Bitcoin (BTC) is now seeing “tepid” demand just three months after hitting its latest all-time high, according to on-chain analytics firm Glassnode.
In a tweet on Feb. 18, researchers flagged a sea change in Bitcoin on-chain activity compared to just three months ago.
Bitcoin active entities echo 2019 “mini bull peak”
Bitcoin’s descent from $69,000 to $33,000 has been accompanied by a widely-publicized crash in interest from mainstream consumers.
Now, the latest data shows that for existing on-chain entities — holders of one or more wallets — the same true.
Each day, the Bitcoin network sees around 275,000 active entities transacting, compared to over 400,000 in November 2021.
That reduction means that daily active entities are now at the same levels as in mid-2019 and even well below the peak of the last halving cycle in December 2017.
“This level of activity is far below bull market highs, indicative of tepid demand from new users,” Glassnode commented.
Researchers added that regardless of the cycle phase, the trend is for entity numbers to grow, which they put down to Bitcoin’s network effect playing out as forecast.
Bitcoin daily active entities annotated chart. Source: Glassnode/ Twitter
While the activity dip is considerable for such a short space of time, as Cointelegraph reported, wallet numbers are going up only, and those containing 0.01 BTC (around $400) or more now number almost 10 million.
Discussing the Glassnode data, popular Twitter account TXMC argued that even if the entities involved were or are not human, there is still a reason for them to send BTC over the network, thus validating the entity numbers at a given point.
“This level of activity is far below bull market highs, indicative of tepid demand from new users,” it argued.
“Up and to the right”
In the latest edition of its “Uncharted” newsletter, meanwhile, Glassnode likewise confirmed that on-chain demand is in a trend of “up and to the right.”
Daily transfer volume surged in the middle of last year, and the weekly moving average is now twice that of October 2020 before BTC/USD broke out of its three-year range.
Since January 2021, long-term hodlers — wallets with funds unmoved in at least 155 days — have added 3 million BTC to their balances in another sign of long-term conviction.
“Institutions in the market are a sign of greater adoption,” Glassnode co-founders Yann Allemann and Jan Happel added in Twitter comments last week.
Bitcoin total daily transfer volume annotated chart. Source: Negentropic/ Twitter
Grayscale Investments’ latestreport “Reimagining the Future of Finance” defines the digital economy as “the intersection of technology and finance that’s increasingly defined by digital spaces, experiences, and transactions.”
With this in mind, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many financial institutions have begun to offer services that allow clients access to Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets.
Last year, in particular, saw an influx of financial institutions incorporating support for crypto-asset custody. For example, Bank of New York Mellon, or BNY Mellon, announced in February 2021 plans to hold, transfer and issue Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an asset manager on behalf of its clients. Michael Demissie, head of digital assets and advanced solutions at BNY Mellon, told Cointelegraph that BNY Mellon had $46.7 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration and $2.4 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2021.
Following in BNY Mellon’s footsteps, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA),stated in June 2021 that it would offer Bitcoin trading and custody services in Switzerland. Then in October of last year, U.S. Bank — the fifth-largest retail bank in the United States — announced the launch of its cryptocurrency custody service for institutional investors.
Alex Tapscott, managing director of Ninepoint Digital Asset Group, told Cointelegraph that United States banks have been scrambling to launch crypto asset custody since 2020. “Crypto assets are a $2 trillion asset class and crypto-asset custody is a big business.” Tapscott added that last year was a turning point for many financial institutions, noting that on July 22, 2020, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, wrote aletter granting permission to federally chartered banks to provide custody services for cryptocurrency. As a result, many traditional banks began to incorporate crypto custody services in 2021.
Next steps
While notable, it’s also important to point out that traditional banks have started working closely with crypto custodians and sub-custodians to introduce custody for digital assets.
