Over the past seven days, about $450 billion has vanished from the crypto 
economy as it slid from $3.57 trillion on Nov. 10 to $3.12 trillion by 4 p.m. 
Eastern time on Monday. Even after a year filled with fresh all-time highs, 
plenty of tokens are now sitting a cool 25% to 50% beneath the […]

$450B Vanishes From Crypto Sector in One Week as Top Coins Dive Deep Below Record Peaks

LevelField could become the first crypto-friendly FDIC-insured bank to offer 
crypto services after receiving approval from the Illinois financial regulator 
to acquire Burling Bank.

Crypto firm LevelField secures Illinois approval to buy Chicago bank

Data shows the Bitcoin Social Dominance has spiked to a 4-month high, 
something that has tended to be a reversal signal for the market. Social Media 
Is Shifting Attention To Bitcoin According to data from analytics firm 
Santiment, social media talk has recently become more concentrated on Bitcoin. 
The indicator of relevance here is the &#8220;Social Dominance,&#8221; which measures the 
percentage of cryptocurrency-related discussions on social media that a given 
asset accounts for. Related Reading: Solana Air Gap: Analyst Says No Major 
Support Level Until $24 The metric gauges social media talk using the Social 
Volume indicator, which tracks the total number of posts/threads/comments that 
contain unique mentions of the coin. To give a relative measure, the Social 
Dominance takes the Social Volume of the asset and compares it against the 
combined Social Volume of the top 100 digital assets. Now, here is the chart 
shared by Santiment that shows the trend in the Social Dominance for Bitcoin 
and a few major altcoins over the last few months: As shown in the graph 
above, Bitcoin Social Dominance spiked on Friday as the cryptocurrency&#8217;s price 
crashed. At the peak of this surge, 36.4% of all cryptocurrency-related 
discussions involved BTC. This was the highest that the metric had been since 
July 13th, when its value touched a high of 37.6%. Interestingly, this 
previous spike coincided with a top for the asset. Historically, digital 
assets have tended to move in a way that goes contrary to the expectations of 
the majority, so too much excitement or FUD among the retail social media 
crowd can act as a reversal signal. The July high in Social Dominance signaled 
FOMO among the traders, which could be why Bitcoin&#8217;s bullish momentum paused 
then. Another example of the pattern came in August, when this time Ethereum 
saw a surge in its Social Dominance, reaching a peak value of 19.1%. Alongside 
this market excitement, BTC and others hit a top again. Given that the latest 
spike in the indicator has come with a market crash, it&#8217;s possible that the 
high amount of discussions points to panic among the investors. &#8220;Though not a 
guaranteed crypto bottom signal, probabilities of a market reversal greatly 
increases when social dominance for Bitcoin surges,&#8221; explained the analytics 
firm. Related Reading: Bitcoin Crashes To $98,000 As HODLer Selling 
Accelerates The Social Dominance only contains information about social media 
platforms. One useful way of gauging the sentiment in the sector as a whole is 
through Alternative&#8217;s Fear &amp; Greed Index, which takes into account several 
factors, including social media data itself. During the weekend, the Fear &amp; 
Greed Index fell to a value of just 10, indicating a strong extreme fear 
sentiment among Bitcoin investors. The last time the index went this low was 
in February, and the last time it was lower was all the way back during the 
2022 bear market. BTC Price At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around 
$95,300, down over 10% in the last week. Featured image from Dall-E, 
Alternative.me, Santiment.net, chart from TradingView.com

Bitcoin Social Dominance Hits 4-Month High: What It Means

African crypto exchange VALR has partnered with financial services platform 
Mukuru to launch a USDC wallet integrated into Whatsapp. Bridging Finance to 
the Masses via Whatsapp The leading African crypto exchange, VALR, has forged 
a significant partnership with Mukuru, a leading financial services platform, 
to launch a USDC wallet. Through this collaboration, VALR will provide […]

VALR Partners With Mukuru to Launch USDC Wallet on Whatsapp

Japan’s financial regulator is preparing a sweeping overhaul of its crypto 
taxation framework by proposing to classify 105 digital assets, including 
bitcoin and ether, as financial products. If approved, the move would cut tax 
rates for many crypto traders and introduce new insider trading safeguards. 
FSA Moves Toward Reclassifying Crypto Assets as Financial Products Japan […]

Cryptocurrency price in GBP