Crypto News Weekly roundup March 12

Despite the sluggishness in the crypto market when the king coin is stuck between $34,000 and $46,000, there has been the active involvement of regulatory bodies along with new launches and innovations. Last week, the digital asset investment products saw $127 million worth of cumulative inflows, the largest inflow since December, as per research by CoinShares.

We at TheCoinRise are here to summarize this crypto market week for you.

Regulatory involvement in the crypto industry

Senior Executive Officer of SEBA Bank, Christian Borel, said recently that the adoption of crypto will accelerate with clear laws.

The blockchain tech company CargoX has extended its agreement with the government of Egypt for the long term. The deal aims to digitize and grow the nation’s trade flow.

The United States’ Virginia has decided to approve a bill amendment proposal that authorizes traditional banks in the region to offer crypto custody solutions.

Amid the growing concerns about money laundering and terrorism funding with the help of crypto, the Bank of Israel published a draft about the regulatory framework on Anti-money laundering (AML) and Terrorism Financing (CFT) risk management.

As the deadline for securing a license from the FCA approaches, crypto market-making company, B2C2 Ltd has withdrawn its application to be an approved operator from the United Kingdom.

Continuing its tough stance on BTC ETFs, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC has rejected the spot BTC ETF applications from the New York Digital Investment Group (NYGIG) and Global X.

Canada has arrested a man alleged to have active participation in dozens of ransomware attacks in 2020, especially related to healthcare. The police have seized $28 million worth of Bitcoin along with the arrest.

The FBI believes that the United States is capable of preventing the use of crypto for evading sanctions. The director Christopher Wray said that fiat would be a better choice for Russia to potentially do so.

Along with that, nine Republican senators have voiced their voice in support of taking strong steps to direct the U.S. government agencies’ policy around Russia’s possible evasion of sanctions using crypto.

After two months of shut down due to a technical glitch, the Caribbean CBDC DCash resumed its functions this Wednesday.

In reaction to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus will face sanctions that would include crypto assets, says the European Commission or EC. On the other hand, Ukraine, which has received tons of support from the crypto community, has received over $108 million through donations across wallet addresses, relief funds, and charities.

The country with a positive stance, Dubai, has brought a new set of regulations on digital assets along with a crypto regulatory body establishment.

The stablecoin issuer Paxos has recently got approval from the MAS or Monetary Authority of Singapore, allowing it to offer crypto services to local companies.

Partnerships, launches, and plans

This Tuesday, Hardware wallet giant Ledger announced that it is launching a limited edition of a brand new and exclusive hardware wallet named Ledger Nano S Plus. 

On Friday, Terraform Labs’ (TFL) founder and CEO, Do Kwon, said that the company has donated 12 million LUNA (around $1.1 billion) to the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG).

Singapore-based DeFi startup, Cake DeFi has launched a $100 million venture capital fund aiming to deepen its investment grip in the Web3 and metaverse.

Cross-chain DEX THORChain’s native token RUNE has seen a huge spike in its price shortly after it announced the activation of crypto synthetic assets on the network.

Nordic Neobank, Lunar has raised $77 million in a Series D funding round with contributions from Kinnevik, Tencent, and IDC Ventures amongst others, sending the company into the Unicorn’s list.

Stablecoin issuer Tether’s CTO, Paolo Ardoino, said that the company will use private blockchains as a modern payment system.

Crypto market-making company GSR has teamed up with Chainlink, the Ethereum based Decentralized oracle network (DON), to contribute price data to DONs that would be useful within the DeFi and smart contract implementations.

Crypto exchange

The largest crypto exchange platform in the world, Binance has launched its own fiat-to-crypto payment solution called Bifinity, which aims to serve as the official fiat-to-crypto payments provider for the exchange and other blockchain platforms.

Binance has also indicated that it is planning to diversify its business interest by acquiring companies outside the crypto space.

Interestingly, FCA has published statements regarding the Bifinity launch saying:

“The FCA did not have powers to assess the fitness and propriety of the new beneficial owners or the change in control before the transaction was completed.”

Crypto exchange giant FTX has secured the license from the Cyprus Financial Market Regulator CySEC to expand its products and offerings in Europe.

Coinbase has labeled several assets that are either new to the platform or have somewhat lower trading volume as “experimental” to become more transparent and clear to its users.

NFT and Metaverse

Consultancy PriceWaterhouseCoopers, or PwC believes that NFTs are the future assets in the sports industry and highlighted various use cases.

As per the recent reports, CVS Pharmacy has filed a trademark application that aims to offer “downloadable virtual goods” in the Metaverse on February 28.

Famous DeFi detective Zachxbt has warned several NFT projects might be exposed with a “suspicious” smart contract code written by a single freelance coder from Fiverr.

Animoca Brands-owned metaverse, The Sandbox (SAND) has teamed up with the NFT community World of Women (WoW) to launch its WoW Foundation.

As per Adobe-owned creative showcase service, Behance, announced that its users can now connect their Phantom wallet to their Behance account to display Solana (SOL) NFTs on their profiles.

Crypto lobbying continues to grow as the industry matures

A report by Public Citizen reveals that the number of lobbyists related to crypto issues has increased from 115 in 2018 to 320 in 2021. Growth in the number of representatives from 74 to 157 at the same time has also been found in the study.

Crypto attracts self-made wealthy person more than inherited

As per a recent report published by a research startup on Wealth Information, Wealth-X, people who are self-made tend to attract more towards crypto than people who have inherited wealth.

Exclusive Reviews and announcements

Crypto4Winners: Shortened as C4W, Crypto4Winners is a unique crypto trading platform offering a secure investment to crypto-friendly individuals. It emphasizes crypto pools, services, results, and conditions to access solutions proffered. 

AstroSwap: Latest DEX built on Cardano to make the network tradeable, AstroSwap is powered by Wagyuswap and has been incubated by Bluezilla.vc.

Synapse Network: It is a cross-chain launchpad that processes its own Venture Capital that aims to help projects and support projects. It has just released a new flexible staking system to assist investors to make extra bucks in a simple and practical manner.

Voltage Finance: It is an all-in-one DeFi system built on the Fuse Network blockchain. It is globally accessible, completely automated, and highly efficient in comparison to traditional crypto exchanges.

Widow Games: Its latest entry, Geopoly, aims to combine NFTs with widely adopted concepts like P2E, crypto, and the metaverse.

TheCoinRise will be back with another weekly roundup next Friday.