In the middle of September, Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,139) entered an ascending channel and has continued to trade sideways near $19,500.Analysts anticipate a price increase over the next few months due to the bullish nature of the technical formation and a decrease in the sell pressure from troubled miners.

@el_crypto_prof, an independent analyst, noted that BTC's price formed a "1-2-3 Reversal-Pattern" on a daily time frame, indicating that $20,000 might soon turn into support.

Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Stacks, a Bitcoin layer for smart contracts, and CEO of Trust Machines, which is developing the largest ecosystem of applications for Bitcoin and their underlying technologies, joins us on this week's episode of Market Talks.
Ali has been working on distributed systems and internet protocols for more than 15 years. He got his Ph.D. in computer science from Princeton University, where he also gives guest lectures from time to time.
First things first, we ask Ali to explain what it means to build on the Bitcoin network and how it differs from other networks so that we can get started.When discussing such matters, what, if any, are the advantages and disadvantages of developing smart contracts on a network?
Next, Ali's thoughts on the state of crypto at the moment and the current market conditions are discussed.The average investor might think that markets are boring, but we talk about whether or not these conditions are good or bad for builders in the industry.We get Ali's opinion on whether or not bear markets are a good time to develop better products and services.
Bitcoin vs. Ethereum smart contracts is the primary issue that everyone is concerned about.When compared to Ethereum, which appears to be the most widely used network for the use of smart contracts, why is Bitcoin a superior platform for building smart contracts?What distinguishes Bitcoin from Ethereum?While we are talking about the top two blockchain networks, we also talk about whether or not Ether (ETH) can or will ever flip Bitcoin (BTC) and become the dominant asset.

The best use for Bitcoin is either to hold onto it as a store of value and lend it securely, or to become so widely accepted and used that it becomes the predominant currency used on a daily basis.We have one of the industry's brightest minds to answer all of your questions.Therefore, ensure that you are tuned in to stay informed and up to date on the most recent information.
Make your voice heard by tuning in.Throughout the show, we will be taking your questions and comments; therefore, please ensure that they are prepared.
Every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET (5:00 p.m. UTC), Market Talks broadcasts live.We conduct interviews with some of the most inspiring and influential crypto and blockchain industry figures each week.Therefore, please ensure that you visit the YouTube page of Crypto Express  and click the Like and Subscribe buttons for all of our upcoming videos and updates.

A new marketplace that does not involve nonfungible tokens (NFTs) has been created by the well-known messaging app Telegram.The idea for the social messaging platform's marketplace to auction off unique social platform usernames was first tossed around in August. According to the company, it is all set to launch.
The company stated in an official announcement on its Telegram channel that the marketplace's development phase is nearing its conclusion.The Open Network (TON), the marketplace's native blockchain, serves as its foundation.
Pavel Durov, the founder of the company, first mentioned the concept when he suggested a marketplace that could use "NFT-like smart contracts" to auction usernames that are highly sought after.The suggestion was made by Durov following the "success" of domain name auctions conducted by The Open Network (TON), a layer-1 blockchain that was initially developed by the Telegram team.
Durov stated at the time that a new marketplace could become a sought-after service in Web3, where username holders could transfer them to interested parties in protected deals with ownership secured on the blockchain via NFT-like smart contracts.He went on to say that other parts of the Telegram ecosystem, like channels, stickers, and emojis, might one day join this market.
At the time of publication, Crypto Express  requested comments from Telegram, but the company did not respond.

With the intention of launching a digital payments platform for Telegram, Telegram began its Web3 and cryptocurrency endeavor.However, Telegram, like a lot of other initial coin offering (ICO) platforms, ran into trouble with US regulators for selling its Gram token without being registered.
Durov left the project in 2020 to concentrate on Telegram after losing a legal battle against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.The project has been revived ever since under the name "The Open Network" by open-source developers.

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of important decentralized finance (DeFi) insights. This newsletter was designed to inform you of significant developments over the past week.
Some of the most significant DeFi hacks dominated the headlines last week.This week is redemption time for many DeFi protocols that either avoided a hack attempt or received substantial refunds of their stolen funds.
According to reports, a flaw in the BitBTC bridge made it possible for an intruder to create counterfeit tokens on one side of the bridge before exchanging them for genuine ones.However, the cross-bridge platform was informed of the vulnerability by a single Twitter user who was able to anticipate it.
After deciding to return the majority of the cryptocurrency they exploited from the Celo-based lending protocol, the Moola Market attacker has received a "bug bounty" of approximately half a million dollars.Despite a $160 million hack, cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute paid back a $92 million TrueFi loan on time.
Despite the protocol's decision to award him a $50 million bounty, Mango Market hackers who returned a significant portion of the $117 million stolen from the protocol could still face legal action.
With the exception of a few tokens, the majority of the top 100 DeFi tokens traded in the negative for an additional week.For the second week in a row, the locked total remained below $50 billion.

