Trader Redeems $12.3M of Rocketpool's Staked Ether, Marking Largest Daily Burn

Decentralized crypto exchange Trader Joe is set to launch an upgraded version of its Liquidity Book, which will make it more efficient for depositors to add tokens to its liquidity pools. The upgrade, scheduled for release next week, will also introduce 'auto-pools' that will automatically manage depositors' active positions in high-yield liquidity pools to mitigate risk. Additionally, a new rewards program will be introduced to distribute tokens to participants in Trader Joe's concentrated liquidity. Trader Joe has $131.78 million in total value locked and has done over $520 million in trading volume since March 26, according to DefiLlama. The price of JOE was trading at 60 cents at press time. nnThe upgrade is intended to improve the on-chain trading experience and make it easier for depositors to contribute to Trader Joe's liquidity pools. The exchange currently has three implementations on Arbitrum, BNB Chain, and Avalanche, with the largest being on Avalanche. nnThe news comes as a report by Kaiko Data found that crypto liquidity is heavily concentrated on a handful of exchanges, with Uniswap and SushiSwap accounting for the majority of liquidity. However, Trader Joe's upgrade is aimed at improving the liquidity experience for depositors and mitigating risk through the use of auto-pools. nnThe Fed's next sharp pivot could come from a liquidity crunch, according to an economist, as the central bank's balance sheet shrinks and liquidity dries up. Bitcoin holds steady above $17,000, while Celsius is 'deeply insolvent,' according to the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation. nnOverall, Trader Joe's upgrade is a positive development for the decentralized exchange space and could attract more depositors and traders to the platform. The introduction of auto-pools and a new rewards program could also help to mitigate risk and improve the overall liquidity experience for users.Larger market participants are buying up the meme coin even as prices dunk, suggesting another leg up might be on the cards soon. Pepecoin (PEPE) traders remain unfazed by the recent price correction and are adding to their holdings in a move that suggests bullish price action for the tokens in the coming weeks. On-chain analytics tool Lookonchain said on Tuesday that three whales started to accumulate pepe tokens earlier this week amid a nearly 50% price cut. '3 whales started to buy $PEPE after the price dropped,' Lookonchain said in a tweet. '0x50C1 withdrew 1.4T $PEPE ($2.76M) from #Binance when the price was $0.000002054.' '0x2Baa bought 212B $PEPE($429K) with 223 $ETH($412K) at $0.000001942. 0x3AE8 bought 424B $PEPE($864K) with 450 $ETH($831K) at $0.000001957,' the firm added, pointing to each individual wallet holding. CoinGecko data shows PEPE has seen over $420 million traded in the past 24 hours as prices fell steeply before rebounding. The data further shows trading volumes have shifted from decentralized exchange Uniswap to crypto exchange Binance after the latter listed the tokens in its innovation zone last week. In the past 24 hours, Binance saw over $160 million worth of pepecoin trading compared to $55 million on Uniswap. A likely reason for this is more accessibility for retail traders and significantly lesser fees per trade on Binance – compared to an average of $35 per PEPE trade on Uniswap as of Wednesday, due to the network demand and a general fee spike. Elsewhere, DEXTools data shows pepe token holders crossed the 100,000 unique holders mark on Tuesday, implying continual buying activity despite a price decline and a possible reversal for the meme coin in the coming weeks. The largest pepecoin holders sit on unrealized profits of $4 million to as much as $9 million, the data show.The Klaytn Foundation, a key developer and maintainer of the Klaytn blockchain, is making changes to the network's governance system and token model. The Foundation will aid the transition to a wholly permissionless validator structure, provide opportunities for the general public to participate as block validators, and introduce a communication channel for community members to participate in decision-making processes. These changes are expected to enhance Klaytn's technical capabilities, revenue sustainability, and decentralization aspects, making KLAY more valuable. The Foundation will work alongside the Klaytn Governance Council (GC) to make these changes, with the GC having expanded decision-making authority over the Klaytn blockchain business. The Foundation will also strengthen governance transparency by disclosing GC voting agendas and statuses in real-time through Klaytn Square. These measures aim to prevent governance dramas like those seen in recent weeks, where decentralized exchange Uniswap faced contention among community members over allegedly skewed voting rights. The Klaytn Foundation will present a revamped tokenomics proposal to the GC starting Monday, including a proposal for handling uncirculated KLAY tokens in response to community feedback. Finalized agendas and proposals will be made public on February 28 alongside a technical roadmap for 2023.

