A popular crypto strategist and trader is saying that a massive rally is on the horizon for leading smart contract platform Ethereum (ETH).
Crypto analyst Justin Bennett tells his 93,500 Twitter followers that Ethereum is now in “full beast mode” after breaking out of a bullish continuation pattern against Bitcoin (ETH/BTC).
“Now above 0.082 BTC ($4,138.70) and climbing. The objective is 0.10-0.11 BTC ($5,047.20-$5,551.92), so there’s still room to move higher in the next few weeks. The objective from the January breakout is 0.16 BTC ($8,075.52).”
Source: Justin Bennett/Twitter
ETH/BTC is currently exchanging hands at 0.085 BTC, suggesting a 90% potential upside should the pair hit Bennett’s second target.
As for Ethereum against the US dollar, the crypto strategist says that the second-largest crypto asset by market cap still looks relatively strong even after last weekend’s deep corrective move.
“I find it ironic that the second-largestcryptoby market cap is 14% off its all-time high while many on Twitter act like the sky is falling. Stay cautious? Yes. Panic? Not a chance.”
Source: Justin Bennett/Twitter
Looking at Bitcoin, Bennett says BTC must flip a key price area into support to regain its bullish momentum.
“BTCback above $50,000. Needs to reclaim $53,000 to turn bullish again.”
Source: Justin Bennett/Twitter
Bennett is also offering a possible scenario where Bitcoin could just consolidate between $52,000 and $43,000 in the coming weeks.
“Keep in mind that the current range isn’t exactly small. Could be lots of this for the next few weeks.”
Source: Justin Bennett/Twitter
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Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter will be launching a new company that will eventually see its website move to a blockchain-based system on Celo.
In a Wednesday blog post, CEO Aziz Hasan and co-founder Perry Chen said Kickstarter would be developing an open source protocol that will live on the Celo blockchain. The two execs cited the blockchain’s efforts in minimizing its environmental impact — being carbon negative — in addition to the fact it was open source.
“We are entering a significant moment for alternative governance models, and we think there’s an important opportunity to advance these efforts using the blockchain,” said Chen and Hasan.
Bloomberg reported that Kickstarter planned to transition its website to the blockchain platform in 2022, with the project announcing it would release a white paper “in the coming weeks.” Kickstarter reportedly said the migration will not affect any of the millions of users currently using the platform to crowdfund for projects including medical and fitness products, artwork, books, and movies.
In addition, Kickstarter said it planned to establish a governance lab “overseeing the development of the protocol governance.” Purpose Foundation executive director and co-founder Camille Canon will be leading the effort.
Related:A Community-Governed DeFi Platform Makes Crowdfunding Decentralized
With the emerging crypto space, certain projects that might have received money through Kickstarter have shifted to distributed autonomous organizations. In November, a group called ConstitutionDAO attempted to purchase a first edition print copy of the U.S. Constitution, in which 17,437 backers were issued governance tokens called PEOPLE. Though the DAO failed to make the winning bid, its token price surged after the team behind the project allowed users to continue holding the tokens.
First launched in 2009, Kickstarter reported 21 million people have pledged more than $6 billion to back 213,034 projects using the crowdfunding platform, including the Peloton bike and the 2014 movie Veronica Mars.
Payments titan Visa is launching a new crypto advisory branch to help clients and partners navigate the world of digital assets.
The move comes after Visa released research suggesting that digital currencies are becoming more mainstream, with 94% of adults globally having awareness of crypto.
In a press release, Carl Rutstein, Visa’s global head of consulting and analytics says,
“We’ve seen a material shift in our clients’ mindset in the last year, from a desire to explore and experiment with crypto, to actually building a strategy and product roadmap.”
Key findings of Visa’s research indicate that not only are adults more aware of crypto, but many of them have also already invested in it. About 33% of crypto-aware adults own or use it, while 62% of that group say they’ve ramped up their cryptocurrency activities within the last year, according to research.
Furthermore, Visa says 18% of those surveyed globally say they’d switch their primary banking institution within the next year if they did not offer crypto products. The payments giant says that among customers who already own crypto, that figure jumps to 40%.
According to Visa, the company has the know-how to accommodate the growing awareness and adoption of the crypto space.
