A widely-followed crypto analyst by the name of Smart Contracter is calling for a parabolic rally in an under-the-radar altcoin amid Ethereum’s rally to a new all-time high.
In a new tweet, Smart Contracter says that FARM, the native token to DeFi project Harvest Finance, is likely about to burst into a 300% rally.
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Harvest Finance is an automated yield farming protocol that aims to give users automatic exposure to the highest yielding assets across select DeFi protocols.
At the time of writing, FARM is trading at $283 according to CoinGecko, but the trader says a target above $1,000 is “inevitable.”
4 digit $farm is inevitable.
Don’t miss this one, all the fundamentals are lining uo https://t.co/fMng0J3eJM
— Bluntz (@SmartContracter) March 30, 2021
Days before his call on FARM, the popular analyst also accurately predicted Ethereum’s dip to around $1,600. With the pullback out of the way, Smart Contracter believes that Ethereum is poised for a 40% surge from its current value of $2,100.
“Did you buy theETHdip anon? $2,000-$3,000 comes after the ABC 0.618 tap.”
Source: Smart Contracter/Twitter
The crypto analyst is also bullish on ETH/BTC as he believes the pair has hit its generational bottom.
As for Bitcoin (BTC), the closely-followed trader says that the world’s leading cryptocurrency is now poised to reach a new all-time high shortly, possibly to $70,000.
“Taking a small holiday for a week, so no posting from me. Looking like an up only week in equities and crypto which I’m well positioned for.I think there’s potentially an early week IHS [inverse head and shoulders] setup brewing but $51,000 was the low in my opinion.”
Source: Smart Contracter/Twitter
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If prices plummet in an illiquid market, how soon before anyone notices?
While fungible tokens traded on centralized and decentralized exchanges have significant transparency regarding price movements, nonfungible tokens can be harder to track. Because of their illiquid nature, gauging the sentiment of the overall market market for a project can be difficult — a dynamic that has led one eGirl Capital member, Mewny, to dub NFT corrections ‘silent crashes.’
i really like @mewn21 phrasing of NFT crash as a “silent crash”
why?
in liquid markets, you can see prices going down every day. in NFT-land, sellers have slower “market reaction”. instead of sellers adjusting prices downwards everyday for a month, it may just -80% “overnight”
— tuba (@0xtuba) March 26, 2021
In a silent crash, speculators might not even be aware that one is underway — buyers simply evaporate and sellers fail to move their wares. However, metrics such as “floor price” — the lowest price at which a NFT can be bought for a particular project — as well as total volume can indicate that a bull is turning into a bear.
There could be bad news on the horizon for NFT collectors, too, as signs are pointing to a nasty crash underway.
CryptoPunks, among the earliest and most popular NFT projects for collectors, have seen a over 40% decrease in floor price to 14 ETH (roughly $28,000 at the time of publication). The price capitulation has led to some on-chain horror stories today, such as one speculator who sold a Punk for 16 ETH after purchasing it for 25.5, and another that sold for 27.99 after a 42 ETH purchase:
Punk 8282 bought for 27.99 ETH ($57,228.07 USD) by 0xd3e2e7 from 0x691b87. https://t.co/NnobRb079D #cryptopunks #ethereum pic.twitter.com/rhXwiDraz6
— CryptoPunks Bot (@cryptopunksbot) April 3, 2021
CryptoPunks aren’t the only high-profile project experiencing a marketwide correction, either. Data from evaluate.market shows that sales volume in multiple price categories for NBA Top Shot have declined precipitously since a Feb. 22 peak.
One semi-anon and self-described Top Shot enthusiast, Jordan, who charted the downturn points to two specific populations for the steep fall.
“The market has been trending downward since the Feb 22. It seems like there are two types of sellers. One, the investor who got in early and wants to cash out with exponential profit. Two, the investor who bought at or near the top and can’t stomach to watch their investment lose value by the day,” he said.
