Digital payments company Block, formerly called Square, has announced that Cash App users will be able to gift friends and family both crypto and stock over the holiday season.
According to a Tuesday tweet, Cash App said its users — roughly 40 million active monthly — could send as little as $1 in Bitcoin (BTC) or stock as a gift in the same way they had been sending cash. The payments firm joins others including PayPal and Coinbase in allowing users to send crypto as payments or gifts to third parties.
With Cash App, you can now send as little as $1 in stock or bitcoin. It’s as easy as sending cash, and you don’t need to own stock or bitcoin to gift it. So this holiday season, forget the scented candles or novelty beach towel, and help your cousin start investing. pic.twitter.com/HS0CqusiLS
— Cash App (@CashApp) December 14, 2021
Cointelegraph reported on Dec. 7 that a study by lending firm BlockFi showed many Americans would be willing to accept cryptocurrencies including BTC, Ether (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE) as gifts this holiday season. However, the same survey revealed that the majority of respondents did not have the skills to transfer crypto. Many critics have attributed sending BTC to newbies as part of the reason so many coins have been lost since 2009.
Related:Gifting crypto to loved ones this holiday? Educate them first
Other projects are accepting donations in crypto over the holidays to help those in need. Fintech provider Unbanked announced earlier this month it would be enabling crypto donations for Toys for Tots, a program run by the United States Marine Corps that collects toys to distribute to disadvantaged children. In addition, platforms like the Giving Block allow non-profit organizations and charities to accept donations in crypto.
Well, that didn’t take long. The amicable tone among crypto company CEOs and lawmakersin Washington last weekhas today given way to more of the usual intense stablecoin scrutiny.
During aSenate Banking Committee hearingthis morning, Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said stablecoins were neither decentralized nor transparent, warning “if you put your money in stablecoins, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get it back.”
Brown shared the full remarks from the Tuesday morning hearingon his website. The Ohio senator has been relentless in putting pressure on the companies that issue stablecoins, like Circle and Tether.
Last month he sent a letter to exchanges and stablecoin issuers—including Coinbase, Gemini, Binance US and Paxos—to express his concerns and press them for details on how stablecoins can be redeemed for U.S. dollars.
The concern, at least about Tether, has been echoed in lawsuits and investigations.
In September, a$1.4 trillion class action lawsuitagainst the company was dismissed. It alleged the company had issued unbacked USDT and fraudulently manipulated the price of Bitcoin in 2017.
But there’s still aJustice Department investigation pendingover bank fraud. And earlier this week, the USDT issuer was named ina new class action lawsuitclaiming its practices are “immoral, unethical, oppressive, and unscrupulous,” according to the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Comments from other banking committee members this morning broke along what are becoming predictably partisan lines asDemocrats continue to double and triple down on their distrust of cryptocurrencies.
“They’re propping up one of the shadiest parts of the crypto world, DeFi, where consumers are least protected from getting scammed,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wrote on Twitter after the hearing, including a clip from the hearing itself. “Our regulators need to get serious about clamping down before it is too late.”
Stablecoins pose risks to consumers & to our economy. They’re propping up one of the shadiest parts of the crypto world, DeFi, where consumers are least protected from getting scammed. Our regulators need to get serious about clamping down before it is too late. pic.twitter.com/hMOT1HIQgn
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 14, 2021
Meanwhile, ranking member Sen. Patrick Toomey (R-PA) praised stablecoins, going on to say he hopes to see lawmakers pursue a regulatory framework that incorporates them and encourages innovation.
“Stablecoins offer tremendous potential benefits, including greater payment speed, lower payment costs, expanded access to the payment system, and programmability,”Toomey said. “Regulation of stablecoins should be narrowly tailored and harmonized within the United States and across jurisdictions globally.”
Closely followed crypto analyst Willy Woo is looking at retail traders of Bitcoin (BTC) and noticing something he hasn’t seen since the Covid-19 crash of March 2020.
In a tweet to his 923,100 followers, Woo shares a chart showing the amount of BTC that retail traders have been accumulating.
According to the analyst’s chart, retail traders are buying up Bitcoin’s current market correction as quickly as they did during the pandemic-induced crash last year.
“The last time retail bought the dip this hard was at the bottom of the COVID crash.
Probably nothing…”
Source: Woonomic/Twitter
Woo also shares a chart showing how Bitcoin HODLers, or holders with little history of selling, have historically bought the dip and how they are doing so now, as well.
“Buying the dip visualized (spot volumes seen on-chain). It has been happening, it’s moderate, but most importantly, as yet [there are] no signs of a further sell-off cascade.
Also worth keeping in mind longs have already been flushed.”
