trading

Arbitrum token finds its way to OTC market before airdrop

Following the Arbitrum airdrop announcement, crypto users eligible for it are already selling them in OTC markets.

The Arbitrum community is speculating and selling off their unreleased ARB tokens in over-the-counter (OTC) markets following the Arbitrum airdrop announcement.

The Arbitrum Foundation announced that ARB — Arbritrum’s new token — would be airdropped to eligible community members on Thursday, March 23. It explained that ARB marks Arbitrum’s official transition into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), meaning ARB holders can vote on key decisions governing Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova — networks that allow users to transact on the Ethereum blockchain with better speeds and lower fees.

OTC trading allows easy buying and selling of cryptocurrencies directly between sellers and buyers. The process is usually very fast, with funds being transferred directly from a bank account to the seller. In this case, when a price is agreed on by the buyer and seller, the seller receives payment from the buyer and then gives up the seed phrase linked to the eligible wallet.

Jack, who wants to remain anonymous, has explained to Cointelegraph that the craze to sell off the unreleased ARB tokens is based on speculations about the market cap of the tokens when launched. He explained that the price of one ARB coin, when launched, could be as high as $1, so most people do not mind selling at $0.5 per token and giving room for a possible profit of $0.5 for the buyers.

have secured 6-figs of $ARB OTC at an avg. price of $0.98

wish me luck

— Cole (@cole0x) March 21, 2023

Arbitrum holds 55% of the Ethereum layer 2 market share, according to layer-2 analytics site L2Beat. As one of the most significant crypto projects without a token, anticipation for an Arbitrum token has been at a fever pitch since the network went live in 2021.

With ARB’s total circulation of 10 billion, the Arbitrum community will control 56% of the tokens. The airdrop will grant 11.5% of the total supply to eligible Arbitrum users and 1.1% to DAOs operating in the Arbitrum ecosystem.

The Arbitrum community has also warned others to stay vigilant after reports of phishing websites and scams offering Arbitrum airdrop tokens.

Arbitrum’s main competitor in the Ethereum scaling space, Optimism, launched its OP token nearly a year ago when it transitioned to DAO governance.

NFT wash trading increases by 126% in February: Data

The NFT market saw an uptick in wash trading following a recovery in NFT marketplace trading volume, which hit $1.89 billion in February.

The top six nonfungible token (NFT) marketplaces saw a rise in wash trading for the fourth straight month, with a total volume of $580 million.

According to a new report from CoinGecko, February 2023 witnessed a 126% increase from the previous month’s volume of $250 million. As for the reason for the jump, the report points to a correlation with the overall recovery of NFT marketplace trading volume, which hit $1.89 billion in February.

Wash trading refers to the manipulation of trading volume or price through repeated transactions.

The six marketplaces included in the report are Magic Eden, OpenSea, Blur, X2Y2, CryptoPunks and LooksRare. X2Y2, Blur and LooksRare played the largest roles in February’s wash trading volume, with $280 million (49.7%), $150 million (27.7%) and $80 million (15.1%), respectively.

*NFT wash trading volume, January 2022–February 2023. Source: CoinGecko, Footprint Analytics*

The marketplaces have previously incentivized users to increase trading volume via transaction rewards.

The other two marketplaces, Magic Eden and OpenSea, reported $590,000 and $42.57 million in wash trading, respectively. CryptoPunks, on the other hand, didn’t see any NFT wash trading, according to the report.

The CoinGecko report reveals that NFT washing trading made up a combined 23.4% of “unadjusted trading volume” across the industry’s six largest marketplaces.

While wash trading is illegal in traditional financial markets, the issue can be found in both the broader crypto space and with NFTs due to a lack of clear regulations.

Back in January, investor Mark Cuban said that wash trading will cause the next “implosion” in the crypto market. Meanwhile, new artificial intelligence-based technology has surfaced aiming to troubleshoot issues in the NFT market, including wash trading.

As reported by Cointelegraph on March 16, a scam recently surfaced involving websites promoting fake BLUR token airdrops, resulting in $300,000 being successfully stolen.

What are buy and sell walls in crypto, and how can one identify them?

Whales can manipulate buy and sell orders because they can deploy excessive capital into the market.

In cryptocurrency trading, a “buy wall” is a massive buy order, or multiple buy orders, around a particular price level. Conversely, a “sell wall” is a significant accumulation of sell orders at a given price level.

