Crypto Daily Sentiment, Vibe, Topic of the Day -
Monday, April 4th:
After some dramarama accusations on Sunday, the WAVES community deal with a controversial proposal and an unpegged stablecoin USDN
U.K. aims to become "a global hub for crypto-asset technology"
Gh0stly Gh0sts: The First 0mnichain NFT gaining traction after free mint
Trisolaris Dao has closed a strategic investment round led by Electric Capital for $4.5M. Alameda selling trisolaris to buy more NEAR according to wallet movements
Claim & delegate GEAR starting tomorrow, not transferable yet
Ronin hacker sending funds through Tornado Cash
Reminder: Bitcoin 2022 Miami will be held from April 6th to 9th
Positive murmurings about NEAR going around. Potentially time for it to run soon finally
Hackers have stolen $1.22 billion in crypto already in the first three months of this year
Tuesday, April 5th:
TL Sentiment is a curious elixir of uncertainty. Price up or down next, that is the question
Solana based Hivemapper raises $18M to build a decentralized Google maps
Ethereum scaler Boba Network valued at $1.5B in $45M Series A raise
MacroStrategy has purchased an additional 4,167 bitcoins for ~$190.5M
Lightning Labs raises $70M to bring stablecoins to Bitcoin
UK Treasury to regulate some stablecoins
Elon Musk has been appointed to Twitter's Board after acquiring a 9.2% stake
Doge pumping and people can’t stop talking about it
Gary V VaynerSports Pass NFT minting spikes gas prices
Juno Network down
Wednesday, April 6th:
Near Protocol raised $350M in a funding round led by Tiger Global. Green on red day
OpenSea goes live with support for Solana-based NFTs
Axie and Ronin’s parent company Sky Mavis announced a $150M funding round to compensate hack victims
Yearn Finance advocates for the adoption of ERC-4626 tokenized vault standard
Luna Foundation Guard buys another $231M of bitcoin
Binance Labs announces strategic investment in STEPN by FindSatoshi Lab
Binance.US has a pre-money valuation of $4.5B after completing a $200M seed round
Alpha version of Neon EVM live on Solana Devnet. Ethereum devs looking to build on Solana using Solidity have a stable EVM to use
Juno Network still down since yesterday
Starbucks, Logan Paul, HSBC, Kevin Smith, ESPN/Tom Brady make metaverse plays
Thursday, April 7th:
LFG’s OTC deal to add $100M of $AVAX to the $UST Reserve to support peg
HBAR Foundation launches $250M Metaverse fund to onboard major brands toward gaming, sports, fashion and entertainment
Rumor/Leak: On April 20th, Near will announce the launch of their own native algorithmic stablecoin $USN in partnership with other well capitalized stablecoins
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speech addressing CBDCs, stablecoins and regulations
Cash App users can now invest their paychecks into Bitcoin via direct deposit
Niantic, Pokémon Go's AR-powered parent company, acquires NZXR in metaverse push
Bolt, a payments company providing one-click checkout services, agreed to buy Wyre Payments for $1.5B to add support for crypto transactions
Jump Crypto joins Nebula ecosystem as a lead contributor
UFC to start paying bonuses to fighters in cryptocurrency
Ronin Network Hacker continues to TornadoCash funds
The First EVM Hub on Terra is OrbitEVM - joining the likes of Moonriver/MoonBeam (Polkadot), Avalanche C-Chain (Avalanche), Aurora (NEAR Protocol), Evmos (Cosmos) in the Layer-1 EVM game. Followed by Do Kwon on day 1.
