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Are there too many cryptocurrencies?
The cryptocurrency industry has grown at a staggering pace. There are now almost 21,000 different coins in existence, across a variety of subsectors. From metaverses to decentralized finance, investors are spoiled for choice. But a burning question, especially among crypto skeptics, is this: Are there too many cryptocurrencies? We’ve repeatedly seen how new altcoins can be created in the blink of an eye. Tokens popped up hours after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars — pumping and dumping on low liquidity. And following the death of Queen Elizabeth, the markets were flooded by a flurry of “memecoins” bearing her name. Some critics felt this was in poor taste and argued it was “a bad look for crypto.” Despite the proliferation of thousands of cry...
The Fed is declaring war on inflation. It could lead straight to recession.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has pledged to do whatever it takes to curb inflation, a point that he’ll punctuate on Wednesday when the central bank raises interest rates for the fifth time this year. The job seems nowhere near done, with the costs of everything from health care to rents soaring even as gas prices fall. But the Fed’s policies take time to feed through the economy, meaning the central bank could end up depressing economic activity more than necessary before realizing it, given the sheer speed at which it’s jacking up rates — the fastest pace in three decades. “There’s the old expression that sometimes they’ll tighten until something breaks,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “It’s a legitimate concern at this point.” The predicament creates an e...
Fears of Fed-induced pain grow, from global recession to deflation
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has pledged to do whatever it takes to curb inflation, a point that he’ll punctuate on Wednesday when the central bank raises interest rates for the fifth time this year. The job seems nowhere near done, with the costs of everything from health care to rents soaring even as gas prices fall. But the Fed’s policies take time to feed through the economy, meaning the central bank could end up depressing economic activity more than necessary before realizing it, given the sheer speed at which it’s jacking up rates — the fastest pace in three decades. “There’s the old expression that sometimes they’ll tighten until something breaks,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “It’s a legitimate concern at this point.” The predicament creates an e...
Totality Corp CEO explains why India is still largely untapped for NFTs
Despite ranking as one of the highest adopters of cryptocurrency among emerging markets, the majority of the Indian market is yet to embrace nonfungible tokens (NFTs). In an interview with Cointelegraph, Totality Corp Founder and CEO Anshul Rustaggi explained that social and cultural barriers, as well as anti-crypto regulations, are holding back NFTs from mass adoption — particularly in some of the lower-tier cities in the country. India has a population of 1.38 billion people and is the second-most populous country in the world sitting just behind China. Last month, the United Nations forecast the country to overtake its competitor sometime in 2023. However, Rustaggi explained that crypto trading and NFT collection are seen as speculative investments — a concept that is frowned upon in In...
Regulatory clarity will drive the next bull run — hedge fund co-founder
A former head of risk at Credit Suisse believes the next crypto bull market will stem from “regulatory clarity” in the United States — which he expects to happen in early 2023. Speaking to Cointelegraph, the former head of valuation risk at Credit Suisse, CK Cheng said some of the regulatory efforts underway in the United States will soon “open the doors” of traditional finance to crypto. Cheng is a former executive at investment bank Credit Suisse who left his role in July 2021 to co-found ZX Squared Capital, a crypto hedge fund targeting family offices and high-net-worth individual clients. Cheng said there has been a recent sea change in traditional institutions’ stance towards crypto, with many dipping their toes into the crypto waters for the first time. In August, one of the world’s ...
White hat finds huge vulnerability in ETH to Arbitrum bridge: Wen max bounty?
A self-described white hat hacker has uncovered a “multi-million dollar vulnerability” in the bridge linking Ethereum and Arbitrum Nitro and received a 400 Ether (ETH) bounty for their find. Known as riptide on Twitter, the hacker described the exploit as the use of an initializing function to set their own bridge address, which would hijack all incoming ETH deposits from those trying to bridge funds from Ethereum to Arbitrum Nitro. Riptide explained the exploit in a Medium post on Sept. 20: “We could either selectively target large ETH deposits to remain undetected for a longer period of time, siphon up every single deposit that comes through the bridge, or wait and just front-run the next massive ETH deposit.” The hack could have potentially netted tens or even hundreds of millions worth...
