Though these incidents are highly notable due to their sheer magnitude, “pump and dump” schemes are quite common in the crypto world and in the investing world in general. Here’s what you should know in order to avoid this type of scheme.

During a pump and dump, the coordinators behind the scheme purchase a particular cryptocurrency and generate hype around it on social media. Massive demand causes prices to rise, at least temporarily during the initial stages of the plan.

Once prices peak, those who coordinated the pump and dump sell off their assets for profit. This causes the price of the asset in question to drop suddenly, which in turn causes the new investors who were recruited to the scheme to lose money.

Though pump and dumps emerged in the traditional investment sector, pump and dumps are especially commonplace in the crypto market. One study from the University of Technology Sydney found that 15% of all cryptocurrencies experience pump and dumps on a regular basis, and found that the strategy generated $350 million in trading volume during the duration of the six-month study.

Often, there are technical features that are used to attract users. Tiered access to a group allows investors to buy and sell their investments more quickly. Because pump and dump schemes require precise timing for traders to make a profit, the most established leaders generally profit the most from this model.

Anyone can coordinate a pump and dump, including a dishonest project team, individual influencers on YouTube, or a group of investors on social media. Large whale investors can also work to carry out a pump and dump with few participants.

In order to avoid pump and dump schemes, you should avoid certain sources of advice. Social media groups on Telegram and Discord are rarely good sources of investment advice, as the participants have incentives to promote a particular coin.

Likewise, crypto influencers on Twitter and YouTube are not always good sources of information. Though they can provide exposure for little known cryptocurrencies, they may have a vested interest in promoting those cryptocurrencies. Be sure to follow more than one influencer, including those that give different viewpoints.

You should be aware that minor altcoins are vulnerable to pump and dump activity, as low prices make it easy for small groups to impact a minor coin’s value. However, all cryptocurrencies are susceptible to pump and dump schemes. This month’s incidents involved XRP and DOGE, two relatively high-ranking cryptocurrencies.

Be sure to get news from reputable sources. Legitimate news generates lasting demand for cryptocurrency. Stories that appear on sites like Forbes and the New York Times are likely mainstream news. By contrast, smaller cryptocurrency news sites often publish sponsored stories and focus on minor cryptocurrency projects.

Above all, remember that crypto investments are by nature risky. There is no guarantee that even responsible advice will return a profit.

By contrast, the cryptocurrency market is largely unregulated, meaning that pump and dumps are often overlooked if they are performed by a group with little visibility.

Fortunately, the crypto industry is maturing and some high-profile pump and dump schemes have been taken down. Most notably, the SEC charged John McAfee with illegally touting ICOs for payment in cryptocurrency in October 2020.

Restrictions are also coming from the private sector, as sites like YouTube are restricting influencers who promote cryptocurrencies. Though this has been denounced as censorship by some, those restrictions do prevent pump and dump schemes.

It is possible that the events surrounding DOGE and XRP this month will attract greater regulatory scrutiny towards the crypto industry. However, regulators have not announced any plans to combat the issue in a definite way.

Disclaimer: information contained herein is provided without considering your personal circumstances, therefore should not be construed as financial advice, investment recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation for, any transactions in cryptocurrencies.

The market’s top two cryptocurrencies lead the charge as the weekend begins, setting new all-time highs as the week’s best performers settle.

First-mover Bitcoin (BTC) took its first-place rank in the cryptocurrency market seriously today, setting a new all-time high of $57,851.30 just hours ago.

BTC now has a market capitalization of $1.063 trillion, another record high. The astronomical performance is attracting investors from all round, both retail and institutional.

In fact, there are growing concerns that an inevitable supply shortage looms.

The market’s second most valuable cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH), is not far behind. Earlier today, ETH smashed records, breaking above the $2,000 mark for the first time in its history.

While ETH holders are likely to be delighted with the second cryptocurrency breaking this frontier, the rise in gas fees is already concerning to users.

