Come every Saturday, Hodler’s digest Helps keep track of all the important news articles that happened this week. Best (and worst) quotes, recruitment and regulatory highlights, major coins, forecasts and more — a week of Cointelegraph with one link.
Top story of the week
NFT-focused Animoca Brands is worth $ 5 billion, following $ 358 million in funding
Animoca Brands, a company focused on NFTs and virtual real estate, secured $ 358 million worth of funding at a $ 5 billion valuation earlier this week.
According to the company, the new funding will be used to fund strategic acquisitions and investments, product development and IP storage. The company has strengthened in the last 12 months and raised more than $ 216 million in 2021, more than doubling its valuation from its last round of funding in October.
Animoca’s focus is on GameFi, and the company points out a study suggesting that the video gaming sector will grow to about $ 829 billion by 2028. The company has also invested heavily in virtual assets and the Metaverse space, and the Sandbox Metaverse is one of its greatest gems.
Bitcoin dumps to hit a 6-month low near $ 38,000
Bitcoin prices have fallen sharply by 7.5% over the course of 12 hours, temporarily reaching about $ 38,000 early in the early morning of Friday morning (UTC). During Tuesday’s sell-out depth, BTC’s price fell below $ 35,000.
It is unclear what caused the sharp drop in prices, whether it was purely crypto-related, or a sign of a larger trend across traditional financial markets. But while BTC and other assets are down, crypto influencers are undoubtedly swarming on Twitter and cheesy asking their followers, “Did you still buy a dip?” Do so every time the market goes into the red.
One of the potential reasons for Bitcoin’s decline could be that bears are trying to lower prices to reach their goals before futures contracts expire. By Friday, the Inveset Answers Twitter account with more than 85,000 followers suggests that bears “need less than $ 41,000 #Bitcoin to make a profit of $ 132 million.”
OpenSea sets new ATH over $ 3.5 billion in monthly Ethereum trading volume
The crypto market may have cooled in January, but the NFT sector appears to be booming, especially with the myriad of investors investing in tokenized collectibles.
On Monday, the top NFT marketplace, OpenSea, was reported to have reached a record high in terms of monthly volume after surpassing $ 3.5 billion. At the time of this writing, this figure is a whopping $ 4.3 billion, suggesting that the average daily volume for January so far is about $ 204 million.
The surge in NFT trading volumes appears to be driven by rising prices on several Yuga Labs projects such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Bored Ape Kennel Club.
Indonesian 22-year-old woman sells NFT selfies on OpenSea for $ 1 million
Earlier this week, a cunning 22-year-old college student from Indonesia sold an NFT of about $ 1 million with five years of selfies.
Semarang-based computer science student Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali converted and sold nearly 1,000 selfies as NFTs on OpenSea. According to Ghozali, as a way to look back on his way to graduation, he took a picture of himself for five years, either standing or sitting in front of his PC.
He set the initial price of each NFT selfie to $ 3 without expecting the attention of serious buyers, but with the support of prominent members of Crypto Twitter, the project’s popularity has exploded. It has increased.
Microsoft’s Massive Metaverse Move: Buy Activision for $ 69 Billion
Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it will acquire game giant Activision Blizzard for $ 95 per share and a valuation of $ 68.7 billion. This transaction is expected to close in fiscal year 2023.
Activision Blizzard boasts a powerful list of iconic game series such as Call of Duty, Overwatch and World of Warcraft. Activision titles will be added to Microsoft’s Xbox and PC Game Pass services.
Microsoft said the acquisition will help the company provide a “component of the Metaverse.” CEO and Chairman Satya Nadella explains:
“Games are the most dynamic and exciting category of entertainment on all platforms today and play a key role in the development of the Metaverse platform.”
Winners and losers
Bitcoin (on Friday weekendBTC) $ 38,651,ether(ETH) and $ 2,807 When XRP and $ 0.68..Market capitalization $ 1.80 Trillion, according to To CoinMarketCap.
Of the largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top two altcoin winners this week are the Perpetual Protocol (PERP) With 3.62% and BitTorrent (BTT) At 2.04%.
Harmony is the top three altcoin losers this week (1) -35.08%, loop ring (LRC) -34.25% and Kadena (KDA) -At 32.04%.
Be sure to read more about crypto prices Cointelegraph market analysis..
The most memorable quote
“Currently, most crypto assets use distributed ledger technology (DLT), but this can change as technology and the industry evolve. Therefore, the government has defined a qualified crypto asset. We are proposing to remove the reference to the DLT. “
Her Majesty’s Ministry of Finance (UK) Report
“After doing a lot of research on Bitcoin, I really believe it is the future of money. Bitcoin is valuable, safe and no one can ruin it.”
