Bitcoin and USD share a “symbiotic” relationship: BPI Director
USD-pegged stablecoins and Bitcoin (BTC) share a “symbiotic” relationship, jointly benefiting from increased adoption, according to Sam Lyman, Head of Research at the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI), a Washington, DC-based advocacy group for digital assets.
“Bitcoin benefits the U.S. system because the largest Bitcoin trading pair is BTC/USD,” or Tether’s USD-pegged stablecoin USDt (USDT), which is backed by U.S. government cash deposits and short-term Treasury bills, Lyman told Cointelegraph.
He said that Bitcoin and USD-pegged stablecoins have a similar relationship to the U.S. dollar and oil. Under the petrodollar system, which began in the early 1970s, international oil transactions are priced in USD, thereby driving demand for the currency.
Crypto faces a “death-and-life” token issue as supply grows faster than value creation
The rapid growth in the number of crypto tokens is outpacing the value they generate, creating a “death-and-life” problem for the industry, according to Michael Ippolito, co-founder of Blockworks.
In a series of posts on X, Ippolito noted that while total crypto market capitalization remains relatively stable, the average value per token tells a different story. “The average value of a coin is only slightly higher than in 2020 (!) and down about 50% since 2021,” he wrote.
Median token profits have also clearly deteriorated. Most tokens are down roughly 80% from their peaks, suggesting that the upside has been concentrated in a small group of large-cap assets, while the rest of the market has been performing worse, Ippolito said.
He argued that this imbalance appears to stem from a surge in token supply. “We’ve created A VERY LARGE number of new assets while total market capitalization IS STILL FLAT,” he wrote, adding that this dynamic is essentially diluting value across an ever-expanding set of tokens.
Telegram co-founder says the Iran ban backfired
Pavel Durov, co-founder of the Telegram messaging app, said the Iranian government’s ban on Telegram backfired due to technical workarounds such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and similar tools.
A VPN hides a user’s online IP address, allowing them to get around national firewalls and access blocked content.
Despite the Iranian government’s ban, the Telegram app has been downloaded by more than half of the country’s population, Durov claimed. He said:
“The government hoped its surveillance messaging apps would be widely adopted, but instead it got widespread adoption of VPNs. Now, more than 50 million members of the resistance forces in Iran are connected with more than 50 million more people in Russia.”
Decentralized and encrypted messaging platforms, along with blockchain technology, could serve as a lifeline for individuals amid increasing government surveillance and restrictions, supporters said.
