The aggregate total value locked (TVL) in the crypto market measures the amount of funds deposited in smart contracts and this figure declined from $160 billion in mid-April to the current $70 billion, which is the lowest level since March 2021. While this 66% contraction is worrying, a great deal of data suggests that the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector is resilient. The issue with using TVL as a broad metric is the lack of detail that is not shown. For example, the number of DeFi transactions, growth of layer-2 scaling solutions and venture capital inflows in the ecosystem are not …

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has argued that crypto payments will once again “make sense” as transaction costs will soon fall to fractions of a cent due to layer-2 rollups. The Cointelegraph team currently on the ground at Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) quoted Buterin as stating that the final hurdle to getting transactions down to fractions of a cent at scale is blockchain data compression. He pointed to “solid work happening” with roll-ups at the moment such as Optimism’s layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, which has worked to get the size and cost of data in blockchain transactions down by introducing …

It’s weird to think that anyone could look forward to downturns in the crypto market, but that is precisely the position held by many developers and project creators who enjoy the low-pressure environment that exists during a bear market. As the saying goes, bear markets are for building, and now is one of the best times to survey the landscape to see which sectors of the market are most active in designing the platforms that will soar to new heights in the next bull cycle. Here’s a look at five sectors of the blockchain ecosystem that may present some of …

Crypto investors found cause for celebration on July 14 as the market experienced a positive trading session just one day after the Consumer Price Index (CPI) posted a June print of 9.1%, its highest level since 1981. The move higher in the market wasn’t entirely unexpected for seasoned traders who have become familiar with a one to two-day bounce in asset prices following the most recent CPI prints. These traders also know there’s nothing to get too excited about, as the bounces have typically been followed by more downside once people realize that the high inflation print is a negative …

Unlike bull markets where traders can basically throw a dart at a list of coins to pick one that will go up, bear markets require much more effort to find projects that could perform well over the long-run. One project that has continued to show signs of mainstream adoption despite the onset of a crypto winter is Polygon (MATIC), a layer-2 scaling solution for the Ethereum (ETH) network that is looking to build a sustainable Web3 infrastructure on the top smart contract platform. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that since hitting a low of $0.316 on June …

Polygon (MATIC) reached lofty price levels this July 14, a day after getting selected for the Walt Disney Company's benchmark business development program. MATIC's price surged 22.5% to $0.657 a token, its highest level in a month. In doing so, the token also climbed above its 50-day exponential moving average (50-day EMA; the red wave), a curvy resistance level that had been capping MATIC's upside attempts since January 2022. Polygon enters the Disney World MATIC's move upside appeared synchronous with similar intraday recovery actions witnessed elsewhere in the crypto market. Nonetheless, Polygon fared better than most of its top-ranking rivals, …

Positive price movement during bear markets are notoriously hard to come by due to the non-stop FUD of media and lackadaisical interest from crypto investors. One crypto that managed to flash green on June 12 is the Nervos Network (CKB), an open blockchain protocol designed for universally accessible decentralized applications (DApps). Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that CKB put on a 50% gain in July after climbing from a low of $0.0033 on June 30 to a daily high of $0.005 on July 12. Three reasons for the positive gains for the Nervos Network include the launch …

Ethereum is plagued with criticisms of its less than optimal scaling capabilities and high gas prices. There have been talks about increasing the scaling capacity of the Ethereum mainnet for a while now. However, the Ethereum ecosystem needs a solution for scaling right now, and if Ethereum is not able to give these new applications a platform with enough scaling capabilities, they can seek alternatives like the BNB Chain or Cardano. Optimism rollout was created to solve exactly the scalability problem of Ethereum. Optimism Rollup network is one of the several solutions trying to address Ethereum’s congestion problem. The Ethereum …

This past week, the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem was ruled by decentralized autonomous organizations and new fund launches for the growth of the Web3 ecosystem. The total number of DAOs surged by eight times while Solana launched a $100 million DeFi fund. Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 protocol that Vitalik Buterin recently praised for its governance model, lost 20 million tokens due to a mix-up of layer-1 and layer-2 addresses. A leaked 600-page copy of a United States crypto draft bill also grabbed the community’s attention, as it proposes heavy regulatory scrutiny for DeFi and DAOs. The top-100 DeFi tokens showed …

The honeymoon period for the Optimism layer-2 scaling solution has been cut short, as an exploit in its market maker’s smart contract led to the loss of 20 million OP tokens. The exploit took place on May 26 but has only just been reported to the community. One million tokens valued at about $1.3 million were sold on Sunday. An additional 1 million tokens valued at about $730,000 were transferred to Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum address on Optimism earlier today at 12:26 am UTC. The remaining tokens are dormant for now but could be sold at any time or used to …

Open-world blockchain game Illuvium managed to keep the average transaction fee for its nonfungible token (NFT) Land at about $20 by holding a Dutch auction on the Illuvium X layer-2 scaling solution. The price to mint the NFTs was a fraction of the cost users paid to mint in Yuga Labs’ Otherside sale. Illuvium reports that users spent only $350,000 in fees in total to mint nearly 20,000 plots of Land worth about $72 million, all without any reported network errors. By contrast, the Otherside sale was plagued with issues. Users paid an average of $6,000 in gas fees and …

Unsecured lending protocol TrueFi has become the latest project to launch on Optimism, Ethereum’s popular layer-2 scaling solution, in a move that’s expected to boost demand from non-institutional lenders. By launching on Optimism, TrueFi’s lender community will have access to a faster and cheaper user experience, as well as gain exposure to a wider pool of retail lenders. “TrueFi users can now lend, borrow and launch portfolios on Optimism to enjoy dramatically reduced transaction costs and network speeds,” Rafael Cosman, co-founder of TrustToken, told Cointelegraph in a written statement. He further explained: “Since Optimism transactions are on average 77x cheaper …