@topshotanalytix @economist @girldadNFT for everyone wishing they got into TopShot in Jan instead of Feb. Well … welcome to January. pic.twitter.com/IY1TslV8I0
— ☄️☄️☄️☄️ (@jfresshhh_) April 3, 2021
Watching price floors plummet is difficult regardless of the project. According to market-tracking website Nonfungible, the pullback is effecting the entire market: total number of sales, total value of sales, and active wallets are all down on a 7-day and 30-day basis.
Jordan ultimately thinks this a healthy, short-term pullback, however.
“I think it’s a healthy, relatively short-term correction. The rate at which prices rose from Jan 1 to Feb 22 was unsustainable. I think the next few months will continue to be bumpy, but I’m very bullish overall.”
Concerns about energy production, resource consumption and its impact on the environment are one of the dominant topics of debate on the global stage. The intensive energy costs of mining Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies are also frequently pointed to as a serious downside to the emerging asset class.
While environmental concerns and the cost to reward debate rages on, there is one group of cryptocurrency projects that has the goal of bringing blockchain technology to the global energy grids as a way to encourage renewable energy generation through a flexible marketplace that connects energy buyers and sellers.
EWT/USDT vs. POWR/USD vs. WPR/USD 1-day chart. Source:TradingView
Three energy-focused projects that have seen triple-digit gains since the beginning of 2021 are Energy Web Token (EWT), Power Ledger (POWR) and WePower (WPR).
EWT/USDT
Energy Web Token (EWT) is the operational token for the Energy Web Chain, an open-source enterprise blockchain designed to support and further application development for the energy sector.
According to the project’s website, the “Energy Web is accelerating a low-carbon, customer-centric electricity system by unleashing the potential of open-source, decentralized, digital technologies.”
The project launched in June of 2019 and has since grown to an extensive network of partners with some globally recognized companies including Volkswagen, Siemens and Hitachi.
Once fully developed and integrated, its virtual machine could help connect the different areas of the energy sector including grid operators, software developers and vendors.
One of the biggest price movers for EWT in 2021 came at the beginning of March when the token was listed on the U.S.-based Kraken cryptocurrency exchange.
EWT/USDT 4-hour chart. Source:TradingView
The subsequent announcement of a partnership with Volkswagon on March 4 and the release of the EasyBat battery compliance app on March 16 further helped provide a boost to the token which went on to establish a new all-time high of $19.85 on March 18.
POWR/USD
The Power Ledger platform was established in May 2016 with the goal of creating an operating system for new energy markets that is capable of trading renewable energy and environmental commodities on a local and global scale.
Based out of Australia, the project aims to utilize blockchain technology to create a system where every electrical resource or power device has a digital identity that is connected to a real-time market that facilitates the transactions between them.
POWR operates on the Ethereum (ETH) network as a peer-to-peer energy exchange platform and it utilizes a two-token system comprised of POWR and Sparkz to “ensure consistency across Power Ledger’s platform,” according to the project’s website.
Sparkz are stable tokens that are used when units of electricity (kWh) are bought and sold on Power Ledger’s platform.
Trading activity for POWR began to pick up at the end of January as discussions about renewable energy began to gain traction in the media.
POWR/USD 4-hour chart. Source:TradingView
The March 3 announcement of Power Ledger’s partnership with India’s largest integrated power company Tata Power-DDL kicked off a price rally which resulted in POWR rallying to $0.504, its highest level since 2018.
WPR/USD
WePower is a blockchain-based green energy trading platform that connects “energy suppliers, corporate buyers and energy producers for easy, direct green energy transactions.”
According to the project’s website, the WePower platform is “the easiest way for companies of any size to buy green energy directly from local producers,” and the platform aims to make “corporate green energy procurement as easy as online shopping.”
WPR is an ERC-20 token that functions as a payment method on the WePower Network. It’s used to standardize and increase the available liquidity in the existing energy investment system and should also help to reduce prices for network participants.
Trading activity and token began to pick up at the beginning of February when the project handed over its “first fully-featured Elemental platform to Mojo Power.
