This is about to change blockchain forever
Cardano is finally making progress, Binance is making yet another acquisition, and a new protocol is being tested.
Hi, crypto pen pal!
It’s Vanessa from the buidlbee team here, right in time to bring you a fresh brew of crypto tea. Here’s what you missed on the streets today:
The whales are trooping in and Cardano is going up 📈
Ethereum is finally getting a pump in its step 💪
Voyager is getting a new owner and its name rhymes with “Finance” 🤑
ADA is taking back its place
Cardano is not being left behind on the greener pastures as whales are actively buying up the altcoin! Santiment analysts noticed a smooth ride up the charts for ADA since December 30, moving from $0.24089 to $0.3129 which is a 30% increase. Shortly after that, new addresses appeared on the ecosystem containing a cumulative amount of $1M worth of Cardano. So where did this all begin? 🤔
Something sketchy went down last November to early December when major market players dropped huge supplies of ADA (more than 500K) into the market in order to lower its then-value of $0.3188. This resulted in an oversupply that dropped the value of the coin to $0.248. As smaller traders were crying about their portfolios, the whales, and anyone else who could afford to, actively started pumping the coin at its low value early this month which is ultimately raising interest and value of the coin.
This terrible concept is called “dumping.” It is the fraudulent manipulation by market players to either pump or drop the prices of coins in their favor, which does no favors to smaller investors who would have most likely lost a lot from the initial price dump.
Fast forward to today, said whales have purchased 217.2M ADA that will be sent into storage, and as we know, the fewer the coins in circulation, the higher its value. Supply & Demand is the name and Crypto Whales are playing the game!
As of the time of writing, Cardano sits at a pretty figure of $0.3155, up by +18.97% from last week. This makes it the highest seven-day growth rate in the top 15 by market capitalization. Is it too late now to say sorry to initial Cardano investors for assuming the coin will tank? Apologies may not be necessary, seeing that as of September 2021, ADA was $2.96 which means it’s down by a whopping 838%. In any case, we have to admit that the recent bullish run and whale investments are doing it a favor.
In fact, analysts believe that the consistent support of investors to the ecosystem can push the coin back up to $3. Here are some other factors that may also influence that:
The launch of DJED, the stablecoin which is proposed to become the coin with which all transaction fees on the Cardano network will be paid. This is expected to make ADA more attractive as it’ll be a digital currency backed by real-world collateral (dollar, oil, gold, etc.). This gives it more selling points to serious capital investors. DJED is scheduled to launch sometime this month.
ADA is going the decentralized route through the Voltaire update. This means participants will have a more hands-on involvement in what happens to the altcoin in the future, including decisions on software updates and technical and financial improvements. Community members will be able to use their shares to influence the future development of the network, which can ultimately improve the coin’s value as interests and progress increase.
Founder, Charles Hoskinson, opened a new hospital that will soon start accepting ADA as payment for services. Hence, giving the altcoin even more value. The Hoskinson Health & Wellness Clinic is established at the heart of Wyoming, United States, and ranges in services from primary care to mental health and even cancer tests.
Cardano is built on the Proof-of-Stake algorithm and is designed to create decentralized applications based on smart contracts. It boasts a large research community of over 230K members with ADA as its native coin, which can be mined, bought, or even rewarded in some cryptocurrency wallets like Exodus & Daedalus.
The Cardano blockchain is currently in its third strategy phase, “Goguen” which is the making of smart contracts so that even people without a deep knowledge of programming can create them. The road to its final phase is crystal clear, and with the firm support of the community, there’s no telling where this crypto could go 🚀
ConsenSys to the rescue
Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, has been making several efforts to speed up blockchain and make transactions cheaper. The creators of MetaMask wallet, ConsenSys, have brought forth a solution that may make this feat possible through the zkEVM network. Short for “zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine.”
Before you get your knickers in a bunch, this is not as complicated as it seems. I’ll explain…
Ethereum is like an old grandpa; wise, and irreplaceable, but still very slow and stuck in his ways. The blockchain has weaknesses in speed and scalability and as users continue to grow, this problem becomes even more troubling. That’s why other blockchains like Solana are called “Ethereum Killers,” because they are on a mission to close the gap holes in their predecessor.