Optimism has been able to avoid a potentially costly exploit thanks to the efforts of an eagle-eyed Twitter user, who saved the cross-chain bridge between BitBTC and the Ethereum layer-2 network.
Users can send assets between Optimism's network and BitAnt's DeFi ecosystem via the custom cross-chain bridge, which includes yield services, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), swaps, and the BitBTC token, where one million BitBTC represents one Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,139).
Continue reading An attacker has returned just over 93% of the more than $9 million worth of cryptocurrencies they stole from the Celo blockchain-based DeFi lending protocol Moola Market in exchange for a $500K bounty.
On Oct. 18, the Moola Market team tweeted that it was looking into an incident and had stopped doing anything. They also said that they had contacted the authorities and offered the exploiter a bug bounty if the money was returned within 24 hours.
Continue reading The exploiter of MangoMarket claimed that his actions were "legal," but were they?
The exploiter of $117 million from Mango Markets has claimed that his actions were "legal," but a lawyer says that they could still be held accountable.
On Oct. 15, self-described digital art dealer Avraham Eisenberg made it clear that he was the victim in a series of tweets, claiming that he and a group of people engaged in a "highly profitable trading strategy" and that the actions were "legal open market actions, using the protocol as designed."

Concerns about the repayment of debt in the amount of $189.4 million surfaced after the cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute suffered a hack that resulted in a loss of $160 million.However, Wintermute paid back its largest debt, a $92 million TrueFi Tether (USDT tickers down $1.00) loan, on October 15 in an exciting turn of events.
Wintermute still owes $75 million to Maple Finance in USD Coin (USDC tickers down $1.00) and wrapped Ether (wETH), as well as $22.4 million to Clearpool, for a total debt of $97.4 million after repaying TrueFi's $92 million loan.

The German fintech N26, valued at $9 billion, has made crypto trading available through its mobile app.N26 Crypto will allow its customers to buy and sell 200 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,139) and Ether (ETH tickers down $1,298), beginning in Austria and expanding to other nations in the coming months.

The fintech with its headquarters in Berlin made the announcement on October 20 that the launch in Austria addresses "strong local demand," with 40% of N26 users either actively trading in cryptocurrencies or expressing an interest in doing so.In the next six months, N26 intends to expand its crypto trading service to additional important markets.
N26 Crypto can be accessed by N26 app users with a verified identity through the "Trading" section of the new "Finances" tab.As a result, they can use their fiat bank account to buy crypto.For standard accounts, the transaction fee is set at 1.5% for Bitcoin and 2.5% for other currencies, with discounts for N26 metallic card holders.

Valentin Stalf, co-founder and co-CEO of N26, says the company sees its new product as a way for a new generation of investors, who are interested in digital assets despite recent market turmoil, to get started:

The execution of trades and custody of coins are managed by Vienna-based Bitpanda GmbH, which maintains the platform.
N26 announced in November 2021 that it would no longer be operating in the market in the United States and would instead solely concentrate on the European market.However, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) imposed a new customer cap on the company in May 2021, which caused the company to run into some issues in Europe as well.

Thanks for subscribing, readers, and welcome!Crypto Express resident newsletter writer Big Smokey now writes the Altcoin Roundup newsletter.This weekly newsletter, which will be renamed Crypto Market Musings in the coming weeks, will provide ahead-of-the-curve analysis and track emerging crypto market trends.

The newsletter will continue to be published on the same date, and the content will continue to place a significant emphasis on the technical and fundamental analysis of cryptocurrencies from a more macro perspective in order to identify significant shifts in investor sentiment and market structure.We hope that you like it!
Investing in decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens during the bull market was like shooting fish in a barrel. However, now that inflows to the sector pale in comparison to the market's heyday, it is much harder to identify good trades in the space. DeFi has a problem with pump and dumps.

Protocols were able to entice liquidity providers during the DeFi summer by offering yields in the three- to four-digit range and mechanisms like liquid staking, lending with asset collateral, and token rewards for staking.The main problem was that many of these reward offerings couldn't be sustained, and high emissions from some protocols caused liquidity providers to automatically dump their rewards, putting constant sell pressure on the price of a token.
DeFi protocols also had to contend with total value locked (TVL) wars because they had to constantly compete for investor capital to keep the number of "users" willing to lock their funds within the protocol.As a result, mercenary capital from whales and other cash-strapped investors essentially airdropped funds onto platforms with the highest APY rewards for a brief period of time before eventually dumping rewards on the open market and moving investment funds to better opportunities.
The same type of activity occurred for platforms that received series funding from venture capitalists.VCs give money in exchange for tokens, and they are among the biggest holders of tokens in the most profitable liquidity pools.The looming threat of token unlocks from early investors, high reward emissions, and the consistent auto-dumping of those rewards all contributed to constant sell pressure and clearly prevented any investor from making a long investment based on fundamental analysis.

On Oct. 20, as tantalizing sideways action continued, Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,057) showed no signs of a breakout.

Analyst:Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView data showed that the Bitcoin range was "congested and critical." Overnight, BTC/USD was firmly rangebound at around $19,000, moving only about $400 up or down.
The United Kingdom, where the pound reacted to the news that Liz Truss had resigned as prime minister, saw equities open without significant volatility.
At the time of writing, social media-shared chart data indicated that BTC volatility had become nearly identical to that of the pound, with BTC currently experiencing its lowest volatility since 2020.

