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Lido DAO (LDO) price edged higher on Aug. 3, primarily due to similar upside moves elsewhere in the crypto market and a rising euphoria around Ethereum's network upgrade in September.

On the daily chart, LDO's price reached an intraday high of $2.40 a day after bottoming out locally at $1.84. The sharp upside reversal amounted to nearly 30% gains in a day, suggesting traders' strengthening bullish bias for Lido DAO.

Lido DAO is a liquid staking solution for Ethereum by total value deposited. In other words, it allows users to participate in the running of Ethereum's upcoming proof-of-stake (PoS) chain in exchange for daily rewards. 

Ethereum's Ether token (ETH) has rallied by more than 90% since mid-June in part due to buzz around its blockchain's PoS upgrade called the Merge, expected in September. 

Lido DAO, the biggest Merge staking serve provider, has benefited from the craze simultaneously, with LDO, its governance token, rallying nearly 500% in the same period.

The exploit took place due to a smart contract vulnerability that saw hundreds of users other than the hacker also get involved, taking away as much as they can by simply copy-pasting the transaction data used by the initial hacker and changing the wallet address to theirs. The event was later deemed as a decentralized robbery by many due to the involvement of normal community members.

Later, the Nomad team revealed to Cointelegraph that some of the people who took funds were acting benevolently to protect the crypto from getting into the wrong hands.

In the aftermath of the hack, the crypto analysis group BestBrokers found that the first exploit took place on Aug. 1, which drained 400 Bitcoin (BTC) in four different transactions. The hackers later diverted all 22,880 Ether (ETH), then moved on to the over $107 million worth of stablecoins and finally started diverting the altcoins supported by the project.

The incident has seen WBTC, Wrapped Ether (WETH), USD Coin (USDC), Frax (FRAX), Covalent Query Token (CQT), Hummingbird Governance Token (HBOT), IAGON (IAG), Dai (DAI), GeroWallet (GERO), Card Starter (CARDS), Saddle DAO (SDL) and Charli3 (C3) tokens taken from the bridge.

Related: Ongoing Solana-based wallet hack seeing millions drained

With Solana (SOL) hitting the headlines for succumbing to a hack on Aug. 3, prominent crypto CEOs — including Binance’s Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, KuCoin’s Johnny Lyu and OKX’s Jay Hao — recommended SOL investors move their holdings over to their own exchanges as an immediate security measure.

Numerous blockchain investigators and crypto investors flagged an alleged widespread private key compromise, allowing the attacker to steal native SOL tokens and Solana-compatible SPL tokens such as USD Coin (USDC) from Phantom and Slope wallets. However, the root cause of the attack remains a mystery as all parties, including Solana and Phantom, denied faults at their ends. Phantom’s official stance on the matter shared with Cointelegraph was:

“We are working closely with other teams to get to the bottom of a reported vulnerability in the Solana ecosystem. At this time, the team does not believe this is a Phantom-specific issue.”

Parallel to the ongoing investigations of the Solana fiasco, CZ warned investors of “an active security incident on Solana” that drained funds in SOL and USDC off over 7000 wallets. His recommendation to unhacked investors was to transfer their assets to a cold wallet or Binance.

Lyu gave a similar assurance to KuCoin users as he confirmed that all SOL assets were not impacted by the hack; as he said:

Polkadot (DOT) looks ready to extend its ongoing price recovery due to a classic bullish pattern forming on its daily chart.

DOT paints "cup and handle" pattern

Notably, DOT has been forming a "cup and handle" pattern since mid-June, confirmed by its price crashing and recovering in a rounding, U-shaped trajectory (cup), followed by the development of a trading range on the right-hand side (handle).

Cup and handle patterns are typically bullish continuation setups that form during an uptrend. But in rare cases, they appear at the end of a downtrend, leading to a bullish price reversal. As a result, DOT's possibility of continuing its price recovery seems high.

Thus, from the technical perspective, DOT initially eyes a breakout above its cup and handle's resistance line near $8.50.

