Roadmap

Chart of the Day

While the price of BTC has begun to stabilize below the $57k resistance zone, ETH's has been moving sideways for a while now. The upgrades introduced to the Ethereum network by EIP 1559 in August have created a new gas fee structure on the protocol, where a fixed fee must now be paid to carry out a transaction. This fixed (base) fee fluctuates with the demand for block space, and tends to soar when the network traffic becomes congested due to high demand for block space. Although it would be logical to think that the weekends will usher in a higher trading volume on networks such as Ethereum because of the fact that the crypto market is still primarily retail-driven and day traders are active all the time, Coin Metrics' latest report has disproved this thesis. Based on Coin Metrics' Ethereum Base Fee chart, it becomes obvious that despite operating 24/7 with no downtime, there are still certain periods where users can experience significantly lighter traffic and lower base fees on the Ethereum network. The chart shows the average base fee in GWEI by hours, the day of the week in Eastern Time, and the colors yellow and violet indicating higher base fees and lower base fees respectively. Interestingly, it can be observed that the periods between 04:00AM UTC to 12:00PM UTC on a daily basis are usually associated with much lower fees. The same is true for weekend slots.

Talk of the Town

A few prominent U.S. financial watchdogs, including the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC, have released a joint statement on Tuesday with regard to the regulatory agenda for the crypto space in 2022. The agenda outlined a list of priorities and areas of focus for the next year, and drove home the point that U.S. regulators are very much intending to take a closer look at controversial issues like stablecoin issuance and crypto custody in 2022. While the agenda is unlikely to directly affect extant measures for now, the key topics in question will definitely set the tone for future regulatory frameworks that will, in turn, become the go-to for banks to decide on how they can implement crypto into their ecosystems.