunding the TI prize pool, the event has consistently broken its own record every year.
In summary, this is an all-time high in prize pool money for any esports event, showcasing both strong and growing support from the gaming community as well as from developers themselves: Last year, Epic Games announced it would support its Fortnite esports scene by providing a total of $100m for the 2018-2019 season, with the game’s World Cup featuring a $30m prize pool. This is the most any publisher has ever committed.
Esports serve a number of purposes, the main being extending the lifeof a game by encouraging and supporting an active gaming community. This is more important now than ever, as developers/publishers are moving away from the one-time up-front payment model towards in-game monetisation via downloadable content (DLCs) over the life of the game.
Justin Sun, is a tech entrepreneur, the founder of the cryptocurrency platform TRON and current CEO of BitTorrent. Justin is former chief representative of the Greater China area of Ripple and Jack Ma (founder of Alibaba) protégé
Over the course of this week, a lot of news came out in regards to the CEO of TRON, Justin Sun after he cancelled the highly anticipated charity lunch between him and the American investor guru, Warren Buffett. Some of this news is still in rumour form so to speak but it has caused quite a stir amongst enthusiasts.
Earlier in the week, these rumours got so bad and inflated that the price of TRX was affected, and not in a good way.
Reports from Chinese media outlets suggested that Sun was charged by the nation’s authorities on internet safety for his supposed connection to money laundering, illegal fundraising, gambling and even spreading pornography.
And so with this, according to the Twitter user, cnLedger, Sun is banned from leaving the country.
…for the moment, because in only 4 minutes, a very strong sell action pushed BITCOIN from 10200 to 9400 USD…
Remember that the level to observe is 9100 USD which is the lowest point of the ABC correction, if we keep above it is a good signal, if BTC breaks that level, our “house of Cards” will collapse in my opinion.
My concern is founded on the Head and Shoulder pattern that is probably in formation now:
We are “leaves to the wind” for the eyes of some big whales…
Enjoy the trip.
@toofasteddie
Disclaimer: This is just my personal point of view, please, do your own assessment and act consequently. Neither this post nor myself is responsible of any of your profit/losses obtained as a result of this information.
In Elliott Wave terms, Clams began a wave one advance in November 2018. The red wave one (blue sub-waves i-ii-iii-iv-v) finished in May this year, and the red wave two (blue sub-waves a-b-c) correction ended on July 17. If this wave count is correct, Clams should be heading next towards the May peak in the red wave three.
Two years ago, England voted to leave the EU. Today, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May asked Parliament to approve the withdrawal agreement with the European Union. In March, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May asked Parliament to approve the withdrawal agreement with the European Union. The withdrawal agreement was rejected by 432 votes to 202. The 230 vote defeat is thought to be the largest in U.K. political history. Because she couldn’t get the job done, she resigned.
Now it’s newly elected leader of the Conservative party Boris Johnson takes over as the Prime Minister with the goal of executing Brexit.
Johnson, who won the race to the lead country on Tuesday, previously said the U.K. must leave the European Union by Oct. 31 “do or die, come what may.”
“Being a prime minister, things can change, and so maybe we also think about a little bit of an extension to the Brexit negotiation,” Dominic Schnider, head for commodities and Asia Pacific foreign exchange at UBS Global Wealth Management, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Should Johnson soften his perspective on Brexit, there will be consequences for the British pound, Schnider projected.
“If the market realizes that the hard Brexit probability starts to shrink, I think the pound can come back. So we’re probably going to trade north of $1.30, $1.35, somewhere there,” Schnider said.
The reason the British Pound has been beaten up the last couple of years is due to the uncertainty of Brexit and if Brexit happens, the ramifications it will have on England’s economy. However, if Brexit doesn’t happen, Dominic Schnider is right, the Pound should rise. However, in order for it to rise to his target of $1.30, $1.35, the first major test would be the major support/resistance at 1.27000.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
Boris Johnson took over from Theresa May as Prime Minister and it appears markets will be wanting fresh information as to Johnson’s intended Brexit policy before pushing an already heavily-discounted currency any lower.
Indeed, a number of analysts are telling us the current recovery in Sterling is actually technical in nature, without any real substantive underpinning, we therefore wonder just how high the recovery can actually go.
“We think this is simply a short covering bounce in an otherwise pronounced downtrend,” adds Bregar. “UK politics will feature some pomp and circumstance today as Theresa May resigns to the Queen and Boris Johnson is formally asked by her majesty to form a new government. Next up for GBP traders will be Boris Johnson’s new cabinet minister selections.”
The Franc safe haven status outweighs the negative interest rates given the stability of the Swiss government and its financial system. Thus, when the global markets turn down, the Swiss franc tends to appreciate.
