Cryptocurrency

As so-called “memecoins” capture the attention of the wider crypto industry in recent weeks, a viral video has emerged detailing just how easy it is for anyone with an internet connection to create a brand new cryptocurrency from scratch.  A May 6 video from digital artist Johnny Shankman — who goes by @whitelights.eth on Twitter

The price of new memecoin Pepe (PEPE) has plunged more than 42% only days after reaching its all-time high on May 6, leaving at least one investor with hundreds of thousands in paper losses.  According to blockchain analytics service Lookonchain, one crypto “whale” purchased 962.3 billion Pepe tokens using 70 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and 470

Confidence in the United States financial system seems to be eroding fast with investors trying to find the next weakest link that is about to collapse. Bill Ackman, CEO of hedge fund management firm Pershing Square, cautioned that time was running out to fix the problem. The U.S. equities markets have become vulnerable to adverse

A transaction on the Ethereum blockchain is technically initiated by an external account owner (not a contract). For example, if User A sends 1 Ether (ETH) to User B, the action of debiting from one account and crediting to another changes the blockchain’s state. The change specifically takes place on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Smart contract auditor CertiK claims to have blocked $160,000 from Merlin, a zk-Sync-based decentralized exchange (DEX) which has been the center of a rogue insider “rugpull” that lost users $1.8 million last week. CertiK shared the news of its successful $160,000 freeze of the stolen funds in an update to its 257,700 Twitter followers on

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Curve Finance has launched its native algorithmic U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, dubbed “crvUSD” on the Ethereum mainnet — minting more than $22 million worth of the crvUSD so far. According to data from blockchain explorer Etherscan, the contract has minted more than $22 million worth of crvUSD in the past 8 hours,

On May 2, European cryptocurrency investment firm CoinShares published its latest “Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report,” which stated that the digital asset market experienced bearish sentiment for the second consecutive week, resulting in outflows totaling $72 million. The report noted that the bearish sentiment could be attributed to the probability of further interest rate hikes

On May 1, cryptocurrency exchange OKX announced that it would be listing memecoin Pepe (PEPE) at 17:00 Hong Kong Time (HKT) and open Pepe withdrawals on May 2 at 17:00 HKT. In supporting the listing decision, OKX staff wrote:  “Pepe the Frog is a cartoon character and internet meme created by cartoonist Matt Furie. Pepe

JPMorgan Chase emerged as the winner in the auction to acquire the deposits and a “substantial majority of assets” of the troubled bank First Republic. This marked the failure of the third regional bank in the United States since March and laid open the vulnerabilities in the legacy banking system. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) has risen

Polygon Labs and Google Cloud announced a multi-year partnership at Consensus 2023 that will see the cloud computing service provider help boost the development of the Ethereum (ETH) scaling protocol’s tools and infrastructure. Polygon’s core protocols, including Polygon PoS (proof-of-stake), Polygon zkEVM and Polygon Supernets, are set to benefit from the provision of Google Cloud’s

Top Stories This Week Circle launches cross-chain USDC transfer protocol Circle launched a cross-chain protocol that enables USDC transfers between the Ethereum and Avalanche blockchains. The protocol works by burning the selected amount of native USDC on the source chain, and minting an equivalent amount of new USDC on the intended destination chain. The protocol

The cryptocurrency market witnessed sharp volatility on April 26 on rumors that large sums of Bitcoin (BTC) were on the move from the wallets linked to the defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox and the United States government. A minor positive is that Bitcoin and select altcoins held their respective support levels. After Bitcoin’s sharp rally

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Hong Kong inching close on a clear crypto regulatory pathway A few months after prominent industry players lamented the lack of registration pathways for cryptocurrency exchanges in Hong Kong, some respite may finally be on the horizon. On Apr. 27, Julia

The team behind Lens, a Web3 social media protocol, has announced the launch of a new “layer 3” network to scale blockchain social media apps. Called “Bonzai,” the new network processes and stores posts, comments and shares, taking this data off the Polygon network and thereby increasing scalability for Lens, according to an April 26

Solana (SOL) users will soon be able to interact with the network through an open-source plugin enabled on OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. The plugin will allow ChatGPT to check wallet balances, transfer Solana-native tokens and purchase nonfungible tokens (NFTs) when OpenAI makes plugins available, according to an April 25 tweet by Solana Labs,

The crypto community is calling out the hypocrisy of Gary Gensler, the head of the United States securities regulator, after a 2018 video emerged of him stating that cryptocurrencies are on par with commodities or cash and are not securities. The video came from a “Blockchain and Money” class in the Fall Semester of 2018

Reminiscent of Tamagotchi and Pokémon, the wildly popular digital pets and creatures of the 1990s, CryptoKitties is a blockchain-based game where players can collect, trade and breed digital virtual cats. CryptoKitties was the first Ethereum-based game, and its popularity underscored many of the network’s scaling issues. This digital cat-breeding blockchain game caused quite a bit

Bitcoin (BTC) is on target to finish the week with a sharp fall of around 9%. This suggests that some traders may be booking profits in fear of a resumption of the downtrend. Analysts expect Bitcoin to reach the $26,600 to $25,000 zone where buying interest may pick up. When an asset emerges from a

Top Stories This Week Elon Musk threatens Microsoft with lawsuit, claims AI trained on Twitter data Microsoft has been threatened with a lawsuit from Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who claimed the Big Tech firm “illegally” trained its artificial intelligence on Twitter data. The entrepreneur suggested that Microsoft mined user tweets to train its AI-powered applications.

Dogecoin suffered a big blow on April 20, popularly known as “Dogeday” thanks to the failed test launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket and downturn in the broader crypto market.  The SpaceX rocket, which featured the Dogecoin mascot on its side, disintegrated four minutes after its launch. Still, the company’s employees including Elon Musk cheered the