SOL price soars after VanEck files for Solana ETF

  • Solana (SOL) price rose more than 8% after news that asset manager VanEck had filed for a Solana ETF.
  • The VanEck Solana Trust is the first SOL exchange-traded fund application in the US.

SOL, the native token of the Solana blockchain, rose sharply on Thursday as the market reacted to news of VanEck filing for a spot Solana ETF.

According to data from CoinGecko, the price of Solana moved from a low of $138 to above $150, adding more than 8% in intraday gains.

Solana’s trading volume also spiked, increasing by more than 26% to over $2.8 billion.

VanEck files for Solana ETF

On June 27, VanEck, an asset manager that also offers a spot Bitcoin ETF and has its spot Ethereum ETF on the verge of trading debut, made history as the first firm in the US to file for a Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF).

The firm filed for its VanEck Solana Trust with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), noting in a statement that the company believes SOL to be a commodity as are BTC and ETH.

“SOL’s decentralized nature, high utility, and economic feasibility align with the characteristics of other established digital commodities, reinforcing our belief that SOL may be a valuable commodity with use cases for investors, builders, and entrepreneurs looking for alternatives to the duopoly app stores,” Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of digital asset research, said in a statement posted on X.

The community’s reaction suggests this could be another positive development in the crypto space. SEC’s approval of BTC ETFs in January and the recent not to spot Ether ETFs have analysts pointing at a maturing crypto ecosystem.

Recently, the firm 3iQ became the first to file for a Solana ETF with an application in Canada.

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Solana rolls out new features for trading Crypto on regular social media apps

  • Solana rolled out the Blinks and Action feature, allowing users to buy crypto, tip vendors, and transact directly on the blockchain from regular websites and social media apps.
  • The Solana Foundations says “Actions” will allow developers to integrate Solana ecosystem transactions into regular websites and apps.

The Solana Foundation, in collaboration with Dialect, an on-chain smart messaging protocol, built “Actions and Blinks” (also called “Actions”), a set of features that allow users to interact with the Solana blockchain directly from a website,  popular social media applications, or QR code.

The feature aims to bring Solana closer to everyday users by allowing developers to integrate virtually all transactions into websites and applications that regular people already use.

Actions and blinks on Solana allow any website and application on the internet to be a distribution point for on-chain interactions – furthering the goal of mainstream adoption,” said Jon Wong, the Solana Foundation’s head of ecosystem engineering.

“From your X feed, you can buy an NFT, tip a creator, receive money, vote, stake, swap, and so much more,” says Chris Osborn, founder of Dialect.

Popular Solana wallets like Phantom and Backpack will immediately support the new features, while others can integrate by following the instructions in the chain’s developer documentation.

Applications like Telegram trading bots, which simplify the on-chain trading process, have been successful and serve as a reference for the viability of features that plug into Web2.

While Solana is not the first to roll out extended blockchain functionality on social media, it is the first to plug directly into Web2 social media.

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Maker price surges 7% amid $1.35 million audit contest

  • Maker price rose more than 7% to lead altcoin gainers alongside Kaspa and Injective.
  • Gains for MKR came as new upside momentum emerged amid a massive $1.35 million Endgame audit contest.
  • MakerDAO said in a recent post that blockchain security platform Sherlock will the host the bug hunt contest from July 8 to August 5, 2024.

Maker (MKR) price is up on the day as the cryptocurrency alongside Kaspa (KAS) and Injective (INJ) post top gains among the leading 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

CoinMarketCap data shows the MakerDAO governance token’s price has increased 7% in the past 24 hours.

On Wednesday, MKR traded to lows of $2,335. However, a significant uptick in buying pressure has seen it surge past the resistance at $2,400 to reach intraday highs of $2,561 on Thursday morning.

As of writing, Maker has a 24-hour trading volume of over $116 million, with this rising 47% in this period. Meanwhile, the market cap has increased 7% to over $2.3 billion.

Why is MKR price surging today?

While most of the altcoin market continues to battle downside pressure, Maker appears to have benefited from a new dose of optimism after a major announcement by MakerDAO on Tuesday.

That had to do with the official launch of the Endgame audit contest, a bug-finding contest that will see participants earn from a massive $1.35 million rewards pot. In the announcement, MakerDAO said the contest will be on blockchain security platform Sherlock.

“DeFi builders are invited to participate in the largest bug-finding contest in the space, with a total of 1,350,000 DAI in rewards,” the Maker team said in a post on X.

Sherlock calls this “the biggest audit contest ever”.

According to MakerDAO, the contest targets a community collaboration towards enhancing the blockchain platform’s security for Endgame products ahead of Maker’s Launch Season. The bug-hunt will run from July 8 to August 5, 2024.

MKR reached its all-time high price of $6,292 in May 2021.

