cryptonews

Cryptocurrency investigators are still scratching their heads trying to figure out what led to the demise of UST and LUNA last May.

Analytics from Nansen recently pointed out that lending platform Celsius could be one of the contributors that led to the collapse of TerraUSD. Celsius, on the other hand, does not agree with these speculations.

This scrapes open the issue of transparency in the DeFi industry. In this industry, it can be very difficult to understand where money is going or how easy it is to trigger a currency meltdown. This is why regulators are so concerned about the impact of DeFi on investors and the financial system in general.

The Anchor Protocol was a very popular service for TerraUSD holders, but a big lump of investors withdrew their money from Anchor in May. It is still unclear why this happened, but some theories have popped up.

One of these theories argues that Celsius was one of the first to withdraw its funds from Anchor, which led to a broader selloff on the platform.

Celsius stated that the only reason it removed its funds from the platform was that its management group spotted “changes in the stability.” The company also made sure to mention that it did not benefit from the resulting instability in any way.

Companies like Celsius accept deposits from customers and then lends that money to other users, which it then charges a fee. Celsius offers users returns of about 14%. This means Avalanche’s 19.5% yields were very attractive.

The crypto market saw a huge crash in May and, even now, remains in a bear market. This could be very intimidating for new and aspiring crypto investors, but there is a “crypto blueprint” investors can follow to make things a bit easier.

Even before investing one’s money, it is important to acknowledge the fact that there is almost no protection for crypto investors. One thing to watch out for is what’s called a pump and dump, where scammers encourage people to buy a token, causing its value to rise, and then the scammers sell out, causing the price to plummet.

If an investor then decides to invest in crypto, it could be simpler to use the more popular exchanges like CoinBase, Binance, or FTX. Once the account is ready to go, it is easy to transfer money into it from the user’s bank.

When it comes to what percentage of the portfolio should consist of crypto, it is very difficult to tell as there is not enough data to determine this yet. The best thing to do is to keep the user’s exposure low.

Another important factor to take into consideration is that the user has to pay taxes on their crypto. However, they do not have to report crypto on their tax returns if they did not sell or exchange it for another type of crypto.

If an investor is still hesitant about fully investing in cryptocurrencies, there are ways to learn about crypto without investing in a currency. Some options include buying shares in crypto companies, getting a job in crypto, or just simply buying tokens to experiment with.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of CoinQuora. No information in this article should be interpreted as investment advice. CoinQuora encourages all users to do their own research before investing in cryptocurrencies.

Since the last week of May, the STEPN native tokens (GST/GMT) and in-game assets have seen massive dumps.  

The prices for NFT Sneakers also dropped over the last few days. Sneakers that cost 13 to 15 SOL a month ago are now worth around 4 to 5 SOL.

At the moment, STEPN (GMT) is number 1 in CoinMarketCap’s trending list and is worth $0.9633 after a 4.66% drop in price over the last 24 hours.

When looking at the longer time periods, STEPN saw a 3.82% increase in price over the last week, but a 63.59% drop over the last month.

STEPN’s bad luck started with its announcement that it will officially be banned in China in the upcoming months. STEPN users were also urged to handle all their in-app assets before June 15, 2022.

Things only went downwards from there as GMT tokens moved from the app to exchanges to get sold, and huge amounts of sneakers also got sold on the app. Many people started selling their tokens and assets because of fear induced by STEPN’s announcement.

Even after this, many people in the crypto industry believe STEPN’s time is not over yet.

The main reason for this is because this occasion is not the first time that China has decided to ban crypto. Every time this happened in the past, the crypto prices still eventually found their way back to the top. Many people believe the same applies to STEPN.

Another reason why STEPN might still be in the game is because of all the future updates that are around the corner for the project, such as the ability to lend and borrow sneakers in the game.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of CoinQuora. No information in this article should be interpreted as investment advice. CoinQuora encourages all users to do their own research before investing in cryptocurrencies.

The co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), Vitalik Buterin, recently delivered commentary on a Twitter post by another user.

The post was made by a Twitter user with the handle @brucefenton, who said that “No government has the right to tell you what software to run.” He added that “Code is speech.”

Buterin retweeted and agreed with the post. He added that he primarily was referring to the efforts by policymakers across the globe to ban Proof of Work (PoW) blockchain networks.

Buterin stated in his Twitter post that “the government picking and choosing which specific applications are an okay use of electricity or not is a bad idea.”

Instead of a ban, Buterin proposed a solution and concluded the post by saying that it is better to “just implement carbon pricing, and use some of the revenues to compensate low-income users.”

