CoinDesk Crypto

In the first half of 2021 data aggregator CoinMarketCap added 2,655 new crypto assets to its database, bringing the total number of listed coins to 10,810, according to data shared with CoinDesk. 

For perspective, in 2018, during the peak of the initial coin offering (ICO) boom, CoinMarketCap listed its 2,000th asset on its website. 

This year “saw a Cambrian explosion of new crypto assets largely as a consequence of several tailwinds,” said Aaron Khoo, head of listings at CoinMarketCap, referring to the evolutionary event that took place 541 million years ago when large numbers of new organisms seemingly burst into existence.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rallies Ahead of Senate Compromise

Like CoinMarketCap, two other data aggregators also added 2,000 or more new assets to their databases in 2021. Singapore-headquartered CoinGecko listed 3,064 new assets on its website while the smaller, Poland-based crypto data and research platform Coinpaprika listed 2,000 new assets. Wojciech Maciejewski, business development manager at Coinpaprika, said the platform is currently inundated with new applications for coin listings.

“We don’t have enough people to go through all the applications,” Maciejewski said. 

Representatives from CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko and Coinpaprika agree the 2021 surge in new crypto assets is driven by a combination of bullish price action, the influx of traditional financial institutions, influencers and celebrities to the space, along with the non-fungible token (NFT) boom and the rise of meme coins like dogecoin, shiba and safemoon. 

But this is not the first time the crypto space has witnessed a dramatic surge in new assets. After the initial coin offering (ICO) boom kicked off in 2017, new crypto assets poured into the market much in the same way. However, more than three-quarters of those ICOs turned out to be scams, while almost half failed to raise funds. 

Related: Bitcoin Holds Support; Next Resistance at $50K

And if history’s any indicator, of the thousands of new crypto assets that have exploded onto the market in 2021, only a few will survive. 

“We have no data to back that but the expectation is that [the new assets] are more or less similar to the 2017 ICO round where only a handful managed to stick around after the initial craze,” Sze Jin Teh, principal product manager at CoinGecko, said in an email. 

Behind the numbers 

Between 2014 and 2021, almost 16,000 crypto assets were created, according to data from CoinGecko. 

But this number includes all coins, both active as well as inactive assets (assets attached to disrupted projects). 

For instance, according to Maciejewski, active assets on Coinpaprika account for around half of the 6,342 assets listed on the site.  

And a portion of these deactivated crypto assets were born out of the ICO boom. 

CoinGecko, for instance, recorded its monthly high for the number of new coins listed on its platform in 2017, according to data shared with CoinDesk. The platform listed 914 assets in December 2017 alone. 

According to Kristian Kho, operations lead at CoinGecko, December 2017 was the peak of the ICO craze when retail interest in crypto rose, coinciding with the all-time high bitcoin price at the time. “This was the first time we saw a rush of a new class of tokens being created to capitalize on the success of the first few trailblazers (Filecoin, Tezos, EOS and the like). We even created a dedicated ICO page to track all the ongoing ICOs back then,” Kho said. 

But a majority of those tokens were short-lived. 

“Many of the projects that had raised funds simply dissolved upon exhausting their runways,” said Kho.

But Jin said even more coins have popped up this time around compared to 2017, and across multiple chains including Ethereum, Polygon and Binance Smart Chain.

“There are more and more new ideas, but also more scams that we have to inform our users of,” Maciejewski said, adding that Coinpaprika is receiving up to seven times more requests than it did in 2018. 

And these staggering numbers still don’t reflect the total amount of crypto assets floating around the internet. 

“The coins listed on CoinMarketCap represent a thin sliver (~20% approval rate) of the total number of new coin applications,” Khoo said in an email to CoinDesk.

According to Khoo, during the first half of 2021, CoinMarketCap received a whopping 10,793 applications from crypto projects and companies seeking to have their new assets listed. 

The vetting process

To face the rising numbers of crypto assets and listing applications, each listing platform has its own set of criteria for approving a new asset.

CoinMarketCap reviews an extensive list of metrics shared on its website, but according to Khoo, there is also an element of competitive benchmarking, by comparing the asset to other, similar applicants.

“Listing evaluation by CoinGecko is done holistically with a set of internal criteria used to evaluate each coin. The exact listing criteria are not disclosed to prevent manipulation by the project team,” Kho said in a written statement. 

But both platforms, along with Coinpaprika, look closely at the coin’s active trading volume and  liquidity, along with other factors including social media presence, community attitude towards the coin and the team behind the project.

