Good morning!
After a very choppy last week, Bitcoin has regained momentum with signs pointing to a reset of risk in traditional markets. With the newly detected COVID variant, Omicron, emerging over the last week will have Bitcoin’s next moves tightly linked to how much of an impact it has on the Fed’s monetary policy.
At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency was exchanging hands around the $58,744 market which is an 8.7% increase compared to the lows of $53,000 seen on Sunday.
Despite the concern felt all around the world regarding Omicron, the South African health minister has stated that symptoms experienced from the new variant are ‘extremely mild’ which has fueled some positive buying action today for the world’s largest cryptocurrency. The World Health Organisation has however come out to say that the new variant is one of concern.
What comes next for price action is in the hands of the recently reappointed federal reserve chairman, Jerome Powell. We are likely to see more upward price movement if Powell assures markets of continued support in the event of Omicron causing widespread havoc amongst the world….touch wood we don’t see such an event unfolding.
With bitcoin still recovering, charts suggest that there has been an emergence of a bull flag on the hourly chart which would signal a retest of $60,000 and further open up room for new higher highs.
As silly season prepares for kick-off on Wednesday, the not-so-optimistic Omnicron variant may have us forced to enjoy our mulled wine and mince pies at home once again…sigh.
Let’s get started.
Markets
As of 29th November 2021
(source: coinmarketcap)
Headline roundup
EU progresses sandbox for blockchain-based tokenised securities (LI)
Crypto miner selloff ‘too much too fast’ says DA Davidson analyst (CD)
Enterprise blockchain startup funding requirements more than double (LI)
A national stock exchange that supports NFTs? Welcome to Switzerland (CD)
Money’s roles will decline - not just because of digital currency (LI)
Binance fully integrates Ethereum scaler Arbitrium One (CD)
Twitter CTO Parag Agrawal to replace Jack Dorsey as CEO (cd)
Japanese stock exchange JPX creates digital subsidiary, including for blockchain (LI)
DeFi protocol Omicron’s token jumps 10-fold after COVID variant emerges
El Salvador buys 100 more bitcoins as crypto market falls (CD)
CBDC
UK has no plans for a wholesale CBDC, envisages banks enabling synthetic (LI)
Japan’s biggest banks plan blockchain payments using digital currency (LI)
Digital yuan being trialed for securities transactions (LI)
Phillipines central bank considering wholesale CBDC in near future (LI)
VC
Institutions back Pantera in $600m blockchain fund (LI)
Talis raises $2.3m to build NFT marketplace and more on Terra blockchain (CD)
Popular DAO voting platform Snapchat labs raises $4m (CD)
ConstitutionalDAO raises $27m on even of Sotheby’s auction (CD)
VCs back ‘pawn shop of the metaverse’ with $3m raise (CD)
Meme of the week
About Me
My name is Michael Burke, and I started working in the blockchain space about 4 years ago, firstly with Deloitte, now with R3, where I help our customers build enterprise solutions utilising the Corda platform. My interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency stems from the sheer potential of the technology to completely transform industries and value chains for the better.