Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, is moving forward with the plan to launch its decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, preparing to trial the product in a few months. Sberbank expects to launch open trials of its DeFi platform by May 2023, Sber’s Blockchain Lab product director Konstantin Klimenko announced, the local news agency Interfax reported on Feb.
Month: February 2023
An economic bubble is a time of fast economic expansion that is driven by speculative enthusiasm and excessively high asset prices. A bubble is characterized by an increase in demand for an asset, such as commodities, stocks or real estate, which drives up its price. A number of factors, including easy access to credit, low
Bitcoin’s (BTC) bullish surge in January has helped the Nasdaq Crypto Index to register its third-highest monthly gain, with a 38% surge. The cryptocurrency market started the year bullish, defying major bearish market outlooks. Bitcoin and a number of altcoins touched new multi-month highs as inflation cooled off. Nasdaq Crypto Index monthly price chart Source:
Pick n Pay, one of South Africa’s leading retailers, reportedly now accepts bitcoin as payment at all its stores across the country. Using the bitcoin lightning network, Pick n Pay’s customers can now buy items such as groceries, airtime and electricity tokens. Using BTC for Everyday Purchases Just a few months after it began accepting
The second largest publicly-listed holder of Bitcoin, crypto mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings has offloaded some of its Bitcoin (BTC) for the first time in two years. A spokesman told Cointelegraph this was not a result of financial distress. According to an update posted on Feb. 2, the company disclosed that during January it sold 1,500 BTC,
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols experienced a boom in total value locked across different staking pools in January. The market hit $74.6 billion worth of staked assets, increasing by 26% from December. In its latest monthly report, DappRadar outlined the growth of the DeFi sector alongside rejuvenated nonfungible token (NFT) markets that have also had upticks
The Australian government is bolstering its market regulator’s digital asset team as part of a “multi-stage approach” aimed at clamping down on crypto and ensuring proper risk disclosures from crypto firms. A Feb. 2 joint statement by Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones explained that the new measures are aimed at protecting consumers
Stablecoins have been under much scrutiny since the implosion of the third-largest stablecoin by market cap, TerraUSD (UST), in May 2022. The UST saga led to a lot of skepticism that caused consumers to question the safety of stablecoins. In the seventh episode of Hashing It Out, Cointelegraph’s Elisha Owusu Akyaw (GhCryptoGuy) interviews Paolo Ardoino,
Bitcoin (BTC) hovered around $23,000 on Feb. 1 after sealing its best January performance in 10 years. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView End of Bitcoin bear market is “default view” Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView confirmed a monthly close of around $23,100 for BTC/USD — its highest since July 2022. The
A U.S. district judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Coinbase and its CEO Brian Armstrong filed by customers of the crypto exchange. The lawsuit alleges that Coinbase sold 79 crypto tokens that are unregistered securities. Customer Lawsuit Against Coinbase Dismissed A proposed class action lawsuit filed in Manhattan by customers of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (Nasdaq:
On Feb. 1 and Feb 2. Bitcoin’s (BTC) price surpassed even the most bullish price projections after the U.S. Federal Reserve (FED) announced plans to raise interest rates by 25 basis points. Even though FED chair Jerome Powell told investors not to wait for interest rate cuts in 2023, during his press conference he did
According to blockchain security firm CertiK, the damage caused to decentralized protocol BonqDAO on Feb. 1 may have been much less than initially thought. As told by CertiK, the attacker first borrowed 100 million BEUR, a euro-pegged stablecoin, with less than $1,000 in collateral due to a lack of controls on the collateralization ratio. If
Ether (ETH) has been struggling with the $1,680 resistance since Jan. 20. Still, the ascending triangle pattern and improvements in investor sentiment in ETH derivatives provides hope that Ether price could reach $1,800 or higher by the end of February. This, of course, depends on how the Ether price behaves as it reaches the pattern
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Huawei moves to trademark its NFTs According to a Jan. 28 report by Sina News, Chinese telecom giant Huawei has recently filed for eight trademarks related to its Huawei “YunYunBao” nonfungible tokens (NFT) series. The trademarks include digital collectibles in the
The memecoin phenomenon didn’t prove as effective in the last month’s start of year crypto market rally, as the gains of the top cryptocurrencies in this category barely outperformed Bitcoin. The monthly gain of BTC stood at 44.5%, while the top two meme-based coins DOGE and SHIB gained 27% and 40.7%, respectively. Top meme-coins by
Avalanche (AVAX) bulls should brace themselves for impact led by a growing divergence between several key indicators on the daily-timeframe chart. AVAX price chart paints bearish divergence The daily AVAX chart shows a classic bearish divergence between its price and relative strength index (RSI), a momentum oscillator forming since Jan. 11. In other words, the price