Long-term Bitcoin holders increased in 2021, yet BTC began 2022 with a sluggish start 🤷♂️; Russia’s largest bank launches first Blockchain-focused ETF🏦🇷🇺; A bank in the metaverse? 🤔
Good Morning FinTech, January 3
Good morning Everyone,
Happy Monday, and more importantly - happy New Year! 🥳 I hope you had a wonderful NY celebration and I wish you that 2022 will be your best year ever 🙌🏼
To make the most of the new week & the new year here’s a first mix of 3 interesting FinTech stories to dive into in the first week of 2022:
Long-term Bitcoin holders increased in 2021, yet BTC began 2022 with a sluggish start 🤷♂️
The start 👀 Bitcoin has fallen more than 7% over the past seven days, and was down more than 1% on the first day of 2022, according to CoinGecko.
The oldest and largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is hovering around $47,000 at the time of writing.
Selling pressure🇨🇳 One of the reasons for such market moves might be coming from China. Exchanges deplatforming Chinese citizens prior to the December 31 deadline may have added to BTC selling pressure.
Chinese users, following years of the government tightening the screws around crypto trading, had until Dec. 31 to leave the major Chinese exchanges, which were obliged to deregister them.
Alternative perspective 👉 Despite Bitcoin having lost 1/3 of its value since its all-time high of $69,000, the most popular crypto still closed the year up by 78%.
For the perspective, the S&P 500 finished 2021 with a gain of 26.9% for the year, or a total return of 28.7%, including dividends. So Bitcoin returned nearly x3 times that. Let that sink in.
Furthermore, long-term bitcoin holders, or those holding BTC for over 155 days as per Glassnode, increased their BTC holdings by 16% over 2021. Long-term holders currently own over 70% of the BTC supply.
What can we expect from 2022? Here’s the takeaway👇🏼