Category Ethereum

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices are soaring, pushing the value of the entire cryptocurrency market over $2 trillion for the first time (though some think the bull run could be just getting started).

With the bitcoin price hovering around $60,000 per bitcoin, the psychological $2 trillion barrier was broken by sharp increases in the price of smaller cryptocurrencies ethereum, binance coin, Ripple's XRP and litecoin, according to data from crypto price website CoinGecko.

The bitcoin and cryptocurrency market has more than doubled in value so far this year, rising from around $750 billion at the beginning of the year. Bitcoin, by far the biggest cryptocurrency by value, makes up more than half of the cryptocurrency market capitalization and has traditionally led the market.

Continue reading at forbes.com

The last 24 hours were marked with a lot of drama for Ether, especially as the premier altcoin was beginning to showcase signs of another breakout after scaling up to the $1,625 mark. However, after hovering around the $1,600 region for around 12 hours running, the currency started to slide rapidly, dropping by a staggering 7% within no time. As a result, the second-largest cryptocurrency by total market capitalization is now sitting at $1,480.

This latest downward trend comes a few days after the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged he "would be concerned" by tightening financial conditions, especially as the American government's bond yields have been putting an increasing amount of pressure on borrowing costs.

Commenting on the subject, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange OKEx, Jay Hao, pointed out to Finder that in the wake of US Treasury yields beginning to rise — with 10-year yield levels rising to their highest since February 2020 — most crypto assets including Ethereum have taken a hit and may continue to be at the receiving end of some solid bearish momentum, adding:

"We're also approaching a year since the March 12 selloff and a month that is traditionally challenging for cryptocurrencies and other risk assets. So, I believe that the near-term outlook for Ethereum is neutral. There are some significant headwinds but if ETH bulls can maintain this newfound momentum, we could see it testing the $2K level once again."

American technology major Nvidia is all set to roll-out GeForce RTX 3060, the company's latest and most powerful Graphics Processing Unit later this month.

This is designed primarily for delivering the best user experience for gaming and professional work, but the GPU can also be used for other power-intense tasks including gene sequencing, weather simulations, and cryptocurrency mining. 

With Bitcoin, Etherium, and other digital currency gaining a lot of value, there is an increased interest among tech enthusiasts to mine cryptocurrency and this has led to a lot of demand for powerful graphics cards.

Apparently, Nvidia is struggling to meet the demand for its GPUs in the market and expects the new GeForce RTX 3060 series may not reach the pro-gamers. It is worrying that cryptocurrency miners may create a shortage of computer peripherals.

Continue reading at deccanherald.com

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin. While interest in the latter is soaring, Ethereum is growing in popularity as well.

Ethereum is an open-source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform that can support smart contract functionality. That’s a complicated way of saying that Ethereum not only makes a cryptocurrency called ether possible, but it can also support the launch of new cryptocurrencies and make it possible to crowdsource funding for new projects.

“According to data presented by Aksje Bloggen, Ethereum’s daily trading volume hit $48.2bn this week (second week of February), a 220% increase year-over-year,” writes the research firm. “In February 2019, the 24-hour trading volume of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency amounted to $2.6bn, revealed the CoinMarketCap data. Over the next twelve months, this figure jumped by more than 470% and hit $14.9bn in February last year.”

Continue reading at etftrends.com

Mastercard’s recent move to enable crypto on its network is a significant update that will help further Bitcoin’s adoption and make it mainstream. However, following the purchase of Bitcoin by Tesla and MicroStrategy the obvious next step was to consider Bitcoin payments, however, a critical question is, are retail traders willing to spend their Bitcoin holdings?

Based on recent research by Dealaid.org on consumer Sentiment on Bitcoin as a payment method that surveyed one thousand American consumers, the report’s key findings included the following:

• 60.2% of consumers would like more companies to accept Bitcoin as a payment method
• Amazon, Apple, and Walmart are the top 3 companies that consumers want to see accept Bitcoin
• 50.5% of consumers are willing to pay for products and services with Bitcoin
• Ethereum and Doge are the most popular alternatives to Bitcoin as a payment method

Continue reading at ambcrypto.com

The price of bitcoin struggled to regain $49,000 Friday, continuing to bounce between $48,000 and $46,000 heading into the weekend. As bitcoin contemplated which way to go, ether made a new all-time high above $1,850.

• Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $47,600 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping less than 1% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $46,286 to $48,925

Much of bitcoin’s choppy price action could be attributed to futures deleveraging as eager bulls piled into long trades expecting a swift breakout to $50,000 or higher. Funding rates for perpetual bitcoin futures have steadily increased through February, according to market data collected by Skew, with some funding rates reaching their highest levels in the past 12 months.

High positive funding rates signal an increase in long positions, whereas negative rates indicate a more bearish sentiment. The market tends to reset when traders, especially in overcrowded derivatives positions, become overly bearish or bullish. 

Continue reading at nasdaq.com

If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that the world is growing increasingly unpredictable. Be it from pandemics, market swings, wildfires, and more, we’ve gone through global shocks that we never dreamed would happen in our lifetime. The insurance industry needs to prepare itself for this increasingly volatile future with a reliable infrastructure that can quickly and objectively settle claims around even the most unforeseeable events. 

Recent advances in blockchain technology, combined with increased demand for insurance products across the world, has set the stage for the rise of parametric insurance, or insurance that automatically pays out when certain events occur. The rise of smart contract technology along with increased demand for insurance products in the developing world could make 2021 the year that parametric insurance model finally moves from pipe dream to production. 

The Advantage of Parametric Insurance

Today, the insurance claims payment process still largely relies on an adjuster’s subjective assessment of damages and loss. Everyday people can’t afford to challenge a large insurance company in court, so most customers are ultimately forced to trust their insurance providers to pay out fair claims. 

Continue reading at nasdaq.com

Although Bitcoin may have fallen below $30,000 USD from a record high of almost $42,000 USD, the main cryptocurrency has managed to find its way back to just over $32,000 USD as MicroStrategy and retail traders took the opportunity to buy the dive.

Despite the rapid increase, Bitcoin investors are still cautious after the price has dropped so significantly as the cryptocurrency continues to trade sideways. At the time of writing, Bitcoin's price is at $32,453.64 USD according to CoinMarketCap, which is slightly in the red with a drop of less than 1% in daily trades. In the last week, however, Bitcoin has dropped 10.27% of what it was boasting about. Analysts believe this is a short-term fix and the cryptocurrency will increase again with more sustainable health.

Looking at data across the market, the cryptocurrency industry is green and red everywhere, with altcoins or influenced by the dominant Bitcoin and trading below its trading value for the past 24% hours or enjoying increased prices.

Continue reading at coininsider.com

The non-fungible token (NFT) market grew by leaps and bounds in the past year, seeing a brief growth in mid-2020 and a sudden rise in September. And now, there are over 630,000 such wallets that have been involved in some way in the sub-sector.

Alex Atallah, the CEO of NFT platform OpenSea, said in a tweet this morning, “There are now over 630,000 distinct wallets that have created NFTs or semi-fungible tokens (ERC721 or ERC1155).”

He compared the numbers to the internet’s rise in the late-90s, stating that at the time, only 23 blogs were “live” on the web in 1999, while six years later, that number expanded to over 50 million.

Continue reading at cryptoslate.com

Bitcoin’s recent wobbles have turned the cryptocurrency spotlight onto other digital coins including Ether, whose gain this year has outstripped the performance of its bigger rival.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency hovered around $37,000 on Tuesday after major gyrations earlier in January.The comparative calm of late may encourage crypto enthusiasts to chase the momentum in coins like Ether, which is up almost 90% in 2021 compared with Bitcoin’s 27% advance.

“Bitcoin has been in a range for the past few weeks, which gives time for capital to rotate” into other digital assets, said Vijay Ayyar, head of business development with crypto exchange Luno in Singapore.

Continue reading at bloomberg.com