The Friday Focus - Issue 55

Our weekly crypto news summary. Curated by us, for you.

Oct 14, 2022

Weekly happenings

It’s been all about US inflation numbers over the past 24 hours, but the week has been full of interesting news in the crypto industry.

Let’s dive into it!

Top stories

Well-known companies have been making headlines this week. Google has partnered with Coinbase to offer crypto payments for cloud services and enabled search functionalities for Ethereum addresses. America's oldest bank, BNY Mellon, is now live with its crypto custody platform for US clients. Exciting to see the continued push toward crypto from giants like these.

Tether is also bringing positive news this week, as its much-criticized commercial papers are eliminated from its reserves and replaced by US treasuries. Another step toward legitimizing the leading stablecoin provider.

Regulation is, as usual, filling up our newsletter, with MiCA bringing the top story this week as well. After the EU Council agreed on the text of the landmark EU crypto framework last week, it passed a committee vote (28 to 1) in the European Parliament this week. We expect MiCA to enter into force in Q1 next year, which means that all affected parties must be ready by Q1 2024 when the laws become effective.

In other regulatory news, the G20 countries reviewed a new crypto regulation framework this week, OECD released a final plan to crack down on international crypto tax evasion, the EU Commission wants to study real-time monitoring of DeFi activity, Janet Yellen stresses the need for CBDC, India’s central bank launching digital Rupee pilot and Coin Center sues Treasury over the much-debated Tornado Cash sanctions.

More news on bitcoin ETFs as well, as SEC unsurprisingly rejected WisdomTress’s spot bitcoin ETF proposal, and Grayscale shares an update on the ongoing lawsuit against SEC, arguing that they have no justification for SEC to deny bitcoin trust conversion to ETF.

Talking about the SEC, Bored-Ape creator Yuga Labs is now being investigated by SEC over unregistered offerings.

On the crypto exchange front, Coinbase and Blockchain.com secured licenses to operate in Singapore, Houbi owners sold the exchange to a Hong Kong-based investment firm (and not to Tron owner Justin Sun as rumors have suggested), and FTX is targeting Latin America with Visa debit card with Europa and Asia being next. The bitcoin-focused NYDIG recently laid off 33% of its staff, following the trend of others this year.

October is already the worst month for crypto hacks in history, with the main story being the $100 million exploit on the Solana-based DeFi platform Mango and the hacker suggesting, and voting for, a $70 million bug bounty rewarding the hacker for finding the vulnerability.

Another record comes in from the funding scene, as crypto venture funding fell for two consecutive quarters for the first time since 2018. Nevertheless, this week crypto custodian Copper raised $196 million, Uniswap Labs raised $165 million, crypto asset manager Blocktower launched a $150 million VC fund, blockchain development platform Tatum raised $41.5 million, and blockchain startup nxyz raised $40 million. Luckily not completely dead after all.

Last but not least, some lending-related news, as the contagion chaos still hunt us. The troubled crypto lender Celsius has revealed the names and transaction history of hundreds of thousands of its customers in a court filing. The 14,500-page long document reveals that some customers lost up to $40 million. Data from Nansen also shows that Alex Mashinsky, who resigned as Celsius’ CEO in September, has moved over $1 million out of wallets after he resigned, while withdrawals are suspended for customers. Surely not a great look for the former CEO.

That’s all folks - until next time!

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