$40,000.

Whether it's trickle-down cryptonomics, a rising tide lifting all boats, a newly launched proof-of-stake chain, or something else, Ethereum has been making moves too.

The price of Ethereum has increased 14% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap, to hit $1,400. That's above Ethereum's all-time high of $1,396, according to the data site.

The coin has been on a tear recently, rallying from $730 at the start of the year up to $1,270 in little over a week. Since then the coin saw a price correction to the $900 mark before pressure starting building back again.

Trading volumes have been growing rapidly. More than $37 billion in Ethereum has been traded in the last 24 hours, as traders rush to get in on the action.

The growing price has pushed Ethereum's market cap up. It now weighs in at $159 billion—that's around 23% of Bitcoin's market cap size.

The rest of the market has been performing well today, with XRP up 7%, Litecoin (LTC) up 14% and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) up 9%. Some coins have fared particularly well in the last week too, with Polkadot (DOT) up 105% in the last seven days and Chainlink (LINK) up 50%.

The growing price has, in part, pushed up the amount of value that's moved across the Ethereum blockchain per day. According to Money Movers, just shy of $20 billion is moved across the network per day. On this metric, Ethereum and Bitcoin are neck and neck.

Chile, Greenland, Kenya, Peru & Taiwan.

This global expansion is additional to the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and European countries, namely, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania and United Kingdom.

Furthermore, websites, portals, blogs and vlogs can now embed our specially designed widget to their content allowing visitors easily purchase BSV and tip, pay for content, products or experiences with BSV. Just fill out the form at the bottom of the BuyBSV.com website.

Editors’ Notes:

This is a joint effort between virtual currency trading platform Coinify and CoinGeek, this is a new super-simple way to buy BSV (.com); the only coin with a blockchain that scales (now), has utility (now) and is committed to a set-in-stone protocol for developers to build on (now).

For more on BSV, visit BitcoinSV.com and ‘come’ to the next major BSV event – CoinGeek Conference VII, in Zurich this April.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeek’s Bitcoin for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoin—as originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamoto—and blockchain.

U.S., regulatory and law enforcement interventions throughout the year have left some projects out of business, empowered traditional players to take a closer look at crypto, and sent some unequivocal messages to cryptocurrency service providers globally. Naturally, the steady legitimization and expansion of the crypto space led regulators to get more involved than ever before. Below are the biggest cases of U.S. watchdog and law enforcement agencies’ involvement that have arguably been the most consequential in shaping the relationship between the crypto industry and state power in 2020.

Throughout 2018, TON raised some $1.7 billion by selling contracts associated with Gram, the system’s native token, to qualified investors. Mindful of the potential collision with the U.S securities regulator, Telegram bosses followed a framework known as the Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT). The first stage of the process entailed the sale of contractual rights to buy tokens if and when the network goes live. While those legal rights are sold as securities — in this case, under exemption Reg. D — the resultant tokens are, theoretically, not.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is an independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury. The OCC’s job is to charter and supervise national banks and savings associations. U.S. financial institutions that seek to operate nationwide must undergo an extensive review process with the OCC.

On Jul. 22, 2020, the OCC published an interpretive letter authorizing federally chartered banks to provide cryptocurrency custody services. The agency has never prohibited organizations operating within its purview to hold digital assets on behalf of their clients, but the sheer lack of guidance and legal clarity held back the expansion of many credit organizations’ services into the digital asset space. To clients interested in their banks providing custody services, those banks could say ‘it’s just too risky right now.’

The letter equated encryption key escrow service with physical safekeeping of assets.

The regulator’s forward-thinking approach to digital currencies could be related to the fact that Brian P. Brooks, Acting Comptroller of the Currency, spent two years as the chief legal officer of Coinbase prior to the present appointment.

As the price of Bitcoin is soaring, in 2021 law enforcement will likely be motivated to invest even more energy and resources in pursuing crypto stolen in previous high-profile heists. Blockchain intelligence firms will surely be there to help.

The fate of crypto derivatives platform BitMEX illustrates what can happen to those who wear out the patience of several U.S. regulators. Incorporated in the Seychelles, BitMEX has long been under suspicion of serving U.S.-based customers, rendering the exchange subject to U.S. anti-money laundering and derivatives trading regulations.

