PancakeSwap has partnered with BetFury to launch a $50,000 trading competition running from December 24, 2024, to January 12, 2025.

Daily Top Performer — Phala Network (PHA)

The S&P 500 rose 1.1%, marking its third straight gain and the start of the Santa Claus rally. Growth and megacap tech stocks led, driven by optimism in AI and long-term tech trends, despite elevated Treasury yields. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was up by 4.18%, with Bitcoin and Ether rising by 4.52% and 1.90%, respectively in the past 24 hours.

Today's top performer is PHA, which surged 63.4% after the announcement of Phala Network's 2024 achievements and 2025 roadmap, featuring decentralized GPU AI advancements and strategic partnerships.

The Phala Network (PHA), founded in 2018, is a decentralized cloud computing platform that uses excess computing power from everyday devices. It operates with Gatekeeper and Miner nodes, offering secure and scalable cloud services. Phala also launched Khala (PHA) on the Kusama network in 2021. 

 include co-building a decentralized GPU network, enhancing AI model training, and partnerships with projects like SentientAGI and MorpheusAIs. The Phala Treasury allocated 37% to infrastructure, 20% to community, and 43% to marketing. Social media efforts generated millions of impressions and engagements, while the network participated in six events and established 15 partnerships. Phala 2.0, launching in 2025, will integrate GPU TEE technology and Ethereum Layer 2 scalability for AI and Web3 applications.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

 to launch a $50,000 trading competition running from December 24, 2024, to January 12, 2025. Participants can earn rewards by trading BFG tokens on the PancakeSwap Web interface or Telegram Swap-Bot. The competition includes daily lucky draws with $10,000 USDT, a leaderboard with $30,000 in BFG tokens for top traders, and $10,000 USDT for traders using the Telegram Swap-Bot. To qualify, participants must meet specific trading volume requirements, with rewards distributed in USDT and BFG tokens.

Yesterday, Bitcoin Spot ETF flows remained unchanged for GBTC, while non-GBTC ETFs experienced outflows of $149.7 million, bringing total outflows to $149.7 million.

: Astherus lets you farm while qualifying for Lista DAO Season 2, while Superform involves depositing ETH on Base via Moonwell WETH Morpho vault. Mitosis allows Linea airdrop qualification by holding funds, and Symbiotic rewards large token deposits on Ethereum mainnet. Mind Network offers bigger airdrop allocations for farming vFHE by depositing eETH. Solayer requires depositing and delegating SOL or derivatives to rank higher, and Drift's second airdrop involves liquid staking SOL to earn and lend dSOL.

Beginner

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PancakeSwap and BetFury Launch $50,000 Trading Competition with BFG Token Rewards

In this tutorial, we’ll explore how you can complete a series of tasks in Orochi Network for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade.

In this tutorial, we’ll explore how you can complete Orochi Network tasks for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade. 

Task 2: Quote Orochi Network's Post and Tag 3 Friends

: Navigate to Orochi Network’s pinned post on X.

: Quote the tweet with your thoughts, and tag 3 friends.

 button at the top right corner of the page.

: The Orochi ID window will pop up. You may choose to sign up for an Orochi ID using your Google account, GitHub or email address.

: Congratulations! You’ve successfully created your Orochi ID. 

Task 4: Join the Contribute to Earn Program

: Connect your Wallet, Google account and Discord to be eligible.

: Once you’ve successfully connected all accounts, you’ll have completed this task.

 all of the four tasks above for your chance to 

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How to Complete Orochi Network Tasks for Bybit Web3 Airdrop Arcade

MegaETH is an EVM-compatible blockchain with real-time Web 2.0–level performance. Learn more about MegaETH.

 has long been a formidable challenge for the blockchain industry. Most established chains maintain decentralization and security, but struggle with limited scalability while high-performance 

 (L1) blockchains often compromise decentralization to achieve high throughput. 

What if we could push throughput to unprecedented levels without compromising security or decentralization? 

Enter MegaETH — a project backed by industry leaders such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin and Dragonfly Capital. With the first real-time 

 (EVM)–compatible chain —i.e., one that can process transactions as soon as they arrive, and then publish the resulting state changes — MegaETH aims to redefine blockchain performance. In this article, we delve into the scaling limitations of current blockchains and examine how MegaETH aims to solve them. Let's dive in!

The blockchain trilemma has posed a significant challenge for 

 developers for years. As Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin explains, distributed ledger networks can only achieve two out of three critical qualities (security, decentralization and scalability) by using simple techniques. 

As a result, most high-performance chains, such as Solana, Avalanche and BNB Chain, often compromise on decentralization or security to achieve scalability.

