• Cardano has been recording an excellent price trend in the past few days, with its market cap exploding from $8.48 billion to $13 billion.
• This increase in price is likely driven by the recently launched Sidechain Toolkit, enabling users to build Decentralized Applications (dApps) on the Cardano Network.
• A launch date for the upcoming stablecoin project Djed was hinted at, with its release expected sometime next week.

Cardano has been experiencing an impressive surge in its recent market performance, with its market cap increasing from $8.48 billion to $13 billion in the last few days. This surge is likely driven by the launch of its Sidechain Toolkit, enabling users to build Decentralized Applications (dApps) on the Cardano Network. Furthermore, the Cardano Network has seen a significant growth in its user base, with over 50,000 wallets added to its protocol this month.

Yevhen, a Cardano ambassador, was delighted to share these statistics on Twitter, as the total Cardano wallets increased from 3,842,867 on January 1 to 3,894,735 registered wallets by January 25, 2023. This growth reflects increased adoption of the ADA token and more on-chain activity among users.

The launch of the Sidechain Toolkit has also been followed up with the announcement of a timeline for the Cardano stablecoin project Djed. Shahaf Bar-Geffen shared an update from the COTI network on January 25, announcing that the Cardano stablecoin Djed would be released sometime next week. Although the exact date was not specified, this launch is expected to further increase the utility of Cardano, as well as its value.

Overall, Cardano’s recent surge in price and user base have been encouraging signs for the future of the project. With the launch of its Sidechain Toolkit and the upcoming release of Djed, Cardano is set to become one of the most promising projects in the cryptocurrency space.

• Matrixport data shows that institutional investors now account for 85% of Bitcoin purchases.
• The report suggested that an asset’s performance during US or Asian trading hours can help distinguish between institutional and retail investors.
• Matrixport cited Bitcoin’s 40% rally since the start of 2023 as a sign of the upcoming bull market.

Institutional investment in the crypto space has been on the rise, and the most recent data from Matrixport, a digital asset financial services platform, confirms this trend. According to their data, institutional investors now account for 85% of Bitcoin purchases. This indicates that institutional investors are still very much interested in the crypto space, and that the upcoming bull market is near.

Markus Thielen, the head of research and strategy at Matrixport, believes that this data is a sign that the market is due for a recovery. He stated that these numbers are a clear indication that institutional investors have not abandoned crypto and that the bull market is nearing.

The report released by Matrixport also suggested that an asset’s performance during US or Asian trading hours can help distinguish between institutional and retail investors. If an asset performs well during US trading hours, it indicates that US institutional investors are buying it. If it performs well during Asian trading hours, then it is more likely to be retail investors from Asia who are driving the buying.

As an example of the current market sentiment, Matrixport cited Bitcoin’s 40% price gain since the start of 2023. This is a clear indication that smart investors are taking advantage of the recent US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data as a confirmation signal to buy Bitcoin and other crypto assets. The report showed that 85% of the move happened during US market hours, which is a sign that institutions are buying.

Overall, the data from Matrixport confirms that institutional investors have not abandoned crypto, and that the bull market is near. The report also highlighted the importance of tracking asset performance during US and Asian trading hours, as it can help distinguish between institutional and retail investors. Finally, the report cited Bitcoin’s 40% price gain since the start of 2023 as a sign of the upcoming bull market. All of this adds up to a positive outlook for the crypto space, and hopefully, more institutional investors will join the market in the near future.

• Aptos (APT) price has been on the rise in the last week, recovering from FTX collapse
• Binance posted a thread highlighting the developments on Aptos blockchain
• Aptos World Tour and Move Monday events were announced, driving the price of APT higher

Aptos (APT) has been experiencing a surge in its price in the last week, despite the recent crypto market deceleration. This digital asset was affected by the collapse of FTX, which was one of its backers, but it appears to be finding its feet once more and reaching new highs. Binance took to Twitter recently to highlight the developments that were taking place on the Aptos blockchain.

The thread revealed the plans for the blockchain. Founders Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching announced the Aptos World Tour, which is set to be multiple conferences and developer meetups hosted around the world. This event is focused on the developer community, but there is also something for the general community. The Aptos Move Monday is an ongoing event where the founders answer questions from the community. The first one, which was held on Monday, was met with great enthusiasm as the price of APT surged.

