Crypto Pumps After Fed Rate Hike, Zuck Hopes Metaverse Makes Hundreds of Billions, Tesla Posts $64 Million in BTC Gain: Hodler’s Digest, 24-30 July
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every important news that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulatory highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more – a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top stories this week
“Bullish rate hike” – Why crypto surged in the face of bad news
Despite the US Federal Reserve announcing a 75 basis point interest rate hike on Wednesday, crypto markets pumped significantly on the same day with the momentum continuing through the week. Quantum Economics founder and CEO Mati Greenspan jokingly called it a “bullish rate hike” and stated that investors were obviously expecting far worse. Analysts such as Swyftx’s Pav Hundal suggested that the recent rally could be due to an easing of inflationary pressures around gas and commodities such as corn and wheat.
Ethereum dev confirms Goerli merger date, last update before merger
On Thursday, lead Ethereum developer Tim Beiko revealed that the final Goerli testnet merger ahead of Ethereum’s long-awaited merger and switch to proof-of-stake will take place between 6-12. August. In what has been a long and much-delayed roadmap since late 2020, the Ethereum network is now in the final stages of completing its biggest upgrade to date. The official merger is scheduled for September 19, but could be subject to further delays if there are problems with the Goerli testnet.
Zuckerberg was unfazed with a meta-worst divisional loss of $2.8 billion in Q2
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that he was unfazed by the company taking a $2.8 billion loss on its Metaverse division in the second quarter. He emphasized that the company’s Metaverse goals will take several years to roll out, but he sees a “massive opportunity” to make hundreds of billions of dollars, or even trillions, over time as the sector matures. “I’m sure we’re going to be glad we played an important part in building this,” he said.
Cathie Wood sells Coinbase shares amid insider trading allegations
Cathie Wood’s investment company Ark Investment Management, which is one of the largest shareholders in Coinbase (COIN), reportedly dumped 1.4 million COIN shares on Tuesday. The disposal was made via three of Ark’s exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and the sale was estimated to be worth around $75 million. The firm reportedly held nearly 9 million COIN shares at the end of June and has continuously picked up the stock since it opened at roughly $350 last April. Since then, the price has fallen sharply to just below $63, and Ark probably should have shorted it when Jim Cramer called it “cheap” at $248 last August.
Tesla reports $64M profit from Bitcoin sales
The Elon Musk-led electric car maker Tesla posted a respectable profit of $64 million after sold 75% of its BTC holdings in Q2. The gain seems remarkable considering the company sold in the middle of a bear market; However, what is more important and exciting is that Musk appears to be final lose interest in crypto and we need hear from him no more. The firm is said to still have 10,800 BTC on its books, which is worth around $255 million at the time of writing.
Winners and losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $23,559.86Ether (ETH) on $1,674.34 and XRP on $0.36. The total market value is at 1.08 trillion dollars, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, this week’s top three altcoin winners are Optimism (OP) at 75.71%, Ethereum Classic (ETC) at 58.20% and Qtum (QTUM) of 41.89%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Huobi Token (HT) at 9.10%, Kusama (KSM) of 8.98% and the NEAR protocol (NEAR) of 7.76%.
For more info on crypto prices, be sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most memorable quotes
“A lot of NFT projects are just speculation with no real tangible backbone, no real true story. Do you have a football club to root for every week? That’s a backbone that people latch on to.”
Preston Johnson, co-owner of Crawley Town FC and co-founder of WAGMI United
“The industry should not be allowed to write the rules they want to play by.”
Sherrod Brown, US Senator and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee
“We think it’s more relevant for local projects to benefit the local economy, and not just bring products to the US to benefit retailers there, for example.”
Lou Yu, head of KuCoin Labs
“Powell is particularly adept at delivering bad news. It was clear that investors expected worse.”
Mati Greenspan, founder and CEO of Quantum Economics
“Metaverse is a huge opportunity for several reasons. I feel even more strongly now that developing these platforms will unlock hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, over time.”
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta
“I worry about things not directly related to blockchain and the Metaverse. I worry about climate change and social fragmentation.”
Neal Stephenson, author of Snow crash
Prediction of the week
The GameFi industry will see a value of $2.8 billion in six years
Absolute Reports published a GameFi-focused report this week that estimates the NFT gaming industry will be worth $2.8 billion by 2028. To reach its goal, GameFi will need a compound annual growth rate of 20.4% over six years , given that the sector was estimated to be worth $776.9 million last year. However, the reasons for this lofty goal are locked behind a paywall.
FUD of the week
Solana-based stablecoin NIRV drops 85% after $3.5 million leverage
The algorithmic stablecoin of Solana-based adaptive yield protocol Nirvana Finance, NIRV, was delisted by 85% this week after the protocol was hacked for $3.49 million worth of USDT. The incident was cited as a flash loan attack that resulted in the funds being taken from Nirvana’s coffers. Its original token, ANA, also fell 85% as a result of the hack.
Phishing risk escalates as Celsius confirms client emails were leaked
On Tuesday, beleaguered and bankrupt crypto-lending firm Celsius sent an email to its customers, informing them that a list of their emails had been leaked by an employee of one of the company’s business data management and messaging providers, Customer.io. The firm has downplayed the incident, stating that it did not “pose a high risk of [its] clients,” adding that they just wanted users to “be aware” — although Celsius also said similar things regarding users’ assets after pausing withdrawals several weeks ago.
TikTok data policy debacle: Is user crypto at risk?
The popular social media app TikTok is facing backlash over its far-reaching data collection policies that can extract large amounts of sensitive information from a user’s smartphone or computer. As such, crypto users are now concerned about whether TikTok is capable of scraping critical data such as private wallet keys. “TikTok is not just another video app. It’s the sheep’s clothing. It harvests reams of sensitive data that new reports show is being accessed in Beijing,” claimed US Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr.
Best Cointelegraph Features
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When Worlds Collide: Join Web3 and Crypto from Web2
A friend of mine who is an experienced Web2 technology manager joined a Web3 company in June. A smitten operator, he asked to speak to all 16 employees before deciding to join the company.
