The last few days were quite turbulent for Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency market. BTC went to retest the support at $5,800, losing $800 of its dollar value in the process. However, it has since bounced, and it’s currently trading at another important support level at $6,300.
BTC/USD. Source: TradingView This weekend saw $5,850 as the current weekly low, and that’s far from being a coincidence. As Cryptopotato reported, the $5,900 area holds very strong support as it also represents the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level from the massive drop on March 12.
Looking at the bigger picture, Bitcoin would still have to close affirmatively above $7,168 to overcome the slump from the night of March 12. Until this happens, the cryptocurrency is likely to be considered in a bearish trend.
The rest of the market is following in Bitcoin’s footsteps. Throughout the past seven days, most of the large-cap cryptocurrencies are also in the red. ETH is down about 2.8%, EOS is down 2.19%, and so forth. Ripple (XRP) is the recent winner, as it increased by 6.7% throughout the week despite the declining market.
Cryptocurrency Market Overview. Source: Coin360 Major Crypto Headlines Russia’s Legislative Ban On Cryptocurrency Delayed Because Of The Coronavirus. The unexpected outbreak of COVID-19 has an impact on legislative procedures in Russia. According to a government official, the law which would ban cryptocurrencies from being used as a means of payment will be delayed.
Bitcoin HODLers: BTC Daily Transfer Volume Hits 15-Months Low. March has clearly been a devastating month for Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency lost almost $3,000 of its value. Moreover, on-chain transactions on the Bitcoin network have also declined to their 15-months low, according to data from Bitinfocharts.
Analysis: Gold Price Should Be $8,900 (5x Higher) And Here Is Why. The global financial markets were seriously affected by the spread of COIVD-19. This also had an impact on the price of gold, which was also unusually turbulent. According to one model, however, its fair value right now should be around $8,900.
You may also like: Market Meltdown: MemeCore Crashes 76% as MIM Breaks Peg to $0.50 Brutal Bitcoin Liquidation Cascade Imminent Below $59K, Warns Analyst Bitcoin Price Crashes Below $60K as Strategy’s MSTR Plunges 10% Significant Daily Gainers And Losers WAVES (17,06%) WAVES is currently the best performing cryptocurrency in the entire market for the past 24 hours. It’s up about 17% against the USD and 18.3% against Bitcoin. It sits on a total market cap just shy of $99 million with a daily traded volume of about $174 million. It’s the 48th largest cryptocurrency on the market.
ICON (14%) ICON (ICX) is another altcoin that marked serious gains throughout the past day. It’s up 14% against the USD and 15% against BTC. At $0.23 per coin, the cryptocurrency has a total market capitalization of $125.6 million and a daily traded volume of about $52 million. It’s the 38th largest cryptocurrency on the market.
Bytecoin (-14.4%) The past day hasn’t been particularly lucrative for Bytecoin as it becomes the worst-performing cryptocurrency over the last 24 hours. It lost about 14.4% against the USD and 13% against Bitcoin. BCN changes hands at $0.000196 and sits on a market cap of $36 million. Its daily traded volume is about $9,000, which is quite insignificant. BCN is the 85th biggest cryptocurrency on the market.
Bitcoin pioneer Jeff Garzik's production company NextCypher has tapped "Star Trek's" Jonathan Frakes to direct an adaptation of sci-fi novel "Deathlands."
Frakes, who starred as Commander Riker on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," is a veteran director who's helmed TV shows including "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," "Star Trek: Picard," and "Leverage: Redemption."
"It's absolutely amazing," Garzik told Decrypt, adding that he was "incredibly humbled and blessed" to have Frakes join the project.
Based on a series of novels by James Axler and Jack Adrian, "Deathlands" follows a band of survivors traversing a post-apocalyptic world using teleportation technology. "It's post-apocalyptic, Mad Max meets AI meets the monsters from 'Tremors' and everything in between," Garzik said.
The TV show is a "refreshed" adaptation of the novel series, Garzik explained, noting that "the books were a post-Cold War, post-nuclear war scenario," and that the TV show updates the setting to "post-AI driven chaos and all the fun that happens after that."
"I know 'Deathlands' doesn't scream optimism from the title," he said. "But it's about a group of plucky survivors that continue to persevere despite what we throw at them every week. To me, that's optimistic—and I think that inspired Frakes."
