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Hedge fund that shorted GameStop closes as $1.13B GME stock offer completes

One of the hedge funds badly burned in the infamous GME social media driven short squeeze is closing down, while GameStop itself has just completed its $1.13 billion equity offering.

According the Financial Times, London-based White Square Capital operated by Florian Kronawitter has closed its main fund and will return capital to investors.

White Square Capital reportedly had $440 million in assets under management (AUM) at its peak. The hedge fund was one of many that suffered double digit percentage losses from short positions in January, when the Wall Street Bets subreddit helped pump GME’s price from $21 on Jan. 12 to around $345 on Jan. 27.

However the FT reported a source as saying the fund’s closure was unrelated to its GameStop misadventure. In a letter to investors, co-founder Kronawitter cited the traditional equity long-short model was being “challenged” in the current financial climate, as there are “way too many fish in the pond” that operate with the same long-short strategy.

“The traditional edge is being arbed away [eroded by other investors], there’s an oversupply of capital,” Kronawitter said.

The co-founder also highlighted that the hedge fund’s opportunities for arbitrage have “diminished” due to the “onslaught of capital caused by central bank monetary interventions.”

These factors are also accompanied by the relative ease of access to information and cheaper investment alternatives, with Kronawitter asserting that it brings it to question how the management fees from hedge funds can be justified in the current market.

In a Reddit thread discussing the news on the r/wallstreetbets subreddit, members of the group shared their delight, with user “turtleduck77” likening hedge funds that shorted GME to dominoes falling, noting that its “Time to invest in dominoes! The game not the pizza.”

Related: New decentralized crypto exchange is inspired by r/Wallstreetbets

GameStop completes ATM offering

Yesterday GameStop announced the completion of an at-the-market (ATM) equity offering, with the company selling five million shares of common stock generating almost $1.3 billion before commissions and offering expenses.

“GameStop will use net proceeds from the ATM Offering for general corporate purposes as well as for investing in growth initiatives and maintaining a strong balance sheet,” the announcement read.

One of the growth initiatives likely to be funded is GameStop’s NFT marketplace set to be launched on Ethereum.

While details are sparse at this stage, the firm’s blockchain division is reportedly headed by the former business operations leader of Ethereum and Loopring DEX, Matt Finestone.

The smart contract platform is based on the ERC-721 NFT standard and was created by foobar, a developer who has worked on wrapper solutions for the classic version of Crypto Punks, HD Mooncats, and MooncatHelper NFT projects in the past.

While top crypto assets and memecoins have been in a major down trend since May 12, GME’s meme stock has increased 36.6% within that time frame, increasing from $161 on May 12, to $220 as of today, according to TradingView.

In comparison, data from CoinGecko shows that crypto’s nearest equivalent in meme coin Dogecoin has cooled down, has dropped 64% — declining from a price range of $0.50 on May 12, to $0.18 today.

Hedge fund that shorted GameStop closes as $1.13B GME stock offer completes

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3 reasons why Ethereum may underperform Bitcoin in the short-term

Ether (ETH) price outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) by 173% from March 28 to May 15. The incredible bull caused the token to reach a $4,380 all-time high. However, as cryptocurrency markets initiated a sharp drop on May 12, the trend started to reverse, and since then, Ether has underperformed by 25%.

Some might say it is a technical adjustment after a strong rally. While this partially explains the move, it excludes some critical factors, including the fast advance of smart-contract network competitors and Bitcoin being adopted as an official currency for the first time.

Ether / Bitcoin price at Binance. Source: TradingView

Notice how the ETH/BTC ratio rallied again on June 8, reaching 0.77 despite Ether’s price remaining 36% below its all-time high and ranging near $2,800. To understand what could have been driving the ratio, analysts need to analyze Ether and Bitcoin price drivers separately.

Mike Novogratz may have been misinterpreted in his interview

Ether’s bull run potentially got an extra leg due to intense praise from institutional investors. Traders could have picked up a sense of urgency, known as FOMO, and promptly shifted their Bitcoin exposure towards the leading altcoin.

