TIM THOMAS

Weekly Crypto and NFT Markets Wrap - Blockchain Jobs Boom, Rio Property Tax Rebate for Bitcoin Use, ETH and BTC Bounce 01/17/22

Crypto traders have spent the last week anxiously watching the markets to see if prices would recover — and in most cases, the answer is a resounding “yes.” The bulk of prices are up and recovering, so anyone with a trading strategy that involved waiting for a further crash will no doubt be regretting it now.

Leading the pack is SCRT, with a 53.3% increase in price, bringing the coin only slightly below its all-time high. Other success stories include ROSE (up 51.6%), NEAR (up 45.1%), and FTM (up 43.2%). Despite the overall success of the market, not everyone was a winner. Right at the bottom was OHM (down 36.8%), and other coins that have suffered include TIME (down 18%), LRC (down 10.2%), and ICP (down 4.8%). So, how did the big boys fare? There were only moderate changes, but they went in the right direction. ETH increased by 8.4%, SOL by 4.1%, and BTC by 3.6%. Could this be the right time to start your 2022 investing?

The crypto job market has gotten off to a great start this year, with LinkedIn reporting growth of 395% for job postings that include crypto-related terms such as “blockchain” and “bitcoin.” January is known for being prime time for hiring, but this is a dramatic increase even by those standards. If you’re considering a career change, you know what to do.

Hulu may have been one of the companies contributing to the statistics — the streaming giant recently posted a job advert asking for “the streamers of tomorrow” to join it, specifically requesting candidates with a background in cryptocurrency and metaverse platforms. The move is a result of the demand for this type of content across younger audiences.

2021 turned out to be a very successful year for North Korean hackers, with a recent report revealing that there were at least seven separate attacks from the nation, which secured an impressive total of $400 million. Many of these hacks come from an entity known as the Lazarus Group, which is the country’s leading intelligence agency.

Stablecoin protocol Tether froze $160 million worth of its currency last week, all of which was held by three Ethereum addresses. It’s not the first time — there are already hundreds of addresses with accounts blacklisted by Tether. The move was allegedly due to a request from law enforcement, but further details haven’t been made public.

A few Latin American nations have made some significant strides into the world of cryptocurrency, and the latest in the line is Brazil. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro has revealed that the city may give individuals a 10% discount on their property taxes if they pay them using bitcoin. Plus, the city plans to use 1% of its treasure reserves to invest in cryptocurrencies.

We’ve seen plenty of companies and individuals unexpectedly start to get involved in blockchain over the last year or so, and the latest is Walmart. The retail giant filed seven trademarks at the end of 2021 in the hopes of launching on the metaverse to sell virtual products. It might even be considering creating its own cryptocurrency and NFTs. However, Walmart hasn’t released further information on how it plans to use the trademarks.

And as a bonus, one surprise that came last week was that Reese Witherspoon is now a fully converted crypto advocate. On Tuesday last week, she tweeted that we can expect that “avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm”  in the future, along with an NFT profile picture. Who would have guessed?

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