ICYMI: Everything That Happened This Week in Crypto... in Three Minutes

Happy Sunday! Here’s a look back at the crypto stories you may have missed over the past seven days.

In the end, it took crypto just 12 years to go from being a rebel to being The Man. 

Given Bitcoin’s roots as a tool to break the power of big banking and provide a private end-around for the whole government-backed, fiat-based financial system, there was a certain humor in the Bitcoin-bashing that took place in El Salvador this week.

In the wake of President Nayib Bukele’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender, the opposition has targeted the first and largest cryptocurrency as a symbol of his government’s overreach — the majority of citizens opposed the move — and made it a symbol in their battle against the strongman leader. 

On the flipside, Russia's central bank cracked down on cryptocurrency exchanges, ordering banks to slow or stop crypto-related transactions.

As for the mainstreaming of crypto, note that Time magazine just selected Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin as one of its 100 most influential people for 2021.

Then there’s the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is still pushing the “come talk to us” line a week after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s rant about the agency not even telling the company why it threatened to sue over a lending yield program — which didn’t prevent Coinbase’s junk bond auction being so oversubscribed that it raised $2 billion instead of the planned $1.5 billion.

1.  El Salvador made history (again), becoming the first country to riot after its government embraced Bitcoin as a legal tender, with protestors setting a Bitcoin ATM on fire...

2. A likely pump-and-dump scammer showed you can fool all of the people all of the time, unleashing a fake press release announcing a Walmart-Litecoin hookup that drove LTC up 33% — for about 40 minutes...

3. Coinbase’s debt auction was so oversubscribed that the exchange upped its sale from $1.5 billion to $2 billion — despite its junk bond rating and a threatened SEC lawsuit...

4. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin made Time magazine’s prestigious list of the 100 Most Influential People of 2021 — another sign of crypto’s mainstreaming... 

5. OpenSea has "requested and accepted" the resignation of an executive who bought NFTs before they appeared on the homepage, then sold them for a profit... 

The SEC received yet another Bitcoin ETF filing, and is still threatening to sue Coinbase over its planned Lend interest-bearing product. Things to look out for in the week ahead...

— Will Coinbase back down from a fight with the SEC?

— Will the wildly successful bond offering embolden Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to take on the feds?

— Will any exchange take SEC Chair Gary Gensler on his offer to come in and talk?

— And does Bitcoin have the opportunity to smash through $50,000?

— A Deep Dive Into How the Top 10 DAOs Work: Decentralized autonomous organizations are how most DeFi projects are — or will be — governed. Here’s how to suggest a change at UniSwap, MakerDAO, and more.

— Bitcoin 'Breaking Out' as Price Surges Above $47,000: As Bitcoin finally surged past a major resistance level crucial to the return of a bull market, No. 2 crypto Ethereum is starting to be seen as a possible contender.

— Fundamental Analysis vs. Technical Analysis: Which One Is Better?: Whether you’re looking at cryptos or traditional stocks, the question arises: Do you focus on the asset’s underlying value and usefulness, or on charts and statistics focused on its trading history? Or both?

— The CoinMarketRecap podcast comes out every Friday. This week, Connor Sephton talks to Bloomberg Intelligence's senior commodity strategist, Mike McGlone, about why he believes Bitcoin is heading to $5,000.

— And over on our YouTube page, check out the latest episode of ELI5 with Jessica Walker. This week, 12-year-old Benyamin Ahmed explains how non-fungible tokens work in a straightforward way!