The Friday Focus: Issue 27

Apr 01, 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 regulatory pressure continues, as the EU Parliament voted to impose KYC on private crypto wallets, while the Ripple founder spent $5M on a Greenpeace ad campaign to pressure Bitcoin to change its consensus algorithm from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.

Dubai continues to be a top destination for crypto exchanges as Crypto.com and Bybit establish offices there. FTX Europe aims to expand into the UK, while BitMEX's plan to enter Europe by acquiring a German bank fell through.

New crypto-investment products continue being launched, as CME goes live with 'micro' bitcoin and ether options, while WisdomTree launches Solana, Cardano, and Polkadot ETPs in Europe. Grayscale considers suing the SEC, after struggling to get approval for converting their bitcoin ETF into an ETF. The immature Bitcoin ETF market in the US leads investors to seek alternative bitcoin investment vehicles such as Microstrategy, which has taken out a $205M loan to buy even more bitcoin.

Leading Brazilian crypto ETF provider Hashdex plans to expand into Europe, while Coinbase wants to get a piece of the growing Brazilian trading volume by buying Brazil's largest crypto exchange.

The crypto exchange Kraken integrates Bitcoin's Lightning Network, while the web browser Opera adds support for Bitcoin, Polygon, and Solana. Ukraine continues its innovative efforts in raising money by launching an NFT Museum of War.

Valuations in the crypto sector continue to soar, with exchange Blockchain.com reaching a $14B valuation and interoperability protocol LayerZero raising money at a $1B valuation.

Yet again, we witnessed an enormous DeFi hack, as a $600 million exploit hit Axie Infinity's Ethereum sidechain Ronin.