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While TradFi is the main source of demand for blockchain tech, digital identity and supply chain are exciting areas too, according to Google Cloud Head of Web3 James Tromans. The crypto industry is far too focused on token prices, rather than figuring out how smart contracts can be used to solve real-world business problems, according to Google Cloud's Web3 lead.  In an interview with Cointelegraph, Google Cloud’s Head of Web3 James Tromans stressed the need to focus more on the business logic in the smart contract rather than the supply and demand dynamics of the token : “What are the business problems that you want to get executed? When you're running a smart contract to execute some business logic to solve your business problem, you're using a token, but the token is not the thing, it’s the business problem that's the thing.” “So I would like us to get away from all this talk about token s and token speculation as if that is Web3 — that is not Web3,” Tromans added...

Uniswap developer AzFlin has admitted to creating the FRENS token but has argued what he did doesn't constitute a rug pull. Uniswap dev loses job, was it worth it? A Uniswap developer known as “AzFlin” has been sacked by the founder of Uniswap Labs, Hayden Adams, for alleged ly creating a memecoin and rug pulling it a few hours later for 14 wrapped-Ether (wETH), worth $25,800. It is understood that AzFlin developed and deployed FrensTech token (FRENS) on Coinbase’s new layer 2 blockchain Base on Aug 12 before selling the tokens raised from the liquidity shortly after. Adams publicly confirmed the sacking of AzFlin, adding that such behaviour is neither supported nor condoned at Uniswap Labs. Wanted to let people know this person is no longer with the company. Not behavior we support or condone. https://t.co/sxVowwIR3Q — hayden.eth (@haydenzadams) August 12, 2023 The developer has mocked the situation at hand with a series of light-hearted posts along with a new X (formerly Tw...

Circle’s USDC stablecoin has dropped from $45 billion in circulation at the start of 2023 to just $26 billion as the summer winds down. Stablecoin issuer Circle has a $1 billion cash reserve pegged as insurance against a declining market capitalization and fresh competition from the traditional finance and technology industries, said CEO Jeremy Allaire.  In an interview with Bloomberg, Allaire revealed the war chest and shared his views on the uptick in competition from organizations such as PayPal that are new to the stablecoin space: “I expect you will see many many, not just internet payments firms, but also all kinds of financial services companies and others begin to get more involved in this. It’s great to have this new competition. I do think it’s going to drive more and more companies into the field.” Related: PayPal launches PYUSD stablecoin for payment Circle is best known for its USDC (USDC) stablecoin, a digital token similar in design to regular cryptocurrency but backe...

Stuart Alderoty says that an appeal by the Securities and Exchange Commission could see Ripple consolidate its victory over the regulator even further. Concerns of a potential appeal by the United States securities regulator to the landmark Ripple ruling earlier this month were shrugged off by Ripple’s chief legal officer. Stuart Alderoty believes that if the SEC takes the case to an appeal , the court could move to consolidate Ripple Labs’ partial victory over the financial regulator even further. Speaking on a July 26 TechCrunch podcast, Alderoty reiterated his position that the XRP (XRP) token does not constitute an investment contract and that the Ripple team would not shy away from any appeal brought to the courts by the SEC. “We think the judge got that right, and we think that was a faithful application of the law, and I think a court of appeals will not only affirm that but maybe even amplify that to even a greater extent.” On July 13, Judge Analisa Torres ruled XRP was no...

Bitcoin-related funds saw outflows of $13 million over the past week, reversing five weeks of bullish inflows, according to Coinshares analyst James Butterfill. Bitcoin-related invest ment products appear to have lost some of their sheen among crypto invest ors, recording its first week of outflows since Blackrock filed for spot Bitcoin ETF in June. According to a July 24 report by CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill, Bitcoin (BTC) investment products saw outflows of $13 million for the week ending July 21, reversing five weeks of inflows. Short Bitcoin products also saw outflows of $5.5 million in the week. Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index is 50 ~ Neutral Current price: $29,178 pic.twitter.com/T1DMFpsX9p — Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index (@BitcoinFear) July 25, 2023 In contrast, Ethereum (ETH) and XRP (XRP) invest ment products recorded combined inflow of $9.2 million over the last week. Butterfill noted that Ethereum invest ment products were the best performer last week...

