Category: Cryptocurrency News

BTC price is in a freefall and data suggests bears plan to keep the price below $30,000 until the May 13 options expiry.

Mangata Finance, the Polkadot-based DEX, is all set for launch on June 6th. Recently, it had a successful crowdloan that was closed in just under an hour that secured it a slot on Polkadot’s innovation network Kusama. Over $2 million in value was bonded through the crowdloan, a process of staking Polkadot (DOT) tokens to support a specific project in the Polkadot Slot Auction, in return for which participants receive rewards from the projects. The project also raised $4.2 million in equity, which came shortly after the launch of its first blockchain on the Kusama network, which raised the Polkadot startup’s valuation to $60 million. New investors including Signum Capital, IVC, Figment, ZMT Capital, AngelDAO, and Paribu Ventures joined the returning investors Altonomy, Polychain, and TRGC in this strategic round. “Altonomy believes in Mangata’s efforts around connecting major blockchains, improving security for traders, and helping reduce fees by eliminating gas from the equation, which is why we returned for a second round of funding,” said Altonomy Director Ricky Li. Olaf Carlson-Wee, the founder and CEO of investment firm Polychain Capital, was actually the first one to fund Mangata’s vision of efficient DEXes without MEV. Leveraging Polkadot Interoperability The Slovakia-based Mangata is both a blockchain and DEX that will be connected as a parachain in the Polkadot ecosystem. By choosing Polkadot for its multi-purpose DEX, Mangata wants to leverage the key value proposition of Polkadot, which is interoperability. Polkadot is a layer 1 blockchain network designed to support various interconnected, application-specific chains called parachains. Each chain built within its network uses the Substrate modular framework of Parity Technologies, allowing developers to select specific components that suit their chain the best and optimize their chains for specific use-cases This entire ecosystem of parachains plugs into a single base platform called Relay Chain. This base platform is responsible for providing security to the network’s parachains and contains Polkadot’s consensus and voting logic. Mangata is a one-stop-shop for easy and secure trading of Polkadot (DOT) assets while serving as a bridge between Ethereum and Polkadot so that assets can be seamlessly migrated on-demand between the two ecosystems. It is actually the first parachain to build a specialized ETH < > Polkadot trading UI. Besides connecting these two significant blockchains, Magnata connects other popular layer 1 blockchains; Cosmos, Solana, and Avalanche. Novel Proof of Liquidity Mechanism Founded in 2020 by Peter Kris, who previously founded European web3 studio Block Unison, and CTO Gleb Urvanov, a computer scientist, Mangata aims to solve some of the biggest problems in terms of insider trading and institutional adoption that DeFi and the crypto market faces at large. Other barriers to mainstream DEX adoption involve complex structure, price oracle manipulation, and flash loan attacks. With a team of 14 people, which includes software engineers, product designers, blockchain experts, and business strategists, Mangata believes it is uniquely positioned to deliver on its goal of eliminating these problems. To advance the adoption of DeFi and crypto, Mangata will be using its funding to offer low fixed fees per operation, capital efficiency via on-chain limit orders, and MEV prevention while providing the first UI to trade ERC20 tokens with native Polkadot assets. This community-driven DEX is secured through its unique Proof of Liquidity mechanism, which reuses liquidity to ensure chain security. This helps create deeper liquidity pools, increases capital efficiency, and allows stakers to be rewarded twice. “Mangata’s unique Proof-of-Liquidity mechanism raises the bar on chain security and staking rewards, and our no-gas economy does away with slow, expensive settlements rampant on other blockchains. This latest round of funding will enable us to continue our mission to create a better crypto market for everybody within the Polkadot ecosystem and beyond,” said CEO Kris. Moreover, the project deliberately does not support smart contracts, self-executing contracts directly written into lines of code, to further shield itself from exploitation by malicious actors or bots. The first production-ready Layer-1 DEX blockchain also prevents dominant forms of price manipulation and maximal extractable value (MEV). While other blockchains are vulnerable to frontrunning bots, Mangata DEX stops them on the consensus layer with a new block production method, Themis architecture, which makes frontrunning next to impossible. On top of all these benefits, Mangata’s design eliminates gas from the swaps equation entirely, while other blockchains like Ethereum charge extremely high gas fees, pricing out small users. This allows for faster settlements at no additional cost, as well as new strategies like dollar-cost averaging. Algorithmic buy & Burn The way the DEX is designed ensures fixed fees while providing greater control over trading costs and increased opportunities for arbitrage. Besides addressing the limitations of DeFi, Mangata has also implemented a novel algorithmic buy and burn mechanism that will reflect the protocol’s success in the price of its native token MGX. The way this mechanism works is 0.05% of the 0.3% commission charged by Mangata X will be used for this algorithmic buy and burn. Meanwhile, 0.2% will go to liquidity providers as LP fees and 0.05% to the Treasury. MGX is hard-capped at 4 billion, and right at the launch, 1 billion MGX will be released to allow for deep liquidity. Eighty percent of MGX tokens’ supply will actually be distributed to the community, out of which 30% is set aside for validation rewards, and 37.5% is for LP rewards. Now, ahead of its launch, Mangata is partnering with other DeFi protocols like Acala, Oak Network, Bifrost and Moonriver as it moves forward to make the cross-chain future happen and allow tokens to flow freely from one blockchain to the other. All in all, Magnata aims to create a high-quality trading system that facilitates community access to early-stage Polkadot projects.    

