Trading Desk Market Update: 2/21

February 21, 2022

BTC is currently trading around $37,600 and ETH around $2,600.  Notable gainers in the last 24 hours are QNT, WAVES, and LUNA.  The global crypto market cap is $1.79T, down 1.9% over the last day.  DeFi Total Value Locked is ~$194b and BTC dominance is around 42%.

BTC is down 6% since Friday’s close as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues to intensify and hopes of a peace summit between Russian President Putin and US President Biden were dashed after Putin said it would be premature to meet.  Global equity markets are down, with particular pressure on Chinese tech stocks, while US equity markets are closed today.

In other news: Russia’s Ministry of Finance has formally submitted a draft bill on crypto regulation aimed at creating a legal market for digital currencies; senior Federal Reserve officials are now banned from trading stocks, bonds, and crypto; Wyoming lawmakers have proposed legislation for the state issue its own stablecoin; a phishing attack has stolen $1.7m in NFTs and ETH from OpenSea users; centralized crypto lending company Nexo is closing its Earn Interest Product to new US users; play-to-earn game DeFi Kingdoms generated 1.8b transactions in January, more than triple the next closest game; and, crypto exchange FTX is launching FTX Gaming, a new unit that helps gaming studios integrate blockchain tech and NFTs in to their games.

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