The month of March has been a tale of two halves for the cryptocurrency market and the weakness seen since the start of the year has began to fade. Bitcoin’s (BTC) strong move above the $40,000 level is helping to lift sentiment across the sector, and DeFi tokens are also beginning to move upward.
Crypto Fear & Greed Index. Source: Alternative.me
Data from cryptocurrency market intelligence firm Messari shows that a majority of the top tokens in the DeFi sector have posted double-digit gains over the past 30 days, led by THORChain (RUNE), which has increased by 199.81%, and Aave (AAVE), which has seen its price increase 53.95%
Top 12 DeFi assets. Source: Messari
Here’s a rundown of the state of DeFi as the sector attempts to get back to its former glory and kickstart a new bull run.
Value locked in DeFi is on the uptrend
Some of the best evidence for the ongoing comeback in DeFi can be found by looking at the total value locked (TVL) across the sector, which now sits at $228.05 billion according to data from Defi Llama.
Total value locked in DeFi. Source: Defi Llama
Despite the fact that many tokens remain well below their all-time highs, the TVL for the DeFi sector is only $28 billion below its previous high of $256.62 billion. This suggests that the DeFi ecosystem has continued to expand and attract value as new protocols and blockchain networks have launched over the past few months.
Data from Dune Analytics shows that the total number of DeFi users has steadily increased throughout 2022 and currently sits at a record high of 4,562,318 unique wallet addresses.
Total DeFi users over time. Source: Dune Analytics
One subsector of the DeFi market that has yet to really see a reversal in its downtrend has been the levels of activity on decentralized exchanges (DEXes), which is currently at its lowest point since July 2021.
Weekly DEX volume. Source: Dune Analytics
While it appears as though traders haven’t been too eager to swap tokens in the current environment, data from Token Terminal shows that they have been active in other areas of the market with the revenue generated by the top apps on the uptrend since bottoming in February.
Top dApps based on daily total revenue. Source: Token Terminal
OpenSea and LooksRare NFT marketplaces have been the top-performing decentralized applications (dApps) by revenue over the past couple of months, followed by Uniswap (UNI), Convex Finance (CVX) and PancakeSwap (CAKE).
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.151 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 41.7%.
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.
On Wednesday, DeFi Technologies announced that its subsidiary Valour reached $274.2 million in assets under management. The company offers various cryptocurrency-denominated exchange-traded products, or ETPs, listed on European exchanges.
Cointelegraph previously reported that Valour launchedtwo such ETPs involving Uniswap (UNI) and Polkadot (DOT) last year. For each exchange-traded product of Valour that is bought and sold on the stock exchange, Valour purchases or sells the equivalent amount of the underlying digital assets. Some of the ETPs do not charge management fees.
The firm’s ETPs include $95.2 million in BTC Zero, $67.4 million in ETH Zero, $43.4 million in ADA Valour, $24.4 million in Valour DOT, $38.5 million in SOL Valour, and a small number of funds in Uniswap (UNI), Terra (LUNA) and Avalanche (AVAX). The total sum represents a growth of 91% compared to its total AUM of $143.5 million in May of last year. Regarding the development, Russell Starr, CEO of DeFi Technologies, commented:
“Our team has done a tremendous job of planting seeds for future growth by launching eight ETPs across several exchanges in Europe that enable individuals and institutions to invest in digital assets. […] We are very excited about the company’s growth trajectory.”
DeFi Technologies seeks to facilitate investors’ access to namesake decentralized finance via its ETPs, venture investment and infrastructure arm, which provides governance for blockchain networks to run independent nodes. Its shares are publicly traded on Canada’s NEO Exchange.
The decentralized finance (DeFi) market has been undergoing a period of maturation over the past year and many of last year’s fast risers have faded into obscurity but this does not mean the formerly “famous” protocols have not continued to build.
One blue-chip project that is regaining momentum is Aave (AAVE), a non-custodial liquidity protocol that allows users to lend, borrow or stake their assets to earn yield from their holdings.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of AAVE has rallied 110% from a low of $114 on March 15 to a daily high at $242 on March 29 as its 24-hour trading volume spiked 442% to $1.26 billion.
AAVE/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the price resurgence in AAVE have been the release of AAVE v3, the expansion of the protocol’s ecosystem and steadily improving fundamentals.
AAVE v3
Traders have long anticipated the release of Aave v3 which was announced on March 16.
1/ Aave V3 is here! The most powerful version of the Aave Protocol to date, V3 brings groundbreaking new features than span from increased capital efficiency to enhanced decentralization. Read what’s new in V3 in the thread belowor visit https://t.co/H3jTyKRqNs to dive in! pic.twitter.com/LXzn7660nA
According to Aave, the new features will help provide greater capital efficiency, increased security and cross-chain functionality, while also helping to promote decentralization across the DeFi ecosystem.
Some of the new features include portals, which offer only “permit listed” bridge protocols that have been approved by Aave governance to facilitate cross-chain transactions, a high-efficiency mode (E-Mode) that allows users to extract the most out of their collateral by providing a higher borrowing power within the same asset category and an isolation mode which limits the available collateral for newly listed assets as a way to help limit exposure and risks to the protocol.
Aave v3 is currently deployed on Polygon, Fantom, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism and Harmony, with more integrations planned in the future.
Ecosystem expansion
A second factor bringing fresh momentum to AAVE has been the expansion of the Aave ecosystem, which includes launching on new networks and forming partnerships and integrations with other DeFi protocols.
