Hodler’s Digest is available every Saturday to help you keep track of every important news story. A week of Cointelegraph news, including the best and worst quotes, highlights on adoption and regulation, top coins, predictions, and more — all in one place.
Top Stories this Week
President of Ukraine signs law to establish regulatory framework for crypto
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has approved crypto regulation. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the bill, “On Virtual Assets”, which opens the doors to government oversight of the country’s cryptocurrency industry.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation in Ukraine stated that the signing of the law by the President is an important step towards lifting the crypto sector from the shadows and creating a legal market for virtual currencies in Ukraine.
The bill also specifies that the National Securities and Stock Market Commission of Ukraine will oversee the industry at multiple levels such as licensing digital assets.
European Parlament votes against PoW ban. This is a huge relief for the crypto industry
Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), a significant European Union (EU), regulatory bill, has been passed. It leaves behind language that would have effectively prohibited proof-of-work (PoW), crypto assets in the region.
MiCA was a comprehensive bill that dealt with crypto regulation in Europe. There were two drafts of the bill up for discussion — one that would ban PoW mining and related cryptocurrency cryptocurrencies and the other that contained more favorable language about the technology. The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs voted in favor of the PoW-free option. The bill now needs to be approved by the appropriate authorities.
Official: Binance has been granted a license to operate within Dubai
This week was busy for cryptocurrency exchanges. They received regulatory approvals from multiple jurisdictions. Binance was granted licenses in Dubai and Bahrain. FTX was also granted a Dubai license.
Binance, thanks to the Virtual Asset Service Provider license (VASP), it can now open an office in Dubai. This license also gives Binance other rights. Binance also received a Dubai virtual asset exchange license (VAX). FTX announced that it has been granted Dubai’s VAX license.
ApeCoin announces an increase in the BAYC floor price to close-ATH before correction
Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT owners will be eligible to receive an impressive amount of ApeCoin, a new governance token and utility token. APE is an ERC-20 token.
BAYC owners who do so within 90 calendar days (at 12:02 UTC) on March 17, can claim 10,000 APE. This is $72,000 more than the value of the BAYC shares at the time Cointelegraph covered it in the linked article. Gemini, FTX and other exchanges are planning to list APE.
The APE token news caused volatility in the pricing and trading volume of BAYC NFTs. The token will be available in a supply of 1,000,000, according to other reports.
Diem team raises $200M to launch blockchain derived
Avery Ching, Mo Shaikh and former leaders of Meta crypto division are creating a layer-1 Blockchain with some roots based upon Move, the programming language used by the Diem project. The project, known as Aptos by Ching and Shaikh, recently announced that it had secured $200 million in funding. Contributors include Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Aptos hopes to have its mainnet live by the second half of 2022.
Publicized earlier in 2022, Facebook-turned-Meta’s stablecoin Diem essentially saw an end to its journey, with Silvergate Capital Corporation buying the project’s nuts and bolts (intellectual property, etc.) From Meta.
Winners and Losers
Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and XRP (XRP) are at $41,727 at the end of the week. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market cap stands at $1.87 trillion.
The top three altcoins that gained the most this week out of 100 cryptocurrencies are ApeCoin, Aave, and AAVE at 1,338.31% respectively. THORChain, on the other hand, is at 37.67%.
Anchor Protocol at -19.20%; Stacks @ -9.20%; and Kadena (KDA_ ) at -9.18% are the top altcoin losers for the week.
Cointelegraph’s market analysis provides more information on crypto prices.
Most Memorable Quotes
“If your hobby is trading crypto, you will be thinking about who will inherit it.”
Jeetu Kataria , CEO of Digital Financial Exchange
“Orange pill your neighbor, your favorite shop, bar, cinema, start sharing your sats. They will learn a lot from someone like you. You can be that tiny pebble in the lake and it will make ripples that will benefit .”
Paco de la India – Bitcoiner and runner
“We hope that the government will conduct this study, […] and come to the conclusion that we cannot compete with China — an authoritarian dictatorship — without also acting like one. Instead, we will empower the private sector to find competitive solutions .”
