Bitcoin Touches $29K! Why BTC is unaffected by regulatory pressure
In this week’s episode of Market Talks, Cointelegraph welcomes Brent Xu, Founder and CEO of Umee – a decentralized finance center built on the Cosmos SDK that provides tools for macro-level borrowing and lending applications. Prior to founding Umee, Xu led strategy at Tendermint while setting the strategic roadmap and partnerships for the Cosmos Ecosystem.
We kick things off with our main topic for today: Bitcoin (BTC) hit $29,000, a new high for 2023, despite recent US regulatory crackdowns on crypto firms and related uncertainty. This could also indicate that the crypto market doesn’t seem too bothered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s lawsuit against Binance and its CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao. Even the Crypto Fear & Greed Index – which aims to numerically present the current “feelings and sentiments” towards Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies – has steadily increased over the past month despite gyrations in the global banking sector. What does all this really mean for the crypto space? Shouldn’t investors be so concerned about regulations?
This week, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Pakistan, Russia, India and Brazil decided to settle trade in their own currencies instead of the US dollar. Why have they decided to do this and will it have a significant impact on the US and the dollar? Will there be any ramifications for the crypto space, if any?
We ask Xu what his vision is for how DeFi protocols and crypto exchanges intend to build out their own banking services in the future. Centralized crypto exchanges are under all kinds of pressure from regulators at the moment, but we still see Fidelity Investments expanding its offerings, and Nasdaq nearing the launch of its crypto custody platform. We also get Xu’s thoughts on Fidelity Investments’ recent expansion.
There is a lot going on at the moment in terms of regulations in the crypto space, mostly cracking down on the crypto sector. We ask Xu what his long-term vision is for the future of the regulated crypto space in the US.
The US Federal Reserve appears to be in a never-ending battle against inflation. The interest rate increases do not seem to have an end in sight either. Is the Fed losing the battle? At what point will we see a pause in rate hikes, and how realistic is it for the Fed to meet its targets for this year?
We’ll cover all of this and more, so be sure to watch until the end. Market Talks airs every Thursday at 12:00 PM ET (5:00 PM UTC). Each week it features interviews with some of the most influential and inspiring people from the crypto and blockchain industry. So head over to Cointelegraph Markets & Research’s YouTube page and smash those Like and Subscribe buttons for all future videos and updates.
