From bitcoin volatility to multimillion-dollar hacks: 7 crypto updates you should know

The overall cryptocurrency market took a hit over the weekend.  Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, plunged to a low near $43,000 on Saturday night. Its price has since bounced back and is currently trading at around $49,149, according to Coin Metrics.  On Saturday, ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, also fell to around $3,500. Ether is currently trading at around $4,179.  Along with the volatility this weekend, here are seven things that happened in crypto this past week.1. Metaverse land sales top $100 million in a week  Virtual real estate has increasingly become a hot commodity.  Sales of NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, representing metaverse land surpassed $100 million in the last week alone, crypto analytics firm DappRadar reported on Tuesday.  The Sandbox, an Ethereum-based metaverse and game where users can buy land and in-game assets as NFTs, had more than $86 million in trading volume. Decentraland, an Ethereum-powered virtual reality platform, had more than $15 million traded for land NFTs.  “Outputting record sales numbers and constantly increasing NFT prices, virtual worlds are the new top commodity in the crypto space,” DappRadar wrote in a blog post.2. Jack Dorsey‘s Square changes corporate name to Block  On Wednesday, Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square announced it is renaming itself Block, effective

2021-12-07Deep Dive

2 Reasons the Avalanche Blockchain Is Here to Stay

Motley Fool Issues Rare “All In” Buy Alert  Avalanche (CRYPTO:AVAX) has had an incredible 2021, emerging from obscurity to become the 11th largest cryptocurrency by market cap. It recently surpassed more established blockchains like Litecoin (CRYPTO: LTC) and Terra (CRYPTO: LUNA) as well as popular meme coins like Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) in total market capitalization. It just climbed past the infamous Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) in market cap, and it didnt need any help from Elon Musk.   Going forward, Avalanche could have more blue sky ahead of it as the blockchains momentum builds. Here are three reasons why Avalanche could just be getting started. More real world projects coming to the Avalanche blockchain  The advent of decentralized applications (dApps) on the Ethereum blockchain were instrumental in making Ethereum into the $500 billion asset it is today. Developers and artists migrated to Ethereum. Avalanche is in the process of developing a flourishing ecosystem of its own. There is a burgeoning array of NFTs sprouting up on Avalanche. For example, the NHLs New York Islanders are partnering with new NFT platform Orange Comet, which uses the Avalanche blockchain, to release a line of NFTs. A play to earn game called Crabada launched on the

2021-12-07Deep Dive

Tether mints an additional $3 billion of USDT in past 2 weeks

Tethers circulating supply has increased to $76 billion as the team minted an additional $3 billion worth of the asset during the last 2 weeks, and most notably $1 billion of those new coins were minted on Tron Network on December 4.Tether mints new coin, faces scrutiny about its backing  According to available data, USDTs new circulating supply which is around $76 billion is now less nearly double that of its closed rival, USD Coin (USDC)  This new mint came when USDT is generally facing heightened criticism from market experts who believe that the token has less cash to back its reserve, as there are reports that just a small fraction of the Stablecoin is fully backed by dollar reserves. A report from Financial Times revealed that Tether only has 2.9% of its supply in Dollar reserves.  Even though Tether has stepped up its transparency efforts, it continues to face scrutiny from regulators and the community at large. In fact, with regulators becoming more interested in regulating the stablecoin market, interest over its cash reserves and other backings would only increase with time. Just recently, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission fined Tether $41 million for its lack of transparency.  Another platform, Hindenburg Research, has

2021-12-07Deep Dive

Ethereum’s market cap is now beyond that of the biggest banks in the world

The crypto industry has had one of the best years as it witnessed a whole level of mass adoption from both retail and institutional investors.  While this has had a positive effect on the value of some flagship digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, the market cap of these assets also shows the extent of the growth the space has seen.Ethereum market cap is now ahead of the largest bank in the world  According to available data, Ethereums market cap has now flipped that of some of the biggest financial institutions, including that of JPMorgan, in the world.  Kris Kay DeFi, a twitter user, first pointed this out on December 1 via a tweet which showed that Ethereums market cap was $550 billion. Per his tweet, the growth of the space is an indication of how far the coin has come in recent times.  To put this in context, Ethereum has been in existence for less than a decade while the largest bank in the world, JPMorgan, has been in existence for the best part of the last 40 years.  As of press time, Ethereum‘s market cap stands at around $480 billion after falling by close to 5%, despite this, it is still among the

2021-12-07Deep Dive

LunarCrush’s new feature will reward users for posting opinions

LunarCrush, a popular social analytics platform, announced the launch of LunarCrush Opinions™. The companys latest feature was designed to complement its current offering and provide insights as to how the crypto community is feeling about the market.  According to the companys announcement, this is set to provide investors with an entirely new dimension in understanding crypto.LunarCrushs social intelligence for crypto is about to get smarter  The new Opinions feature will enable users to provide opinions on trending topics, sentiment on their favorite coins, the value of specific influencers, and rate the accuracy of social media posts. In a Monday Medium post, LunarCrush said that it anticipated millions of opinions to be posted each day.  Its social analytics platform already collects well over 2 million social posts every day, which is then analyzed for a myriad of different characteristics by LunarCrushs proprietary machine learning system. However, classifying all that data requires specific modeling, which, in turn, requires a lot of feedback. Adding feedback in the form of user-generated opinions will improve the accuracy of the information the platform provides, LunarCrush said.  “We‘re excited to move into capturing the emotions of the LunarCrush community. With millions of pieces of feedback each day, not only will this