Source: Woonomic/Twitter
Woo’s tweets come on the heels of the on-chain analyst saying that when long-term holders (LTHs) reach peak accumulation, BTC tends to ignite a strong rally that allows long-term holders to unload their holdings to a new batch of short-term holders.
According to Woo’s data, LTHs just peaked within the last few weeks.
“Long-term holders are at their peak, and so generally when we’re this zone, you’ve got peak accumulation. These guys tend to sell down in the rallies.
You saw that in the last rally from October last year, and when they run out of ammo, the short-term holders hold those coins, generally the new weak hand investors…
We’re in the strong area that has been selling down meaning they have instigated taking profits.”
Bitcoin is trading at $47,014 at time of writing, down 1.5% on the day and 27.5% on the month.
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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.
The largest crypto investors on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem are holding massive amounts of two Ethereum (ETH) rivals, according to a whale-watching website.
New data from WhaleStats analyzes the accumulating behavior of the 1,000 largest BSC addresses excluding known crypto exchanges.
The whale-monitoring platform puts together a list of the top 10 holdings of BSC whales by tracking the tokens that have the greatest US dollar value among the investor group.
WhaleStats shows that BSC whales have amassed $3.21 million worth of Binance Coin (BNB) on average to lead all digital assets. BNB is the native utility token of global crypto exchange Binance.
Coming in at number two is the BTCB token, a crypto asset wrapped and pegged by Binance on a 1:1 ratio to Bitcoin (BTC). WhaleStats reveals that BSC whales own $814,181 worth of BTCB tokens on average.
Taking the third spot is Ethereum (ETH) with an average amount held worth $540,177.
Next up are Ethereum challengers Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche (AVAX), ranking fourth and fifth with BSC whales accumulating $417,439 worth of MATIC and $395,926 worth of AVAX on average.
Grabbing the sixth slot is stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), followed by Frax Share (FXS). FXS is used as a store of value and in the governance of the Frax protocol. WhaleStats shows that BSC whales own $325,601 worth of FXS tokens on average.
Stablecoin True USD (TUSD) comes in at number eight, followed by Venus ETH (vETH), a portable vToken issued by decentralized finance platform Venus (XVS).
Digital entertainment platform Tron (TRX) rounds out the top ten list.
Source: WhaleStats
WhaleStats also notes that the Ethereum, Avalanche, USD Coin and True USD holdings of BSC whales are wrapped and pegged by Binance on a 1:1 ratio to the corresponding crypto asset.
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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.
Featured Image: Shutterstock/Liu zishan/Sensvector
The story of WikiLeaks and its move to Bitcoin is a popular one amongst crypto investors. When WikiLeaks had first come out, it quickly gained popularity for publicizing news leaks and classified information on its site. Founded in 2006, the not-for-profit organization has had an interesting history, one of those being its founder,Julian Assange, being sent to prison.
Even more interesting is the organization’s history with leading cryptocurrency bitcoin. The anonymous whistleblower platform had gotten on the government’s bad side over leaked documents that contained sensitive and classified military information. The organization which depended largely on donations had suffered greatly from this as payments processors like Visa and Mastercard had distanced themselves from the entity.
WikiLeaks Turns To Bitcoin
After being cut off from traditional methods of payment, WikiLeaks had turned to the next best thing. At this point, the organization needed something that could not be tracked or controlled by the government and it turned to bitcoin donations for this. Julian Assange had accused the U.S. government of endorsing what he referred to as “an illegal banking blockade” against WikiLeaks, forcing entities like AmEx, Visa, PayPal, etc, to stop supporting the organization.
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Related Reading | Could An Elon Musk Time Magazine Cover Predict The Crypto Cycle Peak?
According to Assange, this had spurred the entity’s move into bitcoin. Bitcoin was still relatively new at this point. In 2010, when the ‘blockade’ went into effect, BTC was only a year old and still trading relatively low. That same year, WikiLeaks had begun receiving cryptocurrency donations, which was just bitcoin at first but has since expanded to include other cryptocurrencies.
How Well Have Crypto Donations Gone?
WikiLeaks has done well in terms of donations. Bitcoin was only trading at a low six cents when the organization began receiving it as donations in 2010. The digital asset has since grown over the following decade to a high of $69,000 in 2021.
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In 2017, founder Julian Assangetweetedsaying that WikiLeaks’ investments had grown over 50,000% from when they began accepting the digital asset. Assange went further to thank the U.S. government for being the push behind this move. Bitcoin has since grown a further $50,000 since the founder made this tweet.
How far Bitcoin has come since the above referenced tweet | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com
Presently, WikiLeaks now accepts donations in six cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, Litecoin, and ZCash. Thisreport from CryptoPotatoanalyzed the history of the various wallets and concluded that WikiLeaks has received over $2.2 million in donations using cryptocurrencies.
