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Over $480 million in tokens from numerous projects will be unlocked next month. APT has the most staggering unlock value as $237 million tokens would be released. Several other projects with unlock events in January include dYdX, OP, and INJ. The crypto community has been abuzz with the sheer weight of crypto tokens set to flood the market in January alone. A DeFi researcher with X username recently called public attention to 12 crypto projects with plans to unleash multi-million dollar coins throughout January. Data from notable tracking platforms such as Token Unlock backed the information in the curated list.  The native token of the prominent decentralized exchange dYdX (DYDX) led the pack as its next unlock is scheduled for tomorrow, the first day of the new year. The dYdX team will release 33.3 million tokens that comprise 12.36% of the circulating supply. Notably, the to-be-freed assets hold a market value estimated at approximately $101,000,000.  ...

Activity on Ethereum L2s in 2023 was time 90x what it was during the 2021 bull market. If bulls defend the $1.29 support, ARB may rebound in the short term. OP can drop as low as $3.34 as selling pressure continues to increase. According to IntoTheBlock, activity shifted from the Ethereum (ETH) Mainnet to its Layer-two (L2) protocols in 2023. The blockchain intelligence firm, in its post on X, noted that transactions increased on the L2s 90 times compared to what it was in 2021. In 2023, activity on Ethereum has increasingly moved to L2s, with L2 transactions increasing by 90x compared to 2021 pic.twitter.com/FhWJ1WG2ju — IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) December 30, 2023 Ethereum L2s were developed as a way to solve the scalability issues users face on the main chain. Roughly, the Ethereum Mainnet processes 15 transactions per second. This process also comes with high gas fees. However, the launch of optimistic rollups including Arbitrum (ARB) and...

On the first day of every month, Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP tokens from an escrow system of the XRP Ledger. On January 1 (Monday), the company will unlock $620 million worth of tokens in three transactions of 100 million, 400 million, and 500 million XRP. Interestingly, January 2024’s unlock accrues for 1.84% of the current 53.56 billion circulating supply and 2.17% of the remaining 45.87 billion XRP tokens under Ripple’s control. The latter are still locked in escrows to be released monthly until May 2027. Three escrows will reach finality in the last minutes of 2023, held by two known crypto wallet addresses owned by Ripple. In particular, ‘Ripple (22)’ will unlock 500 million XRP, previously locked in November 2019. Ripple 22 assets – escrows. Source: XRP Scan Further, ‘Ripple (23)’ will unlock 100 million and 400 million tokens, locked in December and November 2019, respectively. These two addresses still hold 2 billion XRP tokens for monthly escrows that will be unl...

The U.S. bankruptcy court has approved Celsius’ plan to transition its focus to Bitcoin mining. Celsius will be led by U.S. Bitcoin Corp., parting ways with the originally selected bidders. The approved bankruptcy plan frees up $225 million worth of crypto, benefiting customers. The U.S. bankruptcy court has granted approval for cryptocurrency lender Celsius’s Network to pivot to Bitcoin mining, according to a Reuters report.  A U.S. bankruptcy judge has approved the request, ruling that the company could deviate from the previously approved bankruptcy plan. The judge cited that the creditors and customers “were no worse off under the new restructuring.”  According to the U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn in Manhattan, the bankruptcy plan, which was approved in November, contained enough flexibility to allow Celsius to switch to a backup plan. The switch was deemed reasonable after Celsius reached a “road block” with the U.S. Securities and Exchange ...

The most widely publicized news from the crypto industry this year was the collapse of FTX. Once the world’s second-largest crypto exchange valued at $32 billion, Sam Bankman-Fried’s exchange declared bankruptcy in November 2022. Google search queries for FTX increased 50-fold after it declared bankruptcy. Five of its executives have pleaded guilty to federal crimes in US courts. Shortly prior to its downfall, CZ at Binance publicly disparaged FTX and dumped Binance’s holdings of FTX’s proprietary token, FTT. The situation was bad enough that UK politicians asked Binance if it knew its announcements would topple Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire. Quickly, John J. Ray III’s team, which oversaw the bankruptcy wind-down of Enron, took over FTX’s halted operations. They have unearthed the horrible, fraudulent reality of FTX’s operations – including stolen billions from customers. Indeed, so much has happened with FTX since its implosion that the fallen leader is worth revisiting, here at t...