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Jade Protocol Faces Calls to Liquidate $31M Token Treasury

Coco, a new crypto casino inspired by the Milady NFT project, has made a cracking debut on the Ethereum blockchain. According to etherscan data, the platform's native token (COCO) has surged to 8 cents, giving it a market capitalization of $8.8 million. The casino has already hit $36 million in transaction volume in the first 12 hours after its release. nnThe platform features a slot machine focused on popular memecoins pepe (PEPE) and dogecoin (DOGE), as well as three traditional casino table games in blackjack, baccarat, and casino hold'em. Coco brands itself as 'provably fair,' using the SHA256 algorithm to ensure that each game is tamper-proof. nnThe success of Coco has also had an impact on other crypto casinos, with Rollbit's native token (RLB) rising to 7 cents from 2 cents. The stable market this month has led to increased traction for crypto casinos like Rollbit and Coco. nnHowever, VanEck CEO Gabor Gurbacs does not think that Bitcoin ETFs will be approved by the SEC in May. He believes that the 'dominant narrative' driving Bitcoin's 2024 rally is not the ETFs, but rather the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies and the growth of decentralized finance. nnMeanwhile, the supply of inactive Bitcoin for a year has dropped to an 18-month low, according to Glassnode. This could be a sign that the current Bitcoin rally may continue after the halving. nnIn other news, Eisenberg's $110 million fraud trial has opened, and the Foundation for the Study of Innovative Technologies (FSI) has called for consistency in stablecoin regulation. nnAs the wider crypto market continues to stagnate with a lack of volatility, crypto traders are frequently turning their attention to on-chain betting platforms like last week's phenomenon; hamster racing. The success of Coco and Rollbit suggests that crypto casinos may be the next big thing in the cryptocurrency space.Chainlink's LINK token has seen a significant surge in value this week, with wealthy investors swapping ether for link following the release of the company's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). On-chain data shows that some whales have added upward of $6 million to their link holdings, lifting prices as much as 6%. The increased demand has helped extend weekly gains to over 25%. CCIP is designed to help build cross-chain applications and services, and is now available to all developers across five testnets. Prices of other oracle protocols, such as Band Protocol and Uma, have also risen in the past 24 hours. Oracles are blockchain-based services that fetch data from outside a blockchain, and Chainlink's CCIP is a significant development in the space. The article is well-written and provides a clear overview of the current state of the market and the impact of Chainlink's release.DWF Labs, a market maker and investment firm, has invested $16 million in Web3 company RACA to help the latter continue its goal of becoming an expansive Web3 gaming ecosystem. RACA, which was founded in 2021, has evolved from managing the NFT collection of Elon Musk's mom to a Steam-like blockchain gaming ecosystem. The funding will help RACA expand its offerings, which already include a R3 game infrastructure, a SimCity-esque sandbox game, a social party game, a cross-game DID wallet, and a NFT marketplace. DWF Labs has emerged as one of the most active investors during the crypto bear market, with recent investments including a $20 million fundraise for derivatives trading platform Synthetix and a $40 million raise for AI-focused crypto protocol Fetch.ai. The RACA token was about flat over the past 24 hours at $0.0001946 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.

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Aventus Slides 4.2% on Low Volume as Token Split Plans Shelved

