PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($43,730): +6% / +51%
- ETH ($2,976): +13% / +303%
- XRP ($0.78): +5% / +255%
- UNI ($26): +15% / +431%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.8T): +8% / +131% 
- BTC Dominance: 47%
- ETH Dominance: 20%

NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES

STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Tether ($62B): +1% / +197%
- USDC ($27B): +1% / +612%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 went into effect on Thursday.
EIP 1559 is an improvement designed to make fees easier to use and to help the network handle demand. It requires a base fee to be burned and then users can also tip miners if they want to encourage their transactions to go through more quickly. Base fees rise when there's higher demand and drops when demand is lower. Over 5,000 ETH has already been burned, representing over 35% of total new coin issuance over the same period. Average fees on Ethereum increased slightly since the upgrade went live, The proposal is intended to make gas fees more predictable; average fees on Ethereum have increased since the upgrade went live. According to Dune Analytics, over 90% of transactions on Ethereum have not leveraged the benefits of EIP 1559 yet. Dune Analytics. Link. Link. 

- The proposed infrastructure bill includes legislation to pay for $28 billion of  the increased spending by tightening tax compliance in digital currencies. The legislation held a wide definition of who would be required to report taxes including crypto developers, companies, miners, and possibly nodes. Following the outcry from the crypto community there was an amendment proposed to exclude individuals developing blockchain the and wallets including miners, network validators and other services providers. A competing proposal has been introduced that would exempt proof-of-work and proof-of-stake systems from new financial reporting requirements. Link. Link. 

- A CryptoPunk NFT sold for $4.4 million this week making it one of the most expensive Punks sold to date. The Punk had been purchased for $443 in 2018. The cheapest CryptoPunk available for sale is over $135,000. Punks for sale.  Link. 

- Axie Infinity becomes Ethereum's first NFT game to hit $1 billion in sales. There are currently 324,850 buyers, 936,065 owners, and more than a million daily active users playing the Pokemon-inspired NFT game. NBA TopShot and CryptoPunks are the next best selling Eth collectibles at $675 million in all-time sales each. Link. 

- Christie's is holding its first auction of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Meebits NFTs on September 17. This is Christie's first NFT sale in Asia. Meebits was created by Larva Labs, the creators behind CryptoPunks, and BAYC is a 10,000 NFT collection that launched 3 months ago and has over 5,000 holders. Link. 

- Decentralized exchanges saw over $56 billion in volume during July, down from $80 billion in June. 65% of monthly volume came from Uniswap, followed by SushiSwap and Curve. The DEX ecosystem peaked at $162 billion in volume in May. Link. 

- Brian Books resigned as CEO of BinanceUS just three months after taking up the role, citing "differences over strategic direction". Link. Link. 

- NFT marketplace MakersPlace raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer and Pantera. Makersplace had powered the auction at Christie's where Beeple sold a collection of work for $69 million. Link. 

- Blockchain data analytics platform Messari has closed a $21 million Series A led by Steven Cohen's Point72 Ventures. This is the fund's first crypto investment. Link. 

- Marvel is releasing its first NFTs. Spiderman digital sculptures will be released this weekend on the VeVe marketplace, priced between $40 and $400 each. The most common series being auctioned includes 32,000 editions at $40 each, and features a special Spiderman pose. Marvel is also collecting a 6% licensor fee on secondary transactions on top of VeVe's 2.5% secondary market fee. Link. Link. 

- DeFi margin trading platform dYdX is launching a governance token. 7.5% of token supply will go to previous users. The platform raised a $65 million funding round led by Paradigm in June. Link. 

- Coinbase iPhone users will be able to buy bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies with any Visa or Mastercard debit card linked to Apple Pay. While the Apple Pay option has been available to Coinbase users since June, it required users to have a Coinbase-branded debit card. Link. 

- Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man is launching a new comic anthology series as NFTs. The tokenized comic book will include unreleased music, a 3D digital animation of the story, and other perks. The comic is being released on the Flow blockchain. Link. 

- Crypto tax platform Zenledger raised a $6 million Series A. Link. 

- Audius, the decentralized music streaming platform built on Ethereum, hit 5 million monthly active users making it one of the largest apps on Ethereum in terms of users. Over 100,000 artists with small to midsize audiences are using Audius. Link.