CoinDesk Crypto

The long-term uptrend in bitcoin (BTC) remains intact, with support around $50,000. However, upside momentum continues to slow as bitcoin consolidates below the $60,000 resistance level.

• The daily relative strength index (RSI) is back in neutral territory after reaching overbought levels earlier this month.
• Previous episodes of RSI moving from overbought to neutral resulted in price recoveries along the 50-day volume weighted moving average.
• Traders should monitor the break below trend support on the four-hour chart, which could limit upside around $58,000-$60,000.

• Chainlink Integration Connects Filecoin to Smart Contract-Enabled Blockchains
• DeFi Should Look Beyond Tech Hubs for Growth
• Valid Points: How Ethereum’s Governance Process Alters ‘The Merge’
• Blockchain.com Raises $300M at $5.2B Valuation: Report

Blockchain.com has raised $300 million in a funding round that valued the company at $5.2 billion, 73% more than the company was deemed worth only a month ago, according to a published report.

• The investment into the London-headquartered firm was led by DST Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners and VY Capital, the WSJ reported Wednesday.
• The news comes a month after the raising of $120 million in a round led by Google Ventures. In that round the company was valued at $3 billion.
• The deal is a sign that venture capital firms are once again diving into the crypto space, the report noted.
• Blockchain.com offers wallets, trading and numerous other crypto-related services to its 31 million customers.
• The company claims to have have over 70 million wallets across over 200 different countries.

See also: Blockchain.com Crypto Wallet Outage Affects ‘Large Number’ of Users

• Chainlink Integration Connects Filecoin to Smart Contract-Enabled Blockchains
• DeFi Should Look Beyond Tech Hubs for Growth
• Valid Points: How Ethereum’s Governance Process Alters ‘The Merge’
• Bitcoin Holds Support, Approaching Resistance Around $60K

Hermez Network – a Layer 2 throughput solution for moving tokens and ether on the cheap – is now live on the Ethereum mainnet.

The network – which will be used by stablecoin giant Tether – will initially support five assets including ether, wrapped bitcoin, dai, tether and the Hermez token, the team said in a press release. Support for more assets will be added in the coming months.

“As exorbitant gas fees continue to cripple the community, we must bring scalability and cheaper transactions to Ethereum now,” Hermez tech lead Jordi Baylina said in a statement. “We are now inviting developers, projects and users from around the world to join us on this journey towards a significantly cheaper and decentralized future.”

Related: Chainlink Integration Connects Filecoin to Smart Contract-Enabled Blockchains

Rollups are quickly becoming the preferred solution for Ethereum’s transaction bottleneck problem, both in the zero knowledge proof (zk-rollup) and Optimistic rollup (ORU) flavors. A recent rise in user activity spiked gas prices throughout the early winter months, prompting a move to rollups.

These throughput tools increase how many transactions can be settled on the Ethereum blockchain by moving transactions off-chain, bundling them and sending them back to Ethereum for settlement. Andreessen Horowitz-backed Optimism and Union Square Ventures-backed Matter Labs are the industry’s two heavyweights in the field. 

Hermez itself is a zk-rollup, meaning it uses mathematical proofs to verify and settle transactions.

The startup behind Hermez is also debuting a new open source software donation scheme. 40% of all transaction fees paid to the network will be directed to Gitcoin, a Boulder, Colorado-based startup for funding decentralized software.

• DeFi Should Look Beyond Tech Hubs for Growth
• Valid Points: How Ethereum’s Governance Process Alters ‘The Merge’
• Bitcoin Holds Support, Approaching Resistance Around $60K

Ethereum Foundation researcher Vlad Zamfir has filed a complaint against blockchain startup CasperLabs alleging the company has violated U.S. Federal trademark law.

According to a court document filed on March 17, Zamfir is accusing the startup of labeling its proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol “Casper” and for filing for federal registration of the Casper mark.

The issue, Zamfir claims, is that CasperLabs has improperly used the mark to benefit commercially while causing confusion and damage because Zamfir’s own PoS research, stretching six years back, is of the same name.

Related: Chainlink Integration Connects Filecoin to Smart Contract-Enabled Blockchains

Zamfir says he and Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin developed a PoS protocol called “Casper” in 2015 that was then followed up with a first draft version in 2017.

The Casper protocol 1.0 specification then went live in 2018 where it was subsequently picked up by CasperLabs the following year after hiring Zamfir as its lead consensus protocol architect.

CasperLabs began building a new blockchain based on Zamfir’s version of PoS called the “Highway Protocol.”

A licensing agreement was drawn up in 2019, Zamfir argues, that provided limited use of the name Casper and Zamfir’s research.

Related: DeFi Should Look Beyond Tech Hubs for Growth

“I … made it clear … I did not consent to CasperLabs’ use of the name Casper,” said Zamfir in the complaint. The Ethereum researcher argues CasperLabs filed a federal registration of the Casper mark without his knowledge or consent.

