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Come every Saturday, hodler digest Will help you keep track of every major news story happening this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulatory highlights, leading coins, predictions, and more – in one link on Cointelegraph for the week.
Top stories of the week
NFT-focused Animoca Brands valued at $5B after raising $358M
NFTs and virtual property-focused firm Animoca Brands secured $358 million in funding earlier this week at a $5 billion valuation.
The company said the new capital will be used to fund strategic acquisitions and investments, product development and intellectual property accumulation. The company has gone from strength to strength over the past 12 months, raising more than $216 million in 2021, while its valuation has more than doubled since its last funding round in October.
A key area of focus for Animoca is GameFi, which notes that research shows the video game industry will grow to around $829 billion by 2028. The company has also invested heavily in virtual properties and the Metaverse, with The Sandbox Metaverse being one of its main jewels.
Bitcoin plunges to six-month low near $38,000
Bitcoin’s price fell 7.5% in 12 hours, briefly hovering around $38,000 in the early hours of Friday (UTC). During the depth of the sell-off on Tuesday, the price of BTC fell below $35,000.
It is unclear what triggered the sharp drop in prices and whether it was purely crypto-related or a symptom of a larger trend across traditional financial markets. What is certain, however, is that while BTC and other assets are falling, crypto influencers will be flocking to Twitter, tackling their followers to ask if they have “bought the dip?” as they do every time the market sees a loss do that.
One potential reason for Bitcoin’s decline could be that bears are trying to push prices lower in order to reach their target before futures contracts expire. The InvesetAnswers Twitter account, which has more than 85,000 followers, said bears “need $41,000 or less in #Bitcoin to gain $132 million” by Friday.
OpenSea’s monthly ether volume exceeds $3.5B, setting new ATH
While the cryptocurrency market may have cooled in January, the NFT industry appears to be booming, with countless investors chasing tokenized collectibles and more.
Top NFT marketplace OpenSea hit an all-time high in monthly trading volume after topping $3.5 billion, reports Monday. At the time of writing, this figure is as high as $4.3 billion, which means that the average daily trading volume so far in January is about $204 million.
The surge in NFT volumes appears to be driven by price increases for several Yuga Labs projects, such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and Bored Ape Kennel Club.
A 22-year-old Indonesian made $1 million by selling NFT selfies on OpenSea
It was reported earlier this week that a dodgy 22-year-old college student from Indonesia made around $1 million by selling NFTs depicting the value of a five-year selfie.
Semarang computer science student Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali converted and sold nearly 1,000 selfie images as NFTs on OpenSea. According to Ghozali, he took pictures of himself for five years, either standing or sitting in front of a computer, as a way to look back on his graduation journey.
He set an initial price of $3 per NFT selfie, not anticipating serious buyer interest, but with the backing of prominent members of Crypto Twitter, the project quickly caught on.
Microsoft’s massive Metaverse move: buy Activision for $69B
Microsoft announced Tuesday that it will buy gaming giant Activision Blizzard for $95 a share, valuing it at $68.7 billion, in a deal expected to close in fiscal 2023.
Activision Blizzard has a slew of iconic franchises such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft. Activision games will be added to Microsoft’s Xbox and PC Game Pass services.
Microsoft noted that the acquisition will help the company provide “the cornerstone of Metaverse.” CEO and Chairman Satya Nadella explained:
“Games are the most dynamic and exciting category of entertainment on all platforms today, and will play a key role in the development of the Metaverse platform.”
winners and losers
During the Friday weekend, Bitcoin (bitcoin) lie in $38,651, ether (Ethereum) exist $2,807 and Ripple exist $0.68. The total market value is $1.80 trillion, according to to CoinMarketCap.
Among the largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top two altcoin winners this week are Perpetual Protocol (PERP) 3.62% and BitTorrent (BTT) was 2.04%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Harmony (one) -35.08%, Loopring (LRC) at -34.25% and Kadena (KDA) was -32.04%.
For more information on cryptocurrency prices, be sure to read Market Analysis by Cointelegraph.
most memorable quotes
“Most crypto-assets currently use distributed ledger technology (DLT), which may change as technology and industry evolve. Therefore, the government proposes to remove references to DLT from the definition of eligible crypto-assets.”
“After doing a lot of research on Bitcoin, I truly believe this is the future of money, man. Bitcoin is valuable, safe, and no one can mess with it.”
