In the latest sign of peak cryptocurrency mania subsiding, a token backed by billionaire Mark Cuban crashed down to zero dollars Tuesday, joining a slew of other hyped-up cryptocurrencies that have crashed over the past month after frenzied trading drove the market to meteoric price highs this year.

A wave of panic selling Wednesday morning drove the price of Iron Titanium, a token Cuban disclosed he owned earlier this week, from a Wednesday high above $64 to less than 0.01% of a penny by Thursday morning after some of its biggest investors started selling the token at high volumes, spooking individual investors and triggering the massive selloff.

Though much more gradual, the prices of several other tokens sporting multi-billion-dollar market capitalizations have similarly crashed over the past month amid a broader crypto-market rout.

After skyrocketing to a $45 billion market cap and becoming a top 10 cryptocurrency virtually overnight last month, Internet Computer has seen its prices tumble nearly 90%.

The token drew widespread praise from analysts and institutional investors, including Polychain Capital founder Olaf Carlson-Wee, but crypto enthusiasts on Reddit have soured on the token during its plunge and blamed "elites" (or institutional investors) for dumping their coins and driving down prices.

Safemoon, another token lauded by the Reddit crowd and social media influencers including crypto-bull Dave Portnoy, has plunged as much as 70% since amassing a $6 billion market cap in mid-May.

Shiba Inu tokens drew massive fanfare for their resemblance to dogecoin, the virtual currency endorsed by billionaire Elon Musk, and though they once held a nearly $13 billion valuation, they've plummeted nearly 75% in value since a peak on May 10.

According to crypto-data website CoinMarketCap, roughly one-third of the world's 100 most valuable cryptocurrencies have plummeted at least 40% over the past month, and a dozen have crashed more than 50%. Only three have added value: Quant, Theta Fuel and Amp—small tokens (subject to extreme volatility) worth $916 million, $2.8 billion and $4.2 billion, respectively.

"I got hit like everyone else. Crazy part is I got out… [Then] Bam," Cuban tweeted late Wednesday about Iron Titanium's crash. The plunging prices exposed a flaw in the token's design that created an arbitrage opportunity, effectively allowing investors to make unlimited money by buying and selling the token, which drove prices down further. “It was a crypto vortex of money,” Fred Schebesta, the founder of fintech company Founder and an Iron Finance investor, told Coindesk. “What happened is just the worst thing that could possibly happen considering their tokenomics.” Reddit traders have also blamed lackluster designs for the plunging prices of Safemoon, Shiba Inu and other formerly lauded tokens, though their crashes have been much less severe.

Established cryptocurrencies bitcoin and ether have struggled over the past month amid regulatory concerns and peaking investor sentiment, but their prices have fared much better than most of their smaller counterparts. Bitcoin is down 11% over the past month, while ether has plunged about 28%. When the crypto market peaked in May, Oanda Senior Market Analyst Edward Moya noted traders were piling into altcoins—or bitcoin alternatives—in a sign of growing speculation. Trading volume surged at the time, consistently totaling more than $300 billion each day. Mania has since cooled, with volume down to less than a third of its peak. 

$1.6 trillion. That's the value of the cryptocurrency market, 63% of which is made up of bitcoin and ether. 

Iron Finance's Titan Token Falls to Near Zero in DeFi Panic Sell (CoinDesk) 

Musk Denies Bitcoin 'Pump And Dump'—And Says Tesla Will Resume Transactions Once This Mining Goal Is Reached (Forbes)

I'm a reporter at Forbes focusing on markets and finance. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I double-majored in business journalism

I'm a reporter at Forbes focusing on markets and finance. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I double-majored in business journalism and economics while working for UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School as a marketing and communications assistant. Before Forbes, I spent a summer reporting on the L.A. private sector for Los Angeles Business Journal and wrote about publicly traded North Carolina companies for NC Business News Wire. Reach out at jponciano@forbes.com. And follow me on Twitter @Jon_Ponciano

Bitcoin pumps hard and then it dumps harder. Everyone knows the story, and indeed this volatility is why many have stayed away from the cryptocurrency sector altogether. Since Bitcoin’s first recognized bull run and subsequent dump in 2011 the pattern has repeated three times, but there is a sense that this time round things could be different, that we may have entered what Dan Held called a Bitcoin super cycle. What’s different about this current run, and what could it mean for Bitcoin’s future?

All past Bitcoin bull runs have been driven purely by retail investors, with the cream of the crop able to make absolute fortunes before the market reverses. The difference between this bull run and prior ones is that the makeup of those involved has moved from retail only to a combination of retail and institutional holders. This has resulted in masses of bitcoin being taken away from the market and into the holdings of institutional investors.

