Crypto price analysis

Why?

First, as we all know, it’s easier than ever to build a startup. An MVP can hit the app stores in a few days and the need to raise millions for servers and software is over. Second, investors want to see traction, and few will take risks on relative unknowns. So how do you raise money when your product needs more than some Django code and an AWS instance?

You run an ICO, right?

We’ve heard the hype: It’s a get-rich-quick system meets Kickstarter! You can raise millions in a few minutes! There have been hundreds of successes! It’s completely safe!

All of these points are correct. But all of these points come with huge caveats. Welcome to the strange new world of token sales. Let’s explore.

Wait, what?

Token sales are, quite simply, a process of generating and selling a new cryptocurrency. While the details change from sale to sale, this process involves building a smart contract on the blockchain, generating, and then selling the resulting coins. The process usually involves lawyers, qualified investors, and a final public sale, and is at once a virtual roadshow, a circus and a community-building exercise.

First, some definitions.

In this process you are selling cryptographically generated tokens. These are digital objects that represent something in your business. You can use tokens to represent almost anything — free shirts on a t-shirt site or beers from a brewery. But what you can’t do without a great deal of legal cover — at least in the United States — is use tokens to sell equity. And that is where most token sales efforts stop: the SEC doesn’t want you horning in on its territory. Outside of that, for the most part, everything else is fair game.

We’re going to go into this piece with a few basic truths for Americans. These are not always applicable outside of the U.S., and many founders simply run their sales outside of the country to avoid dealing with the SEC and other parties. I’m not going to discourage or encourage this. It’s your call. The legality of these sales around the world is still up in the air, and there is a fine line between tokens and penny stocks, a fact few want to admit.

Further, token sales are not a funding vehicle. While many companies treat them as such — and crow over multi-million-dollar raises that explode in minutes — what they are really doing is floating a cryptocurrency on the open market. With a lot of planning and a lot of luck, these cryptocurrencies can rise in value and, if the token sale is structured correctly, this gives companies a little bit more funding than they had before they started. Without planning, you get a mess.

Tokens are supposed to be part of the life-blood of your company. Just as Disney Dollars once gave you access to Disney merchandise, Uber Bux should in some way give you access to some software made by Uber and Krablr Koins should give you access to an aspect of your new crab-fishing system. Companies have gone through all sorts of acrobatics to get their coins to work for their business, including pegging a token to a gram of synthetic rhino horn. Again, no judgement. This is a safe space. If you want to sell a massage token or popcorn token or a token associated with robotic speech generation, nobody can stop you. Once your Krablr Koin is minted, the little crab-dedicated economy you’ve built should be self-sustaining. That’s where you “make” your money — on speculation on your own success.

Token sales are set to replace traditional angel and seed rounds, this is clear, and can even completely disrupt VC. But how — and when — they do this is also unclear. So, ultimately, should you do a token sale?

Again, it depends.

Let’s look at a successful one.

Inside a token sale

Eyal Hertzog is the co-founder of Bancor, a fintech company that had the recent — some would say dubious — honor of “raising” $153 million in three hours to create a product that will render cryptocurrency exchanges obsolete.

First, a bit of explanation. What Bancor did in this case was well over 76 million tokens. The tokens went out to early investors for a far lower than their current price $2 and rose immediately upon launch. The price has stabilized and current Bancor token owners can buy and sell these tokens as they please, thereby creating a real market for what is essentially a cryptocurrency.

Owners of the token do not own a part of Bancor but instead own a token that will be used in its product. As a notable New York Times article explained, imagine Bancor is a casino and raises cash by selling chips to early investors. Casino-goers will eventually use these chips at the gaming tables, but until that moment the chips hold a potential value based on the expected popularity of the casino. If enough people will pay $5 for a blue chip that once cost someone $1, you’re going to have a lot of happy investors. Bancor, however, did something even more interesting.

Hertzog said:

We decided to launch a Token Allocation Event because we had a design for a promising protocol token – BNT, the Bancor Network Token, which is based on our Bancor protocol. It’s important to emphasize that this is not a for-profit startup fundraising round, nor is this a basic application token. The fundraiser was executed by a Swiss non-profit foundation, that has a mandate to use its funds in order to develop and promote the open-source Bancor protocol. On top of this we (and others) can build and operate services, such as the “Bancor Network” service, which will provide a simple to use UX for issuing, using, transferring, purchasing and liquidating “Smart tokens”. Smart tokens use the Bancor protocol to ensure their continuous liquidity to any other liquid store-of-value (Ether, Bitcoin, USD, EUR, etc.) BNT will serve as a backbone, liquidity providing token for all user-generated smart tokens that will hold it in reserve, linking all these new tokens to each other, and to ETH and other existing currencies through BNT. BNT will increase in value as more smart tokens are created, benefiting all the smart tokens which hold it in reserve. It is a true network ecosystem, where more users benefit everyone. It would not be possible to create this momentum and incentive structure (where early adopter are disproportionately rewarded if the network succeeds) by using another token (like ETH).

In short, this is a building block for a future product and may not even be used in the product itself.

In this kind of sale, a few things happen that make writing about these things problematic. First, remember that Bancor didn’t “raise” $153 million. It raised a fraction of that. And, unless it wants to tank its own token, it cannot move much of its own tokens without moving the market. Every company in this case is Satoshi Nakamoto sitting quietly on a hoard of coins hoping to one day sell.

How much did Bancor “make?” In most token sales the company holds back a certain number of coins — usually millions — that it can now buy and sell to support its operations. The founders, we also assume, hold back a few million, as well. In this case the company held back 10 percent, or 3,960,000. Buyers, at least in this case, own their own millions of tokens and, because they are liquid, can move them in and out of Bancor at will.

Bancor will “use its funds in order to develop and promote the open-source Bancor protocol.” The astute among you will note that this opens the door for another token sale down the line and that there are also plenty of tokens left to sell later.

Further, Bancor had to be very careful. Token sales have been beset by a number of problems, including scams to steal Ethereum. The simplest way to do this is to post false information about sales, sending potential buyers into a fake account. Other hackers have simply changed the collection address on the token sale site. Millions have been funneled away from the sellers this way.

Danger!

A few things can happen to the hapless token seller. Hackers are sniffing around the space and have figured out some clever tricks. For example, one hacker changed the target Ethereum address during the CoinDash token sale and stole $7 million worth of Ethereum overnight. This sort of behavior is happening almost daily — hackers or con artists pop up in Slack telling users that token sale sites have changed and pump-and-dumpers post fake claims on social networks to help move the price. Companies like MetaCert are creating systems to suss out fake links and phishing scams.

“If you like to invest in cryptocurrencies and you get a message about an ICO or Token discount that’s time-sensitive and it sounds too good to be true, it is,” said founder Paul Walsh. “Contact the company directly and ask them if it’s real. Crypto companies will not have time-sensitive deals that make you act within minutes or even hours. So don’t get caught off guard  —  this is how very smart people get duped.”

How can you stay safe? By staying smart.

“Any ICO that promises to make people money should be avoided,” said consultant and writer Marc Kenigsberg. “Check the team for historic projects and track record, read the white paper, make sure there is a need for the product and avoid anything that focuses heavily on marketing and is light on tech. When taking part in an ICO, watch out for phishing sites and addresses posted in slack channels and always verify an address before sending any money.”

VCs or virtual cash?

If you do a token sale, can you still raise VC? Will VCs care? What’s going to happen to VC in general? No one really knows, but we’re trending toward a general acceptance of token sales as a new “investment” vehicle, and more and more funds will be integrating token sales into their investment plans.

Investors are currently in a pickle. Many want to begin buying early coins and one, Moshe Hogeg, has made ICOs his core investment thesis. Others, especially VCs with older funds, must be careful during investment for fear of double-dipping. In short, they are set up to write checks to founders, not to robotic token exchanges. The Harvard Business Review explains the position well. They write:

Venture capitalists, who generally have been standoffish to the ICO phenomenon, are now becoming more interested in it for a number of reasons. One is profits — cryptocurrency investors made some massive returns in 2016, with cryptocurrencies from Blockchain startups Monero and NEM both seeing 2,000% increases in value. For example, the cryptocurrency used for the Ethereum network, called Ether, saw its value double in just a few days in March 2017. Yes, in three days, people who invested in Ether doubled their investment. Those investors can opt to cash out to a fiat-backed currency, or wait for the cryptocurrency to continue to rise (or fall). Volatility is a two-way street. While the price of Ether has been rising, Bitcoin has dropped 20% to $1,000 dollars from a record $1,290 on March 3, 2017.

The second reason VCs are becoming more interested in ICOs is because of the liquidity of cryptocurrencies. Rather than tying up vast amounts of funds in a unicorn startup and waiting for the long play — an IPO or an acquisition — investors can see gains more quickly and can pull profits out more easily, via ICOs. They simply need to convert their cryptocurrency profits into Bitcoin or Ether on any of the cryptocurrency exchanges that carry it, and then it’s easily converted to fiat currency via online services such as Coinsbank or Coinbase.

Ultimately whether or not running a token sale is a good idea will come down to general acceptance by the Valley community; so far, things are looking good. Many accelerator-backed companies are abandoning the Sand Hill Road show for a token sale, and many believe that most seed investment will come from tokens rather than LPs. In the same way Kickstarter has completely disrupted the consumer electronics industry, this is expected to disrupt everything else.

How-to

First, your situation and requirements may not be conducive to a token sale. This is fine. This is not a one-size-fits all solution, but perhaps new systems will fall into place that will help token sellers work more quickly and effectively. What follows is the basic process that a few startups I’ve seen have gone through to “raise” money.

There is no right way to run a token sale. If you need a high-level understanding of things, check out this basic guide we posted earlier. It discusses the sale from a high level. This description is a bit more detailed, but I’m still only scratching the surface.

One thing is certain: there is a right way to do it and a wrong way.

“There are people doing it all wrong,” said Rahul Sood, CEO of Unikrn who recently completed a token sale. “They’re treating this like an equity sale. They’re not getting the proper legal advice to set things up and their white paper looks like a donkey doing calculus wrote it.”

Ultimately, care must be taken to avoid legal issues or, worse, a token sale dud. Why? Because those interested in token sales are now almost fully educated on the pitfalls and benefits and anything untoward is immediately suspect.

“The community is catching on quickly,” said Sood.

1. Create a product. This first step is often glossed over by folks trying to run token sales as quickly as possible, but ignore it at your peril. You must have a product, and this product must use your token. Maybe you can get away with launching an MVP or beta and then running the sale, but assume you’ll have to raise a little equity investment to get your business off the ground. Most estimate you need about $100,000 – $150,000 to really get things going. That’s right: you need money to make money. This is not a hard and fast rule, but keep it in mind.

2. Create a token. At its core you are simply creating a token in the Ethereum ecosystem that can, literally or figuratively, represent something your business needs to survive. “Tokens in the Ethereum ecosystem can represent any fungible tradable good: coins, loyalty points, gold certificates, IOUs, in game items, etc. Since all tokens implement some basic features in a standard way, this also means that your token will be instantly compatible with the Ethereum wallet and any other client or contract that uses the same standards,” write the creators of Ethereum.

These tokens are controlled by something called a smart contract. A smart contract tells the coin how to react in certain situations. The creation of a smart contract is beyond the scope of this article, but you or your techie friends can find plenty of information online. If you need a quick rundown of what a smart contract looks like, visit this page, where the creators of Ethereum create a “minimum viable token” for educational purposes. There are a number of tools to use, including OpenZeppelin.

This code helps manage your tokens and generate your sale. You could also argue that this is the simplest portion of the whole project.

3. Get a legal opinion. Any time you begin messing with other people’s money you’re going to want to be covered legally. Where a token sale really begins is in the pre-sale and legal planning. You need, in most cases, a legal opinion and a legal description of the sale that will keep you on the right side of the SEC. Two law firms come up again and again in token sales. They are Perkins Coie and Cooley. Both are well-established and have cryptocurrency practices. Cooley worked on a framework called SAFT which, in theory, reduces the cost of these legal requirements.

The goal here is to ensure that your token is not a security. There is no effort here to deceive – you just need to be on the right side of the token sale definitions.

4. Write a white paper. After that you need to create a white paper or, increasingly, a deck. White papers are essentially prospectuses — descriptions of a financial plan that include a description of the product, a description of the team and a description of the token generation and distribution strategy. You can take a look at a few interesting ones here and here.

The first paper is a traditional one written much like a scientific treatise. The other paper is written more like a brochure. Both methods are equally effective. The primary mission of a white paper is to describe the product clearly, explain the use of the token and, finally, tell the world how you’ll distribute the coins. I’ve seen white papers that have looked like presentation decks and others with the complexity of a physics textbook. What’s most important, however, is absolute clarity. Sadly, many of these white papers remain unread even during the token sales process, resulting in miscommunication and confusion.

5. Create a community. Community is key in these early days of the token sale. This is the community that will support you. You’ll need a chat room in Slack or Discord where you can communicate with potential buyers and a PR plan. It is a sad but true fact that most token sales are driven by initial hype. Luckily this hype is bolstered by real community, and if you do not create this community early on you will find that your token will quickly fall. Further, you must ensure that early investors don’t sell their coins too quickly.

This is bad optically and bad for the market. Ultimately, you want to create a friendly community that supports you, not your token. There have been far too many token sales that can be considered simple pump and dump schemes for anyone to ignore the community growth aspect. By engendering trust in a core group of fans you can ensure you token remains valuable and useful.

