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USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle plans to increase its workforce by 15-25% in 2023 amid a sea of layoffs across the industry, reported the Wall Street Journal.

At a time when a significant chunk of industry-wide firms is laying off staff to mitigate their financial woes, Circle has gone against the tide to hire more people.  

41% of all layoffs in 2023 came from the cryptocurrency industry. Major cryptocurrency firms that made significant employee cuts include Polygon, Chainalysis, Bittrex, Huobi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Gemini, Genesis, and Wyre.

A major factor behind crypto companies reducing manpower was attributed to the prolonged crypto winter and a number of crypto implosions that wiped out billions from the balance sheets of numerous companies associated with them. However, the large-scale crypto industry layoffs were not in isolation. Around 48,000 people in January alone were let go from just four companies: Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce.

The decision to increase its workforce for Circle comes just months after canceling its public debut. Earlier in December, Circle mutually terminated its plans to go public with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Concord Acquisition. The deal was announced in July 2021 with a preliminary valuation of $4.5 billion and was then amended in February 2022 when Circle’s valuation ballooned to $9 billion.

Blockchain Association’s chief legal officer says “it would be absurd” for a United States court to rule that digital assets on private blockchains are securities, following a federal judge's decision to allow a lawsuit against Dapper Labs's NBA Top Shots NFTs to play out. 

U.S. attorney Jake Chervinsky made the comment after federal judge Victor Marreo denied a motion to dismiss a 2021 lawsuit that accused Dapper Labs of selling nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as unregistered securities.

Chervinsky was among a host of lawyers on Twitter to reiterate that the judge’s denial of the motion does not mean a ruling has been made on the lawsuit, only that it was “facially plausible.”

“The judge didn't decide anything. He allowed the case to proceed past a motion to dismiss because the securities claims were at least ‘plausible,’ an extremely low bar and not a final ruling at all,” he explained.

“This dispute aside, it would be absurd if all valuable digital assets stored on centralized databases were securities.”

The United States equities markets saw their worst performance of 2023 as concerned investors dumped stocks on Feb. 21, fearing continued rate hikes by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Although the cryptocurrency markets also gave back some of the gains, the fall was comparatively muted. UTXO Management senior analyst Dylan LeClair said that Bitcoin’s (BTC) correlation to the S&P 500 index has fallen to the lowest since late 2021.

After the sharp recovery from the lows, Glassnode data showed that only 21% of the coins sent by Long-Term Holders to exchanges at the start of this week moved at a loss. That is a huge improvement from mid-January when 56% of LTH coins sent to exchanges were moved at a loss.

The decoupling of the crypto and the U.S. equities markets is a positive sign but traders must remain cautious. If stocks turn sharply lower and a risk-off sentiment develops, then the crypto rally may find it difficult to continue its gains.

What are the important levels that could arrest the correction in Bitcoin and altcoins? Let’s study the charts of the top-10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)-operated golf startup, LinksDAO, may soon put in an offer to purchase the newly marketed Spey Bay Golf Club in Scotland worth about $900,000. 

LinksDAO — self-described as a “global group of golf enthusiasts” that is on a mission to build the “world’s greatest golf community” — officially opened the proposal vote on Feb. 20, which came after a few weeks of informal deliberation.

It would be the DAO’s first ever golf course purchase.

While voting officially closes on Feb. 22 at 12pm Eastern Time, over 88% of the 4,100 LinksDAO token holders have already voted in favor of the proposal.

If the final tally remains in favor of the purchase, the LinksDAO acquisition committee will meet with the relevant parties required to construct a “compelling offer” for the purchase of the club “with the full intent of successfully purchasing the golf course,” the proposal stated.

Solana Spaces will close down its two Solana (SOL)-themed, community-oriented retail stores in New York City and Miami at the end of the month, as the physical stores didn't onboard as many users as it initially anticipated.

Solana Spaces tweeted the news on Feb. 21 sharing a note from its founder, Vibhu Norby, explaining the reasons behind the store shutdowns.

