The total crypto market capitalization reached the important milestone of $2 trillion on April 5. As cryptocurrencies increase in value, they are likely to attract further investments from institutional investors because they can no longer afford to neglect it. Less than three months ago, the crypto market had reached the $1 trillion in market cap for the first time ever. This rate of growth shows that investors are hugely bullish on the potential of the sector and the ones who delay their investment decisions may have to enter at much higher levels. Ark Invest founder and CEO Cathie Wood is …

According to a recent research note by JPMorgan, institutional investors have withdrawn about $20 billion from their gold investments since mid-October and during the same time frame, institutional inflows into Bitcoin (BTC) have increased by $7 billion. The bank said, “any such crowding out of gold as an 'alternative' currency implies big upside for Bitcoin over the long term." JPMorgan believes that Bitcoin’s declining volatility could increase adoption from institutional investors. If that happens, the value of the private investments in Bitcoin may mirror that of gold and this gives Bitcoin an upside target of $130,000 in the long term, …

What started as a joke to celebrate April Fool’s Day has become yet another sign of a frothy, overeager market. A bonding contract designed to sell baseball cap vouchers sold 468 hats in just a few hours, raising over $100,000 and bumping the price to $3,700 per voucher. Solana-based decentralized finance, or DeFi, platform Mango Markets announced the sale on Twitter this morning with the caption “ICO ALERT!” — a twist on the initial coin offerings of yore. According to a blog post, Mango’s “initial cap offering” is all about high fashion. 1/ ICO ALERT! Initial Cap Offering: Presenting the …

Following in the footsteps of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs has announced plans to allow its wealth management clients to trade in cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. In an interview with CNBC, Mary Rich, the global head of digital assets for Goldman Sachs private wealth management division, said that the rollout may happen sometime in the second quarter of 2021. Bitcoin adoption by two of the world’s preeminent investment banks is likely to force other banks to walk down the crypto path sooner than later. The arrival of fresh money from the clients of these legacy institutions may further increase demand …

On Monday Visa announced that it had launched a pilot program with Crypto.com to enable its partners to settle fiat transactions by sending USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin to Visa’s Ethereum address at Anchorage digital bank. This step by Visa shows that legacy finance companies are increasing their adoption of cryptocurrencies. According to a PwC report reviewed by Bloomberg, crypto mergers and acquisitions soared to $1.1 billion in 2020 compared to $481 million in 2019. The increase in these deals is likely to surpass the 2020 numbers on every single metric with the arrival of large investors and institutional players according …

The world’s top decentralized exchange, Uniswap, is currently beating out Bitcoin’s daily fee generation by more than 50%. According to the data tracking website, CryptoFees, the leading Ethereum-powered decentralized exchange Uniswap has generated more than $4.8 million worth of fees over the past 24 hours. This has propelled the automated market maker into second place above Bitcoin — which has generated just $3.1 million. The top network by daily fees is Ethereum with $16.5 million — which beats out the other 30 other networks tracked by CryptoFees combined. It appears Uniswap’s dominance over Bitcoin may be short-lived, with Bitcoin beating …

Native exchange tokens have exploded in value in recent months, alongside the wider cryptocurrency markets, changing the narrative for what these tokens were originally meant for. Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and other cryptocurrencies have seen exponential growth over the past six months. In part, this is due to major institutional investors finally entering the markets in a meaningful way. Grayscale Investments, MicroStrategy and Tesla have been some of the biggest names to make major acquisitions of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, leading to new all-time highs in values. This has had a knock-on effect for various tokens that either power cryptocurrency …

Glassnode data shows Bitcoin (BTC) exchange reserves on Coinbase have dropped by about $8 billion. This indicates that institutional investors are locking away their purchases in cold storage for the long term instead of booking profits. HODLing by institutions is a huge positive as it will continue to reduce Bitcoin's available supply, which may boost prices even if demand begins to diminish. The news flow suggests no slowdown in institutional adoption. New Zealand Wealth Funds Management revealed that its product KiwiSaver Growth Strategy allocated 5% of its assets to Bitcoin in October 2020. According to the firm’s chief investment officer …

On March 24, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that U.S. buyers are now able to purchase Tesla vehicles with Bitcoin (BTC). Musk also tweeted that Tesla will not convert BTC payments into fiat but will add to its existing treasury of about 48,000 Bitcoin. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives expects Bitcoin to account for less than 5% of Tesla transactions, but the percentage could move up as crypto adoption increases. The analyst said the move by Tesla could be a defining moment for Bitcoin from a transactional point of view. This week, CNBC host Jim Cramer thanked Anthony Pompliano on …

UNI, the governance token of Uniswap — the most widely utilized automated market maker (AMM) in DeFi — has surged significantly after Uniswap V3 was announcedon March 23. At just over $35 per token, UNI has gained nearly 23% in the past week The Uniswap team said: "Today, we are excited to present an overview of Uniswap v3. We are targeting an L1 Ethereum mainnet launch on May 5, with an L2 deployment on Optimism set to follow shortly after." With a market capitalization of $17 billion, it has surpassed some major perennial altcoins such as Litecoin (LTC), putting UNI …

The Turkish lira lost 15% of its value and dipped close to its all-time low after Turkey's President Erdogan fired central bank governor Naci Agbal. This resulted in a massive spike in Bitcoin (BTC) searches in Turkey as investors sought to protect their wealth from devaluation. This is just another example that shows how investors may be treating Bitcoin as a possible substitute for fiat currencies. In other news, United States Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has a different view. While speaking at an event hosted by the Bank for International Settlements, Powell said that Bitcoin is more of a …

The amount of collateral on decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, is nearing a milestone high of $10 billion, with Uniswap still sitting at the top of the heap. Volumes and liquidity on decentralized exchanges have surged in 2021, with collateral approaching a milestone high of $10 billion, according to research by Messari. Researcher Rahul Rai noted that DEX volumes for February soared to a record $72 billion. DappRadar reports that Uniswap has over half of the total liquidity locked up in DEXs, with a total value locked of $5.4 billion. Rai added that despite their success, automated market makers face their …