2021-12-07Deep Dive

Voting opens for the PlaytoEarn Blockchain Game Awards 2021

From established play-to-earn games like Alien Worlds to newer additions like Star Atlas, the world of gaming has truly been reimagined with blockchain technology. DeFi components and NFTs have cemented gaming as the biggest fish in the ocean of creative DeFi opportunities. Within a number of these games you can see micro-communities surface; competing, building and establishing new virtual norms.  Play-to-earn has opened voting for the Blockchain Game Awards 2021. With over 700 crypto and NFT Blockchain Games listed, PlayToEarn.net is the worlds largest Blockchain Games data aggregator.  Users with a web3 wallet can now vote for their favorite Blockchain Games & Content Creators. The awards will be fully determined by public voting. The voting period runs from December 1st to December 22nd. The winners will be announced 2 weeks later.Games featured in the long list include some of our favorites  Alien Worlds for example has taken trading cards to a whole new level. Alien Worlds recorded over 760k active users in October making it one of the most popular play-to-earn games in the world. Using their in-game token, Trillium, users can now lease spacecrafts, explore the metaverse and vote in planetary elections.  With 150,000 registered players, Farmers World is another game that exploded

2021-12-06Deep Dive

Why 2022 could be a big year for the Polkadot ecosystem

Polkadots ongoing parachain rollout represents the final launch phase for its multi-chain sharded architecture, following rigorous testing, optimization, and auditing, initially carried out on testnets like Rococo and canary network Kusama.  The first indication that Polkadot parachains were afoot came in September when Gavin Wood hinted that they were “technologically ready for launch.” Sure enough, this was followed in October with a motion for the Polkadot Council to open up the networks first parachain slot auctions, later approved by on-chain governance, creating buy pressure for DOT in the run-up to the launches.  The auctions are split into batches, with the first batch of five running weekly from November 11. The winning projects will then be onboarded on December 17 for the lease period to October 20, 2023.Anatomy of a Parachain  Parachains are custom blockchains anchored to Polkadots Relay Chain for up to 96 weeks at a time, with an option to renew. Each slot is assigned by an on-chain candle auction mechanism with successful projects locking up a bond in DOT for the duration of the lease.  Parachain teams can fund their auction bids with the help of a community crowdloan campaign, enabling them to accept contributions from DOT holders and demonstrating demand for

2021-12-06Deep Dive

Why 2022 could be a big year for the Polkadot ecosystem

Polkadots ongoing parachain rollout represents the final launch phase for its multi-chain sharded architecture, following rigorous testing, optimization, and auditing, initially carried out on testnets like Rococo and canary network Kusama.  The first indication that Polkadot parachains were afoot came in September when Gavin Wood hinted that they were “technologically ready for launch.” Sure enough, this was followed in October with a motion for the Polkadot Council to open up the networks first parachain slot auctions, later approved by on-chain governance, creating buy pressure for DOT in the run-up to the launches.  The auctions are split into batches, with the first batch of five running weekly from November 11. The winning projects will then be onboarded on December 17 for the lease period to October 20, 2023.  Anatomy of a Parachain  Parachains are custom blockchains anchored to Polkadots Relay Chain for up to 96 weeks at a time, with an option to renew. Each slot is assigned by an on-chain candle auction mechanism with successful projects locking up a bond in DOT for the duration of the lease.  Parachain teams can fund their auction bids with the help of a community crowdloan campaign, enabling them to accept contributions from DOT holders and demonstrating demand for

2021-12-06Deep Dive

Exchange Giant FTX Releases 10 Proposals for Crypto Market Regulators

Crypto exchange giant FTX has released a list of 10 proposals for market regulators in the US looking to oversee the digital asset space.  In a new blog post, the exchange reveals what it calls “FTXs Key Principles for Market Regulation of Crypto-Trading Platforms.”  First on the list is to have one primary market regulator that would be responsible for the listings of crypto assets in spot and derivatives markets.  FTX says spot markets and derivatives markets being subject to different regulatory programs creates inefficient and sub-optimal market structures.  “We propose as a solution an alternative regulatory approach that would provide market operators the ability to opt in to a unified regulatory regime for spot and derivatives marketplaces, through a primary regulator model.”  Also on FTXs list are practices concerning the custody of crypto assets on behalf of clients. The exchange says that there should be more disclosure on how funds are handled behind the scenes.  “Key areas of focus and disclosure should include: wallet architecture; whether insurance is provided by the custodian; how private keys are kept secure, managed and transferred; managing risks related to insider collusion or fraud; and physical security of data centers.”  FTX also proposes standards on how exchanges deal with stablecoins. According

2021-12-06Deep Dive

Minnesota’s Congressman Blasts Gary Gensler For Declining Much-Requested Bitcoin Spot ETF

U.S. House of Rep member puts Gary Gensler on blast over Bitcoin Spot ETF saga.  The SEC chair has failed to respond and continues to reject spot-settled crypto ETFs.  Reactions that have followed Emmer‘s inquiry implies that the SEC’s stance seems dubious  U.S. House of Representatives member, Tom Emmer (R-MN-06), has called out SEC chair, Gary Gensler, for failing to respond to his inquiries on why a spot settled Bitcoin ETF was not being approved when the commission had approved a futures-based Bitcoin ETF.  His query alludes to the bipartisan letter written by himself and Darren Soto (D-FL-09), sent to Gary Gensler just over a month ago. In the letter, the reps stated that they considered the SECs handling of the cryptocurrency ETFs to be “unacceptable.” They argued that if the SEC was comfortable with a futures-based ETF coming to the market then it was only right that they should also allow a physically-backed one to also trade.  The letter asked the SEC to provide reasonable explanations for why they thought that the two kinds of ETFs were significantly different, as the reps did not agree with the SECs sentiment. The reps held that American investors deserved consistency in policies and choices.  Divided over spot settled

2021-12-06Deep Dive
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