January 2023

Just wanted to highlight the great work done by the Solana Compass dev recently. For the LamportDAO Sandstorm…

To prepare for multi-blockchain support, CoinJar's ETH & ERC20 deposit addresses have changed. To deposit Ethereum and ERC20 tokens, please update your app

Immutable, the web3 gaming company behind Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians, and the ImmutableX gaming optimized blockchain, announced “Immutable Passport” on January 31.

The post Crypto gamer wallet ‘Immutable Passport’ aims to be Gamertag of web3 appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The crypto and legacy markets could see a spike in volatility in a few hours. Jeremy Siegel, the Wharton School of Business Professor, told CNBC’s ‘Closing Bell: Overtime’ that “it will be a disaster” if the United States Federal Reserve (FED) increases rates by 50 basis points on February 1, 2023. FED Have To Increase Interest Rates By 0.25% The Professor insisted that if the FED mentions any figure “that’s not 25 basis points” during today’s meeting, the effects would be far-reaching. Besides changes in interest rates, Jeremy wants to see the FED change its statement’s wording and expressly mention that their monetary policy decisions over the past months have been working. He adds that it would be refreshing for the FED to assure the market that they are near the end of their tightening cycle. Crypto and legacy market participants expect the United States central bank to slow down on rate hikes in the coming months. However, traders’ and investors’ hope could be dashed if policymakers assess market conditions differently and see the need to keep rates high.  Economists expect the FED to increase interest rates by 25 basis points to 4.75%, up from 4.50%, on February 1, 2023. The bank began raising interest rates in January 2022. Over the months, the prevailing interest rate in the United States has risen from 0.25% in January 2022 to 4.50% by the close of 2022. Falling Inflation, Rising Crypto, And Bitcoin Prices Inflation is among the many factors, including labor conditions, which the FED considers when determining interest rates. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for the government to intervene and cushion its citizens saw governments slash rates to record levels. According to Jeremy, inflation was inevitable with “money being poured on and on, “and it did sharply in 2021 and 2022. Recent readings show that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a metric tracking price pressures on consumer goods and a proxy to gauge inflation, has been slowing down after rising to multi-year highs.  Related Reading: US Federal Regulators Warn About Crypto Activities In December, inflation dropped to 6.5%, making it the sixth consecutive month of falling consumer prices. It peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 before falling to 6.5% in December, 1% less than in January 2022, when inflation stood at 7.5%.  Bitcoin prices briefly recovered in December 2022, bottoming up after losing over 60% in 13 months from November 2021, in reaction to changing macroeconomic conditions, mainly inflation.  Over the past weeks, Bitcoin prices have been tracking higher as the crypto market expects inflation to cool down and the FED to slow down on tightening in 2023. Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Retreats After Fed Decision But 100 SMA Is The Key For this reason, how the FED acts could shape the short-term price formation for Bitcoin. The coin sharply recoiled from around $24,000 on January 30 but steadied yesterday. Feature image from Canva, Chart from TradingView.

Bitcoin is already seeing a drawdown which has sparked speculation that the mini-bull run has come to an end. However, over the long term, there is still a bullish case for the digital asset but how high the price will go remains anyone’s best guess. An analyst has taken to Twitter to share their own […]

The correlation between the S&P 500 and Bitcoin is only increasing, inching closer to reaching levels where in the past the cryptocurrency strengthened.  Meanwhile, the S&P 500 just closed its January monthly session outside of a key trend line the entire world of finance has been watching. Here is why a possible breakout in the […]

Squid, a cross-chain routing protocol powered by Axelar, has closed a $3.5 million seed round to build native-to-native cross-chain token swaps.

The post Squid brings native cross-chain swaps to 25 blockchains appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Positive signs of Bitcoin’s recovery can be seen in on-chain, spot exchange and futures data.

Bitcoin (BTC) had a rough time all throughout 2022.

But fresh on-chain and futures market data show positive signs that the leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization has started to recover.

After a bevy of short liquidations, the futures market is pointing toward renewed equilibrium. According to data from Glassnode, short position liquidations cleared out unhealthy market speculators, on-chain and exchange data now point to an improving spot market and exchange netflows.

A large group of investors that were previously at a loss is now back in the category that Glassnode analysts label as “unrealized profits.”

Massive short liquidations set the groundwork for new investors to thrive

Futures data typically hold an equilibrium between longs and shorts. As the market moves, investors tend to update their futures to avoid liquidation. Conversely, in mid-January, investors were caught off guard which resulted in an all-time high of 85% short liquidations.

The short liquidation dominance has helped fuel the current Bitcoin rally. In January, over $495 million in short futures were liquidated. Liquidated shorts create automatic Bitcoin purchases, thus driving up the BTC price. The year-to-date liquidations have three large waves that peaked at $165 million in one day of liquidations.

After the historic amount of short liquidations, the futures market is trending toward longs. On Jan. 30, 51.46% of open interests are long positions rather than shorts.

The liquidation of shorts not only helped Bitcoin price rally but also seemingly suggests a return of positive sentiment in the BTC market.

Glassnode researchers said:

“Across both perpetual swap, and calendar futures, the cash and carry basis is now back into positive territory, yielding 7.3% and 3.3% annualized, respectively. This comes after much of November and December saw backwardation across all futures markets, and suggests a return of positive sentiment, and perhaps with a side of speculation.”

