 Welcome to Digital Asset News to get top stories and cryptocurrency and digital assets and bring them down to bite-sized pieces. Today we've got some more concerning news. First up, the People's Bank of China just delivered a death blow to local crypto OTC dealers and how this can happen in almost any country. Also, digital currency from Line called Bitfront is now offering interest on a collaboration with the Celsius Network. And this is just another example of how two exchanges are going to come together and make things better. Also, the biggest winners in the DeFi yield farming push is Wales says data, which is not a surprise, but we're going to go over some pretty interesting statistics where you might not be too happy with how much this people make. That'll lead us into Pew of the Day, which we'll go over at the very last segment, but let's take a look at what's going on in the market. So it is September 24th. It is 3 p.m. Texas time getting to all this stuff late. Had a lot of things going on, other stuff, other businesses, but it is what it is. So I'm taking a look at the market. Maybe it was good. I didn't do this until later because wow, this is a complete sea of red. What a what a bloodbath, huh? Bitcoin down 3%, 6% down Ethereum, XRP is XRP. Bitcoin cash 3%, 4%. Wow, 9% for chain link. Ouch. E789. What are you going to do? 2.3. And just, I mean, just going through all this, I remember three or four weeks ago when everything was just going super far up and everything was just going fantastic. And people were talking about these new projects and they put all their money into it. And I said, do not FOMO into these projects. Wait for later because you never know. You always want to have a little bit of extra reserves on the side so you can buy during times like this. And you don't feel that pressure. You don't feel like you just lost 16% in UMA or 9% in compound or 11% in year and you just, you don't have that pressure. And that is just the big thing. And I will just say it again. This is not my first rodeo. This is probably not your first rodeo either, hopefully. And when you're going through this, and well, even if it is your first rodeo, here's the thing, just learn from it and move on. Just remember from now on, don't FOMO on anything, just dollar cost average. And when you have days like this, these are the days when you're like, Hey, I should buy a bit more because that's a huge drop. And you don't feel that pressure. I did that issue in 2018. I bought up a ton of stuff. And when things went down 20%, 25%, I felt that crushing pressure because I was down. I didn't have money on the side to buy anything else. I was just down just sitting there going, wow, where do I want to go? So that's just one of those lessons that I've learned. And you can only learn it through pain. And that's just how it goes. So I'm not going to harp on it. Let's just jump into today's video. So first up, this is kind of concerning. People's Bank of China just shut down a bunch OTC dealers. So what's going on here? So the Central Bank of China, People's Bank of China is blacklisting the accounts of OTC traders in the region and its recent crackdown efforts. And when I first read this, I always think the most negative, like, ah, these Chinese, the government, they're cracking down, they're, you know, making things very stringent on their citizens. But really, it's not that. These are blacklisted merchants will not be able to carry out online transactions for at least five years. So the problem here, and we're going to get to that in a bit, is that these OTC dealers, they can't really distinguish between who are the bad and who are the good because regulation is sparse. And that's the problem. When people say, we know, we don't need regulation, we do, we do need regulation to see, you know, what kind of boundaries that that we can actually have. However, there's also a flip side of that. It's called a decentralized exchange, but anyhow, getting all that in a bit. So since the start of the year, China's central bank has been cracking down on money laundering in the country. The top bank partnered with several major banks to assist in stopping nefarious activities, involving cryptocurrencies by sharing account details and transaction histories. So when I first read this, I was like, ah, those banks working together, you know, snapping down on people. And I thought to myself, hold on, wait, what am I talking about? We were just up in arms a couple of days ago because we heard about JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank and the other big bank where they had done the exact same thing, turn a blind eye, not reported their people that were actually investing through their bank and money laundering. And they were washing this money in a tune of $2 trillion. So when these banks step up and go, hey, there's some activities going on, we don't like to see. And this is illegal activity. This is cartel. This