For most average investors, cryptocurrency is still a strange concept. Because crypto and blockchain technologies have so many technical features, there is a rising demand for experts in the cryptocurrency field who can educate investors on the fundamentals.

This could take the shape of day-to-day crypto trading, researching various currencies, or simply offering general market comments.

Blockchain Backer is one of several gurus in the burgeoning cryptocurrency social media sector. Less well known than more popular crypto gurus like Anthony Pompliano, who has been on [CNBC's](https://www.cnbc.com/world/?region=world) Mad Money with Jim Cramer, Blockchain Backer's prominence on Twitter and YouTube is growing. But who's the blockchain expert, and should you pay attention to what he says?

This article looks at a crypto market analyst, a blockchain backer.

## Who is Blockchain Backer?

Charles Shrem is an American entrepreneur, Bitcoin advocate, and popular industry technical analyst. Blockchain Backer is a crypto analyst who discusses the future of the market. His YouTube account has more than 122,000 subscribers, compared with Anthony Pompliano's 162,000. Although there are broader cryptocurrency networks, such as Coin Bureau, Blockchain Backer is now the most popular crypto influencer due to the number of subscribers.

Blockchain Backer even uses his Twitter account to share his market insights. Plus, he uses his website to sell his course on how to understand the cryptocurrency markets from a technical standpoint. His primary focus is on identifying strong crypto exit chances and knowing when to cash out.

In 2011 he became a co-founder of the now non-operational startup company BitInstant. He was a founding member of the Bitcoin Foundation and previously served as vice-chairman. Shrem's investment in cryptocurrency includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, and Zcash. He is an early investor in BitPay, Kraken, Purse.io, and ShapeShift.

Shrem founded Unikrn with Rahul Sood in 2014 to provide online betting platforms for competitive video gaming. He was, in December 2014, sentenced to two years in prison for helping to operate an unlicensed money transfer business linked with the Silk Road marketplace. He was set free from federal prison in 2016. A year later, he became a partner of Barry Silbert's Digital Currency Group, which launched a new crypto investment fund known as CryptoIQ. 

### Blockchain Backer featured videos of his interview with Jim Cramer 

Blockchain Backer featured his conversation between Jim Cramer, CNBC's Mad Money host, and Anthony Pompliano in recent Youtube videos. In one video, he said that he believed the present Bitcoin uptrend was nearing its peak.

## Blockchain Backer outlook on Crypto Market 

### What's the current state of the cryptocurrency market?

Blockchain Backer: The current state of the cryptocurrency market is quite interesting. It's matured. There was a time when it was completely immature and there were lots of scams, but now we're seeing more institutional money coming in and people who want to create value in this space. It's not just a bunch of noobs with no experience who are trying to make a quick buck, although they still exist, they're not as prevalent as they were before. I think it's good for the industry.

### Would you say that bitcoin has become mainstream now?

Blockchain Backer: Bitcoin is mainstream now; bitcoin is bigger than ever before. The price may, or it may not be, higher than ever before, but that's not necessarily the real metric here - it depends on how much value is being transferred around through bitcoin, and bitcoin is being used more and more every day by everyone: big companies like Microsoft and Dell; regular eCommerce stores; individuals all over the world are using bitcoin to transfer money to each other quickly, cheaply, safely and anonymously.

### What are your thoughts on the current status of ICOs?

Blockchain Backer: It's still an unclear regulatory environment, but there is a lot more certainty now than there was a few years ago. The SEC is taking legal action against many fraudulent ICOs, and this trend will continue to grow as they crack down on bad actors in the space.

More [Blockchain news](/news/category/blockchain-news).


Who is Blockchain Backer? Meet the Rising Star

The Terra ecosystem has experienced substantial growth in 2021, with December, in particular, being a fruitful month. While the crypto market suffered greatly in December owing to several reasons, the Terra ecosystem and LUNA and UST, in particular, grew from strength to strength.

With over $18 billion in total value locked (TVL), Terra is the second-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem behind only Ethereum – this is a testament to the project's core values and applications. It is no wonder that I'm optimistic about Lunaverse, a metaverse built on the Terra blockchain. 