Indeed, the top pair may have taken some of the momenta away from the week’s top performers. After topping $300 for the first time yesterday, before hitting an all-time high of $339.94, Binance Coin (BNB) is seemingly taking a breather as the weekend begins.

Interestingly, traders seem to be choosing to buy and hold over opening leveraged positions.

BeInCrypto reported earlier that the funding rate for BTC denominated perpetual swaps across major exchanges, remained low at 0.05%.

This also suggests shorters have not yet found a suitable entry for the top cryptocurrency, indicating the market expects more heights.

Confirming this sentiment, it was revealed that newly launched BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw record investments last week.

After winning approval from regulators on Feb. 11, the Purpose Bitcoin ETF, hosted by Canadian firm Purpose Investments, gained over $400 million in assets under management (AUM) after just two days of trading.

Moreover, several other ETFs have either launched or are seeking approval to launch on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

The interest in BTC ETFs indicates a move towards the cryptocurrency market by seasoned institutional investors.

Despite the seeming seal of approval from “smart money” investors, regulators remain cautious. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently reiterated concerns about the top cryptocurrency’s volatility, calling BTC “highly speculative”.

Moreover, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) case against Ripple Labs still looms over the space with a hearing scheduled in two days.

The results of this case could impact the classification of cryptocurrencies in the United States.

At least for now, the prospect is doing no harm to the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin seems to carry on with a moon-targeted rally.

Emmanuel entered the cryptocurrency space in 2013 as a cryptocurrency broker. He is a crypto-enthusiast, entrepreneur, and investor, who has built and led several projects and communities in the space. He is CEO and co-founder of Provence Intelligence, a boutique crypto-consultancy firm that aims to bridge the gap between the cryptocurrency and DLT space and the traditional world. Interests include DeFi, non-blockchain DLTs, and the synthetic derivatives space.

Accoding to data retrieved from XRPscan, Ripple’s co-founder, Jed McCaleb’s crypto wallet has sold 61.5 million XRP.

Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb has recently offloaded another 61.5 million XRP, bringing his total holding to below half a billion XRP.

According to data retrieved from XRPscan, Jed McCaleb’s crypto wallet sold 61.5 million XRP.

The co-founder is partly responsible for price not holding for long as it should, as he has over the years been regularly dumping XRP in the crypto market, following his departure from Ripple in 2013.

The value of his most recent sale is now estimated to be worth $36.9 million in XRP, bringing his total holding in that wallet to 442 million XRP.

At the time of drafting this report, XRP traded at $0.606590 with a daily trading volume of $13.3 Billion. XRP is down 4.09% for the day.

Recall about a month ago, Whale Alert reported that McCaleb’s remaining XRP holdings, along with the gains he made selling XRP stood at $1.2 billion, making him one of the richest individuals in the crypto-verse.

It’s key to note that McCaleb left Ripple several years ago and went on to launch his own crypto company known as Stellar. As of the start of Q3 2020, he was selling an average of 1.74 million XRP daily which, at that time, was estimated to be worth $547,438.

According to Whale Alert’s research, the co-founder still owns 3.274 billion XRP.

In spite of Ripple’s legal troubles with the powerful American financial regulator, Jed McCaleb was able to gain $411 million in XRP sales throughout 2020, bringing his total gains from selling XRP to $546 million.

Olumide Adesina is a France-born Nigerian. He is a Certified Investment Trader, with more than 15 years of working expertise in Investment trading. Follow Olumide on Twitter @tokunboadesina or email [email protected] He is a Member of the Chartered Financial Analyst Society.

Hi, Olumide. What are the procedures for one to start cryptocoin business, and how much is the minimum amount to start with,how long before i’ll start making profit and the risk involved

XRP seems to have defied the odds to stay competitive with other Altcoins despite ripples’s challenges with regulators.

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Cardano at the time of writing this report was trading at $1.047324, up 20.35% on the day.

Cardano, the sixth most valuable crypto is enjoying impressive gains amid record-buying pressure from crypto investors.

At the time of writing this report, Cardano was trading at $1.047324, up 20.35% on the day. It was the digital currency’s biggest one-day percentage gain since February 20, 2021.