According to CoinGecko’s Kho, the rise of decentralized exchanges (DEXs), where the listing is permissionless and fees are low, has made it even easier to create and market coins. This means anyone can tokenize anything, fuelling the strange new world of meme coins, Kho said.

“In light of this, CoinGecko has become much stricter in listing new tokens. This is because the instances of scam coins have increased with the rise of DEXs,” Kho said. 

Currently, Coinpaprika accepts 95% of requests for assets already listed on centralized exchanges like Binance or Coinbase, discarding only incomplete applications. But when it comes to DEXs, the acceptance rate drops to around 60% or 70% because they do not typically have stable or reliable API endpoints (communication channels) due to their decentralized nature. 

Meme coin rush 

According to Kho, the highest percentage of applications received at CoinGecko are for meme coins. 

“The popularity and price increase of meme coins such as dogecoin and shiba inu coin has inspired many to come up with their own derivative meme coins in the hopes of capturing the success of the former two,” Kho said.

He added that the ease of creating a simple token allows anyone to launch a meme coin, and with it apply for listing at CoinGecko.

“In the last quarter, meme coins (especially those of the canine variety) dominated new coin applications, accounting for roughly three out of four new applications,” Khoo from CoinMarketCap said in an email to CoinDesk.

He also said that in keeping with the meteoric rise of Axie Infinity, a game partly owned and operated by its players, CoinMarketCap is witnessing a modest uptick in NFTs and gaming coins. 

But 2021’s meme coins appear to be the assets that most resemble 2017’s ICO tokens in terms of quantity and longevity. 

“Meme tokens tend to be ephemeral, and I’d say that approximately 75% of them meet a quick death if they do not go viral within the first few months,” Khoo said. 

He explained that the biggest determinants of failure are a hastily cobbled-together team looking to make a quick buck and the absence of true believers rallying around a common cause within the coins’ respective communities. 

But it’s still too early to tell the fate of the nascent crypto assets that have just joined the market, according to Kho. 

“Quantity is there but quality remains very subjective – among meme tokens and yield farms,  there are projects genuinely looking to improve the space so it probably still takes time before we are able to tell,” Kho said. 

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Digital-asset investment products saw their fifth straight week of outflows in the week ended on Friday, although the magnitude of the outflows was much less than it was in May and June, according to a report Monday by CoinShares.

Net outflows across all digital-asset funds totaled $26 million last week. But following recent gains in the prices of bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies, total investment product of assets under management (AUM) is now back at $50 billion, the highest level since mid-May. 

The market share for ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain and the second-biggest overall after bitcoin by market cap, is rising rapidly and now represents 26% of all digital investment products, compared with just 11% at the beginning of the year.

Related: NFTs Over DeFi: OpenSea Just Overtook Uniswap on Ethereum Usage

The price of ether has risen sharply recently, gaining ground in the days leading up to the network’s London hard fork that occurred last Thursday. Ether has risen roughly 16% over the last week, and was trading 4% higher on Monday at about $3,150 at press time.

Although bitcoin has also seen positive price movements in the last few weeks, the cryptocurrency continued to bear the brunt of the outflows, totaling $33 million last week. Ether saw minor inflows totaling $2.8 million last week; ether has not seen the same level of outflows over the last few months as bitcoin has. 

The report also noted that the number of funds/investment products listed has accelerated recently, with a record of 37 launched so far this year, compared with a previous high of 30 launches in 2018.

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In a blow to the digital assets industry, the U.S. Senate did not adopt a bipartisan compromise on a crypto tax provision in its $1 trillion infrastructure bill after a vote Monday.

U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) announced the compromise was supported Democrats, Republicans and the Treasury Department when introducing the amendment earlier in the day, saying it would exempt crypto transaction validators from a broadened definition of “broker.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) filed an objection after attempting to attach his own amendment to increase military spending. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) objected to the Shelby motion, resulting in Shelby then objecting to the overall compromise.

Related: Despite US Crypto Tax Plans, Institutional Investors Return to Bitcoin: Blockchain Data

The full text of the compromise was not immediately available, but Toomey said it would specify who has tax reporting obligations within the digital asset sector. Software developers, node operators and validators would not be required to carry or report transaction information, but brokers would be.

“We’re not proposing anything sweeping or anything radical – [the compromise] makes clear that a broker means only those persons that conduct transactions where consumers buy, sell and trade digital assets,” Toomey said in a press conference Monday.

The text itself would define a broker as “any person who (for consideration) regularly effectuates transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person,” and would exclude entities that validate transactions (meaning miners or stakers) without providing other services, or entities that sell hardware or software that allow customers to control private keys, according to screenshots shared by Coin Center’s Jerry Brito.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seemed to express support for the compromise in a statement on Monday.

Related: Congress’s Misstep on Crypto Reporting Shows the Dangerous Allure of Surveillance

“I am grateful to Senators Warner, Portman, Sinema, Toomey and Lummis for working together on this amendment to provide clarity on important provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure deal that will make meaningful progress on tax evasion in the cryptocurrency market. I am also thankful to Chair Wyden for his leadership and engagement on these important issues,” she said.

However, the compromise came after the Senate conducted a number of procedural votes late Sunday to advance the bill’s original text. The legislative body will send the original provision to the House of Representatives.

The infrastructure bill, which has been held up repeatedly for a number of issues including the crypto provision, seeks to fund $1 trillion in both infrastructure maintenance and new initiatives like electric vehicle charging stations. Part of the bill expects to pay for these initiatives through $28 billion raised over the next 10 years through expanded crypto tax reporting requirements. 

The crypto industry pushed back against the wording of this provision amid concerns that the revised definition of a “broker” would capture miners or other types of validators, hardware manufacturers, software developers and other network participants that don’t have customers or otherwise any ability to comply with the information reporting rules.

Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Lummis and Toomey introduced an amendment to the Senate last week to exempt non-broker type entities from the legislation. Earlier on Monday, Wyden said, “I don’t believe the cryptocurrency amendment language on offer is good enough to protect privacy and security, but it’s certainly better than the underlying bill. Majority Leader [Charles] Schumer says he won’t block a unanimous consent request on it.”

Senators Ron Portman (R-Ohio), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) also introduced an amendment, which would only exempt validators from proof-of-work or proof-of-stake networks. The White House previously announced its support for this amendment.

All six senators support the new compromise, Toomey said.

Crypto isn’t the only issue that held up passage of the overall infrastructure bill in the Senate. Rather, it has been one of a handful.

It was non-crypto issues that held up debate and votes on Sunday, according to multiple reporters in Washington, D.C.

UPDATE (Aug. 9, 2021, 21:25 UTC): Adds text from the bill, adds a statement from Janet Yellen, adds updates after a vote was held on Monday.

UPDATE (Aug. 9, 2021, 23:35 UTC): Clarifies in revised headline that Sen. Shelby objected to the compromise amendment, not the original provision.

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In a blow to the digital assets industry, the U.S. Senate did not adopt a bipartisan compromise on a crypto tax provision in its $1 trillion infrastructure bill after a vote Monday.

U.S. Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) announced the compromise was supported Democrats, Republicans and the Treasury Department when introducing the amendment earlier in the day, saying it would exempt crypto transaction validators from a broadened definition of “broker.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) filed an objection after attempting to attach his own amendment to increase military spending. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) objected to the Shelby motion, resulting in Shelby then objecting to the overall compromise.

Related: Congress’s Misstep on Crypto Reporting Shows the Dangerous Allure of Surveillance

The full text of the compromise was not immediately available, but Toomey said it would specify who has tax reporting obligations within the digital asset sector. Software developers, node operators and validators would not be required to carry or report transaction information, but brokers would be.

“We’re not proposing anything sweeping or anything radical – [the compromise] makes clear that a broker means only those persons that conduct transactions where consumers buy, sell and trade digital assets,” Toomey said in a press conference Monday.

The text itself would define a broker as “any person who (for consideration) regularly effectuates transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person,” and would exclude entities that validate transactions (meaning miners or stakers) without providing other services, or entities that sell hardware or software that allow customers to control private keys, according to screenshots shared by Coin Center’s Jerry Brito.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seemed to express support for the compromise in a statement on Monday.

Related: Several Crypto Mining Stocks Up Sharply as Bitcoin Rises Above $46K

“I am grateful to Senators Warner, Portman, Sinema, Toomey and Lummis for working together on this amendment to provide clarity on important provisions in the bipartisan infrastructure deal that will make meaningful progress on tax evasion in the cryptocurrency market. I am also thankful to Chair Wyden for his leadership and engagement on these important issues,” she said.

However, the compromise came after the Senate conducted a number of procedural votes late Sunday to advance the bill’s original text. The legislative body will send the original provision to the House of Representatives.

The bill, which has been held up repeatedly for a number of issues including the crypto provision, seeks to fund $1 trillion in both infrastructure maintenance and new initiatives like electric vehicle charging stations. Part of the bill expects to pay for these initiatives through $28 billion raised over the next 10 years through expanded crypto tax reporting requirements. 