WPR/USD 4-hour chart. Source:TradingView
Following the launch of the Elemental retail marketplace on Feb. 1, the price of WPR surged from a low of $0.011 to a high of $0.05 on March 24 as conversations concerning renewable energy and sustainability in Europe and Australia took place.
Increased global attention on climate and energy production-related issues suggests that this niche slice of the crypto sector is ripe for further gains.
Projects utilizing blockchain technology to optimize global energy marketplaces are well-positioned to increase their market share as distributed ledger technology goes mainstream.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
DataDash founder Nicholas Merten is looking at five crypto assets that he believes are gearing up to erupt as he says the altcoin supercycle of 2021 is underway.
In a new video, Merten says that he’s keeping a close watch on Ethereum after the second-largest crypto asset broke out of a large bullish pattern.
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“We could see here that Ethereum has broken past the line of resistance. We set in yet another higher low along with the other three higher lows we had back here since January (2021). We look like we’re set on a course to break above those all-time highs.”
The crypto strategist is also looking at ETH/BTC which he highlights is still in the midst of a parabolic run. According to Merten’s chart, ETH/BTC can potentially surge over 170% from its current value of 0.035 to 0.095.
Another coin on Merten’s radar is layer-two scaling solution OMG Network (OMG), formerly OmiseGo. The trader highlights that OMG/BTC has likely bottomed out and it looks ready to take out a key resistance level and print massive gains.
“After setting another higher low, [OMG/BTC] is waiting to get above 1,500 satoshis (0.000015) range. Once we break past there, which again was previous support and is now acting as resistance, if we break above there, really, it seems like the sky is the limit, especially how we’ve seen it perform in the past.”
Next up is decentralized oracle platform Chainlink (LINK), which Merten says is poised to outperform Bitcoin once it edges above a key level.
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“Taking a look at Chainlink, setting a consistent range lows or support on top of previous resistance looking like it’s ready to start kicking upwards, outpacing Bitcoin and also breaking above this line of resistance (0.0006), really kicking off the next cycle for Chainlink.”
The fourth coin on Merten’s list is lending and borrowing protocol Aave. The crypto analyst believes the crypto asset has likely bottomed out after taking a nosedive against Bitcoin in a span of nearly two months.
“We had a clean 60% pullback here where Aave, one of the large-cap DeFi (decentralized finance) protocols probably has some room now to start moving up.”
The last coin is TRON (TRX/BTC). Merten identifies a key level that the pair must take out to generate massive bullish momentum.
“We’ve made support and this previous support which is now acting as resistance (0.0000015), if we pop above this I can see a lot of momentum coming back to this.”
[embedded content]
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.
Polkadot has integrated with Chainlink to incorporate its oracle service into its multi-chain environment. Thus, the different teams building on Polkadot will be able to count on a “flexible and reliable” solution to feed parachains with information.
Chainlink Price Feeds have been enabled as a Substrate Oracle pallet and can be accessed by any other pallet integrated into a parachain. Thus, deployable applications will have “powerful new functionality”. According to a release from Polkadot’s team:
Chainlink Price Feeds will allow smart contract applications across the Polkadot ecosystem to access accurate, up-to-date and tamper-proof price reference data for powering new products and markets
Chainlink to power DApps on Polkadot
Parachains based on the Substrate network will have a direct connection to the “outside world” information provided by Chainlink via a runtime module. The pallet may be added with supported smart contract programming languages, before or after connecting it to the Chain Relay. Polkadot’s team states:
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Either of these approaches allow developers to leverage Chainlink Price Feeds with limited technical effort. This integration supports the many smart contract applications and parachain pallets requesting access to Chainlink Price Feeds across Polkadot’s environment.
Additionally, a standard will be worked on to allow the use of the data feeds in all Polkadot parachains. The focus will be on an easy integration to leverage Chainlink’s 4 main features: high-quality data, decentralized infrastructure, secure nodes, cost-efficiency.
Apps connecting to Chainlink’s pallet will be able to add a collection of on-chain data sets for cryptocurrencies, FX rates, commodities, and other assets.
In addition, applications will have multiple functions such as settling cross-chain smart contracts, operating liquidation mechanisms, confirming the authenticity of reserves that collateralize a stablecoin, among others.
