This Week in Crypto: RISKS, Regulation, ALGO, AVAX & More!!

[Music] welcome to the coin bureau weekly crypto review here are this week's top headlines in the crypto news [Music] are nfts at their peak openc trading volume takes a nosedive while price floors take a dip but some nfts are still hitting all-time highs record crypto raises harmony algorand and terror collectively put down three-quarters of a billion dollars to expand their ecosystems wait until you see what effect this has had on their native coins the aftermath of el salvador's legal tender law btc crashes international authorities rage financial middlemen start to lose millions and some u.s citizens voiced their support for the same law at home why central banks are terrified mastercard's historic crypto purchase the acquisition of a blockchain tracing company confirms the payments processing firm is looking to expand its crypto offering here's what mastercard might be planning rival ransomware group reappears after laying dormant for months the infamous organization behind the bitcoin ransomware attacks earlier this year has resumed operations could this be bad news for btc regulators prepare to clamp down on crypto coinbase versus the sec the us treasury department versus stablecoins and crypto versus fiat are we about to see the ultimate financial showdown the concerning macro trends signaling the end fed officials sell their stocks banks send out warnings to investors and u.s politicians propose doubling the capital gains tax how to prepare for this perfect storm and a closer look at what lies ahead in this week's crypto market forecast all this and more in just a moment [Music] good morning afternoon or evening thank you for tuning in my name is guy and what you're about to see is educational content not financial advice you can find any topics you're looking for using the timestamps in the video timeline and now for today's top stories data from dap radar suggests that the nft market could be cooling down this is because openc the largest nft market in cryptocurrency saw a 50 decline in nfg trading volume last week what's interesting is that openc's active user count only dropped by about 10 during the same period underscoring just how much of an influence whales have in cryptocurrency markets it's reasonable to assume that these aren't the same individuals who are bidding up nft prices to new all-time highs every other day and the most recent collection to get a bump was solana's degenerate apes dj ape number 7225 recently sold for over a million dollars which makes it the first million dollar nft sale on solano not the last one of those we'll see i'm sure now the question is how long this froth could go on for and the answer seems to be quite some time as i alluded to in yesterday's video about nfts this crypto market niche seems to be relatively immune from the ups and downs of the rest of the crypto market now this doesn't mean that nfts should be seen as an inflation hedge quite the contrary their value is mostly arbitrary and any second those price floors could fall well through the floor even so it looks like we might be away away from that happening especially as nft innovations continue to capture money and attention and fractionalized nfts become more common the only thing more ridiculous than some nft valuations is the amount of money that crypto projects have promised to splurge to expand their ecosystems as i mentioned in last week's crypto review one of the reasons why phantom's ftm coin had rallied so hard was because the project had committed a mind-melting 300 million dollars to defy development phantom's announcement came shortly after avalanche's announcement that it would be allocating million dollars to d5 development and the avax token has likewise been rallying since that time it looks like other ethereum alternatives took note of this effect and three of them followed suit last week the first was harmony which promised to put down 300 million dollars worth of the one coin over the next four years to fund 10 000 startups building on its sharded blockchain as you can see one rallied quite nicely in response the second ethereum competitor to shovel out the cash was terra with its 150 million allocation of luna this will go towards building out the cosmos ecosystem and helping scale the terra blockchain itself as you can see luna has been pumping since then though i would argue most of this is coming from the increased demand for the ust stablecoin for reasons that i'll get into later the third ethereum alternative to dish out the dollars was algorand which matched harmony's 300 million dollar offering in algo coins interestingly algorand is apparently looking to fund specific defy infrastructure such as bridges and oracles and is willing to allocate five million dollars for each of these initiatives as you can see algo has moved to the upside and actually managed to scrape past its previous all-time high which was set way back in 2019 this is a very impressive feat when you factor in algorand's sub-optimal tokenomics which i detailed in my last video about the project which you can find up there in the top right now even though algorand does have some serious issues in the tokenomics department algorand's fundamentals will keep improving as it continues to