Blur and Arbitrum Lead Altcoin Surge as Traders Anticipate Bull Run_dog ate a coin

Crypto traders have found a novel way to generate returns as bitcoin (BTC) remains flat and the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector fails to fully shake off the bear market lull. Actual hamsters – the living, breathing, and oft-cute rodents – have been put to the races on the blockchain-based platform Hamsters.gg. 'The hamsters are real and the bets are real. The hamsters are running on a track and the first hamster to cross the finish line wins,' the site explains. Star hamster racers like 'Rocky' and 'Buster' are already drawing bets of up to $500 per race. Others like 'CK' aren't so lucky – losing 326 races; winning just 8. These races seem to occur every few hours, during which a chatbox lights up, drawing at least 1,000 viewers and complete with virtual beer and hotdog emojis. 'Sipping wine, betting on hamster racing...does it get any better than this?,' a recent message on the Hamsters chatbox reads. Some others are trying to mathematically win: 'Who's got some stats on these hamsters? do we have weight classes?' Crypto traders have a knack for jumping on gambling platforms and memecoins, mainly after the rise of tokens such as dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) – which jumped to tens of billions in market capitalization in the previous bull market. Anyone can call a smart contract and issue tokens on Ethereum (or other blockchains) for a few cents, and the presence of decentralized exchanges means tokens can instantly be issued, supplied with liquidity and traded soon after. Most of these do not last beyond a few weeks. Last year saw hopefuls bet on articles from the English language to McDonald’s branded Grimacecoins, both of which fell to nearly zero after a few weeks of trading. But some, like Pepecoin (PEPE), jump to billions in market capitalization and seem to become big-name projects. Data shows HamstersGG went live earlier in July and live-streamed a series of races through Twitch on Thursday. Bets could be placed via U.S. dollar-pegged binance USD (BUSD) by depositing tokens from either Ethereum or BNB Chain. Racer 'Teddy' won a race in Asian morning hours - raking in thousands of dollars for those who bet on its victory. (Hamsters.gg) And – to little surprise – there’s a HAMS token as well. A whitepaper on the Hamsters.gg site explains the platform takes a 5% cut of all bets, of which 4% is distributed to HAMS token holders. The Ethereum-based HAMS has zooted to over $6 million capitalization nearly overnight. On-chain data shows each HAMS exchanged hands for 60 cents at the time of writing time, a nearly 1,000% increase compared to Thursday. A Uniswap pool holds $450,000 in liquidity and has garnered $9 million in trading volumes over the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, Hamsters.gg developers say this is just the start of the novel hamster betting platform. 'Our vision is for long-term development and scalability. We've been working on this project for over three months, and we're committed to building a sustainable and thriving ecosystem,' they said in a tweet last week. Ridiculous or not. It's fun. Just as the wild west of crypto should be.Curve founder Michael Egorov has floated a new liquidity pool on his stablecoin-focused decentralized exchange to address concerns around a possible bad debt situation and alleviate bearish sentiment in CRV tokens. The new pool, crvUSD/fFRAX, is dedicated to FraxLend's CRV/FRAX liquidity pool, from which Egorov has borrowed 15.8 million FRAX stablecoin by locking 59 million CRV as collateral. The pool has attracted over $5 million in liquidity and brought down the utilization rate in FraxLend's FRAX/CRV pool to 54.78%. The move is seen as an attempt to incentivize liquidity towards the lending market and decrease the risk of Egorov's debt spiraling out of control. Analysts say the new pool could provide more time for Egorov to repay his loan and alleviate concerns around the potential liquidation of his CRV-backed loan of 63.2 million tether (USDT) from leading and borrowing marketplace Aave. The FRAX loan has been of particular concern due to the high interest rates that can double every 12 hours, subject to the pool's utilization rate holding at 100%. The introduction of the new pool has reduced the utilization rate, bringing down the APY and providing Egorov with more time to repay the loan. The move has been welcomed by the DeFi community, with pseudonymous DeFi researcher Ignas saying that the new pool is attracting capital to the critical FRAX/CRV lending pool on Fraxlend and reducing the borrowing APY. Delphi Digital also tweeted that the new pool is an attempt to incentivize liquidity towards the lending market in order to lower utilization rates and decrease the risk of Egorov's debt spiraling out of control. So far, the pool has attracted over $5 million in liquidity and brought down the utilization rate in FraxLend's FRAX/CRV pool to 54.78%.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.

