Convicted German art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi has entered the NFT world, launching his very own digital NFT museum. Beltracchi is recreating the world’s most expensive painting, da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, in the form of 4,606 NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.
Recreating “The Greats”
In a new project, aptly named “The Greats”, Beltracchi will be recreating – not forging – one of the most controversial paintings in art history.
Beltracchi's originals are the output of decades of learned artistic skills and a robust understanding of art history and its relevance to our society. As a seer into the art world's future he works on his version of the Salvator Mundi in #TheGreats collection. pic.twitter.com/T0JZ3Jxf3f
— The Greats by Wolfgang Beltracchi (@TheGreatsArt) October 10, 2021
Painted in whole or in part by Leonardo da Vinci between 1499-1510, Salvator Mundi was in 2017 sold at a Christie’s auction to a proxy for Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman. It had been mistaken for a copy for the previous 500 years until the truth was finally revealed in 2011.
Salvator Mundi, believed to have been painted by da Vinci between 1499-1510.
According to The Greats’ website, the project will feature seven different takes on Salvator Mundi, based on the seven different eras of art history. Beltracchi is said to have redesigned the famous painting in 4,608 copies in his style.
The infamous forger conned the art world out of approximately 35 million euros between 1980 and 2011 before he was finally arrested by German authorities and sentenced to six years in prison, of which he served only three.
Since his incarceration, Beltracchi has been barred from exhibiting and selling his art by art museums, auction houses and galleries, hence his entry into the NFT market:
The NFT market offers artists a platform to market themselves independently and makes them independent from traditional art market mechanisms.
Wolfgang Beltracchi
Not all of the NFTs are currently exhibited on the website, with a spokesperson indicating they would only be revealed when the sale starts later this month.
In order to ensure the NFTs are not exploited, The Greats will be making a “hidden sale”. Chainlink’s Verifiable Random Function (VRF) will prevent buyers knowing which NFT they are minting.
Will Beltracchi Be Able to Pull It Off?
Confidence in NFT artists is not all that high of late, and many collectors are no doubt wondering if investing in the work of a convicted criminal is their best bet. Just last week, Crypto News Australia reported on the ‘Evolved Apes’ rug-pull in which investors lost a cool US$2.7 million.
US media company AccuWeather is launching a Chainlink node to place its application programming interfaces (APIs) directly onto blockchain-based smart contracts, the specialist weather information provider announced this week.
AccuWeather APIs include information such as temperature, precipitation, wind speed and natural disaster classifications. A few potential uses for AccuWeather-powered smart contracts include:
non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that can change depending on weather forecasts
weather prediction market hedges against natural disasters
automatic supply chain shifts correlated with the weather
Chainlink, an Ethereum-based network of decentralised blockchain oracles, allows off-chain data to be placed into smart contracts.
One of the biggest weather data providers in the world @accuweather isn't running a $BTC node or an $ETH node, but a $LINK node.
Why? Because they can provide their data to smart contracts through #Chainlink that way.
“As one of the first weather-related data products to join Chainlink, we are thrilled to expand our reach in bringing value to the emerging blockchain-based market,” commented Kurt Fulepp, AccuWeather’s global chief product officer.
Innovation is in our DNA at AccuWeather and integrating Chainlink demonstrates another way in which we deliver best-in class products to users and consumers in a diverse and growing number of platforms and spaces.
Kurt Fulepp, AccuWeather
How It Will Work
The ability to connect premium weather data to blockchain networks is critical to supporting the many new smart contracts being built on-chain for the forecasting industry. Smart contracts are data-driven applications that automate processes such as product pricing and contract settlement based directly on data feeds.
Smart contract developers need high-quality weather data from sources like AccuWeather to ensure outcomes accurately reflect weather conditions.
AccuWeather data can enable parametric crop and natural disaster insurance for regions where it is otherwise unavailable, hedging against future droughts, floods or associated sea level rises.
Let’s take a closer look at today’s altcoins showing breakout signals. We’ll explain what the coin is, then dive into the trading charts and provide some analysis to help you decide.
1. Chainlink (LINK)
The Chainlink Network LINK is driven by a large open-source community of data providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers, security auditors, and more. The company focuses on ensuring that decentralized participation is guaranteed for all node operators and users looking to contribute to the network. Chainlink allows blockchains to securely interact with external data feeds, events, and payment methods, providing the critical off-chain information needed by complex smart contracts to become the dominant form of digital agreement.
LINK Price Analysis
At the time of writing, LINK is ranked the 14th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is A$26.18. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
LINK during Q2 provided respectable 210% gains for bulls who bought at April’s monthly open, with the price finding resistance near A$24.74
If bulls take back control this week, the top of the former gap begins at A$22.14 may provide support for at least a short-term bounce. The top of the consolidation range starting near A$20.32 is more likely to provide substantial support.
The most robust support is likely to be found in the overlapping consolidation ranges between A$18.23 and A$17.46, with a sharp slice through these levels possibly suggesting the end of the bull run.
The region from approximately A$29.81 to the most recent swing high is likely to provide some resistance. The swing high provides a reasonable first target for a possible next leg up.
If this high breaks, the 1.0 extension near A$33.27 and the 2.0 extension near A$38.72 may provide the next primary targets.
2. Dego Finance (DEGO)
Dego Finance DEGO is a decentralized ecosystem that offers a diverse combination of the non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi) tools. It is an independent, open NFT ecosystem. Any user is allowed to launch an NFT and initiate mining, auctions, and trading, covering the entire lifecycle of the product. Dego’s NFT protocol is a cross-chain, second-layer infrastructure for Blockchain projects that can be leveraged for user acquisition and token distribution.
