About 83.7% of those surveyed by Luno in a recent study believe the price of bitcoin will rise significantly in the next few months. In fact, 59.4% of the more bullish respondents are expecting the leading crypto to rise to as much as $100,000.

Bullish Beyond Bitcoin

These are the findings of Luno’s Q3 Customer Sentiment Survey that was conducted between August 20 and September 20. A total of 1,870 customers of Luno cryptocurrency exchange from South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the U.K. participated in the study.

Aside from bitcoin, study participants were also asked to share their thoughts about the prospects of altcoins like ETH, XRP and BCH. As the study findings suggest, many of the respondents across the four countries are similarly bullish on altcoins as well.

South Africans Less Bullish on ETH

However, it would appear that Luno customers in the U.K. and Malaysia are more bullish on such cryptos as ETH than their counterparts in South Africa. The exchange’s blog explains:

“While 64.5% of our South African users are most optimistic about bitcoin, ethereum is second at 55.4%, followed by XRP (28.6%), bitcoin cash (25.9%) and litecoin (17.8%). Meanwhile, although Malaysian and British customers both share strong enthusiasm for bitcoin, they’re most optimistic about ethereum. Nearly 70% of Malaysian customers are feeling optimism for ethereum, with 75% of investors in Great Britain sharing the same sentiment.”

Concerning customers’ understanding of cryptocurrencies as a long-term investment, the study found that 38% of respondents intend to hodl their investments. While 28% of the respondents do consider themselves day traders, the blog still concludes that “the idea of bitcoin as something you’re in the long haul for seems to have certainly taken root.”

While a number of popular crypto-assets like bitcoin have been consolidating, decentralized finance (defi) tokens have captured significant gains during the last 24 hours. A few defi crypto assets have seen double-digit gains and the leader of the pack is Uniswap which has jumped 20.9% in the last 24 hours.

Uniswap’s Defi Token Leads the Percentage Gains on Sunday

Decentralized finance (defi) tokens are making waves during Sunday’s crypto trading sessions, as a dozen defi tokens have seen better gains than most of today’s well known digital assets.

While bitcoin (BTC) has risen 2% today and ethereum (ETH) is up over 3%, crypto tokens like uniswap (UNI) and sushi (SUSHI) have seen double-digit gains. Uni has jumped over 20% during the last day while SUSHI is up 15.6%.

Both UNI and SUSHI are followed by coins like maker (MKR) up 11.5%, ftx token (FTT) up 10.6% today, and chainlink (LINK) which has risen 10.3% on Sunday. Uniswap (UNI) has a $12.1 billion market valuation today and around $1.1 billion in global trade volume.

FTT has a market valuation of around $6.8 billion and $869 million in global trades. LINK’s market cap on Sunday is $11.4 billion with $1.8 billion in 24-hour trade volume. UNI, SUSHI, FTT, and LINK are followed by celer network (CELR), okb (OKB), theta fuel (TFUEL), and serum (SRM) respectively.

Defi Total Value Locked Spikes 6% in 2 Weeks, Terra’s 7-Day Defi TVL Surges

On September 10, 2021, metrics from defillama.com indicated that the aggregate total value locked (TVL) in def across a myriad of chains was around $163 billion. On Sunday, September 26, the aggregate total value locked in defi is $174.39 billion which is an increase of 6.987% in just over two weeks.

In the past 24 hours, the entire defi TVL has increased by roughly 0.74%. The platform Curve.fi dominates the pack of decentralized apps (dapps) that make up the entire defi TVL with 7.78% of the aggregate.

As far as the defi TVL on Ethereum there’s $124.31 billion on September 26, which is an increase of 2.53% in a single day. However, the Ethereum defi TVL during the course of the trailing seven days has shed 5.76%. The Binance Smart Chain (BSC) TVL on Sunday is roughly $15.92 billion and up 0.05% today.

Seven-day stats show BSC has lost 13.57% of the blockchain’s TVL held in defi. Solana (SOL) has seen a weekly dip in TVL as well, losing 12.27% of its TVL value in seven days with an aggregate total of around $8.83 billion. Terra has seen a seven-day increase as it jumped 7.30% to $8.51 billion.

