Crypto news
NFT-collateralized loan platform Arcade raises $15M in funding round
Arcade, a platform that allows users to utilize nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as loan collateral, has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round with participation from Pantera Capital. In a Wednesday announcement, Arcade said Pantera, Castle Island Ventures, Franklin Templeton Blockchain Fund, Golden Tree Asset Management, Eniac Ventures, Protofund, Probably Nothing Capital and Lemniscap in addition to angel investors BlockFi CEO Zac Prince and Quantstamp CEO Richard Ma were behind the investment in an effort to connect NFT-collateralized lending with the decentralized finance space. The platform is also coming out of a private release with $3.3 million in total loan volume secured on a total of $10 million in assets. Arcade co-founder Gabe Frank said NFTs account for a significant portio...
Biggest NFT drops and sales in 2021
Nonfungible token, or NFT, became such a tech buzzword in 2021 that even Collins Dictionary declared the abbreviation its word of the year and Google searches for NFTs spiked to record levels. Behind the term is a market that approaches $17 billion, according to Cointelegraph Research. And the NFT marketplace OpenSea is responsible for processing most of these transactions, with a trading volume that recently surpassed $10 billion. NFTs’ potential reaches far beyond art to include music, sports collectibles and video games, while its utility encompasses ownership as well as exclusive access to unique functions and features. From CryptoPunks and Beeple’s collage to NBA Top Shot and RTFKT, the following collections stood out, not only in numbers but for their growing communities. As we ...
100 digital payment token firms in Singapore fail to win licenses: Report
More than 100 out of 170 “digital payment token services” in Singapore have reportedly failed to obtain licenses from the local financial regulator, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS. Amid apparently tough regulation, 103 companies related to the digital payment industry in Singapore found their regulatory exemptions removed, Japan’s financial publication The Nikkei reported Monday, citing data from the MAS. Sanjay Jain, CEO at Dubai-based crypto exchange Bitxmi, said that their Singaporean branch has failed to secure a license from the MAS. “We can’t operate in Singapore,” Jain noted. “We have an office there, but it’s just more or less — there’s one person for our accounting and legal issues.” Bitxmi exchange appears on the official list of entities...
Scalability or stability? Solana network outages show work still needed
Solana is a highly scalable decentralized blockchain developed with a unique method of ordering transactions that significantly improves its transaction throughput, to the point that it has consistently been processing over 2,500 transactions per second. It claims to be able to process 50,000 transactions per second. The power of Solana’s cheap transactions is felt when it’s time to pay transaction fees, with users being able to move funds on the network for a fraction of a cent. By comparison, the average transaction fee on the Bitcoin network is around $1.80, even after dropping nearly 58% this year. Meanwhile, Ethereum gas fees cost an average of $22 and up per transaction. While Solana has an extremely high transaction throughput, some have suggested that its developers have ...
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs catch up to CryptoPunks, flips floor price
The price of the cheapest Bored Ape NFT for sale is now 53.9 Ether (ETH), or $215,067, while the minimum asking price for a CryptoPunk is 52.69 ETH, which is currently worth $210,239, according to OpenSea. All month long, there has been speculation about the possibility of Bored Ape flipping CryptoPunks in terms of NFT floor price. Earlier this week, Cointelegraph did a deep dive into the potential factors that could affect the value of one collection over the other. Whether owners had a preference for intellectual property rights or over certain partnerships and collaborations, the driving force behind any NFT project, “blue chip” or not, is its community. It is important to keep in mind a few notable differences between the two collections. Larva Labs, the team behind CryptoPunks, w...
Hive Blockchain on track to mine more Bitcoin, less Ether this quarter
Publicly traded crypto mining firm Hive Blockchain is expecting to produce 6,900 Ether (ETH) and 670 Bitcoin (BTC) for the fiscal quarter ending on Dec. 31, marking a respective drop and increase over that of the previous quarter. In a Wednesday notice to shareholders, Hive said it had mined 6,280 Ether from Oct. 1 to Dec. 21 and was on track to mine more than 65 ETH daily for the remainder of 2021. This projected total — 6,900 ETH — would represent a decrease of more than 20% from the 8,688 ETH the company mined from July 1 to Sept. 30. However, Hive is expecting its Bitcoin production to increase by 2% quarterly, from roughly 656 BTC to 670 BTC. “This increase [in Bitcoin] has been driven by the previously announced investments that have been made into new generation miner...
