In a note published on April 24, Standard Chartered analysts predicted that Bitcoin prices will climb to $100,000 by the end of 2024.
Analyst Geoff Kendrick noted that the collapse of several U.S. banks, including Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate, and Signature, has solidified the case for Bitcoin as a “decentralized, trustless, and scarce digital asset.”
The bank analyst was confident that the bear market is over and prices will continue higher next year in the next bull market cycle.
“We see potential for Bitcoin (BTC) to reach the USD 100,000 level by end-2024, as we believe the much-touted ‘crypto winter’ is finally over,”
Bitcoin to Hit Six Figures
The current stress in the traditional banking sector is highly conducive to BTC’s outperformance, he said, according to

On April 23, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said the gold-backed digital asset will be used as legal tender in the African nation.
The move is part of an effort to stabilize the country’s economy and local currency’s continued depreciation against the U.S. dollar.
According to reports in local media, the move will allow those holding small amounts of Zimbabwean dollars to exchange their money for digital tokens. This will help them store value and hedge against currency volatility.
RBZ Governor Dr. John Mangudya said the current exchange rate volatility was caused by “expectations of increased foreign currency supply.”
This is due to the start of the tobacco season when farmers receive receiving payments in USD.

Distancing From The Dollar
It is not the first time

Government officials have confirmed the city’s crypto commitments at the Hong Kong Web3 Festival this week as it aims to become a fully regulated crypto hub attracting investment and Web3 startups.
On April 12, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po reiterated that appropriate regulations and oversight were of paramount importance.
“I believe that everybody has learned from recent events that appropriate regulations are a must to create a sustainable development environment and a more ideal space for development.”
Hong Kong to Regulate DeFi
According to reports, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) also wants to regulate decentralized finance. The agency believes DeFi platforms will need a license which essentially means they won’t be DeFi.
Keith Choy, head

On April 13, Solana said that its flagship, security-conscious, crypto-first Android device from Solana Mobile is available to those who pre-ordered.
The firm will begin taking new orde1111rs for the device on May 8, it added. The Saga crypto smartphone was originally announced in mid-2022.
It stated that the team has been using Saga for months now, along with “hundreds of developers.”
Saga will be able to manage and store crypto assets, mint NFTs, and run decentralized applications from the Solana dApp store.
Furthermore, the hardware specifications are also pretty impressive. Saga will come with a Snapdragon 8+ mobile platform, 12GB of memory, 512GM of storage, and a 6.67” OLED display. It will be priced at around $1,000, according to the announcement.

Saga was

On April 6, Charli3 was launched on Cardano as its first oracle integrator. The platform’s oracles have been integrated by Liqwid, a leading DeFi project on Cardano.
Charli3 provides a decentralized node network with the framework for projects to supply secure, accurate, and safe data to their platforms and users. It could be viewed as the Cardano version of Chainlink.
Liqwid is an algorithmic liquidity market protocol built on Cardano for lenders and borrowers.
The announcement noted that it was a big deal for the ecosystem:
“This is a MAJOR occasion for the Cardano ecosystem as a whole, showing that projects are following the continuous push for full decentralization on Cardano.”

🎉INTEGRATION🎉@liqwidfinance is Charli3’s, and Cardano’s, first Oracle integrator!

Research by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) suggests that the tokenization of global illiquid assets could become a $16 trillion industry by 2030. Real-world assets include equities, bonds, investment funds, and other financial instruments.
They can also include commodities such as gold and silver and real estate.
Furthermore, analysts are predicting that this will become a catalyst for mainstream crypto adoption.

