XRP price risks dropping by more than 25% in the coming weeks due to a multi-month bearish setup and fears surrounding excessive XRP supply.
XRP descending triangle
XRP has been consolidating inside a descending triangle pattern since topping out at its second-highest level to date — near $1.98 — in April 2021.
In doing so, the XRP/USD pair has left behind a sequence of lower highs on its upper trendline while finding a solid support level around $0.55, as shown in the chart below.
In the week ending March 13, XRP’s price again tested the triangle’s upper trendline as resistance, raising alarms that the coin could undergo another pullback move to the pattern’s support trendline near $0.55, amounting to a drop between 25% and 30%.
The downside outlook also takes cues from other bearish catalysts that has emerged around the triangle resistance.
For instance, XRP formed a bearish hammer on March 12, a single candlestick pattern with a small body and a long upside wick, suggesting lower buying pressure near the coin’s week-to-date top of around $0.85.
Additionally, the price turned lower after testing a confluence of resistances defined by its 20-week exponential moving average (20-week EMA; the green wave) and its 50-week EMA (the red wave), as shown in the attached image below.
XRP/USD weekly candle price chart with moving average resistances. Source: TradingView
Excessive supply FUD
More downside cues for XRP come after Ripple Labs locked 800 million XRP in escrow as a part of its programmed schedule for withdrawals.
The blockchain payment company moved around 100 million XRP worth nearly $40 million to exchange wallets on March 3. Meanwhile, it kept the other 700 million XRP (worth around $550 million) in an escrow account, raising anticipations that at least 200 million XRP would be flooded into the market to generate funds for Ripple’s operational expenses, as well as to distribute XRP among Ripple’s global clientele.
Meanwhile, it kept the other 700 million XRP (worth around $550 million) in an escrow account, raising anticipations that at least 200 million XRP would enter the market to generate funds for Ripple’s operational expenses, as well as to distribute XRP among Ripple’s global clientele.
I understood there are some 800 million $XRP that are locked up and ready to be sold…someone should check the increase in circulating supply to verify this
The selloff fears originated from the XRP price’s earlier response to unexpected supply hikes. For instance, XRP/USD fell by more than 50% to near $0.60 four months after its net supply in circulation increased from 40.46 billion to over 47 billion in just two days.
XRP circulating supply. Source: Messari
Nonetheless, Ripple’s withdrawal of 800 million XRP has not yet been reflected in its net circulating supply.
Profit-taking risks mount
Another catalyst that hints XRP’s price could fall 25-30% to reach its descending triangle target is a Santiment indicator that tracks social media trends and their impact on market trends.
XRP price versus $XRPNetwork trend. Source: Santiment
XRP’s price rose by over 15% week-to-date on March 12, notes Santiment, alongside a large spike in social media searches for the hashtag #XRPNetwork, suggesting that it could follow up with a potential selloff ahead. Excerpts:
“Historically, our social trends indicate that profit-taking is justified whenever the crowd makes the #XRPNetwork a top topic.”
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) offers one of the most widely applicable use-cases for distributed ledger technology and today it is one of the main avenues for the wider adoption of blockchain technology.
Last week, as the wider crypto market corrected and Bitcoin (BTC) dropped by 22%, DeFiChain (DFI) bucked the trend and rallied 76% to establish a new high at $5.70 on Dec. 6 as its 24-hour trading volume surged from an average of $3.6 million to $24.3 million.
DFI/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the price breakout for DFI include the launch of decentralized assets on the DFI mainnet, a surge in transactions and users on the network and an increase in the total value locked on the protocol.
Traders pile into decentralized stocks and cryptocurrencies
The biggest source of momentum for DFI in recent weeks has been the launch of decentralized assets on the DeFiChain network and staking options for holders.
Users of the platform now have access to multiple pools that include large-cap cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, as well as synthetic versions of popular stocks and indices, including pairs for Tesla (TSLA), Apple (APPL) and the S&P 500 (SPY). In addition to having exposure to these assets, stakers also benefit from the higher-than-average yields available on the platform.
