The Crypto Grimoire: Weekend Epilogue
March 17th - March 20th, 2022
Crypto Daily Sentiment, Vibe, Topic of the Day -
Monday, March 14th:
Bitcoin ranging underside retest 40k again at daily close, then sells off. Eth 2500-2600
Do Kwon vs Algod 1 million dollar bet on the price of Luna in one year. GCR ups bet offer to 10 million - source - source
EU Parliament voted Against the MiCA de-facto POW-ban - source
Daniele Seste returns from hiatus. Wonderland moves $75m avax - source - snowtrace
Tuesday, March 15th:
Bitcoin tickling 40k resistance from underside. Eth shows strength over btc.
Kiln, the next iteration of Ethereum merge testnets, is now live. Eth merge narrative heating up - source
Metamask token, dao confirmed - source
Layer Zero and Stargate have been getting a lot of attention lately. Interesting project - source
Wednesday, March 16th:
Bitcoin pumps into the FOMC Fed meeting ~ Price hovers above 40k tenuously. Literally everyone waiting with bated breath. The Fed announced that it would raise its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points (as expected). This is the first rate hike since December 2018 - causes immediate whipsaw volatility - bitcoin stalls at 41k resistance
TL sentiment seems to shift bullish with a tingle of uncertainty still
ApeCoin launches for BAYC holders With Reddit, FTX, Animoca Execs on board - causes instant hype and speculation - catalyst to reinvigorate retail? - source
Thursday, March 17th:
Apecoin interesting omega hyped launch - rather bumbled? Messy. Listed EVERYWHERE immediately. Definitely curious how easily everyone forgot ukraine/russia/ww3/macroeconomics and just went bananas
Stargate launch botted by 2 accounts. Cheaper to buy Stg on Curve than bonding
Stepn- gmt - strong recent performer -
Friday, March 18th:
Bullish rally. The energy is euphoric. The energy is different, hopeful. Could this be the start of something or another fakeout?
Vitalik Buterin TIME article - The Prince of Crypto - people make mean comments
Shitcoins popping off: bape, qom, vulture - shitcoin season?
Defi narrative getting attention
“the narrative is the ape coin launch just started alt szn fellas pass it along” - z source
Saturday, March 19th:
The bullish momentum has stalled at a make it or break it area. Bitcoin ~ 41-42k. Eth ~ 2900
Lots of speculation about whether or not we’ll receive a long awaited bullish rally. NFT resurgence speculation
Quiet weekend vibes
People discussing the upcoming Avalanche summit in Barcelona, Spain
Sunday, March 20th:
Quiet weekend vibes - market stalled, ranging interspersed with mini dips. No full on rally yet past resistance. Make it or break it area.
TL speculating how high alts can get during the move up if we get it. The thesis is retail inspired alt season fueled by Ape
Shared mentality seems to be people are waiting to exit certain alt positions if they get the opportunity
Everyone looking for the next meta/narrative
Singapore not as crypto friendly as people thought
Waves and Rune still performing well. Luna holding up Avax has a potential sell the news event with the conference this week. Indecisive and uneventful weekend.
Reminiscences of an Anon: End of Week Thoughts
This week saw a palpable shift in energy. Can you believe it was only Monday since $22M was bet on the price of Luna one year from now? “The narrative is the ape coin launch just started alt szn fellas pass it along” - Z.
The recent Ape coin launch was certainly enough to wipe most macroeconomic commentary from the timeline. Charts are curling up in a promising fashion. Definitely curious how easily everyone forgot ukraine/russia/ww3/macroeconomics and just went bananas instead.
We've had Layer Zero and Stargate getting a lot of attention lately - interesting project! Vitalik Buterin TIME nft article - The Prince of Crypto and Tom Brady comparisons - mean.
The energy has shifted on the TL. The energy is different, hopeful, bullish. Could this be the start of something or another fakeout? A common idea seems to be expecting some type of alt season inspired by the retail fueled liquidity flowing from the BAYC/Ape hype.
What lies in store for NFTs and the metaverse? Defi? Alts? Will memecoins continue popping? Worries are that whatever bullishness we see might result in a dead cat bounce or near term lower high for many charts.
Earlier in the week we also saw the EU Parliament vote Against the MiCA de-facto POW-ban. Daniele Seste returned from hiatus. We saw Kiln, the next iteration of Ethereum merge testnets went live - indicating Eth merge narrative heating up. Also the 25 bp Fed rate hike with more expected this year.
The macroeconomic environment is still precarious but tons of events and relevant news are going on behind the scenes. Pls help share this for those who may need it and see you for the midweek interlude.
I’m always looking for active crypto people to put our minds together. Apes strong together.