DEGO Price Analysis
At the time of writing, DEGO is ranked the 319th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is A$13.43. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
This month’s bulls enjoyed 190% gains at DEGO’s peak before the price confirmed stiff resistance beginning at A$14.37
The 12-hour chart shows that support may be forming between A$9.57 and A$8.89, near the weekly open.
Aggressive bulls could enter in this area, although safer entries may be found much further below near A$8.12 and A$7.56 after a sweep of the current consolidation’s swing lows.
The last swing high near A$16.37 provides a likely first target if the price does bounce from this region. Beyond this swing high, the 1.0 extension near A$19.64 and the 2.0 extension near A$23.85 may provide the next major targets
3. Fantom (FTM)
Fantom FTM is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) smart contract platform providing decentralized finance (DeFi) services to developers using its own bespoke consensus algorithm. Together with its in-house token FTM, Fantom aims to solve problems associated with smart-contract platforms, specifically transaction speed, which developers say they have reduced to under two seconds.
FTM Price Analysis
At the time of writing, FTM is ranked the 99th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is A$0.304. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
FTM’s 75% last week run retraced almost to its origin, narrowly missing probable support near A$0.2755 before bears swatted down the bounce near resistance around A$0.2587.
With the daily gap between A$0.2344 and A$0.2173 almost filled in a single wick, the price may not need to revisit areas below this level. However, the safer entry is still in probable support between A$0.1925 and A$0.1847, which would also sweep the lows of last week’s bounce.
The relatively equal highs near A$0.3569 provide a likely first target on lower timeframes. However, the resistance beginning at A$0.3741 may initially suppress a further move up.
A clean break through this resistance will need to contend with the next resistance near A$0.3958 under the last swing high. This swing high at A$0.4316 gives a reasonable take-profit area before a possible move to the 1.0 extension near A$0.4833.
Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?
These coins have high liquidity on Binance Exchange, so that could help with trading on AUD/USDT/BTC pairs. And if you’re looking at buying and HODLing cryptos, then Swyftx Exchange is an easy-to-use popular choice in Australia. However, you can also buy these coins from different exchanges listed on Coinmarketcap.
Let’s take a closer look at today’s altcoins showing breakout signals. We’ll explain what the coin is, then dive into the trading charts and provide some analysis to help you decide.
1. Polygon (MATIC)
Polygon MATIC is the first well-structured, easy-to-use platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its core component is Polygon SDK, a modular, flexible framework that supports building multiple types of applications. Polygon effectively transforms Ethereum into a full-fledged multi-chain system (aka Internet of Blockchains). This multi-chain system is akin to other ones such as Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, etc. with the advantages of Ethereum’s security, vibrant ecosystem, and openness.
MATIC Price Analysis
At the time of writing, MATIC is ranked the 17th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is A$1.22. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
After its early Q2 bullrun, MATIC has been ranging between approximately A$1.95 and A$1.15.
Last week’s sharp decline ran equal lows into a gap on the daily chart. This down move could set the stage for an attack on the relatively equal highs near A$1.35 if the price can break probable resistance near A$1.27 and A$1.32.
Above these highs, resistance near A$1.43 could halt a bullish move, although reaching the Q2 high at A$1.98 is possible.
Aggressive bulls might look for entries in possible support near A$1.18 and A$1.15, just below the current price. If the price sweeps last week’s low, the levels near A$1.13 and A$1.10 may also provide support.
2. Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink LINK is a blockchain abstraction layer that enables universally connected smart contracts. Through a decentralized oracle network, Chainlink allows blockchains to securely interact with external data feeds, events, and payment methods, providing the critical off-chain information needed by complex smart contracts to become the dominant form of digital agreement. The Chainlink Network is driven by a large open-source community of data providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers, security auditors, and more.
LINK Price Analysis
At the time of writing, LINK is ranked the 15th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is A$20.63. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
LINK‘s spectacular Q2 pump has retraced most of its gains in July as it finds support near A$18.25
Stops under the relatively equal lows near A$19.34 might be swept, along with the swing low near A$19.10. If this sweep happens, the price could find support near A$18.55. A move further down could find more support near A$17.62.
Spikes upward are likely to encounter resistance beginning near A$26.38. If the bullish trend resumes after re-accumulation, some traders might take profits as the price approaches probable resistance starting around A$31.57 and A$34.19.
The Q2 mid-high near A$39.62 provides a clear first primary target. Any price moves beyond this level are challenging to predict from current price action.
3. PancakeSwap (CAKE)
PancakeSwap CAKE is an automated market maker (AMM) — decentralized finance (DeFi) application that allows users to exchange tokens, providing liquidity via farming and earning fees in return. PancakeSwap uses an automated market maker model where users trade against a liquidity pool. These pools are filled by users who deposit their funds into the pool and receive liquidity provider (LP) tokens in return.
CAKE Price Analysis
At the time of writing, CAKE is ranked the 34th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is A$17.29. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
The second half of June punished CAKE bulls with a nearly 68% drop before the price found support near an old swing low around A$16.59
Aggressive bulls might look for entries at possible support beginning near A$15.64 However, stops under the equal lows near A$15.12 are likely to be swept.
The area near A$14.30 provides a possible target for this stop run if it occurs. A more sustained bearish trend could reach down to the broad zone of possible support between A$13.28 and A$12.86.