“Through their work with more than 60 crypto platforms, Visa’s global network of consultants and product experts have deep expertise to help financial institutions evaluate the crypto opportunity, develop concrete strategies, and pilot new user experiences and innovations like crypto rewards programs and CBDC-integrated consumer wallets.”
Terry Angelos, Visa’s senior vice president and head of fintech said,
“Crypto represents a technological shift for money movement and digital ownership. As consumers change their approach to investing, where they bank, and their views on the future of money, every financial institution will need a crypto strategy.”
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Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Terra (LUNA) has surpassed its rival blockchains to become the third-largest crypto by total value locked (TVL).
Crypto market intelligence firm Delphi Digital says that the Ethereum competitor has now overtaken Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX) in terms of TVL primarily due to value growth in Bonded Luna (bLuna), which is the token used by liquid staking protocol Lido as collateral to borrow stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) within the Anchor protocol.
“TVL on Terra network overtook Avalanche and Solana, making it [the] third-largest blockchain by TVL after Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
It’s important to note that TVL numbers are highly reflective alongside native token prices as they are commonly used as collateral in DeFi and as base pairs for DEXes. In Terra’s case, DEX base pairs usually utilize Tether instead of LUNA, therefore this growth in TVL is primarily contributed by value growth in Lido bLuna.”
The TVL of a DeFi platform is the total value held within its smart contracts. It is calculated by multiplying the amount of funds locked into the network as collateral by the current price of the assets.
Delphi Digital points to how LUNA’s rise has helped Terra’s stablecoin UST increase its overall supply by 4 billion tokens due to a proposal to mint UST on the Terra network.
“The increase in UST Supply from under $3 billion to $7 billion across mid-November was due to this proposal to mint UST with LUNA in the community pool to grow the Terra ecosystem through UST usage.
UST did another ~$1 billion of growth in circulating supply after 19th November.”
LUNA is exchanging hands at $70.85 as of writing, an 46% increase from its 30-day low of $38.06.
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Bitcoin (BTC) bulls are still licking their wounds from the bloody Dec. 4 correction which saw the price collapse from $57,000 all the way to $42,000. This 26.5% downside move caused $850 million in long BTC futures contracts to be liquidated, but more importantly, it shifted the “Fear and Greed index” to its lowest level since July 21.
Bitcoin/USD price at FTX. Source: TradingView
It is somehow strange to compare both events, as the July 21 sub $30,000 low would have erased the entire gains in 2021. Meanwhile, the $42,000 low from Dec. 4 is still a 44% gain year-to-date. Compare this against the S&P 500 which is up 21% in 2021 and the WTI oil price which has accrued a 41% gain.
Bulls might be focused on the Bitcoin reserves held at exchanges, which continues to descend and currently sits at the lowest level in 3 years. According to data from CryptoQuant, there are now less than 2.27 million BTC deposited at exchanges and having fewer coins available for trading signals that investors are unwilling to sell in the short term. This is a dynamic that many investors consider to be bullish.
Even with the apparent balance between call (buy) and put (sell) options on Friday’s $1.1 billion expiry, bears are better positioned after Bitcoin stabilized slightly above $50,000.
Bitcoin options aggregate open interest for Oct. 10. Source: CoinGlass
A broader view using the call-to-put ratio shows a modest 7% advantage to Bitcoin bulls because the $555 million call (buy) instruments have a larger open interest versus the $520 million put (sell) options. However, the 1.07 indicator is deceptive because the 11.5% price drop over the past week caused most bullish bets to become worthless.
For example, if Bitcoin’s price remains below $52,000 at 8:00 am UTC on Dec. 10, only $50 million worth of those call (buy) options will be available. That effect happens because there is no value in the right to buy Bitcoin at $55,000 if it is trading below such price.
The numbers suggest that bulls are set for a major loss
Below are the three most likely scenarios based on the current price action. The number of option contracts available on Dec. 10 for bulls (call) and bear (put) instruments vary depending on the expiry BTC price. The imbalance favoring each side constitutes the theoretical profit:
Between $47,000 and $50,000: 400 calls vs. 6,600 puts. The net result is $300 million favoring the put (bear) instruments.
Between $50,000 and $54,000: 1,700 calls vs. 4,700 puts. The net result is $160 million favoring the put (bear) instruments.
Above $54,000: 2,400 calls vs. 2,900 puts. The net result favors the put (bear) options by $30 million.