Ramine Bigdeliazari, director of product management for Fidelity Digital Assets, told Cointelegraph that given the growing demand from customers, the exploration of crypto solutions through custodial relationships with digital asset service providers is a natural next step for traditional financial institutions. He said:
“While there are a handful of ways that banks could enter the digital asset market, like building an end-to-end solution or acquiring existing providers, sub-custodial relationships with existing and trusted service providers could provide a superior alternative that allows for a quick and proven path to market to meet clients’ needs.”
Bigdeliazari explained that Fidelity Digital Assets provides sub-custody services to client firms including banks who, in turn, interface with their customers. “These engagements showcase the potential for digital assets sub-custody to allow institutions to provide their customers access to digital assets through the same interface and experience they use to access other asset classes without having to build any infrastructure.”
To put this in perspective, New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) is a sub-custodian that has partnered with U.S. Bank to provide its “Global Fund Services” customers with a Bitcoin custody solution.
The partnership between traditional banks and sub-custodians is an important one. For instance, Tapscott explained that while crypto asset custody is a big opportunity, it’s not without risk for banks. “Securely storing private keys can be the difference between a satisfied customer and money in the bank or a class action lawsuit and handcuffs. So, naturally, a lot of big banks prefer to partner with firms that already have that industry expertise,” he said.
This has indeed become the case. Kelly Brewster, chief marketing officer at NYDIG, told Cointelegraph that while U.S. Bank is among NYDIG’s most prominent banking partners, it’s far from the only one. “NYDIG has already partnered with more than 35 banks and credit unions to bring Bitcoin to Main Street,” she remarked.
While sub-custodians are helping traditional financial institutions participate in the digital assets ecosystem, Tapscott said that crypto custodians like Gemini and Coinbase also play an important role. For instance, Tapscott mentioned that he expects “white label” solutions to be the preferred choice for traditional banks looking to develop their own crypto custody offerings. “Banks will eventually brand custody solutions as their own, which will be powered by Gemini, Anchorage, BitGo or some other established crypto custodian,” he explained.
Moreover, digital asset infrastructure providers are also helping bridge the gap between traditional banks and the world of crypto. For example, Fireblocks has partnered with BNY Mellon to enable its digital asset custody solution. Stephen Richards, vice president and head of product strategy and business solutions at Fireblocks, told Cointelegraph that BNY Mellon is using Fireblocks’ technology stack, along with other internal components, to enable customers to hold digital assets.
Demissie elaborated that BNY Mellon is building its own digital assets custody platform enabled by technology investments the bank has made in the space. For instance,BNY Mellon made a Series C investment in Fireblocks in March 2021.
“Our digital asset custody platform is currently under development and testing, and we plan to bring it to market this year pending regulatory approvals,” Demissie stated, adding that BNY Mellon is currently providing fund services for digital asset-linked products including those from Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital asset manager. “We also service 17 of 18 active cryptocurrency funds in Canada.”
Will big banks threaten crypto’s decentralization?
According to Demissie, digital assets are here to stay, as he believes they are increasingly becoming part of the mainstream. “Our clients expect BNY Mellon, as their trusted service provider, to extend our core services to this emerging asset class,” he said. Yet, while incorporating digital assets within traditional finance may be a big step for the crypto ecosystem, some may wonder ifbig banks will threaten the decentralized nature of crypto assets.
Although this is a relevant concern, Tapscott pointed out that many institutional and retail holders of crypto assets prefer to store assets with custodians. “Whether it’s a crypto-native custodian like Gemini or a big bank is irrelevant. Your keys will be held by someone else.” However, Tapscott remarked that this notion doesn’t prevent millions of other crypto holders from being their own bank and storing coins in hardware wallets.
Further shedding light on the matter, Anthony Woolley, head of business development at market digitalization firm Ownera, told Cointelegraph that regulation invariably requires an entity, such as a transfer agent, to be accountable for the record of ownership of any security. As such, Woolley does not believe that digital securities can ever be fully decentralized while being regulatory compliant.
