Bitcoin Price: US$ 41,114.00 (+4.67%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,773.81 (+5.96%)
ETH2 Staking, Airdrops, & The Platypus Wars
- Over 10M of ETH has been staked in the ETH2 deposit contract, representing 8.56% of the total ETH supply.
- With ETH2 merge slated for end-Q2, yields for staking ETH with validators are expected to increase as transaction fees previously earned by miners will now be earned by validators. Coinbase previously informed their users that they expect yields to be around 9-12% post-merge.
- Furthermore, the merge will turn ETH into a deflationary asset, with a simulated yearly net deflation of -2.2% based on historical burns that happened since EIP-1559.
- Yesterday, the merge happened on the Kiln Merge Testnet, successfully transitioning it from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. This is likely the final merge testnet before transitioning public testnets are upgraded. This is a positive indicator that the eventual merge on the Ethereum mainnet will likely happen on time and successfully.
- LimeWire will give the top 10,000 inviters who refer friends to their platform an exclusive airdrop.
- Crypto.com exchange has announced an airdrop of 5500 “The Moment of Truth” NFTs to randomly selected viewers of its Super Bowl commercial. Those who found and scanned a hidden QR code within the ad are in the draw.
- Brahma Finance is launching their Moonshot DegenVault strategy, made accessible to experienced DeFi users with high KARMA scores.
- Argent wallet allows users to access dApps on zk-Sync such as staking ETH on Lido, accessing Yearn vaults and trading on ZigZag exchange.
- Starstream is a suite of products for providing yield aggregation and yield generation on the Metis L2 rollup. The protocol is maintained by various developers and is governed by STARS holders. Starstream has Vaults – automatically generate yield based on opportunities present in the market, and Launcher – suits of tools that allow anyone to create and launch tokens without any coding or smart contract knowledge.
The Booming Metis DeFi Ecosystem, Updated!
- With our Andromeda network on fire (we recently passed the $800 million TVL mark) and lots of great new DeFi protocols launching, it’s time to update our amazing community on all the ways you can put your recently bridged funds to work!
- One of the biggest drivers of our recent growth has been the launch of Hermes, a fork of the popular Solidly protocol. We’re thrilled to see Hermes’ success, of course. But for those of you who’ve aped into Andromeda solely to pursue Hermes’ massive APYs, we’ve got great news for you: There are many, MANY amazing DeFi DApps on the Metis Layer 2 network that are worth checking out. That way you can redeploy the rewards earned through Hermes into all kinds of other forms of DeFi goodness.
- Netswap. Tethys Finance, Standard Protocol, Pickle Finance, Beefy Finance, Agora DeFi, Starstream Finance, MaiaDAO, 0xNodes, BinaryDAO, Drachma Finance, Synapse Protocol, BoringDAO, PolyNetworkRelay Chain, CelerBridge, Hermes
Blockchain Association policy head: US shouldn’t compete with China’s CBDC using surveillance tools
- Jake Chervinsky, head of policy at crypto advocacy group the Blockchain Association, said the United States should be careful to avoid a “totalitarian nightmare” in its potential launch of a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.
- Speaking at Austin’s SXSW festival on Tuesday in a panel on ‘Financial Surveillance in a Cashless Society’, Chervinsky said though U.S. President Joe Biden had issued an executive order establishing a national strategy for cryptocurrencies in the United States, there were potential privacy concerns over the country launching a CBDC. Empowering a government to surveil its citizens using a CBDC, “sounds like the kind of thing China would do” with its digital yuan, according to the Blockchain Association policy head.
- “It seems that a central bank digital currency would be under the total and complete control of the government,” said Chervinsky. “So at all times the government would know what you are spending, where you are spending on it. They could program the central bank digital currency so they could put in restrictions and say ‘you are only allowed to spend these dollars in these certain places but not in those other places.’ They could freeze accounts or take money out of the accounts at any time.”
HSBC enters The Sandbox to offer educational finance games
- HSBC, one of the largest European banks, with total assets of $2.4 trillion, announced its intention to buy a virtual plot of LAND within The Sandbox for an undisclosed amount. The new partners will develop opportunities for users to engage with sports, esports and gaming enthusiasts, according to the statement by The Sandbox.
- The banking giant will reportedly focus on financial literacy offerings and “work with our sports partners, brand ambassadors and Animoca Brands to co-create experiences that are educational, inclusive and accessible,” according to Suresh Balaji, HSBC’s chief marketing officer for the Asia-Pacific region.
- This partnership comes at a time when many financial institutions are closing physical branch locations due to the shift to digital banking, which was accelerated by the pandemic. Cointelegraph spoke to the recently appointed U.S. CEO of The Sandbox, Mathieu Nouzareth, about his vision for banking in the metaverse.
Bitcoin bulls to defend $40K leading into Friday’s $760M options expiry
- Bitcoin’s recovery above $40,000 on March 26 took bears by surprise as only 7% of the bearish option bets for March 18 have been placed above such a price level.
- Bulls might have been fooled by the recent $45,000 resistance test on March 1 as their bets for March 18’s $760 million options expiry go all the way to $65,000.
- Below are the three most likely scenarios based on the current price action. The number of options contracts available on March 18 for call (bull) and put (bear) instruments varies, depending on the expiry price. The imbalance favoring each side constitutes the theoretical profit:
- Between $38,000 and $40,000: 1,700 calls vs. 1,300 puts. The net result is balanced between the call (bull) and put (bear) instruments.
