One year ago in March 2020 the world looked very different; countries all around the world were just beginning to prepare for a proper lockdown and major economic challenges were anticipated across every industry segment. The blockchain and crypto markets were no different: Liquidity became thin and the price of bitcoin dropped to 10% of what it is today. And then:
Challenges = Opportunities for Growth
The beginning of the lockdown led to fear, uncertainty and doubt. However, with the rapid transition to work from home, more and more people adapted to cyber native lifestyle. Shortly after that, national economic relief packages were rolled out in nearly every country. Many people realised the world is going to look forever very different with the acceleration toward digital native economies and this spark of hope ignited the entire crypto market into an unprecedented bull cycle:
- The nascent field of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) experienced massive growth and was covered in a research piece by the Federal Reserve.
- Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) experienced adoption in almost every segment native to Blockchain projects as well as outside of it.
- Public companies in the US and China started diversifying treasuries into crypto, with the most notable case being Tesla buying of USD 1.5B worth of bitcoin.
This new era is really reflecting the remarkable rate of developments and adoption of blockchain technologies. However, it is not the first time the crypto markets have become so heated. These market dynamics are likely to lead to corrections of the overheated parts followed by purging of short term opportunistic bad actors.
Enjoy the ride and proceed with caution.
Nga mihi nui,
Daniel Bar, on behalf of the team at BlockChainNZ
News and Events
- Join us for BlockchainNZ’s VASPs Workshop, 16 April, via Zoom and in-person at IBM’s Auckland and Wellington offices, 2-4pm. Please note, this event is only for BlockchainNZ members.
- New Zealand company Techemynt says it has created the country’s first legal stablecoin.
- US Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) enforcement of BitPay for breaching sanctions regulations. Read more here.
- Coinbase files to sell 114.9 Million shares in direct-listing IPO.
- Online trading firm eToro going public in more than $10 billion SPAC deal.
- SubQuery cap raises $1.8M seed round for future expansion.
- Not all NFTs are the same, especially the NBA Top Shop moments. While Dapper Labs (creators of CryptoKitties) can’t change the ownership rights of an NFT NBA Top Shop Moment, it can revoke the rights to the IP associated with that NFT, which would presumably dramatically lower the value of the NFT.
- This podcast comes highly recommended as ‘one of the best I’ve listened to in a while’ from one of our EC members: Bitcoin & Michael Saylor – A Masterclass in Economic Calculation.
- Another recommended podcast is “Mint & Burn” from the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub: Mint & Burn on Apple Podcasts.
- Controversial Ethereum EIP passed recently to lower fees on ETH. Slated to be implemented this July: Ethereum’s ‘EIP 1559’ Fee Market Overhaul Greenlit for July.
- Locally there’s been more loss for Kiwi crypto company despite no longer being in business Assets worth $62,000 allegedly stolen from liquidated company Cryptopia.
- Making a meteoric rise over the past three months – Cardano: Hot cryptocurrency raises questions while price surges.
- Small Pacific island Tuvalu chases digital immortality on a blockchain with an ambitious digital transformation.
- Who the heck is Alice? Blockchain game token ALICE rises 60,000% in 30 seconds following Binance listing.
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