After last week’s plunge of over $1,500, Bitcoin rattled its 2020 positive run. The question remained if the $8,500 critical support level could hold the downfall, and, so far, it has.
The largest cryptocurrency dipped below it to $8,440, but it managed to recover quickly. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at approximately $8,700.
If BTC continues to increase, the first significant resistance level lies at $8,800, followed by $9,000. The latter also serves as a major psychological line.
BTC/USD. Source: TradingView Most of the cryptocurrency market notes small upwards movements today. Ethereum, Litecoin, Tezos, and EOS are all up with around 1%.
Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV are the most significant gainers among the top 10 coins by market cap. The former is up with 2.66% to $322 and the latter with 4.6% $234.
Contrary, Huobi Token records the largest decline in the top 20. HT is down with over 4% and is currently trading at $4.66.
You may also like: Brutal Bitcoin Liquidation Cascade Imminent Below $59K, Warns Analyst Bitcoin Price Crashes Below $60K as Strategy’s MSTR Plunges 10% Bitcoin’s Network Is Booming Even as Prices Remain Below Record Highs Major Crypto Headlines Breaking: Bitfinex Exchange Goes Under Unscheduled Maintenance, Suspects DDoS Attack. The popular cryptocurrency exchange, Bitfinex, went through unscheduled maintenance on Friday. Even though the company suspected a DDoS attack on its network, later, Bitfinex said that all issues had been resolved.
Interestingly, OKEx went through an unscheduled system update on the same day, as well.
Beating the Odds? Insolvent FCoin To Resume Operations And Attempt To Refund Users. FCoin exchange became insolvent in February and was unable to pay its customers an estimated amount of $115m worth of Bitcoin. A few weeks later, however, the firm promised to refund the affected users and to start operating again.
Ripple Partners With European Remittance Company Azimo But Legal Troubles Continue. Ripple partnered up with a European online remittance service company Azimo to serve customers in the Philippines. At the same time, though, the company’s legal issues with Bradley Sostack continue.
Significant Daily Gainers and Losers Bytecoin (23%) BCN skyrockets today with 23% gains against the U.S. dollar to $0.0005. It rises with 21.6% against the largest cryptocurrency, and BCN/BTC currently trades at 6 SAT.
With the most recent price increase, the total market capitalization of Bytecoin is well above $92 million.
AELF (12.32%) Elf is in the green today, as well. It rises to $0.1, after a 12% price jump. Elf trades at 1163 SAT after an 11% increase against Bitcoin.
The company recently published a comprehensive guide on how to utilize its network mechanism securely.
Kyber Network (-12.45%) On the other side of the scale sits KNC’s price. After yesterday’s surge to $0.85, KNC drops to $0.7. It also goes down to 8074 SAT, following a 13.5% drop.
Despite the most recent decrease, Kyber Network still has a total market cap of above $125 million.
As promised, the leading US crypto exchange Coinbase has dramatically increased the number of coins supported on its platform. The company just added Stellar (XLM), a few weeks after the long-rumored debut of XRP.
So which coins will land the coveted Coinbase listing next?
Back in December, Coinbase revealed it’s taking a hard look at 31 additional cryptocurrencies. The platform now supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, Ethereum Classic, Zcash, 0x, Basic Attention Token and USD Coin.
That leaves 28 coins on Coinbase’s list of prospects.
Coinbase Pro, the company’s professional trading platform, already supports a handful of the coins on the list above: Civic, Dai, District0x, Golem, Loom, Decentraland and Zcash.
On September 24, Monolith announced the addition of Kyber Network’s KNC token to its Visa debit card.
Monolith is an Ethereum-based banking alternative for the world of decentralised finance. Users can now exchange KNC and other Ethereum-based tokens to fiat and load them onto their cards. Monolith Visa debit cardholders can also use KNC to purchase goods and services at 45 million locations worldwide that accept Visa as a payment method. TKN, Monolith’s token, is also listed on Kyber’s Ethereum-based decentralised exchange.
To encourage people to try Monolith, the two teams are collaborating on a giveaway. 30 winners will split a total of $900 in KNC with another bonus being added for users with Monolith Wallets.
Mel Gelderman, CEO of Monolith stated, “We admire Kyber’s efforts in creating a leading decentralised exchange. It will be a key feature in Monolith’s non-custodial banking replacement. Having TKN listed on Kyber, and KNC listed on the Monolith Visa Card makes sense due to our shared vision of the benefits of decentralised finance.“
Kyber Network Technology and Programmes
Kyber is an on-chain liquidity protocol that powers instant and secure token exchanges in any decentralised application. From September 9 to October 21, the project and several of its partners are hosting a virtual hackathon. The purpose of this 6-week event is to educate more developers around the world about its liquidity protocol and token swap technology, and how they can be used to create innovative payment flows and DeFi (decentralised or open finance) products. As part of this competition, $42,000 in bounties are up for grabs across multiple development categories.
As of September 2019, Kyber supports more than 70 different tokens, and powers over 70 integrated projects including popular wallets such as MEW, Trust, Enjin, and HTC Exodus smartphone. The project’s protocol is adding integrations with a growing list of dApps, particularly ones focused on decentralised NFT and ecommerce payments, exchanges and trading integrations, and DeFi.
Monolith Continues Expansion
Monolith is pioneering the real world application of DeFi by shipping the world's first non-custodial Ethereum wallet linked with a Visa debit card. The project is working hard to realise its vision of bringing the token economy to the real-world. On this front, Monolith is busy enabling ERC20 tokens to be spent on its platform. In addition to KNC, ETH, and TKN, Monolith’s debit card can now be used to spend Maker (MKR), Dai (DAI), DigixDAO (DGD), and Digix Gold (DGX) tokens. The Monolith wallet now supports a number of popular ERC-20 tokens.
The Monolith App is currently available in the iOS App Store and will soon be available for public release in the Android Play Store. Recently, the project sent invites to the first 120 people who registered for its Android beta testing.
On September 23, the project announced a community-wide vote to determine which tokens will be added next to the Monolith Card. The two tokens with the most votes out of the following four choices will be selected. Candidates include 0x (ZRX), Chainlink (LINK), Pundi X (NPSX), and Augur (REP). The project is working towards eventually making all Ethereum tokens spendable.
KyberSwap today announced today its collaboration with Torus to offer an intuitive one-click wallet creation and management process using social media logins.
User-Friendly Wallet Management Comes to Kyber KyberSwap, a fast and secure non-custodial crypto exchange powered by Kyber Network, has integrated with Torus to allow users to seamlessly create a wallet directly through KyberSwap’s web interface with their Gmail or social media account.
The move comes as the DeFi segment of cryptocurrency continues to expand.
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Kyber is the 13th most significant protocol in the open finance market, with almost $4 million in total value locked at press time, according to DeFi Pulse.
Backed by Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, and Multicoin Capital, Torus is a simple and non-custodial gateway to the decentralized ecosystem of Web 3.0. It provides one-click social media login options such as Google, Facebook, Twitch, Discord, Reddit, and various fiat to crypto on-ramp services (including Wyre, MoonPay, and Ramp Network) in a single interface.
Using Torus does not require any browser extensions, installations or downloads.
KyberSwap Wanted to Remove Complexities Previously, KyberSwap’s services were only accessible to users who already owned an Ethereum wallet.
Integrating with Torus gives new users a better understanding of how Ethereum works. Sunny Jain, Head of Product at Kyber Network, said:
“We wanted a seamless wallet creation solution that most people will be instantly familiar with and one that abstracts all of the complexities and blockchain jargon typically associated with DApps. With these considerations, Torus was a natural choice for us.”
The tie-up could help bring new users into DeFi through a more intuitive interface on Kyber as it gears up for its Katalyst protocol upgrade. A Torus spokesperson said they were, “looking forward to mainstream and new users of DeFi to experience it for themselves.”
KyberSwap is accessible via its website and Android mobile app.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Paul de Havilland. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Vitalik Buterin is one of the most influential people in crypto. He has amassed substantial wealth thanks to his role in creating Ethereum. We calculated his net worth.
Buterin wasn’t rich prior to creating Ethereum. His first major windfall was in 2014. That year he dropped out, at 20 years old, after receiving $100,000 through a Thiel Fellowship. From there his wealth only grew.
The crowdsale for Ethereum began in July of 2014 and raised Bitcoin worth, at the time, $18.3 million. From there, he was able to secure a six-figure salary from the Ethereum Foundation, the non-profit born out of the raise.
However, his main source of wealth is the hundreds of thousands of Ethereum tokens he was able to hold on to from the cryptocurrency’s pre-mine. This gave the foundation and its founders a little under 12 million ETH, which now represents about 11% of the circulating supply.
Though Buterin hasn’t publicly revealed his financial position, his wallet addresses and public statements are enough to get a decent estimate.
Vitalik Buterin’s Cryptocurrency Holdings Looking at his primary wallet addresses, Buterin owns about 352,000 ETH at a current value of $46 million. Between his three main wallets, he also holds ERC-20 tokens worth over $900,000.
These ERC-20s include Augur (REP), Maker (MKR), Kyber Network (KNC), and OmiseGO (OMG).
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However, he also said in February of last year that he held Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Zcash, and Dogecoin worth over “10% the value of my ETH.”
Crypto Briefing calculated his Ethereum holdings on the day of his statement. Though he did not specify the precise investment in each of these coins, we gave each coin an equal allocation of 15% of the value of his ETH, adjusted by historic prices, for simplicity.
Adjusting his Ethereum holdings back to February 2019 levels, his holdings would amount to roughly 2,000 BTC, 58,000 BCH, 140,000 ZEC, and 3.6 million DOGE.
Assuming he held everything, these coins would make up 37% of his portfolio at current prices, or about $35 million.
Since then, the prices for these coins have fluctuated substantially, in line with the massive amounts of volatility in the market. At its peak in early 2018, Vitalik Buterin’s cryptocurrency portfolio was worth well over half a billion dollars.
Today, Vitalik Buterin’s cryptocurrency portfolio amounts to roughly $82 million, composed mostly of Ethereum, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Doge, and Zcash.
What is Vitalik Buterin’s Salary? Outside of his cryptocurrency holdings, Vitalik Buterin has also disclosed that he earns a six-figure salary from the Ethereum Foundation. The last time he commented about his salary he revealed he was making roughly $144,000 per year.
Though this may seem high to some, Buterin claims he was offered an even higher salary and didn’t take it. “Others in the foundation (ie. the ones who actually decided these salary numbers) offered me $185k at one point; I declined,” he said. For the executive of a multi-billion dollar enterprise this salary seems relatively modest.
Vitalik Buterin’s current salary is estimated at somewhere between $140,000 and $250,000.
Cash and Equity Holdings There’s more to the picture. Buterin also has a substantial portion of his wealth in cash. In March of 2019, in a now-deleted tweet, Buterin said that his “fiat holdings are well under $30m,” attributed to $8 million in charitable contributions he disclosed.
Looking at the rest of his finances, Crypto Briefing estimated his fiat holdings at $12 million, bringing his net worth up to $94 million.
But that isn’t all, Buterin also owns “significant corporate shareholdings” in two companies: Clearmatics and Starkware. Clearmatics is a London-based company designing protocols for DeFi while StarkWare is building privacy software using zero-knowledge proofs.
Buterin did not disclose the exact amount invested nor his equity holdings in each of the startups. To date, Clearmatics has raised $13 million and StarkWare has raised $36 million, according to Crunchbase.
Between his cryptocurrency holdings, cash, and equity, it’s possible to calculate the Ethereum co-founder’s wealth. Vitalik Buterin’s net worth is $100 million.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Mitchell Moos. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Top five browser, Opera, has today announced a partnership with Unstoppable Domains, a blockchain-based domain startup. The integration will offer 80 million users access to the decentralized internet via the latest web 3.0 browser.
Opera Becomes the Latest Web 3.0 Browser The latest integration with the Opera browser will allow users to access blockchain-based domains. By typing “.crypto” as one would type “.com,” Opera users will now be able to access decentralized websites.
Decentralized websites are those not hosted on centralized servers like Amazon Web Services. Using services like Amazon’s, news outlets, and businesses hand off control to a third-party. The third-party then has the power to cut off access and effectively end a website.
Unstoppable Domains are, instead, supported by decentralized tools like blockchain technologies. Brad Kam, a co-founder of Unstoppable Domains, said,
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“We believe that tools like Ethereum and IPFS will create a better internet than what exists with DNS and ICANN. It’s just beginning, but this system could replace the old internet entirely.”
The latest partnership with the Opera browser may help accelerate the company’s ambitions. In integrating Unstoppable Domains with a top-five browser, over 80 million users will be exposed to decentralized websites. Kam said, “Our partnership with Opera means that users can now view a .crypto website just as easily as a .com website.”
These websites also behave as cryptocurrency wallets and allow users to make crypto payments.
As a web 3.0 browser, users can now use Opera to connect with MyEtherWallet, Coinomi, Kyber’s Dex, and even Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano’s podcast by adding a “.crypto” in place of a “.com.”
🆕️Thanks to @unstoppableweb , the KyberWidget is now hosted on IPFS, meaning it can be used by anyone, anywhere in the world! Surf the decentralized web by installing the chrome extension https://t.co/Y7PilmeEKS and easily swap between 70+ ERC20 tokens 🔄 at kyber.crypto! #DeFi https://t.co/7lT8yDtpaf
— Kyber Network (@KyberNetwork) March 26, 2020
Unstoppable Domains has been lining up various other partnerships in 2020.
On Mar. 4, the company released a Google Chrome extension to bridge users to Web 3.0. The Tim Draper-backed startup has also made it easier for users to build and host a web domain on either the Ethereum or Zillqa blockchains.
For its part, Opera has long been a crypto proponent. The browser announced an Apple Pay integration earlier this month that lets users buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether directly through the browser.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Liam Kelly. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The combined trading volumes from Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges (DEXes) rose 53% to an all-time high of $668 million in March 2020. This is according to analytics from Dune.
Interest in DEXes on the rise At the time of writing, the total trading volumes from DEXs stood at slightly over $9 million, pushing weekly volumes to $70.7 million.
Combined, this is down 54% if measured as a trailing 7-days growth.
The three most active DEXes are OX, Kyber Network, and Uniswap, drawing over $6 million in USD terms.
This finding is consistent with a parallel finding from DappRadar that confirmed that Ox, Uniswap, and Kyber Network were the most active.
To be specific, OX had over $3.1 million worth of digital assets traded in the last 24 hours. This represents a market share of 33 percent, almost twice that of Kyber Network which stood at 17.7 percent.
DEX Market Share Ox, Uniswap, and Kyber Network are dominant However, the most interesting observation was the consistency of DEX trading. Over the last year, its growth has been linear and positive sloping.
For example, over the last nine months, volumes have almost doubled from $289 million of July 2019 to $668 million by the end of March.
“DEX volumes landed at an all-time high of $668 million for March! Up 53% from last ATH in February. Interestingly, it’s the first time DEX volumes are soaring on a falling ETH price.”
During this time, ETH prices fluctuated widely. After peaking in June 2019, bears took charge and forced a sell-off towards $130.
However, prices recovered in Dec 2019, rallying to around $290 before falling back to lows of $110 in March.
The growth, therefore, is amid a steep decline in ETH prices, a positive development.
Coincidentally, the drop was at the backdrop of drying liquidity in centralized exchanges.
DEX challenges and benefits Although dominant and scalable unlike DEXes, most of which are based in Ethereum and its scalability dependent on the network’s throughput, traders seem to have refrained from placing orders as asset prices took a beating from Mar 12-13.
Nonetheless, DEXes are secure than centralized versions as Binance or Coinbase. Traders have full control of their assets.
The prices of many altcoins dropped significantly post the market crash on 12 March. However, many are still optimistic that the coins will put up a good show through the course of 2020. Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson, for instance, is of the opinion that Cardano will outperform Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and every other blockchain in the industry by the end of 2020.
Cardano
There might be a lot of positive sentiment around Cardano, but one look at the coin’s price chart might suggest otherwise.
Cardano has been trending downwards since 13 February. The coin saw another major drop on 7 March [65% drop], a movement that continued following the market crash on 12 March. However, the coin rose up within 3 days by 64% and it has since, been maintaining the support at $0.02.
There is a symmetrical triangle pattern being formed in the above chart, a development that indicated that the price might break out in either an upward or downward direction. However, the Awesome Oscillator indicator resting above the zero line with green bars confirmed an upward breakout.
The 46th ranked coin on CoinMarketCap had a good start at the beginning of 2020. As seen in the chart above, there was an upward trend seen; however, following 12 March, the price has been on a downward run as it fell by 39% over a period of seven days. Furthermore, the Bollinger Bands appeared to be contracting, a sign that there might be lower volatility levels over the coming days.
Kyber Network’s[KNC] price has been on the rise since the end of December 2019. The network also experienced significant growth in transaction volume, and this might be the pre-effect of the major protocol upgrade scheduled for Q2 of 2020. Looking at the above price v/s volatility chart, it can be seen that the price has been rising upwards since Jan 1, although it experienced a slight glitch post the crash. The volatility levels are also low. Investors seem to be believing in the long-term potential of KNC.
Press time price:$0.434452
Market Cap: $78,163,694
24-hour Trading Volume: $28,299,657
As the price of Bitcoin rose, many of the market’s altcoins followed suit. However, what was interesting about the market’s movement was that most alts were actually outperforming the world’s largest cryptocurrency, at press time, like Kyber Network, a token that recorded 151% in YTD returns.
