A major cryptocurrency trading platform that offers its users the ability to buy, sell, and hold various assets including cryptocurrencies and tokenized stocks, has reaffirmed its support for $XRP, the native token of the XRP Ledger.

On social media, Uphold reacted to a trend on the microblogging platform Twitter where users kept on asking for trading platforms to relit XRP. XRP was delisted from several exchanges after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Ripple Labs over the sale of XRP, alleging it’s an unregistered security, in 2020.

The lawsuit alleges the firm paid cryptocurrency exchanges to permit “the buying and selling of XRP” on their platforms. At the heart of the lawsuit is whether XRP is a security that should have been registered with the regulator or not.

Uphold reacted to the trend by pointing out that XRP is listed on it, and later affirmed it was never delisted.

As CryptoGlobe reported at the time, Uphold revealed then it was going to maintain XRP listed until the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs is resolved and legally determines that the token is a security.

At the time, Uphold added it trusts other cryptocurrency exchanges to “adopt a similar stance rather than rushing to judgment ahead of the court’s decision.”  It further pointed out that the SEC’s goal is to protect consumers, and believes it’s hard to see “how a judgment rendering XRP essentially worthless and inflicting billions of dollars of losses on retail investors” would square with that goal.

The platform, as reported, has since launched a new crypto-linked debit card for customers in the United Kingdom offering them reward rates of up to 4% in XRP.

As recently reported, the cryptocurrency community expects the price of XRP to experience a slight upward movement during the month of March, at a time in which the community keeps awaiting regulatory clarity.

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Crypto markets are set for unprecedented growth over the next few years, according to Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise Asset Management, who during a recent interview expressed his optimism for digital asset markets, stating he is “especially bullish on the next three years.”

During a recent interview on The Wolf of All Streets YouTube channel, Hougan predicted that the upcoming cryptocurrency market bull cycle will be the largest one yet in terms of user adoption, aggregate market cap increase, and other important metrics.

While there may be bumps along the way, Hougan is confident that regulation will ultimately be a positive factor for the market.

The driving force behind the upcoming cycle, according to Hougan, will be a major technological breakthrough related to scalability. This breakthrough, dubbed the layer-2 epoch, will enable crypto to go mainstream in a previously impossible way.

With the cost of transactions on Ethereum and other blockchains set to drop dramatically, crypto will finally be able to penetrate the mainstream in a significant way.

Hougan believes that the excitement around this breakthrough is higher than ever before, and that it will drive the next bull cycle in the crypto markets by allowing them to “actually penetrate the mainstream.”

While non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and stablecoins have all been important developments in the space, scalability will be even more significant, with real-world applications that surpass even the first start of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

As CryptoGlobe reported, the co-founder and CEO of Bitwise Asset Management, Hunter Horsley, has spoken about the current state of the crypto market late last year, and revealed he expected a cryptocurrency bull cycle to start this year.

Notably, CryptoCompare’s latest Digital Assets Management Review report reveals that cryptocurrency investment products have continued to see positive growth in the early months of 2023, with total assets under management (AUM) reaching a record high of $28.3b billion in February, up 5.25% from the previous month, at a time in which digital assets keep outperforming traditional investments.

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The cryptocurrency community expects the price of $XR, the native token of the XRP Ledger, to experience a slight upward movement during the month of March, at a time in which the community keeps awaiting regulatory clarity.

According to nearly 900 users on CoinMarketCap’s cryptocurrency price estimates, on average respondents predicted that XRP would end the month of March trading at $0.414 per token, up from around $0.378 the cryptocurrency is currently trading for, or nearly 10% more.

This cautious outlook reflects the uncertainty surrounding XRP’s regulatory status, which has been a source of controversy in the cryptocurrency world. XRP has faced legal challenges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has accused Ripple Labs, the largest XRP market player, of selling the cryptocurrency as an unregistered security. Ripple has denied these allegations and has fought back against the SEC’s case.

