The FTX crisis kept Bitcoin’s (BTC) price under pressure in November, but data from Bitstamp exchange shows institutional investors may have viewed the dip as a buying opportunity. The exchange told Cointelegraph that compared to October, its revenue from institutions increased by 34% in November. In another positive sign, Goldman Sachs executive Mathew McDermott told Reuters that the bank was doing some due diligence on crypto companies since they were “priced more sensibly” after the FTX crash. ARK Invest said in the latest edition of its monthly “The Bitcoin Monthly" newsletter, that the FTX implosion “could be the most damaging …

Are L2 networks the saviors? The emergence of a new tier of blockchains called layer-2 chains that have leveraged new cryptographic techniques like zero-knowledge-proofs (ZKPs) has helped address the scalability enigma. While the world was busy solving the blockchain trilemma at the L1 level, there were a bunch of smart developers who understood that optimization need not necessarily happen at the L1 level. One can create a network on top of L1 networks to solve fundamental problems. There are a few L2 networks, such as Polygon, Immutable and the Bitcoin lightning network, which use concepts such as sharding and rollups …

NFT music on Winamp Old school classic PC-friendly media player Winamp has rolled out support for Ethereum and Polygon-based music nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in the latest update of its desktop player. Winamp has been around since 1997 and was one of the most popular media players for PC users but has since been overtaken by Windows Media Player and Apple’s dominant iTunes. It has a reputation for supporting a wide range of media files, and in the latest update announcement on Dec. 7 the Winamp team noted that NFT support is officially live and ready to go. @winamp I have …

It’s the final month of the year and analysts are out with their projections for the next year. In a note to investors, Standard Chartered suggested that “The financial-market surprises of 2023” will include Bitcoin (BTC) price diving to $5,000 at some point in the year. The fall will be triggered by a liquidity crunch, which could result in more bankruptcies and a fall in investor confidence in the crypto sector. If this feels like an extreme, venture capitalist Tim Draper went in the opposite direction and predicted that Bitcoin could skyrocket to $250,000 by the middle of 2023. While …

Non-farm payrolls in the United States rose by 263,000 in November, exceeding economists’ expectations of an increase of 200,000. Analysts believe that the numbers remain hot and do not allow much scope for the Federal Reserve to slow down its aggressive rate hikes. This is contrary to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks delivered at the Brookings Institution where he said that the central bank could reduce the pace of rate hikes “as soon as December.” That triggered a sharp rally in risk assets. After the latest jobs report, the market participants will closely watch the Fed’s comments and decision in …

Disparities in information access and data analytics technology are what give institutional players an edge over regular retail investors in the digital asset space. The core idea behind Markets Pro, Cointelegraph’s crypto-intelligence platform powered by data analytics firm The Tie, is to equalize the information asymmetries present in the cryptocurrency market. Markets Pro bridges the gap of these asymmetries with its world-class functionality: the quant-style VORTECS™ Score. The VORTECS™ Score is an algorithmic comparison of several key market metrics for each coin utilizing years of historical data that assesses whether the outlook for an asset is bullish, bearish or neutral …

Bitcoin (BTC) has shrugged off the weakness in the United States equities markets and is attempting to start a recovery on Nov. 30. Buyers are attempting to achieve a monthly close above $17,000. This suggests that the selling that had picked up due to the FTX crisis may be reducing. Usually, smaller investors panic and dump their holdings in a bear market but it has been the opposite with Bitcoin investors. According to Glassnode data released on Nov. 27, investors holding less than one Bitcoin, also called shrimps, bought 96,200 Bitcoin since the FTX crash. Along similar lines, investors holding …

The world is quick to blame inflation for the rising prices at grocery stores and retailers. This was the #1 political issue for recent Election Day voters in the United States. For example, media sources recently reported poll data that 85% of Americans could not afford to spend $200 on a Thanksgiving meal in November 2022, and only 25% could afford $100. However, few recognize inflation is only part of the problem. Higher costs for products and services are also directly attributable to settlement fees paid by transportation providers who are forced to take out the equivalent of payday loans …

China witnessed a spike in Covid cases and that has resulted in strict lockdown restrictions in several parts of the country. This triggered widespread protests in China and has possibly pulled the global stock markets lower. In addition to the turmoil in China, the cryptocurrency markets, which are already in a bear grip, are reeling under pressure from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by BlockFi and its subsidiaries. Bitcoin (BTC) is down 21% in November, on track to its worst November performance since 2018. The sharp fall in Bitcoin’s price has drastically reduced the number of wallets holding more than …

FTX’s collapse dealt a major blow to the already fragile sentiment among cryptocurrency investors. Although a quick recovery is unlikely, Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis said that the crypto universe could emerge stronger from this crisis. Chainalysis’ research lead Eric Jardine arrived at the conclusion after comparing FTX’s fall to that of Mt. Gox. Another calming statement came from Bloomberg Intelligence exchange-traded fund analyst James Seyffart, who said that there was a “99.9% chance” that the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) held the Bitcoin (BTC) it claimed. He added that GBTC was “unlikely” to be liquidated. The negative events of the past …

Continued selling in the cryptocurrency markets pulled the total market capitalization below $800 billion on Nov. 21. Traders are increasingly nervous about the extent of damage FTX’s collapse may have on several crypto firms. Until the uncertainty clears, it is futile to expect a sustained recovery in cryptocurrency prices. The FTX saga has broken the close correlation between the United States equities markets and Bitcoin (BTC). While Bitcoin is trading close to its 52-week low, the S&P 500 (SPX) has recovered sharply from its low made on Oct. 13. The U.S. dollar index (DXY) is usually inversely correlated to Bitcoin …

The sentiment across the cryptocurrency ecosystem remains fragile as market participants assess the impact of the FTX crisis on various businesses within and outside of the crypto sector. Trading firm QCP Capital said in its latest circular on Telegram that crypto assets may continue their underperformance till the new year. QCP projects Bitcoin (BTC) to plunge to $12,000 and Ether (ETH) to $800. Looking at the brighter side, FTX could be the last major player to bite the dust during the current bear market cycle, according to CK Zheng, co-founder of crypto hedge fund ZX Squared Capital. Zheng also added …