Bitcoin Price: US$ 42,882.76 (+1.22%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 3,036 (+2.23%)
BTC Leaving Exchanges, Bridge Farms, & Pocket’s Growth
- The BTC balance on exchanges recently hit its multi-year low of ~2.5M, last seen in November 2018. As the adoption of Bitcoin increases, we see that more users are willing to take bitcoin off exchanges and self-custody in their own wallets.
- Previously, the BTC balance peaked on March 2020’s Black Thursday when investors rushed into exchanges to sell the macro drawdown. Since then, the BTC balance on exchanges has been trending down as the price of BTC recovered and entered the 2021 bull-run.
- The price of BTC is somewhat inversely correlated to exchange balance, as centralized exchanges have the deepest liquidity. This means that if a BTC holder wants to sell, it’s more likely they’ll deposit and liquidate their BTC through an exchange.
- Synapse is a universal cross-chain liquidity network that connects blockchains by offering an extensible cross-chain communication protocol that supports assets, smart contract calls, and more. By leveraging Synapse, blockchains can easily and securely interoperate with each other and developers can build truly cross-chain applications including cross-chain DEX, lending platforms, margining systems, derivatives markets, yield aggregators, and much more.
GameStop NFT Marketplace now live and powered by Loopring L2
- GameStop has confirmed its integration with Loopring (LRC), an Ethereum Layer 2 zkRollup protocol designed for powering decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges, into their highly anticipated NFT marketplace. Adam Browman, Loopring’s Head of Growth, announced on Medium on Wednesday that the beta version of GameStop’s marketplace had gone live.
- According to Browman, GameStop, in partnership with Loopring L2, aims to provide “fast, cheap and secure” access to digital ownership for the masses. They intend to give power back to the players, creators and collectors with GameStop at the “forefront of these new global digital economies.”
Fetch.ai (FET) gains 43% after $150M development fund and Cosmos IBC announcement
- Three reasons for the building interest in Fetch.ai are the launch of a $150 million development fund, plans to further integrate the project into the Cosmos ecosystem and the recent launch of a large-scale marketing campaign.
- The biggest news to come out of the Fetch ecosystem was the March 22 launch of a $150 million ecosystem development fund, in conjunction with MEXC Global, Huobi and Bybit, that is aimed at attracting developers and established projects to the Fetch.ai ecosystem.
- A second major development bridging increased attention to Fetch.ai has been its ongoing integration with the Cosmos ecosystem and Interblockchain Communication Protocol.
- The third factor helping to increase the awareness of Fetch has been an increased focus on marketing the project to the wider public, including a partnership with Formula 1 driver Alex Albon.
Chainlink launches startup program to provide blockchain resources to early-stage projects
- Chainlink Labs recently announced a program that provides a blueprint to help new crypto projects in their blockchain business building journey.
- According to the company, the program called Startup with Chainlink will help early-stage founders and entrepreneurs with free information resources, community groups and access to mentors from a pool of business and technical experts.
- David Post, a Chainlink Labs executive who contributed to creating the program mentioned that it will let startups access scaling information, operations best practices, webinars, events and community groups. However, top projects will be able to access more benefits such as mentors and venture capitalists. All of these are designed to help new blockchain projects survive in the long term.
- “Startup with Chainlink helps founders get it right from the beginning so that they can scale their operations sustainably and become long-term players in the ecosystem.”
Astar Network Joins $250M aUSD Ecosystem Fund with Polkadot Parachains & Venture Partners
- Astar Network, the leading dApp hub for WASM and EVM smart contracts on Polkadot, is joining the aUSD Ecosystem Fund along with Polkadot ecosystem partners: Centrifuge, Efinity, HydraDX, Manta, Moonbeam, OriginTrail, Parallel, Zeitgeist, and Acala.
- The $250 million aUSD Ecosystem Fund will support early-stage startups building applications with strong stablecoin use cases on any Polkadot or Kusama parachain. The fund participants are seeking Solidity or Substrate-based applications driving yield or utility for aUSD, including money markets, DEXs, derivatives, asset management, DAOs, payments, and other use cases. Learn more and apply to the aUSD Ecosystem Fund.
Thailand SEC bans crypto payments, seeks disclosure of system failure from exchanges
- In an ongoing effort to carve out a regulated crypto market for the general public, the Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a ban on the use of cryptocurrencies for payments. Meanwhile, the Thai SEC proposed a new rule that demands disclosure of service quality and IT usage information from crypto businesses including brokers, exchanges and dealers.
- According to the notice issued by the SEC, businesses in the region have been advised against accepting crypto payments from April 2022 after discussing its implications with the Bank of Thailand (BOT).
- Businesses found in noncompliance with the new crypto laws will be subject to legal actions including temporary suspension or cancellation of the services.
Crypto investor Katie Haun raises $1.5 billion for Web3 venture fund
- Katie Haun, crypto investor and board member for Coinbase and OpenSea, announced that she had raised $1.5 billion for her new fund, Haun Ventures.
- On Tuesday, Haun posted an article on Twitter, briefly introducing the firm and sharing that the funds would be used to invest in Web3 projects.
- The firm will invest through two funds: a $500 million early-stage fund and a $1 billion acceleration fund. The two funds represent the largest debut on record for investment vehicles led by a female general partner, according to data from PitchBook.
- Haun stated that the firm will invest in “every layer of the web3 tech stack,” and seeks to back projects in both their early and growth stages, adding that the firm aims to have the projects it supports reach over one billion people.
- The firm is also interested in shaping public opinion and government policy regarding Web3 projects and crypto.
- “We will partner with our portfolio to lead a global campaign for web3 that combats misperceptions, engages policymakers, highlights positive use cases, and wins the hearts and minds of leaders across all sectors.”
- ZEN 3.1.0, a mandatory software upgrade, has been released. All exchanges, mining pools, node operators, and full node wallet users must upgrade to ZEN 3.1.0 prior to block #1119000, which is expected to occur on Apr. 5, 2022.
- This release modifies the custom field serialization for sidechain creation transactions, introduces a sidechain version field, and changes the treasury multisig address. A user upgrade guide can be found here.
- Polygon has announced the launch of a new collaborative initiative called the Ethereum Adoption DAO. Polygon is kicking off this initiative, though applications are currently open for other Genesis Members, which is open to other Ethereum scaling solutions, Layer 2s, service providers, infrastructure, and tooling providers. The stated purposes of the DAO include business development, education, content creation, and aggregation.
- The DAO is also looking for contributors, evangelists, and projects to get involved in the stated goal of building 100K projects on Ethereum.v