Such appreciation sighted in the fast-rising crypto asset, pushed Cardano’s market value to $32.38 billion, or 2.10% of the total cryptocurrency market value. At its highest, Cardano’s market cap was pegged at $35 million.

READ: Cardano flying on a record high amid top American singer’s buy

Cardano had traded in a range of $0.899630 to $1.047324 for the day.

Over the past seven days, Cardano has seen a rise in value, as it gained 21.56%. The volume of Cardano traded for the day at the time of writing, was $10.583078 billion or 4.48% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies.

It has traded in a range of $0.8115 to $1.1971 in the past 7 days.

Highly revered crypto analyst/trader, Michaël van de Poppe also recommended the fast-rising crypto asset.

READ: Bitcoin more valuable than any global bank

In a video (titled “Cardano Breaks $1 But $10 Is Possible In This Bull Cycle! Here’s Why!”) released recently the crypto pundit told his followers on Youtube channel that:

“Cardano going towards $10 is not that weird to calculate from here, especially given the fact, and I’ve been saying this in the past week multiple times, especially given the fact that Cardano and mostly all the Bitcoin pairs are just barely waking up. So there’s still much more to gain for the Bitcoin pairs.”

SpaceX, a company founded by Elon Musk is exploring the merits of buying Bitcoin, according to MicroStrategy CEO, Michael Saylor.

MicroStrategy CEO, Michael Saylor, has revealed that SpaceX, a company founded by Elon Musk, is exploring the merits of buying Bitcoin.

Saylor revealed that top representatives from SpaceX were among 7,000 companies represented at MicroStrategy’s recent Bitcoin seminar, which the leading business intelligence company organized to aid companies interested in buying Bitcoin as a treasury asset.

READ: Bitcoin bounces back after losing $13,000 in a space of 2 days

“We had people from SpaceX there. We had people [from] some of Elon Musk’s companies. We had people from Marathon there.

“The ones you would expect were there, but of course, there’s an avalanche of private companies, and there were a decent number of public companies and treasurers and CFOs that were lurking.

“Some don’t want to have their names mentioned, as you can imagine, because it’s a sensitive topic,” Saylor said.

READ: Panic in crypto market as over $140 billion got wiped off

However, a significant number of traditional finance experts are not buying into the flagship crypto bullish run, as they see little value in the digital currency on the account that they believe Bitcoin, and other leading cryptos are just part of a larger speculative bubble.

Recent reports suggest SpaceX raised another $850 million this month from a group of leading institutional investors led by Sequoia Capital.

READ: Tesla loses $200 billion in market value following Bitcoin investment

Micheal Saylor has always been a strong fan of the world’s most popular crypto asset and he thus shares the bias that companies can use Bitcoin to hedge against future fiat inflation and allow them to plug into a revolutionary and superior monetary network.

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Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Bitcoin hit record highs on Valentine’s Day,

And suffered a nasty correction too.

The weekend was dominated by a bullish surge upwards for the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, which managed to hit highs of $49,487.64 on Feb. 14.

But unfortunately for optimistic pundits who have repeatedly predicted that Bitcoin is about to crack $50,000, a dramatic drop soon followed. Within hours, BTC tumbled 6.34% to lows of $46,347.48 — taking some traders by surprise.

The sell-offs were more pronounced in the altcoin markets. Ether briefly tumbled to lows of $1,683.91, but later managed to recover lost ground and return to $1,823.41. Some coins with a smaller market cap dropped by up to 30%.

Pepperstone’s head of research Chris Weston told Reuters said that BTC’s sudden pullback from $50,000 might have been caused by one or two big funds deciding to cash out and take profit:

National holidays in major Asian markets to bring in the Lunar New Year wouldn’t have helped matters, as this would have contributed to lower trading volumes.

Bitcoin has started to recover from this sharp correction. At the time of writing, prices stood at $48,225.92 — with a market cap of $896,759,446,035.

