Crypto weekly is co-authored by @serdave

PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Crypto Market Cap ($1.8T): +2% / 0%
- BTC ($42,973): -3% / +1%
- ETH ($2,535): +13% / +11%
- SOL ($100): +7% / -1%
- UNI ($6.51): +6% / -11%
- MATIC ($0.87): +5% / -10%
- Tether Mkt Cap ($95B): +2% / +4%
- USDC Mkt Cap ($25B): 0% / +4%
- BTC / ETH Dominance: 48% / 17%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- The SEC officially approved 11 applications for bitcoin spot ETFs on Wednesday, with trading going live on Thursday. The approval was overshadowed by a false announcement the previous day when the SEC’s twitter account was compromised. The fake post caused bitcoin to spike to $48,000 then drop to $45,500. Link. Link. Tweet. 

- Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin suggested in a Reddit AMA that ethereum could easily increase transaction capacity by increasing its gas limit, the amount of gas that can fit in a single block, by 33%. Link. AMA. 

- Despite being the deciding vote in a 3-2 result to approve the bitcoin spot ETFs, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said the SEC “did not approve or endorse bitcoin”. Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed the SEC’s approval of the ETFs. Link. Statement. Tweet.

- Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, with $27 billion in assets, experienced $2.3 billion in trading volume on Thursday, the largest-ever first day turnover for an ETF ever. Bitcoin spot ETFs saw $4 billion in volume on their first day of live trading. Link. 

- US investment app Robinhood added support for all 11 approved bitcoin spot ETFs. Link. 

- All of the approved bitcoin spot ETFs offer virtually the same offering and charge fees between 20 basis points to 49 basis points. Several issuers dropped their costs in the days leading up to the approval in order to compete, and some are offering no fees for the first six to twelve months. Link. 

- USDC stablecoin issuer Circle announced it had confidentially filed an S-1 document with the SEC to go public. Circle previously tried to go public via SPAC at a valuation of $9 billion in late 2022. Link. Link. 

- Venture investing in crypto startups totaled $9.5 billion in 2023, less than a third of what it was in 2022. Link. 

- Some FTX customers are asking a US judge to repay claims in US dollars instead of digital assets. Link. 

- Bankrupt crypto lender Genesis Global agreed to pay an $8 million fine and give up its BitLicense to settle anti-money laundering and fraud charges in New York. Genesis has ongoing lawsuits with the state of New York and the SEC for defrauding investors and selling unregistered securities. Link. Link. Link.

- Vanguard has blocked its clients from buying any of the bitcoin spot ETFs because crypto-related products don't align with the asset manager's focus on asset classes that "build blocks of a well-balanced, long-term investment portfolio." Link. 

- Tether’s USDT stablecoin saw its share of the global stablecoin supply grow from 50% to over 71% in 2023. Link. 

- The Near Foundation, the entity behind the layer 1 blockchain NEAR, is laying off 40% of its team. Link. 

- X, formerly known as Twitter, removed support for NFT profile pictures, which appeared as a hexagon. Link. 

- The SEC had its Twitter account compromised this week due to not having two-factor authentication enabled, despite the SEC and chairman Gensler promoting the security practice. Link. Link. Tweet. Tweet. 

- A new report indicates over 30% of blockchain games were discontinued or went inactive in 2023. Link. Report.

- Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon asked a US court to delay a securities fraud trial to mid-March so he can stand trial in person. Do Kwon is being held in Montenegro and is awaiting extradition to the US. His trial is set to begin January 29th. Link. 

- Google pulled many crypto exchanges, including Binance and Kraken, from its Play Store in India due to compliance issues related to India’s anti-money laundering rules. Link. 

- GameStop is shutting down its NFT marketplace due to ongoing regulatory uncertainty. The marketplace officially launched in Q4 2022 in partnership with ImmutableX, a Layer-2 blockchain. Link.

- Art auction house Sotheby’s opened bidding for its curated collection of Bitcoin Ordinals. Link. Auction.