Source: Jeff GarzikThe first show into production on NextCypher's slate, "Deathlands" will go before the cameras in Sofia, Bulgaria this spring. Garzik serves as executive producer on the series alongside Thomas P. Vitale, with "Pandora" and "Agent X" producer Mark A. Altman as its showrunner.
A key developer of the Linux operating system and Bitcoin Core project, Garzik founded NextCypher Productions in 2022, aiming to use Web3 tools to produce independent science fiction entertainment.
Garzik, who also co-founded Bloq, Spacechain, and Vesper Finance, explained that the firm plans to leverage Web3 technologies such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to give fans early access to productions.
While stressing that the "details may change," Garzik explained that the production company's playbook includes a run of 1,138 NextCypher multipass NFTs that are "cross-production, not tied to any one IP or one specific production," as well as "production-specific NFT runs."
Holders of the multipass NFTs will be offered a "discount or a tranche or a first bite at the apple" for the "Deathlands" NFTs, which will offer rewards such as gated access to downloadable digital assets, Discord events and competitions. Other ideas on the roadmap include contests to win Zoom chats with the showrunners, contributing to the design of props, costumes and sets, competitions to win those show-used items, and a "very rare trip to Sofia, Bulgaria" to visit the set.
Garzik said that NextCypher isn't currently exploring Web3 financing and distribution models for its shows.
"It's not there yet from a practical basis for NextCypher specifically, to the point where we would dedicate an IP to a Web3 streaming platform." He added that the production company is taking a "hybrid approach," involving traditional financing and distribution models for known properties, while "weaving in" Web3's "proof of fan base" element.
"Hopefully the flywheel starts moving," he said. "We gain some momentum, we prove that we can actually produce, and then more of the Web3 funding doors open."
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
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The ICON Foundation has marked an important milestone in the advancement of decentralized finance when it announced about the $50,000 grant from the Stellar Community Fund. The grant is expected to support the integration of Balanced, one of the ICON’s popular cross-chain decentralized exchange and stablecoin platform, with the Stellar blockchain. The integrated connection between the two blockchain networks is expected to create more synergies in the global DeFi ecosystem.
ICON’s Balanced Platform Enhances Global DeFi Efficiency Balanced is an established innovator in its cross-chain DeFi solutions, making it easy for participants to interact with native cross-chain DeFi primitives. From now on, the integration seeks to create a more interconnected and efficient global DeFi ecosystem.
At a high level, Balanced is a cross-chain DEX and CDP-style stablecoin platform where users can attach their native wallets, lock collateral in native assets, mint Balanced-native USD, and swap among various secure decentralized blockchains. However, using a significant percentage of the ICON network’s monthly ICX emissions to augment deep Network Owned Liquidity within cross-chain liquidity pools sets the platform apart in terms of delivering capital-efficient on-chain data-based solutions.
Therefore, ICON plans to first put the Balanced and ICON GMP smart contracts into Soroban, Stellar’s decentralized smart contracting environment, as part of the grant alternative strategy. Here, ICON can realize the future integration direction on a small scale. The full integration of Balanced with Stellar will increase the experience for Balanced’s current users and introduce Balanced’s advanced trading and stablecoin services to the Stellar ecosystem.
Integrating Balanced with Stellar will provide users with advanced trading and stablecoin use within the Stellar ecosystem. It will grant opportunities for taking native stablecoin loans to lend simply by depositing XLM, increase liquidity, and make cross-chain interaction easier. Additionally, it will provide more smooth DeFi experiences for both Stellar and Balanced users.
Moreover, this partnership between the ICON Foundation and the Stellar Community Fund is just the first act of what we all can accomplish together. Therefore, the grant will be an important sign of the sophisticated infrastructure that the ICON Foundation aims to create in terms of DeFi interoperability.
AUTHOR
Umair Younas is a cryptocurrency-related content writer linked with this work since 2019. Here, at Blockchainreporter, he serves as a news and article writer. He is a crypto, blockchain, NFTs, DeFi, and FinTech enthusiast. He has strong command over writing authentic reviews about brokers and exchanges and he has collaborated with our education team to write educational content as well. He has a dream to raise awareness among people about digital currencies. His works are well-researched and brimmed with information hence they provide fresh insights. Stay tuned to his posts if you want to stay up-to-date with the crypto-verse.
