On this Wednesday morning, this is what you need to know from the world of bitcoin and crypto.
24-hour crypto market snapshot
Bitcoin (+0.5%) $49,146
Ethereum (-0.5%) $4,016
Cardano (+8%) $1.36
Luna (+15%) $96.42
Cryptocurrency prices are still soaring this morning, giving traders some Christmas cheer.
The bitcoin price is nudging $50,000 but has so far failed to break the psychological barrier. If it does so convincingly, bulls will be feeling in control heading into the long holiday weekend but a swing and a miss could knock confidence in a time of historically low trading volumes, meaning potentially big swings.
Ethereum is looking slightly healthier, with its price back above $4,000, though barely.
Cardano, one of ethereum’s biggest rivals, has rocketed almost 10% over the last 24 hours after founder Charles Hoskinson tweeted that he thinks an upgrade scheduled for next month is “pretty remarkable.” Cardano surged and then crashed back around its last big September upgrade.
Terra’s luna, designed to power a price-stable global payments systems with fiat-pegged stablecoins, has continued to soar, adding a further 15% over the last 24 hours and taking its weekly gains to around 65% as it continues to make its way up the ranks.
Just outside the crypto top ten, as measured by CoinMarketCap, “dogecoin killer” shiba inu is climbing and could once more overtake dogecoin to become the dominant memecoin.
Arsenal shown red card
Arsenal is the first club soccer club whose fan token marketing has been found to break advertising rules
Sent off: The U.K.’s advertising regulator has rebuked Arsenal, one of the country’s biggest soccer clubs, for its promotion of crypto-based “fan tokens” after finding a web page and a Facebook post broke advertising rules. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had investigated two Arsenal advertisements that ran online in August and determined that they were “irresponsible” and in breach of U.K. marketing rules.
First foul: The first ruling focused on content on Arsenal’s official website—specifically a page posted on August 6 2021 with the title “$AFC Fan Token: Everything you need to know.” The watchdog found the post and website text were “irresponsible” because they took advantage of consumers’ inexperience or credulity and trivialized crypto investment and “misleading” because they failed to illustrate the risk of the investment.
Second foul: A Facebook post on the club’s official page, made on August 12 2021, which read: “$AFC is now live” and asked fans: “What song do you want to hear when we win? Download the Socios app to get your token and vote.” In the future the soccer club must make it clear that fan tokens are digital assets and “that the value of investments in crypto-assets was variable and crypto-assets were unregulated”, the ASA ruled. Arsenal told the Financial Times that it planned on seeking an independent review of the regulator’s rulings, “to seek greater clarity on the ASA’s current position”.
Fan tokens? Cryptocurrencies that give token holders the ability to vote or otherwise influence the running of a sports club have fast through soccer clubs in Europe and around the world this year, most based on the chiliz blockchain. So far, across the five major European leagues, 24 clubs have launched or are considering launching fan tokens, including eight Premier League sides. Still more are looking to sell digital collectibles in the form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens). In September, Sorare, a French company that sells football trading cards in the form of NFTs, raised $680 million in funding.
Crackdown: Just last week, the ASA warned over “widespread” problems with misleading and irresponsible ads, issuing rulings against several major crypto companies, including Coinbase and eToro.
El Salvador’s magic number
El Salvador, after going all-in on bitcoin earlier this year, has bought another 21 bitcoins to mark the 21st day of the last month of the 21st year of the 21st century, taking its stash to 1,141 bitcoins.
El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele said via Twitter alongside a screenshot of the transactions, adding the country’s land area is 21,000 square kilometers.
The reason for the fixation on the number 21 is that there will only ever be just over 21 million bitcoins created, with the final few not “mined” until well into the next century.