Crypto
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Monthly Report: VC firms pumped funds into crypto and Web 3 despite May being harsh to investors
Hong Kong-based BABEL Finance hits a $2 billion valuation following latest funding Gaming portal and game creator Kongregate tables a blockchain game development fund with Immutable X Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz plans to heavily support start-ups in the blockchain space by allocating significant investments Israel-based StarkWare sets out to advance its ecosystem with new capital backing The first four months of 2022 appeared to bear the worst of the year in the crypto market, but the slump in Q1 is nothing close to the bloodbath witnessed this month. The total cryptocurrency market capital fell from $2.18 trillion at the start of the year to $1.755 trillion by the end of January. It briefly recovered at the beginning of February before charting successive days abo...
Weekly Report: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried to spend billions on political and acquisition initiatives
FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried early this week hinted that he would continue with his political donations, financially backing the ‘right’ presidential candidate in the 2024 US Elections. Details on this and other top headlines in the crypto space below: SBF to join the league of major political donors in the next US elections The crypto exchange billionaire known to be pro-Democratic party has set his sights on breaking the biggest political donation ever made in the US. In a podcast session, SBF revealed that he was willing to spend as much as $1 billion – a figure he described as a “sort of a soft ceiling”. He confirmed he would put “north of $100 million,” adding that the exact amount would depend on the candidate running and the political seats in question. This is not the fir...
Bitcoin network difficulty falls 4.3% to 29.897T, biggest drop in 10 months
The Bitcoin network witnessed a historic event on May 12 when the network difficulty attained its all-time high of 31.251 trillion as miners mined nearly 50,000 BTC of the remaining 2 million tokens. While the Bitcoin community rejoiced the added resilience to the network owing to the rising difficulty in mining a Bitcoin block, the network difficulty recorded a drop of 4.33% — falling from 31.251 trillion to 29.897 trillion on May 26. As Cointelegraph reported on several occasions, Bitcoin’s network difficulty consistently achieved all-time highs over the past ten months as it recovered from a massive drop of 45.4% — from 25.046 trillion on May 29, 2021, to 13.673 trillion on July 22, 2021. Ever since then, Bitcoin’s network difficulty witnessed a total growth of 128.56% as it surged to i...
Can a lesson in bimetallism help the long-term stability of Bitcoin and privacy coins?
The crypto market has been on a downward trajectory since the tail end of 2021. In early May 2022, it culminated in a dip that impacted traditional markets just as hard. The recent bust removed some speculation from the market. But the shakeup is different than in the past. There are still many more active users utilizing the Bitcoin network than we have seen in past cycles. Many more holders and true believers made it through to the other side. However, as this increases over time, one of the concerns some have over Bitcoin (BTC) may impact its adoption. There is an economic incentive, not just utility, that privacy coins can offer as a solution. At different points in the first half of 2022, both in crypto market rallies and huge dumps, privacy coins such as Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH) and...
Finance Redefined: Uniswap breaches $1T volume, WEF 2022 discussion on Terra, and more
The decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem continues to struggle with the ongoing market volatility and after-effects of the Terra ecosystem collapse. Over the past week, major DeFi protocols showed signs of increased trading activity, with Uniswap breaching the $1 trillion trading volume mark. Terra remained the focus of most of the discussions around blockchain and crypto at the World Economic Forum (WEF), with analysts suggesting Terra was offering unsustainable yields. DeFi insurance protocol to pay out millions after Terra collapse, while interest in Ethereum Name Services (ENS) shattered new records. Top DeFi tokens by market cap had a mixed week of price action, with several tokens in the top 100 registering double-digit gains over the past week, while many others continue to trade ...
Bitcoin price stuck below $29K as Terra LUNA comes back from the dead
Bitcoin (BTC) analysts faced another day of frustration on May 28 as BTC/USD refused to offer volatility up or down. BTC/USD 1-day candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView “Not the decoupling we wanted” Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed the largest cryptocurrency sticking in a narrow short-term range into the weekend. Previously forecast support levels to avoid a deeper correction managed to hold in the May 27 Wall Street trading session, but a bounce higher was similarly absent as commentators looked for fresh cues. “Short resistance and long support until one of them breaks. Keep it simple in ranges as they are there to engineer liquidity for trend continuation or reversals,” popular trading account Crypto Tony summarized in part ...
