Terra is a public, proof-of-stake blockchain network built using Tendermint consensus and the Cosmos SDK. Terra provides a suite of stablecoins collateralized by the network’s native token, LUNA, which captures the value of economic activity on the network and is used in governance and staking.

Terra stablecoins underpin the network’s economic activity, serving as the basis for interacting with applications built on top of Terra’s blockchain for payments (Chai), earnings (Anchor) and investing (Mirror). Terra is the first and largest (by market cap) algorithmic stablecoin network today, and only trails Bitcoin and Ethereum in annualized on-chain transaction fees.

The Terra blockchain is designed to provide fiat-pegged stablecoins that can be used for payments, earnings and other applications. It combines the stability and wide adoption of fiat with the security and efficiency of blockchain solutions.

Terra is secured with a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm based on Tendermint. The native LUNA token can be staked as collateral to validate transactions, with rewards proportional to the amount of LUNA staked.

Besides securing the Terra network, LUNA also plays a crucial role in pegging the value of Terra stablecoins to fiat currencies.

Terra achieves price-stability by algorithmically adjusting coin supply according to fluctuations in demand. For instance, an increase in demand for US dollars on Terra (the UST stablecoin) manifests in an increase in the volume of UST transactions and a surge in the price of UST. As a result, Terra must ensure that its price does not deviate from its peg. In this scenario, the supply of UST must increase to compensate for the extra demand. This is known as expansion.

In the opposite scenario, a fall in demand for UST results in decreased transactional activity and a drop in the price. In this case, the supply needs to be cut to keep the peg within the acceptable stability bounds. This is called contraction.

Expansion and contraction of coins supplies on Terra are achieved by naturally efficient market forces and the opportunism of individual arbitrageurs. LUNA holders are incentivized to swap LUNA for stablecoins at profitable exchange rates, expanding and contracting the stablecoin supply appropriately. For example, if demand for UST is increasing, arbitrageurs will mint 1 UST by burning $1 worth of LUNA and selling that 1 UST on the open market for a riskless profit.

In the short term, LUNA stakers absorb the volatility of stablecoins on Terra. In thelong term, they are rewarded with increased mining rewards from the adoption of the network’s stablecoins via apps built on top of the network.

Watch this video for a simple explanation:

Terra currently offers stablecoins pegged to the US dollar (UST), South Korean won (TerraKRT), Mongolian tugrik (TerraMNT) and the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket of currencies (TerraSDR).

New stablecoins pegged to additional fiat currencies can also be minted if voted for by the Terra community. Proposals were recently accepted to mint stablecoins for the Chinese Yuan (CNY), Japanese Yen (JPY), British Pound (GBP, Indian Rupee (INR), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Swiss Franc (CHF), Hong Kong Dollar (HKD), Australian Dollar (AUD) and Singapore Dollar (SGD).

Terra hosts a number of applications for payments, earnings and investments that make use of its stablecoins. These have already seen significant adoption, with billions of dollars in transaction volume and TVL.

All of the applications built on top of Terra increase demand for the network’s underlying stablecoins, which accrues value to LUNA stakers that share in payment and swap fees. Additionally, as demand for a coin like UST increases, more LUNA is burned, making LUNA more scarce than before.

Terra applications include:

One of Terra’s many fiat-pegged stablecoins, TerraKRW, powers Chai, which is already one of the largest e-commerce wallets in Korea. Through an API called I’mport, Chai enables merchants to accept payments via 20 different options (e.g. debit, credit, PayPal, etc.) with low fees and fast settlement. On the back-end, Chai uses Terra’s stablecoins to settle transactions faster and cheaper than legacy counterparts. Notably, users of Chai are never actually exposed to interfacing with Terra directly, making the user experience extremely smooth.

Chai hosts over 2 million users and has generated over $2 billion in annualized transaction volume. It recently raised a $60 million Series B.

Mirror

Mirror is a synthetic assets protocol built on the Terra network that is designed to provide real-world exposure to all types of asset classes such as US tech equities, commodities, ETFs and crypto assets. It allows for the creation and trading of “Mirrored Assets” (mAssets), which allow users around the globe to trade on the price action of real-world assets, such as Amazon (AMZN) stock.

Minters of mAssets enter a collateralized debt position (CDP), where they collateralize the minted mAsset with UST at a specific collateral ratio as determined by the Terra community’s governance (derived from the volatility of the asset). mAssets can then be trivially traded on multiple chains including Terra, Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain.

Minters of mAssets are effectively taking a short position against that asset, which means that if its price increases, they will need to add collateral to their CDP to avoid liquidation. In Mirror V2, inverse tokens will alleviate this by allowing positive exposure to mAssets for minters.

Mirror has accumulated more than $2.3 billion in TVL and $1.2 billion in liquidity since its December 2020 launch.

Anchor

Anchor is a savings protocol offering low-volatile yields on Terra stablecoin deposits. It offers incentives in the Anchor token (ANC). The “Anchor Rate” (the target APY Anchor seeks to pay out to depositors) is powered by a diversified stream of staking rewards from major proof-of-stake blockchains. This makes up the “real yield”. If the real yield is greater than the Anchor Rate, the excess yield is stored in a UST denominated “yield reserve”. ANC incentives to borrowers drop by 15% every week. If the real yield is less than the Anchor Rate, the yield shortfall is drawn down from the yield reserve until it is depleted. Additionally, ANC incentives to borrowers increase by 50% every week until the real yield converges to the Anchor Rate.

