CryptoNews of the Week by NordFX

CryptoNews of the Week


- Miners mined the anniversary 19 millionth bitcoin On Friday, April 01. This event took place at block 730.002. At the time of writing, 90.48% of the total digital gold issue has been mined, which is limited to 21 million BTC.
According to the algorithm laid down by Satoshi Nakamoto, the reward is reduced by 50% every 210,000 blocks. The next halving is expected in 2024. (For reference: the 18 millionth coin was mined on October 19, 2019).

- The trend towards the accumulation of bitcoins among various market participants continued last week. Such well-known companies as Luna Foundation Guard and MicroStrategy are among them. Analysts from the Glassnode company noticed that, in addition to the “whales”, the so-called “shrimp” (addresses with a balance of less than 1 BTC) also contributed to the accumulation. Since the January 22 low, they have accumulated 0.58% of the market supply, bringing their share to 14.26%.
At the moment, miners have already mined 19 million coins out of the 21 million provided by the algorithm, and the accumulation has become many times higher than the emission. Thanks to this, bitcoin may soon become a scarce asset. According to Glassnode, the rate of outflow of coins from centralized platforms has increased to 96,200 BTC per month, which is extremely rare in historical retrospect. Exchange balances fell to the levels of August 2018, breaking through the plateau observed since September 2021. The number of coins in bitcoin addresses that tend to accumulate rose by 217,000 BTC since December 04, 2021, to a record 2,854,000 BTC.
Based on the figures presented, it is possible to obtain a daily accumulation rate of 1800 BTC, which is twice the emission rate. And this is despite the fact that the market has been under the pressure of the bears for most of this period.

- The German Federal Criminal Police confiscated the German servers of the Hydra darknet marketplace. 543 BTC were also seized as part of the international operation with a total value of about 23 million euros. The investigation into the case has been ongoing since August 2021 with the participation of the US authorities. Hydra operators and administrators are suspected of providing opportunities for drug trafficking, fraudulent documents and money laundering.
According to the police, the users of the darknet marketplace included about 17 million customers and more than 19 thousand sellers. Hydra accounted for 75% of all dark web revenue in 2020, at least 1.23 billion euros. The platform entered the top 10 platforms in terms of cryptocurrency turnover, beating the Kraken, OKX and Poloniex exchanges.

- 21% of US residents have traded or invested in cryptocurrencies at least once, according to a survey conducted by NBC News. Only 19% of those surveyed expressed their positive attitude towards digital assets, 56% are neutral or cautious position, and 25% view them in a negative way. The agency explained this distrust by the lack of clear legislative regulation of this industry.

- US Senate Banking Committee member Elizabeth Warren compared the digital asset market to the 2008 economic crisis in an interview with NBC. “The whole digital world is like a bubble. What is the basis for its growth? People tell each other that everything will be fine, as it was with the real estate market before it fell,” Warren explained. The senator added that bitcoin will be regulated by the authorities sooner or later. However, she did not specify how the government plans to achieve such control.

- According to analysts at the investment company VanEck, the price of bitcoin could reach $4.8 million if the cryptocurrency becomes a global reserve asset. Such a forecast was obtained taking into account the M2 money supply, that is, the amount of cash in circulation and all kinds of non-cash funds. There is also a lower range - $1.3 million per 1 BTC, calculated based on the M0 money supply, which does not include non-cash funds.
VanEck analysts warn that their forecast is only intended to serve as a starting point for investors who want to estimate the possible value of bitcoin in one of the unlikely scenarios. At the same time, according to the authors of the forecast, it is not bitcoin at all, but the Chinese yuan that is the primary contender for the status of world reserve currency.

- A report from analytics firm IntoTheBlock says that long-term investors continue to hoard bitcoin. According to the results of Q1 22, the total amount of coins in the wallets of these market participants reached 12 million BTC, worth about $551.37 billion. “Long-term investors now own a record amount. This indicates an accumulation phase, helps ease selling pressure, and may help reinforce faith in bitcoin as a store of value,” IntoTheBlock said.
Bitcoin is now showing an almost complete cyclical correlation with the S&P500, which recently hit 0.9. At the same time, the cryptocurrency with its inherent volatility rises faster and falls just as faster than the stock market. The company's analysts note that "bitcoin has now recovered most of its quarterly losses, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 ended the first quarter with returns of -3.4% and -7.65%, respectively."

- Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz has revised his bitcoin outlook. He believes that the arrival of new investors and innovations, developments in politics and the economy, and the acceptance of bitcoin by the authorities improve the forecasts for BTC for 2022. “Initially, I said that bitcoin would have an unstable year, that the price would fluctuate in the range of $30,000 to $50,000. But given how the markets are trading, new investors and innovation, the development of the Web3 and the metaverse, I'm more optimistic. Therefore, I won’t be surprised if cryptocurrencies grow significantly by the end of 2022,” the billionaire said.
In his opinion, the adoption of bitcoin will continue, as everyone understands what an unstable world we live in. “Bitcoin began to write a new history at a time when Europe and the United States blocked Russia's financial flows. The military action in Ukraine creates a lot of inflationary pressure, generates a lot of risks and worries, but adds confidence to crypto investors and accelerates the adoption of digital assets,” the CEO of Galaxy Digital said.

- Raoul Pal, a former Goldman Sachs employee and current Real Vision CEO, shares a similar opinion. He said in the MetaLearn podcast that the world is ready for a new wave of bitcoin adoption, and a further fall in the market will have a beneficial effect on its growth. “Sovereign states, especially wealth funds, will start looking for a long-term asset that will provide some security. Therefore, bitcoin will be studied by them and we will see its further adoption - not necessarily as a currency, but as an asset. I think this is a very interesting solution: the global use of bitcoin as a protective collateral reserve asset."
According to Raul Pal, the macroeconomic situation suggests that the chances of another bitcoin sell-off are slim. Therefore, most market participants are likely to stick to a long-term strategy and not actively trade cryptocurrencies.

- Cryptocurrency analyst and trader Cheds believes that a breakout of the ascending triangle pattern will take bitcoin to $58,000. “We have $46,000... and an ascending triangle,” Chads writes. - It is most logical to consider it as a bullish sign, since such a triangle is usually a bullish continuation pattern. The measured move will be the height of the triangle, which will bring us from $56,000 to $58,000.”
At the same time, the expert advises traders to keep a close eye on the 200-day moving average as this technical indicator is currently acting as resistance. Chads believes that if the bulls manage to keep BTC above $45,000, the cryptocurrency will be ready to storm the SMA-200 resistance for a further 26% gain. Otherwise, the bulls face the risk of a sell-off. 


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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Forex and Cryptocurrencies Forecast for April 04 - 08, 2022

EUR/USD: Too Much Uncertainty

The movement of major currencies was determined throughout March by reports from the Russian-Ukrainian front, the sanctions-energy war with Russia, and the pace of monetary tightening. The US dollar has strengthened significantly in recent months thanks to a sharp increase in the yield of US government bonds and signals about an increase in the Fed's interest rate. The EUR/USD pair fell to 1.0805 on March 07, its lowest level since mid-May 2020. However, then the growth of the dollar stopped, and the pair moved to a sideways movement along the Pivot Point 1.1000. The hawkish statements of the Fed management pushed the pair down, the hopes for resolving the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine sent it above this line.

The same factors determined the dynamics of EUR/USD last week as well. The pair rose by 240 points from Monday, March 28 to Thursday, March 31: from 1.0944 to 1.1184. First, the strengthening of the euro was caused by reports in the US media that the ECB may start actively raising the refinancing rate this year. Allegedly, a number of large market participants require the European regulator to raise the rate four times by the end of 2022. As a result, investors began to include in quotes the probability of such a move by the ECB, and the yield on government bonds in Europe went up.

The next day, March 29, hopes dawned for the success of the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, which took place in Istanbul (Turkey). The success of the EU's energy war with Russia also helped the European currency. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the sale of energy carriers to Europe exclusively for rubles a week ago. The goal was clear: to support the ruble exchange rate under the sanctions. However, the main European consumers refused to do so categorically, and the head of Russia was forced to note his decision.

Everything would have been good for the euro, but it turned out in the second half of the week that the rumors about the increase in the EUR rate in 2022 are nothing more than a speculation, and that there was no serious shift in the negotiations in Istanbul. Macroeconomic statistics also helped the dollar a little. As a result, the growth of the EUR/USD pair stopped, it turned south and ended the five-day period not far from Pivot Point 1.1000, at the level of 1.1045.

The outcome of the hostilities in Ukraine is still unclear. The situation with the supply and payment of hydrocarbon raw materials to Europe remains confusing as well. Oil has fallen in price by about 14% since March 24. This is how the market reacted to the plans of President Joe Biden to sell additional volumes of oil from national reserves. The White House intends to sell up to 1 million barrels of oil per day over the next six months. And this could be the biggest sell-off in the nearly 50-year history of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It should be noted here that, despite the smaller volumes, the sale of oil brings Russia more profit than gas currently. And such a decision by the United States should reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy carriers, causing additional damage to the Russian economy.

Another uncertainty is introduced by the Fed. Recall that forecasts for US GDP have been recently revised. And they have shown that the regulator expects economic growth to slow down in 2022 from 4% to 2.8% due to the sanctions war with Russia. In addition, the forecasts for the interest rate have also changed. It was earlier said that it will reach 0.75-1.00% by the end of the year. This figure has now risen to 1.75-2.00%. Given that there are only six meetings left this year, it turns out that the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) will have to raise the rate by 0.25% at each of them.

But this is not all either. The forecast on the rate for the end of 2023 has also been raised from 1.50-1.75% to 2.75-3.00%. Moreover, it seems that we will face several more acts of monetary restriction in 2024. That is, this is not just a revision of forecasts, but a sharp tightening of the US monetary policy, which could deal a serious blow to the labor market and lead to a large-scale recession. The market may receive important signals about the future movement of the dollar on Wednesday, April 6. The minutes of the March FOMC meeting will be published on this day.

At the moment, 50% of analysts vote for the strengthening of the dollar. 40% vote for the growth of the EUR/USD pair and 10% have taken a neutral position. Among the oscillators on D1, the picture is mixed: 30% of them are colored red, 20% are green and the remaining 35% are gray neutral. The trend indicators have an advantage on the side of the red ones: those are 85% against 15% of the green ones.

The nearest target for the bulls is a breakdown of the resistance zone in the area of 1.1100-1.1135, followed by the zones of 1.1185-1.1200, 1.1280-1.1350 and highs on January 13 and February 10 in the area of 1.1485. As for the bears, they will certainly try to break through the support of 1.0950-1.1000 and drop 100 points lower. If successful, the next targets will be the March 07 low at 1.0805 and the 2020 low at 1.0635 and the 2016 low at 1.0325.

Apart from the publication of the minutes of the March FOMC meeting, there will be relatively few events in the coming week. We can highlight the publication of the ISM PMI in the US services sector on Tuesday, April 05, as well as data on retail sales in the Eurozone on Thursday, April 07. 

GBP/USD: Trend east, along 1.3100

Statistics from the United Kingdom last week turned out to be rather contradictory. According to the data published on Thursday, March 31, the British economy for the Q4 21 grew by 1.3%, which was higher than both the previous 1.0% and the forecast of 1.0%.  The economy grew by 7.5% over the past year, which was the highest since 1941. But it is necessary to take into account  here that  GDP fell by 9.4% in 2020. So, there has not yet been a final recovery to the pre-pandemic level. In addition, data on the country's current account for the Q4 21 amounted to 7.3 billion pounds against the forecast of 17.6 billion and the previous value of 28.9 billion.

The activity of the manufacturing sector in the UK was also less than expected, which was confirmed by a IHS Markit report on Friday, April 01. The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) was 55.2 in March against the forecast of 55.5.

As with the euro and for the same reasons, GBP/USD investors and traders are at a loss. As a result, the pair was moving east along the 1.3100 level in a narrow corridor throughout the week. The low of the week was fixed at 1.3050, the high was 1.3182, the last chord sounded at 1.3112.

Giving a forecast for the coming week, 55% of experts side with the bulls, 35% support the bears and 10% remain neutral. The median forecast still points to the 1.3100 horizon. True, when moving to the forecast for the whole of April, its value rises to the zone of 1.3235. Most trend indicators on D1 point north. Among the oscillators, 55% are colored red, 20% are green and the remaining 25% are gray neutral. Trend indicators, as in the case of EUR/USD, have an overwhelming advantage on the side of the red ones: those are 90%.

The nearest support is located in the area of 1.3080-1.3100, then 1.3050 and the low of March 15 (and at the same time of 2021-2022) - 1.3000, followed by the support of 2020. Resistance levels are 1.3160, 1.3190-1.3215, then 1.3270-1.3325, 1.3400, 1.3485, 1.3600, 1.3640.

Among the events related to the economy of the United Kingdom, we can highlight the speech of the Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey on Monday, April 4, as well as the publication of the Composite PMI and the Business Index UK services activity on Tuesday, April 05, and the Construction PMI on Wednesday, April 06.

USD/JPY: 125.09: No More Anti-Records?

The yen breaks an anti-record after an anti-record. The USD/JPY hit 122.43 on Friday, March 25, and it was already 263 points higher at 125.09 on Monday, March 28. The reason for the continued weakening of the Japanese currency is the same: the Bank of Japan, which does not want to change its super-soft monetary policy. Its head, Haruhiko Kuroda, once again stated on March 22 that it was too early to discuss the possibility of curtailing the quantitative easing (QE) program, as well as raising the interest rate. Recall that it has been at a negative level for a long time, minus 0.1%. In addition, the regulator was actively buying Japanese government bonds (JGB) throughout the past week in a desperate attempt to prevent their yield from breaking through the target level of 0.25%.

Last week's high of 125.09 is already close to the 2015 high of 125.86. And if the pair manages to break higher, then, according to strategists at Credit Suisse, this will open the way for it to 135.20 in the long term, and then even higher, to the zone of 147.00-153.00. However, in their opinion, the correction that has begun now can be continued during the Q2, first to 119.79, then to 119.09, after which the pair will move to trading in the range of 119.00-125.00. Credit Suisse also believes that if the pair breaks through support at 119.09, then the pullback may become deeper, to the zone of 116.35-116.50.

The same high for the Q2 is called by Rabobank specialists, who predict the pair's rise above 125.00 only in the second half of this year. They believe that the tightening of the Fed's policy is already built into the current dollar quotes, and this will hold back the growth of the pair in the coming months. However, the difference in interest rates and Japan's position as an importer of raw materials will play their role in Q3 and Q4, and the yen will continue to gradually weaken. A quick jump in USD/JPY above 125.00 will seriously increase the likelihood that the Bank of Japan will revise its quantitative easing (QE) program.

As for the past week, after the pair rose to 125.09, a correction began. The low was recorded on Thursday, March 31 at 121.27, after which the pair went up again and finished at 122.54.

With 50% of experts giving a bullish outlook for the coming week, it looks very moderate and sees the pair rising to the 124.00-124.50 zone as a target. 25% of analysts, on the contrary, vote for a further decline in the pair, and 25% have taken a neutral position. It should be noted that when switching to a monthly forecast, the vast majority (85%) of experts predict the strengthening of the Japanese currency and expect to see the pair in the 115.00-117.00 zone.

Among the indicators on D1, there is almost complete unanimity after such a powerful breakthrough to the north. 90% of trend indicators and 100% of oscillators are looking up, although 25% of the oscillators are already in the overbought zone. The nearest resistance levels are 123.20, 124.20 and the March 28 high at 125.09. After that, as already mentioned, the bulls may try to reach the 2015 high at 125.86. The nearest support is 122.00, then 121.30. It is followed by zones 120.60-121.40, 119.00-119.40, 118.00-118.35.

There are no expected releases of any important statistics on the state of the Japanese economy this week.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES: What Whales and Short-Term Speculators Do


Investors' risk appetite, which caused the growth of stock indices, continued to pull the crypto market with it at the beginning of last week. Bitcoin gained 28% and ethereum gained nearly 40% in just the second half of March.

The main cryptocurrency reached the powerful resistance level of $45,000 on the evening of Friday, March 25, for the fifth time since the beginning of the year. It failed to gain a foothold above it the previous four times, the BTC/USD pair rolled back down. This time it seemed that the bulls finally achieved the long-awaited victory: the quotes recorded a local high at a height of $48.156 on March 28. However, after that, the pair hit the 200-day SMA and stopped rising. The most logical explanation for this stop is the strengthening of the dollar at the end of the past week.

At the time of writing, April 01, the flagship cryptocurrency first returned to the $45,000 zone, which turned from resistance to support, and then rebounded to $46,500. The total market capitalization rose to $2.140 trillion ($1.995 trillion a week ago). The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has also grown slightly: from 47 to 50 points.

DataDash CEO Nicholas Merten believes that short-term investors and traders with leverage influence bitcoin volatility, and “whales” influence the growth. “There has been a lot of panic around the macro environment over the past couple of months,” Merten writes. The Fed is raising interest rates... The war between Ukraine and Russia, the potential next wave of COVID-19 - all these problems caused pessimism among small investors. At the same time, the “whales”, on the contrary, did not sell cryptocurrency... In fact, we saw how long-term investors continued to either buy more or hold bitcoin.

One such investor was the well-known software developer MicroStrategy. The company has recently received a $205 million loan secured by its own crypto assets. The loan was issued by the American bank Silvergate. The purpose of the loan is to buy bitcoins. According to the Bitcoin Treasuries website, MicroStrategy already owns 125,051 BTC worth nearly $6 billion. And “this loan,” said Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, “is an opportunity to strengthen our position as a leader among public companies investing in bitcoin.”

Note that MicroStrategy is not the only company that provides crypto assets as collateral. For this type of loans, Silvergate Bank has a special SEN Leverage program, the total amount of obligations for which has already exceeded $570 million.

Despite numerous macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, bitcoin is highly likely to enter the second half of a bear market, according to analysts at Glassnode. This is evidenced by the active accumulation of coins in the range of $35,000-42,000 and the absence of significant spending of bitcoins purchased in the Q1 2021. The share of BTC “aged” over a year has grown by 9.4% over the past eight months to close to a record 62.9%. The holders of these coins did not get rid of the asset in the face of two corrections of more than 50% in the last 12 months. The growth rate of this indicator is comparable to the market recovery in 2018-2019. And this may reflect increased investor confidence in bitcoin.

At the same time, analysts at Glassnode warn that the process of bottoming and investor capitulation in a bear market is often lengthy and painful. Therefore, they urge not to rush into ascertaining the end of the bear market.

A number of experts believe that a new strong correction to the south is only a matter of time. There are still no drivers for the rapid growth of quotations, and everything depends on the severity of the geopolitical situation and the dynamics of the global economic recovery. The $30,000 level may become the bearish target for the BTC/USD pair.

Peter Brandt, CEO of Factor Trading, calls for caution in optimistic forecasts. This legendary trader tweeted to his 629,400 followers that BTC’s recent move reminded him of April 2019 when the top cryptocurrency bottomed at $3,500, starting the first phase of its bull cycle. However, the expert emphasizes that even a technical breakthrough does not guarantee that the coin will repeat the 2019 rally.

“Charts DO NOT predict the future. The charts DO NOT even offer probabilities. Charts offer opportunities and are useful for risk management in a trading program. Chart patterns can either work, fail, or transform. If laser eyes reappear and BTC stops, be careful,” Brandt warns.

Crypto analyst alias Dave the Wave posted a comment saying that bitcoin is forming a larger ascending triangle on the weekly timeframe and could rise to its all-time high of $69,000.

We noted in the forecast for the last week of March that the position of ethereum is currently slightly better than that of bitcoin. The above growth figures are clear proof of this. Many investors are now buying ETH with BTC. In addition, the community is waiting for the long-awaited update to the ethereum mainnet. The Merge update is approaching rollout following successful testing on the testnet. Before its launch, more than $5.0 billion in ETH tokens had already been withdrawn from circulation as a result of burning. Since the burning reduces the overall supply of ethereum, this positively affects its price, contributing to the altcoin’s rally. Glassnode analysts have found that the volume of ethereum on exchanges has been declining in recent days. The inflow of this altcoin to the trading floors is 20% lower than its outflow, which creates the conditions for the formation of an ETH deficit.

The growth in the value of the coin is observed against the backdrop of the activation of the ten largest ETH addresses. Whales have accumulated up to 23.7% of the total ethereum supply, according to a new report from analytics firm Santiment. And they are not going to dump their assets, preferring to send ETH to offline storage. A similar trend was observed in the first half of 2017, after which we saw the famous altcoin run during the hype five years ago.

And at the end of the review, another piece of advice in our crypto life hacks section. Recall that we talk in it about the most interesting and unexpected ways to make money in this market.

Have you ever wondered what the toilet is for? We will tell you: to mine cryptocurrency! This is exactly what Gabriel Kozak and Dušan Matuska from Slovakia decided. As a result, they created the AmityAge mining farm, which runs on electricity obtained from human and animal waste. Dušan Matushka, said that "their devices run on methane, which is produced during the biodegradation process." Since there is no shortage of such waste in the foreseeable future, BTC mining on their farm is not dependent on rising global energy prices. Moreover, it takes place in an environmentally friendly way using renewable energy sources, which completely removes all claims against this industry.


NordFX Analytical Group


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke about the importance of digital assets in an interview with CNBC. “Cryptocurrency has grown by leaps and bounds, and now it plays a significant role not only in transactions, but in the investment decisions of many Americans,” she said.
At the same time, Ms. Minister confirmed her concerns regarding digital assets due to threats to financial stability, the need to protect private investors and the use of cryptocurrencies in illegal activities. “On the other hand, cryptocurrencies have advantages, and we recognize the benefits of innovation in the payment system. We want to issue recommendations to create a regulatory field in the long run,” she concluded, referring to the March executive order of US President Joe Biden. Recall that this decree requires federal agencies to coordinate their efforts in regulating the cryptocurrency industry.

- Kevin O’Leary, an American entrepreneur and star of the popular business and finance show “Shark Tank” stated that “there is no chance that bitcoin or anything else that has economic prospects in terms of developing new technologies for financial services will be banned and payment systems.
Roy Niederhoffer, the founder of RGNiederhoffer Capital Management, disagreed with his opinion, and he sees the possibility of a ban. He recalled that there was a time when private ownership of gold was banned in many countries, including the United States.
In the end, both panellists agreed that regulation of the cryptocurrency space is inevitable, and it will lead to a massive rally. “As soon as we see regulation, organizations will start investing trillions of dollars in cryptocurrencies,” O’Leary is sure.

- Peter Brandt, a legendary trader and the Factor Trading CEO, tweeted to his 629,400 followers that BTC’s recent move reminded him of April 2019, when the top cryptocurrency bottomed at $3,500 and began the first phase of its bull cycle. However, the expert emphasizes that even a technical breakthrough does not guarantee that the coin will repeat the 2019 rally.
“Charts DO NOT predict the future. The charts DO NOT even offer probabilities. Charts offer opportunities and are useful for risk management in a trading program. Chart patterns can either work, fail, or transform. If laser eyes reappear and BTC stops, be careful,” Brandt warns.
Crypto analyst Dave the Wave posted a comment saying that bitcoin is forming a larger ascending triangle on the weekly timeframe and could rise to its all-time high of $69,000. Note that this forecast met with no objections from Brandt.

- DataDash CEO Nicholas Merten believes that short-term investors and traders with leverage influence bitcoin volatility, and “whales” influence the growth. He clarified that “whales” and other institutional investors accumulating cryptocurrency, despite macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, are the catalyst for the rise in the price of BTC.
“There has been a lot of panic around the macro environment over the past couple of months. The Fed raises interest rates... The war between Ukraine and Russia, the potential next wave of COVID-19: all these issues have caused investors to be pessimistic and make them think that investors and companies are going to sell bitcoins. At the same time, the “whales”, on the contrary, did not sell cryptocurrency in large volumes. In fact, we saw how long-term investors continued to either buy more or hold bitcoin,” Merten shared his observation.
As for volatility, “all the up and down price movements that we see in the market are most likely due to the liquidation of the positions of short-term traders and leveraged traders,” said the CEO of DataDash. In his opinion, despite a 50% drop in quotes from a record high of $69,000 in November, bitcoin has remained in a bull market all along.

- The conflict, during which American actor Will Smith hit comedian Chris Rock during the live broadcast of the Oscars, opened up a good opportunity for entrepreneurial members of the crypto community to make money.
Almost immediately after the end of the Oscars, there were reports on the network about the launch of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) named after this slap in the face: Will Smith Slap DAO. The project has its own website and pages in social networks. The organizers of Will Smith Slap DAO also launched the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFT) based on the slap, which have already been bought by over 500 people. 

- Despite numerous macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges, bitcoin is highly likely to move into the second half of the bear market. This opinion is shared by Glassnode analysts.
The price of the first cryptocurrency broke through the upper limit of the three-month range at $47,000 last week. Active accumulation of coins in the $35,000-$42,000 range and the lack of significant spending of bitcoins purchased in the first quarter of 2021 increased the selling pressure.
The share of BTC “aged” over a year has grown by 9.4% over the past eight months to close to a record 62.9%. The holders of these coins did not get rid of the asset in the face of two corrections of more than 50% over the past year. The growth rate of this indicator is comparable to the market recovery in 2018-2019. And this may reflect increased investor confidence in bitcoin.
At the same time, analysts at Glassnode warned that the process of bottoming and investor capitulation in a bear market is often lengthy and painful. They urged not to rush into stating the end of the bear market.

- Citizens School in Dubai (UAE), which is scheduled to open in September, will offer parents of students the opportunity to pay for their studies in bitcoins and ethereum. Payments will be accepted through a processing service that converts crypto assets into the local currency dirham.
“By introducing a new payment method, we expect the younger generation to play a stronger role in the development of the digital economy in the UAE. While many people are already enjoying the fruits of the new era, today's children will become the entrepreneurs and investors of the future,” says Citizens School management.

- Well-known software developer MicroStrategy received a $205 million loan secured by its own crypto assets. The loan was issued by the American bank Silvergate. The purpose of the loan is to buy bitcoins.
According to the Bitcoin Treasuries website, MicroStrategy already owns 125,051 BTC worth nearly $6 billion. “This loan provides an opportunity to strengthen our position as a leader among public companies investing in bitcoin,” said Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy. 
Note that MicroStrategy is not the only company that provides crypto assets as collateral. For this type of loans, Silvergate Bank has a special SEN Leverage program, the total amount of obligations for which has already exceeded $570 million.

- Glassnode analysts have found that the volume of ethereum on exchanges has been declining in recent days. The inflow of this altcoin to the trading floors is 20% lower than its outflow, which creates conditions for the formation of an ETH deficit.
The growth in the value of the coin is observed against the backdrop of the activation of the ten largest ETH addresses. This is confirmed by a new report from the analytical company Santiment. It states that whales have accumulated up to 23.7% of the total ethereum supply. They are not going to dump their reserves and prefer to send ETH to offline storage. A similar trend was observed in the first half of 2017. As a result, we saw the famous altcoin run during the hype five years ago.

