The Solana Foundation, the grants program behind the Solana high-performance blockchain, has inked partnerships with cryptocurrency exchanges OKEx and MXC to launch two strategic investment funds designed to fuel the ecosystem’s expansion. The two funds, which are collectively valued at $40 million, will help Solana bring more of its decentralized applications and protocols to market. Anatoly Yakovenko, president of the Solana Foundation, said the blockchain platform has “grown multitudes in the past few months” both in terms of volume of projects and active developers. He said the Solana team will work alongside its new funders to “support the next wave …

The South Korean branch of global cryptocurrency exchange OKEx is shutting down operations next month, OKEx Korea officially announced Tuesday. Users will have to withdraw their Korean won and crypto holdings by April 7. After that date, the exchange “will not be held liable for any losses arising from failure to withdrawal by the customer,” OKEx Korea stated. OKEx Korea will accept withdrawal applications on a 24/7 basis until 6:00 p.m. local time on April 7. Requests for withdrawals will not be honored if they are less than a predetermined minimum amount. The announcement comes shortly after OKEx Korea temporarily …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) current bull run continues to attract institutional investors who are finally realizing its long-term potential. The latest to take the Bitcoin plunge is BlackRock Financial Management, which has “started to dabble a bit” in crypto investments, according to the investment giant’s chief investment officer Rick Rieder. In another positive, investment advisory The Motley Fool projected that Bitcoin could rise to $500,000 over the next 15 years. The firm announced its plans to buy $5 million worth of Bitcoin and has also advised its 10X real-money portfolio members to make the digital asset a part of their core holding. …

Global cryptocurrency exchange OKEx announced Feb. 9 that it has integrated support for blockchain-based addresses from Unstoppable Domains into its customer wallets. This means that rather than needing to provide individual wallet addresses for each token type, users can send and receive any of the many currencies supported by both OKEx and Unstoppable Domains via a single .crypto or .zil domain name. In practice, this functionality was already available for incoming transactions. The domain owner could simply set up the redirects for each currency to their OKEx wallet addresses via the Unstoppable Domains platform. However, OKEx wallet can now accept …

Today Bitcoin (BTC) price rallied to a new all-time high at $44,900 shortly after Tesla announced a $1.5 billion investment. This event triggered $555 million worth of shorts to be liquidated in two hours and it happened as Bitcoin futures open interest reached $13.7 billion, which is just 3% below its historical high. These price moves drastically increased the cost of carrying long positions, mainly for those using perpetual futures. This indicator raised a yellow flag on how leveraged those investors are and their potential price impact. As shown adove, the aggregate BTC futures open interest just reached a $15 …

Global cryptocurrency exchange OKEx is moving to cheaper and faster Bitcoin (BTC) transactions with its upcoming Lightning Network integration. According to a Tuesday announcement, OKEx’s Bitcoin Lightning Network will be integrated “in the coming quarter,” making OKEx a participant node in the Lightning Network. The integration will allow OKEx users to select the Lightning Network option when depositing and withdrawing BTC, intending to decrease transaction fees and times. The Lightning Network is a second-layer scaling solution and payment protocol based on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. The protocol was suggested by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja in 2015 in an …

Over the last 48 hours, Bitcoin (BTC) price climbed from $31,000 to $34,800 before reversing course and dropping the majority of these gains. While this $3,800 shift to the downside might not seem significant, the 12% oscillation liquidated $660 million worth of futures contracts. While it’s unlikely that there will ever be a definitive answer behind the move, on Jan. 25, President Joe Biden voiced his willingness to lower the $1.9 trillion stimulus package. This might have reduced incentives for those buying BTC as an inflation protection or a hedge against U.S. dollar devaluation versus leading global currencies. Shorter-term charts …

After dropping 27% over three days, Ether (ETH) price finally reached a bottom at $1,040 on Jan. 22. The sharp correction liquidated $600 billion worth of future contracts but interestingly, Ether price rebounded to a new all-time high even as Bitcoin price continues to trade in a slight downtrend. According to Cointelegraph, the increasing TVL and transaction volumes of the decentralized finance sector are behind Ether’s impressive surge. To determine whether the recent pump reflects a potential local top, we’ll take a closer look at on-chain flows and derivatives data. Exchange withdrawals point to whale accumulation Increasing withdrawals from exchanges …

Ether’s (ETH) performance over the past week has been nothing short of exceptional. The price rallied from a $905 low on Jan. 11 to a new all-time high at $1,440 on Jan. 19. According to Cointelegraph, the main reasons fueling this move are the growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols as the total value locked reached $24 billion, Ethereum daily transactions surpassing 1.2 million and Bitcoin (BTC) price consolidating below $40,000. Nevertheless, the latest leg of Ether’s rally on Jan. 19 presented a different dynamic from the previous breakouts. A much use of derivatives leverage has been deployed this time …

Crypto exchange platform OKEx has announced the launch of its OKExChain mainnet with 10 million OKT tokens available for early adopters. According to an announcement, the project was three years in development, spanning 10 testnet versions. The mainnet deployment will proceed along four stages with the current epoch being the Genesis phase lasting two weeks until Jan. 13, 2021. As part of the Genesis phase, OKT, the chain’s native token will be available as a reward for staking on the blockchain. Holders of OKB — the OKEx utility coin — can stake their tokens to earn OKT as a reward …

2020 was the most important year for the crypto derivatives market so far. Both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) derivatives steadily grew throughout the year, with their futures and options products available across exchanges such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, OKEx, Deribit and Binance. On Dec. 31, Bitcoin options open interest reached an all-time high of $6.8 billion, which is three times the OI seen 100 days before that, signifying the speed at which the crypto derivatives market is growing amid this bull run. The bull run has led to a lot of new investors entering the market amid the …

Amid an ongoing bull run of Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin options are hitting a new historical milestone. Bitcoin options are derivative contracts that grant the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell BTC at a predetermined price. According to data from Skew, Bitcoin options volumes crossed $1 billion on Dec. 16. Skew announced the news Thursday on Twitter, noting that Bitcoin options saw its “first $1 billion day.” Deribit, a major global crypto futures and options exchange, had the largest BTC options volume on the day at $879 million. The exchange has emerged as the most popular …