News of the e-commerce platform’s partnership with Strike did not bolster BTC.
The total cryptocurrency market is flat over the last 24 hours. BTC remains stagnant while ETH gained nearly 2.5%. Over the same time period, NEAR has soared — up over 25%.
At the Bitcoin Miami conference yesterday, Jack Mallers, CEO of Lightning Network-focused digital payment platform Strike, said the startup will integrate with e-commerce company Shopify. Merchants using the platform will be able to accept BTC as payment, instantly converting the coin to fiat in a seamless transaction. Mallers affirmed that this partnership “brings the power of choice to consumers and merchants.”
Though an established company like Shopify enabling BTC payments drastically furthers the reach of the digital currency, the price did not react as such — with some traders suggesting it could add future sell pressure.
DeFi Digest: Terra to add $200 million of AVAX for UST reserves
In partnership with Ava Labs, the startup behind Layer-1 blockchain Avalanche, the Luna Foundation Guard and Terraform Labs will purchase $200 million in AVAX to support the Terra stablecoin UST’s reserves. This comes after Terraform Labs cofounder Do Kwon said the group planned to add over $10 billion of BTC for its treasury earlier this year.
As part of the deal, the Luna Foundation Guard will add $100 million AVAX in an over-the-counter trade using UST. This will join the more than $1 billion in BTC the group added over the past few months to support the stablecoin’s peg. Additionally, Terraform Labs will sell $100 million in LUNA in exchange for an equal amount of AVAX. As a result of these two trades, the Avalanche Foundation will hold $200 million in both UST and LUNA.
Do Kwon wrote in a tweet that “decentralized economies need decentralized money, and happy to work on blitzscaling Avalanche’s for the years to come.”
The HBAR Foundation released plans yesterday detailing a $250 million fund to promote and incentivize metaverse development on the Hedera blockchain. The foundation says Hedera’s distributed ledger technology will be the foundation for applications built on the platform.
The fund aims to target business-to-consumer, as well as business-to-business, projects. One of its first partners, Venly, will provide developer tools, a market API and a wallet to use on Hedera.
According to the announcement, future partnerships include luxury brands, games, nonfungible tokens and customer-relationship management providers. Projects will be funded using the HBAR token.
Top altcoin gainers and losers: KNC, BAL lead altcoins
- KNC/USDT +19.21%
- BAL/USDT +7.27%
- WOO/USDT +6.17%
- ZIL/USDT -5.48%
- WAVES/USDT -6.66%
- ANC/USDT -8.14%
KNC and BAL have outperformed most altcoins today — both showing signs of strength in spite of a mixed altcoin market.
Meanwhile, WAVES continues its downward spiral following revelations of a shady tokenomics structure.
BTC technical analysis: Holding for now
After two daily red candles, BTC is barely green on the day. The market-leading coin continues to hold the 43,000 USDT level, for the most part — though it did reach as low as 42,750 USDT earlier. Bulls will want to see this area continue to remain steady and act as strong support for a large move up. With broader macro events looming, buyers will need to maintain this spot.
ETH technical analysis: Outperforming BTC
Despite general flatness in BTC, ETH has seen more buying after tapping 3,150 USDT yesterday. The token is currently trying to break back above the 3,300 USDT mark, as 3,200 USDT is now well-defended. Similar to BTC, holding this level as support will indicate strength for a further move upward.
Altcoin technical analysis: NEAR eyes all-time highs
The Layer-1 project has seen considerable strength compared to the rest of the market in recent days. NEAR surged from lows around 10 USDT in mid-March as it looks to set itself up to break its all-time high of 20.60 USDT.
Yesterday, the token bounced from below 15 USDT and currently sits above 19 USDT. With news of investment from large venture capital firms, the NEAR price has surged — with many traders piling into the token, as well as its ecosystem.
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Source: https://www.okx.com/academy/en/btc-trades-flat-despite-shopify-integration-crypto-market-daily