- The next time someone tries to downplay Bitcoin (BTC) mining’s environmental achievements, feel free to cite the AmityAge mining farm as an example. Founded in Slovakia by Gabriel Kozak and Dušan Matuska, the company generates electricity for mining by using human and animal waste.,
One of its leaders, Dušan Matushka, said that "their devices run on methane, which is produced during the biodegradation process." Since there is no shortage of human and animal waste in the foreseeable future, we can say that BTC mining here is carried out in an environmentally friendly manner and using renewable energy sources.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

CryptoNews of the Week


- The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament (ECON) adopted a bill on the regulation of cryptocurrencies by a majority of votes. “It is a good day for the crypto sector," said one of the drafters of the law. “The EU Parliament has paved the way for innovative regulation of cryptocurrencies that could set standards for the world.” It is also positive that the document has not included an amendment to ban mining on the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, which would de facto mean a ban on bitcoin.

- Analytical company Elliptic said that it transferred to the US authorities some information about digital wallets allegedly associated with sanctioned Russian officials and oligarchs, Bloomberg reports.
To support the sanctions regime against Russia, Elliptic employees have identified more than 400 virtual asset service providers (mostly exchanges) where cryptocurrencies can be purchased for rubles (according to analysts, turnover on these platforms tripled in a week). In addition, the company's specialists have identified several hundred thousand crypto wallets associated with sanctioned individuals and legal entities.

- According to the latest data, large investors from Russia kept their cryptocurrency holdings on exchanges located in Switzerland. They expected that Switzerland, being a neutral country, would not be involved in any conflicts, so their digital assets were safe. However, Switzerland announced unexpectedly that it was joining the European sanctions. And now the Russian oligarchs are trying to save their assets. For example, Reuters reports that a cryptocurrency company (the name is not published) received orders from Swiss brokers to sell 125,000 bitcoins, which are worth about $5 billion, and convert them into cash.

- MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor is known to be an ardent supporter of bitcoin. His company owns several billion dollars’ worth of cryptocurrencies. Sailor himself is confident that BTC will grow in price, as this asset forms a new financial system. During his recent speech at the Economic Club of New York, he compared cryptocurrencies to real estate that an investor purchases in an American metropolis. In the context of rising inflation, real estate retains the status of a reliable and profitable asset. In this regard, bitcoin can also be considered a safe-haven asset that is not subject to inflation risks.

– Elon Musk agreed with Michael Saylor. His tweet referred to an article in the Financial Times about the rise in prices in commodity markets to highs since 2008 amid fears of cutting off the supply of raw materials from Russia and concluded that it is better to invest in physical assets and cryptocurrencies. “Buy a house or shares of a company that makes good products. By the way, I personally still hold bitcoin, ethereum and Dogecoin,” wrote the head of Tesla and SpaceX.

- Peter Brandt, a well-known trader and analyst, a Wall Street legend, recommended almost the same thing to his more than 600,000 subscribers. According to news.bitcoin, he advised young people to "get a degree in their field, avoid student debt if possible, get a decent job, and think of the markets as a hobby." In addition, in his opinion, young people should be frugal, buy a house and start a family, and also invest part of their savings every month in bitcoin and in stocks of serious companies, while remaining hodlers.

– According to Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra crypto-bank, a steady decline in fees within the Ethereum network can serve as a driver for the growth of the asset to the $30,000-40,000 zone. Today, the Ethereum network is one of the most sought after in the industry, as it is used in the field of non-fungible tokens (NFT), DeFi decentralized finance, games, etc. The number of ethereum holders will only grow with the launch of Ethereum 2.0 and the launch of staking approaching.
However, Bill Barhydt has not ruled out the possibility of selling small amounts of ETH in June or July. According to him, this will be a completely predictable correction against the backdrop of the growth of cryptocurrency. 

- According to analysts from IntoTheBlock, despite the fact that the price of bitcoin is far from the historical high, the number of holders of the flagship cryptocurrency has reached a record value. 39.79 million unique addresses keep these digital coins on their balances at the moment. This suggests that about 888 thousand new BTC holders have joined the network since the beginning of this year.
According to experts from Finbold, the number of holders holding less than 1 BTC on their balance sheet has increased significantly since October 2020. At the same time, whales (from 1000 to 10,000 BTC) have not increased their holdings much. According to the analysts, this suggests that bitcoin is unlikely to show serious growth in the medium term.
Representatives of the CoinMarketCap service do not agree with them. The portal's SMM service has conducted a survey among subscribers, as a result of which 4 out of 5 users expressed confidence that the price of BTC will rise to almost $50,000 by the end of March.

- Citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis can now be purchased with cryptocurrency. It is a small island nation in the Caribbean. The country is part of the British Commonwealth, and Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain is recognized as its head. The program for obtaining citizenship in exchange for investments has been operating in the country for a long time, since the 1980s. The current amount of investment, which allows you to get the coveted passport, is $150,000. But if earlier the country accepted only the traditional currency, now the list has expanded: investors can transfer about 4 BTC at the exchange rate to Saint Kitts and Nevis. 
By the way, some well-known supporters of digital assets already have the citizenship of this country. One of the most recognizable is Roger Ver, the developer of Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

- Cryptocurrencies have proven to be an effective weapon against Russia, ConsenSys founder and ethereum co-creator Joseph Lubi said in an interview with Decrypt. The international crypto community has donated more than $100 million to Ukrainian charitable foundations since the beginning of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
According to Joseph Lubi, the war in Ukraine predetermined the further integration of digital assets into the global economy: “This is another moment for our industry that will allow for mass adoption [of cryptocurrencies]. This will be a matter of national security now,” he said. “Our country and many others will have to learn how to use this powerful tool, this weapon. Nobody likes guns, but you need to be able to handle them like your neighbors do."

- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak believes bitcoin will be worth $100,000. According to him, BTC is “the most incredible mathematical miracle” that surpasses gold due to the confirmed digital scarcity.
Other influencers in the crypto world believe that the coin can reach this milestone as well. Bitbull CEO Joe DiPasquale is one of the biggest proponents of cryptocurrency. Even though bitcoin has been falling since November, he believes that the digital asset is still on track to reach the long-awaited $100,000 mark.

- Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz named five times the figure during his speech at Bloomberg TV. He once again confirmed his forecast, according to which the largest cryptocurrency could rise to $500,000 in five years. And it will be a smooth, not aggressive growth.
The billionaire had accurately predicted that the cryptocurrency market would stall at the beginning of 2022. Bitcoin’s upward rally in 2021 was fueled by fears that the Federal Reserve would “print money forever,” he said. Now that the Fed is winding down its stimulus program, the largest cryptocurrency is in the middle of a bearish trend.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- US President Joe Biden will sign a decree regulating the digital assets. Bloomberg writes about this citing informed sources. The document will instruct federal agencies to study potential changes in legislation, as well as the impact of cryptocurrencies on national security and economy. Analysts believe that the decree was the result of fears that organizations and individuals could use digital assets to circumvent sanctions against Russia due to military actions in Ukraine.

- The sanctions imposed by the world community against Russia can cause a rapid increase in the price of bitcoin. This was stated by legendary billionaire investor and founder of Miller Value Partners Bill Miller in an interview with CNBC.
“Russia keeps 16% of its reserves, which are estimated at $640 billion, in dollars, and 32% in euros. Almost 50% of its reserves are held in currencies controlled by people who want to harm it. This is not the best situation, from Russia's point of view," Miller said.
The billionaire called the current geopolitical situation “unique” and emphasized that this is an “extremely bullish signal” for bitcoin. He also believes that the Russian government may try to use digital gold as a reserve currency.

- Well-known businessman and writer, author of the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, Robert Kiyosaki accused Joe Biden of “destroying the dollar” and gave people advice on how to fend off inflation.
“Biden likes inflation,” he said. “In response to his criminal actions, I am investing in oil companies from Texas and North Dakota. I have just purchased a gold mine in Utah. I buy apartments and houses in Texas. I am saving gold, silver and bitcoins...” “Invest like a capitalist,” Kiyosaki summed up.

- The world of digital assets has been recently stirred up by the news that the journalist of the authoritative American magazine Forbes, Laura Shin, released the book “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze”. The author shows the cryptocurrency market as it really is in this book. The writer focuses on the large-scale struggle of the rich for influence and leadership in the coming revolution in the “new money” industry.
Shin introduces readers to prominent figures in the digital space, such as Vitalik Buterin, Web3 prodigy, Charles Hoskinson, and Joe Labin (a former Goldman Sachs vice president who became one of the most famous cryptocurrency billionaires). “Sparks fly as these prominent personalities fight for their place in what seems to be a limitless new business world,” the author writes, describing the “crypto clans” confrontation.

- According to analysts from IntoTheBlock, the correlation between bitcoin and precious metals has fallen to its lowest level since August 2021. Thus, it has reached a 7-month low in relation to gold and silver. Experts believe that these changes have occurred against the backdrop of a military operation that Russia is conducting on the territory of Ukraine. Bitcoin is highly correlated with the traditional stock market while commodity prices continue to rise.
According to experts, indicators that assess the return on an asset and the degree of risk demonstrate how much better precious metals have reacted to the resulting volatility compared to the flagship cryptocurrency.
The experts have also noted that the majority of bitcoin holders (57%) have not been affected by the recent price fluctuations of the coin. Many holders keep their virtual assets for more than a year, which means they still have positive returns.

- A cryptanalyst known as Dave the Wave stated In May 2021 that bitcoin will not be able to rise to the level of $100,000 before the end of the year.  He turned out to be right. His forecast looks somewhat more optimistic now. According to it, the price of the main cryptocurrency should update its historical maximum in 2022.
Dave the Wave has published the BTC price chart and explained that despite bitcoin falling below $40,000, it is still on its way to $100,000. Against the background of the collapse of the global market, the coin has a chance for a steady rebound from the $36,000 mark. However, the analyst does not rule out that the bitcoin rate may fall to $25,000 before it goes up.

- Well-known crypto analyst and trader Michael van de Poppe believes that bitcoin may continue its fall to $30,000 against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe. "Why?" he asks. And he answers: “Because of a short-term panic. You should understand that traders are people who are focused on the short term, are very impulsive, emotional, and this is what the markets reflect.” At the same time, Michael van de Popp notes that the current recession is a good opportunity for those who are still optimistic about the first cryptocurrency to replenish its reserves.
As for the altcoins led by ethereum, according to the trader, they are under strong selling pressure in the current situation, which could push them further down until the ethereum reaches the $2,000 mark.

- Kimbal Musk, younger brother of billionaire Elon Musk, said in a recent interview that the main problem with digital currencies is their impact on the environment. Therefore, they are doomed to failure in the form in which crypto assets currently exist. The planet will face an ecological crisis if humanity does not figure out how to make them safer for nature.
Kimbal Musk not only sits on the board of directors of Tesla and SpaceX, but also runs The Kitchen, a chain of “green” restaurants, and is the founder of Big Green DAO, a “decentralized charity” project. The businessman's net worth exceeds $700 million.

- Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital and former White House Communications Director, believes that any investor should invest at least a little of their capital in bitcoin. The businessman stated in an interview with Magnifi that investors should buy BTC even if they have never worked with cryptocurrencies before. According to Scaramucci, cold-blooded holders who know how to wait will benefit in the future. He is confident that bitcoin is guaranteed to reach $100,000 in a couple of years. The entrepreneur stores about $1 billion in bitcoins at the moment.
The former White House communications director is confident that the United States will not seek to tighten regulation of cryptocurrencies: “I don’t think the US wants to lose leadership in financial services. If they decide to ban or over-regulate digital currencies, we will see capital flight and brain flight out of the country.”

- “The scaling up of bitcoin is accelerating the process of building a new financial system. We have witnessed a global evolution of the payment infrastructure,” said Zoltan Pozar, strategist at Credit Suisse. In his opinion, the structure that was formed after the Second World War is gradually being destroyed, and geopolitical tensions have only accelerated this process. While it is difficult to say in what direction the global economy will develop, however, according to the Credit Suisse strategist, bitcoin has a very good chance of becoming the main payment instrument.

- A similar point of view is shared by billionaire and CEO of Galaxy Digital Mike Novogratz, according to whom bitcoin and gold will become the safest assets in the near future. “You can put an equal sign between these two instruments and stop the discussion about what is more important, BTC or precious metals,” Novogratz said.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- According to Bloomberg, the National Security Council of the White House and the US Treasury Department appealed to the operators of the world's largest centralized exchanges with a request to stop any attempts to circumvent the sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. The White House spokesman said that cryptocurrencies are not a replacement for the US dollar, which is widely used in the Russian Federation. However, the US authorities intend to combat their misuse. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde also called for increased regulation of digital assets in the euro area.
At least four cryptocurrency exchanges, including Coinbase and Gemini, have said they will take steps to tighten controls. At the same time, experts interviewed by The New York Times noted that Russian companies have many other tools at their disposal to circumvent the imposed restrictions, including the digital ruble and ransomware.

- The number of bitcoin addresses with balances over 1,000 BTC increased by more than 6% to 2,226 on Monday, February 28. The indicator has not reached this level since March 2021. The number of addresses with a balance of 100 to 1000 BTC also increased on February 28, although not as noticeably. The indicator increased by 1.3% during the day, to 15,929. This is evidenced by the data of the Glassnode service.
Some analysts suggest that such a rapid increase in the number of bitcoin whales is due to the attempts of the Russian elites to withdraw their assets to circumvent the sanctions.

- The dynamics of the cryptocurrencies’ movement between private and exchange wallets indicates the lack of certainty among investors regarding the further developments in the digital asset market. This is written by CoinDesk with reference to the report of Bank of America (BofA).
According to analysts, the tightening of the Fed's policy and macroeconomic factors will limit the growth of cryptocurrencies in the next six months. However, BofA emphasized that this will not be the beginning of a new "crypto winter", as the level of adoption of digital assets by users and the activity of developers has increased significantly.
BofA specialists noted that the observed outflow of bitcoin from exchanges indicates the exhaustion of the sellers' momentum. At the same time, the influx of ethereum to the addresses of these platforms may indicate potential pressure on the price of the cryptocurrency which is second in terms of capitalization.
The bank also added that it will be difficult for the digital asset market to move out of the current price range until fears of a possible recession are discarded.

- Tesla board member Kimbal Musk, brother of the company founder Elon Musk, told TechCrunch that they had no idea about its environmental impact when they made the decision to buy $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin.
“We were very clueless when we invested in bitcoin. We had no idea about the impact on the environment, it seemed to us a good store of value and a way to diversify assets. And it certainly didn't take long to get a million - I'm not kidding, probably no less - messages about what we're doing to the environment." “I don’t really agree with the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies, but I love what it does,” Kimbal Musk added, expressing his hope that, broadly speaking, the blockchain industry will move towards a greener infrastructure.

- According to Voyager Digital CEO Stephen Ehrlich, cryptocurrencies are becoming stronger in the global financial system and will become a haven for future generations. He noted that the overall growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem is manifested in increasing programs that allow employees of various organizations to receive part of their salaries in bitcoins. According to Erlich, the fact that people are ready not only to trade in cryptocurrency, but also to work for it, is a clear sign of the growth of the industry.

- A study by recruitment company Deel says that more and more employees of companies are willing to receive part of their salaries in cryptocurrency. Analysts studied more than 100,000 contracts offered to workers living in 150 countries. 52% of respondents in Latin America receive full or partial salary in cryptocurrency, 34% in Africa and the Middle East, and 7% in North America and the Asia-Pacific region. Bitcoin is followed by Ethereum (ETH), Dash (DASH), Solana (SOL) and USD Coin (USDC).
The number of vacancies representing the blockchain industry is also growing rapidly around the world. LinkedIn published a study in January that said that the number of such vacancies soared by almost 400% last year.

- A group of hackers claim to have hacked Nvidia servers. It is currently trying to sell miners data that can be used to easily unlock the “Lite Hash Rate” limiter from RTX 3000 video cards and use them for mining ethereum. The LAPSUS$ hacker group claimed responsibility for the hack, adding that they managed to steal 1 terabyte of data from the company's servers. This is reported by the industry publication PCmag.

- Not only popular bloggers and bank analysts are leaning towards the Hodl strategy at present, but also robots. “Hodling” is a way to accumulate bitcoins and the most correct trading strategy, this is the conclusion of an AI trading robot created by Portuguese software developer Tiago Vasconcelos. The coder "trained the bot, explained the rules, candles, principles when you can either buy or sell, or do nothing." The bot receives one point for each profitable trade and loses it as a "punishment" for unprofitable trades. The robot advisor makes thousands/millions of attempts with this data set, making moves to maximize the trading account balance.
Recall that Hodl is a popular meme in the bitcoin space that originated from a post on the Bitcointalk forum in 2013 with a typo in the word “hold”.

- According to well-known economist and analyst Alex Kruger, “Everyone is investing in precious metals now. This is what the market situation tells us. It could be even worse: China invades Taiwan, Russia takes over even more countries. Then the market will fall further.” “Russia using cryptocurrency to circumvent the sanctions would lead the digital asset market to a bearish scenario. Don't expect this to happen. But be careful what you do,” he wrote.
Kruger suggests that the sanctions circumvention will be enough for U.S. regulators to ban digital assets in order to protect national security. However, if the geopolitical situation does not worsen, investors will soon see their growth.

- Popular Hollywood actor and film producer Ryan Reynolds has joined the list of celebrities who support the crypto industry. he has recently given an interview to the Bloomberg Markets business publication, in which he stated that the sphere of virtual money is doomed to gain a foothold in the global financial market as a serious player and competitor. “I am absolutely not surprised that cryptocurrency has become a major player in the global financial market, it has been going to this for a very long time. Of course, people's fears about some flaws in its security slow down this process significantly. However, in the context of this issue, one cannot underestimate the efforts of companies whose activities are aimed at making the trading of digital assets safer and, more importantly, accessible,” said Reynolds.
It is worth adding that a large number of Ryan Reynolds' colleagues have recently joined the crypto community. For example, Reese Witherspoon invested in ethereum a few months ago, Paris Hilton does not hide her love for bitcoin, Matt Damon, in turn, is the face of the CryptoCom marketing campaign. But there is no information about whether Reynolds himself is a holder of cryptocurrencies. As part of the interview, he answered this question with only a mysterious smile.

- Legendary trader Henrik Zeberg, author of The Zeberg Report and expert on macroeconomic cycles, presented three charts to show that major stocks and cryptocurrencies are poised to rise in Elliot Wave 5. According to Zeberg, the most important stock market indices S&P500 and Nasdaq are approaching bullish reversals on the weekly charts. If his prediction comes true, bitcoin could once again increase its correlation with stocks and indices.

- Bloomberg Intelligence Chief Strategist Mike McGlone gave another forecast for the future value of bitcoin. He assured that the BTC rate will reach $100,000 in 2022. The analyst also emphasized that the price of the flagship digital currency will not drop to $30,000 despite the bearish sentiment in the market.
The expert once again noted that bitcoin is confidently moving towards becoming an international reserve asset. Against the background of the policy of the US Federal Reserve and the war between Russia and Ukraine, this main cryptocurrency is getting closer to the full status of digital gold. The strategist also believes that such coins as Dogecoin must lose their influence in order for bitcoin to finally establish itself as a reliable tool for protecting money savings.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- Expectations of a key rate hike by the US Federal Reserve and geopolitical tensions are fueling the pessimism of bitcoin investors and increasing the likelihood of selling unprofitable coins. This is the conclusion reached by Glassnode analysts. The bearish trend is confirmed by on-chain indicators: the number of active bitcoin addresses has dropped to the lower boundary of the corridor. This indicates a decrease in demand for the asset. The percentage of profitable bitcoin investors ranges between 65.8% and 76.7%.
Short-term speculators (coin holding period less than 155 days) have purchased 2.56 million BTC. The average acquisition cost is $47,200. Their unrealized loss is about 20%, with the price around $38.000. They are currently a source of sales pressure in the absence of an equivalent increase in demand. Glassnode believes that if the price rises, the pressure of sellers may increase, who will try to leave the market without losses or with a minimum profit.

- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that the new “crypto winter” can help the industry become stronger. However, he is not yet sure that this period has really come, Bloomberg writes.
Buterin emphasized in an interview with the agency that in fact, people “deeply immersed in the cryptocurrency industry” welcome periods of the bear market. This allows you to get rid of weak projects, and also reduces the level of "hype". It is in the “winter” that many weak and harmful projects disappear, and only reliable, important projects remain, with well-thought-out business models and a close-knit team, the developer believes.

- The law legalizing and accepting bitcoin as a means of payment came into force in El Salvador on September 7, 2021.  According to the Minister of Tourism Morena Valdes, the tourist flow to the country increased by 30% after that. She said that the recovery in the segment has exceeded expectations, as the country received 1.4 million visitors in November-December, against the forecast of 1.1 million. She also drew attention to the growth in tourism revenues: "We planned $0.8 billion in foreign currencies but received $1.4 billion."
The introduction of cryptocurrency had an impact on the structure of the tourist flow as well. If the bulk of tourists had before been from neighboring Central American countries, up to 60% currently come from the United States, the minister said. 

- Indian police have detained suspects in a Rs 400 million (about $5.34 million) cryptocurrency scam, according to the Times of India. Authorities arrested four people in the city of Lanowala during the raid, and seven more in Nagpur a day later.
According to police, the attackers urged potential investors to buy ethereum on the ZebPay platform and then send the cryptocurrency to their Ether Trade Asia platform. Manipulating the data, they demonstrated to investors the imaginary profitability of the project and spent the raised funds on themselves.
Participants in the scheme are also suspected of killing one of the accomplices for refusing to disclose "passwords for important transactions."

- Past price cycles indicate that a new bull market for bitcoin may not occur until late 2024 or early 2025. Du Jun, CEO of Huobi crypto exchange, expressed this opinion in an interview with CNBC. According to him, bitcoin's price cycles are closely related to halvings: periodic block reward halvings embedded in the algorithm, which occur approximately every four years.
The last halving took place in May 2020, and the quotes of the first cryptocurrency reached an all-time high above $68,000 a year later. A similar price movement was observed after the 2016 halving: bitcoin reached record levels in December 2017. 
Then deep drops in the price of digital gold followed in both cases, Du Jun recalled.
Based on the trend, Huobi CEO believes that “we are now in the early stages of a bear market” and expects a bullish trend for bitcoin to come only after the next halving in 2024. However, he added that “it is difficult to predict accurately in reality, since there are many other factors that can affect the market, such as geopolitical issues, including war, or the recent COVID.”

- Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of the richest Mexicans, has spoken out in favor of the oldest crypto asset not for the first time. This time, the billionaire recommended strongly to continue buying BTC while the price is low enough, and to hold this asset without even thinking about a possible sale. He is convinced that those who listen to his advice will thank him later.
The first cryptocurrency is separated from its November high by about 45% now, and a number of investors and large companies have taken advantage of the fall to replenish their BTC reserves. For example, this is the step taken by Microstrategy software developer, US Senator Ted Cruz, and El Salvador that made a splash last year.

- David Schwartz, Ripple's CTO and one of the creators of XRP Ledger, continues to be one of the most mysterious characters in the cryptosphere. So much so that many people suspect that he may be the creator of bitcoin under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, or at least be associated with the Satoshi group.
Although Schwartz has repeatedly denied this, he has admitted to "having optimized" the bitcoin code and working on it very early on, back in 2011. Here is what he had to say about it: “I have almost the entire skill set needed to be Satoshi. It is likely that I was part of a group. But, nevertheless, this is not true. I didn't know about bitcoin until 2011." And to the question: "If you really were Satoshi, would you tell us?", Schwartz replied: "Honestly, I would not speak."
Schwartz's speech at the recent presentation of the XRP Ledger Foundation gave another reason for speculation. Attentive listeners noticed that he spoke about “When I Found Bitcoin…” at the beginning of his speech. The fact is that if the word “Found” had the ending -ed at the end, then it would already sound like “founded” or “created”.

- The Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange will pay a premium of $250,000 to a Twitter user nicknamed Tree of Alpha, who discovered a “market nuclear bomb”. Tree of Alpha found a bug in the Coinbase trading platform, with which he managed to deceive the system and sell ethereum under the guise of bitcoins. He transferred 0.0243 ETH from his account, which he sold as 0.0243 BTC, and earned about $1000 instead of $70.
After that, the trader contacted Coinbase management, reporting the vulnerability of the platform. The exchange staff, having checked for the error, eliminated it promptly, and the honest trader who prevented the "bomb explosion" was promised a reward of $250,000.

- While the US federal authorities are thinking about how to conduct financial policy in relation to cryptocurrencies, local authorities are already trying to get ahead of them. It is possible that the state of California will recognize BTC as legal tender, following El Salvador. An expert group is working on the relevant bill at the moment. We should expect an influx of not only new investments in the state economy after its adoption, but also an increase in the number of companies and digital nomads working with cryptocurrencies.
If California recognizes bitcoin, it is likely that other states will begin to consider similar initiatives, which can seriously improve the position of the cryptocurrency.

- The aggravation of geopolitical tensions has led to an increase in the correlation between the first cryptocurrency and the US stock index S&P 500. This is stated in the analytical report of Arcane Research. According to the researchers, the 90-day correlation between BTC and the “barometer of the American economy” reached the highest level since October 2020. On the contrary, the statistical relationship between bitcoin and gold has become negative, as gold acts as a low-risk asset. Arcane Research has also noted that bitcoin spot trading volume on centralized exchanges has fallen to early December 2020 levels.
Analysts are confident that the strongest support range is $28,000-$30,000, as it represents the “bottom of the bear market in the summer of 2021.” They have named $40,000 as an important resistance level.

- Shark Tank business reality show star Kevin O'Leary has recently made his bitcoin prediction. He notes that many institutional investors cannot yet invest in the leading cryptocurrency, as this issue has not yet been resolved at the level of regulators. 
O'Leary has noted that anyone who wants to speculate about the cost of BTC at $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 should understand that all this will become possible when institutionalists finally have the opportunity to purchase a crypto asset in accordance with regulatory standards. He notes that he can say this with confidence, as he works with "sovereign wealth funds and pension plans." And although there is a lot of buzz around BTC right now, none of them have a single token. Moreover, they do not even plan investments in this asset yet.
According to O'Leary, it is much better to think of BTC not as a coin, but as software. He has noted that the above institutions have shares in Microsoft and Google, so it will be easier for them to understand if they regard cryptocurrencies as software. At a time when the crypto sector begins to meet all the requirements, these financial institutions will be able to invest 1% to 3% of their capital in bitcoin, and this can happen within the next 2-3 years.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- Tom Lee, co-founder of the analytical firm Fundstrat, called $200,000 a target mark for bitcoin in an interview with CNBC and explained what facilitates its achievement. According to the analyst, the total net worth of US households exceeds $141 trillion. The Fed's monetary policy leads to the fact that people are guaranteed to lose money on investing in bonds over the next decade. Lee expects an influx of speculative capital into cryptocurrency that could be “huge”, in this regard.
The high price of this asset is an obstacle to the mass adoption of bitcoin, in his opinion. Therefore, Tom Lee has supported the idea of switching to Satoshi, a millionth of BTC.

