Tag: Ava Labs

Snowtrace to End Etherscan-Powered Service by Nov 30

by Blockchain News

On October 30, 2023, Snowtrace.io, a popular blockchain explorer tool dedicated to the Avalanche C-Chain, announced that it would be discontinuing its Etherscan-powered explorer effective from November 30, 2023 (00:00 UTC). This announcement came through a series of tweets from Snowtrace’s official Twitter handle, @SnowTraceHQ. The Snowtrace team expressed their gratitude towards the Avalanche community (@avax) for their support over the last two years.

The Snowtrace team stressed the importance of backing up crucial information. They specifically urged users to save backups of Private Name Tags and Contract Verification details before the discontinuation date. An official reminder was also issued 17 hours before the post, reiterating the urgency to backup such information, linking to a page on Etherscan’s website for further details regarding the discontinuation of the blockchain explorer.

Although the official announcement did not clarify the reason behind the discontinuation, some individuals within the crypto community speculated that the high service costs associated with Etherscan’s Explorer-as-a-Service (EaaS) framework could be a driving factor. Mikko Ohtama, Co-founder of Trading Strategy, estimated the annual EaaS subscription cost to be between one to two million dollars, potentially making it a costly endeavor for Snowtrace to continue its operations under the existing framework.

Amidst the buzz, Phillip Liu Jr., the Director of Strategy and Operations at Ava Labs, commented on the development. He mentioned that the protocol is transitioning to “something better” and affirmed that operations would “absolutely not” cease, indicating a probable shift to an alternative solution for blockchain exploration.

The episode underscores the dependencies and potential challenges faced by blockchain explorers leveraging Etherscan’s EaaS framework. It sheds light on the importance of renewing service agreements, ensuring sufficient bandwidth, and maintaining adequate traffic to keep a block explorer operational. The Snowtrace scenario serves as a strong reminder to users about the significance of backing up their data, especially when utilizing third-party services for blockchain exploration.

While the exact future of Snowtrace remains uncertain, the proactive communication from its team regarding the discontinuation and urging users to backup their data demonstrates a responsible approach towards handling such transitions. The anticipation now pivots towards what alternative solutions will emerge to fill the void left by Snowtrace’s discontinuation and how Ava Labs plans to navigate this change.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / /

Bitfinex, Ava Labs raise $10M for DeFi technology amid market turmoil

by Blockchain News

As the ongoing bear market in cryptocurrencies continues, investors continue to find attractive projects to invest in, demonstrating that this market is, in reality, a builders’ market. Despite the present market conditions, investors continue to find promising projects to invest in.

In order to develop its ground-breaking protocol, the ecosystem known as Onomy, which is driven by the Cosmos blockchain, has recently successfully crowdfunded millions of dollars from various investors.

The purpose of the project is to integrate decentralized finance (DeFi) with blockchain technology in order to bring the foreign exchange market onto the distributed ledger.

According to the people who initiated the project, the most recent investment round was a success, and it was able to successfully raise $10 million from significant players in the industry. Some of these significant players include Bitfinex, Ava Labs, the Maker Foundation, and CMS Holdings, amongst others.

According to Lalo Bazzi, one of the co-founders of Onomy, the primary goal of constructing a decentralized autonomous organization with a public infrastructure should be to support the “core tenant of crypto,” which is self-custody, without sacrificing the user experience. This can be accomplished without compromising the security of the network.

Both decentralized financial institutions (DFIs) and self-custody have emerged as prominent topics of conversation among the cryptocurrency community as a direct result of the FTX liquidity-bankruptcy episode.

Despite the fact that another difficult year is anticipated according to estimates made for the industry’s not too distant future, the sector will continue to draw the attention of investors.

The results of a survey that was conducted between September 21 and October 27 of this year and was sponsored by Coinbase indicate that institutional investors are still interested in the industry.

It was discovered that 62% of the institutional investors who were questioned and who had cryptocurrency holdings increased such holdings over the course of the preceding year.

