Before getting into the regular update, I wanted to share some non-profits that are accepting crypto donations for their efforts in Ukraine. Please let me know if you donate so I can try to find someone to match your donation:
- UkraineDAO is using 100% of proceeds to support Ukrainians suffering from the war. Will accept direct crypto donations, or alternatively users can contribute via PartyBid (link)
- Ukrainian crypto exchange Kuna collecting crypto donations for aid (link)
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($37,500): -4% / -20%
- ETH ($2,598): -5% / -30%
- XRP ($0.72): -10% / -15%
- UNI ($9.65): 0% / -44%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.7T): -4% / -23%
- BTC Dominance: 42%
- ETH Dominance: 18%
STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Tether ($78B): +1% / 0%
- USDC ($52B): +3% / +23%
NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Crypto followed the broader financial market and declined following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Money poured into safe havens like gold. In the 24 hours following the invasion, crypto fell 12%, S&P 500 fell 1.8%, Nasdaq 100 fell 1.8%, and gold was up 2%. Link. Link.
- Nadya Tolokonnikova, Tripply Labs, and PleasrDAO launched UkraineDAO to raise funds to donate to Ukranian civilian organizations. The first drop will consist of 10k Ukranian flag NFTs with proceeds going to the Return Alive Foundation and NGO Proliska. Link. UkraineDAO Twitter. Vitalik Tweet.
- Ukraine's official Twitter accounted posted requests for crypto donations in bitcoin, ether, and USDT. The accounts have received over $10 million in donations so far. Link. Tweet.
- Pro Ukrainian groups received $18.6 million in crypto since Russia invaded Thursday. One single donor sent $3 million worth of BTC in one day. Majority of donations have been in bitcoin (56%) and ether (32%), although US Dollar stablecoins have made up a decent percentage (11%). Link.
- Crypto trading volume on Ukraine's crypto exchange Kuna surged over 200% to highs of $4.8 million as Russia launched a full-scale invasion in the country. Ukraine's central bank passed martial law on the financial system, which imposes financial restrictions on citizens, including suspending the issue of electronic money. Link.
- The pseudonymous seller of 104 CryptoPunks withdrew his collection from a Sotheby's auction right before it was set to be auctioned. The value of the lot had been estimated to be between $20 and $30 million. Link. Sellers Twitter.
- An automatic liquidation of $500 million in ETH could occur if the price falls below $2,100, which would cause a Maker vault holder's position to become under-collateralized and go through forced liquidation. The same investor, "7-Siblings" narrowly escaped a $600 million liquidation last month when ETH fell dramatically. A liquidation of this size would cause further downward pressure on ETH prices. Link. Maker Vaults.
- NFT Worlds has built a Polygon overlay on Minecraft that will allow players to access Web3 features, such as an online shop where they can buy items for Minecraft using the $WRLD ERC-20 token. Link.
- A team from Facebook's Libra stablecoin project plans to bring the now defunct project to life under a new name, Aptos. Aptos is raising $200 million at a $2 billion valuation and plans to build a new layer 1 blockchain based on the original Libra whitepaper. The initial focus won't be on cross-border payments, but rather on NFTs. Link. Aptos Blog Post.
- Journalist Laura Shin alleges that Austrian programmer Toby Hoenisch was responsible for hacking The DAO, one of the largest crypto hacks ever that led to a hard fork of the Ethereum network back in 2016. The DAO was one of the first decentralized autonomous organizations and was an open-source venture fund platform for crypto projects. It had raised 12.7 million ETH, worth around $150 million at the time, from crowdfunding. When it was hacked in 2016 someone siphoned nearly a third of the projects funds which also represented about 5% of ether in circulation. Given the enormity of the hack, the community decided to restore the stolen funds and created a hard fork of Ethereum, splitting it into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic (ETC). The hacker used a process called "mixing" in an effort to obfuscate his tracks. Chainalysis was able to "de-mix" the transactions and trace them to four different exchanges, and Shin alleges that these accounts point to Hoenisch as being the hacker. Link.
- Chainalysis is able to unmask the path of transactions through a popular bitcoin mixing service called CoinJoin, which is the crypto mixing tool from Wasabi Wallet. CoinJoin helps users obscure transaction history by mixing their funds with those of other users. Chainalysis wouldn't explain how it was able to track the funds, but it is speculated it was able to because of bad practices from a user, specifically address re-use. Link.
- Coinbase Wallet now supports crypto hardware wallet Ledger. Link.
- There were only 18,000 monthly active developers contributing to open-source crypto and Web 3 projects in December 2021. Most crypto projects have a ton of capital, but cannot find enough engineers to fill their needs. Link.Electric Capital Developer Report.
- Solana's Phantom Wallet integrated with 1Password's "Save in 1Password" API, meaning users can instantly save their Phantom wallet credentials and private keys directly to the password manager. Link.
- Coinbase outperformed expectations with nearly $2.5 billion in revenue in Q4 2021 and a monthly active user base of 11.4 million. It had profits of $840 million, nearly double the previous quarter. Q4 saw significant trading volumes as crypto prices hit record highs but 2022 has been in a bear market since the beginning of the year. COIN shares are trading around $169, down from highs of over $400 shortly after the stock listed last year. Link.
- Coinbase's OTC and prime brokerage volumes reached all-time highs of $88 billion in Q4 2021. Coinbase had grown its institutional customer by 50% relative to 2020, and had doubled the number of clients using its custody service. Link.
- China can now fine and jail citizens found guilty of fundraising via crypto tokens. Link.
- NFT marketplace OpenSea has been hit with a $1 million lawsuit brought by a user who lost a Bored Ape NFT this month due to a listing bug on the marketplace. The suit alleges that OpenSea failed to address security issues and put users' NFTs at risk. Link.
- Bitcoin revenue accounted for nearly half of Cash App's revenue in Q4 2021. However, only 2% of that was actual profit (~$46 million). Link.
- Thailand's stock exchange will allow crypto trading. Link.
- Highly anticipated NFT collection Invisible Friends launched this week with a 0.25 ETH mint price. The collection currently has a floor price of around 7 ETH after almost 22k of ETH trading volumes. Link.
- FTX.US is launching a new gaming business called FTX Gaming, which will help gaming studios integrate blockchain tech and NFTs into their games. Link.
- NFT marketplace Mintable purchased three Azuki NFTs that were stolen from users in a phishing attack, and plans to returns them to the original holders. Link.
- Satish Kumbhani, the founder of defunct crypto platform BitConnect, was indicted for running a $2.4 billion Ponzi scheme. Kumbhani remains at large. Link.
- Online shopping platform Rakuten launched its own NFT marketplace where users can mint and buy digital collectibles. P2P listings and sales will come in 2023. Rakuten's first drop was on 2/25 and included digital assets from an anime called Ultraman. Link.
- Russia's share of bitcoin mining has stayed steady despite its invasion of Ukraine. It remains the country with the third highest hash rate. Link.
- NFT marketplace Neon launched a vending machine in New York that allows collectors to buy Solana NFTs with fiat 24 hours a day. Collectors won't know which NFT they'll get, but can pick a collection to purchase from. The two collections available currently include Party Pigeons and Project Color. Link.