What Happened in the Crypto Industry & NOBI During the Past Week?

Hello, NOBI’s! Numerous surprises arose in the crypto space during the second week of 2023. Started with a remarkable spike in the price of Solana (SOL), which has attracted investor interest. Then, news emerged from the web3 industry, which is projected to achieve a valuation of IDR824.45 trillion in less than ten years. What else? We recap what’s been happening in the crypto industry during the past week!

1. Hong Kong Reasserts Desire To Be a Hub for the Crypto Industry

Hong Kong is firmly anchored in its focus on becoming a global crypto hub. This commitment is despite the incident of the collapse of FTX and several other digital asset companies that filed for bankruptcy some time ago. After years of enforcing strict crypto regulations, the government is now starting to push to make it easier for retail investors to trade digital assets.

It turns out that they have been planning this ambition for a long time and now the government is starting to get serious about making it happen. Hong Kong’s Secretary of Finance, Paul Chan Mo-po, emphasized the government’s commitment to supporting the development of the digital asset industry at the web3 summit meeting in Cyberport, Monday (9/1).

2. Cardano DeFi Taps Two Month High as ADA Price Surges

The crypto market seemed to be getting excited again yesterday (9/1), and Cardano (ADA) was successful ahead of other crypto assets. The performance of decentralized finance (DeFi) on the network has also started to improve again. This is also reinforced by DeFi Cardano’s total value locked (TVL) achievement, which has scored its highest level in the last two months. According to DeFiLlama, TVL locked in the Cardano ecosystem has shot up 40% since the start of this year.

Currently, its TVL amount has touched US$90 million, which is the highest level since early November. However, this number is still smaller than the Ethereum network or BNB Chain. But recently, Cardano has managed to outpace their growth.

3. Solana Price Surge Attracts Investors, What’s Driving It?

Unexpectedly, Solana price has succeeded in carving out a one-week price rally. This achievement allowed him to significantly outperform almost all other crypto assets in performance. Then, as soon as the price of the centralized smart contract token stabilized, investors began to express their optimism about how high the price could skyrocket in the future.

Recent tweet from Vitalik Buterin and the enthusiasm surrounding the Solana network’s first meme coin, Bonk (BONK), are believed to be just two of the many other variables that have contributed to the rise in SOL’s price, according to crypto analytics service Messari. On the other hand, during the first week of 2023, the price of Solana (SOL) was noted to have jumped sharply from US$9.7 to US$17.50. As a result, SOL’s trading volume has also increased, and Wallet Investor predicts that SOL has the potential to reach new highs in 2023.

4. Web 3.0 Market Valuation to Reach IDR 824.45 By 2033

In the midst of an increasingly critical crypto industry, the growth of the web3 market is predicted to have good luck. This is in line with the projection of a research institute from India named Straitsresearch which states that the web3 market value in less than 10 years will reach more than IDR 824.45 trillion or around US $ 52.89 billion. This prediction will be largely driven by the transfer of ownership of data to users, transparency that runs even better, and guaranteed data security.

As we know, web3 itself is a decentralized internet that allows its users to be part of the development of the industry itself. It is this concept that has been impossible to materialize in the development of the web2 concept. In its development efforts, the Asia Pacific region will become one of the markets that has the fastest development rate. Meanwhile, North America is predicted to be the biggest market for web3 in 2030.

5. Mastercard Taps Polygon for Musical Artist Accelerator Program

One of the world’s largest payment processing operators Mastercard recently entered into a collaboration with the layer-2 network Polygon. Through this partnership, Mastercard will help emerging music artists create their own personal branding via web3. Based on the official announcement from Polygon, a program called the Mastercard Artist Accelerator Program will begin in the spring of 2023.

This Mastercard program aims to help music artists from all walks of life; such as musicians, DJs, to producers. Selected artists will receive training to utilize blockchain technology. Furthermore, the program will also train these artists so they can build their personal branding through NFT and metaverse.

That wraps up for Crypto This Week. We’ll see you at the next one!