On November 9, just a few days after the FTX event came to light, Cathie Wood of ARK Investment raised the company’s existing shares in Coinbase by an additional $12.1 million. This was done by ARK Investment.

In addition, financial institutions continue to show interest in the sector, as evidenced by JP Morgan’s use of DeFi for international transactions and BNY Mellon’s creation of its very own Digital Asset Custody Platform, both of which are examples of how JP Morgan and BNY Mellon are participating in the industry.

Despite this, there is a body of evidence that projects the blockchain industry will continue to confront adverse settings, which have the potential to endure into the next year. These environments include:

Source

Tagged : / /

Ava Labs to Serve as Smart Contracts Platform for Turkish EV Maker TOGG

by Blockchain News

Ava Labs, the team behind the development and management of Avalanche public blockchain, has entered into a strategic partnership with Turkish Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturer TOGG to serve as its smart contract infrastructure provider for its next generation self-driven cars. 

The partnership was unveiled at the 2022 CES Summit in Las Vegas, U.S. As reported by TBEN, the partnership aims to accelerate Togg’s use case mobility initiative, which combines different technologies and transportation solutions to produce cars with more functionality compared to traditional electric vehicles. 

Avalanche is one of the fastest-growing blockchain protocols nowadays. The network prides itself as the fastest smart contract in terms of time to finality. This feature is necessary for the speed that TOGG is integrating into its next-generation automobiles. The partnership will afford TOGG the opportunity to integrate innovative tools, including the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-to-machine communication (M2M), to expand and accelerate its EV capabilities.

Avalanche will also support the design of a smart contract that can help Togg users pick a scooter or taxi while their own cars are undergoing charging. In addition, the Ava Labs partnership will allow Togg to store vehicle maintenance and parts information on the Avalanche blockchain, which will form the basis of a reliable second-hand market.

“Our collaboration with Ava Labs is founded on improving the Togg user experience, going beyond automobiles to enable partners, users, and non-Togg users in the mobility ecosystem to benefit from this platform,” said Togg CEO Gürcan Karakaş.

It is not uncommon for EV and automobile manufacturing firms to consider employing blockchain innovations in meeting key aspects of their operation. According to an earlier report by Blockchain.News, Volvo Cars, a leading Swedish car manufacturer, invested in Circulor, a London-based blockchain company majoring in industrial supply chains. 

Also, German automobile manufacturing company Mercedes-Benz has also reportedly explored a blockchain-based automobile gas emission tracker in the past, a move that implied mainstream car manufacturers are beginning to realize the importance of blockchain technology in the industry.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

Institutional Crypto Giant Adding Ethereum Rival Avalanche (AVAX) to Suite of Altcoin Offerings

by Dailyhodl

A leading institutional provider of digital assets is adding Ethereum (ETH) competitor Avalanche (AVAX) to its arsenal of altcoins.

In a new blog post, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe says that the firm can offer investors the security and efficiency they need to enter the world of digital assets – especially as the demand for high-speed decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, such as AVAX, rises.

“BitGo is excited to provide our institutional clients access and safe custody to Avalanche as we see the strong demand for a more efficient DeFi ecosystem.

Institutional custody is not the same as retail custody and BitGo wallets and custody were designed from the ground up to meet the needs of institutional investors, and BitGo is the only independent qualified custodian focused on building the right market structure and facilities to enable institutions to enter the digital asset space with confidence.”

In a new interview with Yahoo Finance, Ava Labs President John Wu says Avalanche’s partnership with BitGo will not only provide assurances to larger institutions but for individual investors as well.

“BitGo [is] one of the old hands in the space. They are a trusted and secure source for not just individual people in crypto but also for enterprises and institutions.

Their partnership with us allows our fans more access because they are plugged in with many access points… and they allow institutions to really gain comfort in their own custody of things.”

BitGo was founded in 2013 and was acquired earlier this year by the capital market company Digital Galaxy. BitGo offers its services to 700 institutions across 50 nations and processes 20% of all Bitcoin (BTC) transactions worldwide.

