Monat: Dezember 2022

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LUNC price forms a bullish pattern as USTC pumps

  • Terra Luna Classic price crawled back on Thursday.

  • The number of LUNC holders has been stable.

  • USTC price soared by over 20%.

Terra Luna Classic price crawled back on Thursday as investors reacted to the strong comeback of USTC. It rose to a high of $0.00017, which was slightly above this week’s low of $0.00016. LUNC’s price is about 71% below the highest level this year.

USTC price rebounds

Terra Luna Classic is a community-operated cryptocurrency that is the remnant of Terra’s collapse. It differs from Terra Luna, which was unveiled by Do Kwon as part of Terra 2.0. 

LUNC has been in the spotlight in the past few months as the number of holders has remained steady. Data shows that despite the bad reputation, the number of LUNC holders is at an all-time high. According to LUNC Burner, there are now 12,090 unique addresses in LUNC. This is significantly higher than last month’s low of 11,590.

These buyers are likely attracted to the token for its speculation purposes. These holders believe that the token will stage a major comeback if the broad cryptocurrency market rebounds. There are now over 880 billion bonded tokens, 

Meanwhile, the number of Terra Luna Classic that is being burned is rising. More than 34.2 billion LUNC tokens has been burned since May. As a result, the total supply has been reduced to 6.8 trillion tokens.

Terra Luna Classic price is crawling back as Terra Classic USD stablecoin is rebounding. According to Binance, USTC price has soared by more than 20% in the past 24 hours. It rose to a high of $0.024, which was the highest level since November 11.

USTC is a former stablecoin that was the nerve center of Terra’s ecosystem. Its de-pegging led to the collapse of Terra and its ecosystem, as we wrote here. At the time, USTC holders in DeFi protocols like Anchor Protocol saw their investments evaporate.

LUNC price prediction

LUNC chart by TradingView

The daily chart shows that Terra Luna Classic price has been in a steep sell-off in the past few months. Along the way, the coin has formed a falling wedge pattern that is shown in orange. In price action analysis, this pattern is usually a bullish sign, 

LUNC has moved below the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the Average True Range (ATR) has dropped, which is a sign of low volatility. Therefore, Terra Luna Classic price will likely have a bullish comeback in December as speculation increases.

How to buy Luna Classic

As LUNC is such a new asset, it’s yet to be listed on major exchanges. You can still purchase LUNC using a DEX (decentralised exchange) though, which just means there are a few extra steps. To buy LUNC right now, follow these steps:

1. Buy ETH on a regulated exchange or broker, like eToro ›

We suggest eToro because it’s one of the world’s leading multi-asset trading platforms, an exchange and wallet all-in-one with some of the lowest fees in the industry. It’s also beginner-friendly, and has more payment methods available to users than any other available service.

2. Send your ETH to a compatible wallet like Trust Wallet or MetaMask

You’ll need to create your wallet, grab your address, and send your coins there.

3. Connect your wallet to the 1Inch DEX

Head to 1Inch, and ‚connect‘ your wallet to it.

4. You can now swap your ETH for LUNC

Now that you’re connected, you’ll be able to swap for 100s of coins including LUNC.

The post LUNC price forms a bullish pattern as USTC pumps appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Crypto lender Celsius ordered to return crypto worth $44M to customers

The funds in question are cryptocurrencies held within custody accounts on Celsius that were yet to be transferred from earned accounts.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The order was given by a United States Bankruptcy in a December 7, 2022 hearing.
  • The amount is only a fraction of the billions that Celsius owes creditors.
  • Celsius advisers and stakeholders agreed that crypto deposited in the custody accounts belongs to its users and not the platform.

United States Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn in a December 7, 2022 hearing ordered Celsius to return cryptocurrencies worth about $44 million to the lender’s custody program customers. Delivering the verbal order, the judge noted:

“I want this case to move forward. I want creditors to recover as much as they possibly can as soon as they possibly can.”

Celsius owes billions to creditors

Celsius which has been battling a serious financial crisis for most of 2022, reportedly owes creditors billions and the $44 million it has been asked to return is just a fraction of the total amount the platform owes its customers. However, the order by the court comes after Celsius stakeholders and advisers concluded that the cryptocurrencies deposited in the Celsius custody accounts belonged to its users and not the platform.

The judge’s order however only applies to pure custody assets, those that haven’t been used in the Celsius Earn accounts but rather have only been present in the custody program.

As of August 29, 2022, Celsius held over $210 million in the custody accounts but only $44 million of the amount falls within the category prescribed by the judge’s order.

Majority of the funds that Celsius owes customers were held in the Celsius Earn accounts that allowed customers to earn interest on their deposits.

The post Crypto lender Celsius ordered to return crypto worth $44M to customers appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Normalcy returning to crypto markets, on-chain data shows

Over the last few months, the crypto market has largely been pretty serene. Bitcoin had been in crab motion around $20,000 for quite a while, as it plodded along while waiting for the wider macro conditions to make a move.

I wrote in late October to be cautious around this price action, and that Bitcoin could be one bearish event away from an aggressive downward wick. What I did not except was that event to be shake crypto to its bones, as one of the blue-chip companies in the space, FTX, inexplicably descended into insolvency.  

This obviously shook markets. Last week I assessed how the flow of bitcoins out of exchanges has been fierce, as people’s trust in these central entities to store their coins was understandably at an all-time low. 

In fact, I saw yesterday that 200,000 bitcoins have left exchanges since the FTX implosion. But now, the data suggests that the market is calming down a bit. And again, it seems like we may enter crab mode until macro provides an impetus one way or another – or an unexpected crypto-specific development comes out of the woodwork. 

