MarketAcross named Web3 media partner of Europe’s premier blockchain event

  • MarketAcross will help market the upcoming European Blockchain Convention worldwide.
  • EBC 2023 is set for 15-17 February in Barcelona and will bring together industry heavyweights, including from Aave and Bittrex.
  • MarketAcross is a leading blockchain PR and marketing firm, also tapped as the official media partner for the upcoming Paris Blockchain Week conference in March.

MarketAcross, a leading Tel Aviv-based blockchain and fintech marketing firm, will be the main Web3 media partner at this year’s European Blockchain Convention (EBC) convention. The event organisers confirmed the collaboration today.

The Web3 event, set for 15-17 February at the Hyatt Regency in Barcelona, is expected to welcome over 2,500 participants. The annual event launched in 2018 and will be held in-person this year.

Notably, MarketAcross previously acted as official media partner of the Korea Blockchain Week last June, and as web3 media partner during the Future of Crypto conference held on 7 December 2022 in New York City. 

The media group is similarly set to be this year’s Paris Blockchain Week’s official media partner, with the event scheduled for March 2023.

Marketing Europe’s blue chip Web3 event

As a global leader in blockchain PR and marketing, MarketAcross has been tapped to spearhead all pre and post-event EBC 2023 marketing efforts. The experienced firm is expected to leverage its global reach, through prominent thought leaders and speakers to help highlight the Barcelona event to the world.

Itai Elizur, COO and Partner at MarketAcross, said the firm was hyped about the upcoming event and looked forward to making it “the best one yet.”

We are thrilled to join EBC as the main media partner, especially this year, as the speaker list will showcase a lot of exciting personas and projects,” Elizur noted in a press releas shared with CoinJournal.

MarketAcross’s strategic partnership with the EBC comes as Europe’s most influential blockchain event bids to bring, yet again, some of the world’s top industry players together. Expected at the three-day event are Bittrex CEO Oliver Linch, Solana co-founder Stephen Akridge and Aave founder Stani Kulechov, among others.

Like in previous events, EBC 2023 will bring together a diverse audience cutting across decentralised finance (DeFi) non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain gaming and Web3.

Organisers have also planned an inaugural EBC Blockchain Awards, which will recognise Europe’s top 100 early-stage startups. Ten finalists will have a chance to pitch their projects to a panel of investors.

The post MarketAcross named Web3 media partner of Europe’s premier blockchain event appeared first on CoinJournal.

Marinade Finance looks to boost liquid staking on Solana

  • Marinade Finance will reward Solana holders who stake SOL via its liquid protocol.
  • The incentive program will run for the next 12 months and see the plaform offer up to 160 million native Marinade tokens.
  • The goal is to grow Solana TVL by 40 million SOL, and liquid staking is key to that.

Marinade Finance, a liquid staking platform that supports the Solana blockchain, is looking to bring more liquidity to the Solana ecosystem via a major incentive program.

The protocol noted in an announcement that the program “Open Doors” is designed to incentivise Solana builders, validators and wallets into increasing the blockchain platform’s asset liquidity. 

Accordingly, Marinade is looking to offer rewards in the form of its tokens to users who contribute to growing the total value locked (TVL) of Solana on the protocol.

Marinade Finance’s 12-month incentive program for Solana

Over the next 12 months, users have a chance to earn some of the 160 million Marinade (MNDE) tokens when they deposit SOL for mSOL, the liquid staking token they will get in exchange. The target is to get 40 million SOL staked for mSOL, – a scenario that could significantly increase the ecosystem’s liquidity and help with decentralisation.

Currently, only 2-3% of SOL is reportedly in liquid staking, which makes the plan to have more brought into the ecosystem crucial for Solana. This is because staked SOL doesn’t contribute to Solana’s DeFi TVL. However, mSOL’s liquid stake does as it flows across different protocols. 

As for decentralisation, Marinade supports hundreds of validators staking through its delegation strategy.

For Solana DeFi to rebound stronger, more $SOL (LOTS MORE) must be made liquid. Those who contribute this through $mSOL, on their protocols, or via the referral program will be rewarded with direct Marinade ownership,” the Marinade team said.

According to data from DeFiLlama, the Solana chain has about $278 million in TVL as of 25 January 2023, down from over $10 billion in November 2021. More than 53% of the total TVL on this chain is on Marinade Finance, while Lido’s liquid staking accounts for the second-largest share.

The post Marinade Finance looks to boost liquid staking on Solana appeared first on CoinJournal.

