In a week fraught with significant crypto events, the focus was primarily on major exchange operations, regulatory challenges and the ever-evolving stance of nations towards digital assets.
FTX made quite the splash, with revelations of potential plans to reopen the FTX.com exchange via structures such as joint ventures. Following the recouping of roughly $7 billion in liquid assets by the new leadership team, sale of their stake in the AI start-up, Anthropic, was temporarily halted. Snapshot contributions also showed FTX czar, Sam Bankman-Fried, educating via MasterClass and Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin endorsing his FTX investment decision.
Stirring up further market heat, powerful Binance co-founder, Yi He, shattered his silence amidst regulatory turmoil. Breaking its restriction on privacy coins for European customers, Binance’s move compounded the action-packed week. Along with this, KuCoin mandated KYC procedure, Prime Trust faced possible closure by Nevada regulators, and BitGo turned its acquisition-prospect radar elsewhere after ditching the Prime Trust deal.
Elsewhere, MicroStrategy’s crypto resilience saw it adding another 12,333 bitcoins to its portfolio, while Grayscale Bitcoin Trust’s share price reached a one-year high, fuelled by ETF optimism. Leverage-backed and BTC futures-backed ETFs also gained traction while digital asset-backed investment funds recorded their largest weekly inflows in a year.
The Bank of England hinted that its CBDC ‘Britcoin’ may not depend on blockchain. Simultaneously, the Swiss Central Bank announced a wholesale CBDC launch on the SIX digital exchange as part of a pilot.
Legal leanings towards crypto were displayed by nations: Canada recognized blockchain as a potential “long-term” innovative industry. South Korea and Russia witnessed significant crypto-centric legal decisions, and Argentina mulled adoption of crypto regulations set by the FATF. As token issuers got a breather from corporate taxes on unrealized crypto gains in Japan, the UK aimed for a special legal framework for crypto as collateral.
As the week progressed, Israeli authorities clamped down on crypto used to fund militant groups, leading to the seizure of millions of dollars. In separate news, the infamous 2020 Twitter hacker was jailed for five years.
In encouraging news, a Brazilian hospital took the pioneering step of accepting crypto payments, while banking giant Julius Baer Group looked to increase its crypto presence in Dubai. Coinbase’s lucrative lending offer to Hut 8 and FC Barcelona’s partnership with World of Women for NFT creation rounded off this week’s happenings.
In conclusion, the week ushered in diverse developments that did not shy away from embracing both, the promises and the challenges of the crypto landscape. With changes in legal rulings, adoption decisions, and re-evaluation of business strategies, the crypto world continues to grow in popularity and impact, often at a dizzying pace.
Source: Cryptonews