Centralized exchange netflows reach equilibrium

In March 2020, centralized exchange (CEX) Bitcoin balances reached an all-time high. Since then, Bitcoin has flowed out of spot exchanges. Approximately 2.25 million BTC are currently held across 21 of the top exchanges, which is a multi-year low. The 11.7% of the total Bitcoin supply held on centralized exchanges was last witnessed in February 2018.

Typically throughout Bitcoin’s history, exchange inflows and outflows are similar, creating an even balance. This balance was disrupted in November when net outflows of Bitcoin from exchanges reached $200 million to $300 million per day. The large outflow during this period was historic, resulting in 200,000 Bitcoin leaving exchanges ovethe month.

As Bitcoin started gaining bullish momentum in January, centralized exchange inflow and outflow has normalized. The net flows are now closer to neutral, with a reduction in the high outflow trend.

Multiple Bitcoin investor cohorts return to the “unrealized profit” zone

Bitcoin’s movement in and out of exchanges helps provide analysts an estimate for investors’ BTC acquisition price. During the 2022 bear market, only investors from before 2017 were in potential profit. Investors arriving to Bitcoin after 2018 were all at an unrealized loss.

According to Glassnode researchers:

“Through the 2022 downtrend, only those investors from 2017 and earlier avoided hitting a net unrealized loss, with the class of 2018+ seeing their cost basis taken out by the FTX red candle. The current rally however has pushed the class of 2019 ($21.8k) and earlier back into an unrealized profit.”

The fact that a growing number of investor cohorts have returned to profitability is a good sign, especially after Bitcoin witnessed record realized losses in December.

Two of the largest investor groups, those who purchased BTC on Coinbase and Binance, hold an average BTC acquisition price of $21,000. As Bitcoin continues to try to reach $24,000, any upcoming correction caused by macro factors may push down the unrealized profits in these groups.

Positive signs of Bitcoin’s price recovery can be seen in on-chain, spot exchange and futures data. The futures market is indicating a renewed equilibrium following a record-high amount of short liquidations.

The market is now showing improved exchange netflows and spot market activity suggests that investors are slowly trickling back into the crypto market.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Rally cited a “challenging year” for the crypto industry in its decision to “begin to sunset” the platform’s sidechain after Jan. 31.

Rally, a social token platform, has announced nonfungible tokens (NFTs) on its sidechain will no longer be accessible.

Users reported across social media platforms that Rally said the platform’s sidechain will “begin to sunset” after Jan. 31, leaving users unable to access NFTs once the site fully shuts down. The site’s developers did not say that they would be offering another path forward in the future, but hinted at building “leaner web3 experiences and/or products on mainnet.”

“2022 was a challenging year not only for the platform, but also for the entire crypto industry,” Rally said. “The team has worked relentlessly to try to find a path forward, however the challenges and macro headwinds are too overwhelming to overcome in the current environment.”

Related: Social tokens will be the engine of Web3, from fanbases to incentivization

Rally facilitated creators and artists launching their own social token projects and establishing independent communities directly on the platform. The “creator coins” allowed users to essentially monetize themselves, providing additional revenue.

Algorand (ALGO) has benefited from the general sentiment in the crypto market as it records significant profits on high timeframes. The cryptocurrency has been upward since late 2022 and could be on track for further gains.  Related Reading: Dogecoin Gearing To Bounce Back Against Bitcoin – Does Doge Have The Energy? As of this writing, Algorand (ALGO) trades at $0.24 with a 2% loss in the last 24 hours. Over the previous seven days, the cryptocurrency saw a 3% decline while recording a 40% profit in the last month.  Algorand Founder Makes The List Of Most Important Crypto Projects According to a recent report, Algorand founder Silvio Micali s one of the top “2023’s crypto characters to watch.” The computer scientist is one of the investors of the zero-knowledge proofs (zk Proof) technology which is widely accepted in the blockchain space and one of the pillars of its privacy settings.  Micali has been part of the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department since 1983. In addition to Zk Proof, Micali has investigated Verifiable Random Functions and is the co-inventor of probabilistic encryption.  According to the report, Micali has received the Turing Award called the “Nobel Prize of computing,” the Gödel Prize, and other distinctions. In that sense, the report claims that Micali and the Algorand network have the background and capabilities to push the crypto space into a new adoption era.  Over the coming decade, Micali believes only those blockchains capable of processing fast transactions will remain and see high levels of adoption. This theory is part of the long-term value proposition for Algorand, its founder said: The moment the blockchain starts to be used for transactions, the few blockchains that are really capable of transacting at a very low cost, they’re going to emerge, in my opinion. When traditional finance starts getting on the blockchain, you’re going to see the blockchains that are really used in a massive and transactional way are going to accelerate. ALGO Founder On The Radar Along With? In addition to Micali, the report ranked Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of Ethereum, and Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream. As the report claims, the past years in crypto were led by “moguls” by loud personalities with little technical background, such as the founder of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, Samb Bankman-Fried.  Related Reading: Ethereum Reaches Critical Inflection Point Against Bitcoin: What Happens Next? Thus, the industry might look up to Buterin, Back, and Micali as the new faces of the crypto industry. Unlike SBF and others, these individuals could “shake things up” and allow the industry to transition from its current state of crisis.