DeFI News by Thebittimes.Com

The value of the largest smart contracts platform, Ethereum continues to gain strength against the US dollar, especially with its recent move above $1,600. Recovery is expected to continue after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting and decision on the interest rate hike in two days. Experts say that cryptos may generally retreat before then, thus shaking out weak hangs before carrying on with the bullish move aiming for highs above $2,000. Ethereum price had pulled back to trade at $1,594 at the time of writing with support around $1,500 expected to absorb the growing selling pressure. Ethereum Price Primed for A Massive Breakout – Here’re the Levels to Watch Investors are anxiously waiting for the Federal Reserve decision on interest rate hikes and expect the regulator to continue with its strict measures to curb economic growth. However, market watchers are eyeing a 25-basis points increase, relatively lower than the December hike of 50-basi...

Vitalik Buterin. Source: a video screenshot, Tech Vision / YouTube In his latest blog post, Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin discussed "what in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites" him, including Features related to money, identity, stablecoins, decentralization - and voting. He started by stating that there are very few ideas today that are completely unexplored, which has led to a change in perspective for him: "my excitement about Ethereum is now no longer based in the potential for undiscovered unknowns, but rather in a few specific categories of applications that are proving themselves already, and are only getting stronger." 1. Money In poorer countries "Cryptocurrency often steps in as a lifeline" in countries where links to global financial systems are limited and extreme inflation is a constant, said Buterin. Following Ethereum's Merge, transactions on the blockchain are included "significantly more qu...

Upside Ethereum targets. Source: Trading View ETH, the cryptocurrency that powers the Ethereum blockchain, was last changing hands around $1,275, up around 6.5% in the last seven days according to CoinMarketCap. The cryptocurrency gained 6.5% alone on Wednesday as traditional risk assets like US equities rallied in wake of a more dovish-than-expected message from the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell on the prospect for further rate hikes in the coming months. Price predictions have become increasingly bullish in wake of the latest move higher. Ethereum is trading a tad lower on the day on Thursday amid profit-taking, but has gained nearly 18% since printing a double bottom earlier this month under $1,100. Thursday saw the release of fresh US data (Core PCE Price Index) that supported the idea that inflation in the US is easing faster than expected, supporting the idea that the US central bank won’t have to be as hawkish from now on. The US dolla...

Source: a16z crypto U.S. venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is rolling out Helios, a Rust-based Ethereum light client the company developed with the aim to provide fully trustless access to the Ethereum block chain .  The announcement was made by a16z crypto, the company’s venture capital fund that invests in crypto- and web3-focused startups. “One of the main reasons we use block chain s is trustlessness. This property promises to allow us self-sovereign access to our wealth and data. For the most part, block chain s like Ethereum have delivered on this promise — our assets are truly ours,” the crypto  fund said.  “However, there are concessions we’ve made for the sake of convenience. One such area is in our use of centralized RPC (remote procedure call) servers.” Users typically access the Ethereum block chain via centralized providers such as Alchemy, and these businesses run high-perform...

Source: AdobeStock / Thomas Dutour   Major crypto exchange Coinbase has announced that it’s been working with decentralized identity infrastructure provider Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to offer Coinbase-managed web3 username s free to users – enabling them to use that username instead of a traditional address to send and receive crypto. Per the exchange’s announcement, to make transferring crypto or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) easier and less intimidating, they worked with ENS to enable users to claim “name.cb.id” usernames via Coinbase wallet’s browser extension. Coinbase added that, “With this feature, anyone can now claim a free &ldquo ;name.cb.id” web3 username to send and receive crypto (instead of using 42-character addresses), engage with others, and to use as the foundation of their web3 identity .” The exchange’s FAQ page explains that a Coinbase username is a decentralized form of ID that al...