Bitcoin is holding steady as we head into a week with another critical interest rates decision meeting looming with the US Fed. Yep – it’s the most important one ever. Since the last one and the one before that.

And that’d be the FOMC meeting, the results of which later this week (Wednesday US time) will leave Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell’s mouth to be anxiously absorbed by anyone with a risk assets portfolio.

Interest rates are widely tipped to remain at current levels in the US for now, so we’ll just have to wait and see how hawkish the Fed sounds on top of that in terms of outlook for the rest of the year.

For what it’s worth “Crypto Santa” certainly isn’t expecting any resulting price change for Bitcoin outside the US$25k-$27k range.

 

Making headlines

• This is a few days old, hitting late last week, but it’s worth sharing here now. According to Reuters and other outlets, Deutsche Bank has partnered with Swiss crypto firm Taurus to provide custody services for institutional clients’ crypto and tokenised assets.

Deutsche Bank will reportedly now be able to hold a small amount of top cryptos for its clients, as well as tokenised versions of traditional financial assets.

• The House Financial Services Committee in the US has the CBDC (central bank digital currency) concept in its sites.

It’s currently marking up two bills with the aim of blocking a potential US digital dollar, according to an announcement from the committe’s chair, the Republican Patrick McHenry, who is also known to be extremely Bitcoin/crypto-innovation friendly.

• At the same time, Elizabeth Warren – one of the crypto haters in chief in the US political sphere, is pushing her own bill, backed by nine other senators, called the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act.

The bill aims to “close loopholes in current law and bring cryptocurrency companies into greater compliance with the anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AMF/CFT) frameworks that govern much of the financial system,” notes the anti-crypto cronies.

Warren’s moves to bring cryptocurrencies/digital assets under tighter-policed control are largely viewed by the industry as more than that – a concerted campaign to completely kill off the industry in the States.

 

Meanwhile, Token 2049

The biggest crypto conference of the year happened across the weekend – at Token 2049 at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

Sporting 10,000 attendees and 300 exhibitors, it was a who’s who of the crypto industry, all largely espousing “building through the bear market” vibes and talking up 2024 and 2025 as THE years Bitcoin, Ethereum and the market truly make a comeback.

We didn’t make it there ourselves, but we know a few people who did – including Caroline Bowler, CEO of one of Australia’s oldest, most prominent crypto exchanges, BTC Markets.

Here’s some of what she had to say about it all, in key highlights bullet-point form (lightly edited):

  • The US vs Asia regulatory divide is getting more profound – with the US being hostile vs Asia and the Middle East far more receptive.
  • Australia remains a sideshow in the global crypto scene despite a lot of Australian attendees.
  • DeFi accessibility, adoption and security in DApps/hacks was a topic that took the centre stage.
  • The tone of crypto is maturing – the prevalence of “scantily clad dancing girls” were far less prominent than it was years ago.
  • Key hits: Jenny Johnson, Global CEO and President of Franklin Templeton described Bitcoin as being a “distraction” to the creative technology which offers more than what meets the eye. She discussed about blockchain having the potential to offer new investment opportunities and drive costs out (in financial services).
  • Key misses: The interview with CZ where he wasn’t placed under as much industry scrutiny around the issues surrounding Binance. Given the importance of his business and his outsized personality in the industry, he should have been asked a lot more in-depth questions than about NFTs and fiat on-ramps.
  • Overall sentiment and commitment to crypto remains unwavering despite the bear market – a lot still feel the industry is in early days and only getting started.

 

Oh, and this, too, which has hopefully surely got to be a sign of an evolving industry:

“The tone of crypto is maturing – the prevalence of ‘scantily clad dancing girls’ were far less prominent than it was years ago.”

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.1 trillion, up a fraction of a fraction since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

 

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

 PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• Chainlink (LINK), (market cap: US$3.54 billion) +6%

• Kaspa (KAS), (market cap: US$985 million) +5%

• ApeCoin (APE), (market cap: US$418 million) +4%

• Casper Network (CSPR), (market cap: US$394 million) +3%

• Filecoin (FIL), (market cap: US$1.5 billion) +2%

 

SLUMPERS

• Rollbit Coin (RLB), (market cap: US$432 million) -9%

• IOTA (MIOTA), (market cap: US$415 million) -4%

• Kava (KAVA), (market cap: US$485 million) -4%

• Sui (SUI), (market cap: US$348 million) -3%

• Gala (GALA), (market cap: US$374 million) -2%

 

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

Hmm… haven’t seen a big-budget crypto ad in a while. They all pretty much marked a cycle top last time around… Let’s hope this one marks the bottom.

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