crypto blog
Binance awarded Bahrain crypto service provider license
Crypto exchange Binance will provide fully regulated services to its first country in the Middle East thanks to a license granted by Bahrain’s central bank. Bahrain was able to issue the license through the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC). The world’s largest exchange and CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the crypto-asset service provider license on March 14. #TeamBahrain.#Binance has been granted the first license for a global crypto-asset provider in The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) by the Central Bank of Bahrain. pic.twitter.com/Ndnb4xhA5y — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) March 14, 2022 Binance’s new license allows it to offer crypto services, including trading, custody, and portfolio management for customers in the Middle East’s smallest econ...
Blockchain forensics firm finds millions in sanctioned crypto wallet
Blockchain security and forensics firm Elliptic has been working with authorities to expose crypto wallets affiliated with sanctioned individuals or organizations. The United Kingdom-based company has discovered a wallet with “significant crypto-asset holdings” in the millions of dollars that may be linked to sanctioned Russian officials and oligarchs. Speaking to Bloomberg on March 14, Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson said that crypto could be used for sanctions evasion. However, it has been widely reported and generally accepted now that Russia is very unlikely to pivot to crypto assets to circumvent them. The report did not specify the exact value of the crypto in the wallet it discovered or the nature of the assets it held. Robinson added that the scale of the use of crypto is in...
Short term Bitcoin buyers transition to long term holders: Glassnode
Over the past week, long-term holders of Bitcoin increased their spending to a level that suggests de-risking from the market, but hodling remains the predominant investing strategy. Uncertain macroeconomic headwinds are likely to have precipitated the increase in the sell-offs last week by long-term holders and shaken some short-term holders out of their positions according to data from blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. Last week, coins older than six months accounted for 5% of total spending, which is a level not seen since last November. Short-term holders (STH) who have held coins for less than 155 days continue to decline in number, but not necessarily due to selling. Glassnode suggests that while it is generally more common for STH to sell, the recent decline in STH supply “can on...
Mila Kunis’ studio debuts an NFT-backed animated web series ‘The Gimmicks’
A public NFT mint is planned for Friday, via which users could get one of 10,000 NFTs to join the show’s community Holders would be able to vote on the direction the show’s story takes Web 3 animated studio Toonstar has partnered with actress Mila Kunis’ production studio, Sixth Wall, to launch an animated wrestling show that follows the lives of retired professional wrestlers, The Gimmicks. The show’s creators aim to build an NFT community around The Gimmicks, whose members would vote on which path the storyline should take next at the end of every episode. The show, loosely described as ‘South Park meets WWE, but interactive and greasier’ by Toonstar CEO John Attanasio, was conceptualised following the release of athletes by WWE at the onset of the COV...
Blockchain play-and-earn games focus on building even as NFT prices fall
Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) were in a strong bull run from Jan. 1 to mid-February. During this time, OpenSea volumes topped $5 billion and then fell to $3.6 billion toward the end of February. This could have been a sign that the overall sentiment of the crypto and NFT market was correcting. As Q2 approaches, the total volumes and sales for NFTs have been in decline, leading new entrants and investors to wonder whether the sector is dying. According to data from DappRadar, OpenSea trading volumes have dropped nearly 11% in the last week and so far, the total volume on the marketplace continues to cool off as the number of users dropped by 13% in the last 30 days. It seems the NFT community has realized that it has exhausted options for blue-chip derivatives and investors are looki...
Bitcoin’s got 3 strikes, but investors remain calm despite price drop
After Bitcoin (BTC) faced its third consecutive rejection, investors became more confident in adding altcoin positions. For the leading cryptocurrency, the path to $50,000 appears more challenging than previously expected. According to Euronews Next, on March 14, the European Union rejected a proposed rule that could have banned the energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) mining algorithm used by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Several EU parliamentarians have been pushing to ban PoW mining over energy concerns. BTC/USD price at FTX. Source: TradingView In terms of performance, the aggregate market capitalization of all cryptos was relatively flat over the past seven days, registering a modest 0.4% gain to $1.77 trillion. However, the apparent lack of performance in the overall market doe...
How Chainalysis helps in crypto monitoring and blockchain analysis?