It’s also interesting to note that Bitcoin’s dominance — its percentage of the total market cap of cryptocurrencies — has continued to slide over the past month. This stood at 68.3% in mid-January, but has now slipped to 60.3% as the likes of Cardano, XRP, Polkadot, Binance Coin and Litecoin outperformed over the past seven days.

Check out all of the day’s top crypto stories — and take part in our interactive poll — in the free CoinMarketCap newsletter.

TL;DR Breakdown

Bitcoin’s price quadrupled since 2020 and its price has risen to more than 60% since the start of this year. The market value of Bitcoin surged to an all-time high of $49,951 late Monday, just inches away from the $50,000 level, according to the data from CoinDesk.

The leading cryptocurrency has gotten a big boost from news of large firms like Tesla, MicroStrategy, and MasterCard warming to cryptocurrencies. 

Research by commodity futures trading commission shows a decline in hedge fund interests in the precious metal as focus shifts on rising nominal yields and the prospects of a better-than-expected US economic recovery. The data also revealed a drop in Gold futures short positions by 2,191 contracts to 47,093. The survey period saw an uptick in the Gold price as it attempted to push past its resistance level of $1,850 an ounce. Nevertheless, the market lacked enough inside momentum, which prompted the precious metal to correct lower in the afterwards sessions. 

According to Morgan Stanley, Gold price expects to go under $1,800 by the end of 2021. The bank said that the precious metal faces the prospects of a faster-than-expected US economic recovery and weaker inflation, which would reduce its demand against better bond yields. 

As at now, Bitcoin price has spiked from $29,000 to as much as $48,912 amid hopes of booming institutional adoption led by Tesla’s $1.5bn investment and MasterCard and BNY Mellon’s announcement to launch crypto-enabled services later this year. This recent development will lead bulls to see the cryptocurrency at tropospheric levels like $60,000, $75,000, and even possibly, $100,000.

According to data from XRPscan, in the past two days, co-founder of Ripple, Jed McCaleb moved roughly 40 million XRP from his “tacostand” wallet, which was named and activated when McCaleb was still working with Ripple. 

The former tech chief is very active when it comes to selling his XRP; a fact earlier noted by the Whale Alert team. As of December last year, McCaleb’s estimated total XRP holdings sales were $1.2 billion – at $0.20 per XRP. Over the years, his combined totals for XRP sold for USD are 2.25 billion XRP or $546 million. 

In addition, the crypto tracking business found more than 90,000 transactions last year and tracked around 8 billion XRP moved between Ripple, a settlement account, and McCaleb’s personal accounts.  It should be noted that ever since the exec departed Ripple, the firm has been transferring significant amounts of XRP to McCaleb’s wallet as part of the settlement agreement that compensates him for his role as founder. 

However, last year in December a researcher pointed out that McCaleb stopped selling his XRP on 24 December, a day after the SEC lawsuit against Ripple became public. 

— Leonidas Hadjiloizou (@LeoHadjiloizou) December 25, 2020

McCaleb resumed selling XRP in January. His wallet now shows a balance of 499,599,172.60537 XRP in total.  At press time, XRP was trading at $0.52 and registered a 6% hike in price in the past 24 hours. 

Polkadot Price Analysis: 11 February

Why these metrics will be key to Bitcoin’s near-term performance

Alisha is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto. Her interests lie in blockchain technology, crypto-crimes, and market developments in Africa and the United States

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The CEO of Tesla and the man with the highest net worth in the world, Elon Musk, continues his morning DOGE discussion.

Earlier today, he poured criticism on the uneven wealth distribution of Dogecoin and encouraged crypto whales to sell their coins.

This tweet pushed the meme-crypto down approximately 20 percent.

Now, Musk has tweeted that he is actually prepared to pay whales if they void their accounts. Some commenters under the tweet have assumed that Musk offers to take large DOGE amounts off the hands of whales who currently hold the coins.

Some are also criticizing Musk for impacting the price of DOGE negatively and manipulating the market with his tweets.

Earlier, Elon Musk referred to DOGE as the crypto of the people and the future currency of the Earth.

