Crypto news
All ‘Ethereum killers’ will fail: Blockdaemon’s Freddy Zwanzger
Blockdaemon’s ETH ecosystem lead Freddy Zwanzger believes Ethereum will retain its leadership position in the crypto ecosystem over the coming years due to its utility as a smart contract platform and upgrades to the network following the Merge. Speaking to Cointelegraph during the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) this week, Zwanzger said: “It’ll continue to be a leader. I mean, obviously, the first and most important smart contract platform, and that’s not going to change.” Blockdaemon is an institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure platform that offers node operations and infrastructure tooling for blockchain projects. The Blockdaemon employee also took aim at so-called “Ethereum killers” — competing Layer 1 blockchains — which have tried to topple Ethereum fro...
Epic Games ‘definitely won’t’ follow Minecraft NFT ban
Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney says his firm “definitely won’t” follow Minecraft’s developers in banning non-fungible tokens (NFTs). As previously reported, Minecraft developers Mojang Studios banned NFT integrations on July 20 as it believes the speculative aspect of NFTs, along with scarcity and risks of exclusion and scams supposedly associated with NFTs being against the game’s principles. The move was seen as highly controversial in the NFT community, while it has been met with praise by the cohort of crypto-skeptic gamers. Sweeney’s company is the creators of the widely successful battle royal game Fortnite, which is also seen as a Metaverse platform. While Epic Games isn’t necessarily pro-crypto or NFTs, the CEO said the firm isn’t looking to enforce any views on the s...
Large institutions sold $5.5B in BTC since May — and we’re still here
Since May 10, as much as 236,237 Bitcoin (worth $5.452 billion) has been sold by “large institutions” — mostly as a result of forced selling. A Twitter thread from Arcane Research analyst Vetle Lunde details how and when many institutional Bitcoin holders began selling their stacks. Lunde stated that “it all started with Do Kwon.” The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), which controlled funds for the Terra project, dumped 80,081 BTC in a failed effort to protect the peg of its native Terra USD (UST) stablecoin in May. Terra’s collapse appears to have made some Bitcoin (BTC) miners face sell pressure. Lunde estimates that miners sold 19,056 coins between May and June. In some cases, miners were selling more than their monthly production, likely drawing from reserves. The Luna Foundation Guar...
Hardware wallet industry to outstrip crypto exchanges: Report
The crypto hardware wallet industry could be growing at a faster pace than cryptocurrency exchanges, data from several studies suggest. The current bear market has accelerated the development of the cold wallet industry, while many centralized crypto exchanges were scrambling to maintain operations. According to a report by business intelligence firm Vantage Market Research, the revenue of global crypto trading platforms amounted to $330 million in 2021. Released on July 21, the report suggests that the global crypto exchange market revenue would reach a value of $675 million by 2028 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.7%. That’s at least half the CAGR related to the growth of the hardware wallet industry, other reports suggest. The global hardware wallet market repor...
Bulls or bears? Both have a fair chance in Friday’s Bitcoin options expiry
Bitcoin (BTC) briefly broke above $24,000 on July 20, but the excitement lasted less than two hours after the resistance level proved more challenging than expected. A positive is that the $24,280 high represents a 28.5% increase from the July 13 swing low at $18,900. According to Yahoo Finance, on July 19, the Bank of America published its latest fund managers survey, and the headline was “I’m so bearish, I’m bullish.” The report cited investors’ pessimism, expectations of weak corporate earnings and equity allocations being at the lowest level since September 2008. The 4.6% advance on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index between July 18 and 20 also provided the necessary hope for bulls to profit from the upcoming July 22 weekly options expiry. Global macroe...
Ether price stalls at $1,630 after gaining 50% in under a week
Price action across the cryptocurrency market was largely subdued on July 21, as traders took a day to digest gains over the past week and book profits following the biggest relief rally since early June. Amid speculation about what drove the recent rally, the Ethereum Merge has consistently ranked at the top of the list. The market rally shifted into high gear after a tentative date of Sept. 19 was set for the mainnet Merge. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a high of $1,620 on July 20, Ether’s (ETH) price retraced to a low of $1,463 in the early trading hours on July 21 and has since climbed back above support at $1,500. ETH/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Now that the initial price surge brought on by the Merge announcemen...
