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El Salvadorians not pleased with the Bitcoin Law?

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El Salvadorians have been protesting against the government’s latest plunge towards Bitcoin [BTC].

While the world or at least the crypto community lauded El Salvador for embracing cryptocurrencies, particularly Bitcoin, the country’s citizens were not very pleased with its decision. Several people from across the globe flocked to El Salvador after President Nayib Bukele drove BTC into becoming a legal tender in the region. However, this choice was condemned by at least three out of every four El Salvadorians. These people have elevated their angst against the government and took to the streets to protest the government’s move.

Impositions of gatherings following the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic did not stop people from protesting against the El Salvadorian government’s BTC-friendly move. The law obligates every business in the region to accept Bitcoin as payment; however, the volatile nature of the asset seemed to be a significant issue for the protestors.

El Salvadorians take to the street to protest amidst COVID restrictions

With slogans and banners, a group formulated by the “Block of Resistance and Popular Rebellion” called out Bukele’s government. Elaborating on the asset’s association with the dark web along with its ability to aid money laundering activities were pointed out by activist Idalia Zuñiga. The activist added,

“It is a law that generates legal insecurity and that could be used to defraud users and also facilitate money and asset laundering.”

Volatility has been a significant concern for many. Despite finding the crypto industry a promising space, several choose to steer away from the market due to the high volatility. A protestor part of the group mentioned above stated,

“For those earning a minimum wage, in one moment you may have $300 in Bitcoin and the next day those $300 can turn into $50.”

Additionally, these protestors raised their voice against the government despite the imposition of restrictions due to COVID.

Ethereum steals investor’s favor as Bitcoin outflows intensify

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While investors have remained cautious due to the tepid market conditions, they have turned toward Ethereum now. According to the latest ‘Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly’ edition by CoinShares, the world’s largest altcoin, Ethereum witnessed its third 3rd consecutive week of inflows right ahead of its London upgrade next month. In fact, last week’s inflows went up to $11.7 million. This brings the year-to-date inflows near the coveted $1 billion mark.

This comes amidst the digital asset investment products experiencing a rather dull week with minimal net inflows totaling just $2.9 million last week. Inflows to Bitcoin have halted due to severe sell pressure and instead, the outflow has gained traction, a trend that was seen over the last two weeks. The total outflow figures have reached $10.4 million.

However, CoinShares revealed that the outflows are minimal relative to the massive figures observed in May and June this year. Interestingly, even as the market traded poorly the nature of inflows and outflows across different providers was found to be mixed. Hence, the platform stated that it believes the timing of the rollouts of some investment products in the recent weeks, which helped investors to accrue market access for the first time, has induced profit-taking rounds.

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Meanwhile, a similar pattern was seen in the rest of the cryptocurrency market as well. For tokens such as XRP, Polkadot [DOT], Cardano [[ADA], and Stellar [XLM] all had inflows that were less than $0.5 million each. The report also mentioned,

“Volumes in Bitcoin fell to just 38% of the year-todate average, totalling US$3.9bn per day last week. We do not believe this represents something ominous in the market as we saw similar seasonal dips in volumes during the summer months in recent years.”

Ethereum increasingly becoming popular among institutions

Almost $100 billion was wiped off the entire cryptocurrency market in 24 hours as it remained jittery. Despite many alternatives, Ethereum fortifies the infrastructure of a rapidly growing crypto decentralized finance [DeFi] ecosystem. Several applications are being built on top of this new finance system that pushed the entire blockchain marketplace to new heights.

Hence, high-profile financial institutions are not only building the infrastructure to invest in Bitcoin but have also started expanding their footprint across the Ethereum network with the hope that the demand for this digital asset will soar as the applications created on top of them develop.

Jack Dorsey to elevate Square’s crypto presence with the launch of Bitcoin DeFi services

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The CEO of Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey, has always made sure to stay relevant in the crypto-verse. With Square, Dorsey hopes to bolster his presence in the crypto market with his imminent launch of Bitcoin DeFi services.

Decentralized Finance, aka DeFi, has made a notable impression in the financial world. With its lending and borrowing services skyrocketing, space has managed to lure in an array of people. DeFi has more Ethereum and other networks taking the lead, while Bitcoin is often seen in the backseat. While the total number of ETH locked in DeFi amounts to 9.4 million, the amount of BTC stacked in the market is only 181.9K. This disparity speaks volumes.

