The IOTA Foundation has published its report for the second quarter of 2026, reporting significant progress in the expansion of TWIN.
The main focus was on the activation of the Starfish consensus protocol, trade projects in Africa and the United Kingdom, and a stronger organizational alignment toward institutional use cases.
The IOTA Foundation is a non-profit organization that developed IOTA, a distributed ledger network. It was originally built for machine-to-machine transactions and IoT data integrity, with its native token IOTA trading on major crypto exchanges.
IOTA focuses on TWINAccording to the foundation, its development, research, design, and product teams have been brought closer together. As recently announced by co-founder Dominik Schiener, the IOTA Foundation intends to focus more strongly on TWIN following an organizational restructuring and layoffs, rather than continuing to pursue several separate initiatives. The quarterly report states,
“The Foundation is fully focused on supporting and scaling TWIN...By moving past isolated, general-purpose blockchain lines, we’re concentrating our talent on building a resilient, compliant, and production-grade network for the global economy."
The most important technical milestone was the activation of the Starfish consensus protocol on April 23. The upgrade is designed to improve the stability of the IOTA mainnet under real-world network conditions and ensure continuous operation even with limited connectivity.
At the same time, the team completed Protocol Version 29. This version includes additional security mechanisms for smart contracts. The core development of Starfish-Speed was also completed, with the aim of reducing latency.
IOTA also reported progress on the P-COOL transaction flow. The approach is intended to deliver higher performance while requiring roughly half the resources previously needed. The report states:
“Q2 was a success in making IOTA more capable for the people building on it and cheaper for the people running it...Core storage optimizations have successfully reduced the active node data footprint by approximately one-third in testing environments, significantly lowering long-term infrastructure and maintenance costs for operators."
TWIN expands in Africa and the United KingdomAt the application level, the Foundation primarily focused on trade infrastructure. Together with TradeMark Africa, the team worked on a business and fee model for deployment in Kenya.
Implementation of the ADAPT initiative also began in the second quarter. Developed together with the AfCFTA Secretariat, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and the World Economic Forum, the project aims to enable digital identities, data exchange, and digital payments initially in Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco.
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“Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco have been selected as the first countries to implement ADAPT - the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade initiative," the company wrote.
For the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP), version 1.3.9 achieved a 95% success rate across all active test profiles, according to the report. Document channels between authorities in Kenya were also successfully tested from node to node.
In the United Kingdom, TWIN secured five key supporters for a letter of intent regarding the International Supply Network. Further integrations with port authorities, freight forwarders, and trade organizations are currently being prepared.
The TWIN Foundation recently announced that more than 30 countries are expected to go live by 2030. In Argentina, IOTA technology has also been implemented in a government project for transplant processes.
Trending on TheStreet RoundtableXRP eys bigger move as Binance open interest hits 2026 highMark Cuban has a blunt response to Coinbase CEORipple wants AI agents to pay with XRP and RLUSDNpm downloads point to growing developer activity around TWINBeyond the official country projects, there are also signs that TWIN is attracting more attention. On the Node Package Manager (npm) package platform, key components of the framework have recently been downloaded significantly more often.
The core package currently reaches 18,222 installations within seven days. The IOTA-specific module, which connects the framework to IOTA technology, records 3,711 weekly installations.
The statistics show the latest npm download figures for the IOTA package used for TWIN integration.
These figures are not direct proof of active users or companies operating in production. However, they show how often TWIN’s technical components are being installed in development, testing, or build environments.
For a specialized framework in the field of digital trade infrastructure, the current level is nevertheless notable. It suggests that TWIN is not only being expanded strategically, but is also gaining increasing attention in technical practice.
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TLDR: TWIN enables verified trade data to reach UK authorities up to 20 hours earlier than current methods. Four UK trade officials are embedded at IOTA Foundation for 12-month collaboration. Full digital trade adoption could boost UK GDP by 1.3% and save £224B in efficiency gains. IOTA’s live trade transactions are anchored on the mainnet as of January 2026. IOTA is bringing its digital trade infrastructure from Africa to the UK with a £3.5M seed capital boost. The initiative focuses on moving verified trade data ahead of goods reaching the border.
Delays caused by manual interventions and paperwork could be reduced substantially. The framework integrates with existing systems to improve real-time supply chain transparency.
IOTA’s TWIN Framework and UK Border Testbed IOTA’s Trade Worldwide Information Network, or TWIN, is central to the UK expansion. It allows customs authorities, freight forwarders, and supply chain participants to share verified data.
TWIN offers open-source APIs for seamless integration with current trade platforms. The project follows successful trials in Africa, demonstrating scalability across multiple jurisdictions.
Partnerships include Teesside University and backing from UK Freeport seed capital. The initiative is a real-world digital trade testbed, not a sandbox experiment.
TWIN’s design enables errors to be caught before departure, reducing manual corrections. Trials in 2025 showed critical supply chain data reached authorities up to 20 hours earlier.
Four UK Government trade officials are embedded at the IOTA Foundation for 12 months. This integration allows direct collaboration at the protocol level.
The approach ensures that the framework aligns with government operational needs. It also reflects broader adoption of blockchain in regulatory processes.
IOTA’s technology extends beyond borders, having already contributed to Africa’s trade procedures. Its use in digital IDs across the EU further demonstrates cross-regional applicability.
By connecting trade data digitally, processing efficiency improves significantly. This move positions IOTA as a key participant in global trade digitization.
For years, $IOTA has been building digital trade infrastructure across Africa.
TLIP
TWIN Foundation
ADAPT
From Digital IDs to immutable data & more.
They've clearly proven competence at the highest level of industry innovation.
Now that same framework's expanding to the UK… pic.twitter.com/RzejlKih4u
— Web3Alert (@theweb3alert) February 27, 2026
Economic Impact and Adoption Potential The UK could see major economic benefits from full digital trade adoption. ICC UK estimates £25B in trade growth and £224B in efficiency savings.
SMEs could gain up to 35% in operational efficiency, while GDP could rise 1.3%, according to a 2024 LSE study. Real-time data sharing reduces delays, streamlines border inspections, and lowers administrative costs.
Anchoring live trade transactions on the IOTA mainnet started in January 2026. This ensures secure, immutable verification of all supply chain data.
The framework is built for immediate adoption and scalability across industries. It demonstrates how blockchain can improve national trade operations without disruptive overhauls.
The UK initiative mirrors prior success in Africa and EU collaborations. TWIN’s open-source structure allows flexible integration with any trade infrastructure.
IOTA is proving the protocol’s adaptability for government-level digital trade. Major industry players increasingly recognize its potential for operational efficiency.
The project underscores a trend of blockchain adoption at institutional and regulatory levels. While retail interest remains modest, governments and regulators are clearly engaging with IOTA.
The expansion could set a precedent for other countries exploring digital trade frameworks. Verified early trade data is emerging as a new standard for border management.
TLDR: IOTA’s code reveals a three-tier securitization model mirroring traditional structured finance architecture. The infrastructure could support invoice factoring, SME lending, and energy project financing on-chain. Analysts link the testing to SALUS and ADAPT platforms operating within the AfCFTA trade framework. No IOTA Foundation statement confirms the purpose, but the architecture suits digital capital markets. IOTA is currently testing a full securitization infrastructure on its blockchain, based on early code analysis. The architecture mirrors traditional structured finance models, dividing pooled assets into senior, mezzanine, and junior tranches.
This points toward a broader financial layer being constructed on the IOTA network. Community observers are connecting this work to platforms like SALUS, ADAPT, and TWIN. All three platforms operate within the African Continental Free Trade Area framework.
IOTA Code Points to a Foundational Structured Finance Layer Securitization involves pooling real assets, like loans or invoices, and converting them into tradeable instruments. On IOTA, the code being tested applies this same principle across the network.
This structure points to a foundational layer for managing and structuring real-world assets on-chain.
The architecture reflects the three-tier model widely used in traditional structured finance. Senior tranches carry the lowest risk and hold first priority on repayment.
Mezzanine tranches occupy the middle ground, balancing risk and return. Junior tranches carry the highest risk but offer the greatest potential return.
Community analyst Salima flagged this on X, noting the architecture fits platforms like SALUS and ADAPT. She pointed out that the code does not appear to be a standalone product.
Rather, it resembles the base layer for managing digital real-world assets at scale. Any direct link to AfCFTA trade platforms remains unconfirmed at this stage.
🚨 IOTA is already testing something that could change how RWA are financed.
Full securitization infrastructure is already being tested directly on IOTA. In simple terms, securitization is the process of pooling real assets like loans or invoices and turning them into investable…
— Salima (@Salimasbegum) March 14, 2026
What stands out is that this process could run entirely on IOTA without external financial rails. No third-party intermediaries or legacy systems would be required.
Portfolios of real-world assets could become programmable digital financial structures on-chain. Investors could then participate based on their individual risk profiles.
Trade Finance to Capital Markets: IOTA’s Potential Use Cases The infrastructure on IOTA could support several practical financial applications. Invoice factoring and trade finance are among the most immediate potential use cases.
SME lending and productive financing also fit within this securitization model. Equipment leasing and energy projects are additional sectors where this architecture could apply.
Digital capital markets for real-world assets represent a wider area of interest. Tokenized portfolios could open participation to a broader global investor base.
This removes the geographic barriers that traditionally limit access to structured finance. IOTA’s feeless and scalable design makes it technically suited for this type of infrastructure.
The timing of these tests aligns with growing global interest in real-world asset tokenization. Traditional finance is increasingly exploring blockchain alternatives to legacy securitization models.
If IOTA’s architecture develops further, it could serve as a foundational layer for this shift. No official statement has come from the IOTA Foundation as of this writing.
As the code evolves, observers are watching for further technical developments and announcements. The current architecture does not confirm any specific platform or official partnership.
What is clear is that IOTA is building technical groundwork for real-world asset finance. The full scope and intent of this infrastructure is yet to be publicly confirmed.
Blockchain network IOTA is reported to be trialing a fully-fledged securitization infrastructure that mimics the three-tier structure commonly used in traditional structured finance. Early code reviews indicate this system divides pooled assets into senior, mezzanine, and junior tranches, aligning closely with finance models typically found in established capital markets.
Three-Tier Model Brings Structured Finance On-ChainBy implementing a layered structure for pooling and structuring assets, IOTA’s latest testing could create a native environment for real-world asset management. The senior tranche often receives top repayment priority with reduced risk, the mezzanine strikes a balance between risk and reward, and the junior tranche takes on higher risk for potentially greater return. This architecture enables digital instruments built upon tangible economic assets to be issued and traded on-chain.
Securitization—the process of pooling loans, invoices, or other assets and transforming them into investable products—forms the core of this development. By transferring this mechanism to blockchain, IOTA aims to streamline the process without traditional intermediaries.
Code Connections to Trade and Capital Market PlatformsAnalysis within the crypto community has linked the ongoing tests to the platforms SALUS, ADAPT, and TWIN. These operate under the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is a trade bloc aiming to boost intra-African commerce by leveraging technology and lowering cross-border barriers. SALUS and ADAPT focus on trade digitization and secure data handling to support African SMEs and exporters.
Independent researcher Salima drew attention to the securitization layer, noting that the tested code resembles the backbone for handling real-world digital assets at scale rather than a standalone application. While a direct integration with AfCFTA-linked platforms is not confirmed, the apparent compatibility has led to speculation about future collaborations.
IOTA is already testing something that could change how real-world assets are financed. Full securitization infrastructure is already being tested directly on IOTA.
No official comment or partnership disclosure has come from the IOTA Foundation, the not-for-profit steward of the IOTA network that develops open-source distributed ledger technologies, despite community discussions about possible platform connections.
The implications of these technical developments extend beyond trade. IOTA’s design, known for its scalability and lack of transaction fees, positions it as a candidate for large-scale programmable financial infrastructure. Issuers and investors could build and participate in digital portfolios directly on chain, with exposure tailored by risk preference.
Invoice factoring, trade finance, and SME lending are cited by observers as immediate use cases for the new infrastructure. Expanding from these, the model could also underpin financing structures for energy initiatives and equipment leasing.
Tokenization of portfolios may redefine capital markets access, making it possible for diverse global participants to enter digital structured products unrestricted by conventional geographic or institutional gatekeepers. The ongoing work in IOTA’s codebase signals industry momentum as interest in real-world asset tokenization accelerates among traditional finance institutions.
Despite ongoing speculation, the current technical foundation does not officially link to any live product launches or capital market partners. Industry watchers continue to monitor for further updates or announcements from IOTA as the infrastructure progresses.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
When Ankr joined the IOTA ecosystem as a validator node operator, we made an operational commitment to the network that we’ve been proud to uphold. Today, we can report on what that looks like in practice.
But first, let's talk about why IOTA is worth showing up for.
IOTA: The Infrastructure Layer the Real World Actually Needs Ten years in, IOTA is one of the most battle-tested infrastructure projects in the space. Its Tangle architecture processes transactions in parallel rather than sequentially, enabling feeless, high-throughput operations built for real enterprise and IoT workloads. The 2024 Rebased upgrade added full smart contract programmability via the Move VM, bringing static verification and formal proof support to a network that was already production-hardened.
The real-world traction speaks for itself. IOTA's TWIN consortium, built alongside the World Economic Forum, the Tony Blair Institute, and Trademark Africa, is deploying digital trade infrastructure for 1.3 billion people across Africa. Its decentralized identity framework was selected for the European Blockchain Sandbox and has been through regulatory scrutiny on AML and GDPR. Integration with LayerZero and Stargate now connects IOTA to 150+ chains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Base.
This is infrastructure with a decade of development behind it, active institutional partnerships, and a clear mandate beyond crypto-native use cases. The validator layer securing it needs to match.
Learn more about IOTA
What Ankr Has Delivered as an IOTA Validator We've been running validator nodes for IOTA with the same operational discipline we bring to every network in our portfolio. Here's what the record shows:
99.99% reliability. Validator downtime is a network security event, Ankr maintains the highest standard of reliability to keep networks always-on. 0 slashing incidents. Keeping the network strong since day one on IOTA, without a single protocol violation. 99%+ attestation participation. Our nodes participate in consensus at the rate the network needs to stay healthy at the top tier of validator performance. IOTA's own assessment:
"Reliable validator infrastructure is critical to the health and decentralization of the IOTA network. Ankr's proven track record of operating high-performance validator nodes and maintaining enterprise-grade reliability makes them a strong addition to our ecosystem. Their expertise helps ensure the network remains secure, resilient, and accessible for developers building on IOTA."
That quote tells you what IOTA prioritizes in their infrastructure: health, decentralization, and accessibility for developers. Those aren't abstract values. They're what's at stake every time a validator goes down, misses attestations, or gets slashed.
What Ankr Brings to the Table for Validator Operations Ankr's validator operations are built on a security and reliability stack that holds up under independent scrutiny:
SOC 2 Type II certified with Zero Trust access architecture. Every access request is verified, no implicit trust, no broad network permissions. CrowdStrike Falcon + 24/7 SOC. Real-time threat detection backed by a security operations center that monitors around the clock. 99.99% uptime SLA. As a contractual guarantee, not a target. Globally distributed infrastructure. Ankr operates validator nodes across multiple regions on our private fiber network, reducing latency, eliminating single points of failure, and ensuring IOTA's consensus is never dependent on any one geography. Why This Relationship Matters IOTA's validator set is the foundation everything else is built on. Smart contracts settle against it. Asset tokenization depends on it. IoT integrations rely on it. Enterprise partnerships are built on the assumption that it works.
Ankr's role in that foundation isn't passive, as our high attestation rates strengthen finality confidence, zero slashing events keep the validator set stable, and consistent uptime means developers building on IOTA never have to account for Ankr-related downtime in their applications.
We're proud to be part of an ecosystem that's serious about what blockchain infrastructure should actually accomplish. And we're committed to continuing to earn that place.
Building on IOTA? Evaluating validator partners for your network?
IOTA uses a Directed Acyclic Graph structure called the Tangle instead of traditional blockchain, enabling feeless transactions suited for machine-to-machine micropayments. The IOTA 2.0 upgrade addresses earlier centralization concerns by transitioning the network toward full decentralization with improved scalability and network stability overall. IOTA has partnered with major corporations, including Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover, Dell Technologies, and Bosch, to develop real-world IoT applications and integrations. As of May 2026, IOTA trades at approximately $0.056 with a market capitalization of around $248 million, ranking roughly 130th among all listed cryptocurrencies today. The MasterZ x IOTA European Blockchain Hackathon in early 2026 produced 66 new products built on IOTA, signaling continued developer engagement and ecosystem growth. The Internet of Things continues to expand, with billions of connected devices generating data and requiring seamless microtransaction capabilities. IOTA, a distributed ledger technology designed specifically for IoT applications, positions itself as a solution to the scalability and fee limitations that traditional blockchains face when handling machine-to-machine communication. But does the technology’s promise translate into a viable investment case?
Understanding IOTA’s Tangle Technology Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, IOTA does not use a blockchain. Instead, it operates on a Directed Acyclic Graph structure called the Tangle, where each new transaction must validate two previous transactions. According to CoinMarketCap, this architecture enables parallel transaction processing, removes the need for miners, and eliminates transaction fees entirely.
The absence of fees is central to IOTA’s value proposition for IoT. When billions of devices need to transact tiny amounts of value or data, even minimal fees become prohibitive. IOTA’s design theoretically enables infinite scalability because network throughput increases as more participants join, since each new transaction helps validate others.
IOTA has also integrated the Move programming language, which introduces object-based asset models and predictable smart contract behavior. CoinMarketCap notes the network supports up to 150,000 transactions per second with near-instant finality, a throughput figure that far exceeds most competing blockchain platforms.
IOTA 2.0 and the Decentralization Question One of the most persistent criticisms of IOTA has been its reliance on a centralized coordinator node, which the IOTA Foundation maintained to protect the network during its early stages. The IOTA 2.0 upgrade directly addresses this by transitioning the network toward full decentralization through a Delegated Proof of Stake consensus mechanism.
According to Bitget’s IOTA guide, IOTA 2.0 aims to resolve criticisms around centralization and network stability while maintaining the core value proposition for machine economy applications. The upgrade also enhances the network’s robustness with features like the Starfish protocol, designed to keep IOTA operational under adverse real-world network conditions.
Enterprise Partnerships and Real-World Adoption IOTA’s partnership roster distinguishes it from many competing crypto projects. The foundation has established relationships with automotive giants Volkswagen and Jaguar Land Rover, technology firms Dell Technologies and Bosch, and municipal projects including smart city initiatives and crypto charging stations for electric vehicles.
The ADAPT initiative, built on IOTA technology, announced its first country launch for early 2026, according to Messari. Additionally, the MasterZ x IOTA European Blockchain Hackathon, which concluded in March 2026, produced 66 new real-world products built on the IOTA network by 200 developers. Projects ranged from supply chain transparency tools to loan tokenization platforms.
Market Position and Price Considerations As of May 2026, IOTA trades at approximately $0.056, well below its all-time high of $5.69 reached in December 2017. The token holds a market capitalization of roughly $248 million with a circulating supply of approximately 4.44 billion IOTA coins, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Price predictions remain speculative. DigitalCoinPrice analysts project IOTA could reach $0.38 at its highest point in 2026, while Telegaon offers a more bullish estimate of up to $3.37 for the same period. These wide ranges reflect the uncertainty inherent in projecting value for a project whose success depends heavily on IoT adoption rates and competitive positioning.
Investment Risks to Consider Several factors warrant caution. IOTA’s limited exchange availability compared to major cryptocurrencies constrains liquidity and accessibility. The project faces competition from emerging alternatives that target the same machine economy audience.
Earlier security concerns, including the 2017 discovery of vulnerabilities in IOTA’s proprietary Curl hash function by MIT researchers, raised questions about the project’s approach to cryptographic implementation, though the foundation has since adopted standard cryptographic protocols.
Additionally, IOTA’s investment thesis is tightly linked to IoT industry growth. If enterprise IoT adoption slows or competing distributed ledger solutions gain traction, IOTA’s market position could erode regardless of its technical merits.
The Bottom Line for Investors IOTA represents a targeted bet on the intersection of distributed ledger technology and the Internet of Things. Its feeless architecture, growing enterprise partnerships, and active developer ecosystem present a compelling case for long-term investors with conviction in IoT growth.
However, the significant distance from its all-time high, competitive pressures, and dependence on continued network upgrades make it a higher-risk position that requires careful portfolio sizing and ongoing due diligence.
FAQs What makes IOTA’s Tangle different from a traditional blockchain?
IOTA uses the Tangle, a DAG-based structure where each transaction validates two previous ones, eliminating miners and enabling zero-fee transactions for IoT devices.
What does IOTA 2.0 change about the network?
IOTA 2.0 moves the network away from centralized coordinator dependence toward full decentralization through Delegated Proof of Stake consensus and improved network resilience.
Which major companies has IOTA partnered with?
IOTA has established partnerships with Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover, Dell Technologies, and Bosch to develop IoT applications across the automotive and technology sectors.
Where does IOTA’s price stand as of May 2026?
IOTA trades near $0.056, significantly below its December 2017 all-time high of $5.69, reflecting broader market cycles and ongoing project evolution.
Why is IOTA’s zero-fee model important for IoT?
IOTA’s zero-fee model makes it suitable for IoT microtransactions where even minimal fees would make high-volume machine-to-machine payments economically impractical.
What came out of the MasterZ hackathon in early 2026?
The MasterZ hackathon produced 66 real-world products on IOTA, including supply chain transparency tools and loan tokenization platforms built by 200 developers.
What are the key risks of investing in IOTA?
Key risks include limited exchange availability, competition from alternative IoT-focused ledger projects, and dependence on broader enterprise IoT adoption for long-term growth.
References CoinMarketCap – IOTA Price, Market Cap, and Data Bitget Academy – IOTA Cryptocurrency Guide: Tangle Technology, Trading & Exchanges 2026 IOTA Foundation – Built to Make a Difference Messari – IOTA Price, Research, News & Fundraising
Institutions: Micron’s long-term agreements reduce industry cyclical volatility.
Quilter Cheviot strategist Ben Barringer said that Micron Technology’s extremely strong earnings show that the traditionally cyclical memory chip market is becoming more reliable. This performance further confirms the fact that demand for memory chips far outstrips supply. More importantly, Micron’s shift toward signing long-term agreements with clients provides the group with more stable profitability and makes it less vulnerable to sharp demand fluctuations. These long-term agreements actually set price ceilings and floors, require clients to commit to taking supply, and smooth out the historically highly cyclical market.
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Analyst: Micron’s financial report indicates short-term fluctuations can be ignored as long as earnings prospects underpin its high valuation.
Senior Market Analyst Daniela Hathorn stated, "As Micron Technology's earnings report once again confirms that the AI investment cycle remains solid, the U.S. stock market has recouped some of its losses. This has boosted market sentiment across the entire semiconductor sector—after high-growth individual stocks underperformed earlier—indicating that as long as profit prospects continue to support high valuations, investors are still willing to overlook short-term fluctuations."
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Circle partners with Nomura Securities to enter the Japanese yen foreign exchange settlement service market.
Stablecoin issuer Circle plans to collaborate with Nomura Securities to launch instant foreign currency settlement for Japanese corporate clients as early as 2027. The initiative will enable large cross-border transactions to be completed immediately, aiming to boost cross-border investment and trade. This will mark the first entry of a major stablecoin issuer into Japan’s corporate transaction market, allowing companies to convert yen into US dollar-denominated stablecoins for investment and instant transfers.
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Institutions' Preview: Overview of US May Core PCE Price Index Monthly Rate
The US May core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index monthly rate will be released tonight at 20:30 (UTC+8). Below are the forecasts from multiple institutions: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation: 0.2%; Royal Bank of Canada: 0.2%; JPMorgan Chase: 0.3%; Goldman Sachs Group: 0.3%; Bank of Montreal: 0.3%; Moody's Corporation: 0.3%; Standard Chartered: 0.3%; UniCredit: 0.3%; ING Group: 0.3%; HSBC Holdings: 0.3%; BNP Paribas: 0.4%; Wells Fargo: 0.4%; Capital Economics: 0.4%; Citigroup: 0.4%; Deutsche Bank: 0.4%; Nomura Securities: 0.4%; Pantheon Macroeconomics: 0.4%; Société Générale: 0.4%; Scotiabank: 0.4%; Morgan Stanley: 0.4%
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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.
TL;DR:
Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria are the first countries to implement ADAPT. Led by the AfCFTA Secretariat and developed with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the World Economic Forum, and the IOTA Foundation, the initiative is building a shared digital infrastructure for intra-African trade. Implementation begins now, covering digital identity, cross-border data exchange, and payment interoperability.
Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria will be the first countries to implement ADAPT, the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade initiative launched in November last year to build a trusted, open, and inclusive digital public infrastructure for African trade.
Led by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, in partnership with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the World Economic Forum, and the IOTA Foundation, ADAPT integrates digital identity, cross-border data exchange, and interoperable payments into one shared foundation, supporting the largest global free trade zone by participating nations.
The three countries were selected through a rigorous process that assessed political commitment, regulatory readiness, digital infrastructure maturity, and private sector engagement.
From announcement to implementationAfrican trade faces deep structural barriers: fragmented regulatory regimes, the absence of standardised digital identity systems, payment networks that are expensive and slow, limited cross-border data sharing, and a trade finance gap estimated at $100 billion annually that leaves SMEs (estimated at up to 90% of African businesses) underserved. These challenges compound one another, driving up logistics costs and cross-border payment fees. The result is a continent whose vast trade potential is consistently constrained by the absence of shared, trusted digital infrastructure.
ADAPT is designed to address these challenges directly, and with Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria confirmed as the first pilot countries, implementation is now underway.
Implementation of ADAPT means getting to work on the concrete building blocks of digital trade. In each pilot country, this involves establishing ADAPT Country Implementation Forums, integrating digital identity systems and payment rails, and aligning national infrastructure with continental interoperability standards – built on TWIN, the open digital trade infrastructure that underpins ADAPT.
The immediate focus will be on enabling live cross-border data exchange and digitising trade documentation at source, replacing paper-based processes with verified, tamper-proof digital records. The three countries will also begin testing regulatory frameworks for digital currencies, including stablecoins, laying the groundwork for faster, cheaper cross-border settlement.
Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chair of the IOTA Foundation, said: “Africa has a unique opportunity to leapfrog fragmented, paper-based trade systems and establish digital trust infrastructure designed for the future. ADAPT is not only digitising processes, but it is also creating a shared, interoperable foundation where trade data can be trusted, verified, and exchanged securely across borders. We are proud to contribute our technology and expertise to a milestone that advances not only digital trade, but the broader vision of a truly integrated African market.”
Shaping what comes nextThe governance frameworks, technical approaches, and real-world use cases developed across Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria will directly inform how ADAPT scales to additional AfCFTA member states, building toward a continental standard that defines how goods, data, identity, and payments move across Africa for decades to come.
Training a large language model typically requires a warehouse full of GPUs, a seven-figure cloud computing bill, and the kind of organizational muscle only a handful of companies possess. Bittensor’s Subnet 9 is trying to flip that script with a new architecture called IOTA, short for Incentivised Orchestrated Training Architecture, which splits massive AI models across multiple machines so no single participant needs to hold the entire thing in memory.
From winner-takes-all to collective assembly line Previous versions of SN9 operated on a competitive model. Miners essentially raced each other, and only top performers earned rewards. By August 2024, that setup had successfully pretrained large language models with up to 14 billion parameters.
But the winner-takes-all approach had a ceiling. It discouraged smaller contributors who couldn’t compete with well-resourced miners, and it created natural bottlenecks around what any individual machine could handle. IOTA, published on arXiv on July 16, 2025, rethinks the entire incentive structure.
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Instead of isolated competitors, miners now function as nodes in a collaborative pipeline. The architecture integrates both pipeline parallelism and data parallelism, two techniques borrowed from how major AI labs already distribute training workloads internally. Rewards under IOTA are distributed proportionally among all pipeline miners based on their actual contribution, removing the primary disincentive for smaller GPU owners to participate.
Training AI models from your living room The practical extension of this architecture showed up in February 2026 with the launch of “Train at Home,” a consumer application that lets Mac users contribute their GPU power to the training pipeline. The application works through an orchestrator that handles coordination across contributors. It distributes model layers evenly and manages the reward allocation so individual users don’t need to understand the underlying pipeline mechanics.
What this means for investors Most “decentralized compute” projects in crypto have focused on inference, running already-trained models, rather than training new ones from scratch. Training is orders of magnitude harder because it requires tight synchronization, massive data throughput, and consistent uptime across all participating nodes.
IOTA’s pipeline parallelism approach sidesteps the memory constraints that have historically made distributed training impractical for billion-parameter models by splitting model layers across machines rather than requiring each participant to hold a complete copy. The prior track record of SN9 pretraining models up to 14 billion parameters provides at least a baseline proof that the subnet can handle meaningful workloads.
For TAO holders specifically, the shift from winner-takes-all to proportional rewards could meaningfully change mining economics on Subnet 9. Broader participation means more distributed demand for TAO staking, but it also means individual reward rates will compress as more miners join the pipeline.
A malicious or malfunctioning node in a training pipeline can corrupt gradient updates for the entire run. How IOTA handles Byzantine fault tolerance in practice will determine whether this architecture scales beyond proof-of-concept into production-grade training infrastructure.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
IOTA has posted a 14% gain, and the conditions supporting further upside remain clearly intact in the near term.
Spot activity, whale involvement, and perpetual market funding are all aligning to set IOTA up for a continued run in the market, and the convergence of these signals makes the current setup worth paying close attention to.
Whale delta holds positive as Spot buyers accumulate Whale involvement in the IOTA market has been running high, with the whale-versus-retail delta maintaining a positive reading of 0.341 in the market.
A positive reading in this metric signals that there is ongoing net whale accumulation outpacing retail involvement in the market.
This trend has been strengthening since the 22nd of May, and given that whales are known to control a significantly larger portion of market liquidity compared to retail traders, their sustained accumulation carries meaningful implications for where price heads next.
Source: CoinGlass The Spot market has reinforced this picture with rising buying activity over the past two days, with accumulation growing significantly within that period.
Spot netflow data shows net buying has reached approximately $232,000, as traders continue to show clear interest in IOTA and accumulate more of the asset.
While this figure remains modest on its own, the tendency for the overall setup to strengthen grows as accumulation continues to build from this base.
Open Interest surges to $20 million The perpetual market has not been silent on IOTA and has actively aided the rally that has played out, with the Funding Rate turning positive and confirming a shift in market positioning.
A positive Funding Rate reading means the majority of contracts in the perpetual market are dominated by long positions on IOTA.
Currently, the Funding Rate sits at 0.0035%, which, while mildly bullish, still gives meaningful room for the rally to extend further from this point.
Source: CoinGlass The more significant development has been the surge of fresh capital flowing into IOTA perpetual contracts alongside this. According to CoinGlass, Open Interest has surged 25%, reaching $20.24 million.
This new inflow, especially with the Funding Rate positive, signals a growing confidence in IOTA’s near-term performance—traders are going long on the asset and increasing their exposure, which adds further momentum to the current directional move.
Momentum will define the direction The liquidation heatmap points to a brief window of upside for IOTA in the near term, though sellers could cap the advance after a short move higher.
On the downside, liquidity clusters still sit below price and could attract price toward them over time. However, given the scarcity of these clusters, the pull they would exert on price remains limited in overall magnitude.
Source: CoinGlass Right now the current alignment of whale activity, Spot accumulation, and perpetual market positioning gives the bulls a meaningful edge heading into that resolution.
Final Summary The whale-versus-retail delta holds positive as Spot netflow reaches $232,000, reflecting growing accumulation interest across both buyer groups. Open Interest has surged 25% to $20.24 million with the Funding Rate at 0.0035% as the liquidation heatmap points to brief further upside.
Verify your Workflows with IOTA Audit Trails TL;DR:
Business records fragmented across databases and spreadsheets can be altered, backfilled, or disputed. IOTA Audit Trails anchors governed, ordered histories onchain so every record (and the authority behind it) can be independently verified. Available now as an alpha release with a Move package, Rust SDK, and WebAssembly bindings.
Every business process leaves a trail. A product moves through suppliers, a clinical trial collects study events, a customs workflow gathers approvals, and a compliance team reviews the evidence behind a decision. These records often live across fragmented databases, spreadsheets, internal logs, and manual reports.
That fragmentation creates a trust problem. Records can be altered, deleted, backfilled, or interpreted differently across systems. Access controls are usually local to one application, and external parties often have to trust exported reports instead of verifying the underlying history themselves.
IOTA Audit Trails, a new open-source solution from the IOTA Notarization toolkit, brings these histories onto a shared, tamper-resistant ledger layer. It doesn’t replace private business systems or require organizations to expose sensitive documents on-chain. Instead, it provides a structured way to anchor the events, hashes, metadata, and operational proofs that need to be verifiable across organizational boundaries.
With IOTA Audit Trails, organizations gain a transparent way to record who did what, when, and under which permissions. Developers can integrate it through Move smart contracts, a Rust SDK, or WebAssembly bindings for JavaScript and TypeScript applications.
When Trust Doesn't Travel: Why Audit Trails MatterMany audit systems are designed for internal visibility. They help teams investigate incidents and satisfy reporting obligations, but they rely on a central administrator, a single database, or a trusted export. That model breaks down the moment a workflow crosses organizational boundaries.
What if a regulator, partner, insurer, customer, or downstream system needs to verify that a record was added at the right time, by the right actor, with the right authority?
IOTA Audit Trails makes that verification explicit. Roles define which actions are allowed, capabilities delegate those roles to wallets or services, and records are written to an ordered onchain history. Verifiers can inspect the trail state and record sequence directly through read-only clients without needing write permissions.
What Goes Onchain… and What Shouldn't: Data Visibility and PrivacyIOTA Audit Trails runs on the IOTA public ledger, so teams should treat onchain data as publicly readable. For sensitive documents, personal data, proprietary reports, or medical records, applications should store the original content off-chain and write only hashes, references, or non-sensitive metadata to the trail.
This approach gives organizations a verifiable record of existence, order, and integrity without exposing confidential source material. Public ledgers provide integrity and availability; application design must still handle privacy, encryption, and access to the underlying off-chain data.
From Individual Proofs to Governed HistoriesIOTA Notarization already allows developers to anchor individual records on the IOTA ledger. Audit Trails extends that foundation from a single notarized object to an ordered record history with in-built governance.
An audit trail is a shared onchain object that stores records in sequence. Each record can contain text or binary data, optional metadata, and an optional tag. The trail also stores immutable creation metadata, updatable operational metadata, locking configuration, roles, capabilities, and tag rules.
This makes Audit Trails useful when the question isn’t only "has this data changed?" but also "who added this record, under which role, in what order, and under which lifecycle rules?"
Who Can Do What, and WhenIOTA Audit Trails is designed for environments where different actors have different responsibilities. A product manufacturer may write lifecycle events, an auditor may inspect records, a compliance officer may manage retention rules, and a system operator may manage tags or metadata.
The solution supports this separation through role-based access control:
Roles define named permission sets for actions, such as adding records, deleting records, managing tags, updating metadata, configuring locks, issuing capabilities, or deleting the trail.Capabilities are owned on-chain objects that grant a role for a specific audit trail. They can be restricted to a specific address or validity window.Record tags organize records by category and can limit which roles may write to which parts of the trail.Locking rules control when records can be written, when records can be deleted, and when the trail itself can be removed.Together, these controls let teams model practical governance without building a custom smart contract for every audit workflow.
A Trail From First Record to Final Lock: How It Works Developers can create and manage audit trails through the Rust SDK, WebAssembly bindings, or the Move package directly.
A typical flow looks like this:
Create an audit trail: An administrator creates a trail with optional immutable metadata, mutable status metadata, initial records, and tag registry (the trail-owned list of tags that records may use. Tags help organize records and restrict writes by role), and locking configuration (rules that control write access, record deletion windows, and trail deletion).Receive Admin capability: The creator receives an Admin capability object that authorizes trail administration. The Admin capability gives the creator administrative authority over the trail.Define roles: The administrator creates roles (a named permission set stored in the trail that defines what a capability holder can do) such as RecordAdmin, LockingAdmin, TagAdmin, or custom roles with specific permission sets.Issue capabilities: The administrator delegates roles by issuing capability objects to users, services, or operational wallets. A capability is an owned object that grants one role for one audit trail. Capabilities can be bound to an address or limited by time.Add records: Authorized actors append records to the trail. A record is a single entry in the trail, stored at a sequence number with data, optional metadata, and an optional tag.Tagged records must use tags registered on the trail and allowed for the writer's role.Read and verify: Verifiers inspect metadata, roles, locking state, record counts, and paginated records through read-only APIs.Lock or retire the trail: Teams can enforce write locks, record deletion windows, or trail deletion locks according to policy.This process gives developers a reusable pattern for creating append-oriented histories with explicit authority and lifecycle controls.
Developer ToolingIOTA Audit Trails ships as part of the IOTA Notarization toolkit with three integration paths: a Move package for on-chain contract logic, a typed Rust SDK for backend integrations, and WebAssembly bindings for JavaScript and TypeScript applications. The repository also includes ready-to-run examples covering customs clearance, clinical trials, and digital product passports. Transaction construction is kept separate from submission, so you can plug Audit Trails into your own wallet, signing, or gas station flow.
Where Shared Verification Changes EverythingIOTA Audit Trails is general-purpose and can support any workflow that needs a verifiable, ordered history. It is particularly well-suited to industries where records cross organizational boundaries, carry regulatory weight, or need to be verified by parties outside the system that created them.
In supply chains and digital product passports, manufacturers can record lifecycle events, maintenance updates, inspections and certifications that follow a component from production to end use. Legal and compliance teams can build verifiable histories for approvals, filings, contracts, and regulated operational records. Customs and trade workflows benefit from coordinated clearance steps, inspections, declarations, and role-scoped updates across several parties. IoT and automation systems can use the trail to record machine events, sensor attestations, maintenance actions, or system state changes with clear provenance.
In all of these cases, the value-add of IOTA Audit Trails comes from shared verification. Each participant can rely on the same ordered history instead of reconciling separate logs after the fact.
Get Started with Audit TrailsExplore these resources to begin using IOTA Audit Trails:
IOTA Notarization product page: Learn how Notarization anchors, updates, and verifies data onchain.IOTA Notarization GitHub repository: Access the open-source IOTA Notarization Toolkit and contribute to development.Audit Trails Rust SDK: Build typed Rust integrations for creating and managing audit trails.Audit Trails Wasm SDK: Add audit trail flows to JavaScript and TypeScript applications.Audit Trails examples: Run basic, advanced, and real-world examples for role delegation, tagged records, locking, customs clearance, clinical trials, and digital product passports.Audit Trails on IOTA Docs: Follow setup guides and learn how Audit Trails fits into the broader IOTA Notarization toolkit.#notarization-dev on Discord: Share your progress or questions and get feedback from the IOTA builder community.Audit Trails webpage on the IOTA websiteIOTA Audit Trails is available now for teams that want to experiment, validate their architecture, and share feedback with the IOTA builder community. Deploy on the IOTA Testnet or Mainnet when you are ready to move from experimentation to production.
Audit logs are only as trustworthy as the system behind them. When that system is a single database or a central administrator, trust doesn't travel well across organizational boundaries. IOTA Audit Trails changes that by turning record histories into shared, verifiable objects that any authorized party can inspect, regardless of where they sit in the workflow.
Run the examples, model your first trail, and verify your own records, roles, and governance rules. We're excited to see what you build.
The cryptocurrency market is one that has a host of altcoins existing under its umbrella. However, not every crypto in the market reports movements independent of each other. In fact, a majority of them remain significantly under the influence of Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, which is why many such altcoins often record similar market trends. The cases of Cardano, IOTA, and Steem are very much the same.
Cardano [ADA]
Cardano, the 15th ranked crypto on CoinmarketCap, has not always lit the community on fire with its rapid price movements. Cardano has, however, revealed a host of developments recently, all of which have been received very well by Cardano’s very vocal community. In fact, just recently, IOHK’s Charles Hoskinson’s announcement revealing that the Byron reboot went ahead without any issues was greeted very well by many. At the time of writing, Cardano was trading at a price of $0.03, having recorded a fall of over 10% in the last 10 days.
However, surprisingly, the fall in value took its own sweet time being reflected on the MACD indicator, with a bearish crossover yet to come. Further, the uniformity of the Bollinger Bands would suggest that volatility is going to be low over the next few days for ADA.
IOTA
IOTA, once a regular entry in the top 10 of the cryptocurrency charts, was languishing at 25th on CoinMarketCap’s charts. At the time of writing, IOTA was being traded at a price of $0.152, with the token having fallen by over 11% over the last 7 days.
Here, it is interesting to note that IOTA’s aforementioned fall followed a period of relative growth that followed the Crypto Ratings Council, a self-governing body committed to a framework for digital asset adoption in the United States, giving IOTA a score of 2.0. At the time, IOTA had welcomed the same, claiming,
“This is a strong score for the IOTA technology, community, and ecosystem, as it shows our commitment, since day one, of positioning the IOTA token as a real-world value transfer mechanism between humans and devices in the machine economy.”
That being said, the technical indicators for IOTA weren’t so skeptical. While the Parabolic SAR remained bullish, the Awesome Oscillator suggested the lack of momentum in the market.
Steem
At the time of writing, the token was inching towards stabilizing its position in the market, with STEEM priced at $0.149. However, while some stability was found, the token was still dangerously close to its level of support that is placed at $0.109. Despite the token maintaining its level to some degree, it did register a fall of almost 14% over the past 7 days.
The aforementioned hint of stability was evidenced by the token’s technical indicators. While the Relative Strength Index had evened out on the charts, the Chaikin Money Flow had, at the time of writing, inched just above 0.
Crypto markets hit another new 2019 high yesterday; Bitcoin holding gains, TRX moving up ETH, XRP, LTC, BCH and EOS falling back. Market Wrap It has been a wonderful weekend for crypto markets, the best so far this year. Bitcoin’s push through five figures has lifted total market capitalization to a one year high of over $325 billion. Monday morning markets remain buoyant as BTC has held on to most of its gains yet again.
The Bitcoin parabola has continued as it topped out at $11,250 during Sunday trading. It was the second time over the weekend that BTC broke above $11k but it could push no further and fell back twice. Bitcoin is currently starting to consolidate around the $10,750 level during Asian trading today. Daily volume peaked at $30 billion over the weekend which pushed market cap to $200 billion.
Ethereum also got a lift from its big brother as it finally broke above the $300 barrier. ETH hit a top of $320 yesterday before pulling back a couple of percent today to settle at around $305. Gains were solely on the back of Bitcoin as ETH remains slow to recover in comparison.
Altcoin Outlook The crypto top ten is starting to correct during Monday trading across Asia. Most altcoins are shedding their weekend gains with XRP, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and EOS dropping 4 percent each. Only Tron has made a gain today with 4 percent added to reach $0.038. Justin Sun did not miss the opportunity to point out that TRX has flipped Stellar for a top ten slot as market cap topped $2.5 billion:
Back to Top 10 now. #TRON #TRX $TRX #BitTorrent #BTT $BTT pic.twitter.com/0OevisDE6M
— H.E. Justin Sun 👨🚀 🌞 (@justinsuntron) June 24, 2019
The top twenty is all red today as altcoins drop gains and remain weak. Cosmos and IOTA have dumped over 4 percent while Stellar and NEO are close behind. Monero and LEO have remained flat on the day.
FOMO: Lambda Launches Today’s crypto top one hundred pump is going to LAMB which has surged by 48 percent to reach an all-time high of $0.17. The Chinese decentralized data storage token has recently been listed on Bittrex and OKEx which is likely to be driving momentum.
Aeternity is also spiking at the moment with a 13 percent boost and Hedge Trade is the third altcoin with a double digit gain. Insight Chain is getting dumped hard as it falls to the bottom of the pile losing 30 percent. MaidSafeCoin and KuCoin Shares are also in pain with 10 percent dropped a piece.
Total market cap 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com Total crypto market capitalization hit a one year high of $336 billion yesterday. Bitcoin’s push above $11k has contributed to most of it and altcoins dumping today has dropped total cap back to $324 billion. Daily volume peaked at almost $100 billion on Sunday but has since cooled off as markets correct slightly.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
Blockchain is a decentralized, secure and very fast technology that is already making waves in the business world. The blockchain is beginning to run the world with numerous blockchain projects being developed and deployed on the internet. There are companies already trying to build on what other people developed. All of these blockchain developments are done in different programming languages, some of which are explained below.
1. JavaScript
This is a high-level programming language and more importantly, it is a weakly typed, dynamic, prototype-based and leading web technology in the world. This programming language is very popular, and there are already new frameworks being created for javascript, which can be used to develop codes.
Javascript is very easy and you only need to understand the basics to start to work on this language. It is mostly used in blockchain development in ethereum.js and web3.js which are used to connect the application frontend with smart contracts and ethereum networks. It is also used for node.js in the Hyperledger Fabric SDK which is the framework that many big companies use. Another blockchain you can use javascript for is the NEO.
2. C#
C# is an object-oriented, compiled and high-level programming language that was created for Microsoft late into the 90s/the early ‘00s. Numerous ivory research has shown that this language is similar to C++ or Java, and it is more difficult to learn this language than the Javascript language. Although, it is also not as complicated as some other languages such as Go.
There are a number of popular blockchain projects that the C# language is being used for. The most popular of such blockchain project is the NEO, something that’s popularly referred to as the Chinese rendition of Ethereum. Another popular blockchain project it is used for is IOTA, zero-fee transactions and highly scalable projects centered on IoT (Internet of Things).
3. C++
This is an object-oriented, high speed, strongly static and compiled programming language. This language has access to hardware and high-level efficiency. Even though it was developed back in the 70s and 80s, as an extension of the C language.
This language is quite complicated and is more difficult to learn than the C language, as some top writers have noted. And if you are a beginner or just learning to code, this language is not for you.
Interestingly, it has been used in many popular and important blockchain cryptocurrencies and projects such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash, Eos, Monero, QTUM, Stellar, Cpp-ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, etc.
4. Python
Python is a dynamically typed and trendy high-level programming language that supports functional programming and is also object-oriented. This programming language is growing in popularity than before and is the ideal language to use in developing artificial intelligence and machine learning features.
Many big IT companies create frameworks and smart tools to support Python, and it’s often used to create chatbots.
This very easy and popular language has also been used for numerous projects in the blockchain. One of such examples is its implementation of Ethereum, known as pythereum. It can also be used to create smart contracts for Hyperledger as well as NEO contracts. Python also has its own implementation of steemit known as steempython.
5. Golang
This language called Go for short, is a compiled, statically typed programming language that was developed by employees from Google. The idea of Golang is to have a combination of the efficiency of a compiled language such as C++ and the ease of developing codes such as Python.
This language is quite complicated and developers at papersowl are of the opinion that it is very difficult to learn this language. However, most of the developers with this opinion are python and javascript developers. Developers on C++ will find it easier to learn Go.
There are a lot of blockchain projects that Go has been used for. One of such is the Go-Ethereum blockchain written in this language. Another one is Hyperledger Fabric which is the blockchain solution that big organizations opt for.
6. Solidity
Solidity is a statically typed and contact-oriented programming language developed by the developers of Ethereum. This language was created the main language for the development of the smart contract, and is, therefore, the ethereum’s smart contract primary language.
Solidity is like a smaller copy of javascript with little changes. It is therefore not very complicated. So if you’re a mid-level developer, it’ll take you just a few days to learn this language.
This language is used primarily in the development of Ethereum smart contracts.
7. Java
This programming language, developed by Sun Microsystems, is a strongly typed language, based on object and class. Java is an object-oriented language popularly used in many big companies.
The difficulty level of java can be compared to that of C#, which is quite complicated and harder to learn than python or javascript. But still, this programming language is still very popular and there are numerous custom papers to help if you are just learning to code. But it is difficult to tell which is easier, Java, C++ or Golang?
Java is also used very widely in the blockchain industry. It is popularly used in IOTA, P2P cryptocurrency and NEM platform also uses java. Other objects where java is being used in the blockchain are the IBM blockchain, NEO contract, Ethereum, Bitcoin J, Hyperledger’s contract.
8. Rust
Rust is a strongly typed and compiled programming language that has been sponsored by Mozilla since 2009. This language is very similar to the C++ programming language, so you really can’t say that it’s a language that can be learned easily. The entry level for this language is high as it has a very small community, so we can safely rate its difficulty as hard.
There are only very few blockchain projects using this programming language. Parity is one of the few. A secure and fast ethereum client written in Rust. The most popular blockchain project written in Rust is the Ethereum Classic, a cryptocurrency birthed after Ethereum was hacked. Exonum, a security-oriented blockchain framework is also written in Rust.
9. Ruby
Ruby was developed in Japan by Yukihiro Matsumoto in the 1990s. This programming language is purely object-oriented. In fact, everything is an object in Ruby apart from the blocks, and they also have their replacement in procs and lambda.
Ruby was developed to act as a buffer between the underlying computing machine and human programmers. The syntax of this programming language is similar to other languages like Java and C, so it’s easier to learn this language for C and Java programmers.
10. CX
CX gives pointers, propelled cuts and array, and it also possesses the simple error control highlights which makes it convenient to design any blockchain with it. It was assembled over Go initially, and this stops the frameworks of CX from performing discretionary codes, which is a problem associated with business programming.
This programming language was made for the blockchain development of Skycoin, with a capacity for it to work as an intermediary for digital contracts.
CX integrates with Open Graphics Library (OpenGL) and uses the capacity of the GPU proficiently.
11. Simplicity
This is a relatively new programming language birthed in late 2017. It was designed mainly for blockchain development and smart contracts. It helps to increase productivity by hiding low-level logical components.
This language is object-oriented, similar to C++, and it uses blockchain principles to prevent data changes and errors.
The developers are still working on expanding the capabilities of this language, the features are going to be finalized and it will be added to bitcoin. So, we expect that from mid-2020, Simplicity should have more applications.
Conclusion Blockchain technology which makes it possible for us to have cryptocurrency exchange is, without doubts, here to stay. Blockchain developments are getting better with languages such as simplicity being specifically to make blockchain development a smoother process.
With all eyes fixed on Bitcoin’s valuation at the moment, the lesser-known assets with medium-range market caps were seen performing better than the large market cap assets.
According to Arcane Research, the best performing tokens over the past week has been outside the major altcoins with only Monero and Bitcoin SV making the cut from the major assets. Privacy coin Dash and Chainlink also registered impressive recoveries over the last few days, with Dash witnessing over 14.45 percent in the last 24 hours.
The Weiss Crypto’s Mid-Cap Crypto Index (WMC) (a measurement index covering the mid-range market cap on the basis of market performance) registered a sharp rise since the start of January. The index exhibited a growth of 1.05 percent for the collective market movement from the likes of Cardano, Monero, Dash, IOTA, and Ethereum Classic.
In comparison, Weiss Large-Cap Crypto (WLC) Index only pictured a 0.14 percent growth collectively as Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash were responsible for the majority of the positive growth. Ethereum and Litecoin managed to exhibit positive returns as well.
However, the bearish side was rather dominant with other digital assets. According to the chart above, the Weiss Small Cap Crypto Index (WSC) recorded a drop of 0.44 percent over the same period. The likes of Verge, Ziliqa, and BitShares failed to take advantage of the surging market.
As a whole, the above data indicated that mid-level crypto assets were collectively outperforming in the market over the past week, whereas the likes of major assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin were playing the game cautiously.
Crypto markets remain sideways; Litecoin still surging, BNB and Cardano doing well, Bitcoin and ETH flat. Market Wrap As the crypto consolidation continues markets have fallen back again following a day of minor gains. There is still no sign of this correction that everyone is expecting as total market capitalization remains above $250 billion and Bitcoin remains sideways.
Bitcoin fell back to $7,780 yesterday before recovering back to $8,050 during Asian trading today. As was the case yesterday, BTC dropped back below $8k pretty quickly and is still trading there, flat on the day. Unless the bulls can take it above $8.2k BTC will remain range bound.
Predictably Ethereum has also done absolutely nothing and remains trading at $248, a fraction higher than it was this time on Tuesday morning. ETH is still hopelessly tied to Bitcoin and is likely to remain so until some fundamentals kick it into gear.
The top ten is a mixed affair during the morning’s trading session. Many altcoins have not moved at all since yesterday but one is showing a lot of strength with a 34 percent gain on the week and another 9 percent added today. Litecoin has turned $125 from resistance into support and has surged to $140 as the halving fomo heats up. Analysts expect LTC to reach $150 before traders start taking profits and it retraces a little. Binance Coin is the only other one moving with a 4 percent gain to reach $33.
The top twenty is looking equally mixed today with Cardano leading things adding 5 percent to $0.088. Tron, IOTA and NEO have notched up a further 2 percent each but the rest remain flat, unchanged from yesterday.
FOMO: Egretia Emerges Entering the crypto top one hundred with a spike of 30 percent is EGT which is now priced at $0.015. OKEx is driving momentum for this Singapore based video gaming token with a series of giveaways.
A Breaking News: 5 Million EGT Giveaway!!!
11:00 am June 11th - 11:00 am June 18th in OKEx
More details: https://t.co/jn3pTaOv17 #egt #okex #airdrop #gaming #blockchain pic.twitter.com/DOFzalUUKz
— Egretia (@Egretia_io) June 10, 2019
Zcoin is also on a pump today as XZC adds 20 percent largely driven by crypto exchanges in Thailand. WAX is the third best performer today with a rise of 11 percent. Such a surprise at the red end – it is Aurora again dumping 23 percent; this altcoin is so predictable that everyone should be trading it.
Total market capitalization 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com Total crypto market capitalization is up a tiny fraction from yesterday at $256 billion. The mini $6 billion dump was quickly recovered meaning that markets are still at the same level and still consolidating. Nothing is likely to happen until Bitcoin makes a bigger move, its dominance has been steadily eroding this month and it is now down to 55.4%.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
Crypto markets reach 2019 high; Bitcoin still in charge, XRP and BNB pumping, LTC retreating slowly. Market Wrap Crypto markets have reached their highest level since July 2018 in terms of market capitalization. The momentum has come from Bitcoin hitting another 2019 top, and Ripple’s XRP pumping on a new partnership announcement.
Bitcoin has been grinding higher for the past 24 hours until it topped $9,400 briefly marking its highest price since early May 2018. There is heavy resistance above this and BTC quickly started to retreat back to the $9,200 area where it was trading this time yesterday. According to coinmarketcap.com daily volume dumped 25% in an unnatural looking spike so the figures could be spurious.
Ethereum has been static again and remains at $270 where it was this time yesterday. Without any solid fundamentals ETH remains sluggish and unable to push towards $300. It is still 80 percent down from its all-time high and ‘altseason’ has yet to materialize.
The top ten is a mixed affair during Asian trading today but the top performer is XRP. The Ripple token surged 9 percent after the announcement that the company was partnering with MoneyGram. The deal would involve the deployment of xRapid for cross border transfers using XRP. After topping $0.46 XRP corrected to $0.44 where it currently trades.
An industry defining milestone: together, @MoneyGram and @Ripple are solving the challenges with cross-border payments using the speed and efficiency of #XRP. https://t.co/xIfeJJgSy7
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) June 17, 2019
Binance Coin is also doing well today adding 5 percent as the exchange announced that it will issue a number of crypto-pegged tokens on Binance Chain in the coming days, starting with $BTCB, a BEP2 token pegged to $BTC. BSV is up marginally and Litecoin is starting its pullback, dropping 3 percent back towards $130.
The top twenty is also mixed but red is dominating over green as altcoins slide again. NEO and Tezos are dumping 5 percent a piece right now and IOTA and NEM are not far behind dropping 3 percent. Only Cosmos is making anything with 3 percent added on the day.
FOMO: Chainlink Churning Higher Today’s top one hundred top performer is LINK which has cranked 18 percent to hit $2. The fomo is still lingering from the Google Cloud tie up as this altcoin climbs the charts to 24th with a market cap of $700 million. Japan’s Monacoin is also on a roll today adding 15 percent, unsurprisingly most of it on Bitbank in JPY. Zcash is the third most popular altcoin today making 13 percent.
The two usual suspects are at the bottom end of the performance pile, Maximine Coin and Aurora.
Total market cap 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com Total crypto market cap hit a new 2019 high of $290 billion a few hours ago. The move was driven by BTC and XRP which both pumped within a few hours of each other. Market cap is currently back at $286 billion where it was this time yesterday. BTC is still in the driving seat.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
This week, NEO joined Microsoft’s .NET Foundation, serving as a major asset to Microsoft’s blockchain efforts.
Mainline Blockchain Efforts From Microsoft Following the integration, NEO will be able to introduce a new set of tools for Microsoft Visual Studio, making it easier for mainstream developers to create NEO dApps. This news comes just months after NEO expressed interest in the .NET stack.
This isn’t Microsoft’s first time using blockchain. Over the past few years, Microsoft has allowed enterprises to make use of various blockchains through its Azure services. Azure provides access to popular chains like Ethereum, Quorum, and Corda, as well as obscure blockchains like SIMBA Chain, Rootstock, Stratis, and more.
Microsoft’s most frequent collaborator, though, is JPMorgan. This year, Microsoft introduced Quorum as Azure’s first fully-managed blockchain, offering a more simplified blockchain experience. Microsoft also uses Quorum in-house to manage XBOX royalties. A strategic partnership is ongoing, so there may be more to come.
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Microsoft’s blockchain efforts don’t stop there: the company is also a member of several blockchain groups, such as the Hyperledger Foundation, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, and the Token Taxonomy Initiative. Microsoft hasn’t produced much in the way of products with these groups; rather, it is contributing to standards.
The company has also developed ION, a Bitcoin-based decentralized identity system, covering the costs of the project through its Identity Division.
Funding, Acceptance, and Other Efforts Microsoft is also pouring funding into blockchain projects. Notably, it has contributed funds to events like the Ethereal Virtual Hackathon, which took place in April.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Research’s blockchain division has contributed to a handful of research papers over the years. Microsoft Research was responsible for Microsoft’s first foray into blockchain: in 2012, the group published “On Blockchain and Red Balloons” with Cornell University, describing a Bitcoin information propagation system.
Finally, casual crypto users might be interested to know that Microsoft accepts Bitcoin in its stores. You can deposit Bitcoin into your account and receive credit in return.
Are Microsoft’s Blockchain Efforts Overrated? Blockchain endeavors are sometimes exaggerated in the media, and Microsoft is no exception. In 2017, a Microsoft representative mentioned a partnership with IOTA before both companies denied it. Although Microsoft was indeed participating in IOTA’s IoT marketplace, there was no formal partnership.
Likewise, Microsoft may never live down Bill Gates’ attacks on Bitcoin: he has called it a “greater fool” investment. Gates is now only minimally involved in Microsoft, and current reps have made more positive comments. Some have even said that blockchain is “at a tipping point.”
Despite a few disappointments, Microsoft’s blockchain efforts make it one of the most pro-blockchain companies. Ultimately, the company must change with the times: other tech giants like IBM and Amazon have made their own blockchain breakthroughs, while Microsoft is just getting started.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Mike Dalton. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
CORRECTION: The original article stated that the price of Metal’s tokens had declined during the last 30 days. In fact, the price trended upward during that time period.
The original article included a comment, attributed to an anonymous Metal token-holder, that a recently announced equity investment by Erik Finman in Metal was a “pseudo-announcement.” Although the comment was accurately reported, we decided to remove the comment due to a lack of corroboration.
The revised article also includes additional details regarding Metal’s “PoPP” reserve and certain concerns expressed by Metal token-holders regarding the company’s use of that reserve, as well as comments from a Metal spokesman.
San Francisco-based payments startup Metal Payments, which raised some $3 million in a token sale in June 2017, has been furiously reviving old news, possibly to boost the price of its flagging token, MTL.
At the same time, the startup has been accused of misusing whatever is left of its diminishing winnings to cash out and invest in dubious side projects.
Founded by Marshall Hayner in April 2016, Metal Payments launched on the promise that it would create 66,588,888 tokens, and distribute them across various projects—21,088,888 ($10,544,444) to founders and advisors at around $0.05 each; 3,378,000 to the founding team, for free; and 13,378,888 ($6,689,444) to an app development fund.
In addition, there were two pools of funds that Metal Payments said it would “set aside:” 2,000,000 for the Metal Foundation, which would fund charity projects; and 26,341,112 for a “proof of processed payments pool” (PoPP) designed to reward users for making payments.
When MTL was worth $14 on September 8, 2018, the total funds held briefly amounted to $364 million.
But by February, by which time Metal’s price had sunk significantly, Metal holders began to notice that funds were leaving the PoPP pool at a rate higher than advertised in the white paper. It was only in April that Hayner disclosed in a Medium post that he had appropriated funds from the payments pool and the foundation to fund the “core metal team." Metal Payments executives then proceeded to move those funds and sell them on the market.
Holders were confused. “This was meant to be an untouched resource with maximum 7,200 taken out per day so pop would last,” wrote one investor on the company’s Discord channel. “Taking from the foundation and PoPP pool isn’t cool at all,” said another. “I don’t know how that isn’t illegal.”
In the last thirty days (as of publication), over 2.8 million MTL tokens have left the PoPP pool, according to Etherscan, worth around $1 million. And in May, the company paid an undisclosed amount for “Crumbs,” a now-defunct micro-investing app Hayner had previously invested in, sparking further concerns from holders.
Though it has slightly gone up over the past month, the Metal token’s price remains at just over half its value in April.
Now Metal is apparently doing whatever it can to resurrect its token’s ailing price. Over the past few weeks, the company has been breathlessly re-releasing old announcements—some dating back to 2017—via one of its primary investors, the popular “teen bitcoin millionaire” Erik Finman, leading to brief spikes in MTL’s value.
And it’s worked.
On August 19, for instance, Finman announced the launch of the “Metal Pay” app, positioning it as a competitor to Facebook’s planned digital currency, Libra. MTL’s price grew from $0.30 to $0.34 on the news, but it needn’t have—Metal Pay officially launched in September of last year.
Meanwhile, on August 21, Finman announced that MTL would be listed on Binance, an enormous exchange known for doubling the value of newly listed tokens. Again, the news shook the price, sending it from $0.36 to $0.46—but in reality, MTL had been listed on the exchange since October 2017.
Again and again, Metal promoted old news as new. Finman announced on August 24 that Metal was hiring, but the relevant job listings have been online for several months. And on August 25, Finman announced that Metal was moving into a new office—offices that, according to screenshots seen by Decrypt, the company has occupied since March. (“The tour of the new office was not triggered by moving in, and the announcement did not mention ’moving in,’” a Metal spokesman said after this story was published. “But by unpacking, cleaning, and decorating the office, Metal readied it for public presentation and video tour.“)
As this has played out over the past thirty days, MTL’s price has trended marginally upwards—but the amount left in the PoPP pool has dwindled further.
We reached out to Metal Payments, and a spokesman explained that many of the reiterative announcements had been addressed to new users. And indeed this is true—for the Binance “announcement,” both Finman’s video and an accompanying press release addressed these “new users,” citing “all the press we got this week” as the impetus. But isn’t Finman’s tweet—titled simply, “ANNOUNCEMENT: We’re listed on Binance”—still misleading?
In response, the spokesman just directed us back to Finman’s video.
We asked also about Finman’s “announcement” of Metal Pay, which actually launched late last year. To this, the spokesman said that the original launch had in fact been of Metal Pay’s “beta” service. But the original press release made no mention of a beta launch, and Finman, in his announcement, made no such mention either. Asked about this, the spokesman did not respond for further comment.
Neither Finman, nor Hayner, responded for comment.
Of course, running dubious publicity campaigns to boost investor sentiment is nothing new in the cryptocurrency space. So-called third-generation blockchain startup IOTA, for instance, said in late 2017 that it had partnered with Microsoft, when it had actually just subscribed to the tech giant’s online cloud service, Azure. Tron’s Justin Sun, meanwhile, has become something of a connoisseur in the art of desperate publicity, and has been derided for announcing announcements and playing up his tenuous relationships with big-name businesses and investors.
But Metal Payments, as brazenly transparent as its ruse is, makes a fine case study.
Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
CORRECTION: The original article stated that the price of Metal’s tokens had declined during the last 30 days. In fact, the price trended upward during that time period.
The original article included a comment, attributed to an anonymous Metal token-holder, that a recently announced equity investment by Erik Finman in Metal was a “pseudo-announcement.” Although the comment was accurately reported, we decided to remove the comment due to a lack of corroboration.
The revised article also includes additional details regarding Metal’s “PoPP” reserve and certain concerns expressed by Metal token-holders regarding the company’s use of that reserve, as well as comments from a Metal spokesman.
San Francisco-based payments startup Metal Payments, which raised some $3 million in a token sale in June 2017, has been furiously reviving old news, possibly to boost the price of its flagging token, MTL.
At the same time, the startup has been accused of misusing whatever is left of its diminishing winnings to cash out and invest in dubious side projects.
Founded by Marshall Hayner in April 2016, Metal Payments launched on the promise that it would create 66,588,888 tokens, and distribute them across various projects—21,088,888 ($10,544,444) to founders and advisors at around $0.05 each; 3,378,000 to the founding team, for free; and 13,378,888 ($6,689,444) to an app development fund.
In addition, there were two pools of funds that Metal Payments said it would “set aside:” 2,000,000 for the Metal Foundation, which would fund charity projects; and 26,341,112 for a “proof of processed payments pool” (PoPP) designed to reward users for making payments.
When MTL was worth $14 on September 8, 2018, the total funds held briefly amounted to $364 million.
But by February, by which time Metal’s price had sunk significantly, Metal holders began to notice that funds were leaving the PoPP pool at a rate higher than advertised in the white paper. It was only in April that Hayner disclosed in a Medium post that he had appropriated funds from the payments pool and the foundation to fund the “core metal team." Metal Payments executives then proceeded to move those funds and sell them on the market.
Holders were confused. “This was meant to be an untouched resource with maximum 7,200 taken out per day so pop would last,” wrote one investor on the company’s Discord channel. “Taking from the foundation and PoPP pool isn’t cool at all,” said another. “I don’t know how that isn’t illegal.”
In the last thirty days (as of publication), over 2.8 million MTL tokens have left the PoPP pool, according to Etherscan, worth around $1 million. And in May, the company paid an undisclosed amount for “Crumbs,” a now-defunct micro-investing app Hayner had previously invested in, sparking further concerns from holders.
Though it has slightly gone up over the past month, the Metal token’s price remains at just over half its value in April.
Now Metal is apparently doing whatever it can to resurrect its token’s ailing price. Over the past few weeks, the company has been breathlessly re-releasing old announcements—some dating back to 2017—via one of its primary investors, the popular “teen bitcoin millionaire” Erik Finman, leading to brief spikes in MTL’s value.
And it’s worked.
On August 19, for instance, Finman announced the launch of the “Metal Pay” app, positioning it as a competitor to Facebook’s planned digital currency, Libra. MTL’s price grew from $0.30 to $0.34 on the news, but it needn’t have—Metal Pay officially launched in September of last year.
Meanwhile, on August 21, Finman announced that MTL would be listed on Binance, an enormous exchange known for doubling the value of newly listed tokens. Again, the news shook the price, sending it from $0.36 to $0.46—but in reality, MTL had been listed on the exchange since October 2017.
Again and again, Metal promoted old news as new. Finman announced on August 24 that Metal was hiring, but the relevant job listings have been online for several months. And on August 25, Finman announced that Metal was moving into a new office—offices that, according to screenshots seen by Decrypt, the company has occupied since March. (“The tour of the new office was not triggered by moving in, and the announcement did not mention ’moving in,’” a Metal spokesman said after this story was published. “But by unpacking, cleaning, and decorating the office, Metal readied it for public presentation and video tour.“)
As this has played out over the past thirty days, MTL’s price has trended marginally upwards—but the amount left in the PoPP pool has dwindled further.
We reached out to Metal Payments, and a spokesman explained that many of the reiterative announcements had been addressed to new users. And indeed this is true—for the Binance “announcement,” both Finman’s video and an accompanying press release addressed these “new users,” citing “all the press we got this week” as the impetus. But isn’t Finman’s tweet—titled simply, “ANNOUNCEMENT: We’re listed on Binance”—still misleading?
In response, the spokesman just directed us back to Finman’s video.
We asked also about Finman’s “announcement” of Metal Pay, which actually launched late last year. To this, the spokesman said that the original launch had in fact been of Metal Pay’s “beta” service. But the original press release made no mention of a beta launch, and Finman, in his announcement, made no such mention either. Asked about this, the spokesman did not respond for further comment.
Neither Finman, nor Hayner, responded for comment.
Of course, running dubious publicity campaigns to boost investor sentiment is nothing new in the cryptocurrency space. So-called third-generation blockchain startup IOTA, for instance, said in late 2017 that it had partnered with Microsoft, when it had actually just subscribed to the tech giant’s online cloud service, Azure. Tron’s Justin Sun, meanwhile, has become something of a connoisseur in the art of desperate publicity, and has been derided for announcing announcements and playing up his tenuous relationships with big-name businesses and investors.
But Metal Payments, as brazenly transparent as its ruse is, makes a fine case study.
Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
PANews reported on November 19th that Binance's Earn Earn program has added five new tokens to its list: Tron (TRX), Aptos (APT), IOTA (IOTA), ApeCoin (APE), and MultiversX (EGLD). With these additions, the tokens currently supporting Earn Earn Earn are: BNB, SOL, TRX, ADA, SUI, TON, NEAR, APT, POL, ALGO, IOTA, S, APE, EGLD, and AXS. To earn Earn Earn Earn rewards, users must meet the minimum holding requirements for each token. There is also a cap on the amount of holdings eligible for earnings; holdings exceeding this cap will not earn additional rewards.
Market Wrap Crypto markets consolidating again; Binance Coin, Dash and Maker are moving, the rest slipping slowly. As widely predicted the crypto market pump was just that as things are starting to dump again today. The movements have been minor but the majority are in the red at the moment as market capitalization slips back to $120 billion.
Bitcoin did not get close to $3,700 today so new resistance levels are forming lower again. Around $3,650 seems to be its stability point for the time being but dips are not being supported and Bitcoin could drop lower, it is currently down half a percent on the day.
Ethereum has held on to second place by not moving over the past 24 hours. Still trading at $120 ETH could get some momentum from the Constantinople hard fork which has been delayed until the end of the month. XRP has lost a little more ground today and the gap between the two is currently just over $200 million.
Most of the top ten are falling back during the Asian trading session today. Tron has dropped the most despite the BTT airdrop today as TRX loses 3.5%. Bitcoin Cash is not far behind with a 3% slide. Only Binance Coin is making progress today adding another 2.5% as it closes the gap on Stellar in ninth which has dumped another 2%.
There are two big movers in the top twenty at the moment. Dash and Maker have added a further 7% on the day trading at $83 and $495 respectively. The Maker dev fund was moved to a new multisig wallet two days ago which caused the CMC market cap spike and the flipping of ETC and NEM. NEO and Zcash have also added 3.5% each to their prices over the past 24 hours but IOTA and NEM continue to slide.
There are no major pumps occurring in the top one hundred at the time of writing. Huobi Token is the best performer adding 15% followed by MOAC with a 12% rise. Getting bashed is yesterday’s pump; Quant followed by Revain both shedding 10% in predictable dumps.
Total market capitalization has not really moved overnight and is still at $120 billion. No further gains for the big cap coins look likely so further consolidation is expected in this channel for the time being. Volume is still at $20 billion and markets are still 6% higher than they were this time last week.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top 20 cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals
Crypto markets pulling back; Bitcoin dominance rising, BNB and Cardano falling, BAT getting attention. Market Wrap Crypto markets have held gains largely thanks to Bitcoin’s rally yesterday. Total market capitalization remains over $180 billion at the time of writing as BTC eats into the altcoins while its dominance climbs to the highest levels this year.
Bitcoin surged through $5,600 yesterday and spent most of the past 24 hours above it. It has started to pull back now though in early Asian trading and was sitting around $5,550 this morning. Volume is currently at a weekly high of $16 billion and momentum has remained with BTC which has increased its total market share. Analysts are expecting a pullback but the correction should not be too severe;
$BTC Daily Chart.
There are multiple Fib clusters lined up at the 5850 area. Not to mention that it rejected at the 127.2 retrace today. IMO, getting close to a local top. Not saying to sell all out, but if me, I would reduce exposure and see what the correction looks like. pic.twitter.com/VP6ZpTIQUN
— CryptoFibonacci (@CryptoFib) April 24, 2019
Ethereum has dropped back to just below $170, it did not react with BTC this time and has remained pretty flat over the past week or so. ETH is falling back to last week’s levels as all gains get wiped out.
Altcoins have not rallied this time around and the top ten is all red today. The biggest two losers are Binance Coin and Cardano which have dumped 6 to 7 percent on the day. The rest have slumped 2 to 4 percent as traders move into Bitcoin or back into stablecoins.
There are only a couple of beacons of green in the top twenty at the time of writing. Monero and Tezos have made marginal gains but all those around them have fallen back. IOTA, Ethereum Classic and Ontology have dumped hard dropping over 6 percent each. The rest are losing 3 to 5 percent during early trading this Wednesday.
FOMO: BAT Back At It There are no major pumps going on in the top one hundred at the moment but the best performing altcoin is Basic Attention Token after a few days of declines. BAT is up 9 percent on the day to reach an intraday high of $0.45. Brave browser ads have gone live according to the Reddit which has driven momentum for BAT again.
Aurora and NULS are making around 8 percent today but there are no double digit gains as most altcoins are getting eaten by Bitcoin. The biggest loser today is yesterday’s fomo coin, DigixDAO dropping 17 percent. Digitex Futures and Revain are also getting dumped doubles today.
Total market cap 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com Total market capitalization has corrected a little back to $181 billion. Most of yesterday’s gains have been lost by altcoins but Bitcoin is holding on to them at the moment. Market dominance has risen to a four month high of 54.2 percent as Bitcoin controls the markets at the moment.
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) moved higher, with the cryptocurrency prices trading past the key $43,000 level on Tuesday.
Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) also recorded gains, trading above the key $2,300 mark this morning.
Pendle (CRYPTO: PENDLE) was the top gainer over the prior 24 hours, while Manta Network (CRYPTO: MANTA) turned out to be the biggest loser.
At the time of writing, the global crypto market cap rose to $1.67 trillion, recording a 24-hour gain of 2.5%. BTC was trading higher by 2.9% at $43,475 while ETH rose by around 1.9% to $2,315 on Tuesday.
Here are the top ten crypto gainers and losers over the past 24 hours:
After commemorating International Women’s Day this past weekend along with the rest of the world, we realized that we have some pretty amazing women right here on staff at BeInCrypto. So we decided to spotlight them in a feature about the cryptocurrency market, from how they got hooked to where they see the industry going from here, the most recent tumultuous times notwithstanding. Here’s a wrap up of the responses from our team.
How do you think cryptocurrencies can change the world?Alena Afanaseva (CEO, based in Russia): It already does. Freedom, speed and transparency are already here!
Jessica Lloyd (SEO Assistant, England): Many parts of Asia, Africa and South America have been dragged down with political instability, poverty, a lack of infrastructure, inflation and corruption. One of the biggest advantages of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is the increased transparency and access to money which is sorely missing in many developing countries.
Tanya Chepkova (Head of Russian Content Team): I think we are a part of something big. Crypto will change the way we pay, invest, and influence many other tiny things in our life.
Isabel Pérez (Spanish Writer, Colombia): I think this has already changed the world. There are out there so many new services, new products, new jobs (included mine, by the way). And there are so many possibilities for the future in so many areas…supply chain, health, finances, entertainment, identity, copyright and more. Besides, It teaches another important lesson: decentralization. I think that’s invaluable.
Shilpa Lama (Writer, India): At the very least, crypto has highlighted the fault lines within the existing financial order. It has highlighted the benefits of decentralization and shown people that there can be far better alternatives to the current monopoly of central banks. That’s already a pretty solid start and the impact will further increase with growing awareness.
Meltem Sengezer (Translator, Turkey): By paving the way for a safer, more transparent and more efficient financial structure.
Gerelyn Terzo (Editor, United States): Crypto has the greatest potential to change the world in emerging markets. Don’t get me wrong, it also has a place in developed economies. But Bitcoin is the solution to major issues that countries from Argentina to Zimbabwe are facing and could be their best hope for survival.
Which is your favorite cryptocurrency and why?Alena Afanaseva: Bitcoin, as it’s the first, the most widespread and the most viable at present.
Dana Yu (Korean Journalist): Bitcoin itself can survive no matter what other issues like regulation.
Anastasia Gnetova (Designer, Russia): The most interesting for me right now is the “internet of things” and cryptocurrencies that can back its development. That’s why I would personally bring light to IOTA. This cryptocurrency isn’t alike any other project. The potential of IOTA is huge and though some details like security still remain an open question, the main idea of this project can really speed up the process of M2M adoption.
Karina Uysal (Russian Journalist): Bitcoin. I believe that the future of the digital economy is behind this coin.
Tanya Chepkova: Bitcoin, as it is the standard, the the father of all other coins.
Isabel Pérez: That would be Bitcoin because it’s the safer cryptocurrency so far. But I believe Ethereum can offer many benefits as well.
Shilpa Lama: Bitcoin. As the alpha-coin leading the pack, it has far more potential as an investment vehicle compared to most alternatives.
Meltem Sengezer: I like cryptocurrencies that have real-life use cases such as Power Ledger.
Gwen Phan (Designer, Vietnam): Bitcoin, as it is the biggest, the most independent against external influences. But if my country comes up with a CBDC, I’ll be a supporter of that too.
How did you get involved in the crypto space?Alena Afanaseva: I’ve been in finance for more than 15 years, working as a an editor, financial analyst and head of analytical department in different times. It was 2016, when I wrote my first Bitcoin analysis. I was impressed by the simplicity and the beauty of blockchain concept.
Dana Yu: I heard and learned about Bitcoin/blockchain in 2017 and I got involved to launch an overseas crypto project in Korea as director.
Anastasia Gnetova: For the last five years, I’ve been working as a designer on different fintech projects. I was interested in the blockchain industry for quite some time and in 2018 I became a proud member of the BIC team.
Karina Uysal: Initially, I was engaged in public relations and helped ICOs and crypto exchanges position themselves in the market and receive new customers and investments.
Tanya Chepkova: I’ve been working as a finance translator, analyst and journalist for over 15 years. However, I first learned about Bitcoin in 2015 and started digging into the topic in 2016.
Isabel Pérez: It was because of my job as a writer. I ended up in media that specialized in Bitcoin and blockchain and I wondered if I could really do that. It looked so complicated. But I caught it surprisingly fast and it was amazing for me. I learned to love it.
Shilpa Lama: I have been covering technology since 2012 and the first time I was drawn to blockchain/crypto was around 2015-16. It was when the industry started gaining more traction in the media. Haven’t looked back since.
Meltem Sengezer: I worked for a major commercial bank in Turkey for a long time before moving to a small town to lead a more simple and quiet life. Blockchain technology has been a fascination of mine for a long time and being able to work from home while continuing to read and write about blockchain and cryptocurrencies was a no-brainer.
Gwen Phan: I had worked in the entertainment space for six years as a branding professional and visual communication expert. Through references, I came to know about cryptocurrency and joined the BIC family since last August.
Why do you think women are important in the space and how do you think more women can get into this space?Alena Afanaseva: There is a lot of evidence that men tend to invent and find some breakthrough ideas. But women are the best to adopt inventions and find a practical use for it. 😉
Dana Yu: About 10 percent of the people in this industry are women. Women are apt to stand out. It should also expand the blockchain and crypto industries by attracting female users.
Jessica Lloyd: In any sector, the key to success lies in diversity.
Tanya Chepkova: I think women are important in any space as they bring their own vision and understanding. Crypto is no exception.
Shilpa Lama: In crypto, women are outnumbered by men almost nine-to-one. What good could come from such massive gender-based disparity anyway? You don’t want 50% of the population to miss the train if crypto really manages to disrupt and redefine the global financial order.
Meltem Sengezer: Having more women in any sector is crucial as they can provide fresh insights that otherwise can be overlooked. I think more women will get involved in the crypto space naturally as the sector continues to turn more mainstream.
Gerelyn Terzo: Bitcoin and the blockchain are better for having the contribution of women, from technical, market and regulatory points of view. Just look at the women who have emerged as leaders in the space, and it’s clear why.
Gwen Phan: Alexia Bonatsos, a female venture capitalist, tweeted: “Women, consider crypto. Otherwise the men are going to get all the wealth, again.” Well, we can’t let that happen, can we?
The cryptocurrency market has been consolidating after the market’s latest price rally. While not all coins sustained bullish trends, a few altcoins, however, were eyeing a potential move upwards in a bid to surpass previously breached resistances.
Litecoin [LTC]
In an effort to bolster Litecoin adoption, the Litecoin Foundation recently partnered with MeconCash, a partnership allowing fiat withdrawal at over 13,000 ATMs across South Korea.
The silver crypto recorded a decline of 0.02% over a period of 24-hours. At press time, LTC was priced at $38.86 with a market cap of $2.50 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $3.20 billion.
Resistance: $63.37, $79.68
Support: $30.95
MACD: The MACD line was above the signal line, suggesting a bullish trend for the silver crypto in the near-term.
CMF: The CMF also pointed towards a highly bullish phase for Litecoin.
IOTA
The IOTA wallet hack and the subsequent decision of the Foundation to shut down the “coordinator” node on the network proved to be damaging for the coin. However, its technical indices at press time indicated a price revival in the near-term. IOTA was trading at $0.155, at press time, with a market cap of $432 million. The token was down by a significant 8.90% over the last 24-hours, while recording a trading volume of $10.63 million.
Resistance: $0.232, $0.292
Support: $0.107
Parabolic SAR: The dotted markers hovering below the IOTA price candles implied a bullish trend for the coin.
Awesome Oscillator: The green closing bars of the AO also aligned with the bulls.
MonaCoin [MONA]
This Japanese cryptocurrency was previously reported to have the highest spot transaction volume by Japan’s Virtual Currency Exchange Association [JVCEA].
At press time, MONA held a market cap of $77.52 and was valued at $1.18. The token registered a trading volume of $5.46 after a decline of 1.33% over the last 24-hours.
Resistance: $1.49, $1.93
Support: $0.742
Klinger Oscillator: The KO indicator underwent a bullish crossover, and this positive trend was seen to be in motion.
Relative Strength Index: The RSI was close to the 50-median, indicating an imminent upward trend and potential positive sentiment among investors in the market.
Home Altcoins Binance to Remove 9 Spot Trading Pairs on August 23
Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has announced the delisting of nine spot trading pairs including the following cryptocurrencies: ARKM, CHZ, ENA, FIRO, IOTA, JOE, OMNI, REZ and SUPER.
These pairs will be removed from trading opportunities against fiat and crypto pairs, such as TUSD, EUR, BTC, FDUSD, TRY and BNB, as of August 23 at 06:00 CET. However, the affected tokens will still be available for trading via other pairs on the platform.
The delisting decision is part of Binance’s ongoing efforts to improve trading quality and market efficiency. The exchange regularly reviews trading pairs, focusing on liquidity and volume, and removes those that do not meet its standards to protect users and maintain a high-quality trading environment.
The move has sparked reactions in the crypto community, with some price volatility being seen as traders adjust their strategies. Binance advises users to review and possibly adjust their trading strategies, especially those using automated bots, as spot trading bot services for these pairs will also be discontinued.
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With over 8 years of experience in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, Alexander is a seasoned content creator and market analyst dedicated to making digital assets more accessible and understandable. He specializes in breaking down complex crypto trends, analyzing market movements, and producing insightful content aimed at educating both newcomers and seasoned investors. Alexander has built a reputation for delivering timely and accurate analysis, while keeping a close eye on regulatory developments, emerging technologies, and macroeconomic trends that shape the future of digital finance. His work is rooted in a passion for innovation and a firm belief that widespread education is key to accelerating global crypto adoption.
The crypto market will welcome tokens worth more than $566 million in the final week of November 2025. Several major projects, including Hyperliquid (HYPE), Plasma (XPL), and Jupiter (JUP), will release significant new token supplies.
These unlocks might lead to market volatility and influence price movements in the short term. Here’s a breakdown of what to watch for each project.
1. Hyperliquid (HYPE) Unlock Date: November 29 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 9.92 million HYPE (0.992% of Total Supply) Current Circulating Supply: 270.77 million HYPE Total supply: 1 billion HYPE Hyperliquid is a leading decentralized perpetual futures exchange built on its own Layer-1 blockchain. It offers high-performance trading with low latency, on-chain order books, and also sub-second transaction finality.
On November 29, the project will release 9.92 million tokens valued at approximately $327.35 million. This accounts for 2.66% of the current released supply.
HYPE Crypto Token Unlock in November. Source: TokenomistHyperliquid will distribute all the unlocked tokens among core contributors.
2. Plasma (XPL) Unlock Date: November 25 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 88.89 million XPL (0.89% of Total Supply) Current Circulating Supply: 1.88 billion XPL Total supply: 10 billion XPL Plasma is a Layer 1 blockchain platform built to enhance the efficiency and scalability of stablecoin transactions. It enables zero-fee USDT transfers, allows the use of custom gas tokens, supports confidential payments, and delivers the throughput required for global-scale adoption.
Plasma will unlock 88.89 million XPL on November 25. The tokens are worth $17.53 million. Moreover, they account for 4.74% of the current circulating supply.
XPL Crypto Token Unlock in November. Source: TokenomistThe team will direct all of the 88.89 million XPL to the ecosystem and growth.
3. Jupiter (JUP) Unlock Date: November 28 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 53.47 million JUP (0.53% of Total Supply) Current Circulating Supply: 3.2 billion JUP Total supply: 10 billion JUP Jupiter is a decentralized liquidity aggregator on the Solana (SOL) blockchain. It optimizes trade routes across multiple decentralized exchanges (DEXs) to provide users with the best prices for token swaps with minimal slippage.
On November 28, Jupiter will unlock 53.47 million JUP tokens. The supply is worth approximately $12.83 million, representing 1.69% of its circulating supply. Furthermore, this unlock follows a monthly cliff vesting schedule.
JUP Crypto Token Unlock in November. Source: TokenomistJupiter has allocated the tokens primarily to the team, who will get 38.89 million JUP. Furthermore, Mercurial stakeholders will receive 14.58 million JUP altcoins.
In addition to these, other prominent unlocks that investors can look out for in the final week of November include Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET), Aerodrome Finance (AERO), IOTA (IOTA), and various altcoins, contributing to the overall market-wide releases.
Unlike other industries, the crypto world is a very transparent one. As its core philosophy comes from the most popular blockchain-based projects such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, it’s no wonder that these projects are being developed in such open communities. Anyone willing to participate can join and propose their improvements and upgrades for networks. This was, after all, the vision of Satoshi, the original Bitcoin developer, who wanted complete transparency for blockchain technologies. In addition to the publicly available code, many crypto and blockchain projects have public ledgers of all their transactions along with whitepaper documents with detailed descriptions of their projects.
All this transparency is necessary since many projects are getting funding for development by conducting initial coin offerings (ICO). That means that somebody has to invest based only on ideas or by looking at a minimum viable product (MVP). After fundraising, projects have to continue informing their investors about their progress and maintain a good reputation.
Various crypto ratings to inform youAs an individual, it can be difficult to keep track of all projects out there, but luckily there are a lot of crypto rating sites that can help you make a decision on whether to buy or sell the various projects’ tokens.
Source: weisscrypto.com
One of the most famous ratings platforms is Weiss Crypto Rating, a reputable agency providing ratings for stocks and other assets on a global scale. They started to publish crypto ratings at the end of 2017 and currently they have 125 coins and tokens in their ratings.
Another well-known rating report is published by China’s Center for Information and Industry Development. It features 35 coins, with EOS leading the pack. Nobody knows their criteria, but some projects get a lower basic-tech score despite being more advanced than the other projects getting a higher score.
We can’t overlook Xangle, a disclosure platform for retail and institutional players. It contains information about listings, partnerships, new updates, and it gathers on-chain data from all available blockchains. It’s entrusted by such exchanges as Bithumb, and it has the reputation of keeping an unbiased stance toward all projects, so it’s a mark of high quality when any project gets a high score.
One of such projects is Max Crowdfund, which got a perfect score of 63/63 recently, being the first project to achieve this on Xangle. It scored so high because of their complete transparency, providing all information about their finances, management, and working practices.
“We wish that all companies would provide information so openly and transparently. Max Property Group should be the benchmark for disclosure in the blockchain space,” says Hae Min Park, Managing Director of Xangle.
Source: xangle.io
To provide such information, the team at Max Property Group had to go through a due-diligence process by Xangle. As a result, the Due Diligence Report will be available to all Xangle-partnered exchanges, which will help the project in the listing process.
There are several reputable projects reviewed by Xangle, such as Ardor, Aeternity, IOTA, Binance Coin, and Bancor, but none of them achieved a perfect score yet, unlike Max Crowdfund. With such a high score the company has set the bar very high, and it is to be seen whether other companies will follow this exemplary way of providing an insight in their operations and finances.
Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, has declared the delisting of nine altcoin’s spot trading pairs.
This action, set to take effect on August 23 at 03:00 UTC, reflects Binance’s attempts to enhance market quality.
What Binance Users Need To Do?Binance assesses the performance of its listed trading pairs and removes those that do not meet liquidity and volume thresholds. The exchange claims these measures protect users and uphold a high-quality trading environment.
Read more: Binance Review 2024: Is It the Right Crypto Exchange for You?
The pairs to be removed include:
ARKM/TUSD CHZ/EUR ENA/EUR FIRO/BTC IOTA/FDUSD JOE/TRY OMNI/BNB REZ/BNB SUPER/FDUSD Although this delisting affects specific trading channels, it does not eliminate the individual tokens from the platform.
“Users can still trade the spot trading pair’s base and quote assets on other trading pair(s) that are available on Binance,” the crypto exchange explained.
Therefore, users with an interest in these pairs should revise their trading strategies accordingly. Importantly, the exchange will also terminate spot trading bot services for these pairs at the same time. Binance advises traders to either cancel or update their automated trades to avoid potential financial losses.