Anchor currently holds $1 billion in TVL.

Terra was launched by the South Korean company Terraform Labs (TFL) in January 2018, founded by Daniel Shin and Do Kwon. Before Terra, Shin co-founded the South Korean e-commerce platform Ticket Monster (TMON) and start-up incubator Fast Track Asia. Kwon previously founded Anyfi, a startup providing decentralized wireless mesh networking solutions.

Investors in Terraform Labs include Galaxy Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, PolyChain Capital, Binance Labs, Huobi Capital, FBG Capital and TransLink Capital.

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Terra is a decentralized payment system on the blockchain. Its goal is to facilitate global payments in a secure and less volatile way than traditional cryptocurrencies. 

Terra is part of the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, which seeks to replace traditional financial services with a decentralized alternative on the blockchain. DeFi has attracted crypto investors as a more efficient and less expensive option to send money globally.

Ready to be part of the DeFi industry? Learn how you can buy Terra (LUNA) today. 

Terra is a decentralized global payment system made specifically for transferring stablecoins. Stablecoins are pegged to other currencies like USD, so payments on Terra don’t fluctuate with the cryptocurrency markets. This limits the risk of buying volatile cryptocurrency while still providing all the benefits of a decentralized payment system. 

Unlike most DeFi protocols that operate on Ethereum’s network, Terra operates on the Cosmos blockchain. Cosmos has many operational benefits over Ethereum’s network, such as quicker transactions and less expensive transaction fees. 

However, there are downsides to Terra on the Cosmos network. Ethereum has the most applications built on its platform, and only other applications built on Ethereum can directly interact with these programs. Because Terra isn’t built on Ethereum, the platform has less liquidity and a smaller user base than many of its competitors.

Terra has recently developed its own stablecoin, Terra USD (UST) that can be used on more than one blockchain platform. This is a valuable upgrade to Terra’s platform because it allows users to send stablecoins to Ethereum and Solana’s blockchains. 

Terra was made with a focus on price stability and user experience. Daniel Shin and Do Kwon founded Terra in January 2018 when the cryptocurrency market bubble popped. The cryptocurrency has grown significantly since its inception, appreciating over 1,000% this year.

Institutional investors that purchased LUNA during its initial coin offering include Binance, OKEx and Huobi. Terra raised $32 million from its ICO in 2018, minting 385,245,974 LUNA, and the total market has grown to over $2.8 billion at the time of writing.

Luna is the native cryptocurrency to Terra’s platform. Luna is used to provide liquidity to the platform, as decentralized finance programs need its users to provide liquidity in its smart contracts. Smart contracts are code on the blockchain that is capable of performing financial functions with cryptocurrencies. 

Terra offers rewards to incentivize users to stake Luna on its platform. Users can earn interest from transaction fees and arbitrage on Terra’s platform. Staking is necessary not only for liquidity, but to adjust the prices of stablecoins through the smart contract’s rebalancing algorithms. 

Luna has a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens, but technically more than 1 billion tokens can be minted. If more than 1 billion tokens are available in the ecosystem, the program will burn extra supply in its treasury. At the time of writing, Luna is $6.33 per coin.

To get started investing you need to open an account with a crypto brokerage that supports Luna. Luna isn’t supported by major crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Gemini, so you’ll need to make an account with a lesser-known brokerage. The largest exchange that supports Luna is Binance, but you can also make an account with Bittrex, Huobi or Kucoin exchange. 

Like an account with a stock brokerage, you’ll have to provide personal identification information for tax purposes. To make an account with these exchanges, you’ll need to provide your name, Social Security number, address, email and birthdate. 

In order to hold your cryptocurrency securely you need to store your assets on a cryptocurrency wallet. Storing your cryptocurrencies on exchanges makes your crypto at risk of being hacked –– many exchanges that claim to be secure have been breached in the past. 

Cryptocurrency wallets can be software wallets or hardware wallets. Software wallets are mobile apps or computer programs that store cryptocurrencies, and hardware wallets are physical devices that store your cryptocurrency offline. Hardware wallets are the most secure way to store your crypto, as it’s impossible to access your funds without the physical device.

If you plan on trading your crypto regularly, you’ll need to keep your funds on the exchange to do so. Binance is the most secure exchange to use for trading because it has a reserve account to insure your assets against security breaches. 

There aren’t many choices when it comes to hardware wallets that support Luna. Most multi-coin wallets support major cryptos like Ethereum and Bitcoin, but few support smaller cryptocurrencies like Luna.

The Ledger Nano S is your best bet for storing your Luna in a hardware wallet. Out of the package, the Ledger Nano S doesn’t support Luna. You need to use the Ledger Live application to download Terra Station on your hardware wallet. Once the program is installed, you can send Luna to your Ledger wallet. 

The Ledger Nano S comes in at an affordable $51 on Amazon. Ledger also offers a premium version called the Ledger Nano X for just over $100, but it’s currently out of stock on Amazon. No matter what Ledger wallet you choose, they all offer great security features to keep your crypto safe. 

Terra Station is by far the best software wallet to store your Luna. Terra Station was made by Terra for its users, and it has many unique features. The wallet displays information like market supply, current market price and current interest rates.

