PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($31,668): -7% / +9%
- ETH ($1,896): -11% / +157%
- XRP ($0.59): -6% / +167%
- UNI ($16): -21% / +230%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.3T): -8% / +69% 
- BTC Dominance: 46%
- ETH Dominance: 17%

NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES

STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Tether ($62B): 0% / +196%
- USDC ($27B): +2% / +586%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Bitcoin hit its all-time high of $64,500 three months ago and has traded between $30,000 and $40,000 since the 3rd week of May. Recent weeks have seen it trading closer to $30,000. Link. 

- NFT game Axie Infinity has seen hypergrowth the past few weeks, becoming the largest NFT platform by volume. Axie allows users to earn real money by playing games with NFTs and earning rewards such as in-game assets and tokens which can then be traded or sold in the open market. In traditional games it is more difficult for players to trade or sell their digital assets outside of the platform. Link. 

- The total value of transactions using China's central bank digital currency, the digital yuan, reached $5 billion at the end of June across 21 million personal wallets and 3.5 million enterprise wallets. The PBOC also announced that the currency would be compatible with smart contracts and that digital wallets would be tiered based on the amount of personal information provided. Link. Link. 

- El Salvador is reportedly planning to launch its own stablecoin, called "Colon dollar", that will be pegged to the US dollar and released by the end of 2021. it will be backed by reserves of real dollars and would integrate with the government-backed bitcoin wallet Chivo. Link. 

- NFT soccer trading card developer Sorare is reportedly raising $532 million  at a $3.8 billion valuation in a round led by Softbank. Link. 

- The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) added 10,700 new addresses in June, up from only 1,000 in March, possibly due to a sharp decrease in eth gas fees. ENS lets users associate their Eth addresses with human readable names like 'maaria.eth'. Note: that's my actual wallet address :)Link. 

- US customers can now purchase up to $100,000 worth of crypto per week on PayPal, up from $20,000. PayPal launched its crypto services in November last year. Link. 

- Thorchain lost over $5 million in ethereum due to a vulnerability in its code. Thorchain is a DeFi protocol that focuses on creating interoperability between various protocols. THORchains native token RUNE was down 17% over 24 hours. Link. 

- Uniswap is alpha testing layer-two protocol Optimistic Ethereum. Link. 

- Jack Dorsey tweeted that Square is building a DeFi platform for bitcoin. This division will operate independently from Square Crypto. Link. Tweet. 

- Terraform Labs, the South Korea-based stablecoin project, raised $150 million for its Ecosystem Fund which sponsors projects built on its blockchain. Investors include Arrington XRP Capital, Pantera Capital and Galaxy Digital. Terra is a Tendermint-based blockchain and develops stablecoins based on its dollar-pegged TerraUSD (UST). Terra uses an algorithm to maintain a steady value for UST and incentivizes traders to purchase excess UST when it drops in value against Terra's native governance token LUNA. Link. 

- Binance is stopping support for purchasing tokens linked to stocks just three months after starting it. Link. 

- Drops is launching its NFT lending infrastructure on Ethereum mainnet. To incentivize liquidity Drops has started a liquidity mining program which will reward liquidity providers in Drops ownership power (DOP), its native token. Link. 

- A prediction market on whether the Cardano blockchain will release smart contract functionality by Oct 1 has odds of 63-37 against. Link. 

- Dolce & Gabbana will showcase its upcoming collection as NFTs on UNXD. The new collection is named "Genesis collection". Link. 

- BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that the asset manager has seen very little demand for crypto investment strategies. Link. 

- Fidelity Digital Assets, the crypto-focused arm of Fidelity, plans to hire as many as 100 employees to bolster crypto projects in response to institutional demand in crypto. Link. 

- Malaysian police destroyed more than 1,000 bitcoin mining machines worth over $1.2 million. alleging the miners were stealing electricity. Link.