Crypto News: Cardano, Filecoin, Theta, SEC, CBDCs & More!

Foreign Bureau Weekly News Roundup here are the Top stories in crypto this week Crypto Market rally coins and tokens Defy the stock market decline by posting Double and triple digit gains despite The thud who is behind the pump and when Will the next bull market begin Bitcoin ordinal adoption over 100 000 Nfts are minted on the Bitcoin Blockchain resulting in high transaction Fees and renewed concerns about block Size how could this affect btc's price Important altcoin updates cardano Cosmos Filecoin and Theta Implement and Announce major upgrades causing their Respective cryptos to outperform the Market everything you need to know SEC Versus Terror crypto's most hated Regulator cracks down on terror and its Co-founder do Quan more than nine months After the collapse of Luna and the UST Stablecoin what could it mean for other Stable coins Cbdc development accelerates Japan and Russia announced cbdc Pilots the UAE Announces its cbdc plans and a branch of The Federal Reserve begins cbdc research Why this may be bullish for crypto And a closer look at the current state Of the crypto Market from the one and Only Benjamin Cowan all this and More in Just a moment Good morning afternoon or evening thank

You for tuning in my name is guy and What you're about to see is educational Content not Financial advice and here is The news Last week the crypto Market experienced An unexpected pump BTC LED with a 12 Daily gain the last time BTC pumped by Double digits was last September Specifically the 9th of September The course of the 14th of February pump Seems to have been the same and that's a Massive short squeeze according to coin Glass over 100 million dollars of BTC Shorts were liquidated last Tuesday Which translates to roughly 100 million Dollars of buying pressure to put things Into perspective the double-digit pump BTC experience in September was caused By a liquidation of around 120 million Dollars of shorts what's odd is that Tuesday was an objectively bearish day The CPI for January came in higher than Expected which meant that the crypto Market and stock market should have Crashed not only that but U.S Politicians held a hearing where they Discussed cutting crypto off from the Banking system more about that later This week now what's even more odd is That BTC pumped again on Thursday even Though the producer price index or PPI For January came in way higher than Expected not only that but the day Before the SEC announced that it would

Essentially make it harder for Institutional investors to hold Cryptocurrencies and as an odd cherry on Top the stock market crashed while the Crypto Market rallied this means there's Only one explanation and that's that Crypto whales are propping up the market This theory is supported by on-chain Data which found that over 1.6 billion Usdc was recently sent to exchanges now Although it's possible that Institutional investors are merely Buying the dip the unprecedented Regulatory uncertainty makes this Unlikely the disconnect between the Crypto market and the stock market makes It less likely the correlation would be Stronger if there was genuine Institutional action in short it seems That whales might be manipulating the Crypto Market as I mentioned in My Weekly Newsletter I suspect that they're Creating exit liquidity using what's Left of the speculative investors now Regardless of the cause BTC and most Major altcoins are looking extremely Overbought btc's price is poking above The Bollinger band indicator on the Weekly every time this has happened over The last two years BTC crashed in the Weeks that followed BTC also seems to Have been rejected by both the 50-week And the 200-week moving average which Recently created a death cross

Regarding when the crypto bull market Will begin the monthly Bollinger band Indicator for BTC says it all btc's Price was above the moving average During the bull market and has been Below the moving average during the bear Market right now a bull market would Require a monthly close above 35k note That you can learn more about technical Analysis by checking out our tutorials Episode 1 will be in the description Speaking of Bitcoin you might have seen A few headlines about a new nft Functionality on bitcoin called ordinals As I explained in our video on coin Bureau Clips ordinals involve inscribing Individual satoshi's with additional Data for context each BTC is made up of 100 million satoshis like cents to a Dollar Now ordinals was created by Casey Rodemore a former Bitcoin developer and Launched at the end of January since Then over 100 000 ordinals have been Minted This has added lots of data to the Bitcoin blockchain and even caused Bitcoin's block size to hit an all-time High of 2.5 megabytes this has led to Concerns that ordinals could clog up the Bitcoin blockchain and make it unusable If you watched our video about Transaction fees however you'll know That the Bitcoin blockchain has a fee

