Perceived centralization could kill PoS networks: ShapeShift report

A new report suggests that Cosmos, Polkadot and NEAR could fail to take off if they are perceived to have an issue with centralization — as the example of EOS demonstrates. Non-custodial crypto asset exchange ShapeShift has published a report predicting that Proof-of-Stake scalable smart contract networks Polkadot, Cosmos, and Near will be thoroughly put…

DeFi wars heat up as Curve Finance TVL hits $3.99B, surpassing Uniswap

As decentralized finance grows in prominence, a battle of the DEXs is brewing between several of the top protocols like Uniswap (UNI), SushiSwap (SUSHI) and Curve DAO (CRV) as the growing list of platforms vie for investor liquidity and transactions on the network.  In terms of total value locked, DeFi lending platforms currently dominate the…

Solana announces DeFi hackathon offering $200k in seed funding

Solana has announced an upcoming DeFi hackathon offering $200,000 in seed funding from the Solana Foundation. The hackathon, which is scheduled to take place from Feb. 15 through March 1st, will be hosted in partnership with Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX’s Project Serum. Bankman-Fried will also offer mentorship to hackathon participants alongside Solana CEO Anatoly Takovenko.…

Top 5 cryptocurrencies to watch this week: BTC, DOT, LINK, XLM, THETA

Bitcoin (BTC) has attracted several institutional investors in the past few months, but with the market capitalization sustaining above $700 billion, many more institutions are likely to contemplate buying Bitcoin. Similarly, Ether (ETH) with a market cap of about $180 billion also cannot be ignored by the investors.  The institutional adoption of the top two…

Whales profit as high Ethereum gas fees sideline retail DeFi investors

Since early 2020 the decentralized finance sector has been recieved a lot of attention due to its cutting-edge innovation and the lucrative high yield opportunities offered to cryptocurrency holders.  Despite these features, this week’s record-high gas fees show that the sector is still having growing pains and the absence of a suitable layer 2 solution…

Record $6.5B futures open interest signals traders are bullish on Ethereum

Ether (ETH) price has rallied by 33% over the last five days and data shows that as this occurred some buyers began to use excessive leverage.  Although this is not necessarily negative, it should be considered a yellow flag as a higher premium on futures contracts for short periods is normal. ETH/USD 4-hour chart. Source:…