John Metais

By Pete Rizzo, Kraken Editor at Large
Pete Rizzo is a leading Bitcoin Historian and author of over 2,000 articles on cryptocurrency. He is also an Editor at Bitcoin Magazine.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Kraken or its management. This opinion is not investment advice.
Bitcoin – a computer science invention – is a world first that will never repeat
Bitcoin wasn’t created out of thin air. Decades of prior ...

The founder and CEO of Custodia Bank recently raised fears, and hopes of higher BTC prices, when she wrote that there was only a limited supply of bitcoin available for the fast-growing spot ETFs. Here’s what she got wrong, however.

The beginner’s guide to Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a revolutionary form of digital currency first proposed in 2008 by a person or group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto.

Unlike traditional currencies, Bitcoin is a digital asset and does not depend on central banks or governments. Instead, it operates as a completely decentralized system and stores activity on a digital database called the bitcoin ledger. This decentralization means that no single company or government can make decisions about how ...

Bitcoin’s reliance on energy is often misconstrued as a side effect of its design. On the contrary, it is an integral part of Bitcoin’s design.

One of the biggest criticisms of Bitcoin is that its network requires energy consumption to operate, contributing to the issue of climate change. However, this problem is a complex one. Although there are justifiable arguments against Bitcoin’s use of energy, there are also mitigating factors that must be considered.

In Proof of Stake networks, nodes,...

Web3 is a new iteration of the internet based on decentralized platforms and applications.

Since the early 2000s, the internet has flourished around large corporations. A small handful – such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon – have outsized market shares in a broad range of categories such as online search and social media. Their market dominance has led these companies to be colloquially referred to as walled gardens.

The launch of Bitcoin in 2009 enabled individuals to engage in peer-...

Welcome to the world of cryptocurrencies, an exciting and dynamic realm that has the potential to transform the way we interact with money, technology, and even each other.

Cryptocurrencies have captured global attention, presenting everyone with new opportunities and practical applications. However, with over 20,000 cryptocurrencies, understanding the differences between them can be overwhelming for newcomers and seasoned enthusiasts alike.

The beginner’s guide
Bitcoin mining is the process of validating new Bitcoin transactions before adding them to the Bitcoin blockchain.
With traditional government-issued currencies like the U.S. dollar or euro, users are required to place complete trust in a centralized authority – such as a central bank – to manage the creation and circulation of money.
Within such fiat systems, all information regarding user accounts and balances is privately managed by financial institutions. As such, it’...

Most investors do not have a huge amount of capital at hand to invest, and even if they did, they would consider it unwise to place it all in the market, and risk losing it.
To mitigate this problem, many investors and traders use the so-called dollar-cost averaging (DCA) investment strategy. With dollar-cost averaging, the investor periodically buys an amount of crypto corresponding to a fixed amount of fiat – for instance buying $1000-worth of BTC each month. But does this strategy actually...

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Bitcoin Price
Check the current bitcoin price on Kraken to help inform your bitcoin investment.
Bitcoin Price
$26,2...

When it comes to trading and investing, market analysis is crucial. If analysis is not done as it should be, all the investments and trades conducted are merely gambling. That is where technical and fundamental analysis come into play.
Although thorough analysis does not guarantee profits, it definitely goes a long way towards eliminating emotion-based investment decisions. Not only that, it implements a measure of rationality in an ever-volatile market environment.
When it comes to market an...

Liquidity describes the ease with which an asset can be bought or sold for cash.
The liquidity of an asset exists on a spectrum with more liquid assets being easier and more efficient to convert into cash than less liquid assets.
Cash is considered the most liquid asset since it is used as a medium of exchange for all other assets. However, there exists a liquidity spectrum for various currencies as well, with the US dollar being the most liquid currency as it is held in reserve by many centr...

Market capitalization, also known as “market cap”, is the measure of the total value of an asset, company, or cryptocurrency. This allows investors and traders to determine the current size of a company or token relative to the rest of the market.
The market cap of an asset is calculated by multiplying the current market price of an asset by the total number of shares (or tokens) available. In other words:
Market cap = price x circulating supply
Using Bitcoin as an example, in September 2022,...

Many would contend that Bitcoin is the most important invention since the Internet's inception in 1983. Despite its nascency, Bitcoin has some limitations that have hitherto hampered mass adoption, including scalability and privacy concerns. Historically, optimizing Bitcoin's protocol has been a continuous process of exploring new ideas amongst community members to reach a consensus. However, achieving a consensus is onerous and infrequent because there has been significant controversy amongst Bitcoin's vast and diverse user base about how Bitcoin should evolve...

Derivatives are financial instruments that are contracts detailing the trade of underlying assets like stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies.
Shares of stock (like Apple’s AAPL) are valuable because of the real or potential profitability of the companies they represent. Currencies (like the US dollar or Euro) are valuable because they are backed by the governments and economies of their respective countries. Commodities (like corn, wheat, and oil) are valuable because they are useful and...

Arbitrage is the practice of profiting from the differences in asset prices across multiple markets.
Traders have many tools in their toolbox—some are more familiar to retail traders than others. They may buy and sell stocks, bonds, commodities, fiat currencies, or cryptocurrencies. Some use derivatives like options or futures to apply leverage and increase their ability to profit. They may also use analysis of charts to trade based on patterns. However, a popular strategy used by hedge funds...