Hodler’s Digest comes every Saturday and helps you keep track of every single important message that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, introductory and regulatory highlights, leading coins, predictions, and more – one week on Cointelegraph in one link.

This week’s top stories

Congress has tabled 18 digital asset bills so far in 2021

The U.S. Congress has stepped up its efforts to create a regulatory framework for crypto in 2021, tipping 18 bills on digital assets and blockchain technology so far this year.

According to an August 22 analysis by former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation regulator Jason Brett, the current 117th Congress differs from its predecessor in that it has focused on regulating decentralized assets as opposed to private stablecoins.

This week it was also reported that the controversial $ 1 trillion infrastructure bill will be voted in the House of Representatives until September 27th – without changes to the controversial crypto tax regulations.

Visa invests $ 150,000 in NFT CryptoPunk asset

This week, Visa, Visa spent $ 150,000 on a tokenized JPEG of a pixel art punk, better known as CryptoPunk-NFT. The Company announced the news in a blog post on Aug. 23 teasing Cuy Sheffield, head of the crypto division at Visa, that the company may be considering an extended stint in the industry.

“To help our customers and partners participate, we need to understand firsthand the infrastructure requirements of a global brand to buy, store, and use an NFT,” he said.

Visa bought CryptoPunk 7610 – a female figure with a mohawk, green clown make-up eyes and lipstick. “Understanding the infrastructure requirements” when buying an NFT didn’t have to take long, all you have to do is buy it and keep it in your wallet. This is not rocket science.

also Budweiser participated in the action by buying a Fan Art NFT for 8 ethers (ETH) worth around $ 25,000. The NFT depicted a Budweiser branded rocket that took five minutes to launch on Adobe Illustrator. The beer maker also spent 30 ETH, or $ 94,000 on the Beer.eth domain name through the Ethereum Name Service on OpenSea.

PayPal introduces crypto services for UK customers

Global payments provider PayPal announced this week the launch of its crypto services for customers in the UK.

PayPal first launched its crypto services less than a year ago, and this is the first time it has expanded crypto support beyond the US shores.

The company will initially enable customers to acquire crypto assets including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether, Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). However, crypto transactions for PayPal business accounts are not yet supported.

MicroStrategy splashes $ 177 million on Bitcoin, now holding nearly 109,000 BTC

MicroStrategy, led by Bitcoin Apostle Michael Saylor, has looted additional digital gold worth $ 177 million. The latest purchase brings the company’s balance sheet to 108,992 BTC, which cost a total of just $ 2,918 billion.

The average purchase price for its BTC is around $ 26,769 per coin. Since the price of BTC was $ 47,584 at the time of writing, MicroStrategy is valued at $ 5.1 billion.

It’s a foregone conclusion that Saylor is “all-in” with BTC at this point. However, it remains to be seen whether he will respond to crypto skeptics Peter Schiff’s call for debate. Schiff competed against Anthony Scaramucci this week to see if gold or BTC would be a better store of value. After winning, he jokingly said:

“I just have to say one thing: Michael Saylor, stop ducking me, I know you’re out there.”

Binance denies allegations of market manipulation

Major crypto exchange Binance hit the market this week as it defended itself against allegations of market manipulation and trading against its users.

The company is currently facing regulatory scrutiny, and in an Aug. 23 thread on Twitter, Binance appeared to be blamed for allegations of market manipulation on publications disseminating FUD as well as those posing as Binance employees.

The company said that while it worked on its compliance goals with regulators, it was expecting “fewer FUD dealers and malevolent people” and continued to warn:

“Binance reserves the right to take legal action to protect your interests and welcomes responsible whistleblowing that protects the trust of our community.”

Winner and Loser

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $ 48,373, Ether at $ 3,233 and XRP at $ 1.14. The total market capitalization is $ 2.08 trillion, according to to CoinMarketCap.

Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Tezos (XTZ) at 46.33%, avalanche (AVAX) at 33.86% and Celo (FOREHEAD) at 31.97%.

The three biggest altcoin losers of the week are Audius (AUDIO) at -21.08%, XinFin network (XDC) at -13.99% and SushiSwap (SUSHI) at -12.76%.

For more information on crypto pricing, be sure to read Market analysis by Cointelegraph.