Before understanding how buy and sell walls work, it is important to know what an order book and its market depth are.

What is an order book in crypto trading?

An “order book” is an index listing buy and sell orders for a specific cryptocurrency based on price levels. A trade is executed when the orders on either side meet at a certain price level, establishing the cryptocurrency’s price as supply meets demand.

*BTC/USDT order book example. Source: Binance*

Nonetheless, these orders don’t get executed randomly — rather, the market fulfills them in the order of their sequence.

For example, two open orders are created when Peter Griffin attempts to sell 1 Bitcoin (BTC) for $25,000 and Cleveland Brown places an order to buy 1 BTC at $24,000. Suppose Glenn Quagmire joins in and tries to sell 1 BTC for $26,000. As a result, there are three unfulfilled, open orders.

But when a new buyer, Joe Swanson, enters the market and tries to buy 1 BTC for $26,000, he does not get Quagmire’s coin. Instead, he receives Griffin’s BTC for $25,000, and the Bitcoin spot price becomes $25,000.

Meanwhile, Brown’s and Quagmire’s orders will remain open.

What is market depth?

The open orders are packed together as buy and sell orders and pitted against one another on a market depth chart.

*BTC/USDT market depth chart. Source: Binance*

The X-axis on the graph represents the bid (buy orders in green) and the ask (sell orders in red) price, while the Y-axis represents the cumulative market volume.

Identifying buy and sell walls

A large spike sloping upward on the market depth chart’s either side is called a “wall.” These walls appear as deeper vertical lines resembling the side angle of a staircase, as seen in the example above.

A buy wall is formed when the number of buy orders massively exceeds the sell orders at a given price, thus illustrating greater demand for the cryptocurrency versus its supply. As a result, traders see the levels where buy walls appear as areas of support for a potential bounce.

*Market depth chart illustrating buy and sell walls. Source: Phemex*

Similarly, a sell wall is created when the number of sell orders surpasses the buy orders, showing weaker demand versus supply at a certain price level.

A big buy wall against a drastically smaller sell wall on the market depth chart suggests strong demand and that the path of least resistance is currently to the upside, and vice versa.

Ultimately, viewing the order book as “walls” makes it easier for traders to spot potential areas for price rebounds and rejections.

As a note of caution, buy and sell walls should not be solely relied on to predict price direction. Orders can be pulled or introduced anytime, with market dynamics always in flux.

Moreover, “whale” traders can use their large capital to create or remove large walls of orders as a way to manipulate the market to their advantage.

For more tips about spotting and avoiding potential market manipulation, check out Cointelegraph’s previous coverage.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Here’s how ChatGPT-4 spends $100 in crypto trading

The GPT-4 version of OpenAI’s conversational ChatGPT AI was released on March 14 and is said to be much more powerful than the previous version.

GPT-4, the latest version of artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, believes the events of the last seven days could be bullish for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Cosmos’ ATOM (ATOM), according to an AI-trading experiment run by Cointelegraph.

The experiment is aimed at understanding GPT-4’s potential biases toward certain cryptocurrencies, how the events of last week could impact investment decisions, and whether it can adjust strategy to eventually turn a profit.

The experiment began on March 17, instructing the chatbot to allocate $100 to “make as much money as possible in the shortest time.” The prompt had to be written in a way so that GPT would be comfortable giving out trading instructions.

*Screenshot of the first message to ChatGPT. Source: OpenAI*

As GPT-4’s knowledge and training are current only to September 2021, Cointelegraph fed it year-end round-ups for 2021 and 2022 along with its Markets news and most read stories over the past seven days to understand how it would invest based on the most recent events.

It noted that the current state of the crypto market has been volatile, with “various factors” influencing prices.

“The recent Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failures have led to increased uncertainty in the financial sector. This situation, combined with regulatory pressure and macroeconomic factors, has contributed to fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices.”

With the context in mind, it advised the $100 be allocated as follows:

$50 to Bitcoin
$25 to Ether
$15 to ATOM
$10 to “NFT and Web3 related projects”

On Bitcoin, GPT-4 said that despite short-term volatility and a recent price drop, it still has strong long-term potential:

“The overall trend shows that Bitcoin acts as a safe haven during times of financial instability, such as the recent Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank failures. Additionally, Bitcoin’s dominance is nearing 50%, and some analysts predict a move towards $100k.”

Meanwhile, GPT-4 suggested that Ethereum’s upcoming Shanghai upgrade could strengthen its dominance and benefit liquid staking providers.