Norby — who founded Solana Spaces in early 2022 — explained the company reached an “inflection point” with the stores, prompting them to shift its investment focus to “DRiP,” the firm’s new nonfungible token (NFT) artwork airdrop platform.

“While our stores onboard between 500 and 1,000 people per week, DRiP onboards that same quantity EVERY DAY,” Norby said, explaining the decision to shift its investment focus.

The decision to close the shops — located in Hudson Yards, New York and Wynwood, Miami — was made “a few weeks ago” and will “sunset” at the end of February, said Norby.

The price of Ether (ETH) rallied 18% between Feb. 13 and Feb. 16 but has since been range trading near the $1,700 level. Despite the recent price improvement, Ether derivatives metrics remain neutral-to-bullish ponder the investors the tighter regulatory environment and the potential impact of Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade.

Investors' biggest concern right now is regulation, especially after the United Kingdom’s Financial Stability Board (FSB) recently stated that most stablecoins fail to meet international standards. The entity was created by the G20 and is affiliated with the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). FSB chair Klaas Knot stated that the appropriate regulation of crypto-assets should be "based on the principle of same activity, same risk, same regulation."

In more positive news, there has been some improvement in China after the government is reportedly taking a softer approach to Hong Kong’s crypto hub aspirations. According to a Feb. 20 Bloomberg report, representatives from China have been frequenting Hong Kong crypto gatherings seeking to understand local crypto business operations.

A recent Binance report detailed the status of Ether staking and explored why the Shanghai upgrade may not result in the ETH sell pressure that some traders have predicted. Their rationale is based on liquid staking derivatives, which allow users to benefit from staked Ether while retaining the ability to sell the derivative token.

Let's look at Ether derivatives data to understand if the $1,700 price rejection has impacted crypto investors' sentiment.

Blur (BLUR) could rise by up to 30% by March 2023 owing to a mix of technical and fundamental factors.

Blur airdrop hype

Blur is a nonfungible token (NFT) aggregator that indexes digital art listings across various base marketplaces like LooksRare and OpenSea. In doing so, the aggregator allows users to trade across all NFTs marketplaces via a single interface.

Since its launch in October 2022, Blur has become the leading NFT aggregator, accounting for 40%-60% of the daily NFT trading volume, according to data tracked by Messari.

The period has also witnessed the Blur team "airdropping" free BLUR tokens to users who have traded Ethereum-based NFTs in the past six months. On Feb. 15, Blur officially launched its native token of the same name, allowing airdrop recipients to trade it for fiat money and other crypto assets.

According to Dune Analytics, Blue has airdropped 360 million tokens across its users. Interestingly, users have claimed nearly 339 million BLUR tokens in the first six days of the launch against the 60-day deadline.

Grid trading is a quantitative trading strategy that involves placing automated buy and sell orders in an attempt to profit from the volatility of cryptocurrencies. Grid trading is a style of algorithmic trading that automates order execution by utilizing grid trading bots. 

To create a grid of orders that covers a range of potential market movements, this method entails placing numerous orders at incremental price levels above and below the present market price.

Generally, the trading bot places buy/sell orders between a predetermined price range, constructing an automated trading grid. This automation allows crypto traders to benefit and make profits on even small price fluctuations and avoid emotional decisions thereby increasing profitability potential in both bull and bear markets. 

This article explains what grid trading is, how grid trading bots work and their benefits for traders.

What is grid trading?

The price of cryptocurrencies fluctuates; therefore, seasoned cryptocurrency traders rely on crypto market charts to make trading decisions. However, it can be difficult to keep up when cryptocurrency prices swing wildly, resulting in missed opportunities and sometimes market FOMO. For traders trading in multiple crypto assets and on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges, things get complicated, and constant monitoring becomes a difficult task. 

‘Less interest than anticipated’ — PROOF cancels NFT event

Kevin Rose, the co-founder of the nonfungible token (NFT) collection Moonbirds has confirmed that their flagship conference “Proof of Conference” scheduled for May has been canceled, citing “less interest than anticipated.”

