Digital asset investment firms poured $2.7 billion into decentralized finance projects in 2022, up 190% from 2021, while investments into centralized finance projects went the other way — falling 73% to $4.3 billion over the same timeframe. The staggering rise in DeFi funding was despite overall crypto funding figures falling from $31.92 billion in 2021
Cryptocurrency
Ethereum developers have pushed back the highly-anticipated Shanghai hard fork by approximately two weeks. Initially estimated for late March, the Shanghai upgrade will now likely be deployed sometime within the first two weeks of April. The delay was announced at an Ethereum developer meeting on March 2. During the meeting, core developers came to the consensus
In this week’s episode of Market Talks, Cointelegraph welcomes Adrian Zduńczyk, or as he is known on Twitter, CryptoBirb. He is the founder and CEO of The Birb Nest, a trading community platform. He is also a chartered market technician, chemical engineer, entrepreneur, mentor and influencer with over 655,000 followers on Twitter. We start things off
Binance USD’s (BUSD) market cap has fallen below $10 billion for the first time in almost two years amid a United States regulatory crackdown on its token issuer and a planned delisting from a major crypto exchange. BUSD’s market cap has been on a steep downward trajectory since its all-time high market cap of $23.49
The price of Ether (ETH) declined 9.8% between Feb. 19 and Feb. 25 after the price resistance at $1,725 proved stronger than expected. Still, the correction was insufficient to break the 6-week-long ascending channel and did not cause Ether derivatives metrics to turn bearish. Ether’s price resilience can be partially explained by the operational failure
Crypto ATM installations have seen a steady decline across the world over the past several months. While some ATMs have been taken out of operation due to geopolitical tensions and revenue decline, providers like Bitcoin Depot have started converting their physical Bitcoin (BTC) ATMs to software. Bitcoin Depot recently converted all of its 7,000 crypto
Ukraine has received over $70 million in cryptocurrencies since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, providing the nation with funds for military equipment and humanitarian assistance. The figures came from a Feb. 24 report by blockchain data platform Chainalysis, which found the majority of the funds to have come in the form of Ether (ETH) and
The Ethereum community appears to have taken a bullish view of Coinbase’s newly announced layer-2 network, Base, which has been described as a “massive confidence vote” and a “watershed moment” for the blockchain network. Secured on Ethereum and powered by layer-2 network Optimism, Base aims to eventually become a network for building decentralized applications (DApps)
The bullish momentum that propelled Bitcoin (BTC) price to a 2023 high of $25,000 initially on Feb. 16 and Feb. 20 appears to have waned. The pause in bullish momentum appears connected to higher-than-expected U.S. inflation data, the possibility of the Federal Reserve continuing higher interest rate hikes and large amounts of long liquidations. The
USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to increase its workforce by 15–25% in 2023 amid a sea of layoffs across the industry, reported The Wall Street Journal. When a significant chunk of industry-wide firms is laying off staff to mitigate their financial woes, Circle has gone against the tide to hire more people. 41% of all layoffs
On Feb 23, crypto exchange Coinbase announced the launch of Base — an Ethereum layer-2 network. The company claimed that this new network will offer a low-cost, secure, developer-friendly environment for building decentralized apps (DApps) on the blockchain. According to Coinbase, Base is designed to be a bridge for users into the crypto economy, offering
Solana Spaces will close down its two Solana (SOL)-themed, community-oriented retail stores in New York City and Miami at the end of the month, as the physical stores didn’t onboard as many users as initially anticipated. Solana Spaces tweeted the news on Feb. 21, sharing a note from founder Vibhu Norby explaining the reasons behind
Blur’s BLUR token could rise by up to 30% by March 2023 owing to a mix of technical and fundamental factors. Blur airdrop hype Blur is a nonfungible token (NFT) aggregator that indexes digital art listings across various base marketplaces like LooksRare and OpenSea. In doing so, the aggregator allows users to trade across all
The upcoming Ethereum Shanghai hard fork is slated to occur in March 2023, and the upgrade will cap off the network’s move to proof-of-stake (PoS), which started during the Merge on Sept. 15, 2022. Once Shanghai is implemented, previously locked Ether (ETH) will gradually become liquid for the first time since December 2020. According to on-chain Etherscan data,
Only days after reports of United States regulatory scrutiny of Paxos and Binance USD (BUSD), cryptocurrency exchange Binance has minted nearly $50 million worth of TrueUSD (TUSD). The transaction took place on Feb. 16, according to data from Etherscan, and also comes two days after Binance CEO Chanpeng “CZ” Zhao said in a Feb. 14 Twitter
The total crypto market capitalization rejected at $1.13 trillion on Feb. 16, but there was no change in the month-long ascending channel structure. More importantly, this level represents a 43% gain in 2023, which is far from the $3 trillion level achieved in November 2021. Still, the current recovery is notable. As shown above, the
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon could be seen as an SEC “roadmap” to taking down other stablecoins, according to a lawyer. Gabriel Shapiro, general counsel at investment firm Delphi Labs, explained to his 33,800 Twitter followers on Feb. 16 that the SEC’s arguments
Most blockchain upgrades have an impact on price action. The Ethereum Shanghai upgrade would be no different. Ether supplies on exchanges have already started to plunge as investors choose to move their assets to self-custody. The previous Ethereum upgrade created good volatility in the market, which traders tapped into. ETH prices skyrocketed from around $1,000
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to sue Paxos for issuing and listing its Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin, benefitting its top-rival, Tether (USDT), whose market capitalization has risen to multimonth highs. BUSD market cap drops by $2 billion The SEC claims that BUSD, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, is a security, noting that
Matter Labs, the firm managing Polygon, announced that the beta version of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) would launch on March 27, 2023. It’s possible that Polygon will enjoy a first-mover advantage in this space by launching a public mainnet before zkSync and Scroll. Zk-based roll-up technology is accepted as the gold standard for scaling. The