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Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital is mining Kaspa (KAS)

  • Marathon Digital (MARA) has disclosed its mined 93 million KAS worth $15 million.
  • The Bitcoin miner says the operation is part of its diversification of its revenue streams.
  • Marathon to deploy full 60 petahash of KAS power in Q3, 2024.

Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Marathon Digital has announced that it now mines Kaspa (KAS), a layer-1 proof-of-work (PoW) coin.

In a press release published today, Marathon Digital said the mining operations had seen the company mine 93 million KAS as of June 25. The value of the mined Kaspa tokens was around $15 million at the time.

Marathon diversifies with Kaspa (KAS) mining

According to Marathon Digital, the move to launch KAS mining is part of the company’s quest to diversify its revenue streams. Adam Swick, Marathon’s chief growth officer, said:

“By mining Kaspa, we are able to create a stream of revenue that is diversified from Bitcoin, and that is directly tied to our core competencies in digital asset compute,”

Swick commented further on the decision, noting:

“Because of our existing infrastructure, our unique relationships with hardware manufacturers, our strong balance sheet, and the expertise of our team, Marathon was uniquely positioned to mine Kaspa and to capitalize on the higher margins that exist for those who can deploy Kaspa ASICs today.

Kaspa is 5th-largest proof-of-work coin

Kaspa currently ranks as the world’s fifth-largest PoW coin by market cap with over $4.1 billion.

According to CoinMarketCap, top PoW coins above Kaspa by market cap are Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin and Bitcoin.

As of writing, the cryptocurrency ranks 28th overall by market cap and was seeing over $56 million in daily trading volume. Kaspa has a maximum supply of 28.7 billion KAS, with circulating supply currently at 24 billion KAS. The network’s block reward is currently 103.83 KAS.

While Bitcoin produces one block every 10 minutes, Kaspa’s BlockDAG mechanism allows for one block per second, which means faster transactions.

Marathon’s Kaspa mining power

Marathon first looked into Kaspa mining in May 2023, and deployed its first ASICs for the altcoin in September. Scaling of this new mining operation followed and the company has acquired 60 petahash of Kaspa ASICs.

ASIC Miner Value estimates that these machines can generate profits of up to 95% margins based on the current KAS price and network difficulty.

Marathon currently has 50% of its Kaspa mining capacity (30 petahash) in operation at the company’s facilities in Texas. Meanwhile, it expects to have the remaining capacity fully operational in Q3 2024.

The price of KAS was 9% up in 24 hours, trading around $0.175 on Wednesday at 5:13 pm ET.

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Cryptocurrencies waver as focus shifts to BitBot token claim

  • Cryptocurrency prices have crashed hard in the past few weeks.

  • The crash happened as Bitcoin supply increases and as hopes of a Fed cut increases.

  • BitBot will start its token claim event on Thursday.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices remained under pressure on Wednesday as investors waited for the next important catalyst. After rising to $62,000, Bitcoin dropped to $60,000, triggering a reversal among most altcoins. Some of the top laggards were the likes of Blur, Mother Iggy, Turbo, and Apu Apustaja.

Why cryptocurrencies are crashing

There are three main reasons why cryptocurrencies are retreating. First, the drop is mostly because there have been no major catalyst to push the coins higher in the past few months. The most important events have already happened this year.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has already approved spot Bitcoin ETFs while the halving event has already happened. There are signs that the agency will approve spot Ethereum ETFs soon. 

Second, they have dived because of the ongoing Bitcoin selling pressure. The German government has dumped substantial amounts of Bitcoin in the past few days. Similarly, many exchanges and Mt. Gox have started selling coins. Moves in the Bitcoin market tend to have an impact on other altcoins.

Finally, there are signs that the Fed will be among the last central banks to slash interest rates because US inflation has held quite steady in the past few months. The headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) has remained above 3% and has struggled to move to the Fed’s target of 2%.

There are other reasons why these coins have crashed. Technically, Bitcoin has formed a death cross, which is a popular bearish sign while the volume of Tether transactions has retreated. 

Attention turns to BitBot

Amidst this gloom, investors have turned to BitBot, one of the most popular pre-sale coins in the industry. The developers raised over $4.3 million in its token sale as hopes of its rally continued. 

BitBot will be in the spotlight on Thursday as the developers open the network for claiming. Those who participated in the token sale will be required to first connect their wallets from the BitBot website. They will need to use the wallet they used to purchase the BitBot tokens.

https://x.com/Official_Bitbot/status/1805902031997075804

After that, one will need to click the claim token in BitBot token and then verify their Telegram account. Finally, one will need to complete the claim process by clicking the verification button.

Analysts believe that BitBot has a great future because of what the network promises to do. For starters, BitBot aims to be the biggest Telegram trading bot in the industry. Users will be able to receive quality trading signals and alerts in a non custodial manner. You can find more about BitBot here.

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