As a report has it, Cardano (ADA), the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, will soon go live on the decentralized algorithmic money market, Venus.

Venus passed this latest development across via its official Twitter handle a few hours ago. It came in a thread of announcements that was started on 17th February 2021 by Venus on the microblogging platform Twitter.

Read Also: Cardano (ADA) Announces $1 Million Funding for Project Catalyst New Stage; Releases New Daedalus Wallet

Back then, the platform announced that Venus Improvement Proposal 9, which is slated for deployment this week will enable Cardano (ADA) to be listed on Venus for holders to participate in the liquidity mining program, earn interest, or used as collateral for loans.

Venus tweeted, “Venus Improvement Proposal 9 (VIP-9) will deployed this week and will enable Cardano ADA to be added as an asset to Venus where users can participate in the liquidity mining program (farming), earn interest, or use ADA as collateral to borrow other assets.”

Two days later, Venus announced that Venus Improvement Proposal 9 (VIP-9) has been deployed on the Venus mainnet in readiness to add Cardano (ADA) as an asset on its platform.

“VIP-9 has been deployed on the Venus mainnet…”

💴 Add $ADA to Venus 🏦 Lower VAI’s #XVS Emissions Rate (Reducing overall Venus inflation) https://t.co/u6geS2A8ch

— Venus (@VenusProtocol) February 18, 2021

Read Also: Fundamental Reasons to Be Bullish On Cardano (ADA)

In a recent update concerning the development, Venus stated that the awaiting Venus Improvement Proposal 9 (VIP-9) is now successful and it will be implemented soon.

According to the report, the development will give room for Cardano (ADA) to go live on the decentralized algorithmic money market, Venus.

Venus announced, “VIP-9 has passed and will be executed soon! Cardano will become an available digital asset on Venus!”

Get started: https://t.co/cAsPHdzOlQ https://t.co/KCgHWRPlfB

— Venus (@VenusProtocol) February 23, 2021

The cryptocurrency market has been in the red zone over the past couple of hours. Virtually all cryptocurrencies in the market are experiencing a huge dump along with Bitcoin (BTC).

Over the last 24 hours, BTC has lost relatively 20% of its value, likewise the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum (ETH).

Read Also: Charles Hoskinson: Bitcoin is only valuable because it’s Valuable, It Has No Technological Advantages

Cardano (ADA) is also dumping significantly. At the moment, no one can ascertain the bottom of this bear’s perpetration. At the time of writing, ADA is trading at $0.9241, with about a 13% price plummet in the last 24 hours.

A new report by CoinShares suggests Bitcoin (BTC) has garnered 97% of the total crypto inflows in 2021.

The recent correction in Bitcoin price does not seem to have deterred crypto investors as CoinShares data shows a record $1.3 billion in crypto product inflows over the past week. This suggests that investors are accumulating on the dips rather than attempting to chase higher prices.

Another space that has taken giant strides in the past few months has been the decentralized finance sector. While bond yields across the world are reeling near-zero levels, the attractive yield farming opportunities in DeFi and flash loans have attracted investors, boosting the total value locked to $26.1 billion on Jan. 25.

Unless the markets are gripped in panic, there are always certain sections that are in a bull phase. The tokens selected today have also outperformed the broader market in the short term.

Let’s investigate some of the fundamental reasons behind their bullish moves and pinpoint the critical levels to watch out for.

Transferring money seamlessly across borders without having to pay high fees is a necessity in today’s world and Celo (CELO) aims to ease this process. The project is gradually gaining adoption as there is now $30 million worth of cUSD in circulation.

After the success of cUSD, the platform plans to launch a new stablecoin that is pegged to the euro in the next two months. Similar to its cUSD, the euro stablecoin will use a basket of crypto assets to keep the price closely pegged to the underlying asset. 

Celo’s partnership with KardiaChain, Kadena, and Paychant opens several new opportunities for its users. The community also cheered Celo’s listing on Binance exchange on Jan. 5 and the altcoin broke out strongly after listing.

Celo recently announced a rewards program and starting Jan. 25 users who maintain a certain minimum average monthly balance of cUSD will earn rewards in CELO on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Along with the products, the credibility of the project is also important for its success. On that front, Celo’s inclusion in the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cryptocurrencies may have worked as a big positive.

CELO price surged from $1.752 on Jan. 12 to an intraday high at $3.922 on Jan. 22, a gain of 123% within ten days. The token is currently forming a rounding bottom pattern that will complete on a breakout and close above $4.50.

The CELO/USD pair has started a new uptrend and has been making a series of higher highs and higher lows. This suggests a bullish sentiment and traders are buying on dips. The moving averages are sloping upward and the relative strength index (RSI) is in the overbought zone, indicating an advantage to the bulls.

The pair does not have any major resistance until it reaches $4.30 but the bears are unlikely to give up easily. They will try to stall the current up-move in the $3.60 to $3.922 zone. If they succeed, the pair could drop to the 20-day exponential moving average ($2.528) where buyers are likely to step in.

A strong rebound off the 20-day EMA will keep the uptrend intact and the bulls will then again try to push the price to $4.30. A breakout and close above the $4.30 to $4.50 resistance zone could start the next leg of the uptrend.

This bullish view will invalidate if the pair breaks below the 20-day EMA. In such a case, the pair could drop to the 50-day simple moving average ($1.95).

The DeFi space continues to hold strong even as major cryptocurrencies are witnessing a sharp correction. This shows users’ confidence in DeFi and the ability of the sectors' projects to offer much better returns compared to altcoins.

Venus Protocol (XVS) is exclusively on Binance Smart Chain, therefore it did not suffer from the detrimental effects of high gas fees that negatively impacted DeFi projects in early January. This could have attracted some traders to jump over to Venus.

Decentralization is one of the key factors in crypto and Venus completed the transition on Jan. 15. The protocol will now be governed by the community, which is a welcome step in the right direction. The positives of the past few days may have resulted in its total value locked to jumping to $400 million.

XVS has risen from an intraday low at $3.945 on Jan. 18 to an intraday high at $12.90 today, a 227% rally within a short span. The momentum picked up after the bulls pushed the price above the stiff $5 to $6 overhead resistance zone on Jan. 23.