Friday, April 8th:
Fortnite developer Epic Games and Lego are partnering to build a metaverse for kids, joining everyone and their grandmother in building their own interpretation of the metaverse. Get ‘em hooked while they’re young
Rumor from yesterday confirmed by The Block that Near will announce the launch of a stablecoin $USN on April 20, with an annual interest rate of about 20%, modeled on $UST, along with a Coinbase listing in the coming months. Narrative being written in real time
$NEAR is still currently the talk of CT, with everyone ready to offer their opinion on whether it’s the next eco play to run in the steps of $LUNA (which has limp dicked back below its recent ATH breakout - tough market conditions for most coins tbh) or simply wrastling up some exit liquidity. Near chart looks stronk but also approaching ATH resistance. It makes sense that with so much VC backing and developer activity, Near should perform well when market conditions improve (based on the idea that price needs to be much higher before we get dumped on). Overall, markets slumping in a disappointing show of strength after last week’s seeming breakout. We continue to wait for more definitive moves
Speculation abound over how many L1 stablecoin copycat plays we’ll see in the coming months. Copycat iterative forks are the norm in crypto. I often ponder about liquidity fragmentation..
Balancer has been pumping on hype around a new governance proposal involving 0xMaki and Aura Finance. Hype and speculation drives these markets - never forget
Saturday, April 9th:
Quiet weekend vibes
Sunday, April 10th:
Quiet weekend vibes
Reminiscences of an Anon: Weekend Thoughts
Weekend epilogue: I’ve been wondering how I should structure these writeups. These originally just started off as my daily notes that I started putting out there to share but I’m unsure what direction to take. I’m deep down the crypto rabbit hole and want to find a balance that doesn’t burn me out while also being helpful to anyone that might find this level of detail useful. Could I shift my focus in another direction or style? I often read a lot about different protocols and projects and I do like the tech but due to the fast paced nature of crypto, the idea of writing about specific projects is a bit of a turn off for me. The lifespan of a trend or narrative can be so quick and I’d much rather focus on overarching themes, issues or the general storyline in crypto as I like to think of it. For example, while it might be popular in the moment to write about specific hot protocols or metas like FOAN, Solunavax, the Curve Wars, DFK, Evmos, Avax subnets, Celestia, Stargate, Near, etc, it just feels moot to me. Something about it just feels like grooming exit liquidity. There’s so much bullshit in the crypto space and I can’t bring myself to be a shiller for any one thing since I know most people are probably doomed to not make money or get themselves hurt. Perhaps maybe something neutral or along the lines of a voice of reason. For the time being, I’ll just be here keeping my finger on the pulse of these markets, combining my own form of fundamental and technical analysis to help make my way through these crazy markets. If you’re one of the few that reads this, feel free to reach out with suggestions. One way or another, I’m here for the long game.
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 this week in our little crypto bubble -
Chain News:
The exploiter behind Ronin’s unprecedented $625 million bridge attack from last week apparently moved some 2000 ETH to privacy tool Tornado Cash on Monday morning - source
Stablecoin USDN on the Waves chain has de-linked the peg, and the current price of USDN is only about $0.855. Previous articles about Waves being a Ponzi scheme were widely retweeted - source
The USDN de-peg may originate from a proposal on Vires Finance: reduce the liquidation line for Waves and USDN lending to 0.1%, and increase the maximum borrowing APR limit to 40%. If the proposal passes, users needs to repay with WAVES, USDN and EURN - source
Trisolaris Dao has closed a strategic investment round led by Electric Capital for $4.5M, with participation from Jump Crypto, Dragonfly Capital, Leminscap, Ethereal Ventures - source
