Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have not recovered anywhere near the levels that crypto markets have. Even the largest collections in the industry, such as Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club, are heavily discounted.
On July 3, Reflexivity Research co-founder Will Clemente revealed that BAYC was down 90% from its all-time high. Floor prices for the Ape-themed NFTs have slumped over the past few days, falling 23% over the last week.
According to NFT marketplace OpenSea, the floor price for the collection is now just below 30 ETH, or around $58,440. This sounds a lot, but it is the lowest it has been in over a year.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection is now down over 90% from its $600K high pic.twitter.com/TZVuXFl9UZ
— Will Clemente (@WClementeIII) July 2, 2023

NFT Activity

Binance is also preparing a BNB Chain layer-2 scaling solution to improve network transaction speeds and costs.
Separately, the firm announced on June 15 that Binance Pool has launched a “Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator.”
The new solution will allow users to confirm their transactions on the Bitcoin network quicker regardless of any potential network congestion issues, it noted.
Binance Pool is the exchange’s service platform dedicated to improving the income of BTC miners.
Binance Teasing a Layer-2
The Bitcoin network has struggled under demand for block space recently amid the BRC-20 memecoin minting and ordinal inscriptions craze.

In May, regular users suffered from high transaction fees and a backlog of unconfirmed transactions in the Bitcoin mempool.
The new

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is convinced that all crypto assets aside from Bitcoin are securities. Its latest war on crypto exchanges has included staking services, which the regulator seeks to shut down.
This could push more staked ETH out of exchanges and onto the market-leading liquid staking provider Lido. This may sound good, but it poses significant risks to the Ethereum ecosystem.
Lido Staking Risks Exposed
Lido provides liquid staking services for Ethereum as an alternative to self-staking, which is highly technical, and involves exchanges that take substantial commissions.
It has rapidly become the market leader with 7.18 million staked ETH, or 36% of the total 19.6 million staked.
On June 13, Ethereum advocates at ‘Bankless’ sounded the alarm on

The stablecoin ecosystem has also been impacted by America’s war on crypto, with a clear divergence happening between the top two issuers.
Tether supply has reached an all-time high of 83.36 billion USDT, according to the firm’s transparency report.  Industry analyst Will Clemente commented:
“The divergence from USDC is striking, reflecting easier access to treasuries for US-based USDC holders and regulatory uncertainty for US-based Circle.
What was once a competitive advantage for USDC is now the opposite,” he added.

Tether in circulation just reached an ATH of $83.35 billion
The divergence from USDC is striking, reflecting easier access to treasuries for US-based USDC holders & regulatory uncertainty for US-based Circle. What was once a competitive advantage for USDC is

In a rare good news story this week, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revealed that, along with Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal, he has pledged another $100 million for Covid relief.
On June 9, Buterin said he and Sandeep “discussed and jointly concluded these and other projects are high-impact and need follow-through grants.”
“Hence we decided to put $100 million more to these projects.”
Last year, the pair donated a similar amount through the community-driven Crypto Relief project.

Last year @CryptoRelief_ led by @sandeepnailwal allocated $100m to Covid research projects I wanted to fund
Sandeep and I discussed and jointly concluded these and other projects are high-impact and need follow through grants. Hence we decided to put $100m more to these projects
— vitalik.eth

The Democrat candidate for U.S. President took to the “Nakamoto Stage” at the Bitcoin 2023 conference to make some powerful pledges.
Robert F. Kennedy shared his own experiences with Bitcoin stating that he would protect the rights of Americans to hold and use the asset if he is elected president.
“As president, I will make sure that your right to hold and use Bitcoin is inviolable,”
Kennedy went on to add, “I am an ardent defender and lifelong defender of civil liberties, and Bitcoin is both an exercise and a guarantee of those freedoms.”

