Crypto

After 46 consecutive days of trading above $42,000, Bitcoin (BTC) price started to show weakness on Sept. 21. Over the last three days, the 13% accumulated loss was enough to erase the hard-earned gains added since Aug. 6. Historicals also show that the previous bearish cycle took 79 days to regain the all-important $42,000 level. Traders’ attention turned to the start of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s monetary meeting, where the financial authority is expected to indicate whether it will curtail the $120 billion monthly asset repurchase stimulus program. Curiously, as all this takes place, China’s equity markets, as measured by the iShares MSCI China ETF ($MCHI), rebounded 1% on Sept. 21. Is China really the root of the recent correction? The apparent disconnection between B...

The price of Bitcoin has slumped below $40,000 for the first time in six weeks. The slide took place near the close of the day on Sept. 21, with BTC prices having drawn down by 16% from nearly $47,300 at the start of the day, to tag a local low of $39,650 at roughly 9pm UTC. The move marked a 25% retracement from BTC’s local highs above $50,000 on Sept. 7. However, the pullback comes after Bitcoin gained more than 80% since hitting $29,300 on July 20 and then heading into early-September’s highs. Bitcoin has since recovered to trade just above $42,000. Bitcoin was not alone in suffering a sharp price decline on Sept. 21, with 29 of the top 30 crypto assets by market cap suffering a 24-hour drawdown according to CoinGecko. According to the crypto Fear & Greed Index, the bearish price ac...

Dfinity Foundation’s Internet Computer blockchain is bringing smart-contract capabilities to the Bitcoin (BTC) network, potentially opening the door to new use cases for the premier cryptocurrency.  Internet Computer will utilize its so-called chain key cryptography to integrate with Bitcoin, paving the way for smart contracts with native BTC addresses that are hosted directly on Internet Computer, Dfinity Foundation announced Tuesday. “Internet Computer smart contracts will gain access to bitcoin liquidity, and Bitcoin will gain powerful new smart contract functionality, without the need for insecure and cumbersome trusted bridging services,” explained Dominic Williams, the founder and chief scientist of Dfinity Foundation. Smart contracts on Internet Computer will feature associated...

Ether (ETH) price fell below the $3,000 support on Sept. 20 as global markets entered a risk-aversion mode. The Invesco China Technology ETF (CQQQ) closed down 4.2%, while the SPDR S&P Metals and Mining ETF (XME) lost 3.8%. Some analysts pointed to the potential ripple effects of the default of Evergrande, a major Chinese real estate company. In contrast, others blame the ongoing debates over the debt limit in Washington as the catalyst for this week’s volatility. As a result, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), usually referred to as the “stock market fear index,” jumped by more than 30% to reach its highest level since May. On Sept.19, United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for Congress to raise the U.S. debt ceiling again in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. ...

Sommelier, a co-processing protocol to the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM,  announced a research and development partnership with Mysten Labs to increase liquidity transaction speeds and launch smart contract applications on the Cosmos blockchain on Tuesday. Founded in 2020 by Zaki Manian, a core developer on the Cosmos protocol, Sommelier is a test-net protocol designed to deliver enterprise-grade automated financial transactions such as limit orders, batched orders and portfolio rebalancing to decentralized finance, or DeFi, traders and liquidity providers, or LPs. The blockchain, which combines the Tendermint consensus layer, Cosmos Stargate SDK, and dual-way Ethereum bridge, will work with Mysten to implement Move smart contract programming to provide the entire ecosystem of Cos...

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) dominated crypto and mainstream media headlines all throughout 2021 as investors who held CryptoPunks and other projects minted prior to 2018 were finally rewarded for their patience. Meanwhile, newer projects like the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Art Blocks Curated saw some of their rarer pieces sell for millions of dollars.  Despite the million-dollar sales for select one-of-a-kind NFTs and the record-breaking sell volumes on marketplaces like OpenSea, data shows that a majority of the lower-priced NFTs and lesser-known projects in the market do not accrue value and this means that the sector is rather illiquid. Using data from OpenSea, a recent report from Bloomberg found that 73.1% of NFT assets had only one transaction in the past 90 days. The number of...

German stock market operator Deutsche Boerse continues diving into the cryptocurrency derivatives by listing three new crypto exchange-traded notes (ETN) by VanEck. Deutsche Boerse officially announced on Tuesday that VanEck’s new ETNs on Polkadot’s DOT, Solana (SOL) and Tron (TRX) are now tradable on its digital stock exchange, Xetra, and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The new listings expand Deutsche Boerse’s crypto ETN offerings as the company previously started offering similar products on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC), the firm noted. “All crypto ETNs tradable on Xetra are physically collateralized and listed on the Regulated Market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange,” the announcement reads. According to Deutsche Boerse, i...

Bitcoin (BTC) bounced off $40,000 on Tuesday as attention returned to United States regulators. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView $45,000 target emerges for bulls Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD circling $43,000 Tuesday ahead of fresh comments from Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. BTC price action steadied on the day after a fresh dip saw the first test of $40,000 support since Aug. 6. While traders remained cautiously bullish on the outlook, the shadow of Evergrande, put off by a public holiday in China, still loomed large over sentiment. “I am not too euphoric about this bounce,” popular trader Crypto Bullet summarized as part of his latest update. “Surely it’s nice to see some strength by Bit...

Institutional interest for digital assets continues to grow rapidly, demonstrating that cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and nonfungible tokens (NFT) are here to stay. At the same time, traditional financial institutions are beginning to understand the dire need to properly support digital assets. For example, although payments giants such as Mastercard and Visa currently offer crypto-enabled credit and debit cards, these companies are also forming partnerships with crypto organizations to enable better security and trust for consumers transacting with digital currencies.  Shedding light on the matter, Ajay Bhalla, president of cyber and intelligence at Mastercard, told Cointelegraph that Mastercard’s customers and other partners are seeking solutions to ensure that the crypto economy is...

PayPal has announced the release of a new app billed to be a one-stop-shop for all of the digital payment needs of the company’s customers. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman stated back in July that the company’s super app was ready for a rollout in the United States. According to a release issued on Tuesday, the new PayPal app will enable users to access all of the company’s digital financial products. The new app covers both crypto and non-crypto use cases with a wallet tab to manage cryptocurrency payments and high yield savings. Indeed, the PayPal announcement included a partnership with online bank Synchrony Bank to provide a high yield savings account via the new app. As part of the announcement, the digital payments giant revealed that customers could ...