After investing in travel app Maps.me and decentralized finance protocol Oxygen, Alameda Research will be putting $20 million into Reef Finance, the Polkadot-based DeFi platform. According to Reef Finance, Alameda Research will be purchasing $20 million worth of the firm’s native tokens, REEF — roughly 528 million at the current price of $0.03787. The investment will reportedly allow the two companies to collaborate on technology and strategy “in the near future.” Reef CEO Denko Mancheski added the additional funds would help the firm develop DeFi applications for the Reef blockchain. The $20 million in Reef comes after a $40 million …

Long-term investors use dips in a strong uptrend to buy while short-term investors are fixated on calling a top. In the past few days, data from Glassnode has shown significantly sized Bitcoin (BTC) outflows from Coinbase exchange, which is a sign of accumulation according to analysts. It is encouraging to note that the demand is not limited to one exchange and data from Material Indicators shows buy orders of $100,000 and higher are reaching an all-time high. This shows that the influx of institutional investors and large corporations entering the crypto sector continues to accelerate. Proof of this comes as …

Parity Technologies, the company behind Polkadot, is planning to roll out a new parachain that could enhance the use case of the network. “Statemint” is the first proposed common-good parachain for the Polkadot network, Parity Technologies announced Tuesday. A common-good parachain is a parachain that’s granted slots via governance as opposed to the auction mechanism that underlies Polkadot. The auction method doesn’t work effectively for all parachains — i.e., those that could be considered as “common goods.” As a generic asset chain, Statemint would allow anyone to deploy an asset on the network as long as they put up collateral …

Data from Glassnode shows that Bitcoin (BTC) held on centralized exchanges has dropped by about 20% in the past 12 months. This suggests that investors are withdrawing their Bitcoin to the cold storage with a view of possibly holding them for the long term. This has reduced the available supply while the demand has continued to increase. The arrival of exchange-traded funds could increase the supply crunch further. After the success of the TSX Purpose Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, Canada could launch the second Bitcoin ETF by Galaxy Digital Capital Management, a subsidiary of Galaxy Digital. The approval of Bitcoin ETFs …

On March 5, Polkadot‘s DOT experienced a flash crash at Binance perpetual futures that resulted in the contract trading as low at $0.20. While this could have been an honest fat-finger trading mistake, a number of indicators point to a planned attack. While no hard evidence will likely ever emerge, the open interest increase just 24 hours ahead of the event indicates that an attacker could have generated an $8.3-million profit by manipulating Binance’s matching engine. As shown above, during the three-minute candle, $20.4 million worth of DOT contracts traded. Although the swift downside move was a 99.5% flash crash, …

Analysts expect the U.S. economy to stage a strong recovery in the second half of this year as coronavirus vaccines are distributed and economic activity begins to increase. As growth picks up, inflation concerns are also on the rise. Speculation is rife that the U.S. Federal Reserve may have to adjust its dovish stance to hold down interest rates. In anticipation, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has jumped from about 1% at the start of the year to 1.626%. This has resulted in profit-booking in assets considered as risky and as equities pullback, a temporary pause may be put on …

Polkadot (DOT) has been raising eyebrows for the past couple of months as the interoperability-focused altcoins has gained 625% in the past three months. The promise that interoperability between blockchains will be a viable solution to the high Ethereum gas fees plaguing the crypto market has made Polkadot’s development of parachains attractive and the number of projects choosing to build on DOT continues to grow alongside it’s popularity as a staking platform. Polkadot parachains operate similarly to the Ethereum 2.0 sharding proposal, which creates independent blockchains built for a particular purpose. Many projects building on Polkadot, like Moonbeam, Equilibrium, and …

Blockchain infrastructure company Parity Technologies has joined forces with the University of California, Berkeley to strengthen the institution’s blockchain curriculum and promote adoption among students and the community. For the 2020–21 academic year, Parity Technologies will work with UC Berkeley’s faculty and students in curriculum preparation, project ideas and other initiatives to strengthen the blockchain learning experience. Parity will also advise students and entrepreneurs looking to launch their next blockchain startup. The partnership centers around UC Berkeley’s Blockchain Xcelerator program, which launched in January 2019 to support new startups and create a globally competitive blockchain curriculum. Since its inception, Xcelerator …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) resilience in the face of global market uncertainty continues to attract new institutional investors. Dan Loeb, the CEO of New York-based asset management firm Third Point, said that he has been “doing a deep dive into crypto.” To strengthen the venture investments team, Third Point hired former pro-crypto Goldman Sachs analyst Heath Terry, according to Reuters. Loeb’s move into crypto seems to have prodded 'Shark Tank' star Kevin O'Leary to allocate a portion of his portfolio to Bitcoin. Additionally, O'Leary hinted that every operating company that he had invested in was considering investing in Bitcoin. Billionaire Tim Draper …

A decentralized ecosystem that uses cryptography to secure identities, transactions, documents and user accounts has announced that it is reducing the total supply of its tokens following a community-wide vote. Project Hydro says the supply of Hydro tokens will now be set at 111 million. The smart contract redeployment process is now under way, meaning the next step is to contact exchanges to ensure that everything is updated on their end. The news follows the platform’s announcement that it is going multi-chain — with Binance Smart Chain first on the list. The Polkadot parachains Moonbeam and Plasm, Algorand and Cardano …

The U.S. bond yields have softened and this has ignited investor's appetite for risk-on assets. After a negative closing last week, the S&P 500 has started the current week on a positive note. Thi bullish sentiment has also rubbed on to the crypto sector, which is surging higher, led by Bitcoin (BTC). After Tesla and Mastercard’s foray into Bitcoin, analysts at Citigroup believe that Bitcoin is at a “tipping point,” which could either take it mainstream and make it the preferred currency for world trade or result in a “speculative implosion.” Citi’s analysts expect the central bank digital currencies and …

Bitcoin (BTC) price has been correcting in the past few days and traders are curious to know whether this is a minor pullback or the start of a deeper decline. The problem is that no one has a crystal ball and analysts can only point to critical support levels that may hold based on historical data and evidence. However, in a bear phase, the price tends to slip below key support levels as traders panic and sell out of fear, similar to how the price exceeds the upside targets during a bull run as traders buy due to FOMO. March …