Category: Cryptocurrency News

The crypto market seems to have lost its luster for a while now, with the overall market valuation falling below $2-trillion. Despite Bitcoin’s 13th birthday celebrations, the crypto carnage has persisted. The blue-chip cryptos are now battling for action with a dramatic drop in volumes. However, the current drop has not affected some tokens and has not deterred investors, who are now looking for tokens to fill their bags. Here are a few expert-picked crypto tokens that are showing great potential. Axie Infinity ($AXS) Axie Infinity is a play-to-earn game that allows users to buy, breed, and sell Axies (pets) against one another in order to win in-game crypto called the smooth love potions, which you can convert into real money. Players can cash out their tokens regularly. Smooth Love Potion ($SLP) and Axie Infinity Shard ($AXS) are the two types of tokens in the game, and both are tradable on crypto exchanges. $SLP is used for in-game transactions and rewards whereas $AXS is the governance token that powers the entire ecosystem. Axie Infinity, which runs on its own sidechain Ronin, has gained enormous popularity in 2021. Decentraland ($MANA) $MANA is the native token of Decentraland, a growing blockchain-powered virtual world based on the Ethereum blockchain. This project began in 2017 as a foundation for developing multiplayer games, but it quickly gained traction due to the metaverse buzz in 2021. The Decentraland Builder contains hundreds of 3D objects that players can use to build or manufacture nearly anything in this virtual environment as game tokens. Players can use free and open marketplaces to buy and sell virtual parcels built inside Decentraland. It comes as no surprise that $MANA is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies of 2021. Players can also use $MANA to buy in-game items like avatar costumes, as well as vote on future Decentraland developments where a single $MANA token represents a single vote. Gala ($GALA) Gala is a P2E game based on the Ethereum network with its own native token called $GALA. It was founded in 2019 by Eric Schiermeyer, one of the co-founders of the leading mobile game company Zynga, that created popular games like Mafia Wars and Farmville. The game already has 1.3 million registered users and its goal with blockchain is to give users more power over their gaming experiences. The game aims to change the reality in which players spend thousands of dollars on in-game items and spend countless hours playing the game, only to have it all taken away with the click of a button. Gala leverages NFTs that allow users to vote on new games and influence how they operate. $GALA token is the heart of the system that can be used to purchase NFTs as well as in-game items. Gala One has already released their flagship game Town Star, and there are many more games in the works that are expected to launch in 2022. The Sandbox ($SAND) The Sandbox is an Ethereum-based project that allows users to construct and explore galaxies in a virtual cosmos. Initially, it launched as a normal mobile and PC game but Animoca Brands then turned into a blockchain gaming ecosystem powered by crypto and NFTs. Players in the system create and design their own characters in order to access the Sandbox metaverse’s many landscapes, games, and centers. The produced digital objects may then be monetized with NFTs and sold for $SAND tokens on the Sandbox Marketplace. Unlike other popular play-to-earn games, the Sandbox does not have a preset gameplay universe. Instead, it takes a dynamic approach, allowing users to personalize anything using free and easy design tools. FireZard ($ZARD) FireZard is a new P2E game based on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) network. It is the first Trading Card Game that passively and instantly rewards investors in an attractive and collectible way through NFTs. The game revolves around the major five dragons that are employed to compete with other players. Each FireZard NFT Card represents a dragon and has its own set of features. Moreover, the Cards are not only collectible, but they have an instant win prize attached to them that is worth anything from 0.1 BNB to 5 BNB. Players of this game are massively rewarded with the game’s native tokens, $ZARD, and $FLAME. $FLAME tokens will only be used for in-game activities, whereas $ZARD tokens will play a much larger role in propelling the platform. With the game still in its early stages, $ZARD is expected to explode in the coming months. 2022 Will be the Year of Gaming Crypto Blockchain gaming is a rapidly expanding area within the crypto and blockchain sectors, and it is likely to expand more in the coming months. These are some of the projects that have a lot of potential and should be looked into further for 2022 and beyond.