On May 13, New Yorker magazine published an interview with Mike Novogratz, the founder, and CEO of Galaxy Digital. In the conversation, Novogratz said:

“All of a sudden, you have decentralized finance and NFTs both on Ethereum at the same time roughly, with wild accelerating growth.”

Novogratz was then questioned on how much higher Ether could reach, to which he answered:

“You know, it’s dangerous to give predictions on the highs. But could it get to $5,000? Of course it could.”

While an Ethereum holder might have interpreted it as a prediction, others could have understood it as a wild guess, likely depending on general crypto market conditions.

However, roughly a week later, a report from Goldman Sachs revealed the global investment bank believed that Ether had a “high chance of overtaking Bitcoin as a dominant store of value.” Interestingly, one of the main quotes in the report was directly from Novogratz’s interview with the New Yorker.

At its peak, Binance Chain controlled 40% of DEX volume

While Ethereum has kept its 80% dominance on net value locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has reached a 40% market share on DEX exchanges.

PancakeSwap DEX daily volume vs. top 10. Source: DeBank

The successful growth of the DeFi industry and non fungible token (NFT) markets caused intense congestion on the Ethereum network, raising median fees to $37 in mid-May. That bottleneck triggered an activity exodus to competing networks, and PancakeSwap was best positioned to capture that flow.

Related: Here’s why one analyst says Bitcoin will outperform Ethereum in the short term

To make things worse, important DeFi projects expanded to Binance Smart Chain, including yield aggregator Harvest Finance and decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch. Investors quickly realized that the trend could continue as the competing smart-contract network provided an easy solution for dApps looking for cheaper alternatives.

No country is adopting the ‘Ethereum standard’

Bitcoin might have had a subpar performance over the past 30 days because it has failed to break the $42,000 resistance multiple times. However, a major milestone was achieved when El Salvador became the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender on June 12.

After the Central American country made the decision law, a handful of other Central and South American countries began discussing the advantages of taking a similar path.

Ethereum is undertaking a redesign that will change the issuing rate and how entities get paid to secure the network by moving away from the Proof of Work model. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is making sure that every upgrade is backward-compatible and maintaining its strict monetary policy.

That is the main reason why Ether will not outperform Bitcoin over the next 12 months, or at least until there’s a better understanding of how Ethereum network dominance of smart contracts will be.

Professional investors avoid uncertainties at all costs, and cryptocurrency markets already present plenty of that. There’s just no reason for institutional investors to ignore the risks while competing networks eat Ethereum’s lunch.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

3 reasons why Ethereum may underperform Bitcoin in the short-term

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Altcoin Roundup: Post-crash prices give investors a chance to build a diversified portfolio

Welcome to Cointelegraph Market’s Altcoin Roundup, an in-depth newsletter that focuses on investing from the perspective of fundamental analysis and seeks to identify emerging blockchain projects and tokens that fill niche demands within the growing cryptocurrency market.

The concept of multi-sector investing has long been advocated in traditional finance as the conventional approach to building a balanced portfolio. Typical allocations include representation of stocks, government and corporate bonds, commodities and real estate.

Now that the cryptocurrency market has grown to a multitrillion-dollar ecosystem with numerous emerging assets, clear sectors are beginning to emerge. Savvy crypto investors looking to apply portfolio diversification practices to their holdings should begin to pay attention.

Total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Source: CoinMarketCap

The previous Altcoin Roundup discussed some of the top layer-one solutions and coins like Polkadot/DOT, Cosmos/ATOM and Solana/SOL that have been gaining prominence over the past year, but these projects could also fall under the large-cap investment umbrella alongside high-profile assets like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Cardano’s ADA.

Once an investor has an adequate representation of blue-chip projects, other emerging sectors like decentralized finance (DeFi), oracles and stablecoins can be considered.

DeFi: Uniswap, Aave and PancakeSwap

Decentralized finance emerged during the summer of DeFi in 2020, and the sector helped kick off the current bull market by bringing a new level of excitement to the crypto ecosystem, which was in need of the next big innovation.

One of the best metrics used to demonstrate the rising success of DeFi as a whole is the total value locked (TVL) ranking, which collectively reached an all-time high at $157.63 billion on May 14, according to data from Defi Llama, and stands at $116.62 billion at the time of writing.