- The name of Satoshi Nakamoto also made it onto The Guardian pages. British crypto investor Anthony Welch bought Lataro Island in the Pacific Ocean (Vanuatu) with an area of 300 hectares and renamed it Satoshi. According to the newspaper, he plans to build a smart city there for supporters of digital assets.
According to the publication, Welch has been living on the island for the past 12 years with his partner Teresa. They expect 21,000 crypto investors from all over the world to join them soon. “Yes, we already have an island. Yes, we can develop as advertised. Yes, the government supports our plan. Yes, our team has relevant experience,” the project description says.
Candidates wishing to live on the island will receive an NFT token that will grant them Satoshi Island citizenship. In addition, all applicants will also have to obtain Vanuatu citizenship, which will cost them $130,000.

- According to the analytical company ESET, NFTs have become one of the main mechanisms for the distribution of malware for hidden mining or theft of cryptocurrency wallets in 2021. Most often, hackers put viruses into gaming NFTs that allegedly contain superpowers or rare weapons. Tools for crypto jacking, which allows for hidden mining, are implemented by attackers using various applications. Previously, the main sources of such viruses were torrent resources and porn sites.

- Legendary billionaire investor and founder of Miller Value Partners Bill Miller, speaking to CNBC, called bitcoin insurance against financial disasters and said that he still holds a significant part of the capital in the first cryptocurrency. He explained that he invested only a few percent of his fortune in digital assets, which then, as the cryptocurrency market grew, turned into half of his personal funds.
According to Miller, the thesis about the lack of intrinsic value of bitcoin is erroneous. “It's like an insurance policy. You don't want your house to burn down, and you don't want to get into a terrible accident, but you pay for insurance every year in case it happens,” explained the billionaire. He also likened the digital asset to collectibles like baseball cards and Picasso paintings.

- The Russian authorities unanimously refused bitcoin as a means of payment. The Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance of the country have brought together their positions on the development of cryptocurrencies. The parties agreed that cryptocurrencies will not receive the status of a means of payment in Russia. However, their purchase, exchange and sale are subject to regulation.

- Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson believes that BTC will not be able to become a global reserve currency due to the energy costs of mining, various ecosystem flaws, and inconsistency with current industry standards. But his ADA cryptocurrency is quite suitable for this role. “Imagine that you are selling paintings, one of which you have to draw by hand and another with a machine. Both of them look the same and are in the same demand. So, you're just spending a thousand times more effort. 

- Analyst Willy Woo believes that bitcoin will rise over the next five years. In his opinion, the future of the US dollar in terms of inflation has not yet been determined, and the capitalization of bitcoin is consolidating now in the $1 trillion zone. Overcoming this mark will give the coin greater stability. Further growth to the gold capitalization of almost $11 trillion will be relatively smooth, after which it will slow down. As for the final figure, Willy Woo believes that the capitalization of bitcoin could eventually grow to $40 trillion.
The deviation of the BTC price from the trend line occurred, according to Woo, due to the fact that the market was diluted due to the presence of other digital assets. Ethereum was launched in 2015, and as a result, there was a significant deviation in the direct trend line of bitcoin. And the line deviated even more in 2021 due to several thousand “shitcoins”.

- Cryptocurrency analyst Nicholas Merten believes that bitcoin is showing signs of an upcoming rally, and the bulls have a chance to beat the bears. According to him, bitcoin has not gone into a bear market, and the recent stagnation should not be confusing. “This is a really great signal,” says Merten, “Bitcoin doesn’t create lower highs, they are relatively constant, but the lows are getting higher. The previous resistance level becomes an upward support. Investors are ready to overpay, which indicates the market is ready to return to the formation of another uptrend.”
According to the analyst’s forecasts, “Bitcoin’s capitalization could potentially reach $4 trillion in October-December 2022, that is, the asset will show a 220% increase compared to the previous record high. The previous rally was up 392% and it was up 359% earlier.

- Jurrien Timmer, Global Macroeconomics Director at one of the largest asset management companies, Fidelity Investments, is confident that the value of the first cryptocurrency will repeat the growth of the Apple's market value. “I compared the network effect of bitcoin to the network effect of Apple computers. As Apple's earnings increase, its share price rises exponentially. I have reason to believe that bitcoin is following the same path. The price of this cryptocurrency will only increase as demand increases.”
BTC benefits from its strong difference from all other crypto assets, the expert believes. “Perhaps other digital currencies will look better against the background of bitcoin due to better scalability, but at the same time, they are likely to be less decentralized. For me, bitcoin is like gold, and other cryptocurrencies are more like venture capital.”
Recall that Timmer said last October that the value of BTC will reach $100,000 by 2023.

- A few days after the United Nations said that North Korea hacked cryptocurrency exchanges on several continents last year, Pyongyang hit back. The DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused the United States of being a wiretapping empire, a hacker king and a [expert] country when it comes to covert thefts.
The Foreign Ministry statement also claimed that the accusations of stealing the cryptocurrency were a kind of “fabrication that only the United States could invent, with their rejection of North Korea.”
Pyongyang added that all this was evidenced by revelations made by former US intelligence agent Edward Snowden, who said that US intelligence agencies were spying on their own citizens, as well as reports that the United States tapped the phones of European leaders.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- The US authorities announced the detention of persons they consider involved in the hacking of the Bitfinex exchange in 2016, and the confiscation of $3.6 billion worth of bitcoins stolen from it. According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, the accused are the spouses: a 34-year-old Russian and US citizen Ilya Lichtenstein and a 31-year-old Heather Morgan. “According to court documents, Liechtenstein and Morgan allegedly colluded to launder proceeds of 119,754 BTC stolen from Bitfinex after the platform’s systems were hacked and more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions were performed,” the agency’s website says.
Approximately 25,000 of these stolen bitcoins have been withdrawn from a Liechtenstein-controlled wallet through a complex money laundering process over the past five years, according to investigators. The rest of the stolen coins, more than 94,000 BTC, remained in the wallet, which allowed special agents to seize them legally. Representatives of the Ministry of Justice stressed that this is the largest case of cryptocurrency confiscation in the history of the department.
According to the latest information, the court of the Southern District of New York released the spouses on bail of $8 million, and the seized bitcoins were returned to the Bitfinex exchange. 

- A trader nicknamed macromule shared a trading algorithm that could bring about 1000% per annum. The signal to open a position is the tweets of the Bitcoin skeptic and gold supporter Peter Schiff about the first cryptocurrency. The user recommended buying BTC every time after the next such tweet and closing the position after 72 hours. According to macromule, this strategy could have made 203 trades since last May, of which 65% would bring an average profit of 3%.

- Sean Farrell, an analyst at the financial research company FSINsight, believes that the 
price of the first cryptocurrency is likely to reach $200,000 in the second half of 2022. According to his observations, the correlation of bitcoin and the crypto market as a whole with the shares of technology companies increased in the last quarter of last year. At the same time, according to Farrell, bitcoin’s dominance over altcoins remains unshakable and its price, despite a “shaky start” in early 2022, could eventually reach $200,000.
The FSInsight report also states that the ethereum platform is undervalued and the second largest cryptocurrency by capitalization may reach $12,000 this year. The analyst is optimistic about the transition of ethereum to the Proof-of-Stake algorithm. And if the process goes smoothly, capital inflows into the ecosystem will increase, “regardless of bitcoin’s performance.”

- The CEO of the KuCoin crypto exchange, Johnny Liu, shared his vision of the trends in the digital asset industry and focused on the decrease in the share of BTC relative to the entire crypto market. “Bitcoin dominance index is now 42%. Most innovative projects are launched on ethereum, and I believe that it will pull ahead in the long term,” Liu said.
As for regulatory issues, the head of KuCoin recommends patience. The authorities will gradually deal with the benefits and risks of cryptocurrencies. According to him, there is a trend in the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies at the state level, governments are exchanging experience in their legalization, so any restrictions are only a temporary measure.

- Billionaire Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, expressed the opposite point of view. He believes that cryptocurrencies are too vulnerable, they are easy to trace, and it is likely that this asset class will be banned by the governments of a number of countries. Given the small size of the cryptocurrency market, Dalio said, “it gets too much attention.” He confirmed that he invested in ethereum in December 2021, but digital assets make up a "negligible percentage" of his personal investment portfolio.
The head of Bridgewater Associates also advised to create an investment portfolio that is diversified across asset classes and markets. At the same time, the billionaire noted that "cash is garbage."

— Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of the richest people in Mexico and the founder of the Grupo Salinas group of companies, said in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine that the first cryptocurrency was superior to fiat. “Anything we have in fiat can be completely seized by the authorities,” he noted and explained that the decentralized nature of the first cryptocurrency makes it much more difficult to ban or control it. Therefore, “the government is not interested in facilitating the use of bitcoin.”
He called the limited emission of 21 million BTC an additional advantage of the first cryptocurrency, which allows using this cryptocurrency as a store of value in the long term. “But don’t expect to easily make money on it in 30 days,” the billionaire warned.

- Cryptocurrency trader Dave the Wave believes that BTC could break the $100,000 mark at the end of this year or early 2023, while his scenario assumes a “decent correction”. The trader notes that the cyclical curve pointing to $100,000 should not be interpreted as a support level, but as an average exchange rate trajectory that bitcoin can follow roughly.
In regard to the near future, Dave the Wave noted that while bitcoin's monthly chart may still look bearish, certain bullish signals are emerging on the weekly chart. In addition, bitcoin managed to break out of the narrow downward channel.

- North Korea continues to develop its nuclear programs, and funds received from attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges have become an important source of their financing. This is reported by Reuters with reference to a UN report.
The authors of the report refer to Chainalysis data, according to which cybercriminals from the DPRK carried out at least seven attacks on cryptocurrency platforms last year, stealing assets worth about $400 million. Most of the funds were stolen in hacks that targeted at least three crypto exchanges in North America, Europe and Africa. According to Chainalysis, North Korea controls $170 million in the current balances of exchanges, but these amounts have not yet been laundered.
Recall that Pentagon officials previously claimed that more than 6,000 hackers around the world are working for North Korea.

- The author of the book The Ascent of Money, historian and economist Niall Ferguson said that if the historical dynamics of BTC fluctuations repeat, the price of the first cryptocurrency will fall by November 2022 to a low of $11,515. This is 83% below the historic peak in bitcoin value reached in November 2021.
At the same time, Ferguson disagrees categorically with the opinion of the Nobel Prize winner in economics Paul Krugman, who draws a parallel between the volatility of the cryptocurrency market and the collapse of the US real estate market in 2007-2008. Which, as you know, was followed by the global economic crisis.
Niall Ferguson believes that “it is not worth waiting for a polar vortex or a giant ice cyclone. However, this does not mean that crypto winter will bring less cold.” The crypto skeptic clarified that a fall in the value of bitcoin to the lows of the 2010s is unlikely, since BTC has become a larger asset than it was ten years ago, and its market capitalization has grown to almost $1.0 trillion in 2021.

- According to Robert Breedlove, CEO of Parallax Digital, the price of bitcoin will increase over the next few years, and its market capitalization will exceed $5.0 trillion.
Inflation in the US is at a 40-year high at the moment. And according to the businessman, the same thing can happen with the dollar as with the currency of Venezuela. The US dollar will hyperinflate by 2035. At this point, the price of bitcoin in dollar terms will become astronomical: 1, 5, 10 million USD per coin.
In terms of downside risks to BTC, the world's largest cryptocurrency faces few existential threats, and only finite probability or black swan events can significantly hurt its price. It could be a cryptographic hack, it could be some kind of cosmological event, an electromagnetic pulse could destroy all the electronic equipment in the world. However, the biggest threat to bitcoin comes from regulators, according to Robert Breedlove.
The authorities will try to make life as difficult as possible for cryptocurrencies, as a class that poses a threat to their financial systems, which are already under heavy debt pressure. Therefore, it is highly likely that the authorities will use all their tools to regulate digital assets as much as possible.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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January 2022 Results: Leaders Ignore Trading on EUR/USD

NordFX brokerage company has summed up the performance of its clients' trade transactions in the first month of 2022. The services of social trading, PAMM and CopyTrading, as well as the profit received by the company's IB-partners have also been assessed.

The maximum profit in January was received by a client from Vietnam, account No.1467xxx, whose profit amounted to 49.180 USD. This solid result was achieved thanks to transactions with gold (XAU/USD).

The second place in the ranking of the most successful traders of the month was taken by a client from China, account No. 1589XXX, who earned 39.151 USD on transactions primarily with the British pound (GBP/AUD, GBP/USD, GBP/JPY), as well as with such pairs as EUR /NZD, EUR/AUD, AUD/JPY.

The third place on the January podium went to another representative of Vietnam (account No. 1605XXX), whose result 36.880 USD was also achieved through operations with gold (XAU/USD).

The NordFX passive investment services:

- CopyTrading still has an active supplier under the nickname KennyFxPro. Signal with the complex name KennyFXPRO - Journey of $205 to $5,000 has shown a profit of 138% since March 2021 with a maximum drawdown of 67%. Their second signal, KennyFXPRO Prismo 2K, started two months later, while its profitability has been 55% with a drawdown of 37%. All trades in both cases were made with NZD/CAD, AUD/CAD and AUD/NZD pairs.

We can also note the Hada signal this time, which has shown a profit of 53% in just 70 days of life with a drawdown of 21%.

The lifetime of the above-named signals is short, less than a year. In combination with a fairly serious maximum drawdown, this allows them to be classified as a group with a high degree of risk. But, of course, there are long-livers in the CopyTrading service. For example, signal MF989923. It has existed for almost 7 years, and it has shown an increase of 517% during this time. Note that this signal had serious drawdowns several times as well, reaching 66%. True, the last time this happened a long time ago, almost two years ago: in March 2020. But trading has since become much less aggressive and less profitable.

- As for the PAMM service, we have to mention the manager under the nickname KennyFXPRO again. They increased their capital on the KennyFXPro-the Multi 3000 EA account by 67% in exactly 1 year with a fairly moderate drawdown of less than 16%.

Among PAMM accounts, the TranquilityFX - The Genesis v3 account attracts attention as well. It exists for 303 days and has brought a profit of 47% during this time with a drawdown of 16%. NKFX - Ninja 136 is similar to the two previous accounts as well. Its lifespan is just over 200 days, growth is 36%, maximum drawdown is less than 15%.

It should be noted that in most cases, both traders and signal providers and PAMM managers ignored such a popular pair as EUR/USD in their work, making transactions either with gold (XAU/USD), or with pairs GBP/CAD, GBP/JPY, NZD/CAD, AUD/CAD and AUD/NZD.

Among the IB partners, NordFX TOP-3 is as follows:
- the largest amount of commission, 7.716 USD, was accrued in January to a partner from China, account No. 1336xxx;
- next is a partner from India, account No.1593xxx, who received 5.256 USD;
- and, finally, a partner from Vietnam, account No. 1371ХХХ, who received 3.913 USD as a reward, closes the top three.


Notice: These materials should not be deemed a recommendation for investment or guidance for working on financial markets: they are for informative purposes only. Trading on financial markets is risky and can lead to a loss of money deposited.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- According to Bloomberg, the residents of Russia possess a huge amount of digital assets worth about $214 billion. This estimate was obtained by analysing the IP addresses of users of the largest crypto exchanges. In addition, according to the University of Cambridge, Russia became the third country in the world in bitcoin mining (11.23%) in the summer of 2021, after the USA (35.4%) and Kazakhstan (18.1%), where many miners migrated after the ban in China.
The Central Bank of Russia took the initiative to impose a total ban on everything related to this area on January 20, including the circulation and mining of cryptocurrencies, as well as organizing these operations in the country.
However, President Vladimir Putin, instead of a complete ban, supported the proposal of the Ministry of Finance, which provides not for a ban on cryptocurrencies, but for the regulation of their circulation. The President expressed the opinion that the Central Bank should not stand in the way of technological progress. Moreover, Russia has certain competitive advantages, especially in mining, which include a surplus of electricity and well-trained personnel.

- Bitcoin is perceived as a “monetary good” and no altcoin can challenge that status for the foreseeable future. Fidelity Digital Assets analysts came to these conclusions. Experts called the first cryptocurrency not only a technology, but also a perfect form of money in their study “Bitcoin First”. It is the most “secure, decentralized form of assets. Bitcoin has the scarcity and longevity of gold combined with the ease of use, storage and transportation of fiat,” they explained.

- The persistence of high volatility limits the adoption of bitcoin by institutions. This is how JPMorgan analysts justified the decline in the fair, in their opinion, valuation of the first cryptocurrency from $150,000 to $38,000. The specialists noted that the current 50% pullback from the all-time high has highlighted the nature of the boom-bust cycle, which is an obstacle to adding BTC to the portfolios of large investors.
The JPMorgan model assumed that the volatility of bitcoin would converge with the volatility of gold and the alignment of their shares in investment portfolios. And now, bank analysts have admitted that their previous forecast that the bitcoin-to-gold volatility ratio would drop to around 2/1 by the end of 2022 was unrealistic. Therefore, they lowered the fair value of the first cryptocurrency to $38,000, writes Business Insider.
JPMorgan did not rule out a further decline in bitcoin quotes, even in the absence of signs of buyer surrender. “Open interest in futures and the volume of exchange balances indicates less panic or liquidation of positions than last May, especially in relation to large crypto investors,” the specialists concluded in their report.

- Arizona (USA) Senate Member Wendy Rogers introduced a bill that would approve bitcoin as a transactional currency or a means of payment. According to the bill, the first cryptocurrency will be accepted to pay debts, taxes and government fees as well as other obligations. Rogers has also been noted for other initiatives. One of them suggests the possibility of the authorities paying salaries to their employees in cryptocurrency. The senator has also proposed not to levy taxes or fees for “the use of blockchain technology.”
All of these bills must be approved by the Arizona House of Representatives and Senate to be adopted.

- Bitcoin could soar to a high of $93,717 this year and is expected to be worth $76,360 by the end of 2022 and close to $193,000 by the end of 2025. This is the average forecast made by industry representatives during a roundtable discussion organized by the analytical website Finder.
The discussion was attended by 33 fintech experts, half of whom do not expect the cryptocurrency price to fall even against the backdrop of the upcoming increase in US interest rates. Vanessa Harris, director of the cryptocurrency startup Permission, was among the most optimistic participants in the discussion. She predicts that BTC will peak at $220,000 this year. A much more modest figure was voiced by the founder of the CoinFlip bitcoin ATM network, Daniel Polotsky. In his opinion, the cryptocurrency is unlikely to exceed $60,000 in 2022 as the bubbles created by the US Federal Reserve during the pandemic are now deflating.

- Crypto analyst Jason Pizzino believes that despite a solid rebound from its 90-day low of $32,950, the first cryptocurrency is facing a strong resistance. When the price approaches $38,000, it stops because the resistance becomes too strong.
At the same time, according to Pizzino, bitcoin will still enter an accumulation period in the medium term, when whales and investors with smart money will begin to invest in cryptocurrency, waiting for its next bullish trend. This may take a whole year, during which the BTC rate will rise. According to Pizzino's forecast, bitcoin is able to reach a new price high in the second half of 2022, but this will not be a sharp upward movement but a series of ascents.

- American Express, one of the most recognizable credit card operators, has lost ground in processed transaction volumes to the bitcoin network. This is evidenced by the data of the latest NYDIG report.
While the BTC network processed transactions for $3.0 trillion in 2021, for American Express the figure was $1.28 trillion, and this is the best figure in the history of the American corporation. Discover, the 4th largest card operator, posted a result of $0.504 billion, which is also an absolute maximum for the company.
Only two famous brands are ahead of bitcoin: Mastercard and VISA. Their result is $7.72 trillion and $13.5 trillion, respectively. However, the gap between them and the bitcoin is steadily shrinking.

- Global adoption of bitcoin will certainly contribute to the growth of bitcoin to $1 million. This opinion was expressed by the head of Circle, Jeremy Aller in an interview with Business Insider. He admits that he himself is not a "bitcoin maximalist", but he still believes in new cryptocurrency highs. At the same time, the businessman prefers not to compare bitcoin with gold, believing that the digital asset is much more efficient than precious metals. According to the head of Circle, gold as money is simply useless in modern society.

- But analysts at Goldman Sachs, one of the world's largest investment banks, do not share Aller's scenario. In their opinion, the mass adoption of cryptocurrency may, on the contrary, worsen the chances of its long-term growth. Experts argue that the global popularity of digital assets will increase their correlation with traditional ones. This, in turn, will reduce the volatility of cryptocurrencies, as well as reduce their advantage as a diversifying asset in an investor's portfolio.
Moreover, according to Goldman Sachs, cryptocurrencies are unlikely to be able to avoid the influence of macroeconomic forces, such as the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve.

- Peter Brandt, a well-known Wall Street trader with 45 years of experience, notes that most crypto enthusiasts are now in an extremely bearish mood. Most of the participants in the Laser Eyes flash mob are confident that the price of bitcoin will fall below $30,000 in the near future. According to the expert, this may be a signal to buy the first cryptocurrency. “When the bulls wear laser eyes, it’s time to sell. When bulls become bears, is it time to buy?” Brandt asks.
Recall that the “Laser Eyes” flash mob started on Twitter in February 2021, when bitcoin reached a local high of $58,300. After that, many supporters of the first cryptocurrency, in anticipation of its growth to $100,000, posted photos with “laser eyes” as their profile avatar. Co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital Anthony Pompliano, TV presenter Max Kaiser, CEO of Binance crypto exchange Changpeng Zhao, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other influencers were among the participants in the flash mob.
However, instead of rising to $100,000, the flagship cryptocurrency collapsed to $29,000 by June. So, the current remark of Peter Brand is clearly not devoid of logic.


Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- McDonald's fast-food chain has trolled crypto investors amid the fall of the crypto market. McDonald's joked that the owners of digital assets have to get a job in the catering industry during the bearish trend. The post was liked by the community and gained almost 100,000 likes.
In response to the fast-food joke, the CEO of the technology company MicroStrategy Michael Saylor posted his photo wearing a cap with the McDonald's logo and the caption: “Doing my best to buy more bitcoins”.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele also reacted to the joke about bankrupt crypto investors who are forced to cook burgers. Like Michael Saylor, he tweeted a photo of himself wearing a McDonald's cap. This tweet was immediately commented on by a Shibetoshi Nakamoto, who wrote: "Welcome to the McDonald's family, sir."

- But the well-known economist and critic of bitcoin, Nouriel Roubini called on the government of El Salvador in all seriousness to impeach President Nayib Bukele because of his investments in the first cryptocurrency. According to Roubini, the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. “El Salvador’s bitcoin experiment is a real disaster: BTC holders have lost 50% [of the portfolio],” he wrote, calling Bukele a “clown” and a “criminal president” along the way.

- McDonald's trolling has not been ignored by other influencers either. So, the director of the Gemini crypto exchange Tyler Winklevoss wrote that he considers the current fall as an excellent opportunity to buy coins on the Big McBottom. And Elon Musk promised to eat the Happy Meal during the TV broadcast "if McDonald's starts accepting Dogecoin."

- The collapse of bitcoin creates an opportunity to become richer, says Robert Kiyosaki. Rich Dad Poor Dad bestselling author and entrepreneur said he would buy more digital gold if its price dropped to $20,000. "Profits are made when you buy, not when you sell. Bitcoin is crashing. Great news. I bought BTC for $6,000 and $9,000. I will buy more if the price tests $20,000. The time to get rich is coming."
Recall that Kiyosaki predicted a “giant stock market crash” last October and warned that the same fate awaits gold, silver and bitcoin. This is exactly what we are seeing now.

- Goldbug and bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff allowed the collapse of bitcoin below $10,000. In response, Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz offered Schiff a $1 million bet. He promised to send these funds to charity or another purpose of the opponent's choice if BTC trades below $35,000 in a year. At the same time, Novogratz believes that the bear market will be long enough, and therefore does not advise buying on drawdowns now. “It will be difficult for cryptocurrencies to start a rally until the stock market bottoms out. Nevertheless, digital assets have already experienced a significant sell-off and are beginning to receive support from buyers,” he explained.

- Ton Weiss, a well-known trader, analyst and former vice president of JP Morgan Chase, does not rule out the completion of the bitcoin correction in the near future. According to him, the cryptocurrency has reached the 20-month moving average (MA), which is at the level of $34,000. Weiss claims that this is a "perfect opportunity" for a trend reversal and the asset's return to growth. According to the specialist, in the event of a rebound, the price of bitcoin will quickly return to the $40,000 level and consolidate above it.

- Another cryptocurrency analyst, Nicholas Merten predicts that despite the current market conditions, bitcoin could rise almost 7 times to $200,000 by the end of the year. Merten stated on his DataDash YouTube channel (502,000 subscribers) that if bitcoin's capitalization stays above $600 billion, it will set the stage for the coin's bull run in the coming months.
The expert recalled that all rallies occur after corrections and are often spurred on by BTC purchases at heavily discounted prices. Understanding how big players buy is the key to navigating the highly volatile cryptocurrency markets, Merten says.

- According to many market participants, bitcoin can go to the $30,000 area, and then it is likely to turn around. Charles Edwards, the founder of the crypto investment company Capriole, wrote that the signal of the NVT (Network Value to Transaction ratio) indicator shows that BTC is oversold: this situation is rare in the market. “We have entered an open buying zone,” Edwards commented on the current situation.
Recall that this indicator was proposed and is actively used by the well-known analyst Willy Woo. NVT is calculated by dividing bitcoin's market capitalization by its transaction volume (in USD) and is a popular metric to assess whether the coin is overbought or oversold.

- Scott Melker, a trader, analyst, and podcast host, reminded his subscribers that there is nothing unusual about what is happening in the market now. “People have short memories. Bitcoin fell from $60,000 to $30,000 in 10 days in May. 10 DAYS!!! All this has already happened. And that was only 8 months ago. So why be so scared?" he wrote.

- The flagship cryptocurrency has captured the mind of Eric Adams, who is now the mayor of New York. It was last Friday, during an epic price drop, that he received his first paycheck in bitcoin and ethereum, which cut his US dollar pay by 15%. However, Adams did not express any regret about this, apparently believing that he would win in the end anyway. "My goal is to send a message that New York is open to technology and encourage our young people to participate in new emerging markets," says the 110th mayor of the US's largest city.

- Michael Saylor, founder of MicroStrategy, named two reasons for the current correction in the cryptocurrency market. The first of these is the non-transparent regulation and regulatory uncertainty of the crypto industry. The second problem is the imperfection and immaturity of the crypto industry. At the same time, the businessman believes that the current market conditions provide “an excellent entry point for institutional investors interested in cryptocurrencies, who have been on the sidelines so far.”
According to Saylor, a lot of institutional investors are now watching bitcoin and see that it is 40% below the all-time high and that it is consolidating. At the same time, they understand that bitcoin is supported by such serious investors as Bill Miller, regulators, senators, and congressmen, as well as large public companies.
As for MicroStrategy itself, this software developer owns 124,391 BTC. The company has spent about $3.7 billion on the acquisition of cryptocurrency. Thus, the average purchase price is $30,100 per 1 coin.


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Notice: These materials are not investment recommendations or guidelines for working in financial markets and are intended for informational purposes only. Trading in financial markets is risky and can result in a complete loss of deposited funds.

