Crypto Guides, Knowledge & Insights

Ethereum Game Hides Almost $1 Million in Crypto Bounties

After years of development, Age of Rust is set to launch on Steam in March. Due to rising crypto prices, prize bounties hidden inside the game are now worth almost $1 million.　　Huge Crypto Bounties for Gamers　　Age of Rust is launching on Steam in March, and early players have a chance at landing a huge windfall. SpacePirate Games has revealed that the game contains 24 Bitcoin and 370,000 Enjin Coin in crypto bounties, worth a massive $929,000 today.　　Age of Rust is a sci-fi action game that explores a vast 250,000 km2 digital universe. Its central theme is humanity fighting against a class of AI robots called Mechs.　　“Humans lost the war, but encrypted the code preventing Mechs from immortality at the last moment,” the games description reads.　　The game uses the Enjin protocol and runs on Ethereum. Its been in development since 2014 and aims to be something of an “immersive educational blockchain experience.” SpacePirate Games caught the attention of crypto insiders when they launched a popular cryptographic puzzle game. They began working on Age of Rust the same year.　　They set aside 24 Bitcoin for a crypto bounty within the game, which was worth around $20,000 at the time. Today, 24 Bitcoin is

2021-01-26Deep Dive

Large Bitcoin Options Positions May Boost Price Volatility This Week

Bitcoins options market continues to grow along with an institutional-led bull run in the leading cryptocurrency. Yet, while many use options to hedge their positions, the large amounts of bitcoin options slated to expire in a few days may themselves lead to wild price swings as January draws to a close.　　At press time, there are 120,300 contracts worth $4 billion set to expire this Friday on major exchanges Deribit, CME, Bakkt, OKEx, LedgerX, according to data source Skew. Much of that amount can be found on Deribit, the worlds largest crypto options exchange by trading volume. It is on track to register a record monthly bitcoin options expiry of 102,162 contracts (nearly $3.5 billion).　　A call option gives the holder the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying at a predetermined price on or before a specific date; a put option represents a right to sell. An out-of-the-money (OTM) call is the one with the strike price higher than the spot price. As of press time, call options at strike prices above the current spot price of $34,500 are OTM. Meanwhile, put options at strikes below the spot price are OTM as well.　　Market makers may inject volatility　　Option expiries seldom

2021-01-26Deep Dive

DDoS Attackers Return With Massive Extortion Campaigns in the Wake of Bitcoin Prices Surging

Threat actors have been finding opportunities in bitcoins bullish trend to increase their extortion campaigns. Hackers are actively threatening companies with DDoS attacks unless they pay for bitcoin ransoms.　　Bull Run Prices Push Extortionists to Increase Bitcoin Ransom Demands　　According to an alert issued by security firm Radware, there have been several reports between December 2020 and the first week of January 2021 about DDoS extortionists. The firm claims the campaign is part of a global one that started in August last year.　　However, in the wake of the crypto bull-run seen over the last months, the wave of ransom letters had sharply increased, coming from the same actors. Radware noted that most of the companies didnt report such incidents to the media in August and September 2020.　　One of the first bitcoin ransom letters sent by the hackers reads as follow:　　We asked for 10 bitcoin to be paid at to avoid getting your whole network DDoSed. Its a long time overdue and we did not receive payment. Why？ What is wrong？ Do you think you can mitigate our attacks？ Do you think that it was a prank or that we will just give up？ In any case, you are wrong.　　At the time of

