This week have a look at the high of Defi market and few decentralized promising projects and more
:: Blockchain / Digital Currencies ::
- Swiss government starts the consultation process for blockchain laws. Switzerland’s Federal Department of Finance has initiated a consultation process for a blanket ordinance in the blockchain and distributed ledger technology space.
- Digital Yuan lottery huge success in China. Two million Shenzen residents signed up for the digital Yuan lottery. 95% of winners have created a digital wallet and spent their prize.
- The Reverse Bank of NewZealand is looking deeply into retail CBDCs.
- Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract to launch this week. An ETH 2.0 developer predicts the protocol’s deposit contract will be released in a matter of days and that ETH 2.0 staking will go live this year.
- The US FinCEN has assessed a $60M civil money penalty against Larry Dean Harmon, the founder, administrator, and primary operator of bitcoin mixer Helix and Coin Ninja.
- LINE, a Japanese mobile messaging app, is building a platform for central bank digital currencies. The messaging service is discussing the project with other Asian countries.
- DeFi users deposit $100 million in stablecoins into Barnbridge, Ethereum’s latest yield farm.
- Chinese tourists verify health using blockchain to visit Macau. Interoperability between Macau’s blockchain-powered medical data system and mainland Chinese health codes allowed tourism between the jurisdictions to recommence.
- The total lifetime NFT volume on the Ethereum blockchain alone has exceeded $120 million. Peer-to-peer NFT sales surge as average purchase price increases 7X.
- Polymarket, a decentralized information marketplace, has closed a $4 million funding round led by Polychain Capital.
- OKEx resumes P2P trading with three fiat currencies as withdrawals remain suspended.
- South Korea’s SK Telecom is issuing a blockchain solution for the storage and management of government certificates.
- Kraken exchange is returning to the Japanese market after two years. The exchange has relaunched trading support for five cryptos, including Bitcoin.
- The Central Bank of the Bahamas officially launches its ‘sand dollar’ digital currency.
- Bank of Japan won’t launch digital currency unless there is public support, says head of the Bank of Japan’s payment system department.
- Nigerian lawmakers draft a blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption roadmap.
- Harvest Finance’s anonymous developers refuse to give up centralized control of $1 billion locked in the DeFi project. The “Time lock” period is the only safeguard for investors now.
- DeFi Total Value Locked reaches $12.5B All-Time High despite cooling hype.
- Quantstamp says Ethereum 2.0 is ready for launch. The announcement followed an audit of Teku, the Ethereum 2.0 client developed by ConsenSys.
- The Swiss National Bank and the Bank for International Settlements plan to test a central bank digital currency by the end of this year.
- Siemens is launching a blockchain electricity trading platform in Germany.
:: Crypto & Bitcoin ::
- Russia to limit how much crypto retail investors can buy. The countries goal is to try and regulate crypto and it is starting by deducing which users are qualified.
- PayPal to launch crypto buying and selling features. Payments giant PayPal is set to introduce cryptocurrency buying and selling options, with customers able to make purchases using Bitcoin from 2021.
- The Tether Treasury has minted almost half a billion new USDT tokens and distributed more than 185 million tokens to exchanges and other addresses in the last 36 hours.
- PayPal rumored to buy BitGo days after launching Bitcoin services. The custodian is just one of several crypto-centric companies the payments platform is looking to acquire.
- CME Group, a regulated bitcoin futures trading platform, has quietly become the second-largest player, surpassing Binance and BitMEX.
- Michael Saylor, Microstrategy CEO, claims the company will hold Bitcoin for 100 years.
- CEO of ABRA, Bill Barhydt, now has 50% of his net worth in Bitcoin. Abra is a leading crypto-asset exchange that has gained immense traction over recent years.
- Voyager Digital Ltd, a leading Crypto-asset broker is buying LGO Markets, a French cryptocurrency exchange focused on corporate investors.
- Bitcoin price rise to $500k is inevitable, Winklevoss twins say. They said that the real adoption of the asset class “hasn’t even started.”
- Bitcoiners are working towards liberating humanity, says Kanye West. Star rapper Kanye West is a Bitcoin proponent.
- JP Morgan sees Millennials’ Bitcoin Preference over gold as foundation for its long-term success. The Firm says bitcoin’s 2020 surge is set to continue.
- Can Github remove the Bitcoin codebase? Recent repository takedown has proponents worried.
Fund raising / Investment / Profits / Assets
- Collider Labs has raised $1 million to be invested in early-stage blockchain and cryptocurrency startups.
- Grayscale Investments added $300 million in net assets under management in just the last 24 hours. The firm now has a record $7.3 billion in total AUM.
- Harvest Finance, an anonymous DeFi yield aggregator, was exploited for $24 million. DeFi exploitation season returns in full force.
:: Others ::
- Binance Jersey shuts operations less than two years after launch. All accounts on Binance Jersey will be inaccessible as of Nov. 30.
- OKEx withdrawals remain suspended. Customers still cannot take out their funds after the exchange suspended withdrawals indefinitely. OKB’s price has plunged and is still down 22%.
