This week's crypto weekly was co-authored by @serdave
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($23,478): -4% / +42%
- ETH ($1,635): -3% / +37%
- SOL ($23.06): -8% / +136%
- UNI ($6.58): -9% / +28%
- MATIC ($1.27): -15% / +69%
MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.1T): -4% / +35%
- BTC Dominance: 42%
- ETH Dominance: 19%
- Tether ($71B): +1% / +7%
- USDC ($43B): +2% / -4%
NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Prices of digital assets fell in line with other risk-on assets, after key US inflation data sparked concerns over further interest rate hikes from the Fed. Link.
- The IMF called for a global, coordinated response to crypto assets, warning that the emerging asset class could undermine the effectiveness of monetary policy and exacerbate fiscal risks. Link. Link. Statement.
- Japan’s central bank plans to pilot a “digital yen” in April, after two years of research and proof of concepts. Link.
- Coinbase launched its own Ethereum layer-2 network called Base, built on top of the Optimism network. The goal of Base is to make it easy for developers to build blockchain-based apps, and for users to use the apps via Coinbase products. Base does not plan to launch its own token. Optimism’s token OP rose 16% on the news. Link. Link. Link. Blog Post.
- The Solana blockchain froze early Saturday due to a bug in a recent software update. After multiple attempts to restart the network, the Solana blockchain finally came back online on Sunday. Link. Link.
- NFT marketplace Blur announced that an additional 300 million blur tokens will be airdropped to users of the platform based on a loyalty score. Blur overtook OpenSea in daily ETH NFT volume this week. Link. Link. Link.
- Following a court order, DeFi protocol Oasis seized $140 million of assets on its platform that were associated with last year’s Wormhole bridge exploit. The funds were returned to an “authorized third party”, which many speculate to be Jump Capital - a developer of Wormhole. The hackers had stored the funds on an Oasis multi-sig, and Oasis took advantage of a “previously unknown vulnerability” in their multi-sig wallet to recover the funds. Link. Official Post.
- Spotify is testing out a token-gated playlist feature with NFT projects Kingship and Creepz. Link. Link. Link.
- Coinbase beat estimates with Q4 earnings of $605 million, driven largely by a 100% year over year increase in interest income from USDC. The exchange posted a loss of $2.6 billion for 2022. Link. Link.
- The number of weekly active crypto developers has ranged between 6k-7k since the start of 2023. There are more active developers in this year’s bear market compared to the 2020 bear market. Link.
- The SEC proposed a new “custody” rule that would limit asset managers’ ability to put customer money into crypto assets. Link.
- The price of testnet ETH on the Goerli testnet spiked to $1.60 this week, after cross-chain platform LayerZero created a way for Goerli’s testnet ETH to be swapped between mainnet and testnet. Traditionally developers have had to rely on ‘faucets’ to get testnet ETH, a process which has been controlled by a few validators. Link. Link.
- Paxos was ordered to cease minting Paxos-issued BUSD, as regulators look into the issuer’s relationship with crypto exchange Binance. Link.
- The Securities and Future Commission of Hong Kong wants to re-open crypto trading for retail investors, as Hong Kong looks to become a crypto hub. In 2018 the agency had limited crypto trading to institutional investors and professional traders. Link. Link.
- The Polygon network suffered a large block reorganization, leading to issues in processing transactions and an outage of Polyscan. Link.
- Layer 2 network Arbitrum surpassed Ethereum in daily transactions and now has $1.85 billion of total value locked and roughly 2.95 million unique addresses on its blockchain. Link.
- Ethereum core developers plan to launch a new testnet, Holli, later this year to help address the lack of liquidity for testnet ETH. Link.
- Crypto wallet infrastructure provider DFNS published a paper claiming that Magic Link, an email-based wallet provider, has a severe security vulnerability. Link. Blog Post.
- A U.S. district court judge has denied Dapper Labs' request to dismiss a class action lawsuit that alleges the company’s NBA Top Shot NFTs are unregistered securities. Link. Link.
- The SEC and NY Attorney General are objecting to Binance.US’s planned acquisition of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager, alleging the plan involves selling unregistered securities. Link.
- Proof, the Web3 project behind NFT collection Moonbirds, canceled plans for its Proof of Conference event in May. Link.
- Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried was charged with four additional counts of fraud, specifically targeting illegal political donations he made in the US. SBF has been charged with 12 criminal counts to date. Link. Link.
- Decentralized wireless communication network Helium plans to shift to the Solana blockchain by March 27. The Helium community voted in favor of the migration in September. Link.
- Bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) is having its NFT portfolio auctioned. The collection includes many blue chip NFTs such as Cryptopunks and Tyler Hobb’s Fidenzas. Link.
- Funding for ongoing maintenance of the bitcoin network has been drying up over the past year, sparking fears that talented developers will leave the space. It costs an estimated $200 million per year to maintain key bitcoin infrastructure like bitcoin core. Link.
- Houseparty founder Ben Rubin raised $25.5 million in Series A funding for his new crypto startup called Here Not There Labs (HNT). HNT allows communities to build town squares, digital areas where users can assemble and chat freely. Link. Link.
- NFT project Friendsies announced it would pause future plans around the project, even though it raised more than $5 million worth of ETH in last year’s mint. The team deleted its Twitter account shortly afterwards, leading to accusations of a “rug pull”. Link.
- Dapper Labs laid off another 20% of its workforce this week. The company had laid off 22% of its staff in November. Link.
- Tron CEO Justin Sun deposited over 150,000 ETH in staking provider Lido Finance, the platform's largest deposit ever. Link.
- EA co-founder Trip Hawkins is joining Web3 gaming startup Games For A Living as chief strategy officer. Link.
- NFT artist OSF and his Rug Radio co-host Mando sold 71 bored apes worth over $10 million in one day, capitalizing on the increased liquidity afforded by NFT marketplace Blur. Link.
- Cosmos-based blockchain Cantos saw a decline in daily active addresses by 89% in February despite its TVL remaining steady. Link.
- The Frax community voted for its stablecoin FRX to be fully collateralized by digital assets. It was previously 80% collateralized and 20% stabilized algorithmically with the governance token FXS. FRX is the fifth-largest stablecoin by market cap, and the protocol has roughly $2 billion of total value locked. Link.
- A new report suggests that Ruja Ignatova, the “Cryptoqueen” behind the $5 billion OneCoin scam who had gone missing in 2017, may have been murdered on the orders of a drug lord. Link. Link.
- Layer-2 gaming protocol Immutable cut 11% of its staff. Link.
- Tezos Foundation is partnering with Google Cloud to accelerate development of web3 applications on the Tezos blockchain. Google will also serve as a proof-of-stake validator for the Tezos blockchain. Link. Link.
- Crypto-friendly Silvergate Bank is the most shorted stock on Wall Street, with over 73% of available shares being sold short. Link.