Cryptocurrency price news – Bitcoin hits record high and Shiba Inu coin up today after Braintrust crypto exchange error

LATEST CRYTO PRICES

According to CoinDesk, these are the latest prices, as of Friday night:

• Bitcoin (BTC): $60,815, -3.0%
• Ether (ETH): $3,974, -2.4%
• S&P 500: $4,544, -0.11%
• Gold: $1,793, +0.62%

BITCOIN DOWN

Bitcoin’s price continued going down on Friday, ending the week two per cent down, according to Coindesk.

Meanwhile, the ether cryptocurrency ended the week with a 1.7 per cent gain.

HOW HAS THE PRICE OF SHIBA INU CHANGED?

In the past month, Shiba has skyrocketed more than 300 percent.

Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind Tesla has a Shibu Inu puppy and posted a picture of it on the social media site.

But what does the future has in store for the dog meme cryptocurrency?

The Sun spoke to experts to find out what lies ahead — and what the cryptocurrency could be worth in 2022.

Shibu Inu is a cryptocurrency token that allows users to hold trillions of them.

Tokens of Shiba Inu feature the same dog as Dogecoin, which has become one of the most popular cryptocurrencies this year.

WHAT ARE ALTCOINS?

Altcoin stands for alternative coin, a type of virtual currency that uses the so-called blockchain to allow secure transactions. 

Altcoin is a category of cryptocurrency rather than a currency itself, and there are more than 900 different altcoins available.

Simon Peters, crypto-asset analyst at eToro, said: “They build on the success of bitcoin by slightly changing the rules, economics or use cases to appeal to different users.”

“Altcoins vary greatly in their use cases and practical application. They typically have a form of technology they underpin or provide a liquidity solution to a product or service.”

HOW VALUABLE IS THE CRYPTO ECONOMY NOW?

The crypto economy is approaching $3trillion in value.

This week, the crypto economy became worth more than Apple, and bitcoin became the sixth most valuable asset in the world.

WHAT IS TETHER?

The Tether cryptocurrency, which is also known as USDT, was officially launched as Realcoin in 2014, but has since changed its name.

It’s described as a “stablecoin”, which is a type of cryptocurrency that aims to keep crypto values stable.

Tether aims to do this by pegging the price to a regular “fiat” currency, like US dollars, Euros or the Chinese yuan.

Tether claims to keep values steady by holding reserves in that currency in a bank.

CHINA’S CRACKDOWN ON CRYPTO IS ‘BIG OPPORTUNITY’ FOR US

China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency transactions “is a big opportunity for the U.S.”, according to Pat Toomey, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.

This comes as the US Securities and Exchange Commission lobbied for more regulations when it comes to cryptocurrency.

IS MESUT OZIL RELEASING HIS OWN CRYPTOCURRENCY?

Former Arsenal star Mesut Ozil will launch his own cryptocurrency this week.

The 32-year-old playmaker, who left the Emirates for Fenerbahce in January, is expanding his M10 brand by creating a digital coin.

SunSport understands he will officially launch his cryptocurrency over the coming days.

WHAT IS LITECOIN?

As the name indicates, the cryptocurrency is small.

But Litecoin, which was established in 2011 by Google engineer Charlie Lee, operates similarly to Bitcoin.

Mr Lee on occasions refers to Litecoin as the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold.”

The two cryptocurrencies act similarly in how their global payment operations are set up. Both are not controlled by financial institutions.

BITCOIN SCORES NEW HIGH AFTER DORSEY TWEET

Bitcoin’s price hit a six-month-high of $62,000 after Dorsey tweeted about the possible Square development last Friday, according to CoinDesk and Business Insider.

That surge launched its year-to-date gains to 114 percent.

It was last trading around $64,200 on Tuesday afternoon.

SQUARE MAY BUILD BITCOIN MINING HARDWARE

Square CEO Jack Dorsey said the company may create a bitcoin mining rig in a tweet on Friday, according to Business Insider.

“Square is considering building a bitcoin mining system based on custom silicon and open source for individuals and businesses worldwide,” CEO Dorsey said in a tweet late that day.

“If we do this, we’d follow our hardware wallet model: build in the open in collaboration with the community.”

WHAT IS A DIGITAL WALLET?

A digital wallet is a gadget or piece of software that securely stores users’ payment information and passwords for numerous payment methods.

