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There are fears the cryptocurrency market is entering a bearish phase following large-scale losses since the weekend.

Bitcoin, currently around $31,500, has fallen to its lowest level in almost a year, with other coins also dropping day by day.

The bloodbath may not end any time soon, according to Eloisa Marchesoni, amid a sell-off which recently saw $1 billion of assets liquidated in just 24 hours.

The American is a respected crypto entrepreneur, tokenomics expert and international blockchain speaker who, at 23 years of age, has already advised over 35 startups and exited four FinTech companies.

“Due to the rising inflation, most investors have taken a risk-off approach, selling both stocks and cryptos. Until the market starts adjusting to these new monetary conditions, I do not think Bitcoin will lead the crypto market up again,” Marchesoni explains.

In seemingly contradictory fashion, the market is experiencing a decline even as the adoption of crypto continues to grow.

“Increased institutional adoption of crypto has had a downturn: it made the crypto market more intertwined with the stock market,” she continues. “Stocks fell sharply Monday, as the market sell-off continued after the US Federal Reserve announced its biggest interest rate increase in over 20 years last week. 

“Bitcoin and crypto in general have become extremely correlated to stocks lately. Both the crypto and stock markets have been experiencing lots of downward pressure due to investors struggling with rising inflation, the global economic difficulties caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and just a tighter monetary policy by the Fed.

“In the short term, these macroeconomic factors have created extra volatility in the crypto and stock markets. These are times of uncertainty, and such a correlation is normal.”

Marchesoni expects both crypto markets and traditional finance to continue to slide.

“In my trading strategy, I have some entry levels for Bitcoin set near $22,000, and, from what I am hearing from traders in the stock markets that are in my circle, they are expecting similar plunges,” she adds.

Independent Russian news outlet raises $250k in crypto

A Russian-language independent news outlet has raised more than $250,000 in cryptocurrency donations from supporters via 146,000 individual donations.

Meduza, based in Latvia and founded in 2014 by a group of former employees of the then independent Lenta.ru news website, turned to the crypto crowd in March in order to fund its reporting on ‘the real Russia’ and the ‘monstrous’ invasion of Ukraine.

Meduza was labelled a ‘foreign agent’ by Russian authorities in 2021, leading to the loss of almost all its advertising income.

Digital asset trading tech firm Talos raises $105m

Talos, a provider of institutional digital asset trading technology, has raised $105 million which values the company at $1.25 billion.

The Series B funding round was led by global growth equity firm General Atlantic with participation from veteran investors in both the traditional finance and digital asset spaces. 

New investors including Stripes, BNY Mellon, Citi, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, DRW Venture Capital, SCB 10x, Matrix Capital Management, Fin VC and Voyager Digital, Graticule Asset Management Asia (GAMA) and LeadBlock Partners joined the round.

“This funding round represents a major inflection point for the industry. We’ve long heard that ‘the institutions are coming’. The institutions are now here, and we’re extremely proud to be the digital asset trading platform of choice for leading institutions around the world,” said Anton Katz, co-founder and CEO of Talos.

“We believe that the digital assets infrastructure will have a wide-scale impact on the entire financial industry and ultimately, we will see traditional asset classes ultimately migrate to this new technology as well. 

“Our investors, which include some of the most storied institutions on Wall St., share this belief and we’re honoured to have their confidence and support.”

Existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, PayPal Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Fidelity Investments, Illuminate Financial, Initialized Capital, and Notation Capital also extended their partnerships with Talos through this newest funding round.

Cryptocurrency shorts

The TerraUSD stablecoin (UST), which lost its $1 peg and fought to return it, is down at 72 cents after plunging backer Terra (LUNA) shed 71% of its value in the last 24 hours.

The Queen’s Speech, which formally opened the new session of the UK Parliament and revealed the government’s legislative program, revealed a new UK financial services law and bill on fighting economic crime. These will respectively ‘support the safe adoption of cryptocurrencies’ and create ‘powers to more quickly and easily seize and recover crypto assets, which are the principal medium used for ransomware’.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase made its first loss as a public company, with Q1 earnings a negative $430 million. Revenue also dropped 27% from the same period in 2021 to $1.17 billion. Monthly transacting users dropped to 9.2m from 11.4m in Q4.

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) in Belgium is working with two blockchain companies to tokenise Carnaval de Binche, a million-euro painting by Belgian artist James Ensor, to allow everyone to become a ‘co-owner’ of the masterpiece.

Highlight, a no-code toolkit that lets anyone create a Web 3 community with non-fungible tokens, has launched with $11m seed funding led by Haun Ventures. 

Chainalysis, a startup that provides crypto investigation and compliance services – including to law enforcement – has secured $170m in a Series F funding round led by GIC, a sovereign wealth fund of Singapore.

Jambo, a Congo-based startup building a Web3 user acquisition platform, has closed a $30m Series A funding round led by Paradigm, marking the crypto VC’s first investment in Africa.

NFT blockchain Flow has launched a $725m fund to back creators of Web3 apps and games: the Flow Ecosystem Fund includes a16z, Coatue, Union Square Ventures, Greenfield One, Coinfund and Digital Currency Group.

Wirex has secured over 150,000 registrations to its crypto app in the US just six weeks after launch. Linked to a crypto-backed Visa card, it includes payment and crypto services. It already has five million customers in the EEA and APAC regions.

Crypto prices

The overall market cap of the more than 19,300 coins is at $1.42 trillion, a 2.7% decrease in the last 24 hours, with Terra (LUNA) shedding 71% of its value as it continues to dive.

Market leader Bitcoin – the original cryptocurrency created by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto – fell 1% in the last 24 hours to around $31,450 at the time of writing (7am UK). BTC is down 18% in a week.

Ethereum, the second most valuable crypto coin – created as a decentralised network for smart contracts on the blockchain – shed 1% to around $2,375. ETH is 15% down over the course of a week.

Binance Coin is a cryptocurrency created by popular crypto exchange Binance to assist its aim in becoming the infrastructure services provider for the entire blockchain ecosystem. Its BNB token lost 3% to $315, leaving it 18% down over seven days.

The XRP token of Ripple, a payment settlement asset exchange and remittance system, acts as a bridge for transfers between other currencies. XRP dropped 1% to 52 cents, which leaves it 15% down over seven days.

Solana is a blockchain built to make decentralised finance accessible on a larger scale – and capable of processing 50,000 transactions per second. Its SOL token dumped 7% to $66 and is down 23% compared with a week ago.

Cardano is an open source network facilitating dApps which considers itself to be an updated version of Ethereum. Its ADA token, designed to allow owners to participate in the operation of the network, dropped 6% to below 63c. It is 20% down over the course of a week.

Meme coin DOGE was created as a satire on the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies but is now a major player in the space. DOGE fell 5% to below 11c, leaving it 16% down in a week.

Polkadot was founded by the Swiss-based Web3 Foundation as an open-source project to develop a decentralised web. Its DOT token, which aims to securely connect blockchains, fell 11% to $11.11 and is 31% lower than its price a week ago.

Avalanche is a lightning-quick verifiable platform for institutions, enterprises and governments. Its AVAX token dropped 21% to $41 and is 37% down in a week.

Terra, described as a programmable money for the internet, lost a jaw-dropping 71% to just $9. Its payment token LUNA is 89% lower than its price a week ago.

To see how the valuations of the main coins have changed in recent times – and for round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments – click here.

For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.