The digital yuan app, which services users of the Chinese CBDC, has dropped the ‘pilot’ label from its name without any announcement, prompting speculation about an upcoming move to production stages. While local Chinese news outlets explained that this change had to do with app requirements, some expect this might be a step before its […]
Bitcoin News
Musk vs. Nakamoto: A 210% Bitcoin Surge Could Change the World’s Wealth Rankings
At this moment, Tesla’s Elon Musk holds the title of the wealthiest individual on the planet, as reported by the Forbes Real Time Billionaires list on June 1, 2024. However, there exists a potential future where Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, could surpass Musk’s fortune. Given the current value of BTC, the price would need to […]
Bitcoin News
Litecoin Whales Go On $230 Million Buying Spree: Will This Change LTC’s Stars?
On-chain data shows the Litecoin whales have gone on a 0 million buying spree recently, which could bring bullish winds for the coin.
Litecoin Whales Have Been Making Net Inflows To Their Wallets Recently
According to data from the market intelligence platform IntoTheBlock, the Litecoin whales have received large net inflows in their addresses over the past month or so.
The on-chain indicator relevant here is the “Large Holders Netflow,” which tracks the net amount of Bitcoin entering into or moving out of the combined wallets of investors owning at least 1% of the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply.
IntoTheBlock defines such “large holders” as the whale entities of the asset. Whales are generally considered to be influential beings on the network, owing to their ability to move large amounts on the network in a short span of time.
When the Large Holders Netflow has a positive value, it means that these humongous investors are receiving a net amount of coins into their balance right now. Naturally, such buying can be bullish for the coin’s price.
On the other hand, the negative indicator implies the whales are potentially participating in selling currently, which could have bearish consequences for the asset.
Now, here is a chart that shows the trend in the Litecoin Large Holders Netflow over the past month:
As displayed in the above graph, the Litecoin Large Holders Netflow has mostly observed positive values inside this window, suggesting that the whales’ wallets have been receiving net deposits.
According to the analytics firm, these large holders have accumulated 2,751,633 LTC in the last 30 days. At the current exchange rate of the asset, this stack is worth a whopping 0 million.
As the chart also shows, the indicator spiked particularly strongly on the 10th of this month. During these net inflows alone, the whales bought 900,000 LTC, the highest daily amount since February, representing around one-third of the total accumulation in the past month.
This buying spree from the large holders has come as the asset’s price has been consolidating around its lows following the mid-April crash. Thus, it would imply the whales believe the recent prices of Litecoin to have been worthy entry points into the coin.
This could certainly be a bullish sign for the cryptocurrency, so it remains to be seen how the asset’s price will develop in the near future. The indicator may be worth monitoring, though, as its value turning negative could instead spell a bearish outcome for the coin.
LTC Price
Litecoin has continued to consolidate inside its range recently as its price is currently trading around .
Grayscale Leadership Change: Sonnenshein Steps Down — Goldman Sachs’ Peter Mintzberg Appointed New CEO
Crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments has appointed Peter Mintzberg as CEO, effective August 15, 2024. Mintzberg, currently Global Head of Strategy for Asset and Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs, will also join Grayscale’s Board of Directors. He succeeds Michael Sonnenshein, who steps down to pursue other interests. CFO Edward McGee will serve as interim principal […]
Bitcoin News
Change Of Heart: Crypto Scammer Returns $34.7 Million To Victim’s Address
A week ago, a crypto whale fell victim to a scam that resulted in the loss of over million. In the following days, the scammer moved the funds to veil them. But in a shocking turn of events, they returned the funds to the victim.
Address Poisoning Scam Snatches Million
On May 3, whale 0x1E22…8FD5 lost 1,155 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), worth around .31 million, after falling victim to an address poisoning scam. This scam, also known as address spoofing, consists of trying to trick users into sending funds to fraudulent lookalike accounts.
#PeckShieldAlert #Phishing A whale 0x1E22…8FD5 lost ~1,155 $WBTC (worth ~ million) after falling victim to address poisoning.The phisher has swapped the stolen $WBTC for ~23K $ETH & transferred them out pic.twitter.com/dr7eTYQkAX
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) May 3, 2024
The “vanity addresses” are custom-made with specific characters that look like the intended recipient’s address. Scammers send transactions of no value, hoping the similarity between the addresses will fool the user under attack.
If successful, victims copy the fraudulent address from the previous transactions and accidentally send their assets to the scammers instead.
PeckShieldAlert reported that the phisher immediately swapped the stolen WBTC for 23,000 Ether (ETH) before transferring them to a different address. Throughout the following days, the scammer laundered the funds. Sending them to ten different addresses before distributing the tokens through over 100 other addresses.
This development painted a looming picture for the crypto whale. At this point, the funds appeared to be unrecoverable. One user called the massive number of transfers a “crypto musical chairs” game.
Others justified the scammer, claiming he had not stolen the funds, as “he just received them.” This stance disregards the transaction’s nature. The transfer occurs under the belief that funds are safely being transferred to the intended account and not a lookalike.
Moreover, the lookalike address is in the victim’s transaction history, clearly intended to deceive the user into receiving funds not meant for them.
Change Of Heart Or Scared Of The Crypto Community?
In a shocking turn of events, the scammer sent 51 ETH, worth around 3,000, back to the victim on Thursday. Alongside the funds, the phisher sent a message asking to contact the whale, seemingly looking to negotiate.
The reasons behind the sudden change of heart remain a mystery to the community. Many are jokingly theorizing why the scammer returned the funds. One X user playfully suggested that the phisher feared being investigated by crypto sleuth ZachXBT.
