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Despite Bitcoin’s muted monthly performance, STX, SSV, CFX, AGIX and GRT surged higher, likely because of popular market narratives. The month of February was filled with investors’ hope that an earlier-than-expected Federal Reserve policy pivot would occur, but this sentiment faded as the inflation and employment data came in hotter than expected. While the start of the month was bullish for the crypto market, Bitcoin (BTC) retraced 60% of the move from February’s low at around $21,500 to the peak of $25,250.  Nevertheless, some narrative-driven rallies still caused significant price growth in some altcoins. The leading narratives were Bitcoin NFTs, liquidity staking derivatives (LSDs) on Ethereum and Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects. Let’s review the top performing coins of the month. Stacks (STX) Stacks gained much attention as the hype over Ordinals kicked off at the start of the month. Gamma, a Stacks-based project, enabled the creation of Bitcoin Ordinals. However, full fu...

As Ethereum's Shanghai upgrade approaches next month, one of the network's testnets has successfully upgraded, simulating the slated hard fork. The Ethereum blockchain's Sepolia testnet has undergone a successful upgrade that simulates the upcoming Shanghai hard fork that is expected to take place in March on the network's mainnet. The "Shapella" upgrade, which combines the names of the upcoming Shanghai and Capella hard forks, was successfully implemented on the testnet on Feb. 28. Sepolia testnet has success fully upgrade d to Shapella! Some of the Prsym validators are offline due to the old geth version. They will come online in the next 10 mins! Next stop: Goerli pic.twitter.com/pb43Gq7w9C — terence.eth (@terencechain) February 28, 2023 Shanghai is the fork’s name on the execution layer client side and Capella is the upgrade name on the consensus layer client side. One of the major changes enables validators to withdraw their staked Ether (stETH) from...

Join Our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage It is not news that the Indian government’s relationship with cryptocurrency is that of animosity. The authorities love blockchain technology – but have nothing nice to say about cryptocurrencies. It is that very reason that India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman introduced a bill to outlaw crypto trading in the 2022 financial budget. And while the cryptocurrency market isn’t a fan of this take, IMF and the US government are. In the recent G20 summit, India’s support for introducing a global task force to deal with the financial issues caused by Bitcoin was met with support from the International Monetary Fund and the United States. There Must be an Effort to Create a Common Framework – India Indis seeks a collective global effort to deal with crypto-led financial issues. And in its recent seminars for the G20 members, it has asked other countries to join hands and c...

Major crypto exchanges have failed to prevent sanctioned Russian banks and traders from transacting, according to a blockchain forensics report. At least two established coin trading platforms continue to allow Russians to use their bank cards in peer-to-peer deals, the Analysis shows. It also highlights an increased Russian interest in tether. Russian Traders Still Using Leading Cryptocurrency Exchanges to Bypass Restrictions Some of the world’s largest digital asset exchanges have been failing with measures to prevent Russian banking institutions under sanctions from operating through their platforms, reveals a report by the blockchain analytics firm Inca Digital, announced on the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. According to the research, quoted by Bloomberg and Politico, traders can still use debit cards issued by Russian banks sanctioned by the U.S., Canada, U.K., and the European Union among others, including the state-owned Sberbank, to trade on...

The Ethereum network underwent a dramatic transition from the proof-of-work mining model to the proof-of-stake model on September 15, 2022. With an astounding 99.95% decrease in energy use, this much-anticipated change has ushered in a new era of sustainability and environmental friendliness in the blockchain sector. Ethereum displayed decent growth in January and February after the bear market of 2022. ETH rose by 30.42% over the last 60 days. It is trading at $1,605 at press time, with a 3.65% drop in value over the last 24 hours. The 24-hour trading volume of ETH has also dropped by 10.47%, with a 3.5% drop in the market cap. Let us look at the Price Prediction for Ethereum for March 2023. Also read: Floki Inu to be Accepted as Collateral for Lending on Venus Protocol Source: CoinMarketCap Ethereum price prediction for March 2023 Cryptocurrency experts at Changelly have predicted the price of ETH for March 2023. According to the analysts, ETH is forecast to reach a ...