Ocelot suggested that Celo drop its own consensus layer and instead position itself as an EVM-compatible L2 Rollup Mezcal, and adopt Celestia as a data availability solution. The idea is currently only a community proposal - source
Binance will delist Hegic (HEGIC), renBTC (RENBTC), and sUSD (SUSD) on April 11th - source
The Celo Foundation announces the launch of a $20M campaign to incentivize the development of high-quality Celo on- and off-ramps. The campaign begins with an offer of $50K to the first payment provider in each country to integrate FiatConnect - source
Crypto.com Partners with Cardlytics, Offering an Additional 10% Cashback Rewards. Some of the top brands that are available in Cardlytics are Walmart, Airbnb and Sephora - source
Introduction DotDot: yield aggregation for Ellipsis - source
Trader Joe Bulletin Board: Tokenomics V2 Deployment / JOE Wars, Partner + Community Updates, Bounties, etc - source
LFT - Lend Flare allows $CRV investors to borrow against $CrvLP with a fixed borrow rate and no concern for liquidation due to price fluctuation - source
$15 Billion Rugpull Vulnerability in Convex Finance protocol Uncovered and Resolved - source
Claim & delegate $GEAR - source
Hackers have stolen $1.22 billion in crypto already in the first three months of this year - source
Shiba Inu coin is now available at Bitcoin of America ATM locations - source
MacroStrategy has purchased an additional 4,167 bitcoins for ~$190.5 million at an average price of ~$45,714 per bitcoin. As of 4/4/22 MicroStrategy holds ~129,218 bitcoins acquired for ~$3.97 billion at an average price of ~$30,700 per bitcoin - source
Convex Finance addresses bug that could've led to a $15 billion rug pull. OpenZeppelin uncovered a significant vulnerability during a security audit for Coinbase of the Convex Finance protocol - source
Lightning Labs raises $70M to bring stablecoins to Bitcoin. The Taproot-powered “Taro” protocol aims to bring low-fee stablecoin and asset transfers to the Bitcoin Lightning Network - source
Ledger Announces Partnership With Animoca Brands Subsidiary, The Sandbox. Ledger will offer security services, while The Sandbox will accommodate the wallet provider in its metaverse to educate users about crypto - source
Introducing Bastion Stableswap, the low-slippage AMM for stablecoins, cTokens, wrapped, and staked assets on Aurora - source
Platypus finance gamifying interface. Expect more gaming elements in the future - source
LongHashX Accelerator will be partnering with Terra to launch the LongHashX Accelerator Terra Cohort - source
KYVE Network launched a Cosmos SDK-based chain, making KYVE its own layer 1 - source
Introducing the First Version of StarkNet Bridge: StarkGate Alpha live on Testnet - source
Drift Protocol for mobile is here. Now you can trade perpetuals any time, any place - source
LooksRare’s public API is now live! The first version provides access to read-only data - source
The JUNO network is currently down and has not produced a block in over 4 hours. This comes days after JUNO governance voted to seize funds of a whale who gamed the token distribution - source
UNCONFIRMED reports of someone sending $300M worth of $WAVES to Binance to dump it - source - turned out to be false
Cardano Foundation & University of Zurich Partner for Academic Blockchain Research - source
Near Protocol raised $350 million in a funding round led by hedge fund Tiger Global in a bid to “accelerate the decentralization of the NEAR ecosystem.” The raise comes less than three months after Near announced a $150 million funding round - source
Axie and Ronin’s parent company Sky Mavis announced a $150m funding round led by Binance and Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic and Paradigm. It will be used to ensure that all users affected by the Ronin Validator Hack are compensated - source
Yearn Finance advocates for the adoption of ERC-4626 tokenized vault standard - source
The address of Terra Foundation LFG (0xAd41BD1cf3Fd753017Ef5c0da8dF31A3074EA1Ea) transferred 231.4 million USDT to Binance to buy more Bitcoin. LFG's goal is to reach a Bitcoin reserve of $3 billion - source
OpenSea goes live with support for Solana-based NFTs - source
Binance: Deposits and withdrawals on the Ronin (RON) network have been fully resumed. Deposits and withdrawals for Wrapped Ether (WETH) on the Ethereum network and the convert function from WETH to ETH are also reopened - source