Perhaps the key takeaway from this story was aptly articulated by the SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce, who called the BitMEX case a clear message to the global crypto industry. She said “when there are U.S. users of a product or a service, there’s going to be enforcement of U.S. laws.”

In addition to promising a lot of extra work for crypto exchanges, the proposed rule can deal yet another blow to the very concept of private, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions. However, some observers argued that it would be enough for those wishing to get back to the territory of pseudonymous transactions to simply transfer the holdings from the wallet on record with FinCEN to a new one.

Unlike the Telegram Open Network, which the Securities and Exchange Commission shot down before it could ever take off, Ripple’s XRP token has been traded for almost 7 years and on the day the SEC knocked on the door, was ranked #3 cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

While the constant #1 and #2 of the market cap ranking, Bitcoin and Ether, were consistently absolved in the Commission representatives’ statements on the grounds of these assets’ decentralized nature, there has always been some suspense around the question of whether XRP is a currency or security. A considerable portion of the XRP supply is consolidated at the hands of a single firm, Ripple Labs.

In late December 2020, the SEC struck with a lawsuit claiming that XRP is a security and that the token’s distribution amounts to offering investment contracts. The news sent XRP price into a tailspin and prompted a chain of delistings from major exchanges. Although it will take months before the case even reaches trial, it is clear that the SEC’s move will profoundly shift the balance of power in the crypto space.

In the final days of 2020, another arm of the Treasury — the Office of Foreign Asset Controls — reminded crypto businesses with ties to the U.S. about one more source of regulatory scrutiny: compliance with various sanctions programs. The crypto custodian and the watchdog reached a $98,000 settlement over BitGo’s 183 apparent violations of the Treasury’s sanctions between 2015 and 2019. The firm’s transgression entailed failing to block users residing in sanctioned jurisdictions such as Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria from using BitGo online wallets.

world, its DOT token today increased to $8.02 at 9:45 am UTC. Its current market cap, $7.2 billion, has surpassed the market cap of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which dropped by 2.97% in the past 24 hours, putting it at a market cap of $6.3 billion. 

Having been in development since 2017, Polkadot’s utility in the crypto world amounts to something that helps iOS programs run on Windows. On August 21, Polkadot’s community of DOT holders voted in favor of the redenomination of DOT, inflating the circulating supply of DOT tokens by 100 times. 

DOT profited from this year’s Bitcoin bull run, which, since it’s beginning at the start of October, has seen the price of DOT grow by over 170%.

Bitcoin spinoff Bitcoin Cash (BCH), however, has been struggling ever since its launch in 2017. BCH was created to prime the antiquated Bitcoin for payments. It increased Bitcoin’s block size to 8MB (and later 32 MB), making it easier for the blockchain to process more transactions at once, at a fraction of the cost. 

BCH’s price has been on a downward spiral since its creation, though daddy Bitcoin is on the rise, as evidenced in this Christmas’s bull run. BCH’s recent history has been troubled after the network split over an unpopular mining tax of 8% that would have gone to one of the teams developing it. 

Since then, its price has grown past $350. But that isn’t enough to outpace DOT’s bull run. 

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a petition against the San Francisco payments company. And this is extremely important for the future of XRP.

On 22 December, the SEC filed a complaint against Ripple for an unregistered securities offering, alleging that XRP was security rather than a currency.

Alderoty questions why the SEC complaint has not been filed in seven years. And it looks like the SEC hasn’t provided the full story.

Alderoty stated:

“There are no ‘fraud’ or ‘misrepresentation’ claims. There is one legal question: Did certain of Ripple’s distributions of XRP constitute an investment contract? We look forward to litigating that in Court and providing the industry the clarity it deserves. As always, the SEC cherry-picked and truncated the facts, quotes, etc. Ex: no mention that throughout 2018, Ripple’s XRP sales represented only 0.095% to 0.43% of global XRP volume and in Q1 2019, those sales amounted to 0.22% of the overall trading volume.”

Ripple’s attorney also said the SEC’s complaint cuts other classifications made by the US government.

Both Alderoty and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse have said that the world will soon hear the side of the company’s story.

An issue of securities in the US requires approval from the SEC. This caused the XRP price to drop from $ 0.56 on 21 December to around $ 0.28 on 24 December, a 50% drop. On 25 December, XRP traded around $ 0.33, a little above its recent lows.

