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PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($50,619): +8% / +75%
- ETH ($4,071): +4% / +452%
- XRP ($0.92): +10% / +317%
- UNI ($19): +25% / +281%
- Crypto Market Cap ($2.4T): +9% / +212%
- BTC Dominance: 40%
- ETH Dominance: 20%
STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Tether ($78B): +2% / +273%
- USDC ($42B): +1% / +992%
NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
2021 was a banner year for crypto. Here’s 2021 by the numbers:
- Centralized crypto exchanges saw over $14 trillion in trading volumes, a 689% increase over 2020. Binance made up 67% of volumes. Link.
- Decentralized exchanges saw over $1 trillion in trading volumes, an 858% increase over 2020. Uniswap made up 75% of volumes. Link.
- Bitcoin miners made over $15 billion in revenue, a 206% increase over 2020. Link.
- Crypto companies raised over $25 billion in financing, a 719% increase over 2020. This is more funding than the space has received in every other year (previous high was $8 billion in 2018). 65 crypto companies became unicorns this year. Link.
- Institutional custodians raised over $3B. Link.
- # of Crypto M&A grew 130% from 2020 to over 197 acquisitions totaling over $6.1 billion. Link.
- Stablecoin supply grew 388% from 2020 to over $140 billion. Link.
- NFTs saw $22B in volumes, compared to just $100M in 2020. Link.
- 83% of millennial millionaires own crypto -- more than half have over 50% of their wealth in crypto and nearly 1/3 have over 75% of their wealth in crypto. Link.
- The floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs briefly rose above the floor price of CryptoPunks for the first time ever. Over the last few weeks, the NFT community has expressed concerns about the lack of IP rights for CryptoPunks holders. Link.
- Los Angeles arena Staples Center was renamed to Crypto.com Arena on Christmas. Link.
- OpenSea users were airdropped $SOS token on Christmas Eve based on the volume and number of transactions they did on the marketplace. $SOS was created by OpenDAO to reward OpenSea users spending on the platform and to establish a treasury for future victims of scams. The token rose more than 1,000% in just two days. Link to claim $SOS. Link.
- The top 0.01% BTC holders (roughly 10k wallets) control 27% of the circulating supply of BTC. Link.
- Uniswap v3 was deployed on Polygon. Users can now swap tokens using Polygon via Uniswap's official interface, saving on gas fees. Link.
- NFT gaming made up 22% of all NFT trading volume in Q3, accounting for over $2.3 billion in revenue. Daily active unique wallets increased 6,566% from the previous quarter. Link.
- Meta, formerly Facebook, wants compatibility with blockchain tech according to internal memos. Link. The company also paid $60 million to buy "Meta" trademarks from a South Dakota bank. Link.
- Execs and engineers at tech companies like Google and Apple are leaving their jobs for smaller crypto startups. Link.
- Bitcoin miners in China have continued operating despite China's crackdown. Experts estimate that as much as 20% of global mining remains in China, down from 2/3 earlier this year. Link.
- Crypto exchange BitMEX is launching an exchange token, $BMEX. BMEX will fee discounts, early access, and exclusive opportunities. Both new and existing users will be eligible to receive tokens. Link.
- Telegram CEO endorsed Toncoin, an independent blockchain that was created after Telegram was forced to shut down its own blockchain efforts because of regulatory scrutiny. Link.
- Blockchain infra provider Figment raised a $110 million Series C round, valuing the company at $1.4 billion. Figment takes a cut from staking revenue and currently sees $10 million in revenue each month. Link.
- Crypto.com and FTX both purchased Super Bowl Ads. The cost of an ad in this year's game is $6.5 million for 30 seconds. Link.
- Render Network raised $30 million in a round led by Multicoin Capital. The P2P network allows users to tap into remote rendering power for bringing 3D visuals to life for artwork, videos and games. The native $RNDR token allows users to purchase rendering power through other users' GPUs. Link.
- A crypto whale purchased $136 million of the Shiba Inu token, $SHIB, spiking the price of the asset 16% in one day. Link.
- A new cross-chain bridge connecting Ethereum with Dfinity's Internet Computer will allow ERC 20 tokens to exist on Dfinity's network. Dfinity is built on a forked version of ETH scaling solution StarkWare and enables contracts on both chains to communicate with each other. Link.
- Jack Dorsey tweeted that bitcoin would replace the US Dollar in response to a Cardi B tweet asking if crypto would replace the US dollar. Link.
- Stephen Curry is doing an NFT drop with Under Armour to celebrate his record as the NBA's all-time top three-point shooter. The collection will feature 2,974 FNTs that are digital replicas of the Under Armour "Curry Flow 9" sneakers Curry was wearing when he broke the record. The digital sneakers can be worn across various metaverse platforms including Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Gala Games. Link.
- Crypto exchange Kraken is developing an NFT marketplace where users can use their NFTs as collateral for loans. Link.
- Rapper and actor Ice-T is launching a 10k NFT collection in his own likeness on NFT marketplace Nftify. Link.
- The Polkadot network launched five parachains -- Acala, Astar, Clover, Moonbeam, and Parallel Finance. Link.
- SWIFT, the interbank settlement intermediary, plans to experiment with blockchain technology in Q1 2022. Link.
- Robinhood launched commission-free crypto gifting. Link.
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