PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($8691): -3% / +20%
- ETH ($189): -11% / +44%
- LTC ($42): -13% / +1%
- XRP ($0.20): -10% / +3%
- Crypto Market Cap ($239B): -4% / +25% 
- BTC Dominance: 67%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Telegram has agreed to turn over communications, bank records, and other info to the SEC as it continues the legal battle over its $1.8 billion ICO. As a result of the legal battle the SEC has barred Telegram from releasing its Gram tokens and the TON network has been put on hold; as a result Telegram gave investors the option to take back 72% of their initial investments immediately or to loan their funds to Telegram for a year and recoup 110%. Unfortunately the loan option isn't available for US investors, who will be refunded immediately.  Link. 

- TON Labs, a startup that helped Telegram run the test network for TON, launched its own version of the blockchain on Thursday, called Free TON. The fork comes after the group decided not to wait until Telegram can clear the regulatory hurdles it faces from the SEC; Telegram's network was supposed to launch in October 2019 but that has been put on hold until 2021 due to the legal challenges. The Free TON blockchain uses tokens called "ton crystals," not "grams" as Telegram's were dubbed. Free TON serves as a way to continue testing and building the TON network. Link. 

- A new bill introduced in California would change securities laws and provide guidance on the categorization and regulation of crypto assets. The initial draft of the bill defined and categorized digital assets into three categories: cryptocurrencies, crypto commodities, and crypto-securities. These are to be regulated by the CFTC, FinCEN, and the SEC respectively. The bill's latest draft however proposes the exclusion of some digital assets, which are not defined as securities. All digital assets that didn't require 'investment contracts' would be excluded from regulations. Link. 

- Most of Square's Cash App revenue in Q1 came from bitcoin. $306 million of the total $538 million revenue came from bitcoin. Despite that, Bitcoin made up only $7 million of the total $183 million profit because Cash App applies only a small margin to the market cost of bitcoin. Link. 

- The Libra Association has appointed Obama's former under secretary for terrorism, Stuart Levy, as its first CEO. While serving under the administrations of Bush and Obama, Levy focused on enforcing all US AML and counter terrorist financing laws. He was also most recently the chief legal officer at HSBC. Given his bipartisan support and government experience, Levy could help Libra make peace with regulators. Link. 

- Bitcoin is still the most frequently used cryptocurrency on the dark web according to a study from think tank Rand Corporation Privacy-centric cryptocurrencies like Zcash are used less frequently. Bitcoin, monero, and litecoin are the most frequently used currencies when looking at money laundering, terrorism financing and illicit goods trade. Link. 

- In his latest investor letter titled "The Great Monetary Inflation" billionaire hedge fund pioneer Paul Tudor Jones revealed he is buying bitcoin due to unprecedented monetary expansion and an economic environment ripe for inflation. Jones cited parallels to gold in the 1970s, when gold fell more than 50% in two years after being productized as a futures instrument, just like what's happened to BTC. Tudor's BVI has nearly $22 billion of AUM and could make bitcoin a low single digits position for the fund. Link. 

- Switzerland-based crypto financial services firm Bitcoin Suisse is raising almost $50 million Series A at a $283 million pre-money. The firm currently provides prime brokerage, custody, lending, staking, and tokenization services for institutional and corporate clients. Bitcoin Suisse aims to grow into a unicorn by 2025 by becoming a fully operational bank. Link. 

- Gamer and livestreamer PewDiePie is leaving the crypto-based livestreaming platform DLive and is returning to exclusively livestream on Youtube. PewDiePie had joined DLive in April of last year; DLive promises to give its users a significantly larger slice of the revenue pie than Twitch and Youtube. DLive is estimated to have 5 million monthly users and more than 80,000 active broadcasters; though significant, it is still far smaller than Youtube. Link. 

- Only 12% of users of privacy browser Brave use its built-in crypto features. Brave's browser blocks traditional advertising and tracking and allows users to choose to participate in ads or donate money. Users earn BAT tokens for participating in the program. 40% of users on Brave's desktop app participated in the program; users on mobile are less likely to participate, which has led to overall participation of only 12%. Link. 

- Tron CEO Justin Sun's new stablecoin, JUST (or $USDJ), sold out in under five minutes. The stablecoin is pegged to the US dollar and was the first token launched on crypto exchange Poloniex's new Initial Exchange Offering platform LaunchBase. Link. 

- NEAR, a blockchain project for running dApps, announced a $21.6 million token sale led by Andreessen Horowitz. The NEAR mainnet will be launching on April 22. The NEAR protocol is a sharded, proof of stake blockchain; sharding breaks the transactions into smaller grouping of shards allowing them to be processed more quickly. Link. 

- Iran has issued a license to iMiner, a Turkey-based crypto company, to set up what will be the largest mining operation in the country. iMiner will also be allowed to offer crypto trading and custody in the country. Link. 

- Both Tether (USDT) and Coinbase's USD Coin (USDC) saw sizable increases in market cap in April as crypto traders flocked to stablecoin. Tether, the most widely-used stablecoin, surpassed Bitcoin's 24 hour volume and currently has a $6.4 billion market cap. USDC is hovering around a $700 million market cap. Link. 

- New figures show that blockchain-related jobs have the highest-paying salaries in tech in the UK. The average annual salary is around $93,000. Link.