Stories by Alexander Behrens
A Third Bitcoin ETF in Canada Is Set to Launch
A third Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF) has been approved by Canadian securities regulators, as CI Global Asset Management prepares their own BTC-based offering. The CI Galaxy Bitcoin ETF will launch tomorrow, March 9, under the symbol BTCX on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The new ETF will join the Purpose Bitcoin ETF (BTCC) and Evolve Bitcoin ETF (EBIT), both of which launched just last month. The slate of Bitcoin ETF launches in North American markets is another sign of BTC becoming an instit...
NFT Mania: February Trading Volume Just Topped All of 2020
The momentum behind cryptocurrency-based digital collectibles continues to build as the NFT market posts its best month yet—with tradeable “moments” platform NBA Top Shot leading the way. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are digital works (mostly art, trading cards or in-game items) that exist primarily on the Ethereum network and have a unique and verifiable on-chain identity. And the market for such items is exploding. The top three NFT marketplaces saw a combined trading volume of $342 million i...
Link Marines Have A New Way to Make Money With Chainlink
The cryptocurrency space is still largely dominated by the original king of crypto in Bitcoin, but a few newer entrants have carved out strong followings of their own. Among them is Chainlink (LINK), which had a monster year in 2020, skyrocketing in price by over 500%. Now, investors in Chainlink have a new way to earn interest on their holdings. Crypto lending firm BlockFi has paid out more than $20 million in interest on deposits of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Tomorrow, the firm will add Chainlink...
DeFi Needs 'Freedom to Experiment', Says SEC's Hester Peirce
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce is once again using her platform as one of the country’s top securities regulators to advocate for more “freedom” for the cryptocurrency industry. And this time, she has her sights on specifically on the growing decentralized finance space. Peirce, affectionately known as “Crypto Mom” among industry observers, told law students at George Washington University in a speech on Monday that decentralized finance (that’s DeFi, for short) faces unique regulatory challenge...
Just Five Services Launder Half of All Illicit Crypto: New study
[CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly called out itBit nested at Paxos, and Changelly nested at HitBTC, as examples of nested services that were used for money laundering. In fact, Chainalysis said that those services are compliant with regulations and served merely as examples of nested services.] A new report from blockchain insights firm Chainalysis found that a sizable majority of ill-gotten crypto flows through just a few hundred deposit addresses and a handful of servic...
Ethereum, WETH Now Settling More Value Than Bitcoin
Ethereum long trailed Bitcoin as the top blockchain network for transferring value, but those days could be in the past as ETH and WETH transactions have surpassed Bitcoin and begun to pull away in recent weeks. Average daily transaction value of ETH and Wrapped ETH (WETH) over the last 30 days has grown to more than $13 billion compared to just over $9 billion for Bitcoin, according to data compiled by Money Movers and provided by CoinMetrics. (At one point, ETH alone briefly surpassed Bitcoin....
Ethereum CME Futures Volume Tops $30 Million On Day One
Ethereum futures from Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group have finally arrived, and trading is off to a healthy start, with more than $30 million in futures contracts traded in the first 24 hours after launch. CME ETH futures launched yesterday, February 9, adding the second largest crypto by market cap to the world’s largest and oldest futures exchange group, joining Bitcoin in an exclusive club of digital assets with strong enough foundations to find a place in traditional futures markets....
Wrapped Bitcoin Hits Record Volume of $143 Million on Uniswap
22Bitcoin’s price is near its all-time high, but that’s not the only metric rising to record levels, as Wrapped Bitcoin trading on the Uniswap exchange continues to grow. Uniswap trading volume for WBTC rose to a new single-day all-time high of nearly $143 million on February 6, according to blockchain data provider Glassnode, part of a stunning rise that has seen Bitcoin worth hundreds of millions of dollars make its way onto the Ethereum blockchain. Wrapped BTC volume on Uniswap over time. Ima...
There’s a New Way to Access Ethereum DeFi Apps From Your Phone
In a move that could help expand the DeFi market well beyond its current user base, smartphone users are now getting a new way to explore the growing world of Ethereum-based decentralized applications. My Ether Wallet announced today the launch of the Dapps Browser for their mobile app in collaboration with dapp data provider DappRadar, allowing users to browse and interact directly with decentralized applications on the Ethereum network. The idea is to help spur adoption of dapps in sectors suc...
USDC Stablecoins on Exchanges Doubled in January to Over $900 Million
USDC stablecoins are flowing into exchange accounts like never before, providing a ready supply of purchasing power for crypto investors to add to their holdings or buy up any price dips. USDC held in exchange accounts increased by more than 112% in January to more than $900 million, according to data collected by blockchain analytics firm Glassnode. The sharp increase follows recent all-time highs for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and DeFi-related governance tokens, indicating that buyers could be gearing...