These corporate buyers, if we are to believe the press releases, are doing it as an alternative way to preserve the value of their balance in the wake of a devaluing fiat currency system. They say they are going to hold for years, unlike cycle traders who buy in the bear market and sell out in a bull market, which is why Bitcoin has always dumped so spectacularly.

Of course, it would be naïve to think that institutional buyers won’t at least be realizing profits on the way up. Ruffer Investments did just this in December, selling some of its holdings just a few weeks after buying in order to take out their principle. However, the reason why these institutions are buying is not, outwardly at least, to make a short-term profit from one of Bitcoin’s traditional explosive runs. The likes of MicroStrategy and Tesla have specifically stated that they have bought bitcoin as a hedge to the depleting value of the U.S. dollar, suggesting that their plans to not include selling, no matter what the Bitcoin price hits.

Were Bitcoin to hit, say, $100,000, MicroStrategy alone would be sitting on over nine billion dollars’ worth of bitcoin. At this point CEO Michael Saylor would be facing a boardroom pleading with him to realize at least some of its profits, and frankly it would be irresponsible of him not to, but if institutional investors really are in this for the long game then the selling will be nowhere near the levels we have at the end of prior bull runs. If you are genuinely holding bitcoin as a hedge to an inflating and depreciating dollar then why would you sell to it in full expectation that its value will decrease?

Following this theory to its natural conclusion, and assuming that institutional adoption increases over time, there is the very real possibility that Bitcoin will not correct in the same way it always has, even after major milestones are hit. Of course there will be corrections as in any market, but the wealth is now spread among a wider range of holders, more of whom will not be interested in selling out completely when they think the top is in.

Fewer sellers equals shallower corrections, with the potential for increased competition in the dip buying stakes, suggesting that the traditional ‘topping out’ might not actually occur.

Phase one of this new paradigm for Bitcoin is underway and has been for months now: institutions having been buying bitcoin by the bucketload, under the guise of holding it for years or even decades as part of a diversified portfolio. Phase two, when all indicators are that Bitcoin’s current bull run is coming to an end, will be the litmus test for these new buyers – will they be true to their word and hold, or will the temptation to realize profits be too great?

We won’t know until the time comes, but if the latter is true then there is every chance that the Bitcoin party could continue for far longer than anyone could have foreseen.

ONTARIO, Calif., June 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In the ever-busy and ever-dynamic business environment, internet startup culture is booming thus empowering businesses to enjoy digital services.

In a bid to help businesses with funding and accelerate their growth, the team at CryptoPoolMirror (CPM) is pleased to announce the introduction of its token to the crypto and business space. CPM gives international investors the leverage to access startup venture capital the world over. CPM has an Ethereum-based token that investors can use to purchase goods and services on the CPM network.

Benefits Of Participating In The CPM Project

CPM is poised to deliver maximum returns for investors using the multi-level marketing strategy. Find below some of the reasons why startups is worthy of the consideration.

CPM Token Is Project-Backed

The CPM token is backed by several projects. In essence, this means even if one project is not delivering stellar performance or results, the remaining projects will help to maintain the value of the token so that it doesn't experience a dump. Plus, investors would have the opportunity to invest in different sectors of the economy.

CPM Is Part Of Ethereum Blockchain

The team at CPM decided to partner with Ethereum due to the latter's global acceptance. This acceptance translates into stability of the token. What's more? The token will be used to support starter programs with a view to building liquidity.

100% Community-Based

CPM is 100% community based. There is 0.02 ETH membership fees for Token holders and new participants to become members of the community during the pre-launch phase. However, for Token holders, there are benefits for buying the token at it early stage. As once the listing happens, the market value will dramatically grow due to the endeavors of the members.

How To Buy The Token

The process of buying the CPM token is simple and straightforward. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to buy the token:

Visit the CPM official website and create a new account if you are a new user. Existing users can simply sign into their account.

Once you land on your dashboard, add your ERC20-based wallet address. This is the address you'll use to receive the token.

Click the "buy token now" button.

Enter the token amount you wish to buy and proceed to make payment.

Once the admin confirms your payment, you will immediately receive the token in your wallet.

About CPM

CPM is a platform designed and built on top of the Ethereum blockchain. It is the future of funding and it accelerates startup growth by offering the required tools and resources for startup companies to gain traction.

The goal of the project is to be a one-stop-shop solution offering a wide range of services to startups, including funding. Businesses can use CPM to run their ICOs from any location in the world. Giving a helping hand to personal and commercial projects will open up more opportunities for everyone; this is what CPM intends to achieve.

Being a community-focused project, it has no absolute power, but it is managed by competent hands who are committed to the success of the project. The team managing the project consists of volunteer members, tax specialists, KYC firms, project managers, consultants.

