Markets pullback after FOMC, MetaMask integrates Paypal

BTC is currently trading near $17,400 while ETH trades at $1,270, down 2.22% and 2.82%, respectively. Stocks have dropped significantly through mid-day following a negative retail sales report which indicated sales fell 0.6% in November, a larger drop than the Dow Jones estimate of 0.3%. The S&P 500 dropped 2.67%, while the Nasdaq fell 3.08%. Markets are also digesting yesterday’s rate hike by the Fed, which saw them decrease the pace of hikes to 50 bps while increasing the expected terminal rate from ~4.6% last quarter to ~5.1%. The ECB and BoE also piled into the hawkishness, hiking in line with consensus by 50 bps. Toncoin (TON), messaging platform Telegram’s layer-1 blockchain, has been a notable outperformer rising 31.0% over the last week. The token’s outperformance has come from demand for Telegram’s new feature that allows users to buy an anonymous phone number with the token and create an account on the platform. The Telegram messenger team launched the sale of the numbers with the +888 prefix, which exist as collectibles on the ‘The Open Network.’ Despite the SEC fining Telegram $18.5 million in 2020 for raising $1.2 billion in an unregistered securities offering, the TON ecosystem has evolved independently while regularly integrating innovations with the Telegram messenger.