Nickel News Roundup - Week 45

Last week was one of the biggest in recent memory for digital assets. Could this momentum be maintained? Read on to find out the most significant stories of the week in crypto.

News:

What happened: DBS announced plans to launch a cryptocurrency exchange

How is this significant?:

• DBS is a powerful player in finance; the largest bank in Singapore, a key global financial hub and regulatory-compliant economy.
• Their “DBS Digital Exchange” will operate trading hours mirroring the stock market, and list major crypto assets against the Singapore dollar, as well as USD, HKD, and JPY.
• Along with trading cryptos like BTC, ETH, and XRP, their roadmap includes Security Token Offerings (STOs) to help small and medium sized enterprises raise funds; crowdfunding via cryptocurrency. 

What happened: ECB President Christine Lagarde canvased public opinion on a Digital Euro

How is this significant?:

• One of the most influential global figures in the world of financial policy has publicly acknowledged the potential of CBDCs.
• According to her ECB colleague Benoit Couere a few days earlier, over 80% of central banks have begun research into CBDCs, with 40% into the Proof of Concept phase already.
• By launching a public consultation from ordinary European citizens concerning “whether they would be happy to use a digital euro just in the way they use a euro coin or a euro banknote”, the possibility of retail CBDCs at large scale appears to be increased, potentially giving all Eurozone citizens direct exposure to digital currency.

What happened: ETH2 deposit contract goes live

How is this significant?:

• After many years of iterative development and testing, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin publicly announced that the world’s second-largest blockchain was ready for an upgrade, deploying the contract required to begin the transition.
• Ethereum2 will feature a new infrastructure to tackle the challenge of scaling; allowing for quicker and cheaper transaction times across the network, removing a pain point for large corporations to adopt blockchain.
• By moving from a Proof of Work to a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, Ethereum will also immensely cut down on overall energy production in the mining of new coins, addressing environmental concerns related to blockchains.

What happened: JP Morgan created blockchain unit, and launched JPM Coin

How is this significant?:

• JPM Coin represents the first cryptocurrency created by a major US bank, and Takis Georgakopoulos, global head of wholesale payments, announced its usage by a commercial client for the first time this week.
• According to Georgakopoulos, eliminating inefficiencies in wholesale payments via blockchain could save them “hundreds of millions” of dollars a year.
• In response to this potential, JPM have created their own in-house blockchain unit called Onyx, with over 100 staff, using blockchain to address inefficiency across banking.

Market Overview:

A steady stream of good news maintained bullish sentiment and continued the market resurgence.

• Bitcoin celebrated its 12th birthday in some style. On October 31st 2008, the original BTC white paper was released, and on October 31st 2020, it hit its highest level since January 2018, breaking through $14,000 and briefly touching $14,100. A few days later, it broke the yearly record once more, rising from $13,530 to $14,260, before crossing $14,500 overnight, and breaking the magical $15,000 on the 5th of November, surging to a high of $15,960 (its highest price since January 7th 2018), having gained a maximum of 12% in one day (down to a 7.8% gain at time of writing with a slight retrace to $15,580).
• BTC’s monthly candle closed above $13,000 for the first time since December 2017 — the same month it hit its ATH. The weekly range of $13,090 to $15,300 keeps it quite comfortably above that historic $13,000 resistance level, with the next major resistance currently at $16,000.
• The news that Ethereum has begun its upgrade process had an instant effect on price, rising from a low of $376 to $408 on Wednesday, before rising to $418 on Thursday. 
• The overall cryptocurrency market cap continued to grow as well, crossing $400bn for the first time since May 2018, reaching a high of $425bn on November 5th.
• The DeFi ecosystem hit a new ATH of $12.4bn Total Value Locked, before continued BTC momentum led to a retrace down to $11.3bn.

There’s never a dull day in the world of digital assets, and with the world currently looking towards the USA for clarity around their election results, there may be more interesting times ahead as the markets react to that uncertainty. We’ll be back next week to let you know exactly what happened in crypto!