It is alleged the startup later changed the name to “Casper Highway Protocol” and then finally “Casper” when it sought to launch a coin sale on Tuesday.

As such, Zamfir has filed a civil action for false designation of origin under the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 1125(a) and for the “substantial and related claim” of unfair competition under the common law of California.

Zamfir points specifically to section 43(a) of the act which stipulates that is unlawful for any person to use words or images for commerce that would otherwise cause confusion among others.

In a first supplemental declaration filed in the U.S. District Court Southern District of California on Monday, Zamfir said he had first learned of CasperLabs’ U.S. trademark registration and application on Jan. 25, 2021.

In the declaration, Zamfir alleges CasperLabs changed its Telegram channel name to Casper a month after Zamfir had learned of the registration and application and provided screenshots of Telegram conversations as evidence.

However, CasperLabs via a notice to strike Zamfir’s evidence, argues the screenshots, timing of the evidence and legality around the filing by Zamfir is unauthorized, inadmissible and does not affect the outcome.

See also: Hearing in SEC Case Positive for Ripple, XRP, Says Lawyer

• Valid Points: How Ethereum’s Governance Process Alters ‘The Merge’
• Bitcoin Holds Support, Approaching Resistance Around $60K

Bitcoin jumped early Wednesday after the Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the electric vehicle maker is now accepting the cryptocurrency as a payment option. Musk’s Twitter announcement overshadowed the dollar strength, helping the cryptocurrency stay bid.

“You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin,” Musk tweeted at 7:02 UTC, adding that the cryptocurrency received in payments won’t be converted to cash, meaning the company is adding to its already sizeable stash of bitcoin.

Bitcoin rose from $54,700 to above $56,000 following Musk’s announcement, having defended support at $53,000 on Tuesday. Tesla announced in early February it had bought bitcoin worth $1.5 billion, validating the cryptocurrency’s appeal as a reserve asset.

Related: Chainlink Integration Connects Filecoin to Smart Contract-Enabled Blockchains

While the electric vehicle maker’s acceptance of crypto as payment will undoubtedly grab the headlines, it’s something Musk had said he likely would do when he announced Tesla’s bitcoin investment earlier this year. What’s at least as significant is his statement that Tesla operates its own bitcoin nodes as it shows the company – and its CEO – are committing even further to the cryptocurrency.

“Tesla accepting Bitcoin payments and running its own Bitcoin nodes is massively bullish. Others will follow,” trader and analyst Alex Kruger tweeted.

Musk’s announcement comes two days after Federal Reserve’s Chairman Jerome Powell called bitcoin a volatile speculative asset.

At press time, bitcoin is changing hands near $55,300, representing a 3.6% gain on the day. The cryptocurrency is trading higher despite the strength of the U.S. dollar in the foreign exchange markets. The dollar index (DXY), which tracks the greenback’s value against majors, has risen to 92.52 – the highest level since Nov. 24.

Related: DeFi Should Look Beyond Tech Hubs for Growth

The two assets have mainly moved in opposite directions since March 2020. However, the inverse correlation has weakened somewhat in recent days, with bitcoin trading steady above $50,000 amid the DXY’s rise to four-month highs.

The cryptocurrency is now fast approaching a descending trendline hurdle, as seen on the chart below.

A breakout above the trendline hurdle would open the doors for a re-test of record highs above $61,000. On the downside, $53,000 is key support.

Also read: Bitcoin Transfer Worth $806M Might Reveal Big Institutional Purchase

• Valid Points: How Ethereum’s Governance Process Alters ‘The Merge’
• Bitcoin Holds Support, Approaching Resistance Around $60K

Russia’s law enforcement will be monitoring bitcoin-to-fiat transactions especially closely, according to the country’s financial surveillance agency, Rosfinmonitoring.

Rosfinmonitoring, which normally tracks money flows that might be linked to money laundering and terrorism financing, has its eyes on bitcoin. Now it will be paying special attention to cashing out of bitcoin, as the agency’s deputy head German Neglyad said during a Wednesday hearing on the financial markets in the national parliament, news agency Regnum reported.

“Banks are already taking notice of such exchange operations, meaning that when they see the money coming in after trading virtual assets for hard currency, they calculate the value and notify us,” Neglyad said. He didn’t specify how banks identify such transactions, according to the report.

Related: Ethereum Rollup Hermez Network, to Be Used by Tether, Goes Live

Neglyad added that Rosfinmonitoring is planning to add a new classification code for suspicious transactions involving crypto. According to his interview to the news agency TASS, also published on Wednesday, criminals in Russia are most often using bitcoin, ether and monero for purposes including terrorism financing. While not specifying which terrorist groups were involved he said the data was received in collaboration with other countries’ financial monitoring bodies.

