Crypto
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Crypto-related stocks jump in positive reaction to executive order
The stock prices of crypto-related companies have jumped as the broader market reacted positively to President Joe Biden’s long-awaited executive order requiring US federal agencies to create a regulatory framework for digital assets, as well as exploring a future digital dollar. Coinbase (COIN) surged, up 10.5% at market close, while shares in Bitcoin-evangelist Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy (MSTR) posted a 6.4% gain, according to TradingView. Blockchain-related exchanged-traded funds (ETFs) also enjoyed the markets’ renewed confidence in crypto, with ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) gaining 10% and Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF) closing up 10.3%. Cryptocurrency mining companies enjoyed the largest gains with Riot Blockchain Inc. (RIOT) shares up 11.2% and Marathon Digital Hold...
THORChain spikes by 34% after activating synthetic assets
The price of the native asset for cross-chain decentralized exchange THORChain (RUNE) has spiked by 34% in a day following the activating of synthetic assets on the network. At the time of writing the price had settled back to a 21% gain over the past 24 hours to sit at $5.27.. Crypto synthetics or synths are derivative tokens of other digital assets that are pegged to the value of the underlying collateralized asset such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH). In THORChain’s variation, the project has opted to back its synths with 50% of the underlying asset and 50% in RUNE. The activation went live earlier today and synthetics such as sBTC and sETH are now able to be traded on the network. THORSwap Finance highlighted the advantages of the synthetic assets via a March 10 blog post, noting that ...
Crypto-friendly Yoon Suk-yeol wins Sth Korean presidency, ICX surges 60%
Conservative South Korean presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol has officially been elected as South Korea’s next president. The election was one of the closest in South Korean history, according to BBC coverage, which saw Yoon, representing the conservative People Power Party, claim victory over his more politically progressive opponent, Lee Jae-myung, by a margin of less than 1%. Cryptocurrency played a leading role in South Korea’s election debate, with both candidates releasing campaign-related NFTs. Their crypto-sympathetic stances are in opposition to former-President Moon Jae-In’s crackdown on crypto exchanges last year, and helped curry favor with the younger, more crypto enthusiastic demographic. Speaking at a virtual asset forum in January, Yoon promised to deregulate South Korea’...
Ethereum gas fees drop to lowest levels since August 2021
Gas fees for transactions on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain have dropped to the lowest levels since August. But they’re still not cheap. According to data sourced from Coinmetrics and shared by CryptoRank Platform, the seven-day moving average cost of an Ethereum transaction as of March 9 totaled $11.14, placing it back amongst the levels recorded mid-last year before it surged dramatically to as high as $55 at the tail end of 2021. The cost of transactions on the @Ethereum network has not been this low since Aug 2021. Notably, gas prices surged after staying in this range for about 3 months with experts attributing the spike to a rise in interest in the #NFT and #DeFi ecosystems. https://t.co/oLDJyfSea2 pic.twitter.com/ieigvLT4Gz — CryptoRank Platform (@CryptoRank_io) March 9, 2022 At the ...
Crypto market rallies on reports of a ‘positive’ Biden crypto executive order
News of the release of a now-deleted Treasury response to Biden’s crypto executive order has sent bullish waves in the market Bitcoin has gained more than 8.25%, racing past $42,000, while Ethereum has retested $2,750 Reports of the highly-anticipated crypto executive order from the White House being bullish or neutral in the worst case have spurred a market rally on Wednesday morning. Treasury’s response hints Biden’s crypto executive is likely not bearish Late yesterday, US Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen published a response to the Biden crypto order even before the latter was released. The incident struck as unintentional since the response shared was dated March 09 (today) yet went up live a day earlier. In the statement, Yellen ‘accidentally gave an inkling...
More than $195M liquidated in the last 24 hours as Bitcoin and altcoins rebound
The combined crypto market capital has swelled by over $115 billion in the last 12 hours Market data shows $195 million worth of leveraged positions have been closed on account of the unexpected rally Top crypto assets are soaring in the market led by Bitcoin and the premier altcoin – both have seen 24-hr price gains of more than 6.50%. The market upsurge started late yesterday following the accidental release of a statement from Treasury’s Janet Yellen acknowledging the White House’s ‘positive’ crypto directive. Through Yellen’s comments, the market construed the crypto executive order as pragmatic and even positive to some extent. This triggered a market-wide rally, with the total crypto market capital growing from $1.726 trillion to a peak of $1.847 trillion a few hours ago. Massive liq...
