Uniswap (UNI), the token for the decentralized exchange of the same name, sunk to a six-week low after Uniswap said it received a proposed lawsuit notice from United States regulators — which it is “ready to fight.”

UNI dropped 10% from $11.21 to $10 in the hour after Uniswap said it received a Wells notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission, a notification that the regulator is planning enforcement action.

UNI is currently trading at $9.66, its lowest point since late February, according to Cointelegraph Markets Pro.

TradingView data shows UNI’s price drop putting it at a 47-day low. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

“I’m not surprised. Just annoyed, disappointed, and ready to fight,” the New York-based Uniswap Labs founder Hayden Adams wrote in an April 10 X post. “This fight will take years [and] may go all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Uniswap didn’t share the exact contents of the Wells notice, but in a blog post regarding the notice claimed UNI wasn’t a security and it doesn’t meet the U.S. legal definitions of securities exchange or broker.

An SEC spokesperson told Cointelegraph it doesn’t comment on “the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation.”

Consensys senior counsel and regulatory matters director Bill Hughes wrote on X clarifying that SEC staff have to first get the lawsuit approved by the agency’s five commissioners — inclusive of chair Gary Gensler.

“We all know that the Chair wants to sue them, and two commissioners are NOT going to disagree, and two will disagree,” Hughes wrote. “So a suit is a foregone conclusion, but there isn’t a suit yet.”

He urged those “freaked out” to “take a breath and calm down” as it was “extremely doubtful” the SEC would target UNI holders or protocol users.

Former SEC internet enforcement chief John Reed Stark wrote on X a Wells notice gives the recipient an opportunity to argue why the commissioners should decline a recommended lawsuit.

He said the notice to Uniswap was “not surprising” and is “always amazed” when Wells notice recipients “fight back by throwing stones at the SEC with obnoxious/insulting PR campaigns, like the one Uniswap seems to have begun.”

“Any SEC lawyer will agree that responding to a Wells by berating the SEC, calling them names, etc. is a weak, risky and losing strategy.”

Stark claimed Uniswap was recanting a “tired, anemic, old and failed monologue” by alleging the SEC is abusing its power and “lambasting the SEC’s ‘anti-innovative enforcement paradigm.’”

“Expect the SEC Enforcement staff to lean in and file a voluminous and robust federal complaint, which will inevitably survive the usual motion to dismiss, prevail against the typical motion for summary judgement and win on just about every other litigated issue that follows,” he said.

Related: Make your code immutable to avoid jail, policy exec advises devs

Former Delphi Labs general counsel Gabriel Shapiro wrote on X that his hunch is the SEC “will win on securities issues with UNI” but will lose if it claims Uniswap is a securities exchange.

Paul Grewal — the legal chief of Coinbase, which is being sued by the SEC — agreed with Shapiro and wrote if the SEC claims Uniswap is a broker, he believes it wouldn’t be able to argue its claim.

Source: Paul Grewal

He pointed to a judge’s decision last month in the SEC’s suit against Coinbase, which determined the SEC failed to allege Coinbase conducted brokerage activity through its decentralized Coinbase Wallet.

Magazine: Crypto regulation — Does SEC Chair Gary Gensler have the final say?

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has filed to appeal its court loss against Finder Wallet, a sister company of Australian fintech firm Finder.com, over its “Earn” product which was found to be compliant with Australia’s financial laws by a federal court last month.

ASIC previously argued that Finder Wallets yield-bearing product operated without an appropriate licence or authoriation. But federal court judge Brigitte Markovic dismissed the case on March 14, ruling that ASIC failed to establish that Finder Wallet’s Earn product constituted a “debenture” — a debt security where companies promise to pay back borrowed money with interest — under the Corporations Act.

In the April 10 filing, ASIC argued Markovic “erred” in this finding because there was no depositing of money or a loan to Finder Wallet when an investor used the Finder Earn product.

Additionally, “there was no undertaking by Finder Wallet to repay money as a debt,” the securities regulator argued.

Source: Tom Richardson

“ASIC has appealed this decision because it is concerned that the Finder Earn product was offered without the appropriate licence or authorisation and therefore without the benefit of important consumer protections,” ASIC argued in a separate statement on April 10.

The appeal will be heard by the Full Federal Court on a date to be determined. The court hears appeals from the Federal Court on matters of "sufficient importance." It is the second highest court to the High Court of Australia.

Cointelegraph has reached out to Finder for comment.

Offered between February and November 2022, users of the Finder Earn product could convert Australian dollars into TrueAUD (TAUD) — a stablecoin pegged to the Australian dollar, which could then be transferred to Finder Wallet in exchange for receiving a yield between 4-6%.

ASIC filed the lawsuit against Finder Wallet  December 2022 arguing it was an unlicensed financial product.

Related: Former Blockchain Global director restricted from leaving Australia

ASIC also claimed Finder Wallet "sunset" the product one month earlier because it notified the firm of its concerns. However, a spokesperson told Cointelegraph at the time that it was “a strategic business decision” due to increased interest rates and “not brought on by regulatory review.”

Last month, a Finder spokesperson told Cointelegraph the firm doesn’t have any intention to relaunch Finder Earn despite the court victory.

Magazine: Wealthy, isolated, and incredible beaches: Perth Crypto City Guide

Synthetix founder Kain Warwick awoke one morning in May last year with a realization: Somethings wrong here. Were approaching this in the wrong way.

After launching Synthetix Perps v2 in late 2022, Synthetix founder Kain Warwick expected the new decentralized perpetual futures exchange would take a massive bite out of the Binance-dominated derivatives market.

Six months later, Warwick woke up one morning to the realization that wasnt going to happen for two reasons: 1) Most traders still dont want to use DeFi, and 2) The build it, they will come mantra is stupid.

If youre doing something the same way and expecting different results thats insane. Thats the definition of insanity. And so, my view was we need to change this up, recalls Warwick.

Warwick has made the news for being a Bitcoin entrepreneur and luxury property investor. (Domain)

Synthetix Perps v2 launched just days before Christmas in 2022 was created to take on centralized perp platforms. It introduced a first-of-its-kind off-chain oracle system that minimized the risk of frontrunning attacks and significantly reduced trading fees. The exchange also touted deep liquidity, one of the bigger friction points for DeFi. 

The volume was really good, the execution was great, and people were getting good fills, says Warwick, but the volume of Binance versus DeFi perps was still 95 to 5.

I actually woke up one morning in May, and I was like, Whats going on here?

This line of thinking eventually led to his latest crypto project, Infinex, a front-end wrapper he hopes will gloss over the awkwardness that comes with DeFi with all the benefits of self-custody and control. 

Introducing the Infinex AccountThe Infinex Account makes it possible for every person on the planet to have a smart contract tied to their identity This will start with the way a user interacts with Infinex for the first time… pic.twitter.com/jQmDCIg4NR

— Infinex (@infinex_app) December 16, 2023

Warwick hopes the new user-friendly layer will encourage more traders away from centralized exchanges and platforms, which had a particularly bad year in 2022. 

Crypto history is littered with people losing other peoples crypto, Warwick tells Magazine. 

The premise behind Infinex is simple: Replicate the easy-to-use experience of centralized exchanges but with DeFi in the form of Synthetix Perps v3 as its backbone. Traders can do away with clunky transaction signing and wallet setups, needing only a username and password.

The idea is to give traders the benefits of DeFi and CEXs without any of the drawbacks, like having your funds misappropriated by a super awkward CEO. But as Warwick points out, even users burned by FTX didnt jump aboard the DeFi train.

The reality is that the vast majority of users went straight from FTX back to Binance, and that, to me, was really kind of a bit shocking.

Infinex is yet to become available for public trading. 

When it was first announced, Infinex was expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2023 but only managed to release a closed alpha by the holiday season.

In March, Infinex suddenly announced it had suffered a security incident, though no user, treasury or working group funds were at risk. Moments later, Warwick announced he had taken over as the Working Group Lead for Infinex. 

Infinex is now expected to launch sometime around ETHGlobal, which is slated for May 2.