The price is currently challenging resistance at a gap beginning near A$17.50. If this level breaks, bulls could find more resistance near A$19.09 while targeting the highs up to A$21.33.
A sweep of these highs is likely to find resistance by the time price reaches the area near A$24.56. The next reasonable targets would be the swing highs and resistance near A$28.49 and A$31.88.
Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?
These three coins have high liquidity on Binance Exchange, so that could help with trading on AUD/USDT/BTC pairs. And if you’re looking at buying and HODLing cryptos, then Swyftx Exchange is an easy-to-use popular choice in Australia.
From its offices in Canberra, Congruent Labs has been working on a cybersecurity solution that will allow small businesses to ensure their data is kept safe.
Affordable and Easy To Use
According to Timothy Quinn – co-founder and managing director of Congruent Labs – the idea for the project came about when his team noticed the prohibitively high costs of cybersecurity solutions.
We’re building the future of cybersecurity, identity and privacy, all bundled into one. Back in 2017, our team was tired of seeing the high costs and complexities in the cybersecurity industry, which made it almost impossible for any person or business to easily secure themselves. We wanted to make online security affordable and accessible – so we did.
Timothy Quinn, MD, Congruent
Congruent Labs, the Next-Generation of Cybersecurity, is Disrupting the Industry by Making Their… – https://t.co/YM9z7cUIZY Labs, the Next-Generation of Cybersecurity, is Disrupting the Industry by Making Their… pic.twitter.com/iPpmjxIfc9
Chainlink oracles help off-chain data to find its way onto the blockchain, where it can benefit from the top-level security offered by Chainlink labs – security used by many highly respected DeFi projects such as AAVE.
In Congruent’s case, the Chainlink integration will be used to check large payments, and to check whether the receiver of information about to be transferred has the right level of clearance.
This cutting-edge technology in the world of security will ensure we can provide a zero-trust payment, authentication, and authorisation so online platforms can reduce the cost of compliance and payments management. These systems will operate using common standards through a series of smart contracts and public off-chain systems.
Timothy Quinn
Congruent will integrate Chainlink oracles with their token, $SATA (Signata), which aims to protect your information from companies with invasive methods of collecting your personal information.
Congruent also plans to create further $SATA-related projects, such as Signata MFA and Signata Crypto – among other cybersecurity projects not necessarily related to blockchain.
Following on from my article about 5 Crypto Coins That Could Have a Great 2021, I’ve had a lot of questions lately about what cryptos I like at the moment. So here is the shortlist, and the reasons why I like them.
Disclaimer: Before you continue reading, please note that I am not a financial advisor, nor do not recommend you buy any of these cryptos mentioned below. I also change my positions constantly and may or may not be holding these coins. This is just a list of those coins which I like at the moment and providing some commentary for educational purposes only to help people learn about these exciting projects.For the latest coin prices see the cryptos page.
BTC is the first cryptocurrency and the godfather driving the market. Over the years, I’ve learned that it is foolish not to have some BTC in the portfolio, because it tends to act independently to the other cryptocurrencies. What percentage of BTC of the total portfolio is totally up to you, something around 50% is not unusual to see.
With its inelastic supply and growing demand, it’s hard not to see continued upside as it averages around 200% per year over the past 10 years. We’re also seeing lots of institutional money flowing into BTC as big companies add BTC to their balance sheets as a “hedge” and “store of value”.
I would also say that there is also speculation that BTC may eventually replace the US Dollar and become unit of account for the worldwide economy. Could we be comparing the price of goods in Satoshi’s in future years to come?
While Bitcoin is seen as a “store of value”, Ethereum is powering the new crypto economy. Bitcoin currently has scaling and environmental issues while Ethereum is quickly evolving to address those issues.
As a computer programmer myself, as soon as I heard “Ethereum is programmable money”, my eyes opened wide and I saw the potential of cryptocurrencies for the future of the economy.
Ethereum has some very promising use cases especially with Decentralised Finance (DeFi), Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs), and Decentralised Exchanges (DEXs).
Compared to Bitcoin’s 200% average return per year, Ethereum has averaged 400% per year so far and is on target to outperform BTC once again this year.
Binance has evolved into a worldwide cryptocurrency exchange juggernaut since it started in 2017. At the moment, it is the easiest and best place to do your crypto trading. Before it came along, other platforms were terrible and hard to use with high fees.
They are also starting to expand their services into other markets such as DeFi with Binance Smart Chain, crypto loans, and crypto debit cards coming to Australia later this year.
It’s crazy to think that BNB was only $2 back in 2018 and now it is over $600. I can only see upside for Binance as their ecosystem expands rapidly as they buy up big companies such as CoinMarketCap and are set to Acquire 20-30 Crypto Startups Yearly.
Chilliz launched in 2020 to power the new sports fan token economy. These tokens act like a royalty program for fans and also can provide other benefits such as voting, connecting fans directly with clubs and players.
Since launching, CHZ has already increased over 7,000% in price and I can only see more upside for the project. My research into this coin revealed that there are currently no major competitors in the space. Their business model also looks quite clever, as they list new tokens (like in the case of UFC) on pre-sale, then the coin is actually added once the partnership is officially approved.
As clubs see the potential to raise funds through this new revenue stream, they will launch their tokens and form partnerships with Chilliz and Socios as a way to not only raise funds but engage with their fans. We’ve already seen big football clubs join such as Manchester City, Barcelona, Juventus and other sports such as UFC and Formula 1.