Regulators and industry leaders react to Biden‘s executive order on crypto
Joe Biden has signed his 82nd executive order since being sworn into office in January 2021, directly addressing a regulatory framework for digital assets in a rare moment for the U.S. president. In a Wednesday announcement, the White House said President Biden’s executive order required government agencies to explore the potential rollout of a United States central bank digital currency as well as coordinate and consolidate policy on a national framework for crypto. Many media outlets previously reported the U.S. president had initially planned to sign the executive order in February, an event that was likely postponed following Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. The reaction from many industry leaders compared the executive order to a regulatory opportunity — Biden had rarely sp...
The future of work: Companies open offices in the metaverse
There’s been a sharp decline in interest for the “metaverse” keyword in Google search. However, while the hype may be waning, it seems that companies are still very keen on dipping their toes into the virtual world. In March alone, companies have either launched or revealed plans to build metaverse offices that would be used for online meetings with international clients, internal innovation hubs and enhancing social communication with users. While we may be witnessing its earlier versions, metaverse offices seem like a sneak peek into the future of work. With this, let’s take a look at some companies that have recently entered the metaverse. Events firm Atom sets up a metaverse office Atom, an events firm based in Mumbai, has recently set up its metaverse office. The firm purchased digita...
Bitcoin rallied, but analysts say it’s ‘more of the same’ until $46K becomes support
“Volatility” is the word of the month and that is exactly what cryptocurrency investors saw today as Bitcoin rallied after concerns over the Biden administration’s executive order on crypto turned out to be a ‘nothingburger’. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after trading near the $39,000 mark for the past few days, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) spiked 10.42% to an intraday high at $42,606 on as cautious traders flooded back into the market. BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Here’s a look at what traders and analysts in the market are saying about this latest move and the areas of support and resistance to keep an eye on. “Different pump, same story” Wednesday’s move for Bitcoin was just a repeat of recent be...
Softer-than-expected crypto regulation and stocks’ rebound position Bitcoin for a $42K close
Bitcoin (BTC) bulls jumped in to defend the $40,000 level after a devastating retest of the $38,000 support on March 7. The confidence and momentum that was building up earlier in the month was suddenly shattered after BTC failed to break $44,500 for the third time this month on March 2. The Bitcoin price rally on March 9 has partially been attributed to this week’s expected United States inflation data report. Analysts expect another 40-year record high as the consumer price index (CPI) reaches 7.9% yearly gains. Furthermore, a statement from the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on President Biden’s executive order on digital assets was somewhat milder than expected. Although deleted from the website, the order will apparently call for “a coordinated and comprehensive approach to digi...
Elizabeth Warren is drafting legislation to check Russian activity in crypto
There are bipartisan concerns on the role of crypto in enabling Russia to skirt economic sanctions Warren’s proposed bill would require crypto exchanges to track and submit records on transactions to private crypto wallets As the sanctions against Russia become stringent and more companies including Visa and MasterCard join the list of those suspending operations in the country, the United States political class wants to go a step further to ensure that “crypto isn’t used by Putin and his cronies to undermine our economic sanctions,” as Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren put it. According to a report first published by NBC News on Tuesday, the senior senator from Massachusetts is crafting a piece of legislation to crack down on crypto and prevent its use by Ru...
P2P file-sharing platform LimeWire stages a comeback as an NFT marketplace
The discontinued file sharing platform will launch as an NFT marketplace in May The NFT marketplace project is yet to conduct external funding but will soon launch a LimeWire token Defunct software peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) client LimeWire has today announced that it’s coming back but not in the same way it used to be. LimeWire intends to relaunch as an NFT marketplace. At the height of its prominence, LimeWire was popular for its service that allowed users to share and download music at no cost. However, its run came to an end and had to shut down in 2010 after a federal court found that LimeWire had caused large-scale copyright infringement via the service it offered users. Here is what to expect Austrian brothers Julian and Paul Zehetmayr, who acquired LimeWire’s intel...