Downfall of Canada’s Lambo driving ‘Crypto King’ reportedly sees $35M in losses
A self-styled 23-year-old ‘Crypto King’ is facing a raft of demands among 140 of his investors as they try to claw back a collective total of $35 million from his company AP Private Equity Limited. According to a Sept. 20 CBC report, creditors are hard at work trying to unravel where all the money they allegedly gave Canadian Aiden Pleterski to make crypto and foreign exchange investments on their behalf ended up. A bankruptcy trustee’s report, creditors meeting minutes, court filings, and complaints made to Investigation Counsel PC reveal Pleterski owned 11 vehicles, leased four other luxury cars, regularly flew on private jets, and was living in a lakefront mansion costing $45,000 a month to rent. So far roughly $2 million worth of assets have been seized, among them tw...
As Music Stocks Keep Slipping, This One K-Pop Company Is Bucking the Trend
South Korean music company SM Entertainment, home to such groups as NCT 127 and SuperM, stands apart in a competitive music business for withstanding stock market downturns that have hit all other publicly-traded music companies. Since December, stocks have been on a downward trend, sparked by the Federal Reserve’s intention to raise the federal funds rate to prevent the economy from overheating and rein in inflation. And while music is often said to be recession-proof, music companies’ stocks are not immune from larger economic trends and investors’ desires for safer options during chaotic times. Even though the global music industry is posting double-digit revenue growth, the share prices of publicly traded music companies have followed the broader trends and stumbled in the face ...
Litecoin Foundation’s managing director shares his thoughts on decentralized money
Litecoin (LTC), known as “the silver to Bitcoin’s gold,” has been around for almost 11 years — which is quite a feat considering a fair amount of cryptocurrencies go bust within 12 months of launching. Cointelegraph spoke with the Litecoin Foundation’s managing director, Alan Austin, about why he thinks Litecoin’s core utility is serving as a reliable means of payment. As told by Austin, much of his vision for Litecoin is drawn from personal experience: “When I finished grad school, I worked with startup technology companies and real estate. And one of the things I did was managing accounts for firms like Bank of America and Fannie Mae, and it was surprising to see how old their technology was and how difficult it was to get stuff done.” After the 2008 financial crisis, Austin began losing...
OpenSea to allow creators to host NFT drops directly through its homepage
OpenSea, the digital marketplace for crypto collectibles and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has launched a new initiative to make it easier for creators to create and distribute NFTs on its marketplace. As part of this new immersive initiative, creators will be able to launch their NFT collections on their own customizable and dedicated drop pages, which the company hopes will allow for greater visibility and discoverability on the marketplace’s new homepage. Under the customizable drop pages, creators will now have the ability to share images and videos, provide team highlights, outline roadmaps, and more. According to the announcement: “Drop pages will include information about the drop, the minting schedule, a countdown clock, and of course – an NFT gallery. We’ll also allow collecto...
Crypto and stocks soften ahead of Fed rate hike, but XRP, ALGO and LDO look ‘interesting’
Prices remain soft across the market as traders await Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s statement on the size of the next interest rate hike. At the moment, the market consensus is a 0.75 bps rate hike and a sliver of analysts are banking on 1%. Stocks also appear en-route to close the day in the red, with the Dow down 0.75%, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq registering a 0.79% and 0.64% loss. Bitcoin continues to fight what appears to be a losing battle at the $19,000 mark, while Ether (ETH) dug a little deeper into its post-Merge dip by making an intra-day low at $1,329. While BTC, Ether and altcoins aren’t making any notable moves that defy the current downtrend, from the perspective of market structure and technical analysis, there are a few interesting developments occurr...
Hearing: Alternative payments’ threat to national security goes far beyond crypto
Non-crypto alternative payment systems pose a serious threat to United States security, according to testimony presented at a U.S. House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on National Security, International Development, and Monetary Policy hearing Tuesday. The alternative payments ecosystem should be seen as a whole, and crypto can enhance national security, speakers said. Wilson Center fellow Scott Dueweke told the U.S. House Financial Services subcommittee in written testimony, “By focusing only on cryptocurrencies we risk missing the forest for the trees.” Money services businesses are heavily regulated in the United States, but those based outside the country may be unwilling to conform to U.S. requirements, including Know Your Customer/Anti-Money Laundering, and they may...
