Weekly Market Highlights #35: February 20 - February 26
✨The last week of February was volatile for the crypto market
✨Over the past week, the crypto market decreased ~$43B (from ~$1118B to ~$1075B) of its total capitalization
✨Bitcoin Hovers Around $23,5K
✅Bitcoin tried its hand at taking down $25K three times in the past 10 days or so, with the most notable surge coming in the middle of last week as it shot up by $3,5K on Thursday.
✅The volatility only increased as BTC slipped to under $23,5K shortly after, while the latest attempt at $25K came on February 21. Bitcoin briefly jumped above that line but was rejected quickly and fell back to $23,5K.
✅Following another price pump to $24,6K, the US PCE data came out, and bitcoin dropped by almost $1K in hours. Thus, it dumped to a 10-day low of $22,8K
✅Bitcoin has recovered some ground and sits inches above $23,5K. Its market cap is close to $454B, while its Dominance over the altcoins is 42.2%.
✨STX Steals The Show
✅BSCS is trading at $0,02263: +8,18% from its 7-day all-time low of $0,02092.
✅One of the best performers in the past several weeks has been Stacks because of its relationship with the much-hyped NFT ordinals on the Bitcoin network. STX had skyrocketed by 160% on a weekly scale a few days ago, and there were predictions that it could continue its way up until it becomes a multi-billion dollar token.
✅LDO is the other notable daily gainer, increasing by 6% and trading close to $3.
✅The rest of the larger-cap altcoins are calmer. ETH still sits at $1,6K, while XRP, ADA, MATIC, DOGE, SOL, DOT, and SHIB have small daily losses.
✅Overall, though, the cumulative market cap remains at $1,075T.
✨Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index is 50 - Neutral, lower than at the beginning of the week (58)
✨ Dominance:
✅BTC: 42.2%
✅ETH: 18.6%
🔥$BSCS is the NEW IN-GAME TOKEN of MStation! 🔥
📣 As we shared in our Exclusive AMA session on 13th February, BSCStation is proud to officially announce a major update of BSCS token's utilities with the integration into the MStation platform, a high-quality Play-to-Earn game.
✨ $BSCS will be the NEW in-game token of MStation. This integration will create significant positive impacts on both BSCStation and MStation, as we aim to provide better benefits and enhance the gaming experience.
🌟 Users of both communities will be beneficial, which include but are not limited to:
🎯 Open up a potential opportunity for BSCS Holders to earn profits while enjoying the entertainment of the MStation game.
🎯 MStation can reach a wider range of blockchain users with a passionate BSCStation community.
🎯 BSCS token will be deflated in circulation, which helps stabilize and increase its value as well as create more profits for BSCS Holders.
🎯 The BSCS Liquidity Pool will significantly increase with more users interacting with BSCS token.
🎯 And many more with the continuous development of the MStation game to enhance and provide the finest experience as well as benefits for the users.
🙌 We will continue to improve and apply innovation upgrade to our platform and provide the finest experience as well as benefits for the community
🔔 Stay tuned for more exciting news and updates!
OKX Releases Fourth Proof of Reserves Report With $8.6B in ‘Clean Assets’
🔔OKX released its fourth monthly Proof of Reserves (PoR), enabling its users to verify that the Seychelles-based crypto exchange holds the amount of cryptocurrency that it claims to.
It revealed holding clean assets worth $8.6 billion in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT).
⭐️According to the latest data, OKX’s wallets held 135,735 BTC against a user balance of 130,664 BTC, thereby being overcollateralized. Its reserve ratio for Bitcoin has increased to 104% in the past month.
⭐️The reserve ratio for Ethereum also noted a slight rise since its previous report and stood at 104%. The exchange wallets recorded assets worth 1,341,238 ETH against the user balance of 1,288,504 ETH, according to the OKX Nansen dashboard.
⭐️Meanwhile, a similar trend was noted across the reserve ratio of Tether, which was found to be 102%. OKX’s February reserves report has increased by nearly 15% compared to January.
⭐️Commenting on the release, OKX’s Managing Director of Financial Markets Lennix Lai stated,
“We are proud to continue the monthly publishing of our Proof of Reserves in line with our unwavering commitment to transparency and trust here at OKX. Our data shows that hundreds of thousands of our users have actively viewed our historical reserves and used open-source tools to verify their liabilities are included.”
⭐️The new PoR comes a month after OKX reported holding $7.5 billion in “clean assets,” a metric used by CryptoQuant that gauges a crypto exchange’s reliance on its proprietary token.
⭐️An exchange’s reserve is deemed clean if it comprises solely high-market cap crypto assets and not its native token. The CryptoQuant dashboard shows that OKX reserves are 100% clean.
Mastercard to allow crypto payments in Web3 via USDC settlements
The Mastercard-Immersve partnership uses decentralized protocols to settle real-time cryptocurrency transactions on outlets accepting Mastercard payments online.
🤝A partnership between Web3 payment protocol Immersve and payments giant Mastercard will allow users to make crypto payments on digital, physical, and the metaverse worlds. Once the transaction is successful from the user’s end, USD Coin tokens — a United States dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Circle — will be converted to fiat and used to settle transactions on Mastercard’s network.
💎The Mastercard-Immersve partnership uses decentralized protocols to settle real-time cryptocurrency transactions on outlets accepting Mastercard payments online. Users can use their existing Web3 wallets to make direct crypto payments without relying on a third party for collateral.
💥Instead, Immersve will partner with a third-party settlement provider and allow its users to use USDC for all purchases.
