The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — one week on Cointelegraph in one link!
Coming every Saturday, Hodlers Digest will help you track every single important news…
The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — one week on Cointelegraph in one link!
Coming every Saturday, Hodlers Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Another week, another spate of all-time highs. Bitcoin managed to crack $42,000 on Friday, surging by 9% in just three hours.
A sharp correction soon followed, with prices tumbling by 7% in the following eight hours. This may seem rather tame in percentage terms but thats a drop of almost $3,000.
Whales have been selling en masse since the start of 2021 and taking a profit on their positions. Theyre currently locked in a battle with new buyers in the U.S. who are aggressively accumulating BTC. Key metrics to observe right now include Bitcoin outflows from Coinbase and stablecoin inflows into major exchanges.
Raoul Pal has warned that a New Year Head Fake could cause a nasty correction in the BTC and gold markets. Its unclear whether this would be as brutal as the flash crash last March, but its worth noting BTC is overbought on weekly and monthly charts.
Long term, JPMorgan Chase believes that BTC could hit $146,000by crowding out gold, however, it warned a short-term surge to between $50,000 and $100,000 will prove unsustainable this year.
At the time of writing, BTCs market cap has vaulted beyond Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba, and it has come close to overtaking Tesla. The jaw-dropping rally has helped the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies exceed $1 trillion for the very first time.
Bullish fervor surrounding Ether intensified this week, with the worlds second-largest cryptocurrency breaking above $1,200 for the first time in three years.
The gains were largely driven by a confluence of fundamental factors, including Bitcoins parabolic rally, the anticipation of ETH futures contracts and a surging DeFi sector.
Year-to-date, ETH has surged by a staggering 66.5%, continuing last years theme, where it handsomely outperformed BTC.
Google searches for Ethereum have now hit an all-time high, prompting some optimistic pundits to suggest that ETH could smash its previous record of $1,432.88 between Jan. 10 and 16.
So what would be the key levels to watch if ETH is propelled into uncharted territory? Cointelegraph Markets analyst Michal van de Poppe says the Fibonacci extension finds potential top structures at $1,800 and $2,700$2,800. However, he cautioned investors and traders to expect a potential correction soon, as nothing goes up in a straight line.
One of the most head-scratching developments in the crypto markets this week saw XRP abruptly come back from the dead.
Having lost a substantial amount of its value due to legal issues at Ripple, a curious renaissance occurred for the embattled No. 4 cryptocurrency with prices rising from $0.23 to $0.35 in a single day.
Michal van de Poppe has said $0.35 represents the make-or-break level for bulls to hold in order to continue their gains, which come despite no real movement in legal proceedings.
In other news this week, crypto exchange Uphold said that it wont delist XRP until the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is resolved and urged rival platforms to avoid rushing to judgment ahead of the courts decision. Meanwhile, Revolut warned its users to constantly reassess their crypto holdings, including XRP.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also broke his silence to answer five key questions about the SEC lawsuit. Slamming the regulatory chaos in the U.S., he revealed that the company has tried to reach a settlement with the SEC and said new attempts will be made once Joe Biden is in power. He also warned that the legal process can be slow.
Coinbase has been under the microscope this week, not least because the U.S. crypto exchange is known for experiencing serious connectivity issues during periods of peak trading activity.
The disruption has occasionally prevented traders from taking advantage of price gains and dips robbing them of profit-taking and reentry opportunities.
Coinbase is not the only major exchange to suffer issues during price rallies. Binance also routinely goes offline when BTC clocks up big gains. Commenting on the problem back in December 2020, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao remarked that a 5% BTC surge is often accompanied by a 30x increase in trading volumes.
On Jan. 7, it was announced that Coinbase has acquired the Routefire platform for enhanced trade execution a move that could go some way to restoring confidence.
MicroStrategys massive push into Bitcoin is paying off, with the firm securing a huge investment from Morgan Stanley. The bank has acquired 792,627 shares in the crypto-friendly company, representing a stake of 10.9%.
The purchase apparently happened on Dec. 31. MicroStrategy shares have had a colossal month with shares moving from $289 on Dec. 8 to $531 by Jan. 8.
MicroStrategy has made Bitcoin its primary reserve asset and has made a concerted effort to raise funds so it can buy even more. As of Dec. 21, the company had stockpiled 70,470 BTC, with a staggering valuation of $2.9 billion.
