Mooners and Shakers: New British PM is ‘crypto friendly’; Bitcoin lurches on; Reddit NFTs cause a stir

Another day, another British PM. Rishi Sunak is the wealthiest one to ever hold office and is apparently a crypto believer. Or is he mainly a CBDC (central bank digital currency) pusher? We’ll see.

Sunak, who has a net worth of something like $1.3 billion partly thanks to his marriage to the heiress of giant Indian IT company Infosys, was voted in overnight by his fellow Tories. He’s set to be officially sworn into the position some time in the next few days.

Is the 42-year-old British PM “crypto friendly”, as is being reported here and there? Back in April, as chancellor of the exchequer under Boris Johnson, he proclaimed: Its my ambition to make the UK a global hub for cryptoasset technology, and the measures weve outlined today will help to ensure firms can invest, innovate, and scale up in this country.

He was also at that time promoting a Royal Mint NFT as an emblem of the forward-looking approach the UK is determined to take.

And Sunak also oversaw the drafting of the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which aims to provide a regulatory framework for stablecoins and crypto assets.

Not everyone in crypto’s that happy with the new appointment, though:

Still, he sure dances like a crypto bro

Onto some daily price action.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$970 billion, down roughly 1.2% since this time yesterday, heres the current state of play among top 10 tokens according to CoinGecko.

Yesterday we wondered if Bitcoin was finally awake, as we heard movement from its bedroom. Turns out it simply rolled over and mumbled something like “uhpffeffterrvvvt” which we’ll assume was a nice dream about the US Federal Reserve pivoting from its intense interest-rate hiking.

So for now, the tight Bitcoin ranging continues. As eToro’s crypto expert Simon Peters notes in an email update, “There is a growing sense of anticipation among cryptoasset watchers as prices have held firm now for multiple weeks.”

That anticipation will no doubt intensify as we head towards the next big Fed meeting on November 2.

Ethereum, meanwhile, although also very much ranging in a tight band, has been outperforming Bitcoin over the past week, posting a 3% gain as opposed to BTC’s +0.4%.

Uppers and downers: 11100

Sweeping a market-cap range of about US$6.8 billion to about US$404 million in the rest of the top 100, lets find some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

DAILY PUMPERS

Klayton(KLAY),(market cap: US$661 million) +13%

Token XChange(TKX), (mc: US$1.27 billion) +10%

Polygon (MATIC), (mc: US$6.68 billion) +16%

Chiliz (CHZ), (mc: US$1.03 billion) +5%

Evmos (EVMOS), (mc: US$726 million) +4%

 

DAILY SLUMPERS

Axie Infinity (AXS), (market cap: US$866 million) -6%

Chain (XCN), (mc: US$1.18 billion) -5%

Trust Wallet (TWT), (mc: US$444 million) -5%

Arweave (AR), (mc: US$516 million) -4%

Neo (NEO), (mc: US$577 million) -4%

 

Around the blocks: Reddit NFTs cause a stir

A selection of randomness and pertinence that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse

Firstly, a quick word on the Polygon-based Reddit NFTs that seem to be grabbing the sector’s attention today.

The online message board platform Reddit and its community has quickly become a force for NFT adoption, with more than three million Polygon wallets now created by Reddit users. Roughly the same amount of the Reddit NFTs (which are avatars based on the platform’s alien “Snoo” character”) are currently in circulation, according to reports.

And Decrypt has just reported that trading volume for the NFTs are “up 799% so far today as traders celebrate the project’s widespread adoption”.

Okay then, not to FOMO in now or anything, but if you were half interested in this, how would you actually buy a Reddit NFT, as it doesn’t seem that simple?

Here’s a good thread that helps explain the process. It essentially involves using Ethereum on the Polygon chain, and otherwise browsing for official RedditCollectibleAvatars on OpenSea. Just make sure it’s got the blue seal of OpenSea approval on the collection. For instance, this one here.

Meanwhile, in other Crypto Twitter corners

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