Daily Archives: April 20, 2022

400 new projects and 100K new wallets in a month on Cardano

400 new projects and 100K new wallets in a month on Cardano
[ad_1]

Activity on the Cardano (ADA) blockchain is starting to heat up, with 400 new projects in the works, along with 100,000 new wallets being created over the past month.

According to an April 19 Twitter post from Cardano creators Input Output (IOHK), there are nearly 900 projects in development on the network. The figure has grown by roughly 400 since March 11, after IOHK Vice President Tim Harrison stated that the total stood at around 500 via Linkedin post.

Cardano is a public and decentralized proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain that was created by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson in 2017, after he left the team over disputes on the future direction of the network.

Pointing to some of the positive developments on Cardano over the past 10 days, IOHK highlighted six projects ranging from token swaps to DeFi applications that went live on the mainnet, entered test nets, or launched via open beta.

One new project getting considerable attention is the AGIX ERC-20 Converter Bride which was developed in collaboration with SingularityNET.

The tool went live this week and it enables users to bridge over Ethereum-based ERC-20 Tokens for use on Cardano, with the network’s DeFi sector expected to be a significant beneficiary.

Despite increasing numbers of projects in development, the number of DApps up and running on Cardano appears to be limited, with DeFi Llama listing just 10 different platforms accounting for $224.96 worth of total value locked (TVL). Notably, four of those platforms have $0 TVL also outside of their native tokens.

On the NFT side of things, Cardano doesn’t even make the top 15 blockchains in terms of sales volume over the past 24 hours, despite fifteenth ranked Theta only generating $375 during that period.

It has been a slow burn for Cardano since launching smart contracts in September, with the network yet to fully take off and provide the promised competition to Ethereum (ETH), or even fellow “ETH killers” such as Solana, Avalanche and Flow.

However founder Charles Hoskinson recently suggested in a video posted to his YouTube channel that the tide could soon turn with the upcoming Vasil Hard Fork upgrade in June. He stated that it will provide a “massive performance improvement to Cardano” and its smart contract capabilities.

Related: 67% of Cardano holders underwater and most bought less than 1 year ago

ADA Wallet surge

One area of strong growth at the moment is wallet activity on Cardano, with data from Cardano Blockchain insights showing that the number of ADA wallets has increased by 100,000 since March 22. The total figure as of April 19 stands at 3.268 million.

Within that time frame, the average rate of new ADA wallets per day has surged from around 2,000 to 8,129. The number of transactions/payments per day has barely nudged however, decreasing from 106,952 on March 22 to 106,525 on April 19.

Zooming out however, transactions larger than $100,000 have increased by 50X since the start of 2022, suggesting strong institutional demand may already be there.

[ad_2]

Source link

Whales Accumulate Through The Dip As Bitcoin Repositions To $40K

Whales Accumulate Through The Dip As Bitcoin Repositions To $40K
[ad_1]

Volatility remains one of the characteristics of Bitcoin that could easily change the holding stance of investors. To some, a downward movement will mark their period of massive accumulation and expansion of their holdings. On the other hand, some will suffer considerable losses through a dip.

Bitcoin has been on a dipping move as it gets to its monthly low of $39,000 within some days of hitting the $40,000 mark. Though many people had expected that the BTC price would show some bearish trend for a few days, the events have proved the contrary.

Bitcoin has gradually taken a downward tour by going into a 37K – 40K region. This recent dip has given some whales the opportunity of making massive purchases of the token.

Related Reading | The Young Turks Embarrass Themselves Trying To Discuss Crypto Regulation

A CryptoQuant technical analyst, Minkyu Woo, stated that a significant coin volume was moved out through spot exchanges during the Bitcoin sell-off.

He mentioned the possibility of whales buying a considerable amount of BTC since the outflow size could only proceed through the check for spot exchanges’ top 10 BTC outflows.

Analyst Explains The Entire Bitcoin Price Movement

According to Woo, the 37K – 40K mark stands as the BTC price range in the crypto’s critical accumulating phase. This move has long begun in March 2022. Also, Woo advised investors to keep their holdings or purchase more of the dips if possible.

The price of BTC has surged sharply | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

In the past, where there have been cases of spiked outflow volume, a notable amount of BTC has gone out via exchanges. However, a sudden reversal in the market’s sell-off came as the crypto price climbed up.

