Coindesk

Market-making on-chain trades is mysterious and important – and lucrative, too. The problem, according to pseudonymous trader Grug, is that crypto protocols with valuable order flow are leaving money on the table.Grug's company Warlock Labs just raised $8 million in venture funding for what he believes is the solution: a proprietary trading firm that uses on-chain data to prove it is processing order flow responsibly.The two-year old company is set to enter the complex blockchain pipes that facilitate trading on Ethereum. Here, an army of savvy operators offer kickbacks to protocols in exchange for the chance to process their order flow, which they can squeeze for tens of millions of dollars a year.But there's no guarantee those players aren't giving...

A contentious $7 million bet on prediction platform Polymarket has sparked disagreement between the Polymarket and UMA communities. The bet, which speculated on whether Ukraine would agree to a mineral deal with U.S. President Donald Trump before April, saw its "yes" probability surge from 9% to 100% between March 24 and 25, despite no official agreement being reached.Polymarket relies on UMA, an optimistic oracle system, to determine the outcomes of its prediction markets. In this system, anyone can propose a resolution by staking a $750 USDC.e bond, which can then be challenged. If a dispute arises, UMA token holders vote to settle the matter. In this case, the bet resolved as "yes," leading many users to suspect manipulation by a...

While macroeconomic uncertainty and technical indicators raise doubts about bitcoin's (BTC) recent gains, purchasing activity by some of the largest investors indicates a more optimistic outlook.Since March 11, so-called bitcoin whales have snapped up over 129,000 BTC, worth $11.2 billion at the market price of $87,500, according to data tracked by blockchain analytics firm Glassnode.That's the most significant accumulation rate since August 2024, indicating growing confidence in the largest cryptocurrency among the biggest market participants, Glassnode commented on X. BTC has regained some poise, since reaching lows under $78K roughly two weeks ago. The recovery has been led by dovish comments from Federal Reserve and optimism that impending Trump tariffs on April 2 will be more measured than expected.Glassnode's analysis...

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)President Donald Trump ramped up the trade-war hyperbole, threatening to increase import tariffs levied on the EU and Canada if they keep on working to “do economic harm” to the U.S. after announcing a 25% tariff on vehicles and foreign-made auto parts.Despite the threat, crypto markets remained stable, with bitcoin holding steady at about $87,500. Over 24 hours the largest cryptocurrency is down about 0.6% and the broader CoinDesk 20 Index some 2%.The growing threats not only raise concerns about economic growth, but also widen the gap between the U.S. and Europe, whose leaders are meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky today to work on long-term security guarantees. The summit...

Crypto traders are used to seeing a price surge in non-serious cryptocurrencies such as dogecoin (DOGE) as a sign of market froth. Now it looks as though XRP, the payments-focused cryptocurrency, can also be used as an indicator for bull-market peaks in bitcoin (BTC).Unlike meme tokens like DOGE and shiba inu (SHIB), XRP has utility. It is used by Ripple to facilitate cross-border transactions, which places it in a bucket different from the memecoins.Even so, since 2017, XRP has been a contrary indicator for bitcoin bulls, tending to rally— often soaring several hundred percent in a short time — in the final stages of BTC bull runs, marking the point at which bitcoin ultimately peaked.XRP experienced a remarkable 10-fold...