On Friday, Do Kwon, founder and CEO of Terraform Labs (TFL), which develops the blockchain ecosystem consisting of Terra Luna (LUNA) and the TerraUSD stablecoin (UST), announced that TFL had donated 12 million LUNA ($1.1 billion at the time of publication) to the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG). LFG launched in January to grow the Terra ecosystem and improve the sustainability of its stablecoins. Kwon noted the funds, denominated in LUNA, will be burned to mint UST to grow the LFG's reserves: "We will keep growing reserves until it becomes mathematically impossible for idiots to claim de-peg risk for UST." UST …

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has been sitting in the backseat since whipping up a frenzy in the summer of 2020 through the first quarter of 2021. Currently, investors are debating whether the crypto sector is in a bull or bear market, meaning, it’s a good time to check in on the state of DeFi and identify which protocols might be setting new trends. Here’s a look at the top-ranking DeFi protocols and a review of the strategies used by users of these protocols. Stablecoins are the foundation of DeFi Stablecoin-related DeFi protocols are the cornerstone of the DeFi ecosystem …

Waves (WAVES) continued its price rally further into this week, even as its top crypto rivals wobbled between losses and gains elsewhere in the market. A 230% Waves boom The WAVES/USD trading pair surged by nearly 75% this week to reach around $31, its best level since Oct. 28, 2021. Its rally came as a part of an upside retracement move that saw it rising by a little over 230% in three weeks. In contrast, Waves' top rival in the smart contracts sector, Ethereum, underperformed, with its native token Ether (ETH) dropping by almost 2% in the last three weeks. …

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, has granted stablecoin issuer Paxos regulatory approval to offer crypto services to local companies. In a Thursday announcement, Paxos said it had received a license from Singapore’s financial regulator allowing the firm to provide blockchain and crypto services under the country’s Payment Services Act. The stablecoin issuer said the regulatory approval would help support its partners in expanding services into Asia. “We’re excited to have MAS as our regulator, and with their oversight, we’ll be able to safely accelerate consumer adoption of digital assets globally by powering regulated solutions for the world’s biggest …

Paolo Ardoino, the chief technology officer at Tether, believes that the growing developments around central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) globally wouldn’t really impact the role of private stablecoins. Ardoino shared his two cents in a Twitter thread on the growing discussion around CBDCs and what could be their role in the current payment system. He said CBDCs would only replace the old-age centralized payment networks as SWIFT and use private blockchains to fulfill most transactions. He went on to explain that CBDCs are not about digitizing the fiat currency as it has already been done, given most modern-day transactions are …

Ongoing developments on the global stage continue to cause havoc in traditional markets and in the cryptocurrency sector. Despite these headwinds, projects in the Waves ecosystem have managed to climb higher in both price and total value locked (TVL) as a renewed focus on interoperability with popular blockchain networks brought fresh momentum. Here’s a closer look at the top-performing assets in the Waves ecosystem that have managed to post positive gains despite negative macroeconomic factors that are pressuring cryptocurrencies. Neutrino Neutrino is an algorithmic price-stable "assetization protocol" that creates stablecoins tied to real-world assets and cryptocurrencies. Neutrino USD (USDN) is …

Terra (LUNA) resumed its upward march this week as its price per token rebounded by more than 30% three days. LUNA's price almost reached $100 on March 9 following a 15% intraday rally, coming near its record high of $106 from December 2021. At its week-to-date (WTD) low, the Terra token was trading at $75.60. Over 120 million LUNA burned already The recent bout of buying in the Terra market appeared in part due to similar recoveries elsewhere in the crypto market. For instance, Terra's leading competitor in the smart contracts space, Ethereum, saw Ether (ETH) rising by 13.50% in …

Bitcoin (BTC) price struggled to overcome $40,000 resistance over the weekend and currently trading just above $38,000. At a time when BTC is hovering at a 40% discount from all-time highs, whales have started accumulating more stablecoins. According to data from Sentiment, stablecoin whales with wallet holdings of 10,000 to 10 million Tether (USDT) have accumulated over $1 billion in buying power in the past month. The data indicates the buying power of these whales increased by over 7% in just one month. Buying power is defined as the capacity of stablecoins to buy Bitcoin and thereby driving its price …

In the case of stablecoins, unfortunately, the name is so far a misnomer. The fact that stablecoins are pegged to a “real” asset does not equate to stability. Traditional underlying assets are not exempt from market fluctuations, and with the majority of stablecoins pegged to fiat, they can be just as unstable. What the name could be, however, is aspirational — something that stablecoins might yet live up to if they can tie themselves to a solid foundation. Where did all the stability go? At risk of confusing metaphors, stability is the currency of the day. Markets are volatile, debt …

The COVID-19 pandemic, along with other recent events, have revealed the need for a fully digital economy, giving rise to Metaverse ecosystems, Web3 platforms and the adoption of digital currencies. For example, the Ukrainian government recently reached out to the crypto community on Twitter asking for donations in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Tether (USDT). Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, have also gained mainstream adoption as artists and creators across the globe have discovered new forms of monetization with these models. While innovative, these use cases also demonstrate the notion that blockchain-based concepts that emerged early on often take years to …

The layer-one (L1) ecosystem has received increased attention in recent months as users search for new investment opportunities in the Cosmos (ATOM), Fantom (FTM) and NEAR. Following January's market sell-off, where Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped to bottom below $34,000, much of the L1 field has struggled to regain its momentum. According to data from Delphi Digital, since the BTC bottom on Jan. 24, the only L1 to experience a notable gain in price include Terra (LUNA), Avalanche (AVAX) and Ethereum (ETH). Terra ecosystem growth The price growth seen in LUNA was in large part due to the announcement from the …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) was the talk of the town in early 2021, but it has since taken a back seat to more appealing sectors like nonfungible tokens (NFTs), memecoins and blockchain gaming. Now that cross-chain bridges and interoperability have allowed for the easier migration of assets to competing chains, a new class of DeFi protocols is arising to challenge those left from 2021. Here’s a look at three DeFi projects that have launched on some of the up-and-coming layer-1 blockchain networks, catching the eye of the crypto community. VVS Finance VVS Finance is the largest DeFi protocol on the Cronos …