This crude estimate considers the call options being used in bullish bets and the put options that are exclusively in neutral-to-bearish trades. Even so, this oversimplification disregards more complex investment strategies.
For instance, a trader could have sold a call option, effectively gaining a negative exposure to Bitcoin above a specific price. But, unfortunately, there’s no easy way to estimate this effect.
Bears will do their best to hold BTC below $50,000
Bitcoin bears need a gentle push to sub-$50,000 to score a $300 million profit. On the other hand, bulls would need a 7.2% price recovery from the current $50,500 to reduce their loss by half.
Considering the $2 billion liquidation of leverage long positions on Dec. 4, bulls are likely trying to stay afloat and will be unwilling to add more risk right now. It would be unnecessarily ineffective for bullish investors to waste their efforts trying to salvage this short-term loss.
So in this instance, bears look set to maintain the upper hand in this weekly options expiry.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of theauthorand do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Stablecoins, or crypto assets which peg their value to less volatile fiat money, are useful tools for a variety of reasons. They can be used to cash out crypto investments, send or receive stable money abroad, and to pay for everyday consumer transactions without fear of fluctuation. A recent estimate from the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, put the total stablecoin supply at roughly $150 billion.
But central banks, the issuers of traditional fiat money around the globe, do not seem to be big fans of stablecoins. A sharp increase in supply coupled with a lack of relevant regulations has led to concerns that these stable blockchain assets could threaten the current financial order. Fiat money stablecoins, such as those created by Circle (USDC) and Tether (USDT), may require banking licenses in the future to operate. Thus far however, regulators have not been keen to take aim on algorithmic stablecoins, which are governed by automated expansion and contraction of the monetary supply.
In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Sam Kazemian, the co-founder of the Frax stablecoin protocol, discussed the regulatory outlook for the sector and algorithmic stablecoins in detail.
Growth in cryptocurrency activities | Source: BIS
Cointelegraph: There are many algorithmic stablecoins out there, such as Terra USD, Ampleforth, etc. In your opinion, what makes Frax unique?
Sam Kazemian: What makes Frax unique is that we have a system where our protocol expands and contracts supply in various places across blockchain protocols, and targets the exchange rates of the Frax stablecoin out in the open market. We like to compare it to a central bank. When it issues a currency, it never says ‘hey, you can come to redeem it for this amount of gold, or you can come and redeem it at the central bank for something dollar-pegged.’ They don’t say that anymore. And so, what a central bank does, is that it targets their currency in the open market’s exchange rate.
If a central bank pegs their currency to gold, what they’ll do is look at the price of gold against their national currency. If it’s lower than what they want, they’ll buy some of the currency back. If the other side is higher than what they want, then they’ll print more of the currency. Frax takes this kind of approach. That’s how we developed our algorithmic stablecoin thesis, and it’s worked well. We’ve never broken our peg, even during [the major market crash in] May.
Stablecoin market capitalization statistics | Source: U.S. Treasury Stablecoin Report
CT: Do you see a potential crackdown looming in stablecoin the sector? And what is Frax doing to comply with relevant stablecoin regulations?
SK: There are two parts to this. I don’t know if I would call it a crackdown, but I do see a lot of regulation coming for at least the fiat coins, which have traditional financial assets that back them; like cash equivalents, or actual cash in depository accounts. I don’t know that this affects truly decentralized stablecoins though. I believe that Frax is not only compliant, but it will keep complying with all requirements just by existing and being fully decentralized.
The second part to your question is interesting because I think the current stablecoin regulation they’re proposing is a little bit reactionary. What’s currently going on is that people are saying that stablecoin issuers like a Circle and Tether need to have banking licenses. That’s the conversation. But that doesn’t make sense if you think about it, because there’s a lot of experimentation allowed in even the traditional financial space. Things like money market funds don’t have a banking charter. It’s not a bank. It’s not FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] insured. People either don’t realize this or they’re not informed.
Money market funds are regulated in the sense that you need to have [and disclose] cash equivalents. But they are not regulated with the same harshness that they’re currently proposing [for] stablecoins. This doesn’t apply to fully decentralized ones like Frax that have absolutely no claims on real-world assets, or even advertise any form of redeemability. The whole point of Frax is that our protocol works by targeting the open market exchange. I think I’m pretty open to the belief that the regulation portion will work itself out.
