The global crypto market started the New Year on a muted note. Trading volume jumped by 19.59 per cent to $91.45 billion, while the market cap increased by 0.57 per cent at $2.22 trillion, showed coinmarketcap data as of 8.27 am.
Meanwhile, Russia’s largest retail bank, Sberbank, has launched the country’s first Blockchain Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) on the Moscow Stock Market, reported coindesk. This ETF is benchmarked against the Sber Blockchain Economy Index which tracks the performance of companies related to crypto and blockchain-related services. “Direct investments in crypto-assets are associated with high risks, and it is difficult to independently assess them. Therefore, we propose to invest not in crypto assets, but in companies that ensure the development of blockchain technologies,” said Evgeny Zaitsev, General Director of Sberbank Asset Management, in a press release.
Investors of the world’s oldest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), seem to be playing cautious, as prices continue to trade lower amid increased volatility. It was down by 0.26 per cent at $46,817.93. Rival Ethereum (ETH) was, however, up by 0.45 per cent at $3,730.39.
“Bitcoin dropped further, currently trading below $46,000 after reaching about $48,500 earlier yesterday. This rally was perhaps a result of the options expiry event scheduled on December 31.
Altcoins witnessed a similar downward trajectory. The market leaders ended 2021 on a weak note,” said Gaurav Dahake, CEO, Bitbns.
Among other major coins, Binance Coin (BNB) was up by 1.38 per cent at $518.40 despite a misunderstanding between its Canadian operation and OSC (Ontario Securities Commission). “The OSC is notifying investors that Binance is not registered under the securities law in Ontario. This means they are not authorized to offer trading in derivatives or securities to persons or companies located in the province,” according to a press release.
Solana (SOL) is up by 0.83 per cent at $172.83, while Cardano (ADA) was down by 1.03 per cent at $1.33.
Today’s top gainer was Baby Squid Game (BSG) which was up by 597.29 per cent at $0.000000908. The top loser was SORA Synthetic USD (XSTUSD), which crashed by 99.81 per cent to $0.001921.
Meme Coins And DeFi
Dogecoin (DOGE) was trading with a loss of 0.71 per cent at $0.1719, while rival Shiba Inu (SHIB) is down by 0.82 per cent at $0.00003374.
ELON is trading with a large gain of 11.31 per cent at $0.000001638, Floki Inu is up by 7.07 per cent at $0.0001089, while Samoyed Coin (SAMO) is trading with a loss of 4.57 per cent at $0.03602.
In the DeFi segment, YFI (yearn.finance) was trading with a gain of 10.77 per cent at $33,593.61, Terra (LUNA) was up by 1.17 per cent at $87.59, Avalanche (AVAX) gained 9.13 per cent at $110.58, but Uniswap (UNI) was down by 3.54 per cent at $17.27.
Latest Updates
David Schwartz, chief technology officer of Ripple Blockchain clarified on a user’s tweet that he optimized some portions of Bitcoin's blockchain mining pool applications. He was quoted as saying, “I did some work optimizing the code for mining pool applications in 2011.”
Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, replying to a user's comment about “DeFi is the future” on Binance’s official YouTube channel said, “If you think that, don’t touch any centralized systems, Stay in the decentralized world, all the power to you.” Zhao also said that crypto still needs a centralized finance system to bring investments into its ecosystem and give an exit option to those selling. So, one cannot effectively function without the other, reported coindesk.
