The cryptocurrency market is now worth over $3 trillion, according to CoinGecko. This comes as the top digital coins, including ether and bitcoin, rally on Monday.
Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value under bitcoin, hit a new all-time high above $4,700 on Monday. It is currently trading at around $4,785, according to Coin Metrics data.
Along with it, bitcoin is inching closer to its record high of above $66,900 and is currently trading at around $66,006.
Others, like Solana, are also in the green. This year, Solana’s token, SOL, is up nearly 12,000%, according to CoinGecko. Now the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market value, SOL hit an all-time high of nearly $259.96 on Saturday. It’s now trading at around $249.
Here are five more key things that happened in crypto this past week.
1. Over 5,000 people attend NFT.NYC conference
To celebrate their love for NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, over 5,000 people attended the NFT.NYC conference in Manhattan last week.
The highly anticipated event, which left 3,000 people on a waitlist, began on November 1 and ended on Thursday.
The week included 600 speakers on panels, as well as parties, dinners, raves, galleries and attractions. The people behind notable NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club threw an actual yacht party on the Hudson River, along with an owners-only concert by The Strokes at music venue Brooklyn Steel.
NFT enthusiasts, top crypto influencers and mainstream celebrities all attended, including director Quentin Tarantino, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk and comedian Chris Rock, to name a few.
Throughout, attendees traded 700,000 event NFTs, according to CoinDesk.
2. ‘Squid Game’-inspired cryptocurrency crashes
A cryptocurrency inspired by Netflix’s hit TV series “Squid Game” crashed after its founders cashed out, CNBC reported on Tuesday.
The token, called SQUID, hit a high of just over $2,861 on Nov. 1 before plummeting to near zero, according to price-tracking website CoinMarketCap.
CoinMarketCap issued a warning that it received “multiple reports” that users were unable able to sell the token on Pancakeswap, a popular decentralized exchange, and the token’s white paper and website have since disappeared.
It seems that the token’s creators collected at least $3.4 million in investor funds. The incident appears to be a so-called “rug pull,” where project founders abandon a project and take investor funds with them.
3. Quentin Tarantino to offer seven uncut scenes from ‘Pulp Fiction’ as NFTs
On Tuesday, Quentin Tarantino announced plans to sell seven uncut scenes from “Pulp Fiction” as NFTs.
Each will also include handwritten scripts from the film and audio commentary from Tarantino himself, which will only be able to be seen by owners of the NFT.
The NFTs will be auctioned on marketplace OpenSea. A launch date has not yet been announced.
4. Incoming NY mayor Eric Adams vows to take first three paychecks in bitcoin
New York City mayor-elect Eric Adams plans to take his first three paychecks in bitcoin, he said in a tweet on Thursday.
“NYC is going to be the center of the cryptocurrency industry,” Adams wrote.
On Wednesday, Adams also said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio that he wanted to wager a “friendly competition” with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is a big bitcoin supporter.
“He has a MiamiCoin that is doing very well — we’re going to look in the direction to carry that out,” Adams told Bloomberg Radio, alluding that he’s looking into creating a city coin for New York that is similar to Miami’s.
5. Congress passes $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill
