Fed Decision Could Impact Bitcoin And Zuckerberg Ends Stablecoin

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The US Federal Reserve plans interest rate hikes this year, to deal with rising inflation and a difficult job market in the US which has seen many people walk out of their jobs in what became known as the ‘great resignation’. In response, this could mean that investors will go full risk-off and thus divest from tech and crypto and invest into defensive stocks and bonds. Once again, it is Jerome Powell who can thus determine the fate of Bitcoin’s price.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin trades around $36,000, with analysts unsure as to its short term direction.

Binance, the world’s biggest crypto trading platform, has announced it would reinstate payments in the Euro area (EU Single Euro Payments Area or SEPA), according to reports on Bloomberg which were later confirmed by the company itself.

#Binance reopens EUR bank transfer via Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).https://t.co/SjghATkl3t

— Binance (@binance) January 26, 2022

Zuckerberg shelves stablecoin plans

According to a report in (again) Bloomberg earlier this week, the company Meta (formerly known as Facebook) is trying to offload its Diem division. Meta and Diem might not mean much to you, but Facebook and Libra certainly rings a bell. A few years ago, Mark Zuckerberg sent shivers through the financial world when he claimed that Facebook would soon be launching Libra, their very own stablecoin with immediately 2 billion users.

Facebook’s #Diem #cryptocurrency

could be #sold off amid #regulatory pressure https://t.co/GLDekI3kl7 #fintech @scmpnews @business #Facebook #MarkZuckerberg

— Spiros Margaris (@SpirosMargaris) January 26, 2022

The global banking system called all it’s lobbyists quickly and regulators sounded the alarm bells. Pressure from different groups caused founding members of the Libra Association to quiten masse. eBay, Mastercard and Visa all walked out on the same day.

Fast forward to 2022 and the stablecoin plans have now been shelved, or at least it seems, and Facebook (as well as Instagram) plan to market and sell NFTs. What a difference a name change makes we believe.