Decentralized finance (DeFi) has had a rough go so far in 2022, and data from Messari shows the top ten-ranked DeFi assets currently down between 10% to 50% since the start of the year. A positive is, the situation may change soon as funds have began to flow back into the DeFi ecosystem following a month of declines as data shows institutional and retail funds returning to crypto markets. Data from Defi Llama shows that the total value locked in all of DeFi platforms has climbed to $211.1 billion on Feb. 11, up from a low of $185.14 billion on …

The rise of blockchain-based play-to-earn (P2E) gaming was one of the leading stories in 2021 as games such as Axie Infinity exploded in popularity and players realized that they could make life-changing amounts of money while also having fun. According to data from Footprint Analytics, the Ethereum network remains the leader when it comes to the number of games launched on-chain, but persistently high fees and network congestion have pushed a growing number of players to layer-2, cross-chain, bridge-supporting networks and competing blockchains that offer lower-cost transactions costs. Here’s a look at a few non-Ethereum blockchain networks that are gaining …

Bitcoin (BTC) addresses holding at least 1,000 BTC, the so-called whales, have started accumulating more tokens during the recent market recovery. As of Feb. 10, the total supply in these addresses was 8.096 million BTC versus 7.95 million on Jan. 24, according to data from Coin Metrics. Bitcoin whales and institutional inflows The buying sentiment among the richest crypto investors picked momentum during Bitcoin's recovery in the past two weeks as BTC rebounded from its 2022 low of $33,000 on Jan. 24 to around $43,500 on Feb. 11. Small Bitcoin investors, addresses that hold less than 1 BTC, so-called "fishes," …

Since launching in 2018, Axie Infinity has amassed over 2 million daily active users (DAUs) and its decentralized exchange, Katana has a market cap of $5.5 billion, but this growth has not come without challenges. Axie Infinity’s in-game token, Smooth Love Potion (SLP) decreased nearly 93% from it's all-time high in July 13, 2021 of $0.39 as it faces uncontrollable inflation. As such, the team has announced it will significantly remove SLP issuance from the game, making it harder to farm. Gamers and guilds will in turn focus their attention on their strategic competitive edge and the potential increase price …

Bitcoin (BTC) bulls have good reason to celebrate the 22% gain in the past week. The price is pushing toward $46,000 and to the surprise of many, the $43,000 level held steady despite the volatility caused by the United States inflation data released on Feb.10. There have been mixed feelings on the macroeconomic side. For example, retail sales in the Eurozone disappointed on Feb. 4 when the figure showed a 2.0% year-on-year growth versus the 5.1% expectation. while the United States nonfarm payroll abruptly showed a 467,000 jobs increase. Investors are clearly increasingly concerned about corporate earnings despite the stronger …

Shiba Inu (SHIB) is now the 13th-largest cryptocurrency with its market valuation sitting near $18 billion, right behind its rival meme-cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE), worth roughly $20 billion. But despite falling behind in ranks, SHIB's price has outperformed DOGE in 2022. February has seen a sharp recovery for the SHIB/DOGE pair, in particular, rising by over 38% month-to-date (MTD). As a result, Shiba Inu gained more than 50% MTD against the dollar versus Dogecoin's 11%, as shown in the chart below. Most of the February's — and, in fact, 2022's — gains in the SHIB market surfaced on two dates: Feb. …

While it seems OpenSea is keeping pace with January’s total volume of $5 billion by generating over $1.3 billion in total volume the last 7 days, the number of active users has decreased by more than 30% according to data from Dune Analytics. Are we beginning to see a lull in trader activity as a sign of an impending market pullback or are investors and collectors taking their trading activity elsewhere? The closest rival to the market-place is LooksRare has generated approximately $3.49 billion in the last 7 days, but persistent issues of wash-trading have also decreased its active trader …

Unus Sed Leo (LEO) surged by almost 70% on Feb. 9 to reach its record highs as traders assessed the potential of an incoming supply crunch in its market. The token was issued in 2016 to refinance crypto exchange Bitfinex after it lost about $70 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) in a hacking incident. In its original whitepaper explaining LEO, Bitfinex had promised that if they could recover the lost funds, they would use 80% of the proceeds to buy back and burn LEO. Around 80% of stolen Bitcoin recovered On Feb. 8, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced …

The price of Ether (ETH) has pulled back to retest $3,000 support levels on Feb. 9 after Ethereum's native token reached a three-week high. ETH price climbs to three-week high To date, ETH price has recovered by roughly 50% after the ETH/USD trading pair bottomed near $2,150 on Jan. 24. ETH price jumped on Feb. 7 in part due to KPMG, one of the world's four accounting giants, announcing that the firm is adding Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether to its Canadian division's balance sheet. Bitcoin rallied to over $45,500 in the wake of the news, its best level in almost …

When analyzing Ether's (ETH) price chart, one could conclude that the 3-month long bearish trend has been broken for a few reasons. The current $3,100 price range represents a 43% recovery in 15 days and, more importantly, the descending channel resistance was ruptured on Feb. 7. Should Ether bulls start celebrating and calling for $4,000 and higher? That largely depends on how retail traders are positioned, along with the Ethereum network's on-chain metrics. For instance, is the $30-plus transaction fee impacting the use of decentralized applications (dApps), or are there any other factors that will prohibit Ether's price growth? Since …

Avalanche (AVAX) recovery extended into its third week, primarily in the wake of similar upside retracement across the top crypto assets. On Thursday, AVAX's price rallied by nearly 16% to reach $96.50, its best level since Jan. 14, 2022. The massive intraday move came as a part of a recovery that started Jan. 22, after the Avalanche token bottomed out near $53. As a result, AVAX's net rebound came out to be more than 80%. Network growth offsets macroeconomic scare Crypto markets have been whipsawed since the beginning of 2022 as investors assessed the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary tightening prospects. …

XRP price rose by nearly 30% in less than a week amid positive sentiment around the court case, in which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claims that Ripple sold XRP as illegal securities. SEC vs. Ripple Judge Analisa Torres has granted Ripple permission to respond to the SEC's Memorandum of Law in support of Motion to Strike fair notice defense, according to court documents. Additionally, Judge Torres also ordered to unseal three documents concerning the SEC vs. Ripple case, including Ripple's CEO Brad Garlinghouse's email thread and deposition notice and founder Chris Larsen's email string. Markets received Judge …