CryptoNews of the Week


- Canadian entrepreneur and Shark Tank TV star Kevin O'Leary spoke to Anthony Pompliano about how sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East are considering mining possibilities. In his opinion, they can enter this space within the next two to three years focusing on the shares of "environmentally friendly" companies.
The businessman did not rule out the creation of his own mining company. In addition to the approval of his initiative by the authorities, O'Leary would like to enlist the support of the inhabitants of the territory associated with its deployment. The entrepreneur called the creation of opportunities for mining companies to reflect income from cryptocurrency mining in financial statements as another condition. He believes this will create an incentive to invest for O'Leary and other financiers.

- The bubble is deflating, so the bitcoin price may fall to $30,000. This opinion was expressed by specialists from the investment company Invesco in their list of “incredible but possible” results for 2022. “Bitcoin’s mass marketing reminds us of stockbrokers' activity leading up to the 1929 crash,” they write.
According to the experts, the drop in quotes from highs around $69,000 to $42,000 in early January is exactly in line with the bubble pattern. This trajectory assumes that the asset will lose 45% of its value within 12 months after the peak. That is, the price will fall to $34,000-$37,000 by the end of October and to $30,000 by the end of 2022.
At the same time, Invesco admitted that they made a mistake with the forecast for 2021, when they predicted a fall in the BTC price below $10,000. Analysts explained their mistake by the fact that bitcoin seems to pass not through one, but through a series of bubbles.

- Guido Buehler, CEO of SEBA licensed cryptocurrency bank, gave an opposite forecast. He believes that digital gold could rise to $75,000 by the end of 2022, according to CNBC. “Our internal valuation models point to a price between $50,000 and $75,000. I am quite sure that we will see this level,” he said, adding that the volatility of bitcoin will remain high, but the asset will be able to test new record levels, the only question is the timing.

- TV presenter, filmmaker and former trader Max Kaiser still believes that bitcoin will hit $220,000 this year. He explained in another interview why his forecast was not realized last year. “As for 2021, I said we would get to $220,000 per coin, which is a typical four-year cycle. What we had in 2021 was a massive mining collapse in China, the hash rate fell by 50%. We have recovered since then and are about to reach a new all-time record hash rate. That's why I'm moving my goal from 2021 to 2022."
“There is a price, there is a hash rate and there is a complexity setting: these are three things you need to keep in mind,” Max Keiser explains. “I have always said that the price lags behind the hash rate, so once we see its new all-time highs, new all-time highs of the bitcoin price will follow.”

- Another cryptocurrency analyst, Justin Bennett, believes that bitcoin is in for a decent rally in the near future. He reviewed BTC historical price movement models that show that the asset is expected to rise by 20-30%. “You can see since the beginning of 2021 that when bitcoin finds a low below the liquidation level, it makes a move up. The average rate of such movement is about 63%, and the lowest was in April, about 27%. – says the expert. “If you take this data and look at the low around $40,000, then a minimum move of around 27% would take the market to around $50,000. This is highly likely given that the $50,000-53,000 range is very important, and sellers will defend this range as resistance. But bitcoin first needs to break the $45,600 mark to start the rally.”

- The number of vacancies related to the cryptocurrency industry in the US increased by 395% in 2021. Such data is provided by the LinkedIn social network. The sample has included ads containing the words "bitcoin", "ethereum", "blockchain" and "cryptocurrency". At the same time, the number of vacancies in the technology sector increased by 98% over the year.
LinkedIn noted that while most jobs were posted by companies specializing in software and finance, interest in crypto-related candidates was also shown in other areas. We are talking about consulting, accounting, hardware and recruiting.

- The owners of the fake YouTube channel of the head of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor lured 26 BTC (about $1.1 million) from one of the users. The scheme of fraud was common and widespread: they promised on behalf of Saylor to “double” any amount sent to the specified address in cryptocurrency. No matter how much is written about this type of scam, there are still those who fall for this bait, driven by greed.
“489 of these scam channels were launched on YouTube last week. We complain about them every 15 minutes, they are blocked after a few hours, but scammers launch new ones,” the real Saylor wrote in his verified Twitter account.

- According to Peter Brandt, a Wall Street trader with 45 years of experience, he expects a further decline in the price of ethereum. To date, this altcoin has already fallen in price by 36% from its all-time high of $4,878 recorded on November 10, 2021. Brandt is pessimistic as he believes that from a technological standpoint, ethereum is “a very complex, costly, and user-inconvenient platform in terms of its use for NFTs, special tokens, and its involvement in the metaverse.” Based on this, Brandt concludes that ETH will lose points in the eyes of investors, giving way to competitors.

- Data from the Glassnode platform shows that investors are buying up ethereum, despite the fall in its value. As mentioned above, this digital currency has lost 36% of its value in two months. At the same time, the number of ETH wallets with a non-zero balance reached a new high of 73,025,019. Network activity is also increasing, which indicates the desire of investors to take advantage of the correction and buy as many tokens as possible. The average daily number of transactions on the blockchain exceeds 1.2 million at the moment.
According to Glassnode analysts, ETH will trade in a narrow range until a clear vector of movement for the US stock market is formed. If the capital goes into risky assets again, then the ethereum will resume the rise along with bitcoin.

- Popular analyst PlanB is considered one of the main supporters of the theory that BTC will grow to $100,000 in 2021. He developed a forecasting model for the behavior of the bitcoin price (S2F), the signals of which indicated the prospects for such a rise.
Despite the fact that the S2F forecast did not come true, PlanB continues to stick to his theory. He is confident that bitcoin has not yet realized the potential laid in it by the 2020 halving. According to the analyst, the coin is now near local lows and is preparing to renew all-time highs in March. According to the analyst, the peak value of bitcoin within the current cycle can be recorded in July-August 2022.
Analysts of the Twitter channel Root largely agreed with PlanB's opinion. They also believe that bitcoin's growth cycle is not yet complete and is ready to resume growth.

- Umar Farooq, Head of the Cryptocurrency Division at JPMorgan Onyx, compared the current level of development of the cryptocurrency market with the music streaming industry in the 90s. “There was a thing called Napster in the 90s. It was clumsy. Not everyone could use it. And 20 years later, you have Apple Music and Spotify. We live in the era of Napster. We just don't know what Spotify looks like. So I think cryptocurrencies will remain. I just don't know in what form," Umar Farooq said. According to him, the industry has already survived the era of the "Wild West" and has now become an established industry, attracting more and more users.
Earlier, the JPMorgan analyst opined that reduced volatility would enable bitcoin to reach $73,000 in 2022, and the “promised” $146,000 in the long term.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- China's Supreme Economic Planning Authority has officially declared crypto mining "obsolete", backing up the government's efforts to eradicate the industry entirely. The National Development and Reform Commission made the announcement on Monday, January 10, explaining along the way that the country's economy is moving towards a model that favors cleaner, less resource-intensive industries. According to business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associate, the “obsolete” label refers not only to mining, but also to other technologies that will be banned from investment and should be phased out.
As a reminder, China had been the world leader in this industry until last year, when government bans drove most of the crypto miners out of the country, 

- The global adoption of cryptocurrencies will jump from the current 5% to 20% in 2022. This forecast was given by the CEO of Binance crypto exchange Changpeng Zhao in an article for the Indian version of Fortune. The main drivers, in his opinion, will be the SocialFi, GameFi and NFT sectors.
Regarding India, Zhao noted the importance of government support for blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation, regardless of asset classification. According to the NASSCOM report, it is expected that the crypto market in the country will reach $241 million by 2030 and potentially create 877 thousand jobs. The organization also predicts an increase in the inflow of funds from retail investors in digital assets to $15.6 billion from $6.6 billion currently.
The head of Binance stressed that India is poised to “become a leader in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.” “In addition to banking and financial services, DLT technology can improve the efficiency of land transactions, supply chains, agriculture and corporate sustainability,” Zhao added. 

- According to Bloomberg, only 5% of customers surveyed by JPMorgan believe that the bitcoin price will reach $100,000 by the end of 2022. More than 40% believe that it will only return to the $60,000 level. “I'm not surprised by the bearish sentiment on bitcoin. Our futures-based indicator looks oversold", said the bank's strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou. According to him, the fair value of the cryptocurrency ranges from $35,000 to $73,000.

- Jack Dorsey's Block (formerly Square) payment company has opened a recruitment process to develop a next-generation bitcoin miner and a hardware wallet “for the next 100 million bitcoin users.” This is stated in the corresponding section on the company's website. “Our goal is to expand economic opportunities, starting with providing easy-to-use and reliable self-service to a global audience,” the announcement says.

- Bitcoin continues to fall in price after it reached an all-time high of $69,000 last November. Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz called this a healthy pullback in a recent interview with CNBC. He believes that the main cryptocurrency will find support around $38,000-40,000, after which it will return to growth, thanks to purchases by institutional investors.
Nigel Green, CEO of the consulting company deVere Group, has also stated that this is the best time in the current cycle to buy bitcoin.

- However, some experts consider such sentiments to be too optimistic. Thus, the ENCRY Foundation predicts that bitcoin may return to growth only after its price drops to $28,000-30,000. “The flows of liquidity to the markets will decrease in the second half of 2022, after the completion of the asset repurchase program in the United States. Then bitcoin may fall to $30,000,” the company's specialists believe.
The current levels cannot yet be described as a market bottom. This is indicated by another expert, Viktor Pershikov, a leading analyst at 8848 Invest. According to him, conditions that have not yet been observed must be fulfilled for the formation of the bottom. This is a long flat (at least two months in the current circumstances) with the accumulation of long positions and an increase in open interest, a decrease in BTC sales by market participants as well as clarification of the speed and degree of tightening of monetary policy by world central banks.
“The current state of the crypto market is characterized by emotional selling to a large extent, including at a loss, which is typical for situations when retail participants are shaken out of the market. The current decline does not pose a threat for large BTC holders and is a normal market correction before further growth," Pershikov says. In his opinion, bitcoin will spend most of the year in the price range of $30,000-70,000.

- Bitcoin is classified as a risky asset, and it moves mainly in the same direction as technology stocks. Sometimes the correlation of BTC with such assets weakens, but the overall dependence remains high.
Analysts associate the January fall in cryptocurrency with the retreat of stock indices, which is taking place against the background of the US Federal Reserve's readiness to raise the discount rate this quarter. Correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 has increased to its highest level since July 2020, according to Kaiko platform. A similar situation is observed between BTC and the Nasdaq index.

- Up to 50% of all transactions in one form or another will be made through Ethereum in 10-20 years. This was stated by Joey Krug, co-director of investments at Pantera Capital in an interview with Bloomberg.
The top manager is convinced that the second largest cryptocurrency by capitalization will play an important role in global finance, and that the explosive growth of Ethereum killers will not be able to undermine its dominance. “There are many compromises in other blockchains, while Ethereum is in the best position in terms of decentralization, which is extremely important,” explained the Pantera Capital Co-Chief Investment Officer.

- Cryptocurrency analyst Justin Bennett said what, in his opinion, awaits Ethereum against the backdrop of a downtrend in the entire market. “One needs to be careful as long as ETH is below $4,000. If ETH returns to this area in the coming weeks and months and can gain a foothold there, then we can talk about the continuation of the strong bullish trend observed in 2021. ”Bennett himself does not mind replenishing his leading altcoin stocks at around $3,000. 
The analyst also looks at ETH against BTC and believes that the ETH/BTC pair could start a long-term rally to 0.18 BTC ($7.388) for 1 Ethereum, but this would require holding the 0.075 BTC ($3.077) level as support. 

- A resident of San Francisco (USA) Siraj Raval uses his 2018 Tesla Model 3 to mine Ethereum. To do this, he launched the corresponding free software on the Apple Mac mini M1, connecting it to the car's center console. Five graphics cards are powered by the Tesla battery.
According to Raval, he was mining for about 20 hours a day on the Tesla battery and was earning from $400 to $800 per month throughout 2021, which made such mining profitable even during the bear market. (The monthly cost of recharging the car was only $30 to $60, despite the fact that he was driving it as well.) 
However, another miner who used Tesla, Thomas Somers, doubted that much profit. “The best estimate I would give for a GPU hashrate in Model 3 would be around 7-10 MH/s. Currently, this will generate revenue of about $13 at a rate of 10 MH/s without taking into account any costs,“ Somers said.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- It was 13 years ago, on January 3, 2009, that a person or a group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto launched the main bitcoin network, mining a genesis block with 50 BTC. Its hash contains the title of the article "Chancellor on Brink of Second Bailout for Banks" by the British edition of The Times. The launch of the network was preceded by the publication of the bitcoin white paper on October 31, 2008. The first bitcoin transaction took place on January 12, 2009: Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 BTC to Hal Finney.
It is possible that one of the incentives for the bitcoin creation was the global financial crisis that broke out in 2007-2008, accompanied by the collapse of the largest investment banks, a widespread decline in production, falling demand and prices for raw materials, rising unemployment and active government intervention in the economy.

- According to the CoinatMrRadar analytical service, against the backdrop of growing demand for cryptocurrencies, about 20,000 new bitcoin ATMs appeared in the world in 2021. Their number has grown by about 2.4 times over the year and is very close to 34,000. The vast majority of these are still in the United States. Genesis Coin is the leader among ATM manufacturers, having installed 13,996 ATMs. It is followed by General Bytes with 7,514. The top three is closed by BitAccess with 4,875 ATMs.

- MicroStrategy increased investments in bitcoin by $94 million. The company's CEO Michael Saylor announced the purchase of 1.9 thousand BTC at an average price of $49,200 per coin. The software developer currently owns 124,391 BTC, which is valued at $6.1 billion. In total, the company spent about $3.7 billion on the purchase of cryptocurrency, so the average price of 1 BTC in its ownership is $30,100.
The head of MicroStrategy is a strong proponent of digital assets and believes bitcoin will become the 21st century's premier store of value. As for China's anti-cryptocurrency measures, Michael Saylor called them a “trillion-dollar mistake”.

- The head of the investment company Ava Labs, John Wu, expressed the opinion in an interview with CNBC that the capitalization of the crypto market will exceed $5 trillion in 2022. According to Wu's forecast, digital assets have the potential to double their market value in the coming year. (The capitalization is $2.25 trillion at the time of writing this review).
According to the head of Ava Labs, cryptocurrencies will be the only asset class that can withstand both the actions of the Fed and the record increase in inflation, which reached its maximum values in the US in almost 40 years in early December 2021. Wu also claims that the share of bitcoin will fall below 30% with the growth of the crypto market, although the price may exceed $75,000 per coin.

- According to cryptocurrency analyst Benjamin Cowen, bitcoin has already bottomed out, although many traders believe the bearish trend will continue. According to Cowen, it can be more revealing sometimes to value bitcoin not in the BTC/USD pair, but in comparison with other assets. As an example, the expert suggests looking at BTC paired with the S&P500 index. Bitcoin has already reached critical support here, Cowen believes. “If you look at bitcoin in the mirror of the stock market, it is testing levels that were tested back in September.”
However, the analyst does not rule out that the main cryptocurrency may return to the level of $40,000 or $42,000. “Anything is possible in the case of investment,” he writes. “All models can be wrong, although some can be useful.”

- Another fraudulent account of Vitalik Buterin has been found on Instagram. According to users, the owner of this account is “pulling followers into classic cryptocurrency fraud schemes.” He encourages subscribers to send him direct messages which contain passphrases for crypto wallets, or persuades them to send him cryptocurrency, promising to return three times as much.
It turns out that the real Vitalik Buterin does not have an official Instagram account, which is what the scammer decided to take advantage of, gaining 643,000 subscribers. The fake account was registered in Israel more than two years ago. However, it is not the only one. If you search Instagram for the name of the Ethereum creator, you will see more than a dozen accounts, many of which are called “Vitalik Biterin_official”.

- Notorious entrepreneur, co-founder of Block.One, former actor and former US presidential candidate Brock Pierce is confident that bitcoin can reach $200,000 this year. Governments are printing excessive amounts of money, thereby fueling inflation, and this will be the main reason for BTC to take off. “I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin trades for $100,000. It is quite possible that it can jump over $200,000 for a moment,” Pierce said optimistically.

- Anthony Trenchev, co-founder and managing partner of Nexo, a major cryptocurrency lender (over $ 6 billion), exudes optimism like Brock Pierce. “I think bitcoin will reach $100,000 this year, perhaps by the middle of this year,” Trenchev said.

- Economist Alex Kruger expects the main cryptocurrency to grow in early January, but then bears may enter the scene and the reason for this is the next meeting of the US Federal Reserve. “If the report on inflation on January 12 shows an excess of its level,” the specialist explains, “then investors should expect an exit from risky assets on the eve of the FRS meeting on January 26.”

- American billionaire and founder of Bridgewater Associates Ray Dalio said he is impressed by the fact that bitcoin has managed to stand the test of time and agreed with his fellow billionaire Bill Miller is that one should allocate 1-2% of one's net profit for this cryptocurrency. He talks about this in his new book, which is a macroeconomic explanation of why bitcoin will become a $10 trillion asset.
Many members of the crypto community have perceived this billionaire's work as a 550-page advertisement for bitcoin. However, Dalio also warns about the risks for this cryptocurrency in this book. The financier believes that a new alternative may appear in the market due to the nature of the evolutionary process. The billionaire predicts that capital will flow into non-fungible tokens and other coins in the future, for diversification purposes. At the same time, he did not purchase NFTs himself, but the mania accompanying this innovation causes him some interest.
The head of the world's largest hedge fund still does not rule out that governments can outlaw bitcoin, as they once outlawed gold and silver. “Alternative currency is a threat to any government. Each of them wants a monopoly on their currency," Dalio writes.

- Kevin O'Leary, an American entrepreneur and star of the popular business and finance show Shark Tank, said that he is ready to increase the share of cryptocurrencies in his investment portfolio to 20%. However, he is waiting for clearer regulation of the industry to do this.
O'Leary had previously been a crypto sceptic, but these assets already occupy about 10% of his portfolio now, a significant part of them are stablecoins pegged to the US dollar. This is how he is trying to protect himself from inflation of the world reserve currency. According to the entrepreneur, his optimism towards stablecoins is shared by many institutional investors. At the same time, O'Leary has a different attitude to bitcoin due to its significant volatility: “You will not invest 20% or 30% of your portfolio in bitcoin if you are an institutional investor, you simply will not. And stablecoins may well get such an allocation,” he said.

- Bitcoin markets have been consolidating since the start of the year, but chain metrics paint a more positive picture as more and more assets become illiquid. Glassnode examined the supply performance of bitcoin in its report dated January 03, 2022. The results showed that while the asset has been trading sideways so far this year, the illiquid supply has accelerated and now accounts for 76% of the total.
Glassnode defines illiquidity as moving BTC to a wallet with no history of spending. The liquid stock of BTC, which is 24%, is in wallets that regularly spend or trade coins.
The figures indicate that more and more bitcoin is being transferred to storage, which indicates an increase in accumulation. The reduction in highly liquid supply also hints that there is no need to expect a major sell-off or surrender to the bears in the near future.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Elon Musk is Satoshi Nakamoto. Such a sensational statement was made by a SpaceX and Tesla ex-software developper Sahil Gupta. He revealed details that, in his opinion, prove that Musk is the creator of bitcoin, since he had the necessary resources, knowledge and motivation to do so.
In addition, Sahil Gupta claims that he had once directly asked the billionaire representative Sam Teller if Musk was the creator of bitcoin, he was silent for about 15 seconds, and then said: "Well, what can I say...".

- Philip Hammond, former British Chancellor of the Exchequer, who also served as Foreign Secretary, Secretary of Defense and Minister of Transport, called on retail investors to be “extremely cautious” when investing in cryptocurrencies.
“If a member of my family asked me [whether to invest in cryptocurrency], I would draw their attention to the fact that large and reputable asset managers are now more likely to test the waters [...] It is almost certainly not suitable for retail investors as the main investment grade ", - said Baron Hammond. In his opinion, buying a cryptocurrency is more of a gamble than a serious investment.

- Unlike Baron Hammond, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of the richest people in Mexico and founder of the Grupo Salinas group of companies, called on subscribers to actively buy the first cryptocurrency in his New Year's address.
“Stay away from fiat money. The dollar, the euro, the yen, the peso are all the same. It is fake money made of paper and lies. Central banks print more money than ever. Invest in bitcoin,” he said. The billionaire reported that he invested 10% of his liquid portfolio in bitcoin back in November 2020.

“The cryptocurrency market will grow to tens of trillions of dollars,” said Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitmain and head of Matrixport and Bitdeer, in an interview with Forbes. In his opinion, "even if 95% of existing coins are depreciated or disappear, the growth rate of the remaining 5% will be enormous."
“Innovations like DeFi are breathtaking. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain have created a new world, enabling fintech entrepreneurs to achieve great success. Traditional financial institutions and regulators will also adopt blockchain technology over time,” the billionaire believes.

- The frequency of mentions of bitcoin on Twitter increased by 350% in 2021 compared to 2020. 101 million tweets with the word “bitcoin” were published in just 12 months, according to data from the analytical company Visibrain.
The number of mentions of bitcoin on Twitter jumped sharply against the backdrop of various events. So, there was a surge in the popularity of the asset in February against the background of the flash mob "laser eyes", the participants of which put photos with laser eyes on their Twitter avatars and promised not to change them until bitcoin rose in price to $100,000. An increase in mentions also occurred when Tesla suspended the sale of its cars for bitcoins, and El Salvador recognized the cryptocurrency as an official means of payment.

- Joseph Tsai, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Internet Company Alibaba, announced his commitment to cryptocurrencies. He tweeted a simple and short phrase, "I like cryptocurrencies," to which a lot of users responded. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao did not ignore Tsai's tweet either and replied, "I like Joe."
Recall that the Chinese authorities are taking serious measures against the cryptocurrency industry. And this was the reason that, despite the loyalty of its vice president, the e-commerce giant has already begun to implement an anti-cryptocurrency policy. Alibaba announced last autumn that it will be forbidden to sell mining equipment on the platform. The company has also pledged to stop selling books and tutorials related to the digital asset industry.

- A well-known trader and analyst Tone Weiss predicts a powerful surge of bitcoin. He believes that the current market situation does not reflect the potential of the first cryptocurrency, and the current situation is just a “speed bump in the bull market”. The specialist recalled that similar phenomena have already happened in the past, and each time bitcoin, having overcome the section that slowed it down, picked up speed again. At the same time, Weiss noted that he does not know exactly to what minimum BTC may fall before its value begins to increase. 
The trader also noted that bitcoin is currently trading within a large ascending triangle on the monthly chart. This is a bullish pattern suggesting a continuation of the uptrend. The analyst believes that the asset's overcoming the $60,000 level will open the way for a large-scale rally to $100,000 and above.

- Analyst PlanB also believes that the digital asset is bound to grow. This is indicated by the signals of his S2F forecasting model. PlanB has previously claimed that the main cryptocurrency will be able to break through the $100,000 level before the end of this year. Despite the fact that his forecast did not come true, the analyst continues to believe the S2F signals.

- Lukas Lagoudis, CEO of ARK36 cryptocurrency hedge fund, believes in maintaining the upward trend in the crypto market next year. According to him, the value of coins will increase due to the inflow of capital from institutional investors and the integration of digital assets into traditional financial systems. Lagoudis suggests that the popularity of virtual currencies should increase due to rising inflation and declining bond yields.

- Documentaries that talk about bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry appear on the film market from time to time. Some of them have earned rave reviews from critics and users interested in the industry.
The first place in the TOP-3 is taken by the documentary "This Machine Greens", which tells about the mining process. "Man B" is in the second place, in which the authors examine the attitude of the citizens of Germany and Austria towards bitcoin. The third line is taken by the documentary film "Hard Money". This short film explains why bitcoin is so important for the entire planet. It can also be used to find out why gold was chosen as the main asset for civilization at one time, and what its drawbacks are.

- The US Congress approved an increase in the national debt limit by another $2.5 trillion. According to experts, this decision will once again postpone the threat of federal default until at least the beginning of 2023, accelerate inflation in the United States and lead to an increase in investment in gold and bitcoin.
Max Keiser, a well-known crypto investor and founder of Heisenberg Capital, said the bill created “ideal conditions for bitcoin to grow as the US government capitulated to hyperinflation”. “I don’t want to see America collapse, but I don’t have that many dollars, so I don’t care,” Kaiser announced.
Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss (Tyler Winklevoss) wrote on Twitter that the approval by the US Senate of the debt ceiling “will actually work as advertising for bitcoin at $2.5 trillion.” Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, shares a similar view. “It looks like bitcoin is enjoying government support,” he writes.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Miners have already mined 90% of the coins from the total bitcoin emission. The bitcoin network has reached the point at block No. 714000 where it remains to mine 2.1 million BTC, or 10% of the available emission volume. However, the total cryptocurrency supply will not be equal to 21 million coins, as provided by the algorithm. Chainalysis has calculated that 3.79 million BTC could be lost forever. In theory, these coins do exist, but they do not circulate.
Also, about 1 million BTC is stored at addresses that are associated with the creator of the first cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto. These bitcoins were mined early in the development of the network and have not moved since then. Nakamoto left his last public message 11 years ago.
Digital gold is expected to reach its emission limit around 2140 as regular halvings gradually lead to a zero-emission rate.

- According to the Bitstamp cryptocurrency exchange, the number of women investing in cryptocurrency increased by 198% in the first three quarters of 2021compared to the same period in 2020. The highest percentage of new investors are women between the ages of 30 and 35. It is curious that the most successful female investors and traders are the age group from 55 to 60 years old. They tend to invest larger amounts and earn higher returns.
The main reason for this influx is likely the proliferation of information about cryptocurrencies during the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 forced many countries to enter lockdowns, which made citizens stay at home for a long time. It is natural that when left without work, people were forced to look for new opportunities to generate income. In addition, fiat currencies are depreciating catastrophically in many countries.
However, despite the influx of women into what was previously considered predominantly male, gender balance will still take time. According to a report called Financial Tribes You Need to Know, 66% of investors in the cryptocurrency industry are still male.

- The new German government has included cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in the list of the country's main development directions for the next four years. And now German savings banks have started working on a cryptocurrency wallet project. According to media reports, the plan provides for the possibility of buying and selling digital assets directly through accounts, and customers will not have to undergo additional verification procedures.
For reference: there are about 370 savings banks in Germany. Their aggregate database has about 50 million customers, and assets under management are estimated at €1.4 trillion.

- According to IntoTheBlock experts, if BTC does not hold above $48,000, the risks of its fall to $43,000 will increase, and it is only at this level that the coin will be able to find a local bottom. About 344,000 wallets purchased 395,000 coins at prices in the area of this support. It is these investors who must prevent further pullback so as not to go into the red.

- Attackers hacked the personal Twitter of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They wrote on his behalf about the recognition of the first cryptocurrency as a legal means of payment in the country. The publication also said that India bought 500 BTC and plans to distribute it to citizens. Attackers also attached a link to a fraudulent site allegedly for citizens to receive their share of coins. As of now, the fake tweet has been deleted.