The Ethereum rival’s native token AVAX is exchanging hands at $112.34 at time of writing, a 44% increase from its seven-day low of $77.87.

Check Price Action

Don’t Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get crypto email alerts delivered directly to your inbox

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram

Surf The Daily Hodl Mix

 

 

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/klyaksun

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / /

Mastercard Onboards Ava Labs as Part of Start Path Crypto Program

by Blockchain News

American payment services firm Mastercard has onboarded Avalanche blockchain creator Ava Labs as part of its Start Path Crypto Program, designed to explore and solve how blockchain technology can democratize use cases for people and businesses worldwide.

As announced by Ava Labs, the blockchain startup will join a host of other crypto innovators to redesign the value-added services and use cases that blockchain technology can be integrated for use in solving real-world problems. Mastercard will back innovations that will make Distributed Ledger Technologies safer and easier for people, businesses, and developers to innovate.

“The past year has seen incredible momentum in the world of crypto assets, from the explosion of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to the piloting of central bank digital currencies in countries across the world. As we look to what’s next, it’s all about finding new use cases and problems blockchain technology can solve for now and in the future,” said Jess Turner, executive vice president of New Digital Infrastructure & Fintech at Mastercard, “Whether it’s enhancing financial freedom or a new value-added service using stablecoins, we believe our new cohorts of Start Path crypto and digital assets companies combined with Mastercard’s expertise in the space will accelerate access to new ways to pay and prioritize choice for consumers and businesses.”

Rather than compete against blockchain technology, many startups feel threatened by the growing technology. Ava Labs’s President, John Wu, said his team is enthusiastic about working with developers within the Start Path Crypto Program. 

“Mastercard is setting an example for leaders across all industries on how to embrace, rather than combat innovation,” says John Wu, President of Ava Labs. “We look forward to working with projects and partners in the Start Path program to accelerate the positive impacts blockchain technology will have for individuals and institutions across the world.” 

The underlying focus of the partnership is centred on scaling blockchain technology for global enterprise adoption, and Ava Labs with its unique design of the Avalanche Blockchain, is a great addition to this cause.

Image source: Shutterstock

Source

Tagged : / / / /

How Avalanche Has Climbed It’s Way Towards The Top

by NEWSBTC

If you’ve been paying attention to the broader crypto market lately, you might’ve noticed the emergence of Avalanche (AVAX). While many of the biggest coins in crypto have been experiencing some slight declines, most of which have come after ridiculous gains throughout the year, Avalanche has been outperforming peers by leaps and bounds.

If you’re not familiar with the blockchain, spearheaded by Ava Labs, now might be the time to get acquainted. The $AVAX token has found it’s way to aggressively challenging the top 10 cryptos by market cap – no small task – and there’s been no memes necessary to make it all happen.

When It Rains, It’s… An Avalanche?

While the dictionary definition of an avalanche is “snow, ice, and rocks falling rapidly down a mountainside,” the AVAX token has been… exactly the opposite in recent weeks. The one-month chart tells quite a story, with a price that has roughly doubled in the past thirty days:

5 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 15 BTC + 35.000 Free Spins every month, only at mBitcasino. Play Now!

AVAX has had stellar Q3 and Q4 this year. | Source: AVAX-USD on TradingView.com

This is nothing to write off. In fact, if you look at the top 20 tokens by market cap, excluding stablecoins, at the time of publishing only two tokens have a green chart over the past 7 days: Crypto.com’s token, $CRO, which has performed well after sealing in the naming rights to Los Angeles’ formerly-known Staples Center, and of course, Avalanche. The surge has led AVAX to surpass meme tokens like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu in top coins by market cap. At the time of publishing, AVAX has been neck and neck with DOGE with regards to market cap. That’s no laughing matter.

Meanwhile, some of those top tokens, including well-established, long-standing players like Litecoin and Chainlink, have dropped 15-20% over the same time period. So what’s been the secret for Avalanche’s success lately?

Get 110 USDT Futures Bonus for FREE!