Cointelegraph analyst and writer Marcel Pechman explains how Argentina’s 150% inflation is actually helping the altcoin market by luring more investors. On today’s Macro Markets show, veteran stock market and Cointelegraph analyst Marcel Pechman starts by analyzing Argentina’s 150% inflation , which proves that people continue to work and consume (somehow) even if their local currency loses its value. What is the lesson here? For starters, everyone wants free money. That explains why altcoin s and airdrops continue to attract attention, regardless of whether the majority of investors end up being unprofitable. You might think that those investors would quickly learn their lesson, but in reality, quite the opposite occurs. All it takes is a new market ing strategy — a new way of promising free money — just like the Argentines have a tendency to forget the mess the governments have caused over the course of 10 years. For Pechman, the bottom line is: Forget any promise of free money or ...

The total crypto market cap has stalled at the $1.2 trillion level, but derivatives data shows bulls are preparing for the next breakout. After gaining 11% between March 16 and March 18, the total crypto market capitalization has been battling resistance at the $1.2 trillion level. This same level was reached on August 14, 2022 and was followed by a 19.7% decline to $960 billion over the next two weeks. During the lateralization period between March 20 and March 27, Bitcoin (BTC) gained 0.3%, while Ether (ETH) posted modest gains of 1.6%. Total crypto market cap in USD, 12-hour. Source: TradingView One source of favorable short-term momentum is a change in the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy The U.S. Federal Reserve was forced to increase its balance sheet by $393 billion between March 9 and March 23 in order to provide short-term loans to failing banks. The objective of the plan was to reduce inflation, which has significantly impacted the cost of living and ultimately hampered ec...

Arbitrum’s upcoming ARB token has everyone excited about the next potential airdrop, and it looks like there’s more to come. Arbitrum developers announced an Airdrop of its governance token , ARB, to eligible users and DAOs on the Ethereum Layer-2 platform. An average user received around 625 ARB token s, which corresponds to around $625 to $1,250, according to pre-launch trading prices and popular estimations. The prospect of earning free money has instilled excitement around users looking to hunt the next airdrop opportunity. The airdrop farming activity also benefits the protocols by attracting liquidity and usage to the platform. The strategy is working well for both protocol developers and users. Moreover, the team's sale of a protocol’s token invokes securities laws, inducing significant legal risk for the developing teams. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that future protocols will use the same strategy to decentralize their protocols. Here are five potential airdrop opport...

According to Circle, USDC liquidity operations will "resume as normal when banks open on Monday morning in the United States," enabling USDC redemption at 1:1 with the U.S. dollar. USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to use " corporate resources" to cover the shortfall on its reserves following Silicon Valley Bank's shutdown, said the company in a statement on March 11.  According to Circle, USDC liquidity operations will "resume as normal when banks open on Monday morning in the United States," enabling USDC redemption at 1:1 with the U.S. dollar. The announcement came after the stablecoin lost its $1 peg on March 11 to trade as low as $0.87 before slowly re-pegging at $0.97 at the time of publication. The stablecoin lost its peg after the disclosure of $3.3 billion of Circle's reserve at Silicon Valley Bank. Sharing an Update on USDC and Silicon Valley Bank. https://t.co/Ug3qpot8sJ — Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) March 11, 2023 Silicon Vall...

Norby said the “experiment” was part of a plan to onboard more people onto Solana, however the stores didn’t bring in as many users as they initially hoped. Solana Spaces will close down its two Solana (SOL)-themed, community-oriented retail stores in New York City and Miami at the end of the month, as the physical stores didn't onboard as many users as it initially anticipated. Solana Spaces tweeted the news on Feb. 21 sharing a note from its founder, Vibhu Norby, explaining the reasons behind the store shutdowns. The following is a note from our founder, @vibhu. Dear @solanaspaces community, We’ve made the difficult decision to sunset our stores in NYC and Miami by the end of February, and to pivot our Solana onboarding efforts into digital products like DRiP, our free NFT product with… https://t.co/kjNu9Ay4Gk — Solana Spaces (@solanaspaces) February 21, 2023 Norby — who founded Solana Spaces in early 2022 — explained the company reached an “inflection point” with the stores...