Others claimed that “even the scammer doesn’t want ETH,” referencing the criticism the second-largest cryptocurrency has faced after its performance during this cycle.
In the early hours of Friday, PeckShieldAlert revealed that 2,683.7 ETH, worth about million, had already been transferred to the whale from nearly 50 different addresses. A couple of hours later, an update showcased that around 50% of the total funds had been returned, accounting for 11,446.87 ETH, or .7 million.
Retrieving all the assets might take time due to the large number of addresses holding the funds. At the time of writing, over million worth of ETH has already been returned, and the transactions continue.
Bitcoin Has Undergone This Bearish Structure Change, Analyst Explains
An analyst has explained that the recent trend in the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap suggests a significant change in the asset’s structure.
Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap Has Continued To Be Negative
In a new post on X, analyst Maartunn discussed how the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap is still negative. The “Coinbase Premium Gap” here refers to a metric that tracks the difference between the Bitcoin prices listed on cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase (USD pair) and Binance (USDT pair).
This indicator’s value provides hints about how the behavior of the former’s userbase currently differs from that of the latter platform.
Below is the chart shared by the analyst that reveals the trend in the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap since the start of the year.
As the graph shows, the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap had been mostly positive as Bitcoin had gone through its journey from ,000 to beyond the ,000 level.
This would imply that the price listed on the exchange was higher than on Binance during this period. Such a trend naturally suggests that the buying pressure on the former was greater than on the latter.
Coinbase is widely known to be the preferred platform of US-based institutional investors, while Binance has global traffic. Thus, the green positive premium values would imply these large American entities had been buying and supporting the rally.
Recently, however, the indicator’s value turned negative as these investors took to selling instead. Since then, the metric has continued to assume such values. Alongside this selloff, the BTC price has experienced a notable decline.
The Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap followed a similar pattern during the first month or so of the year. In the first 10 days of January, the metric had been positive as buying had occurred in anticipation of the spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Still, after the ETFs had been approved, the indicator had turned negative.
The red premium values had maintained for a few weeks, during which the cryptocurrency price had struggled. Based on this pattern and the recent trend, it would seem that American institutional traders have driven the price action this year.
As such, so long as the current bearish structure in the Bitcoin Coinbase Premium Gap exists, it’s possible that the price may not be able to amass too much upward momentum.
BTC Price
At the end of the positive Coinbase Premium Gap streak, Bitcoin had been able to achieve a new all-time high above ,800, but as traders have switched to selling on the platform, the coin has dropped almost 9%, with its price now trading around ,300.
Bitcoin Technical Analysis: BTC Navigates Volatile Waves of Change
As bitcoin flirts with the boundaries of its recent trading range, its price oscillation reflects a vibrant yet undecided market, standing at a pivotal ,259 per unit, after testing waters between ,522 and ,902 within a 24-hour frame. Bitcoin Presently, bitcoin’s (BTC) oscillators present a mixed view but lean toward a cautious sentiment. The relative […]
Bitcoin News
Thai Rule Change Allows Asset Management Funds to Invest in Bitcoin ETFs
Thailand-based asset management funds can now launch private funds for investing in U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to the country’s securities regulator. The approval of bitcoin ETFs by U.S. regulators has opened opportunities for Thai asset management firms to gain exposure to the premier crypto asset. Only Institutional Investors and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals Are […]
Bitcoin News
Peter Schiff Warns SEC Could Change Definition of ‘Security’ — Expects Lots of Investors to Be Retroactively Fined
Economist and gold advocate Peter Schiff has sounded the alarm about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) potentially changing the definition of a “security.” He cautioned: “Now that the U.S. Appeals Court has upheld the SEC’s authority to unilaterally change the definition of a ‘dealer,’ I expect lots of private investors to be retroactively […]
Bitcoin News
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire: ‘Stablecoins Are Set to Change the Financial System Forever’
Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, a stablecoin company, has declared that blockchain systems are the new infrastructure layer of the internet and that stablecoins are at its core, providing value that is “nearly instant, nearly free and global in scale.” Allaire believes this tech is reaching a level where millions can use it without having to understand its complexity.
Circle’s Jeremy Allaire: Stablecoins Are the ‘Critical Element’ for a New Internet Financial System
Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, the issuer of the second largest stablecoin of the cryptocurrency market, believes that stablecoins will become the pivot of a new blockchain-based economic system. In an article written as part of the World Economic Forum meetings at Davos, where Circle is participating, Allaire laid his beliefs about the future of blockchain networks and the significance of stablecoins for this surging economy.
Circle’s CEO remarked that this year, the interest in blockchain networks has peaked, with traditional financial institutions like Blackrock, JPMorgan, Standard Chartered, HSBC, and Goldman Sachs all announcing their involvement in blockchain-based projects. Allaire sees this interest as a natural support for the technology that “is poised to eat the world of money.”
Allaire explains stablecoins will be at the center of all this activity, given their almost universal applications, which range from traditional commercial uses to transferring value to people who lack access to a connected banking system, such as Ukrainian refugees or Venezuelan healthcare workers.
The evolution of these networks and the technology that powers them enable people not versed in the area to use stablecoins without dealing with their complexity. Allaire stresses that these developments are “paving the way for a future in which billions of people will interact with the Internet financial system on a daily basis without needing to understand how it works.”
Circle recently completed the upgrade of its USDC stablecoin to version 2.2 and has plans to become a publicly traded company, aiming to launch its Initial Public Offering (IPO) after getting approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
What do you think about Jeremy Allaire’s vision of the future of stablecoins? Tell us in the comments section below.