Here is why SAND is up by more than 13% in the last 24 hours

The cryptocurrency market has performed positively for the third consecutive day this week.

The cryptocurrency market is performing positively after adding 1% to its value in the last 24 hours. The total market cap remains above $900 billion as Bitcoin and the others perform well.

Bitcoin has maintained its price above $20k after adding more than 1% to its value. In the last seven days, BTC is up by less than 1%. 

Ether continues to eye the $1,200 resistance level after going up by less than 1% in the last 24 hours.

However, SAND, the native token of The Sandbox metaverse, is the best performer amongst the top 40 cryptocurrencies by market cap. SAND has added more than 13% to its value in the last 24 hours and currently trades above $1.2 per coin.

SAND’s ongoing rally can be attributed to the launch of The Sandbox Bug Bounty program a few hours ago. 

According to the team, the bounty program is designed to get the community involved and reward users for reporting bugs on The Sandbox’s smart contracts already in production.

Key levels to watch

The SAND/USD 4-hour chart is positive as The Sandbox has been performing well in recent days. The technical indicators show that SAND is outperforming the broader cryptocurrency market at the moment.

The MACD line crossed into the positive zone earlier this week and has remained there as SAND has been rallying. 

Meanwhile, the 14-day relative strength index of 71 shows that SAND could soon enter the overbought region if the momentum continues. 

If the rally continues, SAND could surge past the $1.38 resistance level before the end of the day. An extended bullish performance could see SAND attempt to reach the $1.5 resistance point for the first time this month. However, it would need the support of the broader market to make such a move. 

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Cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The bear market is in full swing and some cryptocurrency companies are starting to feel the heat.

Cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital Ltd. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This latest development comes as the bear market begins affecting the activities of various cryptocurrency firms. 

The firm filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York. Per the filing, Voyager controls assets worth between $1 billion and $10 billion.

Furthermore, the firm has around 100,000 creditors at the time of filing the bankruptcy. 

This latest development comes just a week after Voyager issued a notice of default to crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). 3AC had borrowed 15,250 bitcoins and  $350 million in stablecoin USDC from Voyager, bringing the total sum to $675 million. 

Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich commented that;

“While I strongly believe in this future, the prolonged volatility and contagion in the crypto markets over the past few months and the default of Three Arrows Capital require us to take deliberate and decisive action now. The chapter 11 process provides an efficient and equitable mechanism to maximize recovery.”

3AC’s troubles began a few weeks ago when the cryptocurrency market recorded huge losses following the $60 billion collapse of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and its sister cryptocurrency Luna.

The cryptocurrency hedge fund held about $200 million in LUNA and also suffered losses with its $40 million investment in staked ether (stETH). Despite having over $3 billion in assets under management, the losses that followed UST’s crash severely affected 3AC. 

Following Three Arrows’ failure to meet margin calls, Voyager obtained credit lines from the investment branch of Alameda Research. The firm obtained two lines of credit from Alameda Ventures, $200 million in cash and USD Coin and 15,000 bitcoins.

Voyager joins a list of cryptocurrency firms currently struggling to stay afloat. BlockFi and Celsius are some of the leading crypto lenders in the ecosystem and have struggled to continue operations as the bear market bites harder.

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XRP turns bullish and has up to 18% potential upsurge

  • Ripple’s XRP has gained by 4% in 24 hours.

  • Most cryptocurrencies are having relief rallies.

  • Technical indicators suggest that the XRP relief rally could continue in the short term.

After staging a bear market for a week, Ripple’s RP/USD is making a comeback. As of the time of writing, the cryptocurrency had returned more than 4% in the past 24 hours. There is no immediate trigger for the gains in XRP. However, a quick look into the crypto sector showed most cryptocurrencies are gaining. Bitcoin was up 6.28%, while Ethereum had returned at least 10%. So, was Tuesday’s gains a relief or a lasting rally?

Cryptocurrencies are known for their high volatility. Of late, they have become pegged to macro-events, including policy actions by central banks. We do not view the current macro-events as positive yet. It then follows that the gains posted in the last 24 hours are merely speculative. They do not indicate a long-term comeback in cryptocurrencies. Investors could still be looking for short-term opportunities in a beaten-down market. We believe that XRP is one of the cryptocurrencies that can offer short-term returns.

XRP stages a relief rally at a key support zone

Source – TradingView

From the technical outlook, XRP is bullish after retesting the support of $0.31. The 14-day and 21-day moving averages have joined the support, suggesting a short-term bull run. The MACD line crossed above the moving average line, confirming a bullish push. We believe XRP is set for further gains in the next few days. Investors should still monitor the trade as the market remains largely bearish. The potential targets are $0.34, a short-term resistance, and an established level of $0.38. 

Summary

XRP is gaining as sentiment improves in the crypto sector. The longer trend is still bearish. The cryptocurrency could continue rising but will find resistance at $0.34 and $0.38.