Later this month, institutional clients of Fidelity Investments, the $4.5 trillion asset manager's crypto division, will be able to take advantage of Ether (ETH) custody and trading services.
The cryptocurrency division announced new "Institutional Ethereum capabilities" for institutional investors beginning on Oct. 28, 2022, according to an email to customers that was shared on Twitter.

According to the post, "using the same model provided for bitcoin investments today," investors will be able to purchase, sell, and transfer ETH.
Fidelity stated, "With the completion of the Ethereum Merge, many investors are looking at Ethereum through a new lens," likely referring to Ethereum's switch to the eco-friendly proof-of-stake (PoS) model.
In a previous paper, Fidelity outlined their belief that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,057) are a superior form of money than just technology.
An Oct. 4 filing reveals that a new Ethereum Index Fund has raised over $5 million since its initial sale on Sept. 26 through a single investor. This latest announcement comes in the wake of that fund.

Fidelity announced plans in April to allow Bitcoin investments directly from 401(k) retirement savings accounts.
The business made the announcement the previous year that 90% of its largest customers were interested in gaining access to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, stated on September 13 that Fidelity was working toward offering Bitcoin to its 34.4 million retail investors.
Crypto Express  contacted Fidelity regarding the new service, but at the time of publication, the company did not respond immediately.

Digital gold's rise to prominence has the potential to cause unprecedented disruption in the industry.Gold has historically served as a global currency to protect against inflation.In addition, it has been serving as a commodity investment venue, which is frequently favored over other asset classes like equities or foreign exchange, particularly in conventional markets.
However, owning physical gold comes with a few drawbacks, including the possibility of theft and the inconvenience of transport and storage.Although gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) may appear to be an alternative option, investors must keep in mind that traders do not actually own the gold and pay the same taxes as gold bullion or bars, as well as an annual fee of approximately 0.4 percent to 1%.Bullion includes all exchangeable physical forms of other precious metals, like silver and platinum, whereas gold contains all metal forms, like coins and bars.
On the other hand, storing digital gold on a blockchain appears to be a viable option.This is where Comtech Gold (CGO) comes in, a cryptocurrency that combines the advantages of blockchain technology with those of gold.By introducing a cryptocurrency that is 100 percent backed by gold, CGO addresses the prevalent issues with gold trading.
CGO meets the requirements of both individuals and corporate investors.Retail investors no longer need to go to local markets to buy gold.Furthermore, it eliminates the need to physically store gold, which benefits institutional investors.

Introduction to Comtech Gold By issuing standardized digital gold that is 100% backed by physical gold, Comtech Gold has added another dimension to gold trading.The project, which is based on the cutting-edge blockchain XinFin XDC Network, is also Shariah-compliant and has been approved by a renowned group of Shariah scholars in the United Arab Emirates.
Gold's storage and transfer issues can now be resolved by converting digital gold into physical gold at any time.The precious metal's fractionalization makes gold investments more common.
Gold is physically owned by holders of CGO tokens in the same proportion.Despite the fact that each holder is entitled to a certain quantity of gold, it might not be the specific bars they submitted.Similar to a bank, this arrangement allows the person withdrawing money to request bills of a certain value, but not necessarily the same bills that they had deposited in cash.
Underlying physical gold The prices of each token on Comtech Gold are based on the current international gold rate.The gold bars, which can be identified by their bar numbers, serve as full security for the tokens.These are standard 1 kg bars with a purity of 999.9 percent.
Gold-backed token holders can exchange their tokens for actual 1 kg gold bars.An investor can request that their gold tokens be exchanged for physical 1 kg gold bars when they have gold tokens worth one kilogram (1000 CGO tokens).

One will be able to purchase tokens in smaller denominations at shops owned by well-known retailers at any time they choose as the Comtech Gold network expands.
Sharia compliance Comtech Gold establishes an ecosystem based on the identification and separation of the physical gold associated with each gold-backed token.Each transaction will conclude with the actual transfer of tokens from the seller to the buyer, as required by Shariah compliance.From creation to redemption, the token can be audited in its entirety.
Amanie Advisory Group, a company that specializes in shariah-compliant investments and Islamic finance solutions, issued the Shariah certification (Fatwa).After confirming that the Comtech Gold token's structure, mechanism, and relevant key legal documents met all required Shariah requirements, the ComTech Gold Shariah certification was issued with guidance from the advisory team.
The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) has set standards and rules that are in line with Islamic law.
Vault and storage Transguard, a globally recognized vault, houses the physical bars that support the gold tokens.The audit trail for the user's wallet account is complete.To view their balance and transfer tokens, users can use their wallets.Since each wallet is encrypted, only the owner can access it.
Due to safety and convenience concerns, gold storage has always been a pain, whether at home or in a bank.But with Comtech Gold, users can store gold in a tokenized form, move their investments around, and even sell them at any time.
Tokenization of actual gold Gold is a valuable metal, so investing it is unaffordable for many people.The digitization of gold results in fractional investments, allowing individuals to purchase as little as one gram, significantly broadening the investment horizon for investors.Comtech Gold makes it easy to buy at least 0.01 grams.

