Overall crypto sell-off continues, Terra to launch new blockchain

The overall market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies has fallen by around 3.5% in the last seven days from $1.33 billion on 13 May to $1.28 billion today.

Bitcoin (BTC), the top cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, lost over 0.6% of its value in the past week fluctuating between the $31,000 and $28,000 marks.

Ethereum (ETH) followed in BTC’s bearish trend losing over 3% of its value in the last week. Fluctuating between the $2,100 and $1,900 marks the token has been struggling to reach beyond $3,000 where its value stood three months ago.

Cardano (ADA) was also down by nearly 7% this week fluctuating between $0.6 highs and $0.4 lows.

Elon Musk-endorsed memecoin Dogecoin (DOGE) dipped over 5% in the last seven days dropping from $0.09 at the start of the week to $0.08 at the end.

What brought this bullish trend on? Let’s look at the top crypto news this week

Coinbase crypto exchange cut back on hiring amid crypto market sell-off

One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Coinbase, announced on Tuesday that it was forced to cut back on hiring new staff amid the vast crypto market sell-off.

“Heading into this year, we planned to triple the size of the company. Given current market conditions, we feel it’s prudent to slow hiring and reassess our headcount needs against our highest-priority business goals,” Coinbase’s president and COO, Emilie Choi, said in a post published on the company’s website.

Coinbase’s stock declined by around 80% compared to its initial public offering which stood at around $328 now down to $64. The firm, which depends on trading activity for a majority of its revenue, reported that it lost over $430 million during the first quarter of 2022.

Choi reassured that Coinbase is planning for all market scenarios and is starting to put some of those plans into practice.

“We’re in a strong position — we have a solid balance sheet and we’ve been through several market downturns before, and we’ve emerged stronger every time,” she added.

Terra USD founder Do Kwon suggested plan to create a new blockchain

The creator of the Terra USD (UST) stablecoin and its sister token LUNA, which dipped around 9 May and lost over 90% of their value since, put forth on Wednesday a governance proposal for a community vote on his idea to ditch the UST stablecoin and create a blockchain.

“Terra governance prop #1623 to rename the existing network Terra Classic, LUNA Classic ($LUNC), and rebirth a new Terra blockchain & LUNA ($LUNA) is now live,” Do tweeted.

The stablecoin’s creator is proposing a fork plan which would see the existing Terra blockchain split into two separate blockchains which would exist at the same time but operate independently.

So far, a little over 80% of the community voted for the plan.

Australia’s Commonwealth Bank pauses launch of crypto trading on app

Australia’s largest bank has paused on Thursday the launch of crypto trading through its app amid the vast crypto market sell-off which saw tokens’ values dipping in the last few weeks.

These plans were announced by the Commonwealth Bank in November and customers would have been able to buy up to 10 different tokens including bitcoin, ether and Litecoin.

“As events of the last week have reinforced, it is clearly a very volatile sector that remains an enormous amount of interest,” the bank’s chief executive officer Matt Comyn said during a tech briefing.

“We want to continue to play a leading role in providing input into that and shaping the most appropriate regulatory outcome. Our intention still, at this stage is to restart the pilot, but there is still a couple of things that we want to work through on a regulatory front to make sure that that is most appropriate,” he added.

The country’s federal Treasury is set to have a consulting on crypto regulations with submissions open until 27 May.

Despite BTC’s bearish performance, Block ecosystem is bullish

The pro-BTC umbrella company that hosts Cash App, Square and Afterpay, Block, announced on Thursday that its gross profits for the first quarter of 2022 surged by 34% year-over-year despite bitcoin’s latest dip.

In total, the company acquired around $1.29 billion in gross profits, its operating costs were also up year-over-year surging by 70$ to $1.52 billion so far.

Cash App, Block’s bitcoin retail outlet and mobile payment service generated $1.73 billion of BTC in revenue and $43 million of BTC gross profit during the first quarter of 2022, down by 51%, however that did not stop the firm’s profit from surging.

Note, cryptocurrency CFD trading is restricted in the UK for all retail clients.