Bitcoin Price: US$ 37,308.94 (-4.51%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,460.67(-5.97%)
NFT Winter, BTC Decoupling, & Crypto Raiders
- NFTs saw an impressive gain in volume and Google search interest at the end of December through early February. OpenSea daily volumes peaked at $250M. More recently, however, that’s fallen to just around $70M, representing a 72% drop in daily volume from its peak.
- When plotting BTC against traditional markets, we see tremendous relative strength in BTC. Since the start of Russia’s baseless invasion, BTC has rallied 14.5%, while gold is up 4.3%. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 indices have rallied 3.1% and 2.1%, respectively.
- The way BTC reacted during this period in time is certainly noteworthy. Given this week’s developments and what’s transpired with protests in Canada, BTC is in a position to offer real utility to those looking for an outlet from, or those who have been excluded from, their current financial system.
- We believe BTC’s rally was also driven by those trying to front-run potential demand as well. There’s still a lot of uncertainty as to how this global conflict will play out.
- The economic fallout from sanctions with Russia is rippling through many countries, including developed nations. The surge in oil prices – which just today briefly touched their highest levels since the week after Lehman Brothers collapsed – is adding more fuel to growing inflation concerns, and we’re getting to the point where rising energy costs (and importantly, the expectations for costs to rise further) are going to start having a tangible impact on consumers, who are already being squeezed by higher consumer prices.
- Crypto Raiders is a play-and-earn, web-based RPG that centers around playable Raider NFTs. The core gameplay loop consists of leveling up characters, defeating mobs in dungeons, and finding epic loot. Think: Diablo, Final Fantasy, or World of Warcraft.
- FTX now supports native Terra UST.
- We’re excited to announce that the NEAR Foundation has supported Atlantis World with a grant to build a home, hub and showcase for the NEAR ecosystem in the metaverse!
- We’ll work closely with NEAR to design, build and launch a NEAR HQ inside of Atlantis World. Here, new users will be able to learn about the ecosystem and be guided through the process of connecting to the Aurora RPC on Metamask by non-player characters in-game!
Binance to focus on crypto payments with new subsidiary Bifinity
- Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volumes, is moving to boost its fiat-to-crypto payments technology by launching its own crypto payment provider.
- The crypto exchange officially announced on Monday the launch of Bifinity, Binance’s official fiat-to-crypto payment company, to connect crypto service providers with the traditional financial system.
- Bifinity supports more than 50 cryptocurrencies, including major coins like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), as well as popular payment platforms like Visa, Mastercard and others.
- The new crypto payment platform specifically allows merchants and businesses to adopt and provide crypto services to their customers via offering buy-and-sell crypto services as well as API crypto payments integrations.
FTX expands to Europe with CySEC approval
- The global crypto derivatives and spot trading exchange FTX is expanding to Europe after receiving approval from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).
- The new venture, called FTX Europe, would offer leading products of the company to the European clients via a licensed investment firm across the European economic area. The new European venture is headquartered in Switzerland along with a regional headquarters in Cyprus.
- Cyprus is seen as one of the reputed jurisdictions that offers a regulated medium for financial firms to access the European economic area. Thus, FTX would be able to offer its derivative crypto products as well, which is a big breakthrough, given Binance had to shut all crypto derivatives products last year across Europe.
Whales’ stablecoin buying power grew over 7% in one month: Here’s what it means
- Bitcoin (BTC) price struggled to overcome $40,000 resistance over the weekend and is currently trading just above $38,000. At a time when BTC is hovering at a 40% discount from all-time highs, whales have started accumulating more stablecoins.
- According to data from Santiment, stablecoin whales with wallet holdings of 10,000 to 10 million Tether (USDT) have accumulated over $1 billion in buying power in the past month. The data indicates the buying power of these whales increased by over 7% in just one month.
- The significant accumulation of stablecoins by whales indicates they are waiting to buy BTC at a lower price, showing a bullish outlook for the market. The outflow of BTC from exchanges also supports this sentiment. Out of the past 26 weeks, 21 weeks have seen a higher flow of BTC supply away from exchanges than on to it.
Clear regulations will accelerate crypto adoption, says SEBA Bank exec
- With crypto being in the sights of many regulators, many have wondered if regulation is good or bad for crypto. However, Christian Borel, senior executive officer at SEBA Bank, says that if the laws are clear, it may push crypto adoption forward.
- In a Cointelegraph interview, the banking executive mentions that institutions are likely to adopt crypto following the advent of clear regulations. Additionally, the presence of “regulated counterparties” within the banking industry creates a secure and trusted way for institutions and their stakeholders to have access to the crypto sector.
- “I expect to see a considerable acceleration in engagement and adoption of digital assets by institutions prompted by a clearer regulatory environment as these institutional players will require a regulated counterparty in which to operate securely.”
DeFi ‘Godfather’ Cronje quits as TVL and tokens tank for related projects
- DeFi architect, Fantom Foundation technical adviser and Yearn.finance founder Andre Cronje has left the decentralized finance (DeFi) space reeling after deactivating his Twitter account.
- Cronje’s long-time colleague at the Fantom Foundation Anton Nell stated in a Sunday tweet that both he and Cronje were leaving the crypto space entirely. However, concerns arose about the fate of the roughly 25 decentralized applications (DApps) and services they have been operating up to now. Fantom Opera is a layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution.
- Among the affected apps and services are yearn.fi, keep3r.network, multichain.xyz, chainlist.org, bribe.crv.finance and the new solidly.exchange.
- The community’s reaction to Nell’s announcement has been generally sympathetic, as many understand that the duo likely needed a mental break from the immense rigors of their work. Other disgruntled investors have not been so kind with their words as token prices and TVL tanks.
