Today's Highlights:
1. The Fed raises the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points
2. Coinbase NFT Marketplace Beta is available to all users
3. All three proposals of ApeCoin, AIP-21, 22 and AIP-7, were voted on
4. Binance, a16z, etc. participated in Musk's acquisition of Twitter
5. Alipay launches the "Digital Yuan" Mini Program, which supports functions such as receipt and payment
6. Digital banking service provider Copper completes $29 million Series A funding round, led by Fiat Ventures
7. Crypto hedge fund Pangea Fund completed $85 million in financing, with Alameda Research and others participating
8.Lido Finance surpassed Curve to become the DeFi protocol with the highest total hedge volume
Regulatory messages
The Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points
According to Jinshi, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to the 0.75%-1.00% range, a sharp 50 basis point hike for the first time since 2000, in line with market expectations. The Fed's FOMC statement said it would gradually raise its balance sheet reduction ceiling to $95 billion per month over three months; it is expected to "continue" to raise interest rates as appropriate, "highly valued" inflation risks; to start scaling its balance sheet at a pace of $47.5 billion per month on June 1; to raise the excess reserve ratio from 0.4 percent to 0.9 percent; and to raise the overnight repo rate from 0.5 percent to 1 percent. Inflation is expected to return to the 2% target, the labor market will remain strong, and monetary policy will be appropriately tightened.
Fed Interim Chairman Jerome Powell said: "Inflation is clearly above expectations, inflation is still likely to exceed expectations further; the United States is ready to deal with tightening policy and will try to avoid adding more uncertainty in a highly uncertain environment." Broadly speaking, a 50 basis point hike should be made in the next few meetings; a 75 basis point hike is not worth considering; and we are expected to start to see inflation flattening. ”
The Governor of California signed an executive order to implement a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to implement a cryptocurrency regulatory framework in California, which calls on regulators to work together to reduce risk and foster innovation, according to the Wall Street Journal. The state plans to create a "transparent and consistent business environment" for crypto companies by harmonizing federal and California laws. In addition, it will gather feedback from stakeholders to establish the framework and seek potential opportunities to incorporate blockchain technology into national operations and public needs.
Kazakhstan officially established a reporting system for cryptocurrency miners
According to The Block, kazakhstan's Ministry of Digital Development issued an april 29 order setting out registration and reporting requirements for cryptocurrency miners in the country, which requires new miners and custody centers to register companies with responsible parties for 30 days or more before they begin operations, and to register physical addresses, IP addresses, and contact information, as well as to include expected power usage, hardware requirements, and investments. Miners must also show proof of residence in Kazakhstan. The order requires existing miners to make quarterly updates of this information. Late last year, due to energy shortages in Kazakhstan, the ministry began implementing these registration requirements and requiring the confiscation of mining equipment operating outside of that registration. The decree is not a new system, but a formal codification of existing practices.
The South Korean government's mission proposal includes a push for the Digital Assets Basic Law, which will allow IC0 issuance
According to the Daily Economic Daily, South Korea's presidential transition committee unveiled 110 government mission proposals, including promoting the Basic Law on Digital Assets and improving regulation of big tech companies. The Basic Law on Digital Assets includes measures to protect investors and improve transaction stability, such as the regulation of major events such as the issuance and listing of digital assets such as NFTs, and plans to allow IC0 in South Korea to be carried out starting with the virtual asset issuance method that ensures investor protection measures. In addition, the bill will establish a regulatory system by dividing virtual assets into securities and non-securities types. Security tokens will be regulated under the Capital Markets Act, and non-security tokens will establish regulatory regimes for issuance, listing, and prevention of unfair trading in accordance with the pending bills considered by Congress. Regulations related to the entry of large tech companies such as Naver and Kakao into the financial markets are also being promoted. In addition, the South Korean government plans to support the use of new technologies such as data and blockchain to launch innovative financial services, and promote the development of new financial services by establishing an open financial infrastructure. Previously, South Korea's Financial Services Commission banned IC0 in 2017.
Binance has obtained regulatory clearance in France
BinAnce is now listed as a Registered Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) by the French Financial Market Supervisory Authority AMF, according to CoinDesk, enabling it to offer trading and custody services for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The move makes France the first major European country to give Binance the green light.
NFT
Ethereum
BNB Chain
Coinbase NFT Marketplace Beta is available to all users
According to the official Twitter, Coinbase NFT Market announced that its beta version is officially available to all users.