pen partnerships around the world the most recent of these was an indirect partnership with the government of el salvador which i completely missed in last week's crypto review my bad for that one according to the algorand blog koibanks a financial infrastructure company will leverage the algorand blockchain in its new partnership with the government of el salvador as you all know el salvador officially made bitcoin legal tender last week and the rollout was bumpy to say the least for starters there were a series of technical issues with the government's own chivo bitcoin wallet now luckily these technical issues were resolved shortly afterwards what has not yet been resolved however is the massive dump that btc saw the second it became legal tender in the country this must have been particularly painful for the government of el salvador which had purchased 400 btc prior to the historic day president najib buchelli didn't feel the fud though instead he announced that el salvador was buying the dip and adding 150 btc to its holdings this was mentioned in a few mainstream media outlets many of which omitted the response najib had posted to his own tweet about buying the dip which reads quote it appears the discount is ending thanks for the dip imf we saved a million in printed paper el salvador now holds 550 bitcoin as i mentioned in my video about el salvador's bitcoin adoption not everyone was happy with the decision and it wasn't just the imf either some salvadorans aren't too keen on btc it turns out though it could be argued that a lot of the fud we're seeing on that front is not very substantial after all the us dollar is still legal tender and not only that but strike is the most downloaded app in el salvador and it leverages bitcoin's lightning network which i detailed in a video you can find up there in the top right anyhow a u.s poll conducted just two days after el salvador's legal tender law suggests that more than a quarter of americans would also like to see btc become legal tender in the united states now i reckon this makes sense given the record levels of inflation the average american is struggling to deal with oddly enough people who are most in favor of adopting btc as legal tender are those making more than 80 000 per year what's even more odd is the rumor that ukraine may be the next country to adopt btc as legal tender according to a local newspaper here in london politicians representing ukraine's president recently flew into el salvador to take a closer look at its cryptocurrency infrastructure ukraine is known to be a crypto friendly nation and it's on the cusp of passing legislation that would clarify cryptocurrency regulations and give coins and tokens legal status in the country the reason why i say ukraine's potential bitcoin adoption is odd is because this particular bill it's looking to pass is written in accordance with the financial action task force or fat f which is staunchly anti-crypto though there are mixed messages about whether ukraine would go as far as making btc legal tender if el salvador's experiment proves to be fruitful i reckon there's no reason why the ukraine wouldn't have both btc and its upcoming digital arrhythmia as its national currencies after all there are rumors that el salvador is planning to build a digital currency of its own something which some small countries have done in an attempt to wean themselves off the u.s dollar it's easy to foresee a future where bitcoin is the network used to transact value between countries that have their own cbdc's and this is something that's already being done now in el salvador with strike now this is projected to cost remittance middlemen like moneygram hundreds of millions of dollars per year and to that i say good riddance now you can learn more about how el salvador's btc adoption came to be by watching my video on it and yep you know where to go for that good stuff the middlemen crypto won't be getting rid of anytime soon however are payment processors like visa and mastercard both of whom have been making their own moves in the crypto industry mastercard has been a bit late to the game in this respect but the pace has picked up ever since one of its own surveys found that 40 percent of mastercard holders intend on using crypto for payments by 2022. since then mastercard has been funding various crypto startups and forging new crypto partnerships to see its cards used for crypto payments mastercard's latest push is its purchase of ciphertrace one of the largest crypto transaction tracking firms the significance of this news cannot be understated because mastercard is planning on using ciphertrace to keep a better track of both crypto and non-crypto transactions made with its cards this suggests that mastercard could soon be following visa's lead in dabbling with native stablecoin payments and cbdcs the issue there of course is that too much compliance could lead to a dystopian society which i detailed in my video about the cashless world we could soon be living in to be fair though there is a lot of shady activity in crypto and one of the kingpins of the crypto underworld is the rival ransomware group which has reappeared after a brief relieve of absence to recap revel is apparently not the perpetrator of these ransomware attacks it mainly sells its