 Cybersecurity trends in 2021 involve attacks at higher rates than in the past. Centralized storage solutions are prone to plenty of data protection challenges. StorX aims to introduce users to Decentralized storage solutions with blockchain. Cybersecurity had a difficult time in 2021 with high-profile breaches such as Colonial Pipeline and Solar Winds. Aside from that, there were also dozens of other breaches that resulted in major economic and security-related impacts. Work has rapidly shifted into remote and hybrid offices, and hackers have taken advantage of this. Vulnerabilities and gaps in security are prevalent in unsecured locations that remote working has introduced. These gaps have been exploited at higher rates than in the past. This 2022, cybersecurity is something to look out for considering the trend in the previous years. One section of cybersecurity is the Global Cloud Storage market. This market is estimated to grow from $50.1 billion in 2020 to $147.3 billion by 2025. This market– serviced by companies like Dropbox, Apple, and Google– have changed the way company operations work thanks to their cloud storage services. However, this service isn’t free of problems. Centralized Cloud Storage has plenty of data protection challenges. Issues such as data privacy, cyber-attacks, and data manipulation still exist among others. This is a direct cause of having third-party entities govern users’ private data. For this reason, Decentralized Cloud Storage is an important alternative to look out for. This concept aims to democratize the market of cloud service providers, which is highly monopolized. Rather than bringing users to a centralized service provider, it instead allows users to rent storage from individual farmers. There are several advantages of a decentralized method of storage. Namely, the separation from centralized intermediaries increases security and decreases forms of censorship. Companies such as StorX are proponents for Decentralized Cloud Storage. Companies that help users in securely encrypting, fragmenting, and distributing important data across multiple hosting nodes scattered across the globe. StorX specifically is an upcoming start-up with a network based on the XDC network, allowing it to be faster; cheaper; and more energy-efficient than its competitors.   Image: Pixabay

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Ethereum is holding the $2,500 support zone against the US Dollar. ETH price could rise towards the $2,750 level unless there is a move below $2,450. Ethereum managed to stay above the $2,480 and $2,500 support levels. The price is still trading below $2,550 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There is a key bullish trend line forming with support near $2,500 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken). The pair could start a decent increase if there is a clear move above $2,550 and $2,600. Ethereum Price Holds Support Ethereum attempted an upside break above the $2,640 and $2,650 resistance levels. ETH struggled to clear the $2,650 zone and started a downside correction. There was a break below the $2,500 support zone and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Ether price even declined below the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the $2,316 swing low to $2,639 high. However, the bulls are now protecting the $2,500 support level. Besides, there is a key bullish trend line forming with support near $2,500 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD. It is consolidating, but it is still trading below $2,550 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. An immediate resistance on the upside is near the $2,540 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. The first major resistance is near the $2,560 level. A clear move above the $2,560 resistance might start a steady increase. In the stated case, the pair could even surpass the $2,600 level. Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com The next key hurdle could be $2,650, above which the bulls are likely to aim a larger increase towards the $2,750 and $2,800 levels. Fresh Decline in ETH? If ethereum fails to start a fresh increase above the $2,550 level, it could extend losses. An initial support on the downside is near the $2,500 level. The first key support is now forming near the $2,450 level. It is near the 50% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the $2,316 swing low to $2,639 high. If there is a downside break below the $2,450 level, the price could accelerate lower. Technical Indicators Hourly MACD – The MACD for ETH/USD is gaining pace in the bullish zone. Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETH/USD is now just below the 50 level. Major Support Level – $2,450 Major Resistance Level – $2,550

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The bearish outlook appears against the backdrop of the Federal Reserve’s tightening policies.