Recent events have followed a similar pattern as Bitcoin regained all its losses by moving to the $41K region.

Moreover, Woo explained that Bitcoin has gotten below the 200 MA support from the 2020 fourth quarter. This means that BTC would have more accumulation of smart money.

In his chart, Woo indicated the dipping pattern for BTC into the bottom zone and its subsequent spike and buying interest.

Related Reading | Conquering Terrain: Terra’s Stablecoin UST Is Now Crypto’s Third Biggest

Just like Bitcoin has displayed its bearish trend, the action reflects the general status of the broader crypto market. Besides Bitcoin, Ethereum has indicated significant drops by moving below its $3K level. Also, other prominent altcoins are not left out in the southward movement of price.

Fortunately, the entire crypto marketplace seems to be getting higher in an upward recovery movement starting from today. Ethereum has moved back to its $3,000 region, and BNB is up within the $400 level. Other altcoins are following closing through the recovery trend.

Featured image from Pexels, charts from TradingView.com

[ad_2]

Source link

More volatile than Bitcoin? Netflix shares plunge 25%

More volatile than Bitcoin? Netflix shares plunge 25%
[ad_1]

The stock market has once again made crypto look stable by comparison with the Netflix (NFLX) stock price dropping 25% in after-hours trading tod.

The news that sparked the dramatic tumble was the revelation on Tuesday that the streaming service has lost 200,000 customers in the first quarter of 2022 and projects it will lose a further two million subscribers this quarter. This marks the first time the company has tallied losses in user numbers since 2011 according to Bloomberg.

Investors reacted by dumping NFLX shares in after-hours trading, causing prices to crash to a new yearly low of $258.90. When trading opens for the day at 1:30pm UTC on April 20, it is unclear what price the stock will open at.

Such price action has drawn some glee from the crypto community who have long faced criticism from traditional investors that crypto is too volatile.

Crypto analyst and host of the YouTube channel Into the Cryptoverse Benjamin Cowen tweeted to his 622,000 followers today that the NFLX crash reminds him of “how stocks became more like #crypto, rather than the other way around.”

The NFLX stock price has performed worse in 2022 than Bitcoin (BTC) has this year. NFLX has lost 57% since Jan 1, 2022 when it was at its height for the year at $597.37. By comparison, BTC is down 11% overall since its 2022 opening price of $46,319 to $41,288 according to CoinGecko. 

Other tech stocks have seen crypto-like daily losses this year. On Feb. 2, PayPal (PYPL) dropped 20% from $172.77 to $139.89. On the same day, Meta Platforms (META) — fomerly Facebook — dropped 25% from $327.82 to $244.65.

But before crypto pundits get ahead of themselves, it must be noted that Bitcoin has fallen harder than those tech stocks during previous crypto market crashes. The last time BTC fell at least 25% in a single day was March 12, 2020, when it fell 41% from $7969 to $4776.

Related: Meta may introduce tokens and digital currency lending services to apps: Report

Analysis carried out by crypto research firm Into The Block and released on April 16 found that BTC and Ether (ETH) “have been less volatile than many stocks, especially those with crypto offerings.”

Its analysis used the Sharpe ratio to compare volatility across different investments. The lower the score, the less volatile the asset. Bitcoin received a score of -0.02, while Square (-0.05), MicroStrategy (-0.02), and Coinbase (-0.02) either matched on underperformed BTC.

Host of the Coin Stories podcast Natalie Brunell tweeted today that Netflix might be able to solve some of its current problems by adding BTC to its balance sheet.

[ad_2]

Source link

US Secret Service Has Seized Cryptocurrency Worth Over $102 Million in 254 Fraud Cases – Regulation Bitcoin News

US Secret Service Has Seized Cryptocurrency Worth Over $102 Million in 254 Fraud Cases – Regulation Bitcoin News
[ad_1]

The U.S. Secret Service has seized cryptocurrency worth more than $102 million in 254 fraud-related investigations. “What criminals want to do is sort of muddy the waters and make efforts to obfuscate their activities,” said the assistant director of the Secret Service’s Office of Investigations. “What we want to do is to track that as quickly as we can, aggressively as we can, in a linear fashion.”

US Secret Service Seizes Cryptocurrency Worth $102 Million

A senior executive with the U.S. Secret Service, David M. Smith, talked about cryptocurrency in an interview with CNBC, published Tuesday.

