Winter Holidays’ Crypto News Recap — December
In our Winter Holidays Recap:
- A whopping 388% surge in stablecoin supply in 2021
- Richest millennials own crypto and plan even more investments in 2022
- Instagram plans to add NFTs
- Basketball superstar launches NFT collection
- Chinese state news agency releases NFTs amid current crypto ban
- Binance gets approval to provide services in Bahrain
#1 The future is bright for stablecoins
2021 has been a year marked by a huge number of businesses and individuals putting stablecoins to use.
The total supply of dollar-backed cryptocurrencies (stablecoins) has increased from $29 billion to more than $140 billion in 2021. That means a whopping 388% growth, according to the 2022 Digital Asset Outlook report by The Block Research.
This staggering increase has benefited numerous stablecoins, including Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), and Binance USD (BUSD).
What’s contributed to this massive surge?
👉 Stablecoins are used by high-speed crypto trading firms to manage volatility when trading between different cryptocurrencies.
👉 As a result, retail traders have taken the opportunity to earn juicy yields by depositing their stablecoins on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms.
👉 The derivatives market fueled (pun intended) the growth of stablecoins too since most derivatives exchanges use stablecoins to settle futures contracts.
The future is bright for stablecoins. According to Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire, in 2022, more companies will turn to stablecoins to improve payments, more people and businesses will hold stablecoins, which will generate more demand for them.
#2 83% of millennial millionaires own crypto and plan even more investments in 2022
Another news item confirming 2021 has been the year of crypto adoption is that the majority of millennial millionaires, 83% in fact, have invested a large portion of their portfolio in crypto.
Here are a few more interesting findings from a new CNBC survey that questioned investors with $1 million or more in assets:
👉 More than half of millennial millionaires (53%) have at least 50% of their portfolio in cryptocurrency.
👉 Almost a third of them have put at least three-quarters of their wealth into crypto assets.
👉 Young TikTok investors have made millions of dollars on investments in meme currencies.
👉 There’s a massive generation gap in terms of crypto investments. GenX (Age: 41–56) has invested only 4% in digital assets and only one-fourth of GenX owns crypto.
The new generations’ growing interest in the crypto market could pose a problem for wealth managers. This means they will have to reconsider their approach to younger investors.
#3 NFTs on Instagram are coming soon
What else could be better evidence of the fast expansion of the NFT (Non-Fungible Token) market than social media giants adding them to their platform?
TikTok’s first-ever NFT series, TikTok Top Moments, was launched in October 2021. It contained six viral, “community-defining” videos by top TikTok influencers.
In an unofficial announcement, Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri has recently confirmed Instagram is exploring NFTs and considering options to make them more accessible to the masses.
Quite similarly to TikTok’s NFT approach, Instagram is planning to help its top creators and influencers promote their content in a tokenized form and earn extra revenue.
Cool news for both creators and fans, we’d say…
#4 NBA icon releases NFT collection to celebrate his record-breaking achievement
Basketball superstar, Stephen Curry is known as one of the best shooters ever. He is now also a record-holder of scoring the most 3-pointers in history.
To celebrate his achievement, he has launched an NFT collection that includes every 3-pointer he has scored in his NBA career. Each item in the “2974 Collection” costs $499 and is available at 2974sc.com.
The proceeds from the sale will be donated to Eat.Learn.Play, a charity foundation he established with his wife, Ayesha Curry to support children.
Curry is not new to the cryptosphere: he is an NFT owner, plus global ambassador and shareholder of the crypto exchange platform, FTX.
Sports meets crypto + digital culture + charity = a formula for success.
#5 Chinese state news agency launches NFTs amid current ban on crypto
Despite the overall anti-crypto attitude of the Chinese government, state-run Xinhua News Agency has just released its first NFT collection of 11 photos taken by journalists in 2021.
With this occasion, Xinhua has joined the ranks of other media outlets that have begun using blockchain to mark historical events.
The digital news collectibles contain a selection of Xinhua’s 2021 news photography reports. Cool thing, these digital memories are available for free and will also be stored in the metaverse.
So far so good, but there’s one more thing to acknowledge. The announcement came amid a year-long ban in China on private crypto activities including trading and mining. Still, NFTs remain a gray area, and have not yet been banned by Chinese authorities.
#6 Binance receives ‘in principle’ approval to provide services in Bahrain
The number of countries officially recognizing crypto companies is growing day-by-day. Here’s a new instance to prove this.
Binance, a top cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has been given a nod to operate in Bahrain. With this event, the country becomes the first one in the Middle East to officially approve Binance as a crypto service provider.
The ‘in principle’ approval means that Binance still has to go through the entire application procedure to get a license from Bahrain’s Central Bank.
Two things are sure:
👉 Binance is taking serious steps to become a fully regulated centralized crypto exchange with worldwide operations.
👉 Bahrain is also serious about developing its crypto business. Let’s not forget CoinMENA, a crypto exchange that follows Islamic law, or shariah, was approved in January 2021.
Another country sets an example to follow…
