Weekly recap: NFTs hit new records, Facebook-backed stablecoin ready to launch

Crypto market in numbers

According to CoinMarketCap, the cryptocurrency market cap remains above $2 trillion.

There have been no significant changes in trading volumes. As of 26th August, the daily trading volume is estimated to be at $116 billion.

The Fear and Greed Index remains in the “Greed” zone with the current value at 75 points.

On 23rd August, Bitcoin managed to break the $50,000 mark. On 26th August, its price dropped by almost 7%, from a more than 3-month high. Despite this, Bitcoin is up for the fifth straight week.

The Bitcoin 30-day volatility index is still low. According to CryptoCompare, it has dropped from 3.52% to 3.33%, over the past eight weeks, after a slight increase a week earlier.

Bitcoin’s dominance of the crypto market remains almost unchanged at 43.9%.

All Time High

Coin	Date	ATH on EXMO, $
ADA	24.08.2021	2.91
CRON	21.08.2021	2.59

Gainers of the week (19th – 26th August 2021)

Coin	Opening price 19.08, $	Opening price 26.08, $	Change
XTZ	3.36	4.98	48.1%
HAI	0.10	0.14	43.3%
ONG	0.84	1.13	34.1%
OMG	5.25	6.80	29.6%
ADA	2.13	2.74	29.1%

Losers of the week (19th – 26th August 2021)

Coin	Opening price 19.08, $	Opening price 26.08, $	Change
HP	0.001797	0.000984	-45.2%
GNY	0.42	0.39	-8.2%
ROOBEE	0.0058	0.0054	-7.3%
DOGE	0.31	0.29	-3.7%
BTT	0.00404	0.00394	-2.7%

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 (19th – 26th August 2021)

Most traded coins (18th – 25th August 2021)

Coin	Trading volumes, $
BTC	54,625,587
ETH	31,844,513
XRP	20,669,092
ADA	5,064,809
DASH	3,125,940
DOGE	2,908,843
LTC	2,269,504
ROOBEE	1,873,423
CRON	1,624,519
BCH	1,419,605

Top crypto market driving factors

Bitcoin (BTC) and the overall crypto market

▲ 19.08.2021 – Glassnode: Bitcoin exchange flows have returned to the dominance levels of outflows through August. One of the largest BTC outflows of more than 111,000 has been observed over the past 30 days.

▲19.08.2021 – BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, allocated over $382 million to shares of two BTC mining firms – Marathon Digital Holdings and Riot Blockchain.

▼ 19.08.2021 – Bitcoin Magazine: Bitcoin’s on-chain transaction volume has hit a five-year all-time low.

▲ 20.08.2021 – Wells Fargo investment bank has filed with the U.S. SEC for a private Bitcoin fund.

▲ 21.08.2021 – In a week, Hong Kong and mainland China markets have lost more than $560 billion in market value.

▲ 23.08.2021 – CoinShares: between 16th and 22nd August 2021, Bitcoin investment products and funds registered first inflows following a six week run of outflows.

▼ 23.08.2021 – CoinShares: between 16th and 22nd August 2021, Bitcoin saw its seventh straight week of outflows totalling $2.8m. Over the course of the month, $57.5 million was pulled out from Bitcoin products by institutional investors.

▼ 23.08.2021 – Glassnode: on-chain activity for Bitcoin remains at historically low levels. Similarly, transaction volumes are decreasing: the average daily volume is 57.6% below the peak set in May.

▲ 23.08.2021 – Glassnode: between 16th and 22nd August 2021, a noticeable uptick in the spending of older coins, particularly those older than 6-months, was observed. At the same time, the supply held by long-term holders reached an all-time high.

▲ 23.08.2021 – CryptoQuant: the BTC network hashrate tripled over the past two months.

▲▼ 24.08.2021 – Microstrategy revealed that it purchased 3,907 additional bitcoins for about $177 million. The company now holds 108,992 bitcoins (around $3 billion in value).

▼ 24.08.2021 – Santiment: $12 billion worth of Bitcoin was deposited to exchanges in a 24 hour period.

▼ 24.08.2021 – The House of Representatives has rejected an amendment to the Infrastructure Bill’s crypto tax provision.

▲ 25.08.2021 – Mass media: the U.S. Treasury Department does not intend to apply an overly broad definition of “broker” to market participants, even if the tax reporting provision isn’t amended.

▲ 25.08.2021 – Morgan Stanley increases its crypto exposure by opening a large position in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust through its various funds.

Ethereum (ETH)

▲ 18.08.2021 – CryptoQuant: ETH reserve for all exchanges maintained a downward trend, renewing a two-year low.