Chainalysis has five different types of products that help in monitoring crypto assets. These are Chainalysis Business Data, Chainalysis KYT, Chainalysis Kryptos, Chainalysis Market Intel and Chainalysis Reactor. Chainalysis Business Data Chainalysis Business Data gives crypto companies an extra layer of customer intelligence, allowing them to understand their customers before and after leaving their platforms, customize product offerings and enhance customer experience. Furthermore, it allows companies to find the most avenues impacting the business and making data-driven decisions. Data is updated on a regular basis to ensure that relevant adjustments are made in response to the changing ecosystem. A simple data warehouse integration allows you to augment current information to...
How professional Ethereum traders place bullish ETH price bets while limiting losses
Being bullish on Ether (ETH) over the past four months did not pay off as its price dropped 44% from $4,600. The decentralized finance (DeFi) applications growth that fueled the rally faded away, partially due to network congestion and average transaction fees of $30 and higher. The cool-off period can also be attributed to excessive expectations as the fee burn mechanism implemented in August 2021 with the London hard fork. After drastically reducing the daily net issuance, investors jumped to the conclusion that Ether would become “ultrasound money.” The Ethereum network burned more ETH over the last 24 hours than was issued by both the PoW (eth1) and PoS (eth2) networks. This is the first time this has happened since EIP-1559 went live less than 3 months ago. ETH is ultra so...
Magic Eden completes $27M raise, aims to conquer the Solana NFT space ahead of OpenSea
Paradigm Capital led the NFT marketplace’s Series A raise Magic Eden is investing in Solana for its low costs and better performance than Ethereum Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden has closed a $27 million Series A funding round. The raise was led by investment dealer Paradigm Capital, with contributions from Sequoia Capital and Solana Ventures. Backed financially by the raise, Magic Eden intends to expand the breadth of products and services that it offers users. A bet on Solana – the cheaper, better-performing alternative Magic Eden aims to be the first mover to gain a real hold on the Solana NFT market space before OpenSea does. The latter is easily the most dominant marketplace in the NFT business, bragging the lion’s share. Though OpenSea suffered a 50% downturn in t...
Waves Protocol hits all-time high TVL after crossing $2 BN twice this month
Waves Protocol has grown by about 80% in TVL since the start of the year Neutrino and Vires Finance have been the main assets leading the recent bloom Currently ranked tenth – in terms of Total Value Locked – out of all chains, Waves Protocol, a platform for building Web 3.0 dApps early last week surpassed a TVL figure of $2 billion for the first time since October 2021. Though the TVL briefly fell below the mark the next day (last Wednesday), it rose again and has retested last October’s record figure. As one of the few assets enjoying high-value growths despite the recent market fluctuations, Waves has defied the plunge it saw in the early days of February that took its TVL to as low as $700 million. It currently has a TVL of $2.4 billion, which represents a gain of over 150% on th...
EU Parliament votes against the proposal limiting Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies
EU lawmakers rejected the proposed ban of cryptocurrencies that use the Proof-of-Work mechanism The proposal, which has been a hot debate in recent days, would have led to the outlawing of Bitcoin and other PoW cryptocurrency projects Today, the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary affairs voted on the proposed draft suggesting the ban of cryptocurrencies leveraging the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. The proposal, which could have compelled PoW cryptocurrencies to shift to sustainable mechanisms, failed to get enough backing during the vote and was consequently rejected. The majority of EU parliamentarians voted against including the provision out of a draft of the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA)framework. Patrick Hansen was among the first to share news on Twitter. &...
No crypto for criminals: Coinjoin BTC mixing tool to block illicit transactions
CoinJoin, a popular Bitcoin (BTC) mixing tool, will block transactions associated or flagged as illegal. The announcement came from the official Wasabi Wallet Twitter account, of which Coinjoin is a part. The zkSNACKs coordinator will start refusing certain UTXOs from registering to coinjoins. pic.twitter.com/X3kBuQwieO — Wasabi Wallet (@wasabiwallet) March 13, 2022 The official announcement noted that CoinJoin services would start blocking certain unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) from registering with CoinJoin using the zkSNACKs coordinator. A zkSNACKs coordinator is a virtual machine used to mix the origin of the transitions. Privacy-focused mixing tools are primarily used to obscure the origin of the transactions and are often seen as a medium to wash illicit funds. However, as block...
