Wild week. More SEC regulatory fud, stablecoin worries, blur airdrop, price up, price down, tons of project updates and things to look forward to if the macro doesn’t cuck us. Beautiful chaos. Stay safe, combatants.
- 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. The following is a look at the crypto landscape during the past week covering various sectors. Use these events like clues - let it tell you the larger overarching story of crypto -
Data:
Narratives Check-in:
LSDS:
Over the past 90 days, most of these have been up only. Over the past week, it’s been so-so for a few with Lido and Rocket Pool coming out on top as we get closer and closer to the Shanghai upgrade.
AI:
Shaky past week for several of these. That initial oomph has fizzled out but still green, particularly on the 90 day. Overall, this narrative should still have life in 2023 and beyond. We’re still in the early speculative stages of AI.
Layer 1s
Checking in on the L1s, Fantom has been doing pretty solid. Aptos got smacked down hard from its ATH of $20 and Canto hype has similarly fizzled.
ZKs
ZK hype has been building and Matic is leading the charge with their zkEVM going on mainnet beta on Mar. 27
Crypto Market Cap:
$1.08T up from last week’s $1.01T - Slowly eeking our way up. Would be promising to see volume spike.
Stablecoin Exchange Reserves:
$24.349B, down from last week’s $26.193B - undoubtably fueled by the BUSD and SEC regulatory fud. Week after week this chart moves down but prices in general are moving up? Curious.
Stablecoin Total Market Cap:
$136.29B vs last week’s $136.61B. I expected this to be lower since people might have been enticed to redeem their BUSD for fiat however all things considered, this stayed relatively flat.
DeFi TVL:
$49.11b, up from last week’s $47.07B. Slowly but surely moving up as the rest of the market has seen a spring.
Exchange Volume:
$513.45B so far for the month of February vs $797.23B total in January. Overall still unimpressive. Retail is not yet back.
Dex Volume:
$37.2B so far for the month of February vs $61.29B total in January. Overall still unimpressive.
NFT Volume:
$341.13M so far for the month of February vs $616.99M total in January. Overall still unimpressive.
Highlights:
Monday:
SEC to sue Paxos for listing Binance USD stablecoin alleging it is an unregistered security
Coinbase says its staking services are not securities
Genesis unveils proposed sale plan with DCG and bankruptcy creditors
Web3 gaming startup Limit Break paid $6.5M for a SuperBowl commercial, which advertised a free Ethereum NFT mint and redirected to CEO’s twitter page
Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet Shanghai upgrade set for Feb 28
Polygon exploring use of ZK technology for main chain
Binance reverted withdrawal levels on the Tron network to previous levels after feedback from the community
PayPal is pausing work on bringing its own stablecoin to market
UAE plans to issue a CBDC to promote digital payments
MetaMask asked users to discard a phishing email sent from Namecheap asking for Know-Your-Customer verification
Tether nears 50% of stablecoin market, highest in 14 months
Wormhole bridge exploiter supplies $46M to crypto lending platform Maker and buys WETH
Launching Sushi Studios - a decentralized brand licensing & incubator framework
Reminder: more Optimism airdrops to come
Rainbow Bridge, the cross-chain bridge integrated into the Aurora blockchain, restored after a temporary suspension due to security concerns
DeFi protocol Clearpool will deploy its institutional credit platform Prime exclusively on Polygon network
SushiSwap acquires Cosmos-based trading platform Vortex Protocol
Crypto staking project Avatar has become the fifth-largest holder of Polygon (MATIC), accumulating 22M tokens worth $22.5M
Crypto payments app Wirex signed a long-term global partnership with Visa to expand its footprint in 40 countries in Asia-Pacific (APAC) and the U.K.