Institutional investors like Morgan Stanley have warmed up to crypto assets considerably over the past year. Many have attributed Bitcoins recent bull market to renewed interest.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $40,599.80, Ether at $1,220.34 and XRP at $0.32. The total market cap is at $1,077,848,908,371.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are IOST, Bitcoin SV and Avalanche. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Enjin Coin, Solana and Nano.
A lot of that [stimulus] will find its way into the markets. Certainly, when it comes into young peoples hands, theyre going right to their Robinhood accounts. One of the most unique things last time was seeing how many people bought Bitcoin with the exact amount of stimulus. Boom, boom.
While the narrative is institutional money, this phase, IMO, its really institutions have given Bitcoin validation, and now we have family offices serving the wealthy rushing in needing exposure. Theres a lot of requests for $1m+ buys happening.
I was wondering what to do for the rent, for a week now. And just remembered I had over 14000 Moons here in r/Cryptocurrency. Sold them and made my rent. It was like a stone lifted out of my chest. Not able to find the right word for this feeling.
A vital part of the SECs remit is the protection of consumers. It is hard to see how a judgment rendering XRP essentially worthless and inflicting billions of dollars of losses on retail investors who purchased XRP in good faith would square with that remit.
Where maybe we thought maybe $50,000 made sense, this number is definitely going to be a little bit higher than that in my opinion. I think were going towards $75,000 to $100,000 for Bitcoin by the end of 2021.
The number of unique Twitter accounts tweeting about #Bitcoin has just hit an all-time high of 66,832, surpassing the previous high of 64,652 set on 12/27/2017.
Joe Biden has said he is working on a multi-trillion-dollar package that will deliver $2,000 stimulus checks to U.S. citizens, helping them to weather the economic repercussions of COVID-19.
And according to Mike Novogratz, such measures could be further good news for the markets. He said: When it comes into young peoples hands, theyre going right to their Robinhood accounts. One of the most unique things last time was seeing how many people bought Bitcoin with the exact amount of stimulus. Boom, boom.
The Galaxy Digital CEO argued that theres still plenty of speculative excess on Wall Street, pointing to Teslas dramatic surge as an example.
However, Novogratz says that the disconnect between the markets and the economy is likely to spell trouble at some point. In his interview with CNBC, he added: Youve got to watch for the cracks. One day well wake up, and markets will be reversing, and then theyll reverse hard. I just dont know when that is.
A YouTube page belonging to U.S. rapper Hiiikey was hacked this week and taken over by fraudsters promoting a fake Bitcoin and Ether giveaway.
Hiiikey, whose real name is Keyshawn Butler, has 249,000 subscribers on the video-sharing site. His page was rebranded as [Ethereum FUND] and a livestream featuring an old video of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was launched.
At one point, the livestream had more than 56,000 viewers, and the hackers received at least 39.1 ETH, which was worth almost $50,000 at the time of writing.
Worryingly, the fraudulent livestream was active for several hours before being taken down.
A crypto enthusiast has issued a warning to overconfident hodlers after losing the password to their wallet by not acting cautiously enough.
Reddit user Onnar said they had lost access to 2.6 BTC while attempting to transfer a wallet to a new computer purchased over the holidays. The user claimed they formatted the drive of their old system without double-checking whether the password manager still contained the password needed to access the private keys.
Onnar wrote: Ive spent the past week and a half going through all my remaining disk files and notes, the password is nowhere to be found.
Many Reddit users were sympathetic to Onnars plight, and some stepped up with advice to avoid similar accidents in the future.
The standard now is to use a hardware wallet and write down the seed on paper plus on a metal plate. The standard is not to encrypt your seed words in a computer file for very good reasons, one wrote.
With less than two weeks left in office, President Donald Trump has sent out a new executive order targeting Chinese payment apps
The order bars United States citizens or people located in the U.S. from using nine apps including Alipay and WeChat Pay.
The executive order takes effect in 45 days, by which time Trump will already have been out of office. Given that his earlier order to get ByteDance to divest from TikTok was stonewalled in court while he was still in office, theres not a ton of reason to believe that Trump will get his way here.
Bidens transition team had not responded to Cointelegraphs request for comment as to whether the new administration plans to see Trumps order through.
The focus on payment apps is particularly significant. Recent moves from the U.S. national security apparatus have definitely indicated concern over Chinas payments systems, particularly its upcoming central bank digital currency.
Many in crypto, as well as the broader tech industry, have warned of a cold war in technology between China and the U.S., including Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and several leaders of Ripple Labs.