is drug money. This is the Yakuza, whatever it is over there. I don't know. But they step and go, we got to stop this. And they did. So, I mean, you can't have it both ways. And I think that's actually good. Moving on. After a bank system has restricted a certain amount, our account from conducting transactions, it will then report to the regional central bank. After review, the PBOC, People Banks of China, will then share the blacklisted accounts with all the banks across the country, thus hindering OTC merchants from registering for new accounts. But here's the thing, how can you tell which one is doing illegal activities and all these different nefarious projects and who are just regular OTC dealers that are trying to help institutional investors get their hands on Bitcoin? That's the thing. It should, however, be noted that the flagging of crypto accounts is not applicable to normal crypto trades. Huobi, who is based out of Singapore and Hong Kong, I believe. The Huobi OTC desk is quoted as saying, normal crypto transactions are not illegal and only those involving black money and illicit assets will be frozen. Again, how do you determine that? Who is responsible for that? Who pegs it and says, this is illegal, this is not illegal? Of course, there have to have their own financial crimes division. Lastly, it states yet due to the lack of common rules across the local banks, again, due to the lack of common rules across the local banks, a legitimate OTC dealer operating in China can easily be blacklisted despite not conducting any illegal crypto transactions. That's the problem. You're kind of caught in that middle like, hey, I'm just trying to provide a service. I'm not over here doing what these guys are doing. I'm just a regular small business that's trying to do the right thing and I got caught in the middle and now I'm out of a job and I can't feed my family. That is the big problem and that is why you really do need some type of regulation everywhere, I think. Now, there's a way to get around this, not to get around, excuse me, I shouldn't say like that. There is an alternative. And that alternative is a decentralized exchange, just like we have with Uniswap, just like with all the different decentralized exchanges popping up. You can't stop those decentralized exchanges unless you shut down the internet. And that is one of those things that I see. However, I mean with decentralized exchanges, there's other problems on there. There are scams. Uniswap is one of those places. There's a lot of different scams going on there. A lot of different coins that are just, you know, brought in and who knows what's going on. It's not the most cleanest thing. So, of course, with freedom, you're also going to have the problems that go along with that. But it all depends and find that right equilibrium. Let me know what you think in the comments section. Let's move on. Next up, Line's global digital currency exchange bitfront, now offering interest on crypto asset deposits through collaboration with Celsius Network. And I was, first of all, I got this from Alex Machinsky off of Twitter because he tweeted this out. He says, I ain't Line. That's pretty fine. We told you big partners are launching with Celsius Network and we were not lying. And it gives you the article. Line is the largest company in terms of global users, 460 million to enter crypto and yet coin desk in the block would not write about it. I think they actually did later on. But at that point, Alex was right. They didn't write about it. But it is interesting. So I took a look at the actual article and of course here we are. And just to make this really quick bitfront, which is Line Corporation's global digital currency exchange is now providing interest on crypto asset deposits through a partnership with Celsius. And here's how it all works out. No minimum deposits, no lockups and trade offer may change on a weekly basis. Interest of paid users account every Monday and here's the rate. So kind of it's the same thing as Celsius because they're using Celsius. So let's get into it. First of all, what the heck is Line and what is bitfront? So Line, Line Corporation, Tokyo base subsidiary of South Korean internet search engine. The company's business is mainly associated with the development of mobile apps and internet services, particularly the Line communication app, which is right here. Line, which is free calls and text messages. So kind of like WhatsApp. But of course, in the Asian market, actually, I think it's I think it's global doesn't really matter. I've never seen Line. I don't use Line. I'm sure some people do. I'm sure it's fantastic, whatever. So that's what Line is. But I was curious. I'm like, well, how many users do they have? And just to look it up a little quick stats, Line is a Japan based cross-platform mobile messenger app with about 84 million active users in its home market as of 2020. Maybe it's growing a lot. Maybe