Crypto SWOT: Ukraine raised $600,000 through NFT sales to help rebuild cultural landmarks

Strengths

• Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the best performer for the week was Digital Fitness, rising 1,263.81%.
• Cryptocurrencies are rapidly becoming more mainstream within the Canadian financial landscape. Regulators in the country have remained fairly proactive in their approach and have managed to tweak the existing laws to accommodate crypto and Web 3.0. As for Alberta, the oil-rich Canadian province has welcomed many Bitcoin miners after the mass exodus from China, and many of them found a home there due to the abundance of natural gas and related infrastructure.  
• VanEck predicts that Bitcoin would be worth at least $1.3 million if considered a global reserve currency, writes CryptoSlate. The ongoing war in Ukraine has firmly placed the importance of assets like Bitcoin and gold in the front seat of the global financial system. VanEck believes that under an extreme scenario where gold or Bitcoin becomes the reserve currency of the world, the value of the digital asset could fall between $1.3 million to $4.8 million.

Weaknesses

• Of the cryptocurrencies tracked by CoinMarketCap, the worst performing for the week was Geojam Token, down 67.70%.
• Bitcoin’s latest rally has brought the digital asset to technically overbought levels, based on its RSI score of 71. Assets are considered overbought if its relative strength index (RSI) crosses above 70 and oversold if it falls below 30, writes Bloomberg. Overbought levels tend to bring out projections for short-term breathers.







• The SEC is pressing firms to account for cryptocurrency assets they’re holding on behalf of customers on their balance sheets. A growing number of crypto trading platforms are safeguarding digital assets for their users and maintaining the cryptographic keys necessary to access the tokens. However, platforms aren’t disclosing those activities, which can increase the chances of financial loss in the event that assets are stolen or misused to investors, write Bloomberg.

Opportunities

• Coinbase Global is set to close the acquisition of 2TM, a Brazilian holding that controls Latin America’s largest crypto brokerage Mercado Bitcoin by the end of April. The talks, which began last year, are part of Coinbase’s push to broaden operations in an increasingly competitive market, reports Bloomberg. Brazil’s crypto unicorn would give Coinbase the leverage needed to secure a market leader position in Latin America.
• The Texas cryptocurrency industry is lobbying state lawmakers to introduce legislation that would eliminate taxes on sales of flared gas that’s used to mine Bitcoins, seeking to reduce costs and lure more miners to the Lone Star State, writes Bloomberg. The Texas Blockchain Council, the crypto’s lobbying arm, wrote a draft bill that it hopes will be introduced in the next legislative session.
• The Ukrainian government raised more than $600,000 through an NFT sale that will be used to rebuild museums, theaters and other cultural institutions destroyed since Russia’s invasion, writes Bloomberg. Ukrainian Meta-History NFT Museum sold 1,282 artworks on its first day of sales, raising 190 Ether cryptocurrency tokens for the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.  

Threats

• Hackers stole about $600 million from a blockchain network connected to the popular Axie Infinity online game in one of the biggest crypto attacks to date. The hacker attacked the Ronnie bridge which lets people convert tokens into ones that can be used on another network, according to Bloomberg. The incident that drained 173,000 Ether and $25.5 million USDC in two transactions happened on March 23 but wasn’t discovered until six days later.
• Banks should be careful before getting involved in trading Bitcoin-linked futures and other crypto-derivative products, acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu said. Big banks, including Goldman Sachs, are looking to make markets in crypto-linked derivative products for their clients even though global financial regulators are still evaluating capital levels that would be needed to safely manage crypto exposure, writes Bloomberg.
• Bored Ape Yacht Club, the largest NFT project by market cap, has confirmed its Discord channel was compromised by a hacker who infiltrated Yuga Labs’ Discord channel, which hosts member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The hacker posted a phishing link masquerading as a stealth NFT mint into the Mutant Ape Kennel club channel, according to Bloomberg.