Issue #27

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.09T, down 1.7% from last week.

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

News Headline Highlights

• The Australian Government released a token mapping consultation paper as the first phase in their plans to design a crypto regulatory framework. The exercise strives to identify "the key activities and functions of products in the crypto ecosystem and mapping them against existing regulatory frameworks". Magnet Capital plans to provide a response to Treasury which we will make public available as well.
• Derivatives trading giant CME Group has reported record volumes and open interest for bitcoin options. Much of this can be attributed to Institutional trader preference to utilise the regulated marketplace as in preference of crypto venues in the wake of the FTX meltdown. Bitcoin options volumes on CME hit $1.1 billion at the end of January, with more than $736 million in open interest.
• Crypto ETPs have experienced significant January inflows, with US$210m added to these products through January.
• The European Investment Bank (EIB) priced its first ever £50 million digital bond using a combination of private and public blockchains operated and accessed via HSBC Orion – the bank’s tokenisation platform. The EIB has appointed BNP Paribas, HSBC and RBC Capital Markets as joint lead managers. 
• Bank of New York Mellon, the world’s largest custodian bank, has named Caroline Butler as CEO of Digital Assets, the first chief executive within the bank to focus solely on the crypto space.
• FTX debtors have requested that recipients of political donations return funds by the 28th of Feb. Debtors are reviewing $93m in political donations made between March 2020 and November 2022.
• During the company's fourth-quarter earnings call, trading giant Virtu Financial, reaffirmed their commitment to crypto markets. On the call, chief executive Doug Cifu noted Virtu continues "to view crypto as a long-term growth opportunity". 
• Silvergate faces a US fraud probe over FTX and Alameda relations. This off the back of US Department of Justice prosecutors probing into  the dealings of fallen crypto giants FTX and Alameda Research.
• Bitcoin Lightning payments company, Strike, has expanded their international money transfer services to the Philippines in an effort to capture some of the country’s $12B remittance market (one of the world’s largest).

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• MakerDAO, the platform that issues the DAI stablecoin, announced total revenue decreased 42% to $65m in 2022, citing the shrinking crypto lending market as the cause.
• Shapeshift, a free open source platform to trade, track, buy, and earn, announced their plans to integrate Thorchain Saver Vaults to allow customers to earn yield generated from trading activity on the Thorchain Protocol.
• Ethereum scaling solution developer Starkware, who operate the StarkEx scaling engine and StarkNet, announced plans to open source its entire tech stack to improve transparency for developers.

The Weekly Deal Room

• BlockJoy, a startup providing white label blockchain nodes as a service, raised a total of $12m in its Seed and Series A rounds.
• Sec3, a blockchain security firm that audits smart contracts, raised $10m in a Seed Round led by Multicoin Capital.
• Canadian crypto miner Pow.re raised $9.2m at $150m valuation in their Series A led by Haru Invest.
• Hypernative, a Web3 security startup, emerged from stealth after announcing they raised $9m in a Seed Round led by Boldstart Ventures and IBI Tech Fund.
• Addressable raised $7.5m from Viola Ventures, Fabric Ventures and others to help web3 marketers create more accurate campaigns by gathering data from social media accounts and wallets and matches the information based on similarity. 
• Fungify, an NFT financial service application offering instant NFT sales, NFT collateralised loans and an NFT index, raised $6m in a round led by CitizenX.
• Archimedes, a new DeFi lending and borrowing marketplace launching in February 2023, raised $4.9m in a Seed Round led by Hack VC.
• Rysk Finance, an on chain market maker for DeFi derivatives, raised $1.4m in a Pre-Seed Round led by Lemniscap.

Metric of the Week

Ethereum has burned ~13k ETH over the last month, representing the most accelerated rate of deflation since the merge from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake took place in Sept 2022. This recent activity has resulted in ETH supply reaching its lowest levels post merge.

Source: Ultrasound Money