Head of Public Affairs at Parity Technologies, Peter Mauric believes that with this integration, Polkadot developers will be able to build the “next generation of high-performance decentralized applications”. Daniel Kochis, Head of Chainlink Business Development said:
We’re excited to empower developers across all parachains by providing them with a standardized, easy to integrate oracle solution for access to a wide range of high-quality, time-tested on-chain price feeds. By doing so, we can rapidly accelerate DeFi development within the Polkadot ecosystem, while maintaining the highest security and data quality requirements (…).
At the time of writing, DOT is trading at $43,88 with a 10.9% gain in the 24-hour chart. In the 7-days chart, DOT records a 32.4% profit and has managed to displace Cardano (ADA) in total market cap.
DOT with moderate gains in the 24-hour chart. Source: DOTUSDT Tradingview
On the other hand, LINK trades at $30,82 with side movement in the daily chart and a 12.3% profit in the weekly chart.
LINK showing side movement in the 24-hour chart. Source: LINKUSDT Tradingview
According to a security analyst, sensitive personal information for over half a billion Facebook users was leaked on a well-trafficked hacking forum earlier today — a potential risk to millions of cryptocurrency traders and hodlers who now may be vulnerable to sim swapping and other identity-based attacks.
The trove of information was first discovered by Alon Gal, CTO of security firm Hudson Rock, who posted on Twitter about the leak earlier today:
All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free.
This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is extremely likely the phone number used for the account was leaked.
I have yet to see Facebook acknowledging this absolute negligence of your data. https://t.co/ysGCPZm5U3 pic.twitter.com/nM0Fu4GDY8
— Alon Gal (Under the Breach) (@UnderTheBreach) April 3, 2021
According to Gal, the leak is related to a security vulnerability first discovered in 2019. In January 2021, it became known that hackers were able to use the information to access user’s phone numbers; the leak has now expanded to include “Phone number, Facebook ID, Full name, Location, Past Location, Birthdate, (Sometimes) Email Address, Account Creation Date, Relationship Status, Bio.”
According to Gal, the information could now enable hackers and scammers to deploy a variety of social manipulation exploits and other nefarioustactics:
“Bad actors will certainly use the information for social engineering, scamming, hacking and marketing.”
Cryptocurrency users are at particular risk of such attacks. Earlier this year, a victim of a sim-swapping attack sued mobile phone company T-Mobile for $450,000, and in 2018 Kaspersky Labs found that hackers were able to steal 21,000 ETH, currently worth over $43 million, in social engineering attacks over a 12-month period.
The data breach is also orders of magnitude larger than the Ledger breach late last year. Shortly after over 270,000 users’ information was leaked online, users reported extortionist threats, and considered lawsuits against the hardware wallet company.
Aave has announced integration with Ethereum’s sidechain Polygon. Aiming to provide alternatives for DeFi applications to be used by everyone, the implementation will allow users to leverage “nearly-free” transactions.
With a “nascent ecosystem” composed of protocol such as Quickswap and Aavegotchi, Polygon is connected to Chainlink oracle service. Therefore, the information that will feed into Aave protocol will be secured. Aave team stated:
Polygon is the opportunity for the Aave community to onboard new kinds of collaterals that would be a natural fit in these Networks.
Formerly known as MATIC, this sidechain will allow users to tap into Polygon Aave marketplace to trade token MATIC and 6 additional assets including Bitcoin’s synthetic version WBTC, WETH, AAVE, and stablecoins USDC, USDT and DAI.
5 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 15 BTC + 35.000 Free Spins every month, only at mBitcasino. Play Now!
Aave records high growth figures
In addition, the integration will feature a “bridge” so that assets can be “exported” to Polygon’s sidechain. That way, users will be able to receive “part of the transaction fees” for paying for transactions on this blockchain using MATIC.
Currently, a Polygon Bridge is active to transfer assets from Ethereum. To access the bridge, users can employ their Metamask wallet and manually add Polygon’s blockchain.