The halving has just commenced, and plenty of bargains abound. Cardano and ICON are among the altcoins being mentioned as potential candidates for a recovery in 2025, while the smart money is betting on low-cap gems with major moon potential in presale opportunities like DeeStream. DeeStream is widely expected to become one of the top performers out of newly launched cryptos in 2024 thanks to its unique decentralized live streaming platform that seeks to provide THE Web3 alternative to YouTube. Learn why DeeStream could be in line for parabolic profits in 2024, regardless of whether Bitcoin and Ethereum perform well.
Will ICON ever make a comeback?ICON is the native token of the Layer-1 ICX blockchain, founded at the height of the 2017 bull market. ICX is an interoperability-focused project featuring the ICON Cross-Chain Framework that enables cross-chain development. ICON last hit all-time highs in January 2018, when it peaked at $13.16 per ICON token. Since then, however, ICON token prices have plummeted to 98.2% below their previous all-time highs, changing hands at $0.24 as of press time. However, ICON holders and prospective investors looking for a retest of its all-time highs in 2024 and 2025 will be better off investing in low-cap gems without a chance to undergo a proper bull market yet—including DeeStream.
Cardano continues to lag behind other altcoinsCardano was a big-time performer in the previous bull cycle after breaching all-time highs of $3.09 back in September 2021. However, since then, Cardano has been among the worst performers of any of the top-20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. As of press time, Cardano was trading at $0.49, far below its September 2021 all-time highs. Cardano, in fact, isn’t any closer to hitting $1 ever since scaling heights of $0.77 in March.
DeeStream seeks to make waves as the “YouTube of Web3”DeeStream is among the hottest new presale investment opportunities of 2024, with the projects building the premier Web3 alternative to streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Kick, and TikTok. As of stage 2 of its presale, DeeStream is putting up its DST token for sale at just $0.06, indicating what could be a perfect entry opportunity into a project with 100x potential. DeeStream has the talent, team, and tech to establish itself as the “YouTube of Web3” with its robust, full-featured live video streaming and distribution platform paired with blockchain technology and principles.
DeeStream will enable content creators to publish and distribute premium, studio-quality content without the exploitative and censorious practices associated with traditional platforms. Using its native token DST, both content creators and audiences will have access to diverse monetization and engagement opportunities. Content creators could earn more using the myriad of Web3-based earning opportunities, while early adopters will be entitled to passive income from a revenue share on platform fees. With industry insiders forecasting a potential 20x to 100x increase for DeeStream, there’s no better time to join the launch than right now.
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Disclaimer: This article is a press release. COINTURK NEWS is not responsible for any damage or loss related to any product or service mentioned in this article. COINTURK NEWS recommends that readers carefully research the company mentioned in the article.
The highly anticipated Southeast Asia Blockchain Week, an event aimed at "Bridging Web3 Innovations in Southeast Asia," scheduled to take place from March 30th to April 5th, 2025, has been cancelled.
Organizers announced the cancellation on Monday, citing the recent devastating earthquake in the Myanmar-Thailand region as the reason for the decision.
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— Southeast Asia Blockchain Week (@SEABWofficial) March 29, 2025 "As a Web3 conference representing the Southeast Asian region, we stand in solidarity with those affected and extend our deepest condolences. Out of respect for the victims and ongoing concerns around safety due to potential aftershocks, we believe this is the most responsible course of action," organizers said in a statement posted on the event's website and Twitter page.
The cancellation comes in the wake of a powerful Mw 7.7 earthquake that struck the Sagaing Region of Myanmar on March 28, 2025, at 12:50:54 MMT (06:20:54 UTC). The earthquake's epicenter was located near Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city.
The earthquake is considered the most powerful to hit Myanmar since 1912 and the second deadliest in the country's modern history, only exceeded by upper estimates of the 1930 Bago earthquake. The seismic event caused widespread damage in Myanmar and significant damage in neighboring Thailand, with hundreds of homes also damaged in Yunnan, China.
Tragically, the earthquake has resulted in a significant loss of life, with reports indicating more than 2,900 deaths in Myanmar and 18 in Thailand. Over 3,400 individuals have been reported injured, and hundreds remain missing.
The skyscraper collapsed in Bangkok, Thailand is the Budget Bureau building constructed by CR10g, a subsidiary of state owned China Railway Engineering Corporation. At least 3 dead and 81 people remain trapped at scene. pic.twitter.com/OMaMEPsFRi
— The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动 (@TGTM_Official) March 28, 2025 In Bangkok, Thailand, a collapsed construction site highlighted the city's vulnerability to seismic waves due to its shallow geology, increasing its susceptibility to earthquake-related impacts. Authorities in both Myanmar and Thailand have declared a state of emergency, and concerns remain that the death toll may rise further. The ongoing civil war in Myanmar has further complicated disaster relief efforts and information dissemination.