DeFiChain DEX pool pairs. Source: DeFi Scan
Other d-asset options available to users include Gold (GLD), Silver (SLV), the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) and the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT).
Transaction volumes surge
Another reason for the strong performance seen from DFI has been an increase in transactions on the network following the release of decentralized assets.
The surge in network activity is largely the result of the new use cases made possible by the launch of decentralized assets, including the creation of assets, liquidity mining and arbitrage trading.
The added features have also helped to attract new users to the DFiChain ecosystem, with the number of unique wallets holding DFI reaching a new record high of 42,555 on Dec. 8.
Related: Nasdaq to provide price feeds for tokenized stock trades on DeFiChain
Total value locked hits a new all-time high
DFI has also seen a steady increase in total value locked on the DeFiChain protocol, which is now at an all-time high of $1.83 billion according to data from Defi Llama.
Total value locked on DeFiChain. Source: Defi Llama
The spike in value locked coincides with the launch of decentralized assets on the network and it’s claer that users rushed to deposit funds to gain access to the high yield opportunities available to liquidity providers.
Aside from the staking features offered on the DeFiChain DEX, larger DFI holders with at least 20,000 DFI also have the option of locking their DFI tokens up in order to run a masternode on the network and earn rewards in return for helping to verify transactions and secure the blockchain.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Cryptocurrency traders are scrambling and scratching their heads after a sharp drop in Bitcoin (BTC) price triggered a market-wide sell-off that has nearly every token in the top-200 flashing red today.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that Bitcoin price dropped as low as $58,609 before finding buyers who bid the price back to $60,500.
BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Here’s a look at what some traders and market analysts are saying about this recent downside move and whether or not it is simply a shakeout or a sign that darker clouds are gathering.
BTC is exploring support and resistance levels
Insight into BTC’s daily price action was offered by options trader and pseudonymous Twitter user ‘John Wick’, who posted the following chart highlighting some important support and resistance zones.
BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Twitter
Wick said that Bitcoin is just exploring the resistance zone around its new all-time high and he highlighted the possibility of a drop into the $58,000 to $59,500 range, similar to the move that was seen in the early trading hours on Nov. 15.
Wick said,
“We are simply testing the range low of the resistance zone. If we break it on the close may test support zone.”
Similar observations were made by market analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user ‘Rekt Capital’, who posted the following tweet that zoomed out and looked at the price action for BTC on the monthly chart.
As mentioned by the analyst, the price action on Nov. 16 was a retest of the monthly support/resistance level at $58,700. Now that BTC has successfully rebounded near the monthly $61,000 level, a bullish case can be made in the weeks ahead if the price manages to close the month above the level.
There’s still a chance that $54,000 will be hit
A level-headed view of the latest price action was provided by market analyst and Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, who posted the following chart of a possible BTC price trajectory over the next week.
BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Twitter
van de Poppe said,
“So far, so good on Bitcoin. Bouncing from support, but still needing to break some crucial areas here, which didn’t happen yet. Let’s go for that first. $63,000 is important. No breakout there [leads to] further downwards momentum.”
According to the chart provided by van de Poppe, if the downward momentum continues, the price of BTC could drop to its next support level at $54,000.
Related: Bitcoin stages ‘picture-perfect rebound’ at $58.5K as crypto liquidations top $875M
Fractal patterns suggest an approaching price rally
Crypto Twitter analyst ‘Allen Au’ posted the following side-by-side charts of Bitcoin from 2013, 2017 and 2021 in response to concerns about $69,000 being the cycle peak.
BTC/USD 1-day charts from 2013, 2017 and 2021. Source: Twitter
According to the analyst, the latest downturn is not the cycle top, but was in fact the Wave 6 move seen in previous cycles. This means that “if its low is in, BTC could be onto Wave 7 soon!”