Now get this…
Last year, Vitalik launched new protocols, zk-STARK & zkEVM, which were expected to be the silver bullet for all of blockchain’s problems. They were very promising and expected to tackle scalability by increasing the bandwidth of the other cryptocurrency’s network hundreds of times, which will ultimately reduce transaction fees. The future of crypto as a whole lies somewhere between the implementation of both protocols.
So what happened? 🤷♀️
After the launch, there were several discussions surrounding implementation without any thorough plans being made. At least not till ConsenSys came along with a new proposal that brought zkEVM into its testing phase. The company began accepting applications for testing at the end of December and has already received over 150,000 applications to participate!
For the testing phase, participants will be able to move assets between the Goerli test network and the zkEVM private test network. This will enable them to test the performance of smart contracts, decentralized applications, infrastructure solutions, and wallets in the new environment. Polygon is also joining the bandwagon as the blockchain recently launched the second test network supporting this technology, although with a lot less number of participants. Experts estimate that testing and implementation of zkEVM could take about 2–3 years.
I, for one, am looking forward to the new and improved blockchain as it will facilitate Web3 applications to be just as fast and responsive as their Web2 counterparts like Google & Amazon. The new tech is also expected to reduce fees and improve transaction privacy, which is what Satoshi Nakamoto always intended.
New owners, same crypto
Cryptocurrency lender, Voyager Digital, went bankrupt last July as a ripple effect of Singapore’s Three Arrows Capital’s (3AC’s) filing, thereby placing its customers in millions of dollars worth of losses. Binance is also another company saving the day through a billion-dollar acquisition of Voyager, as reported by Reuters. Voyager’s asset portfolio is valued at $1.002B and Binance is throwing in an additional $20M for “inconveniences,” bringing the total purchasing value to $1.022B 🤑
Binance has already made a $10M deposit and will refund Voyager for “expenses” up to $15M. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court is allowing the American arm of Binance to make said acquisition, so what does this mean for the market as a whole?
Upon the bankruptcy declaration, Voyager had creditor claims up to $1.8B, so although Binance will not be able to pay off all debts, the 3.5 million affected users now have a chance to recover 51% of their deposits at the time of the bankruptcy filing. Also, former Voyager users will be transferred to Binance US and will be able to withdraw by July.
Furthermore, the native token VGX has taken well to the news, as the coin’s value soared by 35% bringing it to its current value of $0.42. Trading volume rose by 892.99% to $62,698,566 while total market capitalization now reaches $116,730,572. There are now 278,482,214 VGXs in circulation, with a maximum of 279,387,971 tokens!
I know I made the acquisition seem final, but unfortunately, it’s not sealed just yet as Voyager’s creditors will need to give their own stamp of approval. The plot gets even stickier, because earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a petition with a judge asking them to stop the Binance US acquisition due to insufficient information about its finances and ties to the parent company. Another lawmaker closely monitoring the exchange, the Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) also rejected the deal with the reason of Binance being tied to Chinese roots that may “pose a threat to national safety.”
To top it off, CoinDesk reports an objection filed by the Texas Securities Board and the Texas Banking Authority, stating that both Binance and Voyager “were not in compliance with Texas law and are not authorized to conduct business in Texas.”
Voyager was initially set to be acquired by FTX with an auction offer of $1.4B with customers expecting up to a 72% money-back guarantee. We all know how that went. Binance swooped in by December with its lucrative offer.
So why does Binance want Voyager? 💁♀️
As will all acquisitions, it boils down to expansion and more control. With its already strong dominance of the market in 2022 (92% in the spot market and 61% in the BTC derivatives market), and most recent acquisitions of Indonesia’s Tokocrypt and Japan’s Sakura Exchange BitCoin (SEBC), the exchange is well on its way to taking over the crypto industry. Binance is sitting on $49B in assets and as of August, had a daily trading volume of $76B and 90 million customers worldwide.
There’s just something about powerful leaders the world can’t get enough of and Binance is surely gearing up to be one of them 🔥
What do you think about Cardano’s recent breakthrough, Voyager’s acquisition, and the new protocol in the works? Drop your comments and don’t forget to share this with like-minded friends 🤙
Because I’m such a great friend, here’s a bonus read of DogeCola — the first memecoin that will make us all millionaires! See you tomorrow with more tips that help you make it with crypto 🚀