They allow users to store cryptocurrencies, make online or in-store purchases, and track their finances.

In 2019 Facebook said it plans to introduce a cryptocurrency that at the time was called Libra.

The tecg titan said it wanted to create a separate, private currency system to allow users to make cross-border payments more easily.

WHAT IS COTI?

Coti is a blockchain platform with tools that let organizations build their own payment solution.

For example, merchants can create branded stablecoins to boost checkout options for customers.

The platform also has its own token with the same name.

The Coti group first launched in 2017, with “Coti” being an acronym for “currency of the internet”.

WHAT IS HBAR CRYPTO?

Hashgraph is similar to a blockchain and was created in 2017 by American computer scientist Leemon Baird.

The Hedera Hashgraph system is a distributed ledger built on Hashgraph and was created by Baird along with Mance Harmon.

HBAR is the cryptocurrency of the Hedera Hashgraph.

The company itself expalins: “HBAR is the native, energy-efficient cryptocurrency of the Hedera public network.”

WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF INVESTING IN BITCOIN?

Although the returns have been favorable in the past year – a potential investment can turn out poorly if bought too high.

For instance, Bitcoin was looking unstoppable when Elon Musk’s Tesla bought $1.5billion worth of the cryptocurrency earlier in the year.

But then the billionaire caused a big sell-off on Bitcoin when he said Tesla would stop accepting payments of the cryptocurrency.

Although Musk has said he thinks there’s a future with Bitcoin and Tesla, he has expressed environmental concerns over the cryptocurrency.

VOLATILE PRICES AND DEMAND

Myron Jobson, personal finance campaigner of Interactive Investor, told The Sun: “It is difficult to predict the price of something that has an intrinsic value of zero.”

“All it takes is a tweet from high-profile individuals who have significant influence on sentiment to cryptos to drive up demand.”

“But greater regulatory scrutiny on cryptos threatens to hamper the growth potential of the Shiba Inu.”

BITCOIN SCORES NEW HIGH AFTER DORSEY TWEET

Bitcoin’s price hit a six-month-high of $62,000 after Dorsey tweeted about the possible Square development last Friday, according to CoinDesk and Business Insider.

That surge launched its year-to-date gains to 114 percent.

It was last trading around $64,200 on Tuesday afternoon.

SOLANA SCALABILITY, CONTINUED

Myron Jobson, personal finance campaigner at Interactive Investor, told The Sun: “The collection of 10,000 artworks reported sold out in under 10 minutes. Each piece was ‘minted’ using the SOL token.”

He added that “there’s a sentiment among crypto evangelist that Solana has strengthened its status as credible challenger to Ethereum as the blockchain of choice for building decentralized applications.”

EXPERT COMMENTS ON ALCHEMY PAY AND BINANCE

Shaun Heng, vice president of growth and operations at CoinMarketCap told The Sun that it’s challenging to assess the risk of many crypto projects like Alchemy Pay.

And while he isn’t a fan of Alchemy Pay’s crypto-linked cards, he did tout one its partners Binance, which is the largest crypto exchange by trading volume globally.

Heng said: “The partnership with Binance is most definitely a good sign of validation for the project.”

CHINA PREVIOUSLY SHUT DOWN CRYPTO EXCHANGES, PART TWO

While crypto creation and trading have been illegal in China since 2019, further crackdowns this year by Beijing warned banks to halt related transactions and closed much of the country’s vast network of bitcoin miners.

Thursday’s statement by the central bank sent the strongest yet signal that China is closed to crypto.

CHINA PREVIOUSLY SHUT DOWN CRYPTO EXCHANGES

It’s not Beijing’s first move against digital currency – in 2017, China shut down its local cryptocurrency exchanges.

Despite the war on crypto, Chinese mines power nearly 80 percent of the global trade in cryptocurrencies.

CHINA’S CRACKDOWN ON CRYPTO IS ‘BIG OPPORTUNITY’ FOR US

China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency transactions “is a big opportunity for the U.S.”, according to Pat Toomey, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.

This comes as the US Securities and Exchange Commission lobbied for more regulations when it comes to cryptocurrency.

CRYPTO AUDIO STREAMING, CONTINUED

According to Audius, over 5.3million people have used the platform this month.

Audio has been listed on CoinMarketCap since October 2020, and has rocketed in value following a deal with Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok.