Bitcoin is currently trading at around $58k at press time. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization posted a small recovery after going further below earlier today to as low as $56k at one point. Altcoins on the other hand made stronger recoveries and are now faring better than Bitcoin’s progress during the day. More on that later on.

In other news, seasoned traders believe that Bitcoin’s latest price tank below $57k may be a cause of concern for short-term traders but none whatsoever for the long-term HODL groups. More on that later on.

A group of US lawmakers have sponsored a bill to remove an anti-crypto provision in the recently passed infrastructure legislation. While much of the legislation focuses on rebuilding the communications infrastructure within the US and shifting energy to more green generation resources, a provision buried within it allowed bigger surveillance of the crypto sector by the US government. All transactions above $10,000 are supposed to be reported to the tax department of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) starting from 2024. This new bill aims to limit the impact of this provision by redefining the term “broker” and to allow certain sectors an exemption from reporting crypto transactions.

The US Treasury secretary was also in the news and he claimed that the digital currency sector isn’t going to affect US sanctions, especially state sponsored digital currencies like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Wally Adeyemo, the current deputy treasury secretary stated that the USD will remain the dominant currency in the world even in the face of the rising tide of cryptocurrencies. 

The Non Fungible Token (NFT) sector is seeing more and more sales but the general public and investors are yet to enter it as a report shows that ownership remains highly concentrated. The findings from various analysts show that despite a big rise to $5.6 billion in NFT sales, top 16% of the NFT collectors now own a whopping 81% of the total NFT sales. While this is asymmetric and needs to be addressed, the art sector is generally very concentrated when it comes to ownership with the world’s elite owning more than anybody else. The NFT sector is apparently following the fine arts model right now. 

The Reserve Bank of Australia has warned Australian citizens against investing in digital “fad” cryptocurrencies. The bank singled out meme coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu and stated that the sector could collapse if the regulators stepped in.

Bitcoin Recovers Slightly to $58k

Bitcoin is currently trading at around $58k at press time. The cryptocurrency was entrenched throughout the day and looked to fight another big bearish charge but survived it for today at least.

The last 24 hours started with the index at around $58k and had little net change at the end of the day. However, in between there were some considerable price movements, almost all of them trending downwards. At 10:15 PM last night, the index began to drop. It kept dropping steadily and recorded a 24 hour low of around $55.8k at 4:50 AM in the morning. It made a weak recovery above $57k afterwards and has remained largely above it ever since. At press time, it is trading at around $58k.

Going forward, Bitcoin is reeling from this latest price decrease and that has led to some bulls becoming unsure about its immediate short-term bullish setup. However, the bulls can negate this move with a solid move above $60k and then carrying on further. The bears on the other hand can smell blood and they would fight tooth and nail to bring the index further down below $56k.

The total market capitalization of Bitcoin was around $1.1 trillion at press time and its share of the proceedings dropped to 42.67%.

Altcoins Post Stronger Recoveries

As Bitcoin dived below $57k earlier in the day, altcoins followed suit but as BTC recovered slowly from these multi-month lows, alts recovered fast enough, many outperforming it in the process. The biggest gainers of today were Binance Coin (BNB, 8.5%), Solaan (SOL, 9.5%), Shiba Inu (SHIBA, 10%), Avalanche (AVAX, 10%) and Stellar (XLM, 8%). Much of the rest of the market also fared better than Bitcoin too.

In Other News…..

“Fear” Returns to Bitcoin as Traders Believe Long-term HODLers Remain Unaffected

According to the Crypto Greed and Fear Index, Bitcoin has slid back into the fear territory after spending a lot of time in the greed section. However, elite traders are unsure about the matter and gave mixed responses. 

According to popular Dutch Trader Michael Van de Poppe, we are in for a quick rebound from this. Delphi Capital also echoed the same thing and said that a quick response was expected from the bulls. However, another much followed trader named after movie character John Wick said that many traders were worried as the bears appear strong enough.

However, everyone agrees that long-term HODLers need not panic from the latest decrease in prices. They can continue to stand strong.

The CEO of Citadel, billionaire Kenneth Griffin, has observed that an Ethereum-powered crypto is likely to dethrone Bitcoin (BTC) from the top seat. Griffin’s firm is a hedge fund handling more than 40 billion USD in assets under management.

In a summit organized by The New York Times, the executive noted that “the next generation of cryptocurrencies” will revolve around an “Ethereum-based” currency rather than BTC.

According to him, the second-largest blockchain offers better “transaction speeds” while keeping the cost of sending transactions across the network low. At current rates, the ETH-powered network is slightly faster than Bitcoin.

For instance, Ethereum takes roughly five minutes to complete a transaction, while Bitcoin takes 40 minutes.

Presumably, the Citadel CEO was banking on high transactions speeds targeted by moving Ethereum from a proof of work (PoW) system like the BTC-driven network to a proof of stake (PoS) platform. Ethereum refers to its PoS version as Ethereum 2.0 or Eth2. Apart from an increase in transaction speeds, Eth2 brings low transaction costs.

