During the last two months of 2021, the $500 mark was critical support for BNB coin bulls. However, entering 2022, the bear overpowered this coin and extended the correction rally below $500. Obtaining strong support from the $400 mark, the BNB price is rallying back to the $500 level, but this time as potential resistance.

The post Bullish Breakout From $500 Price Level Could Trigger Long Opportunity In Binance (BNB) Coin appeared first on CoinGape.

In two days, the auction of the first Pulp Fiction NFT will take place. A historical moment for the nascent industry, one that will set precedent for years to come. When Quentin Tarantino and the Secret Network announced a partnership aimed at releasing NFTs from the classic ’90s film, the world listened. Unfortunately for them, so did Miramax. The studio still holds the right to Pulp Fiction, so they sent a cease and desist letter.  Related Reading | Upside Potential in NFTs is Massive Says Gary Vaynerchuk The caveat here is that “the unique value proposition from The Secret Network lies in the name; the NFTs will be “secret” and only accessible by the NFTs owner.” When NewsBTC covered this story, we explained:  “That fact makes the lawsuit endlessly interesting. Only the person that buys the NFT can see what’s inside, so Miramax has no clue about the kind of content they’re suing for. They just know they own the rights to the picture and the discarded material, but, besides the reports and the marketing material, they’re as in the dark as the rest of us about the actual content.” What has happened since then? A LOT. Let’s explore the new developments in the case. Bidding begins in one week! Register now on https://t.co/IafaEEqDqU. The future is now. You won't want to miss this. $SCRT $ATOM $ETH pic.twitter.com/qILjbtNZSH — Tarantino NFTs (@TarantinoNFTs) January 10, 2022 Unreleased Scenes And Material In the beginning, the implication was that the NFTs would contain unreleased material from Pulp Fiction. Miramax entered the picture and everything changed. Again, from NewsBTC’s previous report: “On the day of the announcement, The Secret Network released a statement that quotes the director himself. “I’m excited to be presenting these exclusive scenes from PULP FICTION to fans.” Tarantino says. “Secret Network and Secret NFTs provide a whole new world of connecting fans and artists and I’m thrilled to be a part of that.” Tarantino’s words suggest simpler times. We’re nowhere near that stage anymore.” The Content Of The Pulp Fiction NFTs Changed After the cease and desist letter, it transpired that Tarantino only kept the rights to Pulp Fiction’s script. Recently, IndieWire quoted a statement that Proskauer Rose, one of Miramax’s lawyers, sent them:  “There’s been no attempt to dismiss any of Miramax’s claims by Tarantino’s team, nor have they filed any counter claims or motions against Miramax, and since Miramax filed its lawsuit, the promotional website and Twitter account for the proposed sale have scaled back the unauthorized use of imagery from Miramax films (including Pulp Fiction)”  And he’s right about that. A casual visit to the @TarantinoNFTs Twitter account will reveal that the people involved in the sale fazed out all images related to Pulp Fiction and replaced them with just text or high contrast images of Quentin Tarantino himself. The content of the NFTs also changed, now The Secret Network describes them as:  “Tarantino owns the exclusive rights to publish his Pulp Fiction screenplay and the original, handwritten copy has remained a personal creative treasure he has kept private for decades. In collaboration with SCRT Labs, Tarantino has turned chapters from this historic document into a one-of-a-kind NFT publication. Each NFT in the collection consists of a single iconic scene, as well as personalized audio commentary by Tarantino himself.” Are they legal now? That’s the question. SCRT Market Cap, calculated by TradingView | Source: TradingView.com The Secret Network Proceeds The auctions will go from January 17th to the 31st. It will happen on the Secret Network and not on OpenSea, as originally announced. Did OpenSea run away from the controversy and possible litigation? We wouldn’t know. The Secret Network, on the other hand, is milking the situation to the extreme. Money can’t buy this kind of publicity. Their press release quotes Guy Zyskind, founder and CEO of SCRT Labs: “Secret Network is proud to stand with Quentin. We are committed to working with talented artists across the globe, by providing them a better way to release their works directly to fans without relying on older distribution models, which favor conglomerates over creators.” 3 days to go. Historical fact #1: Quentin Tarantino writes his screenplays by hand ✍️ For Pulp Fiction, he kept the original screenplay a secret for *28 years.* This priceless piece of history will be revealed for the first time in next week’s auction – but only to the buyer 🤫 https://t.co/wXbIUPOXUO pic.twitter.com/msgwomNs27 — Tarantino NFTs (@TarantinoNFTs) January 14, 2022 Miramax Attacks For their part, Miramax’s lawyers sent Zyskind a letter that claims: “Contrary to what you assert you are being told by Mr. Tarantino and his team,  You do not have the necessary rights to mint the Pulp Fiction NFTs described in your press releases and other promotional materials;  You do not have the necessary rights to market or promote those NFTs; and  Despite your now having assumed the role of auctioneer, you do not have the necessary rights to promote and sell those NFTs.” Not only that, they included a direct threat to possible NFT buyers: “We would hope that you also inform prospective purchasers of the risks of purchasing these unauthorized NFTs, including that purchasers may have to return the NFTs to Miramax and forfeit the price they paid for such NFTs, and that purchasers may incur additional liability in the event they later sell the unauthorized NFTs” Guy Zyskind response? He took to Twitter and replied: “Your attempt to bully and intimidate us, and our community, will not work. This lawful sale of TarantinoNFTs will continue as planned, despite your efforts to sabotage it.” Hey @Miramax. Got your letter. Your attempt to bully and intimidate us, and our community, will not work. This lawful sale @TarantinoNFTs will continue as planned, despite your efforts to sabotage it.https://t.co/1Qjkgfy8U1 pic.twitter.com/jpjbYDNmNp — Guy Zy𝕊kind (@GuyZys) January 10, 2022 The TarantinoNFTs account contributed to the conversation by saying, “We will not be stopped. We will not let bullies intimidate our community.” Related Reading | January Proves Turbulent For Investors But NFT And GameFi Seems To Be Eating Good Is that enough? Or are they making a big mistake? Is Miramax in the right? Or do they know that they don’t have a leg to stand on and thus turned to intimidation?  Turn on to NewsBTC next month for the next chapter of the Pulp Fiction NFTs’ exciting saga. Featured Image: Tarantino NFT Collection promotional material | Charts by TradingView