You can reach me on twitter: 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 in the past few days in our little crypto bubble-
Chain News:
Internet Computer founder's $250M plan to help end the war in Ukraine. Williams' proposal is focused on using blockchain tech to counter propaganda, and incentivize the Russian population via crypto rewards to get informed on what's taking place in Ukraine - source
The Polygon team said that a network outage last week caused Heimdall to stop functioning, so it needs to be updated to v0.2.8, which requires a hard fork. The upgrade is currently planned to be completed by altitude 8664000 (March 18) - source
Nansen Adds Terra for On-Chain Analytics as Home of LUNA Grows as DeFi Hub. It becomes the sixth blockchain to be supported by the popular data platform - source
How The Juno Network DAO Voted to Revoke a Whale's Tokens. Juno Network's Proposal 16 to dramatically shrink one whale's JUNO holdings passed, adding more nuance to the power of a DAO - source
Mina Ecosystem secured $92M through strategic and private sales led by FTX Ventures and Three Arrows Capital. The funds will be deployed to accelerate Mina’s adoption as the leading zero-knowledge platform within Web3 by attracting world-class developers - source
$10M Round for Polkadot Lending Protocol Moonwell. The project will enable users to take out over-collateralized loans on Polkadot’s EVM-compatible Moonbeam parachain similarly to lending products like Aave, MakerDAO and Compound - source
Polygon onboards Simba Chain for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Simba aims to lower the barrier of entry into Web3 for Web2 firms with the help of a decentralized platform that provides necessary developer tools - source
Ripple to give out 1 billion XRP in developer grants. The first two waves of the XRPL grant have offered $6 million in funding to 50 open source projects built on the XRP ledger - source
The Ethereum scaling startup Optimism has closed a $150 million Series B funding round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm at a $1.65 billion valuation - source
Coinbase Adds Solana Tokens to Self-Custody Wallet in Non-EVM First. But don’t try out Solana-based DeFi just yet. Coinbase Wallet can’t yet plug into Solana dapps - source
The 1inch Network has announced that NFT support has been added to the 1inch Wallet - source
Anchor Protocol Live on Avalanche. Adding the sAVAX as a collateral option to borrow $UST in the upcoming months - source
EIP-4626 has been reviewed by the development team and will be part of a future fork upgrade. EIP-4626 aims to standardize all DeFi vaults and unify them into ERC-20 tokens, which will reduce the integration workload of each project’s vaults - source
Litecoin announced that Litecoin 0.21.2 has been launched on the testnet. This upgrade mainly updates Mimblewimble (MWEB), so that users can not be tracked when transferring money, and enhance the privacy of Litecoin - source
Parallel Finance Launches DeFi ‘Super App’ for Polkadot Crypto Ecosystem. The lending protocol, with $500 million in TVL, is making a play for market dominance - source
THOR Chain experienced a 6-hour network outage in the early hours. It has now recovered, and all pending transactions will be listed in subsequent blocks. Due to the outage, the hard fork scheduled for next Monday is expected to be delayed by six hours - source
Equilibrium announced that it will be onboarded as the 12th parachain of the Polkadot network. It will launch the first orderbook DEX with margin trading on Polkadot and allow for trading with high leverage being combined with low collateral requirements - source
The Curve community initiated a vote on a proposal to introduce a new "FundRaising Gauge" on March 16, and currently 49.22% of veCRV holders participate, with a support rate of 99.98%. It will enable a more efficient financing model. Vyper will be the first ever to have a direct line of funding from Curve DAO via the new experimental fundraising gauge - source
Chain News from the Midweek Interlogue
Deus Finance, Derivatives Platform on Fantom Network, Exploited for $3M. Hackers manipulated a pricing mechanism to trick the protocol in a “flash loan” attack which led to loss of user funds. Blockchain data shows that over 3 million USDC tokens were stolen from Deus which was exchanged for 200,000 DAI and 1,101.8 ether (ETH) via decentralized exchange Multichain. The funds were then withdrawn to the privacy swap tool Tornado - source
Solana NFT Marketplace Magic Eden Raises Paradigm-Led $27M Series A. The top platform on Solana raises funds to challenge OpenSea’s dominance in the wider NFT market. Round was led by Paradigm, with participation from Sequoia, Solana Ventures, Greylock, Kindred, Electric, and Variant. Magic Eden plans to use the funds to hire more employees, build out its gaming vertical, explore partnerships, and develop a full-service mobile app for buying and selling NFTs - source
Wonderland Finance has proposed a new “Rage-Quit” option for those interested in exiting the project. You can get a better deal than the current value for any wMEMO you’re holding. If this proposal passes, you’ll have the option to swap wMEMO and SQUID for SPELL, getting a nice bonus in SPELL tokens. Voting on this proposal is open for 72 hours. If you like Abracadabra, it’s a decent deal, and it’s nice to have options - source
Stellar Development Foundation Launches $30M Investment Fund. The fund will match investments into platforms that use the Stellar up to $500,000 from the lead funding source. - source
The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) has announced a plan to burn 4 million Terra (LUNA) coins, currently worth $365 million, to mint about 372 million TerraUSD (UST), which will be used to purchase “exogenous collateral.” Once the burn is complete, the Foundation will hold about $2.2 billion in non-LUNA reserves while still holding 8 million Terra coins for future growth - source