One crypto sector is estimated to reach $16 Trillion by 2030:
Real World Assets.
This will be the CATALYST for mainstream Crypto adoption.
Here’s your 2023 guide to RWAs (and the top protocols): pic.twitter.com/bGudNQX0zq
— Edgy – The DeFi Edge 🗡️ (@thedefiedge) March 30, 2023

Real World Assets a “Killer Use Case”
According to Citi Group’s latest global

According to a March 9 Fox Business report, the next salvo in Uncle Sam’s war on crypto could be a massive class action lawsuit filed on behalf of retail investors against top exchanges.
The outlet reported that leading securities lawyer Tom Grady is preparing for potential litigation against America’s largest crypto companies, including Coinbase, Robinhood, and Kraken.
The allegation is the same old story that the Securities and Exchange Commission keeps repeating – illegal sales of unregistered securities. In a press release shared with the outlet, Grady stated:
“We believe Coinbase, Robinhood, and other exchanges have violated the law, and investors who lost money purchasing cryptocurrencies on their platforms may be entitled to recover those losses.”

🚨NEW: Crypto

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles made the comments at a court hearing in New York on March 2.
The Voyager Digital restructuring plan would involve the sale of just over $1 billion worth of its assets to Binance.US. However, the SEC has opposed the deal claiming that it violates securities laws.
When questioned about the reasoning behind the opposition, SEC attorney William Uptegrove failed to provide a definite answer, according to Reuters.
In its typical vague approach, the SEC attorney said, “we can’t take a position at this point,” before adding, “the SEC is a deliberative body, and its process is a nonpublic one by federal law.”
Judge Wiles wasn’t too impressed with this response:

“Deliberative is one thing, but what have you done? If there are reasons to be

On March 1, MetaMask announced its latest upgrade, which is a software development kit (SDK) in the Unity Asset Store.
It will allow developers to connect their games to the MetaMask wallet, enabling users to interact with Web3-enabled features within the game itself, it stated.
The Unity Asset Store is a platform for decentralized gaming assets. It approves third-party gaming solutions to help users and developers manage digital assets and set up smart contracts.
The MetaMask listing on Unity will enable greater interaction between wallet users and Web3 gaming.
“Our listing in Unity will bring web3 values to the gaming industry. It’s a whole new era for gaming devs.”

It has come 🎮
The launch of the MetaMask SDK in the Unity Asset Store will allow devs to connect their

Calls for more transparency in the process of crypto regulation in the U.S. are mounting. The latest to join the trend is the Blockchain Association, with the spate of enforcement action continuing as the Securities and Exchange Commission ramps up its war on crypto.
On Feb. 22, Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith told Bloomberg that the crackdown has been a “behind closed doors” operation targeting specific companies for certain circumstances.
“What we really need is a more open process where we look comprehensively at the entire marketplace. [Regulators need to] figure out the appropriate way to regulate different actors within the crypto ecosystem, and move forward in an open process where everyone can participate.”
Blockchain Association is the collective voice of

On Feb. 9, Gary Gensler and his SEC took aim at Kraken and its staking-as-a-service products. The regulator claims that the U.S. crypto exchange is offering unregistered securities through its staking services.
Consequently, Kraken suspended staking-as-a-service, and crypto markets have slumped.
On Feb. 10, popular analyst and trader Alex Krüger put a positive spin on the latest regulatory crackdown by Uncle Sam.
He said that a ban on staking, which the SEC is angling for, could push staking off-chain or overseas. This would decentralize Ethereum even further as would no longer be under the hammer of U.S. regulators.

Positive narrative spin for later: banning US exchanges/custodians from offering staking services pushes staking offchain or abroad => ETH is no longer

The Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) has fallen to a record discount of -60% as fears over liquidations mount.
The discount to net asset value (NAV) had been between -25% and -35% up until early November when FTX collapsed. It has since plummeted to its lowest-ever level this week.
The Ethereum Trust is the firm’s second-largest, with $3.7 billion in assets under management (AUM). It holds around 3 million ETH, which is about 2.5% of its total market capitalization.
The ETHE fund is down 69% over the past year, according to Grayscale, but it has gained 49% since its inception in December 2017.

Every Grayscale trust and their respective premium % pic.twitter.com/TYQf5FmeXt
— db (@tier10k) January 3, 2023

Grayscale Liquidation Fears Mount
The asset manager’s flagship

On Dec. 27, licensed trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis revealed the latest crypto trademark applications from Fidelity Investments.
There were three applications filed broadly covering Metaverse technologies and services, NFTs and marketplaces, virtual land, and cryptocurrency trading.
The first relates to digital media and NFTs, and the second is the provision for an online marketplace for the sale of NFTs.