NFTs existed prior to 2021, but it was last year that digital art exploded in the blockchain space, and digital artists shone in the NFT spotlight. While the crypto world became an exciting place to be, a new generation of NFT artists entered the world’s largest artistic movement to date. Crypto investors are having a difficult time in January 2022, as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies continues to fluctuate wildly. Some have blamed the drop on the Federal Reserve’s recent announcement of additional rate hikes, as well as political unrest in Kazakhstan, which drastically reduced Bitcoin’s hash rate. The price of Bitcoin fell below $42,000 on January 14 as traders hoped for bullish signals. It appears that while the crypto market continues to struggle, the NFT space  is witnessing incredible surge in trading volumes and interest. NFT & GameFi In Sweet Month A new report has shown that NFT and GameFi transactions continued to rise despite falling crypto prices. The report by Dappradar noted that “the number of UAW connected to Ethereum NFT DApps has grown by 43% since Q3 2021,” according to the research. The money generated by NFT trading increased from $10.7 billion in Q3 2021 to $11.9 billion in the first ten days of 2022, according to the research. This rise could also be attributed to recent advancements in the NFT arena, such as the establishment of the LooksRare marketplace. “Blockchain games continue to be widely used,” according to the report, noting that they “represent 52% of the industry’s usage.” The case for blockchain games to continue developing during 2022 has been enhanced by expanding metaverse technologies and the growing success of the play-to-earn model. Data from Dune Analytics revealed OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace, generated approximately $2.7 billion in volume in the first half of January, on track to beat the $3.4 billion high it set in August. OpenSea had its highest single-day volume of $261 million dollars on January 9. So far in January, OpenSea has surpassed $150 million in trade volume on a daily basis. OpenSea daily volume on Ethereum. Source: Dune Analytics   Related article | OpenSea Transaction Volume Shows That NFTs Are Not Slowing Mason Nystrom, a senior research analyst at Messari, believes the NFT market is in a better position than recent cryptocurrency price moves suggest. Nystrom noted that: “The cryptomarkets are fairly correlated – the market tends to rise and fall with Bitcoin. This has made it surprisingly interesting over the recent downturn as the NFT market has continued to increase in volumes. OpenSea has recorded $2.3 billion in NFT volume in January so far, on pace to break its monthly volume record if volumes continue.” Market Reflects Growing Interest During this market downturn, Chinese consumers have shown a growing interest in NFTs and blockchain gaming, which aligns with recent Chinese announcements that the government will begin building its own non-crypto NFT. “China is now the country with the most extensive user base…increasing 166 percent from the numbers registered in November,” according to DappRadar’s research. Crypto Market Cap Stands at $2 trillion. Source: TradingView Despite the near-term volatility that NFTs may experience as a result of current market conditions, the nature of these digital assets may lead to a decoupling of prices within crypto marketplaces. Despite the fact that the United States is currently ranked second in terms of overall traffic, the country added 175,000 new members to the NFT ecosystem, representing a 38 percent increase. This is due in part to a rise in interest among younger audiences, as Millennials and Generation Z begin to account for a larger share of traffic. Related article | a16z, Mark Cuban invest $23 million in NFT platform OpenSea Featured Image from Unsplash | Charts by Dune Analytics, and TradingView

