Select observations of the day:
$UST, which depends on its arbitrage and $LUNA redemption mechanism to maintain its price peg, crashed to 67 cents yesterday, Luna fell to $23.50. LFG deployed $1.5B worth of BTC to maintain the peg. LFG had accumulated ~ $4B reserves over the past few months in the event the algorithmic mechanism failed. Trust and faith has been affected - source
UST-LUNA concern: the possible self-destructive cycle from a BTC denominated reserve: 1) Falling BTC price leads to a strain on confidence in the peg, triggering a de-peg event. 2) BTC reserves need to be sold to defend the peg. 3) BTC selling causes BTC price to fall further - source
Azuki NFT founder admits in a blog post to abandoning past projects Cryptophunks, Tendies and Cryptozunks, plus more. The project’s floor price dropped from about 30 to 15 ETH - source - blog
Flow blockchain, ranked 4th blockchain by NFT sales, raises $725M ecosystem fund from DCG, a16z, Dapper Ventures, others towards developers building on the Flow blockchain - source
KuCoin, a normie friendly exchange, raises $150M round led by Jump Crypto at $10B valuation to expand its product lineup, such as crypto wallets, and DeFi and NFT platforms - source
CPI - US inflation rate data for April is due out tomorrow, May 11th - expect volatility
Plus more, as always. The excitement and energy over the past day has been palpable. History in the making. The story of crypto, for better or worse, is being written before our eyes.
- 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 small glimpse of what has happened so far today in our little crypto bubble -
Chain News:
$UST, the Terra algorithmic stablecoin which depends on its arbitrage and LUNA redemption mechanism to maintain its price peg, crashed to 67 cents yesterday, Luna fell to $23.50. LFG deployed $1.5B worth of BTC to maintain the peg. LFG had accumulated a $4B reserve over the past few months in the event the algorithmic mechanism failed. Trust and faith has been affected - source
The real UST-LUNA concern is the possible self-destructive cycle from a BTC denominated reserve: 1) Falling BTC price leads to a strain on confidence in the peg, triggering a de-peg event. 2) BTC reserves need to be sold to defend the peg. 3) BTC selling causes BTC price to fall further - source
Aurora DAO approves $AURORA staking contract. Through staking, users will receive $AURORA rewards and voting rights, represented as yet-to-be-designed VOTE tokens with their respective mechanics - source
ShidenNetwork won the 34th Kusama parachain auction with a total amount of 12,252 $KSM - source
Yearn Allowlist - allows all transactions that are made through the website/SDK to be validated against an on-chain contract that keeps a record of all valid calldata that is possible for the website to produce - source
Circle - Introducing Verite, an open-source framework for decentralized identity - source
Introducing Iron Fleet: Starkswap partnership with Yearn Finance. Iron Fleet is an innovative new protocol which will allow users on StarkNet to pool their assets together for interactions with layer 1 DeFi protocols such as Yearn and split the gas fees with each other - source
GameStop NFT Marketplace: bringing NFT gaming collections to players with Immutable X - source
Justin Sun’s TRON DAO Reserve announced the purchase of 595,729,832 TRX for $45,641,630 at an average price of 0.07661; and 500 BTC for $15,515,675 - source
Fantom: Snapsync released in Go-Opera. Second most significant network upgrade to date. Snapsync improves network reliability and decentralization, and maintains network performance even as Fantom rapidly scales - source
Elrond Network announced integrating with blockchain analytics platform Anchain AI to enhance compliance and prevent fraud - source
The Algorand Foundation announced partnership with the Italian Working Group on Distributed Ledger Technology to support the launch of the International School on Algorand Smart Contracts - source
Introducing Giza. Fully on-chain machine learning model inference powered by StarkNet - source
Yieldly to acquire WAGMIswap, a game changer for Algorand DeFi - source