Chainlink is a project that connects real-world data with blockchain data. As a computer programmer, I can see the power of this technology and the need for timely, accurate, and trusted data.
Moving forward I can see a huge demand to sync the real world and the virtual world. This could be something simple like a weather forecast, or more complicated like tokenized partial ownership of real estate.
Together with this and its exceptionally regarded oracles that manage the security and integrity of the network it can only be a very strong “middleman” for the further advancements of blockchain and decentralized finance.
Basic Attention Token is a decentralized platform built on Ethereum. It rewards you for your attention, if you see an ad, you get paid in BAT through the Brave Browser.
The utility of rewarding people for their attention is quite a powerful concept, especially if you are shown the ads your interested in.
The project is currently advancing by developing a DEX (decentralized exchange) which should add tremendous value to the project’s already 3 million monthly users.
Theta is one of the leading projects that is providing decentraliszed bandwidth through peer-to-peer networking. Other features of Theta include Decentralised Video Streaming, Staking, Theta TFUEL, Guardian Nodes, CDNs, Voting, and more.
As more adoption comes to cryptocurrencies and blockchain, one would assume we will need more bandwidth to support scaling worldwide. Theta software was also included in the new Samsung Galaxy S20 smartphones to assist with video streaming and rewarding watchers with TFUEL tokens.
The hypothesis is that as crypto usage grows, then Theta adoption should grow with it.
Cardano is a decentralized blockchain platform, similar to Ethereum. It’s already a proof-of-stake platform which is more environmentally friendly and has implemented further unique scaling technology.
The QTUM project is a decentralized platform and blockchain similar to Ethereum. Its purpose is not to compete with Bitcoin and Ethereum, but to bridge the gap between them helping scale transactions at low cost.
The project is heavily committed to DeFi and supporting DeFi projects offering $1 million dollars in rewards to developers who build applications using the Qtum blockchain.
Personally, I think Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is going to be a huge disrupt to how we currently do finance worldwide. Frameworks like Ethereum and Qtum, which support DeFi projects can only have an upside in the future as they contribute to the rise of DeFi.
Ripple (XRP) is a cryptocurrency platform and blockchain similar to Ethereum. The project is attempting to become the facilitator for global payments between financial institutions.
XRP has had both good and bad press over the years. Initially, the sentiment was very bullish due to the rumors that banks may use it for liquidity and large global transactions. However, since then, it has been involved in lawsuits lessening its appeal.
Recently they announced plans for Ripple To Go Public After Lawsuit Settlement which has shed some light that there may be some potential for a comeback in sentiment. After running crypto news for the past few years I’ve seen that the 2 most popular coins in Australia are DOGE and XRP.
Dogecoin (DOGE) started as a joke when a developer cloned Bitcoin’s code and stuck a dog meme as the logo, back in 2013. Since then it has gained tremendous popularity and it seems you can’t go a single day without seeing that cheeky dog face.
I generally don’t invest in “jokecoins”, also referred to as “shitcoins” that have little to no utility. However, DOGE is an exception, due to its strong social appeal. Its “meme value” is so high within the crypto community and this provides free marketing for the coin.
Back in 2017, I underestimated the power of social media when DOGE was only $0.00023, and this year it almost reached $1 earlier this year – that’s over 400,000% gain in just 3-4 years.
As the crypto market grows and more people join in the frenzy, DOGE could be the one they buy as a speculation. However, I think it will only end badly for those people buying DOGE at all-time high prices, when the market turns, the shitcoins could drop to nothing, only the quality projects will survive long term.
Conclusions
It’s crazy how back in 2016 the prices were so low compared to now. I wonder if we will be shocked again in another 4-5 years from now…
If you’re interested in buying any of these coins then head over to one of our trusted Partners: CoinJar, Swyftx, or Binance to get started. You can compare the exchanges here.
In today’s trading news, we’re looking at three Altcoins that might breakout this week by showing bullish trends in the charts.
1. Chainlink (LINK)
The Chainlink Network is driven by a large open-source community of data providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers, security auditors, and more. The company focuses on ensuring that decentralized participation is guaranteed for all node operators and users looking to contribute to the network.
LINK Price Analysis
At the time of writing, LINK is ranked 11th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $63.86 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.
LINK price keeps going higher, with nearly 40% gains during the first week of May.
A consolidation near $62.35 could provide support as the price continues exploring new highs. However, a set of relatively equal lows near $61.25 AUD looks like a possible target for a stop run into support near $60.55 AUD.
A decidedly bearish shift in the market could reach support near $57.87 AUD, near May’s monthly open.
Almost no resistance seems to lie overhead, although low-timeframe traders might use the resistance below recent highs near $75.34 AUD as a first target. Beyond this level, extensions near $83.00 AUD, $95.12 AUD, and $112.23 AUD give possible higher-timeframe targets.
2. Filecoin (FIL)
Filecoin aims to store data in a decentralized manner. Unlike centralised cloud-storage companies like Amazon Web Services or Cloudflare, Filecoin leverages its decentralized nature to protect the integrity of a data’s location, making it easily retrievable and harder to censor. Decentralised storage systems like Filecoin try to allow people to be their own custodians of their data, as well as make the web more accessible to people worldwide.
FIL Price Analysis
At the time of writing, FIL is ranked 21st cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $180.65 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.
FIL retraced 45% during April before finding support near $165.25 AUD. The following bounce encountered resistance at the daily gap near $192.46 AUD.
