The S&P 500 index has declined about 5% this week while the Nasdaq Composite is down more than 5.5%. Investors fear that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes could cause an economic downturn. The yield curve between the two-year and 10-year Treasury notes, which is watched closely by analysts for predicting a recession, has inverted the most since the year 2000. Among all the mayhem, it is encouraging to see that Bitcoin (BTC) has outperformed both the major indices and has fallen less than 4% in the week. Could this be a sign that Bitcoin’s bottom may be close by? …

Crypto prices keep falling but why? This year’s market crash has turned most winning portfolios into net losers and new investors are probably losing hope in Bitcoin. Investors know that cryptocurrencies exhibit higher than average volatility, but this year’s drawdown has been extreme. After hitting a stratospheric all-time high at $69,400, Bitcoin price crumbled over the next 11 months to an unexpected yearly low at $17,600. That’s a nearly 75% drawdown in value. Ether (ETH), the largest altcoin by market capitalization, also saw an 82% correction as its price tumbled from $4,800 to $900 in seven months. Years of historical …

Crypto markets are flashing a bit of green on Sept. 22 as Bitcoin (BTC) price tacked on a 4.7% gain to trade above $19,300 and Ether (ETH) surged 6.5% to recapture the $1,300 level. RSR and and Astar Network (ASTAR) also surged by 23% and 17% respectively, but the more notable mover of the day was XRP. Currently, XRP price reflects a near 25% gain and the asset is up 41% in the past month. According to defense lawyer, James K. Filan, on Sept. 18 Ripple Labs filed a motion for summary judgement - a legal process which involves the …

Cryptocurrencies have been in a bear trend since mid-August after they failed to break above the $1.2 trillion market capitalization resistance. Even with the current bear trend and a brutal 25% correction, it has not been enough to break the 3-month-long ascending trend. The crypto markets' aggregate capitalization declined 7.2% to $920 billion in the 7 days leading to Sept. 21. Investors wanted to play it safe ahead of the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting, which decided to increase the interest rate by 0.75%. By increasing the cost of borrowing cash, the monetary authority aims to curb inflationary pressure while …

Fantom (FTM) is known for its speed and inexpensive layer-1 blockchain. Like other blockchains (for example, Solana (SOL) and Avalanche (AVAX)) that scale better than their counterpart, it has been dubbed an “Ethereum killer.” After raising $40 million in funds, Fantom launched its mainnet in December 2019. Since then, it has grown to become one of the most popular blockchains, sitting in the top 10 blockchains by total value locked (TVL) with $1.3 billion in TVL. Fantom’s high-throughput blockchain is an open-source smart contract platform. It is scalable and EVM-compatible, meaning you can deploy and run your Ethereum decentralized applications …

The Federal Reserve hiked rates by 75 basis points on Sept. 21 and Fed chair Jerome Powell projected another 125 basis points increase before the end of the year. If that happens, it will take the benchmark rate to 4.4% by the end of the year, which is sharply higher than the June estimates of 3.8%. The Fed also intimated that it only expects rate cuts to be considered in 2024. The expectation of higher rates pushed the 2-year Treasury to 4.1%, its highest level since 2007. This could attract several investors who are looking for safety in this uncertain …

Most crypto investors have probably never heard of Wintermute Trading before the Sept. 20 $160 million hack, but that does not reduce their significance within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The London-based algorithmic trading and crypto lending firm also provides liquidity to some of the largest exchanges and blockchain projects. As a crypto-native trading firm, meaning digital assets have been the core since its inception in July 2017, Wintermute’s expertise in the sector is attested by $25 million in funding from global venture capital investors like Fidelity Investments, Pantera Capital and Blockchain.com Ventures. Lending and venture capital firms have limited impact on …

The cryptocurrency industry has grown at a staggering pace. There are now almost 21,000 different coins in existence, across a variety of subsectors. From metaverses to decentralized finance, investors are spoiled for choice. But a burning question, especially among crypto skeptics, is this: Are there too many cryptocurrencies? We've repeatedly seen how new altcoins can be created in the blink of an eye. Tokens popped up hours after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars — pumping and dumping on low liquidity. And following the death of Queen Elizabeth, the markets were flooded by a flurry of "memecoins" bearing …

There's a dizzying array of crypto exchanges out there — with the market becoming increasingly saturated as new trading platforms emerge. Want to make deposits with a particular fiat currency? There's an exchange for you. Want to retain control of your keys? You can go decentralized. Determined to keep trading fees to an absolute minimum? No problem — some sites offer zero commission. Many exchanges also offer a tailored approach depending on whether you're an expert or a beginner. TradeSanta, which offers automated crypto trading bots to the masses, has been keeping a close eye on the evolution of exchanges. …

A self-styled 23-year-old 'Crypto King' is facing a raft of demands among 140 of his investors as they try to claw back a collective total of $35 million from his company AP Private Equity Limited. According to a Sept. 20 CBC report, creditors are hard at work trying to unravel where all the money they allegedly gave Canadian Aiden Pleterski to make crypto and foreign exchange investments on their behalf ended up. A bankruptcy trustee's report, creditors meeting minutes, court filings, and complaints made to Investigation Counsel PC reveal Pleterski owned 11 vehicles, leased four other luxury cars, regularly flew …

Prices remain soft across the market as traders await Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s statement on the size of the next interest rate hike. At the moment, the market consensus is a 0.75 bps rate hike and a sliver of analysts are banking on 1%. Stocks also appear en-route to close the day in the red, with the Dow down 0.75%, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq registering a 0.79% and 0.64% loss. Bitcoin continues to fight what appears to be a losing battle at the $19,000 mark, while Ether (ETH) dug a little deeper into its post-Merge dip by …

While Ethereum-based layer-2 solutions have been focused on hyperscaling the network, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes layer 3s will serve a far different purpose — providing “customized functionality.” Buterin shared his thoughts in a Sept. 17 post, providing three “visions” of what layer 3s will be used for in the future. The Ethereum co-founder said a third layer on the blockchain makes sense only if it provides a different function to layer 2s, which have been used mainly to enhance scaling via Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollup technology. “A three-layer scaling architecture that consists of stacking the same scaling scheme on top …