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.An Ethereum wallet funded by a beneficiary of the Multichain exploit has sold $2.4 million of Chainlink's token (LINK) and $1.8 million worth of WOO Network (WOO) tokens on Uniswap, causing the price of WOO to slump by 8%. The wallet, which was created on Friday morning, received funds from an address tagged as 'suspicious' by etherscan. It obtained the tag after it received lockup funds from Multichain team's multi-signature address despite being unknown to the Multichain team. Multichain ceased operations last month after the company's CEO Zhaojun and his sister were held in detention by Chinese police. The bridging protocol was exploited a few weeks prior with $130 million being stolen across several blockchains before being sent to the wallet tagged as suspicious on etherscan. Alongside deposits of WOO and LINK, the wallet received $800,000 worth of CRV tokens and $870,000 worth of YFI, both of which are actively being sold on Uniswap.The Klaytn Foundation has proposed burning 5.28 billion KLAY tokens, representing approximately 48% of the total token supply, to help optimize tokenomics and develop the Klaytn blockchain into a sustainable decentralized network. The proposal includes short-term tokenomics improvements, such as enhancing transparency in information disclosures and modifying the management structure of ecosystem resources. The Foundation aims to increase KLAY demand by collaborating with major portfolio projects, fostering services within the Klaytn ecosystem, and investing in high-growth potential projects. The proposal will be voted on by the Governance Council from Feb. 22 to Feb. 28. Over 75 million KLAY has been burned to date through strategic buybacks and the burning of gas fees. Currently, around 3.073 billion KLAY is in circulation.

GoldenTree Asset Management has moved the majority of its SUSHI token holdings, sparking fears in the Sushi community that it is exiting its position. At press time, GoldenTree's crypto wallet held just $1 million in SUSHI tokens, a precipitous drop from its nearly $7 million in exposure earlier this week. The move comes as Sushi, a decentralized exchange for trading cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum blockchain, faces fresh scrutiny from U.S. regulators. SUSHI is the governance token for Sushi DAO and gives its holders a voice in how the exchange operates. It was trading at $1.22 immediately before Tuesday's news but has fallen 11% in the days since and was around $1.08 at press time, according to CoinGecko. A GoldenTree employee who goes by MarkOKW, who last October announced the firm's SUSHI investment, didn't immediately comment. Grey declined to comment on GoldenTree's SUSHI position. On-chain activity reveals how GoldenTree has shuffled its holding in recent days. The asset manager started the week with xSUSHI tokens worth over $7 million. Then on Wednesday, it swapped 4.4 million of those tokens for 5.95 million SUSHI tokens that it had staked with Sushi. CoinDesk identified the wallets using Nansen. On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, it sent two batches of tokens valued at $5.4 million total to an address controlled by crypto trading desk Cumberland. Cumberland sent the first half to a Binance deposit address Wednesday night; the other half hadn't moved out of Cumberland's wallet at press time. Members of SUSHI's Discord server speculated the on-chain activity indicated GoldenTree had already sold its position.The recent rise of the meme coin bald (BALD) has raised questions about the involvement of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of Alameda Research. On-chain data suggests that the deployer contract of BALD has interacted with wallets linked to Alameda, and crypto sleuths have found connections between Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research and the deployer wallet. However, it is unlikely that Bankman-Fried is behind the scam, as he is currently under strict bail conditions and has limited access to the internet. The article also explores the connections between BALD and other DeFi projects, and the sudden removal of liquidity from the token's trading pairs. The rise of BALD and its subsequent fall has left many holders in the lurch, and the future of the token remains uncertain.After a week of bickering, cooler heads began to prevail in the Aragon Association's governance crisis. The market responded with gusto, with the ANT token rallying to its highest levels for May. Luis Cuende, co-founder of Aragon, proposed $30 million in ANT buybacks using a smart contract to buy all tokens trading higher than the 30-day moving average. He also called for Aragon's $200 million treasury to gradually transfer to the Aragon DAO over a period of five years. The proposal extended a banner rally for the ANT token, which climbed from its Wednesday low of $2.75 to $2.98 immediately prior to his post and shot up to $3.25 and higher afterwards. The proposal seemed to cool a volatile situation that exploded with the Aragon Association's decision to throw its DAO into lockdown to protect against a “51% attack.” The barbarians at its gates were the so-called RFV Raiders, a loose collective of activist crypto traders including the crypto hedge fund Arca who had called for buybacks of the ANT token to bring its value in line with the treasury. The Aragon Association reversed a community-approved plan to move its $200 million treasury to ANT holders’ control, out of fear that the RFV Raiders would plunder it. One member of the activist collective told CoinDesk that between all of them they have enough voting power to win any vote over the team’s objections, including the ability to block grant allocations. There was no guarantee that Cuende’s proposal would be implemented, and the Aragon Association did not immediately respond to CoinDesk. However, there were signs Wednesday that after days of bickering, banning, conspiratorial allegations, open letters, and accusations of “decentralization theater,” cooler heads were prevailing. Three activist investors that CoinDesk spoke to said the proposal was a good start.