To address the scalability challenges of L1 networks, developers have introduced 

 (L2) solutions, which operate on top of blockchains such as Ethereum. These L2 chains achieve 

 (TPS) while leveraging the security and decentralization of their underlying L1s. However, according to MegaETH, both high-performance L1 and L2 networks fall short of meeting the demands of Web 2.0–scale applications, particularly in terms of 

As shown in the table above, the blockchain with the highest scalability, opBNB, achieves a gas rate of 100 MGas/s, equivalent to 650 Uniswap swaps or 3,700 

 transfers per second. In comparison, modern databases can 

 over 1 million TPC-C TPS. While Arbitrum One, the fastest chain listed, offers a block time of 0.25 seconds, this remains insufficient for applications requiring rapid feedback or high update rates. 

These limitations in both scalability and speed make current high-performance L1s and L2s ill-suited for Web 2.0 applications with significant computational demands.

 is an EVM-compatible blockchain with real-time Web 2.0–level performance. With the goal of bridging the gap between distributed ledger networks and traditional cloud computing servers, the project aims to push the performance of Ethereum-based L2s to hardware limits. As the first real-time blockchain, MegaETH can stream transactions at 100,000 TPS with transaction fees under $0.01, and provide millisecond-level responsiveness without sacrificing security or decentralization.

MegaLabs, the organization behind MegaETH, was founded in early 2023 by Shuyao Kong and Yilong Li. Holding an MBA from Harvard Business School, Kong has a background in business development within the blockchain industry. Prior to co-founding MegaLabs, she was the global head of business development at ConsenSys, where she continues to serve as an advisor.

As the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MegaLabs, Li has a PhD in computer science from Stanford University. An experienced software developer, he previously worked at Runtime Verification Inc., a firm specializing in software analysis tools and the application of formal methods to improve computing systems.

Together, Kong and Li founded MegaLabs in early 2023 to leverage their business development and computer science expertise to build MegaETH as the first real-time blockchain.

 $20 million of funding in a single seed round at a 9-figure valuation. The round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with other notable venture capitalists including Figment Capital, Folius Ventures, Robot Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Tangent Ventures and Credibly Neutral. In addition to VCs, MegaETH is backed by high-profile angel investors, such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin and EigenLayer creator Sreeram Kannan.

 on crypto trader Cobie’s decentralized fundraising platform, Echo. The round was fully funded within minutes and oversubscribed, showing significant investor demand.

MegaETH achieves over 100,000 TPS with less than 1 ms latency and block time, as well as transaction fees under $0.01, via two core features: a heterogenous blockchain architecture and a hyper-optimized EVM execution environment.

MegaETH's heterogeneous blockchain architecture enables network nodes with different hardware configurations to specialize in specific tasks to boost performance.

There are three types of nodes: sequencers, full nodes and provers. With cutting-edge hardware, a small set of sequencers conduct performance-critical tasks such as transaction execution. Simultaneously, a massively decentralized network of full nodes performs security-critical duties such as block validation. Provers have the lowest hardware requirements, and focus on providing L2 proofs to full nodes.

Hyper-Optimized EVM Execution Environment

MegaETH provides a hyper-optimized EVM execution environment to push latency, throughput and resource efficiency to hardware limits. Consequently, the real-time blockchain can process large volumes of transactions as soon as they arrive, and publish the resulting state changes in a few milliseconds.

To enable real-time EVM execution, MegaETH co-designed a low-latency, streaming-based block-building algorithm with a concurrency control protocol supporting transaction prioritization.

MegaETH's real-time blockchain scales without sacrificing decentralization and security through the following key components and features.

 is an extension of the MegaETH core team. It consists of a group of 10x builders hand-picked by MegaETH developers. According to the project, MegaMafia participants have "an internal compass guiding them toward crypto's world domination."

MegaETH defines three common qualities for MegaMafia members:

MegaETH is setting a new standard for blockchain scalability, addressing long-standing limitations without compromising decentralization or security. By combining innovative architectural decisions with technologies like real-time EVM execution, in-memory computing and smart contract JIT compilation, this real-time L1 chain delivers unmatched performance tailored for Web 2.0–scale applications.

Supported by high-profile investors, such as Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin, MegaETH is poised to bridge the gap between blockchain and traditional computing, unlocking new possibilities for decentralized applications. The project is on track to launch its testnet in early 2025, with the mainnet rollout soon thereafter.

Advanced

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MegaETH: A Real-Time Blockchain for Web 2.0–Scale DApps

Grayscale has launched the Horizen Trust, a fund that allows qualified investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency ZEN without the need to buy, store, or safeguard it.

