I am realistic – I expect miracles! (weekly crypto updates)

Check my Zealy contest results to see if you got any of the prizes. I pay better than Splinterlands DEC burnout, where with 10 chances I got nothing. Nada. Zilch.

What happened this week? Well, Bitcoin gained back its 50%+ market dominance, as now this seems to be everyone's favorite crypto, and even its hard forks, BCH and BSV are going up. Optimism and zkSynk are doing some major improvements, and the Linea marketing campaign is coming to an end. Some NFT holders can get mad when new similar collections are launched, even if this is an Azuki. What else? Read below:

• Bitcoin: We had BTC going all the way up to $31K this week, a one-year high. The SEC approved its first-ever leveraged Bitcoin Futures ETF. Fidelity expected to file a Spot Bitcoin ETF too. HSBC Hong Kong allows customers to trade BTC and ETH ETFs on its investment platform. Cathie Woods' ARK updates its BTC ETF application, ahead of BlackRock, with a decision expected in August 2023. MicroStrategy bought another 12333 BTC, reaching 152333 BTC in total. Since all these events are unfolding, more than $1B in BTC was sent from miners to exchanges, mostly being used for derivatives trading. ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) sees record yearly inflows of $65+ M in a week. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust shares hit a one-year high after all that BTC ETF noises and rumors. Mainnet 2023 is here, and some cool speakers will be present there, CEOs from Coinbase, Circle, and Paxos as we know already, with more to come.

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• Ethereum: Price manipulation? Justin Sun, you know him, the guy who destroyed Steem trying to get control over a whole blockchain, just unstaked $30M ETH from Lido and transferred to Huobi, most probably signaling a sell, as the price went a bit up lately. Optimism rebranded as OP Mainnet, trying to follow its vision, leveraging Optimistic Rollups to enhance transaction speed and reduce costs on the ETH network. Ethereum layer-2 zkSynk Era introduced ZK Stacks, a modular framework for custom blockchains called Hyperchains, providing enhanced privacy, speed, and data availability. The CTFC considers Ether as commodity, and many congressional legislators are working in the US on legislation to clarify its regulatory status, alongside BTC. 3iQ adds staking options to its two ETH ETFs.

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• Altcoins and stablecoins: The NEAR Foundation and Alibaba Cloud partnered to drive Web3 growth in Asia and the Middle East. DOGE and SHIB were included in Hong Kong's HKVAC INDEX, an index tracking performance of the top 30 crypto assets by market cap. The team that previously audited the former FTX.US is now auditing TrueUSD Proof of Reserves. Tether (USDT) signed an MOU with the government of Georgia to develop BTC and P2P infrastructure in the country. Stablecoin trading volume drops to new yearly lows. Grayscale XLM fund surges to record 300% premium. Blur has an interesting airdrop system, linking future airdrops and token distributions to loyalty programs. Base network prepares for Mainnet launch after its successful audit. In a strange suit of events, BCH, BSV, and COMP are all moving up seriously fast, and while I have an inkling why this is happening with BCH and BSV, I have no idea why COMP went ballistic.

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• Blockchain games and NFTs: Azuki is launching a new collection called Azuki Elementals, 20.000 NFTs based on different elements. Holders of Azuki and BEANZ have priority access to the sale, Dutch Auction. And then Azuki floor price crashed, raising concerns about the impact on the value of the original collection. More money grabbing? EtherRock-inspired NFT collection branded BlackRock hit over $900K volume and completely sold out. Wombat Dungeon Masters' new season started, with MATIC NFTs added to WAX and EOS ones, with more rewards, and the Dungeon World feature was launched, with a Dojo to train champions and get XP, and a mine, if you own land. The DEC burning campaign on Splinterlands finished, did you get anything cool? I did not. Just checking, is anyone there still not playing Golem Overlord? This is a cool game, despite the initial fee to start it, with the potential to quickly make a decent profit if you keep your burn percentage up. Check it out! By the way, did anyone get their free Fox NFT from Shapeshift? Is quite easy, you just need some easy directions to follow. Auction house Sotheby's is launching a Gen Art Program, a blockchain-based initiative for generative artists, with the first auction on July 26.

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• Good news: Coinbase was granted the request to postpone customer lawsuits and pursue private arbitration instead, letting them halt the process of a class action lawsuit filed against them. Coinbase claims that SEC has no jurisdiction over cryptos on its platform, as there is no investment contract present. The co-founder of Paradigm expressed enthusiasm for both crypto and AI. Mastercard is set to launch a Multi-Token Network (MTN) testbed, starting with tokenized bank deposits in the UK. Bitfinex unveils the P2P trading platform in Venezuela, Argentina, and Colombia.

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• Bad news: Citadel-backed exchange EDX drops Paxos for Anchorage as its crypto custodian. Ledger introduces an institutional-grade trading network, going for the big bucks instead of sorting out individual users' issues. Azuki NFT collection tanked after the new collection was launched, as many think that this will dilute the initial value of their old NFTs.

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• Joke of the week: Not good on them, owing more than $8.7B to their customers, but it seems that FTX senior executives were aware as early as August 2022 about $6.4B being misappropriated. For better or worst, FTX seems to restart, after some re-branding, as they are looking for potential investors. Fancy investing with FTX?

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All the best,

George

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Why not...

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...have fun and win rewards on my favorite blockchain games (Splinterlands - Hearthstone-like card game) (Mobox - GamiFI NFT platform) (Wombat Dungeon Masters NFT staking on WAX) and (X-Portal - Elrond all in one app, free NFTs, and more).

...get crypto while writing on Publish0x blog, using Presearch search engine to maximize your income with PRE tokens. Use Torum instead of Twitter. I am also writing for crypto on Read.cash and Hive.

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