A recent study by José Simeón Caas Central American University in El Salvador found that 77.1 percent of respondents want the Salvadoran government to stop "spending public money on Bitcoin."
In addition, only 24.4% of respondents claim to have paid with Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,057) since the country's government declared it to be legal tender last year.
Local Salvadoran residents were surveyed regarding their thoughts on Legislative Decree No.57, which recognized Bitcoin as legal tender on September 7, 2021, in El Salvador.On a 95% confidence interval, 1,269 valid interviews were gathered in September 2022, with a reported error margin of 2.75 percent.
95% of respondents to the survey report that their lives have either “stayed the same” or “[have] gotten worse” since Bitcoin became legal tender, despite the fact that there was no direct causal link between the adoption of Bitcoin and the economic situation of the nation.Nayib Bukele, the country's president, is well-known for his Bitcoin campaign to promote tourism and foreign investment.Bukele proposed last year establishing a "Bitcoin City" with zero percent nominal tax rates and construction funded by a $1 billion Bitcoin "Volcano Bond."
The politician and blockchain personality is also well-known for making frequent BTC purchases with the nation's budget public.According to the Nayib Bukele Portfolio Tracker, the Salvadoran government has purchased Bitcoin for more than $107 million thus far.Nevertheless, as a result of this year's bear market, the investments are currently only worth $45.7 million despite dollar-cost averaging.However, it is important to keep in mind that the portfolio tracker only monitors public announcements and that the reported profit and loss may not be entirely accurate without access to the entire trading records maintained by the government.

Four state enforcement agencies across the United States have issued simultaneous cease-and-desist orders to a metaverse casino because they believe the company's nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are unregistered securities.
The tokens are said to provide access to the metaverse casino, staking rewards, revenue split from its games, lotteries, and native token WATT over two NFT collections offered by metaverse casino Slotie.
However, the platform's marketing of NFTs and its alleged lack of securities registration do not appear to have pleased the regulators.
Slotie was ordered to cease and desist its operations by the state securities boards of Texas, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Alabama on October 20, citing the platform's lack of state registration and the offering of unregistered securities via NFTs.
Slotie is accused in the actions of issuing 10,000 NFTs that are comparable to stock and other equities.According to a statement released on Oct. 20, the Texas State Securities Board, "The Slotie NFTs purportedly provide investors with ownership interests in the casinos and the right to passively share in the profits of the casinos."
The agencies also accused the organization, which they believe is based in Georgia, of concealing important financial information and providing misleading promotional information, among other things.
According to the New Jersey Bureau of Securities' cease and desist order, Slotie is selling securities that are neither "federally covered" nor exempt from registration.
In addition, it alleges that the platform failed to register as a broker-dealer, provided misleading information, and provided all of the required disclosures for operating a gambling platform.
Slotie's claims that its first batch of 10,000 NFTs sold out in less than five minutes and its second batch of 5,000 NFTs sold out in less than two minutes are specifically questioned in the filing because there is no "evidence on the blockchain" to support these claims.
According to the filing, "Slotie is making materially false and misleading statements and/or omitting to state material facts" in relation to the offer, sale, or purchase of securities.

"NFTs that purport to provide passive income — often bear significant undisclosed risks," Texas state securities board director Joe Rotunda noted in an Oct. 20 CNBC report, referring to metaverse-linked NFTs.

Similar cease-and-desist orders issued earlier this year against Web3 gambling projects Flamingo Casino Club and the Sand Vegas Casino Club now include the response from U.S. state enforcement agencies.
In particular, five state agencies in the United States made the claim in May that Flamingo Casino Club was a Russian scam operation that lied about buying Metaverse land from hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg and faked a partnership with a real casino.
Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States has investigated the possibility of classifying some NFTs as securities.
Bloomberg was told in March by unidentified sources that the SEC was looking into NFT creators and markets to see if "certain nonfungible tokens [...] are being utilized to raise money like traditional securities."

On October 18, the Layer-1 blockchain company Aptos Foundation made the announcement that it had given away free APT tokens to its early network participants.

The foundation announced that it had distributed approximately 110,235 eligible participants 20 million APT tokens, or 2 percent of its initial supply of 1 billion APT.Based on the market price of the token at the time of the drop, the value of the airdropped tokens was estimated to be between $200 and 260 million USD.
The blockchain company said that two categories of people qualified for the airdropped tokens:Users who "minted an APTOS:" and "users who completed an application for an Aptos Incentivized Testnet"Zero testnet NFT (non-fungible token)These NFTs' original minters were the only ones eligible, not their current or secondary owners.
The company stated that the only way to claim Aptos tokens was through the official Aptos Community page, with additional information available in the eligibility email the company sent out.To avoid being conned, they advised users to exercise extreme caution and only rely on official channels and sources.
The first airdrop of Aptos Foundation tokens to its community comes at a time when the project has been the subject of intense Twitter scrutiny from crypto enthusiasts.