Market this means that if you pay a high Enough transaction fee your transaction Will always go through not surprisingly Bitcoin miners have been making a Killing from transaction fees related to Ordinals nft mins according to data from June analytics Bitcoin miners have made Over a million dollars in fees in less Than three weeks what's interesting is That these fees peaked at 170k on the 15th of February This suggests that the hype around Ordinals is starting to fade and it begs The question of whether ordinals were Created to temporarily increase the Income of Bitcoin miners this wouldn't Be surprising given that the theme of The last few weeks has apparently been Exit liquidity by and for crypto Wales Alternatively it's possible that Ordinals were created by so-called big Blockers now for reference in 2017 Institutional investors tried and failed To force the Bitcoin Community to double Bitcoin's block size this is because Institutional investors wanted Everything to be built on bitcoin defy Nfts you name it the catch is that Increasing bitcoin's block size in 2017 Would have set a precedent for Increasing bitcoin's block size again This is a problem because the larger Bitcoin blocks become the harder it is For nodes to store and check bitcoin's

Full transaction history this would Compromise decentralization naturally Some institutional investors have tried To revive the block size debate because Of the ordinals ordeal but thankfully These attempts have been mostly ignored And will certainly be unsuccessful this Is simply because institutional Investors have turned their focus to Influencing other crypto projects in any Case ordinals are likely to be bullish For BTC in the long term and it's likely That some of the nfts created using Ordinals will be very valuable this is Because what nft collectors look for is Permanence they want to know that the Nft will be there forever Bitcoin is Arguably the ideal blockchain in this Regard Innovations like ordinals will Also increase transaction fees on the Bitcoin blockchain this will result in More revenues for Bitcoin miners which Will incentivize more miners to join in Securing the blockchain it'll also Result in higher BTC prices albeit at The expense of the average Bitcoin user There is of course a debate to be had About whether it's appropriate to upload Fart noises to the Bitcoin blockchain Yes that actually happened in my opinion Btc's purpose is to be the store of Value in cryptocurrency BTC is the hard Money which could eventually secure the Altcoin blockchains that will provide

All the other use cases on that note Cardano Builder iog recently announced That it had successfully implemented an Upgrade called Valentine which sets the Sage for cross-chain interoperability Including cross-chain D5 the upgrade Comes at a time when the total value Locked on cardano's D5 protocols has Been rising if you watched our most Recent cardano update you'll know that The crypto project is also in the Process of rolling out an ecosystem of Side chains These will increase cardano's Scalability and simultaneously make it a More direct competitor to ethereum which Has similar scaling Solutions Cosmos on the other hand has taken a Different approach and that's to make it Possible for each dap to create its own Secure and scalable POS blockchain the Cosmos blockchain itself lies at the Center of the cosmos universe and it Recently underwent the row upgrade in Preparation for interchange security Interchange Security will make it Possible for the over 200 blockchains in The cosmos Cosmos to leverage the Security of cosmos's own validator set Interchange security is expected to be Implemented by the end of the first Quarter which is the end of next month This should increase the demand for atom Next up we have filecoin whose fill coin

Was last week's top performing Cryptocurrency by a wide margin What's funny is that even crypto news Site coindesk couldn't pin down the Cause of the rally the author speculated That it was because of the upcoming Release of the filecoin virtual machine Another possible cause of the pump could Be the ongoing demand for decentralized Data storage within the crypto ecosystem Particularly from nft projects then Again this could be just another case of Crypto Wales trying to create some exit Liquidity before the next crypto market Crash then there's Theta which partnered With an AI project called fedml to quote Enable collaborative machine learning on Content recommendation and generative AI In plain English Theta partnered with Fedml to create better video Recommendations on theta's decentralized Video streaming platforms unfortunately The announcement didn't have much of an Effect on theta's price this might be Because the local top appears to be in For all the AI hype this is something I Predicted in My Weekly Newsletter and You should subscribe to it if you Haven't already the link will be in the Description now as amazing as all these Altcoin updates are bear in mind that The price won't reflect these Fundamentals until the crypto bear Market is over the good news is that

Most of it seems to be behind us the bad News is that the effects of the Catalysts which caused the bear Market Are still being felt one of these crypto Bear Market catalysts was the collapse Of Terror last May and the SEC has Finally decided to crack down on Terra Nine months after the fact the SEC has Sued terraform Labs or tfl and Co-founder do Quan for allegedly quote Orchestrating a multi-billion dollar Crypto asset Securities fraud now it's Safe to say that the allegations are Significant for starters the SEC alleges That tfl and do Quan cashed out 100 Million dollars of the BTC That was Supposed to be used to defend ust's Peg If you watched our video about terror's Collapse you'll know it had accumulated Over three billion dollars worth of BTC You'll also know that terra's lunar Foundation guard or lfg had reportedly Used all this BTC to defend ust's Peg During its collapse as it so happens the Lfg wasn't the only one as reported by The block trading firm jump crypto had Helped the lfg maintain ust's Peg during The 2021 crypto crash now the third Revelation from the sec's terror lawsuit Is that a popular South Korean app Called chai was not leveraging the Terra Blockchain this is something that do Quan had claimed and it is now Abundantly clear that it was just one of

