Crypto Daily Sentiment, Vibe, Topics of the Day -
Monday, February 28th: Bitcoin breaks 40k for a retest. Up to ~ 44k. Nuclear talk keeps floating around. Luna still leading altcoin rally. Evmos launch delayed. Solidly wars narrative forming (Sex, Weve). Avax looks promising. Platypus. Potential Solunavax rotation upcoming. God candle wipes war thoughts from people’s minds almost instantly.
Tuesday, March 1st: First day of month seems to signal a new tone. Cautiously bullish. Market seems optimistic (for now). Oil reaches 7 year high. Btc is running. Btc dominance up. Btc/Eth is down. Eth lagging. Eth retesting 3k area. Jpeg’d is getting some heat for being down. Everyone speculating about Evmos. Bitcoin stops ~ 45k.
Wednesday, March 2nd: Evmos launch today, people seem disappointed by the airdrop amount. Ukraine doing an airdrop for donations - strange? Fed to raise rates 25 bps in March. Final Avax unlock tomorrow 3/3. Metis listed on kucoin 3/3. Market slightly dipped today/lost momentum. Bitcoin ~ 43-45k.
Also this week:
- Cardano announced a ZK rollup L2 called Orbis
- Arbitrum announced AnyTrust Chains, essentially a limited trust version of Arbitrum One that will be suitable for products that don't mind having a whitelisted set of validators and want higher throughput (such as games)
- Osmosis introduced Superfluid Staking, enabling users to simultaneously use their tokens for staking and liquidity providing. Superfluid staking does not create synthetic representations of staked assets like liquid staking solutions generally do.
- THORChain completed integration with Terra, giving support for UST and Luna, as well as all Cosmos-based projects
Reminiscences of an Anon: Midweek Thoughts
The crypto markets are finally seeing some relief since we’ve seen a brutal selloff since November. We can only hope we see follow through and whether or not this will be a dead cat bounce or the start of another bullish run. The highly anticipated Evmos launch is one of the most hyped recent plays launching this week, however concerns are floating around when it comes to whether or not this play will be too crowded and pvp. Regardless, Exswap - dex, Cronus - dex, Spacefi - dex, Coslend - money market are potential projects in this eco to look out for and one way or another, this should provide for an interesting learning experience. Here’s a list of potential evmos plays -https://evmos.space/. Reminder that Juno continues to be one of the better performing charts out there. This week in older news, I find myself pondering the consequences of law enforcement’s newfound prowess with blockchain tracing technology. I’m referring to the recent case of the accused couple laundering $3.6 billion in Bitcoin tied to the Bitfinex hack in 2016. There’s also the journalist investigation that potentially found the person responsible for the 2016 hack of The DAO to steal 3.64 million ETH, leading to the ETH fork. In that case, the culprit almost got away by sending funds to a Wasabi Wallet and mixing it to try to hide the transaction history, however was still able to be tracked in the end - allegedly. The implications of the tracking of these funds is larger than most people realize. How were the pieces put together to find the culprits? What repercussions can we expect going forward? Does this change the narrative of bitcoin being anonymous and only usable for crimes, money laundering and tax evasion?
The blockchain is an open, public, distributed ledger and therefore viewable to all network users utilizing an onchain block explorer. The United States government sent a very serious message to the world when it arrested the Bitfinex hackers. Bitcoin is not anonymous and you cannot hide on the blockchain they said. I suspect sooner or later this technology will be commonplace enough and combined with the inevitable regulations and KYC requirements to come down in the future, the crypto of tomorrow will be more annoying to deal with than in its current iteration. It also renders some regulators’ tired argument of “crypto as a perfect tool for money laundering” obsolete. As real life cases demonstrate, digital assets are, in fact, opposite to that due to their highly transparent nature. Hammering this point into policymakers’ minds will eventually moot one of the fundamental anti-crypto narratives. While this might sound negative at first glance, tearing down the anti-crypto narratives should lead to greater adoption - right? Another future anti-crypto narrative that must also be tackled is the environmental one where many criticize the high energy requirements of crypto mining. In my opinion - this is an issue of sustainable energy more than a crypto one. I’ll be interested in following how this type of tracing and tracking technology develops and if any troubling outcomes come about. I can’t help but wonder how the privacy narrative will end up playing out in regards to the completely transparent nature of the blockchain. And then there’s central bank digital currencies..