2021 will be marked not just as the year of the Great Crypto Awakening, punctuated by record prices and eye-watering valuations for blockchain startups, but perhaps more importantly, by a fresh wave of talent flowing into the ever growing industry.
This year’s Forbes Under 30 class welcomed 21 blockchain leaders and innovators, nearly twice as many as last year. Among them are developers, artists, media executives and venture capitalists —building out and investing in the next iteration of the worldwide web, creating novel non-fungible assets, trailblazing crypto philanthropy and disrupting global finance with technology popularized by bitcoin.
In honor of the 10th anniversary edition of the Forbes 30 Under 30, we’ve also picked 30 star alumni for the Under 30 Hall of Fame. Representing crypto are 29-year-old founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, currently the richest under-30 on the planet, worth $26.5 billion, and 27-year-old co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, the youngest known crypto billionaire with a $1.4 billion fortune.
Click here to check out the entire Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
If crypto is your only passion, scroll down to see this year’s honorees.
RECUR
Max Bruch, 24, and Zach Bruch, 28
Cofounders, RECUR
The Bruch brothers are out to build the Amazon of NFTs. They are creating a marketplace for people to buy, sell and trade NFTs of established brands, sports teams, movie characters, cartoons and other much-loved, old-line media content. Think digital collectibles. Max, 24, and Zach, 28, recently partnered with ViacomCBS and raised a massive $50 million round led by hedge fund billionaire Stevie Cohen, which valued the marketplace at $333 billion.
PARADIGM
Casey Caruso, 28
Partner, Paradigm
San Francisco, California
Caruso is an investment partner at Paradigm, the crypto-focused firm founded in 2018. Caruso has helped make investments into companies such as Axie Infinity, AI Arena and several more that are unannounced. Previously, she was an engineer at Google, where she worked on a machine learning research team studying user behavior. In parallel, she worked at Bessemer Venture Partners part-time as an investor focused on frontier tech: crypto, machine learning and quantum computing.
TRIBE CAPITAL
Jared Madfes, 24
Partner, Tribe Capital
New York, New York
Madfes is a partner at Tribe Capital, a $1.5 billion venture firm where he leads crypto initiatives. He’s led investments in Akash Networks, Eternal Return, Lit Protocol, Mnemonic, Titan, Visor Finance and WeMeta, among others, while helping the firm develop a strategy that includes long-term hold positions in liquid coins and tokens, and direct involvement with DAOs and decentralized communities. Madfes previously invested in crypto projects on behalf of a European family office, building a $100 million-plus portfolio.
BLOCKWORKS
Michael Ippolito, 27, and Jason Yanowitz, 27
Cofounders, Blockworks
Fueled by the thesis that crypto would become a legitimate asset class, Michael Ippolito and Jason Yanowitz launched Blockworks, a news site for investors in digital assets that they call “the Bloomberg for crypto.” Since launching in 2018, they’ve expanded to run one of the largest crypto podcast networks in the world, as well as global conferences and a daily newsletter. They’ve bootstrapped the entire business and are expecting $10 million in revenue this year.
pplpleasr
Emily Yang, 29
Cofounder, pplpleasr
Vancouver, Canada
Emily Yang has dedicated her life to NFTs for good. Earlier this year she sold a DeFi animation for $525,000, and with the sale created the Stand With Asians Community Fund to support the AAPI causes. She’s since donated over $700,000 to the fund and founded PleasrDAO, an NFT collective for charitable causes like purchasing Edward Snowden’s NFT for $5.5 million and donating the proceeds to the Freedom of the Press.
The Giving Block
Pat Duffy, 27, and Alex Wilson, 28
Cofounders, The Giving Block
Alex Wilson and Pat Duffy started The Giving Block in 2018 to create the new industry of Crypto Philanthropy. Their company, The Giving Block, has built the most comprehensive crypto fundraising solution and has become the leading Crypto Philanthropy product. It’s used by over 700 nonprofits that have collectively raised over $100 million in crypto donations.
Alameda Research
Caroline Ellison, 27, and Sam Trabucco, 29
Co-CEOs, Alameda Research
In August 2021 billionaire Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried promoted the traders to co-CEOs so he could focus on his FTX cryptocurrency exchange. By charging basis points on $5 billion volume a day the quantitative trading firm makes about $3-4 million daily. Through investing that income into blockchain platforms like Uniswap and Compound that connect lenders and borrowers with little overhead, Alamada generates an additional 7% to 50% annualized depending on the asset. Both natives of Boston, Ellison wrote her MIT professor-dad an economics paper analyzing stuffed animals’ prices when she was eight years old, before getting a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Stanford and a job at Jane Street, where she met Bankman-Fried. Trabucco is a former competitive Scrabble player who studied computer science at MIT, where he also met the Alameda co-founder.