On top of now being available on seven different networks, Aave continues to explore new networks to launch on, including Metis.
Aave has also seen an uptick in support from wallet providers and Web3 aggregators, including Instadapp, Debank, 1inch, Paraswap, Zapper, DeFisaver and Zerion.
A third sign of the building strength for Aave can be found by looking at the community behind the protocol, which has continued to see new users onboard into the ecosystem despite the wider struggles of the DeFi sector.
Total Aave users over time. Source: Dune Analytics
According to data from Dune Analytics, there are now more than 92,000 unique wallet addresses that have engaged with the AAVE protocol. With the number of chains supported by Aave continuing to increase, there is a strong possibility that this number will rise further in the future.
As a result of new users and the addition of support for new chains, the total value locked (TVL) on the protocol is once again on the rise and currently sits at $13.99 billion according to data from DeFi Llama.
Total value locked on Aave. Source: Defi Llama.
The recent addition of support for liquid staking assets such as stETH from Lido Finance has also helped boost the TVL on AAVE, possibly because ETH stakers are looking to maximize their return.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for AAVE on March 24, prior to the recent price rise.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for AAVE climbed to a high of 73 on March 24, around one hour before the price began to increase 45.8% over the next five days.
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.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) rally is taking a breather near the 200-day simple moving average (SMA) and that has resulted in what is either a minor pullback or consolidation in BTC and select altcoins.
In the last few days, Terraform Labs has been on a Bitcoin buying spree. The wallet address, which has been speculated to be that of Terra, received $139 million worth of Bitcoin on March 30, taking its total to about $1.5 billion in BTC.
With Terra breathing down its neck, MicroStrategy seems to have taken up the challenge. The business intelligence firm’s subsidiary MacroStrategy has secured a $205 million loan from Silvergate, which will be used to purchase Bitcoin, cover general corporate expenses and pay the necessary fees and interest on the loan.
The buying interest is not limited to the two companies. CoinShares data showed that institutional investors pumped in $193 million into digital asset investment products last week, the largest inflow since early December 2021.
With institutional investors buying in large quantities, could Bitcoin and the major altcoins break above their overhead resistance levels? Let’s study the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.
BTC/USDT
Bitcoin rose to the 200-day SMA ($48,288) on March 28 but the bulls could not push the price above it. The buyers again tried to clear the overhead hurdle on March 29 but failed.
BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The bears will now try to pull the price to the immediate support at $45,400. If the price rebounds off this support, the bulls will again attempt to thrust the BTC/USDT pair above the 200-day SMA. If they succeed, the pair could start its journey to $52,000.
The rising 20-day exponential moving average (EMA) ($43,531) and the relative strength index (RSI) near the overbought zone indicate that bulls are in control.
This positive view will invalidate if the price turns down and plummets below the 20-day EMA. If that happens, the pair could extend its stay inside the ascending channel for a few more days.
ETH/USDT
Ether (ETH) broke and closed above the overhead resistance at $3,411 on March 29 but the bulls could not clear the obstacle at the 200-day SMA ($3,488). This indicates that bears have not yet given up and are attempting to stall the recovery at the 200-day SMA.
ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
If the price sustains below $3,411, the bears will try to pull the ETH/USDT pair to the 20-day EMA ($3,042). A strong rebound off this level will suggest that the sentiment has turned positive and traders are buying on dips.
The bulls will then again try to propel the price above the 200-day SMA. If they succeed, the pair could rally toward $4,000.
Contrary to this assumption, if the price breaks below the 20-day EMA, it will suggest that the traders may be rushing to the exit. That could pull the pair down to the 50-day SMA ($2,853).
BNB/USDT
BNB tight range trading between $425 and $445 has resolved to the upside, indicating that bulls have absorbed the supply and are trying to gain the upper hand.
BNB/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The upsloping 20-day EMA ($409) and the RSI in the overbought territory indicate that bulls are in control. If they sustain the price above $445, the BNB/USDT pair could rise to the 200-day SMA ($467) and later to $500.
Conversely, if the price turns down and breaks below $425, the pair could drop to the 20-day EMA. This is an important level to keep an eye on because a break and close below it will suggest that the bullish momentum has weakened. The pair could then oscillate between $350 and $445 for a few more days.
XRP/USDT
Ripple (XRP) broke above the overhead resistance at $0.91 on March 28 but the bears did not allow the price to sustain the higher levels. This indicates that the bears are aggressively defending the zone between $0.91 and $1.
XRP/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The bulls are attempting to sustain the price above $0.86. If they succeed, the XRP/USDT pair could again rise to $0.91. A break and close above this level could open the doors for a possible rally to the psychological level at $1.
Conversely, if the price sustains below $0.86, the bears will attempt to pull the pair below the moving averages. If they manage to do that, it will suggest that the bullish momentum has weakened. The pair could then drop to $0.70.
ADA/USDT
Cardano (ADA) is facing resistance at $1.26 as seen from the long wick on the candlestick on March 28 and 29. A minor positive is that the bulls have not given up much ground.
ADA/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The upsloping 20-day EMA ($1) and the RSI in the overbought territory indicate that the path of least resistance is to the upside. If buyers propel and sustain the price above $1.26, the ADA/USDT pair could rise to the 200-day SMA ($1.51) and thereafter rally to $1.60.
