What’s Happening In Crypto Today? Daily Crypto News Digest

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of blockchain and crypto news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s news.

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Why is crypto down today?

The crypto market, based on the top ten coins by market capitalization, is largely red today.

Over the past 24 hours, the prices of nearly all coins in this category have dropped between 1.1% (ETH) and 6.5% (CAD).

STETH dropped by 1.3%, BTC 2.1%, and XRP 5.5%. SOL and AVAX saw their prices decrease by about 6%.

Meanwhile, the only coin in the green today among the top ten is BNB. Its price is up 2.1% to $365.52, per CoinGeko.

Investor confidence in crypto exchange tokens seems to have been restored following the FTX scandal. BNB has shown significant gains since.

The two remaining coins on the list are stablecoins USDT and USDC, which are pegged to the price of the USD.

Today’s global cryptocurrency market cap is $2.04 trillion, a -2.2% change in the last 24 hours.

That said, these are typical changes in the crypto market.

Meanwhile, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman recently stated that, while he sees short-term crypto trading more as a speculative move, there might be intrinsic value in the long run.

Also, MicroStrategy executive chairman and co-founder Michael Saylor said the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETFs is a rising tide that is going to lift all boats (the market improving benefits all participants). He added that there is no reason to sell any of his bitcoin anytime soon.

Investor Capital Moving Out On the Risk Curve

With strong market momentum following the Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and the anticipation of a bull market, several indicators hint at early signs of investor capital moving out on the risk curve, according to blockchain analytics firm Glassnode.

Glassnode’s Altseason Momentum Indicator has shown shifts in capital flows towards altcoins since last October.

The Indicator suggests a more mature and possibly sustained uptick in altcoin markets, but it currently remains concentrated in higher market cap assets.

Source: Glassnode

The digital asset landscape has evolved over the last cycle, Glassnode said. New ecosystems are challenging Ethereum’s dominance.

Bitcoin dominance remains significant, the report said. However, there are early signs of capital rotation into Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, and Cosmos.

Solana witnessed the strongest returns over the last year.

As for the Ethereum ecosystem, the staking sector shows “the most consistent capital inflow for its top tokens.”

Meanwhile, according to the report,

“By investigating Uniswap liquidity pools, we can see that most capital remains in the most mature assets, and whilst TVL is moving out on the risk curve, trade volume has been slower to follow.”

Uniswap liquidity pool data help analysts determine if and how much interest is shifting out on the risk curve.

The analysts found that the altcoin trading interest was very low during the 2022 bear market. In mid-2023, it started to increase, largely due to a bust of ‘Meme-Coin mania.’

Currently, altcoin trading accounts for nearly 12% of Uniswap trade volume, approaching the 17.4% peak seen during the last bull run. Meanwhile, trading for WBTC and WETH makes up 47% and stablecoins 40% of trade volume.

Source: Glassnode

“A resurgence in Altcoin trading on Uniswap, alongside liquidity and trading volume patterns, underscores a cautious yet growing interest in longer-tail assets,” the report noted.

This can be seen in the changing liquidity provision and an expectation of heightened volatility. It is “particularly present TVL within the pools, and investor trade volume has yet to follow.”

Defendant Was ‘Used’ and Had ‘No Idea’ She Was Part of Crypto Fraud

In the latest crypto news today, Jian Wen, a British-Chinese woman accused of laundering BTC derived from a huge investment fraud in China, has pleaded not guilty and claimed she didn’t know the bitcoin was the proceeds of crime, the Financial Times reported.

Wen has been charged with three counts of money laundering on behalf of her former employer, Yadi Zhang.

Beijing authorities say Zhang stole a whopping £5 billion ($6.3 billion) in China between 2014 and 2017. She has not been located yet.

While the British authorities claim that Wen was aware of the crime and helped Zhang convert some of the crypto into cash, jewelry, property, and credit on prepaid cards, Wen claims that she had only the “very basic” knowledge of bitcoin.

Furthermore, she says she didn’t know about two of the three crypto wallets the prosecution alleges she had used to launder the funds.

As for the third wallet, Wen admitted she had access to it but was unaware that it contained stolen funds. Crying, she told the court that,

“I did not know or suspect that the bitcoin was from the crime. No idea at all.”

Wen further said she was “ashamed,” and though she was close to Zhang, she was deceived. “I think I was duped . . . I was used badly.”

Wen added that she had “no idea” where Zhang was now.

The trial started in late January. The Metropolitan Police previously told the court it had seized more than £1.4bn worth of bitcoin derived from the fraud – one of the largest seizures of the cryptocurrency by law enforcement globally.

Hack VC Closes Oversubscribed $150 Million Venture Fund

In other crypto news today, Web3 venture capital firm Hack VC announced the final close of its oversubscribed $150 million Venture Fund I to invest in early-stage web3 opportunities.

According to the press release, Venture Fund I builds on the firm’s inaugural $200 million fun. In total, Hack VC has $350 million in aggregate commitments across the firm’s first two funds. The firm’s total assets under management are now approximately $425 million.

We wrote all about our new $150M Venture Fund (which brings our AUM to ~$420M) in our latest blog. Check it out for more on our vision for the fund, deep conviction in web3, and excitement to support our founders. Read more: https://t.co/zTPDe2mE4V

— Hack VC (@hack_vc) February 20, 2024

Veteran web3 venture investors and operators Alex Pack and Ed Roman lead Hack VC. They have invested in and advised over 100 web3 projects and over 20 unicorns.

The company invests up to $10 million per project. It has already invested approximately one-third of the fund in early-stage projects building the infrastructure necessary to make Web3 mainstream, said the announcement.

Alex Pack, Managing Partner at Hack VC, commented that “Web3 is in a pivotal moment akin to the mid-1990s for the Internet.” He added that,

“Yet, like the early days of the Internet, web3 still requires an infrastructural paradigm shift in scalability, security, and usability before it is ready for mainstream usage. […] Our goal is to back and support these critical pieces of web3 infrastructure—as we have done for over a decade.”

Ed Roman, Managing Partner at Hack VC, noted that “an entirely new class of startups is creating real change in the world due to the innovation of token incentives.”

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