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By Tim Hakki
Bitcoin and Ethereum managed to recapture ground after last week’s market wipeout. The market leaders have both started the weekend about 3% higher than last Saturday.
Bitcoin currently trades at $48,576. It’s significantly shy of its former all-time high of $69,790, recorded on November 10 this year, but it’s still better than last weekend’s crash, which bottomed out at around $45,000.
Ethereum showed promising signs of advance this week, although it failed to breach the $4,500 threshold. On Thursday it rose to $4,482 but today it’s back down to $4,061, which is around 17% shy of its former all-time high of $4,860 back on November 10.
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This week’s crypto news cycle was a mixed bag. On Monday, Bancolombia, the largest bank in Colombia, announced a pilot program that will enable a limited number of customers to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash directly from their bank accounts.
The country’s financial regulator, the Financial Superintendence of Colombia, will oversee the program, no doubt with an eye to possibly developing a regulatory framework around crypto.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration published a document called the “United States Strategy on Countering Corruption.” One of the proposals to help fight corruption is the establishment of a “National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team” which will be tackling the criminal misuse of crypto.
While the U.S. government continues clamping down on crypto’s dark and seedy underbelly, Wednesday brought more savory news for law-abiding crypto fans.
A delegation of CEOs from six of the top crypto companies, including Coinbase, Circle, FTX, and Paxos, visited Congress to make the case for the growing importance of crypto and regulations in a five-hour hearing. Considering that this time last year, the delegation would have been laughed out of Washington, the news reflects a notable change of heart.
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Over the Atlantic on Thursday, a different attitude prevailed. British MPs on the Treasury select committee, which is responsible for keeping a close eye on the British treasury and all of its associated bodies, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), told the chief executive of the FCA, Nikhil Rathi, that businesses should stop using the words “invest” and “investment” when promoting crypto.
Former JP Morgan banker-turned conservative MP Harriett Morgan told Rathi: “The words ‘your investment’ endorse the idea that this is an investment on par with an FTSE 100 company or a unit trust.”
On the same day, Bitcoin and Ethereum fell more than 5% in 24 hours after Chinese real estate developers Evergrande and Kaisa were unable to make scheduled U.S. dollar bond payments.
Some altcoins had a great week, though.
Terra shot up 11% over the last seven days and currently trades for $63.10 at the time of writing. Polygon also rose significantly, swelling by a little over 13% to hit $2.08. On Thursday Polygon announced it signed a $400 million deal with Mir to expand the project’s Ethereum scaling capabilities.
The price of Tezos jumped 37% over Monday night after Ubisoft announced it would tap the blockchain to mint NFTs for its upcoming Ghost Recon game. This is the first time a major video game publisher has offered NFTs, and the fact that it chose Tezos is huge news for the network.
Tezos is the 41st-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and it’s currently worth $4.51.
Lastly, Solana took a beating this week. The leading Ethereum competitor dropped almost 13% in the last seven days and currently trades for $169.
Concluding, it’s been an all-around positive week, though only just.
THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND DO NOT CONSTITUTE FINANCIAL, INVESTMENT, OR OTHER ADVICE.
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