Author: Coindesk

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index. The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3150.49, down 5.3% (-175.81) since 4 pm ET on Monday. None of the 20 assets are trading higher.Leaders: BTC (-2.5%) and AVAX (-2.7%).Laggards: XLM (-14.6%) and POL (-10.4%).The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally. Read the full article here

Starknet has become the first major layer-2 blockchain running on top of Ethereum to let users earn money by staking their tokens and validating transactions.The feature is intended to help decentralize the auxiliary network and has been in the works for a while. Starknet’s main developer firm, StarkWare, formally proposed the change to the community in July.Now, anyone who has at least 20,000 STRK tokens (roughly $12,000 at recent prices) can pledge the asset as collateral and earn rewards for validating transactions. Users with less than 20,000 STRK can delegate their tokens to validators to stake on their behalf. (Validators…

Starting next Monday, First Mover Americas will become Crypto Daybook Americas, your new morning briefing on what happened in the crypto markets overnight and what’s expected during the coming day. Publishing at 7 a.m. ET, it will kickstart your morning with comprehensive insights. You won’t want to start your day without it.CoinDesk 20 Index: 3,108.77 -9.55%Bitcoin (BTC): $92,029.63 -6.72%Ether (ETH): $3,319.02 -4.95%S&P 500: 5,987.37 +0.3%Gold: $2,632.36 +0.57%Nikkei 225: 38,442.00 -0.87%Top StoriesA bitcoin-led crypto market correction entered a third day as the asset lost a further 6% in the past 24 hours, falling below $93,000. BTC has pared weekly gains from…

Bitcoin (BTC) has dropped 7.6% since it almost — but not quite — touched the psychological wall of $100,000 on Nov. 22.That’s the biggest drop since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, sparking a rally that sent the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization soaring from a level of around $66,000 through its record high.Even so, the slide isn’t out of the ordinary. In bull markets bitcoin typically tumbles as much as 20% or even 30%, so-called corrections that tend to flush out leverage in an overheated market. A large part of the reason the bitcoin price didn’t get to…

Ethereum is witnessing a surge in “blob” usage, an effective data management tool introduced earlier this year, signaling that more users are embracing layer-2 scaling solutions for faster and more affordable transactions.The number of blobs or binary large objects posted to Ethereum has consistently averaged more than 21,000 this month, matching the record activity seen in March, according to pseudonymous data analyst Hildobby’s Dune Analytics dashboard.Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade, which went live earlier this year, introduced blobs, which attach large data chunks to regular transactions, storing data offchain without congesting the mainnet, unlike call data which is stored permanently. Think of…

XRP outperformed bitcoin (BTC) and other major tokens in the past 24 hours as regulated crypto broker and custodian Archax unveiled a money market fund on the XRP Ledger, a first for the network, in collaboration with closely related Ripple Labs and Abrdn.Archax has provided access to Abrdn’s U.S. dollar Liquidity Fund (Lux) in tokenized form on XRPL. Ripple will allocate $5 million worth of tokens into Abrdn’s Lux fund, part of a larger allocation to real-world assets (RWAs) on the XRPL.XRP price jumped 6%, touching a high of $1.49 in the hours following the release, before paring gains in…

Bitcoin’s (BTC) much-anticipated breakout above $100,000 remains out of reach, with prices retreating to $94,500 overnight. Key indicators point to further declines, potentially to levels below $90,000.The first indicator is the 25-delta risk reversal, which measures the volatility premium of out-of-the-money calls used to bet on price rallies relative to OTM put options offering downside protection.On Deribit, calls expiring this Friday now trade at a cheaper valuation to puts, resulting in a negative risk reversal, according to data source Amberdata. The first negative reading in at least a month indicates a bias for protective puts.Perhaps sophisticated traders are prepping for…

A bitcoin (BTC)-led crypto market correction continued into its third day as the asset lost a further 3.5% in the past 24 hours, nearing $94,000 a week after it came within touching distance of the landmark $100,000 level for the first time.BTC has pared weekly gains from over 10% to just 3% amid profit-taking on the expected pullback. Major tokens have followed the tumble, data shows, with Solana’s SOL, BNB, Cardano’s ADA and dogecoin (DOGE) falling as much as 7% in the past 24 hours.The broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a liquid index tracking the biggest tokens by market capitalization, minus…

Bitcoin Development Company MicroStrategy (MSTR) added 55,500 of the largest cryptocurrency for $5.4 billion, bringing its holdings to 386.700 BTC worth nearly $38 billion.The company paid an average $97,862 per bitcoin in thjs latest purchase, according to a statement Monday morning, and the buys took place over the six days ended yesterday. Overall, its 386,700 bitcoin were acquired for $21.9 billion, or an average price of $56,761. BTC was trading around $97,500 at the time of publication.The company, which adopted the bitcoin-purchase strategy in 2020, has been in the spotlight in recent weeks due to its continuing large BTC acquisitions…

The U.K.’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, said it wants to implement a crypto regime by 2026 in anticipation of growing crypto ownership in the country.A road map released by the FCA, which oversees the industry, said the agency plans to publish discussion papers on market abuse and disclosures by the end of this year. It intends to have papers on stablecoins, trading platforms, staking, prudential crypto exposure and lending by early next year. The regime is scheduled to go live after the final policy statements are published in 2026.An FCA-commissioned study shows ownership of crypto assets grew by…