The crypto industry pushed back against the wording of this provision amid concerns that the revised definition of a “broker” would capture miners or other types of validators, hardware manufacturers, software developers and other network participants that don’t have customers or otherwise any ability to comply with the information reporting rules.

Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Lummis and Toomey introduced an amendment to exempt non-broker type entities from the legislation. Earlier on Monday, Wyden said, “I don’t believe the cryptocurrency amendment language on offer is good enough to protect privacy and security, but it’s certainly better than the underlying bill. Majority Leader [Charles] Schumer says he won’t block a unanimous consent request on it.”

Senators Ron Portman (R-Ohio), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) also introduced an amendment, which would only exempt validators from proof-of-work or proof-of-stake networks. The White House previously announced its support for this amendment.

All six senators support the new compromise, Toomey said.

Crypto isn’t the only issue that held up passage of the overall infrastructure package. Rather, it has been one of a handful.

It was non-crypto issues that held up debate and votes on Sunday, according to multiple reporters in Washington, D.C.

UPDATE (Aug. 9, 2021, 21:25 UTC): Adds text from the bill, adds a statement from Janet Yellen, adds updates after a vote was held on Monday.

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The U.S. Senate voted to advance a $1 trillion infrastructure bill without amending a provision that broadens cryptocurrency tax reporting requirements.

The provision seeks to enforce stronger information reporting rules for tax purposes on the crypto industry by ensuring that any brokers report transaction data to the Internal Revenue Service. However, it also broadens the definition of “broker” to the point where critics of the provision believe miners, node validators and even developers who create cryptocurrencies might qualify. Critics also argued the inability to comply with new tax regulations could make it difficult, if not impossible, for these kinds of businesses to operate in the U.S.

The Senate voted to advance the bill without any amendments late Sunday. The legislative body will debate the new base bill for 32 hours before voting to send it to the House. An amendment may be adopted through unanimous consent, but if a single Senator objects, the amendment would not be added.

Related: 2 Senators Propose Exemptions to Crypto Tax Reporting Required by US Infrastructure Bill

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said his team has “been working hard to get a deal” on Monday.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who inserted the provision in the infrastructure bill, said he does not believe the language could be interpreted that broadly, but said work could be done in floor remarks on Sunday.

“We should work to clarify this … we want to be sure miners and stakers and others, now or in the future, who play a key role by validating transactions or sellers of hardware or software for digital wallets, or node operators, or others who are not brokers, are clearly exempted,” he said.

The Senate was originally set to vote on competing amendments that both looked to address this concern in different ways.

Related: Senate’s Infrastructure Bill: What to Expect on Saturday

One amendment, introduced by Sens. Wyden, Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) last Wednesday, sought to specify that these types of businesses are exempt from the reporting requirement, meaning only trading desks or businesses which provide similar types of services would be required to comply with the broker reporting rules. 

Another version, introduced by Sens. Portman, Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) sought to only exempt validators from proof-of-work or proof-of-stake networks (after revisions). The White House previously announced its support for this amendment.

$28 billion

The way the provision is currently worded, non-custodial businesses are part of the scoring, or how the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) evaluated the amount of revenue it could bring in. It’s possible that explicitly excluding miners, for example, could change the scoring, meaning the provision would no longer be expected to generate $28 billion. This concern was levied against the Wyden/Toomey/Lummis amendment.

Though the JCT published its overall score for the infrastructure bill, the way the JCT arrived at the $28 billion figure is currently unknown. A representative told CoinDesk that the group does not typically publish this type of methodology.

Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group, launched a call-in campaign to drum up support for the Wyden/Toomey/Lummis amendment late Wednesday. A spokesperson said the general public had placed around 15,000 calls before Saturday.

Crypto businesses, lobbyist organizations and venture capital firms also pushed for the amendment in public statements and letters directed to different lawmakers.

Following the Senate vote, the infrastructure bill will move to the House of Representatives, which will not take it up before the fall.

There is bipartisan opposition to the crypto provision in the House, but it’s unclear whether the House will choose to strip out the tax provision or narrow its scope.

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Broadridge Financial Solutions has brought Swiss bank UBS onto its blockchain-based repurchase agreement (repo) platform. 