A decisive close above the resistance line, i.e., a breakout move accompanied by a rise in volume, could have DOT eye approximately $12 as its upside target by September, up more than 50% from today's price.

Crypto exchange Zipmex, which operates in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia, released a statement this week denying reports that it has filed for bankruptcy and announcing its progress in resuming withdrawals from its Z Wallets. 

Zipmex customers can withdraw Solana (SOL) from their wallets Tuesday and will be able to withdraw XRP on Thursday and Cardano (ADA) on August 9, the company said.

Zipmex provides its customers with two wallets: Z Wallet, used for Zipmex services and receipt of earnings and bonuses, and Trade Wallet, where fiat currency and funds for trading are held. Zipmex paused all withdrawals from its platform on July 20 but resumed withdrawals from Trade Wallets two days later. The company cited its exposure to Babel Finance and Celsius defaults as necessitating the wallet freeze. Babel Finance owed Zipmex $48 million and Celsius owed it $5 million.

Now altcoins in Z Wallets will be transferred to Trade Wallets, leaving only Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and stablecoins frozen in Z Wallets. Zipmex promised customers that it would “start to release some of these tokens [BTC, ETH and stablecoins] into your Trade Wallet starting in the middle of August.”

Related: Thai SEC launches digital hotline for Zipmex users

The Waves (WAVES) community has supported a governance proposal to revive the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Vires.Finance after its liquidity crisis. The vote aims to stabilize the project and compensate the users who were affected. 

In April, Neutrino (USDN), a stablecoin running on the Waves platform, depegged from the dollar. This led to a series of user withdrawals within the platform, eventually ending in a liquidity shortage where users became unable to withdraw their funds from the platform. During the event, Waves founder Sasha Ivanov stepped in, accumulating $500 million in debt into his wallet with the intent to gradually pay it out.

To fix the situation, the Vires team submitted a proposal that gives two options to users with a balance of above $250,000 on the platform. The first option is to exchange their positions for USDN, with a 1 year vesting period and a 5% liquidation bonus. The second option is to remain in USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT) with 0% APY, which will be repaid by Ivanov, without any guarantees on the time frame for the payments.

With the proposal in effect, the Vires team expects to have better liquidity, allowing users to withdraw their funds from the platform. In the announcement sent to Cointelegraph, Ivanov thanked the Waves community for supporting the proposal, highlighting that the community always has the last word on their platform.

Related: These are the least 'stable' stablecoins not named TerraUSD

Bitcoin (BTC) is pressuring newly-won support levels this week as geopolitical uncertainty raises the stakes for risk assets.

After an impressive monthly close, momentum appears to be waning for Bitcoin's latest gains, data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows, and stock markets are not helping the bulls.

Volatility was cool as August began, but angst over a potential showdown between the United States and China over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan is already showing in Asian trading on Aug. 2.

Amid talk of a "bear market rally" being all that can describe the current setup, Cointelegraph takes a look at the crucial support and resistance levels currently facing the market on short timeframes.

Traders unconvinced over fate of 200-week moving average

Analyzing order book data on Binance, the largest exchange globally by volume, pockets of buy and sell interest stand out immediately.

Cryptocurrency-friendly bank Sygnum Bank continues expanding its crypto services by launching support for Cardano (ADA) staking.

Sygnum announced on Tuesday that the firm has expanded its bank-grade staking offering with Cardano, allowing clients to generate rewards by staking ADA via the bank’s institutional-grade platform.

ADA joins Sygnum’s growing crypto-staking portfolio, which features three proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols; Internet Computer, Tezos and soon, Ethereum 2.0.

According to the announcement, staking services make up an integral part of Sygnum’s platform and are available to clients through the bank’s eBanking platform. The services are fully integrated with Sygnum’s banking platform, which is designed to provide institutional-grade security by applying segregated wallets, secure private key management and other tools.