While there’s a lot of hype surrounding digital currencies like bitcoin, a great number of people are still confused by the crypto economy and the myriad crypto assets that exist. One study shows that some people think Ethereum is a drug, while others think Cardano is a cheese.

Traders of Crypto Surveys Hundreds of Britons, Researchers Parse 12 Months of Crypto Query Data

A recent study published by the researchers at tradersofcrypto.com combed through the most-searched questions that could be entered into Google Keyword Planner in order “to discover how many searches each question received.”

The researchers scanned data over the last 12 months using results from the U.S. and U.K. to rank the most-asked questions to the least. The results produced a data set which attempts to explain “the most common cryptocurrency questions.”

Tradersofcrypto.com’s researchers also surveyed “hundreds of members of the British public” to get the answers to the crypto questions. The statistics show that less than 1 in 4 individuals think that a cryptocurrency will ever become legal tender. “The vast majority of the British public were unconvinced, with 75.7% responding “no.”

The ones that did believe crypto could become legal tender assumed it would happen over the next decade. “The largest portion of ‘yes’ responders (9.8%) believed that this would happen in as little as five years’ time,” the study notes.

The researcher’s study continues by adding that despite the recent bull run, 64.6% of those polled did not believe crypto was a “safe investment.” 22% have “no idea” what crypto is and 21% replied that crypto assets are “digital currency,” “online money,” or “virtual money.”

“1 in 4 have no idea what Dogecoin is,” the study details. “1 in 2 admit they’re not sure what Binance Coin is.” The research report adds:

3.6% of survey respondents believe that Cardano is a cheese or alcoholic drink. 3.4% of survey respondents believe Ethereum is a drug.

Close to a Billion Searches for the Term Cryptocurrency, Interest in Crypto Is Booming

The researchers further explain that across 12 months in the U.K. and U.S. there have been approximately 9,269,000 searches for “cryptocurrency.”

The study revealed the most searched phrase with the term was “best cryptocurrency” with 502,200 searches, followed by “what cryptocurrency to mine” and “how to buy cryptocurrency,” with 406,000 and 306,540 respectively.

“Questions about crypto experienced significant increases in search volume across the board,” the study concludes. “This booming interest in the crypto market suggests that cryptocurrency is turning more mainstream than ever, and will become a staple of the future investment landscape.”

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank, has formally approved two companies to provide crypto services. One is the brokerage arm of DBS, the largest bank in Singapore and Southeast Asia. The other is Independent Reserve, a crypto exchange and OTC trading desk.

Singapore’s Central Bank Formally Approves DBS and Independent Reserve

DBS Bank announced Friday that its brokerage arm, DBS Vickers (DBSV), “has received formal approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) under the Payment Services Act 2019 to provide digital payment token services as a Major Payment Institution.”

The bank explained: “This will enable DBSV, as a member of DBS Digital Exchange (Ddex), to directly support asset managers and companies to trade in digital payment tokens through Ddex.”

Eng-Kwok Seat Moey, head of Capital Markets at DBS and chair of the DBS Digital Exchange, commented:

Having received formal regulatory approval from MAS, DBSV is now in a better position to support institutional and corporate investors in tapping into the growing potential of digital assets as an investment class.

Since its launch in December as a member-only bourse, DBS Digital Exchange has been “growing very rapidly,” the bank said last month, adding that the platform expected the number of trading members to double by the end of December, and grow by 20-30% annually for the next three years.

Another company, Independent Reserve, a crypto exchange and OTC trading desk, also announced Friday that it has gained “licensure approval” from the MAS. The exchange, established in Australia in 2013, provides SGD, AUD, USD, and NZD fiat-to-crypto trading pairs. The company wrote:

Cryptocurrency exchange Independent Reserve has today received approval for a Major Payment Institution License in Singapore … to operate as a regulated provider for Digital Payment Token Services.

Independent Reserve CEO Adrian Przelozny opined: “A well-regulated environment will benefit both investors and crypto industry stakeholders. With tailormade rules for the crypto industry, Singapore currently has the clearest and most detailed licensing requirements of any jurisdiction in Asia.”

The exchange announced in August that it received an “in-principle approval” from the central bank. Since then, “we’ve seen an influx of retail and institutional investors,” said Raks Sondhi, Managing Director of Independent Reserve in Singapore.

