The Friday Focus: Issue 16

Jan 14, 2022

Welcome to our Friday newsletter. Here you find the most exciting crypto content from the previous week - curated for you by us.

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Weekly happenings

The activity in the crypto industry has surged over the past seven days, especially on the funding side. Bitcoin miner Rhodium will soon go public to a planned valuation of $1.7B, while payments giant Checkout.com raises $1B aiming to use the funds to further crypto payment processing.

Other notable deals include the smart contract platform Near raising $150M, digital asset startup Zero Hash raising $105M, and crypto bank SEBA securing $120M. Crypto exchanges are active on the acquisition front, as Coinbase purchases derivatives exchange FairX to offer futures trading, while Gemini acquires crypto asset management platform Bitria. Crypto-focused VC firm Paradigm is together with Sequoia investing $1.15B in electronic trading giant Citadel Securities.

We have also seen signs of increased crypto adoption in the last few days. Billionaire investor Bill Miller revealed that he has 50% of his wealth in bitcoin. Jack Dorsey had a busy week, launching a legal defense fund for Bitcoin developers. His company, Block, is building a bitcoin mining system and is also listing on Australia's ASX. The DOGE price pumps after Tesla launches Dogecoin payments.

Tonga is allegedly set to copy El Salvador's bill making Bitcoin legal tender, and Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs are coming to India. PayPal is exploring creating its own stablecoin.

The massive activity in the NFT space continues, with OpenSea on track for a record month. Simplify files application with the SEC for a Web3 ETF, while Disney patents technology for a theme park metaverse.