Crypto Weekly 8/21/22

A weekly summary of the latest crypto news...

PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($21,518): -13% / -54%
- ETH ($1,623):   -18% / -56%
- XRP ($0.35):  -10% / -59%
- UNI ($7.23):  -20% / -58%
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.0T):  -13% / -54%
- BTC Dominance: 40%
- ETH Dominance: 19% 

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STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Tether ($68B): 0% / -14%
- USDC ($53B): -2% / +24%

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NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES

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THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- BTC and other cryptocurrencies erased three weeks of gains as investor concerns about inflation and interest rate hikes led to a sell off of riskier assets. The Nasdaq fell over 2% and the S&P 500 fell 1.2%. Link. Link.

- Last month's Federal Reserve minutes mentioned digital assets and stablecoin concerns: 
"Declining risk appetite has also led to sharp declines in the price of some digital assets. The staff noted that digital assets tended to be volatile. The staff also highlighted the financial stability considerations associated with rapid growth in stablecoins, including their vulnerability to runs and the opacity of many aspects of their operations."  Link. Minutes (PDF).

- Yuga Labs released the IP rights for the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections it bought earlier this year. Link. 

- Crypto exchange FTX generated more than $1 billion in 2021 revenue, up from $90 million the prior year. Link. 

- Dapper Labs opened NFL All Day, its football version of NBA Top Shot, to the public. Link. 

- Over 2 million ENS (.eth) names have been created. Link. 

- Tribe DAO has submitted a proposal to wind down and distribute assets to token holders. The DAO has been struggling since April, when stablecoin issuer Fei Labs overturned a DAO vote to use its reserves to reimburse victims of an $80 million hack of Rari's pools. Fei and Rari merged in late 2021 to form Tribe, in what is the largest DeFi merger of all time. Link. Proposal. Frax Tweet Thread.

- OpenSea will now require a police report to be submitted within seven days of flagging an NFT as stolen. If a report isn't filed in time, OpenSea will unblock the asset and it will be freely tradable on the platform. Previously OpenSea would keep assets blocked while it investigated each case. Link. 

- Stablecoin issuer Tether reduced its commercial paper holdings by 58% in Q2 and expects to have no exposure by year-end. As of 6/30 it still held $8.5B of commercial paper in its reserves, but almost all those loans are maturing in under 90 days. Link. Audit Report (PDF). 

- Layer 2 solution Optimism crashed 10% just minutes after false rumors spread that it had been hacked for $450 million. Link.  

- Multi-sig provider Gnosis Safe is airdropping 5% of its SAFE token to 21,935 Safe users. The project secures $38 billion worth of assets and recently raised a $100 million strategic round. Link. 

- New Fed guidelines give crypto banks a path to tapping into the central banking system, eliminating the need for intermediary banks. Link. Link. 

- ApeCoin DAO now has 3 proposals for a white labeled NFT marketplace. Rarible submitted a proposal this week, following submissions from Magic Eden and Snag Solutions last week. Link. 

- A gold Bored Ape NFT sold for 777 ETH ($1.5 million). Link.  

- $210 million of bitcoin long positions were liquidated as prices fell, the biggest liquidation event since the 3AC collapse. Link. 

- The three largest US publicly traded bitcoin mining companies lost more than $1 billion in Q2 as crypto prices crashed. Link. 

- Digital Currency Group is registering to lobby for the first time. Link. 

- JPMorgan estimates that Coinbase would generate $650 million in staking revenue annually after the Merge, assuming ETH at $2,000 and a 5% yield. Coinbase has a 15% market share in ETH assets. Link. 

- 2 bills in the US Congress would set a mandate for the CFTC to be the agency that sets crypto regulations. It would have "exclusive jurisdiction" to regulate crypto trades that fall under commodities laws such as crypto spot markets, but it would not have oversight over anything that may be considered a security. Link. 

- Crypto custodian BitGo plans to sue Galaxy Digital for $100m in damages for calling off their $1.2 billion merger agreement. Link. Link. 

- The ETH POW campaign seems to have lost momentum. ETH miners had been threatening to hard fork Ethereum after the Merge. Link. 

- $5.3 million worth of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs are at risk of being liquidated on BendDAO, a p2p lending service that lets users borrow ETH against their NFTs. BenDAO lets users take out loans equal to 30-40% of an NFT collection's floor price. 45 of the 272 BAYC that have loans out are at risk of being liquidated. Link. 

- Crypto exchange Gemini is launching staking services starting with Polygon, with Ethereum coming in the next few months. Crypto firms are adding staking offerings ahead of Ethereum's much anticipated Merge, which will shift the protocol to proof-of-stake. Link. Link. 

- Mercado Libre, LatAm's largest ecom company by market cap, is rolling out Mercado Coin to 80 million users in Brazil. The ERC20 token can be used for purchases and will cash back rewards. Link. 

- Fractional, a protocol that powers fractional ownership of NFTs, is rebranding to Tessera. It also announced a $20 million investment round led by Paradigm. Link. Link. 

- The FDIC issued a cease-and-desist order to FTX US, alleging they mislead customers by suggesting their accounts are FDIC insured. FTX US's partner banks are FDIC insurance, but FTX US isn't insured itself. FDIC does not insure brokerage accounts or cover stocks and cryptocurrencies. Link. Link. 

- Crypto broker Genesis is parting ways with its CEO Michael Moro and cutting staff by 20%, following a $1.2 billion loss tied to failed crypto hedge fund 3AC. Link. Link. 

- Whistleblowers have accused the FDIC of improperly pushing banks to avoid working with crypto companies. In one case FDIC officials allegedly directed a bank to 'downgrade' the classification of a loan made to a crypto company. Link. Link. 

- Chainalysis's mid-year report shows that fewer people are falling for crypto scams, but stolen funds and hacks are on the rise. Link. Link. 

- The IRS is getting information from crypto prime broker SFOX on US taxpayers who traded over $20k of crypto between 2016 and 2021. Link. Link. Press Release.

- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong suggested that Coinbase would shut down its Ethereum staking business in the hypothetical scenario where the US government asked validators to comply with sanctions and censor wallet addresses at the protocol level. Link. Tweet. 

- 40 of the largest companies by market cap invested $6 billion in blockchain companies between Q4-21 and Q2-22. Samsung was the most active, having invested in 13 companies. Link. 

- GitPOAP, a project that issues POAPs to Github contributors, raised $4 million in seed funding. Link. 

- Rocketplace raised $9 million in seed funding to build a crypto asset management platform. Link.