6. Get your token on exchanges. Once you’ve created your coin and are ready to launch, you need to reach out to exchanges to carry your coin. This means people can buy and sell your coins on the open market at certain exchanges. Getting a few strong exchanges to accept your coin is absolutely imperative.

Most tokens will also be listed on CoinMarketCap, a website that is becoming the stock ticker of token sales. This site shows a long list of tokens and their market caps, and most tokens like to see themselves in the top 40. Tokens that crash end up at the end or delisted entirely, and it’s interesting to see the dead coins near the bottom of this massive list.

Token sales often have a pre-sale for accredited investors in order to prevent running afoul of the SEC. These initial sales mean that the public might miss out on a good initial price. but this is par for the course. Finally, most token sales go public, allowing anyone to buy and sell the token. At this point the token must fend for itself in the market, sinking or rising based on news, opinion or rumor.

Further, most companies hold back a number of tokens for founders, employees and investors. It’s this cash that makes these processes worthwhile for initial investors and founders, but remember, it’s not a preferred stock. Investors must have an understanding of your requirements, and many token sellers ask early investors to hold their coins for a period of time. This prevents an immediate dump.

Ultimately, we’re creating a new stock market without stocks, and an amazingly frictionless market. It’s inevitable that some of these token sales will fail, and many of the aspects about this process could change as international law begins to catch up. However the process of explaining, getting legal cover and building community won’t change.

When I began writing this guide I spoke to a token investor in China, Ahmed Al-Balaghi, who noted that there was “no regulation yet, which means everyone can invest and create ICOs.”

“Many new Chinese investors coming in with little or no knowledge of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are gambling in ICO projects,” said Al-Balaghi. The ICO market in China is quite similar to the rest of the world (barring U.S.), as China has not released such regulations, yet in early June the PBOC hinted that “a regulatory sandbox approach could be adopted towards ICO” and Sheng Songcheng, an advisor to the People’s Bank of China, said recently, “Moderate regulation should be applied, but it should not stifle innovation.” So due to this, it is quite similar to the rest of the world (for the time being) in the sense that everyone can invest and participate due to the nature of ICOs and Blockchain.”

That just changed. The SEC could follow China’s lead by locking down token sales, miners and cryptocurrency firms or they could simply let things stand. The same thing could happen in the U.S. — or maybe it won’t. Until then, assume you should not create equity-based tokens and instead focus on utility tokens.

The process, in short, is get legal cover, write a white paper, make a token and sell it. This is not much different from running a Kickstarter or selling any product. But, because of the nature of these tokens, you must maintain interest and growth. There will be a moment in most of these sales when the naysayers outnumber the fans. This inflection point will sink a company if they’ve bet their entire company on the token sale. Intelligent and careful planning can help avoid this, but nothing can truly prevent it.

Buyer — and seller — beware.

The future

One thing has become clear to me while writing this piece: token sales are the new seed. Startups will have more and more trouble raising equity-based capital and will begin trying to shoehorn themselves into a token sale framework. This is actually fine.

What this amounts to, ultimately, is the embrace of cryptocurrencies as the glue of the financial world. There is plenty of space for multiple token sales, even in the same industry, and we also can expect to see shakeouts and changes to the market over the next few years. However, I suspect that angel investment will move toward token investment over time.

This is just the beginning of a new and unique fundraising model that will leave many losers and many winners. It’s an egalitarian method for raising cash for new ventures. Now it’s up to the makers, the designers, the programmers and the dreamers to make it happen in a sane way.

Uniswap is a leading decentralized crypto exchange that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.

The vast majority of crypto trading takes place on centralized exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance. These platforms are governed by a single authority (the company that operates the exchange), require users to place funds under their control and use a traditional order book system to facilitate trading. 

Order book-based trading is where buy and sell orders are presented in a list along with the total amount placed in each order. The amount of open buy and sell orders for an asset is known as “market depth.” In order to make a successful trade using this system, a buy order has to be matched with a sell order on the opposite side of the order book for the same amount and price of an asset, and vice versa.

For example, if you wanted to sell one bitcoin (BTC) at a price of $33,000 on a centralized exchange, you’d need to wait for a buyer to appear on the other side of the order book who’s looking to buy an equal or higher amount of bitcoin at that price.

The main problem with this type of system is liquidity, which in this context refers to the depth and number of orders there are on the order book at any given time. If there’s low liquidity, it means traders may not be able to fill their buy or sell orders.

Another way to think of liquidity: Imagine you own a food stall in a street market. If the street market is busy with stall owners selling goods and people buying produce and products, it would be considered a "liquid market." If the market was quiet and there was little buying and selling going on, it would be considered a "narrow market."

Uniswap is a completely different type of exchange that‘s fully decentralized – meaning it isn’t owned and operated by a single entity – and uses a relatively new type of trading model called an automated liquidity protocol (see below).

The Uniswap platform was built in 2018 on top of the Ethereum blockchain, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency project by market capitalization, which makes it compatible with all ERC-20 tokens and infrastructure such as wallet services like MetaMask and MyEtherWallet. 

Uniswap is also completely open source, which means anyone can copy the code to create their own decentralized exchanges. It even allows users to list tokens on the exchange for free. Normal centralized exchanges are profit-driven and charge very high fees to list new coins, so this alone is a notable difference. Because Uniswap is a decentralized exchange (DEX), it also means users maintain control of their funds at all times as opposed to a centralized exchange that requires traders to give up control of their private keys so that orders can be logged on an internal database rather than be executed on a blockchain, which is more time consuming and expensive. By retaining control of private keys, it eliminates the risk of losing assets if the exchange is ever hacked. According to the latest figures, Uniswap is currently the fourth-largest decentralized finance (DeFi) platform and has over $3 billion worth of crypto assets locked away on its protocol.

Uniswap runs on two smart contracts; an “Exchange” contract and a “Factory” contract. These are automatic computer programs that are designed to perform specific functions when certain conditions are met. In this instance, the factory smart contract is used to add new tokens to the platform and the exchange contract facilitates all token swaps, or “trades.” Any ERC20-based token can be swapped with another on the updated Uniswap v.2 platform.

The way Uniswap solves the liquidity problem (described in the introduction) of centralized exchanges is through an automated liquidity protocol. This works by incentivizing people trading on the exchange to become liquidity providers (LPs): Uniswap users pool their money together to create a fund that’s used to execute all trades that take place on the platform. Each token listed has its own pool that users can contribute to, and the prices for each token are worked out using a math algorithm run by a computer (explained in “How token price is determined,” below).

With this system, a buyer or seller does not have to wait for an opposite party to appear to complete a trade. Instead, they can execute any trade instantly at a known price provided there’s enough liquidity in the particular pool to facilitate it.

In exchange for putting up their funds, each LP receives a token that represents the staked contribution to the pool. For example, if you contributed $10,000 to a liquidity pool that held $100,000 in total, you would receive a token for 10% of that pool. This token can be redeemed for a share of the trading fees. Uniswap charges users a flat 0.30% fee for every trade that takes place on the platform and automatically sends it to a liquidity reserve.

Whenever a liquidity provider decides they want to exit, they receive a portion of the total fees from the reserve relative to their staked amount in that pool. The token they received which keeps a record of what stake they’re owed is then destroyed.

After the Uniswap v.2 upgrade, a new protocol fee was introduced that can be turned on or off via a community vote and essentially sends 0.05% of every 0.30% trading fee to a Uniswap fund to finance future development. Currently, this fee option is turned off, however, if it is ever turned on it means LPs will start receiving 0.25% of pool trading fees.

Another important element of this system is how it determines the price of each token. Instead of an order book system where the price of each asset is determined by the highest buyer and lowest seller, Uniswap uses an automated market maker system. This alternative method for adjusting the price of an asset based on its supply and demand uses a long-standing mathematical equation. It works by increasing and decreasing the price of a coin depending on the ratio of how many coins there are in the respective pool.

It’s important to note that whenever someone adds a new ERC-20 token to Uniswap, that person has to add a certain amount of the chosen ERC-20 token and an equal amount of another ERC-20 token to start the liquidity pool.

The equation for working out the price of each token is x*y=k, where the amount of token A is x and the amount of token B is y. K is a constant value, aka a number that doesn’t change.

For example, Bob wants to trade chainlink (LINK) for ether using the Uniswap LINK/ETH pool. Bob adds a large number of LINK to the pool which increases the ratio of LINK in the pool to ether. Since the value K must remain the same, it means the cost of ether increases while the cost of link in the pool decreases. So the more LINK Bob puts in, the less ether he gets in return because the price of it increases. 

The size of the liquidity pool also determines how much the price of tokens will change during a trade. The more money, aka liquidity, there is in a pool, the easier it is to make larger trades without causing the price to slide as much.

Arbitrage traders are an essential component of the Uniswap ecosystem. These are traders that specialize in finding price discrepancies across multiple exchanges and use them to secure a profit. For example, if bitcoin was trading on Kraken for $35,500 and Binance at $35,450, you could buy bitcoin on Binance and sell it on Kraken to secure an easy profit. If done with large volumes it’s possible to bank a considerable profit with relatively low risk.

What arbitrage traders do on Uniswap is find tokens that are trading above or below their average market price – as a result of large trades creating imbalances in the pool and lowering or raising the price – and buy or sell them accordingly. They do this until the price of the token rebalances in line with the price on other exchanges and there is no more profit to be made. This harmonious relationship between the automated market maker system and arbitrage traders is what keeps Uniswap token prices in line with the rest of the market.

Getting started with Uniswap is relatively straightforward, however, you will need to make sure you already have an ERC-20 supported wallet setup such as MetaMask, WalletConnect, Coinbase wallet, Portis, or Fortmatic.

Once you have one of those wallets, you need to add ether to it in order to trade on Uniswap and pay for gas – this is what Ethereum transaction fees are called. Gas payments vary in price depending on how many people are using the network. Most ERC-20 compatible wallet services give you three choices when making a payment over the Ethereum blockchain: slow, medium or fast. Slow is the cheapest option, fast is the most expensive and medium is somewhere in between. This determines how quickly your transaction is processed by Ethereum network miners.

1. Head to https://uniswap.org 2. Click “Use Uniswap” in the top right-hand corner. 3. Go to “Connect wallet” in the top right-hand corner and select the wallet you have. 4. Log into your wallet and allow it to connect to Uniswap.5. On the screen it will give you an option to swap tokens directly using the drop-down options next to the “from” and “to” sections. 6. Select which token you’d like to swap, enter the amount and click “swap.” 7. A preview window of the transaction will appear and you will need to confirm the transaction on your ERC-20 wallet. 8. Wait for the transaction to be added to the Ethereum blockchain. You can check its progress by copying and pasting the transaction ID into https://etherscan.io/. The transaction ID will be available in your wallet by finding the transaction in your sent transaction history.

Uniswaps native token, UNI, is known as a governance token. This gives holders the right to vote on new developments and changes to the platform, including how minted tokens should be distributed to the community and developers as well as any changes to fee structures. The UNI token was originally created in September 2020 in an effort to prevent users from defecting to rival DEX SushiSwap. One month before UNI tokens launched, SushiSwap – a fork of Uniswap – had incentivized users from Uniswap to allow SushiSwap to reallocate their funds to the new platform by rewarding them with SUSHI tokens. This was a new type of token that gave users governance rights over the new protocol as well as a proportionate amount of all transaction fees paid to the platform.

Uniswap responded by creating 1 billion UNI tokens and decided to distribute 150 million of them to anybody who had ever used the platform. Each person received 400 UNI tokens, which at the time amounted to over $1,000. 

The Interactive Initial Coin Offering (IICO) proposed by Vitalik Buterin, Jason Teutsch, and Christopher Brown in December 2017 offers a multitude of advantages over the traditional Initial Coin Offering (ICO) model. While ICO’s have become the most attractive and scrutinized form of crowdsale today, their implementation has begun to trend towards centralization, limited participant access, and hollow promises.

ICOs remain a novel method for crowdfunding specific projects that would not otherwise receive institutional or traditional investment backing from venture capitalists. A main reason that this has become popular is due to the fact that many ICOs raise enormous amount of funds prior to even having a minimum viable product. This inevitably leads to exit scams, failed projects, and diminished investor confidence in the model. Stemming from their highly lucrative nature, ICOs have attracted the full attention of the SEC, with a cloudy regulatory framework lurking behind obscure recent statements from SEC officials.

Further, the structure of the ICO has led to the creation of an environment where investors are focused more on getting in an out of a token for quick financial gains rather than having a legitimate, vested interest and belief in the platform they are contributing financial support to. This leads to a cascade of effects as the ICO market continues to evolve, leaving considerable room for improvement on the fundamentals of the model itself, and its subsequent effects on mainstream participation. It has now become particularly relevant to really focus on the specific advantages that the IICO provides and the prevailing problems from the traditional ICO model that it aims to solve. Whether or not these differences will be enough to distinguish IICOs from ICOs in the eyes of regulators is yet to be seen.

Structure of the IICO Model

There are two fundamental aspects of the IICO that are the core components of its model and solve the widely acknowledged problems surrounding capped and uncapped sales in the traditional ICO model. These core components of the protocol provide a guarantee of valuation and participation to investors by leveraging smart contracts in order to create a dynamic bidding system instead of relegating sales to either capped or uncapped. If you are unfamiliar with the details of the IICO model, you can find an in-depth breakdown of the mechanics along with Modular’s first implementation here.