Bitcoin’s (BTC) correlation to the S&P 500 (SPX) has turned negative for the first time since the FTX collapse in November 2022. However, for most of 2022, BTC and the S&P 500 (SPX) showed a positive correlation. Apart from the FTX fall, December 2021 was the last time the two registered a strong negative correlation. Bitcoin's daily correlation to the S&P flipping negative for the first time since the FTX collapse pic.twitter.com/W4z0ePkxLR — Will Clemente (@WClementeIII) February 21, 2023 The cryptocurrency market took a significant hit as a result of the FTX fall. The debacle led to the value of Bitcoin (BTC) consequently falling. SPX, on the other hand, maintained its upward trend. Thus, BTC suffered as a result of the previous loss of correlation. The recent loss of correlation, however, might have the opposite result. The SPX recently reached its highest peak in many months. However, there was an immediate correction. Because SPX and Bitcoin re...

Join Our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage The Tezos price prediction shows that XTZ is currently pushing higher with 9.04% gains as the coin manages to face the north. Tezos Prediction Statistics Data: Tezos price now – $1.33 Tezos market cap – $1.1 billion Tezos circulating supply – 928 million Tezos total supply – 949 million Tezos Coinmarketcap ranking – #45 XTZ/USD Market Key Levels: Resistance levels: $1.60, $1.70, $1.80 Support levels: $1.00, $0.90, $0.80 XTZUSD – Daily Chart Looking at the daily chart, XTZ/USD manages to reach a daily high of $1.41 as the market opens today. During the European session, the Tezos price moves to cross above the upper boundary of the channel. Meanwhile, the push to the upside allows the Tezos price to climb back to the positive side. This bounce above the 9-day and 21-day moving averages shows that buyers are likely to dominate the market. Tezos Price Prediction:...

On Tuesday, all four major U.S. benchmark stock indexes fell as real estate data showed home sales dropped by 0.7% last month and Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended the nuclear arms control treaty with the United States. Additionally, the chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley said the stock market is in a “death zone” and could drop another 26%. Investor Fears of a Prolonged Recession Swell, U.S. Tensions With Russia Further Disrupt Global Markets On Tuesday, markets traded lower compared to the previous day as investors have been shaken by the current macroeconomic backdrop. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) published a report on Tuesday showing the U.S. real estate market weakening, with home sales slipping 0.7% in January. The price of gold and silver as well as the crypto economy dropped, with the latter shedding 1.37% over the last 24 hours, down to $1.11 trillion. Stocks followed the same pattern, with all four major stock indexes (DJI, GSPC...

Ordinals on Bitcoin debuted in January 2023 and have been a hot topic of discussion since then. On one hand, people from the industry have been excited to welcome NFTs to Bitcoin. On the other hand, skeptics have been debating how Ordinals unlock a world of dangers for the Bitcoin network, including malware assaults and soaring transaction costs.  Ordinal Inscriptions are quite similar to NFTs but come with a slight twist. Simply put, they are digital assets inscribed on a Satoshi, the lowest denomination of Bitcoin. The network’s SegWit and Taproot upgrades that took place to improve the privacy and efficiency of the network also opened the doors for Satoshi inscriptions. According to Dune Analytics, over 153.6k ordinal inscriptions have been created. Source: Dune Analytics Recently, a developer forked the Ordinals project to PoW blockchain Litecoin. During the weekend, Australian software engineer Anthony Guerrera posted a repository on GitHub th...

PhonePe, an Indian digital payment platform, has raised another $100 million at a $12 billion valuation, just a few weeks after raising $350 million. Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and TVS Capital Funds all joined the round that was already going on. PhonePe says that it expects more money to come in. The money will be used to grow PhonePe’s payments and insurance businesses in India. It will also be used over the next few years to launch and grow aggressively in new areas like lending, stockbroking, ONDC-based shopping, and account aggregators. Sameer Nigam, CEO, PhonePe, says: “We are privileged to have a great set of leading global investors, both existing and new, who believe in our mission of building massive technology platforms to bring at-scale financial and digital inclusion in India.” Source: https://thebittimes.com/india-s-phonepe-raises-100-million-at-12-billion-valuation-tbt38794.html?utm_source=blogger_source&utm_medium=blogg...