The Cosmos ecosystem Juno-1 mainnet stopped at block 2578108. Ecosystem developers and validators are currently looking for reasons and solutions. Previously, the JUNO proposal to deprive the whale Token of the vote attracted attention - source - explorer
Lido: 21% of bLuna collaterals on anchor protocol are currently in a risky zone. Please check up your positions and de-risk accordingly - source
Neon Labs: The Alpha version of Neon EVM is now live on Solana Devnet, meaning Ethereum developers looking to build on Solana using Solidity have a stable EVM to use - source
CLV (formerly Clover Finance) together with Etherscan has launched CLV chain explorer dubbed CLVscan (clvscan.com) - source
Riot Blockchain, one of the largest listed bitcoin miners, announced that it produced 511 bitcoins in March, and the company currently holds 6,062 bitcoins. Riot also sold 200 bitcoins at an average price of $47,090 each in March - source
The Litecoin Foundation has partnered with Antpool from Bitmain to form the digital currency research laboratory ‘LTC Labs’. AntPool will donate half of their Litecoin Pool mining proceeds each month to support development initiatives - source
Ronin_Network Exploiter has transferred 1233.9811 ETH to Huobi (the deposit address is 0x5b5082214D62585D686850Ab8D9E3f6b6a5c58FF), and then transferred 4400 ETH to TornadoCash - source
Ether is valued at $6,128, based on a discounted cash-flow model, as Ethereum’s upcoming major upgrade could convert the cryptocurrency into an “equity-like instrument,” according to a recent report by Bloomberg Intelligence - source
Polygon launched the first KPI-based liquidity mining, which distributes rewards to eligible DApps based on KPI data such as average weekly users or TVL - source
Perpetual Protocol community proposes to update the token economic model, including the vePERP model, liquidity mining, fee distribution and new governance standards - source
Worldpay will be the first global merchant acquirer to offer merchants the ability to receive settlement directly in USD Coin (USDC) - source
Conic governance token holders (CNC) will have the power to directly control liquidity across Curve through a community raise - source
Alchemix V2 Update: Deposit cap raises are now live for alUSD. Dai, USDC, and USDT caps have been raised to $20m each - source
Pendle v2 coming soon - source
OolongSwap Trading Competition — Half a Million Worth of Rewards - source
Introducing sFTMx - source
Introducing Zenlinkpro Hybrid AMM - source
Hera Aggregator DEX aggregator live on Metis - source
BitPay Launches Bitcoin Lightning Network Payment Support - source
HBAR Foundation Launches $250M Metaverse Fund to Onboard Major Brands toward gaming, sports, fashion and entertainment - source
LFG’s OTC deal to add $100M of $AVAX to the $UST Reserve makes AVAX the first major crypto-asset besides $BTC to be added to the UST Reserve, marking the beginning of a diversified and non-correlated asset pool supporting the $UST peg - source
Cash App users can now invest their paychecks into Bitcoin. The feature, called ‘Paid in Bitcoin’, allows Cash App’s clients with activated Cash Cards (Visa debit cards connected to the service) to have a percentage of their direct deposits automatically converted into bitcoin at no cost. Customers can choose to have their deposits converted, from as little as 1% to 100%, to bitcoin with the ability to reconfigure at any time - source
The First EVM Hub on Terra is OrbitEVM - joining the likes of Moonriver/MoonBeam (Polkadot), Avalanche C-Chain (Avalanche), Aurora (NEAR Protocol), Evmos (Cosmos). Followed by Do Kwon on day 1. Developers to combine the full force of Ethereum and Terra ecosystems leveraging all the easy-to-use Solidity tooling - source
BitDAO community initiated a BIT purchase proposal, proposing that Bybit repurchase about $21 million of BIT from the secondary market every month and donate it to the BitDAO treasury - source
Cosmos-Based Juno Blockchain Pushed Offline in Apparent Attack. A malicious smart contract has put the network out of commission for over 24 hours and comes less than a month after a controversial governance vote - source