Data from cryptocurrency analytics firm Santiment suggests cryptocurrency whales have been quietly accumulating Litecoin ($LTC), a cryptocurrency that has been described as the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold,” over the last 15 weeks. On social media, Santiment shared data showing that whale addresses holding between 10,000 and 1 million LTC have been accumulating the cryptocurrency for […]

A closely followed bitcoin analyst has revealed he invested in the meme-inspired cryptocurrency Shiba Inu ($SHIB), despite rival memecoins Dogecoin ($DOGE) seeing a significant rise after Tesla started accepting it as a payment method for merchandise. The pseudonymous bitcoin analyst Pentoshi, who has over 460,000 followers on the microblogging platform Twitter, revealed he “bought some […]

The software platform Cardano has entered the third stage of its roadmap, the Basho era. It promises to improve the network’s performance and scalability. Cardano’s roadmap is “a summary of Cardano development” divided into five eras to deliver improvements in diverse functionalities of the network that are “delivered across multiple code releases”. Now that the platform’s core smart contract capability Plutus has been deployed, the launch of the Basho era focuses on scaling Cardano, promising “Parameter adjustments, improvements, enhancements and other innovations” supposed to increase the network’s capacity. They also call it “an era of optimization”, promising to enhance the performance and interoperability “to better support growth and adoption for applications with high transaction volume.” It is supposed to bring high performance, resiliency, and flexibility to the network. Related Reading | Cardano Foundation Completes Funding To Plant 1 Million Trees Scalability And Interoperability Scalability and interoperability are some of the main solutions that Cardano wants to offer as the “ethereum killer”. While the Ethereum network is working to handle up to 100,000 transactions per second (tps), Cardano plans to reach millions of tps through the second-layer solution Hydra. On the interoperability’s side, the Basho stage will introduce the sidechains, “new blockchains, interoperable with the main Cardano chain”, which eventually intends to allow the blockchains, with different architectures and codes, to be able to communicate: interoperate. The Cardano Roadmap explains that “Sidechains can be used as a sharding mechanism by off-loading work from the main chain onto a sidechain to increase the capacity of the network. They can also be used to introduce experimental features without affecting the security of the main blockchain.” Similarly, this stage will also introduce parallel accounting styles: “the ability to support and switch between UTXO and account-based models will be added using sidechains.” This is also meant to enhance interoperability and “support new kinds of use cases on the network.” “Building on these foundations, and steadily increasing capacity and throughput to deal with the growth in the DApp ecosystem and onboard first hundreds of thousands, then millions of new users. From DeFi degens to citizens of developing nations.” Cardano has been widely criticized for its slow start. Many people thought the platform was lagging behind, noting it took a long time to deploy its first smart contract. However, the CEO of the Cardano Foundation Frederik Gregaard argues that they take a careful approach to launch functions, with rigorous testing and peer review. This time around, the Basho stage’s launch report noted that they expect “periods of high demand, network congestion at times”, but they see it as part of the ‘journey’ and added that they will be maintaining a “considered, safe approach”. “We’re on an exciting journey and usage will be high. While we may at times feel impatient, this is the way. Here’s how we will optimize and scale as we grow.” What The Basho Era Promises To Solve The optimization and scalability improvements have been divided in the report between “on-chain solutions” and “off-chain solutions”. Here is what they intend to solve: For on-chain solutions: Block size increase: the network recently increased the block size by 12.5% to 72KB and “further increases will be applied over time”. Pipelining: intends to propagate blocks “to at least 95% of peers within five seconds” to provide “the headroom to make more aggressive scaling changes”. Input Endorsers: “This improves the consistency of block propagation times and allows higher transaction rates.” Memory /CPU parameters for Plutus: improves the efficiency of memory usage across the chain. Plutus script enhancements: a “more effective usage of the powerful EUTXO model through smart contract optimization,” Node enhancements: intends to “help even distribution of stake and reward computations across the epochs”. The new node version “reduces peak load at critical points,” On-disk storage: “RAM-constrained systems will be able to run nodes (…) and memory will no longer be a bottleneck on scalability.” For off-chain solutions: Sidechains: “Assets can be moved between chains as needed.” Hydra: “provides a more efficient means to process transactions off-chain,” Off-chain computing: “Transactions occur outside of the blockchain itself, yet can offer fast, cheap transactions via a trust model.” Mithril: results in “Multi-signature aggregation that is fast and efficient without compromising security features.” Related Reading | Cardano’s Ecosystem Explodes, Why ADA Could Be Quick To Resume Bullish Trend ADA’s Price ADA trades at $1,28 at the time of writing, up 3.74% in the last 24 hours, but 59.1% down from its last peak in September 2021. ADA trading at $1,28 in the daily chart | Source: ADAUSD on TradingView.com