This legal battle has cast a shadow over XRP’s future prospects, leading many investors to adopt a wait-and-see approach. The cryptocurrency’s price has been volatile in recent months, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding its regulatory status.

However, some analysts remain optimistic about XRP’s long-term potential, citing its utility as a fast and cost-effective means of cross-border payments. If regulatory clarity is achieved, XRP could experience significant price growth.

Earlier this year, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse noted that he believed the company would prevail in its legal battle against the regulator. Over the past few weeks, a number of influential cryptocurrency firms, including Coinbase and the Blockchain Association, filed to support Ripple.

As CryptoGlobe reported, developers working on the XRP Ledger have recently unveiled a new cross-chain bridge proposal that Ripple’s vice president of strategy of operations said could “significantly expand” its potential use cases.

Cross-chain bridges have become increasingly important as the blockchain ecosystem has grown and diversified. The ability to move assets and data between different blockchains has opened up new possibilities for decentralized applications (dApps) and has created new opportunities for investors and traders.

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Bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Voyager digital has recently sent a large amount of digital currency to Nasdaq-listed exchange Coinbase. The transfer included billions of Shiba Inu ($SHIB) tokens that it received from a dormant SHIB whale.

According to data from blockchain intelligence firm PekcShield, Voyager has moved 300 trillion SHIB worth $3.7 million, 4,000 ETH worth $6.6 million, and 5 million VGX worth $2 million to Coinbase, with a Voyager-labeled address having received around $50 million from Coinbase shortly after.

The movements suggest Voyager has been cashing out the funds, which could lead to heavy selling pressure on the digital currencies involved.

Notably, Voyager’s transactions came after it received 68 billion SHIB, worth around $820,000, from a dormant whale that had received the meme-inspired cryptocurrency two years ago, after paying $528 at the time for the tokens.

Since February 14, Voyager has been sending assets to Coinbase regularly. Voyager had transferred 2.24 trillion SHIB, worth about $28 million, to Coinbase since that date, and the bankrupt crypto lender’s holdings still included 6.5 trillion SHIB, roughly $81 million, prior to today’s sale.

Voyager currently holds $631 million worth of crypto assets, with SHIB being its third largest holding, as it still holds 6.5 trillion SHIB. The fear of a big sell-off by Voyager is weighing heavily on Shiba Inu’s price, which has seen investors eagerly anticipate the launch of Shibarium its layer-2 scaling solution.

However, it is not yet clear whether there will be a sell-off. Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July 2022, and recently saw most of its customer, representing 98% of total claims, favor a restructuring plan that will see BinanceUS acquire some of its assets.

Notably, most Shiba Inu investors have shown they aren’t planning on selling en masse, as the median time that users on Coinbase hold onto the meme-inspired cryptocurrency before either selling it or moving it to an external address has surpassed the 230-day mark.

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One of Singapore’s leading cryptocurrency trading platform, Bitget, has announced the announcement it will be listing two new tokens from the Shiba Inu ($SHIB) ecosystem: Doge Killer ($LEASH) and PawSwap ($PAW).

Both tokens are being listed on the exchange’s innovation zone, which Bitget describes as one “mainly for trend tokens (initial) listing, which comes with a 60-day valuation period to determine if the trading pairs maintain listing criteria.

Trading of LEASH and PAW is available immediately, in pairs against USDT, but only on the spot market. Deposits are already available, while withdrawals will not open until tomorrow.

This move by Bitget is likely to be a serious liquidity catalyst for both tokens, as they have had a relatively low presence on major exchanges until now. While both tokens have recently been listed on Gate.io, and LEASH is also traded on OKX, volumes on decentralized exchanges are still twice as high as on centralized venues.

LEASH is the second token created within the Shiba Inu ecosystem, and “was initially used as a rebase token to track Dogecoin’s price. However, SHIB developers decided to change LEASH to an ERC-20 token. LEASH holders can stake their tokens in the liquidity pool and earn xLEASH as rewards.”

