News Updates October 28, 2022
1. TradFi Regulations Can Be Applied to Crypto – to an Extent, CFTC Commissioner Says
Christy Goldsmith Romero also said Congress needs to act to provide clarity about what agency should oversee the crypto spot market. Crypto may pose some risks to financial stability but may just need clearer guidelines rather than an entirely new set of rules, Christy Goldsmith Romero, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said.
Still, during an appearance on CoinDesk TV’s “All About Bitcoin'' on Thursday, Goldsmith Romero said because digital assets are different than traditional financial products, “we have to be a little careful about going to bespoke treatments because we don’t know the consequences of doing so," explaining that officials should review the established ways of regulating traditional financial markets to see whether they can be applied to crypto.
Crypto may pose some risks to financial stability but may just need clearer guidelines rather than an entirely new set of rules, Christy Goldsmith Romero, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said.
Still, during an appearance on CoinDesk TV’s “All About Bitcoin'' on Thursday, Goldsmith Romero said because digital assets are different than traditional financial products, “we have to be a little careful about going to bespoke treatments because we don’t know the consequences of doing so," explaining that officials should review the established ways of regulating traditional financial markets to see whether they can be applied to crypto.
Meanwhile, clarity from Congress would be “helpful” in defining which government agency should be responsible for regulating digital assets, Goldsmith Romero said.
“There’s a regulatory gap in that there is no one market regulator over bitcoin or other commodities [and] digital assets that are not securities,” she said.
2. Saylor Explains How MicroStrategy Stock Has Done Since They Adopted Bitcoin Standard.
On Thursday (October 27), Michael Saylor, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of business intelligence software company MicroStrategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR), talked about how his company’s stock has performed compared to big tech stocks since the firm adopted the Bitcoin standard.
It is worth remembering that on 11 August 2020, MicroStrategy announced via a press release that it had “purchased 21,454 bitcoins at an aggregate purchase price of $250 million” to use as a “primary treasury reserve asset.”
Saylor said at the time:
“Our decision to invest in Bitcoin at this time was driven in part by a confluence of macro factors affecting the economic and business landscape that we believe is creating long-term risks for our corporate treasury program ― risks that should be addressed proactively.“
Since then MicroStrategy has continued to accumulate Bitcoin and its former CEO has become one of Bitcoin’s most vocal advocates. MicroStrategy’s latest $BTC purchase, which Saylor tweeted about on 20 September 2022, means that the firm is now HODLing around 130,000 bitcoins, which were “acquired for ~$3.98 billion at an average price of ~$30,639 per bitcoin.”
3. Bitcoin price broke out this week, but has the trend changed?
BTC’s price attempted to break out of range before retesting underlying support. Is a trend change at hand, or will the price continue to consolidate?
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Time to go long?
This week, Bitcoin’s (BTC $20,614) price has perked up, with a surge to $21,000 on Oct. 26. This led a handful of traders to proclaim that the bottom might be in or that BTC is entering the next phase of some technical structure like Wyckoff, a range break or some sort of support resistance flip.
When the last update was published on Sept. 30, Bitcoin was around $19,600, which is still within the bounds of the last 136 days of price action. At the time, I had identified bullish divergences on the weekly relative strength index (RSI) and moving average confluence divergence (MACD). There were also a handful of potential “bottoming” signals coming from multiple on-chain indicators, which were at multi-year lows.
Let’s take a look at how things are looking now.
The Bollinger Bands are tight
The Bollinger Bands on the daily time frame remains constricted, and this week’s surge to $21,000 was the expansion or spike in volatility that most traders have been expecting. As is par for the course, after breaking out from the upper arm, the price has retraced to test the mid-line/mid-band (20MA) as support.
4. Scammers Spread Fake Reddit NFTs on OpenSea
A scammer has faked Reddit NFTs which were later posted to an official collections webpage on OpenSea.
OpenSea has delisted a suite of counterfeit Reddit NFTs purported to exploit the hype generated by the social media giant’s foray into Web3.
