The end of the week is approaching again and this week (March 31, 2022 to April 7) was dominated by a consolidating crypto market. After rising sharply over the past month, Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market cooled off a bit. At the time of writing, BTC stands at €39,800, and the total crypto market cap at €1.83 trillion.

Bitcoin has fallen 9.5% in the past week and the crypto market cap fell by about the same percentage. Many experts believe that this is just a healthy correction after a solid rally. The week was otherwise full of good news! Among other things, Bitcoin reached the extraordinary milestone of 19 million coins mined. Read along for the most important crypto news of the past week.

Only 2 million BTC left to mine

The 19th millionth Bitcoin (BTC) was mined on Friday, a milestone for the number one cryptocurrency. Nineteen million Bitcoin are now in circulation, with only 2 million Bitcoin left to be mined until about the year 2140.

In block 730002, mined by SBI Crypto, the 19 millionth Bitcoin came into circulation. SBI Crypto earned 6.32 BTC, roughly €269,000 for the effort in transaction fees and block rewards.

For the Bitcoin community, the 19 millionth Bitcoin mined highlights Bitcoin's scarcity. According to Alex Gladstein, head of strategy at the Human Rights Foundation, the scarcity is even more prominent given that the world has only just begun to adopt and adopt Bitcoin, he tweeted the following:

"It is truly amazing that 19 million of the total 21 million Bitcoin have been issued and distributed worldwide and that we are only at the beginning of adoption by nation-states."

Trading firms plunge into the crypto market

Trading firms, or companies whose sole job is to trade, are becoming increasingly involved in the crypto market. Trading firms profit from price fluctuations, whether down or up, and the crypto market is ideally suited for this.

Dutch trading houses IMC, Flow Traders and Optiver have recently turned their eyes to the crypto market.

IMC entered the market with the purchase of FRIJT Trading, an Amsterdam-based crypto trader, for nearly €15 million. The company now has €73 million worth of cryptocurrencies and crypto-related financial products, such as options and futures, on its balance sheet.

Flow Traders already immersed itself in the crypto world four years ago, and in its own words is the crypto market leader on the European exchanges.

Optiver, meanwhile, is watching the crypto market with interest but is not trading in it for the time being. However, at the end of 2021 the company, together with IMC, took an interest in Paradigm, an American platform where professional parties trade options on cryptocurrencies.

On Wall Street, too, crypto has become popular among trading firms. For example, big names such as Jane Street, Tower Research and Jump Trading stepped in last year.

The entry of these large trading firms is positive news for the crypto industry, as it increases much-needed liquidity on crypto exchanges.

MicroStrategy €175 million in Bitcoin

MicroStrategy, a business intelligence company with Michael Saylor as CEO, announced a purchase of 4167 Bitcoin last week, which equals to about €175 million. Michael Saylor announced this in a tweet, as he has done many times in the past year.

This is not the first time MicroStrategy has made a huge Bitcoin purchase. The company now owns 129,218 BTC, making it by far the largest holder. Tesla comes in second with about 43 thousand BTC.

MicroStrategy's average purchase price is currently €28,175, which means they have about €3.64 billion invested in BTC. So the company is heavily in profit on its investments. With the current price of Bitcoin (€39,800), MicroStrategy stands to make about €1.52 billion profit on Bitcoin.

Britain considers allowing crypto as a means of payment

The British government has considered allowing some cryptocurrencies as legal tender. These are stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies that are collateralized by euro, dollar or gold for example. Later in the year, the government also plans to look at regulating other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

With the new measures, the British want to take advantage of the growing importance of cryptocurrencies in payments. In doing so, they hope to attract more investment and more jobs.

"It is my ambition to make the UK a global hub for cryptotechnology," said Finance Minister Rishi Sunak. "The measures we have set out today will ensure that businesses can invest, innovate and scale up."
So far it has been mostly less developed countries that have opened up so much to cryptocurrencies, but England seems to want to lead the way in the West. They too see that there is almost no escape from the new digital economy.