It’s a sunny day for a few of the majors – BTC is up handsomely, ETH is up even higher – thanks in no small part to US Fed chief Jerome Powell offering a glimpse of a future that doesn’t include hyperinflation or skyrocketing interest rates in the United States.

Regular markets have gone a bit bonkers over it all – America’s Nasdaq index shot up more than 4.0% overnight – and it looks like crpyto’s along for the ride as well. BTC has put  on 4.4% over the past 24 hours, lagging behind ETH which has jumped 6.1% over the same period.

 

Thanks for your help, but…

However, things are grim for at least two companies today, with news that Kraken has had to do some furious belt-tightening to weather current industry storm. Problem is, that belt’s been tightened in what Kraken calls “one of the hardest decisions we’ve had to make”.

“We’re reducing our global workforce by approximately 1,100 people, or 30 percent, in order to adapt to current market conditions,” Kraken said.

“We are extremely grateful for the contributions of those impacted by today’s announcement and we’ll do our best to help them transition to their next opportunity. All impacted Krakenites have been notified as of this morning.”

Kraken’s not alone in the bloodletting, either. Melbourne’s CoinJar has also dropped the hammer on a bunch of staff. The Australian says 10 staff have been let go. Not a huge number, but that’s still 20% of the workforce, which is obviously a sign that the industry is enduring the kind of turbulence that just about everyone with skin in the game probably knew was a potential issue.

Coinjar joins Banxa, Immutable and Swyftx, “which have collectively shed dozens of staff in the past six months” the report says.

It’s would be very easy to lay the blame at the feet of the FTX debacle, so we will. For now…

 

How to make a Brazilian Bitcoin

Meanwhile, the news out of Brazil is a bit rosier for the market – Brazil has moved a step closer to recognising crypto as A Thing, passing a law that legalises crypto payments throughout the country.

It’s a two-edged sword – as most things are these days; the bill will “include digital currencies and air mileage programs in the definition of payment methods that are under the supervision of the country’s central bank”, according to Cointelegraph, adding that “tokens that will be considered securities will remain under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM)”.

So… well done Brazil. Nice of you to join the movement, and just in time for the 2016 Rio Olympics, too. Excellent work.

 

Fantom bucking the trend

And some happy news from Andre Cronje – aka “the DeFi Godfather”. He’s written that the Fantom Foundation – a project/blockchain/org he’s deeply tied to in a core-dev capacity – is “cash positive” and generating more than $10m in annual revenue.

Cronje has only just returned to the crypto limelight after quitting the space earlier in the year. Fantom had been flaccid since then, but Cronje’s return has given the project a lift. His comments about the project this week have given Fantom fans/investors/speculators decentralised (uncontrollable) tinglings in their nether regions:

“We decided to never pay for exchange listings or influencers again,” Cronje said, sparking hope around the world that finally, there’s an end in sight to the Influencer scourge that has ravaged the landscape of modern society for years.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$865.12 billion, up almost 3.7% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

BTC ETH crypto chart
Via CoinGecko

 

Honestly, that’s almost as happy as you could hope to expect… but, you know, some people are never happy with what they’ve got. Noted scholar of economics and all-round mega-genius Elon Musk has stuck his oar into the discussion, throwing his not-inconsiderable market bulk behind calls for the US Fed to slash interest rates immediately.

 

Uppers and downers: 11–100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$8.1 billion to about US$386 million in the rest of the top 100, let’s find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

 

DAILY PUMPERS

• GMX (GMX), (market cap: US$388 million) +14.4%

• Polygon (MATIC), (mc: US$8.1 billion) +8.3%

• Fantom (FTM), (mc: US$612 million) +5.5%

• Quant (QNT), (mc: US$1.47 billion) +6.3%

• ZCash (ZEC), (mc: US$686 million) +5.7%

 

DAILY SLUMPERS

• Celo (CELO), (market cap: US$285 million) -4.6%

• Helium (HNT), (market cap: US$326 million) -3.5%

• Huobi Token (HT), (mc: US$1.06 billion) -3.9%

• BinaryX (BNX), (mc: US$390 million) -1.85%

 

Around the blocks

A selection of rumour, randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse…

First this:

 

And then this:

 

… and we’ll let you make of that what you will.

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