Smith is a senior executive and special agent currently serving as the 28th Assistant Director of the U.S. Secret Service Office of Investigations, where he leads the agency’s global investigative mission, comprising 161 offices and over 3,000 employees.

The Secret Service is responsible for detecting, investigating, and arresting any person who violates certain laws related to financial systems. “In recent years digital assets have increasingly been used to facilitate a growing range of crimes, including various fraud schemes and the use of ransomware,” its website describes.

Smith told the news outlet that Secret Service agents and analysts are actively tracking the flow of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the blockchain, elaborating:

When you follow a digital currency wallet, it’s not different than an email address that has some correlating identifiers.

“And once a person and another person make a transaction, and that gets into the blockchain, we have the ability to follow that email address or wallet address, if you will, and trace it through the blockchain,” the assistant director affirmed.

According to statistics compiled by the agency, the Secret Service has seized more than $102 million in cryptocurrency since 2015 from criminals in connection with 254 cases of fraud-related investigations, the publication conveyed.

Smith noted that “One of the things about cryptocurrency is it moves money at a faster pace than the traditional format,” stressing that fast transaction speed makes crypto attractive to both American consumers and criminals. “What criminals want to do is sort of muddy the waters and make efforts to obfuscate their activities,” he noted. “What we want to do is to track that as quickly as we can, aggressively as we can, in a linear fashion.”

The assistant director explained that once the Secret Service detects an illegal activity, it works to “dig a little deeper into those transactions and deconstruct” them. Smith said:

You send me something bad on an email, I know there’s some criminal activity associated with that email address, I can deconstruct, find whatever tidbits of information that you used when you initially logged in or signed up for that email address.

Smith further shared that investigators are finding more and more thieves converting stolen BTC and other cryptocurrencies into stablecoins. He opined: “Because, you know, the criminals, they’re humans too. They want to avoid some of that market volatility associated with some of the major coins.”

What do you think about the Secret Service’s work to crack down on crypto-related fraud? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src=”
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));

[ad_2]

Source link

Why Bitcoin Price Eyes Crucial Upside Break Above $41.5K

Why Bitcoin Price Eyes Crucial Upside Break Above $41.5K
[ad_1]

Bitcoin extended its recovery above the $41,400 against the US Dollar. BTC could rally further if there is a clear close above the $41,500 and $41,800.

  • Bitcoin started a decent recovery wave above the $41,000 and $41,400 levels.
  • The price is now trading above $41,000 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.
  • There is a short-term contracting triangle forming with resistance near $41,510 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).
  • The pair must clear the $41,500 resistance and $41,800 to start a major upward move.

Bitcoin Price Shows Positive Signs

Bitcoin price formed a base above the $40,000 level. BTC started a decent recovery wave and was able to clear the $41,000 resistance zone.

The price remained in a positive zone and climbed further above the $41,400 level. It even spiked above the $41,500 resistance and settled above the 100 hourly simple moving average. A high was formed near the $41,825 level and the price is now consolidating gains.

Bitcoin is trading well above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $38,570 swing low to $41,825 high. There is also a short-term contracting triangle forming with resistance near $41,510 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair.

Source: BTCUSD on TradingView.com

An immediate resistance on the upside is near the $41,500 level. The next key resistance could be $41,800. To start a strong upward move, the price must settle above the $41,500 zone and then clear $41,800. If the bulls succeed, the price could rise towards the $42,500 resistance zone. Any more gains might call for a move towards the $43,200 level.

Dips Limited in BTC?

If bitcoin fails to clear the $41,500 resistance zone, it could start a downside correction. An immediate support on the downside is near the $41,050 level.

The next major support is seen near the $40,400 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. It is near the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $38,570 swing low to $41,825 high. A downside break below the $40,400 support zone and $40,000 could increase selling pressure.

Technical indicators:

Hourly MACD – The MACD is slowly gaining pace in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BTC/USD is now above the 50 level.

Major Support Levels – $41,050, followed by $40,200.

Major Resistance Levels – $41,510, $41,800 and $42,500.

