Top cryptocurrency prices today on June 18

Cryptocurrency prices continue to be in the red on June 18. The global cryptocurrency market cap is $1.57 trillion, a 2.39 percent fall over the last day, while the total crypto market volume over the last 24 hours was $78.55 billion, a 11.89 percent decline. The volume of all stable coins is now $61.42 billion – 78.19 percent of the total crypto market 24-hour volume. Bitcoin's price is currently at $37,473.16 and its dominance is currently 45.10 percent, a decrease of 0.05 percent over a day. This came after the World Bank said on June 17 it could not assist El Salvador's bitcoin implementation given environmental and transparency drawbacks. Read more here

Tesla, El Salvador and CBDCs: Has Bitcoin’s moment of truth come?

El Salvador recently almost became a saviour for Bitcoin, when it officially approved it as legal tender along with the US Dollar. However, this barely compensated for the steep fall in price triggered by last month’s announcement from electric carmaker Tesla that it will no longer accept the cryptocurrency as payments, due to environmental concerns. The situation thus exposes the inherent chink in the Bitcoin armour as the market seems to have brushed aside the embrace by an entire country, albeit small. It isn’t difficult to see why. Read full here

Iconic 'Doge' meme becomes most expensive meme NFT ever sold at $4 million

The extremely popular "Doge" meme, an image of a Shiba Inu, has been sold as a non-fungible token (NFT) for $4 million. The auction winner, whose Twitter handle is @pleasrdao, placed a bid for 1,696.9 of the cryptocurrency Ethereum - making it the most expensive meme NFT ever sold. The meme, widely shared on the internet, had notably inspired the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. Catch up here

NCB arrests Mumbai's 'cryptoking' who provided Bitcoins to purchase drugs on dark web

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has arrested a Mumbai resident who provided Bitcoins to drug peddlers for buying narcotic drugs on dark web, an official said. Known as the 'cryptoking' – Makarand P Adivirkar, was arrested for allegedly providing Bitcoins for the purchase of LSD, a psychotropic substance, to a peddler in November 2020. NCB sleuths found that Adivirkar provided Bitcoins to such persons in return for cash, the official said, adding that further investigation was on. Follow the story here

Implications of El Salvador’s tryst with Bitcoin

The Bahamas and El Salvador became unlikely winners of two important races concerning digital money. While The Bahamas became the first country to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC), El Salvador became the first to permit Bitcoin as legal tender. While the race for the CBDC has been on for a while now, there was no such race for Bitcoin. In many ways, the race to make Bitcoin legal tender had huge potential, but it remained an empty field. With El Salvador becoming the first to enter the race track, how should we see this policy? See our analysis here

WazirX Announces Partnership with SonyLIV for UEFA EURO 2020

WazirX, will be the Co-Presenting Sponsor for the live streaming of the UEFA EURO 2020 on SonyLIV. WazirX said it wants to meaningfully engage with an expanding crypto community to educate and tap into the growing interest and enthusiasm for crypto investment in India and this partnership offers “widespread visibility amongst the Indian football fans, millions of whom are young, tech-savvy individuals who are expected to watch the matches online this season.”

WazirX is the largest crypto exchange in India and crossed $6.2 billion in terms of the monthly transaction volume in May 2021. The company says it “aims to democratise the opportunity to participate in crypto.” (Newsvoir/PTI)