Category: Cryptocurrency News

The still-unidentified FTX hackers started ramping up their movement of stolen funds in recent weeks, potentially using media attention of the trial as a cover to hide the illicit activity.

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The firm has implemented additional security measures following an investigation that found “only a few” 3Commas user accounts were compromised.

Edward Farina, the founder and CEO of various crypto-focused initiatives, is confident that XRP is a better “investment” in early October than it was before July when the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claimed that the coin was an unregistered security. In a post on October 9, Farina asserted that the coin was declared not a “security,” but was bothered by the fact that prices are at “the same level” as before the July 13 ruling.  XRP Bears Reversed July 2023 Gains XRP, the native coin of the XRP Ledger, a decentralized blockchain that recently supported smart contracts, remains one of the most liquid crypto assets. Looking at price data from CoinMarketCap (CMC), the coin is lodged at fifth in the market cap leaderboard, trailing Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), BNB, and USDT–the stablecoin. Related Reading: TWT Token Registers 20% Gains As Crypto Market Slumps, What’s Next? At this level, the coin is one of the most liquid and has managed to shake off bear pressure since the SEC lodged a lawsuit against some of Ripple’s top brass, including Brad Garlinghouse. In the lawsuit filed in late 2020, the agency said Ripple conducted an illegal crowdfund, raising over $1 billion by selling unregistered securities. With the allegations, XRP prices fell by 78%, crashing from around $0.77 to $0.17 in days. XRP found reprieve in 2021 when it shook off losses, rallying to as high as $1.95 despite the ongoing lawsuit where Ripple lawyers defended the company against claims put forward by the regulator. Prices fell in 2022, reversing gains before stabilizing in the better half 2023.  In July, XRP prices rose sharply, briefly reaching $0.92 before cooling off, peeling back all gains in mid-August. Prices have stabilized, but bears wiped gains from the rally induced on July 13 when a United States court ruled that XRP is not a security when sold to the general public on an exchange. Still, it is when sold to institutional investors.  In early October 2023, Judge Analisa Torres barred the SEC from appealing the decision made in July, stating that there was no “substantial ground for difference of opinion.” The trial is not set for April 2024. Prices Make Zero Sense? Following the Judge’s decision barring the agency from appealing, XRP prices have been relatively firm but at pre-July 2023 levels. Farina believes that XRP ought to be higher at spot rates, a reason why the market “makes absolute zero sense and price manipulation is real.”  Related Reading: $29,700 Could Be The Next Big Level To Claim For Bitcoin, Here’s Why Whether XRP prices are manipulated or not is not clear at spot rates. However, the broader crypto market, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, is suppressed, having cooled off from July 2023 highs. Feature image from Canva, chart from TradingView

The author of the white paper, Robin Linus, based BitVM’s architecture on Ethereum’s optimistic rollups with fraud proofs and recent Merkle tree developments.

Last week marked a noteworthy surge for Solana in inflows, leading the pack in altcoin investment interests and outshining Bitcoin. Solana’s recent performance particularly placed it in the spotlight as it amassed roughly $24 million, the altcoin registered its largest inflow since March 2022, according to a recent report from Coinshares. A Closer Look: Dissecting The Solana Inflow Surge Diving into the numbers, the broader digital-asset investment domain observed net inflows for the second consecutive week, accumulating a significant $78 million, showcasing a bullish sentiment reminiscent of July’s performance. Related Reading: Will October Be Bitcoin’s Golden Month Again? A Dive Into A Decade Of Bullish Trends While Bitcoin, the quintessential crypto giant, continued to dominate, Solana grabbed headlines. As highlighted by James Butterfill, Head of Research, Solana’s re-emergence as a sought-after altcoin signifies its growing appeal among digital investors, especially in light of recent Ethereum futures ETF product launches. According to the report, with a noteworthy track record for 2023, Solana funds reported inflows for 28 weeks, with a mere four weeks registering outflows. Always a major player, Bitcoin recorded inflows of $43 million. The report disclosed that a certain subset of investors, potentially riding on Bitcoin’s recent price momentum, initiated positions in short-bitcoin products, leading to an inflow of $1.2 million within the week. Diverging Investment Patterns: Europe Leads While ETH ETFs Underwhelm Geographically, Europe continued its digital asset supremacy, accounting for 90% of the total inflows. On the contrary, the combined inflows from the US and Canada totaled a mere $9 million. According to Butterfill, this noticeable regional disparity in investment sentiments underscores evolving market dynamics and investor preferences. Adding to the digital fervor, trading volumes for exchange-traded products surged by 37%, settling at $1.13 billion for the week. Trusted exchanges dealing with Bitcoin also witnessed a 16% jump in trading volume. However, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The recent US launch of six Ethereum futures ETFs raked below $10 million. While seemingly substantial, Butterfill termed the response as showcasing a “tepid appetite,” particularly when juxtaposed against the $1 billion amassed by Bitcoin futures ETFs in their inaugural week back in 2021. However, Butterfill attributed this difference more to the contrasting market environments and the “poor investor appetite” for digital assets rather than a direct reflection of the asset’s potential. Related Reading: Ethereum ETFs Face Lackluster Debut From Small Investors: Is The Hype Fizzling Out? Furthermore, regardless of the recorded positive inflows from Solana last week, the altcoin is currently facing a bloodbath along with Bitcoin. Notably, Solana has declined by nearly 10% in the past week and 4.5% in the past 24 hours, with a market price of $22.30 at the time of writing.   In contrast, Bitcoin has also shed its portion of losses, down by 2.9% in the past 7 days and 1.4% in the past day, with a trading price currently at $27,518. Featured image from Unsplash, Chart from TradingView

