BTC is currently trading around $28,800 and ETH around $1,800. Notable gainers in the last 24 hours are USTC, XCN, and SAND. The global crypto market cap is $1.26T, down 3.9% over the last day. DeFi Total Value Locked is ~$108b and BTC dominance is around 46%.
Crypto is extending its move downwards, decoupling from equities which appear likely to realize a positive day. Smart contract platforms are leading the charge downward with ETH (-8.2%), DOT (-8.5%), SOL (-9.8%), and AVAX (-14.4%), while bitcoin is down a comparatively modest 2.3%. The remainder of the week is light on the economic data front heading into Memorial Day weekend in the US.
Notable news includes: Portuguese Parliament blocked a bill to tax crypto; The World Bank signaled that it won’t support the Central African Republic’s crypto hub; the ECB expressed concerns over the ‘interconnectedness’ of crypto with financial institutions; FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried pitched the CFTC on directly clearing customer’s crypto swaps; Binance revealed a partnership with Kazakhstan to advise on crypto strategy in the nation; Brazil’s Federal Reserve declared that investors must pay income tax on transactions swapping between cryptocurrencies; Binance’s Bahrain unit was granted a Category 4 license to expand the suite of crypto services offered in the country; Tether launched a new Mexican peso pegged stablecoin; Binance and FTX revealed plans to support the launch of Terra 2.0; Circle asked US officials not to launch a CBDC, stating that the public is already well served by private-sector tokens; outdated node clients caused a block reorg on the Eth2 Beacon Chain; the Bitcoin network difficulty dipped by more than 4%; the Aave protocol stopped offering AAVE token incentives to platform users; Celestia launched their Mamaki testnet; Injective partnered with Wormhole to bring ten new blockchains to the platform; Wormhole further expanded to the Cosmos ecosystem; InsurAce said it will pay millions to Terra insurance claimants; Ripple revealed plans to explore an IPO after the end of their lawsuit with the SEC; Nvidia revealed crypto mining chip revenue was ‘nominal’ in the quarter; DraftKings displayed their intent to accept crypto in the future; StarkWare reached an $8b valuation in their latest $100m funding round; crypto lender Babel Finance reached unicorn status with their $80m Series B; former Binance execs created a $100m fund to boost crypto adoption in emerging markets; NGC Ventures launched a new $100m ecosystem fund dedicated to Web3 projects; game developer Kongregate and ETH-scaling startup Immutable revealed a new $40m fund to develop blockchain-based games; and, MonkeyPoxInu developers allegedly vanished with $400m as the token tanked 99%.
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