Author: Ibiam Wayas

Ibiam is an optimistic crypto journalist. He loves to associate with like-minded individuals and collaborate with them on similar projects. He spends much of his time honing his writing and critical thinking skills.

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Crypto News DeFi Gaming Scams Tokens

SQUID Game Token Surged 110,000%, But Buyers Couldn’t Sell It Before Rug Pull?

The popular Korean Netflix TV series-inspired “play-to-earn” cryptocurrency Squid Game (SQUID) tanked almost 99 percent on November 1 in what is suspected to have been a rug pull. This happened after people who bought the cryptocurrency rained their complaints on the project as a scam, as they were not able to sell on PancakeSwap.

SQUID token price cliff collapse.

The SQUID token rose more than 110,000 percent since launching last week. Just like the original Squid Game drama, the whitepaper for the cryptocurrency project reads that players can participate in six online games, after which the winners will be rewarded with prizemoney. 

The more people join, the larger the reward pool will be […] 10 percent of the entry fee will be sent to the developer’s wallet, and the [remaining] 90 percent will be added to the reward pool for the last winner of the game.

Squid Game whitepaper

This project was not in any way related to Netflix or the producers behind the eponymous Korean TV series, which raised red flags against the SQUID crypto: 

Did SQUID Pull the Rug?

As many had warned, the SQUID crypto game was rug-pulled. The price of the token dropped nearly 100 percent from US$2,864 to US$0.005. The website for the crypto game was also taken down at the time of writing. Sadly, a lot of people who invested in the SQUID token are left head-scratching in regret as their funds vanished in a matter of minutes.

Before the crash, CoinMarketCap had warned that investors weren’t able to sell their tokens on PancakeSwap:

We have received multiple reports that the website and socials are no longer functional and the users are not able to sell this token in Pancakeswap […] This project, while clearly inspired by the Netflix show of the same name, is not affiliated with the official IP.

CoinMarketCap

Investors were trapped and some lost everything. The takeaway is to think twice before investing into new meme projects with no utility.

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Crypto News DeFi Tokens

1inch Surges Over 100% in 24 Hours, Following Announcement of Exodus Wallet Integration

While Bitcoin (BTC) and other major altcoins struggled on the upside yesterday, DeFi token 1inch skyrocketed over 100 percent, which raised its market value to another record high, inclusive of market capitalisation and trading volume. 

Early on October 27,  the native cryptocurrency and governance token of DEX aggregator 1INCH spiked to another all-time high, raising the market cap to over US$1 billion while the trading volume across all exchanges spiked to +US$2 billion at the time. 

The rally follows the announcement that the 1inch protocol has integrated with Exodus wallet, which would make its offerings available through the decentralised wallet application. Adding to the euphoria was another announcement from leading South Korean exchange Upbit on its plan to list the 1inch token and two other DeFi tokens, Mask and AAVE. 

DeFi tokens are apt to increase in price upon listing on major platforms. Some months ago, Dexe token surged over 110 percent in a day following its trading support on the largest crypto exchange, Binance.  

1inch Sees a Spike in Network Activities

The DEX aggregator aims to provide users with the “best rates by discovering the most efficient swapping routes” across several decentralised trading platforms. According to data from DappRadar, about US$16 million worth of digital assets have been locked on the protocol, and recently it recorded a new high of US$700 million in the 24h trading volume. 

The number of users on the network has also increased to 800k. On the seven-day chart, 1inch ranked among the top-10 decentralised protocols on Binance Smart Chain in transaction volume, and also the fourth-largest protocol on Polygon in users. All of the bullish stats attest to the growing network activities and demand for the token, hence the recent increase in price.  

However, 1inch was down, trading at US$5.25 with a market capitalisation below US$1 billion at the time of writing. 

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Bitcoin Crypto News

$1.5 Billion Enters the Crypto Market Since Approval of BTC Futures ETFs

Recent data from CoinShares shows weekly inflows to digital asset investment products have spiked to a record high of approximately US$1.5 billion following the inception of the two Bitcoin futures exchange-traded funds (ETF) in the US.

Bitcoin ETFs Brought in $1.24 Billion

Last week, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allowed the launch of the first-ever Bitcoin-related ETF product by ProShares, which gained about US$1 billion in volume on the first day of trading. Valkyrie launched the second Bitcoin ETF soon after, adding to the euphoria and inflows to the Bitcoin market.

Per CoinShares, these Bitcoin ETFs accounted for the majority of inflows in the digital asset fund market last week – about US$1.24 billion. For the record, this represents a 93.75 percent increase from the previous weekly inflow high of US$640 million in February.