Warwick admits he was wrong to think that simply building a solid decentralized trading platform with low fees would be enough to attract a herd of new traders. 

We had taken this very purist technocratic view of: Were going to build this the right way, and the world will eventually learn that this is right. Were not wrong, the markets wrong, sort of approach, says Warwick.

The reality is that the market is not wrong; the market cant be wrong in some very real sense, says Warwick.

The Synthetix founder has built a career on knowing when things arent working out as they should and pivoting to plan B and then C. 

Read also Features

How to stop your crypto community from imploding

Features

Are DAOs overhyped and unworkable? Lessons from the front lines

Geneticist to B-list punk rocker

Warwick may be known as the father of modern agriculture today a reference to his foundational role in popularizing yield farming, which resulted in 2020s DeFi Summer but it took quite a few massive life pivots for that to eventually happen.

Now 42, hes the son of Australian tennis champion Kim Warwick and the oldest sibling to three younger brothers, all of whom followed him into crypto and Web3.

Kain Warwicks father is former professional tennis star Kim Warwick. (Tennis Australia)

At 14, he already had his first taste of entrepreneurship, setting up a tennis racket-restringing business at his parents tennis center. 

For a 14-year-old, [it was] very successful; I would say I was making quite a bit of money.

By age 16, hed started helping people with tech problems for extra cash. 

I had this tension of like, love technology, love computers. I was building computers, he says. Id go around and set up networks for people and WiFi back in the day.

A high-school science lover, he graduated with visions of becoming a geneticist, studying it at the University of New South Wales. 

You know, genetics really interested me science was probably my best subject in school. I had always loved science, says Warwick. 

But he realized pretty soon that genetics wasnt for him and dropped out 18 months into the degree to join a friends tech startup in Seattle. When that didnt pan out a year later, he founded a punk rock band with a friend. 

Hed dress up in Victorian-era clothing as the guitarist and vocalist for The Lie Society, a punk-rock band that ended up with a pretty decent local following.

The biggest venue we played was like 1,000 people or something like that. So, you know, were not playing stadiums by any stretch, but we opened for some national touring acts.

We were just getting to a point where, I think, like, if we had really focused on it and got it out there, we could have done a little bit better, he adds.

But Warwick eventually moved back to Australia and started a career in retail. 

Kain Warwicks (right) band, The Lie Society. Trying to mine Bitcoin at Harvey Norman

The first time that I ever came across crypto was a Slashdot post, a very famous Slashdot post, says Warwick. 

At the time, around 2010 or 2011, he was working at an Australian electronics retailer, Harvey Norman, which sells computers, furniture, washing machines, refrigerators and other household goods definitely not the crypto entrepreneur origin story you were thinking of.

The post, found here, detailed an early upgrade to Bitcoin, which eventually made it to the front page of Slashdot. Its seen as one of the first articles to alert the wider tech community to Bitcoin. 

A now-famous post on the social news site Slashdot about Bitcoin. (Slashdot)

I had been on Slashdot for at that point many years, and it was the post that launched Mt. Gox, says Warwick. 

Warwick even tried to set up Bitcoin mining software on a row of display PCs at his store to make use of the free power.

A recent photo showing the inside of a Harvey Norman store. (Google Maps)

We had an IT guy at Harvey Norman who was a really super switched-on guy […] and I went into Harvey Norman one day in 2011 and said to him: We should run Bitcoin mining on this thing [the display PCs].

He didnt end up getting the IT guy to come around, and theyre both probably kicking themselves over it today after Bitcoin hit nearly $74,000 in March. 

By 2015, Warwick had gone deep into Bitcoin. He launched his own online retail payment firm, Blueshyft, which allows customers to pay cash over-the-counter for digital goods and services, including Bitcoin. That service still runs today.

I was still the BTC-maxi mindset of like Bitcoin is the valuable thing here, and I didnt really care about other stuff. Like, I thought Ripple was a scam. 

But Warwick changed his tune just over a year later. While on paternity leave after the birth of his daughter, he got bored and started to go down the rabbit hole of old Vitalik posts about the possibilities of Ethereum prediction markets, stablecoins and Maker. 

That was when I was like, Wow, this is the thing that everyone in Ethereum thinks is going to work, which is Maker.

Warwick ended up borrowing the central stablecoin idea of Maker and launched the Havven initial coin offering in 2018, which became Australias largest ICO, raising $30 million. It completed the offer in just 90 minutes, thanks to early pre-sale investors. 

Gonna launch a memecoin on OP for all the SNX stakers today to test 4844 costs. $2192 incoming.

— kain.eth (@kaiynne) March 14, 2024

But the market spoke again when the project failed to gain traction amid the depths of the bear market that year. He pivoted Havven into Synthetix, which retained the idea of posting collateral to mint a stablecoin in the form of SUSD but added the idea of synthetic tokens.

Read also Features Lawmakers fear and doubt drives proposed crypto regulations in US Features MakerDAOs plan to bring back DeFi summer Rune Christensen Deserving his nickname

Synthetix is a decentralized network built on Ethereum (and now Optimism and Base) for issuing and trading synthetic assets, or synths, that track the value of real-world assets. 

The platforms Synthetix Network Token, or SNX, is used to collateralize and issue synthetic assets, and SNX holders were incentivized to stake as much as possible by being given a portion of synth trading fees and extremely high inflation rewards. Rewards were also given for providing liquidity on Uniswap and Curve, which served as the catalyst for the degen food farm-fuelled DeFi summer of 2020. 

Warwick isnt so sure if he deserves all the recognition, though. 

(Kain Warwick)

There are a million ways all of this stuff came together, he said. 

Like, even at that point, you had what they called transaction mining. This was another earlier form of yield farming centralized exchanges were giving out their own token for wash trading, basically, which isnt all that different to yield farming.

Compounds COMP token is another one credited with helping to kick off the yield farming craze. 

So, you know, my view is that theres always a prior start with these things. It was just, it was the first one that really worked and kind of locked things in and got momentum, so people will remember it.

Get used to scams

Asked whether he feels in any way responsible for rug pulls, Ponzis and straight-up scams that followed, Warwick says its an ugly but necessary part of innovation. 

Over-investment is a cost that we, as a society, must bear. When youre over-investing in things, you will get scammed. The alternative, though, is under-investing, and if you under-invest, you get no innovation.

Warwick even has several NFTs made in his honor. Unfortunately, hes usually a common card. (X and OpenSea)

Warwick argues that similarly, even with the multitude of ICO pump and dump scams, the ICO boom was a net benefit for crypto.

If you look at all the great projects that came out of there, I think the hit rate for ICOs was better than traditional venture [funding]. Yeah, of course, there were scams and things that go to zero and dumb stuff or whatever. Thats a function of over-investment, says Warwick. 

But again, the alternative is under-investment, and under-investment will kill you as a society. You need to be over-investing in innovation, not under-investing.

Reminder for this cycle that we must choose where on the investment continuum we fall. If we have zero scams we are underinvesting by a lot. Scams are the cost we pay for @aave and all the other ICOs that worked in 2016-18.

— kain.eth (@kaiynne) March 25, 2024

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The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has found that despite their promise, the use of stablecoins is hindered by international regulatory fragmentation, in a survey of 11 jurisdictions. The publication said the need for stablecoin regulation is “urgent,” but diversity in regulation poses risks for their integration into the international financial system.

Most regulatory approaches are similar in their authorization of issuers, reserve requirements, risk management and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures, the report noted. Differences in the structuring of stablecoin issuances can cause them to be regulated under banking, securities, commodities or payment system frameworks, however.

Licensing regimes across jurisdictions. Source: Bank for International Settlements

There are also differences in the details of regulations, redemption policies and the definition of a stablecoin. For example, some jurisdictions regulate algorithmic stablecoins, which are not pegged to external assets, identically to fiat-pegged stablecoins, but the United Kingdom, Japan and Singapore regulate them separately, and jurisdictions in the United Arab Emirates ban them altogether. The report said:

“Differences appear to be largely driven by the variety of stablecoin design features, perceived risks associated with their issuance and the nature of the issuing entity. […] The resulting fragmentation may pose significant challenges for an integrated financial system.”