Essentially, capped sales represent a scenario where the total amount of the token to be circulated is fixed. The benefits of this are that an investor knows the exact valuation of the project that they’re contributing too. However, these sales can sell out in minutes and lead to a variety of problems that will be discussed in detail later.

Uncapped sales represent a scenario where valuation is not fixed, it is based upon user participation. The benefits are that everyone can participate, but on the contrary, investors do not know the valuation of the project and therefore their final token value once the sale is completed.

The Interactive Coin Offering protocol solves these issues through a dynamic participation model where the valuation of the sale reaches an equilibrium through investors placing and removing bids based on other users’ behavior. Thus, investors can participate in a decentralized and fluid bidding system with confidence they are receiving their desired value by voluntarily adding and removing bids or through the protocol removing bids with a set personal valuation cap that is exceeded by the overall sale valuation. As a result, the sale valuation is designed to reach a price equilibrium.

Problems With The Traditional ICO

A significant problem that has arisen in the traditional ICO model is that participation has been limited to groups or individuals who “qualify” for participation in the token sale or the pre-sale of the ICO. There are even some pre-pre sales now that offer absurd discounts, which clearly raise red flags with their funding model.

Qualifications to invest can come in the traditional form of being accredited investors or part of established institutions (think venture capital funds). These confined sales lead to a trend away from decentralization and towards the traditional investing format of a centralized nature where only investors that have substantial capital can reap the rewards from investing early in a potentially successful platform.

Long-term profits of venture capital firms have long been highly lucrative. One of the initial aims of the ICO and now the IICO is to distribute that wealth creation across a broader set of people. Backtracking towards the centralized investing format only creates more problems. Not only that, but the mixing of venture capital designs with ICO crowdfunding assuredly compounded the SEC’s position on regulation for the ICO space.

The whole idea from a purist perspective of these crowdsale protocols, within the confines of the decentralized blockchain space, is to provide an avenue for mainstream investors with limited financial capabilities to be a part of the larger investing paradigm. This creates a dispersion of wealth creation not seen before. It is integral to platforms using a model for fundraising like an IICO or ICO to deliver on promises that contribute to the development of decentralized products and applications while simultaneously remaining accessible and accountable to their investors in a transparent manner.

Limited participation pre-sales of ICO’s can lead to an anchoring of the price prior to the actual public token sale as well as the development of secondary markets where tokens are sold prior to the public sale opening (like with the RCN token sale). This has an adverse effect on the equilibrium price and total evaluation of the sale which can easily be noticed once the token hits major exchanges.

A problem in the initial ICO model that has become very prevalent recently is the creation of ICOs by companies that offer centralized services and products in what has become known as the “Reverse ICO”. These companies are using the system solely for financial gain, and there token sales are performed in a completely centralized manner. These are poorly thought out tokens that have no real use case in the industry and end up hurting investors. With more of an emphasis being placed on utility tokens and tokens directly correlated to their network’s value such as the case with Token Curated Registries, Reverse ICOs stand to be easily identifiable for both regulators and consumers as the industry progresses.

Advantages of the IICO

Where the IICO offers the most important advantages over the ICO model is in mitigating against the manipulation of the sale by whales and sophisticated mining techniques. Specifically, the IICO removes the advantages of budget size in the sale by treating both small and large bids equally. Whales with low personal caps can be pushed out of the sale just as easily as buyers who purchase a fraction of a token. Furthermore, all bids are handled through the contract publicly, thus equally distributing information to all participants and not giving limited access participants in the context of a pre-sale any advantages.

In traditional ICOs, whales are capable of controlling whether or not their bids are accepted by having the financial means to afford the sometimes massive gas costs associated with attempting to purchase tokens through a capped sale that sells out in minutes. Mainstream investors cannot afford these gas costs, which effectively bars them from participating in the sale and only allows small groups with significant capital to profit. The IICO creates a financial disincentive to act in this fashion by making it impractically costly for miners to censor transactions during the crowdsale.

Whales who attempt to place a bid for a huge number of tokens early in the sale, only to pull them out later in order to obtain an artificially low evaluation, are penalized by locking a portion of their bid into the sale as the sale progresses. In this manner, average investors are protected from price manipulation and the protocol increases the chances of converging to stable bids and valuation. The fees for submitting transactions to the crowdsale smart contract are also flat fees based on the Ethereum gas prices.

Interestingly, a notable effect of implementing an IICO for a token sale is that the developers or company behind the token sale lose a degree of control over the fundraising process. By allowing the market equilibrium valuation to naturally be established, they are inadvertently (possibly intentionally) creating a environment where contributors have a compelling level of trust in the platform as opposed to the ICO model.

For instance, a company or group attempting to pull an exit scam would be disincentivized to use the IICO model since they lose control over the ability to fix the cap or create a pre-sale (or pre-pre sale) for private investors to make out with substantial profits once the sale ends and no product is delivered.

Additionally, platforms without a minimum viable product, or at least an open-source repository that shows potential, would shy away from implementing an IICO model as it is more risky for them compared to the traditional model. This inherent advantage of the IICO allows for investors to feel much more confident in a platform that uses an IICO for its token sale.

Conclusion

With the uncertain regulatory environment looming heavily for ICOs, any blanket regulation imposed by the SEC will most likely directly affect IICO’s as well. Despite providing better investor protection through arming individuals with better market information, the SEC is unlikely to show any nuance in regulation of IICOs relative to ICOs moving forward.

It will be fascinating to watch as subsequent iterations of the IICO model are implemented and how prevalent they become. For now, the return to decentralized crowdfunding offered by Interactive Coin Offerings is something worth investigating as an investor and hopefully can help launch a new wave of innovations in crowdfunding structures and implementations that protect investors and comply with regulations that are certainly coming.

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Bitcoin’s (BTC) failure to make a strong recovery in the past few days has resulted in profit-booking in most major altcoins, threatening to pull the total crypto market capitalization back below $2 trillion.

The United States equity markets witnessed profit-booking and the S&P 500 dropped by 1.69% last week, suggesting the development of a risk-off sentiment. Charles Edwards, CEO of investment manager Capriole, pointed out that “almost every Bitcoin correction in 2021” has corresponded with a 2% or more drop in the S&P 500.

Irrespective of the near-term weakness in Bitcoin, MicroStrategy has continued to build its holdings. The company’s CEO Michael Saylor recently revealed a purchase of 5,050 Bitcoin bought at an average price of $48,099 per coin. This has increased the company’s stockpile to 114,042 Bitcoin, bought at an average cost of about $27,713 per coin.

Is Bitcoin in a firm bear grip and could this result in a sell-off in major altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin once again turned down from the 20-day exponential moving average (EMA) ($47,061) today, indicating that the short-term sentiment has turned negative and traders are selling on rallies.

The downsloping 20-day EMA and the relative strength index (RSI) below 43 suggest that the path of least resistance is to the downside.

The onus is now on the bulls to defend the critical level at $42,451.67 because if this support cracks, the BTC/USDT pair could plummet to the $37,332.70 to $36,670 support zone.

Such a move could dim the chances of a strong recovery, keeping the pair stuck in a range for a few days.

Contrary to this assumption, if the price rebounds off $42,451.67, the bulls will make one more attempt to resume the uptrend. A breakout and close above $47,400 could open the doors for a retest of the overhead resistance zone of $50,500 to $52,920.

ETH/USDT

Ether (ETH) has been sandwiched between the moving averages for the past few days. This suggests that bulls are buying on dips to the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) ($3,129) and bears are selling on rallies to the 20-day EMA ($3,413).

The 20-day EMA is gradually sloping down and the RSI has dropped below 46, indicating that bears have the upper hand. If bears pull the price below the 50-day SMA, the ETH/USDT pair could witness further selling, resulting in a decline to $3,000.

This is an important support for the bulls to defend because a break below it could result in panic selling.

On the contrary, if the price rebounds off the 50-day SMA, the bulls will again try to push the price above the 20-day EMA. A breakout and close above $3,567.06 could tilt the advantage in favor of the bulls. The buyers will then try to push the price to $4,000.

ADA/USDT

Cardano (ADA) bounced off the 50-day SMA ($2.16) on Sept. 7 and rose above the 20-day EMA ($2.57) on Sept. 11. However, higher levels attracted profit-booking as seen from the long wick on the Sept. 11 and 12 candlesticks.

The bears have pulled the price back below the breakout level at $2.47 today. The downsloping 20-day EMA and the RSI in the negative territory indicate that bears have a slight advantage.

If sellers pull the price below the 50-day SMA, the correction could deepen to the next support at $1.94. Alternatively, if the price rises from the current level or rebounds off the 50-day SMA, the bulls will make one more attempt to push the price toward the overhead resistance zone at $2.97 to $3.10.

BNB/USDT

Binance Coin (BNB) closed below the 50-day SMA ($410) on Sept. 10 but bears could not sustain the lower levels. The bulls purchased the dip and pushed the price back above the 50-day SMA on Sept. 12.

However, the failure of the bulls to clear the overhead hurdle at $433 may have attracted a fresh round of selling today. If the price sustains below $393.20, the BNB/USDT pair could drop to $369 and then to $340.

The downsloping 20-day EMA ($438) and the RSI below 40 suggest that the path of least resistance is to the downside. The bulls will have to push and sustain the price above $433 to suggest that the correction could be over.

XRP/USDT

Ripple (XRP) is currently stuck between the moving averages. The failure of the bulls to push the price above the 20-day EMA ($1.13) has attracted profit-booking from short-term traders.

The 20-day EMA has turned down and the RSI has dipped below 45, suggesting that bears have the upper hand. If sellers pull the price below the 50-day SMA ($1.03), the XRP/USDT pair could challenge the Sept. 7 intraday low at $0.95.

A break and close below this support will suggest that the uptrend could be over. That may open the doors for a further slide to $0.75. This negative view will invalidate if the price bounces off the current level and rises above the 20-day EMA. The bulls will then try to push the price to the overhead resistance zone at $1.35 to $1.41.

SOL/USDT

Solana (SOL) is currently correcting in a strong uptrend. The break below the trendline suggests that the bullish momentum has weakened. The price could now dip to the 20-day EMA ($141).

If the price rises from the current level, it will suggest that the sentiment remains positive and traders are accumulating on dips. The bulls will then try to resume the uptrend but are likely to face stiff resistance at the trendline.

If the price turns down from the trendline, the SOL/USDT pair could drop to the 20-day EMA. A break below this level could sink the price to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level at $123.43.

Conversely, a breakout and close above the trendline will increase the likelihood of a retest of the all-time high at $216.

DOT/USDT

Polkadot (DOT) rose above the overhead resistance at $35.68 on Sept. 12, suggesting that bulls are attempting to resume the uptrend. The upsloping moving averages favor the bulls but the negative divergence on the RSI indicates that the bullish momentum may be slowing down.

The bears are currently attempting to pose a stiff challenge near the resistance line but if bulls do not give up much ground, the possibility of a break above the overhead resistance increases. That could clear the path for a rally to $41.40 and then $46.83.

Contrary to this assumption, if the price turns down and breaks below the 20-day EMA ($30.34), the DOT/USDT pair could retest the breakout level at $28.60.

A strong rebound off this level will suggest that bulls continue to accumulate on dips but a break below it could sink the pair to the 50-day SMA ($24.68). If the price sustains below $28.60, it will suggest that bears are back in the game.

Related: Fake news: Litecoin price surges 35% following Walmart adoption hoax

DOGE/USDT

Dogecoin (DOGE) has been trading below the moving averages for the past few days, which suggests that bulls are in no urgency to buy at current levels. The bears will now try to sink the price below the strong support at $0.21.

The 20-day EMA has turned down and the RSI has dropped into the negative territory, suggesting that bears have the upper hand. A break and close below $0.21 could pull the price to the critical support at $0.15.

Alternatively, if the price rebounds off $0.21, the bulls will again try to push the DOGE/USDT pair above the moving averages. If they manage to do that, the pair could rally to the downtrend line. A break and close above this resistance will be the first sign that the correction may be over.

LUNA/USDT

Terra protocol’s LUNA token turned down from $45.01 on Sept. 11, indicating profit-booking by traders. The important support to watch on the downside is the breakout level at $36.89 and then the 20-day EMA ($32.77).

A strong rebound off either level will suggest that the sentiment remains positive and traders are buying on dips. The bulls will then attempt to resume the uptrend and push the price to the psychological level at $50.

The upsloping moving averages indicate advantage to the bulls but the negative divergence on the RSI signals caution. If bears pull the price below the 20-day EMA, the LUNA/USDT pair could slide to the 50-day SMA ($24.14).

UNI/USDT

Uniswap (UNI) has been trading below the breakdown level at $25 for the past few days, which suggests that traders are not aggressively accumulating at the current levels.

The moving averages have completed a bearish crossover and the RSI is in the negative territory, indicating advantage to bears. If sellers sink the price below the immediate support at $21, the negative momentum could pick up.

The UNI/USDT pair could then drop to $18.69. This level may act as a support but if bulls fail to push the price above $25, the decline could extend to $13. This negative view will invalidate if the price turns up from the current level and rises above the moving averages.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Market data is provided by HitBTC exchange.

Bitcoin (BTC) is witnessing a tough tussle between the bulls and the bears near the 200-day simple moving average (SMA), which is considered to be an important level by institutional investors attempting to decide whether an asset is bullish or bearish.

