Meanwhile, higher price lows from Jan. 23 have kept BTC anchored above $37,000 support in recent months. A series of higher price lows and strong overhead resistance, however, typically results in a breakout or breakdown in the direction of the prevailing trend. In this case, BTC’s downtrend could resume with higher volatility.
Recently, media outlet Rekt.news made striking accusations about Fantom Opera, a layer-1 blockchain, after the foundation’s technical adviser Andre Cronje and senior solutions architect Anton Nell announced they were leaving the crypto space entirely. Almost immediately, concerns from the community arose after Nell tweeted, “There are around ~25 apps and services that we are terminating on 03 April 2022.” In the now-deleted Rekt article, it alleged the following:
“Fantom, Solidly, SpookySwap, Abracadabra, Geist: multiple projects all entwined into a system designed to extract maximum value for a small set of insiders who are now steadily exiting the stage.”
However, on Friday, the Fantom Foundation published a statement regarding alleged “factual inaccuracies,” “debunked claims” and “misinformation” from the Rekt piece. Specifically, the Fantom Foundation stated:
“Andre and Anton did not ‘terminate’ 25 projects. Instead, any involvement (such as user interface) in these projects was to be handed over to the existing teams, many of whom had been developing and running independently.”
Moreover, the foundation explained that neither Cronje nor Nell was a core developer at Fantom and that the entity itself was not involved in creating any of the 25 projects (including, most notably, Yearn.finance) in question. It appears that in part due to the pair’s departure, the total value locked on Fantom has fallen to $8.27 billion from $11.26 billion on Sunday, the date of the announcement. The blockchain has processed over 200 million transactions with more than 2 million active wallets since its inception.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, said he was “encouraged” by the administration’s acknowledgement of the sector and its growth. “As the White House itself stated, the U.S. must maintain its leadership in this space, which is why lawmakers and regulators should do nothing to harm America’s long-standing tradition of fostering technological innovation,” he said.
Meanwhile, India is on the verge of passing a proposal that would levy a 30% tax on any income generated from crypto transactions, and the country has plans to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC), or digital rupee, by the end of the year. When it comes to regulating crypto, the world is watching carefully what the U.S. is doing, according to Du Jun, co-founder of Huobi, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges founded in China and now based in the Seychelles. Biden’s executive order is an official acknowledgment of crypto and a step in the right direction for encouraging mass adoption of digital assets, he said.
Haven Protocol (XHV) showed signs of returning to its bullish form as its price doubled in just five days of trading.
XHV’s price surged by up to 107% week-to-date to climb above $3.60 on March 11, its highest level in more than three months. Interestingly, the move upside followed a period of aggressive selloffs that saw XHV’s value dropping from nearly $20 in November 2021 to as low as $1.60 in early February 2022 — an approximately 90% decline.
Traders started returning to the Haven Protocol market against the prospects of two macroeconomic scenarios: U.S. President Joe Biden’s executive order that focuses on cryptocurrencies and hardline western sanctions on Russian oligarchs amid an escalating military standoff between Ukraine and Russia.
In the order titled “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets,” President Biden directed federal agencies to submit reports on cryptocurrencies and consider introducing new regulations for the sector.
Meanwhile, western powers decided to cut Russia out of the Swift global banking system while imposing targeted sanctions on some of the country’s wealthiest individuals.
Crypto investors priced in the effects of these two updates, deciding to bid up the prices of privacy-enabled digital assets that promise to secure financial transactions from regulatory watchdogs.
As a result, Monero (XMR), Kyber Network (KNC), Tornado Cash (TORN) and other privacy coins outperformed the crypto market massively this week.
Privacy coins have surged, with #Monero posting +26% gains over the last 24-hours to lead the top-100.
During times of unprecedented censorship in the crypto world, no wonder that the price of privacy coins, like $XMR, is surging. #XMR
— Weiss Crypto (@WeissCrypto) March 9, 2022
Haven Protocol, a fork of the Monero blockchain that promotes itself as an “offshore bank,” appears to have rallied on similar sentiment.
The recent bout of buying in the Haven Protocol market may have also emerged owing to a multi-month technical support level.
Related: FBI director: Russia overestimates its ability to bypass US sanctions using crypto
XHV’s price rebounded after failing to close below its descending channel support on multiple attempts, as shown in the chart below.
Notably, the token’s last 90% drop towards the same price floor in 2021 led to a sharp upside retracement from around $2.50 in June to around $20 in November.
XHV’s price hints at undergoing a similar, extended upside recovery after its latest bounce. In doing so, the Haven Protocol token might retest the resistance trendline of its descending channel setup — around $10.
Conversely, a pullback risk declines below XHV’s previous support lines inside the $1.00–1.50 range.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Instead, it shows that blockchains, too, involve social as well as technical consensus. The airdrop Sybil attacker, after all, didn’t break any obvious government laws; he or she just abused an open system so badly that other users had to take action to defend it. For some, this response will be seen as an upside and even an evolutionary path – a significant step, in particular, toward decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that have real enforcement power and are willing to flex it.
“Imagine a future where a user, Alice, has bitcoins and wants to send them with maximal privacy, so she creates a special kind of transaction. For anyone looking at the blockchain her transaction appears completely normal with her coins seemingly going from address A to address B. But in reality her coins end up in address Z, which is entirely unconnected to either A or B,” Belcher writes. In a sense, the transaction is being “teleported” elsewhere, hence the project’s name “Teleport.”
Clicking the “register” button will direct you to another site called Blockpass, which runs identity verification processes for crypto services. Here, you’ll need to provide your passport, your national ID or your driver’s license, along with proof of residence. There’s also a list of banned countries: If you live in China, Russia, Cuba, Iran or any of 28 other blacklisted nations, you’re out of luck.
“We have one guy – I don’t know who he is, but he came through a broker – and they’re like, ‘We want to sell 125,000 bitcoin.’ And I’m like, ‘What? That’s $6 billion, guys.’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to send it to a company in Australia.’”
“It’s hard” to move billions of dollars worth of crypto, Redbord noted. It’s possible some oligarchs might turn to crypto, but that may not be their first choice. Redbord, who was with the U.S. Treasury Department prior to joining TRM, said crypto could be part of the sanctions-evasion playbook, but oligarchs already have a complex set of tools they might turn to first to preserve their wealth, including the use of shell companies and purchasing high end art.