• One of the most popular video games based on blockchain technology was punished by a group of hackers, concluding in one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in history. Meanwhile, crypto assets close the first quarter of the year in red numbers, with the market entering a neutral stage, full of uncertainty regarding the short-term future of crypto assets.

As we have realized, cryptocurrencies had a rather shaky start to the year, after various problems that generated fear and aversion to high-risk assets, such as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, high levels of inflation and speculation. on the Federal Reserve’s decision-making regarding interest rates. This led Bitcoin and the other assets to make huge losses of more than 25% at the beginning of the year.

However, at the beginning of March it seemed that we started seeing light at the end of the tunnel, since crypto assets began to recover, driven by their adoption in different countries in the Middle East, the new news about regulations in the United States and the increase in the volume of transactions in the territories involved in the conflict.

This last week of the first quarter of 2022, it seems that the setbacks have arrived in the market, after the previous week we witnessed a rally of more than 15% in a large part of crypto assets. The market seems to enter a stage of total uncertainty, after several days in which the famous Fear and Greed Index remained on the side of greed, it has now entered a neutral stage, driven by various macroeconomic factors such as events that have emerged in the world of cryptocurrencies. Last week, we witnessed one of the largest heists in cryptocurrency history, with one of the most profitable and popular blockchain-based games as its victim: Axie Infinity. The Axie Infinity platform offers a game, distributed by the Vietnamese studio “Sky Mavie”, in which users acquire characters (pets) through NFTs, which they must raise and face in duels against other players. The video game has an internal cryptocurrency, called Smooth Love Potion (SLP), which players get for playing, and can be converted to Ether to be monetized and therefore withdrawn in Fiat money. Why go so far into this? Well, this is precisely where the problem arose, since a group of hackers managed to break the blockchain on which the game works, called Ronin. This blockchain is a sidechain within the Ethereum network, that is, an alternate chain that is connected to some other network, in this case Ethereum. Once the hackers managed to breach the network, they stole more than $620 million, making it one of the largest crypto asset heists in history.

The Sky Mavie team became aware of the heist a week later, as the stolen money was part of the company’s reserves for the conversion of Smooth Love Potion to Ethereum, for which users were unable to withdraw their earnings. Awful!

Currently, they decided to freeze the Ronin network until the situation is resolved and higher levels of security are implemented, meanwhile Axie Infinity players can still continue playing and accumulating goods, but it is not possible to make withdrawals from the platform. Much to improve and a great lesson for companies in this sector! In other news, the city of Chandler, in the state of Arizona, has implemented the option to make payments of utility bills in cryptocurrencies through PayPal (Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin), which encourages citizens to acquire this type of assets. However, the government has placed two limitations:

• First, the government will not hold the crypto assets once the payments are made, they will be sold and converted into fiat money.
• Second, payments cannot be made through cryptocurrency wallets or exchange accounts, since everything will be only through PayPal.

However, the use of these cryptoactives and the incentive for their consumption by the public sector are beginning to make more noise, which is undoubtedly extremely beneficial for the market, considering medium-term adoption. Now, let’s talk about Solana, and something big is coming for one of the most popular blockchain networks in recent months, as the world’s largest NFT trading platform, OpenSea, has announced that it will be possible to trade minted NFTs on the same Solana network. This is already a reality, since this option has been implemented as of this April. This will undoubtedly benefit the platform, as its transaction traffic could increase significantly, since they offer a much lower transaction cost than Ethereum. News about the conflict continues, as the 15th Deputy Treasury Secretary of the United States, Wally Adeyemo, reiterated the position of the US government with cryptocurrency exchanges and Russian users, requesting the blocking of user transactions in Russian territory. . The objective of all this is to prevent any type of institution or individual from helping the inhabitants of Russia to evade the sanctions imposed on them. When will all this end? Bitcoin is above $46,000, near a support zone where it appears to have been consolidating for a few days. If the price manages to stay above that zone, we could expect the asset to keep recovering up to $50,000. BTC/USDT 1D (TradingView Chart). For its part, Cardano is one of the few cryptocurrencies with positive numbers today, trading above $1.20, defining above its 100-period exponential moving average. If this continues, Cardano could be pushed up to $1.50. ADA/USDT 1D (TradingView Chart). Fear or greed? Uncertain days are coming for the financial markets, amid high levels of inflation and major changes in the monetary policies of countries, massive adoption around the world for crypto assets and important advances in the projects that support various cryptocurrencies. We will be reporting on all the events that happen over the next few days, and we also invite you to join our Discord channel, in order to generate a community of support and analysis seeking to generate value for everyone. Without further ado, we wish you an amazing week.

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