Along with this, crypto investors are also watching the formation of a golden cross in Bitcoin. If this bullish setup completes, it will signal a trend in favor of the bulls. For the time being, investors continue to focus on select altcoins that have continued their northward journey.

On the fundamental front, Bitcoin reached another milestone as miners produced the 700,000th block on Sept. 11. Bitcoin was trading near $8,000 when the 600,000th block was reached on Oct. 18, 2019.

Reaching this milestone led some Twitter users to quote Hal Finney, one of Bitcoin’s earliest pioneers who said:

"Every day that goes by and Bitcoin hasn't collapsed due to legal or technical problems, that brings new information to the market. It increases the chance of Bitcoin's eventual success and justifies a higher price."

Let’s study the charts of the top five cryptocurrencies that may attract trader’s attention in the short term.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin closed below the 200-day SMA ($45,894) on Sept. 10 but bears have not been able to capitalize on this move. The bulls are currently attempting to push the price back above the 200-day SMA.

The moving averages are close to completing a golden cross, indicating that the advantage is likely to tilt in favor of the bulls. If buyers push the price above $47,399.97, the BTC/USDT pair will attempt to rise to the overhead zone of $50,500 to $52,920.

The bears are likely to defend the overhead zone aggressively but if bulls do not give up much ground, the likelihood of a break above $52,920 increases. If that happens, the pair could rally to $60,000.

On the other hand, if the price turns down from the current level, it will suggest that bears are aggressively defending the 200-day SMA. The pair could then retest the critical support at $42,451.67. A break below this level could tilt the advantage in favor of bears.

The four-hour chart shows that the price turned down from $47,550 on two occasions. Hence, this becomes an important level to watch out for in the short term. A break and close above this resistance may open the doors for a possible move to $50,500.

However, the moving averages are on the verge of a bearish crossover, indicating that sellers are attempting to make a comeback. A break and close below $44,000 could signal a minor advantage to bears. The pair could then drop to the critical level at $42,451.67.

ALGO/USDT

The long tail on Sept. 7 shows that bulls aggressively bought the dip to the 50-day SMA ($1.10). Strong buying on Sept. 8 propelled Algorand (ALGO) above the stiff overhead resistance at $1.84.

The bears tried to trap the bulls by sinking the price below the breakout level at $1.84 on Sept. 10 but the buyers had other plans. The ALGO/USDT pair has rebounded off the support with strength on Sept. 12 and bulls are currently attempting to thrust the price above $2.49.

If they succeed, the pair could resume the uptrend with the first target on the upside at $3 and then $3.32. On the contrary, if the price once again turns down from $2.49, the pair could drop to $1.84 and stay range-bound between these two levels for the next few days.

A break and close below $1.84 will suggest that the current breakout was a bull trap. The pair could then slide to $1.60.

The four-hour chart shows that bears are defending the overhead resistance at $2.49. If sellers pull the price below $2.30, the pair could again slide to the breakout level at $1.84. A bounce off this support could suggest a range-bound action for some time.

If bulls do not give up much ground from the current levels, it will increase the possibility of a break above $2.49. If buyers sustain the breakout, it could signal the resumption of the uptrend.

ATOM/USDT

Cosmos (ATOM) bounced off the breakout level at $17.56 on Sept. 7, suggesting that bulls are aggressively defending this support. This was the second instance that bulls successfully held this level; the first was on Aug. 26–27.

The long tail on Sept. 8 showed that sentiment was turning positive and traders were buying on dips. The moving averages have completed a golden cross, indicating that bulls are back in the driver’s seat.

Strong buying today has pushed the price above the overhead resistance at $32.32. If bulls sustain the breakout, the ATOM/USDT pair may rally to $39.43.

The bears are likely to have other plans. They will try to pull the price back below $32.32 and trap the aggressive bulls. If they succeed, the pair may drop to $26. A break below this level will suggest that the bullish momentum has weakened.

The four-hour chart shows that bears sold the breakout above $32.32 but they could not sustain the pair below $32. This suggests that bulls continue to buy on every minor dip. If bulls sustain the price above $32.32, the pair could rally to $38.49.

Conversely, if bears again pull the price below $32.32, the pair could drop to $30.98. If the price rebounds off this level, the bulls will attempt to resume the uptrend but if the support cracks, the decline could extend to the critical support at $26.

XTZ/USDT

Tezos (XTZ) completed a successful retest of the breakout level at $4.47 on Sept. 7 and Sept. 8. Although bears pulled the price below the 200-day SMA ($4.19), they could not sustain the lower levels. This suggests accumulation on dips.

The XTZ/USDT pair picked up momentum on Sept. 9 and bulls pushed the price above the overhead resistance at $6.14 on Sept. 10. The long wick on the candlestick of the past two days indicates strong selling near $7.

Hence, this becomes an important resistance for the bulls to cross. If they manage to do that, the pair could retest the all-time high at $8.42. A breakout and close above this level will suggest the start of a new uptrend.

Alternatively, if the price once again turns down from the overhead resistance, the pair could drop to $5. Such a move will suggest aggressive profit-booking at higher levels.

The four-hour chart shows the pair is currently consolidating between $5.88 and $6.80. If bulls drive and sustain the price above the overhead resistance zone at $6.80 to $6.95, the pair may rally to $7.72.

If the price turns down from $6.80, the pair may extend its range-bound action for some more time. A break and close below $5.88 will be the first sign that bulls are losing their grip. The pair could then drop to the 50-SMA.

Related: El Salvador buys the dip as Bitcoin Law goes live, 101 Bored Ape NFTs sold for $24M, Ukraine passes crypto legislation: Hodler’s Digest, Sept. 5-11

EGLD/USD

Elrond (EGLD) rebounded off the 200-day SMA ($131) on Sept. 7 and Sept. 8, suggesting strong demand at lower levels. The moving averages completed a golden cross on Sept. 9, indicating that bulls are back in command.

Sustained buying propelled the EGLD/USDT pair to a new all-time high on Sept. 11 where bears tried to stall the up-move. However, the bulls were in no mood to let go of their advantage and have pushed the price to a new all-time high today.

If bulls sustain the price above $245.80, the pair could start the next leg of the uptrend. The bears may pose a stiff challenge at the psychological level at $300, but if bulls can overcome this resistance, the rally may extend to $357.80.

The bears will have to pull and sustain the price below the breakout level at $245.80 to signal a possible change in trend.

The bulls are currently attempting to push and sustain the price above the resistance line of the ascending channel pattern. If they manage to do that, the bullish momentum could pick up further and the pair may enter a blow-off phase.

On the other hand, if the price turns down from the current level, the pair may drop to the support line of the channel. A strong rebound off it will suggest that the sentiment remains positive and traders are buying on dips.

A break and close below the channel will be the first sign that the bullish momentum could be weakening.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Decided you want in on the action? You can buy Cardano (ADA) on Coinbase, eToro and Webull.

Leading the market with tremendous gains, Cardano (ADA) has blown up the altcoin universe with news of the blockchain company’s intention to finally deploy smart contracts on the platform. Baked into their roadmap from the beginning, the realization of smart contracts on Cardano’s game changing proof-of-stake crypto platform represents an important step in the company’s meticulously researched development. And it’s finally happening… soon. We hope.

The Alonzo hard fork of Cardano’s mainnet has been scheduled for September 12. And with all probability, Cardano (ADA) will unleash, on schedule, a state of the art Ethereum (ETH) alternative. With smart contracts enabled, Cardano’s blockchain platform will include incredible tools for developers to not only compete with, but dominate their ERC-20 rivals. And when it finally happens, the price of Cardano’s ADA could explode!

At least, that’s what they told me on the interwebs. 

But what is Cardano’s true value? How does Cardano (ADA) justify its position in the cryptocurrency market? And most importantly, how high can Cardano go? One thing is certain, when Cardano truly allows for dApps, decentralized finance (DeFi), DEX and traditional trading platforms to develop on top of its blockchain, the potential for fantastic gains will follow!

In its simplest form, Cardano is a decentralized P2P currency. But when fully realized, it represents an environmentally friendly, proof-of-stake blockchain platform. 

Combining pioneering technology with decentralized applications, Cardano was created to redistribute power to individuals. With a fantastic array of engineers collaborating on the blockchain project, Cardano (ADA) bills itself as the first platform in the space to be founded on peer-reviewed research and evidence-based methods.

But to hodlers of ADA around the world, Cardano (ADA) is an Ethereum (ETH) killer! 

And with Cardano’s already functioning proof-of-stake system for mining and recently announced September 12 deadline for smart contract deployment, Cardano (ADA) is aiming to become the cryptocurrency world’s No. 1 decentralized development platform. 

At the time of writing, Cardano is sitting at $2.16, having settled a bit after this week’s explosion upward. Rising over 52% in the past week, Cardano is now competing directly with Binance Coin (BNB) for the No. 3 spot in the list of the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap. 

Cardano’s market cap stands at nearly $70 billion. There are 32,112,287,343 coins circulating with a maximum supply of 45,000,000,000. Unless cryptocurrency adoption grows tremendously from here, Cardano (ADA) will need to start taking market share from competitors, namely ETH, if it plans to continue growing at this pace.

Cardano’s promise to allow smart contracts on the platform created a frenzy of attention for the currency. With the Alonzo hard fork deployed, this environmentally friendly altcoin will finally be able compete directly with Ethereum for new market share. And as a top 5 cryptocurrency project, Cardano (ADA) is well positioned for the next tranche of support. 

After such a dramatic rise in price, a natural pull back may be on the table. While Cardano (ADA) has fought hard for its position in the cryptocurrency market, there is sound reason to pause before diving head first into this blockchain concept.

While the promise of smart contracts on Cardano is tantalizing, its delivery will need to be perfect if the company is to meet the expectations of investors. Some concern exists that the coming Alonzo hard fork is already priced in. If Cardano delays implementation of smart contracts on its platform beyond September 12, a dramatic pullback from current prices could occur.

Cardano (ADA) continues to push for adoption of its currency throughout North America and the world. You can buy ADA on a number of reputable exchanges including Coinbase, eToro and Webull.  

1 Minute Review

eToro, headquartered in Cyprus, England and Israel, has provided forex products and other CFD derivatives to retail clients since 2007. A major eToro plus is its social trading operations, including OpenBook, which allows new clients to copy trade the platform’s best performers. Its social trading features are top notch, but eToro loses points for its lack of tradable currency pairs and underwhelming research and customer service features

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Coinbase is one of the Internet’s largest cryptocurrency trading platforms. From Bitcoin to Litecoin or Basic Attention Token to Chainlink, Coinbase makes it exceptionally simple to buy and sell major cryptocurrency pairs. 

You can even earn cryptocurrency rewards through Coinbase’s unique Coinbase Earn feature. More advanced traders will love the Coinbase Pro platform, which offers more order types and enhanced functionality.

Though Coinbase doesn’t offer the most affordable pricing or the lowest fees, its simple platform is easy enough for complete beginners to master in as little as a single trade.

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Webull, founded in 2017, is a mobile app-based brokerage that features commission-free stock and exchange-traded fund (ETF) trading. It’s regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Webull offers active traders technical indicators, economic calendars, ratings from research agencies, margin trading and short-selling. Webull’s trading platform is designed for intermediate and experienced traders, although beginning traders can also benefit.

Webull is widely considered one of the best Robinhood alternatives.

Cardano’s greatest challenge going forward is proving to its investors that it can strip market share from ETH. While some may be predicting ADA will overtake ETH as the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market cap, more reasonable expectations may help guide you through the near term implications of Cardano’s announcement. 

With or without smart contracts, Cardano is positioned as a top 5 cryptocurrency project at the perfect time. As investors flood exchanges in the coming months, Cardano will stand out prominently to those researching altcoins for the first time. Because the Alonzo hard fork coincides with this upswing in participation, the conditions for terrific gains lay front and center. 

For any discerning investor unsure how to justify Cardano’s current market price, consider this: ADA can reach $10 without displacing ETH as the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market cap. This is especially the case if we see Ethereum gain market capitalization alongside the rest of the crypto markets –– a likely scenario.

It is imperative to have a secure wallet for all of your cryptocurrencies. Cardano (ADA) is no exception. Whether you need offline storage or solid connectivity for trading, the following recommendations will store your ADA securely, giving you full control of your digital assets. 

Ledger represents quintessential offline storage for all of the cryptocurrencies in your portfolio. This device stores your private keys and provides perfect isolation between your assets and less secure devices. 

Daedulus offers a solid experience for Cardano (ADA) holders. An official Cardanao (ADA) wallet, Daedalus offers its desktop wallet for WIndows, MacOS and Linux. 

The cryptocurrency market has been maintaining a $2 trillion market cap as investors decide whether or not to trust the recent rise in altcoin prices. Bitcoin (BTC) dominance stands at 44%, and is trending downward as altcoins like Cardano continue to outpace the market.

Alongside Dogecoin (DOGE), Cardano (ADA) experienced massive gains this past week. And it looks like momentum may be building for another altcoin explosion.  

Ultimately, Cardano (ADA) represents a top-tier currency in the burgeoning altcoin market. With years of experience behind the project, ADA has become a mainstay currency in the space. Without a doubt, the potential for fantastic gains still exists for ADA. And if the platform can deliver on the promise of smart contracts, those gains may come sooner than expected.