“Ethereum’s price is also showing signs of recovery, making it a suitable addition to the portfolio,” it added.

The chatbot then recommended allocating $15 to ATOM, due to Cosmos’ launch of Interchain Security, which “could create potential growth opportunities for ATOM.”

“It’s a promising project in the blockchain space, and the launch could attract more investors,” it wrote.

*BallerGPT’s balance as at the time of writing. Source: CoinMarketCap*

It also instructed Cointelegraph to put $6 in Decentraland’s MANA (MANA), given that “interest in virtual worlds and NFTs continues to grow,” and $4 in Chainlink’s LINK (LINK):

“With the growing adoption of Web3 and decentralized applications, the demand for reliable off-chain data will continue to rise. Chainlink’s LINK token is used to pay for services within the Chainlink ecosystem, making it a good investment as the need for oracle services expands.”

Cointelegraph made the purchases on an exchange immediately afterward and is now tracking the fund’s performance using a portfolio tracker. At the time of writing, there has already been a small paper gain.

This is an ongoing experiment, and more updates will be shared in the future. At the end of the experiment, any proceeds will be donated to a charity of the community’s choice.

The experiment is inspired by Twitter user Jackson Fall, who created “HustleGPT,” covering e-commerce.

Cointelegraph Markets Pro VORTECS Report summary — 179% gains from 4 alerts

Cointelegraph Markets Pro’s VORTECS™ Score, NewsQuakes™, Tweet Volume and Most Active On-Chain indicators helped subscribers identify four profitable trades.

In Cointelegraph Markets Pro’s latest VORTECS™ Report, the institutional-grade crypto alerts platform displayed how its members could have captured a cumulative 179% gain by following four trades based on four different Markets Pro indicators. The report depicts trading alerts generated between Feb. 26 and March 4, 2023.

The potential gains available to Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers significantly outperform a simple buy-and-hold strategy during the same period, which would’ve suffered a loss of 5% holding Bitcoin (BTC) and a loss of 4% holding Ether (ETH).

Cointelegraph Markets Pro used a variety of advanced data — such as its proprietary VORTECS™ Score, NewsQuakes™, Tweet Volume and the new Most Active On-Chain indicator — to alert subscribers of the potential for price changes before they occurred.

VORTECS™ Score

SingularityNET (AGIX) — 41% gain

On Feb. 26, the asset was trading at $0.39 when Cointelegraph Markets Pro members received an alert for a high VORTECS™ Score of 87. Five days later, the price reached its weekly peak of $0.55 — an impressive increase of 41%!

AGIX is the utility token of SingularityNET, a decentralized artificial intelligence network on which participants create, share and monetize AI services at scale. AGIX is used for staking, transacting and governance on the network’s decentralized applications.

NewsQuakes™

Liquity (LQTY) — 82% gain

On Feb. 28, a NewsQuake™ alerted Cointelegraph Markets Pro members to a Binance announcement that it would list LQTY in its Innovation Zone. Just five hours later, the price skyrocketed from $1.42 to $2.58 — a remarkable rise of 82%!

LQTY is the native token of stablecoin lender Liquity. LQTY holders can stake their tokens to earn a portion of the fees generated by opening and closing loans.

Tweet Volume

The Tweet Volume indicator measures a project’s mentions and activity on the social media platform Twitter. The rationale behind using this data is that widespread, community-driven discussions can sometimes drive an asset’s price up or down.

Akropolis (AKRO) — 40% gain

*AKRO’s price chart after a 517% increase in Twitter Volume. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

The Tweet Volume Gainers chart continues to help subscribers track increases in interest and discussion — typically a bullish indication — as price movement often goes hand-in-hand with Twitter hype.

AKRO appeared on the Tweet Volume Gainers chart on Feb. 27 when it was trading at $0.005. Just four days later, its price climbed to $0.007 — a 40% increase!

AKRO is the governance token of the decentralized finance protocol Akropolis, which aims to provide an independent financial ecosystem for saving and growing wealth.

Most Active On-Chain Activity

As mentioned in a recent article about the Cointelegraph Markets Pro 2.0 update, the new Most Active On-Chain data shows users the five tokens with the largest increases in the number of active addresses on-chain in the last 24 hours versus a rolling average of the last 30 days.