PawSwap is a decentralized exchange that is set to allow users to swap tokens at a discount and donate their savings to a charity of their choice when it’s launched on Shibarium, Shiba Inu’s layer-2 scaling solution. PAW is the platform’s native token.

The LEASH and PAW listings have taken place ahead of the official launch of Shibarium. Both tokens are expected to have applications in the upcoming release, making their listing on Bitget even more significant. Interestingly, the delay in the release of Shibarium may have worked in favor of both tokens, as they have gained traction during this period and attracted the attention of investors.

Bitget, it’s worth noting, is a leading cryptocurrency trading platform by volume, as it registered a trading volume of nearly $500 million over the last 24-hour period.

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The community supporting the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Shiba Inu ($SHIB) has been left ecstatic over new cryptocurrency wallet integrations that are expected to massively benefit its ecosystem through increased adoption.

The Shiba Inu army has been waiting for the launch of Shbarium, its layer-2 scaling solution that aims to improve the ecosystem by providing faster transactions at a lower cost. The current Shiba Inu token runs on the Ethereum network, which has scalability issues and low transaction throughput.

Shibarium will use the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm and work alongside Ethereum to process transactions. This week Exodus Wallet, one of the oldest non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets, has hinted at an integration of Shibarium.

While the Exodus team has not confirmed its willingness to support the network, it has “logged “Shibarium with its asset team, and hinted the Shiba Inu community could be in for a “delightful surprise” in the future.

If Exodus is to add support for Shibarium, it will join a growing list of platforms that have already announced their support, including Atomic Wallet and hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger. The wallet provider also noted that Shiba Inu investors can add Shibarium support themselves on the wallet, and linked to a guide on how to do so.

Moreover, the Shiba Inu community celebrated a new announcement from the popular cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask, which revealed Unity, a popular video game development platform, has integrated several cryptocurrency platforms into its asset store to facilitate the adoption of Web3 technology and promote decentralization efforts.

Unity has announced the release of a new “Decentralization” category page on its asset store that includes “vetted” crypto platforms to support developers who wish to incorporate decentralization into their projects.

Among the 13 platforms featured on the store is MetaMask, a crypto wallet provider whose software development kit (SDK) can be used by developers to allow users to connect their MetaMask wallet to any game built on Unity.

Shiba Inu stands to benefit from the integration as the project has launched games including Shiba Inu Eternity, and has a Metaverse project as well. Commenting on the news, several SHIBArmy members said it was “huge” on social media.

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A large wallet on the Ethereum blockchain holding a substantial amount of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Shiba Inu ($SHIB) has transferred over 180 billion tokens to two cryptocurrency trading platforms in a move that could lead to a short-term decline in the value of SHIB.

According to cryptocurrency analytics firm Lookonchain, a wallet identified by its initial, 0xd6, has moved over 182 billion Shiba Inu to two exchanges: Gemini and Crypto.com, during Asian morning hours earlier in the week.

The cryptocurrency whale, as pointed out, has in the past moved a large number of tokens. Late last year it moved over 200 billion SHIB to Crypto.com, in a transaction that preceded a 7% drop in the price of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency.

The wallet, on-chain data shows, currently holds over 3.1 trillion $SHIB, which are worth over $40 million at the time of writing, and only account for just over 0.3% of the meme-inspired cryptocurrency’s total supply.

Other holdings in the whale’s wallet include $3.9 million in Ethereum’s native $ETH token, $368,000 in Origin Trail ($TRAC), $366,000 in $BONE, $330,000 in Chainlink ($LINK) and over $200,000 in Loopring ($LRC), among other minor holdings.

The whale, Lookonchain has said bought 15.2 trillion SHIB with just 10 ETH back in August 2020, and made over 1,960 ETH by buying and selling the cryptocurrency on decentralized exchange Uniswap.