Last August, Rosfinmonitoring said it was planning to develop its own blockchain transaction tracing tool that would allow the identification of the end beneficiaries of crypto transactions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an end to illegal cross-border transactions involving crypto. Cryptocurrencies have a status of taxable property in Russia, with specific taxation rules expected to become a law soon.

Russian civil servants have been explicitly banned from owning crypto, according to an order issued by the country’s Ministry of Labour in January. At the same time, bitcoin gained some traction as a fundraising tool among Russia’s civil and political activists.

Related: Ethereum’s Vlad Zamfir Files Injunction Against CasperLabs Citing Copyright Infringement

Read also: Russian Activists Use Bitcoin, and the Kremlin Doesn’t Like It

• Bitcoin Rises Despite Dollar Strength as Elon Musk Adds BTC Payment Option
• Musk Says Teslas Can Now be Bought Using Bitcoin That Will be Stored, Not Turned Fiat

CEO Elon Musk said Tesla vehicles can now be purchased using bitcoin, increasing the company’s sizable cryptocurrency holdings.

• The Tesla CEO said via Twitter Wednesday the bitcoin the company receives will stay as bitcoin and not be converted into fiat.
• This option will also be made available outside the U.S. later this year.
• Musk added that Tesla operates Bitcoin blockchain nodes directly using internal and open-source software.

• The move will see Tesla add to its already sizable bitcoin holdings, which Musk revealed on Feb. 8. At the time, Tesla’s trove was valued at $1.5 billion and is worth quite a bit more now.
• Musk’s tweet disclosing the purchase then propelled bitcoin to an all-time high of $44,801.
• The news today will be welcomed by bitcoin investors who have seen the world’s most valuable crypto tread water around the $55,000 mark in recent days.
• Musk’s tweet has already given a lift to the price of bitcoin, which is currently at $56,293.57, up 3.45% in the last 24 hours.

See also: Bids for Elon Musk’s Crypto-Themed NFT Pass $1M

• Deutsche Bank Says 52% of Its Investors Expect Bitcoin Below $60K in 12 Months
• Decentralized Data Project Covalent Raises Another $2M
• Serena Williams Backs $5M Round in Bitcoin Rewards Startup Lolli
• Shanghai-Backed Conflux Blockchain Wants to Bring DeFi to China

Elon Musk has tweeted that Tesla vehicles can now be purchased using bitcoin, increasing the company’s sizeable cryptocurrency holdings.

• The Tesla CEO said via Twitter Wednesday that bitcoin paid to the company will stay as bitcoin and not be converted into fiat.
• This option will also be made available outside the U.S. later this year.
• Musk added that Tesla operates bitcoin nodes directly using internal and open-source software.

• The move will see Tesla add to its already sizeable bitcoin holdings which Musk revealed Feb. 8. At the time, Tesla’s trove was valued at $1.5 billion; it’s worth quite a bit more now.
• Musk’s tweet disclosing the purchase propelled bitcoin to a then all-time-high of $44,801.
• The news today will be welcome for bitcoin investors who have seen the world’s most valuable crypto tread water around the $55,000 mark in recent days.
• Musk’s tweet has already given a lift to the price of bitcoin, which is currently at $56,293.57, up 3.45% in the last 24 hours.

See also: Bids for Elon Musk’s Crypto-Themed NFT Pass $1M

• Ethereum Rollup Hermez Network, to Be Used by Tether, Goes Live
• Ethereum’s Vlad Zamfir Files Injunction Against CasperLabs Citing Copyright Infringement
• Bitcoin Rises Despite Dollar Strength as Elon Musk Adds BTC Payment Option
• Russia to Track Bitcoin Cash-Outs: Report

Brandon Curtis, the product lead for decentralized token exchange Radar Relay, has fired a legal warning shot at the alleged creator of controversial social network BitClout for using Curtis’ likeness without his consent.

Anderson Kill P.C., the law firm representing Curtis, has sent a letter to Nadar Al-Naji, formally claiming the former Basis founder breached California’s civil codes. BitClout is a social media network that issues “creator coins” (paid for in bitcoin) corresponding to different users. The platform appears to use profiles pulled from Twitter, regardless of whether the Twitter user has actually signed up to BitClout or not.

The cease-and-desist letter is the latest twist in the odd tale of BitClout, a controversial project whose founders have gone by pseudonyms. While one of those founders, who goes by the handle Diamondhands, claims BitClout offers a new way to monetize a social following, others have balked at several aspects of the rollout, including the current inability to trade out of the BTCLT token once it is purchased.

Related: Robinhood Files Confidentially for IPO: Report

Anderson Kill doesn’t specify how it tied Al-Naji to BitClout, only writing that it is “a project that we understand was launched by you and is under your control.”

