15.07. [News of the day] • Euro CBDC wants to leave energy-intensive BTC in digital dust and other articles

Welcome to today’s overview of crypto newss:

MARKETS

The last day was relatively balanced in terms of trading. The price of BTC increased by 1.6% and is approximately at the same level as last week.

BTC bounced back to $ 31,500 yesterday. It reached an intraday high of over $ 33,000, but the last four consecutive hour-long candles were all red as the bears took control of the market’s short-term momentum.

Of course, past events are not an indicator of future developments, so it is important to remain cautious and reckon with the possibility of a huge move in both directions.

The market for altcoins is mostly green today, although profits are relatively insignificant. Most cryptocurrencies show an increase in the range of 1 to 3%, with a few exceptions.

15/07 BTC / USD – long and short positions

Cryptocurrencies

Cardano has reached another major milestone that brings it closer to smart contracts

During this phase, the number of testers will increase significantly and additional features will be added. At the end of May, Cardano launched the first Alonzo Blue test network in big fanfare.

After the end of the white era, Alonzo will become fully public in the Purple phase, which means that it will be available to all stakeholder pool operators (SPOs) and pioneers. The planned hard fork Alonzo, named after the mathematician Alonzo Church, is expected to be deployed on the mainnet in early September.

He will bring smart contracts to the proof-of-stake blockchain and will mark the end of his Goguen era. Cardano will thus be able to assert itself in the field of decentralized finance (DeFi) and compete with platforms such as ETH, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Solana.

The data suggest that China’s share of BTC mining fell before the intervention

According to a study released by Cambridge University on Thursday, China’s share of global BTC mining fell drastically before the government’s recent crackdown on cryptocurrency mining.

The research team of the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF) has released new data sets showing geographical movements in BTC mining, where an update to the CBECI digital tool sheds new light on the mining market.

The report states that China’s share of the global hashrate (the total computing power of server farms participating in the BTC consensus process) has been steadily declining for some time before the government’s mining intervention in June 2021.

Banks, crypto exchanges, companies

Softbank is investing $ 800 million in the Revolut banking application

Revolut, a major British banking application with investments in cryptocurrencies, received $ 800 million in a new round of funding.

The new investment round is led by the Japanese financial giant SoftBank and the American hedge fund Tiger Global, which together hold approximately 5% in Revolut, CNBC announced on Thursday.

The round values ​​Revolut at $ 33 billion, a sixfold increase from the company’s $ 5.5 billion in 2020. The new funding will help Revolut continue to expand internationally and further improve marketing and product development, said Revolut CFO Mikko Salovaara . He added that the company focuses mainly on the implementation of services in the US and India.

Bybit derivative crypto exchange starts spot trading, including XRP trading

Bybit, one of the largest derivatives exchange based in Singapore, has expanded into the spot cryptocurrency trading market.

In announcing this news on Thursday, Bybit said that spot trading in BTC, ETH, XRP and EOS is now available to users against stablecoin USDT. More business couples will follow soon, she said.

Bybit states that it will not charge any macro fees for spot trading, which are charged for providing market liquidity in the form of limit orders to buy or sell. For example, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, charges 0.1% of macro trading fees of less than 50 BTC.

CBDC, Regulation

Euro CBDC wants to leave energy-intensive BTC in digital dust

The European Central Bank has launched a two-year project to prepare for the potential release of the digital euro. The central bank’s digital currency would be supported by a basic architecture with a negligible impact on the environment compared to BTC’s energy-intensive blockchain.

According to a press release, the ECB has launched an investigation phase into the digital euro design process. This phase should last two years, during which the Eurogroup (an informal grouping of euro area finance ministers) will propose a CBDC focusing on usability, following the technical advice of traders and intermediaries.

The report comes at a time when France is calling for stricter Europe-wide rules on cryptocurrencies. The French market regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, has proposed that EU governments entrust the responsibility for regulating cryptocurrencies to the European Securities and Markets Authority based in Paris instead of national regulators.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission postponed the WisdomTree BTC ETF decision in the fall

According to the filing, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) postponed the decision on the BTC exchange fund (ETF) WisdomTree to a later period this year.

On July 13, the regulator announced that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had postponed the deadline for deciding on the WisdomTree BTC ETF application. The SEC currently has a long list of ETFs awaiting review as fund managers increasingly insist on issuing ETFs. The decision on the WisdomTree ETF will be postponed to the autumn period without a clear date.

This BTC ETF, like many others, would provide direct exposure to BTC, something the SEC pays close attention to. Direct exposure would expose investors to all the peculiarities of the market, including volatility. The SEC is particularly concerned about market manipulation, which it refers to on other occasions.