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According to the most recent study by the Policy Center for the New South in Morocco (PCNS), Nigeria had the highest number of cryptocurrency owners (40.5%) of all 33 African countries surveyed.

According to the study, South Africa is the next-highest-ranked African country, with 7.71 million crypto holders. It is third in Africa with 6 million crypto holders, according to the study.

These three countries have the highest percentage of crypto holders of all the surveyed states. They also have the lowest proportion of holders to their population.

This metric shows that South Africa, which has 12.27% of crypto holders, is number one. With 11.85%, Kenya ranks second, while Nigeria is third with 10.33%.

The Urban and Economic Factors are responsible for the rising number of crypto holders

The PCNS study showed that crypto holders in the remaining countries was between one and five per cent. Togo (42.22%) and Ghana (4.3%) are the top two countries in this category. Cabo Verde (1%) ranks lowest.

In Seychelles, home to major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Huobi and Kucoin, the ratio of crypto holders to the estimated 90,000+ inhabitants is 1.33%.

The summary of the PCNS study, commenting on the findings:

This is not a random phenomenon. It is partly explained by the specific demographic, urban, and economic factors of the continent. The technology of cryptocurrency, [how it] allows capital to be transferred more quickly and at lower costs, is the other explanation.

The summary stated that countries which have restricted or banned the use of cryptocurrency like Nigeria should consider regulation.

Investors rushed to obtain their coins from unregulated sites after the collapse of FTX, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. In just two days, Bitcoin lost 24% of its value.

Investors can sell options on the Proshares Bitcoin Strategy eTF ( BITO) to generate income as the crypto market slows down and implied volatility remains high.

Investors can sell the 7-strike put expiring March 17, with a price of BITO trading at 10.15 on Thursday’s close. Investors will earn approximately $65 per lot by selling this put. This is the maximum profit that investors would receive if BITO trades exceed 7 at expiry. This trade has a break-even of 6.35.

Bitcoin must trade below $11,500 to lose more than 30% by March, as a benchmark.

You get a great deal on your options

This trade is attractive due to its high volatility and high skew. It can make money if bitcoin falls, stays neutral, or rises only moderately before expiration.

These options are very expensive due to their implied volatility of 96%. This is because BITO’s 30-day realized volatility, which includes the entire FTX mess, is only 72%.

Investors are eager to see if the next crypto exchange or fund with excessive leverage drops. However, it is difficult to imagine the market being taken by surprise at this stage unless there is an overwhelming contagion effect. Volatility should decrease in the next few months, unless there is a significant new catalyst.

The break-even price for Bitcoin in this trade may be lower than $11,500. Bitcoin futures are trading at a discount, even though they should be traded at a slightly higher price than bitcoin’s spot.

The December and November contracts, which BITO holds, trade at 1% and 2% below BTC’s spot prices, respectively. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ( GBTC) has a huge discount of 40% that is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. However, futures must converge to bitcoin spot prices on expiration. The backwardation will provide a slight tailwind to the price BITO over the next months.

The CFTC regulates Bitcoin futures trading on CME. They don’t have the solvency risk associated with trading cryptocurrencies on unregulated exchanges.

Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq GOOGL) announced Thursday the launch of its Google Cloud Blockchain Node Engine. Google released the engine because it believes that self-managed nodes can be difficult to deploy and need constant management.

The Blockchain Node Engine product can be used by both crypto companies and Web3 service providers. It is a fully managed node-hosting platform that can be used to leverage the blockchain. On Thursday, the company explained that the new node-engine service will be available to support Ethereum, the second largest crypto asset network according to market capital.

The tech company stated that Ethereum will be the first blockchain to be supported by Blockchain Engine. This allows developers to create fully managed Ethereum nodes with secure blockchain access.

This news comes after Google’s recent collaboration with Coinbase to promote Web3 innovation. The latest blockchain engine product allows Web3 companies to relay transactions, deploy smart contract, and read and write blockchain data with the reliability and performance they expect from Google Cloud compute.