Tuesday:
Circle ratted on Paxos and alerted NYDFS that Binance’s stablecoin wasn’t fully backed
Blur airdrop and launch - primary listing February 14th. Available for trading on Coinbase, KuCoin, AscendEX, Huobi, MEXC, Gate, OKX
Polygon plans to launch its new Layer 2 scaling solution, zkEVM, on mainnet beta on Mar. 27
CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, will expand its suite of event contracts to include Bitcoin futures on March 13, pending regulatory review
Citadel Securities takes 5.5% stake in crypto-friendly bank Silvergate Capital
The U.S. bankruptcy court for the district of Delaware authorized and approved the selling or transferring of certain FTX assets
Siemens issues first digital bond on blockchain in accordance with Germany’s Electronic Securities Act
NFT platform Magic Eden partnered with web3 infra company MoonPay to help users buy digital collectibles with credit cards, Apple Pay and more
Azuki - Introducing Jay & Jelly - BEANZ
Ordinals - 76,000 NFTs minted to Bitcoin with average block size hitting an all-time high of 2.5MB
DOS Labs, a gaming studio with over 400k daily active players and a large network of Web3 game developers, launched its Avalanche Subnet
Magic Eden lays off 22, about 15% of staff in latest workforce cuts
Wednesday:
USDC issuer Circle denied rumors that it received a "Wells Notice" over its United States dollar-pegged stablecoin
Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network proposes a sale and restructuring to NovaWulf Digital Management
China Telecom, 2nd largest wireless carrier in China has partnered with Conflux to develop Blockchain-enabled SIM cards - BSIM
South Korean prosecutors have requested an arrest warrant for the former CEO of Tmon, a Korean e-commerce platform, after taking billions of won in LUNA for promoting Terra as a simple payment gateway
Square Enix will launch its upcoming NFT-based game Symbiogensis on Polygon
Napster, the streaming service best-known for the peer-to-peer audio file-sharing platform it operated in the early 2000s, is buying music startup Mint Songs amid shift to Web3
Lido Finance and Optimism are rolling out a new 1M OP token incentive grant program to get liquid stakers migrated over to the layer-2 network
Thursday:
The two biggest creditors of Mt. Gox elected to get their bankruptcy recovery paid out mostly in bitcoin instead of fiat in move that may not result in market sell off
Accused Mango Markets exploiter wants to keep $47M in disputed funds
Stanford Research Director and former Dean revealed to be SBF’s bond signers
Blur will enforce full creator royalties for any collection that blocks trading on dominant NFT trading platform OpenSea
Binance expects to pay fines to settle US investigations
Mysten Labs CEO Evan Cheng is seeking to raise over $100M for a web3 fund
Matter Labs renamed zkSync 2.0 to “zkSync Era” and is making its code open-source
ConsenSys partners with Mercuryo to offer seamless crypto purchases within MetaMask
OKX launch a new Blockchain OKBChain, which will be launched in Q1 and independent with current Okxchain
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank will become an official network validator on Oasys and will explore further collaborations
Flashbots has introduced a new protocol called MEV-Share which lets Ethereum users benefit from MEV
Friday:
SEC charges Terraform and Do Kwon for fraudulently misleading investors
Platypus USD lost its dollar peg following exploit that drained $8.5M from liquidity pools
Sony teams up with Astar Network for Web3 incubation program that focus on the utility of NFTs and DAOs
Tencent became the latest tech giant to scale back its bet on the metaverse, as it rolled back plans to create virtual reality hardware
NBA Top Shot mobile launch through Apple’s iOS App Store and Google’s Android Play Store
Words With Friends creator previews Wildcard NFT game on Polygon
Do Kwon and Terraform Labs transferred over 10,000 Bitcoin out of their doomed project and turned some of the tokens into cash via a Swiss bank
Filecoin will launch smart contracts in March, making it a fully-fledged L1
NFT marketplace Rarible expands aggregation to Tezos
eBay NFT platform KnownOrigin launches creator smart contract
Crypto News:
Monday:
Security startup Unciphered successfully hacked a hardware wallet manufactured by OneKey, which raised $20M last year