You can watch video presentation from this link:

Social Media:

Telegram: https://t.me/cryptopoolmirror Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CryptopoolmirrorCPM Twitter: https://twitter.com/crypto_mirror Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/CryptoPoolMirror LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/company/cryptopoolmirror-ico

Media contact:

Company: CryptoPoolMirror Ltd. Contact Name: CryptoPoolMirror E-mail: sale@token.mycryptopoolmirror.com Website: https://token.mycryptopoolmirror.com/

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 world’s most popular crypto dropped over $3,000 after reaching a lifetime high of $40,100

The world’s most popular crypto, Bitcoin dropped over $3,000 after reaching a lifetime high of $40,100.

In addition, it’s key to note that the widely used crypto exchange, Coinbase is down at the time of writing this report.

What this means: After hitting a new all-time high of $40,100 a few hours ago, the price of the world’s most popular crypto sunk to approximately $36,500 at press time, a decline of nearly 7%.

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 I’m lovelyn from Nigeria I want to know more about bitcion and I’m interested in d business thanks

Seem weird that your article fails to mention that it moved up $4,000 in the very same day just before eventually taking a $3,000 dip. Seems like an important detail. It’s now at $39,745.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has provided conditional approval to Anchorage Digital Bank.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has provided conditional approval to Anchorage Digital Bank National Association, the first federally chartered digital asset bank in history.

This development was revealed by the federally chartered crypto bank via its Twitter handle.

It tweeted, “Crypto deserves a bank, and we are immensely proud of being approved as the one to set the standard.”

Read the full announcement 👇👇https://t.co/0bvQHtCbCj

— Anchorage (@Anchorage) January 13, 2021

Having such a license places Anchorage Digital Bank firmly on the same regulatory footing as other American national banks in the country.

That said, the Crypto bank will be apple to offer unique services such as sub-custody services within reach for any traditional financial bank that wishes to offer customers access to Crypto assets.

Such a banking charter is the first seen in modern history, as the new Crypto bank continued that saying the banking charter will hinge upon unique requirements:

“As an enforceable condition of approval, the company entered into an operating agreement which sets forth, among other things, capital and liquidity requirements and the OCC’s risk management expectations.”

Ripple announced via a Job listing site it was looking to hire three central bank technical partner managers.

Ripple, a leading crypto fintech company, is going forward to bring the XRP Ledger to central banks.

Recently, Ripple announced via a job listing site that it was looking to hire three central bank technical partner managers – one for each of its offices in London, San Francisco, and New York.

Whoever fills those highly ranked positions will be mandated to design and deploy central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects.

READ: This is how Cryptocurrency works

Ripple also acknowledged that leading US banks could issue stablecoins on the XRP Ledger:

READ: Ripple’s XRP on a grand slam win, gains 20%

Recall that a powerful financial regulator, through the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC),  clarified details on American national banks’ and federal savings associations’ authority in taking part in using stablecoins to conduct payment activities and other bank-permissible functions.

What you should know: Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies created to minimize the price swings that occur in a crypto asset. They are usually pegged to fiat currencies and often exchange-traded commodities.

READ: Crypto owners robbed of 1,150,000 XRP

Stablecoins give owners a sense of security as users can store their assets whenever there is high volatility in the crypto-verse or other financial markets.

In terms of Bitcoin’s level of interest, Nigeria has been adjudged the highest performing nation worldwide.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and home to over 200 million people, has the highest interest in Bitcoin globally.

According to a recent report released by Google, Nigeria emerged the first amongst other countries around the world in Bitcoin searches on Google.

READ: Africa’s internet economy has the potential to reach 5.2% of the continent’s GDP by 2025 – Goggle/IFC

READ: Computers might steal Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin fortune

READ: List of Cryptos outperforming Bitcoin, with weekly gains of over 100%

READ: Ethereum Miners earn a staggering $1 million in 1 hour

Unsurprisingly, a significant number of young Nigerians have started utilizing cryptos, in a bid to avoid the numerous challenges faced with the traditional money transfer services, such as high costs and slow speed, amongst others.

In an explanatory note to Nairametrics, Ekene Ojieh,  Head of Public Relations and Corporate Strategy at Buffalo Chase – a crypto analytic firm, gave key insights on how some Nigerians use cryptocurrency for wealth preservation.

READ: World Bank set to invest over $5 billion in drylands across 11 African countries

“Nigerians use bitcoin not just as a store of value but also as an investment. Its accessibility enables anyone to send and receive bitcoin from any part of the world, unlike getting US dollars for international transactions.

“It is worthy to note that bitcoin is still a volatile asset. The upside of this is that one can make a significant amount of profit in a short time frame,” said Ojieh.

READ: Why intelligent investors are secretly buying Bitcoin

Then, it becomes unsurprising to see leading crypto brands like Binance, FTX, Paxful, Crypto.com, printing their labels in Nigeria, as it is apparently one of the fastest-growing crypto markets in the ever-changing world.