Shibarium network's native test network, Puppynet, is seeing rising activity ahead of a release on the main network planned for later this year. Blockchain explorer data shows the Puppynet testnet has processed more than 700,000 transactions from almost 200,000 unique wallets after its launch on March 11. Much of that activity came in the past week, with more than 114,000 transactions over a 24-hour period on March 28-29. While Puppynet's activity has been brisk so far, upcoming features may boost the value of SHIB and BONE, two Shibarium ecosystem tokens. However, there's still reason for caution. Some might argue that the Shibarium upgrade's financial impact has been underwhelming, but the beta test network Puppynet reaching an important milestone of 200,000 wallets in just over a week is still considered remarkable. Moreover, Unification, the firm behind Shibarium, is working on an all-in-one wallet solution that will enable native two-way asset transfers, staking/delegating, and include a ShibaSwap integration module. These developments suggest that the value of SHIB and BONE could witness a near-term price spike, but given the current macroeconomic climate, any such movements will likely be short-lived. Testnets, such as Puppynet, are blockchain networks designed for testing purposes and mimic activity on the mainnet, allowing developers to debug any issues and monitor network activity ahead of a wider release. Shibarium is touted as a major development for the Shiba Inu ecosystem, which originally launched as a meme coin but has since been a serious blockchain project. Shibarium is a layer 2 blockchain that reduces bottlenecks with scaling and data, and is expected to focus on metaverse and gaming applications, especially as the non-fungible-token sector is expected to heat up in the coming years. Edited by Parikshit Mishra.A new report by on-chain analytics firm Santiment suggests that pepecoin (PEPE) may face challenges in its rise to the top of meme coins due to the absence of retail investors. Despite its stellar rise to a $1.5 billion market cap in a few weeks, pepecoin's trading volume of $2 billion is significantly lower than that of shiba inu (SHIB) and dogecoin (DOGE) during their peak. The report notes that retail participation in the market for PEPE is far less than what DOGE and SHIB experienced in previous years, which could result in dwindling volumes for meme coin projects among retail traders. However, PEPE's social volume within the crypto media is on par with DOGE and SHIB during their peak periods. Some pepecoin holders remain bullish on the token's potential, citing its popularity among influential Crypto Twitter users and the general populace. Despite the challenges, the report suggests that PEPE has untapped potential for growth when overall market conditions are better.The Dfinity Foundation, a significant contributor to the development of the Internet Computer network, has issued ckBTC, a liquid and cost-efficient 'twin' token backed on a 1:1 basis with bitcoin (BTC). This development brings layer-2 capabilities to Bitcoin, making it faster and cheaper to transact without compromising security. Unlike wrapped tokens controlled by a centralized entity, ckBTC uses canisters – smart contracts for asset transfers – and doesn't require intermediaries or risky cross-chain bridges. With fees set at just 0.0000001 ckBTC, or a few cents, users can enjoy fast and affordable transactions. This development comes as Bitcoin network activity surges, with layer 2 protocols such as Stacks seeing increased demand. The article highlights the potential of ckBTC to revolutionize BTC transactions and unlock new use cases for the Bitcoin network.

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Arbitrum-Based FactorDAO Releases Staking Service, Addresses Crypto Twitter Rumors

Dogecoin futures have set record highs after Twitter adopted the token's dog logo, with open interest reaching all-time highs. The surge in open interest suggests high amounts of leveraged bets on dogecoin, which could lead to steep volatility in the short term. The current move is unlikely to be sustained, as meme coin pumps may generally suggest bullishness amongst retailers but are not indicative of a long-term trend. The stablecoin-margined contracts are better suited to risk-averse traders and for hedging, while coin-margined contracts are preferred by aggressive traders during bull runs. Funding rates are periodic payments made by traders based on the difference between prices in the futures and spot markets, and participants utilize sophisticated strategies to collect funding rates while hedging losses due to token movements.DWF Labs, a market maker and investment firm, has invested $16 million in Web3 company RACA to help the latter continue its goal of becoming an expansive Web3 gaming ecosystem. RACA, which was founded in 2021, has evolved from managing the NFT collection of Elon Musk's mom to a Steam-like blockchain gaming ecosystem. The funding will help RACA expand its offerings, which already include a R3 game infrastructure, a SimCity-esque sandbox game, a social party game, a cross-game DID wallet, and a NFT marketplace. DWF Labs has emerged as one of the most active investors during the crypto bear market, with recent investments including a $20 million fundraise for derivatives trading platform Synthetix and a $40 million raise for AI-focused crypto protocol Fetch.ai. The RACA token was about flat over the past 24 hours at $0.0001946 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.Coco, a new crypto casino inspired by the Milady NFT project, has made a cracking debut on the Ethereum blockchain. According to etherscan data, the platform's native token (COCO) has surged to 8 cents, giving it a market capitalization of $8.8 million. The casino has already hit $36 million in transaction volume in the first 12 hours after its release. nnThe platform features a slot machine focused on popular memecoins pepe (PEPE) and dogecoin (DOGE), as well as three traditional casino table games in blackjack, baccarat, and casino hold'em. Coco brands itself as 'provably fair,' using the SHA256 algorithm to ensure that each game is tamper-proof. nnThe success of Coco has also had an impact on other crypto casinos, with Rollbit's native token (RLB) rising to 7 cents from 2 cents. The stable market this month has led to increased traction for crypto casinos like Rollbit and Coco. nnHowever, VanEck CEO Gabor Gurbacs does not think that Bitcoin ETFs will be approved by the SEC in May. He believes that the 'dominant narrative' driving Bitcoin's 2024 rally is not the ETFs, but rather the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies and the growth of decentralized finance. nnMeanwhile, the supply of inactive Bitcoin for a year has dropped to an 18-month low, according to Glassnode. This could be a sign that the current Bitcoin rally may continue after the halving. nnIn other news, Eisenberg's $110 million fraud trial has opened, and the Foundation for the Study of Innovative Technologies (FSI) has called for consistency in stablecoin regulation. nnAs the wider crypto market continues to stagnate with a lack of volatility, crypto traders are frequently turning their attention to on-chain betting platforms like last week's phenomenon; hamster racing. The success of Coco and Rollbit suggests that crypto casinos may be the next big thing in the cryptocurrency space.