Nexo US clients - prepare for the discontinuing of Nexo’s Earn Interest Product by April 1, 2023
ARK disclosed it had purchased 162,325 shares of COIN (~$9.2M)
Tuesday:
Operators of Blender.io might have launched Sinbad after Blender got sanctioned for processing North Korean hackers’ money
With fourth-quarter earnings for bitcoin miners starting, industry experts are closely watching how companies plan to deploy hardware and manage their treasury going forward
Cathie Wood's Ark Invest purchased another $6.7M Coinbase shares
Crypto exchange Coinmetro will acquire Ignium, a blockchain-based social fundraising platform
Wednesday:
Polaris Ventures turned a donation of roughly $600,000 of FTT tokens into about $150M and now wants to cash out of its frozen FTX account
Crypto market maker GSR has implemented further layoffs, impacting between 5% and 10% of staff
Laser Digital, the crypto subsidiary of Japanese financial services giant Nomura, invested in Infinity Exchange, a DeFi protocol for institutional lending and borrowing
Canadian crypto hardware manufacturer Coinkite has designed a bitcoin hardware wallet reminiscent of an old-school BlackBerry phone straight out of the 2000s
Digital assets trading platform Talos will work with crypto payment services provider BCB Group to provide clients of both firms with access to a suite of front-, middle- and back-office trading services
Hedge fund Armistice Capital took a 9.9% beneficial ownership stake in bitcoin miner Stronghold Digital Mining
Thursday:
Crypto trading firm Auros Global reached a resolution to restructure its distressed debt on lending protocol Maple Finance
MultiversX is partnering with Tencent Cloud to help the company expand its Web3 products
Startup Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol completes first transaction of clean mining tokens
GSR pledges $10M to its philanthropic social impact foundation
Authorities in Norway seized $5.9M stolen from crypto game Axie Infinity in March last year
Friday:
Binance.US acknowledged market making firm Merit Peak operated on platform in 2021, which is alleged to have received $400M from its supposedly independent affiliate to another firm controlled by CEO CZ
Crypto web domain provider Unstoppable Domains is expanding its reach through new domain offerings on Web3 browser Opera
Exchanges:
Monday:
Huobi will discontinue its Huobi Cloud Wallet platform in May 2023, citing strategic and product adjustments
Binance adds zk-SNARK verification to its proof of reserves system
Tuesday:
Binance Futures will launch USDⓈ-M ASTR perpetual contracts with up to 20x leverage
Axelar (wAXL) listed on KuCoin
FTX's Turkish units will be excluded from its U.S. bankruptcy proceedings since authorities in the country are unlikely to cooperate with U.S. courts
Wednesday:
Binance and Huobi froze $1.4M in crypto tied to the Harmony Bridge heist and its alleged North Korean hackers
Interactive Brokers offering crypto trading to professional investors in Hong Kong in partnership with crypto exchange OSL Digital Securities
Huobi to delist ANC, HIT, PVT, RCCC and UIP
Thursday:
Binance Card is available in Brazil
Friday:
Binance will list Gains Network (GNS) in the Innovation Zone
Gate.io integrates with Copper’s ClearLoop network amid fresh focus on custody
Project Updates:
Monday:
DForce exploited funds were fully returned to multi-sig on both Arbitrum and Optimism for whitehat bounty
Aave community initiated a proposal to freeze the BUSD reserve on the Aave V2 Ethereum market
Introducing the new Optimism Governance Portal
RAI Finance launches Predict - a GameFi product where users can make predictions about certain events and play "Risk to Earn" games
Announcing Semaphore v3 - a ZK protocol
Arweave 2.6 is out - improves the energy efficiency of the network, as well as its storage markets
Liquity Protocol now available on Aztec Network
Introducing Caldera Spark: Launch a dev-rollup in one click
Popular DAO Friends With Benefits is rolling out a social networking app
Tuesday:
Pendulum Mainnet has launched
BNB Chain aims to double transaction speed, targets ZK tooling in 2023 roadmap
Pantos, a crypto protocol designed to allow tokens to deployed on multiple blockchain networks has gone live on beta version
Proposal - create a new Hidden Hand market for Timeless Finance’s “Bunni” product to strategically expand the protocol into Uniswap V3 liquidity incentivization
