News in brief

• The European Central Bank intends to raise its base rate by a quarter of a percentage point in July and expects to take a further step in this direction in September.
• The ECB also raised its inflation estimates today and lowered its GDP estimates.
• Most stocks will have an extremely difficult road up. Expensive commodities, supply chain disruptions, double-digit inflation and associated interest rate hikes all add up to a cocktail that does not bode well for stocks.

• Bitcoin has finally calmed after the recent price fluctuations and has remained just over the $30,000 mark.
• Most altcoins are also untypically stable on a 24-hour scale.

Bitcoin (BTC) is now trading at $30,164 down by 0,8% in 24 hours

Ethereum (ETH) is now trading at $1,795 down by 0.7% in 24 hours

PlatonCoin (PLTC) is now trading at $1.21 down by 7,7% in 24 hours

Total market capitalization is now $1.294 trillion, down by 0.1% in 24 hours

(all data valid at the time of publishing, from Coingecko.com)

Crypto news

NFTs and technological renaissance: Binance’s head of NFTs and fan tokens, Helen Hai, said today that the exchange is looking to offer courses to empower women to make money from NFTs. In an on-stage conversation at the Money 20/20 conference in Amsterdam, Hai spoke about the benefits of blockchain for removing intermediaries in the art world and beyond. She said that the ultimate goal for NFTs is a “technological Renaissance” in art. She said that the answer to the question of whether a technology has value or not is whether it solves real-world problems.

Lithuania and annonymous wallets: Lithuania’s Finance Ministry has banned anonymous wallets and imposed strict regulations on crypto exchanges in an attempt to combat money-laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion. The ministry stated it had made the move in anticipation of future European Union decisions.

Human rights and cryptocurrencies: Despite the cryptocurrency market expanding at an unprecedented rate and digital assets becoming adopted almost everywhere as an alternative to traditional money, some authorities have taken a very critical approach to them, prompting certain groups to advocate for their adoption and fair regulation. One of these groups includes 21 human rights advocates from 20 countries around the world, which have written a letter to United States lawmakers in which they defend cryptocurrencies and praise their role in societies around the world, providing financial inclusion and empowerment.

Would you like to gain a better understanding of the world of cryptocurrencies? Try our series of educational articles for newbies. Did you find a term in the text that you don’t understand? You can find all the most commonly used terms in our glossary.