What Will Happen Next With Crypto?

It seems not a day goes by anymore without big cryptocurrency news filling our screens and streams. Here’s a Monday morning chyron from Bloomberg:

VISA TO USE STABLECOIN TO SETTLE TRANSACTIONS

In a press release announcing the move, Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) called it “a major industry first in bridging the worlds of digital and traditional fiat currencies.”

Here’s what they’re talking about:

…the use of USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar, to settle a transaction with Visa over Ethereum — one of the most actively used open-source blockchains. Visa is piloting the capability with Crypto.com, a Visa partner and one of the world’s largest crypto platforms, and plans to offer the USDC settlement capability to additional partners later this year.

Crypto.com had already lit up Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) at 5:25 a.m. ET Monday morning:

And now, crypto Twitter is alive with talk of “every bit of integration with banks VISA etc. is good news for crypto” and “a fundamental step in the adoption of crypto” and “a step towards it becoming mainstream.”

Of course, it helps the “widespread adoption” case even when culturally iconic television shows poke fun.

Indeed, Bitcoin is bouncing back toward $60,000 as of Monday afternoon, having scraped the $50,000 handle as recently as March 25.

When our Weiss Crypto Alert correspondents Alex Benfield and Sam Blumenfeld left off on Friday, Bitcoin had rallied some at the end of an otherwise directionless trading week.

On Monday, it was a different story: “The entire digital currency market is up today, pushing toward $2 trillion of total market capitalization. And altcoins are breaking out … ”

Here’s more from Alex:

We’d been warning about a potential extended correction last week. But that doesn’t appear to be happening, at least not yet. And, if we zero in a bit, we can see that the excitement lies in the investment opportunity in alternative digital assets right now. 

Last week, when blue-chip cryptos showed some weakness, many altcoins, such as Filecoin (FIL) and Theta Token (THETA), went on to set record highs. Even now, the charts on most altcoins reveal assets primed and ready for big runs.

For the last few months, Bitcoin dominance had continued to grow in the face of major development in the altcoin space, particularly with DeFi. That trend seems to be ending, and altcoins look ready to take the spotlight.

What’s evident from the SNL bit is that cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin are going mainstream. While there’s still plenty to be made in Bitcoin and other blue-chips, altcoins still offer explosive gains available only to early movers. 

We’ll continue to keep you posted as the market develops.

Click here to follow Weiss Crypto Alert for daily updates on the DeFi revolution.

Best,

David Dittman