Notionally, this proves that crypto experts are on the money with their speculations that a Bitcoin ETF in the US would unleash more capital into the market.

Total Crypto AUM Spike to $79.2 Billion

So far in 2021, the total inflows in the digital assets fund market have risen to US$8 billion, about US$1.3 billion higher than the record level last year. CoinShares also noted that total assets under management (AUM) rose to US$79.2 billion following increases in underlying crypto assets, especially bitcoin.

About 99 percent of all the inflows last week were generated by Bitcoin amid the ETFs, whereas the all-time high in price further raised its dominance in the market.

Solana saw the largest inflow of US$8.1 million in the altcoin category, followed by Cardano (US$5.3 million) and Binance Coin (US$1.8 million). There were also more outflows in Ether (ETH) last week.

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Banking CBDCs Crypto News Nigeria Payments

Nigeria Becomes First Leading African Economy to Launch a CBDC

The Nigerian government has finally released the eNaira, the African nation’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), joining the league of countries already pioneering the CBDC space, including China, Sweden, and the Bahamas.

Nigeria Mints $1.2 Million Worth of eNaira

The October 25 launch of the eNaira was officiated by President Muhammadu Buhari and, for the record, the Nigerian CBDC is the first to launch in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. About 33 local banking institutions, more than 120 merchants and 2,000 customers were already registered on the platform before launch. 

The first eNaira mint by the central bank was worth about 500 million Naira (over US$1.2 million), of which 200 million Naira (US$487,555) in eNaira has been distributed to the banks. The digital currency is designed to complement the existing national currency and payment systems and not replace them.

During the launch, the governor of the central bank, Godwin Emefiele, said the digital currency would drive a more cashless, inclusive, and digital economy: “The eNaira will make a very significant positive difference to Nigerians and Nigeria.”

Both the native eNaira speed wallet and eNaira merchant wallet applications are now available for download on Google Play Store.

Why Was the eNaira Launch Delayed?

As Crypto News Australia reported last month, the eNaira was initially scheduled to launch on October 1 to commemorate the country’s independence day. However, there were other key activities that led the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to postpone the launch indefinitely. 

At least one report claimed the central bank delayed the launch in order to stress-test and recalibrate the eNaira system to ensure its efficiency, security, and scalability.

Interest in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin has skyrocketed in Nigeria, either as an investment vehicle or a better means for cross-border payments, despite the central bank banning banks from serving local crypto exchanges and companies.

While the launch of the eNaira is a milestone for the country, it remains to be seen if Nigerians will confidently embrace it as much as they do bitcoin, given the CBDC is still within the government’s reach. 

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Blockchain Crypto News Ethereum

What is the Significance of the Latest ETH Altair Upgrade?

On October 27, Ethereum developers will release another crucial update to the mainnet known as “Altair”, precisely at epoch 74,240. The London Hardfork upgrade in August introduced some changes to the current Ethereum network, most notably the restructuring of transaction fees. However, the Altair upgrade targets the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon chain and will ready the network for the long-awaited merge. 

What Difference Does Altair Make?

Danny Ryan, lead coordinator for the Ethereum 2.0 rollout, revealed the Altair upgrade would introduce a lot of changes for the Beacon chain, one of which includes light client support. This will enable low-capacity devices to participate in the chain.

Altair is an upgrade to the beacon chain that brings light client support, minor patches to incentives, per-validator inactivity leak accounting, an increase in slashing severity, and cleanups to validator rewards accounting for simplified state management.

Danny Ryan, lead coordinator, Ethereum 2.0 rollout

Ultimately, Altair is considered the “warm-up upgrade” for the Beacon chain and the clients towards the high-stakes merge – the unification of the current Ethereum application layer with the proof-of-stake Beacon chain. This might be the first and only upgrade to the Ethereum Beacon chain before the final transition to Ethereum 2.0, according to Pooja Ranjan, herder-in-chief at Ethereum Cat Herders. 

Although the Beacon chain was launched last year, its functionality is still limited to the deposit contract for staking. With the network merge scheduled to happen in the next year or two, all decentralised applications, smart contracts and accounts will be migrated from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake chain, which is deemed more scalable and greener for the environment.

Funds Are Safe

The Altair upgrade should not constitute any loss of users’ funds, given it only applies to the Beacon chain. No action is required by Ethereum users regarding the upgrade. However, Beacon node clients are urged to update to the latest version of their software, which is compatible with the upcoming upgrade. This process should take about eight to 10 minutes to complete, according to Ryan.

