Bitcoin Price: US$ 41,941.71 (+8.29%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,726.98(+5.86%)
Magic Eden Multiplies, Airdrop Rumors, & Exploring Oracle Attacks
- Magic Eden has become the dominant NFT Marketplace on Solana, generating 95% of the transaction share across all Solana-based NFT Marketplaces.
- Throughout the NFT bull season, Magic Eden has consistently gained against its rivals. The progress is eerily similar to OpenSea’s market share on Ethereum. That said, NFT volume on Solana lags behind Ethereum significantly. For context, the 24H volume on Ethereum was $47M compared to Solana with just $2.4M as shown on Cryptoslam.io.
- DexGuru has whitelisted the following communities to mint a Guru Season Pass NFT:
- Users who tipped DexGuru before Feb. 1, 2022
- LobsterDAO NFT holders
- DEXT token holders
- UniWhales token holders
- Chartex token holders
- AstroTools token holders
- EmberSword will be hosting a live stream of the pre-alpha stress test. There may be raffled rewards for discord members.
- Bastion Protocol has just launched its pre-mining program. Emission rates are 10x during pre-mining which will last for an undefined period of time. Users will be retroactively airdropped the amount they pre-mined.
- Altered State Machine has announced their ASTO Airdrop. 3% of the total supply will be airdropped to Genesis Brain holders and Brains still in their box. There will also be an airdrop for Allstars soon.
- Bastion Protocol is a decentralized lending and borrowing protocol that algorithmically sets interest rates based on supply and demand. The protocol is based on Compound and is built on Aurora, NEAR’s EVM-compatible layer. The ultimate vision for Bastion is to be the liquidity hub of NEAR, where no asset lies unproductive and composable cTokens form the base of the ecosystem.
- Oracles represent critical infrastructure for DeFi. Their importance stems not only from their widespread use, but also, and most importantly, from how they’re used within DeFi. Specifically, oracles often lie at the heart of a number of different DeFi protocols and are a key component to their safety model. As such, they represent an important attack vector for protocols who use them and are in fact a common target for smart contract attacks.
- In this paper, we explore some common oracle-related attacks, as well as the cost and profit potential associated with them. We focus specifically on CPMM based TWAP oracles, which are a specific oracle implementation that relies on on-chain DEX prices. We conclude with an initial exploration of a framework for safely setting CPMM based TWAP oracle parameters. Continue in Delphi
Crypto.com airdrops LeBron James NFT collection to eagle-eyed Super Bowl ad viewers
- The Crypto.com exchange announced the airdrop of its “The Moment of Truth” nonfungible token (NFT) collection featuring Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James to 5,550 randomly selected viewers of its Super Bowl commercial. Those who found and scanned a hidden QR code that appeared 10 seconds into a conversation between present-day James and his apprehensive teenage self could enter to win a limited edition NFT. The collection consists of instant snapshots of behind-the-scenes moments from the making of the Big Game spot.
- “Sleuths” who scanned a QR code that appeared on-screen for a split second followed it to a “secret” webpage and had the chance to sign up for the Crypto.com NFT platform until the Friday after the ame. Lucky fans will be airdropped one of 5,550 total NFTs for free; the drop is made up of 15 NFTs that come in three tiers with varying editions.
Terra off to new record high as LUNA price outperforms market with 30% rebound in 3 days
- Terra’s LUNA resumed its upward march this week, with the price of the token rebounding more than 30% in three days.
- LUNA’s price reached nearly $100 on March 9 following a 15% intraday rally, coming near its record high of $106 from December 2021. At its week-to-date (WTD) low, the Terra token was trading at $75.60.
- The recent bout of buying in the LUNA market appeared in part due to similar recoveries elsewhere in the crypto market. For instance, Terra’s leading competitor in the smart contract space, Ethereum, saw its Ether (ETH) token rise by 13.50% during the same period. Similarly, Bitcoin (BTC) also jumped by over 14% from its WTD low below $37,200.
- Arthur Cheong, founder of DeFiance Capital, hinted on March 9 that LUNA price increased because of Terra’s ability to capture at least $1 trillion or more worth of decentralized stablecoin market space via its native U.S. dollar-pegged token, TerraUSD (UST).
- Notably, the supply of UST tokens reached over 1.4 billion on March 9, its highest level to date, according to data from Smart Stake. At the same time, the Terra protocol removed 120 million LUNA tokens from the supply permanently.
- The total value locked inside the Terra protocol surged from nearly $18 billion at the beginning of this year to $25.58 billion as of March 9, its highest level to date. This includes a spike in total locked LUNA tokens from 215.80 million to 298.89 million in the same period.
- Terra also emerged as the highest staked asset among all the cryptocurrencies on a 24-hour adjusted timeframe, with over $35.75 million worth of LUNA tokens now locked across multiple platforms, according to data resource Staking Rewards.
Bitcoin transaction fees briefly doubled yet remain exceptionally low
- There was, however, a small bump in transaction fees last week. Shown as a small jump at the tail end of the graph, clustering of the mempool pushed “up the average transaction fees per day over the past seven days to $691,000, a doubling since last Tuesday.”
- Nonetheless, the doubling in transaction fees is insignificant: Transaction fees remained in a low range. Miners churned through the mempool transactions over a two-day period, securing the network while keeping transacting affordable.
- Eric Yakes, the author of the Bitcoin book, The 7th Property, told Cointelegraph that there were three main reasons why transaction costs are so low: Segwit adoption, hash rate redistribution and Bitcoin layer-2 infrastructure, such as the near-instant payment Lightning Network, kicking in.
