Issue #69

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.48T, up (0.7%) from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto assets. 

News Headline Highlights

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• Blast, a new Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, went live in ‘early access mode’. Blast is aiming to become the first Ethereum Layer 2 to introduce a native yield model. The launch did not come without controversy, raising concerns from Dan Robinson, the Head of research at Paradigm, an investor in Blast’s seed round, who said the launch “crossed [ethos] lines in both messaging and execution.”
• Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin (USDT), froze $225m worth of USDT following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) into an international human trafficking syndicate in Southeast Asia. The investigation was ongoing for months and used blockchain analysis tools provided by Chainalysis.

Regulation Station

• BlackRock and Grayscale met with the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) division of trading and markets last week (the division in charge of approving or denying 19b-4’s). 
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Kraken for operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and dealer.
  • Kraken responded to the charges within 24 hours, sharing in a public statement: “The SEC has promulgated no rule describing how an order in a digital asset should be matched, no guidance on how a trade should be cleared, and articulated no standards for how to broker a digital asset transaction. The allegation is hollow; there is no such thing as an exchange, broker dealer, or clearing agency for investment contracts. The SEC is demanding compliance with a regime that doesn’t exist.”
• Singapore is set to introduce tighter rules for cryptocurrency service providers, particularly those engaging with retail markets, following feedback on its proposed regulations. The Monetary Authority of Singapore released a statement last week saying: “The consulted proposals detail business conduct and consumer access measures to limit potential consumer harm”.
• UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt outlined 110 measures for growing the nation's economy in his Autumn Statement. This included a governmental initiative to facilitate the expansion of the digital assets sector.  The UK government will pass legislation to implement the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS), which aims to facilitate the adoption of digital assets across financial markets. 

The Weekly Deal Room

• Blast, an L2 with native yield captured at the protocol level, raised $20m in a Private Round from Paradigm, Standard Crypto and others.
• Privy, a web3 onboarding authentication and data control tool, raised $18m in a Series A led by Paradigm. 
• Expanso, a decentralised open compute platform, raised $7.5m in a Seed Round led by General Catalyst. 
• Pantopic, a decentralised protocol for perpetual options, raised $7m in a Seed Round led by Greenfield Capital.
• Sleek, a web3 social platform, raised $5m at a $50m valuation in a Seed Round from Binance Labs, Shima Capital and others.
• Saga, a web3 scalability protocol looking at optimising block space, raised $5m in a Seed Round led by Placeholder.
• Bullish, a digital asset exchange led by ex-NYSE chief Tom Farley, has purchased CoinDesk from Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group.