Bitcoin Surged to $21K Over the Weekend While ETH Hit 10-Week High
Bitcoin bounced over $20,000 for the first time in two months this weekend. In fact, it went on to jump the $21,000 hurdle as the entire crypto market flew over the $1 trillion mark again. Former Securities and Exchange Commission official John Reed Stark says it was due to market manipulation. He’s not wrong. After all, the surge led to $500 million in liquidations, the highest since October. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) seized the moment to troll Jim Cramer on Twitter, who had previously warned investors to take their money out of bitcoin. In other news, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty hit another all-time high. The sudden rise in the market looks like a quick pump to boost some investors’ earnings at the beginning of the year. It could have been a test to see if certain whales can trust pushing the market higher and could spell a coming bull market in the near future.
ETH hit a 10-week high. Ethereum bulls are turning to liquid-stake derivatives (LSD). Polygon replaces Ethereum as one of the top three most polluting cryptocurrencies. Congratulations Polygon!
Coinbase considers exiting Japan.
Binance has been officially recognized as a financial institution in Sweden. That makes 7 EU member states that recognize the company. The crypto exchange assisted Huobi in recovering $3 million in the Harmony attack.
Ripple’s executives make their 2023 predictions for crypto. One popular journalist says XRP fanboys’ hatred of ETH is absurd.
Tether settlement volume for 2022 exceeds Mastercard’s and Visa’s.
The secret history of the Bahamas as a U.S. tax haven, or what Sam Bankman-Fried has in common with drug cartels, Atlantis, and the smuggling pirates of the slave trade. This is easily the best damn read of the day (I’m not joking).
SOL, aka “Sam Coin,” has seen quite a comeback since FTX’s fall. Just because FTX held Solana doesn’t mean that SOL is doomed. It has a market outside of FTX, and always has. FTX token trading surges 52 percent. Who’s buying this? Are they on drugs, or just deranged?
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is partnering with Avalanche on blockchain solutions. This is a competitive play against Google’s partnership with Coinbase. I suspect the Google-Coinbase partnership will have a bigger impact, however, than the AWS-Avalanche partnership.
The New York Times feels threatened by CoinDesk and is now going after its rival with two fists clenched. This is absolute fluff. The implication is that, because CoinDesk’s sister company Genesis is in trouble, then that spells shenanigans for CoinDesk. Unless there’s proof that CoinDesk is light on Genesis because it happens to be owned by the same company, then no one should assume it’s true. Meanwhile, TRON founder Justin Sun is postured to spend $1 billion on Digital Currency Group assets.
NFT sales dropped 59 percent in the second week of 2023.
The U.S. House of Representatives has formed a cryptocurrency committee. Is there anyone who didn’t think this would happen? This is a clear sign that regulation is on the way, probably in this legislative session. That is one of my big three predictions for this year. In a nutshell:
The end of the SEC-Ripple case where Ripple comes out smelling like a rose
Regulation in the U.S. that will target, at the very least, crypto lenders, exchanges, and stablecoins
The market will begin to tick upward near the end of the year
You heard it here first.
YugaLabs set to launch a skill-based NFT game.
Market maker Group One owns 13.5 percent of MicroStrategy.
Nexo wants to sue Bulgaria over office raids.
Shark Tank personality Mark Cuban will be deposed in Voyager lawsuit.
3 things any company can do to integrate NFTs.
NFT God, a crypto influencer, lost thousands in a malware attack at the hands of a Google ad.
What’s holding Web3 back from prime time? Venture Beat can always be counted on for a good article on Web3.
How to prevent intellectual property (IP) rights infringement in the metaverse. It is very difficult to “prevent” IP theft. However, the law allows for remedies when it occurs. Creators must be vigilant to protect their intellectual property, in the metaverse and the real world.
Emerging crypto themes in 2023, according to Livemint.
Central banks should not push ahead with central bank digital currencies (CBDC). Maybe they should.
How Web3 social will take shape this year. A collection of quotes from industry insiders.
Nobody’s interested in buying the ugly crypto house. I guess there isn’t a market for everything.
Innovations that increase convenience—like the metaverse—will become king. Geared toward the hospitality industry and focused on seeing through the hype of Web3.
Mendocino Clone Company to use blockchain technology for tracking medicinal weed.
The People’s Bank of China now reports on the digital yuan.
El Salvador passed a law to pave the way for bitcoin bonds. Whether bitcoin can pull El Salvador’s economy out of the dumps remains to be seen, but the country is on the cutting edge of the future of money.
Snark and commentary are in italics. Inclusion of an item doesn’t mean I agree or endorse the ideas presented. Of course, it also doesn’t mean I don’t.
Cryptocracy is a decentralized newsletter published several times a week. I curate the latest news and crypto analysis from some of the brightest minds in crypto, and sometimes offer a little insightful and snarky commentary. Always fresh, always interesting, and always crypto. Original articles on Fridays.
First published at Cryptocracy. Not to be construed as financial advice. Do your own research.
Image credit: Foreign Policy