## What is Lunaverse?

Powered by Terra, Cesium and Aerometrex 3D models, Lunaverse is a digital world built on the Terra ecosystem. The Lunaverse economy starts with Lunaverse 1.0, which is based in San Francisco. 

The project is currently heading into the initial DEX offering (IDO) stage. At Lunaverse, you can own, develop, rent and sell buildings as NFTs. Building owners can determine whether they want to generate a solid annual percentage yield (APY) or sell/rent building levels. 

For example, if you own a building with 50 levels, you can receive an APY for the NFT building as a whole or derive an additional 50 NFTs by selling/renting out building-level NFTs. 

Jaw-dropping Aerometrex 3D imagery guarantees a visually appealing experience. NFT buildings will be released in stages and factors like traffic and location will increase the future demand for positioning of key gameplay locations, rewards, virtual business and advertising. 
  
A range of cities are on the cards for Lunaverse and gameplay may include secret scouting missions, special mining activities and travel adventures.

More [Metaverse news](/news/category/metaverse-news).


Lunaverse – Next Great Crypto Metaverse Project?

There is one cryptocurrency you may not have heard of but is sure to make a big splash in 2022 and beyond. 

Hedera Hashgraph describe themselves as a third generation cryptocurrency platform which uses Direct Acyclic Graph technology instead of the regular blockchain often associated with Bitcoin and Ethereum. What this means is that Hedera Hashgraph can process 1000’s more transactions at lightening speeds at little to no cost and with Smart Contracts about to be launched on the platform you can expect to hear much more about Hedera Hashgraph in the weeks to come.

## An enterprise grade network platform for Web 3.0 and beyond

The brainchild of Dr Leemon Baird, Hedera Hashgraph is currently the most used, sustainable enterprise led public network allowing businesses and individuals to create decentralised applications (dApps) on the market today. The platform has been designed to be fairer and more efficient therefore circumnavigating some of the issues faced by more traditional networks on offer today. The statistics speak for themselves - 

![Hedera.png](https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/prod-monitalks-media/Hedera_4c863a7992.png)

Funded through an ICO in August debate and decide 2018 Hedera went live in September 2019 and to date almost 50% of its 50 billion native tokens (HBAR) are in circulation. HBAR is the fuel that powers the Hedera network allowing users to access a myriad of Web 3.0 applications such as smart contracts, file storage and more general transactional services. With rumours of HBAR staking becoming available to the public soon 2022 is shaping up to be quite a year for Hedera Hashgraph.

## Gossip about gossip

What sets Hedera apart from some of its competitors is its gossip protocol. In short, this unique network structure ensures that nodes only have to confirm the most minimum details passed to them from the previous nodes. This then of course ensures lightning-fast transaction times and much lower costs than competitors.

Like Ethereum the Hedera Hashgraph is responsible to a Governing Council of members which support the decentralised aims of the project via the management of network nodes as well as participating in governance rights. With companies as large as Boeing, Google, LG, Avery Denison and IBM already on the council it is easy to see why Hedera has such a promising future.

## Super-fast speeds and little to no cost

As I mentioned earlier, Hedera Hashgraph does not use a conventional blockchain model and instead relies on a Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG) framework which many cite as the third incarnation of the blockchain. Essentially a Proof of Stake network at heart the main difference between DAG network and traditional Proof of Stake models is the ability to scale and provide extremely fast transactions at little to no cost.

The average transaction fee on Hedera is $0.0001 and finality (completion) is reached in under 5 seconds. As the above table shows Hedera has the ability to process 10,000 transactions per second which when compared to a Proof of Work model shows there is just no comparison, that being said, is it any wonder some of the world’s biggest names have chosen to become Hedera Governing Council members?

## Crypto as software not an alternative to money

The main use cases for the Hedera network cover the all the major markets in crypto today. The Hedera platform is able to -

•	Provide a token service allowing users to mint NFTs with just a few lines of code.

•	Provide a consensus service which acts as a layer of trust for any application built upon it.

•	Allow developers to build DApps through the integration of smart contracts.

