Crypto analytics firm Messari estimates that $500 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) has been tokenized on the Ethereum network for use in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. The firm's latest report points out however that this figure represents just 0.3% of Bitcoin’s $216 billion market cap, meaning there is ample opportunity for projects that facilitate the migration of Bitcoin onto Ethereum, to capture significant value. According to DeFi Pulse, popular Bitcoin tokenization protocols WrappedBTC (WBTC) and RenVM are the ninth and 10th largest DeFi projects by locked funds, with $453 million and $232.4 million respectively. Ren has seen an explosion in …

Wrapped Bitcoin competitor, renBTC, has made massive gains over the past week as the project’s token’s price, and the total amount of Bitcoin tokenized using the protocol surges. Ren is in second place behind Wrapped Bitcoin, or wBTC, which is currently the most popular method of tokenizing Bitcoin for use with DeFi protocols. According to btconethereum.com there is currently just over 29,000 wBTC on Ethereum, with renBTC accounting for around 9.5K currently, after topping 10K on August 17. As DeFi continues to gain in popularity, more investors are looking to use their BTC holdings to access yield farming opportunities. In …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens from Balancer, Ben, Aave and Swissborg have all made huge gains, in the wake of excitement generated by the distribution of Compound’s governance token. Less than twelve hours after Balancer announced its protocol governance token BAL was live on the Ethereum mainnet, and the price jumped from $6.65 to $22.28. At the time of writing, the DeFi token was trading at $15.60, with a little over 6 million BAL tokens in the circulating supply. It’s following in the footsteps of COMP which more than tripled in value this week. Even after today’s price crash, it’s still …

Australia is experiencing a decentralized finance (DeFi) boom, playing host to some of the most talked-about projects in the space. They include longtime DeFi leader Synthetix (SNX), the up-and-coming Thorchain (RUNE) along with the just-launched Ren (REN) and mSTABLE (META). RUNE has increased 167% in the past 30 days, REN is up 36% (mostly in the past week), and SNX is up 35% — and 2,600% since its lows prior to launching last year. "I think the fact that Australia is punching way above its weight in DeFi is probably not well appreciated," said Henrik Andersson, the Chief Investment Officer …

In this third installment of my Bitcoin Price Diary, I’ll revisit some open positions which are still in play and review a sizable trade on REN. I also have a position in Bitcoin (BTC) that is still largely open. As I have said a number of times on Twitter, I believe that it has been an altcoin season for months and that altcoins found their local bottoms in August. I have been comfortably trading them since. In early October, Bitcoin dropped and was ranging sideways, giving altcoins even more room to appreciate. At the time of writing, Bitcoin price is …