Elon Musk tweeted a picture of his dog Floki sitting at a desk – and canine coins are mooning. The photo added US$500 million to DOGE’s market cap within 15 minutes of the tweet, followed by SHIB and FLOKI token prices skyrocketing just minutes later. These happy puppies are no isolated event – BTC, ETH, and crypto TradFi stocks all gained this week. More details below.
Markets Spotlight
Note: Market prices captured in US$ at the time of reading. Explore more on Crypto.com/Price.
News Snaps
New heights
Bitcoin surged past $24,000 on Wednesday, adding 8.31% to its previous close – an increase of 45.8% from this year’s low of $16,496 on January 1. The surge follows last week’s news on a golden cross on BTC’s trading chart, often interpreted as a bullish signal by traders.
An unexpected turn
Prices of crypto stocks jumped in tandem with those of coins and tokens on Wednesday after the SEC proposed stricter rules for digital asset platforms. Several crypto banks, platforms, and affiliated businesses saw their stocks climb following the ruling, suggesting investors see regulation as a positive driver for the crypto industry.
The stakes are set
Ethereum developers set 28 February as the target date for the Sepolia testnet, the second round of testing for staked ETH withdrawals. This follows the recent Zhejiang testnet.
Chain central
China plans to launch a national blockchain research centre in Beijing. The centre will create a research network with local universities, think tanks, and blockchain businesses to explore core blockchain technologies.
LV turns pumpkin
Louis Vuitton teamed up with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, well-known for her dotted pumpkin sculptures, to release a 10,000-piece NFT project in celebration of its 200th anniversary. While many fashion brands have launched collectibles in the past, Louis Vuitton is taking things a step further by allowing fans to trade in their NFTs for physical items.
Steampunks
The NFT market shows signs of gaining steam, as a CryptoPunk and Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT recently sold for more than $1 million worth of ETH each. CryptoPunk #5066 was sold for 857 ETH ($1.4 million), while Bored Ape Yacht Club #7090 was sold for 800 ETH ($1.3 million).
Love is in the air ❤️Love is in the air this week with Valentine’s Day celebrations. We urge you to pick your sweetheart carefully though: Romance scams are rife this time of the year and cost victims over $1 billion last year. Here’s how to spot them.
What’s Ahead
Filecoin Virtual Machine
Filecoin will launch its EVM-compatible Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) in March 2023, making the network user-programmable for the first time as developers will be able to deploy smart contracts compiled on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Filecoin is one of the largest decentralised storage networks with over 3,000 storage providers and over 16 EiB of storage capacity. With FVM and smart contract programmability, it will become more akin to a Layer-1 blockchain.
NFT Spotlight
Rank SSS wanders through strange hidden worlds that belong to a different dimension in her third NFT collection, “Mystical Nature”.
The whimsical and the sublime blend seamlessly into a lush green new universe in the Dubai-based artist’s latest drop, coming to Crypto.com NFT on Monday.
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
Rank SSS on soul traveling through her drop.
Check out her upcoming drop including 🪂airdrops on Crypto.com NFT.
Product Picks
Two New Token Categories on Track Coins
The rise of AI technology has led to the emergence of new AI tokens that are quickly gaining popularity. To meet trading demand, the Crypto.com App has added two new categories on Track Coins, so you can easily follow the top Artificial Intelligence and Liquid Staking tokens. Check out all of the categories here.
AI Trading Competition
The Crypto.com Exchange has launched weekly competitions in the Trading Arena. To kick things off, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Trading Pair Competition went live this week. Users can win up to US$1,000 by Spot trading AI tokens, including FET, ALI, GRT, RLC, OCEAN, and NMR. This competition ends on 21 February, 09:00 UTC. For more information on how to join, click here.
Crypto Level Up
What is a Decentralised Exchange (DEX)?
Cryptocurrency trading has come a long way since 2008, with countless platforms now available for you to swap your virtual assets. A DEX is a type of exchange that exists without intermediaries and serves as the cornerstone of DeFi, short for decentralised finance. Here’s a quick lowdown.
No third-party involvement. Assets in a DEX typically do not pass through an intermediary wallet when they are traded. This even applies to assets that cannot be directly swapped between each other. To sweeten the deal, users usually enjoy full transparency regarding how their assets are being traded and moved.
Three categories, three systems. Automated Market Makers (AMMs), order book DEXes, and DEX aggregators make up the three main types of DEXes. They share the same basic functions, but have unique features which set them apart. For example, only DEX aggregators are able to source liquidity across several DEXes to optimise the trading experience for its users.
Pros and cons. DEXes have a wide range of tokens available for trading and are easily accessible, especially if you have a non-custodial wallet ready. However, the smart contracts that they run on can be vulnerable to security exploits. Additionally, specific knowledge is needed to use a DEX and its finesses like liquidity pools and impermanent loss.
Crypto IRL
Your ticket #tothemoon － our friend, @limeydanh with his Icy White Crypto.com Visa Card.
Hashtag #CryptoIRL with your Crypto.com Visa Card on your social profiles to get featured! Your 15 minutes of fame in the CROFam awaits you!
Decoder
Mint Price
Mint price is the cost an individual needs to pay to mint, i.e. create, an NFT on a blockchain. It is determined by the original artist behind the NFT, who then allows people to burn it as a unique NFT token on the blockchain.
Larger NFT collections often have a ‘minting website’, where buyers can directly mint their NFT. For example, the Degen Mad Meerkat collection was first released on a dedicated website and once minted, the collection’s NFTs then started arriving on marketplaces like Ebisu’s Bay.
This Week in Crypto History
Failed Cryptojacking Campaign Nets a Meager $24
For the duration of one fateful weekend in February 2017, hackers exploited the browser plugin BrowseAloud by inserting code which tapped into the processing power of users’ devices to mine cryptocurrency.
This affected over 5,000 websites that supported the plugin, but the actual impact was rather minimal, to say the least.
The hackers earned a measly 0.1 XMR, worth $24 at the time, with their scam. To make matters worse, they didn’t even manage to get paid out by the time the exploit was discovered.
Now, there’s an example that crypto crime doesn’t pay.
That’s it for this week’s Snapshot. Want more? Head over to our Insta feed for bite-size crypto lessons.
