News Bulletin – March 2022
About us: CryptoQuestion is an independent platform providing free resources for cryptocurrency investors. From an on-demand Q&A service to online courses, from books to our weekly Moonshot Monday podcast. Visit us at www.cryptoquestion.tech
Important news roundup and free crypto resources
Market overview
It has been a more active month than usual. War in Europe, sanctions, arrests and the recovery of billions of dollars worth of bitcoin, further regulatory clampdowns on DeFi and a new bubble taking hold of crypto in the form of DAOs.
The market remains unmoved from a month ago. In fact crypto has shown remarkable resilience with Bitcoin performing strongly, confounding the skeptics who again mistakenly predicted its collapse.
Trending
- Last month the most anticipated news in the crypto community was the Executive Order which Biden was supposed to be announcing. The consensus was that the order would compel competing agencies to cooperate to bring regulatory clarity to crypto. That order got pushed to the back burner it seems.
- Sanctions is the hot topic right now. Should centralized exchanges sanction Russian accounts? Most chose not too. Opensea kicked off the Iranians from their platform whilst the Ethereum on-ramp, MetaMask, restricted access to their wallet from certain jurisdictions including Venezuela. MetaMask’s actions are the most troubling in our opinion. When a centralized system controls access to a decentralized one that could cause a major problem as Venezualian’s are no doubt finding out. MetaMask and other centralized wallets have been exposed as the weak link in the decentralized ecosystem. That leads the door wide open for decentralized competitors. The sooner the better!
- Polygon, the layer two scaling solution that runs alongside Ethereum, raised $450 million from Softbank, Tiger and others in a token sale.
- DAOs are the latest craze to capture the imagination of investors and anyone with a good crypto idea. The latest to gain massive traction and headlines is the AssangeDAO which raised $50 million in short order with the objective of paying for Assange’s legal fees. In case you don’t know who Assange is, he is the founder of Wikileaks who is wanted by the US for charges of treason. He will need a good defence team!
- The AssangeDAO is one of many DAOs competing for investors’ attention and cash. Investor’s should avoid this latest new thing. DAOs are nothing new. They are simply a group of people who own a token and are given certain rights in a given project. For example, investors in FriesDAO raised $5.4 million with the plan to buy fast food restaurants. Token holders were NOT entitled to a share of profits or ownership rights but discounts of food and a say over how ‘franchises operate’. Let’s put this into perspective. The people with the idea raised money so that they can buy restaurants. The investors are taking 100% of the risk and are being rewarded with a discount on a Subway sandwich. This is exactly why these schemes should be avoided.
- Perhaps one of the biggest stories in the last month was the Justice Department’s seizure of $3.8 billion worth of Bitcoin stolen in the 2016 hack of the crypto exchange Bitfinex. Two people were arrested in connection with laundering the proceeds. It is not clear if they were the original hackers, although the consensus is, they probably weren’t.
- Lending platform BlockFi is to pay $100 million to settle ongoing investigations from the Securities Exchange Commission and multiple state regulators. They have ceased to offer their products to US citizens until they have obtained the appropriate licenses.
- It was only a matter of time. Nexo, the instant crypto loan platform that claims to be regulated, is stopping paying interest on new deposits from US customers. However they are still merrily advertising their products.
- SafeMoon, the memecoin currently sitting with a market cap of $683 million, 64% off its ATH, is subject to a class action. The action alleges SafeMoon recruited a number of celebrities to lure investors with misleading promotions.
- The Super Bowl this year was dubbed Crypto Super Bowl and the biggest winners were not the Los Angeles Rams but Coinbase. 20 million people in just 60 seconds scanned the Coinbase QR code that was bouncing around TV screens.
- Whilst we would mostly agree that a good Russian is a dead one, it didn’t stop Bank of Russia reporting their first digital ruble tests. They will need more than a digital ruble to avoid the sanctions that have been imposed on them from all sides apart from its Eastern flank.
- Finally…One of the most successful crypto investors is Multicoin Capital, a thesis driven investment firm focused on the crypto space. Kyle Samani, Founder and Managing Partner, discusses his investment strategy and the investments his firm has made in this podcast here. It is well worth a listen if you are interested in finding out what the best in the industry are investing in.
Receive your free monthly newsletter by subscribing here
Inside Track podcasts
We continue to build our library of interesting content from emerging projects and technologies in the blockchain space. Inside Trackis the best way to learn about cryptocurrency from experts in the field as well as discover emerging projects from NFTs to DeFi, from memecoins to launchpads.
This month we produced the following Inside Track podcasts:
- Elementus — talks blockchain search and making crypto adoption easier for traditional financial institutions.
- Cultos — talks leveraging crypto to create brand loyalty including leading brands creating their own tokens.
- Shyft Network — talks compliance, FATF’s Travel Rule and what is in store for DeFi as regulation takes hold of crypto.
Articles
Check out our latest article, Has Putin lost his mind?
A blunt look at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from a crypto investor’s view point.
Read Article Here.
Finally…
Follow us here on our Telegram channel to discover new investment ideas without the spam and shilling.
Team CryptoQuestion
Follow us on Twitter @cryptoimpartial and Instagram @cryptoimpartial and register for our newsletter here www.cryptoquestion.tech
Join our Telegram channel here.
Not Financial Advice
This article does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy in any way. Always do your own research and never invest more than you can afford to lose. Investing in cryptocurrencies is high risk, and you could lose 100% of your investment. The article should be treated as supplementary information to add to your existing knowledge.