Crypto Twitter never fails to disappoint us.
The bearish trend that began at the end of last year continues this month, with most major cryptocurrencies suffering single-digit percentage losses over the seven-day period. Bitcoin (BTC) is up only .50% since last week, currently trading at $39,057. Ethereum (ETH) is down 1% over the same period, trading at $2,585 and Binance Coin (BNB) is down 2%, to trade at $369.
The total crypto market capitalization went down by about 3%, from $1.805 trillion to $1.738 trillion.
Opening our Twitter roundup this week is a widely reported but not yet fully confirmed announcement by a major cryptocurrency services provider Crypto.com — it is allegedly ceasing support for cryptocurrency lending in several regions:
Apparently, users in the U.S., UK, Canada and 38 other countries with outstanding loans on the platform are urged to repay those before March 15 (one day from now), at which point all existing loans will be repaid automatically, including all the associated interest.
Cryptocurrency lending is a service offered by numerous platforms, both centralized ones and the so-called decentralized finance (DeFi) entities. Crypto.com is one of the largest of all crypto lending platforms.
The decision to cease all lending operations so abruptly — if confirmed to be true — could prove catastrophic for users. Because the collateral used in such loans is also usually denominated in cryptocurrency assets — and after several months of this ongoing bear market — the assets are now worth significantly less than when many of the loans were issued.
This has prompted some understandable ridicule/outrage on part of the commenters, some of which are hinting at how something similar would probably be illegal in any but the most unregulated markets:
As you could’ve guessed from the title, this week’s roundup will be full of stories that are balancing on the knife’s edge between barely acceptable and not entirely legal.
On this theme: Randi Zuckerberg, a lesser-known sibling of Meta’s (formerly Facebook) Mark Zuckerberg, has recorded a cover of the “We're Not Gonna Take It" hit song by the heavy metal band Twisted Sister of the 80’s fame.
The cover song, dubbed “We’re All Gonna Make It” — a reference to the WAGMI meme, used as a rallying cry by many in the crypto community (especially non-fungible token enthusiasts) — was released to promote women in the Web 3.0 industry and, implicitly, the 15+ Web3 projects that Zuckerberg is personally involved with.
What’s criminal about the cover is not how bad it sounds, but rather the fact that it likely does not fall into the “fair use” doctrine of the U.S. copyright law, according to the lawyers in contact with Dee Snider, Twister Siter’s lead vocalist, whom R. Zuckerberg had apparently failed to ask for permission before recording and releasing her cover song:
On the other hand, a great deal of regulatory clarity is expected to be introduced to the U.S. crypto market by the signing of a new executive order on digital assets by Joe Biden on Wednesday. The new executive order aims, among other things, to protect American consumers, ensure economic stability and promote US leadership in technology.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, the company behind one of the largest cryptocurrencies XRP, has pointed out how Biden’s new order could bring some much-needed certainty to the future of crypto in the U.S.:
While we’re one the topic of lack of regulatory oversight, Tether minted a whopping one billion USDT on Monday, which apparently has not yet been released into circulation and will instead be used as inventory and gradually introduced to the market over the “next period”:
Tether’s USDT is a so-called stablecoin, a cryptocurrency whose price is pegged to that of the U.S. dollar by the virtue of being backed at a 1:1 ratio by actual dollars and dollar-denominated liquid securities. With a long-promised but still unperformed audit of Tether’s reserves, many are wondering whether it really is fully backed by this “USD standard.” One thing’s for sure though — it’s certainly not backed by a gold standard or a Bitcoin standard.
On a completely unrelated note, Saifedean Ammous, the author of “The Bitcoin Standard” book went on a bizarre tirade this week, claiming that climate change is significantly overblown “carbohysteria.”
Ammous’s proof? A single chart that shows a gradual decline of climate-related deaths from 1940 to 2020. His solution? More fossil fuels. What’s any of this got to do with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies? Not a whole lot, except for the introduction of the concept of “fiat science” by Ammous as part of his rant — although he does leave everyone to guess what fiat science’s decentralized, cryptocurrency counterpart would look like:
NFT’s, a recurring topic in our crypto Twitter roundups over the past months, are showing signs of significant drop in public interest:
Late-night adult animation network Adult Swim is a perfect example of this decline in NFT popularity, as this week it joked that it needs “to make an animated show starring the NFT monkeys” like it needs “a hole in the head”:
Some users are lamenting their NFT purchases which, in light of the evaporation of interest towards the asset class, have a good chance to remain a sunk cost on their balance sheet for the observable future:
While not as huge as some of the wildest purchases made at the peak of the NFT bull market, the loss of three ETH ($7,668 at today’s prices) is still quite regrettable. Thankfully, we’re going to end today’s roundup with a surefire recipe for recouping that loss or any other losses associated with crypto — although the tweet specifically refers to Bitcoin, it really is applicable to absolutely any asset class out there:
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