Crypto

Crypto and blockchain investments continue to grow thanks to ever-rising investor interest, according to a new report from Big Four accounting firm KPMG. Titled “Pulse of Fintech H1 2021,” the study covers global investment activities in different financial technology verticals for the first half of the year. It details 2,456 investment deals worth $98 billion made between January and June. One of the top fintech trends for 2021 is the explosive growth in the crypto and blockchain investments, the report reads. The first six months of 2021 saw 548 investments activities, including venture capitals, private equities, and mergers and acquisitions in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors. The total value of investments during the first half of the year is $8.7 billion, already d...

Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi, regarded as one of the game’s greatest players of all time, has reportedly made crypto fan tokens a part of the payment deal in his financial package with French club Paris Saint-Germain. The information comes from sources close to the matter, according to Reuters. Messi, 34, who had been at FC Barcelona since he was 13, this week signed a two-year contract with Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), with an option to extend for a third year. His departure from Barcelona, with which he won four Champions League titles, was sealed after Spanish La Liga’s financial fair play rules made it fiscally unviable for the club to continue to afford the star player. Messi has won the European Golden Shoe award for top scorer and FIFA’s player of the year award s...

Titan Crypto customers will gain exposure to a basket of the best crypto assets for long-term returns and hedging qualities Investment platform Titan announced yesterday it would be offering US investors an actively managed portfolio of cryptocurrency assets for the first time. The product, called Titan Crypto, will provide Titan’s clients with exposure to some of the fastest-growing investments in the world – without the need of any prior crypto knowledge. Co-founder and CTO of Titan, Max Bernardy, said, “At Titan our clients trust our portfolio selection and we see an ever-increasing likelihood that Bitcoin and other cryptoassets achieve broad adoption and value accrual. We are excited to be the first to introduce this offering to our clients.” Titan aims to rival the likes of BlackRock ...

Bitcoin’s (BTC) strong recovery and march toward the psychological level at $50,000 has improved the overall sentiment in the crypto sector. That has boosted the total crypto market capitalization to over $1.9 trillion. Data from Glassnode shows a sharp increase in the dominance of Bitcoin transactions exceeding $1 million in the past few months. The on-chain analytics firm noted in its report that the transactions by the $1 million to $10 million group surged when Bitcoin corrected to $29,000 in July. This suggests that institutional investors may have been buying, which is “fairly constructive for price.” Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 Further evidence of possible institutional buying came from CryptoQuant data showing that Bitcoin reserves on derivatives exchan...

Lattice Exchange, an automated market maker for the DeFi market, has launched a new product that seeks to allow cryptocurrency entrepreneurs to list their tokens and for users to participate in early-stage projects more seamlessly.  Dubbed Lattice Launchpad, the new platform is described as a “one-stop shop for blockchain entrepreneurs” to get their projects recognized by the community. Users can participate in private sales by staking LTX, the native cryptocurrency of Lattice Exchange. LTX holders also have the opportunity to participate in the governance of newly listed projects. All projects are funded through Ether (ETH) or stablecoins Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC). Lattice Exchange also announced that it will soon migrate to Constellation’s Hypergraph Network, which is said t...

This week the total cryptocurrency market capitalization bounced back to $1.9 trillion, which was a 20% weekly increase and the highest level seen since May 20. While the fresh bullish momentum attracted the attention of investors, Bitcoin’s (BTC) move from $33,400 to $45,900 was pretty much in line with the rest of the market. Whether Bitcoin will finally break the $46,000 resistance remains an open question. However, the longer it takes, the higher the odds that altcoins will outperform the leading cryptocurrency. Total crypto market cap. in USD million (right) and Bitcoin dominance (left). Source: TradingView Not every altcoin performed similarly and only 14 of the top 100 from CoinMarketCap outperformed Bitcoin by 3% or more. Top weekly performers among the 100 largest. Source: C...

The Poly Network hacker has now returned $258 million to the cross-chain DeFi protocol and  conducted a question and answer session detailing how the initial hack went down. In what is being described as the largest DeFi hack to date, the Poly Network suffered a $612 million exploit on Aug. 10 which saw the hacker steal assets from Ethereum, Binance Chain and the Polygon Network. Tom Robinson, the chief scientist at blockchain analytics firm Elliptic told Forbes on Aug. 11 that the hacker has now returned roughly $258 million worth of funds to Poly so far — with $342 million yet to be returned. I like how the PolyNetwork Exploiter is having an AMA right now… what a ridiculous space. pic.twitter.com/FBQieZqdQW — Sam MacPherson (@hexonaut) August 11, 2021 The attacker stated their...

The total value of all cryptocurrencies in circulation — a major bellwether for the health of the overall market — reached $2 trillion on Wednesday for the first time in almost three months, offering compelling evidence that buyers are back in control.  Measured by market capitalization, digital asset values peaked at $2.007 trillion on Wednesday, according to data provided by Coingecko. Over the past 24 hours, the digital asset class has risen by 4.6%. Week-over-week, the market has added 25%, or $400 billion. The cryptocurrency market appears to have regained its footing after a trying three-month period. Source: Coingecko Bitcoin (BTC), which is the largest and most influential cryptocurrency, accounted for 43.7% of the overall market. Ethereum (ETH), meanwhile, took 18.9% of the m...

United States lawmakers will soon destroy a massive opportunity for job creation and a diverse workforce in blockchain technology if they do not amend infrastructure bill HR 3684, which would require blockchain developers to attain broker status on U.S. soil. HR 3684 does not recognize the taxonomy of the asset class. Not every crypto asset falls under the definition of security — many are transactional tokens and used as consensus mechanisms essential to distributed ledger technology. Requiring broker status for every blockchain developer indicates that U.S. lawmakers have yet to understand blockchain technology or cryptocurrency’s complex and diverse set of use cases. Related: Cryptocurrency mining under proposed US policy changes “Blockchain enables us to build a new decentralized...

San Francisco-based technology firm Metromile has used 10% of the funds it previously said would be allocated towards crypto to buy Bitcoin. According to an Aug. 10 filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, Metromile reported it had purchased $1 million in Bitcoin (BTC) in June. However, the firm recorded a loss of $100,000 in the original crypto buy, holding roughly $900,000 in Bitcoin as of June 30, or 25.6 BTC at the time. Metromile’s financial report for the second quarter of 2021 says the company held $202.6 million in cash and cash equivalents as of June 30, meaning its Bitcoin investment was roughly 0.5% of funds available. Some experts advocate allocating from 1% to 3% of one’s net worth into crypto. The SEC filing follows the company saying in May it intende...

Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN) rebounded during the early trading hours on Aug.11 after it beat Wall Street forecasts for sales and revenues in the second quarter. The cost to purchase one COIN share surged 4.7% to $282.34 at the New York opening bell. Later, bids for the COIN rose to as high as $294 before pulling back to its current price at $279.72. Coinbase stock daily chart. Source: TradingView Strong Q2 earnings for Coinbase  Coinbase Global reported better-than-expected earnings in the second quarter of 2021and posted net revenue of $2.3 billion. That came to be 27% higher from the previous quarter and 1,042% up on a year-over-year basis. Meanwhile, Coinbase’s net income rose from $32 million to $1.6 billion in the same period, surpassing earnings of older and more tradit...