• With UBS, Broadridge now has 20 out of the 24 primary dealers on its fixed income platform, which it says processes $6 trillion in average daily volume. UBS is also the first bank partner that Broadridge has publicly announced. 
• Repos are a form of secured short-term financing in which the borrower sells securities to an investor and agrees to buy them back at a specified date and price. Broadridge aims to lower the cost of repo activity by transferring the ownership of these securities via smart contracts.
• “We look forward to the enhanced liquidity and reduction of risk that Broadridge’s distributed ledger repo platform provides,” Paul Chiappetta, director and chief operating officer of repo at UBS, said in a press release. “This partnership reinforces our overall digital strategy, leveraging new technologies aimed at reducing risk and improving efficiencies in the financial markets.”

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French regulators have approved asset manager Melanion Capital to begin offering a bitcoin-tied exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the European Union.

Fresh on the heels of announced plans to go public, Circle said Monday it intends to become “a full-reserve national commercial bank.”

If approved, the proposed digital currency bank would operate under the supervision of the Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

To be clear, this would be an industry first, with a scope far beyond the OCC banking charter already conditionally issued to Anchorage and several other crypto-native financial services firms.

Related: Poloniex Agrees to $10M Settlement With SEC for Operating Unregistered Exchange

“We are embarking on this journey alongside the efforts of the top U.S. financial regulators, who through the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets are seeking to better manage the risks and opportunities posed by large-scale private-sector dollar digital currencies,” Circle said in a blog post.

A Circle spokesperson was not able to immediately answer if any corresponding paperwork has been filed with the federal authorities listed in the announcement. CoinDesk has contacted the OCC for further information.

There are currently $27.5 billion USDC in circulation. The dollar-backed stablecoin administered by Circle is the market’s second-largest stablecoin behind Tether’s USDT.

Circle announced last month it had partnered with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to go public later this year. The deal valued Circle at $4.5 billion.

Related: No More Lengthy Wallet Addresses – Send USDC to ‘username.coin’

The firm hinted at its banking aspirations in an S-4 form filed late Friday:

“As part of our strategy to reduce our dependence on third parties, we may in the future consider pursuing a U.S. national bank charter or evaluate the acquisition of a national bank. This would allow us to access the Federal Reserve System directly, reducing the costs and time for settling transactions.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Former Circle subsidiary Poloniex has agreed to pay $10.4 million settlement charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for operating an unregistered digital asset exchange.

The SEC found that Poloniex’s trading platform facilitated the buying and selling of digital assets, some of which were investment contracts and therefore classified as securities, according to an announcement Monday.

Poloniex has agreed to pay a disgorgement of approximately $8.5 million, prejudgement interest of $400,000 and a civil penalty of $1.5 million, coming to $10.4 million in total.

Related: USDC Builder Circle Says It Wants to Become a National Crypto Bank

SEC commissioner Hester Peirce noted in a public statement, however, that the settlement continues the agency’s “enforcement-centric approach to crypto” but doesn’t set forth a reasonable plan for how to regulate the industry. Peirce has previously been critical of the SEC’s crypto-related actions for not specifying which digital assets should be considered securities.

Circle Financial, which owned Poloniex from February 2018 to November 2019, had previously set aside $10.4 million for a settlement offer to the SEC.

Poloniex had not registered as a national securities exchange, in violation of Section 5 of the Exchange Act, the SEC said.

The agency determined that Poloniex qualified as an exchange by providing “the non-discretionary means for trade orders to interact and execute through the combined use of the Poloniex website, an order book, and the Poloniex trading engine.”

Related: SEC Charges So-Called DeFi Company for Allegedly Fraudulent $30M Offering

Circle revealed in July that it had lost over $156 million on its $400 million purchase of Poloniex, which it spun off just 18 months later to a consortium of unidentified Asian investors.

Circle announced in July it was planning to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition corporation Concord Acquisition Group in a deal valuing Circle at $4.5 billion.

UPDATE (August 9, 15:39 UTC): Updates with information about Hester Peirce’s public statement.

UPDATE (August 9, 13:43 UTC): Adds information in the third, fifth and seventh paragraphs.

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Wormhole, a communication bridge between Solana and other top decentralized finance (DeFi) networks, began supporting inter-blockchain message transfers with a Monday mainnet launch.

In simple terms, the interoperability protocol will help crypto assets like tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and even price data, flow between blockchain networks that don’t usually talk to each other. Wormhole supports Terra, Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain at launch.

Wormhole opens a faster (and, developers claim, simpler) route for non-native assets to enter Solana’s bustling DeFi ecosystem. Projects like Serum, the decentralized exchange backed by FTX, could unlock added cross-chain liquidity through Wormhole, one source said.

