Decentral Block Post

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.

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.

Navigating the ever-volatile terrain of the crypto market remains one of the most difficult jobs for traders — but much less so for members of the Cointelegraph Markets Pro community. 

With an institutional-grade crypto intelligence platform at their service, Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers have been able to spot significant price movements for crypto assets before the market moves on a regular basis.

This prescient ability is actually the working of Cointelegraph Market Pro’s algorithmic tools, which are designed to spot coins showing historically similar signs to coins that have moved significantly in the past.

Last week, Cointelegraph Markets Pro alerts by the Newsquakes™, Twitter Volume and On-Chain Activity indicators led Markets Pro members to opportunities to make 65% gains with just three trades!

OAX (OAX) — 39% increase

On-Chain Activity on OAX skyrocketed 405% on Friday, March 24, hinting at a massive growth spurt in the potential users of the platform. While this increase does not mean a price increase is inevitable (as the other examples show), it demonstrates how On-Chain Activity growth could be a precursor to massive price spikes.

BNB (BNB) looks set to wipe out its March gains entirely as investors turn their attention to the latest regulatory crackdown on Binance, the world's leading crypto exchange by volume.

BNB price logs worst daily performance in over a month

On March 27, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Binance and its chief executive Changpeng Zhao (CZ), alleging that the company illegally offered crypto derivatives services to Americans and facilitated illicit financial activity.

BNB dropped by over 5.5% to $305 on the announcement day, logging its worst daily performance since Feb. 13, when its price dropped by over 5.8% due to another regulatory crackdown involving Binance-branded stablecoin, BUSD.

BNB's price stabilized on March 28, wobbling between gains and losses as CZ refuted CFTC's allegations. However, the BNB/USD pair risked falling further if one considers its recent response to regulatory actions. 

For instance, the New York regulator's BUSD crackdown in February 2023 preceded a 15%-plus BNB price decline.

The news and events related to the banking crisis in the United States and Europe have led to a rotation of funds into investments considered less risky. According to the Financial Times, the U.S. money market funds in March witnessed an inflow of $286 billion. 

Along with money market funds, a portion of the money may also have seeped into the crypto industry. The increased demand could be one of the reasons for Bitcoin’s (BTC) strong performance in March.

The big question in crypto investors’ minds is whether the recovery will continue or if it is time to book profits in Bitcoin.

Bitcoin hodlers seem to be confident in the long-term story and are not getting lured into selling their holdings after the recent rally. According to Glassnode data, the percent of Bitcoin supply that has remained dormant since March 2021 has hit a new all-time high.

If the banking crisis is contained, it may lead to a short-term correction in Bitcoin and altcoins but any further problems in the legacy banking system may continue to attract investments into Bitcoin. Let’s study the charts to find out the critical support and resistance levels in Bitcoin and altcoins.

After gaining 11% between March 16 and March 18, the total crypto market capitalization has been battling resistance at the $1.2 trillion level. This same level was reached on August 14, 2022 and was followed by a 19.7% decline to $960 billion over the next two weeks. During the lateralization period between March 20 and March 27, Bitcoin (BTC) gained 0.3%, while Ether (ETH) posted modest gains of 1.6%.

One source of favorable short-term momentum is a change in the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy The U.S. Federal Reserve was forced to increase its balance sheet by $393 billion between March 9 and March 23 in order to provide short-term loans to failing banks. The objective of the plan was to reduce inflation, which has significantly impacted the cost of living and ultimately hampered economic expansion in the United States.

The balance sheet reduction runs counter to the central bank's previous nine-month trend of offloading some of its debt instruments, exchange-traded funds and mortgage-backed securities. The reversion of this strategy is initially bullish for risk assets because the Fed is acting as a lifeline for struggling banks and hedge funds.

On the other hand, the sector's regulatory risks were exacerbated on March 22 when Coinbase received a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The exchange's staking program, some of its digital asset listings, and wallet services could all be targeted by the regulator. Again, the uncertainty stems from not knowing which assets qualify as securities.

These competing forces may have been the primary reason for cryptocurrencies' narrow trading range near $1.18 trillion between March 17 and March 27. However, derivatives data presents compelling arguments for a rally toward $1.35 trillion and a retest of the $1 trillion threshold.

On March 27, European cryptocurrency investment firm CoinShares published its “Digital Asset Fund Flows Report,” which revealed that digital assets continue to attract investors' attention as concerns over the stability of traditional finance (TradFi) continues to grow. 

According to the latest report, investment products in digital assets experienced inflows of $160 million last week, the largest since July 2022, marking a significant reversal after six weeks of outflows totaling $408 million. The report also noted that “while the inflows came relatively late compared to the broader crypto market,” investors are increasingly concerned about the stability of the traditional finance sector.

Investments came from various countries, including the United States, Germany, and Canada, with inflows of $69 million, $58 million, and $26 million, respectively.

According to the report, Bitcoin (BTC) products received inflows of $128 million due to clients viewing it as a "safe haven" for the first time. However, not all investors shared this view, as short-Bitcoin products also saw inflows of $31 million. Nevertheless, short-Bitcoin remains the investment product with the most inflows year-to-date, though it is not the best-performing product from a price perspective.

On the other hand, Ether (ETH) products experienced outflows of $5.2 million last week, marking the third consecutive week of outflows. The report attributes this trend to investor anxiety over the Shanghai upgrade, expected to occur on April 12. Various altcoins also saw inflows, with Solana (SOL), Polygon (MATIC), and XRP products attracting $4.8 million, $1.9 million, and $1.2 million, respectively.

XRP (XRP) price is currently outperforming all other major cryptocurrencies as of March 27, rising over 20% in the past seven days.

