Magic Numbers: Ethereum-Based Authentication Platform Raises $27M
Magic, a way of logging into websites without relying on passwords or the centralized honeypots that store vast lists of them, has closed a $27 million funding round.
The Series A round, announced Thursday, was led by Northzone and included Tiger Global, Volt Capital, CoinFund and Digital Currency Group (also the owner of CoinDesk). It brings Magic’s total funding to $31 million, following a $4 million seed round in May 2020 that included the likes of Placeholder, SV Angel and Naval Ravikant.
Passwords are generally the way users prove ownership of long alphanumeric private keys. Those secret passwords are trusted to platforms such as Equifax, LinkedIn or Kickstarter, and once an attacker has infiltrated one of these platforms and accessed a database of hashed passwords, they can attempt to brute force weaker passwords, which are probably used elsewhere too, such as the user’s bank account.
Magic’s authentication system uses key pairs created on the platform-independent Ethereum blockchain. Rather than sharing a secret, the user signs a piece of data with their private key, generating a signature; in computing terms, proving you have knowledge of a secret without revealing anything is called a zero-knowledge proof. Magic makes this all happen via user-friendly emailed links, and it can also be simply plugged in as an SDK by software developers.
Members of the Magic team (Magic)
“Under the hood, every user that signs up with Magic has an Ethereum key pair generated for them, whether they use that key pair or not,” Magic CEO Sean Lin said in an interview, adding:
“So we actually have users in the millions now, growing at 6% a week, which means we are probably one of the fastest distributors of decentralized identity and blockchain key pairs. Eventually, when the time’s right, they are all going to come back and be Web 3 users.”
Going back a couple of years, the majority of Magic users were non-blockchain apps, or regular Web 2 fans, said Li. However, he said this past year has seen a surge of interest, particularly driven by things like non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
“Before this year, I would say about 60% or even 70% was from Web 2,” Li said. “But this year there has been a real shift towards Web 3 and it now accounts for maybe 80% of use.”
16% Ethereum price rebound activates a classic bullish pattern — $2.5K next?
Ethereum’s native crypto Ether (ETH) rebounded sharply on Thursday after Elon Musk disclosed for the first time that his private rocket firm SpaceX holds Bitcoin (BTC), and Tesla would probably resuming the bitcoin payment option for its electric cars.
The BTC/USD exchange rate was below $30,000 but bounced by more than 5% after the big reveal, touching an intraday high of $32,895. Ether, which tends to move in lockstep with the flagship cryptocurrency, surged likewise.
Ether was holding onto its previous session’s gains on Thursday. Source: TradingView.com
It reclaimed $2,000 on Wednesday, rising by as much as 18.20% from its week-to-date low of $1,720.
Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, chief product officer at financial services company Bitpanda, told Cointelegraph in an email statement that Ethereum would continue tailing Bitcoin in the coming sessions.
“As soon as the “big brother” finds its support level,” he added, “Ethereum will most likely follow suit.”
Classic pattern sets $2.5K target for Ethereum
The latest bounce in the Ethereum market also originated from a support level that had earlier capped Ether’s downside attempts.
Independent market analyst, known by the pseudonym Rekt Capital, flashed a so-called “orange area” on a weekly ETH/USD chart, illustrating three bearish wicks and their ability to shied the pair from falling lower.
“ETH has rallied +16% since rebounding from the orange area,” the analyst explained, coupling the price floor with a support trendline that apprehensively constituted a Falling Wedge.
In detail, Falling Wedges are bullish reversal patterns that start wide at the top but start contracting as the prices move lower, forming a sequence of lower highs and lower lows. A bullish confirmation comes when the price breaks above the Wedge’s upper trendline with a spike in volumes.
In doing so, bulls place their upside profit target as up as the maximum wedge height.
Ether prices almost check all the boxes when it comes to trading inside a Falling Wedge pattern. Rekt Capital highlighted the same in a chart he published Thursday.
Ether falling wedge setup highlighted by Rekt Capital. Source: TradingView.com
“As long as ETH holds the bottom of the structure as support until the end of the week, [it] will confirm a return to the structure after briefly losing it earlier this week,” added Rekt Capital.
The maximum distance between the Wedge’s upper and lower trendline is roughly $850. Therefore, according to the classic technical setup, a breakout above the upper trendline could send the prices to at least $2,500.
Related: Decoupling ahead? Bitcoin and Ethereum may finally snap their 36-month correlation
Nonetheless, the prices still risk falling sharply below $2,000 based on a short-term technical setup, as shown in the chart below.
ETH falling wedge setup on its daily chart. Source: TradingView.com
The daily Ethereum chart shows price could fluctuate between $1,850-2,080 before the potential bullish breakout, noted Rekt Capital.
Kirkpatrick and Dalquist’s book titled “Technical Analysis” notes that falling wedges have a failure rate of just 8% to 11%. Moreover, the possibility of a bearish breakout has a higher failure rate of 15% to 24%.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Why Bitcoin and Ethereum Popped, but Dogecoin Dropped
What happened
Has Dogecoin (CRYPTO:DOGE) ever had a better friend that Elon Musk? Well, not today. For months, the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) boss has off-and-on hyped or denigrated the one-time joke cryptocurrency, helping to drive the former sub-$0.01 coin’s value past $0.72.
But today, Musk’s distraction from Dogecoin may be the reason the price is diving – and also the reason that Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) are both moving higher.
To recap, here’s how the values stand as of 1:30 p.m. EDT:
Bitcoin is up 1.2%
Ethereum is up 3%
Dogecoin is down 3.5%.
So what
So why are Bitcoin and Ethereum outperforming Dogecoin today? Two reasons (and Musk is a part of both).
In the case of Bitcoin, Musk commented today that although he still needs to do “a little bit more due diligence to confirm” this, as soon as he sees that renewable energy is being used for at least 50% of Bitcoin mining, Tesla will “most likely” resume accepting Bitcoin as payment for Tesla electric cars.
Meanwhile on the subject of Ethereum, Musk confirmed that he personally owns some of that cryptocurrency as well as Bitcoin – an offhand comment that nonetheless, at one point today, sent Ethereum prices up as much as 12%!
Now what
Here’s the thing: At the same “B Word Conference” at which Musk made the comments that are lifting Bitcoin and Ethereum prices today, Musk also confirmed that he owns Dogecoin as well. I suspect that most investors already assumed that, however, given the cryptocurrency’s frequent appearance on Musk’s Twitter feed.
In contrast, the revelation about his owning Ethereum, and the confirmation that Bitcoin could soon become legal tender for Tesla-shopping as well, were both “new” news – and they’re moving the cryptocurrency market accordingly.