Wormhole launches the xGrant Program, a new ecosystem grant initiative that aims to empower cross-chain developers and founders
Volt Inu community passes vote for $75M token burn and pans Polygon Network expansion
Access Protocol February 15th launch details
ScalingX launches $20M for Web3 accelerator and hackathon
Aleo approaching Phase 3 of Incentivized Testnet
Codebase for Quix is now open-source - frontend and backend code for the NFT marketplace, the NFT indexer, and the launchpad
Wednesday:
Blur airdrop dune dashboard and tokenomics
RNDR Distributions and Unlocks
Introducing yGenius - a new way to find out anything about Yearn using AI
The Rho upgrade aims to add a new “global fee” module to improve the security of the Cosmos network
Cosmos ecosystem to launch interchain NFTs via $270K incentivized testnet
Ethereum Foundation - Layer 2 Community Grants Winners
The Graph can access The Graph Network on Arbitrum
Lido DAO proposals to sell or stake $30M worth of ETH
Crypto wallet messaging application Push Protocol expands to BNB Chain
Umami's old CEO rugged the discord and twitter, kicking out the entire team. New accounts here: @UmamiDao
Cardano “Valentine,” upgrade will make enhancements to cross-chain functionality for DeFi applications building on the network
The Pantos public beta is live
Thursday:
Umami official statement on CEO and controversy
Gnosis co-founder proposes securing $GNO by removing external dependencies of Gnosis Chain
Community management tool Collab.Land introducing governance token, which will be airdropped to to more than 2M eligible users
The Kava 12 mainnet is live - The Cosmos ecosystem gets powerful new, open-source DAO tooling
Secret is now supported by Ankr
TokenTable Beta is live
The Onyx Liquidity Protocol preliminary audit has been provided with no major technical issues identified
Mina Protocol launches zkIgnite, Cohort 1
USDT and BUSD are now available on MultiversX
CLV Ecosystem: Introducing Wallet Talk by CLV
Modular Cloud introduces Explorer, a block explorer for modular blockchains
The SPACE ID 2.0 Beta Version is now live
Router Launches Router Chain — a secure, scalable, modular composable framework for cross-blockchain interoperability
THE LLAMAS is the social layer and cultural flywheel of the Curve ecosystem
Dymension Hub 35-C Testnet is Now Live
Friday:
Centrifuge is looking to become the real-world asset facilitator for Aave’s new stablecoin, GHO
NFTs/Gaming/Metaverse:
Monday:
DigiDaigaku NFTs' price rises after $6.5M Super Bowl ad
NFT legend Punk6529: NFTs are a bad investment with 'breathtaking' volatility
Centre Pompidou, Europe's largest modern art museum, will showcase CryptoPunks, Autoglyphs NFTs as part of its first exhibition focused on NFTs
For a $5 NFT Pass, you can watch the new Nouns tv show debut
Tuesday:
NFT collector burns Bored Ape #1626 for a Bitcoin Ordinal equivalent
XP Foundry, a Web3 game studio, is migrating on-chain assets of its mobile game Rooniverse to ImmutableX from Solana
Pseudonymous NFT collector and influencer Cozomo de’ Medici is donating several of his digital artworks to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
HadesDAO, the organization associated with the Hadeswap protocol, acquired NFT collection SolanaMonkeyBusiness (SMB) and its IP
Aavegotchi NFTs - The Forge upgrade focuses on wearables, one of three attributes that determine the value and rarity
Wednesday:
New Lamborghini NFT collection to release on VeVe
The Algorand NFT marketplace Rand Gallery bought NFT Explorer, a data aggregator
Chinese NFT marketplace Jingtan eases asset transfer restrictions
Thursday:
Bitcoin wallet Xverse launched support for Ordinals
535 burned Solana DeGods NFTs were inscribed on Bitcoin
Fortnite esports star wins Bored Ape Yacht Club Dookey Dash challenge
Men's fashion magazine GQ will release its first NFT collection that grants holders access to a magazine subscription, merchandise and live events
STEPN airdrop to Genesis sneaker holders
NFT-focused startup Thred launched its platform to help users discover new collections on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains
Hong Kong digital art platform to have NFT works sent to the moon on SpaceX rocket as part of lunar gallery
OpenSea halts trading on Rihanna music NFTs which offers holders a percentage of future song royalties
