Decentral Block Post

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and decentralized finance (DeFi) are redefining how charities raise donations and distribute funds to those most in need. 

Through ever-evolving crypto and blockchain-related technology, crypto philanthropists told Cointelegraph that they've witnessed “new wealth distribution mechanisms" never seen before. 

“Philanthropy has traditionally been seen as a high-cost-of-entry, individualistic activity but with web3, collective decision-making bodies like DAOs can use tools that streamline financial coordination and encourage more participation,” explained Omar Antila, Product Lead at Crypto for Charity.

“Crypto enables new innovative fundraising strategies, like charitable NFT-drop campaigns, or allowing people to pool their crypto funds in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that earn interest for a specific cause,” he added.

In October, a number of breast cancer-focused organizations started implementing NFTs to highlight Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 

The Central Bank of Iran is reportedly cooperating with the Russian government to jointly issue a new cryptocurrency backed by gold.

Iran is working with Russia to create a “token of the Persian Gulf region” that would serve as a payment method in foreign trade, Russia’s news agency Vedomosti reported on Jan. 15.

The token is projected to be issued in the form of a stablecoin backed by gold, according to Alexander Brazhnikov, executive director of the Russian Association of Crypto Industry and Blockchain (RACIB).

The stablecoin aims to enable cross-border transactions instead of fiat currencies like the United States’ dollar, the Russian ruble or the Iranian rial. The potential cryptocurrency would operate in a special economic zone in Astrakhan, where Russia started to accept Iranian cargo shipments, the report notes.

Russian lawmaker Anton Tkachev, a member of the Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, stressed that a joint stablecoin project would only be possible once the digital asset market is fully regulated in Russia. After multiple delays, the Russian lower house of parliament once again promised to start regulating crypto transactions in 2023.

The developers of the dog-themed token Shiba Inu (SHIB) posted an update to inform its community about its upcoming beta release of Shibarium, a layer-2 network that will run on top of the Ethereum mainnet. 

In an announcement, SHIB developers shared information about layer-2 blockchains and highlighted that Shibarium is being built to provide a tool to allow the community to build and grow the project and fulfill its founder’s vision. While some believe that the creation of Shibarium is a way to increase the meme token’s price, the developers noted that this wasn’t the goal. They wrote:

“Patience is key, and some see Shibarium as a price-pumping tool, but that is not the project's focus and never has been.”

Instead, the developers mentioned that the goal of the new update in its infrastructure is to "revolutionize the Shiba ecosystem" by removing barriers to entry for small transactions, upgrading the speed, allowing the development of decentralized applications and integrating nonfungible tokens.

A key update in the new announcement is one of the most-requested features for the project, which is a burning mechanism for SHIB. According to the developers, "all transactions on the network will have an implicit burn amount for $SHIB token." This mechanism will occur whenever a transaction is made within the network. 

SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci is investing in a crypto company founded by the former president of FTX US.

According to an email to Bloomberg, Scaramucci said he would be investing his own personal funds to support ex-FTX US president Brett Harrison’s new venture, which became known just three weeks after the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

It is understood that the crypto software company — which doesn’t yet have a name — will enable crypto traders to create algorithmic-based strategies to access different markets — both centralized and decentralized.

It is also understood that Harrison has been seeking a fundraising target as high as $10 million for a $100 million valuation.

In a Jan. 14 tweet responding to Harrison's lengthy thread on Sam Bankman-Fried and his time at FTX U, Scaramucci said he was “proud” to be an investor in Harrison’s new company.

The cryptocurrency markets have made a strong comeback in the past few days. That drove the total crypto market capitalization to $995 billion on Jan. 14, according to CoinMarketCap data. Bitcoin (BTC) led the recovery from the front and skyrocketed above $21,000 on Jan. 14.

After the sharp rally, the big question is whether the recovery is a dead cat bounce that is a selling opportunity, or is it the start of a new uptrend. It is difficult to predict with certainty if a macro bottom has been made but the charts suggest that a bottoming process has begun.

Independent market analyst HornHairs highlighted that the 2017 to 2018 bear market lasted for 364 days and from 2021 to the current market low, the duration is again 364 days. Another interesting similarity is that the 2015 to 2017 bull market and the 2018 to 2021 bull phase both lasted for 1,064 days. If history repeats itself, then Bitcoin may make the next top in roughly 1,000 days.

