Bitcoin’s price has fallen below $29.5K as investors’ appetite for riskier assets lessens. The drop in the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization comes after a week-long rise above $30,000. The CoinDesk Market Index, a measure of the crypto markets’ overall performance, was recently down 1.6%.
Edward Moya, senior analyst at foreign exchange market maker Oanda, wrote in an email that “cryptos are losing some appeal as banking turmoil risks appear to be disappearing.” He added that the surge behind Treasury yields is dampening the appeal for most risky assets. Moya noted that a number of major banks reported solid first-quarter earnings, including Wells Fargo and Citigroup, and that “emergency lending is decreasing.”
Ether, the second-largest crypto in market value, was recently changing hands at about $2,075, off the better part of a percentage point. Other major cryptos were in the red, albeit lightly so. ARB, the token of the layer 2 Ethereum scaling protocol Arbitrum, and ADA, the native crypto of the Cardano blockchain, both recently declined about 3%.
Crypto innovation is thriving, with Consensus Magazine presenting 19 crypto projects that are solving particularly important problems. The CoinDesk editorial team set about to find projects that fulfill the ethos of crypto by solving a problem. In brainstorming sessions, they debated what problems crypto could be employed to solve, which quickly split into two baskets: problems within the crypto ecosystem itself, and problems in the world generally. From a list of more than 35 projects, they selected 19.
The projects selected range from bootstrapped to tens of millions of dollars in funding, to undisclosed support from a parent foundation or project. The CoinDesk team looked for innovative ideas, convincing proposals or evidence of success, and talented, committed people. The problems the projects were aiming to solve had to be real, and the remedies needed. They could not just be a crypto version of something that is adequately managed in traditional finance, for instance, or purely meant for speculation or fun.
The Pew Research Center’s poll shows that the percentage of Americans who have “ever invested in, traded or used a cryptocurrency such as bitcoin or ether” has remained roughly 16% since 2020. But this spring, Pew sought to identify how people feel about crypto. Among the 88% who have ever heard of cryptocurrency, 75% are “not very or not at all confident that cryptocurrencies are reliable or safe.” Only 6% are very confident. Trust in crypto is very low.
The CoinDesk editorial team identified 50 people who defined the year in crypto subjectively for their Most Influential 2022 list, published in December. A significant percentage of the list was feel-bad stories of scammers and hucksters and possible sociopaths who depleted customers’ savings. Understandably in response, Congress, mainstream media and the public are ready to punish crypto. To state the obvious, 2022 was the antithesis of crypto, which was invented as a remedy in 2009 to broken global financial systems and not to make sharks and charlatans rich.
Bitcoin allowed transactions to be quicker and cheaper and therefore more accessible by solving the trusted-mediator problem. The CoinDesk team set about to find projects that fulfill the ethos of crypto by solving a problem. The team explored the merits of projects aiming to solve the identified problems. From a list of more than 35 projects, they selected 19.
Crypto organizations come in many forms, from traditional startups to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to major corporations. It is still relatively new and many of its brands – even if valued in the billions of dollars – are not widely recognized. What the CoinDesk team looked for are innovative ideas, convincing proposals or evidence of success, and talented, committed people. Moreover, the problems the projects were aiming to solve had to be real, and the remedies needed. They could not just be a crypto version of something that is adequately managed in traditional finance, for instance, or purely meant for speculation or fun.
In conclusion, while bitcoin’s price has fallen below $29.5K, crypto innovation is thriving. Consensus Magazine has presented 19 crypto projects that are solving particularly important problems. The CoinDesk editorial team set about to find projects that fulfill the ethos of crypto by solving a problem. The projects selected range from bootstrapped to tens of millions of dollars in funding, to undisclosed support from a parent foundation or project. The CoinDesk team looked for innovative ideas, convincing proposals or evidence of success, and talented, committed people. Trust in crypto may be low, but there are still many exciting developments in the crypto space.
