Protocol and community development initiatives have become the latest trend in the cryptocurrency market after a number of projects have launched multi-million dollar funds aimed at enticing builders and investors to make the cross-chain migration into the layer-two ecosystem. The latest project to capitalize on this trend is Harmony (ONE), a blockchain protocol that boasts a two-second transaction finality and offers cross-chain bridges to a handful of layer-one protocols, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Polkadot (DOT) and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that, since hitting a low of $0.095 on Aug. 31, …

Bitcoin (BTC) is witnessing a tough tussle between the bulls and the bears near the 200-day simple moving average (SMA), which is considered to be an important level by institutional investors attempting to decide whether an asset is bullish or bearish. Along with this, crypto investors are also watching the formation of a golden cross in Bitcoin. If this bullish setup completes, it will signal a trend in favor of the bulls. For the time being, investors continue to focus on select altcoins that have continued their northward journey. On the fundamental front, Bitcoin reached another milestone as miners produced …

Decentralized finance, or DeFi, has developed significantly over the past two years. The Algorand Foundation has unveiled a new fund positioned to allocate money toward certain DeFi projects looking to build on its native blockchain. The pool of capital is called the Viridis DeFi fund and is headed up by the Algorand Foundation — a group that was responsible for the Algorand blockchain and its ecosystem development. “This fund will provide 150 Million Algo to fuel the significant early growth of the DeFi ecosystem on Algorand,” according to a Friday post on the Algorand Foundation’s website. “The fund will fuel …

Real-world adoption is what really matters when it comes to being a successful blockchain project and one project that benefited from a recent uptick in adoption is Algorand (ALGO), a pure proof-of-stake protocol aiming to become the go-to base layer for the global financial industry. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since bottoming out at $0.67 on July 20, the price of ALGO has rocketed 268% to a daily high at $2.47 on Sept. 9 as its 24-hour trading volume surged to a record-high $4.83 billion. El Salvador builds on Algorand The sudden surge in price and …

On Sept. 9, bulls made a strong showing as Algorand (ALGO) and Solana (SOL) each steamrolled to new highs even as Bitcoin (BTC) continues to flounder under the $47,000 mark. The strong performance from the altcoins gives further credence to the argument that the market is in an "altseason," a phase that is typically characterized by surging altcoin prices when BTC is range-bound. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24 hours were Presearch (PRE), Frontier (FRONT) and Algorand (ALGO). Presearch integrates Wyre into its marketplace Presearch, a blockchain-based decentralized search protocol, …

The wider cryptocurrency market appears to be in the early stages of a recovery with many altcoins regaining their footing after correcting by 20% to 30% on Sept. 7 when Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $43,000. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24 hours were NEAR Protocol (NEAR), Algorand (ALGO) and PowerPool (CVP). NEAR Protocol gains 64% The top gainer NEAR Protocol is a decentralized proof-of-stake protocol focused on offering faster transaction speeds at a lower cost to help facilitate the adoption of blockchain technology. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView …

Bitso, a major cryptocurrency exchange in Latin America, will be the core crypto service provider for El Salvador’s official Bitcoin (BTC) wallet, known as Chivo. In conjunction with Bitcoin becoming legal tender in El Salvador, Bitso announced on Tuesday that the firm would assist El Salvador in launching the state-supported BTC wallet alongside companies like Silvergate Bank, digital currency company Athena Bitcoin and blockchain firm Algorand. Silvergate Bank, a California state-chartered commercial bank and a United States Federal Reserve member, will work with Bitso to facilitate U.S. dollar transactions for the Chivo wallet. Athena Bitcoin will provide some front-end services …

Two former PayPal workers in business and technology have launched a cross-border payment system aimed at “faster, cheaper, and more transparent payments.” In an announcement on Tuesday, fintech infrastructure firm Six Clovers said it launched its Rapid network, which connects banks, merchants and payment providers, allowing clients to transact in digital currencies and fiat. Founded by former PayPal employees Jim Nguyen and Nas Kavian and backed by venture capital firm Borderless Capital, the network is built on the Algorand blockchain and employs the technology behind stablecoins to represent fiat. “Six Clovers is creating a bridge between traditional and decentralized finance, …

Consolidation periods tend to follow strong rallies but they also present a good opportunity to survey the field and evaluate projects that have strong fundamentals. One project that continues to gain traction in terms of price recovery and network adoption is Algorand (ALGO), a pure proof-of-stake (POS) blockchain network that has secured new partnerships and real-world use case applications, as well as support from multi-million-dollar funds in recent weeks. Big funds invest in Algorand-based projects Raising funds is one of the biggest challenges many projects face and in the last month the Algorand network announced that Arrington Capital, a digital …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price continues to be range-bound between $30,000 and $40,000 level for the past few days, which is not necessarily a bearish sign. Generally, after a sharp fall, the price tends to consolidate as the asset transfers from weaker hands to stronger hands. After the transition is complete, the asset breaks out and starts a new uptrend. Usually, the longer the price consolidates in a range, the stronger the next trending move will be. Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone said on Saturday that Bitcoin’s declining supply was a positive sign, which could act as a “bullish ace” …

Support for the Algorand ecosystem appears to be growing, with digital asset manager Arrington Capital earmarking $100 million for projects building on the smart-contract platform. The massive Arrington Algorand Growth Fund, or AAGF, has been designed to accelerate additional development across all facets of the smart contract platform, the company announced Thursday. This includes applications spanning the DeFi, traditional finance, public sector and NFT marketplaces. AAGF will invest in an array of Algorand-focused projects, including native cryptocurrencies that drive new financial applications on the network. Arrington Capital was founded by TechCrunch and Crunchbase founder Michael Arrington. The company oversees more …

Synergy has long been an overused word in the business lexicon, but on occasion the fit between two companies or projects is so smooth that there’s no other word for it. Such is the case with the newly announced partnership between PlanetWatch, a firm that uses cryptocurrency rewards to deploy Internet of Things-connected (IoT) air sensor networks in cities, and EMRIT, a firm that uses cryptocurrency rewards to deploy IoT connectivity networks in cities. Under the terms of the agreement, EMRIT is going to fund the deployment of thousands of PlanetWatch-compliant air quality monitors which will be hosted together with …