Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you keep track of all the important news that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, top coins, predictions and more – a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
This week’s best stories
Musk’s deal for Twitter will apparently come with an original price tag of $44 million
Elon Musk buys Twitter again. The billionaire originally decided to buy the social media network in April 2022, setting a price tag of roughly $44 billion. He later sought to cancel the deal, citing insufficient transparency from Twitter regarding the company’s financial health, as well as the prevalence of fake accounts and spam bots on the platform. Musk now intends to complete the original $44 billion deal, according to a legal filing.
EU regulators ban cross-border payments from Russian crypto accounts
In light of the recent escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russia, the European Union has banned crypto activity between member regions and Russia, no matter how small the transaction. The ban covers “all crypto-asset wallets, accounts or custody services, regardless of the amount of the wallet,” according to an Oct. 6 statement from the European Commission. Russia, on the other hand, has taken the opposite position, evident in its approval of cross-border crypto activity in recent weeks.
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SWIFT says it has made a “breakthrough” in recent CBDC experiments
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a key cog in the global payments system, presented a successful test related to central bank digital currencies (CBDC). In summary, the test demonstrated interoperability between CBDCs globally. “For CBDCs, our solution will enable central banks to easily and directly connect their own networks to all other payment systems in the world through a single gateway,” said Tom Zschach, Chief Innovation Officer at SWIFT , in a statement dated October 5. The other proof of SWIFT concerns tokenized assets.
The Middle East and North Africa are the fastest growing crypto markets – data
The Middle East and North Africa, known as the MENA region, took the cake for the fastest crypto growth last year. Between July 2021 and June 2022, the volume of crypto transactions in the region reached $566 billion, up 48% from the previous year, according to a report by Chainalysis. Crypto usage in the MENA region ranged from capital preservation and remittance payments to institutional activity. Latin America ranked second in terms of growth at 40%, and North America ranked third at 36%.
FTX and Visa partner to enable crypto payments in 40 countries
Crypto exchange FTX revealed that it has teamed up with Visa to produce a no-nonsense debit card. Releasing this card has been a long-time goal of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. The FTX Visa card will be available in 40 countries. The card’s website says the card is also free.
Winners and losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is in $19,604ether (ETH) at $1,336 i XRP at $0.49. The total market capitalization is of $947.07 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Casper (CSPR) at 20%, Elrond (EGLD) at 12.98% and Convex Finances (CVX) to 12.44%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are UNUS SED LEO (LEO) and -11.93%, Chiliz (CHZ) to -9.04% and Lido DAO (LDO) to -8.06%.
For more information on crypto prices, be sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
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The most memorable quotes
“A year ago, no one asked me questions about bankruptcy. A year ago, everyone was asking me questions about DeFi and things like that.
Diogo Monicapresident and co-founder of Anchorage Digital
“NFTs can give you the technical ability to take ownership of an in-game asset outside of the game publisher’s control.
Alex DunmowCEO of Ninja Syndicate
“This recession is in its early stages, and the smartest play is to let the Fed’s monetary policy changes play out and conserve capital.
Richard GardnerCEO of Modulus
“As it stands, owning digital art is still relatively unfamiliar to most people, and at most it’s a fantastic concept.
Ted MuiCEO of Kuma Games
“All financial goods will move through blockchain networks in the future.
Matthew HouganChief Investment Officer of Bitwise Asset Management
“That’s our mandate: not to make a world with Bitcoin or Ethereum, or not to make that world; it’s just understanding what’s going on, establishing a system where […] Make sure people have good resources to understand what’s going on.”
Curtis Loftistreasurer of the American state of South Carolina
Prediction of the week
A crumbling stock market could create profitable opportunities for Bitcoin traders
Bitcoin posted another week of largely range-bound price action, trading between $19,000 and $20,500 for the most part, according to Cointelegraph’s BTC Price Index.
Cointelegraph analyst Marcel Pechman detailed the potential importance of third-quarter earnings announcements expected in October from big companies like Tesla and Apple. If they are negative, the announcements could cause the price of BTC to fall if the asset remains correlated with the major markets. Instead, the scarcity of Bitcoin could attract investors if inflationary problems continue.
FUD of the week
Kim Kardashian pays SEC $1.26 million to settle EthereumMax charge
Kim Kardashian is facing legal action from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for failing to disclose one of her Instagram posts as sponsored, according to the regulator. The celebrity accepted $250,000 in exchange for posting a promotional post about the EthereumMax (EMAX) crypto project on his Instagram account. The act will cost Kardashian a total of $1.26 million in fines, which she has agreed to pay despite not confirming or denying the charges.
The BNB chain is back online after being suspended due to a cross-chain exploit
The BNB chain was briefly halted this week to combat a cross-chain attack involving the BSC Token Hub bridge. The exploit “resulted in additional BNB,” according to an Oct. 6 tweet from Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. Although the chain was able to freeze $7 million, estimates say $70 million to $80 million was stolen, down from earlier estimates of $100 million. The BNB chain successfully resumed activity on October 7.
South Korean judge throws out warrant for person implicated in Earth collapse: report
The extensive manhunt for members of the Terra team has led to their first arrest: Terraform Labs’ business team leader, Yoo Mo, was arrested by South Korean police. A judge at Seoul’s Southern District Court dismissed the arrest warrant soon after, questioning the regulatory claims of the indictments, even though Mo is not allowed to leave South Korea. The Terra crypto project mysteriously collapsed in early 2022. The project’s leader, Do Kwon, remains at large.
The best features of Cointelegraph
Bill Noble, Wall Street disaster expert: The crypto spring is inevitable
“It’s 10% higher or 10% lower every day. I don’t have to wait five years between crises. I actually only have to wait about 45 minutes.”
What’s left of the NFT market now that the dust has settled?
From profile pictures to celebrity endorsements, the NFT space has changed a lot since the market boom in 2021.
Federal regulators are preparing to judge Ethereum
The Securities and Exchange Commission is moving to take action against Ethereum that goes far beyond the borders of the United States.
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