The Bitcoin repository on GitHub registered more than 2,900 commits this year. In the first place are projects with financial support for their development.

The Bitcoin repository on Github ranks in sixth place among those repositories with the highest activity in 2021. This achievement came to fruition because it is a collaborative project that does not receive financial support from venture capitals.

According to information registered by the CryptoMiso website, developers contributing to the Bitcoin repository generated at least 2,950 consolidations, also known by their English term “commits.” This expression denotes the commit or integration of various code changes or optimizations.

Ranking first in the list are projects with institutional financing or contributions from investors or risk capital providers. The first place crumbled down into the Trust Wallet project’s hands, a multi-currency wallet became part of Binance in 2018. The GitHub repository of this project registered more than 8,000 consolidations in 2021.

The ranking also has the Solana and Avalanche projects. Solana collected capital for at least USD 335.8 million between 2019 and 2021 through a round of type A financing and at least two Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). Solana, a blockchain that focuses its efforts on the speed of transactions, shows 4,478 consolidations in its GitHub activity this year.

As for Avalanche, another project that aims at bringing a high-speed blockchain completed a private sale of its AVAX token for USD 230 million. in November, it faced another capital injection of $at least 200 million by forming its own venture capital company, and a project for incubation fund focused on AVAX. The GitHub repository for this project exposed at least 3,026 consolidations in 2021.

Bitcoin Advances with Direct Grants and Benefits for its Developers

Bitcoin, on the other hand, as a collaborative project with more than 100 collaborators playing their parts in its code, maintains its activity due to voluntary work and direct grants that some companies or institutions bring to some developers.

On the other hand, projects like Brink, created in 2020 by Bitcoin Core programmer John Newbery, got engaged in bringing sponsorship for Bitcoin developers. Brink focuses its efforts on financing the security and stability of the base protocol and the research and development to set an expansion over its functionality. The project has received support from Kraken, Gemini, Square Crypto, and they even received a helping hand from various Human Rights Foundation.

The Gemini Opportunity Fund, the Winklevoss Brothers Exchange, made at least $ 1.5 million to support Bitcoin Core developers. Also, the development fund of the Human Rights Foundation highlighted that it distributed 4 BTC among some Bitcoin collaborators, which is more than USD 190 thousand at the current price.

Other companies that work in the cryptocurrency ecosystem like Marathon Digital and the FTX and Okon exchanges, among others, also made financial contributions to Bitcoin developers in 2021.

By: Jenson Nuñez

593 ETH was the total value of the NFTs stolen from the collector. Most of the NFTs were from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection.

A New York artist and non-expendable token (NFT) collector named Toddkramer fell victim to a scam that cost him the temporary loss of at least 16 tokens belonging to the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection which cost more than $ 2 million.

The collector got hacked by an alleged phishing attack or data fishing. He reportedly clicked on a phishing contract simulating an original NFT decentralized application (dApp), where he was permitted to spend tokens on his behalf.

At least 16 NFTs got extracted from three different collections, including eight from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, seven from the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and a Clonex NFT. The total value of the assets stolen from this collector reached 593 ethers (ETH), the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network.

The situation became popular because most of the stolen NFTs belonged to the BAYC, with a value of 497 ETH. The following report highlighted 79.1 ETH and 17 ETH, respectively.

Digital Distress

Toddkramer shared a bit of his experience and anguish when he observed his missing NFTs. A brief message on Twitter showed the beginning of his concern. He said he got hacked. All his apes are gone. He expressed that the criminals just sold them and asked for help through Twitter.

Later, the user alerted that the scammer was begging on his behalf, which means that the criminal managed to use his identity. He wrote that there is a scammer who even uses his name.

The Apes Got Frozen

On the other hand, reports explain that the thief tried to sell the parts on the NFT OpenSea marketplace. The app froze the assets, and they may get returned to Toddkramer.

The affected user pointed out on Twitter that all apes are frozen and said he was waiting for the OpenSea team to enter the account and recognized he must use a hardware wallet. The affected user expressed that he never noticed troll accounts lurking in the network. He said kindness prevails, and the community is too friendly.

