The Friday Focus - Issue 56

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

Oct 21, 2022

Weekly happenings

It’s been another uneventful week in the crypto market, with prices barely moving, but the news scene is moving as always.

Let’s dive into it!

Top stories

If anyone is still thinking that Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto and the founder of Bitcoin, the Norwegian court may have put the final nail in the coffin for that theory this week. Surprise surprise.

The exploiter of Solana-based Mango Markets revealed his identity this week, returned $67 million, and argued that he did nothing illegal. The platform will soon start refunding users, and it looks like the exploiter will keep 40% of the funds. Well played?

The battle for the first spot bitcoin ETF continues, with the latest being the US Chamber of Commerce ripping SEC for denying Grayscale’s proposed bitcoin ETF. Coinbase and the Blockchain Association also weighed in this week to reverse the SEC rejection.

The finance industry keeps moving closer to crypto, with Mastercard ready to help banks offer crypto trading, Fidelity launching ETH trading for institutional clients, and France’s third-biggest bank getting approved to operate digital asset services. Not all positive news though, with crypto bank Silvergate reporting that it will miss its goal of offering a stablecoin this year.

A lot is happening on the regulatory scene as always. EU lawmakers are discussing rolling out energy efficiency labels for blockchains and warning crypto mining may be halted in an energy emergency. Moving further west, SEC’s Gensler says CFTC authority over stablecoins should be bolstered, and The US IRS has given NFT investors new clarity about how the assets are set to be taxed.

Lending-related news coming in this week as well, with US regulators probing Three Arrows Capital and headlines saying customers of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager could recover 72% of their funds if the FTX sale is approved. Interestingly, a formed Celcius executive got a regulation and policy job at JP Morgan this week. Interesting timing with JP Morgan CEO recently branding crypto tokens as “decentralized Ponzis”.

Fresh capital flowing into the crypto industry, with Blockchain.com raising an undisclosed amount, crypto hedge fund Edge Capital raising $66.8M, investment app Stash closing debt round at $52.5 million, and Celestia Labs hitting unicorn status in the latest bet on modular blockchains.

Talking about blockchain bets, Aptos, a layer-1 blockchain developed by ex-Facebook executives, launched this week and saw a classic pump and dump as its token got listed on several exchanges.

Stablecoin issuer Tether is in the news again, now wanting to make USDT available at 24,000 ATMs in Brazil.

Another company making headlines is Tesla, whose Q3 report shows no changes in its bitcoin holdings. Great to see Elon hodling through the bear market with us, at least with the remaining bitcoin that he didn’t sell in Q2.

That’s all folks - until next time!

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