Layer 1 Avalanche’s AVAX rallied 15% on Thursday following the protocol’s network update called “Banff 8” that went live. AVAX also witnessed a strong uptick over January, posting gains of 80%. The token was trading at around $22 at the time of writing. The protocol has also seen a number of announcements this week with IntainMarkets, a platform for trading tokenized asset-backed securities building as an Avalanche subnet and decentralized exchange, Dexalot, also launching as a subnet.

AVAX 24-hour price chart (CoinDesk)

Bankruptcy-focused investment firm Cherokee Acquisitions has started offering what it calls “put options” to crypto investors to protect their funds from potential bankruptcy of major exchanges like Binance, Coinbase and Kraken, CoinDesk learned Wednesday from the company. The put options will protect account holders’ deposits on the above listed exchanges, paying back 100% of the assets in the account if the exchange files for bankruptcy protection within the contract period.

Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis is cutting headcount as it reorganizes to adjust to challenges in the crypto market. The New York-based firm, which specializes in analyzing and tracking crypto transactions for risk-management purposes, said the reorganization will primarily affect its "go-to-market" team. The cuts will affect less than 5% of Chainalysis' staff, the company said. The firm said it employs over 900 people, meaning the cuts would amount to 40-50 jobs.

Bitcoin (BTC) and Wall Street's benchmark equity index, the S&P 500, are on the verge of hitting an easy-to-track bullish technical signal, the golden cross, that often makes traders giddy with delight.

A golden cross occurs when the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) of the security's price moves above its 200-day SMA, producing a cross on the price chart. Because moving averages are backward-looking indicators, the signal tells us only that the market's short-term gains have surpassed its long-term gains. Still, chart analysts and traders see it as a harbinger of higher prices over the long run.

"The winds of change have started to blow with the increasing likelihood of bullish golden crosses in the near future," analysts at Valkyrie recently noted in a newsletter, referring to the impending crossover on the daily bitcoin and S&P 500 charts.

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– Omkar Godbole

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