Kategorie: Crypto Analysis

STEPN has dominated the news cycle in crypto over the past few weeks. The coin is one of the most popular lifestyle web3 projects that pays users to move. However, its native token GMT fell sharply today in minutes. Here are some of the details:

• STEPN dropped by over 37% in just a few minutes after news it was withdrawing from China

• The project cited regulatory hurdles as the reason for the withdrawal

• GMT stabilised later in the day and managed to recover some of those losses

Data Source: TradingView 

STEPN (GMT) – Price analysis and prediction

STEPN has developed a unique web3 lifestyle approach. This has made the project and its native GMT token quite popular in recent days. However, news of the Chinese withdrawal appeared to rattle investors. GMT saw 37% of its value vanish in just a few minutes. At one point the coin even lost the $1 price and was trading at around $0.7. 

Despite this, the GMT token managed to recover. In fact, GMT regained the $1 mark shortly after the mini-crash. Even though the token is now down 8% over the last 24 hours, it has managed to keep the price action above the $1 mark.

Based on this, it is clear that the initial shock of the Chinese withdrawal has abated. Investors have already priced in any possible disruption and as such, GMT will likely consolidate at $1 before it tries to move up again.

Why is STEPN a good investment?

Built on Solana, STEPN markets itself as a web 3 lifestyle app. The project has created a metaverse where users earn rewards when they get out of the house and move. Users must buy NFT backed sneakers and integrate GPS into their phones to earn. 

Over the last few weeks, GMT, the native governance token for the STEPN metaverse, has seen immense growth. The project is by far one of the most innovative applications of web3 concepts in real life.

The post STEPN (GMT) drops by 37% in minutes – Here is why appeared first on CoinJournal.

Rollercoaster is a term frequently used in cryptocurrency. It’s certainly the first bit of vocabulary that comes to mind when looking at the Waves chart. The coin gained 240% in March 2022, yet has given back all those gains and more, and now trades 70% below where it opened on New Year’s Day.

It’s currently ranked 81^st on CoinMarketCap. Back in 2017, it was in the top 20, before competitors such as Solana, Matic and Polkadot surged onto the scene.

So what’s going on here?

First, what is Waves?

A multi-purpose blockchain capable of supporting various decentralised applications and smart contracts, Waves’ summary reads as an alternative to Ethereum, really. Most popularly, it grants users the ability to create and trade custom crypto tokens at ease. No extensive smart contracts are needed, rather the currencies can be run via scripts off user accounts built on the Waves blockchain.

Why the crazy price action?

The chart below, plotting the market cap of WAVES since the start of the year, requires only a glance to realise how unusual the price action here has been.

The March boom was caused by a few variables. Anticipation over the Waves 2.0 upgrade. The announcement of a $150 million fund to boost applications and protocols running on its blockchain. Additionally, the below tweet re-affirming Waves’ founder Sasha Ivanov as Ukrainian seemed to also provide some impetus.

I am from Zaporozhye, Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/NwsYRztjr0

— Sasha Ivanov 🌊 (1 ➝ 2) (@sasha35625) February 27, 2022

But why the staggering fall since, down 93% from the peak? The most concerning was analysis circulating on Twitter that the team were involved in manipulating the price of its native token through its own DeFi lending protocol Vires.finance. It is important to note that Ivanov dismissed these as false, instead laying the blame on Alameda for manipulating price while simultaneously launching a hostile media campaign to induce panic selling in the markets.

WAVES is the biggest ponzi in crypto

It has recklessly engineered price spikes by borrowing USDC at 35% to buy its own token

Continuous WAVES market cap growth is needed to keep the system stable

WAVES will eventually crash and USDN will break with it

You’re on notice🧵

— 0xHamZ (@0xHamz) March 31, 2022

Get your popcorn ready: @AlamedaResearch manipulates $waves price and organizes FUD campaigns to trigger panic selling.

I hope I caught your attention. Follow me.

— Sasha Ivanov 🌊 (1 ➝ 2) (@sasha35625) April 3, 2022

USDN De-Pegging

Either way, the debate quelled enthusiasm for the token, which was reflected in the price. That all got worse when, and stop me if this sounds familiar, a stablecoin started de-pegging. USDN is the coin in question, and works similarly to Waves as UST did to Luna.

Measures by Ivanov to fight back against a de-pegging event were controversial – reducing liquidation thresholds, limiting borrowing and instilling max APRs. Amid the furore, the Waves token has continued to fall, however, while the liquidity in the Vires.finance protocol has done the same.

USDN is currently depegging and waves founder Sasha Ivanov is desperately trying to manipulate the price back up by blocking borrows on https://t.co/6oqUv09F2h (aave for waves). Here’s why I have a short position on $Waves. 🧵

(Obligatory not financial advice dyor)

— irfan (@irfshaik7) April 4, 2022

Now, the team has released a proposal to revamp the approach and recover faith in USDN following the de-pegging, down to as low as 75 cents last month, and still trading below 97 cents at the time of writing.

Revamp

USDN is currently backed by roughly 40 million WAVES which are leased to two generating nodes. Half of the generated WAVES leasing profit is sent as rewards to USDN stakers and the other 50% gets sent to the smart contract to increase the USDN reserves.

The team is striving to decentralise and solidify the peg control mechanism, and therefore seeking crypto investors and community members “who are willing to run their own nodes for the needs of Neutrino to improve the reliability of the system and make their own interest”.

• The addition of participants will be gradual and on a one-by-one basis.
• Maximum participants cannot exceed 80.
• To begin, each participating node will get 1 million WAVES in leasing, with this amount changing in the future with the possibility of additional participants.
• Participants will be combined in groups of 10 addresses to simplify the management of the leased amounts.