Alternatively, if the price turns down from the current level and breaks below $1.15, the bears will try to pull the pair to the 20-day EMA. This is an important level to watch out for because a break and close below it could sink the pair to $0.74.
LUNA/USDT
Terra’s LUNA token broke and closed above the overhead resistance at $96 on March 28. Although the long wick on the day’s candlestick showed selling near $100, the bulls did not allow the price to break back below $96.
LUNA/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The buying resumed on March 29 and the bulls thrust the price above the all-time high at $105. If bulls sustain the price above $105, the buying momentum could pick up and the LUNA/USDT pair may rally to $115 and later to $125.
A minor negative is that the RSI is showing signs of forming a negative divergence. If the price breaks and sustains below $105, the pair could drop to $96. This is an important support for the bulls to defend because a break and close below it could aggravate selling. The pair could then drop to the 50-day SMA ($78).
SOL/USDT
After sustaining above $106 for the past two days, Solana (SOL) has risen above the overhead resistance at $122, indicating strong buying by the bulls.
SOL/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
If buyers sustain the price above $122, the SOL/USDT pair could start a new uptrend, which could reach the 200-day SMA ($150). This level is likely to act as a stiff resistance but if bulls overcome it, the rally could reach $180.
Contrary to this assumption, if the price turns down from the current level and breaks below $106, it will suggest that the break above $122 may have been a bull trap. The pair could then drop to the moving averages and remain stuck between $81 and $122 for a few more days.
The long wick on the candlestick of the past two days shows that bears are defending the level at $98. However, a minor positive is that the bulls have not allowed Avalanche (AVAX) to drop to the 20-day EMA ($85). This suggests that the traders are in no hurry to exit their positions.
AVAX/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The rising 20-day EMA and the RSI in the positive territory indicate that bulls are in control. If buyers thrust the price above the $98 to $100 resistance zone, the AVAX/USDT pair could pick up momentum and rally to $120.
This positive view will invalidate in the short term if bears sink and sustain the price below the 50-day SMA ($81). Such a move will suggest that the pair could extend its stay inside the $65 to $98 range for a few more days.
DOT/USDT
Polkadot (DOT) has been facing stiff resistance at $23 for the past three days but a positive sign is that the bulls have not ceded ground to the bears. This suggests that the bulls expect a break above the overhead resistance.
DOT/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The 20-day EMA ($20) is sloping up and the RSI is in the positive zone, indicating that the path of least resistance is to the upside. If bulls drive and sustain the price above $23, the DOT/USDT pair could pick up momentum and rally to the 200-day SMA ($29).
Contrary to this assumption, if the price turns down from the current level and breaks below the 20-day EMA, it will suggest that the bullish momentum may have weakened. That could keep the pair range-bound between $16 and $23 for the next few days.
DOGE/USDT
Dogecoin (DOGE) rose above $0.15 on March 28 but the long wick on the day’s candlestick suggests that bears are selling at higher levels.
DOGE/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView
The moving averages have completed a bullish crossover and the RSI is in the positive territory, indicating that bulls have the upper hand. If the price turns up from the current level and breaks above $0.15, the DOGE/USDT pair could rally to the overhead resistance at $0.17 where the bears may again mount a strong defense.
Contrary to this assumption, if the price continues lower and breaks below the moving averages, it will suggest that the pair may spend some more time inside the range between $0.17 and $0.10.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Nonfungible tokens (NFT) continue to make waves in mainstream media, with projects such as “Bored Ape Yacht Club” no more pertinent an example of the potential of the space. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood are proud owners of Bored Ape NFT avatars, which has no doubt driven interest and prices for Bored Ape NFTs.
The success of the “Bored Ape Yacht Club” (BAYC) NFT collection sparked the creation of an NFT ecosystem powered by its proprietary ApeCoin token, which has seen significant gains in recent weeks.
Before we delve into the ApeCoin-powered universe that is coming to fruition, it’s worth revisiting what “Bored Ape Yacht Club” is and how the Ethereum-based NFT collection exploded in popularity.
Dawn of the Apes
BAYC is the brainchild of Yuga Labs, a Web3 marketing firm that dreamed up an exclusive NFT collection made up of 10,000 programmatically generated Bored Ape digital collectibles.
The results were pretty incredible, with so many different combinations made from the 170 traits that could be thrown into the mix leading to a wide variety of Bored Ape avatars.
“Bored Ape Yacht Club” went live to the public in April 2021, with a pre-sale of 10,000 digitally verifiable Bored Ape NFT avatars selling for 0.08 Ether (ETH) each, worth around $190 at the time. All 10,000 NFTs were sold over the space of a week, leaving newcomers to have to purchase Bored Apes off NFT platforms like OpenSea.
The NFTs also serve as a membership card to the BAYC ecosystem as well as giving access to membership-only benefits, which we’ll delve into below. Needless to say, it’s been a hit, with Hollywood A-listers to the NBA’s best forking out large sums to own a BAYC NFT.
As big-name celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Eminem, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg and Post Malone acquired their own Bored Ape avatars, prices of the NFTs soared. The cheapest Bored Ape currently listed on OpenSea costs around 85 Wrapped Ether (wETH), or $250,000. The success of BAYC spilled over to conventional markets — with renowned auctioneers Sotheby’s selling a collection of BAYC NFTs for $24.39 million in September last year.
Following BAYC’s successful launch and sale of all 10,000 NFTs, Yuga Labs created the “Mutant Ape Yacht Club” (MAYC) and “Bored Ape Kennel Club.”
