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Analysis of payment methods on the Web: Google Pay in 1st place, Bitcoin in 7th place

Google Pay records the largest search query growth, Paypal is searched most frequently. The interest of Germans in mobile payment options is increasing rapidly. Google Pay showed growth of 3,074 percent in search queries, with Apple Pay posting an increase of 813 percent. In third place among the Germans landed Amazon Pay with an increase of 191 percent. But well-tried payment methods such as debit card (+167 percent), also known as the giro card, and direct debit (+136 percent) seem to continue to attract increasing interest among Germans. This results in a recent analysis of the online visibility management platform SEMrush.

The top 10 payment methods after growth of search queries (search queries from 2016 to 2019):

  1. Google Pay (+3,074%)
  2. Apple Pay (+813%)
  3. Amazon Pay (+191%)
  4. Debit Card (+167%)
  5. Direct Debit (+136%)
  6. Transferwise (+110%)
  7. Bitcoin (+105%)
  8. Samsung Pay (+54%)
  9. Paypal (+22%)
  10. American Express (+18%)

Google Pay and Apple Pay started in the US in 2015. In 2018 followed Germany. Before the German rollout at the beginning of the analysis period in November 2016, the searches with 1,600 and 14,800 searches were still manageable, but increased sharply in the following months and after the launch and with the growing number of participating partner banks, due to the users' information needs , Amazon Pay has been around since 2007. The third strongest growth is explained by the uninterrupted interest in the online mail order company and its payment method.

Looking at average monthly searches this year, regardless of growth, results in a different ranking. In 2019, Paypal ranks first (5,021,000), well ahead of Bitcoin (766,200) and American Express (110,550). The top 10 payment methods of Germans after search queries (average monthly searches of Germans between January and October 2019):

  1. Paypal (5,021,000)
  2. Bitcoin (766,200)
  3. American Express (110,550)
  4. Transferwise (83,900)
  5. Apple Pay (81,000)
  6. Credit Card (68,900)
  7. Mastercard (60,700)
  8. Google Pay (41,630)
  9. Ethereum (40,740)
  10. Sofortüberweisung (38,280)
    Sofortüberweisung is an online payment system of Sofort GmbH for cashless payment on the Internet. The procedure is a pseudo pre-cash system, as the trader does not receive the payment immediately, but a payment confirmation.

Established payment methods have less need for explanation and are less sought. Instead, customers are interested in alternatives to established payment methods. Although PayPal has been around since 2002, it enjoys uninterrupted popularity without strong growth in search queries, as it has long been a common, secure and easy payment method, whether mobile or desktop.

 

Thieves steal 45 million Euros from crypto exchange

Unknown offenders attacked a popular cryptocurrency exchange and withdrew coins from the currency Ethereum.

The South Korean crypto exchange Upbit has confirmed that 342,000 Ethereum coins worth almost US$ 49 million (€ 45 million) were transferred from their wallet to an "anonymous" wallet on November 27, so the money was stolen. and payments stopped and all reserves moved to offline wallets.

Upbit has announced that it will compensate all damaged customers out of its own pocket. However, it will take about two weeks for the page to work as usual. Until then, all transfers are stopped, as Engadget reports.

Upbit urged customers to block the wallet in question for which the money was flowing. But the owner is completely unknown. These could be external criminals or insiders. It cannot be ruled out that this is a state attack. There have been several reports in the past of attacks on Bitcoin exchanges in North Korea.

 

Tether: The Controversial Bitcoin Pump

Bitcoin dominates the market. BTC's market capitalization now accounts for almost 70% of the total exchange-traded cryptocurrency. But when trading cryptos on exchanges, there is an exception: some days, more Tethers (USDT) are traded than Bitcoins. Especially if the prices of Bitcoin and others grow strongly or fall sharply, then traders resort to Tether.

What is Tether?