Some profit-booking was seen on Jan. 25 but the bulls purchased the dip and pushed the price above $9.89 today to resume the uptrend. Crossing into double digits seems to have ignited the bulls who have continued to buy at higher levels.

The XVS/USD pair could now rally to $15 and then to $20. However, the recent rally has pushed the RSI deep into the overbought territory, which increases the risk of a correction or consolidation.

If the price turns down from the current levels, it is likely to find support at $10. A strong rebound off this level will suggest the previous resistance has flipped to support and the bulls will then try to resume the uptrend. On the contrary, if the price breaks below $10, the correction could deepen to $8.

FantomFinance (FTM) is another DeFi project that is acting as a bright spot that is leading the market higher.

Fantom recently entered into a partnership with Injective Protocol that is expected to increase adoption as users can access assets on both chains. Together both teams plan to bring new and innovative synthetic products to the market, tapping the ever-growing popularity of synthetics and decentralized derivatives trading.

This offers an opportunity for the traders to benefit from trading markets that are in a trend rather than getting stuck to a specific asset class. FTM’s recent listing on SushiSwap also seems to have been cheered by the community.

FTM has soared from an intraday low at $0.0241 on Jan. 22 to an intraday high at $0.0678 today, a 181% rally within five days. The bulls had pushed the price above the $0.05665 resistance on Jan. 24 and 25 but could not sustain the higher levels.

The bears attempted to start a correction on Jan. 25 but the bulls were in no mood to relent. They have aggressively propelled the price to a new all-time high today. However, the sharp rally of the past few days has pushed the RSI deep into the overbought territory, which could start a correction or consolidation.

If the price turns down from the current levels but rebounds off the $0.05665 support, it will suggest the previous resistance has flipped to support. The FTM/USD pair may then start the next leg of the uptrend that could reach $0.0850.

Conversely, if the bears sink the price below $0.05665, the pair could drop to $0.05 and then to $0.045. A break below this support could signal a change in trend.

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.

By Andy Flury, CEO of AlgoTrader.

Over the past year it seems as though a threshold has been breached: a number of high profile financial institutions, including Goldman, JPMorgan, Citi and BNY Mellon , have announced plans to launch digital asset services. This increased institutional interest is perhaps unsurprising. In contrast to the overall economic outlook, the prices of key digital assets like Bitcoin rose sharply in 2020 and 2021 while the coronavirus pandemic raged, prompting greater interest from asset managers, hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Equities and digital assets: Two fundamentally different markets

This has led several commentators and industry insiders to compare digital asset trading to the trading of traditional equities. They point out that liquidity in digital asset markets is far more fragmented than in conventional equities markets. A centralized exchange like Nasdaq, for example, captures almost all spot trading of US tech stocks, such as Apple, Microsoft or Amazon. By contrast, even a major digital asset exchange like Coinbase, which is the largest player in the US market, only captures about 2% of the global trading volume of Bitcoin. Indeed, it is in this light that Coinbase’s recent Nasdaq listing and $85 billion valuation should be viewed.

Of course, the fundamental reason for these differences is that traditional equities are primarily traded through centralized exchanges in specific jurisdictions. While some companies may choose to dual-list their stock on two exchanges in order to reach investors in a different region or as the result of a merger, this is the exception rather than the rule. For digital assets, on the other hand, no principal exchange exists in each territory. As a result, liquidity is spread over myriad spot exchanges, which total over 300 globally, joined by an array of other venues such as crypto brokers, OTC desks, market makers and DeFi exchanges.

FX market a better comparison?

Thus, given the stark structural differences between the digital asset and equities markets, the foreign exchange (FX) market is a more instructive comparison. Similarly, to the digital asset market, FX trading is global and decentralized, with transactions occurring mainly via OTC trades which are not tied to any specific physical location.

Both digital assets and FX were forged from a historical “big bang” moment that set the markets on their current course. In the case of digital assets, this happened when the Bitcoin Whitepaper was published by Satoshi, which demonstrated that it was possible to use cryptographic techniques to store and exchange value trustlessly without requiring a centralized intermediary. This idea inspired a new financial movement and within a very short time frame, a new global, decentralized asset class was created with no direct historical ancestors.

In the case of the FX market, it was the collapse of the centralized system of currency control that set-in motion the chain of events that led to the FX industry of today. After the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944, a system was put in place whereby the US dollar was directly pegged to the value of gold, while other currencies were pegged to the dollar at a fixed ratio. While this created a relatively stable international financial system, it gave national governments very few policy options in times of economic disruption or war. The first fissure came in 1967, when the UK government devalued Sterling against the dollar in response to the Suez Crisis and the marked rise in oil prices that followed. The gold peg was then abolished by US President Richard Nixon in 1971 in an effort to combat high inflation and unemployment domestically. Over the next 30 years, all Western governments abandoned fixed-exchange rate systems, leading to the floating system we know today. The trading environment for currencies was enhanced by the advent of electronic trading and the internet, which created the speed and dynamism of the modern FX market.    

Thus, similarly to the digital asset market, FX trading developed organically in a decentralized fashion in response to events rather than being carefully designed by regulators and policymakers. This led to an innovative, but highly fragmented market. Like the crypto market, the same asset, such as a currency pair, is traded through multiple market makers or venues simultaneously, while rates will often vary according to localized supply and demand at a specific venue. As a result, FX traders typically connect via APIs to multiple venues in order to get a more comprehensive view of pricing and access greater market depth.   

Indeed, the term “crypto exchange” is likely to be misleading for traders more accustomed to traditional finance. Cryptocurrency exchanges share far more similarities with the Electronic Communication Networks (ECNs) common in the FX world than with centralized stock exchanges, even though both stock exchanges and crypto exchanges use central limit order books (CLOB). Like crypto exchanges, ECNs automatically match the buy and sell orders of traders and brokers for a fee, but they do not have any exclusive right to list or facilitate the trade of any given FX product in a particular jurisdiction.      