BAYC NFT owners were airdropped “Mutant Serums,” which allowed them to mutate their Bored Apes into Mutant Apes NFTs, which essentially allowed for 20,000 Mutant Apes to be minted in the process. BAYC owners could also sell their serums on the Bored Ape Chemistry Club — the official marketplace for the mutation-inducing NFT serums.
Yuga Labs also gave BAYC and MAYC owners a week to claim a unique Shiba Inu-inspired dog NFT in June 2021 with the launch of the Kennel Club. Each Kennel Club NFT was randomly generated from 170 different characteristics. Owners were able to sell their Kennel Club NFTs, with 2.5% of each sale on OpenSea donated to real-world animal shelters.
ApeCoin
As the BAYC quickly gained traction and morphed into the exclusive membership ecosystem it is today, Yuga Labs turned its attention to creating a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that would serve as the backbone for the burgeoning community.
The Ape Foundation acts as the base layer for the ApeCoin DAO, responsible for everyday administration and project management within the ecosystem. An ecosystem fund pays Ape Foundation expenses as per directions from the DAO and acts as the infrastructure through which ApeCoin holders can participate in governance processes.
ApeCoin (APE) is the ERC-20 token used for governance and transactions within the Ape ecosystem. Holders can participate in the ApeCoin DAO, transact with other participants and gain access to exclusive ecosystem services, games events and items.
Yuga Labs has capped the supply of ApeCoin at 1 billion tokens, minted all at once, which are following a roadmap of gradual unlocks over a 48-month window. 150 million tokens were airdropped to BAYC and MAYC holders at launch, while a total of 470 million will be allocated to the DAO’s treasury and general resources for the ecosystem. 117.5 million was unlocked initially, while 7,343,750 APE will be unlocked every month over four years.
Yuga Labs received 150 million tokens, which have a 12-month lock-up before 4.1 million tokens are unlocked every month for three years. Of their total holdings, 6% will also be donated to the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation, established by revered primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall.
A further 140 million tokens were allocated to launch contributors with varying token minting schedules, while the four Yuga Labs and BAYC founders will share 80 million tokens. These have a 12-month lock-up, thereafter 2.2 million ApeCoin will be unlocked per month for 36 months.
ApeDrop
The ApeCoin token airdrop took place on April 17, with different amounts allocated to BAYC and MAYC holders with a bonus amount for Kennel Club members as well.
Users who only held a BAYC NFT were eligible for 10,094 APE, while Mutant Ape holders received 2,042 tokens. BAYC holders with Kennel Club companions were airdropped 10,950 APE, while MAYC holders with a Kennel Club NFT received 2,898 APE tokens.
The price of APE was valued at $39.40 per token at its launch before finding a floor at $6 per token during its first day of trading. The price of ApeCoin went as high as $17.75 the day after its launch before a gradual pullback over the next few days. ApeCoin has been on a steady uptrend toward the end of March, hovering between $13 and $14.
While it’s still the early days for ApeCoin, the undeniable triumph of BAYC and the wider ecosystem has seen interest in APE tokens surge after launch. Five days after the APE release, Yuga Labs announced that it had completed a $450-million fundraising round, which valued the company at $4 billion.
The investment is one of the largest ever made into an NFT-focused firm and suggests that the likes of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which led the fundraising round, have recognized the success and potential for further growth.
Yuga Labs also acquired the intellectual property rights to the highly successful “CryptoPunks” and “Meebits” NFT collections from Larva Labs in March as the company looks to expand its ecosystem and integrate interoperability between different projects.
With all these factors playing a role in the spotlight on the Bored Ape ecosystem, interest in ApeCoin and the various NFT projects under the Yuga Labs umbrella is likely to continue through 2022.
“Anyone who says that David Gerard personally stopped their crypto getting into Wikipedia is a fuckwit,” says editor, Wikimedia spokesman and professional crypto hater David Gerard in his typically no-nonsense fashion.
“There are a lot of fuckwits.”
When Gerard is not passionately arguing against cryptocurrencies in Wikipedia editor discussions, the author of the 2017 self-published hit Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain can be found prosecuting the case against Bitcoin, blockchain and crypto on the BBC or in the Financial Times.
Even among the most notable crypto critics, Gerard stands out. He‘s hated Bitcoin and blockchain for more than a decade since BTC was first discussed as an alternative funding source for Wikileaks after mainstream payment processors cut it off.
Crypto critic David Gerard.
For Gerard, like a number of other critics, the problem with Bitcoin isn’t just that it’s a hyped-up Ponzi scheme or a glorified database with no genuine use case — he sees it as philosophically and politically wrong.
“I saw that Bitcoin was created by internet libertarians and figured that would predict everything about it,” he tells Magazine. “I was correct. People who think they don‘t need to know what they‘re talking about and can reinvent it all from first principles are certain to fuck up in predictable ways, and they have.”
For Gerard — who leans left and describes himself as “liberal” — Bitcoin appears to be a right-wing Libertarian project and that’s reason enough to oppose it.
“Libertarianism as a political ideology is fundamentally childish and dumb as hell. Growing up in Australia, I didn‘t even believe this shit was real — I thought Libertarianism was some sort of savage Swiftian satire, not a thing people would actually believe. Then I got on the internet, and oh well.”