It was Jan. 11, 2024 when software giant Microsoft (MSFT) briefly passed Apple (AAPL) as the most valuable company in the world.
Microsoft's stock closed 0.5% higher, giving it a market valuation of $2.859 trillion.
It rose as much as 2% during the session and the company was briefly worth $2.903 trillion. Apple closed 0.3% lower, giving the company a market capitalization of $2.886 trillion.
"It was inevitable that Microsoft would overtake Apple since Microsoft is growing faster and has more to benefit from the generative AI revolution," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said at the time, according to Reuters.
The two tech titans have jostled for top spot over the years and Microsoft was ahead at last check, with a market cap of $3.085 trillion, compared with Apple's value of $2.684 trillion.
Analysts noted that Apple had been dealing with weakening demand, including for the iPhone, the company’s main source of revenue.
Demand in China, a major market, has slumped as the country's economy makes a slow recovery from the pandemic and competition from Huawei.
Sales in China of Apple's iPhone fell by 24% in the first six weeks of 2024 compared with a year earlier, according to research firm Counterpoint, as the company contended with stiff competition from a resurgent Huawei "while getting squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi," said senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang.
“Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now," he said.
A man scrolling through Netflix on an Apple iPad Pro. Photo by Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images.
Counterpoint said that the first six weeks of 2023 saw abnormally high numbers with significant unit sales being deferred from December 2022 due to production issues.
Apple is planning to open its eighth store in Shanghai – and its 47th across China – on March 21.
The company also plans to expand its research centre in Shanghai to support all of its product lines and open a new lab in southern tech hub Shenzhen later this year, according to the South China Morning Post.
Meanwhile, over in Europe, Apple announced changes to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which went into effect last week, Reuters reported on March 12.
Beginning this spring, software developers operating in Europe will be able to distribute apps to EU customers directly from their own websites instead of through the App Store.
"To reflect the DMA’s changes, users in the EU can install apps from alternative app marketplaces in iOS 17.4 and later," Apple said on its website, referring to the software platform that runs iPhones and iPads.
"Users will be able to download an alternative marketplace app from the marketplace developer’s website," the company said.
Apple has also said it will appeal a $2 billion EU antitrust fine for thwarting competition from Spotify (SPOT) and other music streaming rivals via restrictions on the App Store.
The company's shares have suffered amid all this upheaval, but some analysts still see good things in Apple's future.
Bank of America Securities confirmed its positive stance on Apple, maintaining a buy rating with a steady price target of $225, according to Investing.com.
The firm's analysis highlighted Apple's pricing strategy evolution since the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007, with initial prices set at $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB model.
BofA said that Apple has consistently launched new iPhone models, including the Pro/Pro Max versions, to target the premium market.
Analyst says Apple selloff 'overdone'
Concurrently, prices for previous models are typically reduced by about $100 with each new release.
This strategy, coupled with installment plans from Apple and carriers, has contributed to the iPhone's installed base reaching a record 1.2 billion in 2023, the firm said.
Apple has effectively shifted its sales mix toward higher-value units despite experiencing slower unit sales, BofA said.
This trend is expected to persist and could help mitigate potential unit sales weaknesses, particularly in China.
BofA also noted Apple's dominance in the high-end market, maintaining a market share of over 90% in the $1,000 and above price band for the past three years.
The firm also cited the anticipation of a multi-year iPhone cycle propelled by next-generation AI technology, robust services growth, and the potential for margin expansion.
On Monday, Evercore ISI analysts said they believed that the sell-off in the iPhone maker’s shares may be “overdone.”
The firm said that investors' growing preference for AI-focused stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) has led to a reallocation of funds away from Apple.
In addition, Evercore said concerns over weakening demand in China, where Apple may be losing market share in the smartphone segment, have affected investor sentiment.
And then ongoing regulatory issues continue to have an impact on investor confidence in the world's second-biggest company.
“We think the sell-off is rather overdone, while we suspect there is strong valuation support at current levels to down 10%, there are three distinct drivers that could unlock upside on the stock from here – a) Cap allocation, b) AI inferencing, and c) Risk-off/defensive shift," the firm said in a research note.
Major typhoid fever surveillance study in sub-Saharan Africa indicates need for the introduction of typhoid conjugate vaccines in endemic countries
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high…
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Credit: IVI
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.