Fox Entertainment and its web3 arm Blockchain Creative Labs are unveiling a new token-gated fan experience for the network's hit singing competition show “The Masked Singer”
Friday:
Generative art NFT collective Art Blocks and NFT gallery Bright Moments are creating a unique project that ties NFTs to real-life, in-person experiences for collectors
Early Starbucks Polygon NFTs selling for thousands
Economic/Government/Regulatory:
Monday:
Restrictive crypto rules for EU banks confirmed in published legal draft
Galaxy Digital gets approval for Bahamas subsidiary amid rising US regulatory uncertainty
Bakkt exits consumer business to focus on B2B as regulators crack down
Tuesday:
The Commodities and Futures Commission’s (CFTC) civil case against FTX’s SBF be delayed until after the criminal fraud case against him is completed
Blockchain Association files Amicus brief in Coinbase insider trading case
The United Kingdom’s financial regulator, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is coming for unregistered crypto ATMs
Wednesday:
Celsius seeks to recover millions from Mashinsky and other former executives
KeyFi founder Jason Stone and others involved with the staking firm are barred from transferring or disposing of most property tied to the Celsius bankruptcy case
EU banks told by regulator to apply Bitcoin caps even before they become law
Tornado Cash developer to stay in jail as Dutch trial continues
South Korean securities firms and token issuers now have some clarity on how security tokens are defined under new guidance
Thursday:
Hong Kong's government successfully issued its first tokenized green bond of $101M
On June 1st, 2023, Hong Kong will officially make crypto purchase & sell, trading, fully legal for all of its citizens
Friday:
Japan will launch pilot for issuing digital Yen in April
Research/Reads:
Buyers may possibly profit from a range of arbitrage, hedging and staking opportunities | Are stablecoins securities? Well, it’s not so simple, say lawyers - source
The purpose of securities law is to correct for imbalances in information | Coinbase’s staking services are not securities. And here's why - source
The most detailed account of FTX downfall so far | ‘Sam? Are you there?!’ The bizarre and brutal final hours of FTX - source
Jump Crypto identifies vulnerability | Helping secure BNB Chain through responsible disclosure - source
Messari Research | State of TRON Q4 2022 - source
Economics of blockchain games | Designing a Sustainable Economic System for Blockchain Games: Lessons from History - source
Arbitrum and its ecosystem: GMX, gTrade, Treasure, The Beacon, Sushiswap, and Uniswap | Arbitrum Mega Issue - source
Analysis and strategy | Algorithmic Trading: A Practitioner’s Guide - source
Recap what brought us here and where things may be headed | SEC vs crypto: A timeline of enforcement actions - source
Wu Blockchain | Summary: US regulatory crackdown BUSD - source
A framework for what founders need to know to survive this year | Is Funding For Web3 Ventures Dead? - source
FEDS Notes | Residual Seasonality in Core Consumer Price Inflation: An Update - source
Aggregation Theory, Web3, and Value Accrual | "Fat Protocols" or "Fat Apps?" - source
An Overview of Rollup Technology | Rollups-as-a-Service: A New Era of Scalability - source
Discusses privacy-preserving systems for blockchains | ‘EZEE’: The final answer to the tango between private and public systems- Part A - source
Stablecoins are worth the risk | Dollar Stablecoins Are Great for Users and the US Government - source
Fueled by Blur | Emerging Explorations: NFTFI Derivatives Track and Project Inventory - source
Coinbase Report | Ether Selling Pressure Should Be Fairly Limited Around the Shanghai Fork Upgrade - source
Layer 2 rollups now see more transaction volume than Ethereum’s main network | Arbitrum Surges - source
DeFi swaps out one set of risks for another | DeFi can’t match its promise until it confronts its problems - source
Roles, advantages, who & what | What are the applications of NFTs in supply chains? - source
Making regulating the world of DeFi a whole lot easier | How crypto’s zero-knowledge proofs could hit the regulation-privacy ‘sweet spot’ - source
MEV | A new game in town - source
Market Opportunities in Web3 Consumer | Web3 Credentials: Crossing the Consumer Chasm - source
