Bank of America Says Solana Could Take Market Share From Ethereum, Become the Visa of the Crypto Ecosystem

January 16, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Solana could become the ‘Visa of crypto’: Bank of America

January 13, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Alkesh Shah

The Bank of America strategist stated that Solana is set to take a slice of Ethereum’s market share, due to its advantages of low transaction fees, scalability and ease of use.

Bank of America digital asset strategist Alkesh Shah has predicted that Ethereum competitor Solana could become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem” in a Jan 11 research note.

The Solana network launched in 2020, and has since grown into the fifth largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $47 billion. An order of magnitude faster than Ethereum, it has been used to settle over 50 billion transactions and mint over 5.7 million non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Critics however argue its speed comes at the cost of decentralization and reliability but Shah thinks the benefits outweigh the drawbacks:

"Its ability to provide high throughput, low cost and ease of use creates a blockchain optimized for consumer use cases like micropayments, DeFi, NFTs, decentralized networks (Web3) and gaming."

He went on to suggest that Solana is taking a slice of Ethereum’s market share due to its low fees, ease of use, and scalability while Ethereum may be relegated to “high-value transaction and identity, storage and supply chain use cases,” wrote Shah, as quoted by Business Insider

“Ethereum prioritizes decentralization and security, but at the expense of scalability, which has led to periods of network congestion and transaction fees that are occasionally larger than the value of the transaction being sent.”

Visa processes an average of 1,700 transactions per second (TPS), but the network can theoretically handle at least 24,000 TPS. Ethereum currently handles around 12 TPS on mainnet (more on layer twos), while Solana boasts a theoretical limit of 65,000 TPS.

Shah concedes that, "Solana prioritizes scalability, but a relatively less decentralized and secure blockchain has tradeoffs, illustrated by several network performance issues since inception."

Solana has experienced more than its fair share of network performance issues over the past months, such as withdrawal issues most recently confirmed by Binance on Jan 12, reports of delayed performance across social media on Jan 7 and what appeared to be a DDos attack on Jan 5, although Solana denied this was the case.

This came less than a month after a previous attack on Dec 10, with reports of network congestion caused by mass botting associated with an initial Dec offering (IDO) on Solana-based decentralized exchange platform, Raydium.

In an interview with Cointelegraph on Dec. 22, Austin Federa, head of communications at Solana Labs, said that developers are currently working to address the network’s issues, specifically in relation to improving transaction metering.

“Solana’s runtime is a new design. It doesn’t use EVM [Ethereum Virtual Machine] and a ton of innovation was done to ensure that users have the cheapest fees possible, but there’s still work to be done on the runtime.”

Bank of America Sees Massive Opportunity in Metaverse for Entire Crypto Ecosystem

December 2, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Bank of America Executive Sees Crypto as Asset Class: ‘I Don’t View It as Competition at All’

November 7, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Finance Redefined: MakerDAO goes green and BoA bullish on DeFi, Oct. 1–8

October 8, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bank of America

Mirror opens decentralized blogging to the public, a Bank of America report is bullish on DeFi, and MakerDAO considers climate initiatives.

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance, or DeFi, newsletter.

Blogging platform Mirror expanded to the public market this week. Read on to discover the impact of this move for Ethereum wallet holders.

What you’re about to read is a more succinct version of the newsletter. For a comprehensive summary of DeFi’s developments over the last week, subscribe below.

Mirror expands blockchain blogging to the public

Mirror, a decentralized publishing protocol focused on fostering data ownership and free expression, has this week expanded its platform to the public market for the first time.

In the previous version, a weekly voting competition using the platform’s native token, WRITE, determined an exclusive list of 10 content creators who could contribute to the platform.

With this announcement, anyone with an Ethereum wallet address can upload content to the site, as well as export blog posts from external sites such as Medium or Substack. These blogs can then be minted as “Entry Editions,” a nonfungible token feature allowing users to monetize their content.

“Mirror has evolved from a tool for writers to a full-stack web3 creative suite for communities and DAOs.”

Bank of America bullish on DeFi

A Bank of America subsidiary firm, BofA Securities, released an official report this week concluding its bullish prospects of digital assets, including the DeFi sector, for which it noted there is “significant value in the intermediate-term for DeFi DApps.” The report stated:

“Our view is that it’s unlikely DeFi will replace the traditional financial infrastructure soon, but its application technologies are likely to provide near-term efficiencies and increased transparency to existing firms especially in the areas of tokenization.”

In July 2021, Bank of America launched a crypto research team led by crypto and digital asset strategist Alkesh Shah, devoted to analyzing and assessing the cryptocurrency landscape, this report being the one of many the group has published since inception.

Assessing the markets from an analytical perspective, the report concluded that an excess of $17 billion was invested into the markets during the first half of 2021, a seismic growth from the $5.5 billion recorded during the same period last year.

MakerDAO plans to support climate change

MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen published a candid letter on Tuesday proposing alterations to the protocol’s activity, which will support climate change initiatives.

Changes could include the assurance that all collateral comprises “sustainable and climate-aligned assets that consider the long-term impacts of financial activity on the environment.”