Total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Source: CoinMarketCap

The release of Uniswap’s decentralized exchange (DEX) interface — which enabled new projects to immediately launch and made tokens available to the general public — helped ignite a wave of growth and innovation across the market that continues to expand to this day.

In less than a year, Uniswap evolved into the top DEX serving the crypto community, seeing an all-time record of $5.74 billion in 24-hour trading volume during the market sell-off on May 19 and $5.37 billion in total volume locked on the platform.

Daily DEX volume. Source: Dune Analytics

The vast array of liquidity pools is the primary allure for investors looking to diversify their crypto portfolio. Through these pools, stakers have the ability to earn a yield by providing liquidity for the exchange in return for a portion of the trading fees. A number of pools offer staking returns ranging from 25% to 2,000%, and traders are able to select pools based on a variety of factors, including their appetite for risk.

While Uniswap has led the way for DEXs, there are other options like Aave’s lending platform that has emerged as the highest-ranking DeFi protocol by total value locked, with more than $14.1 billion in TVL at the time of writing.

Aave’s recent decision to offer layer-two (L2) access on Polygon has brought renewable energy to the AAVE ecosystem, as traders and liquidity gladly migrated to the lower-fee environment offered on Polygon. This resulted in a significant boost in TVL for both AAVE and Polygon’s native token, MATIC, which is now the second-ranked protocol by TVL, with $11.08 billion locked on the protocol.

Every balanced portfolio also has a small 1% to 5% allocation reserved for higher-risk assets, and the crypto market has no shortage of high-risk, high-growth assets.

For tokenholders who are open to a little more risk in return for higher yields, the Binance Smart Chain-based PancakeSwap boasts a TVL of $7.67 billion, and offers annual percentage rates (APR) of up to 482.54%, according to the project’s website, with all rewards paid out in the protocol’s native CAKE token.

Stablecoins are the new “savings accounts”

Though a token that stays pegged to a fixed value may not sound like the most attractive opportunity for investors, stablecoins have evolved to play a crucial role in the functioning of the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Stablecoins often serve as the backbone of trading pairs on centralized and decentralized exchanges, as well as offering traders a simple way to lock in gains.

The two most prominent stablecoins are Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), which have circulating supplies of $60.9 billion and $21.6 billion tokens, respectively. Tether is currently the most traded crypto token, boasting 24-hour trading volumes that range from $100 billion to $290 billion.

Tether (USDT) vs. USD Coin (USDC) vs. DAI circulating supply. Source: CoinGecko

Other popular stablecoins include Binance USD (BUSD), the stablecoin created for use within the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem, as well as the algorithmically controlled stablecoin DAI, which is minted via pledging collateral on the Maker protocol.

For those looking to earn a little extra yield while in the safety of stablecoins, there are multiple options available such as depositing tokens into a lending protocol like AAVE to earn up to 5% on deposits or the decentralized stablecoin exchange Curve, which offers yields of up to 50% for some stablecoins pools offered.

Other popular options include supplying liquidity for the various decentralized exchanges like PancakeSwap, which offers 8.64% for its DAI-BUSD liquidity pool, or QuickSwap, which offers a reward plus fee of the annual percent yield of 15.01% for its USDT-USDC pool and 26.75% for its DAI-USDC pool.

Oracles

In a world that is becoming increasingly dominated by digital data, no cryptocurrency portfolio would be complete without access to an oracle provider. These entities are the industry’s heavyweights that facilitate the secure exchange of data and information within the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as well as wider financial markets.

Currently, Chainlink is one of the most dominant oracle projects and a key player that comprises a thriving open-source community of data providers, node operators, smart contract developers, researchers and security auditors.

While the Chainlink network doesn’t currently offer a direct way to earn a yield through a simplified staking or governance mechanism, it is easy for tokenholders to put their stash to work in DEX liquidity pools and DeFi protocols like Aave.

For investors who are not ready to trust decentralized exchanges and DeFi platforms, centralized yield-bearing companies like Nexo, Celsius and BlockFi are also available for crypto investors looking to earn a return on their holdings.

Centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance also offer direct staking capabilities. For example, investors could stake BAND for up to 11.7% APR on major exchanges.