Why is Ethereum being outperformed by Bitcoin? Historical pattern changing in 2023


Key Takeaways

  • Ethereum has historically outperformed Bitcoin in bull runs
  • The pattern has flipped to start the year, with Bitcoin dominance rising 
  • Our Analyst Dan Ashmore jumps on-chain to look through history, and show how and why the pattern is changing

The Flippening, huh? Nothing incites debate within crypto circles quite like it. 

Referring to a scenario where Ethereum flips Bitcoin for the number one spot in the cryptocurrency ranks, the Flippening is anything from inevitable to delusional, depending on who you ask. 

I’m not sure I want to walk across the eggshells of that debate, for fear of my Twitter DMs, but I noticed something pretty interesting today when digging into the data on Ethereum vs Bitcoin. 

Ethereum is strongly correlated with Bitcoin

Firstly, the obvious. Ethereum is incredibly correlated with Bitcoin because, well, it is a cryptocurrency, and every crypto’s fate is tied to that of the orange coin. We know this by now. 

The graph below shows how tight this relationship has been since Ethereum went live back in 2015. 

But while these two best buddies follow each other around across the price charts, there are scenarios where they diverge a little bit. The famous ETH/BTC ratio is one which Ether fans in particular keep a keen eye on. 

It peaked in June 2017 at close to 0.15 before freefalling down to 0.025 before the end of the year. Today, it trades at around 0.07. 

Ether is better at bull markets than Bitcoin

You may have noticed that the previous ETH/BTC chart resembled the shape of the crypto market overall, through its many ups and downs. 

I plotted the price of Bitcoin against this ETH/BTC ratio. Indeed, the ratio rises as Bitcoin rises, and falls and Bitcoin falls. Using the Bitcoin price as a proxy for the whole industry, this suggests that the ETH/BTC ratio rises in bull markets and falls in bear markets. 

This makes sense. Bitcoin is often referred to as the boomer coin. I quite like it that way, despite it being meant as an insult, by the way. But it’s an understandable moniker because Bitcoin does move like a pensioner during bull markets when compared to altcoins. 

Ether may be the largest of the altcoins, but it still outperforms Bitcoin when the bulls are out to play. 

On the flip side, Bitcoin outperforms when the party ends. And by outperform, I mean that it tends to drop 60% as opposed to 70%. But hey, that’s for another day.

Pattern has flipped in 2023

But the price charts are showing something different. One month into the new year, Bitcoin has surged while the ETH/BTC ratio has fallen – precisely the opposite of what has happened historically. 

I charted the ratio back to the start of November, when Sam Bankman-Fried’s fun and games were revealed to the world and crypto fell, with Bitcoin cratering down to $16,000. 

The chart shows that the pattern remained as you would expect, i.e. the ratio fell as crypto and Bitcoin pulled back. But as we turned the page into 2023, the crypto market flipped and Bitcoin soared. Only problem is, ETH didn’t follow, but rather the ratio has fallen, from 0.077 on January 11th to 0.068 currently, despite Bitcoin spiking from $17,400 to close to $23,000 over the same period. 

Why? Honestly, I’m not sure. It’s unusual. 

Bitcoin is up 36% on the year whereas Ether is only up 29%. Yet looking at the returns of other altcoins, perhaps it is nothing to do with Ether. Many are being outperformed by Bitcoin, while even the outperformers are not doing so by as much as has been seen previously (note I have removed Solana for scale purposes, which is up 125% thus far this year, following being decimated by links to Sam Bankman-Fried and multiple projects fleeing the blockchain at the end of last year). 

In truth, this has just been a remarkable rise for Bitcoin from the depths of bear market pain. The rest of the market is not quite ready to forget the armageddon that was 2022, with many altcoins paring down over 90%. 

Ethereum wasn’t quite as bad, but still fell from an all-time high of nearly $5,000. The free money and stimulus packages of the pandemic are over. It is a different climate now, and it is proving more challenging to kick up hype for altcoins. 

The web3 narrative has faltered. NFTs have been crushed. There is no doubt that the narrative around ETH has been torn down. I have written about how institutional adoption will pare back in crypto, and how the sector’s reputation will take a long time to fix.

That is true for Bitcoin. Perhaps it rings even more true for ETH and altcoins, which have even more to do to regain investors’ trust. 

The post Why is Ethereum being outperformed by Bitcoin? Historical pattern changing in 2023 appeared first on CoinJournal.

Ethereum Price Prediction V/S Metacade: Which Is The Better Long Term Crypto Investment?

The Ethereum price prediction 2023 looks like it will start to pick up once again, as investors are expecting some major price action for the ETH token into the long-term. While the Ethereum price prediction for 2023 is bullish, it is arguably not the best crypto to invest in right now.