It is an open question whether Musk himself owns any DOGE or Bitcoin — despite him openly tweeting that he supports both coins.

Also, on Feb. 8, Tesla announced that it had allocated a jaw-dropping $1.5 billion into Bitcoin and, since then, this investment has risen 40 percent.

Bitcoin record-breaking rise to $48k with the Tesla news served as a driving force for many altcoins. Matic, AVAX, BNB, QTUM and CAKE took flight.

What are the developments that led to higher prices for Polygon (MATIC), Avalanche (AVAX), Binance Coin (BNB), Qtum (QTUM) and PancakeSwap (CAKE)?, Let’s see.

Polygon (MATIC)

On February 9, Matic announced that it would rebrand its name to Polygon. Polygon brings technological innovations to build networks compatible with the Ethereum blockchain. Now Polygon users can make improvements that are more compatible with Ethereum.

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Polygon partnered with NFT and digital product marketplace Doki. Integration was achieved with Dcent, one of the platforms of fashion and NFT collectors. Polygon has partnered with GUM Pad, which speeds up transactions with decentralized projects and reduces cost. Defi-based Cometh game, also joined The Polygon network.

MATIC price

Matic, which has a market capitalization of $ 622 million, rose 204% on a weekly basis. The cryptocurrency rose to $ 0.141 on February 10.

Avalanche (AVAX)

A bridge was established between Avalance and Ethereum networks. This allows you to switch between two networks.

Av has partnered with Avalance along with digital asset infrastructure provider Copper. This partnership aims to facilitate corporate investments.

A decentralized exchange called Pangolin was established on Avalanche to exchange Avalanche and Ethereum assets. The exchange is promising low transaction fees and fast transactions. OKCoin listed Avax.

AVAX price

AVAX rose 283% in the week to an all-time high of $51.89 on February 10. AVAX has reached a market capitalization of $ 4 billion.

Binance Coin (BNB)

Binance exchange traffic has risen to all time high and continues to be the top exchange with highest trading volume. BNB has a quarterly burning program that burn BNB coins worth million of dollars, reducing BNB supply.

Binance Smart Chain exceeded the number of daily transactions than Ethereum. Binance launched staking service for ADA and ATOM.

BNB price

BNB, which has a market capitalization of $19 billion, rose 154% weekly and 204% monthly. BNB, which makes ATH at $ 147.36, is up 37% in 24 hours.

Qtum (QTUM)

QTUM, is listed on cryptocurrency exchange Gate.io.

Qtum, along with new updates, aims to enable users to make transactions more secure, cost-effective and faster than Ethereum. Qtum’s qiswap project continues to grow with over 3 million Qtum stakes. Qtum announced that grant support for the DeFi and NFT projects would continue.

Qtum price

QTUM rose by 90% in one week. The 24-hour trading volume of the cryptocurrency, which has a market capitalization of $ 704 million, is $1.4 billion.

PancakeSwap (CAKE)

Pancake surpassed Sushiswap with a transaction volume of $536 million in 24 hours. PancakeSwap announced that it would award $1 million in the rewards.

PancakeSwap was the fastest growing automated market maker (AMM) compared to Uniswap and Sushiswap. Users will now be able to create an NFT profile with PancakeSwap.

CAKE price

CAKE, which rose 141% in one week and 946% in one month, rose to $8.13 on February 10. Cake has a market capitalization of $719 million, while its 24-hour trading volume is $ 257 million.

Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance, has faulted competitors for overlooking BNB (binance coin), and not listing it on their exchange for users to buy and sell.

Binance coin is one of the growing cryptocurrencies in the world, which Zhao described as the 4th largest cryptocurrency.

According to him, Binance coin not being listed by other exchanges limits its rivals’ growth.

Zhao said he shouldn’t be bothered about the decision as it favours him, but he wants the cryptocurrency market to grow. Aside from BNB, the Binance founder also mentioned the omission of Cake and XVS (another type of cryptocurrency) by other cryptocurrency platforms.