On March 11th, the Polygon (MATIC) network began experiencing network wide issues. As a result, deposits and withdrawals on Binance via the Polygon (MATIC) network have been temporarily paused. The Polygon network underwent an essential upgrade on one of the three layers on March 11, but due to a suspected bug, the three layers didn’t reach a consensus post the upgrade, leading to the downtime. Polygon developer account on Twitter noted that the bug issue had been fixed, and the network is stable - source
JUNO's proposal on "Remove funds from whale gamer acct" has passed, with 40.9% in favor; 33.8% rejecting; 21.8% abstaining - source
Ethereum Merge testing on Kiln mostly successful, save for one minor bug. "Post-merge blocks are being produced by validators, and they contain transactions!" said Ethereum developer. Kiln is now operating in a proof-of-work (PoW) testing environment for Ethereum developers, node operators, and stakers. It is the final public testnet before the whole network transitions to proof-of-stake from PoW sometime this year - source - source
Ethereum Wallet MetaMask Passes 30M Users, Plans DAO and Token. ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin did not provide further details about the DAO or a date for its launch, but did confirm that MetaMask is intending to launch a token - source
As interoperability protocol LayerZero prepares to launch Stargate, the team has hired SushiSwap co-founder Maki to join. The LayerZero network is now live (in beta) on 7 chains: Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Fantom, Aribtrum, Optimism - source
Bitcoin mixing service CoinJoin starts blacklisting BTC tied to illegal activity. CoinJoin, a bitcoin mixing service that’s part of the privacy-focused Wasabi Wallet, will start blocking bitcoin tagged with certain identifiers - source
Ethereum Staking Protocol Swell Raises $3.75M as Locked ETH Tops $26B. Swell is attempting to make it easier to stake on Ethereum with a minimum commitment of 1 ETH and plans to launch its beta on the Ethereum mainnnet in April. The company says it plans on expanding to other blockchains, starting with Avalanche and Polygon - source
103.8 Million Shiba Inu Burned in Past Week, 12.26 Million Within 24+ Hours - source
Injective is now integrated with the Terra bridge - source
Crypto.com has announced that it has begun the initial phase of a platform launch in the United States. “Crypto.com Exchange will support U.S. institutional investors through this initial launch phase. We are looking forward to rolling it out to everyone as soon as possible.” - source
Samsung, Qualcomm Back FreedomFi, Helium’s 5G Crypto Network Partner. FreedomFi raises $9.5 million to scale its decentralized network with Helium and trim the price of 5G gateway hardware. FreedomFi provides the firmware and small-cell hardware that power Helium’s newer 5G network, enabling individual node operators to tap into the decentralized network and earn HNT tokens for providing service to nearby smartphone, laptop, and tablet users - source
DeFi protocols Agave and Hundred Finance exploited on Gnosis Chain for $11 million in what appears to be a flash loan reentrancy attack on both DeFi protocols on the Gnosis chain. Agave is a lending protocol on the Gnosis chain and is a fork of the popular Aave protocol. Hundred Finance is a multi-chain lending project and is a fork of Compound - source
DEX aggregator Matcha geoblocks trades from Russia. Yearn core developer Banteg first spotted the change. Matcha is the second-largest DEX aggregator by volume. The leading aggregator is 1inch, many of the developers for which are themselves Russian nationals. 1inch similarly geoblocks trades from the US - source
IoTeX, a blockchain platform focused on the Internet of Things (IoT), has announced the launch of a $100 million sustainable ecosystem fund. The new fund will back over 1,000 decentralized machine economy startups developing use cases for connecting more than 10 million smart devices to the MachineFi portal within the next three years - source
Andre Cronje is back again? Yearn founder Andre Cronje deployed 6 stablecoin pools on Curve yesterday. These stablecoins are from Fixed Forex, which was released by AC last July and has interoperability with Yearn, Curve and Convex - source
DeFi Platform Aave Lauches Version 3 With Cross-Chain Swaps Front and Center. The latest version of the Aave protocol focuses on risk management and capital efficiency. Headlining the new features are cross-chain “portals,” isolated markets that will allow the protocol to better compete with permissionless counterparts and a “high efficiency” mode enabling high loan-to-value borrowing on select assets - source
BNB Chain Fund has made a strategic acquisition of NFTrade’s utility and governance token, $NFTD. The two sides will collaborate on deal flow to introduce NFTrade to more BNB Chain projects - source
MakerDAO community proposed a new token model, stkMKR, which is mainly inspired by Cosmos. stkMKR represents the staking of MKR in governance and holding stkMKR can obtain MKR purchased by the remaining auction as a bonus - source
Metaverse News:
Universal Music’s Web3 Label Acquires Bored Ape NFT for $360,000. The purchased ape — named “Manager Noët All” — will lead the company’s virtual NFT band Kingship. The ape-led music group, according to Universal Music, will eventually produce music and perform virtual concerts - source
Yuga Labs Teases Bored Ape Yacht Club Metaverse With CryptoPunks, Cool Cats, Nouns NFTs. A trailer posted to social media suggests a 3D gaming experience powered by Animoca—but that hasn't been officially confirmed - source
