The Friday Focus: Issue 26

Mar 25, 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

This week has been one of the most eventful in a long time, especially on the adoption side. One of the world's largest companies, ExxonMobil, has for more than a year used its stranded natural gas reserves to mine bitcoin in the U.S. and will now expand this project to other sites around the globe.

The Russian energy industry considers accepting bitcoin as payment for their oil and gas. These developments align with recent comments from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink that the Russia-Ukraine war could accelerate the use of cryptocurrencies.

Like BlackRock, other traditional investment firms increasingly see the value of crypto. Hedge fund giant Bridgewater invests in a crypto fund, investment bank Cowen is the latest to launch a digital asset division, and Goldman Sachs is the first major investment bank to make an OTC crypto trade.

As we have become accustomed to, a lot is happenings on the regulatory side. U.S. lawmakers continue being crypto skeptics on a federal level, as the Senate considers a bill examining El Salvador's Bitcoin experiment. In New York, lawmakers advanced a proposed moratorium on proof-of-work mining.

Politicians further south in the U.S. continue showing their positive attitude towards crypto. The Florida governor says the state will accept bitcoin for tax payments, and the city of Austin in Texas is considering doing the same. Texas continues to prove why it has become the global stronghold for mining, as a congressman stated that the bitcoin mining industry is helping the U.S. gain energy independence.

A Deputy Minister of Malaysia wants to make bitcoin legal tender. In contrast, Thailand, one of the biggest crypto adopters, has banned the use of crypto for payments. People speculate which Latin American country will be the next to make bitcoin legal tender after El Salvador, and the Central Bank of Honduras 'assured' that they will not be next.

We also saw some significant capital raises over the past seven days. Venture capitalist Katie Haun raises $1.5B for two new crypto funds. Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs raises $450M at a $4B valuation. Polkadot parachain project Acala announces a $250M fund to fuel adoption of the aUSD stablecoin on Polkadot. Crypto lending platform Nexo is launching a $150M web3 investment fund, and chip giant Qualcomm launches a $100M metaverse fund. FTX ventures invest $100M in money app Dave while also creating a unit in Australia.

We might get some new public crypto companies soon, as Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck, the two Chinese cloud miners Bitdeer and BitFuFu, and Taiwan's largest crypto exchange MaiCoin are all looking at potential IPOs in the U.S. this year.