Day: May 21, 2022

A homage to weird and wonderful BTC purchases

Joseph Hall

Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day! Before you dial for a Margherita to commemorate the world’s first real-world Bitcoin transaction, here’s a slice of trivia: What do a family holiday to Japan, a 50 Cent album, a steak dinner, and a framed cat photo all have in common?  They were all paid for with Bitcoin (BTC) by members of the Cointelegraph Bitcoin community! And just like the Bitcoin pizzas that cost 10,000 BTC, which are now worth more than $300 million, the community’s Bitcoin purchases have also skyrocketed.  Benjamin de Waal, the VP…

LUNA and UST Crash Could Have Been Averted if Bitcoin Reserves were Used Earlier, Binance CEO Says

Brian Njuguna

The collapse of LUNA and UST, the native tokens of the Terra network, could have been avoided if the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) had used its Bitcoin reserves earlier, according to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). Sharing his insights on the Binance website, CZ noted: “The Terra team was slow in using their reserves to restore the peg. The entire incident may have been avoided if they had used their reserves when the de-peg was at 5%. After the value of the coins had already crashed by 99% (or…

a16z Reiterates Bullish Thesis on Web3, Compares it to the Internet’s Early Days

Anthony B

Leading crypto VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) released a report offering an annual overview of the current trends and state of the crypto industry. The paper reiterated the firm’s bullish views on Web3, projecting long-term growth ahead of the sector, and weighed in on the dominant position as claimed by Ethereum among layer-one blockchains. “Web3 is Fairer” a16z summarized the report into a few observations, mainly on the state of Web3 and Ethereum. The VC giant attributed the recent selloff of the market as a possible sign of a seasonal…

Why is Ethereum used for NFTs?

Cointelegraph By Onkar Singh

When choosing any blockchain for minting NFTs, such as Ethereum for NFT development, ensure the robustness of its smart contracts, check the blockchain’s fee structure, security measures and transaction speed, and assess the possibility of forking. In the cryptocurrency market, NFTs are a significant niche. They provide further exposure to cryptocurrencies for people who might not otherwise have come into contact with these assets. In addition, they actively contribute to the mass adoption of blockchain technology because they are so closely linked to digital art and gaming. However, the resilience…

How we should build the future of GameFi

Alex Ye

You’ve seen it before. An amazingly talented gaming founder teams up with a top-tier studio, promising to create a wondrous game experience built on the industry’s most powerful engines. But then, it happens: It’s paired with a dubious shitcoin that launches well before even a morsel of game content drops. In the not-so-distant past, mainstream media may have referred to the hype-fueled crypto bull market — but, with Bored Ape floor prices still in the clouds, we’ll respectfully call it what it is: the monkey run. Market volatility aside, Metaverse…

Regulators Are Paying Attention to UST

Nikhilesh De

The introduction of the Libra stablecoin project led to, years later, multiple regulatory approaches and the certainty that sooner or later, governments will have rules in place for how stablecoins can operate. However, all of these efforts have focused on asset-backed stablecoins, not algorithmic stablecoins. The novel structures here might result in new approaches from regulators. The major difference? Libra never launched, and there haven’t been any asset-backed stablecoin collapses the way there was with UST. That difference may lead to regulators placing a higher priority on this issue. Author:…

Chainalysis introduces its Web3 based blockchain analysis tool: Blog

Anthony B

Chainalysis has introduced its new, Web3-native blockchain analysis tool called the Chainalysis Storyline, aiming to visualise smart contract extensions, as per a Chainalysis blog. As per the blog, decentralised finance (DeFi) and NFTs are two of the fastest-growing areas of cryptocurrency, with nearly half of crypto transactions involving a DeFi entity or an NFT or related types of smart contracts. Insights from the blog stated that over the course of 2021, hackers majorly targeted DeFi protocols for stealing cryptocurrency. DeFi protocols accounted for a growing share of all funds stolen…

Bitcoin ends week ‘on the edge’ as S&P 500 officially enters bear market

William Suberg

Bitcoin (BTC) struggled to recover its latest losses on May 21 after Wall Street trading provided zero respite. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView BTC price reflects drab stocks performance Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD trading at dipping below $28,700 into the weekend, subsequently adding around $500. Down 4.7% from the previous day’s $30,700 highs, the pair looked firmly rangebound at the time of writing after United States stocks indices saw a volatile final trading day of the week. The S&P 500, managed to reverse after…

Blockchain, crypto set to take sports industry beyond NFT collectibles

Arijit Sarkar

Bitcoin (BTC) has been attributed as the most prominent blockchain use case, showing the technology’s prowess in successfully delivering an immutable and truly decentralized ledger over the past 13 years. Adding to the years of innovations since then— that saw the introduction of altcoins, non-fungible tokens (NFT), decentralized finance (DeFi) and more, a study conducted by fintech giant Deloitte highlighted the untapped potential of the crypto ecosystem to open up newer markets for the sports industry. Fan tokens and NFTs were first introduced to the sports industry to increase fan…