Bulls might wait for a sweep of the local lows into support near $158.41 AUD before stepping in. A move to this level could reach into the higher timeframe gap down to $135.20 AUD.
In possibly the most bearish scenario, a significant turn in the market could push the price down to the consolidation near $105.45 AUD.
The local resistance near $206.46 AUD and the relatively equal swing highs looks like a first target. Just above, layered resistance near $223.48 AUD and $243.86 AUD could slow bulls down as they push the price towards a significant swing high at $295.20 AUD.
3. Venus (XVS)
Venus is an algorithmic money market and synthetic stablecoin protocol launched exclusively on Binance Smart Chain (BSC). The protocol introduces simple-to-use crypto-asset lending and borrowing solution to the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, enabling users to directly borrow against collateral at high speed while losing less to transaction fees. In addition, Venus allows users to mint VAI stablecoins on-demand within seconds by posting at least 200% collateral to the Venus smart contract.
XVS Price Analysis
At the time of writing, XVS is ranked 89th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $176.43 AUD. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis.
XVS bulls have enjoyed over 200% returns since the April lows, with little resistance above to end the current price discovery.
The price may find support near $155.22 AUD. Still, aggressive bulls should be wary of a potential stop run under the monthly open into support near $132.46 AUD. The area around $105.30 AUD should provide strong support if the price reaches this low.
The air above the current price is thin, but the level near $180.86 AUD could potentially provide some resistance in the short term. Extensions reaching near $225.10 AUD and $286.50 AUD look like take-profit zones if the bullish trend continues.
Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?
These 3 Altcoins have the highest liquidity on Binance Exchange so that could help for trading on USDT or BTC pairs. Instead, if you’re looking at buying and HODLing cryptos, then Swyftx Exchange is a popular choice in Australia.
Bytom, a proof-of-work interactive blockchain, will integrate Chainlink as the oracle solution for all Bytom dApps. The integration of Chainlink will provide Bytom’s ecosystem with high-quality data and decentralised security.
As explained in Bytom’s official blog on Medium, Chainlink will enhance several applications on Bytom by providing price feed oracles. MOV, a Bytom-based dApp, will use Chainlink’s BTM/USD to secure BTM staked as collateral in their DeFi products.
We selected Chainlink as the preferred oracle provider to the Bytom blockchain because it has a proven track record of securing billions of dollars in value on mainnet for various other leading DeFi protocols.
From Bytom’s official blog
Tokenizing Real-world Assets
Chainlink’s Price Feeds have been praised by the DeFi space for allowing a fast and effective method to connect smart contracts to real-world market prices of assets.
These Price Feeds will bring several benefits to a broad range of smart contracts and DeFi products on Bytom’s ecosystem. The integration of Chainlink aligns with Bytom’s plans to tokenize real-world assets.
By integrating Chainlink oracles, Bytom developers can get premium off-chain data in a highly secure and reliable manner, including real-world asset prices.
James Zhu, CTO at Bytom
Chainlink has provided high-quality data and a solid oracle infrastructure to several DeFi applications. The team behind Bytom expects to continue to work with the oracle and expand the number of dApps supported by the blockchain.
Chainlink was also integrated into the mainnet of Origin Protocol, becoming the sole provider of real-time price data for OUSD.
Chainlink (LINK) Oracles have now been integrated onto the Origin Protocol’s mainnet as well as becoming the sole provider of real-time price data for OUSD.
According to a press release from Origin Protocol, the integration of Chainlink price oracles are a “big deal” for the growth and security of the only stablecoin that earns a yield while still in your wallet.
What Does The Integration Mean for Origin Protocol?
By going all-in on Chainlink, we ensure that our users have the highest quality data and most secure oracle infrastructure every time they mint or redeem OUSD. Importantly, Chainlink has given Origin the flexibility to interact directly with oracles built specifically to price certain stablecoin trading pairs, leading to decreased on-chain costs and a more accurate minting/redeeming process.
Matthew Liu, Origin Protocol Co-founder
Additionally, the first Chainlink Price Feed for Origin Tokens (OGN-ETH) is now live and available for use by other DeFi protocols wanting to quickly and safely launch support for OGN markets. The OGN-ETH Price Feed is already being used and supported by the C.R.E.A.M. lending platform.
Since the DeFi boom, it has become increasingly important to use the most accurate price data, making Chainlink tech more valuable to companies working in the DeFi space. Today, Chainlink oracles are one of the most important linchpins to the security of DeFi, securing billions of dollars in on-chain value. Demand is only growing as DeFi gains more widespread adoption and protocols opt for the highest standards of data quality and reliability.
These Chainlink nodes collectively source price data from numerous off-chain data aggregators like BraveNewCoin and Amberdata, ensuring each price point has volume-adjusted market coverage across all trading environments.
Slow Price Data can Lead to Losses
Traditionally when origin was using a mixture of oracle providers:
[…] prices had to be calculated by first fetching the price of ETH and then calculating the exchange rate using ETH oracles. This increased the chance of prices being outdated, causing users to receive less OUSD than they reasonably expected. It also increased the gas costs due to additional on-chain transactions.
Josh Fraser, Co-founder Origin Protocol
One benefit of having these direct price feeds is that it simplifies smart contract code. In the Ethereum world, simpler code also means gas savings, which is now roughly 15% cheaper when minting or redeeming OUSD, thanks to this direct price feed integration.
But since they now rely on numerous secure nodes and premium data sources, OUSD users receive highly accurate, available, and tamperproof price data, which is also inherently resistant to various data manipulation attacks such as those carried out via flash loans.