You can use Terra Station to stake your Luna to earn interest directly from your wallet. The current interest rate for staking Luna on Terra’s platform is 5.4%. This is a great incentive to stake your Luna, but keep in mind that a 5.4% return is not guaranteed. 

Not only does the interest rate fluctuate, but Luna’s price is highly volatile, so most of the risk associated with staking Luna comes with the price movements of the coin. 

Once you’ve chosen a crypto wallet to store your funds on, you’re ready to make your purchase. You can place your buy order for Luna  as either a limit or market order. 

Market orders will purchase Luna at the current market price, while Limit orders will execute at a specified price you set. If the market price of Luna never reaches the price specified in your limit order, it won’t be filled.

Soon after your buy order for Luna is fulfilled, you should see your Luna coins credited on your brokerage account. It’s not recommended you keep your Luna, or any other crypto, on an exchange unless you are actively trading. 

You can’t trade crypto you store on your wallet. In order to sell your Luna you’ll need to transfer it back to a supported crypto exchange.

It’s a good idea to watch the cryptocurrency markets to get an idea of how the prices are moving. Cryptocurrencies are very volatile assets and can move up or down 10% in a single day. 

With Bitcoin in a bull market, many altcoins are moving up fast. But if you keep a close eye on the market, you could get Luna at a discount during a market pullback. 

Terra offers a unique approach to decentralized payment solutions. There’s a clear benefit for users to be able to transact stablecoins globally in a quick and secure way, and Terra has many competitors with more daily users on their platforms.

Terra may be a good investment for you if you believe that the Cosmos blockchain is a better platform for DeFi than Ethereum. Cosmos has more efficient transactions and is far more scalable than Ethereum, but the platform suffers from a small user base. 

Terra is working hard to integrate their tokens on the Ethereum network, which may expand the user base of the platform significantly.

Terraform Labs has raised $25 million in a new round from Galaxy Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital and others.

The stablecoin for e-commerce creator has already proven people will use its volatility free tokens in decentralized finance (DeFi), to buy synthetic stocks, and plans to attract blockchain denizens to even more use cases.

“We look forward to using the funds for building key pieces of infrastructure in the Mirror Protocol for synthetics, Anchor Protocol for savings and other killer DeFi applications to make Terra’s algorithmic stablecoins the centerpiece of the decentralized finance movement,” Terraform’s co-founder Do Kwon said in a press release.

Terraform Labs is behind a platform for minting different stablecoins for e-commerce that mimic the value of various fiat currencies. It’s also behind the Chai payments app, an e-commerce wallet that’s widely used in Asia and powered by stablecoins.

“The Terra ecosystem has brought the benefits of programmable money to commerce and will do the same for finance,” Pantera Capital’s Paul Veradittakit said in a press release.

Previous investors Hashed, Arrington XRP and Kenetic Capital also participated in what Terraform Labs is calling a “growth fundraising round.”

“Terra has already made a successful payment case for more than 2 million users in the Korean market, and is also rapidly growing in the DeFi space,” Simon Kim, CEO of Hashed, said in a press release.

Founded in 2018, with a co-founder behind one of Korea’s larger e-commerce sites, Terra launched with $32 million in backing from Binance and Polychain, among others. Each Terra stablecoin (such as TerraUSD or the one tracking the South Korean won, TerraKRW), relies on the system’s LUNA token to maintain its peg.

LUNA is the governance token for the blockchain, as the white paper explains. It is minted and burned in order to enforce the peg for any Terra stablecoin, so the governance token absorbs the volatility to defend its stablecoins’ utility.

Most entrepreneurs on Ethereum agree that DeFi Summer never would have happened had stablecoins not proved they could stay stable.

The Terra stablecoins are notable because they operate outside the Ethereum ecosystem, the platform most associated with DeFi. Terra’s blockchain is Tendermint-based, making it part of the larger Cosmos ecosystem.

Terraform says that its blockchain generates $13 million in fees annually. Its payments system, Chai, has 2 million users and sees $1.2 billion in transaction volume using its TerraKRW stablecoin, which tracks the price of the South Korean won.

Last summer, Terraform teased a DeFi savings platform called Anchor, which generates a better interest rate for savers by backing proof-of-stake networks. Originally slated for October 2020, it’s currently projected to go live in the first quarter of 2021.

“On Anchor the protocol work is done but we are doing integrations with a well known partner so we can launch together. Almost there,” Kwon told CoinDesk in a followup email.

Terraform also dropped a new synthetic equities market last month called Mirror. This enables anyone anywhere to buy tokens that follow the price of any equity in the U.S. stock market.

The new funding will be used to expand those use cases, build new DeFi projects that use its tokens and extend its interoperability to additional blockchains, Terraform said.

“We love the expanding use case of the base payments product and the incredible new demand for LUNA that products like Mirror are creating,” Michael Arrington, founder of Arrington XRP, told CoinDesk in a text message.