Monthly Chart (Curve Time Frame) – monthly supply is at 1.47000 and monthly demand is at 1.22000.
Weekly Chart (Trend Time Frame) – the trend is sideways with a downside bias.
Daily Chart (Entry Time Frame) – although price is in higher time frame demand, the chart suggests price can move lower and to short price at the daily demand at 1.23900.
This post is my personal opinion. I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advise. Do your own research before making investment decisions.
I hope this has been helpful. I’d be happy to answer any questions in the comment section below. Until next time, wishing you safe and profitable trading.
Workin
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The “Amazon Effect” has forced all retailers to step up their “omnichannel” game or face extinction. The ominichannel phenomenon is the ability to compete through brick and mortar and online by redesigning distribution networks and streamline supply chain operations to best serve customers on and offline.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday the Justice Department is right to be looking into Amazon’s practices as part of its antitrust review of big technology companies.
“I think if you look at Amazon, although there are certain benefits to it, they’ve destroyed the retail industry across the United States so there’s no question they’ve limited competition,” Mnuchin told CNBC’s “Squawk Box. ”
OK, so you aren’t a retailer, but what if you are a REIT that houses retailers? An omnichannel strategy isn’t a choice. What about if you are a REIT, who is housing J.C. Penny? I would say you are no better off than the retailer.
Washington Prime Group Inc. is a retail REIT and a recognized leader in the ownership, management, acquisition and development of retail properties. Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that owns and manages quality properties in compelling markets.
2019 has been a bad year for most mall REITs. With the number of U.S. store closures on pace to hit a record this year, investors have soured on owners of retail real estate, particularly owners of mid-tier malls.
The carnage worsened over the past week. Shares of Washington Prime Group (NYSE:WPG) and Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (NYSE:PEI) both tumbled more than 10% between last Wednesday and the end of trading on Monday. (Both REIT stocks recovered a bit on Tuesday.) The main catalyst was a report that came out on Thursday evening indicating that J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP) had hired advisors to study options for restructuring its debt.
It wasn’t long ago that I last spoke about KuCoin. It was earlier this month in fact, in the post “ Shilling my Bags! ”. Well, here I am speaking about KuCoin again!
As my readers should know by now, KuCoin is my favourite exchange – not as big as Binance (which I also love), but just a little more friendly and nicer to use. KuCoin also continues to score extremely well compared to all other exchanges in terms of honesty and trustworthiness. So what has KuCoin been up to this time, that Bit Brain deems it necessary to write about KuCoin yet again?
Soft Staking
That’s what KuCoin has been up to.
No, it has nothing to do with serving steaks rare. (Unfortunately)
Leading the industry (once again), KuCoin. KuCoin has come up with a way for you to stake your coins/tokens; by doing nothing.
That’s right; you do absolutely nothing. All you have to do is hold your crypto on KuCoin exchange, and *Hey Pesto!*, it’s staked!
Soft-staking is a logical continuation of KuCoin development: Since 2017 KuCoin Shares (KCS) holders have been able to receive “dividends” based on the number of KCS they hold on KuCoin Exchange. Dividends are based on trading fees earned from all trading pairs on the platform (there are hundreds of them). At first those dividends were paid in all the different currencies traded, but then KuCoin simplified it and now dividends are all paid in KCS (which works better). So “soft staking” is not really new to KuCoin, but it’s never before been done with currencies other than KCS.
You see, the great thing about Soft Staking as opposed to normal staking is that your funds remain available to you even though they are staked! You can withdraw your tokens any time! To re-stake, you just deposit them again!
The following coins can now be Soft Staked merely by holding them in your wallet on KuCoin Exchange:
EOS (EOS)
Tron (TRX)
Cosmos (ATOM)
Neblio (NEBL)
TomoChain (TOMO)
DeepOnion (ONION)
NULS (NULS)
Energi (NRG)
Internet of Services (IOST)
Of course KCS will also continue to function as it always has. To my knowledge, this system is practically unique. I know that Poloniex recently started allowing Cosmos staking, but I can’t think of any other offhand examples by reputable exchanges. In his blog post “Soft Staking: High-yield and Anytime-withdrawal? Yes, You May.” (link below), Johnny Lyu – KuCoin Co-founder and VP, states that KuCoin ROI will exceed that offered by Poloniex:
…some projects in our Soft Staking Program are able to offer 6% to 12% of the annualized return rate, while Poloniex offers 3% to 10% return rate within a similar package.