In order to spruce up the presence of Bitcoin in the DeFi space, Jack Dorsey is reportedly building a platform that employs the Bitcoin network to avail of the services provided by the DeFi market.

Jack Dorsey to spruce up the DeFi space with BTC

In a series of tweets, Dorsey revealed that Square would be teaming up with platforms like Seller, Cash App as well as Tidal to roll out a Bitcoin-centric DeFi platform. His tweet read,

“Square is creating a new business (joining Seller, Cash App, & Tidal) focused on building an open developer platform with the sole goal of making it easy to create non-custodial, permissionless, and decentralized financial services. Our primary focus is #Bitcoin. Its name is TBD.”

With Mike Brock as the head of this platform, the entire program will be open. From open roadmap to open development as well as open-source, TBD will have the eyes of the public on it.

Additionally, Jack Dorsey pointed out how Square was different from TBD. He noted that Square only provided funding and not direction.

Furthermore, Brock revealed his excitement in joining the team and stated,

“As @jack said, we’re going to be biasing towards being open and transparent. So we’ll be sharing a lot more about our plans in the coming days and weeks. We’re also going to be thinking of ways to include the community in our planning. So stay tuned!”

Tenessee Gives Bitcoin A Boost As City Plans to Accept Crypto For Property Tax Payments

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With each passing day, the cryptocurrency market witnesses multiple developments across the financial and political sphere. This mantra was reaffirmed again by the city of Jackson, Tennessee when its Mayor Scott Conger announced the new plans for property tax payments via cryptocurrencies. The potential results of this decision may set course a new era for blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption.

Conger stated that using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin could potentially save lots of time and effort on the user’s end. The government official approved the city’s blockchain task force to conduct in-depth studies on Bitcoin’s superiority over fiat currency.

In his recent tweet, Conger asked:

“Why do we accept inflation? Why don’t we demand more from our federal government?
6.3% in 2 years. 172.8% in my lifetime. Every year our dollar is worthless. There is no rebound.
There is only 1 fix for this.. #Bitcoin.”

Back in April, Tenessee had decided to explore the option to pay its employees in cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Tenessee even plans to consider native cryptocurrency mining to add to the city’s balance sheets. The city’s positive sentiment about Bitcoin comes in the wake of several country’s assimilating Bitcoin into their financial systems.

Most analysts believe that Bitcoin’s record surge over the past couple of months caused it to become an accepted standard for many countries. At press time, Bitcoin was trading for $31,225 with a total market cap of $585.729 billion. A 5.12 percent weekly dip caused the daily trading volume to fall to $23.601 billion. Bitcoin’s bearish price action was still lower than its compatriots such as Etherum and Cardano.

Long Bitcoin Slips to No.3 in Bank of America Survey as Tech Stocks and ESG boom

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The past few months have seen multiple changes in the financial markets as stocks rallied and dipped continuously. While the S&P market was absent of major changes, the cryptocurrency market had a different tale to tell. New research by the Bank of America showed that “long Bitcoin” was the third most crowded trade compared to traditional long stocks.

Bitcoin’s growing presence in the financial space has forced regulators to sit up and take notice of the world’s largest cryptocurrency. The Bank of America’s July GLobal Fund Manager Survey touched on long Bitcoin’s slip to third place after being beaten by “long tech stocks” and “long ESG”. Long commodities occupied fourth place in the survey.

According to sources within the bank, the survey’s sample space includes the views of over 200 institutional, mutual, and hedge fund managers from all over the world. One standout fact from the July report was that investors were much less bullish now than they were in the first quarter of the year. In May, “long Bitcoin” had rocketed to the top as the most crowded trading asset. Long tech stocks came in second with long ESG taking the last spot on the podium.

The BoA has been paying close attention to the cryptocurrency market as developments progressed in full swing. It has even created a team dedicated to researching cryptocurrency and come up with solid solutions to integrate it into daily transactional activities. Candace Browning, the head of Bank of America’s global research said:

“Cryptocurrencies and digital assets constitute one of the fastest-growing emerging technology ecosystems. We are uniquely positioned to provide thought leadership due to our strong industry research analysis, market-leading global payments platform, and our blockchain expertise.”

