What's up Crypto?
S&P GLOBAL DOWNGADES COINBASE CREDIT RATING
Coinbase (COIN) took another hit this week as S&P Global Ratings downgraded the cryptocurrency exchange's credit rating and issued a warning that future downgrades might be forthcoming given the potential persistence of the crypto winter.
Last year, Coinbase sold almost $2 billion in bonds with a junk rating, signalling Wall Street's more open attitude toward cryptocurrencies. Since then, the value of cryptocurrencies has plummeted, as has the price of Coinbase's shares, and the firm is under further pressure to reduce expenses.
S&P now has a "negative" outlook for Coinbase's ratings, meaning the agency might announce more cuts.
Coinbase shares closed Thursday at $84 per share, down more than 10% for the day. Its shares reached a high of over $350 last fall.
Russia will launch its own digital ruble, just in time for elections in 2024
The development of Russia's own digital ruble by 2024 continues.
A draught proposal describing the main monetary policy parameters for the upcoming three years was recently published by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBR).
According to the CBR, its CBDC would allow the use of so-called "targeted" technology, which would allow for the programming of specific digital currencies to only be used to pay for specific goods and services.
By 2024, the central bank hopes to have finished testing customer-to-customer, customer-to-business, and business-to-customer settlements using "actual money."
Cryptocurrency prices today: bitcoin rises over $25,200, the highest level since mid-June
Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, was trading more than 1% higher at $25,200 for the first time since june 13. Even though it had been nearly unchanged over the previous 24 hours, at $1.23 trillion, the global crypto market value was beyond the $1 trillion threshold today.
Ether surpassed $2,000 on Saturday for the first time since May 31 amid optimism about completion of its blockchain’s much-anticipated software upgrade known as the Merge, which is now likely to happen around Sept. 15,
Crypto's top "meme coins" didn't take the weekend off, with both Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) seeing notable gains on Sunday.
Shiba Inu jumped more than 30 percent by midday, rising from $0.00001516 in the early morning to as high as $0.00001774. Trading volume over the previous 24 hours is $3.41 billion. SHIB is $0.00001671 as of this writing.
Dogecoin, meanwhile, rose from $0.0771 to $0.0838 over roughly the same period
The updated privacy-focused crypto protocol for Monero is now live
A group effort comprising 71 developers resulted in the protocol modification being successfully implemented.
On Saturday, the privacy-focused cryptocurrency network Monero launched a significant hard-fork update, enhancing its performance and wallet functionality.
The Bulletproof+ version of Monero's Bulletproof algorithm, which also enables private transfers, is predicted to increase performance by 5-7%. The upgrade is also expected to speed wallet syncing by 30-40% and reduce network fee volatility.