Crypto Weekly 4/24/23

A weekly summary of the latest crypto news...

This week's crypto weekly was co-authored by @serdave

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PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($27,392): -9% / +66%
- ETH ($1,836): -12% / +53%
- SOL ($21.12): -17% / +117%
- UNI ($5.33): -14% / +3%
- MATIC ($0.98):  -16% / +30%

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MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Crypto Market Cap ($1.2T): -9% / +45%
- BTC Dominance: 46%
- ETH Dominance: 19%
- Tether ($82B): +1% / +23%
- USDC ($31B): -3% / -31%

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NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES

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THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- SEC commissioner Gary Gensler defended the agency’s approach to crypto regulation before the House Financial Services Committee. Gensler asserted that securities laws were very clear, though he refused to answer whether Ethereum was a security or not. Link. Link. Link. ETH testimony.

- New York’s head banking regulator testified before Congress that the recent failure of Signature Bank was unrelated to crypto. Link. 

- Former President Donald Trump made $4.6 million in his second NFT collection priced at $99 each. Trump announced the collection by posting on Instagram for the first time in two years. Link. Link. Instagram. 

- The European Parliament passed new crypto legislation that creates a framework for introducing new coins to the EU. Though the legislation includes higher standards of disclosures for crypto assets, it also creates a unified approach to crypto asset regulation across all 27 member states in the EU, making it possible for firms approved in one country to operate in others with minimal additional paperwork. Enforcement is expected to begin in late 2024. Link.

- The SEC sued crypto exchange Bittrex for selling 6 unregistered securities including Algorand. A video of SEC commissioner Gary Gensler making positive statements about Algorand’s technology surfaced shortly after the filing. Link. Link. Tweet. 

- The Texas House of Representatives approved a bill that would require centralized crypto exchanges maintain audited reserves sufficient to meet customer withdrawals. The bill would also prohibit exchanges from commingling customer deposits with other assets. Link. Link. 

- Daily unique users across NFT marketplaces fell to 7,805, the lowest since July 2021. Link. Dune Dashboard. 

- Staked ETH levels dropped by $1.3 billion since the Shapella upgrade which enabled withdrawals with another $1 billion queued for withdrawal. Roughly 17.5 million ETH, worth around $31 billion, remains staked. Link. Nansen Dashboard. 

- BTC dropped below $28,000 after passing $30,000, as risk-on assets sold off ahead of a potential US Federal Reserve interest rate hike. Link. Link.

- Ethereum Name Service (ENS) users can now register and pay for .eth domains using fiat, an offering powered by MoonPay. Link.

- Coinbase plans to open a derivatives exchange in Bermuda, partially in response to the increasingly hostile regulatory environment in the US. Link. Link. Blog Post. 

- A Dutch court will allow Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev, who was arrested in August 2022 on allegations of facilitating money laundering, to return home pending trial. Pertsev had been arrested shortly after US authorities sanctioned Tornado Cash. Link.

- The SEC issued a bulletin recommending investment advisers and broker-dealers apply "heightened scrutiny" when recommending complex or risky products such as crypto assets. Link. Bulletin. 

- Starbucks sold 4,500 NFTs commemorating its original store for $100 each. The 5,000 piece collection didn’t sell out, though NFT transactions have fallen across the board. Link. 

- Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform backed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, launched its Android beta to waitlist users. Bluesky launched on iOS in March and currently has 25,000 users. Link. 

- Voyager reached an agreement with the U.S. federal government to proceed with its $1 billion sale to Binance.US. Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July 2022 after the collapse of 3AC. Now defunct crypto exchange FTX agreed to purchase Voyager’s distressed assets in September 2022, but filed for bankruptcy prior to the deal closing. Link. Tweet. 

- The sale of defunct crypto lender Celsius will take place next week, with both Coinbase and Gemini joining bidding for the assets. Link.

- Coinbase’s Ethereum layer 2 blockchain, Base, is currently live in testnet with plans for a mainnet launch sometime this year. Link.

- Mattel is using Rarible’s white label marketplace to support peer-to-peer trading on its digital collectibles platform. Link. 

- Helium, the decentralized wireless network powered by tokens, migrated to Solana and issued NFTs to represent each physical hotspot node running on its network. Over 991,000 Solana NFTs were minted. Link.

- Sotheby's will facilitate the sale of now-defunct hedge fund Three Arrows Capital’s NFT collection, which includes Fidenza #216, Ringers #879, and CryptoPunks #6649. The collection is estimated to be worth over $20 million, slightly under the estimated $21 million cost basis. Link. 

- The IRS plans to send four cybercrime-specialized agents to Australia, Singapore, Colombia, and Germany to combat the use of cryptocurrency, DeFi, and mixing services in international financial and tax crimes. Link.

- Crypto exchange Gemini appointed a new Asia-Pacific CEO who will open an office in India as part of the exchange’s strategy to expand to Asia. Link.

- French Bank Societe Generale's launched a euro-pegged stablecoin called EUR CoinVertible (EURCV) on Ethereum. Link.

- Rapper Soulja Boy was accused by pseudonymous internet sleuth ZachXBT of promoting over 80 token and NFT projects, many which turned out to be scams. Link. Tweet Thread. 

- A16z crypto announced Magi, a rollup client for Optimism based on Rust. Link. Blog Post. 

- Square Enix, the Japanese game publisher behind Final Fantasy, is partnering with PC gaming platform Elixir to launch Web3 video games. Link.

- Intel has discontinued its first-gen Blockscale 1000-series Bitcoin-mining ASICs. It did not announce any follow-up generations. Link.