Bitcoin (BTC) dropped by more than 6% today as the standoff between Russia and Ukraine brought in additional uncertainty in the financial markets. BTC briefly retested the psychological $40,000 level with Ethereum (ETH) trading below $3,000. The total crypto market cap is around $1.85 trillion with most of the top 100 cryptocurrencies in the red. While this uncertainty plays out over the next few weeks, the news from around the world continued to represent optimism for the industry. We track the key ones today.
This year’s Super Bowl, the highly watched annual playoff match of the NFL in the US, was all about crypto. Evoking memories of the dotcom bowl of 2000 post which the market crashed, many crypto platforms including Coinbase, Crypto.com, eToro and FTX spent millions advertising on this event. Coinbase’s notable ad of a QR code $15 giveaway crashed its website though led to a 309% increase in installs in the week according to Sensor Tower.
Sequoia Capital, having announced an investment round in Ethereum layer 2 Polygon last week, has set aside $600 million for a crypto fund as part of its on-going efforts to bootstrap the next generation of blockchain startups.
JPMorgan has become the first of the major banks to open a lounge in the metaverse which it sees as a $1 trillion opportunity in the future. The lounge is situated in blockchain based Decentraland world. JPMorgan has also unveiled a research on Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) blockchain network that is resistant to quantum computing attacks.
Chinese banking regulator has, meanwhile, warned about increasing fraud risks associated with the metaverse. The Chinese Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a notice highlighting how the buzz around metaverse had made it a primary target of scammers and fraudsters.
Amidst its standoff with Russia, Ukraine has legalized Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies paving the way for business to run under a regulatory ambit. Bitcoin is not, however, being recognized as legal tender. Ukraine is already one of Europe’s leading hubs for crypto trading.
Bitcoin’s difficulty, representing the complexity of computation required to mine it, has reached an all-time high of 27.97 this week. Higher difficulty means there is more competition among miners to confirm a block and extract a block reward. Its hash rate has seen an increase of 45% in the last 6 months.
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Disclaimer: This article was authored by Giottus Cryptocurrency Exchange as a part of a paid partnership with The News Minute. Crypto-asset or cryptocurrency investments are subject to market risks such as volatility and have no guaranteed returns. Please do your own research before investing and seek independent legal/financial advice if you are unsure about the investments.