Methodology

Benzinga crafted a specific methodology to rank cryptocurrency exchanges and tools. We prioritized platforms based on offerings, pricing and promotions, customer service, mobile app, user experience and benefits, and security. To see a comprehensive breakdown of our methodology, please visit see our Cryptocurrency Methodology page.

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Latest ADA Cardano Price

The current price of Cardano is $ 2.37 which is 1.25% higher than 24 hours ago.

ADA Cardano Prediction and Forecast: Technicals for 19th September

Charles Hoskinson: We Expect $10 per Cardano in the end of 2021

ADA Cardano Prediction and Forecast: Hoskinson Reveals When ADA Will Hit $10?

What’s Next: $10 Cardano Smart Price Target

CARDANO PRICE PREDICTION – ADA CARDANO 2021 – ADA COIN – CARDANO NEWS TODAY – ADA TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

With crypto prices rising, all eyes are on Cardano which is expected to be the best cryptocurrency in currency. Last month ADA token became the world’s third-largest digital currency.

Originally tweeted by erik willey (@erikwill) on September 18, 2021.

Notice that the big players in Bitcoin and Ethereum do not like Cardano very well at all.

There just might be a reason for that.

Cardano keeps advancing with greater functionality and security.

Build it and they will come.

People are starting to catch on.

Originally tweeted by Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) on September 7, 2021.

As expected, there is a massive FUD storm underway. We saw the same with Shelley last year. It’s nothing new. Just people wanting to burn down what they don’t understand or feel threatened by. September 12th is a big day, but just a day on a long journey we are all on together.

The pullback of Cardano happened after Cardano faced criticism from analysts after the test net launch. However, the developers are confident of a smooth transition on September 12. Therefore, the rise in the price of Cardano depends upon the launch of a new upgrade, Alonzo. If there is a smooth transition, the buyers will have their confidence restored in Cardano once again and the prices may rise again.

Crypto Analyst Jason Pizzino predicts Cardano could rise 290% before its current bull cycle ends. If Pizzino’s prediction comes true, Cardano could soon hit $11 mark.

Cardano recently broke through the $3 mark, however, since then the prices have either gone down or remained stagnant. In the past 3 days, Cardano lost around 3% in its value. The rise in the price of Cardano was attributed to the rumor of the launch of smart contract capability for Cardano, Plutus, in September 2021. Kiana Danial, CEO of Invest Diva said, “ADA has been one of the best performing cryptocurrencies in the top market cap.”

Cardano bulls aim for $3.16 but ADA remains stuck in tight range

However, IOG denied the rumor of the launch of the smart contract and said the platform is currently on its final testing stage, and it’s expected to go live in the short term. Cardano’s developer IOG classified the rumor as “social media speculation”, and “outright FUD & misinformation”. 

Added to it, IOHK had to face lot of criticism about Cardano FUD being able to process 1 transaction per block. In response to the criticism, IOHK through its social media platform wrote:

“The specific flavor #Cardano uses is the eUTxO – or extended model which we believe offers greater security, allows for fee predictability (no nasty surprises…) and offers more powerful parallelization.“

“And to be clear, dapps are NOT limited to 1 transaction per block. By designing your service or application with multiple UTxOs, you can enforce more parallelism. This is inherent and – we believe – one of the advantages to eUTxO design as we have implemented it in #Plutus.“

$ 10 re is why Cardano price might dip to $2 before new all-time highs

Read: Bitcoin Price Prediction and Forecast: BTC Nears $50K Mark

CARDANO NEWS TODAY – ADA TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

ADA Cardano Prediction and Forecast: Some Facts

Cardano was founded in 2015 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson.The platform was officially launched in the year 2017.Cardano  uses design principles intended to overcome issues faced by other cryptocurrencies such as scalability, interoperability, and regulatory complianceCardano debuted with a market cap of $600 million. By the end of 2017, it had a market cap of $10 billion.Cardano is also the largest cryptocurrency to use a proof-of-stake blockchain.

ADA Cardano Price Prediction: Market Cap and Circulation

As of August 2021, the market cap of Cardno is $90 billion. It has recently become the 3rd biggest Cryptocurrency. The maximum supply of Cardano Coins is 45 Billion. Currently, about 31 billion coins are in circulation.

You can buy Cardano ADA coins from several exchanges. Here are few exchanges where you can buy Cardano ADA Coins:

Binance OKEx FTX CoinTiger Huobi Global eToro

ADA Cardano Prediction for December 2021

ADA Cardano Prediction and Forecast: Latest Prediction News (Positive)

Cardano price dips after smart contract launch

Cardano (ADA) boss predicts DeFi bubble will burst, how likely is that to happen?

Cardano Completes Alonzo Upgrade, but ADA is Struggling – Cardano Weekly

Cardano (ADA): The Expected Pullback Came. Rally Time?

Cardano looks ready to bounce back to $3

ADA Cardano Price Prediction and Forecast: Latest Prediction News (Negative)

JPMorgan Issued A Stark Warning Over The Price Of Solana, Binance’s BNB And Cardano As The Ethereum Rivals Roar Back

Cardano Cryptocurrency Negative Momentum With A 3% Slide In The Last 6 Hours

Will The Cardano Smart Contracts Upgrade Trigger A “Sell The News” Event?

ADA Cardano Prediction and Forecast: Latest News (Positive)

Here’s Why Cardano Might End Ethereum After Alonzo

IOG Denies Rumors About Cardano Smart Contracts Platform

Cardano (ADA) is Working Past 1600% more than the Price it started off in 2021

ADA Cardano Prediction and Forecast: Latest News (Negative)

[6th Sept] Cardano (ADA) Update Failed? Charles Hoskinson calls ‘FUD’ negative ‘crypto insiders’

ADA Cardano Price Prediction and Forecast: Expert Voices

Nigel Green, chief executive of deVere Group: “Cardano is on a clear upward trajectory and there’s no reason to think that this will come to a halt any time soon. In fact, momentum is likely to pick up and I believe that the price of Cardano will reach all-time highs in the next month, hitting more than $3.”

ADA Cardano Prediction and Forecast: Crowd Forecasts (Video)

Note: Crowdwisdom360 collates Predictions and data from all over the net and has no in-house view on the likely trends in the Index or Individual Stocks. Please consult a registered investment advisor to guide you on your financial decisions. 

Bitcoin prices have experienced some notable gains lately, rising to a fresh, multi-month high over the weekend at a time when many variables point to the potential for compelling gains later in 2021.

The world’s most prominent digital currency rose to $48,126.47 on Saturday, August 14, CoinDesk figures reveal.

At this point, the cryptocurrency was trading at its highest since May 16, additional CoinDesk data shows.

[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]

IRS Update

The innovative digital asset experienced these gains after markets reacted to a Bloomberg article published Friday, which helped offer some clarity for industry participants.

Citing a Treasury department official, the article stated that the IRS plans to specify that market participants will only need to comply with recently proposed reporting requirements if the government agency considers them brokers.

After climbing to its highest in almost three months, bitcoin fell back somewhat, declining to almost $45,600 yesterday, before rallying above $48,000 again today.

Jesse Proudman, co-founder and CTO of crypto hedge fund Strix Leviathan, spoke to these developments.

“Bitcoin rose over the weekend on the back of news that the IRS will disregard the crypto guidance in the recent Infrastructure Bill, choosing to enforce tax reporting requirements only from brokers that meet the traditional definition of the term,” he stated.

“Concerns over the possibility that miners, developers and other non-brokers would have to meet reporting requirements that aren’t technologically possible caused enough uncertainty that Bitcoin dropped almost to $44,000 on Friday morning, only to see a strong rebound over the weekend,” the executive noted.

He also offered some perspective on the digital currency’s recent momentum, stating that since the aforementioned fluctuations took place, “Bitcoin has demonstrated robust support for us to continue the trend of higher highs and higher lows.”

Jake Wujastyk, chief market analyst of TrendSpider, weighed in on the digital currency’s latest price movements, stating the following:

“Bitcoin has recently had a huge run from $29k to $48k within a span of less than a month. Whenever this type of move occurs in such a short period of time, it is natural to have some profit-taking with prices pulling back to key levels below, which a lot of the time are simply points on the chart where the breakout occurred.”

“In this case, Bitcoin was met with supply right around the $48k area shown by the anchored volume by price measuring volume distribution from the start of the year,” he noted.

“This ‘breakeven supply’ zone around $48k will continue to act as a level of resistance until the price can close above it.”

Wujastyk also commented on the digital currency’s support.

“In regards to downside levels, the main area to watch would be the anchored volume-weighted average price from the ‘all-time highs’ which was the main breakout level that Bitcoin was able to break through back in early August. This area is currently right around $42k.”

“However, as the price continues to trade above this level, the volume-weighted average price will start to slope up and this level will change with time as price action evolves,” he stated.

Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts.com, provided some similar input on the matter.

“After breaking out of the $30k-$42.5k trading range BTC rapidly accelerated to the next area of resistance between $47.5k-$50k where we are currently still trading. The old resistance area (the top of the former range) around $42.5k should now act as support and catch any declines from current levels.”

“If any decline is caught and a new low is put into place at a level higher than $42.5k that is a sign of strength,” he stated.

“It means that buyers are aggressive and are willing to come in at higher levels.”

He also spoke to the digital currency’s key resistance.

“$47.5k - $50k is the hurdle BTC is currently facing,” said de Kempenaer.

“It is derived from the major lows that were formed in March and April of this year. Breaking beyond that range will free the way for a further rally towards $60k.”

Bullish Outlook

While some experts shed some light on bitcoin’s key levels of support and resistance, several analysts spoke to the digital currency’s favorable backdrop, a combination of factors that could cause notable upside in the coming months.

Proudman weighed in, emphasizing several key metrics that could portend gains.

“With a recent rebound in active wallet addresses, new wallet addresses, and on-chain transactions, all indicators that are often a sign retail traders are increasingly active in crypto, and Bitcoin $50,000 on the horizon, we believe the remainder of  2021 has the hallmarks of an exciting time to be involved with this asset class.”

Sean Rooney, head of research at Valkyrie Investments, also spoke to the situation.

“Expect the discussion around bitcoin as ‘a hedge to inflation and uncertainty’ to be reinvigorated as the macro picture takes shape heading into Q4,” he stated.

“Judging by the accumulation pattern over the last couple months, there will be less bitcoin available on exchanges, which should create a tailwind for price.”

William Noble, the chief technical analyst of research platform Token Metrics, offered his point of view, emphasizing that while many market observers have been scrutinizing bitcoin’s day-to-day price movements, they should “zoom out” and take a more long-term view.

“Monday’s dip was a result of a Fed announcement of tapering in the second half of 2022,” he stated.

“The Covid situation may become worse by the end of 2021 and into 2022. If this proves true, the Fed will likely have to print more money, not less,” added Noble.

“This might create a golden opportunity to buy BTC on small dips at $43k.”

Disclosure: I own some bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, ether and EOS.

…

The first thing anyone needs to know about ICOs is that they're no longer called ICOs.  You may remember the mania-fueled days of 2017 when projects with little more than a whitepaper raised over a million dollars in less than a day with an initial coin offering, an ICO. Some of these ICOs proved to be outright scams, whereas others were legitimate and the funds garnered helped to launch some of the most successful blockchain projects.

Today blockchain technology is safely facilitating investing outside of traditional capital markets. Crypto tokens facilitate capital formation and provide incentives within blockchain networks.  Token sales have become an essential part of the crypto economic ecosystem and how projects rise to prominence.

We've built a list of the best crypto wallets availableCheck out our list of the best crypto exchanges right nowHere's our list of the best mining rigs out thereHistory of the ICO

Bitcoin was the world’s first cryptocurrency, arriving in 2010 via a shadowy figure, Satoshi Nakamoto. As the whitepaper circled throughout crowds of technocrats and entrepreneurs, the world understood that this novel use of decentralized technology could unlock countless innovations that could serve as a new foundation for the world’s financial infrastructure. The most standout functionality at that time was Bitcoin’s ability to create a natively digital currency that operated outside of the bounds of sovereign reach. If Bitcoin could be used to incentivize activity on the network and therefore hold intrinsic value, then this model could be replicated.

As early as 2012 people realized they could mint new cryptocurrencies that could be sold to raise money for their projects, no VC backing needed. The most famous early example of a cryptocurrency sale was Ethereum’s public token offering. Ethereum raised about $2.3 million in the first 12 hours. Participants paid through Bitcoin, which was the only way to access Ethereum at the time.

Since then, token offerings have exploded in popularity. 2017 was the year of ICO mania that marked the definitive arrival of token sales.  Over the course of that year, there were over 400 sales that rose an average of  $12.7 million. These token sales were extremely lucrative for early purchasers— it was common for investors to see 10X returns. Moreover, they helped cryptocurrency projects secure the funding needed to expand their operations. As of June 2018, more than 15 projects had taken in over $100 million. The total amount invested in 2017 was $5.6 billion. The easy money backing token offerings resulted in a frothy token market and generated extraordinary wealth and opportunity for those who were able to cash in at the right time.

As an unregulated market, thousands of investors were swindled during the ICO mania of 2017.  These scams drew the ire of companies and regulators alike. The People’s Bank of China completely banned token sales and prohibited banks from offering services to projects using token sales to raise capital. Facebook, Google, and Twitter meanwhile blocked ICO advertisements on their platform. Within the United States, token sales occupied a legal grey area. The SEC implemented the Howey test to determine whether a token had been launched simply to raise capital without providing any actual utility within a blockchain network. People today don’t like the term ICO because it indicates an association with an IPO, the sale of a security, and is triggering from a regulatory perspective. We’re still seeing the lingering effects of these early token launches and the harsh legal implications for projects who were accused of violating securities laws. Ripple, the organization that launched the XRP token in 2021, is in ongoing litigation after allegedly selling $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering. The business of token sales at that time was high risk, high reward, in more ways than one.

