Crypto News Weekly roundup January 28

This week has seen tons of regulatory actions in the crypto industry, along with a market bleeding and scary situation. We at TheCoinRise are here to summarise it for you.

Bitcoin has been unstoppably bleeding for the past few months and has recently fallen to a six-month low mark. However, the Bitcoin network difficulty has gained a new all-time high of 26.643 trillion with a mean hash rate of 190.71 EH/s. This indicates the strong faith in crypto and support from the community.

Recently, massive Bitcoin adoption has been reported when multiple institutions entered the crypto world. El Salvador has bought another 410 Bitcoins at an average price of around $36,500, at the lowest price to date. The blockchain payments company Ripple has recently announced a $200 million Series C share buyback, marking the company’s valuation to another all-time high at $15 billion.

Exchange activities

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and co-founder of leading Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Uniswap, Hayden Adams, has accused JPMorgan Chase & Co, the American banking giant, of closing down his bank accounts.

The CEO took the matter to Twitter and said that the bank had closed down his account without presenting any form of explanation or notice.

Latoken, a Russia-based crypto exchange platform, faced an embarrassing situation when a supposedly “disgruntled employee” hacked the exchange’s official Twitter account and wrote multiple damning contents about the platform. He/She accused the platform of promoting scam projects and mistreating its employees. The post says:

“LATOKEN is the leading SCAM platform!! They fire employees for no reason and treat them like trash !!! they deliberately try to scam money out of projects!”

The Chicago-based crypto trading platform FTX US which is buzzing these days has marked a valuation of $8 billion after grabbing a $400 million funding. Temasek Holdings, SoftBank Group Corp, Paradigm, and Multicoin Capital led the investment round this Wednesday.

According to Brett Harrison, FTX US head, the move will intensify the expansion of the company. It also aims to use the fund to boost the exchange’s offerings and grow its team.

Regulatory involvement

Russia has been facing massive backlash from multiple big names, including Telegram founder Pavel Durov and Alexi Navalny’s chief of Staff Leonid Volkov. The Russian central bank recently published a report suggesting a blanket ban on crypto activities in the nation. Durov criticized the move and said that it would “destroy a number of sectors of the high-tech economy.”

The Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK), Indonesia’s financial market authority, has banned crypto trading activities for all banking and financial services firms in the nation. The OJK said finance-related businesses could not use, market, or facilitate crypto trading, according to a Google translation of the statement posted on the agency’s Instagram Account.

It also advised citizens to be careful of Ponzi scams, which are frequently linked to cryptocurrency.

Andrew Moss and Alkesh Shah, two crypto Strategists at Bank of America, started this Monday that CBDC is an inevitable advancement of today’s digital currencies. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve Bank published a report last Thursday, “Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation,” which analyzed the pros and cons of the United States adopting digital dollar.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, is said to have directed officials from the ruling Justice and Development Party (A.K. Party) to arrange a meeting on the metaverse to explore new advancements in special fields of technology. The scheduled meeting is expected to be attended by President Erdoan himself, according to the local news channel DailySabah.

While Turkey’s crypto ecosystem is rapidly expanding, regulatory pressures continue to pose a threat to this robust ecosystem. While President Erdogan, who has stated that he plans to regulate the digital currency sector, is not considering a blanket ban, the growing interest in the metaverse may shape Turkey’s future development.

US SEC Rejects Fidelity’s Wise Origin BTC Trust Spot ETF Application

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently added another spot BTC ETF in its rejection list. SEC refused to approve Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust Spot ETF or Exchange Traded Fund application filed in March 2021. The company planned to list the proposed product on the Cboe BZX Exchange after a successful launch of a similar product in Canada.

Males check BTC prices more than females

If you’re a male, you’re more likely to check your Bitcoin prices than your female counterparts. As per a recently published survey, different genders react differently to Bitcoin price volatility. The data of the research was linked to both psychological and demographic characteristics. The research also revealed that nearly 60% of the female population have very low or do not have awareness concerning crypto assets.

Greenidge Holdings to Float $264M Crypto Mining Hub

Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc, an American crypto mining and power production company, has announced plans to build a new crypto datacenter in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. The company reveals that the new mining site is valued at $264 million and will offer around 40 direct jobs in the tech industry.

The new data center will be the most modern and efficient bitcoin mining processor commercially accessible and will be located on 175 acres of land. When fully constructed, the Nasdaq-listed company expects the project to have over 100 megawatts of datacentre capacity.

Fitch Ratings believes Crypto miners pose a threat to the U.S. power supply

The renowned international credit rating firm Fitch Ratings has issued a public notice that warns the United States about the risks posed by crypto mining on public power usage and power production.

The areas which have excess production capacity like Washington may be able to offer the power requirements of multiple mining operations, says the company.

Blockdaemon Grabs $207M Funding

Unicorn valuation keeps growing despite the ongoing crash, and the Blockdaemon is the most recent to join the list.

Blockdaemon has grabbed $207 million in a Series C funding round led by Sapphire and Tiger Global this Wednesday. The company touched a $3.25 billion valuation after the funding. In September last year, the company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Reddit is exploring ways to integrate NFT profile pics

Reddit is the next social media platform to join the NFT world by trying its hands on the NFT profile image feature, just like Twitter. It is reported by multiple platforms that Reddit will let its users set their profile picture to any NFT with an attached image. Tim Rathschmidt, the company’s representative, said that the company is exploring the possibility of using NFTs as avatars and verifying ownership.

Crypto Service Providers wants to Adopt the FATF Travel Rule

In contrast to popular belief, the majority of crypto-assets service providers want to implement the FATF or Financial Action Task Force’s “Travel Rule,” according to a recent Notabene survey. According to the poll, 13% of the businesses are banks or operate under a banking license, and 86% are crypto native businesses.

The survey’s respondents were evenly spread, with 45% from the Asia Pacific, 30% from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and the remaining 25% from North America. According to the study, 70% of the respondents have already adopted or are planning to adopt the Travel Rule by the end of Q2 this year.

The Sandbox joins hands with Warner Music Group

One of the most popular metaverse gaming projects, The Sandbox, has partnered with Warner Music Group after striking a deal on Thursday. The partnership aims at building a virtual theme park and concert venue where visitors can enjoy their time. Furthermore, the LAND owned by Warner Music Group in the Sandbox will be hosting concerts and other live events led by artists and celebrities.

Ray Dalio thinks crypto is receiving too much attention

The famous American investor and Bridgewater Associates’ founder said that the crypto industry is receiving far too much attention all over the world. As we reported, he recently recommended investors to only allocate 1%-2% of their funds into crypto and repeated the same by saying that he only owns a “tiny” amount of crypto in his portfolio.

Qubit Finance Exploited by Hacker, loses $77M

Qubit Finance, a Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending as a utility platform, has suffered an attack in its bridge facility, with the hacker stealing 206,809 Binance Coin (BNB) worth $77.9 million. T he attack was aimed at the QBridge system, with the hacker taking advantage of a weakness in the deposit function, informed the company.

We at TheCoinRise wish you amid the death cross situation and will be back with another weekly roundup next Friday.