Uzbekistan Legalises Crypto Mining; Elon Musk Changes His Profile Picture To Bored Ape NFT

The Uzbekistan government is hoping to shift crypto miners in the country away from coal energy by legalising the use of solar power within the heavily regulated local industry. They will also waive income tax for both foreign and domestic crypto companies.

In other news, Elon Musk changed his profile picture to various pictures of the Bored Ape non-fungible token (NFT). This apparently caused the price of ApeCoin (APE) to surge by 19 per cent.

Click here to read more about the Bored Ape NFT.

Cryptocurrency Prices

The global crypto market cap increased by 5.24 per cent to $1.81 trillion at 8.50 am. However, global crypto volume was up by 39.78 per cent to $100.64 billion, as per Coinmarketcap data. 

"Bitcoin is trading about $39,600, up over 5%. Ether is trading around $2,930, a 5% gain. Other major cryptos are in the green, with ADA and AVAX rising over 13% and 14% respectively, and SOL rebounding 10%. This upswing was following the U.S. central bank's long-awaited half-point interest rate hike, the crypto market has proven time and time that conventional market sentiments will be turned upside down," says Gaurav Dahake, CEO and founder, Bitbns.

Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s oldest cryptocurrency, was trading at $39,750.22, higher by 4.54 per cent in the last 24 hours. Ethereum (ETH) was also trading higher by 5.21 per cent at $2,944.65.

Among other significant coins, Cardano (ADA) was up by a huge 13.8 per cent at $0.8882, Algorand (ALGO) was trading with a gain of 5.02 per cent at $0.7186, Binance Coin (BNB) was up by 4.74 per cent at $403.87, Solana (SOL) was trading with a gain of 10.02 per cent at $94.66, and Polkadot (DOT) was also up by 9.14 per cent at $16.35.

Today’s top gainer was PETWARS (PWARS), which was up by 2823.55 per cent at $0.00007493. The top loser was Pentagon Finance (PENT), which was down by 99.38 per cent at $0.04592.

Meme Coin And DeFi Prices

Dogecoin (DOGE) was up by 5.13 per cent at $0.1373. Its volume to market cap ratio stands at 0.05011. Rival Shiba Inu (SHIB) was also up by 4.13 per cent at $0.00002175.

Dogelon Mars (ELON) gained 6.89 per cent to trade at $0.0000009427, Floki Inu (FLOKI) also was up by 12.44 per cent at $0.00001692 and Samoyed Coin (SAMO) by 6.72 cent at $0.01444. 

In the DeFi segment, YFI (yearn.finance) was up by 5.38 per cent at $18,385.71. Terra (LUNA) was trading with a gain of 4.94 per cent at $87.17. Avalanche (AVAX) was up by 14.43 per cent at $68.82, Uniswap (UNI) by 14.62 per cent to trade at $7.96, and Aave (AAVE) gained 12.05 per cent to trade at $161.10.

Latest Updates

Reuters reported that a Uzbekistan presidential decree legalised the new crypto framework. It was noted in the same decree that crypto mining companies can be connected to the power grid if they pay double the regular price, and during peak consumption periods, extra surcharges can be levied by the government.
Before changing his profile picture, Musk did not purchase the Bored Ape NFT; instead, he merely downloaded the picture for use. He tweeted, “I dunno … seems kinda fungible.”