This week has been a whirlwind of crypto news.
We've had Tesla accepting Dogecoin, hacks of both the Twitter and monetary kind, a congressional hearing and bad news for Singaporean crypto fans.
Here's a round up of the biggest stories you need to know from across the world.
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Dogecoin surged after Elon said Tesla would accept payments in the memecoin
Billionaire Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will start accepting payments in the popular memecoin, causing the coin to surge by around 20% in a matter of minutes.
The recent surge has bought its market cap over $25.34bn.
"Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes," Musk said in a tweet, while Tesla's shares declined by 3 per cent.
Elon has also been vocally in support of Dogecoin, while not backing its spin off, Shiba Inu coin.
90% of Bitcoin has been mined
According to data from Blockchain.com , 90 per cent of the total 21 million bitcoin supply has been mined.
Once all of the supply is accounted for, no more will be made. However, the remaining 10 per cent isn't predicted to run out until February 2140. Mining is a long complex process - in fact, it took a whopping 12 years for 90 per cent of the tokens to be mined.
Mining is the process that allows Bitcoin to exist, through performing complex mathematical equations. These equations take a lot of energy, which means mining has been criticised for its environmental impact.
AscendEX lost around $77 million to a hack
On Sunday, the global cryptocurrency exchange AscendEX reported that it had suffered a hack which has wiped millions from the platform. The hack targeted 'hot wallets', where funds are kept as a buffer for customer withdrawals.
AscendEX responded quickly to safeguard its cold wallets, and says that all affected users will be fully reimbursed.
Security and blockchain auditing company, Peckshield, has estimated the losses at around $77 million.
Around $60 worth of tokens came from hot wallets on the Ethereum network, followed by $9.2 million in BSC tokens and $8.5 million in Polygon tokens.
Bitcoin and Ethereum dipped
After a few weeks of continual ups and downs, Bitcoin has slipped back down below $50,000 while Ethereum, Solana (SOL) and Ripple (XRP) dropped by around 5 per cent on Monday.
The dip is being attributed to global economic uncertainty in the face of the Omicron variant, a long-running discussion on crypto regulation and President Biden's crackdown on crypto taxes.
The market has struggled to regain the value it enjoyed in October when it reached all time highs, but some industry analysts are still hopeful for a resurgence before the end of 2021.
Crypto CEOs testify at congressional hearing
Top CEOs from six major cryptocurrency companies appeared before the US House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday to answer questions about digital currencies.
This was the first time that industry leaders have addressed congress to discuss concerns related to the $3 trillion industry.
Over the five hour hearing, execs such as Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, Bitfury CEO Brian Brooks and Coinbase CEO Alesia Haas urged almost 40 lawmakers to provide clearer rules for the growing industry, but warned that strict restrictions would push it overseas.
Binance withdraws application for a Singapore crypto platform
Bincance is scrapping its plans to launch Binance Asia Services in the face of regulatory push back.
In September, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) ordered Binance Singapore to stop all crypto transfers, placing the global Binance platform on an investor alert list and said it “may be in breach” of local law.
This is a significant blow to Binance given that Singapore is relatively accommodating towards crypto. It is also home to the exchange platform's CEO, Changpeng Zhao. Reports are that the city-state has taken a strict approach to vetting the applications for its sought after crypto licences.
Binance.sg is not accepting new user registrations, but existing users can continue to buy or sell their assets until 12 January 2022.
All assets must be withdrawn before the platform closes all accounts by February 13.
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Bank of England shares Crypto warning
The deputy governor of the Bank of England has told the BBC that “crypto-currency assets could pose a danger to the established financial system”, while calling for tighter regulations.
Sir Jon Cunliffe said that while only 0.1% of UK households' wealth is in crypto-currencies, the industry is growing quickly and becoming more mainstream.
Jon cautioned against the volatile nature of crypto, alerting people that any market crashes could have a knock on effect on the established financial market.
"The point, I think, at which one worries is when it becomes integrated into the financial system, when a big price correction could really affect other markets and affect established financial market players,” he said.
"We really need to roll our sleeves up and get on with it, so that by the time this becomes a much bigger issue, we've actually got the regulatory framework to contain the risks.
