Innovators and regulators wrestle to dominate crypto - Crypto Investor's Weekly 19.09-26.09

The Federal Reserve, the SEC and some of the biggest names in the business throw their hats into the ring.

Crypto prices fell following this news but have managed to claw back some modest gains in the past 24 hours. The market environment might be tricky but that’s not stopping the eternal struggle between innovators and regulators this week, with the SEC and Nasdaq all making big moves that could shake up the sector. ?Cardano: Everything you need to know?

The race to end Ethereum’s dominance is on and Cardano may be one of the favourites. But what does the blockchain that takes a different development approach have to offer? In this blog post, we dive into Cardano, the smart contract platform, and also explain the Vasil upgrade.?

Cardano: Everything you need to know?

The race to end Ethereum’s dominance is on and Cardano may be one of the favourites. But what does the blockchain that takes a different development approach have to offer? In this blog post, we dive into Cardano, the smart contract platform, and also explain the Vasil upgrade.?

Full article in English and German?

Chart of the week?

ETH remains inflationary post-merge

In the buildup to the Merge, there was a lot of talk about the effect on Ether?supply. The main topic is whether Ether will become deflationary after the Merge. ?

A portion of Ethereum transaction fees are burned, which means taken out of circulation and destroyed. For Ethereum to be deflationary, more Ether?would need to be burned than new tokens introduced into the supply. ?

Shortly after the Merge, fees were pushed higher, which created a short period of ETH deflation. But network congestion lifted, fees dropped and ETH supply continued to increase, albeit at much lower rates than before the Merge. ?

To put things into perspective, in the 4 days following the Merge, the old Proof-of-Work mechanism would have produced 48.4k ETH, whereas the Proof-of-Stake mechanism only issued 3,8983 ETH. That’s a reduction of over 92%! ?

As the dynamic between validators and burn fees develops over the coming months and years, this could be an interesting factor on Ether’s price performance. ?

This week’s crypto prices?

If some investors thought that the news of the Merge would carry over into the markets this week, their hopes were dashed by the Federal Reserve. The top two tokens fell on news of the rate hikes but as the week went on, Bitcoin dragged itself back to $19,100 and Ether to $1300. Bulls could try to rally the Bitcoin price back up to above $20,000, but some analysts think the next layer of support could be between $17-18,000 if this fails. Ether is also determining its new price range, with bulls pushing for $1400 and bears $1000. ?

Tweet of the week??

Image via?Twitter?

The Vasil hard fork, which Cardano successfully carried out on the evening of 22 September, is technically different from hard forks on other blockchains, as the Tweet by Input Output (IOHK), the company behind Cardano, explains. Forks are performed whenever a community makes a change to the blockchain protocol, i.e. the set of rules of a blockchain. There are soft forks and hard forks. In the case of a hard fork, the Blockchain usually splits and to comply with the new rules, participants must update their crypto software. Cardano's Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) technology allows the Vasil upgrade to take place without interruption or restart. It also helps crypto exchanges and DApps to continue ADA trading and Cardano network usage during the hard fork.?

Crypto news??

Nasdaq is preparing to launch an institutional crypto custody service??

Nasdaq has been plotting a move into crypto custody, according to several sources. The move is in line with its broader mission to be a service provider in the crypto space rather than facilitate trading of cryptocurrencies.?

Full article on The Block ?

Fork, yeah! Cardano Vasil upgrade goes live?

After several months of delays, the Cardano Vasil upgrade and hard fork has finally gone live as of Thursday at 9:44 pm UTC, bringing “significant performance and capability” enhancements to the blockchain.?

Full article on Cointelegraph?

SEC claims all of Ethereum falls under US Jurisdiction?

In a civil complaint against a crypto influencer, the SEC suggested that it believes the U.S. government has jurisdiction over Ethereum transactions. Buried in the lawsuit’s 69th paragraph, the SEC claimed that essentially the entire Ethereum network falls under the US government’s purview.?

Full article on Decrypt ?

Treasury recommends exploring creation of a digital dollar?

The Biden administration is moving one step closer to developing a central bank digital currency, known as the digital dollar, saying it would help reinforce the U.S. role as a leader in the world financial system.?

Full article on U.S. News?

?This week has been littered with attempts by policymakers to beat the crypto sector into submission and harness the innovation for themselves. But the industry is putting up a fight. Let’s see what happens. ?