Bitcoin volatility lower than Dow with another Fed rate hike of 75 basis points looming

The biggest news in the cryptoverse for Oct. 21 includes the likelihood of the Federal Reserve increasing the interest rates by another 75 basis points in early November, the emergence and price surge of two new meme coins created out of a joke from Vitalik Buterin, and Circle and Axelar’s new protocol seamlessly allowing USDC transactions cross-chain.

Fed likely to hike interest rates by 75 basis points in November meeting

Federal Reserve officials are currently working on introducing an additional 75 basis point rate hike. The rate is likely to be introduced in the upcoming meeting on November 1-2.

The FED has been increasing the rate by 75 basis points each time in the last three meetings held in September.

Vitalik jokes led to 2 new memecoins that surged over 300%

The Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin joked about a hypothetical DIE coin, saying that he’d get a shirt of a token with a name like that.

Today, the DIE token is real and is being traded on Pancakeswap for $0.000341. In the last 24 hours, the DIE token surged by 300% and reached a trading volume of $730,000 from 740 transactions.

USDC, Axelar’s new protocol has bridge-free cross-chain swaps; does away with bridged tokens

Axelar and Circle announced the launch of the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, which allows users to transfer USDC cross-chain without wrapping tokens or lending the assets to a cross-chain bridge.

Jason Ma from Axelar shared his comments with CryptoSlate on the matter and said:

“LPs never hold bridged assets. This removes the biggest point of friction we’ve encountered when talking to blue-chip DeFi apps. There is only some risk for the users over a small window of time.”

INTERPOL takes global policing to the Metaverse

The International Police Organization announced that it intends to bring law enforcement to the Metaverse. Interpol will bring law enforcement officials together to train and will start fighting crime in the real world and online.

Polkadot ecosystem falls 2.9% after founder Gavin Wood steps down as Parity CEO

Polkadot (DOT) founder Gavin Wood announced his resignation by saying:

“I’ll be pointing my regained focus towards exploring how we can contribute to making Polkadot and Web3 more relevant to large swathes of the population,”

The DOT responded to the news by losing over 2.9% of its market cap in the last 24 hours to fall around $13 billion. On the other hand, the DOT price fell by 4.3% to reach $5,84, while Kusama (KSM) token has fallen by 7% in the last 24 hours.

White hat hacker returns $300k gained from OlympusDAO exploit

A white hacker exploited Olympus DAO’s and stole 30,437 OHM tokens, which were worth around $300,000. After that, the hacker returned the stolen amount back to the DAO in two separate transactions.

It seems the related @OlympusDAO‘s BondFixedExpiryTeller contract has a redeem() function that does not properly validate the input, resulting in ~$292K loss. https://t.co/dkhC5Ex9sz https://t.co/ikidpLyBga pic.twitter.com/wu5tUrepS6

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) October 21, 2022

Blockchain security firm Peckshield said that the hacker was able to exploit the contract’s “BondFixedExpiryTeller,” inability to validate the transfer request properly.

CFTC aggressively enforced actions against 18 crypto-related cases in 2022

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) aggressively enforced 18 crypto-related legal actions since the beginning of 2022.  Overall, the CFTC imposed over $2.5 billion in fines with 82 legal actions involving commodity assets.

Collapsed crypto exchange ACX used $20M of customers fund for business loan

Investigations on the bankrupt crypto exchange ACX revealed that the platform used over $20 million of its customers’ funds as loan support for its parent company Blockchain Global.

Blockchain Global launched the ACX exchange in 2016, and the platform has been functioning until it froze the withdrawals and went bankrupt in Oct. 2021.

BitKeep unveils redemption portal for victims of Swap hack

Bitkeep launched a website for the victims of its recent exploitation. The news was announced on Bitkeep’s official Twitter account, and promised full compensation.

You may know that BitKeep Swap was hacked on Oct 18, 2022 and resulted in asset loss for some BitKeep users.

With full compensation promised, we have launched a redemption portal for this matter. 👇https://t.co/e46fsQMNFV

— BitKeep Wallet (@BitKeepOS) October 21, 2022

Bitkeep was attacked earlier in the week and lost over $1 million from assets on BNB Chain and Polygon.

South Korean police raid Hancom Inc offices, chairman’s home over slush fund suspicions

South Korean prosecutors raided software company Hancom Inc.’s offices and the house of the Hancom Group Chairman for allegedly manipulating the price of Arowana tokens.

The raid and arrests came after the Arowana prices spiked from 50 won ($0.03) to 53,800 won ($37.56) in 30 seconds.

Hong Kong Chief Executive proposes statutory licensing for VASPs in his policy address

The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region submitted a proposal that suggests establishing a statutory licensing regime for virtual asset providers. The proposal also calls on The Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (HKMA)efforts to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins.

CryptoSlate Exclusive

Cozies look to tackle web3’s crypto-bro, degen culture through Hygge ‘cozy’ culture NFTs

CryptoSlate talked to Andrew Fai and the NFT project Cozies’ team about the launch of the new NFT line. The collection is focused on the Danish concept “Hygge”, which translates as “to give courage, comfort, joy” or simply “cozy” in English.

Andrew Fai, who is a veteran and founder of the Asia Blockchain Summit, is the leader of the Cozies team and he told CryptoSlate that the team is on a mission to bring forth a Cozy identity movement.

He said:

“Our first goal is to establish a strong, Cozy identity – being comfortable with who you are, what you own, and where you are going. The Cozies art is deeply rooted in these values, and we aim to bring it to life through powerful storytelling and a unique and dynamic community infrastructure inspired by RPG gaming and soul-bound token (SBT) utilization.

Through this, Cozies will become the cozy and serene corner of Web3 and a gentle reminder to become more mindful of one’s own well-being and cherish real and digital experiences.”

Research Highlight

Research: Bitcoin weathers macro headwinds as Dow Jones sinks

Bitcoin (BTC) has been relatively stable, moving between  $18,100 and $20,500 since mid-September. The chart below demonstrates the recent stability in Bitcoin prices.

Dow Jones, on the other hand, has been getting increasingly more volatile. The chart below shows the ten-day realized volatility spread between Dow Jones against Bitcoin.

The volatility has reached a point where Dow Jones is now more volatile than Bitcoin.

News from around the Cryptoverse

Bitget partners with Messi

Crypto exchange Bitget announced that it inked a new partnership with the famous football player Lionel Messi. The announcement post states that the dup will “explore the areas of Web3, cryptocurrency and football.”

Crypto Market

In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin (BTC) increased by -0.73% to trade at $19,213, while Ethereum (ETH) also spiked by -1.38% to trade at $1,303.

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