How token sales work

In theory, you can tokenize anything of value— stocks, bonds, art, gold. Launching a token and the idea of ‘tokenizing’ something can be done in many different ways.

Utility tokens are created to serve a specific function or provide some sort of capability. For example, within the Ethereum network, Ether is used as the gas to pay for transactions and computational power to power programs that utilize the Ethereum blockchain. Consider these utility tokens as crypto commodities. One thing must be understood when launching a utility token, in order to not trigger securities laws: the token does not represent a share in a project.  As a result, they do not have any actual intrinsic value and they don’t come with any legal protections. They have value when used in association with a specific technology.

Whereas security tokens on the other hand are meant to be digital representations of actual financial instruments. They can represent fractions of assets like real estate or stock and must be traded in compliance with local securities laws. Financial services institutions are adopting the use of security tokens to bring efficiency and transparency to markets.

A newer token model is the profit sharing token, which aligns the incentives of the community with activity on the associated platform.

Key takeaways

Token sales have been one of the cryptocurrency sector’s most important innovations. The ease with which entrepreneurs can launch tokens to receive funding via the internet is greatly lowering the barriers to accessing capital.

In recent years token sales, combined with regulatory changes, have lowered the barriers to invest in start-ups and we’re seeing non-blockchain native projects use token models to bring innovation to their industry. Token sales are making our financial system global, open and more liquid. 

To summarize, token sales…

Are a new method for start-ups to raise moneyLeverage new technologies to facilitate capital formationAre mostly built using the Ethereum ERC20 standardAre very risky, so an investor should never invest more than they can afford to loseHere's our list of the best cloud mining services right now

An important part of preserving investing profits is knowing when an asset or sector is showing signs of exhaustion and when a sector rotation is underway. 

This is especially important in the rapidly moving cryptocurrency markets, which can change direction in a heartbeat and turn crypto millionaires into depressed bag holders.

Most investors know that the nonfungible token (NFT) sector has been on fire since July, and as CryptoPunks, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and pet EtherRock NFTs fetched six- and seven-figure sums, while top NFT marketplace OpenSea surpassed $4 billion in total sales. While the frenzy has been exciting, many new projects have launched across a variety of blockchain networks, and the recent decline in transaction volumes could be a signal that investors are looking to move to different pastures.

In the first quarter of 2021, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and their related tokens were the focal points for investors, but this sector cooled off in March as the NFT market underwent its first bull market. Now it appears that the tide has begun to change, and the profits made from NFT trading could be making their way back into altcoins and DeFi markets.

Here are five signs that a capital rotation might be underway from NFTs into the DeFi sector.

Large- and small-cap DeFi tokens rally

DeFi Perp is an index token on the FTX cryptocurrency exchange that comprises a basket of 25 of the top DeFi-related cryptocurrencies, including Maker (MKR), Polkadot’s DOT, Solana (SOL), Curve DAO Token (CRV), Uniswap (UNI) and SushiSwap (SUSHI).

Data from TradingView shows that the price of DeFi Perp has been on the rise since bottoming out at $5,331 on July 20, and it has since rallied 138% to a daily high at $12,771 on Sept. 2.

The surging price of DeFi Perp back to the $12,500 support and resistance level, which is shown to be an important level during the rally between February and May in 2021, is a sign that funds are beginning to flow back into the DeFi ecosystem just as the daily trading volumes and price floors for NFTs are on the decline.

NFT prices are cooling off

Since rapidly rising NFT prices have been the main feature catching the public’s attention, it is also a red flag and a good metric for judging the overall health of the sector. As shown in the chart below, which tracks the daily average price floor of NFTs sold in the market, the average price floor reached a high of 1.02 Ether (ETH) on Aug. 29 and has since pulled back to 0.5 ETH.

The fact that NFTs are selling for less or that new high-volume projects are selling at lower prices could be a sign that the market may be becoming saturated and that the momentum is beginning to wane.

Active users and transactions on DeFi platforms surge

Another sign that the DeFi ecosystem continues to grow is the steadily increasing number of DeFi users over time, as shown below in data from Dune Analytics.

New users interacting with protocols are likely attracted to the steady yields and no-hassle token staking, and Cointelegraph has reported that investors from traditional finance are also deeply interested in what DeFi has to offer.

While this metric tracks the number of unique wallet addresses that interact with DeFi protocols and it’s possible that some users have multiple addresses, the situation has become more complicated in recent times. The longer-term nature of earning a yield in DeFi via staking, providing liquidity or locking tokens on protocols has arguably led to a decline in users switching between multiple wallets and paying high gas fees to constantly move assets.

The continued entrance of new users into the DeFi space could signal that some who have made profits in NFTs are now looking to lock in profits and earn a yield, while newcomers to the market are attracted to its lower-risk opportunities.

$4,000 ETH signals a rotation in play

Another development that could signal a sector rotation toward DeFi is the rising price of Ether.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of Ether has rallied 125% since reaching a low of $1,706 on July 20, with its most recent surge of 23% pushing its price from $3,134 on Aug. 30 to a high at $4,029 on Sept. 3.

With most of the top DeFi protocols located on Ethereum, the top altcoin is one of the main assets in the DeFi ecosystem and is widely used to stake and purchase other tokens.

Related: Is Ethereum’s rally signaling the next bull market phase for Bitcoin above $50K?

DeFi TVL hits a new all-time high

A final metric that indicates that a sector rotation into DeFi is underway is the total value locked (TVL) on all DeFi protocols. On Sept. 2, the figure reached a new record high of $171.5 billion.

Previous surges in TVL were in large part due to increases in Bitcoin and Ether prices, but the current push comes as both tokens trade well below their 2021 highs, indicating that the rise in TVL has more to do with the rising value of DeFi tokens and the increased use of stablecoins.

While the NFT boom might not be over, multiple data points suggest that the bullish momentum has reached an exhaustion point, and the current run-up in altcoin and DeFi prices is a signal that a rotation is in its early stages.

Want more information about trading and investing in crypto markets?NFT whale ‘Pranksy’ pranked by fake Banksy for 97.7 ETHInternet Computer to release 10,000 free NFTs in debut dropDecentralized exchanges and aggregators drive DeFi growthSurge in activity and token prices show ‘DeFi Summer 2.0’ already startedEthereum price breaks $3,500 and hits 3-month highs against Bitcoin

Ethereum Classic price overlooked the bearish momentum divergence on the intra-day timeframes this weekend. It erupted with an 11.72% gain on Sunday, discarding the resistance of the June 30 high of $62.45 and installing ETC within striking distance of the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement at $80.75. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency heavyweights, ETH and BTC, are showing bearish momentum divergences that may spill over into the broader cryptocurrency complex, thereby complicating the Ethereum Classic price outlook. 

Ethereum Classic price faces short term headwinds 

Ethereum Classic price shows a 34.04% gain for August, making it the best August performance since 2016 and unlocking ETC from the magnet effect of the 2018 high at $46.98 that had been support or resistance during May and June. Moreover, the superior returns in August have broke Ethereum Classic price out from the governing declining parallel channel that began in May.

Moving forward, Ethereum Classic price opportunities for newcomers may be limited by the convergence of the two cryptocurrency heavyweights flashing a high probability of a correction with the restrictions of the 38.2% retracement level at $80.75. Specifically, the potential exists for ETC to reverse the weekend gains and test the June 30 high of $62.45 or the July ascending trend line currently around $59.10 in the coming sessions before the altcoin can confidently resume the rally through the layers of Fibonacci levels beginning at $80.75. It would constitute a -15% correction from the current price.

A daily close below the July ascending trend line would be a concerning development and expose Ethereum Classic price to test the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) at $51.90, or the 2018 high of $46.98.

ETC/USD daily chart

Alternatively, a continuation of altcoin outperformance could propel Ethereum Classic price through the 38.2% retracement level at $80.75 to the 50% retracement at $95.64, registering a 40% gain from the current price.

To monitor the Ethereum Classic price posture, keep close attention to the ETC market dominance percentage number. It just broke out above the upper line of a descending triangle pattern, and the 50-day SMA has turned higher, potentially signaling that the altcoin is assuming a leadership role in the cryptocurrency complex.

ETC Market Dominance % daily chart

Despite the strong performance from the July lows and emerging signs of Ethereum Classic price pursuing a leadership role in the cryptocurrency complex, the ETC mentions on crypto-related social media, compared to a pool of 50+ of the most talked-about projects online, has remained constant around a 2% share based on the 30 eight-hour moving average.

ETC Social Dominance - Santiment

The marginal improvement in social dominance is a consistent feature of most altcoins over the last few weeks, as skepticism still reigns over the market even though gains have been sizeable. Once Ethereum Classic price can confirm a leadership role by capturing at least the 38.2% retracement and possibly the 50% retracement, it may trigger a spike in ETC social dominance that has underpinned the periods of accelerated upside momentum in 2021.

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The author and FXStreet are not registered investment advisors and nothing in this article is intended to be investment advice.

Cryptos feed--> BEST CRYPTO BROKERS/EXCHANGES

With the volume of newly launched tokens growing by the day, Coinfluence has introduced a revolutionary platform to offer a holistic influencer-driven exposure to tokens that deserve and need it.

15th July, 2021, Talinn, Estonia: The crypto industry has a unique marketing environment – being a cutting-edge industry, traditional (even digital-traditional) marketing strategies have proven to be ineffective at capturing the attention and interest of today’s crypto consumers. Heavy users of social media, the younger crowd relies more on word of mouth than ads or news. According to recent research, the influencer market will reach nearly $14 billion this year, and it is no wonder that this shift in paradigm will be felt in the crypto sphere.

Take the example of Elon’s Musk’s infamous support for Dogecoin. The latest tweet recovered the 10% drop it witnessed a day earlier. One tweet can be the difference between the life and death of the next breakthrough in the digital asset space. Such is the power of influencers in crypto.

Coinfluence: The Crypto Influencer Platform of the Future

Coinfluence solves the crypto influencer marketing problem by connecting upcoming projects with a wealth of high-level influencers. The outcome is an environment where projects get access to high-quality social media influencers that can attract the right crowd and increase the chances of a successful launch while the influencers get to be a part of the next breakthrough in crypto, creating fantastic win-win situations. And of course, a good project doesn’t necessarily translate into a successful one if it remains under the radar. Access to a wide range of influencers means that it will get the right exposure, putting it on the map where it truly belongs.

Coinfluence achieves this with a tight-knit set of strategies. First, any project that wishes to be listed must go through a stringent quality check that is based on a multitude of factors, allowing only thoroughly vetted projects to be listed. This creates a cleaner and better option for investors, whilst protecting the market from scams, rug pulls, and bad actors.

At the centre of this whole ecosystem is the CFLU token, designed to assist projects and influencers to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Approved projects get to hold their token sales through the launchpad, where the community can acquire their tokens using CFLU. Each transaction gets taxed, with the amount being distributed for liquidity, staking rewards and marketing. At the same time, the deflationary token model should push the CFLU price upwards.

CFLU Token Sale Event

Driving the economics behind Confluence’s ecosystem is the Binance Smart Chain-based BEP-20 compliant CFLU token. Based on the principles of deflation, there  are a total of 1 billion CFLU, of which 650 million are already available in the currently ongoing token sale. The event is phase-based, with each of the 100 successful phases making the CFLU progressively more expensive (currently phase 1 has a price of 0.0056 USD per 1 CFLU).

Out of the 650 million CFLU, 100 million have been set aside for financing the platform developers. To give confidence to projects, influencers and users of CFLU, a vesting schedule will allow the team access to 20% of the funds, with the rest being released periodically. This ensures that rugpulls are guaranteed against.

An innovative tax system is also a unique approach, by which 10% of all transactions are deducted, with 4% going to the liquidity pools, 4% to token holders and 2% for marketing and expansion. Along with this, every 10th transaction in the first 1000 transactions will receive 5000 bonus tokens as a reward. Visit the Coinfluence ICO platform to get your CFLU tokens today.

The Present and the Future

The Coinfluence concept materialized at the start of 2021.. Alongside this, the Coinfluence team has achieved onboarding a large number of influencers and it has set a target of 100,000 top influencers under its Enrolment Program. Coinfluence is also building towards global collaborations and getting CFLU listed on major exchanges, to provide increased liquidity and access for the everyday user to the CFLU ecosystem. Confluence is also looking to list CFLU on major coin monitoring platforms such as CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, plus portfolio tracker Blockfolio, to raise awareness and increase information transparency.

Further down the road, Coinfluence will be launching its mobile app for access on the go. Confluence will be also roll out their own launchpad, giving projects a one-stop solution to top influencers and the many intricacies involved in project setup and launch, all at the same time. Finally, Coinfluence will create its own news platform, the Coinfluence News Network to inform its users and the public on the latest happenings in the industry.

Visit the Coinfluence ICO platform to get your CFLU tokens today.