When the meme-inspired cryptocurrency was listed on centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, the whale started trading it there. Per Lookonchain, if the whale has been buying SHIB at the price at which it receives it, and selling it at the price it transfers it out of its wallet, it has made about $85 million in profit.

Per the analysts, the whale has always been buying SHIB when its price is low, and selling it when its price rises. While the movement of these SHIB tokens may lead to short-term price declines, they don’t reveal much about the long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies.

The whale’s movement comes shortly after another SHIB whale moved over 91 billion tokens into a While the movement of these SHIB tokens may lead to short-term price declines, the long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies and DeFi remains positive.

Notably, most Shiba Inu investors have shown they aren’t planning on selling en masse, as the median time that users on Coinbase hold onto the meme-inspired cryptocurrency before either selling it or moving it to an external address has surpassed the 230-day mark.

The number of Shiba Inu holders has been growing ahead of the expected launch of Shibarium. This upcoming layer-2 solution aims to improve the Shiba Inu ecosystem by providing faster transactions at a lower cost, among other important improvements. However, there are still many questions surrounding the release and utility of Shibarium.

Shibarium will work alongside Ethereum to process transactions on the Shibarium ecosystem. It will take a large cut of the transaction load the Shiba Inu ecosystem currently brings onto Ethereum to process it on the Shibarium chain.

Further, the layer-2 will remove tokens from circulating to reduce supply and help boost the price. This is known as a token burning mechanism, in which tokens are sent to wallets that can only receive tokens but not send them, also called Dead Wallets. Shibarium will burn $SHIB and require $BONE for transactions.

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Popular cryptocurrency analyst and YouTube personality Guy Turner, the host of Coin Bureau, has explained his current altcoin investment strategy in a recently published video, which involves investing in several altcoins, including Polkadot ($DOT), Cardano ($ADA), and others.

In the recently shared video, Turner revealed that he plans to add to his portfolio the two top digital assets mentioned above, as well as Avalanche ($AVAX), which has recently made a huge partnership to help it onboard 50 million users, Cosmos ($ATOM), and Monero ($XMR).

In the video, he discussed how he plans to allocate the over one-third of his portfolio currently sitting in the popular stablecoin USDC, noting that he is keeping a close eye on the altcoin market and that he is looking at various such currencies.

However, he did reveal that he currently holds DOT and ATOM and is considering allocating more funds to them due to their promising prospects. He also expressed interest in broadening his portfolio by increasing his exposure to layer-1 tokens like ADA.

He added:

I might buy back into Avalanche at some point. I’ve just never quite timed my move into AVAX quite well enough, so maybe this time I’ll get it right.

Commenting on other altcoins, the YouTuber mentioned the privacy-centric digital asset Monero as a potential investments, but said there are “lots and lots of different alts that I’m going to be looking at.”

However, he cautioned against jumping into the altcoin market at the moment, citing the current market conditions. The cryptocurrency analyst did add he also plans to add more BTC and ETH in the future when prices drop.

As CryptoGlobe reported, DOT, a blockchain network often described as a “blockchain of blockchains,” has maintained its position as the leading cryptocurrency network by development activity. It’s followed by its pre-production network Kusama and smart contract platform Cardano (ADA).

Development activity, it’s worth noting, is a metric measuring the development activity in projects’ public GitHub repositories, and does not include private repositories’ work.

Cardano came in third place in the ranking, ahead of Internet Computer ($ICP), Decentraland ($MANA), Ethereum ($ETH), and Cosmos ($ATOM). Status ($SNT), Vega Protocol ($VEGA), and Filecoin ($FIL) also made it to the top 10.

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Arthur Hayes, Co-Founder and former CEO of crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX, has warned that he believes a massive cryptocurrency price correction is coming, but noted that after it there could be a sustained bull run he is “super bullish” about.

During an interview on the Crypto Banter show, Hayes said that the flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin and other risk assets are likely to undergo a massive correction in the near future as a massive amount of liquidity exits the market.