GameStop Says It Plans to Launch NFT Marketplace by End of April. The game retailer recently partnered with Immutable X to build out its NFT initiative. GameStop said the partnership would provide it with up to $150 million in Immutable X IMX tokens upon achievement of certain milestones - source
Illuvium's three lead investors—Framework, Delphi Digital, and IOSG propose delaying the token unlocking event from March 31st, 2022, until June 30th, 2022: Delaying the seed/team-token unlock date removes the potential sell pressure - source
Rarible Bests OpenSea on Multi-Chain Support With Addition of Polygon NFTs. Polygon becomes Rarible’s fourth supported blockchain. OpenSea only sports three – but does 1,000 times the weekly sales volume - source
Fans of Captain Marvel's Brie Larson Are Not Happy She's Pushing NFTs. Brie Larson, who plays Captain Marvel, has been criticized by fans on social media for flexing her “lil corner” of the metaverse - source
Hacker steals $790,000 of NFTs and crypto from owners of Rare Bears. The perpetrator offered a malicious NFT mint designed to steal funds from the members of the Rare Bears NFT community - source
Rihanna Files Application To Offer Products In The Metaverse to offer her company’s cosmetics and products in a “virtual” format in the metaverse. In this way, Rihana would be following many celebrities’ footsteps and recognized brands in the fashion world, such as L’Oréal and Victoria’s Secret - source
Baidu, China's largest search site, has announced the launch of its NFT platform, which features a combination of smart terminals that can use voice to control digital collections - source
Axie Infinity Origin will soft-launch with PVE story mode, Runes, Charms, training mode, and a ranked mode. It will iterate and update it to include features such as cosmetics, upgraded parts, tournaments, PVP seasons, and a rogue-like game mode - source
Portto — the company behind Blocto, the NFT and crypto wallet — has announced its partnership with Yahoo Taiwan to launch the Yahoo Taiwan NFT Store in late March - source
A rock valued at 444 Ether (ETH), or $1.2 million, sold for 444 Wei ($0.0012) to a bot as the seller, DinoDealer, confused WEI and ETH. In a tweet, the seller said “in one click my entire net worth of ~$1 million dollars, gone.” - source
Time announced the release of a full magazine issue that will be available as an NFT with a cover story on Vitalik. The NFT was created with the LITDAO and will be airdropped to select TIMEPiece holders and genesis LIT community wallet holders - source
PeckShield shows that 14 Ethereum addresses, with no previous history of mainstream NFT collection purchases, bought 159 Meebits between March 5 and March 11, before the acquisition by Yuga Labs, which raised accusations of insider trading - source
Metaverse News from the Midweek Interlogue
Bored Ape startup plans virtual land sales, APECoin token to kickstart metaverse gaming project. Yuga Labs is projecting net revenue of $455 million this year, chiefly through virtual land sales that will kick off this month. In total, 200,000 plots will be distributed across two sales in March and August this year — and Yuga hopes to raise $178 million (in addition to secondary sale proceeds) from each sale - source
ApeCoin Launches for Bored Ape Ethereum NFT Holders With Reddit, FTX, Animoca Execs on Board. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and FTX’s Amy Wu are on the board of the new BAYC-inspired ApeCoin DAO. Issuance of APECOIN: 15% is airdropped to BAYC MAYC holders, 47% to the treasury, 16% to the Yuga Labs + Charity, 8% to the founders of BAYC, 14% to the launch contributors - source - official
Mila Kunis’ Studio Launches Solana NFT Animated Series, The Gimmicks. Hailing from Toonstar and Kunis’ Sixth Wall, the wrestling-themed series will let NFT holders vote to help shape the story. Toonstar and Sixth Wall will launch 10,000 Solana NFTs. Free public mint on March 18 - source
Within 24 hours of its launch on digital collectibles marketplace Veve sold out 54,995 pieces of the Disney Pixar Pals NFTs collection. The drop consisted of iconic characters and moments created by Pixar Animation Studios, including Sheriff Woody, Mike Wazowski, Lightning McQueen, The House from Up and Edna Mode. List price for each Pixar NFT was 60 gems ($60). By multiplying the collection sold by their listed gem price, it is estimated that the NFT collection fetched the equivalent of $3.3 million - source
Bob Iger, CEO of the American entertainment conglomerate Disney for fifteen years, has joined the board of a Los Angeles-based metaverse firm Genies. Genies offers services to allow users to create virtual avatars that can be used in the metaverse - source
Coinbase has announced that it will launch its NFT marketplace soon - source
Congressional candidate uses NFTs to raise awareness, funds. The NFT holders will have access to conversations with climate scientists and the Kurani campaign’s Earth Day party in the metaverse. Kurani, if elected, would prioritize clear guidelines on know your customer and anti-money laundering reporting while seeking to protect privacy - source
Larva Labs, the creators of the popular non-fungible token (NFT) projects CryptoPunks and Meebits, enshrined the private keys for a pig Meebit worth 10 ETH (or about $25,000) in some digital artwork last year. No one found the prize — at least, not until three friends managed to crack the code on March 14 - source
Nansen's indexes reveal insightful trends in the NFT space. The platform's newly-introduced NFT-500: ETH index reports a 68.5% growth for the top-500 Ethereum NFTs since the beginning of the year, despite experiencing a corrective 28.8% decline over the course of the past 30-days - source
Ethereum NFT Sales Are Inversely Correlated to Crypto Market: Nansen. A Nansen report indicates that NFTs could be a safe haven from volatile cryptocurrencies—so long as they’re denominated in Ethereum - source
