The U.S. Capitol is pictured on Dec. 3, 2021. Executives from cryptocurrency companies testified before the House Committee on Financial Services on Dec. 8.
The prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum plunged Wednesday night after news that Russia had invaded Ukraine. Bitcoin dropped back below $35,000, and Ethereum dropped below $2,400 — though both had risen by Friday afternoon.
It’s been a slow start to the year for crypto. Bitcoin dropped below $34,000 in January — the lowest Bitcoin’s price had been since July 2021. After climbing back up and staying above $40,000 for most of February, Bitcoin dropped back into the $30,000 range on Friday, and lagged throughout the weekend. Ethereum’s price also dropped in recent days.
Meanwhile, a New Jersey lawmaker released an early draft of a bill on regulating the stablecoin market. The New York Stock Exchange filed a trademark application for its own NFT marketplace. Colorado will begin accepting crypto payments for taxes by the end of summer. JP Morgan has officially entered the metaverse. And crypto exchange Coinbase will allow crypto recipients in Mexico to cash out in local currency.
Here’s more on the latest crypto news investors should know about:
- Cryptocurrency made a splash at the Super Bowl this year, with multiple cryptocurrency exchanges airing ads. The crypto ads captured America’s attention, but not everyone loved them. Senate Banking Chairman Sherrod Brown blasted them during a senate committee hearing last week, saying the ads lacked transparency and “left a few things out.” The hearing was another government meeting on stablecoins, where U.S. lawmakers echoed similar past sentiments about how more regulation is needed.
- The New York Stock Exchange, the world’s largest stock exchange by market capitalization, wants to be the marketplace for NFTs just like with stocks. The exchange filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to provide an online marketplace for digital goods including NFTs, cryptocurrencies, digital media, and artwork. If the exchange’s plan comes to fruition, it would compete with other popular NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible.
- Colorado Governor Jared Polis announced that the state will begin accepting crypto payments for taxes and other state-related transactions by the end of summer. Polis said during an interview with CoinDesk that Colorado will partner with crypto companies to effectively accept and convert Bitcoin into U.S. dollars. “We don’t want to take the speculative risk of holding crypto, so we will have a transactional layer there and it will be entered in our system as dollars,” he says. “For consumer convenience, we want to accept payment in a wide variety of cryptocurrencies, just as we do with credit cards.”
- New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer unveiled an early draft of legislation last week that would place clear definitions around U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins. The proposed legislation would designate certain stablecoins as “qualified,” making them redeemable on a one-to-one basis for U.S. dollars, and institute traditional deposit insurance on stablecoin holdings. The bill also states that qualified stablecoins would only be issued by banks or non-bank institutions that satisfy certain regulations.
- JP Morgan has officially entered the metaverse, opening a lounge in Decentraland, a virtual world based on blockchain technology. The “Onyx lounge” was unveiled along with a report from the bank outlining “limitless” opportunities for businesses in the metaverse and why there is “explosive interest.” JP Morgan is the largest bank in the U.S. and the first to participate in the metaverse.
- Coinbase announced it’s launching a service that allows cryptocurrency recipients in Mexico to cash out their funds in pesos. The service will be offered at over 37,000 locations across the country, free of charge through March 31, after which customers will be charged a “nominal fee that’s still 25-50% cheaper” than traditional international payment options, according to a Coinbase blog post. Cryptocurrency has drawn interest for cross-border payments and money transfers, because of its potential as a faster and cheaper method to transact compared to more traditional options.
Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and a good indicator of the crypto market in general, since other coins like Ethereum (and smaller altcoins) tend to follow its trends. Even though Bitcoin recently set another new all-time high, it was a pretty normal uptick for the crypto, which is notorious for its volatility. That’s not to say investors should take swings in either direction lightly, and this is also why investing experts recommend not making any major investment changes based on these normal fluctuations.
Cryptocurrency is still very new, and everything from innovation to regulation can have outsize impact for investors. Here’s how you can invest smartly, regardless of what’s making news or Bitcoin’s price swings.
Content retrieved from: https://time.com/nextadvisor/investing/cryptocurrency/latest-crypto-news/.
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