The pattern of crypto investors reallocating their portfolios has become increasingly common, especially as major coins show minimal gains. Recent market shifts have seen prominent holders shedding significant portions of their holdings in established cryptocurrencies like Solana, redirecting funds toward new and promising tokens. One such investor, managing an $11 million portfolio, has made headlines by selling off part of their assets as Solana faces a price dip, channeling the proceeds into the rising star, MoonTaurus (MNTR), a meme coin catching the attention of Shiba Inu enthusiasts.

Solana’s Struggles Amid Market Movements

Solana (SOL) has seen a significant dip in its value, recently dropping below $150 to trade at $144.78. Despite raising $12 million in a funding round led by Polychain Capital to enhance its restaking network, Solana’s price continues to face downward pressure. The price is now trading below its key 50-day and 200-day Simple Moving Averages (SMAs), reinforcing the bearish trend. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) also indicates that Solana is edging towards the oversold territory, a signal of intense selling pressure that could push prices lower.

As Solana struggles, investors are eyeing opportunities elsewhere, anticipating a forthcoming altseason where newer, high-potential coins like MoonTaurus (MNTR) could outperform.

Shiba Inu’s Mixed Signals

Meanwhile, Shiba Inu (SHIB), another major player in the meme coin market, is sending mixed signals to investors. After a modest 0.5% uptick, SHIB is poised on a precarious edge. The token recently saw a price increase from $0.00001 to $0.000014, a 30% rise, but technical indicators suggest a potential bearish reversal. The Average Directional Index (ADX) slope suggests that sellers still dominate, making a drop to the $0.00001 level a distinct possibility. However, growing on-chain activity and a falling wedge pattern hint at a possible breakout, which could see SHIB prices soaring if the bulls regain control.

Despite these uncertain prospects, some investors are looking beyond SHIB, driven by the allure of MoonTaurus (MNTR), which has shown remarkable growth and financial promise in its early stages.

MoonTaurus (MNTR): The New Investor Favorite

MoonTaurus (MNTR) has quickly emerged as a token of interest, particularly among investors who have historically backed meme coins like Shiba Inu. The token recently moved into the second phase of its presale, with the price surging by 100% to $0.01. This price jump reflects increasing investor demand, and with Phase 2 now 10% sold out, MoonTaurus has already raised over $400,000, building on the $300,000 secured during Phase 1.

What sets MoonTaurus apart from many other meme coins is its financial potential. Unlike coins facing inflationary pressures or oversized token supplies, MoonTaurus offers a more controlled and strategic approach, appealing to investors looking for substantial returns. Those who buy into the presale at the current price of $0.01 are positioned to gain a 700% profit at launch, with the token expected to hit $0.07. The fact that Phase 1 sold out so quickly underscores the market’s confidence in MoonTaurus, suggesting that the token could grow significantly once it officially launches.

As Solana’s price falters and Shiba Inu faces potential volatility, investors are increasingly turning to newer opportunities like MoonTaurus (MNTR). The shift in capital from established tokens to emerging ones signals a broader trend in the crypto market, where the search for higher returns drives investment decisions. MoonTaurus, with its impressive presale performance and strong investor backing, stands out as a potential leader in the meme coin market, giving Shiba Inu bulls something to watch closely. With Phase 2 already underway and predictions of significant post-launch gains, MoonTaurus offers a compelling opportunity for those looking to capitalize on the next big move in the crypto market.

Website: https://moontaurus.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/moontaurus

Ever since El Salvador turned the primary nation on the planet to make bitcoin authorized tender, there’s been no scarcity of critics and naysayers predicting a disastrous final result for the experiment.

But for a lot of aged residents of El Zonte – the beachside city that first satisfied president Nayib Bukele to go down the cryptocurrency rabbit gap – bitcoin has solely introduced smiles.

Native dentist Enrique Berrios has been waiving charges at his apply and touring to remoted, rural sufferers ever since he arrived within the city 17 years in the past. After crossing paths with the bitcoin group that arrange store in El Zonte, his good deeds have now received worldwide backing.