Outlook

In many respects, when comparing the digital asset and FX market, history is repeating itself, but far faster. While algorithmic trading of FX began in earnest around the turn of the millennium, the pace of progress was comparatively modest. This was a time when broadband internet was in its infancy and both venues and market participants had far less experience of establishing and maintaining automated digital trading infrastructure. Teething problems were inevitable and it was not uncommon for FX servers to crash, even at major institutions. In comparison, the speed at which the digital asset market is maturing – developing from a niche curiosity to an increasingly viable asset class for institutions within 2-3 years – is extraordinary.

With that said, given the structural similarities mentioned above, what aspects of the FX market might also emerge in the digital asset space?   

With greater regulatory certainty and heightened institutional interest, we are likely to see an increase in both the number of liquidity venues and the range of financial products available. Like the modern FX market, a wide selection of both vanilla and exotic options is likely to develop on the crypto derivatives market. In this respect, structured products and ETFs based on crypto and digital assets, such as the Bitcoin-US dollar certificate provided by the Swiss crypto bank SEBA, could be a harbinger of what will follow. Such products will integrate digital assets into traditional markets and will likely be augmented by lock-in and lock-out options and other exotics.

In combination, the increased liquidity and additional instruments on the market are likely to change the motivation and focus of many digital asset traders. Whereas currently, assets like Bitcoin have some similarities to an alternative asset market in that a large percentage of investors are buying to hold, in future, a higher proportion of asset holders will be more active professional traders.

Conclusion

Due to its global, decentralized and fragmented nature, the digital asset market shares far more similarities with FX than equities. This suggests that while liquidity is likely to massively grow in the in the coming years, it will remain fragmented across myriad venues. This will pose challenges for professional traders, who will require specialized software and tailored execution platforms like AlgoTrader to automatically connect to a wide range of venues. However, diversity also presents opportunities: As the market develops, there will be increasing scope to execute more sophisticated trading strategies by taking advantage of derivative instruments and exotic options. 

Simply visit the website at: https://www.myvenus.ooo   Register and login.  On your dashboard, navigate to “Buy now”  On the right hand side, you’d see the calculator which can be used to calculate the amount of VENUS you want to buy.  Input the amount of VENUS you want to buy and the equivalent will appear in the coin option section.  The payment options are: Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple.  Select the payment option you’d like to pay with. That is, If you are paying with Bitcoin, You’d see “pay BTC” click on it, if you are paying with Bitcoin cash, you’d see “pay BCH” click on it and so on.  After clicking on the preferred payment option, you’d see a payment platform “Coingate”, click on “select”  A pop up will appear, click on “continue” A page to preview your purchase will come up, click on “Pay now”  Select the payment currency you’d like to pay with either: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum. Click on “pay with Bitcoin” or “pay with Litecoin “ or “pay with Ethereum “  A wallet address will be generated where you’d send your payment to.  Kindly wait for it to be confirmed.  Once fully confirmed, the coins would be visible on your dashboard.  NOTE: We are in the third stage of the ICO and the ICO will come to an end by the 31st of January. You have the opportunity to get 10% bonus before the ICO ends. DO NOT MISS THIS!!!A Worldwide Decentralized Social Networking Site — Broomstickk and Venus is new Currency

Safello, a Stockholm-based cryptocurrency brokerage, saw its IPO nearly $60 million oversubscribed, or 1,240 percent more than the expected $5 million.

Safello, a blockchain brokerage headquartered in Stockholm, is experiencing a surge in investor interest in its forthcoming initial public offering on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market.

The company said Wednesday that its planned IPO was oversubscribed by 502 million Swedish krona ($59.3 million), up 1,240% from the planned 40.5 million krona ($4.8 million), Reuters reports.

According to Safello CEO Frank Schuil, the firm plans to list on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Stockholm on May 12. According to the executive, the allocation principles were laid down in the prospectus, and Safelo followed them. “Our approach has been to create the widest distribution after pre-subscription in the spirit of decentralised ownership,” Schuil said.

“Safello will continue to follow its roadmap. The listing on Nasdaq First North opens new venues for growth that we will pursue. Specifically M&A, product expansion and geographical expansion,” he said.

Safello, founded in 2013 in Sweden, is an online cryptocurrency brokerage that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC). The firm is regulated as a financial entity by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority and is supported by big players in the cryptocurrency industry, including Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group. Safello originally declared its intention to go public in December 2020.

Many people in the crypto space expected that 2021 will be the year that crypto businesses go public. Coinbase, the first cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, debuted on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in mid-April. CoinShares, a major European crypto asset manager, listed on the Nasdaq First North in March.

Sotheby's is hosting its second non-fungible token (NFT) sale, the major luxury auction house announced Thursday. 

The curated NFT sale, titled "Natively Digital," will feature work from several prominent artists, including the first-ever, minted NFT "Quantum" by Kevin McCoy, "Alien," a CryptoPunk created by crypto studio Larva Labs, and "The Shell Record," by generative artist Anna Ridler. 

The sale will take place from June 3-10. A portion of the proceeds from the sale will be donated to the Sevens Foundation, a non-profit that works with digital artists and younger artists to promote new art mediums like NFTs. Additionally, the artists highlighted will donate part of their profits to organizations focused on helping crypto artists, like the Mint Fund. Buyers will have the option of paying with fiat or cryptocurrency (both Bitcoin and Ethereum). 

"From the avant-garde crypto native creators to the generative, conceptual and the pop/futurist digital artists, the collection showcases some of the most brilliant creators to emerge from the crypto art space, as well as early pioneers of the digital art movement," said Michael Bouhanna, a contemporary art specialist at Sotheby's. 

According to the announcement, buyers will be able to view the pre-sale exhibition at Sotheby's headquarters in London, New York, Hong Kong, and "across the metaverse." Sotheby's claims this is the largest multi-venue NFT exhibition thus far. 

The announcement of the sale comes less than a month after the auction house sold its first NFT, "The Fungible" by popular anonymous artist Pak for nearly $17 million. 

Despite the high volatility, folks are still investing in cryptocurrencies, and institutions are still making an effort to list Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment methods. Since then, the financial world has witnessed a market rebound, and the crypto prices have made a recovery with bullish insights ahead.