Lastly, recent legal precedents are seemingly adding greater legal risks and responsibilities for crypto promoters who use YouTube, Twitter, and other online communications platforms to shill crypto. Anyone who follows crypto twitter knows there is a native crypto sleuth named Zachxbt who uncovers drama and shady behavior and slowly but surely regulation will begin to roll out to address these issues. In many cases, prominent online influencers use their followers to shill projects to their audiences, pump and dump, and perform undisclosed advertisements, all of which is often considered illegal in many countries if related to traditional financial markets, including the US, however operators in crypto have seemingly been operating in a gray zone. Current SEC regulations have not yet caught up with this wave of behavior but it feels like the tide is slowly turning. Will we see any prominent personalities caught up in this mess? Will any retroactive actions be taken? Will penalties or restitution ever be imposed? It will be interesting to watch this story and more develop. It feels like there's never a boring day in crypto.
I’m looking for active and motivated crypto people to join forces in a small group. If you’ve got fire in your belly, reach out to me: https://twitter.com/TheoDelarosa_
- Time moves differently in crypto. Crypto is an intricate game filled with various players operating across multiple time frames and with varying agendas. Day in, day out, the pieces are moving all across the board. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Here’s a glimpse of what has happened so far this week in our little crypto bubble -
News:
Non-zero BTC addresses hit all-time high of 40 million. The supply-side dynamics of the Bitcoin network continue to demonstrate strong adoption as there are now more addresses with a positive BTC balance than ever before - source
USDT records new all-time high against Russian ruble as inflation hits. As an immediate countermeasure against the rising inflation of its fiat currency, the Russian central bank doubled key interest rates on Feb. 28, from 9.5% to 20% - source
Crypto market maker Wintermute has made it onto the UK Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) crypto asset register. Wintermute has significant heft within crypto markets, with a cumulative trading volume of $1.72 trillion since January 2020, according to its website. It offers more than 5,000 trading pairs - source
Evmos, an EVM-compatible public chain on Cosmos, announced that the mainnet launch time will be postponed to 2:00 on March 3 (UTC+8), and the number of Token airdrops will be increased to 120m, accounting for 60% of the initial issuance, so the strategic fund has declined to 40% - source
Crypto-focused enterprise payment platform Tribal Credit has partnered with Visa to expand credit and financing options for small- and medium-sized enterprises across Latin America, highlighting the growing synergies between traditional payment providers and the blockchain industry - source
Major e-commerce marketplace eBay could integrate crypto payments soon, said CEO Jamie Iannone in a recent interview. The internet marketplace is among the oldest e-commerce platforms, now looking to become the go-to platform for Gen Z and Millennials. The CEO said in an interview with The Street that the firm has been looking to integrate crypto payment options for quite some time and an official announcement could be made during the upcoming investor’s day on March 10 - source
Wirex, a digital payment platform that enables users to spend 62 fiat and cryptocurrencies at more than 61 million locations worldwide via the Wirex platform, announced the integration of Avalanche (AVAX) into its ecosystem on Monday. With the move, users can receive, send, store, and exchange AVAX tokens, and add custom tokens via the Avalanche blockchain. The company plans to onboard multiple AVAX based tokens over the next few months - source
Cambridge University launches crypto research project with IMF and BIS. Some regulators were recently concerned about the alleged lack of consistent and transparent data on crypto markets. As its core mission, the CDAP intends to enable evidence-based public dialogue about the opportunities and risks associated with the growing cryptocurrency adoption. The program will be focused on three main areas including crypto’s environmental implications, infrastructure, and digital assets, including stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, as well as cryptocurrencies - source
SEC unable to locate BitConnect founder convicted in $2.4B fraud case. BitConnect founder is being sued for illegally raising funds and defrauding American investors of over $2 billion - source