James Prestwich, the founder of decentralized finance startup Summa (acquired by Celo), also claimed that Al-Naji is behind BitClout, citing “personal knowledge.” CoinDesk attempted to contact Al-Naji, but did not receive a reply by press time.

“It is well established that a person or company cannot knowingly use another’s name, voice, signature, photograph or likeness, in any manner … for purpose of … selling, or soliciting purchases,” the letter reads.

Curtis’ lawyers cite California’s Civil Code section 3344, which protects an individual’s right to profit from the commercial value of his or her own identity and is established throughout the U.S. in both statute and common law.

Related: South Korea’s Largest Social Gaming App to Mint Low-Carbon NFTs for Millions of Users

Section 1798 of California Civil Code, which was also cited by Anderson Kill, protects an individual’s right to privacy in the state.

The lawyers also state that any person found in violation of the code is liable to pay either $750 or actual damages incurred by BitClout’s alleged actions for the “unauthorized use” of Curtis’ identity as well as any profit collected in such actions.

See also: What Is BitClout? The Social Media Experiment Sparking Controversy on Twitter

“In order for Mr. Curtis to exercise any sort of control over his name …. he would need to put his own money into your project or provide … personal information,” the letter reads. “Even messaging BitClout’s support team costs BitClout tokens.”

The lawyers argue the only way for Curtis to use BitClout’s site or control his profile is by buying tokens issued by the platform or by providing his telephone number.

“Mr. Curtis has no contractual relationship of any kind with you nor any desire to form one,” the letter reads. As such the lawyers are asking Al-Naji to cease and desist from the “unlawful use” of Curtis’ name and photo. Lawyers are also requesting Al-Naji cease and desist from engaging in further violation of Curtis’ privacy rights.

Preston Byrne, one of the lawyers who signed the letter, had previously asked BitClout to remove his profile on the platform, which the company apparently did.

“The right of publicity means an individual should be able to decide how they profit from the commercial value of their likeness and what organizations they collaborate with,” said Hailey Lennon, another Anderson Kill partner who signed the letter, in a statement.

Byrne and Lennon are both veterans of the blockchain startup world and members of the technology, media and distributed systems practice at Anderson Kill chaired by seasoned litigator Stephen Palley, who also signed the letter.

Nikhilesh De contributed reporting.

• Amber Ghaddar: Will Defi Upend Traditional Finance and Democratize Capitalism?
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Robinhood Markets L.L.C., maker of the eponymous stock trading app, has confidentially filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering, according to Bloomberg.

• The millennial-friendly investing platform and popular cryptocurrency on-ramp has not yet confirmed its plans (which could change) but the gears are moving toward a public debit, insiders told Bloomberg Tuesday.
• After a rocketing 12 months of pandemic-fueled retail trader growth and its recent drubbing in the press and in Congress over the GameStop fallout Robinhood plans pursue a listing on tech-heavy Nasdaq, giving its investors a long-awaited chance to cash in.
• Robinhood did not immediately respond to CoinDesk queries.

• BitClout’s Alleged Leader Hit With Cease-and-Desist by Prominent Crypto Law Firm
• South Korea’s Largest Social Gaming App to Mint Low-Carbon NFTs for Millions of Users
• Amber Ghaddar: Will Defi Upend Traditional Finance and Democratize Capitalism?
• Casperlabs Wants to Help ‘Morph’ China’s Bsn Into the Aws of Blockchain

South Korea’s largest social gaming app, GameTalkTalk, has begun leveraging blockchain platform Enjin for the creation of low-carbon, non-fungible tokens (NFT). 

According to a press release shared with CoinDesk, the social gaming company behind the app, Ludena Protocol, is attempting to attract new users by tokenizing fashion, furniture and pets.

NFTs have been a controversial topic as of late due to their large carbon footprint created via the process of creating consensus in a proof-of-work mechanism.

Related: Robinhood Files Confidentially for IPO: Report

By using Enjin’s interoperable bridging network and scaling solution, JumpNet, Enjin and Ludena say they can reduce energy consumption through a relatively new consensus mechanism.

The mechanism, known as proof-of-authority (PoA), refers to a solely permissioned state where only invited parties can participate as nodes on a private blockchain.

Using PoA, the companies say they can reduce power consumption by as much as 99.98%, when compared with other networks such as Ethereum or Bitcoin.

Simon Kertonegoro, vice-president of Developer Success at Enjin, told CoinDesk via Telegram the cost of minting NFTs has been a tax on both the user and the environment.

Related: Amber Ghaddar: Will Defi Upend Traditional Finance and Democratize Capitalism?

With over three million users, GameTalkTalk has worked alongside major companies such as Blizzard Entertainment, SEGA and Nexon. 

“We believe this is an opportunity to show these innovators how NFTs can help them build new environmentally friendly revenue streams,” said Kertonegoro.

The process to becoming fully carbon-neutral, however, it may take some time as Enjin says it has only just begun to implement a nine-year-plan to upgrade to carbon-neutral nodes.

