Weekly recap: altcoin new all time highs

Crypto market in numbers

On 28th October, the crypto market cap exceeded the $2.5 trillion mark and remained above this level for the past week, according to CoinMarketCap. On 2nd November, it exceeded the $2.7 trillion mark. Over the week, the crypto market cap grew by 9%.

Trading volumes have shown a considerable increase compared with the previous week. For most of the week, daily trading volumes remained above $130 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The growth has been observed since 27th October. On 3rd November, the daily trading volume reached $200 billion (for the first time since 7th September), only to drop sharply to $128 billion the very same day.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index remains in the “Greed” zone for almost a month. As of 3rd November, it stands at 76 points.

Over the past week, Bitcoin dominance declined by 1.5% to 43.3%, returning to the levels observed in early October before BTC’s price growth. The decline in Bitcoin’s share has been caused by the more active growth of other cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum’s dominance grew only by 0.6% over the week, despite the fact that ETH hit new ATHs several times over the past few days.

The 30-day bitcoin volatility index continues to decline. Over the past week, it dropped by 0.44% to 3.24%. Such a downward trend has been observed for almost a month after the index reached 4.55% on 6th October – its highest value since the beginning of July.

All Time High

Gainers of the week (28th October – 3rd November 2021)

Losers of the week (28th October – 3rd November 2021)

Easily track gainers and losers within the Simple trade section on EXMO. Check real-time updates in the last 24 hours, week and month.

Segmentation of cryptocurrencies based on trading results (28th October – 3rd November 2021)

Most traded coins (27th October – 2nd November 2021)

Top crypto market driving factors

The overall crypto market

▲ 27.10.2021 – The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released official statistics on the US economy for the third quarter of 2021. According to the report, the U.S. economy grew at a 2% rate in the third quarter, which was well below market forecasts of 2.7% and sharply lower than 6.7% in the second quarter.

▲▼ 02.11.2021 – JPMorgan: Digital assets’ return is expected to climb to 15% in 2022, which is much higher than the expected gain from traditional and alternative assets – 5% and 11%, respectively. Cryptocurrencies may advance, but they are unlikely to be stable and therefore can not be recommended as a core holding.

Bitcoin (BTC)

▲ 28.10.2021 – El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, announced on social media that his government acquired 420 more bitcoin to take advantage of its recent price drop.

▲ 28.10.2021 –MicroStrategy CEO, Michael Sailor, said that he currently holds 17,732 BTC, which he bought at an average price of $9,882 each. They are now worth over $1 billion.

▲ 29.10.2021 – MicroStrategy continues to invest in bitcoin. In the third quarter, the company acquired nearly 9,000 BTC. As a result, it now owns more than 114,000 BTC – about 0.5% of bitcoin’s supply.

▲31.10.2021 – It has been 13 years since Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin Whitepaper.

▲ 01.11.2021 – CoinShares: Over the past week, inflows into Bitcoin ETFs have decreased five times – to $53 million. For the month of October, Bitcoin funds saw inflows totalling $2 billion.

▼ 02.11.2021 – JPMorgan: The fair value for bitcoin is $35,000. Should the relative volatility get halved next year, then a price target of $73,000 seems reasonable.

▲ 03.11.2021 – Chainalysis: ​​Bitcoin whale holdings reached a 2021 high over the past week. The balance of wallets containing at least 1,000 BTC has increased by 142,000 Bitcoins.

Ethereum (ETH)

▲ 27.10.2021 – Altair Beacon Chain update for Ethereum 2.0 has started successfully.

▲ 27.10.2021 – The amount of ether burned on a daily basis has once again exceeded the amount of ETH mined, according to The Block. With the exception of 31st October, ether remained deflationary through 2nd November.

▲ 27.10.2021 – Whale Alert: whales carried out around a dozen of massive Ethereum transactions, shifting an astounding 460,792 ETH worth 1.42 billion.

▲ 29.10.2021 – Fundstrat: Ethereum’s transaction rate, new addresses and active addresses showed strong growth in October after suffering considerable declines in May.

▲ 01.11.2021 – Goldman Sachs: Ether price could rise to $8,000 by the end of the year if historical correlation with inflationary expectations persists.

▲ 01.11.2021 – CoinShares: Ethereum broke the streak of outflows with inflows totalling $16.6 million over the past week. In October, the second biggest crypto saw total outflows of $0.7 million.