Many lies the worst part is that this Lawsuit could affect other stable coins According to Delphi Labs the sec's Lawsuit against Terror contains Arguments that could theoretically be Applied to other Stables to clarify the SEC claims that terror's UST was a Security this is because tfl and dokwon Had created an ecosystem of dapps around The stablecoin crypto lawyer Mike selig Had a slightly different interpretation Of the sec's argument and that the UST Was a security because it could be Exchanged for Luna which the SEC sees as A security too this is concerning Because it means that the SEC could say That every cryptocurrency is a security If that wasn't bad enough the SEC also Seemed to argue that synthetic tokens Which mirror the price of real-world Assets and wrapped coins on other Blockchains are also Securities now this Is seriously concerning because there Are billions of dollars of wrapped Assets on ethereum namely wbtc as noted By bankless podcast co-host Ryan Sean Adams it's more than likely that the SEC Will win its case against tfl and dokwon And this will set a dangerous precedent For the crypto industry never mind the Sec's upcoming lawsuit against paxos Over busd the arguments there could be Even worse now these kinds of Developments underscore the idea that

The crypto bear Market isn't over it Also highlights the fact that BTC is the Only crypto that's safe to hold in this Environment Believe it or not but it seems like U.S Politicians are trying to push the SEC To regulate BTC as a security too again I'll tell you more about that later this Week now while the purpose of crypto Regulations is supposed to be investor Protection it's clear the only thing Being protected here is the interests of Those in the existing Financial system These include central banks which have Been accelerating the rollout of their Cbdcs during this crypto Crackdown the Central banks of Russia and Japan Recently announced that they would be Running Pilots for their respective Cbdcs in April this makes sense Considering the former is facing extreme Sanctions and the latter is literally on The brink of a government default the Only solution is total currency control Meanwhile in the United Arab Emirates The Central Bank announced its Financial Infrastructure transformation program And the first step is the development of A cbdc for domestic and international Use in contrast to countries like Russia And Japan the UAE isn't developing a Cbdc out of necessity The same is true for the United States Where the Federal Reserve Bank of San

Francisco is developing a cbdc system as Per a job posting on its website Something tells me that the FED is going To have a hard time finding someone to Develop a robust digital currency given Its Crackdown on the crypto industry now If you watched our video about Cryptocurrencies versus cbdc's you'll Know that the two couldn't be any more Different the only similarity they share Is that their digital and tend to be Built on blockchains this is one of the Reasons why cbdc's could be bullish for Crypto they will validate cryptos Technology the second reason why cbdcs Could be bullish for crypto is that Their dystopian characteristics will Likewise validate crypto's philosophy Most cbdcs will be pretty benign when They're first released When a crisis comes however it will be Clear that they are pure evil and people Will flee to crypto And the third reason why cbdcs could be Bullish for crypto is because most of Them will probably fail mostly due to a Lack of trust in governments in most Countries this could force such Governments to adopt crypto Alternatives Such as stable coins to ensure that the Trust and transparency is there it's Also possible that governments will Decide to issue their cbdcs on Smart Contract cryptocurrency blockchains such

As ethereum this would be very bullish For the crypto in question but that's Not a scenario I would ever want to see Decentralized Sable coins are in any Case the way to go we just need a good One And with all that said it is time for Ben Cowan's amazing crypto analysis so Take it away Ben Hey guy thanks for having me a pleasure To be here as always today I wanted to Explore the price action of both Bitcoin And ethereum using something known as The return on investment bans or Roi Bands now this is a clever way I think To sort of depict the amount of time and It's historically taken to see a certain Return on your investment now this is Somewhat of a complicated chart to Understand and it's also somewhat Complicated to explain so I'll try to do My best on the primary y-axis we have The price and this corresponds to the Blue line right in this case it's the Price of Bitcoin and then on the second Area y-axis we have something called Roi Days so return on investment days this Essentially is the amount of time it Would have taken for you to in this case 2x your investment had you bought on That day so for instance just to give You an idea had you bought Bitcoin at Say six and a half thousand dollars in June of 2018 you just go find the dot