Related: NFTs Over DeFi: OpenSea Just Overtook Uniswap on Ethereum Usage

Data can cross this “trustless bridge” in both directions, said Hendrik Hofstadt, the director of special projects at Jump Trading Group, a key backer of Solana-based DeFi data distribution network Pyth. He said Pyth’s price oracles can now deliver market data to other blockchains.

“At the same time, any project can make use of the message-passing to grow beyond a single chain,” he said.

Allowing different blockchains to communicate directly opens the door for all sorts of information flows. Even governance mechanisms like voting could slip across Solana’s Wormhole.

Wormhole’s 19 validators check if an asset is locked up on Chain A so that a copy of it can move freely on Chain B.

Related: Digital-Asset Funds Reach $50B Despite Outflows

“We believe in an interchain future, and by creating an easy, scalable way to transport liquidity and messages across blockchains Wormhole presents a succinct and clear vision for that future,” Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon said in a statement.

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Wormhole, a communication bridge between Solana and other top decentralized finance (DeFi) networks, began supporting inter-blockchain message transfers with a Monday mainnet launch.

In simple terms, the interoperability protocol will help crypto assets like tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and even price data, flow between blockchain networks that don’t usually talk to each other. Wormhole supports Terra, Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain at launch.

Wormhole opens a faster (and, developers claim, simpler) route for non-native assets to enter Solana’s bustling DeFi ecosystem. Projects like Serum, the decentralized exchange backed by FTX, could unlock added cross-chain liquidity through Wormhole, one source said.

Related: Why Enterprises Should Build on Public Blockchains

Data can cross this “trustless bridge” in both directions, said Hendrik Hofstadt, the director of special projects at Jump Trading Group, a key backer of Solana-based DeFi data distribution network Pyth. He said Pyth’s price oracles can now deliver market data to other blockchains.

“At the same time, any project can make use of the message-passing to grow beyond a single chain,” he said.

Allowing different blockchains to communicate directly opens the door for all sorts of information flows. Even governance mechanisms like voting could slip across Solana’s Wormhole.

Wormhole’s 19 validators check if an asset is locked up on Chain A so that a copy of it can move freely on Chain B.

Related: Stoner Cats Chaos and the Mainstreaming of NFTs

“We believe in an interchain future, and by creating an easy, scalable way to transport liquidity and messages across blockchains Wormhole presents a succinct and clear vision for that future,” Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon said in a statement.

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Standard Chartered is set to offer crypto brokerage services to institutional investors through its Zodia Custody service.

• Zodia Custody plans to offer its brokerage service to institutional investors in Ireland, according to a report Sunday by the Irish Independent.
• The exchange and brokerage service was established as a joint venture between Standard Chartered and wealth-management firm Northern Trust in December.
• The firms said at the time that Zodia would provide crypto custody services for bitcoin and ethereum initially with litecoin, bitcoin cash and XRP added later.
• In the U.K., Zodia is one of eight firms to have won registration from the Financial Conduct Authorities authorizing it to offer crypto custody and brokerage services under anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations.

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Cryptocurrency is a relatively new type of investment, and it's an intriguing option for many people.

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied above $45,000 as upside momentum improved over the past two weeks. The next level of resistance is seen at $50,000, which could limit further upside given short-term overbought signals. Bitcoin is up about 2% over the past 24 hours – around $45,600 at press time and holding support above $40,000.

• The relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is overbought for the second time since July 31, which preceded a near-10% price decline.
• However, the weekly RSI is rising from neutral levels with a positive momentum signal for the first time since October 2020, which reignited the long-term uptrend.
• Buyers could remain active on pullbacks this week as bitcoin cleared important technical levels such as the 100-day moving average.   

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Ether erased early losses along with bitcoin on Monday, but remains below the 2 1/2-month high of $3,188 reached over the weekend.

The native token of Ethereum’s blockchain was trading 4% higher on the day near $3,135 at press time, having touches lows near $2,900 early today, according to CoinDesk 20 data. Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by market value, was changing hands near $45,700, a 4.3% gain on the day.

Both cryptocurrencies gained ground in the days leading up to Ethereum’s supposedly bullish London hard fork on Thursday. Ether led the charge, rising from $1,700 to $2,700 in preceding two weeks and then extended gains. That’s an increase of more than 85% in less than three weeks. As such, the cryptocurrency looked ripe for a pullback and has faced selling pressure in the past 24 hours.

Related: Bitcoin Holds Support; Next Resistance at $50K

“It’s a temporary pullback, typical to a move seen after a notable bull run,” Alex Melikhov, CEO and founder of Equilibrium and EOSDT stablecoin told CoinDesk early today, when ether was trading in the red below $3,000.