#Fidelity has plans for the metaverse!
The company has filed 3 trademark applications covering▶️ NFTs + NFT Marketplaces▶️ Metaverse Investment Services▶️ Virtual Real Estate Investing▶️ Cryptocurrency Trading… and more!#NFTs #Metaverse #Crypto #Web3 #Defi #Finance pic.twitter.com/op9fg80e7z
— Mike Kondoudis (@KondoudisLaw) December 26, 2022

Crypto Trademarks Sought

In a market outlook report published on Dec. 20, Coinbase Institutional stated that the crypto winter will extend well into 2023, especially for altcoins.
Company analysts expect digital asset selection will transition towards “higher quality names” like Bitcoin and Ethereum. This is based on several factors, such as sustainable tokenomics, the maturity of respective ecosystems, and relative market liquidity.
They were not confident that altcoins would see much momentum next year.
“We think investors’ willingness to accumulate altcoins has been severely impacted by the deleveraging in 2022 and may take many months to fully recuperate.”

Required reading: Our institutional research team is out with their 2023 Crypto Market Outlook. We give our view on three key themes for

Crypto and Bitcoin markets are heading for a lull period if the on-chain activity is anything to go by. In its last weekly on-chain report for the year, analytics provider Glassnode reported that Bitcoin annualized realized volatility has been the lowest since October 2020.
The metric matches similar low volatility levels at the previous cycle bottom in late 2018.
Futures volumes are also severely depressed at multi-year lows, it stated, adding:
“This shows the massive impact of tightening liquidity, widespread deleveraging, and the impairment of many lending and trading desks in the space.”
The FTX implosion has doused the fires of futures markets, and open interest (OI) has slumped as a result. OI is a measure of the number of futures or options contracts that are held

Bitcoin and crypto markets are a full year into bear territory, and it has been about that time when the cycle bottom occurs.
During the previous bear market, it came in December 2018, a year after the Bitcoin price peak. This time around, BTC has fallen 75% from its peak a year ago, and bottom signals are mounting up.
On Dec. 6, Capriole Fund founder Charles Edwards took a deep dive into the on-chain data. He discovered that there were several signals suggesting it could be the best time to buy Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Bottom Signal Series.
A thread of on-chain signals which suggest the Bitcoin bottom is in, or very close. In my opinion, these are the most important on-chain metrics today. Based on Bitcoin’s 13 year history, they are telling me this is an extraordinary

On Nov. 13, the Kraken exchange announced that it has been in contact with law enforcement regarding the accounts held by the bankrupt FTX group.
It added that it had frozen any accounts linked to FTX, Alameda, and its executives to protect their creditors. Kraken said that its own clients are not affected, and the exchange maintains full reserves.
The exchange is ranked nineteenth largest by 24-hour volume, according to CoinGecko.

Kraken has spoken with law enforcement regarding a handful of accounts owned by the bankrupt FTX Group, Alameda Research and their executives. Those accounts have been frozen to protect their creditors.
Other Kraken clients are not affected. Kraken maintains full reserves.
— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) November 13, 2022

Several respondents to

The crypto contagion has continued this year, with FTX compounding matters this week. This has put the spotlight on transparency, especially for centralized crypto exchanges.
Data oracle provider Chainlink has been promoting its proof-of-reserve tools, which could solve the transparency issues currently plaguing the industry.
In a tweet on Nov. 11, the Chainlink team asked if crypto will continue to repeat the mistakes of the traditional black-box financial industry.

