Solana
Wormhole hack illustrates danger of DeFi cross-chain bridges
Solana has become one of the fastest-growing smart contract blockchain networks since it was first officially launched in March 2020. The total value locked (TVL) on decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols on the network grew from nearly $152 million in March 2021 to $8.08 billion at the time of writing, as per data from DefiLlama. Simultaneously, the network has also been subject to several network issues and outages. Most recently, the Wormhole token bridge was hit by a security exploit on Feb. 3 that culminated in the loss of 120,000 wrapped Ether (wETH) tokens, worth over $375 million at the current price of Ether (ETH). This exploit was the biggest so far in 2022 and the second largest DeFi hack ever, following the Poly Network hack where over $600 million was stolen from t...
Bitcoin hits $44K after Canada emergency powers accompany 6% BTC price increase
Bitcoin (BTC) opted for fresh upside on Feb. 15 as a trip to near $40,000 saw an abrupt change of direction. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView RSI prints classic bull signal Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD gaining swiftly overnight into Tuesday, going on to pass $44,000. A classic relative strength index (RSI) breakout, this time on the lower four-hour timeframe, preceded the move, which put the pair a full 6% higher versus Monday’s lows. #Bitcoin 4 Hour RSI broke out and MACD just had a Bullish Cross: pic.twitter.com/2bRVFeQsfX — Matthew Hyland (@MatthewHyland_) February 14, 2022 “I do think these are the first signs of a trend break,” popular Twitter account Phoenix commented in a fresh post on the day. It ...
2 key indicators cast doubt on the strength of the current crypto market recovery
Analyzing the aggregate cryptocurrency market performance over the past 7 days could give investors the impression that the total market capitalization grew by a mere 4% to $2.03 trillion, but this data is heavily impacted by the top 5 coins, which happen to include two stablecoins. Excluding Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB) and stablecoins reflects a 9.3% market capitalization increase to $418 billion from $382 billion on Feb 4. This explains why so many of the top-80 altcoins hiked 25% or more while very few presented a negative performance. Winners and losers among the top-80 coins. Source: Nomics Gala Games (GALA) announced on Feb. 9 a partnership with world renowned hip-hop star Snoop Dogg to launch his new album and exclusive non-fungible token (NFT) campaign. Gala Game...
Market changes suggest SOL, UNI, AAVE, and MANA are ripe to buy, Santiment analyst says
A Santiment analyst has said these tokens are in a good zone for investors who want to buy into trader pain. Optimism on Solana grows as development activity continues to rise. In a recent YouTube video, the director of marketing at crypto analytics firm Santiment Brian Quinlivan highlighted a few altcoin ecosystems whose metrics show that they are set for a surge. The metric in question is market value to realized value (MVRV). MVRV shows the average loss or profit of a crypto token’s coins in circulation at the current price. It helps indicate to willing buyers when the time is right to do so. Uniswap (UNI) Despite the number of daily active addresses on the ecosystem falling sharply (from 3,259 on October 29, up to a recent 836 active ones), Quinlivan reviewed the asset’s 30-day long MV...
Wormhole’s recent exploit exposed the vulnerabilities in cross-chain bridges
An attack on the Wormhole Token Bridge left it short of 120,000 wETH. Wormhole’s parent company has since restored the stolen tokens. On Wednesday, smart contract bridge platform Wormhole was targeted by an exploit through which an attacker minted and made away with 120,000 wETH tokens. After confirming on Thursday morning that the vulnerabilities had been remedied, Wormhole said later in the day that the more than $320 million worth of wETH lost to the exploit had been recovered. “All funds have been restored and Wormhole is back up. We’re deeply grateful for your support and thank you for your patience,” a tweet from the team read. The Wormhole team also told users that it was preparing an incident report on the matter, and it would release it soon. Ju...
Coachella Is Selling Lifetime Music Festival Passes As NFTs
It was only a matter of time: Coachella has officially hopped on the NFT train. Via a partnership FTX US, a massive collection of 11,010 NFTs is slated to hit Coachella’s environmentally friendly marketplace on the Solana blockchain this Friday, February 4th, at 10AM PT (1PM ET). The drop’s crown jewel is the “Coachella Keys Collection,” which consists of 10 NFTs that grant each owner lifetime access to the fabled music and arts festival. Each of these unique collectibles also unlock specific luxury experiences for the 2022 fest, like prime viewing access at the electronic dance music-focused Sahara Tent to a private party on the Coachella grounds. Naturally, there’s also an “Infinity Key” offering its owner a combination of lifetime gu...