Francis Naganuu, UFC Heavyweight Champion
“Bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with the S&P 500 is currently at its highest level since October 2020.”
“I think Bitcoin is in a unique phase of transitioning from a risk-taking to a risk-averse global digital store of value, replacing gold and becoming global collateral. So, I think that’s going to happen this year.”
Mike McGlone, Bloomberg Senior Commodity Strategist
“To date, the DeFi space has been largely devoted to speculation. Users invest, borrow and trade crypto assets in a largely unregulated environment. The lack of controls such as know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering rules is likely to be An important factor in the growth of DeFi.”
Augustine CarstensGeneral Manager, Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
“Back in August 2020, we moved to the company’s balance sheet by Bitcoin standards, and since then, our initial investment has grown by over 300%. […] It really did the job of protecting us from inflation, and it worked as we expected. “
Ali Hammam, co-owner of the Tahini restaurant chain
“While most people tend to focus on high-profile ransomware attacks targeting large corporations and government agencies, cybercriminals are using less sophisticated types of malware to steal millions of cryptocurrency from individual holders. “
“We are not sellers. […] We just acquire and hold bitcoins, right? This is our strategy. “
Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy
“The reason regulators have to restrict advertising is probably because there is so much demand. Most of our users come from word of mouth anyway. […] So, I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact. “
Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO
Forecast this week
Countries adopt Bitcoin, crypto users reach 1B by 2023: report
After trading sideways for most of the week, Bitcoin’s price tumbled on Thursday and continued lower on Friday.BTC fell from $43,596 to $38,251 on Thursday, according to data Cointelegraph’s BTC Price Index, before hitting a fresh six-month low on Saturday. January has been largely a down and sideways month for Bitcoin’s price action, not unlike the month’s historical price performance.
However, a report reported this week by Cointelegraph sees the potential for further cryptocurrency adoption in 2022. A report produced by digital currency exchange Crypto.com shows that 2021 will see a significant increase in participants in the cryptocurrency industry. According to the company, there are 295 million cryptocurrency owners in 2022 by the end of 2021, up from 106 million in the first month of this year. Crypto.com believes that cryptocurrency ownership could exceed 1 billion this year.
“Countries can no longer ignore the growing public push for cryptocurrencies,” the report said.
FUD of the week
Crypto.com shares details on security breach: 483 accounts compromised
Crypto.com discloses details about its security breach, leading to Loss of approximately $33.8 million Digital asset value on Monday.The company initially stop withdrawal All customer two-factor authentication (2FA) tokens were revoked after “unauthorized activity on a small number of user accounts” was discovered on the platform.
Crypto.com said in a statement Thursday that 483 accounts were stolen, of which “4,836.26 ETH, 443.93 BTC and approximately $66,200 in other currencies” were stolen from customers.
The company said it has now implemented an additional layer of protection in which a new whitelisted withdrawal address must be registered within 24 hours of the first withdrawal. It is unclear whether the solution will appease users who have run out of funds.
Singapore Bans Crypto Service Providers From Advertising in Public Places
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Monday issued a new set of guidelines for digital payment token (DPT) providers, prohibiting them from marketing their services in public places such as public transport, social media platforms, and broadcast and print media.
MAS also warned the public about the high-risk nature of crypto assets, as it introduced new guidelines that apply to all registered crypto service providers, as well as service providers in transition. The guidelines state:
“MAS emphasizes that DPT service providers should act with the understanding that DPT transactions are not suitable for the public. These guidelines set out MAS’ expectations that DPT service providers should not advertise their DPT services to the public in Singapore.”
EU Securities Regulators Call for Ban on Proof-of-Work Crypto Mining
In a recent interview, Erik Thedéen, vice-president of the European Securities and Markets Authority, expressed concern about the increasing use of renewable energy in bitcoin mining.
Thedéen asserted that bitcoin mining had become a “national problem” and sounded the alarm that crypto could undermine climate change goals. He specializes in Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining, mainly for Bitcoin and some other forked altcoins.
He advocates proof-of-stake (PoS) as a better, more energy-efficient alternative, and some commentators believe he could become the secret ether bull awaiting the launch of Eth2 later this year. (As an update: Eth2 will transition the Ethereum network from PoW to PoS.)
“We need to discuss shifting the industry to more efficient technologies,” he said.
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