News Updates January 06, 2023
1. Bitcoin Jumps Toward $17K on Positive US Job Report. The primary cryptocurrency reacted with minor volatility heading north.
The US continued to beat expectations in terms of new jobs added for the month of December, according to the Labor Department.
The unemployment rate dropped to historic lows.
The report for December 2022 indicated that the unemployment rate is down to 3.5% from 3.7% the previous month.
At the same time, the world’s most powerful economy added 223,000 jobs in December, which was higher than Bloomberg’s estimates of 200,000.
Overall, the US finished the year with 4.5 million new jobs filled, trailing only to 2021, when the country was recovering from the COVID-19-induced crash.
The best month in 2022 in terms of jobs added was February, with over 700,000, while December was last, even though it was better than expected.
Shortly after the report went live, bitcoin started to move, heading north with a minor $150 move. As a result, the cryptocurrency jumped to just over $16,800 but retraced almost as quickly.
Certain US announcements, such as CPI numbers and interest rate hikes, have a more significant effect on BTC’s price movements. You can check all the dates for both in the upcoming year here.
2. Solana’s BONK Crashes By Nearly 40%; Is The Bull Run Finally Over?
BONK has been trading on a bearish sentiment over the past 24 hours and its price has dropped by nearly 40%.
This past week has been a wild ride for the recently minted canine-centered meme currency BONK. The Solana-based memecoin, which suddenly sprang out of nowhere and soon made its way into the top 200 cryptocurrencies by total market capitalization, was hit hard by a powerful bearish trend late on Thursday evening.
BONK’s Price Crashes By 40%
As speculation spread that BONK’s creators would be selling off their assets, a number of Solana whales liquidated their BONK positions. Because of this, BONK’s market value dropped by a whopping 54% over the course of 24 hours. Despite the significant drop in price, the memecoin is still in positive after a 1509.7% increase during the previous week.
Following the current bearish outburst, the 24-hour trading volume of the altcoin has declined by 43.40% to $63 million while the market cap has dropped by 0.3% to $93 million. This is a direct response to the falling market price after a large number of SOL whales began withdrawing their BONK holdings and reaping enormous profits. A cryptocurrency investor, in particular, admitted on Twitter that he sold $700,000 worth of BONK shortly after purchasing it for just $330.
BONK’s Price To Dump More?
However, as per the token’s richlist data, the top twenty wallet addresses have ownership of almost 50% of the token’s circulating supply. This has led many to believe that the token can be manipulated and dumped by large wallet holders. Moreover, if conspiracy theories are to be believed, some also suspect the disgraced crypto tycoon, Sam Bankman-Fried, to be behind all this — as the creator of the now-defunct FTX exchange was very much involved in Solana’s (SOL) development & ecosystem.
"#BONK is a scam coin. The top 20 holders have 50% of the total tokens. A dump is inevitable"
But what is even more scam are all the other tokens created on the other.
3. Huobi Experiences Sudden 64% Spike in USDT, USDC Withdrawal Volume.
Crypto analytic firm Nansen recently tracked the transaction volume of the Chinese crypto exchange Huobi Global. It revealed that in the last 24 hours, Huobi users have cashed out over $60.9 million. This figure represents over 64% of its total $94 million outflow over the previous seven days.
According to Nansen, the most withdrawn coins were USDT and USDC stablecoins from users with huge wallet balances.
"Nansen
@nansen_ai
In the past 24 hours, Huobi has seen a significant increase in net outflows
$60.9M* of the $94.2M* net outflow in the past week occurred in the past day alone
*Contains Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Fantom, & Polygon flows"
BitRunX, a Chinese crypto enthusiast on Twitter, hinted at what could have led to the sudden high withdrawal volume. BitRunX posted that Sun Li Huobi closed the communication group with internal employees and blocked all communication and feedback channels with employees.
The Twitter user added that the action led internal employees to rebel and directly rug away user assets, with developers adding backdoor Trojan horses. They, therefore, called on Houbi users to transfer their funds off the exchange to forestall substantial financial loss.
Kate Li, Huobi Global’s spokesperson, said the crypto exchange would reduce its workforce by 20%. Li declared, “With the current state of the bear market, a very lean team will be maintained going forward.”
Yesterday, the crypto bot trading platform Pionex announced that due to the gradual decline in trading activity on the Huobi Exchange in recent months, its security team withdrew all of Huobi’s market-making funds.
According to the market tracker, CoinMarketCap, the 24-hour trading volume of Huobi went down by over 16%. Crypto traders exchanged only $343,292,783 worth of crypto in 24 hours, ranking Huobi down to position 16.
4. CZ Proclaims Bianance Surge Is Due to BTC ‘Zero’ Trading Fee.
Talking to the Twitter crypto community, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, tweeted about the surge experienced by the crypto exchange. When the Twitter community observed the gains by Binance, Zhao attributed the surge to BTC’s trading fee in the largest crypto exchange.
"CZ Binance
@cz_binance
This is mainly because BTC trading is 0 FEE on @Binance.
But a joke a supporter posted in a community group: "why the more rumors we spread about Binance, the more market share it gains?"
Arcane Research observed that Binance’s market share of BTC’s trading volume grew by 92%, establishing its dominance in the crypto industry by the end of 2022. Meanwhile, it was reported that Binance experienced a surge of 45% on Sunday.
Moreover, Arcane research analyzed that Binance also had 66% of the crypto perp volume and 61% of the BTC derivative volumes by the end of the last year.
Binance firmly establishing its dominance in the crypto market, representing 92% of the BTC spot volume, 66% of the crypto perp volume, and 61% of the BTC derivatives volume by the end of 2022.
After an update in the prices, reports have mentioned the surge witnessed was due to the sudden lifting of the trading fees for Binance’s spot.
Arcane research highlighted Binance in their “2022 Year-in-Review Report.” The analytics company also observed that stablecoins had increased vastly in market dominance in 2022.
On the darker side of the crypto world, Arcane Research also found out that the NFT market collapsed; DeFi and bridge-related hacks accounted for $3 billion; and 2022 was an extremely challenging year for miners after they faced year-to-date drawdowns of 90% approximately.
With the start of the new era, crypto communities are expecting a time of prosperity and success, hoping many crypto projects will rise after surviving the harsh winters. The CEO of Binance also shared a joke by a supporter stating, “why the more rumors we spread about Binance, the more market share it gains?” This is an indication of a possible better future for crypto industries.
5. French Central Bank Head Wants Crypto Licensing Ahead of MiCA Standards: Bloomberg
The current turmoil in the crypto markets shows the need for such requirements as soon as possible, the banking chief said.
Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau is pressing for stricter regulatory requirements for crypto companies in France, according to a report from Bloomberg.
This would be ahead of the European Union’s landmark Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation, which would establish a bloc-wide licensing regime for crypto firms and is scheduled to be voted on in February for implementation in 2024.
Obtaining a license in France for Digital Asset Service Providers (DASPs) is currently optional and no providers currently have one, according to Bloomberg. About 60 firms do have the less stringent “registration” designation from French markets authority AMF.
According to Villeroy, the current turmoil in the crypto market shows the need for a licensing requirement in France.
“All the disorder in 2022 feeds a simple belief: it is desirable for France to move to an obligatory licensing of DASP as soon as possible, rather than just registration,” Villeroy said Thursday in a speech in Paris, according to Bloomberg.