Indian cryptocurrency exchanges expressed shock at the development.

Siddharth Menon, co-founder, and chief operating officer of WazirX, India’s largest crypto exchange by volumes, stated:

“Ripple is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies. It has also been among the top traded tokens on WazirX. SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple is shocking. Given the uncertainty of this situation, we will continue monitoring the lawsuit development and then take the necessary steps.”

Neeraj Khandelwal, the co-founder of crypto exchange CoinDCX, said:

“We are closely following the developments and waiting for more information on the matter before making a decision.”

Cryptocurrency professionals also distinguished XRP and other cryptocurrencies. Cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum can be mined by anyone. There is no issuer and owner. This was never the case with XRP. Ripple Labs owned 98% of it and issued a little bit every year. The company set the supply (100 billion XRP). This makes it more like a security than a cryptocurrency.

The lawsuit is also likely to influence regulators in other countries, including India.

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will be scrutinized sooner or later.

Virtually all of them raised money by selling unregistered securities.

Such behavior should never go by unpunished.

For Enigma, raising $45 million during its ICO was perhaps the easy part.

The company will be forced to refund all investors accordingly, despite crypto prices plummeting hard.

Additionally, the Enigma team must pay a $500,000 fine for selling unregistered securities. 

The project raised a lot of money to provide a privacy layer for decentralized applications.

As the Enigma team will continue to operate, their tokens must now be registered with the SEC as official securities.

Contrary to what most expected, this does not mean the end for this project.

Instead, the team sees it as a positive development, as the focus can fully shift to actual development.

That approach is very rare, as most ICOs are forced to fold after the SEC hands down its verdict. 

Since its ICO, the token price of Enigma has dropped by nearly 40%.

Its market cap is only $28.5 million, despite raising $45 million just over two years ago. 

Image(s): Shutterstock.com

Asset Transfer Network, according to a press release from the group. Thanks to this, Enigma can move digital assets throughout a variety of spaces including but not limited to cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, and more. On top of this, it can do so while safely abiding by government protocol. Speaking on the matter is Jordan Ettedgui, the Head of Trading over at Enigma Securities: Also sharing some thoughts is Michael Shaulov, the CEO of Fireblocks, who had said: 4.5/5 75% of retail investors lose money.eToro Reviews https://insidebitcoins.com/visit/etoro-newsCreate your account Hide eToro Reviews 4.5/5 80.5% of retail investors lose money.Plus500 Reviews https://insidebitcoins.com/visit/plus500-newsCreate your account Hide Plus500 Reviews Remember, all trading carries risk. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Article Info Author: Max Moeller Last Updated: 29 June 2020 Cryptocurrency and games writer. Looking to the future by studying how these two industries can blend.

securities.

Enigma is a project focused on providing privacy for decentralized applications (dapps).

“All investors are entitled to receive certain information from issuers in connection with a securities offering, whether it involves more traditional assets or novel ones,” said John T. Dugan, associate director for enforcement in the SEC’s Boston Regional Office, in a statement. “The remedies in today’s order provide ICO investors with an opportunity to obtain compensation and provide investors with the information to which they are entitled as they make investment decisions.”

Enigma will now need to register its tokens as securities, and file periodic reports with the SEC.

While this might be a blow for the nascent project, it seems more like a relief.

"This settlement clears the way for our development team to focus fully on our original and continued vision: building groundbreaking privacy solutions that improve the adoption and usability of decentralized technologies, for the benefit of all," Enigma CEO Guy Zyskind wrote in a blog post.

Enigma is now focusing on its newly launched mainnet. Enigma's mainnet, which went live on February 13, is a proof-of-stake blockchain based on Cosmos—a project that has been falling apart in recent weeks.

The blockchain will support Enigma's new cryptocurrency, called Secret (SCRT). It is used for governance on the blockchain, enabling token holders to decide how it adapts over time. They can also stake Secret tokens, locking them up for periods of time in order to receive certain benefits.

However, the main thing that Enigma is focused on, is not yet ready. It's secret sauce is the notion of "secret contracts" that allow dapps to function without anyone being able to observe them. The aim is to bring greater privacy to the cryptocurrency world.

And, according to our latest feature, that is sorely needed.

securities.

