Cointelegraph Markets Pro, a data platform designed to level the playing field for cryptocurrency market participants, is now available to the public following a successful live testing period. The platform, which has been in development for a year, is the result of exhaustive analysis of the crypto markets and the key drivers of asset price movements. It was developed jointly by Cointelegraph and The TIE, a leading provider of crypto data, analytics and software that counts major hedge funds, market makers and over-the-counter desks among its clients. Testing the VORTECS Score At the heart of the platform is the VORTECS …

Investors who knew when to swap Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins could have boosted their gains significantly in 2020, according to new research from eToro, the popular social trading platform. The challenge, of course, is pinpointing when the coveted alt season begins. In its latest quarterly report, eToro breaks down various cryptocurrency investment themes related to the 2020 bull market. It also devotes an entire section to alt season – the part of the cryptocurrency market cycle where altcoins rally against the dollar and, possibly, outperform Bitcoin. The research found that the top 100 altcoins, when held equally, were “a more …

The majority of cryptocurrency users reportedly prefer to hold their crypto as part of a long-term investment strategy, according to a new survey by Binance Research. Released on Thursday, the survey report shows that as much as 55% of respondents own cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) as a long-term investment. The “2021 Global Crypto User Index” report is based on a global survey that includes input from more than 61,000 crypto users across 178 countries and regions. The survey was conducted over a period from Sept. 15 to Oct. 25, 2020. According to Binance Research’s findings, the majority of respondents were …

The upcoming Chinese New Year holidays on Feb. 12 could have an indirect impact on Bitcoin's (BTC) price and drive sell-offs on the market, according to a recent analysis. Per a Thursday report by cryptocurrency investment firm Stack Funds, the ongoing selling pressure on Bitcoin's price is likely to continue in the short term due to Asian miners increasingly offloading their funds amid the upcoming week-long holiday. With more than 60% of global Bitcoin mining pools located in China, Stack Funds head of research Lennard Neo suggested that a lot of selling pressure is coming from Chinese miners. The researcher …

The European Commission is inviting tenders for the European Union blockchain pre-commercial procurement, or PCP. In general, a PCP is a public sector purchase of research and development services to adapt new or emerging technology to its needs. This PCP will focus on developing a novel blockchain solution that builds on the EU legal framework such as the General Data Protection Regulation, the Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services regulation and the Network and Information Systems directive. The process will involve awarding several research and development contracts in parallel to existing service providers considered to offer the best value-for-money. These …

Using blockchain technology, initial coin offerings have become an alternative means of acquiring funding for business projects using the new, evolving digital financial market for tokens. In contrast to initial public offerings, which are governed by strict legal regulations, ICOs require only a white paper and some interesting features, such as a lack of barrier to entry, a scope for exponential growth, absence of geographical barriers and easy validation. Hence, it may not be surprising that the ICO market experienced extraordinary growth recently. Research shows that from January 2016 to August 2019, ICOs raised nearly $13 billion worldwide. Despite the …

Cryptocurrency-related fraud and theft are likely to grow in the post-COVID-19 world, according to a new report by cybersecurity and antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab. Securelist, Kaspersky’s cyberthreat research arm, published a report on cyberthreats to financial organizations, forecasting some specific types of financial attacks that are likely to surge in 2021. Securelist has predicted that a wave of poverty fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic will inevitably lead to “more people resorting to crime including cybercrime.” That could also mean a rise in crimes related to Bitcoin (BTC). According to Kaspersky’s research arm, Bitcoin is likely to be the most attractive …

Mythos Capital founder Ryan Sean Adams called Ethereum killers “toothless” based on initial token allocation schemes that often prioritize insiders: Adams was referring to a recent Messari report, which summarized the token distribution for some of the most popular Ethereum (ETH) alternatives launched in the last couple of years. There are four main distribution categories: public presale, community allocations, insiders, and each project's respective foundations. The report's authors suggest that the proportion of tokens allocated to insiders (which includes team, company and VCs) is crucial when assessing projects, “projects that distribute tokens to insiders (team, founders, and VCs) at the …

To gain a deeper understanding of how professional investors feel about digital assets, Cointelegraph Consulting has published a 70+ page research report written by eight authors and supported by SIX Digital Exchange, BlockFi, Bitmain, Blocksize Capital, and Nexo. The Discovering Institutional Demand for Digital Assets report highlights which coins wealthy investors already own and which ones they plan to buy in the coming months. The report also covers the most popular regulated funds and structured products that are designed for investors from the traditional finance realm. The total assets under management of the 55 portfolio allocators that participated in the …

A significant amount of Bitcoin's (BTC) total supply has not moved for more than 10 years, according to data from cryptocurrency analytics data provider Glassnode. During this decade-long interim, 1.8 million Bitcoin (of the current 18.5 million supply) has been locked in dormant Bitcoin addresses. Its cumulative value amounts to more than $23 billion at the time of publication, according to data from Coin360. A large portion of these coins may belong to Bitcoin’s mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto — who disappeared from the community in 2011. Nakamoto may own over 1 million of these as-yet untouched assets, which are purported …

Despite Chinese firm Alibaba filing the most patents so far this year, the United States still takes the lead as the country with the most blockchain patents, a Sept. 17 report from intellectual property consultancy KISSPatent said. IBM and Alibaba hold the most blockchain patents. Alibaba has filed more than 200 patents while IBM filed a little over 100. But other U.S.-based companies like Bank of America and Mastercard have also filed several patent applications bumping up the total for the U.S. According to KISSPatent, more blockchain patents have been filed in the first half of 2020 than all of …

Ethereum may be vulnerable to frontrunners according to Dan Robinson, a research partner with the crypto-asset investment firm Paradigm. Robinson said in a blog post, the design of Ethereum’s mempool, or a set of unconfirmed transactions, is where the vulnerability lies. He said arbitrage bots monitor pending transactions in the Ethereum mempool and attempt to exploit profitable opportunities created by them. Arbitrage bots typically look for specific types of transactions in the mempool (such a DEX trade or an oracle update) and try to front-run them according to a predetermined algorithm. Frontrunners look for any transaction that they could profitably …