Optimism fades, the Federal Reserve shows us the current harsh reality of the world economy. Meanwhile, the great visionaries and large corporations continue to accumulate and develop new ideas in this period of recession.
Financial markets had a painful week after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave a speech on August 26 in Jackson Hole, in which he outlined the steps they will take to reduce inflation in the coming months.
Powell shared that the inflation rate is still at critical levels both in the United States and throughout the world, so the government will opt for various measures, such as a recurring rise in interest rates, and on the other hand ease the conditions which could also have a negative effect on the country’s economy.
Powell assures that the Federal Reserve system is ready to fight the highest inflation in the last 40 years, and encouraged companies to take action and adjust their business models to this situation.
As expected, the markets resented the speech, as they did not take the news of interest rate hikes at all well. The Dow Jones fell more than 600 points after Powell’s speech ended, while the NASDAQ, the stock market that encompasses the technology sector, and the S&P 500 lost more than 2.5%.
Cryptocurrencies were undoubtedly some of the assets that suffered from the news, as the market capitalization of crypto assets plummeted, falling from more than a trillion dollars before the speech to 955 million dollars, that is, below a trillion. This caused Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, to fall below $21,000 again.
The case of Tornado Cash begins to get a little darker, as it is said that the cryptocurrency mixer could have been intervened for political reasons, after it was discovered that it was related to the Russian secret services.
According to a data analytics and IT solutions company called Kharon, it was revealed that Tornado Cash developer Aleksey Pertsev, who was arrested in the Netherlands for concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering, also had a link with a secret Russian agency called Russia’s Federal Security Service.
The organization that carried out the arrest was the FIOD, a public entity in the Netherlands that fights against tax crime. The Dutch authorities have confirmed that Pertsev should remain in jail, which has led to a series of protests in Amsterdam, under the premise that open source is not a crime.
In other news, Samsung would launch its cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea. The South Korean technology giant, Samsung, would be planning the launch of its own cryptocurrency platform through a broker, Samsung Securities, by the year 2023.
Samsung Securities is one of seven brokerages in South Korea looking to start offering services in crypto assets in the first half of next year, and talks with local authorities about obtaining licenses are said to be in advanced stages. . It is worth mentioning that Samsung has been working on blockchain projects in various areas of operation in recent years, such as the implementation of NFTs to its Smart TVs and an alliance with the South Korean exchange Bithumb.
Now we are going to Mexico, where the ETHMexico event was held from August 19 to 22 in Mexico City, with a special guest, the co-founder of Ethereum and one of the most emblematic characters in the crypto world, Vitalik Buterin.
ETHMexico is a hackathon that offered loot of more than 150 thousand dollars in prizes in different categories, for all those developers who manage to create innovative projects on the Ethereum blockchain. These range from musical projects, graphics or even more intense projects such as security or that innovate within the infrastructure of the blockchain in Ethereum.
In addition, the financial technology unicorn company, creator of the largest exchange in Mexico, Bitso, has reached an agreement with Mastercard to issue its credit card in Mexico. This will allow platform users to use their balance in Mexican pesos to make any type of purchase, either in a physical store or online, for any product or service.
In a press conference, the CEO of the company, Daniel Vogel, stated that they chose to work hand in hand with Mastercard, since it has been a company that has shown a lot of interest in crypto assets in recent years.
Bitcoin is above $20,180, up 3% so far on the day, after a sharp and steep decline. We can see that it reached a quite interesting support level, and it could go back to $21,800 and then continue with a downward movement.
BTC/USDT 1D (TradingView Chart).
For its part, Ethereum is above $1,500, and we can see that it is in an area of great congestion in recent weeks, so we could see a stagnation and a slight upward pullback and then fall to $1,280.
ETH/USDT 1D (TradingView Chart).
We have seen it all this year, many ups and downs, mixed feelings and a lot of crashes, bad news and announcements of new projects and innovations. Although it seems that we will have a recession for a while, the development of projects and tools within the cryptocurrency ecosystem continues to grow stronger. Without further ado, we wish you an amazing week.
