The Friday Focus: Issue 23

Mar 04, 2022

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

If you haven’t already, hit the button below and subscribe to receive the newsletter every Friday in your inbox.

Weekly happenings

Crypto plays a relevant role as a fundraising tool as war ravages Ukraine, helping the Ukrainian Government and NGOs raise tens of millions of dollars. Mainly bitcoin and ether have been raised, but DAOs are also selling Ukraine NFTs, inspiring the Ukrainian Government to issue their own NFTs.

The war has led both the western block and Russia to impose the strictest capital controls in decades, as the EU excludes seven Russian banks from SWIFT, pushing the largest Russian bank out of Europe.

Crypto is no exception to the intensifying capital controls. The Ukrainian Government asked crypto exchanges to freeze all Russian and Belarusian accounts, but exchanges are refusing so far, as ordinary Russians are not subject to the sanctions.

Although the crypto exchanges refuse to freeze accounts, NFT platform OpenSea, crypto wallet Metamask, and blockchain gaming giant Animoca Brands have been freezing accounts of users from specific countries, in a sanction push from regulators.

After failing to ban proof-of-work mining in the EU, opponents have taken a break from the "crypto is bad for the environment" narrative, instead focusing on the unrealistic scenario of Russians using crypto as a sanction evasion tool.

We saw some massive capital raises over the past seven days. Electric Capital raises $1B to launch crypto funds. Hack VC launches a $200M crypto fund backed by VC giant Andreessen Horowitz, which invests $70M in Ethereum staking protocol Lido. Shift4 buys crypto donation firm The Giving Block for up to $300M. South-African crypto exchange VALR raises $50M in the biggest African crypto capital raise ever.

Tradfi companies continue their crypto push as Charles Schwab proposes a crypto fund, market-making leader Citadel Securities looks to enter crypto markets, and insurance firm IMA Financial plans to start selling NFT insurance in Decentraland. CME Group is going to roll out micro bitcoin and ether options.

On the adoption side, the Swiss city Lugano will make bitcoin and tether legal tender, while the South Korean Government is going to pour $187M into a metaverse ecosystem.