Binance tops Bitcoin & Ethereum as Polygon fixes bug & crypto staking revealed

ALTCOIN Binance is topping Bitcoin and Ethereum, as Polygon fixes a bug and crypto staking is revealed.

This as a drop in the cryptocurrency market led to an almost $300 million loss in liquidations this week.

Bitcoin prices, in particular, dropped by as much as $3,000 early Tuesday, though it is slightly back up over the past 24 hours as of Thursday morning.

Plus, “futures on ether, the native currency of the Ethereum network, saw over $57 million in liquidations,” Coindesk reported.

Other major coins, such as Solana and Terra, also saw losses, the outlet reported. Shiba Inu and Dogecoin have also been down over the past week as of Thursday.

Meanwhile, Ethereum, Decentraland, and Basic Attention are all tokens that some experts think are poised for rebounds in 2022.

Contributors at Motley Fool think those three cryptocurrencies could see gains next year no matter what else happens with the highly volatile market.

“Ethereum stands out as a great crypto for 2022 and beyond,” the outlet noted, but the site thinks BAT and Decentraland are good bets, too.

Read our cryptocurrency live blog for the latest news and updates…

What is play-to-earn gaming?
A unique model called play-to-earn gaming is driving non-fungible token (NFT) and cryptocurrency growth, Forbes reported.
Axie Infinity is the most popular platform for play-to-earn gaming at the moment.
It allows users to build a collection of “Axies” that players can use across its universe of games.
The company then uses Blockchain to reward players for gaming, according to Forbes.
Any digital assets earned by participants can be sold on the platform or traded outside Axie Infinity’s universe.
Risks of Robinhood, part three
In July, the platform was also ordered to pay nearly $70million in fines and compensation for misleading customers and outages.
If you are seeking a discount broker and are looking to open an IRA account, you can check out the following platforms: Vanguard, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Merrill Edge, among others.
Risks of Robinhood, part two
For investing individual stocks, make sure you check company reports, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, broker notes, and press releases so you can make the best decisions for your money.
Another risk when choosing Robinhood along with other brokers is that they can restrict trading when there’s unusual activity.
In fact, Robinhood faced some outrage earlier this year when it restricted trading on meme stocks including GameStop and AMC.

Risks of Robinhood
When it comes to risks, investing alone is one because you’re not guaranteed to generate a profit and the value of your assets could fall.
If you’re choosing Robinhood so you can trade stocks and cryptocurrencies – then the game gets even riskier.
Cryptocurrencies are not only difficult to understand but even tougher to predict when bearish trends in the market will take place.
For example, cryptocurrency was thriving this year up until Elon Musk said that Tesla was halting the acceptance of payments in Bitcoin.
More than 50 countries place bans
51 countries have placed bans on cryptocurrencies, according to a report from the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress.
To date, nine countries have a total ban, and 42 have an implicit ban. The implicit ban forbids financial institutions from using crypto.
The number of countries with bans has more than doubled since research first came out in 2018, according to Markets Insider.
Robinhood prepares to launch cryptocurrency wallet
Robinhood announced a new partnership with a blockchain data analytics platform ahead of its planned cryptocurrency wallet launch.
Robinhood will use Chainalysis’ data, analytics, and software to meet compliance requirements and provide secure crypto transactions, Motley Fool reported.
The partnership comes ahead of the planned 2022 launch of Robinhood’s crypto wallet.
More than 1.6million people are on a waitlist for the new feature, according to Motley Fool.
China’s crackdown ‘big opportunity’ for US
China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency transactions “is a big opportunity for the U.S.”, according to Pat Toomey, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.
This comes as the US Securities and Exchange Commission lobbied for more regulations when it comes to cryptocurrency.
China’s crackdowns on crypto
While crypto creation and trading have been illegal in China since 2019, further crackdowns this year by Beijing warned banks to halt related transactions and closed much of the country’s vast network of Bitcoin miners.
The previous statement by the central bank sent the strongest yet signal that China is closed to crypto.
China’s statement, continued
Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency, and other cryptos cannot be traced by a country’s central bank, making them difficult to regulate.
The crypto crackdown opens the gates for China to introduce its own digital currency, which it is already working on and will allow the central government to monitor transactions.

China’s statement on cryptocurrency
The PBOC said it will “resolutely clamp down on virtual currency speculation, and related financial activities and misbehaviour in order to safeguard people’s properties and maintain economic, financial and social order”.
It said that trading of virtual currencies had become “widespread, disrupting economic and financial order, giving rise to money laundering, illegal fund-raising, fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities.”
China stopped its crypto exchanges
In 2017, China shut down its local cryptocurrency exchanges.
Despite the war on crypto, Chinese mines power nearly 80 percent of the global trade in cryptocurrencies.
Man loses $1.6million, part three
The app demanded $1.5million from the victim and threatened to freeze his account if he didn’t pay.
“I go look on the FBI site and lo and behold, there’s this public alert about this type of scam,” he told the news outlet. “I’m 52, my entire life savings, gone in a matter of a month.”
The common scam, which involves meeting someone on a dating app, depositing money into a fake investment app (which is constantly changed, renamed or deleted) then losing it all, is called the “Pig Butchering Scam,” KMGH-TV detailed.
Man loses $1.6million, part two
The man said he successfully deposited funds into the account, including money from his retirement accounts.
He was reportedly able to withdraw cryptocurrency too, until he attempted to take out more.
A “customer service agent” with the app told him “you need to repay the loan before you can withdraw cash from your account,” KMGH-TV reported.
Man loses $1.6million in scam
A man says he lost his life savings in a scheme dubbed the “Pig Butchering Scam.”
The 52-year-old told Denver ABC affiliate KMGH-TV that he met a woman on a dating app who appeared to have similar interests to him.
The conversation turned to cryptocurrency, something he’d made about $70,000 on in a few years.
The man told the news outlet that the woman he fell for online convinced him to invest on a mobile and web app that seemed legitimate to the software engineer.
Record crypto investments, part two
The crypto industry blew up in 2021 with crypto exchanges, start-ups dealing with NFTs, and play-to-earn gaming all highlighted as factors by Fortune.
Increasing interest in the Metaverse also led to multi-million dollar investments.

Crypto investments top $30billion
Investors contributed a record $30billion to the cryptocurrency industry in 2021, according to Fortune.
The news outlet cited data from Bloomberg News that reportedly showed $7.2billion came from investors based in the United States.
The $30billion is almost four times the $8billion that investors spent with companies in the crypto industry in 2018, Fortune reported.
El Salvador adopts Bitcoin,…