Jake Chervinsky Head of Policy for the Blockchain Association regarding a United States central banking digital currency
“The creator’s power is where it begins, and that’s where it should remain.”
Darryl McDaniels , founder member of Run-DMC
“My office received many tips from crypto- and blockchain firms about @GaryGensler’s information reporting’requests’ to the crypto community that are overburdensome and don’t feel particularly… voluntari… and are stifling innov…
Tom Emmer , United States congressman
“It is clear that blockchain gaming is revolutionary, but I do not believe it will be sufficient to sustain me financially.” […] Once the P2E ecosystem is mature and sustainable .”, I believe I will be able to quit my job and pursue blockchain gaming.
Jesus Dawal Jr. , Filipino gamer
“Regulators will have a lot easier time regulating DeFi than they would with legacy financial infrastructure if they do their research properly.”
Eric Chen , co-founder & CEO of Injective Labs
“Never define technology by its worst use.” […] Cryptography is more than ransomware. .”
Ritchie Torres , United States representative
Week Prediction
Bitcoin will face a new milestone in 2022, as a new forecast projects that BTC prices will be ‘in the millions’
According to Cointelegraph’s BTC price index, Bitcoin was crypto’s most valuable asset. It traded below $38,000 and above $41,000 in the past week.
Based on global conditions Mike McGlone from Bloomberg Intelligence and Arthur Hayes, former BitMEX brass, both believe that Bitcoin will win the day.
McGlone believes the current environment may be favorable for BTC. McGlone tweeted, “Facing #FederalReserve inflation and war, 2022 may have been primed for risk-asset conversion and mark another milestone of #Bitcoin’s maturation.”
Hayes predicts that Bitcoin will rise to a value greater than $1 million per coin, based on current events, but he also noted that there is a decade-long horizon in which BTC prices fall first.
FUD for the Week
Blockchain Forensics Firm Finds Millions in SANCTIONED CryptoWallet
Elliptic, a blockchain analytics company, has discovered a crypto wallet that may be of interest to Russian sanctioned Russians. Although the wallet’s contents are worth millions of dollars, no further details were provided.
“It’s not realistic that oligarchs could completely bypass sanctions by moving their wealth into cryptocurrency,” Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, said to Bloomberg. Crypto is easily traceable. Crypto can be and will be used to evade sanctions, but it is not the magic bullet span>
Millions upon millions of crypto addresses were traced back to Russian crime. Hundreds of digital asset services facilitate anonymous crypto trading via the Russian ruble. This is based on Elliptic’s sleuthing.
The RBI seems to want to ban cryptocurrency, but not for reasons you might think.
According to a statement released this week, India’s central bank, The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), stated that it wants to ban crypto assets. The RBI is concerned that crypto adoption could lead to a decline in the use and dominance the rupee (India’s national currency) and other problems.
The statement stated that “Historically, private currency has led to instability and, therefore, have evolved into fiat currency over centuries.” “The retrograde return to private currencies cannot simply be made […] because technology allows it without considering the disruption it causes to society’s economic, legal and social fabric >
? Unlucky: ? Agave, Hundred Finance DeFi Protocols exploited for $11M
An attacker was able to exploit the wrapped Ether (WETH), contract function on Gnosis chain, a stable payment platform, to steal $11 million from Hundred Finance and Agave solutions for decentralized finance (DeFi). Simply put, the attacker could drain more funds by borrowing against the collateral they were already posting.
The $11 million was stolen through a variety of crypto assets including the aforementioned wETH but also wrapped BTC, Chainlink (LINK), and USD Coin (USDC). During the investigation, Agave Finance and Hundred Finance both stopped their protocols simultaneously.
Top Cointelegraph Features
There’s no need to get mad about NFTs
You don’t have to be mad about JPEGs if you’ve never had to.
“We don’t like money”: The story of Bitcoin and the CFA in Africa
African cryptocurrency experts and entrepreneurs explain why CFA Franc is an inconvenient currency and why Bitcoin is gaining popularity as a substitute.
Russia’s central bank goes to war.
Moscow’s policymakers are trying to reconsider their approach to digital currencies as one of many ways to protect the economy.