According to the release, using the sidechain costs less than $0.01. To transfer AAVE, USDC or make withdrawals, users will pay up to $0.00006.
Prior to the implementation of EIP-1559, the Aave/Polygon integration is a highly efficient alternative to optimize costs and access new tools to generate yield.
As Aave’s team highlights, high fees on Ethereum can be, at the same time, an impediment for some users and a feature of a blockchain’s success. “Demand for the use of Ethereum” has not abated since last summer’s DeFi boom.
Aave is an example of that statement. With $6 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL), Aave has seen liquidity growth of 39% in March of this year alone. According to the team behind the protocol:
This is driven by organic growth of V1 and V2 as well as the new AMM Market for liquidity pool tokens, which already holds $60 million. Liquidity has been well utilized, generating a record level of interests and Flash Loan fees nearly reaching $10 million.
As a bonus, Aave has integrated with Taurus to enable a custody solution and with Dharma to allow bank deposits directly into the protocol.
At the time of writing, AAVE is trading at $394 with 8.67% losses on the daily chart. However, over the week AAVE is up 11.5%. Its numerous partnerships and fundamentals indicate a continuation of its upside trend for this chart.
AAVE on a correcting trajectory in the 24-hour chart. Source: AAVEUSDT Tradingview
CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju is revealing that nearly a billion dollars worth of Ethereum was withdrawn from crypto exchange Coinbase in the past week.
In a new tweet, the head of the blockchain data provider suggests that the 400,000 Ethereum worth $800 million moving out of the US-based crypto exchange may have been fueled by institutional demand for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
“400,000 ETH flowed out from Coinbase a few days ago. Speculative guess, institutions are now buying ETH.”
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Earlier this year, crypto asset management giant Grayscale disclosed that in the final quarter of 2020, 93% of all capital inflows into digital assets were from institutions. The average weekly investment into the Grayscale Ethereum Trust during that period was $26.3 million.
At the beginning of March, cryptocurrency analytics firm Santiment revealed that large investors (defined as those holding over 10,000 ETH) were in control of nearly 70% of the digital asset’s supply.
“As Ethereum rebounded above $1,685 today for the first time in 10 days, whales (owning 10,000+ ETH) now own 68.6% of the total supply. This is the highest % owned by whales since November, 2017. 10-10,000 addresses meanwhile, own the lowest % since September, 2017.”
Last month, Ethereum received one of the largest shares of capital inflows relative to other cryptocurrencies, according to digital asset investing firm CoinShares.
Per the CoinShares report, the capital inflows into Ethereum from institutional investors amounted to $130 million from the beginning of March to March 26th, while the total amount of capital inflows for all cryptocurrencies was $469 million. The figure is approximately 28% of the total capital inflows while Ethereum’s market capitalization is only 12% of the entire space.
Year-to-date, fund inflows into Ethereum totaled $744 million, representing 17% of the total capital inflows into all crypto assets.
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.
Coming every Saturday,Hodler’s Digestwill help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This Week
ETH breaks record all-time high amid fresh price surge
Ether?Record high!Binance Coin?Record high!Polkadot?Record high!Bitcoin?Flat as a pancake!
Altcoins have been in the driver’s seat this week, with Ether breaking$2,100for the very first time — besting the ATH of$2,036that was set on Feb. 20.Curiously, several coins belonging to so-called “Ethereum killer” blockchains have been thriving, too.
ETH’s pricebroke out against Bitcoinfor the first time in 23 days on Thursday, not long after credit card giant Visa announced it was piloting a program that willallow its partners to use Ethereum’s blockchainto settle transactions made in fiat.
Traders have now become exceedingly bullish on Ether’s prospects and areexpecting more upside in the short-term, with $2,500 now in play.In particular, there’s interest in the price activity we could expect in June and July whena major improvement proposalcalled EIP-1559 is set to overhaul Ethereum’s existing fee structure.
The celebratory atmosphere following ETH’s all-time highs was dampened as the gas fee crisis rumbles on.The cost of using this blockchainhas surged 77% in recent days, taking the average fee to an eye-watering $22.97.