However, Woolley suggested that it may be possible to conceive of a world where regulated digital securities are transacted peer-to-peer with instant payment, transfer of ownership and settlement. “We believe that this is the type of decentralization that investors and society as a whole needs.”
Bottom line: Banks must work with crypto custodians
Concerns aside, the rising demand for digital assets from institutional investors will result in traditional financial institutions working hand-in-hand with crypto custodians and service providers.
Matt Zhang, a former trading executive at the global bank Citi and founder of Hivemind Capital Partners — a $1.5 billion multistrategy funddesigned to help “institutionalize crypto investing” — told Cointelegraph that banks have a much higher regulatory bar to develop when it comes to new products and services, and crypto custody is one of the most complex of all:
“That said, the client demand is there so banks need to find ways to partner up with sub-custodians to package the service in the short term while figuring out the road map to develop it in house. Certain banks are definitely ahead of the others but, as an industry, Wall Street is playing a catch up game right now coming into crypto custody.”
To Zhang’s point, research from NYDIG’s Bitcoin + Bankingsurvey released last year found that customers and clients would prefer to access Bitcoin via an offering through their current bank that is consistent with existing standards of quality and risk management. NYDIG’s findings also show that 71% of Bitcoin holders would switch their primary bank to one that offers Bitcoin-related products and services. “Banks that aren’t preparing to offer these products and services risk getting left behind,” said Brewster.
More specifically, Zhang added that overall he thinks that many major banks will offer access to crypto assets, making the space competitive. As such, he believes that leading financial institutions will be those who can offer a vertically integrated product offering. “Think trading, lending, prime, custody and banking, rather than just custody on a standalone basis.”
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD losing ground Sunday, following threats of fresh sanctions on Russia over its alleged plans to invade neighboring Ukraine.
After a quiet Saturday, crypto began to move downhill after comments from United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on financial blocks of Russian firms should the situation escalate.
These would be prohibited from “trading in pounds and dollars,” the BBC reported Johnson as saying Sunday morning, alluding to support from United States President Joe Biden.
With crypto the only markets constantly open, the reaction to geopolitical fears in the region could foreshadow a greater knock-on effect next week as traditional markets open. Monday is a holiday on Wall Street.
Commenting on the situation, Mike McGlone, chief commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence, additionally drew attention to the ongoing issue of inflation and its relationship to risk asset performance.
In line with previous comments, however, he suggested that ultimately, Bitcoin could profit from the sea of change in U.S. economic policy this year.
“Bitcoin indicating a rough week ahead – Inflation Unlikely to Drop Unless Risk Assets Do: Most assets are subject to the ebbing tide in 2022, on the inevitable reversion of the greatest inflation measures in four decades, but this year may mark another milestone for Bitcoin,” he argued.
Among Bitcoin traders, short timeframes were now equally lackluster, with the loss of $40,000 weighing on sentiment.
Now also failing to hold any support. I can see us retesting 40K within the next few days as we’re at support on LTF but generally the HTF isn’t something to get excited about until we retake some important levels.
Since first cracking it in 2021, the level has acted as a springboard for bulls, and for popular Twitter acount Mayne, a recapture should indeed be their first move in order to secure upside.
“Over the last year $40k has been a very critical level for BTC. Each time price broke below and then reclaimed it we’ve seen a large rally to the upside. Probably a good area to watch right now,” it commented Sunday.
In the meantime, however, it appeared that fresh losses were what the masses expected. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index was back in “fear” territory on the day, having seen a drop of over 50% in just four days, after briefly entering “extreme fear.”
Crypto Fear & Greed Index (screenshot). Source: Alternative.me
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
United States banking giant JPMorgan Chase has taken a dive into what it considers a significant up and coming arena of opportunity: the metaverse. The bank has recently opened a digital lounge called Onyx in Decentraland’s metaverse. Decentraland serves as one of many crypto industry projects utilizing blockchain to provide a digital world experience — in other words, a metaverse.