Australia cozies upto Bitcoin as survey reveals positive numbers

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Bitcoin’s reach has been prevalent across several regions with investors flocking to the cryptocurrency as an alternative store of value. Recently, comparison platform Finder published a survey measuring Australia’s affinity towards Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market in general. Australians were asked several questions in the survey pertaining to the use cases and effectiveness of Bitcoin in a day-to-day financial structure.

According to the research, one in three Australians believe that Bitcoin will one day be more transacted than fiat currency. A majority of the GenZ participants believed that Bitcoin will overtake central currencies while only 30 percent of GenX believed the same. Bitcoin being a bubble was also a central point in the survey with 73 percent agreeing with the question.

While only 17 percent of Australians owned cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, it was still considered a legitimate investment by its holders. Another Finder survey had revealed that a quarter of Australians would accept a part of their salary being paid in Bitcoin. Taylor Blackburn, a personal finance specialist at Finder elucidated on the country’s positive sentiment towards crypto by saying:

“Bitcoin has seen impressive growth in the past year despite its sometimes volatile nature. With more Australians looking for inflation hedges, yield-bearing assets, and alternative investment opportunities, it’s not surprising that these many people are willing to be paid part of their salary in Bitcoin.”

The latest survey looked to include the rise of cryptocurrency exchanges as well. Fifteen percent of the sample space claimed that they use exchanges while 73 percent said they were not planning on getting one. Bitcoin’s dominance in the continent comes as no surprise as the cryptocurrency has also garnered support from other institutions.

JPMorgan claims El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption may not be feasible

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Bitcoin adoption is usually taken as the standard for the entire cryptocurrency market with the coin charting out territories for its compatriots. El Salvador adding Bitcoin to its legal tender was the boost that a lot of proponents were looking for with institutional approval becoming a top priority. This news was not met with jubilation by everyone as critics broke down the issues of using Bitcoin as a legal tender.

JP Morgan analysts released a report on Sunday that touched on the problems El Salvador may face once they approve BTC payments for daily use. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s decision to make Bitcoin a legal tender laid the groundwork for serious discussions surrounding the digital asset industry.

The JPMorgan report read:
“Daily payment activity in El Salvador would represent approximately 4% of recent on-chain transaction volume and more than 1% of the total value of tokens which have been transferred between wallets in the past year. A large portion of Bitcoin is locked up in illiquid entities, with more than 90% not changing hands in more than a year — with a “significant and rising fraction held by wallets with light turnover.”

The decentralized nature of Bitcoin was appealing to everyone but the report added that a few major companies held the lion’s share of the world’s largest crypto. This was seen as a hindrance to its potential as a medium of exchange. “Bitcoin as a payment system” was an age-old debate ongoing since its inception. Other officials in the cryptocurrency field were not as fascinated by Bitcoin as its proponents with Tether co-founder William Quigley calling it “the worst payment system ever invented”.

The JPMorgan report also claimed that a persistent imbalance of Bitcoin to dollar demand would lead to the destruction of the onshore capital liquidity. Sources within JPMorgan cited fiscal risks associated with Bitcoin transactions that may later translate into legal issues. This was a sentiment polar opposite to that held by Bukele and his cabinet ministers. In his words, Bitcoin will help to counter the country’s low banking penetration rate.

MicroStrategy stock price rallies after reports of Capital International buying $600M emerge

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Microstrategy has welcomed significant investment from the financial services company Capital International. According to the business intelligence firm’s filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC], the investors of Capital International have acquired a large equity stake.

The filing also revealed that the investors of the company had reportedly bought 953,242 shares of MicroStrategy’s stock. Shortly after the report of the filing with the regulatory watchdog of the country, MicroStrategy’s stock price noted a surge of 1.7% on Friday and increased roughly to $630. With this, Capital International’s shares worth totaled $600 million. On the other hand, the SEC filing by Capital International for the first quarter of the year had no mention of the firm owning any shares of MicroStrategy as of the 31st of March.

MicroStrategy’s Ambitious Roadmap

The latest development comes a month after MicroStrategy disclosed its intentions to raise a $400 million aggregate principal amount of 6.125% due 2028 in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers to buy more Bitcoin [BTC]. MicroStrategy’s stock fell even after it increased the debt offering to $500 million and reportedly purchased almost $489 million in the crypto asset.

