Curve DAO Token (CRV), Worldcoin (WLD) , Shiba Inu (SHIB), Bitcoin (BTC) and Ripple (XRP) were the top 5 trending cryptocurrencies at press time, according to the cryptocurrency market tracking website, CoinMarketCap. Of these cryptocurrencies, CRV, WLD, SHIB and XRP experienced losses over the past day of trading. Furthemore, the weekly performances for CRV and WLD were in the red zone by more than 10%.
Over the weekend, the cryptocurrency community suffered a multitude of cyber attacks on the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem. This attack, however, was not able to knock the high level of excitement present within the Shiba Inu community as the project’s 3rd anniversary is around the corner.
The positive momentum from Ripple’s victory against the U.S. Exchange and Securities Commission (SEC) has continued over the past week, as Ripple’s ledger technology attracts interest outside of the U.S. Meanwhile, BTC has been able to make it onto CoinMarketCap’s trending list despite its underwhelming performance throughout the past several weeks.
Overview of the Top 5 Trending Cryptocurrencies
At press time, CRV was changing hands at $0.6385 after its price dropped 12.58%. This negative daily performance had pushed the altcoin’s weekly performance further into the red zone to -12.97% as well. In addition to the negative daily and weekly performances, CRV’s price had also dropped just over 17% during the past 30 days.
Meanwhile, WLD only suffered a 24-hour loss of 3.70%. Consequently, the altcoin’s price stood at $2.29. Although WLD’s 24-hour performance was notably better than that of CRV, it remained the biggest weekly loser in the top 5 trending cryptocurrencies list. At press time, WLD was down 18.19% for the week. Its monthly performance was far better than CRV’s, however, as it was able to achieve a monthly gain of 37.32%.
Defi Attack Sees $24 Million+ Stolen Over the Weekend
CRV’s price drop, as well as its rise to the number 1 position on CoinMarketCap’s trending list, can be attributed to several cyber attacks on the DeFi space that happened over the weekend. On Sunday, attackers targeted multiple decentralized finance protocols, resulting in the theft of over $24 million worth of cryptocurrency. The attack exploited a vulnerability in the liquidity pools of Curve, an automated market maker platform.
According to Curve's Twitter announcement, the vulnerability was linked to Vyper, a third-party programming language used for Ethereum smart contracts. Fortunately, other liquidity pools that did not utilize this language remained unaffected.
Liquidity pools are smart contracts designed to hold tokens and offer liquidity to cryptocurrency markets without relying on traditional financial intermediaries. However, the incident demonstrated that even a small flaw in these pools could lead to significant losses.
One of the affected projects was JPEG'd, a lending protocol for NFTs (non-fungible tokens), which reported a theft of $11 million worth of cryptocurrency. The team at Decurity, a decentralized finance security firm, confirmed this loss. JPEG'd was among the first to notice the issue with its pool on Curve.
In response to the attack, JPEG'd quickly investigated the matter and found that it was related to the Curve pool. The protocol allows users to use their NFTs as collateral for loans and had a total value locked (TVL) of approximately $32 million. Fortunately, the code responsible for safeguarding the NFTs and treasury funds remained unaffected.
Shiba Inu Community Excitement Begins to Grow Leading Up to Its 3rd Anniversary
Third on CoinMarketCap’s trending list is SHIB. At press time, the meme coin was trading hands at $0.000008403 after its price dropped more than 1% over the past 24 hours. Despite this, its weekly performance remained firmly in the green zone at 8.49%. Furthermore, SHIB’s monthly performance was also in the green zone, and the altcoin’s price was up 10.84% over the past 30 days.
In related news, the SHIB community remains highly interested in the ongoing process of burning Shiba Inu tokens, with the goal of achieving burns in the trillions. The most significant Shiba Inu burn occurred in May 2021, when Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of Ethereum, intentionally destroyed 41% of the total SHIB supply.
Vitalik Buterin had inadvertently received half of the SHIB total supply and decided to burn 90% of his SHIB holdings, which were valued at approximately $7.35 billion at that time. His reason for doing so was to avoid holding too much power within the SHIB ecosystem. This burn involved sending nearly 410.2 trillion tokens to an inactive blockchain address, effectively removing them from circulation.