Tether was originally born in 2014 under the name "Realcoin" by a startup of founders Brock Pierce, Reeve Collins and Craig Sellars in Santa Monica. Soon, "Realcoin" was renamed to Tether and got the abbreviation USDT, under which Tether is traded on crypto exchanges. The basic idea is that Tether should be a stablecoin that is not subject to the volatility of other cryptocurrencies and is pegged to the US dollar.

What is Tether used for?

Answered by Alexander Valtingojer from Coinpanion:

Tether allows the quick exchange of a crypto-asset (eg Bitcoin, Ether etc.) into a traditional asset (i.e. US-Dollar, Euro etc.), without having to leave the crypto-exchange. A stablecoin is a crypto-derivative: the representation of an underlying in the form of a token.

Tether is used primarily in the trading space to capture price gains from volatile cryptocurrencies in less volatile assets

The intense use of USDT can be seen whenever Bitcoin's prices suddenly start to rise or fall rapidly. As prices rise, investors USDT in BTC, ETH or other crypto assets to quickly participate in the price gains. when prices fall again, they switch back to USDT.

How does Tether work technically?

According to the company behind Tether, USDT tokens are used on the Bitcoin blockchain via the Omni Layer Protocol, on the Ethereum Blockchain as the ERC20 token, and on the TRON Blockchain as the TRC20 token.

Tether tokens can not get mined, but are issued by the company behind them using their own Smart Contract" says Valtingojer. "Originally, Tether tokens were operated via the Omni Layer Protocol. Now these are being generated by the Ethereum and more recently the TRON blockchain.

Who is behind Tether?

The corporate networks behind the Stablecoin are very controversial. The issuing company of Tether is Tether Limited, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Tether Holdings Limited, which is based in Hong Kong. The CEO is Jan Ludovicus van der Velde.

But there are also links with the company iFinex, which in turn operates the crypto exchange Bitfinex. This was the first to trade in Tethers. Jan Ludovicus van der Velde is also the CEO of Bitfinex. Tether also borrowed money from Bitfinex. The New York Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation against the companies in April 2019.

Statement from attorney General Letitia James:

Our investigation has revealed that the Bitfinex trading platform operators, who also control the Tether virtual currency, have engaged in a cover-up to obfuscate the $ 850 million apparent loss.

Who holds Tether?

Around 80 percent of all Tether tokens are in possession of about 300 addresses. This has resulted in an analysis by Coin Metrics.

Valtingojer of Coinpanion:

However, this is not uncommon since Tethers are mainly used on centralized crypto exchanges, e.g. Binance is used. There, as a user, you do not have your own wallet and the ownership of the tokens is managed off-chain from the crypto exchanges.

The centralization of Tether is still seen as critical because of the danger that, with the help of USDT, the prices of cryptocurrencies could be controlled under the control of a few investors. For example, a study by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin concluded that Bitcoin's flight from the end of 2017 was the result of a market manipulation that leveraged Tether to artificially pump up the market.

Is Tether really baked by dollars?

There are currently about $ 4 billion tokens in circulation, which can be bought at Tether or Exchanges for $ 1 each. That would mean that the companies behind it stored somewhere around $ 4 billion to cover the value of the virtual tokens. But that is not the case.

Every Tether is always 100% backed by our reserves, which include traditional currency and cash equivalents and, from time to time, may include other assets and receivables from loans made by Tether to third parties, which may include affiliated entities.

In April 2019, for example, the companies behind Tether indicated that the coin was only 74 percent covered by dollars in the reserve.

Is Tether really a stablecoin?

Answer from crypto expert Valtingojer:

The name stablecoin results above all from the possibility of exchanging the tokens equivalently for US dollars at any time. Due to short-term increased trading activity and resulting increased trading volumes, there may be divergences between supply and demand, which is why then tokens are exchanged for more or less than one US dollar. In the end, the Tether market is also part of a stock exchange, which is why the price is determined by supply and demand. For example, negative news can lead to increased sales and thus lower the price.