JPMorgan sees significant potential in the new movement toward digital worlds. “The metaverse will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion in yearly revenues,” the bank said in a report. However, to reach its potential, the metaverse movement requires further development in several key areas, the report said.
Onyx is also the name of JPMorgan’s blockchain-based payments system.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is putting together a special unit to go after illegal crypto activity, such as ransomware attacks. Armed with experts wielding knowledge of the digital asset space, the Virtual Asset Exploitation Unit will be the FBI’s team on the crypto crime front, according to comments from U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco at the Munich Cyber Security Conference.
“Ransomware and digital extortion, like many other crimes fueled by cryptocurrency, only work if the bad guys get paid, which means we have to bust their business model,” Monaco explained. The new FBI team will act alongside the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which is headed up by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ also has plans to fight crypto crime on an international level, according to Monaco.
BlockFi came to terms with regulators this week in response to resistance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which had labeled the BlockFi Interest Account as a securities product. Operating since 2019, the offering in question from BlockFi lets users loan crypto and receive notable interest in return.
BlockFi agreed to pay the SEC $50 million as penalty. In addition, 32 U.S. states took action against BlockFi, resulting in a further $50 million that BlockFi must pay to those regions — tallying $100 million total in penalties.
Moving forward, BlockFi has a 60-day period to align the product with the Investment Company Act of 1940. In the meantime, BlockFi will halt onboarding new users until it becomes compliant with the regulation.
The Bank of Russia announced this week that initial testing for its central bank digital currency (CBDC) was successful after several transfers of the digital ruble were made to Russian citizens. A total of 12 financial institutions participated in the digital ruble pilot program, putting the central bank on track to launch its CBDC program later this year.
The CBDC news came after anti-crypto comments from the head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, the prior week. Because CDBCs are under the direct control of governments, they differ from traditional cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
This week, Cointelegraph unveiled its 2022 list of the top 100 most influential figures in the crypto and blockchain space. The Top 100 includes profiles of people and trends that impacted the crypto and blockchain space in 2021. Each profile also includes an overview of what we can expect from each influencer or trend for the remainder of 2022.
Cointelegraph will unveil the list over the course of the coming days, releasing 10 profiles per day until all 100 are shown. The first group of 10 was revealed on Thursday, with Rekt Capital starting off the list at number 100.
Cointelegraph has released prior installments of its top 100 list in previous years.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $40,036, Ether (ETH) at $2,790 and XRP at $0.77. The total market cap is at $1.81 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Rally (RLY) at 18.86%, Neo (NEO) at 13.93% and Qtum (QTUM) at 9.58%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are IoTeX (IOTX) at -17.58%, Ethereum Classic (ETC) at -16.35% and Theta Network (THETA) at -16.17%.
“We’re literally burning the gas into the atmosphere just because it’s not economical to do anything with it. Instead, we can put it into a motor to produce electricity and use that to mine Bitcoin.”
“I mean, we can call them a gamble, but at the end, we always knew v1 [CryptoPunks] were not legit punks; they were simply artifacts that led to the creation of Punks. So they have a place in history, but I doubt that place is worth 1K ETH, lol.”
“It is becoming clear, however, that 2022 shall be a pivotal year when it comes to crypto-assets management.”
Thomas Campione, blockchain and crypto-assets leader at PwC Luxembourg
“I know the big ones (Bitcoiners) live in Portugal already. They are anonymous. They are not like me out there, but they already are here. They are spending their money on houses; they are spending their Bitcoins on everything.”
“El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender raises significant concerns about the economic stability and financial integrity of a vulnerable U.S. trading partner in Central America.”
Bitcoin turned lower in a somewhat turbulent week for markets. The asset tapped almost $45,000 on Tuesday before falling to around $39,500 by Friday, according to Cointelegraph’s BTC price index.
Twitter personality and trader Rekt Capital expects Bitcoin to continue range-bound price movement within the bottom half of a sizable “macro” price range spanning from about $30,000 to $69,000. “$BTC will continue to occupy the lower half of the macro range until further notice,” Rekt Capital said in a tweet.