Amex trademark filings suggest possible entry to the metaverse. The major credit card company may be readying to provide “virtual concierge services” related to credit card transactions “in the metaverse and other virtual worlds.” - source
McLaren to Mint NFTs of Luxury Supercars in InfiniteWorld Partnership. McLaren Automotive plans to build a marketplace for the sale of NFTs that will include access to exclusive experiences for its buyers. It is working with InfiniteWorld, a metaverse infrastructure provider that helps brands to create and monetize digital assets and improve engagement with users and fans - source
Licensed Formula 1 Ethereum NFT Game is Shutting Down. Animoca Brands will give F1 Delta Time NFT holders replacement NFTs for REVV Racing and other perks after the F1 license expires. F1 Delta Time’s sudden demise presents an interesting dilemma: What happens when a licensed crypto game or decentralized app (dapp)—which has sold user-owned assets as NFTs to its players—is shuttered because of an IP holder’s decision - source
Wildlife’s Hit Mobile Game Castle Crush to Add Avalanche NFTs, Tokens. The card-based iOS and Android strategy game will implement premium NFTs amid rising gaming momentum on Avalanche. Wildlife Studios is a mobile developer that has amassed more than 2 billion total game downloads. The iOS and Android strategic combat game has been downloaded more than 75 million times to date, the studio said, with more than a million monthly active users - source
Mark Zuckerberg Says NFTs Are Coming Soon to Instagram. The Meta CEO’s comments at South by Southwest confirmed earlier reports that Instagram was preparing to make such a move - source
YouTuber Dr Disrespect, Banned From Twitch, Launches Gaming NFTs on Polygon. Dr. Disrespect’s game studio Midnight Society has former “Call of Duty” and “Halo” employees at its helm - source
Galaxy Interactive, Republic Crypto, and Alameda Research have formed a co-investment alliance focused on the Web3 gaming space. NG+, which is short for New Game+, is an investment consortium that will see the three notable crypto firms co-invest to cultivate the next generation of tokenized video games - source
HSBC, a British banking organization with little-to-no positive words and approach to the cryptocurrency industry until recently, will collaborate with The Sandbox to foray into the metaverse. HSBC will purchase virtual real estate in the metaverse in the form of LAND. It will use it to connect and engage with sports, esports, and gaming enthusiasts - source
News:
Aussie fintech to offer mainstream direct access to DeFi with a fixed rate. Taking the “heavy lifting” out of DeFi — Block Earner has received $6.4 million in seed funding and is ready to offer fixed yields from Aave and Compound to Australian investors - source
Exodus crypto wallet starts trading on SEC-registered platform. Exodus reported nearly $96 million in revenues for the fiscal year of 2021, which is a 350% increase year-over-year - source
El Salvador’s Bitcoin Bond Issuance Apparently Delayed. The country’s finance minister had previously suggested the bond sale could be launched as soon as this week - source
Class action suit against Coinbase alleges unregulated securities sales. Plaintiffs say 79 tokens that Coinbase sells meet the definition of securities, but they were not warned of their risks - source
On March 18, BlockFi learned of a data incident at one of its third-party vendors, Hubspot, a client relationship management platform. Hubspothas confirmed that an unauthorized third-party gained access to certain BlockFiclient data（ such as name email and phone number) - source
Andrew Yang Launches New DAO for AAPI Advancement. The former presidential candidate is pioneering a new use case for DAOs: social activism - source
Crypto Trader Dexterity Capital Launches Token Consulting, Market-Making Arm. “DCLiquidity” aims to guide crypto founders through their project’s earliest days - source
Russia’s central bank said it had given major lender Sberbank a license to issue and exchange digital financial assets. Sberbank was actively preparing to launch its own cryptocurrency Sbercoin before the Ukraine crisis - source
Cocoa product startup Koa launched a blockchain-based program this week that improves the transparency of its cocoa supply chain and ensures its Ghanaian farmers are being paid properly - source
Australian competition regulator takes Meta to court over fake crypto ads. The ACCC highlighted unapproved or endorsed “scam” ads featuring prominent Australian figures - source
Argentine Senate to Vote on IMF Agreement Discouraging Use of Cryptocurrencies. The letter of intent was signed by both parties on March 3 and already approved by the Chamber of Deputies - source
Crypto Exchange Binance Confirms Shut Down in Ontario, Canada. Binance has confirmed to Canadian regulators that it will no longer open new accounts for users in Ontario - source
MaiCoin, Taiwan’s largest crypto exchange, is raising a Series C round at a valuation of $4m, according to Bloomberg. 80% of its revenue comes from Taiwan. The company is considering a Nasdaq listing within two years - source
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has granted in-principle approval to Digital Treasures Center (DTC), a payment company based on distributed ledger technology. DTC will be able to provide fiat-to-crypto pairing - source
SXSW 2022 showcased immersive NFT experiences, lacking crypto and Bitcoin sessions. SXSW 2022 was overrun with NFTs and all things Web3 but had little focus on the cryptocurrency and Bitcoin ecosystem - source
News from the Midweek Interlogue
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the U.S. Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it will lift the fed funds rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 0.25%-0.5% from the current 0%–0.25%. This is the first time since December 2018 that the central bank is lifting its benchmark rate - source