[ad_2]

Source link

Agent Smith says Secret Service seized $102M in crypto in 254 cases since 2015

Agent Smith says Secret Service seized $102M in crypto in 254 cases since 2015
[ad_1]

A top official from the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) says the agency can track the flow of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in a similar manner to email addresses, and it has seized more than $102 million in crypto across 254 cases since 2015.

USSS assistant director of investigations David Smith told CNBC that the transparent and immutable aspect of blockchain ledgers means investigators can trace transactions easier than fiat in some cases.

“One of the guiding principles of the blockchain is that it is a public ledger that’s shared and everyone with a little bit of computing power has access to it, including law enforcement,” said Smith.

“So the secret service hasn’t been doing anything that wasn’t the original intent of the blockchain. We’re just using the same tracking and tracing mechanisms that were intended.”

Agent Smith said more than $100 million in cryptocurrency has been seized by the Secret Service in international operations targeting cyber-fraudsters since 2015, with agents and analysts conducting investigations out of the Global Investigative Operations Center (GIOC) at the Secret Service headquarters in Washington D.C.

Crypto is seized in a variety of scenarios. Around $1.7 million in Bitcoin was seized in a case from March, in which an Estonian man was sentenced to 66 months in prison for his role in at least 13 international ransomware attacks. Another operation saw the fall of an international money laundering operation in Romania, and another involved a Russian-speaking cybercriminal ring again involved in ransomware.

Smith likened tracing crypto to tracing an email address:

“When you follow a digital currency wallet, it’s not different than an email address that has some correlating identifiers. Once a person and another person make a transaction, and that gets into the blockchain, we have the ability to follow that email address or wallet address, if you will, and trace it through the blockchain.”

Smith said that criminals often attempt to obscure their trail from law enforcement by making as many transfers as possible, which he likened to as a “house of mirrors”. Stolen Bitcoin and other digital currencies are often converted into stablecoins as a means to avoid volatility.

“Because, you know, the criminals, they’re humans too. They want to avoid some of that market volatility associated with some of the major coins,” he said.

The U.S. Secret Service is one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies in the country initially created to safeguard the nation’s financial infrastructure. Founded as a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1865, its sole purpose at the time was to combat the counterfeiting of U.S. currency.

Today, the agency falls under the Department of Homeland Security and often conducts joint investigations with other federal agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity & Infrastucture Security Agency (CISA) as well as international agencies to achieve their objectives.

On Tuesday, the CISA, FBI and the US Treasury issued an alert about North-Korean funded cyber threats targeting blockchain companies in response to a $650 million Ronin Bridge hack.

Related: What the launch of the FBI crypto task force means for the digital asset space

In February, the USSS launched a cryptocurrency awareness hub aimed at raising public awareness about digital asset security and to feature the agency’s work in clamping down on the illicit use of digital assets.

“Secret Service: Safeguarding the next generation currency.” Source: U.S. Secret Service YouTube

On the website, the agency said that digital assets have been increasingly used to facilitate a growing range of crimes, including various fraud schemes and the use of ransomware. However the agency also noted that the use of cryptocurrencies was not inherently criminal.

[ad_2]

Source link

US Lawmaker Urges Biden Administration to Develop ‘Robust Strategy’ to Prevent Crypto Use to Evade Sanctions – Regulation Bitcoin News

US Lawmaker Urges Biden Administration to Develop ‘Robust Strategy’ to Prevent Crypto Use to Evade Sanctions – Regulation Bitcoin News
[ad_1]

A U.S. lawmaker has urged the Biden administration to develop a “robust strategy” to prevent cryptocurrency from being used to evade sanctions. “Emerging technologies like cryptocurrency offer many positive applications like humanitarian relief, but the administration has not kept pace in ensuring this novel form of currency is not used to the detriment of U.S. national security,” he said.

Congressman McCaul Wants a ‘Robust Strategy’ to Prevent Crypto Use to Evade Sanctions

A senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX), has made a number of efforts to prevent cryptocurrency’s use to evade U.S. sanctions. He issued a statement Thursday urging the Biden Administration to create a “robust strategy” to stop crypto from being used to circumvent sanctions.

“Emerging technologies like cryptocurrency offer many positive applications like humanitarian relief, but the administration has not kept pace in ensuring this novel form of currency is not used to the detriment of U.S. national security,” the congressman noted, elaborating:

Punishing criminals is a good first step, but I urge the administration to develop a robust strategy to stop bad actors from using cryptocurrency to evade U.S. sanctions.

