After two weeks of bullish crypto momentum, Bitcoins (BTC USD) winning streak ended abruptly this week. The legacy token was close to breaking its 10-year-old record of holding 15 consecutive days of green candles. However, the streak ended on Jan. 18 after BTC broke below the support at $21,500.
At the time of writing, BTC is consolidating just below the $21,000 level. BTC’s pullback from previous weekly highs can be attributed in part to the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to unveil an “international cryptocurrency enforcement action” on Jan. 18.
Another possible reason for the decline in bitcoin prices was the US Producer Price Index (PPI) figure that was released this week. Contrary to expectations, the producer price index (PPI) in December 2022 was 6.2% yoy (YoY) compared to the previous reading of 7.3%, indicating a slowdown in inflation. As investors speculated that the Federal Reserve might slow its pace of interest rate hikes, BTC and other major cryptocurrencies endured a sharp sell-off that eroded weekly returns after the data was released.
Solana leads altcoins higher
Most altcoins maintained the bullish momentum of the previous week, with Solana (SOL) establishing itself as a leading outperformer on the upside. After months of declines following the FTX meltdown, SOL posted an impressive 31% gain over the past week, largely due to increased developer activity, user adoption, and a slew of promising announcements.
While several other altcoins also posted double-digit returns, this week’s standout performance came from Decentraland (MANA), Frax Finance (FRX), and Aptos (APT). Decentraland (MANA) was up nearly 67.37% this week after the Metaverse platform announced its partnership with the Australian Open (AO) tennis tournament.
Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH USD)-based project Frax Finance (FRX) carved its way into the top 100 cryptos by capitalization this week after surging 65% in the past seven sessions. This positive price action worth FRX and other liquid staking cryptocurrencies can be linked to Ethereum’s upcoming “Shanghai” upgrade, after which users will be able to withdraw their currently staked Ethereum to validate network activity.
Aptos’ APT token was another strong performer after surging about 54% this week. The value of the Layer 1 blockchain’s native APT token surged after the news that Web3 infrastructure provider Moralis will be integrated with Aptos. The new integration will add support for all existing API endpoints, create a dedicated Aptos API and integrate real-time data streaming via webhooks from Aptos to Moralis.
Monero and ApeCoin face unrelenting resistance
Despite the generally positive performance recorded across the crypto landscape over the past seven sessions, Monero (XMR) and ApeCoin (APE) have both significantly underperformed their peers after both tokens lost almost 5% of their value. Monero’s declining hashrate is one of the main reasons for the drop in value this week. The value of XMR rallied briefly last week but soon began to consolidate and is currently trading 70% below its previous all-time high.
ApeCoin (APE), on the other hand, continues to struggle with price corrections due to a steady decline in the number of daily active users on the network. The asset’s trading volume has steadily declined over the past few weeks amid weak investor sentiment due to the unexpected drop in its Open Interest (OI) rate.
Australia’s new stablecoin, a $500 million Web3 fund and more
With growing interest in digitizing national currencies and central bank experimentation, the National Bank of Australia (NAB) is the latest central bank to unveil blockchain initiatives, with plans to launch an AUD-pegged stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain by mid-2023. The AUDN stablecoin aims to streamline cross-border transactions and carbon credit trading, helping users overcome issues related to the SWIFT payment network.
To switch to funding and investment trends, venture capital firm Hashkey Capital has closed a $500 million investment round. These funds will be allocated to infrastructure, tools and applications designed to accelerate the mass adoption of Blockchain, Web3 and other emerging technologies. At the same time, SkyBridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci has invested in a new crypto company founded by ex-President of FTX US, Brett Harrison.
Last but not least, the US Department of Justice (DOJ), in coordination with France, has launched an “international crypto enforcement action” against Hong Kong-based P2P crypto platform Bitzlato and its founder Anatoly Legkodymov for involvement in unlicensed money transfers worth more than $700 million . The news triggered an immediate sell-off across the crypto ecosystem before a modest recovery from the lows began.
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