Crypto assets traded a tight range last week as investors watched for market updates and macroeconomic developments. There is a growing sense of anticipation among crypto asset watchers as prices have held firm now for multiple weeks.

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Bitcoin (BITCOMP) began the week around $19,000 and saw a spike above $19,400 early in the week. The price slumped below $18,600 on Friday after fresh rate hike pressure from the Fed was reported, but then recovered strongly to reach above $19,400 over the weekend. BTC is currently trading around $19,150 this morning. 

ETH (ETH-X) meanwhile is trading a similarly tight range. The crypto asset began the week under $1,300, slumping down to below $1,250 on Friday before surging over $1,350 over the weekend. It is currently trading around $1,330. 

Pro-crypto Sunak looks set to become PM as Government extends crypto proposals

Financial Services and City minister Andrew Griffith has made amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Bill that extend the reach of regulation across crypto in the UK, as crypto-friendly Rishi Sunak looks ready to become Prime Minister. 

Rishi Sunak was reasonably open to the market in his time as Chancellor, which ultimately led us to where we are now in terms of regulatory progress, with a particular focus on stable-coin regulations. If Sunak wins the contest to become Prime Minister today, it could be a good news day for the crypto sector in the UK. 

Despite the instability at the top of the UK Government, work is still well underway on pieces of legislation that could have a crucial effect on the crypto industry in the UK. The addition of text to the Financial Services and Markets Bill could extend its authority to include a much wider scope on digital assets, rather than its current focus of stable-coins. This is a positive development. In the EU, crypto businesses have been given much-needed clarity on the direction of travel for regulatory oversight by MiCa. 

Fidelity rolls out ETH trading

Major asset manager Fidelity is rolling out ETH investment capabilities to its institutional customers. The Merge is just over one month old now, with price levels of ETH largely disappointing thanks to tough macroeconomic conditions, and despite some clear wins for the shift already.

Fidelity, which manages around $4.5 trillion in assets, already offers bitcoin to institutional customers. What we’ve seen in 2022 is that these major crypto-assets correlate much more closely with equities. This is largely explained by increased institutional involvement in crypto. These institutions are broadly making similar risk decisions for BTC and ETH as they might do for Apple, Alphabet or Amazon. 

While Fidelity’s offer for institutions isn’t likely to immediately move the dial on ETH, it is yet another domino falling in a chain. Major financial providers are more than ever ready to offer crypto-assets to institutional investors as an alternative asset class. Fidelity is probably one of the leaders in this space, but more similar firms will follow in time. 

House sold as an NFT in South Carolina

A notable development in the ever-expanding field of NFTs, a house in South Carolina in the USA has been sold as an NFT. The episode underlines one of the key potentials for the technology, well beyond digital cartoon art for which it is much caricaturized.  

The property sold for $175,000 and was organized by the Web3 arm of real estate company Roofstock. The sale illustrates a potentially powerful and revolutionary change in the way in which we confer ownership on real-world possessions. 

Property rights are one of the most fundamental underpinnings of our, and most other, democracies. The process of buying and selling massive assets such as houses is slow because of the legal process of conferring ownership from one person to another. 

If that process is digitizable and the ownership potentially verifiable via blockchain, then that has enormous potential to reorganize the way we buy, sell and own basically anything worth a notable amount of money.

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