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The crypto winter is the coldest time in a cryptocurrency market cycle. The moment crypto assets find their top and begin a period of correction, the "crypto winter" is said to have begun.

Iceland is the first country to use more electricity on mining crypto-curriencies than on its households – thanks in part to its magma-fuelled power plants.

Bitcoin’s price may be down more than 50% from its highs in December, but no one has told Iceland, where the cryptocurrency and its offspring are reshaping the economy.

According to Johann Snorri Sigurbergsson, an employee of the energy company HS Orka, Icelandic cryptocurrency “mining” is likely to double its energy consumption to about 100 megawatts this year. That is more than households use in the nation of 340,000 people, according to the national energy authority.

Mining is the name for the decentralised process that underpins the integrity of most cryptocurrencies. Effectively, a bunch of computers engage in a race to burn through the most electricity possible and, every 10 minutes, one wins a prize of 12.5 bitcoin for the effort, still worth more than $100,000, despite recent falls.

The metaverse is taking shape, and while Facebook's vision of it is still years away, Ethereum-developed games like Decentraland and The Sandbox are already reaping the benefits.

Bitcoin (BTC) will not be outside the metaverse, thanks to a game built under Stacks, a network that uses the blockchain of the world's largest token.

The name of the game is Moonray and it is a stylish action RPG game for PC that will make early access available to some players in March 2022.

This was a big year for new ETFs, the popular investment that makes it easy to buy various stocks, cryptocurrencies, or other assets.

Several bitcoin ETFs were launched in 2021, with more possibilities for 2022. Some experts predict new ETFs for ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.

Fund firm Defiance has just debuted a new digital ETF revolution aimed at companies that are increasingly doing business with non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, the digital asset that has become popular in the world of arts and collectibles.

Defiance's NFT ETF is based on an index and holds shares in companies such as bitcoin bank Silvergate, eBay, pop culture figurine giant Funko, and Pl***oy.

Other index-based ETFs continue to become popular. Cathie Wood of Ark Invest has just launched a new fund tied to an index of companies with good corporate transparency scores.

Ark also has a family of actively managed ETFs, where managers choose individual stocks or other assets rather than relying on indexes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is publicly showing more openness to the role of crypto in the country's future, especially in international energy markets, on which Russia is economically dependent.

In an interview with CNBC's Hadley Gamble for Russia Energy Week, Putin mentioned the possibility of eventually switching oil-linked contracts made in dollars to other currencies, including cryptocurrencies.

"Cryptocurrency, of course, can be a unit [to be used], but it is not stable. To transfer money from one place to another - even trading, even more trading energy sources - is something still premature, in my opinion."

While not a grand statement about cryptocurrencies, nor a promise of future action, this is still a remarkable sign from Russia's most powerful figure. Putin himself and the regime over which he exercises broad control have never in the past been so specific about a serious use case for crypto.

Russian law currently allows cryptocurrency trading, but since 2020 the country has banned the use of crypto as a means of payment in the country. Internationally, however, Russia has shown interest in alternatives to the dollar.

Tencent, a Chinese tech giant with a market capitalization of more than $460 billion that operates an online payment processor with more than 900 million users, has reportedly begun forming a research unit for digital currencies to analyze how cryptocurrencies can be used on its platforms. According to Finance Sina.

Initial exchange offerings (IEOs) have not been very profitable for investors: since they started trading on exchanges, most projects have seen their value fall by 80% or more, with a few exceptions. According to Cryptoglobe.

Protecting investors has motivated the government of Uzbekistan, which recently decided to ban cryptocurrency purchases. Uzbekistan was once considered one of the most cryptocurrency-friendly nations in Central Asia. According to the leading Uzbek news channel.

Newcomers and experts in the nascent world of non-fungible tokens say they are planning to distribute the digital gifts to friends and family - who may not even know exactly what to do with them.

Abraham Aradillas says he didn't know about NFTs until about six months ago, when they exploded in popularity and were parodied by the US comedy show Saturday Night Live. But now the 23-year-old truck driver from Dallas says he will buy Platy Punks - a popular NFT with the image of a platypus - for all his friends for Christmas, and he believes they will be excited and confused.

