Let's try my hand at writing, a future journalist in the making, for the #marchinleo theme.
What happened in the past week? Bitcoin ETF is up, Bitcoin is up, ETH is up and mostly everything is up, especially on Solana and some notable new projects on Base. What else? Read below:
- Bitcoin: Grayscale's GBTC saw only $44M in outflows, the lowest redemption rate since its launch in January. It is not that BTC almost hit $64K, the first time since 2021, but the suddenly dropped once more, and right now is hovering around $61-62K, trying to break up. Bitcoin ETFs are threatening to overtake the gold ETFs in AUM. Morgan Stanley is exploring the possibility of offering spot BTC ETFs on its brokerage platform. Meanwhile, BTC ETFs got a volume record surpassing %7.7B on Wednesday.
- Ethereum: The fun side of the crypto market, the Deneb-Cancun upgrade is pumping the ETH price, not the ETF. The Ethereum buys on Coinbase are the main force leading to the +11% price pump over the past week, mostly US customers. The institutions are shifting focus to ETH over BTC, while retail investors still bet on BTC.
- Altcoins and stablecoins: Uniswap token surged 50% after a proposed upgrade to incentivize long-term token holders, with the launch of the uni.eth subdomains on the ENS infrastructure as a bonus. Blast TVL surpassed $2B ahead of the mainnet launch, but it seems people are concerned, as most of it comes from users participating in a future airdrop by bridging funds to a multi-signature contract, with funds locked until the launch in May. Dodgy, and quite risky. But then, no pain, no gain! Memes are the hot buy, $PEPE went up +37% on the ETH blockchain, and WIF went up 69% (oh yes) on Solana. Solana just hit a 22-month high, by the way. Even Doge went up 45%. Some liquidity protocol on Base took them over with +140% ($AERO). While you are there, on Base, check Ambient DEX too. TON (that Telegram token) also went up 31%. Everything is going up, the bull market is here. Senators are against a CBDC proposal made by Biden, fearing that the government will control and track every hot dog and beer purchase made by the brave and free citizens. This will totally happen if they do it, we already know it! WoldCoin acquired a mallet maker called OTR Finance. Starkware just launched an efficient ZK-proof generator called STWO, leading to faster processing and lower costs for the users.
NFTs and blockchain games: A new cross-chain gaming platform called Portal went live Thursday on various blockchains including Solana, BSC and Polygon. On Splinterlands, the first round of Conflicts airdrop activity ended. The second part of the Conflicts airdrop already started. One wagon can be bought with 50 Vouchers (around $2.30, less expensive) and deposit up to 5 cards and 100 Rebellion packs to get Airdrop points. You may also want to check Holozing - a soon-to-be-launched Pokemon-like game on the Hive blockchain. VanEck is building a vault-like platform called SegMint, using a lock and key model to make sharing and securing NFTs better, probably using the profits from its freshly-made BTC ETF. There is a new hub for crypto users to discover blockchain games, connect with Steam or Epic accounts, earn care packages based on their gaming history, and even a possible airdrop.
Good news: Ripple is partnering with Axelar to advance the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization on blockchain. This is good, even if it is Ripple. Now this is cool, HashKey just got a new payment license in Singapore, removing the previous restrictions for the OTC desk, catering for the big investors, with liquidity for spot trading for 40 different digital assets. Forex giant Oanda enters the UK crypto market with an FCA-registered platform. Gemini will return $1.1B to customers who participated in its Earn program, via Genesis Global Capital (now bankrupt). State attorneys from eight states are challenging the SEC's lawsuit against Kraken. The US government moved $922M in BTC seized from the 2016 Bitfinex hack. BlockFi will pay back a part of the customer's funds in March.
- Bad news: BitForex exchange ceased operations, after a $56.5M withdrawal, making us think about an exit scam. Elon Must sued Sam Altman and OpenAI blaming them for accepting fat checks from Microsoft who paid billions to them, instead of being a non-profit, open source, saving humanity tool via AI. It seems that Do-Kwon, that guy with Luna, will miss his SEC trial as the extradition is delayed.
- Joke of the week: MicroStrategy's Twitter account was hacked this week, and many were drained automatically while trying to claim a fake ETH token airdrop. Really, why would MS give you ETH airdrop when they are BTC maxi? Meanwhile, MicroStrategy bought another 3000 BTC, reaching 193.000 BTC in total. Are they aiming for 200K? This would have been my first choice for the joke of the week if Gary Gensler had not gone to meet South Korean regulators to teach them about NFTs and Spot BTC ETFs. Does he have any idea about all that stuff? Or he would go with the well-known - BTC bad, terrorists, scammers, steal money from honest people.
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- Hearthstone-like card game) (Mobox - GamiFI NFT platform) (Upland - real-life virtual land) (Holozing - Pokemon-like game)and (Rising Star - Music creators game).
...Get ETH 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.