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BNB eyes breakout in ascending triangle as price suddenly turns bullish

  • BNB is the native token of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance

  • The token has witnessed a double-digit jump in trading volume as the price rallied.

  • BNB eyes a breakout from an ascending triangle pattern on the 4-hour chart

BNB/USD is the native token of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance. Being a utility coin of a crypto exchange of Binance magnitude makes BNB a key token. Investors could be looking at possible bottoms to buy BNB. 

Binance is ranked as the fifth cryptocurrency, just behind two stablecoins, Tether and USD Coin. The coin’s 24-hour trading volume is $1.26 billion, an increase of 77.40%. The trading volume is positive for the token despite the overall trend remaining a downtrend. The token has also risen by more than 8% in the same period. There is no significant driver for the gains, albeit the improving crypto sentiment. 

BNB maintains an uptrend along an ascending triangle pattern

Source – TradingView

BNB has an established resistance at $240. Since bottoming at $185, the token has been moving in a system of higher highs and higher lows. The price crashed each time it hit the resistance, forming an ascending triangle with the uptrend. At the current $228 price, BNB is retreating after hitting resistance. The RSI reading points to overbought conditions. However, moving averages reinforce a bullish view.

Two scenarios for BNB are likely in the coming days. The first is a breakout above the ascending triangle structure. We view this as the most likely outcome if crypto sentiment improves. The second potential outcome is a break below. The outcome is true if BNB breaks below the ascending trendline and fails resistance breakout. Investors should watch the two possible outcomes.

Summary

BNB is bullish but needs to break above the $240 resistance to go higher. Investors should watch the ascending triangle structure to evaluate the potential direction.

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NFT games on brink of overtaking PC games in popularity

Key Takeaways

  • Within about a year, NFT games are now on the brink of overtaking PC games in popularity

  • Compared to conventional PC games, only 10 games are more popular than top NFT editions

  • $2.5 billion raised by blockchain games in Q1 of 2022, on course for $10 billion this year compared to $4 billion for 2021

  • While prices of gaming tokens have been in freefall alongside wider market, user growth and investment has been stout

With NFTs crumbling as the market continues in full risk-off mode, I decided to dive into the statistics behind a sector I believe is one of the most intriguing use cases for this novel technology. 

Sure, lots of NFTs are overpriced and can be attributed to bear market hysteria, but I have always felt that the marriage between gaming and NFTs is a natural one. Players pour so much time into playing certain games, as well as money into in-game additions, that defining ownership and maintaining a historical record on-chain seems to make sense. 

So what do the numbers say about NFT gaming adoption compared to conventional gaming, and do they paint a more bullish picture than the freefalling token prices? 

One year growth

In terms of active users, the growth in the last year has been meteoric for NFT games. A report from DappRadar calculated the growth in blockchain gaming as 2000% since Q1 of last year. 

Also in Q1 of this year, $2.5 billion was raised for blockchain games and other metaverse projects. While this came before the ugly downturn of recent months, it’s still promising given $4 billion was raised in all of 2021, a period when the bull market was in full swing. That puts gaming and metaverse projects on course to raise $10 billion through 2022. So, even a hugely conservative 60% cut to funding would place it above 2021 levels. 

NFT gaming users

The funding is stout, but so too are the users. A look at the below graph showing the top 10 NFT games confirms that the sector is starting to gain mainstream appeal and capture more and more unique users per month.

To put the above numbers in context, a neat current benchmark for NFT games is that of PC games. The below graph shows the top 10 most played PC games on the Steam platform. While the data for total users in a month is more challenging to obtain, the below graph presents the average number of concurrent players over the last 30 days (rather than total unique users per month as per the above graph). 

Assuming that 5% of active players are online at any given time, the below graph then compares how NFT games stack up to the most popular PC games, with NFT games in blue and conventional PC games in orange. 

This shows that while NFT games are yet to overtake PC games, it is extremely close to occurring. Only the top 10 PC games are capturing more users than the top NFT game, Alien Worlds, and the margin is very narrow, with Alien Worlds only about 1,000 users off. 

Yet despite the bullish growth in numbers, these games are being brandished as fads due to the overall pullback in crypto markets. Additionally,  the below graph for two of the biggest tokens – Alien Worlds and Axie Infinity – show that the freefall has been stark after explosive run-ups last year. 

But in looking past the prices of such tokens (a large part of which would have been due to speculation) and instead digging into user growth and the investment being put into these platforms, the future still appears bright. 

It’s a reminder that despite the bearish sentiment in the markets, there is very real technology here that is making a difference and disrupting industries. To be on the brink of the top 10 PC games already is quite the achievement, given the nascent nature of the space. 

As for whether these tokens are good investments at current prices? Well, that’s an issue for another day. 

Sources

https://dappradar.com/blog/dappradar-x-bga-games-report-q1-2022

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1266486/blockchain-games-user-number/

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