Today, if you think of the term “metaverse,” you automatically conceptualize a futuristically enhanced internet, complete with all sorts of innovative and unimaginable elements. For one, interactions in virtual reality play a key role in essentially restructuring almost everything that has been a part of our everyday experience to date.

Naturally, it is quite possible to assume that the metaverse belongs solely to the here-now. But the fact remains that the metaverse isn’t an entirely recent phenomenon. 

Of course, it has been forgotten to where it is today because of the superior and progressive technology of this day and age. But the metaverse had its humble beginnings back in 1838, with the conception of the 3D image by Sir Charles Wheatstone.

The theory of adding the illusion of depth to images is the fundamental principle that the modern-day idea of virtual reality works upon, and virtual reality is central to the metaverse. The first VR machine, Sensorama, was developed in 1956. Morton Heilig essentially combined sensory elements like smell and movement emulation to simulate the experience of riding a motorbike virtually.

This happened a couple of decades after Weinbaum’s Pygmalion’s Spectacles came out, which discussed the idea of goggles that provide an experience resembling today’s virtual reality.  Heilig continued to make considerable contributions to the development of virtual reality.

Where we are today is primarily thanks to this genius. We have already come this far in terms of the metaverse when you think about it! 

Making VR Work

When Neil Stevenson’s 1982 novel first coined and popularised the term “metaverse,” MIT engineers had already developed their Aspen Movie Map, a virtual reality-based tour of the town of Aspen. We cannot leave out immense contributions to the evolution of virtual reality either, with their SEGA VR-1 motion simulator that became a smash hit in arcades.

But what solidified the virtual reality bases was the Oculus Rift VR headset, released in the 2010s. Sony and Samsung also jumped onto this VR headset bandwagon, and eventually, Facebook bought off Oculus. Of course, it is common knowledge that Facebook CEO Zuckerberg recently changed its name to Meta. Now, it is obvious that he has been interested in development in the direction of the metaverse for a while now!

The Mighty Metaverse 

But the fact that the metaverse has grown to what it is now is because of the contributions of several other firms, too. For example, Apple’s 2020 addition to their iPads in the form of the Lidar significantly improved image depth and record for the metaverse.

Microsoft’s HoloLens and Google’s low-cost Cardboard device and AR glasses also went a long way in ushering in the age of the metaverse. So, the evolution of the metaverse was spread over multiple generations.

New technological additions in every era did their bit to make the metaverse materialize in all its technical brilliance and immersive glory! 

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Sreerupa Biswas Author

A post-graduate is Sociology, Sreerupa’s interest primarily lies in researching on the global market trends of production and consumption.

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Shiba Inu has been one of the most talked about meme coins since its creation in August 2020 and its connection to Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and India’s covid-19 relief fund.

As many know, the crypto market has been downtrend since 2021. There have, however, been momentary corrections along the line. These corrections, while minimal for some, have been massive for others. This is especially true in the case of altcoins. As you may have guessed, an excellent example of these altcoins is Shiba Inu.

SHIB has earned a place as one of the best-performing altcoins over the last week. The meme coin broke past the cup and handle pattern formed over the last month. A clear bullish pattern.

In the last 24 hours, after bitcoin’s impulse move to the downside, SHIB followed suit. It has, however, begun another move to the upside and has moved up 7.2% today alone, at the time of writing.

Despite the pullback on SHIB yesterday, the technical outlook of the meme coin remains bullish. If SHIB manages to stay above the $0.000015 mark, there is a strong possibility of SHIB moving up to the $0.000021 level.

SHIB Technical Analysis

There is a strong probability that SHIB rallies upwards at least 50% over the next few days. If the Bulls stay in control of the market, this might provide the necessary buying power for the meme coin to stay afloat.

Some have speculated that SHIB’s original move to the upside was prompted by Binance’s announcement of their plans to add support for SHIB on payment cards issued in Europe.

Shiba Inu price chart |Source: TrdaingView

SHIB recently broke the resistance around the 0.000016 level, experienced a pullback, and is currently at the 0.0000163 level at the time of writing.

This happened right after it broke out of its cup and handle formation, adding to the list of indications that the meme coin is about to go parabolic.

The RSI is currently around the 80 mark, indicating overbought market conditions. A small pullback may or may not occur, giving the RSI a chance to adjust before another move upwards.

SHIB’s price is above the 20-period moving average, indicating that the buyers are still in control of the market for now.

