Quote of the week: “Investors are placing a premium on certainty and stability… and Bitcoin is the most immutable crypto asset, similar to how gold has outperformed other kinds of traditional assets.”- Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at New York-based VanEck. Source: https://www.investors.
Tech Employment Layoffs and Hires: As a result of market turmoil, many cryptocurrency exchanges and firms are laying off employees. BlockFi plans to lay off 20% of its employees, while Coinbase Global Inc. plans to cut 18% of its workforce. Despite the layoffs, some other exchanges and firms are opening up more positions and looking to hire. Crypto exchange giant, Binance, for example, has opened 2000 positions for hire. This move by the exchange comes in contrast to many other companies in the digital currency space. Sources:
https://www.fxempire.com/news/
DeFi Lender Celsius Pauses Withdrawals: At the start of the week, crypto lending platform Celsius Networks LLC announced that it was pausing all withdrawals, swaps, and transfers between accounts as a result of “extreme market conditions.” Celsius is one of the largest crypto lending platforms in the world and did not announce when it would call off the withdrawal freeze. Source:
Mastercard Dives Deeper into NFTs and Web3: Mastercard announced that it has been planning to expand their payment networks to NFTs over the past year and has partnered with many leading NFT marketplaces to allow cardholders to directly make NFT purchases without having to buy cryptocurrency first. With its new partnerships, including with Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway, and MoonPay, billions of cardholders can now bypass having to buy crypto to bid on NFTs. Source:
https://cointelegraph.com/
Interest Rates: This week, cryptocurrency markets have been influenced by macroeconomic sentiment and federal interest rate hikes. The Federal Reserve announced its plans to increase interest rates by 75 basis points in June, the largest monthly raise since 1994. The Central Bank signaled its intent to continue to raise rates by another 175 basis points over this year.
Sources: https://coinmarketcap.com/
https://finance.yahoo.com/
Yahoo Moving In on the Metaverse: This week, Yahoo revealed its intent to launch a series of Metaverse and NFT- related activities and projects in Hong Kong. Yahoo announced it will host virtual events and concerts for the residents of Hong Kong in the metaverse. Supposedly, Yahoo is planning to create a brief rally for Decentraland and its native token MANA. Source:
And, that’s a wrap