Yearn.finance (YFI) — 16% gain

*Most Active On-Chain data from Feb. 27. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

On Feb. 27, YFI (YFI) topped the Most Active On-Chain Chart, showing Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers that it was the token that saw the biggest increase in active addresses on Polygon. At the time, it was trading at $9,448 — but four days later, the price rose over 16% to $10,998!

How to reap the benefits of Cointelegraph Markets Pro

These gains, which cumulatively add up to 179%, occurred over the week of Feb. 26 through March 4, 2023. It’s perhaps too idealistic to assume that subscribers captured all of this value, but even those who captured a fifth of it would’ve earned almost a 35% return.

This isn’t the first time Cointelegraph Markets Pro has produced weekly returns like these — in fact, it is a regular weekly occurrence. During the week of Feb. 19–25, the institutional-grade platform used these same four indicators to alert subscribers to potential gains of over 64%.

Another important note: The alerts for each of these moves were triggered before the move actually occurred. It’s easy to spot ideal entry opportunities in hindsight, but Cointelegraph Markets Pro uses institutional-grade technology to help traders spot these opportunities in real time, often before they happen.

There’s a catch though: Only Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers are privy to these alerts.

For those tired of sitting on the sidelines while other crypto traders lock in gains, there’s only one place to go.

See how Cointelegraph Markets Pro delivers market-moving data before this information becomes public knowledge.

Cointelegraph is a publisher of financial information, not an investment adviser. We do not provide personalized or individualized investment advice. Cryptocurrencies are volatile investments and carry significant risk including the risk of permanent and total loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Figures and charts are correct at the time of writing or as otherwise specified. Live-tested strategies are not recommendations. Consult your financial adviser before making financial decisions.

All ROIs quoted are accurate as of March 16th, 2023…

Judges hear oral arguments in Grayscale suit against SEC over BTC spot ETF rejection

A panel of three judges heard the sides’ arguments and posed significantly more questions about the SEC’s stance, leading to speculation about their leaning.

A panel of judges heard oral arguments in the Grayscale Investments suit against the United States Securities and Trade Commission (SEC) on March 7. Grayscale is challenging the SEC order not to approve Grayscale’s application to create a Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange-traded fund. The SEC issued its order on July 6.

Former solicitor general Donald Verrilli Jr. represented Grayscale and SEC senior counsel Emily Parise spoke for the SEC before Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judges Neomi Rao and Harry Edwards in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. Verrilli opened, saying:

“The fundamental problem with the order is that it contradicts previous SEC orders giving the green light to Bitcoin futures ETPs that pose the same risk of fraud and manipulation and have in place the same CME [Chicago Mercantile Exchange] surveillance mechanism to protect against those risks.”

The SEC has approved investment products from Teucrium, ProShares, VanEck and Valkyrie linked to BTC futures.

Parise argued that the offerings are not comparable with the Grayscale proposal because the surveillance mechanisms are not identical, as the spot markets underlying the asset in the proposed ETF are “fragmented and unregulated,” unlike the CME, which is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Parise went on to dismiss the argument that the Bitcoin spot and futures markets move together 99.9% of the time, pointing out that it is unclear whether the futures market leads the spot market when impacted by fraud and manipulation, or vice versa.

For the proposed Grayscale product, CME surveillance would serve as a proxy for surveillance of the spot market. Furthermore, the 99.9% correlation is based on “once-a-day” futures prices, irrespective of intraday prices, Parise added.

INTERESTING: So the SEC lawyer came out strong w opening argument blah blah, but the judge interrupted her SEVERAL TIMES with a bunch of very educated q’s re futures and spot relationship, Teucrium filing etc. SEC seems a bit rattled by this the pro-Grayscale-y judge and her q’s. pic.twitter.com/suyMkgPRcF

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) March 7, 2023

The judges addressed more questions to Parise than to Verrilli, leading crypto community commenters to interpret their leanings as favorable to Grayscale. They asked for elucidation, for example, on how Teucrium’s product that received SEC approval differs from Grayscale’s, and why spot and futures markets might be impacted differently by fraud and manipulation.

Recapping Cointelegraph Markets Pro’s Crypto Winter Recovery Summit

The Crypto Winter Recovery Summit demonstrated how traders could’ve multiplied their investment by 120 while the market lost two-thirds of its value.

On its live summit, “The Crypto Winter Recovery Plan,” Cointelegraph Markets Pro revealed how traders could have mostly avoided a gut-wrenching 75% pullback in the crypto market while securing mind-boggling gains.