Bitcoin's short term price action has been exciting for bulls but are there altcoins that are showing similar strength in the near term?

Let’s study the charts to find out.

Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Polygon will undergo a hard fork on Jan. 17 in order to address gas spikes and chain reorganizations issues that has affected user experience on the Polygon proof-of-stake (POS) chain. 

Polygon officially confirmed the hard fork event in Jan. 12 a blog post, which came after weeks of preliminary discussion on Polygon Improvement Proposal (PIP) forum page in late December.

A Polygon spokesperson also provided Cointelegraph with additional details of the hard fork on Jan. 14:

“The hard fork is coded for the Block >= 38,189,056. No centralized, single actor is going to initiate it. Validators of the network have to update their nodes prior to the indicated block, and they are already doing so.”

87% of the 15 voters of the Polygon Governance Team voted in favor of increasing the BaseFeeChangeDenominator function from 8 to 16 to reduce gas fee spikes and to decrease the SprintLength function from 64 blocks to 16 in order to fix the chain reorganization problem.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization reached its highest level in over two months on Jan. 13 after breaking above the $900 billion mark on Jan. 12.

While the 15.5% year-to-date gain sounds promising, the level is still 50% below the $1.88 trillion crypto market cap seen before the Terra-Luna ecosystem collapsed in April 2022.

“Hopeful skepticism” is probably the best description of most investors' sentiment at the moment, especially after the recent struggles of recapturing a $1 trillion market capitalization in early November. That rally to $1 trillion was followed by a 27.6% correction in three days and it invalidated any bullish momentum that traders might have expected.

Bitcoin (BTC) has gained 15.7% year-to-date, but a different scenario has emerged for altcoins, with a handful of them gaining 50% or more in the same period. Some investors attribute the rally to the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released on Jan. 12, which confirmed the thesis that inflation was continuing to drop.

While the macroeconomic conditions might have improved, the situation for cryptocurrency companies seems gloomy. New York-based Metropolitan Commercial Bank (MCB) announced on Jan. 9 that it would close its crypto-assets vertical, citing changes in the regulatory landscape and recent setbacks in the industry. Crypto-related clients accounted for 6% of the bank's total deposits.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose above $19,000 on Jan. 12, the highest level since Nov. 8. Although a bull market may not start in a hurry, Glassnode data suggests that the foundation for a macro bottom in Bitcoin may be in place. The on-chain analytics firm tweeted on Jan. 12 that “13% of the Circulating Supply” returned to profit when Bitcoin rallied to $18,200. This suggests a large phase of accumulation took place in the $16,500 to $18,200 range.

Along with Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) is also witnessing signs of accumulation. The number of Ethereum sharks, holding between 100 and 10,000 Ether, has risen by 3,000 since November 22, according to Santiment data.

Many times, traders miss a bottom because they remain in denial. If traders want to catch a trend early, they should keep a close eye on the price action because a sequence of higher highs and higher lows may indicate a bullish sentiment.

Are Bitcoin and altcoins showing signs of starting a new uptrend? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

BTC/USDT

Bitcoin is on the path of recovery. Strong buying by the bulls propelled the price above the stiff overhead resistance at $18,388 on Jan. 12. This is the first indication that the bears may be losing their grip.

Input Output Global (IOG) — the team behind the Cardano ecosystem — will release a software toolkit in late Jan. 2023 that will enable developers to deploy custom-built sidechains on Cardano aimed at improving the ecosystem.

The news was announced by IOHK — a blockchain engineering company founded by Charles Hoskinson and now known as IOG — on Jan.12, which also attached the official technical documentation for the sidechain toolkit.

IOG developers have already used the toolkit to construct an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible sidechain public testnet as a “proof of concept,” and when the audit is complete, anyone will be able to deploy decentralized applications, create smart contracts and move tokens between different testing chains.

The toolkit will also enable the creators of the sidechains to choose their own consensus mechanism in addition to other application-specific features.

A sidechain is an independent blockchain that works adjacent to the parent blockchain, often referred to as the mainnet. Sidechains often attempt to add scalability to the mainnet which often prioritizes decentralization and security.

Crypto investors have been urged to keep their eyes peeled for "deepfake" crypto scams to come, with the digital-doppelganger technology continuing to advance, making it harder for viewers to separate fact from fiction. 

David Schwed, the COO of blockchain security firm Halborn told Cointelegraph that the crypto industry is more “susceptible” to deepfakes than ever because “time is of the essence in making decisions” which results in less time to verify the veracity of a video.

Deepfakes use deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) to create highly realistic digital content by manipulating and altering original media, such as swapping faces in videos, photos, and audio, according to technical writer at OpenZeppelin Vlad Estoup.

Estoup noted that crypto scammers often use deepfake technology to creat fake videos of well-known personalities to execute scams.

An example of such a scam was a deepfake video of FTX former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried in November 2022, where scammers used old interview footage of Bankman-Fried and a voice emulator to direct users to a malicious website promising to “double your cryptocurrency.”

On this week’s episode of Market Talks, Cointelegraph welcomes Justin Kramer, CEO of Badgerland Home Crypto Mining — a home-based crypto mining equipment business.

This week, to kick things off, we get to know a little bit about Kramer and his mining business. What are his expertise and experience with crypto mining, and how did he gravitate toward it? We also get his take on the current market conditions and the price of Bitcoin (BTC).

Doing anything from your house, whether it’s working from home or mining cryptocurrencies, comes with its own set of challenges, especially when you’re first starting out. We find out what some of those challenges are and how to overcome them. This is especially useful for anyone looking to set up their own mining rig at home. We discuss the five major things you need to realize before you start out and be ready for from day 1.

Mining Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency is not as clear-cut as it once might have been. Electricity costs are constantly going up, and with the recent continuous downtrend in the price of Bitcoin, one really has to weigh the cost versus the profitability of mining. We ask Kramer what investors or anyone looking to get into crypto mining should do and what is the best way to calculate your costs and profit margins. Should you just have faith that the price of Bitcoin will eventually go up, or maybe there is a way to get exposure to mining without having to run the rigs yourself? 

Ever wondered what cloud mining is or how it works? Is it a new form of mining cryptocurrencies, or could it be a new form of scam? The crypto market can be a dangerous place to operate if you don’t have a well-rounded understanding of the space and how to approach something new in the industry, so make sure you tune in to learn about the ins and outs of cloud mining so you’re well-informed.

Avalanche (AVAX) has opened 2023 with a bang, rising nearly 55% in the first two weeks. And now, a mix of technical and fundamental indicators hints that the token will keep rallying into March.

AVAX price breakout underway

The AVAX/USD pair appears to have been forming a falling wedge pattern since May 2022 and has now entered the breakout stage of this pattern.

A falling wedge forms when the price trends lower inside a range defined by two converging, descending trendlines. The pattern resolves after the price breaks out of its range to the upside and, as a rule of technical analysis, can rise as high as the distance between its upper and lower trendlines.

Applying the theory on AVAX's falling wedge pattern brings the token's breakout target at around $34, up approximately 115% from current price levels.

Avalanche's Amazon partnership

AVAX's bullish setup appears as Ava Labs — the developer of the Avalanche network — becomes an official blockchain solution provider to Amazon Web Services (AWS).

'Degen' season smells like pixelated feet

Feetpix.wtf’s newly launched nonfungible token (NFT) collection, “Feetpix” has seemingly taken the NFT community by storm with surging trading volumes, prompting some to suggest the return of “degen” season.

Feetpix.wtf’s collection soared ahead of the likes of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) on Jan. 11 with the fifth-highest trading volume recorded on NFT marketplace OpenSea.

The project — which released 10,000 Feetpix NFTs — has traded over 825 Ether (ETH)($1,157,000) across nearly 18,000 transactions since its release on Jan. 8.

Crypto Twitter is still split on what inspired the surge in foot fetish-NFT trading volumes, though Feetpix noted the absence of a roadmap, promise and marketing scheme suggested a “love for feet” is not just legitimate but also clearly monetizable through the use of digital art.

Several Twitter users highlighted the absurd, short-term success of the project, suggesting a return of “degen szn” (season) which entailed a mass trading volume of high-risk NFT collectibles at the peak of the bull market in 2021.