Euro and the US Dollar Are at Parity – Crypto Weekly Update

This week, the total market capitalization exceeded 892 billion EUR. The decrease at the 7-day interval is 0.44%. Bitcoin decreased by 3.03% during the week to a current value of over €20,000. Bitcoin dominance is 42.8%.

Euro and the US Dollar Are at Parity

For the first time in 20 years, the exchange rate between the euro and the US dollar has reached parity, meaning that the two currencies are equal in value and can be exchanged at a 1:1 ratio.

The euro currency reached the value of one dollar in the early evening hours of Tuesday, down about 12% since the start of the calendar year. The euro’s depreciation is mainly due to recession fears, high inflation, as well as uncertainty over oil and gas supplies to Europe under the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union, which received roughly 40% of its gas through Russian pipelines before the war, is attempting to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas. At the same, Russia has throttled back gas supplies to some EU countries and recently cut the flow in the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany by 60%.

The energy crisis in Europe comes at a time of slowing economic growth, which raises doubts about whether the ECB can adequately tighten policy to bring down inflation. The ECB announced this month that it will raise interest rates for the first time since 2011, as the eurozone inflation rate sits at 8.6%.

Many experts say the ECB is reacting too late to rising inflation. While the US Fed started tightening monetary policy and raising interest rates in March, the European Central Bank is somewhat late in its response. Experts are therefore concerned that Europe can expect a so-called ‘hard landing’, coupled with the possibility of a recession. Source

CoinShares CSO: Bitcoin Reaches New High in 24 Months

CoinShares Strategic Head of Asset Management Meltem Demirors believes that Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency on the market, will reach a new all-time high within the next 24 months.

In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday, Demirors noted that bitcoin has always been a “cyclical asset” with drawdowns from all-time highs to trough at 80 to 90% historically.

Since bitcoin is down roughly 65% from its peak reached in November 2021 at current price levels, Demirors thinks there is still room for a downward correction. However, he doesn’t expect bitcoin’s value to fall below $14,000 in this bear market. Source

Celsius Has Paid off Another Debt

Lending company Celsius Network, which ran into significant liquidity problems in the current bear market that caused it to suspend asset withdrawals for its users, has repaid another of its loans on the Aave protocol.

According to the on-chain data, Celsius paid off the last $8.4 million in USDC stablecoin on Tuesday, allowing the company to unlock collateral of 400,000 stETH worth $418 million. 

However, data from analytics platform DeBank shows that the repayment of this loan is far from solving the company’s problems. The same wallet that unlocked 400,000 stETH today still has 10,000.94 WBTC locked up in another position on the Compound and roughly $27 million in LINK, stETH and SNX on Aave. Celsius will need roughly $58.5 million to repay these loans and unlock the collateral. In addition, Celsius may own other wallets with open positions that the public does not know about.

The company is gradually unwinding its positions in DeFi in an effort to strengthen its balance sheet. Last week Celsius unlocked a 21,962 wBTC position (worth about $456 million on Jul. 7) from decentralized stablecoin issuer MakerDAO. It may have suffered from a $1 billion loss on that position alone. Source

GameStop Launches Ethereum NFT Marketplace

US video game retailer GameStop launched earlier this week its long-awaited NFT marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain.

Currently, the marketplace hosts a number of art projects and collections that operate on the Ethereum mainnet, as well as on second-layer scaling solution Loopring. In addition, GameStop recently announced a partnership with Immutable X, a second-layer scaling solution that is aimed specifically at the non-fungible tokens (NFT). However, GameStop has yet to state that support for Immutable X will be available “soon.”

GameStop has long made no secret of its interest in becoming a major player in the NFT gaming space, in which NFTs are interactive items used within video games. GameStop and Immutable X even launched a $100 million grant fund a few weeks ago to bring game developers onto the NFT marketplace.For now, only art projects and collectibles are part of the GameStop Marketplace, and according to the press release, game NFTs will be added in the future. Source

Mt.Gox Will Distribute a Portion of Stolen Bitcoins

The market No.1 Bitcoin will face a hotly debated event in the near future, which many consider to be the trigger for the black swan event. Users of the Mt. Gox exchange, which was hacked in 2014 and up to 850,000 bitcoins were stolen from it, will be partially compensating the affected clients.

Lawyer Nobuaki Kobayashi, appointed as trustee in the rehabilitation process of Mt. Gox confirmed that a partial compensation of 150,000 BTC is in the process of being prepared and can be expected in the coming weeks. However, Kobayashi did not give an exact date.

Cryptocurrency experts as well as the entire crypto community are worried about the impact of bitcoin redistribution on the market. If the majority of recipients decide to sell a large amount of bitcoins at once, it could cause significant selling pressure and push the price of bitcoin down.

The recovery plan after the exchange was hacked was originally approved back in 2018, but the final version and its confirmation did not happen until October 2021. Of the 850,000 stolen bitcoins, only 150,000 were recovered and will be distributed among the victims.

The cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, based in Tokyo, which at one time was responsible for more than 70% of the transaction volume on the bitcoin network, declared bankruptcy in 2014. However, lawsuits and speculation related to the theft of 850,000 BTC continue until today. Source

Interesting Fact: Manchester City Will Have a Crypto Sponsor

English Premier League football champion Manchester City has partnered with cryptocurrency exchange OKX. The OKX platform will thus become the official partner on the football giant’s training kit during the 2022-2023 season.

In addition, the OKX platform will be a presenting partner for the English club’s first global Trophy Tour, which will bring the Premier League trophy to fans in Spain, France, Mexico and South Korea.

As part of the announcement, there would be artworks featuring Man City’s recent signing Erling Haaland, full-back João Cancelo, center-back John Stones, and winger Jack Grealish in four different locations in Manchester. The murals will be created by street artist Akse P19 and Global Street Art Agency. Source

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