 Will Shiba Inu Continue to Rise

• SHIB’s technical indicators, in general, point towards bullish market conditions. The Moving Average Convergence and Divergence (MACD) indicator displays buy signals.
• The DMI or the Directional Movement Index indicates ‘up’ as the market’s direction, placing the +DI line above the -DI line.
• The ADI, or the Average Directional Index, also indicates bullish market conditions.

According to Peter Brandt, one of the most experienced analysts, SHIB is expected to rise as it has entered a ‘bull cycle.

David Gohkshtein, the founder of Gohkshtein Media and former US Congressional candidate, is another famous technical analyst who also pointed out that SHIB’s price rise may continue.

On the other hand, Bitcoin is fighting to maintain its position around the $24,000 mark. An impulse move to the upside from bitcoin may fuel another powerful move for SHIB.

Disclaimer: The author’s comments and recommendations are solely for educational and informative purposes. They do not represent any financial or investment advice. Always DYOR  (do your own research)

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Adekunle Joshua Author

Crypto Writer

Adekunle Joshua is a cryptocurrency writer. He has a deep understanding of the technology and how it can be used to improve the world. James is a strong advocate for using cryptocurrency to make the world a better place. He wants to help people understand the technology and use it to improve their lives.

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The Bitcoin market has been expanding at the internet’s rate with an overarching influence on various economic sectors, making it to a global market capitalization of $445 billion. The employment sector is also expanding at an unprecedented rate in the Bitcoin market.

The nature and number of employment opportunities in Bitcoin have increased in the last decade. It has opened up positions that were no more than a dream on employment platforms like LinkedIn. Here is a quick breakdown of the subsectors of employment under Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Education 

Bitcoin is a relatively new financial concept that generates the opportunity for the growth of bitcoin education with new employment opportunities for bitcoin public communicators. With people having lesser knowledge in the field, the need for Bitcoin education and financial experts is bound to grow. It is similar to the nascent stage of the rise of the internet; people had little or no knowledge about it initially, but they had to seek expert help to have a basic understanding, owing to the internet’s overarching influence. It is exactly the same for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Mining Employment

Bitcoin mining is one of the largest subsectors of Bitcoin when it comes to employment opportunities. The Bitcoin mining process requires considerable physical infrastructure and capital expenditure. Hence, it is one of the sectors with the maximum ability to expand through the market cap and the number of employees employed. Presently, the Bitcoin mining sector has the maximum number of public companies and the largest market cap compared to other Bitcoin companies.

Bitcoin Engineers

With the ever-expanding market of Bitcoin, the nature of its operations is constantly evolving. Hence, the need for engineers to device new Bitcoin goals in terms of their operations is inevitable. From changing the face of online dating using metaverse to inventing new tools for detecting bull or bearish market trends, engineers play a vital role in shaping the future of Bitcoin. The demand for engineers in the Bitcoin market is bound to rise in the future, expanding job opportunities for newly graduated engineers.

Bitcoin Exchange Jobs

Exchange jobs are one of the most crucial employment sectors for any currency, and Bitcoin is no different. Whether you convert USD to Bitcoin or vice versa, the economy would require a couple of experts behind it. Thus, with the expansion of Bitcoin’s market and the rise of other altcoins like ETH, etc., the jobs for currency exchange are sure to expand in all countries.

Bitcoin Node Producers

The node producers are one of the most crucial employment sectors in the Bitcoin market. Bitcoin nodes save transaction details from the beginning of the Bitcoin until its storage is full. Several companies design Bitcoin nodes and provide mini servers. Hence, the requirement for new Bitcoin nodes and servers would expand the demand for new employees in the sector.

Bitcoin Bridge Jobs

Though Bitcoin operations are entirely virtual, just like Bitcoin educators, people would require specialized and professional financial experts who can act as a bridge between them and the Bitcoin network. Such jobs are crucial currently, with the Bitcoin being at its nascent stage.

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Sreerupa Biswas Author

A post-graduate is Sociology, Sreerupa’s interest primarily lies in researching on the global market trends of production and consumption.

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sreerupa.biswas98@gmail.com

Shortly after announcing a partnership with Coinbase to start offering cryptocurrency trading, the reputable asset management firm BlackRock has taken another step into the crypto space.

The giant administrator has launched a new private trust that offers its institutional clients direct exposure to Bitcoin. The investment vehicle is available to US institutional clients and seeks to track the performance of the leading cryptocurrency and reduce the fund’s expenses and liabilities, BlackRock said on its website.