ransomware software to anyone who's looking to use it for their own malicious purposes this begs the question of whether it would be in the interests of certain institutions for bitcoin to be involved in remarkably amateur ransomware attacks which result in the btc payment being reclaimed by authorities rival disappeared shortly after the last round of ransomware attacks and the fact that rival is rising from the dead shortly after el salvador makes bitcoin legal tender is to put it mildly interesting it's not just el salvador either both individual and institutional adoption of cryptocurrency is at all time highs and the more that central banks print the more people want to hold btc instead of usd now that rival is back i suspect we'll see a new wave of ransomware attacks perpetrated by surprisingly unskilled hackers demanding btc which is of course the most traceable currency in the world if i'm right this will only add to the avalanche of regulatory pushback which is headed straight for the crypto industry in what might be the most brazen defense of banks by the sec to date coinbase is being threatened with a massive lawsuit if it dares to roll out its stablecoin lending program as explained in a lengthy thread by coinbase ceo brian armstrong on twitter the sec said that the lending feature would constitute a securities offering without explaining why to my understanding the sec views stablecoins as securities because they're backed primarily by government bonds aka government debt at least in the case of usdc and busd because government bonds are considered securities in the eyes of the sec this means that stable coins are securities too or at least that's how sec chairman gary gensler seems to see it it's possible that coinbase's combative response to regulators has inspired them to accelerate their plans to clamp down on cryptocurrency and stable coins are front and center the rallying cry seems to have come from the bank of international settlements or bis whose head proclaimed that quote central banks have a job to do delivering price stability and financial stability and they must retain their ability to do it central bank digital currencies will take years to be rolled out while stable coins and crypto assets are already here for those who don't know the bis is the self-described bank of central banks and they have been helping central banks around the world coordinate the development of cbdc's the rapid growth of stable coins has been very concerning for fiat fat cats especially since all that money is coming from the coffers of big banks as far as i can tell it looks like the only sable coin that is at risk of getting completely wrecked is tether this is because it's not based in the united states and has engaged in admittedly questionable practices in the past as for circle and paxos it looks like the us department of the treasury wants to take the reins now i can't say what that will entail but it's worth pointing out that u.s regulators are stuck between a rock and a hard place here this is because all the fed's money printing means the us dollar is quickly falling out of favor look no further than the u.s dollar share of global reserves for evidence of this given this fact u.s regulators may be inclined to continue to let u.s dollar stable coins thrive under their supervision simply because they will inevitably find their way into foreign economies and increase demand for dollars there on the flip side letting stable coins run wild means individuals and institutions within the united states will continue to move their money into stable coins due to the higher yields they offer now if you're wondering why stablecoins offer higher yields it's simply because the interest rates are set by the free market of lenders and borrowers and not by manipulated bond markets logically this has led to a high demand for stable coins including terror's ust which is arguably the most decentralized option available this is especially relevant given regulatory risks and because terra's luna is used to mint ust this is probably why it's rallying now i'll be doing a deep dive into terror tomorrow so stay tuned for that a stablecoin crackdown is just one of many things which could crush the crypto market this week and the other candidates could potentially do even more damage the first is a stock market crash across the board which is being predicted by everyone from banks to cnbc's jim cramer funnily enough two fed officials have come out and said they will be selling their stocks to avoid quote conflicts of interest this conveniently comes as the stock market is cresting its all-time high foreign and domestic issues related to pandemic restrictions have created a lot of uncertainty in the market and the record levels of debt involves means a slight drop could turn into a massive crash the second threat to both the crypto market and the stock market is that upcoming 3.5 trillion dollar human infrastructure bill now this is different from the infamous infrastructure bill with the problematic crypto provision about tax reporting but it is the same in the sense that the treasury department intends on shoving in anti-crypto provisions into this bill as well more importantly politicians could propose to increase income taxes and double capital gains and dividend