Issue #37

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.32T, up (7.2%) from last week.

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

News Headline Highlights

• Twitter and eToro announced a partnership that will let Twitter app users trade stocks and cryptocurrencies. 
• London Clearing House (LCH), announced plans to begin clearing services for cash-settled bitcoin index futures and options contracts in a deal with crypto derivatives trading venue GFO-X. 
• T. Rowe Price, Wellington Management, WisdomTree and Cumerland have all joined the Avalanche ‘Spruce’ test net to participate in DeFi use cases including FX and interest rate swaps.
• Binance.US, the U.S. affiliate of the world’s largest crypto exchange, has struggled to find a bank for its customers’ cash after the failure of Signature Bank left it without a key banking partner.
• Hong Kong’s biggest virtual bank, ZA Bank, is pushing into transfers of crypto and fiat currencies and to provide account services for the city’s burgeoning digital asset sector.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• Ethereum's first major upgrade since the merge, Shapella, went off without any issue last week. The highly-anticipated upgrade enables users and validators to withdraw their staked ETH on the network.
• Decentralised finance (DeFi) exchange Uniswap launched a mobile wallet application to enable users to buy crypto on-the-go, offering what the protocol says is a competitive 2.55% fiat on-ramp fee. Users can also swap funds on popular Layer 2s, including Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism.
• Lending protocol Maple Finance plans to launch a new liquidity pool that invests in U.S. Treasury bonds. The pool will allow accredited investors and corporate treasuries outside of the U.S. to invest their stablecoin holdings in U.S. Treasury bonds and earn a yield. 
• Multi-chain lending protocol Hundred Finance disclosed Saturday that it lost ~$7 million after being hacked on the Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Optimism.

Regulation Station

• There is an ongoing tussle in the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as Chairman Gensler and Hester Peirce take opposing perspectives on regulation of decentralised finance. Gensler’s belief is that decentralised crypto trading platforms are “exchanges” and must comply with existing securities regulations, whereas Peirce commented that this perspective undermines First Amendment protections and “sends a message that we are uninterested in facilitating innovation and competition in the financial markets and instead seek to protect incumbents”.
• Hong Kong government officials have reiterated their commitment to growing the cryptocurrency industry under an ‘appropriate’ level of regulatory oversight.
• Bank of England (BoE) Governor, Andrew Bailey, commented that he believes stablecoins should be required to be regulated like commercial bank money. His comments centre around stablecoins lacking the assurances of more traditional forms of money, “At the Bank of England we have concluded that the public should expect assured value in digital money, and confidence in this is needed to underpin financial stability".
• Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are circulating a new draft bill to provide a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins in the U.S. 

The Weekly Deal Room

• Sei Labs, the company behind the Sei Layer 1 blockchain, raised $30m in a strategic round led by Jump Crypto.
• Information and AI training protocol RSS3 raised $10m via a private token sale to DWF Labs.
• Xclaim, an independent trading platform for crypto assets locked by bankruptcy, raised $7m in a Series A led by venture capitalist Josh Jones.
• CAT Labs, a  crypto crime fighting startup founded by a former DOJ special Agent (Lilita Infante), raised $4.3m in a Pre-Seed Round led by Castle Island Ventures, CMT Digital, Brevan Howard and RW3 Ventures.
• Fire, a fraud prevention startup, raised $3.5m in a round led by Atomic.
• Helio, a London-based Web3 payments platform, raised $3.3m in a Seed Round led by Peak and Lightspeed Faction.

Metric of the Week

Bitcoin’s price in Argentine Pesos is at an all time high. 

Bitcoin was designed to be a non-sovereign digital commodity (store of value) that can provide refuge from the fiat economy should one need. Not dissimilar to the investment principle of gold. Whilst the Australian dollar is far from going the way of the Argentine Peso, Bitcoin’s utility and desire in countries whose governments have mismanaged their currencies is extremely high. 

Source: Google