Bitcoin Price: US$ 42053.66 (-0.3%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 3,072.49 (-5.29%)
Injective Protocol (INJ) rallies 100%+ after launching cross-chain support for Cosmos
- One DEX platform that has begun to gain traction is Injective (INJ), an interoperable layer-one protocol designed to facilitate the creation of cross-chain Web3 decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
- Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $3.91 on Feb. 3, the price of INJ has rallied 157.8% to a daily high of $10.08 on Feb. 11 amidst a 1,756% spike in its 24-hour trading volume to $306 million.
- The most recent development that helped kick off the price growth for INJ was the release of the Injective Bridge v2 at the end of January, which included a variety of upgrades designed to help facilitate cross-chain compatibility with Cosmos (ATOM) and Ethereum (ETH).
- A second development helping to bring fresh momentum to Injective has been the addition of new assets to the DEX, including the first-ever decentralized perpetual futures for ATOM.
- The release of Injective Bridge v2 was also followed by a surge in the total value locked on the platform, and data from DeFi Llama shows the metric hitting a new all-time high.
Bitcoin network hash rate explodes to a new all-time high of 248.11 EH/s
- The Bitcoin (BTC) network has recorded a new hash rate all-time high of 248.11M TH/s as of Feb. 12, 2022, further securing the decentralized ecosystem through a growing network of global BTC miners.
- The hash rate correlates to the computing power required by a miner’s computer equipment to confirm a transaction. The recent spike in BTC’s network hash rate ensures further security against attacks by deterring bad actors from confirming fraudulent transactions.
Laundering via digital pictures? A new twist in the regulatory discussion around NFTs
- On Feb. 6, the United States Department of the Treasury released a report under the headline “Study of the facilitation of money laundering and terror finance through the trade in works of art.” In fact, only a tiny fraction of the 40-page document is dedicated to the “Emerging Digital Art Market,” by which the department understands the market for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. Still, even a brief mention of the emerging NFT space in this context can have major implications for the tone of the nascent regulatory debate with regard to the asset class.
- The overall tone of the report is hardly alarming for the NFT space: The document casually mentions the growing interest in the digital art market both from private investors and legacy institutional players such as auction houses and galleries. Nevertheless, several key points illuminate potential areas of regulatory anxiety with regard to this exploding sector of the digital asset industry, which, according to the Treasury’s estimates, generated $1.5 billion in trading volume in the first three months of 2021.
Bitcoin dips below $42K as crypto sentiment returns to ‘fear’
- Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD reaching local lows of $41,741 on Bitstamp Saturday before a rebound over $42,000.
- The late drawdown this week was nonetheless more than convincing enough for crypto market sentiment to take a fresh hit.
- According to the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, three days of “neutral” territory was enough before the return of “fear” as the main force at play among traders.
DeFi flashes early revival signs as retail and institutional inflows trickle in
- Data from Defi Llama shows that the total value locked in all of DeFi platforms has climbed to $211.1 billion on Feb. 11, up from a low of $185.14 billion on Jan. 31
- A closer look at the individual protocols that contribute to the total TVL shows that the biggest drawdowns in TVL over the past 30 days were in stablecoin-focused protocols like Curve (CRV) and Convex Finance (CVX), which appeared to suffer from the collateral damage of popular rebase projects like OlympusDAO (OHM) and Wonderland (TIME) imploding.
- Projects that were closely integrated with Curve also saw significant outflows, with Yearn.Finance experiencing a 28.57% decline in TVL and Abracadabra.money seeing its TVL fall by 46.3% amid the controversy surrounding members of its development team.
- A closer look at the breakdown of which applications experience the most users indicates that Uniswap once again dominates the field with 3,608,951unique wallets interacting with the DEX protocol, followed by 1Inch with 1,108,570.
Introducing SAND staking on Polygon
- SAND, the utility and governance token used throughout The Sandbox’s metaverse, will now have a SAND-only staking option. With the airdrop that was received on Polygon a few weeks ago, it’s the perfect opportunity to stake your mSAND. And while we greatly reduced gas fees through the use of Polygon, this new staking mechanism is completely gasless through Biconomy. Simpler than ever.