Visa and ConsenSys, a blockchain software startup, are working to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot program to explore retail applications such as cards and wallets. Both firms will first meet with an estimated 30 central banks to discuss the goals that governments hope to achieve with government-backed digital currency. The pilot program is scheduled to begin in the spring of this year. Visa To Pilot CBDC In Select Countries Visa (V) announced on Thursday that it will take its crypto services to the next level by teaming with blockchain software company Consensys to create a central bank digital currency onramp (CBDC). The payments giant plans to launch a “CBDC sandbox” in the spring, where central banks can try out the technology after minting it on Consensys’ Quorum network. Visa Trades At $214. Source: TradingView Customers will be able to use their CBDC-linked Visa card or digital wallet anyplace Visa is accepted globally, according to Catherine Gu, Visa’s head of CBDC, who spoke with ConsenSys in a blog post Q&A. Gu Said: “If successful, CBDC could expand access to financial services and make government disbursements more efficient, targeted and secure – that’s an attractive proposition for policy makers.” A CBDC is a type of central bank obligation that is issued in digital form and can be used by the general public, comparable to the US dollar. Related article | Visa Survey Shows Crypto Payments Could Boom In 2022 Countries Are Launching CBDCs The decision comes as regulators around the world struggle to figure out how to treat CBDCs in a changing financial landscape dominated by cryptocurrencies. The notion that crypto and digital money will upend financial markets or replace fiat currency is a major issue. Mastercard also announced the launch of a CBDC test platform in 2020, which allowed banks to simulate the issuance, distribution, and exchange of CBDCs amongst banks, financial service providers, and consumers. “Central banks are moving from research to actually wanting to have a tangible product they can experiment with,” Chuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto. If Visa is successful, it might help bridge the gap between central banks and financial institutions. Visa is accepted by over 80 million merchant locations worldwide. In the last year and a half, the number of countries investigating CBDCs has more than doubled. According to the Atlantic Council’s CBDC tracker, at least 87 different countries — accounting for 90% of global GDP — are considering financial technology in some way. China has already started a number of digital yuan pilot initiatives and plans to accept the currency for the Beijing Winter Olympics. Nigeria and the Bahamas have their own CBDCs in circulation. In early December, Visa announced the formation of a worldwide crypto advisory practice to assist financial institutions in developing their cryptocurrency operations as demand for crypto goods grows. Related article | Visa Is Building A Payment Channel Network On Ethereum Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com

IOTA was selected as one of the projects that will take part in the European Union Blockchain Pre-Commercial Procurement. The platform will be competing with four projects in a second round for this EU program for a chance at improving the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI). Related Reading | IOTA Smart Contracts Enter Beta Phase To Circumvent Network Flaws Announced by the IOTA Foundation (IF), the network has reached stage two out of three after it was selected from around 35 applicants. This second phase will last around six months, per the announcement, and will have a special focus on research, development, and lab testing. The IOTA Foundation will receive support from the European Commission in order to investigate and develop “blockchain innovations in the context of testing how future evolutions of EBSI could evolve towards a more scalable, energy-efficient, secure and interoperable architecture”. In that sense, the IOTA Foundation revealed that it will partner with Software AG to implement the developed solution. After, the EU Commission will launch an evaluation phase to test the results of its program’s second phase and the progress each participant has accomplished. The IF added the following: (…) based on this evaluation, a minimum of three projects will be selected to move on to Phase 2B, final solutions development and field testing, which is expected to last another year. Therefore, the non-profit organization will start testing blockchain solutions based on IOTA, specifically they will test a use case for digital product passports for digital waste recycling and a cross-border management of IP rights, the announcement said. Besides Software AG, the IF will rely on other partners and will attempt to growth its partner network. In the past, the organization has worked with major companies from around the world to help them develop multiple use cases. This includes software giant IBM, Dell Technologies, Jaguar Land Rover, and others. IOTA To Power EU Supported Blockchain Solutions? In its final stage, the EU program will require projects to field test the capabilities of their proposals. The IF claimed to be “excited” about its role on this European driven initiative and added: We very much support the strategic focus placed by the European Commission on blockchain and distributed ledger technology as a driver for innovation and growth. We are privileged to be part of this pre-commercial procurement procedure to develop a Europe-wide infrastructure based on blockchain and DLT for use in public services (…). IOTA will dedicate resources to develop solutions and use cases on Scalability, and the implementation of sharding on the EBSI infrastructure. The objective is to improve the protocol’s scale capabilities to onboard and support the users that will leverage the EBSI network. The IF will attempt to develop its sharding solution with a “root network” approach. In other words, a main network will be connected to a series of leaf or branch smaller networks. In addition, the organization will work on its consensus and governance mechanism, its interoperability, and potential to implement identity solutions. Related Reading | IOTA to Release Smart Contract Network ‘Assembly’ And Distribute ASMB Token At the time of writing, IOTA trades at $1,11 with a 1.9% loss in 24 hours.

