The macroeconomic situation does not seem to improve despite the measures implemented by the Federal Reserve, while one of the most important events in the crypto world took place in Latin America.
Last Thursday the inflation report for September was presented, in which we can see that annual inflation increased 8.2%, a figure lower than the 8.3% increase recorded in August, according to the Consumer Price Index. However, analysts projected that the rate of increase would slow to 8.1% last month, so the results were not quite good.
It seems that the measures implemented by the Federal Reserve do not end up making a difference, since they have raised their interest rate five times this year as part of a plan to stabilize the high levels of inflation and help the economy and global markets.
Bitcoin fell about 5% after the announcement, approaching $18,000. However, it managed to recover to trade near $19,400.
Meanwhile, it was a very busy week for our friends in Colombia, as two world-class events were held related to the cryptocurrency ecosystem. First, ETH Bogotá, one of the most important Ethereum hackathons in the industry, was held, in which Vitalik Buterin, the Russian-Canadian founder of Ethereum, was present. Among several conferences, one of the central topics that was addressed was ‘The Merge’, the Ethereum update that took place just a few weeks ago.
Subsequently, from October 11 to 14, the VI edition of DEVCON, the most important global event in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, was held in Ágora Bogotá, where the most important developers of the crypto ecosystem in the world were present.
The Colombian capital was the first city in South America to host this event, and received thousands of fans, users and developers of the Ethereum ecosystem. In addition, it shows us how this city continues to be a center of investment opportunities and growth in the crypto, Web3 and blockchain industry.
In other news, the government of Portugal has proposed the implementation of a 28% tax on capital gains from cryptocurrencies held for less than a year. This is undoubtedly something quite shocking, since for several years Portugal has been considered a “tax haven” in terms of its regulations towards crypto assets, being without a doubt the most “crypto friendly” country in the entire European continent.
The document of the General State Budgets for 2023, published on October 10, included a brief section mentioning the tax regulation of cryptocurrencies, which to date had not been touched by the Portuguese tax authorities.
It should be noted that the profits made after one year of holding crypto assets will be exempt from said tax, so all those who seek to invest in the long term will not be affected, at least until now.
The most important innovation of the week without a doubt was taken by Google and CoinBase, as they have partnered to allow cloud customers to pay with crypto assets from next year. According to Coinbase and Google, cryptocurrency-based payments will be available to customers in the Web3 space early next year.
To enable these payments, Google will use Coinbase Commerce, a tool that allows businesses to receive, accept, and convert cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and more. Additionally, as part of the deal, Coinbase will move its data-related applications from Amazon Web Services to Google Cloud.
Bitcoin is above $19,400, close to a rather peculiar zone, as it breached descending resistance that has been going on for several months now, and is now looking to break above a critical level just near $19,480. However, it seems that this level is becoming quite an interesting resistance, so we will have to watch its behavior at these levels, as it could go back below that trend line to continue towards $17,110.
BTC/USDT 1D (TradingView chart).
For its part, Ethereum is trading above $1,320, after appearing to have consolidated above support near $1,280. We could see Ethereum reaching towards $1,426 in the short term.
ETH/USDT 1D (TradingView chart).
The economic situation does not improve, and everything looks like complicated months are coming for crypto assets, however, the ecosystem continues to develop and grow significantly in terms of adoption, regulation and innovation, so there is still a long way to go. Without further ado, we wish you an amazing week.