The metaverse isn’t merely tech jargon. It’s a whole new virtual reality, evolving rapidly to change lives and industries. Beginning as a sci-fi fantasy two decades ago, the metaverse has now become intertwined with modern life. The estimations of it being a $1 trillion revenue opportunity is thus no surprise. The excitement also gripped corporates recently, with the Facebook rebranding to Meta and launching metaverse-focused initiatives in 2021. But above all, the metaverse is Web3’s poster child. It’s critical to the internet’s new era, leveraging technologies like blockchain, crypto, NFTs, and DAOs. Thus, quite naturally, its scope is expanding across domains. The sports sector, in particular, is witnessing a dramatic upheaval, with significant sporting events going virtual. Even VR-based sports gaming is quickly becoming a popular pastime among sports enthusiasts. Many projects have already launched their NFT-based sports game. One such GameFi protocol is TopGoal. It’s a football fantasy metaverse with a built-in digital marketplace for fans to access official NFT-collectibles of their favorite players, clubs, and moments. TopGoal’s association with Binance, football institutions, and world-famous players has made it a reputed metaverse project recently. And now, it has announced a strategic partnership with the Kakao-powered public blockchain, Klaytn, to expand its sports gaming ecosystem. Exploring the Asian Crypto Land TopGoal’s collaboration with Klaytn explores cooperation opportunities in the football industry, leveraging the network’s strong influence across Asia, particularly in South Korea. Klaytn is the dominant blockchain in Korea, facilitating the Bank of Korea’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) initiative. Moreover, the platform is well-known for connecting with the nifty app, KakaoTalk, via its crypto wallet, Klip. Klaytn adopted a bullish stance towards the metaverse, tailoring its solutions for metaverse-oriented use-cases. These include AAA-grade Play-to-Earn games, NFTs, and additional DeFi services. The platform is well-positioned to thrive in this space, given its governance council members’ expertise in blockchain, social networks, digital assets, gaming, and entertainment. TopGoal and Klaytn jointly envision a framework to introduce a new dimension to the sports metaverse. The mission is to serve a prolific crypto market with friendly policies, high penetration, and entrepreneurship clusters, hoping to address a wider audience. The partnership will involve launching co-branded Korean sports players certified IPs as Klaytn-based TopGoal NFT cards on OpenSea. Upcoming NFTs will, in turn, introduce novel utilities for Klaytn users through TopGoal metaverse. Its extensive expertise in sports gaming, along with Klaytn’s clout throughout Asia, will open a door of opportunities for sports lovers. Towards a Collaborative Web3 Ecosystem The metaverse enables a plethora of new possibilities. While sports gaming is one application of this virtual environment, many others are up for exploration in the near future. Besides prolific innovators, we are witnessing a steady rise in collaborative enterprises like the one involving TopGoal and Klaytn. The continuation of such trends is key to boosting mainstream adoption of the metaverse. And that will ultimately strengthen the foundation of Web3. A better world is thus around the corner.     Image: Pixabay