Paul Fidika, a Solana Blockchain developer who is alleged to have worked on Aptos staking, made a number of tweets claiming that the project had "Dodgey tokenomics" and "Fake POS."

Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, both of whom were involved in Mark Zuckerberg's failed Diem blockchain project, created Aptos.Meta sold its intellectual property and other assets in February of this year, ending Diem.
With additional participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo, Franklin Templeton, and Circle Ventures, Aptos closed a $150 million funding round in July. The round was co-led by venture studios FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto.Bloomberg reports that the startup's valuation, which was over $1 billion as of March, was more than doubled thanks to the funding round.

According to a new report, the three most significant factors that have contributed to the adoption of cryptocurrencies in Latin America are remittance payments, a fear of fiat, and a desire for financial gain.
According to a Chainalysis report from October 20, the seventh-largest cryptocurrency market in the world saw the value of cryptocurrencies received by individuals rise by 40% from July 2021 to June 2022, reaching $562 billion.

Remittances accounted for a portion of the increase; the region's overall remittance market is anticipated to reach $150 billion in 2022."Even, but swift" adoption of crypto-based services was noted by Chainalysis.
The company mentioned one Mexican exchange that was in the "world's largest crypto remittance corridor" and handled more than $1 billion in remittances between Mexico and the United States alone in the year to June 2022.
It represented a 400% increase year-over-year and represented 4% of the country's remittance market.
However, the analytics company claims that the adoption of cryptocurrencies, particularly stablecoins pegged to the United States dollar, has also been significantly influenced by the region's rising inflation rates.
The company elaborated, "Stablecoins – cryptocurrencies that are designed to stay pegged to the price of fiat currencies like USD – are a favorite in the region's most inflation-ravaged countries."
According to an estimate from the International Monetary Fund, inflation in the largest five Latin American countries reached a 25-year high of 12.1% in August. The region has been struggling with staggeringly high rates of inflation.

Because of this, regular consumers have taken stablecoins and held them in order to make their everyday purchases in an effort to safeguard themselves from the falling value of their national currencies.
Over a third of consumers already use stablecoins for everyday purchases, according to a June Mastercard survey, according to the report. Chainalysis found that citizens of Venezuela, Argentina, and Brazil were most likely to use stablecoins for small retail transactions (less than $1,000).
The company added that since December 2014, Venezuela's national fiat currency, the bolvar, has seen a depreciation of more than 100,000 percent.

Interestingly, the report found that people in Latin American economies that were larger and more developed were also more likely to use cryptocurrencies for profit.

Chileans were the most involved in DeFi, with over 45% of all crypto transaction volume taking place on DeFi platforms followed by Brazil at just over 30%, Brazil was the number one country in the region for crypto value received closing in on $150 billion.

“Latin America’s more DeFi-centric crypto markets are not unlike Western Europe’s or North America’s, where market participants are embracing cutting edge, returns-focused crypto platforms moreso than savings-centric centralized services,” Chainalysis explained.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,057) is struggling to maintain its 0.23 percent gain on Oct. 20, but overall, crypto prices are falling and the market as a whole remains in a sharp downtrend.The price of Bitcoin remains below $20,000, which many investors consider to be a psychologically significant support and resistance level.

The likely cause of the prolonged malaise in crypto prices is concern over the "lack of progress" on tamping down high inflation at the Federal Reserve of the United States.Patrick Harker, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, said on October 20 that "we are going to keep raising rates for a while" and that higher interest rates have not stopped inflation.
The Fed's aggressive rate hikes, according to many analysts, are yet another policy error—the first was waiting too long to address rising inflation—and that a severe recession will begin in 2023.
Consumer prices increased by 0.4% in September, according to the CPI print.Consumer prices are now 8.2% higher than they were a year ago, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The core CPI has increased by 6.6% over the past year, when food and energy prices are removed, in addition to a 0.4% increase in consumer prices since September. In short, the Federal Reserve does not want inflation to rise.Since the Fed's rate hikes are meant to cool the economy and reduce high inflation, the higher-than-expected report on Oct. 13 is likely to result in additional 0.75 basis point increases in the months to come.
Bitcoin's price action typically follows the S&P 500 and Dow, and a number of economic events occurring in mid-October may continue to exert pressure on crypto prices. This is due to the high correlation between crypto and equity markets.