“We are so excited to be collaborating with the Enjin team … particularly in their proactiveness in tackling the many associated environmental concerns,” Ludena Protocol’s CEO Joshua Kim.

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• How Crypto Forensics Tracked $32 million Worth of ‘Lost’ Bitcoin

• Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $55,066.05 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Slipping 1.5% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $$53,031.33-$56,143.09 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC trades between its 10-hour and 50-hour averages on the hourly chart, a sideways signal for market technicians.

Bitcoin was ranging between $54,000 and $56,000 after Monday’s big drop amid signs market sentiment might be continuing bearish. 

The largest cryptocurrency appeared to stabilize after Monday’s 5.8% drop, the biggest single-day decline in almost a month, but some analysts said it would be hard to rule out a fresh turn downward.  

“The market is not as confident anymore,” the Norwegian blockchain analytics firm Arcane Research wrote in its weekly newsletter on Tuesday. “More traders are positioned short.”

Related: Robinhood Files Confidentially for IPO: Report

Read more: Bitcoin Transfer Worth $806M Might Reveal Big Institutional Purchase 

Bitcoin, which doubled in price this year to an all-time high above $61,000 earlier this month, has failed several times to push ever higher. 

One blockchain data point known as “reserve risk” offers hints as to where bitcoin is in its market cycle. It’s a picture of an asset price that has room to run before making a final push to a new market top. But that leg up might not be far away. 

The reserve risk, a metric was created by the blockchain data firm Glassnode, used to assess the confidence of long-term holders relative to the price of bitcoin. Currently, it sits at about 0.008, far below the peak zone of the three past bull markets.

Related: South Korea’s Largest Social Gaming App to Mint Low-Carbon NFTs for Millions of Users

The market previously topped when the reserve risk went above 0.02, shown in the red zone in the chart below:

Jean-Baptiste Pavageau, partner at digital asset management firm ExoAlpha, said Monday’s correction may have partly been caused by traders squaring positions ahead of a major options-market expiration date expected on Friday. Once that’s out of the way, some short-term selling pressure might abate.

Data from Bybt shows that bitcoin options strike prices are clustered between $40,000 and $52,000. Many of those contracts are likely so far out of the money that an unwinding of positions ahead of the expiration looks unlikely.

Pavageau sees bitcoin prices consolidating in the $50,000 to $60,000 range after leaving behind a support level around $45,0000. 

Bitcoin’s “overall upward trend” remains “intact,” he said. 

Read more: Grayscale’s Sonnenshein Addresses GBTC’s Collapsing Premium 

Rishi Ramchandani, director of business development at crypto lending platform BlockFi, noted that trading volumes have been “quieter” during the market’s latest move down. 

Ramchandani says prices are likely to “hover around $55,000 to $60,000 unless we see a news catalyst.”

Ether (ETH) was down on Tuesday, trading around $1,707.95 and slipping 2.21% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).

The No. 2 cryptocurrency moved in tandem with bitcoin. However, there was bullish market action from at least one altcoin, theta token.

Theta token (THETA), the native token for the Theta Network, a blockchain protocol designed to improve streaming video content, saw a significant price gain and was logging new all-time highs on Tuesday, according to data from Messari.

Read more: Ripple Touts Role for XRP in Central Bank Digital Currency White Paper

The price boost of THETA could partly be attributed to major network upgrades scheduled in April, according to Robbie Liu, market analyst at OKEx Insights. The protocol also recently announced that global music giant Sony’s European subsidiary has become a node runner on the Theta network.

At press time, THETA is changing hands at $13.94, up 34.90% in the past 24 hours, per Messari data. It’s up 586.11% year to date, for a market capitalization of $13.22 billion.

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly lower Tuesday. The notable winner as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

• ethereum classic (ETC) + 1.94%

Notable losers:

• orchid (OXT) – 10.54%
• kyber network (KNC) – 8.22%
• chainlink (LINK) – 4.38%
• cosmos (ATOM) – 3.84%

Equities:

• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed 0.61% lower.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe closed in the red 0.40%.
• The S&P 500 in the United States also dropped, down by 0.76%.

Commodities:

• Oil was down 6.51%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $57.55.
• Gold was in the red 0.63% and at $1727.77 as of press time.

Treasurys:

• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield fell Tuesday dipping to 1.630%.

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A co-founder of Tether, the $41 billion company behind the tether stablecoin, said the company and its reserves should be audited at least quarterly, and maybe even monthly.

“Every time you print a tether, you should have a dollar being added to that cash pool,” said William Quigley, who left the project in 2015 and now runs the non-fungible token (NFT) exchange WAX. “Audited once a month, once a quarter.”