Three individuals were apprehended for allegedly dodging taxes owed to the United Kingdom’s government, with the country’s taxation body, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, taking control of three nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in the process.
The confiscated NFTs were considered seized assets and were not used by the suspects in their purported tax evasion scheme. Under false identities, the suspects allegedly avoided value-added taxes to the tune of $1.8 million by utilizing over 200 phony companies.
Over 4,000 big crypto players have allegedly amassed some of their wealth via questionable means, according to a new report from Chainalysis. The report noted 4,068 questionable crypto whales in the industry, as per 2021 and 2022 data.
Chainalysis classifies criminal whales as private crypto wallets holding more than $1 million worth of digital assets, with more than 10% of their balances coming from illicit addresses. The write-up from Chainalysis also included a bevy of additional information.
On Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act in an attempt to block fundraising efforts by the self-styled “Freedom Convoy,” which has been staging large-scale protests across the country. According to Chrystia Freeland, Canadian deputy prime minister, the move to block funds falls under the umbrella of protection against terrorist financing.
Donors had contributed over $19 million to the protestors through online fundraising platforms GoFundMe and GiveSendGo. Since those funds have been blocked from reaching the protestors, some donors have resorted to funding the movement using Bitcoin.
After a month-long fight against an ongoing exploit, cross-chain router protocol Multichain announced the recovery of nearly 50% of the total stolen funds, worth nearly $2.6 million of cryptocurrencies. The team has also released a compensation plan to reimburse the users’ losses.
On Jan. 10, blockchain security expert Dedaub alerted Multichain about two vulnerabilities in its liquidity pool and router contracts — affecting eight cryptocurrencies including wrapped ETH (WETH), wrapped BNB (WBNB), Polygon (MATIC) and Avalanche (AVAX).
1/3 We recently identified the “phantom functions” code pattern, which would have led to likely the largest crypto hack ever.
Your code may be vulnerable! You need to check for the pattern in your Solidity/EVM code! https://t.co/pxRqCQFbnS
According to Multichain, the vulnerability of the liquidity pool was fixed by upgrading the affected tokens’ liquidity to new contracts, adding:
“However, the risk remains for the users who have yet to revoke approvals for the affected router contracts. Importantly, users themselves have to be the ones to revoke the approvals.”
Daily attack sum. Source @Dune Analytics
As of Feb. 18, Multichain reported that 4,861 out of the 7,962 affected users have revoked approvals while advising the remaining 3,101 addresses to take action as soon as possible. Out of the 1,889.6612 WETH and 833.4191 AVAX stolen funds, the team was able to recover 912.7984 WETH and 125 AVAX (worth nearly $2.55 million and $10,000 respectively).
“However, in spite of our best efforts, a total of 976.8628 WETH has been stolen,” confirmed Multichain. To be eligible for compensation through reimbursement of losses, Multichain has asked users to revoked their approval and submit a ticket on the website. “As such, we will no longer reimburse any losses that happen after February 18 24:00 UTC.”
Netflix will soon produce and launch a documentary series circled around a New York-based couple and their involvement in laundering Bitcoin (BTC) linked to the Bitfinex hack.
As Cointelegraph reported, the documentary will be directed by American filmmaker Chris Smith with Nick Bilton as the co-executive producer. The announcement read:
“Netflix has ordered a documentary series about a married couple’s alleged scheme to launder billions of dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency in the biggest criminal financial crime case in history.”
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) price are still being hard hit by the current wave of volatility and this is leading traders to go back to the drawing board and readjust their short-term expectations. On Feb.17, Bitcoin price briefly dipped below $40,000 and Ether failed to hold support at $2,900, raises the chance of a drop to $2,500.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hovering near the $2,900 support level through the morning trading hours, Ether was hit with a wave of selling that dropped it to an intraday low of $2,752.
