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3 reasons why Quant (QNT) price rallied 125% this week

Real-world use cases and delivered value are important when evaluating the long-term prospects of a cryptocurrency project, and this is especially true in down markets when sentiment is low and the possibility of an extended bear market is a reality. 

One project that has been gaining momentum over the past month despite the market-wide downturn is Quant (QNT), an interoperability-focused project designed to help enterprises integrate and operate distributed ledger technology (DLT).

QNT/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that following a brief dip to $44 on June 22 as the entire crypto market faced a sell-off, the price of QNT surged more than 125% to establish a new record high at $99.11 on June 25.

Coinbase bump in full effect

The rapid turnaround in the price for QNT following the pullback was due in large part to its listing on Coinbase Pro, which began accepting deposits on June 23.

Price action for QNT began to pick up on June 24 as trading via limit orders opened up on Coinbase Pro, and its addition to the front-side of Coinbase which includes the Andriod and iOS apps on June 25 saw another boost in trading volume and token price.

As a result of the momentum brought by the new listing, the average 24-hour trading volume for QNT soared on June 25.

Protocol upgrades attract attention

Prior to the Coinbase listing and market sell-off, QNT price began to gain traction around June 14 following the release of a mid-year technology update called Overledger 2.0. This is the project’s hallmark “DLT gateway that delivers interoperability across different systems, networks and DLTs,” according to the project’s website.

Excitement for the update had been building since early June as evidenced by the recognition Quant has received from several reputable sources including cloud infrastructure provider Oracle and the professional services network Deloitte, which included the project in its nominations for the Most Disruptive Fintech Award for 2021.

VORTECS™ data turned bullish ahead of Quant’s most recent rally

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for QNT on June 22, prior to the recent price rise.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historic and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.

VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. QNT price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for Quant actually reached a high score of 71 on June 22 as the market was selling off and was subsequently followed by a 125% rally in price over the next three days.

The NewsQuake™ service from Cointelegraph Markets Pro also highlighted the Coinbase listing announcement on June 24, which was followed by a 50% increase in the price of QNT over the next two days.

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.

3 reasons why Quant (QNT) price rallied 125% this week

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Altcoin Roundup: Stablecoin pools could be the next frontier for DeFi

In times like these, when the entire cryptocurrency market is down and there is nary a sector-wide runup to be found, traders have to dig into data to see how the market dynamics may have changed to pinpoint signs of new growth. 

Stablecoins are the newest trend to emerge in the decentralized finance (DeFi) arena due to the resiliency they bring to the sector, especially since protocols that are more reliant on the dollar-pegged assets continue to offer token holders low-risk yield opportunities in turbulent market conditions.

Possible evidence of stablecoins rising influence can be found in the difference between the decline in Ether’s (ETH) price and the total value locked in smart contracts. The price of Ether declined by 20% more from its peak than the decline in the total TVL of the DeFi sector.

TVL in smart contracts vs. Ether price decline. Source: Glassnode

When one takes into account that most of the crypto market saw price declines on par with what Ether experienced, the fact that the DeFi TVL fell less percentage-wise than the price of Ether points to the stability offered by stablecoins.

Stablecoin marketcap increases tenfold

The total amount of stablecoins available in the market has skyrocketed from under $15 billion to more than $113 billion over the past year, led by Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), bringing an increased level of liquidity to DeFi protocols.

Top seven stablecoins by market capitalization. Source: CoinGecko

The top stablecoins are included in a large percentage of the liquidity pool (LP) pairs available on DeFi platforms, as well as being included as a standalone token that users can deposit on protocols, such as Aave, to earn a yield. This further makes them an integral part of the burgeoning DeFi ecosystem.

Stablecoins have, in fact, led to the creation of a specialized subset of DeFi protocols, which focus on yield farming stablecoins and provide a safer way for investors to earn a yield while minimizing risk.

Early on in the DeFi craze, protocols attracted new users and deposits by offering high yields that were typically paid out in the native token of the protocol.