there's some of the types of apps they're using, which Alex was talking about five or six million. I have no idea. That's a lot of, that's still a lot of people. It doesn't matter. So for reference, how many people does WhatsApp users have? And there are two billion. Again, really doesn't matter. I mean, you got two billion, 84 million. If you got 84 million people that are now being, having their eyes open to cryptocurrency, that's fantastic. We will take that. I will take that win. So let me take a look at, okay, so that's Line, Line Corporation. So they have the Line app and they have BitFront. And this is the cryptocurrency exchange itself and another exchange, fantastic USD market out of deposit USD. Well, let's take a look. I'm curious. So let's see. So here's how you do it. Fiat currency deposits. Only residents in the US who have completed some type of verification, AML KYC are able to do or actually make deposits. And it looks like it is ACH or automated clearinghouse in that regard. However, I did notice up here a little section that says by cryptocurrency. Once you click on that, you can put in your Visa or Mastercard right here. And then you can use that to fund your account. The problem here is, well, actually not right now, because they use no fees for Simplix. And for Simplix, it says, currently you don't have to pay a penny processing fees through Simplix, usually account for 3.5% of the amount you pay to purchase cryptocurrency. So if you're going to use that route, then it's going to be 3.5%. So that's not so great. And the thing I always am concerned with is what exactly are the fees? Because are they like Coinbase fees or like Kraken fees? That's not like to call it. So when I took a look at the actual fees, they're pretty low. So the market fees for both makers and takers, LN trades, line trades, you get 0.1% if you use their token. Trades on USD, BTC, OCT are 0.2%. So just real quick how transaction fees are calculated. It's the order amount, which is the quantity times the order price multiplied by the transaction fee, which is 0.2%. I'm good with that. That sounds fantastic, 0.2%. And then of course, if you scroll down, there's different things, you know, as far as like wire and then transfer fees and all the different things, if there are. And then of course, just like Voyager, they have a certain amount that you have to minimize withdrawal or a minimal draw and how much the actual withdrawal fee is. So I know in Celsius, there is no fees to take your cryptocurrency off, which is pretty cool. Voyager and some other places don't, no, do have that, excuse me. Coinbase doesn't have it. Coinbase Pro didn't use to, but with the different fees that are going on with the Ethereum network, they've actually instituted more fees to take your cryptocurrency off. So you want to see all those types of things that I talk about. There is a Google spreadsheet, it's called the exchange and wallet fees. And it's all the different exchange that I've used. I talk about this in every single video, because everybody wants to know what is the alternative to Coinbase. So I've used Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, Kraken, Celsius and Voyager, which are like, I guess I should call them like my one, two, three punch now, huh? Cause Kraken, I moved it from just slightly recommended, but because of their banking license, I moved them into highly recommended. I think they're going to be the future. And not only that, but I mean these fees are pretty darn smoking good. 0.16 to 0.26. And that's just a 50,000. If you're like a baller, you know, up to a million, you're only paying 0.08. So just so you know. And then Celsius, of course, I love that one. I've got 30% of my entire portfolio sitting on Celsius, gaining interest. That's how much I like it. Voyager, I think it's easy, but it's teetering. Now tell me right now, it's teetering on my nerves for two reasons. One is that the cost to get things off the exchange for USDC, it's $8 flat fee, right? So if you're taking a hundred bucks of USDC off, that's going to cost you eight bucks. That's 8%. Now, if you want to move a million dollars, it'll only cost you eight bucks. So just something to keep in mind. Also, half of the cryptocurrencies that are on there, you cannot take off. So like Cardano and Polkadot and those other things, they cannot come off the exchange right now. That's something they have to fix. I've talked to them many a time about it. I like them, but they got to fix that. That is not good. I just don't like it. And then there's other things you can take off. Of course, the big ones, Bitcoin and Ethereum, all that good stuff. So just be aware. I've also got Jim and I talk about SimpleSwap, Uniswap, CashApp, Etoro and Crypto.com. And if you want to sign up for them, there's an affiliate link. You don't have to use it. But if you do, you get between 10 and 25 bucks. You can find the link for this spreadsheet in the description