Conference organizers have assured attendees that full refunds will be issued within 1-2 weeks. They also plan to organize a community meetup for those who have already arrived in Bangkok for the event.
[PRESS RELEASE – Amsterdam, Netherlands, February 18th, 2026]
ICON Amsterdam today announced that it closed 2025 with its strongest financial performance to date, marking a milestone year following a period of internal restructuring and operational realignment. The company also confirmed that it is preparing to explore expansion into the United States in 2026.
According to the company, 2025 revenue reached record levels compared to prior years. Leadership attributes the performance to refined product focus, tighter inventory management, improved departmental accountability, and strengthened coordination between marketing, operations, and product teams.
The milestone follows a period earlier in the decade marked by rapid scaling, rising costs, and internal coordination challenges that affected cash flow and alignment. In response, the company initiated a structured operational review instead of continuing accelerated expansion.
As part of this process, ICON updated its performance tracking systems, clarified departmental responsibilities, and introduced standardized operating procedures to support more consistent execution. According to leadership, the company adjusted its growth strategy to prioritize operational stability and the development of repeatable processes over rapid expansion.
“Growth must be supported by structure,” said Samuel Onuha, Founder of ICON Amsterdam. “The focus over the past two years has been on strengthening the fundamentals of the business.”
In addition to reporting record performance for 2025, ICON confirmed it is evaluating phased entry into the U.S. market in 2026. The company indicated that any expansion would be incremental and aligned with existing operational capacity.
ICON is also preparing for the opening of its first physical retail presence in Amsterdam. While details remain under review, the initiative would represent a transition from a primarily direct-to-consumer model toward a blended retail approach.
Leadership emphasised that the company intends to maintain a measured growth strategy moving forward, prioritising operational discipline and financial sustainability.
Further updates regarding retail development and international expansion are expected to be shared in 2026.
About ICON Amsterdam
Founded in 2018, ICON Amsterdam is a Netherlands-based direct-to-consumer menswear company focused on modern tailoring and stretch-engineered apparel. The company operates primarily online and serves customers across Europe and international markets. ICON emphasises structured operations, product consistency, and disciplined growth strategy.
DA Davidson Raises Micron’s Price Target to $2,000, Retains Buy Rating
U.S. investment bank DA Davidson released a research note stating that Micron Technology has entered a new phase with one of the best performance visibility in the semiconductor industry, a stark contrast to its past standing in the sector. Driven by another quarter of results that handily exceeded expectations and positive forward guidance, Micron’s stock price surged sharply. These signals indicate that the current memory chip boom cycle is far from over. While the company is ramping up capacity investments (with capital expenditure (CAPEX) projected to hit $10 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, which will bring additional supply), management expects the memory market to remain tight on supply and demand at least through 2027. Against this backdrop, DA Davidson reiterated its "Buy" rating on Micron and raised its price target from $1,500 to $2,000, equivalent to a 20x price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio based on the company’s 2026 calendar year expected earnings per share (EPS).
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Morgan Stanley raises Micron's price target to $1,200, maintains 'Overweight' rating.
Morgan Stanley released a report raising Micron Technology (MU.O)’s price target from $1,050 to $1,200, while maintaining an "Overweight" rating. The investment bank lifted its fiscal 2027 earnings per share (EPS) forecast for the chipmaker by roughly 40% to $168, and upgraded its free cash flow (FCF) projection from $104 billion to $140 billion. Aligning with Micron’s management, the bank holds that AI will push DRAM demand to consistently outpace supply significantly after 2027. Micron’s last fiscal quarter results matched this trend, with both its quarterly performance and outlook showing notable upside potential.
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US officials: Israel has withdrawn troops from parts of the buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
A U.S. State Department official said Israel has withdrawn from parts of the buffer zone in southern Lebanon, describing the move as a "goodwill gesture" toward the Lebanese government.
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CBRS trades below IPO price post-earnings: Erases all gains six weeks after listing, two smart money firms net $5.8 million from first-day IPO shorts.
