Crypto
Wazupnaija – Naija Entertainment blogs & Forums – Business – Crypto
How professional Ethereum traders place bullish ETH price bets while limiting losses
Being bullish on Ether (ETH) over the past four months did not pay off as its price dropped 44% from $4,600. The decentralized finance (DeFi) applications growth that fueled the rally faded away, partially due to network congestion and average transaction fees of $30 and higher. The cool-off period can also be attributed to excessive expectations as the fee burn mechanism implemented in August 2021 with the London hard fork. After drastically reducing the daily net issuance, investors jumped to the conclusion that Ether would become “ultrasound money.” The Ethereum network burned more ETH over the last 24 hours than was issued by both the PoW (eth1) and PoS (eth2) networks. This is the first time this has happened since EIP-1559 went live less than 3 months ago. ETH is ultra so...
Magic Eden completes $27M raise, aims to conquer the Solana NFT space ahead of OpenSea
Paradigm Capital led the NFT marketplace’s Series A raise Magic Eden is investing in Solana for its low costs and better performance than Ethereum Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden has closed a $27 million Series A funding round. The raise was led by investment dealer Paradigm Capital, with contributions from Sequoia Capital and Solana Ventures. Backed financially by the raise, Magic Eden intends to expand the breadth of products and services that it offers users. A bet on Solana – the cheaper, better-performing alternative Magic Eden aims to be the first mover to gain a real hold on the Solana NFT market space before OpenSea does. The latter is easily the most dominant marketplace in the NFT business, bragging the lion’s share. Though OpenSea suffered a 50% downturn in t...
Waves Protocol hits all-time high TVL after crossing $2 BN twice this month
Waves Protocol has grown by about 80% in TVL since the start of the year Neutrino and Vires Finance have been the main assets leading the recent bloom Currently ranked tenth – in terms of Total Value Locked – out of all chains, Waves Protocol, a platform for building Web 3.0 dApps early last week surpassed a TVL figure of $2 billion for the first time since October 2021. Though the TVL briefly fell below the mark the next day (last Wednesday), it rose again and has retested last October’s record figure. As one of the few assets enjoying high-value growths despite the recent market fluctuations, Waves has defied the plunge it saw in the early days of February that took its TVL to as low as $700 million. It currently has a TVL of $2.4 billion, which represents a gain of over 150% on th...
EU Parliament votes against the proposal limiting Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies
EU lawmakers rejected the proposed ban of cryptocurrencies that use the Proof-of-Work mechanism The proposal, which has been a hot debate in recent days, would have led to the outlawing of Bitcoin and other PoW cryptocurrency projects Today, the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary affairs voted on the proposed draft suggesting the ban of cryptocurrencies leveraging the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. The proposal, which could have compelled PoW cryptocurrencies to shift to sustainable mechanisms, failed to get enough backing during the vote and was consequently rejected. The majority of EU parliamentarians voted against including the provision out of a draft of the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA)framework. Patrick Hansen was among the first to share news on Twitter. &...
No crypto for criminals: Coinjoin BTC mixing tool to block illicit transactions
CoinJoin, a popular Bitcoin (BTC) mixing tool, will block transactions associated or flagged as illegal. The announcement came from the official Wasabi Wallet Twitter account, of which Coinjoin is a part. The zkSNACKs coordinator will start refusing certain UTXOs from registering to coinjoins. pic.twitter.com/X3kBuQwieO — Wasabi Wallet (@wasabiwallet) March 13, 2022 The official announcement noted that CoinJoin services would start blocking certain unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) from registering with CoinJoin using the zkSNACKs coordinator. A zkSNACKs coordinator is a virtual machine used to mix the origin of the transitions. Privacy-focused mixing tools are primarily used to obscure the origin of the transactions and are often seen as a medium to wash illicit funds. However, as block...
Financial future or false promises? Crypto firms go big on ads in 2022
Advertisements are in abundance everywhere we go — from billboards seen throughout road trips to commercials displayed every fifteen minutes or so during television shows. It’s also the case that most advertisements today display messages from major internet-based brands like Amazon, which was ranked as the largest advertiser in the United States in 2020. Telecommunication providers and payment giants like American Express have also been listed as some of the biggest advertisers in the United States. These companies typically spend billions of dollars per year on marketing messages aimed to inform, persuade and remind consumers about their products and services. 2022 is the year for crypto advertising While dot-com brand commercials and social media advertisements continue to bombard...
