Russia’s Crypto ETF, BTC Below $50K

There are just a few more hours left to 2021 and what a wild ride it has been! Surely, it was the most explosive year in the cryptocurrency market in terms of both adoption and price performance. This is our last weekly recap and, unfortunately, things are not looking their best.

Starting with BTC, the past seven days ended with a 5.4% decline and the cryptocurrency retracing back below $50K. At the time of this writing, bitcoin’s price sits at $48K, up 1% in the past 24 hours.

Things were looking good for BTC but it was on Monday when everything took a turn for the worst. The cryptocurrency was rejected at $52,000 and started plunging towards $50K. This level was also lost the following day and the price found a potential local bottom at above $46K.

The altcoins market is not looking any better. Ethereum trades at a 8.8% loss, while BNB is down 5.1%. Sol is down 8%, ADA – 9.5%, Luna – 5%, DOT – 4.7%, but XRP lost the most – 15.5% in the past seven days.

It’s interesting to note that there weren’t any negative catalysts. On the contrary – positive news came from Russia – a country that has been historically critical of the nascent industry. Sberbank – Russia’s biggest bank – launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that tracks prominent companies from the industry such as Coinbase and Galaxy Digital. This seems like a big step, considering its previous hostility.

In any case, we are entering a brand new chapter and opening a clean slate. Is a bear market coming in 2022 or will it be even better than 2021? Only time will tell.

With all of the above said, the entire team of CryptoPotato wishes you a Happy New Year!

Market Data

Market Cap: $2,359B | 24H Vol: 88B | BTC Dominance: 40.3%

BTC: $47,615 (-6.4%%) | ETH: $3,758 (-8.8%) | ADA: $1.34 (-9.5%)

Top 5 Crypto Trends in 2021. Another year is behind us and this time, we take the opportunity to explore the hottest trends of 2021. These come in no particular ranking as all of them excelled in specific areas.

MicroStrategy Buys Another $94 Million Worth of BTC Amid $49K. MicroStrategy shows absolutely no signs of slowing down when it comes to buying more BTC. The company just revealed another whopping buy of around $94M worth of bitcoin at an average price of about $49,200.

FTX’s SBF Outlines Key Steps to Move the Crypto Industry Forward into 2022. The CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, came out with e an extensive Twitter thread to outline the key steps to move the entire cryptocurrency industry forward into 2022. Regulations, needless to say, were among the prime talking points.

Sberbank Launches The First Blockchain-Focused ETF in Russia. The leading Russian bank, Sberbank, launched a blockchain exchange-traded fund that tracks the leading companies in the industry. These include Coinbase and Galaxy Digital. This is a first for the country.

Polygon Dodges a Bullet: Patches a Bug That Put $24 Billion Worth of MATIC at Risk. Polygon, one of the leading layer-2 solutions on Ethereum, introduced a recent upgrade after discovering a vulnerability that put almost all of MATIC’s supply at risk. The patch came after two whitehat hackers informed their bug bounty platform of the issue.

While BAYC Spiked 35% in 90 Days, Other Popular NFT Collections Plunged in Value. NFTs are a wild ride. Throughout the past three months, while some of the projects such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club saw their floor prices increase considerably, others were left in the dust with notable losses.

Charts

This week we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Cardano, Ripple, Solana, and Luna – click here for the full price analysis.