Kategorie: Crypto Markets

The crypto market has seen some recovery today with the prices of the majority of cryptocurrencies registering significant price surges. Bitcoin (BTC) price had, for example, surged by more than 6% to trade above $20,600 at press time. Ethereum (ETH) price on the other hand had gained 14% over the last 24 hours to trade above $1,500.

In general, the global crypto market cap had increased by about 7.29% over the last 24 hours to about $996.83B.

Over $1.1 billion worth of liquidations

The sudden surge in crypto prices has resulted in massive liquidations mostly from traders who had shorted the bear market.

In total, contracts worth about $1.1 billion according to Coinalyze have been liquidated over the past 24 hours. Perpetual contracts accounted for a majority of the total liquidations with about $1 billion worth of liquidations. Futures contracts only saw liquidations worth about $6.8 million.

In terms of the type of trades, the bulk of these liquidations were from short positions which saw liquidations worth over $908.1 million in the last 24 hours with perpetual short positions seeing liquidations worth about $901.6 million.

Long positions from traders who mistimed the bull rally also saw their positions liquidated due to the return of volatility. In total, according to Coinalyze, about $142.1 million worth of long positions have been liquidated over the past 24 hours.

FTX sees the most liquidations

Crypto exchange FTX registered over $745 million in short liquidations and over $115 million in long liquidations. Binance follows in the second position with over $56 million in short liquidations and over $14 million in long liquidations.

OKX exchange has seen $39.58 million worth of short liquidations and $4.40 million worth of long liquidations. Bybit comes at position four with $31.30 million worth of short liquidations and $4.46 million worth of long liquidations.

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Seba Bank has launched a regulated Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) platform that will enable retail and institutional investors to store their Ethereum-based NFT collections like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes. The decline in the NFT market doesn’t seem to be much of a problem for the Swiss crypto-focused bank.

The bank however maintained that it has not integrated any NFT marketplace yet and that it will follow due diligence upon clients’ request before allowing custody for any NFT collection. It also clarified that the custody service is not restricted only to top NFT collections.

Seba Bank NFT custody platform features

The NFT custody platform will provide customers with secure storage of their NFTs without managing their private keys. Clients can integrate the custody platform into their bank accounts to include their NFTs in the total wealth portfolio and manage them just like any other of their assets.

The custody platform makes Seba Bank the first regulated bank to offer NFT custody and the bank sees a bright future for NFTs. Seba Bank is regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and has made significant steps into cryptocurrency.

A representative of the bank was quoted by a popular media outlet saying:

“We believe that in the coming years, digital assets, including NFTs, will gain adoption and will be increasingly accepted even by traditional finance operators.”

Seba’s NFT custody launch, however, comes amid a tough time for the NFT market which has seen its trading volume decline by as much as 98% since the beginning of the year and the weekly NFT trading volume decline by about 30%.

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Bitcoin ATM operator RockItCoin has today announced the acquisition of Tao Bitcoin, a regional ATM operator that operates about 56 machines most of which are located in the United States.

According to RockItCoin, the new acquisition is part of its strategy to find value and cooperation among smaller and regional players within the Bitcoin ATMs space. After the acquisition, the ATMs operated by RockItCoin are now about 1,900 machines across 44 US states.

According to the president of RockItCoin Ben Phillips, the company is likely to acquire more players in the coming months. Ben said:

“Where costs are increasing for many of the regional players, our existing networks, relationships and operations are poised for scalability.”

The issue of additional acquisitions was also echoed by the RockItCoin CEO and founder Michael Dalesandro who said:

“We are constantly on the lookout for ways to expand our footprint while continuing to serve our customers with convenient physical locations where they can safely and efficiently buy and sell cryptocurrency.”

Tao Bitcoin ATMs to be rebranded

Following the acquisition, Tao Bitcoin’s ATM machines will be rebranded to reflect RockItCoin.

According to Tao Bitcoin founders, John Taylor and Andrew Arterburn, Tao Bitcoin analyzed several offers before settling on the RockItCoin deal. The founders said that they settled on RockItCoin because “values closely aligned with our own.”

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Japan’s second-largest port city a designated National Special Strategic Zone Fukuoka city has announced its partnership with Astar Japan Lab to work on local Web3 use cases. The city wants to become a Web3 hub of Japan.

The collaboration was announced by Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe and Fukuoka Mayor Soichior Takashima at the “Myojo Waraku 2022” conference held in Fukuoka.

Astar Japan Lab

Astar Japan Lab was initiated by Japan’s number one blockchain Astar Network and it aims to develop innovative use cases on Astar.

More than 45 companies have so far partnered with Astar Labs to bring its vision to pass. These countries include Microsoft Japan, Amazon Japan, Dentsu, Hakuhodo, MUFG, SoftBank, Accenture Japan, and PwC Japan.

Following the announcement of the partnership, the founder of Astar Network Sota Watanabe said:

“We are excited to invite Fukuoka City to Astar Japan Lab. In the US, some cities like Maimi and New York have positive attitudes toward Web3 and crypto. We are going to work closely with Fukuoka City to attract more developers and more entrepreneurs on Astar Network. In addition, Fukuoka is also known as the national special strategic zone. We plan to work closely with the government and utilize Web3 use cases from Fukuoka to the entire Japan.”

Fukuoka City’s strategy to become the Web3 hub of Japan

The partnership with Astar Japan Lab puts Fukuoka City right on course to achieve its strategy of becoming Japan’s Web3 hub as well as attract globally competitive businesses.

Astar’s representatives are expected to regularly visit Fukuoka to educate the general public and identify new avenues for local businesses to expand in Astar Japan Lab. The local government of Fukuoka has also committed to supporting innovation and entrepreneurship within the emerging silicon valley of Japan.

Fukuoka City Mayor Soichior Takashima said:

“We have to do in the context of Web3 what large companies did for the world when Japan was strong. We believe it is important to move forward together with the government, Fukuoka City, and companies that represent Japan.”

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• The Polkadot co-founder Gavin Wood will remain as Chief Architect of Parity Technologies Ltd.

Gavin Wood, the co-founder of blockchain platform Polkadot, has stepped down as CEO of Parity Technologies Ltd.

Wood, who founded the blockchain infrastructure provider in 2015 alongside Aeron Buchanan, TJ Saw, Ken Kappler and Jutta Steiner, became CEO in late 2020. 

Wood ‘never coveted’ CEO role

In the company news update published Friday, Wood said he’s exiting the position as that’s not the role in which he feels he can give his best for the company. Indeed, he has “never” coveted the CEO role.

“Anyone who has worked with me knows where my heart lies. I’m a thinker, coder, designer and architect. Like many such people, I work best asynchronously; a great day is taking 10 hours straight to think out some problem, prototype something or collapse some disparate thoughts into an article. The role of CEO has never been one which I have coveted,” he said in the blog post.

Co-founder Björn Wagner takes over as CEO, with Wood continuing as Parity’s Chief Architect – a title he says is more befitting of his “desired workload”. He is also still Parity’s largest shareholder.

“I’ll be pointing my regained focus towards exploring how we can contribute to making Polkadot and Web3 more relevant to large swathes of the population,” he noted.

He expects the focus on Polkadot and Web3 to start with an effort to help the community build the chain-integrated social primitives he believes are critical to the vision of delivering “a true Web3 platform.” 

Wood’s footprint in the blockchain and crypto industry is massive, with him being co-founders of the world’s largest smart contracts platform Ethereum. Other than Polkadot, he also helped develop Kusama.

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