Top cryptocurrencies took a bearish turn this week as the global market capitalization declined by 2% in the past seven days. Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization has seen values below $36,000 on Friday, with ether (ETH), BNB (BNB), Dogecoin (DOGE) and many other tokens following suit.

What may have brought this on?

Fed’s decided to raise interest rates

The global crypto market was hit hard by the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates by 0.5% on Wednesday in an attempt to fight inflation.

In the run-up to the Fed’s decision, analysts were anticipating a 75 basis points hike to affect cryptomarkets.

BTC, after short bullish results on the 4 May, fell by over 9% to values below the $36,000 mark. The same pattern was repeated by ETH which witnessed a surge to $2,955.54 on 4 May before dropping by 8.2% on the following day.

Other smaller tokens and altcoins also felt the dip with both Solana (SOL) and Cardano (CAR) losing over 13% and popular memecoin Dogecoin (DOGE) decreasing by over 7%.

Gucci to accept crypto payments

However not all crypto news were negative this week. Gucci announced on Wednesday that it will start accepting cryptocurrencies as a means of payment in some US stores as early as this summer.

It is expected that the Italian luxury brand will be accepting over 10 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and even Dogecoin.

The in-store payments will be conducted via a link that will be sent to a customer’s email address and will contain a special QR code that will allow them to execute the payment straight from their crypto wallet.

Gucci has been an early adapter of Web3 technologies having already stepped foot into the crypto world by purchasing a piece of NFT land on The Sandbox, a Minecraft inspired metaverse game, to develop an in-game retail experience.

Binance first crypto exchange to gain regulatory approval in Europe

France was the first country in the European Union to grant the crypto exchange platform Binance regulatory approval.

The approval was registered by France’s financial regulatory body Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) and approved by the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR), an independent authority monitoring banks and insurance companies.

By being in France, Binance is aiming to bring crypto services and education to millions.

“Effective regulation is essential for the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency. The French DASP and AML/CFT regulations put in place stringent anti-money laundering and fit and proper requirements to meet the high standards necessary to be regulated in France.

“We are grateful to the AMF and ACPR, who demonstrated a commitment to innovation that made it possible for Binance to navigate the entire application process. Since day one, Binance has always put its users first, and now the crypto community can have even further confidence in Binance France as a trusted DASP registered in France,” Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao said in a statement.

Top crypto movers this week

Despite recent bearish action, some cryptocurrencies emerged as the top gainers this week. Here is the latest data provided by CoinMarketCap on the top five cryptos this week as of 6 May 2022.

• MetaPay (METAPAY) – 719.94% gain
• Stabledoc (SDT) – 659.46& gain
• CareCoin (CARES) – 559.25% gain
• KleeKai (KLEE) – 524.46%
• SafeFloki (SFK) – 506.12%