Long-term accumulation and the increasing popularity of DeFi yield protocols is siphoning Bitcoin away from centralized exchanges. Data from on-chain crypto information aggregator Glassnode indicates the number of Bitcoin held on centralized exchanges has fallen by roughly 20% in 12 months.The data suggests investors are accumulating BTC and withdrawing them from exchanges into cold storage, creating a supply crunch. #Bitcoin Balance on Exchanges taking another dive pic.twitter.com/F20tohfXsu— William Clemente III (@WClementeIII) March 7, 2021 On March 6, Glassnode also shared data revealing that coins purchased during 2021 were not moved at a loss during the late February dip, according to on-chain analysis.The firm’s “Hodlwaves” metric, which measures the time since coins were last moved on-chain, also points to increasing accumulation activity.  Hodlwaves data published on Feb. 22 indicated 57% of Bitcoin’s supply has not moved in more than one year. However, more than one-third of said BTC have not moved in more than five years, suggesting that a significant portion of the coins may have been lost.The increasing popularity of decentralized exchanges and DeFi yield protocols may also be driving the diminishing supply of BTC on centralized exchanges. Evidencing strong demand for Bitcoin in the DeFi ecosystem, the total value locked, or TVL, of BTC tokenization protocol Wrapped Bitcoin has increased by more than $1 billion since the start of March, according to DeFi Llama.Wrapped Bitcoin TVL: DeFi Llama

The world’s top mixed martial arts promotion has announced a partnership with Latin American crypto-only casino, Stake.com. Ultimate Fighting Championship, the world’s leading mixed martial arts, or MMA, organization, has announced an exclusive partnership with Stake.com — a leading crypto-powered online casinos and sportsbook.The partnership announced on March 7, will see Stake become UFC’s “First Official Betting Partner” in Asia and Latin America. However, the deal will exclude UFC’s key market in Brazil. The two firms began working together on March 3  — with Stake's customers receiving access to unique digital content surrounding the promotional “fight week” for UFC’s March 6 pay-per-view. An announcement states the company's will also developer exclusive promotions, VIP experiences, and social content for Stake users.UFC’s vice president of global partnerships, Nick Smith said: “We’re thrilled to partner with an exciting and emerging platform like Stake.com to offer exclusive digital and social content to our fans, as well as an innovative gaming experience,”Stake is a crypto-only casino and sports betting platform that is licensed in the carribean island-nation of Curacao. Since launching in 2017, the platform claims to have turned over $35 billion worth of bets. Stake supports nine crypto assets including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Tron, and EOS, and Dogecoin.In January, Stake announced it had partnered with UFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, who became the company’s first brand ambassador.Stake is proud to announce that UFC Middleweight champion @stylebender Israel Adesanya is our new #StakeBrandAmbassador! pic.twitter.com/xNbm3Gd0c1— Stake.com (@Stake) January 20, 2021 The partnership with Stake is not UFC’s first venture into DLT, with Cointelegraph reporting the MMA promotion had inked a deal with Dapper Labs, the company behind CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot, in February 2020. The deal will see UFC fighter collectibles launched on Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain. However, the collectibles are yet to be released.

Uniswap’s governance token has become the first DeFi token to rank among the ten-largest crypto assets by capitalization. The native token of leading decentralized exchange Uniswap has surged by nearly 50% this week, ranking UNI as the eighth-largest crypto asset with a $17.7 billion market cap as speculation builds for the exchange’s coming V3 overhaul.Messari currently ranks UNI as the -second-largest Ethereum-based asset by market cap behind Tether, beating out the Chainlink by nearly 50% of its capitalization.UNI broke into the top 10 on March 5, becoming the first native token of a DeFi DApp to hold the distinction. In 24 hours, UNI’s capitalization increased from $8.8 billion on March 4 to $14.7 billion, according to CoinMarketCap’s historic snapshots.The price of UNI is currently consolidating near yesterday’s all-time high above $34, with the token last trading hands for $33.9.UNI/USDT on Binance: TradingViewUniswap’s initial token distribution saw UNI tokens airdropped proportionally to liquidity providers, in addition to 400 tokens being sent to every wallet that interacted with the DEX as of September 2020. As of this writing, 400 UNI are worth $13.560.UNI’s entrance into crypto’s top 10 follows a record month for trade volume on the exchange, with February hosting four consecutive records for weekly Uniswap trade — culminating in a monthly all-time high of $31.9 billion in volume. However, Uniswap’s streak of weekly volume records appears to have come to an end, with seven-day volume currently sitting at $6.4 billion — down 25% when compared to last week’s $8.6 billion. Despite the volume retracement, Uniswap still represents half of all trade on Ethereum-powered DEXes. UNI’s surge also comes amid increasing speculation that Uniswap’s V3 upgrade may not be too far away, with Yearn Finance developer Andre Cronje speculating on March 4 that a recent increase in social media activity from Uniswap lead developer, Hayden Adams, could suggest the new version is coming soon:When founders/core contributors start posting more actively on Twitter, it normally means they finished a milestone and are waiting for the release, this is the "limbo time" where they don't want to start something new yet. I've noticed @haydenzadams post frequency increase — Andre Cronje (@AndreCronjeTech) March 4, 2021 Cronje’s post came after Adams had created a Twitter poll asking his followers where they will be looking to read announcements regarding “Uniswap v3 details.” Replying to Cronje’s tweet, Adams posted: “pls delete,” further raising suspicions Uniswap may have a significant announcement on the horizon.

