Bitcoin (BTC) is witnessing a tough battle between the bulls and the bears near $31,000, which makes it an important level to watch out for. Data from Glassnode shows that the $31,000 to $34,300 zone has seen strong interest from buyers and sellers as 9.93% of the Bitcoin supply has moved in this zone. The failure of Bitcoin to rally quickly from strong support levels indicates weak demand. Proof of the current disinterest comes from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who said in a recent CNBC interview that investor demand for cryptocurrencies had declined recently. Fink said that during his last …

The decentralized application aiming to connect Facebook’s Diem blockchain with public networks is partnering with node infrastructure provider Pinknode. In a Friday announcement, the Pontem Network said it would be working with Pinknode to provide node infrastructure through the Polkadot ecosystem. The network is aimed at allowing developers to use a Polkadot parachain as a testing ground for their ideas before submitting them to the Diem blockchain. According to Pontem founder Boris Povod, the partnership will help improve Polkadot’s current infrastructure as Pinknode provides “reliable and secure API endpoints.” The network added that Pinknode’s code would allow Polkadot developers to …

Decentralized e-commerce platform Bondly Finance is the latest decentralized finance (DeFi) platform to suffer an alleged exploit. The developer team advised the DeFi community to stop trading Bondly, the platform’s native token, following a suspected exploit on Thursday. Bondly Finance has yet to provide details regarding the attack, aside from being compromised by an unknown party. “Rest assure, we have already taken action and will be operating as usual as soon as possible,” the official announcement reads. Bondly token price tanked more than 60% within three hours following the attack. PeckShield, a blockchain security and data analytics company, explained the …

Bitcoin (BTC) has once again held the critical support area at $31,000 today, indicating accumulation at lower levels. This led some analysts to speculate that traders were selling their holdings to investors with a low history of selling in anticipation that “a supply shock” to occur when the re-accumulation process completes. Another sign of strong hands entering the crypto market was seen when Capital International Group, a $2.3 trillion asset manager, purchased a 12.3% stake in MicroStrategy, which many believe to be a sort of Bitcoin proxy stock because it holds 105,084 Bitcoin on its books. This acquisition suggests the …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) roof has been shifting lower in the past few days, which is a negative sign because it shows that bears are selling on every minor rally. Bitcoin’s weakness is affecting the major altcoins as most are gradually drifting lower. Joel Kruger, a Forex strategist at LMAX, recently said: “It would be foolish to rule out the possibility for a drop back below the June low, and we think there would be a risk in that scenario where the Bitcoin price could revisit the old record high area around $20,000.” However, Bitcoin’s fundamentals seem to be improving. The network …

Earlier this week, Fan Yifei, the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China has warned that stablecoins like Tether (USDT) pose “risks and challenges to the international monetary system, and payments and settlement system”. Fan did not even spare Bitcoin (BTC) and called it a tool for speculation and a possible threat to “financial security and social stability.” Other than the FUD from China, several traders have been focusing on the unlocking of a large amount of Bitcoin at the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust as a possible bearish sign. However, market analysis by crypto trading firm QCP Capital said the …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) range-bound action seems to be increasing the confidence of institutional investors looking to resume investing in cryptocurrencies. Proof of this comes as Marshall Wace, a London-based hedge fund, announced plans to invest in the digital asset space, according to sources at the Financial Times. A survey of wealth managers and institutional investors already holding crypto, from the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and the UAE shows that 82% of the respondents expect to increase their investments in digital assets by 2023. The research shared with Cointelegraph claims that only 7% of the participants plan to reduce their exposure to …

My colleague, Elias Simos, likes to say we're living through a digital asset renaissance, including the digitization of non-digital asset value. Decentralized solutions to a myriad of financial and peer-to-peer obstacles are flourishing, but many innovators and entrepreneurs are still tied to old models of building the projects. Some platforms, such as Polkadot and Cosmos, are establishing new startup models suited for Web 3.0. They make it easier to create and connect decentralized applications and to empower innovators to build better solutions. Acting like a startup accelerator, these multichain protocols present a mechanism to launch and naturally scale hundreds of …

Shiden, the sister-project of leading Polkadot-native layer-two decentralized app hub, Astar Network (formerly Plasm Network), has won the third parachain auction for Polkadot’s experimental sister-network, Kusama. Shiden secured the slot with a total of 137,020 Kusama (KSM) tokens bonded — worth nearly $29 million at current prices. Shiden is a smart contract platform for Kusama-based decentralized applications, offering multi-chain support for Ethereum Virtual Machine- and WebAssembly-based contracts. The project also plans to deliver layer-two technology including Plasm and Optimistic rollups on Kusama. Layer twos have emerged as the dominant scaling solution for Ethereum, with co-founder Vitalik Buterin predicting rollups will …

The weekend rally in cryptocurrencies was led by Bitcoin (BTC) but this move was not supported by huge trading volumes. According to on-chain analysts at CryptoQuant, the low trading volume suggests that “whales are staying low without much action.” However, Bitcoin has successfully held the $30,000 support for two weeks, which suggests that accumulation is taking place at lower levels. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index rose to 29 on July 5, its highest level in about three weeks. This suggests that aggressive investors may have started bottom fishing. If bulls successfully hold the $30,000 level in Bitcoin for a …

A blockchain platform that allows businesses and developers to issue and manage verifiable credentials has announced that it is transitioning to a proof-of-stake algorithm. Dock says the switch to PoS will further decentralize its network — increasing the number of validators involved in securing its infrastructure, and enhancing governance measures. Until now, the project’s blockchain has been based on a proof-of-authority algorithm, where validators were selected by the Dock Association, a nonprofit organization. The move to PoS means that validators will now be chosen by the network based on how many Dock tokens have been locked up to back their …

A public sale of EFI token on CoinList netted Enjin $20 million in proceeds, setting the stage for a successful launch of a nonfungible token, or NFT, network on Polkadot. A total of 40,089 users participated in the token sale, which closed in just two-and-a-half hours, Enjin announced Thursday. Over 600,000 users had registered for the sale, making it oversubscribed by 15 times. With the sale, Enjin has now raised $38.9 million in support of Efinity, the Polkadot-based blockchain for the NFT industry. Enjin’s first EFI raise netted the blockchain company $18.9 million from investors that included Arrington XRP Capital, …