Analysts remain optimistic about ether’s long-term prospects. “Ether could reach a new all-time high by the year-end and rally to $10,000 or more in the next 12 months,” Jehan Chu, managing partner at Hong Kong-based crypto investment firm Kenetic Capital, said, adding that fundamentals have never looked more bullish. Equilibrium’s Melikhov is also a long-term bull.

The Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 implemented as part of the London upgrade introduced a mechanism that burns a portion of fees paid to miners. So as demand for Ethereum increases, ether’s supply will decrease, potentially putting upward pressure on its price.

The options market has seen ultra-bullish flows in the wake of the change, with one institution-focused, over-the-counter platform seeing a bull call spread at the $40,000 and $50,000 strike calls expiring in March 2022.

Related: Crypto Long & Short: How Do You Measure Relative Value in Crypto?

Chu, however, said there could be some bloodletting in the near term due to regulatory concerns. “Ether may fall to $2,000 or below,” Chu said. “The regulatory crackdown on Binance has triggered fears that other exchanges may be in the line.”

Both Chu and Melikhov mentioned the U.S. infrastructure bill that targets crypto-tax reporting as a source of uncertainty for cryptocurrencies in general.

While the infrastructure bill was set to be voted on over the weekend, no outcome has been decided for the so-called Portman amendment that will potentially subject more crypto investors to higher taxes and punish proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols in favor of proof-of-work (PoW).

“The amendment, while not yet passed, could have significant implications for PoS networks and set tax reporting compliance barriers that could arguably be insurmountable for many firms which operate in the decentralized finance space,” Simon Peters, a market analyst at eToro, said in an email. “Obligations to provide tax reporting would be essentially impossible on decentralized exchanges where customers are unidentifiable.”

“It also appears to favor crypto assets such as bitcoin, which are reliant on PoW and would be exempt from such reporting under the amendment,” Peters wrote. Ethereum’s blockchain, which dominates the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, is switching to the less energy-intensive proof-of-stake mechanism.

Also read: What Crypto Analysts Are Saying About the Ethereum Hard Fork

Chu and Melikhov also mentioned the U.S. Federal Reserve potentially easing its quantitative-easing program as a major factor that could put downward pressure on crypto prices. The U.S. nonfarm payrolls, or monthly jobs, data beat estimates on Friday, reviving fears of an early Fed taper, or gradual scaling back of stimulus. While gold has taken a beating in the wake of the upbeat U.S. numbers, cryptocurrencies have remained relatively resilient.

The yellow metal flash crashed to a four-month low of $1,682 an ounce in Asia and was last trading near $1,740, down 1% on the day.

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Crypto exchange Binance said it will perform reverse splits on certain trading tokens linked to litecoin and uniswap.

• UNIDOWN and LTCDOWN – which generate leveraged gains when the underlying crypto assets decrease in price – will undergo a 100,000:1 reverse token split, Binance announced Monday.
• This process consolidates existing tokens into a smaller number with higher value.
• Users with 1 million of the tokens before the split will have 10 after, users with 1 billion tokens before the split will have 10,000 after and so on.
• Binance will suspend trading in the tokens at 3:00 a.m. UTC Aug. 17, taking a snapshot of the balance in users’ accounts, then update them 24 hours later before resuming trading.
• The company advised users to redeem their existing tokens into USDT before the start of the split to protect against fluctuations in price during the process.

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Argo Blockchain said first-half revenue surged 180% to £31.1 million ($43 million) as it produced more bitcoin and the cryptocurrency’s price increased.

• The London Stock Exchange-listed mining company reported growth of more than 300% in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to £16 million ($22 million).
• The company also said it canceled its $8 million order, announced February, for mining machines from ePIC Blockchain Technologies due to “limitations of technology.” With $5 million already deposited with ePIC, Argo has the option of purchasing ePIC mining machines, ePIC shares or receiving a full refund.
• As of June 30, Argo held 1,268 bitcoin and bitcoin equivalent compared with 127 a year previously.
• Argo CEO Peter Wall attributed the performance to a change in market conditions.
• The price of bitcoin jumped to about $36,000 at end-June from around $9,200 a year earlier.
• At the time of writing, Argo Blockchain shares have slumped almost 7% today.
• The London-based firm recently said it expects to list in the U.S. this quarter subject to regulatory approval and has submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

UPDATE (AUG. 9, 9:34 UTC): Adds cancelled order for mining machines.