Reserves may have to be segregated in different ways, placed in the hands of custodians subject to differing requirements or, in the case of the U.K., placed in a statutory trust. Audit and liquidity requirements also vary greatly.

Technological and cybersecurity requirements tend to be more uniform. The interaction of stablecoins with central bank digital currency, tokenized deposits and other digital assets needs to be explored more thoroughly.

Source: Bank for International Settlements

The report follows BIS recommendations on stablecoin regulation released in February. BIS urged governments to cooperate and address disclosure, risk management, redemption and other issues.

Numerous international bodies, such as the International Monetary Fund, Financial Stability Board, Financial Action Task Force, Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and International Organization of Securities Commissions, also have policies on stablecoins that they hope to advance.

Magazine: The DeFi bots pumping Solana’s stablecoin volume

Since ChatGPT launched in late 2022 and made artificial intelligence (AI) mainstream, everyone has been trying to ride the AI wave — tech and non-tech companies, incumbents and start-ups — flooding the market with all sorts of AI assistants and trying to get our attention with the next “flashy” application or upgrade. 

With the promise from tech leaders that AI will do everything and be everything for us, AI assistants have become our business and marriage consultants, our advisors, therapists, companions, confidants — listening as we share our business or personal information and other private secrets and thoughts.

The providers of these AI-powered services are aware of the sensitivity of these discussions and assure us that they are taking active measures to protect our information from being exposed. Are we really being protected?

AI assistants — friend or foe?

Research published in March by researchers at the University of Ber-Gurion showed that our secrets can be exposed. The researchers devised an attack that deciphers AI assistant responses with surprising accuracy, despite their encryption. The technique exploits a vulnerability in the system design of all major platforms, including Microsoft’s Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, except for Google’s Gemini.

Related: Trading Bitcoin’s halving: 3 traders share their thoughts

Furthermore, the researchers showed that once the attacker built a tool to decipher a conversation — for example, with ChatGPT — this tool could work on other services as well, and thus could be shared (like other hacking tools) and used across the board with no additional effort.

This is not the first research pointing to security flaws in the design and development of AI assistants. Other studies have been floating around for quite a while. In late 2023, researchers from several U.S. universities and Google DeepMind described how they could get ChatGPT to spew out memorized portions of its training data merely by prompting it to repeat certain words.

The researchers were able to extract from ChatGPT verbatim paragraphs from books and poems, URLs, unique user identifier, Bitcoin (BTC) addresses, programming codes and more.

Adversaries could intentionally use crafted prompts or inputs to delude the bots to generate the training data, which may include sensitive personal and professional information.

The security problems are even more acute with open-source models. A recent study showed how an attacker could compromise Hugging Face conversion service and hijack any model that submitted through the conversion service. The implications of such an attack are significant. The adversary could implant their own model instead, push malicious models to repositories or access private repositories datasets.

To put things in perspective. The researchers have identified organizations such as Microsoft and Google, who combined have 905 models hosted on Hugging Face that received changes through the conversion service and might have potentially been at risk of an adversary attack and have been compromised.

Things can worsen

AI’s new capabilities may be alluring, but the more power one gives to AI assistants, the more vulnerable one is to an attack.

Bill Gates, writing in a blog last year, described how an overarching AI assistant (what he termed an “agent”) will have access to all our devices — personal and professional — to integrate and analyze the combined information to act as our “personal assistant.”

As Gates wrote in the blog:

An agent will be able to help you with all your activities if you want it to. With permission to follow your online interactions and real-world locations, it will develop a powerful understanding of the people, places, and activities you engage in. It will get your personal and work relationships, hobbies, preferences, and schedule. You’ll choose how and when it steps in to help with something or ask you to make a decision.

This is not science fiction, and it could happen sooner than we think. Project 01, an open-source ecosystem for AI devices, recently launched an AI assistant called 01 Light. “The 01 Light is a portable voice interface that controls your home computer,” the company wrote on X. It can see your screen, use your apps, and learn new skills”

Project 01 described on X how its 01 Light assistant works. Source: X

It might be quite exciting to have such a personal AI assistant. However, if the security issues are not promptly addressed, and developers are meticulously making sure that the system and code are “clean” from all possible vulnerabilities, there is a possibility that if this agent is adversely attacked your entire life could be hijacked — including information of any person or organization that is related to you.

Can we protect ourselves?

In late March, the U.S. House of Representatives set a strict ban on congressional staffers' use of Microsoft's Copilot.

"The Microsoft Copilot application has been deemed by the Office of Cybersecurity to be a risk to users due to the threat of leaking House data to non-House approved cloud services," said House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindor.

In early April, the Cyber Safety Review Board’s (CSRB) published a report blaming Microsoft for “cascade of security failures” that enabled Chinese threat actors to access U.S. government officials’ emails in summer 2023, which was preventable and should never have happened.

Related: Bad blockchain forensics convict the user of a Bitcoin mixer — as its operator

As the report stated: "Microsoft has an inadequate security culture and requires an overhaul." This would most likely include security issues with Copilot.

This is not the first ban on AI assistants. Technology companies such as Apple, Amazon, Samsung and Spotify along with financial institutions includingJPMorgan, Citi, Goldman Sachs and others have banned the use of bots for their employees.

Major technology companies, including OpenAI and Microsoft, pledged last year to adhere to responsible AI.Since then, no substantial actions have been taken.

Pledging is not enough. Regulators and policy makers should demand actions. In the meantime, we should refrain from sharing any sensitive personal or business information.

And maybe if we — collectively— stop using these bots until substantial actions have been taken to protect us, we might have a chance to be “heard” and force companies and developers to implement the needed security measures.

Dr. Merav Ozair is a guest author for Cointelegraph and is developing and teaching emerging technologies courses at Wake Forest University and Cornell University. She was previously a FinTech professor at Rutgers Business School, where she taught courses on Web3 and related emerging technologies. She is a member of the academic advisory board at the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) and serves on the advisory board of EQM Indexes — Blockchain Index Committee. She is the founder of Emerging Technologies Mastery, a Web3 and AI end-to-end consultancy shop, and holds a PhD from Stern Business School at NYU.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin (BTC) continues to hover around the $69,000 mark, indicating a tough battle between the bulls and the bears. Some analysts expect the upcoming Bitcoin halving to act as a major trigger, but new research by crypto analytics firm CryptoQuant said that the halving effect “has been diminishing, as the new issuance of Bitcoin gets smaller relative to the amount of Bitcoin selling from long-term holders.”

Another negative voice in the near term is that of BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, who believes there will be extreme weakness in risky assets until May 1. However, Hayes is positive for the medium term as he expects the Bitcoin halving to push prices higher.

Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360

If one rides the short-term volatility, the subsequent rally could cheer the investors in the long term. Bitfinex analysts said in a research report shared with Cointelegraph that Bitcoin could soar 160% post halving to reach between $150,000 and $169,000 in the next 14 months.

Will Bitcoin bulls assert their supremacy and push the price higher, or will the bears make a comeback? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin broke above the symmetrical triangle on April 8, but the bears yanked the price back into the triangle on April 9. This shows that the bears are trying to trap the aggressive bulls.

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

A minor positive in favor of the buyers is that they are trying to buy the dip to the 20-day exponential moving average ($68,497). If the price rebounds off the 20-day EMA, the BTC/USDT pair will make another attempt to rise above the $73,777 overhead resistance. If that happens, the pair could rally to $80,000 and then to $84,000.

Conversely, if the price breaks below the 20-day EMA, the bears will sense an opportunity and pull the pair down to the uptrend line. A break and close below the triangle will suggest the start of a corrective phase toward $60,000 and eventually to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level of $54,298.

Ether price analysis

Ether (ETH) turned down sharply from the overhead resistance of $3,679 on April 9, indicating that the bears are not willing to relent.

ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The bulls are trying to stall the decline at the 20-day EMA ($3,479). If the price turns up from the moving averages, the bulls will have another go at the $3,679 level. If this resistance gets taken out, the ETH/USDT pair may rally to the overhead resistance of $4,100.

Contrary to this assumption, if the price slips below the moving averages, it will suggest that the range-bound action between $3,056 and $3,679 may extend for a few more days. The trend will favor the bears on a break below $3,056.

BNB price analysis

BNB (BNB) turned lower from the downtrend line on April 8, but the bulls did not allow the price to sink back below the 20-day EMA ($574). This shows buying on every minor dip.

BNB/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The 20-day EMA is gradually sloping up, and the RSI is in the positive territory, suggesting that the path of least resistance is to the upside. If buyers maintain the price above the triangle, the BNB/USDT pair could rise to $692 and thereafter attempt a rally to the pattern target of $795.

The bears are likely to have other plans. They will try to defend the downtrend line and sink the price to the uptrend line. A break below this support will signal the start of a correction toward $460.

Solana price analysis

The bulls are struggling to push Solana (SOL) above the 20-day EMA ($178), signaling that the bears are trying to flip the level into resistance.

SOL/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The bears will try to sink the SOL/USDT pair below the 50-day SMA ($159), but the bulls are likely to vigorously protect the level. If the price rebounds off the 50-day SMA and rises above the 20-day EMA, it will suggest that the pair may consolidate between $162 and $205 for a while longer.

Alternatively, if the price continues lower and breaks below the 50-day SMA, the pair will complete a double-top pattern. The pair could collapse to the next strong support at $126.

XRP price analysis

Buyers tried to extend XRP’s (XRP) recovery above the moving averages on April 9, but the long wick on the candlestick shows selling on rallies.

XRP/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The flattish moving averages and the RSI near the midpoint suggest a balance between supply and demand. That could keep the XRP/USDT pair range-bound between $0.56 and $0.69 over the next few days.

The advantage will tilt in favor of the buyers if the price rises above $0.69. That could clear the path for a possible rally to the formidable level of $0.74. On the downside, a drop below $0.56 could sink the pair to $0.48.

Dogecoin price analysis

Dogecoin’s (DOGE) relief rally met with heavy selling pressure from the bears near $0.21 on April 8.

DOGE/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The bulls purchased the dip to the 20-day EMA ($0.19) on April 10, suggesting demand at lower levels. Buyers will make another attempt to drive the DOGE/USDT pair above $0.21. If they manage to do that, the pair may climb to $0.23. A break and close above this level will signal the resumption of the uptrend toward $0.30.

If bears want to prevent the upward move, they will have to sustain the price below the 20-day EMA. The pair could then descend to the 50-day SMA ($0.16).

Toncoin price analysis

Toncoin (TON) has been trading inside an ascending channel pattern for the past few days. The price picked up momentum after breaking above $5.69 on April 8.

TON/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The bears are trying to stall the up move at the resistance line. If the price turns down sharply from the current level, the TON/USDT pair could drop to the channel’s support line. The bulls are expected to fiercely defend the support line because a break below it may start a deeper correction.

A break and close above the channel will signal the start of a vertical rally. The pair may surge to $8.56 and then to $10.

Related: Here’s what happened in crypto today

Cardano price analysis

Cardano’s (ADA) recovery hit a wall at the 20-day EMA ($0.61) on April 9, signaling that the sentiment remains negative and traders are selling on rallies.

ADA/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The price dipped to the strong support at $0.57, an important level to watch out for in the near term. If the price rebounds off the current level and rises above the 20-day EMA, it will suggest that the ADA/USDT pair may remain range-bound between $0.57 and $0.68 for a few more days.

On the other hand, a break below $0.57 will complete a bearish head-and-shoulders pattern, which could start a downward move toward the critical support of $0.46.

Avalanche price analysis

Avalanche (AVAX) turned lower from the downtrend line on April 9, suggesting that the bears continue to sell on relief rallies.

AVAX/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

The AVAX/USDT pair is stuck between the downtrend line and $42. If the bulls propel the price above the downtrend line, it will suggest that the selling pressure is reducing. The pair could then attempt a rally to $60.

This view will be invalidated if the price continues lower and breaks below $42. That will indicate the start of the next leg of the downtrend. The pair may plummet to $35, which is likely to act as a formidable support.

Shiba Inu price analysis

The bulls tried to push Shiba Inu (SHIB) above the downtrend line, but the bears held their ground. However, a minor positive in favor of the bulls is that they have not allowed the price to dip below the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level of $0.000023.

SHIB/USDT daily chart. Source: 

The flattish 20-day EMA ($0.000028) and the RSI near the midpoint suggest a balance between buyers and sellers. The first sign of strength will be a break and close above the downtrend line. That could open the doors for a rise to $0.000033 and subsequently to $0.000039.

Contrarily, a drop below $0.000023 will signal that bears are trying to take charge. The SHIB/USDT pair may slump to $0.000017.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a Wells notice to the decentralized exchange Uniswap.

On X (formerly Twitter), Uniswap’s Chief Legal Officer Marvin Aomori confirmed the regulator’s notice on April 10.

"Today’s Wells notice against @Uniswap is disappointing, but is not unexpected from this SEC," Aomori wrote. 

A Wells notice is a formal notification issued by the SEC to inform a company or individual that the securities regulator's staff intends to recommend enforcement action against them. This notice gives the recipient an opportunity to provide a written explanation or argument (a “Wells submission”) as to why such action should not be taken.

The SEC has issued similar notices in the past, warning about legal actions against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

In this week’s newsletter, read about Binance’s nonfungible token (NFT) arm ending support for Bitcoin Ordinals, check out Dogecoin Ordinals airdropped Runestones, and find out how asset manager Franklin Templeton feels about Bitcoin NFTs. In other news, the metaverse is set to revolutionize the medical tourism market, and don’t forget this week’s Nifty News, featuring NFT collection Doodles collaborating on an animated film with Lil Wayne as a skeleton. 

Binance ends support for Bitcoin Ordinals

Binance NFT has halted its support for Bitcoin-based NFTs. On April 4, Binance posted that it would cease support for Bitcoin Ordinals trades and deposits as part of its efforts to streamline product offerings.

The exchange said it will also cease offering Bitcoin NFT airdrops and utilities after April 10. Furthermore, the exchange advised users to withdraw their Bitcoin NFTs from the marketplace before May 18.

Continue reading

Dogecoiners clone hyped Bitcoin Ordinals “Runestone” airdrop

Dogecoin NFT users handed out their version of Runestones in a giveaway similar to Bitcoin Ordinals in March. Over 30,000 Doge Runestones were sent to wallets that held at least one Doginal — Dogecoin’s Ordinals protocol.

The Doge Runestones airdrop mimicked the popular Bitcoin-based Runestone airdrop in March. During the event, a community-run effort allowed 112,000 Runestones to be given to early adopters of the protocol.

Continue reading

Ordinals drive “positive momentum” in Bitcoin innovation — Franklin Templeton

Asset manager Franklin Templeton shared an investor note introducing Bitcoin Ordinals to its clients. The asset manager explained that the protocol spurred a “renaissance” in activity on the Bitcoin network. Franklin Templeton also highlighted that Bitcoin NFTs drove positive momentum in Bitcoin innovation.

While the asset manager showed positivity toward Ordinals, it also warned its investors that there are risks associated with the protocol.

Continue reading

Nifty News: LA’s Bored Ape lovers go hungry, Bitcoiners sell $500 Game Boy dupe and more

NFT collection Doodles announced its upcoming animated film featuring a character voiced by popular rapper Lil Wayne. On April 5, the collection announced it would roll out a storytelling experience through “digital collecting experiences.”

Meanwhile, NFT sales volume for all blockchains has slid for the fifth week after reaching a year-to-date high in March.

Continue reading

Thanks for reading this digest of the week’s most notable developments in the NFT space. Come again next Wednesday for more reports and insights into this actively evolving space.

Synthetic stablecoin protocol Ethena Labs has integrated with centralized exchange wallets of Binance, Bybit, OKX, and Bitget as of April 10.

