The firm has already bought 70,784 bitcoin, an amount now worth around $3.6 billion.
Decentralized finance and the numerous platforms offering investment services have been the talk of the cryptocurrency sector for several months, and this has resulted in investors capturing spectacular gains for some of the top DeFi tokens like Uniswap’s UNI and AAVE.
The fast-moving prices and 1,000% annual percentage yield on staked tokens elicited cheers from investors when the market was going up, but the recent selling pressure seen as Bitcoin’s (BTC) price dropped below $45,000 shows that the highest fliers are often the quickest to fall as traders rush to exit their positions and lock in their gains.
On Feb. 22, Bitcoin’s price entered a sharp corrective phase that saw the top digital asset pull back by more than 20% from its all-time high of $58,274. As this occurred, the majority of altcoins also saw double-digit corrections, and DeFi tokens…
Credit card providers charge merchants a cut of the payments they accept, called interchange fees or swipe fees. With two major card providers aiming to elevate rates, could crypto become an alternative?
“Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are planning to raise swipe fees for some types of credit-card purchases in April,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, adding:
“Though invisible to consumers, they [interchange fees] are glaring to merchants, which often end up paying fees of about 2% of their customers’ credit-card purchases. The fees are set by the card networks, such as Visa and Mastercard. Merchants pay them to the banks that issue the cards.”
As credit card fees rise, other options will become more attractive to merchants. That includes crypto. Digital assets also incur transaction fees, but some may be cheaper alternatives than the current credit card scene, especially if card fees continue rising.
Bitcoin (BTC),…
 price rallies 230% to hit a 3-year high after protocol upgrade){kind=link}
Over the past few weeks, the price of Golem’s GLM network token saw a strong rally that pushed the token to a three-year high at $0.65.
The altcoin also underwent a strong pump on Feb. 19, but most of the gains evaporated as Bitcoin (BTC) corrected below $45,000 during the past three days. Nevertheless, GLM still holds a 230% gain in February alone.
Golem is an Ethereum-based decentralized application that enables users to rent out computing power resources. Since November 2020, the project has been migrating from GNT to GLM tokens after deploying a new ERC-20 contract. Although most exchanges supported the move, it is still possible to find GNT activity and listings.
Golem provides an open-source cloud processing framework for both application registries and transactions. Thus, anyone can share and aggregate computing resources, as well as create applications using the network. Ultimately, the solution aims to compete with…
Bitcoin’s price rose significantly in January. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or CME, also hit record Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading numbers in the same month.
“In January, BTC average daily volume (ADV) reached a monthly record of 17,549 contracts (87.7K equivalent bitcoin),” a CME representative told Cointelegraph. Each CME Bitcoin futures contract is worth the value of 5 BTC paid out in dollars.
“In December 2020, BTC average daily volume (ADV) reached 11,179 contracts (55.9K equivalent bitcoin),” the representative added. “This represents a 57% increase.”
In January, Bitcoin rose from $30,000 up to almost $42,000, according to TradingView data. The month before, the asset had broken its longstanding record high of approximately $20,000, surging up to nearly $30,000 by the end of 2020.
“We are continuing to see robust interest in our Bitcoin futures contracts, with a record 528 accounts added in January, helping drive BTC average…
Bitcoin
Business
Investment
Markets
Opinion
Price analysis 2/24: BTC, ETH, BNB, DOT, ADA, XRP, LTC, LINK, BCH, XLM
Institutional investors continue to pour money into the crypto sector even with the current dip below $45,000. On Feb.24, business intelligence firm MicroStrategy announced that it had recently purchased over $1 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) at an average rate of $52,765 per coin. This takes the company’s total holding to 90,531 Bitcoin.
Another company that bought Bitcoin during the current market correction is Square. The company said it had acquired roughly “3,318 Bitcoin at an aggregate purchase price of $170 million.”
These purchases by institutional investors show they are bullish on the long-term prospects of Bitcoin and believe that it is a good buy near $50,000.
While the institutional purchases are a bullish sign, traders must also remember that for every buyer, there is a seller. Glassnode data suggests that Bitcoin whales, holding…
UPDATED 3:20 PM EST: This article has been updated to reflect that all Federal Reserve Bank Services with the exception of Account Services are now back online.
Nearly all of the services available through the Federal Reserve’s online portal went down for more than an hour today.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank Services website, the bank is currently experiencing a disruption in its Check 21, Check Adjustments, FedLine Advantage, FedLine Command, FedLine Direct, and FedLine Web services, which started at 6:18 PM UTC today. Its FedACH, Central Bank, FedCash, Fedwire Funds, Fedwire Securities, and National Settlement services went offline at the same time but were restored within two hours.
In addition, most of the access solutions that the Fed offers — FedLine Advantage, FedLine Command, FedLine Direct, FedLine Web, FedMail — were disrupted and later restored, with only FedLine Advantage offline at the time of publication. The FedMail system, which stayed online…