Major global cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex is finally moving forward with its security token platform (STO) in Kazakhstan, opening the first day of trading. Bitfinex Securities, Bitfinex’s blockchain-based investment platform, is officially starting on Tuesday - source
CME Group announced it plans to launch options on Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether futures on March 28, pending regulatory review. The new Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether options contracts will be one-tenth of their respective underlying tokens - source
Uniswap Adds Tool To Facilitate Crypto Donations to Ukraine. Decentralized exchange Uniswap has built an interface that allows users to swap ‘any token’ for Ethereum and send it to the Ukrainian government - source
Ukraine accepts DOT, founder Gavin Wood donates $5.8 million. The official Ukraine crypto wallets are now accepting donations from the Polkadot (DOT) ecosystem; cofounder Gavin Wood has donated $5.8 million or 298,367 DOT - source
Ukraine Now Accepts Dogecoin Donations Amid Russian Invasion. Just days after Ukraine began accepting crypto donations, the government added Dogecoin to its list of accepted cryptocurrencies today - source
U.S.-based payment solutions provider Shift4 announced its acquisition of The Giving Block in cash and stock for $54 million, plus a potential earnout of up to $246 million. The Giving Block is an online platform that allows over 1,300 nonprofit organizations and charities to accept crypto donations. Shift4 has more than 425 software integrations and over 200,000 merchant customers - source
Bank of America Sees No Crypto Winter Given User Adoption, Developer Activity Growth. Still, crypto market upside will likely be limited for the next six months by Fed tightening and macro headwinds - source
European Union lawmakers have scrapped a section of a pending bill that could have made it illegal for crypto services to deal in coins based on proof-of-work—the consensus mechanism Bitcoin and Ethereum use to "mine" new currency and secure their networks - source
The State of Wyoming has approved California-based crypto broker SFOX for a trust charter, allowing the firm to provide custodial and other crypto-related services to institutional clients. Under the trust charter, SFOX said it would offer services to clients seeking investment opportunities in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) and other tokens, custodying the digital assets in accordance with Wyoming’s regulatory framework - source
Billionaire admits he was wrong about Bitcoin as Citadel looks to crypto markets. Company founder Ken Griffin has backtracked on his anti-crypto stance and wants his firm to offer digital assets to its clients this year. In January, Citadel Securities announced its first outside investment worth $1.15 billion from two prominent crypto venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Paradigm. Citadel, which currently has around $38 billion in assets under management, was valued at $22 billion following the investments - source
A hacking group that infiltrated Nvidia servers last month is attempting to sell software that could unlock crypto mining hash rate limiters on the firm’s flagship graphics cards. A South American hacking group going by the name LAPSUS$ claims to have stolen a terabyte of data from Nvidia servers in late February. The group is now offering software in the form of a customized driver to unlock limiters the company has put on its high-end graphics cards - source
With its nation laboring under Russian invasion, Ukraine set crypto Twitter abuzz with the promise of an airdrop, a common reward to early investors in new coins and NFTs. “Airdrop confirmed,” Ukraine’s official Twitter account posted today. “Snapshot will be taken tomorrow, on March 3rd, at 6pm Kyiv time. Reward to follow!”. It wasn’t clear what “snapshot” referred to and whether any reward would be in tokens, NFTs or some other form - source
Ukraine Government Asks Binance, Coinbase, Other Major Crypto Exchanges to Halt Support for Ruble. The Ukrainian government is piling on the pressure for crypto exchanges to take action against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine - source
Blockchain Gaming Giant Animoca Brands Halts Services to Russian Users. The move comes as Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov urged cryptocurrency exchanges to block addresses belonging to Russian users - source
Customers at AMC Theatres will be able to pay using memecoins Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) starting next month through crypto payments service BitPay - source