ETH/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView
Here’s a look at what analysts are saying about the price drop for Ether and whether or not more downside is expected as global tensions continue to rise.
Ethereum’s next stop could be $1,700
A general overview of the current outlook for Ether was provided by crypto trader and pseudonymous Twitter user ‘Crypto Tony’, who posted the following chart discussing the areas of support and resistance to keep an eye on.
ETH/USD 1-day chart. Source: Twitter
Crypto Tony said,
“$3,900 remains the most pivotal area for me and if we flip that, well I believe the low is in… Reject from it or fail to even reach it and we head to my main target of $1,700.”
Price is at a “super trend” resistance level
A more bullish take on Friday’s price action was offered by market analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user ‘IncomeSharks’, who posted the following chart indicating that Ether is now at a significant resistance zone.
ETH/USD 4-hour chart. Source: Twitter
According to the analyst,
“Ether right at the supertrend resistance. Since it’s flat it usually has a higher chance of breaking upwards and flipping bullish. If it does flip bullish I think $2,900 to $3,000 would be next.”
Insight into what could happen to Ether and the wider altcoin market, should it fail to hold this current level, was offered by trader and pseudonymous Twitter user Pentoshi.
ETH/USD 1-day chart. Source: Twitter
Pentoshi said,
“I will take note that there is local strength here since it held its lows but overall still lower highs. Trend is down. *IF* those lows break *THEN* *MOST* altcoins turbo nuke.”
The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.899 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 41.4%.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
While many analysts anticipated BTC’s price to fall towards $30,000 next, mostly based on technicals, Jurrien Timmer of Fidelity Investments lambasted the downside bias, calling it “mostly noise.”
Bitcoin has been in a choppy trading range for almost a year now, bouncing between 30k and 65k. The up-or-down debate continues to be a favorite hobby for many, but it’s mostly noise. For Bitcoin, the network is what matters. Let’s dig deeper. pic.twitter.com/ipWumuRSya
The director of Global Macro published a series of tweets late Thursday, focusing on Bitcoin’s network growth since its inception as a decentralized medium of exchange. In doing so, he compared the cryptocurrency’s network effect with that of Apple, a trillion-dollar tech giant.
“Apple’s price has grown 1457x since 1996, while its price-to-sales ratio has grown 30 times,” wrote Timmer, adding:
“If the growth in valuation is an exponent of the growth in sales (per Metcalfe’s Law), then price should increase as an exponent of both metrics.”
Apple price and valuation since 1996. Source: Fidelity
Applying the same metrics on the Bitcoin network returned impressive growth.
For instance, Fidelity found that Bitcoin’s price had surged 640,633x from inception until the end of 2021. While its price-to-network ratio, a supposed equivalent of the price-to-sales ratio, came out to be 52, up almost 867 times in the same period.
Bitcoin size and valuation. Source: Fidelity
“If we apply Metcalfe’s Law and calculate the square of 867, we get 751,111, noted Timmer, highlighting that it is “roughly in line with the 640,633x realized price gain.”
The stark similarities in the rise of Bitcoin and Apple networks — based on their price and price-to-sales/network ratios — prompted Timmer to hint at long-term growth in the Bitcoin market.
Additionally, the veteran analyst pitted demand curves of mobile phone subscriptions and internet adoption against Bitcoin to draw similar conclusions, suggesting that BTC’s price would rally above $100,000 in the future.
Bitcoin versus mobile phone and internet users’ demand model. Source: Fidelity
Long-term BTC setups back in focus
Like Timmer, other analysts also projected the ongoing decline as corrections that typically appear in a long-term bull market.
For instance, BTCfuel, an independent market analyst, shared a bullish outlook, citing a fractal from 2013.
Notably, Bitcoin in 2022 appeared to have been stuck below the same moving averages as it was in 2013. And since BTC broke above the said resistance areas eight years ago, its probability of repeating the same price action this year appeared higher, as per BTCfuel.
