Crypto News, Dec. 10: New Memecoin Teases Congressman

Bitcoin has been dragged further away from $50,000 as trading volumes slump. Prices fell to lows of $47,358.35 as the Chinese property developer Evergrande slid into default. The embattled company has a debt pile of $300 billion, and there have been fears its collapse could send shockwaves through the global economy. Fresh volatility could be in store for Bitcoin on Friday as the U.S. gears up to release inflation data for November. Economists predict it could come in at a whopping 6.8%.

On Wednesday, a congressman made up Mongoose Coin during a hearing with crypto executives. Inevitably, it took one day before a memecoin with the same name launched. The joke cryptocurrency has attracted thousands of Twitter followers and already has a market cap of $25 million. On Twitter, the founders said: "This is your Mongress. We're just getting started. You can't stop the $mong movement." In a way, its sudden creation painfully proves the point crypto critics are trying to make.

India's prime minister is preparing to make "a final call" on how to regulate cryptocurrencies. The Economic Times says there are conflicting views about what the country's law should look like, and many options are on the table. Possible scenarios include a total ban on private cryptocurrencies, or restrictions targeting a smaller number of digital assets. In news that may offer hope to uncertain investors, "all categories of crypto products" could remain legal, albeit with regulation.

"A limited number" of people in the U.S. will be able to use Novi digital wallet within WhatsApp. It's hoped the move will make "sending money to family and friends as easy as sending a message" — instantly and with no fees. The messaging platform is owned by Facebook, now Meta, which has faced an uphill struggle as it tries to roll out digital currencies to its users. Regulatory pushback over its Diem coin means Novi has had to embrace Paxos' USDP stablecoin instead.

A billionaire who outbid crypto enthusiasts and bought a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution has claimed he reached out to the group afterwards — but his offers were turned down. Ken Griffin reportedly asked if they wanted to arrange joint governance for the document, and invited them to help make a decision on where it should be displayed. However, Bloomberg says an agreement couldn't be reached. Griffin also revealed he bought the Constitution because his son told him to.

Football fans have spent more than $350 million on crypto tokens issued by their favorite clubs, according to new figures. Analysis by Protos and BBC News reveals fan tokens linked to Manchester City and Lazios have generated the most sales to date. But both have also suffered the sharpest drop in value — down 70% since their launch. Two fan tokens — one for Inter Milan and another for the Turkish team Trabzonspor — have actually seen their values surge more than Bitcoin this year.

"The fastest blockchain in the world" is facing some uncomfortable questions after being hit by a distributed denial of service attack. Transactions per second on the Solana network fell below 500 at one point. While this isn't comparable to the high-profile outage that wiped out Solana for 18 hours in September, there are fears it could further dent confidence in the project. For its part, Solana appeared to be tight-lipped during the disruption, and no updates were forthcoming on Twitter.