Crypto dystopians
Gerard isn’t the only professional Bitcoin hater out there, with the sector attracting more well-known skeptics and vehement opponents than most. That may be partly because the crypto community seems to hang on their every salvo and negative tweet in a sort of sadomasochistic relationship.
The crypto haters are loud and proud, from gold bug Peter Schiff tweeting in delight at every price drop in his attempts to flog gold to economist Nouriel Roubini shouting bad-tempered invective about criminal Ponzi-like bubbles. They’re not all a bunch of Luddites either: Some have impressive credentials like Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman or Nassim Taleb who wrote the celebrated book The Black Swan but went on to interject the word ‘Bitdiot’ into every other tweet.
Crypto critics: Saving you from becoming wealthy since 2011.
And, there are plenty of grassroots opponents, too, like the zeitgeist style criticisms from NFT haters in the art community who see it as environment-destroying cancer or those in the gaming community who picture it as a shameless cash grab from game developers trying to squeeze another dollar out of users.
The question is: Why do crypto critics bother? What is it about the sector that both fascinates and repels them? Why don’t they just say, “meh, it’s not for me,” and get on with their lives?
this guy works on the most useless tech on the planet… private blockchains 👇🏻 https://t.co/hMoob0qUSq
I ask Gerard, who spends much of his waking hours scanning the internet for negative crypto news stories to feed into his blog. Gerard sold 14,000 copies of Attack — an almost unheard-of number for a self-published book in the United Kingdom — so a certain degree of professional success is undoubtedly part of the appeal. He’s transformed the book into a blog that averages 1000-3000 hits a day, while particularly strong stories like his reports on El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law can get 10,000 hits.
He says that he just can’t look away. “There‘s always stuff to cover, but it is fascinating — it‘s such an endless cavalcade of grifters, suckers and suckers who think they‘re the grifter,” he says.
“The moral core of Attack is that scams and scammers are bad and reprehensible. But, the hilarious stupidity is inexhaustible. There‘s always another story to tell about dumb crooks.”
“If crypto people would like me to stop, probably the first thing they need to do is stop feeding me material.”
A long time ago, in a former brothel
By curious coincidence around about the same time that the Cypherpunks were dreaming up e-cash outside the control of governments in the mid-1990s, Gerard and I were uni student housemates in a shabby former brothel in Brunswick, Australia. I hadn’t seen him since until he popped up in an interview for the film Cryptopia.
Back then, he was a greasy-haired music nerd and student newspaper editor who got into a massive fight with local Scientologists after running an expose on the cult-like aspects of the church and revealing its secrets about the alien Xenu who… well, you can look it up. The Scientologists were incensed and stole all the print copies. Gerard then started up the Australian Critics of Scientology webpage to get the material out.
In the mid-1990s, web pages looked like this.
Given the almost certain legal action from the church, hosting such a site was a risky endeavor. Gerard enlisted the help of a young hacker and Cypherpunk named Julian Assange, who was the system administrator of a free speech devoted ISP called Suburbia.net.
He recounted the experience in a recent podcast, noting that Assange had “titanium balls. Depleted uranium nutsack, it was incredible.”
“For about four years there he was getting legal threats, investigators coming around […] I will say that he stood by me absolutely reliably at that time, in what most people would call quite trying circumstances. I think that‘s because we both have the sort of inclination, the sort of person whose response to any slight whatsoever is ‘bring it on.’ Neither of us knew how to back down.”
Assange later said the experience with the Scientology site helped him realize how a certain platform called Wikileaks could work.
Gerard was as passionate then about fighting the cult of Scientology as he is today about fighting crypto, and it’s hard not to conclude that he sees himself as the lone voice of reason fighting against indoctrination and insanity in both cases. In a similar fashion, both Schiff and Roubini famously predicted the global financial crisis and now take pride in their ability to see through what they believe is the hype of blockchain and expose its hollow core.
Crypto influencer Cobie took aim at crypto critic Amy Castor this week. She responded: ”I must have touched a nerve. Poor little babies.”
Unlike many critics, Gerard actually does his research and is quite well informed about issues in the space, so if you can handle his relentlessly negative approach and frequently 100% wrong conclusions about how irredeemably terrible everything in crypto is, you’ll probably find at least some crypto news on his blog you won’t have seen elsewhere. In fact, anyone enthusiastic about crypto should probably follow at least a couple of skeptics to ensure they‘re getting the other side of the story.
Filmmaker Torsten Hoffman tells Magazine he featured Gerard in his award-winning 2020 Cryptopia documentary because “some of his points are well informed.”
“In the film, his take on corporate blockchain projects was spot on. They are often just disguised centralized database projects that the chief technology officer re-branded into blockchain in order to get the budget approved and a NYT headline.”
But, Gerard and one or two others are the exceptions that prove the rule. By and large, crypto critics appear to have no idea what they’re talking about. Taleb wrote an academic paper suggesting that the main Bitcoin blockchain will die because all the Bitcoin will move to the Lightning Network. Krugman has been recycling the same views he had more than a decade ago that Bitcoin‘s a bubble based on nothing that sets the monetary system back 300 years and is comparable to Bernie Maddoff‘s Ponzi scheme.
skeptics imagining all the scenarios in which crypto fails but ignoring the one reality in which its working pic.twitter.com/oi4HO6rcfg
Economics Professor Jason Potts, the co-director of the Blockchain Innovation Hub at RMIT in Melbourne, believes there‘s nothing like good criticism to sharpen your ideas and thinking. The trouble is, most of the current crop of crypto critics offer arguments that are nothing like good criticism.