Bitcoin daily price chart 2013 vs. 2022. Source: TradingView
“Resumption soon,” the analyst wrote.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
The White House will reportedly be issuing an executive order as early as next week directing government agencies to study different aspects of the digital asset space with the goal of creating a comprehensive regulatory framework.
In a Thursday report from Yahoo! Finance, Jennifer Schonberger said an official familiar with the matter within the Biden administration revealed the executive order could arrive as soon as next week. The directive from President Biden would reportedly order the Office of the Attorney General, the State Department, and the Treasury Department to study the potential rollout of a U.S.-issued central bank digital currency.
In addition, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy — the newly appointed Alondra Nelson — would provide an evaluation on the infrastructure needed for the U.S. to support a digital dollar. The agency will reportedly plan to issue a report to the U.S. President on distributed ledger technology within 180 days, with an update expected on its environmental impact in 545 days.
Under the executive order, the Financial Stability Oversight Council would study financial stability issues resulting from the introduction of cryptocurrencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commision, Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will consider measures to protect the markets and report to the president on methods to mitigate risks with respect to crypto.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Trade Commission, and Office of the Attorney General will study the impact of digital assets on market competition. The director and chair of the first two aforementioned agencies, respectively, will review privacy concerns for the space.
Altogether, the executive order — the 81st President Biden has signed since taking office in January 2021 — would reportedly be used to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the United States. The previous administration issued 220 executive orders over four years, while President Barack Obama released 276 orders during his two terms.
Cryptocurrencies have infrequently been mentioned in executive orders during the history of the United States. The technology has only existed through the last three administrations.
In March 2018, Donald Trump issued an order banning U.S. residents from engaging in transactions of “any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token” released by Venezuela’s government, referring to the country’s Petro token. The former president also mentioned “digital currency fraud” in a July 2018 order establishing a task force tackling market integrity and consumer fraud.
Another order issued by President Obama in 2015 hinted that authorities would be able to confiscate digital assets connected to “significant malicious cyber-enabled activities.” The executive action essentially allowed officials to seize “funds or other assets” without “prior notice of a listing or determination” under the National Emergencies Act. In March 2021, President Biden extended the order through April 2022. Since that time, the Justice Department and other government agencies have formed a task force to track and seize digital assets connected to illicit transactions.
Creating a new crypto project is dangerously easy: One needs to generate a token, pick a ticker, market it to the crypto community through coin information websites such as CoinMarketCap or CoinGecko, and then get it listed on decentralized exchanges or the thousands of new centralized crypto exchanges that will do almost anything for money.
Malicious entities can simply think of a catchy brand name or, better yet, grab a prominent brand, and sauce it with additional keywords that could make crypto beginners think it’s related to its legitimate counterpart. Because of this, the crypto market is full of tokens that have nothing to do with the name or brand they bring to mind.
We created a quick list of crypto projects that are unaffiliated with the prominent brands they resemble.
Mini Tesla
This project starts off its website with a Tesla car bouncing up and down carrying the Mini Tesla logo. Aiming at visitors who may be “tired of rug pulls and scam projects,” the Mini Tesla brand encourages people to buy its token on PancakeSwap. However, community members are frustrated with it and are calling it a scam.
Several Twitter users, including JaferiMo and KabakciNiyazi, are accusing the project of being a scam.
Moreover, while it aims to look similar to the legit electric vehicle manufacturer, there are no official announcements from Tesla’s official channels about being affiliated with this project.
Jurassic Token
Many people grew up loving the Jurassic Park movie series and the more recent Jurassic World movies. However, dinosaurs are not as fantastic when used by unaffiliated teams pretending to be a part of the franchise to score quick bucks.
With a website filled with dinosaurs and the same font as the famous films, Jurassic Token tries to lure users into buying its native digital asset. However, like with other projects within this list, there’s no indication that the project has ties with the original Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movie franchises.