As a result of the May sell-off, which saw more than $1.2 trillion in value wiped out of the cryptocurrency market, many of the top projects are now well below their all-time high values and trading at what some investors would describe as “bargain bin” prices.

While market participants remain unsure as to which way prices are headed in the short term, it would be wise to investigate these opportunities sooner rather than later, as the notoriously volatile crypto market can make significant moves at the drop of a hat.

Want more information about diversification into the above mentioned projects?

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Altcoin Roundup: Post-crash prices give investors a chance to build a diversified portfolio

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How to verify DeFi tokens?

The recent rise of the DeFi industry has attracted the attention of many investors while the lack of solid regulations has resulted in numerous scams. In this article, we are going to discuss DeFi tokens and give some advice on what investors can do to avoid money losses.

What is a DeFi token?

In a nutshell, a DeFi token is an asset or a utility token residing on blockchain and fueling its parent service or a platform. The spike in popularity of the decentralized industry has initiated numerous DeFi protocols developed for different goals and implemented in the environment of decentralized finance. The key practical use cases of DeFi tokens include:

  • Lending and borrowing
  • Creation, transfer, and exchange of value
  • Securitization, assetization, and equitization
  • Financial options and other types of betting based on smart contracts

The value of some famous protocol tokens has increased considerably and therefore attracted the attention of investors. If we look at the Polkadot project, for instance, we can see that its DeFi token price has increased by 900% over the course of the last 5 years. 900%, and that’s no joke!

However, with the growth of the DeFi token list, it becomes more challenging to select trustworthy projects for beginning investors. In the conditions of the decentralized industry boom, dozens of new cryptocurrency tokens appear every day, 90% of which may cease to exist soon after the launch. Liquidity is another problem of crypto coins as they are created with the only purpose of quick profits.

How to choose the right assets not to get into the trap? The understanding of basic notions helps to determine more reliable DeFi crypto coins for a secure investment.

DeFi Pulse: the total value locked in DeFi has been steadily growing over the past year

What is DeFi?

So what is DeFi crypto? DeFi is a short term for decentralized finance, which is an umbrella term for decentralized financial applications or blockchain projects issuing their own cryptocurrency tokens. Their main feature is that they function without involving a third party in their work.

The DeFi platforms exclude the necessity of financial intermediaries thus forming an alternative financial infrastructure with DeFi instruments. In fact, DeFi is a reconstruction of the traditional financial system but in a decentralized environment. DeFi is based on smart contracts that will be discussed below.

What are smart contracts?

Smart contracts represent pieces of code that are used to alleviate the exchange of services, goods, funds, data, etc. The use of smart contracts is the main difference between decentralized facilities and centralized financial institutions where transactions are controlled by intermediaries.

The external data is processed without a centralized source so different mechanisms are employed for its verification. For example, reliable price feeds can be used to prove the accuracy of the DeFi tokens’ value. Smart contracts can pick up this data in an automated way and process the programmed activities accordingly.

To fuel the execution of smart contracts, tokens are used. As it’s been mentioned above, tokens are tricky as the whole industry provides fruitful ground for fraudsters of all kinds. Here’s what you can do about it.

How to verify DeFi tokens

While it’s rather challenging to enlist your token on centralized platforms, the DeFi platforms have made it simple. Thus, the most popular DeFi platform Uniswap enables the creation of open, free listings making the launch of new DeFi projects simple as 1-2-3.

On the other hand, there is no strict threshold keeping scammers away from the system, hence numerous fraud projects have emerged and flooded the industry. For instance, scammers can take a real, legitimate asset and launch a token with an identical ticker on a decentralized platform to mislead users and make them buy their worthless assets.

Those who don’t want to suffer losses invest in what is called ‘blue crypts’, which are recognized, well-established, and financially sound assets from the top DeFi coins. Numerous reputable resources come up with a list of DeFi coins that deserve to be trusted. At the time of writing, the DeFi leaderboard includes such decentralized platforms as Maker, Compound, Uniswap, Aave, and Chainlink that issue the best DeFi coins.