From 2022-04-06 6:19:03 to 2022-04-07 7:08:59 (UTC), the Ronin Network attacker has transferred 2800 ETH to TornadoCash. Previously, the attacked addresses of Ronin Network transferred 1,233 and 4,400 ETH to Huobi and TornadoCash respectively - source
Loopring releases Q1 summary, L2 transaction volume exceeds $4.6 billion; over 3 million NFTs minted on L2; 65,000 L2 accounts and nearly 30,000 Loopring smart wallets activated; Loopring captured over $400million in TVL in L2 - source
The Web3 investment fund – LongHash Ventures – teamed up with Terraform Labs to establish the LongHashX Accelerator Terra cohort. The join product will aim to reach founders and startups building in the Terra ecosystem - source
Binance said that it was aware of the current issues regarding withdrawals on the Solana network and has halted withdrawals for the time being. The platform revealed that it was working with the project team to resolve the issues - source
Flow has announced a partnership with multi-chain operating system Celer Network, an integration that will allow digital assets and NFTs to be bridged to all 24 chains connected to Celer’s cBridge, creating multi-chain interoperability - source
Welcoming Jump Crypto to the Nebula ecosystem as a lead contributor. The Jump Crypto team, with their engineering expertise and vast experience in the finance and digital asset sectors, has been invaluable to Nebula's development thus far - source
Robinhood releases crypto wallet to 2M users, plans integration with Bitcoin Lightning Network - source
Introducing Arrakis: Web3’s Liquidity Layer. Arrakis has one mission: to become web3’s liquidity layer, enabling LPs and tokenized projects to optimize their DEX liquidity on and across multiple blockchains in a seamless and automated manner - source
All kUSD has been officially been upgraded to aUSD on Karura Network & any parachains utilizing kUSD, and users can now mint aUSD on Karura. The upgrade officially cements aUSD as the native decentralized stablecoin of Polkadot & Kusama - source
Polygon releases testnet plans for a new scalability-focused blockchain called Avail - source
Frax, an algorithmic stablecoin protocol, is mulling the idea of buying billions of dollars' worth of native tokens of major blockchains to use as reserve collateral for its stablecoin - source
Balancer [Proposal] Allowlist Aura Finance in Balancer VotingEscrow - source
Dopex OTC Portal is now LIVE in Beta Phase - source
The Arbitrum Nitro Devnet is now live - source
Announcing Wildfire Season One, FireDrop, the initial cohort of governance stewards - source
Hxro Network Staking and Incentive Rewards Pt. 2 blog post is out - source
Psy Quarterly Review: Q1 2022 - source
Solv Bond Voucher Sale w Strips Finance. STRP Bond Voucher on Arbitrum offers fixed 13% yield and an embedded call option - source
SynFutures: A new Polygon trading contest starts today. Anyone who makes a Polygon trade will be eligible to win an NFT - source
Element Finance: Elfiverse: Minting is now live for the first 4,700 people who delegated voting power on http://gov.element.fi - source
Conic Finance community raise is live - source
LendFlare airdrop update. Apologizes for the mistake made that resulted in most of vecrv holders not receiving LFT. Please wait for further announcement - source
veMULTI contract updated - source
Lithium Finance updated whitepaper, pricing mechanism and reputation scoring system - source
Valas Finance airdrop is live for Geist and Blizz lockers - source
According to OKLink, address marked as Luna Foundation (bc1q9d4ywgfnd8h43da5tpcxcn6ajv590cg6d3tg6axemvljvt2k76zs50tv4q) added a total of 4130BTC, and the current balance of this address is 39,897.98BTC. The last time LFG accumulated BTC was on April 6th - source
FPIS Airdrop claim live - source
Bastion Stableswap is live - source
Twister Cash, an innovative ERC20 token anonymizer purpose-built to serve frax finance, and built on the cutting-edge scaling solution by arbitrum - source
Metaverse:
The cryptocurrency hardware wallet provider Ledger has partnered with The Sandbox blockchain game to promote crypto education in its virtual world - source
Snoop Dogg and Billy Ray Cyrus to launch hit song backed by massive Animal Concerts and Avila Brothers NFT drop - source
Ice Cube’s BIG3 Basketball League to Offer Team Ownership Stakes as NFTs - source
