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Robinhood plans to launch beta crypto wallets in January as HOOD drops to $17

The forthcoming crypto wallet will allow users to deposit and withdraw Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin and other tokens, the company said.

Cryptocurrency and stock trading app Robinhood plans to roll out the beta version of its digital wallet feature starting in January 2022. 

In a Wednesday blog post, Robinhood said tens of thousands of users currently on the waitlist for the trading app’s crypto wallet would have access to the beta version starting in mid-January. The trading app said more than 1.6 million people were waiting for the wallet, which will support depositing and withdrawing Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE) and other tokens.

The trading app has been testing its digital wallet feature since it was first announced in September, completing its first alpha transfer — using DOGE — on Nov. 22. According to Robinhood chief operating officer Christine Brown, the beta rollout would be focused on the security of users, as well as providing education on crypto transactions and clarity around network and gas fees.

“While some say 2021 is the year that crypto went mainstream, the truth is that most people are still familiarizing themselves with the asset class and how to navigate the blockchain,” said Robinhood. “With the launch of wallets, we’re thrilled to play a significant role in welcoming a broad range of investors to the cryptosphere for the very first time.”

Related: Some Salvadorans claim funds are missing from their Chivo wallets

The share price of Robinhood (HOOD) on the Nasdaq seemed to be unmoved by the recent announcement. First going public in July, the stock has steadily declined from an all-time high price of $70.39 on Aug. 4 to $17.03 at the time of publication, a drop of more than 75%.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

Some Salvadorans claim funds are missing from their Chivo wallets

“No tech support and only useless calls, where is my money," said Luis Guardado in a direct appeal to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

Some of the money from El Salvador’s state-issued Chivo wallets is reportedly missing, according to many Salvadorans posting on social media.

In a Dec. 16 Twitter thread started by user “the commissioner,” at least 50 Salvadorans have reported December losses totaling more than $96,000, following the setup of the Bitcoin (BTC) wallets by the government. Some of these transactions were for as little as $61, but others said they were missing thousands or more.

“There is a security flow on the wallet where money and transactions disappeared,” said Luis Guardado in a direct appeal to President Nayib Bukele. “No tech support and only useless calls, where is my money.”

Bukele said in October that 3 million Salvadorans were using their Chivo wallets, roughly half of the nation’s 6.5 million people. Since El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law was first proposed in June, many in the country have opposed the measure for a variety of reasons, including the volatility of cryptocurrencies and claims that they were an unreliable investment for pension funds. Protestors marched through the capital city of San Salvador before the law went into effect on Sept. 7, with subsequent protests seeing some people managing to ransack and burn Chivo kiosks.

Related: President Bukele fires back at critics on 'Bitcoin experiment'

El Salvador's president has frequently taken to social media to promote the adoption of BTC as well as related projects, including using geothermal energy from the country’s volcanoes to mine crypto and building a Bitcoin City initially funded by $1 billion in BTC bonds. He also uses the platform to announce his Bitcoin purchases to the world. At the time of publication, the country's treasury holds 1,391 BTC — roughly $71 million with the price of the crypto asset hovering near $50,000 for the holidays.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

Dormant Bitcoin wallet holding 321 BTC activated after eight years

For one reason or another, the wallet has not transacted for years despite having what is considered life-changing money.

A Bitcoin wallet containing millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin (BTC) has come out of dormancy. For one reason or another, the wallet has not transacted for years despite having what is considered life-changing money. 

The wallet had not been used since 2013, barely a few years after the mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared. The wallet currently contains $15 million worth of BTC, and it’s unclear who owns this account or why it was reactivated on Tuesday.

The wallet has 321 BTC. After eight years, the value of this amount has increased from $6,594 to a staggering $15,103,046. By now, the funds in the wallet had appreciated almost 2,300 times.

The Bitcoin community is abuzz with speculation about who owns the wallet and why it has just come out of dormancy. Some believe that it could be a whale — an individual or group with a large stash of Bitcoin — who is about to make a move that will shake up the market.

A Twitter user proposed several reasons for the wallet activation in a comment thread. Many possibilities exist according to them, from Satoshi Nakamoto deciding to return to a patient investor who is going to sell their BTC now to someone just recalling their seed phrase for their Bitcoin wallet.

