Review of the top news of the crypto space 19.07.2021
The summer and the return of freedoms (after a number of restrictions and quarantine measures due to the pandemic) have certainly distracted many people from cryptocurrency trading.
So, let’s look at the news that marked the week, especially with the participation of American banks such as Bank of America, which are increasingly interested in integrating Bitcoin into their offered services.
PayPal increases the limit on the purchase of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to $100,000 per week
The integration of BTC and several other cryptocurrencies, such as Litecoin or Ethereum, is a success for PayPal. The platform allows customers to buy and use cryptocurrency for transactions and payment settlements.
To speed up the development of this new crypto activity, the electronic payments giant has increased the purchase limits of Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies to $100,000 per week. The measure, which affects only US users, PayPal has not yet launched its cryptocurrency services abroad, but is scheduled for 2021.
“These changes will allow our customers to have more choice and flexibility when buying cryptocurrency on our platform”, the company said in a statement.
This measure should really facilitate the process of buying cryptocurrency assets for customers who want to make transactions with much larger amounts.
PayPal CEO Dan Shulman said in an earlier statement that PayPal predicts an average monthly transaction volume of about $200 million for this new business focused on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Also, in a recent interview with TIME Magazine, he said that the demand for cryptocurrency assets exceeds the company’s expectations.
PayPal has more than 392 million users worldwide, and the opening of its cryptoservices abroad will allow the company to significantly increase the turnover associated with this new type of activity, which still has great potential in the future.
Binance is under fire again. The exchange does not have the right to operate in the jurisdiction of Italy
The Italian financial regulator, the Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa or CONSOB, states that Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, is not authorized to offer investment services in Italy. CONSOB reports about this in a press release published on July 15.
CONSOB warns that none of the companies belonging to the Binance group are authorized in Italy, despite the fact that entire sections on the crypto exchange’s website are written in Italian.
In addition, the Italian regulator warns that investors should be very careful when making transactions with investment instruments related to cryptocurrencies. According to CONSOB, this can lead to “a complete loss of the invested money”.
CONSOB recommends that investors enter into contracts only if they have sufficient understanding and complete information about the counterparty, even if it is a service provider. According to the Italian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the risks of crypto-investment instruments are not always “observed instantly” due to “their complexity, high price volatility, failures and cyber attacks.”
Paolo Savona, the head of CONSOB, last month advocated for stricter regulation of cryptocurrencies at the European level. He threatened to intervene himself. According to Savona, the use of cryptocurrency leads to illegal activities such as money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing and even kidnapping. Of course, for this statement, he appealed only with words.
Binance has been increasingly criticized in recent weeks. It started when the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), issued a warning against the crypto exchange. Shortly after, some major banks stopped payments on Binance. Recently, SEPA payments were also completely closed for Binance. As a result, this week Cameron Winklevoss said that his Gemini exchange will overtake Binance, and will become the largest cryptocurrency exchange on the market.
The Bitcoin mining industry in China was declining sharply even before the recent ban
Recently, the Chinese government has taken tough measures against BTC mining in the country. Several regions have completely banned it, but now it seems that the mining industry in China was greatly reduced even before the adoption of strict measures. This was reported by the Reuters news agency on July 15, based on data from the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF):
According to CCAF, in September 2019, China still accounted for at least 75.5% of all Bitcoin mining in the world. By April 2021, this share had fallen to 46%, a month before the Chinese government took action.
However, the data is only available until April, so it is still unclear what the effect of the ban will be, and where this percentage will be now. The so-called hashrate, the total computing power of the network, was still about 170 exahashes per second (EH / s) on May 13, and reached a minimum of 68 EH/s on June 28. This is a reduction of at least 60% and, therefore, may mean that China now has less than 20% in its hands, although this, of course, is only a very rough estimate.
Meanwhile, according to CCAF, the United States and Kazakhstan benefit most from bans in China. The US share has more than quadrupled since September 2019, from 4% to 16.8% in April 2021. Kazakhstan took the third place in April, with 8.2%. Again, it is unclear where the percentages of both countries would be today. After the ban, several large companies have already moved to the United States and Kazakhstan.
The ban in China at first caused a great panic, but many saw this as a positive moment. For many years, there has been concern about centralization. The hashing speed is slowly recovering, and on July 14 it will return to 108 EH / s.
CEO of Microstrategy: BTC is not money. What will the company do if it collapses?
Is Bitcoin a new form of money, or is it a digital form of gold? Many people have their own ideas about this. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor also announced his own, in an interview with podcaster Natalie Brunell.
Saylor can be considered as an important voice in the cryptocurrency world. He and his company have been buying up a huge amount of Bitcoins over the past period. He is firmly convinced that BTC will grow in price over time. It is not surprising that MicroStrategy now owns 105084 coins worth more than $3 billion.
Brunell asked Saylor if he believes that Bitcoin poses a threat to the US dollar, to which Saylor replied:
“I would call cryptocurrency digital property. This is a threat to property, especially a threat to other forms of property: gold is property, real estate is property. I don’t think the United States government is threatened by real estate, buildings, businesses, or gold”.
Saylor also discussed how he and his company approach investing in Bitcoin. Many traders and investors fear that MicroStrategy will start dumping its Bitcoins as soon as the BTC falls even more. But, according to the CEO, this will not happen.
He quoted former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who did not sell his shares of Microsoft even during the strongest fall: “What brilliant thing did Steve Ballmer do to earn $ 100 billion? You know, he didn’t sell Microsoft shares.”
Later, he also took a statement from Warren Buffett, who himself is not related to the crypt. Buffett once said, ” If you don’t want to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes”.
In short, Microstrategy is ready for instability, and will firmly continue to hodlit the Cue Ball further.