Working as a globally-acclaimed digital asset custodian for DeFi and CeFi systems, Hex Trust has announced its strategic collaboration with Terra, a leading brand name in stablecoins and blockchain firms. The two powerful blockchain-focused entities will lay in joint efforts to expand their network coverage and widen their service range for customers. They will strive together to curate an infrastructure that will streamline the overall financial processes for crypto lovers. As part of the collaboration, Hex Trust will infuse Terra blockchain into its fully licensed custody portal and also leverage support for the staking of Luna Token. Luna is the native token of Terra’s Delegated Proof-of-Stake blockchain network that facilitates staking and governance within the network for the owners. Terra offers a strong channel of powerful stablecoins that are pegged to reliable fiat currencies. This helps the owners to enjoy stability and liquidity for their Terra-supported digital assets effectively. Stablecoins uses a well-defined protocol and algorithm that ensures price stability by fluctuating the overall money pool at the right phase. For providing security and other stability services to the ecosystem, the stakers of Luna Token are given rewards out of transaction charges and seigniorage. Its investor pool includes Polychain Capital, 1kx, Kenetic Capital, Binance Labs, Arrington XRP, FBG Capital, Hashed, etc. The Chai payment app built on the Terra blockchain has added on to the network’s popularity. The app is used by more than 3% of South Koreans to pay for various services. On the other hand, Hex Trust provides security to digital assets through its duly licensed and regulated custodian portal, Hex Safe. It facilitates secured access to DeFi and CeFi networks along with other third-party channels offering lending, borrowing, exchange, and staking services. Regarding the partnership, Calvin Shen, Chief of Sales and Business Development in Hex Trust, stated that his team is excited to collaborate with Terra that has proved its mettle in the Korean crypto market. They will help Terra in its aim to evolve as a leading blockchain payment solution across countries.

Ethereum 2.0 (Eth2) staking protocol Lido Finance has raised $73 million in fresh funding.

The funding was led by crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, which bought $51 million worth of LDO tokens from LidoDAO's treasury by paying the amount in 15,120 ether (ETH).

The rest of the amount, i.e., $22 million, was contributed by a range of investors, including Coinbase Ventures, Three Arrows Capital, Jump Trading, Alameda Research, Digital Currency Group, and several others.

Lido is a "liquid" Eth2 staking protocol, meaning it allows users to unlock staked ETH and use it in various DeFi applications to earn yield. Lido allows that by issuing its native token stETH for every ETH staked via its protocol. stETH is a tokenized version of staked ETH.

With fresh capital at hand, Lido plans to facilitate the integration of stETH across Ethereum's DeFi ecosystem, as well as other proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains such as Solana and Terra, Lido's CMO Kasper Rasmussen told The Block.

Arjun Balaji, Paradigm's investment partner, told The Block that the venture firm is "excited by Lido's potential to offer the leading decentralized staking solution for ETH2 and other PoS chains."

Lido's staking solution is decentralized, meaning it does not rely on a single party's private key management, such as centralized crypto exchanges' staking services. Lido charges a 10% fee on staking rewards, according to information on its website.

ETH2 is a popular asset for staking. The Eth2 staking contract now has more than 4 million ETH, which is worth nearly $14 billion at current prices, according to The Block's Data Dashboard.

In this opportunity I’m glad to present you DENARIS: the Terrae game cryptocurrency. DENARIS is an ERC20 token built on Ethereum platform and will facilitate players trading digital assets inside game. Since DENARIS complies with ERC20 standards, it will be also posible to trade it in crypto exchanges against other cryptoassets.While some players will become great warriors and base their economy charging taxes over ruled lands, others will become land workers and will base their economy on businesses, selling raw materials like wood or food, or processed materials like bronze or steel. Due to its location, some players will be able to obtain more scarce and precious materials such as diamonds and other precious minerals. If these materials become a necessity in the dynamic evolution of Terrae, players will be willing to exchange them for other owned resources. Finally, some players may specialize in training long-range archers, or high-resistance warriors, which will motivate other players to hire their services.These dynamics explain almost naturally the need for a market where the supply and demand of players can be found. Likewise, it is necessary to have a universal currency in the world of Terrae, which allows assigning value to the different assets to facilitate exchanges.We believe that in the long term Terrae will develop a complex economy, which will assign value to the assets evolving organically. Some players may have significant monthly income by selling their production, trading or simply collecting taxes on their land. It would not be desirable for the value assigned to the assets within Terrae to depend on an external economy, which is not related to the game. For example, if the exchanges were made using ether, the value of the assets would fluctuate all time, giving an economic uncertainty to the players and demotivating them. If, however, Terrae’s economy is based on its own currency, we believe that the value of the currency will be given by the value that users give to the game resources, which were ultimately produced with their own time, work and dedication. The economy of Terrae will be an independent economy, skeptical of other crypto platforms.1/ To buy/sell units and economical resources in the marketplace:Suppose I’m gold producer and I need archers to defend my frontier. I can train them in my own lands, or instead, I can sell a portion of my gold production in the marketplace and then use the DENARIS tokens I got in return, to buy archers from another players.2/ To receive taxes payments: Land rulers will be able to charge fees on marketplace when trading involves players who live in lands under their domain. These fees will be payed in DENARIS tokens. Land rulers may withdraw that tokens out of the game and exchange them by bitcoins, or just use them to strengthen their armies and expand their kingdoms.3/ To buy cosmetic collectibles: Cosmetics are digital goods that players demands to express themselves customizing their characters. Their main feature is that they don’t generate any competitive advantage within the game. Banners, flags, shields, buildings, armors and other assets could be customized. All collectibles are stored in blockchain as Non Fungible Tokens and could be traded in the marketplace.4/ DENARIS can be used in future games produced by Sideblock Studios, the company behind Terrae Game.5/ DENARIS may also be used in third party games in case we set partnerships.At the beginning of the game, 10 million DENARIS tokens will be minted. The amount of DENARIS tokens will be fixed Instagram — LinkedInProject Lead at Terrae Game. Blockchain Researcher at CoinFabrik. My GitHub: https://github.com/fedecacciaMassive Multiplayer Online Blockchain Based Strategy War Game

XRP and Ripple have been in the news almost every other day over the past few months, thanks to developments in the SEC’s lawsuit and the token’s price appreciation since December. However, of late, the said buzz has been instigated by the market’s XRP whales. In fact, over the past few days, these whales have gone on to accumulate massive volumes of the token.

