The hottest news and the biggest reads from CoinMarketCap Academy — and the big questions for the next week.
Happy Sunday! Here’s a look back at the crypto stories you may have missed over the past seven days.
Even by the standards of a summer that saw the bears run rampant across the Bitcoin marketplace, last week was a bad one. The September 7 flash crash knocked nearly 20% off the price of BTC before it crept back somewhat — but still a long way off the seven-day high of $52,853.
While Tuesday was brutal across the board, several Ethereum killers came roaring back, notably Solana and especially Algorand, which were up more than 40% and a staggering 100% on the week, respectively.
That more than took the winds out of El Salvador’s sails as the Central American country — which is not economically stable enough to have its own currency, instead relying on the U.S. dollar — made Bitcoin its second legal tender on a day in which the first cryptocurrency highlighted its volatility problems.
Coinbase has had its ups and downs this year, but the newly public exchange ran into its first real trouble this week, when the SEC told it to kill its soon-to-launch Coinbase Lend product or be sued — despite refusing to even tell the company why, CEO Brian Armstrong complained. That led billionaire crypto investor Mark Cuban to publically advise an “aggressive” battle with the SEC — something that tends to end very badly, as Telegram CEO Pavel Durov learned while trying to salvage his $1.7 billion TON blockchain project.
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Five Things We Learned This Week 😱
1. El Salvador made history, becoming the first country to embrace Bitcoin as a legal tender...
2. Crypto fans’ plan to pump BTC on September 7 to honor El Salvador’s move collapsed as a near 20% flash crash made Bitcoin Day a holiday to forget...
3. The SEC threatened to sue Coinbase if the exchange goes ahead with its new Lend product, despite refusing to tell CEO Brian Armstrong why...
4. The NFL isn’t following pro basketball down the NBA Top Shots path to NFT fame and fortune. The U.S. football league is taking a go-slow approach to crypto sponsors and NFT collections that mirrors its approach to alcohol and gambling...
5. Carrying on the fine tradition of B-list celebs pumping iffy crypto projects, Kim Kardashian West took to Instagram to promote Ethereum Max, which has seen a 97% price drop since May. To be fair, though, at least she was upfront about being paid for the endorsement…
The Week Ahead 🗓
The magic number for the week ahead is $50,000, as traders and analysts try to figure out if Bitcoin’s flash crash was a (very big) stumble on the climb back to its April all-time high.
— Will Bitcoin be able to overcome resistance in the $48,000 to $50,000 range?
— Will Ethereum be able to resume its month-long climb to retake $4,000?
— Will Ethereum killers Algorand, Solana, and Polkadot continue to see their prices skyrocket?
— Will an increasingly aggressive SEC hamstring Coinbase — and, effectively, Bitcoin?
Three Essential Reads on CoinMarketCap Academy 🚨
— The Best Cold Wallets of 2021: A month after two hacks drained more than three-quarters of a billion dollars from crypto investors (most of it returned, happily and shockingly) is probably a good time to look into a cold wallet to keep your assets secure. Here are seven of the best.
— Digital Euro: What Is It and How Will it Work?: With the European Central Bank having just approved a multi-year project to create a digital euro, it’s worth looking at what a central bank digital currency in the world’s third-largest economy will look like, how it will function, and what its goals are.
— An Overleveraged Crypto Market Leads to a 20% Drop: A Data Perspective by IntoTheBlock: It’s tempting to blame El Salvador for the flash crash that wiped 20% off Bitcoin’s market cap in 12 hours following the Central American nation’s embrace of BTC as a legal currency. But a dive into the numbers shows that a heavily leveraged market is the real villain.
Listen to This! 🤩
— The CoinMarketRecap podcast comes out every Friday. This week, Connor Sephton talks to crypto enthusiasts on the ground in El Salvador. Plus, we find out why so much ETH is being burned... and get an update on Akon City.
— And over on YouTube, check out our Tuesday Tutorial. Trev has been taking a look at the best crypto wallets for beginners in 2021.