Scams related to NFTs have become increasingly common, something that is due to the growth that these assets have had this last year, supported, in general, by play-to-earn games.

Various media outlets recently reported a massive scam perpetrated by the developer named “Evolved Apes.” The person in charge escaped with 798 ethers.

Earlier, a fake NFT artist stole USD 140,000 with a project based in Solana, where more than 2,000 people got found to be victims of a criminal who escaped with a large amount, a form of scam known as carpet pulls or rug pulls. This initiative to scam grew significantly this year, and thanks to that, USD 2.8 billion got stolen in total from users’ wallets.

By. Jenson Nuñez

Financial advisers and their clients might have to make the leap in 2022 as cryptocurrency regulation and the market mature. American women represent 53% of the adults curious about crypto assets, so more could join the sector.

Everyone knows that predictions about the prices of crypto assets are not always accurate. However, they help investors understand the market movements better before making any decision.

This year has been fantastic for the cryptocurrency market despite the current price correction that they are facing. The price of Bitcoin was USD 32,127 on January first but is now above USD 47,000, which indicates that 2021 was an excellent year.

Nevertheless, the adoption and recognition that it has acquired worldwide have been more important to the cryptocurrency market than price action. This year, the SEC gave the go-ahead to Bitcoin ETFs, which allowed the Coinbase exchange to go public on the US Stock Exchange.

Experts Predict that the Adoption of Crypto Assets Will Increase

The crypto community grew in 2021, as traditional financial assets did not meet the expectation to preserve or increase capital. However, that does not mean that investors lost all doubt or skepticism about that market. According to Nasdaq, pro-crypto financial advisors did not recommend investing in cryptocurrencies due to the lack of a clear regulatory and compliance framework.

According to the Financial Planning Association (FPA), almost 50% of financial advisors said their clients have asked about cryptocurrencies since July. That contrasts with 2020, when the figure was barely 17%, according to Nasdaq.

For that reason, financial advisers and their clients might have to make the leap in 2022 as cryptocurrency regulation and the market mature. Nonetheless, more leading retailers like Amazon and Walmart could join the cryptocurrency community.

The Regulation of the Cryptocurrency Market Will Be Crucial in 2022

The above prediction closely relates to the regulation of the cryptocurrency market. Experts have often highlighted that proper rules that do not stifle the sector are crucial for its growth.

Nasdaq states that experts expect a new batch of regulations and compliance actions for 2022. Patrick Haggerty, director at Klaros Group, considers that those actions will probably cause frustration in the cryptocurrency community but will be beneficial.

Women Will Gain Greater Dominance in the Cryptocurrency Market

Franck Kengne, product manager at Gemini, said that the profile of the cryptocurrency investor will evolve significantly in 2022, according to Nasdaq.

Gemini reported that only 26% of cryptocurrency holders in the United States are women. Fifty-three percent of almost two-thirds of adults curious about crypto assets in the country are women.

Nasdaq stated that experts expect crypto-curious people to take action as companies like PayPal and Microsoft join the crypto market. Of course, they predict that more women could join the sector.

Regulators Will Tighten Regulations against Speculative Markets

There usually is a debate about whether cryptocurrencies have intrinsic value when the crypto market has experienced a significant bullish run. Therefore, some experts do not believe that cryptocurrencies will be the future of finance.

In that regard, Robert Johnson, professor of finance at the Heider College of Business, predicts the cryptocurrency fever will deflate in 2022.

Johnson considers that the coming year will characterize itself by a tightening of federal policy by the Fed. That would particularly affect speculative markets, to which the expert includes the cryptocurrency sector.

By Alexander Salazar

Before the price breaks through the support at USD 1.47, there could be profit within the next few days/hours. The rejection of high prices suggests further drops, but that would not cause too much worry if the support at USD 1.20 holds.

The value of the ICON (ICX) token has recently risen strongly, following the widespread cryptocurrency market crash. However, it has lost much of its gains, which has led to some short-term pessimism.

ICX is currently trading at around USD 1.28 and has accumulated a loss of 10.8% in the last 24 hours. Its daily trading volume is above USD 221.7 million, and its market capitalization is about USD 885.58 million. It occupies 122^nd place in the cryptocurrency ranking, according to CoinGecko.