In recent months, several dormant Bitcoin wallets from 2011–2013 have been reactivated, each containing tens of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. On Sept. 19, the owner of a dormant Bitcoin wallet emptied their account and transferred all 616 BTC to different accounts.

Related: Dead Coins and Wallets: The Treasures of Atlantis or Zombie Uprising?

Old, sleeping wallets from the early days of Bitcoin are being reactivated with large amounts of cryptocurrency inside. Early investors who put up a few hundred dollars and kept their stakes have evolved into BTC whales, with values continuing to rise.

Another Bitcoin wallet awoke in January after having been inactive since June 2010. The wallet had $5 million worth of BTC. In June 2021, another Bitcoin whale account with 900 BTC became active. On Sunday, another dormant address with 235 BTC ($11,114,901) was reactivated after nine years. A dormant address containing 225 BTC was activated on Thursday after almost eight-and-a-half years.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

FLUX, SFP and Badger DAO surge even as Bitcoin price falls to $47K

BTC price continues to soften, but new exchange listings and protocol upgrades provided a much-needed boost for FLUX, SFP and BADGER.

The year-long mantra that the crypto market would see a blow-off top in December has proven to be a dud thus far and for the last week, most cryptocurrencies have been under sell pressure and Bitcoin (BTC) is encountering difficulty in trading above $47,000

That said, it's not all bad news for cryptocurrency holders on Dec. 10 because several altcoins have managed to post double-digit gains due to new exchange listings and protocol upgrades.

Top 7 coins with the highest 24-hour price change. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Flux (FLUX), SafePal (SFP) and Badger DAO (BADGER).

FLUX benefits from the "Binance bump"

Flux is a GPU mineable proof-of-work protocol aimed at creating a scalable decentralized cloud infrastructure for Web 3.0 applications.

VORTECS™ data and the NewsQuakes™ alerts from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for FLUX on Dec. 9, prior to the recent price rise.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical 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. FLUX price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the chart above, the NewsQuake™ system put out an alert for FLUX on Dec. 9, less than an hour before the price began to spike 150% over the next day.

The announcement that helped spark the rapid price rise in FLUX was a notification that Binance would be list FLUX token on its platform. Shortly after this announcement, FLUX price rallied to a new all-time high at $4.01.

SafePal adds support for nine new networks

The SafePal project is a cryptocurrency hardware and software wallet solution for investors who hold assets on the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Tron networks.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $1.55 on Dec. 6, the price of SFP has climbed 45.84% to hit a daily high at $2.27 on Dec. 10 as its 24-hour trading volume spiked 50% to $158 million.

SFP/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The building strength for SFP comes as the project released an updated version of its wallet app and added support for Cardano, Nervos Network, Avalanche, Fantom, HECO Chain, Songbird, BOBA Network, Optimism and Arbitrum.

Related: Trader who called 2017 Bitcoin price crash raises concerns over 'double top'

Badger DAO prepares to reactivate its smart contracts

Badger DAO is an open-source decentralized autonomous organization focused on building products and infrastructure that increase the utility of Bitcoin in the decentralized finance landscape.

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for BADGER on Dec. 9, prior to the recent price rise.

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

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for BADGER spiked into the green zone and hit a high of 75 on Dec. 9, around three hours before the price increased 48% over the day.

The positive price action for BADGER comes as the protocol tries to bounce back from a Dec. 2 exploit that resulted in the halting of the project's smart contracts.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.218 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 40.7%.

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.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

Bitcoin Core developer Samuel Dobson decides it is ‘time to go’

Dobson is the second developer to leave Bitcoin Core in the past two months.

Developer Samuel Dobson announced via a series of tweets on Thursday night that he is stepping down as a Bitcoin Core maintainer after three years as he “can no longer dedicate the time required, as I approach the end of my Ph.D.”

As a Bitcoin Core wallet maintainer, Dobson had direct access to the cryptocurrency's code on GitHub, with permissions to approve changes and make improvements to the Bitcoin software. He was also responsible for ensuring the security of the protocol.

