Welcome back to the Thinking Crypto Podcasts. You're home for cryptocurrency news and interviews.
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review. It supports the podcast and it doesn't cost you anything. Well,
folks, let's start by taking a look at the price of bitcoin. Bitcoin
currently near sixty five thousand dollars still consolidating. We may see a lot of
sideways action bouncing between sixty and sixty six thousand dollars, or Bitcoin could continue
going down, maybe to that fifty seven thousand dollars support level before it starts
to bounce and go upwards. Nevertheless, we're still on track to go to
new all time highs because we are in a bull market. We are any
up trend when in doubt zoom out. Some important things to note is that
the fear and greed index for bitcoin is at a greed level at seventy three.
This may need to cool down a bit and maybe go to the neutral
level. Not necessarily go to fear, but more of neutral. Right in
the middle at a fifty, but no guarantee that it has to do that.
But I personally think, given my experience being here in the market and
seeing different market cycles, I think we need to get to a neutral standpoint
of around fifty to fifty five or even sixty. Just get out of this
greed zone. Let things cool down, and we continue to see there's a
lot of outflows some GBTC The selling continues, folks here. On Thursday,
gbtcs saw three hundred and fifty nine million dollars in outflows, leading to ninety
four million dollars in outflows for the entire fund group. Some of the ETFs
as well, the spot ETFs from the big Wall Street players saw outflows.
And this is important to note that the ETFs, while they do bring a
good amount of capital flowing into the market, many of these ETFs and portfolio
managers aren't going to rebalance the portfolios. So you're going to see some sellofs
right. I'm not saying they're going to dump everything, obviously, but there
will be rebalancing at as you have a larger pool of investors, and especially
with rias and these folks, they're going to look to rebalance the entire portfolio.
So something to keep in mind. And this is why you want to
have your plan. What prices are you taking profits at? Because the bull
market doesn't last forever. We don't keep going up forever. There will be
the return of the bear market. Right. I still think we have another
year to go. Possibly we could see the blow off top this year or
early twenty twenty five. We'll see what happens. But just have your plan
and know what your cash out plan will be. Let's take a look at
what are the top trending tokens on social media here. This data is brought
to you by Sentiment and if you'd like to get a premium account for Sentiment,
sign up with the link in the description. You can get a discount
by using the code thinking Crypto. Now. The first coin is Badger Badger
dow with high positive sentiment here. Coming in number two is the mean coin
doge Coin, although its positive sentiment is not that high compared to its negative.
Positive is at forty seven percent, negative sentiment just at thirty four percent.
Now bitcoin cash coming in at number three. Surprisingly, Let's see why
is bitcoin cash trending here? Bitcoin cash has been discussed in the context of
its performance compared to Bitcoin and light coin, as well as its community dynamics
and potential feature development. So it seems folks are a little negative because of
the price action not being up to par. Because here it's positive sentiment is
at forty four point seventy two percent, it's negative at forty one point nineteen
percent, so not that much of a difference there. Ethereum comes in at
number four with high positive sentiment. You get Ample fourth. I don't know
what this project is, but it comes in at six. Then you have
fracts share which is FXS, and USDT Tether on Avalanche is trading, so
it looks like USDT is doing something on the Avalanche blockchain. Pendle on Ethereum,
I don't know what Pendle is, but it's trending at number eight and
it has a high positive sentiment. Quant qnt that comes in at number nine
with high positive sentiment as well, and then you have tokemac network or the
ton token that comes in at number ten. So those are your top trending
tokens and their sentiments. Not a big news of the day, which is
the EU committees approve a ban on anonymous crypto transactions via hosted wallets. The
recent anti money laundering legislation imposes certain limits for cash transactions and anonymous cryptocurrency payments.
So not great news. Let's break this down and you know, world
governments, we've been talking about it. World governments are not banning crypto,
but they're going to put the guardrails in place, they're going to tax it,
and we do have to figure out all the regulation. It is still
early. Look, the EU passed the Mica bill. You also have the
UK passed crypto legislation, and we know folks like Elizabeth Warren want to implement
things like this in the United States. Now. I think there's a balance
here because on one hand, I understand that governments need to protect people.
We don't want bad actors using this technology to do nefarious things. But we
don't want draconian rules and laws which kills and stifles innovations and our freedoms.
