Coinbase gets all-clear from SEC, setting stage for landmark crypto listing

Coinbase gets all-clear from SEC, setting stage for landmark crypto listing

Representations of the Ripple, bitcoin, etherum and Litecoin virtual currencies are seen on a PC motherboard in this illustration picture, February 14, 2018. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/File Photo)

Coinbase Global Inc, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange, has received approval from regulators to list its shares on the Nasdaq, paving the way for a landmark victory for cryptocurrency advocates.

The decision from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is another boost to the legitimacy of digital currencies, which are rapidly gaining acceptance from the mainstream financial services industry.

Earlier this week, Visa said it would allow the use of the cryptocurrency USD Coin to settle transactions on its payment network, while PayPal started allowing US consumers to use their cryptocurrency holdings to pay its millions of global online merchants.

A successful listing for Coinbase would mark a significant endorsement for a sector that has struggled to win the trust of mainstream investors, regulators and the general public.

Coinbase said in a blogpost that its shares were declared effective by the SEC earlier on Thursday. The company, which plans to go public through a direct listing, expects its shares to start trading on the Nasdaq on April 14.

In a direct listing, no shares are sold in advance, as is the case with an initial public offering (IPO). The company’s share price is determined by orders coming into the stock exchange. Advocates argue it is a better way to price new stock rather than an IPO.

In a regulatory filing last month, Coinbase said its stock in the private market traded at a weighted average price of $343.58 in the first quarter of 2021 through March 15, a nearly 13-fold jump in its valuation to around $68 billion in the space of a few months.

The surge in Coinbase’s private market valuation illustrates how the perceived value of the company has rallied hand-in-hand with the jump in the price of cryptocurrency bitcoin.

BIC’s Crypto Video News Show: 5 Low Cap Gems for April 2021

In this episode of the BeInCrypto video news show, host Jessica Walker takes a look at our picks for April’s Top 5 Altcoins. We will look at relevant news and recent price movements.

Watch BIC’s Latest Crypto Video News Show Here:

Cartesi (CTSI)

First, we take a look at Cartesi. Cartesi is a layer-2 infrastructure for blockchains that focuses on solving scalability issues. It allows developers to code highly scalable smart contracts using mainstream software stacks on a Linux VM. Cartesi is also well-known for its high-profile strategic partnerships. It has recently partnered with Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, and Ethereum.

Source: TradingView

As we can see on the chart, Cartesi’s native CTSI token reached its all-time high of $0.49 on February 10th. Currently, It could be headed to retest that level. It has currently been trading above a resistance zone at $0.2845. As long as it is above this support area, we could start seeing a move towards $0.7 or even $0.8.

ShareRing (SHR)

Next up, we have ShareRing. It is a decentralized sharing ecosystem that is more like a one-size-fits-all sharing network, which is expected to pave the way for the next-gen sharing ecosystem. The platform also simplifies sharing and renting by creating a sustainable and easily accessible global environment for sharing.

It can boast of being the only trusted sharing ecosystem in the world today. Additionally, its partnerships feature Samsung Knox, Tencent Cloud, and exchanges like Binance and KuCoin.

Source: TradingView

As we can see in the chart, the recent SHR rally started on February 16. The chart reflects the recent jump in popularity of the token, and it could be on track for new highs.

DigiByte (DGB)

Number three on our list is DigiByte. This an open-source blockchain and asset creation platform. Development began in October 2013, after which the genesis block of its DGB token was mined in January 2014 as a fork of Bitcoin (BTC). DigiByte utilizes five different algorithms for enhanced security. Originally, it aimed to improve upon the Bitcoin blockchain’s security, capacity, and transaction speed.

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While many blockchain platforms claim to be decentralized, DigiByte guarantees it completely. Notably, it is one of the few global community-driven and volunteer-based projects which hasn’t been funded by a considerable sum of pre-mined coins or an ICO.

Source: TradingView

DGB’s chart is showing a very solid uptrend. However, one interesting point is that it hasn’t managed to close near its recent highs, so those levels are something to keep an eye on.

Orion Protocol (ORN)

Next, we have the Orion Protocol, which is a liquidity aggregator that seeks to collect the entire liquidity in the cryptocurrency markets into one place. The project raised $3.5 million in a token sale last year, which Yahoo Finance dubbed the “most successful in 2020”.