That corresponds to that price and it Would have taken you about a year or 374 Days to 2x your investment now the Reason it would have taken that long is Because well initially you would have Lost 50 percent but then subsequently we Saw that 4X rally in 2019 so you would Have been able to 2x your investment in About a year okay But you'll also notice as you get into Sort of the peak Mania phases the dots That correspond to to these prices it Doesn't take nearly as long to see a 2x On your investment for instance the peak Mania phase in in say 2011 you could Have 2xed your investment in a matter of Say three days at the peak in the second Cycle say the second the first peak of The second cycle at you could have two Extra investment about seven days Leading into the peak and then the Secondary Peak you could have done so About nine days the the third cycle that Led into this peak the quickest you Could have two extra investment just Simply by buying Bitcoin and and waiting At near the peak would have been about 12 days and then in um in 2020 in 2021 It would have been at 23 days what this Shows is the sort of a function of of Diminishing returns the idea that you Know the the price of Bitcoin can still Go higher and I think it can ultimately Go much higher as as the years sort of

Roll by and we go from one cycle to Another But it also shows that when you get near The peak and you're you're seeing Bitcoin sort of double up on its Investment or you know double up on its Price within maybe a month or so it's a Sign that we're getting into very heated Territory now you'll notice that we Don't have any data points for a 2X Return on bitcoin Since July of 2021 and the reason July 2021 is on here is because well had you Bought Bitcoin at around thirty two Thousand dollars you would have been Able to 2x your investment in about 90 Days this is the data point that Corresponds to that price and it would Have taken about three months to see That 2x return on your investment However since then really since about July of 2021 No matter when you have bought Bitcoin Right no matter what what point you Bought it it just simply has not gone up 2x from the lows and in order for you to See a 2X data point show up Well the easiest way would be from this Recent low Of around you know around 15 15 to 16 000 so Bitcoin would have to go up above You know above 30k to ultimately see Another Roi ban show up now we can also Overlay the amount of time to Forex your

Investment had you you know had you Bought it various phases in bitcoin's History and then 6x And 8x And what you'll see is that as you Continue to go on of course the the Amount of time to sort of 10x your Investment and whatnot is you know get Somewhat few and far between right like There's just simply not a whole lot of Data points in this scenario especially Like say 50x and and 20x but one of the Reasons I I like these types of charts Is because it's aesthetically pleasing To look at it I think it I I think it Actually explains Bitcoins Cycles quite Well so this just sort of shows you the Range of 2x 4X 6 8 10 20 50 and 100x Um you know throughout the years the Amount of time it takes to sort of see That return on your investment and we Haven't even gotten to that stage in you Know at this point you know so far I Mean we haven't even seen a single 2x as Measured all the way from July of 2021 But you'll also notice that as you go From one cycle to another The amount of days it takes to see your Investment go up by a certain amount Tends to slowly increase as a function Of time I also thought it would be Useful to sort of visit the same chart But for ethereum as well and you can Also see that we've you know experienced

2x returns in relatively short periods Of time even as late as December 2020 There was a point where ethereum went up About 2x in only 15 days but what you'll Notice is we haven't seen that we Haven't seen a 2x on it again since July Of 2021 now of course for the astute Observers you might say well technically Speaking ethereum went down to you know Below a thousand dollars and we went up To two thousand dollars that's true but We're only looking at Daily closes in This case we're not actually looking at Wix and so it doesn't actually count in This case because this daily close was Around you know 9.95 and the highest it Went was around 1.91 K in terms of of What we're capturing here but again it Sort of shows you the ebb and flow from From one cycle to another and if you Look at the amount of time it has taken To 10x your investment in ethereum Historically the last time you could Have done so Would have been buying Um in you know November of 2020 when the Price was around 400 and and we know That ethereum from that level even as Late as November 2020 it still went up 10x over the next 180 days 186 days or So so this really shows you you know the The movement from one cycle to another And and as you go from one bull run to Another generally the amount of time to

Sort of see a certain return on your Investment has historically gone higher And I would generally suspect it will Continue to do something more or less Like that as we as we continue to push Forward through time into a few into a New bull run like you can still see These returns right two extra turns four Extra turns Um so on and so forth but They will that they will slightly be They'll be getting a little bit more Diminished Um as we as we continue to push forward Through time but I thought this was a a Clever way to sort of visualize price Action for both Bitcoin and ethereum Thanks for having me on I'll see you Again next week Thank you Ben and that is all for Today's coin Bureau weekly crypto review So if you enjoyed it you know what to do Hit the like button subscribe button and The bell icon too If you're looking to maximize your gains During the bear Market the coin Bureau Deals page is where you should go you Can find the link to that resource and Many others in the description below Thank you so much for watching and I Will see you all in next week's episode