Cryptocurrency News by Bitcoin Romania, October 2021

Fri | 15.10.2021

FX & Currency

Cryptocurrency News by Bitcoin Romania, October 2021

In this cryptocurrency era, things are moving faster than ever, so you'd better keep one eye constantly on the market changes. Find out what are the top performance leaders in the past 5 days.

US LAWMAKERS URGE FED CHAIR JEROME POWELL TO SUPPORT CRYPTO INNOVATION

Several U.S. Congress members have sent a letter to Fed Chair Jerome Powell asking him several questions regarding the Fed’s effort on cryptocurrency regulation. The bipartisan letter is signed by Reps. Tom Emmer, Darren Soto, Frank Lucas, Ted Budd, Ro Khanna, Glenn “GT” Thompson, and Eric Swalwell.

Rep. Emmer described:

Empowering individual Americans to become everyday investors should be our highest priority – decentralized digital assets provide that opportunity. The Federal Reserve must work to support domestic innovation … Our government should never be in the business of thwarting innovation.

PROS AND CONS FOR EL SALVADOR THE FIRST BITCOIN NATION

El Salvador will on Tuesday become the first country in the world to recognize bitcoin as legal tender, a move President Nayib Bukele says will save Salvadorans living abroad millions of dollars in commissions on money they send home.

Despite Bukele's popularity, the move has been greeted with skepticism by many Salvadorans who are concerned about the cryptocurrency's volatility and how his scheme will work.

BANK OF AMERICA RESEARCHES “TO LARGE TO IGNORE” DIGITAL ASSETS

Bank of America has launched digital assets research coverage nearly three months after forming a crypto group.

In its coverage, the bank highlighted companies from payment providers and banks to utilities to media giants.

Digital assets are a $2 trillion market with 200 million users, according to a Bank of America press release, and the sector is “too large to ignore,” a group of analysts led by Alkesh Shah wrote in a new research note.

“We believe crypto-based digital assets could form an entirely new asset class,” the analysts said, adding:

“Bitcoin is important with a market value of ~$900bn, but the digital asset ecosystem is so much more: tokens that act like operating systems, decentralized applications (DApps) without middlemen, stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to replace national currencies, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) enabling connections between creators and fans.”

Bank of America noted that venture capital investments in digital assets and blockchain technology surpassed $17 billion in the first half of 2021, “dwarfing” the $5.5 billion from the same period last year.

“This creates a new generation of companies for digital assets trading, offerings and new applications across industries, including finance, supply chain, gaming and social media. And yet we’re still in the early innings,” the analysts wrote.

CRYPTO TRANSACTIONS SURGE IN ASIA 706%

Emerging markets across Central and Southern Asia have registered a dramatic uptick in cryptocurrency transactions, highlighting a diverse range of motivations among locals for gaining exposure to digital assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

New research from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis finds that crypto transactions surged 706% in Central and Southern Asia and Oceania — a broad region that includes countries such as India, Pakistan and Vietnam — between July 2020 and June 2021. In dollar terms, the value of the transactions amounted to $572.5 billion, or 14% of the global transaction value.

Institutional and large payments accounted for the highest percentage of transactions, offering further evidence of smart money adoption of cryptocurrency. This trend was most pronounced in India, where large institutional-sized transfers above $10 million represented 42% of transactions. For Vietnam and Pakistan, that figure was 29% and 28%, respectively.

The study is the second installment of a series of regional reports by Chainalysis on cryptocurrency transactions. The first report, which was released last week, found that the region of Central, Northern and Western Europe has become the world’s largest crypto economy, with over $1 trillion in transactions over the same 12-month period. Institutional transactions in Europe amounted to $46.3 billion in June 2021, up from $1.4 billion in July 2020.

BITCOIN VERSUS GOLD: WHICH IS THE FUTURE OF INVESTMENTS?

Has gold lost its shine? The last 20 years would certainly show gold as an asset that’s just grown over time but 2021 is a different story. Gold is down by 9% while other classes including real estate, equities and the dollar have risen. What’s surprising is that the dollar value generally moves in tandem with precious metals, but even the greenback has grown by 3% this year.

During a recession, the typical course of action would be to use gold as a hedge against stock market volatility.

THE BIGGEST CRYPTO ECONOMY

Central, Northern, & Western Europe (CNWE) has the biggest crypto economy in the world, receiving over USD 1trn worth of crypto over the last year, which represents 25% of global activity, according to Chainalysis. Having ranked second last year, CNWE’s new position in the top spot is the result of tremendous growth starting in July 2020, combined with a relative decline in activity in Eastern Asia, they added.

Crypto payments company BitPay and retail payments company Verifone have announced the extension of BitPay’s blockchain payment technology to enable consumer cryptocurrency payments on Verifone’s in-store and eCommerce Cloud Services platforms in the US. Merchants will be able to accept crypto payments directly from Verifone without the need for an account with BitPay, while consumers will be able to pay using approved crypto wallets.

This article is provided by our Cryptocurrency Partner, Bitcoin Romania.

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