Market Update (Week 50, 13/12/2021 – 19/12/2021)

Price, volatility & volume indices all tumble. Next lawsuit filed against $USDT issuer Tether.

Key Takeaways

• A class-action lawsuit has been filed against USDT stablecoin issuer Tether for the second time in the space of four months. The lawsuit was initiated by a group of disgruntled investors who alleged that Tether had falsely represented USDT’s backing.
• Justin Sun has resigned as CEO of TRON to become Grenada’s WTO Ambassador. The TRON Foundation is set to dissolve on 25 July 2022.
• Crypto.com supports Cosmos’s mainnet upgrade. Cosmos Hub, the first of hundreds of interconnected blockchains, has performed the Vega upgrade at block height 6910000 to bring about brand-new functions and advanced features to the platform.
• The general price and volume indices slipped by -3.77% and -4.43% respectively, while  market volatility also decreased by -2.97%.

Highlights

• SEC delays decisions on Bitwise and Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETFs
• ConsenSys collaborates with Mastercard on new Ethereum scaling system
• Reddit co-founder creates $200M initiative with Polygon for Web3, social media
• Number of addresses sending Bitcoin to exchanges hit 1-year low
• $24,000 worth of Ether burned in one minute, a total of 1.2M coins scorched
• Circle’s USDC stablecoin deployed on Avalanche blockchain
• Switzerland’s SEBA Bank announces gold-token akin to stablecoin
• ETH 2.0 contract deposits hits an all-time high with a value of over $33B
• HSBC and IBM create successful multi-ledger CBDC demo
• Korean officials quit jobs to join the crypto industry, lawmaker reveals
• New survey shows 83% of millennial millionaires own crypto

Check the latest prices on crypto.com/price.

Notable events

XTZ has been fighting downward momentum since October; recent market-wide corrections have brought the coin back down to about $4.20. (ref)

The EOS community has halted ongoing payments worth around $250 million as the negotiations between the ENF and BlockOne failed. (ref) On 19 December, EOS got a neutral rating on the InvestorsObserver Sentiment Score. (ref)

Polkadot (DOT) has launched its first set of parachains, individual networks running in parallel to create a harmonised, interoperable ecosystem. The milestone follows the completion of the first five parachain auctions, a system of crowd loans amassing large amounts of DOT. (ref)

Notable events

Yearn Finance (YFI) emerged as one of the best performers in the crypto market this week, rallying by over 46% in just four days to reach a two-week high above $29,100. (ref)

A governance proposal floated by the Aave (AAVE) community centred around the platform’s code licensing has ended, with 55% voting for the ecosystem to apply for a ‘business license’. The proposal was part of Aave’s broader ‘3 release’ strategy to prevent forks. (ref)

Notable events

OMI, ANT and RAMP booked 20% gains as Bitcoin and the wider crypto sector reacted positively on 15 December after Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell confirmed the bank’s plan to hike interest rates in 2022 and slow down the bond purchasing program that had been in play since the emergence of the coronavirus in March 2020. (ref)

Steven Cooper, the owner of Bigger Entertainment, the first crypto record label, who accepts SHIB for music, merch, tickets to events, and NFTs and then burns these coins, has tweeted that over the next sixty days, his team expects to double their SHIB burn rate. (ref)