There’s always something to talk about when it comes to the crypto space and this week is no different. This week saw a lot of fresh news surface including a new Bitcoin scam that swept across Instagram, Stellar follows in Ripple’s footsteps and has been granted a listing on Coinbase and the Abra platform have announced support for Ethereum.
Ethereum & Abra
Abra is one of the biggest cryptocurrency wallets in the industry right now and they have announced that they will be expanding their services to support Ethereum. This will, of course, help Abra grow but it will also help Ethereum adoption for users of the platform.
The Abra platform allows investors to buy thirty different cryptocurrencies and 50 fiat currencies all in one app. Abra is a popular platform as it is commonly seen as one of the easiest ways to buy cryptocurrency. With this, the added support for Ethereum on the app is bound to see a big surge in Ethereum investment. Or at least that’s the idea.
Now you might be thinking that Ethereum was always available on Abra but you’d be wrong. Ethereum was formerly available as a synthetic asset in Abra which is very unique to the project:
“Abra is unlike any other crypto wallet or exchange currently in existence. At its core, Abra is a decentralized investing platform that uses cryptocurrencies as collateral to create synthetic assets. Abra’s synthetic asset model is the first of its kind and leverages bitcoin and litecoin blockchain-enabled smart contracts to reduce friction for anyone interested in buying, selling, and holding other assets such as alternative cryptocurrencies.”
Essentially, with Abra, users had access to a segment of Ethereum although they couldn’t actually move this Ethereum round. So in a sense, users might not have even owned their Ethereum on the platform.
Stellar & Coinbase
Following in the footsteps of Ripple, Stellar is going to be getting a listing on Coinbase. The news came out earlier this week that Stellar would be available for trading on the Coinbase Pro platform.
In the announcement, posted on 13th March, Coinbase state that “support for XLM will be immediately available in Coinbase’s supported jurisdictions, with the exception of New York State. Additional jurisdictions may be added at a later date.”
In a similar way to the other listings, the support for Stellar’s XLM will go through four initial stages. As we reported earlier in the week:
“This namely transfers only which is the original deposit for the first twelve hours. The post-only mode will only last for a minute and will allow user post order but not matched. The Limit-only stage will last around ten minutes and the users’ limit order will begin to match but market orders will have to be put on hold for a time. And last but not least, the full trading stage will be available including limit, market and stop orders.”
By the time this video goes live, the launch of Stellar on the platform will have already gone through all four stages and so XLM is now available for all you users of Coinbase!
Although it is worth noting that, at the time of writing, Stellar isn’t available on Coinbase.com or through the consumer mobile apps.
With Stellar getting listed on the Coinbase platform, this opens the door for the US exchange to get more crypto assets involved that meet the conditions for a listing.
Bitcoin & Instagram
When it comes to social media, Bitcoin has had a bumpy past. At the end of last year, the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, Martin Lewis had his face and trustworthiness used by scammers to reel in those in need.
But now an Instagram scam seems to have swept the platform off its feet and Bitcoin is right at its core.
Now we actually did a video on this earlier in the week which you can watch here but here are the highlights.
No, we’re not talking about the global outage that occurred on Instagram and Facebook but instead, we’re going to be looking at reports on how high-end brands have been used by scammers to manipulate users to leave their BTC.
According to Forbes:
“Products from high-end brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, as well as consumer electronics like Apple, have recently been advertised for spot prices between 50 and 300 Euros primarily to the general public in Sweden. In order to finalise the purchase, individuals are being tricked into exchanging fiat currency to cryptocurrency. Once such currency a transfer has been completed, the Instagram seller vanishes with the money, and the luxury products are never delivered to the buyer. This has persisted, even though cases are being reported to the law enforcement authorities.”
Instagram is the kind of platform for everyone but has a core audience of around 25. Users tend to flaunt off their style and fashion and so using brands like Gucci to reel them in with low price products is smart but it’s also just plain wrong.
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