The conference was first announced in early November. It was scheduled to run on May. 11 to May. 13 in Los Angeles.

However, Rose explained in a Feb. 20 letter to ticket holders that it wasn’t “the right time” for the conference:

“As you know, in the world of NFTs, timing is everything. And today, it’s time for us to recognize that right now isn’t the right time for the PROOF of Conference.”

Rose explained that he and his PROOF team considered alternatives, such as opting for a new location to Los Angeles — where it was set to be held — a smaller venue, reducing the scope of the event and lowering ticket prices.

A small monetary bounty and an aptitude for coding were all it took to fork the Ordinals protocol to the world’s second-ever cryptocurrency network, Litecoin (LTC) earlier this week, its creator told Cointelegraph.

On Feb. 18, an Australian software engineer by the name of Anthony Guerrera posted a repository to GitHub that forked the Bitcoin (BTC) Ordinals protocol to Litecoin. This allowed for nonfungible token (NFT)-like assets on the Litecoin network in much the same way it had made it to Bitcoin earlier in the year.

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Guerrera said he was spurred to make a Litecoin Ordinal fork due to a 5 LTC bounty posted by the pseudonymous Twitter user Indigo Nakamoto on Feb. 11 that rose to 22 LTC, or about $2,000, to anyone who was first to successfully create a fork.

“I knew it was possible because Litecoin has taproot as well as SegWit,” Guerrera said, adding:

“I was in a bit of a mad rush to try and get it done as fast as I could.”

Shark Tank investor and venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary has urged crypto exchanges to “get on board with regulation” if they want to “stay out of the way” of Gary Gensler and the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).

In a Feb. 20 interview with TraderTV Live, O’Leary said that U.S. lawmakers are “fatigued” over crypto collapses and that they’re only going to get more ruthless if companies continue to not comply:

“You got to get on board with regulation, you got to stay out of the way of Gensler at the SEC and other regulators. Those hombres [men] in Washington are not happy. FTX poked the bear, the bear is awake, and it is pissed.”

“These senators are really fatigued, they’re really tired of gathering every six months when the next crypto company blows up and goes to zero,” he said, adding “because they’re totally unregulated and they keep issuing tokens that are worthless.”

O’Leary said the SEC whacking Kraken for $30 million and ordering them to immediately cease its staking services should put the industry on alert and to comply by all means.

The public blockchain sector grew from less than a few million dollars in the last decade to a $1 trillion industry. However, one thing that the space has yet to solve is a decentralized and secure interoperable solution.

Let's take Ethereum (ETH) to Bitcoin (BTC), the largest blockchain network, for example. Till today, centralized exchanges are the only viable solution for shifting from one chain to another.

A centralized solution provider, BitGo, provides the largest pool of liquidity for Ethereum users to gain BTC exposure via Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). The BitGo IOU accounts for over 93.6% of the Bitcoin bridged to Ethereum. Users must rely on BitGo partner platforms like centralized exchanges or CoinList to exchange BTC and WBTC.

The dominance of WBTC exposes it to evident centralization and regulatory risks. RenBTC, a platform managed by Alameda Research, dissolved in December after FTX's collapse, and the same might happen with BitGo. The recent regulatory crackdown on Paxos for issuing a USD-backed token, BUSD, could also eventually bring services like BitGo into the U.S. SEC's crosshairs.

The interoperability between smart contract platforms and other application-specific blockchains must also be developed. Sidechains and rollups in Polygon (MATIC), Arbitrum and Optimism comprise 90% of the cross-chain bridge volume from Ethereum. Near's (NEAR) Rainbow and Fantom (FTM) bridges are the only independent blockchains with a notable total value locked (TVL) on bridges with Ethereum.

Bitcoin (BTC) rose more than 11% last week and is trading near the pivotal resistance at $25,000. Monitoring resource Material Indicators highlighted in its latest update that large volume traders were “thinning” overhead resistance, which could spark a rally. As the prices rise, retail traders may get sucked in and the whales could use this opportunity to sell their positions that were accumulated at lower levels.

