The Friday Focus: Issue 12

Weekly happenings

FED will increase tapering to combat the rising inflation. The IMF, the Bank of England and the Indian Prime Minister call for global policy on cryptocurrency. The Russian Central Bank seeks a ban on crypto investment. Meanwhile, other jurisdictions welcome crypto with Myanmar’s shadow government adopting Tether as official currency, and a UAE wealth fund investing in crypto. The big capital raises continue, with data startup Nansen securing fresh funding at a $750M valuation, Lambda265 closes $60M at a $300M valuation, Dune Analytics raising at a rumoured $1B valuation, crypto lender Ledn raising $70M, custody firm Anchorage raising $350M at a $3B valuation, NYDIG securing $1B in funding at a $7B valuation, metaverse company InfiniteWorld announcing plans to go public in a $700M SPAC merger, and a former politician raising $200M to start a bitcoin mining company. Valkyrie launches ETF to track bitcoin balance sheet stocks. As usual, many things are happening in the NFTs and metaverse sectors as Nike buys NFT sneaker studio, Nexo plans to launch NFT-backed lending, and a metaverse ETP gains approval in Europe.

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Weekend reading

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Weekend listening

• Blockworks at Digital Asset Summit - What's Stopping the Institutional Market from Entering Digital Assets | LMAX Group CEO David Mercer

• Blockworks at Digital Asset Summit - BVNK Managing Director on Generating Yield in Crypto, DeFi

• Uncommon Core - Ethereum vs. Alt L1s - with Su Zhu and Hasu. What the “Crypto Villain of the Year” thinks about his image, the arguments for Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, the arguments for Alt L1s to out-scale Ethereum - What parallels to BTC maximalism Su sees in the ETH community

• FTX with Sam Bankman-Fried & Mario Gabriele - The Complete History & Strategy of FTX.

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Arcane’s weekend material