Ethereum, Bitcoin Locked in DeFi Tops $30 Billion as Prices Surge
The total value locked in DeFi protocols has hit another milestone, surpassing $30 billion less than a year after first crossing the $1 billion dollar mark, according to data aggregator DeFi Pulse. But although DeFi apps continue to grow in users, the increasing locked value is also getting a sizable boost from the surging price of Bitcoin and Ethereum. DeFi (shorthand for “decentralized finance”) is a catch-all term for non-custodial, peer-to-peer financial products, which are becoming increas...
As Robinhood Halts, DEX Trading Soars
The frenzy around GamesStop, AMC, and other “meme stocks” have caused stock brokers like Robinhood to restrict or suspend trading for thousands of users. But decentralized exchanges like Uniswap are seeing a frenzy of their own, with no way for the developers—or anyone else—to interfere. Decentralized exchanges (DEX) just closed out their biggest month ever, processing more than $63 billion in trading volume over the last 30 days, according to data from Dune Analytics. That’s more than half the...
Circle Is Making It Easy to Go From Your Bank to DeFi With USDC
Circle announced today the addition of Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments for USDC dollar-pegged stablecoins to the Circle API, a set of developer tools used to integrate different products and protocols with the USDC stablecoin. US customers use ACH payments to electronically transfer funds between regulated banking institutions, pay bills, and draw from their bank accounts. The new option will coexist alongside other ways to send funds to Circle, such as card payments and wire transfers,...
Tether Users Flee to TRON From Ethereum Amid High Fees
Tether transactions are on the rise, but in a different place than you might expect—high fees on Ethereum appear to be pushing people to use TRON for transfers of Tether, the world’s most-popular stablecoin. There have been more Tether transactions (though not higher volume) on the TRON blockchain than the Ethereum blockchain every day thus far in 2021, according to blockchain data provider CoinMetrics. That’s in spite of Ethereum housing more than 50% more Tether tokens than the TRON blockchai...
Kyber Upgrading to Compete With Uniswap for DeFi Traders
Kyber Network is aiming to expand the network of liquidity markets with its Kyber 3.0 upgrade in a bid to compete with other exchanges such as Uniswap. Kyber Network, a DeFi exchange for Ethereum-based tokens, announced today plans for the upgrade to Kyber 3.0. The upgrade, it says, will protect liquidity providers from losing out during price volatility. Kyber is also planning a governance vote on changes that would add greater utility to its native KNC token. Decrypt’s People of the Year: the...
Cryptocurrency Staking Rewards Top $20 Billion in 2020: Report
Mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has been the foundation of the digital currency industry for more than a decade. But Staked, a blockchain staking infrastructure firm, thinks 2021 could be the year that staking starts to have a major impact. Why? Because 2020 was a pretty big year already: More than $20 billion in annual staking rewards were paid out over the course of the year, according to the firm’s State of Staking Q1 2021 report. And proof-of-stake blockchains, says Staked, now mak...
Return of the DEX: Trading Volumes Poised to Set New Record
Decentralized exchanges are starting 2021 off with a bang. Combined, they are on track to surpass previous all-time high volumes as traders take advantage of the rising price of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and Curve Finance have already transferred more than $27 billion in transaction volume so far in January, the second-highest total since September 2020’s $29 billion, according to crypto data provider Dune Analytics—and there are still 17 days left in January. At...
Remember Yield Farming? DeFi Exchange 1inch Hopes So
The summer’s buzz around yield farming may have tapered off as assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum have moved into the spotlight, but DeFi protocols are still hard at work distributing their governance tokens and rewarding DeFi users in the process. 1inch is a popular decentralized exchange aggregator that helps users find the best prices when swapping assets. After launching a “liquidity mining” program last month, it today announced a second round of governance token distributions, set to begin J...
Bitcoin on Ethereum Nears $5 Billion as Crypto Rally Marches On
Bitcoin locked on the Ethereum blockchain is worth more than ever, but Bitcoin holders have started looking elsewhere to make the most of their investments. More than $4.8 billion worth of Bitcoin is now locked on the Ethereum blockchain, a new all-time high and more than 4% of the total market cap of Ethereum, according to blockchain data provider Dune Analytics. But it’s not because more Bitcoin has been flowing into the de facto DeFi blockchain—in fact, the number of BTC locked is at its lo...
'Teleport' to Ethereum 2.0 With This New Staked ETH Pool
The upgrade from the existing Ethereum network to the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain has been much anticipated as it promises to reduce network congestion and lower fees. But it came with a big caveat: While Ethereum users had to lock up or “stake” ETH tokens in a smart contract before the network could launch, those tokens can’t be moved until subsequent upgrades of the protocol. A newly launched innovation from Curve Finance, however, aims to make it easier for ETH holders to simultaneously support t...
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