The XBO Weekly #16 – Crypto News
Crypto experienced gains amid falling stock markets
Despite the traditional stock markets' slump, which was caused by positive job news, cryptocurrency ended the week with gains. Reports on a robust labor market translate to wage growth that is too high for inflation to decline, and they suggest that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to change its aggressive interest rate hike program. Bitcoin (BTC) rose 3.75% to regain $17,000, while Ether (ETH) gained 8% to $1,300. Notable weekly gains were registered by Gala Games (GALA) 120%, smart contract platforms Solana (SOL) 46% and Cardano (ADA) 27%, as well as metaverse projects, The Sandbox (SAND) and Decentraland (MANA) each adding 29%, and ApeCoin (APE) 19%.
Layoffs across the crypto space intensify
Huobi, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, joins the list of platforms making drastic staff reductions, along with Coinbase, Kraken, and Crypto.com. The founder of Tron (TRX) and primary stakeholder in Huobi, Justin Sun, had previously refuted the claims, but the digital asset exchange is planning to lay off 20% of its workers. The news led to the anticipated test of customer confidence and sizeable withdrawals from the exchange, which were somewhat eased by Justin Sun moving personal stablecoins worth $100 million from Binance to Huobi in a show of confidence in the exchange's capacity to meet all obligations towards its users.
Non-fungible token sales are making a comeback
The NFT front experienced a resurgence at the start of the new year. Sales increased by 26% to 208.99 million in the first week, driven largely by the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which accounted for nearly 9% of the volume. With the help of a $3 million donation, Polygon also persuaded Delabs to transfer their NFT collection Yoots from Solana (SOL) to Polygon (MATIC), ostensibly for use in the significant brand alliances the Ethereum sidechain has established with Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and Disney. Polygon has also reached an agreement with Mastercard to start the payment giant's Artist Accelerator program. The program's purpose is to teach musicians how to advance their careers using Web3 by establishing a community, minting NFTs, and establishing an online presence.
XBO featured Coin of the Week – Algorand (ALGO)
Algorand is a decentralized digital currency and smart contract platform. It aims to provide fast, secure, and scalable transactions for businesses and organizations. Algorand validates transactions using the Pure Proof of Stake (PPoS) protocol, a Proof of Stake (PoS) variant that does neither reward or put validator or user assets at risk in order to encourage honest behavior. Algorand is built to be extremely scalable and capable of processing thousands of transactions per second, making it appropriate for a variety of applications.
ALGO has a circulating supply of 7.1 billion and a max supply of 10 billion. At its current price of $0.20 it has a market cap of $1.47 billion, making it the 32nd largest crypto. ALGO is up 90% from its March 13 cycle low, but down 94% from its all-time high in June 2019.
Buy, Sell, or Swap ALGO - Simply and securely, with XBO.
Disclaimer: The above does not constitute financial advice. It is only intended for informational and educational purposes.