Nolan Reynolds International Thesis Hotel Miami plans to utilize BitPay, a payment platform, to accept cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Dogecoin, among others. Hotel guests can now reserve rooms, purchase meals at the hotel restaurant, or book events in advance using digital currencies.

BitPay enables visitors, while booking a room or event venue, to submit a cryptocurrency invoice. This invoice produces a QR code that guests use to complete the payment process with their preferential crypto wallet.

Miami city, as announced earlier, could be made into the “cryptocurrency capital” in the world by Mayor Francis Suarez.

In another latest institutional crypto adoption, Caracas Air will now accept Bitcoin payments. The CEO, Laufer, tweeted, “From today we accept Bitcoin and we will give discounts and financing plans to all who choose this new payment method.”

The company is the latest in Venezuela to adopt the cryptocurrency, among other previous adopters. The move follows an increase in inflation and loss of confidence in Venezuela’s local currency, the bolivar. 

It is unlikely that this is the last time we hear of institutions adopting cryptocurrencies in Venezuela. People in the country are looking for alternate payment methods and stores of value due to hyperinflation. In response to whether the company will be charged in BTC or USD, Laufer explained that the company would work on a “rate of the day” basis. 

In many countries, including Venezuela, the rising rate of crypto adoption is contributed by the high level of inflation. The stock market became unstable during the pandemic, with companies that rely on the stock market exchange being the hardest hit. People shifted the capital from stocks to deflationary assets such as gold and bitcoin, choosing HODL as a safety precaution against the unseen economic crises. 

Another significant factor behind the massive growth that the crypto industry is experiencing is the convenience of online trade platforms that anyone with a smartphone can access. Moreover, despite the alarming price trend in the crypto-verse, investors are portraying a bull market.

In addition to the launch of bitcoin cash and bitcoin lite, there are other elements involved, including increasing market capitalization and market cap in the industry, which are expected to stimulate market growth further. This distributed ledger technology is likely to escalate over the next five years.

Ether is eyeing a 10-day winning streak in a sign of its strongest bullish momentum in more than three years.

The second-largest cryptocurrency was changing hands around $3,500 at press time, for a 2% rise since 0:00 coordinated universal time (8 p.m. ET Monday). If the gains are held through the daily close (23:59 UTC), ether would cement a 10-day winning trend, the longest since early January 2018, according to Coinbase data.

Ether (ETH), which is the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, has nearly quintupled this year, in a rally fueled by speculation over the future of decentralized finance, known as DeFi, as well as other use cases like non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. There’s also mounting evidence of robust growth in transaction volumes and other network metrics, as documented in a May 3 tweet by the blockchain analytics firm Glassnode.

In 2021, the cryptocurrency has outshone the larger bitcoin (BTC), which has doubled so far this year. Ether’s market value has now topped $400 billion, but it’s still well behind the $1.04 trillion for bitcoin.

The rising popularity of ether futures listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) shows institutions are seeking exposure to the cryptocurrency via derivatives markets.

Open interest in the CME futures, or the amount of outstanding positions, rose to a record high of $473 million on Monday, marking a 23-fold increase since the first-day tally of $20 million, per data provider Skew. Ether futures went live on the CME on Feb. 8.

On Monday, some $581 million of ether futures contracts changed hands on the CME, up 17-fold since the debut.

The CME data demonstrates the increasing influence of institutional money in the market, according to analysts at cryptocurrency exchange OKEx.

“Chicago Mercantile Exchange futures are one of the primary ways that institutional investors can get exposure to crypto,” Coin Metrics’ weekly newsletter published on Tuesday said. “Unlike most crypto exchanges, CME is regulated in the U.S. and has a long history with traditional derivatives, which makes it a trusted venue for institutions.”

Also read: Amid New Price Highs, Ether Flips Bitcoin on Options Volume 

Following another drop to $52,500, bitcoin reacted positively and regained $2,000 of value in the following hours. However, the asset continues to be outperformed by most alternative coins, and its dominance is down to 48%. Ethereum reached yet another ATH yesterday, while BNB spiked well above $600.

Most alternative coins have been on a roll lately, with Ethereum leading the pack. After dipping below $2,000 a few weeks back, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap has been on a roll. ETH broke its previous all-time high and has marked several consecutive new ones. The latest came a few hours ago, as ether tapped $2,800.

Binance’s native crypto has also surged impressively in the past 24 hours. BNB is up by 8% and trades at $615. Polkadot (7%), Chainlink (5%), Litecoin (4%), and Cardano (1%) are also in the green.

Nevertheless, Ripple is the best performer from the larger-cap alts with a notable 15% increase in a day and 50% in the past week. As a result, XRP has neared $1.6.

Further gains come from Venus (34%), Huobi Token (27%), OKB (27%), KuCoin Token (17%), NEAR Protocol (12%), Polygon (10%), THORChain (10%), and PancakeSwap (10%).

Ultimately, the cumulative market cap of all crypto assets has jumped to above $2.1 trillion.

While the alternative coins are on a roll, bitcoin seems stuck at best. The primary cryptocurrency went to a weekly high at $56,500 a couple of days ago following rumors that Facebook might have bought some. However, as it became evident that the assumptions were wrong, BTC retraced almost immediately.

In the following hours, the bears continued putting pressure on the asset, which resulted in another drop to $52,500.

However, bitcoin bounced off at that point and added more than $2,000 of value. Consequently, BTC trades around $54,500 at the time of this writing.

This increase is not enough for bitcoin to protect its market dominance, though. The metric comparing BTC’s market capitalization with all other crypto assets is down to 48%. Just for comparison, it was over 72% at the start of 2021.

From the positive side, BTC’s market cap has reclaimed the $1 trillion mark.

Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency market saw minor losses on April 29 as the market heads into the expiry of $4.2 billion worth of (BTC) options contracts. 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that since reaching a high above $56,400 on April 28, the price of Bitcoin has dropped more than 6% back down near the $53,000 support level while Ethereum (ETH) continues to trade above $2,700.

Despite the lull in market activity, signs of mainstream cryptocurrency integration continue to emerge on a near-daily basis. Earlier today Coinbase announced that users can now purchase up to $25,000 worth of cryptocurrency per day using their PayPal account.