- Between $40,000 and $41,000: 3,200 calls vs. 600 puts. The net result favors bulls by $105 million.
- Between $41,000 and $42,000: 4,200 calls vs. 300 puts. Bulls boost their gains to $160 million.
Nexus Mutual Executes Largest DAO Treasury Deposit on Bancor
- On Wednesday (16 March), Nexus Mutual deposited 50,000 wNXM from the Community Fund into Bancor’s single-sided staking pool, where wNXM is paired with BNT and receives protection against impermanent loss (IL).
- Over time, Bancor will gradually increase space in the pool; members have approved the Community Fund to deposit up to 70,000 wNXM in total, so an additional 20,000 wNXM can be deposited in the future when space becomes available in the pool.
- This is the first allocation of assets from the DAO treasury (a.k.a., the Community Fund) into a productive yield source. The funds in the DAO treasury are used to fund Nexus Hub operations, as well as community-driven grants and initiatives. The mutual has now increased the depth of wNXM liquidity on chain and added a source of non-operating revenue to the treasury, which will be generated from trading fees on Bancor over time.
Ukraine’s president signs law establishing regulatory framework for crypto
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine currently based in Kyiv, has signed a law establishing a legal framework for the country to operate a regulated crypto market.
- In a Wednesday announcement, Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation said Zelenskyy signed a bill named “On Virtual Assets,” first adopted by the country’s legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, in February. Crypto exchanges and firms handling digital assets will be required to register with the government to operate legally in Ukraine, and banks will be allowed to open accounts for crypto firms.
- The law endows Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission with the power to determine the country’s policies on digital assets, issue licenses to businesses dealing with crypto and act as a financial watchdog. The government agency added that Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance was also working towards amending the country’s tax and civil codes to accommodate the legal framework for digital assets.
Coinbase enables users to fund wallets from Chrome browser extension
- On Wednesday, Coinbase launched a new feature, dubbed “Coinbase Pay,” that enables its clients to fund their Coinbase Wallets directly from a Chrome browser extension. According to its staff, Coinbase Pay intends to make it intuitive for anyone to participate in decentralized finance, or DeFi, swap tokens on decentralized exchanges, or DEXs, and purchase nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in just a few clicks. Specifically, they wrote:
- “Before Coinbase Pay, users who wanted to add funds to their Coinbase Wallet from the browser extension needed to navigate to Coinbase.com, sign in to their account, copy-paste their wallet address, and manually transfer funds from their Coinbase account. The process was not only cumbersome, but also left the user vulnerable to user error.”
- With Coinbase Pay, one would simply need to select the currency to add to one’s wallet on Chrome, specify the amount and confirm the transaction. “No more switching between apps, copy-pasting addresses and manually transferring funds,” the staff at Coinbase wrote.
Aave launches v3 liquidity pool following unanimous governance decision
- Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Aave has announced the launch of Aave v3, marking a significant evolution on the existing model of liquidity pools by promising to improve financial efficiency, bolster current safety and security measures, foster greater decentralization via DAO development and enhance the user-interface design.
- Holders of the project’s native tokens, AAVE, are eligible to participate in Aave Improvement Proposals (AIPs) — an on-chain governance voting mechanism that grants token holders the opportunity to propose and vote upon network upgrades for implementation within the core protocol.
- Published in early November 2021 by team member Emilio, the v3 proposal was put to a vote from Nov. 4 to Nov. 11 and passed unanimously with 2,911 community members voting with allocating 342,000 tokens towards advocacy.
- The v3 upgrade introduces improvements such as a cross-chain asset functionality, a community contribution tool, a gas optimization model expected to reduce fees by 20%–25% and a high-efficiency mode, among others.
Biden’s executive order promises great things for the crypto industry — Eventually
- United States President Joe Biden signed the Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets on March 9. The order had been expected for several months, giving some in the industry ample time to build up trepidation. Once the executive order, or EO, was released, however, it was met with a chorus of approval.
- “I was expecting certain things and the positive tone was not necessarily one of them,” TRM Labs head of legal and government affairs Ari Redborn said of the order. Crypto advocacy group Coin Center executive director Jerry Brito tweeted that the EO is “further affirmation that when serious officials take a sober look at crypto, the reaction is not to light their hair on fire, but instead to recognize it as a[n] innovation that the U.S. will want to foster.”
- Among the supportive lawmakers, Republican “Crypto Senator” Cynthia Loomis of Wyoming said in a statement, “It’s great to see the Biden administration’s growing interest in digital assets.”
- The EO acknowledges the place of digital assets in the national and global economies, noting that non-state digital assets have increased in market capitalization from $14 billion in November 2016 to $3 trillion five years later. Rapid development and inconsistent controls “necessitate an evolution and alignment of the United States government’s approach to digital assets,” it continues. The EO sets out policy objectives relating to consumer protection, financial stability, illicit finance and national security,
MakerDAO community proposal to replace MKR governance token
- The community behind decentralized stablecoin platform MakerDAO is mulling over a major tokenomics shift that could replace its governance token, Maker (MKR).
- A proposal was made on the MakerDAO forum by community leader monet-supply on Monday, outlining an alternative token economic mechanism. If the proposal passes a full governance vote, the protocol could replace its current governance token, MKR, with a new token called stkMKR.
- There were many responses to the proposal within just a few hours of it being posted, most of which were positive and regarding the technicalities of the solution. The proposal and discussion stage will need to be submitted as a Maker Improvement Proposal (MIP) for a formal vote by MKR holders, which usually takes two weeks.