In related news, the price of Ethereum (ETH) has risen by over 1.4% in the last 24 hours. This has also pushed the weekly price performance of ETH into the green as ETH is now also up 0.66% in the last seven days, according to CoinMarketCap.

ETH is ranked number 2 in terms of market cap, below Bitcoin (BTC), and currently has a price of $1,791.14 and a total market cap of $217 billion.

Being the weekend, the 24-hour trading volume for ETH has dropped by 43.42% in the last 24 hours. This takes the daily trading volume to $8,134,612,201.

The former CEO of BitMEX, Arthur Hayes, said that he believes that it is possible for Ethereum (ETH) to reach $10,000 by the end of 2022, but that the market could still be choppy in the meantime.

Hayes also believes that the market is neither near or at the bottom of the cycle, and the only way for the market to make a comeback is for the US Federal Reserve to down the rate hiking process. Hayes also stated in his latest blog post that the Fed will continue raising the interest rates throughout Q3, which will only add more downward pressure on the crypto market.

In other words, Hayes only believes that it’s possible for ETH to reach $10,000 by the end of the year on the condition of a resumed bull market, which can only happen if the Fed eases up on the raised interest rates.

He was quoted saying “this is why the political and macroeconomic picture must coalesce before the crypto market can march meaningfully higher.”

One thing that could boost ETH’s chances of reaching $10,000 by the end of the year is the prospect of The Merge that is just around the corner.

At the moment, ETH remains the second-largest crypto in terms of market capitalization in CoinMarketCap’s list. The crypto’s market cap currently stands at $213,837,140,668.

ETH is currently worth $1,765.94 after a 2.64% drop in price over the last 24 hours and reaching a high of $1,818.81 over the same time period. Over the last week, ETH saw a 0.17% increase in price.

ETH also saw a 24-hour trading volume of $14,413,368,773, which is a 4.52% decrease from yesterday.

The crypto market leader, Bitcoin (BTC), has dropped below to around $29,681.47 in the last 24 hours. This is according to CoinMarketCap.

The 24-hour price drop is around a 2.31% decrease in price over the last day. However, the weekly performance for BTC is still in the green as BTC’s price has posted 2.93% gains over the last 7 days.

The current market cap of BTC is $565.39 billion. This ranks it above the popular DApp development platform, Ethereum (ETH), with its market cap of $213.76 billion.

Given the 24-hour price dip of BTC, here’s what the week may hold for the number one project by market cap size.

The last few weeks have seen the price of BTC on a decline towards the $30K level. The price of BTC then broke below the infamous support line to now trade at around $29,692.45. As things stand, there is a lot of sell pressure on BTC as the $30K level has now flipped to a resistance level.

There are a lot of projects that are at the mercy of BTC’s price movement. SHIB, XRP, and LUNA 2.0 are just some of the tokens that are waiting for BTC to undergo a short bullish rally in the coming week in order for them to post gains as well.

Given that the RSI line is below the RSI SMA line and the 9 EMA is below the 20 EMA line, the price of BTC is at a decisive point. Should BTC be unable to break above the $30K resistance early on in the week, the market may see it fall to around $25K to $27K. However, if bulls step in early on in the week, then BTC bulls may break the key resistance level and target $33K.

The price of LUNA 2.0 looks to be consolidating above the range’s midpoint, which is indicative of a lack of volatility. This price action follows a recent explosive move above the upper limit. This may be a result of investors booking profit.

LUNA 2.0 established a price range extending from $3.50 to $10.20 and has been trading within this range ever since the airdrop. On May 28, LUNA 2.0’s price set a base at $4.98, and then exploded by 137% to sweep the range high at $10.20.

This move was accompanied by profit-taking from investors which ultimately led to a 42% decline, pushing the price of LUNA down to the range’s current midpoint at $6.85. As the airdropped token battles with this level, the chances of a decline seem to be more and more likely.

Investors can expect a sweep of the range low at $3.50 soon since the range high was swept recently. This downtrend will provide bulls a chance at recovery around the $4.98 support level. Should the price fail to hold up at this level, then LUNA’s price could plummet to $3.50.

In total, the decline would be around a 45% loss and the downside for LUNA would be capped at around this level.

Although things are looking bearish for LUNA 2.0, a quick uptrend in Bitcoin’s price could change the sentiment around the token. If this happens, and LUNA’s price produces a 4-hour candlestick close above $10.20 to flip it into a support level, then the bearish theory will be invalidated.