▼ 18.08.2021 – Santiment: the Ethereum price rally is not supported by price volumes and on-chain metrics.

▲ 19.08.2021 – Fund managers, VanEck and ProShares, have filed with the U.S. SEC for an Ethereum-based exchange-traded fund (ETF).

▼ 21.08.2021 – VanEck and ProShares have both withdrawn their applications with the SEC for approval of ETH-based ETFs.

▲ 21.08.2021 – Swiss cryptocurrency trading platform, Bitcoin Suisse, and payments firm, Worldline, have collaborated on a crypto payment service that allows over 85,000 merchants in Switzerland to accept payments in Bitcoin and Ether.

▲ 24.08.2021 – Ethereum Foundation receives a $1.5 million donation from six crypto companies to fund Ethereum 2.0.

▼ 24.08.2021 – Santiment: $2 billion of Ether was deposited to exchanges in a 24 hour period.

Cardano (ADA)

▲ 18.08.2021 – Cardano reveals that djed is a crypto-backed algorithmic stablecoin contract that acts as an autonomous bank.

▲ 23.08.2021 – CoinShares: between 16th and 22nd August 2021, institutional investors were betting on Solana and Cardano investment products. Over the week, Cardano saw inflows of $6.4 million, which equates to 9.4% of all Cardano investment products.

Dogecoin (DOGE)

▲ 18.08.2021 – Dogecoin Foundation is reportedly intending to open its headquarters in Liechtenstein. The foundation’s new advisory board includes Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin.

▲▼ 20.08.2021 – BitInfoCharts: more than 6% ($2.5 billion) of the total Dogecoin supply is stored on three active addresses.

Tron (TRX)

▼19.08.2021 – TRON founder, Justin Sun’s social media account on Weibo has been blocked again.

XRP (XRP)

▼ 18.08.2021 – The former director of the U.S. SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance stated that he warned Ripple to stop selling XRP as an unregistered security.

Tezos (XTZ)

▲ 24.08.2021 – Three crypto-focused firms in Switzerland – Crypto Finance AG, InCore Bank and Inacta – are using the Tezos blockchain to offer tokenised assets to institutional clients. InCore has also announced that it will launch institutional-grade trading, storage, and staking services for the Tezos network.

Crypto market trends

Regulation

? The U.S. Treasury Department (USDT) will not target non-brokers, such as miners, hardware developers and others, even if the cryptocurrency tax reporting provision in the $1 trillion Infrastructure Bill won’t be amended, a Treasury official tells CNBC Make It. According to the spokesperson, USDT plans to take time to undertake research to understand which crypto players are capable of complying with tax reporting requirements for brokers.

? The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has said that the agency could regulate DeFi projects.

? Japan’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) intends to replace and impose new crypto regulations by mid-2022. Back in July, the FSA established a dedicated section, as well as a panel of financial experts, to help the government oversee digital and decentralised finance.

? Northern Shandong province’s high court said in a public comment that “cryptocurrency is not protected by law” after reviewing a case involving virtual tokens.

Acceptance of cryptocurrencies

? According to blockchain analytics firm, Chainalysis, Vietnam has become the fastest adopter of crypto over the past year. Some distance behind are India, Pakistan and Ukraine. The USA, China and the Russian Federation are ranked 8th, 13th and 18th, respectively.

? According to Finder’s survey, Vietnam had the highest adoption rate, with 41% of respondents claiming to have purchased crypto. The adoption rate was 30% in India and Indonesia, 29% in Malaysia and 22% in Brazil. The rates were lowest in the United Kingdom and the United States at 8% and 9%, respectively.

? According to Chainalysis, DeFi adoption is strongest in high-income countries. However, the company analysts believe that large-scale DeFi adoption remains a distant prospect.

? According to Deloitte’s 2021 Global Blockchain Survey, 76% of executives across the globe, think digital assets will be a “strong alternative to or replacement for” fiat in the next five to ten years.

? Starting from 23rd August 2021, PayPal has allowed customers in the UK to buy, sell and hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, PayPal users can’t move their crypto holdings outside the app.

? Swiss crypto platform, Bitcoin Suisse, and payment firm, Worldline, have collaborated on a crypto payment service that allows over 85,000 merchants in Switzerland to accept payments in Bitcoin and Ether.

? The second-largest U.S. mortgage lender, United Wholesale Mortgage, expects to accept Bitcoin by the end of 2021.

