Disclaimer. This article has been updated to include comments from both Dune Analytics and Flipside Crypto as well as the fact that the governance vote has flipped in favor of those against the grant allocation. Dune Analytics, a decentralized finance (DeFi) analytics service, has voiced its opposition to a Uniswap (UNI) governance vote for “Community-Enabled Analytics” that would see fellow analytics provider Flipside Crypto managing about $25 million worth of UNI tokens. Tweeting on Thursday, Dune highlighted the lack of community attention to the matter while also stating that grants should be given to community members and not to service …

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch has announced its deployment on the Optimistic Ethereum (OE) mainnet, highlighting a considerable reduction in user transaction fees and confirmation delays. Sergej Kunz, co-founder of the 1inch Network, stated that "The 1inch launch on Optimistic will facilitate a dramatic increase in transaction speed." While deposits utilizing the OE network are set to be credited almost instantly, withdrawals will require a waiting period of seven days. These wait times are expected to improve when fast withdrawal service is enabled sometime in the future. At the time of launch, the OE network will only be able to handle …

A KPMG report titled “Pulse of Fintech H1 2021,” shows that the total investment in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector in the first half of this year has risen to $8.7 billion, which is more than double the $4.3 billion worth of deals done in 2020. KPMG global fintech co-leader Anton Ruddenklau said: “Cryptocurrency and blockchain are exploding globally. I think for the rest of this year at least, crypto will be a very hot ticket for investors.” Separate research by blockchain market intelligence Blockdata also shows that 55 out of the top 100 banks by assets under management have …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has been a big part of the explosive growth seen across the cryptocurrency ecosystem in 2021, with decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and SushiSwap and lending protocols like Aave and Compound adding a new dimension of token utility. Data from Messari’s DeFi Assets index shows that over the past 30 days, a majority of the top 10 DeFi tokens gained more than 20%, with the top gainer, Terra (LUNA), seeing its price increase more than 116%. Three developments make the bullish case for DeFi tokens: a rapidly recovering total value locked, rising trading volumes on decentralized exchanges and …

The chief technology officer of the SushiSwap decentralized exchange has revealed why the protocol is no longer keen to scale using layer-two solutions from Optimistic Ethereum. The layer-two solutions provider OΞ whitelisted several projects last year, including Uniswap and Synthetix, granting them preferential access to its platform as it was being built. SushiSwap was also keen to get on this whitelist, but it was not forthcoming, resulting in a decision to delay any further development. In its official documentation, Optimism clearly states “contract deployments to the Optimistic Ethereum mainnet are currently restricted by a whitelist.” In a thread on Wednesday …

Leading decentralized exchange Uniswap has become the first decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol to generate more than $1 billion worth of platform fees for liquidity providers. On Tuesday, Lucas Outumuro, head of research at crypto data aggregator IntoTheBlock, shared a chart on Twitter showing that the combined fee revenues of Uniswap’s v2 and v3 Ethereum mainnet deployments have surpassed $1 billion. Including the fees generated by both Uniswap v1 and its v3 deployment on Optimism, Outumuro noted that roughly $1.02 billion has been distributed to Uniswap liquidity providers since the protocol’s creation in November 2018. By contrast, IntoTheBlock’s data shows that …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) strong recovery and march toward the psychological level at $50,000 has improved the overall sentiment in the crypto sector. That has boosted the total crypto market capitalization to over $1.9 trillion. Data from Glassnode shows a sharp increase in the dominance of Bitcoin transactions exceeding $1 million during the past few months. The on-chain analytics firm noted in a report that the transactions by the $1 million–$10 million group surged when Bitcoin corrected to $29,000 in July. This suggests that institutional investors may have been buying, which is “fairly constructive for price.” Further evidence of possible institutional buying …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recovery from $29,482.61 on July 21 has continued to surpass one resistance after another. On Aug. 9, Bitcoin rose above the 200-day simple moving average, an indicator watched by institutional investors to determine whether the asset is bullish or bearish. A positive sign about the Aug. 9 rally is that Bitcoin was not affected by the flash crash in gold, which momentarily dipped to a four-month low. This suggests that traders are focusing on the fundamentals of the sector and are not affected by the performance of other asset classes. Glassnode noted that investors holding Bitcoin for more …

Bitcoin (BTC) has staged a smart recovery in the past few days and the interest in the crypto sector seems to be picking up. JPMorgan Chase has added access to a new Bitcoin fund created by New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) for its private banking clients. The increasing number of traditional financial institutions opening up crypto trading opportunities for their clients shows there is strong demand for the sector. On-chain analyst Willy Woo said recently that strong holders had been scoping up Bitcoin and locking “them away for long-term investment”, resulting in a supply squeeze. Woo added that he …

Gelato Network, a protocol that automates smart contract executions on Ethereum (ETH), has integrated with decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator Zerion to help users better manage liquidity when interacting with decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap. The partnership enables Zerion’s over 200,000 monthly active users to have their Uniswap v3 positions managed automatically, Gelato Network announced Tuesday. “With this integration, Zerion has become the go-to DeFi aggregator to natively offer fungible Uniswap v3 LP positions at a massive scale,” they said. Gelato Network has been designed to address liquidity challenges in cryptocurrency markets emanating from extreme price volatility. Wild price swings, like …

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped back below $39,000 on Aug. 2, suggesting that short-term traders were booking profits after the price failed to close above $42,451.67. However, lower levels may attract the type of buying seen in late July. Data from Santiment showed that Bitcoin held on wallet addresses storing between 100 and 10,000 Bitcoin rose to a new all-time high at 9.23 million Bitcoin on Aug. 1. The previous all-time high for this group of investors was recorded on April 5, just over a week before Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $64,854 on April 14. Santiment highlighted that the “addresses …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) 43% rally from $29,482.61 on July 21 to $42,316.71 on July 30 has invigorated the bulls, who had been sitting on the sidelines. After the sharp rise, some analysts are debating whether Bitcoin could repeat its sharp bull runs of 2013 and 2017. Vailshire Capital founder and CEO Jeff Ross highlighted that Bitcoin had rallied tenfold in the second half of 2013 after facing three months of negative news. Ross said: "I still contend that 2021 will behave in similar fashion." PlanB, the creator of the stock-to-flow price model, said Bitcoin’s comeback in July was “like clockwork.” He …