According to Hyperinsight monitoring, Cerebras (CBRS), the AI chip firm previously dubbed "Nvidia’s strongest challenger", saw its stock price fall in stages after reporting its first quarterly results since going public, as negative guidance overshadowed better-than-expected performance. The stock has dropped roughly 22% since the earnings release and officially broke below its IPO price today. On-chain whales are overall bearish. CBRS trades at $184 on the Hyperliquid platform, down 7.7% in 24 hours. Large-scale short positions (million-dollar level) total around $11.62 million, 2.39 times the long positions ($4.87 million). Two major short positions were placed precisely at high levels as early as the IPO day or even before the IPO: - Whale 0xe0ff: Shorted at $284.51 on May 14 with a 3x leveraged position of $6.13 million, generating an unrealized profit of $3.24 million (+104%); - Whale 0x9996: Shorted at $275.92 on May 11 with a 5x leveraged position of $5.48 million, generating an unrealized profit of $2.64 million (+162%). It is learned that both addresses currently hold short positions in both CBRS and SPCX, and have recorded substantial unrealized profits, preferring to place short positions at high levels before or on the day of major stock listings. With the realization of negative earnings news in this round, the combined unrealized profit of the two positions is around $5.88 million. Currently, the average entry price of CBRS short whales is around $275, and the current price is over 30% lower than that. The nearest short liquidation line is at $200.13, about 7% away from the current price.
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Multiple high-performing domestic public mutual fund products have tightened their purchase restrictions.
E Fund Management announced in its latest filing that the E Fund Information Industry Select Fund, managed by Zheng Xi, has cut its purchase limit to 10,000 yuan. The same purchase limit reduction to 10,000 yuan applies to another fund under his management, E Fund Information Industry Fund, while E Fund Global Growth Select Hybrid Fund (QDII) has lowered its purchase limit to 10 yuan. In addition, Guolianan Preferred Industry Fund, Harvest Tech Innovation Fund, and Principal Performance-Driven Fund have also announced purchase limits or adjustments to their limits recently. Jin Zicai, a fund manager closely watched by the market, imposed additional purchase limits on multiple public offering funds under his management, with the four funds involved cutting their purchase limits to 500 yuan starting June 23. Purchase limits on high-performing funds likely stem from multiple considerations: they can avoid return dilution caused by short-term concentrated subscriptions, and proactive limits during overheated market conditions also send risk warning signals to the market. As the first half of the year draws to a close, such moves have become increasingly frequent. Overall, Wind data shows that since June alone, 19 funds with year-to-date net asset value returns exceeding 90% have suspended large subscriptions or adjusted their purchase caps. (Source: Cailian Press)
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The US stock market's optical communication sector rises across the board in pre-market trading, with Corning up 9.28%.
According to Bitget market data, the U.S. stock market's optical communication sector saw broad pre-market gains, with MRVL rising 4.99%, LITE up 3.24%, Nokia up 3.11%, Corning up 9.28%, and AXTI up 6.69%.
PANews reported on May 25th that the public blockchain project ICON Network will officially shut down and permanently cease operations on December 31, 2026, retaining only read-only historical query functionality. The deadline for migrating tokens from ICX to SODA is the same day; transactions after this date will no longer be possible. From September 30, 2026, the migration channel will be adjusted to only support one-way exchanges from ICX to SODA. The official statement indicates that this marks the project's full transition to the cross-chain execution and liquidity infrastructure SODAX. Currently, it has connected to 18 networks and migrated all of ICON's protocol-owned liquidity to SODAX for cross-chain exchanges, lending, and other businesses. Users holding ICX must complete the migration through SODA Exchange before the deadline; centralized exchanges will gradually support automatic conversion in the future.
The ICON Network will be permanently shut down on December 31, 2026, with ICX holders given until that date to migrate at a 1:1 ratio into SODA on SODAX, after which the legacy chain will exist only as a read only archive.
Summary
ICON will cease operations and go offline on December 31, 2026, after an economic shutdown phase The final deadline to swap ICX for SODA is December 31, 2026, with one way migration from September 30 Liquidity and incentives have already moved to SODAX, and Kraken has added SODA to its listing roadmap In a series of blog posts, the ICON Foundation outlined a phased wind down of the ICON Layer 1 that ends with a full shutdown of the network at the close of 2026 and a transition of the ecosystem to the SODAX stack, where SODA becomes the primary token.
An earlier update confirmed that as of March 26, 2026, the ICON Network has entered “economic shutdown,” with all ICX emissions and staking rewards halted and the chain kept alive only to support migration to SODA on the Sonic network.