Mines of Dalarnia will launch on the mainnet on April 26. The 3rd Mines of Dalarnia Land Sale is closing on Monday, April 4. This sale contains 2620 plots and will be the final land sale before the mainnet release - source
HyperLoot Premint is open - source
Mike Tyson to Introduce Mystery Box NFT Collection on Binance NFT Marketplace - source
Gary V VaynerSports Pass NFT minting spikes gas prices - source
Paradigm proposes to introduce a Gradual Dutch Auction (GDA) to the NFT market. Paradigm said GDA is suitable for selling illiquid commodities and can save on gas fees - source
Logan Paul’s marketplace for tokenized collectibles live after raising $8M. Liquid MarketPlace is set to bring tokenized trading for physical items, starting with trading cards - source
Universal Music Group Files 4 Trademarks for Its Bored Ape Band Leader. UMG’s NFT band experiment continues with plans for tokens and a physical merch marketplace - source
Starbucks Will Enter The Metaverse Business in 2022, CEO Confirms - source
Logan Paul and others launch Liquid MarketPlace and raise $8M - source
HSBC Starts Metaverse Fund for Private Banking Clients in Asia - source
Metaverse gaming firm The Sandbox is considering a new funding round this year as it plans on a major expansion but no IPO - source
Kevin Smith to Issue ‘Comedy-Horror’ Film as NFTs on Secret Network. Quentin Tarantino released his “Pulp Fiction” NFTs on the same Cosmos-based blockchain back in Nov - source
ESPN Enters NFTs With Tom Brady Drop on Polygon, Autograph Deal - source
Ubisoft Will Bring Tezos NFTs to Other Games as Ghost Recon Support Ends - source
Niantic Acquires NZXR in Metaverse Push. The immersive experience developers have partnered with Pokémon Go's AR-powered parent company. The New Zealand-based firm develops AR experiences, for brands and businesses, on smartphones and headsets, which will play a crucial role in Niantic’s focus on multiplayer Metaverse applications - source
Axie Infinity: Origin Is Now Live In Early Access - source
EToro Is Aping Into Blue-Chip NFTs With $20M Fund and launching eToro.art - source
Meta Discussing Creating Tokens for Facebook's Metaverse - source
VSA Partners helps Rare Air Media launch Michael Jordan NFTs | Reel Chicago. The company is working with Chicago brand strategy and design firm, VSA Partners, to design, develop, and market a range of NFTs on the XRP Ledger blockchain - source
Tom Brady Buys Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for over $430K - source
Spells of Genesis game celebrates 5 years by opening a virtual NFT history museum. CryptoVoxels will be the home of the Spells of Genesis trading card exhibit, as NFT galleries become increasingly commonplace in the metaverse - source
First NFT Collection from Paramount Global and RECUR Partnership to Drop with Star Trek on April 9 - source
Shibarium, the Layer 2 on which SHIB: The Metaverse will be developed is reportedly in the Alpha phase and might soon be shifting into the Beta phase. A Shiba Inu dev provided insight into other developments. Shiba Inu earlier teased a year full of more surprises - source
Here Come NFTs for Kids: YouTube Smash CoComelon Heading to Flow Blockchain. The Zigazoo kids’ social media app is launching NFTs, including those from CoComelon, Blippi, and young artist Nyla Hayes - source
reNFT v2 is the heart of reNFT that will allow us to unlock the full potential of NFT rentals through collateral-free partner integrations - source
Mastercard has filed 15 NFT and Metaverse trademark applications. It indicates plans for an NFT backed media, payment processing in the Metaverse, marketplaces for digital goods + NFTs, e-commerce transactions in the Metaverse - source
News:
Bitcoin 2022 Miami will be held from April 6th to 9th, with speakers including Salvadoran President, MicroStrategy CEO, Peter Thiel, etc. The other big industry conference this year is Consensus in Austin, June 9-12 - source
Trezor informed its users that a MailChimp "insider" is behind the latest phishing attack to steal funds stored in their wallets after compromising a mailing list - source
UK government has today announced moves that make the UK a global hub for cryptoasset technology, will help to ensure firms can invest, innovate and scale up in this country. It includes stablecoins, taxes, DeFi, NFTs, and more - source