Quantum computing, extended reality and robotics | 10 emerging technologies in computer science that will shape the future - source
Binance Research | Ethereum's Shanghai Upgrade: By the Charts - source
Fundraises:
Monday:
Caldera, a web3 infrastructure platform, raised $9M across two funding rounds to help developers create app-specific layer-2 blockchains led by Sequoia and Dragonfly Capital
Decentralized crypto exchange C3 raised $6M in a seed funding round led by Two Sigma ventures
MoodMiner secures $3M in series A funding round, paving the way for disrupting the yield earning space
MetaGPT raised an additional investment of $2M to help complete the intelligence of the metaverse experience
Tuesday:
Taurus SA, a digital asset infrastructure company focused on servicing financial institutions in Europe, raised $65M in a Series B funding round led by Credit Suisse
Tech startup Monad Labs, founded by the former team from Jump Trading, raised $19M in seed funding to develop a new blockchain that aims to improve on issues faced by current Layer 1 protocols led by Dragonfly Capital
Cross-chain messaging protocol, Orb Labs $4.5M seed round led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from Shima Capital, 6th Man Ventures, Aves Lair, Newman Capital, Modular Capital, and SevenX Ventures
Empires Not Vampires raised $1M to build new multiplayer blockchain game
Wednesday:
Hub71, Abu Dhabi's tech ecosystem, has started a new $2B initiative to back Web3 and blockchain technology startups in the region
Amazon’s Alexa Fund, the venture capital arm of the tech giant, led a $20M Series A-4 funding round for the 3D character studio Superplastic
Alongside, a crypto index-focused platform, closed an $11M seed round led by a16z
Cybersecurity startup Ironblocks raised a $7M seed round to build a blockchain-native cybersecurity platform co-led by Collider Ventures and Disruptive AI
Coherent, which is building APIs for human-readable blockchain data, raised $4.5M in seed funding from Kindred Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and others
Aura Network raised $4M with Hashed and Coin98 Ventures co-leading the round.
BornToDie, a 3D Shooter Web3 Game, launches Genesis NFTs and closes $1.5M in pre-seed fund raise
Thursday:
Web3 communications project Sending Labs raised a $12.5M seed round led by Insignia Venture Partners, MindWorks Capital and Signum Capital
The NFT Gaming Company, Inc. announces $7M Initial Public Offering
Stelo Labs raised $6M in a round led by a16z to help crypto wallet users protect themselves through a browser extension
Zion launched a new version of its app providing access to the Web5 decentralized social network, alongside the raising of $6M in a funding round led by XBTO Humla Ventures
Nefta, a web3 infrastructure startup focused on gaming and entertainment sectors, raised $5M in a seed funding round at $32.5M valuation
NFEX raised $3M seed round to build NFT derivatives DEX
Insrt Finance $2.3m pre-seed
Kolibrio $2M seed round to advance MEV and OFAs infrastructure
Web3 native messaging platform Salsa raised $2M in a pre-seed funding round led by IDEO CoLab VC and Inflection.xyz
Animoca Brands Japan invests in Virtual Arts
Creditcoin investment from DWF Labs to help accelerate Creditcoin’s global adoption & unlock new opportunities for cross-chain credit interoperability
Friday:
YGG raised $13.8M
Cysic, a zero-knowledge (ZK) hardware startup raised $6M in a seed round led by Polychain Capital
Web3 gaming studio Unagi secured $5M in a seed round led by Sisu Game Ventures to expand Ultimate Champions and move beyond sports
Twitter:
CZ response to BUSD lawsuit by SEC - source
Polyna on Bitcoin and reality - source
What caused BUSD to fail was being bridged to BSC by Binance, will this affect other stables? - source
Blockchain apps only make sense when all three are necessary: Peer-to-peer operation, Strict global consensus, Objectivity - source
3-step game plan to maximize - source
Hint- upcoming Lens airdrop - source
Federal Reserve - Liquidity Dependence - source
Block space commodity market - source
Ramifications of Paxos being ordered to stop issuing more $BUSD - source
Airdrop model is broken - source
a16z Web3 Gamer survey - source
In the future, consumer token airdrops will resemble web2 incentive programs - source
Interoperability in crypto gaming is controversial - source
Reach out to me on tweeter