The Friday Focus: Issue 41

Jul 08, 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 contagion effects from Terra, Celsius and Three Arrows Capital keep giving us eventful news weeks. Let’s get into it.

Vauld is the latest firm to halt client withdrawals, and Nexo is reportedly interested in acquiring the troubled crypto lender. Voyager seeks bankruptcy protection and despite the claim of customer deposits being protected, its bank noted that this is not the case. The company also faces delisting from Toronto Stock Exchange.

It now looks like FTX will swallow BlockFi, with a deal total of $680 million. Celcius is still active in repaying debt but also facing accusations of fraud in a new lawsuit. Genesis finally confirmed its exposure to Three Arrows Capital and CoinLoan limits user withdrawals. The crypto startup Uprise managed to lose 99% of client funds while shorting LUNA during the crash in May. Yes, you read that right.

Crypto exchanges are trying to get through the bear market with somewhat different approaches. While FTX is acquiring companies, Bitstamp tried to introduce an inactivity fee but canceled it after customer pushback. Bullish cuts almost 10% of staff, and Binance shows strength by introducing zero-fee bitcoin trading globally.

Miners are also dealing with the low bitcoin price, with Core Scientific selling over 7000 bitcoin in June. Hut8 now has 5800 rigs churning at its Ontario site and claims that all bitcoin will be “hodled”. Riot Blockchain has started moving away from its New York hosting site, and Marathon continues to hodl all bitcoin but hints at strategy change.

Regulation is in the spotlight as usual. The U.S. Treasury Department published a fact sheet yesterday, outlining how it could work with foreign regulators to address the cryptocurrency sector. The UK seeks views on DeFi taxation and will introduce legislation on stablecoins by August. Bank of England calls for “enhanced” crypto regulatory framework, Belgium regulator ponders crypto as a security, and EU lawmakers say NFT platforms should be subject to money-laundering regulation. India’s latest push on crypto tax is here and Singapore regulators are mulling over more restrictive crypto policies.

In other worldwide news, Argentines are reportedly taking refuge in stablecoins after the economy minister's resignation.

NFTs are still making headlines, with Meta affirming digital collectibles plan despite the crypto crash and LimeWire has teamed up with several artists to launch NFTs. Yuga Labs completed the first load test of Otherside metaverse this week, with thousands of land holders flocking to the game.

Until next time!