The first way to demonstrate that the dust is beginning to settle is by looking at Bitcoin’s volatility. This obviously spiked as Sam Bankman-Fried’s “games” were revealed to the public. But after remaining elevated throughout the last few weeks, it has fallen back down to more standard levels in the last few days.  

Another way to view this is the falloff in large transactions. These transactions (defined as greater than $100,000) jumped up in the few days around the bankruptcy, but have fallen gradually since, back to the same levels we have seen throughout much of 2022.

Another useful metric to track is the net realised profit or loss of moved coins. This spikes in times of crisis as the price abruptly drops, before typically coming back towards the $0 mark as the markets calm down.

The below chart shows this well, with trades on November 9th netting an ugly $2 billion loss, before November 18th then topped this with a $4.3 billion loss. That is lower than the worst mark post-Celsius crash ($4.2 billion loss) and Luna ($2.5 billion loss).

This reflects the continued downward pressure on Bitcoin’s price, but the trend has bounced back up to close to zero again.

FTX was a central part of the ecosystem, and its bankruptcy understandably rocked the market. As I wrote recently, this contagion is not over.

Yet data from the last week or so suggests that normalcy is returning to the crypto markets. Going forward, it may tread water again for a while. With China opening up post-lockdown, the latest inflation numbers imminent and the EU ban on Russian crude imports, macro certainly has a lot going on. 

Crypto investors will just need to hope that the crypto-native scandals are out of the way for the time being.  

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PayPal expands cryptocurrencies operations to Luxembourg

PayPal has announced that it is expanding its cryptocurrency operations to Luxembourg despite the ongoing crypto winter which is projected to extend to 2023 after the FTX collapse.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • 2022 has been one of the darkest years for the crypto industry because of the crushing prices and collapse of crypto giants.
  • PayPal expanding crypto services to Luxembourg offers hope for the crypto world.
  • PayPal will start its operations in Luxembourg within a few days.

Luxembourg is one of those countries that is always ready to embrace new innovations and technological development, which has made it a destination of choice for many financial companies including PayPal. In a press release, PayPal said that its crypto services would be in the country very soon to allow citizens to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies.

According to PayPal’s press release, PayPal is currently working with Luxembourg’s regulators and policymakers to create a policy that suits the investors, PayPal, and the country.

PayPal crypto services

PayPal also said that they are working closely to boost the ever-growing crypto industry. It launched cryptocurrency services in 2020 in different states in the US before moving the services to the UK in 2021.

According to the PayPal CEO:

“The shift to digital forms of currencies is inevitable, bringing with it clear advantages in terms of financial inclusion and access; efficiency, speed and resilience of the payments system; and the ability for governments to disburse funds to citizens quickly.” 

At the moment about four cryptocurrencies are available on PayPal as the firm works to integrate all crypto and blockchain services. Customers can buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies. PayPal allows customers to buy cryptocurrencies through different websites, apps or other crypto platforms.

PayPal crypto fees

PayPal does not impose any tax or fees on buying, selling, or holding cryptocurrencies. All that is required is for a person to have a valid PayPal account.

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The Gnosis Merge schedules for today as the blockchain migrates to Proof of Stake

  • Gnosis follows the footsteps of Ethereum in migrating to a Proof of Stake (PoS) protocol. 

  • Gnosis is migrating from a Proof of Authority mechanism to PoS. 

  • The developers are working to ensure that The Merge is successful.

Gnosis network to migrate to a PoS protocol

Privacy-focused Gnosis, one of the first sidechains to Ethereum, is set to carry out its own version of the Merge a few hours from now. 

The Merge will see Gnosis migrate from a proof-of-authority (PoA) chain to a proof-of-stake (PoS) beacon chain. According to the development team, the migration will take place Today, December 8, when a certain predetermined Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) is reached.

Gnosis will become the major blockchain to carry out The Merge after Ethereum migrated to the PoS chain in September. Ethereum migrated from a Proof of Work mechanism, while Gnosis will ditch its Proof of Authority (PoA) mechanism for PoS. 

The PoA operates similarly to the PoS mechanism. However, instead of staking assets (as seen in PoS blockchains), PoA validators stake their reputation. This implies that the validators are required to meet certain requirements to be considered trustworthy within the community. 

Similar to the PoS, the PoA is less energy intensive compared to the Proof of Work mechanism. This is because there are fewer computational resources needed to ensure validators carry out their functions. 

The major difference between PoA and PoS is that PoA is more centralised since it selects only a few validators. The number of validators in PoS blockchains is much higher, making it more decentralised. 

Gnosis to have more than 100k validators after The Merge

The Merge will see Gnosis go from having roughly 20 validators running the blockchain to over 100,000 validators carrying out functions. Gnosis will be the blockchain with the second-highest number of validators, just behind Ethereum with over 440k validators. 

While speaking to CoinDesk, Stefan George, the co-founder and chief technology officer at Gnosis, said; 

“In the trilemma of scalability, decentralization and security, we focus on decentralization. Contrary to many ‘Ethereum killers,’ which favor scalability over decentralization, cheap blockspace is a commodity whereas decentralized blockspace is a scarce resource.”

He added that Gnosis is delighted to see Ethereum Merge was successful, and that gave them the confidence to believe they can apply the Merge successfully to Gnosis Chain. He concluded that;

“Initially, the goal was to do the Merge on Gnosis Chain before the Merge of Ethereum to show that it can be done safely on Ethereum. It turned out to be more complicated on Gnosis Chain as we were not switching from PoW but PoA and had to customize the existing code.”

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