Staking ROI varies depending on the coin and on the markets, so one can’t assign a fixed percentage to anticipated ROI. But from the information we have so far; NRG looks most profitable (with annual returns estimated at about 20%) and EOS least profitable (with annual returns of about 0.5%). I expect those figures to vary wildly over time. A table of available figures so far can be found in this post: https://www.kucoin.com/news/en-soft-staking-cash-back-investment-program
While I’m linking to KuCoin posts, here are some others you can use to find out more about KuCoin’s Soft Staking:
Within those links you can find more links to specific staking data about each coin (though they are all pretty much the same). Take note of some details, such as that you might not be able to withdraw all your EOS immediately. There is no detailed public explanation about how the staking system works from a technical point of view – at least not yet. Fortunately for you, you have me to guess the details for you:
I am guessing that KuCoin pool all of the deposits and then stake them as a pool, or as a series of small pools, probably of varying sizes. In addition to that, they probably keep an unstaked, liquid portion of tokens available, I’m guessing about 2% of the total deposits of each coin. To me this would make sense because it means that roughly 98% of the tokens would be staked at any one time. As additional tokens are required, they could be unstaked if required – without having to unstake the entire balance of those staked tokens. A fair amount of tokens would always be available for withdrawals in the form of the 2% reserve. Because tokens like EOS take several days to unstake, I am guessing that this is why they say that it is possible that you could sometimes have to wait a bit to withdraw all your tokens, though I doubt that this would ever even happen to the average user. Such a situation would occur if customers had made an unusually large number of withdrawals recently and had depleted the 2% currency reserve. In essence the stakes act as a cold wallets. Where exchanges normally keep about 98% of their crypto holdings offline in a cold wallet (at least the good ones do), now KuCoin is basically just staking their cold wallets. I repeat: this paragraph is entirely just my educated opinion (which is almost always 100% correct, because I am an ultra-genius).
From https://blog.kucoin.com/passive-income-with-cryptocurrency-proof-of-stake/
Depending on the sort of returns you will be getting, staking may or may not be a good idea for you. Like all centralised exchanges, KuCoin has withdrawal fees. Most cryptocurrencies also cost money to send from a wallet to an exchange (unlike NEO which is free – damn that coin is good! ). For these reasons, sending small amounts of tokens to KuCoin just to be able to stake them is probably a bad idea, you would lose more in fees than what you would gain from staking. Similarly, sending coins to KuCoin for a very short staking period is probably not economically feasible.
On the other hand, if you have a large balance of a coins such as TRX that you want staked, then KuCoin is worthy of consideration.
Of course there is a drawback: you’ll be keeping your coins on an exchange. You all know the saying: “Not your private keys, not your crypto”. As much as I trust KuCoin and I don’t see them running off with anybody’s money, exchanges do have “incidents” – much like the Binance hack in May of this year. I honestly do not know what sort of customer protection measures KuCoin has in place to defend against such events (I would be very interested to know! Perhaps I should write to them and ask…), so I can’t really comment on exactly how safe your coins are when they are staked through KuCoin.
Personally I need to go and look at my own coins to decide if this is worth doing or not. I hold EOS, TRX and NEBL, two of which are already kept on an exchange because I only hold relatively small amounts of them. My EOS is in a wallet, but I’m hardly an EOS whale either. Above a certain USD value I take my coins off an exchange and put them in a wallet, all three of my coins are well below that value (thanks in no small part to the terrible altcoin market we are in!) However, my KCS is over my USD limit, and I leave it all on KuCoin – just to earn the KCS rewards. Read into that what you will.
Conclusion
Well done to KuCoin for offering their customers another great service. This has been a fantastic month from KuCoin: Extra token burns, an OTC trading desk, a Derivatives Trading platform (KuMEX) and now Soft Staking! As I have been saying for years: KuCoin Shares is a damn good token to hold, this platform has a lot of growing to do!
I think that this is only the beginning. I foresee many other exchanges following suit – just as they copied KuCoin’s original dividend paying token idea (COSS doesn’t count because their token crashed and burned, I hate that exchange after the huge losses they cost me!). Bear in mind that if you reside in a country where “Liberty” is only a word and had no true meaning, then the tyrants who unilaterally rule your life may have deemed it illegal for you to earn such staking rewards. Fight them, flee them – or continue to suffer beneath them – your choice.
Yours in crypto
Bit Brain
“The secret to success: find out where people are going and get there first”
~ Mark Twain
“Crypto does not require institutional investment to succeed; institutions require crypto investments to remain successful”
~ Bit Brain
In Elliott Wave terms, FOAM began a wave one advance on June 26. The red wave one (blue sub-waves i-ii-iii-iv-v) finished on July 7, and the red wave two (blue sub-waves a-b-c) correction ended on July 20. If this wave count is correct, FOAM should be heading next towards the July 7 peak in the red wave three.
Shilling my Bags! 
). For these reasons, sending small amounts of tokens to KuCoin just to be able to stake them is probably a bad idea, you would lose more in fees than what you would gain from staking. Similarly, sending coins to KuCoin for a very short staking period is probably not economically feasible.
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