Important economic events that have a history of influencing investor sentiment in the cryptocurrency market are highlighted on the following dates:
End of the month on Oct. 17:Earnings for the third quarter, October 28:Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index This week, a number of major US companies will report quarterly earnings. The inconsistent results are causing equity markets to be volatile.After Tesla (TSLA) missed its Q3 earnings target due to production and delivery issues, the electric vehicle manufacturer's stock dropped 6.2%.
The strength of the US dollar and what appears to be a serious escalation in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continue to weigh on all markets, in addition to these upcoming events.
Let's examine three of the reasons why crypto prices will continue to fall in 2022 in greater depth.
The Federal Reserve raises interest rates. Increasing interest rates makes it more expensive for businesses and consumers to borrow money.This raises the cost of running a business, the cost of goods and services, the cost of production, wages, and eventually nearly everything else.
The primary reason the Federal Reserve of the United States is raising interest rates is high, uncontrollable inflation.Additionally, Bitcoin and the broader crypto market have experienced a correction since the beginning of rate hikes in March 2022.
Risk assets typically signal or move ahead of equities when monetary policy or economic strength metrics change.The Federal Reserve began announcing its intention to eventually raise interest rates in 2021, and data indicate that the Bitcoin price will experience a sharp correction by December 2021.Bitcoin and Ethereum were, in a way, the equities markets' early warning signs of what was to come.
Risk assets like Bitcoin and altcoins could once again be the "canaries in the coal mine" by reflecting investors' return to risk-on sentiment if inflation begins to taper, the economy improves, or the Fed begins to signal a change in its current monetary policy.
The ongoing threat of regulation The cryptocurrency industry and regulators have a long history of disagreement due to misperceptions or mistrust regarding the actual application of digital assets.Different nations and states have a plethora of contradictory policies regarding how cryptocurrencies are classified as assets and precisely what constitutes a legal payment system because there is no working framework for the regulation of the crypto sector.
Many analysts believe that the mainstreaming of cryptocurrencies cannot occur until a set of laws that are more widely accepted and understood are enacted because of the lack of clarity on this issue.
Investor sentiment has a significant impact on risk assets, including Bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies.Cryptocurrency prices continue to be impacted on a nearly monthly basis by the threat of unfriendly regulations or, in the worst case, an outright ban.
Scams and Ponzi schemes led to liquidations and repeated blows to investor confidence. In addition, market volatility and scams and Ponzi schemes played a significant role in the decline in cryptocurrency prices that lasted throughout 2022.Due to the cryptocurrency industry's youth, lack of regulation, and relatively small size in comparison to equity markets, bad news and events that affect market liquidity frequently result in catastrophic outcomes.
The implosion of Terra's LUNA and Celsius Network, as well as Three Arrows Capital (3AC)'s misuse of leverage and client funds, were all to blame for successive drops in the value of crypto assets.Altcoin prices have historically followed the BTC price, which is currently the largest asset in the sector by market capitalization.
Due to multiple Terra liquidations, the Bitcoin price experienced a sharp correction as the Terra and LUNA ecosystems collapsed into one another. Investor sentiment plummeted as a result.
The collapses of Voyager, 3AC, and Celsius were even more devastating, wiping out tens of billions of dollars' worth of investor and protocol funds.

Kim Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis, a blockchain intelligence company, stated, "The crypto industry should consider it a top priority to reduce the amount of hacking by improving cybersecurity."
The company pointed out that the amount of stolen cryptocurrency this year could surpass that of 2021.Decentralized finance has been the target of the vast majority of these exploits.

In an interview with Crypto Express  Grauer stated, "This can't continue in the industry because people are going to lose faith in investing in DeFi platforms."
Decentralized protocols have proven to be vulnerable to exploits primarily due to the open source code they are based on, in contrast to centralized exchanges, which have improved their resilience to crypto hacks.
Grauer provided an explanation, stating, "Anyone can parse over this open source code and look for code vulnerabilities that they can exploit."

Still, the researcher thinks that decentralized finance's vulnerability to hacks is not a problem in and of itself, but rather a result of not enough resources being invested in code security.
She emphasized, "There are contracts that have demonstrated that they can remain secure."
Grauer believes that decentralized protocols could become more secure than centralized counterparts once sufficient resources are invested in making the code "perfect."

In September, Ethereum's Merge dominated the cryptocurrency industry with promises of shorter transaction times, enhanced security, and a 99% energy savings.However, are you likely to receive a surprise tax bill as well?Let's look at it.
The Ethereum mainnet, which was the proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain at the time, merged with the proof-of-stake (PoS) Beacon Chain during the Merge event. This marked the end of PoW as the Ethereum blockchain's consensus mechanism.
Ethereum joined Cardano, Solana, and the BNB Chain as major PoS blockchains on the Beacon Chain.After Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,182), Ether (ETH tickers down $1,290) is the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Ethereum is the chain that has spearheaded decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) activity.The merger has many repercussions, but what about the potential ones for investors, traders, and businesses?A surprise tax bill is unlikely to please anyone, but that may be exactly what they will receive.

What might it mean in terms of taxes?
If we take a quick trip back in time to 2017, we can see that Bitcoin's civil war ended with a split in the chain into Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (BCH tickers down $107).The term "hard fork" was coined for this occurrence, no pun intended.
In this case, holders of BTC received brand-new BCH coins, which resulted in taxable income for the recipients at their fair market value upon receipt.In addition, any accumulated gains or losses were subject to capital gains tax if any BCH holders later sold their coins.
Related:Is there a civil war brewing within the Ethereum community as a result of the merger? Post-Merge ETH has become obsolete.There are definitely rumblings, and it appears that some Ethereum miners may continue to back the PoW consensus.With ETHW continuing with the PoW codebase and ETH forking to the new proof-of-stake chain, this potential forked version of Ethereum already has the ticker ETHW.
The effects on your taxes are determined by where you live—your tax residency.
The Merge has received no specific guidance from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States.However, just like with the BCH in 2017, ETH holders who receive an equivalent airdrop of ETHW are certain to be subject to income tax.This is clearly explained by the IRS.