On-chain data flashes Bitcoin buy signals, but the bottom could be under $20K
Every Bitcoin investor is searching for signals that the market is approaching a bottom, but the price action of this week suggests that we’re just not there yet. Evidence of this can be found by looking at the monthly return for Bitcoin (BTC), which was hit with a rapid decline that “translated to one of the biggest drawdowns in monthly returns for the asset class in its history,” according to the most recent Blockware Solutions Market Intelligence Newsletter. Bitcoin monthly returns. Source: Blockware Solutions Bitcoin continues to trade within an increasingly narrow trading range that is slowly being compressed to the downside as global economic strains mount. Whether the price continues to trend lower is a popular topic of debate among crypto analysts and the dominant opini...
Brazilian university USP will conduct academic research in the metaverse
As reported by the University of Sao Paulo (USP), the metaverse-centric research will be carried out by research groups interested in 3D modeling, psychology and human behavior, and the effectiveness of virtual and augmented reality devices. These research domains will be evaluated within the context of the metaverse to understand how the new virtual world impacts user interactions. USP professor Marcos A. Simplicio Jr. highlighted that this is the first time USP had received a nonfungible token (NFT) via partnership. The token in question is a rare piece of land in the United States of Mars (USM) metaverse, which is being built in collaboration with other universities. “USP is the first university in Latin America to have a partnership with USM to support the construction of its met...
3 metrics contrarian crypto investors use to know when to buy Bitcoin
Buying low and selling high is easier said than done, especially when emotion and volatile markets are thrown into the mix. Historically speaking, the best deals are to be found when there is “blood on the streets,” but the danger of catching a falling knife usually keeps most investors planted on the sidelines. The month of May has been especially challenging for crypto holders because Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to a low of $26,782, and some analysts are now predicting a sub-$20,000 BTC price in the near future. It’s times like these when fear is running rampant that the contrarian investor looks to establish positions in promising assets before the broader market comes to its senses. Here’s a look at several indicators that contrarian-minded investors can use to spot opportune moments for ope...
The increasingly acute need for crypto-native insurance
The insurance industry has a long history of providing vital support for major leaps in innovation. It’s no coincidence that the modern insurance industry and the industrial revolution arose in parallel. Indeed, it has been convincingly argued that the invention of fire and property insurance — in response to the Great Fire of London — lubricated the gears of capital investment that powered the industrial revolution and is likely the reason why it started in London. Through that first and each subsequent technological revolution, insurance has offered innovators and investors a safety net and served as an outside, objective validator of risk — thereby acting as a source of both the encouragement and the security needed to confidently test and break barriers. Today, we are in the midst of a...
Crypto Biz: Smart Money is betting big on Web3, layer 2, May 19-25
Billions and billions. That’s what venture capitalists are spending to get ahead of the curve in crypto. Their latest fixation is Ethereum layer-2 scaling solutions and Web3, an umbrella term that describes the next stage of the internet’s evolution. So, while the cryptocurrency market is in a state of extreme fear, smart money investors — TradFi folks who invest with expert knowledge — continue to pour countless sums into the space. This week’s Crypto Biz newsletter gives you the latest funding stories from the world of blockchain and explores interesting developments surrounding Google and Sam Bankman-Fried. Andreessen Horowitz closes $4.5 billion crypto fund amid market turmoil The crypto market selloff of 2022 hasn’t deterred Andreessen Horowitz from pledging additional billions ...
WEMIX gains 200%+ after stablecoin and boosted staking rewards announcement
Blockchain-based gaming, also known as GameFi, is an up-and-coming sector that could potentially be one of the primary catalysts for kickstarting the mass adoption of blockchain technology. WEMIX, a gaming protocol that operates on the Klaytn network, aims to get in on the GameFi revolution and this week, the project’s native token (WEMIX) rallied even as the wider market continued to sell-off. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low of $1.27 on May 12, WEMIX price climbed 269% to hit a daily high at $4.70 on May 25 as its 24-hour trading volume increased to $652 million. WEMIX/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Three reasons for the price reversal for WEMIX are the upcoming launch of WEMIX 3.0, a series of project launches and partnershi...