Santiment’s metrics pointed to something similar. Attesting the same on Twitter, technical and on-chain analyst Ali Martinez highlighted,  

“XRP whales have gone into a buying spree. Santiment reveals that 19 new addresses with more than 1,000,000 XRP have joined the network since April 23.”

“Further upward pressure could push this cryptocurrency to new yearly highs.”

The surge in the number of “large investors” in XRP’s market has been such that these whales now hold over $1.4 billion in this alt. The buying spree has also had a positive effect on the crypto-market in general, with the alt often leading the altcoin rally over the past few months.

At press time, the cryptocurrency had hiked by almost 40 percent in the past week alone. Exchanges re-listing XRP on their platforms due to a surge in demand, or “popular demand,” may have also played a crucial role in XRP’s ongoing rally.

Take the case of Phemex itself. After re-listing XRP on Wednesday, the token’s 24-hour volume on the exchange was well above $66 million. Supplementing the re-listings, developments in the ongoing lawsuit have also brushed off positively on the price of the altcoin.  

However, whales buying up XRP may have been the main driving factor behind the crypto’s price escalation. The number of addresses that held more than 1,000,000 XRP shot up by 1.25 percent and close to 19 whales have now joined the network over this period.

What’s more, the alt’s performance is galvanizing greater XRP transfers as well. Consider this – XRP worth over $15 million was transferred from crypto-exchange Crypto.com to an unknown wallet just five days back.

At the time of writing, the technical indicators for XRP indicated that the alt was heading for a bull run with a market cap of over $71 billion. At press time, the token’s price was trading just under the $1.6-level, a level it hasn’t seen since 17 April.

Apart from XRP whales, however, even Bitcoin whales have been accumulating the flagship crypto, with the same contributing to BTC recovering somewhat on the price charts.

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After dipping to $56,000 yesterday, bitcoin has added $2,000 of value and touched $58,000. Ethereum’s latest ATH at $3,100 and numerous other pumping altcoins helped the crypto market cap gain more than $70 billion in a day to a new record just shy of $2.3 billion.

After reaching a 2-week high at $58,500 a few days ago, the primary cryptocurrency started to retrace slightly. In the following 48 hours, bitcoin dropped by more than $2,500, resulting in testing $56,000 once more.

As reported yesterday, BTC had troubles at that particular level again. However, the bulls took over at that point and pushed the asset upwards.

As a result, bitcoin added more than $2,000 of value in a matter of hours and reached $58,400. Despite retracing with a few hundred dollars since then, BTC is still about 2% up on a 24-hour scale.

The technical indicators suggest that the first resistance line in bitcoin’s way up is at $58,355, followed by two rounded-number ones at $59,000 and the old nemesis $60,000. Alternatively, bitcoin could rely on the support levels at $56,950, $56,400, and $55,400 if it retraces once again.

When it comes down to the alternative coins, Ethereum has been stealing the shows for several consecutive days. The second-largest crypto marked multiple new records, leading to breaking another milestone hours ago by tapping $3,000 for the first time.

However, ETH wasn’t satisfied with just reaching a round-number and added more than $100 again for another record at over $3,100.

Binance Coin (2.5%), Ripple (1.5%), Cardano (1%), Polkadot (3%), Litecoin (1.3%), Chainlink (1%), and Dogecoin (0.5%) are also in the green. Uniswap is the most substantial gainer, with an 11% pump to over $44.

From the lower- and mid-cap altcoins, Venus leads the way with a 26% surge to over $125. Maker (19%), Ontology (12%), Waves (12%), Polygon (10%), Helium (10%), Theta Fuel (10%), Terra (10%), and Neo (10%) follow suit.

Ultimately, the cumulative market capitalization expanded by $70 billion in a day and $250 billion in four days to a new record of approximately $2.280 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

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The group literally burnt the artwork and sold its NFT on the OpenSea platform for $400,000. Although the stunt was covered by CBS News, BBC News, The Guardian, and others, it did actually make a significant point.

By removing the physical piece, the group — calling itself “Burnt Banksy” — proved that the value of the piece wasn’t affected by being destroyed, given that the NFT went up so much in value.

Now that project is turning that stunt into an actual blockchain platform for art auctions.

Burnt Finance says it has raised $3 million for a decentralized auction protocol built on the Solana blockchain.

The project is being incubated by Injective Protocol (which recently raised $10 million from investors and Mark Cuban, as well as Multicoin, DeFiance, Alameda, Mechanism, Vessel Capital, Hashkey, Spartan, Do Kwon (CEO of Terra), Sandeep (COO of Polygon), and others.

