11/12 FAL Weekly Digest

Welcome to the FAL Weekly Digest, a source for this week’s biggest news articles and crypto market updates.

Here is what you need to know:

Panic ensued throughout financial circles on Wednesday as news of Evergrande potentially defaulting on their loans spread across social media.

Global Markets Fumble As Evergrande Makes Last Minute Debt Payment

Chinese real estate developer Evergrande has once again caused a stir in the financial world as it continues to struggle to repay its debt obligations. The company narrowly avoided a default on its loans Wednesday as it made a last minute payment of about $148 million USD towards overdue interest payments. The world’s most indebted developer owes about $308 billion USD in total liabilities that have to be repaid by June 2022.

While officials from China such as Yu Yongding, former adviser for the People’s Bank of China, state that “overseas investors don’t need to worry about China” and that “problems of financial institutions like Evergrande are controllable", there are many leading figures who disagree.

The U.S. Federal Reserve and the German Market Screening Agency (DMSA) have both released reports detailing the repercussions of a default of the world’s most indebted corporation as a possible cause for a “Great Reset” for global financial markets due to the size of China’s economy and extensive trade links to the rest of the world. For more information regarding the on-going situation, please see our analysis found here.

Market Update - Bitcoin and Taproot

The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization is about $2.81 trillion USD, a 3.30% increase from last week’s valuation of $2.72 trillion. At the time of publication, Bitcoin ($BTC) is valued at $64,074 per Bitcoin with a market capitalization of $1.21 trillion making up 43.2% of the overall crypto market.

Bitcoin has endured a tumultuous week, reaching new all time high prices of $69,000 on Wednesday and falling to a low of $62,800 on the same day as a result of the Evergrande scare. Although the price fell about 10% in less than 24 hours, the asset and overall market quickly bounced back upwards and has remained relatively stable above $63k. For a more in-depth analysis, please see our technical review found here.

Many speculate that Bitcoin’s latest update, the “Taproot” upgrade, could have a potential bullish influence on BTC’s market valuation. The update will bring several improvements to the Bitcoin Core software and should help improve BTC transaction costs. Taproot is expected to launch Sunday, November 14th.

New York Launches its Own Cryptocurrency

The City of New York has partnered with CityCoins to create its own digital currency called New York City Coin or NYCCoin. This comes as part of Mayor-elect Eric Adams’ greater push to welcome crypto based companies in New York as well as incentivize the usage of digital currencies as payments in the city.

During an interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Adams spoke about cryptocurrency and how it is “a new way of paying for goods and services throughout the entire globe.” The politician even went as far as to suggest that New York City schools should begin to teach about the growing asset class, imploring city officials to “open our schools to teach the technology, to teach this new way of thinking.”

An Avalanche is Coming

One of the fastest growing projects in the crypto space, Avalanche ($AVAX) is a layer one blockchain that can host decentralized applications and fully customizable “sub-blockchains.” It is considered a promising rival to the Ethereum network as it already features smart contract capabilities. Launched in 2020, the project is already the 13th largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization ($18.5 billion). For more information about Avalanche, see our full in-depth analysis written by our lead software engineer Stephen Arancio.

Beeple NFT Sells for $29 Million

Digital artist Beeple, known for creating the most expensive NFT ever that sold for $69.3 million, has now followed up and sold another NFT called “HUMAN ONE” for $28.9 million at a Christie’s auction on Tuesday.

The “HUMAN ONE” is the first hybrid physical and digital artwork created by the artist, where it is a 3D moving display of an astronaut walking in a variety of extraterrestrial environments. Purchase of the artwork includes the physical display of the 3D image and the digital NFT hosted on the Ethereum blockchain. Ryan Zurrer, former venture partner of Polychain Capital, was the lucky winner at the Christie’s auction.

Thanks for reading! For more information regarding the cryptocurrency space, please visit us at https://www.cryptofal.com/.