Related Reading | Why The Dark Net’s Most Active Market Ditched Bitcoin For Monero
However, this excluded Monero donations as the report stated that donations using the privacy coin could not be tracked. Additionally, WikiLeaks also received a donation of 1 CryptoKitties.
Julian Assange is currently being remanded in Belmarsh Prison in London after reportedly suffering a stroke due to stress. The ‘transient ischemic stroke’ wassaidto have occurred after the High Court overruled a judgment that prevented the Australian national from being extradited to the U.S.
Featured image from iStockPhoto, Charts from TradingView.com
Imagine going to bed with a few thousand dollars’ worth of coins and tokens in your crypto wallet. You pour your coffee, grab your phone, and open up to find your balance has ballooned into the billions.
No, SafeMoon didn’t finally moon. Mongoose Coin didn’t swallow Cobra Coin. And Shiba Inu didn’t rally by fifty decimals. It’s just some bad data.
The proximate source of the incorrect data is CoinMarketCap, one of the top crypto price data providers. According to CoinMarketCap, a single Bitcoin today blew well past the $50,000 resistance to become worth $799 billion. Ethereum now goes for $43 billion. Thanks,EIP-1559!
Trust Wallet, which relies on CoinMarketCap for price data, was one of the affected products. Though coin and token balances appeared correctly in user balances, their dollar values did not.
Trust Wallet wasn’t alone. Exodus numbers also showed incorrect dollar balances. Even Coinbase was affected; it uses CoinMarketCap figures to display values of assets it doesn’t list, such as XRP.
CoinMarketCap has not yet responded toDecrypt‘s request for more information about whether the error was the result of a glitch or hack. It did tweet a short acknowledgement of the issue: “The Engineering team is aware of incorrect price information appearing on http://CoinMarketCap.com. We are currently investigating and will update this status when we have more information.”
Though the data was incorrect, it may have contributed to a real stall in the crypto market recovery that was underway—if users rushed to cash out before taking a closer look. After dropping to $46,600 yesterday, BTC prices shot up today to just under $48,700. Indeed, prices are mostly flat over the last hour, since the error was discovered.
This isn’t the first time crypto users have seen incorrect balances. In May, crypto lender BlockFi accidentally credited 100 users with Bitcoin that didn’t belong to them; one person said they had received 700 BTC, worth $34 million at today’s prices, or 500 kajillion if you’re looking at CoinMarketCap. It then asked users to return the funds and even threatened legal action at someone who withdrew.
Imagine going to bed with a few thousand dollars’ worth of coins and tokens in your crypto wallet. You pour your coffee, grab your phone, and open up to find your balance has ballooned into the billions.
No, SafeMoon didn’t finally moon. Mongoose Coin didn’t swallow Cobra Coin. And Shiba Inu didn’t rally by fifty decimals. It’s just some bad data.
The proximate source of the incorrect data is CoinMarketCap, one of the top crypto price data providers. According to CoinMarketCap, a single Bitcoin today blew well past the $50,000 resistance to become worth $799 billion. Ethereum now goes for $43 billion. Thanks,EIP-1559!
Trust Wallet, which relies on CoinMarketCap for price data, was one of the affected products. Though coin and token balances appeared correctly in user balances, their dollar values did not.
Trust Wallet wasn’t alone. Exodus numbers also showed incorrect dollar balances. Even Coinbase was affected; it uses CoinMarketCap figures to display values of assets it doesn’t list, such as XRP.
CoinMarketCap has not yet responded toDecrypt‘s request for more information about whether the error was the result of a glitch or hack. It did tweet a short acknowledgement of the issue: “The Engineering team is aware of incorrect price information appearing on http://CoinMarketCap.com. We are currently investigating and will update this status when we have more information.”
Though the data was incorrect, it may have contributed to a real stall in the crypto market recovery that was underway—if users rushed to cash out before taking a closer look. After dropping to $46,600 yesterday, BTC prices shot up today to just under $48,700. Indeed, prices are mostly flat over the last hour, since the error was discovered.
This isn’t the first time crypto users have seen incorrect balances. In May, crypto lender BlockFi accidentally credited 100 users with Bitcoin that didn’t belong to them; one person said they had received 700 BTC, worth $34 million at today’s prices, or 500 kajillion if you’re looking at CoinMarketCap. It then asked users to return the funds and even threatened legal action at someone who withdrew.
Cove Markets, an API platform that enables users to trade across multiple centralized exchanges and manage aggregate financial data, will become part of Robinhood Crypto, as announced by the discount brokerage late Tuesday. Traders and investors can connect up to seven exchanges, including Coinbase Pro, Kraken, Bitfinex, etc., using Cove Markets to trade over 50 major currencies and altcoins.