Musk has replaced the BAYC NFT Twitter avatar
Musk has replaced the "boring ape" BAYC NFT Twitter avatar with a photo of a boy holding a model of a SpaceX rocket. Previously yesterday, Musk changed his Twitter avatar into a boring ape BAYC series puzzle, the middle of which is BAYC series #5809, which belonged to the 107 NFT series of last year's Sotheby's auction, which eventually sold for $24.39 million. Michael Bouhanna, Sotheby's head of digital art, tweeted that he would like you to remove the avatar I made for sotheby's auction, or it could be posted after obtaining the original buyer's authorization.
Former Universe
Time magazine publishers have filed trademark applications for NFT and Metacostem
According to a tweet by U.S. lawyer Mike Kondoudis, Time USA LLC (Marc Benioff), publisher of Time magazine, has filed an NFT and meta-universe trademark application for TIME SQUARE, covering NFTs, virtual performances and events, virtual footwear/clothing/headgear/glasses/sports equipment/toys.
Project dynamics
Three ApeCoin proposals AIP-21, 22 and AIP-7 were voted through
According to the snapshot voting page, ApeCoin's three proposals AIP-21, 22 and AIP-7 have been approved by 91.55%, 91.17% and 99.5% respectively. Previously, ApeCoin launched three proposals to vote on AIP-21, 22 and AIP-7, which will further guide the development direction of ApeCoin DAO. AIP-21, 22 deals with pledge issues, including pledge caps, pledge periods, and pledge size, AIP-7 outlines structural changes to the ApeCoin Forum to better meet the overall needs of the proposal process, governance, education, and community.
Tether CTO: Bitfinix and Tether have no plans to go on an IPO
According to Crypto Potato, Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino said in an interview: "Tether's total target market is the 2 billion unbanked people worldwide, and this mission is why Bitfinix and Tether will not conduct IPOs, and our focus is not on chasing quarterly profits for Wall Street." In addition, Ardoino said: "While DeFi is indeed aimed at other stablecoins, we are not really involved in DeFi, we are not really trying to target banks and Wall Street, we just want to really be a tool for the people." ”
Coinbase will transfer the future release of currency information from Twitter to the official website
Coinbase announced on its official Twitter that all future listing information will be transferred from Twitter to the official website, after which it will no longer post new assets online through Tweets. Previously, on April 29, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, said that it would change the coin listing process and strengthen internal monitoring to strictly investigate possible insider trading.
Luxury brand Gucci will accept cryptocurrency payments in some stores in the United States
According to Vogue Business, luxury brand Gucci plans to begin accepting cryptocurrency payments in some stores in the U.S. later this month and plans to expand the pilot to all of its north American direct stores this summer. Accepted cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, WBTC, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and five stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar.
A new proposal from the Bitcoin community proposes to improve the BIP review process
According to Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin Core developer Jeremy Rubin proposed Bitcoin improvements to BIP119 to improve the quality of Bitcoin decentralized decisions. The proposal was currently under discussion. The BIP proposes changes to the BIP review process by proposing a set of high standards for BIP documentation and adopting these open standards as de facto minimum quality standards so that BIP can be considered for broader discussion. In addition, the proposal proposes to establish a proposal tracker to improve the clarity of the BIP process, each of which should contain the following sections: history, description, resources, costs and risks, benefits, alternatives, activation, and post-mortem analysis.
Poccard online inter-chain messaging format XCM
According to the official Twitter, Polkadot (Polkadot) has been updated to v0.9.19 version, which officially enables the inter-chain messaging format XCM, and parachains can already communicate with XCM. In addition, this upgrade also upgrades the public welfare parachain Statemint, allowing users to mint assets such as NFTs and transfer DOT using trunk chains. It is reported that XCM is a new cross-chain communication protocol designed to eliminate cumbersome bridging mechanisms.
South Korea's Shinhan Financial Group has set up a digital strategic investment fund of about US$250 million, which will invest in digital assets, meta-universe and other companies
According to E-Daily, South Korea's Shinhan Financial Group announced that in order to accelerate the group's digital transformation and ecosystem expansion, it has established a 300 billion won (about $240 million) digital strategic investment (SI) fund "Wonshinhan Connect New Technology Investment Association No.2", which Shinhan Capital will be responsible for the management of this fund. Through the fund, Shinhan Financial plans to strengthen investment in promising digital technology companies such as AI (artificial intelligence), blockchain, digital assets, Web 3.0, meta-universe and so on. Previously, Shinhan Financial Group established a strategic investment fund worth 300 billion won in April last year to create a digital ecosystem.
Alipay launched the "Digital Yuan" Mini Program, which supports functions such as receipt and payment
According to the "Alipay" WeChat public account, the Alipay APP has launched the "Digital Yuan" Mini Program to help new users open a digital yuan wallet more conveniently, and support one-stop use of digital yuan to receive and pay, transfer and bank card management functions.
