Crypto weekly is co-authored by @serdave
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Crypto Market Cap ($2.6T): +10% / +44%
- BTC ($67,055): +12% / +58%
- ETH ($3,472): +9% / +52%
- SOL ($175): +21% / +72%
- UNI ($7.84): -4% / +7%
- MATIC ($0.53): +2% / -45%
- Tether Mkt Cap ($114B): +2% / +25%
- USDC Mkt Cap ($34.1B): +1% / +39%
- BTC / ETH Dominance: 52% / 16%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- At least 5 ethereum spot ETFs received the greenlight from the SEC to begin trading Tuesday, July 23 including funds from Fidelity and VanEck. Bitcoin spot ETFs have accumulated over $54 billion in AUM since launching in January. Link. Link. Link. Link.
- Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin published a blog post arguing against voting for candidates simply for being "crypto friendly". The post comes a day after a16z co-founders Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreesseen publicly endorsed Donald Trump. Link. Post. Link.
- Cryptocurrencies rallied in part on expectations that a Donald Trump administration would lead to a more favorable regulatory environment for the space, including a possible leadership change at the SEC. Link. Link.
- Financial services and banking giant State Street is exploring ways to get involved in settling payments on the blockchain, including creating its own stablecoin. Link.
- Liquid staking provider Lido earned $19.1 million in fees this week, more than bitcoin ($5.9 million) and ethereum ($16.2 million). Link.
- WazirX, one of India's largest crypto exchanges, lost $230 million (nearly half its reserves) in a hack suspected to have been led by North Korea's Lazarus Group. Link. Link.
- More new tokens have been listed on centralized crypto exchanges in the first of 2024 than in all of 2023. Link. Link.
- The German government netted $2.88 billion from selling 50,000 BTC seized in January from an illegal piracy operation. Link. Announcement.
- Messari founder Ryan Selkis stepped down as CEO of the blockchain analytics firm after a series of politically charged tweets tied to his recent support for Donald Trump. Link.
- Ripple's XRP token surged 40% over speculation that the company had reached a settlement with regulators. The lawsuit has been ongoing since 2020 and is expected to have broad implications for the space. Link.
- Restaking protocol EigenLayer has $14.6 billion of total value locked deposited on its protocol, down 27% from an all-time high of $20 billion at the beginning of June. Link.
- The IRS said its program to identify people who omit crypto from their tax returns, dubbed "Operation Hidden Treasure", failed to produce any results since launching in 2021. Link.
- Donald Trump said he plans to release a fourth NFT collection. Link. Interview.
- Grayscale, the investment firm behind one of the largest spot bitcoin ETFs, announced a new digital asset fund to invest in AI-focused tokens. Initial holdings include Filecoin (FIL), Livepeer (LPT), Near (NEAR) and Render (RNDR). Link. Announcement.
- Polygon Labs said it would begin the technical upgrade of swapping out its MATIC token for its new POL token starting September. The technical upgrade enables POL to be the native gas and staking token for Polygon. Link.
- The Winklevoss twins, founders of the Gemini exchange, donated $1 million in bitcoin to Republican candidate John Deaton, who is running against Elizabeth Warren. Link.
- Defunct crypto lender BlockFi will begin distributing funds to its users via Coinbase. Link.
- Uniswap Labs publicly launched its wallet browser extension on Chrome. Link.
- Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith had his sentence reduced by 7 months. Griffith was sentenced to 63 months in 2022 for violating sanctions laws when he gave a presentation on cryptocurrency in North Korea in 2019. Link.
- Craig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who has claimed for years he was Satoshi Nakamoto, was forced by a judge to say he is not the founder of bitcoin. Link.