“Users locking USDe for at least 7 days through exchange Web3 wallets are eligible for a 20% reward boost starting today,” said Ethena developers. The incentives, issued in the form of “Ethena sats,” can be converted to its native ENA token at the end of each campaign. To earn sats, users must first deposit Ethena USDe stablecoins into their exchange wallets, connect to the Ethena decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, and stake their holdings. The protocol has a total value locked of $2.274 billion at the time of publication, generating an annualized revenue of $178 million. 

Source: Ethena Labs (X)

The protocol’s ecosystem rewards have attracted considerable attention and usage. As told by blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain, since the start of Ethena Staking Season 2, the ten top wallets have withdrawn a total of 37.5 million ENA ($51 million) and staked them. On March 8, less than one month after the launch of its USDe stablecoin, Ethena became the highest-earning decentralized application in crypto when it offered a 67% annual percentage yield (APY) on USDe. The protocol currently has an APY of 24% on its stablecoins. However, the yield is not without risks as it relies on trading income of complex Ethereum derivatives to payout promised returns. 

Amid concerns over its high yield, Guy Young, the founder of Ethena Labs, told Cointelegraph in an interview on Feb. 22 that comparisons to the failed Terra Luna stablecoin USTC were just “knee-jerk reactions” and that the firm’s yields were organic and sustainable. “The biggest piece we’re trying to get across is that Anchor’s yield was just totally made up,” Young said. “It was just venture capital firms putting money into [USTC yield protocol] Anchor and then paying out a yield, which came from nowhere.”

Meanwhile, Ethena's yields, which are publicly verifiable, are derived from a combination of Ethereum consensus layer inflation rewards, execution fees paid to Ether stakers, maximal extractable value fee captures acquired by Ether stakers, and trading income provided by Ethena Labs. Specifically, the firm opens short derivative positions when it receives long-position collateral assets for minting USDe. The spread, or difference in value between the two positions, is then paid out to USDe holders as yield. 

Related: Frax Finance dives into DeFi liquidity with $250M USDe allocation

Bitcoin (BTC) rebounded to $69,000 on April 10 as whales “bought the dip” on fresh United States macro data.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: TradingView Whales vote with their wallets on hot CPI

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed a BTC price recovery taking shape after local lows of $67,482 on Bitstamp.

These had accompanied the release of the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) print for March, which came in narrowly above expectations at 3.5% year-on-year.

Earlier, market observers had eyed deliberate posturing by whales, with analysis suggesting that they were helping drive down price in order to buy the CPI event.

This ultimately became reality, with trading resource Material Indicators capturing increased buying on largest global exchange Binance.

“FireCharts binned CVD shows that purple whales bought the BTC dip,” it confirmed in part of a post on X (formerly Twitter), referring to one of its proprietary trading indicators.

BTC/USDT order book liquidity for Binance. Source: Material Indicators/X

BTC/USD thus circled its daily opening level at around $69,100 at the time of writing.

“And just like that, Bitcoin is back above $69,000, and the daily candle is green again,” popular trader Jelle continued in part of his own response.

Fellow trader Daan Crypto Trades meanwhile noted that the dip below $68,000 had closed a new “gap” in CME Bitcoin futures markets which had appeared over the weekend thanks to out-of-hours volatility.

BTC/USD chart with CME futures "gap" information. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X Bitcoin ETFs cling to unbroken inflows

The U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued their slow grind.

Related: Bitcoin RSI points to short-term gains as metric signals BTC price top

The two largest products by assets under management from BlackRock and Fidelity Investments both saw modest inflows on April 9, avoiding a “red” day of net flows to continue their unbroken green streak, as confirmed by data from sources including United Kingdom-based investment firm Farside.

Bitcoin ETF flows (screenshot). Source: Farside

April 9 as a whole, however, ended with aggregate $18.6 million outflows thanks to the impact of the The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which shed $155 million.

GBTC meanwhile saw outflows of around 2,600 BTC ($180 million) on April 10, per the latest data from crypto intelligence firm Arkham shared on X by Daan Crypto Trades.

Source: Daan Crypto Trades

As Cointelegraph reported, Hong Kong currently plans to allow spot Bitcoin ETFs, fast-tracking their approval process.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Decentralized exchange SushiSwap has received a positive sign to move forward with a controversial plan for a less decentralized business model. 

According to a signal vote completed on April 10, more than 62% of voters supported the exchange’s proposal to transition to a so-called ‘labs model.'

SushiSwap introduced the proposal on March 26, leading to significant debate within its community. According to the plan, the exchange seeks to establish Sushi Labs, an autonomous administrative, technical, and operational company that would manage the Sushi ecosystem.

Tokenholders would still decide on treasury allocations, but without getting into operational details. The Labs would receive 25 million SUSHI (SUSHI) tokens, worth nearly $39 million at current prices. In addition, Sushi Labs will be designated as the exclusive recipient of any future airdrops from affiliated protocols and partners.

“We request that Sushi DAO award a grant of 25 million Sushi tokens to Sushi Labs, including assets from the Arbitrum airdrop, business development, and partner grants, Kanpai 2.0, Sushi 2.0, rewards, stablecoins, and ‘Sushi House’ funds.”

The next steps for Sushi’s community include voting on the implementation proposal by April 17. Nearly seven million tokens support it, representing a 92% approval rate at the time of writing.

A signal vote is an initial step to gauge the community’s interest or opinion on a proposal without implementing any changes. An implementation vote, on the other hand, is a subsequent step where the community decides if the proposal should be executed.

Sushi’ community reacts

At Sushi’s governance forum, several community members expressed their opposition to the proposed plan, voicing concerns regarding Treasury’s financial stability and allegations of voting power manipulation.

“I think it would be important to have a sizable amount of all revenues, airdrops included, going directly the the DAO treasury. This would not interfere with hiring, firing, or other operations [...] Treasury should not be ignored [...] I suggest a split of revenues between treasury and operations,” noted community member Nick Rishwain in the proposal’s thread.

Another member of the SushiSwap community, Naïm Boubziz, claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that the move was a hostile takeover. According to Boubziz, the core development team created new wallets prior to the vote in order to increase their voting power.

“It appears that Sushi DAO is at the end of its journey,” said another member on the governance forum.

Sushi “Head Chef” Jared Grey has responded to the criticism. “After consulting our legal counsel, I directed the operations team to execute the YAY vote with the OPs wallet and its holdings due to the threat of a hostile takeover,” he said on X in response to allegations of manipulation. Grey also noted that the Labs model will help Sushi recover lost market share:

“Much of the current product development roadmap’s limitations and delays stem from the DAO’s outsized ambition, unrealistic expectations, and budget constraints endorsed through snapshot votes from when Sushi’s resources were multitudes greater.”

SushiSwap’s revenue has been declining since 2022 despite the current bull market. According to DefiLlama data, the decentralized exchange generated $11.65 million in fees and $1.5 million in revenue in March 2023, compared to $3.5 million in fees and $531,640 in revenue last month.

Magazine: 5 dangers to beware when apeing into Solana memecoins

Bitcoin (BTC) price witnessed a 0.5% drop at the Wall Street open on April 10, as markets responded to the United States Consumer Price Index report printing higher-than-expected figures. 

BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView Federal Reserve’s June rate cut likely gone after today’s CPI print

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the BTC price dropped as much as 2.5% from the April 10 opening at $69,115 to an intra-day low of $67,463 on Coinbase.

Bitcoin’s price reacted to the March Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, which exceeded expectations. The inflation in March rose 0.4% month-on-month and 3.5% year-over-year, versus 0.3% monthly increase and 3.4% year-over-year estimates from the Dow Jones economists survey.

Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, climbed 0.4% from February while rising 3.8% from a year ago, compared to estimates of 0.3% and 3.7%, respectively. In March, CPI increased at an annual rate of 3.2% for all items.

