The United States equities markets have made a bullish start to the new week. The S&P 500 is up about 2.60% and the Nasdaq Composite has rallied more than 3%. This indicates that the markets have shrugged off September's high inflation reading and shifted focus onto the third-quarter earnings. The stock market’s recovery could pave the way for Bitcoin (BTC) to break out of the range it has been stuck in for the past several days. A positive sign for the bulls is that the amount of Bitcoin held in cold storage or lost has risen to a five-year high, …

Solana-based Magic Eden has become the latest NFT marketplace to shift to an optional royalties model, following in the footsteps of X2Y2 in August, albeit reluctantly. Under the optional royalties model, buyers are given the power to set the royalties they want to contribute to an NFT project, meaning there is a chance that some creators may not receive royalties when their artworks are sold. In an Oct. 14 post, the NFT marketplace noted that the decision came after "difficult reflection and discussions with many creators” and came as the “market has been shifting towards optional creator royalties for awhile.” …

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week. October is historically associated with the bulls, but in 2022, the month has also become the leader in crypto hacks as barely halfway through, and the DeFi ecosystem has already seen nearly a dozen hacks resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. The largest hack occurred on Solana’s DeFi platform Mango Markets on Oct. 11, resulting in a loss of over $100 million worth of crypto. The hacker has now come out …

The United States consumer price index (CPI) increased 8.2% annually in September, beating economists’ expectations of an 8.1% rise. The CPI print lived up to its hype and caused a sharp, but short-term increase in volatile risk assets. The S&P 500 oscillated inside its widest trading range since 2020 and Bitcoin (BTC) also witnessed a large intraday range of more than $1,323 on Oct. 13. However, Bitcoin still could not shake out of the $18,125 to $20,500 range it has been stuck in for the past several days. Both the U.S. equities markets and Bitcoin tried to extend their recovery …

The beta version of a much-anticipated NFT game is about to be released. SolChicks has the ambition of becoming the best play-and-earn RPG ecosystem on the Solana blockchain, with gamers using adorable chicks as their characters in an immersive gaming metaverse. Initially, the beta version will only be accessible to those who already hold SolChicks NFTs — and the game will be available on Android devices and PCs. The closed beta service will be launched on 15 October at 12pm UTC, and you can find out how to register here. A dramatic tweet that shows a SolChick in black and …

On Wednesday, one day after $117 million was drained from Solana DeFi platform Mango Markets via a price feed exploit, the hacker responsible for the attack demanded a settlement. The proposal was filed on the Mango Markets decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governance forum. If passed, the procedure would involve the hacker sending stolen Mango Markets (MNGO), Solana (SOL), and Marinade Staked SOL tokens to an address provided by the Mango DAO team. Users without bad debt will be remade whole. However, the hacker demands that any bad debt will be viewed as a bug bounty and insurance, to be paid …

The United States Federal Reserve has been aggressively hiking rates in an attempt to cool down inflation and that has kept the U.S. equities markets under pressure. Investors have been closely watching the inflation figures for early signs of topping out but to no avail. Wholesale prices rose 0.4% in September, exceeding the Dow Jones' estimate for a 0.2% gain. This suggests that inflation is yet to respond to the Fed’s monetary tightening. All eyes will now be fixed on the consumer price index data to be released on Oct. 13. Equity traders can expect volatility to pick up following …

For the last two weeks, unknown hackers have been airdropping nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to Solana cryptocurrency users masquerading as a new Phantom wallet security update, however, instead of an update, it's malware designed to steal their crypto. According to BleepingComputer, the hackers are claiming to be from the Phantom team and using NFTS titled "PHANTOMUPDATE.COM" or "UPDATEPHANTOM.COM." After opening the NFT, users are told a new security update has been issued for the Phantom wallet and can be downloaded by using the enclosed link or the listed website. To add urgency, the message claims that failing to download the fake …

The United States equities markets have started the week on a weak note as investors remain unconvinced that the Federal Reserve will pull back its aggressive monetary policy. The Nasdaq Composite index fell to its lowest level since September 2020. All eyes will be fixated on the U.S. Consumer Price Index data for September to be released on Oct. 13 as that could influence the Fed’s decision on the size of the rate hike in the next meeting in November. Depending on how the market perceives the reading, legacy markets and the cryptocurrency markets may witness a pick up in …

The allure of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) has been growing in popularity recently, and for a good reason. Nonfungible tokens are a new form of asset that can represent anything from digital art to game items and are stored on the blockchain ledger. This implies that NFTs are unique, immutable and transparent. People collect NFTs for a variety of reasons, including art appreciation, value speculation and as part of playing games like Decentraland or Cryptokitties that are based on blockchain technology. There are many possible reasons that NFTs have become popular, and different people will have different reasons for investing in …

The United States nonfarm payrolls increased by 263,000 in September, marginally below the Dow Jones estimate of 275,000, but the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% compared to the forecast of 3.7%. Some analysts believe the report shows that the jobs market remains strong in spite of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow down the economy and that could encourage the Fed to go ahead with another aggressive rate hike in its next meeting in November. This led to a sharp fall in the U.S. equities markets on Oct. 7. Although Bitcoin (BTC) has traded in close correlation with the U.S. …

Yuga Labs has announced a new Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) community council to help the project “grow and thrive.” The team revealed seven council members in an Oct. 5 blog post, noting that they are all OGs who have been around since the early days of the BAYC. Yuga Labs said it assembled a new community council made up of “Apes with a proven track record of proactively and positively contributing to the club since the start.” The members include, @beijingdou, @SeraStargirl, @TheMiamiApe, @OxEthanDG, @OxWave, @negithenagi, @peterjfang. “This council was formed with the intention of representing the club at …