The reason why it’s worth mentioning all this is that in trying to auction the painting, the Burnt Banksy group stumbled on an increasing problem in the world of NFTs: The rising congestion on the Ethereum network is leading to larger and larger gas fees. This is making both the creation and bidding on NFTs increasingly expensive, just from a baseline.

As a result, the team decided to build the Burnt Finance NFT auction platform away from Ethereum and hit upon the Solana blockchain, which has comparatively good speed, performance and lower transaction costs. It will use “Solana Wormhole,” which connects ETH and ERC20 tokens to SPL Tokens.

A spokesperson for Burnt Finance, “Burnt Banksy” told me: “Most auctions are Ethereum based, and currently the Ethereum gas fees are extremely high. It can cost you up to $70 to make an artwork, which doesn’t work if you’re selling an NFT for $50. We chose Solana mainly because of the ecosystem. It’s fast-growing, in addition to the technical aspect of it.”

There’s another reason why we may see other crypto projects move away from Ethereum as ETH rises in price and as gas fees increase: the potential for bad faith actors in NFT auctions.

If a bad actor tries to leverage the congestion on Ethereum and manipulate the transaction fee, they might sway the results of an auction. This would be quite something, if the auction was for, say, $69 million.

The NFT craze will be a boon for lawyers

Disclaimer: The findings of the following article are the sole opinions of the writer and should not be taken as investment advice

The Bitcoin Cash [BCH] market noted two huge price drops in April. As the digital asset rallied to a peak of $1,219, a correction set in and dragged the value close to the support at $857. However, as the price recovered, it was hit by another bearish attack that pushed the price to another support level at $754.

After a brief period of consolidation, BCH was back trading at $934, at the time of press.

Bitcoin Cash [BCH] 

BCH’s 4-hour chart traced its journey in April and noted that the price was once again close to the resistance at $1,005. As the market pointed to strong bullish support, BCH may be able to re-visit the said resistance level.

Reasoning

After BCH recovered from the crash to $754, the volatility in the market also increased. However, it later reduced once consolidation began. As the price was once again witnessing an upwards push, the Bollinger Bands were diverging to underline the rise in volatility in the market. This rising price action could help push the price as close as $1,005.

The hike in buying pressure could be visible as the Relative strength index climbed to 64, close to the overbought zone. This value denoted that the buying pressure had increased as compared to the selling pressure, at press time. However, BCH had not yet hit the overbought zone.

Meanwhile, market momentum was gradually rising at the bull’s end, affirming the rising trend across the market.

Crucial levels to watch out for

Entry-level: $950 Take Profit: $1,022.09 Stop-level: $902.86 Risk to Reward: 1.49

Conclusion

If the trend sustains itself, the price of Bitcoin Cash [BCH] could hit the resistance level of $1,005. However, given its strong correlation with Bitcoin and Ethereum, it will be a long-term process as the market still projected strength.

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Namrata is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto covering the US and Indian market. A graduate in Mass communication, while majoring in Journalism, she writes mainly about regulations and its impact with a focus on technological advancements in the crypto space.

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KuCoin, a leading cryptocurrency exchange has added support for Terra (SDT) stablecoin and Luna (LUNA) on its bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) markets.Terra, a blockchain project focused on building the next generation payment system, has announced that its stablecoin, Terra SDT (SDT) and mining token Luna (LUNA) is now live on KuCoin, with several trading pairs including LUNA/BTC, LUNA/USDT, and SDT/USDT.The Terra payments network is powered by its native altcoins, Terra SDT and Luna. Terra SDT is backed by both the IMFs SDR and Luna mining token which derives its value from transaction fees on Terra. Terra SDT is the primary unit of account in the Terra ecosystem.Terra is aimed at promoting blockchain-based payments by incentivizing consumers and merchants alike. Terra eliminates the middlemen and uses revenue from the growth of its stablecoin economy to offer 5-10 percent discount to shoppers.Terra has forged alliances with several highly reputed entities including Asia-Pacific giants like TMON, Woowa, Carousell, and Tiki, in a bid to promote broader adoption of its stablecoin.Thats not all, Terra has also joined forces with Koreas music-streaming firm, Bugs and Sinsang Market, the regions largest B2B fashion platform.Terra has also attracted investments from HashKey Capital, Singapores LuneX, and U.S. hedge fundUlysses Capital.Terras Luna token is listed on top exchanges like Bittrex and Bitrue.As the peoples exchange, KuCoin is committed to empowering promising blockchain projects and providing a wide range of digital assets to crypto investors. The next-generation payment network created by Terra has the potential to grow the blockchain economy. We are happy to see this great project join our trading platform and we really appreciate their contribution to driving the mass adoption of cryptos.Since launching in June, Terras transaction volume has been growing at a rapid pace, with users already exceeding 400,000. We are excited that a global exchange like KuCoin is listing Terra and Luna at a time of unprecedented growth, and we look forward to continue growing Terras economy as more e-commerce partners offer Terra as a payment option, declared Daniel Shin, co-founder of Terra.About TerraTerra is aimed at creating a price-stable cryptocurrency that will revolutionize the payments ecosystem. Terra has partnered with a vast array of platforms to offer users cost-efficient transactions.Website: https://terra.money/Email: jing@kucoin.comDisclosure/Disclaimer:This article is paid for and produced by a third-party source and should not be viewed as an endorsement by ZyCrypto. Readers are urged to do their own research before having anything to do with the company, goods and/or services mentioned in the above article.The post KuCoin Crypto Exchange Lists Terra and Mining Token Luna appeared first on ZyCrypto.Source: zycrypto.com

