Split $300K by Entering Futures Trading Competition_ Tesla officially accepts dogecoin_ Goldman Sachs predicts four interest rate hikes in 2022

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TA Highlight: Cryptocurrency markets slumped

After last week's big dive, the cryptocurrency market is returning to a steady state this week.

This week, BTC spot achieved price gains in five trading days and broke through the price high of $44,418.93 during the week. The BTC spot price hit a low point below $40,000 this week, but quickly rebounded and then entered an uptrend for two consecutive days.

The extreme changes in the BTC spot price this week illustrate that the long and short sides are fighting fiercely in the current state of the market. The lowest BTC spot price that appeared on the 10th may have been a pinch induced by the BTC short side.

In terms of technical indicators, the BTC spot MACD was about to show a golden cross buy signal on the 14th. This week, BTC spot is also gradually approaching the middle line of the Bollinger band.

On the whole, this week's BTC spot price trend has broken away from last week's downtrend.

The ETH spot price also saw a halt to its decline on the 11th.

Like BTC, ETH spot also saw its lowest price on the 10th, the lowest level since October 2021.

The two major cryptocurrencies saw a single-day price breakdown at the same time this week, which is worth noting for investors. Looking at the technical indicators, the ETH spot MACD is closing in, but no crossover has occurred yet. BTC is ahead of ETH in this price pullback.

Crypto Alerts

Dogecoin Surges 11% as Payments Go Live on Tesla Store

The online store displays pricing information in both U.S. dollars and dogecoin. The Giga Texas Belt Buckle lists for 835 DOGE (≈$155.5); the Cyberquad sells for 12,020 DOGE (≈$2,296), while a Cyberwhistle goes for 300 DOGE (≈$57).

The move comes nearly a month after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in December 2021 that the electric-car maker would accept dogecoin as payment for its merchandise. “Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes,” he said at the time.

Dogecoin was trading at $0.19 at the time of writing and is the world’s 11th largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $24 billion.

Grayscale: 5 Key Trends to Watch in 2022

Greyscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein released the first half of 2022's investor letter this week, highlighting 5 key trends to watch in 2022:

1. Crypto infrastructure development;
2. More protocols than ever before;
3. Web3 and metaverse expansion;
4. NFT will have use cases that are beyond digital art;
5. New regulations and policies

Next Up for Chainlink in 2022: LINK Staking and ‘Internet of Blockchains’

Chainlink started out by providing cryptocurrency price data, from a handful of sources, to DeFi protocols like lending platform Aave. But these days, it consists of a lot more.

Chainlink will launch staking this year, allowing LINK holders to secure the network by locking up some of their LINK into the protocol, and earning rewards.

While Chainlink’s data capabilities formed the focus of its scaling efforts in 2021, the past year has also seen the oracle provider launch additional capabilities for its networks—most notably random number generation (in cryptography, verifiable random function or VRF) and its smart contract service Keepers, which enables the automation of increasingly complex instructions.

Market Updates

Goldman Now Expects Four Fed Hikes, Sees Faster Runoff in 2022

According to Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the Federal Reserve will likely raise interest rates four times this year and will start its balance sheet runoff process in July, if not earlier.

In its December meeting minutes, Fed officials signaled they are preparing to move quicker than the last time they tightened monetary policy in a bid to keep the U.S. economy from overheating amid high inflation and near-full employment.

These conditions -- along with a larger balance sheet that’s suppressing longer-term borrowing costs -- could warrant a potentially faster pace of policy rate normalization.

Mike Tyson, $DREAM, and Solana

Tyson has become a notable celebrity figure in the world of digital assets, and the New York native followed up his support of Solana by promoting the cryptocurrency $DREAM which operates The Dream Foundation – a registered charity that donates to mental health causes.

According to TheDreamChain’s website, its token $DREAM is only available for trade between the standard stock exchange hours of 9:30am to 4:00pm, with the idea being that 24/7 trading is causing a mental health crisis amongst crypto traders.

The project states that it will divert 0.5% of all transaction fees to its own foundation, which will donate funds to mental health charities or use the capital to sign partnerships with non-profit organizations.

Fidelity expects more sovereign nations to acquire Bitcoin in 2022

According to the Fidelity’s 2021 roundup, last year was marked with opposed developments when it comes to cryptocurrency adoption.

And while it’s still too early to tell which path was more successful, the company said the high-stakes game theory at play will lead more countries to follow El Salvador and adopt cryptocurrencies.

The asset manager believes that acquiring Bitcoin today is a small cost to be paid today as a hedge compared to a potentially much higher cost in the future.

Simply put, the benefits of putting Bitcoin in its reserves outweigh the risks many governments associate with cryptocurrencies.

Global Headlines

India to approve first Bitcoin and ethereum futures ETF

Torus Kling Blockchain IFSC, a joint venture between Cosmea Financial Holdings and Kling Trading India, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with India INX to launch the country’s first Bitcoin and ethereum futures exchange-traded funds (ETFs) -- the first outside of the US.

The ETF futures are expected to be launched by the end of this fiscal under a sandbox construct of the International Financial Services Centres Authority.

The launch of the products is subject to IFSCA and other regulatory approvals.

The CEO of Torus Kling Blockchain, Krishna Mohan Meenavalli added that “Exchange traded products allow trading through regular investment accounts, bypassing the hassle and security concerns of cryptocurrency exchanges.”

Iran finalizes mechanism to use cryptocurrencies in foreign trade

The Central Bank of Iran and the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade have reached an agreement to link the CBI crypto platform to the Comprehensive Trade System, which allows businesses to make use of cryptocurrency to settle payments to international partners.

The Iranian government approved cryptocurrency mining as an industrial activity in 2020, after which numerous companies started mining cryptocurrency across the country thanks to the extremely low-cost electricity.

It currently allows cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to be mined by units while requiring them to sell crypto to the CBI. These cryptocurrencies can then be used to pay for imports, reducing the chances of suppliers being punished by the U.S. because of the sanctions imposed on Iran.

US Banks Form Group to Offer USDF Stablecoin

Founding members of the USDF Consortium include Synovus (the 48th largest bank in the U.S.), New York Community Bank (No. 45), FirstBank of Nashville (No. 144) and Sterling National Bank (No. 77). The consortium is looking for more financial institutions to join.

While these institutions are FDIC-insured, the announcement does not spell out whether the reserves backing USDF would be.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp has been considering whether stablecoin reserves should qualify for its pass-through insurance, which would cover token holders up to $250,000 if the bank holding the collateral were to fail.

USDF will be a bank-minted alternative to USDT and Circle's USDC, which account for the majority shares of the $170 billion stablecoin market.

USDT has a market cap of $79 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $56.5 billion, according to CoinGecko. USDC has a market cap of $44.5 billion with a trading volume of just under $3 billion.


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Author: Byron. B & Charles. F & Peter. L (Gate.io Researchers)
* The article only represents the researcher’s views and does not constitute any investment advice.
* Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all other cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.