Ethereum price plummets as crypto industry’s combined market cap drops by 10% within hours
ETH's ongoing dip can largely be attributed to Russia's potential decision to ban its local crypto industry in the near term.
- Ethereum's market dominance index has slipped to a relative low of 17.5%.
- Meta may be looking to release its very own NFT marketplace and minting platform, as per reports.
- Robinhood's crypto wallet solution has now been made available to a total of 1,000 beta testers.
The ongoing marketwide meltdown has not been easy on Ethereum, with the altcoin being faced with increased bearish pressure that has seen the asset continue to hover below the all-important AUD$4,100 (US$3,000) threshold for over 12 hours running. ETH is now showcasing fortnightly losses of a whopping 15% while trading at a relative low of AUD$4,061.
The volatility is largely being spurred by news of Russia preparing for a nationwide ban on its mining and trading markets. In fact, within hours of the Russian central bank calling for a blanket ban, the total market capitalisation of the digital asset market slipped from US$2.15 trillion to US$1.96 trillion.
Despite the aforementioned turbulence, global crypto adoption seems to be rolling forward with a full head of steam. For example, popular stock and crypto trading platform Robinhood recently announced that a beta version of its highly anticipated crypto wallet offering — currently allowing a total of 1,000 shortlisted users to facilitate digital asset withdrawals — is now live.
The chosen testers have been provided with a daily withdrawal limit of AUD$4,000 (approx.) via a total of 10 unique transactions. Robinhood is one of the most popular stock trading apps in the market today and is backed by institutional market maker Citadel Securities.
Is Meta looking to integrate NFTs across its social media landscape?
Global media giant Meta is reportedly looking to capitalise on the ongoing non-fungible token (NFT) wave by potentially allowing its users — across its Facebook and Instagram platforms — to display their NFTs via their profiles. The company may also be looking to deploy a new module that will allow its massive base of customers to "mint collectible tokens" seamlessly, as well as launch an NFT marketplace through which users can buy/sell these offerings.
Since the beginning of the year, Meta has made a major push to hire more talent in order to bolster its existing blockchain/crypto division, with the company getting more than a hundred people to defect from Microsoft within the past week alone. This urgency most likely emanates from the fact that over the course of 2021, the total volume of NFT sales was projected to be more than $40 billion.
White hat hacker helps retrieve 322 ETH
Following news of open-source blockchain platform, Multichain, being on the receiving end of a major hacking incident — touted to be worth more than 900+ ETH — a white hat hacker has helped the platform retrieve 322 ETH of its lost funds while keeping a hefty "finder's fee" of 62 ETH. That said, more than 527 ETH is still unaccounted for at the moment.
As part of the security breach, hackers made their way with a number of different tokens including WETH, PERI, OMT, WBNB, MATIC, and AVAX. Upon detecting the problem, MultiChain's core dev team proceeded to freeze nearly US$45 million worth of funds across a number of bridge chains.
Interested in cryptocurrency? Learn more about the basics with our beginner's guide to Bitcoin, dive deeper by learning about Ethereum and see what blockchain can do with our simple guide to DeFi.
Disclosure: The author owns a range of cryptocurrencies at the time of writing