A Blockdata study also shows that Google is a top investor in blockchain technology, having invested in companies like Fireblocks and Digital Currency Group (DCG), Dapper Labs and Vultage. The tech giant’s entry in the world of decentralized financial (defi), and Web3 was announced last May, when it created a Web3 team within their cloud unit.

A spokesperson for Google stated that they were providing technologies to companies in order to take advantage of Web3’s distributed nature in their businesses and enterprises. According to the latest announcement, the service will offer’streamlined provisioning’,’secure development’ and ‘fully-managed operations’.

Google’s blog concludes that Blockchain Node Engine reduces the need for dedicated Devops teams and offers Google Cloud’s service-level agreement (SLA) so your team can focus on your users, not your infrastructure. We are excited to support organizations with a reliable and easy-to-use cloud node hosting service that allows them to focus on developing and scaling Web3 applications.

According to a Tuesday note by Fairlead Strategies, the crypto bear market will continue until bitcoin confirms that it has fallen below $20,000

According to the technical analysis-focused research company, bitcoin is currently testing support levels of $18,300 and $19,000. This was in response to last week’s CPI-induced selloff.

Fairlead’s Katie Stockton says that a confirmed break below this support range (two consecutive weekly closes below $18,300) increases the downside risk for bitcoin to secondary resistance near $13,900. This represents a potential downside of 29% compared to current levels and would likely spread bitcoin’s weakness to other cryptocurrencies.

According to the monthly MACD histogram, negative long-term momentum is increasing which allows for long-term oversold conditions. As it stands, it could take months for a meaningful shift,’ Stockton said, referring to the Moving Average Convergence-Divergence indicator. “Short-term momentum has changed to negative per a new daily MACD signal’sell’, increasing risk when long-term support tests are tested.

Stockton says that Bitcoin’s long-, medium-, and short-term momentum signals are all bearish amid ongoing decline. The rollover of its 50 day moving average suggests that momentum could continue to the downside.

A negative sign for crypto markets as a whole is that bitcoin has outperformed ether relative to ether since September.

Ether was in sell-off mode after its successful merger, which made the Ethereum blockchain a proof-of–stake system instead of proof-of–work. Stockton believes that ether will fall to $1,000 support and could be a downside of 27%.

Stockton stated that the shift in favor of bitcoin was a bearish indicator for cryptocurrency markets generally, reflecting defensive rotation as altcoins and bitcoin get into support retest’ mode.

She said that bitcoin could alter its bearish trend if it avoids a confirmed break below support and reclaims resistance around $22,000. The crypto bear market will continue until then.

Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced Monday that his department is preparing for ‘token mapping’ as part of his efforts to adopt rules in the cryptocurrency sector. Reuters quoted his statement.

This initiative will catalog all digital currencies used in the country. It is considered a first step towards identifying the crypto assets that need to be regulated.

Chalmers highlighted that Australia will be the first country in the world to stocktake crypto holdings.

We need to ensure that customers who engage with crypto are properly informed and protected, given the increasing popularity of crypto assets.

After years of debate on how to regulate decentralized cryptocurrency like bitcoin, has been announced. Since the home-office work and stimulus payments that were made during the pandemic have led to an increase in crypto investments, the calls for regulation have grown in recent years.

An inquiry by the Senate under the former conservative government recommended that wide-ranging regulations be adopted to protect cryptocurrency owners last year. The election of May this year resulted in a center-left cabinet.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission ( ASIC), also stated that the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency makes it a strong case for regulation. According to the watchdog, 44% of country’s retail investors owned crypto by 2021.

Jim Chalmers, while he did not give any details about any future rules, described token mapping as “the first step in reform.” He made these comments in response to the Australian Taxation Office’s announcement earlier this year that it would concentrate on capital gains from cryptocurrency assets. This is one of many priority areas where the authority believes more effort is needed to ensure accurate reporting.