The latest roadmap sets December 31, 2026 as the final date: after that point, the ICON blockchain will be switched to a read only archive for historical transaction queries, and no further ICX to SODA conversions will be possible.
Until then, ICX holders can migrate via the official dashboard at sodax.com/migrate at a fixed 1:1 ratio, with the Foundation stressing in February and March posts that “the ICON blockchain will remain live” specifically so users retain full access to their balances during the wind down.
However, starting September 30, 2026, the migration path will become one way: the Foundation says that two way swaps between ICX and SODA will be disabled, and only ICX to SODA conversions will be supported as value is consolidated into the new token with a fixed max supply of 1.5 billion.
Economically, everything has already shifted.
Why is ICON shutting down and what is the SODAX migration plan? Binance Square posts and the Foundation’s own schedule note that SODAX Stake launched on March 16, 2026 and SODAX Pool on March 31, with protocol fee backed rewards beginning for SODAX Pool on April 2 and for SODAX Stake on April 8, creating strong incentives for ICX holders to migrate and stake.
A separate TradingView alert and SODAX’s X account confirm that centralized exchange support is also lining up: Kraken has placed SODAX on its listing roadmap, and exchanges such as Kraken and Coinone have announced they will support ICX to SODA migration for custodial balances, reducing friction for users who keep assets off chain.
What happens to ICON users and liquidity after the shutdown date? Once the ICON Network is turned off at year end 2026, it will exist only as a static ledger.
The Foundation says a read only archive will be made available so that users, auditors and explorers can still query historical transactions, but live block production and state changes will stop, and any ICX left un migrated will be effectively stranded on an inert chain.
That mirrors other recent shutdowns in the sector, such as Zero Network and Bit.com, which have set hard withdrawal or migration cutoffs and warned users that assets left behind could become permanently unrecoverable once infrastructure is decommissioned.
In ICON’s case, the team emphasizes that it has deliberately staged the process over many months: economic activity and rewards stopped in March, two way migration continues in the interim, one way ICX to SODA swaps begin at the end of September, and the absolute final migration deadline is December 31.
By that point, the intention is that all meaningful liquidity, DeFi activity and governance has moved to the SODAX protocol, where SODA and its derivative xSODA govern a fee funded staking and pooling model on Sonic rather than the inflationary, emission driven economics that powered the original ICON L1.
For ICX holders, the message from both the Foundation and ecosystem validators is blunt: the network’s economic lifecycle is over, rewards are gone, and the only rational path forward is to migrate to SODA, stake or pool in the new environment, and stop treating ICON as an active settlement layer well before the December 31, 2026 shutdown switch is flipped.
An international education initiative, designed to train the next generation of blockchain developers, has announced that TRON and the Stellar Development Foundation are among the inaugural thirteen companies who will work collectively to provide skills and expertise for the benefit of the industry.
The Blockchain Education Alliance, which is headed-up by MouseBelt, a combined VC fund and design studio, unveiled its first members: and they include a number of well-known names from the space.
As well as TRON (TRX) and Stellar (XLM), other Alliance cryptocurrency companies include Hedera (HBAR), ICON (ICX), Wanchain (WAN), and Ontology (ONT). There are also commercial and development companies like Emurgo and ETC Lab. Other members include Harmony One, Nervos, Orbs, LTO Network, and NEM (XEM).
Education, Education, Education MouseBelt is an accelerator for brand-new startups – as well as blockchain initiatives for existing companies – that has a team of fifty engineers to build products for companies all around the world.
Ashlie Meredith, Director of MouseBelt University, told Crypto Briefing that the idea of an Education Alliance came about after realizing there was “…probably a lot of really good projects going on at universities because that’s where a lot of innovation happens”.
After talking to Presidents of Blockchain Societies in the US and Canada, MouseBelt found they were all “…saying the same thing”. Frustrated with the lack of educational resources available for blockchain development, students were mostly teaching themselves blockchain because the “slow and bureaucratic” universities took too long to develop accredited courses.
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MouseBelt began by offering sponsorship agreements for meetups at thirteen schools across North America, as well as some support for hackathons and conferences at the beginning of the last academic year.
“We started the university programme to sponsor their events and get a conversation going,” explained Meredith. But that has now extended into an alliance of sixty-eight schools in more than fourteen countries, with universities in Europe, Singapore and Korea offering courses in all aspects of the industry. Meredith herself runs a course in event management and engagement with other crypto-users.
