Last Week in Review: Crypto became a financial product in South Africa, and a few Bitcoin indicators flashed green

by Team Luno
· 3 minute read

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

Cryptocurrencies was officially declared an investment product in South Africa 

  • The Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA), the financial regulator in South Africa, last week declared cryptocurrencies a financial product. 
  • It will allow the regulator to create a safe investment environment for crypto investors, but the move will also help further adoption by institutional investors, who were blocked from investing in digital assets due to a lack of regulation in the space. 
  • The declaration is effective immediately. 

Bitcoin’s rolling volatility dipped below that of equity markets 

  • The price of the leading cryptocurrency has been hovering around $19,000 for more than a month, which has pushed down its 20-day volatility to levels below those in the Nasdaq and SP500, according to crypto data firm Kaiko.  
  • It’s the first time since 2020 that this has happened. 
  • Should Bitcoin continue to hold these levels, it may resurface conversations about the cryptocurrency serving as a form of digital gold. 

Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky social network has a waiting list of people wanting to sign up 

  • In two days, more than 30,000 people signed up for the Twitter founder’s new decentralised social network, called Bluesky.
  • Signups for the waiting list opened Tuesday last week, and the company will be sending private invites to people on this list as part of its testing phase.
  • Bluesky aims to be a kind of social internet, giving users more control over their experience. “An open and durable decentralised protocol for public conversations can allow users a choice in their experience, creators control over their relationships with their audience, and developers freedom to innovate without permission from a platform,” the company noted in April.

Crypto exchanges see largest Bitcoin outflows since June 

  • Data by CryptoQuant shows that 37,800 Bitcoins left crypto exchanges on 18 October, marking the biggest outflow since June.
     
  • Large withdrawals from exchanges usually means that investors are choosing to hold their Bitcoins in expectation of rising prices, instead of keeping their coins on an exchange in case they need to sell.
  • This data comes amid the price of Bitcoin now having hovered in the $19,000 range for more than a month. 

TL;Did read

What do regulators mean when they say Bitcoin is a non-security token?

Gary Gensler is famous in the crypto community by virtue of his position as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US, a regulator that has a lot of say in what the future may hold for crypto, in the US and abroad. Gensler has in the past mentioned a few times that Bitcoin may be viewed as a non-security in future regulation, leading to whooping and cheers from most corners of the crypto world.

But why?

Crunching the numbers

$69,045 – Bitcoin’s all-time high, which it hit 10 November 2021

1,814 – How many Ether, Ethereum’s cryptocurrency, has been added to the overall supply since the Merge (as at Saturday, 22 October)

454,648 – Had the Merge not taken place and Ethereum remained on a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, this number could have been as high as 454,648 ETH. It’s more proof that Ethereum may soon become deflationary, giving it a scarce asset appeal, like that found in gold or Bitcoin

200 – The lowest successful bidder recently paid 200 ETH ($261,682 at the time) for an NFT golden skateboard by Azuki, an NFT project featuring a collection of 10,000 sideways-facing anime characters

The crypto time capsule

October, 12 years ago. That purchase is worth around $10,000. 

Crypto trivia

Who invented blockchain technology? 

The anonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, was also the creator of blockchain technology, an integral part of the Bitcoin network. Think of a blockchain as a non-editable Google Drive for a cryptocurrency, and the cryptocurrency as the files inside the drive. Bitcoin, or any cryptocurrency, couldn’t function without a blockchain. 

Worth a watch

Cathie Wood, founder of ARK Invest, is known for her controversial investing approach. She discusses with Peter McCormack, the host of the What Bitcoin Did podcast, how she bought $100,000 of Bitcoin at $250 a pop, and investing in disruptive technologies.  

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