His statement followed the sentencing of Virgil Griffith to more than five years in federal prison for helping North Korea evade U.S. sanctions using cryptocurrency technologies.

Rep. McCaul also sent a letter to President Joe Biden last month raising concerns about “the potential abuse of emerging technologies like cryptocurrency by Russia to evade sanctions.” He cited “an expected UN report on North Korea using stolen cryptocurrencies to fund its nuclear program.” He received no response from Biden.

The lawmaker then sent a similar letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines after her testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence regarding how her department will deal with cryptocurrency-related sanctions evasion.

Earlier this month, McCaul joined House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) to introduce the Russia Cryptocurrency Transparency Act. The bill gained bipartisan support and subsequently passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. This legislation will help “ensure the U.S. is taking the necessary steps to prevent these emerging technologies from being used to evade U.S. sanctions.”

While some lawmakers are worried about the use of crypto to circumvent sanctions, many experts have said that crypto is not an effective tool for sanctions evasion. A U.S. Treasury official said in March: “We don’t see that crypto could be used in a large-scale way to evade sanctions.” Nonetheless, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced a crypto sanctions bill that “would place sweeping restrictions on persons who build, operate, and use cryptocurrency networks even if they have no knowledge or intent to help evade sanctions.”

What do you think about Rep. McCaul wanting a robust strategy to prevent crypto from being used to evade sanctions? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src=”
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));

[ad_2]

Source link

Gensokishi Online Project Announces Decision to List MV Token on KuCoin and Campaign – Press release Bitcoin News

Gensokishi Online Project Announces Decision to List MV Token on KuCoin and Campaign – Press release Bitcoin News
[ad_1]

press release

PRESS RELEASE. GensoKishi are excited to announce that $MV ( MV(Polygon)/USDT trading pair) will list on KuCoin at 2022-04-20 18:00 (UTC), a leading cryptocurrency exchange in the world.

GensoKishi are going to have various campaigns to celebrate the trading pair listing. Know more details. Please check the CAMPAIGN page on KuCoin!

About KuCoin

KuCoin is a cryptocurrency exchange established in 2017 and located in Hong Kong. KuCoin has a large selection of crypto assets that are only listed on KuCoin and are very popular worldwide. Due to 2022-4-14, it ranks 5th trading volume in the world.

About GensoKishi Online

GensoKishi Online Metaworld is a GameFi and metaverse incarnation of the award-winning Nintendo Switch/PS4 game “Elemental Knights”. The iconic game has a 14 years history and has accumulated a total of 8 million downloads worldwide. It already has a 3DMMORPG game with active users, with a fully-functioning 3D metaverse, that simultaneously connects users from around the world, be it smartphones, PCs, or video game consoles. The game recently announced its collaboration with gaming legend Yoshitaka Amano to design their first NFT collection.

To date, Gensokishi has set various records, including a record breaking IDO on TRUSTPAD (20secs on FCFS) and the largest number of staking participants in the history of Bybit’s LaunchPool with 69,000 people and over $200 million in TVL. The token was listed on Bybit on January 27th and ranked 3rd above ETH/XRP/SAND/LUNA in 24 hour volume 1 week later. It has grown 40x since the listing.

Welcome to the ROND Whitelist Vol.2

We welcome you to the second round of the ROND private sale. Due to a lot of requests we have prepared $10,000 in ROND!!

For each task you complete in this campaign, you will earn points. The more points you have, the more likely you are to win, so please collect as many points as possible.

One hundred (100) winners will receive the right to participate in the $100 ROND Token Private Sale.

Take advantage of this opportunity to get the rare ROND tokens, which at the moment can only be obtained by staking MV

Access the Whitelist campaign here.

※ Gensokishi White Paper：

◆ Gensokishi Online -META WORLD- Community

Official Site :

Twitter :

Discord :

LINE :

Telegram（English） :

Telegram（Chinese text） :

Telegram（Japanese） :

YouTube：

Gensokishi Online will continue to provide cryptogame enthusiasts with updates on this project.

 

This is a press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.

Bitcoin.com Media

Bitcoin.com is the premier source for everything crypto-related.
Contact ads@bitcoin.com to talk about press releases, sponsored posts, podcasts and other options.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src=”
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));

[ad_2]

Source link