BITCOIN

Just a few weeks after after raising funds at a reported $2.6 billion valuation, Dapper Labs, responsible for the high-flying digital collectibles platform NBA Top Shot, is raising more money but is now being valued at more than $7.5 billion , according to The Information. Citing a person with direct knowledge of the talks, the report said the new round is being led by Coatue Management, which led the previous round. Coatue is led by billionaire investor Philippe Laffont. Three-year old Dapper’s value is exploding along with the demand for non-fungible tokens…

To those of us who have been in the industry for a long time, Dogecoin has always been an oddity: A project that has exceptional approachability and appeal to new users while lacking most of the characteristics that make cryptocurrencies useful or valuable. Created in 2013 by Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus, the project was abandoned years ago by its founders and developers, if not its fans. Until recently, it was in such a weak state that it couldn’t even power its own blockchain infrastructure and in 2014 hitched its…

Coinbase insiders and early investors sold about $5 billion in shares in total during the leading cryptocurrency exchange’s first day of trading on the Nasdaq earlier this week, according to series of filings made Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). CEO Brian Armstrong sold 749,999 shares in three batches at prices ranging from $381 to $410.40 per for total proceeds of $291.8 million, according to one filing. While a Coinbase representative declined to comment due to the company being in a so-called “quiet period,” based on filings made before the listing, it…

Bitcoin fell sharply on Sunday, dipping well below the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) support for the first time in six months. While the decline looks typical of a bull market correction, it could be extended further if prices find acceptance under the 50-day SMA, according to one analyst. “The loss of [bullish] momentum is only short-term in nature, but we would view consecutive closes below the 50-day SMA as a reason to move to the sidelines,” Katie Stockton, technical analyst and managing partner of Fairlead Strategies, told CoinDesk in…

Call it the recipe for perfect market meltdown: Take a dubious tweet about an unconfirmed U.S. investigation of financial institutions using crypto to launder money, a report that doesn’t appear to have come from Bloomberg, Dow Jones, Reuters or any other reputable news service. Take that tweet and sprinkle it throughout the cryptoverse. Shake vigorously. Add a new CNBC tweet about a month-old Reuters report regarding a coming crypto ban in India. Let marinate until fully absorbed, about 30 minutes. Next fold in several (now-deleted) tweets that incorrectly implied that the Coinbase CEO had sold…

Bitcoin nosedived to three-week lows early Sunday, puncturing the frenzied speculative bubble built into several alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) in the wake of Coinbase’s recent debut on Nasdaq. The biggest cryptocurrency by market value dropped from roughly $60,000 to $52,148 in 15 minutes during the Asian session, liquidating almost $4 billion worth of positions in the derivatives market, according to Messari’s Ryan Watkins. While the exact reason for the sudden crash is unknown, the market mood may have soured due to rumors that the U.S. Treasury is planning to charge several financial institutions for money laundering using…

There’s now more of the dollar-linked stablecoin tether (USDT, +0.02%) on the Tron blockchain than on Ethereum, data from Coin Metrics shows, possibly a sign that crypto traders are favoring the network’s lower transaction fees. Source: Coin Metrics As of April 14, the total market capitalization of tether (USDT) on Tron was $24 billion, versus $23.4 billion on Ethereum. “As the popularity and adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain continue to grow, we expect USDT to continue to explode in popularity” Justin Sun, founder of Tron and CEO of BitTorrent, said in a press release….

One of Australia’s largest buy now, pay later companies is reportedly looking at a move into stock and cryptocurrency trading. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Zip Co.’s co-founder Peter Gray said his company was looking at providing trading services through its native app in a bid to further engage its typically young consumers. The co-founder did not specify when the offering would launch or whether services for stocks would be released before cryptocurrency. Instead Gray suggested Zip would first roll out the services to its U.S….

Ether (ETH, -0.25%) continued its rally on Thursday after the Berlin hard fork on the Ethereum blockchain went live earlier the day, surpassing $2,500 for the first time in history. The No. 2 cryptocurrency by market capitalization was traded around $2,498.91 at press time, just slightly down after it briefly went as high as $2,503.92. Ether’s price has been outperforming bitcoin (BTC, -1.71%)‘s on Thursday, as the Ethereum blockchain’s much anticipated Berlin hard fork went live early the day. The upgrade, which sets up the network for the much bigger London hard fork in July, incorporates…

The Reddit forum famous for making GameStop’s (GME) stock price a household topic has banned all discussion of cryptocurrencies less than 24 hours after tentatively allowing a daily discussion thread, with restrictions. WallStreetBets, a subreddit that describes itself as “like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal,” has long banned cryptocurrency discussion. It lifted this ban on three cryptocurrencies – bitcoin (BTC, -1.74%), ether (ETH, -0.45%) and dogecoin (DOGE, +87.45%) – though it continued banning “crypto spam” on Wednesday, after Coinbase’s direct public listing. On Thursday, the ban was reinstated, citing the deleterious effects of a Bloomberg article. “Due to the article that…