The United States equities markets saw their worst performance of 2023 as concerned investors dumped stocks on Feb. 21, fearing continued rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Although the cryptocurrency markets also gave back some of the gains, the fall was comparatively muted. UTXO Management senior analyst Dylan LeClair said that Bitcoin’s (BTC) correlation to the S&P 500 index has fallen to the lowest since late 2021. After the sharp recovery from the lows, Glassnode data showed that only 21% of the coins sent by Long-Term Holders to exchanges at the start of this week moved at a loss. …

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network (LN) capacity recently surpassed an all-time high of 5,000 BTC. The Lightning Network is a neutral protocol built on top of Bitcoin and currently it does not have a “native” token attached to it like many decentralized finance platforms. Although the Lightning Network’s total liquidity is less than 0.5% of the ETH in DeFi contracts, the uptrend in Bitcoin’s LN capacity versus a downtrend in the amount of ETH locked in smart contracts is encouraging for LN development. While the liquidity on the LN has been rising consistently, the number of channels on the peer-to-peer network dropped …

According to the results of a community vote on Feb. 22, users and validators of The Open Network (TON), a layer one blockchain previously created by Telegram, have voted to suspend miners' wallets for four years if they are inactive and have never made an outgoing transaction. The decision resulted in 1,081,389,416 TON being suspended, worth an estimated $2.58 billion at the time of publication and accounting for over 20% of TON tokens outstanding. The validator vote, which began on Feb. 21, 2023, was passed after the first two rounds without requiring a third tie round to break the tie. …

The mainstream adoption of crypto and crypto-based services continues, as more companies are bridging traditional financial (TradFi) solutions with decentralized financial (DeFi). In an announcement on Feb. 22, a new pilot program launched between Binance and Ingenico payment solutions now allows in-store crypto payments via Binance Pay. Currently, the initial test of this offering is only available on Ingenico AXIUM payment terminals in France. According to the announcement, more than 50 cryptocurrencies will be accepted with this program. Initially, merchants will be paid in cryptocurrency. However, a crypto-to-fiat solution in which merchants are paid in fiat is set to pilot …

Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko announced the Shapella (Shanghai/Capella) upgrade is scheduled for Feb. 28. The Shapella network upgrade will activate on the Sepolia network at epoch 56832. Shanghai and Capella are the names of the upcoming Ethereum hard fork. Shanghai is the name of the fork on the execution client side, and Capella is the upgrade name on the consensus layer client side. Some of the key Ethereum improvement proposals (EIP) changes on the execution layer include Warm Coinbase and Beacon chain push withdrawals. The push withdrawals will make way for validator withdrawals from the beacon chain to the …

A self-confessed crypto trading addict and father of two is facing the dire prospect of losing his family forever after secretly racking up $180,000 in debt from his crypto trading habits. Posting his story on the r/relationship advice subreddit on Feb. 21, Reddit user “Leather_Opposite2135” said he started dabbling in cryptocurrency trading around 2021. Fast forward two years to the present day and he’s been kicked out by his wife and is at least $180,000 in debt. “It started just dabbling,” said Leather. “It’s a tech space so I found it very interesting. Joined a bunch of online spaces (discord) …

The price of Ether (ETH) rallied 18% between Feb. 13 and Feb. 16 but has since been range trading near the $1,700 level. Despite the recent price improvement, Ether derivatives metrics remain neutral-to-bullish ponder the investors the tighter regulatory environment and the potential impact of Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade. Investors' biggest concern right now is regulation, especially after the United Kingdom’s Financial Stability Board (FSB) recently stated that most stablecoins fail to meet international standards. The entity was created by the G20 and is affiliated with the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). FSB chair Klaas Knot stated that the appropriate regulation …

According to a medium post on Feb. 20, the Interchain Foundation (ICF), a non-profit organization behind the creation of the Cosmos (ATOM) interblockchain communications (IBC) ecosystem, has committed to spending approximately $40 million in 2023 to develop its core infrastructure and applications. As a part of the Interchain Stack, which is utilized by around 50 blockchains, these include the Tendermint Core (and now CometBFT), Cosmos SDK, Cosmos Hub, and the IBC protocol. "Throughout the year, we envisage engaging other teams to deliver smaller, tightly defined tasks within each area of work. Such contracts will be to supplement the work of …

Starting to invest in cryptocurrency does not necessarily require attaching a bank account or spending money (fiat) to purchase Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Another way to earn cryptocurrency and build a portfolio is to complete a variety of tasks on various Web3 platforms. Using decentralized applications (dApps) and decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, users earn cryptocurrency and then swap, sell or hold them in centralized or decentralized wallets without even having to spend money. Let’s look at a few ways to build a crypto portfolio without connecting a bank account. Interact with Web3 browsers A person without cryptocurrency knowledge might …

According to a report on Feb. 21, Deutsche Bank Singapore and Memento Blockchain have successfully completed the proof of concept phase of Project DAMA (Digital Assets Management Access), designed to facilitate the management of digital funds investing in tokenized securities. Per its report, asset managers were able to create a digital asset fund with its own soulbound token and launch a direct fiat-to-digital on-ramp for users. Institutional investors could then subscribe to the fund through the direct minting of tokens, via a decentralized exchange aggregator, or through a built-in marketplace. As the first step, Deutsche Bank and Memento Blockchain created …

Ether (ETH) fell short of a bullish breakout based on technical and on-chain analysis, suggesting that the consolidation below the $2,000 price level could continue in the medium term. At the same time, a lack of sellers and strong fundamentals will likely protect Ether from steep declines. Ethereum encounters resistance at long-term bullish reversal points ETH/USD price increased by 42.80% since the start of 2023 thanks to a short squeeze in the altcoin market, negative investor sentiment and low liquidity conditions. Based on on-chain and technical levels, the rally has paused at a crucial bull-bear pivot. Glassnode’s Relative Unrealized Loss …

Microsoft has partnered with decentralized blockchain infrastructure provider Ankr to provide a novel node hosting service on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. In addition, the partnership will see an integration of technology from both companies, pairing Ankr’s blockchain infrastructure with Microsoft’s cloud solutions. Per Ankr, the enterprise node deployment service will offer low-latency blockchain connections for Web3 projects so that developers can instead spend their time scaling their applications. The service relays transactions, deploys smart contracts and can read or write blockchain data. By upgrading its load balancer to use Azure-based routing solutions, Ankr said the firm would be able to …