Should the outlined wave sequence play out, then a Wave 5 peak could be $69,000, a Wave 6 low near $58,600 with the potential to drop as low as $53,000 and a cycle peak somewhere between $190,000 and $260,000 happening sometime in December 2021.
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.651 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 43.2%.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock is probably aware that the gaming industry has been on an absolute tear. It’s one of the industries that has benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic in a big way.
That said, the average investor might not be aware of the following growth figures:
The global gaming market is currently worth $180 billion — the fastest-growing form of entertainment globally. For reference, the global film industry is worth $100 billion and all North American sports combined are $73 billion in terms of annual revenues.
Global game market revenue. Source: Bloomberg, Pelham Smithers, GamingScan.com
Experts predict that the number of online streamers of online games will rise to one billion by 2025 — one in nine people today.
Three of the top four most viewed United States sporting events in 2018 were not even traditional sporting events. They were e-sporting events. For example, the League of Legends championship had 30 million more views than the AFC Championship and 45 million more views than the NCAA Football Championship.
ESports viewers in the United States. Source: MBA@Syracuse
Travis Scott did a live performance on the popular gaming platform Fortnite last April. It received over 12.3 million views and netted Scott over $20 million per TechCrunch and GamesIndustry.biz.
So what is going on here and where is this growth coming from?
We can attribute much of this simply to the rise of technology and exponential growth. Technology continues to transform how we communicate, how we assemble, how we create and consume information, how we transfer value and how we form online communities.
Howard Shultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, popularized the idea of a “third physical space” with his coffee shop concept. It was his belief that humans needed a “third space” to assemble outside of the office and at home. Starbucks was the answer.
We see this same concept playing out today among the younger generations. Except the new shared space is digital and it’s called the metaverse. This is where kids are increasingly hanging out these days. They go there to engage with their friends. listen to music, or play video games. We can think of this as the next iteration of digital communities: AOL chat rooms, then Myspace. Facebook and finally the metaverse.
We’ve got concerts in the metaverse now. Burning Man has been digitized. And we’re just getting started.
History of gaming
The first video games came out in the late 50’s — a simple tennis game similar to Pong. Later, Atari was invented in 1977. Nintendo started releasing popular games starting in the early ’80s with Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, etc.
It’s important to note that the business model has changed significantly over the years. We used to pay $60 for a game at, for example, GameStop, and off we went. It was a one-time cost with unlimited play. Games were released in a similar manner to how Hollywood flicks would be promoted and released. 90% of revenues would come in the first two weeks.
This model is out now. The freemium model is in. Users play for free and are induced to make in-game purchases to upgrade skills, dress up avatars, buy weapons, enhance animations, etc. We see this today on Roblox, Fortnite and other popular games.
This is a much more profitable model for game makers, as it keeps their users engaged and always upgrading to compete with their friends. We are moving to a world where social signaling occurs among younger generations in the metaverse via an in-game avatar, the weapon they wield and the skins they possess. Welcome to the future.
Why gaming will move to blockchains
Gaming today happens on walled-off data networks. This means that users cannot own their in-game assets (skins, avatars, abilities, etc). The platform owns them. Axie Infinity is disrupting this model because users own their assets such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs) on Axie and are able to sell them in a free market/gaming economy for profit. Below is a view of the revenues earned by Axie Infinity users since May of this year:
Axie Infinity total revenue. Source: Token Terminal
Annualized revenues per Token Terminal shake out to$2.7 billionfor this open and permissionless pay-to-play blockchain game. Important note: blockchain technology is the vehicle through which users can own their in-game assets.This is not possible on the tech used today.
Blockchains allow for gaming economies to organically form. Users can be paid to play. Again, Axie Infinity is leading the charge here. Axie users make investments to acquire the Axie NFTs and the AXS native token to begin play. From there, they can earn the SLP token by playing/competing, as the tokens earned can then be exchanged for other crypto assets or fiat, etc. Many users in the Philippines are earning several times their usual monthly salary simply by playing Axie Infinity, all during the economic hardship brought on by COVID-19, which is pretty cool. Let me ask you this: If you can get paid to play a game on a blockchain vs. not being paid to play on a non-blockchain game, which would you choose? As Charlie Munger says: “show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome.”
