It goes without saying that this has been one of the most important and also exciting weeks for Bitcoin, in general.

The reason for which it was important is that El Salvador officially became the very first country in the world to formally recognize Bitcoin as a legal tender. In other words, no one is currently allowed to refuse payment in BTC, and that’s the law.

The reason for which it was exciting is that it was particularly volatile. On the day El Salvador made the law official, BTC dropped by a grand total of $10,000. What was touted as “Bitcoin Day” quickly became the bloodiest day since May 19th. In less than an hour, we saw over $2.5 billion in liquidated positions as the price just kept dropping to a low of about $43,000.

At the time of this writing, Bitcoin’s price hovers around $45,000 for a loss of 8.5% on the weekly. The altcoins market is pretty much the same, if not worse. Ethereum is down 14%, ADA – 21%, BNB – 17%, XRP – 16%, and so forth. The only cryptocurrency that’s in the green over a weekly time period is Solana – up 33% at the time of this writing.

There’s no apparent cause for this dump. In fact, we saw quite a lot of positive news. El Salvador also became the first country to officially buy Bitcoin. Mastercard – the payments processing behemoth – furthered its involvement in the space, acquiring the blockchain intelligence company CipherTrace, Ukraine legalized cryptocurrencies, and so forth.

The fundamentals of Bitcoin remain stronger than ever, so it’s interesting to see whether a recovery is in the deck. If one thing is true – it’s that we have exciting days ahead of us.

Market Data

Market Capitalization: $2.030T | 24Volume: $134B | BTC Dominance: 41.8%

BTC: $45,250 (-8.5%) | ETH: $3,260 (-14%) | ADA: $2.34 (-21%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Three Months Later: Bitcoin Now Officially a Legal Tender in El Salvador.  The country of El Salvador has become the first one in the world to formally recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. Merchants are now forbidden from refusing to accept it as a means of payment, while the country started buying BTC as well.

Bitcoin Dumps $7K to Below $43K as $2.6 Billion Liquidated in Minutes. In a sudden crash this week, Bitcoin lost over $7,000 in minutes, bringing its total daily losses to more than $10,000. This saw a whopping $2.6 billion liquidated in less than an hour as the entire market bled out.

Standard Chartered Values Ethereum at $26k to $35k ‘Structurally.’ One of the world’s leading banks, Standard Chartered, said in a recent report that it values Ethereum at $26K to $35K ‘structurally.” The institution also believes that ETH will start picking up to bitcoin but only as the latter reaches the peak of this cycle, which it estimates to be at $175K.

Ukraine Passes Decree to Legalize Cryptocurrencies. The Ukrainian Parliament has managed to pass legislation that legitimizes and also regulates cryptocurrencies in the country. The effort aims at attracting new investments.   

Mastercard Purchases Crypto Intelligence Company CipherTrace to Boost Security. Payment processing giant Mastercard reveals plans to acquire CypherTrace – a cryptocurrency and blockchain intelligence company that provides anti-money laundering and fraud-protection solutions.

Cardano Addresses the Smart Contracts Criticism In-Depth. Charles Hoskinson and the team behind Cardano took their time to address the smart contracts criticism in depth. They also shared more details and clarified the network’s structure, as well as that of their smart contracts capabilities.

Charts

This week we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Solana, and MATIC – click here for the full price analysis and overview.