You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice! (weekly crypto updates)
What happened in crypto in the past week? What else? UK regulators will let you to add BTC and ETH to your pensions and ISAs soon. Bitcoin reached an $125K ATH, and then promptly dropped to $102K. Solana is preffered to ETH. BNB is on the spotlight. What else? Read below:
Bitcoin: So Bitcoin hits all-time high of $125K for the first time in 17 years. Short positions were liquidated and October was looking good. Right? Analysts were quick to point out that if BTC goes up for another year, the four-year cycle is breaking, and this cannot be the peak, as in the cycle prediction chart. Boy, were they wrong! Even Strategy skipped its weekly BTC purchase, anticipating the downfall. Inside information? Crypto ETP a record week at the start of October, almost $6B, with $3.6B in BTC funds only, followed by $1.48b in ETH. All thanks to the government shutdown. Then the worst liquidation event in history started, and BRC briefly touched $102K, with $20B wiped out in 24 hours, and 1.6M traders registering losses. Crypto Fear and Greed Index droped from 64 on Friday, to 27 on Saturday, biggest change in nearly 6 months. Bitcoin-only life insurer Meanwhile has raised $82M to expand its saving and retirement offerings, and you can pay and receive benefits in BTC. Square added Bitcoin payments for the US small bussinesses with no fees for the first year.
Ethereum: Looks like there is $6B ETH in South Korean retail, propping up ETH treasury companies, with ETH influencers (what/who are those?) marketing these companies as ''the next Strategy play''. But ETH ETFs finally got staking, at least for the Grayscale ones, elminating the biggest complaint institutional investors had about the ETH products. Bit Digital bought another 31057 ETH, reaching a total of 150K ETH worth $675M right now. Ethereum is moving almost identically with small-cap stocks, analysts say, and both may explode soon. Meanwhile the price went down, so their prediction is not quite accurate, to be honest. Withdrawal queues trap $10.5B ETH for 42 days, creating discount pressure for stETH that backs $13B in loans. As the crash started (thanks again Mr. Trump), ETH held strong, dropping only 6.7%, while some altcoins lost 70-95% of their value.
Altcoins and stablecoins: Wall Street seems to prefere Solana to ETH, and to be honest, I am thinking they are not wrong. Corporate treasuries are stockpiling SOL tokens, and Solana ETF approval rate odds reached 90%, according to Bloomberg. Solana's Jupiter is launching its own stablecoin, JUPUSD, backed by Ethena's USDtb. XRP laid out a roadmap, and it is all about privacy. They locked in a partnership with Bahrain, shortly after getting their Dubai license. Tether is raising $200M to stockpile XAUT, its gold-backed token, as they work in partnership with Antalpha to offer $XAUT-backed lending, maybe even allow users to redeem digital tokens for physical gold. Sounds good, I may get some of this in my portfolio. Hope London will make the cut as a major financial hub. There are some prediction that up to one trillion dolars will free from emerging market banks for stablecoins, with Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh being most at risk. There is also Turkey, India and Kenya, and basically any high inflation country, as stablecoins honor their name, being stable. Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina follow similar patterns, with 60% of crypto transactions being into stablecoins. Shapeshift is bringing backprivacy coins such as Zcash, after ditching them in 2020. Zcash increased by almost 32%. Monad confirms its airdrop, with the airdrop portal opening on October 14. Zora also surged after its integration with Coinbase's Base App. Mantle launched UR, a service enabling direct crypto-to-fiat spending, with seven currencies supported at the moment. Plume token jumps after the SEC approves it as transfer agent for tokenized securities.
NFTs and blockchain games: Animoca wants to buy Gamee. Sandbox launched SandcHAIN. I have enjoyed playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite profitable, I would say, with some significant updates lately. On Splinterlands, we have had the Land NFT new update and improved tokenomics on March 18. The presale of its latest Conclave Arcana collection is ongoing, and two new promo cards are still on sale in some interesting ways (auction and raffle).
Good news: UK has lifted its ban on crypto exchange-traded notes, allowing retail investors to gain exposure to BTC and ETH in pensions and ISAs. Morgan Stanley advises 2-4% crypto allocation in their client portfolios. Coinbase seeks federal trust charter, in order to roll out services like payments and settlements without needing separate licenses in each state. Metamask launches $30M rewards program ahad of its token debut. S&P Dow Jones Indices unveiled crypto-equity index blending 15 cryptocurrencies with 35 publicly traded crypto-related companies. North Dakota will issue a US dollar-backed stablecoin in 2026. Luxembourg becomes the first Eurozone nation to put state wealth fund in Bitcoin.
Bad news: Kazakhstan confiscated $16.7M in crypto during a massive shutdown, closing 130 unlicensed platforms, with future measures to prevent crypto buying, including biometric authentication, fingerprint scanning and facial recognition for all cash-based transactions. Twenty platforms had been approved to operate in Kazakhstan, including Bybit and WhiteBIT. Perp DEX aggregator Rage Trade winds down, with plans to return remaining funds to token holders and investors.
Joke of the week: BNB is the surprise of the month, overtaking XRP and storming into the #3 spot after growing 27% in one week. Traders made millions on BNB memecoins, as BNB Chain is everyone's memecoin favorite place right now. A few millionaires were made during this BNB memecoins rush. CZ-founded YZi Labs launched a $1B fund to back founders across AI, DEFI, RWA, wallets and more on BNB Chain, applications are open via X platform. Soon after the announcement the BNBCHAIN Xaccount was compromised, but quickly recovered. BNB ended being called the most overlooked blue-chip. SoftBank's PayPay has acquired a 40% stakein Binance Japan to merge its cashless system with access to digital assets. Even Trump is considering a pardon for Binance founder CZ.
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - a real-life virtual land) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).
...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog, using the Presearch search engine to maximise your income with PRE tokens. Use Torum instead of Twitter. I am also writing for crypto on Hive.