We had to be the bearer of bad news in last week’s crypto price check, with the market plummeting from all directions. Fortunately, the last seven days have been far better, so it looks like investors can all stop holding their breath.
The most impressive results came from LRC, which saw its price increase by 42.2% — followed by SNX (up 42.2%), FLOW (up 35%), and CRO (up 28.8%). All these coins are still a long way away from their all-time highs (especially LRC), but at least the graphs are moving in the right direction.
Not all the market has been quite so lucky, but most coins haven’t experienced more than a mild drop. LUNA fell 21.6% and KSM by 11.4%, while BTTOLD and OSMO only decreased by 5% each. The LUNA fall is of particular interest, and you’ll soon see why.
Where do the biggest cryptocurrencies fit into this picture? The bitcoin price enjoyed a modest increase of 8%, while ethereum (ETH) rose by 8.8% and solona (SOL) by just 1%. But are these changes here to stay, or is it just the impact of many crypto investors trying to “buy the dip” as part of their trading strategies?
One of the biggest stories last week was the fall from grace of Wonderland. On Thursday, it was revealed that the DeFi protocol’s founder (who uses the pseudonym 0xSifu) is actually Michael Patryn — a convicted criminal who founded a fraudulent cryptocurrency exchange called QuadrigaCX. Exchange users lost at least $190 million. After the reveal, Patryn resigned from his position — but Wonderland’s native token TIME has still tumbled, and the whole ordeal has raised questions about the problems with anonymity in the blockchain world.
And remember how we just said LUNA of the Terra blockchain fell by 21.6% last week? This is because Terra’s founder Daniele Sestagalli is also the founder of Wonderland. Although Sestagalli wasn’t part of QuadrigaCX and its fraudulent operations, his involvement with Patryn has understandably caused concern. Following the scandal, Sestagalli posted that he believes in giving second chances, which is unlikely to give investors much comfort.
El Salvador might have famously made bitcoin legal tender last year, but it seemed unlikely that any developed countries would follow in its example. Yet in a surprise move, Arizona has introduced a bill to do exactly that in the state. There’s just one small problem: the US Constitution doesn’t actually allow states to create their own legal tender independently from the rest of the country. If passed in Arizona, the SB 1341 bill would then go to a Governor to finally be made into law. However, it currently seems unlikely things will go that far.
We’ve seen a flurry of major companies hiring for crypto-related positions recently, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Google is following the general trend. Google Cloud is currently looking for a team of blockchain experts. Cloud technology is typically centralized, but it seems the tech giant is hoping this move to decentralization will help to differentiate it from the competition (assuming they’re not all thinking the same thing).
The cold storage wallet provider Arculus may be edging closer to competitors like Trezoe and Ledger, with speculation that it could become the third-biggest hardware wallet provider by the end of 2023. This could give a significant revenue boost to its owner CompoSecure, with one analyst predicting it could sell 160,000 units this year and even more next year.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) has been using a power plant located in Dresden to mine bitcoin. The future of the operation is hanging in the balance — it had been hoped that a decision would be reached by the end of January, but this has now been delayed to March 31. Concerns were raised due to the electricity usage, especially considering the cold weather the region is experiencing.
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At the time of writing, neither Tim Thomas nor Timothy Thomas Limited hold positions in the cryptocurrencies mentioned.
This post was produced by Smart Bitcoin Buyer / Timothy Thomas Limited and syndicated by Tim Thomas
Featured image credit: Upslash