Bitcoin on-chain analysis is indicating that Bitcoin miners are dumping BTC at exchanges. Earlier, Bitcoin (BTC) tanked more than 13% earlier today going all the way below $30,000 levels. Although BTC has partially recovered and currently trading around $31,000 levels the bearish sentiment continues in the market as per on-chain data. Major points:

CryptoQuant CE Ki-Young Ju mentions that this dip might have started by the F2Pool Bitcoin miners.

— Ki Young Ju 주기영 (@ki_young_ju) January 22, 2021

— unfolded. (@cryptounfolded) January 22, 2021

Grayscale has been on a massive buying spree over the last week. The digital asset manager purchased more than $1.2 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) over the last seven days. This purchase comes as Grayscale raises an equivalent amount from its clients.

— Michael Sonnenshein (@Sonnenshein) January 21, 2021

Also, the assets under management for other Bitcoin products have also increased in recent times.

Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust Product at $22.6bn – up 93.7% in the past 30 days

ETC Group’s BTCE product at $483.5mn (up 113.8% since mid-December

Coinshares Bitcoin Tracker Euro product saw an increase of 64.4% to $1.42bn pic.twitter.com/C4jKH1pT8K

Ex Goldman Sachs manager and popular investor Raoul Pal has already jumped into the opportunity. He wrote:

“For longer-term HODLers of BTC and ETH this is probably a good time to start accumulating more. Personally, Ive added more ETH and now time to add more speculative crypto. Have not pulled trigger yet as doing some homework on it. Good luck ! Ugly price = opportunity”.

The above reported Bitcoin Miner dumping may be partially due to global shortage of chips which recently hit China’s bitcoin mining industry as reported by reuters. This is leading to rise in Bitcoin mining equipment in China and might suffocate the small miners spread all across China. It seems that large bitcoin mining corporations are clearly ahead in this game as small miners will have no other options except to sell their Bitcoin to keep up with the rising prices of mining equipment.

To keep track of DeFi updates in real time, check out our DeFi news feed Here.

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.

Sir please need cryptocurrency with back from Nigeria

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.

A hundred and fifty years later, a new generation of amateur investors is equally desperate not to miss the next big thing in the finance world. After watching the great GameStop stock boom play out on sites like Reddit and Discord this winter, hundreds of thousands of hopefuls are joining Discord groups that promise big earnings from manipulating the crypto market—also known as crypto pump-and-dumps. Step 1: Buy in early, when the coin is low. Step 2: Convince other people to join you—the more, the merrier, the bigger the potential gains as the price of the coin goes up. Step 3: Sell out before the price tanks. Get the timing right, these groups promise, and you come out a winner (and richer). Losers are left holding the bag.

Crypto pumps have been on the rise for a few years now, thanks in part to the relative ease of making and marketing a new digital coin. In 2018, the Wall Street Journal identified 175 “pump” initiatives, moving over $825 million through 121 different crypto coins, most of them organized on Discord and Telegram. Since then, experts say, it’s only gotten bigger. Trade volume on cryptocurrency exchanges is surging, particularly with lesser-known coins that have no fundamental value outside of investing.

Originally a gaming-centric chat app, Discord has lately developed a strong culture of finance-centric servers. The app attracted tons of attention for its role in the WallStreetBets campaign to boost GameStop this January, when the meme stock rocketed from $20 to $347 in a matter of days. Later analysis attributed much of the spike to huge firms, rather than retail investors, but the spirit of the thing got people thinking: If they were in the right Discord server at the right time, maybe they could earn a buck. WallStreetBets users turned to Dogecoin next. They thought it would be funny, a good meme, to pump up the outdated and irrelevant cryptocurrency. And it worked. Doge spiked from $0.008 in late January to $0.68 on Wednesday.

According to moderators on four pump servers, a crop of new servers and social media “pump” accounts sprang up around the same time, with at least a dozen ripping off WallStreetBets’ name or logo. These accounts are not associated with the WallStreetBets subreddit or official Discord, according to a WallStreetBets moderator. (WallStreetBets only recently allowed discussions around crypto, but they are limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Doge.) They are, however, cashing in on the WallStreetBets hype, advertising target gains of up to 500 percent. One of the servers has 83,000 members.

“Many young adults and others all of a sudden became extremely interested in stocks and investing, and this later also gave the crypto community and the cryptocurrencies a huge boost in popularity,” says one Discord user who goes by Alejandro. Alejandro was invited to his first crypto pump server in early February, during the GameStop hype. After making what he calls “a good profit,” 170 percent of his initial investment, Alejandro created his own group, FairPlay Crypto Pumps. It now has 10,500 members, who tune in every couple of days for a new “pump signal,” a server-wide message announcing which coin they’re pumping when. The gains, he says, comes from people who are not in the Discord. “This principle is called FOMO (fear of missing out),” he says. “Once outsiders see a sudden rise in an unexpected coin, they will buy shares. Meanwhile, the members of my group will sell their shares to the outsiders for a good chunk of profit.”

Discord is a perfect vehicle for these pumps, as a semi-public forum that allows users to advertise servers broadly, ping users about coordinated buy-ins, and discuss strategy. I’m a longtime Discord user, and anecdotally I’ve seen an enormous uptick in activity. Between early April and May, I received 47 invitations to join crypto pump groups over Discord. Eight of the groups have more than 20,000 members; the largest has over 80,000. Several of these servers’ moderators say they pay people—whom they call “advertisers”—to spam Discord users with invitations, sometimes including crypto giveaways.

New members are greeted with FAQs describing 2,000 percent pumps and the potential for hundreds or thousands in gains. That’s not necessarily the reality. “The Discord server is a casino. As the saying goes, ‘The house always wins,’ and they’re the house,” says Thomas Hurley, 21, a member of several crypto pump Discord servers. After crypto evangelists began joining his gaming servers to advertise pump groups, he tried his hand at a couple coordinated price pushes. He never made much profit, but other people did. When Hurley began looking closer at some of these coins’ market trading pages on sites like Binance, he noticed some interesting patterns.

“A few seconds before they announced which coin to pump, there would be a huge spike,” he says. It looked like someone in the know bought up a lot of the coin beforehand, hugely boosting their potential to earn big by selling early. Hurley never had a chance.

He isn’t alone. A 2018 study of Telegram-based pump groups found that five minutes before the pump signal (before the coin is even revealed), a designated coin’s price shot up about 5 percent. Back then, on average, only investors who bought in within the first 20 seconds after a pump could make a profit. Today, sources say, crypto pumps move so quickly that enthusiasts commission bots to buy and sell coins based on Discord announcements. The owner of one server, Pump It Up, says he lost several hundred dollars because he wasn’t using a bot, which can buy and sell within milliseconds. The experience prompted him to make his own group back in February.

“Crypto pumps prey on less-informed people in the space,” says Josh Kamps, a PhD candidate at University College London studying crypto fraud. People who found out about GameStop late want to jump on the next big thing. Kamps noticed, anecdotally, that a bunch of low-utility alt-coins cropped up right around then, which he says are “pretty much designed to be pumped.” For example, he says, pump groups are flocking to Shiba Inu Coin (or SHIB). One knock-off WallStreetBets pump group advertises that they pumped SHIB for more than 4 times profit. In the last 24 hours, the meme coin saw over $6.1 billion in trading volume.

“Discord welcomes a broad variety of personal finance discussions, including cryptocurrency, investment clubs, and day traders and encourages creative uses of our platform, as long as nothing compromises our values or amounts to illegal activity,” a Discord spokesperson said in an email to WIRED. They cautioned Discord users to carefully research advice they receive on the internet.

Crypto pump schemes fall into a gray legal area. “There’s a lot of debate about whether we see cryptocurrencies as securities or not,” says Donghwa Shin, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who coauthored the 2018 study. Pump-and-dumps are illegal for securities but not for cryptocurrencies. “That’s why there’s no clear regulation,” he says. Shin thinks it’s time for that to change. According to his research, these currencies’ liquidity and value increase in crypto exchanges where pump-and-dumps are banned. Not only does the market get better, it would be more challenging for the tiny fraction of people organizing these pumps—the people who most consistently make money off them—to take advantage of others.

“Unfairness exists in these markets. The winners in these markets are the insiders. All others are losers. In order to protect them, we have to regulate this market,” says Shin.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission warned consumers in 2018 to avoid virtual currency pump-and-dump schemes but also stated that it had limited authority over those markets. Earlier this year, however, federal prosecutors charged businessman John McAfee and an associate in connection to several pump-and-dump initiatives involving digital coins. The US alleges that between late 2017 and 2018, McAfee advertised a “coin of the day” on his Twitter account without disclosing to his million followers that the men had bought up the coin beforehand and would sell it when the price spiked. The CFTC heralded the case as its first-ever enforcement action for “a manipulative scheme involving digital assets.”

The current crypto rush is also inspiring more traditional forms of fraud. Last week, one group, WallStreetBets - Crypto Pumps, pulled off a $2 million scam, Bloomberg estimates, when it told its 340,000 Telegram subscribers it would be pumping its own coin, WSBFinance. The coin didn’t exist yet; it was allegedly a presale. Users sent money to a crypto wallet believing they would receive the WSBFinance coin. But there were never any coins.

“Sorry guys! Our bot had a small problem,” the account wrote to its Telegram members. Then, after a delay: “Buying lambo now.”

