Crypto
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Bitcoin likely to transition to a risk-off asset in H2 2022, says Bloomberg analyst
Bitcoin is likely to transition from a risk-on to a risk-off asset in the second half of 2022, as the macroeconomic environment is rapidly shifting towards a recession, said Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg, in a recent interview with Cointelegraph. McGlone predicted: “ I see it transitioning to be more of a risk-off asset like bonds and gold, then less of a risk-on asset like the stock market.” According to the analyst, the crypto market has flushed out most of the speculative excesses that marked 2021 and it is now ripe for a fresh rally. McGlone also pointed out that the Fed’s aggressive hiking of interest rates will lead the global economy to a deflationary recession, which will ultimately favor Bitcoin: “I fully expect we’re going to have a prett...
Vitalik Buterin proposes stealth addresses for anonymous NFT ownership
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has suggested there may be a “low-tech approach” to incorporating privacy features ito nonfungible token, or NFT, transactions. In a Monday post on the Ethereum research channel, Buterin implied Merkle trees and Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge, or ZK-SNARKs, were a more complicated method for stealth addresses for ERC-721 tokens, while proposing his own solution. The Ethereum co-founder suggested instead that smart contract wallets could include a method that would allow the sender to essentially mask their address to third parties. “You would be able to eg. send an NFT to vitalik.eth without anyone except me (the new owner) being able to see who the new owner is,” said Buterin. Idea: stealth addresses for ERC721s. A low-te...
VisionsDao Exits Stealth Mode and Presents a Modular Stack for GameFi That Enables Sustainable Economies
Toronto, Canada, 8th August, 2022, Chainwire An up-and-coming GameFi infrastructure startup, VisionsDAO has been building for more than a year what could become a foundational primitive for game developers looking to implement sound crypto economic designs and plug-and-play modules that will power a new wave of sustainable on-chain Web3 games to come to market and thrive. VisionsDAO aims to enable engaging gameplay and circular game economies through high-quality crypto-economic modules that accelerate time-to-market while reducing development costs and risks for Web3 game builders and legacy game studios who want to make the leap into blockchain-powered games. VisionsDAO wants to challenge the current “Play-to-Earn” gaming format. “When earning became the main design focus for players, gu...
Bitcoin core contributor urges maximalists to take a different route
There was once a time when Bitcoin (BTC) was the only crypto project that was not a scam, and advocating for only BTC made perfect sense. However, according to a Bitcoin Core contributor, this has not been true for a while, as he urged the community to drop the us-versus-them culture. In a Twitter thread, Matt Corallo, who contributed to the Bitcoin Core, pointed out to the community that at the moment, instead of BTC proponents advocating why Bitcoin is unique and remarkable, they are spending time attacking other projects. According to Corallo, this situation is leading to what he described as a narrative war, where crypto projects bash each other. Corallo further explained that Bitcoiners coming after Ethereum (ETH) for the upcoming Merge, saying that proof-of-stake (PoS) will not...
Cross chains, beware! deBridge flags attempted phishing attack, suspects Lazarus Group
Cross-chain protocols and Web3 firms continue to be targeted by hacking groups as deBridge Finance unpacks a failed attack that bears the hallmarks of North Korea’s Lazarus Group hackers. deBridge Finance employees received what looked like another ordinary email from co-founder Alex Smirnov on a Friday afternoon. An attachment labeled ‘New Salary Adjustments’ was bound to pique interest, with various cryptocurrency firms instituting staff layoffs and pay cuts during the ongoing cryptocurrency winter. A handful of employees flagged the email and its attachment as suspicious, but one staff member took the bait and downloaded the PDF file. This would prove fortuitous, as the deBridge team worked on unpacking the attack vector sent from a spoof email address designed to mirror Smirnov’s. The ...
Chainlink ditches Ethereum PoW forks for PoS after The Merge
Chainlink is aligning itself with the decision of the Ethereum Foundation and its community. Therefore forked versions of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, which includes PoW forks, will no longer be supported by the Chainlink (LINK) protocol post-Merge. In an official announcement, the Chainlink protocol revealed its services will remain on the Ethereum blockchain post the long-awaited Merge. The Ethereum blockchain anticipates the Merge in September 2022, which will merge its mainnet with the Beacon Chain. This will transition all of Ethereum operations from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). The Merge has been pushed back from mid-2021 to September 2022 before. If it goes according to the timeline of developers, Phase 1 will initiate the transition of the ecosystem’s transa...