When asked if there’s a chance that he will come back to BTC Core development one day, Dobson answered Cointelegraph that his Ph.D. is his primary focus at the moment. And even though he hasn’t decided what he will do upon graduation, he is not interested in the development of other cryptocurrencies.

Dobson stated that he is particularly grateful for the support of his “incredibly generous sponsor” John Pfeffer, without which he would not have been able to prioritize working on Bitcoin part-time.

He made an appeal to the Twitter community to consider financially supporting a developer due to the nature of open source projects. He also told Cointelegraph:

“Bitcoin Core development has obviously grown immensely since its conception back with Satoshi. As an open source project, it will always be in an interesting and more difficult position funding-wise, but things like Brink, Chaincode, Spiral, and direct developer sponsorship via GitHub have helped a lot.”

Bitcoin has already lost two maintainers since October. With Dobson's departure, the number of developers with direct access to Bitcoin code has dropped to five, according to an updated list on the Bitcoin Forum.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

Got crypto? Here are 3 software wallets for storage, staking and swapping

“Not your keys, not your coins” is short for “Don’t leave your crypto on exchanges.” Here are three soft wallets that are trusted by millions of investors.

Nearly every segment of the crypto sector underwent explosive growth in 2021. The steady inflow of institutional funds could possibly be interpreted as a signal that the best is yet to come.

For new users, figuring out how to obtain cryptocurrency can be a tedious task, and the challenge of securing the assets off exchanges is another hurdle some investors find difficult to overcome.

Here’s a rundown of some of the most used cryptocurrency soft wallets that support a wide swath of tokens and offer users access to decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs), staking opportunities and airdrops.

MetaMask

MetaMask was originally launched to support the Ethereum blockchain and decentralized applications (DApps) that run on top of it. It is now available as a browser extension and smartphone application.

The company launched in 2016 and has largely benefited from a first-mover advantage to become one of the most popular and widely integrated wallets, and it is one of the few to support nearly every blockchain network.

A quick scroll through the supported networks on Chainlist, a platform that provides a list of Ethereum Virtual Machine- (EVM)-compatible networks and instructions on how to add any listed network to their MetaMask wallet, shows hundreds of blockchain networks supported by MetaMask including many of the top smart contract competitors.

Currently, MetaMask supports Avalanche, Fantom, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, HECO Mainnet, Optimism and Arbitrum, and it’s easy for users to use various bridges to transfer tokens between the supported networks.

MetaMask has also integrated a swap feature directly into the wallet to give users access to an aggregated list of decentralized exchanges (DEXs). According to data from Dune Analytics, the daily swap volume on MetaMask swap has steadily increased throughout 2021.

MetaMask swaps daily volume. Source: Dune Analytics

The rise in swap volume has also come alongside rumors that MetaMask will eventually release a token of its own and many users are anticipating an airdrop.

Phantom

Phantom is a popular software wallet and browser extension available for Solana network users.

Similar to MetaMask, the Phantom wallet has a built-in DEX that allows users to make direct swaps within the software, thus avoiding the risk of connecting to a scam website or paying gas fees to transfer the funds out of the wallet to another exchange.

There are rumors that Phantom could launch its own token and airdrop a portion of the supply to early adopters. So far, however, this is nothing more than pure speculation and nothing has been mentioned by the developer yet.

The wallet also has an NFT tracking feature and users can also transact with available NFT marketplaces.

Similar to other wallets, Phantom users can stake Solana (SOL) tokens without needing to transfer the assets. Recently, the team announced a partnership with MoonPay that will allow users to use fiat currency and credit cards to purchase tokens in the Solana ecosystem.

The project is also developing smartphone applications that will allow users access to the Solana network directly from their smart devices.

Keplr

Keplr wallet is the first inter blockchain communication- (IBC)-enabled wallet and browser extension for the Cosmos network that allows users to store and access tokens within the ecosystem.

It currently supports more than 15 networks including Cosmos, Secret Network, Kava, Crypto.org, IRISnet and Persistence, and the team regularly adds support for new chains with several projects currently under beta access.

Holders of the supported tokens are able to stake their holdings directly through the Keplr wallet and the app works on Android and iOS devices.

At the moment, there are no rumors of a possible Keplr token or airdrop to users, but one can never be sure about what might happen in the crypto sector. If Keplr integrates popular features like its own swap interface or an NFT marketplace, then the chance of a native token is always a possibility.

