So, what have we got this week? Some going down, with both GameStop and Coinbase announcing their loss, and others are introducing fee-free spot trades - Binance. Money goes out of centralized crypto and into decentralized projects. Winamp is mentioned in there, somewhere, and much more. Read all below:
- Bitcoin: BTC mining difficulty dropped by 7.2%, the largest decline since July 2021, when China forced miners to relocate. Many miners are unplugging older machines that are no longer profitable and it is expected to drop even further. In November, BTC experienced the largest negative outflow from CEX, over $1.5B. But DEX user activity is achieving new heights, with Uniswap and Curve being the two most used.
- Ethereum: Ethereum developers are set to prioritize Beacon Chain withdrawals for the network's next major upgrade, Shanghai, delaying the implementation of the Surge, the sequel to the Merge. Coinbase had some interesting changes, and cbETH is used now as wrapped ETH and can be unstacked at any time, for a fee. Coinbase revenue in 2022 declined at least 50%, and its CEO confirmed. Binance announced zero-fee trading on spot ETH pairs (ETH/USD, ETH/USDT, ETH/USDC, and ETH/BUSD).
- Altcoins: Avalanche is powering now Alibaba Cloud, their cloud infrastructure in Asia, while it will be also used to deploy their own validator nodes on Avalanche. AAVE acquired metaverse developer Sonar, a platform for users to build and create digital spaces for their NFTs. Chainlink's staking feature is not operational on ETH for early-access users. You can stake up to 7000 LINK (worth $50K) with a 9-12 month lockup period in order to earn rewards. The staking will be open to the general public tomorrow. If you have a lot of Coingecko Candies, you can now buy Access's new native token (ACS), not to be mistaken with Across Protocol one, ACX. 1INCH tokens worth over $100M (15% of the total supply) are set to be unlocked on December 30.
- Blockchain games and NFTs: Bored Ape teamed up with Timex to release a limited 500 watches, for 1.5 ETH ($1950), and you can customize the design and features, receiving it in Q2 2023. On December 3, more than 225K Reddit Avatar NFTs were minted, surpassing the 200K record from August. There are some nice Football World Cup ones waiting for you if you did not get them yet. Decentraland announced a new feature, allowing owners to lend their Land NFTs for a fixed period of time, but you cannot sell it while renting. Starbucks launched a beta-test loyalty rewards program, letting you to collect NFTs on Polygon. After some initial backlash from creators, OpenSea made some adjustments to its process of enforcing creator royalties.
- Good news: Winamp, a blast from the past, is letting you play your music NFTs linking your Metamask wallet, supporting ERC721 & ERC1155. Ledger is creating a new wallet, Ledger Stax, collaborating with Tony Fadell, the creator of iPod Classic, featuring Bluetooth support and a curved E Ink touch screen, available in Q1 2023. You can pre-order it for $279. Constitution DAO is back, trying to buy a second available copy of the Constitution's first printing, auctioned by Sotheby's, After losing $190M in an exploit back in August, Nomad cross-chain bridge patched up and it is ready to relaunch. FTX Japan plans to restart withdrawals, while SBS deferred testifying in the US, stating that he will come after he finished learning and reviewing the events leading to the collapse. (I smell BS). Golden Sachs is looking to buy distressed crypto companies, after the FTX collapse. Mastercard thinks that FTX's collapse will not deter institutions from entering the crypto industry. Paypal is set to allow Luxembourg customers to buy, sell and hold BTC, ETH LTC, and BCH.
- Bad news: Seems that Digital Currency Group, via Genesis, owes close to $1B to Gemini Earn users. , as Gemini used them as lending partners for 8% annual interest on their deposits. Maple Finance issued a $31M default notice to Orthogonal Trading, claiming they are unable to repay their debts. Nexus Mutual, a DEFI protocol offering insurance against crypto exploits, will pay 2461 ETH ($3M) to Maple Finance to cover their losses. Circle ended its merger with Concord Acquisition, a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) after their initial $4.5B deal in June 2021 doubled to $9B this year in February. Circle CEO stated that the company was profitable in the past quarter, holding $400M in reserves. It was revealed that FTX wanted to secure a $100M sponsorship deal with Taylor Swift, for her world tour, including using NFT tickets for the events. Nigeria limits cash withdrawals to $45 per day, trying to boost their CBDC usage. Their e-Naira adoption rate is very low, with only 0.5% of the people using the CBDC so far. GameStop announced $94.7M in losses, and they said they will no longer focus any efforts on crypto, but they still go ahead with the NFT sector.
- Joke of the week: One of the last-standing Centralize Lending Finance companies, the British Nexo, are thinking to close its services and products in the US after one and a half year of negotiation reached a dead end. They will discontinue their Earn program in 8 states, preventing US customers to sign up. Funnily enough, seems that SEC finally reached its target, to stop American citizens to make earn better interest than keeping the money in the bank, while the rest of the world will thrive. For the rest of the world, Nexo launched Ethereum Smart Staking, allowing you to exchange ETH for Nexo Staked ETH and receive up to 12% yield annually.
All the best, George
Why not...
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I thought Winamp is dead, but I see from your article that it's keeping up with the trends of Web3. That's how every business should reconsider change management and adoption of new Tech. Thanks for the updates, George!