Connect via Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCoinfluence Join the official Telegram group: https://t.me/coinfluence Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecoinfluence/ Catch Coinfluence on Reddit: a Contact

Contact Email: Harshita@coinfluence.org

Adrian Zduńczyk is a technical crypto analyst who stares at price charts all day long. His main goal is to determine where a crypto's price might go next. And right now, he has his eye on what he says is an upcoming "legendary" altcoin season. 

A legendary altcoin season is when cryptocurrencies outperform bitcoin and see their prices surge by as much as 100 times, he said. This event typically occurs once a year or once every three years.

Once bitcoin hits a peak price point, altcoins tend to enter a bull market a few weeks or months later. The idea is that investors take their bitcoin gains and throw them at altcoins that are more speculative and riskier but have the potential to rake in high returns. 

Zduńczyk previously told Insider he expected bitcoin to hit $120,000 for only a few days in the fourth quarter before cratering by as much as 90%.

But Zduńczyk said that playing the altcoin season bore a significant risk of losing capital, no matter how promising some projects may seem. Therefore, he reminds investors that no returns are ever guaranteed and everyone should always do their own research.

He pumps out daily research and charts of his own to an audience of more than 337,000 followers on Twitter as @crypto_birb. He's also the founder and CEO of the Birb Nest, a subscription-based trading community, and a cofounder of YellowBlock, a crypto-news and educational platform.

While there are several blockchain projects that have great use cases, Zduńczyk has his eye on five tokens that he believes have the highest potential to see gains anywhere between 10 to 100 times their current listed prices during the upcoming season, he said.  

While he is bullish on these projects, he said that he kept these holdings below 15% of his overall crypto portfolio in the event of an unpredictable market crash.

Ferrum network (frm) is a decentralized-finance project that offers blockchain solutions that incubate startups.

Zduńczyk said his technical analysis suggested the token's price was extremely undervalued based on its 200-day moving average price of $0.40.

As for its fundamentals, ferrum network is growing its ecosystem exponentially by deploying high-quality DeFi services backed by value-based marketing, Zduńczyk said. He added that it also knows its stakeholders' needs very well and has insight into market trends. 

Linear finance (lina) is a well-established project that says it's working to democratize access to digital and traditional investment assets. The network helps save high gas fees associated with some blockchains because the token allows for composability, or seamless interaction, across different blockchains.

"I'm one of the loyal supporters since September 2020, knowing how talented, open-minded, and skilled their team has been," Zduńczyk told Insider. 

He said the token also offered a great variety of earning opportunities for those that hold the token through staking and other DeFi services. He added that lina is also hugely undervalued because it's trending below its long-term 200-day moving average of $0.075.

Radix dlt (exrd/xrd) is a layer 1 DeFi protocol. It says it seeks to provide scalability, efficiency, and simplicity, as well as solve regulatory issues where ethereum and other blockchains fail. 

Zduńczyk said that unlike frm and lina, which have already gone through a full market cycle, exrd/xrd is still at the early stages of accumulation, and he expects it to rally hard later this year.

Starterra (stt) is the first gamified launchpad. As the DeFi market matures, Zduńczyk believes there's an increasing need for an attractive launchpad platform to kick off new startups, he said. 

He said he was bullish on this project because the platform has a very strong team of supporters, which includes people like Kamil Jarzombek, an early blockchain investor, and Do Kwon, a cofounder of terra.

The platform creates a unique combination of guaranteed and lottery-based prize pools. Since the token was recently launched, there isn't enough historical price data to apply technical analysis. So instead, Zduńczyk mainly relies on other sources of available information, such as the team behind the project, who's invested in it, who's on the advisory board, and its whitepaper, he said.

Synapse network (snp) aims to bring the idea of fully regulated financial institutions backed by DeFi products to the masses. The platform says it is building a fully licensed official crypto to fiat bank with 100% licensed DeFi services. 

He said he also had confidence in the project's leader, Pawel Łaskarzewski, who's an entrepreneur in Poland, where Zduńczyk resides.

Zduńczyk said he believed the token had a lot of room to grow because it hasn't gone mainstream because of a lack of awareness about the project's capabilities. 

Was this article valuable for you? NOW WATCH: More:altcoins to buyaltcoin price outlookaltcoinscrypto adoption

Therefore, purchasers will need to hold existing cryptocurrency in any third-party wallet such as Coinbase or Binance. Purchasers will then deposit cryptocurrency from their third party wallet into their AABB Wallet to exchange and purchase the AABB Gold token (AABBG) for the current 0.1 gram of gold price (approximately $5.60 USD) plus a small transaction fee. Support for users of the AABB Wallet is available on the website www.AABBGoldToken.com and by email to AABBWallet@gmail.com.

The initial token release is backed by $30 million in physical gold the Company currently holds. At today’s market price of gold, this initial token release available for purchase is 5.4 million tokens at the one-tenth (0.1) gram of gold price (approximately $5.60 USD) for each AABBG token. The token price is tied to and supported by the Company at the market price of gold at a minimum. As the price of gold fluctuates, the minimum supported price of the AABBG token will increase or decrease, but the potential upside price of the token will be driven by market demand.

The AABB Gold token (AABBG) is backed 100% by physical gold held by the Company and additional releases of the token will continue to be backed 100% by additional physical gold acquired from future mining production, gold purchased from cash reserves or credit.

The launch version of the AABB Wallet will allow purchasers to transfer AABBG tokens to others that also have the AABB Wallet, but tokens will not initially be exchangeable within the AABB Wallet for other cryptocurrencies. This inaugural version of the AABB Wallet will allow the Company to increase token circulation and accumulate revenues to be utilized for the support and stabilization the token price when AABBG is freely exchangeable in the open market.

The Company is currently developing, with CSHC, its own proprietary cryptocurrency Exchange that will allow AABB Wallet users to quickly exchange their AABB Gold tokens for major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. AABB embraces a pioneering philosophy with its truly unique Mine-to-Token vertical integration operational approach that strives toward complete independence from FIAT currency.

AABB’s primary goal for the token is to become a worldwide standard of exchange that is secured and trusted with gold backing, by progressively expanding token circulation targeting large population and high growth markets globally including China and East Asia. The Company is collaborating with CSHC to roll out an international marketing campaign for the AABB Gold token, AABB Wallet and development of the corporate brand. The marketing efforts are aimed to proliferate brand exposure and reputation, increase the use of the AABB Gold token and the AABB Wallet, and amplify general public and investment community awareness of the Company.

About Asia Broadband

Asia Broadband Inc. (OTC : AABB) is a resource company focused on the production, supply and sale of precious and base metals, primarily to Asian markets. The Company utilizes its specific geographic expertise, experience and extensive industry contacts to facilitate its innovative distribution process from the production and supply of precious and base metals in Mexico to client sales networks in Asia. This vertical integration approach to sales transactions is the unique strength of AABB that differentiates the Company and creates distinctive value for shareholders. The Company has recently released its freshly minted mine-to-token gold-backed cryptocurrency AABB Gold token (AABBG) and strives to become a world-wide standard of exchange that is secured and trusted with gold backing, an outstanding quality relative to other cryptocurrencies. Visit www.AsiaBroadbandInc.com and www.AABBGoldToken.com

Contact the Company at:

Investor Brand Network General Email:ir@asiabroadbandinc.comToken Support Email:AABBWallet@gmail.comCompany Website:www.asiabroadbandinc.comToken Website:www.AABBGoldToken.comPhone:702-866-9054

Forward-Looking Statements are contained in this press release within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on the Asia Broadband Inc.’s (the “Company”) expected current beliefs about the Company’s business, which are subject to uncertainty and change. The operations and results of the Company could materially differ from what is expressed or implied by the statements made above when industry, regulatory, market and competitive circumstances change. Further information about these risks can be found in the annual and quarterly disclosures the Company has published on the OTC Markets website. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements as future circumstances, events and information may change.

Corporate Communications: InvestorBrandNetwork (IBN) Los Angeles, California www.InvestorBrandNetwork.com 310.299.1717 Office Editor@InvestorBrandNetwork.com

Bitcoin (BTC) and the cryptocurrency market had a shakeout this week as the fake news surrounding Litecoin (LTC) caused a spike in volatility. However, the structure of the market didn’t change. In fact, Bitcoin’s price might be bottoming out as a golden cross is starting to form.

Next to that, the exchange reserves are hitting record lows, which is a massive signal of strength, suggesting that most investors are taking their Bitcoin from exchanges, reducing the overall supply that can be sold on the market. 

Will Bitcoin break out due to the golden cross?

The daily chart for BTC/USD shows a few key things. The first and most important is the potential golden cross about to take place. In the summer, the primary focus was on the death cross, as the sentiment switched to ultra negative, and many traders expected more downside as a result.

The market has been in an uptrend since, however, with the cross of moving averages (MAs) being very much a lagging indicator. But even if the cross occurs, it doesn’t automatically mean that the market will continue in that direction.

Currently, a golden cross is a bullish signal, especially when Bitcoin’s price is ready to break above the MAs. If this happens and Bitcoin’s price goes above these MAs, these levels can then serve as new support for a much bigger rally. 

Crucial levels to watch on the daily BTC price chart

A week ago, the market saw a heavy correction as Bitcoin’s price tumbled down from $52,000 to $42,000. However, the price of Bitcoin landed on a beautiful support level, resulting in a long wick. Such a long wick implies buying pressure and a new support level.

As previously noted, another volatile move took place in the past few days with the fake news about Litecoin partnering with Walmart. This initially caused a big bounce, which was followed by a significant correction.

During such a volatile move, the best thing to do is to zoom out and check the markets on the higher timeframes, as those often give you an indication of the critical levels to watch.

These critical levels to watch are still found between $42,800 and $44,000. As long as that region sustains support, upward continuation is likely. In other words, the bearish divergence played out with the heavy correction, but the worst may be over if the markets maintain above $42,800–$44,000.

Therefore, fake Litecoin news caused some market volatility, but the crucial support between $42,800 and $44,000 was maintained, and that’s the critical conclusion here.

On the upside, first, Bitcoin’s price has to break through $47,000, as that’s the current resistance. If that fails, upward continuation to $50,000 is possible as the final hurdle before a potential all-time high test.

Total crypto market cap holding crucial support

The total market capitalization of crypto shows crucial support is holding up here. As long as the total market capitalization sustains above $2 trillion, more upside to a new all-time high is likely.

The slight difference with Bitcoin’s price here is that the total market capitalization has tested the all-time high zone. Once the total market capitalization is going to retest that all-time high zone once again, chances are increasing that a breakout toward new all-time highs will occur.

However, most likely, the total market capitalization of crypto will be making new all-time highs faster than Bitcoin, as altcoins have been outperforming Bitcoin as of late.

Bullish divergence and falling wedge playing out

The four-hour chart for Bitcoin shows a potential falling wedge structure likely to break to the upside. The crucial level to break on the upside is the resistance at $47,000, as that’s been acting as a heavy resistance since the recent correction.

Once Bitcoin’s price breaks above $47,000, a continuation to $50,500 is very likely as there aren’t many levels in between the price could reject from, as the previous correction went in a very vertical manner.

Finally, this isn’t a guarantee that Bitcoin’s price will break to the upside. Overall, if Bitcoin’s price can construct a higher low around the $45,000 region, it will grant confirmation on the bullish divergence, and a breakout could then happen toward $47,000. That remains to be the strong resistance to break.

On the downside, the crucial support to hold on to is the area between $42,800 and $44,000. If that support fails to hold, the $38,500–$40,000 level should then be the next area of focus.

Ethereum Classic price has failed to reach the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement at $80.75, a fundamental level of resistance for the move that has totaled over 100% from the July 20 low. With the July ascending trend line providing support, coupled with the nearby support directed by the June 30 high of $62.45, ETC should engineer a new attempt to touch the Fibonacci level before undergoing a complete pullback.

Ethereum Classic price nears pivotal level 

Ethereum Classic price shows a 31.21% gain for August at the time of writing, making it the best August performance since 2016 and, more importantly, unlocking ETC from the magnet effect of the 2018 high at $46.98 that fluctuated as support or resistance during May and June. It is was a bullish milestone for the altcoin.

One of the reasons for the noteworthy rally and convincing breakaway from $46.98 was the constructive position of Ethereum Classic price when the move began. ETC was above the 200-day SMA, the 50-week SMA and the 2020 ascending trend line. Moreover, it was not battling the downward pressure associated with a bearish Death Cross pattern.

Moving forward, Ethereum Classic price is not showing a bearish momentum divergence on any time frame at the August 15 high, suggesting that ETC can extend the rise to the 38.2% retracement at $80.75, marking a 20% gain from the current price. It becomes more complicated after $80.75 as the level is reinforced by highs in late May and lows printed on May 12 and 13. Thus, newcomers to ETC are not presented with a timely opportunity and are best served to wait for a quality pullback in time or price before opening a position.

ETC/USD daily chart

The bearish alternative is that Ethereum Classic price falls below the July ascending trend line and the June 30 high of $62.45. The breakdown would project at a test of the rising 50-day SMA at $53.45, representing an almost 20% decline from the current price. However, the recent rally would still be intact.  

Ethereum Classic price structure is solid, but it should be mentioned that the cryptocurrency heavyweights, Bitcoin and Ethereum, do exhibit a bearish momentum divergence on their daily charts, presenting a possible obstacle for ETC.

Here, FXStreet's analysts evaluate where ETC could be heading next as it holds on critical support.