By now, Bitcoin has grown to the point where crypto investors do not expect very large returns from it and are now looking toward altcoins that could provide the kind of returns they seek. However, with thousands of altcoins circulating in the crypto market, it can become quite hard to pick the coins that could end up doing well. So here are five altcoins that are well-positioned to do well in the next bull market that could potentially 20x your crypto portfolio. Lido DAO (LDO) Is A Top Crypto Contender Lido DAO (LDO) has grown rapidly to dominate the Ethereum liquid staking game, accounting for over 30% of all staked ETH in LSD protocols. This has brought immense attention to its native token, LDO, which on its own has also seen a good run over the years. Related Reading: Crypto Investor Buying Power Just Reached A 6-Month High, What This Means However, at just a $1.4 billion market cap, LDO is still what can be referred to as undervalued given its standing in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. A bull market could easily see the market cap of LDO cross $30 billion, which would be a more than 20x return on investment from its current $1.61 price level. Arbitrum (ARB) Dominates Ethereum Layer 2 Altcoins Arbitrum (ARB) features on this list because of the network’s performance over the years. Of all the Ethereum Layer 2 networks currently in the game, Arbitrum leads the pack both in terms of Total Value Locked (TVL) and daily trade volume. This puts it ahead of the likes of Optimism (OP), Avalanche (AVAX), and Polygon (MATIC), all of which have been in the game just as long. However, of the 4 leading Ethereum L2s, Arbitrum has the lowest market cap. At $1.08 billion, it is yet to see the same kind of surge its competitors saw in 2021 due to the token launching in the bear market. Arbitrum’s performance even in a bear market shows that it could easily be a top 10 cryptocurrency in the bull market. Related Reading: Why You Should Pay Attention To The XRP Price Predictions Stacks (STX): The Crypto Child Of Bitcoin Currently, when crypto investors think of NFTs and DeFi on the Bitcoin network, they think of Stacks (STX). This is because Stacks is a Layer 2 network that allows the usage of smart contracts on Bitcoin. This means developers are able to build protocols as well as launch NFT collections on the Bitcoin network using Stacks (STX). STX’s market cap is still very low at just $715 million especially given what it enables developers to do on the Bitcoin network. This offering makes sure that Stacks is always on the radar of investors, making it a billion-dollar token that could easily bring 20x returns. Total market cap excluding Bitcoin is $514 billion | Source: Crypto Total Market Cap Exclude BTC on Tradingview.com Kava (KAVA) Joins The Fun With Layer 1 Technology Kava (KAVA) has been building up into mainstream adoption despite competition with the biggest networks in the space. This Layer 1 blockchain is taking another route to interoperability by combining the best parts of the Ethereum and the Cosmos networks. Related Reading: LINK Price Primed For Meteoric Rise: Analyst Predicts 130% Rally To $18 Ethereum is known for its developer power, enabling developers to build pretty much anything, but still held down by slow transactions and high fees. On the other hand, Cosmos has some of the highest speeds and interoperability and when both of these are combined, it presents basically a supercharged Layer 1 blockchain equipped to handle almost anything. Its native token KAVA is already one of the most watched Layer 1 native tokens, and at a $500 million market cap, it’s fair to say that this altcoin is far from done. Altcoins Are Not Complete Without The Trust Wallet Token (TWT) With so many centralized exchanges running into issues such as hacks and bankruptcy, more crypto investors are choosing to self-custody their coins. The top 2 self-custody wallets that also allow users to take advantage of DeFi and NFTs are MetaMask and Trust Wallet. Since only the latter currently has a token, it has been able to corner that market share for itself. Related Reading: Brace For Impact As $200 Million In Crypto Is Being Unlocked In October Trust Wallet’s native TWT token rose in popularity when the FTX crypto exchange crashed in 2022 and has not stopped. Going into the bull market, self-custody is expected to be the main avenue to store coins and TWT’s current $411 million market cap could quickly turn into an $8 billion market cap in the bull market. Follow Best Owie on X (formerly Twitter) for market insights, updates, and the occasional funny tweet… Featured image from Finbold, chart from TradingView.com