Crypto

A new stablecoin is arriving on the Cardano blockchain to provide a tool for decentralized finance (DeFi) operations and avoid transaction fees. Cardano’s payment gateway provider, Coti, will be the official issuer of Djed, a new DeFi-focused stablecoin for the Cardano network, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson and Coti CEO Shahaf Bar-Geffen announced Sunday at the Cardano Summit. The new stablecoin will be based on an algorithmic design using smart contracts to ensure price stability and providing an instrument for DeFi transactions. The stablecoin is designed for paying transaction fees on the Cardano network in order to avoid “volatile and exorbitant gas fees” and make transaction costs “more predictable.” According to Djed’s research paper released in August, its stablecoin protocol wi...

China has attempted to stifle the crypto sector’s growth on several occasions in the past 12 years but barring a minor blip, the blanket bans on crypto-commerce have not altered the long-term growth of cryptocurrencies. This shows that no one country, even if it is the second-largest economy in the world, can halt the emergence and growth of cryptocurrencies. Deutsche Bank analyst Marion Laboure said in an update on the bank’s website that Bitcoin (BTC) is likely to “remain ultra-volatile in the foreseeable future” as most people buy it either for investment or for speculation rather than using it as a medium of exchange. However, Laboure believes that Bitcoin could become “the 21st century’s digital gold” and the trend could continue for centuries with no major control by the government. ...

The competition among layer-one (L1) smart contract platforms has been on the rise in the past couple of months as traders and developers continue to embrace Ethereum (ETH) network alternatives that offer faster transaction times and lower fees. According to a recent report from Delphi Digital, the price of Ether has remained relatively flat over the past month while competitors like as Solana (SOL) and Fantom (FTM) have seen their prices rally more than 200% during the same time. Relative performance of L1 tokens over the past 30 days. Source: Delphi Digital One of the drivers of the rallies seen in Fantom (FTM), Avalanche (AVAX) and Terra (LUNA) is the fact that each has launched a variety of mulit-million dollar funding initiatives designed to attract developers, investors and new liqui...

Ethereum’s native token Ether (ETH) staged a rebound on Sept. 26 following a massive decline earlier this week that saw its prices plunging to as low as $2,651 on Coinbase. The ETH/USD exchange rate rose 3.63% to hit an intraday high of $3,030. The upside move amounted to a 14.3% upside retracement from the pair’s week-to-date low at $2,651, showing that traders attempted to retain their bullish bias despite potential headwinds ahead. Last week, Ether prices fell due to a flurry of issues arising from China. On Monday, traders dumped crypto assets en masse after a tumult in China’s heavily indebted property market prompted a selloff across global stock markets. A rebound move ensued later in the week but met with another selloff on Friday after People’s Bank of Chin...

The Chinese government is getting more serious about cracking down on the cryptocurrency industry as state authorities are bringing forces to combat crypto operations in the country. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) officially announced on Friday a set of new measures to fight against crypto adoption in China, including promoting stronger inter-departmental coordination in cracking down crypto activity. 10 Chinese state authorities, including the PBoC, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Public Security, have established a “coordination mechanism” to prevent financial players from participating in any cryptocurrency transactions. According to the announcement, the involved authorities and institutions have completed significant improvements to crypto monitoring...

Governments are tasked with bringing fair and efficient services to the public. Unfortunately, providing transparency and accountability often results in a reduction in efficiency and effectiveness or vice versa. Governments are usually forced to choose to improve one at the cost of the other. On rare occasions, technology comes along that enables governments to improve fairness and efficiency. The move from paper-based record keeping to computer databases was one such technology. The internet was another. Blockchain is the next. Like the internet before it, blockchain will not only improve how the public interacts with government services, it will have broad economic and social implications. Related: Is crypto approaching its ‘Netscape moment?’ How government can use blockchai...

Bitcoin (BTC) sealed another $40,000 retest on Sept. 26 as the battle for the weekly close raged on. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView BTC “unlikely” to linger below $40,000 Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD dipping to $40,800 overnight, following an earlier unsuccessful attempt by sellers to flip $40,000 back to resistance. With stubborn conditions keeping BTC price action in a narrow range, attention on Sunday focused on where the longer-term bottom might be. Analysts also stayed conspicuously bullish on what might come afterwards. In a series of tweets reflecting on the broader state of Bitcoin, popular trader Pentoshi eyed $37,000 as a potential floor. “This looks healthy on the HTF’s and is likely ...

Decentralized technologies are starting to revolutionize the world of finance, with cryptocurrencies applied in different ways to recreate traditional financial instruments. However, since cryptocurrencies aren’t backed by anything but people’s faith in them, they are extremely volatile. That means, when it comes to loaning value with crypto, neither party can be sure that they will get a fair deal. There needs to be a way to secure the value of the assets loaned, which can be done by backing them up with a value in the real world. Here is where the tokenization of real assets comes in. This process is pretty straightforward when we consider tangible assets like a building or gold bars, but what about intangible assets like intellectual property? Related: Understanding the systemic shift f...

The legal status of cryptocurrencies remains a mixed bag of regulatory positions, depending on the jurisdiction being considered. While some countries move toward blanket prohibitions or stringent regulations, others elect to go with a more open approach to crypto. For Ukraine, the latter path appears to be the case, with the government encouraging legalized crypto operations within the country. Ukraine’s seemingly positive stance on cryptocurrencies also stands in stark contrast with neighboring Russia where officials are enacting regulatory roadblocks against the ownership and use of digital currencies. While Ukraine enacts laws to recognize and regulate crypto, the country’s central bank is also working on its own national digital currency. Central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects ...