Nigeria’s vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, delivered a speech at an economic summit on Friday in which he spoke positively of crypto and blockchain. 

“There is no question that blockchain technology generally, and cryptocurrencies in particular, will in the coming years, challenge traditional banking, including reserve banking, in ways that we cannot yet imagine,” Osinbajo said on Friday during the Central Bank of Nigeria, or CBN, Bankers’ Committee Economic Summit. “We need to be prepared for that seismic shift, and it may come sooner than later,” he said.

The Nigerian vice president also noted the broadness of the crypto industry, mentioning decentralized finance, or DeFi, in the mix. “Decentralized finance, using smart contracts to create financial instruments, in place of central financial intermediaries, such as banks or brokerages, is set to challenge traditional finance,” he said. 

Osinbajo’s speech, which included a number of other points, is posted on his YouTube channel. The Nigerian vice president also tweeted out a video clip highlighting of some of his crypto comments from his talk.

“The point I’m making, is that some of the exciting developments we see call for prudence and care in adopting them and these have been very well-articulated by our regulatory authorities,” he said, adding:

“But we must act with knowledge and not with fear. We must ensure that we are in a position to benefit and in a position to prevent any of the adverse side effects, or any of the possible, even criminal, acts that may arise in consequence of adopting or taking any of these options.”

The comments come in contrast to recent developments in Nigeria. Earlier in February, Nigeria forbade banking interactions with crypto exchanges, as per a ruling from its central bank. The CBN’s governor also called crypto assets illegitimate. Bitcoin recently traded at a significant premium in the region.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-and-crypto-will-challenge-current-finance-nigeria-vp-says

While many analysts predict that either Bitcoin could increase to a million or fall to a dollar, a popular businessman and investor based in the US thinks that the asset could do both!

In a recent interview with Joe Kernen at CNBC’s Squawk Box, Internet analyst Henry Blodget of the dot com era fame said: 

Bitcoin could go to $1 million… it could also go to $1. And in fact it may do both of those

In addition, Blodget, who also served as the head of the global Internet research team at Merrill Lynch, is unconvinced about the asset’s value proposition. He claimed that Bitcoin as an inflationary hedge and the narrative surrounding its value as ‘digital gold’ were “stories”. He further added: 

But the stories that we tell about why relative to the value of gold or other currencies, they’re ludicrous.

In his opinion, Bitcoin can trade just about anywhere because it does not have any fundamental backing. He said that unlike traditional stocks, “which usually does have some relationship ultimately to a fundamental,” of a company, “Bitcoin doesn’t, so that means it can trade anywhere.”

The entrepreneur thinks that crypto exchange Gemini’s CEO Tyler Winklevoss could eventually be “exactly right,” in his forecast that the asset could surge to a million. However, Blodget said:

If people were to decide that for the next couple of hundred years Bitcoin is where you park your money when you take it out of the fiat system, OK, it’s possible.

Interestingly, while crypto Twitter and Bitcoin enthusiasts, in particular, called out the analyst’s criticism, they commended the interviewer’s counter-argument. CNBC’s Joe Kernen seemed to even “speak the language” of the crypto space as one twitter user named @HodlBells noted:  

@JoeSquawk I didn’t think you understood the value prop of bitcoin. You do! You’re way ahead of the bulk of your generation. Particularly those who have profited the most off the petro-dollar. Look forward to you speaking their language and translating the future for them! Thx!

— Hodl Bells (@HodlBells) February 26, 2021

Source: https://ambcrypto.com/bitcoin-could-reach-1-million-or-1-and-may-do-both-of-those

The cryptocurrency market faced another day of downward pressure as the unease in the traditional markets continues to spread following the recent interest rate spike on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond. 

Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that the price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell to a low at $44,710 late on Feb. 25 before buying at the key support returned to help the digital asset recover back above $46,500 but generally, analysts are looking for $50,000 to become an established support before expecting bullish continuation.

Despite major BTC purchases by MicroStrategy, Tesla and MassMutual, a majority of institutional investors still have security and tax treatment concerns that prevent them from investing in Bitcoin, according to Galaxy Digital co-president Damien Vanderwilt.

Institutional investment has been a significant source of optimism in the cryptocurrency sector in 2021, but its influence in helping BTC reach a market cap of $1 trillion may be overstated as recent analysis shows that stablecoin whales and retail traders still hold the most buying power.

Interest rate increase puts pressure on GBTC

On Feb. 25, the interest rate for the 10-year U.S. Treasury spiked to 1.52%, its highest level in over a year.

According to Chad Steinglass, Head of Trading at CrossTower, the move led to market-wide pressure that pushed the “GBTC premium down as low as negative 6% and it closed around negative 2% today.” The analyst sees interest rate volatility as a major source of market volatility, as the long end of the curve steepens while the U.S. dollar is pushed lower.

Cryptocurrencies fell under increased pressures as equity markets deteriorated throughout the day, possibly due to a “scramble for liquidity” resulting from traders “pushing up against margin calls and needing to free up cash.”

Steinglass said:

“I interpret the GBTC premium collapse as a sign that either retail is dumping to free liquidity, or large fund holders like ARKW are seeing outflows, which causes them to sell GBTC along with everything else.”

Traditional markets are still choppy

The 10-year Treasury yield pulled back .0582 basis points to 1.46 on Feb. 26, marking a 3.82% decrease from its high on the previous day. This leadi to a choppy day in the markets which saw the major indices close mixed.

The NASDAQ finished the day up 0.56%, recovering some of its losses from the 3.5% drop on Feb. 25. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and DOW finished the day in the red, down 0.48% and 1.51% respectively.

A majority of the top cryptocurrencies also took on sharp losses on Friday, with the exception of Cardano (ADA), which became the third-ranked cryptocurrency by market cap after its price broke out to a new all-time high at $1.29. The current excitement for the altcoin appears to be connected to the upcoming ‘Mary’ mainnet launch scheduled for March 1.

Basic Attention Token (BAT) has also battled back against the market sell-off to post a 6.43% gain following the Feb. 23 announcement of the upcoming Brave Decentralized Exchange (DEX).

Ether (ETH) price is down 7.19%  and trading below $1,500, while Binance Coin (BNB) has dropped 8.36% to $224.14

The overall cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $1.533 trillion and Bitcoin’s dominance rate is 61.3%.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/increasing-stock-market-volatility-drags-bitcoin-and-altcoin-prices-lower