Similar to the mid-1990s dot-com era, cryptocurrencies are said to be nearing a phase of hyper-adoption, where growth hits an inflection point and begins a trajectory towards the moon. Looking at the past decade, cryptocurrency adoption can largely be attributed to the emergence of exchange platforms. With numerous exchanges at play, many first-time users have successfully braved the path into the world of digital currencies. Ironically, while these exchanges have been key to the success of cryptocurrency adoption to date, they have also been the cause for a new debate, one between using a centralized exchange (CEX) or decentralized exchange …

The layer-one (L1) ecosystem has received increased attention in recent months as users search for new investment opportunities in the Cosmos (ATOM), Fantom (FTM) and NEAR. Following January's market sell-off, where Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped to bottom below $34,000, much of the L1 field has struggled to regain its momentum. According to data from Delphi Digital, since the BTC bottom on Jan. 24, the only L1 to experience a notable gain in price include Terra (LUNA), Avalanche (AVAX) and Ethereum (ETH). Terra ecosystem growth The price growth seen in LUNA was in large part due to the announcement from the …

Decentralized finance projects like Ren pumped in 2021, only to finish the year right back when they started as high fees on Ethereum (ETH) led to decreased activity for many protocols and DeFi took a backseat to more popular sectors like nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Now, it appears as though that downtrend is in the process of reversing course after recent global events highlighted the benefits of DeFi and holding assets outside the traditional financial system. This week REN price climbed 69% from a low of $0.247 on Feb. 24 to a daily high of $0.418 on March 3. Three reasons …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) was the talk of the town in early 2021, but it has since taken a back seat to more appealing sectors like nonfungible tokens (NFTs), memecoins and blockchain gaming. Now that cross-chain bridges and interoperability have allowed for the easier migration of assets to competing chains, a new class of DeFi protocols is arising to challenge those left from 2021. Here’s a look at three DeFi projects that have launched on some of the up-and-coming layer-1 blockchain networks, catching the eye of the crypto community. VVS Finance VVS Finance is the largest DeFi protocol on the Cronos …

The crypto community has emerged as one of the leading aid providers for Ukrainians, as crypto donations surged over $50 million. This week, many in the decentralized finance, or DeFi, community have come forward to donate and make it simpler for other people to donate to Ukraine. LUNA continued its price dominance with another double-digit surge over the past week and also flipped Ether to become the most staked altcoin. 1Inch launched a new secure peer-to-peer, or P2P, swap that the firm claimed could open the gates to several new use cases. Uniswap builds an interface to swap altcoins into …

U.S.-based NFT marketplace OpenSea has reportedly begun barring Iranian users from its platform, sparking outrage from NFT collectors and raising fresh debate about decentralization in the crypto space. On Thursday morning, Iranian OpenSea users started posting on Twitter that their accounts were being deactivated or deleted with no prior warning. Iranian NFT artist “Bornosor” vented frustrations to their 4,700 followers, in a tweet that quickly gained traction, garnering 342 retweets and over a thousand likes within a few hours. Bornosor stated, “NOT A gm AT ALL. Woke up to my @opensea trading account being deactivated/deleted without notice or any explanation.” …

An experiment from Dragonfly Research that compared the performance of six blockchains by testing the capacity of Automated Market Makers on each has found Solana’s Orca DEX was the clear winner in trades per second. It managed 273.34 trades per second and created a new block every 590 milliseconds. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) wasn’t too far behind with 194.6 trades per second on PancakeSwap, followed by Polygon (MATIC), Avalanche (AVAX), Celo (CELO), and finally Ethereum (ETH). A blog post by researcher “GM” argued that while there was a rich ecosystem built on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains, the results …

2021 was a roller coaster of a year for THORChain (RUNE) that saw its price top out at $20.31 only to come crashing down below $4 as a series of hacks and declining interest in decentralized finance had the token limping into 2022. Data suggests that investors could be taking a closer look at Rune and a few potentially bullish factors could include the protocol's recent integration with the Terra and Cosmos ecosystem, an upcoming mainnet launch and the attractive yields offered to liquidity providers. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $3.00 …

On Tuesday, decentralized exchange, or DEX, Uniswap launched an interface that directly converts ERC-20 tokens, such as Aave, Chainlink (LINK), and Decentraland, to Ether (ETH). These coins are then sent to the official crypto wallet addresses of the Ukrainian government, all in a single transaction. In explaining the rollout, Uniswap claimed that the address shared by the Ukrainian government is located on a centralized exchange and only accepts ETH and Tether (USDT). Thus, the feature simplifies the donation process for anyone holding ERC-20 tokens on Uniswap's list and who wishes to donate by connecting their wallet to the DEX. 2/ …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has the opportunity to democratize access to financial markets that have typically only been open to the rich and powerful. But, DeFi will only survive and continue to grow if we take steps to ensure things are safe, private and fair for both retail and institutional investors. When faced with predatory market behaviors such as miner extractable value (MEV) and front-running attacks it opens up old wounds to a “Flash Boys” era of traditional finance. DeFi can and should do better by not allowing the failures of the past to come creeping back into the future. Fortunately, …

The cryptocurrency ecosystem has seen a tremendous amount of growth over the past couple of years, as the introduction of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the popularity of nonfungible tokens (NFT) have led to an explosion of projects on more than a dozen blockchain networks. The rapidly growing ecosystem means investors have to keep track of multiple wallet addresses, making portfolio trackers a popular option for traders needing to manage a diverse multichain portfolio. Here are three portfolio-tracking decentralized applications, or DApps, crypto traders can use to help monitor their investments. Zapper Zapper supports the basic management of cryptocurrencies held on …

Coinbase’s Q4 financial report vastly exceeded market expectations Thursday, after the firm posted $2.5 billion in net revenue for the quarter, beating analyst predictions by 27%. FactSet consensus had forecasted Coinbase to generate approximately $1.9 billion in revenue for the period. Notably, the popular crypto exchange more than doubled transaction revenue from Q3 to Q4, generating 91% ($2.276 billion) of its total Q4 revenue from transactions alone. Adding to investor confidence, the company’s total transaction revenue for 2021 was a whopping $6.8 billion. Despite the report posting $840 million in net income and showing substantial growth from 7.4 million monthly …