In a recent blog post, Hayes noted that the U.S. is expected to raise its debt ceiling this year and issue $1.1 to $1.2 trillion in Treasury bonds to fund the 2023 USG Federal Deficit, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would be around those figures.

In his post, Hayes noted that as the Treasury sells off debt, the Federal Reserve remains committed to reducing its holdings in U.S. Treasuries by $100 billion per month, which he says poses a threat to risky assets as it drains the market of significant liquidity.

Per his words, the Treasury’s flood of debt into the market, coupled with the Federal Reserve’s mixed messaging, has created an environment of uncertainty and caution for investors. Hayes advised his readers to monitor the market closely and be prepared to act quickly.

He said that the Treasury General Account (TGA) is an important indicator to watch, as it will signal when the government has fully drawn down its cash balance and is nearing the debt ceiling.

In his recent interview with Crypt Banter, Hayes said that Bitcoin hasn’t truly escaped its correlation with global risk assets, and he believes it’s in store for a “correlation one” moment, meaning that “everything goes down massively together, Bitcoin included.”

While the CEO of BitMEX acknowledged the potential for the cryptocurrency to break the $20,000 mark, he believes that a further decline is likely. Nevertheless, he remains optimistic about the long-term potential of Bitcoin, particularly in light of the response from monetary and fiscal authorities during times of economic distress.

He believes that in the event of another economic downturn, governments will inject money into the economy and print more currency, which could further drive up the value of Bitcoin. After that, Hayes says that Bitcoin and Ethereum will maintain their upward momentum, before alternative cryptocurrencies go “vertical.”

This sector of the cryptocurrency industry is known for its volatile fluctuations, which can lead to both significant gains and losses for investors. To navigate this unpredictable terrain, the CEO emphasizes the importance of understanding its cyclical nature, as he says these assets tend to follow a pattern of “waves,” with BTC and ETH leading the charge before stalling, and giving way to an altcoin rally.

Eventually, these lesser-known cryptocurrencies also experience a correction, and the cycle begins again with renewed interest in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

One of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase, revealed in February 2023 new product called “Base” —a new layer 2 solution testnet for Ethereum, built on OP Stack, a development kit used by layer-2 Optimism.

Base was announced during the ETHDenver, a community-led event in which various crypto companies, startups and leading figures in the space announce new products, support projects and technological innovation, and discuss the crypto landscape and share ideas on Web3.

Building With Base

Base offers a decentralised, cost-efficient, secure and developer-friendly space to invite crypto developers and teams to build decentralised apps on-chain and therefore onboard the next generation of Web3 users.

Base will reportedly charge initial fees between $0.10 to $0.20, close to those of Arbitrum or Optimism, the two leading Ethereum layer-2 solutions. According to the team, fees could drop as low as $0.01 in the future.

Further, Base will allow developers to directly integrate their products with Base and provide fiat onramps. This way, Base will allow Coinbase’s over 110 million users to interact with DApps on the layer-2.

Base will serve as an experimental battleground for developers and crypto companies looking to put their products and projects to the test. To further support the L2 ecosystem, Coinbase launched the Base Ecosystem Fund which supports early-stage projects building on the ecosystem that meet the Fund’s investment criteria.

Coinbase’s Decentralization Plan With Base

According to the Coinbase team, Base is part of a decentralization plan that will come to fruition over time. The team will continue to work with Op Labs and the Optimism Collective to build an integrated, open-source system that will include Base as a bridge and a beginner-friendly network for new crypto users.

More technically, Coinbase, OP Labs, and the Optimism collective will use the OP Stack to build a “superchain” of interconnected chains. “Stage 0,” the company calls the current version of Optimism. By the end of 2023, Coinbase would in theory advance Base to “Stage 1”:

“We’re excited to collaborate with OP Labs and the Optimism Collective to build on our shared vision for scaling Ethereum via a robust, interoperable web3 ecosystem that can onboard the next billion users into web3.” Reads the announcement.