The Cointelegraph Markets Pro team argues that while hodlers tied their capital into a capitulating market, nimble Markets Pro members were able to capitalize on real-time, institutional-grade crypto market intelligence to capture significant risk-adjusted profits. The results were staggering!

Cointelegraph Markets Pro traders could’ve secured returns up to 120 times their initial investment — 12,000%, not 120% — using alerts initiated by the NewsQuakes™ indicator, one of several indicators found in its easy-to-use dashboard…

*Returns trading on news alerts. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

Meaning anybody who would have bought every NewsQuakes™ listing alert and held it for just one hour, from January 2021 until November 2022, would have turned every $100 into $12,000, and every $10,000 into $1.2 million. While over the same period, the crypto market lost two-thirds of its total value.

The secret to the outperformance is the Cointelegraph Markets Pro platform. During the live event, the Cointelegraph Markets Pro team argued that the platform is the most actionable crypto trading service in the world — and the results support this claim.

Last year, a small group of traders used the platform to generate an average of 17 winning double-digit trades per month, with some triple-digit winners mixed in:

148% gain on DIGG in 84 hours
127% gain on XMON in 36 hours
111% gain on EUL in 36 hours
152% gain on SANTOS in 96 hours
148% gain on STG in 12 hours

At its core, Cointelegraph Markets Pro is an institutional-grade trading platform that relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to produce alerts for potential price movements before they occur.

Historically, this kind of technology was privy only to Wall Street’s elite. Now, the same AI-driven technology institutions use to beat the market is available to retail investors.

“It’s really the only crypto trading platform in the world that alerts you to a combination of social media activity and big, market-moving news in real time… before most crypto traders know the information is impacting the market,” said Cointelegraph Markets Pro director Russell DeCorte.

The Cointelegraph Markets Pro platform is not a trading system or a trading bot; rather, it’s a robust, institutional-grade crypto market intelligence platform. The platform feeds traders alerts in real time based on its three flagship indicators.

1. NewsQuakes™

*Newsquakes™ from the dashboard view and the assets’ returns (on the left).* *Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

The NewsQuakes™ indicator delivers real-time alerts generated by developments that impact asset prices the most. Prime examples of NewsQuakes™ include exchange listings and partnership announcements.

2. VORTECS™ Scores

*The top VORTECS™ Scores of assets over 24 hours. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

The VORTECS™ Score compares a variety of factors including an asset’s current sentiment, Twitter activity, trading volume and price movement to its historical data and produces a score between 1 to 100. A high score suggests that current market conditions for an asset have historically been bullish within the last 24 hours.

Traders used the VORTECS™ Score to generate the following returns:

66% gain on ALEPH in 36 hours
44% gain on RAD in 48 hours
33% gain on HXRO in 24 hours

The opposite is also true for the VORTECS™ Score, meaning a low score typically correlates to bearish conditions for the asset.

3. Tweet Sentiment

*Twitter volume profile of five assets and their relative changes. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

This indicator measures the positivity or negativity of the chatter on Twitter surrounding an individual coin. The cryptocurrency market is extremely sensitive to sentiment, which is the prevailing attitude that investors have toward any given coin. The sentiment ranges from positive to neutral to negative.

Armed with these three powerful tools, traders were able to capture:

99% gain on MNW in 24 hours
125% gain on SWINGBY in 72 hours
208% gain on BSW in 4 hours
99% gain on PRQ in 96 hours
167% gain on WING in 72 hours

Here’s the craziest part — these gains were captured in a six-month period when the market dropped 60%. Picture reaping a 208% gain on BSW in four hours, while hodlers watched their portfolio tank by over half. The monetary appreciation is exceptional, of course, but the emotional gain may even be more rewarding.

Sophisticated doesn’t mean complex

While the Cointelegraph Markets Pro platform involves some complex AI technology, it was designed to be easy to use by an individual retail trader. The summit explained this with clarity; profiting from a Newsquakes™ alert, for example, can be a simple five-step process:

Receive a Newsquakes™ alert.
Go to the Newsquakes™ page on Cointelegraph Markets Pro.
Go to the Newsquakes™ highlights and sort by “latest” to find the recent alert.
Click the token name in the list to go to the individual token-listing page.
Scroll to the “most liquid pairs” section, pick an exchange and click “trade.”

That’s all there is to it!