Enigma raised $45 million during its 2017 ICO. The startup did not register its ENG tokens as securities, nor did the ICO qualify for an exemption, said an official press release.

The San Francisco and Israel-based startup agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, return funds to investors via a claims process, register its tokens as securities, and file periodic reports with the SEC.

John Dugan, Associate Director for Enforcement, said of the enforcement:

Enigma is down 18% on the news.

Over the last two years, the Commission has executed a number of enforcement actions against initial coin offerings.

These are only a few of the blockchain companies reprimanded by the SEC since 2019. The crackdown is expected to continue as more evidence is gathered from companies in the wake of the 2017 ICO craze.

Enigma consented to the order without admitting to or denying its findings.

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accepted the settlement but did not admit to any wrongdoing. As such, the firm can now continue operations but is now registered with the SEC.

Enigma’s SEC troubles originated from the firm’s 2017 ICO. The ICO lasted from June to September 2017. During that time, Enigma issued 75 million ENG Tokens and raised approximately $45 million in ETH and BTC from investors. Specifically, the company sold discounted ENG Tokens during its Pre-sale. Additionally, the firm offered Simple Agreements for Future Tokens (SAFTs).

The SEC alleged that Enigma offered and sold securities in violation of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933 when it engaged in an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO). Regulators pointed out that the firm offered investment contracts during the campaign. Importantly, these securities were subject to regulations.

On the latter point, Enigma did file a Form D for exemption. However, the SEC didn’t approve the request prior to the company starting its ICO. Consequently, regulators pointed out the firm received no exemption to operate in the way it did.

SEC regulators pointed to a number of specific instances in which the firm violated regulations. For one, the company promoted purchasers’ reasonable expectation of profits. The idea of future profits came from various representations Enigma made to investors. Additionally, developers described how they intended to use the raised capital to develop its products and its business systems to earn profits.

Discussing the settlement, John T. Dugan, Associate Director for Enforcement in the SEC’s Boston Regional Office stated the facts. He pointed out that Enigma was “required, and failed, to register its ICO” prior to operations. Consequently, investors never received the information required under the current securities laws.

As part of the settlement, Enigma agreed to provide ICO investors with an opportunity to obtain compensation if they require it. To get a refund, investors must follow the SEC claim process. Additionally, the firm must pay a $500,000 civil penalty and register ENG Tokens as a class of securities with the SEC. As part of this registration, Enigma must file periodic reports with the SEC moving forward.

In a recent blog post, executives defended their decision. Importantly, the company didn’t admit any wrongdoing. However, the firm did state that the settlement did clear the way for developers to focus fully on our original and continued vision of the platform.

Enigma entered the market in 2017 with the goal to provide users with groundbreaking privacy solutions that improve the adoption and usability of decentralized technologies. The platform allows digital asset traders to test trading strategies in a safe environment. Also, the firm will construct a marketplace for cryptocurrency-related data.

This settlement is just the latest in a long line of SEC trials wrapping up this year. Since early 2018, the SEC has continued with its ICO crackdown strategy. To date, multiple firms have reached settlements with these regulators. Unfortunately, some went out of business prior to repaying investors. For now, Enigma seems prepared to move on from this speed bump.

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David Hamilton is a full-time journalist and a long-time bitcoinist. He specializes in writing articles on the blockchain. His articles have been published in multiple bitcoin publications including Bitcoinlightning.com

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close to 450,000 BTC worth roughly $4.7 billion.

The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is a very popular investment vehicle and in 2020 the trust has obtained a massive amount of BTC. Today, GBTC has $4.7 billion assets under management (AUM), according to data provided by bybt.com. Grayscale’s bitcoin position is also displayed on the company website as well for transparency purposes.

Since the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust inception date on September 25, 2013, there are 471,022,700 shares outstanding and each share is worth 0.00095519 BTC per share. This week, digital currency proponents noticed that Grayscale scooped up around 17,100 BTC or $182 million using today’s exchange rates.

Bybt.com’s data shows the trust obtained the bitcoin stash during the last seven days and GBTC’s aggregate bitcoin position is now 449,900 BTC.

Bitcoin (BTC) markets have done well in recent days and dominance is nearing 60% again. The cryptocurrency’s percentage change versus USD during the last year is up 29% and during the last 90-days, BTC has gained over 16%.