Staking is the process of participating in the validation of transactions on a PoS blockchain in exchange for staking rewards. In contrast to proof-of-work (PoW) networks like Bitcoin, PoS blockchains do not need mining activity and instead rely on users locking up their coins to maintain a network.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged 11 individuals for their alleged role in the creation of a "fraudulent crypto pyramid scheme" platform Forsage. 

The charges were laid in a United States District Court in Illinois on August 1, with the SEC alleging that the founders and promoters of the platform used the “fraudulent crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme” to raise more than $300 million from “millions of retail investors worldwide.”

The SEC complaint states that Forsage was modeled such that investors would be financially rewarded by recruiting new investors to the platform in a "typical Ponzi structure," which spanned multiple countries including the United States and Russia. 

According to the SEC, a Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new investors. These schemes often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities that generate high returns for little risk. 

In the court document, the SEC stated that:

Polygon (MATIC) had a promising July, gaining an impressive 83% in 30 days. The smart contract platform uses layer-2 scaling and aims to become an essential Web3 infrastructure solution. However, investors question whether the recovery is sustainable, considering lackluster deposits and active addresses data.

According to Cointelegraph, Polygon rallied after being selected for the Walt Disney Company's accelerator program to build augmented reality, nonfungible token (NFT) and artificial intelligence solutions.

Polygon announced on July 20 plans to implement a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM), which bundles multiple transactions before relaying them to the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic stated this solution would slash Ethereum fees by 90% and boost throughput to 40–50 transactions per second.

Another reason for Polygon's rally was the growing number of platforms that started to offer liquid staking for MATIC tokens, which enabled holders to earn additional rewards. Examples include Lido Finance, Balancer, Meshswap and Ankr Staking, according to DeFi Pulse.

Despite currently being 69% below its -time high, Polygon remains a top-12 token by capitalization rank. Moreover, the network holds $1.72 billion worth of deposits locked on smart contracts, known in the industry as total value locked, or TVL.

After strong monthly gains in July, Bitcoin (BTC) and the altcoins have started the new month on a tentative note. Even the United States equities markets have started August on a soft note. 

Is the bottom in?

BofA Securities head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy Savita Subramanian said in a recent note that the stock market usually bottoms after earnings estimates are revised lower but that has not yet happened during the current downturn.

Analysts in the crypto space also remain divided on whether the current rise is a bear market rally or the start of a new bull phase.

However, a minor positive is that the world’s first Bitcoin spot price exchange-traded fund (ETF), the Purpose Bitcoin ETF, has added 2,600 Bitcoin to its holdings. Although the total assets under management remain well below the all-time high, the recent addition is a sign that some institutional investors may have started bottom fishing.

Could Bitcoin and altcoins find buyers at lower levels? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

With the ultimate goal to regain investor confidence amid a prolonged bear market, crypto derivatives exchange Bitget launched a $200 million fund to safeguard users’ assets. Bitget joins the growing list of crypto companies, such as Binance, that have taken an investor-centric approach to gain investors’ trust via protection funds.

The Bitget Protection Fund comprises 6,000 Bitcoin (BTC) and 80 million Tether (USDT), valued at $200 million at the time of writing. Considering the fact that crypto winter currently shows almost no signs of slowing down, Bitget pledged to secure the value of the fund for the next three years.

While Bitget chose to self-fund the entire protection fund without relying on a third-party insurance policy, Binance set up its user protection insurance fund, Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), by allocating 10% of the trading fee. Starting off in 2018, SAFU reached a $1 billion valuation by early 2022. Sharing details about the newly founded fund, Gracy Chen, managing director of Bitget, added:

“The protection fund will help us mitigate investors’ concerns and attract potential users. As we continue to endure the crypto winter, it is crucial that our users can rest assured that their funds are kept safe.”

Bitget’s reasoning behind using a combination of stablecoin and BTC in the protection fund is to counter massive unforeseen volatility in crypto markets. Further safeguarding investors, Bitget implemented stringent Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policies to disallow bad actors from using its services.