taxes for high net worth individuals this is an issue because most assets are held by high net worth individuals be they stocks or cryptocurrencies politicians are set to present the full human infrastructure bill this wednesday though it's possible we could see that tax increase proposal presented sooner than that as a part of the bill was already revealed last week naturally news of these new taxes would lead to a sell-off across the board as investors scramble to pay the increased tax burden on their existing profits to top it all off we have a third threat to the crypto market in the rear view mirror and that's record levels of inflation without getting into the nitty-gritty the fed basically promised to reduce its asset purchases if inflation got out of control last week we saw the u.s post its highest year-on-year increase in the producer price index since 2010 and this has investors biting their nails over what the consumer price index will look like this week if inflation is getting out of hand the fed will have no choice but to taper this will increase interest rates wiping out anyone who has taken on too much debt which is almost everyone at this point with this context in mind let's take a look at the charts and see what the crypto market has on the menu for us for the next seven days starting with some basic bitcoin ta we can see that we've fallen below the 200-day moving average and are barely holding onto the 50-day ma both of which are significant zones of support the bigger problem is that we might miss the golden cross which was being created by the 200-day and 50-day ma a golden cross would be a prelude to new all-time highs now thankfully we're still a ways away from the 128 ama as i mentioned in my video about my own personal crypto trading strategy the 128ma has historically been the last line of defense for btc during a dip in this case that's around 40k if we fall below that it's not going to be pretty and we might even enter a bear market i'll leave a tutorial on how to deal with the different bear market scenarios in the video description for your entertainment now this week's winners are avalanche tron cosmos omg network and kusama avax's impressive price action is due to two very important fundamental factors the first is binance's support for avalanches smart contract chain which makes it possible to withdraw select tokens directly onto avalanche the second is avalanche's ongoing avalanche rush program which is dishing out massive amounts of avax to users dabbling with its d5 protocols this match made in heaven continues to drive avax to new all-time highs and assuming we don't get wrecked by regulations and all that other stuff this week i could see avax hitting 75 dollars in the coming days now there's not much i can say about tron though i reckon i do need to cover the project eventually and speaking of covering projects cosmos is a cryptocurrency i'll be covering this week and it's nice to see that atom's price is already raising awareness with its price action cosmos has been aggressively building out its ecosystem after completing its inter-blockchain communication protocol or ibc for short without getting into the weeds the ibc makes it possible for just about every cryptocurrency to connect to cosmos which acts as an interoperability hub this eliminates the need for redundant bridges and expensive transfers between multiple blockchains now though atom has historically had a hard time rallying it looks like it's headed straight for the moon and i honestly think atom could hit a hundred dollars if its upcoming developments are successful regarding the omg token i can't seem to figure out what exactly is causing its recent price action omg network social media is relatively dead and there hasn't been a single post on its blog since april zooming out seems to suggest that this is mostly a speculative pump that could conclude at any moment so do be cautious if you plan on copying this crypto or have done so already now i'm actually quite surprised to see this when i last covered omg network it seemed like a fairly solid project so if anyone knows what's going on there please drop a comment below and let me know anyways lastly we have kusama whose ksm coin is probably rallying on account of its ongoing parachain slot auctions a quick glance at the charts reveals that ksm is doing a damn good job of getting out of the hull if you want to learn more about kusama and its parachain slot auctions you can do so by clicking that link up there in the top right and that's all for today's coin bureau weekly crypto review if you enjoyed it you know what to do hit that like button subscribe button and bell icon too if you want more of me head on over to twitter tiktok and instagram to get a sneak peek behind the scenes if you join my telegram channel you'll get the daily crypto updates you crave and signing up for my weekly newsletter is a great way to get the tools tips and tricks you 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Channel: Coin Bureau

Views: 234,090

Rating: 4.9530163 out of 5

Keywords: Bitcoin, BTC, Crypto, Algorand, ALGO, Crypto News, El Salvador, SEC, Congress, Regulations, Coinbase, Mastercard, Ciphertrace

Id: StziLbOwEZo

Length: 22min 53sec (1373 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021