PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($35,721): -25% / +23%
- ETH ($2,195): -40% / +197%
- XRP ($0.82): -45% / +271%
- UNI ($17): -53% / +254%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.4T): -34% / +89% 
- BTC Dominance: 46%

NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES

STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Tether ($60B): +3% / +186%
- USDC ($14B): 0% / +270%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- China's State Council, the country's central government body, said it would be "cracking down on bitcoin mining and trading activities" as part of its efforts to prevent financial risks. Local traders and miners liquidated their cryptocurrency holdings for fiat, which led to a sharp decline in the price of cryptocurrencies. The announcement came after President Xi Jingping said China would be stepping up efforts to achieve carbon neutrality. The inner Mongolia government operates on coal-based energy, and has already started to drive out bitcoin mining operations. It has even set up a dedicated hotline for its constituents to report on active bitcoin mining farms. Link. Link. 

- China also banned financial institutions and payment companies from providing services related to crypto transactions, and warned investors against speculative crypto trading. Link. 

- Crypto market cap fell well below $2 trillion for the first time in months. Cryptocurrencies were down across the board, though DeFi-related tokens were particularly hit, including Maker (MKR), Yearn.finance (YFI), Compound (COMP), Uniswap (UNI), and Chainlink (LINK). Link. 

- Fox announced it was launching an NFT company, Blockchain Creative Labs, and a blockchain-based animated series from Dan Harmon. creator of Rick and Morty, called "Krapopolis". Fox plans to launch NFTs for the series that represent characters, background art, and GIFs, as well as tokens that reward fans. Link. 

- The US Fed plans to publish a paper this summer that will discuss a possible US central bank digital currency. The Fed's main concern is whether the US could improve its current domestic payments system. Link. 

- "Cryptocurrency" search volume reached all-time highs on Google. Searches of "Should I sell my crypto" rose 400% this week as well, as prices of crypto plummeted. Link. Link. 

- Binance Smart Chain's PancakeBunny DeFi protocol was exploited for $45 million using flash loans. The attacker liquidated its PancakeBunny governance tokens ("BUNNY") causing the price of the token to fall almost 100%. The PancakeBunny protocol said it was "working on a reimbursement plan". Link. 

- President Joe Biden proposed giving the IRS additional funding to track crypto as well as rules that would require businesses to report any crypto transactions over $10,000 - a standard that already exists for cash transactions. Link.  

- Crypto exchange FTX is raising $1 billion at a $20 billion valuation. The exchange made $85 million in fee revenue in 2020 and expects to make $800 million in 2021. Link. 

- Blockchain-based lending firm Figure Technologies raised $200 million in its Series D round at a $3.2 billion valuation led by 10T Holdings and Morgan Creek Digital. Figure was founded in 2018 by former SoFi founder Mike Cagney, and provides loans, mortgage refinance, and other financial services using its own blockchain called Provenance. Link. 

- Crypto exchanges BitMEX and FTX said they would become carbon neutral through donations. Both exchanges said they would donate $0.0026 for every $1 its clients pay in blockchain or gas fees in order to become carbon neutral. FTX estimated it would spend $60 million in blockchain fees this year, implying about $150,000 in carbon offsetting costs; given market volatility the exchange said it would donate $1 million to carbon offsetting organizations. Link. 

- Binance Smart Chain's DeFi project Venus Protocol saw $200 million of liquidations earlier this week. As the price of Venus's native XVS token rose, customers took out more loans using XVS as collateral. When the price of XVS crashed, the loans became under collateralized and users defaulted. The protocol liquidated the remaining collateral but the value had fallen so much that it was worth less than the original loans. Venus occurred a bad debt of more than $95 million. Link. 

- Robot lawyer platform DoNotPay now offers a service to draft and send legal letters to crypto exchanges. The company also plans to accept BTC and ETH as payment starting on June 1. Link. 

- ETH mining revenue is expected to hit all-time highs in May despite the significant decline in ETH prices. ETH miners have earned $1.93 billion in revenue as of May 23, of which $922 million came from transaction fees and the remaining $1+ billion came from miner subsidies. Link. 

- The FTC received reports of over 6,500 crypto investment scams totalling $80 million in losses in Q1 2021. There were 570 crypto scams totaling $7.5 million in the same period last year. Young investors were most likely to be scammed. Link. 

- Crypto-powered banking app Eco said its $26 million raise in March included investors Diddy, Tiffany Haddish, 3lau, and Larry Fitzgerald. Link. 

- A Nebraska lawmaker has proposed legislation that would study the use of blockchain tech to trace the origin of agricultural products from farm to shelf. Link. 

- Crypto exchange Coinbase plans to conduct a $1.25 billion private debt offering. Coinbase began trading on Nasdaq last month under the ticker "COIN". Link. 

- A Dutch Domino's franchise owner is offering to give staff at its 16 locations the option of receiving part of their salary in bitcoin. Link.