The world’s largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin surged beyond $36,000 on Tuesday but was also dropped approximately 0.38 % in the previous 24 hours, opposed to ETH’s 0.76 % drop. Buyers appear to be returning, based on the recent bounce, although some experts forecast tumultuous price movement ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s press conference on Wednesday. Today was the first day of the Fed’s policy meeting.

The Federal Reserve is slated to give specifics on the end of its asset-purchase program in March, which might correlate with a rise in interest rates. Over the last two weeks, fears of tighter monetary policy have driven a rapid sell-off in volatile assets such as shares and cryptocurrencies.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday that while digital payments seemed to have the potential to expand economic growth in the Central American country, adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as legal cash held “significant risks” in terms of financial stability, financial integrity, and consumer protection. The executive board directors requested El Salvador officials to “limit the extent of the Bitcoin law by revoking Bitcoin’s legal tender status,” while also citing worry about the risks of offering Bitcoin-backed bonds.

Given the macroeconomic and regulatory instability, some cryptocurrency traders may sit on the sidelines. In terms of regulation, Russia’s Ministry of Finance has resisted the nation’s central bank’s request for a crypto ban. With hardly any noteworthy sentiments emerging lately, let’s all take a closer look into the crypto-universe to see what has been happening recently.

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Bitcoin Whales Take Advantage Of Market Crash To Gobble Up Millions In BTC

The whale was purchasing millions of dollars worth of bitcoin every few hours. Purchases ranged from $2 to $18 million worth of BTC every few hours, averaging 48,000 BTC per purchase. CC15Capital tracked the wallet and discovered that a single bitcoin wallet had been purchasing millions. CC15Capital called for bitcoin investors to stop dumping their coins, which are being bought by whales. By the weekend, the wallet had successfully increased its holdings by a couple of hundred thousand BTC. The more the price dropped, the more bitcoin the whale bought.

Ethereum Leaves ETH 2.0 In The Past In New Roadmap Rebrand

ETH 2.0 is one of the most-anticipated upgrades in crypto presently. The upgrade will bring better scalability and cheaper prices to the network. Developers have been hard at work for two years trying to usher in this new era. In a blog post on its official website, the Foundation announced its decision to change the name of the upcoming upgrade to the “Consensus layer”. The base layer, also known as ETH1, will now be called the execution layer while ETH 2.0 will be referred to as the consensus layer. This way, users are no longer confused when it comes to distinguishing between the two.

El Salvador Buys 410 More Bitcoins In Recent Dip

Amid market drop, El Salvador purchases 410 more bitcoins. Central American nation now has over 1,800 BTC and plans to issue a $1 billion 10-year bitcoin bond this year. President Bukele believes that if bitcoin becomes an integral part of their country’s economy, it would be a curtain for FIAT. The El Salvador national debt is at an all-time high, with over 50% of the GDP in July. The implementation of bitcoin as a national currency has been met by violent resistance from citizens. IMF already warned the Government not to adopt Bitcoin as a currency.

Indonesia Based Boy Named Ghozali Becomes Millionaire By Selling Selfies On OpenSea As NFTs

The Indonesian boy, Sultan Gustaf Al Ghozali, is 22 years old and held from Semarang. He decided to take daily selfies some years back. Through this action that he kept from 2017 to 2021, the boy now has more than 1,000 photos. This led to his subsequent sales of the NFTs on OpenSea. The IreneDAO project collection comprises photos with transcriptions on them inspired by memes.

Despite its lack of significant artistic value, the project maintains a floor price of 0.42 ETH. About 498 addresses now own an NFT from the project’s collection. Its traded volume has moved over 1,800 ETH from its initiation.

OpenSea Trading Volume May Force Ethereum Price Crash, Expert Says

Experts attribute the drop in ETH’s price to direct transfers from the NFT marketplace OpenSea. The volume of NFT trading on OpenSea continues to climb in January. As for royalties from OpenSea, an extra 35,300 ETH were distributed to NFT issuers. This sum surpasses their previous monthly sales record of $3.5 billion and is expected to rise further. The price of Ether (ETH) has fallen below $3,000 for the first time in 14 days and is down more than 35% year-to-date.