Furthermore, Christensen stated that the project’s collateral should support investments in sustainable real-world assets including “solar farms, wind turbines, batteries, recharging stations and other cost-efficient renewable energy solutions, as well as their supply chains, sustainable resource extraction and recycling.”

In addition to this, Christensen expressed high expectations for Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake consensus, suggesting a return to deposit capabilities for collateral services solely in Ethereum.

Token performances

Analytical data reveals that DeFi’s total value locked has increased 12.97% across the week to a figure of $136.04 billion.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization performed positively across the last seven days.

Fantom (FTM) secured the podium’s top spot with an impressive 71.95%. Yearn.finance (YFI) came in a respectable second with 24.94%, while Terra (LUNA) bagged third with 22.51%. Fourth and fifth place were claimed by Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) and Mdex (MDX) with 22.23% and 21.65%, respectively.

Extra DeFi stories from the week:

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us again next Friday for more stories, insights and education in this dynamically advancing space.

Bank of America Thinks Digital Assets Will Impact Most Industries in the Coming Decades

October 6, 2021 The Daily Hodl

Bank of America identifies 20 high profile US companies with crypto exposure

October 6, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bank of America

These companies with crypto and digital assets exposure have stocks rated as “Buy” or “Neutral” by Bank of America.

Walt Disney, Fox Corporation, and JP Morgan are among a list of 20 publicly traded U.S. companies with some level of exposure to crypto and digital assets, based on data by Bank of America, or BofA.

According to a BofA report published on Monday, companies like Morgan Stanley, Signature Bank, and Warner Music Group also have some exposure to digital assets.

In all, the 20 firms identified by BofA have their stocks rated as either “Buy” or “Neutral” by America’s second-largest bank by assets under management.

As part of the report, BofA categorized these companies as seeking significant market value growth by interacting with digital assets.

According to a previous Cointelegraph report, BofA’s recently published document offered a bullish outlook for cryptocurrencies including nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and decentralized finance, or DeFi.

BofA also argued that the digital asset space could not be ignored for long and that decentralized technology will continue to permeate several aspects of human life.

“In the near future, you may use blockchain technology to unlock your phone; buy a stock, house or fraction of a Ferrari; receive a dividend; borrow, loan or save money; or even pay for gas or pizza,” an excerpt from the report reads.

However, BofA identified regulatory uncertainty as one of the biggest near-term hurdles for the nascent digital asset space.

Crypto laws continue to remain a focus of regulatory agencies around the world with a mixed bag of favorable and stringent measures being adopted by financial watchdog agencies across several jurisdictions.

In the U.S., several policymakers have called for more robust crypto regulations that critics say could stifle innovation in America. The banking giant also used the occasion of the report’s publishing to launch its digital asset research division. Indeed, back in July, Cointelegraph reported that BofA was gearing up to create a crypto research team.

Bank of America’s Crypto Research Debuts: Digital Assets Are ‘Too Large to Ignore’

October 5, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Bank of America offers bullish outlook for DeFi and NFTs

October 5, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bank of America

“[Crypto] is a trend that has barely started — money is the easiest application and the Bitcoin use case started there,” said Bank of America.

The Bank of America Corporation (BoA) has published a research report offering a bullish outlook for the long-term prospects of cryptocurrency.

The report, published on Oct. 4 by BoA subsidiary, BofA Securities, offers a nuanced appraisal of the digital asset sector that highlights innovation taking place within the decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) sectors.

The report asserts that the cryptocurrency sector’s $2.15 trillion market cap is “too large to ignore,” highlighting that the digital asset ecosystem has evolved to encompass “so much more” than just Bitcoin.

The report characterizes the sector as comprising “tokens that act like operating systems, decentralized applications (DApps) without middlemen, stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to replace national currencies, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) enabling connections between creators and fans,” adding:

“For us, digital assets are not about payments per se. They’re about a new computing paradigm – a programmable computer that is accessible everywhere and to anyone and owned by millions of people globally.”

The BofA report noted that venture capital in the crypto and blockchain sector has dramatically increased in 2021, noting that the more than $17 billion invested into the industry during the first half of this year is more than triple the $5.5 billion injected into the sector over the entirety of 2020.

The report also highlighted the recent surging rates of crypto adoption, estimating that as of 221 million users globally had traded cryptocurrency or used a blockchain application as of June 2021 — compared to 66 million in May of 2020.

“The applications built on this new software architecture appear to be growing more quickly than past technologies. [...] Anyone in a network can establish a process (application or project) that provides consistency and trust,” the report read.

Looking at NFTs, BoA states that the booming growth of the sector even caught veteran crypto users by surprise, highlighting that the OpenSea marketplace generated more than $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021.

However, the report warned of the volatility associated with the nascent NFT sector, stating that “heightened risks in this segment [...] need to be fully understood before NFTs can achieve true adoption.”

Bank of America Sees Long Road Ahead for Coinbase to Become the ‘Amazon of Crypto Assets’

August 16, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Bank of America

Mirror expands blockchain blogging to the public

Bank of America bullish on DeFi

MakerDAO plans to support climate change

Token performances

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