Decentralized Bulletin: The Ice Age and Crypto
Dear readers,
We hope you've managed to shake off some of the week's fatigue. We'd like to remind you that we now have an active podcast. You can follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and easily listen to our news and topic summaries. Now, before we start the new week together, let's review what happened last week.
As you may recall, earlier this year we experienced a disheartening and disappointing downturn in the crypto world. It was as if the most popular tokens went into hibernation. Unfortunately, investors who had made the mistake of falling in love with their cryptocurrencies lost that feeling, and perhaps even mourned. As you know, Bitcoin, the father of tokens, was hovering around $70,000 last year , but now we rejoice when it surpasses $20,000 .
Initially, this decline was described as " Crypto Winter ," essentially considered one of the recurring, regular downturns. However, the duration of this phase, coupled with job losses in the sector, began to suggest that it might be more of an ice age than just a winter. CoinShares , a digital asset investment and trading platform , described this period as lifeless and emotionless .
In fact, ever since it was stated that American interest rates needed to rise to combat inflation, all speculative assets, including the crypto financial world, have been affected. Nasdaq stock indices have lost more than 30% of their value over the past year . However, the nearly 70% drop in Bitcoin's value has upset many people, and the loss of confidence caused by the Luna crash in May rapidly dragged down the market value.
Thousands of people lost their jobs due to downsizing at several companies, including Coinbase and Gemini , while other companies like Three Arrows Capital and Celsius Network went bankrupt. This has essentially led to a period of stagnation in the crypto world. Morgan Stanley , a leading investment firm, found that 78% of Bitcoin's value remained unchanged over the past six months. This is a record! It means that those holding these assets are determined not to move, not to sell, and therefore to HODL until this period is over .
A new friend recently joined us, he is APT The token , you may have heard of it. It was widely discussed and advertised on social media channels. It also gained attention with its airdrops . The token experienced a surge of over 30%, rising from $7 to $10, earning it the nickname "Solana-killer" and leading to speculation that it could potentially end Solana. We've been craving these kinds of upward movements in the crypto world, so it caught our attention.
announced its mainnet on October 17th , reached a trading volume of $1 billion last week. Naturally, during these developments, the Aptos project also faced a great deal of criticism. Some market players criticized the listing of the project before it had shared a clear economic model .
Recently, some figures from the crypto ecosystem gathered at Crypto Square to discuss the concept of " decentralization ." Academic and author Çağla Gül Şenkardeş spoke about the evolution of governance, both conceptually and operationally, moving away from a unilateral authority ruling people and towards a reality of governance .
Technology writer and crypto entrepreneur Ahmet Usta said he believes the perception that decentralization has the potential to eliminate centralized structures is flawed. Economics editor Sefer Yüksel added that regulation is the most important issue , and that we cannot yet know whether crypto finance will destroy traditional finance.
As you know, the protracted developments surrounding Elon Musk 's acquisition of Twitter have concluded, with various investors coming together to finance his $44 billion deal. One of these investors was Binance , which announced it would develop plans to help Musk manage the platform. Musk also laid off several top executives at the social media platform following the completion of the acquisition.
Speaking of Twitter, it's worth remembering Bluesky, the decentralized social networking project backed by its founder Jack Dorsey . In the last two days alone, 30,000 people have signed up for Bluesky , and that's just for the beta waiting list! This initiative started as a non-profit in 2019.
Cardano 's rapid rise this week , a noteworthy development in contrast to the stagnation in the crypto world. While their main token, ADA, hasn't performed particularly well, Cardano seems to be performing quite well overall.
the Messari platform, almost 100,000 transactions are processed daily, and the daily transaction volume is steadily increasing. However, this is on the Cardano network. This could also be due to the increasing interest in NFTs . Cardano becoming a preferred platform for NFTs could create a positive change in ADA's pricing, pleasing investors.
Financial service providers PayPal and Western Union are also planning to grow in the crypto industry. The companies, which have filed trademark applications, have added wallet management and trading of digital assets and commodity derivatives to their scope of operations .
This brings us to the end of our newsletter for this week. We hope you have a peaceful and trouble-free day and that it inspires you on your other days. Don't forget to listen to our podcast, new episodes are on the horizon!
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See you next week,
Decentralized Bulletin
Originally published on Medium on October 29, 2022. English translation of “Merkezsiz Bülten: Buzul Çağ ve Kripto”.