Bitcoin has been struggling to gain any momentum throughout the past several weeks. Following its rally past $40,000 that resulted in a strong rejection, the crypto has been range-bound between $30,000 and $40,000.

This has allowed altcoins to see some notable momentum, although declines like the one seen today have weighed heavy on their price action.

One trader is noting that there’s a bright side to this selloff, the market was overdue for a correction to sweep liquidity, reset premiums, and liquidate the vast sea of massively leveraged long positions.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading down just over 2% at its current price of $35,100. The crypto rallied as high as $38,000 yesterday before facing a harsh rejection that paved the way for the overnight decline.

Bears sent BTC as low as $34,000 overnight, with the buying pressure proving somewhat significant.

It does appear to be funding some strong support at the moment, which could mean that it will soon see a reversal back into bulls’ favor.

All selloffs are not created equal, and this one may actually be unique in that it lays the groundwork for a more sustainable move higher.

One analyst spoke about this possibility, explaining that degenerate leverage positions have widely been cleared, giving way for a potential Bitcoin rebound.

“Man I love this dump. Nature is healing. Cleanse the market from these degenerates,” he said.

Where the entire market trends in the coming few days should provide some insight into the significance of this Bitcoin movement.

The fast-rising crypto asset, Dogecoin suffered record losses in the early hours of Sunday despite Elon Musk’s debut on the long-awaited Saturday Night Live which surprisingly led to a violent dump.

At the time of drafting this report the dog meme coin traded at $0.564505 on the FTX Exchange with a daily trading volume of $31 billion. Dogecoin is down 21.34% for the day.

Recent price actions reveal $DOGE lost as much as 25%, dropping as low as $.50 amid record selling pressures.

The largest single liquidation order happened on Binance-DOGE value $12.07 million as over $270 million positions in the Dogecoin assets vanished into thin air.

READ: Dogecoin up 168%, more valuable than Polkadot, Cardano

READ: Altcoin season? Ether, ADA, Doge and others hit all-time highs

Supporters of the fast-growing crypto were earlier hopeful that Elon Musk might offer some strong bullish bias in favour of Dogecoin but that was not to be. Although the Tesla CEO has, many times via social media, stated that Dogecoin remained his favourite crypto, he recently warned fans to invest in the asset with great caution.

Crypto pundits have often frowned at the inflationary properties of Dogecoin considering that it is printed every minute of every day, giving it a potentially infinite supply. The implication of this is that the crypto asset’s unlimited supply could, over time,  impact negatively on its price.

Last week, the cryptocurrency variety show “Jumping & Dumping” publicly shared still cut images for the filming of its drama portion of the show, “Age of Money”.  On May 15, Jumping & Dumping will begin filming part 2 of the show (“Pumping Game”) on the set of a cryptocurrency exchange.

According to the official website of KPlay contents, Jumping & Dumping is a variety show centered around the subject matter of cryptocurrency that will take a deep dive into the history of legal currency and emergence of digital currency (i.e. cryptocurrency).  Part 1 (Age of Money) is comprised of short historical drama and lecture program, while part 2 (Pumping Game) will display actual and live cryptocurrency trading between participants in the show.

Currently, South Korea is the center of cryptocurrency world as it has one of the highest cryptocurrency trading volume in the globe.  Also, it is in a more advanced stage than other nations, in terms of receiving support from its national government as South Korea is moving towards in adopting cryptocurrency as part of its system and infrastructure.  With the Hallyu momentum, the president of KPlay Contents (Lee Ki Joong) stated that its production of the world’s first cryptocurrency variety show Jumping & Dumping is focused on “delivering sound knowledge and information about cryptocurrency to the viewing audience, namely, how to use exchanges, how to avoid being victims of fraud and mere conjecture, in order to create many more efficient cryptocurrency users.”

Part 2 of Jumping & Dumping (Pumping Game) will include the cast from Part 1, including Lim Ho, Park Yeon su, Kang Ye Bin, Kim Myung Soo and Yang Seung Won. Further, Part 2 will include famous social media influencers, such as Lee Eun Ji, to add excitement to the program.

At its recent script reading session, president of Youa Group (Han Il Nam), the investor of the show, stated that it sent official letters of cooperation to UpBit, Bithumb and CoinOne, for the reason not limited to being the top three exchanges in South Korea, but also for the reason of having the reputation as being the most reliable and safest in the industry.  As Jumping & Dumping values anti-fraud and reliability, those exchanges was obviously a natural choice to be part of the program.  In order to have constant delivery of content material, Han Il Nam also stated that it sent out similar letters to other world renowned exchanges, such as Coinbase, Binance, OKEX, Huobi, BHEX and ChainUP.  Therefore, he asked for understanding from the viewing audience, in the event that an exchange from South Korea is not included as part of the program.  For purpose of transparency, Jumping & Dumping is not currently being sponsored by any company or project.

