TLDR: The Babylon Testnet Goes Live, Satoshi Nakamoto Emails Leaked, Sparking Bitcoin Lore, STRK Distribution and Unlock Turmoil, Ethena USDe Goes Live, a16z Wants a Slice of EigenLayer, Sei Goes Live on Cosmos, Lava Network Partner with SenderLabs, Worldcoin Enters Center Stage & Kraken Hits back at The SEC.

Bitcoin Highlights of the Week

Valkyrie Funds Introduces BTC-leveraged Investments

Valkyrie has introduced a new BTC-leveraged investment product. This product is a leveraged bitcoin futures ETF designed to deliver twice the daily performance of the S&P CME Bitcoin Futures Index they state.

The Babylon Testnet Goes Live

This week marks the launch of the Babylon Testnet. Babylon offers everyone a unique opportunity to engage in Trustless Native Bitcoin Staking. Something that has never been done before.

The Carlson Group Introduces four Bitcoin ETFs

The Carlson Group, a financial services firm, has expanded its offerings for registered investment advisers (RIAs) by including four out of the 10 Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The $30B investment firm emphasized factors such as asset growth, trading volume, and low fees when selecting funds from providers like BlackRock, Fidelity, Bitwise, and Franklin Templeton.

Riot Platforms Increases Mining Capacity Ahead of Halving

Although some competitors of Riot Platforms mined greater amounts of Bitcoin in 2023, Riot is gearing up for the Bitcoin halving in 2024. This preparation follows Riot's acquisition of 66,560 mining rigs from MicroBT.

Satoshi Nakamoto Emails Leaked Sparking Bitcoin Lore

A trove of revealed emails from Satoshi Nakamoto has captivated crypto enthusiasts and historians, shedding light on the visionary's early endeavors with Bitcoin. Of particular interest is email number #3, which provides unprecedented insights into Nakamoto's thoughts on Bitcoin's scalability, economic structure, and future potential.

Ethereum Highlights of the Week

STRK Distribution and Unlock Turmoil

Starknet had a rollercoaster week. Starknet kicked off with a massive airdrop to over 1.3 million users but then faced defensive moves. Starkware's Thursday announcement revealed a revised token unlocking schedule, significantly delaying the release of the 13.4% token tranche originally set for April, now extending until March 2027.

Ethena USDe Goes Live

Ethena, a new stablecoin protocol on Ethereum, has garnered considerable attention for providing a 27% annualized yield to USDe stablecoin holders. Primarily sourced from shorting Ether futures and staking Ether to validators. Since its public debut, Ethena has witnessed over $287M of USDe minted, with the yield calculated on a rolling seven-day basis and subject to adjustments based on market dynamics.

a16z Wants a Slice of EigenLayer

EigenLayer is drawing significant attention, particularly from Andreessen Horowitz. a16z invested $100M in Eigen Labs this week, doubling their Series A raise from last year. With the protocol's total value locked (TVL) reaching around $8B, caution is advised before investing ETH.

Farcaster and Solana Team Up

Farcaster has added support for Solana by allowing users to verify their blockchain addresses on the platform. This integration enables Warpcast users to connect their Solana addresses through compatible wallets.

The Fourth Airdrop from Optimism Rewards NFT Artists

Optimism, Ethereum's layer-2, has commenced its fourth airdrop. The airdrop was directed towards NFT artists, with over 10.3 million OP tokens, valued at approximately $40.8 million, distributed among 22,998 addresses.

Cosmos Highlights of the Week

Sei Goes Live on Cosmos

Sei, a Layer 1 (L1) blockchain developed with the Cosmos SDK, prioritizes fast and cost-effective trading and other transactions. The Sei team aims to implement the network's V2 upgrade in the first half of 2024, introducing the cryptoeconomy's inaugural fully parallelized Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Osmosis Bridge Cosmos and Bitcoin

WrappedBitcoin (WBTC) is now available on Osmosis. This facilitating native support for WrappedBitcoin on the Osmosis DEX. This integration enables secure liquidity provision for the Cosmos ecosystem, bridging Bitcoin's $1 trillion market cap to over 60 IBC-enabled appchains.

Lava Network Partner with SenderLabs

Lava Network announced SenderLabs Wallet as their wallet partner for Magma. Through this collaboration, users of the Sender wallet will earn bonus points when utilizing Lava RPC endpoints.

Mito Finance Launch on Injective

Mito Finance has debuted on the Injective Mainnet. With its launch, Mito unveils its innovative automated vault platform and launchpad to the wider web3 community.

Other Highlights of the Week

Worldcoin Enters Center Stage

In the last two weeks; OpenAI's Sora preview, Sam Altman's speculated $7 trillion raise, and Nvidia's strong earnings propelled Worldcoin (WLD) up by around 240%, with a further 95% boost this week.

Avalanche Mainnet Outage

The Avalanche mainnet experienced a temporary outage as the C-Chain stopped producing blocks for several hours on Friday morning, but it has since resumed operation.

TerraForm Labs Trial Date Set

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will face fraud charges in the United States following his extradition, stemming from Terra’s collapse. Arrested in Montenegro last March for document forgery, Kwon spent four months in jail despite appeals from his legal team. As his trial approaches on March 25, the outcome will shed light on the prosecution's intentions.

Kraken Hits back at The SEC

Kraken moved to dismiss the SEC's lawsuit filed last May, detailing their perspective on the case in a recent blog post. Following their testimony before Congress on May 10, 2023, where they advocated for clearer legislative guidelines, Kraken faced a lawsuit from the SEC the next day, which they view as retaliatory.

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