Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to $28,000 on March 29 as a classic short squeeze took the market to five-day highs.

BTC liquidations mount as Bitcoin reverses Binance dip

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $28,159 on Bitstamp.

The abrupt uptick came courtesy of exchanges, where a band of shorts was “blown out” to remove resistance and allow higher levels to return.

As noted by the analyst, Skew, these shorts were left over from Bitcoin’s prior moves and were worth around 1,500 BTC.

“Looks like the previous bounce was shorted heavily & those shorts just got blown out,” part of the accompanying commentary stated.

SafeMoon, a project previously endorsed by A-list celebrities and social influencers such as Jake Paul and Soulja Boy, announced its liquidity pool (LP) was compromised. Without revealing further details about the attack, SafeMoon confirmed undertaking steps “to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”

Just like many other crypto projects in 2021, SafeMoon was backed by numerous celebrities. However, a lawsuit from Feb. 2022 alleged that musicians such as Nick Carter, Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty and YouTubers Jake Paul and Ben Phillips mimicked real-life Ponzi schemes by misleading investors to purchase SafeMoon (SFM) tokens under the pretext of unrealistic profits.

Investigating the SafeMoon hack shows that the attacker made away with approximately 27,000 BNB (BNB), worth $8.9 million. SafeMoon has not yet responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment. Moreover, users have been barred from posting comments on the announcement that revealed the LP compromise.

Blockchain investigator Peckshield narrowed the problem to a recent software upgrade as a potential culprit that introduced the bug. A public burn() function introduced in the latest upgrade allegedly allows users to burn tokens from other addresses.

As explained by community member DeFi Mark, the attacker used the vulnerability to remove SFM tokens, causing an artificial spike in the token’s price. The attacker took advantage of the situation and sold off the tokens at an inflated price.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell 3.6% to $26,900 after Binance and CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao were sued by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on March 27. To date, Binance has been investigated by the CFTC, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Internal Revenue Service and federal prosecutors.

The Bitcoin price correction may have been limited due to Silicon Valley bank’s successful asset sale to First Citizens BancShares at a $16.5 billion discount, which received an extraordinary credit line from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to compensate for potential future losses.

Oil prices also increased by 5% on March 27 after Russian President Vladimir Putin escalated geopolitical tensions in Europe. According to Yahoo!Finance, Russia plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, in a move designed to intimidate the opposing countries over its support for Ukraine.

Further tension from the crypto industry arose after a U.S. Federal Judge decided to temporarily halt the proposed sale of Voyager Digital to Binance.US. on March 27. Judge Jennifer Rearden of the U.S. District Court in New York granted the request for an emergency stay.

Let's examine Bitcoin derivatives metrics to determine the current market position of professional traders.

With the rise of Ordinals on Bitcoin (BTC) sparking debate over how users should store their NFTs and blockchain gaming projects searching for cheaper, secure ways to store data, it’s time to revisit the discussion surrounding decentralized storage coins.

Decentralized storage protocols Filecoin (FIL) and Arweave (AR) show similar price action, leaving investors with a decision between the underdog showing signs of increased adoption by NFT users and blockchain gaming projects and the clear leader in market cap and adoption.

The total market capitalization of the entire digital storage cryptocurrency landscape today is $4.87 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap, and each protocol provides something different. The two largest projects in the space by market cap that specifically addresses storage needs for NFTs and blockchain gaming are Filecoin and Arweave. Filecoin is currently the top-ranked project in the sector. It ranks 27th on CoinMarketCap by total market cap, but Arweave has significant on-chain activity and fundamental news that deserves attention.

The primary difference between the projects is their focus. Arweave is focused on long-term data storage with a one-time payment model, while Filecoin is more focused on incentivizing large-scale storage, especially for private data, and uses a tiered payment model based on storage time and space requests.

Filecoin has recently announced it would launch smart contracts, solidifying its new position as a layer-1 platform. This development has led to speculation on Filecoin’s future success in deploying Web3 offerings with real-world services like computing and storage, supported by Filecoin’s open marketplace for decentralized storage.