Nigeria becomes the most crypto-obsessed nation after April crash: Report
The crypto market crash in April saw most cryptocurrencies lose more than 60% of their valuation from the top, leading to an overall downturn in trading activity, investor interest and venture capital investment. A recent study has highlighted nations’ growing curiosity and interest in crypto after the April crash. The research was based on Google Trends data of popular crypto search terms that often reflect increased interest in the crypto market. The search history of each nation was then compiled to give an overall search score. The countries at the top of the list appear to be most eager to buy the dip. The Coingecko research highlighted a significant rise in curiosity among Nigerians after the crypto market downturn in April. The Nigerian population searched the term ‘cryptocurr...
How Bitcoin whales make a splash in markets and move prices
Deriving their names from the size of the massive mammals swimming around the earth’s oceans, cryptocurrency whales refer to individuals or entities that hold large amounts of cryptocurrency. In the case of Bitcoin (BTC), someone can be considered a whale if they hold over 1,000 BTC, and there are less than 2,500 of them out there. As Bitcoin addresses are pseudonymous, it is ofte difficult to ascertain who owns any wallet. While many associates the term “whale” with some lucky early adopters of Bitcoin, not all whales are the same, indeed. There are several different categories: Exchanges: Since the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, crypto exchanges have become some of the biggest whale wallets as they hold large amounts of crypto on their order books. Institutions and corpor...
Once-hacked for $77M, Beanstalk’s algo stablecoin protocol relaunches
Ethereum-based algorithmic stablecoin project Beanstalk Farms has relaunched its protocol just under four months after going offline after suffering a devastating $77 million governance exploit. The protocol and its governance have been paused since April following the governance exploit and flash loan attack, but were relaunched as of Aug. 6 in an event called the “Replant.” In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, Beanstalk said it has come out of the ordeal stronger than ever, likely in reference to protocol’s governance and security. “Beanstalk has come out on the other end of this ordeal stronger than ever. It is a testament to the creditworthiness of the protocol and its potential to help realize a permissionless future,” said Publius, the developer group behind the BEAN s...
What is Chainlink VRF and how does it work?
Blockchain technology has spawned many applications over the past few years, the most popular being cryptocurrencies. It has also facilitated the creation of many decentralized, secure and transparent marketplaces in the digital economy. Offering far more trust since all transactions are immutably recorded on the blockchain, this technology has been well supplemented by the smart contract feature popularized by Ethereum. Decentralized applications (DApps) based on blockchains like Ethereum are disrupting traditional businesses such as retail banking and are even introducing use cases never deemed possible. Expanding the capability of smart contracts with oracles However, for the Ethereum blockchain to support the development of DApps that go beyond merely facilitating transactions, t...
6 Questions for Tongtong Bee of Panony
We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Tongtong Bee, co-founder of Panony — an incubator, investor and adviser for blockchain and Web3 business. I’m Tongtong Bee, the co-founder of Panony and founder and editor-in-chief of PANews. I started my professional journey as a journalist at China’s traditional news outlets, including China News Service, Jiemian and Cailian Media Group. Since 2015, I’ve been covering blockchain and fintech news as one of the few journalists in China to focus on these sectors at the time. My focus on economic issues and emerging technologies led to me being selected to report on the “Two Sessions” (NPC and ...
Top 5 cryptocurrencies to watch this week: BTC, FLOW, THETA, QNT, MKR
The United States jobs data on Aug. 5 was above market expectations, indicating that inflation has not cooled down. The strong numbers reduce the possibility that the U.S. Federal Reserve will slow down its aggressive pace of rate hikes. After the release, the likelihood of a 75 basis points hike in September has risen to 68%, according to CME Group data. However, analysts at Fundstrat Global Advisors have a different view. They highlighted that three out of six times, the S&P 500 bottomed out six months before the Fed’s last rate hike. Therefore, the firm anticipates the S&P 500 to witness a strong rally to 4,800 in the second half of the year. Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360 If the tight correlation between the equities markets and the cryptocurrency markets mainta...
