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Crypto sentiments remain positive despite price dips as countries and top brands pursue Crypto, NFTs and Metaverse initiatives.

While top cryptocurrencies trade at month lows, several countries intensify crypto adoption initiatives. In this week’s crypto scoop, we review:

Prices moves of top cryptocurrencies
USDC launch on 5 blockchains
Do Kwon’s arrest warrant
Crypto adoption continues as several countries pursue CBDC
AC Milan, Disney, SEGA’s NFT initiatives and much more.

BTC, ETH Trade At Month Lows While Institutional Investors Trade In Full Swing

September has recorded substantial price swings, with BTC trading above $20,000 to swinging as low as $18,000. ETH wasn’t left out of these volatile market conditions and turned from $1,600 to $1,300. At the same time, BTC and ETH rose to $20,000 and almost $1,400 temporarily during the week before dipping below $20,000 and $1,350.

BitMEX CEO Alexander Höptner noted that institutional investors still have an appetite for crypto and Ethereum regardless of bearish market conditions. The crypto executive stated at the Token2049 conference that there had not been a "single slowdown of institutional push into crypto" throughout this bear market. He explained institutions and financial industry participants often use bear markets for innovation. He explained in a bull market, there is a lot more pressure to deliver, but in a bear market, there is more time.

Höptner also stated that adoption for the finance industry has a vast horizon, which is why institutions would buy and hold crypto assets.

Circle Expands Its Network To 5 New Blockchains

Although USDC was delisted from Binance, Circle is keen to extend its stablecoin as much as possible, with 5 new blockchains in the works. Circle Internet Financial, the company behind USD Coin (USDC) and Euro Coin (EUROC), has revealed plans to expand into five major blockchains to maintain market dominance.

Circle intends to deploy its stablecoin in early 2023 on Arbitrum, Cosmos, NEAR, Optimism, and Polkadot. Hence, all developers working on these blockchains can begin testing their integrations with Circle's APIs immediately.

Interpol Issues Arrest Warrant For Do Kwon, Terra’s Co-founder.

Interpol has issued a Red Notice for Kwon's arrest as the global search for the Terraform Labs co-founder continues. Furthermore, authorities in South Korea have asked crypto exchanges OKX and KuCoin to freeze 3,313 bitcoin (BTC) worth around $67 million linked to Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon.

The bitcoin was allegedly transferred to the exchanges' digital wallets immediately after an arrest warrant was issued for Kwon in South Korea on September 14. While KuCoin has frozen 1354 BTC ($27 million) transferred to the platform, OKX is allegedly "disregarding the prosecution's plea to freeze assets."

Kwon refuted these allegations noting he had not used the two cryptocurrency exchanges in over a year and confirmed that the funds of LFG, TFL, and other businesses had not been frozen. Do Kwon has, however, discovered an unexpected ally in FatMan Terra, a whistleblower on Terra's scheme.

FatMan, who had previously levelled claims against Terra co-founder Do Kwon, stated, "To be honest, even though I haven't seen the "non-public" transaction evidence myself. For once, I would lean towards believing Do Kwon on this one - Because chain analysis is imperfect, these flows cannot be monitored with 100% accuracy."

While many expected the price of Luna Classic to fall following Do Kwon's arrest notice, it increased by 60%. This came after Binance announced a burn strategy to lower the hyperinflated LUNC token supply. To "burn" a token in the crypto means to effectively destroy it to remove it from circulation in the hopes of boosting or stabilising the token's price by lowering the available supply.

Crypto Adoption Continues As Several Countries Pursue CBDC Initiatives

According to Kwame Oppong, Ghana's central bank official, a CBDC might provide its residents with a "good form of payment." "I think in terms of CBDC, our goal is to be able to finish testing it," Oppong says. "We've seen the outcomes. We will revisit the study regularly in the future. But the true reason we're doing it is to increase financial inclusion."