Right, So there is a balance, and I think there's a lot of
dialogue that's needed. The industry needs to work closely with the government. So
a majority of the European Parliament's lead committees have approved a ban on cryptocurrency transactions
of any value made through hosted crypto wallets. This comes amid the European Council
and Parliament provisionally agreeing to expand parts of the European Union's Anti Money Laundering AML
and counter Terrorists Financing laws to cover the cryptocurrency market. According to an ex
host by Patrick Bryer, a member of the European Parliament Pirate Party of Germany,
a majority of the EU Parliament's led committees approve the new AML laws on
March nineteenth. Breyer is one of only two members who voted against the ban
on anonymous crypto payments. Gunnar Beck of Alternative Fear Dushlin or Alternative for Germany
also voted against the band. The ban applies specifically to hosted or custodial crypto
wallets offered by third party service providers such as centralized exchanges. The new AML
legislation applies certain limits for cash transactions and anonymous cryptocurrency payments. Under the new
rules, anonymous cash payments over three thousand euros will be banned in commercial transactions,
and cash payments over ten thousand euros will be completely banned in business transactions.
So it seems this is primarily for centralized exchanges. You don't know how
they reinforce this or defy and decentralized exchanges. Let's continue here to see if
you can get more details. The new legislation is expected to be fully operational
within three years from its entry into force. However, Dylan used this an
Ireland based law firm expects the legislation to become fully operational earlier. Many cryptocurrency
networks function without permission lest environments, allowing anyone to create a cryptographic private key
and granting unrestricted anonymous entry into the system a fundamental principle of crypto. In
a press release after the lead committees approve the legislation, Briyer outline why he
opposed the bill, saying it compromises economic independence and financial privacy. He said
he considers the ability to transact anonymously a fundamental right. The crypto community has
had a mixed response to the euse regulatory measures. Some believe the new AML
laws are necessary, while others fear they may infringe on privacy and restrict economic
activity. Daniel Lodi Truster, host of the Sound Money Bitcoin podcast, underscored
the practical hurdles and consequences of their recent legislation. He outlined the impact on
donations and broader implications for cryptocurrency use within the EU, and express concerns over
the stifling effects the rules have. So this is not fully in place entirely
right, there's a three year window, but it has some legs here,
so we have to push back on this. We'll see what some of the
industry advocacy groups and lawyers and legal experts come in and say. But I
think we have to find a balance. I understand the concern from the governments,
right. Look, I don't want some terrorists or somebody doing something that
they shouldn't. But also, like I said, we don't want to stifle
innovation and trample people's rights. And look, I know here in the United
States, this would be something very hard for them to implement in the EU.
I'm not sure if many people are paying attention to. You know,
here in the United States, we got the US Constitution, so and there's
three aspects of the government where there's checks and balances. So we'll have to
wait and see. But this is not a good sign that they're coming out
and doing this. I don't know if they spoke to the crypto industry and
folks who are in the EU about this, So we'll have to wait till
we get more details. I would love to hear companies in the EU if
they weigh in on this, if they spoke to the industry, but probably
not. All right, let's move ahead. We got some funding news for
the crypto market. I love to see this news because it shows who's investing
money, where they're putting that money, whether it's coins and projects or companies
building the infrastructure of the market. So we've been seeing a ton of etheroreum
Layer twos popping up, right, There's so many now, you know,
Coinbase has its own called Base and it's actually doing well. There's Polygon,
Arbitram, many others well. The Layer two infrastructure startup Expresso announce a twenty
eight million dollars in Series B funding led by a sixteen Z crypto on Thursday.
Various Layer two related firms participated, including Polygons, Starkware, and Arbitrum
developer off Chain Labs. Espresso is largely known for building a shared sequencer for
layer twos, where rollups can order and process transactions via a shared marketplace rather
than in their own execution environments. This could theoretically make Layer twos more interoperable,
though the program is still in test net, so that's interesting. The
funding follows thirty two million dollars Espresso rais led by Graylock Partners and Electric Capital.
In twenty twenty two. Now Morph raised twenty million dollars in seed funding
led by Dragonfly, co founded by Cecilia Shoosh. I'm saying that right.
Formerly of Derivatives Exchange, femax and azeem Con previously at geit coin, Morph
brands itself as a consumer centric blockchain. Pantera, Foresight Ventures and the Spartan
Group are among those investors in the Layer two, which is also in testnet.
