Crypto Weekly 4/17/22
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news...
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($40,281): -7% / -15%
- ETH ($3,033): -8% / -19%
- XRP ($0.78): +1% / -8%
- UNI ($9.59): -7% / -44%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.9T): -7% / -15%
- BTC Dominance: 41%
- ETH Dominance: 20%
STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Tether ($82.7B): 0% / +6%
- USDC ($51B): -2% / +18%
NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES
- Meta, the parent company of Facebook, plans to take a 47.5% cut on virtual asset sales that occur in its VR metaverse, Horizon Worlds. The 47.5% figure includes a 30% hardware platform fee from Quest (similar to what Apple charges on its App store) on top of which Horizon Worlds will charge a 17.5% fee to creators. Link. FB Blog Post.
- Moonbirds sold out it's 10,000 NFT collection at a mint price of 2.5 ETH on Saturday morning generating $60 million in primary sales. Secondary trading volumes hit $200 million in under than 24 hours, earning the project an additional $10 million off its 5% royalty fee. Cryptoslam. Dune Dashboard.
- North Korean hacking collectives Lazarus and APT38 were behind the $625 million Axie Infinity hack in March. The FBI said the funds are generating revenue for Kim Jong Un's regime. Link.
- Uniswap is launching a widget that will allow any Web3 company to embed its functionality directly into their site, starting with OpenSea and Friends with Benefits. Uniswap is the largest decentralized exchange on Ethereum, making up 74% of trading volumes. Link.
- Crypto took a brief plunge this week with bitcoin and ethereum falling almost 15% in 24 hours. The sell-off occurred on news of the Fed raising rates in order to fight inflation. Link.
- The much-anticipated Ethereum 2.0 update is being delayed until the second half of 2022. Ethereum 2.0 will upgrade the protocol to the more environmentally friendly proof of stake consensus model. Link. Though the upgrade was delayed, Ethereum developers successfully tested the merge via a shadow fork. Another shadow fork test will occur on April 22. Link. 3.22 million Ether tokens, nearly $10 billion, are already being staked for Ethereum 2.0. Link.
- Coinbase is developing a three-part animated short series called "The Degen Trilogy" based on the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. NFT owners can submit to have their characters featured in the series. The first piece is expected to debut at NFT.NYC in June. Link.
- Crypto payments startup Circle is close to submitting an application to operate as a bank in the US. Circle is the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. Link.
- Ethereum researcher Virgil Griffith was sentenced to 63 months in jail for violating sanctions laws by teaching North Koreans about cryptocurrencies during a 2019 conference in the country. Link.
- A Bored Ape Yacht Club inspired burger joint called Bored & Hungry launched its popup location in Southern California. Customers are able to purchase food using Ethereum or ApeCoin. Link.
- MetaMask is adding support for the Gnosis Safe to its institutional wallet product. Gnosis offers multi-sig wallet signing, an important tool used by institutional investors. Link.
- Epic Games, the studio behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine, raised $2 million in funding to "build the metaverse". Sony and Lego Group's parent company each invested $1 billion at a $31.5 billion valuation. It's unclear whether Epic Games will use blockchain technology in its metaverse. Link.
- Crypto lender Celsius said it would stop paying interest on new deposits from the US. Competitors BlockFi and Nexo were recently fined for their interest products, which regulators claimed were unregistered securities. Link.
- Ava Labs, the company behind the Avalanche protocol, is raising $350 million at a $5.25 billion valuation. Avalanche is a Layer 1 competing with Ethereum and Solana, and has almost 250 active apps on the platform, mostly centered around DeFi and gaming. Link.
- Fiat on-ramp platform MoonPay raised $87 million from celebrities including Justin Bieber, Bruce Willis, Snoop Dogg, Gwenyth Paltrow, and the Weeknd among others. Link.
- Cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash is working with Chainalysis to block OFAC sanctioned crypto addresses from accessing its frontend. Link.
- Circle, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, raised $400 million in funding from BlackRock and Fidelity. Link. Link. BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink said the asset management firm is managing some of Circle's cash reserves, with the goal of becoming the primary manager over time. BlackRock said it was seeing increased interest in blockchain tech from its clients. Link.
- Coinbase suspended payments for its app in India, just four days after launching in the market. Link.
- Uniswap Labs is launching a venture arm to invest in Web3 projects. It will also actively participate in the governance systems of MakerDAO, Aave, Compound, and ENS. Link.
- Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon didn't plan to add crypto payment options to the platform, but that it could potentially sell NFTs in the future. Link.
- Avatar startup Genies raised $150 million at a $1 billion valuation from Silver Lake, just one month after ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger announced he was joining the board. Link.
- Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS) raised a $10.1 million Series A round to build an on-chain communication protocol. Link.
- China's banking association proposed new restrictions on NFTs including rules that they should not be traded using cryptocurrencies. China has already banned ICOs, crypto transactions and crypto mining. Link.
- Opera launched an iOS version of its crypto browser for iPhones and iPads, which includes a built-in non-custodial wallet offering. Link.
- A new Virginia bill would allow state-chartered banks to custody crypto for their clients. Link.
- Terraform Labs gifted 10 million LUNA (roughly $880 million) to Luna Foundation Guard for the purposes of acquiring additional collateral for Terra, its UST stablecoin. Terra's collateral includes a large treasury of cryptocurrencies including $1.7 billion worth of bitcoin and AVAX, the native token of the Avalanche blockchain. Link.
- The Dallas Cowboys signed a sponsorship deal with Blockchain.com to partner on a range of marketing initiatives and events. Blockchain.com users will also be able to access Cowboy-related content via its mobile app. Link.
- Sega is embarking on a five-year plan to create “Super Game,” a metaverse of interconnected network of AAA titles that could incorporate Web3 technologies. Link.
- AMC moviegoers can now pay for concessions and tickets with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu on AMC's mobile app. Link.
- On-demand delivery app Rappi is accepting crypto as a payment method in Mexico in a newly launched pilot program. Link.
- The Wikipedia community requested that the foundation should cease accepting donations in cryptocurrencies, following a three-month debate over the ethics of the technology. It received $130,000 in crypto donations in 2021, representing just 0.08% of revenue. Bitcoin made up most of the donations. Link.
- The NBA launched an NFT-centric Twitter feed called NBAxNFT and teased a larger Web3 offering around NFTs, gaming, metaverse. The NFTs will be released on Ethereum. This is separate from NBA TopShot, the NFT offering the NBA released with Dapper Labs on the Flow blockchain. Link.