Proposal Limiting Proof-of-Work Is Rejected in EU Parliament Committee Vote. The provision could have required cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to shift to more environmentally friendly mechanisms. The European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee voted on Monday to keep the provision out of a draft of the proposed Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework, the EU’s comprehensive regulatory package for governing digital assets - source
The Central Bank of Bahrain gave crypto exchange Binance the green light to operate in the country. Though Binance has faced regulatory scrutiny from a number of jurisdictions, including Japan, Germany and the UK, Bahrain sees its Binance approval as a step forward for its regulatory framework in fostering innovation - source
FTX crypto exchange wins license in Dubai to open local headquarters. The license is apparently granted under a new cryptocurrency law adopted last week in Dubai, with Dubai Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) becoming a major crypto regulator in the Emirate’s special development and free zones. Binance has also obtained a crypto license in Dubai under the same program - source
Unchained Capital Discloses Data Leak at Email Marketing Partner. The bitcoin-only financial services provider says, however, that none of its own systems were compromised - source
Visa Looking to Hire College Students to Develop In-House Crypto Talent. Program participants will build expertise in areas such as DeFi, NFTs, stablecoins and CBDCs, according to the payment giant’s job listing. Those hired as part of the program will rotate on teams including Crypto Product, Crypto Solutions and Digital Partnerships - source
Ukraine Partners With FTX, Everstake to Launch New Crypto Donation Website. FTX is converting crypto contributions to Ukraine’s war effort into fiat for deposit at the National Bank of Ukraine. The country's collective efforts have already raised some $48 million in bitcoin, polkadot, ether, solana, tether and other cryptocurrencies, according to the website. Other estimates place the amount closer to $100 million - source
Ukraine's Zelenskyy Signs Virtual Assets Bill Into Law, Legalizing Crypto. Ukraine has received $100 million in crypto donations during its war with Russia. The market will be regulated by Ukraine's National Commission on Securities and the Stock Market - source
Coinbase launched a new feature, dubbed "Coinbase Pay," that directly enables its clients to fund their Coinbase Wallets from a Chrome browser extension. It's an especially simplified process for American and Canadian Coinbase users, who can use their debit cards for transfers - source
Darknet Dealer Forfeits $2.3M in Bitcoin, Sentenced to 8 Years. “This sentence sends a clear message to Dark Web criminals: the federal government is entering this space. We will find you and we will hold you accountable,” Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said - source
CoinShares, Europe's largest digital asset investment firm, Expands FlowBank Stake With $26.5M Purchase. The acquisition drives forward CoinShares’ plan to become an integrated digital asset fintech company. Last July, it purchased Elwood Technologies’ exchange-traded fund (ETF) index business for $17 million in stock. In December, it bought French crypto investment product provider Napoleon Crypto SAS for €13.9 million ($15.7 million) - source
Argo Blockchain and Core Scientific have agreed to swap thousands of bitcoin miners as part of Argo’s pivot to operating its own crypto mining farms. Argo is currently building an 800-megawatt facility in Texas, known as Helios, that could cost up to $2 billion to construct. The fleet swap agreement will lower the publicly traded bitcoin miner’s costs as it moves away from third-party hosting to running its own facilities - source
A crypto custody startup spearheaded by financial services giants Standard Chartered and Northern Trust is plotting new products aimed at generating yield for institutional investors. The crypto custodian Zodia, which went live last year, is getting ready to launch new products to help institutional investors earn yield on token holdings - source
zkSNACKs, the company behind the Wasabi wallet, will bar certain bitcoin transactions from its service that facilitates privacy-enhancing transactions known as CoinJoins. The move was necessary to prevent hackers and scammers from using the service and to keep the company out of unspecified “trouble”. The move underscores the challenges faced by centralized companies that provide services built to facilitate interaction with a decentralized ecosystem - source
Binance announced that it had explored the acquisition of Sim;paul, a Brazilian securities brokerage authorized by the Central Bank of Brazil and the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) - source
Kazakhstan Crackdown Forces 106 More Crypto Mines to Close. The central Asian country has been dealing with severe electricity shortages since autumn 2021, in part due to an influx of crypto miners from China, but also because of infrastructure failures. The government has decided to crack down on illegal mines to deal with the energy problems - source
Michele Korver, a government and law-enforcement veteran who was most recently the chief digital currency adviser at the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), is joining Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as its head of regulatory. Korver spent less than nine months at FinCEN, having joined in July 2021 after nearly four years as digital currency counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice - source
