📈Bitcoin Trades Above $63,000 For Third Time Ever

GM Defiers!

Renewed market momentum is dominating the crypto news cycle, with Bitcoin tagging year-to-date highs above $63,000 for the time outside of October and November of 2021. Ether is also trading above $2,470, its highest level in 23 months.

In related news, surging demand for spot Bitcoin ETF exposure is contributing to the bullish price action, while the spike in activity caused leading trading and data platforms including Coinbase and CoinGecko to go offline.

Plus, Gabriel Shapiro, a crypto-focused lawyer, founded MetaLex in a bid to provide better legal services catered to decentralized organizations.

✍️ In today’s newsletter:

• BTC falls 6% short of new all-time highs
• Record ETF volume and inflows drive market action
• Leading crypto platforms suffer outages
• MetaLeX aims to improve legal services for DAOs

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• Trading via lending protocols - the how and the why

📈 Markets in the last 24 hrs:

🎬 WATCH

Check out our video explaining how you can qualify for multiple airdrops through Ethereum restaking. Also watch our podcast with Avery Ching, the co-founder and CTO of Aptos, who discusses the roadmap and controversy surrounding the Layer 1 network developed by former Facebook engineers.

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⬆️ Markets See Violent Volatility Amid Record Bitcoin ETF Activity

The cryptocurrency markets continue to post year-to-date highs, with BTC surging 22% on Feb. 28 to come 6% shy of its all-time high. However, two-way volatility is picking up, with $1.6B worth of open interest in BTC getting wiped from the markets in just 15 minutes as Bitcoin topped out.

🚀 Bitcoin Goes Parabolic As Massive Inflows In ETFs Push It Beyond $60,000

Record activity surrounding spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds appears to be driving the bullish market momentum, with trade volume and inflows to ETFs jumping to record highs on Feb. 28. Leading memecoins PEPE and WIF were also among the day’s top performing assets, alongside Arweave following the launch of its AO computing platform.

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Stellar Brings Smart Contracts to Mainnet

On Feb. 20, Stellar network validators voted to upgrade Mainnet to Protocol 20, kicking off a new era for the Stellar smart contracts tech stack, which delivers a secure, batteries-included developer experience built to scale and for real-world use.

Getting to this moment has been an incredible journey. For the last two years, the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) and the Stellar community have discussed, designed, and built new functionality transforming the Stellar network. Join the developers and projects that are building next generation everyday financial services on Stellar.

Learn more about Soroban smart contracts on Stellar

READ MORE: Smart Contracts Are Live on Stellar Mainnet

💥 Crypto Rally Breaks Websites And Apps Including Coinbase

The massive surge in market activity wreaked havoc on popular crypto websites, with Coinbase, CoinGecko, Robinhood, and Crypto.com all reporting significant downtime. “Coinbase app is down, we are SO back,” joked Will Clemente, a crypto analyst.

⚖️ Prominent Lawyer Gabriel Shapiro Introduces Effort to Synthesize Crypto and Law

Gabriel Shapiro, general counsel for Delphi Digital, unveiled MetaLeX, a new project intended to provide better legal services for decentralized autonomous organizations. Shapiro said many of his clients have been reluctant to adopt decentralized governance structures due to the opaque and challenging regulatory environment surrounding web3, particularly in the United States.

🌍 ELSEWHERE

• Binance Says It Recovered $4 Billion in Mishandled Users’ Funds (Bloomberg)
• Winklevoss Twins' Gemini Promises to Return $1.1B to Earn Customers (CoinDesk)
• Hong Kong to broaden e-CNY pilot in move to boost cross-border payment efficiency (The Block)

🔥 TRENDING

• Ethereum Ecosystem Continues To Rally Into New Year-To-Date Highs
• Bitcoin Surges Above $54,000
• Bitcoin Goes Parabolic As Massive Inflows In ETFs Push It Beyond $60,000
• Our Most Read Stories This Week: FIL/SOL Integration, UNI Spikes, ETH Burn Rate, STRK Airdrop
• Fidelity Canada Recommend 1-3% of Crypto Allocation in Portfolios
• Parcl Announces Airdrop For DeFi Real Estate Traders
• Blast Schedules Mainnet Launch As TVL Pushed Above $2B
• Arkis Raises $2.2 Million To Accelerate Institutional Adoption Of DeFi
• Aptos (APT): Ex-Facebook Engineers Aim For 1 Million TXN/S
• UNI Soars 60% On Fee Switch Proposal