In a day of unconfirmed rumors and rising DOGE, Bitcoin couldn’t decide if it liked the air above $28,000 or below.
The largest cryptocurrency by market cap recently traded around $27,680, down a little over a percentage point over the past 24 hours as investors did what they’ve routinely done over the past few months: disparate, sometimes unflattering , but always give meaning to interesting information. BTC spent the first few hours Monday (UTC) lingering below $28,000 before surging above the threshold until midday and then plunging again.
BTC has stubbornly held holds around this level since mid-March, despite a near-banking crisis that engulfed two crypto-friendly banks and amid generally more favorable conditions for digital assets. “The current situation for Bitcoin is pretty positive, that’s the reality on the ground,” crypto trader and author Glen Goodman told CoinDesk TV’s First Mover show.
Goodman noted that the “injection of new money into the economy” as backing from a “panic” Federal Reserve to deal with the banking crisis has boosted investor liquidity for certain stocks and cryptos. “People are now feeling brave enough with this new liquidity to get back into what they believe to be big, profitable companies like Microsoft like Apple, and likewise in the crypto market they are betting on the cryptos considered safer, namely bitcoin and ether .”
Etherium recently traded just above $1,800, up slightly from the previous day after oscillating above and below this level. Other major cryptos have been mixed in with some slightly in the green and others in the red. Popular meme coin DOGE was an exception to the more modest price moves, as it surged more than 35% into the top 10 cents for the first time since December after Elon Musk’s Twitter featured the social media platform’s well-known blue bird on its homepage replaced with the cryptocurrency icon Shiba Inu dog logo. Musk has been an outspoken DOGE supporter and suggested that the meme coin could offer better payment functionality than Bitcoin (BTC).
Meanwhile, crypto markets pondered an unconfirmed rumor that an Interpol Red Notice had been issued for the crypto exchange’s founder and CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao. “A Red Notice is a request for law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action,” the Interpol website reads. Neither Binance nor Interpol responded to a request for comment from CoinDesk, although the block reported that the exchange had denied the rumor in an email to the publication. Binance’s BNB token recently fell 0.3%.
US stock indexes were mixed, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq slowly slipping but the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rising — all up a few fractions of a percentage point. In early trading in Asian markets, the Hang Seng fell 0.6% but the Nikkei rose 0.3%.
In a separate interview with CoinDesk TV’s First Mover program, David Duong, Head of Institutional Research at Coinbase, noted that OPEC’s unexpected decision to curb oil production could push inflation back up, attracting investor interest in Bitcoin due to the intrinsic value of the cryptocurrency.
“What we’ve seen from OPEC definitely raises the odds that inflation could actually run a little higher, and therefore also represents a macro opportunity for Bitcoin,” Duong said. “We have already seen to some extent Bitcoin acting as an alternative to the traditional financial system given the events with SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) and the turmoil in the banking system.”
Is Indonesia’s CBDC ready for a bigger role?
American credit card companies have significant control over the world’s trade pipelines. And Indonesia, where tourism plays a significant role in the economy, wants to change that.
Earlier this month, the country’s President Joko Widodo, better known as Jokowi (many Indonesians only have one name), said he wants the country to reduce its reliance on Visa and Mastercard in the name of national security.
Indonesia is one of the few countries that has refused to sanction Russia for its war against Ukraine. Between arms sales and oil sales, Jokowi has faced difficult decisions managing relations with Russia and the United States, particularly as he grapples with the need to buy more oil to offset a staggering rise in energy costs as well as America’s desire for allies in the region to contain China.
Tourist hotspot Bali, a popular destination for Russian winter tourists, is feeling the effects of the war’s economic crisis, despite being tens of thousands of kilometers from the conflict zone.
“Many Russian tourists visiting Bali could not pay for their hotels and had to be kicked out of the hotels because their credit cards could not be used,” Erwin Haryono, executive director of communications at Bank Indonesia, told CNBC Indonesia in March.
Sanctions that Indonesia is not a party to prevent Visa and Mastercard from helping to process payments between Russian banks and Indonesian hotels even though the transaction was not in US dollars.
“We must remember that US sanctions on Russia, Visa and Mastercard could be a problem,” Jokowi said at the opening of Business Matching of Domestic Products, as quoted by CNN Indonesia.
In response, the government has outlined some domestic alternatives to relying entirely on foreign payment lanes.
Jokowi wants Indonesia to be able to issue financial services such as credit cards independently, and has encouraged local and central governments to promote the use of the domestic state credit card (Kartu Kredit Pemerintah Domestik) and the international Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard (QRIS).
The Domestic Government Credit Card and the International Standard of Indonesian Quick Response Code System were developed by Bank Indonesia under the coordination of Coordinating Minister of Maritime Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.
These domestic government credit card and Indonesian QR code schemes are just payment lanes that could process a CBDC like the digital rupiah just as easily as any other fiat-issued currency.
Indonesia isn’t the first country to try to claim some financial sovereignty from the Visa and Mastercard payment rails.
Russia, at the heart of US sanctions, has been trying to market its domestic credit card competitor Mir (named after the space station) as an alternative to Visa and Mastercard.
But as Bloomberg reported last year, even Moscow-friendly countries are wary of allowing their banks to process and settle transactions from the card amid the threat of retaliatory US sanctions
Turkey, another popular tourist destination for Russians but also a NATO member, stopped accepting the card in mid-2022. Vietnam, which is trying to improve its ties with the US to counter an aggressive China, also had its banks ditch ties with China Mir. Thailand is out too.
Mir is still used in Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Venezuela and perhaps Iran by the end of 2023.
Indonesia’s ambassador in Moscow said in January that the issue was still “considered”.
The failure of Mir could give Indonesia a chance to boost its payment networks around ASEAN. Governments and central banks around the world, even in countries neutral on the Ukraine war, were no doubt nervous about joining Russia — but Indonesia doesn’t have that political baggage.
Bitcoin (BTC) tested the $30,000 level and traded between $27,500 and $28,900 over the weekend. “First Mover” dived into the markets with The Crypto Trader Author Glen Goodman. Meanwhile, crypto markets have shown resilience in the face of recent upheaval in the US banking system, with Bitcoin in particular outperforming, according to Coinbase. Coinbase’s head of institutional research, David Duong, weighed in. Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, and Tanvi Ratna, CEO and founder of Policy 4.0 also joined the conversation.
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