PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($8,600): +8% / +130%
- ETH ($267): +5% / +100%
- LTC ($113): +22% / +271%
- XRP ($0.41): +2% / +16%
- Crypto Market Cap ($250B): +7% / +111%
- BTC Dominance: 57%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Facebook is set to roll out its own cryptocurrency called "Globalcoin" in about a dozen countries by the first quarter of 2020. The project is thought to be “bigger and more open” than just a way to make payments and purchases within Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, linking the currency’s value to the dollar to be used across the real world. The new crypto-based global payments system will allow billions of users to send and receive money faster and cheaper and make online purchases regardless of whether they have a bank account. Facebook has reportedly been in talks with both Coinbase and Gemini exchanges about listing the coin. Notably, Gemini was founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss who famously sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg back in 2004. Facebook is also in talks with payment firms including Western Union, Visa, and Mastercard to back and fund Globalcoin. Last month it was reported that Facebook could be seeking to raise as much as $1 billion to fund the crypto stablecoin project. Link. Link. 

- As trade talks between the US and China broke down earlier this month, the price of bitcoin soared higher than it has all year. It seems some investors are turning towards crypto as an uncorrelated asset class, especially as traditional equity and financial markets experience declines. Link. 

- Stock trading app Robinhood is reportedly raising a round at a valuation of more than $7 billion. Last year the company completed a $363 million funding round at a valuation of $5.6 billion. Robinhood added support for trading cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum back in 2018.Link. 

- Robinhood finally launched crypto trading in New York. In January the company received approval for a BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services, allowing them to operate legally in the state. Robinhood Crypto is currently available in 39 states and allows for the trading of seven major cryptocurrencies: bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash, litecoin, bitcoin SV, ethereum classic, and dogecoin. Link. 

- Telegram is planning to launch its Telegram Open Network (TON) in Q3, according to an internal note sent to the company's investors. Telegram's blockchain project is designated to host decentralized applications, similar to Ethereum. Its $1.7 billion ICO is one of the largest to date, and included investors like Benchmark, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins. Link. 

- Warner Brothers' exec Ryan Kavanaugh is planning to launch a security token for his studio, Proxima Media, after receiving $100 million in funding. Proxicoin, an ERC-20 token, will serve as a new tool for funding media including film, TV, and music projects. Proxicoin holders are going to partially own Entertainment Stock X, which will resemble a trading platform for financing entertainment projects and will launch in late 2019. Each media project will undergo an IPO and 30 film projects have already signed contracts with the platform. Link. 

- AT&T will now accept cryptocurrency for payment through a partnership with BitPay, becoming the first mobile operator in the US to accept cryptocurrency. AT&T didn't specify which cryptocurrencies it would accept, but BitPay currently supports bitcoin, bitcoin cash, Gemini USD, Paxos, and Circle's US Dollar Coin. Link. 

- Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, "CZ", is suing Sequoia Capital China for hurting his reputation and preventing him form raising money at favorable valuations. Back in December 2017 Sequoia Capital filed an injunction against Binance accusing CZ of breaching exclusivity by talking to other investors while still in discussions with Sequoia for the Series A round. Link. 

- Circle, a mobile payments firm which acquired crypto exchange Poloniex last year, said it was laying off 10% of its workforce due to an increasingly tough regulatory environment for crypto assets in the US. Circle raised north of $200 million from funds like Goldman Sachs, Accel, and General Catalyst and was most recently valued at nearly $3 billion. Link. 

- Coinbase retail customers can now buy or trade the DAI stablecoin. Unlike other stablecoins DAI is backed by collateral on the MakerDAO platform. DAI is the latest token added by Coinbase, which recently opened up XRP trading to New York residents. Link. 

- Montana passed a bill this month that exempts utility tokens from being considered securities. Federal rules supersede state level laws so the real world impact of the bill is likely to be minimal and restricted to crypto issuances within the state and to state residents. Link. 

- Metamask, the popular Ethereum browser and wallet that allows users to run dApps, released data on how the platform is being used. Metamask estimates it has 90,000 weekly active users and 264,000 monthly active users. These users sent 1.5 million transactions through Metamask in April; 76 percent of these transactions were initiated by a dApp so not just someone using the Metamask wallet to send and receive ethereum. The most popular dApps by transaction volume were 0x, Crypto kitties, and Dice 2 Win. Link. 

- Coinbase Commerce, the exchange's online retail service, announced that it had facilitated $50 million in transactions since launching in February 2018. The app allows merchants to accept multiple cryptocurrencies as payment, and currently has 10,000 monthly users on the platform. Coinbase Commerce is different from other crypto payment services like BitPay or Flexa because it operates more like a P2P system where any firm with a crypto wallet can pay participating merchants in crypto. BitPay and Flexa accept crypto on behalf of their merchant customers and then pay them in fiat. Coinbase Commerce recently added support for USDC stablecoin. Link. 

- Crypto lender BlockFi announced it was lowering interest rates on ether deposits under 100 ETH by nearly half from 6.2% to just 3.25% APR. The decision comes as a result that the ethereum borrowing and lending market has not been developing as well as the bitcoin market. Link. 

- The rise in the price of bitcoin may be driven partially by capital flight from crypto exchange Bitfinex and its affiliated stablecoin Tether, in the wake of allegations that the companies co-mingled client and corporate funds to hide losses. Data from TokenAnalyst shows that Bitfinex had net outflows of more than $1.7 billion of bitcoin and ether since April 26, after New York's attorney general alleged the companies engaged in a coverup. Bitcoin was trading at a premium of as much as 6% on Bitfinex compared with other crypto exchanges when the controversy broke.Link. 

- Binance, one of the world's largest crypto exchanges based on daily trading volumes, says it will soon be launching margin trading. Margin trading allows traders use their balance as collateral to supersize their buying power. Exchanges like BitMex, Poloniex, Kraken, and Coinbase's GDAX already offer margin trading for some customers. Link. 

- Unstoppable Domains, a startup creating decentralized domain registries, announced a $4 million round of financing led by Draper Associates with participation from Boost VC. With Unstoppable Domains users can register for a .zil domain extension and create websites that leverage decentralized storage network, IPFS, for data storage. These domain names can also be used to replace crypto addresses, making it easier to send and receive crypto payments. By decentralizing domain names Unstoppable Domains wants to make the internet more censorship resistant. Link. 

- Russia's central bank will consider the use of a gold-backed cryptocurrency to facilitate international settlements. Link. 

- The U.S. Copyright Office awarded self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright registrations for the original bitcoin white paper and early computer code underlying the original cryptocurrency. These registrations aren't subject to the same exhaustive process as granting a patent. Link. 

- Cryptopia Limited, a New Zealand company operating a crypto exchange with over 300,000 accounts around the world, filed for US bankruptcy protection after hackers broke in earlier this year and stole over $16 million. Link. 

- Kraken, a crypto exchange that employs about 800 people, said that it paid 250 salaries in bitcoin in April and that more employees are opting for getting paid in crypto every month. Link.