MouseBelt is now talking to universities, getting them on-board with official courses. They have already signed official partnerships with engineering departments at three universities and are currently trying to establish a base in Latin America too.
With clear engagement from universities, the Education Alliance is intended to extend the availability and depth of courses. Meredith said courses on Solidity were frequently in demand and the aim is for companies actively involved in the space to connect with students, guiding them on the technology and even provide office hours or online seminars.
What do the Alliance members get out of it? Nikhil Saraf, Principal Engineer at SDF, said they were already working on devoting resources to the Education Alliance, as it complemented their existing initiatives to encourage developers into learning blockchain skills.
“At the end of the day we’re building a community”, he said, “…and with this alliance we can get more students involved and teach them best practices on blockchain and how to develop on Stellar.”
Although SDF has not clearly articulated what its role in the Alliance will be, they did not see its purpose as recruiting programmers. Saraf mentioned that they were interested in the positive benefits it would bring to the whole space.
That said, he hoped it would make Stellar relevant to the next generation of blockchain developers; and they would be open to beginning conversations with promising projects.
“We want them to do their thing with that knowledge, hopefully on Stellar,” he added.
Kicking off this week, the new Education Alliance just had their first virtual meetup – an event that members are expected to attend to help coordinate the direction of education.
Although every company will be looking to take something slightly different from the Alliance, Meredith said that they wanted members who cared about “…the ethos of what blockchain is trying to do”, whether that’s through data privacy or financial sovereignty.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Paddy Baker. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
With many altcoins struggling gruesomely and Bitcoin rapidly usurping almost 70% of the total crypto market cap, some crypto analysts have predicted that there will not be another altcoin season until 2020.
Today’s market, however, may be an indication that it is time for a new altcoin season.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Bitcoin, is recording losses of around 1 to 2% on the day with its price falling to below $10,000. Typically, a declining BTC price also means significant losses for other cryptocurrencies. However, today seems to be an exception, as many altcoin markets are moving in the opposite direction, posting 1 to 2-digit gains.
Bullish Altcoins Although major coins like Ether, XRP and LTC are being affected by the Bitcoin decline, let’s look at some of the other alternative cryptocurrencies that are performing remarkably well today.
Leading the pack is Wanchain (WAN) with a massive 72% gain against the dollar and a 75% gain against BTC on the day. At the time of writing, the coin was trading at $0.4696, with a 24-hour volume and market cap of $63,674,780 and $49,858,746, respectively.
WAN is the native currency of the Wanchain blockchain, an infrastructure that aims to connect the decentralized financial worlds with features such as cross-chain interoperability, privacy, and smart contract functionality.
Wanchain has made a lot of progress since the start of this year, and the project launched its mainnet yesterday ahead of the official activation of its Proof of Stake consensus protocol on September 3rd.
You may also like: Binance Makes a New Push to Secure EU Approval Pushing Back at Reuters: Inside Binance’s Fight for Its European Future Analyst Identifies 3 Altcoin Sectors Positioned to Survive Market Shakeout Factom (FCT), ranked #96 on CoinMarketCap, saw a 17.5% increase against the dollar and a 19.03% rise against Bitcoin. Its price is now above $4.18 for the first time in the last seven days.
Following the same bullish pattern are Zilliqa (ZIL), Siacoin (SC), ICON (ICX), Ardor (ARDR), 0x (ZRX), and Ravencoin (RVN) and others, with gains of between 7 to 17% in today’s trading session.
Although Bitcoin still comprises 68.4% of the total market cap, do these altcoins’ fresh bull runs give a glimpse of the start of a new altcoin season?
HAVAH users can now enjoy native cross-chain asset swaps and borrowing against tokens on Balanced, thanks to ICON’s Cross-Chain Framework. This development marks a significant step in HAVAH’s integration with other blockchains, expanding the horizons for seamless value transfer across integrated chains.
According to a report from the firm, on July 22, 2024, Balanced officially launched on HAVAH, providing new options for native cross-chain swaps and stablecoin loans. HAVAH, the first blockchain built on ICON SDK to integrate with Balanced, joins several blockchains across the EVM and IBC ecosystems. This integration enables smooth value movement from the HAVAH blockchain, enhancing the DeFi experience for its users.
