- Crypto Market Cap ($2.5T): -1% / +40% - BTC ($63,737): 0% / +50% - ETH ($3,134): -6% / +37% - SOL ($145): +2% / +42% - UNI ($7.53): -6% / +3% - MATIC ($0.73): -1% / -24% - Tether Mkt Cap ($111B): 0% / +21% - USDC Mkt Cap ($34B): 0% / +37% - BTC / ETH Dominance: 51% / 15%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Coinbase reported Q1 earnings of $1.6 billion, a 72% increase from Q4. Outside of its core exchange business, Coinbase benefited from growth in its USDC stablecoin and Layer-2 blockchain Base, as well as a one-time favorable change to crypto accounting rules. Link.
- $175 billion of bitcoin, roughly 15% of the entire supply, is held by ETFs, nations, and public and private companies according to a new VanEck report.
- Binance founder CZ was sentenced to four months in prison and a $50 million fine for violating US anti-money laundering laws. Prosecutors had requested 3 years of prison time.
- Tether reported $4.5 billion of profit for Q1 2024. $1 billion came from interest on US Treasury holdings and $3.5 billion came from mark-to-market gains on bitcoin and gold holdings.
- Dapper Labs, the company behind popular NFT projects NBA Top Shot and CryptoKitties, was reportedly under investigation by the SEC for selling unregistered securities until September 2023. The SEC decided to close the case without bringing any charges.
- Block, the parent company of Square and Cash App, is under investigation by federal prosecutors for OFAC violations including processing crypto payments for terrorist organizations and users in sanctioned countries.
- Tether has partnered with Chainalysis on a new surveillance tool that will let the company monitor secondary transactions using its USDT stablecoin for terrorist finance and sanctions violations.
- Decentralized publishing app Paragraph raised $5 million from USV and is merging with competitor Mirror. The Mirror team will continue to operate independently but will shift focus to developing a Farcaster client called "Kiosk".
- Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization firm Securitize closed a $47 million funding round led by BlackRock. The two groups are partners on BlackRock’s Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, which tokenizes assets such as equities, bonds, and real estate.
- The DOJ arrested early bitcoin investor Roger Ver for failing to pay $48 million in taxes related to bitcoin he sold in 2014. Ver was arrested in Spain and will be extradited to the US to face charges.
- Block, the parent company of Square and Cash App, beat Q1 estimates and announced a new policy where it will invest 10% of its bitcoin-related profits into buying more bitcoin.
- MicroStrategy announced it was developing a decentralized identity platform on Bitcoin using a modified version of Ordinals inscriptions. MicroStrategy is a publicly traded software company that holds over $15 billion of bitcoin.
Check out this week's Crypto Weekly by myself and @maaria