Early adopters in the cryptocurrency market have once again been rewarded for their bravery and exploration after the popular Ethereum Name Service protocol, which issues nonfungible token that double as Ethereum addresses and web domains, distributed an airdrop for its new ENS DAO token. The resulting airdrop translated to an instant five-figure payday for many holders and there are those who would have registered multiple ENS addresses to multiple wallets, meaning some holders are in possession of a six-figure airdrop. It had been widely expected that an airdrop was in the works for members of the ENS community, especially because …

Volatility continues to be the name of the game for nonfungible tokens (NFT) amid the rollercoaster valuations and volume surges, but a new trend appears to be emerging in the sector. Aesthetic appeal aside, for many investors, buying an NFT is akin to casting a bait-laden hook into an opaque body of water and hoping that a fish bites. Sure, when the Bored Ape Yacht Club was listed, some buyers thought “They look cool” and “The community is really strong and dedicated,” but these aren’t really hard valuation metrics that can be backtested and applied across most assets in the …

Airdrops have become the cryptocurrency ecosystem’s equivalent of stimulus checks over the past couple of years and further proof of this can be evidenced from popular protocols, like Uniswap and dYdX, that rewarded their early adopters with token drops that are now worth $30,000 to $2 million. The latest protocol to surprise its userbase with a wallet fattening airdrop was Axie Infinity (AXS), a blockchain-based battle game that has risen in prominence over the course of 2021 as users embrace its play-to-earn (P2E) gaming model. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since bounding off a low of …

Crypto traders breathed a sigh of relief on Sept. 30 after media headlines reflected positive news regarding adoption and future regulation in the crypto sector. Early in the day, Visa announced that it has developed a layer-2-based blockchain interoperability hub that will support cryptocurrency payments and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell stated that the regulator has no intention of banning cryptocurrencies. The rise in sentiment coincided with a positive day for the price action in Bitcoin, which is up 5.74% and trading near $44,000 at the time of writing. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest …

Airdrops have been a fan-favorite in the cryptocurrency ecosystem for years because they offer projects a way to reward early adopters and increase token distribution. The latest project to surprise its community of supporters with retroactive rewards for its newly minted token is dYdX, a non-custodial decentralized derivatives exchange that operates on a layer-two version of the Ethereum network. Data from CoinGecko shows that on its first day of trading live in the markets, DYDX is trading at a price of $10.28 at the time of writing after hitting an intra-day high at $14.24. The number of tokens received by …

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) announced on Monday that it would be dropping nonfungible tokens (NFT) depicting WWE Hall of Famer John Cena. Last week, the beloved wrestling organization dropped its first NFT collection featuring The Undertaker, with the highest-selling NFT going for $100,000 through auction. The latest NFT release will see the first tier consisting of a one-of-one “John Cena Platinum NFT” that will be opened up for a 24-hour auction starting on Friday, Aug. 20, in the lead up to this year’s SummerSlam event. THIS FRIDAY Just in time for #SummerSlam, @WWE drops a unique 1-of-1 @JohnCena Platinum NFT! …

The president of El Salvador has announced the government will airdrop $30 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) to every adult citizen of the country. The announcement was welcomed by Bitcoiners, with influencers speculating that El Salvador’s government will need to purchase the required BTC it intends to distribute adding more than $100 million in buying pressure on markets. Quickly googled estimates of the adult population of El Salvador varied, with on-chain analyst Willy Woo tweeting that Bitcoin’s global user base will grow by 2.5% thanks to the influx of 4.5 million Salvadorans. Others placed the Salvadoran adult population as high as …

The arrival of institutional investors and the rise of decentralized finance has been an incredible boon for the entire cryptocurrency sector, but it has also highlighted a number of persistent limitations that many blockchain networks encounter when faced with surges in activity and the need to scale. High fees and slower transaction times on the Ethereum network have left the door open for new layer-one solutions to emerge, and Solana is one such project that has been gaining traction lately. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that the price of Solana (SOL) has increased 195% over the past month, …

While the past year has been marked by the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi), centralized entities like Coinbase and Binance continue to be some of the most important players in the industry as a whole, as they are essential in attracting attention to promising projects and pave the way for wider adoption. One protocol that has taken advantage of the "Binance bump" over the past week is IOST, a fully-fledged decentralized blockchain ecosystem that utilizes a unique proof-of-believability consensus protocol. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that the price of IOST has rallied 88% over the past week, going …

Over the past six months, blockchain projects that have issued token airdrops have reemerged. Most notably, the airdrops of MEME and Uniswap's UNI will be remembered, as recipients were rewarded with gains ranging from $20,000 to $600,000 simply for holding the tokens. One Ethereum competitor that has seen numerous projects launch with airdrops in the past three weeks is Solana, an open-source project that focuses on utilizing blockchain technology to provide decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions. While Solana isn’t explicitly making a concerted effort to launch these projects, the protocol’s main decentralized exchange, Serum, was responsible for the recent COPE airdrop, …

In a blog post yesterday, decentralized finance (DeFi) management and protocol aggregator platform Instadapp announced the launch of their governance token, INST. While not currently transferable by the average user, the token is set to go fully live later in the year to coincide with a transfer of control over the protocol to a DAO governance process in Q2. The project, which currently counts over $2.3 billion in its 18,000 “Smart Accounts” wallets, connects to a variety of DeFi protocols from a single interface and offers a development toolkit in an effort to position itself as “middleware” for devs building …

A crypto-driven advertising platform has announced that it is integrating Binance’s Smart Chain, amid concerns about transaction fees on the Ethereum network. SaTT’s solution has been designed to transform the relationship between advertisers and publishers. Smart contracts ensure that brands only release funds once they can verify a campaign’s objectives have been met. Publishers also get a chance to monetize their audience and receive payment far more quickly than they do at present. But with average transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain surging to record highs in February — breaking $25 at times — SaTT says that its ability to …