Issue #46

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.10T, up (1.2%) from last week.

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

News Headline Highlights

• BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager with more than $10 trillion in AUM, has filed for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust will use Coinbase Custody as its custodian. 

• Bank of China’s investment bank subsidiary BOCI announced the issuance of 200 million Chinese yuan (AU$41 million) worth of digital structured notes minted on Ethereum. The move makes BOCI the first Chinese financial institution to issue a tokenized security in Hong Kong.
• The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), which serves as the region’s central bank and regulator, has reportedly put pressure on major banks, including HSBC and Standard Chartered, to accept crypto exchanges as clients.
• Federal Judge Amy Jackson, who is overseeing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) case against Binance and Binance.US declined to order a temporary restraining order freezing the U.S. trading platform's assets. Rather, Judge Jackson has ordered the two entities to work toward a compromise.
  
  • On Sunday, Binance.US announced a court-ordered agreement with the SEC, which permits them to continue ordinary business operations.
• Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley VC, announced plans to open its first international office in London, citing the welcoming climate for crypto companies created by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government and local regulators as conducive to the decision.
• The Italian Banking Association (ABI), has 18 members participating in a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) trial with the Bank of Italy, Project Leonidas.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• Ethereum scaling solution Polygon (MATIC) announced the upcoming launch of Polygon 2.0, which addresses “topics like the future of the Polygon PoS chain, the utility and evolution of the Polygon token, and the transition to greater community governance of the protocol and treasury”. 
• Uniswap Labs, the entity behind the largest decentralised crypto exchange by volume, released draft code for Uniswap V4. The new code features “hooks” or plugins that allow developers to create custom liquidity pools. 
• Tether (USDT) experienced a short lived de-peg late last week when historical financials were released to Coindesk, obtained under a Freedom of Information Law request from the New York Attorney General’s (NYAG) suit against Tether in 2021. The documents showed Tether kept funds in four banks, two investment management firms, two gold depositories, a gold broker and Bitfinex in March 2021. It also had funds in commercial paper and other securities issued by various entities, including the Qatar National Bank, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, Emirates NBD Bank and Natwest Group.
• Generative artist Dmitri Cherniak's Ringers #879 (NFT), often referred to as “the Goose”, sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $5.4 million and a full price of $6.2 million inclusive of Sotheby's buyer's premium.

Regulation Station

• House Republicans Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), introduced the SEC Stabilization Act that would restructure the SEC and remove Chairman Gary Gensler. GOP lawmakers point to what they say is Gensler’s "long series of abuses that have been permitted under the current SEC structure".
• As part of a lawsuit, a number of emails detailing internal SEC commentary before ex-SEC Director William Hinman’s 2018 speech on crypto’s designation as a security have been published. The emails indicate multiple SEC staffers did not deem ETH a security as it was offered in 2018. It also shows commentary that staffers believe there might be a “regulatory gap” when it comes to regulation of digital assets. 
  • Magnet quick take: Existing securities regulations are incomplete and not practical to apply to digital assets. As stated in these docs, once a network is sufficiently decentralised there are no “efforts of others” to point to, there is no one to hold responsible for disclosures, etc. We are pro regulation and believe it necessary for digital assets, but applying existing regulation will be ineffective and impractical.
• Crypto exchange Bitstamp and online brokerage firm Interactive Brokers have been added to the U.K. crypto register. The register is the Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) list of crypto firms that have met its anti-money laundering and terror financing regulations. 
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continues to receive push back on its proposed rule to redefine the definition of ‘exchange’ to include decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols. Submissions outlining issues with the SEC’s proposal have been made by Bain Capital, Fidelity, True Ventures, Bloomberg, Coinbase, Circle, MarketAxess, SIFMA, Consensys, Virtu, FlowDesk, Galaxy, Coin Center, Paradigm and many others.
• House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) announced two SEC oversight hearings for Thursday June 22nd - “Oversight of the SEC” and “Oversight of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets”.

The Weekly Deal Room

• Gensyn, a blockchain-based compute protocol for AI platforms, raised $43m in a Series A led by a16z.
• Bit2Me, a Spanish crypto exchange, raised $15m in a funding round led by Investcorp.
• HyperPlay, a platform (or launcher) for accessing Web3-native games, raised $12m in a Series A co-led by Griffin Gaming Partners and Bitkraft Ventures.
• Connext Labs, an interoperability protocol for applications, raised $7.5m in funding at a $250m valuation from Polychain Capital, Polygon Ventures and others.
• Mnemonic, a provider of artificial intelligence-backed non-fungible token (NFT) data and analytics, raised $6m in a Seed Extension Round led by Salesforce Ventures.
• Collectibles, a web3 collectors marketplace, raised $5m in a Seed Round led by Blockchange Ventures.
• Intuition, a decentralised infrastructure provider, raised $4m in a Seed Round led by Superscrypt.
• Concordia, a multi-chain credit protocol, raised $4m in a Seed Round co-led by Tribe Capital and Kraken Ventures.
• BoomFi, a crypto payments platform, raised $3.8m in a Seed Round led by White Star Capital.