Want more information about trading and investing in crypto markets?

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.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

SafePal, Bifrost and Request Network soar after Bitcoin price hits $59K

BTC’s push toward $60,000, new cross-chain features and a sharp increase in user activity boosted SFP, BFC and REQ price.

Bitcoin (BTC) started the new month in strength and Dec. 1's run up to $59,053 suggests that bulls are beginning to shake off the fears stirred up by the Federal Reserve's taper talks and the emergence of a new strain of COVID-19. 

Altcoins also saw their prices lift off and early hopes of a potential "Santa Claus rally" are making the rounds on crypto Twitter.

Top 7 coins with the highest 24-hour price change. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the biggest gainers over the past 24-hours were Request Network (REQ), Bifrost (BFC) and SafePal (SFP).

Request Network transactions hit an all-time high

Request Network (REQ) is an Ethereum-based decentralized payment system that allows users to send and receive funds through secure channels without the need for an intermediary.

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for REQ on Nov. 28, prior to the recent price rise.

The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical 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. REQ price. Source: Cointelegraph Markets Pro

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for REQ climbed into the green zone on Nov. 28 and reached a high of 81 around 57 hours before the price increased 98% over the next day.

The spike in the price of REQ comes as activity on the network increases and the number of transactions surged 32% in November. The running tally has the transaction count up 46.34% over the last 30 days and 67.32% over the past 90 days.

Bifrost releases ChainRunner Q

Bifrost (BFC) is a multichain middleware platform that allows developers to build decentralized applications (DApps) capable of operating on top of multiple protocols.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.35 in the early trading hours on Dec. 1, the price of BFC surged 56.84% to an intraday high at $0.556 as its 24-hour trading volume surpassed $130 million.

BFC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The jump in the price of BFC comes as the Bifrost protocol released its long-awaited ChainRunner Q protocol, which provides users with access to pre-built decentralized finance (DeFi) strategies, as well as the ability to deposit, borrow, transfer, buy and leverage their cryptocurrency holdings.

Related: Bitcoin correction weakest of 2021 so far as hopes of Santa Claus rally rise

SafePal adds support for nine new blockchains

SafePal (SFP) is a cryptocurrency wallet that offers hardware and software options for investors holding assets from the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Tron ecosystem.

VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for SFP on Nov. 29, prior to the recent price rise.

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

As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for SFP spiked into the green zone on Nov. 29 and hit a high of 81 around 41 hours before the price increased 38% over the next day.

The climbing price of SFP follows the announcement that the project added support for Cardano, Nervos Network, Fantom, Avalanche, HECO Chain, Boba Network, Arbitrum and Optimism.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.67 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 41.2%.

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.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

Coinbase acquires crypto wallet provider BRD’s team as utility token price surges 500%

“Nothing will change in the BRD wallet app and as always, your funds are safe and secure,” said BRD CEO Adam Traidman and co-founder Aaron Voisine.

Crypto wallet provider BRD said “nothing will change” for users following an acquisition from major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase.

In a Nov. 24 letter to BRD users, CEO Adam Traidman and co-founder Aaron Voisine said some of the company’s team members would be moving to Coinbase to continue working on crypto wallets. Coinbase Wallet said on Twitter that the addition of the BRD team would “help accelerate web3 adoption” as well as provide “deep expertise in self-custody.”

“Nothing will change in the BRD wallet app and as always, your funds are safe and secure,” said the BRD execs. “In the future, BRD wallet users will have an optional migration path to self custody with Coinbase Wallet.”

Formerly known as Breadwallet, BRD is behind the utility token Bread (BRD). According to data from CoinMarketCap, the token price surged more than 500% within two hours of news of the Coinbase acquisition breaking, increasing from roughly $0.16 to $1.01.

