Another week is behind us, and here’s a summary of what happened. With the markets down and CT looking for jobs in the fast-food industry, McDonald’s happily trolled crypto twitter. Major cryptoassets, BTC and ETH included, continued to fall for a while as market participants braced for a Fed meeting, and they dropped along with stocks as the Fed confirmed tapering. But they all went up as traders started digesting the Fed statement. Before dropping again soon after, and then moving up once more. Then fantom soared as its daily transaction count briefly exceeded Ethereum’s. XRP went up with the market as Ripple announced a buyout, while ‘romantically involved’ USD 3.8m XRP thieves were sent to prison for 7 years. Ethereum.org shifted from using ‘ETH 1’ and ‘ETH 2’ to ‘execution layer’ and ‘consensus layer’ instead, Genesi DAC which is led by Vitalik Buterin’s mother Natalia Ameline picked Tristan Metaverse as its first investment, and Etherscan launched a “wallet-to-wallet” instant messaging service Blockscan Chat. Michael Saylor said that BTC is the digital property and ETH digital security. Solana experienced high network congestion once again due to bots spamming the network, and reports came out that OpenSea was under attack, but the platform denied that they experienced an exploit or a bug. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s son threatened the TrumpCoin founders with legal recourse.
Meta unveiled its plans to build a powerful AI supercomputer that will be used for metaverse building, Coinbase showed a preview of its NFT platform, while Reddit started testing NFT profile pics, and Buterin discussed non-transferable NFTs. Meanwhile, the Diem Association was reportedly attempting to sell its assets to return capital to its investors, and Silvergate may be aiming to buy it. KuCoin expanded its euro operations by integrating the SEPA support, FTX US raised USD 400m which brought its valuation to USD 8bn, and Uniswap’s Hayden Adams said JPMorgan Chase closed his banking accounts with “no notice or explanation”. Another headache came for crypto miners as three Central Asian countries were hit by a power blackout, while analysts see slower Bitcoin hashrate growth in 2022 amid the market correction.
The manifestos of South Korea’s main presidential candidates have been released as NFTs and Statistics Korea made a crypto move. Vladimir Putin talked up the country’s crypto capabilities as tensions on the Ukrainian border heighten, a top Russian MP urged the country to ban crypto but legalize mining and issue a gold-backed stablecoin, and more top MPs dismissed the central bank’s calls for a crypto ban. Romania and Latvia are thinking about changes to crypto regulations and taxes, an Indonesian regulator reminded market participants that financial services companies are not allowed to offer and facilitate sales of cryptoassets, Chinese government-run firms and local governments started to explore metaverse-related innovations, the IMF warned El Salvador to water down its BTC law – but the cryptoverse laughed it off, the IRS said it’s up against mountains of crypto and NFT frauds, and the US community was on alert as a draft law threatened to give the Treasury sweeping powers over crypto. Let’s laugh at some jokes now!
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Morning, CT! How did your week start?
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Taking things well, it seems.
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All good now? Got a plan?
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Crypto discount time.
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It’s a balancing act.
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Spooky stories.
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Who wants to be a former millionaire?
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Precise.
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Bukeleling.
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No fighting, guys! We’re all the same to burgers.
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Provided without comment.
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7th time’s a charm.
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IMHO IMF NGMI.
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Yeah, but the second one has slides.
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An expert analysis.
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A hedge is a hedge. Right? Guys?
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“Oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no!”
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Let’s check on the stockers learning to be saters.
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Here’s a nonromantic thriller for you.
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And a documentary on the crypto market events this January.