April Bulls Day? Bitcoin just closed its best March and Q1 in eight years
Bitcoin may be struggling to find its footing above$60,000right now, but at least we can take succor in how well the cryptocurrency has performed so far this year.
Despite March being a historically dreary month — with losses in six of the past nine years — BTC delivered gains of 29.84% over this 31-day period.Better still, we’re now heading into April, where BTC has only suffered negative returns twice since 2013.
Across the first quarter of the year, covering January to March, Bitcoin also gained103%, clocking up the best performance in eight years.
Traditionally, Q2 is the strongest time of the year for Bitcoin — with only two years seeing negative returns, both under 10%.Bulls will now have their sights set on surpassing the gains of159%seen between April and June 2019.
In other upbeat developments, BTC has justclosed six consecutive monthly green candlesfor the first time since April 2013, and should history repeat itself, we could see further parabolic gains this year.
PayPal to start letting U.S. customers pay in Bitcoin at global merchants
Bitcoin’s bounce back from$55,000was likely fueled by PayPal’s announcement that crypto will now be accepted as a medium of exchange at millions of global merchants.
The new feature, Checkout with Crypto, means U.S. customers will be able to “seamlessly” use their digital assets to make purchases.PayPal also supports Ether, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Crypto will be converted into fiat as soon as the transaction takes place, and the payments giant says this will create “certainty of value and no additional transaction fees.”
PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said:“Enabling cryptocurrencies to make purchases at businesses around the world is the next chapter in driving the ubiquity and mass acceptance of digital currencies.”
One fly in the ointment here concerns how America’s taxman, the Internal Revenue Service, regards crypto as property rather than currency.This means that even spending Bitcoin that has risen in value could be regarded as a taxable event.
Coinbase expects direct listing on April 14
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has given its blessing for Coinbase to make its stock market debut, with the exchange confirming it will happen on April 14.It’ll feature on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol COIN.
Coinbase had been expected to go public in March but reportedly delayed its plans afterpaying a $6.5-million fee as part of a settlementwith the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Crypto analyst Filbfilb says the direct listingcould spark “increased volatility” for Bitcoin’s price, especially if Coinbase suffers immediate sell-offs like Deliveroo did during its ill-fated IPO in London.
In other developments,Messari has compiled a reportconcluding that the so-called “Coinbase effect” — a popular belief that new token listings on the exchange tend to outperform launches on other exchanges — is true.
Michael Jordan, Will Smith join $305-million funding round for NBA Top Shot maker Dapper Labs
Dapper Labs has raised$305 millionin a star-studded funding round — meaning it now reportedly holds a valuation of $2.6 billion.
The company, which has brought CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot to life, says it wants to go beyond American basketball and extend the “same magic” to other sports franchises.
In other news,intrepid Cardano developershave found a way to mint bootleg nonfungible tokens — despite the fact that the blockchain doesn’t support smart contracts yet.Meanwhile,The Weeknd announced he’s releasing his first NFTvia Nifty Gateway, featuring “new music and limited edition art.”
Nifty Gateway has also announced that it isplanning to become carbon-negativein the near future by calculating its emissions and purchasing twice as many carbon offsets each month.
The craze behind NFTsnow appears to have reached peak parody, too, after NBC’s famedSaturday Night Livesketch show addressed nonfungible tokens in a skit featuring Kate McKinnon as U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Announcement of the week
Markets Pro delivers up to 1,497% ROI as quant-style crypto analysis arrives for every investor
It’s now been a month sinceCointelegraph Markets Prolaunched — bringing professional crypto market intelligence to every investor.
New figures this week showed that 41 of the 42 trading strategies tested by Markets Pro are currently beating Bitcoin’s investment returns, and 36 of them are winning against an evenly weighted basket of the top 100 altcoins.
Two key features are offered to subscribers. The first is theVORTECS™ Score, which is derived from an algorithm that examines multiple different variables (including sentiment, tweet volume, price volatility and trading volume) and compares those with historically similar marketscapes.