The findings from this 4-year study, the Severe Typhoid in Africa (SETA) program, offers new typhoid fever burden estimates from six countries: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria, with four countries recording more than 100 cases for every 100,000 person-years of observation, which is considered a high burden. The highest incidence of typhoid was found in DRC with 315 cases per 100,000 people while children between 2-14 years of age were shown to be at highest risk across all 25 study sites.
There are an estimated 12.5 to 16.3 million cases of typhoid every year with 140,000 deaths. However, with generic symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and abdominal pain, and the need for blood culture sampling to make a definitive diagnosis, it is difficult for governments to capture the true burden of typhoid in their countries.
“Our goal through SETA was to address these gaps in typhoid disease burden data,” said lead author Dr. Florian Marks, Deputy Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). “Our estimates indicate that introduction of TCV in endemic settings would go to lengths in protecting communities, especially school-aged children, against this potentially deadly—but preventable—disease.”
In addition to disease incidence, this study also showed that the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Salmonella Typhi, the bacteria that causes typhoid fever, has led to more reliance beyond the traditional first line of antibiotic treatment. If left untreated, severe cases of the disease can lead to intestinal perforation and even death. This suggests that prevention through vaccination may play a critical role in not only protecting against typhoid fever but reducing the spread of drug-resistant strains of the bacteria.
There are two TCVs prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and available through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. In February 2024, IVI and SK bioscience announced that a third TCV, SKYTyphoid™, also achieved WHO PQ, paving the way for public procurement and increasing the global supply.
Alongside the SETA disease burden study, IVI has been working with colleagues in three African countries to show the real-world impact of TCV vaccination. These studies include a cluster-randomized trial in Agogo, Ghana and two effectiveness studies following mass vaccination in Kisantu, DRC and Imerintsiatosika, Madagascar.
Dr. Birkneh Tilahun Tadesse, Associate Director General at IVI and Head of the Real-World Evidence Department, explains, “Through these vaccine effectiveness studies, we aim to show the full public health value of TCV in settings that are directly impacted by a high burden of typhoid fever.” He adds, “Our final objective of course is to eliminate typhoid or to at least reduce the burden to low incidence levels, and that’s what we are attempting in Fiji with an island-wide vaccination campaign.”
As more countries in typhoid endemic countries, namely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, consider TCV in national immunization programs, these data will help inform evidence-based policy decisions around typhoid prevention and control.
###
About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.
IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that is recently pre-qualified by WHO.
IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden, a Country Office in Austria, and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.
Incidence of typhoid fever in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria (the Severe Typhoid in Africa programme): a population-based study
We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany - a country with major economic woes - added ‘just’ 32%.
Maybe it will never matter. Maybe MMT is real. Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.
I have no idea. Only time will tell. But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.
He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River's Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming "US debt sustainability crisis."
According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.
The two charts below show the divergence in US tax receipts which have flatlined (on a trailing 6M basis) since the covid pandemic in 2020 (with occasional stimmy-driven surges)...
... and spending which is about 50% higher compared to where it was in 2020.
The end result is that in February, the budget deficit rose to $296.3 billion, up 12.9% from a year prior, and the second highest February deficit on record.
And the punchline: on a cumulative basis, the budget deficit in fiscal 2024 which began on October 1, 2023 is now $828 billion, the second largest cumulative deficit through February on record, surpassed only by the peak covid year of 2021.
But wait there's more: because in a world where the US is spending more than twice what it is collecting, the endgame is clear: debt collapse, and while it won't be tomorrow, or the week after, it is coming... and it's also why the US is now selling $1 trillion in debt every 100 days just to keep operating (and absorbing all those millions of illegal immigrants who will keep voting democrat to preserve the socialist system of the US, so beloved by the Soros clan).
... having already surpassed total US defense spending and soon to surpass total health spending and, finally all social security spending, the largest spending category of all, which means that US debt will now rise exponentially higher until the inevitable moment when the US dollar loses its reserve status and it all comes crashing down.
We conclude with another observation by CNBC's Brian Sullivan, who quotes an email by a DC strategist...
.. which lays out the proposed Biden budget as follows:
The budget deficit will growth another $16 TRILLION over next 10 years. Thats *with* the proposed massive tax hikes.
Without them the deficit will grow $19 trillion.
That's why you will hear the "deficit is being reduced by $3 trillion" over the decade.
No family budget or business could exist with this kind of math.
Of course, in the long run, neither can the US... and since neither party will ever cut the spending which everyone by now is so addicted to, the best anyone can do is start planning for the endgame.
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