Under the mattress, in the seams of a piece of luggage or even rolled into a cigar, what are the worst and best ways for keeping a seed phrase safe? The key to unlocking and recovering cryptocurrency, a seed phrase, should be secured and safe. 

Especially now that prices are low and the crypto tourists have checked out, it might be time for a crypto security spring clean. Security starts with a seed phrase, sometimes called a recovery phrase.

There’s no denying it: Bitcoin and the crypto space writ large are in the clutches of a bear market. Since Do Kwon’s Terra experiment went up in smoke, a crypto contagion has choked the most reputable of exchanges, causing many self-sovereignty advocates to chant, “not your keys, not your coins.”

Indeed, hardly a day goes by that another “trusted” crypto lender freezes customer withdrawals. From Singapore’s crypto lender Vauld to Thailand’s crypto exchange with 200,000 customers, Zipmex, to the world-renowned Celsius exchange, many centralized lending platforms have suffered similar fates, ensuring heartbreaking consequences for customers in 2022.

These circumstances are timely reminders to look after one’s own keys and to ensure they are in a safe place. So, while prices are low and trust in centralized exchanges (places that claim to look after crypto), also hits rock bottom, there is no better time to up the security of one’s crypto assets.

Ether (ETH) is reaching a make-it or break-it point as the network moves away from proof-of-work (PoW) mining. Unfortunately, many novice traders tend to miss the mark when creating strategies to maximize gains on potential positive developments.

For example, buying ETH derivatives contracts is a cheap and easy mechanism to maximize gains. The perpetual futures are often used to leverage positions, and one can easily increase profits five-fold.

So why not use inverse swaps? The main reason is the threat of forced liquidation. If the price of ETH drops 19% from the entry point, the leveraged buyer loses the entire investment.

The main problem is Ether's volatility and its strong price fluctuations. For example, since July 2021, ETH price crashed 19% from its starting point within 20 days in 118 out of 365 days. This means that any 5x leverage long position will have been forcefully terminated.

How pro traders play the “risk reversal” options strategy

Despite the consensus that crypto derivatives are mainly used for gambling and excessive leverage, these instruments were initially designed for hedging.

Bitcoin (BTC) has made a strong comeback in the month of July and is on track for its best monthly gains since October 2021. The sharp recovery in Bitcoin and several altcoins pushed the Crypto Fear and Greed Index to 42/100 on July 30, its highest level since April 6.

Investors seem to be making the most of the depressed levels in Bitcoin. Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode shows that Bitcoin in exchange wallets has dropped to 2.4 million Bitcoin in July, down from the March 2020 levels of 3.15 million Bitcoin. This has sent the metric to its lowest level since July 2018.

Bloomberg Intelligence senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone highlighted that the United States Federal Reserve’s indication to consider rate hikes on a “meeting by meeting basis” may lay the groundwork for Bitcoin to outperform most assets. He said that Bitcoin’s “risk vs. reward tilted favorably for one of the greatest bull markets in history."

Could Bitcoin extend its rally in the short term and could that trigger buying in select altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-5 cryptocurrencies that may outperform in the near term.

BTC/USDT

Attempts by the bulls to sustain the price above $24,276 have failed in the past two days, indicating that the bears are defending the level with vigor. However, a minor positive is that the bulls have not ceded ground to the bears.

Uniswap (UNI) looks ready to post its best monthly performance in more than a year as it rallied approximately 80% in July, but signs of an extended pullback in the near term are emerging. 

Uniswap price nearly doubles in July

UNI's price is having one of its best months ever, reaching nearly $9 on July 30 versus nearly $5 at the beginning of the month, best returns since January 2021's 250% price rally. 

Merge FOMO an UNI "fee switch" proposal

Uniswap's gains primarily surfaced due to similar upside moves in a broader crypto market. But they turned out to be relatively massive due to an ongoing euphoria surrounding "the Merge."

Notably, the Ethereum blockchain's potential transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake in September has triggered a buying hysteria among related toke.

Additionally, UNI may also have been drawing its gains from a so-called "fee switch" proposal.