Shanghai Police Bust $16M Crypto Pyramid Scheme. The scheme was Shanghai's first cracked case of an online pyramid scheme using cryptocurrencies. Despite a crackdown on the industry, crypto scams are still prevalent in China. The Supreme Court formally criminalized illegal fundraising through digital assets in February - source
FTX has teamed up with Africa-based AZA Finance to expand the adoption of Web3 and digital currencies across the continent by building infrastructure and educating local users. AZA Finance, a financial tech company focused on payments and foreign exchange products, launched Africa’s first digital currency exchange - source
Argentina Cracks Down on Crypto With Anti-Money Laundering Rules and is set to include cryptocurrency firms in their anti-money laundering regulations. The plan is for these new regulations to come into force this year and if these regulations are passed, it will significantly change the way cryptocurrency firms interact with regulators in Argentina - source
Lemon Cash, an Argentina-based crypto exchange, has opened operations in Brazil amid a crypto boom in the South American country. On Monday, the company launched a beta allowing 10,000 users to buy and sell bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) using Brazilian reals through Pix, a real-time retail payment system launched by the Brazilian Central Bank - source
OXIO, a telecom-as-a-service (TAAS) platform that turns mobile data into blockchain-based digital assets, raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by ParaFi Capital to expand its network to the U.S. and Brazil. The company offers a white-label product that allows any brand to launch a mobile service and serve as a mobile operator for end-users or companies - source
Cryptocurrency exchange Luno has launched an investment arm, through which it plans to invest between $15 million to $75 million a year into crypto and fintech companies. Luno's parent company Digital Currency Group Luno Expeditions and will focus on early stage investing (seed and pre-seed) with the aim of making 200-300 such investments per year - source
Bitcoin mining hardware maker Canaan announces up to $100 million in new stock buybacks. As per Canaan, the company may buy American depositary shares, each representing 15 Class A ordinary shares, and Class A ordinary shares over the next 24 months, starting from March 16. The company had announced a previous buyback program in September 2021 - source
Crypto Payments Firm Utrust Receives Operating License From Central Bank of Portugal. The company, acquired in January by Elrond, plans to begin operating in Europe as a virtual asset service provider in several months - source
The Bank of Canada, the country's central bank, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have agreed to collaborate on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) research. on a twelve-month basis. After this period, The Bank of Canada says it will provide an update on the findings and outcomes of the research project - source
Raises:
Jack Dorsey’s Block joins $41M funding for Japanese fintech Kyash. This latest raise brings Kyash's valuation to approximately $107.7 million - source
Ultiverse to Expand Metaverse Offerings in BNB Chain Ecosystem with $4.5M Raise. The round was co-led by Binance Labs and DeFiance, a Three Arrows Capital platform fund - source
Lava Labs, a game development studio, has raised $10 million for a multiplayer Web3 game AFAR. The financing round was led by Dialectic, with participation from Merit Circle, Dragonfly, Defiance, Animoca Brands, Razer Computer, Weak Simp Cap, Dapper Labs, Maven11 and angels such as Santiago R Santos, Gabby Dizon, Nick Chong - source
Web 3 Gaming Platform on Terra Blockchain Raises $25M in Token Sale. FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto and Animoca Brands were among the purchasers in the sale that values C2X, a Hashed-advised gaming platform, at $500 million - source
Web 3 Game Development Platform Joyride Raises $14M Ahead of Launch. Optimized for Unity, Joyride allows developers to build blockchain-powered esports, casual and social games on mobile devices - source
Cricket NFT Marketplace to Raise Around $100M in Series A: Report. FanCraze is built on Flow, the same blockchain that hosts NBA Top Shot, the digital collectibles platform that won widespread popularity last year - source
Coinbooks raises $3.2 million to build accounting software for DAOs - source
Raises from the Midweek Interlogue
ConsenSys raised $450m at a valuation of $7b, and the accepted funds will be converted into ETH immediately. ParaFi Capital led, with participation from Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund, Microsoft and more. Metamask has 30 million monthly active users - source
As the Bitmain Antminer L7 started to be shipped, the hashrate of Litecoin has risen by nearly 20% in the past 15 days. Data shows that the daily income of one L7 is about $13 - source
Blockchain game development studio Metaverse Game Studios has raised $10 million in a funding round co-led by Pantera Capital, Animoca Brands, Solana Ventures and Everyrealm. Other investors included OKX Blockdream Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Morningstar Ventures, Huobi Ventures and Shima Capital. The company’s flagship game, Angelic, is a turn-based strategy combat game where the player is a “unique neo-human” who meets and collaborates with companions along the way - source
Aptos, a team helmed by former Facebook coders, announced a $200 million funding round. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with Multicoin Capital, 3 Arrows Capital, Tiger Global, FTX Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and more also signing checks. Aptos is among a handful of teams looking to bring the Diem (formerly Libra) blockchain to life outside of the watchful eye of Meta (formerly Facebook). 0L is another project similarly looking to revive Diem, in part through its Carpe app - source