Chainanlysis has also released a report that found Ghana has the potential to achieve crypto adoption levels similar to Kenya and Nigeria, countries ranking 11th and 19th in the analytics firm’s Global Crypto Adoption Index.

While Kenya Central Bank governor Patrick Njoroge has described as “craziness” the calls to convert Kenya’s reserves into bitcoin, several countries across the globe continue to pursue CBDC initiatives.

US Fed Chair Jerome Powell has stated that the US central bank is considering creating a digital currency. "Cash is not disappearing here in the United States," he said. We still rely heavily on cash. However, it is dropping, not in absolute terms, in comparison to non-cash payments." Powell indicated that the Federal Reserve is closely examining "the possible costs and benefits" of creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the United States.

The Bank of France is considering a wholesale central bank digital currency utilised by banks and financial markets. Villeroy de Galhau, a governor at the Bank of France, explained, "A wholesale CBDC could significantly contribute to improving cross-border and cross-currency payment."

Sweden's central bank is experimenting with retail CBDC for immediate payments. "This unique experiment will delve deeper into the technology, architecture, and design choices and trade-offs, as well as study relevant policy problems," said Beju Shah, Head of the Bank for International Settlements. "These insights will be important for central banks considering using CBDCs for cross-border payments."

That’s not all!

Nedbank, a South African financial services giant, has secured a 'Village' in the Metaverse. Nedbank has become one of Africa's first financial organisations to embrace the metaverse by acquiring a virtual property in Ubuntuland.

AC Milan, Disney, and SEGA pursue NFT Initiatives.

AC Milan, the current champion of the Italian Serie A league, announced the development of a new non-fungible token (NFT)-based project. The organisation partnered with Monkeyleague, a Solana-based Web3 soccer game, which became its official NFT partner, to create a new line of NFT branded game materials for the brand.

Disney's most recent job listing indicates extensive plans for NFT and crypto adoption as it extends its Web3 approach; the corporation is seeking legal guidance to assist it in navigating crypto, NFT, and DeFi regulations. The full-time post within the Walt Disney Company's legal department requires an experienced corporate attorney to "work on transactions using emerging technologies, such as NFTs, blockchain, metaverse, and decentralised finance."

The Japanese gaming and entertainment conglomerate SEGA is expanding into blockchain gaming with a digital collectable card game. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms mythology inspired the Web3 trading card game. It uses the intellectual property of the SANGOKUSHI TAISEN brand, which Tokyo-based SEGA first published in 2005.

Karate Combat, a well-known full-contact martial arts league, has announced the formation of a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) to delegate control to fans and competitors.

Karate Combat's DAO will be introduced in December 2022 as part of a three-year sponsorship agreement with Hedera's HBAR Foundation. Holders of KARATE, Karate Combat's in-house governance token, will be able to vote on various choices, including the league's budget, resource allocation, supplier selection, marketing strategy, and rule revisions. Furthermore, the DAO will allow fans to vote on athlete-related choices such as fighter contracts and fight match-up selections according to defined influence bounds.

DappRadar forecasts NFT sales to climb 6% to $21.1 million by the end of the third quarter, despite global trading activity being down 75%. The report notes, "Taking into account the number of brands that are beginning to implement NFTs and the number of unique traders in this quarter (2.2 million), the NFT market will continue to rise in 2023, but the path ahead will be rocky."

Walmart Pursues NFT Initiatives

Walmart applied for trademarks earlier this year, hinting at its intention to sell goods in the metaverse. Walmart (WMT) is also introducing two new experiences in the gaming platform Roblox that will allow customers to experience the metaverse.

According to a statement issued Monday, Walmart has built two experiences, one dubbed Walmart Land and the other Walmart's Universe of Play. Walmart Land will feature a virtual retail store, whilst Universe of Play will feature a variety of toy worlds and games.

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Crypto Scoop: BTC trades at $19,00, ETH at $1,300 As Ghana Gains on Nigeria and Kenya In Crypto Adoption