Since then, the process of Shiba Inu burning has continued steadily, resulting in a total of 410,652,272,733,699 SHIB tokens being burned from the original supply of 1 quadrillion tokens.
The Shibburn initiative reports that over the past seven days, 268,198,181 SHIB tokens were burned in 107 transactions. In the last 24 hours alone, 45,241,808 SHIB tokens were burned in just 11 transactions.
As the third anniversary of Shiba Inu approaches, the official SHIB Twitter account has been teasing the upcoming event with excitement. Ryoshi, the anonymous creator(s) of Shiba Inu, launched the cryptocurrency in August 2020. The third anniversary is expected to be a momentous occasion, especially since SHIB is the title sponsor of the Blockchain Futurist Conference, where significant announcements are anticipated.
Shytoshi Kusama, the lead of Shiba Inu, mentioned that during the conference, the completed Worldpaper will be presented, unveiling all SHIB-branded projects and providing a detailed discussion of TREAT for the first time. Additionally, there are high expectations for the discussion and potential release of the long-awaited L2 Shibarium during the event.
BTC Remains Dormant
Although there is a lot of excitement surrounding SHIB, the same cannot be said for BTC since its price continues to trade flat. The market leader’s price remained under the psychological $30K resistance at $29,383.98 at press time. This was after the cryptocurrency was the only one that was able to achieve a 24-hour gain - rising 0.31% during this period. The positive daily performance also succeeded in dragging BTC’s weekly performance out of the red zone and into the green zone to +0.22%. However, BTC was still down 3.57% for the past month.
Ripple Expands Globally Following SEC Victory
After securing a partial victory against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ripple is experiencing a notable surge in adoption. The demand for Ripple's Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) technology is witnessing significant growth beyond the borders of the US, as it gains influence in regions such as Palau, Hong Kong, and South Korea.
In Hong Kong, Fubon Bank has expressed its interest in exploring real estate tokenization utilizing Ripple's CBDC platform. Xu Luosheng, the bank's Chief Strategy Officer and Vice President, shared this exciting news. The program, scheduled for a test in the third quarter, will involve the conversion of Hong Kong dollars into digital test versions (eHKD) to issue e-HKD loans to selected customers. Moreover, Ripple's technology will facilitate the tokenization of property liens.
Ross Edwards, who heads Ripple's CBDC initiative, clarified that the trial would not involve actual funds but will employ the same technology found in the XRP Ledger (XRPL), albeit in a private format.
Moving beyond Fubon, Palau has launched a pilot program to issue a US dollar-pegged stablecoin (PSC) on Ripple’s XRP Ledger. Jay Hunter Anson from Palau's Ministry of Finance explained that the "Republic of Palau Stablecoin (PSC), or 'Kluk,' is a prototype digitization of the US Dollar, developed in alliance with Ripple, utilizing the XRPL blockchain."
The PSC has already experienced substantial activity, with reports indicating transfers exceeding 24 billion PSC via Ripple XRP Ledger to the designated Trust. Anson praised Ripple's platform for its user-friendliness and lack of demand for specialized skills.
In addition to these collaborations, Ripple has also joined forces with Catalyze Research in Seoul to strengthen the presence of Ripple’s XRP Ledger in South Korea. This strategic move aims to capitalize on the region's strong appetite for XRP trading.
Notably, data from Statista highlights XRP's position as South Korea's second most-traded cryptocurrency from January to May of this year, trailing only BTC and surpassing competitors like Ethereum (ETH), which recorded volumes below $10 billion.
As Ripple's CBDC technology gains traction in various regions and with multiple partnerships in play, the company is solidifying its position in the global financial landscape. The growing adoption of Ripple's solutions reflects the confidence placed in their innovative offerings and promises a bright future for the company and its partners.
The series of positive developments for XRP was unable to boost the remittance token’s price during the past 24 hours. At press time, the altcoin’s price stood at $0.7041 after it decreased 2.48%. Nonetheless, XRP’s weekly performance remained in the green at +0.60%. In addition to the positive weekly performance, XRP was also the best monthly performer in the top 5 trending cryptocurrencies list with its 30-day gain of 49.68%.
