Another week has passed in the hectic world of crypto, and the past week (June 17, 2022 to June 24) has been yet another one with ups and downs. Still, Bitcoin (BTC) is almost exactly at the same price it was at the beginning of the week. Bitcoin opened the week at €20,600 and closed at €19,600. However, the lowest point was at €16,800.

Surprisingly, many altcoins outperformed Bitcoin. For example, Polygon (MATIC) and Uniswap (UNI) rose more than 20% in the past 7 days. This is also due to the fact that altcoins fell harder than Bitcoin in the previous weeks.

As for the news of the week, most of it is overshadowed by the interest rate hike in the US. All of the world is under the spell of these interest rate hikes, and many people also see the future bleak for investments as a result. Yet there were certainly some positive news items to be found for the crypto sector. Below you will find all the most important crypto news of the week!

Russian central bank sees room for crypto in international trade

Positive for the world it is not, but it does showcase again the importance of a decentralized currency. Russia's central bank is open to allowing the use of cryptocurrency for international payments, a senior bank official said on Tuesday, in a sign of a possible easing of its opposition to digital currencies.

"In principle, we have no objection to the use of cryptocurrency in international transactions," the central bank's first deputy governor, Ksenia Yudaeva, said in a briefing with reporters.

But Yudaeva reiterated that the bank, as a regulatory authority, continues to view the broader use of cryptocurrency in Russia as a financial threat.

"We still believe that the active use of cryptocurrency within the country, especially within Russia's financial infrastructure, creates great risks for citizens and users. We believe that in our country those risks can be reasonably high," she said.

Russian officials are grappling with how to regulate the crypto market and the use of digital currency in the country, with the central bank previously calling for an outright ban.

Discussions have been ongoing for months, although no consensus has been reached among various government departments and lawmakers.

The finance ministry said last week that allowing cryptocurrencies to settle international payments would help Russia counter the impact of Western sanctions imposed since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine, which have cut several Russian banks off from the global financial network.

New president of Colombia is Bitcoin supporter

Gustavo Petro, who recently won Colombia's 2022 presidential election, has previously made statements in favor of cryptocurrencies.

Petro will replace Iván Duque Márquez as president of Colombia for four years on August 7 after winning the second round of a runoff election on Sunday. The president-elect took to social media in December 2017 shortly after a major bull run to talk about the "power" of Bitcoin (BTC). Petro then hinted that cryptocurrencies like BTC could take power away from the government and traditional banks and give it back to the people.

With a new president in power in Colombia, who also happens to be a fan of Bitcoin, it looks like we could soon add the country to the list of countries in which Bitcoin is a legal tender.

Elon Musk wants to bring crypto to Twitter

Elon Musk shared further details about his plans for how crypto could be used on Twitter in a leaked Q&A session with employees of the social media company.

According to a transcript of the meeting released by Vox, the Tesla CEO outlined how payments, including crypto, are a "critical area" for Twitter, and highlighted the ongoing problem of crypto scams on the social media platform.


"Money is fundamentally digital at this point," Musk said. He added that "it would make sense to integrate payments into Twitter so that it's easy to send money back and forth," noting that this would include "both currency and crypto."

Musk stated that his goal is "to maximize the utility of the service," Musk said that, "if one can use it to make convenient payments, then that's an increase in utility." He added that news, entertainment and payments are "three critical areas" for Twitter, to make the service "so compelling that you can't live without it and everyone wants to use it."

Uniswap enters the world of NFTs with acquisition of Genie

This week Uniswap announced that it has made another acquisition, buying NFT marketplace aggregator Genie for an undisclosed amount.

Users know Uniswap as a decentralized way to exchange a wide variety of tokens; this new acquisition will bring non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into the mix. Genie will give users access to a listing of NFTs available across multiple marketplaces and make it so they can see and trade NFTs on most of these platforms. Uniswap's team says they will use the product to build a Uniswap NFT vertical into their platform, which will launch this fall.

The company's commitment to NFT aggregation is a bet on diversifying NFT marketplaces over time. Currently, the vast majority of NFT volume takes place in OpenSea, although some competitors such as LooksRare and Magic Eden are showing signs of eroding portions of their market share.

NFTs have also suffered recently, but this acquisition shows that there are still major players who see a future in the technology.