Crypto and equities markets took a bit of a tumble on Aug. 9 as traders grew a bit skittish ahead of tomorrow’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. The details of the print will shine a light on whether or not the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest hikes are effective in tamping runaway inflation and it could have an impact on the size of future hikes. Earlier in the week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk suggested that July data will reflect the United States reaching peak inflation and that any recession will be “mild to moderate.” Right now the consensus is that July …

An Ethereum fork token that does not yet exist, dubbed ETHW, is trading under $100 across several crypto exchanges after debuting at $30. ETHW and ETHS begin trading ETHW is the native asset to the ETHPoW chain. ETHPoW, for now, is a possible new chain backed by proof-of-work (PoW) miners as the original chain switches to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus in September's "Merge" event. Meanwhile, the proof-of-stake version ETHS is trading at around $1,600, or the difference between the ETH price and the ETHW price. We promise there won't be any premining or additional token issuance. So there is nowhere to …

Chainlink is aligning itself with the decision of the Ethereum Foundation and its community. Therefore forked versions of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, which includes PoW forks, will no longer be supported by the Chainlink (LINK) protocol post-Merge. In an official announcement, the Chainlink protocol revealed its services will remain on the Ethereum blockchain post the long-awaited Merge. The Ethereum blockchain anticipates the Merge in September 2022, which will merge its mainnet with the Beacon Chain. This will transition all of Ethereum operations from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). The Merge has been pushed back from mid-2021 to September 2022 before. …

The upcoming Ethereum (ETH) Merge is one of the most talked-about developments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem as the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap undergoes the difficult transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). One protocol whose fate is largely tied to the successful completion of the Merge is Lido DAO (LDO), a liquid staking platform that allows users to tap into the value of their assets for use in decentralized finance and earn yield from staking. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since LDO hit a low of $0.42 on June 30, its price has climbed …

Anchorage Digital, a San-Francisco-based digital platform that owns the first federally chartered crypto bank, will open an option for institutions to stake Ethereum (ETH). This move comes in anticipation of the Ethereum network’s long-promised shift from proof-of-work (PoW) to the proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol. Anchorage announced on Tuesday its intention to introduce ETH staking — a practice of earning rewards for serving as a transaction validator in the Ethereum blockchain — for institutions. Diogo Mónica, co-founder and president of Anchorage Digital, called staking a win-win for institutional investors and the ecosystem: “By paving the way for institutions to stake their Ethereum, …

This past week, the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem was ruled by decentralized autonomous organizations and new fund launches for the growth of the Web3 ecosystem. The total number of DAOs surged by eight times while Solana launched a $100 million DeFi fund. Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 protocol that Vitalik Buterin recently praised for its governance model, lost 20 million tokens due to a mix-up of layer-1 and layer-2 addresses. A leaked 600-page copy of a United States crypto draft bill also grabbed the community’s attention, as it proposes heavy regulatory scrutiny for DeFi and DAOs. The top-100 DeFi tokens showed …

Liquid staking has grown in popularity over the past year, thanks, in part, to the launch of the Ethereum Beacon Chain and the inability of Ether (ETH) stakers to withdraw their tokens until the full launch of the consensus layer. As a result, Lido (LDO) has established itself as a leader in the liquid staking sector. Lido is one of the main staking protocols for several popular tokens and it allows token holders to earn an extra yield by putting their staked assets to work in decentralized finance (DeFi). Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price …

Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) has dropped by nearly 20% in the last three weeks, hitting monthly lows near $2,900 on April 19. But despite rebounding above $3,000 since then, technicals suggest more downside is possible in the near term, according to a classic bearish pattern. Ethereum price 'bear flag' setup activated Dubbed "bear flag," the bearish continuation signal appears as the price consolidates higher inside an ascending parallel channel after a strong downward move (called the flagpole). It resolves after the price breaks out of the channel to drop further. ETH's price turned lower after testing its bear flag's …

The long-awaited Ethereum Merge is set for yet another delay, with developers working on the upgrade estimating a completion time a “few months after” June. Owing to the success of testing, there was a general expectation the Merge would go through mid year, however the latest setback is unsurprising given that Proof of Stake has been delayed constantly ever since it was first proposed. That said, the signs are promising that the Ethereum mainnet will actually merge with the beacon chain to become a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network this year. For real. Ethereum developer Tim Beiko provided the updated timeline via …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) wallet and browser extension MetaMask formed a new strategic partnership with three major crypto custodians; Gnosis Safe, Hex Trust, GK8, and Parfin. MetaMask Institutional (MMI), the institutional version of the popular Ethereum wallet MetaMask, announced on Wednesday that the new integration will provide decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) with key management tools to participate in DeFi activities. DAOs are organizations controlled by computer code and have no top-down authority, and they've been gaining popularity as a fundraising mechanism and administration tool for cryptocurrency projects. According to the announcement, MMI provides institutions with access to DeFi and Web3 while …

Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) has dropped about 17% against the U.S. dollar in the last two weeks. But its performance against Bitcoin (BTC) has been less painful with the ETH/BTC pair down 4.5% over the same period. The pair's down-move appears as both ETH/USD and BTC/USD drop nearly in lockstep while reacting to the Federal Reserve's potential to hike rates by 50 basis points and slash its balance sheet by $95 billion per month. The latest numbers released today show that consumer prices rose 8.5% in March, the most since 1981. ETH/BTC triangle breakout Several technicals remain bullish despite …

Scott Melker, veteran trader and pocaster, is convinced that major layer-1 protocols should be part of everyone’s investment portfolio. Instead of picking individual crypto projects, such as NFTs or blockchain games, Melker thinks it makes more sense to bet on the blockchain infrastructure on which these projects are built. “Any of these small projects could absolutely go nuts. But you're going to have trouble choosing what they are. You should just own the layer-1 and the infrastructure that they're all built on”, he said in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph. “You may not own a Bored Ape, but Ethereum holders …