Bitcoin is unstoppable

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. While the rest of the world debates how to treat crypto, Hong Kong is on the verge of lifting its crypto investment ban. This will allow capital in China to be poured into crypto. Experts predict that the next bull market will emerge from the East.

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As of Monday, 7PM IST

The markets stayed in the green. Bitcoin continued its rally on an NFT boom and rise in volumes. Ethereum was in demand with the Shanghai hard fork nearing. Nasdaq was shut for Presidents' Day. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended lower on a selloff in banking and pharma stocks.

Bitcoin’s $30,000 Ambition

After months in the doldrums, Bitcoin seems to be trending upwards. Now, the US was on a long weekend so the momentum from the weekend is following on with some volatility but not too much. Where will Bitcoin go from here? Up or down? There are cases for both. Let’s run through them.

Stonks always go up

The ambition for investors has been to breach the $30,000 mark. Something the token hasn’t done for about eight months. The collapse of Luna and then FTX followed by rising interest rates had dampened the spirits of investors. Now, with Ordinals (Bitcoin NFTs) on the network, activity is up and the enthusiasm for new use cases have cheered people on. The US’ inflation and unemployment numbers look positive too and that’s a lot of positive sentiment to spur on Bitcoin.

Time for corrections

Not everyone believes this theory, tbf. The recent moves that are pushing Bitcoin upwards may be by high volume traders. The RSI indicates that what we’re seeing may be a mirage.

Jargon breakdown: RSI=Relative Strength Index. It indicates if an instrument is undersold or overbought. In Bitcoin’s case, it indicates that the crypto may be overbought.

FYI: If you hear the term snapback wrt to Bitcoin, this is what they’re talking about.

In other news:

Polygon Emerging From The Shadows?

Polygon’s in a good moment. In fact, it is thriving.

The revenue of other L2 protocols pale in comparison to Polygon. One reason why Polygon’s numbers look so encouraging is the rising number of users, which has resulted in a surge in transactions as well. Polygon’s partnerships have increased NFT activity on its network as well. Do all of these point to good times ahead?

All good things

There are some signals that point to this being a false dawn.

1. The network growth of Polygon has been sliding.

2. The number of stakers has been flat over the past month.

3. A technical indicator, MRV, points to Matic holders selling the token for profit. It could mean there will be a pressure to sell.

4. There is a marked decline in trading volume.

But all of these things could turn around if Polygon could muster an increased number of partnerships and generate network growth. It’s a pivotal period for Polygon, let’s see where it goes.

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Russia And Japan And CBDCs?

It looks like there will be few major countries who haven’t thought of testing real world use cases of CBDCs by the end of this year. The latest to join the club? Japan and Russia. Come April, both countries will launch pilots to test their digital currencies.

Rolling them out

Japan has been testing its digital yen since 2021. The April launch will see Japan’s central bank establish a CBDC Forum. Private businesses involved in retail payments will be allowed to participate. Russia on the other hand, will launch the digital ruble with 13 banks and several merchants.

Who is doing what

As per this tracker, 114 countries are exploring some form of CBDC. This year, 20 countries are expected to take significant steps towards experimenting with CBDCs. This is happening because most countries want to have greater control over money flowing out of their territory. It also has the potential to prevent criminal activity.

Meta’s Blue Tick?

Whodathunk it? Meta is taking a leaf out of Elon Musk’s playbook. Over the weekend, Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta Verified, a paid verification system.

How will it work?

It will let users on Instagram and Facebook be verified for $11.99 a month on the web and $14.99 a month on iOS. They’ll need to submit their government ID and get a blue verification badge. The pilot will be run in Australia and New Zealand this week, and more countries will follow.

Concerns exist

If you remember, Twitter Blue was pulled after its initial launch after fake accounts and impersonations caused stocks to tank. Now Meta is saying it has impersonation protections in place with Meta Verified. Let’s see if Meta can solve something that Twitter couldn’t.

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