Crypto Today: Ethereum skyrockets, ignors another hack attack on DeFi protocol

Here's what you need to know on Monday

Markets:

BTC/USD has regained ground above $7,200 during early Asian hours to trade at $7,220 at the time of writing.  The coin has grown by 1.5% since the beginning of the day and stayed unchanged on a day-to-day basis. If the gains proved to be sustainable, we may see an extended recovery towards the next strong barrier of $7,500.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $186.00. The second-largest coin hit the intraday high $186.67 but failed to hold the ground. Despite the correction, it is still 3.5% since the start of the day and mostly unchanged on a day-to-day basis. ETH/USD is moving in a short-term bearish trend. The volatility is shrinking.

XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.1950 during early Asian hours, close the intraday high of $0.1948. The coin has gained 2.9%  since the beginning of the day.  From the short-term perspective, XRP/USD is trading within a bullish trend amid low volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies,MaidSafeCoin (MAID) $0.1888 (+170.9%), Numeraire (NMR) $0.2354 (+16.6%) and Zcoin (XZC) $$.22 (12.4%) are in the green zone. The day's losers are Synthetix Network Token (SNX) $0.7563 (+3.8%), Verge (XVG) $0.0027 (-3.6%) and Cosmos (ATOM) $2.43 (-3.5%

Chart of the day:
XRP/USD, 30-min chart

Market:

A record-high demand for stablecoins forced Tether to issue new coins. As a result, the market capitalization of USDT surpassed $7 billion and hit $7,6 billion, which is a record high. Moreover, the token trades with a premium at some cryptocurrency exchanges.

The cryptocurrency tracker Skew tweeted:

USDT just breached a $7bln market cap and consistently trades at a premium to USD suggesting continuous demand.

Other analytical services, for example, CoinMarketCap show less impressive figures like $6.4 billion.

Industry

Another DeFi protocol was hacked on the weekend. The thieves drained the money pool of Lendf, one of the decentralized protocols supported by dForce Foundation. The Chinese-based project lost 99% of its funds or $25 million. Lendf is currently unavailable, while the company says it is investigating the accident. Late on Sunday, the founder of dForce published a report on what had happened. He said that hackers contacted them and they chose to enter the discussion.

"We are doing everything in our power to contain the situation. We have contacted law enforcement in several jurisdictions, reached out to asset issuers and exchanges to track down and blacklist the hacker(s)’s addresses and engaged our legal teams."

Regulation

Researchers from the Bank for International Settlements believe that Bitcoin loves regulation. They carried out research and found out that the cryptocurrency tended to grow on the news of clear regulations.

The working paper published by the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank’s Globalization Institute suggests that the cryptocurrency market may dip if governments ban digital assets, but clear rules are viewed as a positive signal.

“Why do news events about national regulations have such a substantial impact on crypto assets that have no formal legal homes and are traded internationally? Part of our interpretation is that cryptocurrencies rely on regulated institutions to convert regular currency into cryptocurrencies.”

The British police will be trained to deal with cryptocurrency crime. Digital assets, like Bitcoin, has been widely used by criminals to sell drugs online or finance illegal activities; however, the traditional enforcement agencies have little experience and technical knowledge to deal with this new type of crime. The National Police Chief Council’s (NPCC) Cybercrime program has prepared experts that will now support police forces across the UK by coordinating training, offering guidance and providing resources.

Bitcoin ATM operators registered the increased transactions volume, despite world-wide lockdowns and quarantines. Experts believe that it is another signal of Bitcoin's role as a safe-haven asset as people use Bitcoin ATMs (BTMs) to buy digital coins as it is the most familiar and the most straightforward way to join the market. Thus, DigitalMint increased its park of kiosk and teller services by 5.6% in March. LibertyX also installed several hundred ATMs, according to the company's CEO & co-founder Chris Yim.

Quote of the day

It's not DeFi if your smart contract has functionality that enables someone with an admin key to alter how the contract works. That's just CeFi running on a slow virtual machine with an incredibly expensive database.

James Loop, Co-founder and CTO of CasaHODL