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BTC price nears $40K as as Bitcoin trader eyes return to all-time high

Bitcoin (BTC) held closer to the $40,000 mark on Dec. 3 after weekend gains reinforced a “strong” uptrend.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Bitcoin leaves $60 million in shorts hanging

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked a fresh BTC price surge, which took BTC/USD to new 2023 highs of $39,730.

These built on upward momentum, which had entered days prior, as Bitcoin hit $39,000 for the first time since mid-2022.

With derivatives leading into the end of the Wall Street trading week, commentators had argued that spot buyers needed to step up to maintain momentum. Events ultimately took an unexpected turn, with a snap surge across Bitcoin and altcoins wiping previous resistance.

In part of coverage on X (formerly Twitter), popular trader Skew suggested that “someone just ran all shorts across the board seemingly on most pairs.”

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3 reasons why Chainlink price can rally another 20% by New Year's

Chainlink (LINK) price has rebounded by over 240% from its yearly low of around $4.70 in June 2023. It may rise further still in the coming days and weeks, according to a slew of on-chain and technical indicators, as discussed below.

LINK price nears ascending triangle breakout

LINK's price has been consolidating inside what appears to be an ascending triangle pattern since November 2023.

Ascending triangles are bullish continuation patterns when formed during an uptrend. They resolve when the price breaks above the upper trendline and rises by as much as the maximum distance between the upper and lower trendlines. 

It appears LINK eyes a similar breakout scenario in December 2023, now treading around the triangle's upper trendline near $16. Suppose it rises decisively above the said resistance level. Then, its triangle breakout target will come to be over $19.50, up 20% from current price levels.

Thus, if it rises decisively above the said resistance level then its triangle breakout target will be over $19.50, up 20% from current price levels.

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Bitcoin ETF race has a new player, Binance ends support for BUSD, and more: Hodler’s Digest: Nov. 26 – Dec. 2

Asset manager Pando Asset has become an unexpected late entrant into the spot Bitcoin ETF race in the United States. On Nov. 29, Pando submitted a Form S-1 — used to register securities with the agency — to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the Pando Asset Spot Bitcoin Trust. Like other ETF bids, the trust aims to track Bitcoin’s price with the custody arm of the crypto exchange Coinbase to hold Bitcoin on behalf of the trust. Pando is the 13th applicant for an approved spot Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. and joins the race with a dozen others, including BlackRock, ARK Invest and Grayscale.

Crypto exchange Binance is winding down the services for its native stablecoin, Binance USD (BUSD). According to an announcement, the exchange will cease support for all BUSD products following Paxos halting the minting of new coins. Binance said users should withdraw or convert their existing BUSD into other assets before Dec. 15, prior to it beginning the process of disabling withdrawals for BUSD on Dec. 31. At that point, existing balances will automatically be converted into First Digital USD for certain users.

The demand of institutional investors for Bitcoin (BTC) became evident on Nov. 10 as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Bitcoin futures flipped Binance’s BTC futures markets in terms of size. According to BTC derivatives metrics, those investors are showing strong confidence in Bitcoin’s potential to break above the $40,000 mark in the short term. CME’s current Bitcoin futures open interest stands at $4.35 billion, the highest since November 2021, when Bitcoin hit its all-time high of $69,000 — a clear indication of heightened interest. The impressive 125% surge in CME’s BTC futures open interest from $1.93 billion in mid-October is undoubtedly tied to the anticipation of the approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

With ChatGPT, OpenAI has developed the most popular artificial intelligence tool in the world. It was launched a year ago, on Nov. 30, 2022, and catapulted to 100 million monthly users within its first three months. In just 12 months, ChatGPT’s existence has contributed to narratives surrounding the extinction of humankind, accusations that OpenAI built it by allegedly committing mass-scale copyright infringement, and a tumultuous CEO firing and rehiring that pundits are still trying to understand.