OpenSea
Alex Atallah, 29
Cofounder, OpenSea
New York, New York
The software engineer worked at Palantir and two early-stage startups before cofounding OpenSea in early 2018. OpenSea is the largest marketplace for consumers to buy and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In July, a month when the company processed $330 million in NFT transactions, it raised $100 million in funding at a $1.5 billion valuation. Over the past three months, OpenSea has processed roughly $3 billion in monthly volume.
Slingshot
Clinton Bembry, 27
Founder, Slingshot
San Francisco, California
Founded in September 2020 Slingshot provides a single user-friendly portal to access defi trading platforms like Uniswap and others. Instead of charging fees on the $2 billion volume, they’re experimenting with Robinhood’s model that charges market makers to route orders. Unlike Robinhood, the company that is now closing an investment valuing it at $100 million, lets users audit trades on a public blockchain. After graduating from the University of Minnesota with a degree in computer science he founded Toshint Capital, a crypto hedge managing $30 million, and helped build the Astro Wallet bought by Coinbase in December 2019.
dYdX
Antonio Juliano, 28
Founder, dYdX
San Francisco, California
In 2017, after stints as a coder at Coinbase and Uber, Juliano started dYdX, a crypto derivatives trading platform that caters to professional traders outside the U.S. It averages roughly $2 billion in daily trading volume (Coinbase does about $5 billion). The 19-person startup brought in $75 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2021. It expects to reach $125 million in revenue for the full year and $80 million in net profit.
Edge & Node
Tegan Kline, 28
Cofounder, Edge & Node
Santa Fe, New Mexico
After raising $22.5 million to help The Graph build an open source tool that lets ethereum developers understand how their products are being used, she co-founded Edge & Node to help monetize the project. Edge & Node was originally funded with an 8% stake of the GRT token, which is now worth about $648 million. Kline has also led Edge & Node’s investments into projects adjacent to The Graph, totaling $3.1 million in 2021. Born to a stay-at-home mom and a dad who works on the railroad she was recruited out of college by Bank of America. Frustrated by the clunkiness of traditional finance, she joined ethereum VPN Orchid, in 2018, and helped build it to its current value of $342 million.
Iron Fish
Elena Nadolinski, 29
Founder, Iron Fish
San Francisco, California
Originally founded to create a privacy protecting cryptocurrency like zcash, Iron Fish expanded to include privacy protecting technology that can be digitally wrapped around any cryptocurrency. The platform now has 750 fully functioning nodes compared to bitcoin’s 10,000, and is preparing for a public launch later this year. As a child in Volgograd, Russia, Nadolinski was constantly reminded of WWII levelling of her town while playing in a playground made of tanks. She blames the relative dearth of companies from Russia relative to the high level of academic culture, and technical output, on a lack of property rights and privacy.
TRM Labs
Rahul Raina, 28
Cofounder, TRM Labs
San Francisco, California
TRM Labs provides forensic analysis for the IRS and dozens of others. By charging for licenses that let customers identify where an asset came from, who owns it and score the risk of that owner, the firm has grown 700% since last year and is on track to generate several million dollars revenue this year. Born in New Delhi, India, he graduated from the University of Michigan with degrees in business and computer science. In April 2018 he founded TRM Labs as a game to drive cryptocurrency adoption, pivoting during an industry-wide drop in prices to help analyze blockchain data.
Audius
Roneil Rumburg, 29
Cofounder, Audius
Las Vegas, Nevada
Audius lets musicians create their own business models, using cryptography to ensure a their cut of the proceeds doesn’t change without their consent. While the platform is not yet monetized 100,000 musicians have uploaded songs to the platform and last month 6 million listeners logged in. Further growth is expected following video-sharing app TikTok’s August announcement it would let Audius musicians share their music directly on the site. Growing up in LA Rumberg used to sneak into EDM clubs to listen to his favorite performers, and was tired of seeing closed platforms like SoundCloud booting the acts for failing to comply with the rapidly changing terms.