Enter your e-mail to join other freedom seekers who choose to see the world as it really is... and get a free report that explains the big picture. We respect your privacy,plain and simple. Ten years ago the cypherpunks were almost entirely forgotten. But now and quite shockingly to those of us who were involved cypherpunks are cool again. More than that, the discoveries of the cypherpunks are starting to change the world in a serious way.That being so, Id like to briefly recap what the cypherpunks discovered, because what these people found was a new world a terra nova.Our new territory was created by a combination of the internet and encryption. The internet gave us unlimited community, and encryption became our city walls, allowing us to separate ourselves from the rest of the world.The first cypherpunks, being clever lads, began using the internet and encryption because they were interesting and fun. Shortly, however, they realized that they were actually building a terra nova and were instantly confronted with a huge question: How should we arrange our new world? That cranked everything into high gear.I didnt know this passage from Tom Paines Common Sense (1776) at the time, but it captures the astonishing thought that sprang from the discovery of terra nova:We have it in our power to begin the world over again.Not all was sweetness and light, however. Encryption was considered a munition, and exporting it was highly illegal. But it was easy to see that public key encryption (actually key exchange, published by Diffie and Hellman in 1976) was the perfect technology for the internet and the internet was not limited to the USA.So, a group of the clever lads hatched a plan in 1991: Theyd write a nice little encryption program and send it around the world. An anti-nuke advocate named Philip Zimmerman drove the project but everyone involved wanted to avoid the jail sentence that would come from exporting their new program. They did have one trick available to them, however: the First Amendment.So, they took the program, called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, and printed it as a book. And since books are protected speech, they pushed copies of the book into envelopes and mailed them to friends in Europe. Once on the far side of the Atlantic, the books were keyed back into computers and turned back into a program and then distributed everywhere.Zimmerman very nearly went to jail (based upon an upload to a BBS system), but the world received strong encryption.Once you begin exchanging encrypted messages with friends, one of the next ideas to cross your mind is, Gee, some kind of electronic currency would be really nice to go with this. (David Chaum, for example, began working on digital cash after he invented cryptographic mixes back in 1981.) And once you start imagining encrypted commerce, you quickly realize just how radical this technology can be.One by one this thought dawned upon us all. I wasnt among the very first to grasp it, but by the mid-1990s I was struck by it as well. In a continuing education course I conducted for Iowa State University, I wrote this:Another huge thing in years ahead will be electronic cash for Internet commerce. Electronic cash can be transferred on-line instantly, inexpensively (almost free), and, if encrypted, privately. Think about this for a minute it will change the world.The awesome power of encryption is not something that is instantly grasped.The quote above is from Julian Assange (also a cypherpunk), and its quite true. Encryption, after all, is merely applied math, and math is built into the structure of the universe.Now, to illustrate just how strongly the universe favors encryption, please consider this:It is roughly 2100 (2 to the 100th power) times harder to decrypt a message than it is to encrypt it (unless you have the key).Engineers debate this number of course, but its clearly in that range. Here it is precisely:1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376So, when people like Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin, talk about an arms race between cypherpunks and old-world power, dont simply assume that the old way will win[1]You should also know that post-quantum encryption already exists and is being incorporated into leading edge systems. jQuery("#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1").tooltip({ tip: "#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1", tipClass: "footnote_tooltip", effect: "fade", fadeOutSpeed: 100, predelay: 400, position: "top right", relative: true, offset: [10, 10] });.But while the cypherpunks dropped off the radar for a couple of decades, they still produced things like BitTorrent, The Onion Router network (aka Tor, or the darknet), I2P (an even better darknet), a variety of digital cash systems, privacy systems (including the first commercial VPNs), and even commercial tools like digital escrows and dispute resolution.The big, new cypherpunk creations, however, everyone knows: WikiLeaks and Bitcoin. Ive explained WikiLeaks before and we have a report on Bitcoin, so Ill leave those aside for today. But suffice it to say that a cypherpunk world has been building for some time and may form much further in the years ahead.A Planet Cypherpunk would be a radically different place from our current Planet Status Quo, and that scares some people very badly.That fear isnt rational of course. The ancient world is very happily long gone. We live better and behave better. The rational choice, then, is to keep that progress going, and that necessarily includes change, including radical new adaptations.Status quo systems, however, major on fear. Thats the secret ingredient that keeps their game together. And so right-thinking moderns have been trained to fear anything new. Thats not rational, but it makes people feel safe.But rather than conducting a further discourse on why Planet Cypherpunk would be better than Planet Status Quo, Ill simply leave you with the conclusion of one of the very first cypherpunk documents: Timothy C. Mays Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, published in November 1992:Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!* * * * *A book that generates comments like these, from actual readers, might be worth your time:Get it at Amazon ($18.95) or on Kindle: ($5.99)* * * * *Paul Rosenberg www.freemansperspective.comReferences[ + ] We respect your privacy,plain and simple. I am sorry to announce that John Perry Barlow, the author of The Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (also lyrics writer for The Grateful Dead, founder of EFF, and much more) , died February 6th. He will be missed. er-1947-2018http://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.htmlThe WikiLeaks emails are still mostly secret, but weve put together a free short report containing the most important ones. These are things that every Westerner, and certainly every American, should see. Theres way more going on behind the scenes than you ever imagined.You are not currently logged in.Many of us, either in whole or in part, have withdrawn our consent from the current ruling regime. Up till...