2021-01-26Deep Dive

More than half of all Cardano wallets are now staking ADA

Almost 55 percent of all the ADA wallets on the market have all of their funds delegated to a stake pool. The sharp rise in new ADA wallets created per day, accompanied by the increase of the total number of ADA staked has made Cardano by far the most decentralized blockchain network on the market.　　The latest data shows Cardano is rapidly decentralizing　　Earlier this month, Cardano overtook Polkadot as the most decentralized blockchain network currently on the market. With over 69 percent of the total circulating supply of its native cryptocurrency ADA staked on the network, Cardano seems to be living up to its promise to become one hundred times more decentralized than Bitcoin.　　The rapid rise of the number of new ADA wallets created, as well as the total amount of ADA staked Cardano has seen in the past couple of months has been attributed to the overall bear market, with many saying ADA was reacting to the altcoin boom.　　However, several weeks into a consolidated market, most of Cardanos on-chain metrics seem to be growing at a consistent pace.　　According to data aggregated by Pieter Nierop, a Cardano stake pool operator, the number of wallets that have delegated all of their ADA

2021-01-26Deep Dive

BoE Governor: cryptocurrencies of today are destined to fail long term

The U.K. central bank governor believes existing cryptocurrencies will fail over the longer term due to their robust privacy features.　　Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey thinks it is unlikely that the current generation of crypto assets lack the design and structure needed to ensure long term regulatory survival.　　Speaking during the World Economic Forums Jan. 25 online panel “Resetting Digital Currencies” Bailey responded to a question on whether cryptocurrencies are here to stay for the long term with skepticism:　　Are crypto-currencies here to stay？ Digital innovation in payments – yes. Have we landed on what I would call the design, governance and arrangements for a lasting digital currency？ No, I dont think were there yet [...] I dont think cryptocurrencies as originally formulated are it.　　Bailey indicated the levels of transactional privacy afforded by crypto assets is a source of concern among regulators, asserting the establishment a privacy standard for transactions is in the public interest.　　“The whole question of a privacy standard for transactions made in any form of digital currency, and where the public interest lies [...] this is a big one that is coming on to the landscape,” he said.　　Bailey also extended his concerns regarding privacy to stablecoins, stating:　　“The whole question

2021-01-26Deep Dive

BYBIT ANALYSTS INDICATES ALT-SEASON MAYBE UPON US DESPITE FEARS OF RAMPANT VOLATILITY

Following the tumultuous last couple of days that saw Bitcoin plunge to lows of $28,950, the market as a whole has proceeded to make a swift recovery, with a vast majority of the top-10 cryptos once again sitting in the green. And while that may be a regular day in the office for most crypto investors, an increasing number of analysts have been issuing warnings for individuals to brace for impact as the coming few weeks and months could see an increased amount of volatility.　　Despite all of the sell-offs and volatility that was witnessed over the last week, data available online clearly shows that the number of addresses with 1,000 or more bitcoin (referred to as “whales” in the crypto world) has continued to increase. This “buy-the-dip” strategy is not uncommon and has traditionally been used by investors across markets. However, this time around, with the introduction of institutional players into the digital asset sector, such consolidation-centric activities have increased substantially, resulting in continuous fluctuations in the price of most cryptos.　　IT‘S BITCOIN’S REIGN BUT IS THERE A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN？　　There is no denying that Bitcoin is the clear OG of the crypto world, as is probably best highlighted by

2021-01-26Deep Dive

Whales Own 40% Of All Bitcoin – Are They Manipulating The Market?

Nearly half of the Bitcoin market is controlled by only 2500 accounts. Were there any collaboration between some of these ‘whales’, then given the relatively thin volume on trading Bitcoin, these whales would be able to have a huge amount of sway over the rise and fall in the Bitcoin price.　　Bitcoin is still a very young asset, only having come into existence 12 years ago in 2009. Earlier this month the number one Cryptocurrency posted a new all-time-high of around $42,000 per Bitcoin, helping the combined Cryptocurrency market cap to surpass 1 trillion dollars.　　It is said that single trades by one of the big whales can lead to a swing in the market, either up or down.　　A collaborative report between OKEX and data firm Kaiko looked at how retail investors, professional investors and whales were buying and selling. In the last week of November, the report concluded that as retail investors continued adding to their positions, whales were selling, leading to those small-time investors being trapped in their positions in the short to mid-term as the price fell.　　In all likelihood, many of the retail investors would have then sold, leaving the whales to hoover up this Bitcoin as the price