“It’s interesting many exchanges won’t list the 4th largest crypto. It shows a finite mindset. And they still don’t understand that it limits their own growth. As #BSC/#BNB gets bigger, this effect will become increasingly clear.

Read also: Binance takes advantage of loophole in CBN ban, offers Nigerians new option

“And already the largest in daily smart contract transaction volume. Let’s watch them miss out on the real DeFi action.

“It’s crazy to see many exchanges didn’t list tokens like $CAKE, $XVS, etc. Their loss. The selfish part of me didn’t want to tell them this actually. But we want the industry to grow.

“#BSC and projects on BSC will continue to grow without other exchange listings. They got @Binance already. It’s really for the other exchanges’ benefit to list some of the strong #BSC tokens.” Zhao said in a statement on Twitter, on Thursday.

Checks by Ripples Nigeria showed that 0.0051263 units of BNB sells at $263.45 on Binance, while 0.0019125 units of XVS is trading at $98.29. No figure was listed for Cake as at the time of filing this report.

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A Binance Smart Chain-powered decentralized exchange (DEX) called PancakeSwap has seen volumes and token prices skyrocket, as gas prices continue to cripple Ethereum (ETH) users.

PancakeSwap was spawned out of the decentralized finance (DeFi) cloning and food farming frenzy in late September 2020. Instead of duplicating Uniswap on Ethereum, it chose Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and its BEP20 standard to base its operations.

In essence, PancakeSwap does exactly the same thing as SushiSwap, but being backed by a huge centralized exchange. There is a DEX/automated market maker, yield farms, or kitchens as it calls them, and a native governance token, called CAKE.

As gas prices continue to surge, DeFi yield farmers have been flocking to PancakeSwap and its volumes have surged, propelling it to second place behind Uniswap in CoinGecko’s DEX ranking list.

Since Monday, Feb. 8, daily trade volume on the DEX has surged a whopping 350% from around $167 million to over $745 million, according to CoinGecko.

The platform itself reports an all-time high daily volume at current levels and liquidity of around $800 million.

Daily volume has surged 60%, over the past 24 hours, ranking the DEX above SushiSwap, 1inch, and 0x Protocol, and second only to Uniswap. The most traded pair on the exchange is WBNB/BUSD with around $195 million, or around 25% of the total, over the past day.

DappRadar reported that PancakeSwap has seen its user base grow over 36% to 58,400 active wallets over the past seven days. It added that it is the most used DeFi product on Binance Smart Chain.

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao also reported yesterday that BSC was had flipped Ethereum for daily transactions:

“Today is an important day. BSC flipped Ethereum on daily transactions. This validates the logic that low fees attracts more users & projects.”

The news is no surprise as gas fees continue to surge, with the average transaction cost hovering around its highest ever level of $25. Smaller token swaps and yield pool switching is totally unviable at these prices, which could also explain why ETH is being hodled, at the time of writing, and not sold to market.

The result for CAKE holders was a massive surge in token prices as it has pumped 200%, over the past week, hitting an all-time high of $8 on Wednesday, Feb. 10.

At press time, CAKE is trading at $6.77, still up over 1,300%, since the same time last month. Binance coin (BNB) has also been on a roll, hitting its own all-time high of $145 yesterday and cooling to $127.

Martin has been writing on cyber security and infotech for two decades. He has previous trading experience and has been actively covering the blockchain and crypto industry since 2017.

Fees on the Ethereum (ETH) network remain at record highs making swaps on Decentralized Finance’s (DeFi) favorite Decentralized Exchange (DEX), Uniswap, too expensive for most. BeInCrypto explores five alternatives users are going to instead.

Originally a fork of Uniswap (UNI), SushiSwap (SUSHI) is an automated market maker (AMM) for decentralized “swaps” that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.

It is a community-run platform, with SUSHI holders possessing the ability to participate in the platform’s governance (decision-making process). SUSHI’s lead developer is the pseudonymous “sushi-chef” OxMaki.

SUSHI forked from first-mover Uniswap in protest against an invitation to centralized shareholders. In August of 2020, a collection of investors committed $11 million to the project in return for some control.