Every uptrend witnesses several pullbacks and Bitcoin is no exception. However, the price action of the past several months shows a large basing pattern, which may be about to break out to the upside. If that happens, Bitcoin will signal a potential trend change.

There are very few occasions when all the indicators turn bullish. If traders keep waiting for that to happen, they may miss a large portion of the rally. Therefore, it is better to watch the price action closely and trade according to the individual’s money management principles. Usually, successful strategies are simple and easy to follow.

Could Bitcoin and select altcoins continue to outperform the United States equities markets in the near term? Let’s study the charts to find out.

SPX

The S&P 500 index (SPX) bounced off the 20-day exponential moving average (4,080) on Feb. 10 but the bulls could not push the price to the overhead resistance at 4,200. This emboldened the bears who pulled the price below the 20-day EMA on Feb. 17. A minor positive for the bulls is that lower levels attracted strong buying as seen from the long tail on the day’s candlestick.

Conflux Network (CFX) is up nearly 500% in the past week with CFX emerging as one of the best-performing crypto assets in 2023 as China appears to be warming to cryptocurrency trading. 

What is Conflux Network?

Interestingly, Conflux Network, also known as Shanghai Tree-Graph Blockchain Research Institute, is the only regulatory-compliant, public and permissionless blockchain in China. Conflux is a layer-1 blockchain operating on a hybrid proof-of-work and proof-of-stake mechanism.

CFX's price has rallied nearly 1,335% year-to-date (YTD) to reach $0.3254 as of Feb. 24, its highest level in fourteen months. In comparison, the combined market capitalization of crypto assets has surged approximately 45% YTD.

Why is Conflux Network price rallying?

Strong fundamentals have primarily driven the CFX price higher in 2023.

For instance, the CFX price increased by more than 90% on Jan. 26, two days after Conflux Network's partnership with Little Red Book, a China-based social media platform, to provide nonfungible token (NFT) services.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell for the third consecutive week but Bitcoin (BTC) price decoupled and is on track to close the week near the strong overhead resistance at $25,211. This suggests that the wider crypto market recovery is on a strong footing.

After Bitcoin’s sharp rally from the lows, analysts remain divided in their opinion about its next move. Some traders believe that the current Bitcoin rally will turn down once again, while others expect the momentum to continue, starting a new bull phase.

Chances are that Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies will continue to rally until a vast majority of the bears turn bullish. After that happens, a sizable dip is likely. That could shake out several weak hands and give an opportunity to the stronger hands to add to their positions. A higher low followed by a higher high may confirm the end of the bear phase and signal the start of the next bull market.

Meanwhile, select altcoins are looking strong and they may follow Bitcoin higher in the near term.

Let’s look at the charts to determine the critical levels to keep an eye on.

The total crypto market capitalization rejected at $1.13 trillion on Feb. 16, but there was no change in the month-long ascending channel structure. More importantly, this level represents a 43% gain in 2023, which is far from the $3 trillion level achieved in Nov. 2021. Still, the current recovery is notable. 

As shown above, the ascending channel initiated in mid-January has left some room for a 10% correction down to $1 trillion without breaking the bullish formation.

Investors reacted positively to the 5.6% year-on-year U.S. CPI inflation increase on Feb. 14 and the 3% retail sales monthly growth on Feb. 15. Bitcoin (BTC) had the biggest positive impact on the total crypto capitalization as its price gained 12.5% on the week.

One area of concern is a Feb. 16 story on Binance.US financial transactions to Merit Peak, a trading firm managed by CEO Changpeng Zhao. Interestingly, Reuters reported that a Binance.US spokesperson said Merit Peak was "neither trading nor providing any kind of services on the Binance.US platform."

The 10.1% weekly increase in total market capitalization was held back by the modest 1.8% gains from BNB and the XRP 2.5% price increase. On the other hand, only 3 out of the top 80 cryptocurrencies finished the week with negative performances.