Cost processor BTCPay Server and on-line group Bitcoin Design have teamed up with Berrios to launch Bitcoin Smiles – a crypto crowdfunding initiative that started soliciting donations in August, initially setting a goal of 1BTC (at present value about $47,000).

That was the quantity deemed essential to offer free check-ups, dentures and significant take care of as much as 50 sufferers in want, the venture estimated.

In lower than 5 months, Bitcoin Smiles has blasted via its fundraising goal to achieve a complete of 1.88239BTC, as of 19:10 GMT on Friday, December 31, 2021. The bonus funds will assist Berrios afford the transportable tools he wants to achieve sufferers who can’t make the journey to his apply themselves.

“Not everybody within the surrounding rural space has the means or entry to transportation to make it to his workplace,” Bitcoin Smiles notes on its fundraising web site. “Many are too weak to make the journey. Generally Berrios must stroll up the mountains for hours to make home calls.”

Poor dental hygiene is broadly acknowledged to be a contributor to psychological sickness and low self-worth, notably amongst people who find themselves lacking most of their enamel – a actuality confronted by lots of the sufferers below Berrios’s care.

As properly affecting their psychological well-being, the situation could be so extreme that it impacts dietary well being by limiting dietary choices.

“Many of those households are of grandparents who’re caring for his or her grandchildren,” the web site explains. “It isn’t only a lack of entry to meals but in addition being unable to eat that makes their lives tougher. Unable to chew, they typically should swallow meals.

“They’ve few decisions to eat, typically resorting to a food regimen of softened tortillas.”

BTCPay Server developer and Bitcoin Smiles founder Pavlenex mentioned the initiative began off as a one-off venture however now “positively has potential to achieve a correct non-profit entity setup”.

For the time being, Bitcoin Smiles is documenting Berrios’s work in movies and pictures posted to its Twitter account. No matter you consider El Salvador’s experiment with bitcoin, the cryptocurrency is enhancing lives for dozens of impoverished and uncared for individuals in El Zonte.

Spending your cryptocurrency was as soon as a headache-inducing endeavour. Not solely did few retailers settle for bitcoin as a medium of alternate, however with out entry to the now ubiquitous fiat off-ramps, you needed to supply a purchaser prepared to alternate fiat for digital. That entailed a level of danger since peer-to-peer marketplaces that protected customers with an escrow system did not exist.

What a distinction a few years makes. Lately it’s simple to make use of bitcoin and ether to purchase items and providers on-line, within the metaverse, and within the meatspace, with fee gateways dealing with conversion on the level of sale. The spender authorizes the transaction whereas the processor converts their crypto into fiat in actual time, de-risking the transaction for retailers sceptical of accepting unstable digital currencies. Everybody’s a winner.

Debit Card Meets Digital Worth 

Of all of the infrastructure put in place for the reason that emergence of the digital asset sector, few have carried out as a lot to speed up mainstream adoption as crypto-friendly debit playing cards. Cost giants Visa and Mastercard have rolled out help for cryptocurrencies on their huge networks, giving customers entry to their crypto portfolios and the flexibility to shortly and cheaply convert them into conventional currencies for spending functions.

This isn’t a globally acceptable answer as many nations take a tough line stance in opposition to cryptocurrencies, with monetary legal guidelines in place that ban residents from shopping for, promoting and even holding them. A crypto-fiat card, handy as it might be, received’t be of a lot use in Algeria or Bolivia. However in nations the place Visa and Mastercard are accepted, your buy energy is assured.

Explaining its shifting angle in direction of the digital economic system earlier this 12 months, Mastercard wrote that it “isn’t right here to suggest you begin utilizing cryptocurrencies. However we’re right here to allow clients, retailers and companies to maneuver digital worth, conventional or crypto, nonetheless they need. It ought to be your alternative, it’s your cash.”

Mastercard’s rising crypto accomplice community now consists of pockets software Wirex, bitcoin fee service supplier BitPay, digital asset supervisor Bakkt, and FDIC-insured cell banking software LVL. Final week, the corporate introduced that it was additionally becoming a member of forces with 5 startups to “resolve international blockchain challenges” as a part of its Begin Path Crypto accelerator program.

