A new decentralized autonomous organization management platform is being built on Polkadot — and aims to shake up the way organizations are run. Companies, open-source projects, foundations, hedge funds and NGOs are among the entities that can be created and managed through the Idavoll Network. Basic functions such as shareholder votes, disputes and accounting matters can be executed with ease — and the organization’s behavior and operating rules are enshrined through the use of smart contracts, delivering “openness, fairness and justice” to all. Anyone within an organization can submit proposals that their peers can vote on, and a dispute mechanism …

The Polkadot ecosystem continues to progress, with DeFi platform Acala Network becoming the first to win a parachain slot on the Rococo testnet. Acala, the self-described decentralized finance hub for Polkadot, announced it had secured the slot on March 26. Acala has won the first parachain slot auction on @Polkadot testnet Rococo, and now Acala occupies the first public parachain slot on Rococo . Keep on building ️ pic.twitter.com/EscaM8dGqQ — Acala - DeFi Hub of Polkadot (@AcalaNetwork) March 26, 2021 Acala was launched in January 2020, with the DeFi consortium striving to create a cross-chain open finance infrastructure for the …

Glassnode data shows Bitcoin (BTC) exchange reserves on Coinbase have dropped by about $8 billion. This indicates that institutional investors are locking away their purchases in cold storage for the long term instead of booking profits. HODLing by institutions is a huge positive as it will continue to reduce Bitcoin's available supply, which may boost prices even if demand begins to diminish. The news flow suggests no slowdown in institutional adoption. New Zealand Wealth Funds Management revealed that its product KiwiSaver Growth Strategy allocated 5% of its assets to Bitcoin in October 2020. According to the firm’s chief investment officer …

On March 24, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that U.S. buyers are now able to purchase Tesla vehicles with Bitcoin (BTC). Musk also tweeted that Tesla will not convert BTC payments into fiat but will add to its existing treasury of about 48,000 Bitcoin. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives expects Bitcoin to account for less than 5% of Tesla transactions, but the percentage could move up as crypto adoption increases. The analyst said the move by Tesla could be a defining moment for Bitcoin from a transactional point of view. This week, CNBC host Jim Cramer thanked Anthony Pompliano on …

The Turkish lira lost 15% of its value and dipped close to its all-time low after Turkey's President Erdogan fired central bank governor Naci Agbal. This resulted in a massive spike in Bitcoin (BTC) searches in Turkey as investors sought to protect their wealth from devaluation. This is just another example that shows how investors may be treating Bitcoin as a possible substitute for fiat currencies. In other news, United States Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has a different view. While speaking at an event hosted by the Bank for International Settlements, Powell said that Bitcoin is more of a …

A report by Deutsche Bank Research said that Bitcoin (BTC) has become “too important to ignore” and may attract regulation by the end of 2021. Deutsche Bank analysts expect Bitcoin to reach a turning point in about “two or three years” when it will be clear whether Bitcoin will evolve into an asset class or not. In the short term, the report forecast Bitcoin to “remain ultra volatile.” A different report by Bank of America provided some insight into the possible reasons for Bitcoin’s volatility. Bank of America analysts estimated that Bitcoin price may rise by one percent when there …

Fiat-to-crypto on-ramp provider Simplex will now support Polkadot in its network of crypto exchanges, wallets and brokers. In an announcement today, Simplex said its integration of Polkadot and its DOT token would allow crypto users to purchase the token with a credit or debit card, Apple Pay or bank transfer. The financial institution is aiming for “mass cryptocurrency acquisition and adoption,” saying that the addition of DOT to its list of supported digital assets would bring it closer to this goal. Simplex provides services to crypto exchanges including Binance and OKCoin. The firm has partnered with more than 350 crypto …

Cardano (ADA) has had an impressive start to the year as it broke through the psychological $1 barrier and made an all-time high at $1.50. The impressive 590% year-to-date gain took place as the network transformed into a multi-asset network, similar to Ethereum, and this could bode well for Cardano's future. The rally's final leg seems to be related to the Coinbase Pro listing, announced on March 16, and this resulted in a renewed push to $1.47 on March 18. As Cardano's price increased, so did its spot trading volume and on-chain transfers, which surpassed Litecoin (LTC). The increased interest …

Institutional investors have continued to pump money into cryptocurrency investment products in Q1 of this year, according to a report by CoinShares. The inflows of $4.2 billion in the first quarter have broken the previous record of $3.9 billion made in the fourth quarter of 2020. NYDIG CEO Robby Gutmann recently told listeners of the “On the Brink” podcast to brace for a slew of announcements by the firm’s strategic partners. Gutmann said the announcements could bring new levels of “Bitcoin adoption, Bitcoin availability, Bitcoin products and services within the existing traditional financial landscape.” While new products and services that …

Polkadot (DOT) has emerged as one of the top-choice blockchain networks over the past year thanks to its focus on facilitating interoperability between separate networks, especially Ethereum (ETH). As a result of Polkadot’s rise to prominence, projects that have embraced the concept of interoperability and joined the Polkadot ecosystem have seen a boost in their token prices over the past few months. Ren (REN), Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) and the Celer Network (CELR) are three such projects that have led the way in facilitating cross-chain interoperability between networks, resulting in healthy increases to the number of active token holders and each …

The 2017 Bitcoin (BTC) bull run was led by retail traders, long-term crypto believers and Bitcoin whales. However, the tide turned in 2020 as institutional investors became the catalyst for the latest crypto bull run. However, data compiled by JPMorgan Chase shows that retail traders have made a strong comeback in the first quarter of this year. JPMorgan analysts used data from Square and Paypal to determine that retail investors bought 187,426 BTC for Q1 2021, which is more than the institutional purchase of 172,684 BTC during the same period. While this data may not be bulletproof, it gives a …

Bitcoin (BTC) missed hitting a new all-time high on March 11 by just a whisker as Oracle Corporation denied rumors that it had purchased about 72,000 Bitcoin. This suggests that traders could be looking for signs of greater institutional adoption to boost Bitcoin’s price further. One of the main factors that may have kept several institutional investors at bay is the lack of regulatory clarity but this could be on the verge of changing. In a recent interview on the Thinking Crypto podcast, Hester Peirce, a commissioner at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, said that Gary Gensler’s nomination …