Indeed, the OxMaki-led token now sits just behind UNI in the Total Value Locked (TVL) rankings, with $3.63 billion locked to UNI’s $3.93 billion.

The Changpeng Zhao (CZ) universe also expanded into the DEX space last year, with its own custom Binance DEX. Binance DEX claims it is a fully decentralized exchange, pit as an alternative to its centralized counterpart. The exchange sits on top of another Binance product, Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

Like any other AMM, Binance DEX removes Binance’s central match-making system, allowing users to transact any listed token directly with each other.

The DEX recently made headlines after analysis revealed it was 49 times cheaper to use than its Ethereum-based alternatives. Binance also operates a peer-to-peer fiat-to-crypto platform in its efforts to appeal to the DeFi space.

Interestingly, Binance DEX competes with several other DEXs on the BSC including recently popularized AMM, PancakeSwap.

Claiming to be the number one AMM on the BSC, the Sunday treat-themed platform replicates much of SUSHI’s features. This includes governance and yield farming in the aptly named “Syrup Pools.”

The CAKE team justified its decision to use the BSC instead of Ethereum by highlighting the high cost of developing and running smart contracts on the Ethereum network.

“Why would we want to drive a slower car that costs more to run?”

CAKE has risen over 1,200% since the start of the year, as it proved a low-cost alternative to Ethereum DEXs.

Curve Finance is the “curve”-ball in this list. It is a DEX specifically for the decentralized exchange of stablecoins. Launched in 2020, Curve aims to provide stablecoin swaps with low-slippage and a low-fee algorithm custom-built for stablecoin markets.

At the moment, Curve contains seven stablecoin pools, including amongst them: PAX, Compound and Binance’s own stablecoin, BUSD. Moreover, users can exchange these for many more stablecoins. Users can also stake stablecoins in these pools to earn “stable” interest in CRV.

If Curve was the curve-ball in this list, then BAL is an outlier altogether. Balancer is a standalone protocol for programmable liquidity built on Ethereum.

The protocol manages a “self-balancing” portfolio, weighted according to specific criteria. Its uniqueness stems from the fact that whilst it sits on the Ethereum network, it doesn’t require ETH to function.

Moreover, many tokens can be added in its place. Balancer is currently number nine in the TVL rankings, with $1.34 billion staked.

Emmanuel entered the cryptocurrency space in 2013 as a cryptocurrency broker. He is a crypto-enthusiast, entrepreneur, and investor, who has built and led several projects and communities in the space. He is CEO and co-founder of Provence Intelligence, a boutique crypto-consultancy firm that aims to bridge the gap between the cryptocurrency and DLT space and the traditional world. Interests include DeFi, non-blockchain DLTs, and the synthetic derivatives space.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

Competing decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are trading blows in the world of open-source software as rivals to Ethereum-based Uniswap are catching up to the unicorn project in terms of volume and nominal liquidity.

Leading the charge is PancakeSwap. The automated market maker (AMM) clone of Uniswap on Binance’s own blockchain, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), has seen liquidity grow 1,003% for the year to date. Volumes have been a tad more impressive, up 2,800% from $37 million on Jan. 1 to $1.1 billion on Feb. 17, according to CoinGecko.

Its native CAKE token has shot up some 6,000% since its release last fall and is now trading hands at $12.77, per CoinGecko data.

Binance’s native token, BNB, is also reaping rewards from the newfound attention on BSC. BNB broke into crypto’s top five coins by market capitalization at $191 per token Thursday after gaining 13% in 24 hours, according to Messari. The token is needed to process transactions on BSC, similarly to ether (ETH) on Ethereum. 

Ostensibly, value moving over to BSC reflects demand for decentralized finance (DeFi) products on the cheap. The cost to process a simple Uniswap transfer has skyrocketed well into the double digits in line with ETH’s bull run. Even a simple transfer from one wallet to another will set you back nearly $10. Gas fees are likely a major factor in traders moving to other chains with cloned DeFi offerings.