ETH is presently trading at $2,407, a -3.71% decrease over the previous 24 hours. Market participants remain bullish on Ether in the long run, as several upgrades to the network will boost adoption and drive up its value. The next stage of the journey to becoming a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain is planned for this year.

Opera’s new launch Web3 Crypto Browser Is All Set For Your Device

Opera Web3 crypto browser supports both cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. It can function in an environment where digital currencies are accepted and store your funds securely for use on the web or when making transactions through NFC templates (Sony). The browser also comes with features such as a built-in cryptocurrency wallet and a shortcut for quickly switching between different crypto exchanges. Opera’s new launch Web3 Crypto Browser is all set for your device. The crypto browser is a new way to make trading cryptocurrency easy and seamless.

It allows users who don’t want the hassle of third-party solutions like Coinbase or Bitstamp. Some people think it will be one of the most critical networks in our digital world.

Cardano Backed Metaverse Project Pavia’s Land Price Skyrockets

The use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which operate with the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies, is increasing. They enable investors to get tokenized assets of their favorite art items, idols, places, etc. According to its design, Pavia has about 100,000 land parcels issued. An airdrop of Pavia’s native token was made to NFT landholders. Pavia on Cardano is during the period of incredible carvings for virtual parcels of land.

The value for land plats on Pavia runs as huge as 30,000 Cardano on CNFT, the Cardano NFT marketplace. This amount is equivalent to about $45,600 at the press time. The functionality of the Metaverse is attracting several firms as they intend to create their appearance on the platform.

Terra Announces Non-Profit ‘Luna Foundation Guard’

Terra announced the formation of a new non-profit organization, the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) LFG will emphasize a number of major pillars that they see as core in advancing the ecosystem. In all, the Foundation will serve as a mechanism to continue driving engagement and adoption of Terraform Lab’s growing stablecoin, UST. The team at Terraform Labs has announced the first of three foundation grants for open-source development, research and education, and community growth within the Terra network. This is the first in a series of announcements that could likely be unveiled over the weeks to come. For now, the LFG webpage still has a “[redacted]” section, so don’t be surprised if the coming two announcements are extensions or supplementary pieces of the non-profit.

Binance’s CZ Explains Why Banning Crypto Ads Won’t Affect Demand

Crypto-related firms have been accused by international regulators of misleading messages that undermine the risk digital assets investments could possess to users. In Singapore alone, crypto exchanges and other licensed companies can only publish ads on their own websites and mobile apps to avoid reaching the general public. Spain, the U.K., and Singapore have banned the advertisement of crypto to different extents. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao thinks this will not affect the high demand of the market. Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world and it recently withdrew its application to start a cryptocurrency exchange in Singapore.

The CEO noted that most users are driven to the crypto industry through “word of mouth” marketing rather than ads. Clampdown on crypto advertising is unlikely to have much of an effect on demand, as most of the crypto users come from word-of-mouth promotions anyway.

I Only Hold 1 Bitcoin, Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal Reveals

Millionaire investor Raoul Pal has revealed how much he owns of bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that he has been known to actively promote in the past. The CEO and founder of Real Vision posted his bitcoin holdings on Twitter, which turned out to be lower than everyone’s expectations. Pal disclosed that he only owned a measly 1 bitcoin. Greg Foss has since tendered an apology to Pal and said he was wrong to attack him in the first place. The millionaire investor still holds a bullish view on bitcoin but expects ethereum to be the better investment going forward.

Australian Football League Bags $25 Million Sponsorship Deal With Crypto.com

Crypto.com’s sponsorship deal with Australian Football League (AFL) is the first of its kind for an Australian sports team. The sponsorship deal, about $25 million, is expected to last for five years. It depicts an increase from the current $18.5 sponsorship contract AFL has with Toyota. Also, it stands as the initiating move from the crypto exchange in supporting an elite women’s sports competition globally. The Singapore-based crypto exchange, Crypto.com, provides many crypto services to its customers.

These include digital wallets, crypto-backed debit cards, and others. In August, a survey from CNBC disclosed that women’s participation in crypto investments is far below half of their male counterparts. The report indicated that while 16% of men were involved, only 7% were recorded.

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