The ICON blockchain provides interoperability between different networks, helping chains like Ethereum and Bitcoin to communicate and conduct operations. Version 2.0 of the ICON blockchain is under development, which has generated optimism about its native token (ICX) in recent months.

The Technical Analysis of the Price of the ICON Token

The daily candlestick chart reveals that the ICON token continues to be bullish in the short term. That is because the price has reached higher and lower lows and highs.

However, the considerable bearish force it is experiencing puts the bullish direction at risk.

The price must break through the support at USD 1.47 to confirm that the sellers control the market. Until that happens, there could still be profit within the short term.

The Weekly Chart of the Value of The ICX Token

In the last week, the value of the ICON token has shown a clear long-term bullish bias.

Once the price reached the resistance zone following its all-time high, a new strong correction has hampered the stronger trend.

The recent rejection of high prices suggests that the ICON token is preparing to fall further in the next few hours or days. However, a drop would not be too worrisome if the support at USD 1.20 holds.

There could be selling down to USD 0.76 if the price of ICON loses the support at USD 1.20. That scenario is currently unlikely to take place.

If the price of the ICX token breaks through price resistance at USD 1.71, there could be a rally to at least USD 2.61.

The Influence of Bitcoin on the Price of Other Cryptocurrencies

Altcoins always follow the lead of the price of Bitcoin (BTC), and Binance Coin (BNB) and Solana (SOL) are no exception. In the last seven days, the pioneering cryptocurrency accumulated a loss of 2.7%, while the same happened to BNB and SOL.

While the price of BNB fell from USD 569.89 to USD 514.96, the value of SOL went down from USD 204.06 to USD 170.28. In the case of BTC, it dropped from 51,956.63 to USD 46,574.82 in that period.

However, it is only a matter of time before the price of Bitcoin and the leading altcoins resume the bullish trend. Of course, that will depend on the behavior of investors in the long and the short term.

By Alexander Salazar

The increase in the number of wallets and addresses with ETH funds reveals a growing interest from users in operating on the Ethereum network due to the rise of NFTs and DeFi protocols.

A report revealed by the Blockchain research firm Glassnode highlighted that the number of addresses on the Ethereum network that have funds reached a new all-time high.

The Number of Addresses with ETH hits a New High

The information got released by Glassnode and showed at least 71,364,788 addresses on Ethereum whose balance is not at zero. This figure is almost 20 million more than the amount registered at the end of 2020.

Going deeper in this regard, Glassnode revealed that for the past December 30, the established record was 51,491,730 addresses with ETH funds, so compared to last year, there was an increase of 38% in this indicator.

Good Expectations for Ethereum

These data further highlight the growing interest in operating on the Ethereum network, which needs interested parties to manage ETH funds to use different products, protocols, and services.

Two of the sectors that have experienced a boom throughout this year on Ethereum have been precisely the NFT and DeFi, which move such large amounts of capital that can even rival other more traditional sectors.

However, the large user base and the notable increase in the volume of transactions make it necessary to find solutions to the problems regarding the high costs of operations and the frequent congestion peaks in the network. Therefore, second-layer solutions that intend to alleviate Ethereum have gained a lot of relevance.

On the other hand, the Ethereum team continues to work to bring the expected update to its network as soon as possible, which would present operational changes to improve the scalability and operation of its Blockchain. This situation could occur between 2022 and 2023, as long as there are no other issues during the development and testing period.

The team described the breakout of the multi-year range in the ETH-BTC pair as a popular trend this year. They expressed that Ether stood out so far this year, with a rise of about 500% compared to the rise of Bitcoin. This performance gap is the widest seen since 2015 when Ethereum got launched.

However, according to the report, the star of 2021 was Binance Coin (BNB). The native token of the Binance exchange outperformed the three largest cryptocurrencies due to its market capitalization in terms of profit. It got positioned as the winner with a considerable increase of about 1,344%.

This increase coincided with the growth of Binance Smart Chain’s (BSC) decentralized finance (Defi) ecosystem that captured some of the Ethereum markets this year, Arcane Research added.

By: Jenson Nuñez