Bitcoin Isn’t Commercially Viable, and Blockchain Can’t Solve “Most Problems”

The Citadel executive has on some occasions expressed his reservations towards the leading crypto. According to Griffin, the king coin isn’t commercially viable. However, he appreciates the power of the technology that underpins virtual currencies, blockchain. But, it can’t provide the solutions we need “for most problems.”

Griffin observed that despite individuals focusing on new creations, some “passion is misplaced,” especially when it involves virtual currencies.

While speaking at the NYT-hosted event, the executive noted that crypto has failed to solve “a number of issues.” Some of them touch on high electricity usage and fraud.

It costs roughly 4.1 USD for each transaction on the BTC-powered network, while Mastercard, American Express, and Visa charge between 1.4 and 3.5 percent per transaction. That’s not all. A debit card surcharge is about 0.5 percent.

Apart from the high costs, the network also contributes immensely to environmental degradation compared to other forms of payments in “use around the world today in aggregate.”

A Single BTC Transaction Has the Same Carbon Footprint as Over 2 Million Visa Transactions

Data on Bitcoin’s energy consumption show that a single BTC transaction emits harmful gases equivalent to those released by more than two million transactions on conventional platforms such as Visa. But, it’s near impossible to quantify the negative impact caused by financial institutions like banks.

BTC mining operations have been appreciated for tapping into excess power and other low-cost energy forms that would otherwise be unutilized.

While responding to whether he missed investing in crypto in the early days, Griffin said that the cryptocurrency train is “in some sense, still in the station,” implying that the crypto industry is still in its early days, and there’s a long road ahead.

As Griffin bets on Ethereum to produce the king crypto in the next generation of cryptos, the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) hit a billion-dollar valuation a few days after conducting an airdrop.  ENS provides a distributed way to crisscross the internet.

On Monday this week, ENS gave its users free tokens of the platform’s governance coin. The total coins airdropped amassed a valuation of close to 600 million USD within the day.

You Have Until May 4, 2022, To Claim Your Free ENS Tokens

Two days later, their market capitalization breached the $1 billion mark. Despite the token trying to find the right footing on prices, it’s changing hands at 55 USD. At the time of writing, the ENS token market cap had dipped to slightly above $800 million.

The free tokens went to all ENS name-holders as of October 31. Qualifying individuals have up to May 4 next year to claim their share. Note that the tokens are meant to power a decentralized autonomous organization or DAO. The DAO can vote on how the treasury is used, pricing, among other issues affecting the ENS protocol.

ENS can be thought of as a domain name service (DNS) powered by Web 3. However, ENS uses censorship-resistant .eth domains, making it a superior version of DNS.

An ENS name can also be used as an address to send or receive ETH or assets powered by the second-largest blockchain.

According to Nick Johnson, the ENS founder, the ENS token allows the project to fund itself instead of relying on grants.

Over the weekend, the Bitcoin blockchain welcomed the Taproot upgrade after an agreement from 90 percent of miners and mining pools. The soft fork happened between blocks 709,488 – 709,632, indicating the first major update since 2017.

In 2017, the BTC-powered network saw the birth of Lightning Network (LN). Another Bitcoin blockchain upgrade that happened that year is the introduction of SegWit or Segregated Witness.

LN introduced a layer two platform to enhance BTC payments. On the other hand, SegWit removed signature information from transactions hence increasing the network’s block size.

Taproot adds to these upgrades by enhancing the Bitcoin blockchain’s privacy and scripting functionalities. The latest Bitcoin soft fork achieves these through the use of Merkelized Abstract Syntax Tree or MAST. MAST helps “make smart contracts more efficient and private by only revealing the relevant parts of the contract when spending,” as noted by Hampus Sjoberg, a Bitcoin developer.

According to the developer, the upgrade also enables the network to support off-chain projects seeking to improve efficiency.

Things Won’t be Immediately Different Unless You’re a Developer

The soft fork’s successful implementation was as a result of employing Speedy Trial. With this method, 90 percent of miners “have to signal for readiness” within 2016 block intervals. The lock-in for this event was achieved back in July this year. But, this is the last time this approach is used to make upgrades to the largest blockchain.

Sjoberg noted that future updates will require the participants to look for other deployment approaches.

Bitcoin core developers such as Pieter Wuille took to social platforms to congratulate the Bitcoin community for their support. In a tweet, Wuille thanked “everyone involved for getting us this far.”

However, he noted that protocols and wallets need to be developed “on top of” the soft fork to harness “its advantages.”

While answering a question on whether things will change immediately, the Bitcoin core developer said that “unless you’re a wallet/protocol developer, probably nothing. Taking advantage of these new features requires software to make use of it. […] Happy tapping those roots, everyone!”

