$BTC 24 Hour High $19,370.31
$BTC 24 Hour Low $18,970.62
$ETH 24 Hour High $1,316.33
$ETH 24 Hour Low $1,271.15
Welcome to “Uptober”! Highlights from the week:
- Apple will allow NFT sales in apps, but will apply 30% commission fees
- Australia released an official white paper of its CBDC
- Disney’s latest job posting hints at big plans for NFT and crypto adoption
- BlackRock launches ETF in Europe with blockchain and crypto company exposure
- Meta opens NFT sharing on Instagram and Facebook to all US users
The $BTC and $ETH market
Bitcoin remained locked in an $18-20k range this week as the dollar index rallied +0.5% and British pound crashed to an all-time low against the greenback. Also, the S&P 500 fell for six days in a row and made a new year-to-date low on 27 Sep. But BTC maintained its outperformance even though the gloom was enveloping global markets.
Bitcoin has managed a positive close in October every year since 2013. Although history data show a bounce in October, the bearish period seems far from over as the price has been trapped between the $18-20k range.
Last Friday (30 Sep), The 100-day moving average line has been acting as significant resistance to the price. The $18K substantial support level remains the most critical price point for Bitcoin and has prevented further decline. Bitcoin will likely retest the multi-month bearish trendline and both the 100-day and 200-day moving average lines before a possible downside continuation.
As for the second largest cryptocurrency, during the last week, Ethereum attempted to break the $1,400 resistance level, but sellers pushed it back. The current price action lacks momentum, and ETH is stuck between the $1,400 resistance and the $1,250 support level. While intra-day volatility remains high, the asset closed several daily candles with a slim body where the opening and closing prices were very close to each other.
BTC & ETH rose to +0.8% and +0.6% respectively (vs previous week). The total market cap of crypto market stayed north of $900bln and Bitcoin dominance stayed above 39% during last week.
Activity stagnates post-Merge Ethereum…
Ethereum pulled off a stunning technical upgrade – a brilliant engineering feat that saw the popular blockchain transition to the proof-of-stake consensus model for processing transactions after six years of work. However, post-merge activity on layer-2 has dropped.
According to the latest stats by Dapp Radar, the already descending unique active wallets and transactions have further dropped by 35% from August to September.
Mainstream adoption & What’s in the news…
According to a report from The Information, Apple is now allowing NFTs to be bought and sold through apps listed on its marketplace at its standard commission fee of 30% – despite the fact that Apple plays no part in facilitating those transactions outside of accepting a respective app’s presence in the App Store.
Australia’s central bank The Reserve Bank partnered with the DFCRC to introduce a White Paper of its CBDC. The research project will examine all technological, legal, and regulatory considerations related to the CBDC.
The Walt Disney Company posted a job listing on Friday for a principal counsel specializing in non-fungible tokens (NFT) and decentralized finance (DeFi), hinting at its broader Web3 expansion across the Disney ecosystem.
BlackRock has continued to increase its presence in the digital assets space by launching a new European blockchain exchange traded fund. The world’s largest money manager, which manages roughly $10tn in assets, said on 29 September that it had added the iShares Blockchain Technology UCITS ETF to its product suite, giving European clients similar exposure to an ETF launched in the US earlier this year.
Non-fungible token (NFT) sharing is now open to all Instagram and Facebook users in the U.S., parent company Meta announced Thursday. This comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Meta will reduce staff and pause hiring to cut costs. "The Hash" hosts discuss the significance and industry implications of the tech giant's latest announcements.