Related Reading | Brace For More Downtrend: 15% Of Bitcoin Supply Is Now In Loss

Opportune Timing: Deloitte Deal

Some of Avalanche’s success has to be credited to ideal timing. Momentum had already been building in late October and into early November. Last week, our team covered the story of Ava Labs new deal with Deloitte, aimed towards building better efficiency around disaster response times.

However, even earlier in the year, our team also released an in-depth report that highlighted Avalanche as a prime contender for holding a big piece of DeFi market share. The momentum has since been growing for the blockchain; in September, The Avalanche Foundation raised nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. Avalanche also launched a massive incentive program in recent months to attract investors.

Ethereum challengers that offer substantially lower gas fees, show strong potential in DeFi and NFTs, engage in more environmentally-friendly transactions, and conduct fast transaction times have been given their opportunity to shine this year – arguably as much, if not more so than in years past. Solana, for example, hit record highs in recent weeks as the token establishes itself as a firm #2 in NFTs behind Ethereum. And of course, Avalanche is certainly a viable candidate here as well.

Avalanche: More Than Just Riding A Wave

With all of this in mind, don’t dismiss Avalanche for just having a hot streak at the right time. The token does have fundamentals that justify it’s surge in price given the heat in the DeFi and NFT space lately, and offer plenty of reason for positivity.

The team at Ava Labs haven’t gone full-force in marketing, and rather, have focused on in-depth whitepaper details and building on the chain’s fundamentals. Avalanche utilizes a consensus model, which means that rather than a Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake mechanism, the chain utilizes random voting to validate transactions. This makes the chain much more difficult to attack and exceptionally efficient with regards to transaction times and volumes. The Avalanche product leaves us with plenty to write home about.

Furthermore, as many know, Avalanche is actually composed of several chains, including the X-Chain, smart contract C-Chain, and the P-Chain. This is especially developer-friendly, giving blockchain engineers versatility in products that they are creating. AVAX tokens also include governance, however the token is subject to a substantial amount of pre-sale tokens that could be unlocked in the months to come.

While Avalanche is all business, did we really say no memes!? This is crypto, so some memes are just a prerequisite.

Related Reading | November Crypto Market Turbulence Shakes Holders To Their Core

Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com
The writer of this content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice.

Source

Tagged : / / / / /

Deloitte Forms Strategic Alliance With Avalanche Blockchain

by NEWSBTC

Data can only move as fast as the tool that is powering it. This week, an announcement from Deloitte and Ava Labs looks to streamline federal emergency funding applications.

Deloitte will be leveraging the Avalanche blockchain “to help state and local governments easily demonstrate their eligibility for federal emergency funding.”

A Much Needed Solution For Deloitte

Deloitte is known as one of the “big four” accounting firms, working closely with some of the biggest companies, government agencies, and more throughout the US.

5 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 15 BTC + 35.000 Free Spins every month, only at mBitcasino. Play Now!

Deloitte currently works with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (commonly known as FEMA) to execute disaster reimbursement applications for state and local government agencies. They do this through a tool called Close As You Go (or CAYG). The CAYG platform is a cloud-based solution from Deloitte that aims to provide government partners with a “decentralized, transparent and cost-efficient system.” The Avalanche blockchain will add streamlined speed, efficiency and authentification to the CAYG system. Deloitte cited the blockchain’s eco-friendly advantages as a main criteria that led to the selection of Avalanche for this alliance.

Ava Labs will assist the CAYG system in core competencies that include streamlining recovery efforts, simplifying document retention, reducing administrative costs, mitigating risk and building resiliency.

These are desperately needed in the FEMA ecosystem, as the agency has historically had it’s name tied to delays around federal emergencies that often need rapid response. For example, a Nevada firewarden said that while he was able to receive wildfire mitigation grants, “a lengthy application and environmental review process” has hindered the firewarden’s ability to execute. Similarly, a California deputy chief administrative officer said that FEMA’s assistance to victims during the raging 2018 Camp Fire was “slow and sometimes confounding.”

Get 110 USDT Futures Bonus for FREE!

It’s an area that is ripe for transparency, efficiency, and quickness – ideally Avalanche can help bring those things to the table.

