Main news
1. Tesla ripple effect?
Electric car maker Tesla’s $1.5 billion purchase of Bitcoin could have a long-term impact on the market. When the news of Tesla’s purchase of bitcoin was delivered, the price of bitcoin rose by 8,000 dollars, breaking the all-time increase rate. The transaction price per unit reached a record high of 48,000 dollars. Accordingly, the market capitalization of bitcoin exceeded $860 billion, and if bitcoin was a company, it ranks 8th in the global market cap.
■ The fact that Fortune 500 companies like Tesla have stored bitcoin as an inflation hedge could trigger other large companies to buy bitcoin. According to the reflexivity theory, participants in the financial market act preemptively by observing and predicting each other’s behavior.If this is the case again, the price of bitcoin is expected to continue to rise.
■ GST trader John Kramer believes that other large companies will buy bitcoin sooner or later. Matthew Dip, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Stack Funds, said there are also expectations that the price of Bitcoin will rise from $56,000 to $72,000.
This uptrend is not limited to Bitcoin. ETH (Ethereum) also hit a record high, surpassing $1824 each on Tuesday morning (EST time). Ether’s market capitalization is now over $200 billion.
■ Ether futures were launched on the Chicago Merchandise Exchange (CME) yesterday. On this day, 400 deals were made.
■ Ether’s uptrend may be the result of a short supply of exchanges. This is because the market liquidity has declined as investors store their coins or move them to other DeFi applications. This trend is accelerating in recent years. In the last 4.5 weeks, Ether’s trading volume has decreased by 8%.
■ Mainly, when the price of Ether rises, it also pays the cost of’gas’, a fee to close the Ether transaction on the DeFi network. The high gas cost is beneficial for application-oriented blockchains such as Cardano and PolkaDot. Based on market capitalization, Cardano’s unique cryptocurrency Adam (ADA) is in fourth place, and Polkadot’s coin dot (DOT) is in sixth place.
2. Interest of commercial banks
Commercial banks are also showing interest in cryptocurrency. An investment analyst added the signature of a US bank with a pro-crypto policy to JPMorgan’s’list of interests’. This is because there is a prospect that signatures that are already in the cryptocurrency business can benefit from’crypto wind’ in the future.
■ Meanwhile, SCB 10X, a venture capital project of Siam Commercial Bank, announced that it plans to invest in a DeFi startup by establishing a fund of 50 million dollars. SCB 10X has also invested in Ripple (XRP) and BlockFi. Singapore-based Spartan Group has also announced that it has set up a $50 million venture fund for DeFi.
■ Apifiny, a global network exchange in London, announced that it will go public in 2021.
■ Although it has not been released yet, the Xend Finance DeFi platform, which is trying to enter the African market with the support of Binance, is drawing attention. The company intends to make it possible for co-operatives, such as credit unions, to make profits by converting their deposits into stablecoins.
3. North Korea hacks cryptocurrency to finance nuclear development?
Open systems have no political or ideological orientation. According to the United Nations (UN), there has been a context that North Korea is raising funds for nuclear and missile development through cryptocurrency hacking.
According to a report submitted to the UN Security Council, between November 2019 and December 2020, hackers related to North Korea attacked cryptocurrency networks and financial institutions, securing approximately $316.4 million in funding. North Korea appears to have obtained fiat currency such as the US dollar by laundering money through Chinese over-the-counter (OTC) brokers.
■ The International Anti-Money Laundering Organization (FATF) has already established regulations to prevent money laundering and terrorist subsidies, among which the Travel Rule (Money Transfer Rule) strengthened the reporting standards for cryptocurrency transactions and wallets. However, in 2020, the FATF said, “Even if there are regulations, the travel rule is less than half.” Recently, a cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX announced a good way to store transactions or wallet information.
Brief news
■ Binance withdraws defamation lawsuit against Forbes (CoinDesk)
■ Importance of IPFS (Decrypt)
■ There are also new and old things in the crypto world (CoinDesk Newsletters)
■ What is the ERC-20 token standard? (CoinDesk)
■ ETH futures price premium (Trustnodes)
■ Blockfolio, apologizing for racist comments (CoinDesk)
■ Cryptocurrency fraud is mainly this. (DeFi.cx)
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