Daily Top Performer — Convex Finance (CVX)

The S&P 500 rose 0.73%, driven by big tech and communication services, as investors anticipate a "Santa Claus Rally" to close the year. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was up by 1.61%, with Bitcoin dropping by 2.58% and Ether rising by 4.32%, respectively in the past 24 hours.

Today's top performer is CVX, which surged 28.1% following Frax's consideration of BlackRock's BUIDL token as backing for the rebranded frxUSD stablecoin.

Convex Finance (CVX), launched in May 2021, is a DeFi protocol that boosts yields for Curve protocol users on Ethereum. It allows for staking to earn CRV and CVX tokens and provides voting rights on token allocations. Securitize has 

 adding BlackRock's BUIDL token as backing for Frax's rebranded Frax USD (frxUSD) stablecoin, which will feature a new mint-redeem system. Early feedback from Frax DAO members is positive. Competing proposals from Superstate also suggest backing frxUSD with their tokenized funds. The final backing structure is still undecided.

, a fund that allows qualified investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency ZEN without the need to buy, store, or safeguard it. The fund's shares track the market price of ZEN, net of fees. While the shares have been traded at both a premium and discount, the fund aims to provide a simpler way for investors to gain exposure to ZEN. Grayscale is also expanding its offerings, with plans for a Solana spot ETF.

Yesterday, BTC Spot ETFs recorded total outflows of $258.2 million, including $38.4 million from GBTC and $219.8 million from non-GBTC funds.

, distributing $SONIC tokens to those who participate. Over 2 million users have joined through an easy onboarding process, requiring no wallet setup or gas fees. To qualify for the airdrop, users must log in via TikTok, access SonicX, and wait for the $SONIC claim banner. SonicX, part of the Sonic SVM app layer, uses TikTok ads and creator partnerships to promote its gaming and blockchain education hub. The project aims to expand its TikTok Chain with new games and future token rewards.

Grayscale Introduces Horizen Trust for ZEN Investment Access

Trading

Investing

Spooked by an incoming crypto flash crash? Why not learn how to short crypto and maximize your profit from both ends of the market!

Today’s cryptocurrency markets are intrinsically volatile. A currency that’s on a hike today might experience a dip tomorrow that you couldn’t have imagined. In fact, many cryptocurrencies’ prices constantly change throughout the day. 

Along with regulatory actions, crypto volatility can lead to fear-driven flash crashes and slight retracements after big rallies. To avoid experiencing losses when this happens, you can tap on a concept called 

 that allows you to make money when prices are falling — even without owning the underlying cryptocurrency that you’re short selling. In this article, we’ll explain cryptocurrency shorting, its associated risks and how to short cryptocurrency.

Shorting cryptocurrency is the process of selling crypto at a higher price with the aim of repurchasing it at a lower price later on, ideally in situations where a cryptocurrency’s price is expected to fall.

The reason it’s called short selling is that you’re “short” of the cryptocurrency. You don’t actually own the cryptocurrency that you intend to profit from. To understand shorting, you need to be familiar with cryptocurrency long and short positions. When you go long, it means that you’re buying cryptocurrency, expecting its market value to go higher. For instance, you buy Ethereum at $1,000 and expect its price to hit $1,200. You sell it once the price increases in order to make a profit of $200.

On the other hand, shorting means you borrow a cryptocurrency and sell it at the current market price, expecting it to fall. Then, you buy the cryptocurrency back when its price falls or retraces slightly, making a profit of the difference between your selling and buying prices.

Shorting is a way to make money off the decline in an asset’s value. Thus, traders can opt for shorting when they expect a cryptocurrency’s market value to decrease. Shorting cryptocurrency is a risky strategy, since markets are often unpredictable. Of course, there’s the potential for gains, but with the market’s volatility the likelihood of large losses is equally probable.

When you hold a long position, the cryptocurrency’s price might drop, but rarely to zero. Even though you don’t make any money, you still have your original investment, and you can hold onto your crypto until its price hopefully begins to rise again. When you’re shorting, a cryptocurrency’s price can rise indefinitely, increasing your losses. Hence, before shorting you need to have done your research, and have conviction that the asset’s price will drop.  

 are making it more straightforward for lenders and borrowers to find each other and capitalize on the soaring interest in cryptocurrency shorting. As the number of resources increases, short-selling cryptocurrency is becoming more accessible to traders.

Traders have different reasons for short-selling cryptocurrency, depending on how much they want to gain or the kind of analysis they’ve conducted. Following are some reasons for short-selling crypto.