•	Provide users with a decentralised file service facility.

Just last Friday, Google Cloud announced their plans to provide cloud file storage solutions to the crypto industry in particular to Hedera, Theta and Dapper Labs. The fact that Google is a Hedera governing council member underlines how much interest both parties have invested in providing the network platforms of the future. 

Famed celebrity ‘Shark Tank’ investor Kevin O’Leary recently stated crypto has evolved into software rather than an alternative form of money although it has to be said many people understood this from day one. O’Leary said of Hedera “Great team, good engineers. What’s the economic premise that would keep that growing? Boeing want a quasi-centralised/decentralised platform, they want the best of both worlds. HBAR can deliver that, check the box 


Hedera Hashgraph: Best performer of 2022?

The politicians in the all-American state of Texas are rapidly turning pro-[Bitcoin](/coins/btc).  For years, cryptocurrency advocates have been in the ear of the state governor, Greg Abbott, hoping to convince him that crypto mining, and the intensive demand that the mining process puts on electricity, is the perfect way to modernise and fool-proof the southern state’s existing power grid.  Frankly, nothing is being left off the table in terms of what the state is willing to do to strengthen its electrical infrastructure after three severe winter storms cascaded over the state in February 2021 causing the [worst energy infrastructure failure in the state’s history. ](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00267-y)

 More than 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without power, some for several days, and nearly 240 people lost their lives, either directly or indirectly because of the crisis.

## Demand on Electrical Supplies

In the fall of 2021, the Texas governor convened his local cryptocurrency brain trust for a shindig in the city of Austin where they discussed the possibility of making Texas the new capital of cryptocurrency’s mining industry. The concept behind what some are calling ‘pure madness’ is that the massive configuration of the miners’ technical infrastructure would place such a crazy demand on the state’s electrical supply., Surely an aspiring entrepreneur would be attracted to the opportunity and come to the state to erect more physical power plants - a core component of the mining plan that the state is sorely lacking. The fail-safe would be that if the electrical supply begins to wane, as it did in February of 2021, crypto miners would dutifully, and temporarily, power down their mining operations so that the state could hypothetically ‘catch its breath‘ and conserve electricity for the state’s residents and business owners.  

So far, two prominent Bitcoin miners have stepped up to say they would be willing to adhere to such a plan.

## The New Mecca of Crypto Mining Rig

Talk, as they say, is cheap.  Even in a state as red-white-and-blue as Texas.  The state’s leadership might be more inclined to move forward with the plan if they have more than verbal assurances that the cryptocurrency mining community would promise to “down their computers”, just because someone wearing a hard hat in some remotely located power plant asked them to do so.  For the governor’s part though, Abbot seems optimistic that the miners will be true to their word, and there are presently swaths of bitcoin mining components and computers that are en route from China to make Texas the new Mecca of the world’s cryptocurrency mining operations.  

“We have launched our first bitcoin mine in downtown Fort Worth, which will be a showpiece for our larger mine located right outside the city,” said Caleb Ward, the co-founder of Geosyn Mining.

Critics are afraid that crypto mining will consume more energy than the state can adequately provide and regulate.   The subject is likely to remain a hot-button issue with voters as the Texas governor intends to make courting the Bitcoin industry a highlight of his re-election campaign in 2022.


Texas to Become World’s New Capital for Crypto Mining Rig

If 2020 was a breakthrough year for decentralised finance (DeFi), 2021 established DeFi as the hottest sphere in the crypto space. Yes, non-fungible tokens [(NFTs)](/news/category/nft-news/) and metaverse & gaming tokens have a charm of their own but DeFi is the only hero of this story. 

To put it into perspective, at the start of last year, DeFi protocols had a total-value locked (TVL) of $18.71 billion – this grew to an astonishing $250 billion by the end of the year and currently stands at $235.81 billion. The essence of technology is evolution and this year, we will see DeFi take the next step in its unprecedented rise.

Instrumental Finance is DeFi’s solution to a cross-layer, cross-chain future.