NASDAQ CEO: Interested in working with crypto companies that are evaluating the regulatory environment and institutional needs
Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said in an interview with Bloomberg that she is interested in forging partnerships with companies in the digital asset space, such as cryptocurrencies, but will take a cautious approach due to regulatory uncertainty.
In addition, Friedman said: "We are assessing the regulatory environment and institutional needs in this area, etc., and actively discussing what role we can play." While many institutions have invested in digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, operational efficiency remains low. We will play a role in resolving this issue. ”
Binance, a16z and others are involved in Musk's acquisition of Twitter
According to 13D documents related to the SEC's Twitter acquisition, it received a new equity commitment worth $7.139 billion, and cryptocurrency exchange Binance, crypto venture capital a16z and others participated in Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter. Among them, Binance provided $500 million, a16z provided $400 million in equity commitments, and Sequoia Capital also provided $800 million in equity commitments. The revised equity commitment letter increased the financing commitment to $27.25 billion.
Financing messages
Crypto hedge fund Pangea Fund completed $85 million in funding, with Alameda Research and others participating
According to Bloomberg, crypto hedge fund Pangea Fund completed $85 million in financing, with participants including Bain Capital, ParaFi, Alameda Research, etc., and individual investors including USV co-founder Brad Burnham, Apollo Global Management co-founder Josh Harris, multicoin Capital partner Kyle Samani and so on. Founded by Former Messari analyst Ryan Watkins and Daniel Cheung, who worked at Jennison Associates, pangea Fund will focus on a "long-only" strategy.
Open source data platform Prisma completes $40 million Series B funding round
According to the official announcement, open source data platform Prisma announced the completion of a $40 million Series B round of financing, led by Altimeter, with the participation of Amplify Partners and Kleiner Perkins, and angel investors including founding members of Vercel, PlanetScale, GitHub and SourceGraph. Prisma is an open source data platform that is designed to enable cross-organizational, cross-team data sharing, as well as data sharing between front-end and back-end teams, and between data engineers, developers, and business analysts.
Digital banking service provider Copper completed a $29 million Series A funding round, led by Fiat Ventures
According to Techcrunch, digital banking service for teenagers, Copper completed a $29 million Series A round of financing, led by Fiat Ventures, and participating investors include Panoramic Ventures, Insight Partners, Invesco Private Capital and others. Copper aims to enable its clients to direct funds from their accounts to a wide range of investment areas, from stocks to mutual funds and cryptocurrencies. The company plans to launch its new product, Step Investing, early this summer that will enable users to invest in stocks and cryptocurrencies on its app.
3D content creation platform Kinetix completes a $11 million seed round
Kinetix, an AI 3D content creation platform, completed an $11 million seed round led by Adam Ghobarah, founder of Top Harvest Capital and former executive of Google and Google Ventures, with the participation of The Sandbox & ZEPETO (NAVER Z). Kinetix aims to provide a platform to help users generate content in the metaverse, making creation fast and easy.
Mining news
Miner Argo Blockchain will begin operating its Mining facility in Texas next week
In filing with the London Stock Exchange on Thursday, the company said crypto miner Argo Blockchain (ARB) plans to begin operations at its flagship facility in Texas next week. Subsequently, Argo shares rose about 12% in London trading. Argo declined to specify when the mine will begin operations and capacity. "Most of the information has to be disclosed through the market," a spokesman said.
Important data
Lido Finance surpassed Curve to become the DeFi protocol with the highest total hedge volume
The data shows that the decentralized pledge agreement Lido Finance Total Lockout (TVL) surpassed Cure to become the DeFi protocol with the highest total lockout. Currently, Lido Finance has a total hedge of approximately US$19.52 billion and Curve's total hedge of approximately US$19.3 billion. The third to fifth places were Anchor Protocol ($17.23 billion), MakerDAO ($13.53 billion) and Aave ($11.84 billion).
MicroStrategy's Bitcoin holdings were impaired by approximately $170 million in the first quarter
According to BusinessWire, MicroStrategy reported financial results for the first quarter of 2022, with the earnings report showing that the impairment of its non-cash digital assets in the first quarter reached $170.1 million, an increase of 16% sequentially. The 129218 bitcoins held by MicroStrategy cost $3.97 billion, with an average cost of $30,700, and the value of these assets is about $4.9 billion at a price of about $37,662 for bitcoin, the report said. Previously, MicroStrategy revenue in the first quarter of this year was $119.3 million, down 2.9% year-on-year.