A tokenized version of a destroyed Banksy painting sold for nearly $400,000 on NFT marketplace OpenSea. A non-fungible token, or NFT, depicting an incinerated painting created by renowned British street artist, Banksy, has sold for nearly $400,000.On March 8, the token was sold on NFT marketplace OpenSea for 228.69 Ether — worth roughly $382,000 at the time of writing. The sale followed three days of bidding, with approximately 70 bidders pushing the price up from a starting price of 0.00001 ETH.The NFT of the Banksy piece is now worth 6 figures. Less than four hours remain until the auction ends https://t.co/1k8EXyUOEZ— Burnt Banksy (@BurntBanksy) March 7, 2021 The NFT was created by “Burnt Banksy," a group of crypto investors who purchased Banky’s painting “Morons” for roughly $100,000 in February. Morons is a painting satirizing the art industry that depicts a bustling auction for a framed canvas donned with capitalized words reading: “I can’t believe you morons buy this shit.” On March 4, the artwork’s owners incinerated the painting on a Twitter live stream at an unknown location in Brooklyn, New York.The Morons NFT was sold to ‘Galaxy,’ an OpenSea user who currently has four NFTs on display, including a satirical piece depicting renowned artist Frida Kahlo as Kim Kardashian in her infamous ‘internet-breaking’ photoshoot from 2014.While the token is the first NFT to represent a verified Banksy painting that has been incinerated, it is not the first to depict an artwork that was destroyed after being tokenized. In August 2020, former ‘That 70’s Show’ star Ashton Kutcher created a tokenized representation of a notepad scribble depicting a dozen pairs of eyes, a star, and his signature. The NFT was put up for charity auction on Cryptograph marketplace.In February, the investor who purchased an NFT created by celebrity Lindsay Lohan then proceeded to burn it — sending the token to a verifiably un-spendable wallet address so that nobody can own or trade the token in the future. The decision was commended by the popular crypto commentator, DeFi Dude:What a chad.Bought Lindsay Lohan's NFT then burned it. The best part is Lindsay probably has no idea what that even means. https://t.co/395hdAvoud— DeFi Dude ⟠ (dude.eth) (@defidude) February 13, 2021

"If we sell another 6,556,000,000 DOGE worth of Mavs merch, Dogecoin will definitely hit $1," said the Dallas Mavericks owner. After only three days accepting Dogecoin (DOGE) as a form of payment, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is predicting the price of the token will eventually hit $1. In a Saturday tweet, Cuban said customers had used more than 20,000 Dogecoin — roughly $1,018 at the time of publication — in transactions for the Dallas Mavericks, claiming the franchise was now “the largest Dogecoin merchant in the world." The billionaire predicted that if basketball fans were to purchase 6,556,000,000 DOGE worth of Mavericks merchandise, the price of the token would “definitely hit $1.”The @dallasmavs have done more than 20,000 #Dogecoin in transactions, making us the LARGEST #DOGECOIN MERCHANT IN THE WORLD ! We thank all of you and can only say that if we sell another 6,556,000,000 #DOGECOIN worth of Mavs merch, #dogecoin will DEFINITELY HIT $1 !!!— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 6, 2021 The Mavericks were one of the first NBA franchises to recognize crypto as a form of payment for tickets and merchandise, having started accepting Bitcoin (BTC) through wallet company BitPay two years ago. Mavericks fans can also pay for gear and souvenirs with Bitcoin Cash (BCH), USD Coin (USDC), Gemini dollar (GUSD), Paxos Standard (PAX) and Binance USD (BUSD).Despite being created as a joke, DOGE has surged in the last few months as billionaires including Cuban and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have mentioned the token on social media. Musk’s tweets have likely contributed to the price of the token rising from $0.01 in January to an all-time high of $0.078. At the time of publication, the DOGE price is $0.0509, meaning the token would need to surge 1,864% to reach $1.The Dallas Mavericks owner previously described DOGE as an "economics teaching tool," saying the token was the "best entertainment bang for your buck available" on the crypto market. Even with the surge in DOGE payments for the basketball franchise, Cuban said he was still "having fun" and hasn't changed his opinions about the token.