## The future of DeFi is in the hands of Instrumental Finance

Incubated by Composable Labs, [Instrumental Finance will correct a fundamental flaw](https://www.instrumental.finance/) in the DeFi industry – siloing due to a lack of interoperability between layer 2 ecosystems and the applications that use them. Yield farmers look for the best opportunities to maximize returns on provided liquidity. 

At the moment, a lack of interoperability between layer 2 protocols translates to several inefficiencies, including high costs and complexities. A cross-layer, cross-chain solution could help liquidity providers (LPs) tap into the potential for yield across different layers and chains. 

## How it works

Instrumental Finance provides a chain- and layer-agnostic solution for LPs that are looking to maximize returns on the liquidity they provide on various layer one and layer two protocols. The protocol streamlines the process of liquidity provision and yield generation. All you have to do is deposit funds into the Instrumental Vault.

Your funds will be deposited into the highest yield-generating pool available, irrespective of the layer or protocol it is on. It is as simple as that. If we dive into more detail, the protocol leverages Composable Finance’s cross-layer asset swapping tool, the Mosaic Bridge. 

The Mosaic Bridge integrates several chains and layer two solutions to provide users the flexibility to freely transfer assets and maximize returns on their liquidity. STRM, Instrumental Finance’s native token, powers the platform. 

## Staking

Currently, you can participate in the staking program. If you stake ETH-STRM LP tokens for a locking period of 3 months, you will receive an annual percentage yield (APY) of 217.53%. Over $1.13 million has been locked already – you are definitely not late!

If you partook in the Instrumental Liquidity Rush Program (ended on Dec. 31), you can lock your STRM rewards to receive veSTRM tokens and revenue share.

Instrumental Finance: the next DeFi generation

Fantom (FTM) crypto is an open source, layer-1, Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain that can execute smart contracts. Fantom’s PoS consensus mechanism, Lachesis, permits transactions to be speedy, secure and scalable. The crypto asset had a successful year, to say the least. At this time last year, Fantom was trading at just over $0.02 and is currently trading at $2.75.

Fantom provides exceptional security and is highly scalable. With a market cap of just under $7 billion, you may think I am crazy to say (well, write) that FTM is still undervalued. The thing is, I believe the whole Fantom decentralised app (dApp) ecosystem is undervalued. 

## DeFi on Fantom should fare well in 2022

On 30 August 2021, the Fantom Foundation announced a 370 million FTM incentive program for protocol builders on Fantom. If you sustain and increase your total value locked (TVL) on Fantom, they will reward you. It is no wonder that there are currently 110 projects building on Fantom, with a TVL of almost $5.7 billion. 

Yet, if we compare Fantom DeFi apps to their Ethereum, [Binance](https://www.binance.com/en) Smart Chain (BSC) and Avalanche counterparts in terms of market cap/TVL, you will see that they are trading at a relative discount (TVL). 

Source: [Twitter](https://twitter.com/JackNiewold)

If we take [Ethereum](/news/category/ethereum-news-today) for example, Spookyswap, Hector Dao, Geist and Spiritswap are direct copies of their Ethereum counterparts, yet are undervalued. 

Source: [Twitter](https://twitter.com/JackNiewold)

We are looking at an average undervaluation of 20%, with Spookyswap being the most undervalued dApp. The 370 million war chest is worth roughly $1 billion in today’s market and should play a humongous role in correcting the ecosystem’s undervaluation. Fantom could quite easily scale to a $30 billion market cap in 2022.   
Go find the next [Fantom DeFi gem](https://defillama.com/chain/Fantom) today!



Latest Moni

Latest Blockchain News | Page 9

Read the latest blockchain news from around the world.

Who is Blockchain Backer? Meet the Rising Star

Lunaverse – Next Great Crypto Metaverse Project?

Hedera Hashgraph: Best performer of 2022?

Texas to Become World’s New Capital for Crypto Mining Rig

Instrumental Finance: the next DeFi generation

Is Fantom (FTM) an Undervalued Crypto?

Zipmex Gets 3-Month Creditor Protection

Reddit Crypto Exchange Partnership with FTX

Polkadot blockchain and altcoin explained