Crypto Market Weekly Summary for August 2nd-7th, 2021

*The crypto events from the past week, as well as many more were detected by Crowdsense hours or days before reaching the market...

Crypto Market Highlights

• US Congress expected to vote on new crypto industry crippling taxation bill on Saturday

• SEC’s Gensler calls on Congress to help rein in crypto 'Wild West’ with a focus on DeFi, stablecoins, and exchange-traded funds

• Biden Deals Major Blow to Crypto Industry, Backs Plan to Tax Proof-of-Stake

• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Lobbying Against Favorable Amendment to Cryptocurrency Tax Provision

Bitcoin (BTC)

• SEC’s Gensler Hints at Approval of Bitcoin ETFs based solely on regulated bitcoin futures to the dismay of the bitcoin community

• Marathon Splashes $120 Million On Bitcoin Miners From Bitmain

Ethereum (ETH)

• SEC’s Gensler refuses to comment on whether Ether is a security leading to more regulatory uncertainty

• Ethereum EIP-1559's First Hours: Deflationary Block Mined, Gas Prices Back to Normal

Additional Coins

• MiamiCoin ($MIA): to Launch Its Own Cryptocurrency, MiamiCoin

• Ripple ($XRP): SEC vs. Ripple: Judge Grants Request For Binance Documents

Markets

The entire market value of all crypto assets has moved in a range from $1.48 trillion to $1.8 trillion over the past week and as of this writing sits slightly above the $1.8 trillion mark.

BTC-USD has gained around 4.5% over the last seven days. The pair fell below the $40k mark on Monday and repeatedly bounced off the $37.7k level before breaking back above $40k on Thursday and has since gone on to break through $43k, where it has since been moving.

ETH-USD rose approximately 24% during the past week. The pair was range-bound from the $2,400-$2,700 level until it managed to break above $2,800 on Thursday when its much anticipated London Hard Fork went into effect. On Saturday, it broke above the psychologically important $3,000 level as investors responded to the successful protocol update.

Movers and Shakers

• RUNE-USD (THORChain) rose 24% over the last week. The DeFi protocol suffered a pair of major hacks in July with liquidity being drained from Thorchain’s liquidity pools. However, the second hacker appeared to be of the white-hat variety and even left tips to make the protocol more secure. This “comeback rally” could be signaling that even with two major exploits, investors still have faith in the protocol.

• FTT-USD (FTX) rallied 25% during the past seven days. The crypto exchange experienced two positive developments with a seven-year sponsorship deal being announced with League of Legends’ Riot Games as well as FTX announcing that their wallet has added support for BUSD and BNB tokens on the Binance Smart Chain. FTX seems to have a new partnership nearly every week.

• AAVE-USD had a weekly gain of 23%. The lending focused protocol had a strong showing due to Bitwise Investments announcing an Aave-focused fund for institutional investors as well as Aave’s announcement that they are looking at multi-chain strategy beyond the currently supported Ethereum and Polygon. This would allow users to move collateral between different chains, a major upgrade from the current status-quo.