Public blockchains are open to all and permissionless. Do you have a cell phone and an internet connection? Cool, you are welcome to participate. This isn’t really how it works in today’s closed data architecture, especially if you live outside the United States. Not only can you participate on a blockchain, but you can also earn income. As smartphone adoption continues to scale out with the growth of 4G and 5G technology in emerging markets, we should expect more and more users to be accessing crypto and blockchain-based games in the near future.
Open protocols collapse and compress the cost of existing technologies. Public blockchains are open protocols. Ethereum is an open protocol. Anyone can build games on Ethereum. By doing so, one is fundamentally outsourcing much of their operating and capital costs to the Ethereum base layer blockchain, meaning that it is much easier to start a game for entrepreneurs. Low barriers to entry increase competition. This ultimately benefits the end-users. We’ve seen this play out over and over in history. Blockchains are simply the next iteration of open source technology.
Decentralization. Because blockchains are open and permissionless, anyone can build on them. This means we should expect a future where there are blockchain games built on top of various layer-one blockchains, for example, Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, etc. Users will be able to switch games with ease, and they will be able to bring their assets such as NFTs in the form of skins, avatars, or weapons with them. This is something that is not possible today. Furthermore, users will be able to trade their NFT assets for profit if they choose, or maybe they would want to build NFTs? Go ahead — you don’t have to own a gaming platform to do it.
Gaming economies are the future, and they will happen on blockchains.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Stablecoins and their use in decentralized finance (DeFi) have played a key role in the 2021 cryptocurrency bull market because allow investors to participate in the ever-growing number of protocols that offer high yield staking pools and they ease the process of transacting without needing to use a centralized exchange.
One project that has seen a significant amount of adoption thanks to its focus on creating a truly decentralized ecosystem and asset-backed stablecoin is the Abracadabra.money DeFi protocol and its native SPELL token.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.0114 on Oct. 15, the price of SPELL rallied 178.55% to establish a new record high at $0.035 on Nov. 1 as its 24-hour trading volume spiked to $109.82 million.
SPELL/USD 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons why SPELL is attracting the attention of DeFi users are the growth of Magic Internet Money (MIM) as a fully decentralized, cross-chain capable stablecoin, numerous cross-chain integrations that have expanded the MIM and SPELL’s reach throughout the ecosystem and the token’s governance and tokenomic structure.
Decentralized stablecoin growth
One of the biggest factors attracting the attention of active DeFi users is Abracadabra’s native Magic Internet Money stablecoin which is a fully collateralized and minted by depositing interest-bearing assets on the DeFi protocol.
The growing popularity and adoption of MIM can be seen by the increasing total value locked on Abracadabra, which reached a record $4.15 billion on Nov. 1 according to data from Defi Llama.
Total value locked on Abracadabra.money. Source: Defi Llama
There has also been steady growth MIM’s circulating supply, which stands at $1.933 billion according to data from CoinMarketCap. The most recent expansion is in large part due to the expansion of assets that can be pledged as collateral to mint MIM, which now includes popular tokens like Shiba Inu (SHIB), FTX Token (FTT), wrapped Olympus (OHM) and Fantom (FTM).
Cross-chain integrations extend SPELL’s reach
A second reason inv are taking a closer look at SPELL is its expanding ecosystem which has recently added cross-chain support for multiple blockchain networks including Fantom and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
BSC is the most recent addition to the Abracadabra ecosystem after the community voted to add support for the network in a vote that closed on Oct. 30.
♂️!
A new governance proposal is out to decide whether we should deploy https://t.co/gHWEQJMoOc on #BSC!