Francis Ngannou, UFC Heavyweight Champion
“The 90-day correlation between Bitcoin and the S & P 500 is currently the highest since October 2020.”
“I think Bitcoin is at a unique stage of moving from risk-on to risk-off global value digital stores, replacing gold and becoming a global collateral, so I think this year. “
Mike McGlone, Bloomberg Senior Commodity Strategist
“In the past, DeFi spaces have been used primarily for speculative activities. Users invest, borrow and trade crypto assets in a highly unregulated environment. Know Your Customer (KYC) and Money Ronda The lack of control, such as ring prevention rules, can be one of the key factors in DeFi’s growth. “
Agustín Carstens, General Manager of Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
“In August 2020, we moved to the Bitcoin standard corporate balance sheet. Since then, our initial investment has increased by more than 300%. […] It really did the job of protecting us from inflation and it worked as we intended. “
Ali Hammam, Co-owner of Tahini restaurant chain
“While we tend to focus on high-profile ransomware attacks on large corporations and government agencies, cybercriminals are a less sophisticated type of stealing millions of cryptocurrencies from individual owners. I’m using malware. “
“We are not sellers. […] We just get and hold Bitcoin, right? That is our strategy. “
Michael sailor, CEO of MicroStrategy
“The reason regulators have to limit advertising is probably because of such high demand. Anyway, most users come from word-of-mouth. […] So I don’t think it will have a big impact. “
Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO
This Week’s Forecast
Countries adopting Bitcoin, crypto users reaching 10B by 2023: Report
After trading sideways for most of the week, Bitcoin prices plummeted on Thursday and continued to fall on Friday. Inside Thursday, BTC has fallen from $ 43,596 to $ 38,251. Cointelegraph BTC Price Index, Before reaching the new 6-month lows on Saturday. January was a generally downward and sideways month for Bitcoin price behavior. This is the same as the past price performance for the month.
In one report this week by Cointelegraph, we see the possibility of more cryptocurrencies being adopted in 2022. Crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange, has produced a report showing the significant increase in the number of participants in the crypto industry in 2021. By the end of 2021, it increased from 106 million in the first month of the year. Crypto.com believes that crypto ownership could exceed one billion this year.
“Countries can no longer afford to ignore the growing push for cryptocurrencies by their people,” the report said.
This week’s FUD
Crypto.com shares security breach details: 483 accounts compromised
Crypto.com has revealed details of the security breach. Loss of approximately $ 33.8 million The value of digital assets on Monday.The company initially Stopped withdrawal After discovering “illegal activity with a small number of user accounts” on the platform, we revoked two-factor authentication (2FA) tokens for all customers.
Crypto.com said in a statement Thursday that 483 accounts were compromised and “about US $ 66,200 in 4,836.26 ETH, 443.93 BTC and other currencies” were stolen from clients.
The company said it has implemented an additional layer of protection that requires new whitelisted withdrawal addresses to be registered within 24 hours of the first withdrawal. It’s unclear if that solution can calm users who have already run out of money.
Singapore bans crypto service providers from advertising in public spaces
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued a new set of guidelines for digital payment token (DPT) providers on Monday to market services in public places such as public transport, social media platforms, broadcast and print media. Was banned.
MAS also warned the general public about the high risk nature of crypto assets as it introduced new guidelines that apply to all registered crypto service providers and providers in transition. Specified guidelines:
“MAS emphasizes that DPT service providers need to act with the understanding that DPT transactions are not suitable for the general public. These guidelines are for DPT service providers in Singapore. It shows MAS’s expectation that DPT services should not be advertised to the general public. “
EU securities regulators demand ban on proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining
In a recent interview, Erik Thedéen, Vice-Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority, expressed concern about the increasing use of renewable energy in Bitcoin mining.
Thedéen argued that Bitcoin mining has become a “national problem” and warned against cryptocurrencies that could undermine climate change goals. He specifically aimed at Proof of Work (PoW) mining, which is mainly used by Bitcoin and some other forked altcoins.
He advocates Proof of Stake (PoS) as a better, more energy-efficient alternative, with some commentators potentially becoming secret Ether Bulls awaiting the rollout of Eth2 later this year. Suggested. (As an update: Eth2 will move the Ethereum network from PoW to PoS.)
“We need to talk about moving the industry to more efficient technology,” he said.
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