And it’s not just financial institutions that are integrating blockchain technology to help achieve financial objectives. The government of Ethiopia revealed a partnership with Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), the research and development arm behind Cardano (ADA). The goal of the new partnership is to us blockchain technology to overhaul its education system.

While Bitcoin continues to struggle below the $55,000 resistance level, the ETH/BTC pairing has started climbing higher in a move that was predicted by multiple analysts, including Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal. The bullish movement in the ETH/BTC pair has also reignited conversations about Ether price evetually flipping BTC.

According to Élie Le Rest, partner at digital asset management firm ExoAlpha, Ether has been getting stronger against Bitcoin since the end of March with the upcoming upgrade which includes EIP 1559 being “seen as a strong catalyst of the recent ETH bull-run.”

This increased momentum is a signal for Le Rest that the market may be in a “buy the rumor, sell the news configuration that may drive the price up until EIP 1559 is released in July this year.”

Le Rest said: 

“Overall, this Ethereum upgrade is getting closer to ETH 2.0, with features like shifting from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake chain including a burning fee mechanism. Those upcoming features are a great incentive for investors to tag along, contributing to ETH’s strong recovery against BTC, but it’s still very early to put the flippening topic on the table again.”

The slumping price of Bitcoin weighed down the wider cryptocurrency market on Thursday with a majority of altcoins experiencing minor losses.

Some notable exceptions to the pullback include Syscoin (SYS), which at one point spiked 45% to $0.50 and the Binance Smart Chain-based Venus lending platform, whose XVS token rallied 30% to $97.90, just a dollar short of its all-time high.

Waves (WAVES), a multi-purpose blockchain platform, also experienced a 20% surge that lifted the token to a new record high at $23.43.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.035 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 48.8%.

Image Credit: Refer to Source Author: Refer to Source Cointelegraph By Jordan Finneseth

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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While Ethereum’s price is leading the current rally of altcoins this season, it is likely that the easy part of DeFi will be over soon. New farming projects’ TVL has surged up to $100 Million and several projects have launched improved forks that were expected to take days to months.

This has brought DeFi to emerging markets and retail traders looking for the next big mover like ETH and BNB. Legacy finance has hit DeFi as well, though it is likely to take 5-10 years for it to go mainstream, there are institutions capitalizing on DeFi’s trillion-dollar opportunities. Based on DeFi’s TVL and price action of top tokens like UNI, LINK, SUSHI, WBTC, LUNA, CAKE and AAVE, there is a more structured and rigorous building process underway.

Building further on such projects and offering higher returns to traders will require intentional HODLing, stacking, higher trade volume, and volatility in the coming weeks. In the past week, Bakery Swap (+385%), Venus (+70%), Fantom (+50%), MKR (+29%) and Avalanche (+24%) offered the highest returns to traders.

The TVL has increased consistently for projects in the top 10 and more Bitcoin is wrapped in DeFi than the previous quarter based on data from DeFipulse.com. ROI offered currently on most projects is significant in the short term. There are few DeFi tokens offering long-term returns, however, in the current bull run, there are projects that have emerged as profitable when YTD returns are considered. This makes the road ahead for DeFi heavily rely on a few projects and that signals dominance.

There are a bunch of untapped opportunities in DeFi that are expected to change the entire landscape. One such opportunity is options, it has been largely untapped and hasn’t successfully transferred over to DeFi, despite being one of the largest markets with the biggest upside.

With a combined market capitalization of $133 Billion, the top 100 DeFi tokens are likely to continue rallying and offering an opportunity to the options market. A few DeFi projects have faced the challenge of poor UX and low usability, however, most projects are scalable, offer smooth UX and decentralization. Unlike altcoins and projects on BSC, there are very few ghost chains on the DeFi network.

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Ekta is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto and her specialization lies in spot markets. Currently pursuing her MBA, she is passionate about trading, fintech, and everything decentralized.

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[PRESS RELEASE – Please Read Disclaimer]

AscendEX, formerly BitMax, an industry-leading digital asset trading platform built by Wall Street quant trading veterans, has announced the staking of the Persistence token (XPRT) on Apr 27  at 2:00 p.m. UTC.

AscendEX’s innovative staking product allows users to participate in staking and earn rewards directly on the platform.  Persistence joins a growing portfolio of notable tokens including  DOT, ATOM, and XTZ. AscendEX will be receiving validator rewards by running a XPRT node which they will pass along to staking users.

Persistence is an interoperable protocol built to facilitate the creation of next-gen financial products. It is an ecosystem of financial products serving both institutional and crypto-native users. Persistence One provides a growing suite of core product features, including pStake, Comdex, pLend, Audit.one and Asset Mantle. Through these features, Persistence is leveraging blockchain technology to facilitate seamless asset exchange.

The XPRT token secures the network through staking, is used to pay for fees, and defines the weightage of the vote for governance proposals to make critical decisions regarding the Persistence main chain’s evolution.

The need for a solution like Persistence has never been more evident. With a significant amount of institutional capital and emerging stablecoins seeking yield, there is an ever-increasing need for traders and businesses to access financing. Persistence matches the two by providing a platform to power debt marketplaces that match entities with surplus capital (lenders) to entities that require capital (borrowers).

Persistence aims to tap into both institutional and crypto-native liquidity at the dApp layer in a two-step approach. They aim first to bring public blockchain technology benefits to institutional use-cases, and second to bring institutional products to crypto-native stakeholders.

Originally founded in 2018 as BitMax.io, AscendEx is a leading crypto and digital asset financial platform catering to both professional and retail traders. Our venue offers spot, futures, margin trading and staking products and incorporates key elements from the DeFi space to foster a unique market structure for users. AscendEx is led by a team of Wall Street veterans who have applied traditional markets’ rigor to create a robust, secure, and reliable experience for all participants; and a consistent source of liquidity for primary offerings.

For more information and updates, please visit:

Website: https://ascendex.com

Persistence is an interoperable protocol built to facilitate the creation of next-gen financial products. It is an ecosystem of financial products serving both institutional and crypto-native users. Persistence One has a growing suite of core product features, including pStake, Comdex, pLend, Audit.one and Asset Mantle. Through these features, Persistence is leveraging blockchain technology to facilitate seamless asset exchange.