Phase two of the program will provide the community the chance to govern the decentralisation through voting.

Conclusion

Whether this will re-instil confidence among the community following the de-pegging remains to be seen. The meltdown of the UST stablecoin obviously sent shockwaves through the entire space, but with USDN possessing so many parallels, the pain was more pronounced here than elsewhere.  On the bright side, the Waves team recognised there was action required and is now acting accordingly. If they can learn from Terra’s errors and make the necessary adjustments, there could be a rebound. If not, all bets are off. 

It will be an interesting one to follow.

The post What’s happening with Waves’ rollercoaster 2022 price action? appeared first on CoinJournal.

Tron has had a spectacular month in May even as other cryptocurrencies have pulled back and others crashed. The TRX token is trading at $0.081, which is about 30% above the lowest level this month. As a result, its total market cap has risen to about $7.6 billion, making it the 13th biggest coin in the world.

Tron’s successes in May

Tron has seen its ecosystem grow rapidly in May. A good way to look at this is to view the performance of its DeFi ecosystem. According to DeFi Llama, Tron’s total value locked has jumped to more than $5.6 billion. 

This growth has made it the third-biggest player in the industry after Ethereum and BNB. The most successful projects in its ecosystem are JustLend, JustStables, and SunSwap. As such, investors now believe that the ecosystem will continue growing in the future.

The other reason why the Tron price has done well this month has been its newly launched stablecoin known as USDD. According to CoinGecko, the USDD token moved from zero to over $576 million. This makes it the 89th biggest coin in the world.

Still, USDD poses the biggest risk to Tron’s ecosystem. Like TerraUSD, USDD is an algorithmic stablecoin that looks like a UST clone. It is not backed by any real assets like the US dollar. Instead, its stability is based on algorithmic rebalancing.

As a result, USDD faces the same risks that UST and Neutrino faced before. In other words, since there are no assets backing the stablecoin, if it crashes, holders will lose all their tokens. 

Tron price prediction

Turning to the four-hour chart, we see that the TRX price has been in a strong bullish trend lately. This rebound has been supported by the 25-day and 50-day moving averages. It has also retested the important support level at $0.0800, which was the highest level on March 31st. 

A closer look shows that the coin is forming a cup and handle pattern, which is usually a sign of a bullish continuation. Therefore, there is a likelihood that the coin will keep rising as bulls target the key resistance level at $0.09, which is the upper side of the cup.

The post TRX: Tron price has rebounded but USDD is a major risk appeared first on CoinJournal.

The cryptocurrency market could end the week in losses as the bearish trend continues.

The cryptocurrency market has been in a bearish trend over the past few days. Since the start of the week, the market has shed more than $100 billion.

The latest bearish performance saw the market lose more than 5% in the last 24 hours, and the total market cap now stands above $1.1 trillion. The bulls would be forced to ensure that the total cryptocurrency market cap stays above $1 trillion in the coming days.

Bitcoin remains the number one cryptocurrency globally in terms of market cap. BTC has lost more than 2% of its value in the last 24 hours and currently trades above $28k per coin.

Over the past seven days, Bitcoin has lost nearly 4% of its value. The leading cryptocurrency reached an all-time high of $69k in November 2021. However, it has lost more than 50% of its value since then.

If the bearish trend continues, Bitcoin could drop into the $27k zone over the weekend.

Key levels to watch

The BTC/USD 4-hour chart is bearish as Bitcoin has been underperforming since the start of the week. The technical indicators show that the leading cryptocurrency is currently struggling.

The MACD line is below the neutral zone and currently reads -32, indicating a bearish sentiment in the market. The 14-day relative strength index of 41 shows that Bitcoin could soon enter the oversold region if the current market momentum is maintained.

At press time, BTC is trading at $28,987. If the bearish trend continues, Bitcoin could slip below the first major resistance level at $28,109 before the end of the day. If there is a massive sell-off, BTC could be forced to defend the second major resistance at $27,649 over the next few days.

However, if the bulls regain control, Bitcoin could attempt to regain its position of around $30k over the next few hours or days. 

The post Bitcoin could dip below the $28k resistance level soon appeared first on CoinJournal.

UST has skyrocketed over the past 24 hours. The coin is getting closer and closer to regaining its dollar peg. The surge comes as Terra prepares for a reboot. The project is planning a major airdrop over the coming days. Here are some pointers:

• UST had crashed nearly 90% against the dollar after it de-pegged

• The coin has recovered and is around $0.8 on the dollar

• However, UST continues to experience massive volatility for a stablecoin.

Data Source: TradingView 

Will UST regain its peg?

Well, it is possible in fact, based on the recovery we have seen over the last two weeks, it won’t be a surprise if the stablecoin finally does it. But that’s not really the most critical point. Stablecoins are supposed to be “stable”. However, the kind of volatility we have seen in UST is just massive. 

Even if the coin was to hit the $1 mark, it is likely to keep falling up and down for the foreseeable future. This will likely keep investors away. Also, this intermittent surge is probably driven by short-term buyers. These are typically investors who are trying to cash in on the latest Terra reboot. They will obviously take their profits, and UST will crash again. 

So, while there is a real path for UST to hit $1, staying there will be an uphill task. Even if Terra manages to reboot successfully, restoring investor confidence in UST will be very hard in the near term.

How to trade UST?

The best way to trade UST is to focus on short-term volatility. There will be opportunities to buy dips and cash out. As of now, the coin is rallying and could get very close to the $1 mark. 

When it does, short it. But good luck finding exchanges that are willing to process that trade. Do not hold UST for the long term unless it consolidates at $1 for a few weeks.

The post UST skyrockets as Terra’s 2.0 airdrop nears appeared first on CoinJournal.