The Orion Terminal went live as of March 31, and since February, Orion Protocol’s ORN token has rallied by 730%. The Orion Terminal will offer Binance and KuCoin trading without the need to sign up for an account or deal with Know Your Customer (KYC) verification.

Source: TradingView

On the technical side, we see that ORN has been on a tear recently. Although, the uptrend has cooled off a bit after hitting resistance at $30.

Linear Finance (LINA)

Finally, we have Linear Finance and its LINA token. Linear is the first decentralized, cross-chain, delta-one platform. It focuses on building a scalable platform for trading synthetic assets backed by oil, gold, and stocks. Its partners include Moonrock Capital, Band Protocol, Huobi, NGC Ventures, Alameda Research, GBV, CMS, Kenetic, Evernew Capital.

Source: TradingView

This is a brand new coin; thus, it is prone to violent moves in both directions. LINA is trading just below the support zone of $0.149. If it can reclaim this support zone, we could start seeing moves to $0.210 and even $0.309. The record high from a couple of weeks ago on March 18 seems to have been reached ahead of schedule, but upon closer inspection, we see an uptrend still at work here.

Top Ten Aspiring Crypto Coins For April

This article will take a look at ten cryptocurrencies that have interesting developments lined up for the month of April, which could also have a positive effect on their price.

Ethereum (ETH)

Current Price: $1716

Market Cap: $214 Billion

Market Cap Rank #2

Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain that employs its native currency, Ether (ETH).

More importantly, ETH is a platform for several other cryptocurrencies. It enables the execution of smart contracts and the construction of decentralized applications (dApps).

Besides smart contracts and dApps, Ethereum’s blockchain can also use its ERC-20 compatibility standard to host other cryptocurrencies. These are called tokens, and so far, more than 280,000 such tokens have been launched, including LINK & BNB.

A hard fork for Ethereum is scheduled for April 14. The fork is named ”Berlin” and will occur at block 12,244,000.

While it was initially scheduled for mid-2020, it was pushed back due to some centralization concerns.

Berlin will include numerous optimizations, more specifically for gas prices, potential DDOS attacks, and an update on how the Ethereum Virtual Machine reads code.

As for its price movement, ETH has been increasing since re-testing its previous all-time high on Feb. 28.

IOTA (IOTA)

Current Price: $1.43

Market Cap: $3.96 Billion

Market Cap Rank: #28

IOTA is a distributed ledger that enables the secure exchange of both data and value without fees.

The native token is IOTA, which has the ultimate goal of allowing humans and devices to exchange services and data.

The most extensive update in the network’s history will launch in April. It is named ”Chrysalis” and will improve wallets, software implementations, libraries, and protocols. Also, it will create a foundation for future features such as tokenization and smart contracts.

The starting date for the ”Chrysalis” upgrade is set on April 21st, while the transition date on April 28th.

As for its price movement, IOTA has fallen below the $1.52 level after purportedly breaking out above it.

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Skale (SKL)

Current Price : $0.61

Market Cap: $405 Million

Market Cap Rank: #130

SKALE network is an open-source platform, which aims to scale dApps for usage in the real world. The SKALE innovator program has more than 100 dApps in development.

It is a project from the Network Of Decentralized Economics Foundation. The foundation supports the network by electing representatives and validators to run SKALE chains and nodes.

The native token is SKL, which has use cases in staking, payments, and governance of the network.

Despite being a small market cap coin, SKL is the 9th highest crypto asset when measured by its staking value. This means that there are only eight projects that have more staked value than SKL.

The new staking epoch will begin on April 1st and could further increase the staking value of SKL.

As for its price movement, SKL has been decreasing since reaching an all-time high price of $1.244 on March 13. However, it has just bounced on its 0.618 Fib retracement support level at $0.51.

Elrond (EGLD)

Current Price: $146

Market Cap: $2.51 Billion

Market Cap Rank: #44

Elrond is a protocol that aims to offer exceptionally fast transaction speeds through its sharding mechanism, which is known as adaptive state sharding. The mechanism combines the advantages of three distinct sharding types to improve the communication between them.

The native token is known as EGLD. It has three main purposes: Staking, paying fees in the network, and rewarding validators.