And the second isNewsQuakes™: alerts on events that have historically had a significant impact on an asset’s price over the following 24 hours.
Cointelegraph Markets Pro isavailable exclusively to subscriberson a monthly basis at $99 per month, or annually with two free months included.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at$59,699.22, Ether at$2,111.64and XRP at$0.63. The total market cap is at$1,965,398,828,338.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week areHolo,BitTorrentandHelium. The top three altcoin losers of the week areVoyager Token,SwissBorgandPundi X.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to readCointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“Expecting Ethereum to outperform Bitcoin for all of Q2.”
Rookie, crypto trader
“Is Theta actually worth all the hype? I am not sure because it’s too early to tell. I want to see how well their mainnet does.”
Marie Tatibouet, Gate.io chief marketing officer
“SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon.”
Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and “Technoking”
“Bitcoin currently in between 2013 and 2017 tracks.”
PlanB, stock-to-flow model creator
“Tether-Winky, Buy the Dipsey, Laa Laa, Poor.”
@CryptoCred
“I do think Bitcoin is on an inevitable path to having the same market cap and then a higher market cap as gold.”
Mike Novogratz, Galaxy Digital CEO
“We are working closely with teams across the firm to explore ways to offer thoughtful and appropriate access to the ecosystem for private wealth clients, and that is something we expect to offer in the near term.”
Mary Rich, Goldman Sachs head of digital assets
“This is the first time you can seamlessly use cryptocurrencies in the same way as a credit card or a debit card inside your PayPal wallet.”
Dan Schulman, PayPal CEO
“A part of the problem with Bitcoin is 90% of it is not done in the United States. 90% of it is done in countries that have dirty energy. So that’s the reason why it’s considered to be a dirty activity.”
Francis Suarez, Miami mayor
Prediction of the Week
One BTC will be worth a Lambo by 2022, and a Bugatti by 2023: Kraken CEO
After previously declaring that Bitcoin will be worth “infinity” in the future(Digests passim), Kraken CEO is making a triumphant return to Prediction of the Week.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Jesse Powell was keen to offer alternatives to measuring Bitcoin’s value in dollars — by comparing future price action to high-end sports cars… which can also have their value measured in dollars.
Powell said that one Bitcoin, which is currently worth a Tesla Model 3, could be worth one Lambo by the end of this year… and one Bugatti by 2023.
He added:“There could be 10 times as many U.S. dollars out there a year from now, so it’s really hard to measure Bitcoin against the dollar.”
FUD of the Week
iPhone user blames Apple for $600,000 Bitcoin theft via fake app
A scam cryptocurrency app in Apple’s App Store has reportedly swindled17.1 BTCfrom one unsuspecting user.
Phillipe Christodoulou had thought he had downloaded official Trezor software, given how it had many five-star reviews.Little did he know that the company doesn’t currently provide such an app.
After entering his seed phrase, Christodoulou says his funds were stolen.His crypto haul was worth $600,000 at the time, but now it’s worth $1 million.
The Washington Postreports that he has now filed a report with the FBI, but it seems the victim is reserving most of his anger for the tech giant:“They betrayed the trust that I had in them. Apple doesn’t deserve to get away with this.”
Trezor spokesperson Kristyna Mazankova told Cointelegraph that the firm has been fighting fraudulent apps for years — but claimed the wallet company “never gets any response from either Apple or Google.”
Oops! A 100% Bitcoin hodl outperformed CNBC’s 2017 altcoin basket by 170%
Ah, 2017. A crazy time that was slap bang in the middle of the ICO boom.
An investment portfolio that was championed by CNBC at the time has now resurfaced, which was made up of 30% Bitcoin and 70% altcoins.
Four years on, those who invested$10,000at the time would now have about$52,300. Had they just bought and hodled Bitcoin, they would now have over$140,000.
StatsBTC, which crunched the numbers, noted:“The 30% #BTC allocation is responsible for 75% of the return.”
South Korean government makes $10.5-million profit from four-year-old Bitcoin crime haul
South Korean prosecutors have finally sold a Bitcoin haul they confiscated from a criminal in 2017, and it’s worth$10.5 millionmore than it was at the time of the arrest.
