Crypto Weekly Roundup, 18th July – 24th July!

Oliver Moon at Team UMushroom

26 Jul 2022

Weekly Summary

The US and UK have made great strides in their search for regulation. JPMorgan believe crypto is out of its intense deleveraging cycle, and the overall market cap is again on the rise. Are we coming out of the crypto winter?

Market Recap

It was once again a very stable week in crypto. There was plenty of news surrounding regulation and JPMorgan believe crypto is out of its intense deleveraging cycle. Reflecting this, the overall crypto market cap recovered by 5.6%, to just over $1 trillion. Still almost $2 trillion down from its peak.

It was a great week for the top 10, again, reflecting the regular markets. Ethereum performed incredibly well (ETH is up 19.5%), as did Cardano (ADA is up 14.86%).

In the News

Dubai announced its plans to become a Metaverse hub this week, following Shanghai’s announcement to do the same.
- The Sheik of Dubai wants the UAE to become one of the world’s top 10 Metaverse economies.
- The plan seeks to bring 1,000 blockchain and metaverse companies to the city with 40,000 jobs by 2030.
- In 2020 PwC said that VR and AR technology could add $4 billion to the UAE economy by 2030.
Tesla sells 75% of its BTC holdings.
- Elon Musk stated it should not be taken as a verdict on Bitcoin. Musk merely wants to free up some capital given the uncertainty surrounding China’s recent COVID lockdowns.
- Tesla sold $936 million of BTC in total, causing the coin to drop around 1.7% in price.
Gamestop enters the NFT space.
- Between July 11th and July 18th Gamestop’s NFT marketplace saw $7.2 million in trading volume.
- This is double Coinbase’s total volume since its release on May 4th.
The US and UK take a big step closer to crypto regulation.
- In the UK, a Financial Services and Markets Bill has been introduced that will include crypto assets. It will also enable an amendment to the 2009 Banking Act that would extend the act to cover stablecoin and other assets in the crypto space.
  - It will recognise them as a financial asset and seek to create stability through high regulatory standards that will enable operators and issuers to grow within the UK market.
- In the US, the leaders of the House Financial Services Committee are debating legislation that will force stablecoin issuers to face bank like regulations.
  - It would force them to hold enough reserve capital in liquid assets to deal with bank runs, such as those of a couple of months ago.
  - It is still yet to be discussed by the senate or house of representatives.
  - It will NOT insist that all stablecoin issuers be banks.
- The SEC are trying to argue that 9 crypto assets (centralised exchange coins) are securities to charge two ex-Coinbase employees and one of their brothers with insider trading.
  - The trio made $1.5 million through a Coinbase executive sharing confidential information about which assets were to be listed