The launch is the latest sign of the increasingly pervasive presence of digital assets in traditional finance. This will be its first investment product offering direct exposure to Bitcoin.

The move by the firm, which manages around $9 trillion in client funds, comes amid a notable crash in digital currency prices. Bitcoin is down more than 60% from its all-time high last year, with the rest of the market seeing a similar price correction. BlackRock addressed this scenario, noting that despite the drop, it has seen an increase in client interest in the new asset class.

BlackRock Moves Towards Cryptocurrencies

The New York-based manager has been making various efforts to cater to this growing demand. Last week the company announced a partnership with exchange Coinbase that will offer institutional clients of its Aladdin platform a range of digital currency services through Coinbase Prime for the first time.

This move appears to be part of a larger effort. BlackRock said on their website that they are working on four areas of digital assets and their associated ecosystems. These include permissioned blockchains, stablecoins, cryptocurrencies, and tokenization.

In filings with US regulators last year, it was disclosed that the manager was gaining Bitcoin exposure for some of its funds through CME’s Bitcoin futures offering. Earlier this year, BlackRock backed USDC issuer Circle in a $400 million funding round.

Today’s announcement comes just a year after BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said the asset manager saw too little demand in cryptocurrencies. In the past, Fink has spoken positively about Bitcoin, and, in April of last year, he said that digital currencies could become a “great asset class.”

Bitcoin Approaches $25,000

Bitcoin price immediately reacted positively to the news, skyrocketing to $24,918 after nearly a day of strong recovery on news of a slight drop in US CPI in July.

BlackRock, Bitcoin Price | Source: TradingView 

On August 11, Bitcoin (BTC) surged to an early afternoon high of $24,896. BTC broke through the first Key Resistance at $24,560 before reversing.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $23,974, down 1.53%. In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin hit a high of $24,822 and a low of $23,828.

Although inflation cooled, it remained well above the Fed’s target, leaving the market on the verge of another significant rate hike in September, affecting demand for riskier assets. Today, the Fear & Greed Index jumped from 41/100 to 42/100, supported by BTC’s rally to nearly $25,000.

Coinbase COIN stock itself has rebounded strongly in the past week thanks to the agreement with BlackRock, which manages $9 trillion in assets after a long period of bad news.

Coincidentally, today also marks the second anniversary of MicroStrategy’s first Bitcoin purchase, triggering a wave of institutional investors flocking to the crypto space. Even so, after BTC’s decline since the start of this year, the company’s investment took a hit and led to MicroStrategy reporting a loss of nearly $1 billion in Q2/2022.

CEO Michael Saylor lost his CEO position also because of this. However, the company confirmed that it would firmly hold the huge Bitcoin warehouse shortly.

Another major organization that has sold Bitcoin in the past is Elon Musk’s electric car maker Tesla with the sale of 75% of its BTC holdings, worth $936 million.

Disclaimer: The author’s comments and recommendations are solely for educational and informative purposes. They do not represent any financial or investment advice. Always DYOR (do your own research)

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Jim Haastrup Author

Crypto Writer

Jim Haastrup is a freelance blockchain and metaverse writer. He helps founders, investors, startups, crypto, and blockchain enthusiasts connect with their audience and win investment through the written word.

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The sudden spike in the interest in digital currency found its impetus in US President Joe Biden’s initiative to delve deep into the digital currency world.

Digital currency started gaining wider recognition only after US digital currency started to be operated by the central bank, following which central banks of several other nations began implementing a similar policy. However, what exactly triggered such a revolutionary change in the financial structure?

The perpetual financial crisis seems to have led to a massive shift from traditional and digital payment methods. The constant financial crisis has led to a feeling of mass mistrust among the citizens, which has led them to resort to digital payment methods like Bitcoin, which is relatively difficult to regulate. 

Bitcoin Changing Digital Payment

The current digital payment infrastructure is based on the idea of the conventional systems of finance providers and engaging in a kind of payment structure where there is no intervention from Central banks or any such intermediate sources.

It was introduced as more of a contemporary or alternative to the traditional methods of payment that has led to massive decentralization of the existing blockchain structure.

As a result, regulation and monitoring of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have become quite tricky. Initially, crypto wasn’t used as frequently and widely, so unregulated payment transactions were entirely off the radar. However, the rise of such unmonitored monetary activities has resulted in the rapid growth of more and more regulation authorities.

Bitcoin and its Implications 

Numerous people have professed and predicted that Bitcoin is the ultimate future that is set to bring about revolutionary changes in the quality of life in the future. Bitcoin Magazine recently interviewed Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy.