The native token of decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch (1INCH) rose by more than 58% before receding on Monday as trading volume hit $597 million, its highest level since October, 2021. Coupled with a spike in trading volume, $3.37 million in leveraged 1inch short positions on have been liquidated over the past 24-hours, according to CoinGlass. The open interest, which measures the nominal amount of open derivatives positions, has risen from $14 million to $125 million across 1inch trading pairs, suggesting that the rally has been spurred by futures markets. This creates a fragile market dynamic as market depth, a metric used to assess liquidity over a 2% spread, remains relatively low compared to trading volume. Buy-side market depth of 1inch on Binance is currently $226,272, according to CoinMarketCap. Spot sellers can capitalize on the leveraged trading activity to prompt a cascade of long position liquidations. One particular 1inch investor appears to be deploying that trading strategy, with blockchain sleuth lookonchain noting that an investor sent 7 million tokens worth $3.7 million to Binance with price proceeding to fall by 4.4% in the following minutes. 1inch is currently trading at $0.505, it remains up by 23.8% in the past 24-hours despite losing some of its gains on Monday morning. Between 9:00am UTC on Sunday and 9:00am UTC on Monday, 1inch was up 58.26%, according to TradingView.After the frenzied Arbitrum airdrop day, nearly 240,000 addresses still need to claim their governance tokens worth roughly $596 million. According to blockchain analytics firm Nansen, 61% of eligible crypto wallets have already claimed their ARB, leaving 37% of the total 1.1 billion ARB allocated for the airdrop unclaimed. These tokens have yet to enter the market, and eligible addresses have 184 days left to claim their tokens. The airdrop's initial redemption rate was artificially restricted due to the collapse of the claims website due to heavy traffic, which affected the token supply and caused ARB to soar to as high as $14 on some venues before settling out around $1.42 once more wallets had claimed their allocations. The effect that token supply can have on emerging markets was on full display Thursday morning. The unclaimed tokens represent a significant amount of value that could potentially enter the market, which could impact the price of ARB and other cryptocurrencies. The lack of claiming could also indicate a lack of interest in the project or a lack of understanding of the airdrop process. The situation highlights the importance of proper communication and education for a successful airdrop and the potential impact of token supply on emerging markets.The community members of Synthetix, a liquidity and derivatives trading protocol built on Ethereum, have approved a plan to gradually increase the margin requirements on existing positions to eventually liquidate all remaining positions on the soon-to-shut version one (v1) of its perpetuals market. This move comes as v1 has been in close-only mode for months, with roughly $150,000 worth of positions remaining outstanding. The approved plan highlights Synthetix's focus on its v2 perpetuals markets, which had $22 million in volume over the past day and represent a significant upgrade from v1. The price of SNX, the native token for Synthetix, has increased 1.7% in the past 24 hours to $2.36, while the total value locked for Synthetix stands at $417.7 million, a 2% increase since May 1.

ApeCoin DAO has passed a community proposal that would see the launch of an Accelerator to support projects utilizing apecoin tokens (APE) and bolster the Bored Ape Yacht Club and ApeCoin ecosystems. The new AIP-209 will incubate and launch community-approved projects that focus on improving the value of the BAYC NFT collection and other projects that use ApeCoin. The 'Ape Accelerator' aims to engage the ApeCoin community as initiators, voters, and participants. Initiators can submit proposals for projects to be incubated, while voters can use their APE tokens to vote on whether the proposed projects should be launched. Participants will be able to support approved projects by purchasing NFTs and other yet-unspecified tokens. Projects which finally launch on the Accelerator will utilize apecoin, which may ultimately accrue value as they generate revenue and returns for holders. ApeCoin was initially issued as a governance token by creator Yuga Labs to holders of the popular BAYC NFT collection, which is composed of 10,000 unique images of cartoon apes that sell at $83,000 apiece as of Thursday. These tokens find use in other Yuga Labs projects, such as Otherside, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), CryptoPunks, MeeBits, and Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) – all popular and influential NFT collections. The launchpad within Ape Accelerator will initially operate on the Ethereum network and feature a tiered structure for participation, based on users' APE stakes and qualifying NFT holdings.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.GoldenTree Asset Management has moved the majority of its SUSHI token holdings, sparking fears in the Sushi community that it is exiting its position. At press time, GoldenTree's crypto wallet held just $1 million in SUSHI tokens, a precipitous drop from its nearly $7 million in exposure earlier this week. The move comes as Sushi, a decentralized exchange for trading cryptocurrencies on the Ethereum blockchain, faces fresh scrutiny from U.S. regulators. SUSHI is the governance token for Sushi DAO and gives its holders a voice in how the exchange operates. It was trading at $1.22 immediately before Tuesday's news but has fallen 11% in the days since and was around $1.08 at press time, according to CoinGecko. A GoldenTree employee who goes by MarkOKW, who last October announced the firm's SUSHI investment, didn't immediately comment. Grey declined to comment on GoldenTree's SUSHI position. On-chain activity reveals how GoldenTree has shuffled its holding in recent days. The asset manager started the week with xSUSHI tokens worth over $7 million. Then on Wednesday, it swapped 4.4 million of those tokens for 5.95 million SUSHI tokens that it had staked with Sushi. CoinDesk identified the wallets using Nansen. On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, it sent two batches of tokens valued at $5.4 million total to an address controlled by crypto trading desk Cumberland. Cumberland sent the first half to a Binance deposit address Wednesday night; the other half hadn't moved out of Cumberland's wallet at press time. Members of SUSHI's Discord server speculated the on-chain activity indicated GoldenTree had already sold its position.