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Block Demand Leads to Fee Spike as Bitcoin-Based Meme Coins Flourish

AllianceBlock, a blockchain-agnostic platform designed to link traditional (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), has signed a deal to add business data from Crunchbase to its ecosystem. The deal is Crunchbase's first foray into the crypto market. The firm's data, which includes funding rounds as well as information on earnings, will initially be available to AllianceBlock’s Data Tunnel users. The tunnel is a tool that lets users publish, share and consume data in a variety of formats. nnThe agreement follows AllianceBlock's recent deal with investment firm ABO Digital to offer institutional and retail investors a series of tokenized investment products. nnThe AllianceBlock token (ALBT) plunged by 51% last month after Bonq, a decentralized borrowing protocol, was struck with an exploit worth around $5 million. AllianceBlock responded by suspending trading of the token, taking a snapshot before issuing a new token to replace the legacy ALBT. nnAllianceBlock have since then resolved the issue and introduced a new token Nexera (NXRA), which has about $46 million of market-cap, according to CoinGecko data. nn'The buying and selling of data is a multibillion-dollar growth industry that shows no signs of slowing down,' said Rachid Ajaja, CEO and co-founder of AllianceBlock. 'However, until now, decentralized and centralized data providers and users have operated in siloes, unable to interact.'Arbitrum-based asset management protocol FactorDAO has released its much-awaited staking service, days after ending a token sale on the decentralized exchange Camelot. The move comes as the project faces rumors on Crypto Twitter alleging that part of its code was 'copied' from other crypto projects. nnFactorDAO's pseudonymous founder Kurapika has hit back on the claims, telling CoinDesk that the allegations were started by an anonymous Crypto Twitter user referring to minor documentation mistakes accidentally left in Factor's technical documents. The project's code is brand-new, and the team is not sure what 'copied code' means in an open-source environment. nnDespite the tremors, Factor has focused on releasing its staking and vaults services for users in the past week. Staking refers to locking up one's tokens to participate and help maintain the security of that network's blockchain in turn for rewards. Factor will take a percentage of the deposit, withdrawal, transaction, vault management, and performance fees and redistributes 50% to FCTR stakers, and 50% to its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). nnFCTR stakers will, therefore, earn yields on staking their tokens as liquidity to the platform while the platform will use the increased liquidity to offer even more products to potential users. Users who lock tokens for up to four years will receive the highest yields, the highest percentage of governance rights, and a higher amount of vested factor (veFCTR) – a token issued to users who lock their FCTR on the staking platform. nnFCTR sees volatile trading last week, with the token launch on Camelot prompting several Arbitrum users to criticize the initial high market capitalization and overall issuance mechanism. Factor ended up raising $7.5 million from 4,000 unique wallets, but the final pool of money raised was equally distributed with the total number of issued tokens to determine the initial price of FCTR in the open market. However, these tokens were almost immediately dumped on the open market on Sunday, falling to as low as 44 cents, DEXTools data shows. Buying pressure after the initial dump saw tokens regain the pre-sale price of 75 cents on Monday morning, but have since seen a gradual sell-off to just over 58 cents at writing time on Tuesday. nnUPDATE (Feb.28, 12:11 UTC): Adds comments from Factor founder and clarifies the rumors.Maple Finance, a blockchain-based crypto lending protocol, is preparing to launch a new lending pool that invests in U.S. Treasury bonds. The pool will allow accredited investors and corporate treasuries based outside of the U.S. to invest their stablecoin holdings in U.S. Treasury bonds and earn a yield. The protocol expects demand for the pool due to crypto investors looking for yields in traditional assets such as government bonds, while trust in banking facilities has decreased after recent bank implosions in the U.S. Maple is also working on additions to its lending offerings, including a new feature called Maple Prime, which will let borrowers actively manage their collateral positions. The protocol plans to expand into open-term lending, which will let borrowers open credit lines to borrow without a maturity date. The developments come as the platform is recovering from a disastrous year for crypto lending that was plagued with insolvencies of borrowers. The MPL token rallied 23% ahead of the community call. The total value locked (TVL) on the protocol dropped to $40 million from $930 million last May, per data by DefiLlama. The MPL token plummeted to as low as $4 from an all-time high of $68.2 last April.

