Monero (XMR) price staggers as the hash rate retreats

  • Monero is the biggest privacy-focused coin in the industry.

  • It has underperformed recently as the number of hash rate has slipped.

Monero price moved sideways on Thursday as investors reacted to the latest interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve. XMR, the network’s coin, was trading at $180 on Thursday, a few points below this year’s high of $187. It has jumped by more than 22% from the lowest point in January. 

Monero hash rate slipping

Monero is a leading cryptocurrency in the privacy sector. The coin makes it possible for people to send cryptocurrency in an extremely private manner. Unlike Bitcoin and Litecoin, its transactions cannot be tracked by any person.

As a result, Monero is widely used by many people, especially in dark web marketplaces. They prefer it because of the relatively low transaction costs and the fact that transactions cannot be scooped by law enforcement.

Monero price has struggled in the past few days. A likely reason is that the privacy coin industry has gotten substantially competitive. Some of the top coins that compete with Monero are Dash, Nano, and Zcash among others.

Meanwhile, the health of Monero’s ecosystem has been in a downward trend. Data shows that Monero has a hash rate of 2.42 GH/s, which is much lower than the year-to-date high of 3.15 GH/s. Unlike other popular coins like Litecoin and Bitcoin, the hash rate has been in a constant downward trend after it peaked at 3.4 in January 2022.

Hash rate is one of the most useful metrics in proof-of-work networks like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ravencoin. It provides a good measure of the health of a network by looking at the number of guesses in the network.

Other Monero metrics are also not all that encouraging. For example, according to its Block Explorer, the number of transactions on Wednesday were more than 17,800. Last week, Monero handled about 116k transactions.

Monero price prediction

XMR/USD chart by TradingView

The daily chart shows that the XMR price has been in a strong bullish trend in the past few months. In this period, it has managed to move above the lower side of the ascending channel. At the same time, it is being supported by the 25-day and 50-day moving averages. Oscillators like the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Stochastic Oscillator have continued rising.

Monero has also formed a small ascending channel that is shown in black. Therefore, there is a likelihood that it will have a bearish breakout in the coming days. If this happens, the next key level to watch will be at $167, the lowest point on January 27.

How to buy Monero

Binance

Binance is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. It is better suited to more experienced investors and it offers a large number of cryptocurrencies to choose from, at over 600. Binance is also known for having low trading fees and a multiple of trading options that its users can benefit from, such as; peer-to-peer trading, margin trading and spot trading.

Buy XMR with Binance today

OKX

OKX is a top cryptocurrency exchange which offers over 140 cryptocurrencies to invest in. OKX takes customer security very seriously, they store almost all of their clients‘ funds in cold storage, and the exchange is yet to be hacked. On top of this, the exchange offers very low fees and customers can even use their crypto as collateral for loans on the platform.

Buy XMR with OKX today

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Ethereum price after Zhejiang testnet launch

  • The Ethereum Zhejiang public testnet went live on February 1, just according to the plan.
  • The testnet paves the way for the Shanghai and Capella upgrade testnet.
  • Ethereum price has responded positively to the launch by maintaining a positive sentiment.

At press time, Ethereum (ETH) price was $1,672.19, up 5.80% in the past 24 hours a day after the launch of the Zhenjiang public testnet.

While the testnet may not have much of an impact on the price of ETH since it has been on an upward trend since the start of 2023, it is important to acknowledge that if the launch went south, the price would definitely have been negatively affected.

What next for Ethereum?

The Zhenjiang public testnet is designed to allow Ethereum users to test and evaluate the process of withdrawing the staked ETH tokens and also test the network functionality after the Shanghai upgrade. Users can test validator deposits, familiarize themselves with how to change BLS, and evaluate the user interface navigation without risks.

That said, the testnet is a great pointer for the upcoming upgrades and sets the stage for Ethereum to go ahead with the next upgrades.

It is important to also acknowledge that The Zhenjiang testnet is the first release for the Ethereum development team since the highly successful Merge upgrade that made Ethereum a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain.

Staked ETH

Currently, about 16.3 million Ether tokens have been locked on the Beacon Chain (Ethereum PoS chain). This represents about 13.5% of the total ETH circulating supply.

At the current market price, the staked ETH tokens are valued at about $27.257 billion. Unlocking these tokens will be a huge boost to the Ethereum ecosystem and investors will now not have to worry about when their staked ETH and interest will be available for use.

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Coinbase pausing creator Drops on its NFT marketplace

  • The exchange however maintained that it is not planning to close its NFT marketplace.
  • It wants to align the exchange’s resources in developing other features.
  • Coinbase has been struggling with revenue generation.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on Wednesday tweeted that it was pausing creator drops in its NFT Marketplace. The exchange however assured clients that the move is not an overture to the closure of the NFT marketplace.

Coinbase explained that it was doing so to free up resources so that it could focus on other tools and features that creators have requested.

Coinbase has been facing a lot of challenges lately. It cut its workforce by 25% and closed its operations in Japan. It also recently got fined in the Netherlands for operating there without a licence.

Jessica Yatronofsky NFT collection

Coinbase announcement came shortly after one of its NFT partners, Jessica Yatronofsky, announced that her NFT collection would no longer be available on the Coinbase NFT Marketplace. Yatronofsky claimed that she had information that the marketplace would cease to operate as of February; something that is most likely the reason for Coinbase to reiterate it was not closing the Marketplace.

According to Coinbase, the changes will help the development team behind the Coinbase NFT to focus more on improving the platform. A representative from the exchange said that the team will now be able to focus on creating long-lasting solutions to serve its community.

In another tweet, Coinbase said:

“Rest assured, our mission for Coinbase NFT hasn’t changed and we remain optimistic about our future as we continue building. We’re excited to find more opportunities to work with creators in the future.”

Coinbase COIN share price

While there is no concrete reason that has been given by Coinbase for pausing the NFT drops, Coinbase share price has been rising over the last few days.

Yesterday COIN closed the market at $65.70, up +7.22 (12.35%). the stock has gained +9.64 (17.20%) in the past five days.

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