Information on these pages contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Markets and instruments profiled on this page are for informational purposes only and should not in any way come across as a recommendation to buy or sell in these assets. You should do your own thorough research before making any investment decisions. FXStreet does not in any way guarantee that this information is free from mistakes, errors, or material misstatements. It also does not guarantee that this information is of a timely nature. Investing in Open Markets involves a great deal of risk, including the loss of all or a portion of your investment, as well as emotional distress. All risks, losses and costs associated with investing, including total loss of principal, are your responsibility. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FXStreet nor its advertisers. The author will not be held responsible for information that is found at the end of links posted on this page.

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Nearly $4 billion in funding has now been raised through initial coin offerings (ICOs), according to a handy ICO tracker at CoinDesk.

In news articles, you might have seen ICOs described in terms of traditional IPOs. Many define an ICO as a “digital IPO” or, as Bloomberg wrote in October, “like an ICO but with digital coins.”

That’s not correct.

In an ICO or “token sale,” an internet startup sells you digital tokens it has created, for later use in their ecosystem. Investors typically buy the new token with existing cryptocurrencies like ether or bitcoin, or with US dollars. There is no guarantee the token you’re buying will accrue value, nor even a guarantee that the product or network the company is planning will ever launch.

Here’s the key difference from an IPO: If you buy tokens in an ICO, you get no equity in the company. You have no ownership stake, no voting rights, nothing like the privileges you get from being a shareholder in a publicly traded company. The tokens are not akin to shares. They may hypothetically rise in value based on the success of the company, but they may not, even if the company is successful. And the company owes you no real commitment.

Think of an ICO as buying chips for use at a casino that hasn’t opened yet. (In fact, for one example, here’s a company that did an ICO for that very purpose, an online betting platform.)

In ICOs, new internet companies see a fast way to raise capital, and investors see an instant entry into cryptocurrency. But investor beware: ICOs are extremely risky, and many are likely fraudulent.

Most of the companies doing token sales have not yet launched a product, just put out a white paper on what they intend to launch. And they run targeted ads on social media often designed to attract newbies with scant information and promises of big returns. (See the ad below, which a Reddit user called the “worst ICO ad ever.”)

CoinList, recently spun out of AngelList, is a services provider for ICOs that says it vets planned ICOs carefully and only partners with those that it believes are legitimate and above-board. The first ICO that CoinList listed was for Filecoin, which raised more than $250 million in August, setting a new ICO record. The second-biggest token sale was Tezos, which raised more than $230 million.

“If the company is doing it as a way to raise non-diluted financing because they see it as the only opportunity, that’s maybe not the best fit,” says CoinList CEO Andy Bromberg.

Indeed, many of the companies doing ICOs are doing an ICO for that reason: to get money quickly. It isn’t very similar at all to a company debuting on the public market by listing its stock ticker on the NYSE or Nasdaq.

Just this month, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton issued a warning to the public about investing in ICOs. “There is substantially less investor protection than in our traditional securities markets,” he said. And Stefan Thomas, CTO of Ripple, predicts the death of the ICO in 2018.

As the influential venture capitalist Tim Draper said this year at Web Summit conference, “Safety is not in the ICO vocabulary. If you’re investing in ICOs, you better understand the entire cycle of the coin, the token. Is there a real use for it, is there a reason to buy it?”

Joseph Lubin, a cofounder of Ethereum, said on the same panel, “People who are interested in buying a utility token should be buying that utility token for the usage of the platform that it enables.”

And above all else, you should not go into one thinking it is like an IPO.

—

Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.

Read more:

Everything you need to know about initial coin offerings

Tim Draper: ‘Safety is not in the ICO vocabulary’

CoinList wants to bring safety to ICOs

Why bitcoin matters

Japan is poised to become the leading bitcoin market

Why China’s central bank fears bitcoin

Why Ethereum is the hottest new thing in digital currency

More than 75 banks are now on Ripple’s blockchain network

Expect more blockchain hype in 2017

In the early days, there were only a few web portals with cryptocurrency statistics and data tied to these ever-changing digital asset markets and blockchain metrics. More than ten years later, however, data and analytics tethered to the world’s most popular and most used digital currencies have swelled with growth. The following article delves into a myriad of web portals that offer insights into the innovative land of cryptocurrencies.

Charts, Onchain Metrics, and Coin Market Cap Aggregation

Over a decade ago, there were a couple of websites that shared information concerning bitcoin (BTC) and the small number of digital assets that traded beside BTC in the early days. A few websites displayed BTC’s price and a handful of onchain statistics, so people could get a sense of crypto markets and the utility of these blockchains. Web portals in the early days consisted of price chart pages like zeroblock.com, onchain metrics from blockchain.info (now blockchain.com), and crypto coin market aggregators like coinmarketcap.com.

Now with more than 10,000 crypto assets worth around $2.21 trillion on September 12, 2021, there’s a plethora of data and analytical websites that help guide crypto supporters with various forms of insight. Coinmarketcap.com has a number of competitors now such as coingecko.com, coincap.io, markets.bitcoin.com, and messari.io. All of them are very different and they each give a contrasting perspective on crypto coin market cap aggregation, alongside insights into different kinds of market data. Coingecko.com and messari.io, for instance, show metrics like percentages for crypto coins over 24 hours, one week, two weeks, 30 days, 90 days, and year-to-date.

Markets.bitcoin.com offers a unique perspective of coin market caps and individual insights to different coins with professional tradingview.com charts. Furthermore, the cryptocurrency market aggregator from Bitcoin.com also shows token summaries stemming from intotheblock.com. The portal coincap.io is similar to markets.bitcoin.com and coingecko.com, as it shows an aggregated list of cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. Coincap.io is also interesting because visitors can swap tokens by connecting a decentralized finance (defi) wallet like Metamask, Portis, Torus, and the Coinbase Wallet.

Track, Compare, Access Important Ecosystem Platforms

Another website that helps users explore cryptocurrency markets is coinread.com, which offers insight into 1,752 cryptocurrencies and metrics from more than 100 crypto exchanges. Coinread.com provides a few distinct methods to look at key metrics like rank, volume, circulating supplies, and the top exchanges where these digital currencies are traded the most. Users can compare different crypto assets to view price movements in a chart showing a myriad of choices.

Further, coinread.com users can track different coins and follow the market changes tied to the user’s portfolio. Individual crypto assets are broken down into different time intervals, like one hour, 24 hours, seven-day, one month, and annual changes. Users can view an individual crypto asset to get a description of the token, alongside important information like the project’s website, white paper, source code, blockchain explorers, social media links, and forums.

All of these web portals offer different perspectives when it comes to the vast land of crypto assets and there are many more helpful websites to keep you informed. Defillama.com, for instance, is a defi dashboard that shows the aggregate total value locked in defi applications across multiple blockchains. Users can get further insights on crypto derivatives markets like options, futures, and perpetual swaps from the web portals skew.com and bit.com as well.

Dune Analytics offers insights to onchain Ethereum data, ether-based products and market statistics tied to things like defi, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and decentralized exchange (dex) platforms. Dappradar.com also shows a plethora of factoids and market stats tethered to defi, NFTs, and NFT markets.

The aforementioned list of web portals that inform crypto investors barely scratches the surface when it comes to data sites and analytical products. The best part, however, is that all of these crypto applications are free to use even though some of the sites offer more tracking depth for paid subscribers.

What do you think about the web portals that offer crypto supporters insight into the growing world of cryptocurrencies, markets, and onchain statistics? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The below is from a recent edition of the Deep Dive, Bitcoin Magazine's premium markets newsletter. To be among the first to receive these insights and other on-chain bitcoin market analysis straight to your inbox, subscribe now.

MicroStrategy’s Relentless Bitcoin Accumulation

Michael Saylor announced today over Twitter that MicroStrategy has purchased an additional 5,050 bitcoin for $242.9 million in cash at an average price of $48,099 per bitcoin, putting the company’s total holdings at 114,042 bitcoin.

With 114,042 bitcoin and approximately 8.58 million shares outstanding, investors now own 1.3 million sats per MicroStrategy share, with the bitcoin per share up 2%. As MicroStrategy issues more common stock to fund their bitcoin buying spree, investors give up some of their ownership through the increased equity dilution. In return, they get more bitcoin per share of MicroStrategy stock.

Over the last few weeks in their August 24 and September 13 announcements, MicroStrategy has sold an additional 793,232 shares for a total $577 million to buy more bitcoin. As previously announced in July, their Open Market Sale Agreement allows them to sell up to $1 billion in new stock. So far, Michael Saylor is following through with his original plan to buy as much bitcoin as possible through any and every financial vehicle at his disposal. And it doesn’t look like he’s stopping anytime soon.

Since the company’s adoption of a bitcoin standard on August 11, 2020, MSTR shares have increased by 419.9%, outpacing the price of bitcoin, which returned 279.0% during the same period.

Whale Watching

Bitcoin supply held by whales is trending up in the month of September – up 67,195 bitcoin totaling 6.13 million. That’s up 3.1% from this year’s low back in July indicating increased demand from larger institutional buyers over the last two months. Supply held by whales includes entities that hold over 1,000 bitcoin, excluding exchange balances and other known holdings like GBTC. MicroStrategy’s latest 5,050 bitcoin make up 7.5% of this move.

When adding up the bitcoin supply held by entities with a balance of 1,000-10,000, 10,000-100,000, or over 100,000 BTC, and subtracting exchange balances from the metric, a clear picture emerges. Since February, both the total whale balance started to decline as well as the number of whale entities (entities being a heuristic labeling of a cluster of addresses associated with one another on the blockchain); however the BTC per whale began to increase quite significantly.

In simple terms this means that a number of convicted whales continued to accumulate despite the upside and downside volatility since the month of February, and following the summer price drawdown of over 50%, aggregate BTC balance held by whales has resumed its uptrend.

TLDR: Both total BTC holdings by whale entities as well as the average BTC holding per whale are increasing. The big money is buying right now. The numbers don’t lie.

Long-Term Holder Supply Continues To Break All-Time Highs

The supply of bitcoin that is held by long-term holders continues to break all-time highs on a daily basis, with the total bitcoin held by the cohort being over 2 million more than it was on March 17, which was the low figure for 2021. This is without a doubt a bullish catalyst and shows how strong-handed HODLers have been accumulating through the volatility of 2021.

With the classification of long-term holders being 155 days (for reasons explained below), the current date for a UTXO to be considered a “long-term” holder is April 11, 2021, just three days before the local top of the bitcoin market. Despite this, there have never been more bitcoin held by long-term investors. Incredibly bullish.

The time threshold for a bitcoin balance to be considered “long-term” is 155 days, and this is because of the statistical significance of the data when backtesting UTXO spend probabilities. For more information on the quantification of long-term versus short-term holders, read here.

Earlier this summer, Damien Hirst announced his latest project: a showy NFT initiative called “The Currency.” It involved selling 10,000 unique hand-painted dot-covered works on paper, each one corresponding to a nonfungible token. But wait, there’s more.

Each of the hybrid painting-NFTs, available to collectors at the low, low price of $2,000, has a very particular stipulation. Buyers would have one year to decide if they wanted to keep the NFT, in which case the physical artwork would be ceremonially burned. Or they could keep the physical work, and relinquish rights to the blockchain-based artwork.

In essence, “The Currency” pitted Hirst’s foray into the new world of digital art against his old-school practice, asking the art market to decide which was more valuable. (At the height of Hirst’s market heat in 2007, a work on paper by the artist sold for more than $393,065.)

At the time, it sure sounded like Hirst was, ahem, jumping the shark, with a philosophical gimmick. But just about two months into the project’s debut, the artist took to social media to announce that sales generated by “The Currency” have reached $25 million already.

A statement posted today to the Discord server of HENI Analytics, an arm of the company that partnered with Hirst on the project, broke down the sales for the past six, 12, and 24 hours for the NFT works. In the last 24 hours, 14 sales totaling almost $400,000 were recorded, with a maximum price of $43,204 and minimum price of $3,694.

Since the project launched in July, there have been a total of 1,571 sales on secondary market NFT platforms adding up to just a bit more than even the whopping eight-figure Hirst boasted about, at $26,345,475.

The maximum price paid so far sits at $120,614 for a work titled Yes, which is considered one of the rarer of the pieces in the series because it has a single word title. HENI ranks each of the works in “The Currency” for its rarity based on algorithms that analyze density of the spots, colors used, and what kind of words are in each title, which all come from Hirst’s favorite songs.

OpenSea’s public data on the project confirm the basic trends suggested by HENI and Hirst. It shows that the floor price (or lowest available price) for an NFT from “The Currency” sits at 8.8 ETH, or $28,500, more than 10 times its original price. (The OpenSea floor price is updated hourly.)

According to OpenSea snapshot of the project, by far the most active day in the trading history of “The Currency” was August 14, when 249 of the NFTs changed hands. In recent days things have settled down considerably, with anywhere between 10 and 20 sales per day.

One recent sale, for the work A Way of Life, was originally listed 10 days ago on the secondary market by its owner, who goes by @Quality, for 18.88 Ethereum (over $60,800). Finding no takers, it was re-listed a day later for 8.8 Ethereum (or $28,500). At that price it was sold 8 days ago for 8.49 Ethereum ($27,200) to @syzygyfinance, which re-listed A Way of Life just two days later for 14.8 Ethereum (or $47,800).

Today @syzygyfinance adjusted its asking price down to 9.75 Ethereum ($31,300). It sold at that price to @liquiddyor, meaning @syzygyfinance realized about $4,000 in profit on the flip.

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