Bitcoin (BTC) continued to work on cracking the $17,000 mark on Jan. 4 as an “extremely tight” trading zone held firm. $17,000 "possible" thanks to CPI print Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $16,906 on Bitstamp, up $300 from the previous day’s low. The largest cryptocurrency had benefited from a positive start to the year on Wall Street, this giving a broader boost to previously sideways crypto assets. “Bitcoin trading with legacy markets yesterday,” Filbfilb, co-founder of trading suite Decentrader, began a summary of recent events by stating. Analyzing the 12-hour chart, he argued that the …

The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) is trading at nearly a 60% discount to the underlying value of its assets, with shares falling 93% from its Jun. 2019 all-time high (ATH). There are many reasons behind the ongoing decline, but in recent weeks fears have grown that fallout from parent company Digital Currency Group’s debt of approximately $1.675 billion to troubled crypto lender Genesis could impact Grayscale assets. YCharts data shows a 59.39% discount at the time of writing, a level the trust has traded at since at least Dec. 28. Crypto Twitter influencer “db” tweeted an image on Jan. 4 …

Continuing with 2022’s trend, there is a lack of positive excitement in the crypto market. While Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins have remained stagnant to start 2023, there are a few reasons why volatility could spike in January. Winklevoss Letter to DCG stirs up bankruptcy FUD On Jan. 2, Cameron Winklevoss, the co-founder of Gemini, penned an open letter to Digital Currency Group (DCG) founder, Barry Silbert demanding answers on the $900 million in locked customer funds. Gemini launched the “Earn” program in coordination with Barry Silbert and the $900 million in customer funds have been locked since Nov. 16 due …

The Ethereum network eclipsed Bitcoin in terms of total transaction volume last year, though the king of crypto has managed to retain its crown when it comes to online search interest. According to data from Nasdaq and Ycharts shared on Reddit on Jan. 2, Ethereum had 338% more total transaction volume in 2022 (408.5 million) than the Bitcoin network (93.1 million). The values shown in the chart are in millions of transactions with the average daily transactions at around 1.1 million for ETH and 255,000 for BTC. However, transaction volumes on the Bitcoin network were steadier and more periodic than …

The S&P 500 index (SPX) fell 19.4% and the Nasdaq nosedived 33.1% in 2022, recording the worst performance since 2008. The crypto markets also had a horrendous year with Bitcoin (BTC) falling roughly 65% in 2022. In comparison, the United States dollar, which is perceived to be a safe haven, rallied nearly 9%, its best year since 2015. There are several green shoots visible for the cryptocurrency sector for 2023. The U.S. dollar index (DXY), which usually moves in inverse correlation with Bitcoin may have topped out. This increases the likelihood that select cryptocurrencies may be close to forming a …

2022 proved to be a fruitful year for Ethereum Name Service, with the platform recording 2.2 million registered domains despite unfavorable market conditions for the cryptocurrency space. According to the service, over 80 percent of the total ENS domains created since the project's inception were registered in 2022. Data from Dune Analytics shows that ENS has around 2.82 million names registered as of Jan. 2, with 630,340 owners of ENS domains. Happy New Year everyone! 2022 was an incredible year for ENS! Over 2.2m ENS names were registered in 2022 (that's 80% of ALL names created) If you're ready for …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared some bullishness for the year ahead, including reaching a new milestone for rollup scaling as per the Ethereum roadmap. The Ethereum developer also confirmed the rollout of the Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) 4884 sometime in 2023, which had been removed as part of the upcoming Shanghai upgrade package set for March. Responding to a Dec. 31 post from former chief technology officer of Coinbase, Balaji Srinivasan, asking users what they were bullish for in 2023, Buterin said he was looking forward to reaching the “basic rollup scaling” milestone as outlined in the Ethereum roadmap. …

Liquid staking protocol Lido Finance appears to have benefited most from the Ethereum merge in September, with its total value locked (TVL) now sitting at the top position among other decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. According to data from DeFiLlama, Lido’s liquid staking protocol now commands $5.9 billion in TVL, compared to MakerDAO's $5.89 billion and AAVE’s $3.7 billion. Lido now has the highest TVL of any DeFi protocol. pic.twitter.com/2xsM3lVGVl — Patrick | Dynamo DeFi (@Dynamo_Patrick) January 1, 2023 According to Lido Finance’s website, as at Jan. 2 had $5.8 billion Ether (ETH) staked. Meanwhile, there was around $23.2 million staked …

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin showed sympathy for competitor Solana (SOL) in a Dec. 30 tweet. He said that “smart people” tell him that Solana has “an earnest smart developer community,” and suggested that the opportunists who were involved with the project in the past have been “washed out.” Buterin also expressed hope that the Solana community “gets its fair chance to thrive.” Some smart people tell me there is an earnest smart developer community in Solana, and now that the awful opportunistic money people have been washed out, the chain has a bright future. Hard for me to tell from …

Investors have faced a tumultuous year in 2022 as stocks, bonds, and the cryptocurrency sector have all witnessed sharp declines. As of Nov. 30, the performance of a traditional portfolio comprising 60% stocks and 40% bonds has been the worst since 1932, according to a report by Financial Times. The next big question troubling crypto investors is whether the pain in Bitcoin (BTC) is over or will the downtrend continue in 2023. Analysts seem to be divided in their opinion for the first quarter of the new year. While some expect a drop to $10,000 others anticipate a rally to …

Ether (ETH) has been ranging near $1,200 since Dec. 17, but an ascending trend has been quietly gaining strength after 50 consecutive days. The pattern points to $1,330 or higher by March 2023, making it essential for bulls to defend the current $1,180 support. The anxiously awaited migration to a Proof of Stake in September 2022 paved the way for additional layer-2 integration and lower transaction costs overall. Layer-2 technologies such as Optimistic Rollups have the potential to improve Ethereum scalability by 100x and provide off-chain network storage. Developers anticipate that the network upgrades scheduled for 2023 introducing large portable …

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly cashing out large amounts of cryptocurrency soon after being released on bail, on-chain data suggests. SBF has cashed out $684,000 in crypto to an exchange in Seychelles while being under house arrest, according to the on-chain investigation by DeFi educator BowTiedIguana. Decentralized finance (DeFi) analyst BowTiedIguana took to Twitter on Dec. 29 to report on a series of obfuscated wallet transactions allegedly linked to SBF, suggesting that the former FTX CEO could have violated release conditions to not spend more than $1,000 without permission from the court. According to BowTiedIguana’s analysis, SBF’s public address …