Australian startup Chrono.Tech raised over $30 million in the latest investment round, as stated in the company’s official press release. Chrono.Tech, the oldest Australian blockchain company specializing in innovative technological solutions for the human resources sector, has completed a $30 million funding round led by Australian venture-capital investor Mark Carnegie and a major European Family Office. The company founded by Sergei Sergienko in 2016 has a lineup of five employment-oriented services and products, such as job search, workforce management and crypto payroll services, helping significantly simplify the recruitment and payment processes for both workers and employers. LaborX — one of Chrono.Tech’s famous products on the blockchain — helps freelancers find jobs and get paid in cryptocurrencies. The platform’s user base reportedly grew by over 42,000 freelancers and almost 5,000 customers amidst the surge of global user interest in digital currencies. Mark Carnegie, a multi-millionaire venture capitalist and founder of MH Carnegie & Co, noted Sergienko’s experience in the digital asset market, stated when speaking about the participation in the funding round of Chrono.Tech: “Crypto assets can be highly complex and obscure, and operate on a very different paradigm to the centralized financial sector — not least in terms of secure storage. Sergei has a strong network in the crypto community and extensive experience in identifying crypto initiatives that provide an excellent balance of risk and return, making him a natural addition to the team.” It’s not the first association of Carnegie with the company. Last year, he co-founded Sergienko’s Crypto Gaming United, an innovative decentralized gaming platform based on the Play-to-Earn model that raised $5 million in a funding round. In an interview with NewsBTC, Sergienko said: “We are thrilled to get this round of investment, it’s truly a validation of our unshaken belief that the future is in work on the blockchain, where everyone gets paid exactly what they deserve.” He added that the participation of such big industry players as those from the European sector and Mark Carnegie in Chrono.Tech’s investment round means validation from the mainstream financial world of the work his team has been doing for the past five years.   Image source: Chrono.Tech (Sergei Sergienko, founder and CEO of Chrono.tech)

When Bitcoin was first launched in 2009, nobody knew of the dramatic impact that cryptocurrencies would have on our world. Today, blockchain technology is being used everywhere, pioneering a technological revolution worldwide. The decentralized nature of crypto has awoken people to the potential of its powers. Without banks or intermediaries of any kind, crypto enables people to send payments, make investments, and purchase certain goods and services without limits. Additionally, NFTs, DAOs, and DeFi allow for the self-management of ownership rights, operations, and financial services, respectively possible. Beyond technological applications, people have found that crypto can be used to do real good, both for the planet and humanity as a whole. In a project called the “Cardano Forest”, Veritree, a restoration group that uses blockchain to track and verify restorative projects, planted over 1 million trees across different parts of Madagascar, Indonesia, Nepal, Kenya, Senegal, and Haiti. The operation was funded through the philanthropic Cardano holders, with some donations weighing in at tens of thousands of ADA tokens. Blockchain is perfect for project tracking and verification thanks to its immutable and transparent nature – transparency makes data stored publicly verifiable, and immutability makes said data tamper-proof. These aspects also make blockchain ideal for the management of digital asset ownership, allowing the efficient on-chain issuance and trading of shares and bonds. Bob Eco Ltd, an environmentally-focused electric vehicle company that provides electric two- and three-wheelers in developing countries. Bob Eco is pioneering the digital asset space by raising funds through something it calls an “ICOWA”, or “ICO with Assets”. ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings, are fundraising events during which cryptocurrency projects sell utility tokens to early investors in order to raise capital. In an ICOWA, digital asset tokens, not utility tokens, are sold. Bob makes a difference by providing electric motorcycles and electric three-wheelers in Africa. Bob Eco offers there on a lease-to-own basis,  which are custom-built to taxi passengers and deliver food, parcels and agricultural products. Bob also offers a swap-as-you-go service that lets Bob riders swap their motorcycles batteries for free; this saves the riders around $4.40 on fuel a day, making them earn almost four times as much as traditional petrol motorcycle taxis. Bob motorcycles are the world’s first mass-market electric vehicles that cost less to acquire, maintain, and operate than a fuel vehicle. With African fuel motorcycle taxis emitting around 5 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year, Africa’s estimated 100 million motorcycle taxis emit a whopping 500 million tons of CO2 emissions annually. Bob’s goal is to see all motorcycle taxis to be electric within the next 10 years, aiding both riders and the world.

