Crypto news
Nifty News: Solana NFTs on OpenSea in April, Ross Ulbricht’s new collection… and more
Solana (SOL) NFT holders will soon have a new option for where to trade, with OpenSea teasing its integration of the Solana blockchain. A 16-second video shared by the OpenSea Twitter account opened with the phrase “wen solana???” being typed into a search box and revealed that Solana will be supported by the marketplace in April. The best kept secret in web3 pic.twitter.com/xuZn64cZ4U — OpenSea (@opensea) March 29, 2022 Rumors of OpenSea supporting Solana NFTs have circulated for months. Security researcher Jane Manchun Wong — who made Forbes 30 under 30 for her high profile tech leak scoops — shared images on Twitter in January she said were sourced from OpenSea’s platform. The images show the marketplace’s “blockchains filter” listing Solana as an option and the Phantom Solana crypto wa...
DeFi, Web3, CBDC still unknown for most: Survey
A new survey by polling agency Morning Consult found that fewer than one third of ordinary Americans have heard of DeFi compared with 77% of crypto owners. Considering that about 87% or 290.9 million Americans did not yet own crypto through 2021 according to Statista, awareness of decentralized finance (DeFi) among non-owners is limited to about 90 million Americans and still has a long way to go. Morning Consult’s survey also found that the level of awareness of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and Web3 is even lower at 30% and 21% of non-owners, respectively. The survey was conducted between Feb. 16 and 23 of this year. It included 4,404 United States-based adult respondents. Although discussion within the crypto industry often looks to highlight the rapid growth of the DeFi space ...
Bitcoin hits 3-day low as Terra BTC buy-ins dry up below $48K
Bitcoin (BTC) hinted at a welcome retracement overnight into March 30 after relentless upside failed to flip $48,000 to support. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Trader: BTC still on target to crack $50,000 Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD dipping to $46,572 on Bitstamp as Wednesday began — its lowest since March 27. A susbequent rebound alleviated some of the losses, and at the time of writing, the pair traded at around $47,400. The change of tack followed a cooling of the narratives which had surrounded Bitcoin’s initial push beyond its yearly open price of $46,200 — a significant achievement which ended the cryptocurrency’s multi-month trading range. Blockchain protocol Terra, on its way to amassing an inital ...
Opera integrates Bitcoin, Solana, Polygon and five other blockchains
Opera, one of the major crypto-friendly internet browsers, announced the integration of eight blockchains in a continued effort to introduce Web3 to more than 380 million mobile and desktop users worldwide. In Jan. 2022, Opera launched the Crypto Browser project, a Web3-focused initiative for facilitating navigation across decentralized applications (DApp), games and metaverse platforms. As part of this initiative, the browser company added support for eight major blockchain ecosystems, including Bitcoin (BTC), Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC), StarkEx, Ronin, Celo, Nervos DAO and IXO. Opera said in the announcement that its users now have access to the Polygon and Solana DApp ecosystems, as well as “the benefits of Layer 2 DeFi via StarkWare-powered DiversiFi.” The latest in...
Pro traders curb their enthusiasm until Ethereum confirms $3,400 as support
Ether (ETH) price jumped 11% between March 26 and March 29 to reach $3,480, which is the highest level in 82 days. Currently, the price is down 9% year-to-date but does data support the belief that the altcoin has resumed its uptrend toward a new all-time high? Institutional investors seem excited that the CoinShares Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report revealed on Tuesday that the exchange-listed crypto products inflows reached the highest level in three months. Data showed that investment products for digital assets saw net deposits of $193 million last week. At the same time, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, an executive office of the President of the United States, launched a study to offset energy use related to digital assets. Furthermore, on March 9, U.S. Preside...
MetaMask rolls out Apple Pay integration and other iOS updates
ConsenSys-owned MetaMask tweeted a thread of updates on Tuesday for iPhone and Apple Pay users. The main feature is the ability to buy cryptocurrency using a debit or credit card through the mobile application, eliminating the need to transfer Ethereum (ETH) from a centralized exchange like Coinbase into the app. MetaMask Mobile v4.3.1 is LIVE with some exciting updates: Buy crypto on iOS with Apple Pay (@sendwyre), more transparency when interacting with sites, & support for gasless transactions where relevant. Does it get any better? Yes it does! We now have dark mode! 1/ — MetaMask (@MetaMask) March 28, 2022 MetaMask uses two payment gateways, Wyre and Transak, to support debit card and credit card transactions. Users can now use their Visas and Mastercards stored in Appl...