The year 2020 can be summed up in two distinct phases for the digital asset market: a half year of strong growth, followed by a no less sharp decline. Nothing unusual for this ecosystem. Nevertheless, prices remain at higher levels than at the beginning of the year. For Bitcoin, which is the primary asset, we are nevertheless seeing +300% growth over the year, which preserves its status as the most attractive asset in all types of markets.
Today we’re going to look at the top 10 best performing crypto of 2020 so far, that gave huge returns to traders and investors.
1. Hex (HEX) +8870%
HEX is an ERC20 token designed and launched by Richard Heart on 2 December 2019 on the Ethereum network. HEX is designed to be a store of value to replace the Certificate of Deposit as the blockchain counterpart of that financial product used in traditional financial markets. HEX is also designed to leverage off the emerging DeFi (Decentralised Finance) ecosystem in cryptocurrencies within the Ethereum network. HEX uses the Ethereum network for the transaction layer (sending and receiving HEX tokens, as well as interacting with the HEX smart contract), whilst the consensus code and staking mechanism is contained in the HEX smart contract.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
On November 19th HEX’s Big Pay Day highlights the strong finish to an exciting yearlong launch phase, crediting active stakes with 183 Billion HEX worth over $750 Million dollars. The design intention is never a promise, but seeing HEX perform as designed appears indeed very promising: HEX’s price has gone up 92x vs Bitcoin, 79x vs Ethereum, and 115x vs USD. It did all of this in just 129 days. By design, HEX enriches The Staker Class with a highly attractive APY plus additional rewards.
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and another factor could be due to HEX addresses a larger market than Bitcoin with superior product fit. The United States and China have over $7.2 Trillion in time deposits. This is a 50% larger market than the peer-to-peer currency market Bitcoin was designed to address where printed cash totals about $5 Trillion.
While HEX might be the first coin to ever have two independent security audits, due to apparent gatekeeping practices by the ever-popular CoinMarketCap HEX has yet to be ranked correctly there. In fact, CoinMarketCap has suspiciously pegged HEX at Rank 201 – appearing buried on page 3. This not only makes it extremely difficult for new investors to discover HEX but also calls data reporting practices into question.
2. Theta (THETA) +2267%
Theta (THETA) is a blockchain-powered network purpose-built for video streaming. Launched in March 2019, the Theta mainnet operates as a decentralized network in which users share bandwidth and computing resources on a peer-to-peer (P2P) basis. The project is advised by Steve Chen, co-founder of YouTube, and Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
So far the year 2020 the value of THETA has almost grown 9 times from $0.25 AUD in January 2020. Market capitalization has also more than doubled from $150M AUD million at the start of the year to $297M today. This growth has been thanks to the recovery of the crypto markets in general after a sharp decline in 2018. 2019 up to the start of 2020 was the time coins really took off and recorded massive growth rates. Many have claimed that this may have just been due to the hype and perhaps even a bubble. When crypto prices started to decline, some investors thought it was the end of the coin market, but instead, it has remained very stable. This is because crypto has finally been embraced by institutional investors who have the resources to purchase large amounts of crypto.
From the above chart showing the price of THETA over its lifetime, it doesn’t look much different from that of many other coins in the market. Since January 2020, most coins have gained their value and market capitalization as well for various reasons. It would seem that THETA has also returned huge profits in the year 2020 and it should be interesting to see how it performs in 2021.
Reasons why Theta Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and recently, the developers released the mainnet update and added smart contract functionality. Also, the team announced the upcoming improvements, including the launch of the Theta Wallet Chrome extension and Theta Token Minter functionality that will allow users to create their own tokens on the Theta blockchain.
3. Synthetix (SNX) +1263%
Synthetix is a derivatives liquidity protocol on Ethereum that enables the issuance and trading of synthetic assets. Each synthetic asset (or Synth) is an ERC20 token that tracks the price of an external asset; for example, each USD token tracks the price of the US dollar (and unlike the other synthetic assets, is fixed at 1). A wide variety of Synths exists within Synthetix, including fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and inverse indexes. In principle, the system can support any asset with a clear price and provides on-chain exposure to an unlimited range of real-world assets. The protocol will enable a variety of trading features including binary options, futures, and more.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
Synthetix is an Australian project, founded in 2016. The creators of the project went further and developed a system of 2 tokens:
Synthetix Network Token is a token that provides liquidity in the system.
Synths is a token whose value is tied to the price of a real asset (fiat, precious metals, company shares).
The Synthetix Network Token prices have gone up from 1.45 AUD to 15.62 AUD in one year. The long-term earning potentials were +233.23% in one year. In June 2020, the price fluctuated from $7.52. AUD to $14.12 AUD in late November 2020. Synthetix price today is $16.62 AUD with a 24-hour trading volume of $362.42 M and a market cap of $1.40 B.
Reasons why SNX Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and Staking is another feature that is likely attracting users due to its relatively high annualized percentage yield based on the protocol’s cash flow mechanism. Essentially, the fees that occur from trading on Synthetix are collected and distributed pro-rata to SNX stakers.
The combination of a spike in interest in Synthetix from the Coinbase listing and the platform’s overall rise in user activity likely triggered the +100% rally since late November.
4. Ethereum (ETH) +704%
Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain system that features its own cryptocurrency, Ether. ETH works as a platform for numerous other cryptocurrencies, as well as for the execution of decentralized smart contracts.
