Ledger Going Institutional 🔒, Coinbase Receives Bermuda License 📌, Dogecoin Leads Meme Coin 🐶
Daily Crypto, Blockchain & Web3 Update 2023-04-21
BUSINESS
Coinbase Receives Bermuda License, Outlines Global Expansion Plans (2 min read)
Crypto exchange Coinbase today announced on its blog that it has obtained a license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) and, per a report by Fortune that cites “a person close to the company,” will open a derivatives exchange there “as soon as next week.”
Just last month, the exchange had been in talks with several of its institutional clients (in this case, market makers and investment firms) about opening a new overseas crypto-trading platform as U.S. regulators continue to give crypto businesses mixed signals.
Ethereum Staking Provider P2P.org Raises $23M Series A (3 min read)
Non-custodial staking provider P2P.org has raised $23 million in Series A funding from investors, including Jump Crypto, Bybit, and Sygnum.
P2P.org aims to strengthen its business by prioritizing community-building, enhancing consumer support, improving customer experience, and upgrading infrastructure, as stated in a press release.
TECHNOLOGY
Bitcoin Mining Pools Will Have Less Power With This Upgrade (4 min read)
In the latest release of the open source version of the Stratum v2 (SV2) protocol, Stratum Reference Implementation (SRI), developers announced that they have completed "job negotiation," an important feature for the wider Bitcoin industry because it gives mining pools less power over transaction selection.
Stratum v2 aims to change a key feature of Bitcoin mining to make it more difficult for mining pools to censor transactions.
Bluesky, Jack Dorsey's Decentralized Twitter Rival, Launches An Android App (2 min read)
Bluesky, the decentralized Twitter alternative backed by the social media platform's former CEO Jack Dorsey, has launched an Android app.
Bluesky employs a federated model, in which users can move their profiles between different social media platforms that use the AT Protocol. "Users will also be able to control the algorithms that determine what content is served to them," the Bluesky team wrote in an October 2022 blog post. "We must have control over our algorithms if we're going to trust in our online spaces."
NFTS
Solana Monkey Business IP Acquired by DAO of NFT Holders (4 min read)
Solana Monkey Business (SMB) is one of the most valuable and prominent Solana NFT collections, and the project has been steadily supported by MonkeDAO, an independent collective of SMB holders. Today, the DAO announced that it has acquired the project's intellectual property rights after disputes with the creators and the previous owner.
MonkeDAO purchased the SMB IP and all related keys, assets, and accounts from Solana NFT exchange Hadeswap for $2 million in a deal that was authorized by a HadesDAO governance proposal approved by nearly 97% of token-based votes.
Print Is Dead? Why NFT Platform Zora Is Launching a Magazine (3 min read)
Zine, the digital culture magazine from NFT minting platform Zora, is going where few Web3 media offerings have gone before: back to the physical realm.
A total of 2,500 collectible Ethereum NFTs representing copies of Zora Zine Print Issue 001 are on sale now; those NFTs can then be redeemed by holders to acquire a physical magazine. Public sale price for the NFTs is .0777 ETH, or just over $150.
COINS
Dogecoin Leads Meme Coin Rally With Pepe and Baby Doge (2 min read)
Meme coins are digital assets that based on Internet memes. They often do not have any utility and are highly volatile. They exploded in popularity back in 2020.
The eighth largest digital asset and original meme coin is right now up nearly 6% in the past week, trading for $0.088, according to CoinGecko. And it's bringing the other meme coins with it. At the time of writing, Baby Doge Coin (BABYDOGE) had soared by over 40% in seven days, trading for $0.000000003402.
Hard-Wallet Maker Ledger, Crypto Custodian Etana Target Institutions With Regulated Custody (2 min read)
Hardware wallet company, Ledger, has joined forces with Etana Custody to offer secure and regulated custody services for institutional clients in the US.
The collaboration aims to boost investor confidence and remove barriers by making it easier for institutions to store digital assets. Clients can access over 1,800 tokens supported by Ledger without having to maintain their own private keys.
Etana acts as a settlement party for trading digital assets, reducing risks and ensuring compliance with US regulations without direct monetary exchange.
The Endgame for Polygon: An AMA with Sanket, Head of Growth at Polygon (10 min read)
With the L2 wars in full force and undoubtedly more players to come in that space, many wonder what the future utility of both L1s and L2s will be. Polygon's Head of Growth addresses some of these questions in this AMA.
‘Sandwich Bots’ Filch Millions Off Unwitting Investors During Meme Coin Rally (5 min read)
As the meme coin frenzy rages on, sandwich bots are exploiting inexperienced traders, manipulating Ethereum transactions, and targeting market slippage. These automated programs have made millions, with one bot, jaredfromsubway.eth, profiting $1.7 million.
GAMING
PUBG Creator to Launch NFT Metaverse Game This Year (2 min read)
Krafton and South Korean augmented reality firm Naver Z have created a joint venture company based in North America and poured $36.8 million into Migaloo’s development, according to a release this week.
Migaloo is being developed by a AAA game studio and aims to offer a “create-to-earn” system in which users can create, buy, and sell in-game assets as NFTs. While little else is known about the project, it sounds like the world of Migaloo could resemble something like Roblox, but with NFTs.
Square Enix Teams With Elixir to Bring Web3 Games to Mainstream Audiences (2 min read)
Square Enix, the Japanese game publisher behind Final Fantasy, is partnering with PC gaming platform Elixir to dive deeper into web3 gaming. Elixir, which recently integrated the Epic Games Store library, offers both traditional and web3 games.
The collaboration aims to combine the web2 and web3 gaming worlds and bring web3 games to mainstream audiences. Square Enix has been an advocate for web3 gaming, both investing in web3 gaming and building its own games.
Esports Brand XSET Signs Web3 Gaming Content Creator Brycent (3 min read)
Gamer and content creator Bryan “Brycent” Johnson has signed with major esports organization XSET as its first Web3 gaming content creator.
With XSET, Brycent plans to double down on Web3 gaming and also host weekly tournaments for Deadrop, a Web3 first-person shooter from notable gaming personality Dr. Disrespect. He said that he takes a game-first approach to Web3, prioritizing gameplay over discussions about token prices or NFT speculation.