This is believed to be the first time that authorities in the country have sold confiscated Bitcoin — and at the time the crypto was seized, it was worth a paltry$238,000.
In late March, the South Korean government enacted widespread crypto-specific laws for the first time, putting more pressure on exchanges and virtual asset service providers to use real-name trading accounts and to report their activities to Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit.
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This is how to make — and lose — a fortune with NFTs
The rise of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, has been nothing short of astounding this year. Google searches for “NFT” are up over 600% since mid-February.
Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have been the talk of the town over the past few months, but as the start of the second quarter gets underway for the global financial markets, it possible that traders may start looking for opportunities in other parts of the crypto market.
Oracle projects are one sub-sector that has been making moves over the past few weeks as some traders shift their focus away from NFTs.
BAND/USDT vs. API3/USDT vs. DIA/USDT 1-day chart. Source:TradingView
As shown above, Band Protocol (BAND), API3 and DIA are three oracle projects that have entered sharp rallies over the past week.
BAND/USDT
Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that operates on the Cosmos (ATOM) network. The protocol aggregates real-world data and APIs and supplies the data to on-chain applications and smart contracts in order to facilitate the exchange of information between on-chain and off-chain data sources.
Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 13 BAND price surged by nearly 300% then in March the token traded in a sideways range between $11 and $15.30.
BAND/USDT 4-hour chart. Source:TradingView
Activity for protocol began to pick back up on March 26 after it was revealed that the team was instrumental in bringing VeChain (VET) to Linear Finance (LINA). The developers also announced that they would continue to assist in bringing new assets to the LINA ecosystem.
The subsequent revelation that BAND had partnered with SCB 10X, one of the biggest financial institutions in Thailand, brought further momentum to the token and pushed it to a high of $17.78 on April 1, an increase of 60% over the past week.
API3/USDT
API3 is a DAO-governed oracle project focused on the creation of fully decentralized, blockchain-native APIs (dAPI) that aggregate data from first-party oracles.
Price action for the token began to pick up on March 1 and continued to build throughout the month as the protocol announced multiple new partnerships including collaborations with Option Room, Royale Finance (ROYA), MobiFi and Bridge Mutual (BMI).
API3/USDT 4-hour chart. Source:TradingView
Since hitting a swing low at $3.28 on Feb. 28, the price of API3 has climbed 220% to establish a new high of $10.50 on April 1.
DIA/USDT
DIA is an open-source data and oracle platform for the DeFi ecosystem that enables market participants to source, supply and share trusted data. Essentially, the protocol provides a reliable and verifiable bridge between off-chain data from various sources and on-chain smart contracts that can be used to build a variety of financial DApps.
The platform brings data analysts, data providers and data users together to create a space for open financial information in a smart contract ecosystem that is like the Wikipedia of financial data.
DIA/USDT 4-hour chart. Source:TradingView
After dropping to a low of $1.87 on Feb. 28, DIA revealed multiple partnerships in March, including an integration with the Polkadot (DOT) parachain Moonbeam. This resulted in the price of DIA climbing 150% to a high of $4.79 on April 1.
Another potential catalyst for the current rally came shortly after the launch of the DIA Univesity Student network on March 12.
We are delighted to announce the launch of the DIA University Student Network, a global network of elite universities to foster knowledge exchange between academia and DeFi and collaborative research into #DeFi and #oracles.https://t.co/tjsg4nB5Wyhttps://t.co/YJFoIKWq2G
— DIA | Open-Source Data and Oracles for #DeFi (@DIAdata_org) March 12, 2021
In total, DIA announced partnerships with eight different blockchain projects and companies during the month of March, indicating that the team is serious about its goal to create a cross-network oracle system that provides trusted data for the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Oracles now appear poised to continue the uptrend that began in January as blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies gain additional attention from investors and the business sector.
With the hype behind NFTs beginning to subside, oracle tokens could be the next group to entice investors and break out to new all-time highs.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
