Issue #43

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.21T, up (3.9%) from last week.

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

News Headline Highlights

• Beijing has released a white paper for web3 innovation and development, dubbed the "Web3 Innovation and Development White Paper (2023)". The purpose of the whitepaper is to strengthen policy support and accelerate technological breakthroughs to promote the web3 industry in mainland China. This comes approximately 6 months after Hong Kong already started promoting their welcoming of web3.
• DRW, SocGen and an undisclosed Tier 1 bank have executed an intraday repo transaction on Broadridge’s blockchain platform, aptly named Distributed Ledger Rept (DLR).
• TP ICAP Group, a world-leading provider of market infrastructure, launched Fusion Digital Assets, its marketplace for spot cryptoassets. At launch they successfully completed their first Bitcoin USD trade with the associated settlement processed by Fidelity Digital Assets.
• Grayscale, the manager of the world’s largest cryptocurrency fund, has filed to launch a US-listed ETF that would partly invest in so-called “spot” bitcoin exchange traded products already up and running in other countries. Having found trouble launching an ETF that invests directly in Bitcoin, Grayscale hope this indirect means of accessing spot Bitcoin may circumvent the restrictions imposed by the US Securities and Exchange commission.
• Strike, a payments platform built on Bitcoin's Lightning Network, has added support for Tether's USDT, the world's largest stablecoin. The development means USDT on-ramps, off-ramps and settlements are now possible within the Strike app.
• Hackers stole around $400m from crypto projects during 40 attacks in the Q1 2023, down 70% from Q1 2022, blockchain intel firm TRM Labs said in a new report. Hackers also increasingly returned stolen funds, settling for a “white hat” reward from the exploited projects.
• After criticism from the crypto community, Ledger pledged to open-source their Ledger Recover code before releasing the controversial update. As reported last week, the upgrade raised community concerns that Ledger might be able to extract a private key from their devices with firmware updates.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• Over 4.4 million ether (ETH) have been deposited into the Ethereum staking contract, to earn passive yield, since the Shapella upgrade on April 12. This brings the total ETH staked to over 22.5m (of 120m total ETH).
• Multichain, a cross-chain protocol, experienced long delays in transferring user funds following a backend upgrade which took “longer than expected.” MULTI, the protocol's native token, has dropped over 40% this week as a result.

Regulation Station

• Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission, in one of Asia’s biggest international financial centres, just formally approved retail trading of crypto assets on the 23rd of May. Retail investors will be able to buy and sell bigger tokens like Bitcoin and Ether from the 1st of June when the new licensing regime for virtual-asset platforms begins.
• Iosco, the umbrella group for global markets regulators, published guidelines for global regulators calling for faster and bolder standards on crypto markets in the wake of a string of industry blow-ups, notably crypto exchange FTX. 
• European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) published a paper outlining potential policy options for crypto-assets and decentralised finance (DeFi). 
• Japan is set to implement stricter crypto anti-money laundering measures, including the so-called "travel rule" of the Financial Action Task Force, (FATF) from June 1, 2023.
• Presidential Candidate and current Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, made remarks on his Bitcoin views during the Twitter space in which he officially announced his bid for Presidency: “The only reason bureaucrats in DC don't like Bitcoin is that they can't control it. As President we'll protect your right to use Bitcoin".

The Weekly Deal Room

• Tools for Humanity, the team behind Worldcoin, raised $115m in a Series C led by Blockchain Capital.
• Dispersion Capital, a web3 infrastructure fund, raised $40m for their debut fund.
• LabDAO, a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) focused on open-source drug discovery, raised $3.6m in a funding round co-led by Inflection.xyz and Village Global.
• Sort, a web3 development platform, raised $3.5m in a Seed Round co-led by Lemniscap and The General Partnership.
• Orbofi AI, a leading generative AI engine for web3, games, apps, media, and online communities, raised $2.8m in a funding round from Cogitent Ventures, OIG Capital and others
• FastLane Labs, a maximal extractable value (MEV) protocol for Polygon, raised $2.3m in a Seed Round led by Multicoin Capital.
• Num Finance, a decentralised finance protocol seeking to offer stablecoin services in Brazil, raised $1.5m in a funding round from Reserve, Scouter Fund and others.