PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($58,192): +2% / +101%
- ETH ($3,923): +33% / +432%
- XRP ($1.54): -3% / +598%
- UNI ($40): -7% / +702%
- Crypto Market Cap ($2.5T): +11% / +222% 
- BTC Dominance: 44%

NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES

STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Tether ($55B): +7% / +165%
- USDC ($14B): 0% / +270%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Dogecoin prices rose dramatically this year, hitting an all-time high of 74 cents, up more than 15,000% year to date. The price of DOGE fell over 36% last night though, after self proclaimed "CEO of dogecoin" hosted Saturday Night Live and spoke about the cryptocurrency. Link. Link. 

- Eth hit all time highs this week, hitting almost $4,000. The cryptocurrency has a market cap of over $443 billion now, exceeding that of J&J and Walmart. Link. 

- Uniswap deployed v3 to the Ethereum mainnet. v3 aims to make the on-network exchange of tokens more capital-efficient, allowing liquidity providers to make markets within customized price ranges. v3 is also expected to be deployed on Optimistic Rollup later this year, a layer two protocol that can drive down transaction costs. Uniswap is one of the most popular decentralized exchanges, pulling in roughly $51 billion in volume in April. Link. 

- The creators behind CryptoPunks, one of the most popular NFT projects, released a new project called Meebits. Meebits include 20k generated 3D characters that are tradable on Ethereum. They sold over $70 million worth of Meebits via Dutch auction during the launch. Link. 

- Genies, a company creating custom avatars, raised a $65 million Series B led by Bond after announcing it would be rolling out an NFT platform on Dapper Labs' Flow blockchain. Link. 

- Chia, the first protocol to use a "proof of space" consensus mechanism, launched on Monday with a price of $1,600 bit fell to $700 by the end of the week. Instead of using proof of work or proof of stake consensus mechanisms, Chia's transactions are based off storage capacity and therefore has a much lower environmental impact. There was a hard drive storage in Southeast Asia last month in anticipation of the network launch. Link. 

- Galaxy Digital, the crypto investment firm founded by Mike Novogratz, is acquiring crypto custodian BitGo for $1.2 billion. BitGo was the first regulated custodian formed in 2013 and manages over $40 billion of crypto assets across 150 exchanges and 400 institutional clients. Link. 

- Bitso, the largest crypto trading platform in LatAm, raised $250 million at a $2.2 billion valuation in a round led by Coatue and Tiger Global. Bitso currently services more than 2 million customers across Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Link. Link. 

- Eth2 staking protocol Lido Finance raised $73 million in a round led by Paradigm. Lido allows users to stake ETH and use it in various DeFi applications to earn yield. Link. 

- China's mining dominance is declining - one of Bitcoin's largest mining pools, F2Pool, reported that China represented less than half of Bitcoin's hash rate in April 2020 for the first time in 8 years. North America mining is growing. Link. 

- Dfinity, a decentralized network that has been dubbed the "Internet Computer", is finally going live after going public in 2008 and raising more than $160 million in venture capital. Dfinity wants to be the basis of a new, decentralized internet that makes it possible to host software and data directly from cyberspace without the need for legacy IT such as proprietary cloud services, server machines, software stacks, databases, and firewalls. Link. Link. 

- Square's Cash App cited $3.51 billion in revenue and $75 million of gross profit off of bitcoin in Q1 2021. Bitcoin contributed over 7% to the company's overall gross profits. Link. 

- Carole Baskin, the founder of Big Cat Rescue who gained notoriety on the Netflix documentary 'Tiger King', is launching a native $CAT token. Fans and supporters can buy the tokens for $5 each and will receive exclusive access to the rescue facility, conversations with Baskin, and discounts on merchandise. Link. 

- Goldman Sachs is offering a new derivatives investment product based on bitcoin. The futures are paid in cash and linked to the price of BTC. Link. 

- NFT startup RTFKT Studios raised $8 million in seed funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. RTFKT is best known for a digital sneakers sale done in collaboration with 18-year-old artist Fewocious, which generated over $3 million in 7 minutes. Link. 

- PayPal is exploring the launch of a stablecoin in partnership with Ava Labs, the team behind the Avalanche Blockchain. Link. 

- Notional Finance raised a $10 million Series A from Pantera Capital. Notional's protocol brings fixed lending rates ons stablecoins to Ethereum. The protocol has $20 million locked up according to DeFi Pulse. Link. 

- Mastercard is reportedly in talks with the PBoC to facilitate cross-border transactions for the digital yuan, the central bank digital currency being launched by China. Mastercard is expected to offer a prepaid car that will allow users to store and convert the digital yuan while initiating cross-border transactions. Link. 

- Bitcoin miners made more than $56 million on average per day in April, making it the second strongest month ever for miners. Link. 

- Bitcoin ATMs grew from 7,756 in May 2020 to 19,452 as of May 2021. Over 16,000 of those ATMs are based in the US. Link. 

- PayPal CEO disclosed that half of the crypto users that use PayPal open their app daily, and he cited them as a core reason for the company's strong growth over the last year. PayPal began offering crypto services 6 months ago. Link. 

- Bitski, a provider of custom NFT storefronts for brands and creators, raised $19 million in Series A from Andreessen Horowitz. Link. 

- SEC Chairman Gary Gensler asked Congress to consider bringing investor protection to crypto exchanges, which he noted hadn't had a regulatory framework to date. Link. 

- Crypto data analytics provider Coin Metrics raised $15 million in Series B funding from Goldman Sachs. Coin Metrics provides network data, market data, indexes, and network risk solutions. Link. 

- Turkey is now requiring crypto exchanges to report any transactions over $1,200. The new policy comes just two weeks after a $150 million fraud involving a major crypto exchange in Turkey. Link. 

- Sotheby's will accept bitcoin and ethereum via Coinbase Commerce for an upcoming Banksy's auction. Link. 

- Multicoin Capital raised $100 million for its second venture fund, and plans to invest majority of the capital in projects building on the Solana blockchain. Link. 

- Blockchain-powered film financing platform Mogul announced an NFT contest whereby the winner would get a role in its upcoming film. The winner would also receive 25 million STARS tokens, worth almost $1.25 million. Link. 

- NFT marketplace Sorare is expanding into Brazil. Sorare runs a blockchain-based fantasy soccer league, where participants exchange collectibles that represent soccer players. There are already 140 clubs on Sorare's platform. Christiano Ronaldo's NFT was sold in February for almost $290k. Link.   

- LatAm ecom platform Mercado Libre purchased $7.8 million worth of bitcoin, making it the 36th publicly traded company to add BTC to its balance sheet. Link. 

- Crypto exchange Coinbaes said it received 4,227 requests for customer data in 2020 from law enforcement around the world. Over 50% of requests came from the US, but UK and Germany were also major requestors. Over 95% of the inquiries were related to criminal inquiries, only 4% related to civil inquiries. Link. 

- Coinbase is shutting down its HQ in San Francisco and going fully remote. Link. 

- DappRadar, a data tracking company for decentralized applications, raised $5 million in Series A funding. DappRadar tracks data across DeFi and NFT platforms. Link.