In addition to LVL, the businesses collaborating in this system embrace smart-contract builder Ava Labs, AI-centric cell banking app Envel, peer-to-peer financial savings platform Kash, and crypto rewards platform NiftyKey. Three extra main cryptocurrency service suppliers within the Asia Pacific area, Amber, Bitkub and CoinJar, will quickly be launching crypto-funded Mastercard fee playing cards.

Visa has embraced digital property with an equal fervour, having teamed up with over 60 crypto platforms together with Circle, BlockFi, Coinbase, FTX and Anchorage. The agency even launched its personal International Crypto Advisory Follow final 12 months, pitched at monetary establishments eager to win or retain clients by increasing their providers to incorporate digital currencies, stablecoins, and NFTs.

A lot of Visa’s crypto enterprise has been performed in live performance with funds startup Simplex, which focuses on offering customers with on and off-ramp capabilities through each credit score and debit playing cards. Simplex was this 12 months acquired by Canadian funds processor Nuvei in a deal value $250 million, and Nuvei is in flip rolling out branded Visa playing cards to its companions all through Europe. There clearly are many alternative entities answerable for giving crypto extra buy energy.

By enabling tens of millions of customers world wide to spend digital property with a swipe of the cardboard or smartphone, two non-crypto native companies have struck a shocking blow to the hegemony of conventional monetary establishments relating to funds. The dominance of conventional gamers within the fee house has been waning for a while as modern types of digital fee have emerged. Sq.’s Money App boasts over 40 million month-to-month energetic customers and digital wallets like Venmo, Revolut, and Wirex have additionally constructed massive worldwide consumer bases.

Banks No Longer Cost Kings

Many different fee platforms proceed to permit customers to fund their accounts by means of connecting their financial institution accounts. Crypto-friendly debit playing cards, for instance, typically show a fiat stability and crypto stability with account-holders capable of shift funds accordingly and spend both fiat or crypto on the level of sale. Sooner or later banks could possibly be frozen out altogether. Stablecoins, a digital asset whose worth is pegged 1:1 with the US greenback are actually being supported on playing cards. 

Like different cryptocurrencies, stablecoins will be spent like money anyplace Visa and Mastercard is accepted with playing cards such because the one provided by crypto platform Voyager Digital, which helps the USDC stablecoin. If many crypto customers are solely interacting with the legacy fiat system due to its supposed stability, they might flip their banks on fiat totally through the use of property like USDC and USDT as a type of proxy fiat.

There may be one other good thing about stabelcoins as cryptoassets like bitcoin typically include a capital acquire tax burden, when transformed into money and spent. Stablecoins are higher suited to being a medium of alternate.

The debit playing cards provided by main crypto-native platforms akin to Coinbase and Crypto.com, all in partnership with Visa, permit customers to spend their buying and selling earnings (together with these made out of promoting NFTs) and earn perks akin to cashback to encourage loyalty. Crypto.com’s rewards additionally embrace free Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime and limitless airport lounge entry, with help for round 90 digital property.

Visa’s varied trade partnerships meant that over $1 billion was spent on their crypto-friendly playing cards within the first half of 2021 alone. Whereas that could be a drop within the ocean to an organization whose fee quantity totalled $8.8 trillion final 12 months, the quantity is barely going up.

“One factor that continues to place folks off getting into the house is the perceived issue of spending cryptocurrencies,” notes Shahaf Bar-Geffen, the CEO of fintech platform COTI, “Banks are gradual to undertake which causes points, so a debit card that’s related on to your crypto pockets, and accepted virtually anyplace, might be one of many best options to an important adoption drawback.”

Not like many crypto platforms, COTI is constructed particularly for funds. Its flagship COTI Pay product can course of all fee sorts natively, each on-line and off, together with crypto and stablecoins, bank cards, and even a service provider’s native coin. That stated, it too has partnered with Simplex (and by extension, Visa) for its debit playing cards.

