What happened in crypto the past week? Bitcoin is staying around 98-102K. The Czech Republic is bullish on BTC, and Tether is joining its blockchain too. Kucoin is leaving the US. Trump is messing with all the world economy, including crypto. What else? Read below:
- Bitcoin: Some interesting points of view - Deepseek's efficient approach to AI development can lead to lower computing costs, which in turn means lower inflation. And Bitcoin, having zero exposure to AI, can thrive in a low-inflation environment. In conclusion, Deepseek can push BTC higher. Derive's research suggested the opposite, with a 9.2% for BTC to test the $75K levels before April. Standard Chartered sees BTC hitting $500K by 2028. MicroStrategy is minding its own business, buying 10K BTC more. They are called Strategy now, levelling up from Micro, and they just reported a $1B write-down on Bitcoin holdings. We had Trump's latest trade war sending Bitcoin to $95K, only to recover the next day, maybe correlated with the US president's negotiations with the Mexican president and with Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister. Bitcoin did cross $850B in stored network value, the highest in history. But the network difficulty hit record highs of around 110 Trillion, with major miners dropping production by 4-27%, with one exception, Riot Platforms, which had a 2.1% increase. Tether (USDT) plans to bring USDT to BTC and the Lighting Network. Czech Central Bank governor proposed a $7B BTC Investment plan. The Texas LT Governor announced a Bitcoin reserve as a 2025 legislative priority. South Korea's Bitcoin Kimchi Premium surged to a 10-month high.
- Ethereum: ETH price has been declining for six weeks already, but there is some hope. We have $1B in leveraged shorts sitting at $3400, waiting to be liquidated. Is this the answer? Ethereum is struggling to keep pace with BTC and SOL. Hyperliquid surpassed ETH in a 7-day revenue with $12.8M, as opposed to $11.5M for ETH.
- Altcoins and stablecoins: I had fun with Intract, where you do quests for NFT and even win some crypto in contests. I am testing Soneium at the moment and will come up with some links maybe next week after I learn better how the ecosystem works. MiCA compliance in Europe is no joke, and this week we had Cryptodotcom announcing the removal of USDT and 9 other tokens (such as WBTC and DAI). Thorchain goes insolvent, with validators pausing the chain to pass a restructuring plan after insolvency issues. Jupiter Exchange announced buybacks, with 50% of the protocol fees now redirected to JUP token buybacks, and the unveiling of Jupnet, an omnichain network designed to aggregate all crypto into a single decentralized ledger. Solana's memecoin flippers made some serious money thanks to the US trade war. Some crazy jumps lately, TRUMP 12.4%, Fartboy token 66.8% on National Fart Day, even VINE went up 35.4%. The presidential project, World Liberty Financial, looks sketchy as hell, and they reached the goal of selling 20% of its supply, only to get ready to sell another 5% due to a "massive demand" (wink wink). Legacy coins such as Litecoin, XRP and LEO are outperforming BTC in monthly gains. The XRP ledger experienced an hour-long outage. A video tutorial accidentally sent a BNB test token to the moon, making it viral (yes, it is TST, not a real token, used only for test, going up to $35M before crashing to $15M - people will buy anything these days, right?). Coinbase filed to list SOL and HBAR futures. 21Shares filed for cSpot Polkadot ETP with the SEC. Canadian firm SOL Strategies bought another 40.3K SOL tokens in the first 2 weeks of January.
- NFTs and blockchain games: I am big on playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite profitable, I would say, with some great updates lately. Check this article I wrote about: Link and this one too: Link. On Splinterlands, we are getting ready for a new card collection, with some cool summoners that are now auction-only, yet it seems quite expensive. Check my Holozing article to learn about a new blockchain game that looks full of potential. Pudgy Penguins burned over $150M worth of unclaimed Pengu tokens on Solana, weeks ahead the schedule. Not what they expected to happen, the token declined.
- Good news: MicroStrategy introduced STRK, a new convertible preferred stock offering, with proceeds used to acquire even more BTC. Some interesting statistics showed us that the stablecoin transfer volume just surpassed Visa and Mastercard's combined transaction volume in US dollars. Coinbase sent letters to three major US regulators challenging the barriers between traditional banking and digital assets. The Japanese hotel investor Metaplanet raised $745M to expand its BTC holdings. Coinbase and Kraken secured key EU and UK regulatory approval.
- Bad news: We had the SEC admitting that some crypto tokens may not be securities. They are exploring 'retroactive relief' for past token offerings. The only thing more surprising than this one is the American administration's willingness to create a comprehensive framework aimed at bringing crypto innovation back to American soil. Some 790 pages of correspondence revealed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) past stance on crypto, showing how banks requesting to offer crypto services were met with resistance, delays and endless requests for more information. The Acting Chairman just announced they are actively reevaluating their approach to crypto activities. As they were exposed, this looks like BS. Kucoin Exchange will exit the US market after its $297M settlement. Prosecutors accused Kucoin of failing to implement proper anti-money laundering and KYC practices. Justin Sun is trying to convince us that its dying blockchain is cool, promising to burn 415M TRX, the launch of USDD 2.0, AI integration and memecoins. Binance faces fraud and money laundering probe in France.
- Joke of the week: Trump's campaign manager was hired by Coinbase as a member of its global advisory council. Not connecting the dots yet? Also, real use for Trump token, as you can use it to buy Trump-branded sneakers, watches and fragrances across three different websites. The memecoin is down 30% this week. Now, the US president tried to create some hype around the token, but he ain't no Elon Musk, so instead of going up, the mention triggered an even sharper decline. The trade war triggered a massive $2B crypto liquidation event, but this time was crypto that was influenced by traditional finance, and not the other way around. Trump's team is even working on something called Truth.fi Bitcoin Plus ETF. For real!
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - real-life virtual land) (Holozing - Pokemon-like game)and (Rising Star - Music creators game).
...get crypto while writing on Publish0x blog, using Presearch search engine to maximize your income with PRE tokens. Use Torum instead of Twitter . I am also writing for crypto on Grill and Hive.
Posted Using INLEO
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people( @mightyrocklee ) sharing the post on Reddit as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com. Otherwise, rewards go to the author of the blog post.
Hey man! Thanks for creating gud content on Inleo, love to see Splinterlands content all around!
I've been trying to reach you on discord (Account heruvim19782898), hopefully you can check my message out!
Congratulations @heruvim1978! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 74000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPHey Heruvim, we are the @town-hall witness, and we are preparing our next Hive community Town hall meeting. We've been looking for you on discord to no avail, can you please share with me your username or send a DM to @anomadsoul please?
Supported!