Website:https://persistence.one/

Source

Guides and the best analyses and reviews on the best ICOs 2018 - 2019, a great directory for the most relevant ICOs in the marketWith the intention of using Renewable Energies to support the mining of cryptomonedas, was born the ICO VenusEnergy, a project that wants mining to become something sustainable for the economy and the environment.Bitcoin mining has gone from simplicity with CPU and GPU to application with ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Chips), which means an increase in costs as the latter are more complex than the former. In addition to this, the use of ASICs machines implies a higher energy consumption, which has called into question the ecological viability of the mining of Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto currencies within society.This concern grows when one considers that the main mining farms are located in countries with a highly polluting energy production such as thermal energy resulting from the burning of fuel and other fossil derivatives. Another important aspect to consider is that in addition to the pollution generated, these energy sources are not renewable so that one day they will cease to exist.Having this information clear, the developers of VenusEnergy remember that the production value of energy is an elemental data to consider the gain that can be obtained in the mining process and due to the complexity that are acquiring the mathematical processes of mining and the constant energy consumption to maintain the machines that make these calculations, the remuneration of the miners is not being sufficiently attractive to cover the energy cost involved in sustaining the Blockchain network.With this reality, the VenusEnergy team wants to implement the use of renewable energies for the production of electrical energy that will be made available to carry out the mining process, thus helping to reduce the environmental effects and costs associated with producing energy by conventional means. This would have a direct impact on the price of mining, since the costs of electricity production would be significantly reduced by taking as a reference only the costs of the necessary computer equipment.In addition, if the production of electricity does not so drastically affect the mining of crypto coins, the opportunity would be given for more people to participate in this process and this would imply an improvement and expansion in the Blockchain network that would even lead it to compete directly with the main technologies that are applied today.The renewable energies that VenusEnergy has focused on are solar energy and wind energy, two renewable energy sources that, according to the developers, are evolving favorably and have the potential to produce the energy needed to maintain the mining system of the Blockchain network.For the financing of their project, the developers have decided to launch an ICO, the developers say that in this way they will bring together the community of users of cryptomedas to provide a solution that will benefit everyone equally.According to what the developers have been able to explain, the money raised in the ICO will be used primarily for research to help increase the efficiency of renewable energy in electricity generation and how this can be applied in crypto-mining. Secondly, the aim is to invest money in using these renewable sources to generate energy.The token that is being offered in this ICO is called VENUS, is a token created with the standard ERC-20 of the Ethereum network and will allow its holders to acquire the energy that is produced through renewable energy sources. Likewise, with the token, mining capacity can be acquired within the VenusEnergy platform and, according to what developers explain, when paying with the token for this mining capacity, important discounts will be obtained that will be between 20% and 30%.In the PreICO the price was 1 VENUS per 0.00000920 ETH and in the ICO a price of 0.000029 ETH per 1 VENUS has been established. The minimum investment is set at 0.08700000 ETH, which is equal to 3000 VENUS. Developers are only accepting ETH as a payment method and expect to raise a minimum of $500,000 and a maximum of $50 million. They are also accepting donations to DASH, ETC, LTC, and BTC on their website.The VenusEnergy ICO is being developed in Lithuania and is composed of 7 developers and 3 consultants.Among the most outstanding members we find Arnoldas Belozaravičius, the CEO of this Project. An entrepreneur who has taken great care to determine the scope of renewable energy.Valdas Lukauskas will be the COO and the computer developer of the Project will be Roman Lanskoj. The CFO of the project will be Tomas Ališauskas.Among the advisors we will see Indrė Lukošiūtė, an expert in economics who will help with the financial aspect of this project.Do they own a Minimally Viable Product (MVP)? No, according to the official project website the initial platform will be launched shortly.According to the Roadmap that shows the project, the idea will be fully developed in the 4th quarter of 2019. For the first quarter of 2019, the project is expected to begin and the construction of structures for the generation of renewable energies is expected to begin. Already by the 4th quarter of 2019 they expect to have the production plants ready and to offer the production of energy to all interested public.Despite the fact that the cryptomonedas have been established as a decentralized project, mining has not been shown as such, and the energy costs involved in maintaining it has been a determining factor for it to continue to be concentrated in a specific and limited community. A problem that many critics and critics of crypto coins have exploited to conclude that these coins are not viable in today’s trade.However, if it is possible to determine a means of energy production at a low cost and to allow the entire public to have access to that energy, the real decentralization of the crypto currencies would be achieved and thereby give more possibilities to this technology. It is precisely the goal of VenusEnergy , to establish a method for anyone to access renewable energy and with them acquire a much more profitable power of mining and on a larger scale.In the Whitepaper we have not found the so-called “Tokenomics”, we could only observe data such as the number of tokens created and the proportionality that is being distributed between the ICO and other elements of the project. This information is fundamental for the investor since it allows him to better understand the financial aspects of the project.Also, there is not enough information about the development that they hope to complete, aspects such as, in which places they will install the renewable energy sources nor the costs that these sources can generate for the company in charge of the project. Certainly, an installation of this caliber is costly and requires financial and structural planning for development to take place in the best possible way.Descripción: VenusEnergy wants to apply the Renewable Energies to economize and to give accessibility to the mining of crypto coins, at the same time that it contributes with the care of the environment.VenusEnergy offers a solution to such an important element as mining in the world of crypto coins. Its aim is to make crypto coins more successful within society and to enable them to adapt to today’s energy demands. Possession of the token can be profitable for those who are fully engaged in crypto-mining, considering that mining power would be acquired at a lower cost.Lover and enthusiast of the ICO. I firmly believe that the blockchain will be established and will change for the better much of how we do things. Advisor and investor.Tu dirección de correo electrónico no será publicada. Los campos obligatorios están marcados con *The main objective in todoicos.com is to offer guides, tutorials and analysis of the most prominent ICO in this market.We are a community that is passionate about ICOs and everything to do with blockchain, criptomoney and new financing systems for any type of project.Todoicos.com is only an information website. We are not regulated brokers or financial advisors. No analysis, news or information on the web can guarantee benefits. The analyses found here are the opinions of their authors. Todoicos.com is not responsible for any loss or bad investment that may result from any information or advice. loss or expense that may result from following our advice. In this website we offer advertising services, so it is possible that you may find links or information for which we receive compensation. Do not browse this website if you do not agree.Copyright © 2018 · Aviso legal · Política de privacidad y política de cookies

April 2021 has been an exciting month for the decentralized application industry as the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem continued to lead, while the market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) was filled with exciting, high-value sales. At the same time cryptocurrencies continued to peak. Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $64,000, and Ethereum reached $3,000.

