Coinbase (COIN) listing on Nasdaq could eventually boost cryptocurrency adoption and attract droves of institutional investors. However, that is unlikely to happen immediately. In the first few days after the listing, volatility could be high as Wall Street tries to value Coinbase. This could also increase the volatility in cryptocurrencies. Sharp movements in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) could also result in liquidations of leveraged positions in the derivatives market. The massive $27 billion in Bitcoin futures open interest and $8 billion in Ether (ETH) futures open interest indicate that a spike in volatility could chop several traders. PlanB, the …

Issues with Ethereum congestion and high fees have led to many companies adopting layer-two solutions like Optimistic Rollups, OMG Network and many others. These platforms allow transactions to be created outside of the Ethereum network on what are known as “sidechains,” which then can be reconciled on the main Ethereum network in one simple transaction. These layer-two options are gaining a lot of traction in anticipation of the release of Ethereum 2.0, which aims to solve the current high gas fees through sharding and splitting transactions throughout multiple blockchains. Many projects have been adopting both layer-one and layer-two solutions to …

Plasm Network and Secret Network, two projects based on Polkadot and Cosmos, respectively, have launched the first iteration of a bridge to connect the two ecosystems, each representing a different “layer-zero” protocol. The bridge, deployed on Tuesday on Plasm’s testnet, allows users to transfer assets between Plasm Network and Secret, allowing them to enjoy transaction privacy and use SecretSwap, the first automated market maker exchange on Secret Network. The bridge would allow Plasm users to benefit from Secret Network’s privacy layer, which is based on hardware guarantees offered by trusted execution environment, or TEE, cells. Secret nodes and validators use …

Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone equated the current consolidation in Bitcoin (BTC) price to that of a “caged bull, well-rested to escape.” When compared with the rallies a year after the previous two Bitcoin halvings in 2012 and 2016, the strategist called the current price action “tame.’ According to McGlone, Bitcoin is “still in price-discovery mode” and its plateau is still far away. While Bitcoin remains in focus, altcoins have continued to steal the show. Bitcoin’s market dominance, which stood closer to 70% on Jan. 4 has continued to slide even though its price has risen more than …

Hong Kong tech company Meitu revealed on April 8 that it had added $10 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) to its holdings which were purchased at an average rate of $57,000 per coin. After the latest purchase, Meitu’s total cryptocurrency portfolio consists of $49.5 million worth of Bitcoin and $50.5 million worth of Ether (ETH). This acquisition shows that institutional investors are confident that the rally in Bitcoin is still in its early stages. Tom Jessop, Fidelity’s head of the crypto division, believes that Bitcoin has reached a tipping point and that traditional finance companies will continue to adopt cryptocurrency …

In a recent investment thesis on Sora, the Cointelegraph Research team explored the current state of the decentralized finance, or DeFi, industry, highlighting the biggest challenges it faces right now. It found that the two largest problems are scalability and the segregation of multiple blockchains that exist independently and cannot share information. The Polkadot-based project tries to solve both of these bottlenecks by offering cross-blockchain transfers of any type of asset. It also provides transactional scalability by spreading transactions and validation across multiple parallel blockchains. Download the full investment thesis on SORA (XOR) here. Polkadot aims to ameliorate two pivotal …

Equilibrium, a Polkadot-based decentralized finance project and parachain candidate, has raised $2.5 million from a number of venture funds primarily involved in the Polkadot ecosystem. Heavy Polkadot backers like KR1, Signum Capital and Hypersphere Ventures joined Equilibrium’s round. Other participants from the general crypto investment ecosystem include OKEx’s Block Dream Fund, Genesis Block Ventures, CMS Holdings, AU21 Capital, DFG Capital, PNYX Ventures, FBG Capital, LD Capital and others. The funding round comes as Equilibrium gears up for the upcoming parachain lease auction on Polkadot. The project said that the investment will help secure a parachain slot, which it estimates will …

The price of Enjin, the native token of the blockchain gaming and NFT-focused project, has surged by more than 30% in the last 24 hours. There are three major factors behind ENJ’s strong short-term uptrend, namely the Coinbase listing, technical momentum and the interest around JumpNet. Coinbase listing intensifies interest in Enji The price of ENJ has been on a gradual uptrend throughout the past month ever since the project announced the release of Efinity and JumpNet. ENJ started to see a large rally when Coinbase, the top U.S. exchange, announced it will allow users to trade ENJ, an event …

According to CoinShares, the institutional inflow into crypto products hit $4.5 billion in Q1, which is 11% higher than the intake seen in Q4 2020. This shows that institutional interest is on the rise but the quarter-on-quarter growth has slowed down from the 240% recorded in Q4 2020. As Bitcoin price moves higher, more funds are needed to sustain the levels. Therefore, if institutional inflows do not pick up in the next few days, Bitcoin (BTC) and other altcoins could witness a major correction. The next correction could test the resolve of institutional investors and even though these investors have …

On March 24, the price of Polkadot's DOT token corrected by 23% in a brief six-hour period, resulting in $174 million in liquidations across the futures market. This swift downside move also cut the aggregate open interest by 26%. Now that DOT's open interest is climbing to a new record high at $1 billion, investors may be worried that another price crash is on the way. Although the event severely hurt leveraged longs at the time, the token managed to rally 46% in 10 days, reaching an all-time high of $46. The explosive gain caused investors to recoup their confidence …

Polkadot and Kusama users will benefit from a direct integration with Tether’s USDT when common good parachains launch. As announced by Tether on Tuesday, the stablecoin will launch both on Polkadot and Kusama, its cousin network. Tether (USDT) is the oldest stablecoin to reach significant adoption, and it has recently surpassed $40 billion in circulating supply. Though there have been concerns in the past for its reserve status, the company recently committed and followed through with periodic reserve audits. The timing of Tether’s release on Polkadot depends on its roadmap and the activation of parachains, the “shards” within the Polkadot …

“A Polkadot project with a difference” says it is restoring trust and simplicity to complex token ecosystems and eliminating the centralized distribution models that can render the power of blockchain technology useless. Polkalokr offers a multi-chain token escrow platform that can be integrated into existing DeFi protocols, ensuring that network participants have full control over how tokens are distributed and treasuries are managed. The project’s goal is to remove human reliance and bring trust to token economies through governance-as-a-service — all while delivering security, scalability and a user-friendly experience. Explaining why Polkalokr is needed, the developers behind this initiative said: …