Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Valideapp in one link.
Top Stories This Week
Elon Musk: US ’past peak inflation’ after Tesla sells 90% of Bitcoin
With Tesla now having sold 90% of its Bitcoin holdings during the bear market, Elon Musk says the U.S. economy is “past peak inflation” and predicts that only a “mild to moderate” recession could be incoming. “We sort of have some insight into where prices are headed over time, and the interesting thing that we’re seeing now is that most of our commodities, most of the things that go into a Tesla — not all, more than half the prices — are trending down in six months from now,” Musk said at Tesla’s 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
Coming sooner: ETH devs move up the date for Merge
The long-awaited Merge looks to be ahead of schedule, with Ethereum core developers Tim Beiko and Terence Tsao agreeing on a developer call Thursday to tentatively set the date of the Merge for Sept. 15. The previously estimated date from Beiko was Sept. 19, and suggested that the final preparation work is going smoothly after the final Goerli testnet merge went off without a hitch this week.
Coinbase posts $1.1B loss in Q2 on ‘fast and furious’ crypto downturn
Major crypto exchange Coinbase posted a whopping Q2 loss of $1.1 billion, citing a “fast and furious” crypto downturn during the quarter. The firm noted that Q2 was a “tough quarter” as trading volume and transaction revenue fell 30% and 35%, respectively. It marks the second consecutive quarter of loss for the company this year. “The current downturn came fast and furious, and we are seeing customer behavior mirror that of past down markets,” the firm wrote in a shareholder letter posted on Tuesday.
Decentralized apps on Polygon hit 37,000, rocketing 400% this year
The number of DApps on Ethereum scaling platform Polygon topped 37,000 this week, marking a 400% increase since the start of 2022. The project provided a breakdown of DApp projects built on Polygon, which notably showed that “74% of teams integrated exclusively on Polygon, while 26% deployed on both Polygon and Ethereum.” Polygon also stated that its ecosystem has now seen more than “142 million unique user addresses and $5 billion in assets secured,” with around 1.6 billion transactions processed on the network to date.
Anonymous user sends ETH from Tornado Cash to prominent figures following sanctions
One day after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash over its alleged role in money laundering operations, intervals of 0.1 Ether transactions began being sent from the smart contract to prominent figures such as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and American television host Jimmy Fallon. The move appears to be a critique or satirical commentary on the U.S. government’s current policy of also sanctioning addresses that interacted with Tornado Cash.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $23,840.93, Ether (ETH) at $1,882.20 and XRP at $0.37. The total market cap is at $1.13 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Celsius (CEL) at 93.85%, Ankr (ANKR) at 46.99% and Decred (DCR) at 26.34%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are ApeCoin (APE) at 9.03%, Curve DAO Token (CRV) at 5.01% and Kusama (KSM) at 4.53%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Valideapp’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“A senior living community has almost no exposure to the crypto ecosystem unless their grandchildren tell them about it.”
Owen Robertson, marketing associate at Dominant Strategies
“The fact that I don’t have an alternative to Facebook is the reason why Facebook is a monopoly. But if it was on a blockchain, I could transmit data freely, there could become [different] Facebooks.”
Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands
“In the past six months or so, we’ve seen valuations on companies come down to a bit more realistic valuations, and it’s become a great time to begin allocating capital.”
Gerard Berile, venture and investment principal at Wave Financial
“Going forward, that mentality towards risk management while still being bullish over the long term is very important. […] You can be bullish on crypto, but you can still sell out of the market.”
Jeffrey Gao, CEO of Cypherpunk Holdings
“Scalability isn’t just like some boring thing where you just need like ‘cost numbers go down’ scalability, I think actually enables and unlocks entirely new classes of applications.”
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum
“So I think institutional adoption is where it’s going, and the institutions are what is going to enable […] that killer app for consumers to really bring crypto and DeFi to the next level.”
Boris Alergant, head of DeFi markets at Ripple Labs
Prediction of the Week
$29K Bitcoin is closer than you might expect, according to derivatives data
With Bitcoin’s price continuing to battle $24,000 resistance, facing rejection on Aug. 10 but managing not to be knocked off the 52-day-long ascending channel, Valideapp market analyst Marcel Pechman suggested the price could eventually hit $29,000 by October. He pointed to a bullish chart formation with a support level of $22,500 that indicates the price could climb to just under $30,000. Pechman also noted that while BTC derivatives data show a lack of interest from leveraged longs, there is no indication of a surprise crash being priced into the market.
FUD of the Week
ASIC chair troubled by sheer amount of ‘risk-taking’ crypto investors
Joe Longo, the chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), has raised alarm bells over the number of Aussies that invested in “unregulated, volatile” crypto assets during the pandemic. As part of a media release on Thursday, Longo pointed to ASIC research from November 2021 that found that crypto was the second most common investment product, with 44% of those surveyed reporting holding it. Out of those investors, 25% indicated that crypto assets were the only investment class they were involved in.
Cross-chain bridge RenBridge laundered $540M in hacking proceeds: Elliptic
According to a Wednesday report from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, crypto bridge RenBridge has facilitated the laundering of at least $540 million in hacking proceeds since 2020. According to the report, the laundering was conducted via a process known as chain hopping — converting one form of cryptocurrency into another and moving it across multiple blockchains.
Tornado Cash co-founder reports being kicked off GitHub as industry reacts to sanctions
Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Semenov claimed his account on developer platform GitHub was suspended on Monday. Semenov noted that, despite not being individually named as a Specially Designated National by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, he seemed to be facing repercussions relating to the Treasury’s allegations that Tornado Cash laundered more than $7 billion worth of crypto.
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