MetaNFT Marketplace
The newly launched MetaNFT Marketplace project caught the crypto community’s attention by being featured on CoinMarketCap’s biggest 24-hour gainers. Using an infinity-sign logo and a website that captures tech conglomerate Meta’s branding, the project markets itself as a cross-chain nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace. However, apart from not having an announcement from Meta’s official platforms, it seems that some users are not convinced with the project.
In a Reddit thread created by MetaNFT that argues how its platform is “all about security,” user u/Pronoobing thinks otherwise.
One of the most significant recent cases of using prominent brands to offer unaffiliated scam tokens was when an ERC-20 token called Animoca Brands Metaverse was registered and pretended to be affiliated with the Hong Kong-based venture capitalist.
However, the official Animoca Brands firm responded swiftly and announced that it is not associated with the Ethereum-based token using its brand name.
SCAM ALERT! ‼️‼️‼️It came to our attention that there is ongoing scam using our name. We are not associated with this new ERC-20 token “Animoca Brands Metaverse”.
As the field of viable layer-one blockchain protocols continues to expand with newer entrants trying to solve the issue of high transaction costs and slow processing times, older projects find themselves utilizing their history and track record to set themselves apart and secure a market share that will ensure their survival through the next market cycle.
Neo (NEO) fits the bill described above and the project is attempting to stage a revival in 2022 as governments around the world slowly open to the fact that blockchains and digital currencies have certain benefits that can be integrated into public and private enterprise.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price of NEO has climbed 60% since hitting a low of $16.10 on Jan. 24 to hit a daily high of $25.68 on Feb. 11 and the project is once again on the move as its 24-hour trading volume surged 292% on Feb. 17.
NEO/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView
Three reasons for the increase in demand for NEO include the adoption of the Neo blockchain by China’s Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), the full rollout of Neo N3 and the launch of several nonfungible tokens (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects on the network.
Adoption by BSN
The most significant recent development for Neo was an announcement from BSN China that the Neo-powered Jiuquan Chain will be included as one of the ten chains that will form the Chinese mainnet.
Through this integration, citizens in China will now be able to access NFT markets that operate on the BSN Open Permissioned Blockchain (OPB) and remain compliant with Chinese regulations.
As part of this process, NFT’s on BSN are being renamed “Decentralized Digital Certificates” (DDCs) as a way to help differentiate “Chinese NFTs” from those used by the rest of the world and emphasize that NFT utility expands beyond simple graphical images or music tracks.
The Jiuquan chain will also include an integration with the Neo domain name service, allowing users to choose a unique, short sentence to replace hash strings and complicated wallet addresses.
Full rollout of N3
A second reason for the resurgence of Neo has been the successful launch of N3, the most advanced version of the Neo blockchain.
N3 originally went live on Aug. 2, 2021, but the network took a measured approach to the migration of assets from N2 to N3 as a way to ensure that there were no major bugs or issues with the process.
The revamp to the codebase was done to help Neo compete with other top smart contract platforms as the concept of a smart economy continues to gain steam thanks to the widespread proliferation of smart devices which transmit data to the web.
A third factor helping provide a boost of momentum for NEO has been the launch of multiple nonfungible tokens (NFT) projects on the network now that N3 has been fully launched.
MegaOasis, a NFT marketplace, is the newest addition to the Neo ecosystem and it offers members of the community access to NFTs created by famous artists that can be exclusively found on the Neo network.
Mega Oasis (@MegaOasis_nft), an NFT marketplace designed to offer collectors access to unique NFTs made specifically for the platform, is launching on Feb. 14. It will kick off with the sale of Meta Panacea, a collection by renowned artist Zhenchen Liu.https://t.co/fnwKPQMGfk
‘To the Moon Universe’ is another N3-based NFT marketplace that launched on Neo and it has already completed its first NFT auction on N3.
Several DeFi protocols have also successfully launched on N3, including Flamingo Finance (FLM), which migrated from N2 and NeoBurger which is a newer protocol that launched with the rollout of N3.
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