Elon Musk has announced that Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin, resulting in the cryptocurrency crashing.

READ ALSO: Dogecoin to buy a Tesla? Elon Musk asks on Twitter

“Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin. We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel”, the electric car company CEO tweeted.

“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at a great cost to the environment.

“Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy. We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use

Bitcoin fell from a daily high of £39,000 to around £37,190 in the immediate aftermath of the Tesla CEO’s tweet. The Independent has reached out to Tesla for comment.

The unexpected news comes after Mr Musk has been a prominent advocate for the cryptocurrency throughout the year. In March, the chief executive tweeted in the middle of the night US time: “You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin.”

He went on to clarify that Tesla would keep the money received as cryptocurrency, rather than converting it into a fiat currency such as dollars.

“Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly. Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency,” he said in another tweet. “Pay by Bitcoin capability available outside US later this year.”

Mr Musk announced his support for the cryptocurrency in January this year, after changing his Twitter bio to “#bitcoin”, alongside its “B” symbol.

READ ALSO: SpaceX to transport first Dogecoin to the moon

In January, bitcoin was worth around $30,000 and $40,000, and was worth $57,000 by March – meaning Tesla had made between $630 million and $1.35bn from its investment.

Mr Musk’s tweets will not be seen favourably by bitcoin advocates, especially due to its affect on the market. However, this is not the first time the CEO has been criticised for the financial ramifications of his tweets.

The US Securities and Exchange Committee forced Mr Musk to relinquish his role as Tesla chairman in 2018 as part of a series of concessions he made settling a lawsuit alleging he duped investors by tweeting about the price of Tesla stock.The Independent has reached out to the agency for comment.

Mr Musk tweeted in August that year that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share. Three years later, it was reported he was under investigation by regulators over his posts about dogecoin – a fringe cryptocurrency that also rose (and dropped) in value, and which has been slammed for similar environmental drawbacks as bitcoin.

Bitcoin, the ninth most valuable asset in the world, now requires nearly as much energy as the entire country of Argentina.

“Bitcoin’s energy consumption has more than quadrupled since the beginning of its last peak in 2017 and it is set to get worse because energy inefficiency is built into bitcoin’s DNA,” Charles Hoskinson, CEO of leading cryptography firm IOHK, told The Independent.

The cryptocurrency had previously hit record values with both ethereum (ether) and cardano (ADA) hitting all-time price highs.

This article first appeared in Yahoo Finance via The Independent on May 13, 2021

Bitcoin prices rose aggressively heading into the European session Monday, breaking above $58,000 as traders pinned their hopes on another all-time high milestone ahead.

The benchmark cryptocurrency was changing hands for $58,146 at 10:18 UTC, up 4.25 percent from its intraday open. A record expiry of $6 billion worth of options contracts on Friday helped ease downside pressure in the Bitcoin market as the spot price rallied towards the bullish strike rate of $55,000.

More tailwinds for the cryptocurrency came from a struggling US market on Monday.

Futures tied to Wall Street indexes, including the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, slid in the pre-market session, pointing to losses after the New York opening bell. The indexes’ futures incurred losses after a large investment fund dumped billions of dollars in holdings, stoking concerns that global banks who dealt with the firm could face heavy losses, as well.

The move was by Archegos Capital Management, an investment firm owned by former Tiger Asia manager Bill Hwang — a fund manager with a history of participation in wire fraud. The firm unwound $30 billion worth of holdings in a handful of companies, including Discovery and ViacomCBS, leading to massive crashes in their stock rates.

Bitcoin held its gains by then, undergoing a modest downside correction but nothing that could offset its early morning gains.

On Monday, Credit Suisse Group and Nomura Holdings admitted that they suffered substantial losses from their US client dealings. The banks did not name Achegos Capital directly.

Shares in European markets were trading flat after getting weighed down by the Credit Suisse shares. The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.31 percent after erasing most of its early morning gains tied to mining, oil & gas, travel, and leisure shares.

Bitcoin does not have any correlation with stock markets. But the cryptocurrency still tends to react to the trends on Wall Street erratically. It had crashed by almost 60 percent in March last year in just two days amid a global market rout.

Nevertheless, Bitcoin lately started reacting to developments in the US bond market. A sharp climb in the benchmark 10-year Treasury note in the week ending February 28 coincided with a 21 percent decline in the Bitcoin market.

The cryptocurrency later recovered its bullish momentum, hitting even a new record high, after the bond yields stabilized near their 14-month peak. Interest rates for the 10-year note were stable on Monday, as well, dropping to 1.657 percent. Yields drop when the bond prices rise.

The BTC/USD exchange rate has broken out of a bullish continuation pattern after its latest move upside.

