American fintech giant PayPal Holdings has reportedly confirmed its intent to launch its own stablecoin named PayPal Coin. The development of an in-house stablecoin was first discovered in the source code of Paypal’s iPhone app by developer Steve Moser. Confirming the evidence found on the PayPal app, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s SVP of crypto and digital currencies, told Bloomberg News: “We are exploring a stablecoin; if and when we seek to move forward, we will of course, work closely with relevant regulators.” Moser’s finding uncovered that PayPal is in the works of building PayPal Coin, which will be backed …

Stablecoins have emerged as a foundational part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem over the past couple of years due to their ability to provide crypto traders with an offramp during times of volatility and their widespread integration with decentralized finance (DeFi). These are necessary for the health of the ecosystem as a whole. Currently, Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) are the dominant stablecoins in the market, but their centralized nature and the persistent threat of stablecoin regulation have prompted many in the crypto community to shun them and search for decentralized alternatives. Binance USD (BUSD) is the third-ranked stablecoin and …

The wider cryptocurrency market is facing another day of volatility and selling on Jan. 7 as Bitcoin (BTC) bears managed to break bull support at $42,000. The price of Bitcoin was pushed to a daily low of $40,620 before resources were exhausted. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro shows that 4 of the top 7 gainers of the day are part of the growing Cosmos Hub. This ecosystem currently uses the Interblockchain Communication protocol (IBC) to facilitate interoperability and communication between connected networks. Here’s a look at what’s behind the strength seen in IRISnet (IRIS), Secret (SCRT), Akash Network (AKT) and …

Digital assets’ past performance is never a guarantee of future price movement. There are never two identical situations in the crypto marketplace, so even historically similar patterns of a token’s behavior can be followed by starkly different price action charts. Still, crypto assets’ individual history of price action often rhymes, giving those who can ready this history right a massive edge over other traders. And, importantly, some tokens are much more likely than others to exhibit recurring behavior, which makes their bullish setups more recognizable ahead of time. Cointelegraph Markets Pro, a subscription-based data intelligence platform whose job is to …

The end of the year is normally a time to wind down and prepare for the holiday season, but the last few weeks of 2021 saw a crypto market that showed no signs of resting. One of the headline-grabbing stories related to Terra reaching an all-time high in terms of the total value locked (TVL), and the project surpassed Binance Smart Chain (BSC) as the second-largest decentralized finance blockchain after Ethereum. After reaching the $20-billion TVL mark on Dec. 24, Terra’s TVL has come down to around $19.3 billion at the time of writing according to data from Defi Llama, …

Bitcoin (BTC) and the U.S. equity markets fell sharply on Jan. 5, reacting negatively to the minutes from the Federal Reserve's December FOMC meeting, which showed that the members expect the balance sheet reduction to start after the Fed begins hiking interest rates in early 2022. Adding to the negative sentiment was the shutdown of the world’s second-biggest Bitcoin mining hub in Kazakhstan, where the internet has been shut down following massive protests by citizens. This caused a dip of about 13.4% in the Bitcoin network’s overall hash rate from 205,000 petahash per second (PH/s) to 177,330 PH/s. According to …

A cryptocurrency exchange in Hong Kong has reportedly stopped all withdrawal requests, according to reports. Coinsuper is the sole crypto firm in China that is licensed by the government, and was founded by a former senior UBS Group AG executive in November 2017. The report by Bloomberg suggests that customers of the bourse have been unable to withdraw funds since late November, based on a review of messages on the exchange's primary Telegram chat group. Five clients reportedly filed police complaints after token withdrawals were apparently halted, leaving them unable to reclaim around $55,000 of cryptocurrency and money. I called …

Bitcoin (BTC) consolidated above $42,000 prior to Wall Street's opening bell on Jan. 7 as more similarities to last year's lows emerged. BTC "very closely" mimicking May behavior Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView tracked a nervous Bitcoin market as BTC/USD avoided another retest of $40,000 support. Earlier, after briefly falling below $41,000, analysts had warned that a further capitulation event may occur, this having the potential to bring the pair down to $30,000 or even lower. That figure rings true for market participants, having formed the bottom of a protracted capitulation which lasted from May to July last …

Spanish LGBT-related token MariCoin (MCOIN) has responded to the community following skepticism around the project’s concept and goals. Some had even criticized the project for its name, which played on a homophobic slur in Spanish. But according to key people in the project, they have simply misunderstood. MariCoin CEO Francisco Alvarez told Cointelegraph that the project’s name is about “turning an insult into a fortress,” referring to peculiarities of tackling homophobic language as the very word word “gay” is still being used as an insult in some communities. “In Spain it is very common for members of the gay community …

2022 looks to be a transformative year for the cryptocurrency ecosystem as the focus on interoperability between siloed blockchain networks comes to the forefront and a multitude of projects announce plans to interconnect their platforms with other protocols. One sector of the crypto ecosystem that will play a vital role in ensuring smooth communication and interaction between networks are oracles projects like Chainlink (LINK) and Band Protocol (BAND). Oracles relay data in a consistent, secure and decentralized manner and this is key to providing price feeds for the DeFi sector and for centralized exchanges. As shown in the graphic above, …

The year 2021 was unprecedented for crypto, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) gaining 60.58% and 408.5% throughout the year, respectively. For the latter, the explosion of decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized applications (DApps) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) built on its blockchain created a whole new digital currency cyberspace encompassing all corners of the world. But, the year was also an auspicious one for altcoins, whose performance far outweighed that of BTC and ETH during the same time period. So, without further ado, let's look at five cryptocurrencies that went from zero to hero in 2021. 1. Shiba …

Blockchain network interoperability is shaping up to be one of the main themes for the cryptocurrency ecosystem in 2022. New users are continuing to onboard into the growing world of crypto while both new and established projects search for the chain that will best serve the needs of their protocol and community. One project that has 2022 off to a bullish start thanks to its focus on facilitating the communication between separate networks is Cosmos (ATOM). This project bills itself as “the internet of blockchains” and seeks to facilitate the development of an interconnected decentralized economy. Data from Cointelegraph Markets …