Last week, FTSE Russell unveiled plans to develop a crypto index centered around 43 digital assets. The company in charge of the U.K .stock market's benchmark index told London's City A.M that the new index will be presented next to the FTSE 100 and Russell 2000 indices.
The firm in October launched a small-scale digital asset index series, which centers solely on Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Cardano (ADA). The new version of the index will offer a much broader view of the crypto market, as FTSE Russell say coins added to the index will undergo a vigorous screening process that will weed out most of the smaller assets. But meme coins such as Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) could still be added to the index, and stablecoins could be included as well.
The move to create an index comes as FTSE Russell estimates crypto assets will attain a global market cap over $3 trillion by 2025.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
In Kleiman v Wright, a federal jury in Florida found that Australian self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright did not have a business partnership with deceased Florida computer forensics expert Dave Kleiman, but he does owe $100 million in compensatory damages for intellectual property conversion to a company Kleiman founded. The jury ultimately found Wright not liable for a majority of the charges. Wright said after the verdict: "I feel remarkably happy and vindicated I am not a fraud, and I never have been." Wright had testified he was friends with Kleiman and that Kleiman helped him edit a white paper that explained the foundation of Bitcoin, but he insisted the two were not business partners. Kleiman died in 2013, and his brother brought the federal civil lawsuit on behalf of the estate. The jury was not tasked with deciding the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. Both sides used the assumption that Wright was either entirely or partly responsible for the creation of the crypto, with Wright's stating he alone created Bitcoin and Kleiman's arguing that it was a partnership between Wright and Kleiman. Wright's claims to be Satoshi have been discredited as he does not own the private keys needed to access Satoshi's large Bitcoin holdings on the blockchain.
Executives of 6 crypto firms testified before Congress for the first time Wednesday and pleaded with lawmakers to let their startups flourish without onerous regulation. The crypto leaders appeared at a House Financial Services Committee hearing, with top Democrats showing a clear skepticism toward the financial risks associated with crypto trading, while Republicans largely called for taking a cautious approach to enacting new rules. The executives called for greater clarity, and some expressed dislike of the approach the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken. They stated that the digital asset trading their firms facilitate is a global force for good that the US should embrace. They argued crypto not only makes financial transactions more efficient, but also blockchain technology is a revolutionary innovation in decentralization that would help individuals take back control of the Internet from giants like Google
Crypto prices edged up to $3.32 trillion this week. For the majors, Solana (SOL) and Terra (LUNA) fell. In the top 100, the biggest decliners were Decred (DCR), down 19%, Kadena (KDA), down 12.5%, and WAVES, down 12%. The biggest gainers were NEAR Protocol (NEAR), up 49%, BitTorrent (BTT), up 36%, and Tezos (XTZ), up 20%.
The author owns a small amount of BTC.