On the other hand, if its presale is anything to go by, Metacade (MCADE) could easily post insane gains over the coming years, which makes it the number one best crypto to invest in for 2023 and beyond.

Metacade is, without a doubt, the best crypto to invest in

The Ethereum price prediction for 2023 looks bullish as the token is expected to start building some momentum after the merge took place in September 2022. While the current bear market is expected to continue for some time, the Ethereum price prediction 2023 is forecasting a trend reversal.

However, the best crypto to invest in during 2023 is Metacade. The MCADE presale was recently launched and over $3.5 million was raised in just over 9 weeks since the announcement. The project could rapidly become a key player in the GameFi revolution, and it is showing major promise in terms of future price action.

What is Ethereum (ETH)?

Ethereum is a layer-1 blockchain and the biggest ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps) in Web3. The blockchain was initially built using a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism but was recently updated to a proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol during the merge in 2022.

Ethereum’s new PoS protocol allows for a more economical blockchain system that requires less computing power and is less taxing on the environment as a result. The key difference is that the mining process delegates to trusted participants, who are incentivized to behave in a trustworthy manner, instead of using an expensive system where nodes compete to mine blocks using their GPU power.

Ethereum is still one of the best cryptos to invest in, as it was the first Turing complete blockchain. This has led to Ethereum supporting over 2000 independent projects, as an increasing number of use cases have been found for blockchain technology due to Ethereum’s innovative solution.

Ethereum Price Prediction 2023: Will ETH reach $2500?

The Ethereum price prediction 2023 is more bullish than in 2022, when Ethereum suffered an 80% price reduction. The ETH token is expected to reverse this trend and could begin to climb back toward its previous all-time high at $4865.

ETH faces strong resistance at $1775. However, if the token can break through this price level, the next target is $2500 for the Ethereum price prediction 2023.

What is Metacade (MCADE)?

Metacade, which is the best crypto to invest in now, is a comprehensive gaming platform that brings classic arcade-style titles onto the blockchain. All Metacade games have integrated earning mechanics, allowing players to earn an income while playing some of the hottest titles in the GameFi sector.

The platform has been built by gamers, for gamers, and aims to become a hub for the Web3 community. Metacade can drive innovation in the blockchain gaming space through its Metagrants program, and will also give users the chance to kickstart a career in Web3.

How does MCADE work?

Metacade’s Play2Earn arcade will offer a range of different games for its community. Gameplay can be either casual or competitive, as users will also be able to enter paid entry tournaments for the chance to win exciting MCADE prizes.

The Create2Earn mechanic will reward users for sharing valuable information and contributing to the Metacade community. Contributions can include sharing alpha, posting game reviews, or interacting with other members, as Metacade aims to incentivize a buzzing platform that is brimming with useful information about Web3.

Metacade will also introduce a jobs board in 2024. This feature intends to connect users with full-time job opportunities at Metacade’s partner projects in Web3. Users will also have the chance to complete tasks, apply for short-time gig work, or land freelance roles through the Metacade platform.

Metacade is seeking to boost the overall level of innovation in the GameFi sector through its Metagrants program. This will give the community the chance to vote for the best new blockchain-based games proposals, directing Metacade to provide early-stage funding to support development and bring exclusive titles to the arcade platform.

Will MCADE reach $5?

Metacade has extremely high potential, which makes the presale a rare opportunity. MCADE is the best crypto to invest in now, especially since the presale is launching MCADE at a an early-bird low price.

The long-term price prediction for MCADE places it next to the biggest GameFi projects in the space, with $5 being a key target for 2025. In 2023, MCADE could hit the $1 mark as it begins to gain momentum for the long term. Without a doubt, Metacade is the best crypto to invest in at the current price level.

Is MCADE worth buying?

Metacade’s $5 target is a 250x price rise from the end of the presale, so it’s certainly a strong addition to any investment portfolio and by many accounts, is the best crypto to invest in during 2023. On the other hand, the Ethereum price prediction in 2023 could increase by 2x, with up to 10x gains forecasted for the next crypto bull market.

For investors looking to buy into the MCADE presale, it is worth knowing that the price is continually rising. MCADE was initially launched at $0.008 but will climb to $0.02 before the end of the event, which gives investors a limited time to get involved before it starts reaching higher price levels.

You can participate in the Metacade presale here.

The post Ethereum Price Prediction V/S Metacade: Which Is The Better Long Term Crypto Investment? appeared first on CoinJournal.