The company is among one of the earliest corporate backers of the world’s flagship crypto asset. Back in August last year, it had revealed using existing cash on its balance sheet to acquire Bitcoin and since then, it has bought several dip. Michael Saylor, the CEO of the business intelligence firm has been quite vocal about his stance on Bitcoin. He happens to be one of the most prominent BTC bulls and over the past couple of months, announced purchasing millions of dollars of the crypto-asset.

He had had noted,

“Bitcoin [BTC] is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy.”

Bitcoin’s ‘buy the dip’ sentiment declines; here’s what it means

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The wild swings of Bitcoin [BTC] have typically presented buying opportunities for market entrants. The world’s flagship cryptocurrency was trading below $35k and its latest price trend has been quite unsettling for the market players.

It is important to note that, Bitcoin’s aggressive dive from its all-time high above $60K has prompted many beginners to ‘buy the dip’. But this strategy has been overused. In fact, according to the latest reports, ‘buy the dip’ is slowly fading away as traders actually buying the dip has decreased considerably over the past few weeks. This was accompanied by a dip in social volume towards the crypto-asset. On the other hand, FUD has intensified on the social networking platform, Twitter. This trend could potentially mean a positive reversal for Bitcoin. This was observed by the crypto intelligence platform, Santiment’s latest tweet which read,

“The amount of #Bitcoin traders who are continuing to #buythedip continues to show decline as social volume toward $BTC is low and #FUD posts on #Twitter are high. Typically, this doubt and disinterest is a positive sign of an upcoming turnaround.”

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Bitcoin’s bearish price action to end?

Currently, the cryptocurrency market is hovering in a correction stage where selling resumes near resistances and buying spree heats up near the support areas. To top that, the Fear and Greed index demonstrated that fear was the prevalent sentiment at the moment as BTC traders continued to anticipate for the asset to become affordable, in order to buy the dip.

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As depicted by the converging Bollinger Bands, the fading volatility could be an indication that the crypto-asset might be stepping on a period of long-term consolidation. But the upcoming Grayscale unlockings and blockchain data all signal a fresh buying sentiment by high-profile investors meaning, the move could likely point towards bullish.

Bollinger’s bandwidth has declined to 0.15. The last time, the number was around this level was more than two months back. In addition to that, when the bandwidth was around 0.15, back in December last year and April 2021, Bitcoin surged to unprecedented levels. A similar reading in the current scenario could mean a much anticipated bullish reversal.

Ukrainian bank embraces crypto with its potential Bitcoin debit card launch

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The world is jumping on to the Bitcoin bandwagon, and so is this Ukrainian bank that awaits the approval of the region’s central bank to roll out a Bitcoin debit card.

Bitcoin [BTC] rose to immense fame this year. While the world recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, the crypto market was seen harboring the bull. The colossal step that BTC took this year was impeccable as it lured in an array of investors and traders. Since the market paved the way for a whole new population, governments across the globe were obligated to create laws governing the crypto-verse.

Monobank, a Ukrainian entity, has revealed that it intends to roll out a Bitcoin debit card later this month. The bank is currently waiting for the Ukrainian central bank to give them a green signal.

Ukrainian bank to roll out a BTC debit card

In a recent announcement, Monobank revealed that users would be able to purchase as well as sell Bitcoin with a mere debit card. This function saw the light of the day as the Ukrainian bank concluded its pilot integration. The co-founder of the bank, Oleg Gorokhovsky, also pointed out that this feature would be out and about only if the National Bank of Ukraine gives Monobank approval.

Back in February, in a Facebook post, Gorokhovsky suggested that Tesla’s move towards BTC, the $1.5 billion BTC purchase was what enticed the co-founder into the world of crypto. Soon after Tesla’s purchase, Gorokhovsky reportedly realized that BTC was here to stay. While Elon Musk’s notion towards BTC took a different turn, Gorokhovsky seems to have persisted in the same trend.

Ukraine has been embracing cryptocurrencies for a while now. Ukraine even stood first in “The 2020 Global Crypto Adoption Index: Cryptocurrency is a Global Phenomenon” survey. In addition to this, the Ukrainian government partnered with the Stellar Development Foundation to garner a deeper understanding of digital assets before rolling out its CBDC.