Issue #54

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.22T, up (0.9%) from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto assets. 

News Headline Highlights

• Coinbase reported earnings last week, exceeding Wall Street's expectation to record revenues of $707.9m, beating estimates of $663m. 
• Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the largest derivatives marketplace in the USA, recorded increased trading volumes (up 24%) to $940m in July, registering the first increase in four months.
• The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MCCE) is developing a blockchain based carbon credit system in a preliminary partnership with the Industrial Innovation Group and the Venom Foundation.
• Digital Currency Group is facing a New York Attorney General probe into its financial dealings with subsidiary Genesis Global Capital. An unnamed source reported New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office has requested information from former executives of Genesis, a cryptocurrency lender that filed for bankruptcy in January. 
• Sam Bankman-Fried is in US federal prison, after a judge sided with a request by federal prosecutors to revoke the FTX founder’s bail over alleged witness tampering. He is expected to remain in custody until his criminal trial, which is due to begin on Oct. 2.
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to delay decision on the ARK spot bitcoin ETF filing, as expected. This prologues a decision on the ARK filing to 11/11/23, several BTC ETF filings, including the Blackrock’s, are due for commentary in the first week of September.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• Coinbase's Base mainnet, an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, officially opened to the general public, featuring over 100 decentralised applications (dApps) and service providers.
• Aptos Labs, a Layer 1 blockchain, announced a new partnership with Microsoft. The partnership hopes to explore “innovative solutions” related to asset tokenization, digital payments and central bank digital currencies. Aptos will also utilise Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service.
• Curve Finance, which was hacked last week, has recovered 70% of funds worth about $50 million lost in a recent hacking incident on its platform, alleviating concerns for many users and stakeholders. 
• Rollbit, a crypto casino, has revamped their RLB token economics, introducing a buyback & burn mechanism. Revenues from Casino (10%), Sportsbook (20%) and 1000x Futures (30%) will be used to buy and burn RLB on a daily basis.

Regulation Station

• Revolut is closing its cryptocurrency platform in the USA, citing regulatory uncertainty.
• Several groups have submitted an amicus brief  in support of Coinbase in its ongoing battle against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). An amicus brief is a document filed in court by a party not directly involved with the related case. Parties include:
  • A group of six legal scholars specialising in securities law and related fields
  • US Senator Cynthia Lummis 
  • The Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI)
  • a16z and Paradigm, two of the largest crypto VCs 
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a letter of intent to request an interlocutory appeal to Judge Torres’s July 13th summary judgement in the SEC vs. Ripple case.
• The US Federal Reserve is beginning a new program aimed at overseeing crypto activity at federal banks. The announcement does not provide any frameworks, policies or guidelines, but simply seems to clarify that banks need to seek approvals to engage in stablecoin activities.

The Weekly Deal Room

• Helios Protocol, a liquid staking platform, raised $10m in a private round from Binance Labs.
• Cube3ai, a crypto smart contract security company, raised $8.2m in a Seed Round led by Blockchange Ventures.
• Spherex, a crypto smart contract security company, raised $8m in a Seed Round led by Aleph.
• Spearbit, a crypto security company, raised $7m in a Seed Round led by Framework.
• Puffer Finance, a blockchain DeFi infrastructure company, raised $5.5m in a Seed Round led by  Lemniscap and Brevan Howard Digital.
• Xverse, a bitcoin web wallet company, raised $5m in a Seed Round led by Jump.
• HypeLab, a web3 advertising startup, raised $4m in a Seed Round co-led by Shima Capital and Makers Fund.
• RocketPool, a decentralised Ethereum staking protocol, raised an undisclosed amount in a strategic round from Coinbase Ventures.