The Aptos World Tour and Move Monday events have been a great success and have certainly helped to drive the price of APT higher. The founders have further plans in store for the Aptos blockchain and the community, which are likely to help the price of APT to continue to rise. With its strong community and plans for further expansion, Aptos is certainly one to watch in the coming months.

• ConsenSys, the crypto software firm and parent company behind MetaMask, has announced that it is sacking 11% of its personnel.
• The digital currency sector has lost about $2 trillion in value in 2022 due to soaring interest rates and mounting jitters of an economic crisis.
• CEO Joseph Lubin cites “uncertain market conditions” as the cause for the terminations.

ConsenSys, the New York City-based crypto software firm and parent company behind MetaMask, has made the difficult decision to lay off 11% of its staff. The digital currency sector has been hit hard in the past year, losing about $2 trillion in value in 2022 due to a combination of soaring interest rates and mounting jitters of an economic crisis.

This is not the first time that the sector has seen job losses in the past year. Since April of last year, crypto companies have collectively laid off tens of thousands of employees in order to weather the storm.

Joseph Lubin, the CEO of ConsenSys, has cited “uncertain market conditions” as the cause for the terminations. He went on to say that in order to “manage through these cycles”, the company regularly engages in “conservative financial planning and take appropriate steps to ensure we have the resources to fulfill our vision.”

Today, ConsenSys management has informed the affected employees of their terminations. While this news is undoubtedly difficult for the individuals involved, it highlights the importance of preparing for challenging times in the ever-volatile crypto market. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has recently seen a resurgence in price, but the sector remains unpredictable and it is essential for companies to be able to react accordingly.

• Non-fungible token (NFT) dominance on Ethereum has rebounded to 22%.
• This suggests that NFTs may be making a comeback.
• According to a report from Glassnode, NFT dominance had dropped to 13% not too long ago.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been gaining a lot of attention in the crypto space lately, with many speculating that they might be making a comeback. According to the latest weekly report from Glassnode, the NFT dominance on Ethereum had dropped to only 13% just a while ago, but now it has rebounded to 22%.

The “dominance” here is based on the percentage of the total gas usage on the ETH network that a particular transaction type is consuming right now. When the value of this metric increases for a specific type of token, it means that the token is now making up for a higher part of the total gas consumption on the Ethereum network and is, thus, seeing relatively higher usage from holders than the other transaction types.

Ethereum has a very diverse ecosystem thanks to its smart contracts, with a variety of applications built on the blockchain. These applications include ERC20 tokens, NFTs, bridges, MEV bots and DeFi. The chart below shows the trend in the dominances for two of these Ethereum transaction types, NFTs and bridges, over the last few years:

The value of the metric seems to have gone up for non-fungible tokens in recent days | Source: Glassnode’s The Week Onchain – Week 2, 2023

As the above graph displays, the NFT dominance on Ethereum had fallen to just 13% not too long ago, after staying at high levels throughout most of 2021 and 2022. This decline meant that the interest in these tokens was fading among investors, which could be attributed to the rising DeFi sector that was taking up more gas usage on the ETH network.

However, the recent rebound to 22% shows that NFTs may be making a comeback. Although it is still lower than the peak of 33% seen in June 2021, the rebound is a sign that NFTs are still gaining traction in the crypto space. This is likely due to the increasing demand for digital art, media and gaming assets in the form of NFTs.

Furthermore, the increasing number of projects and platforms focusing on NFTs is also helping to drive the growth in the sector. These platforms are enabling users to easily create, buy and sell NFTs, making it easier for everyone to take part in the NFT revolution.

Overall, it looks like non-fungible tokens are here to stay, and the recent rebound in NFT dominance on Ethereum is just another sign of the growing popularity of these tokens. With more projects and platforms entering the sector, the future of NFTs looks very promising indeed.

• The total value locked in Ethereum DeFi has declined by 76% in the bear market.
• The total value locked in Ethereum DeFi is now around $23.1 billion.
• Ethereum DeFi’s dominance has risen by 2% this summer.

The bear market has taken a toll on Ethereum decentralized finance (DeFi) as the total value locked in the sector has decreased significantly. According to a year-end report from Arcane Research, the total value locked in Ethereum DeFi has declined by 76% over the year, leaving the metric with a value of just $23 billion.

