Crypto

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped back below $39,000 on Aug. 2, suggesting that short-term traders were booking profits after the price failed to close above $42,451.67.  However, lower levels could again attract buying as seen in late July. Data from Santiment showed that Bitcoin held on wallet addresses storing between 100 and 10,000 Bitcoin rose to a new all-time high at 9.23 million Bitcoin on Aug. 1. The previous all-time high for this group of investors was recorded on April 5, just over a week before Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $64,854 on April 14. Santiment highlighted that the “addresses have accumulated approximately 170,000 more Bitcoin” in the last four weeks. A similar pace of purchase was seen in late December 2020, just before the start of the strong bull move in 2021. Daily cr...

As decentralized exchanges now represent a significant amount of crypto trading volume, it is vivid that these platforms will play a big role in the smart economy of the future. Automated market makers, in particular, changed the game by eliminating the need for order books entirely and replacing them with liquidity pools. This model was a win-win for both traders executing swaps and liquidity providers incentivized to supply their tokens and earn fees from traders. Even the sporadic liquidity issues on DEXes, brought about by a sometimes fragmented marketplace, were addressed by the emergence of DEX aggregators – platforms that would essentially pool together fragmented liquidity onto a single platform. For the most part, however, these DEX aggregators are limited to connecting liquidity ...

Crypto as a payment option for real estate continues to gain traction as the adoption of digital currencies for commercial transactions continues to take shape. Scott Paul, founder of Utah-based marketing agency Wooly, put up his Saratoga Springs home for sale, with Dogecoin (DOGE) as an acceptable payment method, according to a report by Fox 13 on Sunday. While the listing price is set at $399,000, Paul is reportedly ready to offer a 10% discount if the purchase is made via Dogecoin. Commenting on the potential volatility risk associated with a real estate deal conducted via DOGE, Paul remarked, “I’m a very risky person. I think the chances of me selling it in Dogecoin and having it go up by 20%, 30% or 40% is more likely.” Given the current price of Dogecoin, Paul’s house listing at a 10...

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) stirred interest among crypto enthusiasts last year after investing $5 million in blockchain-based oil trading company Vakt. While this move aimed to digitize and streamline post-trade processing, Saudi Aramco was also rumored to undertake Bitcoin (BTC) mining activities.  However, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company released an official statement to dismiss the ongoing rumors around mining Bitcoin. It said: “With reference to recent reports claiming that the company will embark on Bitcoin mining activities, Aramco confirms that these claims are completely false and inaccurate.” Many governments, including China, have recently unleashed a crackdown on home-grown crypto mining activities, forcing businesses to find refuge in other crypto-f...

A new report on the potential for blockchain identity management solutions to become integrated across sectors has forecast strong growth for its global market, at a compound annual rate of close to 71%. The report grounds its predictions on a study broken down into segments by sector — e.g., government, healthcare, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), geography, and applications. It was published by the Lyon-headquartered market research solution provider ReportLinker.  Drawing on an analysis of several existing blockchain identity management market vendors — Accenture, Amazon, Bitfury Group, Civic Technologies and others — the report expects the total global market to grow by $3.58 billion between 2021 and 2025. Related: The future of DeFi is spread across multiple...

Ethereum’s native asset, Ether (ETH), dropped after reclaiming its two-month high in the previous session, suggesting that its recent bullish rally was nearing exhaustion.  In detail, the ETH/USD pair topped out at $2,699 on Sunday for the first time since June 7. The pair’s peak level also pushed its relative strength index (RSI), a momentum-gauging indicator, above 70 — a mark that analysts consider overbought. Seemingly, traders with short-term risk setups sold the Ether top to secure interim profits, leading up to a modest downside correction. Ether eyes a run-up toward $3.25K based on a Falling Wedge breakout setup. Source: TradingView On Monday, Ether prices rose 1.81% to $2,600 to offset the Sunday sell-off risks. The upswing indicated that traders could still place higher bids...

Robo advisor Wealthfront has informed its users that they can now gain access to cryptocurrencies via the Grayscale Bitcoin and Ethereum funds Wealthfront has revealed that it has started integrating cryptocurrency-related products on its platform, and it is starting with the Grayscale Bitcoin and Ether funds. The firm announced this in a blog post late last week, making it possible for its users to gain exposure to cryptocurrencies. The Robo advisor said, “we’re expanding our menu of investments even more to include hundreds of options, including two cryptocurrency trusts: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE).” The firm maintained that it is the service that makes it possible to gain exposure to cryptocurrency. This latest offering is part o...

Bitcoin’s (BTC) 43% rally from $29,482.61 on July 21 to $42,316.71 on July 30 has invigorated the bulls who had been sitting on the sideli. After the sharp rise, some analysts are debating whether Bitcoin could repeat its sharp bull run seen in 2013 and 2017. Vailshire Capital founder and CEO Jeff Ross highlighted that Bitcoin had rallied ten-fold in the second half of 2013 after facing three months of negative news. Ross said: “I still contend that 2021 will behave in similar fashion.” Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360 PlanB, the creator of the stock-to-flow price model, said Bitcoin’s comeback in July was “like clockwork.” He said that the stock-to-flow model will remain valid if Bitcoin closes August above $47,000. Meanwhile, institutional investors continue to ...

Decentralized asset management protocol, dHEDGE, has launched its V2 deployment on Polygon. The new platform also boasts an integration with popular decentralized exchange, SushiSwap. Speaking exclusively to Cointelegraph, dHEDGE’s Henrik Andersson highlighted v2’s new Guarded Open Access Transactions (GOAT) framework — which enables v2 users to access whitelisted DeFi DApps whitelisted by the dHEDGE decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Andersson emphasized that the GOAT framework will significantly increase the speed with which dHEDGE is able to launch new integrations with third-party protocols, stating: “It’s like a general framework for us to add support for DApps. Instead of having to build specific plugins or connections to DApps, we can use this framework to whitelist ...

Nigerian cryptocurrency adoption continues to rise in spite of government crackdown, with peer-to-peer (P2P) trade volume for Bitcoin posting its second strongest week on record last month. According to data from Google Trends, Nigeria still ranks number by search interest for the keyword “Bitcoin” as of this writing. P2P Bitcoin trading denominated in the Nigerian Naira has also steadily increased in 2021, with Nigeria ranking behind only the United States as the second-largest market for peer-to-peer BTC trading, according to Useful Tulips. The growing Bitcoin adoption in Nigeria has helped Sub-Saharan Africa emerge as the leading region by P2P volume, with the region posting $18.8 million in weekly volume to beat out North America’s $18 million this past week. Weekly P2P volume by regio...