▲ 02.11.2021 – Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to launch Micro Ether futures on 6th December.

▲ 02.11.2021 – Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart stated that an Ethereum futures exchange-traded fund could be approved by the SEC as soon as the first quarter of 2022.

Cardano (ADA)

▲ 30.10.2021 – Ardana, Cardano’s DeFi and stablecoin hub, has raised $10 million of investment including previous strategic funding rounds.

XRP (XRP)

▲ 29.10.2021 – Ripple has recorded an increase of 211% QoQ in its XRP sales, according to the company’s latest Q3 report. All token sales in Q3 2021 were attributed to Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service, which marked a record quarter.

Polkadot (DOT)

▲ 01.11.2021 – The motion to enable parachain registration and crowdloans has passed Polkadot’s council and gone to a public referendum. If passed, the first parachain registration may start on 4th November 2021.

▲ 01.11.2021 – CoinShares: Over the past week, Polkadot saw inflows totalling $6.2 million. This is the highest level ever reported by CoinShares since July this year. Prior to this, the biggest ever Polkadot inflows were recorded two weeks earlier totalling $3.6 million.

Dogecoin (DOGE)

▲ 01.11.2021 – Burger King teams up with Robinhood to give away 20 BTC, 200 ETH and 2,000,000 DOGE to members of its Royal Perks loyalty program in the U.S.

Litecoin (LTC)

▲ 01.11.2021 – CoinShares: Litecoin saw inflows totalling $1.3 million last week and $1.7 million in October. The increase in inflows has been observed over the last two weeks – for the first time since mid-September.

▲ 03.11.2021 – Commonwealth Bank (CBA) will become Australia’s first bank to offer customers the ability to buy, sell and hold bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and litecoin.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

▲ 03.11.2021 – Commonwealth Bank (CBA) will become Australia’s first bank to offer customers the ability to buy, sell and hold bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and litecoin.

Tron (TRX)

▲ 30.10.2021 – TRON has officially launched a cross-chain scaling solution BitTorrent Chain (BTTC) which is already compatible with TRON, Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

Waves (WAVES)

▲ 28.10.2021 – Russian artist, Pokras Lampas, has created an exclusive NFT duck for the Waves Ducks blockchain game launched on the Waves network. The digital work was bought by an anonymous buyer at a record price of $55,000.

Zcash (ZEC)

▲ 28.10.2021 – A decentralised cryptocurrency focused on privacy and anonymity, Zcash, celebrated its fifth anniversary.

Crypto market trends

Regulation

? The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) updated its 2019 Guidance for a Risk-Based Approach to Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers. The organisation has set standards for the DeFi and NFT sectors. NTFs are not considered to be VAs under the FATF definition, while decentralised applications are not VASPs. At the same time, any natural or legal person who conducts the administration of virtual assets or instruments enabling control over virtual assets can be considered VASPs.

? Crypto trade associations reported an unprecedented third quarter for lobbying spending amid high-profile fights in Congress over a trillion-dollar infrastructure package.

? The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is looking for a candidate to be appointed for the position of Director of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, who will focus on investigating cryptocurrency crimes.

? The FSB of the Russian Federation has issued a draft order on expanding the powers of the department’s employees, which will allow them to request information from crypto exchanges.

? The Digital Transformation Committee at the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, has discussed the amended draft law “On Virtual Assets” that had been returned to the legislature by President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier in October. The Committee supported and recommended the adoption of the law. If lawmakers adopt it again, this time the president will be obliged to sign it into law within 10 days, in accordance with the country’s constitution.

CBDC and stablecoins

? On 28th October, the US Congress Group sent the SEC a proposal to exempt stablecoins and crypto-savings accounts from regulation. Banks and trust companies can offer similar services. Money transfer providers also have similar products. In all these cases, the law defines the minimum capital requirements and sets the investment limit.

? The US Treasury released a report on the risks associated with stablecoins. The agency stated that the use of stablecoins presents risks related to market integrity and investor protection and proposed to equate stablecoin issuers with depository institutions with compulsory deposit insurance, which will make them subject to the same stringent regulations as those of banks.

? Mastercard is preparing for the deployment of CBDCs as well as helping government and private banks adopt the new form of money.