Zcash [ZEC]
The 27th ranked coin on CoinMarketCap was performing better than most coins on 3 April as it reported 3.39% growth in its value over the past 24 hours. The coin was being traded at $32.56, at press time, and had a market cap of $312.99 million. The 24-hour trading volume of the coin was $420.75 million.
The coin, while it has established an identity of its own as a privacy-centric cryptocurrency, has failed to impress many with its price movements as its value keeps falling on the charts.
However, according to the Chaikin Money Flow Indicator, the coin had entered the buying zone on the charts, a sign of what could be rising prices in the near future.
Bitcoin Gold [BTG]
Bitcoin Gold, with a market cap of around $131.12 million, was ranked 38th on CoinMarketCap’s charts. However, as the price of Bitcoin reacted to the buyers, the price of most altcoins shot up, including BTG’s. The coin was reporting 2.25% gains in a day, with a 24-hour trading volume of $21.55 million, at press time.
According to the Bollinger Bands, the volatility in the market had fallen as the bands converged and bullishness was back in the market, with the moving average sliding under the candlesticks.
Just recently, BTG saw its adoption scale a new level after Cryptwerk enabled users to identify merchants, shops, and services that accept BTG.
Kyber Network [KNC]
Kyber Network had been a popular alt among many investors, especially when the coin was reporting 151.18% in YTD returns. The coin had been marching upwards until it, alongside the rest of the market, collapsed on 12 March. However, the fall wasn’t enough to wipe out its gains. KNC was being traded at $0.4492 with a market cap of $79.61 million, at the time of writing. Its 24-hour trading volume was noted to be $32.96 million.
According to the Relative Strength Index, the coin was slumping towards the overbought zone. However, interest from investors is expected to remain strong as Kyber Network moves towards a protocol upgrade in Q2 of 2020
Trading close to its yearly lows, 2020 has been a conflicting year for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap – Ethereum. Over the years, Ethereum has emerged as a leader in the DeFi space.
In the latest development, when compared to other “high-profile” ERC-20 based projects such as Kyber Network [KNC], ZRX, Reputation [REP] and Maker [MKR], Ethereum was observed to have stood out in terms of network growth over the past three months.
According to the crypto analytics platform, Santiment, the network growth which essentially shows the number of new addresses being created on the project’s respective network each day, is a key indicator of Ethereum’s long-term potential that looks promising.
Santiment further noted,
“Essentially, this chart illustrates user adoption over time, and can be used to identify when the project is gaining – or losing – traction.”
Despite the bearish price action of the crypto after the flash crash, its network growth has remained consistent throughout the past three months. The figures for the number of new addresses even climbed close to 95k in the third week of March, which happens to be a yearly high. This could be due to the intense spot trading by retail investors buying during the drop.
According to the data charted by Etherscan, Ethereum’s daily transaction chart has also been in an overall positive territory. Undeterred by the plummet in the second week of March, figures surged to 864k a few days later, a level unseen since November 2019.
In another development for the Ethereum ecosystem, the total amount of coins held on exchange addresses also soared. According to Glassnode’s latest chart, exchange balances for Ethereum has been on a rise since late 2019.
These figures have risen by over 21% to more than 18,187,000. This value represented approximately 16% of total Ethereum’s circulating supply. Additionally, the last time the figures for the total amount of ETH on exchange surged to this level was in December 2016.
On its price side, the cryptocurrency has been trading at $144.5, at press time, after a surge of 1.17% over the last 24-hours, as it held a market cap of $15.9 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $15 million.
A wrath of class-action lawsuits hit a number of major cryptocurrency firms on Friday with the likes of Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao and Civic’s Vinny Lingham being accused of selling unregistered securities to US investors.
As reported by OffShoreAlert, a total of 11 complaints were filed against of 42 parties across the entire cryptocurrency industry.
Other firms included in the lawsuit aside from Binance include: BitMEX operator HDR Global Trading, Tron, Civic and Kyber Network.
The complaint against Binance states: “Binance and the Issuers wrongfully engaged in millions of transactions—including the solicitation, offer, and sale of securities—without registering the Tokens as securities, and without Binance registering with the SEC as an exchange or broker-dealer.
Just recorded this. Will be released tomorrow morning. CZ articulated a lot of what is happening at Binance, including a glimpse into potential plans for a DAO…make sure to listen tomorrow! https://t.co/4DtOXW7SBt
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) April 4, 2020
“As a result, investors were not informed of the significant risks inherent in these investments, as federal and state securities laws require.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been clamping down on cryptocurrency firms over the past two years, slapping EOS with a $24 million fine over its $4 billion Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in 2018.
