🇺🇸 Seven representatives of the crypto-industry are among the richest 400 people in the U.S. according to Forbes

Almost all of the richest Americans have grown even richer than a year ago as their total wealth reached $4.5 trillion. Altogether the list includes seven representatives of the crypto industry:

• FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried - $22.5 billion
• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong - $11.5 billion
• Ripple Co-Founder Chris Larsen - $6 billion
• Gemini exchange founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss - $4.3 billion
• Coinbase Co-Founder Fred Ehrsam - $3.5 billion
• Former Ripple CTO Jed McCaleb - $3 billion.

Topping the overall list are Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

🇧🇷 Bitcoin could become legal currency in Brazil

Congressman Aureo Ribeiro shared that a bill to recognize BTC as legal currency in Brazil is ready and supported by the government. The last word on Congress.

Ribeiro said that Brazilians are increasingly using BTC in their daily lives but do not have the legal ability to buy, sell and invest in the crypto sector; a recent poll revealed that 48% of Brazilians wanted Bitcoin to become legal currency.

🇺🇸 U.S. Department of Justice formed a unit to monitor cryptocurrency exchanges

The U.S. Deputy Attorney General announced a new cryptocurrency initiative aimed at finding platforms that help criminals launder or hide their illicit gains. The team created is expected to include cybersecurity and anti-money-laundering experts.

"Cryptocurrency exchanges want to be the banks of the future, well we need to make sure that folks can have confidence when they're using these systems and we need to be poised to root out abuse," Lisa Monaco added.

JPMorgan:

"Institutions see Bitcoin as a better inflation hedge than gold"

U.S. financial conglomerate JPMorgan said that since the beginning of this year, about $10 billion has been withdrawn from gold ETF funds, while more than $20 billion flowed into Bitcoin funds: a sign that gold is not a reliable hedging instrument in recent months.

JPMorgan also highlighted the main reasons for the current growth of BTC:
— The rapid development of the Lightning Network.
— The legalization of BTC in El Salvador.
— Statements from U.S. politicians that the U.S. won't ban cryptocurrencies, following China's example
— Concerns about inflation

🇩🇪 One of Germany's oldest banks starts providing crypto services

Founded in 1754, Bankhaus von der Heydt (BVDH) is to start providing cryptocurrency storage, steaming and trading services in partnership with Fireblocks.

Earlier in Germany:

— On Aug. 2, Germany enacted a law that allows funds to invest up to 20% of their reserves in cryptocurrencies

— Union Investment fund plans to invest up to $10 billion in Bitcoin

— Deutsche Bank stated that "Bitcoin is here to stay for a long time."

—Germany plans to introduce a bill allowing investment funds to issue tokenized shares on any blockchain.

El Salvador prepares power plant for volcanic BTC mining

Nayib Bukele shared a video that shows the process of preparing for BTC mining - containers with the government of El Salvador logo are brought to the site of the power plant, which uses thermal energy from volcanoes, and then a close-up of the camera shows the connection of the miners.

📊 DEX marketplaces unexpectedly saw a 34% drop in volume in the 3rd quarter after steady parabolic growth over the past year.

After the launch of ETH 2.0 and the reduction of commissions on ether, a new DEX marketplace boom and a major realignment of crypto players is on the horizon.

Due to increased regulation by the U.S., many centralized exchanges will lose most of their markets.

📊 Comparison of BTC and other top assets returns since the beginning of this year

Users who purchased Bitcoin at the beginning of 2021 earned 79.2%, the highest return compared to the world's top stocks and base metals.

Among companies, Nvidia (+56.3%), Google (+54.2%) and Microsoft (+30.9%) were the most profitable stocks this year.

📈 PlanB, Founder of the Stock-to-Flow (S2F) model, speculates on what price Bitcoin will close 2021 at on his Twitter account:

— S2F model says $100K
— Time model (logarithmic regression) says $30K

“Next couple of months will be Interesting.
My money is on S2F, of course,” PlanB said.

🇨🇳 China will launch a digital yuan-linked stablecoin for international trade

The new asset is to be called an “offshore RMB stablecoin”, while its functionality is expected to be limited to international trade, and its value will be pegged to China's CBDC.

The developers stated that unlike other popular stablecoins, such as USDT and USDC, the new asset will be “fully decentralized”.