Forbes - Spooked 👻

Good Thursday morning. Billy Bambrough here, bringing you your latest batch of crypto news and analysis.
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24-hour crypto market snapshot
Race to the bottom 🏁
After an unusually quiet period over the holidays, volatility is back. The combined cryptocurrency market value is poised to fall under $2 trillion for the first time since October and down almost $1 trillion from its November peak. The sudden sell-off was caused by the release of Federal Reserve December meeting minutes that showed policy-makers are keener than previously thought to raise interest rates and trim the Fed's bloated balance sheet. Read the full story on Forbes.

The bitcoin price has lost $5,000 per bitcoin, down almost 10% on this time yesterday and looks at risk of falling under the closely-watched $40,000 level. All top ten coins, as measured by CoinMarketCap, are down around 10%, with ethereum, solana, and polkadot currently leading the major market lower.
Meanwhile, NFT tokens were among the hardest hit by the sell-off. Decrypt has a write-up.

Now read this: Where Are Bitcoin Prices Heading Next After Today's Move Toward $42,000?
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Kazakhstan offline 📵
Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Kazakhstan in recent days to protest the price of fuel
Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Kazakhstan in recent days to protest the price of fuel ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gone dark: Kazakhstan's new bitcoin and crypto miners have been knocked offline after the country’s largest internet service provider shut down access to the internet in response to protesters storming government buildings over sky-high energy costs. The country's government has resigned and a two-week curfew, including a ban on mass gatherings, has been implemented for the city of Almaty and surrounding areas.

Super-dirty: "The curtain just lifted on one of the many mysteries surrounding bitcoin: How much is being produced using super-dirty coal in Kazakhstan," writes Fortune.

Why it matters: Kazakhstan has become a major cryptocurrency mining hub after China's expulsion of miners through 2021. Crypto miners use powerful computers to secure cryptocurrency blockchains and validate transactions in return for freshly-minted coins. Kazakhstan is now thought to be home to as much as 18% of the world's bitcoin mining power, according to research from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance out late last year and reported by The Block. While the computing power being directed at a blockchain—known as its hashrate—is not directly correlated to the price of a cryptocurrency, it gives an indication of the network’s security and sudden swings can both spook investors and potentially cause miners to sell more coins than usual.

Mine offline: Crypto mining in Kazakhstan "is likely to be hurt," by the internet blackout, Coindesk reported. "I guess some geeks would say that in theory, you could mine without internet, but in practice, all the machines in Kazakhstan should be turned off because of the internet shutdown," Jaran Mellerud, a researcher at Arcane Research, told CoinDesk.

What next? Power problems had been anticipated in Kazakhstan. In November, the Financial Times reported that "Kazakhstan has been struggling to cope with the huge popularity of crypto mining ... The pressure on the grid caused by crypto mining operations has caused blackouts in towns and villages across six regions of the country since October." Those problems had already forced some crypto miners to look for a more stable home elsewhere and now internet blackouts are likely to cause another relocation.

Good to know: Crypto scammers took a record $14 billion in 2021
Crypto tax troubles 🧾
🇮🇳 India's tax authorities have accused the country’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance-owned WazirX, of evading taxes to the tune of $5.4 million. Quartz has a write-up.

🤑 The investigation is the first crypto-related tax investigation India and, according to Quartz, "signals a new era for India’s tax authorities, with crypto a potential source of revenue as well as alleged fraud."

⌛ India, one of the world's largest crypto trading markets, is still weighing strict new crypto regulations that are expected to be finalized in the coming months.

Now read this: Crypto means freedom—Garry Kasparov
hello world
Billy Bambrough
Forbes Senior Contributor
I am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business. I write about how bitcoin, crypto and blockchain can change the world.
Follow me on Twitter or email me.
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