Price analysis 2/2: BTC, ETH, BNB, ADA, SOL, XRP, LUNA, DOGE, DOT, AVAX
Bitcoin (BTC) rose above $39,000 on Feb. 1 but the sharp fall in the shares of PayPal may have resulted in aggressive selling by the short-term traders. However, in the long-term, large investors seem to be viewing the decline as a buying opportunity. On-chain monitoring resource Whalemap said that whales holding between 100 to 10,000 BTC have accumulated during the recent decline. Fidelity recently released a paper dubbed “Bitcoin First,” which highlights that Bitcoin is the most “secure, decentralized form of asset” and is unlikely to be overtaken by any of the altcoins “as a monetary good.” The report said that Bitcoin combines “the scarcity and durability of gold with the ease of use, storage and transportability of fiat.” Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 I...
Solana Pay launches to expand crypto e-commerce market
Solana Pay is a peer-to-peer payments infrastructure designed to enable the global market of online merchants and point-of-sale providers the ability to accept and settle payment transactions in a panoply of digital assets. A joint collaboration between Solana Labs, Checkout.com, Circle and Citcon, in addition to wallet integrations from Phantom and FTX, the platform’s inbuilt software development kit acts as an intermediary between traditional fiat-centric businesses and the cryptocurrency sector, promising to promote wider engagement and adoption from traditional consumers. In an exclusive statement, Solana Pay revealed that they perceive the “most prevalent use-case to be with digital dollar currencies” such as Circle’s USDC stablecoin, but also are enabling the option of Solana-related...
Solana ecosystem wallet Phantom raises $109M
Software wallet and browser extension Phantom has raised $109 million in Series B financing to continue expanding its cross-platform capabilities beyond Solana. The funding round was led by Paradigm, an investment firm focused on cryptocurrency and Web3 companies. Other venture firms to have supported Phantom in prior funding deals include Andreessen Horowitz, Jump Capital and Variant Fund. According to Phantom, the funding will help enhance the wallet’s technical capabilities, such as better app discovery, as well as allow the company to hire additional employees. In addition to its funding round, Phantom also announced Monday that its mobile app is now available for iOS devices. Phantom currently boasts of over 2 million monthly active users, having doubled its user count in less t...
Price analysis 1/26: BTC, ETH, BNB, ADA, SOL, XRP, LUNA, DOGE, DOT, AVAX
Bitcoin (BTC) and most major altcoins have bounced off their strong support levels but could the rally sustain to the extent that traders feel confident that a bottom in place? Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone said that Bitcoin’s price is “about 30% below its 20-week moving average,” roughly at the same position, which had led to bottom formations in March 2020 and July 2021. Although Bitcoin has corrected sharply in January, the exchanges’ balances dropped from 2.428 million Bitcoin on December 28 to 2.366 million Bitcoin on Jan. 24, according to data from CryptoQuant. This indicates that investors may be stashing away their recent purchases safely. Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360 However, it may not be a V-shaped recovery for ...
Binance Smart Chain cedes third-place ranking to Fantom decentralised ecosystem
Fantom ranks only behind Terra and Ethereum ecosystems in total value locked as per latest DeFi market data Binance Smart Chain, Solana and Avalanche gave way to Fantom as the blockchain rose to third spot in total value locked (TVL). Gaining more than 60% in 48 hours, Fantom’s DeFi ecosystem leapfrogged Binance Smart Chain (BSC) earlier today with $12.4 billion in TVL ($500 million more than the BSC). The growth of the network has been propelled by activity in its 129 protocols, with dApps such as Matrixswap and Chainstack heavily using the chain in their expansion efforts. At the time of press, the TVL of the Fantom blockchain is $11.97 billion, up 49.5% in the last seven days. Data from DefiLlama indicates that Fantom controls 6.25% of the TVL in DeFi compared to BSC’s 6.07%...
Here’s why Solana has lost more than other top ten crypto coins over the same period
Solana has fallen to eighth place in market circulating value after being dethroned by Ripple’s XRP The cryptocurrency market is reeling from the extended decline that started at the end of last week. The majority of crypto tokens and coins have taken a huge beating, shedding as much as 40% of their value since Friday. The king cryptocurrency has almost 3% over the past 24 hours and is labouring to stay above $34,000. Ether (ETH) and Cardano (ADA) have all posted bigger losses – both down over 6.50% on the day. Solana price has seen the biggest slump, and this is why The altcoin market has similarly recorded huge losses following the latest selling wave. Notably, Solana has one of the biggest red candles in daily and weekly time frames – down 11.08% in the last 24 hours and almost 40...
