Issue #34

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.20T, flat (-%) from last week.

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

News Headline Highlights

• Nasdaq announced Q2 2023 would be when they launch their Bitcoin (and other crypto) custody services. Senior Vice President and Head of Nasdaq Digital Assets, Ira Auerbach, commented that Nasdaq “is pushing ahead to get all the necessary technical infrastructure and regulatory approvals in place.”
• Screenshots revealed by Microsoft last week show an ‘internal beta test’ of a native cryptocurrency wallet built into the Edge browser. Native installation of the wallet would mean that it is a standard feature and users would not need to download or install additional software.
• Telegram activated the ability for users to send each other Tether’s stablecoin (USDT). Telegram will leverage the Tron blockchain to permit customers to send/receive USDT through the app’s wallet function.
• Do Kwon, who presided over the $40B collapse of Terra last year, has been arrested in Montenegro, where he was charged with fraud by US prosecutors. He also faces an arrest warrant in South Korea on securities-law violations.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• ZkSync Era launched its public mainnet during the week. Era is a zero-knowledge rollup compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — Ethereum’s core smart contract engine. The launch is a major milestone for Ethereum scaling, marking the first public launch of an EVM-compatible rollup secured by zero-knowledge proofs.
• Uniswap, the most prolific decentralised exchange (DEX) in crypto, successfully deployed on BNB Chain, the second smart contracts platform by market capitalization.
• After stealing 96,000 ETH two weeks ago, the Euler Finance exploiter returned 58,737 ETH to the DeFi lending protocol. 
• Radiant Capital successfully launched v2 of its protocol, ushering in a new token economic design intended to better align users and long term protocol growth.

Regulation Station

• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a Wells Notice to Coinbase in relation to their exchange, its staking service and the Coinbase Ethereum Wallet. The Wells Notice is the SEC’s means of notifying the company of an ongoing investigation into a business and adds to a continuing string of regulatory warning shots fired at crypto firms in the U.S. 
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, with fraud. Also entwined in the lawsuit are eight celebrities including Lindsay Lohan and rapper Soulja Boy who are accused of illegally promoting Sun’s assets.
• House Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Congressman Darren Soto (D-FL) introduced a bipartisan bill, “The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act”. The bill’s core message is that companies which do not hold customer assets should not be considered money transmitters. 
• The White House’s newly released Economic Report of the President included sections on digital assets for the first time since its first issue in 1950. The report included 35 pages dedicated to digital assets, where it was highly negative, commenting that crypto has failed to deliver on touted benefits such as the improvement of payment systems and financial inclusion.
• Several prominent Republicans, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, have rebelled against the idea of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), a central bank issued dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, that would be issued by the Federal Reserve. DeSantis went as far as proposing an outright ban on CBDCs in his state.

The Weekly Deal Room

• CCP Games, a video-game developer, raised $40m in a funding round led by a16z to  expand its research-and-development team to create a blockchain-based massively multiplayer online (MMO) game title set within the universe of Eve Online.
• OP3N, a web3 AI powered platform, raised a $28m Series A at a $100m valuation from Animoca, Dragonfly, Republic Crypto, Galaxy and others.
• Radix, a full-stack DeFi smart contract platform, raised $10m in a Private Funding Round from DWF Labs.
• Turnkey, a crypto custody startup, raised $7.5m in a Seed Round led by Sequoia Capital.
• Hadean, a metaverse startup, raised $5m in a Series A+ to build out its immersive infrastructure.
• Aspecta, a web3 digital identity protocol, raised $3.5m in a Seed Round from Zhenfund, Hashkey Capital, Foresight Ventures and others.
• Carbonable, which helps companies to invest in carbon capture on the blockchain, raised $1.2m in a Seed Round led by Ethereal Ventures.

Metric of the Week

Bitcoin’s hash rate has consistently been increasing since the start of the year. The 7 day average recently peaked at ~340 exa-hashes per second, with the daily average reaching as high as 400 exa-hashes per second.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine Pro and Glassnode