The Australian securities regulator is taking a stand against financial influencers whom they believe to be misleading the general public with misinformation about crypto - source
Aussie convenience store giant to accept crypto at 170 outlets. On The Run (OTR) will work with Crypto.com to implement its Pay Merchant product - source
Coinbase to Hire 1,000 People in India Expansion. The growth plan will quadruple the number of the exchange's employees in the country - source
BitMEX lays off 75 employees after bank acquisition collapses. The crypto exchange has laid off 25% of its staff globally just days after abandoning plans to acquire a German bank - source
Intel has officially launched its second-generation Bitcoin ASIC chip, the energy efficiency ratio is 26J/TH. The new chips will begin shipping in the third quarter of this year, and Intel has not disclosed prices - source
UK Treasury to regulate some stablecoins. Stablecoins will become recognised forms of payment to give people confidence in using digital currencies - source
US Authorities in Miami Seize $34M in Crypto Linked to Illegal Dark Web Activity - source
Elon Musk has been appointed to Twitter's Board after it was announced yesterday that he had acquired a 9.2% stake in the social media firm - source
FTX.US makes a strategic investment in regulated national equities exchange IEX Group - source
Ledger launches NFT-focused hardware wallet Nano S Plus. The new Ledger Nano S Plus is the sixth hardware wallet produced by Ledger since the firm introduced its first wallet HW1 back in 2015 - source
German Authorities Shut Down Russian Darknet Market, Seize $25M in Bitcoin. The Hydra Market's bitcoin privacy mixer complicated the investigation, police said - source
Alyse Killeen's Stillmark is trying to raise about $500 million for a new credit fund dedicated to lending capital in the bitcoin market - source
Treasury's Yellen to Deliver First Speech on Crypto in US Economy Thurs. 10:30am ET - source
After launching in 2019, Binance.US has a pre-money valuation of $4.5B after completing a $200M seed round and has rolled out services in 48 states and eight territories - source
Grayscale Investments is adding three crypto assets to its three diversified funds and removing another two from the product. Avalanche (AVAX), Polkadot (DOT), Cosmos (ATOM) were added. SushiSwap (SUSHI) and Synthetix (SNX) were removed - source
Blockchain.com launches asset management for institutional investors. The new service is reportedly named BCAM and will serve institutions, family offices and high-net-worth individuals - source
HSBC launches metaverse fund for wealthy clients in Hong Kong and Singapore - source
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is planning to offer over-the-counter Ether options trading and has seen growing interest from clients in the second-largest digital currency - source
Kakao Piccoma Acquires the Japanese Crypto Platform Sakura Exchange Bitcoin - source
Crypto Trading Firm Wintermute Launches Zero-Fee OTC Platform. Wintermute Node will compete with other institutional trading platforms in a bid to expand the firm’s client base - source
Crypto Exchange Kraken Announces Plans To Launch Structured Products - source
Bolt, a payments company providing one-click checkout services, agreed to buy Wyre Payments for $1.5 billion to add support for crypto transactions in one of the largest crypto-industry takeovers among those not involving an SPAC - source
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Calls Crypto 'Transformative' in Wide-Ranging Speech. The U.S. official addressed CBDCs, stablecoins and regulations - source
Fed officials have widely discussed the inflation situation and the possibility of the Fed raising interest rates by 50 basis points. The Nasdaq fell the most, down nearly 4.5% in two days. Bitcoin has also lost 5% in the past 24 hours - source
UFC to start paying bonuses to fighters in cryptocurrency - source
Blockchain security firm CertiK raised 88m and reaches $2 billion valuation with new funding from Goldman Sachs and others. Rise in crypto scams underlies the need for more security and protection - source
RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub has proposed a pilot program for “Docklands DAO” that will help Melbourne precincts recover from the pandemic - source
