Issue #7

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market $US994B, down 15% from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto and NFT assets. 

News Headline Highlights

• The White House released a first-ever comprehensive framework for the development of digital assets.
• Starbucks has partnered with Ethereum Layer 2 solution Polygon to build and launch their web3 experience “Starbucks Odyssey”. As part of the program, customers will be able to earn and purchase digital collectibles (in the form of NFTs).
• Charles Schwab, Citadel and Fidelity are collaborating to launch a crypto exchange called EDX with the purpose of providing investors with “safer, faster and more efficient cryptocurrency trading”. 
• Fidelity Investments is considering permitting their 34m customers to trade Bitcoin on the Fidelity brokerage platform.
• Huobi has announced they will be delisting privacy based tokens (Dash, Decred, Monero, ZCash amongst others) amid increased regulatory scrutiny of such assets.
• The US Blockchain Association has announced the formation of a political action committee to “educate policymakers, courts, law enforcement and the public about crypto networks, ledgers and the need for regulatory clarity”.
• CME Group, the world’s leading institutional derivatives marketplace, is launching Ethereum options contracts to “complement CME Group's Ether futures which have seen a 43% increase in average daily volume year over year”.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• Ethereum successfully upgraded to Proof of Stake. This significant change heralds a new era for Ethereum monetary policy (85% reduction in inflationary pressures) and environmental impact (99.95% decrease in energy consumption).
• Yuga Labs has hired Spencer Tucker (ex Scopely and GREE, where he worked as President of Games and Senior Vice President of Product) as Chief Gaming Officer. Tucker will lead development of Yuga’s ‘Otherside’ metaverse.
• The ApeCoin DAO, the organisation responsible for the oversight of the management of Yuga’s metaverse currency (APE), is voting on several proposals (AIP-87, AIP-93, AIP-98) to launch an APE-native marketplace.
• Compound Treasury, an institutional DeFi yield platform backed by the Compound Finance protocol, is now offering over-collateralized crypto-backed loans to accredited institutional clients.

The Weekly Deal Room

• Anthony Scaramucci's Skybridge Capital has sold 30% of their equity to FTX Ventures at an undisclosed value. As part of the deal, FTX has the option to acquire up to 85% of Skybridge over the next three years.
• Doodles, the 10th most valuable NFT project by market cap, has raised $54 million at a $704m valuation. The funds will be used to grow the team and fund new experiences, technology development and acquisitions.
• Blockchain infrastructure business Ownera raised $20 million from JPMorgan, LRC Group and others.
• Goldsky, a data infrastructure company for crypto startups, has raised $20 million in seed funding led by Felicis and Dragonfly Capital.
• Token management platform Magna raised $15m in a seed round led by Tiger Global and Tusk Venture Partners.
• Arpeggi Labs, a startup that allows musicians to create and publish sounds, and get paid every time they are used by others, raised $5.1 million in a seed round led by a16z crypto.

Metric of the Week

Since the Ethereum merge on Thursday last week, the supply of ETH has increased ~2.5k, relative to an estimated 47.5k ETH that would have been added to supply under Proof of Work. This represents a reduction in the annualised rate of inflation from 3.8% to 0.2% since the merge.

Source: https://ultrasound.money/