“To acquire 16,796 BTC, we traded continuously 74 hours, executing 88,617 trades ~0.19 BTC each [three] seconds,” Saylor said. “~$39,414 in BTC per minute, but at all times we were ready to purchase $30-50 million in a few seconds if we got lucky with a 1-2% downward spike,” Saylor added.

A number of BTC proponents also believe that companies like Microstrategy and Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust snatching up vast amounts of BTC is bullish for investors. CEO of UK bitcoin exchange Coincorner, Danny Scott, tweeted on Sunday that BTC’s “foundations are getting stronger by the day.”

“62 days of Bitcoin ending above $10,000,” Scott tweeted. “Previous was 61 from 1st Dec 2017.”

What do you think about Grayscale scooping up 17,100 BTC in the last seven days? Let us know in the comments section below.

Spot-markets for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Litecoin and more. Start your trading here.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

impact on the altcoin market. Over the past seven days, seven cryptocurrencies in the top 100 by market cap have registered rallies of 100% or more.

Nano leads the pack and is up 325% in the last week at time of writing. The digital asset is designed to facilitate fast transactions with zero fees and minimal hardware resource requirements. It boasts a market cap of just under $587 million, according to the latest numbers from CoinGecko.

Stellar is the second-highest gainer. It is up by 145% over the past week. Stellar is also designed to facilitate cheap and fast transactions and allows users to issue custom stablecoins. It currently boasts a market cap of about $7 billion.

The third and fourth largest gainers this past week are neck-in-neck, with Loopring (LRC) up 128% and Status (SNT) up 122%.

Status is an operating system for mobile devices, equipped to allow access to the decentralized applications on Ethereum. Its market cap is a little over $263 million. Loopring is a protocol built on Ethereum designed to power a fast and cheap decentralized exchange. Loopring’s market cap is about $482 million.

After a big run at the start of the week, Dogecoin comes in at the fifth position. Although the Litecoin fork was created as a joke, its gains have been impressive, coming in at 109% in the last seven days.

Reserve Rights Token (RSR) and Solana (SOL) are tied for sixth and seventh, both with 108% gains in the last seven days. RSR is the volatile utility token of the Reserve Protocol and is designed to balance the value of the stablecoin RSV. Solana is a high-performance blockchain with a peak capacity of 65,000 transactions per second.

The overall market cap of all crypto assets sits just above the $1 trillion mark, rising from $771 billion at the start of the week.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Anuchit kamsongmueang

assets, went live Wednesday.  The Secret Network, so named to describe its decentralized governance, is an open source network that protects data for users of decentralized applications, now known as “Secret Apps.”  With 28 active validators, the vote was, in part, a move to bring the different core contributors under a single, identifiable umbrella, even though they remain separate entities, in part as a way to attract developers and users. With the rebrand now complete, an acute push for developers is one of the next steps. Key contributors to the development of the mainnet and governance include , and , among others.  “Enigma is thrilled that the branding for the mainnet blockchain now better reflects the communal effort supporting the chain, its growth and its mission — to bring privacy to public blockchains,” said Tor Bair, Head of Growth at Enigma, in a text message. The Secret Network’s protocol lets decentralized applications utilize encrypted data without revealing it on a public blockchain, or even to nodes themselves, using smart contracts that can utilize private data termed “secret contracts.” The secret contract testnet is a few weeks away from launching but if all goes well it will then be proposed to the mainnet.  See also: Enigma Launches Second Testnet for ‘Secret Contract’ Blockchain As CoinDesk has, the aim is “to create a secure, off-chain environment able to process sensitive and private blockchain data with end-to-end encryption.” If the testnet is incorporated into the mainnet by a vote, it will be the first layer one blockchain with privacy-preserving smart contracts, according to Bair. The mainnet is based on the software development kit, a network of parallel independent blockchains, and using the consensus algorithm Tendermint. It was secured by a “Secret” coin when it originally launched in February. This move is an extension to expand that name to the whole network, and reflect its community driven progress.  “The branding of ‘Secret Network’ follows the name of its native coin (Secret, SCRT) as well as existing concepts in the ecosystem such as , , and Secret Apps. Secret Network now has its own ,” according to a   This comes a few months after an Enigma MPC with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over charges relating to the blockchain startup’s $45 million token sale in 2017.  From now on, validators on the Secret Network will be known as “Secret Nodes,” and data being processed will be kept encrypted from the node itself. The network is also planning to conduct an incentivized testnet where validators can help develop this new function.  “Enigma and the Secret Network community are now looking forward to the upcoming launch of our incentivized testnet and the Secret Games, where we’ll continue to test secret contract functionality for the network,” said Bair. PrivacySmart ContractsEnigmaBlockchain SecuritySecret NetworkDisclosureThe leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

