It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop (weekly crypto updates)

We had an interesting week, with BTC retesting $30K, ETH going down, even more, and Luna launching a LUNA 2.0 token recovery attempt. Splinterlands sold all their Validator Node Licences in the pre-sale in 12 minutes, and Across protocol launched their version Across V2, making it possible to bridge from Layer 2 to Layer 2. What else? Read below:

· Bitcoin: Most of the high-yield crypto accounts are decreasing the interest offered as there is not enough institutional demand to borrow crypto, with Ledn, Blockfi, and a few others offering 1-3% for BTC, instead of the 6.25% one year ago. Bitcoin dominance rises to 43.8%, the highest since October 2021. The average fee is also $1.98 for BRC, compared with $8.06 for ETH. We are expecting another run for $30K, but the bulls are not strong enough to push through in my opinion.

· Ethereum: The Ethereum Beacon Chain experienced a 7-block reorganization, most probably caused by circumstance, rather than a malicious attack, and a post-mortem will be released soon. Not yet ready, ETH 2.0 is, said the crypto-celebrity Yoda. Binance integrated Layer-2 scaling solution Optimism, but supports only deposits, so be careful with that, and always use Across Protocol if you want to transfer fast, secure, and with low fees. With their version 2, you can now bridge Layer-2 to Layer-2. Ethereum scaling solution Starkware raised $100M in a Series D funding round, at an $8B valuation. Ethereum market dominance decreased from 19.5% in April, before the Luna incident, to 17.1%. Ethereum dropped to a month low, $1727, and it is still trying to recover.

· Altcoins: Litecoin activated MimbleWimble Extension Blocks, over two years after the potential upgrade was introduced, offering more privacy, and many exchanges, especially in South Korea (as in Bithumb and Upbit), are thinking to stop trading Litecoin over regulation issues. Cronos chain (Crypto.com) is now in the top 10 TVL and top 20 in market capitalization. Optimism removed 17.000 addresses from their airdrop, as they are thinking these are airdrop farming wallets. Uniswap surpassed 1 trillion dollars in lifetime volume, with more than $1B in daily trading volume. They are situated very well in the DEX market trade as their volume is up to 33% of the market share. A new version of Horizen (ZEN) was released, including new features, performance improvements, and a bug fix. Tether launched the Mexican Peso-backed stablecoin, MXNT, to join their previous ones, pegged to the dollar, Euro, Chinese Yuan, and an ounce of gold (XAUT). Ethereum Name Service (ENS) reached a record demand, with more than $8M in revenues. Luna 2.0 is here, and LUNA and UST holders will receive new tokens, periodically, to prevent mass selling. Waiting for their miracle, they just burned 1.3B UST from the project community pool.

· Blockchain games and NFTs: Mobox introduced Momoverse, and Momo monsters NFTs are roaming there, waiting for you to catch them. Each Momo NFT can be staked to mine MBOX tokens (1 MBOX = $0.91 today). Splinterlands Validator Node license pre-sale ended in 12 minutes, and we are already in the Tranche 1, with the license price going up from $1K SPS and 500 Vouchers to $3K in SPS. 80% of the SPS paid for them was burned. Things look promising in the Splinterlands Metaverse. The Validator Node licenses will pay interest forever, and they can be sold and bought on the market. Beeple's Twitter account was hacked and a crypto-scam was promoted, the attacker manages to collect 35 ETH ($71K). OpenSea announced the launch of Seaport Protocol, their newest NFT marketplace, where you can bid using different assets rather than just crypto. The newest collection to rule the NFT marketplace is Goblintown, with more than 3800 ETH in sales volume, made with zero marketing, hype, or anticipation. The floor price, for now, is 0.51 ETH. Even eBay joined the NFT craze with a collection featuring hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, on Polygon. Solana-based move2earn game Stepn will bar gameplay in China, due to regulatory issues, as they need to provide GPS services to users. Their GMT token price fell 38% after this announcement.

· Good news: China's state-backed blockchain firm is planning its first major international expansion, launching a project called BSN Spartan Network. This is the first of 5-6 public blockchains not operating with cryptocurrencies. GameStop launched a self-custodial crypto and NFT wallet on ETH Mainnet, running on Loopring (LRC), and you can find it on Chrome Web Store as a wallet extension. Coinbase is planning to expand its app Coinbase Pay to build a new liquid protocol targeting institutions. They are also the first crypto-firm to make it to Fortune 500 list. European Central Bank revealed that 1 out of 10 households in the Eurozone invested in crypto-assets, with 6% of them owning more than $30K, many of them being young adult males or highly educated people. Brave added Solana support and Ramp wallet functionality in their latest browser update. Andreessen Horowitz announced the launch of a $4.5B fund focused on the cryptocurrency space. $1.5B of it will be dedicated to seed investments, and the rest will be used for venture investments. Metamask is partnering with Asset Reality, a platform for accessing and recovering seized crypto and digital assets, to tackle crypto fraud. Shopify integrates Crypto.com as another way to accept crypto as payment. 12% of American adults are owning crypto, according to a Federal Reserve study. Huobi bought Latin American crypto exchange Bitex.

· Bad news: Talking about South Korean police, they tried to freeze Luna Foundation assets, asking exchanges to stop them from withdrawing funds. The Korean special joint financial and securities crime investigation unit known as Grim Reaper is checking on Do Kwon, Terra CEO, most probably for tax evasion. Meanwhile, a Terra 2.0 relaunch was voted, and it is ready to go, supported by many exchanges, such as Binance, Crypto.com, Huobi, Bitfinex, Kucoin, and FTX. There are still trust issues with the exchanges, as there are anonymous wallets buying tokens right before they are listed in the exchanges and this happens with Coinbase, FTX, and Binance, just to give some names. Some are thinking that those wallets belong to employees trading on privileged information, and even CZ joined the discussion telling us that they investigated and no link was found between named wallets and Binance. They are just trying to make some money, poor people, and as a matter of fact, Vitalik, Coinbase CEO, Michael Saylor, and the Winklevoss brothers are no longer billionaires, as the price of cryptocurrencies went all the way down. Even the European Central Bank Chief joined the party to tell us that crypto-assets are worth nothing. Christine, you may want to tell that to my bank account.

· Joke of the week: JP Morgan said that crypto like BTC is now the bank preferred asset, replacing real estate as an alternative investment. This is funny, given that less than 2 years ago they were the ones saying that crypto is worth nothing and no serious bank will touch them. Translation: we found a way to make even more money with crypto than real estate. Worse than them is only Martin Shkreli, you know, the guy who raised the price of life-saving drugs by 5000%, now trying to look like a Crypto Bro, as he was released from prison last week. What can go wrong if you follow his advice?

All the best,

George.

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