Cointelegraph Markets Pro value

“Giant crypto trading institutions pay as much as $60,000 per year for this kind of information,” the Cointelegraph Markets Pro Crypto Winter Recovery Summit shared. “You’re about to get the bargain of a lifetime!”

While most investors’ crypto portfolios got clobbered in 2022, Cointelegraph Markets Pro users were able to get access to four winning alerts per week, 17 winner alerts per month and 204 winning alerts per year.

Cointelegraph Markets Pro users continue to crush the market in 2023. They’re prepared to discover the alpha no matter the market conditions. To join these successful users, membership is only one click away at the link below.

See how Cointelegraph Markets Pro delivers market-moving data before this information becomes public knowledge.

All ROIs quoted are accurate as of March 7th, 2023.

These 5 Cointelegraph Markets Pro alerts generated a cumulative profit of over 223%

Cointelegraph Markets Pro’s VORTECS™ Scores, NewsQuakes™ and Tweet Volume indicators helped subscribers identify five profitable trades.

In Cointelegraph Markets Pro’s latest VORTECS™ Report, the institutional-grade crypto trading platform displayed how its members could have captured a cumulative 223% gain by following five trades based on three different Markets Pro indicators. The report depicts trading alerts generated between February 12 – 18, 2023.

The potential gains available to Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers significantly outperform a simple buy-and-hold strategy during the same period, which would’ve yielded a maximum return of 13% for Bitcoin (BTC) and 12% for Ethereum (ETH).

*BTC chart performance between Feb. 12 – 18, 2023. Source: TradingView*

Cointelegraph Markets Pro used the VORTECS™ Score, NewsQuakes™ and Tweet Volume indicators to alert subscribers of these price changes before they occurred. In a previous article, it was explained how using these alerts in conjunction with indicators can help traders find higher-probability trades on a consistent basis.

VORTECS™ Alerts

1. HXRO — 100% gain

*HXRO’s price chart after a green VORTECS™ Score alert. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

The biggest gainer last week came from a VORTECS™ Score alert on HXRO. The asset was trading at $0.10 when a string of VORTECS™ Scores as high as 95 lit green. Scores this high emphasize that current conditions for the token strongly resemble bullish trends from the past.

Four days later, the price skyrocketed to $0.20, an incredible increase of 100%!

HXRO is the native token of the HXRO Network, which aims to make it easier to trade in crypto derivatives. People can stake their tokens, use them to take part in voting on changes to the network and get discounts on the cost of making transactions on the system.

2. Everipedia (IQ) — 29% gain

*IQ’s price chart after a green VORTECS™ Score alert. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro.*

IQ continues surprising subscribers with consistent gains! Already a top performer in 2023, IQ saw a green score of 75 when it was trading at $0.07 on February 15. Just 13 hours later, the price shot up 29% to $0.09!

IQ is the native token of Everipedia, also known as IQ.wiki, which is an informative knowledge platform built on blockchain technology. The IQ token powers all application and governance processes for the platform.

NewsQuakes™

3. Polygon (MATIC) — 22% gain

MATIC’s price went on a steady climb alongside a couple of major developments. On February 15, a NewsQuake™ about Polygon’s partnership with Square Enix popped up when MATIC was trading at $1.27.

Traders who bought at this price point could have enjoyed a 22% price increase when the token’s price hit its weekly peak of $1.55 three days later!

On the same day, Polygon announced that it would soon launch the beta version of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine. This gives them a first-mover advantage in launching a public mainnet, a bullish development that leads to positive sentiment change.

MATIC is the native token of the Polygon network, a leading layer 2 scaling solution on Ethereum. The token is used for paying fees, staking and governance.

4. Radiant (RDNT) — 38% gain

*RDNT’s price chart after three NewsQuakes™ alerts. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro.*

A stream of listings for RDNT preceded massive price movements. Three NewsQuakes™ alerted Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers about the token’s listings on exchanges Gate.io and Bybit. Only a few days after this news, RDNT’s price rose 38%!

RDNT is the native token of Radiant Capital, a decentralized non-custodial liquidity market protocol on Arbitrum. Radiant users can deposit any major asset on any major chain and borrow a variety of supported assets across multiple chains.

Tweet Volume

The Tweet Volume indicator measures a project’s activity on the social media platform. The rationale behind its use is that widespread community-driven discussions can sometimes drive an asset’s price up or down.

The stock and cryptocurrency frenzy in 2021, driven by online forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets, is a prime example of this idea.