DeFi encompasses all types of financial services that are done on the blockchain, and is public and peer-to-peer, meaning no centralized party is required to get things done. The “total value locked” (TVL) is a metric that measures the total amount of capital that has been deposited by users in DeFi protocols. At the start of the year, this metric was more than $95 billion, however, capital has been leaving the sector as the bear market has gotten deeper and deeper.

Despite the decline in TVL, Ethereum DeFi’s dominance has actually increased by 2%, according to the year-end report. This suggests that there is still some sort of confidence in the sector, as people are still willing to put their money into it despite the market’s uncertainty.

The bear market is certainly not making things easy for DeFi, as the sector has been hit hard. This can be seen not just in the total value locked, but in other metrics such as the number of users and active wallets. However, the fact that Ethereum DeFi’s dominance is still increasing is a sign that the sector still has potential and is still worth investing in.

Overall, while the bear market has taken its toll on Ethereum DeFi, the sector still has potential. Investors should take this into consideration when deciding whether or not to invest in DeFi, as the sector could still potentially yield returns in the long run.

• XRP is approaching its grand finale in the upcoming months with a court case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• The XRPL ecosystem is also developing in the NFT space, with the launch of XRPL’s own standard for NFTs on the mainnet and the success of the onXRP NFT marketplace, which has exceeded a sales volume of 7.3 million XRP.
• The onXRP marketplace is driven by the exclusive Xpunks collection, which is similar to the legendary CryptoPunks NFT collection.

The cryptocurrency XRP is set to have a major year in 2022, with the grand finale of its court case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approaching. While the outcome of the case remains uncertain, XRP is also making strides in the nascent Non-Fungible Token (NFT) space.

In early November, Ripple CTO David Schwartz announced the launch of XRPL’s own standard for NFTs on the mainnet, which was activated with amendment XLS-20. The new standard was immediately put to use in the onXRP NFT marketplace, which is powered by the exclusive Xpunks collection. These Xpunks have their roots in the legendary CryptoPunks NFT collection, and have quickly become the most popular NFTs on the XRP Ledger.

Kaj Leroy, the founder of onXRP, recently announced that the marketplace has already exceeded a sales volume of 7.3 million XRP, equivalent to about $2.45 million. This makes onXRP by far the most popular NFT marketplace on the XRP Ledger, with a total of 21,469 artworks sold so far. This is significantly more than on other XRP-based NFT marketplaces such as xrp.cafe (2,451 NFTs) and xMart (211 NFTs).

The success of onXRP is expected to further increase as the Xpunks collection continues to grow in popularity. The XRPL ecosystem is also continuing to develop, with more projects and partnerships in the pipeline. This is creating a vibrant NFT space on the XRP Ledger, and is leading to new use cases for XRP. As the Ripple court case draws to a close, the future of XRP looks promising.

• Investors have filed a lawsuit against Gemini and its founders, the Winklevoss twins, accusing them of fraud and other crimes.
• The lawsuit claims that Gemini offered unregistered securities in the form of interest-bearing accounts.
• Gemini halted withdrawals for the interest-bearing contract after the collapse of FTX and other crypto companies caused a liquidity problem at Genesis Global Capital.

Investors are accusing the Winklevoss twins, founders of the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, of fraud and other crimes, as a class-action lawsuit has been filed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday. The lawsuit claims that Gemini had offered unregistered securities in the form of interest-bearing accounts, with some investors alleging that the twins and their crypto exchange had violated the Exchange Act.

The Winklevoss twins launched Gemini in 2015, which included a high-yield program called Gemini Earn. This product worked like a cryptocurrency savings account, allowing clients to deposit their cryptocurrency in exchange for interest. However, the lawsuit filed on Tuesday claims that Gemini refused to honor any further investor redemptions, resulting in “wiping out” all investors who still had assets in the program.

The cause of the lawsuit is due to a liquidity problem at Genesis Global Capital. Last month, the collapse of FTX, Alameda Research, and other crypto companies caused the problem, resulting in Gemini immediately halting withdrawals for the interest-bearing contract. Reports indicate that Genesis had $175 million invested in FTX prior to its bankruptcy filing.