Notably, this round of delisting has not immediately influenced the market prices of the involved tokens. This stability likely stems from their continued availability in other trading pairs on Binance, which helps cushion any negative impacts.
However, the history of token delistings on Binance suggests potential volatility. For instance, Binance’s removal of six altcoins last week led to substantial price drops for those cryptocurrencies. Notably, PowerPool (CVP) and Ellipsis (EPX) saw declines of 14% and 22% immediately after their removal was announced.
Read more: 11 Cryptos To Add To Your Portfolio Before Altcoin Season
This trend continued from last month when tokens such as Dock (DOCK) and Mdex (MDX) experienced sharp falls, nearly 30%, and 23.65%, following their delisting. These incidents shed light on the impact of exchange listings or delisting on an altcoin’s valuation.
Crypto markets falling back on Monday; BSV, XRP, and Tron dropping back, Litecoin and NEO stay afloat. Market Wrap Crypto markets are seeing red as we begin another trading week. Most of the majors are in decline following Bitcoin’s failure to hold gains and break $8,000. Total market capitalization has dropped below $250 billion and is poised to fall further as the selloff accelerates.
Bitcoin has dumped 2.5 percent on the day falling from just under $8k down to support at $7,500. BTC recovered a little during early Asian trading but is still down on the day trading at around $7,700. A big bearish signal was given by the weekly candle which was biggest drop since December at almost 11 percent.
As expected Ethereum is faring no better with a slide of over 3 percent down to $235. There is strong support around the $210 area and it could soon be there if analysts are correct.
The rest of the top ten is in the red as crypto declines increase. Bitcoin SV has dropped the most at over 6 percent falling back to $183. XRP is not far behind with over 4 percent lost as the Ripple token falls below $0.40 again. Bitcoin Cash, Binance Coin and Stellar are not doing much better. Litecoin has remained steady as halving fomo continues to drive LTC higher.
Top twenty losses are marginally greater with Tron dumping the most at over 5 percent. IOTA, Cosmos and Ethereum Classic are all losing around 3 percent and NEO is the only altcoin in the green adding 2 percent to remain over $12.
FOMO: Nebulas Skyrockets A massive dose of fomo has hit NAS today as it shoots up 45 percent. The autonomous smart asset platform does not appear to have anything fundamentally driving it aside from yesterday’s Nebulas Council Election Assistance Campaign launch;
Also getting a pump today is GXChain which has surged 36 percent and NULS up almost 20 percent. At the messy end of the crypto top one hundred is HyperCash dumping 13 percent while Ravencoin gets hit 9 percent on the day.
Total market cap 24 hours. Coinmarketcap.com Total crypto market capitalization has declined $5 billion since this time yesterday. It is now at $247 billion with a daily volume of $62 billion. Over the week markets are down 8.5 percent as over $20 billion has left the space. With Bitcoin poised to fall further the pain is likely to continue this week.
Market Wrap is a section that takes a daily look at the top cryptocurrencies during the current trading session and analyses the best-performing ones, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.
Want to steal some Bitcoin? All you need to do is find your victim’s 16-character public key and calculate their private key by solving something called an “elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem.” No sweat! With a regular computer, that’ll take you around 50 million times the amount of time the universe itself has left—around 0.65 billion billion years.
Ah, but with the right quantum computer, able to process information at speeds exponentially faster than today’s supercomputers? Suddenly, what seems uncrackable becomes child’s play, able to be broken in under 10 minutes.
The quantum-computing problem is nothing new to crypto, and many experts believe we have at least a decade or more to come up with quantum-resistant cryptography. However, some observers say that recent and unexpectedly fast advances are causing the time horizon to dramatically shrink. The most aggressive estimate says that bitcoin will be hackable by 2027, according to Fact Based Insights.
“We moved the state of the art more in the last two years than it has progressed in the last 15 or 20,” says Stewart Allen, Chief Operating Officer at IonQ, a company that claims to make some of the most powerful quantum computers in the world, in an interview with Decrypt.
On Thursday, top cryptographers will meet in Santa Barbara at the University of California for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Post Quantum Cryptography semi finals. The finalists of the NIST competition will be announced in the months after the conference, though it might take years before the winner is annointed. Cryptographers say the standards that result represent blockchain’s best hope for resisting the rapidly encroaching power of quantum computers.
”If someone cracked your key, they could do anything they wanted,” Rob Campbell, President at Baltimore,Maryland-based Med Cybersecurity, told Decrypt. Anyone with sensitive information on the blockchain—cash, personal data, medical records—is at risk. With that sort of information, quantum hackers could “forge your name, take your assets,” and, if there’s medical data to be found, maliciously “triple your dose,” said Campbell. “It’s an open door.”
Take the Bitcoin blockchain: an unencrypted public key is sent along with every bitcoin transaction, and left unencrypted during the time it takes for the network to confirm the block, around ten minutes. That’s theoretically more than enough time for a quantum-equipped hacker to calculate a private key from the public key and replace the recipient’s address with his own.
Que Quantum?
Transistors in conventional computers capture data in terms of 1s and 0s. Is the sky blue today? If it is, 1. If not, 0. Computing is essentially combinations of these calculations: have enough transistors, you can compute almost anything.
With quantum computers, it’s possible for the same input, called a qubit, to represent both 0 and 1 at the same time, a non-binary state known as “quantum superposition”—think Schrödinger's dead-and-alive cat. This makes quantum computers exponentially more powerful; one lone, superpositioned qubit can handle the processing load of at least two full-sized transistors on a regular computer.
Using modified versions of “Shor’s algorithm,” a quantum algorithm that rapidly turns large numbers into prime factors, hackers could reverse the process that makes private keys so difficult to crack.
But at the moment, the best quantum computer is probably Google's Bristlecone quantum computer, which has 72 qubits. Miruna Rosca, a PhD student in post-quantum cryptography, tells Decrypt you’d probably need around 4000 qubits to break current cryptographic algorithms.
So how long do we have?
IonQ’s Allan, who creates quantum computers for a living, speculates it’ll take about a decade for post-quantum cryptography to become an issue. By then, he reckons, someone will probably have developed a quantum-resistant blockchain. Danny Ryan, a core researcher at Ethereum, thinks the same: “This isn't really a meaningful problem in the next 10 years and likely not for 20 to 30. That said, we tend to be bad at estimating things like this so we should be ready to transition sooner rather than later.”
But others say the problem requires immediate attention, and that—beyond the threat to Bitcoin—quantum computing could pose a major cybersecurity threat. Med Cybersecurity’s Rob Campbell says that a government armed with quantum decryption software could read all the world’s secrets.
A U.S. Navy signal officer by training, Campbell’s time in the classified research and development world has taught him that secret government technologies often outpace commercially available technology. “We were decades ahead of the commercial world,” he said. “We didn’t want any potential adversaries to know what our capabilities are.”
Even if Campbell’s claims seem ambitious, he points out that if an enemy security agency scrape all of your encrypted data today—which they certainly could—they’ll be able to decrypt all that data once they’ve built a powerful enough quantum computer. That’s enough to make developing quantum-resistant cryptographic techniques an issue of national security.
In any case, the arms race for quantum supremacy is well underway: China just spent $10 billion on a research center for quantum computers, and the U.S. has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the field.
Quantum-resistant techniques
Quantum computing can be just as effective for cryptographers as it is for hackers. Unobserved, superpositioned particles exist in multiple states, but when detected, they “collapse” to one point in space-time. Quantum cryptography has the same properties; because the protons that make up an encoded transaction shift upon observation, a successful attacker would have to break the laws of physics to intercept it.
This makes information encoded at the quantum level resistant to, among other things, so-called “man in the middle attacks,” where attackers intercept the transmission itself without having to decrypt the key.
A few blockchains claim to apply quantum-resistant techniques to ensure signatures and hashes remain encrypted, including QRL, IOTA, HyperCash, and Starkware. But with quantum computing still in its formative years, it’s difficult to determine the strength of these claims.
Until a quantum-resistant algorithm is tested and accepted by the wider academic community, there’s no assurance that any of these blockchains will be resilient enough against quantum computers. Scientists like Campbell are waiting on the results of next week’s NIST competition at UCAL-Santa Barbara; the final winners might not be announced for a few years, however. NIST tentatively expects drafts for standardisation will be completed around 2022.
“These winners are considered to be the best candidates on Earth and will likely go on to be standard cryptography and will be used by most of the planet,” says Campbell.
But developing the algorithm might not be the difficult part for large blockchains like Ethereum or Bitcoin. Whereas owners of centralized protocols can update the system as they please, blockchains, democratic by nature, require broad consensus among many thousands of miners to pass an upgrade.
In the case of an upgrade, all wallets that aren’t quantum-resistant become vulnerable to attack. That includes the 1 million bitcoins mined by Bitcoin’s pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto—if those aren’t migrated to a new, quantum-resistant wallet, they’re treasure for the first person with a powerful enough quantum computer.
“If high powered quantum computers appeared tomorrow,” said Ethereum’s Ryan, “we'd have many more problems than just the security of our blockchains.”
A 2019 National Academy of Sciences report concludes that, even if quantum computing is about a decade off, prioritising research is necessary to minimize “the chance of a potential security and privacy disaster.” Best get cracking, then.
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Last week, Google announced it had achieved a breakthrough in quantum computing. In the leading scientific journal, Nature, Google published a claim that it had achieved “quantum supremacy”—by creating a computer that could complete calculations that even the world’s fastest supercomputer could not.
Whereas regular computers use bits, which perform calculations in the form of 1s and 0s, quantum computers use qubits, transistors that can register 1s and 0s at the same time, exponentially increasing computer power and speed.
Blockchain’s cryptography relies on the fact that it’s very hard to calculate private keys from public ones. Private keys are encrypted, and it would take the largest supercomputer thousands of years to crack them. But with the right quantum computer, cracking this code would be trivial.
Industry experts estimate that it’d take at least a decade for this to become a problem. To prepare, leaders in the cryptography field are hard at work on developing new, quantum-resistant cryptographic techniques that could one day be used to secure blockchains. Let’s take a look at what’s going on:
1. The NSA is developing quantum-resistant cryptography. “In the summer of 2015, NSA announced its intention to transition NSS to quantum resistant or post-quantum public key cryptography,” a spokesperson for the US National Security Agency tells Decrypt. Since then, the NSA has been working with industry leaders to “ensure that we have a robust set of quantum resistant algorithms ready to protect United States government systems”, and making sure that “all parties are prepared to make this transition.”
2. NIST is running a competitionA large competition to create post-quantum cryptographic algorithms is well underway. The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has received over 80 submissions for algorithms that are quantum resistant. This is important: NIST is the gold standard in the cryptography community. Once NIST gives the green-light to the winning submission, which will likely be around 2022, then bingo, we’ve found our quantum resistant algorithm, and blockchain is saved. The NSA will make use of the NIST submission, too: “The standards that NIST puts forward will be key to the cybersecurity of the entire United States government, as well as underpinning the security of many commercial, financial, critical infrastructure, and other systems,” a spokeperson tells Decrypt.
3. QRLSome blockchains are racing ahead of the NIST competition, promising post-quantum blockchains today. One such project, QRL, uses an extensible address format to ensure that it is “ready for anything out of NIST.” These claim to use quantum-resistant algorithms, but, because they’re so new, it’s difficult to work out just how effective they are.
4. PraxxisDavid Chaum, inventor of digital cash and founder of blockchain-based messaging and payments privacy platform Elixxir, is currently working on a “quantum-resistant” crypto project, Praxxis. He claims that it uses quantum-resistant signatures that protects users from leaked metadata, and that all will be revealed in Praxxis’ whitepaper when it’s made public later this year. Until then, though, there’s no way to verify his claims.
5. HyperCashCross-platform cryptocurrency HyperCash is future-proofing itself against quantum computing with a “quantum-resistant signature” on a “dual-chain ecosystem”. It proposes using post-quantum lattice RingCT protocols, in combination with “improved and optimized” zero-knowledge SNARKS, for added safety and security. Its signature scheme “supports multiple post quantum signature schemes”. Amongst its research committee are quantum-computing whizz kids, like Professor Gavin Brennan, director of the Macquarie Centre for Quantum Engineering, and Professor Miklos Santha, a principal investigator at the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Quantum Technologies.
6. IOTAIOTA claims that its Tangle is secure against post-quantum cryptography. Its Tangle is a “stream of interlinked and individual transactions”, which IOTA says is structured in such a way that would make it difficult for even a quantum computer to crack. IOTA also has a module called “Masked Authenticated Messaging,” which lets the blockchain “encrypt entire data streams and securely anchor those into the IOTA Tangle in a quantum proof fashion.”
Since quantum computers are so new, there’s still got a while to go before scientists work out how to crack cryptography with them—and the cryptography industry is working on a number of different approaches to deal with the threats posed by quantum computing.
But the stakes are high: quantum computers could soon be capable of decrypting all encrypted information, including bank accounts and government databases. For cryptographers—and cryptocurrency—time is of the essence.
Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.