“The index for shelter rose in March, as did the index for gasoline. Combined, these two indexes contributed over half of the monthly increase in the index for all items. The energy index rose 1.1 percent over the month. The food index rose 0.1 percent in March. The food at home index was unchanged, while the food away from home index rose 0.3 percent over the month,” read an official press release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

CPI % change chart. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Market participants immediately began debating the possibility of the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates in the coming months, shifting their timing from June to later in the year.

According to the CME's FedWatch tool, traders are placing the odds of a June rate cut at just 20.6% at the time of writing versus 45.9% for September. This means market analysts are betting that the U.S. Federal Reserve will hold rates steady in May and June, with the first possible cut being made in September.

Target rate probabilities for June 12, 2024 Fed meeting. Source: CME

“Interest rate futures are now pricing in just 2 interest rate cuts for the entire 2024,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter wrote in part of a reaction on X.

“Odds of a rate cut in June are down from ~60% before the CPI report to ~22% now.”

Kobeissi Letter added that this is the first time in history that markets are “pricing in less rate cuts” than the guidance given by the FED.

Inflation data accompanies negative spot Bitcoin ETF flows despite upcoming halving

Meanwhile, the tapering off of inflows into the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is dampening the short-term outlook of Bitcoin investors.

April 9 outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) totaled around $154.9 million, according to data compiled by BitMEX Research.

Overall, spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $18.7 million, marking the second consecutive day of negative inflows.

Bitcoin ETF flow table. Source: BitMEX Research

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, IBIT, had the highest inflow totaling $128.7 million. Bitwise’s ETF, BITB, and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, FBTC, came in second and third with over $3.8 million and 3 million in inflows, respectively. There was no capital inflow into the rest of the ETFs on April 10.

Slowing spot Bitcoin ETF inflows indicate a decrease in investors’ interest in the investment products as caution kicks in. Nevertheless, the market remains optimistic about the BTC’s upside potential after the Bitcoin halving event, which is less than ten days away.

Vijay Pravin Maharajan, founder and CEO of bitsCrunch, acknowledges the importance of the upcoming miner reward halving event, saying that it could “not only propel BTC to new all-time highs but also positively impact various other assets.”

“Consequently, investors might anticipate a reinitiation of the bull market in the latter half of Q2.”

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Auradine, a tech startup specializing in web infrastructure and cryptocurrency mining hardware and software solutions, announced the successful completion of a series B funding round worth $80 million on April 10. 

Funding was joined by previous investors Celesta Capital, Mayfield Fund, and Marathon Digital and new investors StepStone Group, Top Tier Capital Partners, MVP Ventures, and Maverick Capital. Its previous funding round, completed in May of 2023, was led by Celesta Capital and Mayfield.

This series B round was overbooked, according to a press release, and nearly equaled its series A funding of $81 million. According to Auradine, the company also reached a milestone of $200 million in bookings. It’s unclear exactly what valuation the funds were raised at.

Rajiv Khemani, co-founder and CEO of Auradine, said in a statement that the funds would be used to increase production further:

“We are very proud of the advancements that our team has made in bringing innovative, energy-efficient, and secure products to our customers. The strong orders and pipeline reflect the confidence our customers have in us. With this new funding, we will ramp up production capacity and accelerate investments in our product roadmaps.”

Auradine’s products and services reportedly run the gamut from web infrastructure support for privacy, security, and artificial intelligence (AI) applications all the way to its “Teraflux” line of bitcoin miners purported to be the “world’s fastest and most energy efficient.”

Per company literature, Auradine’s AI3680 model miners are “capable of achieving an output of 0 to 375 TH/s, with an optimal efficiency of 15 J/TH.” For reference, Bitmain’s Antminer S21 Hydro, among the fastest miners currently in production, is rated at 335 TH/s.

Related: Bitcoin miners may ‘fear’ the halving, but they cherish it too

Auradine plans to ship two “Teraflux” ASIC miners in Q2 of 2024. The first is an air-cooled miner dubbed model AT2880 capable of achieving an output of 0 to 260 TH/s, with an optimal efficiency of 16 J/TH. The second is the aforementioned AI3680. According to the press release, over 30 “leading data-center-scale miners” have received Teraflux products so far.

Sentencing for former FTX co-CEO Ryan Salame has been rescheduled for May 28, according to a filing in Southern New York District Court. It is unclear why his sentencing was postponed from the original date of May 1.

Salame was one of the four members of the FTX top management to be charged by the United States government along with Sam Bankman-Fried in relation to the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse. Salame was the only one of the four — who also included former Alameda Research head Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gray Wang and former FTX top engineer Nishad Singh — who did not testify against Bankman-Fried.

All of the four executives reportedly made plea deals with U.S. prosecutors. Salame is free on a $1-million bond.

Like the other executives, Salame has pleaded guilty to federal charges relating to the FTX debacle. In addition, he faces charges on campaign finance violations connected with his girlfriend Michelle Bond’s unsuccessful bid to represent New York’s First District in the House of Representatives. Bond was defeatedin the Republican primary.

Source: Ryan Salame

Both of the charges against Salame could reportedly result in sentences of up to five years in prison. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers argued that he should not face campaign contribution violation charges because they were not part of his agreement on extradition from the Bahamas. Those charges were later folded into the conspiracy to commit fraud charges against him.

Related: Is SBF secretly behind BALD? Crypto Twitter debates latest conspiracy

Bankman-Fried claimed at trial, where he pleaded not guilty, that he did not discuss his political donations with Salame. All four executives charged with Bankman-Fried have pleaded guilty to the charges against them.

Salame’s role in the criminal activities at FTX remains somewhat ambiguous. He was reportedly not part of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle and was so shocked by the news of the exchange’s collapse that he became physically sick. However, Bahamian court records later showed that he informed the country’s Securities Commission of irregularities at the exchange in November 2022, leading to an investigation.

Magazine: YouTuber declines ‘7 figure’ sponsorships after FTX scandal: Brian Jung, Hall of Flame

Memecoins like Dogecoin (DOGE), Dogwifhat (WIF), and Pepe (PEPE) are among the worst-performing cryptocurrencies today, highlighting a noticeable waning of the earlier enthusiasm that propelled the sector.

Top memecoins' hourly, daily, and weekly price performance. Source: CoinMarketCap Pre-halving correction fractal

Prima facie, the decline across the top joke cryptocurrencies is part of a pre-halving dump across the crypto market.

Top digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), have recently pulled back from their yearly highs as traders secure profits ahead of the Bitcoin Halving 2024, prompting similar strategies in the memecoin sector. 

That is akin to how memecoins reacted ahead of Bitcoin's previous halving in May 2020, with DOGE's price dropping by over 22.5%.

DOGE/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView

There exists a strong positive correlation between Bitcoin and top memecoins. For instance, BTC's daily correlation coefficient versus DOGE was 0.82, showcasing strong possibilities of DOGE's price trends mirroring BTC's in the coming days. 

BTC/USD's daily correlation versus DOGE/USD, SHIB/USD, PEPE/USD, and WIF/USD. Source: TradingView

Steno Research projects that Bitcoin may experience a pattern similar to its 2016 halving. It anticipates a continuation of selling pressure for up to four months following the halving. This "sell-the-news" mood is further depreciating memecoin sector valuations. 

Memecoin trading volumes are crashing

The memecoin sector's correction accompanies strong declines its weekly trading volumes, according to data resource Dune Analytics.

Notably, the memecoin transaction flows across all blockchains, including Ethereum and Solana, have dropped collectively by 88% from its recent top of roughly $1 billion. This suggests that traders' interest or confidence in the sector has waned lately.

Memecoins total trading volumes. Source: Dune Analytics

The decline in trading volumes across the memecoin sector has accelerated further amid reports of Solana outage. Notably, roughly 75% of all transactions on the network failed during March and early April sessions, primarily involving activity brought by the recent memecoin mania.

Related: Solana devs target April 15 for failed TX fix — It’s ‘not a design flaw’

Solana has become the primary blockchain for retail users and memecoin traders, with trading volumes on its decentralized exchanges rising by more than 300% in Q1 2024 compared to the previous quarter, noted Peter Horten, a researcher at data analytics platform Messari.