It’s honest to say that crypto-friendly debit playing cards can provide higher performance than their fiat equivalents, which for essentially the most half function solely as fee playing cards. In addition to cashback, they typically include referral bonuses, rebates on totally different providers and even in some circumstances, traces of credit score. The latter function is obtainable by pockets maker Ledger’s new Crypto Life card, which permits holders to acquire credit score through the use of cryptocurrency as collateral. Whereas such a factor is widespread within the burgeoning decentralized finance house, it’s the primary time such infrastructure has been obtainable through a card.

The aptly named Crypto Life card can be obtainable to clients within the U.Ok., France and Germany within the first quarter of 2022, and for US clients within the second quarter, with Ledger Chief Expertise Officer Ian Rogers stating that it represents “a step towards changing conventional financial institution accounts.”

The hole between conventional finance and crypto is closing, and this will solely be a very good factor for customers seeking to get extra bang for his or her bitcoin. The crypto debit card panorama is already crowded with opponents, count on the perks to get juicier and the variety of supported digital property to extend within the coming 12 months.

As loopy as 2021 has been, in all probability the very last thing that anybody anticipated was to stroll right into a fast-food joint and stroll out with some further cryptocurrency. Restaurant Manufacturers Worldwide‘s (NYSE:QSR) Burger King has to have one among this month’s wildest promotions with its Burger King with a Aspect of Crypto marketing campaign. 

The nation’s second-largest burger chain has teamed up with Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) to present away greater than 2 million crypto tokens. When a member of Burger King’s free loyalty rewards program, Royal Perks, locations an order of a minimum of $5 on the chain, they may obtain an electronic mail containing a code for a free coin to be redeemed on the Robinhood buying and selling app. However in case you’re hungry for a shot at free crypto, you may have to hurry. The promo ends Sunday. As soon as it is over, recipients could have 4 extra weeks to assert their tokens on Robinhood.

It is a Double Whopper   

The excellent news is that Burger King actually is making a gift of greater than 2 million full cryptocurrency tokens. Folks aren’t going to get fractions of a Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH), or Dogecoin (CRYPTO:DOGE) token after shopping for that combo meal.

The dangerous information is that the percentages of that free crypto being something aside from a dogecoin are 1 in 9,091. And every member of the Royal Perks program is restricted to at least one entry per day. The breakdown of the giveaway is as follows:

• 20 bitcoins
• 200 ethereums
• 2,000,000 dogecoins

Clearly, the breakdown was going to favor Dogecoin — these tokens are altering palms for a couple of quarter apiece as of late — and never Bitcoin, which is teetering round $60,000, or Ethereum which goes for about $4,200. It is nonetheless an attention-grabbing promotion, although, and genuinely a win-win-win proposition.

We have lined what Burger King regulars get. They’re getting what is probably going a free dogecoin to go along with a meal that they have been in all probability going to purchase anyway. And Royal Perks members already rating offers on the app, in order that they’re getting that free crypto token on prime of what is in all probability already a reduced meal.

Burger King father or mother Restaurant Manufacturers Worldwide can also be a transparent winner right here. It should lure in scads of crypto-seeking clients. And Burger King’s scoring loads of free publicity from this intelligent marketing campaign — I can guarantee you this is not the primary article overlaying the promotion. 

Lastly, there’s Robinhood — presumably the largest winner right here. Even when it’s the one footing the invoice for the prizes — and it isn’t fairly clear which of the 2 firms is paying for the “facet of crypto” — the buying and selling platform will get an inflow of latest clients visiting it at a pivotal time. Robinhood is now a damaged IPO within the wake of the share worth slide it took after it posted disappointing quarterly outcomes three weeks in the past. It has seen a dramatic quarter-over-quarter drop in buying and selling and actively funded accounts. If this promo attracts new customers to register for the free tokens, or woos some former customers again into buying and selling extra actively, it is a good tactic in its wider efforts to regain relevance as a cryptocurrency platform. 

With Robinhood able to step up its recreation by increasing into crypto wallets and different monetary merchandise, it may use an infusion of latest accounts — and those this promotion produces will seemingly be cheaper to amass than these derived from its extra standard promoting and referral leads. The Burger King crypto promo ends this weekend — however for the companies behind it, the true recreation continues.