PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($10,672): 0% / +48%
- ETH ($352): 0% / +169%
- XRP ($0.25): +3% / +29%
- YFI ($18,925): -36% / +2,197%*
- Crypto Market Cap ($342B): -1% / +78%
- BTC Dominance: 57%
* YTD returns from launch date of 7/20/20
STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Tether ($15.6B): +1% / +277%
- USDC ($2.6B): +4% / +404%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- The CFTC filed money-laundering and other civil charges against crypto exchange BitMEX for illegally operating in the US. BitMEX handles more than $1.5 billion of trades each day, making it one of the five biggest exchanges on most days. Prosecutors said BitMEX was used by hackers to launder stolen money, and by people in countries under sanctions like Iran. The US Attorney of New York also filed criminal charges against BitMEX owners for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. Crypto prices fell on the news over uncertainty surrounding the $2 billion in BTC held by the exchange. BitMEX continues to process withdrawals in order to calm investor fees. Link.
- Ethereum's transaction volume grew to $120 billion in Q3 2020, a 1,200% increase compared to Q2. DeFi accounted for 99% of that volume. Link.
- NBA Top Shot, the officially licensed crypto collectibles platform from Dapper Labs, has opened its beta to the public. Top Shot allows users to collect basketball highlights of varying scarcity that can be traded and sold. Top Shot has had 17,000 closed beta users who have purchased nearly 43,000 packs so far, driving more than $2 million in revenue. Roughly 10,500 highlights have been traded through the platform's marketplace. Link.
- Dfinity, which raised $102 million from Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain Capital for a decentralized 'internet computer' to rival AWS, unveiled its governance system and token economics. The company is now valued at a notional $9.5 billion, making it a top 5 cryptocurrency. The protocol will launch publicly later this year. Link.
- Coinbase has added support for instant withdrawals in nearly 40 countries, including the US, the UK, and many in Europe. Currently withdrawals can take several days. Link.
- Crypto trading app Abra is reportedly still under investigation by the SEC, after being fined $300,000 in July for providing trading on synthetic assets. Link.
- IRS has selected Chainalysis and Integra to help it trace certain crypto transactions that aim to be anonymous, such as with privacy coins. The contracts are worth $625,000 each, and include an upfront payment of $500,000 to produce a proof of concept and a working prototype within 8 months. Link.
- Distributed file hosting protocol Filecoin has finally set a launch date for its mainnet, October 15. Filecoin raised $205 million in its ICO 3 years ago and has been plagued by delays. Link.
- EY has launched a new tool for investigating on-chain data including BTC transactions. The beta version is available for free for individuals, and will allow people to search on-chain data fro specific transactions, addresses and blocks. Link.
- The SEC announced that SALT Blockchain, the company behind crypto-backed loan service SALT Lending, must refund customers who purchased its SALT tokens during its $47 million ICO in 2017. The SEC said the token sale wan illegal offering of unregistered securities. Link.
- Crypto fund manager Grayscale Investments has roughly $4.9 billion of BTC under management. The investment group controls roughly 2.4% of total coin supply (450k total coins). Link.
- With only 21 million BTC to be issued there are less than 2.5 million BTC available for mining over the next 4 years. Link.
- Crypto exchange Bitpanda has closed a $52 million Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures. Bitpanda claims 1.3 million users and allows for trading of digital assets and tokenizing assets like precious metals. Link.