▶️Users can access the feature through popular Web3 wallets and use their private keys to approve payments. Immersive CEO Jerome Faury shared optimism toward crypto use cases, stating:
“Collaborating with a well-known and trusted brand like Mastercard is a big step towards mainstream adoption of Web3 wallets.”
▶️Moreover, Web3 wallets and decentralized finance protocols can integrate into Immersve’s APIs and smart contracts to transact anywhere Mastercard is accepted.
Tezos Signs Up Google Cloud As A Validator On its Blockchain.
💥Tezos Foundation teamed up with Google Cloud to accelerate the development of web3 applications on the Tezos blockchain. Under this partnership, Google Cloud, the cloud division of the search engine giant Google, has agreed to serve as a validator on the proof-of-stake blockchain Tezos.
📢According to a statement, the deals aim to allow Google Cloud's corporate clients to develop and deploy web3 applications on the Tezos blockchain using Google's cloud infrastructure.
▶️By acting as a validator or "baker" on the Tezos network, Google Cloud will allow its corporate customers to support blockchain development. Furthermore, select startups incubated by Tezos will also be eligible for Google Cloud credits and mentorship.
💎James Tromans, engineering director of web3 at Google Cloud, said, "At Google Cloud, we provide a secure and reliable infrastructure for Web3 founders and developers to innovate and scale their applications. We look forward to bringing the dependability and scalability of Google Cloud to power Web3 applications on Tezos."
☄️This is not Google Cloud's first foray into the blockchain space. Last September, it agreed to run a validator node on the Ronin network, a gaming-centric Ethereum sidechain. Then, a month later, it launched a blockchain node-hosting engine for Ethereum developers.
Germany’s Second Largest Bank to Offer Crypto Custody Services to Institutions
Traditional banks are rapidly expanding into the crypto space.
💎DZ Bank – the second-largest German bank by assets – is set to offer digital asset custody services. The BaFin-regulated financial institution and custody provider has joined forces with Swiss firm Metaco and orchestration platform Harmonize for its upcoming digital currencies to its institutional clients offering.
⭐️According to the official press release, Harmonize is designed to offer a versatile governance framework and has customizable risk and compliance controls “with full segregation of multiple business units and clients, guaranteeing isolation of policies, users, accounts, and assets.”
⭐️Commenting on the development, DZ Bank’s Lead Solution Design Digital Custody Nils Christopeit said,
“In terms of our security, scalability, and future requirements of our digital asset custody initiative for institutional clients, starting with crypto securities as per the German eWpG, Metaco Harmonize has proven to be a powerful solution that is fit for purpose and can support our intended operating model.”
⭐️Christopeit added that DZ Bank selected the platform through an extensive proof-of-concept and diligence process and that it has proven to be a powerful solution for the lender.
⭐️DZ Bank is one of Germany’s largest custodians, with €297 billion in assets under custody at the end of 2022.
⭐️This isn’t the first time Metaco has collaborated with a prominent German player. Last month, the digital asset service provider partnered with the Frankfurt-headquartered DekaBank to launch a blockchain-based tokenization platform.
⭐️Citibank and Societe Generale are some of the other major financial institutions that have joined with Metaco over the past year to provide institutional clients access to digital asset offerings.
Ethereum Foundation Confirms Date for Shapella Upgrade
The Ethereum ecosystem is inching closer to allowing withdrawals of Ethereum staked on the Beacon chain.
🔷In a recent post, ETH core dev Tim Beiko revealed that after months of testing and an ephemeral devnet launch, the Shapella network upgrade would activate on the Sepolia network at epoch 56832, scheduled for February 28th.
💥Shapella refers to two Ethereum upgrades – “Shanghai” and “Capella.” The upgrade will enable Ethereum withdrawals on the execution layer and upgrade the Beacon chain consensus layer simultaneously.
⭐️New functionalities will also be introduced to both the execution and consensus layers. Changes in the execution layer include:
EIP-3651: Warm COINBASE
EIP-3855: PUSH0 instruction
EIP-3860: Limit and meter initcode
EIP-4895: Beacon chain push withdrawals as operations
EIP-6049: Deprecate SELFDESTRUCT
⭐️On the other hand, changes to the consensus layer for the Capella upgrade include full and partial withdrawals for validators. The original singular historical roots will be replaced by an independent state and block historical accumulators.
⭐️Ethereum users or ETH holders don’t have to upgrade unless informed to take additional steps.
⭐️Non-staking node operators, on the other hand, will have to upgrade their nodes to Ethereum client releases for the Sepolia upgrade. The same goes for the stakers.
⭐️If a staker or a node operator fails to update to the latest version, their client will sync to the pre-fork blockchain after the upgrade. As a result, they will be stuck on an incompatible chain following the old rules and unable to send ETH tokens or operate on the post-Shapella Sepolia network.
⭐️The latest development comes a week after concerns about a potential delay in the Shanghai upgrade surfaced due to a vulnerability detected in the public test network Shapella.
⭐️Devs, however, affirmed that the issue can be fixed with a patch.
📣Stay tuned! The market's highlights will be updated by BSCStation 😎
About BSCStation
BSCStation - The fully decentralized protocol for launching new ideas. An all-in-one Incubation Hub with a full-stack Defi platform across all main blockchain networks. We provide exclusive services including IDO/INO Launchpad, Yield farming, NFT Auction, Marketplace, and BSCSwap
BSCStation operates on top of the all main blockchain networks and is designed to offer maximum value to consumers and institutions.
BSCStation platform uses the Sharing Economy Model for the purpose of profit-sharing, helping users to access DeFi platforms in the easiest, safest, and most cost-effective way. BSCStation is the most convenient bridge to connect users and application products on all main blockchain networks.