Coinbase co-founder Ehrsam Frederick Ernest III appears to be the most active seller of COIN shares in December, according to Insider Alerts data. December appears to be the most active month for Coinbase insiders selling shares, with a total USD volume of more than $120 million, as per data collected by Insider Alerts. During the last month of the year, Coinbase co-founder Ehrsam Frederick Ernest III dumped over 450,000 shares in multiple transactions, with the largest one being 114,142 shares for $14.9 million. BIG insider selling happening at $COIN pic.twitter.com/WDhuIxF7EC — Insider Tracker (@TrackInsiders_) December 27, 2023 You might also like: ARK Invest continues Coinbase sell-off, surpassing $200m in December sales Coinbase CPO Lawrence J Brock also sold a total of 104,767 COIN shares in one transaction for $18.3 million in December. Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong appears to be the third most active seller during the last month of the year, sel...

ShimmerEVM’s integration with LayerZero is expected to enhance cross-chain communication and DeFi on IOTA’s ShimmerEVM. Connectivity includes with Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain and Optimism among other chains. IOTA’s ShimmerEVM has integrated with LayerZero to bring cross-chain messaging technology to users, according to an announcement published on December 27. The integration extends ShimmerEVM’s connectivity to major blockchains, enabling further interoperability via a unified cross-chain ecosystem, Shimmer  posted on X. Per details in its blog post, this move means users will now be able to interact and transact across several networks while within the Shimmer ecosystem. ShimmerEVM’s cross-chain connectivity Shimmer Shimmer is a block chain platform within the IOTA ecosystem from where developers can build and deploy decentralised applications (dApps), with access to Features currently unavailable...

The crypto market has started consolidating in the week between Christmas and New Years Day, after registering significant growth over the past month.  According to data provided by CoinGecko, the leading crypto currencies, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), have historically witnessed sideways movements with less bearish momentum at the start of the holidays in 2021 and 2022. The broader crypto market also recorded slight declines during the end of December in the past two years.  Per CoinGecko, the global crypto market capitalization declined from a local high of $1.764 trillion on Dec. 25 to $1.728 trillion at the time of writing — recording a $36 billion decline.  You might also like: Today’s top cryptocurrency gainers: PancakeSwap, Sei, BNB On the other hand, data from the market intelligence platform Santiment shows that further bullish momentum could be on the way for the crypto ecosystem.  Trending keywords on social media – Dec. 27 | Source: ...

Explore the comprehensive breakdown of what happened to FTX in 2023: from Sam Bankman-Fried going to jail to his ex-girlfriend’s confessions. The crypto industry has always been filled with captivating stories of massive success, overnight failures, notorious scams, and overwhelming frauds. However, very few stories have impacted the world of cryptocurrency and finance as much as the dramatic rise and fall of FTX. The FTX saga was unveiled under the leadership of Sam Bankman-Fried, a young entrepreneur who rapidly ascended to the upper echelons of the crypto world. It is a tale of ambition, innovation, and a catastrophic downfall. In this article, we’ll explore the intriguing details of the FTX fraud, from its meteoric rise to its ultimate failure, resulting in the criminal conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried.  FTX’s rise and prominence Bankman-Fried’s journey in the crypto world began with establishing Alameda Research in 2017, a quantitative trading firm. His successful ...

While the cryptocurrency industry has been evolving over the years, it has given rise to many companies oriented on cryptocurrencies and their related blockchain technology. At the same time, their shares have become equal participants in the stock market, some performing better than others in 2023. Indeed, four crypto stocks have stood out for their significantly bullish price movements and related positive developments during the year that is almost over, and their success might even continue in 2024, provided they maintain the positive trend from 2023. #1 Marathon Digital (NASDAQ: MARA) Specifically, crypto mining giant Marathon Digital (NASDAQ: MARA) has climbed the ranks to become the largest Bitcoin (BTC) mining company with a $5.94 billion market capitalization according to the CompaniesMarketCap data from December 26, and it has managed to grow its stock price by 685.59% in 2023. Top 5 Bitcoin mining companies by market cap. Source: CompaniesMarketCap Trading at $26.71, ...

