In the world of crypto, time can sometimes behave unpredictably. We see long months of relative inactivity, and then all of a sudden, a year’s worth of news will all get reported in the space of one week.
However, it isn’t only the big headline events that crypto investors need to be watching out for. Sometimes the most significant developments come from small stories, little ideas or relatively minor conflicts that, over time, will evolve and develop, to ultimately steer the future course of the crypto industry.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the more significant stories from the crypto world this last week – starting with the latest announcement from Meta of new overtures the company plans to make into the world of decentralised technology.
Meta Makes a New Move Towards Decentralised Tech
Meta, the parent company of social media behemoth Facebook, has been talking for several years about their “metaverse” project. After investing heavily in VR and related technologies, including their purchase of virtual reality tech company Oculus, in December 2021, they launched their own virtual platform Horizon Worlds. The idea was that this multiplayer online experience could eventually become a hub for countless smaller virtual experiences, linking together social spaces and technological showcases into a broader metaverse setting.
As more companies begin eyeing the potential of such MMO (massively multiplayer online) experiences, one of the biggest questions has been the issue of currencies – and how crypto might integrate with the virtual economies of such multiplayer worlds.
Let’s not forget Second Life – the original multiplayer virtual world and social hangout, launched in 2003 by Linden Lab, and whose in-game virtual currency – the Linden dollar – had an economy valued at its peak in excess of those of many real-world countries.
The latest news on this front comes from Tech Crunch, who reported that Meta is now working on a decentralised text-based app. For now, the project is only known by its codename – P92 – but this standalone service has already got eagle-eyed crypto investors talking.
The plan is for this new project P92, to provide users with text updates. Rather than operating with a single central website like Facebook, the idea is for this model to follow more in the footsteps of decentralised platforms like Mastodon. It will support the ActivityPub protocol, like Mastodon, allowing for separate servers to operate independently of one another.
Crypto experts generally agree that this is a strong and positive move from Meta. It shows that they recognise the growing value of decentralised tech, and it’s a move away from their traditional business model of providing tightly controlled in-house services. Such an overture, one might speculate, suggests a willingness on the part of Meta to explore other decentralised technologies too, and perhaps this could mean that Meta’s future metaverse offerings will veer away from managed in-house economies (as was the case with Second Life’s Linden dollar) in favour of integrating decentralised cryptocurrencies instead.
Of course, we’ll need to wait and see. Time will tell – but this announcement certainly seems to suggest that Meta (whose metaverse division actually suffered some quite significant losses in 2022 to the tune of $13.7 billion) is beginning to come to the realisation that the future of online spaces will be characterised by decentralisation and blockchain technology – which is an exciting development indeed.
Get Ahead of the Curve with the Tools for Success
Before you go rushing out to place your bets on the token that you think will become the default cryptocurrency of the metaverse, just as a friendly reminder – always be sure to do the appropriate research first and guarantee that you’re approaching your investments with the very best technology behind you.
The crypto industry is volatile enough as it is. Still, you can safeguard against additional risks using only the most secure and reliable crypto wallets, exchanges, and platforms. When it comes to the latter, it’s always important to pay attention to what the industry experts have to say.
For example, we’ve seen increasing chatter amongst crypto experts about a particular platform called www.immediate-connect.app/. It allows users to invest in a plethora of different digital assets. Moreover, its main mission is to pair new and experienced traders with a broker perfectly suited to their trading goals and needs. Along the way, it also provides a tonne of useful features and trading tools, too!
The Latest from the Crypto Ecosystem
This news comes against a backdrop of numerous recent and promising developments in the world of crypto. Bitcoin, the grandaddy, OG token, has seen some great gains of late… it was seen to be holding strong at a value in excess of $23.6k most recently and, on Wednesday, almost regained a value of $24k. Of course, it still has some way to go before it gets back to its heady heights of November 2021, when the token was trading in the region of $65k… but for long-term investors, this news is certainly a promising display.
We have seen some excellent growth in other tokens too. Take MKR, for example, by DeFi giants Maker, which recently enjoyed value surges of almost 19%.
Meanwhile, over in the Ethereum camp, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency has also been showing signs of good health – just recently enjoying a growth spurt of more than 4% to trade at approximately $1,665.
All of this has boosted overall trading rates, with the CoinDesk Market Index showing broad market performance, enjoying a daily increase of around 2.9%. Meanwhile, traditional markets have not been showing quite the same degree of growth. For example, the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 this week showed losses of 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively, although the Dow Jones Industrial Average enjoyed some very minor growth at a 0.02% increase.
Experts say that the issue of inflation remains problematic right now. The US central bank is expected to continue raising its interest rates for the coming months. However, there are yet indications of an economic slowdown – based on monthly contractions, for the fourth month in a row, as seen in the Institute of Supply Management’s (ISM) Manufacturing PMI data.
The last big piece of news to come from the crypto world this week affects the stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD). Coinbase, one of the largest, most accessible and user-friendly crypto exchanges in the business, which also operates the services Coinbase Pro, Coinbase Exchange and Coinbase Prime, made the announcement recently that it plans to stop trading in Binance USD altogether – effective from 13 March onwards.
A spokesperson explained that BUSD no longer met their listing standards: “Our determination to suspend trading for BUSD is based on our own internal monitoring and review processes.”
For now, users of Coinbase’s various services can still access and withdraw their BUSD funds at any time, though trading will be discontinued in future. Following the announcement, drops were seen in the value of the regular Binance coin (BNB), which showed an immediate loss of 1% to trade at a lower value in the region of $302 (at the time of writing).
Where Does Crypto Go from Here?
The news above comes on the heels of what has been a very dramatic year for crypto investments. We have seen many tokens reach their all-time peaks in 2021, followed by a year characterised by losses and, in some cases, even complete crashes in 2022. So far, in comparison, 2023 has been less clear-cut in terms of an overall narrative. There is steady growth seen in numerous coins, while at the same time, others (like BUSD, for example) appear to be facing harder times.
Numerous industry experts have commented on these developments to suggest that what we’re seeing right now represents a levelling and rebalancing of the whole crypto ecosystem. The weaker tokens and exchanges are failing, while those with long-term potential are slowly but surely gathering strength and showing the first steps towards new growth.
Could we be witnessing the first moves towards a new bull market for crypto? It is too soon to say for sure, though most investors agree that the crypto industry shows all the signs of having a very interesting new year ahead of it.
