This was the fourth consecutive week of losses or sideways movement for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), which returned to retreat after the release of higher-than-expected inflation indices in the US.
Bitcoin is down 2% last week and is currently trading at $19,126; Ethereum is down 3.5% to a current price of $1,282, according to data from CoinGecko.
On Monday (10), Bitcoin’s mining difficulty hit a new all-time high after soaring 14% on the day – the biggest spike since May. As the difficulty increases, miners may record smaller profits if the Bitcoin price remains inert, as more computing power and electricity are needed to mine. However, the increase in mining difficulty also indicates a strong network and increasing demand.
Ethereum supply turned deflationary over the past weekend, meaning more ETH is being burned (removed from circulation) than created. This is no surprise to supporters of the Ethereum network – it was a factor announced as expected after the Blockchain Merger – but even this news had little effect on the price this week.
The so-called “Ethereum Killers” – first-tier blockchains with smart contracts) also had a rough week, including Cardano (ADA), which is down 14% to $0.36, and Solana (SOL), which is down 9%, to $29.91.
The Solana network has also faced ongoing stability issues, though founder Anatoly Yakovenko has said that a “long-term fix” is coming and that dealing with outages is the “number one priority” for the network.
Uniswap (UNI) is down 8% to $6.13 and Chainlink (LINK) is also down 8% and is currently trading at $6.95. Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Near Protocol (NEAR) are also down around 16% this week.
Adds the adoption of cryptocurrencies
Two major institutional players announced moves to cryptocurrencies this week: Google Cloud and BNY Mellon bank.
Google’s cloud services division announced on Tuesday that it will use Coinbase to accept cryptocurrency payments early next year. Customers will be able to pay in cryptocurrencies through integration with Coinbase Commerce, a payment tool for businesses. As part of the deal, Coinbase is expected to move data-related applications from Amazon’s cloud to Google’s.
Investment banking giant BNY Mellon, one of the oldest banks in the US, on Tuesday launched a custody service for Bitcoin and Ethereum on behalf of investment firms using software developed with cryptocurrency custodian Fireblocks. BNY Mellon leveraged Chainalysis for compliance software and will store customers’ private keys in their cryptocurrency portfolios.
Perhaps a year ago, during a different economic cycle, these two moves would have moved the cryptocurrency markets. Not this week, however, amid the current negative macroeconomic environment.
More regulation in Europe and Washington
European Union lawmakers on Monday voted 28-1 to pass the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation – a landmark package of legislation that hopes to regulate cryptocurrencies within the bloc. If it survives the next round of voting, the implementation of MiCA will bring tougher demands on cryptocurrency companies, stablecoin issuers and miners.
In April last year, the G-20 (the group that brings together the 20 largest economies in the world) tasked the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) with “developing a framework that provides for the automatic exchange of relevant tax information on cryptocurrencies” between the nations. On Monday, the OECD presented its framework to the G-20.
Finance ministers and central bank governors met in Washington at the end of the week to review the 100-page Crypto Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and suggested changes to the group’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS).
As early as Wednesday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and six other US Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Pablo Vegas, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), calling Texas a “deregulated safe haven” for mining operations. cryptocurrency mining and requesting information about the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining operations in the state of Texas.
Finally, this week brought yet another rejection by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, for the request to create a spot Bitcoin ETF, this time from the Cboe BZX Exchange.
*Translated with permission from decrypt
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