Musk Fires Twitter Executives, Research Sparks Blockchain Energy Debate, CFTC Brass Shares Crypto Concerns: Hodler’s Digest, 23-29 October

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every important news that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more – a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top stories this week

JPMorgan executes first DeFi trade on public blockchain

A cross-border currency swap was conducted on a public blockchain by JPMorgan as part of a pilot program involving the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian, SBI Digital Asset Holdings, Oliver Wyman Forum and DBS Bank. The Polygon blockchain hosted the exchange between tokenized instances of the Japanese yen and the Singapore dollar, aided by smart contract technology from Aave.

UnionBank of the Philippines launches Bitcoin and Ethereum trading

Philippine banking giant UnionBank is now offering certain retail customers access to Bitcoin and Ether trading and custody, thanks to a collaborative pilot between the bank and crypto company Metaco. The offer from UnionBank uses Harmonize, a platform from Metaco. UnionBank operates under the regulatory approval of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines. The offer has been almost a year in the making, the result of a January 2022 partnership between Metaco and UnionBank. This is also not UnionBank’s first foray into the crypto sector.

Come one, come all! Meta to bring NFT coining and trading to Instagram

New upcoming features on Instagram will help users create, showcase and also sell non-fungible tokens (NFT) on the social media platform. A social media operation under Meta (formerly Facebook), Instagram will provide an “end-to-end toolset” for NFTs, according to a recent announcement from Meta. NFTs created on Instagram can be sold on the platform as well as off it. The Solana blockchain was also added to the list of compatible blockchains for Instagram, as per the announcement.

Elon Musk faces class-action lawsuit over mass layoffs at Twitter

Elon Musk has already implemented several changes at Twitter since completing the acquisition on October 27. After firing top-level Twitter brass, Musk has reportedly begun significant layoffs. The affected employees are reportedly fighting back via a class action lawsuit against Musk that essentially claims the layoffs required more advance notice. A regulatory filing also announced Musk as Twitter’s sole board member after he removed all others.

You have our swords: 12 independent entities pledge legal support for Ripple

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple continues after nearly two years. The latest development sees official support from 12 different entities supporting Ripple in the form of submitted amicus briefs. The Chamber of Digital Commerce and Coinbase are among the list of supporters. The SEC claims that Ripple’s XRP sale was an unregistered securities offering. The outcome of the case could potentially affect the crypto industry as a whole.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $20,861Ether (ETH) on $1626 and XRP on $0.49. The total market value is at $1.03 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Loopring (LRC) at 45.27%, Dogecoin (DOGE) of 41.72% and Arweave (YEAR) of 40.73%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Aptos (APT) of -11.80%, Klaytn (CLAY) of -7.22% and Terra Classic (LUNC) of -6.77%.

For more info on crypto prices, be sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most memorable quotes

“If the world economy is a circulatory system, it is stagnant. Parts die.

Ray Youssef, co-founder and CEO of Paxful

“I think DeFi will replace institutions based on innovative use cases that we are starting to see today.

Mike Belshe, co-founder and CEO of BitGo

“Major cryptocurrencies have to go through several collapses.

Charles Hoskinsonfounder of Cardano

“Crypto exchanges often determine the winners and losers of the crypto world, since listing on one is an almost sure way to raise the token price and give early investors an opportunity for liquidity.

Habeeb Syedsenior associate at Vicente Sederberg

“I think people care about increasing value rather than going public or going private.

Guillaume Pousazfounder and CEO of Checkout.com

“It’s easier to hire talent in a bear market.

Changpeng “CZ” ZhaoCEO of Binance

Prediction of the week

Bitcoin price bottom takes shape as ‘old coins’ hit record 78% of supply

Bitcoin saw some price volatility this week, breaking past $21,000 on November 4, according to Cointelegraph’s BTC Price Index. The US Federal Reserve also raised interest rates by another 0.75%, coinciding with some of Bitcoin’s volatility.

According to data from Glassnode, the number of Bitcoins held for six months or longer now make up most of Bitcoin’s circulating supply – over 78% – at the end of October. This may mean reduced chances of significant sales activity going forward.

FUD of the week

Deribit crypto exchange halts withdrawals due to $28M hot wallet hack

Crypto derivatives exchange Deribit suffered a hot wallet attack this week, with $28 million stolen. However, the exchange will use its reserves to pay for the loss, and customers should not feel any effects apart from the platform stopping withdrawals while ensuring good security. Apart from that, the switchboard is reportedly working normally. Deribit typically keeps 99% of its customers’ assets in cold storage, which limited the hack.

“All is well” — Gala Games pleads for calm after multi-billion dollar hacking scare

FUD surrounding the Gala Games this week turned out to be unfounded. In short, fear arose after PeckShield noticed that $2 billion in GALA tokens were apparently created by a single wallet address. GALA notably fell in price as a result. The real reason for the strange wallet activity? Gala Games’ affiliated bridge pNetwork drained a vulnerable liquidity pool before anyone could hack it. GALA’s price recovered some losses after the explanation was communicated to the public.

Santander UK restricts crypto transactions for its customers

With effect from November 15th, bank customers of Santander in the UK will not be able to send more than £1,000 to crypto exchanges in any given transaction, and no more than £3,000 in total per month. The bank claims the limits will help protect customers, given the lack of regulatory protection in crypto. The limits apply to all outgoing sterling transactions that are related to crypto. Santander also hinted at further restrictions in the future.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Andy Warhol would have loved (or possibly hated) NFTs

“There were a lot of cypherpunks at the early Bitcoin meetups I went to.”

Can Internet Outages Really Disrupt Crypto Networks?

“We’re going to use what seems easiest — what’s going to work. And when it doesn’t work, we’re going to drop it.”

Developers must stop cryptohackers – or face regulation in 2023

A report indicates that more than $2.5 billion in crypto was lost due to bridge hacks in the last two years alone.

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Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.