Although Ethereum gas prices decreased by the end of April, it now became the 4th largest blockchain in terms of unique active wallets. Ethereum lost its leadership position to three very different competitors. WAX overtook pole position thanks to the increased popularity of Alien Worlds, which was responsible for more active wallets than Ethereum and Flow combined. Of course, there’s also Binance Smart Chain (BSC), which was the second most used blockchain in April.

The DeFi ecosystem has skyrocketed in April. While Ethereum was still the most significant in terms of DeFi TVL, the vast majority of value was driven by the price increase of ETH, BTC, and other cryptocurrencies. At the same time the TVL doubled on Binance Smart Chain, which was driven by the success of the usual suspects; Venus and PancakeSwap.

The NFT market experienced a dip in volume in April. According to Google Trends, the interest decreased in the middle of the month. One of the reasons for this drop in NFT interest came from NBA Top Shot and its on-going retention issues. Despite that, the industry was filled with exciting sales, as some NFTs sold for more than $5 million. CryptoPunks took over the leadership position from NBA Top Shots in terms of transaction volume, while the latter was still the most active dapp in the NFTs space by unique active wallets.

In April 2021 the blockchain industry grew by 158% month-on-month in terms of unique active wallets. In the past month, the entire blockchain industry has seen more than 1 million active wallets across all blockchains. 

Surprisingly, the biggest contributor was the WAX blockchain. This NFT-focussed blockchain generated around half of all the activity, which equals more than 500,000 unique active wallets. The biggest reason behind this growth was the game Alien Worlds, which relies heavily on a yield farming mechanic and provides gamers with a source of income. 

BSC was the second most active blockchain, and it increased its user base by 61% in April. The DeFi ecosystem still heavily drives BSC, even though Binance recently announced serious moves into the NFT category. DeFi dapps are still responsible for 96% of all the blockchain activity on BSC. At the same time, Flow was the third most significant blockchain, even though 99.9% of their activity was driven by NBA Top Shot. 

Although Ethereum dropped to 4th position based on their unique active wallets, the Ethereum blockchain still claims the number one spot in terms of total value locked (TVL). On Ethereum the transaction volume increased from $114 billion to $148 billion, even though that value mainly comes from the token price increases. While gas prices are high, we can only conclude that DeFi users on Ethereum invest larger amounts of money and perhaps feel safer depositing funds both of which make a $50 gas fee more than acceptable. 

Polygon was the most significant of the layer-2 solutions tracked by DappRadar. Usage in April was almost 5 times higher, growing from more than 4,000 to 20,000 unique active wallets. The activity was driven by several dapps: QuickSwap, Aavegotchi, and Aave.

NEAR Protocol also showed increased activity in terms of unique active wallets. The launch of the Rainbow Bridge helped NEAR Protocol to connect to the Ethereum ecosystem. The technology will allow for assets to flow between NEAR and Ethereum and may incentivize developers.

Looking into market capitalization, there were some major changes in terms of BNB, the native token of the Binance Smart Chain. In April, BNB secured 3rd place by market capitalization.

Polkadot (DOT) also showed impressive growth and will be welcoming the USDT stable coin on both Polkadot and Kusama. This may help the growth of both chains. Stablecoins have become an important element of the DeFi sector, and USDT has been, by far, the biggest stablecoin in the industry to this point.

To conclude, both layer-1, layer-2, and sidechain solutions are getting more attention. Notably, layer-1 solutions such as BSC, Wax, and Flow are leading. On the other hand, sidechain solutions such as Polygon are also generating impressive growth. Overall, all of these suggest intense competition for Ethereum right now, and in the months to come.

Dapp developers on Binance Smart Chain still focus mainly on decentralized finance. Out of the 440 dapps listed on BSC, 320 are part of the DeFi ecosystem. At the same time, plenty new DeFi dapps are added on a weekly basis, but the majority of the activity is concentrated on a few platforms: PancakeSwap, Pancake Bunny, Venus, and ApeSwap to name a few. 

ApeSwap showed improved performance in multiple metrics. Firstly, unique active wallets increased from 4,000 to around 15,000 at the end of April. Resulting in the dapps native token BANANA achieving exponential growth from $1 to more than $10.

Overall, BSC is very DeFi oriented. On the other hand, the recent plans of Binance to release their own NFT marketplace can suggest even more extensive competition for NFT marketplaces on Ethereum, but also Wax, Polygon and Flow.

Polygon is taking the lead in the layer-2 race, and its token is moving accordingly. As already elaborated before, in April the chain gathered more than 20,000 daily unique active wallets. The reason behind such growth was twofold. Firstly, Polygon has the ability to provide fast and cheap transactions, resulting in a better user experience with fewer gas fee issues. Secondly, the platform has successfully attracted major players from the Ethereum ecosystem. As a result, Polygon doesn’t only attract new products, but also their communities and therefore their on-chain activity.

The top 3 dapps were QuickSwap, Avegotchi, and Aave, which generated more than 12,000, 2,200, and 1,500 unique active wallets respectively. 

Without a doubt, Polygon has a bright future, not only within the DeFi ecosystem but also in the Game and NFT categories. The network has ambitious plans for NFT projects moving to layer-2, which might help to migrate even more users to Polygon in the near future.

Despite soaring competition from layer-1 and layer-2 solutions, Ethereum has still hit several important milestones. The total value locked in Ethereum DeFi dapps surpassed $70 billion. The biggest reason for this increased TVL has been the surge in prices of cryptocurrencies. The price increase is argued to be triggered by an upcoming network update, alongside increased interest from institutional investors. The blockchain released a test version of a network update called Steklo, hoping to test and improve transaction speed and cost.