As a result of the lawsuit, the Winklevoss twins and their crypto exchange are now facing legal troubles. Brendan Picha and Max J. Hastings are pursuing the class action lawsuit on behalf of other impacted Gemini investors, and have accused the twins of “engaging in a fraudulent scheme to misappropriate the funds of their customers.” The lawsuit further alleges that the twins “made misrepresentations concerning their liquidity, the safety of deposits, and the security of the funds in their accounts.”

The Winklevoss twins’ Gemini exchange is now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, with the potential of additional criminal charges being filed against them. It remains to be seen how this lawsuit will play out, and what the consequences will be for Gemini and the Winklevoss twins. However, it is clear that investors are taking a stand against fraud and other crimes that have been committed by the cryptocurrency exchange and its founders.

• North Korean hackers are using venture capitalist impersonation to target cryptocurrency startups and banks.
• BlueNoroff, the name given to a crew associated with the North Korean government-funded Lazarus Group, has increased its malware attacks on Blockchain, DeFi, and FinTech businesses.
• Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab discovered that the Lazarus-affiliated hacker group has built more than 70 phony domains and mimicking financial firms and venture capital businesses.

North Korean hackers have been ramping up their attacks on cryptocurrency startups, banks, and venture capital firms in recent months. BlueNoroff, the name given to a crew associated with the North Korean government-funded hacking operation Lazarus Group, has expanded its target list to include venture capital firms, cryptocurrency startups, and banks, a report by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab disclosed.

Kaspersky Lab researchers discovered that the Lazarus Group-affiliated hackers had built more than 70 phony domains and mimicking financial firms and venture capital businesses in order to steal millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies. The hackers have also been experimenting with new file types and delivery techniques for their virus, according to the report.

The Lazarus Group is a cybercrime organization composed of an undetermined number of North Korean-supervised cybercriminals who have been responsible for a large number of cyberattacks between 2010 and 2021. Not only have the North Korean hackers been targeting cryptocurrency startups, but they have also been increasing their malware attacks on Blockchain, DeFi, and FinTech businesses.

In order to protect against these attacks, businesses in the cryptocurrency and FinTech industries should ensure that their security protocols are up to date and that all company data is encrypted. Companies should also be aware of any suspicious activity and report any potential malicious activity to the proper authorities. Companies should also be sure to monitor their networks for any suspicious behavior and take steps to ensure that all employees are following security protocols.

It is clear that North Korean hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their attacks on cryptocurrency startups and other businesses in the FinTech industry. Companies should be aware of the risk posed by these hackers and take steps to protect themselves and their customers. By following security protocols and monitoring their networks, companies can protect themselves from becoming victims of cybercrime.

• MicroStrategy Incorporated has announced the purchase of 2,395 BTC, costing the company approximately $42.8 million.
• The purchase was made between the period of Nov. 1 and Dec. 21, 2022.
• The company has now ballooned its holdings to 132,500 BTC, the largest of any publicly held company in the world.

MicroStrategy Incorporated has made a move that could have wide-reaching ramifications in the cryptocurrency space. The company has just announced the purchase of 2,395 BTC, costing the company approximately $42.8 million. This purchase comes after the company had already purchased a total of 38,250 BTC over the course of the past year and a half.

The purchase was made between the period of Nov. 1 and Dec. 21, 2022. During this time, the company purchased the bitcoin at an average of around $17,871. In addition to this, the company also sold 704 BTC worth $11.8 million on Dec. 22. This was done at an average price of $16,776, resulting in a capital loss for the company. However, they plan to carry this capital loss against their previous capital gains, which could lead to a tax benefit for the company.

Two days later, the company would purchase another 810 BTC for an average price of $16,845. This cost them $13.6 million in cash, bringing their total purchases over the less than two-month period to $56.4 million.

Now, MicroStrategy’s holdings have ballooned once more and the company is now holding 132,500 BTC, the largest of any publicly held company in the world. This is a major move for the company and could have wide-reaching implications for the cryptocurrency space. This news has been met with enthusiasm by the crypto community, with many seeing it as a sign of the increasing legitimacy of cryptocurrency in the eyes of the public.

It will be interesting to see how this news affects the cryptocurrency market and if other companies will follow suit in buying up large amounts of bitcoin. Regardless, MicroStrategy has shown that it is committed to investing in the cryptocurrency space and this latest purchase is yet another sign of that commitment.