#Crypto is at a crossroads.
Will crypto continue to repeat the mistakes of the traditional black-box financial industry? Or will a better system emerge?
A better system is possible, & Proof of Reserve is one way #Chainlink is providing the transparency that users demand.
🧵👇
— Chainlink (@chainlink) November

On Oct. 26, crypto giant Binance announced Binance Oracle, a new service that will source, verify, and feed off-chain data to smart contracts running on the BNB Chain.
The company claims that the Oracles will provide a “more reliable, secure, and accurate data sourcing solution for smart contracts.”
The new service, which launches this month, will enable existing Web3 dApps and BNB Chain partners to access oracle data sources. The company confirmed that more than ten projects had already integrated with the Binance Oracle network.

New product: #Binance Oracle – Enriching the #BNB Chain Ecosystem.https://t.co/31tVtxMSa9
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) October 26, 2022

Competing With Chainlink?
Chainlink is currently the industry standard provider for decentralized data

On Oct. 27, Ripple released its Q3 Markets Report stating that its holdings of XRP have dropped below 50% for the first time.
The company proudly stated that it is becoming more decentralized contrary to what critics have claimed. It said the ownership of XRP is not an indicator that Ripple controls XRP Ledger (XRPL).
“The XRP Ledger (XRPL) uses Federated Byzantine Consensus to validate transactions, add new features and secure the network, which means that each validator node gets one vote regardless of how much XRP they own. Ripple currently operates 4 out of 130+ validator nodes on the XRPL.”
However, the fact remains that a centralized company still holds and controls half of the token supply, which amounts to around 50 billion XRP. In the third quarter, it released 3

On Oct. 27, the portfolio and asset manager published its “2022 Institutional Investor Digital Assets Study,” an annual report shedding light on the crypto industry from an institutional perspective.
The research revealed that the market is now well-positioned to weather the macroeconomic headwinds it has faced in recent months. Fidelity Digital Assets President, Tom Jessop, commented:
“We believe that digital assets fundamentals remain strong and that the institutionalization of the market over the past several years has positioned it to weather recent events.”

The results are in! The Fidelity Digital Assets 2022 Institutional Investor Digital Assets Study reveals new insights into investor perceptions and adoption of digital assets across the U.S., Europe, and Asia:

On Oct. 20, Oanda announced cryptocurrency trading services for its American market designed to give investors easy access to crypto alongside their existing forex portfolios.
It is the latest traditional finance company to enter the crypto space. However, the move comes in the depths of a bear market when demand is low.
The technology has been developed in partnership with the Paxos Trust Foundation, a regulated blockchain infrastructure firm.

Crypto trading now available through OANDA! 🙌
Find out more about the benefits of trading cryptocurrency with OANDA ➡️ https://t.co/Qlfvukz7lp#OANDA #SmarterTrading #Crypto pic.twitter.com/ReIdEUyS8S
— OANDA (@OANDA) October 20, 2022

Institutional Interest
U.S. customers will now be able to trade crypto through the Paxos itBit

The minable version of Ethereum has garnered a lot of attention since it spawned as a hard fork this time last month. In a move remnant to the 2017 genesis of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) from its big brother, EthereumPoW may have started another fork war between proponents of each respected network.
The fork was spawned by former Ethereum miner and ICO investor Chandler Guo, who tweeted on Oct. 14 that more than 100 projects have been launched on the network in just a month.

now more than 100 project at ethw in one month https://t.co/hzArydXQR7
— Chandler Guo (@ChandlerGuo) October 13, 2022

Hunger for mining chains
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has tried to push Ethereum Classic as the network for miners, but Guo maintains that it has no ecosystem. The early support by

Defying a trend of decreasing NFT sales, award-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins has sold out his debut collection, “The Eternal Collection,” in just seven minutes.
The record sale was announced by NFT design agency Orange Comet Inc. on Oct. 14. The firm, which worked with the octogenarian actor on the digital artwork, claimed that it was the fastest sellout in OpenSea history.
The collection was originally announced in mid-August to celebrate the actor’s long and diverse career.