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South Korean Traders Flock to SXP and ICX Tokens, Trading Volumes and Prices Surge

Jade Protocol, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that sources early-stage crypto deals, is facing calls to liquidate its $31 million treasury and issue redemptions to token-holders. The proposal was made by a longtime member of the community, who cited darkening regulatory skies and a brutal crypto winter as reasons for the dissolution. The DAO's native token, JADE, has surged in response to the proposal. Some investors have been joining Jade, according to a statement in the Discord server from Jade's press liaison Jon Ray. However, the dissolution proposal does not appear to be the doing of these activist investors. Instead, it is being driven by a longtime member who is concerned about the investment risk posed by the DAO. The community will now decide the future of Jade Protocol. If the dissolution is approved, a $2 million legal defense fund will be established to help core contributors wind down the DAO.Burning USDC and minting DAI have become popular on-chain activities among crypto natives in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) shutdown. According to on-chain data from blockchain analytics firm Nansen, Circle's USDC stablecoin had nearly $3 billion in net redemptions between March 10th and March 13th, while the total supply of DAI increased by 1.2 billion tokens over the same time period. This has resulted in a 10% drop in USDC's market capitalization and a nearly 29% increase in DAI's market capitalization. The supply of DAI jumped 1.2 billion tokens since Friday, March 10th. The mass burn reversed Circle's early March trend where it had been minting more USDC than it was destroying. Between March 1st and March 9th, Circle minted a net average of $143 million USDC per day, but this trend has since changed. Starting on March 10th, Circle burned a daily net average of $727 million. Additionally, Nansen data shows that MakerDAO's Peg Stability Module saw a 91% increase in USDC deposits, jumping to $4.1 billion today from $2.1 billion on March 10th. The MakerDAO community is currently considering a governance proposal that would pause swaps in its Peg Stability Module, freezing the token purchases needed to mint new DAI tokens. Currently, USDC makes up 63.1% of the collateral used to generate all DAI in circulation, according to a DAI Stats dashboard.GMX, the largest protocol on Arbitrum, has announced its integration with Chainlink's low-latency pricing oracles to enhance its derivatives and perpetual swap exchange. The move marks a shift towards low-latency trading in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, as trading firms and hedge funds require faster platforms to execute sophisticated trading strategies without delays. The integration follows a community vote, with over 96% of votes approving the integration and 2 million GMX tokens being used to vote. The low-latency oracles will help mitigate the risks of front-running and bring the industry one step closer to the performance level currently existing outside of it. GMX contributors have been working with Chainlink Labs since last year on the specifications of the new oracles. The total value locked (TVL) on Arbitrum is at $2.1 billion, with $567 million of that value from GMX, according to DefiLlama data. The surge in GMX's native token has seen a 78% increase since the turn of the year, as capital continues to flow to Arbitrum-based protocols.

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