Crypto Weekly 11/7/22
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news....
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($20,510): 0% / -56%
- ETH ($1,557): -2% / -58%
- XRP ($0.46): +1% / -45%
- UNI ($6.95): +1% / -60%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.0T): 0% / -53%
- BTC Dominance: 39%
- ETH Dominance: 19%
STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Tether ($69B): +1% / -11%
- USDC ($43B): -1% / +2%
NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Creators will soon be able to create and sell their own digital collectibles directly on Instagram using the Polygon blockchain. In-app purchases would be subject to app store fees. Users will also be able to connect their wallets to Instagram to show their NFTs. Link. Link. Blog Post.
- OpenSea is launching tools for new NFT collections to enforce on-chain royalties. It will decide a policy for existing collections in December after getting community feedback. Other NFT marketplaces like Magic Eden, Blur, and LooksRare have made royalties optional. Link. Link. NFT Statistics Tweet. OpenSea Tweet. Blog Post.
- Twitter has halted its plans to build a crypto wallet, as part of ongoing changes kick-started by new owner Elon Musk. Link. Link.
- Rising interest rates mean institutional investors can earn more purchasing US government bonds than they can holding stablecoins like USDC. USDC’s market cap grew 32% from 2021 year-end to $56 billion at its peak in June, but it has since returned to 2021 year-end levels. Link.
- The next major software upgrade for Ethereum (the Shanghai upgrade) will enable users to withdraw their tokens from staking. Ethereum’s move to proof-of-stake consensus currently only allows users to stake into the system, but not withdraw. Link.
- VC funding for crypto companies is annualizing at $10 billion a year, less than 1/3 the pace seen in 2021. Link.
- OpenSea launched new theft detection and prevention features, including the ability to automatically detect and block the sale of NFTs that may have been stolen. Link.
- NFT volumes fell 25% to $662 million in October, its lowest level in 2022, even though the number of monthly unique NFT traders increased 18% to 1.11 million. Volumes have been up so far in November though, driven largely by new activity in Art Gobblers ($54 million), Art Blocks ($8.7 million), and y00ts ($4.6 million). Link. Link. Cryptoslam.
- An experiment from the Fed NY shows that CBDCs could reduce FX transaction times from two-days to less than 10 seconds. Link. Fed Report (PDF).
- DeFi advocates want Congress to exclude DeFi from an upcoming crypto bill (DCCPA) that is supported by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. A leaked draft of the bill indicates that DeFi protocols could be regulated as broker-dealers. Link.
- Fidelity is launching a zero-commission crypto trading platform for its retail clients. Fidelity wants to hire 100 people for its digital assets unit by end of Q1, bringing the total for the division to 500. Link. Link.
- Coinbase reported $590 million of revenue and 8.5 million monthly transacting users. Net losses narrowed to $545 million from $1.1 billion in Q2, as the company cut expenses in anticipation of an extended crypto winter. COIN has declined 78% this year. Link. Link.
- South Korean prosecutors allege they have evidence that Terra Labs founder Do Kwon manipulated the price of the algorithmic stablecoin Terra and its sister token Luna. Do Kwon is currently subject of an Interpol red notice. Do Kwon took to Twitter to say he wasn’t in hiding. Link. Link. Tweet.
- Neon Labs is launching its “Ethereum virtual machine” for Solana in December, meaning Ethereum-based projects will be able to deploy on Solana without rewriting their smart contracts. Link.
- WalletConnect raised $12.5 million from investors including 1kx, Union Square Ventures, Shopify, and ConsenSys. WalletConnect plans to launch social features in Q1, including the ability for push notifications and wallet-to-wallet messaging for self-custodied wallets. Link.
- Crypto platform Zerion is launching an in-browser extension to compete with MetaMask. Link.
- 3,500 pre-production developer versions of the Solana phone will ship in early 2023. The phones will let developers test and build mobile dApps. Link.
- Hong Kong is reversing its proposal from last year to limit crypto trading to professional investors after it saw an outflow of talent to crypto-friendly hubs like Dubai and Singapore. Hong Kong is now proposing to allow retail investors to trade crypto, and it plans to issue NFTs and a CBDC. Link.
- An EU Commissioner said CBDCs may need to be globally regulated to deal with cross-border payments. Link.
- SOL surged 15% after Google Cloud tweeted it was running a validator node for the Solana network. Link.
- Fortefi, an MPC-secured wallet solution for institutions, emerged out of stealth. Link.
- Layer-2 gaming platform Immutable onboarded 50 games in Q3, and now has over 1,000 games building on its stack. Immutable said this was more than any other Layer 1 or Layer 2 blockchain in the world. Link.
- Cosmos released a white paper for Atom 2.0, an upgraded version of its blockchain infrastructure system. The new system has a lot of similarities to Ethereum, including a move to proof-of-stake consensus and using ATOM as the unifying token across the community similar to ETH. Link. Voting.
- Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade will also reduce the fees paid by “builders” like Flashbots. Builders use special blockchain software to help validators construct blocks and pay fees every time they transmit data even if their transactions aren’t successful. Eliminating these fees will only have a marginal impact on overall network gas fees and will be most impactful for traders using builders. Many insiders believe this was an oversight. Link. EIP-3651.
- Circle will place a portion of USDC reserves into a money market vehicle managed by BlackRock. Link. Blog Post.
- Dapper Labs, creator of NBA Top Shot and the Flow blockchain, is laying off 22% of its staff in anticipation of a continued crypto winter. Link. Blog Post.
- Helium Network is launching Helium Mobile and will provide SIM cards and free trials to customers using Solana Labs’ upcoming smartphone. Link. Link.
- Developers of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network fixed a critical bug that disrupted the ability for nodes on the network to sync with each other. Link.
- Double Down, the solo GP fund founded by crypto investor Magdalena “Mags” Kala, raised $30 million for its debut fund. The fund has already made 9 investments including Tally Labs and Cryptoys. Link.
- Web3 developer Tenderly launched a node product called Web3 Gateway. Web4 Gateway will help developers read, stream and analyze blockchain data across more than 20 networks. Link.
- Blockchain gaming company Mythical Games laid off 10% of its staff and 3 executives. Mythical’s flagship game, Blankos Block Party, launched in mid-September and has about 30,000 players and a few thousand DAUs. Link.
- Crypto hedge fund investor Protocol Ventures may be shutting down after losing more than 90% in 2022. Link.
- Warner Brothers is releasing a collection of NFT avatars in December called “Game of Thrones: Build Your Realm”. Link.
- SEC Chair Gary Gensler touted the agency’s enforcement actions against crypto firms and indicated that the agency was working to get intermediaries “up and registered”. Link.
- Solana NFTs saw trading volumes jump 170% in 24 hours, after the art reveal of the y00t NFTs, the successor to the popular DeGods project on Solana. Link.
- The IRS is building hundreds of soon-to-be-public cases involving crypto off-ramps, as well as individuals being paid in crypto and not reporting it as income. Link. Link.
- SuperRare is launching RarePass, a subscription-like pass that airdrops holders digital art from prominent artists on a monthly basis. 250 RarePass subscriptions will be sold via auction. Link.