Avalanche's native token, AVAX, has performed exceptionally well and looks to push over the $100 mark to close the year. | Source: AVAX-USD on TradingView.com

Related Reading | New York Mayor Says Cryptocurrencies Should Be Taught In Schools

Avalanche’s Current Activity

Earlier this month, Ava Labs launched ‘Blizzard’ in collaboration with The Avalanche Foundation, that established a $200M+ crypto growth fund aimed at DeFi and NFTs. That move came just a few short months after ‘Avalanche Rush,’ a $180M DeFi incentive program. That program was not only aimed at DeFi and NFTs, but also enterprise applications, social tokens and gaming, and more.

While these programs aren’t correlated with the recent Deloitte announcement, the culmination of Ava Labs’ efforts have clearly been paying dividends when it comes to expanding the Avalanche blockchain.

Meanwhile, Deloitte has had it’s finger on the pulse when it comes to crypto and blockchain – so this week’s announcement shouldn’t be too surprising. This year, the firm released it’s fourth annual Global Blockchain Survey. That survey had a number of interesting bites of information to consider about crypto, most notably that over three out of four financial executives believe that physical money is coming to end.

Related Reading | Bitcoin Cemented At $60K? Why BTC Could Smash All Resistance

Featured image from medium.com/AvalancheAVAX, Charts from TradingView.com

Source

Tagged : / / / / / /

Tether’s USDT Stablecoin Will Go Live on Avalanche

by Cryptobriefing

Key Takeaways

  • Tether (USDT) has gone live on the Avalanche blockchain.

  • This is the ninth blockchain that USDT has been launched on, following its initial launch on Bitcoin’s Omni layer.

  • Tether is the largest stablecoin on the market with a capitalization of $59 billion, but it remains controversial.




Share this article



Tether’s USDT stablecoin is about to go live on the Avalanche blockchain, according to a press release from both projects.

Avalanche Will Support USDT

Avalanche is a blockchain with a focus on supporting decentralized applications, interoperable blockchains, and financial primitives.

Tether noted that it has chosen to launch USDT on Avalanche due to its efficiency and scalability, calling the platform “a fast, cost-effective way to transfer USDT across different exchanges.” He drew attention to its interoperability and low transaction fees.


Meanwhile, Emin Gün Sirer of Avalanche has noted that USDT on Avalanche will add “another core infrastructure to [our] rapidly expanding DeFi ecosystem” and that the stablecoin will be a “welcome addition” to users and developers.

Tether is popular on exchanges as it provides users with a convenient way to cash out their holdings for a dollar-pegged cash equivalent without the need to go through traditional financial avenues.

Other Tether Blockchains

USDT is the largest stablecoin on the market and the seventh largest cryptocurrency overall, boasting a market cap of $59 billion.


Initially launched on Bitcoin’s Omni chain, USDT’s popularity has it led to go live on several blockchains including Bitcoin Cash’s SLP, Ethereum, TRON, EOS, the Liquid Network, Algorand, and Solana. It also plans to launch on Polkadot and Kusama.

Despite Tether’s prominence, it is often criticized for its arguably inadequate audits and its use in illicit trading activity.

Disclaimer: At the time of writing this author held less than $75 of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and altcoins, and no Tether (USDT).

This news was brought to you by Phemex, our preferred Derivatives Partner.

Phemex


Share this article



The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.

You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.

See full terms and conditions.



Tether Reveals Assets Backing USDT

Tether has released the breakdown of its Consolidated Reserves Report, revealing that the majority of its reserves are made of low-risk, liquid assets.  Tether Discloses Reserve Assets   The disclosure statement…

Trust in Tether Returns After Coinbase Pro Lists USDT

An important win for Tether as Coinbase Pro adds support for the most popular stablecoin USDT after months of legal uncertainty around its parent company Bitfinex. Tether Is Back The…

What Is Tether? Introduction To USDT

What Is Tether? Tether is the first and most popular cryptocurrency stablecoin. Stablecoins mirror the value of a fiat currency by holding enough reserves to back the supply. In the…

What Are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)?