Ethereum registered a massive bullish week toward the end of April. Surging by 34% at press time, ETH has been able to outperform BTC after the recent dip in mid-April. While Bitcoin was still consolidating under the $60,000 mark, Ether went on to register a new all-time high.

Surprisingly, its on-chain metrics have differed in terms of indication with respect to previous highs, as the largest altcoin inched towards the $3,000 level.

In terms of profitability, the rising price of Ethereum led to the most number of addresses in profit to date, with the count rising up to 57.8 million. For context, during the start of 2020, it was less than 20 million.

The surprising statistics amidst the hike was that Ethereum miner revenue from fees reached a new 4-month low of 29.5%. During mid-April, the index was more than 50%. The mean fees paid also declined, dropping down to $10.55. On 19th April, it was more than 22$.

One of the main reasons for the drop in fees could be associated with the median gas prices, which reached a 4-month low recently. The collective drop in April may have reduced the congestion levels on Ethereum for transactions and hence, the market was able to push out consistent transactions without delay. The last week of April witnessed higher transactions on average.

Dropping gas prices are a blessing for DeFi assets that are working on Ethereum. One of the prime beneficiaries of the past week’s fee drop has been DeFi lending firm AAVE.

According to data, AAVE’s price is up by 54% over the past week, reaching its previous range of $500 for a brief period. Its on-chain fundamentals pictured improvements as well.

Glassnode suggested that the number of receiving addresses has been at a monthly high range over the past week, which was last witnessed back in March. A similar attribute was pictured by the number of sending addresses. Cumulative transaction volume on AAVE also crossed $30 billion in the process.

Another asset that probably rallied due to both Ethereum and Bitcoin, is Wrapped Bitcoin or WBTC. WBTC is an ERC20 token based on Ethereum but it pegged 1:1 with Bitcoin. The increasing value of WBTC is advantageous for ETH because it brings further liquidity from the BTC ecosystem for the DEXs and financial applications built on Ethereum.

With the number of transfers going up for WBTC for the first time since March, the fundamental improvements are all visible for these altcoins during Ether’s recent price jump.

Ethereum’s spot market is currently on high activity and crossing the $3000 mark may trigger another flurry of deposits for ETH. For the altcoins, it is clear as day that low gas prices are allowing these assets to spike based on fundamentals. Carrying through with the same momentum would depend on overall market sustainability during a period of corrections, and higher consolidation may further allow the assets to rally towards a new high alongside Ether.

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Biraajmaan covers market trends of major cryptocurrencies. As a graduate in engineering, his interests lie in Blockchain technology. With over a year as a journalist, his articles focus on US and UK markets.

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Solana, Terra, Aave Price Analysis: 04 May

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This eventful cryptoweek, Bitcoin and Ethereum fees dropped ahead of a fresh rally, while Arca said that BTC ‘fake selloff’ was driven by dealers with short inventory, BitPay said the share of BTC in their payments was the lowest last week as altcoins like DOGE have been gaining traction, and crypto pundits urged caution after another Elon Musk-fuelled DOGE rally. Yearn Finance expects treasury yield-farming to boost their revenue, and while Binance Chain is on ‘a parabola’, surpassing Ethereum in several metrics, BSC-based Uranium Finance got hacked. LUNA rallied after the news that Terra may be working on South Korean stablecoin-related plans with Busan, while Upbit capped crypto deposits to just under USD 450,000.

While Gemini, Mastercard and WebBank decided to give ‘real-time’ crypto rewards and Nexon spent some USD 100m on BTC, a task force tells Washington to ramp up the crypto exchange regulation, the Argentinian central bank asked the commercial banks to hand over data on crypto transactions, the new Governor of Turkey’s central bank said he wouldn’t seek to carry out a total crypto ban, and the South Korean government saw a furious backlash from 20-39-year-olds over its proposed crypto crackdown. Speaking of which, South Korean commercial banks should say “thank you, crypto”. PayPal CEO said central banks will need to rethink their monetary policies in the next decade and Tesla’s CFO said BTC has “long-term” worth. In the meantime, a new Carbonbase-WWF collaboration uses NFTs to save animals, German developer who got rich off BTC backed the party that wants it traceable, and we reported on five ways in which Visa wants to work with crypto and CBDCs.

Let’s check out this week’s best jokes.

Good morning, CT!

— jack (@jack)

How’s life going, CT?

As the week began:

Let’s check out what BTC has been up to.

— Cas “The Wolf of No Street” Piancey (@CasPiancey)

Revolutionary tech.

Let’s see what the Cryptoverse has in their calendar.

There are some at my local market, they’re organic, but expensive this time of year.

Look at Turkey having fun with regulations.

This! Is! HODL!

Bitcoin is angrily delicious.

Seriously, devs?!

There’d be no reason to do all them analyses, research, science, and stuff.

For the popular kids among us.

Remember, friends, no eating hamburgers while driving.

Let’s check if you’re centralized.

Fake it ’till you make it?

And lastly, your crypto movie for this week, based on real-life events. All resemblance with real dragons is coincidental.

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