PayMaya, a digital financial services platform based in the Philippines, has launched a cryptocurrency feature on its app, enabling users to buy and earn digital assets - source
Coinbase Starts Crypto Trading Services in India. The announcement was made at an event in India's tech hub Bengaluru - source
Texas Man Sentenced to Prison After Laundering $1.4 Million in Crypto - source
Nium, a cross-border payments firm based in Singapore, has announced the launch of a new API-based solution that will allow businesses to start accepting cryptocurrency payments. Nium partnered with crypto payments processor BitPay to launch the Crypto Accept feature - source
Raises:
Southeast Asian VC Firm SeaX Ventures Closes $60M Tech Fund. The fund will invest $500,000- $5 million in technology companies, which includes blockchain and Web 3 - source
Digital wealth manager Moneybox has raised £35 million ($45.9 million) in a Series D round that will help it push into crypto products - source
Staking company Chorus One launches $30 million venture fund - source
Parallel Finance, a Polkadot-based lending and staking protocol, has announced a $5 million strategic funding round at a $500 million valuation. Investors included Coinbase (COIN), StarkWare and Section 32 - source
Hivemapper, a crypto-enabled mapping startup, has raised $18 million in fresh capital in a funding round led by Multicoin Capital - source
Strata has raised a $1.5M seed round from Multicoin Capital, Alameda Research and others to offer a no-code launchpad to play-to-earn games and social token projects - source
Terra Wallet Leap Raises $3.2M in Private Token Sale. If estimates in Leap's litepaper of an 8% private sale allocation hold true, the startup has a valuation of $40 million - source
Swedish blockchain gaming startup GOALS has secured $15 million in seed funding in a round led by venture capital firm Northzone - source
Ethereum Scaler Boba network valued at $1.5B in $45M Series A from Huobi, Crypto.com and BitMart - source
Polemos, a GameFi platform and play-to-earn guild, announced a $14 million seed round. This brings the startup to a $100 million post-money valuation - source
Some of the recent private fundraising events among blockchain startups you should know about. Apr 2022, part 1
Binance Labs announces strategic investment in STEPN by FindSatoshi Lab - source
Coin Metrics Raises $35M for Crypto Data Provision - source
Improbable has raised US$150M to establish M² (MSquared), a network of interoperable metaverses powered by its Morpheus technology. The financing round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 - source
Community Gaming, a gaming platform, has closed a $16 million Series A funding round led by SoftBank’s Latin America Fund. Other participants in the funding round included Animoca Brands, Binance Labs and others - source
Hashed Leads $6.5M Round for LOVO’s AI-Backed Voice NFTs. The company wants its synthetic speech tools to be used in chat apps or as in-game assets - source
Ex-Blockstream Exec Samson Mow Raises $21M for Bitcoin Startup JAN3 - source
Pantera Capital is raising a new fund, targeting a close of $200 million. The crypto-focused investment firm has already locked in three deals - source
New Listings:
Keep3rV1 (KP3R) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
Chain (XCN) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
LooksRare (LOOKS) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
Titan Swap (TITAN) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
IndiGG (INDI) Gets Listed on KuCoin on Apr 6th - source
UpOnly (UPO) Gets Listed on KuCoin on Apr 6th - source
Spell Token (SPELL) Gets Listed on KuCoin on Apr 6th - source
Binance Futures will launch USDT-margined WOO perpetual contracts with up to 25x leverage on April 8th - source
RIPIO COIN (RPC) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
Solcial (SLCL) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
CEEK VR (CEEK)Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
Beta Finance (BETA) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
vEmpire DDAO (VEMP) Gets Listed on KuCoin - source
Binance Futures will launch coin-margined ZIL perpetual contracts up to 20x leverage - 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.