On April 9, Elrond’s DeFi 2.0 module will be released. It will offer six new components:

Elrond NFT standard

Launchpad

Swap

Lending

Synthetics

Bridges

Every one of these components will aim to improve important issues, mostly in the banking sector. Also, each of them is going to be built by an independent team.

As for its price movement, EGLD has just broken out from a descending resistance line.

Swipe (SXP)

Current Price: $3.26

Market Cap: $285 Million

Market Cap Rank: #156

Swipe is a platform that wants to connect the cryptocurrency and fiat worlds. It offers three main products. It offers three main products:

The Swipe Wallet – which enables users to store assets.

The Swipe debit card – which provides users with a simple way to spend their cryptocurrencies.

The native token – SXP, which is used for transactions and fuels the Swipe Network

Version two for the Swipe Wallet will launch on April 2021. Among others, it will improve layer two scaling solutions and allow for DEX trading.

The wallet is already available on the Apple app store.

As for its price movement, SXP is potentially trading inside a parallel ascending channel, after beginning to drop on March 20.

Qtum (QTUM)

Current Price: $8.44

Market Cap: $829 Million

Market Cap Rank: #93

QTUM is a public, Proof-of-stake blockchain platform that enables smart contract coding, deployment, and execution. It is also a platform for decentralized applications (dApps) due to its protocol, which allows for the modification of its settings.

A hard fork will occur on April 30, just before block 845,000. It will provide numerous updates, such as:

The reduction of block time to 32 seconds

Improve Graphic user interface (GUI) responsiveness

Provide a new Staker that is highly efficient.

Fix bugs related to wallets, GUI call contracts, and text box links.

As for its price movement, the QTUM increase has stalled since March 26. However, it is still trading above the previous resistance at $7.65.

Coti (COTI)

Current Price : $0.45

Market Cap: $300 Million

Market Cap Rank: #150

COTI is a platform that allows companies to effortlessly build and be the sole owners of their payment solutions.

It provides numerous elements that are crucial for an effective payment infrastructure, including but not limited to scalability, simplicity, security, buyer-seller protections, etc.

In April, COTI will launch the 3.0 staking update. In it, each community Node will have its capacity increased from 7 Million to 8 Million COTI. This will allow new participants to enter the network and will provide upgrades to existing stakers.

In addition, a new staking campaign will be hosted on KuCoin.

As for its price movement, COTI seems to be trading inside a very large symmetrical triangle pattern.

COTI Triangle

Centaur (CNTR)

Current Price: $0.019

Market Cap: $16 Million

Market Cap Rank: #815

CENTAUR is an ecosystem that aims to connect the current financial system with the economy of decentralized finance. With its interconnection protocol, it aims to solve the problem of interoperation between different blockchains.

There are several important events coming up for Centaur in the upcoming weeks.

On March 31, the Centaur Wallet will be launched. It is a DeFi compatible wallet, which places special emphasis on user experience and interface.

On April 14, Centaur LP will be released. It is an Automated Market Maker (AMM) that uses single-side staking to provide liquidity.

Finally, Centaur Chain, the official Centaur mainnet, will be launched on April 28.

As for its price movement, CNTR seems to have been following an ascending support line since Jan. 16.

Enjin Coin (ENJ)

Current Price: $2.46

Market Cap: $2 Billion

Market Cap Rank: #50

Enjin Coin (ENJ) is a cryptocurrency that is designed for the gaming industry. More specifically, it deals with gaming products and their tokenization.

Another use for ENJ is to create and back the value of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

On April 6th, ENJ will release JumpNet, a bridge network that will allow for faster on-chain transactions.

As for its price movement, ENJ has broken out from a descending resistance line and validated it as support afterward.

Stater (STR)

Current Price: $1.67

Market Cap: N/A

Market Cap Rank: N/A

Stater is an open-source lending platform for NFTs. It allows users to leverage their assets while still maintaining ownership over their assets.

On April 16th, the Lydian Update is expected to launch. This will allow the Stater product to move into the Mainnet. This comes as the next step after a three-month development work that has been done in Rinkeby.

Stater is also launching partnerships with numerous other projects, such as Polygon (MATIC).

As for its price movement, STR reached an all-time high on March 28.

For last months aspiring coins, click here.