Eth2 rebrands to Consensus Layer, Elon Musk fails to boost DOGE, YouTube gaming head switches to Polygon Studios: Hodler’s Digest, Jan 23-28
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This Week
Analysts say Bitcoin’s bounce at $36K means ‘it’s time to start thinking about a bottom’
Bitcoin had a turbulent week, its price dropping as low as $33,300 and surging as high as $38,000 before retracting back to the $36,000 region at the time of writing.
Many analysts have attributed the uninspiring performance of BTC, along with other assets such as stocks, to macro factors such as expectations that the United States Federal Reserve will embark on several in (MYF) at -99.97%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“Overall, the Fed is comfortable with equity and risk markets selling off as it tightens financial conditions and so could reduce inflation. Bond yields have risen after the meetings, equity and crypto markets have given back gains. The Fed continues to add downside risks to risky markets.”
Bilal Hafeez, CEO and head of research at Macro Hive
“Facebook seems to be the antithesis of what actual consumers want their digital futures to look like. […] Mark [Zuckerberg] and his team are not the best custodians of our digital futures.”
Michael Auerbach, founder of Subversive Capital
“We need simplicity of usage. We need easy programmability. We need composability that is natural to the applications. I don’t see the current Ethereum evolutions targeting any of those goals.”
Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of Near Protocol
“Of course, we also have certain competitive advantages here, especially in the so-called mining. I mean the surplus of electricity and the well-trained personnel available in the country.”
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
“We’re not necessarily out there looking for celebrities, but when they make a blatant or open comment that says ‘Hey, IRS, you should probably come look at me,’ that’s what we do.”
Ryan Korner, IRS criminal investigation agent
“El Salvador just bought 410 Bitcoin for only 15 million dollars. Some guys are selling really cheap.”
Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador
“I will eat a Happy Meal on TV if McDonald’s accepts Dogecoin.”
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
“When it comes to custody, customers want to wake up in the morning knowing their assets are still there. Security in the digital asset space has evolved over the last few years to provide better control and better transparency — that’s why most of us are using multi-party computation today,”
Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks
Prediction of the Week
ETH to hit $20-trillion market cap by 2030: Ark Invest
Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest bullishly predicted that Ether could reach a total market cap of around $20 trillion within the next 10 years, suggesting an average ETH price of between $170,000 and $180,000.
The optimistic prediction came via Ark’s “Big Ideas 2022” report, with the firm highlighting the Ethereum network’s rapid rate of adoption and growth in utility and efficiency over the past couple of years as key indicators for future price targets.
According to Ark, smart contracts and decentralized applications on Ethereum are “usurping traditional financial functions at the margin.” The report highlighted that banking and lending, exchanges, brokerages, asset management, insurance and derivatives can all be found on Ethereum-based smart contracts.
FUD of the Week
Qubit Finance suffers $80 million loss following hack
It was reported on Friday that Binance Smart Chain-based protocol Qubit Finance was hacked, resulting in an estimated loss of more than $80 million worth of digital assets.
The addresses linked to the assault stole 206,809 Binance Coin tokens from Qubit’s QBridge protocol. According to blockchain analysis firm PeckShield, the protocol was hacked to create “a huge amount of xETH collateral” that was subsequently used to drain the entire quantity of BNB stored on QBridge.
The Qubit team released a statement notifying clients that they are still monitoring the hacker and their impacted assets. The post explained that the team has contacted the attacker to offer the maximum reward as determined by their bounty program. There may be some hope in getting a large portion of the funds back, as supposed white hats lately have been returning the funds in exchange for decently sized bounties.
Indonesian regulator takes cue from Islamic NGOs, bars crypto sales for institutions
Indonesia’s financial watchdog Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) has come out with an anti-crypto stance, warning local financial institutions on Tuesday against offering or facilitating any crypto asset sales.
OKJ’s official Instagram account posted the warning, sounding the alarm over the usual negative crypto tropes such as the growing number of Ponzi schemes and market volatility-related risks.
The post also quoted the chairman Wimboh Santoso, who stated that financial institutions are strictly prohibited from offering crypto sale services in any form.
“OJK has strictly prohibited financial service institutions from using, marketing, and/or facilitating crypto asset trading,” he wrote in an official Instagram post.
More evidence game devs hate NFTs and crypto
Data from the latest edition of the annual “State Of The Game Industry 2022” by the Game Developers Conference revealed that most game developers and studios have no interest in developing or working with NFTs or crypto payments.
The survey polled 2,700 game devs, and 72% of respondents indicated that their studio is “not interested” in integrating crypto as a payment tool, while 70% stated that they had no interest in NFTs. Furthermore, a mere 1% outlined that they were already working with NFT tech or crypto.
There were also 14 comments posted from respondents in the survey regarding NFTs and crypto, with only one input holding positive views. Regarding NFTs, one developer in particular wrote:
“How this hasn’t been identified as a pyramid scheme is beyond me.”
Best Cointelegraph Features
Here’s how to keep your crypto safe
The first step in compounding gains with crypto investments is to be super diligent and to avoid losing your vigilance.
Bitcoin ‘Doji’ points to bullish reversal scenario as BTC holds $36K support
BTC is down more than 50% from its $69,000 all-time high and traders seem to have no clue about the cryptocurrency’s next move.
Blockchain-enabled digital fashion creates new business models for brands
A “digital-first” model is disrupting the fashion sector, as blockchain technology shows advanced capabilities in Web3 e-commerce and sustainability.