Ethereum was first described in a 2013 whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin. Buterin, along with other co-founders, secured funding for the project in an online public crowd sale in the summer of 2014 and officially launched the blockchain on July 30, 2015.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
Ethereum had the eventful year 2020, with a few technical update hiccups and some interesting innovations. The year 2020 saw the emergence of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), almost all of whose projects are based on Ethereum technology.
The community is eagerly awaiting the ETH2 upgrades that will ultimately ensure that the network has the capabilities to become the blockbuster of tomorrow’s innovative financial products
The coin started the year with the price of only $169 AUD on January 1st, 2020. 12 months later, its price went up by nearly 9 times, currently sitting at $1,450 AUD. While the coin is still not even halfway to its own all-time high, it has made significant achievements towards getting there.
Right after the start of the year, ETH participated in a strong rally that took its price from the mentioned level of $169 to $381 AUD. The coin was attempting to reach the $500 AUD mark, getting quite close to it before the rally ended, and a correction hit.
Around July 20, the ETH price managed to break out and skyrocket to its next major resistance at $550 AUD. It reached this level just as the first week of August ended, and it kept trying to break it for months, finally succeeding in the early days of November 2020.
Reasons why Ethereum Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this Ethereum Price rally, It could also be due to the ETH 2.0 upgrade.
Chainlink (LINK) is a decentralized oracle network that aims to connect smart contracts with data from the real world. Chainlink was developed by Sergey Nazarov, with Steve Ellis as the other co-founder. It held an ICO in September 2017, raising $32 million, with a total supply of 1 billion LINK tokens. LINK, the cryptocurrency native to the Chainlink decentralized oracle network, is used to pay node operators.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
ChainLink saw a significant price movement in January 2020 and ended in February. During this period, the coin managed to grow from $2.74 AUD to $5.60 AUD in the short time frame. In March, it crucially fell back to its previous price point of $2.89 AUD. In April, it managed to recover, climbing back to $3.55 AUD. Then on July 7, 2020, the LINK price underwent an impressive surge as China’s national blockchain network, the Blockchain Service Network (BSN) was activated with 135 nodes integrated with Chainlink price oracles.
The news saw the LINK price surge from around $6.87 AUD to an all-time high of $9.60 AUD, with gains of +29% percent on the day. Chainlink continued an ascending trendline into mid-August, gaining bullish momentum. Into late September 2020, it saw sudden bearish activity before beginning its climb once again into October.
At the time of writing, ADA is ranked 9th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $21.04 AUD. According to CoinmarketCap, the cryptocurrency has now broken into the top 10. Before the end of 2020, Chainlink is most likely to gain more against its AUD/BTC pair and touch around $23.04 AUD.
Reasons why LINK Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this massive rise. And some other several things that have made Chainlink grow into what it is currently. One of the factors that made it rise is the number of products offered. People can get crypto loans, make savings, and even earn interest on their Chainlink coin.
Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform that says its goal is to allow “changemakers, innovators and visionaries” to bring about positive global change. The open-source project also aims to “redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins to individuals” — helping to create a society that is more secure, transparent, and fair.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
Cardano performed well at the beginning of the year, rising to $0.0927 AUD by 13 February. ADA may have continued to grow, but the entire crypto market has suffered, and Cardano fell as low as $0.0457 AUD by 13 March. After testing all-time lows, the crypto coin’s price rebounded to as high as $0.2543 AUD on 27 July, showing a seven-fold increase in price since the March drop. Currently, Cardano looks bullish, consolidating above the $0.3107 AUD support level and trading at $0.3845 AUD per coin.
The Cardano cryptocurrency looks very promising, so the number of investors willing to invest in ADA is gradually rising. The forthcoming October update of the voting and governance protocol may lead to a price increase.
Reasons why Cardano Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this Ethereum Price rally, It could also be due to this year that has been most significant for the Shelley hard fork 10, beginning Cardano’s transition from a federated blockchain to a decentralized and robust network of independent stake pools. Shelley was also the first time that IOHK’s Hard Fork Combinator 1 was deployed, enabling the seamless transition from Byron to Shelley.
Shelley saw the arrival of staking and delegation, representing the first time that all ada holders could participate in consensus on the network, and earn staking rewards for their contribution.
7. Stellar (XLM) +506%
Stellar is an open network that allows money to be moved and stored. When it was released in July 2014, one of its goals was boosting financial inclusion by reaching the world’s unbanked — but soon afterward, its priorities shifted to helping financial firms connect with one another through blockchain technology. The network’s native token, lumens, serves as a bridge that makes it less expensive to trade assets across borders. All of this aims to challenge existing payment providers, who often charge high fees for a similar service.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
The positive sentiments of being an efficient blockchain payment network have moved swiftly from XRP to XLM because of Stellar’s recent partnership with the Ukraine government to digitize their national fiat currency. Stellar has upgraded its platform from Protocol 13 to Protocol 15 on November 23rd and the upgrade has improved sponsored reserves and claimable balances on the platform.
With a market cap of $10,728,525,470 AUD and a circulating supply of 20,853,997,348 XLM, Stellar has taken a strong position in the list of top-20 cryptocurrencies, occupying 9th place at the moment of writing. Stellar’s closest rivals are Ethereum, TRON, and Cardano.
By the end of October 2020, the cryptocurrency was trading at around $0.1475 AUD, which is -30% lower than the XLM 52-week high of $0.1785 AUD from August 17, and +192% higher than the 52-week low of $0.0587 AUD from March 12, 2020.
