27.01.[News of the day] • Crypto laundering in 2021 increased by 30% • and other articles

Welcome to today’s overview:

MARKETS

BTC recovered by $ 4,000 on Tuesday before being driven to around $ 37,000 yesterday. During the trading day, BTC continued to rise, reaching a six-day high of about $ 39,000.

However, as soon as the situation seemed bullish, the last meeting of the Federal Reserve came. The central bank said that there would be no change in interest rates, but that they would increase in March.

This caused increased volatility in the crypto and stock markets, as BTC fell by more than $ 3,000 in a matter of hours. He has managed to get back $ 36,000 so far, but it’s still about 3.5% less than yesterday.

The Altcoins have been flying high for the past 72 hours, with the ETH climbing above $ 2,600 just days after nearing the fall below $ 2,000. However, the market retracement hit the second largest cryptocurrency to just over $ 2,400.

Cryptocurrencies

The massive load of cardano blockchain (above 90%) has been going on for more than a week

Many important events have taken place in the cardano blockchain (ADA) in recent months. Due to the expansion of the network, the average blockchain load is constantly increasing.

Specifically, the average blockchain load in the previous eight days, starting on 19 January, remained above 90%, with the latest figure of 26 January being 93.2%. This is the first time the system has reached such a level of blockchain loading, and it continues to maintain these metrics, which is even more astonishing.

Cardano reached the 90th percentile for the first time on January 16, and the rise in the average blockchain load was supported by the introduction of smart contracts, which increased network activity, as seen by several different indicators.

Crypto laundering increased by 30% in 2021

A new report published by Chainalysis, which deals with blockchain and cryptocurrencies, reveals that money laundering on the crypto market has increased by 30% in 2021 compared to the previous year. The article precedes the company’s upcoming report on cryptocrime for 2022, which is to be published in February.

Chainalysis states that money laundering “is the basis of all other forms of crime based on cryptocurrencies” and states that money laundering activity in the cryptocurrency market is highly concentrated and all money ends up being associated with a small group of entities.

In 2021, a total of $ 8.6 billion was laundered, compared to $ 6.6 billion in 2020. That’s still less than $ 10.9 billion in 2019 – which may be due to law enforcement agencies beginning to fight cryptocurrency money laundering operations. Most of the money laundered since 2017 appears to have ended up on centralized exchanges, although the company is quick to point out that money laundering involves all forms of economic value transfer.

Banks, crypto exchanges, companies

Reddit joins the NFT Party and tests profile pictures

Reddit has joined the NFT and is testing a feature that allows users to add any NFT they own as a profile picture. The move mimicked Twitter’s decision, launching a very similar feature less than a week ago that allowed paying subscribers to add and verify NFTs.

Reddit already has its own NFT collection called CryptoSnoos, which it released in limited numbers last year.

Very little detail was available on this latest foray into the NFT. According to TechCrunch, Reddit said that this particular NFT test was at a “very early stage and was not made available to public users on the web”.

No changes in Tesla’s possession of BTC

The financial statements that Tesla published in connection with its operations for the fourth quarter of 2021 show that the company’s position in BTC remained the same, at approximately $ 1.26 billion.

That was about a year ago when Tesla filed a SEC Form 10-K, which revealed that company had bought a $ 1.5 billion worth of BTC. In addition, this electromobile giant began to accept this cryptocurrency as its products. After a few months, however, the card turned over. In addition, Tesla sold 10% of its BTC stocks to test liquidity, at least according to Elon Musk, the company’s CEO.

Since then, however, the company has refrained from buying and selling other assets, toying with the idea of ​​resuming BTC’s payments at some point.

CBDC, Regulation

Putin: Cryptocurrency mining could give Russia a competitive advantage

The President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, agreed with the country’s central bank that digital assets are highly volatile and pose a number of risks to the financial network. However, he sees potential in cryptocurrency mining because it could provide Russia with “certain competitive advantages”.

At a recent conference, Vladimir Putin said he was aware of ongoing discussions on the issue, outlining that cryptocurrency regulation is currently “in the spotlight.”

Like the central bank, Putin said that expanding this asset class carries some risks for investors due to its high volatility. On the other hand, the president is in favor of cryptocurrency mining because it could be beneficial to his nation. He subsequently called  the Bank of Russia and the local government to reconsider the issue and “reach a consensus.”

The SEC is reportedly reviewing Gemini and Celsius cryptolending products

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reportedly investigating some of the high-yield cryo-lending products offered by Gemini, Celsius Network and Voyager Digital.

According to a report published by Bloomberg, the SEC is investigating digital asset lending services. The main focus of the investigation is allegedly to be whether the cryptoactive lending services could be considered as securities and must therefore be registered with the Commission.

The SEC’s main concerns are said to be the high yield offered by crypto-lending services, which is often significantly higher than most savings banks. The interest rates offered by these services range from 3% to 18%, while the savings accounts of traditional banks offer less than 0.1%.