of all my videos. It looks just like this. And you can go through all the ins and outs and that's it. And that's it for that section. So I think that this partnership that BitFront and Celsius has just solidified, I think it's going to be big for both. And we'll see how it all works out. But again, I'm a huge believer in Celsius and what they're trying to do. Their motto is do good, meaning do good for the people that are around you and the people that you want to serve. And then finally, do well, meaning financially. So I like that whole segment there. All right, let's move on. Last up, Wales profit mightily from lucrative DeFi yield farming. And I just want to say the DeFi is another shiny object and you could have made a ton of money, but you could have lost a ton. And this is what this is a lesson of the big players, how much they can manipulate, how much money they can make, and how much they can make you pulling the bag potentially. Not everybody of you, not all of you have held the bag. You've made you made out like bandits. Congratulations. But from what I've seen in the comment section, it's the lots are holding a lot. Anyhow, well, total value locked. And this is what I'm talking about DeFi dropped from 3.25 to 6.3 billion in only four days. It has now recovered a roughly nine and a half billion locked current data from DeFi pulse. Here's DeFi pulse.com. And you can see that this is how much is locked 9.68. So hey, great. This is interesting. Uniswap dominance 19% DeFi pulse index. Okay. So that's pretty interesting. 19.71%. Anyhow, your end up finances become quite popular among ethereum whales, especially after the launch of Y vaults, which allow users to deposit funds. And you put your money in those, in those vaults, and it pretty much just spreads them across a bunch of different DeFi finding you the best yields, gives you the best returns, right? So you don't have to do anything. It's an automated process. Y vaults have been shown to deliver incredibly high APYs or interest rates, percentage yields, to use with some even reaching the four digit percentages. However, these APYs can be somewhat misleading. Given that they only show the expected return for a variable rate at a given time, most yield farming ventures last only a few weeks or even days. Whilst that's a good one. Whilst the displayed APYs reflect the interest earned for over an entire year. So you could see like, you know, these interest rates of 93%, like, Oh, that's awesome. That's for a year. So just be aware. And of course, these whales come in like, Hey, I don't care because I'm going to pump everything up. I'm also going to get these governance tokens like sushi swap, which is going to pay me double and I'm going to get in, sell it and I'm done. And I can do it all in days, not weeks, not months, days. And I'm out of here. So how much are whales earning flip side crypto built a calculator that measures the interest being earned on year.finances. Y vaults using the Y curve vault, which leverages curve to earn holders interest. Flip side crypto concluded that one whale in the Y curve vault locked over. This is crazy. $97 million worth of Y curve tokens, a token backed by a basket of stable coins and eventually made 800 grand after three weeks, which you have to understand it's almost a hundred million dollars and you make $800,000, which of course is fast. But here's a, I mean, if you have a hundred million dollars, you're going to make money anyhow. It just, it's just, it's just a guaranteed process. You're going to make money. Let's do something goofy invested into retail space and strip mall deals where you just get screwed over. I mean, I don't know, but if you got that much money, I think you're doing okay. So again, those are whales 800,000 up to three weeks. Another whale invested 40 million in the same vault and was able to secure a 500,000 profit in the same period of time. So wow, good for that person. And then lastly, this was the best one, a third whale gradually deposited gradually over almost 11 million and earned around a hundred and 77,000 in the same period of time. That person knows what they're doing because that was the smallest amount at a parched paltry 11 million to make 177,000. So that's pretty good. According to flip side crypto, while the API was not in the four-digit range, why curve users received a simple return of 2.17%, which equates to an annual percentage yield of 40%. So again, I've seen a lot of shiny objects out there in the crypto space. I've been here since 2017. Some of you have been here much longer, 2012, 2011. But I gotta tell you, DeFi is on another level. I haven't seen this much craze since the ICOs in 2017. I thought that was insane looking back. But this DeFi, you have to be careful. And again, be safe with what you do because you never know what's going to happen. All this FOMO is coming from all different sides. And there's no better place to look at than