Issue #72

Market Overview

As of the time of writing (Monday 5pm), the total market cap of the crypto asset market is $US1.62T, down (-1.0%) from last week.

Below is the weekly performance of the top crypto assets. 

News Headline Highlights

 Crypto Asset Project Updates

• In a recent letter shared with U.S. legislators, Tether’s CEO elaborated on his methods to prevent unsavoury individuals from using the company’s USDT stablecoins, including by onboarding the Secret Service and FBI to the company’s platform. Tether froze wallets on the U.S. sanctions list last week, and claims to have frozen 435 million USDT so far. 
• Magnet Portfolio Company Update: Lyra, a decentralised options protocol, launched a trading competition on their new Lyra Chain, an Ethereum roll-up using the OP Stack. The trading competition is for BTC options expiring on January 12, 2024 to coincide with the SEC decision on ARK’ BTC ETF proposal.

Regulation Station

• FASB has officially adopted Fair Value Accounting for Bitcoin for fiscal years beginning after Dec 15, 2024. This upgrade to accounting standards will facilitate the adoption of BTC as a treasury reserve asset by corporations worldwide.
• The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) denied a petition by Coinbase seeking new rules from the agency for the digital asset sector, which the country's largest crypto exchange then sought to challenge in court. The five-member commission, in a 3-2 vote, said it would not propose new rules because it fundamentally disagreed that current regulations are "unworkable" for the crypto sphere, as Coinbase has argued.
  • Commissioner Uyeda and Peirce (the 2 votes) disagreed with the Commissioner’s stance, commenting "Any exploration of these issues should include public roundtables, concept releases, and requests for comment, which would afford us the opportunity to hear from a wide range of market participants and other interested parties".

The Weekly Deal Room

• LINE NEXT, the South Korea-based NFT arm of messaging giant LINE, raised $140m in a private round.
• Andalusia Labs, an Ethereum L2 with native risk management, restaking, and AI infrastructure, raised $48m in a Series A.
• Dynamic Labs, a web3 authenticator platform, raised $13.5m in a Series A led by a16z. 
• Farcana, a third-person multiplayer shooter game, raised $10m in a Seed Round from Animoca Brands, Polygon Ventures, Fenbushi Capital and others.
• Lolli, a bitcoin and cashback rewards application, raised $8m in a Series B led by Bitkraft Ventures.
• Metagood, a blockchain technology and digital asset company, raised $5m in a Seed Round led by Sora Ventures.
• NFT Perp, a perpetual futures DEX for NFTs, raised $3m in a Series A from Maven 11 Capital, Mechanism Capital and others.