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Bitcoin, the world’s oldest crypto, reached its highest point in almost three months on Saturday before paring back some of the weekend’s gains.

Prices have since cooled and are down around 1.5% on a 24-hour basis after reaching a top of $45,300 – their highest point since May 18. As of press time, bitcoin is changing hands for around $43,430.

Datamish data show bitcoin’s push to higher price highs (HH) and higher price lows (HL) was precipitated by a short squeeze which saw 126 BTC short positions liquidated on Friday.

Related: Crypto Long & Short: How Do You Measure Relative Value in Crypto?

“Perpetual funding rates have turned positive, meaning that the derivatives market is clearly positioned to the long side,” Toby Chapple, head of trading at digital asset firm Zerocap told CoinDesk via Telegram. “This positioning is also supported by an expanding futures basis curve, showing that market sentiment is gradually building.”

Significant outflows from exchanges have also been accelerating, indicating a lack of short-term selling intent, according to the digital asset firm. Despite market concerns around the proposed crypto tax reporting provision in the U.S. infrastructure bill, institutional activity is once again on the rise.

“This is reflected in the Grayscale premium reaching toward positive territory, albeit slowly,” said Chapple.

Indeed, on-chain data also suggests further signs of bullish activity. Wallet addresses with greater than 0.1 BTC are at their highest point in two months and have continued to rise since July 28, up 3.19 million from June 14’s 3.14 million, Glassnode data show.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rallies Above $42K as Bull Market Continues

Whales, or large market participants holding between 100 and 10,000 BTC, continue to build long-term positioning which “bodes well for the structure of the market,” according to Zerocap.

Bitcoin’s HH and HL bullish charting pattern tells of the risk-taking mood currently brewing in the market which has driven prices toward the 200-day moving average – a significant marker of bullish activity when prices are above and conversely bearish when below.

“The 200-day moving average at approximately $45,000 has provided some resistance –  a clean break here could lead to the next accelerated push higher,” Chapple said.

Other notable cryptos in the top 20 by market capitalization are also shedding some of the weekend gains with chainlink, polygon, and dogecoin having sunk the lowest.

Meanwhile, the often touted cousin of bitcoin, gold’s spot price briefly plummeted to a low of $1,681 from around $1,760 on Sunday evening. Prices have continued to build and are sitting around $1,761 per troy ounce.

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Indonesia-based cryptocurrency exchange Pintu has completed an extended Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Participation also came by way of Alameda Ventures, Blockchain.com Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Intudo Ventures, Pantera Capital and others.

The $35 million in funding will go toward hiring efforts, improving Pintu’s market position via strategic partnerships, undertaking educational marketing campaigns and delivering new products and features.

Related: A16z, BlockTower, Alameda Back $12.5M Round for TrustToken

The Series A extends from a $6 million raise in May in which Pantera Capital, Intudo Ventures and Coinbase Ventures also led. It comes as Indonesia has been eyeing a plan to tax profits on crypto trading in response to increasing popularity.

Though that does not appear to be slowing progression in the world’s fourth-largest country by population with over 273.5 million people. As of June 2021, Pintu said there were over 6.6 million crypto investors in Indonesia, roughly triple that of the country’s 2.2 million public equity investors.

Pintu began in April 2020 with a focus on simplifying the trading experience for beginners. The exchange is registered as a licensed crypto broker under the Indonesian Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency.

“With the support of our investors, we look forward to facilitating greater financial inclusion for Indonesians from all walks of life,” said Jeth Soetoyo, co-founder and CEO of Pintu.

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Hot diggity DOGE! Someone relished a single pack of dogecoin-themed hotdogs enough to buy them on eBay for $15,001.00.

• Oscar Mayer, a unit of American food giant Kraft Heinz, initially began the auction on Wednesday at an opening bid of $0.99.
• The winner will receive the world’s only package of ‘Hot Doge Wieners’ and the cash equivalent of 20,000 dogecoins–worth roughly $4,000.
• In what will likely be a surprise to no one, this by far tops the highest price ever paid for a pack of hot dogs. The Guinness Book of World Records puts the previous record at $169.
• There were a total of 76 bids, meaning that 75 other offers didn’t cut the mustard.
• All proceeds from the auction will go to Feeding America, a hunger relief organization that operates 200 food banks across the country.
• Oscar Mayer is not the first company to capitalize on dogecoin’s popularity. Earlier this year, smoked meat purveyor Slim Jim started a dogecoin-themed marketing campaign that sent dogecoin prices to a new all-time-high.

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