Sometimes, a particular cryptocurrency might be in a price bubble, or be overvalued at a specific point in time. This might be the result of project announcements, or certain narratives created by users within the cryptocurrency market. Traders may pick up on this trend, wanting to short-sell this hyped-up cryptocurrency for profit.

Therefore, they short this overvalued cryptocurrency and wait for its retracement to begin. When short-selling cryptocurrency according to 

 style to analyze the intrinsic value of a cryptocurrency against its current market price, so you’re aware of when you can buy back the borrowed cryptocurrency. This will provide you with a take-profit strategy.

Cryptocurrency’s volatility might be a matter of concern for risk-averse investors, but traders can leverage this characteristic in order to make money. Historically, it’s evident that cryptocurrency pricing can rise just as quickly as it can fall.

Traders who have an appetite for risk are naturally drawn to these fluctuations since they offer potentially large rewards. Thus, if you’re knowledgeable about changing trends and have expertise in the field, you can use the cryptocurrency’s volatility to your advantage. Should a cryptocurrency experience significant price upside over a period of time, traders will typically look toward shorting it.

While cryptocurrency’s volatility might pave the way for short selling, it negatively affects long positions. For instance, if you already have Bitcoin, and you believe its price will soon fall, you can decide to short it to “protect” the long position that you’ve already opened.

If your predictions are correct, the profit you get from short-selling cryptocurrency can end up reducing or exceeding your long position’s loss. Simply put, having a 

 in place minimizes your losses in a bear market. This is why some people say that one can profit regardless of the market direction.

What Are the Risks of Short-Selling Crypto?

Shorting cryptocurrency is definitely a way to make some extra money when the market is down or to hedge your portfolio, but you need to consider its risks, too. Below are some notable downsides to shorting cryptocurrency.

When you buy and hold cryptocurrency in the hopes of selling it for a higher price in the future, you’re only exposed to the risk of ending up with a currency that didn’t reach the price you wanted it to.

At the end of the day, you still have your cryptocurrency, and can continue to hold it for as long as you wish.

On the other hand, your potential losses are limitless with shorting cryptocurrency, since they go beyond your initial investment. If the currency price keeps rising, you might have to borrow it at a higher price to lower your average cost if you’re intent on covering without incurring losses.

However, when you are shorting a cryptocurrency, your potential losses are limitless when the cryptocurrency price keeps on increasing. To cover the losses incurred while shorting, a trader will have to continue to short the cryptocurrency when the price increases. This will lower the average cost of borrowing the cryptocurrency.

Bear in mind that when you short sell cryptocurrency, you don’t actually own it. Instead, you’re borrowing it from a broker, who charges you interest as long as you hold the coins.

Suppose the currency’s price doesn’t decrease per your predictions. You may end up having to sit on it for a long time. While this stagnation or rise is taking place, the interest keeps piling up, eating a chunk of your profits. If the cryptocurrency’s price keeps increasing and you decide to cut your loss, you’ll not only lose out from the price increase, but will also have to pay a hefty cost (in interest) for short selling.

Before you use any method to short-sell cryptocurrency, you first need to find a trend. Since the market is highly volatile, many factors can send it in either direction. For instance, politics, hype culture and the influence of notable people, such as Twitter key opinion leaders (KOL), can disrupt the cryptocurrency market.

If you want to know how to short sell a cryptocurrency, make sure you study its trends, such as sudden interest on the part of a high-end company or billionaire. After that, you have to open your margin trading account. Most cryptocurrency brokers have the accommodations for short selling. However, you also need to check your country’s regulations to ensure you’re not challenging any legal guidelines.

Now you know what shorting in cryptocurrency is. Let’s discuss how to short the cryptocurrency of your choice using different methods.

When learning how to short cryptocurrency, this is the first method most people come across. Simply put, you borrow crypto from an exchange at a specific price and sell it.

Then, you wait for the price to go down. When it does, you buy the cryptocurrency back and return the borrowed cryptocurrency to the exchange. In this way, you earn the difference between the two prices.

Like all other assets, some cryptocurrencies also have futures markets, in which you agree to buy a security in a contract. The contract specifies the price at which the security will be sold and the time when this will happen.

In buying a futures contract, you bet on the price of a security to rise. Doing this allows you to earn a profit on that security in the future. When you sell the futures contract, it indicates that you expect the price to decline in an upcoming bear market.

If you want to short Bitcoin futures, you can do so with 

These are one of the most popular ways to short cryptocurrency. With contracts for difference, brokers allow you to bet on a decrease or increase in an asset’s price without having to actually own the asset.

You just have to deposit a part of the margin account’s fund to guarantee that you’ll be able to buy the cryptocurrency at the particular price you’re betting on. The deposit remains in your possession, and the exchange or broker only holds it as collateral.

