What happened in crypto in the past week? Ethereum is the main rage, with Bitcoin cooling down. Genius Act legislation changes things and Pump has no airdrop on sight. What else? Read below:
- Bitcoin: MicroStrategy bought some more BTC officially crossing $71B on its stash, exceeding ExxomMobile cash reserves and ranking nine among the S&P500 companies. We are witnessing Bitcoin social dominance, as almost 43% of all the crypto-chatter involves Bitcoin, especially after the $123.100 ATH in its entire history. Tim Draper said that Bitcoin's 4-year cycle could be over, and the dollar will be obsolete within the next 10-20 years. Three dorman Bitcoin wallets moved $1.26B worth of BTC after 4 years of not being active. They got the Bitcoin when it was $18K. Another wallet dormant since 2011 moved $468M worth of BTC too. Side note, El Salvador did not bought Bitcoin since February, maybe trying to look good for the IMF report. Square has started letting merchant accept bitcoin payments via Lightning Network, aiming for full availability by 2026.
- Ethereum: Some interesting opportunities with the GENIUS Act passed, as this eliminates yield-bearing stablecoins for the US institutions. So, in turn, the Ethereum-based DEFI will be the main alternative for passive income generation. And institutions that need to generate returns for shareholders cannot just park money in yield-bearing stablecoins anymore. So, this is good, I presume! Ethereum ETFs pulled in $2.2B last week, while BTC funds saw minimal action. Looks like some of the BTC money are moving now to Ethereum. SharpLink Gaming bought another $259M worth of ETH, their largest purchase ever, and now they have a total of $1.3B worth of ETH. The institutions are buying ETH faster than it can be made, 32 times more than the actual issuance since May 15. BlackRock ETH ETF breaks every record, reaching $10B in just 10 days after the $5B mark, with a 14-day inflow streak. There are also talks about Fusaka upgrade for November, with 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals targeting increased resistance to malicious attacks while enhancing throughput, larger contract sizes and new gas metering. Nothing was said about the EVM Object Format.
- Altcoins and stablecoins: Anchorage Digital is launching a stablecoin issuance platform, starting with Ethene USDtb, that is Genius-compliant. Early PUMP.FUN investors dumped everything, $161M worth of its token, and now PUMP is trading below its original price. Pump.fun also confirmed that no airdrop is coming soon. Telegram activated TON wallet for the US users, integrated directly into the up, no download required, and you can send USDT and TON like regular messages. After some initial pump, altcoins take a hit as Trump legislation passed. BNB reached a new record above $800, in what was described as 'the most discrete ATH' of a major cryptocurrency. LetsBONK announced it will dedicate !% of its total revenue to buy back tokens in the BONK ecosystem, an estimate $15000 weekly buying pressure. Solana got some interesting ideas, planning to replace Wall Street.
- NFTs and blockchain games: Someone bought $10M worth of CryptoPunks, and the chain reaction could see Pudgy Penguins jumping 13%, and Bored Apes 23%. I have enjoyed playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite profitable, I would say, with some significant updates lately. On Splinterlands, we have had the Land NFT new update and improved tokenomics on March 18. The presale of its latest Conclave Arcana collection is ongoing, and two new promo cards are on sale. Check my Holozing article to learn about a new blockchain game that looks full of potential. As Ozzy Osbourne died, his CryptoBatz NFTs price went up from 0.02 ETH to 0.08 ETH overnight.
- Good news: Polymarket acquired CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse for $112M, to re-enter in the US market after the end of the DSoJ probe. JPMorgan Chase is considering offering loans backed by crypto holdings. Ether-focused investment firm Dynamix Corporation (DYNX) GO PUPLICK VIA $1.5 SPAC deal. FBI ends probe of Kraken Founder and returns the seized devices from the 2023 FBI raid. Goldman Sachs and Bank of New York Mellon launched tokenized money market funds, tipically backed by short-term US Government debt. FTX will begin next round of creditor payouts on September 30. OSL Group, one of the HK's earliest licensed crypto exchange, has raised $300M in an equity round aiming to expand its bussiness globally.
- Bad news: Bit Origin bought 22% of the entire DOGE market cap - 40M DOGE, building a Dogecoin treasury. But why? Elon may be the only one responsible for them being succesful and gaining a good profit. Too random! Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX suffered a $44M hack that compromised an internal account used for liquidity operations. Citadel Securities is urging the US regulators to slow down their approach to tokenized securities, arguing that this can disrupt capital markets and disadvantage large institutional players. Feel the burn? The SEC also approved, then freezed Bitwise's plan to convert its crypto index fund into a spot-exchange traded fund, same as with Grayscale earlier this year.
- Joke of the week: Trump token has 6-8 weeks to unlock WLFI trading, and the pre-market is trading at $0.16, ten times more than the initial price of $0.015 sale price. They did one interesting move, with 66% of all of their funds ($3B) invested into Bitcoin. With $2B worth of BTC, Trump Media is now one of the largest corporate Bitcoin holders.
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - a real-life virtual land) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).
...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog, using the Presearch search engine to maximise your income with PRE tokens. Use Torum instead of Twitter. I am also writing for crypto on Hive.
