Crypto News, Jan. 21: Red Numbers Everywhere 🔴

Bitcoin plunged to $38,560.45 early on Friday — its lowest level since August. The world's biggest cryptocurrency has fallen by 6.68% over the past 24 hours. Ether, Binance Coin, Cardano and Solana all fared far worse, with some altcoins shedding 9% of their value. ETH neared $2,800 at one point. Excluding stablecoins, the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap are in the red. BTC has been closely correlated with the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 — and on Thursday, this index entered correction territory.

The new mayor of New York City is receiving his first paycheck today — and it's automatically being converted into Bitcoin and Ether. Department of Labor rules mean Eric Adams cannot directly receive his paycheck in crypto, meaning the funds have to go through Coinbase. He's being paid about $260,000 a year for his role as mayor — and given he gets a paycheck every two weeks, his gross pay is $9,924.66. Adams has dodged a bullet given BTC and ETH's plunge happened hours earlier.

Twitter has finally launched a new feature that allows non-fungible tokens to be used as profile pictures — but there's a catch. The social network's latest crypto-friendly tool is only accessible to those who have subscribed to its Twitter Blue service. Users can directly connect crypto wallets to their profiles, and official NFT avatars are shown in a hexagon instead of a circle. Elon Musk has described the new feature as "annoying," and believes Twitter should focus on tackling crypto scams instead.

Businesses in El Salvador will soon be able to access loans backed by Bitcoin. Interest rates could be between 6% and 10%, and this is being described as a vast improvement on the status quo. Many companies in the Central American country are unbanked, making it hard to access capital. Some entrepreneurs end up in the hands of loan sharks where annual interest rates average 2,300%. As an example, a business that borrows $100 for three weeks could end up paying interest of $15 a day.