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Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This WeekRussia to decide between blanket crypto ban and legalizing exchanges in 2022A recent report shows that Russia could potentially see a countrywide ban on cryptocurrency. Alternatively, it’s possible that crypto trading via regulated exchanges may continue under strict oversight. On the one hand, Russia’s central bank is said to be behind a potential move to make crypto illegal in the country, according to Reuters. On the other hand, Anatoly Aksakov, who heads the Russian parliament’s Committee on Financial Markets, publicly disclosed that the industry may continue to operate under regulations that would ensure greater tax compliance. However, Aksakov left open the possibility of an outright ban.US Senate confirms CFTC chair as President Biden announces commissioner picksThe Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) now has a permanent chairman following approvals by the United States Senate. On Thursday, Rostin Behnam, who had been serving as acting chairman, was given the permanent position. The CFTC is one of three U.S. governing bodies responsible for crypto industry regulatory oversight.  Behnam has previously commented on the crypto space, noting that the CFTC should focus more on the sector. He noted in October: “Given the size, the scope and the scale of this emerging market, how it’s interfacing and affecting retail customers, and with the scale of the growth being so rapid, potential financial stability risks in the future, I think it’s critically important to have a primary cop on the beat.”The CFTC’s overall brass is also changing. In the coming months, four CFTC commissioner spots must be filled, which is a large number given that the regulatory body typically carries five commissioners.NYDIG raises $1B in funding, valuation now $7BNew York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) is now worth roughly $7 billion after the company successfully raised $1 billion from WestCap and other venture investors. Led by co-founder and CEO Robert “Robby” Gutmann, NYDIG is a company dedicated to providing access to investment opportunities centered around Bitcoin (BTC).“NYDIG plays a unique role in the industry, empowering companies of all types to incorporate Bitcoin in a secure and compliant way,” WestCap partner Scott Ganeles said in a public statement announcing NYDIG’s additional capital achievement. “We are proud to partner with Robby and his outstanding NYDIG team as they forge new paths to accessibility and further accelerate Bitcoin adoption.”Just did it: Nike enters the Metaverse game following RTFKT acquisitionSports apparel company Nike officially joined the Metaverse this week by acquiring virtual sneakers and collectibles brand RTFKT. Prior to the move, Nike expressed strong interest in this emerging market by pursuing Metaverse-specific patent and trademark filings for its logo. The company also publicized a job search for people with specific Metaverse expertise. “Our plan is to invest in the RTFKT brand, serve and grow their innovative and creative community and extend Nike’s digital footprint and capabilities,” Nike’s CEO and president John Donahoe said.SEC delays decisions on Bitwise and Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETFsThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has decided to delay a verdict on two physically-backed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) until February 2022. The Commission published its decision on Wednesday. The two ETF applications were filed by Bitwise Asset Management and Grayscale. Whereas Bitwise aimed to introduce an entirely new spot Bitcoin ETF, Grayscale intended to create a spot offering by repurposing its current Grayscale Bitcoin Trust product.The SEC has turned down multiple Bitcoin spot ETF applications in 2021. The Commission delayed one such product from WisdomTree earlier in 2021, only to deny it in December.Winners and LosersAt the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $46,292, Ether (ETH) at $3,852 and XRP at $0.79. The total market cap is at $2.16 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are yearn.finance (YFI) at 52.51%, OKB (OKB) at 31.83% and Avalanche (AVAX) at 29.75%. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Decred (DCR) at -22.85%, Theta Fuel (TFUEL) at -17.98% and BitTorrent (BTT) at -17.65%.For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis. Most Memorable Quotations“DeFi is the most dangerous part of the crypto world. This is where the regulation is effectively absent, and — no surprise — it’s where the scammers and the cheats and the swindlers mix among part-time investors and first-time crypto traders. In DeFi, someone can’t even tell if they’re dealing with a terrorist.”Elizabeth Warren, U.S. senator “I argue that we are winning [the digital currency] race because of the sum of free-market activity taking place inside the U.S. regulatory perimeter with digital currencies and blockchain-based financial services. The sum of these activities are advancing broad U.S. economic competitiveness and national security interests.”Dante Disparte, head of global policy and chief strategy officer at Circle“Stablecoins can certainly be a useful, efficient, consumer-serving part of the financial system if they’re properly regulated. Right now, they aren’t. They have the potential to scale, particularly if they were to be associated with one of the very large tech networks that exist.”Jerome Powell, U.S. Federal Reserve chair“Bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency. Even though it was created as a silly joke, Dogecoin is better suited for transactions. The total transaction flow that you do with Dogecoin, like transactions per day, has much higher potential than Bitcoin.”Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla“[Crypto] companies have the cash and have been bidding away very senior talent who only have one or two years of crypto experience with offers that they cannot turn down.”Adrianna Huehnergarth, engagement manager for Heidrick & Struggles“The beauty of crypto is that you can be based anywhere. There is this community approach regardless of where you kick-start a flywheel from.”Matt Zhang, founder of Hivemind Capital Partners “Cryptocurrencies cannot become a means of payment.”Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, governor for the Bank of ThailandPrediction of the Week Here’s why Bitcoin traders expect choppy markets for the remainder of 2021Bitcoin’s price has been on a rollercoaster the past week. The coin saw prices as high as almost $51,000, while also visiting levels below $46,000, based on Cointelegraph’s BTC price index. According to a report from Delphi Digital, Bitcoin’s price could finish out the year trading relatively sideways. The firm noted the recent spike in stablecoin transactions as reason to be cautious. Much like the May 2021 price crash, current market conditions are defined by much higher than normal stablecoin volumes, presumably as investors exit BTC positions and enter into stablecoins.The “most likely path forward” for BTC in the short term is choppy or sideways action, Delphi Digital stated. However, any major risk-off event in the broader market could negatively impact the leading digital currency. FUD of the Week Indian prime minister Modi’s hacked Twitter account attempts BTC scamIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi suffered a Twitter account hack on Dec. 12. Although the nefarious party only had control of the account for a short period of time, they were able to send out a scam tweet from the account, proclaiming false news. The hackers tweeted that India had picked up Bitcoin as an official currency — a sizable lie considering the headlines El Salvador made in the lead-up to actually adopting BTC as legal tender in September 2021. The tweet sent out by the hackers included a lie about India purchasing hundreds of BTC, as well as an external link.Modi also suffered a Twitter account hack in September 2020. AscendEX loses $80M following ERC-20, BSC, Polygon hot wallet compromiseHackers recently siphoned nearly $80 million in digital assets from crypto trading platform AscendEX. Estimates from analytics outfit PeckShield put the total number of stolen crypto assets at $77.7 million. The sum consists of $8.5 million worth of Polygon-based tokens, $9.2 million of Binance Smart Chain-based tokens and $60 million worth of Ethereum-based tokens.The pillage affected the platform’s hot wallet but not its cold storage amounts, as per a tweet from the crypto platform on Dec. 11. AscendEX also noted in the same tweet that customers who lost funds would be covered by the platform.UK advertising watchdog bans crypto ads for Coinbase and KrakenCoinbase, Kraken and several other crypto-involved companies received backlash from the United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for certain advertisements. The ASA claimed the ads did not adequately provide viewers with proper risk warnings, and that they preyed on viewers who lacked crypto expertise.  One ad from Coinbase Europe noted the large profit outcome an early Bitcoin investment would have yielded if held until 2021. The ASA pushed back on the ad, essentially saying it made it look like the future would hold similar profit potential. The ASA also pointed out that the ad lacked an explanation that the future does not promise the same rewards reaped in the past.Best Cointelegraph FeaturesThe Metaverse will bring unbridled evolution to NFTsNFTs are here to stay and the arrival of the Metaverse is only set to make their appeal and use even more popular.A letter to Zuckerberg: The Metaverse is not what you think it is“Because the crypto space is largely a challenge to central banks, at least in a lot of people’s minds, then anything that happens in banking and finance is interesting to us.”Daft Punk meets CryptoPunks as Novo faces up to NFTs“When it was finally time to take off the mask and get on the plane home, it was weird.”