- When the news feed is calm enough, traders begin to pay more attention to technical analysis. And now the legendary trader and techno analyst Peter Brandt warned investors that there is a dangerous double top pattern on the chart of the first cryptocurrency. However, according to a number of experts, this does not mean that the pattern will eventually be fully formed and that the market will go into a deeper correction.
The analytical department of Bestchange believes that despite the high risks of continuing the local fall, the main cryptocurrency is able to go up powerfully in the medium term. “The situation is extremely ambiguous today, but mid-term forecasts until mid-2022 are still positive. Bitcoin needs to lose at least half of its capitalization and securely gain a foothold at levels below $28,000-30,000 in order to abandon most positive scenarios. Until this happens, the hope for $100,000 continues to be relevant,” Bestchange believes.
According to Nikita Soshnikov, director of Alfacash crypto service, the market will face a long period of depressed sentiment if the double top pattern is confirmed. However, “there is no question of any bitcoin at $5,000 or even $15,000. You can simply forget about such prices for cryptocurrency. But it may well fall below $40,000 and stay at this level for several weeks. I even admit a decline in the rate to $35,000, but going below this mark is unlikely,” the expert predicted.

- Elon Musk was named TIME's Person of the Year. The publication noted the impact of the founder of Tesla and SpaceX on life on Earth and “possibly beyond”. "This is a man who seeks to save our planet and help us populate a new one: a jester, a genius, a provocateur, a seer, an industrialist, a showman, a boor, a crazy hybrid of Edison, Barnum, Andrew Carnegie and Dr. Manhattan from The Watchmen," - this is how TIME characterizes the richest person on the planet with a fortune of $265 billion.
When asked by a TIME reporter regarding cryptocurrencies, Musk replied that he is “not such a big opponent of fiat. But the cryptocurrency has advantages, since any government, whatever it may be, has a desire to issue." “I was instrumental in the creation of PayPal. And there are few who understand [the monetary system] better than I do,” multi-billionaire said. However, he doubted that digital assets can replace fiat. “Bitcoin can serve as a store of value, but it cannot be a good substitute for currencies for payments. In this regard, even Dogecoin created as a joke is better suited.”
Among other things, Musk said in the interview with TIME that he would not be held responsible for how the markets react to his tweets: “Markets are in motion all the time on their own for no reason. Is the reaction to my statements significantly different from the random wanderings that they already have? I do not think so. As you can see from my tweets, this is humor, which I find funny, but not everyone agrees. "

- The Weiss Crypto rating agency still adheres to an optimistic scenario despite the protracted correction of the flagship cryptocurrency. Agency analysts support the forecast of colleagues from Bloomberg, who previously announced a high probability of a coin breakthrough to $100,000 in 2022.
The chances of reaching this psychological mark exceed the risks of a further fall, according to the Weiss Crypto review. Against the backdrop of the confrontation with China, the United States will accelerate the legalization of the crypto sphere, which will positively affect the value of digital currencies.
The authors of the study emphasize that cryptocurrency will be the main beneficiary of the fall of the stock market in the context of tightening the monetary policy by the Fed. Investors can abandon stocks in favor of digital currency as a hedging tool. In addition, the decline in the yield on US Treasury bonds may also have a positive effect on the quotes of BTC and ETH.

- According to Michael van de Poppe, creator of the Material Indicators analytical resource, bearish sentiment still prevails among whales. “They have not bought a single drawdown since the beginning of October and have only been selling lately,” he explained.
However, following the results of the US Federal Reserve meeting this week, the BTC rate may complete the correction and move to growth on the triggering of the “sell on rumors, buy on the news” rule. A similar scenario emerges based on the analysis of the order book of the Bitfinex exchange. Traders started placing buy orders in the range of $44,500-$46,000, while at the time of writing, the first cryptocurrency is trading above $47,000.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The collapse of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on December 04 occurred against the background of investors' flight from risky assets and the fall of the stock market. The reason for this was the news about the largest real estate developer in China Evergrande. The media reported that its founder was summoned to the government because of the possible bankruptcy of the company, which could create serious problems for the entire world economy.
Analysts at Galaxy Digital Research called general nervousness due to the new COVID-19 strain "Omicron" and because of the statement by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell about a possible acceleration in the pace of curtailing the monetary stimulus program, as the reason for the fall in the crypto market.

- Bitcoin is unlikely to have time to renew the highs before the end of 2021 and reach the $100,000 mark after the recent crash. This opinion was expressed by the chief investment officer of Bitwise Asset Management Matt Hougan in an interview with Bloomberg. “I think this level can be the goal for 2022,” the top manager said. In his opinion, the growing support from institutions will be the driver, and there are “fundamental driving forces” for this.
Also, giving a forecast for 2022, Hougan predicted an “explosion of activity based on ethereum”. A Bitwise spokesperson highlighted the DeFi, NFT, Web 3.0 and metaverse sectors, as well as the growing potential of altcoins. “Investors will look at Ethereum, Solana or Polygon. They are beginning to understand that cryptocurrency is more than just bitcoin,” says Hougan.

- President Joe Biden's administration has published the United States Anti-Corruption Strategy. This is the first time that such a document mentions cryptocurrencies. “The Ministry of Justice will use the established National Cryptocurrency Law Enforcement Group to focus on comprehensive investigations and prosecutions of the criminal use of digital assets,” the Strategy says. This group will focus on "crimes committed by exchanges, mixing services and money laundering infrastructure entities."

- A poll by Grayscale Investments showed that more than a quarter of US investors (26%) already own bitcoin, more than half of them (55%) have acquired an asset in the last 12 months. 77% of respondents view digital gold as an investment asset and only 20% see bitcoin as a means of payment.
Despite the popularity of the retention strategy, one in six investors sold at least part of their digital assets, 91% of them did so at a profit.

- Back in early June, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced that his country was going to mine BTC using energy from the region's volcanoes. He distributed a video at the end of September talking about the start of construction of the corresponding facility.
However, one of El Salvador's leading ecologists, Ricardo Navarro, believes that BTC mining using geothermal volcanic energy will eventually lead to an environmental disaster. Such energy is quite expensive, and its price is even higher than that of oil. As a result, in his opinion, the country will simply have to purchase more oil. Navarro also insists that "Bukele is not really aware of what is happening with the energy situation."

- The higher the bitcoin rate, the more often it is buried. It is paradoxical, but true: as the quotes grow, skeptics who write obituaries for cryptocurrency become more active. 99bitcoins calculated: the year is not over yet, and BTC has already been predicted death 41 times. The opponents of the coin were even more active only in 2017 and 2018: the premature death of the asset was reported 124 and 93 times then.
The latter of the current obituaries is by economist Bill Blain. Blain calls bitcoin a Ponzi scheme incapable of fulfilling the function of money and argues that cryptocurrency accelerates inflation.
Unlike a number of other crypto critics, Blain has doubts about blockchain technology as well: “From time to time I dig into the myriad of junk that masquerades as the genius of blockchain, mathematics and computational logic that underlies cryptography. Read it yourself: it's 10% fun and 90% complete nonsense,” he writes. 

- Well-known analyst and trader Ton Weiss believes that bitcoin has a better chance of reaching a new all-time high this year after the collapse to $42,000. The coin needs to gain a foothold above $53,500 for the bulls to seize the initiative. “I think it will be like a V-turn. We will not have another chance to buy bitcoin below $50,000,” Weiss believes.

- The USA called "Moscow City" a hub for illegal cryptocurrency transactions. Experts of the Recorded Future company, which specializes in cybersecurity, claim that there are about 50 crypto exchanges that are engaged in illegal activities in this business center of the Russian capital. Recorded Future concluded that part of the payments to the ransomware went through "Moscow City", reports The New York Times.
The US authorities announced In September the imposition of sanctions against the Russian crypto exchange Suex, which has offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg. US officials claim Suex facilitated the withdrawal of ransomware and scammers' funds. This is the first time in US history that the authorities have imposed sanctions on a crypto exchange.

— According to Finbold, Americans suffered about $3.94 billion in losses from various cybercrimes in the first three quarters of 2021, which was the highest in history. Thus, cybercriminals stole at least $12.78 million daily. Compared to three quarters of 2020, losses increased by 83% ($1.9 billion). They amounted to about $1.2 billion In the same period of 2019, and $818 million in 2018.

- A well-known investor and economist Louis Navellier believes that a large bubble has been inflated in the stock market, which may lead to a strong correction of risky assets. As a result, bitcoin could drop to $10,000.
Navellier recalled that a serious fall in the rate of the main cryptocurrency also followed during a similar correction of risky assets in February-March 2020. 
This time, in his opinion, the situation could be even worse, and bitcoin could lose up to 80% of its capitalization. This may be facilitated by the actions of the US Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy.
“A fall below $46,000 (200-day moving average) would be a bearish signal. Bitcoin must fall to $28,500 to complete the double top pattern, and such a decline could indicate a drop below $10,000. This is an 80% decline and bitcoin has already shown similar behavior,” the investor said, referring to the end of 2017.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Police in the Spanish city of Tarragona arrested a 33-year-old man and a woman who installed hidden miners on computers in stores. The undisclosed criminals have infected at least 16 devices in electronics retailers Mediamarkt and El Corte Ingles department stores.
According to available information, the woman distracted employees and asked for help to start the laptop, which she allegedly bought in their store. Meanwhile, her companion was installing the Nicehash miner and the Anydesk program for remote access to computers on display sample laptops.
The new laptops running at full capacity have raised suspicion among consultants. Mediamarkt's CCTV cameras filmed the accomplices visiting the store three times, and the police were able to identify them from the video.

- Investors should take advantage of the latest correction in the digital asset market to build up their positions. This was stated by Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital and former director of communications in the Donald Trump administration. He noted that not only fundamental factors, but also the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve, indicate the further growth of cryptocurrency quotes.
“If you believe in long-term fundamentals like we do, then now is the time to buy. I just think that the risk is decreasing in the current situation. The volatility of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is knocking people out of the game. It also washes away some of the leverage, which, in my opinion, creates a springboard for a good first quarter,” the financier explained. Scaramucci stressed that he considers the market reaction "healthy". He called what happened “healing bloodletting”. 

- The bitcoin network has processed more US dollar transactions than PayPal since the beginning of 2021. This is stated in a report by Blockdata. The average quarterly for the decentralized network was $489 billion, while PayPal had $302 billion. However, both of these figures are inferior to the average quarterly volumes of such giants as Mastercard and Visa ($1.8 trillion and $3.2 trillion, respectively).
“It is impressive how bitcoin, being a 12-year-old P2P network, has 27% compared to Mastercard, a company founded in 1966,” Blockdata experts noted. At the same time, in their opinion, the bitcoin network is "fundamentally" different from Mastercard and Visa. It is more of a "saving technology" than a "spending" and has more options for use.
Experts believe it is realistic that the cryptocurrency will surpass financial giants as for the volume of transferable value at some point. But to do that, it needs to bridge the bandwidth gap, which they called "staggering."

- Option traders are betting on bitcoin decline for six months for the first time since May. As noted by the CoinDesk portal, this situation does not necessarily imply a long-term market decline. The six-month expected volatility is now at historical averages, so options with more distant expiration are relatively inexpensive. Traders can buy put options in the hope of large profits for a small investment if the decline does occur. There is one more explanation for what is happening. It lies in the fact that traders are trying to protect their long positions in the spot market.
The price ratio for weekly, monthly and three-month contracts also shifted to the “bears” earlier this month. “Demand is particularly strong for puts with a strike price of $50,000,” the trading firm Paradigm noted.

- Cryptocurrency analyst Justin Bennett believes December could be the month of a rally in the cryptocurrency market, with Ethereum (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE) potentially leading it.
According to the expert, the dollar index (DXY), which compares the dollar to a basket of other fiat currencies, could face a downward momentum and give a bullish signal for the crypto market. In addition, Bennett uses a chart of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization (TOTAL). According to him, TOTAL is approaching the completion of the big bullish falling wedge. He also noted the discrepancy between the growing Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the downward exchange rate movement. A rising RSI during a downtrend is often interpreted as a hint of a bullish reversal.

- Imperial Arts French Art Gallery organizes the first ever auction of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) related to personal property owned by Napoleon Bonaparte. The unique auction is held to commemorate the bicentennial of the death of Napoleon I.
The auction will feature: Napoleon's cane from St. Helena, a golden snuffbox, a handwritten letter from Napoleon I to General Bertrand, an official imperial bust of the Empire, a miniature Bonaparte portrait and ivory painting in bronze case depicting Napoleon in the form of Colonel Garde chasseurs a cheval.

- Mark Yusko, CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management, believes that owning bitcoin and other crypto assets is a way to avoid rampant inflation. In a new interview with CNBC, the head of the investment firm called BTC an "ideal" savings asset in a world where governments are in a race to devalue their currency.
According to the financier, it's not that bitcoin is getting better over fiat currencies. They are getting worse than bitcoin. “There is a global race to the bottom,” says Martin Yusko.
In his opinion, investors should not be fooled by day-to-day fluctuations in the price of bitcoin, which do not necessarily reflect its true value. In the next few months, Yusko said, macroeconomic conditions could become "unstable" and owning BTC would be an advantage.

- 86% of hacked accounts on the Google Cloud platform are their further use for mining, Cybersecurity Action Team experts said. The software needed to do this was loaded on average 22 seconds after the hack. In many cases, attackers gained access to accounts due to poor protection from the users themselves, analysts noted.

- Bitcoin was down $53,360 this week in response to declines in stock indices and commodity futures. The situation is caused by the emergence of a new strain of the Omicron coronavirus. Nigel Green, CEO of the consulting company deVere Group, believes that investors should buy bitcoin right now, during the correction, as its rate will double in a year.
“Panic is the right time to buy BTC,” says Green. He also suggested that concerns about the spread of Omicron will be short-lived, and investors will again focus on rising inflation.

- According to cryptanalyst and trader Benjamin Cowen, the value of bitcoin will not fall below $50,000. That is, within the framework of the current correction, the fall of the first cryptocurrency will not exceed 25% of the historical maximum set on November 10. A similar situation occurred in September, when bitcoin was correcting after reaching $52,000. Then the value of the asset dropped by 23%, after which the coin returned to growth.
Cowen added that the support line for the current bullish trend passes at the $51,000 level. Even if it falls to this level, it is highly likely that the price of the cryptocurrency will push off from this level and begin to rise. At the same time, the specialist admitted that false breakouts of this level could occur.

- Crypto strategist known as Smart Contracter believes that bitcoin is almost ready for a recovery. Smart Contracter uses the Elliott Wave Theory, which predicts the future movement of the rate based on the psychology of market participants, which is manifested in the form of waves. According to his calculations, BTC has completed a 5-wave correction movement and is now ready for a new round of growth.
“There are no signs of an immediate reversal yet, but I believe we have seen the final volumes of surrender. In my opinion, in the case of a worst-case scenario, the BTC rate should rebound sharply to $63,000. The most positive scenario is a new historical maximum,” the expert said.

- The subscribers of the well-known analyst known as PlanB, the creator of the S2F forecasting model, agreed with the opinion that the main cryptocurrency will be able to continue to grow. About 80% of survey participants believe that the maximum recorded on November 10, 2021, around $69,000 is not the limit. According to PlanB, the coin is expected to break through the $100,000 level by the end of the year. However, most of the community members name the $75,000 mark. Ethereum, they believe, is able to rise in price to $7,500 over the same period of time.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Latvian law enforcement officers detained a suspect in creating a fraudulent cryptocurrency project, who disappeared with €500,000 stolen from deceived customers. According to the police, the detainee is the creator of the Hodlife project and the token of the same name and operated from Spain. He promoted the fraudulent platform on social media, promising quick profits, and he made an exit scam last June and disappeared with investors' money. According to preliminary estimates, more than a thousand investors have suffered.
The stolen funds were laundered through mixing services, but Interpol employees were able to establish a link between different wallets and tracked the attacker.

- US Senator Cynthia Lummis criticized Hillary Clinton for concerns about cryptocurrencies. Earlier, during the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, former First Lady, Secretary of State in the Obama administration and participant of the presidential race in 2016, Mrs. Clinton said that cryptocurrencies can undermine the dollar's status as a reserve currency. Digital assets can also destabilize entire countries, she added.
“Great leaders are not afraid of the future. America could be a winner by adopting bitcoin as a hard currency that can be used to stabilize the dollar and reverse the tailspin that began in 1971,” Lammis wrote in response. She did not elaborate on how the first cryptocurrency should stabilize the dollar, but she did mention 1971. US President Richard Nixon completely abolished the gold standard then, transferring control of the money supply to the Fed. It is believed that this has made the economy more prone to inflation, allowing the printing of unsecured money.

- According to research by The Advisor Coach, Dogecoin is the most searched cryptocurrency in 23 US states. Bitcoin and ethereum are on the second (10 states) and third (eight) lines. The fourth place is a clone of Dogecoin, Shiba Inu.
Analysts explained Dogecoin's leadership by Elon Musk's attention to this asset. Tesla CEO invited users to vote for the option of accepting payments in Dogecoin back in May. Prior to this, the billionaire reported that SpaceX will launch the Doge-1 satellite to the moon in 2022. According to him, the mission is fully paid for with this meme cryptocurrency.
Dogecoin was worth $0.001353 on October 1, 2020. The price rose to $0.6311 per coin In May 2021, or 465 times. However, by the time of this writing on November 24, 2021, it has lost more than 65% in price, falling to $0.2172.

- Edward Snowden, a former NSA and CIA officer who asked for asylum in Russia, said that he treats dog-like tokens like Dogecoin or Shiba Inu badly. According to him, many take meme coins seriously and may suffer losses because of this.
Against the background of the growing popularity of such assets, fraudsters have become more active. The team behind Shiba Inu warned users about the spread of fake project groups on social networks.

- Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto should receive the Nobel Prize in Economics for inventing the first cryptocurrency. This initiative was made by Daniel Leon, co-founder and COO of the Celsius Network crypto platform. "This guy [Nakamoto] has brought hundreds of thousands of people more financial benefits than the bulk of economists in academia," Daniel Leon argued for his position.
He explained that before the advent of cryptocurrencies, people were forced to trust intermediaries, which are centralized institutions like banks and governments. With digital assets, this is no longer necessary. According to Daniel Leon, trusting the "code" rather than the middleman is easier and safer.
“When you lend money to your bank, it pays you 0.1%, but when you borrow, you pay 7.73%. Where is justice? To make matters worse, if a credit institution fails, the government bails it out. In the event of a failure of the government itself, it simply prints money: 30% of all dollars in circulation have been issued in the last 18 months,” COO Celsius Network said indignantly.

- Over a quarter of super-wealthy families around the world have already invested in cryptocurrencies. This is evidenced by the results of a survey of the British consulting company Campden Wealth, conducted among representatives of 385 family offices. The average capital managed by such offices is estimated at $1.6 billion.
31% of wealthy households in North America and 28% in Europe invest in cryptocurrencies, while this share is lower in the Asia-Pacific region, 19%. At the same time, the share of cryptocurrencies in the assets of billionaire families as a whole is still only 1%. Most of the respondents said that they plan to keep the volume of such investments at the current level next year, 28% are going to increase them, and only 4% are going to reduce them.

- A new report from analyst firm Glassnode showed that the market is not showing massive profit-taking. Analysts pointed out that the total supply of short-term bitcoin holders is at a multi-year low below 3 million BTC, which in turn means that the amount held by long-term holders is at a multi-year high. At the same time, they are only building up their positions. The total number of wallets with a non-zero BTC balance in the second half of November also reached an all-time high of 38.76 million.
The data obtained by Glassnode indicates that there are no signs of serious surrender, and that the flagship cryptocurrency may still have a rather long upward rally.

- CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju also expressed a similar opinion to Glassnode. Despite the fact that bitcoin has been getting cheaper since the middle of last week, holders are in no rush to sell it. In parallel, there is a steady trend towards the withdrawal of cryptocurrency for autonomous storage. According to CryptoQuant, trading floors currently have the lowest amount of bitcoins since mid-2018.
Moreover, investors are withdrawing not only BTC, but also ethereum, which reduces the supply of the asset and eases the pressure on the market. In the long term, according to Ki Young Ju, this trend will drive the value of leading digital currencies upward.

- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has once again criticized the decision of the El Salvadorian authorities to recognize bitcoin as the official currency. “Given the high volatility of the bitcoin price,” the Fund said in a statement, “its use as legal tender carries risks for consumers and also threatens financial integrity and stability. Its use also gives rise to contingent fiscal liabilities,” the review says.
The IMF came to this opinion following the visit of its staff to El Salvador. Experts who visited the country recommended that the government of El Salvador "narrow the scope of the bitcoin law and strengthen the regulation and supervision of the new payment system."

- A well-known trader and analyst known as Credible argues that the current correction of bitcoin is a necessity to continue the bullish trend and rise above $70,000. According to the expert, the first cryptocurrency is in the phase of a healthy correction at the moment.
The bitcoin price may fall to $52,000-53,000 in the near future, where the “bottom” of the current correction is located, Credible predicts. According to him, the $69,000 mark that bitcoin reached on November 10 cannot be the top of the current bull market, as historically each subsequent cycle of growth has lasted longer than the previous one.

- Chief commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence Mike McGlone believes that, despite the temporary correction in prices, BTC will grow in 2022. He said on his Twitter account that the asset is likely to face resistance at $100,000 and the $50,000 mark will act as a support level. “The level of adoption of this young technology/asset is increasing, and the supply volume is less and less, which indicates signs of maturation,” the expert explained his forecast.

- The CEO of the American investment management company ARK Invest Katie Wood confirmed her previous forecast for the price of bitcoin at $500,000, saying that this will be facilitated by the growth of institutional investments. Such a price will be achieved if institutional investors allocate 5% of their portfolios for bitcoin.

- Mike Novogratz, CEO of investment firm Galaxy Digital Holdings, said last week that gold "was just crushed by bitcoin." “I think gold was probably the best asset to own,” he added. "But bitcoin is simply the best version of storing value..."
Anthony Scaramucci, founder of another investment firm, Skybridge Capital, also expects bitcoin to "ultimately outshine gold." The price of this cryptocurrency, in his opinion, will easily reach $500,000, so one should invest in BTC right now. “I think bitcoin is likely to be ten times better than gold... I would not be surprised if bitcoin grows exponentially and gold grows in line," said Anthony Scaramucci.
Paul Tudor Jones, a legendary trader with a personal fortune of $4.6 billion and fund manager of the Tudor Investment Corporation, has also admitted recently that he prefers bitcoin over gold. In his opinion, BTC is an excellent alternative as a hedge against inflation in the current economic situation. “It is obvious that there is room for cryptocurrency,” the billionaire said. “At the moment, it is winning the race against gold... And I would prefer it.”


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CryptoNews of the Week


- US President Joe Biden signed a bill to raise $1.2 trillion to upgrade infrastructure without amendments in favor of representatives of the crypto industry. The document contains an extended definition of the concept of “broker”. Depending on the interpretation, miners, wallet developers, DeFi protocol liquidity providers and other digital market players may be required to report the activities of their users to the tax authorities. The crypto community is also concerned about another amendment to the infrastructure plan, which will oblige recipients of digital assets worth more than $10,000 to verify the sender's personal information.
The document has been repeatedly criticized by representatives of the crypto industry, including the head of Tesla Elon Musk and the founder of the payment company Square Jack Dorsey. Some senators believe that participants in the crypto industry should be excluded from this law. According to others, only miners and sellers of hardware and software should be exempt from reporting to the tax authorities.

- Investing Twitter's cash reserves in cryptocurrencies “does not make sense right now”. This was stated by the financial director of the company Ned Segal. According to him, the social network prefers to invest in less volatile instruments, for example, securities. Earlier, Ned Segal reported that Twitter is exploring the possibility of using bitcoin, but this will require the company to make additional decisions.
As of the end of September, Twitter had $3.47 billion in cash and cash equivalents, as well as $3.94 billion in short-term investments.
Meanwhile, the payment company Square, founded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, continues to hold the main cryptocurrency on its balance sheet. “We have purchased bitcoin, and it seems to us that this not only demonstrates our interest but can also bring benefits from a financial point of view in the long term,” the Square said.

- Bitcoin will “easily” reach a price of $500,000. This forecast was given by Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital investment company, referring to the limited issue of the first cryptocurrency and the potential number of rich investors in it. He noted that according to JPMorgan, there are at least 49 million dollar millionaires, but the supply of digital gold is limited to 21 million coins. “You don’t have enough bitcoins for every millionaire in our society to have at least one coin,” Scaramucci said.
In his opinion, the current price level is still an early opportunity to enter the asset, and the price of the first cryptocurrency will reach the specified $500,000 mark by the end of 2024 or mid-2025. However, this requires that Ark Invest's forecast come true, according to which the number of bitcoin wallets should reach 1 billion by this time.

- The US authorities will sell the confiscated cryptocurrency for $56 million to pay the victims of the BitConnect pyramid. The Justice Department notes that this is “the largest case of one-time recovery of losses from cryptocurrency fraud in the United States.”
The US Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement that “BitConnect Director Glenn Arcaro and his promoters, none of whom were registered with the Commission as a broker-dealer and were not affiliated with a registered broker-dealer, promoted a potentially high-yielding investment into a lending program for retail investors using recommendation-style videos they posted on YouTube. "
Glenn Arcaro pleaded guilty to deceiving investors in the US and abroad, with the participation of whom the scheme managed to attract more than $2 billion. The verdict will be delivered on January 7, 2022, Arcaro faces up to 20 years in prison.

- Apple will inevitably allow payments in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the future. This opinion was expressed by Anthony Pompliano, co-founder of the investment company Morgan Creek Digital, commenting on Apple CEO Tim Cook's recognition of investments in digital assets.
Pompliano believes that cryptocurrency will not be a separate industry, and all tech giants will sooner or later "infiltrate it into all existing assets and industries." In his opinion, technology companies will more actively enter the cryptocurrency industry in the next 10-20 years, inviting experts and leaders from it.
“It has become normal to discuss cryptocurrencies in any society without risking being branded as 'crazy or lost.' Such conversations do not carry career risks anymore,” he added.

- European electronics and home appliance retailer MediaMarkt has been hit by the Hive ransomware virus. According to Retail Detail, the incident affected many of the chain's stores, mostly in the Netherlands and Germany, and the retailer's 3,100 servers were affected. Initially, hackers demanded a ransom of $240 million in bitcoin. But after the company entered into negotiations, the amount was reduced to $50 million.
For reference: MediaMarkt owns more than 1000 retail facilities in 13 countries. The company employs about 53,000 people and has an annual turnover of over €20 billion.

- Chinese crypto journalist and analyst Willie Woo argues that bitcoin is not ready for impulse growth and renewal of all-time highs at the moment. Woo identified three factors that hinder the rise in price of the first cryptocurrency.
The first factor is bitcoin's high speculative activity. Woo argues that while long-term investors continue to accumulate cryptocurrency, a large number of positions are being opened for short-term speculative purposes.
Another factor that can hold bitcoin back is the launch of the first US exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on bitcoin futures. According to Woo, most institutional investors prefer to buy fund stocks and futures at the moment instead of buying the coin itself.
Recall that the first US exchange-traded fund based on bitcoin futures began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on October 19. Its assets exceeded $1 billion two days after the start of trading. Thus, the fund broke the record growth rate to $1 billion, which was held for 18 years.
The third factor is the overly optimistic sentiment of investors who are confident in the further growth of bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency market. “Whenever most investors are bullish, it is very difficult for the price to go up because there are a lot of speculative longs in the markets,” Woo explains.

