The fourth week of May has been exciting for the cryptocurrency markets. The biggest news was Coinbase's announcement that it acquired Paradex, a decentralized trading platform, and will upgrade GDAX to Coinbase Pro. The redesigned Coinbase Pro will replace the GDAX platform on June 29.
Here's the rest of the week in review:
Perpetual crypto bull Tom Lee of Fundstrat remains steadfast to his stance on the asset class. In an interview with CNBC, he cited institutional demand, the cost of mining Bitcoin (BTC) as compared to gold, and the current bear market's misery index. He called for BTC to eventually go from $8,000 to $25,000 in "a handful of days." Credit is due to Tom Lee for holding on to his convictions even as blood is in the streets.
A crypto PR stunt involving Mount Everest became deadly. ASKfm, a social network in Ukraine, organized a trek to bury a hard drive containing ICO tokens on the world's tallest mountain. Four climbers traveled to Nepal, but during their descent, a local Sherpa who accompanied the group went missing and was presumed dead. The startup's promo encouraged crypto enthusiasts to go to Mount Everest and search for the hard drive.
India's government is considering a hefty tax on crypto trading. An Indian government agency is drafting proposals to add a tax of 18 percent on crypto transactions. Proposals would need approval by a council on goods and services tax. While India's government continues to grapple with crypto's legal status and legitimacy, traders and investors in the country wait anxiously.
South Africa's government has unveiled its position on crypto. The South African central bank claims that cryptocurrencies are not currencies, but rather "cyber-tokens." The country has yet to establish a coherent regulatory framework for crypto. A central bank official stated that South Africa is hoping self-regulatory organizations will be part of a solution to the regulation issue.
The popular social networking and data analytics startup TradingView has secured $37 million in a funding round led by Insight Venture Partners, DRW Venture Capital, and Jump Capital. TradingView bas benefitted greatly from the crypto boom, offering charting and tools based on the data of both large and small crypto exchanges. TradingView is unique because its proprietary language, PineScript, allows users to develop their own tools for analysis.
Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper freestyled a three-minute rap about crypto at a tech conference in Amsterdam Friday morning. He also spoke about his continuing enthusiasm for crypto, blockchain tech's potential to disrupt banking and venture capital, and his prediction that BTC will reach $250,000 by 2022.
Crypto prices fell broadly to the $330 billion level, bouncing off a Thursday low around $318 billion. The US Justice Department's criminal probe into crypto trading activity was likely the driver of bearish price action. One bright spot is TRON (TRX), which gained 1.8 percent due to news about its mainnet launch. The majors might not reverse until the fundamental regulatory concerns are resolved.
The author owns a small amount of BTC.