Bitcoin is “Litecoin’s Testnet”

Bitcoin supporters like Anthony Pompliano led the community in appreciating Bitcoin developers for such a great milestone. Pompliano tweeted, “congratulations and thank you to every developer, miner and Bitcoiner who made this happen.”

As expected, some took the chance to promote other coins such as Litecoin (LTC), a Bitcoin hard fork. For example, Litecoin’s creator, Charlie Lee, congratulated Bitcoin and thanked it “for being Litecoin’s testnet. If no issues are found with Taproot on Bitcoin, we will launch it on Litecoin.”

As Bitcoin enjoys the Taproot upgrade, Skybridge Capital’s founder, Anthony Scaramucci, has advised investors to buy BTC at current prices before it skyrockets to $500,000 per coin.

The Skybridge executive made the comments on CNBC when addressing the state of the United States economy, inflation rates, and the leading cryptocurrency. At one time, Scaramucci was the White House communications director.

“No question about that,” he said while responding to a question on whether he would urge investors to put money in BTC at prices above $64k.

Bitcoin (BTC) Will Rise “Tenfold of Where it is Today”

According to him, even at the current price levels, we are still “very, very early” to the BTC party. The Skybridge Capital founder observed that if Cathie Wood’s forecast of one billion “wallets at the end of 2024” comes to fruition, Bitcoin “will easily” change hands at 500,000 USD per piece.

He added that total Bitcoins available aren’t even enough “for every millionaire in our society.”

Recently, Cathie Wood, Ark Invest’s chief executive, also predicted a Bitcoin price of $500,000. According to wood, the price would be supported by more institutional investors including Bitcoin in their portfolios.

Wood placed the minimum portfolio allocations for corporate investors at five percent. If this happens, the Ark Invest CEO believes the price will rise “tenfold of where it is today.”

Apart from an increasing value, the Skybridge CEO said that the leading cryptocurrency also acts as a hedge against rising inflation in the United States.

Scaramucci’s sentiments were also shared by Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank star, in a recent interview with Bitcoin Magazine. When asked whether people interested in BTC should join the ecosystem, he said he would “really advise them to explore this asset.”

The crypto sector in India, the second most populous country in the world is showing record growth in recent history despite the tough economic outlook due to the Coronavirus pandemic. 

More and more investors and traders are becoming part of the emerging sector especially after the Supreme court allowed the industry to continue despite the reservations of the central Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The RBI had placed a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies in the country due to regulatory and money laundering concerns but the crypto community successfully lobbied against it in court and got much-needed reprieve earlier this year. However, this tussle is far from over and the RBI is aiming to use its own jurisdiction to suppress the growth of the sector in different ways.

A New Survey

Nevertheless, the crypto industry is enjoying extraordinary growth according to a survey by Indian blockchain media organization called Bit2Buzz. The media group conducted a survey of the local cryptocurrency exchanges and DeFi banks mushrooming across the country and got their feedback regarding various items. 

Participants asked about the Effects of Covid-19 on Blockchain Economy

The main questionnaire focused on the current uptick and how these companies are coping with the pandemic that is ravaging economies around the world. India remains one of the hardest hit countries in the world. 

Until recently, the country was under a strict lockdown for more than a couple of months that saw tens of millions of migrant workers fired from their jobs and many had to walk their way across thousands of miles to their home towns thus presenting an unprecedented crisis for the government. The lockdown has now been eased but the economic woes continue because of the new reality checks in place. 

Results

In the survey cryptocurrency exchanges including popular ones like Wazirx, Unocoin, Coindcx, Pocketbits, and Bitbns were surveyed. Blockchain-based fintech solutions Cashaa, Bank of Hodlers, and Oropocket were also sent questionnaires. 

Exchanges Report Increase in Activity

All five of the top exchanges reported considerable increase in trading volumes and activity on their platforms. Wazirx CEO Nischal Shetty reported the highest increase in trading with over 470% net increase in volume alone and new signups are at record levels too. 

DeFi Banks Report No Noticeable Impact

Interestingly, the three DeFi banks Cashaa, Bank of Hodlers, and Oropocket didn’t declare any major change due to the pandemic, positive or negative. 

Women Traders/HODLers

While the involvement of Indian women in online platforms is increasing, it is still quite low overall. According to the survey results, UnoCoin exchange showed that almost 15% of its users were female. 

This was the highest level of women participation among cryptocurrency exchanges. Other exchanges including Bitbns reported 11% while Pocketbits reported only 2%. Wazirx and Coindcx didn’t close the percentage of female users according to the survey. 

Women involvement in crypto banks on the other hand was quite high with Oropocket reporting 39% female users, Cashaa 30%, and Bank of Hodlers 5%. 

Conclusion

The nascent cryptocurrency industry within India, especially exchanges are experiencing considerable growth during recent times. However, the initial euphoria might die over time as seen elsewhere and the graph may flatten in the near future. 

But, India being a massively populated country still has a lot of potential for the future especially with respect to contributing towards a global cashless society.