The Top 3 Alternatives to Ethereum that you can buy on December 22: DOT, ZEC, and LINK.
Polkadot (DOT) saw an increase in value of 7.40% in the last 24 hours. Zcash (ZEC) saw an increase in its market cap by 3% in the last 24 hours. Chainlink (LINK) has huge potential for growth. Polkadot (DOT) is an open-source blockchain platform designed to operate two types of blockchains, the main network known as the relay chain and parachains which are user-created networks. Zcash (ZEC) is a privacy-oriented digital currency that uses cryptography to provide an enhanced level of privacy to users. Chainlink (LINK) is an open-source technology that is developed by a large community of developers, researchers, and users. Should you buy Polkadot (DOT)? On December 22, Polkadot (DOT) had a value of $26.76. To see what kind of value point this is for the token, we will go over its all-...
Bitcoin nears $50K — Here are the BTC price levels to watch next
Bitcoin (BTC) neared $50,000 on Dec. 22 as hopes began to appear that the price correction could be over. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Get bullish once $50,500 breaks — Analyst Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hit highs of $49,600 on Bitstamp — its highest since Dec. 13. A cross-crypto boost from turmoil in the Turkish lira Monday lingered in spirit as Bitcoin and altcoins stayed higher, with attention now focusing on the new year and price levels above $50,000. “The first breakthrough has happened on Bitcoin. But, we still need to break enough levels to state that we’re bullish,” Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe declared overnight. “Overall, a breakthrough at $50.5-51.5K and I’m convinced. Also, 2022...
Missed out on hot crypto stocks in 2021? It paid just to buy Bitcoin and Ethereum, data shows
Bitcoin (BTC) may have fluctuated in price this year, but BTC remains a better play than the biggest crypto stocks. New data currently circulating shows that for all the growth in the industry surrounding Bitcoin, it still pays simply to buy and hold. Stocks fail to compete with BTC, ETH Looking at the stock performance of firms with the largest BTC allocations on their balance sheets, it becomes immediately apparent that it was more profitable to hold BTC than those equities — at least this year. “Buying crypto stocks to outperform coins is hard,” Three Arrows Capital CEO Zhu Su commented alongside comparative performance data from Bloomberg. Both Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) have fared significantly better than stocks from companies, such as MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN), despite t...
China’s state-run news agency to launch NFT collection
In an announcement made on Wednesday, China’s official Xinhua News Agency will issue its first series of nonfungible token (NFT) collectibles. The move is a thumbs up to blockchain technology previously shunned by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In an official notice, Xinhua plans to publish 10,000 copies of 11 photos taken by journalists in 2021. The stride into NFTs is puzzling in light of recent events in the world’s second-largest economy. Following a nationwide crypto crackdown where Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) mining was banned, China has recently taken aim at NFTs and metaverses and proposed that they should be heavily monitored. Despite the anti-crypto sentiment, tech giants Tencent and Huawei were not discouraged from pursuing trademarks in the metaverse. Elsewhe...
Arsenal football club in dispute with ASA over ‘irresponsible’ crypto ad
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), a body that oversees advertising in the United Kingdom, is cracking down on non-compliant crypto advertisements. Earlier this year, Arsenal became one of the many football clubs to collaborate with blockchain firm Chiliz and launch a fan token. On Aug. 12 this year, the club promoted its fan token AFC on its official Facebook page, which the ASA has banned for allegedly violating its advertising rules. The agency stated that the post did not highlight the risks involved in the investment. In a different event, as per a BBC report, the monitor claims that the topic of content on Arsenal’s official website — particularly, a page published on Aug. 6, 2021, with the title “$AFC Fan Token: Everything you need to know” — was violating advertising ...
Crypto.com partners with Los Angeles’ Angel City Football Club
Cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has inked another deal to expand its brand recognition in the United States with the professional women’s sports team Angel City Football Club. In a Tuesday announcement, Crypto.com said it had partnered with the Los Angeles soccer team in an effort to increase the awareness of and access to crypto, blockchain and Web 3.0 among Angelenos, soccer fans and the athletes themselves. The exchange said it plans to continue looking for “unique and impactful ways” to invest in L.A., with the partnership aimed at encouraging “financial education, independence and financial empowerment” for women. “Given the speed with which Web 3.0 and cryptocurrency is changing our world, we want to ensure that women are being brought along on the journey as investors and creator...