What are Layer-2 Solutions?

Layer-2 solutions refer to chains connected to a layer-1, also called the blockchain, mainnet, or mainchain. These solutions work by moving some of the transaction processing and storage off the main blockchain, onto a secondary layer or network. This allows for faster and more efficient processing of transactions, while still maintaining the security and integrity of the underlying blockchain.

Throughout the years, software engineers and developers have thought of ways to scale Ethereum. Everything from layer-2’s like ZK-rollups to Optimistic rollups, to sidechains and state and payment channels have been designed to accomplish this objective, and so far L2-s have become the most popular method.

Overall, layer-2 blockchains provide a promising avenue for improving the scalability and usability of blockchain technology, making it more accessible to a wider range of users and applications.

Developers working on the XRP Ledger, the native network of the $XRP token, have recently unveiled a new cross-chain bridge proposal that Ripple’s vice president of strategy of operations said could “significantly expand” its potential use cases.

The proposal was published by Ripple software engineer Mayukha Vadari on GitHub and was subsequently shared on Twitter. It outlines the potential creation of a blockchain bridge.

Cross-chain bridges have become increasingly important as the blockchain ecosystem has grown and diversified. The ability to move assets and data between different blockchains has opened up new possibilities for decentralized applications (dApps) and has created new opportunities for investors and traders.

One of the key benefits of cross-chain bridges is that they allow developers to leverage the unique features of different blockchains. For example, one blockchain might be faster and more scalable, while another might have better privacy features.

By connecting these blockchains through a bridge, developers can combine these features to create more powerful and flexible applications, while allowing users to seamlessly move their assets from one chain to another and boosting interoperability.

Cross-chain bridges also come with some risks, however. The process of transferring assets between blockchains can be complex, and there is always the possibility of bugs or vulnerabilities in the bridge code.

Additionally, the use of third-party witnesses to verify cross-chain transfers can create additional centralization risks. Chainalysis has last year noted that vulnerabilities in cross-chain bridge protocols have emerged as a “top security risk.”

As CryptoGlobe reported, late last year Ripple’s chief technology officer David Schwartz said that the XRP Ledger supports “native NFTs” thanks to the XLS-20 standard. The XLS-20 standard makes the “creation of NFTs on the XRPL very compact and efficient, reducing any negative impact to the XRP Ledger’s performance and avoiding congestion at scale.”

According to Ripple’s CTO, the standard has already been enabled on the mainnet, and “presents a considerable milestone for developers and builders utilizing the XRPL for their NFT projects and apps.”

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Legendary billionaire hedge fund manager, the founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, has recently slammed Bitcoin ($BTC) and other cryptocurrencies as they don’t “replicate anything” and are “not an effective storehold of wealth.”

During an interview  with We Study Billionaires, the legendary investor, who has an estimated net worth of over $19 billion, said that while blockchain technology is “excellent,2 it’s “very important to distinguish it from a digital currency.”

Per his words, there have been various fads in the cryptocurrency sector, but the digital assets within it “don’t replicate anything” and are “not an effective storehold of wealth.”

During the interview, Dalio commented that the cryptocurrency sector receives a disproportionate amount of attention given the relatively small market capitalization of the space, which at the time of writing stands at just above $1 trillion. He likened it to Microsoft’s market capitalization, which is currently of $1.8 trillion.

For context, the largest company by market capitalization is Apple, which at the time of writing has a $2.3 trillion market capitalization as it’s trading at around $146 per share. It’s followed by Saud Arabia’s oil giant Saudi Aramco, which has a $1.86 trillion market share.

In the interview, Dalio also said that we’re in an environment “in which we’re creating a lot of debt,” which has people wanting to “look for alternative storeholds of wealth.” However, he believes digital currencies “don’t replicate anything” and are not an inflation hedge.

