One week in review:
Sept. 5–11 We've selected the hottest materials of the past week for you to stay up to date with the latest crypto news: | | #1. Ukraine passes legislation to recognize and regulate crypto | | | The Ukrainian parliament adopted the draft law "On Virtual Assets" on Wednesday, which legally recognizes crypto in the country for the first time. | | | Anastasia Bratko of the Ministry of Digital Transformation said the law allows companies to launch digital asset markets in Ukraine and enables banks to "open accounts for crypto companies." | | | Earlier this week, Panama also introduced a bill that aims to recognize Bitcoin (BTC) as an alternative payment option and enable the freedom to use crypto assets. | | | Russia also got in on the action, with Anatoly Aksakov — the chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Financial Market — claiming that lawmakers are now weighing up the idea of recognizing the crypto mining industry as a form of entrepreneurship under local business laws. | | #2. El Salvador purchases first 200 BTC, President Bukele confirms | | | El Salvador President Nayib Bukele revealed on Monday that the government had snapped up 200 BTC in preparation for the Bitcoin Law going live on Tuesday. The law recognizes digital gold as legal tender. | | | While the BTC price crashed following the major news event, Bukele was unfazed as the government "bought the dip" by purchasing another 150 BTC during the depths of the mass sell-off which saw the price dip below $43,000. | | | Regarding the Bitcoin Law, Javier Argueta, the legal counsel to the Presidential House of El Salvador, reportedly clarified the obligations of businesses a day before it went into effect. Argueta stated that businesses are mandated to hold a crypto wallet and accept BTC from customers — but they are also able to choose whether or not they will receive BTC or USD once the transaction is settled. | | | Journalist Aaron van Wirdum tweeted about his adventure to a Salvadoran McDonald's on Tuesday to see if he could make a purchase with BTC and, to his surprise, he was able to load up on the breakfast menu using the newly recognized legal tender. | | #3. 101 Bored Apes NFT auction at Sotheby's closes at more than $24M | | | Yuga Labs, the creators of the immensely popular NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club auctioned off a collection of 101 tokenized apes for $24 million this week. | | | The auction closed on Sept. 10 and was hosted by Sotheby's, who estimated that the collection would fetch between $12 million and $18 million. Given that the winning bid was $24 million, each Bored Ape in the collection was valued at an average price of roughly $241,000, or 71.24 Ether (ETH), at the time of publication. The figure tallies in well above the floor price on OpenSea's secondary market of 34 ETH ($115,000 at time of writing). | | | In some rare nonfungible-based FUD, however, reports surfaced earlier this week that the NFL had barred all teams and members from crypto-related sponsorships, advertisements and NFT sales. The league is apparently putting a pause on the crypto hype until it establishes a strategy "for sports digital trading cards and art." | | #4. Prediction of the week. Solana rally mimicking Ethereum? Why a $500 SOL price target could be 'conservative' | | | Early this week, the overall crypto market suffered significant downward price action led by its market leader Bitcoin. BTC's price fell by roughly $10,000 from its pricing above $50,000. | | | The surrounding crypto market of altcoins followed BTC's downward price action for the most part, although Solana (SOL) seemingly carved out its own path. The asset ended up largely bullish during the week, rallying in price after the market dump, while Bitcoin and other assets looked to stabilize in price. SOL notched a personal best in price this week, hitting an all-time high of around $217. | | | SOL's underlying blockchain operates similarly to Ethereum in that it's a blockchain for building solutions. Solana has seen increasing activity in terms of the blockchain's use for building when it comes to the nonfungible token and decentralized finance niches. | | | Mercuryo chief operating officer and co-founder Greg Waisman expressed that a $500 price target for SOL by the end of 2021 is not out of the question. "Solana's growth runs appear to be mimicking that of Ethereum (ETH) and Binance Coin (BNB), and the $500 projection may turn out to be a conservative one for the coin," Waisman told Cointelegraph. | | #5. FUD of the week. SEC threatens to sue Coinbase over crypto yield program it considers a security | | | Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong caused a stir this week after he tweeted a 21-post thread about the SEC's recent "sketchy behaviour." | | | On Tuesday, Armstrong claimed that the enforcement body had threatened to sue Coinbase if it launched its USD Coin-based (USDC) lending program that the SEC asserted was a security. | | | According to Armstrong, the crypto exchange approached the SEC in good faith to provide a brief of the project. However, the enforcer's response was quite aggressive and provided zero explanation as to why it defined the lending program as a security. | | | "They refuse to tell us why they think it's a security, and instead subpoena a bunch of records from us (we comply), demand testimony from our employees (we comply), and then tell us they will be suing us if we proceed to launch, with zero explanation as to why," he said. | | #6. FUD of the week. Bitcoin price plunges below $43K in minutes in crypto market rout | | | The price of Bitcoin took a sharp hit this week as the price dropped from around $52,300 on Tuesday to below $43,000 the following day — marking one of the most volatile days of the year. | | | The timing coincided with the day that El Salvador made BTC legal tender, which caused some pundits to connect the dots and assert that whales had colluded to blow the fish out of the water amid a news event that should have been a bullish signal for digital gold. | | | Trader and analyst Scott Melker, known as "The Wolf of All Streets," blamed large-volume traders, as he stated "leave it to whales to dump Bitcoin on the day that El Salvador makes it legal tender." | | | "Real volume on the selling as well," he added. | | | Feel free to explore the most important news with Hodler's Digest: | | | |
