You were scared, but you still got here; don’t forget that! (weekly crypto updates)

What happened in the past week? Bitcoin Bonds are here, ETH may be better than all the other crypto in 2024, and Tether will ban people sanctioned by the US government. What else? Read below:

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• Bitcoin: VanEck is trolling, as they amended their spot BTC ETF filing with the ticker $HODL. Bitcoin Inscriptions (ORDINALS) are now labelled a cybersecurity vulnerability by the US bodies, as you exploit a bug to cram non-transaction data into the BTC blockchain. Upcoming upgrades will patch the vulnerability. El Salvador passed the legislation for the Bitcoin Bonds, aiming to develop the Bitcoin city, using volcanic energy, and addressing sovereign debt. Wel done, El Salvador! BlackRock revised its filing for a BTC ETF to get megabanks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to invest in funds using cash instead of actual Bitcoin. Do they try to regain control of the financial world, getting even crypto under their wing? You bet!

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• Ethereum: JP Morgan analysts are thinking that ETH will outpace BTC and any other crypto in 2024, after its upcoming Protodanksharding upgrade, which can significantly boost network activity. Anyway, the SEC delayed its ruling on an ETH Spot ETF proposed by Invesco and Galaxy Digital until February 2024. ETH maintained the top spot on ESG Benchmark, followed by Solana and Polkadot.

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• Altcoins and stablecoins: Tether has a new policy starting to freeze the wallets of people on the government-sanctioned list. Shall we all move to USDC? Jito airdropped $200M worth of tokens on Solana. Bonk, a Solana memecoin, saw a substantial price rally this week after Coinbase decided to maybe list the token. Many traders are buying Solana's phone just to get their claim of 30M Bonk airdrop. There is some stablecoin called Gyro Dollar, or GYD, claiming to be all-weather resistant by design, with risk control elements built in at the protocol level, such as backing of diversified assets, automated risk diversification rules, optimized minting, redemption bonding curves and more. But, as a rule, if something seems too complicated to understand, I do not like it. Polygon's chain integrated Celestia, to bring specialized data solutions to layer 2 networks built on Polygon. Worldcoin released an upgraded World ID 2.0 integrated with major platforms like Shopify, Reddit, Telegram and Minecraft. Safemoon filed for bankruptcy. LayerZero confirmed its token launch sometime in 2024, Q1. S&P Global launched stablecoin ratings, and none of it got the top score. GUSD, Pax dollar and USDC got a 2 rating (strong) while USDT got a 4 rating (constrained). As for S&P ratings, 1 is the best, and 5 is the worst.

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• Blockchain games and NFT: One of my fav NFT projects, Pudgy Penguins, revealed a trailer for a future game called Pudgy World. Is anyone out there still not playing Golem Overlord? Wombat Dungeon Masters' current season is just starting. On Splinterlands, the Land 1.5 feature is available now, launched on November 28, and it seems that it will take weeks, even months, to get everything in place for the optimal rewards. Still, Land 2.0 seems to be even more exciting and complex. FIFA partnered with Modex to launch an NFT collection related to the 2023 World Cup, with 100 inaugural pieces, and an additional 900 NFTs on Polygon after that, including NFTs that can secure tickets to the World Cup Final. Donald Trump launched a new NFT collection, with mugshot trading cards, at $99 each. If you purchase 47 or more, you receive a dinner invitation to his Mar-a-Lago estate.

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• Good news: Japanese giant SBI signed an agreement with the Saudi oil titan Aramco to partner up on something crypto-related stuff. We will see what happens. In the UK, M&G Investments, a major pension fund dropped $20M into the country's first regulated Bitcoin derivatives exchange. UK rullz! Coinbase launched Project Diamond, a blockchain-based debt platform for institutions. FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) updated accounting standards for crypto assets, eliminating some of the outdated nonsense, like the old rule forcing companies to record a loss if their crypto goes below the purchase price, even if they did not sell. Turkey is actively preparing to roll out a new crypto legislation, as two of the biggest Turkish banks announced crypto initiatives.

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• Bad news: A Ledger exploit led to a $480K theft from DEFI protocols after hackers managed to infiltrate the GitHub library of Connect Kit, a tool used by the crypto wallet. People started to see Justin Sun's true face, as they started to get money out of his HTX exchange, with more than $250M in net outflows, since resuming its operations. Two platforms linked to Sun, Poloniex and Heco Bridge, got $200M hacked in November, and HTX itself lost $30M from a hot wallet in a hack in September. Some are even thinking that Justin is hacking its own platforms. Judging by what we have seen when he tried to take over Steem, making Hive to be born, this could be probably right. One of my favourite exchanges, Kucoin, decided to pay $22M and terminate services for New York users, as it was deemed that they sold tokens without proper registration. Not you too, Kucoin! Third of the prominent IRS criminal cases are related to crypto crimes. Coinlist exchange also paid $1.2M to settle allegations it violated the US sanctions on Crimea, for users claiming Russian residency, but providing Crimean addresses. Binance and Crypto.com continue to lose market share, despite increasing volume, with a 19.5%, and 2.96% decrease. Upbit, Bybit and OKX experienced a market share growth, of 6.39%, 4.89% and 3.86%. China launched a blockchain-based real-name identity system for 1.4B citizens.

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• Joke of the week: Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to extend existing anti-money laundering rules to crypto, and close loopholes that criminals are exploiting. On the other side, a16z revealed plans to advance crypto and AI policy, by backing aligned politicians, and work against those who threaten his progress. In the end, it is all about money, as always's been.

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All the best,

George

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Why not...

...have fun and win rewards on my favourite 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 the Publish0x blog, using the 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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