Related: BRD's CEO Dismissed Crypto Until Overhearing Andreessen Horowitz Execs

BRD announced a number of expansions in 2020, including updating its wallet compatibility to allow storage of Hedera Hashgraph's HBAR token in June. In September, the firm partnered with Ciphertrace, Chainalysis, Elliptic, and Unbound Tech to help introduce its data integration platform used by financial institutions and crypto firms considering providing custody solutions.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

MetaMask pushes institutional offering with BitGo integration

The rise of crypto custody continues as more institutional investors seek exposure to Bitcoin, Ether and decentralized finance.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) wallet and browser extension MetaMask has partnered with three crypto-focused custodians as part of a broader effort to attract more institutional capital to the digital asset market. 

On Tuesday, the company announced new partnerships with BitGo, Qredo and Cactus Custody centered around MetaMask Institutional — a new product offering that gives institutional investors access to the large sums of collateral in the DeFi market.

ConsenSys, the Ethereum developer behind MetaMask, introduced MetaMask Institutional in May. When asked about how MetaMask Institutional works alongside existing product functionalities, a spokesperson told Cointelegraph:

“MetaMask Institutional provides the same functionality and features as MetaMask — i.e. Connectivity to the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem spanning 10s of thousands of venues for trading, staking, lending, and borrowing across all EVM-compatible (Ethereum Virtual Machine) chains.”

The biggest difference between MetaMask Institutional and the company’s main browser and wallet extension is how private keys are stored. The spokesperson explained:

“Within MetaMask, keys are stored in the extension (unless a hardware wallet is paired with MetaMask). [MetaMask Institutional] has built an SDK (software development kit) and API (Application Programming Interface) that connects to qualified custodians and custody tech stacks. This offers organizations unrivaled access to DeFi with the most trusted wallet in DeFi along with institution-required storing of private keys.”

The institutional offering also has built-in compliance functionalities that perform Know Your Transaction analysis on DeFi pools.

Decentralized finance has emerged as one of the most promising use cases within blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. At the time of writing, nearly $195 billion in total value has been locked into the DeFi ecosystem. Ethereum-based protocols account for nearly 69% of the total, according to industry data. New research from DappRadar released last week shows that value locked in DeFi has grown 936% over the past year.

Related: No more wrapped Bitcoin? This DeFi platform brings native BTC lending to Ethereum

The growth of DeFi has been captured by the surge in active users on MetaMask and other browser extensions. As Cointelegraph reported, MetaMask surpassed 10 million active users in August, having grown nineteenfold in just over a year.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson

A third of Salvadorans ‘actively’ using Chivo wallet, President Bukele claims

On Sept. 6, El Salvador became the first country to adopt BTC as legal tender, attracting both praise and criticism from the global community.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele claims that 2.1 million of his fellow citizens are using the government-backed Chivo cryptocurrency wallet, offering a glimpse into the apparent success of the country’s Bitcoin (BTC) gambit. 

The controversial president updated his 2.9 million Twitter followers Saturday afternoon, claiming that Chivo “now has more users than any bank in El Salvador” after just three weeks in operation. Bukele indicated that it’s only a matter of time before Chivo adoption eclipses all banks in El Salvador combined.

The state-issued Chivo wallet launched in early September as El Salvador officially recognized Bitcoin as legal tender — a landmark move that could offer an important case study for other countries in the region. Chivo enables individuals and businesses to send and receive payments in Bitcoin or dollars from anywhere in the world. The wallet is available on both Android and Apple devices. As Cointelegraph reported, Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso has signed on as the core service provider for Chivo.

Related: El Salvador’s credit rating could take a hit amid Bitcoin adoption, warns S&P Global

Bukele’s latest update suggests that the Bitcoin Law is being received favorably across the country, even as hundreds of anti-government protestors took the streets to voice their opposition. On Sept. 15, those protests culminated in the burning down of a crypto kiosk in the nation’s capital city.

To be sure, mass adoption of Chivo is due in part to the government airdropping $30 worth of BTC to every Salvadoran account holder. According to a recent survey from São Paulo-based agency Sherlock Communications, slightly more than half of Salvadorans have no familiarity with Bitcoin.

In the meantime, Bukele’s government has been filling its coffers with BTC following a series of volatile price swings for the digital asset. El Salvador “bought the dip” on at least two recent price drops — Sept. 7 and Sept. 20 — bringing its total holdings to 700 BTC.

Most Bullish Part of Altcoin Cycle Hasn’t Even Begun Yet, According to Analyst Kevin Svenson