Your Favorite Crypto Digest From TradeCrypto.com #170

Welcome, fellows. Wink if you're reading this! Amid FUD in mainstream media, US banks are testing a digital currency platform, Trump wants to be the next president, Circle partners with Apple, and Ronaldo is to drop an NFT collection. Let's dive in. 

Daily statistics update:

Today’s market is red. Bitcoin is trading at $16,700 and ETH is around $1,230.

💪 Bitcoin dominance: 38.31%

📉 Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap: $839.39B

😲 Fear and greed index: 23 (Extreme Fear)

🚀 Gainers (Top-100)

• Chiliz (CHZ) +12.73%

• Stacks (STX) +6.63%

• Convex Finance (CVX) +18.23%

  😭 Losers (Top-100)

• Trust Wallet Token (TWT) -15.65%

• Helium (HNT) -6.99%

• Aptos (APT) -4.63%

As it was announced on Tuesday, US 🏦  financial institutions such as HBSC, Mastercard, and Wells Fargo are working closely to bring CBDCs, starting with a launch of Regulated Liability Network, a proof-of-concept digital money platform. 

The test version of the program with the participation of other central and private banks is scheduled for 12 weeks. Participants will issue digital tokens denominated in 💵 U.S. dollars, simulating customer deposits, and settle through central bank reserves on a shared blockchain. Edward Snowden, commenting on the matter, just said: «It begins.»

Despite the loss of USDC stablecoin issuer due to the conversion of BUSD on Binance and the 👻 exposure to FTX, though insignificant for Сircle, the team announced a partnership with Apple Pay in order to "make crypto commerce easier". Such integration will make life 💁 easier for cryptocurrency businesses, as now they will be able to use fiat payment methods in addition to cryptocurrencies. Traditional businesses can use USDC as a settlement currency, and 🤳Apple Pay users will also be able to buy cryptocurrencies on their preferred exchanges using USDC.

In February, FTX acquired the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange and related entities, and Liquid decided to 🗿 suspend fiat and cryptocurrency withdrawals due to the FTX Group filing for insolvency under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. An official statement said users would be notified further on the firm's fate at a later date.

Events unfold rather quickly, but, as the saying goes, there's more to come 🔜.  

Due to the collapse of FTX and the unfolding general distrust of third parties 🤡,  as well as calls from crypto influencers to pay attention to self-custody 🙆‍♂️, the cold wallets giants noticed a triple increase in sales and demand for their products.

“As we have seen time and time again, these exchanges or other custodians can fall to hacks, to mismanagement, to outright theft or fraud, which is what we’ve basically seen with the FTX,” said Josef Tetek, Trezor’s brand ambassador, to Forkast. “Those who called for self-custody for years have been vindicated and were proven right.”

Another firm did not survive the ongoing FTX disaster 👺. The firm's official statement is no different from similar cases in recent times: withdrawals are suspended, and it is strongly advised not to deposit more funds. Calls from the cryptocurrency community to remove funds from the platforms are justified. To date, no statement has been made about how Liquid is actually affected by the FTX bankruptcy.

SONY's gaming division, which makes the PlayStation console, has received a patent that will allow it to study and use blockchain to track digital items, especially NFTs in its products 👾 . Surely, it's not the first game company to enter the space, but Sony's case is truly significant because of the company's influence 🕹.

“In traditional video games, there is no way to differentiate a specific instance of an in-game item that a famous player of the video game used to win a famous tournament from any other instance of the in-game item,” Sony says.

A week after the shaky events, we are witnessing events that contradict the alarmist phrase "crypto is dead." After all, it is not the first time that deception and difficult situations have happened to us. Some important trends have emerged to date, based on the principles of collaboration and self-responsibility. Who do you trust more - yourself or other people? 

What is Crypto Ping Pong digest?

TC lads here are working quite hard and from time to time we gotta chill. Recently, we got ourselves a ping pong table to complete our lazy-bag-stuffed chill zone. As you all know our main hobby is Crypto, so even while we play we don’t really shut up about it. Ever.

So memes, leaks, gossips naturally come about – we collect them and share them with you in this interstellar space on our site we like to call Crypto Ping Pong digest.