It also issued fines to two other ICO’s, Airfox and Paragon, with both companies having to refund investors more than $10 million in late 2018.
For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, read here.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.
Several juggernauts of the crypto-industry were named in a class action lawsuit for the alleged sale of unregistered securities. Those mentioned include Binance, BitMEX, Tron, Block.one, Kyber Network, and KuCoin, among dozens of others.
Crypto’s Biggest Companies Face Class-Action Lawsuits According to OffShoreAlert, 11 class action lawsuits were filed against 42 defendants in the Southern District of New York Court on April 3 for the sale of unregistered securities. The lawsuits have separately named industry giants such as Binance, BitMEX operator HDR Global Trading, Tron, Civic, Block.one, Kyber Network, Status, Bibox, Quantstamp, and KuCoin.
Apart from companies, the lawsuit also named several of their executives. Changpeng Zhao of Binance, Brendan Blumer and Larimer of Block.one (EOS), Vinny Lingham of Civic, and Arthur Hayes of BitMEX, to name a few.
All of the lawsuits were brought by Roche Freedman LLP, a law firm based in New York and Miami. The law firm is famous in the crypto industry for representing the estate of Dave Kleiman in its lawsuit against Craig Wright.
Judgement Day for ICO Issuers? Since 2017, ICO investors have collectively lost hundreds of millions of dollars after their investments lost 80% or more of their value. Under law, U.S. investors are entitled to a certain degree of transparency through financial disclosures mandated by the Securities Exchange Commission.
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During the mania, the crypto entrepreneurs who raised these millions often overlooked the legal implications. Cryptocurrency was an entirely new asset. Many played it fast and loose, and made off with huge sums of money with little accountability. A large number of these companies failed.
But, the handful that succeeded were wildly successful, and these are likely the ones worth suing. For these companies, their success might be catching up with them.
Legality of ICOs in Question The lawsuits were filed on behalf of several individuals, including Chase Williams, Alexander Clifford, Eric Lee, and William Zhang, but also include “all others similarly situated.” That is, other people who invested in these projects.
The plaintiffs have alleged that all of the 11 companies included in the lawsuit violated federal securities laws. These companies unlawfully created and issued securities, circumventing regulations through the use of tokens. Exchanges were also implicated for their role in selling these assets to investors in the United States.
What’s surprising is that it’s not just companies. The executives and directors of these industry juggernauts were also named. However, it’s expected that most of the companies included in the lawsuit will outright dismiss the assertions.
But, dismissing all the claims might be difficult. This case is not without precedent.
A judge in the Southern District of New York recently ruled that the tokens issued by Telegram were securities and should have been registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Commission itself has said many times in the past that most ICOs are assumed to be securities, until proven otherwise. The burden of proof rests on the issuers.
Nevertheless, this lawsuit will put U.S. courts to the test. The 42 defendants named in the case reside in 16 different countries, many of which are lightly regulated. To further complicate matters, some of these companies do not even have bank accounts or established offices, making enforcement a herculean task.
Decentralization is a tenet in the world of Bitcoin. As such, the courts in New York may find it difficult to pin these companies down if they are found culpable.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Priyeshu Garg. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has been on a development spree since the beginning of this year and has continued to push for global dominance. More recently, Binance announced the launch of Bitcoin Options trading further strengthening its hold in the derivatives market. Further, the crypto platform’s Indian expansion also catapulted its dominance in Asia.
Spot volume figures surpassed that of derivatives in March. And the winner among the top-tier exchanges was Binance trading $63.6 billion a surge of 19.2% in March.
However, it was the CoinMarketCap acquisition that shook the crypto world. US-based CMC is one of the oldest and popular crypto data site and it’s not surprising that the acquisition news left the community speculating the consequence of the deal. This not only led to massive discussions and debate but also resulted in Binance receiving the most web traffic amongst all exchanges in Q1 this year.
According to CoinGecko Q1 Report, Binance obtained a total of 66.6 million pageviews, over 4 times larger than Bithumb, Coinbase, or Upbit. Additionally, the platform accounted for over a quarter, i.e.,25%, of the top 20 exchanges web traffic, which happens to be by far the largest percentage. This was followed by the popular derivatives platform, BitMEX with roughly 15.8% of all crypto web traffic of the top 20 exchanges in Q1 2020.
The developments, however, have so far failed to charm the exchange token, BNB. Among the top-7 exchange token listed by CoinGecko, Binance Coin was the only token that flipped towards the negative side. Other exchange tokens such as OKB, Leo, Huobi Token [HT], FTT, all posted double-digit returns in Q1 with the best-performer being the Kyber Network [KNC] which surged all the way to 136%.
The positive price action and the massive returns posted by OKEx’s OKB could be attributed to the token burn earlier this year. The original supply of OKB was 1 billion tokens. However, 700 million of unissued OKB were burned by the OKEx Foundation in February this year following the launch of the OKChain TestNet.
Similar was the case with Huobi’s exchange token HT which generated around $100 million in revenue from its token burn in January 2020.
In the near future, decentralized finance (DeFi) may provide a whole host of financial services and products, which are currently inaccessible to the vast majority in the world’s population. Much as search engines rapidly made the internet indispensable to modern life, smart contracts could be on their way to becoming a cornerstone of modern finance.
DeFi smart contracts currently hold more than $500M in assets. That’s more than double the amount since the start of the year.
Source: DeFi Pulse But how many people will actually use DeFi applications? Very few people understand Bitcoin (BTC), let alone the more complicated digital assets.
Technical and financial complexity excludes the vast majority of people, and that takes us back to square one. As Crypto Briefing reported earlier this month, the preponderance of arbitrage and other sophisticated trading strategies shows that DeFi has mostly been the preserve of professional traders.
Perhaps that’s why a DeFi portal based out in India has managed to attract investment from some of the largest, most reputable names in the space. InstaDApp announced earlier this week that they had raised $2.4M in seed capital from the likes of Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures as well as Loi Luu, from Kyber Network (KNC).
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“DeFi allows anyone to launch a bank,” explained InstaDApp co-founder Sowmay Jain, in a call with Crypto Briefing. It allows innovation, which is currently limited to a handful of tech hubs, to “happen in any corner of the world.”
InstaDApp provides access to a host of interoperable DeFi applications all from the same interface. Based on a smart contract layer, users can make transactions across otherwise separate protocols in a single step. Previously that would have been expensive and time-consuming, involving multiple transactions and hours spent researching differences in data-sets.
The project’s first protocol bridge was between CDP provider Maker and lending platform Compound, allowing users to easily switch debt positions between the two providers. After launching in early July, the value locked into InstaDApp smart contracts has increased ninefold, from $4M to $35M, in a three-month period.
The number of DeFi protocols has exploded in recent months. There are now more than fifty different projects, according to the data site DeFi Pulse. That includes projects offering decentralized financial products, like Maker or Ampleforth, as well as wallet providers and infrastructure projects, like InstaDApp.
The industry is still not established enough to offer services to everyone, says Jain. A lack of fiat onramps restricts DeFi to those who hold cryptocurrencies, although that will change as digital assets begin to integrate with mainstream finance.
As the numbers of users and providers grow, the technical infrastructure underpinning DeFi will become more important. By offering bridges between the different protocols, InstaDApp believes it can make the DeFi space more attractive to users.
Judging by the seed round, that’s what investors think too. While there are still only a handful of dApps, an investment in the plumbing suggests the market is already thinking long-term about the future of DeFi.
It’s hard to judge how successful a sector will become at such an early stage. But when Google and Amazon were obscure startups in the 1990s, they also attracted multi-million dollar investments.
History never repeats itself, but it does rhyme.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Paddy Baker. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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Kyber Network, an on-chain liquidity provider that enables decentralized token swaps, announced today on Twitter that it will be delisting 17 tokens “due to inactivity or token migrations.” Kyber also published a ‘Token Delisting’ article on its blog which explains the factors and processes involved.
We will be delisting the following tokens due to inactivity or token migration:
ADX, BBO, COFI, CNN, DCC, DTH, ELEC, INF, MAS, MOT, OCN, PRO, RCN, SSP, WABI, WINGS, TTC.
They might be listed again with additional liquidity providers.
Learn more: https://t.co/gZzSvQFXuT
— Kyber Network (@KyberNetwork) August 28, 2019
The 17 tokens to be delisted from Kyber Network are:
Kyber’s Reasons For Delisting In its blog post, Kyber Network explained two factors that can cause a delisting. The first being if all of the reserves on Kyber stop supporting a token due to a lack of inventory or other reasons. Therefore, there would be no liquidity to allow token swaps.
The second factor is if a token migrates to another blockchain, and is no longer an ERC20 token.
Kyber stated that it will continue to seek new liquidity providers and that it’s possible for delisted tokens to be listed again.