XRP accumulation ahead of SEC vs. Ripple ruling

XRP has seen steady gains over the past seven days as the ongoing legal quandary between Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to conclude by the end of March.

Meanwhile, the supply of XRP held by addresses with a balance between 10 million and 100 million tokens has risen by over 1% since February. That coincides with a 0.75% drop in the XRP supply held by the 1 million-10 million address cohort.

The addresses holding between 1,000 and 1 million XRP also increased their token holdings in the same period. That shows the XRP whales stacked up more tokens in the days leading up to the ruling on SEC vs. Ripple's so-called summary judgment.

Multiple observers, including legal expert John Deaton, see Ripple winning the case, arguing that the SEC may have failed to give the company a "fair notice" before suing it for committing securities fraud. 

Crypto firms setting up in Hong Kong ahead of a new licensing regime for crypto exchanges in June have reportedly found some unexpected allies in the region — Chinese state-owned banks.

According to a March 27 report from Bloomberg, Chinese banks including Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, the Bank of Communications Co., and Bank of China Ltd. have either started offering banking services to crypto firms in Hong Kong or made inquiries with crypto firms, according to "people with knowledge of the matter."

One source claims that a Chinese bank sales representative even visited a crypto firm's main office to pitch banking services. This is all despite an ongoing crypto ban in China.

Cointelegraph reached out to Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, the Bank of Communications Co., and Bank of China Ltd for further comment, but did not receive a reply before publication.

Asked for comment, Julia Pang, Head of Banking Relations at Hong Kong-based crypto trading platform OSL told Cointelegraph that her firm welcomed “growing interest from Chinese banks in engaging with the regulated crypto industry." 

Optimism-based lending protocol Kokomo Finance has been suspected of a $4 million “exit scam” that has seen user funds plucked out from the platform via a smart contract loophole.

Blockchain security firm CertiK alerted its followers to the “exit scam” in a March 26 Twitter post, noting that the Kokomo Finance (KOKO) token has plummeted 95% in value in a matter of minutes.

CertiK also noted that Kokomo Finance removed all social media accounts immediately following the alleged rug pull too.

CertiK said the deployer of KOKO attacked the smart contract code of a wrapped Bitcoin token, cBTC, by resetting the reward speed and pausing the borrow function.

After that, an address beginning with “0x5a2d..” approved the new cBTC smart contract to spend over 7000 Sonne Wrapped Bitcoin (So-WBTC).

The recent banking crisis in the United States seems to have shaken the belief of some customers in the legacy banking system. According to Federal Reserve data, customers pulled nearly $100 billion in deposits in the week ending March 15.

American venture capital investor and entrepreneur Tim Draper said in a March 25 report that “founders need to consider a more diversified cash management approach” due to the over-regulation of banks and micromanagement by the government. As part of a contingency plan, Draper suggested businesses keep “ at least 6 months of short-term cash in each of two banks, one local bank and one global bank, and at least two payrolls worth of cash in Bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptocurrencies.”

The move from the traditional banking system to cryptocurrencies may have already started as seen from the strong showing of Bitcoin in the past few days. Even after the recent up-move, investors do not seem to be hurrying to book profits in Bitcoin. However, the same cannot be said about most altcoins as they have witnessed a minor pullback.

In the short term, traders need to be selective of the cryptocurrencies to trade. Let’s study the charts of Bitcoin and select altcoins which may start the next leg of the up-move.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin has been hovering around the $28,000 level for the past few days. A consolidation after a strong rally is a positive sign as it shows that traders are holding on to their position, expecting a further up-move.

MakerDAO, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that governs the DAI stablecoin, has voted overwhelmingly to keep USD Coin (USDC) as the primary collateral for DAI. An alternative proposal to “diversify” collateral into Gemini U.S. Dollar (GUSD) and U.S. Dollar Paxos (USDP) has been rejected in a 20% to 79% vote, according to the proposal’s official page.

In the proposal posted on March 17, the MakerDAO Risk Core Unit suggested that the risk of a cascading bank run in the U.S. has been reduced, thanks to responses from the U.S. federal government. As a result, the risk of using USDC as collateral “has declined significantly since last week and further solvency concerns or depegs are not expected at this time.”

However, it also argued that some risks remain. USDC has “potentially more risky exposure to uninsured bank deposits” and “a weaker legal structure” when compared to its competitors, GUSD and USDP, the proposal stated.

Related: Powell says Fed stumped over the collapse of SVB

The Risk Core Unit offered two options to “normalize” the rules for minting DAI now that the crisis has passed. The first option was to spread minting capacity limits across USDC, GUSD, and USDP. If this option were chosen, the fee for converting USDC to DAI would be reduced from 1% to 0.05% immediately, but would not be reduced all the way to zero until some later date.

The European stock markets fell on March 24 on renewed fears that the banking crisis could rear its ugly head once again. The latest selling was triggered after Deutsche Bank’s credit default swaps, which offer protection to the buyer against specific risks, soared on March 23 without any known catalyst. That pulled down the shares of the German lender by 11%. 

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde attempted to calm the markets, saying that the euro area baking sector was strong due to the regulatory reforms introduced after the Global Financial Crisis. That could be one of the reasons for the solid recovery in the United States equities markets from the intraday lows.

Although the banking crisis has been positive for Bitcoin’s (BTC) price, the trend may pause if the contagion spreads. During times of panic, traders sell assets to curtail risk. At that time, if Bitcoin does not break below the $25,000 to $20,000 support zone, it will suggest that the bear phase is over.

Could Bitcoin and most major altcoins witness a minor correction? What are the important support levels to keep an eye on? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin formed an inside-day candlestick pattern on March 23, indicating uncertainty among buyers and sellers. The bulls want to extend the up-move but the bears are in no mood to relent. That has kept the price inside a small range.