Other blockchain protocols currently supported by Abracadabra include Ethereum (ETH), Arbitrum and Avalanche (AVAX), and the platform also benefits from multiple cross-protocol partnerships including integrations with Convex Finance (CVX), Yearn Finance (YFI), Curve Finance (CRV) and SushiSwap (SUSHI).
Related: Magic Internet Money races past $1B, sets sights on MakerDao
Favorable tokenomics and a decreasing circulating supply
Another factor catching the eye of DeFi investors is the tokenomic structure of SPELL which includes governance votes on emissions to control inflation.
The team behind SPELL regularly monitors the emission schedule across the various DeFi pools in its ecosystem to ensure that new tokens are being minted and utilized in the most beneficial way for the protocol and holders.
Due to increasing adoption and the uptick in price price, a large number of tokens originally set to be minted are no longer needed so the team decided to decrease the emission schedule by 20% beginning on Nov. 1. This effectively removed 8.7 billion SPELL tokens from the current circulating supply.
Going forward, the outlook for the project remains bullish and the team also has plans to further integrate SPELL and MIM to the Fantom ecosystem and also offer new staking opportunities in Arbitrum and Avalanche.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
I joined Coinbase in March 2019, and I quickly realized that to get stuff done, you generally had to be at Coinbase — in the conference room, in the hallway conversation, at the lunch table — working, chatting and collaborating side-by-side with your colleagues. Sure, employees worked from home here and there, but doing so always carried the risk of leaving you slightly out of the loop.
Of course, COVID changed all that. But while many companies approached this unprecedented work-from-home era as a temporary disruption to their normal way of doing business, we decided in May 2020 — only a few months into the pandemic — that Coinbase would become a remote-first company. Now, more than a year later, we’re more certain than ever: We’re never going back to the way we used to work.
We’re often asked — how did you shift to remote-first while doubling your headcount and becoming a public company? With that question in mind, I wanted to share some of our most important learnings from the last 15 months. (Hint: the company’s culture is key.)
First, some ground rules: At Coinbase, “remote-first” means that after we can safely return to in-person work, about 95% of our employees will still have the option to work from home, an office, or a mix — whatever works best for them.
Just as importantly, “remote-first” at Coinbase also means that the employee experience should be the same for everyone, no matter where you live or how often you do (or don’t) work from an office. While everyone will have the option to work in an office, doing so will not benefit your career at Coinbase in any way — at Coinbase, career progression is determined by performance, not by facetime with colleagues.
With that as our baseline, I think the following four learnings go a long way towards explaining why the shift to remote-first has gone so well for us, and why we’re so excited to stay remote-first.
1. We now have access to top talent around the world. Before COVID, most of our US-based recruiting focused on people who were living in the Bay Area, or were willing to move there and endure a daily commute into downtown San Francisco. This severely limited the talent pool we could draw from and meant we were often in direct competition with peer employers for the same candidates.
Today, those geographic restrictions are gone. We can now focus our recruiting in regions that have many candidates with deep experience in a certain field or speciality. We’ve also become a top destination for people who aren’t excited about being forced to return to an office by their current employer.
As a result, our workforce has become more geographically diverse. In March 2020, 69% of our employees were based in the Bay Area. Today, only 30% of our employees live there, even though our total headcount has more than doubled in that time. (To be clear, we do have some common-sense rules about where employees can live, both to avoid negative tax implications and to ensure teams aren’t spread out across too many time zones.)
This geographic diversity also better serves our mission to increase economic freedom in the world. The more geographically distributed we are, the more we all bring different perspectives to the table.
2. A centralized workforce doesn’t make sense for a decentralized company. In the months following our shift to remote-first, we realized that our new remote-first mindset was also more in line with the broader ethos of crypto. Earlier this year, we took our shift a step further by making it clear that Coinbase no longer has a headquarters located in any one city. After all, if crypto is centered on the benefits of decentralization, why should our employees be required to work from a limited number of locations? We’ve learned that remote-first enables our employees to advance in their careers based on their capabilities and their performance, not their location.
3. A little flexibility goes a long way. We know from internal surveys that our employees appreciate being able to work remotely — in our most recent survey, 94% of employees said the benefits of remote-first outweigh the drawbacks, or that the benefits and drawbacks balance each other out. Today, nearly half our employees (46%) are “fully remote,” up from 6% just before the pandemic, when very few of our roles were remote.
But those data points only tell part of the story. I know several employees who have been able to move closer to family, or move to another city so their significant other could pursue a career or educational opportunity, or move to a place they’d always dreamed of living, or simply trade their commutes for more time with their families, all without having to give up their jobs at Coinbase — and without us having to needlessly lose their talents and institutional knowledge.
I’m part of this group — our shift to remote-first enabled me and my family to move to North Carolina, the place we’ve always considered home, far sooner than we’d originally planned.
4. Your culture has to be set up for going remote. Long before we went remote, we had established cultural norms and decision-making frameworks that became even more important once we were no longer in offices together.
For example, because we had several offices around the world before the pandemic, we had a norm of sharing detailed agendas and background documents before meetings, and capturing meeting discussions and decisions in writing. We also relied on two simple document templates — one for complex decisions and one for lighter-weight decisions — to make decision-making more efficient and reduce swirl across the company.
This emphasis on tracking decisions in writing was important before we became remote-first, but it was critical after we made the switch — and because these norms were already in place, our internal workflow wasn’t derailed.
Another company value that worked to our advantage when going remote is efficient execution. Since our founding, we’ve moved fast and overcome challenge after challenge to build a hypergrowth company in a new, volatile industry. Shifting to remote-first while doubling our headcount and becoming a public company? Just another challenge for us to overcome through our commitment to making forward progress, no matter what.
Final thought: Remote-first isn’t right for every company. When peers at other companies that are considering a shift to remote-first (or something like it) have reached out to me, I’ve asked each of them the same question: Can your company’s culture accommodate the shift? Some cultures can, but many can’t, and that’s OK — I don’t think remote-first is right for every company. Either way, the first step is making an honest assessment about whether the company’s culture can handle the change.
Thankfully, our culture was primed for the shift to remote-first. Fifteen months later, we’re more excited than ever about the opportunities remote-first has created for us, both as a company and as individuals.
If this sounds like the kind of work environment you’re looking for, take a look at our open roles here.
This piece originally appeared in Protocol.
4 reasons Coinbase is staying remote was originally published in The Coinbase Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Interoperability has become one of the driving themes within the crypto market and as the blockchain ecosystem evolves into an interconnected web of layer-one protocols, the importance of communication and efficiency among decentralized applications (dApps) will also increase.
Ren (REN), a blockchain protocol designed to provide interoperability and liquidity between different blockchain platforms, has started gaining traction over the past month and a half as activity in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has been on the rise.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after reaching a low of $00.41 on Aug. 9, the price of REN has climbed 185% to a daily high at $1.16 on Sept. 15 as its 24-hour trading volume spiked 443% to $673 million.
REN/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the price growth seen in REN include the steadily increasing activity and total value locked on RenVM, the launch of a bridge to Arbitrum and the release of RenVM Greycore on the network’s testnet.
Rising volume and total value locked
REN’s bullish momentum can be found in the data for the total network volume and total value locked (TVL).
Total network volume and total value locked on Ren. Source: Ren Project
As 2021 progressed, new chains were added to the list of bridges supported, which now includes Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Polygon, Fantom, Avalanche and Arbitrum.
Each new bridge has helped to increase the volume and TVL on the Ren network, which has coincided with moves seen in REN p.
REN price follows the Bridge to Arbitrum
The spike in price seen on Sept. 15 was due, in large part, to the release of the Arbitrum bridge, an Ethereum (ETH) layer-two scaling solution Arbitrum, which is designed to host popular decentralized applications in a fast, low-fee environment.