The developer behind privacy focused Layer two ten ten short for the Encrypted Network,
raised nine million dollars led by R three. The block reported Rails came
out of stealth with a six point two million dollars in seed funding this week
for a self custody focused perpetuals exchange. The round saw participation from Slow Ventures,
Round three Capital, CMCC Global, and quant Stamp. Two of the
project's three co founders previously held leadership positions at the LGBTQ dating app Grinder,
interesting institution focused derivatives infrastructures startup Keemet also announced five million dollars in funding led
by Further Ventures. Other notable fundraises included zero knowledge infrastructure developer Sectynth announced a
fifty five million dollars Series A led by Paradigm Limited Partners at a sixteen Z
will be available to invest in the VC's crypto seed and venture verticals through a
general fund and recent is raising called Multiplexer Railrole Asset tokenizations. Startup Mantro raised
eleven million dollars led by Mina based Showrook Partners and finally, sonar Verse secured
seven million dollars in funding led by block Tower Capital for an on chain data
platform aimed at institutional investors. So, folks, the capital keeps coming in.
So if you've got a great idea, you're an entrepreneur and innovator,
this is the time put that pitch deck together and go out there to these
investors and see what you can get done. Now, we've got some interesting
news here around Swift. So that's the current banking messaging system which has been
around for a long time, outdated, slow, no instant settlement, but
they have been embracing blockchain since you know, crypto has been the rise.
Companies like Ripple have called them out right that payments are too slow and the
future of payments is on the blockchain. They have done work with chain link
and so forth while we got news here. SWIFT proposes a role for itself
in a tokenized feature on a unified ledger. But the technology you already have
to new use. Swift advised the world it had itself in mind. So
it's trying to stay relevant clearly right and embrace payments on the blockchain as well
as tokenization. But will they be able to do it, I'm not sure
because it's SWIFT is made up of banks, and like many of these banks
are very scared of being disrupted. And this is why you see Jamie Diamond
and these guys coming out and fighting it. So the Society for Worldwide Interbank
Financial Telecommunication SWIFT has been watching the development of fintech carefully with a focus on
its own future. After a variety of projects using new technologies, the pillar
of the current international payments system has thrown its weight behind and a unified ledger
payment model. SWIFT looked in particular at tokenization and the shared Ledger model According
to a post on its website, common infrastructure could provide real time balance to
all participants in the shared ledger. It's said, that's not to say messaging
is unneeded. Swift was quick to add shared ledgers are not well suited to
carrying and storing high volumes of data due to the way data is synchronized across
parties and the computing power is required. This is where a messaging layer fits
in for transactions to be frictionless. Additional types of data also need to be
transferred to enable value added services such as AML compliance, sanctioned screening, trade
and accounts receivable reconciliation. It reconciliation, it continued. So, guys,
if you're wondering if crypto and blockchain, if you are still on the fence,
is legit, and this technology is legit. Swift, right, this
banking payments messaging system that's been around for years, they now have to jump
on board and say, hey, yeah, we got to build this unified
ledger, right, we gotta look at tokenization. It's amazing to see them
capitulate. And like I said, they've been working with chain link and doing
much much more. So there's not really any details on if it's a specific
blockchainer using and what it is. But let me continue here. Unified ledger
technology has been embraced by the International Monetary Fund and it's XC platform, and
by financial institutions participating in the regulated liability network. The Bank for International Settlements
has also endorsed this model, So you can definitely assume there's going to be
cbdc's part of this and how it's all going to run. But in twenty
two to two it teamed up with fintech firm sym Beyond in a pilot project
to upgrade its information delivery to corporate clients through sym Beyond's block chain driven assembly
platform. So argued against the use of a unified ledger in a twenty twenty
three report in favor of Swift as a single point of access to different blockchain
networks. Interesting, so maybe, just maybe we may see Swift capitulate partner
with all these different blockchains have interoperability. Where CBDCs are jumping across different blockchains,
right because we're gonna be in a multichain world, So maybe they can
save themselves here by integrating blockchain and cryptotech as well. So fascinating. What's
happening. And when I see things like this, it makes me even more
bullish on this market. I see the old guard who was, you know,
years ago poo pooing this crypto and blockchain now is like, yeah,
we gotta test, We've got to pilot, we got to tokenize, we
gotta we got to bring different blockchains together. Amazing, what's happening, folks.
Super bullish on this asset class. All right, folks, that's the
news. Don't forget to check out our sponsor, which is v chain,
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description or go to vchain dot org. Thank you for watching and listening,
and I'll talk to you all later.