Indian officials, aligned with the RBI, say the regulator has not changed its stance on crypto emphasizing an outright ban. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) remains convinced that crypto currencies should be banned. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Indian newspaper Hindustan Times that treating crypto assets as regulated entities may not have significant upsides. They suggest that, at best, they should be treated akin to gambling instruments. Although the Indian government is engaged with crypto businesses on the matter, the RBI noted that the government cannot ignore concerns around digital currencies. “The government cannot sidestep the RBI’s concerns while deciding on crypto currencies, as it is responsible for monetary stability in India and maintains price stability.” An unnamed RBI official While the fate of crypto in India remains uncertain, entrepreneurs in the sector are grappling with challenges imposed by local regulators. T...

The native token for a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on Solana (SOL) has skyrocketed by more than 95% this week amid roaring network growth. Raydium (RAY) is an on-chain order book automated market maker (AMM). The project’s native token, RAY, is trading at $1.72 at time of writing, up from around $0.88 one week ago. The 144th-ranked crypto asset by market cap is also up nearly 16% in the past 24 hours and more than 1,140% since the start of 2023. RAY’s recent gains have materialized as the Raydium protocol witnessed an explosion in total value locked (TVL). TVL refers to the amount of capital deposited within a protocol’s smart contracts and is often used to gauge the health of a crypto ecosystem. Raydium clocks $116.8 million in TVL at time of writing, according to the decentralized finance tracker DeFi Llama. That number represents an increase of more than 38% in the past week and 118% in the past month. Solana’s TVL has also ballooned...

Hashdex has updated its Bitcoin ETF filing, naming BitGo as its custodian. The crypto asset management company also changed the name of its Bitcoin Futures ETF to the Hashdex Bitcoin ETF. Hashdex’s update comes after the SEC met with representatives from some companies that applied for spot Bitcoin ETF. One of the crypto asset management companies that applied for spot Bitcoin ETF, Hashdex, has updated its filing, naming BitGo, a digital asset trust and security company, as its custodian. According to reports, Hashdex also changed the name of its Bitcoin Futures ETF to the Hashdex Bitcoin ETF in the updated version of its filing. Hashdex and several other spot Bitcoin ETF applicants are hoping for approval for the first US spot Bitcoin ETF early next year. The recent update to its filing has boosted expectations among Hashdex followers and other crypto enthusiasts paying attention to developments in the crypto industry. The recent agreement with BitGo comes acr...

Solana (SOL) surged in the past 24 hours to bring it within a whisker of becoming the world’s fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. And it did briefly seize that spot earlier today before quickly yielding it again to Binance’s BNB coin. When SOL hit $97.07, its market cap surged to $41.38 billion, enabling it to momentarily flip BNB.  SOLANA FLIPPED BNB pic.twitter.com/ISdrnGfoTb — borovik.eth (@3orovik) December 22, 2023 This achievement marked the first time in over two years that Solana has achieved the fourth ranking, highlighting its resurgence in the crypto world after a 680% pump in the past 12 months.  Solana Closing On Binance Coin Given its recent steep upward trajectory (+70% in the past month), and Binance’s legal and regulatory woes, the likelihood that SOL flips BNB sooner or later would seem to be high. BNB is up just 10% in the past 12 months and has climbed almost 15% in the past month.  As of 8:45 a.m. E...

France is rapidly establishing itself as a welcoming hub for the cryptocurrency industry, with recent approvals granted to major players Coinbase and Circle by France’s Financial Markets Authority (AMF). This marks a pivotal moment for the nation’s evolving crypto landscape. Coinbase’s Accreditation as a Virtual Asset Services Provider Coinbase, a global cryptocurrency exchange giant, proudly announced its registration as a virtual asset services provider in France. This endorsement from the AMF empowers Coinbase to deliver a comprehensive suite of products and services, addressing the needs of retail, institutional, and ecosystem participants in the French market. This strategic move solidifies Coinbase’s position among other registered industry leaders, such as Binance and Bybit. Coinbase’s Market Impact and Service Offerings Ranked as the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange globally by CoinGecko, Coinbase’s registration enables it to offe...