Crypto Weekly 9/17/2023
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news...
Crypto weekly is co-authored by @serdave
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($26,472): +3% / +60%
- ETH ($1,619): 0% / +35%
- SOL ($18.80): +4% / +93%
- UNI ($4.27): +2% / -17%
- MATIC ($0.52): -1% / -31%
MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Crypto Market Cap ($1.06T): +2% / +31%
- BTC Dominance: 49%
- ETH Dominance: 19%
- Tether ($83B): 0% / +25%
- USDC ($26B): 0% / -41%
NFT 3M TRADING VOLUMES
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- The price of BTC and ETH hit 3 and 6 month lows respectively this week. Link.
- Failed crypto exchange FTX received regulatory to liquidate $3.4 billion of cryptocurrencies to repay customers and creditors. Assets to be liquidated include $1.16 billion SOL, $560 million BTC, and $192 million ETH. FTX plans to sell up to $100 million in cryptocurrency per week. Link. Link. Link.
- Coinbase is adding support for the Lightning Network, a layer 2 built on the Bitcoin blockchain that allows for faster and cheaper transactions. Link. Tweet.
- Coinbase’s Base blockchain saw daily transactions hit an all-time high, eclipsing other Layer-2 blockchains Arbitrum and Optimism combined. More than a third of Base’s transactions come from Friend.tech. Link.
- The CEO, Chief Legal Officer, and Chief Risk Officer of Binance.US all resigned this week. The exchange also let go of a third of its employees. Binance.US is currently being investigated for securities law violations by the SEC, the CFTC and the DOJ. Link. Link. Link.
- The SEC asked a judge to compel Binance.US to produce documents and communications related to its investigation of the exchange for securities laws violations. In its filing, the SEC says that the 220 documents it received did not provide enough information on how the exchange custodies and accounts for customer deposits. Link. Filing (PDF).
- The CFTC director of enforcement said in a speech that unregulated DeFi exchanges are an “obvious threat” to regulated markets. Link. Speech.
- Over half of Nouns NFT holders voted to leave the project and withdrew their share of the DAO treasury, valued at over $27 million in ETH. Link.
- Ethereum developers launched a new test network called Holesky that offers significantly more robust testing capabilities than existing testnets. Link.
- Paypal is adding a fiat off-ramp to its crypto offering, meaning users can convert crypto to USD directly from their wallets into their PayPal account. Link. Blog Post.
- Since September 2020, over $2 billion of digital assets has been wash traded through decentralized exchanges. Link. Link.
- Swift announced that three central banks, including Hong Kong and Kazakhstan, are beta testing its CBDC interoperability solution. Link. Press Release.
- Popular chat app Telegram announced a new self-custodial wallet called TON Space, which will be available to its 800 million monthly active users in November. Link.
- Lazarus Group, the North Korean hacker organization, was behind a $54 million exploit of crypto exchange CoinEx earlier this week. Link. Link.
- OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined $300 million for his role in the promoting the fraudulent cryptocurrency. OneCoin’s other co-founder, “Crypto Queen” Ruja Ignatova, remains at large and is on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. More than 3.5 million people lost more than $4 billion dollars in the OneCoin pyramid scheme. Link.
- Global investment firm Franklin Templeton filed a Bitcoin spot ETF application with the SEC. The firm holds over $1.4 trillion in assets under management. Link. Link.
- Google Cloud is operating an oracle on cross-chain messaging protocol LayerZero. Link.
- Stoner Cats, an NFT based web-series launched in 2021, was charged with conducting an unregistered securities offering and agreed to pay a $1 million fine. Two SEC commissioners wrote a dissenting opinion on the case. Link. Press Release. Dissent.
- A group including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Chainalysis researcher Jacob Illum published a paper proposing an OFAC-compliant alternative to Tornado Cash. Link. Link.
- Crypto brokerage firm Genesis announced they are no longer offering any trading services. Genesis’s lending division filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year. Link.
- Crypto exchange Gemini criticized a proposed bankruptcy recovery plan by Genesis and its parent company Digital Currency Group, claiming the deal significantly undervalues the actual assets owed. Link.
- Chair of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee Sherrod Brown sent a letter to the SEC, the CFTC and the Treasury Department urging them to use their powers to enhance transparency and root out bad actors in the crypto industry. Link. Letter.
- Joseph Bankman, father of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, reportedly played a much larger role in the exchange than previously thought. Link. Link.
- Grab and Circle are partnering to pilot a Web3 wallet within the Grab superapp in Singapore. Link.
- Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, the co-founders of bankrupt crypto hedge fund 3 Arrows Capital, are barred from opening a financial business in Singapore for nine years. Link. Link.
- Deutsche Bank is partnering with Taurus to provide trading and custody solutions to the bank’s clients. Link.
- Blockchain venture fund Electrical Capital announced it’s raising $300 million for its third fund. Link.
- Metamask announced a new product that allows developers of non-EVM chains like Solana and Cosmos to integrate its wallet into applications. Link.
- Friend.tech’s daily creator earnings exceeded Ethereum’s daily transaction fees this week. Link.