Reasons why XLM Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and some other factors include on April 11th, 2020, the Stellar Lumens Foundation released its report for Q1 2020, showing excellent ecosystem growth. What’s more, the total usage and transaction volumes had increased in comparison to Q4 of 2019. Interestingly enough, though, the total number of registered Stellar accounts decreased by 1.79% between Q4 2019 and Q1 2020. When you take the 8% increase of trading volume into account, this means that the increased activity was due to existing users. Stellar’s daily operations also managed to increase by an incredible +113% from Q1 2020 to Q3 2020.
VeChain is the world’s leading blockchain platform offering Blockchain-as-a-Service to enterprises for products and information. By leveraging on blockchain technology, VeChain strives to build a trust-free and distributed business ecosystem, which is self-circulating and scalable.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
VeChain was long considered one of the hottest cryptocurrencies. Since 2015 the project exists, which wants to score, especially with actual applications and partnerships. After positive news and new announcements made the round in the last weeks, it is time for a small VeChain analysis.
The project, therefore, remained under the radar for a long time. From August 2018 to March 2020, short-term successes and newly established partnerships were able to give the coin a slight boost. However, the big break from the negative trend failed to materialize for a long time.
In March of this year came then the break-in with all cryptocurrencies. All the same, whether Bitcoin, Ethereum, or evenly VeChain (VET): High two-digit exchange losses shift the market into a deep red. VET course: Over +400% growth since March 2020. After it came with nearly all cryptocurrencies to substantial corrections, many investors used the opportunity to buy undervalued Coins. The VeChain share price recovered enormously well in the period from March to June. In June, the VET price was around 0.01457 AUD, while in March, it was just 0.0089 AUD.
In the period from June to July, VET rose again. In August this year, VeChain reached an annual and, at the same time, an all-time high with a price of 0.045 AUD.
Reasons why VeChain Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this price rally and also in a press release, the VeChain Foundation has announced its participation in the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub. Created by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), the initiative is part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers from renowned entities.
9. Bitcoin (BTC) +338%
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer online currency, meaning that all transactions happen directly between equal, independent network participants, without the need for any intermediary to permit or facilitate them. Bitcoin was created, according to Nakamoto’s own words, to allow “online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
At the start of the year, bitcoin was still considered a fringe investment, disparaged by the likes of the billionaire investor Warren Buffett as having “no value.” By the end of the year, however, bitcoin has nearly quadrupled in value, reaching an all-time high above $46,560.57 AUD and thrusting itself into the center of conversations among big investors and Wall Street firms.
Some bitcoin proponents saw the success of the cryptocurrency and its underlying blockchain network as validation of a landmark technology that might forever change finance.
At the time of writing, BTC is ranked 1st cryptocurrency globally and the current price is $44,736 AUD. Bitcoin started its rally from Jan 2020 with $12,754 AUD price levels and dropped again in March around $8654 AUD.
As May arrived, the Bitcoin network’s upcoming “halving” seemed like an afterthought compared with the steep economic toll of the coronavirus.
As of early October, bitcoin prices were trading around $16,800 AUD, up +50% on the year. It was already an impressive gain, especially during a year when the global economy had suffered its worst contraction since the Great Depression nearly a century early. U.S. stocks were up 4%.
Reasons why Bitcoin Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May was the major reason behind this massive rally in Bitcoin.
Halvings will keep occurring every four years until the supply cap of 21 million bitcoin has been reached,” the analysts wrote. This means we can project well into the future, and have clarity about what Bitcoin’s inflation rate will look like one, five, or 10 years from now.
10. Litecoin (LTC) +261%
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee, in 2011. The cryptocurrency was created based on the Bitcoin protocol, but it differs in terms of the hashing algorithm used, hard cap, block transaction times, and a few other factors. Litecoin was released via an open-source client on GitHub on Oct. 7, 2011, and the Litecoin Network went live five days later on Oct. 13, 2011.
Price Analysis Jan-Dec
Although Litecoin has been around since 2011, an ‘official’ Litecoin price history begins in early 2013 when CoinMarketCap went live. Litecoin spiked from a price of around $3 AUD to $40 AUD during the first crypto market bull run in late 2013. After dropping back down to the $3 AUD – $5 AUD range, it hit an all-time high of nearly $550 AUD during the 2017-2018 bull run, a 100x rally.
Litecoin has been moving sideways since the March 2020 flash crash, hovering at a price between $120 AUD to $190 AUD and currently sitting around $206 AUD. Support appears to be around the $130 AUD -$170 AUD range and it appears that the sideways trend will continue. Trading volume for Litecoin has been increasing gradually since December however, which may be indicative of another move to a $250 AUD price.
Currently, Litecoin (LTC) is trading at $206.58 AUD with LTC price +6.03% up today. The market cap of Litecoin is $13,876,355,385 AUD with 66,245,618 LTC circulating currently. The 24-hour price movement chart indicates that $10,774,415,054 worth of LTC was trading.
Reasons Why Litecoin Might Have Gone Up
The recent rise in Bitcoin over +200% since the halving in May and then the suggested start of the Altcoin season could have contributed to this Ethereum Price rally, It could also be due to the Litecoin’s halving – a pre-programmed reduction in the block reward LTC miners receive – caused the LTC price to skyrocket, reaching over +200% returns before it began to correct.
Where to Buy or Trade Altcoins?
These 10 Altcoins have the highest liquidity on Binance Exchange so that would help for trading on USDT or BTC pairs. However, if you’re just looking at buying some quick and hodling then Swyftx Exchange is a popular choice in Australia.