"When I told my friends that I would buy an NFT, they laughed at me. They said, 'you bought a picture of a platypus'. So I believe they will have the same reaction," Aradillas recounted.

As the prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies skyrocketed last year, NFTs entered the dance. They attracted the interest of people, who began trading and managing their own wallets during the pandemic, as well as those who finally understood crypto-actives.

Some gift givers say they hope their friends and relatives will learn about NFTs and that the token will be a good investment - sort of like a winning ticket, the gift can pay off big time. In other cases, the gifts are more like collectibles, souvenirs, or art.

Bill 2303/15 creates a supervisory body, to be appointed by the Executive Branch, which will be responsible for authorizing and controlling the operation of cryptoactive brokerages. In addition, the approved text adds, in the Criminal Code, a new criminal offense of stelion, assigning imprisonment from 4 to 8 years and a fine for those who "organize, manage, offer or distribute portfolios or intermediate operations involving virtual assets, securities or any financial assets in order to obtain illicit advantage to the detriment of others, inducing or keeping someone in error, through artifice, trickery or any other fraudulent means.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) is a memecoin developed in August 2020 by a pseudonymous person or group named Ryoshi.

Like Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, Ryoshi's true identity is not widely known. In a blog post in May, Ryoshi described himself as "a nobody" and "not important."

The SHIB token is an ERC-20 token hosted on the Ethereum blockchain. There was originally one quadrillion (one thousand trillion tokens), but today's circulating supply is just over half that number, at 549,095,509,738,353 SHIB.

Shiba Inu takes its name from one of Japan's six native dog breeds. Shibas are considered intelligent dogs with fiery personalities and cat-like agility. In the past, they were used to hunt birds, game, and wild boar.



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Bitcoin (BTC) did not reach the $100,000 threshold that many expected in 2021, but it leaves behind an undeniable positive balance with an accumulated appreciation of almost 160% in 12 months.

The other cryptocurrencies, however, fared even better, with Ethereum (ETH) delivering four times as much return as BTC, up 600% year-on-year despite the well-known problem of high fees. Meanwhile, several rival projects such as Binance Coin (BNB) and Solana (SOL) have taken advantage of the gap and shot up to 11,000% since the beginning of the year.

Added together, the major cryptocurrencies by market value have jumped 200% since January, from $800 billion to $2.4 trillion in December - at the year's high, the capitalization even surpassed the $3 trillion mark.

Of that, just over 38% is Bitcoin. The rest is the result of the year's various trends, which ranged from decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFTs, to play-to-earn games, and finally the metaverse.

With that, these names will dictate the year 2022, especially metaverse and smart contract platforms.



# cryptocurrency cryptoart

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced this morning that the company will now accept payments in Dogecoin (DOGE) for the purchase of merchandising products such as T-shirts and giveaways. There is no timetable for releasing the purchase of branded vehicles with the cryptocurrency.

Still, the announcement, via Twitter, heavily impacted the price of the meme coin, which skyrocketed 33% to $0.21, in yet another show of strength to influence markets a day after Musk was voted Person of the Year by Time magazine.

"Tesla will make some purchasable products with Doge and see where it goes," the billionaire said.

- Bitcoin lost a fifth of its value on Saturday (4), in a combination of profit taking and macroeconomic concerns that led to nearly $1 billion in cryptocurrency sales. Bitcoin was down as much as 12% this morning. It dipped as low as $41,967.5 during the session, bringing the day's total losses to 22%.

- A ampla venda de criptomoedas também teve a ether, moeda ligada à rede de blockchain Ethereum, a cair mais de 10%.

- Based on the cryptocurrency data platform Coingecko, the market capitalization of the 11,392 coins it tracks fell nearly 15 percent to $2.34 trillion. It had passed $3 trillion for a brief moment last month, when bitcoin hit a record high of $69,000.

- The drop comes after a volatile week for financial markets. Global stocks and US bonds plummeted on Friday (3) after data showed US job growth slowed in November. The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is also keeping investors on their toes.

Source: CNN BUSINESS