2021-01-26Deep Dive

BTC whales and miners sold into institutional buyers in Q4 2020

In May 2020, famous macro investor Paul Tudor Jones revealed that he was buying BTC as a hedge against central bank-induced fiat inflation. He also said the foremost cryptocurrency reminded him of gold in the 1970s.　　Joness comments, at the time, sparked a wave of speculation from industry analysts that institutional investors would start flocking to the BTC market. OKEx Insights found this to be the case in September 2020, where we used on-chain data from Catallact to discover that institutions really did follow Joness lead. Since then, the industry has learned that business intelligence firm MicroStrategy purchased large sums of BTC alongside institutional buys from the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.　　Kicking off 2021 with an apparent surge in institutional interest, OKEx Insights has once again used on-chain data from Catallact to delve deeper into the narrative that institutions are buying BTC. More specifically, however, we wanted to find out who had been selling into the latest bull run in 2020.　　Heres what we found out.　　A note on how we interpret on-chain data　　Before we begin, lets first clarify how we interpret on-chain data.　　This report is research-based, but on-chain data cannot tell us everything. As such, analysts must always exercise caution when drawing

2021-01-26Deep Dive

Nasdaq-Listed Company Buys $150 million worth of Bitcoin as a part of its Treasury Reserves

Bitcoin is well on the road to becoming a scarce asset as more institutions buy huge amounts of the number one cryptocurrency. The latest to get its hand on more than 4500 Bitcoins is Nevada-based Nasdaq-listed Marathon Patent Group Inc.　　According to a recent announcement from the firm, it has recently purchased 4,813 bitcoin for about $150 million as a part of the companys treasury funds. This event marked the first time that the Bitcoin mining firm has purchased Bitcoin from the market.　　“By leveraging our cash on hand to invest in bitcoin now, we have transformed our potential to be a pure-play investment into a reality. We also believe that holding part of our treasury reserves in bitcoin will be a better long-term strategy than holding U.S. dollars, similar to other forward-thinking companies like MicroStrategy,” said company CEO Merrick Okamoto.　　The prices of Marathon‘s stock went up 892% last year, while its competitor MicroStrategy saw its stock gain 166%, as compared to bitcoin’s gain of about 300% during the year.　　Just a few weeks back, Marathon had raised $250 million in an equity round. However, Okamoto noted that these funds remained untouched because the firm already had $425 million in cash before the

2021-01-26Deep Dive

Analyst Gives Three Reasons Why $1.6 Billion in ETH Just Left Exchanges

Some hefty whales have been detected in the waters of the Ethereum blockchain.　　The Ethereum balance on top-tier crypto exchanges reached a 15-month low of 15.4 million ETH ($20.5 billion) according to a tweet from crypto analytics team Glassnode on Saturday 23.　　The exodus started on Tuesday, when there was 16.6 million ETH held in exchanges, meaning that $1.6 billion has left exchanges. The Whale Alert Twitter account, a bot that tracks large crypto transactions, reported that much of it shifted from major crypto exchanges to anonymous wallets.　　But wheres it gone and what caused the exodus？　　What caused the ETH exodus？ An analyst explains　　Pedro Febrero, an analyst at Quantum Economics, told Decrypt that there could be three reasons that explain why so much ETH was drained from exchanges.　　First, “Ethereum has returned to being locked in DeFi,” said Febrero, in reference to crypto staked in decentralized finance smart contracts. DeFi refers to the budding industry of decentralized lending protocols, exchanges and synthetic derivative protocols.　　However, this one doesnt check out. According to DeFi Pulse, a site that tracks the amount of crypto locked in smart contracts, The amount of ETH locked in DeFi actually decreased from 7 million ETH on Tuesday to 6.9 million the

2021-01-25Deep Dive

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