“As President I will make sure that your right to hold and use Bitcoin is inviolable.” – 🇺🇸 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. #Bitcoin2023 pic.twitter.com/oLtCmhiy3D
— The Bitcoin Conference (@TheBitcoinConf) May 19, 2023

Bitcoin Is Freedom
The

The United Kingdom has grand aspirations of becoming a digital assets hub, just as London already is for traditional finance.
However, those plans are being thwarted by watchdogs and policymakers who want to take a heavy-handed approach to regulation.
On May 17, it was reported that a panel of UK lawmakers said crypto assets should be regulated as gambling “given they are potentially used by fraudsters and pose significant risks to consumers.”
The report from Parliament’s Treasury Committee added that cryptocurrencies are not backed by any currency or asset. This leads to “volatility in prices and the potential for all money invested in them to be wiped out,” according to Reuters.
Crypto is Gambling, Not Finance
It is a similar stance to that taken in the United States,

Worldcoin is in advanced talks to raise fresh capital as it nears launch in the next few weeks, according to the Financial Times. The project aims to use iris-scanning technology to create a secure global cryptocurrency called Worldcoin.
Previous investors in Worldcoin include Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, and internet entrepreneur Reid Hoffman.
The firm was founded in 2019 and has been working on digital identification technology using retina-scanning orbs.
Furthermore, a $100 million private token sale early last year valued the total supply of the Worldcoin tokens at $3 billion, the report added.
Worldcoin Launch Imminent
Earlier this year, Worldcoin claimed to have surpassed a million signups and between 100 and 200 Orbs operational

On May 11, MetaMask revealed that it had added PayPal as a payment option for Ethereum purchases. However, the new payment channel is only available to U.S. users.
“MetaMask is the first web3 wallet to enable users to buy ETH using PayPal, a leader in the digital payment space,” it said.
The integration also supports ETH transfers from PayPal to MetaMask, creating more self-custody adoption.
However, many of those responding to the tweet were more interested in when MetaMask would be launching its own token. The firm has urged users to avoid scams for MASK tokens, adding that there are no immediate airdrop plans.

#DYK
MetaMask🦊 is the first web3 wallet to enable users to buy ETH using PayPal!
Get started here👇https://t.co/RGcamJQoQ2
— MetaMask 🦊💙 (@MetaMask) May 11, 2023

On May 1, the company announced an addition to Sotheby’s Metaverse in the form of a “dynamic destination to collect, buy, and sell remarkable digital works.”
The blockchain-based NFT marketplace will be primarily for secondary sales of digital art. According to the announcement, the marketplace will feature a rotating, curated selection of leading artists hand-picked by Sotheby’s specialists.
They will provide “expert guidance and context for each work, from thematic presentations to artist spotlights, for an easy-to-navigate experience designed for discovery.”

The next evolution of #SothebysMetaverse is here! The most trusted and dynamic destination to collect, buy and sell remarkable digital works.
Explore: https://t.co/hZvYIkO3xx pic.twitter.com/dCkaCKlXVm
— Sotheby’s

The Bitcoin ordinal inscription craze is back, and network transactions are surging as a result. On May 1, on-chain analytics provider Glassnode reported that daily transactions were approaching peak levels.
The 30-day moving average for the metric had reached 348,700 daily transactions. Furthermore, the peak level was measured in 2017 when it reached 379,000 transactions per day on average.
However, these figures are taken from moving averages. According to Blockchain.com, the actual daily transaction count spiked to 426,814 on April 30. It has increased by more than 70% since the beginning of the year.

#Bitcoin daily transaction counts are approaching All-time-highs, seeing an explosive uptick in 2023.
With the emergence of Inscriptions, analysts now need to assess how

On April 27, Bitget announced it has pledged $10 million for the development of the Fetch.ai ecosystem.
Bitget plans to provide a range of services to Fetch.ai, including marketing consultations and strategic directions.
Fetch.ai provides a service automation infrastructure that is powered by an AI agent network. These autonomous agents perform various tasks, including data analysis and complex financial modeling.
The move is the latest to latch on to an AI boom driven by platforms such as ChatGPT.

“BitGet Pledges $10 million to Foster https://t.co/kJ9URVpOul Ecosystem”
Exciting news! A strategic partnership has been struck between https://t.co/kJ9URVpOul and @bitgetglobal with plans to push the #AI ecosystem further 👀
Read more details 👇https://t.co/yYAxgEXjIR

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