Tokenization is well-suited for commodities like fiat currencies, gold, and physical land. A fungible asset’s representation on blockchain makes commodities tradable 24/7 via borderless and frictionless transactions. Fungible goods are…



Source

Tagged : / / /

First Mover: Bitcoin Tops $50K and Crypto’s Nouveau Riche Move In

by Coindesk

Price Point

Bitcoin (BTC) shot past $50,000 for the first time Tuesday to a new all-time high price.

The gain took the year-to-date return to about 70%, and traders immediately began to discuss what comes next. 

  • “We’re still in the midst of a violent bull run that will soon be more violent,” Ari Paul, chief investment officer of BlockTower Capital, tweeted Sunday. 

  • “We’re concerned about the pace of these market moves and would therefore recommend proceeding with caution over the short term,” Joel Kruger, cryptocurrency strategist at LMAX Digital, said in an email. NOTE: A price correction on Monday led to more than $520 million of futures-positions liquidations.

  • Bank of America, in a monthly investor survey of the “most crowded trades,” said that “long bitcoin” – bets on further price gains – slipped to second place behind “long tech.” Bets against the U.S. dollar (“short dollar”) ranked third.   

In traditional markets, U.S. stock futures pointed toward a higher open. “The reflation trade is powering assets tied to economic growth and price pressure, including commodities and cyclical stocks,” Bloomberg News reported. “At the same time, investors are riding a wave of speculative euphoria from penny stocks to bitcoin amid abundant policy support.”

The News

CRYPTO CRUSH: Signs continued to mount of greater mainstream acceptance of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

  • Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy plans a new sale of $600 million of convertible notes and will use the net proceeds to buy more bitcoin. 

  • Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest lender, is exploring cryptocurrency custody, with aspirations to offer high-touch services to hedge funds that invest in the asset class, CoinDesk’s Ian Allison reported Friday. 

  • Morgan Stanley’s $150 billion Counterpoint Global investment unit is considering placing a bet on bitcoin, according to a report by Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.

  • The city of Miami, following the lead of Mayor Francis Suarez, voted late last week to study the use of cryptocurrencies to pay for services or worker salaries while launching educational campaigns in English, Spanish and Creole.

VERGE SNAFU: Verge, a small cryptocurrency serving as a payments option on Pornhub, suffered a massive 560,000-block reorganization Monday, according to researchers at Coin Metrics.

  • The past 200 days of Verge transaction history “just vanished,” wrote Coin Metrics network data analyst Lucas Nuzzi. He described the event as “likely the deepest reorg that has ever taken place in a ‘top 100’ cryptocurrency.” 

  • Verge’s official Twitter account said the “dev team has released a fix,” and everything should be “business as usual” in “13 hours,” CoinDesk’s Zack Voell reported. 

  • The cryptocurrency previously known as DogecoinDark is no stranger to network attacks. It suffered similar but less severe exploits in April 2018 and May 2018.

Market Moves

Nouveau riche emerge as crypto market cap tops $1.5 trillion


This ranking of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market value shows how the leaders from prior years, like XRP and litecoin, have been elbowed out recently by fast-growing blockchain projects like Cardano and Polkadot.

Source: Messari

The market value of all cryptocurrencies has topped $1.5 trillion for the first time, and it’s interesting to note just how much of that growth has been fueled by speculation over which projects might be the most promising – rather than just the pumping of also-ran tokens that dominated the industry’s top ranks in recent years. 


Sure, the industry leaders bitcoin and Etherum’s ether still dominate the charts, representing roughly $1.1 trillion of the total. But the top 10 tokens now include cardano (ADA), polkadot (DOT), Binance coin (BNB) and chainlink (LINK) – all associated with projects perceived as having at least some claim on helping to create the future of finance.

They’re crypto’s nouveau riche, climbing in the industry hierarchy at the expense of XRP (XRP), litecoin (LTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH), which held sway until recently but apparently have failed to inspire traders to the same degree. 