Crypto startup quant firm Gauntlet, valued at $1B following Series B, has raised $23.8 million in a new funding round led by Ribbit Capital. VC firms Polychain and Paradigm also participated in the round. Gauntlet's platform provides services for DeFi protocols and decentralized organizations to assist with areas such as risk management. Users of Gauntlet's platform include protocols like Aave, Compound and SushiSwap, among others - source
Unloc, an NFT platform, has raised $1.25M at a $15M valuation in a seed funding round led by Stratos Technologies. Investors: Solana Ventures, Autonomy Capital, Khosla Ventures, 3Commas Capital, BuidlHodl Capital, and NXGen Capital - source
TravelX Raises $10M to Launch Multichain Distribution Protocol. The protocol for the travel industry tokenizes inventory for airlines and suppliers. Other participants in the round, which closed in November, included Algorand, Draper Cygnus, Myelin Capital and Monday Capital. Multi-chain protocol is on Ethereum, Polygon and Algorand, with plans to add Solana in the future - source
Crypto Unicorns, a leading NFT collection on the Polygon blockchain, has completed a $26 million token sale that included purchases from TCG and Backed VC. Other token sale purchasers included Acme Capital, Bitkraft Ventures, Delphi Digital, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Polygon Studios, CoinFund, BreederDAO and Emfarsis. Developed by San Francisco-based Laguna Games, the Crypto Unicorns game will combine unicorn and land NFTs in a digital pet collecting and farming game - source
Zebec, a continuous and programmable cash stream protocol on the Solana blockchain, has raised $28 million between public and private sales to launch its $ZBC token. The Zebec protocol enables real-time, continuous money streams for financial transactions, including payroll, payments, investments and purchases. The core Zebec Payroll solution allows workers to be paid by the second in USDC and other stablecoins. The private sale portion included Circle and Coinbase among its investors - source
Hex Trust Raises $88M in Series B to Expand into Europe, Middle East and said its fresh injection of capital will go toward scaling its operations in the Middle East and Europe. Co-led by Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures, garnered $88 million in capital which saw its valuation rise to $1 billion - source
DeFi Analytics Firm Treehouse Raises $18M Seed Funding. Treehouse aims to provide retail investors the infrastructure needed for them to make informed decisions on their DeFi positions. The firm's flagship product Harvest is used to deconstruct user data and presents them with risk metrics, profit and loss and other historical data with the aim of establishing a DeFi data analysis standard - source
Calendar:
Upcoming unlocks - vestlab.io
U.S. Economic Calendar - Marketwatch
Avax Summit Conference March 22nd - 27th, 2022 - source
Evergrande, $2.025bn principal payment deadline - March 23rd
US Tax return ~ April 18th
Data:
According to DeBank, an address marked as ETH Millionaire in Nansen transferred 40,500 ETH to Three Arrows Capital. Genesis Trading: OTC Desk address marked by Nansen transferred 32,500 ETH to the ETH Millionaire address 1.5 hours before the transaction - source
Data from the Midweek Interlogue
82% of the supply held by Short-Term Holders (2.51M BTC) is currently held at an unrealised loss, whilst total supply held by Long-Term Holders is near all-time-highs. With over 2.51M BTC held by Short-term Holders at an unrealised loss, there remains a risk that sellers have not yet been fully exhausted. The 'potential energy' for a capitulation event is there, and such an event would be consistent with all prior bear cycles - source
On-chain volume at $39k is the largest in the entire history of Bitcoin. Record 775k BTC changed hands at around $38.7 - source
New Listings:
STEPN (GMT) Gets Listed on KuCoin 06:00 on March 18, 2022 (UTC) - source
Apecoin listed literally everyfuckingwhere
Huobi Global will list Space Misfits (SMCW) on March 19, 2022 - source
New Listings from the Midweek Interlogue:
Huobi Global will list XCAD (XCAD Network) in the Pioneer Zone on March 14, 2022 - source
Huobi Global will list Ethernity (ERN) in the Pioneer Zone on March 15, 2022 - source
Huobi Global will list OKB (OKB) in the Pioneer Zone on March 15, 2022 - source
Huobi Global will list Zebec (ZBC) in the Pioneer Zone on March 16, 2022 - source
Binance Futures will launch USDT-margined GMT perpetual contracts with up to 25x leverage on March 15th - source
Souni (SON) Gets Listed on KuCoin on March 16 10:00 (UTC) - source
Melos Studio (MELOS) Gets Listed on KuCoin on on March 17, 2022 12:00 (UTC) - source
Disclaimer: none of this is finanshy advice. These are just my thoughts, observations and things that have crossed my eyes during the past few days. Use this as an overview of the market sentiment, always do your own research, practice risk management, remember to stay hydrated and touch grass. How you should read the information contained herein, or anything in crypto for that matter. Doubt everything in crypto. Crypto is a cruel, harsh, zero sum game. A majority of people will lose money. There’s cool tech, cool people and cool visions but there’s criminals, scammers and grifters as well. There’s shilling, hyped narratives, lofty promises and wild overspeculation. Participating in financial markets is brutal. The pieces are pretty much always stacked against you. There are players playing this game with vastly more resources and experience. A vast majority of things around here are going to part people with their money. Accept the game for what it is. Study it, learn from it and make moves accordingly. Protect yourself. Be vigilant. Be wary.
absolutely killer work my guy. Value added forsure. Youll be huge one day
keeping up with the great work!! 🥇🎓