Stepping into 2023, the cryptocurrency market seemingly shrugged off the year-long bearish sentiment from 2022. As investors took notice, the long-awaited price corrections had a significant reaction, showcased through on-chain activities on the Ethereum blockchain. According to a data report from Analytex, Ethereum’s average gas price — calculated in terms of the smallest Ether (ETH) denomination, gwei — increased by 29.27% in January 2023. The report compares gas prices in January and December 2022, noting an increase in user activity as a key indicator for the rise in average gas price from 19.2 gwei to 24.82 gwei month on month. …

Wallets linked to now-bankrupt Alameda Research became active again on Feb. 7, transferring out millions worth of FTX exchange’s native token, FTX Token (FTT). The Alameda wallet activity post FTX bankruptcy filing has been a big concern for the crypto community, with many questioning the merits of the law enforcement agencies and how these wallets are being accessed. The Alameda address 'brokenfish.eth' transferred nearly $2 million worth of FTT tokens from BentoBox smart contract on Sushiswap. The smart contract in question serves as the central vault for the whole Sushi ecosystem. Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has a history with …

Cryptocurrency conglomerate Digital Currency Group (DCG) has reportedly begun to sell its holdings in crypto funds managed by its subsidiary Grayscale Investments as it looks to raise capital and preserve liquidity. According to a Feb. 7 Financial Times report citing seen United States securities filings, DCG sold around a quarter of its shares in Grayscale’s Ether (ETH)-based fund for around $8 per share, despite each share holding a claim to nearly double that amount in ETH. It’s also said to have sold down small share parcels in Grayscale’s Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC)-based trusts in addition …

Blockchain software developer ConsenSys retains the ability to achieve its goals after recent layoffs, CEO Joe Lubin claimed in a Feb. 7 interview with Cointelegraph, stating that “we’ve retained virtually all of our capabilities.” According to Lubin, the cuts were implemented “mostly because of potential headwinds and potential uncertainty” and partly because of declining volume in the ConsenSys ecosystem due to "macroeconomic and geopolitical" factors. Lubin said his team had been concerned that impending troubles in the venture capital market would make it hard for crypto companies to raise cash, so the company had wanted to be prepared for this …

Are phygital NFTs the future? The world could be tokenized, and NFTs could be the means through which we perform commerce. Could that be the future? Phygital nonfungible tokens have a strong value add and can be a part of any brand’s community initiatives. Considering the fact they are new, there is a buzz around them that brands can benefit from. With many Web2 incumbents and digital native companies jumping on the bandwagon, phygital NFTs are poised to be a major part of the community and marketing initiatives of companies. However, the widespread adoption of phygital NFTs will likely depend …

Liquid staking protocol Lido is set to roll out staking reward withdrawals and improved staking architecture with the announcement of the upcoming Lido V2 upgrade. Two major focal points of the planned upgrade include Lido’s introduction of its new Staking Router and the enabling of withdrawals for Ethereum (ETH) stakers. The Staking Router introduces a modular architectural design allowing the development of on-ramps for new node operators, including solo stakers, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and distributed validator technology clusters. The latter is a protocol that allows validator duties to be shared across multiple nodes. The Staking Router is envisaged to …

Bitcoin (BTC) rebounding 40% in January sparked the largest inflows of institutional cash since June 2022, data shows. In its "Digital Asset Fund Flows" Weekly" report on Jan. 30, digital asset investment and trading group CoinShares confirmed $117 million headed into crypto in the last week of the month. Institutions "not sold" on post-merge Ethereum Bitcoin is still on the radar as an institutional investment opportunity. As demonstrated by CoinShares’ latest data, it took a matter of weeks of BTC price action recouping prior losses to spark a major turnaround in investment habits — and not just in the United …

Metamask Snaps aims to facilitate a ‘multichain future,’ allowing the Ethereum-based wallet service to support non-native blockchains and tokens for the Web3 economy. Details of the latest in-development addition to Metamask’s growing ecosystem were unpacked at the StarkWare Sessions event in Tel Aviv, Israel, in Feb. 2023. Speaking to Cointelegraph Magazine editor Andrew Fenton, Alex Jupiter, the senior product manager at Metamask Snaps, revealed details about potential blockchain synergies. The last 18 months have seen the development of Snaps speed up after the success of Metamask Swaps, which brought token swap functionality to the service’s native browser extension. As Jupiter …

The popularity of liquid staking derivatives (LSDs) has increased significantly in recent months resulting in a surge in cash flow in DeFi. LSDs are a relatively new type of token that enables stakers to augment potential returns by unlocking liquidity for their staked cryptocurrency, such as ETH. LSDs have been exploding in popularity across the Ethereum ecosystem and have the potential to become equally as widespread among other Layer-1 networks, such as Polygon and Avalanche. LSDs are already playing a significant role in DeFi, making up over 20% of the entire TVL across liquid staking protocols. The dominance of Lido …

Infura is developing a decentralized marketplace of data providers that will help to prevent Web3 app crashes in the future, according to a Feb. 6 Cointelegraph interview with Infura researcher Patrick McCorry. McCorry stated that the new “Dfura'' or “decentralized Infura” will help to ensure that blockchains remain decentralized by distributing data provider services among multiple providers in a marketplace. It will have “up to 10 providers initially” that will “work together to bootstrap the network and then […] Gradually iterate and get more players.” Some potential partners will meet at ETH Denver in late February or early March to …

The United States dollar index (DXY) has started a strong recovery and its rise is putting pressure on Bitcoin (BTC) and the S&P 500 (SPX) index. The market participants will be keenly watching for any insights on future rate hikes when the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks before the Economic Club of Washington on Feb. 7. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s 43% rebound in January has improved sentiment among small investors. Crypto analytics firm Santiment said that the number of Bitcoin addresses holding 0.1 Bitcoin or less soared by 620,000 to hit 39.8 million, the highest level since Nov. 19. With the …

Payment company Visa is seeking to build a "muscle memory" to settlements, aiming to allow customers to convert digital assets to fiat currencies on its platform, according to the company's head of crypto division Cuy Sheffield at the StarkWare Sessions 2023. "We've been testing how to actually accept settlement payments from issuers in USDC starting on Ethereum and paying out in USDC (USDC) on Ethereum. So, these are large value settlement payments.", noted Sheffield in a fireside chat at the event. Cointelegraph's team is on the ground in Tel-Aviv covering the two-day Ethereum community conference. According to the executive, global …