The most memorable quotes

“As long as the law says that software developers, miners and stakers must do the impossible, there is no lawyer who would advise them to break laws whose penalties for non-compliance would easily ruin them.”

Lawrence Zlatkin, Coinbase Global Vice President of Tax

“Over the past year we have seen a significant change in the way the global financial ecosystem thinks about new business models powered by digital assets and how this plays a significant role in financial infrastructure.”

Linda Pawczuk, Principal at Deloitte Consulting

“We’ll want to wait for all regulatory things. Of course, crypto is an extremely interesting area that is the biggest buzzword and is doing exceptionally well. But we would like to understand more on the regulatory side. “

Manu Jain, CEO of Xiaomi India

“A trading platform that offers US persons derivatives on digital assets without registering or violating the CFTC’s trading rules is subject to the CFTC’s enforcement agency.”

Dawn Stump, Commissioner for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission

“If you have a good crypto wallet like Novi, you also need to think about how you can help consumers support NFTs.”

David Marcus, head of Facebook Financial and co-founder of Diem

“Be wary of low risk, high return investments. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is too. “

Delia Rickard, Vice Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

“Binance has never acted against our users or manipulated the market, and neither will we.”

Binance

“With our CryptoPunk purchase, we will jump into our feet first. This is just the beginning of our work in this area. “

Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa

“I think this cryptocurrency revolution and Bitcoin in particular will surpass gold due to its scarcity. It’s more portable, it’s impregnable in terms of transaction over the blockchain […] and it’s accepted pretty quickly. “

Anthony Scaramucci, Skybridge founder

Forecast of the week

The bullish bitcoin cross on the weekly chart draws a BTC price target of $ 225,000 if history repeats itself

Bitcoin hit the $ 50,000 level again this week, although the asset subsequently fell several thousand dollars on a price correction and hovered between $ 45,000 and $ 50,000 for most of the week.

During the month of August, the Moving Average Convergence / Divergence (MACD) indicator formed on the weekly price chart of Bitcoin and continued by a cross of the two lines of the indicator and jumped to green on its histogram (the part of the bar at the bottom of the indicator).

What does it mean? Well, nothing is certain, but according to reports from Cointelegraph’s William Suberg, when Bitcoin’s MACD indicator last performed similarly (last fall), the asset’s price rose more than five-fold in value over the next half-dozen months. According to Suberg, BTC could potentially soar above $ 200,000 if things turn out on a comparable basis.

FUD of the week

Google bans 8 “fraudulent” crypto apps from the Play Store

Google, the Silicon Valley-based tech overlord, removed eight fraudulent crypto apps from its Google Play store this week.

Fraudulent crypto-themed mobile apps have surfaced more frequently in the past 12 months and usually operate under the false pretext of offering cloud mining services.

According to a recent report from Trend Micro, the apps were charging around $ 15 a month for their fake services plus “increased mining skills” – all while getting users to watch paid ads.

Allegedly fake crypto apps included mining services like BitFunds, Bitcoin Miner, Daily Bitcoin Rewards, Crypto Holic, and MineBit Pro, to name a few.

Poll shows Britons concerned about the prospect of a digital pound

According to a survey conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Politico, 30% of UK adults have concerns about a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) issued by the Bank of England.

For some reason, the idea of ​​having a programmable, government-sponsored CBDC that can track all of their spending habits doesn’t sound appealing to them. If you think that’s bad, just wait until you hear about the insatiable appetite for personal data from Apple, Google, or Facebook.

In early August, 2,500 British adults were interviewed in the study, with 24% believing it could be beneficial, while 46% were undecided.

Coinbase users are mad at customer support after funds disappear from accounts

The leading U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase faced a backlash this week over terrible customer service regarding users reporting hacks and withdrawing funds.

According to a CNBC investigation on Aug. 24, thousands of disgruntled customers in the US have filed complaints against the company and are unhappy with Coinbase’s lack of response in handling hacks and stolen funds.

“Interviews with Coinbase customers across the country and a review out of thousands of complaints show a pattern of account takeovers where users suddenly see money disappearing from their account, followed by poor customer service from Coinbase which left these users hanging and feeling angry, “CNBC said.

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