Intro

It’s been another exciting few days in crypto. I was planning to send this on Fridays but as is the case with the crypto world, things move fast so here’s some midweek news.

El Salvador recently launched Bitcoin services across the country. In just a few short weeks, 50% of the country has a Bitcoin wallet. Preliminary anecdotal reports suggest that people are actually using Bitcoin for transactions in the country of a little more than 6 million people. Satoshi Nakamoto’s use case for Bitcoin is finally seeing a real world scenario play out. Keep a close eye on this “sovereign beta test”.

News

1. Google Partners With Bakkt to Bring Google Pay to Crypto Users 
   Digital asset marketplace Bakkt has partnered with Google to expand the usability of cryptocurrency. Thus, users will soon be able to add their Bakkt Visa Debit Card directly into Google Pay. Bakkt will also be using Google Cloud as its preferred cloud provider to market its services to leading US retailers and merchants.
2. Wyoming’s Senator Lummis Discloses Apparent Bitcoin Buy of up to $100,000
   The senator’s purchase was from bitcoin brokerage River Financial. Lummis was a supporter of an amendment in Congress’s infrastructure bill in August that would exempt hardware wallet makers, cryptocurrency transaction validators, node operators and other non-brokers from tax regulations.
3. Top 10 Upcoming NFT Drops According To Survey Of 500 NFT Experts
   We asked 500 NFT analysts to rate the attractiveness of 100 upcoming NFT drops. Here’s a rundown of the top 10 NFT collections based on the rating of these analysts. These projects are only just gaining momentum and therefore have the potential to yield some impressive ROI in the future.
4. Bitcoin for beginners: Here’s what to know before you invest in cryptoHad you bought bitcoin in early April 2017, for example, you could have seen a 3,700% return in just four years. 
   
   But there also have been plenty of price plunges along the way. If you’d bought in mid-April of this year, you would have lost more than half your investment in just four months.So if you’re tempted to invest, here’s some thoughts on what to consider before taking the leap.
5. The U.S. Replaces China as World’s Biggest Bitcoin Miner
   Mining is the process by which transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain are executed. It uses a “Proof of Work” algorithm. The U.S. has become the world’s epicenter for Bitcoin mining after a crackdown in China effectively eliminated the practice in the former cradle of the industry. 
6. Reese Witherspoon Gets Into Ethereum NFTs, Snoop Dogg Gives Advice
   Actress Reese Witherspoon tweeted on Monday that she bought her first NFTs and rapper Snoop Dogg, an avid NFT collector, offered advice on one of the “most influential women” to follow in the space.

Meme / Tweet of the Moment

This isn’t just a meme. It’s a tweet – check out the thread if you have time to kill.

I thought you might like a short, curated list of interesting headlines from the crypto world. For now, on a weekly basis, I will include links to the original stories but I figure a lot of people just want a paragraph or two of the news of the day so here’s a start. Let me know what you think, e.g. “This is awesome”, “This is nice but I don’t understand”, “This is interesting but too time consuming”, “This is utterly useless and I’m unsubscribing”

The past week has been quite exciting for crypto “hodlers”. Bitcoin and Ether have both run up quite a bit and NFT projects continue to be hot. My Twitter Spaces is probably 95% NFT and Crypto.

1. Ethereum Outpaces Bitcoin in Derivatives Open Interest: CryptoCompare Report
   The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has, throughout September, outpaced the flagship cryptocurrency in terms of open interest across cryptocurrency derivatives products. aggregate open interest in Ethereum-based derivatives products grew 4.7% to $5.8 billion last month, while open interest in bitcoin derivatives fell 3.7% since August to $11.9 billion. 
2. Institutions buying Bitcoin rather than gold as inflation cranks up: JPMorgan
   According to a note shared by JPMorgan with clients on Thursday, the recent increase in price for BTC was predominantly attributed to institutional investors looking for a hedge to inflation. “The re-emergence of inflation concerns among investors has renewed interest in the usage of Bitcoin as an inflation hedge,” the analysts said, arguing there has been a shift in perception as to the merits of BTC in relation to gold.
3. NFT sales surge to $10.7 bln in Q3 as crypto asset frenzy hits new highsSales volumes of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) surged to $10.7 billion in the third quarter of 2021, up more than eightfold from the previous quarter, according to data from market tracker DappRadar, as the frenzy for crypto assets reached new highs.
4. AMC Theaters’ acceptance of Dogecoin follows viral community appeal
   Following an overwhelmingly positive response to a Twitter poll on Sept. 21, CEO of AMC Theater Adam Aron announced Wednesday that the chain would officially accept Dogecoin payments for digital gift cards via BitPay Wallet.The Dogecoin community — notoriously passionate for adoption initiatives — tweeted in droves to advocate for the asset’s integration within the theater’s payment options.
5. Someone Bought $1.6 Billion Worth Of Bitcoin
   Bitcoin could officially be out of the woods after an unidentified buyer purchased a whopping $1.6 billion worth of the asset on Wednesday, leading to price spiking by over 8% in just under 15 minutes.
6. Bitcoin beats stocks, commodities to become the best-performing asset of 2021
   Despite Bitcoin’s wild ride throughout the year, downside has failed to grip the market, with a 60% retracement from highs in May now all but cancelled out. The largest cryptocurrency is thus at least 13% ahead of commodities for the year, figures show this week, and 17% ahead of United States micro-cap companies.

Though not incredibly important news, definitely, very cool news: CoinDCX brings in Amitabh Bachchan as brand ambassador