Crypto Consolidates and Big Names Ramp Up their Involvement

January 18, 2022

Cryptocurrencies: Weekly Update

By Holden Milstein


It has been a relatively quiet week of price action for the cryptocurrency market, which is a good thing. We’ve seen large caps consolidate at lows, with a handful of intraday spurts in meme coins like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB).

Typically the laggard of the bunch, Cardano (ADA) has actually logged an over +40% comeback from lows and is the first large cap cryptocurrency to make a move like this.

You can thank the launch of SundaeSwap for this move in Cardano. SundaeSwap (SUNDAE) is the first Decentralized Exchange (DEX) to be launched on the Cardano blockchain. The SundaeSwap DEX will also allow for the creation of liquidity pools, which gives users the ability to provide their crypto to the DEX to fill orders in exchange for a commission.

DEX’s and liquidity pools are defi services that have already been executed with great success by other blockchains like Ethereum and Solana. Cardano’s inability to support smart contracts has been a running joke within the crypto community for quite a while now, so Cardano finally delivering on this update to their network has given ADA some much needed positive news.

In the long-run, Cardano still has a long way to go before it comes anywhere near being able to support the mainstream functionality of other major defi blockchains.


With the lack of exciting price action this past week in the crypto market, we’ve still seen positive news regarding the industry pop up left and right.

Whether it's your favorite celebrity, shoe brand, or even bank, everyone everywhere is making major investments into the digital future. These range from cryptocurrency and blockchain integration into existing businesses, all the way to metaverse and NFT product launches.

Here's a handful of news announcements that have come out in just the past few days that will really show you how widespread the global crypto phenomena still is:

Culture:

  • UFC Heavyweight Champion Francis Ngannou to take half of his pay in Bitcoin for his upcoming championship bout
  • Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, and others take part in Metaplex fund raise, a NFT platform for the Solana ecosystem

Politics:

  • House Energy and Commerce meeting Thursday to be attended by major crypto proponent’s such as previous Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks, expectations are high with countless global initiatives aimed at reducing crypto energy strain over the past year
  • Tonga is said to be exploring the adoption of Bitcoin as a national currency, with a bill expected to be sent for review to the Tongan Parliament in September

Institutional:

  • BitMEX Exchange acquires German bank Bankhaus von der Heydt in order to expand their cryptocurrency offerings in the European region
  • Mortgage lender Milo is now allowing you to purchase a home using Bitcoin as collateral, requiring no fiat currency deposit
  • Bank of America says that Solana and other popular defi blockchains could leach market share from Ethereum over time
  • Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard in $69 billion deal in order to begin developing their own Metaverse project
  • Coinbase is partnering with Mastercard in order to allow users to use crypto or credit card to buy and sell NFTs in the Coinbase NFT marketplace that is coming soon

The point is that even when price is consolidating, there is still plenty of action going on in the crypto and blockchain space.

The last thing of note from the past week is the EIP-1559 upgrade going live on the Polygon network. This update makes MATIC a deflationary asset by creating a fee-burning mechanism, destroying tokens over time as they are used in network transactions. This would take place at an estimated .27% burn of the total 10 billion MATIC supply each year according to CoinDesk.

The hope is that this will attract more developers and investors to the Polygon network, aiding in the scaling of the Ethereum network by offloading traffic.

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