Cryptocurrency

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week. This week in DeFi saw the hacker behind the $8.9 million SafeMoon exploit agree to return the majority of the stolen funds. According to the project’s developers,

Dogecoin suffered a big blow on April 20, popularly known as “Dogeday” thanks to the failed test launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket and downturn in the broader crypto market.  The SpaceX rocket, which featured the Dogecoin mascot on its side, disintegrated four minutes after its launch. Still, the company’s employees including Elon Musk cheered the

The past few weeks have seen a wave of zero-knowledge proof project launches, including Polygon’s zkEVM and Matter Lab’s zkSync Era on mainnet, and the Linea zkEVM from ConsenSys on testnet. They join StarkWare’s long-running StarkEx solution and its decentralized cousin StarkNet along with a variety of other projects in development from Polygon (Miden, Zero,

The OpenZeppelin Defender smart contract security platform has now integrated with Coinbase’s Base network, allowing Web3 app developers on Base to automate security tasks. According to an April 19 announcement from blockchain cybersecurity firm OpenZeppelin, app developers on Base can now use the Defender software to create multi-signature admin contracts and timelocks, employ Relayers to

Solana saw two positive developments this week with the launch of the Saga Android-based smartphone powered by Solana blockchain and the retail trading debut of Grayscale’s Solana Trust shares. The developments along with bullishness in the broader market, boosted the price of SOL by 29.05% from April 11 to a monthly high of $26.03. While

Gnosis Builders, developer of blockchain network Gnosis Chain, has announced a $5 million project to increase the number and diversity of validators through incentive mechanisms. The new project is called “Gnosis VIP,” according to an April 18 announcement from the company. As part of the new project, Gnosis is launching a “Geographic Diversity Program” that

Digital art auction house Sotheby’s has altered its latest art sale significantly after receiving community feedback regarding a lack of diversity, meanwhile a novice player in Illivium: Beyond has made a staggering profit of 140,525% by finding the most elusive character in the game yet. Sotheby’s reboot Glitch Digital Art Sale after addressing diversity concerns

Top Stories This Week Ethereum’s Shapella hard fork executed on mainnet The Ethereum blockchain’s mainnet, also referred to as the Beacon Chain, implemented the Shapella hard fork on April 12. The upgrade made fund withdrawals possible for those who have staked the network’s Ether (ETH) asset. Within the first hour of the hard fork, a

Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) are trading above the psychologically important levels of $30,000 and $2,000 respectively. This suggests that the crypto winter may be on its last legs.  Some analysts are calling for an altseason to begin but it may be too early for that. When most of the crypto bears turn bullish, Bitcoin

Ethereum’s long-anticipated Shanghai and Capella upgrade was activated on April 12 and the total withdrawals in the first 40 hours after the Shapella upgrade stood at 142,425 ETH, per Nansen data. This falls in line with previous estimates.  For a brief moment on April 12, when Shapella was activated, the deposits to ETH staking contracts

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Bitcoin’s day of glory on Chinese TikTok On Apr. 10, Douyin, the version of Tiktok exclusive to Chinese users, began publishing price quotes related to Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Ripple (XRP). The move

Ether (ETH) price has increased by 58% year to date, but it has far underperformed the market leader Bitcoin (BTC). In fact, the ETH/BTC price ratio has dropped to 0.063, its lowest level in 9 months.  Analysts believe that the majority of the movement can be attributed to the Ethereum network’s upcoming Shapella hard fork,

LayerZero is a communication method that facilitates cross-chain applications. Its low-level messaging capabilities enable the development of omni-chain functionalities on top of it, such as decentralized exchanges, money market protocols and numerous other DeFi applications that can benefit from cross-chain liquidity provisions. The LayerZero platform was launched in September 2021 with Stargate Finance, a cross-chain

Bitcoin’s (BTC) tight consolidation near its local top suggests that traders are waiting for a catalyst to start the next trending move. The consumer price data on April 12 and the producer price index data on April 13 could give insight into the Federal Reserve’s future rate hikes and shake the traders out of their

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol SushiSwap recently suffered an exploit due to a smart contract bug, leading to over $3 million in losses. Members of the crypto community responded to the hack, with some thinking that there was something fishy about it.  On April 9, security firms detected unusual activities in the DeFi platform’s smart contract

The long weekend has not produced any fireworks in Bitcoin (BTC) price, which continues to trade inside an ever-narrowing range. Bitcoin is on track to form a third consecutive Doji candlestick pattern on the weekly chart. This suggests that the Bitcoin bulls and the bears are not clear about the next directional move. It is

Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace LooksRare has upgraded to version 2, reducing fees by 75% and implementing several other features, according to an April 6 announcement from the company. ! Rolled out rn:– Fee dropped to 0.5%– Gas 50% cheaper than Blur– One-signature bulk listing– Buy 70+ NFTs at once– Sellers get ETH instead of WETH

Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading below $29,000 for the past several days. The analyst community remains divided on the near-term prospects of Bitcoin. While some believe that Bitcoin could rise to $30,000, others are of the opinion that a local top has been made. Bloomberg Intelligence senior macro strategist Mike McGlone said that cryptocurrencies, along

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Blowing up a Singaporean crypto hedge fund worth an estimated $10 billion at its peak was, by all means, a life-changing event for its co-founders Kyle Davies and Zhu Su. It appears that the trauma from the incident had been so

Tether (USDT) continues to benefit from the ongoing turmoil in the U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin industry with its market capitalization growing significantly in Q1 2023 at other stablecoins’ expense. Tether market cap reaches $80 billion On April 6, the circulating market cap of USDT surpassed $80 billion for the first time since May 2022 with a