Gala had held on to the $0.432 level of support all through December, even though it saw weaker and weaker bounces off the support level. Buyers finally capitulated in early January, and selling pressure intensified once more. The charts indicated a strong bearish outlook for Gala. It is not uncommon for altcoins to rally strongly […]

Ethereum is one of the prominent blockchains in the crypto industry that established smart contract technology. This helped consolidate decentralized finance and checkmate third-party interference in cryptocurrency transactions. But in the past, its main challenge and setback were linked to scalability and speed in executing transactions. As the months and years roll by, Ethereum is making tremendous progress in tackling scalability issues. This led to the rolling out of the layer-two version of the blockchain. Related article | Is Norton 360 Mining Ethereum In Your Computer? If It Is, They’ll Take a 15% Cut With the new year’s kick-off, many individuals have shared their predictions and expectations for the crypto industry in 2022. Some of these individuals include investors, analysts, and industry leaders. Among the several comments comes the latest publish from Surojit Chatterjee, the Chief Product Officer of Coinbase. Chatterjee predicts major advances for the scalability of Ethereum. Sharing his predictions on Tuesday through a company blog post, the CPO expressed his confidence in Ethereum. He mentioned that the blockchain’s scalability would push it ahead of Web3 and the crypto economy. Furthermore, he was confident that there would be an improvement in Ethereum’s scalability. Also, he stated possible traction for alternative layer-one networks. Further in his post, the CPO commented on the emergence of newer layer-one networks based on social media and gaming. He explained that advancing from layer-one to layer-two bridges will propel a vast improvement for scalability. Moreover, he anticipated a situation where the industry has a desperate search for advancement in speed and the utility of cross-L1 and L1-L2 bridges. Benefits Of Cross-Bridges For Ethereum Scalability Using these bridges will facilitate the easy transfer of tokens from a layer-one (L1) network like Ethereum to a layer-two (L2) network like Arbitrum. Also, it enables reverse transactions between the bridges. For companies like Matter Labs, 2021 saw its tremendous advancement. The firm developed and deployed its layer-two platform based on zkSync rollup to achieve its great feat. Generally, 2021 was a year of massive expansion for the layer-two ecosystem as all the major platforms have a surge in adoption. The tracker for layer-two ecosystems, L2beat, reports almost an 11,000% increase in total value locked for the past year. This brought the value by 2021 to $5.5 billion against $50 million by January 2021. Concerning scaling technologies, Chatterjee picked out zk-Rollups as he mentioned their attractive capacity for users and investors. He explained that the scalability of Zero-knowledge compiles transactions data in batches. This will enable efficiency in their processing on L1 of Ethereum. Furthermore, Coinbase CPO foresees the emerging of more privacy-focused applications. However, he mentioned that it would lead to more attention from the regulatory bodies since there are enforced restrictions through KYC and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). Related article | More Green Energy: Crypto Mining Saves A Hydro Power Plant In Costa Rica Chatterjee has other predictions, including increased industry regulations, more DeFi insurance, and more institutional involvement in DeFi. Others are shifts to Web3 by Web2 companies, more brand participation in metaverses, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com

NEAR price enters price discovery following the successful completion of a $150 million funding round and exponential ecosystem growth.

The firms planning to go public face a drop in cryptocurrency values. The decline in cryptocurrency prices might impact firms

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