Welcome to yet another weekly crypto news overview. All the most important news from the past week (7 October 2022 to 14 October) is summarised below so that you can go into the weekend fully up-to-date again!

Price-wise, the crypto market is still in a bear market (a period of decline). This week, the two biggest cryptocurrencies, Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC), both fell about 5%. Bitcoin has been swinging around €20,000 for a while now, and Ethereum has been following the same patterns but around €1350.

However, much of the focus at this time is on the traditional financial market and the monetary system as we know it. The euro, pound, yen, and other currencies are reeling and people's purchasing power around the world continues to fall hard.

Yet a lot is happening behind the scenes in the crypto landscape. Again this week, interesting news came out from all corners of the world, so read along quickly!

MiCa crypto law draws ever closer

On Monday, European Union (EU) lawmakers voted 28 to 1 in favor of important new crypto laws. The package of laws voted on goes by the acronym MiCA, which stands for Markets in Crypto Assets.

The Markets in Crypto Assets legislation allows providers of wallets and other crypto services to trade themselves across the block if they register with national authorities and comply with minimum guarantees intended to protect investors and maintain stability.

Monday's vote by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, based on a private agreement with EU member states meeting in a body known as the Council, took place without further discussion and paved the way for approval by the European Parliament before the end of this year.

Lawmaker Stefan Berger, who led the negotiations for the parliament, called the move "good news" in a tweet welcoming the vote.

The text will now go to lawyers and linguists to check and then the European Parliament will vote on it.

More than 12,000 Brazilian companies declare crypto assets

The number of companies owning cryptocurrency in Brazil has reached new record highs as of August.

According to local media, the country's tax authority, Receita Federal do Brasil (RFB) - also known as the Federal Tax Service of Brazil - registered 12,053 unique organizations declaring crypto on their balance sheets in August 2022.

The number is a 6.1% increase from the 11,360 companies in July, making it the month with the highest registered number of crypto-owned companies in Brazil so far.

The RFB noted that Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency held by institutions, followed by stablecoin Tether (USDT).

However, the number of individual Brazilian investors holding cryptocurrencies fell from the previous month to 1.3 million in August.

Microsoft and Meta team up to bring Office 365 apps to the Metaverse

Mark Zuckerberg'sMeta Platforms is working with technology giant Microsoft to integrate a range of Microsoft Office 365 products into Meta's virtual reality (VR) platform, with the aim of enticing businesses to work in virtual environments.

During Meta's Connect 2022 keynote on 11 October, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the Teams video calling app would integrate with Meta's "Quest" and recently unveiled the "Quest Pro" VR headset allowing people to congregate in a virtual space that resembles a boardroom.

Familiar Microsoft productivity applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and SharePoint will also be made available within Meta's VR. Nadella added that future functionality would include the ability to stream a Windows Cloud computer to Meta's headsets.

Formula 1 applies for 'F1' trademarks for crypto, NFTs, and Metaverse

Formula 1 is trying to establish itself within the Web3 ecosystem with eight recently filed trademarks for its globally recognized acronym "F1".

According to Mike Kondoudis, registered trademark attorney, the car club filed eight trademark applications on 5 October for cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), crypto marketplaces, virtual goods shops, cryptocurrency trading, and financial blockchain transactions.

The trademark filings suggest F1 has plans to play an active role in the emerging Web3 ecosystem with its trademark for software for use with cryptocurrency, meta-tokens, digital collectibles, and NFTs, as well as software for payment and exchange transactions with digital currencies.

Besides software, Formula One also plans to offer retail services in virtual goods and an online marketplace for buyers and sellers of cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

Again, that was the main news of the week. Last week, a significant Bitcoin conference was held in Amsterdam, called: Bitcoin Amsterdam. We were also present here. If you were there too, let us know what you thought about it!

To conclude, earlier this week, we also wrote about the exciting cryptocurrencies for the upcoming World Cup. Read more about that in the article "Top 3 cryptocurrencies FIFA World Cup Qatar".