Bored Apes, Axie stakes, and the incoming Ethereum Merge (weekly crypto updates)
It is Sunday again, and it is time for another post related to my weekly crypto-updates. This past week was definitely interesting, and I am ready to share my news with you, once again. ETH merge is closer, it seems, Polkadot launched all the parachains, BSC blockchain is getting ready to launch sidechains also, Axie was hacked and a few more eyebrows lifted this week. What else?
• Bitcoin: Rio de Janeiro is working on pro-crypto tax law for 2023, in order to accept Bitcoin for tax payments. Macrostrategy, a subsidiary of Microstrategy, borrowed $205M to invest in BTC. Crypto exchange Bitcoin.com is now valued at $14B, after its latest financing round. VanEck believes that BTC can go up to $4.8M per coin if it is to become a global asset. I would like to live to see this. EXXON Mobile used wasted natural gas to power Bitcoin mining.
• Ethereum: Online searches about the incoming ETH Merge hit an all-time high, as many want to find more about it. The Merge will happen when the current Ethereum Mainnet will merge with the Beacon Chain, and start using the Proof of Stake (POS) consensus algorithm. Ethereum miners reach $1.28B in revenue in March, with a 7.2% increase.
• Altcoins: Alchemix V2 let you as an individual or DAO become your own bank. I need to find out more about this. Terra (LUNA) is now the second-largest protocol fuelled by the core debt protocol, Anchor. Did you ever hear about Mina, a fixed-size blockchain built on top of ZK cryptography providing private, secure, scalable infrastructure for web3? Seems interesting. Polkadot successfully completed all the parachains launches, and they are life, transacting on Polkadot. Heavily inspired by Polkadot, now BNB Chain is looking at this, working to introduce BNB Application Sidechains, with a focus on Gamefi. Akash builds a marketplace similar to Airbnb, where cloud providers connect with unused compute resources linked to entities searching for cloud computing resources. Osmosis is now the most transacted DEX in the Cosmos Ecosystem, as they were first to launch and never lost their first time in the market advantage. Filecoin evolved from its initial decentralized storage, building cases for NFTs, Web3, gaming, audio/video, and even looking at a metaverse option. Binance partnered with Recording Academy, the company behind Grammy Awards, to become their first official crypto exchange partner. Helium Blockchain raised $200M from some strategic partners, including Deutsche Telecom and the token will be rebranded soon. Acala and Karura will integrate with Wormhole bridge soon. DEFI sector is up 13.91%, Web3 10.27%, with GameFi sector disappointing this with a minus -1.27%, mostly because of the Axie-Ronin hack, I believe. Avalanche launched a $100M creator fund with Grimes and web3 platform Op3n. Metamask announced Apple Pay integration and gasless transactions on its 4.3.1 version. , but only for purchases over $400.
• Blockchain games and NFTs: Axie Infinity sidechain, Ronin Network, was the talk of the town, being recently hacked, and losing more than $625M in ETH and USDC after the attacker hacked the private keys in order to forge fake withdrawals. Everybody’s problem is not this, but the fact that the two gigantic transactions were found 6 (yes, six!) days later. Ronin Bridge and Katana AMM were paused to limit the damage. The attacker is just keeping the funds, probably looking to negotiate his/her way out of this. Five out of their nine validators were hacked, 4 Sky Mavis and 1 Axie DAO. All the victims will be reimbursed, Sky Mavis said. Axie Infinity is also expected to release its Origin feature on the 7th of April. An Illuvium Flash Pool was launched for the ApeCoin token, in order to promote Illuvium products to the BAYC community. Meanwhile, OpenSea seems to get ready to trade Solana NFTs on their platform, as their fourth blockchain, after ETH, MATIC, and KLAY. Many GameFi platforms fall short of their long-term strategies, as they can only monetize through social value assets or utility value assets (items with in-game value). While the social value will be the winning choice, most of them choose to focus on the utility value when they start. On Pegaxy, until the 10th of April, there is a breeding event with reduced cooldowns. Twitch co-founder startup, Fractal, a gaming-focused NFT platform, raised $35M in funds. DC Comics may release 200.000 Batman-themed NFTs this month. The Waka Flocka summoner sale on Wax was a disaster, but the following updates on Splinterlands seem to be expected by all the players, the land NFTs.
• Good news: UK finance minister, Rishi Sunak, said that the British government is planning to regulate the cryptocurrency market, but they are favorable to it, focusing on stablecoins mainly. That being said, it is probably just a move to assure the Bank of England little collaboration with MIT a first spot in the show (they have 12 months of research on CBDC – central bank digital currencies, which will most probably result in the digital Pound being made). This may be inspired by Biden and US legislators' approach, pushing for a bill asking for stablecoins transparency and them being fully backed by dollars or short-term government securities. Nothing dodgy in creating dependence on the dollar or the US government when we talk about crypto and decentralization, right? In Europe, many lawmakers voted in favor of outlawing all anonymous crypto transactions of all sizes, if they are in excess of 1000 Euro. Coinbase CEO and a few others condemned this kind of approach. No wonder Coinbase is looking to acquire 2TM, the biggest Brazilian crypto exchange focusing on other continents and markets. Goldman Sacks survey told them that the investors are still bullish on crypto, expecting it to increase in the next 1-2 years. Wisdom Tree launched Solana, Cardano, and Polkadot ETPs (exchange-traded products). Opera Browser has made a built-in crypto wallet, supporting Solana, Polygon, Ronin, Nervos, Celo, IXO, BTC, and StarkEx. Many intriguing choices here.
• Bad news: US SEC wants to redefine the security dealer definition, and some said that this is aimed at making the DEFI industry struggle a bit more. They want to include in the mix individuals and businesses that use automated and algorithmic trading technology to execute trades and provide liquidity. Japan wants more strict regulations in order to not transact crypto from Russian assets. Funny enough, Grayscale considers suing SEC over their Bitcoin ETF.
• Joke of the week: In August 2016 we heard for the first time about the Fat Protocol theory, suggesting that value in blockchains would accrue in the base protocol layer, instead of the application layer. This would be the opposite of the internet story, where HTTP and HTTPS are not worth much, but giants like Google and Facebook are now billions. Six years later, we started to observe data disproving this theory. Now all you need is to find your cryptocurrency Google equivalent, and you need to know that only a few of them will survive and thrive, out of the tens of thousands of tokens that we have right now.
All the best,
George
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