5. Horizen (ZEN) — 35% gain

*ZEN’s price chart after a 517% increase in Twitter Volume. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro*

The Tweet Volume Gainers chart continues to help subscribers track increases in interest and discussion — typically a bullish indication — as price movement goes hand-in-hand with Twitter hype.

On February 12, ZEN was in second place on the Twitter volume chart trading around $11.41. Just four days later, its price had shot up by 35% to $15.36!

ZEN is the native cryptocurrency of Horizen blockchain network. ZEN functions as a privacy coin, as well as a governance and utility token for users of the Horizon ecosystem.

How to reap the benefits of Cointelegraph Markets Pro

These gains, which cumulatively add up to 223%, occurred over the week of Feb. 12 – 18, 2023. It’s perhaps too idealistic to assume that subscribers captured all of this value, but even those who captured a fifth of it would’ve gained nearly a 45% return.

Another important note — the alerts for each of these moves were triggered before the move actually occurred. It’s easy to spot ideal entry opportunities in hindsight, but Cointelegraph Markets Pro uses institutional-grade technology to help traders spot these opportunities in real time, often before they happen.

There’s a catch though; only Cointelegraph Markets Pro subscribers are privy to these alerts, and only subscribers receive the Markets Pro VORTECS™ Report, which is jammed full of wins like these on a weekly basis.

For those tired of sitting on the sidelines while other crypto traders lock in gains, there’s only one place to go.

See how Cointelegraph Markets Pro delivers market-moving data before this information becomes public knowledge.

All ROIs quoted are accurate as of March 2, 2023.

Aussie regulators review Binance Australia Derivatives over account closures

A day after Binance Australia Derivatives sent notifications of account closures to users it wrongly classified, regulators in Australia said they’re looking into the company.

Binance Australia Derivatives sent an abrupt message to a select group of users on Feb. 23, saying it would be immediately closing their accounts due to a false classification of some users as “wholesale clients.”

This incident caused a flurry of responses from users on social media, and the next day, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced it would be conducting a “targeted review” of Binance’s local derivatives operations.

According to a statement from a spokesperson of the regulator on Feb. 24, the review of Binance Australia Derivatives will include the company’s “classification of retail clients and wholesale clients.“

The spokesperson added:

“It has not yet reported these matters to ASIC in accordance with its obligations under its Australian financial services license.”

However, the spokesperson said the regulator “is aware of Binance’s social media posts,” which were made shortly after users began posting screenshots of the notices on Twitter.

Binance took to social media to clarify the incident, saying that it closed derivatives positions and accounts for some users who they incorrectly classified as “wholesale clients.” Currently the platform is only available to wholesale investors.

A few hours after its initial posts, Binance said 500 users were affected by the remediation.

500 users were affected by this remediation, which was a necessary action to ensure we stay compliant with local laws. We serve over 120 million users globally and every user is important to us. We are in contact with the affected users to firm up our compensation plans for them.

— Binance (@binance) February 23, 2023

A spokesperson from Binance reiterated that the exchange is “committed” to adhering to local Australian laws.

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the co-founder and CEO of Binance, tweeted that all users will be compensated of any losses and to ignore the FUD. He also mentioned that the company is looking into the situation to see if reopening futures in Australia will be an option in the future.

Users will be compensated for any loss incurred due to the force close of positions. Protecting users is #1 priority @Binance.

We will review the situation and see if/when we can re-open futures offerings in Australia. Thank you for your understanding, & please ignore FUD (4). https://t.co/dRG0u8VEuF

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) February 23, 2023

The Binance cryptocurrency exchange is the largest in the world and has been very public about its efforts to comply with the regulatory requirements of its local operations.

How Fantom and Optimism’s DeFi and DApp development directly affects FTM and OP price action

Despite similar price action, Fantom and Optimism ecosystems are moving in opposite directions and this is reflected in each token’s price.

The price action of Optimism (OP) and Fantom (FTM) tokens have been quite identical since the last quarter of 2022. The difference is that volatility is slightly higher for OP, which surged 240% year-to-date, compared to the 180% gains seen in FTM.

The Fantom Foundation has made several improvements since Q4 2022, which have catalyzed an uptrend in the token’s price. However, Fantom’s ecosystem remains primitive while its competitors expanded to support new use cases.

On the other hand, Optimism has shown robust community and decentralized application (DApp) development thanks to the loyalty of Ethereum developers and the Optimism Foundation’s effective strategy in aligning token incentives with governance.

