Welcome to Around the Blockchain, Huobi Learn’s daily rundown of the crypto markets.
Bitcoin and Ether prices fell sharply on Thursday night, taking with them nearly $150 billion off the crypto market. At the time of writing, Bitcoin had seen a drop of almost 8% and was trading at $38,709, while Ether fell by over 9% and was trading at $2,853, according to CoinDesk data. These declines came shortly after Wall Street losses, with the Nasdaq down almost 5% this week and the S&P 500 entering its third consecutive week of losses. Experts have warned of an impending crypto downturn in the face of greater regulatory scrutiny and major price fluctuations.
One such expert is OANDA’s senior market analyst, who predicted that Bitcoin could fall below $40,000 as the Central Bank of Russia pushes for a ban on crypto-related activities, including issuance, exchange and mining. The bank published a consultation paper citing threats to financial stability and citizens’ well-being among its key reasons, adding that cryptocurrencies possess the traits of a financial pyramid. Meanwhile a working group set up by the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament, is preparing proposals to extensively regulate the Russian crypto space.
Indian government officials have said they need more time to finalize the country’s cryptocurrency bill due to the complexity of crypto, and the government intends to hold further discussion to arrive at a consensus on a regulatory framework. This means the bill is unlikely to be introduced in the upcoming Parliament session, and marks the second time it has been delayed since the Parliament’s last winter session. A government official told local media that the state is awaiting technical input from the country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), after the pilot launch of its central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Twitter has finally released an official verification mechanism for NFT profile pictures, though it is currently only available for Ethereum-based NFTs. The mechanism requires the user to link their Ethereum wallet and Twitter account, whereupon they will be presented with a list of NFTs they own. The user then chooses an NFT, after which their profile picture will be displayed within a new hexagonal border instead of the usual circular border. Anyone who right-clicks without first buying the token can still use the NFT as their profile picture, but will remain stuck with the circular border.
A security vulnerability in six tokens saw Multichain (MULTI) users lose over $3 million in the past week. But in an unexpected development, one of the hackers has returned 319 ETH to the cross-chain protocol and one of the affected users. Still, the hacker kept 62 ETH as a ‘bug bounty’, and a total of 528 ETH remains exploited. The funds were returned across four transactions: 269 ETH in two direct transactions to the user he had stolen it from, and 50 ETH in two transactions to the official Multichain address.
Show me the money
According to data from Huobi Global, the price of BTC started on a rapid decline last night to reach 38,000 around noon today before stabilizing temporarily, and daily charts indicate that there may be a slight correction in the short term. Similarly, the price of ETH saw a sharp drop, from a high of 3,275 to a low of 2,811, before stabilizing at around 2,880. Daily charts show signs of a downward trend, though this may rebound slightly in the short term.
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