Kyber Remains One of the Top Ethereum DApps Data from DappRadar shows that Kyber ranks 5th by 7-day volume, with its 7-day volume currently at $1.8 million. Nest, a decentralized digital asset lending platform, currently takes the top spot with a 7-day volume of £31.9 million.
Jon Jordan, the Communications Director at DappRadar, stated that volume is generally the most important metric to use when ranking decentralized finance (DeFi) DApps like Kyber and Nest.
At the start of this year, Blokt also published an article on ‘The Most Popular Ethereum Dapps’ which looked at the number of users per 24 hours, where Kyber also ranked among the top 10.
Kyber Network is More Than a DEX Kyber Network is often thought of as a decentralized exchange (DEX), but it is actually a DeFi platform that enables seamless token swaps. The Kyber liquidity protocol can be utilized by developers to power instant token exchanges within any decentralized application. This includes decentralized wallets, websites, and applications.
Kyber highlights on its website that it can be used with applications such as Coinbase Wallet, ENJIN Wallet, Decentraland, Totle, Uniswap, and many others.
Kyber Swap, on the other hand, is a DEX that is run by the Kyber Network team and utilizes the Kyber Network on-chain liquidity protocol.
Kyber recently retweeted an article from littleboy, a writer at publish0x which clears up these misconceptions:
I just published the article, "Kyber Network is not just a DEX, it is a DeFi platform"https://t.co/XIrLl8lsDU
— littleboy (@littleboy0k) August 25, 2019
KNC Token Is Trading Flat This Year Kyber Network Crystal (KNC) is the native token of Kyber Network. It’s an integral part of Kyber Network and is used by participants to pay network fees, for commissions & referral fees, and facilitates the “smooth operation of the reserves system in Kyber’s liquidity network.”
KNC was sold during the Kyber Network token sale which ended 16 September 2017. The equivalent of $52,000,000 worth of ETH at the time was raised. It can now be bought and sold at many major exchanges including Binance and Huobi Global, and of course using Kyber Network or Kyber Swap.
KNC price performance in 2019 – Source: TradingView.com One KNC token is currently worth $0.1735, which is 7% higher than what it was on the first day of 2019. KNC did briefly hit a high of $0.42 in June of 2019, which was an increase of 160% from the start of the year. While KNC has provided some opportunities for nimble investors to profit from this year, as it stands, its year-to-date gains currently remain relatively flat.
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Despite the fact that the altcoin market managed to significantly push Bitcoin’s dominance to 62.7% this month, this asset class is still far behind. While many alts posted significant gains over the last month, most of them quickly retraced to below their support levels.
Chainlink [LINK]
LINK, the cryptocurrency powering blockchain project Chainlink, attempted to break its 2019 high this month after it significantly rose to breach critical resistances along the way. However, the coin soon suffered a decline of 16.31% after it fell from $4.9 to $4.1 over the past week.
At press time, the coin, which was the best performer in USD markets during 2019, was down by 3.72% over the last 24-hours and was priced at $4.26 as the bulls struggled to retain their previous glory. Additionally, LINK held a market cap of $1.49 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $319.4 million.
Bitcoin Diamond [BCD]
This fork coin of Bitcoin has not had any significant developments over the last couple of months. Despite that, the latest rally managed to push Bitcoin Diamond’s valuation to new highs. This, however, did not last long. The coin fell shortly after exhibiting a decline of 9.8% over the past week.
To top that, BCD was down by 3.18% over the last 24-hours and was priced at $0.077 as its market cap stood at $138.4 million with $8.5 million in trading volume over the last 24-hours across 21 exchanges.
Cosmos [ATOM]
On a positive note, ATOM continued posting gains after slipping close to the key support area and was up by 17.56% over the last week.
Moreover, the coin rose by 3.46% over the last 24-hours and was trading at a price of $4.86. It held a market cap of $926 million and a 24-hour trading volume of $300 million.
Besides, Jae Kwon, Co-founder and CEO of Tendermint, the company behind the development of Cosmos SDK, had previously revealed that he will step down from his role at Cosmos to work on a daughter project. This piece of news may have had an effect on its price.
Kyber Network [KNC]:
Kyber Network token [KNC] was also up by nearly 3% in the last 24-hours as leading crypto-exchange Coinbase announced the launch of KNC in Coinbase’s supported jurisdictions, with the exception of New York State and the United Kingdom. According to the official release, Coinbase users would be able to deposit the token by 24 February.
Following the announcement, KNC climbed to $0.57 and held a market cap of $99.7 million. Additionally, it registered a 24-hours trading volume of $31.58. Interestingly, the coin was up by 65% over the past week.