was trading at $0.3 per unit, up 30.43% in a 24-hour period, as of press time, while XLM rose 52.98% to $0.35 in the same period.

XLM gains have exceeded 180% in a seven-day period, according to CoinMarketCap data.

As a comparison, Bitcoin (BTC) has risen 27.74% in a seven-day period leading up to press time.

Why It Matters: XRP has been under pressure of late after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple, the company closely linked with the token.

Denis Vinokourov, head of London-based brokerage Bequant attributed XLM’s rise partly to the fact that it is a modified fork of XRP, reported CoinDesk.

The expert also attributed the gains in XLM to the fact that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently allowed U.S. banks to use public blockchains and dollar-backed stable coins for settlement purposes.

An earlier announcement by Stellar that it was helping Ukraine develop a central bank digital currency is also turning out to be a “perfect storm” for XLM, CF Benchmark’s CEO Sui Chung told CoinDesk.

leading smart contract platform, Ethereum (ETH).

He highlights data from ViewBase that shows 2% of the Ethereum supply just left exchanges in a single day, a sign that traders are scooping up ETH and moving it to private wallets.

The next coins on Arnold’s radar are three blue-chip decentralized finance (DeFi) coins. The crypto strategist says he’s looking at peer-to-peer lending protocol Aave, borrowing and lending platform Compound (COMP), and stablecoin governance token Maker (MKR) as the total value locked in DeFi soars over the last few months.

“DeFi lending platforms collectively added $6.32 billion across their total value locked in the last three months. While the prices of these coins are not at all-time highs yet, if you take a look, with the actual utility, the function that they’re doing, they’re growing month after month. In fact, specifically for Maker, Maker DAO ranks in the top 10 most active DApps in a week being up 127%. Maker DAO’s users and volume also increased, seven-day users increased by 7%, seven-day volume increased by 70%.”

Taking the fifth spot is Ethereum competitor Polkadot (DOT), which Arnold says is currently on fire.

“DOT is one of the hottest coins of this cycle. It’s not a long-term hold but in the short term, in the midterm, I expect Polkadot to continue trending up.”

At number six is Compound-based lending and borrowing DApp Cream Finance (CREAM). Arnold notes that Cream has a new functionality that has the potential to be huge for the DApp.

“Check this out. You tell me if this is a big deal, ‘The Cream Finance project, a lending protocol, the one that recently merged with the Yearn ecosystem, announced the upcoming launch of its Iron Bank feature… [Cream’s Iron Bank] is an attempt to create a decentralized finance equivalent of corporate debt. The announcement released on Thursday explains how the market for peer-to-peer lending in traditional finance, worth $70 billion, pales in comparison to the world of corporate credit with $10 trillion in loans outstanding…’

Why would anybody be interested? It’s because in a world where interest rates are zero or negative you can get some awesome yield in Cream Finance.” 

Coming in at number seven is yield aggregator yearn.finance (YFI). Arnold says that YFI is starting to trend up just as it reveals a new proposal for token holders.

“For instance, ‘Yearn proposes buy back and build strategy for YFI holders. Instead of receiving dividends, yearn.finance would buy and redistribute tokens with protocol revenue.'”

Token number eight is blockchain scalability platform Matic Network (MATIC), which Arnold says he included on the list but forgot the reason why.

The last coin on Arnold’s list is Bitcoin. The crypto trader says BTC is still a great buy at current prices for “life-changing wealth.”

“Let’s not be fools here. Bitcoin is literally internet gold. Just look at what smart money is doing and there’s really only one. Bitcoin converts another skeptic into a believer. Billionaire investor Howard Marks admits he needs to change his skeptical view. How many other billionaires feel similarly?”

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Yuri Kabantsev