Seed Liquidity and User Experience To ensure a positive user experience, the ICON Foundation has provided seed liquidity for the new HVH/sICX pair on Balanced. This support is crucial for maintaining the platform’s cross-chain functionality. HAVAH users can swap native assets between integrated chains, transfer HVH to the ICON chain for liquidity, or borrow bnUSD against their assets.
Aligned with ICON’s vision of promoting cross-chain development, Balanced plans to extend its services to additional blockchains as they become available through ICON GMP. Users can expect updates on these new features as they roll out, further enhancing the cross-chain capabilities of the HAVAH and Balanced integration.
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The EEA Mainnet Working Group, an initiative backed by both the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and the Ethereum Foundation to bring enterprises to the Ethereum mainnet, has formed a new task force that includes decentralized oracle project Chainlink as a key member.
That task force, dubbed EMINENT for “Ethereum Mainnet Integration for Enterprises,” will work to create reliable standards for businesses that want to use “corporate systems of record” like the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in conjunction with Ethereum.
We're excited to work w/ @UnibrightIO, @AnyblockTools, & other EEA members on EMINENT (Ethereum Mainnet Integration for Enterprises). Its focus is on the standards & specs for integrating Ethereum Mainnet with ERP, CRM, & other corporate systems of record. https://t.co/BO802xNWGE
— Chainlink (@chainlink) January 27, 2020
Chainlink has been welcomed to the EMINENT initiative as its resident oracle authority.
Chainlink will also be joined on the task force by analytics firm Anyblock Analytics and Unibright, a company that helps enterprises integrate with blockchain technology.
What Comes Next? The task force will spend up to two years on their work, first in researching the recording dynamics at hand and thereafter in establishing guidelines and creating open-source reference implementations that businesses can follow.
As the EEA Mainnet Working Group explained further in its announcement of the task force this week:
“Initially, the task schedule will focus on defining work packages, then expand into building best practice solutions within proof-of-concept implementations, and finally provide open-source available documentation and specification basis (like ERC standards) for further development by the public Ethereum community and EEA members.”
Chainlink a Natural Fit to Help John Wolpert, the vice-chair of the EEA Mainnet Working Group, noted on the news that Chainlink was uniquely suited to productively contribute to the new task force:
“To make this work, we need experts laying down the standards for common-sense integration with enterprise systems of record. Unibright has the experience connecting blockchain to ERP. Chainlink has the experience keeping different databases, run by different companies, in a state of consistency. That’s a promising combination.”
Sergey Nazarov, the co-founder and de facto face of Chainlink, commented that he and his team are looking forward to helping the EMINENT initiative tackle the challenges in front of it head on, saying:
“We’re excited to work closely with the EMINENT Task Force to continually push the boundaries of what’s possible in public blockchain environments. Developing mainnet integration standards that take into account the specific challenges of enterprises is key to the EMINENT Task Force being able to leverage the unique advantages of public blockchains, while seamlessly and securely incorporating their current systems of record and key data sources.”
Chainlink Presses Ahead on Integrations No stranger to locking down integrations with other projects, Chainlink’s backers have secured another three melds with their decentralized oracle middleware in just the last week alone.
The first of those newly announced integrations was with BetProtocol, a decentralized gaming platform. Among other things, the protocol will look to leverage Chainlink so users can settle bets with off-chain data.
The second fresh link up comes courtesy of ICON, the South Korean blockchain project associated with the ICX cryptocurrency. “The initial application is securing the ICX/USD price feed so ICON Dapps can build financial products based on the USD equivalent of ICX,” the Chainlink team explained.
Thirdly, Chainlink also just revealed that its tech would be used by the Alkemi open finance prime brokerage platform to “to enforce price thresholds (for unlocking assets pre-expiry date) set by on-chain liquidity providers.”
In other words, it’s been a typical week for the Chainlink community, which is now used to quickly racking up such integrations after locking down dozens last year.
If the project can keep up a similarly rapid and productive pace in 2020, then it’s likely to remain the most interesting oracle effort to watch in the months ahead.
William M. Peaster
William M. Peaster is a professional writer and editor who specializes in the Ethereum, Dai, and Bitcoin beats in the cryptoeconomy. He's appeared in Blockonomi, Binance Academy, Bitsonline, and more. He enjoys tracking smart contracts, DAOs, dApps, and the Lightning Network. He's learning Solidity, too! Contact him on Telegram at @wmpeaster
