Crypto Weekly 12/10/2023
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news...
Crypto weekly is co-authored by @serdave
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($42,376): +2% / +156%
- ETH ($2,252): +1% / +88%
- SOL ($71.43): +19% / +632%
- UNI ($6.26): +3% / +21%
- MATIC ($0.87): +9% / +16%
MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.7T): +14% / +105%
- BTC Dominance: 51%
- ETH Dominance: 17%
- Tether ($91B): +1% / +37%
- USDC ($25B): +1% / -45%
NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- The price of Bitcoin rose after a strong November’s jobs report bolstered hopes the Fed could curtail interest rate hikes. Link. Jobs Report.
- Alejandro Cao de Benós was arrested in Madrid for allegedly violating US sanctions in relation to a 2018 blockchain conference in North Korea. He faces up to 20 years in prison in the US. Link.
- Crypto advocate Patrick McHenry, chair of the US House Financial Services Committee, announced he would not seek re-election in 2024. Link.
- The SEC is delaying its decision on Grayscale’s application for an ethereum spot ETF until January 25, 2024. Link. Filing (PDF).
- Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon is expected to be extradited from Montenegro to the US to face fraud charges in connection with the $40 billion crash of TerraUSD (UST) and Luna in May 2022. Kwon is also facing charges in South Korea. Link.
- Terraform Labs asked a judge this week to let a jury decide if the UST and LUNA tokens are securities. The SEC is suing Terraform and its founder Do Kwon for offering unregistered securities. Link.
- Web3 developer platform Thirdweb disclosed a major security vulnerability in an open-source library which affects multiple NFT collections. Smart contract owners who used Thirdweb’s pre-built NFT contracts are advised to migrate to a new contract. Link. Tweet.
- Crypto was brought up twice in the Republican presidential debate this week. Vivek Ramaswamy answered a question on his overall approach to crypto regulation, and Ron DeSantis answered a question about his stance on CBDCs. Link. Question 1. CBDC Remark.
- JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said the US government should shut crypto down at a recent Senate hearing, despite JPMorgan’s JPM coin doing $1 billion in daily transaction volume. Dimon has long differentiated between his interest in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies more broadly. Link.
- Sotheby’s is holding its first-ever auction for Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs. Link. Tweet. Auction.
- Jack Dorsey’s fintech company Block unveiled Bitkey, its self-custody bitcoin wallet, which consists of a hardware wallet and mobile app. Link. Link. Press Release.
- Two crypto provisions addressing anti money-laundering, privacy and mixers were dropped from the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, a military-funding bill viewed as must-pass legislation. The provisions were introduced in the Senate version of the bill. Link.
- El Salvador’s bitcoin portfolio is break-even for the first time since September 2021, when it made BTC legal tender and began buying the asset. Link.
- Tether, the company behind USDT the world’s largest stablecoin, froze 161 new Ethereum wallets in response to new OFAC sanctions. Link. Link.
- Crypto news outlet Decrypt is merging with Web3 media company Rug Radio. Link.
- Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao officially pleaded guilty to money laundering charges as a result of a yearslong investigation by the US Department of Justice. Zhao will be unable to return home to the UAE prior to sentencing in February. Link. Link.
- Crypto startup Helium is launching Helium Mobile, a nationwide unlimited data, text and talk plan that costs $20 / month. Helium Mobile is powered using Helium’s peer-to-peer IoT network. Link. Blog Post.
- Starknet, an Ethereum Layer-2 that leverages zero knowledge rollups, announced plans to airdrop 1.8 billion STRK tokens to early adopters of the network. Link. Tweet.
- Cross-chain infrastructure provider LayerZero Labs announced it is launching a token in the first half of 2024. LayerZero powers cross-chain messaging for apps like Uniswap and PancakeSwap. Link. Tweet.
- Chainlink, the biggest blockchain oracle provider, saw its v2 community staking pool reach max capacity of 45 million LINK (~$625 million) within 6 hours of launching. Link.
- Jito, the liquid staking protocol on Solana, released its governance token and saw $1.1 billion of trading volume in its first day. Link.
- The cryptocurrency industry collectively spent $19 million on federal lobbying through Q3, an all-time high and up from $16 million the year prior. Coinbase is the largest spender at just over $2 million. Link.
- Robinhood launched a crypto trading platform in the EU this week. The fintech company reported a 75% month-over-month increase in crypto trading volume in November. Link. Link.
- NFT project Pudgy Penguins is partnering with Ethereum Layer-2 ZKSync to build a Web3 game called “Pudgy World”, which will launch in alpha early next year. Link. Trailer.
- Binance withdrew its license to operate a collective investment fund in Abu Dhabi, though it said it’s decision was unrelated to the legal actions it was facing in the US. Link.
- Uphold is launching a self-custody wallet with recovery features called Vault. Vault will initially support XRP, with goals of adding Bitcoin support in early 2024. Link.