Author: Coindesk

XRP dropped 3% in the past 24 hours, leading losses among major tokens as bitcoin (BTC) started the festive week in the red and Japanese bitcoin accumulator Metaplanet (3350) announced its biggest purchase.The Tokyo-listed company said it bought a record 619.70 BTC for 9.5 billion yen ($61 million) in a move that lifted its BTC holdings by 54%.BTC is still 1.5% lower over 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows, with ether (ETH), Cardano’s ADA, Solana’s SOL and dogecoin (DOGE) all down as much as 2%. Chainlink’s LINK and Tron’s TRX gained, while the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index fell 1.39%.Metaplanet has…

Web3 is drowning in metrics, most of which paint an unclear picture. Transaction volumes, token prices and flashy headlines often mask what really matters: the quality of user engagement and the potential for organic, exponential growth. As the industry moves beyond the hype, reliable, data-driven signals of success are no longer optional — they’re essential.Here’s the good news: the tools to cut through the noise already exist. By combining multiple on-chain metrics into a single “health index” score indicating the depth and quality of overall user engagement, we can identify which chains are truly thriving and poised for long-term growth.…

Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this piece owns shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR)MicroStrategy (MSTR), the software developer that has made acquiring bitcoin (BTC) a core value, added to its holding for a seventh week in a row.The company bought 5,262 BTC for a total of $561 million in the week ended Dec. 22 to take its total holdings to 444,262 BTC it said. The purchase, at an average price of $106,622 per bitcoin, was teased by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor in a Sunday post on X. It brings the value of MicroStrategy’s holdings to $42.2 billion at current market prices and…

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.The CoinDesk 20 is trading at 3319.53, down 2.9% (-98.37) since 4 p.m. ET last Friday.Three of the 20 assets are trading higher.Leaders: LTC (+2.5%) and UNI (+2.2%).Laggards: APT (-14.8%) and AVAX (-6.0%).The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally. Read the full article here

Investment advisers will probably overtake hedge funds as the biggest holders of U.S.-listed spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) next year, CF Benchmarks said Monday.A total of 11 spot BTC ETFs debuted in the U.S. on Jan. 11, providing a way for investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency without personally having to hold and store it. Since their inception, they have accumulated over $36 billion in investor funds.Demand has been dominated by hedge-fund managers, who own 45.3% of the ETFs. Investment advisers, the gatekeepers to retail and high-net-worth capital, are a distant second at 28%.That’s set to change in…

Solana-based gaming-focused layer-2 blockchain Sonic will airdrop its SONIC token to all its users onboarded through social-media platform TikTok.Sonic built its SonicX game natively inside TikTok, attempting to replicate the success of mini apps that were built on theTON blockchain inside messaging platform Telegram.The game has over 2 million users onboarded using TikTok, which Sonic attributed to the app’s seamless experience and reach in an emailed announcement that didn’t give further details of the token release.Blockchain-based games have often suffered from a clunky experience which has made user retention difficult. By working through Web2 apps such as Telegram or Tiktok,…

Avalon Labs, the issuer of the BTC-backed stablecoin USDa, has raised $10 million to grow its Bitcoin decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.The Series A funding round was led by Framework Ventures and included contributions from UXTO Management, Presto Labs and Kenetic Capital, according to an announcement shared with CoinDesk on Monday.Avalon aims to evolve BTC from a digital store of value to a more active financial instrument that can serve a range of different purposes. Users can unlock the value stored in their BTC by collateralizing it for USDa it at a fixed borrowing rate of 8%. The token reached $700…

Several popular memecoins were added to a number of Chainlink services over the weekend, allowing them to be offered on other networks or as data streaming services.In the past few days, Shiba Inu (SHIB) and its ecosystem tokens, Turbo (TURBO) and Apu (APU), adopted the Chainlink Cross-Chain Token (CCT) standard to become available across 12 blockchains, making them accessible on networks other than where they were originally issued.On Sunday, tokens Simon’s Cat (CAT), Coq Inu (COQ), goat (GOAT), Hamster Kombat’s HMSTR and mog coin (MOG) joined a list of assets on Chainlink’s decentralized data streams.These streams use an oracle model…

HyperLiquid, a layer-1 blockchain and decentralized exchange for perpetual futures (perps), has experienced a notable outflow of the USDC stablecoin amid speculation North Korean hackers are interacting with the platform, according to a post on X by pseudonymous observer Tay, known for tracking threats posed by to crypto protocols by the country. A record $60 million of USDC fled the exchange by 10:00 UTC Monday, according to Hashed Official’s Dune-based tracker. USDC, the world’s second-largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, is used as collateral on HyperLiquid. The deposit bridge still holds $2.2 billion in USDC. Addresses associated with hackers from the Democratic People’s…

Bitwise’s Europe head of research, who has been accurately bullish on bitcoin (BTC) for months, has turned cautious after last week’s 8% dip, warning of deeper losses in the coming weeks.Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, fell 8.8% to nearly $95,000 last week, the biggest percentage drop since August, according to data source TradingView and CoinDesk Indices. The losses came as the Federal Reserve signaled fewer rate cuts for next year while stressing that it prohibited from holding BTC and doesn’t seek a change in the law to do so.The so-called hawkish rate projections also roiled sentiment in traditional…