Anyone who bought the Bitcoin dip might be feeling rather nervous right now. The price of BTC has continued to slide in the first few days of 2022 to just over $41,480 with Ether bubbling under $3,200.
The winter has been particularly chilly for the top cryptocurrencies, as a slide that started in November has now turned into an avalanche. But there is good news elsewhere in the markets, with four tokens - Chainlink (LINK), Secret (SCRT), Harmony (ONE), and Internet Computer (ICP) - all enjoying growth of more than 20% in the first week of 2022.
As usual, we’ve been dipping into the latest crypto stories. Here are some newsworthy items which grabbed our attention.
The Truth About a Town Called Bitcoin
In El Salvador, President Bukele is planning to build a crypto conurbation called Bitcoin City which will be powered by volcano energy. But not everyone is convinced the plan is such a hot idea.
Steve Hanke, an economist at Johns Hopkins University, tweeted: “Nayib Bukele's proposed Bitcoin City is as prepared as Florida is for snow. The advertised power source for the City is an inactive volcano. This is just more attention-grabbing antics from a narcissistic president who is full of hot air.”
The President then replied: “Of course, it is an inactive volcano you id10t! Most geothermal power is extracted from wells near INACTIVE VOLCANOES! Why would you build a city below an ACTIVE VOLCANO?”
Which is a sick burn of volcanic proportions.
A Chainlink Reaction
The top performer of the week has been Chainlink (LINK), which enjoyed a 38% rise over seven days to a price of $26.68.
Chainlink is a decentralized blockchain oracle network built on Ethereum. A blockchain oracle is a service that acts as a bridge between smart contracts and the real world, drawing on external data such as the price of assets and feeding it into the blockchain.
Last year, Eric Schmidt joined Chainlink Labs as an advisor and it also partnered with Associated Press to provide economic, sports and race call datasets to smart contracts on any blockchain.
It closed out 2022 at a value of $75 billion and has been performing very well throughout the first week of January. Oracle networks have been described as the “backbone of DeFi”. Could Chainlink be the great success story of the next year?
XRP Army Targets Joe Rogan
Ripple (XRP) is currently facing legal action from the SEC, which has alleged in 2020 that it “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering”.
An attorney called John Deaton has become an outspoken opponent of the SEC and has argued that XRP should not be considered a security - a financial instrument subject to strict regulations.
Deaton tweeted: “On January 1, 2021, I sued the SEC. It was 9 days after the SEC sued
Ripple declaring #XRP - including #XRP traded in the secondary market - investment contracts with Ripple. I argued from the beginning the conflicts and appearances of impropriety.
“From the start, I’ve argued it absolutely makes zero legal sense to give ETH a free pass but claim XRP are securities.”
This stance has made him a friend of the XRP Army, which represents 65,000 XRP owners. Now the Army has launched a campaign to encourage the podcaster Joe Rogan to interview Deaton.
The Army has called upon its members to email Rogan’s guest booker and published a pro forma letter on its website.
It tweeted: “What if 65k emailed @joerogan and you represent us on the JRE Podcast? Then we are covered in the Court of Law AND in the Court of Public Opinion. Is this Winner Winner Chicken Dinner Sir?”
Greed, Fear, and Bitcoin
The Bitcoin Greed and Fear Index has plummeted to its lowest point since July 2021. This might not come as a surprise to anyone who has been watching BTC sink lower and lower over the past few months.
The Index is produced by analyzing emotions and sentiments from a range of different sources and crunching them into one simple number. It is now sitting at “extreme fear”.
“The crypto market behavior is very emotional,” analysts which created the index wrote. “People tend to get greedy when the market is rising which results in FOMO (Fear of missing out). Also, people often sell their coins in the irrational reaction of seeing red numbers. With our Fear and Greed Index, we try to save you from your own emotional overreactions.”
When the Index shows extreme fear, it shows investors are worried and “could be a buying opportunity”. When it shows extreme greed, it means investors are snapping up Bitcoin and may suggest that a correction is on the way.
What Gamestop Did Next?
Gamestop was one of the standout stories of 2021, as small-time investors locked horns with Wall Street short-sellers, driving the share prices up by a factor of 30.
Now Gamestop is alleged to be planning a move into the crypto sector following reports that it is planning to launch an NFT marketplace.
Analysts lined up to bash the rumored plans, which were also hinted at in a Gamestop job advert looking for a “Director of Product Marketing – NFT Platform”.
But experts’ criticism didn’t dampen the excitement. Shares in Gamestop rocketed by up to 20% after a story about the plans appeared in the Washington Post.
AirBNB To The Moon
Travelers could soon be booking AirBNBs with crypto. On Twitter, AirBNB boss
Brian Chesky asked: "If Airbnb could launch anything in 2022, what would it be?”
Out of 4,000 responses, the most popular was crypto payments. Chesky said the company is already considering this possibility, which would be “inclusive of a variety of token ideas”.
This is not the first time the AirBNB head honcho has hinted at the possibility of opening his door to crypto. In November, he was asked whether crypto was on the roadmap and replied: "We are definitely looking into it. Absolutely. As the revolution in travel, there is clearly a revolution happening in crypto. Airbnb and crypto both have interesting relationships with trust."
Bitcoin Slump On The Way?
Crypto evangelists hope the long slide of Bitcoin is a chance to buy the dip. But what if there is more pain to come?
Investor Peter Schiff fears that the slide is only going to get worse. He tweeted: “Are any #Bitcoin HODLers concerned about the massive double top that's forming in Bitcoin? It certainly appears that there's a significant risk of a major long-term peak. It's also coinciding with a general move out of high-risk assets to value. A crash below $20K seems likely.”
The last BTC dropped that low was in 2020 - when $20k was considered a pretty good value. Today, it would be a disaster.
Let’s hope Schiff is talking… nonsense.