The comments on CoinDesk TV come after Tether last month agreed to a $18.5 million settlement with the New York Attorney General on charges of an alleged attempt to hide financial losses. The company admitted to no wrongdoing while agreeing to provide quarterly reports on the composition of its reserves.

Related: Bitcoin Mining and the Environment

Tether’s dollar-linked stablecoin, USDT, has become a key form of liquidity in cryptocurrency markets – transferred between exchanges and wallet addresses to purchase bitcoin and other digital tokens. In February, analysts with JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, said a loss of faith in tether might pose systemic risks to the bitcoin market.

Quigley suggested Tether avoid mixing operational cash with custodial cash. “I don’t understand why they made it so difficult,” he said. “They’re their own worst enemy.”

It’s not just the issue of trust standing in the way of tether’s growth. Eventually, the issuance of digital currency by governments could supplant tether, according to Quigley.

“It would be easier for banks and financial institutions to hold something issued by government versus something held by a private company,” Quigley said. “How hard is it to get an audit done?”

Related: Brian Brooks: Does the Digital Dollar Have to Be Built by the Government?

A Tether representative didn’t immediately return an emailed request for comment.

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Uniswap has licensed the third iteration of its code bank in an apparent move to ward off would-be copycats.

The white paper for v3 of the decentralized exchange (DEX) was released Tuesday. In a possible nod to rival project SushiSwap – which copied Hayden Adams’ creation bit by bit – the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based team’s blog post included one section detailing a “business source license” that acts as a time delay for commercial use of the code “for up to two years.” 

After that point, the code will remain in an open-source GPL license “into perpetuity” for any project to build on or take from.

Related: Bitcoin Mining and the Environment

With the license, no one can copy Uniswap’s code base wholesale, although it’s unclear if aspects of the code bank can be copied. It remains a large departure from the open-source nature of most cryptocurrency projects.

“We strongly believe decentralized financial infrastructure should ultimately be free, open-source software,” Uniswap wrote. “At the same time, we think the Uniswap community should be the first to build an ecosystem around the Uniswap v3 Core codebase.”

The license harkens back to the August height of “DeFi Summer” when pseudonymous developer Chef Nomi released a copy of the Uniswap software with a token. The token acted as an incentive for pulling liquidity away from Uniswap and into Chef Nomi’s project, SushiSwap.

Called “vampire mining,” SushiSwap’s liquidity games forced Uniswap to launch a token itself in September. That token is now the eighth-largest cryptocurrency when measured by market cap, according to Messari.

Related: Brian Brooks: Does the Digital Dollar Have to Be Built by the Government?

The two projects have since gone in different directions. 

SushiSwap’s SUSHI token earns yield for every trade conducted on the exchange, leading to increased liquidity over its rival exchange. Uniswap, on the other hand, has focused more on core technical issues such as liquidity provisioning and impermanent loss. 

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Uniswap, the leading decentralized exchange (DEX) on Ethereum and a centerpiece of the $42 billion decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, is releasing its third iteration.

In a Tuesday blog post, the firm behind the platform said its aim is to make Uniswap “the most flexible and efficient [automated market maker] ever designed.” AMMs – once nearly solely the domain of Uniswap – have grown in stature along with DeFi’s emergence last year. Rivals like SushiSwap, 1inch and others have also made the exchange of Ethereum-based assets easy for many crypto natives.

Uniswap v3 is expected to launch on mainnet on May 5, the firm wrote. Notably, Uniswap is eyeing an integration “soon after” with Ethereum throughput booster Optimism.

Related: The Node: Biden’s Grid Plans Can Clean Bitcoin

All told, the new version promises greater “up to 4000x capital efficiency relative to Uniswap v2,” the firm wrote.

The key change, as outlined in the new white paper, is what Uniswap is calling “concentrated liquidity.”

“In this paper, we present Uniswap v3, a novel AMM that gives liquidity providers more control over the price ranges in which their capital is used, with limited effect on liquidity fragmentation and gas inefficiency,” it states.

The lead author of the whitepaper was Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s founder, and three other members of the team. It also includes Dan Robinson of Paradigm, the VC fund led by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam.

Related: Crypto.com Launches NFT Platform With Content From Snoop Dogg, Lionel Ritchie and More

Concentrated liquidity allows LPs to set minimum and maximum prices on their portion of any given pool.

The new version further allows different pools to be created with different fees. Up to now, all trades in all Uniswap pools have had a 0.03% fee for trading. 

“While this fee historically seems to have worked well enough for many tokens, it is likely too high for some pools (such as pools between two stablecoins), and likely too low for others (such as pools that include highly volatile or rarely traded tokens),” the white paper states.

That said, more than one pool can be created with different fees. 

A key change for the composability of Uniswap may be in its removal of native ERC-20 tokens to represent LP positions. 

“The changes made in Uniswap v3 force this issue by making completely fungible liquidity tokens impossible,” the paper states. It indicates that others can create their own ways of representing these positions.