The popularity of Reddit’s official NFT Collectible Avatars shot up dramatically this month, with daily transaction volume setting a new record on Sunday of over $2 million.
Reddit’s NFTs provide certain perks (such as standing out in comment sections), but its biggest draw allows users to own their display avatars (profile pictures) and trade them via marketplaces such as OpenSea.
But the platform has, so far, let at least one fraudulent NFT collection —- the images of which had apparently been right-click saved — mingle with the legitimate tokens viewable via Reddit’s official OpenSea collectibles page for at least 24 hours, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
5. NFT marketplace Souffl3 closes $2 million in seed round
The funding round was co-led by Crypto.com Capital and Synergies Capital. Other participants in the round are Huobi Incubator, M77 Ventures, and J17 Capital.
Souffl3, a “smart trading” NFT marketplace and launchpad on the Aptos blockchain, has raised $2 million in its latest seed funding round, according to an announcement post on Oct. 28.
Excited to announce Souffl3's completion of $2 million USD seed round. Thank you
@Cryptocom_Cap,
@Synergiscap ,
@huobi_incubator,
@VenturesM77,
@J17Capital for your trust and support. #LFM
The funding round was co-led by Crypto.com Capital and Synergies Capital. Other participants in the round are Huobi Incubator, M77 Ventures, and J17 Capital.
Souffl3 intends to use the funds to develop a next-generation NFT experience for creators, retailers, and traders. CEO and Co-Founder of Souffl3, Rei Kikuchi, said the protocol aims to build a new generation of full-stack NFT networks that link art and other assets to Web3.
The co-founder and managing director of Crypto.com Capital, Bobby Bao, in a statement, praises the potential of Souffl3.
“Souffl3 is bringing the smart trading features and intuitive experience that users expect when buying NFTs to the Aptos ecosystem — we expect it to massively accelerate the growth of Aptos and NFT trading on Aptos.” Said, Bao
Synergis Capital Founder and Managing Partner Jerry Shi expressed his team’s confidence in the ability of Souffl3 to develop a suite of tools and platforms, believing the tools would be instrumental in facilitating the delivery of transformative experiences by creators.
6. Elon Musk Scam Tokens Emerge Following Twitter Bio Change.
Some of the tokens have already dumped by 98% in value.
Numerous scam tokens have launched under the symbol “TWIT” following Elon Musk’s latest Twitter bio change related to his acquisition of the company.
With just a day to go before the billionaire acquires Twitter, Elon Musk has changed his bio on the platform to read “Chief Twit.”
In the aftermath, multiple tokens named either “TWIT” or “Chief Twit” were released on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, according to PeckShieldAlert on Twitter.
Some other tokens go by the name “Chief Elon Twit,” “CryptoTwitter,” and even “Twitter Inu”
“～25% of them appear to be honeypot, and 4 out of them have already dropped more than -98%,” explained PeckShield
Musk is notorious for being able to move the crypto community and market with just a single tweet.
For example, Dogecoin – his favorite cryptocurrency – is rallying ahead of his Twitter acquisition deal, even compared to other top assets in the market. The cryptocurrency did the same when the CEO announced that he’d accept it for payment.
Musk’s identity is also commonly used in crypto giveaway scams, like many other top industry influencers.
7. CZ Reveals Google Displays Phishing Links When Users Search for CoinMarketCap.
Binance’s Changpeng Zhao “CZ” Zhao has revealed a worrisome Google search of displaying phishing sites when users search for CoinMarketCap (CMC).
Being the most dominant search engine around, Google remains the go-to option for users looking to make searches on the world wide web; this includes cryptocurrency proponents. Due to its reputation, several users tend to place a certain amount of trust in the search engine.
Recent data suggests such trust might be misplaced, as CEO of Binance, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, disclosed that Google tends to display phishing links whenever users do searches for top crypto price tracker CoinMarketCap (CMC).
“Google displays phishing sites when users search CMC. This affects users adding smart contract addresses to MetaMask using these phishing sites,” CZ disclosed in a tweet today.