don'tbuymeme.com. This was a joke coin that they created, some developer created just to talk about how crazy DeFi was. And it has over a million dollars into it already. So again, then look what they did. Don't buy, don't farm, don't drain telegram. But it was supposed to be a joke coin now turning into a real thing. But it's the same thing as Dogecoin. Dogecoin started off as a joke coin. Look, that's still unlike the top 50. So whatever. It's a strange place. It's a weird place. But it's a dangerous place. And you can lose a lot of money. Just be careful. It's all I'm saying. Anyhow, speaking of losing money and different things that are out there, let's jump into a cue of the day. All right, everybody, welcome back to the office. So we've got a cue of the day and actually a statement of the day, which is something that we really should be doing a lot more of that I have been neglecting. But I'll get that in a bit. So the first question here is from Kevin. And Kevin's got a pretty good question goes, Hey, Rob, I'm puzzled over why stable coins are getting ridiculously high interest rewards, which is a kind of odd too. Because when I go to Celsius and I see like, you know, bitcoins at 6.5%. And then a theorem is like 4.15. I see USDC is like 12% or 11%. Tether's the same way. I'm like, what the heck's going on? But the question is, if you look at the Celsius rates, Tether is 11%. Crib has been between 36%. So what's your take on this? And the next question he has is, and also why is Matic and Synthetic also having an interest rate of like 16%. So these are the prices right now, or these are the interest rates that you can get on Celsius. And I will say that it's pretty amazing we can get these high interest rates, as opposed to our local banks, which gives us like a whopping 0.0, well 0.2 or something like that. It's just ridiculous. And who knows, it might even go negative at some point, which please hope so. That would be awesome because it'd be great for our, what we are into right now, cryptocurrencies, that would be fantastic. So really this comes out of this, supply and demand. It doesn't matter if it is, if it is Celsius, if it is Voyager, or if it is BlockFi, there is a demand for a lot of these stable coins. And actually there was an article that was written up and the same question was asked, and Alex Machines, he actually answered this, Alex is the CEO of Celsius, many states. Stable coins act as the bridge from the fiat world to the crypto world for many of our customers. By turning their physical dollars into digital, stable coin holders can earn over 100 acts. So who are Celsius loaning out these stable coins to? Well, it is big institutions and institutional players. And there is something going on in the background right now where these institutions are going, hey, we want to get into it and we need a lot of these stable coins because we don't want to get our hands dirty with things like Bitcoin and those other type of dirty cryptos. We want to actually just get into the game, but we want to have somebody else do the dirty work for us. Really, that's what it is. And there's a lot of demand for that. Now the same thing is also happening, I think, with Matic and Synthetix. However, with those two tokens, you have to understand that if you're on a exchange, a new exchange or a new business or a new, well, we'll say a new bank, you need liquidity in some way, shape, or form. So even if you have just a little bit of demand for whatever it is, you're still going to need that liquidity. So on Celsius, they probably don't have a lot of Matic. They probably don't have a lot of Synthetix. So they are probably offering a pretty high percentage because there's a little bit of demand and they say, hey, we don't have it. We are short on it. So for the institutions that actually want that, we'll give it to you, but it's going to be, the percentage rate is going to go up because there's not a lot out there. So for you to put that in, that is probably what it is. So what I really need to do, what I really need to do is to get Alex back on the program and talk to us about exactly why the rates are exactly what they are and why they change and why they fluctuate from week to week. We know it's applying demand, but just to go into a little bit more detail would be fantastic. And some of the reasons why I like Celsius because when they loan these out to those institutions, so they're loaning your cryptocurrency out to an institution. And what they're saying is if you want this, that is fine, but you have to put up a pretty big amount of collateral. We're not going to give you to you one-for-one. It has to be like 150% or whatever else is. If the price of those cryptocurrencies goes down like it did in March, you either have to pay us back immediately for the whole loan or you have to bring in more collateral because the collateral you put up actually went down to the ground. So the same type of thing. And this