“Should Have Bought” is a news podcast by the ForkLog editorial team covering the week’s main events in the industry and the hottest tokens.
Topics: Bitcoin’s ‘death cross’, inflation stabilization, 120 million ETH, DOGS airdrop, Trump and Musk interview.
Participants: ForkLog authors Lena Jess and Vasily Smirnov.
Reaction to Macroeconomic Data
Throughout the week, the leading cryptocurrency traded between $57,000 and $60,000. Bitcoin’s weakness was influenced by the release of US inflation data.
The figures were lower than expected, causing a short-term rise in the asset, followed by a drop below $59,000. The reaction can be attributed to the rising cost of housing rent, which offset the positive effect of a lower CPI.
Over the past seven days, most top-10 assets by market capitalization saw little price change. Only Solana (-9.3%) and XRP (-2.9%) experienced significant declines.
Meanwhile, Glassnode recorded a return to hodling in the Bitcoin market, and analysts at 10x Research identified the growth of stablecoin issuance as a factor in the continued rise of the coin.
Low Interest in Digital Ruble
According to a VCIOM survey, 59% of Russians are not interested in the digital ruble. 31% are open to experimentation, while 10% are undecided.
Potential users of the digital ruble include men (39% versus 24% of women), Russians with a good financial standing (40%), and urban residents (38% versus 24% of rural inhabitants). High interest is also noted among young people aged 18-24 (59%) and active internet users (40%).
The Bank of Russia stated that CBDC testing is progressing as planned. Currently, about 20 banks are preparing their systems to connect to the national cryptocurrency platform.
Regarding cryptocurrency market regulation, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance have yet to decide on how to handle Bitcoin exchanges.
120 Million Ethereum
The supply of Ethereum has exceeded 120 million coins, with ETH’s annual inflation rising to 0.69%. The popularity of liquid staking and restaking platforms, due to the locking of coins in protocols, may indirectly influence the increase in issuance.
Co-founder and CEO of Khelp Financial, Boomer Saraga, in an interview with Schwab Network, highlighted a discrepancy between the price of the second-largest cryptocurrency and its on-chain data.
On August 13, the daily number of transactions in the Ethereum L2 ecosystem reached a record 12.5 million. Additionally, there are now over 2 million users on the mainnet and second-layer solutions.
Trump and Musk
Billionaire Elon Musk interviewed US presidential candidate Donald Trump, disappointing crypto traders. The politician did not mention digital assets, causing meme tokens to plummet.
Additionally, the prediction platform Polymarket opened a series of bets on specific words Trump might say. 65% of users wagered over $600,000 on the mention of “cryptocurrencies,” and 69% bet around $330,000 on “Bitcoin.”
The largest win, over $1 million, went to a user with the nickname bama124. He correctly predicted that Trump would not say “cryptocurrency,” earning $336,918.
A financial disclosure filed during the week revealed that the former president holds cryptocurrencies worth up to $5 million and has earned over $7 million from NFT investments.
DOGS Airdrop
The DOGS team has unveiled the project’s tokenomics. Developers of the Telegram mini-application allocated 81.5% of the total issuance of 550 billion coins for a community airdrop.
According to the statement, the distribution does not involve a token lock-up period. 10% of the total DOGS supply will be allocated to the team for further development, with another 8.5% reserved for liquidity provision.
The claim for coins began on August 16. Tokens can be received on Telegram Wallet or at the address of a supported centralized exchange (OKX or Bybit).
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