- An undisclosed crypto investor bought 2.2 thousand BTC coins in October 2013, spending about $330 thousand. And so, he withdrew cryptocurrency from his wallet, which had been inactive for eight years, on this November 10. The investments of the crypto investor have increased 455 times during this time, and the value of the asset has been almost $150 million.

- it was a few months ago that there started to sound predictions that the price of bitcoin could soar to $100,000 by December. Bloomberg strategist Mike McGlone was an active supporter of this scenario. This analyst is known for having previously accurately predicted a repeat of the BTC run three years ago and a rise in quotes to $20,000 by the end of 2020.
However, there are skeptics among the experts. “We won't get $100,000 or $150,000 in this Q4 or next Q1,” says popular crypto analyst Nicholas Merten. “I'm sorry, but I'll have to say that. I think that many experts are mistaken. Bitcoin is aiming for growth, but we will only see around $100,000 or $150,000 by the fall of next year.”

- The authorities of Miami (USA) have decided to distribute $21 million in cryptocurrency to residents of the city. Thus, each of the 442,000 Miami residents will receive approximately 0.0007 BTC, which is about $47.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez explained that he decided to take such a step in order to familiarize citizens with the concept of bitcoin. According to him, creating digital wallets for every resident is a rather laborious technical task, but he hopes for the help of cryptocurrency exchanges. After that, a digital registration system will be created to reduce the likelihood of fraud.
In addition, Francis Suarez stated in an interview with Bloomberg that one of the priorities for the city is the ability to pay civil servants their salaries in bitcoin.  


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Bitcoin updated its all-time high, reaching $68,420 on Tuesday, November 9. Ethereum also set a record, rising to $4,830. The total capitalization of the crypto market at the maximum reached $2.947 trillion. Analysts attribute the current rally to the lack of supply amid increasing global interest in digital assets. 

- The value of any asset can collapse at any moment, so it is not only cryptocurrencies that are in the bubble. This opinion was expressed at the Boston conference by billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller. “Cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, art, wine, securities [...] This bubble is in everything, every asset on the planet,” he said. At the same time, Druckenmiller noted that the current situation in the cryptocurrency market is not like the dot-com bubble, which, according to him, had covered significantly fewer people than the digital asset industry today.
Earlier, the famous American investor Bill Miller said that bitcoin is not a bubble, but the asset's volatility is a payment for its advantages.

- Newly elected Mayor of New York Eric Adams called in a CNN commentary on local schools to prepare students for a “new way of thinking” related to blockchain technology and digital assets. The politician noted the low awareness of young voters on this subject: “When I talked about blockchain and bitcoin, young people stopped me and asked me, 'What is this?” Adams called digital assets being "a new way of paying for goods and services around the world" as an argument for including this topic in curricula.
New York must remain a hub for innovation, he said. To this end, the newly elected mayor also plans to oblige local businesses to accept BTC and other cryptocurrencies as a payment method. In addition, he promised to receive his first three paychecks in bitcoin.

- Rahul Rai, manager of the BlockTower Capital cryptocurrency fund, believes that the versatility of the ethereum blockchain will be the main factor that will attract both developers and investors. He is confident that if ethereum manages to restart the global financial system, its market will be much larger than that of bitcoin in the future. The crypto millionaire predicts that, ETH is likely to become the first cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization which could reach several trillion dollars, as early as in mid-2022.
Analysts of the American investment bank JPMorgan made a similar statement in April. In their opinion, bitcoin is a consumer commodity. It can compete with precious metals and be seen as a store of value, but it will give way to ethereum in the long run, which is the pillar of the cryptocurrency economy.

- Apple CEO Tim Cook said he owns cryptocurrencies, using them to diversify his investment portfolio. According to him, he was interested in digital assets "for a while" and researched this topic. At the same time, the CEO of Apple emphasized that the corporation he heads is not going to invest in these financial instruments and does not plan to launch related services or integrate them as an option for paying for its goods or services. 
Tim Cook noted that "there are other things that Apple is definitely looking at." It is still unknown what these words can mean. However, it was in May that the corporation opened a vacancy for a business development manager with five years of experience in the cryptocurrency industry, who is to lead the affiliate program in the segment of "alternative payments".

- Swedish regulators believe that mining bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using the Prоf-оf-Wоrk algorithm will prevent the country and the European Union from complying with the Paris Agreement on climate change. Officials noted that this process leads to the emission of up to 120 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year. This is equivalent to the carbon footprint of 100 million round-trip flights between Sweden and Thailand.
Regulators have called for a ban on the mining of digital assets in such an energy-intensive manner. At the same time, they believe that the use of renewable energy for mining is unreasonable, since "this energy is urgently needed for [...] large-scale production of batteries and the electrification of the transport sector." According to the University of Cambridge, the electricity used to mine 1 bitcoin is enough to drive 1.8 million kilometers in a medium-sized electric vehicle.

- “Purely bullish” sentiment reigns among retail investors regarding bitcoin. This is reported by the analytical resource Santiment with reference to the off-chain BTC indicators. This rarely plays into the hands of cryptocurrencies, analysts say.
The market, according to Santiment, has formed an “irrational trust” in bitcoin, which can lead to a price correction.
Retail traders are excited about the potential of bitcoin. As for the "bitcoin whales", the situation here is not so straightforward. On the one hand, the total volume of coins on addresses with balances of 100-10,000 BTC has decreased by almost 60,000 BTC over the past 10 days. On the other hand, it has grown significantly on addresses with balances of more than 10,000 BTС. According to experts, this may indicate that large whales are buying coins from smaller ones.

- Investment banking giant Morgan Stanley created a cryptocurrency analytics division in September. And now it has published a guide to the cryptocurrency market for its wealthiest clients. The bank's strategists conducted a detailed analysis of the various activities, sectors and trends that currently make up the highly speculative crypto industry.
Given that the total market capitalization has exceeded $2.8 trillion, and investors are increasingly interested in DеFi, NFT and stablecoins, Morgan Stanley is convinced that this will accelerate the introduction of state regulation in this area.
Morgan Stanley launched three bitcoin funds earlier this year. The minimum deposit required to participate in them is $5 million for institutional investors and $2 million for individuals.

- The top of bitcoin's current bull cycle may be the price of $96,000. This conclusion was reached by analysts of the Kraken crypto exchange. According to their research, the current Q4 has dynamics most similar to the Q4 of 2017 (correlation 0.88), which showed a yield of +220%. In general, cryptocurrency exchange experts predict that BTC will reach heights around $300,000.
The review published by Kraken also notes that November has historically been volatile, which brings the highest monthly returns. If bitcoin's current rally stops at strong resistance around $70,000, a correction can be expected. However, the drop will be no more than 20%.

- Assessing the price of the main cryptocurrency, analyst Willie Woo came to the conclusion that the zone from $50,000 to $60,000 is more than reliable as a support. Bitcoin has secured a capitalization of $1 trillion, and it is difficult to imagine that it will fall below this zone, the expert commented, referring to data from the analytical company Glassnode.

- According to a cryptocurrency analyst known as Altcoin Shеrpa, altcoins will not show the expected high results in the near future due to the bullish exchange rate movement of BTC. “Pay attention to the drop in altcoin/BTC pairs if bitcoin starts moving,” he writes. "I believe that the altcoin season has not yet arrived. They will have time to prove themselves, but after the bitcoin rally cools down."
The analyst noted that bitcoin has formed a higher low of around $60,000, and while there is a possibility of a short-term decline, he expects the asset to grow significantly from current levels: “There is possibility of a short trip to $55,000. But I don't care about these minor movements. I continue to accumulate BTС, and when it starts moving, it will be fast. "

- Crypto strategist Benjamin Cowen, on the other hand, believes that bitcoin will not please its supporters with explosive growth. “We started with about $28,000 to $29,000 and this was the start of 2021,¬” writes Cowen. “What have we seen so far? Not much, right? Will it be possible to show better results by the end of the year? Maybe, but I'm not sure that 2021 will be the year of a parabolic rally for bitcoin."
While the distance between the low and high of the annual range may seem significant, Cowen noted that bitcoin holders are unlikely to be thrilled with such profits: “Look what happened to bitcoin in 2021: nothing special. The profitability was about 130%, and I am sure that most holders will not even get up from the couch for 130%." "We have returned to the top of the range, so there may be some euphoria, as it was from January to March 2021,” the expert continues to reason. - There are chances of a sharp leap, but the data shows that the cycle should last at least through 2022. Looking back to 2021, I think it was, for the most part, a year of long-term re-accumulation." 

- A well-known cryptanalyst under the nickname PlanB said that bitcoin could rise by 700% in early 2022. “If you look at the signals along the chain right now, I dare say that the price will reach the top in almost 6 months, this will be the end of Q1 of next year. - he thinks. - I believe that we will have a BTC rate of $100,000 at the end of the year, and then, perhaps, the currency will continue to grow up to model X (S2FX) and reach the level of $288,000, and possibly more. I would not be surprised if I saw the price rise to $400,000 - 500,000 in Q1 and Q2 of next year."
In the long term, PlanB sees BTC experiencing a hyperbolic surge.
“The old people have the money now. Real estate and gold are physical, not digital. Digital scarcity is a next generation phenomenon, so I'm sure it will happen. I see in my model (S2FX) that there is a linear relationship between scarcity and cost. Scarcity, in my opinion, is the most important factor causing this linear relationship and forcing people to invest more money." 


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Film director Quentin Tarantino will present a collection of seven NFTs (non-fungible token) based on the 1994 film Pulp Fiction. Each NFT contains an uncut movie scene and bonus content available only to the owner, including original handwritten pages of the script, Tarantino audio commentary and other details about the movie and the director. The auction will be held on the OpenSea trading platform and will be announced later.
NFT is a non-fungible unique token. NFTs work on the blockchain, they first appeared back in 2017 in the Ethereum system. Secret NFT technology allows content creators to decide which collectibles are public and which are private to owners.

- Burger King fast food chain will give away cryptocurrency prizes to visitors in the United States. The prize pool contains 20 BTC, 200 ETH and 2 million DOGE. it is required to spend more than $5 at Burger King to participate in the draw.

- As bitcoin's math and logic do not allow copying or forgery of the first cryptocurrency, it surpasses the US dollar. This was stated by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance. He also noted the decentralized nature of digital gold, which allows it to maintain a level of predictability that is difficult to achieve with the US dollar. In his opinion, regulators can create new paper notes on their whim, and therefore it is difficult to predict inflation.
“Look at the US dollar, the government can create new banknotes and borrow, it's like it will never be corrected. Bitcoin is mathematics, mathematical purity. Another bitcoin can never be created,” said Steve Wozniak.

- The author of the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, writer and investor Robert Kiyosaki, like Steve Wozniak, has criticized the administration of President Joe Biden and has declared his distrust the US federal government. He believes that the authorities "rip off people", promote inflation and do not try to reduce it.
“Inflation undermines the income of the poor. Inflation makes the rich richer. Biden and the feds are corrupt. Get ready for an economic collapse and a new depression. Be smart. Buy gold, silver and bitcoin,” said Kiyosaki, who has always been very enthusiastic about bitcoin. “I love bitcoin because I don’t trust the Fed, the Treasury or Wall Street,” this investor said.

- The development team does not stop working on improving the Ethereum network, which inspires experts to make the most daring price predictions. So a reputable cryptanalyst known as CryptosRUs predicts that ETH will soon reach $10,000. Moreover, he is confident that now is almost the last opportunity to purchase ETH at a price below this mark.
Among the reasons for the increase in the price of this altcoin, we can consider the recent activation of the London hard fork. In addition, thanks to the latest Ethereum Altair update, a new all-time high of almost $4,500 was set on October 29. However, after this update, network fees have almost doubled, which cannot be considered a factor accompanying the growth of ETH.

- Cryptotrader hamster Mr. Goxx has its own collection of non-fungible tokens (NFT) called Goxx Capital. The tokens are made in the form of animated insert cards.
With NFT sales, the “business partner” (aka owner) of the hamster plans to assemble a new “trade office” for his pet. According to him, the updated workspace will expand the functionality for the hamster's activities, as well as provide more interactive elements for the so-called "wheel of intentions" and "decision tunnels".
Recall that the trading process boils down to the following: Mr. Goxx spins the wheel of intentions, on the basis of which one of 30 tokens is selected. Then the hamster must run through one of two decision-making tunnels: to buy or to sell a token. Mr.Goxx showed a profit of almost 50% in early September. Bitcoin, for example, was only 41% higher, the S&P 500 brought 6-7% to investors, and the Katie Wood ARK Innovation fund was 5%.

- The high price of bitcoin indicates that the economy is facing real inflation, and the rise in prices is not a temporary phenomenon. This opinion was expressed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Bloomberg writes. “You know, bitcoin is already worth $60,000 and I'm not sure it should be bought aggressively. But, of course, this tells us that we are in a crisis moment," Thiel said and expressed regret once again that he had not invested more money in the first cryptocurrency.

- It was 13 years ago, on October 31, 2008, that a person or a group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto published the bitcoin white paper. The nine-page whitepaper described how the peer-to-peer payment system worked that would revolutionize the financial technology world. Nakamoto summarized the main characteristics of the first cryptocurrency in the foreword to this document: “A fully peer-to-peer version of electronic money would allow sending online payments directly from one side to the other, bypassing financial institutions.” 
The bitcoin network was launched in January 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared in April 2011, and the public was never able to find out who wrote these 9 pages, which marked the beginning of a multi-billion-dollar industry.

- Chinese crypto analyst Willie Woo said in an interview with Bitcoin Fundamentals that the current “bullish” growth cycle for bitcoin is very different from previous similar periods. Woo noted that the latest wave of BTC accumulation began at the end of last year, when institutional investors began to enter the crypto market, aiming at the long-term accumulation of digital assets. This factor indicates that the current growth cycle will be longer, will continue for another six months to a year, and the price of bitcoin during this period will exceed $100,000, Woo predicts.

- TV presenter, best-selling author and former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer said during the Mad Money program on CNBC that he supports investors buying cryptocurrencies if they are aware of the risks associated with this asset class.
According to him, all the arguments in favour of cryptocurrencies are based on the “theory of a greater fool”, according to which there is always someone who is ready to buy an asset for a higher price, expecting to quickly resell it at a profit to someone else. However, when the "fools" are no longer found, the value of assets drops sharply. If people understand this, why not speculate in cryptocurrencies, Kramer said. 
“I bought bitcoin and ethereum not for protection from inflation,” the TV presenter admitted. - To be honest, it was a kind of gambling for me. I was just playing on the psychology of the crowd, and I have no idea why the rate of these crypto assets went up. Most likely, there are a lot of overly enthusiastic people who want to sell them for a higher price. I have no attachment to ethereum, but I keep it, because millions of even bigger fools can buy it,” Kramer said.
Previously, he preferred to invest in gold and stocks, but now he believes that it is important to diversify the investment portfolio, 5% of which can be bitcoin or ethereum.

- Investors should invest in hedge funds and real estate, as traditional assets, including stocks and bonds, will lag behind them in the next year and will show a return of only 5%, according to analysts at JPMorgan Chase.
Cryptocurrencies can continue to grow, but are unlikely to be stable, so they cannot be recommended as a key asset, JPMorgan says. At the same time, the growth of cryptocurrencies is projected at 15% per annum, which is twice the expectations from hedge funds and exceeds the real estate sector with 12.5%. 
As for bitcoin, analysts estimate its fair value at $35,000. They came to such an assessment based on a comparison with gold, noting that the volatility of the cryptocurrency is about 4 times higher than that of the precious metal. If the BTC volatility drops by half, the $73,000 target will “look reasonable”.


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- Investors committed a record $1.47 billion to crypto funds during the week of October 16-22, and $8 billion since the beginning of the year. Such data is contained in the CoinShares report. The previous record of $670 million was set in February. Amid the digital gold's historical high above $67,000, the total amount of funds in cryptocurrency based financial products reached $79.2 billion during the week. Analysts attributed this dynamic to the successful launch in the US of two Bitcoin ETFs from ProShares and Valkyrie Investments. 
As a result, inflows to bitcoin-based funds totaled $1.45 billion, Solana, Cardano, Binance Coin totaled $8.1 million, $5.3 million and $1.8 million, respectively. At the same time, the outflow of funds from ethereum products has continued for the third week, totaling $1.4 million.

- US Senator Rand Paul called fiat money "unreliable" and expressed optimism about the prospects for cryptocurrencies in the global financial system. “Public money is so unreliable! I began to wonder if cryptocurrency could serve as the world's money as more people lose confidence in the government,” he said.
Reporters note that this kind of message made Rand Paul "a rock star in the eyes of young people" during the 2016 presidential campaign. It was notable for the fact that the Kentucky senator accepted bitcoin donates.

- Several email providers were subjected to DDoS attacks, for the termination of which unknown persons demanded a ransom in bitcoins. Representatives of the Posteo email service confirmed the information. “But we will not pay the specified amount,” Posteo said in a statement. “Companies should not allow criminals to blackmail them under any circumstances. Otherwise, they will be even more attractive to them.”
The RunBox service also announced the attack later. And they also clarified that "they have never paid the criminals" and do not plan to start." In addition to email providers, UK VoIP telephony provider Voipfone and game server provider Sparked were also targeted by DDoS attacks.

- Payment giant Mastercard will soon announce support for cryptocurrencies in its network. CNBC reports. This includes bitcoin wallets, credit and debit cards, and loyalty programs where points can be converted into digital assets. According to Mastercard Executive Vice President of Digital Partnerships Sherry Haymond, the initiative will allow banks to compete with cryptocurrency exchanges.

- Crypto trader and analyst known as Altcoin Sherpa is confident that bitcoin should bounce off the $54,000-58,000 zone where strong support is located, and renew its all-time high, exceeding $80,000, in November.
Another well-known analyst, PlanB, also expects a parabolic rise in the price of bitcoin. As a reminder, PlanB is the creator of the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, which predicts the price of the flagship cryptocurrency, and which allowed it to accurately predict BTC prices in August and September. And if bitcoin continues to follow this pattern, “we'll be out $98,000 as early as November and $135,000 in December,” PlanB said. “So, it's going to be a really good Christmas this year.” At the same time, the analyst believes that the flagship cryptocurrency is unlikely to be able to avoid another major correction that historically follows each major bull cycle.

- 150 people have been arrested worldwide as a result of a global special operation against illegal trading on the DarkMarket Internet platform. Law enforcement agencies from nine countries participated in Operation Dark HunTOR. It is one of the most large-scale investigations in Europol's history, assisted by U.S. authorities. Some $31 million in cash and bitcoins, 234 kilograms of drugs and 45 weapons were seized. Moreover, 67 people have been arrested in the US, 47 in Germany, 24 in the UK. Many of the detainees, Europol said, were targets of particular importance. 
Europol says the investigation was a follow-up to a raid by German police against the DarkMarket platform, which was operated by an Australian citizen. Moreover, as part of the same operation, several other illegal trading platforms have been shut down in Italy, four administrators have been arrested and €3.6 million in cryptocurrency seized.

- The American company Walmart Inc., which operates the world's largest wholesale and retail chain, has launched a pilot program to sell bitcoins. Bloomberg reports that the pilot project includes 200 Coinstar ATMs at Walmart stores in the United States. Cryptocurrency will be available in more than 8,000 of these bitcoin ATMs in future. The commission will be 4% when buying BTC and 7% when cashing out.

- Russian insurance company Renaissance Life and InDeFi SmartBank have started jointly developing smart contracts to help inherit digital assets. With the growth of the cryptocurrency market, the problem of inheriting such property has become quite acute. Since cryptocurrencies are decentralized, in the event of the death of the owner, the heirs simply cannot dispose of the property of the deceased without access to the cryptocurrency wallet.
Special smart contracts will enable the client to transfer the disposal of their digital assets to the beneficiary in the event of their death.
The service is expected to have at least 500,000 users in the coming year.

- Popular cryptanalyst and trader Lark Davis believes that “the next six months are likely to be mega-crazy for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies! Many of you will get the chance to completely change your financial destiny,” he tweeted.
Davis does not advise investors to get carried away with speculative altcoins and NFTs in the current situation, but to bet on time-tested coins. “Let the winners win, double and even triple your positions and cut the losers. Do it mercilessly, there is no point in keeping dubious assets,” writes Lark Davis. 
In his view, BTC could increase investor savings by 20 times over the next 10 years, but individual altcoins could generate comparable returns much sooner. “Altcoins are for making money, BTC is for storage,” the expert explains.

- Former Facebook manager Frances Hogan, who made accusations against this corporation, said that investing in cryptocurrencies allows her not to worry about her financial situation. 'As for the foreseeable future, I'm fine. I bought cryptocurrencies at the right time,” she told The New York Times, noting that she moved to Puerto Rico not only to improve her own health, but also to join her “crypto friends”.
Recall that Hogan turned over tens of thousands of internal Facebook documents to journalists and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Among other things, she accused the company of inciting hatred and ignoring teen safety issues. “I have come across a lot of social networks, but Facebook was doing much worse than the rest,” she said. - On Facebook, I have seen conflicts of interest between the public and the corporation over and over again. And Facebook has repeatedly chosen its interests, including to increase earnings."


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Scammers launched a series of fake broadcasts on YouTube on the evening of October 18, a few hours before the official start of the Apple Unleashed press conference, in which they invited users to take part in the distribution of cryptocurrencies. Viewers were encouraged to send 0.1 BTC to 5 BTC or 3 ETH to 500 ETH to the specified wallet and allegedly get back the double amount of the cryptocurrencies. The fake stream was carried out on a channel that completely copied the Apple's account, which resulted in one of the fake presentations gathering about 30,000 participants.
Scammers often use YouTube to promote fake cryptocurrency giveaways. As a reminder, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak already joined a class action against YouTube and Google in July 2020 over malicious actions, but the court found that the platform did not carry liability for materials posted by third parties.

- The founder of the Brazilian crypto exchange Foxbit, Joao Canhada, acquired 1 BTC for his daughter on the day of her birth, Cointelegraph tells the family story. “I bought bitcoin for her not just as a gift, but as a way to invest in the new economy. At that time, it was estimated at 5,000 Brazilian reais (about $915),” admits the perspicacious father. After just four years, bitcoin has climbed to $63,000 and the investment has generated a 6,800% return. Now we can only guess what the profit will be when the girl comes of age.

- American software architect and entrepreneur Jack Dorsey revealed that payment giant Square is considering creating a device to mine the first open-source cryptocurrency. 
In Dorsey's view, mining should be easier and more accessible to everyone in order to improve the resilience of the bitcoin network. The equipment supply is currently concentrated in just a few companies. For this reason, the creator of Square and Twitter is thinking about removing barriers for miners. 

- The city of North Vancouver in the Canadian province of British Columbia expects to provide heat to the city's residential and industrial buildings by mining bitcoin from 2022.
Municipal energy company Lonsdale Energy Corporation has entered into an agreement with mining firm MintGreen to provide a new carbon-free source of energy for the district heating system instead of burning natural gas. According to the press release, the immersion-cooled cryptocurrency mining rigs convert over 95% of the electricity consumed into heat, which can be used for heating and industrial processes.
“Cryptocurrency miners operate at full capacity 365 days a year, creating a unique opportunity to provide a reliable and sustainable base load for the North Vancouver district heating system,” the statement said. Per 1 MW, the use of mining will prevent up to 20,000 tons of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.

- Scion Capital hedge fund founder Michael Burry, who predicted the 2007 mortgage crisis, has repeatedly criticized cryptocurrencies, calling the digital asset market an economic bubble. And now he is exploring the possibility of opening a short position in cryptocurrency. This short-run specialist asked his Twitter followers how to do this.
“Okay, I haven't done this before, how can you short on cryptocurrency? Do you need to secure a loan? Is there a short rebate? Can there be a margin call? “, Michael Berry wondered.

- A favorable macroeconomic environment, good network performance and the approval of bitcoin ETFs in the US will help BTC hit new all-time highs this quarter, according to a Finder poll of 50 fintech industry experts.
The survey was attended by representatives of Cypherpunk Holdings, Bitcoin Reserve, Kraken, Arcane and CryptoQuant, as well as 7 professors from universities in Asia, Europe and Australia. According to them, the BTC exchange rate will peak at slightly above $80,000 over the next two months, and the flagship cryptocurrency will finish the year around $71,400.
The levels indicated by these experts were well below the forecasts of Standard Chartered and Bloomberg analysts, who believe bitcoin could exceed $100,000 this year.

- The pace of institutional participation in BTC has accelerated over the past 5 weeks, which is an important sign of the bull market return. According to popular crypto analyst Willy Woo, the next phase of the bitcoin market will be more volatile than previous bullish periods, implying a longer time frame for the current cycle.
This analyst wrote in a series of Twitter posts a year ago that, according to his model, $200,000 per bitcoin by the end of 2021 is a conservative forecast. However, he did not exclude the likelihood that BTC will soar up to $300,000.

- Morgan Creek Capital Management CEO Mark Jusko calls the numbers like Willie Woo's predictions. He suggests that the price of the oldest cryptocurrency could soar to the level of $250,000, only to happen not in 2021, but in the next 5 years. In doing so, he acknowledged that the path to such a peak may not be easy.
Yusko repeated his prediction In another interview with CNBC. He also praised the main crypto asset as superior to gold due to its fixed supply of 21 million coins. “This is a classic supply and demand option. One of the nice things about bitcoin as an asset is that it has a limited supply. We know how many bitcoins will be mined every day for the next 140 years."
By the time BTC reaches the $250,000 mark, Jusko says, its market cap will be equal to that of gold.

- One of the first bitcoin investors, billionaire and CEO of venture capital firm Social Capital, Chamat Palihapitiya, believes that the United States will no longer be able to ban bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency. In his view, the cryptocurrency market has become too big for US authorities to stifle the emerging industry:
“You can't just take the $2 trillion capitalization off the face of the earth,” Palihapitiya wrote. “Bitcoin is not going anywhere and is currently too institutionalized. There are already quite a few organized pools of capital within this ecosystem.
I can give an example of a simple high-frequency trading by Jump Trading. They posted several photos of a group of hired newbies and a tutorial on programming in Solana. It was an example of bringing people on their part. Therefore, when there are people with big finance and they are ready to invest money in it, the capitalization of the crypto market will grow to $6 trillion, and then to $10 trillion. This is why Powell and Gensler had to voice that they are not going to ban cryptocurrencies. In fact, they know it is impossible. "
As a reminder, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in early October that he had no plans to ban cryptocurrencies. A few days later, SEC chief Gary Gensler practically repeated those words. And it was last Thursday that Senator Cynthia Lammis spoke in the Senate, saying that digital currencies could help countries like the United States cope with an impending crisis when the state runs out of cash. “Thank God for bitcoin, another non-fiat currency that surpasses the irresponsibility of governments, including our own,” exclaimed Ms Senator from a high rostrum.