Here are some tips on how to select the best assets for investment and protect yourself against scams:

  • There is a high probability of losing money when there is no solid technology behind the project, especially in the case of long-term investment. Check the project’s white paper to see if there is any innovation or if the document is simply copy-pasted from somewhere else.
  • It is preferable to invest in projects that were highly assessed by reputable experts in the industry.
  • Check how big is the portion of tokens allocated for the team. A too-large percentage (20%+) may lead to centralization while the total lack of vesting is not good either. Why would not the project reward its faithful workers?
  • Explore the code or read the results of third-party smart contracts audits before investing. The failure in the code can lead to a hack and massive losses for users.
  • Analyze the whitepaper and litepaper of the project to learn more about it and assess its potential. A project with thoroughly developed documentation is less prone to be a scam.
  • There should be a team of non-shady people behind the project. The transparency of the team allows performing relevant checks on its members’ backgrounds to estimate their experience and skill set in their LinkedIn profiles, reputable publications, etc.
  • It is essential to double-check the address of the project’s website and the contract address on a DEX. Analyze such details as the total liquidity, volume, and recent transactions.
  • Use Tokenguard to read ICO reviews of the projects and verify the security of cryptocurrency tokens before adding them to your investment portfolio.

Following these guidelines wouldn’t fully protect you against losses. However, they can significantly reduce their chances. Remember: forewarned is forearmed.

How to verify DeFi tokens?

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Bitcoin price drops below $34,000, pulling altcoins to multi-month lows

On May 21 the crypto market was hit with a fresh round of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) which sparked another, albeit more muted, sell-off in Bitcoin (BTC) price and a majority of the altcoins. 

For the second time in less than 3-weeks, China was again the culprit as rumors that regulators were looking to crack down on Bitcoin mining and trading. Media also reported that authorities in Hong Kong proposed banning retail traders from cryptocurrency trading.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that Bitcoin (BTC) bulls were holding the $40,000 support level prior to the announcement from China but quickly lost it and had to regroup at the $36,000 support before further downside ensued.

BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

While the turnaround seen across the market on Thursday helped assuage fears of the return to a crypto winter, some analysts, including Jarvis Labs co-founder Ben Lilly, correctly assessed that “we are not out of the woods” prior to Friday’s drawdown. 

Still, there is room for hope that the price of BTC could manage to hold its ground and climb higher as activity seen in whale wallets showed heavy inflows at $39,931, indicating a new possible level of support. 

Exchange activity spikes during sell-off

Cryptocurrency exchanges played a big part in Wednesday’s price action as highlighted in the recent Delphi Daily report by Ashwath Balakrishnan. 

According to Balakrishnan, Binance was responsible for:

“Facilitating nearly $100 billion worth of spot trades” and decentralized exchanges on the Ethereum (ETH) network “recording over $10 billion in volume.”

Ethereum DEX daily volume. Source: Delphi Digital

This marked the “single highest day of volume for all DEXes” on record led by Uniswap (UNI) which saw “nearly $6 billion of volume” transacted as retail traders ran for the exits.

According to Micah Spruill, managing partner and chief investment officer at S2F Capital, approximately $9 billion in value was liquidated during this week’s correction in a similar washout to what was experienced in March 2020.

All coins liquidations across centralized exchanges. Source: Coinalyze

Spruill also pointed to the “historic levels of Bitcoin being moved off the exchange on May 19 when compared to the net exchange outflows over the last several years,” highlighting the fact that this was the highest dollar denominated amount of net outflows in history and is “extremely bullish.”

To get a better grasp on the current sentiment of traders in the market, Spruill pointed out that retail wallets have continued to grow in numbers despite the market turmoil with the dip being quickly bought by retail investors, which is “a sign of continued growth and adoption.”

Spruill said:

“The number of new entities has been increasing this entire pullback as well, further pointing to the fact we have not experienced a bull cycle top but rather a local top within a large bull cycle.”

Altcoins crushed, again 

The continued pressure on Bitcoin spilled over into the altcoin market causing the majority of tokens in the top 100 to drop deeper into the red.

Daily cryptocurrency market performance. Source: Coin360

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.4 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 44.3%.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Bitcoin price drops below $34,000, pulling altcoins to multi-month lows

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