The world's most used stablecoin, Tether, has recently become the first stablecoin to be issued on the Algorand network. Additionally, Algorand cemented its position as a network which could challenge the Ethereum network in 2020. The crypto news showed that Tether has an estimated daily trading volume of 40 to 64 billion and recently announced that they will be partnering with Algorand. Traders will now have the option to use the USD-backed stablecoin on the Omni, Ethereum, Tron, EOS and Algorand blockchains. Regarding this collaboration and the fact that Algorand cements its position this year as an ETH challenger, the CTO of Tether Paolo Ardoino said:

“A key strength of Tether is that it is underpinned by a rich diversity of different blockchains. Our latest collaboration with Algorand leverages the speed and security of Algorand’s protocol to give traders fast settlement and reduced counterparty risk in their fiat to digital asset transactions. Tether and Algorand both share a desire to keep building next-generation financial products and we feel our growing customer base will appreciate and benefit greatly from this collaboration.”

Led by a Turing award winner named Silvio Micali, Algorand is a public, permissionless and proof-of-stake blockchain that is currently working on creating a borderless global economy. The inherent design and architecture is how Algorand cemented itself from the competition, easily conducting 1000 transactions per second and a block production time of 5 seconds per block. In comparison, the Ethereum latest news show that Ethereum manages less than 25 transactions per second and has a block production time of 15 seconds. All in all, Algorand is on a good way to provide a highly scalable platform for Tether to function at its maximum capacity. On the other hand, the network can leverage Tether's immense popularity to attract more users and institutions to its platform. This won't only increase the platform's usage - it will also bring in more developers and applications as well. While Algorand cements itself as a direct competitor to Ethereum, Tether (USDT) is also moving up and recently become the latest high profile project to collaborate with Algorand. The native token of Algorand, ALGO, has meanwhile been accepted on many major exchanges in the likes of Binance, CoinBasePRO, Huobi, Kraken and several others.

Rarible, the blockchain-based art platform had one of its artists, Karan Singh, notifying the platform that some of his work was fraudulently listed. The issue was resolved quickly but the NFT space has started discussing the crypto regulation issues and how to prevent these incidents from happening in the future as we are reading in the crypto news today. The primary goal behind the Rarible blockchain platform is to tokenize the works of digital art is that the tokens are visible on the blockchain. The creator and the points of sale can be tracked over the life of the work. The hosting platforms such as Rarible, will mint the tokens using Ethereum and other competitors in the space including SuperRare and KnownOrigin. Once an artist uploads the work and the work gets created to a tradeable ERC721, the artists can then auction the piece so the buyers take solace in the token and trust that they are the true owners of the digital creation. However, with the latest fraud case, this trust was breached. Karan Singh who worked with Apple reported a fraudulent copy of its work on the blockchain-platform: “This is actually my work,” he tweeted, linking to his Instagram account. “And so are all of these. [Take] them down.” Another user that pretended to be Singh, had sourced the work of the artist and placed them on sale at Rarible according to the co-founder of Rarible, Ilya Komolkin. Komolkin banned the impersonator and asked the holders to burn all of the tokens that they had minted including Singh’s work. The German artist Mario Klingemann also helped to identify the fraud after having bought the work. After the announcement, he urged the buyers to burn their tokens too. The platform mitigated much of the issue and Singh’s fast response helped to keep the fraud under relative wraps and prevented the imposter from making tons of money. Since then, members of the NFT community have posed various solutions to prevent such events from happening in the future. In Singh’s, the stakes were low because he caught the fraudster quickly. If he hadn’t arrived when he did, the fraudster could have easily made money.

HotBTC, a new cryptocurrency exchange with ICO cryptocurrency focus, has just been launched and is considered to be the best place for ICO listings, new tokens, trading, blog writing, and profit-sharing as we are reading more in the latest cryptocurrency news today. The crypto investors and traders now have another perfect place where they can trade crypto as the new HotBTC exchange was launched recently. It is fast, secure and is built with the latest technologies so it is perfect for ICO cryptocurrency listings. The platform makes it easy for users to find an exclusive page where they can browse and select ICOs based on the sector or keywords so they can even check out pre- ICO listings, upcoming ICO cryptocurrency or past projects. Airdrops have an exclusive section which will show start and end dates displayed along with the description. The first 100 ICO listings are free and there will be ZERO trading fees for the first 30 days. HotBTC is a place where the investors of the world and traders can trade coin services, purchase Ether or Bitcoin at the lowest prices and check out upcoming ICOs. The trading is instant and the withdrawals are automated. Ronak Tejani from the exchange commented:

“HotBTC has a dedicated focus on listing ICOs, making it a unique trading platform that will be welcomed by the crypto community all over the world. As an exchange, it also offers great features like lightning-fast trades, no hidden fees, and industry-standard security.’’

Trading speeds at the newly launched HotBTC are extremely fast and the token prices get updated every 60 seconds. The users can build a new crypto portfolio with multiple layers of protection and can benefit from the account monitoring, wallet management and full authority on withdrawals and deposits. HotBTC has other amazing features such as profit sharing and has a 50 percent revenue sharing scheme on the profits with qualified users. The qualified traders can become partners and can even receive dividends in BTC. HotBTC has been launched recently and aims to fulfill the wishes and desires of the crypto community, traders, crypto project owners, ICO cryptocurrency ideas and anyone else that is interested in the great future of the cryptocurrencies.

 Algorand 2.0 version, officially unveiled a set of new features to its pure-proof-of-stake network for which we are reading more in the Algorand news today. The newest set of technical innovation by the emerging “frictionless finance” network, the upgrade incorporates the official commissioning of smart contracts on the network, together with the Algorand Standard Assets, or ASA and atomic transfers. Algorand started off with an explosion through its %60 million initial coin offering, which led to its overhyped technology upgrade- Algorand 2.0. With the launch of 2.0, Algorand is increasing the technical capacities of its protocol on pace with its list of formidable partners. A Аlgorand finished 2019 with major projects underway, such as the launch of a hybrid initial public offering by World Chess, Algorand working with Fondazione Bordoni for the Italian government, the International Blockchain Monetary Reserve launching a microfinance platform for Southeast Asia on Algorand, a Sharia-compliant certification from Dubai, and $60 million in real estate tokenized on the Algorand blockchain by AssetBlock. In the public sector, the new partnership between Algorand with Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, or FUB, in Milan to explore the potential economic and technical impact of the Algorand’s protocol on developing the “trust infrastructure” of Italy. Mirella Liuzzi, under-secretary of State of Ministry of Economic Development stated:

 “The signing of the agreement between the FUB and the Algorand Foundation, signed at the Milan meeting of the European Blockchain Partnership of which Italy is co-president, once again confirms the international role assumed by our country on the subject and the attention of the MiSE towards emerging technologies such as the Blockchain also through the promotion of technical-scientific synergies on the subject.”

Going into the future, 2020 will, in the end, prove as an essential year for the “Blockchain Wars” romanticized by Gavin Wood. Only the time will show if Algorand and the similar public blockchain networks can conquer something of the market share of Ethereum before the pending release of the Serenity upgrade of Ethereum. Algorand 2.0 is a compelling start to serving the mainstream world, as opposed to serving only the cryptocurrency world, and at the very least it should poke the interest of developers in the decentralized finance sphere searching to expand the pioneering of the developing open finance movement of Ethereum.