- Over 99% of bitcoins in circulation bring profit to their holders. This is the conclusion reached by Glassnode analysts. According to the published chart, only 0.98% of the coins (about 186.000 BTC) were bought at a price above $59.000. At the same time, open interest in bitcoin options has risen sharply to the levels of last May-April. The increase from September was +107% (from $6.3 billion to $12.2 billion). Glassnode experts also revealed that nearly $325 million is put on bitcoin's growth to $200,000 by the end of the year.
As for the leading altcoin, according to Glassnode, the number of Ethereum investors holding at least 1 ETH in their crypto wallets has renewed its all-time high, reaching 1.34 million addresses. There were just over 1 million of them at the beginning of the year. In total, the Ethereum network has processed transactions worth more than $6.2 trillion over the past 12 months, 369% more than in 2020.

- The mysterious creator of the bitcoin network, Satoshi Nakamoto, was included In mid-April in the list of the 20 richest people on the planet, but his fortune decreased dramatically after the fall in the price of BTC. However, Nakamoto regained the lost ground this week after the price of the first cryptocurrency topped $60,000.
It is generally believed among crypto experts that Nakamoto has about 1 million bitcoins, some call a smaller figure, some larger. The Whale Alert report calls the figure of 1.125 million BTC. Thus, as of october 17, 2021, Nakamoto owns approximately $60.7 billion in Bitcoin (BTC), $625 million in Bitcoin cash (BCH), $169 million in Bitcoinsv (BSV), and $191 million in Ecash (formerly known as BCHA or Bitcoin ABC). In total, this amounts to $60.9 billion.


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- Financial giant JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has previously repeatedly criticized cryptocurrencies, promised to fire employees trading digital assets, and called bitcoin holders fools. And now, according to Bloomberg, he smothered the first cryptocurrency to smithereens once again, but admitted that the customers of his holding believe otherwise.
“I personally think bitcoin is worth nothing,” Dimon said at the Institute of International Finance's annual meeting. “But our clients are adults and they don't agree. This is what creates markets. Therefore, if they want to be able to buy BTC, we can provide them with legal and transparent access.”
At the same time, he added that cryptocurrencies will be subject to regulation as concerns grow in Washington regarding stablecoins and the new asset class in general.

- Co-founder of venture capital firm Morgan Creek Digital, Anthony Pompliano, revealed that YouTube removed his channel on the evening of October 11 while on air with popular blogger PlanB. According to Pompliano, this came after discussions about a bullish scenario for bitcoin for the next five years. He later published screenshots of emails from the service, which described the content about the first cryptocurrency as “dangerous and harmful.” Video hosting representatives felt that the channel's creators were allegedly “encouraging illegal activities.”
Pompliano said about two hours later that the YouTube channel had been restored, though "without any explanation from the company."

- 26 Israelis were detained in Tel Aviv on October 5, during a joint operation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Israeli Police on suspicion of involvement in organized financial fraud in the field of Forex and crypto. And just a week later, all 26 were released, without any special conditions of release.
As previously stated in an official statement by the Israeli police, the detainees provided false brokerage services to clients around the world, thus embezzling $7 million. Users were promised access to forex or cryptocurrency trading, which in reality did not take place, and funds were simply appropriated by the scheme organizers.
And now all the detainees, without exception, were released after a court hearing. Moreover, lawyers for earlier suspects are preparing countersuits against the nation's law enforcement agencies. However, there are reports that two more new crypto-fraud cases involving Israeli citizens are being investigated in the neighboring country of Cyprus.

- Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin criticized El Salvador's decision to recognize bitcoin as the official currency. He stressed that the process of forcibly integrating digital assets into the financial system “runs counter to the ideals of freedom that should be appreciated by members of the cryptocurrency community. In addition, the tactic of simultaneously distributing BTC to millions of El Salvadorians with little or no prior training is reckless and fraught with the risk of large numbers of innocent people being hacked or tricked. "
“Shame on everyone (okay, I'll name the main culprits: shame on bitcoin maximalists) who praise him [President Nayib Bukele] without any criticism,” Buterin wrote on Reddit.

- Legendary billionaire investor and founder of Miller Value Partners, Bill Miller, called bitcoin digital gold and compared his bet on it to buying Amazon stock during the dot-com bubble crash. According to the billionaire, he acquired shares of the tech giant Amazon at an average price of $17 more than 20 years ago. The first cryptocurrency cost him an average of $500 per coin.
“Bitcoin is much less risky at $43,000 than at $300. Now it is recognized, a huge amount of venture capital has gone into it, all the big banks are involved,” Miller said. However, the billionaire advised investors who are not too deeply versed in cryptocurrency to invest no more than 1% of funds in digital assets. Regarding altcoins, Miller noted that the chances of succeeding with more than “10,000 existing tokens and other” are extremely small,” although “Bitcoin, Ethereum, and some other coins will probably exist for a while.”

- Research Institute Capgemini conducted a survey around the world to analyze the current payment situation. In addition, the statistics of the Bank for International Settlements, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other central banks were studied.
Capgemini noted that less than 10% of consumers currently use cryptocurrency for payments. However, the research institute predicts that nearly 45% of customers will use this new payment method in one to two years. This trend will be supported by the growing demand for international payments and the reluctance to pay high transaction fees. Cryptocurrency credit cards will become more widespread. At the same time, the researchers concluded that the prospects for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins are vague, due to the ambiguous position of governments around the world.

- According to Coinmarketcap data, Apple Corporation currently has the largest capitalization ($2.34 trillion), followed by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and bitcoin is in fifth place. If you look at the statistics, the total capitalization of the stock market is currently about $100 trillion, the capitalization of the gold market is around $12 trillion, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market has exceeded $2 trillion, and the capitalization of BTC is already $1 trillion. 
What can the above statistics indicate? According to the authors of the publication in Freedman Club Crypto News, only that the flagship cryptocurrency has the potential to not only bypass corporations in terms of capitalization, but also entire sectors of the world economy.

- The Swiss non-profit think tank 2B4CH has proposed making bitcoin one of the reserve assets of the Bank of Switzerland and reflecting this in the country's Constitution.
2B4CH was founded in Geneva in 2017. It conducts research on how cryptocurrencies and blockchain can affect society, and what changes they can bring to the financial sector. And now 2B4CH has announced on Twitter the launch of a “popular initiative” aimed at collecting 100,000 signatures to amend Article 99, paragraph 3, of the Swiss Constitution. In particular, 2B4CH proposes that the Central Bank of that country should be able to store bitcoin as a reserve asset alongside gold. And in case of successful implementation of the initiative, Switzerland, according to the organizers of the plebiscite, will become a good example for other countries.

- An employee of the US Navy and his wife were arrested on suspicion of selling classified data for cryptocurrency. This is reported on the website of the American Ministry of Justice. According to authorities, nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe sold information about the design of American nuclear submarines with the help of his wife, allegedly to a representative of a foreign country. The latter turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
The agent sent Toebbe $10,000 in cryptocurrency in June (according to CoinDesk, Monero). After receiving the payment, the couple hid the secret SD card inside the peanut butter sandwich in a pre-arranged location. The agent then sent them another $20,000.
Toebbe hid another SD card in a gum box in August, receiving $70,000 for the decryption key. And more recently, in October, the engineer made another cache with another map containing data on submarines, after which he and his wife were arrested.

- American Crypto Exchange Kraken experts believe that the price of the flagship asset could reach $100,000 by the end of 2021. Based on the analysis of the dynamics of previous years, a calculation was made, according to which, the price of bitcoin tends to grow during the fourth quarter of any year. During this period, "the average and median returns reached +119% and +58%, respectively." If the average return of the previous 2020 year recurs, BTC could end the year close to $100,000. More precisely, around $96,000. However, if we see not the average, but the median profitability, experts write, then the price of bitcoin will rise to about $70,000.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The United States will hold a meeting with representatives from 30 countries to jointly fight cybercrime and the illegal use of cryptocurrencies, US President Joe Biden said. It is not specified which specific states are in question.
The Biden administration has identified tracking cryptocurrency transactions as a possible option to combat ransomware. This happened after several cyberattacks on major US companies.

- ESET has released a list of countries with the highest rate of cryptocurrency related cyber threats. Russia comes first, accounting for 10% of all cases detected. Peru comes second with 6.8% of threats, third is the United States responsible for 5.3% of threats.
At the same time, the total number of cryptocurrency threats detected by ESET has decreased by 23.6%. Experts have noticed that this dynamic is directly linked to cryptocurrency prices: the threats have decreased significantly since the collapse of the quotes last May.  
In addition to mining malware, cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes are gaining popularity, where scammers lure their victims to fake investment sites or impersonate governmental bodies or celebrities.
Victims of such schemes lost at least $80 million from October 2020 to May 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission of the United States. Meanwhile, according to Chainalysis, the financial pyramid Finiko with Russian roots alone collected $800 million worth of cryptocurrency from Eastern Europeans.

- Well-known Canadian entrepreneur, investor and TV show host Kevin O'Leary said that he now has more cryptocurrency in his portfolio than gold. “Gold takes 5% in my portfolio and cryptocurrency has bypassed it for the first time. But this does not mean that I will sell all the gold, since I do not see the point in this yet. The crypto sector offers not only speculation on the BTC rate now, but there are many other ways to invest as well. And I plan to become an investor in this field.”
Cryptocurrencies currently account for 7% of his portfolio, O'Leary said. At the same time, he said that while gold and bitcoin are often opposed, having both assets in your portfolio is a good idea.

- Chivo public cryptocurrency wallet users in El Salvador will receive a discount on their car fuel if they pay in bitcoin. The announcement was made by the country's president, Nayib Bukele.
“State-owned Chivo negotiated with major fuel companies to sell every gallon of gasoline through a crypto wallet for $0.20 cheaper from October 1," he wrote. According to Bukele, the measure “reverses several increases in global fuel prices.”
Users expressed their doubts about the usefulness of such a step in their comments: “These 20 cents will come from all of us, right? The filling stations will not lose, they will be reimbursed from the taxes we paid, including the taxes of those who walk. "

- Former CIA and US National Security Agency official Edward Snowden, who escaped to Russia, said the Chinese government's crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry “has only strengthened bitcoin."
Snowden recalled his own entry from March 2020 about the desire to buy the first cryptocurrency and noted the tenfold growth of the asset since then. “It [bitcoin] has grown about tenfold since then, despite a coordinated global campaign by governments to undermine public understanding and support of cryptocurrencies,” wrote the former special agent.

- Chief strategist at CoinShares Meltem Demirors investment company said in a comment to CNBC that the rate of the first cryptocurrency will soar to $100,000 by the end of 2021. A lot of cash remains untapped, she said, so investors plan to include digital gold in their portfolio.
She also named the buy-on-rumor, sell-on-fact model as one of the catalysts for price changes in the first cryptocurrency. “We are now seeing a lot of hype around the potential approval of the Bitcoin ETF,” explained Demirors. She said “certain movements” on long-term options with six-digit figures will begin at the end of Q4 2021 and early Q1 2022.

- Anthony Pompliano, an avid bitcoin supporter and co-founder of the Morgan Creek Digital venture capital firm, has identified the most serious risks to the coin's growth. “Unlike the sentiments of bitcoin supporters, it will not turn into a currency, which means its market will be quite limited. The maximum for bitcoin is the capitalization of gold, which is essentially a store of value. Bitcoin is not used for day-to-day shopping, and while its upside potential may be slightly higher, it is still limited. "
Pompliano also highlighted several factors that may have undesirable consequences for the main cryptocurrency: “It may be revealed who Satoshi is and if it turns out he is not a very good person, this could have a negative impact on bitcoin itself. In addition, no one uses it for specific purposes, such as making international payments, as it is slow and expensive. There is also an option that governments will decide to tighten measures against bitcoin in the future, for example, they will begin to regulate it, impose heavy taxes or even ban and outlaw it. "
A particular risk, according to Pompliano, is that “bitcoin is still in development. It is still being updated, and although the process includes many filters, security checks and more, there may be a bug in the code that is introduced that will cost a lot.”

- Most of the surveyed cryptocurrency investors from Africa stated that their main motivation is to ensure their family well-being. According to Luno's research, almost half (48%) of respondents are willing to save and invest their salary in cryptocurrencies to pay for their children's education, while 43% are willing to create a starter capital for children and grandchildren, 39% for saving. 

- Galaxy Digital crypto bank founder Mike Novogratz told CNN that bitcoin will make fundamental changes to the financial system. He has also urged investors not to pay attention to the volatility of digital gold, but to look at the big picture of the market. “Bubbles and manias are happening around things that change our thinking fundamentally,” Novogratz stressed.
According to the banker, cryptocurrency investors are not just interested in profit, they believe in fundamental changes in the financial system, and the growing interest in bitcoin is associated with the underlying technology.
The head of Galaxy Digital predicted the price of bitcoin to rise to $500,000 in ten years. He believes that 75% of altcoins will disappear from the market over the same period.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The author of the bestselling book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki predicted "a giant stock market crash in October." The same fate awaits gold, silver and bitcoin, he said. Kiyosaki cited U.S. Treasury bonds, which have recently been rising rapidly, among the reasons for the collapse. “Cash is best for making deals after a crash,” the entrepreneur wrote.
Kiyosaki also spoke out about another Chinese crackdown on the crypto industry, which caused the price of bitcoin to fall below $40,000. “This means that China is going to launch a government cryptocurrency. If the US follows suit, the Fed will outlaw bitcoin. The U.S. government will become centralized like China, communism will begin in the United States, our freedoms will end,” he wrote.

- The United States of America should take the opposite position to China and buy bitcoin, said Thiel Capital COO Blake Masters. “Let's do the opposite. The U.S. government should buy bitcoin's strategic reserve, Fort Nakamoto, the new Fort Knox,” he wrote.
Masters is a Republican Party representative and Senate candidate from the state of Arizona. Those wishing to support his election campaign can send donations in digital gold, he said. Earlier, his fellow party member, Senator Pat Toomey, called China's crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry "a great opportunity for the United States."

- Due to a security failure, a fake cryptocurrency giveaway was carried out on the popular Bitcoin.org website. Visitors to the website saw immediately a pop-up asking them to send cryptocurrency to a bitcoin wallet using a QR code and receive twice as much in return. The fake message said the Bitcoin Foundation would like to thank the community and that the giveaway will be limited to the first 10,000 users.
Visitors to the site could not remove this message, making the rest of the website inaccessible. Bitcoin.org was founded in August 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto himself. It hosts various important materials, such as the original white paper and developer documentation on bitcoin.
Despite the fact that the fake giveaway scam is not new at all, there were some who bought into the trick and sent quite large amounts in BTC to the fraudsters' wallet.

- The popular Chloe Baffled meme depicting a two-year-old girl was sold as a non-fungible token (NFT) for 25 ETH, nearly $74,000 at the time of the deal. The buyer was the music company 3F Music from Dubai (UAE). The family will keep the proceeds in Ethereum in hopes of further growth of the cryptocurrency. The mother of the heroine plans to spend this money in the future on the education of her daughters, and the “baffled” Chloe herself wants to buy a horse or “build a Disneyland,” writes the BBC.
Chloe became popular in 2013 after posting a video of her reacting baffled to news of a trip to Disneyland while her older sister Lily cries. This video gained more than 20 million likes.

- Analyst under the nickname PlanB, the author of the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, has just recently predicted that the bitcoin rate will exceed $100,000 at the end of this year. At the same time, he warned that the next few months will be key for the digital asset market. The Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model predicts the value of bitcoin by calculating the ratio of the asset's total available supply and its annual increase. And now the analysts' calculations have shown that instead of rising, the price of the flagship coin could drop to $30,000.

- Over the past three months, the value of the portfolio of Mr. Gox - a crypto trader hamster on the Twitch platform - has increased by 30%. Over the same time, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway fund assets fell 2%.
The hamster's owner built a special cage for it in June 2021, equipped with optical sensors that are connected to the Arduino Nano controller. This allows the rodent to "trade" digital assets. Turning the running wheel, the hamster "selects" a specific cryptocurrency for trading. The program will sell the coin when the rodent runs through the left tunnel and will buy it if it passes through the right one.
The rodent managed to outperform not only Berkshire Hathaway, but also the S&P 500 (+ 6% over the same period) and NASDAQ 100 (+ 12%), as well as bitcoin itself (+ 23%). The largest asset in Mr. Gox's portfolio is Tron (TRX). The hamster purchased it five times, and the price of this cryptocurrency has grown by 40% since the first transaction.

— According to TripleA research, the number of cryptocurrency users worldwide exceeded 280 million, with India accounting for the largest increase. There are now over 100 million digital currency users, or 7.3% of the country's population. As for other countries, there are 27.4 million in the United States, 17.3 million in Russia, 13.0 million in Nigeria, and Brazil is fifth with 10.3 million.
At the same time, the number of businesses accepting cryptocurrency as payment has grown to 18,000. The report identifies top brands such as fast-food restaurant chain Burger King, travel company Expedia and online commerce platform Rakuten that now accept cryptocurrency payments.

- Billionaire trader, SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund owner Steve A. Cohen has seen a perfect scenario for Bitcoin that could steer it into future rallies. So, Cowan believes that BTC may now go down, while it is important for the price to hold the 20-week simple moving average (SMA) as support. This will be the key to creating bullish momentum that will push the BTC price up to $64,000.
The 20-week SMA, coupled with the 21-week exponential moving average (EMA), is what Cowen calls the "bull market support band." In his view, it is crucial for bitcoin to stay above this band, as history shows that BTC tends to break through the first time it is retested.

- According to 99Bitcoins statistics, bitcoin was predicted to pass out 37 times in 2021. Interestingly, this amount is 2.65 times higher than in 2020, during which BTC “passed away” only 14 times.
This site has acted as the official repository for all bitcoin obituaries since 2010, with precise criteria for selecting such publications. In particular, the content selection takes into account whether the article mentions the uselessness of bitcoin both at present and in the future. In addition, the source resource, its traffic, and the credibility of the person who owns the words about the demise of the main cryptocurrency are taken into account.
The last registered obituary dates from September 21, 2021 and was written by renowned economist Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University, who stated that bitcoin is a highly speculative zero-value asset. “Bitcoin's volatility is its Achilles heel and the reason why it will never become a reliable unit of account or currency. Bitcoin is nothing more than a speculative asset with a fundamental value equal to zero,” Hanke's obituary reads.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- The risk of default by Evergrande, one of China's largest construction companies, which has accumulated 2 trillion yuan ($309 billion) in debt, triggered panic in financial markets on September 20. Investors began to get rid of risk assets, tumbling stock markets. The cryptocurrency market did not escape the sell-off either. While bitcoin was at $52,870 on Monday, it fell short term to $39,666 on Wednesday, losing up to 25% of its value.
Evergrande's structure includes 200 offshore and 2,000 Chinese companies operating in multiple countries, according to Bloomberg. The 2 trillion-yuan liability is the world largest debt and is equivalent to 2% of China's GDP. Evergrande's net worth is about $3.9 billion, nearly 80 times less than its $309 billion debt.

- The US Treasury has included the Suex cryptocurrency exchanger in the sanctions list, as well as 25 addresses in the bitcoin, ethereum and tether networks. According to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), at least eight ransomware, scam projects and darknet marketplaces passed through Suex.
Chainalysis, an analytics company involved in the investigation, found that Suex had received more than $480 million in bitcoin since February 2018. At least $160 million of that amount is related to illegal activities.

- The president of Euro Pacific Capital, a well-known supporter of gold Peter Schiff once again criticized bitcoin and allowed the imminent end of the "cryptocurrency bubble". “There are now more than 12,000 tokens, 84 of which currently have a market cap above $1 billion. There's nothing special about bitcoin. Altcoin supply will continue to grow until the cryptocurrency bubble bursts. Supply will exceed demand and prices will collapse almost overnight," Schiff wrote. In his view, the first cryptocurrency would “only take money from the pockets of people stupid enough to buy it.”
In the comments, the financier reaffirmed his commitment to the precious metal and pointed out that the value of gold is "in its usefulness." “You can do more with gold than with any other metal, and it does not lose its unique properties over time,” said Schiff.

- Bitcoin is a monetary standard that will become a global reserve currency one day. This opinion was expressed by the head of SkyBridge Capital Anthony Scaramucci. He urged people to learn more about the crypto industry, even if they are skeptical about the digital asset market. According to him, it is important to understand “why you don’t want to own digital gold”.
“Bitcoin is volatile because it is at an early stage of adoption. Amazon had the same volatile curve 24 years ago. But if you invested $10,000 in Amazon shares at the IPO, you would receive $21 million today,” explained Scaramucci. He advised newcomers to the crypto industry to allocate up to 5% of their investment portfolio to digital assets, explaining the recommendation as high profits if the market grows and low losses if it collapses.

- An anonymous bitcoin wallet owner who bought $8.1k worth of cryptocurrency in 2012 has come forward almost 10 years later. According to the profile publication Decrypt, their account held more than 616 bitcoins. During its storage, each coin has increased in value nearly 3,500 times, with the total value of its assets approaching $28 million.

- The fair price of Ethereum based on network activity is $1,500, JPMorgan strategist Nikolaos Panigirtsoglou said in a Markets Insider commentary. “We're looking at hashrate and unique address counts to try to understand the value of ethereum,” added the JPMorgan strategist. According to him, the second-most capitalized cryptocurrency network is less attractive than its price suggests. Panigirtzoglou noted the growing competition from Solana, Cardano and other blockchains.
For reference, the ETH price has dropped 40% from $4,020 to $2,650 this week from September 20-22.

- The opposite point of view is held by cryptocurrency trader and analyst Lark Davis. He believes that the ETH rate will reach $10,000 in the coming weeks. The analyst notes that large investors, banks and corporations continue to invest in the ethereum ecosystem. 
Davis cited its limited supply in the market as another factor in favor of the growth of this altcoin. Currently, the reserves of the second cryptocurrency on cryptocurrency wallets are at record lows. This shows the reluctance of investors to sell their holdings in ETH. “87 per cent of coins have not moved for more than three months. 87 per cent! That's crazy, “ the analyst exclaimed.
In addition, a significant shortage of ethereum is created by burning of underlying transaction fees as well as by an increase in ethereum 2.0 staking deposits.

- While the price of bitcoin has climbed from $31,000 to $52,000 since the end of July, long-term holders have sold the coins they purchased between the $18,000 and $31,000 levels, consistently making a profit of about $1 billion per day. This data is provided in the latest report by Glassnode. Long-term in this classification refers to holders who received their coins more than 155 days ago.
“Note that these prices formed in the 2020-2021 bull market and suggest that long-term bitcoin investors may be becoming more active traders, record profits, use derivatives to hedge risks, or speculate more than in Q2,” Glassnode experts write. “This may also suggest uncertainty in the current market structure, as coins that have been purchased at close to current prices are being spent.”
At the same time, the authors note that despite the increased sales from this group, there was also a strong demand. As confirmation, they point to the fact that the aggregate balance of bitcoin on the exchanges continued to decline and hit a new multi-year low of 13% of turnover before the collapse on September 20.

- The FBI received over 1,800 complaints related to cryptocurrency fraud on dating sites between January 1, 2021, and July 31, 2021. Victims' losses are estimated at $133.4 million.
People are more likely to suffer from depression and loneliness during the pandemic, so dating and socializing apps have become very popular. First, the scammers establish "contact" with the potential victim. After getting the victim's trust, the attacker claims to be versed in cryptocurrency investments and trading and directs the person to a fraudulent site. Once a user has invested a certain amount, the scammer allows them to withdraw the “first profit”: a small amount of money, thus gaining the trust of the victim. The scammer then advises the user to deposit a larger sum. If the “client” stops receiving funds, then communication with the client ends as well.

- Financial market experts have recently conducted a study, the subject of which was the proposal of the famous car manufacturer Henry Ford to replace gold with the so-called "energy currency". The issue was raised by him in the New York Tribune as early as 1921. The study culminated in the fact that Ford's proposed project to launch a new currency is strikingly similar to the description of BTC, which was presented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto.
The front page of the newspaper featured an article detailing the "energy currency" that Ford believed could end wars and become the backbone of a new era's monetary system.
The auto industrialist proposed replacing gold with a currency that would fully function on the basis of "units of force", for which he could build a huge hydroelectric power station. Thus, the potentially created currency would have been able to become the most stable and secured monetary unit of the time and would prevent a massive increase in the rich profiting from speculation with gold.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Analytics software provider MicroStrategy has purchased an additional 5,050 BTC at $48,099 for approximately $243 million. This was announced by the head of the company Michael Saylor. As of September 12, MicroStrategy owns 114,042 BTC. A total of $3.16 billion was spent on their purchase, thus the average cost was $27,713 per coin.
MicroStrategy was the first public company to invest a portion of its equity capital ($ 250 million) in bitcoin in August 2020. Later, the company's board of directors approved a policy to increase investment in digital gold at the expense of cash reserves. Other US companies that have made similar large investments in cryptocurrency include Jack Dorsey's Square and Elon Musk's Tesla. Now they are set to be joined by billionaire Alan Howard's Brevan Howard Asset Management hedge fund, which opened a dedicated BH Digital division for these purposes.

- US citizen of Canadian origin Galeb Alaumari was found guilty of helping North Korean military intelligence officers launder funds obtained as a result of hacking of cryptocurrency exchanges and hacker attacks on various companies and financial institutions. The WannaCry ransomware stole more than $1.3 billion in total. This includes the cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, the attempted hacking of banks in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Mexico, Malta, and the theft of various personal data.
Galeb Alaumari said he was responsible for cashing out funds through fake bank accounts and cryptocurrency. The defendant also confessed to sending out phishing emails. One of the victims of the scheme was a university in Canada, which transferred $9.4 million to fraudsters, believing it was communicating with a major construction company. The US Federal court sentenced Alaumari to 11 years in prison and a $30 million fine.

- Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood expects bitcoin to rise to $500,000 within five years. In a conversation with CNBC, Wood explained that the validity of her forecast will depend on whether companies continue to diversify their bitcoin reserves and whether institutional investors decide to place 5% of assets in it.
The head of Ark Invest noted that if she had to choose one cryptocurrency, she wouldn't hesitate to prefer bitcoin “because states now consider it a means of payment.”
Wood also highlighted the potential of ethereum. “Ethereum is experiencing an explosion of developer activity thanks to NFT and DeFi. I am fascinated by what is happening in DeFi, which is dramatically reducing the cost of infrastructure for financial services. Although I know that the financial industry does not welcome this right now. We are nevertheless likely to continue with the 60% bitcoin and 40% ethereum strategy,” she added.
Earlier, analysts at Standard Chartered bank predicted bitcoin to rise to $175,000 and ethereum to $35,000.