Moreover, the billionaire investor said that cryptocurrencies offer no privacy benefits as other people are able to access transactions on the blockchain. The legendary hedge fund manager acknowledged, nevertheless, he owns a “tiny bit” of crypto over the uncertainty of what may happen with it in the future, even though he believes better cryptocurrencies will be launched over time.

Bone ShibaSwap ($BONE), one of the three main tokens within the Shiba Inu ($SHIB) ecosystem, has been listed on a major cryptocurrency exchange after its price rise this year saw it become a top 100 cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

In a recently published announcement Gate.io, a popular cryptocurrency trading platform with a 24-hour spot trading volume of nearly $700 million, announced it was listing a BONE/USDT trading pair for its users.

As CryptoGlobe reported, BNOE has seen its price explode by more than 100% so far this year, in a move that helped it become one of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

The token is known to be central to the ecosystem’s decentralized exchange ShibaSwap, and according to Coinbase, it’s a “governance token that aims to allow the Shiba users to vote on the upcoming proposal on Doggy DAO,” which is the ShibaSwap platform’s decentralized autonomous organization.

ShibaSwap allows BONE token holders to earn rewards for providing liquidity to the network, with users being able to swap their ERC20 tokens for other coins through it. BONE token holders can also stake on the platform to earn interest.

BONE is also central to Shibarium, as the team behind the platform has confirmed that every transaction on it will require BONE to pay for gas fees, and will burn SHIB to make the latter more scarce.

The token’s price has been rising ahead of the expected launch of Shibarium. Shibarium will work alongside Ethereum to process transactions on the Shibarium ecosystem. It will take a large cut of the transaction load the Shiba Inu ecosystem currently brings onto Ethereum to process it on the Shibarium chain.

As CryptoGlobe reported, earlier this month, SHIB was, along with the native token of the “blockchain of blockchains” Polkadot ($DOT) and others, added to Binance’s Proof of Reserves verification system.

Binance’s Proof of Reserves system essentially allows users to verify through a cryptographic tool called a Merkle Tree to verify that the cryptocurrency exchange has its assets in reserve, backing their deposited funds on the platform.

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The developers behind SingularityNET ($AGIX) have recently announced that the project’s Cardano staking portal is set to launch a beta testing version next month, as the team moves on with its plan to launch the staking portal on mainnet in the first quarter of the year.

According to a tweet SingularityNet’s team shared with their over 100.000 followers on the microblogging platform Twitter. The portal will go live “early next month” in a beta testing phase, with a successful test meaning it will be released in the first quarter on mainnet.

The staking portal will allow AGIX token holders to stake their tokens on the Cardano network, instead of just on the Ethereum network. As CryptoGlobe reported, the project launched an ERC-20 token converter last year. Allowing users to move their AGIX from Ethereum to Cardano.

The cryptocurrency saw its price explode earlier this month. At a time in which tech giants have been pouring funds into artificial general intelligence (AGI) projects, with Microsoft investing as much as $10 billion on ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and reportedly preparing to integrate it into its search engine Bing, and Google announcing the launch of a ChatGPT competitor called Bard.

The cryptocurrency’s market capitalization now stands at $680 million. SingularityNET, according to Coinbase, is a blockchain-powered platform that allows anyone to “built, share, and monetize” AI services through its marketplaces, which lets users browse and buy these services using its native AGIX token.

The SingularityNET team is a pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence and is responsible for creating Sophia, which is recognized as the world’s most expensive robot. Their goal is to enable Sophia to understand human language and fully develop OpenCog, a diverse framework of AI algorithms representing their innovation. SingularityNET provides businesses with a streamlined process to integrate AI tools and customize solutions to meet their specific needs while ensuring accessibility.

SingularityNET’s whitepaper was first released back in February 2019, while the platform was first announced in 2017 by Dr. Ben Goertzel, the CEO and the chief scientist of the organization.

