Compound Finance is just one of the latest victims of DeFi hacking incidents in 2021. On Sept. 30, its errant token distribution bug within the Proposal 062 exposed a flaw in which $70 million–$85 million in excess COMP tokens were wrongly distributed to users. Yet, an extra $65 million was placed in a vulnerable vault a few days later, resulting in at least $150 million in COMP tokens at risk. But, while Compound was able to remedy the entire situation, it shows how vulnerable the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector can be at times due to its nascency. Last year, the …

After dipping below $30,000 in June, Bitcoin (BTC) went on a nearly four-month rally, appreciating by more than 100%. On Friday, it was able to recapture the $60,000 level after closing the day with a 7.56% spike. The ensuing rally was attributed to the excitement around the SEC giving the green light on the ProShares Bitcoin Futures exchange-traded fund (ETF). Bitcoin has since successfully defended its current price level and managed to inch closer and closer to its all-time high valuation of $64,899. The listing of ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF on Tuesday is believed to provide an additional thrust for …

This month, Cointelegraph Research will release a comprehensive report on nonfungible tokens, discussing NFTs in detail and providing a detailed guide to getting into this market. In collaboration with multiple partners — including Enjin, NFTBank, The Sandbox and others — the report will evaluate the technology behind NFTs, their regulatory challenges, and their prospective growth and current market positions. The report will also outline the hurdles that the market may encounter in the future, and potential ways to overcome them. At the beginning of 2021, there was increased interest in NFTs, with the largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, experiencing a hundredfold …

Terra’s (LUNA) three-month rally saw its token rise by 674%, catapulting LUNA to the ranks of potential so-called “Ethereum killers.” LUNA has been on a tear lately because Terra’s most recent upgrade, Columbus-5, has effectively overhauled its tokenomics and brought significant changes to its technology. LUNA currently sits in fourth place in total value locked (TVL) among other blockchains, indicating its growing popularity for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and also underpins its long-term viability. Terra is a layer-one blockchain developed by South Korean startup firm Terraform Labs and was released in January 2018. It has a payments-focused ecosystem powered by …

Investors who survived the 2008 financial crisis understand the importance of liquidity. When an economic recession starts, deflationary pressure hits the market, and buyers disappear. Sellers frantically try to sell assets before their prices drop further, but buyers want to de-risk and go into safe-haven assets, such as treasury bonds and money market funds. The lack of liquidity associated with nonfungible assets is the one reason why investors may think they are riskier than cryptocurrencies. When an investor wants to sell Bitcoin (BTC), they can easily sell to an order book of buyers at various price points. If a seller …

It’s not the first time that the native token of the Avalanche blockchain has encountered wild fluctuations. In February, AVAX shot as high as $60 only to reach a nadir in June and July. But after bottoming at $9.34, AVAX is now beyond $60 and is currently trading at $76. This has earned it a spot in the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with $16 billion, according to Cointelegraph Markets Pro. Avalanche is among the layer-one blockchains tagged as “Ethereum killers” that appear to have reduced the recent dominance of the top altcoin in terms of total locked value …

Avalanche (AVAX) prices recovered on Sept. 22, paring a portion of losses that hit cryptocurrencies at the beginning of this week, led by worries about potential contagion in China’s housing market. The AVAX/USD exchange rate surged by as much as 12.05% to log an intraday high at $66.08. The pair’s gains came as a part of an interim rebound that started Tuesday after it bottomed out at a local low of $50.68. As a result, AVAX’s net rebound stretched by up to 30.37%. Cointelegraph’s VORTECS™ Score also flipped bullish ahead of the Avalanche token rally. The VORTECS™ Score is an …

Solana has been a trending topic due to the successive weeks of price increases seen by its SOL token. At the time of writing, SOL traded at around $207, which is an 11,400% surge from less than $2 back in January. At its present worth, Solana sits among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with about $60 billion, claiming the sixth spot from Dogecoin (DOGE), according to Cointelegraph Markets. One of the likely catalysts of this bullish momentum is funding from investors led by Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain in June. Solana secured $314 million, which will be used to …

As nonfungible token sales appear reanimated after a nearly two-month dry spell from their apex in May, a particular NFT application is gaining popularity more than ever: metaverses. Metaverses have gained their fair share of media attention lately, with big moves coming from companies like Facebook and Epic games. However, not everyone — even those who have been in crypto for a long time — has caught on to what metaverses are, despite the hype. But as more companies, celebrities and artists venture into the space, it has become another domain that deserves some thorough consideration. The Metaverse is a …

Web 3.0, interoperability and layer zero are all terms tossed around when describing Polkadot. But what do they mean, and how will they impact the internet and cryptocurrency market? Cointelegraph Research’s new report explores how Polkadot is tackling distributed ledger scalability and centralization of the web simultaneously. For starters, imagine a world where Facebook is replaced by a decentralized social media application built on Polkadot. This is what projects like Subsocial are building in their platforms, which let users determine what data to keep private and what to share. Users can leverage their data by monetizing it on Ocean Market, …

The much-talked-about Ethereum hard fork finally went live on Aug. 5 after block 12,965,000 was mined. Dubbed “London,” the software upgrade will bring together significant alterations in Ethereum’s code. Overall, the code changes target improvements to the network’s transaction fee market, user experience and much more. London comes with five Ethereum Improvement Protocols (EIP), with EIP-1559 garnering the most attention due to the impact on transaction fees and miner revenue, which initially caused miners to push back, raising concerns over the protocol consensus and a potential chain split. EIP-1559 was originally proposed in April 2019 and underwent testing back in …

Nonfungible token (NFT) sales tapering off is nothing new, and since their May peak, they have gone down by about 90%. However, as some marketplaces shore up their numbers, NFT auction site Rarible appears to have users flocking away from its platform. Rarible is one of the most popular sites for buying and selling digital collectibles, and in April, it reached $2.5 million in daily transactions, according to DappRadar. But as the overall cryptocurrency market entered a bearish spell, Rarible’s numbers took a nosedive and have not recovered yet. Data reveals how volumes declined to levels not seen since June …