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• Google Pushes Deeper Into Blockchain and Crypto – Partners with Coinbase (NASDAQ:), Hires Paypal Vet

• Grayscale Fund Down 30%. Whales Add 40k BTC In Last 2 Days

• Surpasses Visa’s Value Moved in 2021, JPMorgan (NYSE:) Calls High Gas Fee A Big Problem for ETH

• Pavia Launch Makes Metaverse debut

• Crypto.com CEO admits 400 accounts were hacked in hack

Google Pushes Deeper Into Blockchain and Crypto – Partners with Coinbase, Hires Paypal Vet

Alphabet (NASDAQ:) Inc.’s Google has ventured deeper into blockchain technology by forming a blockchain and distributed computing division. Led by Shivakumar Venkataraman, the new division will focus on “blockchain and other next-gen distributed computing and data storage technologies.”

Confirming the comment of Bill Ready, Google’s President of Commerce, that the company is paying “a lot of attention” to cryptocurrencies, Google has hired PayPal (NASDAQ:) veteran Arnold Goldberg to lead its payments division. Google Pay may expand its offerings to include cryptocurrency with the hire.

Bill Ready explained that the move is part of Alphabet Inc.’s broader plans to partner with a wide range of financial services, including cryptocurrencies. One of such partnerships is with America’s leading crypto exchange, Coinbase.

According to reports, Google’s partnership with Coinbase will see the duo work together to develop a means of storing cryptocurrencies in “digital cards” while still having users pay in traditional currencies.

Flipsider:

• Jack Dorsey has voiced concern about the expansion of megacompanies as well as venture capital firms in order to centralize the Blockchain industry.

What You Need to Care About

Bill Ready said that cryptocurrency is something Google must pay more attention to, and grow with.

Grayscale Bitcoin Fund down 30%; Whales add 40k BTC over the last 2 days

The world’s largest institutional Bitcoin fund – Grayscale Bitcoin Trust’s (GBTC) – has seen its discount relative to the underlying cryptocurrency widen. The discount has occurred over two months and saw GBTC reach 26.5%.

The GBTC is equivalent to $30,870 with Bitcoin trading at $42,000. In 2022 alone, the $27 billion GBTC Fund has dropped by almost 17%, outpacing Bitcoin’s nearly 9% decline.

Flipsider:

• Whales continue to grow their Bitcoin reserves despite the price decline of two months.

• According to whale tracker Santiment, large Bitcoin wallets have added almost 40,000 BTCs (worth around $1.68 billion at Bitcoin’s current price of $42k) in the last 48 hours.

What You Need to Care About

Despite the bears applying pressure, bulls have taken a stance to hold their stake – increasing the argument that bitcoin can be used as a store of value.

Ethereum Surpasses Visa’s Value Moved in 2021, JPMorgan Calls High Gas Fee A Big Problem for ETH

While Ethereum’s ongoing network migration was one of the project’s most talked about milestones in 2021, the smart contracts platform achieved even more. Ethereum’s 2021 milestone of moving more value to Visa (NYSE:), is just one example.

New reports claim that Ethereum has moved an estimated $11.6 trillion. This is more than Visa (which moved $10.4 trillion) in 2021. Bitcoin, however, managed only $4.6 trillion during the same time period.

Ethereum total transaction volume in 2021. Source: Josh Stark

Flipsider:

• JP Morgan, despite Ethereum’s significant advancements, has been a staunch supporter of the cryptocurrency. Comment that the platform’s high gas fee and network congestion are a big problem.

• These led to a drop in Ethereum’s NFT market share from 95% to 80% – at the beginning and end of 2021, with being one of the growing NFT hubs.
• Based on JP MorganIf Ethereum loses its NFT, DeFi dominance, it could pose a big problem to Ether’s valuation.