- Bitcoin Dominates but Altcoins Lurk
Bitcoin wasn’t going anywhere fast late Tuesday.
The largest cryptocurrency was up slightly but still trading below $30,000 and about midway in the two thousand dollar range that it’s occupied for almost two weeks since the crash of the UST stablecoin. Other major cryptos also rallied late to hit green, albeit not by much, as investors gripped tightly to their risk-averse bearishness.
Near the time of publication, bitcoin was trading at about $29,700, a 2% gain. Ether, the second largest crypto by market cap, was recently up less than a percentage point, while XRP, SOL and the meme coin SHIB each rose over 1%. Bitcoin’s price has dropped for eight consecutive weeks.
“Bitcoin is in the danger zone as sentiment for risky assets have fallen off a cliff,” Oanda Senior Market Analyst The Americas Edward Moya wrote.
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2022/05/24/first-mover-asia-bitcoin-dominates-but-altcoins-lurk/
- Bank of England’s Andrew Bailey Warns Bitcoin Has No Intrinsic Value, Not a Practical Means of Payment
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey warned about bitcoin and cryptocurrency on the Jobs of the Future podcast, published Monday.
His warning came after the crypto market plunged, shedding close to $500 billion this month. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, has fallen more than 25% over the past 30 days.
While admitting that blockchain, the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies, is important, Bailey is unconvinced about bitcoin as a means of payment. He added that Britain’s central bank is looking at its own digital currency.
He continued:
In terms of payments, I don’t think it will be crypto in the a sort of bitcoin sense of the term. I don’t think that is really a practical means of payment.
The central bank governor opined: “What I think is to be determined is, if we are much more likely to be living in a world of digital currency than old fashioned sort of payment methods, precisely what form of digital currency, digital use, becomes the one that becomes the accepted norm.”
- Coinbase Becomes First Bitcoin Company Among Fortune 500
Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, has become the first crypto-focused company to be included in the Fortune 500.
The exchange pulled in $7.8 billion in revenue for the 2021 fiscal year, ranking 437th on the list, which was announced on Monday. But when ranked by revenue growth, Coinbase, at nearly 514%, trailed only Moderna (almost 2,200%) among top 500 firms. The bulk of Coinbase’s revenue is from trading fees.
Both Coinbase and Moderna were among the companies that “thrived under the freakish circumstances of COVID,” noted Fortune’s editor in chief, Alyson Shontell.
Coinbase also capitalized on the rising popularity of cryptocurrencies. Before the total crypto market cap peaked above $3 trillion in November, Coinbase marketed itself everywhere from the NBA to the world of esports as a go-to destination for investing in digital assets.
https://decrypt.co/101264/coinbase-first-bitcoin-company-fortune-500
- Bitcoin Records Eighth Week of Losses, but Sentiment Indicator Suggests Upside
Bitcoin delivered its eighth straight week of losses for investors for the first time in its history amid weak macroeconomic sentiment, inflation concerns, systemic risk from within the crypto industry, and the lack of immediate catalysts that could drive upside growth.
Prices were at $30,272 late Sunday, after falling as low as $28,700 earlier in the week. Bitcoin last saw a positive week of gains in mid-March as prices jumped from $41,000 to $46,000. It has slid every week since then, falling nearly 60% from November highs of just over $69,000.
Bitcoin has been weighed down by rate hikes in the U.S. and global inflation concerns, and has traded similar to a risky technology stock in the past few months.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7118174
- Brazil’s Largest Crypto Exchange Partners With Stellar To Work on a CBDC
On May 24, Mercado Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency and digital asset platform in Latin America, announced its partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) to participate in the development of Brazil’s CBDC.
According to an official post share by the Stellar Foundation, Mercado Bitcoin will work on one of the nine projects promoted by the Laboratory of Financial and Technological Innovations of Brazil (LIFT), created to develop a “minimum viable product (MVP)” for a CBDC that meets the goals of the Brazilian government.
A “Minimum Viable Product” is this case would be a CBDC solution functional enough to be satisfy the mimium requirements set by the Central Bank of Brazil, basically providing the best possbile product with the least possible effort.
The project was supported by the Central Bank of Brazil (BC) and the National Federation of Central Bank Servers Associations (Fenasbac). In addition, all projects will focus on different use cases for the upcoming CBDC to be issued by the Central Bank of Brazil.
https://cryptopotato.com/brazils-largest-crypto-exchange-partners-with-stellar-to-work-on-a-cbdc/
- US Senators Lummis and Gillibrand Set to Propose Crypto Oversight Bill Next Month
One of the highest-profile efforts to create a cryptocurrency law in Washington, D.C., would finally differentiate the roles of the two key U.S. market watchdogs as well as free crypto miners from being considered broker-dealers, according to the two U.S. senators pushing the bill.