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Polkadot ($DOT), a blockchain network often described as a “blockchain of blockchains,” has maintained its position as the leading cryptocurrency network by development activity. It’s followed by its pre-production network Kusama and smart contract platform Cardano ($ADA).

According to data shared by on-chain analytics firm Santiment, Polkadot’s development activity, along with that of its pre-production network Kusama, over the last 30 days was superior to that of every other network in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Development activity, it’s worth noting, is a metric measuring the development activity in projects’ public GitHub repositories, and does not include private repositories’ work.

Santiment tracks development events instead of just GitHub commits, as according to the firm its methodology “successfully avoids” specific pitfalls, which for example include projects forking others to “inherit” their commits and contributions.

An “event” refers to actions on the platform like pushing a commit, creating an issue, creating a pull request, forking the repository, and others.

A simple count of total commits would then not accurately reflect the activity of a developer who created a fork, as they would not be responsible for the work done by the original team. With Santiment’s “events” metric, a fork counts as one event.

Cardano came in third place in the ranking, ahead of Internet Computer ($ICP), Decentraland ($MANA), Ethereum ($ETH), and Cosmos ($ATOM). Status ($SNT), Vega Protocol ($VEGA), and Filecoin ($FIL) also made it to the top 10.

As CryptoGlobe reported, Polkadot saw its active user numbers surge 300% amid last year’s cryptocurrency market rout. Polkadot’s main blockchain, called the relay chain, does not support smart contracts, but other blockchains connected to it can support them. 

As a result, Polkadot is expected to become a growing ecosystem of cryptocurrencies that competes with other smart contract networks such as Ethereum, the BNB Chain, and more. It was launched in 2020 and brings a number of technical features that help it reach its goal.

DOT is the native cryptocurrency of the Polkadot network and serves as its governance token. DOT holders can stake their tokens to vote on network upgrades and help decide the future of Polkadot by actively participating in its governance, according to CryptoCompare.

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EMURGO, a global blockchain technology company founded in 2017, has recently launched the open beta of its Cardano-based social platform “Cardano Spot,” which was built to “rectify the fragmentation of the Cardano ecosystem” and help the cryptocurrency’s community.

According to a recently published press release EMURGO Media, one of the founding partners of Cardano ($ADA), released the closed beta version of Cardano Spot, and has since kept on developing the platform based on community feedback and direction. The platform, the release reads, is now “open to onboard all projects that are Cardano-powered.”

Sebastian Ziliaucus, Managing Director of EMURGO Media, was quoted saying:

In Closed Beta, we worked silently to build a platform based on community feedback and direction. With Open Beta, we are launching a host of new features and open ourselves to ideas and suggestions from the whole community.

Cardano Spot has over one thousand projects building on top of it, the document adds, along with over four million cryptocurrency community members. It’s a social platform that brings the community a hub with a “personalized and curated home feed” where users can create content, follow creators, and find like-minded individuals.

Moreover, it features a news feed providing updates on the Cardano ecosystem, a library to discover new Cardano projects and the latest trends within the smart contract platform’s ecosystem, and an events calendar so users can keep track of every event that’s going on.

The platform will also feature a market status section where users can find information related to token prices, market capitalizations, and tokenomics.

As CryptoGlobe reported, the median hold time that users on the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase hold onto the native token of the smart contract platform Cardano, before either selling it or moving it to an external address, is close to 200 days.

The cryptocurrency exchange notes on its page that a long hold time “signals an accumulation trend” while a short hold time “indicates increased movement of tokens.” Cardano’s typical hold time on the exchange has notably kept on rising since the feature was added.

The exchange’s price pages further show that Cardano is the 6th most popular cryptocurrency on the platform. While the exchange notes most users on social media are “mostly neutral” on the cryptocurrency, ADA has recorded its highest returns in 18 months in January of this year after its price rose 58.9% to $0.39. Its performance was the best it has seen since August 2021, and made it one of the strongest assets by performance among the top digital currencies.

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