Additional reporting will be necessary to determine the implications of changes for tracking LP positions. The blog post promises this actually increases flexibility for users, however, stating:

“Over time we expect increasingly sophisticated strategies to be tokenized, making it possible for LPs to participate while maintaining a passive user experience. This could include multi-positions, auto-rebalancing to concentrate around the market price, fee reinvestment, lending, and more.”

Lastly, the blog post describes a major change to licensing this new version:

“With this in mind, Uniswap v3 Core will launch under the Business Source License 1.1—effectively a time-delayed GPL-2.0-or-later license. The license limits use of the v3 source code in a commercial or production setting for up to two years, at which point it will convert to a GPL license into perpetuity.”

The white paper continues to describe UNI as the governance token for the latest version of the protocol, first introduced in September.

Uniswap is currently the sixth-largest protocol listed on DeFi Pulse, at $4.04 billion in total value locked as of this writing, trailing fellow automated makers SushiSwap and Curve Finance. 

Zack Voell contributed reporting.

• Bitcoin Transfer Worth $806M Might Reveal Big Institutional Purchase
• Fascism on the Blockchain? The Work of Art in the Age of NFTs

Cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com will launch a non-fungible token (NFT) platform on March 26 featuring content from the likes of Snoop Dogg, Lionel Ritchie and Boy George.

• The Hong Kong-based exchange announced the launch Tuesday, claiming it will be the “world’s largest and most user-friendly NFT platform.”
• The platform will be invite-only and will feature collaborations between mainstream and digital artists.
• Boy George’s, for example, will mix his music with animated and still versions of his artwork.
• Crypto.com partner the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One team will be marking its return to F1 after 60 years with a collection of NFTs on the site.
• Other sports team and leagues will be announced in the coming weeks.
• The venture is being led by Crypto.com’s new global head of NFTs, music industry veteran Joe Conyers III.

See also: NFT Marketplace OpenSea Raises $23M, Led by Andreessen Horowitz

• Uniswap Unveils Version 3 in Bid to Stay DeFi’s Top Dog
• The Node: Biden’s Grid Plans Can Clean Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Transfer Worth $806M Might Reveal Big Institutional Purchase
• Fascism on the Blockchain? The Work of Art in the Age of NFTs

Digital-asset traders and analysts were scrambling Tuesday to assess a fresh data point extracted from the Bitcoin blockchain: Some $806 million worth of the cryptocurrency apparently transferred earlier in the day off of the Coinbase exchange’s institution-focused unit, Coinbase Pro.

The jury is out on what it means. It could be that a large investor or several just completed a fresh round of buying and now are taking the bounty off the exchange for long-term holding or other purposes. Or it might be something else more innocuous, such as an internal transfer.

According to data provided by the blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant, some 14,666 BTC were moved off the exchange during the early U.S. hours in a small number of transactions.

Related: Uniswap Unveils Version 3 in Bid to Stay DeFi’s Top Dog

The transfer came after bitcoin prices tumbled Monday by the most in a month to about $54,000, a level the market hasn’t seen for almost two weeks. By Tuesday, the largest cryptocurrency had steadied and was changing hands around $55,000.

“The outflow was split into multiple wallets, which could be their hot wallets, representing an internal transfer or custodian wallets for institutions,” Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, told CoinDesk.

Coinbase’s cold wallets for custody are directly integrated with the exchange’s over-the-counter (OTC) desk. Institutions and large traders typically trade via OTC desks to avoid influencing the market price too much. Hence, outflows from Coinbase Pro are often taken to represent institutional demand for bitcoin.

“I think it’s likely to be a custodian wallet, which might indicate institutions are still buying the dip,” Ju said. But he added that was just a speculative guess.

Related: The Node: Biden’s Grid Plans Can Clean Bitcoin

CryptoQuant found itself at the center of a controversy last week, when one of its blockchain-data alerts signaled an apparent transfer of $1.1 billion in bitcoin onto the Winklevoss twins’ Gemini exchange, possibly indicating big selling pressure ahead. A backlash resulted on Twitter, with some posters arguing the data was mislabeled or misinterpreted.

Ju subsequently promised to change the company’s procedures to avoid confusion, CoinDesk reported. But the episode underscored the hazards associated with reading too much into isolated blockchain data points.

While Ju is not sure about the nature of the latest outflow, the crypto community is cheering the data on Twitter. “Bullish signal, Big BTC outflow from Coinbase Pro,” one user tweeted.

The exuberant reaction can be explained by the chart below, which shows bitcoin’s previous price pullbacks have ended with a pickup in outflows from Coinbase Pro.

It remains to be seen if history repeats itself. Bitcoin is currently trading near $55,000, having dropped to a low of $53,031 during the Asian hours.