Failure to update before the Altair upgrade gets clients “stuck on an incompatible chain following the old rules”, which can result in downtime penalties.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Investing

Tech Billionaire Deeply Regrets Not Buying More Bitcoin

Historical increases in the price of the leading cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC), had caused many investors and traders to regret not getting in earlier. However, billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel says he’s dissatisfied with his current holding and wishes he had invested more in the US$1.2 trillion crypto asset.

‘I Underinvested’, Admits Rueful PayPal Co-Founder

Speaking at a conference hosted by policy think tank Lincoln Network in Miami, US, Thiel admitted that he felt like he’d underinvested in BTC, regretting his reluctance to invest in “the secret that was already known by everybody”. 

On Twitter, ShapeShift founder Erik Voorhees recalled his early unheeded attempts to get Thiel invested in bitcoin when its price was US$300 in 2015. 

Thiel is not alone in this. In June, Marc Lasry, a popular US hedge fund manager and co-owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, also regretted not holding more bitcoin in his portfolio. 

Bitcoin is Hope

With bitcoin hitting a new all-time high, Thiel still recommends going long on the asset as the price can possibly go higher. “I think the answers are still to go long. Maybe it still is enough of a secret.” 

On October 21, bitcoin reached an ATH of US$67,000, raising 100 percent of all the addresses in the state of profit. Thiel opined that increases in BTC’s market value would be a concern for many central banks. It “surely tells us that we are at a complete bankruptcy moment for the central banks”, he said.

At a separate event, an October 18 conference hosted by the Stanford Law School chapter of the Federalist Society, Thiel argued that bitcoin reaching US$60,000 “is an extremely hopeful sign” and flagged a fundamental weakness in the US political system. 

[Bitcoin is] the canary in the coal mine. It’s the most honest market we have in the country, and it’s telling us that this decrepit … regime is just about to blow up.

Peter Thiel, co-founder, PayPal
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Crypto News DeFi Ethereum NFTs

Polygon ‘Becoming Independent of Ethereum’ as dApps Grow 100x Over Past Year

Popular Layer-2 scaling solution Polygon is inarguably on a growth trajectory. The number of decentralisation applications (dApps) running on its scalable network has significantly risen in the past 12 months and most of those dApps were natively launched on the network, meaning Polygon is becoming less dependent on Ethereum, according to recent data from Alchemy. 

Polygon Growth 2x Ethereum

The data revealed the rate of adoption for Polygon is increasing 2x faster than Ethereum at a comparable time in its history. For context, the number of protocols launched on Polygon has increased to about 3,000, which represents 9,900 percent or 100x growth on the previous 30 recorded in October 2020. 

More interestingly, 62 percent of all the dApps are Polygon-native, meaning they are only hosted on top of Polygon. QuickSwap is one such platform, a fork of Uniswap that was natively launched on Polygon to harness its properties for quick and cheap trades. The remaining 38 percent, which includes SushiSwap, Curve, Aave, Balancer and others, exists on both Polygon and Ethereum. 

Growth Strategy Relies Less on Gas

Polygon employs several solutions to enable developers to scale their projects on Ethereum. The growing number of Polygon-native dApps simply points out that more developers are confident and are relying on the layer-2 network more than Ethereum, which suffers expensive gas prices following the frenzy in the non-fungible token (NFT) and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) markets.

We can expect the number to skyrocket from here, as Polygon recently announced plans to onboard the next 100 million users into its DeFi ecosystem. To achieve this, Polygon has committed about US$100 million to develop a decentralized autonomous organisation (DAO) to also improve the DeFi experience.

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Coinbase Crypto News Sports

Coinbase Becomes Official NBA Crypto Sponsor

Publicly traded US exchange Coinbase has become the first cryptocurrency company to partner with the National Basketball Association (NBA) ahead of the league’s 75th anniversary season.

The exchange wants to seize the occasion to enlighten fans on the increasing advancements happening within the crypto-economy:

NBA, WNBA Join Crypto

As per the report, Coinbase has signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with the NBA and will also become the partner of other professional basketball leagues, including the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), NBA G League, NBA 2K League, and USA Basketball. 

The sponsorship also means Coinbase will become the presenting partner for the league, meaning the company logo will be televised during matches. 

The freedom to participate and benefit from the things you believe in is at the heart of Coinbase’s mission. Nobody believes this more than NBA and WNBA fans. We’re proud to become the leagues’ official cryptocurrency partner.