Bitcoin tracks $39K ahead of Europe vote on proof-of-work legality
Bitcoin (BTC) stayed steady at $39,000 into March 14’s Wall Street close as stocks took the opportunity to reclaim some losses. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Bulls need “miracle” $40,600 reclaim Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD unmoved at the opening bell on March 14. The pair had rebounded from a last-minute comedown into March 13’s weekly close to avoid a deeper retracement. The week was set to bring many potential challenges for bulls, however, beginning with a European vote on outlawing proof-of-work algorithm cryptocurrencies March 14. March 13, however, was the main focus, this being the day that the United States Federal Reserve was due to announce a key interest rate hike of a rumored...
Bitcoin could crush Russian ruble by rising another 140%, classic technical setup suggests
Bitcoin (BTC) has declined by around 30% after topping out at 5.8 million rubles a token on March 9. Nonetheless, the said drop could be an excuse for traders to dump another big stash of the Russian national currency if a classic bullish continuation pattern plays out. Bitcoin heads towards 11 million rubles Dubbed the “ascending triangle,” the pattern appears when the price consolidates between a rising lower trendline (support) and a flat upper trendline (resistance). It completes after the price breaks out of the consolidation range in the direction of its previous trend, eyeing levels at length equal to the maximum distance between the triangle’s upper and lower trendline. BTC’s price against the ruble has been trending inside a similar structure since January ...
Ukraine to make the planned NFT collection a museum of war, Deputy Minister says
Ukraine’s forthcoming NFT collection will depict the Russian Invasion in NFT format. The NFTs would feature stories from reliable sources on the ongoing war Elsewhere, Singapore plans to tax NFT traders, with a ‘specified’ criterion The Ukrainian government has divulged further information on its planned release of an NFT series to support its military as the country copes with the ongoing invasion by Russia. According to the Deputy Minister of Digital Information, Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine expects that the NFT series will be a museum of this war. Bornyakov told The Guardian that by wrapping the information in NFTs, Ukraine wants to “tell the world in NFT format” what is happening in their country. With an intention to be “cool, good-looking,” U...
Austin mayor embraces Web3 tech and crypto payments
Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, Texas, has fully embraced the discovery of what blockchain technology and crypto payments can bring to his city by proposing two new initiatives. The first initiative aims to ensure that Texas’s fourth-largest city promotes the benefits of blockchain technologies and “promotes equity, diversity, accessibility, and inclusion” in the technological ecosystem. To that end, May Adler directed the city manager to explore how the city can utilize Web3 and blockchain in 20 fields from smart contracts, supply chain management and insurance to arts, media, fundraising and identity verification. “The City Manager is directed to ensure the City is helping to create an environment within city government and in the community generally that supports the creation and developme...
Environmental sustainability key sticking point in EU MiCA bill
The legal standing of Bitcoin mining in the European Union hinges on the results of today‘s vote in the European Parliamentary Committee on Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA). A controversial line concerning the “minimum environmental sustainability” of crypto mining has been reintroduced to the bill after previously being taken out. The new line would require blockchain operators to submit a rollout plan detailing how they will come into environmental sustainability compliance. Failure to submit a plan may prohibit coins from being mined or traded in the EU. Although it is not specifically stated, the bill would directly affect proof-of-work (PoW) chains. PoW is the consensus algorithm used by the Bitcoin network, Ethereum and several other crypto assets. Since Bitcoin (BTC) is decentralized...
Two years since the Covid crash: 5 things to know in Bitcoin this week
Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week struggling to preserve support as key macro changes appear on the horizon. In what could turn out to be a crucial week for Bitcoin and altcoins’ relationship with traditional assets, the United States Federal Reserve is set to be the main talking point for hodlers. Amid an atmosphere of still rampant inflation, quantitative easing still ongoing and geopolitical turmoil focused on Europe, there is plenty of uncertainty in the air, no matter what the trade. Add to that a failure by Bitcoin to benefit from the chaos and the result is some serious cold feet — what would it take to instil confidence? Just as it seems nothing could break the now months-old status quo on Bitcoin markets, which have been stuck in a trading range for all of 2022 so far, upcoming even...
