21st Edition

This week in The Flippening, TL;DR

Spider-Man pirates end up with crypto mining malware from Russia. The US SEC poses another roadblock for Bitcoin ETF in the states. LUNA rally takes DeFi holdings to $21 Billion. Coin of the week, market performance, cutting transaction costs while transferring crypto, memes, and more.

Top Highlights of the Week (ending 24th Dec)

Spider-Man: No Way Home' pirates get stuck with crypto mining malware

If you are looking to watch the latest Spider-Man flick with a flurry of villains from the multiverse, then there is another outlaw you need to worry about. Many pirated copies of the movie being disseminated on torrent sites are packed with malware that mines Monero.

Although the origin of the malware is still not clear, researchers believe that it came out of Russia. While it does not appear to steal personal information, it bypasses the Windows Defender antivirus software to add additional processes that start mining the cryptocurrency on the watcher’s device.

US SEC rejects Bitcoin ETF applications by crypto asset managers Valkyrie and Kryptoin

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) once again stood firm on its decision to ban physically-backed Bitcoin ETFs by rejecting asset managers’ Valkyrie and Kryptoin Spot Bitcoin ETF Applications.

Much like its stock counterpart, a Bitcoin ETF will help investors get exposure to Bitcoin without needing to buy tokens from crypto exchanges and manage private keys. This ban is another step by the SEC to stop all attempts to launch a Bitcoin ETF in the United States. However, users can still invest in the Bitcoin Futures ETF offered by Fidelity, which moved to Canada after repeated sanctions in the states.

Santa rally bumps LUNA across $100, taking DeFi value on Terra to record $21B

While it dipped to nearly $85 on Thursday, Christmas came early for LUNA investors as it crossed $100 for the first time, reaching its ATH of $100.84. The rise can be attributed to the fact that Binance announced it will list UST, a stablecoin issued on the Terra network.

Rising prices pushed the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols on Terra to cross the $21 billion mark. This makes Terra the largest DeFi ecosystem after Ethereum. The price increase also propelled LUNA’s market cap to $36 Billion, making it the ninth-largest cryptocurrency.

Other Highlights:

• Someone just activated a wallet with 321 BTC after eight years: Read it here
• Only 1.3 million Bitcoin left circulating on crypto exchanges: Read it here
• Arsenal ads for crypto fan tokens banned by UK watchdog: Read it here
• Bitcoin-holding Wyoming senator to propose new crypto regulator in 2022 Bill: Read it here

Market Performance Overview

Note: Market updates till Dec 24, 13:30 hrs UTC.

After a series of weeks in the red, major tokens finally bounced back due to the Christmas rush. All top tokens ended the week with gains, with Bitcoin growing over 8%. Altcoins such as Cardano (18%), XRP (20%), Terra (52%), and Polkadot (16%) saw huge returns. Major altcoins Ethereum (6%) and Solana (8%) also took strides towards the green.

Note: Sector wise updates till Dec 24, 13:30 hrs UTC.

It was a great week for the cryptocurrency spectrum with all the sectors witnessing double-digit gains. Following the massive rally across some of the top cryptos in DeFi, the sector gained almost 15%. The best performing sector remained Web3 which shot up almost 18%. Even the ‘currencies’ sector, which usually remains a slow mover, gained more than 10%. Smart Contracts gained more than 11%, and Decentralized exchanges gained almost 15%.
As all sectors see tremendous growth, it might be a good time to ride the green train. Investing in a basket of tokens from a sector will be better than choosing a single crypto. Mudrex Coin Sets let you invest in your favourite sector in a few clicks!

Coin of the week

NEAR Protocol: $NEAR

Near Protocol has been relatively range-bound for quite some time. However, it's starting to change, and the recent price action shows great promise for this token. This is a very interesting project with a great technologically sound team at its core.

It's a fundamentally strong project that has recently got a huge amount of money backing it. NEAR Protocol strives to provide the ideal environment for DApps and creates a developer and user-friendly platform.

Crypto Simplified: How to cut transaction costs while transferring crypto between exchanges/wallets

There might be several reasons why one might need to transfer cryptocurrencies from one exchange to another. It could be to pay someone in crypto, or for selling the holding in another exchange and converting it to fiat money (your local currency). It could also be for staking.

Suppose you want to stake the ETH that you’re holding in exchange 1. Staking in exchange 1 gives you 8% APY, while staking in exchange 2 gives you 12.5% APY. Now, you want to move your ETH to exchange 2. The transaction fees for moving ETH from exchange 1 to exchange 2 would be abnormally high. There are a few simple techniques that can be used which saves a lot of transaction fees.

• One of the simplest ways to do so is to convert your crypto to TRON. Then transfer the TRON token to the other exchange, which costs only 1 TRX, which is approximately equal to 0.083 USD, compared to Ethereum’s $11, as on December 24, 2021.
  
• Some cryptos such as XLM (Stellar), LTC (Litecoin), are also popular choices for transfers. You can swap your crypto into these tokens and transfer across exchanges for a very low transaction fee.
  
• Another way to cut down the swap fees is by converting the holding token to the native exchange token. Most exchanges have a native token. For example, Binance’s native token is Binance Coin (BNB), Crypto.com’s native token is CRO. Converting it to the native exchange helps in skipping the swap fees.
  
• Look for wallets/exchanges which might have partnered with your preferred exchange. They usually allow free transfers as these are considered internal transfers. For example, transfers among Binance and Mudrex are considered as internal transfers. Hence, these are exempted from any charges.

Featured - Top Coin Sets For The Holidays

The Christmas joy is in full swing, and the market is filled with shades of green. It is the right time to end the year with a long-term investment in expert-curated crypto baskets — Coin Sets.

Here are the top Coin Sets of this week:

Metaverse: The latest buzz word is ‘Metaverse’, and this Coin Set contains top projects building shared virtual reality for the future.

DeFi 10: Interested in Decentralized Finance? Then invest in the top DeFi projects with the crypto basket.‍

Solana Select: The Solana ecosystem is growing, and this crypto basket contains the most promising projects in the ecosystem.

Invest in Coin Sets

Here we are, at the end of our 21st edition. We hope you liked reading it. Please write back with your feedback, comments, and stuff that you’d like us to include in the newsletter. We wish you all a merry Christmas, and leave you with a Christmas wish many investors have made this year.