Also read: Bitcoin’s Risk-Reward Ratio Suggests Bull Run Has Plenty of Scope to Continue 

• Crypto.com Launches NFT Platform With Content From Snoop Dogg, Lionel Ritchie and More
• Fascism on the Blockchain? The Work of Art in the Age of NFTs

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun has contributed $6 million to the Open Earth Foundation in the form of a closely fought auction to buy a piece of carbon-neutral digital art by the current star of the show, Beeple.

CarbonDrop, the three-day auction of non-fungible token (NFT) artworks, raised a total of $6,662,054 from eight artists, kick-starting a monthlong awareness campaign for Open Earth, the climate accounting and technology project spun out of Yale University, and culminating on Earth Day (April 22).

It turned out the CarbonDrop auction would not be a repeat of an NFT sale hosted by Christie’s earlier this month when Justin Sun was outbid at the eleventh hour and failed to clinch Beeple’s “EVERYDAYS” artwork, which sold for a cool $69 million. 

Related: Uniswap Unveils Version 3 in Bid to Stay DeFi’s Top Dog

“I am so thrilled to have won Beeple’s art work OCEAN FRONT,” Sun, the founder of Tron, told CoinDesk via email. “Not only am I now the owner of an art piece from the most sought-after NFT artist of our time, but I get to support the leading agenda of our time, which is climate change.” 

NFT art, which typically uses the Ethereum blockchain to create title deeds to digitally rendered pictures and animation, has exploded in popularity, leading some artists to question the energy consumption of the underlying blockchain – hence the carbon-neutral fundraising auction for Open Earth. 

The CarbonDrop sale, an idea originated by the Social Alpha Foundation, and backed by Nifty Gateway and RNDR, saw an array of bidders including DJ Calvin Harris and bullish Tesla investor Cathie Wood taking part. Before the first bid was cast, the auction received the blessing of Christiana Figueres, the former secretary of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change and architect of the Paris Agreement.

Although Sun was forced to battle down to the wire to win the Beeple auction, he said it was “not about winning,” adding that “supporting the fight against climate change initiative is priceless.”

Related: The Node: Biden’s Grid Plans Can Clean Bitcoin

Sun said he plans to collect more NFTs. 

“Right now I’m interested in bridging traditional artists like Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet into the NFT world,” he said.

• Crypto.com Launches NFT Platform With Content From Snoop Dogg, Lionel Ritchie and More
• Bitcoin Transfer Worth $806M Might Reveal Big Institutional Purchase

California-based cryptocurrency trading app Abra has launched a cryptocurrency lending and borrowing service.

• Announced Tuesday, users will be able to use their crypto holdings as collateral for loans of fiat currency with the new feature.
• Abra Borrow will initially be available in 35 U.S. states (with more expected soon) as well as globally for the platform’s claimed 1 million users.
• Borrowers will be able to “tap into their crypto price gains without selling their crypto or forgoing future price gains,” according to CEO Bill Barhydt.
• Rates start at 3.95% APY with loan terms from six to 24 months.
• Abra received a $5 million investment from Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) in May, preceding the platform’s integration with the Stellar blockchain.

See also: Fiat-to-Crypto Partnerships Expand Abra’s Footprint to 150+ Countries

• Tether Will Evolve and Become More Transparent or It Will Be Supplanted: Tether Co-Founder William Quigley
• Crypto Wallet Metamask Reports Record-Breaking Adoption
• Yellen and Powell Make First Joint Appearance Before Congress
• Tron’s Justin Sun Wins $6M Beeple in ‘Green’ NFT Auction

Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein said the crypto asset management company is taking a wait-and-see approach to filing for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

• On CoinDesk TV Tuesday morning, the CEO, who took over Grayscale – owned by CoinDesk parent Digital Currency Group – in January, suggested U.S. regulators still aren’t ready to approve a bitcoin ETF, even though Grayscale is preparing for such an eventuality.
• A bitcoin ETF would likely oust Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) product from its dominant position by offering investors far lower fees and nixing the fund’s premium/discount discrepancies, negatives that have spooked some advisories from touching GBTC.
• Rebuffing assertions that an armada of recent bitcoin fund products could challenge GBTC with more competitive fee structures, Sonnenshein said the trust’s 2% annual fee would remain.
• He notched Grayscale’s collapsing premium to the forces of supply and demand. “There have been so many shares created that that has put some selling pressure on the stock itself, but ultimately [I] do not foresee this as a product issue.,” he said.
• Institutional investors continue to line up, he said, predicting the market remains in the “early days” of a corporate bitcoin adoption trend that may accelerate through 2021.

• Tether Will Evolve and Become More Transparent or It Will Be Supplanted: Tether Co-Founder William Quigley
• Crypto Wallet Metamask Reports Record-Breaking Adoption
• Yellen and Powell Make First Joint Appearance Before Congress
• Tron’s Justin Sun Wins $6M Beeple in ‘Green’ NFT Auction