There was a lot of talk at SALT Conference 2021 about Solana Labs, the supersonic racer of layer-one blockchain networks. Not surprisingly, much of that conversation centered on speed — or, in network parlance, transactions per second (TPS). If blockchain technology is ever to achieve mass adoption — 1 billion users, say — then it has to get faster, said Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of crypto exchange platform FTX, in a Monday morning panel session, adding, “You can’t have 1 billion people using a chain that has 10 transactions per second. It just doesn’t work.” To put things in context: Credit …

Bitcoin (BTC) is heading for at least $85,000 in Q4 this year and could well surpass the $100,000 mark, new research says. In its latest market update on Friday, trading platform Decentrader revealed an unapologetically bullish mid-term BTC price forecast. Next stop $85,000 for BTC/USD Despite BTC/USD being kept below $50,000 this week, on-chain metrics have led analysts to stay firmly bullish on Bitcoin price action. Decentrader analyst Filbfilb is no exception, forecasting not only a rematch of all-time highs but a breach of $100,000 before the year is out. “So with bullish signals in the near term we could …

Shiba Inu (SHIB) crept up Friday as traders assessed its addition on Coinbase, one of the world’s leading crypto exchanges. The SHIB/USDT exchange rate jumped up to 16.42% to $0.00000950 for the first time since June 29, 2021. The latest move uphill came as a part of an overall bullish trend that started Thursday, wherein SHIB rallied by more than 26%. As a result, the token ended up pushing its returns up by over 40% in just two days of trading. Gains for SHIB started emerging after Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, tweeted about the arrival of a new Shiba …

On Thursday Avalanche’s (AVAX) price hit a new all-time high at $68.89, and over the last few months, the project has risen to challenge the Ethereum network’s dominance among smart contract platforms. According to the project’s website, the layer-one protocol is capable of surpassing 4,500 transactions per second (TPS) with a time to finality of less than 2 seconds. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low of $32.10 on Sept. 7, the price of AVAX has rallied 111% to establish a new all-time high on S as its 24-hour trading volume spiked 200% to …

Altcoins continue to book notable gains on Sept. 16 as a slew of celebrity endorsements, major investments and the growing popularity of cross-chain bridges catch investors' attention. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24 hours were Audius (AUDIO), Avalanche (AVAX) and Celer Network (CELR). Superstars invest in Audius The Audius platform is a decentralized music-sharing and streaming protocol that aims to cut out the middleman from the music industry and allow fans, subscribers and creators to interact with each other directly. According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro, market conditions for …

Interoperability has become one of the driving themes within the crypto market and as the blockchain ecosystem evolves into an interconnected web of layer-one protocols, the importance of communication and efficiency among decentralized applications (dApps) will also increase. Ren (REN), a blockchain protocol designed to provide interoperability and liquidity between different blockchain platforms, has started gaining traction over the past month and a half as activity in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has been on the rise. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after reaching a low of $00.41 on Aug. 9, the price of REN has …

Tune in to watch Cointelegraph host and analyst Benton Yaun alongside resident market experts Jordan Finneseth and Marcel Pechman. Here’s what to expect in this week’s markets news breakdown: Bitcoin (BTC) once again takes aim at $50,000. Is this the final hurdle before all-time highs are within reach? The Solana network was brought down by a sudden surge in transaction volume, while Ethereum evaded a malicious attack. What does this mean for the future of decentralized finance, or DeFi? After Cardano finally launched smart contracts, the price of ADA dropped 10%. Is this a classic case of “sell the news”? …

A new alt season is here — at least, according to some crypto industry commentators. Over the last month, altcoins — aka cryptocurrencies that aren’t Bitcoin (BTC) — have surged in price, with projects such as Solana, Cardano and Polkadot seeing their tokens triple in value. However, though people are screaming “alt season” with an air of familiarity, the industry is still very much exploring uncharted territory. The Cointelegraph Markets Pro alt season indicator states that the industry is in the midst of an alt season, showing a 32% inclination. While The Altseason Index, which defines the alt season as …

SushiSwap (SUSHI) prices crept higher on Sept. 16 following another day of gains for decentralized exchange (DEX) tokens. The SUSHI/USD exchange rate rose by 7.54%, or $1.14, to reach $16.31 for the first time since May 21. The pair's upside move pushed its 24-hour adjusted timeframe profits up to 23%, making SUSHI the best-performing DEX token in the given period. For instance, UNI, the token representing the leading DEX Uniswap by market cap, jumped 6.23% against the U.S. dollar in the previous 24 hours. Meanwhile, PancakeSwap (CAKE) rose 2.5%, THORChain (RUNE) climbed circa 13%, and Curve (CRV) inched higher by …

Real-world adoption and blockchain integration is the ultimate goal of any serious fintech protocol looking to offer workable solutions to some of the biggest challenges in finance and data transmission. Hedera Hashgraph is a public network that uses a distributed ledger technology known as Hashgraph to increase scalability and lower transaction costs. Two of the main reasons for the recent rise in Hedera’s native cryptocurrency, HBAR, include a growing list of ecosystem partners and the introduction of nonfungible token (NFT) minting capabilities to the network. Hedera partnerships expand HBAR’s availability The Hedera partnership program is an offshoot of the Hedera …

Bitcoin (BTC) is leading the recovery in the crypto sector and the cryptocurrency briefly rallied to $48,429 on Sept. 15, before pulling back to test the underlying support levels. While speaking during a live stream at the SALT conference, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood said that Bitcoin is the default currency of the crypto space and could rise tenfold in the next five years. Her projection is based on the presumption that Bitcoin will find a place in the balance sheets of many companies and institutional investors will increase their allocation to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to about 5%. Several …

Bitcoin's (BTC) rise back above the $48,000 mark was back by similar moves from altcoins and analysts expect the market-wide rally to continue if the top-ranked digital asset can take aim at the $50,000 resistance level. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24 hours were Frontier (FRONT), Ren (REN) and Keep Network (KEEP). Frontier's cross-chain app launch excites the community Frontier is a decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator that focuses on offering support for the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Harmony blockchain. VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a …