crypto blog
Crypto volatility may soon recede despite high correlation with TradFi
After forging a minor recovery of sorts earlier this month, the crypto market has returned to exhibiting high levels of volatility over the past two weeks. This trend has pervaded the market since late last year, with the total market capitalization of the digital asset industry having dipped from an all-time high of $3 trillion back in November 2021 to its current levels of $1.08 trillion, representing a drop of over 65%. This then begs the question: How long is this volatility going to last? Especially since the macroeconomic conditions surrounding the global finance sector have continued to deteriorate steadily since 2020 — i.e., following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, Abdul Gadit, chief financial officer of automated digital asset trading platform Zignaly, to...
Eurozone hits record inflation of 9.1% amid gas and energy crisis
August marks the ninth consecutive month of rising inflation for the Eurozone at 9.1%. In July, the official inflation numbers landed at 8.9%. The Eurozone consists of 19 countries, including Germany, France and Belgium. This comes as the European Union (EU) faces a massive energy and gas crisis, largely as a result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Current prices for daily necessities such as food, gas and electricity have soared across the continent. Over the last month, energy prices made up the largest price push, up by an annual rate of 38.3%, While food, alcohol and tobacco all rose by an annual rate of over 10%. Former EU member the United Kingdom also hit a 40-year-high inflation rate of 10.1% in July, as reported by the Organization of National Statistics (ONS). Eurozone countri...
‘Everything’s on sale’: Reddit founder, Galaxy and Genesis execs raise big money
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital (VC) firm Seven Seven Six (776) is looking to raise a crypto investment fund worth $177.6 million, while current and former executives from Galaxy Digital and Genesis are raising a $500 million fund of their own. 776’s crypto play According to an Aug. 29 report from The Information, 776’s fund “Kryptos” will launch in October to capitalize on the current bear market. It emphasized there are currently some bargain bin token discounts on the market that are ripe for the taking. “This is the best time to buy if you’re really long on the industry. It’s on sale. Everything is on sale,” said Katelin Holloway, Founding Partner at Seven Seven Six. The firm registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to become an investment advisor...
Largest Ether mining pool Ethermine opens new ETH staking service
Ahead of the rapidly approaching Ethereum (ETH) Merge on Sept. 15, Ethermine, the world’s largest Ethereum mining pool has unveiled a new staking pool for users. Notably however, it is not available to U.S. miners The new service offers Ethermine members a chance to collectively stake their ETH and earn interest on top of their deposits. As little as 0.1 ETH ($159) required to enter. However the smaller the holding, the greater the fee. The platform is currently offering stakers an annual ETH interest rate of 4.43%. At the time of writing, 393 Ether worth roughly $626,000 at current prices has been invested into Ethermine’s new pool. Staking pools such as these hold significance as they offer competitive interest rates and a lower barriers of entry than solo staking as node operators...
ETH products grow in August as BTC products dip: CryptoCompare report
Ethereum investment products increased by 2.36% to $6.81 billion in assets under management (AUM) throughout August, outperforming Bitcoin products which saw a 7.16% drop off to $17.4 billion. The figures were contained in a new report by CryptoCompare. This was also reflected in the Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH)-product trading volumes, with Grayscale’s most notable Bitcoin product, GBTC experiencing a 24.4% drop in volume, while its Ethereum product, GETH actually increased 23.2%. CryptoCompare’s report suggeste the highly anticipated Ethereum Merge was the cause behind the change in trading volumes: Indeed, even at a more granular level, no Bitcoin products covered in this report saw AUM or volume gains in the month of August. We could be seeing interest move away from Bi...
Mystery of the whale wallet holding 50% of Axie Infinity’s SLP supply
For nearly a year now, a mysterious Axie Infinity wallet has been quietly amassing billions of Smooth Love Potion (SLP), the in-game cryptocurrency powering one of the industry’s most popular play-to-earn (P2E) crypto games. Today, the anonymous whale wallet now holds a little over 22 billion SLP — more than 50% the total circulating supply of the token. The problem? No one knows who it belongs to and what their intentions are. The wallet in question was brought to Cointelegraph’s attention by Axie Infinity player and tech co-founder Michael Benko, who first caught wind of this mysterious wallet on Aug. 25. Should we be worried? Benko told Cointelegraph he became concerned about the wallet given the amount of SLP it had gathered in a relatively short amount of time, which could poten...