With a majority of DeFi tokens now down at least 75% from their all-time highs, according to data from Messari, many of the gains that users thought they made through staking and providing liquidity have evaporated, leaving little to show for the risks taken on these experimental platforms.

The battle for stablecoin liquidity

The rise of successful stablecoin-focused protocols such as Curve Finance, which is a decentralized exchange for stablecoins that uses an automated market maker to manage liquidity, platforms such as Yearn.finance, Convex Finance and Stake DAO battle to offer the best incentives that will attract a larger share of the Curve ecosystem.

Supplying stablecoins to Curve, or as a stablecoin LP like as a USDC/USDT pair, amounts to the blockchain version of a savings account. Many of the top protocols, including the three listed above, offer between 10% and 30% yields on average for stablecoins deposits.

Related: How stablecoins stay stable, explained

Thanks to smart contracts, users can make deposits to automated, compounding stablecoin liquidy protocols, reducing the stress of the daily market gyrations.

Total market capitalization of the top 100 DeFi tokens. Source: CoinGecko

The aftermath of the May 19 sell-off is still impacting investors, and in times like these, the yield opportunities provided by supplying stablecoins to DeFi protocols is an attractive way to diversify a crypto portfolio and hedge against market downturns.

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: Stablecoin pools could be the next frontier for DeFi

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$3.6B in Bitcoin vanishes in ‘hack’ along with owners of South African crypto platform

Around 69,000 Bitcoin has vanished from a South African investment platform along with two brothers who owned the crypto firm.

Although the facts are yet to be proven in court, if it turns to be an exit scam rather than a hack, it would be the biggest in history according to Bloomberg. There were warning signs for investors either way, with users reportedly promised returns of up to 10% a day.

AfriCrypt was founded in 2019 and operated by brothers Ameer and Raees Cajee. It had reportedly amassed around 54 billion rands worth of BTC, or $3.6 billion USD at the time, when it sent a message to investors on April 13 claiming the platform had been hacked.

The firm said it would halt operations while it began the process of “attempting to retrieve stolen funds and compromised information.”

South African law firm Hanekom Attorneys, which has taken the case on behalf of affected users, said suspicions were aroused as the message included the warning that: “clients may proceed the legal route, but we ask clients to please acknowledge that this will only delay the recovery process.”

“We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action,” Hanekom Attorneys said. The law firm also claimed that “Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.”

Hanekom Attorneys alleges that the brothers transferred the 69,000 BTC — which is now worth $2.2 billion after the recent price tumble — from AfriCrypt’s accounts and client wallets, and subjected the funds “to various dark web tumblers and mixers, resulting in severe fragmentation” to make the funds untraceable.

The brothers have been unreachable, with calls going directly to voicemail, while the AfriCrypt website is also down. The law firm has reported the case to an elite unit of the national police dubbed the “Hawks.”

South Africa’s Gauteng South High Court has granted a provisional liquidation order against the Cajee brothers, and they have been given until July 19 2021 to respond to the order.

Related: Scams are driving South African authorities to regulate crypto trading

According to African online crypto news outlet BitcoinKe, AfriCrypt drew in clients by targeting high net worth investors and urging them to refer their friends, while also offering returns of up to 10% daily.

The eye watering daily return puts the 10% monthly return promised to users of South African crypto Ponzi scheme Mirror Trading International (MTI) into the shade.

MTI has been described as the biggest Ponzi-scheme the country had ever seen, pulling in 23,000 BTC from investors ($774 million at today’s prices) with MTI’s CEO, Johann Steynberg reportedly fleeing to Brazil to escape punishment when the firm was placed under provisional liquidation in 2020.

$3.6B in Bitcoin vanishes in \’hack\’ along with owners of South African crypto platform

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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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Should you consider EOS for your blockchain development?

Codezeros

The world has witnessed a massive technological advancement. People dealing in digital currencies demand a safe and secure environment. But the traditional forms of blockchain development have some loopholes. And the latest technologies are thus being introduced in the market. One such platform is EOS.

We will discuss everything you must know about EOS in this article so that you can ensure whether to consider EOS for your blockchain development or not.

What is EOS?

