Nickel News Roundup - Week 44

Here’s a quick roundup from us on the most significant events of the week (and what the market response has been).

News:

What happened?: PayPal and Venmo Enabled Users to Buy, Trade, and Pay with Crypto

How is this significant?

• Consumer Adoption: PayPal and Venmo are established names with large existing userbases, casting a wide net for new cryptocurrency adopters.
• Merchant Reach: PayPal accounts for over 1/5th of online transactions in the United States, and counts 26 million merchants as adopters.
• Scale: The transactional volume on PayPal alone has reached a new high of over $220 billion in Q2 2020. 

In terms of market cap and payment processing capabilities, PayPal is a significant addition to the cryptocurrency space, lowering the barrier of entry to many of their existing consumers and businesses.

What happened?: IMF Recognised the Potential of CBDCs for Cross-Border Payments

How is this significant?:

• The IMF paper and panel on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBCDs) officially recognised the benefits and advantages of digital currencies across several areas, including cross-border payments and currency substitution.
• Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged “there are a number of ways that CBDCs could improve the payments system”.

Market Overview:

With bullish news, it’s no surprise that the crypto market had a strong week:

• Bitcoin hit a new yearly high of almost $13,900 on the 28th of October (its highest price since $14,000 in June 2019) after breaking through its 2020 resistance of $12,400 on the 21st. At the time of writing BTC stands at $13,300 or +85% YTD.
• The overall cryptocurrency market cap hit $392b on the 28th, and is currently $390b, reaching its highest levels since Q2 2018.
• Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, followed Bitcoin’s growth, hitting $420 on the 22nd. At the time of writing it stood at $380, or +192% YTD. 

Fair to say that as Halloween approaches, it’s been a week full of treats!