Sandeep Nailwal, who co-founded Polygon in 2017 and moved to Dubai two years ago, said India was witnessing a crypto brain drain because there was still no clarity on its policies, according to a Bloomberg report. "The brain drain is absolutely insane," he said.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, governments appear to be encouraging citizens to adopt digital currencies. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced via a Facebook post that the first 100,000 Jamaicans to open their Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will receive $2,500 from the government after April 1, 2022.
Global crypto market capitalization rose 1.72% to $1.75 trillion as of 8:44 a.m. However, global cryptocurrency volume declined 9.82% to $80.1 billion, data shows. from Coinmarketcap.
cryptocurrency prices
Bitcoin (BTC), the oldest cryptocurrency in the world, was trading at $39,122.92, an increase of 2.03% in the last 24 hours.
Ethereum (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was also trading up 1.81 percent at $2,581.49.
โThe market is witnessing sharp movements with high levels of volatility. Ether and other major altcoins seem to underperform Bitcoin, indicating low risk appetite among investors,โ says Gaurav Dahake, CEO and founder of Bitbns.
As the saying goes, "Mi inna mi ackee!"... With the completion of our CBDC Image, Logo, Tagline and Name Design Competition, the Bank of Jamaica digital currency now has a name! See the press release for all the details: https://t.co/YqFKi1BV0G #BoJspeaks #CBDCJa pic.twitter.com/fqXglyAJBH
โ Bank of Jamaica (@CentralBankJA) February 17, 2022
Among other major coins, Cardano (ADA) was up 1.17% to $0.7955, Algorand (ALGO) was up 0.58% to $0.7104, Binance Coin (BNB) was up 2.48% to $375.08, Sunshine (SUN) 0.54 percent to $82.00 and Polkadot (DOT) was also trading up 8.44 percent to $18.22.
Today's top gainer was ValentineDoge (VDOGE), up 1017.22 percent to $0.00000000127. The biggest loser was Purfect Network (PUR), which was down 97.6 percent at $0.000001711.
Meme Coin and DeFi Prices
Dogecoin (DOGE) was up 1.5 percent at $0.1168. Its ratio between volume and market capitalization stands at 0.02408. His rival Shiba Inu (SHIB) also gained 2.95 percent at $0.00002245.
Dogelon Mars (ELON) was trading 0.51 percent higher at $0.0000006982. However, Floki Inu (FLOKI) was down 1.95 percent at $0.00002864, while Samoyed Coin (SAMO) was down 0.31 percent at $0.0185.
In the DeFi segment, YFI (yearn.finance) traded 0.61 percent higher at $18,732.39. However, Terra (LUNA) was down 6.01 percent at $91.72 and Avalanche (AVAX) was down 3.25 percent at $73.01. Uniswap (UNI) gained 4.42 percent to trade at $8.80, and Aave (AAVE) was up 3.33 percent at $119.28.
Latest updates
Nigel Clarke, Jamaica's Minister of Finance and Public Service, said in a press release: โWe will incentivize neighborhood shops and informal and formal community businesses to establishโฆe-wallets and facilitate JAM-DEX payments. Customers will be able to top up their JAM-DEX accounts through all authorized agents or smart ATMs using physical cash or online and do business using JAM-DEX phone-to-phone with merchants, friends and family.โ
Meanwhile, Paxos, a New York-based regulated blockchain infrastructure platform, has received approval in principle from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to offer cryptocurrency services.
Rich Teo, Co-Founder and CEO of Paxos Asia, one of the first blockchain service providers in the world to receive regulatory approval from authorities in New York and Singapore, said in a press release: "We founded Paxos in Singapore in 2012 because of this jurisdiction's forward-thinking approach to innovation and oversight. Since then, we have distinguished ourselves globally as the most trusted blockchain infrastructure provider because we have relentlessly pursued regulatory oversight."