On Binance Smart Chain, the total value locked surpassed $40 billion. Although BSC TVL is still way lower than on the Ethereum blockchain, the growth rate of TVL was 3 times higher. In April, BSC TVL grew by 126% while Ethereum TVL has only 27% growth.

Looking at the top dapps on Binance Smart Chain, Venus surpassed the number 1 Ethereum DeFi dapp MakerDAO. Although the difference is very small, BSC is showing its real DeFi potential. Overall, with the tendencies of Ethereum dapps expanding onto both layer-1 and layer-2 solutions and BSCs growth rate, it might not take long for BSC to gain leadership in terms of TVL. One might even argue that the future of DeFi is not dependent on one or two blockchains, but on the ability to unify multiple blockchains under one protocol.

There were a number of big capital raise announcements in April with the biggest funding announcement coming from Dapper Labs, the team behind NBA Top Shot, and the Flow blockchain. They raised $305 million. Enjin completed a funding round of $18.9M in order to enter the Polkadot ecosystem. SuperRare has attracted $9M in its Series A. Investors clearly believe that the current hype surrounding NFTs and digital collectibles is only beginning. 

When it comes to NFTs and trader count, there are three blockchains that stand out from the crowd: Flow, Wax, and Ethereum. Flow is currently the number 1 on the NFT market, with the 60,000 active wallets trading NFTs on a daily basis. The latest investment round by Dapper Labs, partnership with Genies, and the success of NBA Top Shot make Flow a serious contender for the number 1 spot in the months to come. 

Currently, second place belongs to Wax, which has seen incredible growth thanks to Alien Worlds and Atomic Market. These two dapps account for more than 70% of all NFT activity on the Wax blockchain, followed by Simple Market. Overall the Wax blockchain has 18,000 active traders per day by the end of April.

Ethereum is the 3rd most used blockchain by traders count, with 14,600 active traders per day. However, Ethereum was leading in terms of transaction volume, thanks to CryptoPunks. 

NFT transaction volume decreased in April compared to March by 21%, mostly driven by the Flow blockchain. The drop in transaction volume is the result of continued technical issues faced by NBA Top Shot. The transaction volume decreased from $217 million to $83 million. The technical issues not only had an effect on the overall activity but also affected the social media channels and community growth.

NFT trading on Ethereum also faced a decrease in April, which was driven by a slight drop in activity on OpenSea and Rarible. On the other hand, CryptoPunks transaction volumes increased by 19% month-on-month. The growth was driven by top sales that vary from $600,000 to more than $1 million per punk. Out of the top 10 NFT sales in April, five came from CryptoPunks.

The WAX blockchain has made a name for itself with brand-affiliated NFT dapps such as Street Fighter, Topps MLB, Garbage Pail Kids, and the William Shatner collection. By no surprise, according to the DappRadar NFTs page, WAX blockchain dapps are the second most popular dapps in NFTs space.

The biggest contributor to these results is a mining game called Alien Worlds. In this game, players use NFTs to mine a cryptocurrency called Trilium (TLM). They do this on player-owned land on certain planets. The simple mining mechanics attracted lots of bots, which are being fought off by anti-botting mechanics. The number of wallets keeps increasing, which would indicate that users are eager to play the game and earn TLM. 

The second and third most used platforms are Atomic Market and Topps Major League Baseball. The latter launched in mid-April. Seemingly, Topps wants to accomplish with MLB what Dapper Labs did with NBA Top Shot. While it is still early to say, the project has potential. Traditional baseball cards have rocketed in value during the pandemic as collectors explored new stores of value. 

WAX has huge potential to grow. Rarez, a new organization aiming to bring scarce digital collectibles, digital music, and other blockchain-based assets to the music industry, brought indie band Weezer to the blockchain as well as other known brands such as Capcom’s Street Fighter and Topps Garbage Pale Kids. Arguably, WAX might become the key to mass adoption in terms of NFTs.

Despite the dip in activity, NFTs continue to attract the attention of traditional market players. NFTs have been particularly popular when it comes to sports, with NBA Top Shot and Sorare being number one and number five respectively when it comes to NFT all-time sales among digital collectibles projects. 

NBA Top Shot and Sorare have proven that there is demand for digital sports collectibles, so it would not be surprising to see other major sports leagues and teams try to take advantage of NFTs. As mentioned, Major League Baseball is looking to get in with the trend. Playboy will also be experimenting with NFTs and is partnering with Nifty Gateway to cooperate with artists and use its extensive archives to sell NFTs. 

It is worth noting that Nifty Gateway continues to solidify itself as the platform for launching premium NFT items. The landscape is getting more competitive, but it looks like Nifty Gateway has separated itself, if only for the moment having launched NFTs in collaboration with mainstream celebrities like Paris Hilton, Steve Aoki, Grimes.

To conclude, Ethereum is having a hard time competing with layer-1 and layer-2 solutions in both DeFi and NFT categories. WAX and Flow are providing heavy competition in the NFT field, while BSC and Polygon are mounting serious charges in the DeFi ecosystem. 

In terms of total value locked Ethereum still leads the space. This suggests that Ethereum is more used for higher value transactions now, while the masses look elsewhere. BSC showed that it can attract value, amassing $43 billion in value locked against Ethereums $65 billion. BNB has now moved into the top 3 by market capitalization with a growth rate 3 times higher than the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem. If this growth continues we could possibly see BSC overtaking Ethereum in terms of TVL in the near future. 

While the NFT market in April was filled with exciting sales and new projects, we observed decreases in both transaction volume and the number of traders. The decline was driven by NBA Top Shot as a result of website overload problems. More recently, the introduction of pack reservations has appeased the community.

On the other hand, a dip in NFT sales and values could be very temporary. Not only is NBA Top Shot looking for ways to increase the scalability of its platform. Big brands, such as MLB, Playboy, and celebrities, such as Snoop Dog and Paris Hilton, might drive the industry into a new wave of growth. Companies like Sega and Hasbro already revealed their intention to explore the NFT market. At the same time eBay and many others are investigating their options.