“I think criticism has an incredibly important role in any intellectual endeavor. You‘re developing ideas and you need critics of ideas to help shape their development,” he says. “My perspective is that in the blockchain space, kind of since the beginning, the self-identified critics have been pretty underwhelming.”
If you haven‘t read our interview with Jason Potts about the future of blockchain, you‘re missing out.
Potts believes that the rapid evolution of the technology and the concepts involved means anyone not immersed in the topic risks being left behind.
“This is such a fast moving experimental space where just the knowledge gap between the frontiers and what we knew before is so vast, that unless you‘re actually involved in the space and building, it‘s really easy just to fundamentally misunderstand what’s going on.”
Loving the haters
So, why is it that the crypto community actively seems to enjoy the haters? Roubini has appeared at crypto conferences around the world, where he‘s dragged out like an ill-tempered performing monkey to rehash the same arguments for money in debates against crypto proponents from BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes to Bitcoin Cash’s Roger Ver.
And, Schiff‘s following seems to be overwhelmingly Bitcoiners. When his son Spencer decided to go all-in on Bitcoin rather than gold, the elder Schiff put up a Twitter poll asking: “Whose advice do you want to follow? A 57-year-old experienced investor/business owner who‘s been an investment professional for over 30 years or an 18-year-old college freshman who‘s never even had a job.”
Against my advice my son @SchiffSpencer just bought even more #Bitcoin. Whose advice do you want to follow? A 57-year-old experienced investor/business owner who’s been an investment professional for over 30 years or an 18-year-old college freshman who’s never even had a job.
The fact that 81% of 83,000 respondents picked “the kid” suggests a large part of his 650,000 Twitter followers are actually just Bitcoiners that love to hate-read his posts.
It’s possible that the fascination comes from a perverse sense of pride and enjoyment in listening to the haters, given Bitcoin has been declared dead by the media 446 times. Yet, the price keeps going up year after year as more and more institutions come on board. Vindication is a great feeling.
Hoffman, who‘s currently working on re-releasing his 2015 documentary Bitcoin: The End Of Money As We Know It, points out that Schiff exploits this dynamic for his own ends.
“Let‘s give the man some credit. He‘s a master troll. His crusade against Bitcoin — and Bitcoiners crusade against Schiff — just helps with getting more retweets, podcast downloads and page views. See, we‘re talking about him right here”
Rumor has it that Roubini could almost retire off a few more crypto conference appearances.
Cryptopia filmmaker Torsten Hoffman.
“Roubini has allegedly made a nice side career with six-digit speaking fees ranting about crypto,” says Hoffman. “That doesn‘t make everything he says wrong, but maybe we should look at people 40 years younger when it comes to understanding the crypto economy.”
BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes said something similar after the famed Tangle in Tapei debate with Roubini in 2019.
“It was quite clear that Roubini is a one-trick pony,” he added. “He increases his publicity by being hyper-critical of Bitcoin regardless of the actual facts. And that is why the media trots him out whenever they need someone to bash Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry.”
Hayes, of course, later pleaded guilty on charges related to Anti-Money Laundering provisions and agreed to pay a $10 million fine, which lends some credence to Roubini’s criticism that “BitMEX is just an example of everything that is sick and wrong in the industry.”
Everything new has its critics, of course. When mobile phones came out, anyone seen carrying one was reviled. When MP3 players arrived, no one thought carrying around a flash drive with three albums of low-quality music files was going to take off.
But, as Potts points out, disruptive tech also has to fight against those who benefit from the existing system.
“A lot of what is coming as criticism of the Bitcoin blockchain, crypto space is really just straight-up standard defensive maneuvers from existing power structures, and that doesn‘t strike me as an effective critique, that strikes me as just defensive of the status quo,” says Potts.
Potts says Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger are a case in point. Buffett thinks Bitcoin is “rat poison squared” and Munger compared it to venereal disease:
“They‘re invested in a previous set of institutional technologies and business models that are heavily reliant on the ways in which money and payments and registries and incentive structures organizations work. This is highly disruptive […] Therefore, just for purely shareholder self interest reasons, they don‘t like it.”
Krugman has been quite explicit about the need to defend the existing financial order against Bitcoin since he first criticized it in the New York Times in September 2011.
Paul Krugman has been wrong about Bitcoin since long before you heard about it.
He argued that if Bitcoin became a reserve currency, its fixed supply would mean central bankers couldn‘t inflate the money supply to stimulate the economy. In 2013, he approvingly quotes Charlie Stross in a blog post titled “Bitcoin is evil.”
“BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.”
Bitcoiners like to respond to his criticisms by pointing to his 1998 prediction that “By 2005, it will become clear that the internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
“He‘s far smarter than I ever will be,” says Potts “But, he‘s been very brave and making a lot of claims out loud that, in retrospect, they‘ve just been laughably wrong.”
“There are other economists, people like Larry White and others, macro monetary specialists and theorists who provide far more nuanced and sharper critique and are advancing an interesting critique of the space.”
The lack of regulation and a plethora of get-rich-quick investors who don’t understand the tech make crypto easy pickings for scammers. This is a driving motivation for critics like the Twitter influencer Mr Whale — whose bearish and contrarian takes have seen him amass over 430,000 followers — and independent “nocoiner” journalist Amy Castor. (Both declined to be interviewed for this piece.)
