Last Week in Review: Bitcoin among top investment searches, and banks may hold more crypto if bill cleared

The highlights from last week’s headline grabbers. All the important news, numbers and events from the crypto industry in easy-to-read, digestible news bites.
News from the block
📝 Smart contracts on Ethereum increased four-fold following Merge
- The number of smart contracts deployed on Ethereum increased by 453% in the time following the Merge. This is according to the Web3 Development report by Alchemy.
- Also of note is that 94% of developers questioned in the survey said they feel bullish about the future of web3.
- Web3 developers have been building at rates last seen during the boom cycle in 2021, despite the extreme challenges the crypto industry has had to endure in the last months.
- The Merge was a big deal for Ethereum, which is why it’s important to understand what exactly happened and what it means for the second-largest crypto in future. Hop on it, HERE.
🟠 Bitcoin among top investment searches on Google in 2022
- In June 2022, Bitcoin was among the most searched for investment terms on Google.
- The Visual Capitalist created a visual representation of the Google data as seen below.
Source: Visual Capitalist
- No big surprise too that questions around the interest rate forecast dominated Google search terms for most of the year, especially towards the end.
- If you’re wondering why investors start fidgeting at the mere whisper of a rate hike, we have something you might want to read. We’ve covered most of what there is to know about interest rates and its heated relationship with investing, HERE.
🏦 EU banks will in future able to hold 2% of assets in crypto
- European Union (EU) regulators have taken the first steps to introduce legislation that would require traditional banks to hold
1 Euro for every Bitcoin or other crypto they own, as reported by Reuters.
- While regulators have called the move “prohibitive”, the upside is that when the law is passed, it will allow banks to hold 2% of their assets in crypto, very likely driving further adoption.
- The pending legislation is in line with recommendations from global banking regulators.
🤖 Of course there’s a connection between ChatGPT and crypto
- Just when you thought ChatGPT and other AI software had infiltrated just about every sacred inch of daily life, Time magazine is here to remind you of the tech’s far-reaching implications for the Metaverse.
- Builders will rely on AI tech to generate visuals and designs for customisable worlds in the metaverse.
- “So without needing a background in design or architecture, AI users will eventually be able to create virtual 3D environments: first rooms, then buildings, then entire worlds,” says the author.
TL;Did read

Ok, so this week’s long read isn’t all that long, which is even more reason to commit to a shallow dive on Cardano 📖READ HERE.
Crunching the numbers
38% – The price of Bitcoin is up by almost 40% over the last month.
60% – The price of eggs in the US jumped by 60% in 2022, pushed along by inflationary pressures.
2% – If legislated, a new bill approved by the Economic Affairs Committee of the European Parliament will allow banks in the EU to hold up to 2% of assets in crypto by January 2025.
83% – Solana saw the highest number of new developers contributing to its ecosystem in 2022, with its developer count rising by 83%, the fastest of any major blockchain.
20 – Rating agency Moody’s is working on a new system to analyse up to 20 stablecoins plus their reserves.
The crypto time capsule
One whole Bitcoin trading for $300, eight years ago.
Crypto trivia
Staking may seem like a lot to take in but allow us to demystify the why and the how ✨READ HERE.
Worth a watch
Charles Hoskinson (🤠), the founder of Cardano, gives us a rundown on the recent network outage and how these systems are designed to recover, self-heal, when things go wrong.