But in recent weeks, Solana's DEX volume trend has shifted downward, as shown below.

Solana DEX volumes. Source: Dune Analytics

This lower DEX activity has preceded a decline in most of the top Solana-based memecoins.

Solana memecoins' hourly, daily, and weekly price performance. Source: CoinGecko De-risk mood amid strong U.S. numbers

Increasing bets on the delay in interest cuts from the U.S. Federal Reserve—in the wake of robust U.S. labor data and persistent inflation—have also boosted selling sentiment in the crypto market, particularly affecting memecoins, which are among the most profitable assets worldwide so far in 2024.

Memecoins versus S&P500 and BTC/USD yea-to-date performance chart. Source: TradingView

According to CME data, interest rate futures traders' expectations have significantly shifted. Approximately 81% now wager that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates steady at 500-525 basis points in June compared to around 60% earlier in April.

Assets that yield, such as U.S. Treasuries, become more appealing compared to non-yielding counterparts like cryptocurrencies during higher interest rate periods. Consequently, this shift diminishes the appeal of riskier investments, including memecoins.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Move-to-earn lifestyle app STEPN, built on the Solana blockchain, is airdropping 100 million FSL points worth approximately $30 million to its users.

According to the April 10 announcement, the FSL points are redeemable at a 1:1 ratio for STEPN’s GMT token and can also be used in upcoming STEPN nonfungible token (NFT) mints alongside obtaining exclusive prizes. “We have decided to launch this huge airdrop campaign as a token of gratitude to our most loyal community members,” said Shiti Manghani, CEO of STEPN. 

“The first airdrop of this week, for our Badge Holders, was dedicated to our core players,” STEPN developers wrote, continuing: “Those who are truly playing the hard way. For them, we airdropped an FSL Points allocation based on the complexity of their in-app achievements.”

To claim the points, users must sign up for an FSL ID, which is created by the namesake developer that also manages the STEPN ecosystem. From there, users can also spend the FSL points in the ecosystem’s NFT marketplace MOOAR and strategy game Gas Hero. The $30 million airdrop will be ongoing until the end of April.

Created by FSL in 2021, STEPN allows users to earn rewards for walking, jogging, or running. Rewards are available after users purchase a virtual Sneaker NFT and link their smartphones. Rewards are issued in the form of GMT tokens, which have an inflationary mechanism, a supply cap of 6 billion and a current diluted market capitalization of $1.57 billion.

GMT tokens earned by players can then be used to mint new sneakers or level up in the game. On the in-app marketplace, players can lease or sell their NFT sneakers, and their GMT revenues are saved in the in-app wallet, which features a built-in swap function. The lifestyle app currently has more than 5 million users. 

Related: Solana's STEPN hits record high as GMT price skyrockets 34,000% in over a month

Uniswap is a decentralized exchange where users can swap cryptocurrency tokens and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The Uniswap NFT marketplace has handled over 250 million swaps since its inception in 2018. Uniswap’s protocol consists of smart contracts, which are persistent and non-upgradeable at the contract level but can still undergo upgrades and improvements through governance processes. This has facilitated Uniswap and NFT interoperability, making it possible to trade NFTs on several blockchains, including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain and Polygon.

Uniswap leverages ERC-721 NFT contracts, which offer a unique ID to identify each NFT. These ERC-721 tokens on Uniswap are nonfungible and facilitate the exchanging of NFTs and keeping track of ownership.

The protocol contains a suite of tools, including an NFT aggregator, which facilitates swapping digital assets like Ethereum NFTs on Uniswap. This guide to Uniswap NFT trading explores how users can go about trading digital assets on Uniswap.

Uniswap’s role in NFT exchange

Uniswap has developed a suite of software tools that operate on the Uniswap protocol, facilitating UNFT trading and cryptocurrency swapping. These tools include:

Uniswap app: A mobile app for exploring, sending, swapping and buying NFTs and cryptocurrencies.

Uniswap Web app: It does the same job as the Uniswap app but on your desktop or laptop.

Uniswap NFT aggregator: An aggregator marketplace that integrates elements of DeFi and NFTs on Uniswap. This tool helps track all listings across major marketplaces and exchanges, helping traders find the best deals.

In November 2022, Uniswap launched a new set of smart contracts aimed at enhancing security and optimizing costs within the platform:

Permit 2: Allowed sharing and managing of token approval across different applications, improving security, creating a unified platform and reducing costs.

Universal router: Integrated with Permit 2, unifying NFT and ERC-20 swapping in a single swap router. This allows users to swap multiple NFTs and tokens in a single transaction, thereby saving on gas fees.

These smart contracts were widely adopted by developer ecosystems within Uniswap, contributing to the platform’s efficiency and effectiveness.

Uniswap aggregates its listings from various marketplaces, including OpenSea, Larva Labs and Foundation, among others. Below is a Uniswap NFT platform tutorial showcasing how to use Uniswap for NFT transactions.

How to carry out NFT transactions on Uniswap

To use Uniswap for NFT transactions, one must go to the Uniswap web app and connect their wallet to initiate transactions.

Buying NFTs on Uniswap

Users can use Uniswap to buy NFTs using any ERC-20 token:

Step 1: Go to the Uniswap Web app and connect your wallet.

Step 2: Click the “NFTs” tab and click the search bar.

Step 3: You can search for an NFT by name or its contract address.

Step 4: After you find the NFT you’re looking for, add it to your bag by clicking “Add to bag.” Add as many NFTs as you want to your bag.

Step 5: Once you are done selecting the NFTs, click “Pay with.”

 

Step 6: Choose which ERC-20 token you will use to pay the transaction.

Step 7: Select “Pay with.” If the token has a high price impact, you may receive a price impact warning. You may choose “Pay anyway” if you can tolerate the price hit.

Step 8: Choose “Pay.”

Step 9: You will be redirected to your wallet. Confirm the purchase.

Step 10: Once the transaction is completed, you will have bought the NFT successfully.

Selling NFTs on Uniswap

Listing your NFT for sale on Uniswap can place it on multiple marketplaces. Follow this procedure:

Step 1: Go to the Uniswap Web app.

Step 2: Click the wallet icon to connect your wallet and open your NFT portfolio.

Step 3: Choose “View and sell NFTs.”

Step 4: Search and select the NFT you want to sell and choose “List for sale.”

Step 5: When the “Sell” pop-up appears, click “Continue.”

Step 6: Choose the marketplace where you want to list the NFT for sale.

Step 7: Select the duration for which you want to leave the NFT up for sale. It could be in hours, days, weeks or months.

Step 8: Enter the price you wish to sell the NFT for.

Step 9: Click on “Start listing.”

Step 10: Approve the sale listing in your wallet.

Step 11: Sign the listing for the sale to go live.

Step 12: Done.

How to delist an NFT on Uniswap

If you have listed an NFT for sale but want to cancel it before a sale or the expiry date of the sale happens, follow these steps to delist it from Uniswap. Please note that if you listed it on several marketplaces, you must repeat the process on each of the marketplaces:

Step 1: Find the NFT you want to delist by opening the Uniswap Web app. Connect your wallet by clicking the wallet icon.

Step 2: Click “View and sell NFTs” to find the NFT and the marketplace where you listed it for sale.

Step 3: Choose the NFT you want to delist.

Step 4: Scroll to the “Activity” section below the NFTs.

Step 5: Find the listing transaction. It will give you the details of the marketplace where you listed the NFT.

Step 6: If, for example, you listed the NFT for sale on the NFTX marketplaces, go to the NFTX website. Connect your wallet to the website and delist the NFT. Repeat this last step if you have listed the NFT on other marketplaces.

Sweep an NFT collection

When a user sweeps an NFT collection, this implies they have acquired multiple or all pieces of an NFT collection at the floor price. The floor price represents the lowest price listing of any NFT within the collection. To execute a sweep of an NFT collection on Uniswap, one should follow to the following steps:

Step 1: Navigate to the Uniswap Web app and connect your digital wallet.