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, says cryptocurrency exchanges are “trading against their customers often because they’re market-marking against their customers.” He has raised concerns over crypto trading platforms “commingling” services. SEC Chair Gensler on Crypto Exchanges Trading Against Customers SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said in an interview with […]

In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, macro investor Raoul Pal analyzes the macro factors that are keeping the crypto markets under pressure and the triggers that could spark the next Bitcoin rally..

For the love of God and all that is holy. Please don't use leverage during turmoil like this. Stop trying to catch falling knives people! Wait a couple of days for things to stabilise a little. We are in the middle of a major disaster and people keep trying to make a quick buck using…
Read more

Despite the majority of tokens trading in red on Thursday, AXS was up by over 20% in today’s session. While LUNA dropped below $0.01 earlier today, MATIC was another notable crypto to fall, dropping to its lowest point since last April. Axie Infinity (AXS) AXS was one of the biggest gainers in crypto markets on […]

submitted by /u/ChemicalGreek [link] [comments]

Ethereum has been on a downward trend with the rest of the market. Most notable though had been the movement of the digital asset in the last 24 hours. Ethereum which had been holding up above the $2,000 level had finally succumbed to pressure from bears. This saw it lose about 20% of its value in a day and had effectively pushed it back toward the $1,600 level. The push behind this remains the same; massive sell-offs. Ethereum Investors Want Out Investors in the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum, have been rapidly liquidating their holdings in the last week. This has been a long time in the making but no one could have truly anticipated how bloody the market would get. Following the leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, the value of Ethereum has plunged significantly but even more interesting is the amount of sell-offs that are causing the digital asset’s price to crash. Related Reading | Bitcoin Selloff Provides Boost To Miner Fee Revenues Ethereum’s exchange inflow has now touched a three-month high. It indicates that investors are liquidating their holdings as fast as they can. The exchange inflow volume on a 7-day moving average for ETH now sits at $38,873,883.27, beating the previous three-month high that had been recorded on May 5th, 2022. On a daily basis, this number has also exceeded expectations and continues to rival outflows. Glassnode reports that ETH daily inflows and outflows currently sit at $1.6 billion each, with a positive net flow of $30.8 million, meaning that inflows remain ahead of outflows. Elsewhere, traders are taking the same decisions as investors holding the digital asset. Liquidations have been on a high lately with Coinglass reporting that Ethereum liquidations have touched as high as $350 million in a single 24-hour period.  Ethereum falls below $2,000 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com This is also mirrored by the ETH futures market. The liquidations in this part of the market have now reached a new six-month high on leading crypto exchange Binance. The previous six-month high had been recorded at $3,882,796.27 but presently, this number sits at $4,393,678.09 as observed by Glassnode. Even More Bad News Ethereum indicators show signs of a bear from all angles. The amount of supply last active on a 24-hour moving average is reported to have reached a new 5-month high, currently sitting at 1,083,569.884 ETH active on the last day. This indicates that investors are moving more of their ETH, presumably to exchanges to sell off. Related Reading | Bitcoin Funding Rates Remain Unmoved Despite Plunge To $30,000 Open interest in perpetual futures contracts is also reported to have reached a new 9-month for the digital asset on Bybit and a 19-month low in Bitmex. The digital asset continues to trade in the red. At the time of this writing, ETH is trading at a price of $1,900. It’s currently sitting at a total market cap of $229 billion, the lowest it has been in 10 months. Featured image from CYBAVO, chart from TradingView.com

Bitcoin price action appears to be back with a bang as record-breaking long leverage builds on Bitfinex.