Not to be left out is original Uniswap knockoff SushiSwap, which has enjoyed increased volume and liquidity figures during the DeFi market’s second act. CoinGecko lists the DEX as the third-largest AMM after Uniswap and PancakeSwap, respectively. 

SushiSwap – a clone of Uniswap launched in August 2020 through a novel financial incentive program called “vampire mining” – has liquidity roughly 25% lower than that of Uniswap, although overall trade volume remains around 65% lower at $358 million.

Binance Smart Chain-based decentralized exchange, PancakeSwap has become the industry’s largest DEX by trading volume with roughly $1.5 billion traded in the last 24 hours. In the process, PancakeSwap overtook Ethereum-based Uniswap, which has retained the top spot for a long time.

As the above data from industry-tracker, Coingecko shows, the rise of PancakeSwap above Uniswap has happened even with the DEX listing fewer coins and pairs and having fewer visitors. The project’s native token, CAKE, trades at $18.5 at the time of writing, representing an over 200% growth in the last seven days.

The recent implosion of PancakeSwap follows a period where Ethereum network fees have hit the roof, and users are looking for alternatives.

PancakeSwap is a fork of the Uniswap protocol but built on Binance Smart Chain, an Ethereum-sidechain largely pioneered by Binance exchange. Binance Smart Chain offers significantly lower fees, around $0.10 per transaction, and near-instant settlements, and has seen a significant usage in the wake of the Ethereum fee hike.

In the hours leading up to press time, the number of transactions on the Binance Smart Chain has overtaken Ethereum. While BSC reports almost 2.5 million transactions, Ethereum lags with 1.3 million transactions in the last 24 hours.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has in the past shrugged off the possibility of Binance’s blockchain efforts becoming the ultimate “Ethereum killer.” However, the meteoric increase in the past few days brings that subject back in contention, with the Binance native token (BNB) breaking into the top three cryptocurrencies by market cap.

BNB had a $257 price and the time of writing, while its market cap of $38.1 billion has overtaken Tether’s stablecoin, USDT as the third-largest cryptocurrency in the market.

Aside from the existing use cases, BNB is being used to pay gas fees on the Binance Smart Chain, with the rise in transactions inevitable, meaning greater demand for the token.

But BNB still trails Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) by some mile. The latter has a $221 billion market cap and recently broke above the $1900 price for the first time.

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Bitcoin price rallied to a new all-time high near USD 48,200 before starting a downside correction. BTC traded below the USD 47,000 level and it is currently (05:00 UTC) near USD 46,000. The next key support is at USD 45,000, below which there are chances of a larger downside correction.

Besides, most other major altcoins are gaining traction. ETH/USD traded to a new all-time high near USD 1,830 and it is consolidating gains. XRP/USD is rising again and it may soon test or clear USD 0.500.

Total market capitalization

After spiking above USD 48,000, bitcoin price started a downside correction. BTC traded below the USD 47,500 and USD 46,800 support levels. It even traded below USD 46,000, but the bulls were active near the USD 45,000 support. If there are more losses, the price might decline towards the USD 43,500 level. On the upside, the price is facing a key resistance near the USD 47,000 level. A close above USD 47,000 could start a fresh increase towards the USD 48,000 and USD 48,200 levels.

Ethereum price remained well bid and it climbed above the USD 1,800 level. ETH traded to a new all-time high at USD 1,830 before correcting lower. It is trading near the USD 1,800 level. An initial support is near the USD 1,750 level, below which the price might test USD 1,710. On the upside, the bulls are struggling near USD 1,820 and USD 1,830. A clear break above USD 1,830 could open the doors for a steady rise.

Many altcoins rallied over 20%, including MATIC, CAKE, BNB, AVAX, OKB, EWT, FIL, LUNA, RSR, RVN, SNX, XVS, HT, ZIL, and EOS. Out of these, BNB rallied above the USD 110 level.

Overall, bitcoin price is correcting gains, but it might remain stable above USD 45,000. Meanwhile, there are chances of more upsides in ETH, ADA, EOS, LTC, and other major altcoins. _____

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