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After posting <\/span>small gains<\/span> last weekend, the price growth of crypto market leaders Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) slowed to effectively nothing this week.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Bitcoin remains at the level it was this time last weekend, hovering around $28.820, a decrease of about 5% from its <\/span>April high of $30,979<\/span> set nearly three weeks ago but still about 77% up from the start of January when the price was $16,615.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ethereum added 4.2% to its value over the seven days and currently changes hands at $1,885, a decline of about 7% from its 2023 high of $2,129 set in mid-April and 66% up from January 1, when the price was $1,197.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n TRON experienced the most growth this week and was the only top thirty cryptocurrency to grow by 8% over the week to trade at $0.070261 at the start of the weekend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All other leading cryptocurrencies remain virtually unmoved over the last seven days.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The market\u2019s lack of growth this week is at least partly attributable to the Fed\u2019s decision to hike interest rates by <\/span>another 25 basis points<\/span> to fight inflation, the tenth consecutive hike since March last year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In macroeconomic terms, interest rate hikes tend to drive investors away from risk-on assets like stocks and crypto as the cost of borrowing rises, making money more expensive and thus discouraging more speculative investments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On Tuesday the White House released a report reinforcing the idea of a <\/span>Digital Asset Mining Energy tax<\/span> (DAME). It would apply to miners of both proof-of-work and proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, despite their different levels of energy consumption, and\u2014beginning in 2024\u2014 assessing a tax that\u2019s based on their electricity costs, starting at 10% and increasing each year until it reaches 30%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The proposal has already received heavy pushback from the crypto industry, especially because it doesn\u2019t take into account the energy sources of the mining companies. Critics <\/span>argue<\/span> that the U.S. government is making a value judgment on crypto mining as a bad (or consumptive) activity regardless of whether a miner uses renewably-sourced energy or not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A 2024 Presidential hopeful for the Democrat party, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on Tuesday tweeted that he believes there is a top-down \u201c<\/span>war on crypto<\/span>\u201d that had something to do with the recent collapses of Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate and Signature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Barely a month ago, Kennedy posted a long rant on <\/span>Crypto Twitter<\/span> railing against the idea of a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency being released by the Federal Reserve. However, Kennedy\u2019s thread was based on a misreading of an article about The Fed\u2019s new digital payments system \u201cFedNow,\u201d which has nothing to do with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the red corner, Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis\u2014who is widely expected to run as a Presidential candidate next year\u2014once more pushed back against CBDCs at a press conference on Tuesday titled “Government of Laws, Not Woke Politics.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n DeSantis aired a package of bills opposing “‘Environment, Social, and Governance” or <\/span>ESG<\/span> policies. ESG policies evaluate factors beyond fiscal performance in evaluating a company or organization, such as environmental and community impact. One example is the White House\u2019s DAME tax mentioned above.<\/span><\/p>\n DeSantis criticized the ESG approach as \u201cvirtue signaling\u201d and tied the concept of a CBDC to ESG\u2019s “woke” practices by saying that CBDC advocates “will impose ESG and social credit scores onto that, and that's going to be a huge reduction in freedom for people in this country.” His words echoed his earlier remarks that a U.S. CBDC would be \u201c<\/span>Big Brother\u2019s Digital Dollar<\/span>.”<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, in adoption news, famed auction house Sotheby\u2019s on Monday launched an on-chain <\/span>NFT marketplace<\/span> for secondary NFT sales, enabling collectors to list and make offers on work from artists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Argentine crypto fans fear they could be witnessing the start of a crypto crackdown, meanwhile. On Friday the country\u2019s central bank <\/span>banned<\/span> payment platforms from offering crypto trading services to their customers.<\/span><\/p>\nPresidential candidates and crypto<\/span><\/h2>\n