TLDR: BlackRock Invest in Miners, Block Launch BitKey, SEC Greenlights ETH Futures, UBS Launches VCC Fund, Google Cloud Validates Polygon Blocks, Levana Protocol on Osmosis, Dagora Integrates with Injective & FTX Co-founder Testimony.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Kinetix:

Kinetix is a comprehensive, community-focused DeFi hub built exclusively for the Kava ecosystem.

The Kinetix DeFi hub encompasses a suite of the most sophisticated and popular DeFi legos in the web3 landscape to provide Kava with a one-stop platform for all things DeFi. Kinetix’s cohesive network of DeFi protocols includes a Perpetual Exchange (PERPs), a Decentralized Exchange (DEX), and a market for sophisticated derivative instruments. 

Kinetix users can take on leverage with perpetual contracts (Perps), execute swaps in spot markets, provide liquidity, stake, and farm, and explore synthetic assets and other exotic derivatives.

The Kinetix team, headed by Alexi Atlas and advised by Roc Zacharias & Sameep Singhania, has a wealth of experience from its past successes building QuickSwap, the largest DEX on Polygon. 

Bitcoin Highlights of the Week

BlackRock Invest in Major Bitcoin Miners

BlackRock's presence in the cryptocurrency space has expanded as it now owns notable percentages of two major Bitcoin miners: Marathon Digital and RIOT Blockchain.

Tesla Assess Bitcoin Payment Resumption

Tesla would reconsider Bitcoin payments once mining becomes approximately 50% sustainable has ignited a fresh wave of curiosity.

Arbitrum Introduce Hashpower Trading To Mining Bitcoin

Lumerin, a decentralized data stream routing project, has introduced a novel Arbitrum protocol that facilitates the direct mining of Bitcoin (BTC) without the need for expensive ASIC machines.

Block Launch BitKey

Block, Jack Dorsey's payment company, appears closer to going public with its first Bitcoin hardware wallet product, called BitKey.

Ethereum Highlights of the Week

SEC Greenlights ETH Futures

Valkyrie, a crypto-focused investment firm, initially filed with the SEC in August, seek to transform its Bitcoin Strategy ETF, which primarily held Bitcoin futures contracts, into a fund that would invest in ETH futures.

Ethereum Name Service Simplify User Experience

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) has emerged as a game-changing tool, making Ethereum addresses more user-friendly by aiming for more human-like names.

Google Cloud Starts Validating Polygon Blocks

Polygon, a prominent player in the blockchain space, made a significant announcement that Google Cloud will be an official validator for its proof-of-stake (PoS) sidechain.

Friend Tech Change Login After Attack

Friend Tech changes their login method after they suffered SIM swap attacks. Now users can add and remove log in methods for their accounts to avoid attacks going forward.

Cosmos Highlights of the Week

Levana Protocol Live on Osmosis

Levana Protocol launch on Osmosis and bring synthetic markets backed by USDC. With Levana Protocol, users can leverage any asset they want, and back it with USDC.

Lido Finance Partners with Axelar and Neutron for wstETH

Lido enter Cosmos with a partnership with Axelar and Neutron where wrapped liquid-staked ETH (wstETH) are introduced to Cosmos as a new dimension of liquidity and flexibility to the network.

Dagora Integrates with Injective to power NFT communities

Dagora and Injective team up to empower the NFT community. With Injective's lightning-fast block time and Dagora's toolbox, users can mint NFT's like nothing before.

Nomic Brings nBTC to Cosmos

Nomic unveiled that it will introduce support for the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) transfers of native Bitcoin (BTC) within the Cosmos Network.

Burnt Launch Public Testnet Xido

Burnt has unveiled the public testnet for Xion, a Layer-1 blockchain that plans to use Circle-issued USDC stablecoin as its primary currency. Xion's focus areas include payments, social communities, web subscriptions, loyalty programs, and gaming.

Other Highlights of the Week

Co-founder Testifies in SBF Trial

Gary Wang, FTX co-founder, testifies in court that FTX gave special privileges to Alameda Research, allowing for unlimited withdraws of funds. In addition, Alameda was allowed a negative balance, withdrawn $8 billion and drawn $65 billion on its line of credit.

UBS Launches VCC Fund Pilot

UBS Asset Management launches first blockchain-native tokenized Variable Capital Company fund pilot in Singapore to bring 'real world assets' to on-chain.

Coinbase Approved as Payment Institution

Coinbase, the bitcoin and crypto exchange, has been approved for a payment institution license (PMI) from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

$24M Series A Lead by A16z for web3 Loyalty App

The creators of the web3 restaurant loyalty app Blackbird, has secured $24 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Blackbird looks to boost restaurant revenue by tracking customer preferences and offering cryptocurrency rewards for check-ins, letting users to redeem them for various restaurant perks.

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