Bitcoin BTC price extends stay below $28K

On a day of unconfirmed rumors and soaring DOGE, bitcoin couldn’t decide whether it liked the air above $28,000 or below.

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization recently traded at around $27,680, down a little more than a percentage point over the past 24 hours as investors did what they have done regularly for much of the past few months: make sense of the disparate, sometimes little flattering but always interesting information. BTC spent Monday’s early hours (UTC) lingering below $28,000 before rising above the threshold through much of midday and then falling again.

BTC has been clinging tightly to handles around this level since mid-March despite a near-bank meltdown that engulfed two crypto-friendly banks, and amid generally more favorable conditions for digital assets. “The current situation for bitcoin is pretty positive, that’s the reality on the ground,” crypto trader and author Glen Goodman told CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” program.

Goodman noted that the “injection of new money into the economy” as a backstop by a “panic” Federal Reserve to address the banking crisis increased investor liquidity for certain stocks and cryptos. “People feel brave enough now with this new liquidity to come back to what they consider big, profitable companies like Microsoft like Apple, and similarly, in the crypto market, they’re going for what are considered the safer cryptos, which are bitcoin and Ethereum.”

Etherium was recently trading at just above $1,800, up slightly from a day earlier after swinging above and below this level. Other major cryptos were mixed with some slightly in the green and others in the red. Popular meme coin DOGE was an exception to the more modest price moves, rising more than 35% to top 10 cents for the first time since December after Elon Musk’s Twitter replaced the social media platform’s famous blue bird at the top of its homepage with the cryptocurrency’s iconic Shiba Inu dog logo (DOGE was recently up 25%). Musk has been an outspoken DOGE advocate, suggesting that the meme coin could offer better payment functionality than bitcoin (BTC).

Meanwhile, crypto markets were reeling from an unconfirmed rumor that an Interpol Red Notice had been issued for the cryptocurrency exchange’s founder and CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao. “A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and temporarily arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action,” according to Interpol’s website. Neither Binance nor Interpol responded to a CoinDesk request for comment, although Block reported that the exchange had denied the rumor in an email to the publication. Binance’s BNB token was recently down 0.3%.

U.S. stock indexes were mixed with the tech-heavy Nasdaq falling, but the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose — all by a few fractions of a percentage point. In early trade in Asian markets, the Hang Seng fell 0.6%, while the Nikkei rose 0.3%.

In a separate interview with CoinDesk TV’s First Mover program, Coinbase Head of Institutional Research David Duong noted that OPEC’s unexpected decision to cut oil production could send inflation higher again, spurring investor interest in bitcoin due to the crypto’s ability to hold value.

“What we’ve seen from OPEC definitely increases the chances that inflation may actually spark somewhat higher and therefore presents a macro opportunity for bitcoin as well,” Duong said. “We have already seen to some extent that bitcoin has functioned as an alternative to the traditional financial system, given what happened with SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) and the turmoil in the banking system.”

Is Indonesia’s CBDC ready for a more prominent role?

American credit card companies have significant control over the world’s trade pipelines. And Indonesia, with tourism playing a significant role in its economy, wants to change that.

Earlier this month, the country’s president, Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi (many Indonesians have only one name), said he wants the country to reduce its reliance on Visa and Mastercard in the name of national security.

Indonesia is one of the few countries that refused to sanction Russia for the war against Ukraine. Between arms and oil sales, Jokowi has faced difficult choices in navigating relations with both Russia and the United States, particularly as he must address the need to buy more oil to offset a staggering jump in energy costs as well as a U.S. desire about ally countries. in the region together to contain China.

Tourist hotspot Bali, a favorite destination for Russian winter tourists, is feeling the economic pinch of war despite being tens of thousands of kilometers away from the conflict zone.

“Many Russian tourists who visited Bali could not pay for hotels and had to be kicked out of hotels because their credit cards could not be used,” Erwin Haryono, executive director of communications at Bank Indonesia, told CNBC Indonesia in March.

Sanctions that Indonesia is not a party to prevent Visa and Mastercard from helping to settle payments between Russian banks and Indonesian hotels, even if the transaction was not in US dollars.

“We have to remember that the US sanctions against Russia, Visa and Mastercard could be a problem,” Jokowi said at the opening of the Business Matching of Domestic Products, quoted by CNN Indonesia.

In response, the government has highlighted some domestic alternatives to being entirely dependent on foreign payment rails.

Jokowi wants Indonesia to be able to issue financial services such as credit cards independently, and has encouraged local and central authorities to promote the use of the domestic government credit card (Kartu Kredit Pemerintah Domestik) and international Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard (QRIS).

The domestic government credit card and the International Standard of Indonesian Quick Response Code system were developed by Bank Indonesia under the coordination of the Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.

These domestic public credit card and Indonesian QR code systems are just payment rails, which can treat a CBDC as the digital Rupiah as easily as any other fiat-issued currency.

Indonesia is not the first country to try to claim economic sovereignty from Visa and Mastercard’s payment rails.

Russia, at the center of US sanctions, has sought to market its homegrown credit card competitor, Mir (named after the space station), as an alternative to Visa and Mastercard.

But as Bloomberg reported last year, even countries friendly to Moscow are wary of allowing their banks to process and settle transactions from the card because of the threat of retaliatory sanctions from the US

Turkey, another popular tourist destination for Russians but also a NATO member, stopped accepting the card in mid-2022. Vietnam, which is trying to upgrade relations with the US to counter an aggressive China, also prompted its banks to abandon relations with Mir . Thailand is also out.

Mir is still in use in Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Venezuela and perhaps Iran by the end of 2023.

Indonesia’s ambassador to Moscow said in January that it was still “assessing” the issue.

Mir’s failure could give Indonesia a chance to market its payment networks around ASEAN. Governments and central banks globally, even in countries neutral to the Ukraine war, were no doubt nervous about aligning themselves with Russia – but Indonesia does not have the political baggage.

Bitcoin (BTC) has tested the $30,000 mark, trading between $27,500 and $28,900 over the weekend. “First Mover” dive into the markets with The Crypto Trader author Glen Goodman. Meanwhile, crypto markets have shown resilience in the face of the recent upheaval in the US banking system, with bitcoin in particular outperforming, according to Coinbase. Coinbase Head of Institutional Research David Duong weighed in. Polygon Co-Founder Sandeep Nailwal and Policy 4.0 CEO and Founder Tanvi Ratna also joined the conversation.