Binance, the world’s leading crypto exchange by trading volume is returning to the Malaysian markets with a strategic stake in the country’s regulated digital asset trading platform MX Global. Binance and Cuscapi Berhad acquired a key stake in MX Global, one of the four Recognized Market Operators - Digital Asset Exchange licensed by the Securities Commission (SC) in Malaysia. In 2021, Binance faced regulatory warnings and service restrictions from over a dozen countries. However, the exchange managed to mend its regulatory relationship in several of these nations through third-party partnerships - source
Grayscale parent Digital Currency Group, better known as DCG, announced that it intends to repurchase up to $250 million in shares for various Grayscale investment products. The share repurchase program is centered around Grayscale’s Litecoin Trust, Horizon Trust, Zcash Trust and other Grayscale products, DCG confirmed on Wednesday. The pace and timing of the share repurchase are not fixed and will depend on several factors, “including the levels of cash available, price, and prevailing market conditions,” the company said - source
ConsenSys AG, the Ethereum software company behind crypto wallet MetaMask also known as Mesh, is facing a multi-billion dollar audit, as a group of 35 former employees seek to investigate what they are calling "serious irregularities." The former employees claim that the transaction, internally code-named "Project North Star", resulted in legacy financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase acquiring an influential stake in MetaMask and Infura, two of the most widely used infrastructure tools in Ethereum - source
Metaverse:
Square Enix Enters The Sandbox Ethereum Metaverse With Dungeon Siege. The fantasy role-playing franchise will appear in The Sandbox’s NFT game world amid Square Enix’s increasing interest in crypto games. Square Enix will bring the Dungeon Siege fantasy role-playing game IP into The Sandbox in multiple ways, including with an interactive experience on Square Enix’s owned LAND in the shared online world. The publisher also will make Dungeon Siege characters and assets available for players to use within The Sandbox’s game-making tools - source
John Richmond, an English fashion designer, partners with Shiba Inu for a fashion collaboration. 10,000 JR x SHIB NFTS, Fashion Show - Milan Italy, Collection in Boutiques Worldwide - source
South Korea’s Ministry of ICT, Science, and Future Planning pledged 223.7 billion Korean won ($186.7 million) to create a broad metaverse ecosystem to support the growth of digital content and corporate growth within the country. The government agency intends on using its metaverse as a platform for expanding the virtual industrial growth of cities, education and media - source
DMarket, a trading platform for NFTs and in-game metaverse items, said that, as a startup born in Ukraine, it has decided to cut off all ties with Russia and Belarus. With this, Russian and Belarusian users are now prohibited from registering on the platform. DMarket will also be freezing all registered accounts from these regions. Assets and skins will remain under these profiles, but access to their use is currently restricted - source
NFT Project Raises $1M for Humanitarian Aid in Ukraine in 30 Seconds. Reli3f is a humanitarian aid project that was founded by Web 3.0 artists on Friday, 25th of February as Russian instigated its invasion and brutal war in Ukraine. The group pledges that 100% of the profits raised will go to Ukrainian relief efforts - source
In what has been billed as the largest-ever NFT-backed loan, an anonymous borrower just took out an $8 million loan collateralized by their collection of 101 CryptoPunks. The loan has an APR of 20% and a 30-day duration. It was facilitated by liquidity scaling solution MetaStreet on peer-to-peer lending platform NFTfi. The financing is seen by industry participants as a bellwether of the future of lending secured by digital collectibles, a market expected to grow as institutional interest in the sector continues to build - source
Country music star Dolly Parton is jumping into the metaverse, and bestselling author James Patterson is along for the ride. Parton today announced that her “Dollyverse” is kicking off with the release of a co-branded book, album, NFTs, and a livestreamed musical performance at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. Patterson and Parton co-wrote the novel called “Run, Rose, Run,” and Parton wrote and produced the companion musical album - source