Amid crypto winter, Nexo commits additional $50M to buyback program
Crypto lending platform Nexo has increased the size of its buyback program, giving the company more discretionary ability to repurchase its native token to boost interest payments or make strategic investments in the future. On Tuesday, Nexo disclosed that its board of directors had committed an additional $50 million to buybacks, building off the company’s initial $100 million repurchase program launched in November 2021. The approval green lights the discretionary repurchase of up to $50 million worth of NEXO tokens on the open market. NEXO is the platform’s native cryptocurrency, giving users the ability to earn interest and lock in lower rates for borrowing. The token currently has a market capitalization of $563.6 million and 24-hour trading volumes of $46.7 million, according to Nexo...
Crypto ‘cannot be partisan,’ says US lawmaker who scored negative on bipartisanship index: Report
United States House of Representatives member Tom Emmer has reportedly suggested that regulating and encouraging innovation in the crypto space should not be a political win for either Democrats or Republicans. According to an interview released Tuesday by Axios reporter Brady Dale, Emmer said many of his colleagues in Congress were treating cryptocurrencies as a risk that merited warnings, rather than an investment opportunity for the United States. The U.S. lawmaker added that encouraging figures like FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to stay in the country will open more doors for residents rather than driving them away with regulatory uncertainty. Emmer, who has often pushed back against the “regulation by enforcement” approach some government agencies — including the Securities and Exchange C...
UBS raises US recession odds to 60%, but what does this mean for crypto prices?
On Aug. 30, global investment bank UBS increased its view on the risk of the United States entering a recession within one year to 60%, up from 40% in June. According to economist Pierre Lafourcade, the latest data showed a 94% chance of the economy contracting, but added that it “does not morph into a full-blown recession.” Partially explaining the difference is the “extremely low levels” of non-performing loans, or defaults exceeding 90 days from credit borrowers. According to Citigroup Chief Executive Jane Fraser, the institution “feels very good about” liquidity and credit quality. Furthermore, Reuters states that the financial industry wrote off merely 0.1% of its loans in the 2Q. The problem is that even in the now-improbable scenario of avoiding a...
President of Paraguay vetoes crypto regulation law
Paraguay’s president, Mario Abdo Benítez, vetoed a bill that sought to recognize cryptocurrency mining as an industrial activity on Monday. He reasoned that mining’s high electricity consumption could hinder the expansion of a sustainable national industry. The decree stated that crypto mining uses intensive capital with low manpower usage, and therefore would not generate added value on par with other industrial activities. Around the world, cryptocurrency is one of the largest job creators. The LinkedIn’s Economic Graph shows that crypto and blockchain jobs listing rose 615% in 2021 compared to 2020 in the United States. In accordance with the bill’s sponsor, Senator Fernando Silva Facetti, the law aimed to promote crypto mining through the use of surplus el...
Singer, Songwriter and Actor Jencarlos Canela to Launch Personal and Professional Lifestyle NFT Series On The ReserveBlock RBX Network
Miami, United States, 30th August, 2022, Chainwire With Interactive Fan Voting To Determine Release Direction and Outcomes American singer, songwriter, and actor phenom Jencarlos Canela announced today to his 4 million social media followers & fans, that he will be releasing a personal and professional lifestyle NFT series utilizing the ReserveBlock (reserveblock.io) protocol. The series will cover a variety of both personal and professional aspects of Jencarlos’ life and career including music, acting and lifestyle interactions, mental health and life performance coaching, and exclusive apparel subscriptions. The series is expected to be extremely diverse and packed with unique utility that delivers well beyond digital ownership by way of ongoing experiences, interactivity...
Flare Network and Lena Instruments launch new crowdfunding mechanism
Interoperability-focused blockchain Flare Network has partnered with software infrastructure firm Lena Instruments to implement a crowdfunding mechanism that lowers the risks associated with startup investing. Lena Instruments announced what it called a “CloudFunding” launchpad, which lets Flare investors allocate a percentage of the rewards that they earned to investments in new crypto startups without moving their initial investments. Apart from providing a low-risk investing solution for its contributors, the platform also aims to help projects that have launched on the platform have regular cash flows during the reward distribution periods. Hugo Philion, the CEO of Flare Network, believes that the new mechanism is a good way for developers to get early access to community f...