? El Salvador’s president has announced that the infrastructure is already being built ahead of the country’s Bitcoin adoption as legal tender. The country’s official bitcoin wallet, Chivo, as well as 200 ATMs and 50 branches capable of converting Bitcoin into USD, are expected to be launched by 7th September 2021. The legislation also establishes a $150 million fund that will guarantee automatic convertibility to dollars.

CBDC and stablecoins

? Digital yuan has been used for the first time for transactions in the domestic futures market by the Dalian Commodity Exchange.

? 35 Chinese banks embedded digital yuan wallets into their mobile apps.

? According to the Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey, 30% of British citizens believe a CBDC would bring more harm than good to the UK.

? Facebook is getting ready to release its stablecoin wallet, Novi, which will help facilitate easier payments. The company plans to combine it with the diem stablecoin, formerly known as Libra. The social networking website is looking to leverage its Novi wallet to help support users who wish to enter the NFT niche.

? Since the start of August, Tetherhas minted 2.3 billion new USDT tokens after a two-month hiatus. This has pushed the stablecoin’s market cap to $65 billion.

? Centre, the consortium that includes Coinbase and Circle, unveiled that all the reserves of the second-largest cryptocurrency stablecoin will shift into cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bonds. The changes will come into force at the end of September.

Big business

? According to a survey conducted by digital asset hedge fund manager, Nickel Digital, almost 75% of institutional investors plan to increase their crypto asset exposure by 2023.

? British multi-billion dollar financial services firm, Lloyds Banking Group, is looking to hire a senior digital currency and innovation manager.

? The U.S. banking giant, Wells Fargo, has filed with the SEC to register a Bitcoin fund.

Mining

? BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, with $9 trillion in assets, allocated over $382 million to shares of two Bitcoin mining firms – Marathon Digital Holdings and Riot Blockchain.
Marathon has seen its stock climb 754% in the past 12 months and Riot’s has risen 848% compared to a 288% increase in the price of bitcoin.

Riot Blockchain reported that its revenue rose to a record $34.3 million in Q2 2021, a 17 times increase from just $1.9 million in Q2 2020.

? Hong Kong-based crypto miner, BIT Mining’s total net revenue surged to $445 million in Q2 2021, a 147 times increase from just $3 million in the previous period.

? Mining companies, Argo Blockchain and Iris Energy, have filed with the U.S. SEC for Nasdaq share listing.

? Bitcoin infrastructure firm, Blockstream, has raised $210 million as part of a Series B financing, hitting a unicorn status with its latest valuation at $3.2 billion. The investment will help the company expand its mining operation, as well as build additional infrastructure with a focus on the Liquid network financial products.

? Bitmain’s chip supplier, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is reportedly increasing wafer prices by up to 20%, which could result in higher prices for Bitcoin mining machines.

? NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, expects GPU supply constraints to last for a significant portion of 2022. The demand is higher than supply due to a global chip shortage.

? China’s Yingjiang County issued a notice to hydropower plants to delist mining facilities from their grid’s “illegal” supply until 24th August 2021. After the deadline, it will “forcibly dismantle” the hydropower supply to Bitcoin mining establishments within its jurisdiction. Yingjiang is the first Chinese county to take such measures. Earlier, Chinese authorities have given miners the opportunity to shut down gradually.

? On 22nd September 2021, the Iranian government will lift the ban on cryptocurrency mining, introduced in late spring this year.

NFT and gaming

? Since the beginning of August, more than 620,000 ETH – worth $2 billion – have been processed on the OpenSea marketplace. A record daily trading volume of $200 million was set on 23rd August.

? Visa acquired NFT CryptoPunk for its collection of “commercial artifacts” for $150,000, which triggered a sharp increase in sales of the remaining CryptoPunks tokens. According to CryptoSlam, their daily sales exceeded $111 million, which became a new all-time high. For the entire month of July, their sales totalled $135.2 million.

? According to DappRadar, blockchain games with token farming are increasing on-chain activity. The sector boomed in July this year. The number of unique addresses connected to smart contracts grew by 121% over the month.

? Filipino regulators want to tax Axie Infinity players and developers for earning money in the country. Other play-to-earn projects can also come under the tax initiative. In addition, the issue of whether gaming NFT Axie can be treated as securities, is under discussion.

? Vine mobile app co-founder, Dom Hofmann, announced the Supdrive blockchain console, which uses NFTs as virtual cartridges for games.

EXMO news

EXMO supports Neo N3 migration, although the exact date of the migration is still to be announced. All NEO and GAS holders will receive new tokens in a 1:1 ratio.

That’s all for this week! Follow EXMO on YouTube, Twitter and Telegram to stay tuned to the main events and trends in the crypto market.

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