Wallets linked to defunct crypto trading firms FTX and Alameda Research moved $10.8 million to accounts in Binance, Coinbase and Wintermute using eight cryptocurrencies. Blockchain analysis firm Spot On Chain spotted the movement, estimating that the defunct entities have transferred $551 million since Oct. 24 using 59 different cryptocurrency tokens. The funds’ movement dates back to March, when FTX and Alameda began the process of recovering assets for investors.


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Bitcoin ETF race has a new player, Binance ends support for BUSD, and more: Hodler’s Digest: Nov. 26 – Dec. 2

Bitcoin ETF race has a new entrant, Binance is ending support for the BUSD stablecoin, and ChatGPT’s first year in review.

Madeira seeks to boost economy with startups, innovative payment system

The Madeira Blockchain 2023 conference showcased the region's efforts to become an emerging technology hub in the Atlantic.

KyberSwap announces treasury grants for hack victims

The grant is designed to ease the financial burden on affected individuals and will equal the USD equivalent of the assets lost in the security breach.

SEC faces sanctions threat as Judge questions DEBT Box case accuracy

Initially, the SEC, led by attorney Michael Welsh, had convinced the court to freeze DEBT Box’s assets, arguing the company was moving to Dubai, beyond U.S. regulatory reach.

Ethereum price rallies toward key resistance but is ETH’s strength sustainable?

Ether (ETH) is trading higher on Dec. 1, despite its inability to breach the $2,100 resistance. This level has prompted several rejections in the past three weeks, which is especially concerning given Ether’s 16.2% gains in November.

Ether 12-hour price index, USD. Source: TradingView

However, the current positive momentum is supported by several factors, including applications for spot ETFs and the expansion of Ethereum’s ecosystem, driven by layer-2 solutions.

ETH benefits from ETF expectations and negative news related to competing blockchains

A pivotal development occurred on Nov. 30, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiating the review process for Fidelity’s spot Ether ETF proposal, filed on Nov. 17. This move, along with similar applications from firms like BlackRock, awaits regulatory green light. If approved, these ETFs would bolster Ether's status as a digital commodity, reducing the likelihood of it being treated as a security.

Despite analysts predicting the SEC might delay its decision to early 2024, interim deadlines for applications by VanEck and ARK 21Shares on Dec. 25 and Dec. 26, respectively, have kept the market engaged. The mounting interest from large mutual funds in Ether products is creating a favorable impact on its price.

The Ethereum network's growth, especially in transaction activity and layer-2 development, is noteworthy. The Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem has become increasingly important as the average transaction fee held above $4 for the last couple of months. These layer-2 solutions offer more cost-effective and flexible options than the base layer.

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KyberSwap hacker wants control, law firm says Aussie DeFi tax rules ‘non-binding’: Finance Redefined

Law firm Cadena Legal said that the guidance released by the Australian Taxation Office is “non-binding” and must be treated as “toilet paper.”

Bitcoin price hits $39K as Powell stirs bets Fed rate hikes are over

Bitcoin (BTC) hit $39,000 for the first time since mid-2022 on Dec. 1 as the United States Federal Reserve boosted hopes of policy easing.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Powell: Calling end to hikes would be “premature”

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView confirmed a new 19-month BTC price high of $39,000 on Bitstamp.

Bitcoin bulls, already in a strong position, beat out resistance as Fed Chair Jerome Powell took to the stage at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia for a scheduled appearance.

“The FOMC is strongly committed to bringing inflation down to 2% over time and to keeping policy restrictive until we’re confident that inflation is on a path to that objective,” he said in prepared remarks.

“It would be premature to conclude with confidence that we have achieved a sufficiently restrictive stance, or to speculate on when policy might ease.”

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Real AI use cases in crypto: Crypto-based AI markets, and AI financial analysis

We’re rolling out genuine use cases for AI and crypto each day this week — including reasons why you shouldn’t necessarily believe the hype. Today get two for the price of one: Blockchain based AI marketplaces, and financial analysis.

It may not seem like the most exciting use case blending AI and crypto, but both Near co-founder Illia Polosukhin and Framework Ventures founder Vance Spencer cite blockchain-based marketplaces that source data and compute for AI as their top pick.  