Dubbed as Bull Flag, the pattern hints at a breakout upward by a length equal to its previous uptrend’s height. That somewhat puts the bitcoin price target way above its previous all-time high at $61,778 (data from Coinbase).

Meanwhile, a downside correction as Bitcoin’s Relative Strength Indicator crosses 70 would indicate a potential decline towards the blue wave (it is the 50-4H simple moving average).

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash 

Credit: Source link

Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of Ethereum, recently became one of the world’s richest people with a net worth topping $21 billion. Although the recent price hike of Ethereum boosted Buterin’s total assets, only $1.3 billion resulted from his ETH holdings. The rest of his fortune was made up of dog-themed tokens that he was gifted. 

The Shiba Inu cryptocurrency creators announced in April that they had transferred half of all SHIB in circulation to Buterin. Under this process, the founders believe that they could legitimize the token and protect the circulation. 

Shiba Inu, a meme token that was launched as a Dogecoin rival, recently climbed into the top 20 cryptos by market capitalization from the social media-driven frenzy. The token, which positions itself as the “DOGE killer,” surged this week after listing on multiple crypto exchanges, including Binance, OKEx and FTX. Chinese traders have propelled SHIB price higher, with Huobi witnessing the largest share of Shiba Inu trading volume in the past week. 

Meme coins were being pushed on social media platforms like TikTok, where retail traders searched for the next Dogecoin. With the hype around canine-themed tokens and the artificially low circulation of Shiba Inu, the token received a massive publicity wave, with dozens of other dog coins created and transferred to Buterin’s public wallet as a burn activity.

At this time, the markets were unaware of what Buterin could do with the holdings of these tokens. A SHIB holder even managed to turn $17 into $6.5 million at one point as Shiba Inu price rose to an all-time high at $0.00003791. 

The Ethereum co-creator recently decided to dump the dog tokens, pulling the rug on all of the canine-themed gifts. According to Etherscan, Buterin donated 50 trillion SHIB to the India Covid Relief Fund founded by Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal. He also set around $431 million of AKITA to public Ethereum-based fundraising platform Gitcoin.

Buterin's transaction to Gitcoin

Buterin also removed liquidity from various pools on top of transferring his holdings of the dog coins to charities. In another transaction, he converted $2 million SHIB on UNiswap to Ether and transferred significant amounts of other canine-themed tokens, including Dogelon, CoShi Inu, AkarmaruUNI and many others. 

The meme-coin frenzy has caused Ethereum gas fees to surge, which could be one of the reasons incentivizing Buterin to strike back. SHIB price plunged by over 40% in the past 24 hours, reaching $0.00001787 at the time of writing. Other dog tokens have shed more than half of their market value and could lower the canine coin mania that has captivated the crypto market in the past few weeks. 

Crypto forex markets are a sea of pink through the morning’s Asian buying and selling session as Bitcoin losses are felt heavier throughout the remainder of the ecosystem.

Around $150 billion has exited markets over the previous 24 hours as the overall market cap fell from an intraday excessive of $1.81 trillion to present ranges of $1.66 trillion. Technical analyst Michaël van de Poppe has eyed the $1.5 trillion stage as vital help.

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) March 25, 2021

The large market stoop has been let by Bitcoin as typical as the asset fell by means of help at $54,000 and is heading for the following stage.

Following ten days of consolidation, BTC costs broke by means of help on March 22, and have continued downwards since. The subsequent stage of help lies on the 50-day exponential shifting common (EMA) which is at the moment somewhat over $50,000. This technical indicator is the place help was discovered through the first two corrections in response to Tradingview.

At the time of writing, BTC was buying and selling down 2% over the previous 24 hours at $53,300 following a low of $51,700 throughout Asian buying and selling.

Ethereum has adopted its large brother with a dump of 4% on the day to fall under $1,600 for the primary time since March 6. The complete correction for ETH since its $2,000+ ATH is 22% to present costs.

These losses are comparatively gentle in comparison with a few of the others such as UNI which has tanked greater than 10% on the day to commerce at $27.75 in response to Coingecko. Uniswap customers and traders might have been vexed on the lack of Layer 2 scaling when the DEX launches v3 on May 5.

Theta Network’s THETA token, which not too long ago entered the crypto prime ten, has been hit arduous with a 14% loss on the day falling again to $12.40.

IOTA has slumped an identical quantity following a DeFi partnership announcement on March 24. Other tokens in ache right now embrace DOT, XRP, BCH, and XLM.

There usually are not many survivors on this pink Thursday however Cardano has managed to remain afloat with a 1.5% acquire on the day to commerce at $1.13. Filecoin’s FIL token has additionally performed properly with a 9% pump to succeed in $90 whereas NPXS from Pundi X has surged 26% over the previous 24 hours.

The subsequent few days will likely be vital in figuring out if that is simply one other correction in an upwards development, or the bull market has lastly come to an finish.

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