The two trading firms said they plan to increase the volume of order routing and execution on Robinhood with the acquisition. Christine Brown, chief operating officer of Robinhood Crypto, made the following remarks regarding the development:
The Cove Markets team’s wealth of experience in trading execution and crypto market infrastructure will help us to build more powerful trading capabilities, bringing the benefits of better competition in the crypto markets to our customers.
Thrilled to welcome the @CoveMarkets team to Robinhood! Their incredible experience in trading execution and crypto market infrastructure will help us to build an even better crypto platform for all our Robinhood crypto traders. https://t.co/m4Wnl9Ojv3
— Christine (Hall) Brown (@christine_hall) December 14, 2021
Robinhood has taken a sharp focus on the cryptocurrency industry in recent years. The day prior, it announced a partnership with blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis to provide data and tools for the rollout of its native crypto wallet. Currently, the waitlist for such a feature, which is expected to launch early next year, has grown to over 1.6 million. But its stock investors have had a tough year. Shares are down nearly 70% since August highs after the company’s IPO.
There is always going to be risks involved with interacting with cryptocurrencies and recent proof of this can be seen over the past few weeks after savvy hackers managed to abscond with millions of dollars worth of tokens from Bitmart, AscendEX and BadgerDAO exchange.
Nexus Mutual is a decentralized platform that allows investors to secure insurance coverage against smart contract exploits and today the altcoin rallied by 38% even as Bitcoin and the wider crypto market continue to correct.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $46.59 on Dec. 13, the price of the protocols native WNXM token spiked 38% to a daily high at $69.22 on Dec. 14.
WNXM/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the sudden price reversal of WNXM include a series of new partnerships and integrations with the Nexus Mutual protocol, an increasing total value locked within the Nexus Mutual ecosystem and the project’s ability to successfully provide cover to victims of protocol exploits which involved the loss of funds.
Partnerships expand the Nexus Mutual ecosystem
New partnerships and protocol integration with various DeFi platforms appear to be one of the driving factors behind WNXM’s current recovery.
Recently, the developers behind Nexus Mutual held community calls with mStable, Balancer Labs, Alpaca Finance, Notional Finance and PoolTogether.
The project has also seen a steady rise in the number of cover policies purchased, and within the last week a few multi-million policies were opened at Curve, Anchor, Stake DAO and OlympusDAO.
Week over week increases in Nexus Mutual policies. Source: Twitter
As shown in the chart above, Nexus Mutual saw a 53% increase in the number of policies sold between Nov. 22 and Nov. 29, and the total value of the coverage offered increased by 121%. The increase in usage resulted in a 125.8% increase in the premiums earned by the protocol.
Total value locked is on the rise
The total value locked on Nexus Mutual has also risen within the last 6 months and data from Defi Llama shows the metric hitting a high of $780.58 million on Nov. 9. Currently, the TVL on Nexus Mutual sits at $585.33 million, which is reflective of the sharp market-wide downturn which started last week.
Total value locked on Nexus Mutual. Source: Defi Llama
Protocol users have the option of staking NXM tokens with projects they think are secure as the financial backing for the coverage provided. In exchange for funding the coverage, users receive a yield on their staked tokens, and a current average APY of 4.96%.
According to the data provided by Nexus Mutual app, there is currently $1.1 billion staked through the protocol, $25.5 million in coverage purchased and $12.7 million in rewards paid out.
Related:‘DeFi is the most dangerous part of the crypto world,’ says Senator Elizabeth Warren
Satisfied customers are good for business
A third reason for the growing strength of Nexus Mutual and the price appreciation of WNXM has been the proven track record of making victims whole after they lose money to a smart contract exploit or protocol hack.
One of the DeFi platforms that had Nexus Mutual coverage prior to an exploit of $100 million was Cream Finance, a protocol that has suffered back-to-back losses in 2021 due to hacks and flash loan exploits.
Luckily for those who had purchased coverage prior to the exploit, the Nexus Mutual community has paid out multiple claims for lost funds.
Late Post: I want to thank the team at @NexusMutual for accepting my claim, I’m actually in tears right now I’m so thankful, I didn’t even realize that I was impacted by the CREAM finance exploit until I tried to withdraw my $BNT funds on CREAM. I recently quit my job to go..
— Kar Ξ im $BNT (@Kareim30184380) December 8, 2021
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro also began to detect a bullish outlook for WNXM on Dec. 11, prior to the recent price rise.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. WNXM price. Source:Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for WNXM climbed into the green zone on Dec. 11 and reached a high of 77 around 57 hours before the price increased 49% over the next day.
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.