21Shares
Ophelia Snyder, 29
Cofounder, 21Shares
New York, New York
Snyder co-founded 21Shares in 2018 to build sophisticated crypto investing technology her mom could use. Now valued at $700 million, the firm charges about a 2% management fee for 15 ETPs in 4 countries. With over $2.5 billion AUM it is on track for $60 million revenue this year. In October she and 21Shares board member Cathie Wood jointly filed with the SEC for what would be the first Bitcoin ETF. A native New Yorker, she earned a bachelors in earth systems from Stanford, working on Emmy winning Mission Blue, about a woman oceanographer, before discovering bitcoin.
Fidelity Digital Assets
Ben Spiegelman, 29
Director of Product Management, Fidelity Digital Assets
New York, New York
Hired by Fidelity in January 2021 to build a one-stop shop for institutional crypto adoption, he now manages billions of dollars’ worth of crypto assets for 10 liquidity partners including Arizex and 150 other institutional clients. Through Fidelity venture branch Avon he invested in institutional crypto-trading platform Talos and crypto forensics firm Soldus Labs. Born in New York he earned a double major from Indiana University in finance and technology management, going on to help Bank of America make 25 investments in crypto and more. In November 2017 he helped early enterprise blockchain startup Symbiont raise $45 million.
TaxBit
Justin Woodward, 28
Cofounder, TaxBit
Draper, Utah
In 2018 Justin and his brother Austin launched TaxBit, giving enterprises real-time insight into taxes on crypto and equities. With clients including the IRS, the profitable firm raised $230 million from Tiger Global and others at a $1.33 billion valuation, but has yet to spend any of the capital it raised. Born in Seattle, Washington, at the age of 22 he became one of the youngest attorneys ever to get a law degree from the University of Chicago. While working a federal clerkship he discovered crypto, and in 2016 turned down a $75,000 bonus to found TaxBit.
List Editors
Consumer Tech: Steven Bertoni, Nina Wolpow and Will Yakowicz
Venture Capital: Alex Konrad and Rebecca Szkutak
Media: Abigail Freeman, Kristin Stoller and Haniyah Philogene
Art & Style: Alexandra Sternlicht and Josh Burrell
Social Impact: Alexandra Wilson and Igor Bosilkovski
Finance: Maria Abreu, Michael del Castillo and Jeff Kauflin
In only a few hours on Saturday, $5.4 billion of Bitcoin futures contracts were liquidated, draining the market of 25% of its value, according to Glassnode’s weekly report. It was the second largest single day change in the futures market this year, behind only the massive sell-off of May 19.
It was only a week ago that Glassnode foundfutures trading was on the riseand the Chicago-based CME derivatives market accounted for 20% of global volume. But when open interest rises, it can lay the groundwork for a lot of volatility.
Open interest refers to outstanding futures or options contracts that have yet to be settled. Options function as their name suggests, giving the buyer the option to buy an asset at a predetermined price when the contract expires. Futures are more binding, locking the buyer into buying an asset at a predetermined price when the contract expires.
Both types of derivative contracts can be used to speculate on price movement or as a hedge, allowing the buyer to recoup some portion of their losses if the underlying asset, in this case Bitcoin, moves in an unfavorable direction.
The leveraged positions—so called because investors can place these bets with a relatively small amount of capital—can cause big market swings when prices fall.
“The chain of contract closures on Saturday amounted to a total rinse of 58,202 BTC in value,”Glassnode writes in its report. “In BTC denomination, this liquidation was the second largest single day change in Futures Open Interest in 2021, bested only by the historic sell-off on May 19 that totalled 79,244 BTC.”
Source: Glassnode
Other notable big market swings in open interest were May 12, the dayTesla said it would no longer accept Bitcoin as payment; July 26, when a short squeeze helped reverse prices out of their summer doldrums.
A short squeeze occurs when investors who have shorted an asset, or bet against it, liquidate their positions to cut their losses. The squeeze usually begins when the price rises unexpectedly. The liquidated short positions accelerate the rate at which an asset’s price rises, which of course leads more people to abandon their short positions. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
The other day for significant open interest movement occurred on Sept. 7, whenBitcoin officially became legal tender in El Salvador, according to Glassnode.
But even a big drop in open interest can spur other activity. It’s whyGlassnode has said previouslythat it’s worth keeping an eye on the derivatives market. For example, last week’s sell off was accompanied by the second highest hourly options volume, $1.7 billion per hour, since the mid-May sell off.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.