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This WeekVitalik Buterin outlines ‘endgame’ roadmap for ETH 2.0With the long-awaited transition to Eth2 coming closer to fruition, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined an “Endgame” roadmap on Monday to finally achieve the landmark upgrade. While Buterin did not address the centralization issue with block production as the network works towards scalability, the 27-year-old essentially solved everything else to do with block validation.  He suggested the idea of implementing “a second tier of staking, with low resource requirements” to carry out distributed block validation; introducing “either fraud proofs or ZK-SNARKS to let users directly (and cheaply) check block validity;” and introducing “data availability sampling to let users check block availability [and] add secondary transaction channels to prevent censorship.”“We get a chain where block production is still centralized, but block validation is trustless and highly decentralized, and specialized anti-censorship magic prevents the block producers from censoring,” Buterin explained.Coinbase adds ‘ETH2’ despite Ethereum upgrade postponing difficulty bombSpeaking of Eth2, major crypto exchange Coinbase added a mirror version of Ethereum’s native token, ETH, labeled Eth2, to its crypto price index on Tuesday. The new listing had no trading activity but was priced the same as ETH. Despite the rollout of Eth2 not being expected until at least mid-2022, Coinbase listed a token bearing its name just days ahead of the smart contract network’s “Arrow Glacier” upgrade that will give devs more time to work on the groundwork for Ethereum 2.0. On Thursday, Coinbase also announced that it will be expanding the platform’s support to crypto hardware wallets starting with Ledger’s models. The rollout will be phased in gradually from the start of 2022.Major Indian bank breaks ‘banking ban’ with WazirX crypto exchange dealAccording to reports from local media outlets, India’s leading private bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, became the first of its kind to partner with a crypto firm after it penned a deal with top crypto exchange WazirX. The deal, which enables traders to liquidate their digital assets via Kotak’s banking services, marks a major milestone for a local crypto industry that has been bogged down by countless issues presented by the banking sector and the Indian government. “WazirX has opened an account with Kotak which can be used to receive and pay money to investors trading on the exchange. The account is yet to become operational. Paperwork, KYC, and some testing are on,” said one of the people familiar with the matter.Biden’s controversial anti-crypto Comptroller nominee withdrawsPresident Joe Biden’s crypto skeptic nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova, withdrew her candidacy from consideration on Tuesday. Omarova is a divisive figure who has essentially called for the banking and crypto sectors to be gutted on many occasions, often sparking widespread pushback from Republican politicians who hold opposing views and have tacitly accused the professor of harboring Marxist sympathies.Commenting on her withdrawal from the candidacy, Biden said that “Saule was subjected to inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale.”Visa announces new crypto consulting service for merchants and banksOn Wednesday, global payments giant Visa unveiled a new consulting and advisory service for crypto-curious firms, financial institutions and retailers that are looking to take the plunge into the sector. Visa said that its crypto-focused advisory services can advise on anything from crypto features and services to NFTs and CBDC-focused digital wallets. According to Visa, the company’s interest in crypto is driven by the need to remain competitive and meet consumer demand. Citing a recent in-house study, Visa said that “40% of crypto owners surveyed report they would be likely or very likely to switch their primary bank to one that offers crypto-related products in the next 12 months.”Winners and LosersAt the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $47,524, Ether (ETH) at $3,956 and XRP at $0.81. The total market cap is at $2.20 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are NEAR Protocol (NEAR) at 6.44%, Huobi Token (HT) at 5.11% and BitTorrent (BTT) at 4.61%.  The top three altcoin losers of the week are THETA (THETA) at -32.53%, Cosmos (ATOM) at -32.04% and Qtum (QTUM) at -31.65%.For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis. Most Memorable Quotations“If DeFi were to become widespread, its vulnerabilities might undermine financial stability. These can be severe because of high leverage, liquidity mismatches, built-in interconnectedness and the lack of shock absorbers such as banks.”Bank of International Settlement“I do think that once regulation comes on board, we’ll see a whole new class of investors into this space. And I think that’s what we’ve seen in other jurisdictions, like over in Singapore.”Adrian Przelozny, CEO of Independent Reserve“$100,000 by the end of the year is a difficult prediction to make. […] I think $100,000 could be in target in 2022 but this year, I’m not so sure.”Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise“Because we have access to sensitive information and upcoming policy, I do not believe members of Congress should hold/trade individual stock and I choose not to hold any so I can remain impartial about policy making. […] I also extend that to digital assets/currencies (especially bc I sit on Financial Services Committee).”Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee member“We don’t want banks to be directly involved in digital asset trading because banks are [responsible] for customer deposits and the public and there is risk.”Chayawadee Chai-Anant, senior director at the Bank of Thailand“In a world where money becomes a core feature of the internet, the U.S. should aggressively promote the use of the dollar as the primary currency of the internet, and leverage that as a source of national economic competitiveness, security and a major upgrade needed for more efficient and inclusive financial services.”Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle“We don’t need knee-jerk reactions by lawmakers to regulate out of fear of the unknown rather than seeking to understand.”Patrick McHenry, U.S. representative“The point of crypto is to have true decentralization, and the projects that succeed will be the projects that achieve that.”Brian Brooks, CEO of BitfuryPrediction of the Week Bitcoin could ‘drive people nuts’ for months with $53K BTC price ceiling — analystOver the past couple of weeks, Bitcoin has suffered bouts of downward price action, reaching a low of $41,614 on Dec. 3, according to Cointelegraph’s Bitcoin price index. Since then, BTC’s price has traveled in a range between $46,000 and $52,000. On Monday, crypto trader and podcaster Scott Melker, also known as The Wolf Of All Streets on Twitter, gave his thoughts on the Bitcoin market. Crypto’s top asset could potentially be rangebound between $42,000 and $53,000 for multiple months, Melker tweeted. On a broad level, the trader noted $53,000 as a hurdle to break above in order to continue on an upward price route for BTC. “Everything between the two numbers now is ranging chop that will drive traders into a panic,” Melker added. “People will be extremely bullish at 53K and bearish at 42K if either is reached.”FUD of the Week Bitmart hacked for $200M following Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain exploitCrypto exchange BitMart was the victim of a hot wallet hack that resulted in the loss of almost $200 million worth of digital assets. Blockchain security and data analytics firm PeckShield first highlighted the hack on Sunday after it identified two nefarious transfers worth $100 million on Ethereum and $96 million on the Binance Smart Chain. According to the company, the hack was a straightforward case of transfer out, swap, and wash. The hackers made away with a mix of over 20 tokens, including Binance Coin, Safemoon, BSC-USD and BNBPay, along with large amounts of meme coins such as BabyDoge and Floki Inu.India to set maximum penalty for violating crypto norms at fine of $2.7 million or 1.5 years in jailAccording to reports from Bloomberg’s Indian unit, BloombergQuint, the local government may soon outline penalties for non-compliance to its upcoming crypto policies. The publication noted that the punishments could range from a maximum fine of 20 crore rupees ($2.7 million) or 1.5 years in jail.While the regulatory landscape is currently opaque in India, it has been previously reported that Indian investors may soon have to shift their crypto holdings to exchanges that are regulated under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Board of India.Pundits are expecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give crypto investors a deadline to comply with the new rules and declare their assets before cracking down on any misbehavior.Gamer-hate: Ubisoft’s new NFT project vid gets 96% dislike ratioGaming giant Ubisoft saw major pushback this week from the gaming community after it announced its new NFT project dubbed “Quartz” on Wednesday. It appears that fans of the company were peeved at what they perceived as a quick cash grab, with thousands of people threatening to boycott the company. The Assassin’s Creed developer’s YouTube video introducing the new project and roll-out of its usable in-game NFTs named “Digitz” received a 96% dislike video ratio. In fact, comments slamming the project received more likes than the video itself, with user “OperatorDrewski” commenting that: “To me, this is a blatant signal that you’re just milking the Ghost Recon franchise for literally every cent while putting in minimal effort into the actual game itself. Not playing a GR game in the future if there’s this level of degeneracy in the team.”Best Cointelegraph FeaturesBrowser cookies are not consent: The new path to privacy after EU data regulation failNobody loves cookies: Where the European Union General Data Protection Regulation falls short and what can be done.Crypto City: Guide to Austin“Because the crypto space is largely a challenge to central banks, at least in a lot of people’s minds, then anything that happens in banking and finance is interesting to us.”What Facebook’s rebranding tells us about Big Tech’s ‘Game of Platforms’Despite being built on the idea of connectivity, the Metaverse could instead break the internet apart. The solution lies in how the business is done.