Altcoin

Privacy coins and zero-knowledge technology, which some use to obfuscate the identity of sends/receivers and transaction amounts, have gained enormous popularity in recent years due to mounting regulatory surveillance against the crypto sector. But despite their rapid rise in market cap, critics continue to scrutinize such class of assets as enablers for masking illicit activities.

Bitcoin (BTC) hovered near $43,000 on Jan. 17 as “boring” price action combined with signs that the market could be stabilizing. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView Leverage comes off all-time highs Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD staying firmly within its established trading range between $40,000 and $45,000. With few surprises

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) skyrocketed in popularity over the course of 2021 as the wider public became enthralled with projects like the Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks, but these one-of-a-kind digital images are only scratching the surface of what NFT technology is capable of.  One project focused on expanding the functionality of NFTs beyond the

Frax Share (FXS) has been one of the few altcoins to pull off a dominant price performance amid the down market of late 2021 to early 2022. In the month between Dec. 14 and Jan. 14, FXS was up 128% against the U.S. dollar and 159% against Bitcoin (BTC). In addition to this impressive feat,

A bit Twitter drama ensued on Thursday, continuing well into Friday afternoon, when developers behind popular meme token Shiba Inu (SHIB) issued a statement alleging that CoinMarketCap had listed three fake SHIB contract addresses belonging to the Binance Smart Chain (BNB), Solana (SOL), and Terra Luna (LUNA) blockchains. The staff at Shiba Inu claimed that

Uruguay has reportedly installed its first Bitcoin (BTC) ATM, making it the 11th South American country to publicly encourage crypto adoption. Prior to Uruguay’s involvement, South America hosted 79 ATMs, which represented 0.2% of global BTC ATM installations. According to Ámbito, Uruguay’s first crypto ATM was installed in the coastal city of Punta del Este,

Hong Kong’s central banking institution, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), released a questionnaire to gauge public opinion on regulations for crypto-assets and stablecoins. The state-backed regulator intends to establish a regulatory framework by 2023-24. HKMA’s “Discussion Paper on Crypto-assets and Stablecoins” highlights the explosive growth of the stablecoin market in terms of market capitalization

Dogecoin (DOGE) prices rose substantially on Jan. 14 as Elon Musk announced that Tesla would start accepting it as payment for merchandise.  Tesla merch buyable with Dogecoin — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 14, 2022 After the announcement, DOGE price jumped nearly 13%, hitting a 30-day high of $0.2150. Its upside move came as a part of a

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla now accepts Dogecoin (DOGE) as payment for the company’s merchandise. DOGE-eligible products in the Tesla store can be purchased by sending DOGE to Tesla’s Dogecoin wallet.  While it’s accepting DOGE, the firm also clarified that they are not taking any other crypto. The company states that it cannot

The cryptocurrency market faced another day of erratic price movements on Jan. 13 after Bitcoin (BTC) bulls were soundly rejected in their bid to push the price above $44,000. This led to an abrupt sell-off that has thrust the price back into the high $42,000 range.  Despite the mid-day struggle faced by Bitcoin and many

Last week, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum (ETH)’s co-founder, voiced his disapproval regarding the emergence of cross-chain bridges, citing security vulnerabilities due to their interdependency. In the days that followed, however, developers working on cross-chain technologies largely dismissed his skepticism. In a statement to Cointelegraph, Kadan Stadelmann, chief technology officer of atomic swap blockchain Komodo, responded to

Terra’s native staking token, LUNA, was one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies of 2021, with gains north of 13,000%. Terra has also surpassed Binance Smart Chain (BSC) in total locked value with $17.62 billion, making it the second-biggest DeFi chain just after Ethereum.  Much of this growth is due to Terra’s ecosystem, with a community of

Bank of America digital asset strategist Alkesh Shah has predicted that Ethereum competitor Solana could become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem” in a Jan 11 research note. The Solana network launched in 2020, and has since grown into the fifth largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $47 billion. An order of magnitude

Crypto assets within the Cosmos ecosystem have been on a run since the start of 2022, thanks to an intensified focus on brokering cross-chain compatibility with other blockchains. One decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that has benefited from the current expansion plans is Osmosis (OSMO).  Osmosis is the first decentralized exchange (DEX) servicing projects connected through

Hong Kong’s central bank, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), wants to supervise stablecoin issuance and reserves management. HKMA published a discussion paper on Jan. 12 regarding cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, in which it provided its views on how the industry should be regulated in Hong Kong. In the 34-page long consultation document, the HKMA paid special

On Monday, Polygon (MATIC), a layer two Ethereum (ETH) scaling solution known for its fast transaction times and negligible gas fees, announced the launch of Plonky2, a zero-knowledge scaling technology claimed to be the fastest in the world. Zero-knowledge algorithms ensure everything is correctly computed on layer two and return the succinct proof to Ethereum

Bitcoin price made a quick pop above $43,100 in the U.S. trading session but uncertainty is still the dominant sentiment among traders on Jan. 11 and bulls and bears are split on whether this week’s drop to $39,650 was BTC‘s bottom.  Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has traded

The Mozilla Foundation’s back-tracking on crypto has earned a reaction from the creator of the world’s first meme cryptocurrency. On Dec. 31, 2021, Mozilla, the developers of the Firefox internet browser, tweeted that the company was accepting cryptos like Dogecoin (DOGE), Ether (ETH), and Bitcoin (BTC) as donations, along with a Bitpay donation link. However, less than

In this week’s show, Cointelegraph resident experts decide which layer-one protocol is more likely to rise above the rest in 2022.  Join Cointelegraph host and analyst Benton Yaun alongside market analysts Jordan Finneseth and Sam Bourgi as they pick their favored layer-one protocols for 2022. Will it be Velas ($VLX), which is currently the fastest

Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below the $40,000 level on Jan. 10 for the first time since September 2021. The crypto markets were not alone as the U.S. equity markets also witnessed strong selling when traders chose to reduce risk and piled into the 10-year Treasury yield which surged to 1.8% from 1.51% at the end of