Pplpleasr’s Shibuya Video Platform Uses Ethereum NFTs to Fund and Shape Films. Part Kickstarter and part Netflix, the platform lets users vote with NFTs to help fund films while also influencing their storylines - source
Social media platform Parler announced today the launch of its new Solana NFT marketplace, DeepRedSky. The first collection, called "Official CryptoTrump Club," is dedicated to the 45th president. According to DeepRedSky, each CryptoTRUMP is unique, with images of former President Donald Trump in various settings. Within the 10,000 NFT collection, 250 are categorized as extremely rare NFTs - source
Blockchain Real Estate Startup Raises Round To Expand Digitized Property Investments. Parcl, a startup that digitizes real estate investments via the Solana blockchain, raised a $4.1 million seed round Tuesday, earmarked for marketing and staffing. Led by Archetype, raise investors include Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Solana Ventures and ParaFi. Parcl’s protocol allows users to invest in a digital square foot of real-live property via its price index, which replicates the price per square foot in various neighborhoods. The platform has transaction fees, but no minimum investment requirement - source
The owner of the ETH wallet 0x67c4438c86c00257d3bca9bbfb3f6234bc961468 donated NFT CryptoPunk 5364 to the government of Ukraine - source
Crypto payments firm MoonPay emerged as the top bidder for a coveted non-fungible token (NFT) at Christie's on Tuesday — while acting on behalf of a mystery buyer. The startup splashed £567,000 ($754,340) at the London Evening Sale at Christie's auction house for a rare item in the World of Women (WoW) collection. Moonpay's main business provides infrastructure that enables web and mobile developers to let their users purchase virtual currencies using credit cards. MoonPay purchases NFTs and later invoices its clients for them and any other services rendered. This sale appears to be the latest play by that service, which usually buys items through OpenSea. It is not clear, as yet, who MoonPay purchased the WoW item on behalf of - source
Ukraine Opens Polkadot Wallet for War Fundraising. Ukraine expanded its cryptocurrency fundraising efforts by opening up a Polkadot wallet on Tuesday - source
Radio Caca (RACA) is a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, that has partnered with top global universities to build a metaverse for students to study and play. Its blockchain ecosystem, powered by its native token RACA, consists of the United States of Mars (USM) metaverse, a nonfungible token, or NFT, marketplace and a play-to-earn, or P2E, game called Metamon. Radio Caca is backed by OKX Blockdream Ventures fund and ConsenSys Ventures as a part of the Tachyon Accelerator - source
DAOs:
A DAO aiming to buy fast food restaurants and give its community a say in how they're run has raised $5.4 million in a crypto-backed foray into the world of hospitality. The group, dubbed FriesDAO, raised the funds over the week ended February 20 and is targeting a Subway franchise for its first purchase and has given out FRIES tokens to those who participated. These tokens will not confer any ownership of the restaurants or give holders any share of profits, but they will be used to vote on proposals with regards to how they operate. Starting this week, token holders can stake their FRIES to receive KCHUP tokens, which can then be used to purchase NFTs. These NFTs will provide perks like free burgers - source
Raises:
HOPR, the Swiss privacy provider, has received over $1m in web3 ecosystem grants. Backers: The Graph, Edge & Node, Ankr, and Dusk Network. The HOPR protocol provides network-level and metadata privacy for every type of data exchange, while introducing the first-ever open incentivized mixnet, where users earn tokens for running nodes - source
Blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs has added JPMorgan Chase & Co. to its list of investors after the bank announced its strategic investment on Monday. The total amount invested by JPMorgan was not disclosed, and neither organization was available for immediate comment. TRM provides blockchain intelligence to help traditional financial institutions as well as crypto-focused businesses and public agencies analyze and manage crypto-related fraud and crime - source
VALR, a crypto exchange in South Africa, has raised $50 million in a Series B equity funding round. Pantera Capital led the rough with participation from Alameda Research, Coinbase Ventures and Avon Ventures, among others. Those firms join existing investors including crypto exchange Bittrex and 4Di Capital - source