In that interview, Saylor points out how very often the concept of currency is automatically associated with money. He discusses the problems he would have to face if he dealt with traditional stocks – like not being able to transfer them in real-time, whenever we want.

He explains how currency is something that is fixed by the government and how a tax-free transaction like bitcoin is profitable. Digital Payment provides people the flexibility in an economic system that helps them to invest wisely in attaining a goal. Saylor believes systems like Bitcoin will flourish rapidly if it has the support of the Central System. 

He states that building a Bitcoin Standard will increase the currency’s strength. Not only that, but it will also keep the current financial inflation caused by that currency at bay. This is a step toward understanding and trying to put monetary inflation to an end.

He states that strengthening the value of Bitcoin is the only way to tackle inflation, and rational states are bound to adopt Bitcoin. 

While Saylor speaks highly of Bitcoin as the ultimate solution for a better future and prevention of financial inflation, it is met consistently by criticisms. The biggest problem that people in the vast traditional market have pointed out is its lack of law and order and the growing popularity of the same.

For instance, it has been pointed out that the lack of regulations and restrictions is not considered a harmful disadvantage of Bitcoin; instead, it is a notable feature.

Prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum keep falling a little further with every passing day, to the point that it was predicted that the value of Bitcoin would come down to three digits in US Dollar currency. If Bitcoin is going through such a rough patch, how can it provide financial stability amid inflation? 

Final Thoughts 

Bitcoin may be watered down to CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), which again will be transparent but has restrictions to a certain extent.

The untraceable nature of money is enough to influence evil ways of spending money and will not help nations maintain or restore financial stability. 

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Sreerupa Biswas Author

A post-graduate is Sociology, Sreerupa’s interest primarily lies in researching on the global market trends of production and consumption.

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sreerupa.biswas98@gmail.com

With a score of 8.6 out of 10, Hong Kong ranked as the most Crypto-Ready Country. The number of crypto ATMs proportional to the population and geographical size and the number of blockchain startups per hundred thousand people acted as the factors to calculate each country’s crypto readiness.

Even though public acceptance is the most important aspect of maintaining crypto’s existence, mainstreaming crypto adoption is difficult without the government’s help. For mainstream crypto adoption, the country’s government must set up infrastructure to support and complement the people’s and technology’s needs.

Any country’s readiness to adopt cryptocurrencies include crypto ATM installations, regulations favoring crypto, startup culture, and a fair tax regime. Based on these factors, a study report by Forex Suggest revealed that Hong Kong stood first among the top countries which are prepared for widespread cryptocurrency adoption. 

The United States and Switzerland have a larger crypto infrastructure than the island nation. Despite this, they secured lower place, with 7.7 and 7.5 crypto-readiness scores, respectively. The list below shows the top twenty countries with their crypto-readiness scores. 

Source: Forex Suggest study report

Since the number of crypto ATM installations proportional to the population and geographical size of the jurisdiction and the number of blockchain startups per 100,00 people was the most important factor, Hong Kong’s smaller land mass helped the country top the list. 

The data on the CoinATMRadar features that the U.S. accounts for 88% of the global crypto ATM installations. On the other hand, Hong Kong installed a network of merely 146 crypto ATMs. This number accounted for just 0.4% of crypto ATMs across the world. However, since this island country has a small geographical area, the residents of Hong Kong are never more than a distance of 7 kilometers (4.3 miles)  from a crypto ATM.

When we check the same for Switzerland, it has installed a crypto ATM every 271 km, i.e., every 161.5 miles. The U.S. has 168.3 miles or 271 km distance between every crypto ATM.

Source: Forex Suggests

Taxes On Crypto Assets

One major hindrance to mainstream crypto adoption is the tax levied on crypto assets. Countries like Hong Kong, Switzerland, Panama, Portugal, Germany, Malaysia, and Turkey have secured the top positions in the list of nations with the lowest crypto taxes for capital gains.

Interest In Cryptocurrency

Source: Forex Suggest

Apart from these, the sentiments of the financial giants or investors of the country also affect the country’s crypto-readiness. The fact that the investors of some major economies have been showing increasing interest in the crypto world indicates a healthy pro-crypto global competition.

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Samvida Sharan Author

Samvida is a versatile writer/editor passionate about reaching out to people of different precincts by using words as an effective means. She’s a law graduate residing in Bihar, India. She holds a curious persona, often delving into worlds of astrophysics, technology, crypto, law, and international relations.

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