They believe the entire industry is wracked with financial fraud, from the QuadrigaX scandal (involving lost wallet keys, sudden death and an insolvent exchange) to the truth about the stablecoin issuer behind Tether.
While many journalists in crypto have reservations about Tether, some critics believe that it is an unquestionable fact Tether is unbacked and essentially printed $83 billion in USDT out of thin air.
This appears to be the logic behind Castor’s most famous and often referenced tweet, which makes no sense from a Bitcoin proponent‘s perspective, but makes total sense if you believe that everything about crypto is manipulated:
“When you see the price of Bitcoin hitting new highs like this, it means large holders are cashing out—ahead of the crash, which they all know is coming.”
Amy Castor‘s famed tweet that turned into a meme.
Tether has survived a New York Attorney General’s investigation and court case about its reserves, so if it is a perpetual money printing machine, they‘ve done very well to keep it going. Of course, given some of the stuff that really does go on in crypto, that‘s not a non-zero possibility.
Political enemies
As Gerard’s hatred of Libertarians suggests, a reaction to the perceived politics of Bitcoin is a strong motivation for many. While technology is arguably politically neutral, that’s not how crypto critics see it.
David Golumbia wrote The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism, which argues that Bitcoin was borne out of the right-wing conspiratorial Libertarian culture of the Cypherpunks and that the technology itself is inherently right wing.
I‘ve interviewed Golumbia at length on the subject and found him to be a fascinating and insightful person with deep background knowledge, but even leaving aside the highly contested idea the Cypherpunks were right wing, the contention seems a little bit similar to arguing that because the Volkswagen Beetle was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler (and Ferdinand Porsche) then everyone who drives one must be a Nazi.
Gerard, however, believes the basic thesis is correct and says it informed a chapter of his book. Curiously, he also doesn’t think Ethereum fans are any less right wing than Bitcoiners.
“‘ETH is left wing’ is nonsense. Buterin espouses basic Silicon Valley techno-libertarianism with subtle anarcho-capitalism underneath that pretends to hide its power level. His parents are ardent ancaps and brought him up with this stuff. His main sponsor is Peter Theil. He might be ‘left’ of the most rabid Bitcoin ancaps, but not of any sort of political spectrum outside the weird world of crypto.”
As you might expect, Potts reacts strongly against the characterization of crypto as inherently right wing and says both left and right are involved in crypto as a way to overcome the centralization of power, whether political or monopolistic corporations.
“It‘s both a left-wing and a right-wing story about trying to remove concentrations of power, whether its political power or market power from systems,” he says.
“The fundamental story of a lot of different people involved in the space and a lot of different political or motivational backgrounds that generally share the same overarching narrative is that we don‘t like centralization of power. And, we don‘t like arbitrary control of systems.”
“The critics are the ones that are defending the status quo. And, I just find it sort of ironic that‘s the real battle here. I don‘t see it as a left versus right story, I see it as a protection of the status quo, political hierarchies, versus an attempt to innovate with new institutions. And, I would love the critics to represent that idea.”
Crypto intelligence firm IntoTheBlock reports that the number of large transactions on the Cardano blockchain has increased by more than 50X this year.
Large Transaction Volume (LTV) refers to aggregated volume from transactions denominated in Cardano’s native ADA token valued at more than $100,000. Since Jan. 1, LTV has increased from 1.35 billion ADA per day to 69 billion ADA (worth $81.4 billion) changing hands on Cardano on Mar. 28.
That’s a 51-fold increase in about three months and marks one of the highest volume levels since mid-2018, according to IntoTheBlock. In a Mar. 29 tweet, the firm said that such high volume indicates “increasing institutional demand.”
@Cardano is experiencing increasing institutional demand
The volume of on-chain transactions >$100k has increased by 50x just in 2022
While other metrics such as average transaction size and volatility remain relatively stagnant according to the data analytics firm, total addresses have been increasing since the start of 2022. The year began with about 3.4 million addresses, which has now grown to 5 million. While only seven DApps appear on DeFi Llama currently, co-founder Charles Hoskinson said many more are expected following due to a hard fork expected mid year.
Total value locked (TVL) is currently at $303 million according to DeFi app tracker DeFiLlama, just shy of the $326 million all-time high set on Mar. 24.
Hoskinson gave a rousing keynote speech at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai on Monday in which he spoke of the need for decentralization and the difficulties in coordination it entails. He said that “we are entering a new era,” with Web3 but the problem is that “unlike with Web2, there’s no leader” to make decisions for the industry.
“If we’re truly decentralized, we have to somehow come together and figure this out. We have to write some sort of constitution for these things; we have to decide ‘What is the Bill of Rights for the use of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology?’”
“There are two paths before us — one, we keep our integrity and we look to decentralization, find these things, understand these things,” he said. “Or, two, we ignore it. In which case we’ll have custodians, we’ll have escort keys, highly centralized, highly optimized consensus algorithms that can be reset at any time. The few will be in control of the many.
“This is the decision, and I don’t make that decision — all of you do.”
Waves (WAVES) has hit record highs in a recent bullish run that appears to be stronger than ever. The coin has smashed past several key indicators and looks like bulls still have a lot of room to run. So, what should you expect next? More on this to follow but first, here are some notable developments:
Waves had rallied nearly 50% in 24 hours though it retreated slightly.
The 24-hour surge is part of a weekly uptrend that we saw last week.
The coin has now smashed past its all-time highs.
