Issue #64

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.21T, up (8.0%) from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto assets. 

News Headline Highlights

• Standard Chartered, a British multinational bank with $840B in assets, is taking purposeful strides in the cryptocurrency sector, unveiling plans to launch BTC and ETH custody services in Dubai by Q1 of 2024. Moreover, the bank is in the final stages of acquiring In-Principle Approval to act as a cryptocurrency broker-dealer in Abu Dhabi’s over-the-counter market.
• Several spot BTC ETF applicants in the US have made amendments to their prospectus’, signalling progress and dialogue with the SEC. Magnet quick note: It is worth noting this has never been the case historically.
  • BlackRock filed an amendment to their BTC ETF prospectus
  • Fidelity filed an amendment to their BTC ETF prospectus
  • Ark/21 Shares filed an amendment to their BTC ETF prospectus
• Grayscale, the world’s largest crypto asset manager, submitted a new filing to SEC (Form S-3), with the hopes of converting their Bitcoin Trust into a publicly trading ETF. This comes off the back of the pivotal court ruling declaring  the SEC wrongfully denied their BTC ETF.
• A recent Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) research report found that DLT and tokenization could reduce capital market costs by up to A$17B. The savings could come from a reduction in annual transaction costs of up to A$4B and through savings of A$13B in reduced cost of capital.
• BlackRock's CEO, Larry Fink, was discussing Bitcoin on US national television over the last week, commenting that the recent BTC rumor rally shows “pent up interest in crypto” and is more likely a “flight to quality” during these uncertain times.

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• Lightning Labs, a Bitcoin layer-2 infrastructure firm, has released the mainnet alpha of Taproot Assets, a protocol aimed at enabling stablecoins and real-world assets to be issued on the Bitcoin and Lightning Network. This would increase the functionality of the Bitcoin network, allowing for the issuance and transfer of financial assets/instruments.
• Scroll, a new Ethereum compatible Layer 2 scaling solution that leverages zero-knowledge (zkEVM) technology, has confirmed the launch of its mainnet.

Regulation Station

• Australia’s Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, announced a new proposal which plans to require crypto exchanges to obtain licences to improve consumer protections domestically. 
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did not challenge Grayscale’s win in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, paving the way for Grayscale Investments LLC to launch a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
• Chairman Gensler, of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), appeared on US national television, declining to provide detail or pre-judge any single BTC ETF, but stated that "(SEC) staff is doing work on those multiple filings".
• The New York Attorney General is suing cryptocurrency conglomerate Digital Currency Group, the Winklevoss twins’ exchange Gemini and collapsed crypto lender Genesis for failing to disclose risks in their products, which resulted in investors losing more than $1.1bn.

The Weekly Deal Room

• SynFutures, a decentralised perpetual futures exchange, raised $22m in a Series B led by Pantera.
• Elixir, a decentralised market making protocol, raised $7.5m at a $100m valuation in a Series A led by Hack VC.
• Squads Labs, the developer of multi-sig Solana products, raised $5.7m in a Strategic Round led by Placeholder.
• MyShell, a web3-enaabled AI platform, raised $5.6m in a Seed Round led by Ince Capital.
• VirgoCX, a Canadian crypto exchange, raised $5m from Waterdrip Capital, Skylean, Nextport and others.
• Beluga, a crypto platform for onboarding new users, raised $4m in a Seed Round led by Fin Capital.
• Fileverse, an on-chain file management solution, raised $1.5m in a pre-seed round from Gnosis Chain and Factor.
• BitGo acquired HeightZero, a crypto wealth management platform.