Thetanuts Finance, a multi chain structured products protocol, has raised $18 million in the seed round led by Three Arrows Capital, Deribit, QCP Capital, and Jump Crypto.Investors: DeFi Capital, Tribe, Crypto.com, GSR, Algorand Foundation and others. The seed round will go toward efforts to create innovative DeFi structured products - source
Subspace Labs, developer of the layer-one storage and compute network of its namesake, announced Tuesday that it had raised tens of millions of dollars to pursue its lofty Web3 ambitions. Funding from the $32.9 million strategic financing round, led by Pantera Capital, will go toward tripling the size of its protocol engineering team, Subspace said in a press release. Subspace will also use funds to expand its integrations team to further connections between Polkadot, Kusama and Ethereum ecosystems - source
Electric Capital, a crypto venture capital firm, has raised $1B for 2 New Crypto VC Funds: a $400 million venture fund and a $600 million token fund. The funds will have a wide-ranging focus on decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), layer 1s and blockchain infrastructure - source
Hack VC Debuts $200M Early-Stage Fund Targeting Crypto, Web3 Startups. Funding will go toward Web3 and blockchain startups in the belief these technologies will form the “second half of the internet”. Hack VC focuses on investment in early-stage start-ups operating in crypto, open-source, fintech, artificial intelligence, machine learning and business software sectors - source
French DeFi platform Nested has raised a $7.5 million Series A round led by hedge fund heavyweight Alan Howard as the company seeks to expand its offering of social-focused trading tools. The British investor was joined by Republic Capital, Kenetic Capital and CMT Digital, according to a statement today. The former president of Polychain Capital, Joseph Eagen, also took part in the round. Nested differs from his previous investments in that it sees itself as a social trading platform for DeFi. After connecting with a supported wallet, Nested allows users to build portfolios of tokens which are themselves minted as NFTs - source
Dialect, a Solana protocol, has raised $4.1 million in a seed round co-led by Multicoin Capital and Jump Crypto. Investors: Solana Ventures, Tiger Global, Joe McCann - source
Calendar:
Useful tool for tracking unlocks - source
Avax unlock March 3rd - source
US CPI print - Thursday, 10 March - source
FOMC rate decision meeting - Wednesday, 16 March - source
Avax Summit Conference March 22nd - 27th, 2022 - source
Data:
The bitcoin primary redistribution appears to be coming from investors who bought the $60k+ range around the all-time-high, which has found new owners around the current price range of $35k to $38k - source
The number of validators nodes on the Ethereum network is reaching 300,000, according to a leading Ethereum engineer, and the amount of ETH staked has surpassed 9.5 million - source
Recently, the gas cost of the Ethereum has continued to drop, with the lowest falling to 15 Gwei, a new low in nearly six months. The daily transaction volume of the Ethereum network is close to the bottom of “1.1 million transactions per day” in the past six months - source
Bitcoin miners brought in $1.06 billion in revenues during February 2022, according to data compiled by The Block Research. Most of these revenues came from the block subsidy ($1.05 billion) and only a small portion from transaction fees ($12.92 million). Revenue totals have dropped for the fourth consecutive month, with a month-over-month decrease of 12.9% between January and February. Total revenues in October were $1.72 billion and have been falling since. They hit an all-time high in March 2021, with a total of $1.75 billion - source
Overall, the S&P 500 (SPY) moved relatively similar to BTC over the last week. But Monday, February 28th BTC began to separate, raising about 17% on the day from the lows while the S&P 500 dipped - source
New Listings:
Binance will list Astar (ASTR) in the Innovation Zone and will open trading for ASTR/BUSD and ASTR/USDT trading pairs at 2022-02-28 - source
Metis (METIS) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
FTX has announced the next IEO — IndiGG (INDI). Date: on March 8th, 13:00 UTC. Tickets: 3,000 (each ticket for 4,000 INDI). The minimum bid is $350 and the maximum bid is $400 + 5 FTT ($0.1 per INDI + 5 FTT). Total INDI: 1,000,000,000 IEO allocation: 12,000,000 INDI - source
Binance will delist Bitcoin Diamond (BCD), Cindicator (CND), Monetha (MTH), Nitro Network (NCASH), and YOYOW (YOYO) on 2022-03-08 - source
Binance has announced the 28th project on Binance Launchpad - STEPN (GMT) - source
not finanshy advice