Issue #58

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.07T, down (-1.6%) from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto assets. 

News Headline Highlights

• Ark 21Shares and VanEck have filed applications to launch the first ETH sport ETF in the US on Cboe’s BZX exchange. Cboe filed 19b-4 documents last week, formally kicking off a review process. Once the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) acknowledges the filings, it will start a 240-day clock for a final decision.
• Visa, a global leader in payments, is expanding its stablecoin settlement capabilities to the Solana blockchain and is working with merchant acquirers Worldpay and Nuvei. This is in addition to Ethereum settlement capabilities that Visa previously launched.
• London Stock Exchange Group is investigating blockchain solutions to build "an end-to-end digital market ecosystem to raise and transfer capital across asset classes".
• MetaMask, a leading cryptocurrency provider, launched a feature allowing users to sell Ethereum based crypto assets for fiat currency. MetaMask users can now cash out and send fiat to their bank accounts in the United States, United Kingdom and parts of Europe.
• Deribit, the leading crypto derivatives marketplace, experienced a 17% increase in market volume to $42 billion in August. This increase bucks the global downtrend in crypto spot and derivatives volumes generally being experienced.
• Hana Bank, one of South Korea’s largest financial institutions with ~$450 billion in AUM, announced a strategic partnership with crypto custody firm BitGo, aimed at launching digital asset custody services in the second half of 2024.
• Grab, a ride-hailing super-app popular in Southeast Asia, has incorporated web3 services in-app. Users can now set up a web3 wallet, win blockchain-based rewards like NFTs and more on the platform.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• ThorChain, the cross chain asset swapping protocol, launched support for Binance Smart Chain (BSC), making it the ninth chain supported. ThorChain users can now swap assets natively between Bitcoin, Ethereum, ThorChain, Binance Smart Chain, Cosmos, Dogecoin, Avalanche, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
• Infura, a blockchain infrastructure service provider, plans to release a decentralised version of its service by the end of 2023 that will be operated by multiple entities to make it resilient to outages.
• Steakhouse, a DAO focused financial advisory firm, in collaboration with the research and development company Phoenix Labs, has proposed that the MakerDAO community consider allocating up to $100m from its reserves to invest in tokenized U.S. Treasury Bill (T-Bill) products.

Regulation Station

• The first U.S. accounting rule specifically for cryptocurrency will say that companies must use a fair-value approach that would demand certain digital assets be measured at what they would trade for in the markets, according to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).
• The Reserve Bank of India is planning to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the call money market, an unnamed official disclosed to a Reuters reporter. The "RBI is now planning to go to interbank borrowing market (with CBDC), specifically call money market," the official said.
• Christopher Hui, Secretary for Hong Kong’s Financial Services and the Treasury, stated at a recent conference that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the region's de facto central bank, and the People’s Bank of China have completed the initial technical tests for cross-border payments using the digital yuan in Hong Kong.

The Weekly Deal Room

• Story Protocol, a platform for creating, governing and licensing on-chain IP, raised $54m in a Series A led by a16z.
• GenTwo, a fintech platform for securitisation of real world assets, raised $15m in a Series A led by Point 72.
• Brine Fi, a zero-knowledge decentralised exchange, raised $16.5m at a $100m valuation in a round led by Pantera.
• Trident Digital, a digital asset lender, raised $8m in a Seed Round co-led by New Form and White Star Capital.
• Socket Protocol, a cross chain communication network, raised $5m in a strategic round from Framework and Coinbase.
• TRLab, a fine art NFT platform, raised $5m in a Seed Round co-led by Hivemind Capital Partners and OKX Ventures.
• GAM3S.GG, a web3 gaming platform, raised $2m in a Seed Round led by Mechanism Capital.