Coindesk

The founders of web3 wallet Gifto minted 1.2 billion GFT tokens after Binance announced that it was delisting the asset on Tuesday. The surge in supply spurred a 55% plunge in GFT over the past two days.The newly-minted tokens were then sent to several exchanges leading to an increase in trading volume from $8.6 million on Tuesday to $66 million in the past 24-hours. Analysis by ZachXBT shows that the tokens were distributed to 19 wallets across seven exchanges.Due to the rapid increase in supply, the project's market cap momentarily increased from $11 million to $20 million before tumbling back to $16 million as the price of GFT continued to fall, according to CoinMarketCap.Gifto's social media channels have remained silent...

Annualized perpetual funding rates in small cap tokens after bitcoin's (BTC) recent bullish pause has cooled jets in the broader market, shaking out over-leveraged positions and normalizing costs associated with betting on price rallies. One token, however, is still blazing hot: Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium's native cryptocurrency, RAY.As the only coin with annualized perpetual funding rates still exceeding 160%, RAY stands out among the small, mid and large-cap tokens as the most overheated cryptocurrency, according to data from VeloData. The elevated rate suggests the market for RAY is overcrowded with long positions, with leverage skewed heavily toward the bullish side.In such conditions, even a slight dip in price can shake the confidence of over-leveraged bulls, especially late entrants, triggering a...

BANGKOK – Coinbase's Base blockchain launched in August 2023, and grew with the power of memecoins like BALD, a reference to CEO Brian Armstrong's bare scalp. But the protocol's creator says there's more to the story than silliness.“BALD caught us all by surprise. You know, this was before the public launch of Base. It was when it was just open for developers," Jesse Pollak said during an interview on the sidelines of Devcon in Bangkok. "I remember waking up on Saturday morning and being like, what is going on? It was not in our plan, and it happened.”BALD was a salient reminder before Base’s public launch that the crypto space can be unpredictable, and sometimes, rather than trying to control...

Bitcoin zoomed above $97,000, bringing hopes of breaching the landmark $100,000 level on social media, before paring gains to nearly $95,500 in Asian morning hours on Thursday.BTC added 3.3% in the past 24 hours, data shows, ahead of a Thanksgiving weekend that has historically recorded sudden price dumps. Strength in BTC buoyed major tokens, with ether (ETH) outperforming with a 7% surge, XRP and BNB Chain rising 6%, and dogecoin (DOGE) adding more than 5%.A CoinDesk analysis on Wednesday pointed out rising activity on ETH-linked futures and on-chain movements, indicative of traders expecting volatility to the update on the second-largest crypto asset.Data shows a bump in revenue, fees, new wallets and on-chain volumes on Ethereum, with the past month showing...

We don't know a lot yet about Donald Trump's crypto plans, but we can at least see what's happened so far.You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.A crypto czar … and a crypto ambassadorThe narrativeNearly three weeks after the 2024 election, we're still waiting for clear signs of how President-elect Donald Trump's administration might approach crypto. Here's what we know so far.Why it mattersA large chunk of the crypto industry is betting that Trump's administration will be friendlier toward crypto than President Joe Biden's administration was. Companies are filing for new exchange-traded products tied to crypto and prices shot up in the immediate...