A retest is expected, but most analysts expect Bitcoin price to extend much higher
The mood across the cryptocurrency market has seen a notable improvement in the last week as prices are on the rise with Bitcoin (BTC) now trading near $48,000 while Ether (ETH) attempting to hold above $3,400. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of Bitcoin has been oscillating around $48,000 since it broke out above $45,000 early on March 28 and bulls are now debating whether a bull run to $80,000 is on the cards. BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Here’s a look at what several analysts in the market are saying about the outlook for BTC moving forward and what levels to keep an eye on in case of a price pullback or another breakout to the upside. Bitcoin breaks above its 1-year moving average “Keeping it simple is often best” accordi...
‘Institutional demand’: Large transactions on Cardano up 50X in 2022
Crypto intelligence firm IntoTheBlock reports that the number of large transactions on the Cardano blockchain has increased by more than 50X this year. Large Transaction Volume (LTV) refers to aggregated volume from transactions denominated in Cardano’s native ADA token valued at more than $100,000. Since Jan. 1, LTV has increased from 1.35 billion ADA per day to 69 billion ADA (worth $81.4 billion) changing hands on Cardano on Mar. 28. That’s a 51-fold increase in about three months and marks one of the highest volume levels since mid-2018, according to IntoTheBlock. In a Mar. 29 tweet, the firm said that such high volume indicates “increasing institutional demand.” @Cardano is experiencing increasing institutional demand The volume of on-chain transactions >$100k has increased b...
MicroStrategy subsidiary will purchase Bitcoin after closing $205M crypto-collateralized loan
MacroStrategy, a subsidiary of business intelligence firm MicroStrategy, said it will purchase Bitcoin after obtaining a multimillion dollar loan from Silvergate Bank. In a Tuesday announcement, MicroStrategy said Silvergate issued a $205 million loan “secured by certain Bitcoin held in MacroStrategy’s collateral account.” The firm’s subsidiary MacroStrategy will be using the proceeds of the loan to purchase Bitcoin (BTC), pay fees and interest related to the loan and handle general corporate expenses. “The SEN Leverage loan gives us an opportunity to further our position as the leading public company investor in Bitcoin,” said MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor. “Using the capital from the loan, we’ve effectively turned our Bitcoin into productive collateral, which allows us to furthe...
CTFC looks at expanded authority to regulate crypto, for less than a 10% budget increase
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, has released its Fiscal Year 2023 (FY2023) budget request, seeking $365 million. This marks a 9.9% increase over the previous year and 20% over FY2021. The commission regulates the country’s derivatives market and has been increasingly active in recent years in policing financial products that incorporate cryptocurrencies. According to the agency’s request document, the CTFC focuses on digital asset custodian risk, ensuring secure storage, as well as on accounting. The agency has its own staff of certified public accountants due to the lack of guidance on digital asset accounting from sectoral oversight bodies. In addition, the agency ensures derivative clearing organizations “employ strong segregation of duty processes and proc...
Wonky Mars Protocol launch shows ecosystem expansion may not add to network value
New protocols are launching every day on different networks in the crypto space and the trend is likely to continue through this year. When looking at the top five networks by total value locked (TVL) — Ethereum (ETH), Terra (LUNA), Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Avalanche (AVAX) and Solana (SOL) — according to data from DeFiLlama, Ethereum have 579 protocols (including L1 and L2); Terra has 25, BSC has 348, Avalanche and Solana have 187 and 64 protocols, respectively. The low number of protocols and high TVL from Terra surely stand out as the outlier here. Terra’s TVL reached an all-time high at $20 billion in December 2021 before dropping to $13 billion during the January 2022 crash. To date, the ecosystem has managed to boost its liquidity back to $26 billion. With only 25 protoco...
Binance launches Binance Bridge 2.0 to integrate CeFi and DeFi
On Tuesday, centralized cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced the rollout of Binance Bridge 2.0. The feature enables users to bridge assets from any blockchain, including tokens not listed on the Binance app, to the BNB Chain. Bridged tokens listed on Binance will be stored in the Funding or Spot Wallet, while unlisted bridged tokens will be transferred to the Funding Wallet only. Users can bridge-in or bridge-out tokens between their native blockchains and BNB Chain via regular deposit and withdrawal functions. In the future, Binance also plans to create a better version of its mobile app to allow users to facilitate such conversion via a single click. Regarding the development, Mayur Kamat, head of product at Binance, said: “With Binance Bridge 2.0, we can make decentralized fi...