AI is an incredibly fast-growing industry requiring ever-increasing amounts of computing power. Microsoft alone is reportedly investing $50 billion into data center infrastructure in 2024 just to handle demand. AI also needs enormous amounts of raw data and training data, labeled into categories by humans.

Polosukhin believes decentralized blockchain-based marketplaces are the ideal solution to help crowdsource the required hardware and data. 

“You can use [blockchain] to build more effective marketplaces that are more equal,” he tells Magazine, explaining that AI projects currently need to negotiate with one or two big cloud providers like Amazon Web Services. Still, it’s difficult to access the required capacity due to a shortage of Nvidia’s A100 graphical processing units. 

Ai Eye
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Real AI use cases in crypto: Crypto-based AI markets, and AI financial analysis

Increasing numbers of blockchain marketplaces offer crowdsourced data and compute for AI models — and can AI analysis improve fund returns?

KuCoin pledges $20K grant to TON Foundation for ecosystem development

The funding will support TON ecosystem projects, research and development efforts, community-building and marketing activities.

Hashing It Out: A case for Web3 chat apps with Push Protocol’s Harsh Rajat

Harsh Rajat, founder and project lead of Push Protocol, explains the surge in the development of Web3 chat applications on the latest episode of Hashing It Out.

Starknet token distribution not yet finalized despite speculation over portal screenshots

The Starknet Foundation is warning community members to be on the lookout for scams relating to circulating screenshots of early iterations of a token distribution portal.

FTX and Alameda Research cash out $10.8M to Binance, Coinbase, Wintermute

The latest transfer was spread across eight tokens: StepN (GMT), Uniswap (UNI), Synapse (SYN), Klaytn (KLAY), Fantom (FTM), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Arbitrum (ARB) and Optimism (OP).

Bitcoin sees best monthly close in 19 months as BTC price taps $38K

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to $38,000 on Dec. 1 after the November monthly close became its best since April 2022.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Bitcoin bears fail to spark monthly close sell-off

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked impressive overnight BTC price performance, which held key support.

The close came in at just over $37,700, with bid liquidity preserving the intraday range and avoiding a last-minute sell-off, per order book data from trading resource Material Indicators.

BTC/USDT order book data. Source: Material Indicators/X

“Monthly close looks pretty good closing above $35K,” popular trader Skew reacted on X (formerly Twitter).

“Could see some multi week compression between $35K - $39K.”

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United Nations agency to upskill thousands of staff in blockchain tech

The UN Development Programme, which is tasked with eliminating poverty in over 170 countries, wants to educate its 22,000 staff on distributed ledger technology.

Another $18.9M Hong Kong exchange scandal, HTX ‘sorry’ airdrop: Asia Express

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.

Scammers posing as investment experts allegedly enticed 145 victims to tip $18.9 million into the unlicensed Hong Kong crypto exchange Hounax.

According to reports earlier this week, the police said investors were allegedly promised up to 40% return per annum with “no risk” in its advertisements. After users deposited their funds, they were unable to withdraw them. On Nov. 1, the Securities & Futures Exchange (SFC) of Hong Kong listed Hounax on its billboard of suspicious crypto exchanges but clarified that because Hounax was unlicensed at the time of the incident, it was not subjected to the regulator’s enforcement actions.

This was the second scandal involving a crypto exchange in Hong Kong in recent months. In September, another unlicensed exchange, JPEX collapsed after allegations of a Ponzi scheme unsurfaced, leading to 66 arrests and an estimated $205 million in investors’ losses.

Despite the scandals, Hong Kong regulators appear to remain steadfast in their commitment to transforming the city into a major Web3 hub. On Nov. 27, SFC CEO Julia Leung explained that “even if the grace period ends tomorrow, fraud will still occur, so there is no intention to modify the grace period and other measures for the time being.”

A former ad from the defunct Hounax exchange.
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Another $18.9M Hong Kong exchange scandal, HTX ‘sorry’ airdrop: Asia Express

Hong Kong rocked by another $18.9 exchange fraud scandal, HTX offers airdrop in wake of $30M hack, and digital yuan takes off in HK and China.

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