Kate Rouch, chief marketing officer, Coinbase

As NBA and MLB Embrace Crypto, NFL Appears Left Behind

NBA may likely enable cryptocurrency support in the future, as one of its executives, Kerry Tatlock, says it is looking to “provide fans with new ways to engage with the league and each other”.

Cryptocurrency has expanded its footprint on the sports industry in recent years, following continuous partnerships between crypto companies and sporting entities as well as through fan tokenisation. In June, FTX exchange became the first crypto sponsor of Major League Baseball (MLB) after signing a long-term partnership deal with the league. 

Meanwhile, the National Football League (NFL) seems unmoved by the growing relationship between the sports and cryptocurrency industries. As recently as September, the NFL red-flagged cryptocurrency and NFTs, warning the teams not to sell any ads or seal crypto-related deals. More announcements from Coinbase and other crypto firms may be enough reason to get NFL into crypto. 

Coinbase has been paying attention to trends and is prepared to tap demand from any market possible. Just days ago, the exchange announced its plan to launch a P2P NFT marketplace, which would mark its debut in the market. It also had plans to launch a Lending program, but the US Securities and Exchange Commission ruled against the product.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Markets Trading

On-Chain Metrics Paint a Pretty Picture, Bitcoin All-Time High Imminent?

Bitcoin is looking set to reach another all-time high. The momentum in the market has become stronger as investors react positively to the potential impact of the first US Bitcoin futures ETF, which launched on October 19.

Already, bitcoin was trading at US$63,451 shortly after the ETF (symbol: BITO) went live on the New York Stock Exchange, raising 99.02 percent of all bitcoin supply into profit. 

The current state of the Bitcoin market is looking bullish on-chain as well. Several metrics are suggesting the rally is about to kick in, which could take the price to another record level. 

Whales Are Still Buying Bitcoin 

Deep-pocketed bitcoin investors are among those positive about the future price of the leading cryptocurrency, and this is bullish because there won’t be significant selling pressure from them, at least in the meantime.

Whales have been accumulating a huge chunk of bitcoin since last month. On-chain analytics platform Santiment recently reported that the number of whales holding between 100 to 1,000 BTC increased by 1.9 percent (254) over one month. Interestingly, whale activities are just one of the factors contributing to the growth of bitcoin’s price. Active addresses on the BTC network have also risen, which indicates strong network usage. 

Recently, Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards also pointed out that bitcoin’s MVRV z-score had reclaimed 3.0, which usually leads to a notable increase in price. MVRV z-score measures the market value’s relative position to realised value, whereby an increase in the score suggests bitcoin is overvalued while a lower score shows otherwise. 

But LTHs Are Spending

Despite the bullish metrics, there’s still a need to keep a watchful eye on the market given that long-term holders (LTHs) are beginning to spend, according to Glassnode. The LTH Net Position Change is starting to decline, meaning some of those LTHs are starting to realise a profit. 

Notwithstanding, their current position is still positive. On October 14, Crypto News Australia reported that LTHs were HODLing more than 70 percent of all bitcoin in circulation, and their accumulation rate had grown 12.7x.

Historically, Q4 has mostly proven favourable for bitcoin, but it remains to be seen if this quarter can be counted as one. 

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Blockchain Crypto News Tokens

Privacy Token NuCypher Surges 760% in a Week Following Protocol Merger News

The native cryptocurrency of Ethereum cryptographic services provider NuCypher outperformed the majority of altcoins last week, including Ether (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB). NuCypher (NU) more than doubled its market value and capitalisation on its anniversary day, following the announcement of the network’s upcoming merger with Keep Network.

NU Soared 8x Last Week

NuCypher operates several nodes optimised for threshold cryptography to enable decentralised application developers to secure their data on the blockchain. The NU token began trading on October 15, 2020.

The community seems to be positive about future prospects and its upcoming merger with the Keep Network to have incited a spike in the market value of NU. During the first anniversary celebration on October 15, the token soared from as low as US$0.300165 to an all-time high of US$2.61 within that same day. 

This represents a +760 percent increase in a daily candle, and although the price of NU has shrunk from the ATH, the token is still up by 323 percent at US$1.27 at the time of writing.

NuCypher is Merging With Keep 

The major driver of the rally in NU last week could be traced to the upcoming merger with Keep Network, also a privacy-focused blockchain network. The merger was first hinted at in June, and although it’s still unknown when it will be finalised, NuCypher and Keep are believed to be nearing completion of the first-ever crypto merger into a single network called Threshold.

Both communities unanimously voted in support of the merger, and it’s expected that both KEEP and NU holders will receive the new “T” token from Threshold Network.