The EOS community has voted to stop token vesting to Block.one, its $4 billion backer from the ICO boom of 2017 to 2018.
EOS developers and block producers, the EOS Foundation, Block.one, and Brock Pierce have been unable to reach a mutual agreement on a supply of locked EOS tokens.
EOS has struggled to live up to its promises since launching in 2018, and its token is still significantly short of its peak.
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EOS block producers have voted to stop vesting tokens to Block.one. The battle between the EOS Foundation and the project’s founding team, Block.one, continues.
EOS Community Votes to Stop Vesting
The EOS community has voted to stop vesting tokens to Block.one.
The project’s top 25 block producersreached the decisionfollowing weeks of negotiations between the community and EOS’ lead backer, Block.one. The block producers have opted to stop issuing 67 million EOS tokens that were scheduled to be unlocked over the next six to seven years.
The vote is the latest turn in an ongoing saga involving the community-backed EOS Foundation and Block.one. In November, the EOS Foundation proposed blocking Block.one from accessing 45 million EOS tokens worth around $196 million. The community claimed that Block.one had failed to deliver on its promises for EOS after raising $4 billion during crypto’s infamous 2017 to 2018 ICO boom.
Block.one announced that it had sold 45 million EOS to Pierce last month. Of the 45 million tokens, eight million were already liquid, leaving 37 million. The organization was due to receive a further 30 million tokens that it committed to the EOS Network Foundation on Sunday.
Yesterday, Block.one co-founder Brock Piercewrote in a tweet that he was working with the EOS Foundation CEO Yves La Rose on a “mutually beneficial proposal” that would allow the foundation and the EOS community “to take a leadership role in the future of EOSIO’s development and intellectual property.”
Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer also commented on the issue, emphasizing that “a lot of stakeholders” would need to be considered for any proposals. He later deleted the post without giving further explanation. Several major EOS block producers had a meeting to discuss the matter, and a clip of it can be seenhere.
A series of failed meetings and disagreements over who would deliver a letter of intent ensued, culminating in the final vote between the block producers.
EOS originally emerged as a so-called “Ethereum killer” after raising $4 billion via Block.one, but its path has been far from smooth over the last few years.The project has continuously faced criticism for failing to live up to its promises, and the EOS token has struggled to hit its 2018 highs. It currently trades at $3.75, which is still 83.6% short of its peak.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece held ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
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Reddit has launched a new website and waitlist for its Ethereum-based Community Points rewards program.
In July, the online discussion community picked Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Arbitrum to grow the initiative.
Reddit first dabbled inEthereum-based crypto token rewards two years ago but has charted a deliberate path towards scaling the program. Finally, the popular online discussion community appears ready to expand the initiative to a potentially much larger audience.
Today, the site launcheda new websitefor its Community Points beta program and opened up a waitlist form, which lets users and moderators alike request the feature for their community, or “subreddit.”
Users can earn Community Points in eligible subreddits by posting and engaging in discussion. The crypto points have value within each respective community and can be used to purchase features or engage in community governance, but they can also potentially be swapped for other cryptocurrencies or tokens at exchanges, or used for other external purposes.
“Community Points are the first step towards a different future for online communities,” Reddit’s site reads. “These tokens live on the blockchain, which means they are truly owned by the community. Over time, your community will benefit from even greater control and independence—on and off of Reddit.”
It’s an ambitious project, albeit one with modest origins. Reddit first launched Ethereum-based Community Points in the r/ethtrader subreddit as ERC-20 tokens (Donuts)in December 2019, and then rolled out the program and points to just two other subreddits—r/Cryptocurrency (Moons) and r/FortniteBR (Bricks)—in May 2020 on an Ethereum testnet.
All told, there are more than 3 million subreddits today. Figuring out how to expand the program to reach more and more communities has been a multi-stage process for Reddit, which held a“Scaling Bake-Off” competitionin August 2020 to find an Ethereum scaling solution. Ultimately, this past July, Redditpicked Ethereum layer-2 solution Arbitrum.
When Reddit will ultimately launch Community Points on Arbitrum and scale the program remains to be seen, but the waitlist is the first big step forward in months. Reddit is also working onbuilding an NFT marketplace, if a detailed job listing from October is any indication.