actually just happened 304 weeks ago, I think it was about four weeks ago, where Alex Machinsky again in Twitter said, hey, we're going to have to either have you put in more for the collateral or we're going to recall those loans. And I think it's a pretty good system. So no one gets liquidated and he just says, this is what's going to happen. So that's a very easy, PZ type of way to say it. Supply and demand. I'd like to get Alex in here to really dig down deep into it. But I will say that there must be a pretty big amount of people, institutions, who want to be in this space because they're making a lot of loans. And that's all I'll say about that. So that is the first part. The second part is this is from Will. And Will says, hey Dan, just a heads up. I was on Facebook today. Tom McWall had a post about now accepting DOT. So Facebook, bunch of stuff, right? And he said he was reading the comments and there was a post from Atomic Wallet in the comments about sending Bitcoin and receive some back. So before I even look at the image, I already know exactly what it is. If you send us 0.1 Bitcoin or 0.5 or 0.01, whatever it is, we'll send you double the Bitcoin back or we'll send you triple the Bitcoin back. And we do all the time as an appreciation to our customers or some BS or whatever else it is. And of course, when I took a look at the actual image, that is exactly what it is. And it's just people going through. Now Will here has been on the YouTube channel for quite some time. And he goes, anyway, he goes, I've attached a screenshot. I thought they might be a scam. But when there was heaps of comments saying they had received the Bitcoin and thought, well, maybe it's like the Uniswap offer. And he goes, and I can hear you right now saying it's a scam. So we used to do scam the day, like every single day. And it seems like things started to, you know, mellow out. And then all of a sudden, when the Uniswap thing came in, then all of a sudden we had a bunch of videos about Uniswap and people were getting scammed left and right. And I know for people on this channel, you're pretty savvy. I mean, you are pretty savvy because you know about cryptocurrencies, you know about digital assets, you know about nano ledgers, you know about, it's not your key, it's not your crypto and all those types of things that we all know ad nauseam. But you have to understand, there's going to be new people that are coming in or somebody like Will, who just gets caught up in the moment. And we just have to constantly remind ourselves, you know, it's like, it's like working out, like we know we should all work out, know we should run the weights, all those things, right? But then we're like, well, the couch is right there. And so is that bag of Doritos. So it's one of those things where like, we just need a constant reminder of why we should be doing those things. So we don't be like, Hey, I don't want to get fat. Hey, I don't want to have a heart attack. Hey, I don't want to, you know, have all these problems. Same thing with scams. Hey, there are no asymmetrical giveaways. Hey, guess what? No one likes you that much. Hey, guess what? You're not special. Sorry. And hopefully that will be burned in your memory that there's scams everywhere. And if you see something like this, just remember, go directly to the official website. Go right to Atomic, send them an email going, Hey, are you sending, are you giving away 0.3 Bitcoin for 0.1? Let's let you know. If you see CZ Binance in some stupid video, saying any way Bitcoin, go to Binance, ask him. He's going to say no. Brian Armstrong is going to say no. Alex Machines is going to say no. All the different websites you go to, the official websites are going to say, we're not doing that. So just remember that, that there's no free ride, there's no free lunch and you, you're not, you're not that special to get a bunch of free money. I mean, maybe you are special, but not that special. So that is it for today. So thanks for going through the rambles there. Let's jump back. All right, so that's it. I just want to make this quick thanks for sticking with me for the whole thing. A lot of information out there, but it's good stuff. I think I just want to give some quick shout outs to all the people who have signed up. So let's see, Martin Benuelos, John Carter, that was a pretty good movie. Joey Serena, Jamie A, or Jaime A, Jesse Kirkland. I'm going to try this one. Check this out. Hervoje Soik. Pretty sure I nailed that one. Modern samurai. And I'm sure he'll be talking about my salmon shirt. I am not I, Bob, Telos, Telos, Telos, and Theameth. So thanks everybody for signing up. We appreciate it. If you like these types of videos, there's going to be two more that's going to pop up on your left and right. YouTube generally takes care of all that stuff. So I don't know what they're doing. And that is it. So again, thanks for sticking with me. Appreciate it. See you on the next one.