Avalanche aims to accelerate subnet adoption with multiverse incentive program
- Blockchain network Avalanche announced the launch of Avalanche Multiverse, an incentive program that will accelerate the adoption of subnets that are app-specific blockchain ecosystems.
- According to the director of Avalanche Foundation, Emin Gün Sirer, subnets are the next big thing on the blockchain. GünSirer said that subnets enable functions that are only possible with “network-level control and open experimentation.” He also mentioned that while smart contracts carried innovations within blockchain in the last five years, he believes subnets are next.
- The program will allocate up to four million Avalanche (AVAX), worth roughly $290 million, to fund blockchain gaming, decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and institutional use cases.
- The Avalanche Multiverse is headlined by many prominent collaborators including DeFi Kingdoms, Aave, Golden Tree Asset Management, Wintermute, Jump Crypto, Valkyrie and Securitize.
Bitcoin returns to $42K as markets await potential 7.9% CPI inflation data
- Amid local highs of $42,438 on Bitstamp, the mood among traders was also improving, but caution remained.
- Multiple macro factors: The Russia-Ukraine war, inflation and the United States‘ incoming executive order on cryptocurrency all kept commentators wary.
- Bets remained open as to the impact of Thursday‘s consumer price index (CPI) data for February. This is expected to be 7.9% and a key driver of short-term volatility for BTC/USD.
- The data would precede the following week‘s decision on key interest rates from the Federal Reserve, with expectations just as varied as to its scope.
Goldman Sachs is hooking clients up with Galaxy Digital’s ETH fund
- Financial services giant Goldman Sachs has been offering clients exposure to Ether (ETH) through Galaxy Digital’s Ethereum Fund, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
- Goldman Sachs clients keen on spot exposure to ETH have been offered space in Galaxy’s ETH Fund. This strategy became apparent in a Tuesday filing from Galaxy which listed Goldman as a recipient of introduction fees for referring clients to the fund.
- Galaxy Digital is billionaire Mike Novogratz’s crypto-focused financial service provider. It controlled $2.8 billion assets under management (AUM) as of the end of Q4 2021.
- It is unclear exactly how much Goldman clients have bought, but the minimum investment per investor is $250,000. The filing also states that Galaxy’s ETH Fund has had sales of just over $50.5 million since inception.
Regulators and industry leaders react to Biden‘s executive order on crypto
- In a Wednesday announcement, the White House said President Biden’s executive order required government agencies to explore the potential rollout of a United States central bank digital currency as well as coordinate and consolidate policy on a national framework for crypto. Many media outlets previously reported the U.S. president had initially planned to sign the executive order in February, an event that was likely postponed following Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.
- The reaction from many industry leaders compared the executive order to a regulatory opportunity — Biden had rarely spoken directly about crypto and blockchain during his presidency. Reports suggested that the situation with Russia potentially using digital currency to evade U.S. sanctions may have contributed to the U.S. president not waiting longer. The executive order mentioned the risks of circumventing sanctions three times, a sentiment echoed by National Economic Council director Brian Deese and National Security advisor Jake Sullivan:
- “The approach outlined in the E.O. will reinforce U.S. leadership in the global financial system and safeguard the long-term efficacy of critical national security tools like sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering frameworks.”
- “While I agree with the President’s desire to combat money laundering and defend America’s national security, I think his executive order misses the fact that the overwhelming majority of digital asset users are law-abiding and trying to make our financial system better,” said Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Bitcoin (BTC) HODLer who has taken a pro-crypto stance on many pieces of legislation. “We need thoughtful rules around stablecoins, and though I remain unconvinced on the need for a central bank digital currency, I will continue to follow the Federal Reserve’s work in this area closely.”
THORChain Activates Feature, 30% Spike Follows, Can Bulls Sustain It?
- Up almost 30% during today’s trading session, decentralized cross-chain exchange THORChain (RUNE) trades north of $5.28. One of the top gainers in the current relief rally across the market, the network has activated synthetic assets, a new feature that could attract use cases and users to the platform.
- Per an official post, synthetics assets are tokens pegged to the value of their underlying collateral, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. In order words, users can now access BTC, ETH, and others running on THORChain.
- Furthermore, synthetics assets will provide THORChain users with the ability to earn as much as 20% interest on their holdings. For that, users will need to lock their assets on a vault called THORSaving which will have an initial 5% APY.
Ripple’s $XRP Lawsuit: SEC Commissioner Reportedly Believes Regulator Won’t Get Outcome It Wants
- U.S. Securities and Exchange (SEC) Commissioner Hester Pierce reportedly believes that the regulator will not get the outcome it’s looking for in its lawsuit against Ripple over the $XRP token.
- The SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple and two of its executives alleges they “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.” It negatively impacted the price of XRP, as after the lawsuit was announced most cryptocurrency exchanges started delisting the token to avoid any repercussions, affecting its liquidity.
- Some exchanges, however, sided with Ripple on the lawsuit, arguing that the SEC’s move hurt XRP investors. Crypto exchange Uphold pointed out that the SEC’s goal is to protect consumers, and believes it’s hard to see “how a judgment rendering XRP essentially worthless and inflicting billions of dollars of losses on retail investors” would square with that goal.
- Ripple’s lawyers, according to legal expert Jeremy Hogan, expect the lawsuit to be over sometime between August 26 and November 18 of this year.
