The term “Ethereum killer” is beginning to pick up the pace once again in the cryptocurrency markets as the native tokens of several competing blockchain networks are posting significant gains during September. For any alternative network to be considered as a part of this category, it needs to have one essential feature that serves as the backbone of the Ethereum network: smart contracts. Keeping this in mind, the most prominent blockchain networks by market capitalization that usually come under this purview are Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Polkadot (DOT), and Terra(LUNA). The native tokens of these networks …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recovery is facing stiff resistance near $48,500, indicating that bears are active at higher levels. By combining the popular stock-to-flow Bitcoin price model and the illiquid supply data, analyst William Clemente projects $39,000 to act as a strong floor on any declines. On the upside, analysts remain bullish. Bloomberg Intelligence chief analyst Mike McGlone has maintained his target of $100,000 for Bitcoin. McGlone said that a number of different charts underline the bullish potential for Bitcoin. Along with Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) is also showing signs of accumulation. Crypto analytics provider IntoTheBlock said $1.2 billion worth of Ether was …

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance, or DeFi, newsletter. Despite Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson's claim that the DeFi space is now “up for grabs,“ it was rival Vitalik Buterin who stole the headlines this week with a feature in Time Magazine. What you’re about to read is the smaller version of this newsletter designed for brevity. For the full version of DeFi’s developments over the last week — released a whole lot quicker than Cardano’s smart contracts — drop your email below. Buterin’s Time to Shine Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin was listed in Time Magazine’s 100 most …

More than 200 smart contracts have been listed on the Cardano blockchain explorer following the Alonzo upgrade on Monday — but there’s a catch. As of now, the 200 smart contracts listed are in timelock and cannot be used by developers until they’re released. The Vercel App currently puts the number of smart contracts readying to be launched at more than 2,200. Smart contracts have been a long-anticipated feature on Cardano since its launch in 2017, and the functionality was finally enabled with the recent Alonzo hard fork. Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano and IOHK, said on Friday that the …

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”? …

Ethereum blockchain’s native asset, Ether (ETH), faces the prospect of exploding toward $6,500 in the coming sessions. ETH looks like a cup and handle too. Thoughts? — Raoul Pal (@RaoulGMI) September 15, 2021 The bullish analogy takes cues from a textbook technical pattern dubbed “cup and handle.” In detail, a cup and handle structure develops after the price first rallies significantly to the upside and then corrects to carve out a rounding bottom, called the “cup.” The move follows a rebound toward the prior high and a failed breakout attempt above the said level. As a result, the price pulls …

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) failure to make a strong recovery in the past few days has resulted in profit-booking in most major altcoins, threatening to pull the total crypto market capitalization back below $2 trillion. The United States equity markets witnessed profit-booking and the S&P 500 dropped by 1.69% last week, suggesting the development of a risk-off sentiment. Charles Edwards, CEO of investment manager Capriole, pointed out that “almost every Bitcoin correction in 2021” has corresponded with a 2% or more drop in the S&P 500. Irrespective of the near-term weakness in Bitcoin, MicroStrategy has continued to build its holdings. The company’s …

Bitcoin (BTC) fell further at the start of the new week as a lack of bullish momentum sparked new lows near $44,000. Bitcoin threatens loss of $44,000 “demand zone” Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD testing levels that analysts demand should stay as support. After a weekly close below both the key 50-day and 200-day moving averages, the pair looked increasingly less likely to reclaim them on shorter timeframes. For Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, the bullish crossover of the two averages, known as a “golden cross,” was still on the cards. There was, however, “no …

The price of Cardano (ADA) fell on Monday in line with the other top cryptocurrencies despite the completion of its hard fork upgrade dubbed “Alonzo,” which introduced smart contract functionality. The ADA/USD exchange rate dropped 10.67% to reach its intraday low of $2.30, partly due to profit-taking sentiment among traders following the pair’s 1,200%-plus price rally this year. Additionally, the intraday sell-off also surfaced in the period of an overall crypto market decline, with top tokens Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) falling 4% and 6.97%, respectively. Cardano’s drop appeared when its core foundation rolled out a long-awaited smart contracts feature …

Cardano has announced the completion of its Alonzo hard fork, ushering in its long-awaited smart contract functionality. On Monday, IOHK tweeted that the upgrade had been completed successfully at epoch 290, facilitating the creation and execution of smart contracts on the public blockchain for the first time. Despite celebrating the milestone, Cardano notes that it is still in the “early days for the project,” asserting that now is when “the mission truly begins” in a blog post published on the same day: “This is where the mission truly begins as we – the whole community – start delivering on the …

Bitcoin’s recent plunge does not seem to have shaken the investors and data shows that exchange reserves were down to 2.399 million Bitcoin (BTC), which is close to the May all-time low at 2.390 million Bitcoin. Ki Young Ju, CEO of on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, said this could result in a “sell-side liquidity crisis on Bitcoin.” Although Bitcoin has outperformed gold by a huge margin in 2021, Omega Advisors chairman and CEO Lee Cooperman remains averse to investing in it because he said that he does not understand Bitcoin. The billionaire investor still considers gold to be a better store …