Crypto Weekly 4/24/22
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news...
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($38,866): -4% / -18%
- ETH ($2,856): -6% / -23%
- XRP ($0.68): -12% / -19%
- UNI ($8.40): -12% / -51%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.8T): -4% / -19%
- BTC Dominance: 41%
- ETH Dominance: 19%
STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Tether ($83B): 0% / +6%
- USDC ($50B): 0% / +18%
NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Fed Chair Jerome Powell said it could raise interest rates by 50 basis points in May in order to combat inflation which has climbed to 8.5%, the highest rate in four decades. Link.
- Stripe will begin allowing merchants to pay users in the USDC stablecoin using Polygon. Twitter will pilot the program. This is Stripe's first big push into crypto since halting Bitcoin payments in January 2018 due to volatility and lack of efficiency. Link. Stripe is adding crypto payouts to Connect, its API-based payments platform. It also added features like cash-out abilities, KYC, and support for 135 crypto tokens. Link.
- Chainalysis estimates that crypto investors made $163 billion in realized gains in 2021. 93% came from bitcoin and ether. US investors made up 29% of the total amount. Link.
- Uniswap Labs has begun blocking crypto wallet addresses found to be engaged in illegal activity from its apps front-end. The company has partnered with TRM Labs for this initiative. Link.
- NFT project AkuDreams had a smart contract vulnerability that left the $34 million from its mint locked in its smart contract forever. AkuDreams had tried a new type of Dutch auction where NFT holders were refunded the difference between their bids and the sell out price. Link. The Akutars NFTs will be airdropped to buyers via a new, separate smart contract. Link.
- State lawmakers in New York want to make fraudulent rug pulls a crime in the state. Link.
- Coinbase launched its NFT marketplace, which will compete with Opensea. The marketplace includes social features like "liking" and commenting. Link. Link. My Coinbase NFT profile.
- US regulators said that Anchorage Digital Bank, the crypto finance and custodial platform, failed to put in place controls to prevent anti-money laundering and report suspicious activities. Link.
- Crypto lender Celsius told its customers its CEL token faces 'regulatory risk'. The company restricted its "Earn" program sign-up to accredited investors last week. Link.
- OFAC added North Korea-linked wallet addresses to its sanction list. The hackers who exploited Axie Infinity for $600 million have been able to launder money despite sanctions by sending assets to an intermediary address before sending the funds to Tornado Cash. Link.
- Terra's LUNA token rose 17% in 24 hours to $90. Terra's algorithmic stablecoin UST passed Binance USD (BUSD) to become the third-largest stablecoin by circulation. Link.
- MetaMask stopped working for most users this week due to a service outage on Infura, its Ethereum infrastructure provider. Infura's last major outage occurred in November and was so widespread some crypto exchanges were forced to temporarily pause ethereum withdrawals. Link.
- Crypto funds saw $97 million in net outflows last week, with $73 million coming from bitcoin-related funds. The outflows come as bitcoin has become more sensitive to interest rates. Link.
- ZRX, the native token behind 0x protocol, announced it will power Coinbase's NFT marketplace. The token rallied more than 47% and saw its trading volume increase by over 3,000% to $1.25 billion. Link. Link.
- Self-custodial wallet Metamask advised users to disable automatic iCloud backups of its wallet data to prevent hacks. The warning came after a Metamask user lost $655,000 worth of assets due to a compromised iCloud account. Link.
- Blockchain.com is reportedly looking to go public this year. Link.
- The Sandbox is reportedly looking to raise $400 million at a $4 billion valuation, less than six months after raising $93 million in a Series B led by Softbank. Link.
- Liquid staking protocol Lido allocates $6 million of its LDO tokens to the Protocol Guild, a funding tool designed to offer autonomous recruitment, retention and rewards for contributors to the core Ethereum protocol. Link.
- Tron is creating an algorithmic stablecoin called USDD. USDD will be pegged to Tron's blockchain, TRX. Link. Blog Post.
- a16z crypto is building out a dedicated research team led by faculty from Columbia and Stanford. The firm is looking to bridge the gap between academia and real-world applications. Link. Blog Post.
- LiquiFi, a Web3 startup in the most recent YC winter 2022 batch, raised $5 million in seed funding to build a suite of tools for crypto companies to manage their token issuances. Link.
- Talent agency UTA has signed on DeadFellaz, an NFT project comprised of 10,000 green-skinned zombies. Link.
- Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht waived any rights he had to the $3 billion bitcoin that was seized by the United States; this absolves Ulbricht of the $183 million debt he owes to the United States. Link.
- Retail interest in bitcoin has fallen to one year lows, but google trends indicate that retail interest new sectors like decentralized finance and layer 1 blockchains like Solana and Avalanche is growing. Link.
- Anthony Scaramucci's SkyBridge Capital raised $7 million to invest in bitcoin mining. Link.
- Crypto game developers raised $2.5 billion in Q1. Link.
- Crypto exchange Okcoin is launching a free NFT trading marketplace. Link.
- Security vulnerabilities in the NBA's 18,000 free NFT drop allowed users not on the whitelist to gain access to the mint. The NBA said it would increase the size of the collection to ensure everyone who was supposed to receive one will get one. Link.