THE ETERNAL COLLECTION SOLD OUT IN LESS THAN 7 MINUTES 🎭
THE FASTEST SELL OUT IN @opensea HISTORY 😮‍💨
Thank you @AnthonyHopkins✌🏽 pic.twitter.com/KYH0T1hXeu
— Orange Comet (@OrangeCometNFT) October 13, 2022

Gone in Seven Seconds
The Eternal Collection features 1,000 unique images and animations

Company founders Ola Muse and Karthik Kalyanaraman left Coinbase in August. It only took them two months to raise and close the seed round, which was led by Redpoint Ventures with participation from Mysten Labs and Howard University.
Their firm, Scale3, is an infrastructure startup that focuses on supporting blockchain node operators. Node operation is a complex process that needs highly technical support and rapid response when problems arise.
As the Web 3 infrastructure expands, constant node monitoring and support will be necessary, a niche that this company aims to fill, according to the announcement.

1/ Hello world! We’re a web3 infrastructure company building developer tools. We’re excited to announce (a) our first product – Autopilot, a platform to monitor and

When stablecoins are sent to exchanges in large quantities, it is usually a signal that institutions are preparing to buy. It has not happened yet, as stablecoins such as USDC have been leaving exchanges as the bear market deepens.
On Oct. 8, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju observed that 94% of the USDC supply is off exchanges, and a large portion of it is held by traditional finance institutions.
“The next Bitcoin parabolic bull run might begin when massive USDC flows into exchanges,” he noted.

The next #Bitcoin parabolic bull run might begin when massive $USDC flows into exchanges.
For now, 94% of the USDC supply is outside exchanges, some of which are owned by TradFis like BlackRock, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, etc.
They’ll move when they get orders from their clients.

A SEGA licensed digital collectible card game, being developed and operated by Japanese blockchain game developer double jump.tokyo, is expected to be released on the Oasys HOME verse L2 network.
According to the Sept. 27 announcement, the theme of the Web3 trading card game is derived from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms mythology. It uses the intellectual property of the SANGOKUSHI TAISEN franchise, which was originally published by Tokyo-headquartered SEGA back in 2005. The strategy arcade game was extremely popular in Asia at the time.

We are excited to announce officially @oasys_games was chosen for the first blockchain game by @SEGA !!🔥The game will be developed and operated by @doublejump_en, expected to be released on @homeverse_games !
For details, please check

The US Internal Revenue Service is ramping up its efforts to collect taxes from crypto traders regardless of a 70% market slump.
The tax department has obtained a court order authorizing summons for records of US taxpayers that failed to report transactions and pay taxes on crypto profits.
Specifically, the IRS will issue what is known as a “John Doe summons” requiring MY Safra Bank to provide crypto transaction data for customers of the SFOX cryptocurrency broker that used the bank. According to the Department of Justice, SFOX has over 175,000 users and more than $12 billion in transactions since 2015.
Small Fry First
The revenue department has identified at least ten crypto traders and investors that used the broker and failed to report their transactions. What stands

Industry analytics firm DappRadar has just released a report on the situation, and it doesn’t look pretty. On May 13, the firm reported that DeFi’s total value locked (TVL) is down more than 40% over the past seven days.
It stated that the slump had been caused by investors flipping tokens into stablecoins in preparation to cash out into fiat. However, the massive slump in token prices would also have impacted TVL, a dollar-based figure.
At the time of writing, DappRadar was reporting a nominal TVL of $83.4 billion, a dump of 48% since the beginning of the year.

🔥 Total value locked in key lending protocols is dropping as investors started flipping tokens to stablecoins with the intention of cashing out to fiat. @terra_money @AaveAave
➡️ Read More:

The policymaker has continued to stake a claim for the crypto asset industry for his agency tasked with regulating securities in the United States.
According to Gensler, cryptocurrencies should be regulated the same way as securities. In a speech on reducing risk and increasing transparency of derivatives at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association Annual Meeting on May 11, he said:
“Most crypto tokens involve a group of entrepreneurs raising money from the public in anticipation of profits — the hallmark of an investment contract or a security under our jurisdiction,”
Security or Not Security
Gensler is angling for full control over the regulation of the crypto sector, which is likely to result in harsh restrictions for companies and investors in the country.