Data Source: Tradingview
Waves (WAVES) – What comes next?
The rally today came on major news from the platform. Waves will now begin operations in the US and is setting aside a lot of money to bring in developers to the ecosystem. But this is not the only thing. Over the last 2 weeks, the coin has been rising and rising.
It has gone past several resistance zones and unleashed a bullish momentum that has taken it well above its ATH. Although it is likely Waves will pull back, we do not see this happening in the coming days.
In fact, waves is likely to test $60 in the days ahead before any sell-off even comes into the picture. The coin has for now paired all losses reported this year and is looking forward to Q2 with a vengeance.
Should you buy Waves (WAVES) now?
There is no doubt WAVES is on the run. Every indicator is bullish right now, so it’s the best time to buy for any short-term trader. Q2 also promises to be a very big period for this token.
$60 is well in sight in the near term and as such, this gives investors a very good opportunity to make decent returns as they take advantage of this bullish sentiment.
Over the past week, Dogelon Mars (ELON) has been one of the main meme coin performers. The toke is up nearly 40% in a week or so and has shown significant bullish momentum. But how long can it sustain gains before a major sell-off? More analysis in the post but here are some important facts first.
Dogelon Mars has outperformed the entire market by almost 15% in the past week.
The coin has closed higher in the last four days in a row
In the last two days alone, ELON has surged by over 25%.
Data Source: Tradingview
Dogelon Mars (ELON) – Can bulls maintain the uptrend?
Despite this recent surge, it seems like the price action has been bouncing off two crucial support and resistance zones. In fact, ELON has tried to surge past the overhead resistance zone of $0.0000012, but bulls have not managed to get enough demand. The coin is however getting closer and closer and could break through in the coming days.
If this happens, then we should have a sustained upward breakout that could deliver minimal gains of about 30%. Also, the sentiment in the crypto market is showing good signs. This means that investor appetite towards meme coins, which are largely speculative assets, is returning. For this reason, it is likely that in the near term, ELON will report more and more gains.
Is Dogelon Mars a good buy now?
The key for short-term traders is to watch the $0.0000012 price. If the meme coin can rise above this, then it is likely that more gains will come. We are looking at an upswing of around 30% before any pullback.
So, with that in mind, Dogelon is a good buy. But from a long-term point of view, it would be best to wait until sentiment in the crypto market has fully stabilised before jumping in.
This week Gnosis (GNO) price notched a swift 50%+ rally after the project took another step forward in its transition to the Coincidence of Wants Procotol, or CoW, an interface that offers traders protection from miner extracted value (MEV).
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of GNO has gained 86% over the past seven days, rising from a low of $308 on March 21 to an intraday high at $574 on March 28.
GNO/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the rapid price increase for GNO are the release of the CowSwap (COW) token, which was airdropped to Gnosis holders, traders’ appreciation of the MEV-protection offered by the protocol and the potential for GNO holders to receive additional airdrops in the future.
COW drops!
The most recent price surge appears primarily connected to the official release of COW, the native token of the CowSwap protocol which offers traders MEV-protection.
$COW token is finally expected to unlock around 3pm UTC today.
This will kick off a 12 week $COW liquidity mining program on @ethereum & @gnosis chain aginst $ETH and $GNO pairs.
COW tokens were airdropped to GNO holders based on the number of tokens held or staked during a snapshot that was taken back in early January, with 5% of COW tokens going to GNO holders who could receive an extra 5% if they had locked their GNO tokens on the protocol for a period of one year.
At the time of writing, COW has been listed on Uniswap and is trading at a price of $1.35.
MEV protection features add value to GNO and COW
The main draw of the CowSwap protocol is the MEV-protections offered that can help traders get better terms on swaps and avoid being front run or the victim of a sandwich attack.
What Ethereum people call “Miner Extracted Value” is what Bitcoiners call a game theory fail.
MEV = willfully frontrunning transactions, paying higher fees to do flash loans, sandwich attacks, etc.
It’s a mix between extortion, pickpocketing & perverse free market incentives.
Miner extracted value is a sort of “invisible” tax that occurs on the Ethereum (ETH) network where miners can increase their profitability by including, excluding or re-ordering transactions within the block they produce.
This feature allows miners to conduct certain exploits including front-running, back-running and transaction sandwiching, which help to increase profits at the expense of traders.
According to data from flashbots, more than $605 million in value has been extracted by miners using this process since January 2020 — a figure which CowSwap looks to help mitigate moving forward through its introduction of MEV protection.
Future airdrops could give a long-term boost to GNO price
A third factor helping to boost the demand for GNO is the prospect of additional airdrops coming to GNO holders and stakers.
This includes an allocation of the soon-to-be-released SAFE token for Gnosis Safe, a platform in the Gnosis ecosystem that is designed to securely manage digital assets.
According to data from Dune Analytics, there is currently more than $77 billion worth of value held in Gnosis Safe contracts, a substantial amount that hints at the amount of trust various depositors have in the protocol.
Total USD value of assets stored in Gnosis Safe. Source: Dune Analytics
Documentation released by Gnosis Safe indicates that 20% of SAFE tokens will be distributed to the GNO community via direct distribution to GNO holders and a substantial deposit into the GnosisDAO treasury.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for GNO on March 23, prior to the recent price rise.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. GNO price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for GNO began to pick up on March 23 and hit a high of 78 around nine hours before the price increased 78% over the next four days.
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.