"We are very sorry for the concern and inconvenience caused to our customers due to the suspension of our services," the exchange wrote. According to a press release on Feb. 20, FTX Japan, the Japanese subsidiary of troubled cryptocurrency exchange FTX, announced that the withdraw al of users' fiat currency and crypto assets would commence via the Liquid Japan web platform at 12:00 p.m. on Feb. 21.  In Nov. 2022, FTX Japan halted operations after its parent firm, FTX, filed for bankruptcy along with its 134 subsidiaries, freezing the assets of an estimated nine million customers and billions of dollars locked in legal proceedings. Per FTX Japan, customers who have assets in their accounts would need to confirm their balance and transfer them to their Liquid Japan account. Liquid Japan is a licensed Japanese crypto-asset exchange that was acquired by FTX in April 2022. FTX Japan customers who do not have a Liquid Japan account are required to open one before receiving ...

Within 24 hours of the job posting, 45 applicants have shown interest in joining the federal government to build an in-house CBDC. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco is looking for a software engineer to help develop and implement system s related to a central bank digital currency (CBDC). On Feb. 18, the San Francisco Fed posted a job opening for a “senior application developer - digital currency.” The candidate is expected to aid the Federal Reserve in designing and implementing systems critical to CBDC research. Revealing its intention, the Fed’s post read: “Given the dollar’s important role, Federal Reserve System seeks to further understand the cost and benefits of the potential technologies for central bank digital currencies, and how the system better understand this emerging field.” Key responsibilities include developing systems related to CBDCs, identifying improvements and mitigating risks, to name a few. The job location is in San Francisco, California, with a base...

Bitcoin monthly RSI provides a window of hope as BTC bulls battle multiple long-term resistance trend lines at once in February. Bitcoin (BTC) is leaving traders guessing as the future of the bull market depends on the last week of February. In multiple tweets on Feb. 17, popular trader and analyst Rekt Capital flagged crucial resistance battles ongoing on BTC/USD across multiple timeframes. Bitcoin price squares off with bear market downtrend Bitcoin hit new six-month highs this week as the latest innings of its 2023 recovery kept the bull-bear debate raging. After a consolidatory start to the month, February has turned out to be something of a reckoning point for Bitcoin price strength. Gains have been a lot harder to cement than in January, when BTC/USD finished up nearly 40%. For Rekt Capital, now is the time to pay attention — no matter whether trading daily, weekly or even monthly timeframes. The weekly chart perhaps represents the biggest struggle in the wake of the 2022 bear m...

Join Our Telegram channel to stay up to date on breaking news coverage USP, the stablecoin of DeFi protocol Platypus Finance has lost its peg to the dollar after an $8.5 million flash-loan exploit.   What: Platypus Finance has lost its peg to the dollar, falling from $1 to $0.48 Why: The depegging came after the DeFi protocol suffered a flash-loan attack, losing $8.5 million What next: The incident has prompted Platypus to suspend all its operations until it gets more clarity on the issue and appeals sent to the exploiter for bounty negations in exchange for asset return Platypus Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, is the latest victim of a flash-loan attack executed on Thursday, February 16, after the exploiter took advantage of the protocol’s USP solvency check mechanism. A flash loan is a form of uncollateralized borrowing popular among traders on DeFi lending protocols as it facilitates quick profit due to arbitrage opportunities. Nevertheless...

Emerging technologies are revolutionizing medicine - person by person and pill by pill. Pharmacy visitors expect quick service - to have their prescription filled quickly, or over-the-counter remedy purchased in just a few minutes. In this rapid interaction, little thought goes to the journey of that medicine from a microscope slide to mass production.  In reality, the drug discovery process is incredibly time and research-intensive. Despite significant advancements in manufacturing and discovery, the average time to bring a drug from the initial stage to market is 10-15 years and costs millions of dollars. Emerging technologies are transforming healthcare and drug discovery. Artificial intelligence, for example, is doing the “dirty work” of drug discovery by running simulations of drug efficacy instead of timely trial-and-error testing. Blockchain secures healthcare records and connects patients with new clinical trials. AR and VR tools help patients overcome phobias and fear during ...