? European Central Bank (ECB) forms a 30-member advisory group for exploring a digital euro. The committee is composed of financial experts from companies like IKEA, Bankart, Stripe, BBVA, and Deutsche Bank AG. The discovery phase is expected to last up to 24 months.

? Hong Kong’s regulators, along with the People’s Bank of China and other central banks have joined a global central bank digital currency initiative called the Multiple CBDC Bridge to test CBDCs.

Acceptance of cryptocurrencies

? The Bitcoin Fund, launched by Canadian firm 3iQ Digital Asset Management, has received regulatory approval from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).

? The U.S. luxury car dealer, Post Oak Motor Cars, has begun accepting Bitcoin as payment for cars. The company announced that it has already sold its first car for cryptocurrency – the Rolls Royce Ghost.

? Mastercard has acquired CipherTrace, a blockchain analytics and cryptocurrency intelligence software provider, for an undisclosed amount. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2021.

? Amazon Web Services (AWS) published a job listing for a principal digital assets specialist.

? Commonwealth Bank will become the first bank in Australia to provide customers with the ability to buy, sell and store cryptocurrency through its own CommBank app. The new feature will pilot its launch in the coming weeks and will become available to a wide range of customers in 2022. The bank will support 10 cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and litecoin.

? The Brazilian taxi major, 99, has enabled the sale and purchase of Bitcoin through its 99Pay digital wallet app.

Crypto ETFs

? The U.S. SEC continues to receive applications related to bitcoin ETFs: more than 40 companies and funds await U.S. regulatory approval.

? The U.S. SEC does not appear to be moving in a direction to approve an application for a leveraged bitcoin futures ETF, earlier submitted by Valkyrie. The SEC also pushed back its decision on the Valkyrie spot bitcoin ETF to 7th January 2022.

? Australia’s securities regulator issued criteria for crypto-asset ETPs, including ETF and other structured products.

? Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission has received multiple requests for crypto ETFs and is now reviewing its regulatory regime for virtual assets.

Big business

? Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group sold shares in a deal that valued the crypto conglomerate at $10 billion. The funding round was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and Latin America Fund and included GIC Capital, Ribbit Capital and Alphabet’s CapitalG.

? Some of the biggest banks and financial firms have added about 1,000 crypto-related roles since 2018. According to LinkedIn, the number of such positions increased by 615% over the year.

? To compete in the world of digital assets, American banks are lobbying regulators to create uniform rules around cryptocurrency-focused lenders and other companies that transfer money and offer services similar to banking, reported The New York Times, citing anonymous sources.

NFT, gaming and metaverse

? Facebook has announced a massive rebranding and a reorientation to create its own metaverse, changing its company name to Meta. The new project also plans to support NFT. Besides Mark Zuckerberg’s company, Apple, Microsoft, Nike and Epic Games have also announced the development of products for the metaverse.

? Amid Facebook’s announcement, some tokens of gaming decentralised projects have shown significant growth. The tokens of the two largest metaverse by capitalisation – Decentraland (MANA) and The Sandbox (SAND) – have risen in price by 45.8% and 28.6%, respectively. A few days later, SAND quadrupled in value, setting the new ATH at $3.33.

? The Sandbox platform raised $93 million in a funding round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. The raised investments will help the company add NFT to the gameplay for monetisation.

? CoinMarketCap will create its virtual space in the Blocktopia metaverse based on the Polygon blockchain.

? Investment company, Sfermion, raised $100 million for a new fund. Its goal is to accelerate the emergence of a decentralised metaverse.

? According to media, Patreon is considering allowing creators to monetise their communities via crypto social tokens.

? McDonald’s US has launched its first non-fungible tokens (NFTs). A limited edition of 10 McRib NFTs in the U.S. are not available for purchase, but will be raffled among Twitter followers.

? Leading PC gaming company Ubisoft plans to start developing blockchain games with support for tokens and NFTs.

? Mass media suggests that American video game and consumer electronics retail giant GameStop may be working on a massive non-fungible token marketplace based on Ethereum. The platform may be launched already this quarter.

? Major Chinese tech giants Ant Group, Tencent and JD.com signed a “self-regulation” convention on non-fungible tokens (NFTs). They are committed to countering the issuance of any cryptocurrency and preventing speculation and financial risks associated with NFTs.

EXMO news

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