The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Economy has announced a new headquarters located where anyone in the world can visit — the Metaverse. According to the Gulf News, the announcement was made on Sept. 28 by UAE Minister of Economy Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri during the Dubai Metaverse Assembly, with the minister stating “this is not a proof of concept, this is our third address” before giving a live tour of the virtual headquarters. The headquarters will feature a multiple story building, each serving a different purpose. Visitors will be able to take a ticket, which will prompt a …

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week staring down a wild macro environment after sealing its lowest weekly close in nearly two years. As risk assets across the global economy take a hammering and the U.S. dollar surges, the largest cryptocurrency is on a limp footing. September, having started out on bulls’ side, is now living up to its informal crypto market nickname — “Septembear” — and BTC/USD is currently down 6.2% since the start of the month. The bad news keeps coming for hodlers, who are clinging to dormant coins in increasing numbers as the dollar runs rampant and mainstream …

Crypto prices keep falling but why? This year’s market crash has turned most winning portfolios into net losers and new investors are probably losing hope in Bitcoin. Investors know that cryptocurrencies exhibit higher than average volatility, but this year’s drawdown has been extreme. After hitting a stratospheric all-time high at $69,400, Bitcoin price crumbled over the next 11 months to an unexpected yearly low at $17,600. That’s a nearly 75% drawdown in value. Ether (ETH), the largest altcoin by market capitalization, also saw an 82% correction as its price tumbled from $4,800 to $900 in seven months. Years of historical …

Can we all agree that the Federal Reserve has a plan to combat runaway inflation? They do. Chair Jerome Powell has all but admitted it. After tempering his comments before previous rate hikes, allowing wiggle room which gave way to market rebounds, Powell has left no bones about this one. It is necessary to wreak some havoc on the economy and put downward pressure on the labor markets and wage increases to stop the creep of inflation. Whether you buy into that logic or if you believe — like Elon Musk — that such movements could result in deflation — …

The 13% gains in the six days leading to Sept. 12 brought the total crypto market capitalization closer to $1.1 trillion, but this was not enough to break the descending trend. As a result, the overall trend for the past 55 days has been bearish, with the latest support test on Sept. 7 at a $950 billion total market cap. An improvement in traditional markets has accompanied the recent 13% crypto market rally. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index gained 6.2% since Sept. 6 and WTI oil prices rallied 7.8% since Sept. 7. This data reinforces the high correlation versus traditional …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has seen tremendous growth since its inception, expanding by more than 1,200% in 2021 in total value locked (TVL) and surpassing $240 billion in invested assets. While DeFi has since dropped to around $60 billion TVL as a result of wider macroeconomic trends, such as rising inflation, the seeds are in place for DeFi to reconfigure the foundations of our financial infrastructure when the next market cycle comes. Historically, the return to a bull market develops over a four-year trajectory. This time, a recovery in 2024 is highly feasible due to the maturation of monetary policy and …

Venture capital firms poured $14.2 billion into crypto across 725 deals in the first half of 2022, but big four accounting firm KPMG predicts investments will likely slow for the remainder of the year. According to a newly released KPMG report on Sept. 6, the largest investments in H1 2022 came from German-based crypto trading platform Trade Republic ($1.1 billion), digital asset custody platform Fireblocks ($550 million), crypto exchange FTX ($500 million), and Ethereum software company ConsenSys ($450 million). Authors of the report, including KPMG's Global Leader of Fintech, Anton Ruddenklau, noted the investment figures for the first half of …

As cryptocurrency investors know, the market moves in cycles. We had the up-cycle when Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) hit their all-time highs, and now the bears are back in town. One of them mauled MicroStrategy founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor this week. In this case, it was a very powerful bear — Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine — suing the Bitcoin evangelist for allegedly owing $25 million in unpaid taxes. MicroStrategy’s stock price has fallen more than 13% on the news, from $251 on Aug. 29 to less than $220 on Sept. 1. Still, now isn’t the …

Just when the global economy largely recovered from the crippling effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and the resultant supply chain pressures have once again roiled financial markets across the world. Furthermore, inflation has once again reared its ugly head, forcing central banks across major economies to raise interest rates in an attempt to curtail runaway prices of essential commodities like food and fuel. Despite these efforts, developed economies like the United States and the United Kingdom continue to report inflation at multi-year highs, adding even more stress on household savings and negatively impacting consumer spending. Apart from the …

Cryptocurrencies present a unique solution, given their lack of a central governing bank. You can’t lose trust in something that doesn’t exist. Its supply is finite, so it naturally appreciates in value. People using a blockchain with proof-of-stake protocols can access their funds at any time, while continuously earning staking rewards on their current balance. This means that the actual value of annual percentage yield is tied to the economic activity on the chain via its treasury and staking reward distribution mechanics. Those properties seem to address the cause of inflation in the traditional monetary systems — but some roadblocks …

Around the world, personal financial stress is peaking. A recent study in America found that more than three in four people feel anxious about their financial situation. This is seeding anti-risk mentalities and prompting fears around the safety of long-term savings, including retirement funds. However, that shouldn’t mean hiding money under the floorboards. Nor should it necessarily mean handing over the reins to a low-growth pension fund, which at current rates of inflation, are likely to be losing value. It means being smarter about assessing all options and diversifying. And that requires freedom. That’s what Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) …

Bitcoin is likely to transition from a risk-on to a risk-off asset in the second half of 2022, as the macroeconomic environment is rapidly shifting towards a recession, said Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg, in a recent interview with Cointelegraph. McGlone predicted: “ I see it transitioning to be more of a risk-off asset like bonds and gold, then less of a risk-on asset like the stock market.” According to the analyst, the crypto market has flushed out most of the speculative excesses that marked 2021 and it is now ripe for a fresh rally. McGlone also pointed …