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Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cosmos and more Week 52 2023

Keeping you updated on crypto, web3 and blockchain

TLDR: Fidelity and Galaxy Adds Fees for BTC ETFs, Solana Tops Ethereum in Trading Volume, Aqualibre and Kujira Team Up, Kava Blockchain Scrap Inflation & Verdict Falls on Terra.

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Oasys:

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Want to learn more on Oasys? Go to Oasys’ website here.

Bitcoin Highlights of the Week

MicroStrategy, the prominent player in the Bitcoin ecosystem, acquired an additional 14,620 BTC for ~$615.7 million at an average price of $42,110 per BTC this week. This brings MicroStrategy’s total BTC holdings up to 189,150!

Fidelity and Galaxy, two of the main players applying for spot BTC EFTs, announced this week that they will charge clients trading fees once approved and in operation. Fidelity Investments are proposing a charge of 0.39% per year to holders of its Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust and Galaxy/Invesco will charge 0.59% per year for its BTCO fund.

BTC Mining company, Marathon Digital, became the most trading asset on December 27th with a total trading volume of $327M in the last 24 hours. Marathon Digital outpaced pivotal companies such as Apple, Tesla and Amazon.

This week Indonesian authorities carried out an operation where 10 BTC mining operations were shutdown down due to suspicion on electricity theft. In total, the Indonesian authorities confiscated 1,134 BTC mining machines.

Ethereum Highlights of the Week

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has unveiled his plans for Ethereum in 2024 which comprise of six main components; the Merge, the Surge, the Scourge, the Verge, the Purge and the Splurge.

Starknet Foundation Unveils Plans for STRK Token Airdrop in 2024

Starknet, a zk-proof-based Ethereum layer-2 solution, is making significant strides toward decentralizing its network and encouraging community participation. The Starknet Foundation recently revealed its comprehensive plan to distribute over 1.8 billion STRK tokens as part of various initiatives aimed at fostering adoption and growth on its blockchain platform.

Most anticipated Layer-2 blockchain Blast, has already attracted over $1.1B in deposits, as the blockchain is yet to go live. Investors have contributed $1B in Lido Staked Ether (stETH) and $103M in the Dai (DAI) stablecoin, earning around a 5% yield on their staked assets and accumulating "Blast Points" for a promised airdrop in May 2024.

This week Solana surpassed Ethereum over a 7-day trading volume with nearly $13 billion. In recent weeks, Solana (SOL), has seen immense hype and interest from the crypto community, and has increased its value 1,000% since Terra’s collapse in 2022. Currently SOL trades at around $110.

Cosmos Highlights of the Week

Akash Network proposal 240 has successfully passed with a 97% in favor vote. This brings increased community pool take rate and increases network inflation from 8% to 13% to provide an adequate source of funds for growth while maintaining network security incentives for validators and stakers.

Aqualibre and Kujira Team Up

Aqualibre (AQLA) on the Kujira blockchain is an exciting project that tackles environmental issues by merging cutting-edge technology with eco-friendly initiatives by turning carbon credits into digital tokens in Cosmos.

Kava blockchain becomes the first hard-capped, highly decentralized, PoS layer-1 with a community-owned Strategic Vault holding $600M+ in assets with zero inflation.

Injective proposal IIP-302 passes with over 99% of participants voting yes. This allows revenue from $INJ domain names to be burned, further demonstrating the power of INJ 2.0 which brought the largest tokenomics upgrade yet, dramatically increasing the amount of INJ burned weekly.

After a successful proposal to lower $SCRT transaction fee thresholds, the majority of $SCRT validators have now switched making transaction fees up to 2x lower.

Other Highlights of the Week

BarnBridge, a decentralized organization specializing in trading, has reached settlement of $1.7M with the SEC as the founders failed to register their DAO for selling structured crypto asset securities known as SMART Yield bonds.

China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP), the highest national agency responsible for legal prosecution in mainland China, has issued a warning to the public of illicit use of Tether (USDT) as a trading medium between Chinese yuan and foreign fiat currencies.

Donald J. Trump, Former United States President, has been cashing out on his mugshot NFTs deals since start of December 2023. The image used for the Trump NFTs was his infamous mugshot taken by Georgia authorities after he surrendered himself in August 2023.

This week, a US federal court sided with the SEC over charges of Terraform Labs stating that they violated federal securities laws when selling LUNA, MIR and UST to investors.

This week, Mutiny Wallet introduced an initial integration of Fedimint to its users, enabling them to be able to choose a federated custodian for their funds.

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