$BOBA token can now be used for gas fees on Boba Network. ETH can still be used for this purpose while paying the fees in BOBA will result in a 25% gas fee discount - source
First stDOT is minted. Soon to launch Lido Finance liquid staked Polkadot on Moonbeam Network - source
The Tarot Protocol is expanding to multiple chains, starting with Optimism. Switching between Optimism and Fantom is seamless within the Tarot UI - source
The Kava 10 Mainnet upgrade is now scheduled for May 25th. The reschedule is out of an abundance of caution to ensure a smooth launch - source
The first version of StarkNet Bridge, StarkGate Alpha, is live on Testnet, and on Mainnet - source
$BAKED is now live on Aurora: Contract: 0x8973c9ec7b79fe880697cdbca744892682764c37 - source
Hubble Exchange Mainnet: Monday 16 May 9 AM UTC - source
UniLend Finance moving towards Omnis Testnet with Completion of Bug Bounty - source
Metaverse News:
Azuki NFT Founder self Admits to Abandoning Past Projects Cryptophunks, Tendies and Cryptozunks. The project’s floor price dropped from about 30 to 15 ETH - source - blog
Yuga Lab’s Otherdeed #59906, the eighth rarest NFT from Yuga Labs’ Otherside metaverse project, sold for a record 625 ETH (over $1.5 million) - source
Madonna and Beeple have been working on the NFT project “Mother of Creation” for one year and it will be live on May 11th - source
Attack on Titan: Legacy - NFT Drop - Legendary Pack - source
UK startup Copper begins offering custody for NFTs to meet institutional demand - source
News:
US Treasury Secretary Yellen points to UST slip, asks for new stablecoin legislation by the end of 2022 - source
The government of El Salvador, which was the first countries to make bitcoin legal tender, purchased 500 BTC worth roughly $15.3 million during the dip - source
Cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX has announced the launch of its venture investment arm CoinDCX Ventures to invest in early-stage crypto and blockchain startups - source
UK Prime Minister Empowers Authorities to Seize Crypto ‘More Quickly and Easily’ - source
Raises:
Flow Blockchain Raises $725 Million Ecosystem Fund From DCG, a16z and Dapper Ventures for developers building on the Flow blockchain - source
SPiCE VC has announced a new $250 million blockchain-focused fund, five times larger than the firm’s first fund and structured to appeal to institutional investors - source
KuCoin Raises $150M Round Led by Jump Crypto at $10B Valuation to expand its product lineup, such as crypto wallets, and DeFi and NFT platforms - source
Crypto Trading Firm Talos Raises $105M from Citi, Wells Fargo, Among Others. The fund raise gives the firm a $1.25 billion valuation - source
Africa-focused Web3 app Jambo has closed $30M Series A funding round led by crypto-focused venture firm Paradigm - source
A16z Leads $25M Raise for NFT-focused Co:Create Protocol. The new endeavor aims to enable NFT projects to launch their own native tokens - source
Arianee, a Paris-based platform for linking NFTs to luxury brands, has raised a $21M Series A funding round led by Tiger Global - source
Bitcoin self-custody company Casa said Tuesday it raised $21 million in a push to add financial identity functionality to its signature wallet product - source
Susquehanna Leads $10M Funding in Metaverse Platform StarryNift. The pre-A funding round includes Binance Labs, Alameda - source
Solana-based P2E game Nyan Heroes Raises $7.5M to Develop Play-to-Earn Game. The investment brings the company's valuation to $100 million - source
Entertainment and culture newsletter Dirt said Monday it raised $1.2 million in seed funding to build out its Web 3 infrastructure - source
Binance Labs Makes a Strategic Investment in Liquid Staking Protocol pSTAKE - source
New Listings:
Bifrost (BFC) Gets Listed on KuCoin on May 11th - source
BiFi (BIFI) Gets Listed on KuCoin on May 11th - source
DeFine (DFA) Gets Listed on KuCoin on May 12th - source
KaraStar (KARA) Gets Listed on KuCoin on May 12th - source
New ETH trading pairs are now available in the Crypto.com App for LRC, DASH, CHZ, and OMG
Crypto.com App Lists PARSIQ (PRQ) - source
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