*OP/USD (orange) and FTM/USD (blue) price chart. Source: TradingView*

Fantom’s ecosystem development stalls

The Fantom ecosystem received an adverse blow in early 2022 due to the departure of leading DeFi architect Andre Cronje. The blockchain’s ecosystem development stalled after Cronje’s departure. At the same time, Fantom’s competitors, like Polygon (MATIC), Cosmos (ATOM), Arbitrum and Optimism, continued to host various popular applications.

Cronje rejoined Fantom development efforts in November, however, it appears it was too late by then. The lack of sustainable yields in a bear market has restricted liquidity inflows to Fantom.

*Fantom TVL over time. Source: DefiLlama*

The Fantom community also aimed to improve the quality of decentralized applications on the blockchain through an ecosystem development fund built by reducing the portion of burnt fees from 20% to 5% in December. While the number of smart contracts created on Fantom has spiked significantly since Q3 2022, the quality of DApps still needs to improve compared to its competitors.

*Number of smart contracts created on Fantom. Source:* *Dune*

The 30-day activity billboard from Nansen shows that top dApp activity on Fantom was limited to simple swaps, which is discouraging as other activities like derivatives trading, social media platforms and NFT trading are prospering on competing chains like Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism.

The most used DApps on Fantom between Jan. 20 and Feb. 20 was XEN Crypto, a free mint Ponzi scheme-like application. The application first appeared on Ethereum in October, with a lot of excitement in the first few days of launch. However, the hype subsided after the mint became unprofitable as many users crowded the platform.

*Top Fantom dApps by usage in the last 30 days. Source: Nansen*

Optimism developers find success with new use cases

At the same time, Optimism has successfully attracted liquidity and activity to its ecosystem after launching the Optimism token and accompanying airdrop campaigns. In April, the Optimism team stated there would be a “season of airdrops” and launched an Optimism Quest campaign.

The layer-2 network saw increased usage from users for collecting its nonfungible tokens, which would likely make them eligible for the airdrop. The Quests ended in January, following which there was a steep decline in activity. However, DeFi liquidity remained sticky.

*The total liquidity on Optimism. Source: DefiLlama*

Moreover, the activity on Optimism is quite diverse. The list of most used decentralized applications on Optimism includes yield platform Pool Together, derivatives platforms Synthetix and Perpetual Protocol and leading lending platform Aave.

Optimism also hosts a decentralized blogging platform, Mirror, which allows content writers to issue their articles as NFTs. The platform has gained significant usage, with 2.7 million hits on its website.

*Top Optimism dApps by usage in the last 30 days. Source: Nansen*

On Feb. 24, the largest U.S. exchange, Coinbase, announced its layer-2 blockchain, which uses the same technological design as Optimism. The announcement added that the exchange is closely working with the Optimism Collective with a vision to connect blockchains built on the same technological stack, collectively known as the Optimism ecosystem. This could possibly be the beginning of a big step for Optimism where other businesses follow Coinbase into joining and enhancing Optimism’s liquidity and activity.

Comparing the tokenomics of FTM and OP

One drawback of the Optimism token is that it is only a governance token and doesn’t entitle users to real yields in gas fees. The OP tokens’ supply will inflate at 2% per year, along with investor and team unlocks that begin in April.

However, the Optimism team has incentivized participation in governance, which improves the protocol’s governance and also aligns incentives with its intended use, i.e., higher voter participation.

Optimism’s governance has proved more efficient than competitors like Uniswap (UNI) and Compound (COMP) in promoting decentralization. The layer-2 network’s ecosystem is also expanding by supporting diverse applications. Optimism also stands to benefit from Arbitrum’s native token launch, which will likely add fuel to the layer-2 token narrative, pushing the OP token’s price higher.

For Fantom, despite implementing a burn feature in its protocol, the real yield of the platform is still negative, around -0.93%. The blockchain’s fees and liquidity must improve considerably to enhance the value of FTM. Otherwise, it risks becoming irrelevant alongside many other layer-1 protocols in the market.

Technically, FTM can see more upside while it holds support above $0.38 and target the $0.95 support and resistance area. A breakdown below $0.38 could see it dropping toward $0.19.

*FTM/USD weekly chart. Source: TradingView*

For OP, its price surged above its previous peak of $2.30, which will now act as a support for further upside as it experiences a price discovery. On the flipside, a breakdown below this level could see the token’s price drop toward $1.30.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.