AvaTrade is introducing three new crypto pairs and updating three others as the world – both financial and otherwise – marches towards a borderless, seamless environment that encompasses finance, technology and the rule of law.
The Rule of Law???
The latest big news on the crypto stage (besides yet another Bitcoin Breaching Blurb) has been, without doubt, Facebook’s earth-rattling decision to enter the fray with Libra – its empire-seeking version of a central bank.
The politicians are up in arms, central banks are crying ‘foul’ and the old brick-&-mortar financial services firms are seeking a way into an ecosystem that could soon taint all three as redundant.
But they’re too late. Despite security breaches and other birthing pangs, Blockchain technology is proving itself more dependable than banks and lawyers.
The Internet of Things promise to connect anything with a computer chip in a safe and controlled manner; smart contracts can already quite easily govern the realms of real estate and other prescriptive settlements; and the simplistic premise of cryptocurrencies offer welcome respite from the Machiavellian machinations of Lehmann, Goldman & Deutsche.
IOTs & Contracts & Tokens, Oh MY!
Over the next month, AvaTrade will be rolling out three new pairs – NEOUSD, EOSUSD & MIOTAUSD, and replacing its XRP, ETH and LTC assets with its US-Dollar based XRPUSD, ETHUSD & LTCUSD forex pairs, respectively.
The choice is auspicious, as it will provide representation to all three areas of the Crypto environment – let’s call them finance, legal and technical, for now.
Now, just a word on the difference between the various platforms and the coins they provide. Clearly, AvaTrade is enabling its clients to trade on the coins, not invest in the platforms, or – rather – the companies that are developing them.
Let’s take Stellar, the platform with which IBM has partnered to develop a cross border payments network. Here, as opposed to the case of forex trading, volatility is not a good thing. Stellar will provide a platform upon which several major banks have boarded as partners with IBM.
The currency associated with Stellar – the Lumens (XLM) – is the medium of exchange the system uses and is at present relatively volatile. Upon launch, 100 billion Lumens (at the time called Stellars) were issued – some going to seed investors, others to non-profit organizations.
At present, AvaTrade is phasing out its XLM assets and replacing them with XLMUSD currency pairs.
Another case-in-point is Ether, the token (where ‘token’ is defined as one thing representing another, in the case of a coin – a token for value) used on the Ethereum platform, will lose its volatility over time the more the Ethereum network is utilized as a platform for smart contracts – contracts which do not require a 3rd party, such as a lawyer and courts to administer.
With smart contracts, the if-then structure is inherent in the technology. A buyer will only receive payment upon the provision of a service – automatically; and the oversight is provided by the transparency of a shared ledger. Once again, AvaTrade is phasing out its Ethereum asset and replacing it with the ETHUSD currency pair.
Cryptos – a Yellow Bricked Road
As for the three new assets, NEOUSD, EOSUSD and MIOTAUSD, once again, the developing landscape is pushing for more assets to contend with the growing environment.
NEO trading is another platform where digital assets are managed using smart contracts; however here, the very management of the platform’s currency is subject to one such contract: upon release, 100 million NEOs were created in the original block (the Genesis Block), of which half were sold to investors and the rest to be released in accordance with a smart contract whose terms were clearly defined at the outset. Interestingly, the NEO tokens themselves generate a secondary currency – GAS
Without doubt, for the trader, the most interesting new asset to be introduced by AvaTrade is EOS. Slated to replace Ethereum, EOS promises to be able to process millions of transactions in a single second (compare that to the 10-minute waiting time for a Bitcoin-based transaction to be verified).
Thanks to its speed and scalability, there is little doubt that the smart contracts capabilities that are built atop the EOS architecture will be overutilized. At present, just the financial industry generates about 100,000 transactions every second!
But what makes EOS truly innovative is its architecture, which is structured as an operating system. What this means is open access to outside developers needing to create specific functions for their employers and clients.
And then, finally (for now), there’s IOTA – AvaTrade’s foray into the Internet of Things. Iota is a company that is creating a blockchain (they’re calling it an IOTA tangle) dedicated to machines – any digitally operated implement that can access (or be engineered to access) the internet (your air conditioner, for example, which could conceivable be operated by your smartphone and whose power usage could be uploaded directly to your electricity provider).
But it goes way beyond billing: imagine millions of refrigerators connected to hundreds of grids connected to dozens of power stations and the resulting potential efficiency.
Now imagine the medium of currency used by the platform – MIOTA (small change?) and suddenly, IA, crypto-technology and finance seem to converge – quite probably a worthwhile cause.
Facebooking the Future
And so, we return to the great unifier. It’s no great surprise that AvaTrade’s release comes on the heels of Facebook’s latest announcement.
The financial world is in the midst of a digital revolution that spans everything from shopping to investing, from finance to governance. And with Facebook, the stakes are high for a social platform that aims to become no less than a digital microcosm of the world-at-large.
Alongside its latest assets release, Ava has recently introduced three new platforms – AvaOptions, AvaTrade App and soon – a new web platform designed to make investment and trading accessible to nearly everybody.
All these are testament to the workings of an industry leader who cannot afford to stay behind and thus strives to be a leader in the forefront of the technological wave.
“These latest developments,” says AvaTrade CEO Daire Ferguson, “represent a challenge to the financial order, the political order and countries and states as we know them. We’re still at the early stages of a human revolution. But when that revolution comes, you can be sure that AvaTrade will be there to take its clients by their hands and through the gates.”
Meanwhile, traders can invest in the developments as they emerge on the ground floor and develop with them.