Some companies in the growing arena of decentralized finance, a subsector of the crypto industry where entrepreneurs are using blockchain technology to design automated versions of lenders and trading platforms, are raising money through token sales the way a Silicon Valley startup might sell an equity interest to a venture-capital fund.

In fact, Synthetix, a decentralized trading project, has just raised $12 million from investors Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm and IOSG – apparently through a sale of the project’s associated SNX tokens. “The raise looks to be a rare occurrence of VCs investing through the purchase of a platform’s native token directly from its treasury rather than wiring funds to its founders,” CoinDesk’s Daniel Kuhn wrote Sunday. The SNX tokens have tripled in price this year to a market value of about $2.9 billion. 

“Individually, none of these may make sense, and no one can really predict who actually will win,” John Wu, president of Ava Labs, said in an interview. His company backs the Avalanche blockchain, whose native AVAX cryptocurrency is up roughly 10-fold this year to a market value of $3 billion. And that’s after the revelation of a programming bug last week triggered a quick price correction.

“This is very similar to tech investing where people are paying for the future,” Wu said. 

Token Watch

Ether (ETH):

  • Staked ether in “2.0” deposit contract tops $5.5 billion.

  • Price hit new all-time high of $1,872.52 on Feb. 12.

  • Simon Peters, cryptoasset analyst for the trading platform eToro, wrote in an email: “Supply is constrained by investors depositing coins off the network, and buying from institutional investors continues to climb.” 

  • Denis Vinokourov, head of research for crypto prime broker Bequant: “The amount of bitcoin locked on Ethereum remains on a relentless trend higher (174k as of this morning), underpinning the ‘hunt for yield’ trade, which, combined with the surge higher by BTC resulted in the total value locked on DeFi platforms surging to over $40 billion. However, the well documented double-edged sword of a ‘hyperactive’ Ethereum network with erratic gas fees continues to wreak havoc and cause hour-long delays in transaction validations, yet again squeezing out the smaller market participants. The time for platforms to put more focus on layer-2 solutions is here, and doing so will prove beneficial for the broader ecosystem because it will likely drive many users towards decentralized exchanges.”

Dogecoin (DOGE): 

  • Price has fallen in five of the past eight days to about 5.8 cents. 

  • Slide accelerated after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday: “If major dogecoin holders sell most of their coins, it will get my full support. Too much concentration is the only real issue imo.”

  • One dogecoin address holds 27% of meme token’s supply, according to Decrypt.

Avalanche (AVAX):

  • An unusually high volume of transactions highlighted a code bug that severely crippled the Avalanche blockchain last week, but funds were never at risk,  an engineer Ava Labs, the development company behind the network, wrote in a Medium post on Sunday.

  • The episode represented an embarrassment for the because the “Ethereum killer” blockchain has touted its ability to handle high throughput.

  • AVAX tokens have tumbled in price since the incident, though they’re still up 11-fold so far in 2021.

Opinions and Observations

STIMULUS BITCOIN WINNINGS: Americans who bought bitcoin with first $1,200 U.S. government stimulus check are up 639%.

BLOCKCHAIN POWER USAGE BETWEEN ROMANIA’S AND POLAND’S: Bitcoin and six other proof-of-work blockchains use between 55.1 terawatt-hours of electricity per year (roughly the energy footprint of Romania) and 180.1 terawatt-hours (Poland or Thailand), argues Tim Swanson, founder of Post Oak Labs and head of market intelligence at Clearmatics, in paper published Sunday. 


MOHAMED EL-ERIAN SEES GROWING “OFFICIAL” RISK: “The private sector is embracing more and more bitcoins as both a form of payment and as away to invest,” the Allianz chief economist told CNN’s Julia Chatterley in an interview. “The official sector is warning more about bitcoin. The real accident here is that the official sector says, enough is enough.”

Sign up to receive First Mover in your inbox, every weekday.




Disclosure

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / /
Bitcoin (BTC) $ 41,871.22 4.97%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 2,233.37 2.10%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 72.40 0.66%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 248.95 8.48%