Bitcoin's bull market is likely to start earlier than expected due to anticipation of the BTC halving and favorable macroeconomic conditions, according to Mark Yusko, founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management. The next crypto bull market will start sooner than most people think, according to Mark Yusko, the founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management. Yusko thinks the next crypto bull run or, as he calls it, "the crypto summer ," could kick off as soon as the second quarter of this year due to the combination of more dovish central bank policies and the anticipation of the Bitcoin (BTC) halving.  While the United States Federal Reserve is unlikely to cut interest rates anytime soon, according to Yusko, the markets tend to anticipate the Fed's decisions. That means even a slowing down or a pause in interest-rate hikes would be interpreted as the signal of an imminent pivot. That would spark a positive dynamic among all risk assets, including crypto. ...

Stablecoins may have suffered an identity crisis in 2022, but Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino is bullish about the utility the sector provides. Stablecoins have been under much scrutiny after the implosion of the third-largest Stablecoin by market cap, TerraUSD (UST), in May 2022. The UST saga led to a lot of skepticism that caused consumers to question the safety of stablecoins.  In the seventh episode of Hashing It Out, Cointelegraph's Elisha Owusu Akyaw (GhCryptoGuy) interviewed Paolo Ardoino, Tether's chief technology officer, about how stablecoins work alongside a discussion on frequently asked questions about stable tokens. Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) rocked the boats of Stablecoin issuers after the third most popular stablecoin, TerraUSD, depegged in 2022. Tether was one of such issuers at the receiving end of the FUD. Paolo Ardoino claimed that some of the FUD was being spread privately and publicly by competitors. Nevertheless, the Tether CTO said that the FUD only ser...

The majority of the funds stolen were from a single wallet which had $751,321.80 USDC drained from the malicious link. Azuki, a popular nonfungible token (NFT) project, had its Twitter account compromised on Jan. 27 leading to hackers stealing over $750,000 worth of USD Coin (USDC) by posting a malicious “wallet drainer link” posed as a virtual land mint. Hackers stole $751,321.80 USDC from a single wallet within half an hour of the malicious links being tweeted, according to Etherscan data provided to Cointelegraph by crypto wallet security firm Wallet Guard. The data also revealed that Hackers stole a further $6,752.62 worth of USDC from various wallets holding 11 NFTs and over 3.9 Ether (ETH). Wallet Guard stated that the total amount stolen was $758,074.42. Emily Rose, community manager for the anime-inspired NFT project confirmed via Twitter on Jan. 27 that the Azuki account was hacked, warning users not to click any links from Azuki’s Twitter account . AZUKI OFFICIAL TWITTER AC...

The Dogecoin Foundation allocated 5 million DOGE, which is around $360,000 at the time of writing, to the development of the ecosystem. The Dogecoin Foundation announced a new fund for Dogecoin Core developers to promote the Dogecoin ecosystem further in the new year.  On Dec. 31, the foundation stated that it is allocating 5 million Dogecoin (DOGE), which is around $360,000 at the time of writing, to the new fund to support the development of the Dogecoin platform. According to the Dogecoin foundation, the fund will be held in a new multisignature wallet managed by its members and needs three out of five signatures from Dogecoin Core developers chromatic, Marshall Hayner, Michi Lumin, Patrick Lodder and Ross Nicoll. These custodians will not have any rights to the funds aside from managing the release. The team wrote: “The DOGE held in this wallet will disburse rewards to developers of Dogecoin Core for work on all contributions, no matter how big or small.” For every release of D...

Analysts expect the bear market to loosen its grip in 2023. Here are five cryptocurrencies to keep an eye on. It has been a tumultuous year for the crypto investors who have witnessed the total crypto market capitalization tumble from about $2.2 trillion at the beginning of 2022 to about $850 billion in December. The sharp erosion in valuation was caused due to several high-profile bankruptcies in 2022. The entire Terra ecosystem imploded with the collapse of its LUNA token and TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin. The failure of Three Arrows Capital followed this black swan event, and the final blow came as FTX underwent a bank run and imploded. These back-to-back events triggered a liquidity and credit crunch and appear to have caused the most damage to the crypto industry. A prolonged bear market tends to test investors’ patience, but it offers one of the best opportunities to buy fundamentally sound cryptocurrencies at lower levels. Smart investors who can go against the herd and invest duri...