Step 2: Utilize the search bar by entering the NFT collection’s name or contract address to locate it. It’s possible to filter NFTs by price range and marketplace or opt to view only the NFTs that are listed.

Step 3: Choose “Sweep.”

Step 4: Uniswap enables individuals to perform a sweep by Ether (ETH) amount, showcasing the lowest-priced listing within that collection.

Step 5: Alternatively, users have the option to sweep by specifying the total amount of ETH they wish to spend on that transaction.

Step 6: The transaction is reviewed in the shopping bag, and clicking “Pay” completes the transaction.

Managing NFT portfolios on Uniswap

On March 22, 2023, Uniswap launched Mini Portfolio, a new way to view and manage your assets on the Uniswap Web app. This feature allows users to connect any wallet to the Uniswap Web app, enabling them to oversee their activities.

NFT swaps on Uniswap

Users can view all token balances and token details on one platform, where they can probe all swaps, price history and total value locked (TVL).

Swap routers execute swaps based on the user’s chosen venue, such as NFT marketplaces or Uniswap pools. They are tasked with finding the best prices while ensuring the gas fees remain as low as possible.

Users can purchase cryptocurrency directly from their Mini Portfolio using any bank or debit/credit card. By selecting the “NFTs” tab, they are able to view their entire NFT collection. Clicking on any item within the collection provides more details about that specific NFT. The details page offers a comprehensive history of the entire collection, including items that have been put up for sale.

NFT liquidity on Uniswap

Users can check the status of their liquidity pool (LP) tokens by clicking on the “Pools” tab. This tab displays all active LP pools and enables users to manage a pool position by selecting any of the pools listed. The Uniswap auto router assists in finding the optimal trade route, as the most advantageous swap price may be sourced from several liquidity pools.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

In an effort to redefine the world of fine wine investment a new Web3 marketplace aims to uncork the next era of market accessibility. 

GrtWines, co-founded by former CLSA Chairman Jonathan Slone and acclaimed wine critic James Suckling, is a digital platform that allows collectors and investors of vintage and fine wines access to the market via digital asset tokenization.

Each digital certificate issued is tied to a real, investment-grade bottle of wine sourced directly from prestigious wineries. They are sourced directly from renowned wineries and stored in optimal condition until ready to be redeemed and delivered.

According to data from Statista, the wine industry is a multi-billion dollar market with a combined revenue from supermarkets, convenience stores, bars and restaurants to amount to $60 billion in 2024, in the United States alone.

Victor Yin, the CTO and co-founder at GrtWines called the creation of the platform a “significant milestone” in the maturation of the digital asset industry and blockchain technology and a new way to “democratize” the wine industry. He said:

“With the use of smart contracts, we double down on proof of ownership and provenance, effectively enhancing the overall transparency and security in the persistent counterfeit market.”

Related: Data NFT platform enhances security and user participation with XP system

The platform is launching alongside its first collection, “The Jefferson Collection,” which serves as a tribute to one of history’s most famous wine enthusiasts, Thomas Jefferson.

Jonathan Slone, the CEO and co-founder at GrtWines, said as a wine connoisseur, he feels passionate about the platform for preserving the rich heritage of wines while building a “transparent and connected community” driven by the consumers. He said:

“Traditional alternative assets such as well-aged wines, fine art and luxury watches have gained significant traction among younger buyers, serving as both portfolio diversification and elevated lifestyle.”

Luxury items as a whole have gained significant traction as tokenized assets on the blockchain over the last few years.

Examples can be seen with luxury brand blockchain platform Arianee, which recently launched a Polygon CDK-powered layer-2 to issue and manage digital product passports for various luxury brands and companies.

Additionally, in the fashion industry, fine artists, luxury brands and watchmakers have been utilizing on-chain assets like nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to verify ownership, track history of products and foster community.

Magazine: 1 in 6 new Base meme coins are scams, 91% have vulnerabilities

P2P.org, a validator for the Ethereum blockchain, has hit a new growth milestone and is launching a new staking model designed for businesses.

The Ethereum validator has seen its total value locked (TVL) increase from $5 billion in February to more than $7.4 billion in March, the firm said in an announcement to Cointelegraph on April 10.

P2P.org’s TVL rose from $1.4 billion by the end of the first quarter of 2023 to $7.3 billion at the end of Q1 2024, or a 396% year-over-year increase.

According to data from Dune Analytics, P2P.org’s market share in terms of the total staked Ethereum accounts for 0.75% or 240,832 of staked ETH as of April 8.

In contrast, Lido, the largest Ethereum validator, has a 29% share of the total staked Ethereum, or 9.5 million ETH. According to Dune Analytics, as much as 17% of the market is staked by unidentified validators.

Ethereum stakers by the amount of staked Ether. Source: Dune Analytics

In conjunction with the TVL milestone, P2P.org announced the launch of a new staking model targeting businesses. The new Staking-as-a-Business (SaaB) model aims to address staking difficulties that some businesses face, including those related to functionalities, promotion of staking services and revenue generation.

“Our objective is to assist in the establishment or amplification of staked assets within institutional products, ensuring that staking contributes a minimum of 10% to total revenue, ideally reaching 20%,” P2P.org CEO Alex Esin told Cointelegraph. He added:

“This is not just a service or a solution; it's a partnership model that helps businesses to scale by integrating new DeFi and Staking services into their platforms.”

Ethereum staking is a process of locking up Ether (ETH) to maintain the Ethereum network and rewarding users with newly minted ETH. Ethereum’s staking mechanism was introduced in September 2022 when the ETH network adopted a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

Related: Fidelity amends spot Ethereum ETF proposal to include staking

Unlike a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism — which is operated by Bitcoin (BTC) — the PoS consensus mechanism does not need mining and relies on validation instead.

Ethereum validators are entities that stake a minimum of 32 ETH in the network to participate in running Ethereum's PoS consensus blockchain. According to data from Beacon Cha, there were 980,000 validators on the Ethereum blockchain as of April 9.

Magazine: 1 in 6 new Base meme coins are scams, 91% have vulnerabilities

The Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC), a law enforcement agency in Queensland, Australia, identified certain gaps in state laws that encourage criminal use of digital assets.

To overcome these legal shortcomings, the agency has proposed modernizing Queensland’s asset confiscation regime.

The CCC questioned the efficacy of Queensland’s Criminal Proceeds Confiscation Act 2002 (CPCA) when it comes to confiscating cryptocurrencies tied to organized crimes, such as money laundering.

The Commission called for significant reform of the Act that seeks to achieve seven priority outcomes, three of which directly relate to the effective seizure of digital assets. It said:

“Digital assets are expected to continue to proliferate as the criminal environment increasingly becomes less physical, and the CPCA less effective for dealing with digital assets.”

The lack of crypto-related language in the CPCA, such as cryptocurrency, crypto asset or digital asset, is the root cause of the gaps within Queensland’s legislative regime, according to the CCC.

Citing the importance of CPCA to remain fit for purpose within a changing criminal environment, the Commission added:

“While digital assets can be restrained and forfeited under the CPCA, there are currently no specific provisions for investigative agencies in Queensland to facilitate effective seizure of digital assets.”

The CCC sees this inability to seize digital assets as hindering Queensland’s ability to gather evidence, attribute ownership of a digital asset, or facilitate the storage or transfers of digital assets, among others.

The Commission recommended reforms such as defining “digital assets” and introducing them to money laundering laws, converting seized assets into stable currencies amid legal proceedings and automatic forfeitures.

Related: Australia poised for ‘inflection point’ of crypto demand — Kraken Aus MD

In March, Alan Kirkland, Commissioner of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), unveiled a strategy aimed at fostering the development of responsible financial innovation.

Source: ASIC Media

Kirkland pointed out the need to solve the “regulatory trilemma” when it comes to financial innovations, which includes consumer protection, market integrity and encouraging financial innovation.

Kirkland believes that ASIC’s approach to innovation and effective regulation can reduce the associated risks and help promote digital assets to the masses.

Magazine: 1 in 6 new Base meme coins are scams, 91% have vulnerabilities