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who are both speaking at Consensus 2022 in June, have been at work for months on the bipartisan legislation, which they said they expect to make public in June – an unveiling that has slipped later and later over recent months. The two were speaking on a panel together on Tuesday at the DC Blockchain Summit.
“We are truly committed to creating the type of baseline and framework legislation that will allow this industry to grow, allow it to flourish,” said Gillibrand. “The best thing we can do for all these businesses is to bring clarity.”
- LUNA Investor Arrested for Knocking on Do Kwon’s Door After Losing $2.4 Million in Terra Crash
The collapse of cryptocurrency terra (LUNA) and stablecoin terrausd (UST) has wiped out a large number of investors. One investor in particular sought direct answers from Kwon Do-hyung (aka Do Kwon), CEO of Terraform Labs who is behind the two cryptocurrencies.
The investor, known as “Chancers,” is a Korean social media personality who conducts streams on cryptocurrency-related topics. He lost around 3 billion won ($2.4 million) in the LUNA and UST collapse. He told BBC News:
I felt like I was going to die. I lost a lot of money in a short period of time. Around $2.4m of my cryptocurrency was wiped out.
He explained that he was angry with the lack of communication from Do Kwon after LUNA and UST went into freefall. He then searched online and found Kwon’s home address in Seoul.
“I wanted to ask him about his plans for LUNA,” Chancers said. “I suffered a huge loss and wanted to talk to him directly.”
The frustrated investor traveled across his home city and knocked on Kwon’s door on May 12. He streamed the event on his online channel; about 100 people were watching at the time.
- Brave Adds Solana Support and Ramp Wallet Functionality in Latest Browser Update
The Brave privacy web browser is continuing its push into Web3.
The 1.39 desktop release now includes support for the Solana blockchain and its SOL and SPL tokens, the company announced today after first sharing its Solana plans back in November. (SPL tokens are similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens.)
In the new browser version, the Brave Wallet can be used to buy, sell, and hold SOL and SPL tokens through the non-custodial payment platform Ramp. Ramp allows users to buy crypto directly from their Brave Wallet instead of having to purchase crypto on an exchange like Coinbase or Binance and then transfer it to a wallet.
“With the Ramp integration, Brave users will be able to spend more time doing what they love and less time on what was a painful process of converting their fiat currencies to crypto,” Ramp’s head of marketing, Greg McEwan, said in the announcement.
- Ray Dalio: Blockchain Is Great, but Let’s Call It Digital Gold
Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, spoke at The World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting about the current state of the economy, the Federal Reserve, cash, and cryptocurrencies.
Ray Dalio Speaks About Cryptocurrencies
Dalio previously commented about the future of money in February, predicting that cryptocurrency will be “outlawed, probably by different governments.”
Dalio spoke about the future of money and the Federal Reserve’s next monetary policies once more. The hedge fund manager feels the Fed has no choice but to sell. “The Federal Reserve will sell, individuals will sell, foreigners will sell, and the United States government will sell because it needs to fund its deficit,” according to an excerpt from Dalio’s interview. “There will be a supply/demand problem, which will result in a squeeze,” he continued.
At the WEF event, the founder of Bridgewater Associates stated that cash is currently trash. “Of course, cash is still trash,” Dalio told a reporter from CNBC. The hedge fund executive inquired, “Do you know how quickly you’re losing buying power in cash?” Dalio went on to explain what he meant when he said cash is trash.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/top/7118540
- After Adopting Bitcoin, Central African Republic Set to Build a Crypto Hub
A month after adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, the Central African Republic (CAR) announced its first-ever crypto initiative – the Sango Project – designed to attract business and enthusiasts, take the Bitcoin legacy to the next level, and establish a so-called crypto island Sango with the Metaverse-related elements.
An Initiative Set to Attract Investors Worldwide
CAR’s President Faustin-Archange Touadéra tweeted that the new initiative – aiming to turn the country into a crypto hub – carries the potential to reshape its financial system. The president did not provide details regarding when the hub would be made available to investors and how its Bitcoin agenda would be carried out. However, he had reportedly expressed an urgency to launch such a project:
“The formal economy is no longer an option. An impenetrable bureaucracy is keeping us stuck in systems that do not give a chance to be competitive.”
According to the presentation published by the government, the Sango project involves creating a Digital Nation Bank and developing a crypto wallet compatible with layer-two implementations such as the Lightning Network and able to put in use for businesses to accept such payments.
https://cryptopotato.com/after-adopting-bitcoin-central-african-republic-set-to-build-a-crypto-hub/
