PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($20,570):  +6% / -56%
- ETH ($1,590):  +19% / -57%
- XRP ($0.46):  -1% / -45%
- UNI ($6.90):  +12% / -60%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.0T): +9% / -54%
- BTC Dominance: 39%
- ETH Dominance: 19% 

STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Tether ($69B): +1% / -12%
- USDC ($44B): -1% / +3%

NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin cautioned that regulation too soon could alter the industry's ethos, specifically as it relates to censorship resistance and decentralization. Link. Tweets. Vitalik's tweets were likely in response to the back and forth exchange from Erik Vorhees and FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried on upcoming crypto legislation in the US. Link.
Maaria note: SBF and Erik joined Bankless podcast to discuss upcoming crypto regulations. I highly recommend you watch the conversation in its entirety. Link.

- Over 14 million ETH, worth more than $2 billion, are currently staked on the Ethereum blockchain. Increased demand for staking has led to a decline in yields to around 4-5%, well below the 9-12% initially forecasted. Link. Link.

- Apple introduced new Apple Store rules that limit the use of NFTs. Apps are banned from using QR codes or cryptocurrencies to give special access to users. It is also requiring users to buy and sell NFTs using its in-app payment system. Link. App Store update.

- 63% of all Ethereum transaction blocks are compliant with OFAC sanctions, driven largely by service providers like Flashbots who reorder blocks of transactions to maximize rewards. Link.

- Fidelity said that 58% of institutional investors were invested in digital assets in the first half of 2022, a 6% increase from the prior year. 74% of institutions said they were planning to buy digital assets in the future and 51% had a positive outlook on the asset class. Link. Press Release.

- Dogecoin rallied over 115% over the last week after Elon Musk took over Twitter. It overtook Cardano to become the 6th largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Short futures on DOGE saw almost $90 million in liquidations over the weekend. Link. Link. Link.

- Rishi Sunak, who shepherded the UKs crypto ambitions as finance minister, will become the country's next prime minister following Liz Truss' controversial exit from office. Link.

- 205,000 traders had $1.2 billion of shorts liquidated as the crypto market rallied over hopes of the Fed easing interest rate hikes. Over 70% of the liquidations came from FTX. Link. Link.

- Blockchain.com is reportedly raising capital at a $3-4 billion valuation. It had raised at a $14 billion valuation earlier this year. Link.

- Decentralized exchange Sushi voted to split its DAO governance and protocol administration across three new entities. A Cayman foundation will oversee the DAO treasury, a new Panamanian foundation will oversee the smart contract, and a Panamanian corporation will maintain the protocol's front-end. Link. Link. Forum Post.

- 65% of retail investors and 56% of professional investors surveyed indicated they viewed the recent spate of legal actions in crypto as a positive, and that they were more likely to invest in crypto as a result. Link.

- The SEC inspector general reported that the SEC's significant increase in rulemaking activity has limited the ability for staff to conduct research and analysis, increasing the likelihood of court challenges to the rules.  Attrition rates at the agency hit 6.4% in 2022, the highest in 10 years. Link. IG Report (PDF).

- SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce said the SEC has provided little clarity on NFTs, and suggested the agency should provide guidance for NFT projects to follow. Link.

- Senator Warren, Representative Ocasio-Cortez, and other legislators sent a letter to various federal financial regulators asking how they intend to prevent their staff from leaving to join crypto firms. Over 200 government officials left their positions to join the digital asset space in 2021, and this has led to a significant increase in crypto lobbying efforts on the hill. Link. Letter (PDF). Lobbying Report (PDF).

- a16z's 2018 flagship crypto fund shed 40% of its value in the first half of 2022. The $350 million fund was sitting on a 10.6x multiple at the end of 2021. Link.

- Google Cloud is launching a fully managed node-hosting service for web3 development called Blockchain Node Engine. Link. Link. Blog Post.

- LooksRare became the latest NFT marketplaces to make creator royalties optional, joining the likes of SudoSwap, X2Y2 and Magic Eden. Link. Link.

- Twitter's new Tweet Tiles feature will allow users to display NFTs directly within their tweets. Users will be able to buy and sell the NFTs by linking to marketplaces like Rarible, Magic Eden, Dapper Labs, and Jump Trade. Link. Link. Link. Tweet.

- Cash App users can now send and receive Bitcoin using the Lightning Network. Link.

- Binance confirmed it invested $500 million to support Elon Musk's recent acquisition of Twitter. Link. Link.

- Telegram will auction off usernames to its 700 million users on its TON blockchain. Link. Link.

- Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon is launching a new project, Friendship Bracelets, which is his first since the launch of the multi-million dollar collection called Chromie Squiggles. Eligible NFT holders will be able to claim two mints, with the goal being for holders to gift one of the mints. Link.

- Binance launched Binance Oracle, an oracle solution that aggregates off-chain, real world data. The BNB ecosystem will be the first blockchain to use Binance Oracle. Link.

- Filecoin launched a new data delivery network called Saturn, which will help retrieve content fro decentralized storage apps and make it cheaper to run Filecoin nodes and contribute storage to the network. Link. Tweet.

- A CFTC commissioner warned investors of "contagion risk" in crypto markets, and drew parallel themes to the 2008 financial crisis. Link. Transcript.

- FTX users affected by a phishing attack will be compensated up to $6 million. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said this was a "one-time thing" and would not become precedent for how the exchange deals with attacks outside of its control. Link. Link. Tweet.

- Gas limits and network congestion from a third-party relay led to mining issues on Lens Protocol, the decentralized social network that uses the Polygon network. Link.

- Singapore's central bank may soon require retail investors to take a test before trading cryptocurrencies. It would also ban investors from using credit card payments or borrowing funds to trade crypto. Link.

- Britain's parliament is pushing through a bill that would allow it to regulate all cryptoassets, when originally it was expected to just regulate stablecoins. Link.

- Loan originations at crypto firm Genesis fell to $8.4 billion in Q3, a 79% drop from the $40.4 billion originated last quarter. Link. Report (PDF).

- MakerDAO passed "Endgame", a new governance architecture that breaks up MakerDAO into smaller clusters called "MetaDAOs". MetaDAOs will function independently from one another and will operate their own governance structure. Link. Proposal.

- Blockchain.com launched a Visa debit card that allows its users to pay in crypto or fiat. The card will also award users 1% back in crypto. The card already has a waitlist of 50,000 users but will only be available to US residents initially. Support for other countries is expected in 2023.  Link.

- Matter Labs launched their EVM-compatible zkSync solution to Ethereum mainnet. The initial phase is only for stress testing and security purposes, but soon Matter Labs plans to open the alpha to developers who want to begin developing on the network. Link.

- THORChain, a cross-chain network for token swaps and bridging, halted its chain for over 20 hours after identifying a bug. The platform said it would release a post-mortem next week. Link.

- Pantera Capital's early-stage token fund is down 71% YTD as of September. The fund has still returned 372% since inception. Link.

- FTX said it could launch its own stablecoin via partnership. Link. Link.

- Digital asset management platform Bakkt will take a $1.3 -$1.4 billion impairment charge in Q3. Link.

- Robinhood adds support for Tezos (XTZ) and Aave (AAVE). Robinhood supports trading of 19 crypto tokens on its platform. Link. Announcement.

- Lawmakers in Costa Rica want to reduce taxes on bitcoin to virtually zero. Link.