An airdrop of ETHW is treated differently in the United Kingdom.It is inferred from the guidance that no income tax is assessed upon receipt.Going one step further, HM Revenue and Customs has offered some guidance on what it refers to as a "one-way transfer," citing the upgrade from the Ethereum mainnet to the Beacon Chain.It believes that this situation will be subject to section 43 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act of 1992.Simply put, the Merge did not cause a taxable event that is subject to capital gains tax.Your ETHW token, on the other hand, receives the cost basis of your existing ETH, and any subsequent sales will result in a gain or loss as usual.
What about mining and stakeout?
Investors and traders can reap rewards when they stake (and lock in) their ETH.Even though the tax advice is murky, they should be conservative with these rewards.
Following the merger, crypto mining and staking are now both subject to income tax upon receipt and capital gains tax (CGT) upon disposal for holders based in the United States.Staking, on the other hand, is a contentious issue that is the subject of an ongoing court case, so this may change in the future as the case progresses.
Staking and mining rewards for ETH in the UK are typically treated as miscellaneous income (less certain allowable expenses) and subject to CGT upon disposal and income tax upon receipt.However, the level of activity, organization, risk, and commerciality all play a role in this.

What are the odds, then?
The mainnet blockchain is incorporated into the newly merged blockchain during a hard fork.All previous data and smart contracts are transferred.An Ethereum hard fork differs from previous forks.
A planned upgrade was the Merge.Exchanges, DeFi protocols, and oracles most likely do not provide the necessary support for an ETHW fork.In my opinion, ETHW, like Bitcoin Cash, will fade into the background of the dominant post-Merge PoS chain.
Related:Federal regulators are getting ready to rule on Ethereum. This kind of fork basically changes the protocol and is meant to be adopted by everyone.To move from ETH (PoW) to ETH 2.0 (PoS), holders of tokens convert ETH to ETH 2.0 in a 1:1 ratio, burning the original ETH.
Advice for investors and traders Investors and businesses should be cautious and create a tax liability provision to prepare for this scenario.You don't want to be in a situation where there is a hard fork and, in the worst case, your Ether loses a lot of value after the merge, making it hard to raise money to pay your crypto tax bill.Keep in mind that only fiat currency can be used to pay this to your tax agency.

As the altcoin market capitalization decreased by 16% over the past eighty days, the cryptocurrency market has been moderately bearish.The Federal Reserve of the United States' quantitative tightening, rising interest rates, and cessation of asset purchases all contribute to the downside movement.Even though the policy aims to reduce inflationary pressure, it also raises borrowing costs for businesses and consumers.
The altcoin Solana's SOL (SOL tickers down $29 ) has suffered a 29% correction since August, making its fall even more brutal.The frequent outages point to a problem with centralization, despite the smart contract network's emphasis on speed and low fees.

The latest setback occurred on Sept. 30 after a misconfigured validator halted blockchain transactions. A duplicate node instance caused the network to fork, as the remaining nodes could not agree on the correct chain version.

Recently, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko placed his bets on Firedancer, a scaling solution developed by Jump Crypto in partnership with the Solana Foundation. Dubbed the long-term fix to the network outage problem, the mechanism should be ready for testing in the coming months.

On Oct. 11, Solana-based decentralized finance exchange Mango Markets was hit with an exploit of over $115 million. The attacker successfully manipulated the value of MNGO native token collateral, taking out “massive loans” from Mango’s treasury.

The primary decentralized application metric for Solana began to show signs of weakness earlier in November, as did the TVL and the number of active addresses.At 30.4 million SOL, the total value locked (TVL) of the network, which measures the amount deposited in its smart contracts, fell to its lowest level since September 2021.

TVL and Solana's declining value are influenced by a variety of other factors.Investors should also look at how many active addresses are in the ecosystem to see if DApp use has actually decreased.

Thanks to the efforts of a keen Twitter user, a cross-chain bridge between BitBTC and the Ethereum layer-2 network Optimism has avoided a potentially costly vulnerability.
Users can send assets between Optimism's network and BitAnt's decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem via the custom cross-chain bridge, which includes yield services, NFTs, swaps, and the BitBTC token, where one million BitBTC represents one Bitcoin (BTC tickers down $19,182).
Lee Bousfield, the technical lead for L2 network Abirtrum, highlighted the BitBTC bridge flaw in a tweet on October 18, stating that "BitBTC's Optimism bridge is trivially vulnerable."

