Bitcoin faced yet another pullback from the bears earlier today. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization fell hard, going to as low as $53.2k in the process before recovering slightly above $54k at press time. Altcoins also posted losses during the intra day trading session. More on that later on.
In other news, Bitcoin has overtaken Paypal in total transaction value during the last few quarters. The cryptocurrency posted a massive $489 billion in transacted value per quarter in 2021 while Paypal only posted $302 billion. However, the cryptocurrency still trails bigger payment services including VISA and MasterCard. More on that later on.
The Bank of England (BoE) has stated that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are too volatile to be declared as legal tenders. The top banking regulator in the country believes that Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are the right solution for the masses as they are much more stable. El Salvador became the first sovereign nation to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender but since then no other country has taken this route although several more are interested in it.
The newly elected German government has cited pro-crypto regulation in its political agreement with their coalition partners. According to the government-elect, the innovative business models of finance need to be given breathing space alongside conventional assets. The new incoming German government is seeing a big change as centre-left and left parties are coming to power after decades of center-right Merkel’s CDU rule.
Creators of whacky comedy cartoon series Family Guy believe that cryptocurrencies are the future of the world. A new episode was aired that showed the protagonist kids in the future and they paid with Bitcoin in a cheap hotel. The clerk at the hotel then gives a nuanced reason behind accepting Bitcoin too. This depiction of Bitcoin in popular media has improved its recognition around the world.
The Thai government is being urged to start crypto acceptance in the tourism industry to attract digital nomads from around the world. The term digital/crypto nomad refers to a group of techies who travel around the world like nomads, all the while coding and making money remotely. Many of these digital nomads are quite wealthy and spend a lot of time just traveling and backpacking around a country. Tourist associations believe this will boost their tourism sector.
A new report says that Solana transactions are very energy-efficient. The said report estimates that the entire network only uses the equivalent of 986 households. However, this is not the full story as Solana’s system is much less decentralized than Bitcoin with only a 1,000 or more nodes handling tens of millions of transactions. Bitcoin on the other hand has over 5 million nodes around the world.
Bitcoin Drops Below $54k
Bitcoin registered another steep dive earlier today. The digital currency was looking to carry on from yesterday’s highs of around $59.4k but scaled back once again.
The last 24 hours started with the digital currency at around $59.2k. It traded sideways for a while but at 2:40 AM in the night, the index began to slowly come down. First, it went below $58k and then trended downwards further. At 8:30 AM, it began to move below $57k and continued falling further and further. At one point at 1:20 PM, the index had reached as low as $53.2k, registering a new 6-week low for the digital currency. However, the index recovered a little from this value to $54k and has largely stayed there.
Going forward, the latest price drop has dampened bullish spirits again and now they have to start from scratch to build momentum. The $60k level has become a major resistance and the bulls aren’t just able to conquer it at the moment. The bears now have increased downwards momentum and they are looking at $50k now. However, the end of months are generally bearish and one can expect a good comeback at the start of the next month.
The total market capitalization retested the $1 trillion market capitalization earlier in the day. Now it is around $1.06 trillion at press time and the share of the proceedings is 42.27%.
Altcoins Post Losses
Other cryptocurrencies aka altcoins also posted price pullbacks earlier on. Ethereum (ETH, -9%), Ripple (XRP, -9%), Polkadot (DOT, -12%), Avalanche (AVAX, -8.5%), Shiba Inu (SHIBA, -9.5%), Crypto.com Coin (CRO, -9.5%), Litecoin (LTC, -11.5%), Polygon (MATIC, -9%), Uniswap (UNI, -8.5%) and Chainlink (LINK, -9%) all posted losses bigger than Bitcoin itself.
In Other News…..
Bitcoin Surpassed Paypal in Quartely Transaction Value, Eyes MasterCard
Bitcoin recorded massive numbers during the average of last 3 quarters in transacted value, around $489 billion, leapfrogging popular payment platform Paypal itself that had only $303 billion. Now it has set its sights on the next challenger; MasterCard.
While this is all great for the crypto world, it has to be noted that Paypal, MasterCard and other payment companies aren’t Bitcoin’s natural competitors. Bitcoin’s transactions are slower and much, much more energy intensive and secure while Paypal, MasterCard and VISA operate on an entirely different model. Speed and energy conservation are their forte. So, even though Bitcoin’s goal is not a high transaction amount in USD value, it still beat Paypal. However, bigger services await with MasterCard at $1.3 trillion and VISA at $3.2 trillion. However, off-chain solutions and lightning network may make this quicker for the cryptocurrency.