In short, EOS is a cryptocurrency. The smart contract platform of EOS blockchain development removes transaction fees and its potential to conduct millions of transactions every second. This particular fact is helping it to earn the blockchain investors’ trust.

Its primary objective was to offer a straightforward interface for facilitating blockchain development. Another attractive feature of EOS was that it eliminates the gas fees for transaction processing.

Should you consider EOS for your blockchain development?

Features of EOS:

The few features that make EOS preferred are given below:

  • Convenience:

EOS offers convenience in several aspects of developing blockchain, including EOS wallet development. The bare-bone interface is useful for developing DApps. It can also be used to deploy private, public, permissionless, and permissioned infrastructures of blockchain. The EOS smart contracts allow you to make custom business logic and programmable governance.

  • Performance:

It offers top-notch TPS rates. Thus, it is the best for developing mission-critical blockchain apps. EOS is also proved to show superior performance and eliminates the latency rate of sub-second block time. It also keeps the accuracy intact.

  • Upgradability:

EOS allows the developers to change and upgrade the code besides improvising it. This feature of EOS contributes to flexibility. The developer-friendly nature of EOS is another side that makes it a blockchain software that is preferred for expanding tools, products, and features.

  • Measurability:

It is proved that EOS can potentially process and measure millions of transactions every second. It is made possible by the incorporation of advanced DPOS technology that further enhanced the efficiency of the framework of EOS. Even with having a massive user base, there are no performance issues.

  • Consensus protocols:

The correct algorithms furnished with EOS give it an upper hand. DPOS mechanism in EOS enhances its functionality.

  • Parallel processing and Multiprocessing:

EOS successfully reduces the excessive load on a program, as there exist multiple processors. Horizontal measurability improves transaction speed. And vertical measurability boosts the processing power. Asynchronous communication fuels time management assets and smoothens communication.

The end-to-end encryption contributes to the security of EOS. All the verification standards and safety norms are used while developing EOS. Trouble-shooting is also added to the blockchain platform.

How does EOS work?

A validator’s coin or EOS token gets locked up as stakes. Then, the validation starts, and the betting system is activated.

The validators now think about the blocks that are possible to add to the chain and put a bet on them. If the block gets added, based on their bets, validators are rewarded.

Role of DPOS in EOS blockchain:

DPOS (delegated proof-of-stake) is a consensus system for seamlessly channelizing cryptocurrency transactions. Additionally, it is backed up with speed and security. In cases of malfunctions, it entertains the longest chain automatically.

DPOS protects blockchain as it depends on the voting process. Being a decentralized framework, it contributes to feasibility both for the business and the user. Besides being usable and reliable, it is faster, cheaper, and more efficient, making it ideal for a decentralized system.

The payment system in EOS:

EOS is a cryptocurrency of EOS.IO. Free transactions, a popular advantage of EOS for being a preferred software.

The holder’s EOS coin owns a network instead of any transaction fees or renting virtual machinery. For instance, if you possess EOS’ 3% of coin stakes, you own 3% of network strength for processing the transaction, thereby allowing free transactions. Just like any other crypto, one can possess, get, or give away funds among digital EOS wallet ledger.

Business application of EOS:

Blockchain can be beneficial to your business. And blockchain technology can be used in different ways in business. Some of the business applications of EOS are described below:

  • Cryptocurrency:

You can use EOS as a tool for investment in a cryptocurrency or crypto space. The proof-of-stake system provides mining power to the blockchain. Because of no transaction fee, it is popular among developers.

  • High-end transactional DApps:

EOS blockchain can be applied in DApps that require a massive capacity of transaction. EOS stabilizes user authentication at different levels. And thereby, it allows anyone to develop a DApp, run it, and authorize it while sharing data among users.

Conclusion:

EOS comes with countless features. And, this makes it one of the most assured blockchain platforms in the world of cryptocurrency. Opt for EOS development services for developing efficient apps.

Moreover, the business applications of EOS have already popularized it across the world. We can expect EOS to expand more in the foreseeable future and will overpower the traditional applications of blockchain.

Should you consider EOS for your blockchain development?

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