Bousfield says that a bug in the BitBTC bridge let an attacker make fake tokens on one side of the bridge and trade them for real ones on the other.
“You can withdraw any token from the Optimism L2 side of the bridge, and that token can choose the L1Token address that was passed to the L1 side of the bridge.However, the L1 bridge mints the arbitrary L1 token instead of paying any attention to what the L2 token was!He also wrote that:

Bousfield stated that it would take "7 days to go through, during which the L1 bridge could be fixed via an upgrade" for the bug to be successfully exploited.
Shortly after this was noted, an attacker attempted to withdraw "200 billion fake BitBTC from Optimism" to test that theory.
According to reports, the attacker claimed that it was a merea test.
In a subsequent update approximately ten hours later, Bousfield also noted that the bug had been fixed after he got in touch with the BitBTC team.
Crypto Express  will update the story if the BitAnt team responds to our request for confirmation of these particulars.
On October 18, the developer of Optimism, Kevin Fichter, confirmed that BitBTC was the source of the issue because it used its own custom bridge rather than the standard bridge that Optimism provides to partners.
Fichter also said that assets "other than BitBTC are not at risk," that a lot of "time and energy" was put into the standard bridge, and that people should use it "unless you know what you're doing," so don't worry about it.

GameFi is currently one of the most talked-about crypto terms, but gaining players' trust has been a challenge.

The play-to-earn (P2E) model is currently used by the majority of GameFi projects. This model focuses primarily on earnings but ignores the most important factors:features that are fun and keep gamers coming back.The gameplay of some projects has been criticized for being of poor quality, punctuated by poor graphics and controls that are hard to understand.
However, this project claims to have the answers and the potential to provide the crypto community with an immersive product they have been waiting for.
Artyfact is the first Web3 gaming metaverse to utilize an innovative play-and-earn (PAE) model that prioritizes gaming experience over earnings. This model combines the best aspects of the AAA and GameFi worlds.It looks promising to provide a virtual gaming environment with cutting-edge graphics made possible by Unreal Engine 5.
Play-and-earn games, as well as a marketplace for 3D NFTs and top events, are all part of its ecosystem.
There is something for everyone in Artyfact's metaverse, which is made up of two distinct parts, each of which serves a different purpose.
Users will be able to trade crypto collectibles, acquire virtual real estate, dress their avatar in eye-catching outfits, and participate in immersive events like concerts, meetings, and shows in its urban setting, which will be home to NFT exhibitions and 3D marketplaces.Artyfact also wants its space to feature virtual runway shows to celebrate beautiful clothing because fashion plays a crucial role in the metaverse and top designer brands release new collections.
In other areas, Artyfact "citizens" can fight in custom arenas in its gaming area.There will be a variety of play-and-earn shooter games, including deathmatch, control points, and battle royale, to name just a few.
Artyfact envisions significant changes to the metaverse's business practices in addition to the creation of new user experiences.The owners of virtual billboards will be able to make money from advertising, and brands and influencers will be able to build even stronger relationships with their audiences in new ways.
As Artyfact comes to life, partnerships have already been established with TruePNL, York St. Capital, Double Protocol, BrandPad, Zelwin Finance, Eternity, and Blockchain Invest, among others.

Nonfungible token (NFT) use cases continue to develop beyond the hyped days of stagnant digital art collections as the Web3 space expands.However, NFT utility is being reimagined even within the art world, as is the case with a Ukrainian art museum.
On October 13, the Kharkiv Art Museum made the announcement that the Art without Borders NFT collection is now accessible on the Binance NFT marketplace.
According to the official announcement, Art without Borders features fifteen works of art from the museum's collection. The sale of these works will help finance the museum and "save the cultural heritage of Ukraine."
The museum, one of Ukraine's oldest, houses nearly 25,000 works of fine art by Ukrainian and international artists.The NFT collection includes works by Simon de Vlieger, Albrecht Dürer, Georg Jacob Johann van Os, Ivan Aivazovsky, and others.
According to Lisa He, the head of the Binance NFT, who spoke with Crypto Express , donors looking for a safe and certain way to give money in times of conflict can turn to NFTs for reassurance:

The executive at Binance went on to say that donors can also determine when and whether funds have reached their intended destination due to the transparency of the blockchain.

In the past, museums have used NFTs to digitize art, such as when the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp tokenized a million-euro piece in its collection.
In metaverse museums, art has even been NFT-ized, as when the family of Frida Khalo brought a piece from their private collection that had never been seen before into Decentraland.
In the meantime, intense fighting has taken place in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the city of Kharkiv.As a result, the usefulness of this collection can safeguard culture that is at risk of being lost, as was the case in the notorious 2003 looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad.
"Nascent NFT technology and the long-standing Ukraine culture heritage in the NFT will support rebuilding culture and history in real life," asserts Lisa He.
During these turbulent times, NFTs have already been used as aid and resistance in Ukraine.An NFT auction's proceeds were put toward repairing physical monuments that had been damaged during the conflict.
In fact, the Ministry of Digital Transformation in Ukraine established its very own digital NFT museum in order to preserve a chronology of the major conflicting events.
"Including the preservation of Ukraine’s cultural heritage," Lisa He stated, "Binance will continue to support NFT projects that create practical and scalable solutions for various social problems."