Issue #68

Written by Magnet Capital | Nov 21, 2023 4:00:00 AM

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.47T, up (0.1%) from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto assets.

News Headline Highlights

Binance Holding Ltd. is rumored to have a $4B settlement offer from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Binance has been under a lengthy investigation by U.S. authorities for money laundering, bank fraud and violating U.S. sanctions laws, and the talks could reportedly conclude in the coming weeks. Despite the settlement, there remains the possibility that Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao would still face U.S. criminal charges.
Cboe Digital announced plans to launch trading and clearing in margin futures on Bitcoin and Ether, beginning January 11, 2024. With this launch, Cboe Digital will become the first U.S. regulated crypto native combined exchange and clearinghouse to enable both spot and leveraged derivatives trading on a single platform.
Argentina elected a Bitcoin-friendly president, Javier Milei, who defeated the country’s incumbent president Sergio Massa. Milei has been vocal about his criticisms toward the country’s central bank, referring to it as a scam and a “mechanism by which politicians cheat the good people with inflationary tax.” Conversely, he’s referred to Bitcoin as a movement toward “the return of money to its original creator, the private sector.”
Digital asset investment products saw net inflows of $293 million last week, bringing the year to date crypto fund inflows above $1.1B.
Fidelity, the third largest asset manager in the US, has joined BlackRock and filed for a spot ether ETF. "To this point, approval of a Spot ETH ETP would represent a major win for the protection of U.S. investors in the crypto asset space," the filing states.
Tether, the largest issuer of USD stablecoins, is planning an expansion into Bitcoin mining, according to its new CEO Paolo Ardoino. Tether is reported to spend around $500 million in the next six months on the construction of and investment in mining facilities in Uruguay, Paraguay and El Salvador.
CoinShares has secured an “exclusive option to acquire Valkyrie Funds”, Valkyrie’s crypto investment advisory and ETF business. In addition, CoinShares and Valkyrie have entered into a brand licensing agreement for Valkyrie’s products, meaning CoinShares name can be used for products and regulatory filings (i.e. its pending Bitcoin spot ETF).

Crypto Asset Project Updates

Decentralised derivatives exchange dYdX lost $9m of its ~$22m insurance fund. Losses were realised during a volatile following liquidations in the Yearn Finance (YFI) market.
Uniswap Labs publicly released an Andriod mobile wallet app with built-in swap capability on the Google Play store. The new app allows users to make swaps without the need for a separate web browser extension.
Infura, a crypto infrastructure firm founded by Ethereum developer Consensys, is creating a "decentralised infrastructure network" to help protect against outages – with a "federated" group of partners including Microsoft and Tencent. Given Infura’s dominance, many consider it to be a single point of failure for crypto. The decentralisation of the network hopes to overcome this.

Regulation Station

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has (expectedly) deferred making a decision on whether to approve the first US exchange-traded fund that invests directly in Bitcoin, deferring filings from Franklin Templeton and Globe X.
The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has strengthened its guidelines for listing or de-listing cryptocurrencies in a move to beef up protections for crypto investors throughout the state.
Turkey's planned crypto rules aim to regulate the crypto market through focusing on business licensing and consumer taxation.

The Weekly Deal Room

Blockchain.com, a crypto exchange, raised $110m in a Series E led by Kingsway Capital.
Fnality International, a fintech firm building tokenised currencies collateralised by cash held at central banks, raised $95m in a Series B co-led by Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas.
SuperState, a regulatory fintech company building compliant investment vehicles, raised $14m in a Series A co-led by CoinFund and Distributed Global.
CFX Labs, a Solana based stablecoin remittance network, raised $9.5m in a Seed Round from Shima Capital, Decasonic, Antalpha and others.
Modhaus, a web3 fan engagement platform for K-Pop, raised $8m in a Series A led by Sfermion.
Taproot Wizards, a bitcoin NFT company, raised $7.5m in a private round led by Standard Crypto.
Bazooka Tango, a zkEVM game, raised $5m in a private round led by Bitkraft Ventures.
Kinto, a KYC Layer2 developer focused on financial services, raised $5m in a round co-led by Kyber Capital, Spartan Group and ParaFi Capital.
Beoble, a web3 messaging platform, raised $2m in a pre-seed round led from DCG, Samsung Next, Hashkey and others.
The Block, a leading crypto media company, had a majority stake acquired by Foresight Ventures.

Metric of the Week

The Open Interest of Bitcoin perpetual futures contracts has increased ~33% in the last month to just under $2B across major trading venues.

Source: Marquee PlotTool Pro

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