The Ethereum network has been plagued by high fees and delayed transaction times, which have hampered the ability of many users to use DeFi or nonfungible token (NFT) related protocols on the network.
Arbitrum’s low-cost environment has proven to be an attractive DeFi environment for BTC holders who are now able to migrate to the layer-two solution and interact on the network with renBTC.
The total value locked on Arbitrum via the Ren protocol was $7.75 million as of Sept. 15 and is represented by the green line in the value locked chart above.
Related: Solana and Arbitrum knocked offline, while Ethereum evades attack
REN marches toward decentralization
A third reason behind the increase in activity for REN was the release of RenVM Greycore on the network’s testnet on Sept. 13, a move that was done as the project works toward its goal of full decentralization.
Greycore is a semi-decentralized validator set of nodes that are operated by reputable DeFi projects and it helps to add an additional layer of protection for the protocol.
The first project to join Greycore was BadgerDAO, a DeFi project focused on building projects that bring BTC to DeFi.
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for REN have been favorable for some time.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. REN price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As seen on the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for REN turned green on Sept. 13 and climbed to a high of 71 on Sept. 14 just as the price of REN began to increase 72% over the next two days.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Over the past week, astute crypto market analysts noticed some interesting developments related to the supply of Ether (ETH) as the network’s August 4 London hard fork approaches.
Recent data from CryptoQuant, an on-chain analytics firm, indicates that the amount of Ether held in cryptocurrency exchanges’ reserves has hit new daily lows since the start of July.
Ethereum all exchange reserves. Source: CryptoQuant
To determine if this is a bullish or bearish development for the top altcoin, let’s take a closer look at some of the factors playing a role in the increased demand for Ether, including the Eth2.0 staking contract, increased activity in decentralized finance and traders’ possible excitement ahead of the implementation of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559.
Eth2 staking surpasses 6 million Ether
One source for the increased demand for Ether is the Eth2 staking contract which surpassed the 6 million Ether mark on June 30.
There is now 6 million ETH in the eth2 deposit contract.
Data from CryptoQuant shows that July 1 saw the largest single-day outflow of Ether from exchanges since January 21 with more than 596,000 Ether pulled off exchanges.
Ethereum all exchanges netflow. Source: CryptoQuant
The most recent data provided by Eth2 Launchpad indicates that the current amount staked is 6,166,661, which indicates that not all of the Ether withdrawn from exchanges went into staking.
DeFi values rise
Another possible destination for the Ether being taken off exchanges is the decentralized finance ecosystem which has seen increases in token values as well as the total value locked in DeFi protocols.
Total value locked in all of DeFi. Source: Defi Llama
While Ether and Bitcoin (BTC) hold a lot of the value that is currently locked in DeFi, their prices have remained relatively unchanged over the past week, meaning the recent rise in TVL seen on July 8 may have been caused by rising token values as deposits have remained steady according to deposits and loan data provided by Dune Analytics.
Traders’ excitement grows ahead of the London hard fork
A third potential contributor to the recent flows seen in Ether is the upcoming London Hard Fork and the EIP-1559 proposal.
Several analysts expect the upgrade to positively impact Ether’s price due to the transition to a more eco-friendly proof-of-stake consensus mechanism as well as a new “scarcity” feature that will reduce the number of tokens in circulation.
Related: Ethereum price can gain 40% on Bitcoin, argues analyst as London fork nears
Excitement about the upcoming hard fork is a possible source in the rise of ETH/BTC pair seen since June 27 as the price of Ether also rose in its USD pair.
ETH/BTC 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
While Ether has outperformed Bticoin for a majority of the time since June 27, BTC’s performance during the market-wide pullback on July 8 is a sign that BTC remains the most resilient of the cryptocurrencies when market conditions are less than favorable.
From a long term perspective, however, the value proposition of Ether can’t be ignored and the battle between Ether and BTC is far from settled as recently discussed in a report from Goldman Sachs, which suggests that Ether will possibly surpass the total market capitalization of Bitcoin in the coming years.
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