- After El Salvador recognized bitcoin as legal tender, Panama decided to follow suit. A cryptocurrency bill has been submitted to the Panamanian Congress. Panama does not have either a central bank currently or its own official currency, and the US dollar is used as a means of payment.
If the law is passed, legal entities and individuals of Panama will be able to freely use BTC and ETH as a means of payment for any government or commercial transactions. In addition, it is proposed to transfer public records to the blockchain and digitize legislative and administrative acts. “Such a move will help create a lot of jobs, attract investment and make the government more transparent,” the bill's initiators said.
Unlike El Salvador, the Panamanian option does not provide for the mandatory use of cryptocurrencies, that is, citizens and companies will be able to freely decide whether they want to accept cryptocurrencies or be limited to just the dollar.

- A recent survey by Sherlock Communications found that almost half of Brazilians agree that bitcoin should be accepted as the country's official currency, as El Salvador did. 48% of respondents voted for this (17% support without any doubt, 31% with some conditions). Only 21% rejected this idea (9% categorically, 12% moderately). The remaining respondents (31 percent) maintain a neutral stance.

- Artist Monica Rizzolli earned 1623 ETH (about $5.4 million at the time of the transaction) for the sale of the NFT series "Fragments of an Infinite Field" on the Art Blocks marketplace. The collection, consisting of 1,024 generative images, sold out on September 13 in less than an hour. The price for individual copies started from 10 ETH. Well-known NFT collectors Cozomo de' Medici and JDH spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy individual paintings.
The main parameter for creating the composition was the seasons, which set the colors and the phenomena depicted in the picture. Subsequently, some of the collection's items were resold on the OpenSea marketplace for 69 ETH (about $229,000).

- The State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine has established the involvement of three employees of the cyber department of the Security Service of this country (SBU) in the kidnapping of a cryptocurrency trader.
According to the investigation, SBU agents received information about the trader having a large amount in cryptocurrency in autumn 2020. They organized his abduction, took him to the forest and beat him for an hour and a half, demanding that $200,000 be handed over to them. After being refused, the agents moved the abductee to police headquarters. They continued to extort funds There, lowering the amount to $80,000. The trader was forced to agree, and called his wife, who transferred 7 BTC (at the time of the transaction, the equivalent of the ransom amount) to the cryptocurrency wallet specified by the extortionists.
All three face charges of robbery with violence, kidnapping and abuse of authority. The investigation also examines the involvement of eight other SBU officers in the crime.

- Austrian economist Ronald-Peter Stöferle, managing partner of investment company Incrementum AG, said that "in five to ten years, bitcoin will rise to heights that we cannot currently imagine." At the same time, the top manager noted that the next phase of bitcoin's growth has not yet begun. According to him, the rise in price of bitcoin will occur when the asset becomes "a means of inflation protection during the ongoing large monetary experiments." 

- Crypto trading veteran Ton Weiss predicts that bitcoin (BTC) will complete the current correction relatively soon and then rise sharply to six-digit levels.
Weiss explained during the new strategy session that the recent move in the BTC price is reminiscent of July, when the flagship cryptocurrency fell to a one-year low below $29,000 and then aggressively rose to $52,000 in less than six weeks.
According to Weiss, bitcoin is likely to fall short and give traders an opportunity to buy near the $40,000 level. After which it will bounce back sharply from that support and go up. 
“The $40,000 low will come either next week or may be delayed until early October, and then we will cross that area with a rise to $50,000 in mid to late October. We will be over $65,000 by early November, and probably $100,000 by the end of December,” he said. 


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CryptoNews of the Week


- El Salvador entered into force a law recognizing bitcoin as a legal means of payment on Tuesday, September 7. President Nayib Bukele tweeted about this three minutes before midnight local time. “In three minutes, we will go down in history,” wrote Bukele.
Earlier, the head of state confirmed that the government of El Salvador acquired the first 200 BTC. The purchase is part of a new $150m fund approved by the authorities to secure the exchange of bitcoin and dollars.

- Bitcoin has been growing since July 20. And so, on the news that BTC became the official currency of El Salvador, its quotes fell 18% on Tuesday September 7, from $52,870 to $43,205, dragging down the entire crypto market.
The World Bank refused to support El Salvador in accepting bitcoin as a legal tender, and leading rating agencies such as Fitch were quick to point out the weaknesses of the country's government's move. In particular, El Salvador's insurance industry will be hit. Bonds rated B- are already circulating in it, and now the situation will be aggravated by the presence of an unstable cryptocurrency.
At the time of writing this review, the leading cryptocurrency has managed to win back some of its losses, and it is trading at around $46,500 per coin.

- Standard Chartered Global Banking Group analysts have been positive about the prospects for bitcoin and ethereum. The team of researchers compared ethereum to the financial market, where lending, insurance and exchange transactions take place. Bitcoin, in their opinion, is more like a currency. Therefore, given the wider range of ETH use cases, its capitalization may eventually reach the first cryptocurrency.
Standard Chartered predicts bitcoin prices in the $50,000-$175,000 range and ethereum in the $26,000-$35,000 range. Thus, these cryptocurrencies should grow threefold and tenfold, respectively. “While the return on ETH may outperform BTC in the future, the risks are also higher,” the bank said.

- Three-time National Basketball Association of North America (NBA) champion Stephen Curry asked Twitter users for advice on cryptocurrencies. “Just starting to play the crypto game... Do you have any advice? ', wrote the athlete. Several prominent crypto industry participants reacted to the tweet. MicroStrategy chief Michael Saylor said he spent a lot of time thinking about the issue, “and chose bitcoin.” “I bought over $3 billion worth of bitcoin as I consider it the future of digital property,” Saylor wrote.

- Senior strategist Mike McGlone called the $100,000 mark for bitcoin and the $5,000 mark for ethereum as "the path of least resistance" in the September Bloomberg Crypto Outlook report. “Crypto assets are entering a renewed second-half bull market after a serious drop from previous highs,” the Bloomberg expert noted.
He also characterized investment portfolios that do not have any of these cryptocurrencies as vulnerable. “We envision the future of bitcoin as a digital reserve asset that complements the dollar,” McGlone concluded.

- Ark Invest CEO Cathy Wood suggested that the cryptocurrency market is far from ending its rally. Despite the recent rally, the markets show no signs of a price bubble, she said. “We think bitcoin is much more than a store of value or digital gold. This is a new global monetary system that is completely decentralized and not subject to politicians' whims".
The top executive added that cryptocurrencies have become a generational phenomenon that evolves as technology advances. “The average investor does not understand how provocative the next five to fifteen years will be, as these S-curves feed off each other and enter exponential growth trajectories that we have not seen before,” says Wood.
At the same time, the expert believes that regulation is necessary for the maturity of the sector, which will affect bitcoin in the most positive way.

- US-based Crypto Asset Recovery company specializes in guessing “hundreds of millions or billions” of passwords. Its experts have concluded that bitcoin wallets whose passwords have been lost by their owners currently store billions of dollars’ worth of coins. At the same time, access to approximately 68-90 thousand BTC can be restored. This is about $4 billion at current prices.
According to a report from another company, Chainalsis, up to 20% of the existing 18.5 million bitcoins have been lost. 

- According to the latest research, 17% of Australians own cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is the most popular digital asset, with Ethereum, Dogecoin and Bitcoin Cash taking the second, third and fourth places.
The majority of holders (30%) reported that they purchased crypto assets in order to diversify their portfolio. Second on the list of reasons (24%) was the rise in the price of bitcoins and altcoins. There are twice as many men as women among cryptocurrency holders. This is while the number of women holding crypto wallets has doubled since the beginning of the year.

- The management of the billionaire Bill Miller's Miller Opportunity Trust believes that bitcoin has significant growth potential, as this asset can act as a digital analogue of gold.
Miller Opportunity Trust has recently announced the purchase of 1.5 million shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust fund for $44.7 million. The report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) notes that the investment was made in anticipation of the asset's growth. Fund strategists and analysts have been monitoring bitcoin performance for a long time and chose the best time to buy.
“Bitcoin has been falling this quarter and the trust's shares have been traded at a significant discount to the value of the underlying asset, providing additional upside potential. While gold has a capitalization of $11 trillion, bitcoin only reaches $900 billion, a significant lag. We are in the early days of bitcoin adoption and the asset will be very volatile, but we believe the risk-to-reward ratio is attractive,” Miller Opportunity Trust said in a statement.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- Hundreds of residents rallied in the capital of El Salvador against the legalization of the first cryptocurrency, Euronews reports. Citizens are concerned about possible increases in corruption due to the replacement of the US dollar with bitcoin
The Salvadoran Association of International Freight Carriers has demanded an amendment to the bill, removing the obligation to accept digital gold as payment. Otherwise, industry officials said they would suspend services. But this initiative of the country's President Nayib Bukele, in addition to opponents, has many supporters. In contrast to transport workers, for example, the legalization of bitcoin was supported by the Salvadoran branch of fast-food restaurant chain KFC.

- Another piece of news is from the field of transport. Backed by Internet giant Alibaba, electric car maker Zhiji Auto has developed an app for owners of upcoming IM electric vehicles. With its help, drivers will be able to earn digital currency for the mileage covered. 
Motorists will have to enter information about each kilometer they run in order to enter the mining pool. They will receive the Stone digital currency as a reward. The company plans to issue 500 coins 144 times a day for a start. The issue will be halved every four years to maintain liquidity.
The asset can be exchanged for various services of the company. When the car's mileage reaches 5,000 km, its owner will be able to purchase a next-generation smart driving system for coins or increase the battery capacity to 120 kWh.
The IM electric car will go on sale in 2022. According to the manufacturers, the novelty should become a worthy competitor to Tesla: its range on one charge is 1,000 km.

- Venezuelan law enforcers are looking for a 23-year-old man who organized his own kidnapping in order to steal $1.15 million worth of bitcoins from gullible citizens. The attackers allegedly forced him to withdraw the cryptocurrency from the Binance exchange and transfer it to various wallets. The man is accused of fraud and money laundering and is currently on the wanted list.

- Investor John Paulson, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes at $3.5 billion, called the cryptocurrency a "bubble" in an interview with Bloomberg. In his view, the digital asset market will “ultimately prove worthless,” so it is not worth investing in it. “Cryptocurrencies are a bubble. I would describe them as a limited supply of nothing. If the demand is greater than the limited supply, the price will rise. But, if demand falls, the price will also fall. None of the cryptocurrencies have intrinsic value,” Paulson explained his point.
For the record: John Paulson was named the best private asset manager by Alpha magazine 15 years ago, in 2007. Paulson's fund managed to earn $3.7 billion then at the end of the year, despite the mortgage crisis and the collapse of the American market.

- Analyst Aaron Arnold in his YouTube channel (952 thousand subscribers) named the fundamental factors that, in his opinion, will provoke the "explosive" growth of ethereum. He considers a key feature the recent change in the altcoin blockchain, which introduced a digital coin burning mechanism. The London update was released on ethereum network on August 05, which completely changed the transaction fee mechanism. A portion of the commission that miners previously received as a reward is now burned. According to the Ultrasound.Money service, more than 134,800 coins worth over $427 million have already been burned on the ethereum network since the activation of this update. The average burning rate is 3.77 coins per minute.
The analyst considers lower Ethereum net inflation as a second driver of growth. According to Arnold's calculations, it is only 1.1% in annual terms at the moment, while the same indicator for bitcoin is at the level of 1.75%.
Arnold also recalled the multiple growth of funds blocked in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. In his view, this is the third factor that contributes to ethereum's price hike. According to DeFi Pulse, if the volume of blocked funds was $16 billion on January 1 of this year, this figure had already reached $82 billion by August 30 (an increase of 412% since the beginning of the year).

- Billionaire investor Bill Miller purchased bitcoin through the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). Such information is contained in the reporting, which has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to The Block. As of June 30, Miller Opportunity Trust owns 1.5 million GBTC shares worth $44.7 million. The size of this position increased to $59 million by September 1 and is 1.55% in the fund's portfolio.  
The second big player whose investment came to light this week is banking giant Morgan Stanley. It has been actively increasing the size of its position in GBTC in recent months. And this is also reflected in the reporting to the SEC. GBTC shares turned out to be included in several of the bank's funds. The largest investment came from Morgan Stanley Insight Fund, which acquired 928.051 GBTC shares for $27.665 million.

- As in other countries around the world, the number of citizens buying digital currencies continues to grow in the USA. And the highest proportion of crypto investors are young people under the age of 35. CNBC revealed that 11% of young US residents invested some of the capital they received in the form of assistance from the state during the coronavirus pandemic in bitcoin and other coins. (By comparison, stocks were picked by 15%).
60% of those who preferred cryptocurrency stated that they are set for long-term storage of this asset. On the contrary, 21% are just waiting for a convenient moment to profitably sell the previously purchased coins.

- The number of vacancies related to cryptocurrency has grown by 118% over the year. Software development was the most sought-after position in this field, with 29.7% of vacancies. In second place are managerial positions with 10%.

- Experts at Kaspersky Lab discovered the Swarez Trojan, which, among other things, stole cryptocurrency wallet data. This was reported by the press service of the company. The peak of activity of the malware occurred in the spring of 2021. The attackers used the games Among Us, Battlefield 4, Battlefield V, Control, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, FIFA 21, Fortnite, GTA V, Minecraft, NBA 2K21, Need for Speed Heat, PUBG, Rust, The Sims 4 and Titanfall 2. Attempts to download such files were recorded in 45 countries.

- Northstar & Badcharts British analyst and co-founder Kevin Wadsworth believes BTC will rise to $100,000 by the end of 2021. After that, the current bullish stage will be completed for the cryptocurrency.
Speaking of the first cryptocurrency, Wadsworth believes that its value will increase "in September, October and, presumably, in November." Some of the leading altcoins (such as ethereum), he said, could also rise significantly, since a rise in prices by 3-4 times is quite likely.

- PlanB analyst is also confident that BTC will break through the $100K level by Christmas. This is indicated by the signals of his S2F forecasting model.
Bitcoin's prospects for further growth are also indicated by year analysis of cryptocurrency behavior. Analysts at Twitter Root channel are confident that the main driver of BTC is halvings (a 2-time reduction in mining awards). They form a shortage of coins in the market, which positively affects the value of a digital asset. As for bitcoin, it has yet to fulfil the growth potential that halving put into it in May 2020. 

-¬Spencer Schiff, son of the famous bitcoin critic and gold advocate Peter Schiff, wrote that there were big changes in his life in the last year: he went all-in, preferring bitcoin to gold. Back in August 2020, he kept most of his savings in the most popular precious metal but has now decided to transfer all the assets to the main cryptocurrency.
His father Peter Schiff, CEO and global strategist at Euro Pacific Capital, has recently tweeted that he considers those who do not sell bitcoins to be "real idiots." He also expressed the opinion that this coin will never reach $100 thousand and compared the hype around the cryptocurrency with tulip mania. However, he also publicly regretted on several occasions that he had not bought bitcoin in the early days of the asset's appearance.


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CryptoNews of the Week


- MicroStrategy acquired additional 3,907 BTC worth about $177 million on August 24. The average purchase price was $45,294 per coin, including commissions and other expenses.
In total, this analytics provider has invested more than $2.9 billion in digital gold. Now there is a total of 108,992 BTC on MicroStrategy's balance sheet. At the time of writing, the value of this cryptocurrency is estimated at $5.25 billion.

- El Salvador has begun preparing infrastructure related to the entry into force of the law to recognize bitcoin as an official means of payment. Operations with this cryptocurrency will be available at 200 ATMs and 50 bank branches by September 7. Residents will be able to withdraw cash 24 hours a day without any commission.
Head of State Nayib Bukele assured that ATMs will appear in all parts of El Salvador in the future. “What if someone is not interested in bitcoin? Keep living your ordinary life. Nobody is going to take your dollars. You can always queue up at Western Union and pay a commission,” Bukele stated. The President of El Salvador estimates that citizens lose about $400 million on remittances fees each year.

- Trend Micro experts found over 120 fake applications for cloud mining of cryptocurrencies in the Google Play Store. Some of them have been downloaded over 100,000 times. Malware does not have a mining feature, according to the study. However, they charge users a monthly fee of about $15 and additional payments allegedly for “enhanced mining opportunities.” Some apps require a prepayment.
Following Trend Micro's appeal to Google, eight fraudulent apps were removed. These include BitFunds, Bitcoin Miner, Daily Bitcoin Rewards, Crypto Holic, MineBit Pro, Bitcoin 2021, Ethereum - Pool Mining Cloud and Bitcoin (BTC) crypto wallet - Pool Mining Cloud Wallet. However, according to Trend Micro, about 120 malware is still available for download.

- A 24-year-old electronic engineer from Pretoria (South Africa) could now be richer by about $1 million but lost the wallet data with 20 BTC mined 10 years ago. He mined the cryptocurrency at school age. To do this, he used a computer with 512 GB of RAM. “I don’t remember exactly how much time I was mining, but it lasted about a couple of months continuously,” the failed millionaire recalls. Eventually he got fed up with it, as the computer could not be used for other tasks, and the cryptocurrency cost virtually nothing. During that year, the price of the first cryptocurrency rose from $0.0008 to $0.08.
Then he lost the paper with the key and password from the bitcoin wallet, and at some point, while cleaning the computer, he also deleted the data file. Some seven years later, with the price of the cryptocurrency already reaching $1,000, the engineer made an attempt to gain access to the mined coins. “I remember collecting all the HDDs, memory cards, CDs and DVDs in the house and carefully reviewing each one. It took about a week." However, there was no happy end.
Chainanalysis estimates that about 20% of mined bitcoins are in lost or forgotten cryptocurrency wallets at the moment.

- American banking giant Citigroup is awaiting regulatory approval to begin trading bitcoin futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Citigroup will therefore become another megabank after Goldman Sachs offering similar opportunities
The bank is also reported to be actively picking up staff for its cryptocurrency team in London.

- A constant critic of bitcoin, president of the brokerage company Euro Pacific Capital Inc., Peter Schiff admitted that the price of BTC could still show impressive growth, reaching $100,000.
Schiff is known as the man who takes every opportunity to strike at cryptocurrency and call for the purchase of gold. And now, in an interview with Coin Stories, this "golden beetle" expressed regret for not making investments in bitcoin on time. Despite all the negative things said about the first cryptocurrency, Schiff still did not undertake to dispute the fact that BTC is a great store of value. In fact, the ROI on bitcoin has been 8,900,000% over the past decade.
“I wish I had bought bitcoin when I first heard about it - it was a serious mistake,” the financier admitted. "I could invest $100,000 in it, yes, I could. Instead, I invested that $100,000 in other things that failed. Now I could become a bitcoin billionaire because I knew about it early on. If I could go back in time, I would have acted differently,” Schiff lamented.
At the same time, he remains bearish and excludes the possibility that the asset will ever be massively used as a means of payment. According to the financier, the only merit of bitcoin is that people speculate on it.

- Earlier, senior strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence Mike McGlone repeatedly predicted the growth of BTC to $100,000. But, according to the expert, the mainstream of the second largest cryptocurrency by capitalization can become an obstacle to growth. People are beginning to realize that ethereum is “the building block for all financial technology, DeFi and infrastructure in a world that is going digital,” McGlone said.
The expert named non-fungible tokens (NFT) as another powerful support for the price of the main altcoin. Such assets are becoming extremely popular and are mostly issued on the ETH blockchain.
In doing so, McGlone called former Goldman Sachs hedge fund manager Raoul Pal's forecast of Ethereum growth to $20,000 as overstated. But also, the price will not fall below $2,000, rather the rate will exceed $4,000, according to the analyst.

- Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin is much more optimistic about the future of this altcoin. He expects that after the recent London hardfork and implementation of EIP-1559, the ETH price will be 10 times higher than current levels and reach $30,000. In this case, the capitalization of this altcoin would reach $3 trillion, and exceed the capitalization of all the major technology companies in the world.

— An Australian entrepreneur promised to pay BTC worth $5 to everyone who gets a coronavirus vaccination.
The Mayor of Cool Valley, Missouri (USA) is planning a much more generous reward. He announced his intention to donate $500 to $1000 in BTC to each of the 1,500 Cool Valley residents, as he believes this cryptocurrency has the potential to make them rich. “I have friends whose lives have completely changed: from ordinary workers with a working schedule from nine to five, they have become owners of a fortune of more than $80 million in a few years,” the mayor explained his initiative. At the same time, he put forward one condition: recipients will not be able to sell their bitcoins for five years, which, according to the mayor, will allow them to wait for the price of BTC to rise to half a million dollars.
Residents of the city reacted to this initiative very positively, so the mayor has a lot of chances to be re-elected for a new term.

- With the start of another bitcoin rally, some major players predict that cryptocurrency will reach new record levels by the end of the year. The survey was conducted by Elwood Asset Management, with 55 out of an estimated 175 cryptocurrency hedge funds.
According to the data, 65% of these hedge funds predict that bitcoin will be trading in the $50,000 to $100,000 range by the end of 2021. 21% of those surveyed named a price between $100,000 and $150,000. And only 1% of hedge funds predicts that the asset's value will be below $50,000. 
63% of hedge funds believe that the cryptocurrency market capitalization will be in the range of $2 trillion to $5 trillion, with another 11% estimating a market capitalization of between $5 trillion and $10 trillion.

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CryptoNews of the Week


- Journalists of the world media drew attention to the online speech of Jerome Powell to students at the Town Hall conference. The Fed chief noted the ever-increasing importance of cryptocurrencies, outlining the phrase about the U.S. Treasury's examination of holding a portion of the country's reserves in digital assets. Making such a decision would literally blow up the cryptocurrency market, repeating the situation of 2017. The price of bitcoin soared then from $750 to $19,270, which is 25 times, getting the slang name “To the Moon”.
While Powell just theorizes about supporting cryptocurrencies, the US Congress may well arrange a mini "To the Moon" in the near future. First, the congressmen forced the US Treasury to prepare an explanatory guide that exempts all participants in the crypto market from submitting tax reports, except for brokers.
And two senators decided to go even further and introduced a bill simplifying the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) guidelines for miners, wallet operators, and others. FATF is now trying to achieve complete deanonymization of all blockchain transactions by forcing crypto industry members to implement the “travel rules” option. It applies to fiat transfers, where the bank will not accept payment without verified data.

- An unknown hacker has hacked a major Legalizer forum on drug trafficking in the former USSR countries. He posted some of the information in public access, the rest is sold by the hacker for at least 1 BTC. The information in the database includes among other passport data of the alleged owners of the forum, customer contacts and their correspondence.
The owner and developer of Legalizer is listed as a Latvian citizen, one of the ex-developers is a resident of the Moscow region of Russia, and the current administrator is a Ukrainian citizen. According to the Blockchair service, 20.57 BTC (about $935,000 at the time of writing) went through the drug forum's cryptocurrency wallet.

- Cryptocurrency analyst Benjamin Cowen believes bitcoin is facing a crucial test this September, which will determine the future direction of the entire market. According to him, bitcoin has tested the 20-week moving average every September since 2017 and either bounced or broke through it. And if another test happens this September, it will be possible to make a forecast basing on it until April 2022. “We will find out if the market will be bullish or if growth will stall for several months,” the analyst said.
The 20-week MA is currently around $43,500 and if BTC can hold that level as support, according to Benjamin Cowen, we will see an upward move. “The prospects are quite good, and if we manage to stay at this level as support, then we will have pleasant surprises,” he said.

- The largest American retailer Walmart (more than 11,700 hypermarkets in 28 countries) has opened a vacancy for the head of the cryptocurrency business. The new position provides for the creation and management of the digital asset development strategy. Recall that back in 2019, The Block, citing a patent application from Walmart, announced the company's plans to launch its own stablecoin.

- A popular cryptocurrency analyst and trader with the nickname DonAlt named four altcoins that are ready for a rally and can surpass BTC in profitability.
The first pair on the list is XRP/BTC. According to the trader, it is already "up 50 per cent but is still far from the level of resistance." DoAlt believes this pair could yet show 185% growth from current levels.
Next on the list is the popular Bitcoin Cash (BCH) altcoin. According to the trader, the BCH/BTC pair managed to stay above the key support level and is now ready to reach 0.02 BTC, as the next resistance level is about 50 per cent higher. The third asset is VeChain (VET), and at the bottom of the list is Tron (TRX).

- Bloomberg chief analyst Eric Balchunas suggested that a programmer from California Hal Finney was hiding behind the alias of the bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. He is known in the crypto community as one of the early supporters of bitcoin, who participated in the development of the cryptocurrency, and also conducted the first bitcoin transaction with Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. The programmer died in 2014 at the age of 58 due to a serious illness.
The chief analyst at Bloomberg gained confidence that Finney was the creator of bitcoin after reading a message on the forum that the programmer sent back in 1993. Finney described there the idea of cryptocurrency trading cards, the principle of which is similar to the technology of non-fungible tokens (NFT).
It became known this spring that the fortune of the creator of bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto, who, according to various estimates, owns from 750 thousand to 1.1 million BTC, exceeded $61 billion.

- Residents of India, the second most populous country in the world, can now receive cashback in bitcoins. The card, issued by GoSats and available online, allows users to earn BTC when shopping at major stores such as Amazon, Starbucks and Flipkart.
The new product is being rolled out by GoSats in partnership with the non-profit National Payment Corporation of India, which promotes digital services across the country. This corporation was founded in December 2008 and is directly owned by the Reserve Bank of India, which should help avoid any regulatory hurdles from the authorities.

- As it turns out, bitcoin follows the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model developed by popular cryptanalyst PlanB so far. Plan B gave his forecast for the coming months in June 2021, when BTC was trading below $35,000. According to him, the price of BTC should reach $135,000 by the end of this December.

- Along with the current spike in prices, bitcoin has also shown significant improvement in network metrics. In particular, bitcoin miners have continued to accumulate, their balance has grown steadily over the past month. This means that they expect further growth in the price of the coin, so they do not want to take profits now.
Santiment, a web data analysis firm, also reported encouraging data for investors. It reports that the supply of bitcoin on exchanges has dropped to a two-week low. This suggests that a large amount of BTC will go to cold wallets. Analyst firm Glassnode has made a similar observation: “Bitcoin continued to leave exchanges in August at rates ranging from 75,000 to 100,000 coins per month. This outflow is similar to the period between 2020 and the Q1 21, when large accumulations prevailed.”

- Bloomberg analyst Michael McGlone speaks once again in favor of the first cryptocurrency. In his opinion, BTC is capable of replacing gold as an asset for hedging risks and accumulating wealth, "and the efforts of American regulators are unlikely to be able to prevent this."
Michael McGlone stressed that “digitizing money and the financial industry” is giving bitcoin a huge boost to growth. Once upon a time, similar factors allowed the US dollar to dominate the global financial arena. At the same time, gold does not have any strong drivers for growth, according to the analyst.
According to McGlone's forecast, bitcoin could well reach $100,000 in the medium term.

- According to a study conducted in the United States, LGBTQ representatives were among the most active crypto investors. One in four Americans in this category has invested in digital currency. 
The surge in such interest is due to both positive and negative factors. Yosef Bonaparte, a professor at the University of Colorado, explains that gender discrimination, on average, reduces a person's chances of trading the stock market by 40%. Many members of the community have low incomes and are embarrassed to apply to traditional investment funds due to the huge amounts that the latter demand as payment for services. The key factor behind the growth in the number of crypto investors in the LGBTQ camp is the near-zero threshold for entering this market.

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