We're halfway through the week, and as usual, there's never a dull day in crypto.
Six-Week BTC High
Bitcoin pushed above $30,000 for the first time since April, buoyed by crypto initiatives involving major players from the traditional financial sector.
PayPal announced that it will allow its users to withdraw their crypto holdings to third-party wallets, a feature that was long requested by the crypto community.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs partnered with Galaxy Digital to provide Bitcoin futures trading services to its institutional clients, signaling a growing acceptance of crypto among Wall Street firms.
MicroStrategy, one of the largest corporate holders of Bitcoin, revealed that it plans to sell $500 million worth of bonds to buy more Bitcoin, doubling down on its bullish bet on the OG cryptocurrency.
NFT Mania
After experiencing a short market downturn in the past two weeks, the non-fungible token market has recorded positive gains this week.
The top-selling NFT project this week was Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 unique ape-themed avatars that grant their owners access to exclusive benefits such as a members-only graffiti board and future collaborations. The project sold over $13 million worth of NFTs in the past seven days, with an average price of $6,800 per ape.
Another notable NFT project that performed well this week was CryptoPunks, one of the oldest and most iconic NFT collections on Ethereum.
A rare alien punk sold for a whopping $11.8 million at Sotheby's auction house, setting a new record for the highest price paid for a single CryptoPunk.
Crypto Regulations A Mixed Bag
As crypto adoption grows, so does the attention from regulators and lawmakers. This week, we saw some interesting developments in the crypto regulatory space both in the US and abroad.
In New York State, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill that imposes a three-year moratorium on new crypto-mining operations that use fossil fuels. The bill aims to protect the state's environment and climate goals from the high energy consumption of crypto mining.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, the government proposed a new law that would require all crypto exchanges operating in the city to obtain a license and only serve professional investors. The law would effectively ban retail investors from accessing crypto platforms and services in Hong Kong for the time being.
In India, the central bank clarified that banks and other regulated entities cannot cite its 2018 circular to deny services to crypto customers. The circular was quashed by the Supreme Court last year, but some banks were still using it as an excuse to block crypto transactions.
Matt is the founder of TechMalak. When he's not buried face-deep in the crypto charts you can find him tinkering with the latest tech gadgets and A. I tools. He's a crypto investor and entrepreneur. He uses a mixture of A.I and human thought and input into all his articles on TechMalak, further merging man with machine.