A multibillion GameFi and blockchain games market is named as one of the major trends of 2022 that promises many opportunities both for players and investors. Yet, so far the market is so fragmented and chaotic that it is hard to grasp how to profit from this trend. To succeed in this fast-growing field, one must know the secrets of the GameFi industry. How is GameFi different from online games? GameFi is a new niche in the blockchain industry at the nexus of two fields – decentralized finance and decentralized games. GameFi is far from being a simple online game. GameFi are gaming platforms that allow users to get profits in digital coins from gaming. On one side, it improves user retention rates, on the other – it helps users earn real money within a game. To start gaming and earning, a user has to buy a character or a gaming asset that is presented in the form of a non-fungible token – NFT. Largely owing to GameFi, the NFT market has achieved such unprecedented growth rates in 2021. According to the DappRadar statistics, the non-fungible tokens trading volumes have grown hundreds of times – from $100 million in 2020  to $23 billion in 2021. The lion’s share of those trading operations accounts for gaming NFT. In November 2021, trading volumes of gaming NFT exceeded $1 billion by almost doubling its growth rates in one month, in comparison with October 2021. This economic model for decentralized online games was dubbed the Play-to-Earn model. Essentially, NFT is a sort of a subscription to enter the game. By purchasing NFT, users get an opportunity to access a multiplayer online game, interact with other players and most importantly – get profits from participating in the game. Where is the liquidity coming from in GameFi? When a user bought the subscription for the game, for example, for the football simulator FIFA, it was enough to pay once. After the purchase, a user could play at any moment. In the GameFi game that requires buying gaming NFTs, the basic principles are different. In decentralized online games, users need to buy gaming items and characters. For example, if once-popular casual game FarmVille were an NFT-based game, a gamer would not get a piece of land and seeds for free. In that game, users would have needed to purchase them to harvest crops. At the same time, there is also good news: in GameFi, users also have the opportunity to earn money on their gaming items. If one is good at harvesting crops, one would be able to sell them and get a return on the investment in land and seeds. Since NFT games emerged and have grown on the fertile lands of the cryptocurrency market, all transactions involving gaming items in the form of non-fungible tokens are executed in cryptocurrencies. In this way, the gaming ecosystem is being filled with liquidity that allows the use of the Play-to-Earn model. Up to $400 monthly for a few hours in the online game Profits in GameFi projects come from several sources: Gaming NFT, the value of which is a couple of dollars, when the sales start, and after the inflow of new players rockets to hundreds and tens of thousands dollars. Rewards for performing gaming tasks: for example, winning over other players in battles of completing quests. Investments in the native token of a GameFi project that serves as a currency for rewards, purchase and sale transactions of gaming items and characters. Already from the description, it is obvious that the first two sources of income are oriented at gamers while the third one is for investors that see GameFi projects as one of the passive income sources and that do not actively participate in the game itself. Yet, in the real-case scenario, also the first profit source which is gaming NFT in the leading games is accessible only to investors or gamers with high levels of income since its value can reach hundreds and tens of thousands of dollars. So at the end of 2021, the average price for the NFT character of the popular decentralized game Axie Infinity has reached $140. According to projections, in 2022, it will grow to $219. This being said, to start a game, a gamer needs three characters. In that way, the initial investment to start a game is $420. Of course, it significantly exceeds the subscription price levels for centralized multiplayer online games. Not every online gamer can spare such funds to access the game. Statistical data shows the majority of the GameFi games are from the poorest countries where earning on Play-to-Earn games could bring a substantial plus to the average paycheck. Of course, for them, the high initial investment is a serious barrier. As a result, NFT characters get settled in the hands of investors that would like to earn money but have no time to complete daily gaming tasks while the platform lacks active users. Investors also are not using the GameFi market to its potential since they do not earn from the game, do not get rewards for completing daily tasks. To solve this problem a market needs additional services. One of such infrastructure projects created for the development of blockchain applications is the p2p platform MetaRent by Meta DAO Guild. What is Meta DAO Guild? Meta DAO Guild is a decentralized autonomous organization that executes several infrastructure projects in the P2E games industry and that offers an elegant solution to two main GameFi problems: Investors’ problem: they have money and they would like to profit from it but they have no time to spare on a game. Gamers’ problem: they have time to spare but have no money to buy a costly NFT character to access a game. The solution to both problems lies at the surface. If users have no time to play a game or would like to spend free time on another game, they could lease out their NFT. On the other hand, users with no money to buy NFT can rent other persons’ characters and access the same. This is exactly a type of p2p-platform for renting gaming NFT named MetaRent that Meta DAO Guild is creating. Profits from gaming are distributed among the player and the owner of the gaming token. This solves the problem of idle gaming NFTs. At the same time, the platform is offering instruments that guarantee the safety of the deal for both sides. How does the platform work? The NFT owner registers on the platform and selects gamers from the scholars (gamers that were trained by Meta DAO Guild). While leasing out NFT, its owner shares half of the profits with a gamer. The lessee (a gamer) gets access to gaming NFT without initial investments. The platform MetaRent from Meta DAO Guild ensures with smart contracts that the NFT owner shares its profits with the lessee. To avoid a possibility of fraud, Meta DAO Guild takes on a mandatory deposit from an NFT owner. In other words, the investor has to put on a deposit to lease out the NFT. The deposit serves as a guarantee that a gamer will be paid. Of course, NFT owners risk facing an inexperienced player that might waste time and bring no returns. That is why Meta DAO Guild is creating an educational system and ranking mechanism for gamers. The investors have the right to choose the best among free players for leasing out their NFTs. The full list of services by Meta DAO Guild includes: MetaRent: p2p-platform for renting out gaming NFT; Scholarship: an educational system for gamers – members of the DAO Guild, that rent gaming assets owned by the guild (community) and external owners; MetaExchange: exchange service for gaming NFTs that allow changing non-demanded gaming items or characters (which is hard to sell) within one game or among games; DAO Launchpad: the decentralized venture fund for investments in GameFi projects. The latter – DAO  Launchpad – deserves special attention. As the name implies, the fund is being governed as a decentralized autonomous organization – in other words, by users themselves. Users must own native platform tokens MDGG to get rights for voting on choosing GameFi projects for investment. The participation in DAO Launchpad provides a regular user with multiple advantages. First of all, it opens up possibilities to invest in promising GameFi projects at early stages when there is still no access for retail investors. At this stage, investors are offered the best terms while the profitability of the bought tokens or coined NFTs might reach 1000% in a couple of years. For example, in summer 2020, Axie Infinity sold 10 800 000 AXS tokens for $860 000 during the closed investment round. In that way, one AXS cost 8 cents for early investors. Now AXS is traded for $52 while in Autumn it rocketed up to $102. In October 2021, ROI for sold tokens was 1200х, in January 2022 – 650х. DAO Launchpad provides an opportunity for gaming projects not only to get investments but also to access the engaged gaming community of the Meta DAO Guild. Investors that are interested in projects that are building the GameFi industry infrastructure have an opportunity to purchase Meta DAO Guild tokens MDGG during the Private Sale that starts on February 22. Why will GameFi grow? For understanding GameFi perspectives, it is best to use real-life examples. Last year, the Philippine CNN office shared that citizens of the Philippine Province of Nueva Ecija are earning by playing NFT games. Thanks to a decentralized online game that gives an opportunity to earn income, citizens could pay for food, medicine, bills — even close their loans — even though the pandemic took their jobs. Like DeFi in 2021, GameFi has all chances to become the main trend of 2022. The niche is swiftly being inflated with liquidity – both from users and institution-level investors. In the second half of 2021, multi-billion funds were created for investing in GameFi projects at early stages. For example, Gala Games together with C2 Ventures launched a venture fund for GameFi for $100 million, Solana Ventures, Forte, and Griffin Gaming Partners created a $150 million fund. The valuation of the Hongkongese company Animoca Brands which works with blockchain games and NFT has skyrocketed to $5 billion at the last investment round. In 2022, hundreds of new decentralized games are expected to be launched on the GameFi market. But the most important thing is that this year major gaming companies-developers are entering the Game Fi niche. It is reasonable to expect user experience improvements due to more elaborated gaming scenarios, in-depth sound character design, and visual components enhancements. But the main growth driver is the inflow of millions of users into GameFi. Thanks to the new economic model Play-to-Earn gamers have an opportunity to earn while gaming. This is exactly why projects in this industry are ready to show many-fold profits despite the volatility of cryptocurrencies.