French multinational investment bank and financial services company, Societe Generale, has proposed to leverage the decentralized finance (defi) protocol Makerdao. The proposal dubbed “Security Tokens Refinancing” was published on October 1 to Makerdao’s forums and the submission aims to utilize the DAI stablecoin to refinance a covered bond concept.

Societe Generale Proposes Leveraging Makerdao and DAI Stablecoins to Refinance Bond Token

The international bank Societe Generale’s digital currency division has submitted a proposal on Makerdao’s governance forums (MIP6 application) and the bank wants to refinance a bond token. The “covered bond token,” as it’s called, was issued on the Ethereum blockchain last year. The proposal is on “behalf of European investment firm Societe Generale-Forge (SG-Forge),” the MIP6 application notes.

“This refinancing transaction experimentation is in line with the innovative process and solutions developed by SG-Forge,” the bank’s digital currency division explains. “This experimentation combines traditional capital market activities with the decentralized finance emerging and growing ecosystem.” Societe Generale’s summary of the proposal adds:

The “OFH Tokens”: the OFH Tokens are characterized as covered bonds under French Law backed by home loans and benefiting from a statutory privilege, issued by Societe Generale SFH (SG SFH) a specialized credit institution with the status of Société de Financement de l’Habitat delivered by the Authorité de Contrôle Prudentiel (as further described below) in the form of security tokens in the Ethereum public blockchain.

Makerdao’s Rune Christensen: Post-Foundation Model of Organization Is Proving to Be More Scalable

On Friday, the founder of Makerdao, Rune Christensen, explained how the international bank from France proposed to use the protocol. “Societe Generale, the third-largest bank in France, just made a collateral onboarding application to Maker for 20 million USD,” Christensen said. “Backed by EUR bonds, proposed by their blockchain subsidiary.”

“Turns out it was the future of France all along,” Christensen added. “Amazed that I had no clue about this at all the whole time. This is one of [the] multiple recent examples in Maker Governance of how the post-foundation model of organization is proving to be more scalable.”

On Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed four bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) deadlines for another 45 days. The regulator notes that the entity needs more time to decide on the ETF applications.

Global X, Kryptoin, Valkyrie, Wisdomtree Bitcoin ETF Deadlines Extended

The Kryptoin Bitcoin ETF, Global X Bitcoin Trust, Valkyrie XBTO Bitcoin Futures Fund, and Wisdomtree Bitcoin Trust have all been delayed according to the latest SEC filing. ​​”The 45th day after publication of the notice for this proposed rule change is October 24, 2021,” the U.S. regulator’s filing details. While there’s been a large quantity of bitcoin ETFs filed in the U.S., the SEC has yet to approve any of them.

The SEC filing was published by the regulator’s assistant secretary J. Matthew DeLesDernier. “The Commission finds that it is appropriate to designate a longer period within which to take action on the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and any comments,” DeLesDernier details. The regulator adds:

Accordingly, pursuant to Section 19(b)(2) of the Act, Commission designates December 8, 2021, as the date by which the Commission shall either approve or disapprove, or institute proceedings to determine whether to disapprove, the proposed rule change, as modified by Amendment No. 1 (File No. SR-Nasdaq-2021-066).

Speculators Expected a Bitcoin ETF Approval by the End of October

Many speculators thought that a bitcoin ETF would be approved this year. Bloomberg Analyst Eric Balchunas told the public on Twitter that he believed an ETF would be approved by the end of October. Balchunas emphasized that the Proshares Bitcoin ETF may be the likely candidate.

“New note out today from James Seyffart [on] how the Ether ETF withdrawals add to the likelihood that a bitcoin futures ETF will be launched by end of October with Proshares as favorite, [although] it could (and arguably should) be a group to avoid first-mover advantage,” Balchunas said. The Bloomberg analyst added:

We think ether withdrawal shows SEC has a nose in this [right now] and is in [regular] contact with issuers which should mean any kinks ironed out so that they can launch 75 days after filing. Further, ProFunds’ bitcoin MF was launched 77 days after filing. These are virtually [the] same thing.

As far as the four bitcoin ETFs that were delayed on Friday, they will have to wait a few more weeks patiently. “The Commission shall either approve the proposed rule change, disapprove the proposed rule change, or institute proceedings to determine whether the proposed rule change should be disapproved,” the SEC filing concludes.