Thus, you only need to supply a certain fraction of the total trade amount to open your position. Because of this, you can amplify your return on investment (ROI) if the cryptocurrency moves in the direction you’ve bet on. However, this method obviously carries enormous risks if the currency’s price moves in the opposite direction to that of your prediction. Since you’re only putting in a sum of collateral that isn’t equal to the entire trade amount, your position might get 

With cryptocurrency put options, you can short a cryptocurrency without putting your investments at risk. If you’re able to deal with complex derivatives in a bear market, you can add buying cryptocurrency 

 to your list of methods on how to short cryptos.

A put option gives the buyer the right to sell a cryptocurrency at a predefined price on a predetermined date. However, it should be noted that this is not an obligation, and is simply a right. Hence, users will have discretion as to whether they want to exercise the put option.

For instance, if you think that Bitcoin’s price will drop in the summer of 2023, you can buy a Bitcoin put for three months with a price of $20,000. If the price of Bitcoin declines below this strike price on the predetermined date, your put will earn you a trading profit.

On the other hand, if the price remains high, you won’t lose anything except the option premium, which is the fee you paid for holding the option.

If you want to learn how to short cryptocurrency while interacting with other investors, then consider prediction markets. These are similar to mainstream conventional markets.

As an investor, you can predict that a specific cryptocurrency will decrease by a particular percentage or margin. Then, someone else has to take you up on that bet. If the price really does go that way, you earn a profit. Some popular prediction markets include Polymarket and Augur.

Since shorting cryptocurrency is based on several factors, you have to ensure you’re taking the right approach. After all, the last thing you’ll want is to short-sell cryptocurrency during a false retracement and end up taking a loss. The following are some tips to help you out.

 refers to the use of real-world data to predict how the cryptocurrency market will behave in the future, which requires looking at the past performance of the currency you’re interested in, such as its movement and volume.

For instance, if you want to know how to short Bitcoin, you’d look at the trading volume of Bitcoin today in comparison to the past few months.

The crux of technical analysis is that history will repeat itself in terms of trends and pricing. This information is then used to make predictions about future price actions.

Moreover, technical analysis is based on the idea that any movement in the cryptocurrency market is not merely random, but is based instead on a trend, either short- or long-term. In most cases, if a cryptocurrency has followed a trend, it will eventually follow the opposing trend in due time.

 used in technical analysis to help with predicting price crashes and retracements:

With these indicators, you can use trends to determine the opportunity for profits with an investment. You can also use some statistical tools, such as 

When you’re learning how to short Bitcoin or any other 

, you need to understand moving averages. In simple terms, moving average refers to the price of a cryptocurrency over a certain period. Typically, the moving average depends on the trading price of a coin in the past 20 days. To make your predictions more accurate, you can connect all of your moving averages.

However, all of these are complex statistical concepts that take some learning. If you’re a novice who’s still learning how to short Bitcoin and other currencies, you may be hesitant to get into advanced economics. Keep in mind that factoring in these indicators will allow you to make smarter investments.

Yes, we said “the news” — and not just the cryptocurrency news, since politico-economic events can send a market in any direction. Government 

If you suspect something like this is about to happen, you can capitalize on the situation by shorting cryptocurrency. However, make sure you’re not going against any government guidelines in the process, since that could land you in significant trouble.

Can you short cryptocurrency during sudden rallies? Yes. This is one of the best times to short any cryptocurrency. During these rallies, assets are overbought due to the 

 (FOMO). After the hype dies down, the cryptocurrency comes back to its original value or declines, providing you with a chance to make profits.

Some experts might not believe cryptocurrency possesses any “fundamentals” at all, since its markets have such a short history. However, you can still use 

 (FA) to increase your chances of making wise investment decisions.

When doing so, uncover the forces that drive the supply and demand of the cryptocurrency you’re interested in. Some examples of relevant variables include market sentiment, news, trading, adoption and transaction activity.

With fundamental analysis, you study the intrinsic value of a cryptocurrency. You look at both external and internal factors to determine if an asset is undervalued or overvalued. Since cryptocurrency’s fundamental analysis isn’t the same as that of traditional markets, three different metrics are commonly used.

You can observe these metrics by looking at the data on a blockchain. In fact, you don’t have to do very much, since different websites have already generated this data. For instance, you can see data charts for different cryptocurrencies when 

Transaction count also gives you a fair idea of the activity that takes place on a network. You can use moving averages and even plot a specific time period to determine how the activity surrounding an asset changes over time.

How to Short Crypto: Profit During Crashes and Retracements

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards

Grab Up to 5,000 USDT in Rewards