‘The market is acting this way because there is no regulation’ says Skale Labs’ Konstantin Kladko
The recent cryptocurrency bear market has uprooted decentralized finance (DeFi) and centralized finance (CeFi) projects in the crypto space. But past performance is not always indicative of future results. For starters, Ethereum’s price has already recovered 48% in the past few days ahead of the looming Merge upgrade. At the annual Ethereum Community Conference in Paris, Cointelegraph spoke to Skale Labs’ co-founder Konstantin Kladko regarding the market crisis. Sklae Labs is a decentralized network of blockchains built on Ethereum. Currently, it’s comprised of 28 blockchains where one can send tokens seamlessly from one chain to another. Here’s what Klado has to say about the recent contagion: “The market is acting this way because there is no regulatio...
Gamers plug into DeFi through the new Razer rewards partnership
Gamers and customers of IT and gaming hardware firm Razer are set to plug into the world of decentralized finance (DeFi) through a new rewards swap program in partnership with Cake DeFi. Razer remains a household favorite brand for gamers around the world, with its Razer Gold rewards program allowing gamers to earn and redeem Razer Silver points for a variety of hardware and digital rewards, including Steam games and discount vouchers. Cake DeFi has teamed up with the rewards program from Razer to enable customers the ability to convert Razer Silver points into Cake DeFi vouchers. This essentially provides a bridge from the Razer loyalty program to the world of cryptocurrencies and DeFi products. Related: Crypto gaming and the monkey run: How we should build the future of GameFi Razer game...
Coinbase stock has potential to double in 2022 after plunging 90% from record high
Coinbase stock (COIN) price has nearly doubled since its June lows with a potential for much more upside this year, according to a mix of technical and fundamental indicators. COIN’s symmetrical triangle reversal COIN has been undergoing a strong bullish reversal after falling by almost 90% from its record high of $368.90 in November 2021. Coinbase stock price was up over 95% to $75.27 as of July 20’s close when measured from its May 12 local bottom of $40.83. Its recovery led to a symmetrical triangle pattern formation with the price forming a sequence of lower highs and higher lows. Symmetrical triangles in downtrend typically turn out to be bearish continuation patterns. They resolve after the price breaks below their lower trendlines to fall further. But in rare instances, ...
Cristobal Balenciaga NFT To the Moon drop inspired by founder’s original designs is live
Lorenzo Riva, the artist director of the luxury fashion brand Balenciaga during the 1980s, launched a much anticipated Cristóbal Balenciaga: To the Moon nonfungible token (NFT) collection on July 21 in collaboration with Cointelegraph. The NFT collection comprises 8,300 original, never-before-seen designs from Cristóbal Balenciaga himself. Cristóbal had humble beginnings as a local tailor’s apprentice and eventually rose to prominence in the fashion industry as a pioneer of novel garment shapes. These fashions, such as the sack dress and the cocoon coat, changed the course of women’s fashion in the 1950s. Lorenzo Riva and models wearing his unique designs During the 1980s, Lorenzo Riva served as the artistic director of Balenciaga and received the original designs created by Cris...
Solana and Ethereum smart contract audits, explained
As you might expect, this depends on how complex a smart contract is. According to Hacken, this can extend to $500,000 for larger projects where there are more lines of code — not least because of the additional engineering hours it’ll take. The company argues these costs pale into comparison with the economic damage that a smart contract vulnerability can bring. Hacken cites data showing that, in 2021, 80% of the incidents affecting decentralized applications related to smart contracts — with losses hitting $6.9 billion. Breaking this down even further, and we can see that the average cost per project stands at $47 million. Somehow, $500,000 looks a lot less expensive now. Overall, 60% of its clients have been based on Ethereum so far in 2022. And here&...
Crypto lender Vauld seeks protection against creditors: Report
Singapore crypto exchange Vauld Group is seeking a moratorium against its creditors — a move that would give the troubled lender more time to restructure its business after collapsing asset prices impacted its operations earlier this month. Vauld filed an application in Singapore on July 8 seeking a moratorium order, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. If granted, the moratorium would provide the distressed lender more time to seek out a proper restructuring plan. The Journal said a Singaporean moratorium order is similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States, although the moratorium helps the company avoid complete closure. Vauld issued a statement on July 11 informing the public that it would pursue a moratorium order to give management “the breathing space it requires to...
