This week's newsletter co-authored by @serdave

PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($18,998):  +1% / -60%
- ETH ($1,279):  -1% / -66%
- XRP ($0.45):  -9% / -47%
- UNI ($6.26):  +10% / -64%
- Crypto Market Cap ($920B):  0% / -59%
- BTC Dominance: 40%
- ETH Dominance: 17% 

STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Tether ($68B): 0% / -13%
- USDC ($47B): -5% / +12%

NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- The Solana blockchain suffered an outage that required a restart of the Mainnet. The blockchain was unable to process transactions for several hours. This is the blockchain’s third outage this year. Link. 

- Fed Chair Jerome Powell said a US central bank digital currency will not be issued in the near future. He clarified that any CBDC issued would need to be intermediated, privacy-protected, KYC’d, and interoperable. Powell also called out “significant structural issues” in DeFi, including “conflicts of interest”. Link. Link.

- Apple will allow NFTs to be bought and sold on apps in its marketplace, but will charge its standard 30% commission on in-app purchases. Link.

- Uniswap Labs accounts for 64% of all DEX volumes and is raising up to $200 million at a $1 billion valuation. Its native UNI token has a fully diluted market cap of almost $5 billion. Link.

- Terralabs founder Do Kwon denied he was in hiding, after news broke that Interpol had issued a red notice for his arrest. Do Kwon and 5 others are wanted by South Korea for their involvement in Terraform Labs and its failed algorithmic UST stablecoin. Link. Link. 

- At least 23% of Ethereum blocks are complying with US sanctions due to the use of an MEV service called Flashbots. Flashbots censors Tornado Cash transactions in order to comply with US regulations. Link. Tweet. 

- Generative art project QQL, created by Tyler Hobbs and Dandelion Wist, sold 900 mint passes for almost $17 million. The mint passes allow NFT collectors to co-create their pieces using the QQL algorithm. Link. 

- QQL is the first major NFT project to blacklist holders from trading on marketplaces that do not enforce creator royalties. QQL’s smart contract blocked wallets from transacting on X2Y2 and SudoAMM. Link. 

- Instagram and Facebook users in the US can now showcase their NFTs on those platforms by connecting their Coinbase, Dapper Labs, MetaMask, or Rainbow wallets. Link. Blog Post. 

- South Korean authorities asked crypto exchanges OKX and KuCoin to freeze ~$60 million BTC suspected to belong to Terralabs founder Do Kwon. The funds moved to the exchanges soon after an arrest warrant was issued for Do Kwon. Do Kwon denied the wallet was his. Link. Link. Link.

- Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev’s appeal was rejected and he will stay in jail until November. Pertsev has not been charged and has been in custody for 7 weeks. Link. 

- FTX is buying the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital. Link. 

- Wells Fargo assigned Coinbase an underweight stock recommendation, due to increased competition and declining market share and retail fees. Link. 

- NFT collector seedphrase sold a rare Ape CryptoPunk for 3,300 ETH, roughly $4.4 million. There are only 24 Ape CryptoPunks. Link. CryptoPunk 2924. 

- Robinhood launched its self-custodied wallet to 10,000 iOS waitlist customers. Robinhood Wallet offers no-fee trading powered by 0x, but will only be available on Polygon to start. Link. Link. Link.

- Generative art platform Art Blocks is winding down its Curated Series. Art Blocks Curated is the 5th largest collection by volume, and includes some of the most expensive collections of all time including Fidenza by Tyler Hobbs. Link. 

- Christie’s collaborated with NFT studio Manifold to launch a new on-chain Ethereum NFT marketplace called Christie’s 3.0. Christie’s will curate the art available. Link. Site. 

- The IMF warned that the proof-of-stake method risks concentrating power with crypto exchanges and service providers. Link. Report (PDF). 

- Decrypt is bringing Web3 awards to Art Basel with the Crypties. Eric Calderon (aka Snowfro of Art Blocks) is set to receive the first Industry Achievement award. Link. 

- The SEC charged crypto startup Hydro with market manipulation around its 2018 ICO. The SEC alleges that Hydro hired marketmaker Moonwalkers to create artificial demand for its token, which it then sold at an inflated price. The SEC’s complaint also called out “airdrops” specifically as a distribution method. Link. SEC Press Release.

- Michael Patryn, co-founder of the defunct Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX who is also known as “Sifu” in DeFi circles, launched DeFi lending protocol UwU. UwU is a fork of Aave and has already secured $58 million of total value locked. Link. 

- Alex Mashinsky is resigning as CEO of the bankrupt crypto lender Celsius. Link. 

- Digital asset management platform Safe launched its governance token SAFE. Over 43,000 Safe users are able to claim their airdrop through Dec 27. Link. 

- TBD, the bitcoin-focused subsidiary of Square, is partnering with Circle to build infrastructure that would make cross-border remittance using USDC more accessible globally. Link. 

- NFT marketplace OpenSea is partnering with Warner Music Group to create individual drop pages for each artist on the platform. Link. 

- OpenSea is adding support for Layer 2 network Optimism. Link. 

- MPCH Labs raised a $40 million Series A round led by Liberty City Ventures. MPCH’s first product, Fraction, is a customizable operating platform that allows multiple users to securely manage digital assets, wallets and workflows. Link. 

- Exchanges have seen 3 weeks of stablecoin inflows, indicating that investors may be selectively increasing digital asset exposure. Link. 

- CFTC commissioner Caroline Pham has proposed a new 'Office of Retail Advocate', which would see the agency overseeing retail protections. Link. 

- Pantera is raising $1.25 billion for its second blockchain fund. Link. 

- Senators are introducing a bill that would provide a mechanism for crypto companies to report bad actors in an effort to mitigate losses from data breaches, ransomware, and other cyber incidents. Link. 

- FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was “potentially interested” in buying Twitter, according to recently revealed texts that were released amid Elon Musk’s court battle with the company. Link. 

- Blowfish raised $11.8 million in funding to help wallet providers and custodians offer users real-time warnings and human-readable transaction context. Link. 

- Chainlink will give crypto teams access to their oracle data in exchange for 3-5% of their token network. Link.

- DeFi protocol Olympus DAO, famous for the (3,3) tag its users touted on Twitter last year, cut its annual staking yield to 7.35% to take a more sustainable approach for emissions. Link. Tweet Thread. OIP-119.