- Institutional activity in crypto remains significant as a16z raises a record-breaking $4.5bn crypto-fund, JP-Morgan considers tokenizing equity & Ethereum scaler Starkware raises $100m amongst more.
- The Ethereum Chain faced a seven-block reorganization as a valid transaction sequence was knocked off, which caused an 11% price correction in Ether & $160m worth of liquidations.
- BTC & ETH continue to trade sideways & are expected to drop another leg lower before recovering back according to Technical Analysis.
- The crypto-regulatory environment saw another active week as the SEC rejected a carbon-neutral BTC ETF, Portugal's parliament rejected two crypto tax proposals, FTX's SBF pitches the CFTC on direct clearing for derivatives & US Senator's draft a bill to ban the use of the Digital Yuan in US-based mobile apps amongst more.
Business
a16z Finalizes Record-Breaking $4.5B Crypto Fund
Andreessen Horowitz is allocating another $4.5 billion to crypto investments, more than doubling the amount assigned to its previous fund.
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At Davos, Crypto Is No Longer on the Outside
Cryptocurrencies have taken a prominent role at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, despite the mainstream finance world’s apparent contempt for the sector.
Ethereum Beacon Chain experiences 7 block reorg: What’s going on?
Core dev Preston Van Loon suggested the reorg was due to a “non-trivial segmentation” of new and old client node software, with Vitalik Buterin labeling it as a “good hypothesis.”
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Banking Giant JPMorgan Considers Using Blockchain Technology To Tokenize Equities: Report - The Daily Hodl
Financial services behemoth JPMorgan is contemplating tokenizing equities and other traditional securities using blockchain technology.
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StarkWare Reaches $8B Valuation Following Latest $100M Funding Round
The blockchain scaling solution last raised funds in November at a $2 billion valuation.
Report: FTX CEO Says Crypto Exchange Is Ready to Spend Billions on Acquisition Deals – Bitcoin News
FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said the exchange aims to make a number of acquisitions and could spend up to $2 billion on such efforts.
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Elliptic Announces Investment From J.P. Morgan to Accelerate Safer Participation in Crypto Markets
Elliptic today announced J.P. Morgan as an additional investor as part of its recent $60 million Series C funding round.
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Cryptosat’s first nanosatellite blasts off Wednesday on SpaceX rocket
The crypto-satellite company Cryptosat will launch a small blockchain module into low Earth orbit using a SpaceX rocket.
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Coinbase Becomes First Bitcoin Company Among Fortune 500 - Decrypt
Coinbase ranked second overall in revenue growth among companies on the list, at 514%, trailing only Moderna.
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LUNA 2.0 price crashes 67% within hours casting doubt on the recovery path | Finbold
The LUNA 2.0 cryptocurrency suffered a significant price correction hours after its launch losing its value by over 60%.
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Japan’s Bitbank to set up a custody firm to facilitate institutional entry to local markets
Once established, JADAT will focus on crypto, security tokens on public blockchains, stablecoins and NFTs.
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European Central Bank reveals 10% of Eurozone households own crypto
Research released on May 24 by the European Central Bank indicated that one in ten households in the Eurozone had purchased crypto-assets.
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Celsius Network’s crypto mining subsidiary SEC filing suggests plans for IPO
Celsius Network said its mining subsidiary had filed a Form S-1 draft registration statement with the SEC, suggesting the firm may be looking at an initial public offering by the end of 2022.
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Markets
Crypto Charts 68
BTC A break below $28k will signify a good entry opportunity ETH Look to sell at $1.94k-$1.99k before buying back around $1.54k level Bitcoin Last we said: BTC traded sideways in a corrective triangle that should be ending anytime. A break of the $27′200 level will
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Bitcoin (BTC) Closes Ninth Successive Bearish Candlestick - BeInCrypto
Bitcoin RSI has turned bullish in the daily and weekly time frames, but the price action has yet to catch up with this trend reversal.
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Crypto Whales Ditched Tether for USDC After Stablecoin Panic
The UST failure prompted large investors on the Ethereum blockchain to leave USDT for the perceived safety of its biggest competitor.
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Regulations
One River’s Carbon Neutral Bitcoin ETF Rejected by SEC
It’s the latest in the agency’s string of rejections of spot bitcoin ETF applications.
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Portugal’s Parliament rejects Bitcoin and crypto tax proposals
The Portuguese Parliament, rejected not one but two different proposals to tax Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
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FTX’s Bankman-Fried Pitches CFTC on Directly Clearing Customers’ Crypto Swaps
The crypto exchange’s founder and CEO made his case at a Washington, D.C., roundtable, while mainstream derivatives firms painted his ideas as dangerous.
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Senators Draft Bill to Ban Use of Digital Yuan in US-Based Mobile Apps - Blockworks
The “Defending Americans from Authoritarian Digital Currencies Act” aims to curb China’s “direct control” on US soil, the senators said.
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Amid sanctions, Russia weighs crypto for international payments: Report
Russia appears poised to adopt crypto as part of a broader effort to stave off the impact of Western sanctions.
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S. Korea finance regulator to audit Terra and related exchanges
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) of South Korea will perform an on-site inspection of Terraform Labs and financial services linked to TerraUSD (UST) or LUNA. See related article: Are we heading for a post-Terra crypto winter? Fast facts The FSS said at an emergency National Assembly meeting o…
Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes Sentenced to 2 Years Probation
Hayes pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) in February, and faced a sentence of up to 12 months in prison.
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Opinions
Christine Lagarde says crypto is worth nothing
Lagarde said she thinks crypto should be regulated to protect inexperienced investors.
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JPMorgan Says Bitcoin Is Undervalued By 28%, Says Cryptocurrencies Are Now A ‘Preferred Alternative Asset’
Despite the crypto slump, banking giant JPMorgan says bitcoin is massively undervalued.
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Billionaire Bill Miller calls Bitcoin ‘insurance’ against financial catastrophe
The billionaire investor commented on a recent remark by Buffett who said he wouldn’t take all the world’s Bitcoin for $25 rebutting “no one’s making you buy it, right? So ignore it.”
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The Bitcoin-Stock Market Decoupling Isn’t Happening Yet, but It Totally Will
When Decoupling? Maybe soon (but probably not).
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